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.
Technicolor said,
“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?”
I guess it’s the end of British civilization when it becomes generally acceptable for the traditions of the nation to be trivialized and ridiculed, as though Monty Python tells you all there is to know about English culture.
Anyone who is actually interested in the British tradition of comon law, parliamentrary democracy and Christianity might do well to read Roger Scruton, followed by Baghot, and Macaulay’s History of England. Or better perhaps, to reverse the order.
“or many gods, or animism.”
or, indeed, good old agnosticism.
Suhayl,
“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 ‘Right’, corporate managerialism (‘the nanny’) comes to the same.”
Agreed.
But we need to be very careful about endorsing any system of redistribution. Much evil, waste and futility has been wrought in the name of redistribution.
A better idea, I believe, is the recognition of a fundamental right to work for a living wage. To implement, this might entail an element of redistribution but the cost would be trivial relative to the cost of welfare services necessitated by those lacking the income to permit a healthy and fulfilling existence and who, through idleness, become demoralized or vicious.
Re: Anno, the color of his skin? Who cares? But whether or not he is an immigrant, he is propagating an alien faith in a way that is alien to the tradition of religious tolerance and diversity established in England during the 17th century.
Good point, Alfred. Yes, the failed models of the past – whether economic or religious – need to be avoided, I agree.
I’m not sure I’d characterise Islam as “an alien faith” (nor, I suspect, would Michael Scot, the C12th Great Magus of Selkirk), but I do agree that the important principles fought for and established during C17-C20th, in particular the separation of church and state and religious tolerance, need to be strengthened, nurtured and extended and a firm stand taken against those of whatever persuasion who would reverse them.
In defence of some aspects of a nanny state – does anybody else remember the stories of how milk-rationing eliminated rickets from British cities for the first time ?
Correction: Church and state are not officially separate in England as they are in, say, the USA and Scotland – I forgot for a moment.
You cared about the colour of Anno’s skin, Alfred, or at least, about his ethnicity.
By being intolerant to the point where you would ban (or presumably expel) people whose faiths are ‘alien to the tradition of religious tolerance’ you present a tortuous self-contradiction, and an interesting series of questions which, I fear, you will not answer.
1. Do you mean Muslims
2. If so why not say so
3. If not, which faiths do you mean?
4. Are you aware that the Muslim faith encompasses a wide range of beliefs and therefore cannot honestly be stereotyped?
5. Are you not just really saying that you dislike people who dislike other people?
The 17th century version of Britain, yes. According to its literature it was angry and violent and tempestuous and amazing, and often beautiful. A civilisation in process.
Meanwhile, of course, the Arabian peninsula was filled with powerful genies and evil viziers who commanded armies of the undead, numbering in their billions. Just goes to show.
“the tradition of religious tolerance and diversity established in England during the 17th century” –Alfred
Hello?
‘Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in Great Britain and Ireland in the late 18th century and early 19th century which involved reducing and removing many of the restrictions on Roman Catholics which had been introduced by the Act of Uniformity, the Test Acts and the penal laws.’
Read all about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Emancipation
And women are more ‘docile’ are they? So where did all those jokes about hen-pecked husbands come from? And asking couples who wears the trousers? When women are in lower paid jobs it’s not because they’re “docile” either.
Someone’s got to rein that guy in!
I’ve got to fly, I’m afraid 🙂
cheers dreoilin. must have missed the women are more docile bit. Alfred, docile is a word people apply optimistically, in the mistaken expectation that they will be able control them, to cows. Not to people. A ‘docile’ man is a horrible thought, as is a ‘docile’ woman. Shame.
“milk-rationing eliminated rickets from British cities for the first time ?”
Richard, that was nothing to do with the nanny state: it was a necessaity of total war: to keep the population alive and fit to fight. And it worked well. The population was never so healthy.
What we need now is not nannies but a ban on toxic food, a heavy tax on advertising, a school curriculum that teaches kids what food is, and a jail for people like Tony Blair and all the other bought politicians who have destroyed Britain’s traditional system of representative government.
Hey, Techie. Aren’t I racist enough for you. Well sorry, but I really don’t give a damn what the color of your skin is — although I like my own, green with pink stripes.
See that hyper-aggressive Dreoilin women has gone. Phew!
I liked your previous post, Tech.
Alfred has not-so-hidden depths, one might say.
I’m doing 14 things at the same time. My own fault entirely.
L8R!
“See that hyper-aggressive Dreoilin women has gone. Phew!”
My sons consider me soft as melted butter, Alfred. 🙂
Gone now
Dreoilin, your fleeting – yet as always, much welcomed – appearance is akin to the end dying scene in an old cowboy movie!
“One last word, one last kiss, one last… where’s the treasure, Johnny?”
“The treasure is buried in the… in the… in the… urgh!”
[Man-in-White-Hat dies; head drops to one side and arm follows after a heartbeat. Eyes are closed; this is not Tarantino]
THE END
Here is a brilliant critique in the form of a book review from the New York Times, by a Washington DC insider, of the noxious Con Coughlin:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/15/books/republic-of-fear.html
“Aren’t I racist enough for you. Well sorry, but I really don’t give a damn what the color of your skin is”
No, of course not, just about people coming to ‘The West’ with their ‘alien faiths’.
“milk-rationing eliminated rickets from British cities for the first time ?”
“Richard, that was nothing to do with the nanny state: it was a necessaity of total war”
The state took it upon itself to arrange what people could eat, rather than leaving it up to market forces. If that doesn’t count just because there was a good reason for it, then I think you’re assuming what you claim to be trying to prove.
And another, from Ron Susskind’s book:
http://www.septicisle.info/2008/08/smoking-gun-iraqi-memo-and-con-coughlin.html
I post these links simply as a reminder of the depth and compass of the agents of disinformation.
Re: Catholic emancipation
Dreoilin,
There were other sources of information before Wikipedia, or so I vaguely recall. You might consult them.
The thing about the revolution of 1688 is that after it, we no longer burnt Catholics. Of course we still distrusted them as agents of a foreign power.
The Spanish Armada, remember that. It sailed with the blessing of the Pope. However, God confounded their knavish tricks, as history records.
Then there was that Stuart bastard, James II, who brought a French army to Ireland and incited the Papists to despoil the English Landlords. LOL. You’re lucky your ancestors wern’t deported in chains to the Indies.
After 1815, when England was recognized as the World hegemon, fear of Catholic subversion naturally subsided, although judging by the reception of the Pope, a trace of antagonimsm remains.
Richard,
War-time food rationing and government controlled distribution was all about ensuring the people were fit to serve the state. Nannying is all about the the State serving the people, you know: “we’re from the Government, we’re here to help you.”
Tech:
Re: “about people coming to ‘The West’ with their ‘alien faiths'”
An immigrant either comes as a settler, intent on establishing a community of their own faith and culture in a foreign land, or the are prepared to integrate. As a matter of state policy, I would restrict immigration only to the latter group. Of course if you don’t mind living in a country such as Iraq where, to judge from Ano’s comments, the Shia and Sunni Moslems face one another like scorpions in a bottle, then you’re entitled to your view.
Regarding “scorpions in a bottle”, all this antagonism in Iraq, it’s really quite new. I don’t mean wrt Karbala, etc. I mean wrt recent times.
I know a guy who grew up and lived in Basra from the 1950s-1980s. He told me that he happens to be Sunni but that really it was never an issue in Iraq in those days.
This is how some rulers and external powers divide-and-rule people by such tactics – and then of course there are those ethnic/ tribal/ religious leaders who then benefit from all of that. Vicious cycle.
Alfred, there is a complex, multi-layered discussion to be had in relation to the ‘diversity/ integration’ dynamic to which you alluded – and it is a complex issue, there is no absolute ‘right and wrong, black and white’ rubric here. But in the spirit of observation of human nature, tell me this, have you visited the Costa Del Sol recently?
Alfred at 8.11: this post seems to contain contributions by two different people with two very different styles.
Otherwise, I can’t see the sense in your response. What is your distinction between establishing one’s community and culture and ‘integrating’?
As you should know, the Shia Sunni rivalry in Iraq rose to a vicious intensity after ‘Shock & Awe’.
I want to shake that bicycle guy’s hand and buy him a drink. This brings to mind Woody Guthrie’s guitar. A spontaneous demonstration in the middle of Glasgow, brilliant. No fascists here! The Youtube video was posted by a BNP supporter, as the subtitle and comments demonstrate. But it’s backfired; this video is doing the rounds across the web in the UK, publicising their defeat on the street by the ordinary people of a great city.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egq9713Kb54
On the Costa Del Sol, one can find virtually hermetically-sealed enclaves of Little England. Now, there’s nothing wrong with pubs selling roast beef, spuds, English mustard and Yorkshire Pud (one of my favourites!) and pints of warm beer in 105 degrees Fahrenheit at 36 degrees north of the Equator and good luck to them, but it does illustrate something about human nature, I think.
So, while personally I am not into the assorted constructed Nativisms that have permeated some sections of the populace of our inner cities in recent times, as I say this whole area is not a straightforward matter.
“this whole area is not a straightforward matter.”
Perhaps Alfred would like to explain it by talking about what he’s integrated with in Canada ?
Ah! Here’s another member of the Worldwide Conspiracy to Destroy Our Way of Life and Replace Our Brains With Lamb Korma:
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20100919/tuk-briton-in-airport-terror-arrest-6323e80.html
The key question here is, was he a cleaner and did he ever use, or know anyone who might have used, a buffing-machine?
“have you visited the Costa Del Sol recently?”
Good grief, no, Suhayl.
I have no desire to witness the destruction of an old and glorious civilization at the hands of a bunch of English fish and chip eating, dope smoking, beer swilling Yahoos. Fortunately for the Spanish, they never did live much by the sea.
A very long time ago, I spent a few days in San Sebastian: a lovely town where it was the custom, on a summer evening, for the young women to walk around the town square clockwise (if I recall correctly) and the young men to walk around the square in the opposite direction: the counter-rotating streams eying one another with interest.
A charming scene for tourists seated at sidewalk cafes sipping vermouth and soda or whatever at something like six old pence a shot.
“Alfred at 8.11: this post seems to contain contributions by two different people with two very different styles.”
Must be my left brain and my right brain. Which do you prefer?
“What is your distinction between establishing one’s community and culture and ‘integrating’?”
Techie,
If that is not self-evident, I am at a loss to know how to explain. Perhaps you should read up on English history. You might then realize what a national culture is and, in particular, what England’s national culture and tradition are.
As you should know, the Shia Sunni rivalry in Iraq rose to a vicious intensity after ‘Shock & Awe’.
Well of course.
Before that the sunnis had an iron grip. No point in anyone trying to rival them. But as I’ve written elsewhere (and have mentioned above –http://canadianspectator.ca/stuff/WWIII.html), I believe the self-destructive violence in Iraq was deliberately fomented by the invaders with the aim of destroying the local culture.
was this idyllic scene before or after Franco?
No, Alfred, I am strangely unclear as to what ‘English’ culture is. The Colonel’s lady and Mrs O’Grady may well be sisters under the skin, but they will generally have very different tastes in art, music, and interior decor, not to mention a different dialect and quite possibly a different faith.
Perhaps you could enlighten me about English culture? You quote me MacCauley; I quote you A History of the Common People. You find beer, dope and fish and chips unpleasant, despite the fact that the first two were consumed by druids and the last is one of the dishes which has unified the islands – the other, of course, being curry.
“Perhaps Alfred would like to explain it by talking about what he’s integrated with in Canada ?”
Richard, it would take too long.
Suffice it to say that until after WW2 Canadians were the British nation in North America (however much Quebeckers resented it). There was no such thing as a Canadian citizen. All residents were British citizens.
Thus the legal and parliamentrary traditions of Canada are little different from those of Britain.
The Canadian Citizenship Act was enacted in 1947, when Prime Mininter, Mackenzie King became the first person to take the Oath of Canadian Citizenship, from Chief Justice Thibaudeau Rinfret.
The Government of Canada was conducted in accordance with an 1867 Act of the British Parliament, until passage of the Constitution Act in 1982, whereby it was enacted, “by the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same” that:
“No Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed after the Constitution Act, 1982 comes into force shall extend to Canada as part of its law.”
Since then there has been some minor divergence, but we remain a monarchy under Her Most Excellent Majesty, QEII.
In fact, Canada is more racially diverse than Britain and therefore, perhaps, socially more coherent. When you’re an immigrant from among several hundred countries, you may keep you peasant smock to bring out on cultural diversity celebration day (if we have it), but otherwise you aim to talk Canadian, dress Canadian and think Canadian.
It’s a great country, but dull — and cold (the secret of our national security. Who’d think to invade us).
“No, Alfred, I am strangely unclear as to what ‘English’ culture is”
Yes, I can tell that, Techie. Do try to inform yourself.
“was this idyllic scene before or after Franco?”
Neither. It was contemporaneous with Franco (4 December 1892 ?” 20 November 1975).