I found this report very interesting. It probably isn’t news to many of my readers, but it is to me.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49921
I have a very jaundiced view of the Greek Orthodox Church since my time working on the Cyprus dispute – in Cyprus the Church is a major player in money laundering and the international illegal arms trade. Is the Greek Orthodox Church the most corrupt major religious organisation in the world? Discuss.
I personally find it interesting how most peoples minds remain incredibly closed to anything that conflicts with “the concensus” or anything to do with their core beliefs.
I guess its related to the reportedly Jesuit saying “Give me a boy till the age of 7 and I will give you the man”.
This apparent hardwiring though is incredibly destructive.
Its hardly surprising that totally innocent people of the “wrong” tribe or colour are tortured and that gross atrocities and genocide still occur.
I watched John Pilger’s “The War on Democracy” again tonight – its on Google video. Americans and even British Conservatives should be shocked if they actually ever saw it, but that is the last thing they would want to do because they already know that both John Pilger and Hugo Chavez are “Evil Communist Nutcases”. They simply could not believe what the US has been doing in South America (and Greece for that matter) in Spreading “Freedom & Democracy”.
Tony
All:
There’s serious stuff going on. A group called Islam4UK have been banned under the terrorism laws. The BBC says they have links to terrorism. Do I believe the BBC? Islam4UK’s web links now all point to a single page. I’ve used the Wayback machine and I can’t find any advocation of terrorism, violence or incitement to hatred on their site as it was in 2008, though I’ve only looked at a small portion of it.
On the face of it it appears that they have been banned in response to a campaign by the press, because they proposed (though then withdrew) a march to draw attention to the large number of Afghans killed by the occupying forces.
While we revell in the free speech granted to us by Craig on his blog, a real issue of suppression of protest seems to be occurring.
Clark –
Yes I agree. It goes along with convictions for abusive and insulting behaviour this week also. We should be encouraging peaceful political protest as opposed to violence for those who wish to argue an Islamist viewpoint. If we make it illegal to argue that viewpoint, again we encourage terrorism. I’ll try and post on this, but have to leave for Ghana again at 8am tomorrow – packing now.
Thanks, both of you. Had a quick look & I couldn’t find any calls from Islam4UK for violence either. Indeed, if they were violent terrorists, would they be staging a public march through the middle of Wootton Bassett?
On the other hand, the EDL & its offshoots are openly marching, which is fine, but they are openly threatening photographers, like Mark Vallee, which is not, and although they’re often being laughed off the streets, and have no apparent leader, they are linked to a man who has called for people to ‘defend rights for whites with well-directed boots and fists'(Griffin). As ingo says, it is a political decision.
Craig – safe trip
Clark – It is Serious – remember the 240v genny!
cartoonist, whatever carton you jumped out of, your German is crap. Take it from me ‘zersetzen’ is a German term and it means disassembling, taking apart.
Now do carry on with those cartoons, you are much better at that.
Alistair Campbell, as well a the letter written to dutch PM Balkenende, not to be found at present has thrownb the Brown matter into the fan.
Gordon Brown, always adament that eh was part of the anti war effort, knew full well as to what was happening and was informed at every step of the way, despite the tiffs he had with Tony.
The dutch Government asked, formally, for a copy of the letter by Blair to be sent again, for the purpose of the inquiry, the british Government declined.
WHY? is it because they could not possibly get it right, even now?
I predict diversion news very soon, we already had diversion news all day, Nobody wants to deal with the Israeli policy of dismembering palestinian bodies for their organs and if anybody should suggest that the Palestinians do the same all hell would break loose, the word Holocaust revival would be mentioned and their media would spit venom,
Anyway, who would want a second hand prostrate of someone who has been married more than ten times?
Sorry all, but this attrocity is being covered up with schmooze news.
If this was not IDF/Israeli Government policy, why did they not stop it? why is the Israeli Government complicit, still, in such nasty, medieval Nazi style attrocities if they want to talk peace? why has nobody resigned over this and why is the west helping to cover it up? is it the age old guilt syndrom? netanyahu should resign over this and take that bouncer with him, its about time Israel gets the Government it never had.
My condolences to the family of Miep Gies, she risked a lot for us to know what happened in Germany before I was born.
Clark,
sorry i was having problems. I hope an appeal goes to the European Court because I have doubts the Law Lords will reverse the decision.
Yes, have a good trip Craig.
I think it would have been reasonable to ban the proposed march through Wootton Bassett, on the grounds that it was exceedingly provocative for obvious reasons related specifically to Wootton Bassett.
However, the fact that individuals within the organisation Islam4UK requested permission for such a March, demonstrated their own personal courage, as well as testing issues of political freedom of expression.
I think most people including Islam4UK would have considered it reasonable for the march to be banned in this specific instance.
However, if Islam4UK’s claim is correct that they are an entirely peaceful organistion that has never promoted violence in any shape or form, then banning the organisation is completely utterley totally outrageous.
The logical next step, of the State, would appear to be to adopt similar tactics against Islam as that were used by Nazi Germany against Jews, and then to ban all Protest against the State from Everyone for Every Issue.
Tony
ingo,
Something tells me Gordon Brown was against the war in his heart. On the insider track, I spoke with Robin Cook before his demise and he was a scared man, believe me very scared and I believe Gordon is as well.
Ingo,
any links for organ harvesting? Maximum two per comment, or the’ll get blocked by Craig’s software. Or you can replace www by w, I suppose.
Tony_opmoc,
I don’t really understand your ‘obvious reasons’, or rather I do but it shouldn’t make sense. If someone protests against the war, they have common cause with those mourning the deaths of soldiers. Stop the war, stop the deaths, UK and Afghani.
Muslim contributers to this site,
can you inform me about Islam4UK? The BBC has a profile page for them:
http ://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8441499.stm
How much of this is accurate?
There’s a space in the URL above; you’ll have to remove it to make it work.
Clark,
Wootton Bassett has adopted a specific role and is world famous for it.
Such a March through it would likely turn into the kind of race riots that happenned in Manchester 40 years ago.
race riots and funerals don’t tend to mix too well…
Much better to stage it outside the House of Commons.
The residents of Wotten Bassett haven’t done anything to deserve the aggro. The occupants of the House of Commons most definitely have.
Tony
So do people go to Wooton Bassett on the pretext of mourning, but it’s really patriotism, nationalism and glorification of war?
Or, are they really mourning, but the press / MSM depict it as jingistic?
Or is it a mixture or don’t you know?
Glenn: “Amazing all these people stopping by a blog they claim not to like, and reading comments from people they think little of, just to opine that they don’t like it or them. I spend time on blogs/sites I _do_ like.”
Yes, Glenn. This is known as “confirmation bias”. If all you ever do is read websites which agree with your crazed worldview of dastardly faked Moon Landings and other “Zionist” conspiracies without ever reading anything which contradicts that nonsense (self-contradictory Truther sites are perfectly acceptable) then it’s no wonder you get irritated when someone appears and laughs at you.
SOAB: When did I ever mention a “Zionist” conspiracy, you lying dog?
Islam4UK do not care about victims in Afghanistan. Their planned publicity stunt in Wootton Bassett is designed to mock the few people in that war who are publicly mourned.
There’s also little point in saying that refusing to allow a march through this little town is a deliberate ploy by the Evil Monolithic State to censor free speech. There are plenty of public forums for people like Anjem Choudary to get his “message” out and indeed he’s been on the TV more than Terry Wogan (am I out of date?) the last few years. He’s been on Hard Talk, Newsnight, The Big Questions, Radio 4, Radio 3, Radio Ga-Ga and walks around like a crazed loon spewing his nonsense with almost no harrassment whatsoever. His rag tag bag of scallywags can parade around with placards reading “BEHEAD THOSE WHO INSULT ISLAM” which is quite possibly an incitement to violence without being prosecuted and he can go on TV and refuse to condemn those who blew up the London underground and a doubledecker bus and over 50 innocent citizens (he doesn’t think it was an inside job, please note!) on the grounds that non-Muslims are by their nature not innocent.
So please stop all this ridiculous handwringing for someone who would not permit you any kind of free speach, is NOT anti-war or anti-terrorist and would, in all likelihood prefer to see you dead no matter how liberal or tolerant you call yourselves.
“SOAB: When did I ever mention a “Zionist” conspiracy, you lying dog?”
Ha ha! “Lying dog” LOL!
SOAB: Ha ha! So when did I mention anything about a “Zionist” conspiracy, you miserable, underhand, lying bastard, if you prefer?