The barefaced lie about Gadaffi being killed in the crossfire bodes ill for the openness, transparency and good government we can expect to see now in Libya. But today I am worrying about the effect on our society of human death as entertainment. I have never been an apologist for Gadaffi, but if his regime tortured and murdered, the remedy is not to torture and murder him – even the Nazis were given due process.
This murder is becoming the norm. It was a NATO air strike which took out Gadaffi’s escaping convoy and first wounded him. Two days ago two teenage sons of Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical US/Yemeni cleric executed without trial last week, were executed by a US drone attack as they had dinner. They were aged 16 and 19. They had committed no crime I can find alleged against them. There has been no publicity.
All this killing brings triumphalist politicians smirking on our screens. We seem to have become as dehumanised as ancient Rome. Little human pity is expressed for the way Gadaffi was killed – indeed there is notably less media reflection of pity or revulsion than there was at the (at least judicial) hanging of Saddam Hussein. Is that a measure of the descent into bloodlust barbarism in our society? The complete lack of empathy towards the traveller families being torn from their homes at Dale Farm is part of the same brutalism towards “the other”. Why don’t we go the whole way and have them eaten by lions in the ring?
History shows that bloody appetite once aroused feeds upon itself. We have already had Defence Secretary Hammond on Sky News today positing NATO action now against Syria, while the current US proto-pretext for attacking Iran – the fantasy plot against the Saudi Ambassador – is as believable as Gadaffi’s death in the crossfire.
More death is on the way, to keep the circus going. Then the crowds may not notice there is no bread – no jobs, and their earnings and income eaten up by huge state enforced transfers to the bankers, whether by bailouts or “quantitive easing”.
Quantitive Easing is the best con of all for the ruling classes. In the UK, the £225 billion of printed money to date under quantitive easing has been – every single penny – given to the bankers. Good money for bad, used to buy up the junk bonds which the bankers bought in their terrible investment decision making, and for which fake assets they had awarded themselves many, many billions in personal bonuses. They are rescued from the consequences of their disastrous judgements by the Bank of England printing (in old parlance) new, good money to buy the rubbish they invested in. The result – more rounds of huge personal bonuses for celebrating bankers!! Hooray!!! For you and I, stagflation.
30 months ago, when I explained that Q.E. was another huge transfer to the bankers and predicted it would lead to stagflation, I was widely ridiculed across the web. Now we have the stagflation and everything I predicted has come to pass.
All of which you would normally expect to make people pretty unhappy at the biggest transfer of wealth from poor to rich in history.
Quick! More War! More Militarism! More Blood! More Executions! More Victory for Democracy! Keep the Peasants Happy!
Get a Move On There! Come On!! Come On!! More Blood!! More Blood, Quick, Damn You!!
UPDATE
You are not alone. On the average of the last three hours, 900 people per hour were reading this article and fifty others are at this moment reading this, invisibly alongside you. Those who understand what is happening are not given a mainstream media or political voice, but we are more than you may think. Don’t feel alone in your perception of the tricks of those who govern us, and leave a comment so we can start to feel each other’s support.
@ HardHit
I agree with much of what you say but please clarify who you mean
by ‘you lot’?
Many millions in the West marched against the Iraq war and what good did it do in preventing
our warmongering leaders going ahead?
What are we going to do? you ask.
Do we march again in futile protest? Take to the streets in anger only to be water-cannoned,maybe shot,imprisoned without trial,tortured,disappeared?
These are brutal times and i dont think im being melodramatic.
I ask you now.What would you do?
Uzbek:
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And yet Nietzsche was right.
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Nietzsche? I’m a bit confused by this. As much as I enjoyed reading a bit of old Friedrich when I was young I struggle to understand what he was right about. What are you referring to, sir?
Larry Levin
When Mrs Thatcher first decreed that you had to pay bankers lots of money to stop them stealing it, and free their hands in how to manipulate it, people said to me, including my wife whose family have a private bank: Who are you to comment on banking, you’re just a bookbinder and you don’t know anything about money?
But 40 years later we learned the truth of what a minority of us had said at the time. If you still don’t get it, try re-winding your brain and experience the collapse of the banking, commercial and social system a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th time. On second thoughts don’t bother, the second wave of bank failure is coming very soon and you can watch it again.
@ Dave P Callaghan
Youre absolutely right Dave,i fear,and its a most disturbing prospect.
The function creep of this mode of extra-judicial killing will,as history shows all too well,become
an increasing norm.The drone kills and growth of dead-eyed,corn-fed,gung-ho mercenary mentality and tactics evident presently in the Middle East will,i fear,come to haunt and infect our own societies in the very near future.
Be very afraid,all.
Nietzche ?
Are you referring to his idea of ‘ that which does not kill me makes me stronger’?
I wonder if Nietzche was ever deported or tortured?
Words are easy,theory and hypothesis are easy,vague sloganeering is easy.
p.s. The second round will be imposed on us by the bankers for not agreeing to take on Syria and Iran. Post Thatcher economics is Zi-conomics. The money is there for the good boys who bomb Muslim countries, but not for the naughty ones who don’t do what they’re told.
The collusion of AlQaida (so-called) fighters and NATO will be popular for a short time. But NATO knows that people blame those who are in front of them. They will be blaming the pseudo-Islamists who have executed Gaddaffi for the chaos in Libya long after they have forgotten about NATO bombs.
Jives,
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I was referring to his idea of that human order is in hands of giants that stand on the heads and shoulders of midgets and that those giants can at any time sacrifice midgets as midgets are disposable force.
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Do not get me wrong and I DO NOT like his idea but many issues of present days proves him to be right. And case with Malyshevs who are to be deported just to satisfy Karimov’s appetite proves Nietzsche right too.
@David
I’m experiencing inflation in energy and food costs, and to a lesser extent other general product costs. But my wage is growing less than typical, and far less than inflation. Is that not stagflation?
@ Uzbek in the Uk
Yes i hear you.
Never forget though that giants are very vulnerable should the midgets decide to withdraw their support.
This is the paradox of tyranny.
Regards..
Uzbek:
I was referring to his idea of that human order is in hands of giants that stand on the heads and shoulders of midgets and that those giants can at any time sacrifice midgets as midgets are disposable force.
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I beg your pardon but where does Nietzsche say this?
We have had a situation in the UK and other EU countries where our so-called politicians(they are just corrupt lawyers & businessmen) are running amok throughout the world and committing treason in their own countries. It is time now to take back of sovereignty and bring all that have worked against their own countrymen to book.
It is also time to be honest and to call a spade for what it is. Never mind all the spin and lies, treason, corruption and fraud are just that, no ifs or buts, being committed by our “leaders”,Sky,the BBC and other propaganda channels.
Gaddaffi may have been a tyrant and all the rest of it but the fact is that the Libyan people had one of the highest standards of living in Africa. Obviously this will no longer be the case when our treasonous and corrupt shysters start to carve up the country and the Libyan people can go to hell.
It amazes me how asleep people in the EU are and if they don’t start waking up and doing something about it, they will all be serfs in giant ponzi schemes, made to work for minimum wage with a heavy yoke of taxes.
I for one will not allow this and will be a “freeman” under the rights of Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights well before that happens. So stay asleep and be spoonfed by the BBC, Sky and our so-called “leaders” and most of all, don’t complain as you have had plenty of warning.
I think I might have been the first to mention stagflation in the comments on this this blog. Can I at least have a badge or something?
“@David
I’m experiencing inflation in energy and food costs, and to a lesser extent other general product costs. But my wage is growing less than typical, and far less than inflation. Is that not stagflation?”
No, specifically because your wages are not keeping pace with price increases.
It’s rather nitpicky to be arguing over these sorts of definitions given the current economic crisis, but what we are facing is high unemployment and a crunch on purchasing power, a process Nouriel Roubini has I think accurately called stagdeflation.
Much as I love what Craig writes about, afraid it is very disappointing to see a piece which decries the current economic crisis without a single mention of the austerity programs in train around the world. QE by the Bank of England – a perfectly reasonable policy in the circumstances, though unlikely to have any lasting impact – is a rounding error in the grand scheme of things. It is the austerity programs that are wreaking economic havoc.
Now I didn’t like the guy, but he did have friends in low places like the British and Americans, however one major fact is being twisted.
He didnt die, he was murdered…..
Guess the Nato bombing also targeted those buildings which held the dirty laundry of deleaing with the Americans and the British to name but a few….
Guess Libya can feel the liberation like Egypt, or is that a military disctatorship?
What we need is Cameron to go on a jaunt with his defence buddies to sell arms to the NTC….
The military complex just keeps giving….
Couldn’t agree more on Gaddafi’s lynching.
As for bankers, we mustn’t forget they work to make profits for businessmen (for which they receive fat bonuses). Many of these businessmen are in the war business, earning a lot of money out of Western “interventions”, in collusion with Western governments. Thus the link you describe might go even deeper.
Well said and I agree. The whole NATO military mission in Libya was a fraud from the beginning. We invaded Libya supposedly because Gaddafi was “going to massacre” his own citizens. And then in the end, the man was brutally executed in a disgusting exhibition of brutality, without trial. Not much different that the execution of Saddam Hussein and the execution of an unarmed Bin Laden probably with a bullet to back of the head, covered up by dumping his body in the ocean.
@angrysoba and uzbek in uk
think you are referring to maxim `the throne sits upon filth and quite often filth sits upon the throne` so as usual Nietzsche is misquoted
Very well put Craig, the merrygoround over our skies, attack loops being flown, I have also heard some high altitude activites before 10pm, could not identify it, but there were at least two.
Nobody in Syria has asked for outside forces to come in and the media manipulations that show and follow the underground movement in Syria, as dire as it is, does not mean we can just come in and sort it for them.
Unless there is a concerted demand by all opposition groups for help, Assad will be pushed into a corner and open up many options of ‘making him act’, so one can retaliate. We can expect both conflicts to erupt, simultaneously almost within 72 hours, any NATO intervention in Syria will be thje go ahead for its backer. Thats the time Turkey will have to make up its mind, support a western/NATO/Israeli backed attack of Syria and Iran, or site with Iran, which would mean that NATO would be bust open.
The flight into war should be accomplished by the sound of a blood sucking uebersized moskito siphoning up the future of our children, wrecking economies and markets, infrastructures and lifes. A huge humoungous waste of energy, money and pollution to destroy, what has to be rebuild with even more energy waste money and pollution, nobody wins much. Result, lots of bad blood all-round for the next fifty years and a prospect of more of the same to follow for our children.
Thats what these nutters are proposing, but not in my name! Ahmadinedjad is so unpopular, he will not win another election, so why wage war? its a ludicrously stupid decision
What have our children done to deserve such a huge pile of shite?
Paul Craig Roberts on ICH
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[…]As statistician John Williams {shadowstats.com} has shown, the official inflation measures are rigged in order to hold down cost of living adjustments to Social Security recipients, thus saving money for Washington’s wars. When measured correctly, the current rate of inflation in the US is 11.5%.
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What interest rate can savers get without taking massive risks on Greek bonds? US banks pay less than one-half of one percent on FDIC insured savings deposits. Short-term US government bond funds pay essentially zero. […]
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What is the real UK rate of inflation? It feels like a lot more than 5.2%
Link for above quote
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The End of History
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29468.htm
Mary,
I am not sure about the real rate of inflation. Utility prices are up about 20%, public transport over 10% and certainly food feels much more than up 10% – have you seen the price of a tin of tomatoes? – but I haven’t done a survey.
I’m confused. How is an annual inflation rate of 5.2% “stagflation”?
Cameron and Obama applaud the likes of Gadaffi’s, Osama’s and Sadam’s deaths because they like the idea of karma as retributive justice, especially if they get to deal it – it never occurs to them karma applies to everyone, even rank hypocrites like themselves.
P.S.
I’m also glad to see Blair’s had the good taste for once to STFU! – long may it continue.
It has got very barbaric, or rather we have become open about our barbarism. I wonder what will happen in Libya next, I read somewhere that 10% of Libyans were informants for the Gadaffi regime, which suggest we are about to see a very unpleasant bloodletting.
Yesterday was a dark, dark day for us all, particularly for those whose eyes are open and who can still weep.
If millions of people opted out of the banker’s system by converting their emergency savings to silver they would force fundamental economic change.
Just want to say thank you. Indeed, we are not alone. Occupy World!
I see that the chair of Ofcom, Collette Bowe who receives £200,000 for her three day week there, is on the Board of the UK Statistics Authority who oversee the ONS who produce the monthly CPI and RPI figures.
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http://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/about-the-authority/meet-the-board/index.html
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{http://www.onlineforex.net/macro/inflation/what-is-inflation-cpi/}
What is inflation and how is it calculated?
Inflation is the rise in prices in a country such as United Kingdom. What we most often call inflation are the Consumer Price Index (CPI) or Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP), a basket of goods trying to measure the price movements of goods and services in private consumption. Every year, the basket of good are reviewed. Some new items may be added and some are removed – just to reflect the consumer spending patterns.
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The British CPI index follow price movements of a basket to be equal to what an average Brit consume. The weight of each product in the basket, ie: the components included in Consumer Price Index, is set out below:
. btw I see that that US inflation rate of 11.5% quoted by Craig Roberts does not include food or energy in the list of goods/services.
@Eddy-G
“No, specifically because your wages are not keeping pace with price increases.”
Isn’t the definition of stagflation high growth in inflation with a shrinking economy? We have high inflation, and because noones wages are increasing inline, the economy is not growing at the same time.
The economy is stagnant, while the money supply is inflating.