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.
People like David Aaronovitch and Melanie Phillips want to keep Britain in the state that Ecuador was in before Correa, Bolivia before Morales, and Venezuela before Chavez.
‘Free press’ has always been a highly mystified notion, but when I hear these running dogs put the boot in to people who write and talk in public in opposition to the crimes of the warfare state, CIA dirty tricks, and regime lies and corruption, I wonder whether their words ever stick in their throats, and whether they sometimes wonder who the cartoon character is that’s stating at them from the mirror. Only for 5 seconds, though. The answer is clearly ‘no’.
‘Far left’ and ‘far right’ indeed. Frankly what does Aaronovitch, as a raving Zionist, know or care about such distinctions? What he means, Craig, is that you might not keep your mouth shut a) where secret state dirty tricks are concerned, and b) where Zionist influence is concerned. ‘Dangerous’ is the key word in his latest offering.
Craig
This war criminal really gets my blood boiling, to think of all those poor innocent Iraqis who were killed through the preparatory work of the likes of that specimen, no amounts of insults on the planet are enough.
This latter day Julius Streicher to date stands by his work as an enabler of the mass slaughter of the Iraqis and the current ongoing wars in the area. The painful fact is to date he has not been brought to account for his crimes against humanity, he ought to be tried in Hague.
The latest from the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/aug/23/julian-assange-ecuador-embassy
Police at the toilet window of the Embassy. Any fool can see this in an exercise in intimidation.
And the OAS foreign ministers are getting together to call on Britain to respect the inviolability of the Ecuadorian embassy. Britain’s aggressive behaviour is not playing well in Latin America. All-thumbs Hague is a disaster for British diplomacy.
I know the Nobel Committee made an ass of itself by awarding the Peace Prize to Barack Obama, but how about giving them a helping hand to rehabilitate themselves?
People in various categories are allowed to nominate.
The categories include: members of national assemblies, governments, and international courts; university chancellors, professors of social science, history, philosophy, law and theology; etc. As far as I know, there’s no rule requiring that nominations be secret. You don’t need to be invited to submit.
It’s the right time of year, too. The Committee prepares to receive nominations in September. It only chooses the short list in the spring.
How about it, for propaganda purposes?
Thirty years ago in the UK there would have been dozens of student unions who elected Julian Assange to honorary presidencies etc.
@Craig
From the BBC, 5.41pm today:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19362299
“Ecuadorean embassy officials say they have had no contact with the UK for a week” (…)
“A Foreign Office official called the embassy a week ago after Mr Assange was granted asylum, but there has been no contact since.”
“One official added: ‘The Foreign Office has been contacting many South American countries in the past week indicating they wanted to open conversations again with the Ecuador government – but they have made no approach.'”
“Foreign ministers from across South America are due to meet on Friday to discuss the situation.”
“On the eve of the meeting, the UK Foreign Office said it was to send the Ecuadorean embassy an official letter, though it declined to say what it contained.”
How do you read all that? What’s the point of the FCO contacting other embassies saying they want to talk to the Ecuadoreans? Is that simply a forgettable attempt at a response to the Ecuadorean statement that they haven’t heard a peep out of the Brits?
Or might the Brits be gearing up – or making a veiled threat – to kick the Ecuadoreans out, after which they’d need to use some other embassy as a channel?
The hand of Jehovah.
http://twitter.com/daaronovitch/status/70141855169384449
He is so vain that his mug shot is the background of his Twitter.
The sight of the £ sign in brackets when he posts a link to one of his Times pieces always makes me laugh. So apt.
eg
David Aaronovitch @DAaronovitch
Assangeists, Europhobes and Stalinists – why there’s no arguing with them. My Times column this am- http://thetim.es/R0L1hj (£)
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Got to sign up Mary to read your column – gRRR
“He is so vain that his mug shot is the background of his Twitter.”
Seems to be an old team pic/still from University Challenge? I wouldn’t call it a ‘mug shot’. He looks about 18 and there are three others in it. As for the £ sign, he’s warning of a paywall so people don’t waste their time going to it, if they’re not subbed.
“What’s gone wrong at The Guardian?”
Ali Abunimah at Al Jazeera
Worth a read, although we know the Josh Trevino story already.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/08/201281814239801229.html
This bit I didn’t know:
“The British achieved victory over the Boers by taking their women and children away to concentration camps” and “by laying waste to the countryside,” Treviño wrote admiringly, and suggested the US apply similar tactics to quash resistance in occupied Iraq.
That tens of thousands of men, women and children died was no deterrent; “Make no mistake: those means were cruel,” Treviño wrote, “I have stated previously that I endorse cruel things in war.”
I thought everybody knew that we were the first to have concentration camps.
The British may have achieved military victory over the Boers in that way, but the only way they were able to make peace was for Lord Kitchener to indicate to the Boers in the peace negotiations that they would soon have dominion status and a lot of what they had fought for.
Forget Aaronovitch, Craig, and listen to this anti-war song “Friendly Fire”–a parody of Johhny Cash’s song “Ring of Fire”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecNYCtbhurU
The Spanish had concentration camps (reconcentrados) on Cuba before the Brits had them in South Africa.
No Mark. I was just making the point that he annoyingly puts the £ sign to warn of the paywall as if we don’t know that he works for Murdoch’s rag, once a mighty newspaper. I see that Ms Murdoch (Elisabeth) aka Mrs Matthew Freud was speaking at the Edinburgh festival in support of the BBC licence fee. The BBC have put the report on their home page.
‘Ms Murdoch also criticised the “dearth of integrity” highlighted in the Leveson inquiry into press standards.’ What hypocrisy in view of her father’s and brother’s antics.
She has a vested interest in the BBC as she heads the company Shine that makes Merlin and Masterchef for them.
See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19355141
Britain also ran concentration camps in Kenya in the 1950s.
In South Africa, they put about 1/4 of the Boer population into camps, and starved to death about the same proportion of the inmates.
Who is Jennie Jones?
“I thought everybody knew that we were the first to have concentration camps.”
The bit I didn’t know was that Trevino suggested the US “apply similar tactics to quash resistance in occupied Iraq.”
A dead bird in the post to his wife and loose wheel nuts on his car although the hub cap was on seem to indicate that Mr Mann MP is right to be worried.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19354209#
New Bob
Sorry, should be Jenny Jones. Green Party.
“The British achieved victory over the Boers by taking their women and children away to concentration camps” and “by laying waste to the countryside,” Treviño wrote admiringly, and suggested the US apply similar tactics to quash resistance in occupied Iraq.
nuid 23 Aug, 2012 – 8:13 pm
Goodnight
Mann would appear to be more of a Mann than Mensch is a Mensch.
I remember watching Jon Snow interview Aaronovitch and a friend of Dr. David Kelly (name?) Kelly’s Friend was calling for an inquest into his Death, whilst Aaronovitch “the Journalist” rubbished the notion there was anything to investigate.
yeah the journalist wasn’t interested in an inquest, all the column inches that would spring forth.
Jon Snow couldn’t believe Arsonovitch stance.
I began to wonder is Arseonovitch really a journalist.
I remember watching Jon Snow interview Aaronovitch and a friend of Dr. David Kelly (name?) Kelly’s Friend was calling for an inquest into his Death, whilst Aaronovitch “the Journalist” rubbished the notion there was anything to investigate.
yeah the journalist wasn’t interested in an inquest, nor all the column inches that would spring forth.
Jon Snow couldn’t believe Arsonovitch stance.
I began to wonder is Arseonovitch really a journalist.
N_
Britain also ran concentration camps in Kenya in the 1950s.
And those running the concentration camps and death squads in Kenya have been running the torture apparatus of the Bahrain secret services, suppressing the political uprising in Bahrain.
Read up on Ian Henderson of Kenya, whom then got his mate Yates of Yard (the chap who absolved Blair the vice chief war criminal from cash for honours inquiry) to go over there to Bahrain and join him in making the “Kingdom Safe”.
A gift that never stops giving evidently!!
Marks & Spencer non-executive director and former head of MI5, Stella Rimington…is in Australia…where she has told people that Julian Assange is “naive”, because leaking government documents makes governments more secretive and less accountable.
She says governments should decide what to keep secret and what not.
What a comedian!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-22/ex-mi5-boss-hits-out-at-assange/4216002/?site=sydney
Meanwhile, Marks and Spencer’s are losing information like nobody’s business:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-49424/M-S-hires-security-specialist-stop-leaks.html
Aaronovitch, schmaaronovitch already. His owners should pat his head and give him a bagel, may it choke him. Enough Aaronovitch.
Kindly turn your attention to the Sun for a moment:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4501937/Why-The-Sun-is-printing-naked-Prince-Harry-pictures.html
It’s the current let’s-keep-substantial-news-off-the-front-page emission (as it is for the BBC), but hey, look at this:
“This is about the ludicrous situation where a picture can be seen by hundreds of millions of people around the world on the internet, but can’t be seen in the nation’s favourite paper read by 8 million people every day.”
No parallel with Ms Ar**n or Ms Kr**z there, obviously…
I think it is very rare anyone can be described as either far left or right. Most people have views that are perhaps a mixture of right and left. The term tends to get used when someone is trying to discredit someone and label them.
The views on media above are interesting. They have been stunningly tame on Harry. His sidekick I know as a salesman at a city investment bank.
@Andy
“Galloway says when he first meet Aaronovitch ”he was a was a communist… licking the backside of Stalin,”
Of course Galloway would know all about licking the backside of Stalin as he was still licking the other cheek back in 2002
“What is that position?” (the interviewer) “I am on the anti-imperialist left.” The Stalinist left? “I wouldn’t define it that way because of the pejoratives loaded around it; that would be making a rod for your own back. If you are asking did I support the Soviet Union, yes I did. Yes, I did support the Soviet Union, and I think the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life. If there was a Soviet Union today, we would not be having this conversation about plunging into a new war in the Middle East, and the US would not be rampaging around the globe” (Galloway)
And if you still don’t believe Galloway is a Stalinist have a look at what he says about Orwell.
Komodo,
Mervyn King after having pumped all the debt onto the tax payers books, and made the promissory returns good, in keeping the rich, richer come what may, is about to embark on a quantitative cock and bull run.
Mr. King will tell us all that we the people never got the shaft and there was no need for a reach around or a offer of a cigarette for all our troubles neither.
The very low rates of interest that effectively displaced the savings of the poor savers from the bottom into the accounts of the rich, in a stealth reverse Robin Hood raid (inflation), have only helped the majority debtors to service their debts and keeping the rich from defaulting (bad creditors rewarded for their poor choice in finding customers). Then rich have been further rewarded by picking up the assets of defaulters (savers who could no longer afford to live off their savings) for pennies in the pounds. Tories will call this triple whammy up the working classes which is basically 95 percent of we the people.
Naked pics are of course part and parcel of Freedom©® (copyright trademark) of expression!