I was called by a journalist yesterday who told me that in Dewsbury six years ago I shared a platform with Baroness Warsi’s now husband at a meeting against the persecution of Muslims. Sadly I couldn’t really help him as at the time I was doing hundreds such events and have only the dimmest of recollections of that one.
It is not merely amusing that Cameron refers Warsi for investigation for allegedly pocketing a couple of thousand quid while protecting Hunt who tried so hard to shepherd the Murdoch BSkyB bid past the winning post, while pretending to referee the event.
Nor is the lesson just that a Muslim woman will always be expendable while a fully paid up member of the ruling class will be less so.
The truth is that to trip up an MP over a little cash does not threaten the system. To tackle the massive institutional corruption by which corporate interests control the British state is a different question altogether.
Hunt is of course not the only case not to be referred. Nor was the Adam Werritty debacle, where rather than the proper investigative procedures Cameron organised a tidy little stitch-up by Gus O’Donnell which omitted almost all the key facts and particularly did not say what the entire scheme was about – the promotion of the interests of Israel. The Murdoch Empite, the Israeli lobby, these are amongst the interests that actually run the exploited citizenry of this poor wracked old country. Every now and then glimpses of truth emerge.
But must not be pursued.
Ha! McGuiness was happy to shake hands with Prosor but maybe not the Queen. Pathetic.
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Sinn Fein to decide on meeting between Queen and Martin McGuinness
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-18546648
No offence (or not too much), but I’m wondering if in our comments we can’t have a moratorium on today’s MSM news and concentrate on links to more out-of-the way (but credible) sources, with, as someone else said, discussion rather than c&p? If the theme is current news, perhaps simply say “The Daily Torygraph said today…” We can find the Torygraph/BBC/Jerusalem Post for ourselves. And (I am as bad as anyone else here, of course, but I’ll reform if you will) stick loosely to the original blog post theme?
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It might be an idea to explore the idea of indexing past pages properly on the site, which would then make it possible to put our comments somewhere relevant, rather than turning each of Craig’s gems into an impromptu race for hobby-horses. Or even to combine the blog with a forum?
Exemplar, exemplar…from Warsi to Hunt to Simon Carr, to
a very fine blog. Here.
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http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/
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Jeremy Hunt is in his (Cameron’s, obv, -K) f**king Cabinet, let alone his social circle. Last year, Hunt avoided £250,000 of tax by exploiting a tax loophole on office property ownership. In his defence of the entirely indefensible ‘Culture’ Secretary, Cameron has carefully ignored this obvious clash with what he claims are his ‘principles’.
But like many a nob before him, Dave is a brass-necked chancer. So having got away with Hunt hypocrisy, the PM now feels secure enough to double his ignominy by daring to have a go at Jimmy Carr. And just to go for the full daft Monty, David Cameron covers his pristine pert bottom by adding “entirely legal” to his storm of abuse about Carr’s behaviour being “totally wrong” and the avoidance scheme “dodgy”.
So then, morally repugnant and entirely legal: and who is the top legislator in the UK?
I hold no brief for Jimmy Carr. I think he’s something of a one-trick pony (tasteless gags) and the laugh he affects on his various panel Game Shows I find incredibly irritating. But I’ll tell you something Carr doesn’t do: he doesn’t employ armies of sociopathic tax accountants using “dodgy” loopholes and sleazy Inland Revenue backdoor deals to get his tax rate down to 7% on average.
Whereas every last UK-based multinational does exactly that.
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No apologies for the c&p. I couldn’t put it better myself.
A little update on Atlantic Bridge. Of course they won’t have to pay back the money which was spent under false pretences. All rather depressing.
http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/Finance/article/1137613/charity-commission-decided-against-trying-recover-money-atlantic-bridge-says-report/
And Bliars little birdsong is no less depressing,specially since he is the so called Peace envoy for the region…With his track record, no doubt he’ll be turning to the Jewish faith at some point in the future. He obviously thinks he’S chosen.
You may find much here to delight you, Donny. Linked to this guy’s current blog before – re H. Junt – but post disappeared. Note involvement of Jack Straw, near end of the piece. Claire Short appears to have some dirt on him…
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http://www.notbornyesterday.org/brownblairsucc2.htm
Hail Mary, full of grace,
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The Lord is with thee.
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Blessed art thou among women,
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and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
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Holy Mary, Mother of God,
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pray for us sinners,
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now and at the hour of our death.
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Amen.
Our esteemed friend’s reply on Twitter.
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Charles Crawford (@CharlesCrawford)
22/06/2012 10:09
When, not if
RT @telegraphlinks Julian Assange could be locked up if Ecuador bid fails
bit.ly/MIWeV6 (via @KevinAlcenaNews)
Guano –
I find it hard to believe that the C of E can object to your attending your daughter’s wedding. As the father of the bride, you are not required to say or do anything in contravention of your faith or the church’s. You should at least have the status of any member of the public, I would have thought?
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Re. Sufis, there are Sufis and Sufis. Rumi’s lot, the Mevlana (or Maulawwi), don’t seem to have been as austere as you describe, and Rumi himself strikes me as someone gifted with spiritual insight as well as deeply knowledgeable of the Qu’ran. The political ones aren’t Sufis*, though. Any more than they are Muslims.
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*“Sufi ch’ist? Sufi s’ist”)
Off Topic – Sorry
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“Legally, UK assets had to be sold in shares to the UK ppl first? WRONG. Legally, shares in UK assets should have been GIVEN to EVERY UK citizen – because LEGALLY those assets BELONGED to every UK citizen. NHS lands & properties LEGALLY belong to every UK citizen – they are about to be sold to the private sector for £5.2bn – Privatisation = DAYLIGHT-ROBBERY of our collective wealth = OUR property & OUR land.”
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http://eoin-clarke.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/meet-propco-set-to-oversee-52bn-sell.html
Anyway.
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Looks as though Craig’s former colleague, Chuck Crawford, has made a prediction through Twatter.
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http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1340356934.html
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Seems to be saying that Julian Assange won’t get asylum.
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There’s some important background to all this from an Ecuadorian perspective. You see, President Correa has been having his own Murdoch problems with media barons in his country lying about him all the time. They always do this when a left of centre govt has been elected and they’ve been successful so far in ensuring that the rich stay rich and the poor starve and die. They’re allied too, of course, to US terrorists who have exploited Latin America for centuries, and are still at it. The president had to expell the US ambassador recently for attempting to foment a coup.
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The point anyway is that President Correa sued these press liars and they were handed large fines by the courts. The president won all appeals and then the owner holed himself up in the Panamanian embassy seeking political asylum. The president subsequently pardoned them all. By then he’d made his point of course.
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Funny the way that the BBC and other reports like to leave out this background, especially given that we’re having our own problems with Murdoch attempts to influence govt and police etc, corrupting them in the process.
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Anyway, even if Julian doesn’t get asylum he’ll have helped one small South American country in their struggle against the North American fascists and their allies in media.
“A psychologist compares the ‘twisted minds’ of some executives to those of paedophiles he has tried to treat in the past”
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/joris-luyendijk-banking-blog/2012/jun/18/executive-coach-finance-amoral-world
This psychologist sees the personal, psychological drives behind the ruthless financial meltdown, but misses the structural cause; a corporate structure will naturally select the most effective money-makers. Many people miss this point, and try to solve the problem by exposing the “bad men” who are supposedly responsible.
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We see the same misunderstanding in the following quote, which supports privatisation within the police:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jun/20/g4s-chief-mass-police-privatisation
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It’s the structure, stupid! Us humans fail to see the structures that manipulate us for similar reasons that an insect you’re about to swat ignores you; you’re just too big to appear on its RADAR.
Entertaining discussion about Assange here:
http://www.arrse.co.uk/current-affairs-news-analysis/183592-assange-seeks-asylum-16.html
One of the very best forums I know; none of these guys is fluent in bullshit though.
President Correa of Ecuador is currently attending the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development, June 20/22. So it ends today, probably late at night UK time.
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http://www.uncsd2012.org/
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They’ll all be there, the great and the good, the bad and the indifferent, from all over the planet.
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Good place for a speech on Human Rights, I’d have thought. Good opportunity too, to embarrass the UK and US on their increasingly fascistic tendencies by offering asylum to a real journalist.
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I don’t expect a staged walk out as happens when Iran speaks, either. Oh no. South America is much much too resource and mineral rich for that, and they’ve good reason not to like us anyway to begin with. Best not to annoy them further than we’ve done already, eh.
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Viva Zapata!
Komodo
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The first entry I looked at on clicking that link, provided this illuminating quip:
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“Assange seemingly didn’t read any of the diplomatic cables he had and just published the whole lot.”
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And that from a “senior member”.
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As we know this just isn’t true.
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Assange and his colleagues read through and redacted as necessary to protect the innocent. Those newspapers with whom he worked did the same. They went further and redacted on the basis of national security.
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Unredacted cables only emerged when someone else of The Guardian wrote a book revealing the password to the unredacted versions.
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Funnily enough, The Guardian and its employee seem to have escaped reputational damage for this error. Much criticism was levelled of course, from people of integrity, but as ever in these cases it never seems quite to stick.
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In the fog, it’s now assumed Julian did it.
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Clever, eh.
Herbie – I can think of better ways to distribute a ‘rum ration’ – I am banned for discussing deployments counter to British interests – the site is, well, ‘arrse’…
Clark,
“…… Us humans fail to see the structures that manipulate us for similar….”
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Leave me out of it esquire, alas you seem to have fallen victim to the same blindness yourself.
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The chap who wrote this article/book, that was published with someone/some organization who is/are also part of the said structures. (remember Hosni Mubarak used to boast about his performance indicator by recanting the number of the printing presses he had destroyed, in UK these are all owned by the right people in the right part of the structure, so no need for vandalism of any sorts.)
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Your gleaned data is carried by an organ of dubious quality that is under the control of even more dubious fuckwits, do you really expect to see any kind of “truth” to be found in such a fucked up rag? (recollecting david aaronovitch push for Iraq war) The simple fact is, these kinds of articles are there to give some credence to an otherwise totally corrupt institution, whilst without giving too much of the game away.
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However your input is a good point of order for those hoodwinked souls whom as yet have not understood the real use for the said paper: as an eco friendly and somewhat coarse toilet paper, an expensive one at that given the quality of the material that is to be passed the fifth or sixth eye!
Yes, Mark. I think that your site ought to be required viewing for those writers and politicians who urge us on to greater and ever more unending slaughter and maiming of innocents, for no reason other than a pursuit of personal fortune.
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And yet they walk among us free and in their finery, and on television they smile and are sweet, these psychopaths.
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They’ve spent the past few days making jokes on Twatter.
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It’s only in a very very degraded culture such as ours that that Assange is the baddie.
Herbie, I never said Arrse was the fount of all wisdom. There, as here, there are differing points of view and different levels of knowledge of what they are talking about.
“Senior member” except on porno fora, obviously, merely means the guy’s been a member for a while. Which probably means he likes the forum. As I do. And you don’t. So don’t go there.
Correction: read “there, more so than here…”
Didn’t say I didn’t like it, Komodo. Just pointed out a howler. I may not like it of course, but at this point I just don’t know. Haven’t read it, you see.
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Anyway, was the howler corrected by like a captain or major or otherwise educated superior or something, or did everyone just howl along?
Mark – you got banned from Arrse? That’s a pity. Wonder how someone would fare supporting regime change in Iran, on the Revolutionary Guard’s scuttlebutt forum? (I know, they haven’t got one, which rather makes my point)
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What does rather surprise me, there, (and not here), is the number of times Guardian articles are linked.
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AS another Arrse poster says, there’s really not much in the embassy cables anyway. Most of that stuff would only merit a Restricted label in the UK Forces. It’s mostly general observations. And on US- Israeli relations the leaked documents are extremely discreet. If not still unavailable.
The link’s still there, Herbie. Heaven forfend I try to intervene in your appreciation of Forces humour. 🙂
Passerby: “…these kinds of articles are there to give some credence to an otherwise totally corrupt institution, whilst without giving too much of the game away”. I agree; natural selection within the structure leads to the publication such articles.
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“Leave me out of it esquire, alas you seem to have fallen victim to the same blindness yourself.” My own assumption is that we’re all blind to it by default, like my insect that was about to be swatted. We’re evolved to see threat as coming from individuals, or from groups controlled by an individual. The idea that it’s the structures that repeatedly elevate ruthless individuals to positions of power has to be examined consciously; our instincts do not automatically alert us to this sort of threat.
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And yes, I do expect to see facets of truth in the corporate media, but deployed in the corporate media’s own best interests. Print the truth so long as it’s useful, eh? And that doesn’t mean they don’t publish lies as well. But lies are sometimes revealed, reducing credibility, so it’s much safer to publish part-truth in a cocoon of spin, which can always be re-spun later if needs be.
Really, wouldn’t you say, Clark, the corporation is a sort of macro-model of the human individual in evolutionary terms? Are we any better animals than our power structures? Is it even possible to modify the perverted evolutionary imperatives embodied in corporate and state governance? I think that’s questionable.
I take your point Komodo although ‘arrse’ subscribes to ‘news and analysis’ and in my world SBS deployments to Cyprus by Britain to crush Syria in support of an Israeli agenda is an important analysis of military ‘news’ or ‘rumours’ which is the approved expression of internally discussed ‘leaks’ among service personnel.
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Herbie,
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It is the unending ‘slaughter and maiming of innocents’ that also worries me no end. Syria we know is at the cross-roads, the very heart of the Eastern Mediterranian, a hot-spot, the object of threats by Israel for years and this war has been on the drawing board at Northwood for *decades*. The Syrian war has already started because British Special Forces are on the ground. Since March 2011 there has been an influx of mercenaries across the border from Lebanon and Jordan including Salafi and al-Qaeda shooting Syrian policemen and detonating bombs and inacting arson against Syrian public buildings.
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These facts have to be addressed because Israel and America with Britain are training mujahideen to fight the Syrian army which is being tracked by satellite intelligence and conveyed to British elite personnel on the ground.
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My intelligence is transmitted straight to Putin because Russia and China are adamant that Syrians must decide their fate, not by a British agenda of surreptitious carnage and butchery.
Yeah, but if they can’t do this after two pints of ouzo whilst the country is collapsing around their arse, I’m not interested.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuzrJP3q_48&NR=1&feature=fvwp
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Pom poms not optional by the way.
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Be the best!!
Yes, Mark.
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The US/UK policy seems to be one of breaking down these countries into their tribal groups, the better to cause unending internecine warfare and weaken any unitary action at the level of state. Divide and rule, obviously.
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That’s, after all, how Europeans found these places in earlier days and why they found it so easy to control them and exploit their resources and territory.
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It’s a barbarous return to the heart of darkness, for us and for them, should we succeed.
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I suspect it also signals an awareness that our empire is dying. I expect things to get much much worse before they get better.
Exactly my point Komodo. Two million other personell had acvcerss to this rerstricted information, they are hardly confidential or secret.
The whole farce is just played out to make an example of Julian Assange.
The only way to get him out of that embassy is by a generated crime wave in front of the assembled police, compell them to move on you rather than him. I would not like to make any suggestions as to what one could do, but it is obvious to me that somebody should try and bust him out of the country. I feel that Russia could do more for him, but dare’nt be seen to give him too much credence.
I wuil;l be busy now for the next two weekends with our Celebration, hope we can erect the marquees tonight otherwise plan B has to kick in, more chaws to rearange everything in 24 hrs.
have alook at Surlingham.org under special events, there is also a picture of my raffle prize on there.
Take care and hit the 1000, what do I say?, I’m sure Craig can stretch it to 2000 posts, before the next morsel is filed.
“I feel that Russia could do more for him, but dare’nt be seen to give him too much credence.”
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Many people have been asking why he didn’t go to the Russians. But the Russians presumably hadn’t already made an offer of residence, as was done by some Ecuadorian official in 2010 (something which was then said by Correa not to be an ‘official’ offer.)
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What really tickled my funny bone was to read that Correa threw out the only US military base in Ecuador. And in his interview with Assange recently, he said that he had no problem with an American base in Ecuador, as long as Ecuador could have a military base in the USA. A person like Glenn Greenwald would of course find this perfectly logical, but I could hear the yells of derision from the right wing in the USA.
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Someone (Assange? Correa?) also said that 5 out of the 7 media “entities” that Correa had a problem with, and shut down, were run by banks. That’s a new one on me. Banks running media organisations. Am I missing something more local?
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By the way, I commented here a long time ago about the use of “US” instead of “USA” and that I didn’t like it. (Too like the “UN” for my liking.) But the other day I put a search into Google for “USA office for” (something official – can’t remember) and Google corrected me and asked “did I mean “US office for”. It looks as if “USA” doesn’t exist any more.
Nuid, good point about ‘US’ vs ‘USA’. rather like ‘God’, the wannabee hegemon has neither article nor qualifier.