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77 thoughts on “Muted”

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  • ingo

    Fill yourself up with Vitamin C, keep your distance to people and alcohol and take your chance to speak, you will not get this opportunity too often.
    Good luck with it, and don’t forget to wipe the microphone.

    As for the collection of diseases, please don’t go into details….:)

  • craig Post author

    Too late Ingo – it was yesterday, and I stayed at home. Giving a talk in Dumfries on Wednesday. Expect to be better by then.

  • Stevie

    I believe UKUncut are planning action in London today (1pm Westminster Bridge?). Follow them on Twitter for info. Hope you’re better soon Craig.

  • mary

    e-mail just in from STWC
    Many thanks to all for 8 October
    .
    Many thanks to everyone who came to the Antiwar Assembly yesterday on 8 October, and to all the speakers and performers who helped make it such a great day.
    .
    The march to Downing Street at the end of the assembly was led by 106-year-old-Hetty Bower and blockaded Whitehall opposite prime minister David Cameron’s official residence.
    .
    We will be posting video and pictures on the Stop the War website soon. Please send any that you took to: {[email protected]}
    .
    Stop the War has been campaigning for 10 years against the US-led wars of terror. There is no sign that the warmongers are going to stop without huge political pressure, representing the majority view in Britain that the troops should come home now — confirmed this week by a poll showing 71% of the British public oppose the war in Afghanistan.
    .
    We still have much work to do.
    .
    Once again, Stop the War is very grateful for your pledge of support for the assembly. We will be publicising soon our next anti-war activities and we hope we can rely on your continuing support.
    .
    Jeremy Corbyn MP, national chair Stop the War Coalition
    Lindsey German, national convenor Stop the War Coalition
    .
    Stop the War Coalition
    Email [email protected]
    Tel: 020 7801 2768
    Web: http://stopwar.org.uk

  • Bob

    Illness or not, I envy you your visit to Ghana. We (family with 2 small children) lived and worked there from 85-89 (JJ’s early years) and fell in love with the place. I had the good fortune to travel the length and breadth of the country several times over those years. It was a fantastic place to be at that time…. I hope it hasn’t changed too much, but I suspect the IMF medicine of the time is eroding the fabric of Ghana’s society like it has for just about everyone else.

    Aahh for a bowl of Fufu and pepper soup, washed down with a cold Guinness (“Brewed in Dublin and Kumasi”).

    Hope your illnesses are not too debilitating.

  • Vronsky

    Craig, it would only be a matter of regret if the Stop the War campaign were about to succeed and you had missed your last opportunity to participate. Sad to say you will have plenty more opportunities, and there will be plenty more wars to attempt stopping. Disregard the advice from Ingo about alcohol – all things in moderation, including moderation.
    .
    Ah, Dumfries! That’s where I was born – it used to be a nice wee town but it’s a bit spoiled nowadays. Be sure to visit the Midsteeple, where in headier times they burned the Articles of Union.
    .
    “THE UNION WITH ENGLAND STRENUOUSLY OPPOSED IN DUMFRIES-A BAND OF ARMED MEN ENTER THE BURGH, BURN THE ARTICLES OF UNION, WITH THE CORDIAL APPROVAL OF THE POPULACE, AND PUBLISH A DECLARATION AGAINST THE MEASURE”
    .
    http://www.electricscotland.com/history/dumfries/history39.htm

  • Quelcrime

    I’m puzzled that the stop the War bods keep yapping about Afghanistan and being almost silent about the extremely brutal war in Libya started by the current administration. I wish you could have gone in order to redress the balance a bit.

  • mary

    Not true about STWC and Libya.
    .
    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27674.htm and many others:
    .

    Stop the War Coalition
    1 Oct 2011 – War in Libya they said would cost under £100m is nearing £2bn. Nick Hopkins, 25 September 2011 Cost of war. While the cost of war in Libya heads for £2bn, on top of the £5bn the Afghanistan war will cost … Follow StWC … Action & Events – What we stand for – Cost of War – National Events
    .
    Gaddafi overthrow ‘not end of war in Libya,’ says STWC
    24 Aug 2011 – STWC said that the main demand must be to “end all forms of Nato interference in Libya – not just the end of the bombing, but the withdrawal …
    .

    STWC Blasts Military Intervention in Libya
    12 Apr 2011 – Stop the War Coalition Blasts Military Intervention in Libya At the fringe meeting on Libya, called by STWC at the NUJ conference held in The …
    .
    [DOC] StWC Libya media release – Stop the War Coalition, Sydney
    File Format: Microsoft Word – Quick View
    STOP THE WAR COALITION STATEMENT ON LIBYA. March 23, 2011. The Stop the War Coalition, Sydney, strongly condemns United Nations Security Council …
    .
    I have removed the links above from results of googling ‘STWC Libya’. There are also many other links.

  • mary

    More stink of rotting fish.
    .
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/oct/08/liam-fox-harvey-boulter-adam-werritty

    .

    {http://www.investoffshoredirect.com/Default/Porton_Capital_Limited}

    The Company was founded by Harvey Boulter with its origins linking to the commercialisation of UK military technology. Harvey was the lead advisor to the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) in the splitting of what was in the late 1990’s Defence Evaluation Research Agency (DERA), a wholly owned part of the UK MoD. The new entities created were the Defence Science and Technology Laboratories (Dstl), and QinetiQ. During the late 1990’s it became apparent that DERA had developed some very advanced technology for potential use on the battlefield. Much of this technology had never been exposed to the outside world given the secretive nature of the military activity.
    .

    I thought it odd that John Major was commenting today. Probably some connections via his Carlyle Group.

  • Abe Rene

    I’m sure you haven’t lost your edge (though maybe you should see a doctor about the physical ailments), but here’s one way to find out: ring up the BBC, and offer them an interview. If you’re still black-listed, you haven’t lost your edge. 🙂

  • Quelcrime

    Yes, but there were marches through the streets of London against bombing Yugoslavia and Iraq, and in their press release quoted above (fifth comment) they mention Afghanistan and not Libya. A new war should be met with the maximum of publicity and protest, not just the odd condemnatory statement published to a minuscule audience on the internet.

    Propaganda must be met with bright lights. I’m sure at least 70% of the UK population either think Libya is a ‘good war’ or don’t think it matters – they need to be told it’s another Iraq and Cameron another Blair; the only difference is the propaganda is slightly more polished.

  • Quelcrime

    Mary, the article you link to is under a header saying “News you won’t find on CNN or Foxnews”. If you put a million people on the streets of London, you will find the news on the TV. The demonstration this weekend should have been publicised as being about Libya (and Afghanistan), not, as it seems, the other way around.
    .
    Afghanistan is a bad war but people associate it with 911 and Blair. It’s terribly important that people don’t get acclimatised to constant war. I’ve never been as angry as I was when I found the UK’s recent fit of belligerence was not a Blairite aberration. If Cameron were faced with a million people in Whitehall, and found his reputation going down the toilet for his lies and war-mongering like Blair did, it might discourage him from repeating the experience. Would Blair have dared to do Iraq if Kosovo had met with the same reaction as Iraq did?
    .
    Have STWC even tried to hold a demonstration for Libya? They could have had one as soon as UNSCR1973 was passed.

  • Sunflower

    Craig, maybe you have caught on some bad antiestablishment thoughts on the plane home 🙂 Have the Thought Police run a check on you : epic.org/privacy/fastproject/

  • mark_golding

    Talking about ‘Stop the War’ obviously brings to mind the war in Afghanistan and Liam Fox’s November 2009 piece in the Independent where he argued that though – :
    .
    “corruption and establishing good governance” are not unimportant, “we need to recognise that Afghan governance is likely to look very different from governance as we know it in the West”…
    .
    May I remind Mr Fox that deception is dishonesty and dishonesty leads to corruption and lies.
    .
    YOU LIED Mr Fox about a highly sensitive meeting in Dubai organised by your best man and former flatmate Adam Werritty and backed by irrefutable evidence from a video and email.
    .
    I remember your NeoCon charity, ‘The Atlantic Bridge’ set up in 1997 to promote the ‘special relationship’ – a charity whose only employee was, oh dear – again – Adam Werritty, your right-hand accomplice!
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    The Charity Commission saw through the scheme and removed this political charity from the register.
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    Time to go I think Mr Fox – else many will assume David Cameron’s little coalition party is NOT part of Britain’s ‘Big Society’ clean up programme.

  • Sunflower

    Here is another link: Homeland Security moves forward with ‘pre-crime’ detection.
    .
    news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20117058-281/homeland-security-moves-forward-with-pre-crime-detection
    .
    They are indeed very diligent at the Ministry of Love

  • mark_golding

    Liam Fox – the ‘Atlantic Bridge’ or really the Anglo-American Axis

    The 1999 war in Yugoslavia contributed to reinforcing strategic, military and intelligence ties between Washington and London. According to a conversation with Robin Cook RIP, Geoff Hoon and U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen signed a “Declaration of Principles for Defense Equipment and Industrial Cooperation” so as to “improve cooperation in procuring arms and protecting British technology secrets” while at the same time “easing the way for more joint Anglo/American military ventures [adventures] and possible defense industry mergers.”

    The so called ‘Atlantic bridge’ think-tank discussed the various ways the U.S. Department of Defence took its globalization policy to Europe by improving interoperability and war fighting effectiveness via closer industrial linkages between U.S. and British companies such as British Aerospace Systems (a merger of BAE with GEC Marconi a defence company I worked as an electronic design engineer. BAES is already firmly allied with America’s largest defence contractors, Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

    The British military-industrial complex has become increasingly integrated into that of the U.S. The hidden agenda behind the ‘Atlantic bridge’ is to ensure dominance of the U.S. military industrial complex (in alliance with Britain’s major defence contractors). Hence the role of Liam Fox’s mate.
    .
    BAES was in 2001 the Pentagon’s fifth largest defense contractor. Under the Anglo-American ‘Atlantic Bridge’, BAES operates freely in the U.S. market through its subsidiary BAE Systems North.
    .
    This integration in the area of defence production has also been matched by greatly increased cooperation between the CIA and Britain’s SIS in the sphere of intelligence and covert operations, and the joint operations of British and U.S. Special Forces.
    .
    Interestingly the Euro has a direct bearing on these strategic and political divisions. London’s decision not to adopt the common European currency is consistent with the integration of British financial and banking interests with those of Wall Street, not to mention the Anglo-American alliance in the oil industry (as in BP-Amoco) and weapons production (“Big Five” plus BAES). The shaky relationship between the British Pound and the Dollar was an integral part of Atlantic Bridge discussions.
    .
    What is at stake is the rivalry between two competing global currencies: the Euro and the Dollar, with Britain’s pound being torn between the European and the U.S. dominated currency systems. Two rival financial and monetary systems are competing worldwide for control over money creation and credit. The geopolitical and strategic implications are far-reaching, because they are also marked by splits in the Western defense industry and the oil business. What we are witnessing is an inter-imperial scramble for control over national currencies and credit.
    .
    Unfortunately for Britain, America’s Silk Road Strategy of first destabilizing and then replacing national currencies with the American dollar over an area extending from the Mediterranean to China’s western border has back-fired with the Wall Street crisis. The underlying objective to extend the dominion of the Federal Reserve System over a vast territory has proved to be America’s (and Britain’s) downfall. These battles for economic conquest and militarization of the Eurasian corridor are now becoming defunct as public pressure against war and the industrial military complex increases.
    .
    Some people are oblivious to this (Liam Fox) and still try to revive arms sales by constantly promoting wars using any means possible including regime change, peacekeeping, NATO, false-flag, ‘war of terror’ and deception, deception, deception.

  • mary

    More on Liam Fox, Werrity and Harvey Boulter.
    .
    Revealed: how lobbyists were paid to facilitate meeting with Liam Fox
    • Emails show Dubai encounter planned in March
    • Minister says sorry for ‘blurred distinctions’

    Rupert Neate and Patrick Wintour The Guardian, Monday 10 October
    .
    Liam Fox outside 10 Downing Street: he apologised on Sunday for ‘blurred distinctions’. Photograph: Steve Back/Rex Features
    .
    Political lobbyists were paid thousands of pounds to help a Dubai-based businessman arrange a secretive meeting with Liam Fox, which the defence secretary claims came about only after a chance meeting in a restaurant.
    .
    Invoices seen by the Guardian show that Harvey Boulter, the private equity boss at the heart of the growing controversy engulfing Fox, was paying £10,000 a month to lobbyists for help that included brokering the meeting with Fox through Adam Werritty, who claimed to be an “adviser to the Rt Hon Dr Fox MP”.
    .
    This latest revelation comes as Fox finally admitted on Sunday that it had been “wrong” for him to meet Boulter, a commercial partner of the Ministry of Defence, in Dubai’s five-star Shangri-la hotel without any officials present.
    .
    “I accept that it was a mistake to allow distinctions to be blurred between my professional responsibilities and my personal loyalties to a friend,” he said. “I am sorry for this.”
    .
    Fox’s apology to the prime minister came two months after the Guardian first asked him to explain his relationship with Werritty, who appears to have been operating in Fox’s shadow for a decade.
    .
    David Cameron and Fox spoke on the phone on Sunday morning following a fresh slew of allegations that Fox had allowed Werritty to accompany him on official visits.
    /….

    ~~~
    How low can this country go when we read that ‘No 10 stressed that the prime minister did not want to lose his defence secretary and would do what he could to keep him in place.’? Crooks and liars are in power.
    .

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/oct/09/liam-fox-meeting-lobbyists-werritty-boulter

  • ingo

    Clear skies over East Anglia and prime time for some more attack manouvres to be practised. They are very busy this morning.
    I think Liam Fox’s diversionary tittle tattle from the economic gloom is being stretched, a managable scandal which will result in nothing nmuch, Fox will not resign and his best man and previous flat sharer will make money on the back of him.

    Why can’t he just come out?
    The apocalyptic change necessarry will not happen, as those who have got two ounces of braincells left are apathetic as to their prospects for change, hence are floating with the current rather than swimming against it. Nobody dares to stick their neck out and the Tory’s catnip brigade is feeling good for delivering nothing.

  • mark_golding

    Nice piece Mary – excellent research and a positive conclusion.
    .
    I would like to take this opportunity to commend the Charity Commission on their honesty, forthrightness and above board decision to de-list the ‘Atlantic Bridge’ as a bona fide charity.
    .
    Their helpful trustees reach to the very heart of an open British society.

  • mary

    Thanks Mark. Ingo What is going on? A massive US paratrooper ‘exercise’ in Bavaria, where some of the participants will end up in wheelchairs with spinal cord injuries. The ‘exercise’ was described as ‘full spectrum’!
    .
    “Civilian spokeswoman for the Joint multinational Training Command, which is under U.S. Army command, Denver Makle, said as the numbers injured ‘was within expected margins’ an investigation was not necessary.
    .
    Speaking to The Local, a German website, she added: ‘Airborne operations are always dangerous. There is very little margin for error.’
    .
    She explained an injury rate of up to 3 per cent is normal in this type of exercise.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2046471/Dozens-U-S-paratroopers-injured-mock-battle-Slovakians-goes-horrifically-wrong.html#ixzz1aMViZHuJ

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