The passing of wood through glass is a remarkable feat. There are those who believe that royalty can perform miracles – there is a well developed cult around the vain and vicious Charles I, for example. It now appears that the presence of the future Charles III also has the ability to suspend the laws of physics.
The police have now issued extensive CCTV footage of the attack on the vehicle of Charles and Camilla on the fringes of the anti-tuition fee demonstrations, and the media have been replete with more nonsense about Camilla being poked with a stick. Yet of all the CCTV footage and numerous photographs, there is no evidence at all of this attack and all the images show the car windows to be closed – as they would be. One gets cracked but not holed.
There is in fact no evidence at all of any intent to harm the persons of the expensive royal layabouts, as opposed to discomfiting them and damaging their vehicle. It is fascinating that the media continually repeats the “Camilla attacked with a stick” line when it is so blatantly untrue. There appears to be a closing of ranks by the whole Establishment to perpetuate the myth – both the Home Office and St James Palace have deliberately fostered the myth by refusing to confirm or deny.
Personally I would not touch Camilla with a bargepole. I dislike violence at demonstrations. Demonstrations, good, riots, bad is my basic mantra. Attacks on people in a civil demonstration are always wrong, including attacks on the police unless in self defence. I did not join in the outrage at the prosecutions of violent demonstrators after the big Lebanon demonstration in London, because I personally witnessed the group hurling dangerous missiles at police who were neither attacking, threatening nor kettling them. That is absolutely unacceptable.
But a policy as appalling as the withdrawal of state funding from university teaching, carried out by Nick Clegg by one of the most blatant political breaches of fatih with the public in history, , is bound to provoke huge anger. The government reaps what it sows. Demonstrators should not set out to hurt people. But all the evidence shows they had no intention of hurting Charles and Camilla.
I have personally worked closely with the royal family’s close protection officers in organising two state visits abroad, and plainly they too could see there was no intent to injure – that is why weapons were not drawn. They deserve commendation rather than the crap spouted out by Sky News, who seem to think they should have gunned down the odd student.
All of which serves to take the focus off vicious police attacks on students and the use of kettling to detain people who were seeking peacefully to express their views. Kettling people in extreme cold and with no access to toilet facilities raises questions on illegal detention which genuine liberals in government would wish to address. What is it? Is it a form of arrest? What is the status of the fenced pens into which people are herded? Should they not be formalised as places of police detention, and individuals booked in and given access to lawyers? If that is not possible, this detention – which can be for many hours – is not lawful.
@clark
One of the difficulties of discussing religion is the range of ideas the word can apply to. These form a spectrum ranging from complete dismissal of anything vaguely connected to the paranormal to institutionalised authoritarian superstition. Probably few of us posting here belong at either of these extremes (I’d place anno near one end, glenn near the other, me somewhere in between, but nearer to glenn than to you).
Rather like that other spectrum that runs from exclusively homosexual to exclusively heterosexual, it can be troubling to discover that one’s own location is merely nearer one end than it is to the other. So you are right to remind me that while dismissing many forms of religion, I also dismiss complete reductionism. I think it is important to remember our enormous ignorance about consciousness, and to be a little more cautious when we consider matters like (for example) psi or homeopathy, where rather too much of the criticism emanates from people (like the JREFers who pop up here from time to time here) to whom these ideas are utterly inimical, quite regardless of any evidence which might suggest they have some substance. It would be disastrous for their world view if it were true, and so it cannot be true. I mentioned this inability to give credence to evidence for an impermissible conclusion in the context of the ix/xi thread. It turns up in other political contexts ?” this is interesting: preview.tinyurl.com/6c8jbcs
Higher up the thread, you say: “the disconnect between beliefs, actions and consequences – I think it may be related to scale”. Strongly agree ?” it’s why I’m a nationalist on the surface, probably an anarchist underneath. As Walter Scott said: “I ken, when we had a king, and a chancellor, and parliament-men o’ our ain, we could aye peeble them wi’ stanes when they werena gude bairns – Bit naebody’s nails can reach the length o’ Lunnon”
@ken at January 14, 2011 5:08 PM
You should post more often.
Your mother’s attitude to her approaching end is interesting, being quite the opposite of mine. I once walked the old pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela (I’m not religious, just a walker). The main feeling that grew in me as I got closer to Santiago was fear that my great adventure would soon be over (I’d walked all the way from Scotland). Arrival was an anticlimax. I took a room, drank a bottle of wine sitting on the bed, and began bussing home next morning. I’d no idea what to make of it, until I read this from C P Cavafy (I expect it’s another way of expressing the Zen ‘live in the moment’):
Always keep Ithaca in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.
Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would have never set out on the road.
She has nothing more to give you.
And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.
~~
preview.tinyurl.com/5fddch
@evgueni at January 15, 2011 12:35 AM
The site you link to seems rather to fit what I have said above about people who reject evidence when it points to an uncomfortable conclusion. The tone is very JREF’y, pushing some of the same buttons (we are hard-headed rationalists, they are woolly-minded religionists). They name drop people they all too clearly haven’t read. Look at this sentence: “From the Bacons, through the likes of Locke, Hume and Russell, to the magnificent climax of Popper’s statement of the principle of falsifiability, the scientific method was painfully established”. Much as I (with qualification) admire Popper, I doubt that he would have considered the principle of falsifiability to be a ‘magnificent climax’, or even a ‘principle’. It was only a method of distinguishing between scientific and non-scientific ideas, a tentative definition. No-one much holds to it now – if they did, String Theory would be unscientific, to give just one example.
Jon
You are clearly not being given access to our email addresses or you would know that jfw above was me. Don’t you know already that I am the only person in the world who actually believes that Mrs Thatcher created all our problems? Everybody else including Craig want to get her sainted with the late pope. Shortly after she left office Gordon Brown prayed to her, ‘Darling Maggie, guardian of folly, repeater of nonsense and founder of financial ruin, please swear me into your holy order of bank illuminati, deliver me from the affliction of government austerity and preserve in my control the illusion of sound money by the sacred use of trillions and trillions of borrowed interest cash from Zion. And please let me be prime minister after Tony’.
‘Granted’, came the voice from heaven, ‘and furthermore, when the lid on the scam is uncovered, we will protect you from anyone saying you were barking up the wrong tree all the time. The god of the market always protects one’s own. After you are gone, new generations of liars and charlatans will rise up in my name, until the pound is worth less than a penny, and the picture of Boadicea on a penny is replaced by my holy likeness. Amen
Suhayl Bin Ali > Saudi Arabia having been refused permission to land by several unnamed European countries. They are all hypocrites and the US too who have supported him. See The Angry Arab blog.
He should feel quite at home in that repressive despotic haven of oil sheikhs and their entourages.
Obviously fundamentalism can occur on both sides. Conservative chair, Sayeedah Warsi represents fundamentalist, capitalist, zionism. And she reflects the opinions of the vast majority of Muslims who live in the UK, who want to multi-mortgage themselves and get on. Plain-speaking is permitted, ok?
But there are other British Muslims who count themselves as Islamic fundamentalists on the other side of the coin. They believe that it is Halal to recoup the wealth stolen the Muslims in the course of British colonialism. What does the word colonialism come from? Colon.
The latter group believe that when they lie and cheat the system and the English people, that their hearts are clean inside. They are claiming their right of revenge and the game would be blown if they opened up their hearts by criticising UK foreign policy.
But they think that when English people, for their own reasons, cover up their disgust at UK foreign policy, or even financial policy, they are really supporting our government. These fundamentalists see themselves as being merely disingenuous , while the English condone terrible crimes for their own profit.
The reality of course is that all types of fundamentalism, and all -isms, are a caricature of the original idea. Baroness Warsi can see success in betraying the fundamental values of her religion, and the so-called fundamentalists can see benefit in betraying their fellow human beings.
How are these mad mullas betraying their fellow human beings? The Zionist media demonise the Muslims in exactly the same way as the mullas demonise the non-Muslims. Blair is irrevocable convinced that he has to obliterate Iraq and the mullas are convinced of the necessity of destroying English society, which they see as colluding with their governments to destroy Islam.
But if the people of the UK saw Islam being practised, in honesty and sincerity, not the brown-nosing dames, nor the despising imams, but Muslims standing up publicly for justice and truth, – then by now a vast swathe of the English people would already be coming into Islam, or thinking enough about it to speak out against the racist wars that are being carried out in our names.
The people I grew up with , from my generation, who fostered the traditional Imperial concept of the UK continuing to shaft the rest of the world, have savaged the Muslim countries, like wolves. It follows in my mind that the people of hate, from among the Muslims, will in my latter years, probably do the reverse in the same way. Same idea, same actions.
Thank you very much to ken for his words and description of why lack of faith is not something that is done by shyallow peaople, who cannot beleive because they are without humility.
Not so, I would argue that an atheist is far more engaged in religous thinking, challenging what others accept as eternal wisdom and guidance.
I think we should apply for a grant so we can have these mind fusing and bamboozling discussions of religous fables again and again. Yawn
As someone who was forced at a young age to go to church, I had the small Katechismn broken on my back and it was unpleasant at every step.
Childrens minds should not be frazzled with dubious fairytales and false moralising, when they are old enough they can make their own, far more sincere and engaged decisions, should they so wish.
I am not vexed by the universe, although when calm, restored and open to its messages, I do sometimes look up and bless the day we discovered that universes are moving away from each other at rapid speed.
What utter bliss,I feel good about the circumstances reducing the likelyhood of ageold dreams of a humanity colonising the further vestiges of universes is thankfully too expensive and unobtainable.
This inhumanity does not deserve such encounters imho. and because we have never strived to live in a sustainable way, we will burn ourselves out long before the planet is overwhelmed by the suns expansion in some 4 billion years to come. Thankfully we are unable to leave this planet andf spread our fears and misery anywhere else, some 7-11 billion people shooting each other for resources is exactly the end we deserve.
After the tribal politics of Oldham, once again proof that the focus of inept grey cells is all too easily overwhelmed by gushing niceties and lies, we have been shown for the umptieth time that lazy politics is prefered to the real thing and that nobody wants change in this country, otherwise they would get off their arses.
We can see whats going wrong in far away countries, able to connect the causes and machinations which confuse politics, violence, cheating, corruption, etc. and the exploitations that have always existed, only the accompanying music and tone has changed. Still, the stanglehold of modern lifes has us glued to our keyboards in comfy chairs, whateverhappens.
Even when our laws are undermined and devalued by paranoid forces entrusted to uphold the law, even then, we make nothing of it, our politicians don’t challenge it, we are merely sitting by accepting, another blow on our already scarred back, we have been accustomed to the meagre politcs of ever reducing possibilities and more blows will sort the have’s from the have nots in future.
The god of the market as Anno so rightly said, mammon and those who never get enough of it, will present us with decreasing lifestyles and down sizing and and, without any of us rabbits stepping out of the light or daring to wriggle their ears in fear of being shoot down, literally or with words.
Mentally challenged leaders like Tony Blair, will ensure that this race to the bottom is another moralising violent crusade, making money for the same rubbish that always makes money when people die. The existence of religious dogma and intransigence, regardles of which religion, will give these morons a sense of vindicaion in their inhuman actions, falseties and warcrimes, with impunity and under the watchfull eyes of us all.
Enjoy the weekend, wherever you are.
Anno said,
“It follows in my mind that the people of hate, from among the Muslims, will in my latter years, probably do the reverse in the same way. Same idea, same actions.”
I have not experienced the ‘hate’ you reference Anno – Muslim ‘hate’ is in the minds of the imperial elite and ‘Blairites’ you and I revile.
TEST…
I understand and sympathise with students on their plight and am heartened by the actions they have undertaken to show their feelings. But violence to ANYONE, Royal or not, should never be condoned.
Before I leave i will say this, anyone put off from attending a university because of the fees shouldn’t have been going in the first place. Peoples primary reason for going should be to further their knowledge and peruse a passion. If they really want it, they’ll make it work.
Life is a struggle and things worth having are worth working for. The sooner we all realise this, the better.
Mark
I don’t agree. The cunts who run this country had the correct intelligence about rising hatred of the West, in this country and elsewhere, and they collectively decided to kettle the Muslims, by upping the antis, and invading Iraq as well as Afghanistan. Same decision makers, same advisors, same decisions. The only thing that changes is which mug is going to take the blame. The advice comes from the grey suits, the military, foreign office and the financial screws of the Zionist bankers, and they also give cover to the fall-guy who takes the blame.
The psychology being used is that if protestors/ Muslims/ aggrieved fathers students etc etc can be sufficiently annoyed, they will become angry and threatening and lose support from standers-by. So if you are peaceful you are condoning the crime and if you protest, you are blamed.
The powers that be in the UK don’t need Zionists to tech them this psychology. They have been applying it to their own people and their imperial colonies from zonks. But the Jewish bankers symbolise what Assange called ‘fiscal’ government, which means that government hides behind a smokescreen of economics to justify every unacceptable piece of policy directed at us and others abroad.
At this very moment this foul coalition is masking its anti-welfare policies behind economic necessities. The bankers deliver the crisis so that the powers that be can erode our rights as citizens. The Zionist media deliver the Islamophobia so that the powers that be can justify its war crimes.
Why would Blair not have thought to himself when he was informed about the level of hate directed at us from Muslims : ‘What can I do to alleviate this tension?’ Indeed that’s exactly what he did think, but he was politely reminded by the powers that be: ‘You’re not paid to think, you’re paid to be the fall guy for our crimes’.
test
Jon at January 14, 2011 7:34 PM, sorry, another essay in answer…
No, I’m arguing neither for nor against the existence of God; I’m saying that the argument is mostly just words. A false disagreement exists because strident “rationalists” choose to emphasise only those aspects of “God” that further the argument they wish to advance.
I’m not arguing for “souls” like ghosts that inhabit bodies, but I am arguing for consciousness, for selves, for identities that observe and make freely-willed decisions for which they can be held responsible. I’m pointing out that religious people have felt a justified aversion to the sort of reductionist materialism that has characterised science for some centuries, because it leads to denial of free will, and hence to fatalism and denial of moral responsibility.
Summary of my argument: I assume the creativity of the Universe, which honestly seems manifest to me. I call it a creative process, and invent an agency behind it that I call “The Creator” (inventing agencies, as Dawkins points out, is a normal, sane and effective strategy when interacting with complex phenomena). I note that many religions’ gods are also identified as The Creator, so I fit my invented agency into religious claims, and find that many roughly make sense, which they don’t if I try to fit a “sky spook” in there instead. The deeper claims of religion, such as prayer, the relationship between self and God, ‘oneness with all’, inspiration and the Holy Spirit, all make sense as concepts if God is “That Which Creates” rather than some impossible, undesirable authoritarian retired manufacturer of a planet with a false sky.
So I preach the Good News, because some people here seem to need to hear it. What is the Good News? Well, that the vast majority of humanity across time have not been stark raving mad and bad to describe some of their experiences in religious terms, and we don’t need a vast correctional Thought Police campaign to stamp out religion, thank GoODness. That’s a start. And we can stop the fake war between rationalism and religion. Rationalists are free to travel the world again, looking at the huge wealth of religious culture, art, history and life, without having to squirm and justify themselves, “yes, it’s wonderful, but all based upon nasty primitive superstitions, of course”. Instead of feeling disturbed by cultural relativism, they can honestly regard religious people as equals, and some of their descriptions of their experiences as valid. At least, I think they should *try* to understand on this basis.
There is plenty of bad news too. Glenn’s fearsome bogeyman is also an agency that is often called “God”; where does he come from? Oh look, insinuating themselves into most religions are power hierarchies, which more credible religious figures (notably Jesus, but also many others) tell us are always superfluous and often self-serving. Look at what these power structures do to the people’s Creator God. “No no”, they say, “God doesn’t do anything now. God did things in the past, and will do so again in the future, and if you die. Meanwhile, there’s just us; we speak for God”. So if the people commit atrocities on behalf of the powerful, they do so in “God’s name”, and the people’s reverence for The Creator gets the blame. Hmmm…
Now, I’ve presented this as “personal religious experience is good, interfering powers structures are bad”, and I know it’s not that simple, but I would remind the rationalists that however many thousands of religiously associated destructive acts were committed today, there were literally billions of acts of worship, prayer, contemplation, service, song, etc etc. I think my description is closer to life than “religion is purely a control freak’s fairy tale” model.
I’ll also argue that people’s natural sense of an order greater than themselves to which they can contribute is genetically coded for and propagated. The emotions (some of which get labelled as “religious”) are the experience, at the individual level, of the expression of our genes for more moral behaviour. We accept this sort of equivalence for the more base emotions – lust, fear, etc – so we should accept it for the higher motivations, too.
I also point out to these strident “rationalists” that all is not in order in their own house. Many of their representatives have shown a bias towards authoritarianism, determinism and reductionism (in their theories, not their politics, necessarily), leading to fatalism. The sciences that cling to the classical model have no room for “I” and “Us”, we do what we do because the chemicals and electrons in our brains follow physical law. See? We’re just elaborate clockwork, no soul, no “Me”, no “You”, and no one to take responsibility. Religious people are correct and justified to point out this glaring inconsistency with our world of experience. The disproven claims of objectivity parallel these rationalists’ willful avoidance of self-knowledge of their nature as choosing, wave-function collapsing contributors to ongoing creation. In religious terms, by denying their own role in ongoing creation, they are denying God within themselves – that seems quite a succinct description to me.
It is an odd situation where rationalists and the religious tell each other that they are not merely wrong but actually *bad* in their modes of thought, regardless of their behaviour – each side accusing the other of Thought Crime. By all means object to someone’s behaviour if it adversely affects others, but criticising someone’s mode of thought seems highly dubious to me. I believe that many ordinary people report reli badly, don’t go trying to knock down their religion. Instead, just reach for a copy of their Holy Book and find the moral rules they’re breaking. Carefully note book, chapter and verse, to quote at them along with your demands that they behave.
Anno,
I appreciate your insight Anno when you say, ‘At this very moment this foul coalition is masking its anti-welfare policies behind economic necessities.’
I have a certain ‘hate’ and anger towards those that ‘conjured’ the invasions and I channel that anger into opposition and influence. I am not a fanatic or a militant because I believe that path is counter-productive.
We know powerful forces exist to demonize Muslims using propaganda and false-flag. But we have the edge, the upper-hand, after the murders of so many children in a war of lies and the pain of so many tortured in a war of terror. We cannot sacrifice that lead with hate, venom, spite or scorn. We have to extract the ‘good’ in western society while exposing the decadence and injustice. That way, us, the people will win irrespective of religion or faith.
Morning all. Plenty to catch up on! – would have done so last night, but I think the server was having difficulties. Let’s see if it’s working today….
Tried yesterday, but it failed, so I dug a bit of my garden instead and slept better for it.
How about, in the absence of Craig, have a guest thread?
Can you arange that Jon? would that be not a good idea to span the away time, keeping Craigs blog uptodate of sorts?
Another point, whats the latest leakage of Wikileak, has wood been passed through the walls of Belmarsh? and what has happened to Julian? do we know?
@ingo – guest thread would definitely have to be an initiative from Craig.
off course Jon, he’s the man, but I believe he’s busy growing a beart right now.
So, this site seems to be working again. I was surprised to find my 12:39 AM comment on the thread; I tried posting it in one of the rare intervals that I could access the site at all, and it didn’t seem to go through.
Since this site, and thecopydude.com (hosted at the same IP address) were both unreachable, I assume there was a problem at Safehosts which was fixed when their staff got back to work on Monday morning; does anyone know?
Ha, everyone’s gotta have a hobby!
Btw, here’s an interesting morsel for Wikileaks fans:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jan/16/swiss-whistleblower-rudolf-elmer-banks
@Clark – I’ve no special info, but one of my Firefox widgets showed that although a blank page was being returned last night, the server was reporting a 500 server error. I’ll give someone a nudge – the performance of this server is pretty poor.
Clark: “Summary of my argument: I assume the creativity of the Universe, which honestly seems manifest to me. I call it a creative process, and invent an agency behind it that I call “The Creator”…”
Why assume or invent anything? It’s OK to say you don’t know.
It was like The Lost Weekend. Are there hackers at work or are there probs with the server?
Way back now… is Chaoslad a member of Gove’s backroom office?
Must go now. Have to listen to Cameroon’s plan to dismantle the NHS and to take the letter ‘N’ out of the title. The private boys are sitting ready in the wings rubbing their hands.
@chaoslad – working hard for things that are worth having sounds like fine rhetoric, but it ignores the class-based consequences. I’m of the view that university is worth going to, and that everyone should be able to go regardless of their background and financial circumstances.
I don’t think it is much in doubt that if a university education now costs £30K more than it used to, a greater proportion of students will come from the middle and upper classes, reducing the opportunities for the less well off and the working classes. Our point of disagreement centres on whether this is a bad thing or not – I contend that it is. Where societies have a more equal distribution of wealth and opportunity, they are happier – right across the class spectrum.
If you are watching, have you noticed the background for the speech from Cameroon? The crown, the mottos ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense’ and ‘Dieu et mon droit’ with the lion and the chained unicorn around the coat of arms containing more lions and the harp. Edward Bernays lives.
My late father who had a poor and brutal* education from the Christian brothers in Limerick often asked me, when I was at school, to pronounce the phrases and to give their meanings. He obviously was aware of the propaganda.
* He was left handed and said that they used to hit that hand with a stick to make him use his right hand. He developed a severe stammer which left him soon after he married my mother!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_coat_of_arms_of_the_United_Kingdom
Thomas, I assume the creative nature of reality because it seems constantly and powerfully creative, sort of “if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck…”.
I consciously invent the “creative agency” because I believe that this is what most people do unconsciously. It’s to help me understand the universal human tendency towards religion, without resorting to theories such as “humanity have been deluded, over and over again, by a clever minority that make them believe totally outrageous religious nonsense despite the lack of evidence, so they can be controlled”, or “the majority of humanity are stark raving bonkers”, which both seem pretty far-fetched to me.
Thomas, please note, I am NOT arguing for or against the existence or non-existence of “God”. I’m addressing WHY there is so much religion, and whether that is really such a bad thing, as some seem to think.
Thanks for that Jon, I don’t knoiw whether it is a good idea of Mr. Elhmert to give this info to Wikileaks, their drip drip approach and commercialism attached to this painfully slow process makes me wonder whether its horse trading, not the releasing of important cables, already seen by 2 million.
I would wish Mr. Elhmert use openleaks when its up and running, or publish the information himself, all at once, that should sort out the bonus debate and tackle the issue of tax avoidance were it occurs.
Anybody operating tax haven offices to merely restructure their profit and loss acounts should be fined a sum equal to the estimated sum that is being avoided or siphoned off past the exchequer. Bravo Mr. Elhmert, guilt is always a good motivator.
Vronsky at Jan 15 12:17 PM
Vronsky,
Err.. not sure what to make of your post. Were you in a hurry? The message isn’t necessarily wrong just because the messenger is someone you don’t like, right? The ailing professor’s politics is unashamedly conservative and the language is often overstated I agree. But I cannot fault him when it comes to his area of expertise ?” that of scientific measurement. Please give an example where Prof. Brignell “rejects evidence when it points to an uncomfortable conclusion”.
As to his view of what constitutes the scientific method, it appears reasonable to me ?” the gist of the sentence that you quote being that those philosophers have all contributed their thinking to what we now generally consider to be a logically consistent way to go about the search for truth. Whether Popper would have thought his idea a “magnificent climax” is beside the point surely, Prof. Brignell merely states here what he makes of it, and many others. I wouldn’t express it in the same effusive way but I agree that formalising the idea of falsifiability was an important achievement of human thought. This principle establishes with elegant clarity the limits to absolute knowledge.
Incidentally I was not aware that string theory falls foul of the principle of falsifiability. Are you sure, can you elaborate?
Evgueni, I’ve read that of String theory, too. Look for a physics blog called “Not Even Wrong”.
If String theory is looking for something more “fundamental” than quantum physics, it may be looking in a wrong direction. I know, they’re trying to integrate gravity, but whatever they come up with, it cannot be any more deterministic than quantum physics, or free will is lost again. Gravity figures in this somehow, as it affects the rate of the passing of time, and unidirectional time is required for free will.
I’ll make this bet now: that any physical theory that contradicts free will will be swiftly overturned. God or no God, the Universe will remain a moral arena. That is my faith.
Somebody,
I interpret the ‘motto’ as ‘Shame on him, who suspects illicit motivation’ somewhat appropriate in defence of the ‘war on terror’ and a rebuke of the growing consensus that false-flag(poked with a stick?) and torture are ‘de rigueur’ for the 21st century, but necessary to prevent attacks (like downing aircraft with hydrogen peroxide) by nasty extremist Muslims and their sovereign ‘base’ intent on producing nuclear bombs and other non-existent WMD.
Sorry if I sound like I’m riding a high horse but I am currently researching Karl Rove – the quintessential strategist and the most dangerous man on the planet. I will describe his ‘antics’ shortly, meanwhile keep a sharp eye out for Mr Rove’s attempts to rewrite history.
chaoslad at Jan 151 3:43 PM
“Life is a struggle and things worth having are worth working for. The sooner we all realise this, the better.”
Chaoslad,
Are you including in this statement the elite 10-20 % rentiers? I agree if they give up their rents and join the rest of us in ‘the struggle’. We could all ‘struggle’ a lot less then, invest our resources where it is beneficial to us collectively and achieve much better standard of living without damaging our environment. It would be all good I agree.
Our slavery is not complete without our willing ignorance of it. “We are not slaves, slaves are not we!” was the slogan that kids in the USSR learned on their first day at school. It’s more subtle and diffuse here perhaps, but the same in the end.