Those coming from Central Asia, Bahrain, Qatar or Saudi Arabia to the Olympics, interested to see what life in a democracy feels like, will find it seems exactly like life at home in their dictatorship. 17,000 soldiers will be glowering over the venues, checking identity documents, stopping and searching. The mlitary will occupy residential buildings, be buzzing overhead, rolling down the streets and patrolling the river. There will be missiles on land, sea and air, though nobody knows what the threat is that this is supposed to counter.
What will make our dictatorship resident visitors feel especially at home is the contempt for the ordinary citizen. Not only will they have the military all over them and be subject to frequent stopping and questioning, they will be expected continually to get out of the way of their betters. Special VIP lanes on the road will allow officials to sweep by, while normal citizens will simply have to sit in gridlock and stew. Who cares? The military will stick missiles on your roof if they wish. What they are going to shoot down, and which bit of London it will land on, is not to be questioned.
Here in Ramsgate we are losing our regular train service to London completely for the duration. All the HS1 trains are being commandeered to run a shuttle service between Ebbsfleet and Stratford. 22 trains a day from Ramsgate are simply cancelled. Slow trains are available, but a journey normally 70 minutes will become – at the fastest possible – 2 hours and 35 minutes. A large number of commuters will simply be unable to get to work anything like on time, and have to spend door to door over seven hours a day in travelling as well as their working day. Nobody was consulted. Quite a few don’t yet know – there has been no determined effort to tell people. Leaflets are available in the ticket office if you ask for one.
But the leaflets might as well just say, “You are fucked, and we don’t care”.
The extra 3,500 military personnel it was today announced will be used at the games cover a shortfall in Group Four personnel. Group Four were providing 4,000 paid staff and 6,000 unpaid volunteers. It is the unpaid volunteer numbers which are short by 3,500.
Most people are not stupid. They may volunteer happily for sport or for charity, but to work for nothing to make tens of millions of pounds of profit for Group Four as it exploits them, plainly does not have universal appeal. Those 2,500 who have volunteered to work for nothing for G4S are the idiots in this story. How gullible can you be?
Bob Russell, MP for Colchester, today in parliament made the excellent point to Teresa May that Group Four (or G4S as they now call themselves) should not be employed because of their role in aiding and abetting Israel’s illegal activities in the West Bank and human rights abuse there. With breathtaking chutzpah Teresa May replied that it was this kind of valuable international experience that made Group Four the right company to provide security for the games.
Which brings me back to my point at the start. Those visiting from oppressive regimes will feel absolutely at home. That is the one and only thing you can trust Teresa May to ensure with grim efficiency.
@Clark, thanks, I’ll have a look now. I believe the police were in an impossible position and clearly put in some danger by their superiors. RE. the thread-etiquette, I’ll stick to protocol next time but I was happy to find somewhere discussing these subjects properly and couldn’t help myself.
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@Crab, yes, I did think about the golden age of local TV when Thames was mentioned earlier. Central and ATV and all the other independent channels produced a lot of very important news and current affairs and the BBC had a more local presence. Brum has dropped off the radar generally though which is another subject altogether.
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@Rioutously inclined, I didn’t realise it had anything to do with the brothers’ death. It’s the type of story that could be the catalyst for trouble and the police to get a grip of their own behaviour. It was clear that the authorities lost control temporarily.
13 Trillion of money that we will have to all work to pay them. Think about it.
If we have high inflation all our promises to pay will be devalued.
That will not happen. So more deflation then a global currency.
What i was thinking was a people currency. Starts off we can work a few ours a week and call our currency “kind”.
Build up some credits and participants and off we go. Even if its just starts at the local Tea shop or amongst tradesmen, artists e.t.c
What do you reckon Nevermind, we still owe on our big loans that keeps the pensions going but will it bring some value and worth back to the fiat.
Actually, I did see some mainstream coverage of the riots. I remember now; I was occasionally visiting a friend who always had his TV on. Something I did notice was the way the same shots were played over and over. That seemed unrepresentative and unnecessary, as there was no shortage of reports coming in so you’d have thought they’d have had more material to show. They seemed to have a fixation for showing that furniture shop in flames, and a police van under attack.
Apostate,
The Iranian bogei is being played for the benefit of the US covert ops in Syria. As of few months back isreal is in heaps of internal trouble the riots in tel aviv and desperate isrealis setting various government buildings on fire as well as themselves (most of this stuff is going unreported, also Mofaz has resigned and nate an yahoo bunch are running on vapour at the moment).
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The whole shit is coming unglued and the only diversion around is the bogie that is going to do this and that and the other.
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So far as the security theatrics goes, these were the pre-emptive moves to second in the army because the powers be were fully aware that G4 will not manage to carry out the contract awarded to it. The public were already prepared for the presence of the army in the streets.
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The London ol impics (no trade mark infringements) will come to surpass the Atlanta in the category of crapiest events in the history of the games.
Jay, I’ll support that. Check out the Transition Network. There are already various local currency schemes, local credit unions, etc.
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One of the most successful ventures is my hobby-horse, Free software. Not “freeware” (no money, but a restrictive licence). I mean software released under one of the free licenses like the GPL. You can take a five year old computer, install a GNU/Linux system, and it’ll run better and faster than a brand new machine sporting Windows 7.
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One of the reasons I bang on about free(dom respecting) software is it shows just how well people can do by cooperation, without having to be enslaved to the corporations.
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We should do everything we can do for ourselves and for each other, without intervention from the system of Big Money. It’s the only way I can think of preparing for the crash.
Blue_Bear, yours was a great post (the long one) and most welcome to me. I’m faraway in the wilds of the north, so it’s great to get some local information and views and reaction on what took place, during the riots and since collapse of the Birmingham case. It is intrinsically bad and sad that in a few days/nights of madness anyone should have been injured or as happened in Birmingham, horribly killed. I think your point about the police being elsewhere and thus inviting unrest to take place in less-policed areas, is valid; in London, it was suggested briefly at the time in many sources that as much as half the police available at any one time, were protecting specific well-off, sensitive, high property value areas, specific buildings, Parliament, Downing St. and Regent St, Oxford Street’s expensive stores, Harrods etc. at the expense of outlying areas. If the anger of young people particularly could have been directed towards the more blameworthy and culpable than their own neighbourhood facilities, businesses and class-comrades, then seismic shifts which a great majority are desperate for could have flowed from it. I’m afraid where our own successive governments have become the enemies of the people, then our common enemy’s enemies are our friends and however unfocused their dissent and rage was, how superficial their targets, how wasted an opportunity, scant the outcome, their gumption is inspirational.
The law and respect for the law suffered all round, the crooks in high places continue their kleptocratic criminal misrule unruffled, the police in their bullying, power gone to their heads aggravation of too easily escalable situations -failed and failed passively in being the frontline face of malign authority which has gouged the people in a slow death of a thousand cuts and cruelties, and finally the justice system demonstrated its unfitness for purpose in imposing absurdly disproportionate sentences on the many opportunists who mucked in and helped themselves to tuppeny junk spilling onto the streets, whilst deaths go so far unpunished by society, elsewhere.
It would be interesting though to know how the judge in this Birmingham case came even to know of the secret BBC documentary, based on long widely published Guardian/LSE investigation, largely focused on London – all being London-centric collaborators – and whether it was brought to their attention by whichever parties, and how they could construe it to be in anyway pertinent to their unrelated triple hit and run in a faraway city.
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With the Guardian and the BBC if they cannot be trusted on major things, cannot even hint at the truth then they cannot be trusted on anything; when they haven’t a tight agenda to manufacture the news to a particular recipe in any one sphere – compared with out-rivalling Goebbels in all others – they tend to flounder or turn the the story into one about themselves; heads up their own backsides when not under security service micro-management.
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With so much happening abroad, and blood on Downing Street’s and Parliament’s hands once again, purely domestic matters seem inconsequential, but at root, the causes and perps are one and the same as neo-con nut Cameron navigates us glibly from rock to hard place.
“..once you get people standing up on those desks they can see that actually the world looks very different from up there.”
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George Galloway – At his most lucid.
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http://www.rt.com/news/dictatorship-assad-syria-western-conspiracy-371/
Thanks Guano – Assalamu alikum
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“Living in the West does sometimes make me forget the pain and suffering my brothers and sisters face, but my pain is nothing in comparison to theirs.
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When I remember the pain my fellow muslims face I walk out and I am PROUD and not scared to be a muslim. Whatever belittling, abating I may face so be it. I know in this life it may seem there is little justice for our brothers and sisters but at the end of time Allah will reward us for the pain we suffer and he will punish those who deserve it.”
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‘Hania’ on Wael Abdel Gawad…
Mark Golding, I sent an e-mail back to you Sunday 18:44.
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Thanks for the George Galloway link.
Obama commenting on the Colorado massacre of innocents: “I come to them not so much as president, as I do as a father and husband.”
The Pentagon kills more innocents most days with its drone attacks. What is the difference between a dozen innocents being shot at a Batman movie and a dozen innocent Pakistanis being droned at a wedding? Answer: no difference to the victims, no difference to the mourners.
What a hypocrite. They are both ‘collateral damage’ to violence in society perpetuated by US attitudes to life and to their passion for weaponry.
“Jewish group slams Olympics for refusing Munich massacre minute of silence”
Ron Lauder says hopes the IOC isn’t bowing to pressure from ‘certain regimes,’ saying the panel was ‘out of touch.’
http://www.haaretz.com/news/sports/jewish-group-slams-olympics-for-refusing-munich-massacre-minute-of-silence-1.452910
This is horrendous:
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Drone company rep: “If you’re concerned about it, maybe there’s a reason we should be flying over you, right?”
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USA: Spies in the sky signal new age of surveillance
http://www.startribune.com/local/163304886.html?page=1&c=y
That rep should be hung up ten stories high by his nuts, nuid, what a numpty.
“What a hypocrite.”
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I’ve got it stuck in my head that Obama is ex-CIA. (If you can be EX-CIA when you’re the President.) There’s a cold ruthless killer under that broad smile.
Mark Golding, I’ve received three e-mails from you, between 1:44 and 1:46, the first clear, the second two encrypted. I won’t reply until later; I can’t think logically enough right now.
Ron Lauder says hopes the IOC isn’t bowing to pressure from ‘certain regimes,’ saying the panel was ‘out of touch.’ (Nuid, above)
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/23/israel-eu?newsfeed=true
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Such pressure we’re feeling. Just as well we’ve got them by the kishkes, eh?
“The former head of the civil service, Lord O’Donnell, is the board of the bank’s preferred choice as new chairman.”
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18950606
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For past services rendered.
As the Euro slumps to new lows against other currencies and the crash gets even nearer, we have this obscene display of excessive wealth in the quays on the Thames. I just hope that the likes of Gates, Abramovich, Gosling and Allen have SBS trained operatives on hand to keep an eye on the hulls of these gross items of tupperware.
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Invasion of the super-yachts: They’ve got swimming pools, helipads and even a mini-submarine. How the world’s mega-rich are turning London into a floating Olympic playground
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2177211/London-2012-The-Olympic-super-yachts-arrive-Thames.html
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Their headline on the online version reads –
World shares dive and euro battered to 11-year low as Spanish government stares into financial abyss
FTSE 100 index of leading shares down 1.6 per cent to 5,562 as Spain faces crisis
Euro falls to 11-year low against the yen and two-year low versus US dollar
More Spanish regional governments expected to call on central government for help, sparking fears Spain will need full bailout
Spanish sovereign borrowing costs soar to crisis levels: 10-year bond yields at 7.59 per cent, unsustainable in medium term
Let them eat cake….
“I come to them not so much as president as I do as a war criminal and murderer,” Obama told reporters after his visits. “The reason stories like this have such an impact on us is because we could all understand what it would be to have somebody we love taken from us in this fashion.”
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http://news.yahoo.com/obama-offers-comfort-colorado-shooting-223858084.html
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More of his gross hypocrisy.
Disclaimer
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It has become apparent that direct descendants of the kett family have taken umbrage with the use of the term Kett’s Independent Alliance, something I anticipated but which was dismissed at first.
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To show that we respect their wishes we have decided to change the name at a future meeting.
“Engagements”
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“Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab): Some of our constituents would be hungry today if it were not for the work of Foodbank and similar organisations in our constituencies. If current trends continue, Foodbank reckons that by the next election it will be feeding half a million of our constituents. Might I therefore ask the Prime Minister, before he completes his engagements today, to plan what the Government might do to counter that terrible trend and report back to the House?”
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“The Prime Minister: First, let me join the right hon. Gentleman in welcoming the work that Foodbank does. I have visited one of its sites myself to see what it does. What is absolutely vital in these difficult economic times is that we do what we can to protect the poorest people in our country. That is why we have frozen the council tax, increased the basic state pension and uprated benefits in line with inflation, which has protected the people who need protection the most. Yes, we have had to cut tax credits for those people on £30,000, £40,000 or £50,000, but we have actually increased the tax credits that the poorest people receive.”
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http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmhansrd/cm120523/debtext/120523-0001.htm
Clark,
Since when telling someone to not waste my time and go and read fucking comics is an unbearable insult?
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I have come to know you and I won’t give you a hard time, but consider this;
these days various operatives are trolling the net to debunk and make any kind of serious dissent to appear childish at the least and churlish, and baseless rantings of “failures” to adapt at the most.
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The self anointed chosen ones do not kid around when they pull the card of “out of touch” because they and those sponsored by them damn fine sure have turned the main stream media into an echo chamber that only reflects their angle of the “reality” (positively, absolutely, and decidedly heaps of lies and conjecture). However given the aberrations such as this site on the net, are threatening the contrived “conventional wisdom” then their calls for tactics of debunking the veracity or the extent and depth of dissent, and falling back on the standard deviation of the “nuts and morons” .
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It is a welcome fact for any site to attract new visitors, however when the bullshit meter starts kicking the high limits then something stinks, and the stench of undermining any credible dissent by inclusion of poppy cock and fairy tales is a foot.
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Finally I am a busy man ( not that it ought to matter to you or anyone else). However taking heed of Mark Golding and his urging to take part in our defense of humanity any which way we can, I comment on this board. However this does not mean that I am here to engage any wannabe shill or agent busy discharging their duty.
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Although the point arises that intentions cannot be proved, however given the sentences:
Passerby
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Try to put your one brain cell into overdrive and understand that when it comes to nuclear weapons the USA and Russia are playing against each other, …thats why the US is building even greater ones!. You must be one of the most naive people I have come across!!!, everything in your thinking is just one dimensional…….
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Having trumped the oh so brainy Guest’s (remaining anonymous even in anonymity of the site) link in which the doe eyed commentors are lamenting that their trusting government has trusted the Russians (trusting US government????????????) The same bunch of murdering bastards who have been killing people across the planet with their soldiers, drones and and all manner of weapons systems.
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Further the link is debating the decommissioning of the “bunker buster” hydrogen bomb, FFS who in their sanity can even begin to develop a bunker buster hydrogen bomb????????????????????? Does no one see the joke that is getting played?
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First the 294 mile kill zone, then the skyscraper size weapon that only kills biological species, and finally the link that debates a new Russian ICBM denoted as “Satan”.
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As I said in the beginning Clark having read you time and again, I appreciate your views and understand you bear no malice, so I will not give you hard time, furthermore I do not intend to justify or rationalize, hence the above points raised.
Passerby
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In your mind anyone that criticises just the USA for having nuclear weapons is welcome!!!, not so if they point out that other nations are just as guilty, “everything in your thinking is just one dimensional.”
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As for…”Guest’s (remaining anonymous even in anonymity of the site)”…Is “Passerby” your real name ?.
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You couldn’t make it up!.
Sorry to hear the Kettses are objecting, Nevermind. Still, a rebrand might not hurt. Ketts’ revolt is not well known outside Norfolk, and perhaps lacks wider resonance. Wouldn’t presume to suggest a new name, but you might consider this as a theme tune, copyright permitting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIHJ9RMAVGI
We’re talking ANGER.
Clark
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In response to your concern with the economics as a science.
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I agree that (as you called it) hard science is much more precise and the reason is that hard science does not involve dealing with human nature. By this I mean that hard science is not affected (or some call it getting poisoned) by (as again some call it) sinister human spirit.
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In economics on other hand human nature (behaviour) plays as significant (if not more) part as mathematics. One might spend years of working on perfect mathematical model of certain economic structure or product, but then success of this will depend on human nature, on whether or not humans would agree to sell/buy/act on the way predicted by mathematical model.
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This does not happen in hard science. Water under normal pressure is boiled in 100 degree centigrade, and this happens irrespective of whether or not human/humans want it.
why is blair back ?
Questions to the Leader of the House of Lords on the role of the minister Lord Stephen Green and his connections to the money laundering scandal in Latin America whilst CEO of HSBC are being fielded into the long grass by the amply framed Lord Strathclyde.
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Background
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/politics/2012/07/miliband-keeps-pressure-stephen-green
This was the question
Private Notice Question
Allegations about HSBC made by a United States Senate Committee on the ability of Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint to fulfil his ministerial duties – Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
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http://services.parliament.uk/calendar/#!/calendar/Lords/MainChamber/events.html
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I see there was a previous question about the health of children and pregnant women in Gaza from Jenny Tonge which I missed. I expect the usual anodyne answers came back from my Lord Howell of Guildford (Osborne’s father-in-law incidentally). I received an anodyne reply from my MP when I wrote to her about the lack of anaesthetics for women in labour there because of the Israeli siege. These people do not care and have no humanity.
Ron Lauder says hopes the IOC isn’t bowing to pressure from ‘certain regimes,’ saying the panel was ‘out of touch.’
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Just a note, Komodo: those weren’t my words, they were the sub-head on the Haaretz article.
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I saw the piece on “EU move to upgrade relations with Israel” this morning. The gutless wonders in the EU piss me off. But the “Munich massacre minute of silence” story tickled my fancy as I could see the Chosen Ones whining about it in a couple of thousand years time, among a list of other “slights”.