British democracy has lost its meaning. The political and economic system has come to serve the interests of a tiny elite, vastly wealthier than the run of the population, operating through corporate control. The state itself exists to serve the interests of these corporations, guided by a political class largely devoid of ideological belief and preoccupied with building their own careers and securing their own finances.
A bloated state sector is abused and mikled by a new class of massively overpaid public secotr managers in every area of public provision – university, school and hospital administration, all executive branches of local government, housing associations and other arms length bodies. All provide high six figure salaries to those at the top of a bloated bureaucratic establishment. The “left”, insofar as it exists, represents only these state sector vested interests.
These people decide where the cuts fall, and they will not fall where they should – on them. They will fall largely on the services ordinary people need.
Meanwhile we are not all in this together. The Vodafone saga only lifts the lid for the merest peek at the way the corporate sector avoids paying its share, hiding behind Luxembourg or Cayman tax loopholes and conflicts between international jurisdictions – with which our well provided politicians are very happy. The often excellent Sunny Hundal provides a calm analysis of the Vodafone case here:
Let me tell you something else about Vodafone. Vodafone took over Ghana Telecom three years ago. They paid an astonishingly low price for it – 1.2 billion dollars, which is less than the value of just the real estate GT owned. The value of the business was much higher than that, and there was a substantively higher opening bid from France Telecom.
The extraordinary thing was the enormous pressure which the British government put on Ghana to sell this valuable asset to Vodafone so cheaply. High Commissioner Nick Westcott and Deputy High Commissioner Menna Rawlings were both actively involved, with FCO minister Lord Malloch Brown pressurising President Kuffour directly, with all the weight of DFID’s substantial annual subvention to Ghana behind him.
What is the point of DFID giving taxpayer money to Ghana if we are costing the country money through participating in the commercial rape of its national assets?
And why exactly was it a major British interest that Vodafone – whose Board meets in Germany and which pays its meagre taxes in Luxembourg – should get Ghana Telecom, as opposed to France Telecom or another company? Was privatisation at this time the best thing for Ghana at all?
This Vodafone episode offers another little glimpse into the way that corporations like Vodafone twist politicians like Mark Malloch Brown around their little fingers. It mioght be interesting to look at his consultancies and commercial interests now he is out of office.
BAE is of course the example of this par excellence. Massive corruption and paying of bribes in Saudi Arabia, Tanzania end elsewhere, but prosecution was halted by Tony Blair “In the National Interest”. BAE of course was funnelling money straight into New Labour bagmen’s pockets, as well as offering positions to senior civil servants through the revolving door. Doubtless they are now doing the same for the Tories – perhaps even some Lib Dems.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/01/jack_straws_cor.html
It is therefore unsurprising the BAE were able to write themselves contracts for aircraft carriers which were impossible to cancel and that their New Labour acolytes were prepared to sign such contracts. It is, nonetheless, disgusting. Just as it is disgusting that there is no attempt whatever by the coaliton to query or remedy the situation. There is no contract in the UK which cannot be cancelled by primary legislation.
Meanwhile, bankers’ bonus season is upon us again and these facilitators of trade and manufacture are again set to award themselves tens of billions of pounds to swell the already huge bank accounts of a select few, whose lifestyle and continued employment is being subsidised by every single person in the UK with 8% of their income. This was because the system which rewards those bankers so vastly is fundamentally unsound and largely unnecessary. Money unlinked to trade or manufacture cannot create infinite value; that should have been known since the South Sea Bubble.
Yet even this most extreme example of government being used to serve the interests of the wealthy and powerful at the expense of everyone else, has not been enough to stir any substantial response from a stupoured, x-factored population, dreaming only of easy routes to personal riches, which they have a chance in a million of achieving.
Conventional politics appears to have become irretrievably part pf the malaise rather than offering any hope for a cure. But political activity outwith the mainstream is stifled by a bought media.
I see no hope.
Mark: No disrespect, but I’m surprised at your comments concerning scepticism and religion, for a man of your intelligence and reading. To actually believe that a single entity designed and created the entire universe just for our benefit, and that he needs to periodically send along prophets to inform us of why he did so, and what we’re supposed to do, requires credulity not usually attainable by adults.
There’s no logic, evidence or solid reasoning behind any religion, which is why it has to all be based on faith. The various gods (christian particularly) would have to be such a blood-soaked monster as to make the Biblical character the most diabolical sadist and mass murderer in anybody’s history.
Anyone worshipping for any given religion has simply failed to drop one more god from the huge list available. The ancient mumbo-jumbo and superstitions are easy enough to understand – people were too ignorant to have a better explanation back then. Why should intelligent people today want to take seriously primitive explanations that people – not god/gods, but people – invented to explain the observed phenomenon of life?
Religion, as you must be aware, has caused untold misery, war, death, division and hatred in the world. Science and reason, compassion and democratic socialism is the key to the survival of this planet, not millennia-encrusted dogma and superstition.
Well, you hit the heresy bullseye in one. God is not present here with us. This is not where He has His being.
If you ask a child where God is, they point to the sky. He has communication with everywhere and He also knows the un-seen (by us).
Why heresy? Scholars say that it is misleading to state that God is everywhere because it leads to the idea that humans co-exist on the same level as Him. It is helpful for humans to know that God is in charge. It is also extremely dangerous for everybody when a human thinks that they have even a whisker of God’s power or knowledge. I agree with Vronsky on that.
Muslims scholars are always falling into the trap of playing politics with their fellow human beings. That is false power, based on lying, spying and manipulation. It is the big trap for all Muslims to think that God has delegated any authority to them. He has made them witnesses to what is going on around them, and even the prophets were described as merely warners and bringers of good tidings.
One of the tricks that the former custodians of Islam, the Jews, like to play on the Muslims, is to persecute them so that they retaliate from their own anger. Jihad is for the sake of God, not my own feelings. That is the clearest reason why Muslims do not do terrorism. In jihad, you inform your tormentor of their error so that they and everybody else understands that you want falsehood to cease, not human beings.
Glenn
assalamu ‘alaykum
http://mindbodypolitic.com/deleted-chapter-on-pro-israeli-media-control-in-loe/
This – above – is a deleted chapter from Lila Rajiva’s book, ‘Language of Empire’. She informs us on her blog that the chapter was deleted from the book at the request of her editor. She’s posted it on her blog. It’s a good critique.
asiansinmedia.org/news/article.php/publishing/1407
I reviewed her book on a web-mag, ‘Asians in the Media’, edited by Sunny Hundal (before he set up ‘Liberal Conspiracy’). She found it impossible to get reviews in the MSM. I’ve removed the prefixes on the link to the review.
glenn,
There is no logic, no evidence, no solid reasoning and I agree with your last paragraph; as you surmised I am aware of the religious dogma, superstition and conflict, but I am also aware that religion has given so much comfort, cohesion and love to many. When my father was in a hospice I saw many people who, before they died, asked for the comfort of a priest. They were literally scared to die, to let go, makes sense, nobody really wants to leave those they love.
anno,
What I mean is exactly what you stated, ‘has communication with everywhere and knows the un-seen (by us).’ in other words all around us, ‘everywhere.’
Anno… peace be upon you too.
Mark: That people may well derive some comfort, on occasion, from a belief is no indication of its validity. People also derive great stress and fear as a result of the same beliefs, and huge advantage is taken of a great many people, by those that cynically use their belief to manipulate them. None of this is an argument for the existence of an all-powerful being who watches our every move and judges our conformity to his edicts.
It should follow that if people genuinely believe in a glorious afterlife, they should be happy for others that have died – and look forward to it themselves. Why should they need a priest to comfort them, if they believe their Heavenly Father is about to reunite them with their ancestors and so on? Rather than leaving those they love, they would be overjoys to be rejoining all those that have gone before.
I believe that false hopes are worse than no hopes at all. Far better are realistic aspirations, and trying to work out what would benefit humanity and our planet, rather than what might please an angry, vengeful ‘god’ that is apparently terrified of opposition, would make enemies out of anyone failing to adhere to the precise dogma, and following dictates of self-appointed religious leaders.
Mark Golding at 9:53 PM – Mark, I know you are a decent chap and have admitted on this blog to a friendship with some MI6 personnel. You should know that MI6 was front and centre in slandering me, and I am not the only one they slandered. I think you are being a little naive and over-trusting about some of these relationships. I think Courteney heard some adverse comments that he believes. I would like to hear from him.
Roderick
You seem to have what I have heard called Satan’s ‘double-bind’. You are certain that malign forces are against you, but you have been programmed to think you are weak if you are distressed by them.
I have never been subjected to political threats, but I have experienced the malignancy of black magic operated by a Cambridge don who continuously, serially seduced a handful of married women, and also the extraordinary manipulation of truth by my ex-wife, which is now a church of England vicar. Bishops please note, you don’t have to get out of the frying pan into the fire of Roman Catholicism.
She manipulated all of the institutions against me, family, medical, police, social worker, and probably security services too. But unlike you, I seem to have arrived in a place where my enemies look powerless and stupid. You have to believe in your own instincts. Of course the security services have been persecuting you. They are pathetic idiots like the troll above. One day they will be frail, old, white-faced fools, fearing death and spiritually empty. The enemy is the indoctrination that you should not have feelings. The security services are serious twits, but it’s one’s own stiff upper lip that causes the double-bind.
Apparently the evidence for the 7/7 underground bombings shows that the bombs were underneath the train. Your persecutors are murderous nutters, so be happy! You are free from them and their political patrons. You are not obliged to feel bad about being the victim of vermicious trolls.
anno, did you say your ex-wife is now a C of E vicar, or that the Cambridge Prof. is now a vicar? How bizarre. The whole thing. And who is “the troll above”? And can you tell us something about the black magic. This is very interesting. Just to clarify, you understand. Thanks, man.
Q. Was Craig well enough to go to Scotland at the w/e?
George Galloway is considering standing for the Scottish Parliament.
“Holyrood could be calling me home. I am coming under serious pressure to be a candidate in Glasgow, for the Scottish parliament in May. Football supporters, leaders of the Asian community, trades unionists, former constituents – even members of the Labour Party are all saying that the Scottish parliament needs some heavier-weight members if it’s to develop as a real parliament worthy of the name.
It needs members who might be recognised outside their own living rooms, members with principles on which they stand, come what may. And it needs members who can speak, their own mind, without a pager in their pocket.
I’d need five per cent of the total Glasgow vote to get elected – somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 votes. My friends don’t think it’s beyond me. Neither do I. What about you?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6I8wwKbTFk
Hollyrod is caling him home, lol, more like the SWP has had enough of his guest appearance, catapulting him into Parliament when noLabours high and mighty dropped him.
They were OK with cheats and liars like Jack Straw, Phil Woolas and Elliot Morley, not to talk of Jackie Smith hiding away with her grey sister, leaving hubby home to taxpayer funded porn, but not with George, he was just too loose for the leash to fit.
I’m surprised that George Galloway did not add any quotes from his former boxing gym, like ‘a left hook followed by a straight right sorted him out.’
Craig said that he never was a boxer and keeps using this hard man quote to prop himself up.
He must be looking forward to carry on with on his ‘braggadories’ in Parliament, that oil smuggling, milk sipping little toe rag.
That said, I have yet to meet a politician who was not a liar at one or other time and it is hard not to support anything that changes Palestine’s lot.
Thanks Suhayl for the excellent blog of Lila, she seems to be another anker, a focus point for supporters of a new agenda, just as Craig, Julian and many others, is she popular with her followers?
Good anticuts site; collating all the actions – was about to try and it myself, so thanks, whoever:
http://www.anticuts.org.uk
re religion: heard it described as ‘having an imaginary friend in the sky’. Which is nice, unless that friend turns out to be a fearful bully, of course.
looks like the shareholders of waterboarding Inc. feel obliged to justify their decisions, over and over again.
Why, if they are so sure tthat they are making the right decisions?
Bush, the man who told us Saddam was in lieu with Al Quaeda, when his family had the closest ties with Bin Laden and various Taliban terrorists, indeed it was him inviting them for lunch on the ranch.
How can we believe his lies and innuendo, written to sell books, just as Blairts voyage, how can we trust a man who went into Iraq qithout a clue how to solve it, look at it, its a mess dangerous for Christians, without a Government for 8 month and still under the kosh of US mongers.
Torture did not stop the London Dockland bombing.
We are subjected to his, John Sawyers and Blairs torturous remarks, every day of the week, just when it comes up to rememberance.
This is the sickest diversion and use of Rememberance day yet, lets speak out loud and clear.
How about pinning a letter, together from folks on here, and nail it to the front doors, with a PR, of all the boot licking news shite out there.
yeas, ingo, the times should be sued for that headline; the guardian too. who cares what’s in the piece. they only read the headlines.
Bush has a point, sort of – you just have to think it through. I’ll bet if we were in a position to waterboard Bush and his ilk, terrorism would disappear in 24 hours.
Hmm. I think I need to re-read Earthly Powers: remember a scene where a priest, I think, in an attempt to convert a Nazi, ends up more or less doing that.
I agree ingo – Bush is now promoting his bio while the media keep quoting from this criminal’s book on how torture saved London from terror attacks – it makes me physically wretch – Annoyingly the mainstream press cannot boot out their SIS link person because it just happens to be the chief editor and another ‘cooker’ resides within the BBC trustees I believe – sickening!
I agree ingo – Bush is now promoting his bio while the media keep quoting from this criminal’s book on how torture saved London from terror attacks – it makes me physically wretch – Annoyingly the mainstream press cannot boot out their SIS link person because it just happens to be the chief editor and another ‘cooker’ resides within the BBC trustees I believe – sickening!
There never was any need to waterboard, and I would not be able to waste my time with Bush.
I’d leave him to his Texas landscape, somewhere dug in up to his neck, the local ant/jackdole/vulture population sort him out, at least his last act would be nutritious to some.
‘Bush and his ilk’?
A contraption for multiple waterboarding? to be set up beside a wee canal leading off the sewage works?
See what you have done now, Vronsky? you are a very bad man, (:-)
Joke aside, the coindicences are planned.
Royals are attending functions of the british Legion speaking of the fantastic job our boys are doing dying for karzai’s Kabul puppet regime.
Sadness tightens guts,
when lies are masqueraded as gospel truth,
yellorange leaves autumnly tumble,
on young graves in dusty soils,
wedding parties, sappers, sons
proud mothers weepingintheirsleep,
Remembrance recoil.
young liv
Sky News have just had Goldsmith on.
‘Waterboarding? What’s that? No we didn’t know it was happening. It’s torture anyway and we are against torture.’
Then he proceeded to give his spurious views on why we went to war, which he rehearsed at the Chilcot theatrics.
This is ZBC’s report on the young prince’s nonsense today in Wootton Bassett.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-11716129
Keep it going lads. It’s nearly the 11th and then we have Sunday at the Cenotaph. The 1,000 mile March for Honour drew a smile here.
Q. Will Cameron and Clegg he holding hands in Whitehall dans le style de Sarkozy
Anno – My situation is entirely different from yours. I’m sorry to hear about your situation with your wife. Fortunately my own relationship with my spouse is a very strong one.
I posed a simple question to Courteney that should be easy for him to answer for himself. I would like to hear from him.
I find it unnerving that most of the ‘clever’ regulars here are just sitting on their ass winging and doing damn all to lifting the discussion to tangible means by which to oppose what’s happening. Quite miserable really. Quite pathetic too.
No hope indeed – not here anyhow.
Anon – what do you suggest?
I already proposed a TAX REVOLT. And your proposal is?
anno, come on, man, give us the story of your brush with black magic. I am being serious, not trying to poke fun at you. I’m interested to know how such things might work – beyond the power of suggestion, etc. Also, the idea of a lascivious (female) Cambridge Professor who seduces other females (?sexaully or just to join her ‘cult’?) is something which seems hugely intriguing. At least it does to me. I am interested in magic – not its practice, just on an intellectual level and of course a creative level as well. Tell me, what happened to you through such malevolent forces. What did you experience?
Courtenay… you there?
some of the regulars are writing extraordinary poetry:
Sadness tightens guts,
when lies are masqueraded as gospel truth,
yellorange leaves autumnly tumble,
on young graves in dusty soils,
wedding parties, sappers, sons
proud mothers weepingintheirsleep,
Remembrance recoil.
young lives
ingo, very sorry if i added the ‘es’ to lives wrongly.
re anno and black magic: words can be spells, can they not? ‘sit’, to a trained dog, gives you a power over that dog.
Anyone wishing to understand “magic” can start with “Frogs into Princes” by Bandler and Grinder, the first of their series of books about NLP, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, as used by Common Purpose, and entertainers like Derren Brown. The Brian Eno album “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts” is quite illustrative, too.
Yes, that’s a super poem, ingo. Thanks, technicolour for posting it again, I hadn’t spotted it earlier.
Re. dogs and magic:
Aleister Crowley: Woof-woof, bow-wow. I am the Magus, you know. Obey me!
Common-or-garden dog: Grrrrrr…
Ta much, Clark, I’ll check out those suggestions.
i think early Bandler is quite interesting, but the NLP phenomenon v dodgy (Derren Brown agrees). Basically, people will believe what they want to believe, if they want to believe something.