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.
Suhayl:
I didn’t find Con Coughlan’s site but note Jonathan Evans said in a speech in London that “there is a persistent intent on the part of al-Qaida and its associates to attack the UK.”
From ‘Medialens’ a piece right on target:
The Con Coughlin School Of Hard News
Commenting on Con Coughlin’s “reliance on unnamed intelligence sources in several far-fetched articles about Iran,” the Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII) identified key features in reports filed by the Daily Telegraph’s executive foreign editor:
“Sources were unnamed or untraceable, often senior Western intelligence officials or senior Foreign Office officials.”
“Articles were published at sensitive and delicate times where there had been relatively positive diplomatic moves towards Iran.”
“Articles contained exclusive revelations about Iran combined with eye-catchingly controversial headlines.” (Campaign Iran, ‘Press Watchdog slammed by “Dont Attack Iran” Campaigners,’ May 1, 2007; http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/ index.php?q=node/2060/print)
CASMII revealed that it was Coughlin who, with the help of unnamed intelligence sources, discovered that Saddam Hussein could launch weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes. And it was Coughlin who revealed the link between the 9/11 hijacker, Mohammed Atta, and Iraqi intelligence. Both claims have, of course, been exposed as utter nonsense.
I agree – ‘utter nonsense’
Mark. that’s fascinating!! Wow, so you had your own groupies, eh? Now that’s the life, on the ocean wave right enough! What instrument did you play, btw? Did you drive speed-boats onto the rocks? And did you cast TV sets from portholes? (!)
Here is Dame Connie’s blog:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/author/concoughlin/
Courtenay,
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=1781
An interesting article. I agree with your basic argument that the justification for the “war on terror” was entirely bogus. I agree with many other points too.
If I were to attempt a review of the war now, I would do so in the context of the drive for global hegemony (empire, as was), the outline for which was provided by the Project for the New American Century, which states that the process necessary for the requisite transformation of American strategy
“is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor.”
And, as is well known, on September 11, 2001, George Bush wrote in his journal,
“today occurred the Pearl Harbor of the 21st Century.”
In the transformation in strategy that was catalyzed by 9/11, I would say that oil has been a key issue, but not the only one, or even perhaps the central one.
During WWII it was widely held that the Allies could not lose because they controlled the oil of the ME. ME oil is still of great strategic importance, but it is not as important as it once was, because there are now more sources of oil (Africa, Latin America, the Canadian Tar Sands and Russia) and more sources of energy. Among alternative energy sources, natural gas is currently the most important. It is available in gigantic quantities and is distributed widely. For example, new techniques of fracturing gas-bearing rocks have opened up vast natural gas resources in North America, which could therefore become energy self-sufficient within a few years. Gas is not directly substitutable for oil in some applications (e.g., airplane fuel) but it can be substituted for oil in most cases. For example, it can be burnt with an efficiency of 60% plus in a gas turbine power generator. The power can then be used by electric automobiles with an efficiency of 90% plus for a well to wheel efficiency of over 50%, which is several times better than that for oil. Then there’s solar power, which within a hundred years will likely replace all other sources of power because it is essentially limitless and non-polluting.
The occupation of Iraq was I believe driven by several considerations including the provision of a locus for America’s chief ME military base (since the presence of US forces on the territory of US ally Saudi Arabia was causing tension); and to keep the wealth derived from the accelerated extraction of Iraqi oil out of the hands of an Arab nationalist government such as Saddam’s, which challenged US hegemony in the ME.
Saddam’s decision to sell oil in Euros did not, in itself, mean much. But the sensible decision to switch reserves from dollars into the then rapidly appreciating Euro would have negatively impacted the dollar. By crushing Saddam, the US gave pause for thought among those who might be considering abandonment of the dollar as a reserve currency.
According to Oil and Gas Journal of January 2010, Iran has an estimated 137.6 billion barrels of proven oil reserves about 10 percent of the world’s total reserves.
According to Oil and Gas Journal of January 2010, Iran has an estimated 137.6 billion barrels of proven oil reserves about 10 percent of the world’s total reserves.
It also has the world’s second largest reserves of natural gas.
Suhayl: I find ‘Dame’ Coughlin’s views on Islamic ‘terrorism’ entirely simplistic in its analysis. He seems to have a complete mental block or a myopic vision of the atrocities committed by America and Israel in Iraq and Palestine. He completely fails to grasp that smashing Iraq and Afghanistan is indeed the promoter of international terrorism, which is not the ‘terrorism’ currently used to exploit known Islamic radicals to further political aims as is ‘de rigeur’ in the 21st century.
This ‘mental blindness’ becomes obvious when we explore Coughlin’s narrative on Iran. He interprets Iran’s support for Hizbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine and various (sometimes opposing) insurgency movements in Iraq as nothing more than an extension of the supreme leader’s revolutionary drive in its desire to confront America and Israel on all fronts as part of a ‘cold war’ struggle in which Islam replaces Communism in combat with the capitalist West. I believe this tells us Coughlin has been brain-washed by the ‘New World Order’ protagonists and their secret cabals who use this mantra in their ‘war on terror’ psychology to promote and strengthen the military alliance and its industrial complex for machines of destruction.
If coughlin opened his mind he would realise that Iran is painting a perfect picture of itself as a defender of causes such as the plight of the Palestinian people and the outrage over the illegal American invasion of Iraq.
Likewise Iran’s confrontational stance over its nuclear programme helps create the perception amongst Iranians and others that the Western powers, especially the US, impose double standards on Iran, denying Iran weapons which both America and Israel themselves have.
Coughlin’s simplistic mind again fails to realise that Iran uses foreign policy as a bargaining chip with the West. In this consideration, Iran’s leader does not seek to ‘wipe’ any country off the map, a deceptive ploy used by the West to garner public support, rather, Iran’s leaders hope to use the issues of ‘terrorism’ and Iraq as ways to win concessions for other objectives, such as securing a more dominant position in the Middle-East that will enhance its bid from observer to member of the SCO.
Coughlin’s analysis should have included examining the stories of fleeing Iranian dissidents of the brutal puppet Shah and his Savak thugs who murdered and tortured thousands who opposed his so called ‘white revolution’ deception to rid Iran of Islam and forcibly install the double standards of a Western order that had befriended the secular Ba’athist government in Iraq and supplied Saddam with WMD, while years later would smash that country and invoke ‘a divide and conquer’ civil war complete with death squads and mass executions.
“According to Oil and Gas Journal of January 2010, Iran has an estimated 137.6 billion barrels of proven oil reserves about 10 percent of the world’s total reserves.”
And
“[Iran] also has the world’s second largest reserves of natural gas.”
But these numbers are subject to constant revision. According to Wikipedia:
“Between them, the Canadian and Venezuelan [oil sands] deposits contain about 3.6 trillion barrels (570
How many generations are we counting on, for this energy to last over ? Enough for more to form ?
Glenn,
Re: https://www.adbusters.org/abtv/gross_domestic_product_gdp.html
Yes, this makes the point about the meaning of GDP, or its lack of meaning, very well.
And yes, since Adam Smith’s day the competitive free market has been so battered as to be almost beyond recognition.
Cartels, oligopolies and monopolies were, by the end of the 19th century, able to skew to distribution of income to the disadvantage of the workers. Unions may have counteracted this effect in some degree, but they seem to have been pretty ineffective. Just before the first world war, a strike among hosiery workers in Leicester resulted in a pay raise. However, on the first pay day after the return to work a bowl was placed on the desk of the pay clerk with a notice inviting workers to make a voluntary refund of their pay increase. The names of those, a great uncle of mine included, who refused were noted and, on the following Monday, they learnt that their service was no longer required.
And the unions were infiltrated by Communists who, with the assistance of incompetent management and complacent (Conservative as well as Labour) governments, wrecked the car industry with ridiculous demarkation disputes and wildcat strikes.
Also during the twentieth century, there developed techniques for the management of markets. Instead of spontaneous demand for useful things, demand for anything and everything including toxic factory food, alcoholic beverages, drugs, vacation travel, renovated kitchens and bathrooms, etc. was created by advertising, assisted by compliant media, which amplified the advertisers’ messages.
Then came credit. First hire purchase, then low down-payment mortgages, then student loans, then nonsense ninja mortgages (swiftly sold on by the issuers to dumb banks and pension funds), with the result that, in America, the average person has a net worth of less than nothing.
Meantime, capital poured overseas, along with it going the most advanced western technology, in pursuit of labor costing as little as 3% of European labor. this was fraudulently sold as beneficial in accordance with the theory of comparative advantage, whereas in fact, it was in accordance with the principle of absolute advantage, which works massively to the detriment of workers in the advanced economies.
As people became more indebted, as their wants expanded without limit under the influence of demand created through the influence of media and advertising, women were drawn into the workforce to raise family incomes. Women workers vastly increased labor competition, for a declining supply of worthwhile jobs. Women being in general more educable and more docile than men, have proved in many occupations to be more successful than men, thus causing the huge social problem of millions of unemployed and increasingly unemployable males.
All this is obvious, but parliament is owned by the globalists. We are seeing the livlihood of the mass of the people being destroyed, civil rights dating back to mediaeval times being trasheds and the people intimidated and manipulated by government invented terror.
If anything like an open society exists in the future, this will undoubtedly be seen as one of the darkest eras in the history of the west.
Richard,
Re: “How many generations are we counting on, for this energy to last over ? Enough for more to form ?”
I would say no more than one or two. Although it would almost certainly last for many more.
The sun delivers a year-round, day-night average of 250 watts of radiation per square meter. It is already possible to harness close to 50% of that with solar-thermal electrical generationg systems. Photovoltaics can theoretically achieve efficiencies of over 70%.
Current worldwide installed electrical generating capacity is, I think, about 50 gigs. So with a 50% efficient solar system, you’d need solar collectors covering an area about 20 km square.
To substitute for all energy sources, increase your solar system by a factor of say ten. Then it would cover an area about 65 km square. Locate that somewhere in the Sahara and it would be hard to find.
Funny thing, the Arabs have all the energy whether its oil or sunlight.
The only reason we aren’t doing it now is that fossil fuels are cheaper. But solar cells are a product of silicon valley, which is capable of advancing solid state technologies incredibly rapidly. I wouldn’t bet against it going mainstream quite soon.
Anyhow, even if it is always relatively expensive, energy is so dirt cheap now that we will always be able to afford the extra cost (two-fold? four-fold? ten-fold at most) of going to solar power — if nothing better turns up in the meantime.
I just made 5 kilos of raspberry jam. Here are the costs. Raspberries, home grown, no charge. Pectin, about $5.00. Sugar, about $5.00. Electricity to boil about twelve litres of water to sterilize jars and to cook jam, about $0.1.
Energy is not dirt cheap for nothing.
I am sitting 30 miles away from Kirkuk, whence for example thousands of tankers travel to Iran. The sponsors of the war, the Zionist banks, who blackmailed Blair and Brown into going to war, collect the spoils of the war not in cash, but in influence over the politics of the Middle East.
Their aim is no less than the taming of Islam. The politicians who get their greedy mits on the illegal oil, snuff out the slightest whiff of Islamic challenge to the secular states set up by the US and UK. Islam is encouraged, beards are grown, mosques are air-conditioned and clean. But nobody can say a single word against the oppression of Muslims in horrendous prisons built by the invaders.
The filthy Shi’a, who now govern Iraq with the pimps and prostitutes of the Sunnis, only send weapons to be used against Israel, in order to change the conflict of Palestine into a territorial issue. an externalised, Western concept of ownership of land.
Is the struggle of the Irish people for the rights of the Scottish people not to have been driven out of Scotland? No. Is it for the people of Northern Ireland to be governed by the South? No. It is for the party that caused the problem to be excluded forever from interfering again.
The struggle of the Palestinian people is 90% a struggle about the legitimacy of the UK and US to interfere with their region. To fund Israel, to invade Iraq, to buy Egypt, to threaten the Arab oil states. The war of legitimacy, thanks to the internet, is now over. Nobody in the whole world now believes that the UK or US are anything but mischief-makers in global affairs,
Back at home in Europe, we see Saz the Hungarian Jew, deporting Romanians and Daz forming links with Turkey that oppresses its Native Kurdish population.
Do they feel secure in launching a Nazi- Nationalistic program of hate because their assets are abroad? They think that neither the bankrupcy of the state nor the violence they are inciting now against Romanians and later against Muslims, can touch them in their safe havens abroad?
This last resort of civil war, was tried the last time Islam took a foothold in Europe when the entire knowledge of science was imported from Muslim countries to the ignorant West. Do they think that, even if the Muslim message of Justice took hold, that within twenty years the British people will be begging for the monarchy and the status quo to return? Do they really think that 1640 is the same as 2010?
Yes, they really do. They think that their oppression of Iraq and Palestine and Afghanistan has gone unheeded by the British public, who only think about sex and football. Sorry chaps, but I have a better opinion of the English people. The struggle of the internet exposure of our rulers’ crimes is slowly and inexorably working. If they think that their money hoards abroad, or their nukes or their global wheely-dealings can protect them from the rage and indignation of the English, look at the MPs expenses scandal, look at Tony Blair’s pathetic attempt to appear in public at a book sale. They are not going to succeed in creeping back in again with their pomp and toffy accents next time. Mark my words.
Wow, come back after a week spent applying gloss to Craigs new abode and the world is still as reprehensible than it was before.
I enjoyed the total absence from all modern trappings, no radio, computer or TV, despite the intense physical exhaustion, felt like a battery re charge.
As much as would like to agree with Anno, I did not see the great british public rise up for an innocent bystander to a demonstration, subsequently killed by internal bleeding after being hit with a baton and pushed to the ground, misdiagnosed by the coroner, now utterly discredited and punished for his lack of proffessionalism in other cases, not to speak of the director of public prosecutions making out that the case has tragically missed some timespan.
Could it be possible that only when we personally feel attacked/ diminished or betrayed by Government policies, questioning of benefits or entitlement to them, that we feel alianted to the Government.
It takes a very special incident to ensure that more than one group takes up the cudgle, imho., something Ian Tomlinsons case, despite being witnessed by millions around the country/globe, did not have enough of.
Emphasis alone does not make for crowds anymore, only when a direct personal broken relationship with the institutions of Government occurs, are there chances of a cohesive reaction against the machinations of Orwellianism.
As always, anno, there is a core of outrage and humanity in your post of 11:33am. One cannot disagree with much of what you write. I do not agree with your projection that the British people will convert en masse to Islam; it is not realistic. But in any case, you metaphorically shoot yourself in the foot by using phrases like, “the filthy Shi’a”.
If you are 30 miles from Kirkuk, you must be in Iraq, since there is no national border within 30 miles of Iraq. I assume you are in the autonomous Kurdish area of Iraq. I thought you said you were in Turkey; but perhaps you have traveled south-east since then and are visiting Kirkuk.
I do not think that any group of people ought to be described as “the filthy such-and-such”.
If this is the type of Islam that you wish the British people to adopt, then one would have to question whether that would represent any progress on the present situation.
Somewhat oversdhadowed by the Popery displays, P Charles and the Crocodile Wife get wheeled out to attend a Battle of Britain service today. Just keep fanning the war flames and the drums beating.
My sentiments exactly here.
http://tamplinsentire.blogspot.com/2010/09/blitz-season-valour-by-association.html
Little mention of the terrrrrr alert now abandoned. I pity the ordeal that the poor North Africans, probably working for a pittance for the Israeli friendly Veolia, have endured.
I saw yesterday that the front pages of all the MSM was replete with a new conspiracy theory.
And where were the conspiracy debunkers…? Asleep, no doubt.
Fact is, most of them are interested only in debunking conspiracy theories which are positioned against the military and corporate entities of imperialism. They are silent on the conspiracy theories propounded by elements of those same entities because they support the strategies of those entities.
In other words, most of them are hypocrites.
Thanks, Suhayl. Ingo complains that we haven’t risen up in our unanimous millions and made the world a perfect place (yet) ? Hey, we can’t even keep the conversation on a human-rights-based website from looking like a total rabid dead loss, at times.
*And* it’s raining miserably. Blearghh.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hKm0veWQ9IxEjmWJVYhyTToG-99Q
“Julian Assange is free to leave Sweden, after prosecutors said there was no arrest warrant against him”.
Ingo,
It’s going to very interesting to see what happens when the cuts come and take effect. For surely it’s economics that drives violent protest.
People have noted what happened to Tomlinson. Most people, I think, believe that the state killed Dr Kelly and perhaps Garetth Williams. Most people feel absolute rage at Tony Blair’s illegal war and the treatment of the people of Gaza.
So when the government takes away people’s jobs, how are they going to react? I suspect the rage and disgust lurking beneath the calm exterior will culminate in violent protest. But where will it go? The government under the pretext of Terrorism has been preparing for this for quite a while.
Thanks, Richard.
The other matter wrt anno’s post of 11:33am (I’m not getting at you, anno, it’s just I think it important that someone point this out) is that the way in which Sarkozy is referred to as “the Hungarian Jew” is derogatory for the wrong reasons.
From what I know of them, I do not agree with much of Sarkozy’s policies and it is ironic when the children of immigrants behave badly towarsd newer immigrants (eg. Michael Howard, the ex-Home Secretary of the UK and ex-Leader of the Conservative Party). Now, I found Howard’s politics awful in most ways. He got made fun of because of his Welsh accent – and that too was unacceptable and stupid.
I know some South Asian British people, of various faiths and none, who also behave badly – or have silly attitudes – towards newer immigrant groups. So it’s a common human trait, let’s not go into the psychology of it right now.
But to refer to Sarkozy as “the Hungarian Jew” really does objectify Jewish people of Hungarian origin in a manner that is not appropriate.
I’m not being ridiculously PC here, I think that there is a serious point to be made and I also think that language is important because it often reveals things about a person and their attitudes.
So, we have “filthy Shi’as” and “the Hungarian Jew”. So, anno, I would like you to think for a moment about what all that might say about you?
Ruth, that’s an excellent point. This is where the lack of a well-organised, rational liberatory political movement will be crucial. The Trades Unions are attempting to fill the gap, but many people nowadays cannot join a union and the unions themselves are not what they were. They also are linked with the Labour Party, which – as the Lib Dems are doing right now – has discredited itself over 13 years in power.
So there is no redistributive mass party in the UK today.
Perhaps we will see a broad alliance of church, etc., unions, leftist and other social groupings coming together in a sort of anti-capitalist framework, a little like in the 1980s, but it won’t be a coherent movement because it won’t be able to present a credible alternative government/ system. It’ll be a one-issue protest movement, the issue being ‘Jobs and Services’ (crucial issue, but still one issue). So the Labour Party will attempt to hijack it. That shouldn’t dissuade anyone, though.
Will we see troops and tanks on the streets of London (other than in an attempt to generate fear in response to fake plots by facilities assistants aka cleaners)? We shall see, we shall see.
Ah! Now isn’t that a surprise?! What a farce. With our money, too.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20100919/tuk-six-freed-after-pope-plot-probe-dba1618.html
Surprise, surprise!
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20100919/tuk-six-freed-after-pope-plot-probe-dba1618.html
Personal economics will be the instigator, we shall see how much people will accept to have their lifestyle screwed back before they get enraged. It will not just be the working classes, but also middle and upper middle class that will feel the pinch.
Globalisation will further screw down wages further, in professions we can’t even imagine, like surgents and doctors.
Who ever organises in future using the absolute minimum of electronics/internet/telephone comms will be most successfull.
far from seeing tanks on the streets of London alone, protests, I assume, will decentralise and stretch our privatised political policer’s somehwat.
Daily Express still managed to get the headline ‘Muslims in Plot to Kill Pope’ into the subconsciences of the shopping public, however. Why can they not be sued?
“So there is no redistributive mass party in the UK today. ”
Good news.
People don’t want redistribution, they don’t want a bloated bureacracy of overpaid nannies presuming to tell them what to think and how to live, while spying on them night and day and requiring complaince with all kinds of rules and regulations before they get their measly hand-outs.
People want real jobs that allow them to support themselves and their families. That means shutting the gate on imports of goods and services provided by Asians working for slave labor rates. It also means shutting the gate to people like Anno, who arrive in the west as settlers intent on establishing their own culture and way of life without respect for the beliefs and traditions of the people among whom they have come to live and with whom they will compete for work, housing and social position.
At least the goddam Vikings converted to Christianity.
By the way Suhayl, I don’t get it. What are these conspiracy theories that conspiracy theorists refuse to consider?
“So there is no redistributive mass party in the UK today”
Well, no. We have a few variants of the redistributive minority party, though …
oh great, the Iron Curtain replaced by the Silk Curtain. At least silk’s beautiful, as indeed is much of Eastern culture. I would infinitely prefer anno with his beliefs, which also seem to include debate and interaction, and do not include force, to the gatekeeper who would forcibly lock him out for them. A man down my street believes that Jesus escaped from the cross, thereby running entirely contrary to Christian belief, even though he’s a pinkish Eastender. What would the gatekeeper do with him?
anno: hey though; i agree with suhayl. not good to hear you sound so extreme right wing and unpleasant. it’s all one god, you know, (or none, or one goddess, depending on your POV). why so tribal? are you having a hard time? what’s happened to your business?
Anno said,
“Energy is not dirt cheap for nothing.
I am sitting 30 miles away from Kirkuk, whence for example thousands of tankers travel to Iran. …”
What all that’s supposed to mean I’m not sure, but the price — which I mentioned — of energy here in Canada has nothing to do with the politics of the ME. Canada is one of the World’s largest energy producers and exporters and our electricity, which is about the cheapest in the World, is generated at a profit from falling water.
Alfred, I think – and will be corrected if wrong – that anno is a white British person who converted (or he might say, reverted) to Islam as an adult. He is not a “settler”.
The conspiracy was that of the giant buffing-machine. The cleaners who were arrested and then released without charge.
I’m not arguing for ‘Flatland’, Alfred. Right now, a tiny percentage of people control – own – most of the wealth and they do not behave in a manner conducive to the national good – or at least, they define the national good in other terms. They have engaged in a massive social engineering experiment over the past 3o+ years. They are the purveyors of the sort of managerialism to which you referred. ‘Left’ or ‘Right’, corporate managerialism (‘the nanny’) comes to the same.
Most people want decent education, transport, etc. and jobs with some degree of security and the prospect of advancement. That does require – or necessitates – redistribution, because over the past 30+ years, wealth has become concentrated inefficiently and in a toxic manner – in the hands of a few very rich elites.
I am arguing for a proper mixed economy where people with initiative and enterprise are able to use their heads, take their skills and run with them (so that the jobs which you mention are created in real sectors), where service provision – railways, health, education – is high quality and is provided by you-and-me (the state) and a definitive end to militaristic corporatism. I agree about slave labour, btw, and the whole damned dynamic of predatory gangster capitalism.
or many gods, or animism.