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.
Alfred, you puzzle me slightly as those were broadly my points (though far more clearly illustrated and better put). And, I inferred, the substance behind the ‘long-haired’ professor’s statement. Which you seemed to be dismissing.
Still, yes, it depends on what we mean by economic growth, of course, and who it benefits. Agree we could be imaginatively moving towards a more realistic interpretation. Interesting to note which country topped the last ‘Happy Plant Index’ and why:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8498456.stm
To Jimi Hendrix, who died 40 years ago tonight. Voodoo Chile: Seven minutes of something almost superhuman. Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell were also superb, one can see especially Redding’s excellent bass playing on this live recording. All three are gone now. But it’s not just pyrotechnics and innovation. There’s soul in every single note. Music is immortal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE80W5xYbTI
“A disembodied tail? God! What a sight that must’ve been!”
It’s the very model of a modern troll, yes – throw out something that’s distracting and hard to ignore. But then the thought breaks down, because it only does it to escape the attention that a troll basks in.
So perhaps the snark in the grass was a boojum after all ?
Thank you, Suhayl. Of all the /stupid/ deaths of that era, that’s the one that still hurts. He was only getting started.
And that cheeky-little-brat grin when he de/re-tunes the guitar is just sweet.
Did you ever hear the story about how the first pressing of one of his records had to be withdrawn in a hurry owing to a mistake at the printers’ ? Electric Landlady. (I have no idea if it’s true, but I like it so much I don’t care).
Is everyone Poped out? What a theatrical has been provided over four days and given full welly by the BBC and Sky. I wonder what Muslims think when they see all the gold thread and the scarlet sashes against the black and what has been concealed about the child abuse. It is ghastly.
Handily a terror plot is discovered to coincide with the propaganda given out by Jonathan Evans and Gordon Correra. Is it part of the war against the ‘muslimfication’ of the UK that is being warned about. eg do not let them take away your Chr by the likes of Murdoch.
Also what do the Muslim people think when they see His Holiness shaking hands with war criminals like Blair and Brown, Thatcher and Hague in Westminster Hall, thus condoning their slaughters.
The Quilliam lot (known to Craig of course) were also at it this morning.
Radio 2 Today 17 September 2010
0810
The head of MI5, Jonathan Edwards, has warned of a continuing serious risk of a lethal terrorist attack taking place. James Brandon, head of research at the Quilliam Foundation, comments on the potential threat.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9008000/9008059.stm
YOU BLEW THE WHISTLE ON NOTHING, MR MURRAY.
You fell out with the Labour government, having KEPT YOUR MOUTH SHUT ABOUT THE EVILS OF BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY FOR YEARS UNDER THE TORIES.
I hope you burn in Hell when you die. You better hope you’re just a bunch of atoms moving about and your whole damn existence is nothing but a bizarre illusion, you coward.
You cheated on your wife – you didn’t have the COURAGE to tell her to her face that you didn’t love her anymore. You humiliated her, you COWARD.
You then had a nerve to get all defensive when people wanted to know on this site why you got handed £500K from the government – you started WHINING ABOUT PAYING TAX AND YOUR WIFE TAKING ALL YOUR HARD-EARNED INCOME.
NO MENTION OF BRADLEY MANNING, A WHISTLEBLOWER.
LET A 22-YEAR-OLD ROT IN JAIL FOR 52 YEARS, RIGHT, MR MURRAY.
THIS IS ALL ABOUT YOUR STINKING EGO. That’s why you ditched your wife for someone young enough to be your daughter. It’s all ego with you.
I hope you burn in hell, you evil little weak man who spends his time promoting himself as this wonderful person WHEN YOU’RE THE EXACT OPPOSITE.
The Tories armed Suharto, one of the worst dictators of the 20th century – millions butchered – all for BRITISH BUSINESS.
The Tories allowed the Rwandan massacre to go ahead, denied African countries the helicopters they asked for to prevent the slaughter, and ensured the butchery was never officially called a “genocide” because then the world would have been forced to act. The blood of over one million men, women, and children on the Tories’ and YOUR hands.
YOU HAVE BLOWN THE WHISTLE ON NOTHING, MR MURRAY. You’re a gutless man like Blair. This is about YOU and no one else.
SUPPORT OBAMA, YOU SAID. HERE IS YOUR BLOODY OBAMA speaking at a $30,000 per head dinner:
“Democrats, just congenitally, tend to get — to see the glass as half empty. (Laughter.) If we get an historic health care bill passed — oh, well, the public option wasn’t there. If you get the financial reform bill passed — then, well, I don’t know about this particular derivatives rule, I’m not sure that I’m satisfied with that. And gosh, we haven’t yet brought about world peace and — (laughter.) I thought that was going to happen quicker. (Laughter.) You know who you are. (Laughter.) We have had the most productive, progressive legislative session in at least a generation.
From Salon (dot) com, “Obama’s view of liberal criticisms BY GLENN GREENWALD”:
“…if you’re one of those people dissatisfied with large parts of the Obama presidency, that’s only because you have something wrong with the way you think (you need drug testing/you ‘congenitally see the glass as half empty’), and because you are saddled with extremely unrealistic, child-like expectations (you’re angry that the Pentagon hasn’t closed yet/bitter that Obama ‘hasn’t yet brought about world peace: ‘I thought that was going to happen quicker’ (Laughter.)’). In other words, you’re just a petulant, unreasonable, unrealistic, fringe child who doesn’t appreciate the greatness and generosity he’s given you. Contrary to what many of you thought, it’s these flaws within yourself that cause you to be dissatisfied with the administration, not because of any of this…”
Bradley Manning, alleged whistleblower:
ww w (dot) bradleymanning (dot) org.
To hell with Mr Murray, former British ambassador, former coward, former man with the blood of millions on his hands.
You’re going to die and all this evil that you support WILL BE FOR NOTHING YOU WEAK LITTLE MAN.
The only people you are fooling are FOOLS!
Well, let’s work our back through that flurry of shite. Craig never advised to support Obama – he was sceptical but willing to hold out some hope.
Having spent a lot of time with Craig, I can vouch that this man is not short of courage. Cowards like you have much to learn from him. You haven’t heard half of it. Maybe his ego helps to carry him through, but that’s the mark of a survivor.
Accordingly, that deranged diatribe won’t make a dent, no matter how much you rant ‘burn in hell’. You sound like somebody with a gripe, trying to provoke a reaction without identifying yourself. Who’s the real coward? You’re not worth the effort, you twunt!
Tsk. Such a pity he’s too busy to be reading, I’m sure he’ll be sorry he missed you …
“burninhell” = “My Existence Isn’t Real” at September 3, 2010 1:53 PM. This person has a problem…
@Alfred – you may be interested in this – http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=1781
I wonder who BurnInHell is addressing. Craig’s busy doing other things so BurnInHell’s apparent venom may not be targetted in that direction. So I wonder if we’re his intended audience for his specific purpose of promoting WikiLeaks and the whistleblower and if this is so he must be the usual run of the mill intelligence service troll who as an additionalty has sprinkled in a few of the usual smears.
“Craig’s busy doing other things so BurnInHell’s apparent venom may not be targetted in that direction”
That assumes he’s bothered to read anything here before vomiting, and has processed what he’s read. I’d be more inclined to wait for a demonstration that he’s capable of such fancy stuff.
11 o’ clock on a Friday night suggests more, to me, that either the pubs close early round his way or he got thrown out for hurling random abuse at strangers.
Alfred: Cracking post at 20:04, 17/9/10. You are on a positive roll these days!
On the economy – you might find this (under one minute) ad from adbusters.org very much along the lines of your second paragraph:
https://www.adbusters.org/abtv/gross_domestic_product_gdp.html
It’s tough to put ‘the economy’ and one’s understanding of it into a few sentences, but I’ll give it a shot nonetheless. We’ve had a demand led economy since forever. People want something, someone supplies it. More people want that thing, and an industry grows up meeting that demand.
Wages grew in proportion to production, that was meeting that demand, from the time of the Industrial Revolution. It really did match it – which is fairly logical, since wages fuelled demand, and the supply would meet it. That is how a sane and stable economy works.
Then came along Milton Freedman with his ‘supply side economics’. What you needed to do, was get rich people very much richer (and quickly), then they’d use their extra money to build factories that made things people would want. People would buy these things, make the rich people richer, they’d build even more factories and so on.
There were a few problems with the idea. It appealed to the very rich, of course, because it would rapidly make them much richer through generous tax breaks (capital gains tax is very much less than tax on earned wages). Industrialists found themselves vastly better off – less tax, fewer impositions on labour through unions and regulations, eventually making labour nearly free through off-shoring etc.
But I digress. ‘Cheap Labour’ is the bottom line of virtually every right-wing policy, but wages followed productivity until the Reagan/Thatcher era. After that, ‘supply side economics’ was the order of the day. We were better off, but after all, we were more productive and had a right to be better off. But while the monied classes collected hugely, the working classes paid the price – longer hours of work. Wife and husband both working, whereas one person in the household in reasonable job used to be able to provide a sufficient income.
Then mortgages got very expensive – we had to borrow far more deeply. But as the housing boom supposedly benefited us all, we had to take out an increasing proportion of our lifetime income to pay for somewhere to live. For the monied classes, thus phenomenon arrived like manner from heaven. As housing prices were set to go to the moon and beyond forever, we were enticed to borrow against its future value to fund an extravagant lifestyle – three foreign holidays a year? 50-inch flatscreen TV in your new McMansion with plush furnishings and a new £25K car, on your combined £20K income? Not a problem!
The people loaning the money didn’t care – they’d sell the loan within days, if not sooner. The people buying the loans didn’t care, they had insurance against the loans going bad. Everyone was quids in, particularly the banksters doing the deals.
It all collapsed when a few very big players called in loans, and found banks couldn’t pay (most notably, initially with Lehman Bros.), That’s when the whole house of cards collapsed, and the “Too big to fail!” bleating was heard up and down the land from banksters. Now manufacturing has never got this argument taken seriously, but they don’t buy politicians wholesale like this. The banksters got theirs, what they are and have been paying for, for some considerable time.
Sheesh… didn’t want to write an essay here… sorry for the lengthy post.
Well, that’s my _brief_ take on why we are where we are.
*
If anyone wants to take a small part of the above more a more detailed conversation, I’d certainly welcome it.
somebody: (22:43): Yes, definitely Poped out a treat! I suppose the Pope is head of a religious organisation, but so are many other delusionists, and we don’t find them heading up R4 and the BBC generally for a week or so. Hearing this fraud’s pronouncements in full as news items was a bit much – the percentage of people who attend a RC church in this country must be in single digits. But to hear the coverage, a foreigner would have thought it at least 80%. Incredible.
As you mention, Blair and Brown are war criminals. Amazing that they could have defied the appeals of the last Pope, yet be greeted as if nothing had happened. Maybe God changed his mind on the whole Iraq thing!
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Yes, another thrashing tail.
And on another tall tale, Somebody, my first reaction on reading the ‘news’ that there were devilish anti-Popery plots afoot was “yawn” and then ” O great, here we go round the mulberry bush”. The headline in the Daily Purgatory would be: ‘Seven Cleaners Plot to Kill God with a Giant Buffer’, by our correspondent-from-Hell, Illiam William Quilliam.
It’s almost as good as Jonathan Evans in Speedos.
Nextus, well said, as always.
Richard, electric landladies are the best! That’s a fascinating story.
Glenn, yep, I think that most Catholics, too – at least the ones I know – can see right through the Puccini glitz.
Bellahouston Park, Glasgow; that’s where I used to go to eat my cheese sandwiches.
From Medialens this morning
Blair’s use of human rights rhetoric
Posted by Tony S on September 18, 2010, 9:45 am
Great alert, Eds but it’s a shame it didn’t contain this exchange with Time magazine:
Time: Your wife chaired a press conference about the treatment of women in Afghanistan. What about Saudi Arabia? Do you approve of the way women are treated there?
Blair: I’m not going to get in the business of attacking the Saudi system.
Time: But you do attack the Afghan system.
Blair: yes, but we are in a conflict with the Taliban regime…At. the present time I don’t think it’s very helpful for us to tell the Saudis how they should live (10 December 2001).
In other words, at the present time, Blair doesn’t care about the oppression of women in Saudi Arabia because the Saudi regime remains subservient to the economic interests of Western elites.
a~~
The piece by the Medialens Editors referred to is at
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1284721957.top
Alert: A Journey Unchallenged – Andrew Marr Interviews Tony Blair
Precisely, Somebody – an incisive and accurate argument.
In medical terminology, the phrase, ‘red flag’ connotes physical (known as ‘organic’) symptoms or signs which demand prompt action. The phrase ‘orange flag’ denotes a similar dynamic but in relation to psychological, rather than physical, symptoms.
In this pathologised scheme, while Rugman’s C4 ‘report’ might be ascribed an orange flag, Coughlan’s entire output over several decades surely demands a scarlet pennant of enormous proportions – the size of the red flag that used to fly over Red Square.
Now, all together, sing ‘The Red Flag’, but alter some of the words as appropriate! One, two, three…
How odd. I posted two posts, one on a C4 report by Jonathan Rugman, the other about Con Coughlan’s blog, and neither appeared, yet the one after those two did appear! Perhaps the others will emerge…
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/author/concoughlin/
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/uk/did+mi6+spy+gareth+williams+commit+suicide/3766602
Make up your own minds.
Here is an example of a journalistic piece, which, it might be argued, has been fashioned – moulded, sculpted, shall one venture – to accord with the disinformative constructions currently emanating from, one suspects, that entity euphemistically known as the ‘security and intelligence community’.
Apart from obvious nudge-nudge, wink-wink suggestiveness of the content, it possesses a prose style peculiar to that type of article. Read the last sentence: The kick in the tail, something to leave readers with, that which sticks in the mind, is common journalistic practice. Yet here, on top of the general thrust of the article, it has a not-very-subtle, yet ever-so-gentle (one is allowed to rock gently in a womb of warm Ambrosia), progandising effect, so that to me, it comes across more like the poorly digestive and hack-written product of a briefing than a piece of genuine journalism.
In other words, it looks like the kind of government propaganda one sees often in some other countries but which often is more skillfully disguised in this sceptred isle.
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/uk/did+mi6+spy+gareth+williams+commit+suicide/3766602
On which note, did anyone mention the name, Con Coughlan? Why not check out the glorious Mr Coughlan’s website? Let’s do it right now. I can’t wait!
Ah, the man’s right on cue – we learn that the Baddies, none of whom are named, Illiam, William or Quilliam, are ready, RIGHT NOW, to ATTACK BRITAIN!! Your country needs you!
Incidentally, has anyone thought of the possibility that the recent ATTACKS!! on William Hague might have been an attempt to undermine the Foreign Secretary in favour of ‘the lovely, the wonderful, the auspicious, the brilliant, the cuddly, the Cadducean, the suave, the brave, the forceful, the thrusting, the keen-eyed, the coiffured, the sanguine, the sharp, the Right Honourable, the medicinal, the pharmacological, the…’ Liam Fox?
Ah, yes, right on cue again, I see a piece critical of Hague (and Osborne – re. Trident) and very positive about Liam Fox.
Link to Connie’s blog in next post.
Any mention of Gareth Williams? I can’t find one in August or September. Odd, that.
And so it goes.
Original Topic (Slight Return) :-
http://www.thenation.com/article/154780/wikileaks-and-hacktivist-culture
The general point’s a worthwhile one, that it’s misleading to make it be all about one isolated person, because it’s not like that. (People like simple stories. Stories are easier to tell simply if you hang them all off a hero-figure).
And, oddly nostalgic. I suddenly realise it must be 10 years or so since I read people banging on enthiusiastically about “hacker culture” like that. And, of course, in the current climate, the idea that DOS attacks, etc, are Cool could cover a whole range of agendas. But still, it widens the discussion.
Richard Robinson,
thanks for the link to the Nation article. I feel a great affinity for the Hackers. People may not know that ‘hacking’ has two meanings; breaking computer security, and doing difficult things for the pleasure of accomplishing them. Richard Stallman has much to say on this matter, and his website is well worth browsing. Here’s a little cartoon as a taster:
http://stallman.org/images/cartoon-economists.png
And here’s Richard Stallmans’s home page:
http://stallman.org/
The political notes are worth a look through. I love his simple, direct style of language.
Suhayl – that C4 Gareth Williams piece. I can’t see that it contains any actual fact ? It boils down to :- “I have already advanced a really bizarre and unlikely theory, and here is a massively contorted line of reasoning in favour of it”. How long before we get “It’s only a hypothesis” ? Perhaps we could vote on it ? Phone-ins, at a quid a pop, Have Your Say – is it a hypothesis, yes or no ? Is Karl Popper the New Wayne Rooney, What Do Our Readers Think ?
I agree. That C4 Gareth Williams piece absolutely reeks of intelligence service manipulation. The tone is reserved, held back not flowing as each piece of disinformation appears. Bizarre theories are put forward to hide the most obvious one.
I just wonder how long they can go on dishing out this rubbish to the public.
Superhuman! Brilliant Suhayl – thanks for the link to LuLu Show 1969 Hendrix – I missed the ‘Whistle Test’ – I was on HMS London in Yokohama at the time with a band called ‘London Lights’ we played ‘Hey Joe’ and Cream songs ‘Sunshine of your love’ and ‘SWALBR’ but the Japanese guests of a bamboo looking hotel on stilts sat rigid on their cushions showing no emotion, that is until we played ‘All you need is Love’ where apon they all jumped up and started dancing much to the dismay of the hotel manager who told us in broken English to stop because the hotel had no dance licence.
We continued for another twenty minutes while managers argued. All was well in the end and the small built Japanese owner invited us back some days later because the news had spread of an English band playing in town. We played the next three nights to a packed and hot hotel swarming with people. On the final day before the ship sailed the hotel manager invited us to a private ‘thank-you’ party. I had never seen so much Japanese food and each member of the band had a ‘personal’ geisha with thanks and love from Japan – superb!