The Russians call it Kompromat – the use by the state of sexual accusations to destroy a public figure. When I was attacked in this way by the government I worked for, Uzbek dissidents smiled at me, shook their heads and said “Kompromat“. They were used to it from the Soviet and Uzbek governments. They found it rather amusing to find that Western governments did it too.
Well, Julian Assange has been getting the bog standard Kompromat. I had imagined he would get something rather more spectacular, like being framed for murder and found hanging with an orange in his mouth. He deserves a better class of kompromat. If I am a whistleblower, then Julian is a veritable mighty pipe organ. Yet we just have the normal sex stuff, and very weak.
Bizarrely the offence for which Julian is wanted for questioning in Sweden was dropped from rape to sexual harassment, and then from sexual harassment to just harassment. The precise law in Swedish, as translated for me and other Sam Adams alumni by our colleague Major Frank Grevil, reads:
“He who lays hands on or by means of shooting from a firearm, throwing of stones, noise or in any other way harasses another person will be sentenced for harassment to fines or imprisonment for up to one year.”
So from rape to non-sexual something. Actually I rather like that law – if we had it here, I could have had Jack Straw locked up for a year.
Julian tells us that the first woman accuser and prime mover had worked in the Swedish Embassy in Washington DC and had been expelled from Cuba for anti-Cuban government activity, as well as the rather different persona of being a feminist lesbian who owns lesbian night clubs.
Scott Ritter and I are well known whistleblowers subsequently accused of sexual offences. A less well known whistleblower is James Cameron, another FCO employee. Almost simultaneous with my case, a number of the sexual allegations the FCO made against Cameron were identical even in wording to those the FCO initially threw at me.
Another fascinating point about kompromat is that being cleared of the allegations – as happens in virtually every case – doesn’t help, as the blackening of reputation has taken effect. In my own case I was formerly cleared of all allegations of both misconduct and gross misconduct, except for the Kafkaesque charge of having told defence witnesses of the existence of the allegations. The allegations were officially a state secret, even though it was the government who leaked them to the tabloids.
Yet, even to this day, the FCO has refused to acknowledge in public that I was in fact cleared of all charges. This is even true of the new government. A letter I wrote for my MP to pass to William Hague, complaining that the FCO was obscuring the fact that I was cleared on all charges, received a reply from a junior Conservative minister stating that the allegations were serious and had needed to be properly investigated – but still failing to acknowledge the result of the process. Nor has there been any official revelation of who originated these “serious allegations”.
Governments operate in the blackest of ways, especially when it comes to big war money and big oil money. I can see what they are doing to Julian Assange, I know what they did to me and others (another recent example – Brigadier Janis Karpinski was framed for shoplifting). In a very real sense, it makes little difference if they murdered David Kelly or terrified him into doing it himself. Telling the truth is hazardous in today’s Western political system.
dreoilin, good for the Irish justice system!
Agree, think that Abe Rene is quite possibly a bit of a joker. Still, any excuse to post Team America, I say.
“I’ve been called for jury duty (after all these years). Might be MIA soon.”
Wooo. I hope it’s not too bad a case, & good luck.
And, talking of MIA :-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/sep/15/sid-rawle-obituary
Dammit.
I find it hard to believe that anyone could actually propose that a system of government is so wonderful, that it has to be forced on a people. And if they don’t want it, they should be killed by us until they do so. Only the most perverse religionists would think that right, given their imagined sky-spook is supposed to demand it. But just for a twisted idea of ‘democracy’? Democracy is what the people of a given state want, not what suits the interests of another country altogether.
If something is really good, you don’t have to bomb and kill people to force it on them – they’ll steal it.
But dreoilin is probably right – old Abe is having a laugh. He hangs around on a site primarily concerned with human rights, and champions the US habit of bombing countries into submission if they don’t see things the US way. But only small countries that cannot defend themselves, obviously, and countries with something worth plundering. Sick bastard.
oh dear, Sid Rawle. Thank goodness for him.
@ stantoncarlise,
Thanks for your “off topic” comment on my “off topic” post. You are correct in what you have said – most of the posts are indeed off topic.
@technicolour,
My point is that while low level governmental persons at the local level may support racist policies, when the ugly head of racism is raised, then the central government and government at the highest level should properly disavow such policies.If that is not done then the populace might very well assume that silence condones. It is “government” at that level and in that sense to which I refer.
Courtenay: agreed.
Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ aims are sitting on the launch pad while the details are argued out ready for takeoff on 20th October.
We are aware of massive cuts; some say 25% to 40% for government departments with the exception of course, defence, which may lose some ‘cold war’ artefacts but nothing more. Local authorities will see their budgets cut along with welfare and health. Security and policing I believe will remain unscathed despite talks of cutting front-line police numbers. Those talks are, well, just talk.
So how will Cameron slash budgets without incurring the wrath of charities, the poor and the unions, who have already voted for strike action in the public sector, perhaps causing another downturn in the economy?
The trick of course is to avoid government decisions and ‘finger pointing’ by putting the onus of proposed cuts onto the public. This will be done I think by introducing choices and ‘nudging’ people to make the ‘right’ choices from a predetermined framework.
Instead of fixed rules for healthcare, pensions, benefits, education, personal finance, credit cards, loans etc etc we will be offered a framework of choices that can either be taken up or opted out of.
To get our heads round how the trick works we can examine some examples.
Let’s look at pension plans. The ‘Big Society’ pension plan is ‘Save More Tomorrow’ or the option to contribute more *now* for retirement, a nice long term revenue stream for the banks. An added incentive of increased participation by employers will deliver a sound framework attractive to ‘rational’ thinkers. Public employers would pass the cost onto tax-payers and private employers would pass the increased plan costs on to customers. Opting out will however increase one’s contributions – a lose-lose situation.
The ‘Big Society’ education plan addresses the perceived unfairness towards those paying for private education whilst also having to pay for other people’s public education. Here we have a similar ‘Big Society’ choice framework whereby those who opt for private education pay less tax or can chose to receive education vouchers in the case of pre-school education. Another option in the framework would allow you to ‘buy’ a place in a school of your choice.
Health reform is an area high in the public’s consciousness; nevertheless savings *have* to made and inequality addressed for those paying into private schemes. The choice framework is limited short-term and means that one would have the choice of paying into a ‘medical’ tax-deductable fund. For now the state must play a legitimate role in health-care, but local surgeries and medical centres will be encouraged to provide a choice, the extent of which will depend on the ‘quality’ of their ‘medical expenses’ account.
Contracting Out Provision.
To enhance the ‘Big Society’ idea in the minds of the public, contracting out of government services is the ‘back-bone’ of the ‘Big Society’ where local groups can draw from the ‘Big Bank’ to pay for instance, refuge collection, road maintenance, library services etc – the list goes on. Groups may also have the power to boost their allocation by introducing local ‘tolls’ according to the time of day to alleviate traffic congestion. Many ways will exist to improve local funds such as reducing waste collection from once a week to fortnightly.
All of these changes may be considered as reforms to socialist state controlled programs and some may tricked into believing this is the route to libertarianism. Both are wrong, both are an illusion, simple because the state has control of the choice framework and opting out, although possible will add financial burdens not only affecting the poor but middle class society as well.
Choice and the ‘Big Society’ will be marketed as given more power to the people and giving help to people with low self-control (in planning for the future for instance) but in reality it is a deception to reduce the drain on the public purse from welfare, education, health and local services so that the country can maintain it’s military industries, military supremacy, nuclear deterrent and seat on the security council.
Richard: My scenario was hypothetical. If Venezuela goes Communist, and someone supports their revolution, on their head be the consequences.
technicolour: I wasn’t talking about children, or the popiulation at large for that matter. I was referring to a minrity of revolutionaries who intend to set up a dictatorship. The size of that minority in Russia was of the order of one person in a thousand.
Dreoilin: You ask who would give the USA the authority to suppress a Communist revolution in Venezuela. I would say: Providence, that gave America its destiny to be a beacon of freedom and democracy. But this would not apply in all cases, for it would not be feasible.
glenn: Ignoring your final and false epithet, for my views are good and sound, it is right and good to drive Communist governments out of power, since they are dictatorships, who would make people slaves of the state. A prisoner in the Soviet gulag tattooed “Slave of Khrushchev” on his forehead. The authorities surgically removed the tattoo. This process took place more than once so that finally he could hardly close his eyes, and they called him the ‘ever-seeing one’.
Behold the evils of Communism! It is right to drive it out – if one has the means.
PS. Glenn mentioned the main interest of this webesite as being human rights. It is well therefore to point out that Communism is opposed to them, as shown at Tiananmen Square in 1989. Indeed human rights would be in danger following a Communist revolution, justifying its overthrow. I have stated that before adequate planning would be necessary to prevent fascism taking its place.
I’m wasting my time, surely, because Abe is a slippery customer who likes to play dumb while putting forward nauseating views.
A communist system is not the same as a totalitarian communist dictatorship. Kindly disabuse yourself of the silly notion that there is communist=dictatorship on one side, and capitalist=democratic on the other. It’s not that simple!
That’s why you occasionally get communists VOTED IN in various places even within Europe. If you can’t understand – or refuse to acknowledge – that simple fact, there’s no point in indulging you further with your Mickey-Mouse level of conversation.
“Richard: My scenario was hypothetical.”
Alfred, again.
“If Venezuela goes Communist, and someone supports their revolution, on their head be the consequences.”
Then my reply was equally hypothetical. And so what ? It stands.
Once upon a time, well within living memory, the country I live in took a fair amount of damage (though, small compared with many others) from bombs dropped by the military of a foreign power, in pursuit of the proposition that their superior technology would enable them to decide our political systems for us, and anybody who stood in the way had only themselves to blame.
And I really don’t like to see all these people clamouring that they want a go at it too, it’s bound to go allright next time because of how they’re so special. The last lot had fetish-words that made it all right, too. But it wasn’t. The last 9 years haven’t done anything to convince me otherwise, either.
“[the Big Society] is a deception to reduce the drain on the public purse from welfare, education, health and local services so that the country can maintain it’s military industries, military supremacy, nuclear deterrent and seat on the security council.”
Mark, What you say about the Cameron plan is of interest, but the statement quoted above is highly misleading. UK public spending as a share of GDP is around 45%, up from the 35-40% of the Thatcher/Major years. UK defence spending totals around 2.4% of GDP (2005 estimate).
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2034rank.html?countryName=Ireland&countryCode=ei®ionCode=eu&rank=139#ei
So if Britain reduced military expenditures to the Irish level (0.9% of GDP), or even to nothing, the government would still be running a budget deficit of more than 10% of GDP. Since GDP is flat or falling, the country would remain headed for Greek-style bankruptcy with or without its armed forces, unless it made radical cuts to public spending on welfare, education, health and local services.
My own solution would be to introduce a guaranteed employment program, under which the government would auction job subsidies in numbers and in specific towns or regions as required to make employment available to everyone seeking work (The reason for this form of employment support is technical, but it is superior to a negative income tax combined with no abolition of the minimum wage, because under the latter system employers have no incentive to pay more than nominal wages, whatever the value of the work, since the Government will make up the worker’s income to at least to the minimum wage level).
Once everyone is assured of work, most welfare can be dismantled.
Furthermore, there would no longer be an incentive for young people to stay in school until they reach middle age, thereby greatly reducing the cost of education. They would be able to quit school at 15 or 14 and join the workforce, where they will be under the informal guidance and instruction of grown up people, which should largely eliminate many enormously expensive social problems.
Glenn,
Anno says your Vauxhall is not clapped out, it just needs a bit of plastic linkage.
So there you are. The Lord created the World and all that’s in it, but not plastic. So you could have prayed all week without effect.
PS, Glenn,
Re: “I find it hard to believe that anyone could actually propose that a system of government is so wonderful, that it has to be forced on a people.”
That’s exactly what Lenin and Stalin, proposed, then they did the forcing — right?
“The Lord created the World and all that’s in it, but not plastic”
And the Western Isles, don’t forget the Western Isles. Plastic and MacBrayne’s, the unholy duo.
Alternatively, Anno could be an angel of the Lord and the linkage might be holy plastic.
I was going to go veering off towards the Russian word for railways-station, but I’ve just got a story coming out of the R4 news about pigeons vs. the internet, which is much more fun. It’s cheating not to implement the relevant protocols, though …
Re: Speculation about Abe Rene’s mental processes.
My reaction to Abe’s comment that:
“I ocnsider [sic] my own world view to be correct.”
was to suppose he must be slightly crazed. I mean, from a five-year-old, such a lack of self-doubt would cause one to smile.
But then consider this:
“If, as I hold, my views are correct, if you do not agree with me, you will be the loser.”
That is more sinister, psychopathic even: agree with me or face your doom.
So are we dealing with a simpleton, a madman, or something else?
Certainly we are not, I think, dealing with, as someone suggested, a jokster.
What we are dealing with, I suggest, is the psychopathology, not of an individual, but of classes, tribes and nations. It is the psychopathology of the ruling elite, of God’s chosen people, of the global hegemon. Do as we say or we impose sanctions, we destabilize your government by blowing-up things and people. We bomb the crap out of you. We occupy you country, hang your leaders and impose the most disgustingly corrupt puppet regime you could possibly imagine.
This kind of thinking, if engaged in by an individual toward other individuals would be considered criminally insane. Engaged in by the ruling elite of the most powerful state the world has ever seen, it is perfectly normal, and indeed is the prerequisite of elite membership.
One saw the same thing in Britain 50 or so years ago: ex-army school teachers who posted wall maps with most of the globe painted red. These were the blimps who hadn’t realized the empire was finished. Fifty years before them, their counterparts were busy aiming to ensure that all of the globe would be painted red.
The same mentality is evident in America today. And for a while, let no one doubt, it can work to individual and national advantage. But those of us who wish well of America, it is sad to see how the brutality and hypocrisy of American policy is undermining America’s influence in the world, as nation of laws, dedicated to human rights and individual liberty.
Richard said
“Richard: My scenario was hypothetical.”
Alfred, again.
For Chrissake, Richard, I can have a hypothesis, can’t I, without having my views equated with someone else who may entertain a hypothesis?
Your processes of thought are bizarre. Or are you simply engaging in smear tactics.
Alfred. It was the style of argument I was equating, not the views being argued.
And, of course, it’s only a hypothesis …
Glenn: Far from being slippery, my views are consistent, and far from beig nauseous, they are wholesome and sound. A Communist national government is indeed a dictatorship, and it is you who should shed any illusions to the contrary. It is local governments who gain Communist votes, mainly an expression of secularism.
Richard: If you are referring to the Blitz, that was done by a fascist dictator, whom it was right to overthrow, as the Allies successfully did. Hurrah!
Alfred: The world divided into democracies and those who are not is no psychopathology. It correctly reflects the division between good and bad systems of government. We should oppose the latter and support the former.
Alfred: thank you for your clinical dissection of Abe Rene’s posts. While reading them my jaw has been gradually inching towards the floor but I have been struggling to conjure up an adequate response. Yours is excellent.
For me, reading Abe Rene’s blithe self-unravelling has been oddly reminiscent of watching the super-computer HAL (in 2001: A Space Odyssey) slowly regressing as it is dismantled. I keep expecting Abe Rene to burst into a quick chorus of “Daisy Daisy, Give Me Your Answer Do”.
Just popped in to leave the Clegg article in the Times today. No mention where jobs and social mobility are coming from …
http://nickclegg.com/nccom_news_details.aspx?title=Nick_Clegg:_Our_welfare_system_is_broken&pPK=f40f7dfd-863f-4302-839d-307d886698ee
Alfred,
The *true* cost of defence and war including the ‘war on terror’ is staggering; cost of the war in Iraq for a combined force excluding America was about $3 trillion.
‘The Three Trillion Dollar War’ – by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes
“The world divided into democracies and those who are not … reflects the division between good and bad systems of government.”
This is absurdly simplistic. Remember the old Deutsche Democratische Republic? LOL.
Just because America or Britain claim to be democratic means nothing. What matters is whether:
they adhere to the rule of law;
they have an honest method of conducting elections;
they have an electorate sufficiently informed to participate in a democratic form of government.
In all respects it is clear that democracy in the west is coming more and more to resemble Soviet Communism, with:
an enormously privileged elite
an untrustworthy electoral process with massive vote fraud possible with voting machines and postal voting methods
massive state controlled systems of indoctrination, i.e., schools and universities
contempt for constitutional rights, including habeus corpus
massive surveillance on the Web and with video cams
a gigantic and often brutalized prison population
a government that assassinates its own citizens
and without a free press.
We’re not where the Soviets were in the days of Stalin, but what’s to prevent the current trend from taking us there?
And American concern with communism in Venezuela has nothing to do with the defense of freedom, for which the American elite clearly has a contempt. It is all about oil, respect and the Monro Doctrine.
Chavez treated Bush with contempt (“Mr. Danger” he called him, said he could detect a smell of sulfur when he spoke after Bush at the UN general assembly, and supplied free oil to poverty stricken Americans abandoned to freeze in their homes by a callous US Government, etc.), he nationalized American oil industry assets, he threatened to switch Venezuela’s oil exports (1 million barrels a day) from the US to China, And then there’s the fact that Venezuela has the greatest non-conventional oil reserve – in the world — the Oronoco Oil Belt, which contain more oil than lies beneath the sands of Arabia.
To suppose that either Bush or Barmy — or the American people for that matter, care in the slightest about the freedom of the people of Venezuela seems to me entirely absurd.
Abe – “If you are referring to the Blitz, that was done by a fascist dictator, whom it was right to overthrow, as the Allies successfully did”
I was, and it would have been no diferent if he had used ‘democracy’ as his magic word instead of ‘fascism’. My point is that your proposal above to adopt his approach would make you the baddy this time round.
MJ: Ignoring your false comparisons with sci-fi computers and false ‘diagnoses’, Democracy is a good system that protects the rights of individuals in a workable way. Other systems do not. This principle is what I have been standing for. The Allies did so during WWII, and were right to do so. They did during the Cold War, and were right to do so. What was wrong with the view of the ‘tidal wave’ in the Iraq war was the planning and execution rather than the vision. I am encouraged that not all people think that the fight in Iraq for democracy is lost. In spite of the planning errors, hopefully it will succeed and we will yet see the tidal wave of democracy that Rumsfeld hoped for sweep over the Middle East. I have not yet read Tony Blair’s “A Journey”, but when it comes out in paperback I definitely hope to do so.
Mark,
Re: “The Three Trillion Dollar War’ – by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes”
Britain’s contribution was far less than America’s, although I haven’t a number offhand — maybe 10% of the US cost.
Also, Stiglitz’s number is based on estimates of the cost of veterans pensions, hospital bills, etc. Most of these costs are far in the future, and while no doubt substantial, the present day discounted cost would be much less than the headline figure.
Anyway, this is all water under the bridge. The full cost has been incurred (except in Afghanistan), which means that eliminating the current defense budget will not make much difference to public finances.
You advocated earlier getting rid of Britain’s nuclear deterrent. If this really is an independent deterrent, which I rather doubt, I would favor Britain keeping it, while getting out of the EU and NATO. A neutral Britain would incur no costs in projecting power overseas, but would represent such a worthless target for foreign takeover, and such a costly prize — given the potential for nuclear retaliation, that Britain would be assured of peace for many years to come.
Richard: it would very much make a difference if England was ruled by a fascist regime and the Allies were in Europe and the blitzkrieg was in the name of democracy. For that is what happened against Germany in 1945. But in fact, I didn’t recommnd the method of blitzkrieg. A coup against a Communist government, as I have said, would need careful planning precisely to prevent a fascist regime replacing a Communist one. Any war is very expensive, and therefore, as I asid, it might not be practicable to prosecute.
Time to retire and see Hawaii Five-O. I leave you tonight with the French version of the Canadian national anthem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0Y3L0s1m2o&feature=related
Oh Julian, you’re such a whinner 🙁
Come let your mama protect you in her arm-pits