The London Olympics are already achieving the number one aim of the politicians who brought them here, which is making our politicians feel very important indeed.
The media is quite frenetic in its efforts to make us all believe we should be terrifically proud of the fact we are hosting the Olympics, as though there were something unique in this achievement. If we can’t competently do something that Greece, Spain and China have done in recent years, that would be remarkable. Of course the Games will be on the whole well delivered, sufficient for the media and politicians to declare it an ecstatic success. Some of the sporting moments will be sublime, as ever.
But did it have to be in London? We won’t know the total cost of the Games for months, but it will cost the taxpayer at least £9 billion and I suspect a lot more. I also suspect the GDP figures will, in the event, show that the massive net fall in visitor numbers has hurt the already shrinking economy further.
But to take the most optimistic figure, holding the Olympics in London has cost every person in the country an average of £150 per head in extra taxes. That is £600 for a family of four. Actually it is in the end going to be well over £2,000, as of course the money has been borrowed on the never never, and taxpayers are going to be paying it off their whole lives, along with the sum ten times higher they are already paying direct into the pockets of the bankers through their taxes.
The very rich, of course, don’t pay much tax, so they are not worried.
But to take just the figure of £600 extra taxes for a family of four, the lowest possible amount, and not including the interest. Is having the Olympics here really worth paying out £600 for? If Tony Blair had approached the head of the family and said “We are going to have the Olympics in London, but it’s going to cost you £600, would the answer have been from most ordinary people: “Yes, great idea, this is that important to us”?
People are not disconcerted because they don’t see that they have to pay. There is no special Olympics tax, and they pay their taxes in a variety of ways, and individuals are not the sole source of taxation. But this is nonetheless real money taken from the people in pursuit of the hubris of politicians.
I love sport. I hate the corruption of the International Olympic Committee, Fifa and the rest; I hate the vicious corporatism and militarisation of our capital and absurd elitism of the transport lanes; the sport itself I love. But with the economy contracting, and the NHS being farmed out for profit, is it really worth £600 for a family – and many families are really struggling in a heartbreaking way – is it worth the money to have the Olympics here rather than in Paris?
Of course it isn’t. I think many of us will feel an extra pleasure watching the Opening ceremony because it is British. Patriotic pride will surge. It is not wrong to enjoy the spectacle tonight on TV. The corporate well connected and ruling classes will enjoy it in the stadium.
But after you have watched it on TV, ask yourself this question. How much more did you enjoy it than enjoy watching the Beijing ceremony, and was that margin of extra enjoyment something that everybody in the room would have paid out £150 for?
Because they just did.
Until we find out what happened with Maranchuk/Morgan siuation I’d say second-guessing what happens to Brooks is impossible.
I hope it’s ok to post this link: http://brown-moses.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/hackgate-for-beginners-murder-of-daniel.html
Lemonhead,
You indeed are a one!
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When are you going to get it?
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Here in UK we do things our own way, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice is a very serious charge and damn easy to prove too. Hence the ginger witch’s arse is toast. However given that she is to be sprung and no one is going to get in the way of her staying out of jail or winding up with a criminal record (not that it matters because soon after she can always take her seat in Lords alongside the other time served convicts).
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Hence the phone hacking shit that is plastered over the print media and the nice man on the Bullshit Broadcasting Corporation filling in the gaps for those whom cannot be bowwered to read and shit like dat.
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Now you see why it is paraphrased as : “hacking scandal”, hopeful people will be getting “hacking scandal” fatigue they all have the attention span of a gold fish anyway.
The Power of War Propaganda on Iran
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A new poll finds 80% of Americans think Iran has a nuclear weapons program and that it is a threat to the US and its NATO allies. The poll, commissioned by The Israel Project, asked likely voters and found “72% of Democrats, 81% of independents and 89% of Republicans were convinced the Iranians were building nuclear weapons.”
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… Contrast these beliefs with the facts: The consensus in the whole of the intelligence community in the US (and Israel) is that Iran has no nuclear weapons program and has yet to demonstrate any intention of starting one anytime soon.
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Full text: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32048.htm
Leading Questions by the project isreal,
The usual suspects are drumming up the none threat with a zeal that of fevered zealots, in the way of convincing the world any which way they can, including recourse to phony polls and phony results.
You might be right Clark. Sacrifices are made on behalf of the power structure and Brooks may be instructed to take the punishment for all. We’ll see. But I doubt it will be porridge.
Blue_Bear, thanks for posting that link; as a moderator, I see no reason that you shouldn’t have. It was links to that matter, and its links to Coulson, that I thought certain members of the power structure might want to keep as quiet as possible. Concentrating the blame and punishment on Brooks could be a way to achieve that.
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Why were you worried about posting that link? If you’d rather reply privately, you can find contact details for me here:
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http://www.killick1.plus.com/usual.html
“recourse to phony polls and phony results”
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Not necessarily, Passerby. Where I have “…” the article says:
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“And these results are largely consistent with other recent polls: one produced back in February by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Program on International Policy Attitudes found ‘An overwhelming majority of U.S. citizens believe that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons and poses a serious threat to U.S. national security’.”
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The point being of course, that American beliefs and attitudes to Iran are largely skewiff, as a result of propaganda. The article also finishes with this:
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“People are not just ignorant, they’re ideological. They’ll believe what they want to believe. Unfortunately, such widespread and impenetrable false beliefs in the realm of foreign policy, means that the political leadership can pretty easily launch a war if and when they decide to do so and whether it is warranted or not.”
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They’ve learned absolutely nothing from Iraq. And the political leadership have honed their propaganda tools.
This is from the nation that is busy “carry on to empire” on us all:
A 4-year-old’s drawing of a “door to a magic land” earned a Richmond, Virginia mom a $325 fine, a ban from all city parks and a whopping 50 hours of community service. Susan Mortensen was ticketed in March for allowing her daughter to draw with chalk on the rocks at Belle Isle, a granite-studded park in the James River.
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http://www.nbc12.com/story/19157617/woman-convicted-for-childs-chalk-drawings-at-belle-isle
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-ttp://now.msn.com/mom-gets-50-hours-of-community-service-for-daughters-chalk-drawing
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Yes a 4 years old toddler, drawing with a stick of chalk on stones, and her mother is punished for her toddler’s “crimes”.
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The toddler is now afraid of chalk, and does not like to be around the cops. All the while the defunct justice system is being used for revenue generation for the municipal authority, and or putting free chain gangs to work to do the job of the sacked and paid off city workers.
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Needless to point out that the criminal’s name is also published for everyone to know the criminal master mind who is out to destroy the very foundations of the American Way of Life. Surely FBI ought to investigate her ties with alkaidaa, for sure she sounds like a secret Musslllam?! She could be a member of khiszbuallah or an Eyranian agent or something too!!
Clark, thanks. My only concern was that this is a blog, by an individual and I was posting a link to another blog. As my only experience of blogs is football-based I don’t really know the ettiquete – they tend to get protective of traffic in my experience! Also it was slightly off-topic so didn’t want to derail the thread. Although thinking about it, the derailments are as interesting as the topics on here!
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I’m fascinated by the whole situation, the police, government, newspapers, drug-dealers, gun-runners and private investigators all implicated and colluding with each other, whilst having the temerity to hand out incredibly tough sentences to kids caught up in the looting last summer, stealing bottles of water or pairs of pants. Our entire moral-reference has disappeared and I don’t know whether this is a new phenomenom or something that has happened in my life-time (I’m 34). How can we possibly expect to raise new generations when litarally every authority or institution has been shown to be worse than the public they try to police or guide? Whilst we, as individuals, may be able to rise above the hypocrisy of the powers-that-be and do the right thing ourselves, how can we expect kids with no positive influences in their life and no frame of reference of “doing the right thing” to be part of a proper society.
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Maybe I’m being a grumpy old man and I’m sure these things have been said over and over again, but I am worried about the future. I love this blog btw, so thanks to all!
Regarding Iran’s nuclear enrichment…
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I was talking to a woman in a bar in Chelmsford a couple of weeks back. I was talking about propaganda in the corporate media, and I chose Iran’s uranium enrichment programme because it’s such a blatant example. I told her about the agreement in the US security services that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons, and hasn’t been since 2003, and that the IAEA has consistently reported that no nuclear materials have been diverted out of the system.
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Her response was that these agencies wouldn’t report such things in public in order to prevent panic! I found that lack of logic stunning. She would rather accept the word of the corporate media, which has always had a reputation for sensationalism, and would deny the validity of the most informed, authoritative sources in order to do so.
the political leadership have honed their propaganda tools.
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Therefore this facet has not gone missing in Johnny Foreigners calculations, that public opinion in the West; masters shit! The plutocratic leadership of the West ie the US, UK et al will carry on regardless of the public opinion (the two million souls who protested against Iraq war and marched in London, and were ignored duly by the media and the government alike, and discounted to be five hundred thousand)
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Further, Iraq lessons have been learned by all and sundry too, in fact Iraqi torture survivors are daily recollecting their harrowing experiences of being made to witness rapes of screaming boys whilst getting beat up and tortured in various US make shift prisons in Iraq.
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Opinion polls are flimsy excuse for warmongers to wage war, and those in the cross hairs are fully aware and prepared for that eventuality too.
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Apologies for including another link but its a subtly good one.Two things i’ve learned from this 5 minute clip from RT. The first is that the UN security council seems to be cracking up with infighting and panic – Kofi Annan was most likely booted out because he wanted to stick to his six point peace plan for Syria, but other western countries predictably want to take the military course and obviously dont want the UN peace plan on offer.
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The second point is that, according to the Guardians Neil Clark who appears in this clip, in may of this year there was a national vote in Syria carried out with the full backing of the Syrian government, where 89% of people voted in favour of democratic free elections. Why wasn’t this made a huge thing of? This changes the whole (illegal) justification for toppling a dictatorship – Not one of the mainstream media in Britain has reported this. In other words this forced conflict is utterly and totally unjustifiable on every count
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI3p5sJaDxo&feature=relmfu
Blue_Bear, here’s the rules.
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Any opinion can be posted; evidence and links are appreciated. If you post something stupid, expect other contributors to demolish it.
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When Craig has just posted a new original piece, try to stay somewhere near the topic, though if your digression is particularly important it will be welcomed. We’ve had a couple of commenters that always try to divert every thread onto their own subject of interest; the more they do it the less they are tolerated.
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The longer the thread gets, the less staying near the topic matters. This thread is well past that point. If there are a number of threads with comments open and active, try to post to the most relevant one.
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Engage with the arguments rather than the contributors. If it comes down to personal insults and abuse, deletions will occur!
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The moderators also post comments of their own. If my comment is concerned with moderation, I mark it so, like this one. You can disagree with the moderators; we won’t delete your comment for that, but obviously it’s best to avoid a slanging match.
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Welcome. Thanks for introducing yourself, and you’re off to a good start with an excellent link.
Blue_Bear: – addendum. The football blog scene seems to differ from the political blogs. It’s good to link to other blogs, they all help each other along, supporting each other in a network called the blogsphere. If one blog gets taken down by legal action, a load of other blogs will usually publish the article that led to the censorship.
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No one is going to complain about diverting traffic. Why would they? There are no adverts here.
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Chris Jones, you’ve no need to apologise for posting links, either.
“Kofi Annan was most likely booted out because he wanted to stick to his six point peace plan for Syria, but other western countries predictably want to take the military course ..”
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Kofi Annan said there was too much finger-pointing and name calling at the UNSC. The USA immediately said, “It’s all Russia and China’s fault!”
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————————–
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Meanwhile, “Activists get set to launch new flotilla to break blockade of Gaza Strip”:
http://ht.ly/cIeQC (972mag.com)
Clark was there a dos happening on this board?
Кишмаель’
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Knowing Russian helps but I am confused when you refer to the Stalin era.
FYI
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Dear All
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For a list of events across the UK to mark Hiroshima and Nagasaki (6 and 9 August) please see: http://www.networkforpeace.org.uk/calendar/print
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Best wishes
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Kate Maloney
Office Manager.
Clark,
Can you clarify the demography of the female that you had the discussion about the Iran civil nuclear energy?
Passerby, there’s been no DDoS attack so far as I know. I have no reason to suspect one, as the blog seems to be easily accessed. It is usual for it to become slow to load threads that are longer than about 250 comments, and at 500 or more a thread can get even slower. Having one long thread with comments open doesn’t seem to slow down posting on other threads without so many comments.
Passerby, white, southern English, between 25 and 30, at a guess. Well spoken and intelligent. Oh, and it was before John Sawers, er, very odd press conference, or whatever it was.
Clark,
Any data regards her job, education level, and her politics?
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Despite the fact that public opinion is held as paramount in the belligerent countries ie US, UK, et al (the same bunch which have declared a unilateral war on the planet and developing countries), often overlooked are the basis that the said public opinion is formed on, also the process of crystallization the formation of any such opinions, that are in need of a certain number of associative cues, that often get mixed with a heavy doses of emotions. The reason for this oversight is plain inadequacy of the target demographies in arriving at a sound judgment.
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This flawed reasoning begins with the customary facets of exceptional-ism which proceeds to the what-if scenarios, and ends in fantasy war and fantasy justice.
That quote from Charlemagne about the multiple souls, was a good one, pity all the linguists won’t have the spare capacity to remember it. In other news from Syria, the Syrian Army have intercepted the rebels relief supplies of amphetamine and all the rebels have fallen asleep.
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I wonder how the Scottish end of the investigations are coming along, Coulson was charged I believe for perjury in the Sheridan case or similar, others believed interviewed over phone hacking included Bob Bird, some Murdoch lackey with either the ‘Scottish’ Sun or News of the World, Jock edition, husband of the teleprompter reading Jackie Bird of (mis)Reporting Scotland, herself at the centre of a web of elaborate tax minimisation dodges. Isn’t it funny how this lot are all interconnected and tied together in unexpected ways.
Since Senator Norm. Coleman accussed veteran diplomat and Nobel laureate, Kofi Annan of corruption, mis-management and fraud with the Iraq oil-for-food program and urged him to resign, America’s response to most international peacekeeping efforts including Rwanda, Srebrenica, Somalia and Darfur is that it made things worse. In the minds of the war-monger slaves to the military complex i.e. NATO, the recent peace attempt was just a free get-out-of-jail card for Assad despite knowing the ceasefire on 12th April actually stopped government shelling but was exploited by the terrorists to gain further asymmetric strength by terrorising and murdering Syrian households and thus taking over key positions masquerading as civilians in a classic Trojan house dupery.
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With France taking over as President of the United Nations we can expect France and its FUKUS friends to further arm and finance terrorists indirectly (ha!) through the Gulf Cooperation Council and lacky boy Turkey.
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As in Iraq and Libya this corrupt irresponsible threesome willingly breaks its own laws to create terrorist groups, sells arms to murderers, sends in special forces (I
KNOW AT LEAST ONE WELL PAID exSBS) and makes grossly puerile attempts to sway public opinion via a corrupt, indecent and morally bankrupt corporate media.
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Yet plenty of Internet Real News has short-circuited their ploys. Information supplied by whistle-blowers most certainly prevented a false-flag chemical attack in a populated Syrian city that would have shocked the world.
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Washington, Paris and London have revealed their deception and trickery too many times; after Libya no nation can sink further into the cesspit of slaughter, carnage, gore and bloodletting than the terrorists in charge of these capitals.
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FUKUS – YOU HAVE BEEN BUSTED…
Link:
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9czypIytSE
Could be extended to GEFUKUSIS
What a load of poppycock. It is a pertinent question. I just found evidence of sheep mentality. The masses batter the one who stands out. If you do not know the answer, please do not reply. It may be unthinkable to some that I might not be kidding around. It does not matter what I know, a gracious mind understands they do not know everything, it is not weak to consider an argument posed by another. The Russians have found a new bravado, they may well push right up against Nato. In considering Iran, you should know that they are infact working on something not very pretty. We know this, we do not know what it is and are working hard to ascertain the origin, and also the risk posed by such a weapon.
I reject any attack on Iran, and will continue to work towards this. I am putting together a combined plan to engage the Nato & Israeli military should they launch a war of aggression upon Iran. You might not want to judge my lucidity right away. Keep watching the plan unfold. But, it can’t be true. Consider my argument as I do for you.
Passerby, no, I don’t know those things about her.
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On the other hand, I met a lad on the train on my way to demonstrate against Blair at Westminster Central Hall two weeks ago. I’d call him a young hacker; he was early 20s, had just finished a higher education Information Technology course, he could program and he understood the significance of software freedom issues. White, southern English. He said he went to slashdot.org for news, I think. He was really aware, quite cynical. He was telling me about the issue of corporations holding the same legal rights as individual people, with none of the responsibilities.
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I was surprised to find such awareness in someone so young. It really boosted my hope.
“I am putting together a combined plan to engage the Nato & Israeli military should they launch a war of aggression upon Iran.” Ishmael.
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Thank you for sharing this ‘Above Top Secret’ information with us poor herbivores.
Would you please be so kind as to define what “a combined plan” is, Ishmael? “Combined”, in what sense, exactly. Do you mean, ‘two-pronged’? As in, you will take on the Israeli and NATO militaries? Or do you mean, ‘full-spectrum’ in the weapon sense?
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And how, precisely, do you propose to do this?
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“We know this, we do not know what it is and are working hard to ascertain the origin, and also the risk posed by such a weapon.” Ishmael.
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Who is, “we”? Is there more than one of you?