I learn the interesting news that David Aaronovitch tweeted to Joan Smith and Jenny Jones that I am:
“an angry and dangerous man who could as easily be on the far right as the far left”.
I had no idea I was on the far left, though I suppose it is a matter of perspective, and from where Mr Aaronovitch stands I, and a great many others, look awfully far away to the left. I don’t believe you should bomb people for their own good, I don’t believe the people of Palestine should be crushed, I don’t believe the profit motive should dominate the NHS, I think utilities and railways were better in public ownership, I think education should be free. I guess that makes me Joseph Stalin.
But actually I am very flattered. Apparently I am not just angry – since the invasion of Iraq and the banker bailouts everybody should be angry – but “dangerous”. If I can be a danger to the interests represented by a Rupert Murdoch employee like Aaronovitch, I must have done something right in my life. I fear he sadly overrates me; but it does make me feel a little bit warmer, and hold my head that little bit higher.
Yeah sorry Jon, I never took that in when reading it but in the quoted text after “also”, the bit “I think this is where I stand,” seemed to have got lost somehow, I’m re-posting the same block of text again below (with the same formatting tags) to see if it happens again, but as I have the original text still in my clipboard history, I can see that you’ve added “I think this is where I stand,” to the comment in question. Unfair I say. You bounder! Such unlikely bedfellows too :).
A whole new meaning of ‘client state’ is being postulated in which the tail wags the dog.
I’m pleased to see that you are angry and out there doing something positive. I’m also pleased that Glenn Greenwald is joining the Guardian. I’ve noticed people such as Amy Goodman in ‘comment is free’ and more good stuff.
@Fedup: re Tutu: agreed. Have forgotten what little HTML I ever knew. Shall try & re-swot.
@Jon
How characteristicly ‘clever’ to modify one of your own posts to strengthen an unremarkable argument; previous posts here by others detailed good objections to any edit function to refashion our previous comments, such powers cannnot but be abused, it is a small step towards the utter desertion of this blogs purported principal cause, a change noted and with which I am uncomfortable, even if you’re punching the air and your appetite for power grows. Is it the case that this is another place which needs watching or has succumbed?
Such a optimistic option – a one-state solution – depends on the victims of wholesale theft, disposession and slow-mo genocide having the magnanimity to share what was once their own with those who’ve taken over all of it by ugly inexplicable force and unfathomable hatred.
Jon: With paragraph breaks and pagination I feel spoiled 😉 I’m guessing the latest fix should significantly improve performance on the big threads. Nice work.
Just got one suggestion, perhaps you should also have the pagination links displayed at the top of the comments. Currently users don’t know what page they are reading until they hit the bottom of the page.
Arafat’s remains are to be disinterred so that tests can be made for presence of Polonium-210, the same radioactive element that is said to have caused the death of Alexander Litvinenko. This is from 2005 and contains details of Arafat’s illness and symptoms.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/07/world/africa/07iht-arafat.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
Yasser Arafat: France opens murder inquiry
{http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19402767}
Home Secretary John Reid’s statement Nov 2006. {http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6189132.stm} Knowing him, I would not believe one word of his anti Russian smears.
The Litvinenko inquest resumes soon. The coroner Dr Radcliffe has been removed and a judge has been appointed as a deputy assistant coroner in her place. Why? {http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19196519}
This practice sounds cruel and like common assault to me. Perhaps Theresa May should experience the same.
Inspectors have criticised the “unnecessary and unacceptable” practice of cutting off women’s clothes when they are forcibly strip-searched in jail.
Responses to women whose behaviour caused concern were also “excessively punitive”, said a report on New Hall Prison in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, which holds 356 women and two babies.
/..
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/women-prisoners-clothes-cut-off-230937926.html
I’m with Ed from the Medialens message board here. I remember that dreadful Margaret Becket’s prevarications at the time when she was Foreign Secretary. Sky News carried the IDF onslaught live with their cameras trained on Beirut. It was pure war porn. Just like the Israelis from within the belly of the beast who sat on picnic chairs watching Cast Lead through binoculars.
‘Corporal Becky Casson RAF evacuating British Nationals from Lebanon 2006…
Posted by Ed on August 29, 2012, 12:37 am
Sick to death of seeing the British army advert with “Corporal Becky Casson RAF” telling us how heroic, interesting and unpredictable her job can be…one minute behind a desk, the next in a helicopter saving British nationals in Lebanon in 2006!
I remember the evacuation of the British from Lebanon by the RAF and the Royal Navy in 2006, it was disgraceful. They left the rest of the Lebanese people to suffer a destructive onslaught by the vicious IDF who on the very eve of a ceasefire (long opposed by the USA and Blair) dropped thousands of mines on the country to ensure deaths and injuries to the Lebanese people continued long after official hostilities had ended.
Not something to be proud of Becky Casson.’
Behaviour or individuals and groups define who they are.
The British government would be culpable to their behaviour if they were not perched near the top of the pyre and thus have control of underlings.
As individuals we can only ever affectl the behaviour of ourselves and those close.
Ask your self when you are controling what are you intentions and there is your answer to what motivates.
The intentions at the top of the pyre are control.
So give them complete control as individuals we can have our say.
So how do we want control?
To act in the best interest of everybody.
Julian Assange should act in the best interests of every body.
That is the liberal way.
Jon
Many thanks for holding the fort. I came back from the Carron Hills last night – Clark is still up there, as are Jamie and Emily. I have internet access for one morning, then moving into a tent. Am researching in Montrose and hotels here are expensive (always full of North Sea Oil people.
Many congratulations for your patience! Feel free just to delete some on the crazy anti-semitic rants when you don’t have time to keep doing such reasoned replies.
Re. Arafat, don’t I seem to remember his compound was repeatedly shelled by the Israelis some time before his mysterious death? There were, I think, reports at the time of DU ordnance being used; Arafat could well have inhaled or ingested the dust. And while uranium toxicity still doesn’t seem to have been much studied in humans, work on animals has produced a list of toxic effects, well summarised here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium
The French don’t seem to have considered the possibility.
I wondered were Clark had got to, I could have hitched a ride up there and helped out….
Mary,
Why should Theresa May have her clothes cut off when,
a) She hasn’t committed a serious crime and ended up in prison
b) She hasn’t broken the rules of said prison and requires strip searching.
Your quest for constant mock outrage does leave you with some strange bedfellows.
The inspectors make it sound like prison is a special place for these “damaged” women to get help and that each guard should be some sort of psychiatrist. For some people there are no criminals, only “victims” of being “damaged”, which somehow gives them special rights when it comes to treatment. Women aren’t sent to jail unless they’ve committed crimes. Prisons are meant to work for the wider society. If the government wants to provide millions and millions to try and provide comprehensive psychiatric care that’s fine, but don’t expect low paid prison guards to do it. If clothing is a minor issue then the inspectors should be recommending that all prisons adopt the same policy / uniform, cuts out all misunderstanding.
CE Worthy of Ms Widdecombe who wanted pregnant prisoners chained to their beds whilst giving birth. Your heart is SO large.
I know I shouldn’t be feeding you.
Here we are:
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20020607/NEWS/306079978&cid=sitesearch
CE, please, no more, you had me in stitches with your last reply to Mary.
“Women aren’t sent to jail unless they’ve committed crimes. Prisons are meant to work for the wider society.”
That’s mind fellatio, pure conjecture, you have no idea how many non violent direct activists were thrown into prison, without having committed a crime. Myself I lounged at Westminster, Colchester police station, Glasgow, etc. all due to non violent direct action.
Your predetermined sheltered upbringing has left you with a good education, so how come you can’t get that ruler out of your shirt and think? Get real CE, prisons are used to conform people, campaigners for causes, whether it was Twyford Down, Newbury or the G20 demo’s, these places are psychological torture chambers. Further, unable, well educated public servants use prisons as holding chambers for mentally ill people without a place to live, short term solutions to a far greater malaise.
This presumption that you are snow white and believe in fairy tales is not going to endear you to us here.
Like I said, people can believe in whatever non falsifiable stuff they want to, so long as they don’t insist I have to believe it or that I have to alter my words or behaviour to suit their beliefs.
It’s funny though; whenever someone makes the above self evidently reasonable statement, the sky-fairy believers tend to get particuarly hot under the collar.
It was the atrocious spelling in the original post that caused offence.
Thanks Komodo. Interesting. At least the investigation is being conducted by the French and not here.
CE Whoever and wherever you are. My outrage is not ‘mock’. Injustice is injustice.
Solitary confinement: Torture chambers for black revolutionaries
An estimated 80,000 men, women and even children are being held in solitary confinement on any given day in US prisons.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/08/20128694647587767.html
Just as is happening to Muslims and others being held now at Belmarsh Prison.
From Belfast to Belmarsh
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Bernadette Devlin McAliskey in Glasgow, Scotland in June giving a talk on the internment of Marian Price
{http://thepensivequill.am/2012/08/from-belfast-to-belmarsh.html}
Aspects of the British ‘justice’ system.
Sorry to miss the Rabbit festival, Craig. I passed close by this weekend, but was too busy to stop in, due to urgent business in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and London.
Jon/mod is not only moderating but also acting as facilitator, and doing so admirably, imho.
I’m naturally inclined to support the political cause of the Palestinians, but I’m also aware of the plight of individual moderate Israelis; to see them so roundly condemned is worrying (whatever label-of-convenience is used: “anti-semitic”, “anti-Zionist”, or “anti-Israeli”). However, those impassioned rants offer a valuable insight into bigoted mindsets (however understandable the bigotry is). They demonstrate a remarkable level of resistance to reasoned argument, emotional appeal, and even common decorum. Ultimately, they need to be incorporated into any solution, so it’s wise to become acquainted with such bitter worldviews – as long as they don’t stifle the expression of other opinions.
So anyone wanting prisoners punished reminds you of Anne Widdecombe? Nonsense, do not forget the real victims
And best to get your facts right before casting baseless aspersions. Not that I’m a fan of hers, but I am a believer in accuracy, even towards people we don’t agree with. AW defended pregnant prisoners being shackled, not them actually being shackled during the process of childbirth. Bit of difference, but the truth doesn’t suit your agenda of outrage.
Ps. Well said Craig on the anti-semitic rants. If you think the hotels in Montrose are steep you should see Aberdeen.
There’s just a sidenote to the Arafat issue: if DU was used (should be easy to discount, it sticks around, especially in bone), why? DU is for armour piercing/creating a conflagration inside armour as it pulverises and burns. Arafat’s compound was concrete, and HE would be the ammunition of choice for wrecking it as a gesture – they don’t seem to have been too interested in getting in there. So, IF DU then nasty bastards…
Assange – some genuine wit here.
http://dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-08-29-julian-assange-and-joseph-heller-a-match-made-in-prison
WARNING: If you are hopelessly in love with Assange, you may not want to read this. But it makes some good points.
Mary, is it the idea of prisons in general you have a problem with, or only those in the UK?
How to punish and rehabilitate criminals, and protect law-abiding citizens at the same time, is an extremely complex and difficult issue. I just fear that attitudes like yours (prisoners=good, screws=bad), is naïve and immature in the extreme, and does not get to the heart of the matter.
“…@ Computer Hobbiest
It was the atrocious spelling in the original post that caused offence…..”
Yep, guilty as charged
I can spell. But, two problems;
1) I’ve got builder’s fingers and so contantly press two or more keys at once.
2) I’m a bit dyslexic and tend to conceptualise words as whole objects. When writing, I also tend, in the style of Les Dawson, to include all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order.
…Or was that Eric Morcambe?
I usually run through a spell checker before posting as I can’t always see the mistake (due to the whole word issue). Sometimes I forget, though, or don’t have time.
So what was in this single shell that hit his bedroom, Komodo, or was it in the tea brought to soothe his wobbly knees? served to him by a Judas/close associate?
@Cryptonym – I owe you an apology. I tweaked my text to add a clarification – it must have been 30 seconds after I’d posted it! Bounder indeed ;). Also, I was too grumpy in my subsequent response to you.
But that aside, I am trying to work out where we agree. This is what I originally wrote, as you quoted:
From your earlier posts, you seemed to be in favour of the One State Solution, to which I said “that might work also” – hardly disagreement. I then used the word “but” i.e. ‘here is another viewpoint that some people believe in’ – and said that the Far Right would be in favour of “wanting Israel to move”. I think that is broadly accurate.
This is what now confuses me. Are you proposing that Israel move somewhere else? If so, fine, here is where we disagree. Can you outline how you would propose this in a way that garnered support amongst the Israelis?
I agree there was a wholesale theft, but it is where it is, and I am not sure we can change the past. I think any solution is going to be a bit messy, and the idea of restoring everything back to its owners isn’t feasible.
So, my central question – if you were facilitating talks, and could persuade anyone of anything, what would the solution look like?
May I be damned, for amplifying the kosher Al Jazeera.
Good on you Desmond. ‘part of democratic discourse’, my backside.
This is what Bliar needs, on a daily basis.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/08/20128295214839374.html
@CheebaCow, thanks. I will put the suggestion of an extra paginator on the list, it might be possible 🙂
Technicolour amusingly notes (above)
Great, we’ve had the anti-immigration Front and now it’s the anti-Jewish League. Boring.
Can we take it, then, that you are in favour of a diverse, multi-ethnic and multifaith Israel?
Just asking. Out of boredom…
Unsurprisingly, an Ecuadorean court today rejected the request to extradite Aliaksandr Barankov to Belarus, and upheld his refugee status.