I am becoming quite fond of my little corner of Schiphol airport. I have put up my Christmas cards and a few bits of tinsel. I now have a boarding card for the 0800 to Manchester. This is the sixth boarding card I have had. It is very hard to understand why, time after time, they don’t know a flight is cancelled until some time after it was due to leave and all the passengers have queued at the gate for hours.
Of course, Manchester is a lot further from Ramsgate than Schiphol is, so even if the flight atually goes, this represents rather dubious progress.
Happy New Year everybody.
Remarkably, KLM delivered my lost luggage, including my laptop, at 9.30 pm on New Year’s Eve. At that time a pretty lively party was already in full swing,much improved by the presence of a great many beautiful young women, mostly from Latvia. I am not sure why; my life as ever consists of a bewildering succession of chance encounters with really nice people. I am in the fortunate position of being able to say that Nadira was the most lovely of all, without indulging in dutiful hyperbole.
It was an extremely happy Christmas. Having my mum, both my brothers and all my three chidren together was as great as it was rare.
We have been through the laptop in lost luggage discussion before. The problem is that my shoulders dislocate at the drop of a hat, and I travel without hand luggage to avoid an accident.
2011 is going to be a very important year for me. particularly the first quarter. A number of crucial events are going either to set me up financially for the rest of my life, or result in real distress and failure. At present I have reason to be very optimistic. I am also very absorbed in my life of Alexander Burnes, which I hope will help establish a serious academic reputation.
The Portuguese edition of Murder in Samarkand has sold unexpectedly well in Brazil. The translation of the Turkish edition has just been finished.
I hope to do a Wikileaks retrospective in the next couple of days. Just a quick thought on the case of the poor young gardener in Bristol. Of the Jill Dando case, long before Barry Bulsara’s succesful appeal I blogged that this appeared to be a miscarriage of justice in which the police had fitted up the local weirdo.
Despite not being enamoured of landlords in general, I fear the same dynamic is at work in Bristol, albeit Chris Jefferies is much more intellectually capable than Bulsara. My instinct is that the police have picked up on Jefferies for being camper than a boy scout jamboree and archer than Trajan.
Jefferies’ release on bail has me worried that there was nothing against him other than the “He’s a weird one, guv” instinct of some not very bright cop. The case needs to be closely watched as history shows that the powers of the police to make the evidence fit the suspect are considerable.
The idiots here, not being accustomed to religious introspection, and regarding such thoughts as nothing more than an absurd guilt-trip which should be shrugged off with manly self-confidence like the fucking yanks do, would not make the link.
They would go back again, again, again to the Zionist banks and the Chinese and Arab Muslims and re-mortgage the entirety of their debt till they had mortgaged the air we breathe and the licence to have a heart-beat. Stupidity incarnate – the logic of the worship of the Market. They found the god that they created – and it turned out to be Baal.
hello, glenn? would you also approve of “foreigners” stopping British workers “undercutting” them? What are you arguing for here?
If you mean, rules enforcing the minimum wage for all concerned should be enforced, I’d agree with you. But as unions across the world prove, theirs is a common cause, regardless of national boundaries.
anno, chill, I bet you weren’t worshipping Baal at Westminster. If people are lost, then what helps them? Someone bellowing ‘you’re damned’ in their ear?
Glenn – again, as a 911 truther, you have more in common with the teabaggers than with me or Barack Obama.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1900649,00.html
Mark,
Can we say of Tony Blair what you said about the US rape/murderer, that he already suffered psychological problems before he engaged in military intervention, and that being surrounded as he was as prime Minister with people with little or no respect for the sanctity of human life like George Bush and Rumsfield etc. etc.
The non-religious on this blog do not like the compassion of making excuses because they do not believe in sin or redemption and consider themselves to have evolved beyond these ideas. Stuff happens, in their opinion, and nobody could predict it or compensate for it. We are random binary accidents floating like sea-shrimp in a tide of absurdity. It is their stupidity which prevents moral issues either being defined or addressed. They like it that way, because they do not feel comfortable with what their own hands have set forth!
If you look closely, you can see Glenn from four years ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_QyYMhWtbQ
anno, you seem like someone who would kill your child if a god-like voice told you to kill your child.
Another great phrase:
“We are random binary accidents floating like sea-shrimp in a tide of absurdity.”
Discuss…
AB, for interest, let me try your questions:
1. “Government mandated indoctrination in school of young children with politically correct views about sexuality, race and gender”.
I don’t see this as indoctrination, to be honest. Should we have equality of sexualities, races, and genders? Yes, unequivocally. I think we’re not there yet on any of them, especially gender – where the consequences of emerging rights has not yet played through.
On a tangent, I would be supportive of teaching “thinking” as a separate topic in schools – perhaps if children were taught critical analysis, they could look at all other teaching they receive, and form their own judgments in a more rounded and analytical way.
“3. The undermining of the independent authority of school teachers.”
“4. The promotion of measures that undermine parental authority and promote family breakdown.”
I am fully supportive of the banning of smacking at home and at school. Question 4 rather “begs the question”, though, doesn’t it? No-one has set out to promote family breakdown – or is that your thesis?
I agree that human rights and child protection have created an aura of invulnerability around a minority of young trouble-makers at school. But violence, or the threat of it, is not the answer – especially in loco parentis. Schools at the moment are judged on the number of pupils that achieve a certain number of awards, and so are dissuaded from suspensions and expulsions – so I think I would try to change that. I am somewhat in favour of using persuasive mechanisms against recalcitrant parents also, though I’d want this to be evidence-led, rather than simply a system to satisfy the class-based disgust of Mail readers!
“5. Mass immigration to destroy national identity, and undermine the economic welfare of the indigenous population.”
Again, begging the question. Was immigration intended to destroy national identity? No. Was it intended to undermine the economic welfare to the existing population? No. If we accept these things have happened, they were the unintended consequences of globalisation.
I am not a nationalist, and I find people more interesting than customs, so I am not perhaps the best person to ‘speak out’ for national identity. I am, also, furious what our nation – though it is not a person nor a thing – has done around the world in the name of capital. All the deaths, the torture, the poverty that could be alleviated, the hunger, the greed, the suffering.
I rather like the idea of being proud of ones nation, to be honest, but right now I don’t think the British – from an international perspective – have much to be proud of. Perhaps I need to try to separate out the good things about our nation from the bad things I have no control over? I don’t know.
“6. Contempt for the religious tradition of the nation.”
I was brought up in a particularly nasty kind of born-again Christianity, in which a vengeful, angry god rules over his pitiful subjects with fury and hellfire. I have plenty of contempt for that, sure, and it’s justified.
The religious traditions of the nation? I am not sure I feel contempt for them, as such, though I feel no strong attachment for them either. I’d sweep them away, I think, over time, so as not too offend anyone. I think religion has done more harm than good, in sum, and that the state (and monarchy) could set a good example by reducing its own involvement.
I wonder, if I were to set a counter-question – regarding the indoctrination of British children with ideas about the official state religion – what would you say? I expect you’d say the question was loaded, and you’d be right – but then if you were in support of this, you’d run into the problem that things you approve of in school is “teaching”, and things you personally disapprove of is “indoctrination”. Tricky!
“7. Encouragement of dependency on the state.”
There is some dependency on the state, sure, and I don’t know the best way to get out of it. But I am certain this was not a deliberate policy – why would elites want to create such an unsustainable system? Worse case scenario: the money runs out, social unrest ensues, and political upheaval might result. Even if you ascribe the worst kinds of greed to all politicians, it is still most unlikely.
On balance, I think having a welfare state is better than not having one. British healthcare, and health indicators, are still better than those of the United States – and per capita they spend a great deal more on their healthcare. But ours is welfare-based, and is much fairer.
I am wary of punitive policies with welfare, since this can aggravate situations – especially recalcitrant parents with young dependents. Does one punish the children for the errors of the parents? Of course not. I am in favour of community service for benefit claimants though, if they don’t have children: not as a punishment, mind, but as a fair swap for financial support during unemployment.
The awkward problem at the moment is that any punitive steps taken under the current government will be seen by claimants as the spiteful, patrician hand of a millionaire cabinet. Osborne and Cameron really have no idea what real life is like, nor will they give credit for the difficulties ordinary people have faced.
“8. The transformation of a free press into a stupifying distraction and channel of propaganda.”
Again, not a deliberate policy, just an effect of globalisation and neo-capitalism. The monster cannot be put back into its box, and the few politicians who would like to try will be edged out by that system before they can garner any support.
This question is a bit like, “the deliberate maintenance of capitalism despite all the problems it causes”. That would be a fair point, certainly. Why is capitalism maintained? Well, some people are in favour of it. The elites and the political class find it works very well in their interests, so they won’t knock it down. It represents the status quo, and it would be quite worrying to introduce wholesale change.
So, with the elites very comfortable with the status quo, they’ll not attack the media, since the media is a business, and this is a “free” society. To attack the media is a brave thing to do if one is a politician – just ask Vince Cable!
I’d recommend the Propaganda Model for more on this topic – every time I’ve discussed it on this site, I’ve been incrementally persuaded further of its validity. It’s worth a read even if you don’t normally like Chomsky (or Hermann).
“9. The undermining of the political institutions, e.g., parliamentary democracy, upon which the existing social order depends.”
10. The promotion of separatism.”
What do you mean by these? I shall try to answer them, if you can give some examples.
seriously anno, it was a great phrase; you are a bit of writer. i think city dwellers particularly quite often feel that way. yes, even in islamabad. i would feel hesitant about making up rules for other people and judging them myself, even if i firmly believed that God had told me to.
AB
Dr.Saadi can’t answer your question re-Frankfurt School agenda. Like most of the atheistic PC Left deadbeats here he thinks the Frankfurt School is a place where they teach you how to make rolls with sausages in them.
So I’ll answer for him.
He zealously endorses all the above and shares with all other PC Guardianistas the monumental conceit that they’re all progressive measures for the good of mankind.
Amen
P.S.That’s a very secular Amen, you understand.
P.P.S.He’s an E.N.T. doctor NOT a PhD!
No I will not chill. You have got less brains than water in a Belfast reservoir. How could this universe possibly have evolved without the touch of a comprehensively informed creator? And how can we possible conduct our lives without reference to that Creator’s revealed law?
You lot are really the most unbelievably stupid bunch of idiots, gleaned out of an arrogant society that has just had 60 years without war, and thinks itself immune from every problem, while inflicting burning pain to whole nations, less than a quarter of a globe’s revolution from our shores.
Check it out. It is now 23.00 p.m. in Iraq. Never mind 45 minutes of Weapons of Massive destruction. Why are people so arrogant that you think that your maker cannot turn the finger of destruction forward by three hours?
As for Westminster School, I prayed to God on a daily basis in the Abbey and I read the lesson in morning prayers, but I did not know that the idiots I had been sent to school with were capable of invading Iraq and Affghanistan. I found out later that they were worshipping damnation, and flaunt it with pride and a national achievement of greatness. I remember ultra arrogant Zio-conservative Nigel Lawson when he was pooing his pants in class, and pathetic wimp Dominic Grieve airing his knobbly knees in shorts. So fuck off you heathens, I chose Islam and I rejected your riidiculous savagery of atheism, a-everything. Nihilistic, hiding under the demoncratic skirts of collective responsibility like Nazis. You make me vomit and I am proud that I reject everything toi which that castrated peanut Craig Murray really aspires.
@anno, I am disappointed in you. You talk a good game about religious freedom, but you seem to have problems respecting the differences between you and the non-religious.
You’ve also struggled to answer any of my points (in this post and others) on respecting said differences, the nature of capitalism, or how some features of the system do not necessarily lead to Zionism.
Crumbs @anno, at 8:02pm – is that really you? Somehow it seems to be your style, except that it has mutated into a terrible form of anger, which is not like you at all. If this is you, it may be best for you not to post for a while – not for our peace and quiet, but for yours.
but it’s not that anyone dislikes or disrespects you for choosing islam, anno.
Looking back on this decade, as people seem not to be, oddly, the defining features were of course these attacks on distant countries, following so soon the more specific, endlessly replayed shockwave of 9/11. The horror which swept this whole nation at the unfolding of what ‘we’ were capable of doing to a brother country was life changing. For me, for society.
We are still living with it, you are right. But to attack the popular resistance to this kind of thing just because you feel particularly culpable is not right, I think.
By the way, one of the last British survivors of World War One died recently. Harry Patch. He had refused to talk about the war until he was 100, and then he started to speak. His advice:
“Give your leaders guns, and let them get on with it”.
One last word. If Craig Murray was not a typical ambitious politician, and had even one peanut under his balding sporren, he would admit that 9/11 was an inside job by george Bush and the Zionists. that would put paid to all prospects of any further career in UK politics.
It’s all very well getting hot under the collar about Usbekistan cotton children but what actually counts in my book is whether you are prepared to sacrifice your own chances for the sake of truth and freedom, knowing that it is God who protects and provides – ALONE – and nobody is ever diminished by speaking the truth, and everyone suffers when those who have access to the truth hide it for their own miserable, pathetic future in this temporary world.
technicolour: Sure, let me elaborate a little on employment. I know we (the workers of the world) are all in it together, but there’s a big difference in the cost of living in our respective areas. Someone living in eastern Europe can expect to live a bit more cheaply than, say, someone in the south of England. So if a group of people rent one room and take employment, sending the money back home, it causes problems. It adds hugely to the labour pool in this country, which drives down wages and weakens employees bargaining power (which is why big business loves it). It drives up prices in the recipient country, because the families receiving the money have higher purchasing power, to the detriment of people working there.
In the eastern European country (in this example), there will be a shortage of people with the most initiative and ability, because they’ll all have hopped it to the richest countries to get work. In our country – where there is already high unemployment – having yet more people here willing to work for below minimum wage in many instances decreases our chances further. There will be boom times, but our workers will not benefit that much, with the jobs going to people who undercut wages, and won’t be returning the money to our economy anyway. In the bust times, they’ll disappear to more prosperous countries quite often, but those that remain will still make our workers’ lives more difficult.
Even worse, we see contracts for specific seasonal jobs or projects established at a fixed price. This allows some gang-master to take a fee for getting a group of foreign workers, transporting, and housing and feeding them here. The conditions are going to be as miserable as the foreign workers can stand, and they often get badly ripped off in any case. Minimum wages do not apply – this is contract work, with all the fiddles for providing facilities to the workers docked from their pay.
*
Anyway, we’re already using slaves. Real, genuine slaves, who are often sexually abused, beaten, or worked to death or driven to suicide. Only these slaves are neatly out of our sight, toiling in sweatshops in the far east. They’ve displaced our jobs too. This is called “outsourcing”, and until we put a stop to it through tariffs, it will continue to destroy our economy.
Am I answering your question?
Anon
Brave attempt to answer AB’s questions re-Frankfurt School agenda to dismantle Christian nation states.
I think your fury re-what British “capital” has done around the world is a bit vague.
Here’s a piece called A Pakistani Views British (Rothschild) Imperialism which is a tad more focussed:
http://www.rense.com/general53/hen.htm
glenn, in many ways, i think. my first thought is that what you say about Eastern Europeans being able to live more cheaply than people in the south of the UK also applies to people from Liverpool. So should we, by that logic, erect a financial wall at the Watford gap?
I suppose, essentially, they do (I wouldn’t) Can’t remember the last time I heard a Liverpudlian accent in London, might just be going to the wrong places…
let me reread!
actually have to leave, didn;t realise it was so late…
before I go (have said I’ll be late!):
“There will be boom times, but our workers will not benefit that much, with the jobs going to people who undercut wages, and won’t be returning the money to our economy anyway.”
Huh? ‘They’ pay taxes here too.
“In the bust times, they’ll disappear to more prosperous countries quite often, but those that remain will still make our workers”
“our” workers?
This whole thing has to be addressed, I agree. Protectionism or globalism? In fact, the problem is not solved by excluding ‘foreign’ workers: people will then point out that Chinese workers will do the same job as UK ones for 0.1 p an hour, or whatever. The corollary being that none of us workers are safe in our beds until we accept the same wages as the pesky Chinese. And work ten times harder. I bet the same scam’s being perpetuated on the Chinese, in fact.
Happy new year to you, technicolour – didn’t think I had time to say so!
And to answer your question, no – we shouldn’t put up walls around different parts of the country. Got to draw the line somewhere, and besides – harmonising the affluence around our country is in our national interest. It’s not in our national interest to drop our wages to the point that we’re competing against prison forced-labour in China.
Very often, you’ll find people working for not quite the minimum wage (for cash in hand jobs) not quite paying taxes either. And since they’ll spend as little of what they make as possible, there’ll be minimum sales tax paid too.
Perhaps you didn’t get right to the end point, about the true slavery our investor class is benefiting from. And us, to some extent – having a slave making our mobile telephones etc. is a heck of a saving over paying someone a decent wage to make it. Right up until our own job is outsourced.
OK, out of door, but glenn this is a curiously one nation view of wages, I think, especially when the same amount of British people work in what you call ‘foreign countries’ about whom ‘you have to draw the line somewhere’. Would you like ‘foreign countries’ to impose similar restrictions on ‘British’ workers? Should we kiss goodbye to living & working abroad? Or do you see a European regulation here? Or perhaps, a no-border solution?
Happy New Year everyone. See you on the other side, in 2011.
Pax vobiscum.
@technicolour, on books and things.
Not really of this year, but in case no-one else points you at it: The Rest is Noise, by Alex Ross, about music in the 20th century. More racy and interesting than it sounds (Hitler, Wagner, Schoenberg, edgy stuff).
As regards ‘”We are random binary accidents floating like sea-shrimp in a tide of absurdity.” Well that’s just Albert Camus. Just in case it crops up in your pub quiz, he’s the only modern novelist/philosopher who played football for his country (goalkeeper for Algeria – now there’s a dead-end job description).
@anno
Much of what you post here is interesting but please try to keep us on board. Give some attention to what Clark has said about the possible ways of discussing religion, remembering that the mob here is very mixed, with various religions at assorted levels – even the atheism comes in flavours.
@all
A happy and prosperous New Year – you too larry, hope you’ll stay with us in 2011.
Happy New Year to everyone! I’m also out until we hit the other side. Take care, and best wishes one and all!
The anonymous answers to AB’s questions, at December 31, 2010 7:53 PM, was me – sorry.
Happy New Year to all.
@anno:
“but what actually counts in my book is whether you [Craig] are prepared to sacrifice your own chances for the sake of truth and freedom”
He did, though, didn’t he?
Kevin Macdonald on the Frankfurt School’s ethno-supremacist agenda:
http://www.kevinmacdonald.net/chap5.pdf
It was Saint Simone’s Science of Man that influenced the development of Sociology which in turn laid the theoretical groundwork for totalitarianism.
Yep, that’s what Frankfurt was all about: leftist PC authoritarianism and ideological purity. We see it here everyday!