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.
A well known campaigner and friend of mine, Winston, who is severely disabled and walks with am crutch, well he uses two now since he was unable to medicate with cannabis in jail, a shadow of his former self, has just been released from jail after getting a sixteen month sentence for growing his own at home.
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In my book he gets the gold medal
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He did not get parole, because he kept to his principles and was not cowed by those who brought him pain instead of justice. But he is out now and so someone has sent me a rather fitting picture.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=329104183849047&set=a.201838803242253.45799.183168178442649&type=1&ref=nf
Well done M.Phelps and U.Bolt, you won because you prepared the best and trained hard.
Just when you thought a new knight in shiny armour has all the answers for society, you find out that the election was heavily rigged and that corruption is massive.
Huge demo’s in Mexico and the western media is told to be stumm about it.
http://anoncentral.tumblr.com/post/27199392210/ongoing-mexico-revolution-ignored-by-the-media
“Israel’s envoy to U.S. jumps the gun, blames Iran for Sinai attack
“On his Twitter and Facebook accounts, Michael Oren points his finger at the Islamic Republic, despite the fact that Defense Minister Ehud Barak attributed the attack to an al-Qaida affiliate.” (Haaretz.com).
“Iranian backed terrorists again struck at our Southern border today killing 15 Egyptian guards and attempting to massacre Israeli civilians,” Oren wrote in a Twitter post. On his Facebook page he wrote that “terrorists also shelled Israeli farms and towns along the border… the thwarted attack underscores the length to which the extremist regime in Iran will attempt to kill innocent Israelis.”
What a slimy twat!
Convulsed with identity politics this blog became for a time part of the circus a sideshow (of hate and love) for all that is other. We cry arrest Blair as the Cameron crime count mounts. Is it really the case that we have no surviving mechanisms or means to terminate a government gone over the edge into barbarism, with extreme prejudice.
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Whilst it may be comforting that the Syrian people have rallied to the government, and the rebels taken a pasting, those arrested in their thousands too, too even if foreign nationals can legitimately face trial and imprisonment or worse by Syrian authorities with perfect justification and justice. The Syrian army are excavating mass graves in sites of former rebel activities, the stench of rotting flesh pervades whole districts. The Syrian army though is weakened which is at least a partial objective attained, but at the same time battle-hardened, cautious, methodical and with substantial resources and forces in reserve. Still more than a match for the drug-addled rebels, to whom the inefficacy of aimlessly firing guns into the sky has never penetrated, they like their targets beaten red raw first, trussed, kneeling backs against a wall, such sharpshooters are they.
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I think Clark is right in his pessimism; that our primitive limbic brain system controls this friend or foe identification, with genetic, common to all humans neurological compartmentalization of (1) Ourself, (2) Like Ourself (immediate family members) )3) Other. It is our reaction to the ‘Other’, ‘not-like-ourself’ and our hardwired distinction and differential emotional and physical responses to difference. But we can learn to love ‘other’, to admit them to that second group, as friends and by that means ‘other’ becomes part of our extended family, hard I know in the age of the nuclear family or lone wage/benefits-slaves. The solution is more mixing and integration of diverse peoples, everwhere, everyone of us each needs to absorb and minimally assimilate those who are different from us and those who form minorities ought not to concentrate together and create insular ghettoes.
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Nuclear Family has however taken on a whole new meaning. We could all be fiddling whilst Rome burns, European nuclear scientist’s research into Fukushima, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/6913 scotches the Japanese and MSM fact-free reports:
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“The official report of the Japanese government to the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Association] contains a hypothesis that the emanations of nuclear fuel from Fukushima Daiichi are equivalent to the ones observed at Chernobyl.
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We can see by comparing the subsets of figures below that the radioactive particle emission through the air from Fukushima is not only 3.7 times higher than Chernobyl; but, more importantly, 28.3 times more radiotoxic with every breath you take.”
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On the whole I think we’re too damned stupid for human habitation of this earth to continue much longer, with the highest intelligences serving psychopathic destructive ends too.
Cryptonym wrote “On the whole I think we’re too damned stupid for human habitation of this earth to continue much longer, with the highest intelligences serving psychopathic destructive ends too”
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That is exactly the kind of despondency those higher up want you to think Cryptonym – so that chaos can ensume and they can come in and take charge.It is those higher psychopathic destructive groups that are causing all this chaos and destruction – normal people on the whole just get on with each other and respect each other differences and idosyncracies.We are supposed to think that there is no hope.But we are hope
I didnt mean sarcasm way back there it just came out wrong; I do find some of youse ‘fascinatingly informed’.
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But Chris Jones – sorry I cant digest that illuminati stuff at all, ive little regard for it these days. If eg. warcriminal Rumsfeild did say as that link claimed, that the US has facilities to spray “aerosolized prozac and valium” on cities, i account for that as just Rumsfeild putting more confusing and disturbing bullshit on us and a genre of sci-fi picking up on it and doing his horrible work for him. I have no fear of a little prozac or valium dropping from the skies because it is a ridiculous form of mind control from a pharmaceutical perspective. Im believer in the likelyhood of wtc demo etc, but that whole prisonplanet etc. scene just seems completely weirded and fogged out to me.
Yea gt news from syria!
at lunchtime sophie rayworth came up beaming-thought we’d won another gold-but no evidently the Beeb is celebrating the defection of Assad’s Deputy. Riad Hijab has been “escorted” by the Al Ciada rent-a-mob and himself joined the revolutionary forces!
er…the guy was actually sacked by Assad.the rebels are in such utter that their firing squads are forming circles!
sophie rayworth can kiss my butt!
not on da left cheek not on the right cheek but in da groove, man!
Interesting interview of Chris Hayes, by Glenn Greenwald that covers many of the issues facing us today:
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http://soundcloud.com/salondotcom/interview-with-chris-hayes#play
I don’t really understand Turkey’s position. They have made their own border unstable by permitting the rebels to arm,group ,train, and be sent into Syria to fight Assad’s army.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32060.htm
This whole area north and north east from Aleppo is Kurdish.The US has been supporting Iraqi Kurdistan and they have had a standing army even before Saddam fell. the east / South east of Turkey with some of the most beautiful borders imagineable,is Kurdistan.I think there are as many Kurds as Turks in all four countries, and it wont take that much to begin joining the dots for their own country.I hope they get it, because they’ve waited a long time, but the carnage it will cause will be terrible.
What has NATO promised them ?
Doug Scorgie,
The reaction of the isreali
envyenvoy is anticipated, because the anti Semitic olympic board has excluded sports like: taking human shieldhostagesprisoners, beating on defenceless old women and children, using tanks, jets, helicopter gunships to target Palestinians. 10 miles land theft dash, erections of settlements in the occupied Palestinian lands.,
None of the stuff that the worlds only democracy and only chosen country and only only only one is good at, and instead the same bunch of anti semites sitting in committee have picked up all the stuff that the world’s only democracy and only chosen one ……..and only only only is crap at, such as sports and sportsmanship etc.
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As ever any time isrealis are out of the headlines (which world cannot do without), soon this situation is remedied with some phony baloney attacks of some sort and the usual fishwives come out screaming banshee fashion to get back into the headlines. No gold medals but plenty acrimonious headlines blaming all and sundry from the time immemorial to date and the balance is resorted.
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Cryptonym,
You are mistaking the primitive hard-wired biological systems, with much more sophisticated and intelligent biological systems. Sure you can make the more intelligent biological systems behave as less sophisticated hard-wired systems, but is that not by design and deliberate?
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We have the most expensive diseducation systems that spends huge sums to destroy creativity, objectivity and sanity, and instead teach emotionalism, fake stories and myths, and distrust of logic, and reason. What do you expect the outcome to be? You know better, then start teaching other miseducated counterparts and get them to snap out of their stupor bubble.
A moderator should not take sides (contradiction in terms, you see). Here endeth the first and only lesson.
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Still the most interesting blog – not just for Craig’s views but for You Lot. Always good to read, if not always safe to write. Get over it, I’m trying to tell myself.
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http://www.safespeak.org.uk/information_for_parents_5_to_10.html
@Thatcrab – I don’t blame you for being ‘weirded and fogged out’ by it but the vast majority of the facts in that video can be verified in official documents,reports and books published by officials and governments – it bears no relation to sci fi
“In Britain,Thatcher insisted on attracting a mass Indian influx – one reason given was that they procreated in greater numbers than the increasingly childless native Britons and thus would help to pay the increasing debt that Britain has created for itself” Chris Jones.
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Was this the same supposed “flood” of foreigners with which Thatcher attempted to terrify people during the 1979 general election?
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Amd who, precisely, would you define as a “native Briton”? King Caractacus? And a “mass influx of Indians”? What, the entire city of Mumbai came to Cardiff?
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Or am I somehow restricting the “platform”, free expression, etc. by expressing myself freely on this platform and pointedly disagreeing with some of the purported received wisdoms being touted on this thread?
That’s one way to snort your up and downers then, have them released by a passing aeroplane.
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Vronksy! I hope you are self censoring and not under a boot!? Say it is still safe to harp and uddle chief. I never take your supply of wit and clarity for granted, keep it spread around. You must feel safe here in the UK with all this security no? eheh. I hope you are thriving Vronsky.
Officially only one of the 37 Israeli athletes competing at the Games stands a chance of a gold. He’s a windsurfer.
Even though there’s only 37 Israelis competing, in close contact sports like judo the Lebanese team have even refused to practise anywhere near the Israelis.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/reviews/opinion/item/12324-olympic-hypocrisy-jokes-and-jews-need-not-apply
Iranians won’t compete with the Israelis either.
It’s no fun being a pariah state-LMAO!
If Thatcher did encourage immigration from India, that would be a somewhat inflated way of saying so. It would also be better to refer to the ‘existing’ population than ‘native’.
I do not have time to watch youtube clips longer than a few minutes, so i have no idea if/where all that goes.
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Vronskys here Suhayl! our top man, got any old tea? 🙂
@Suhayl Saadi – Im not trying to cover well tread ground ,just trying to summarise what the video is about. I don’t think the duplicity of politicians such as Thatcher should be of any major suprise by the way.
Don’t panic – I use ‘native Britons’ as people who would have been born in Britain at that time – whether they were green,blue,brown,mauve or brilliant white
The latest news out of Syria are concerning arrest and dentitions of Saudi and Turkish military intelligence officers, by the Syrian regular army. Further, as the Syrian regular army is moving in on the “rebels” positions, they find mass graves of the victims of the Syrian “free army”. These murdering bastards are doing exactly as in the case of Libya; torturing and murdering anyone they find standing in their way, soon we will witness the bodies of corpses with chunks of flesh gouged out, and joints drilled, that have sustained these horrific injuries, during their interrogations and ultimately their murder, at the hands of Syrian “free army”.
And as to “social engineering”, I would say that the most damaging (damaging to our society) experiment in social engineering has occured under successive ideologically-driven Thatcherite Nu-Lab/Con/Condem Govts over the past 30+ years. We see the consequences all around us.
Well said fedup.
But hope for the best and all
DonnyDarko
“I don’t really understand Turkey’s position. They have made their own border unstable by permitting the rebels to arm,group ,train, and be sent into Syria to fight Assad’s army.”
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Turkey did an abrupt 180 degree turn about a year ago, from being pretty matey to Syria to aiding the rebels. Turkey is obviously doing more than just permitting rebels to operate – what were their jets doing in Syrian airspace?
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As you say, it is difficult to see how it is in Turkey’s interest to undermine Syria.
I suspect it was more stick from the US than carrot.
Vronsky, you’re missed.
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Juan Cole discusses the latest mass shooting in the USA, where a white supremacist, ex-military, guy with a 9/11 tattoo, shot and killed six Sikhs among a gathering on Sunday morning at their Temple. He is thought to have been targetting American Muslims:
http://www.juancole.com/2012/08/white-terrorism-at-oak-creek-the-paranoid-style-in-american-violence.html
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CNN were at pains to explain to their viewers how Sikhs were not Muslims, as if to say, “He was targetting the wrong people folks”. Horrendous. Islamophobia (carefully fostered and funded by certain people) is running amok in the USA.
Thatcrab said: “But Chris Jones – sorry I cant digest that illuminati stuff at all, ive little regard for it these days.”.
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It’d be easier to digest if they weren’t all trying to sell a book/DVD/t-shirt…
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Mary, I wasn’t saying your post was cringey, but the letter was embarrassing. I know I shouldn’t, but I read the Standard on the way home today. They were sycophantic as usual, emphasising the feminist angle of struggling to maintain job/family etc, while glossing over any possible wrong-doing. I liked the way they chopped up Tom Watson’s quote about her leaving to make it sounds respectable.
Cryptonym:
“our primitive limbic brain system controls this… But we can learn to love ‘other’, to admit them to that second group… The solution is more mixing and integration of diverse peoples, everwhere, everyone of us each needs to absorb and minimally assimilate those who are different from us and those who form minorities ought not to concentrate together and create insular ghettoes.”
Also arent we created or evolved much beyond our primitive systems. It is silly to model ourselves on our primitive instincts, while adverts and seductions encourage us to. How hard do we have to try to transcend basic instincts? ~The Art of being. We can even happliy be motionless gurus or unceasing empassioned builders for years, when we determine to be, rather than warriors or couch potatoes or virtual crustacea. I must try harder…
Turkey’s position is that they want in on the EU.
Clark, your moderating influence is very welcome and much needed. Of course, moderating and contributing to the same board can cause conflicts of interest if you try to shoulder the responsibility of policing opinions under either persona. This site can be a nest of vipers (not to mention other venomous reptiles and pincing arthropods), and it’s not your job to suck the poison out or heal the wounds.
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Craig is very much in favour of vigorous debating. He actively welcomes criticism of his own views, and he responds in the same spirit, without taking offence. It’s one of the qualities I admire most about him.
As at Aurora, witnesses insist there was more than one gunman.
http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/assassination-studies-1/witnesses-multiple-shooters-at-sikh-temple.html
There’s also more than one mind-control assassin on the loose right now.
Americans had their guns forcibly taken from them in the aftermath of Katrina.
They’re about to have their 2nd Amendment rights removed on the back of the current spate of shootings.
If you think these guys are lone gunmen or just Far Right extremists-think again.
I can’t remember why you hit the bricks – but yes – good to see you back Vronsky.
Blue bear wrote:
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“It’d be easier to digest if they weren’t all trying to sell a book/DVD/t-shirt…”
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Theres always that niggling aspect to it i suppose but in the case of Alan Watt and most of the better informed ones, their material is all available freely on the interweb, but they still have to try to pay the bills somehow, as do most great independent speakers – even the great Craig Murray has been known to sell a few books every now and then!