On Being Angry and Dangerous 892

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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.

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892 thoughts on “On Being Angry and Dangerous”

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  • Mary

    0615
    Business news with Simon Jack.

    0709…..

    Quite crafty our friends at the BBC. They used to give a full synopsis of what was broadcast in that first hour of Radio 4 Today. Separate segments were even linked.

    Komodo. Naughtie introduced Will Grant at 6.50am

  • Passerby

    Foreign Secretary William Hague has condemned Iran’s widespread abuse of its citizens’ human rights as a “disgrace” and a “shameful indictment of Iran’s leaders”.

    Pot, kettle, etc.

    It is worth brining to attention the 16th Summit of the Non Aligned Movement to be held August 26–31, 2012 in Tehran. This 141 (120 members and 21 observer nations) group of nations that equals seventy five percent of the total UN member countries. Formed by countries which have had enough of the imperial US and her dictates in UN, in their opposition to imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism, racism, cultural chauvinism, economic skulduggery, improper and fraudulent banking practice. As well as all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony, and against great power and bloc politics.

    This NAM group of nation is meeting in Tehran, has Billy fourteen pints besides himself, just think about it. After all the money spent on making Iran look a pariah state (alone and with no standing, just as Billy no mates feels these days), and all the efforts in isolating her, Iran is throwing a big party and all the guests head off to Tehran for week of great time and chin-wag. Among the guests are President Morsi of Egypt as well as the heads of many other nations including Rafael Correa, and also that illusive Ban Ki Moon who has no choice but to attend, seventy five percent of his membership cannot be wrong, but for sure he ought to have assured Hillary Clinton that he will not enjoy himself, crossing his fingers and hoping to die if he is lying!

    Can you see the anger that Billy fourteen pints is experiencing? In fact I would go so far as urging the relevant personnel to put the downing street cat into a quarantine, that poor bastard could be kicked to death in the coming days with irate politicos getting senseless mad and finding no one to vent their feelings delivering the boot to that poor cat.

    Fact that US, and toadies have been catered for by a supine “media” in the West has resulted in this echo chamber of the same opinion getting repeated so many times, that everyone becomes verily convinced to be the only valid opinion, and then suddenly these zealots are faced with a totally different aspect of truth, ie the one hundred and forty one nations gathering that will no doubt get on with rubbishing US, and her toadies comprehensively, Billy fourteen pints and others are left with on other alternative than reverting to form.

    As any self respecting fishwife; embark on a course of pre-emptive rubbishing, ironically Billy no mates has picked on the issue of human rights, which is really strange, seeing as Assange is in self exile from the clutches of Billy fourteen pints and his sponsors, and is holed up in the Ecuadoran embassy. However I am sure anyone who is acquainted with Yorkshire pigheadedness will appreciate Billy really could not act any different, so be prepared in the coming days for a black out of news from Tehran, and lots of rubbish about “human rights” and imaginary “nuclear weapons” and the usual fishwife tittle-tattle passed as “megaphone diplomacy” , which evidently is the backbone of the Western Diplomatic endeavours at the dawn of twenty first century!

  • Peter Bryce

    I went to school with David Aaronovitch, as a teenager he was a straightforward Communist as were his family, old-school CPGB. Must have been devastating when the Soviet Union fell apart (anyone remember “Russia Today”?) Ah, the folly of our youth.
    I feel he is where he is today as a sort of reaction to that loss. That, and the fact that he was always a bit of a git. But a git that wanted to be loved, as we all do.

  • nuid

    The Swedish media war on Assange – ”Australian pig”, ”retard”, ”white-haired crackpot”, ”scumbag”

    Publicerat den 24 augusti 2012 kl 06:00

    STOCKHOLM (FRIA TIDER). Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has claimed that the media climate in Sweden has become so “hostile” against him that it may now jeopardize his right to a fair trial. These allegations have been strongly rejected by several Swedish officials, but a brief glance at recent Swedish media coverage on Assange seems to show that they are not entirely without ground … (continues @)
    http://www.friatider.se/the-swedish-media-war-on-assange

  • Komodo

    Thanks Mary. Was probably cleaning my teeth (special toxic toothpaste) at the time – just caught the end of it. Yes, the BBC’s synopsis highlights only the bits that people getting up late are required to hear or understand. They probably live in social housing, too.

  • Ken

    David Aaronovitch…

    If you are a Mancunian then you still talk about University Challenge in the mid 1970s when the Manchester team deliberately lost the contest in the first round by giving silly answers. God knows what they were playing at, but the letters’ page of the Evening News were filled for weeks with protests.

    Aaronovitch was on that team.

  • Chris Jones

    I’m not one for calling names but I just can’t decide if Billy no mates or Billy Shandy sits better in regard to William Hague. And what the hell is going on with that voice? He sounds like large cat in a state of pain and mild sexual arousal at the same time, whilst starring in a 1920’s talkie

  • Komodo

    He’s nnngtrying to aarghimitate his ah hero, mmWinston Churchill, while simultaneously accentuating his own (acquired) Yorkshire folksiness…a daunting task, I’d venture, and one better left to a drama school class exercise.

  • Michael Culver

    Congratulations Craig Murray if you have managed to get up arseonofabitch’s nose.He and a.marr are two latter day j.goebbels.The Iraq war is far from being over as most of the press would have the public think.The country is covered in both depleted and other uranium waste which is sending cancer and infant mortality rates ever upwards.Electricity is on ,if at all ,for 5 hours a day,this with temperatures of up to 51 degrees.Neither the U.S.nor the U.K. has attempted any sort of clean up ,I suppose we must wait 50 years until washington deigns to attend to .01 of the worst as in Viet-Nam and Agent Orange.If anyone anywhere is still in doubt as to the reality of U.S. lunacy try googling the number of countries it has attacked and bombed since 1945 and then ask how many of those attacked had made ANY threatening gestures against the U.S. Also,and this is from an agnostic,check out Grace Halsell’s articles re; the Scofield Reference Bible it explains a great deal about the current propaganda power of zionism.

  • nuid

    “And what the hell is going on with that voice? He sounds like large cat in a state of pain and mild sexual arousal at the same time, whilst starring in a 1920′s talkie”

    I have tried many times to describe it myself and have failed miserably. That’s not at all bad Chris!

    I am sitting here wondering how on earth Assange can get a fair trial in Sweden now. It’s not only in the Swedish media that he’s been crucified. He’s been labelled ‘a rapist running from the law’, all over the ‘West’.

    And an Aussie female writer sent me this, as what she calls “the clear bias of four corners” (“Sex, Lies and Julian Assange”)

    http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Assange-supporters-happy-to-trample-on-victims-rights/

    It’s weak, in my view, and doesn’t even attempt to rebut much of the Four Corners programme.

    It doesn’t seem to worry this Aussie that it says, for example, “Early the next morning, Miss W told police” — she’s not bothered, apparently, by police reports being leaked to the press. Or what this might imply for Assange.

    By the way, both Ar** and S**** W**** are named in it, no bother.

    “In her statements Ms W**** makes it clear”, so did SW sign a statement after all? Or are they simply quoting unsigned results of interviews?

  • Jonangus Mackay

    Excellent, Craig. Talking of angry . . .
    .
    A Hollywood contact doesn’t entirely discount an industry rumour that an animated version of Aaronovitch—literally exploding—is under discussion as poss key plot-point for the next version of Toy Story.
    .
    An ill-painted Russian doll, it seems, delightfully equipped in the usual Toy Story way with magical powers of speech. But with sinister characteristics calculated to confuse & intrigue the adult audience: A Stalin-lover . . . inside a Blair/brown-Noser . . . inside Murdoch-like Dirty gold Digger.
    .
    Brits on the Pixar script team who’ve come up with the idea apparently argue that in the UK at least RonAaron™ would have, as in real life, lucrative up-market merchandising appeal. Three Ronnies for the price of one.

  • Harriet

    Just a quick point about unity. Of course we need unity; Assange is right.

    Our opposition to war and to persecution of dissidents should be powerful spurs to our recognising that we need unity and not squabbling needlessly among ourselves over irrelevant differences. It’s great that more and more people are realising that.

    But…never forget that on the other side to us there are spook agencies run by people who don’t know the meaning of the word ‘ethics’…

    …who manipulate opinion not just in a monolithic fashion but also by running their own people who are supposedly on our side…fakes…

    Anna Ardin, for example.

    We who want more truth in the world, more respect for human individuals, less oppression, and so on, shouldn’t forget that against us stand experts in the field of political and cultural manipulation.

    There is a reason that Adolf Hitler kept a copy of Edward Bernays’s book on his desk.

    Another example: if anyone here has read Pussy Riot’s closing statements, they will see that they are extremely intelligent young women.

    Immediately after their conviction, the US embassy in Moscow criticised their sentences.

    These young people, who know their Debord from their Berdyaev and their Vaneigem from their Kafka, kept quiet. Yes OK they are in jail, so they don’t have microphones, but they have got an organisation and their colleagues kept quiet. Not one hint of a statement that “We don’t want support from the US government, which has more people in prison than Russia, carries out illegal wars in which millions get killed, and promotes big business interests”. Bit of a bloody lacuna, if you ask me.

    I won’t go on about colour revolutions and Boris Berezovsky and efforts run by the US or UK embassies in Moscow, Kiev, Minsk, Tbilisi, etc.

    I am sorry, but this needs to be said.

    So when I hear George Galloway, man of many aeroplane journeys in times of international problems, come out with his ridiculous statements about ‘sexual politics’, I don’t apologise for asking people to consider whether they want this man, who is most certainly no idiot, on our side. Look at Women Against Rape – people who have done a lot to help rape victims and to fight against rapist culture. Editors went to them for a quote, and they had the guts to say they oppose the extradition of Julian Assange, and how the Swedish and British governments are cynically using the narrative of sexual oppression for oppressive purposes. Meanwhile, Galloway goes and makes a video saying a sleeping woman who a man has had sex with the night before is fair game the next morning – and surprise surprise, the TV channels and newspapers are full of ‘amalgamating’ that vile position with the one that opposes Assange’s persecution and extradition, in support of all individuals who blow the whistle against crimes and cover-ups by state officials.

    And now Galloway says the first time he met David Aaronovitch, Aaronovitch was ‘licking Stalin’s backside’.

    Ahem!

    People can change, even if I have long been of the view that people who are extreme system-lovers can only change after suffering pretty heavy mental problems, even breakdowns. But people can change, so if someone was a Stalinist or Tory or whatever in the past, they may be fine now.

    But…hypocrisy is never OK…and neither is political amnesia…so no apologies for reminding people that Galloway was for decades a raving Stalinist himself.

  • Chris2

    Neither Ecuador nor Sweden makes decisions regarding extradition on abstract legal bases. They act for reasons of state, which are generally reasons of class masquerading.
    In Sweden’s case, the government sees an opportunity to forge very close relationships with the USA, on the understanding that it will share in the pickings. It already benefited greatly from the collapse of the USSR and has expanded its influence in the Baltic and Russian marches considerably during the past couple of decades.
    Not coincidentally the government of Belarus recently declared certain Swedish diplomats persona non grata: they had been attempting to subvert the Belarus government which is high on the list of those the US has earmarked for regime change.
    Which is a status Belarus shares with Ecuador where, only a couple of years ago, a Police strike, with the assistance of the US Embassy and its local right wing comprador stooges almost succeeded in toppling Correa.
    Such (literally) near death experiences are bound to stick in a chap’s mind. Lukashenko in Belarus went through one a couple of years ago too: a US backed “colour” revolution attempt complete with provocateurs, snipers, Gene Sharp’s little book etc.
    Correa is not only very likely to assist the President of Belarus, but would be foolish not to. Britain and the US give massive support to the narco death squad regime of Colombia, from which several attempts on Ecuador have been launched, a country compared to which Belarus is a Swiss Canton in June.
    What should really concern the friends of Empire is that Correa understands that the surest way to add to one’s popularity in Latin America is to defy Uncle Sam, (the death squad and torture man.
    Must go…

  • VivaEcuador

    This is just too good to miss. Look at what the Wicked Witch of the West is saying now about the right to privacy:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/prince-harry/9496425/Prince-Harry-had-no-expectation-of-privacy-says-Louise-Mensch.html

    “Prince Harry, inviting people to his room, did not have an expectation of privacy. More to the point, you can’t have a situation where our press as a bloc is so scared of the Leveson Inquiry they refuse to print things in the public interest.”

    No Mrs. Mensch but obviously we CAN have a situation where our press as a bloc is so scared of the BBC and the gender-politics Gestapo that it cannot mention either the name of a woman who announced to the press that she was “raped” by Julian Assange or even the policewoman who she approached with her accusations, right?

  • VivaEcuador

    Why would Mensch say something so contradictory to her views on Assange?

    She probably realises how stupid she looked trying to protect information that was already in the public domain but instead of admitting her imbecility, she tries to compensate with a “fervent” defense of the public’s right-to-know on a matter of zero importance. So now if you say that Louise Mensch is an authoritarian with medieval views on press freedom, her defenders will say, “Ah but she did come out against the suppression of Harry’s photos, you know….”

    Very transparent.

  • nuid

    “her defenders will say, “Ah but she did come out against the suppression of Harry’s photos, you know…”

    Ludicrous. Anyone with an internet connection could view the Harry pics any time. Only those dependent on printed newspapers in the UK would have been “deprived” anyway.

  • bert

    @Chris2 – interesting info about Belarus. The right-wing opposition in Ecuador, Venezuela, and Bolivia receive massive US funding and support, and yet look at how pathetically they have failed with their coup attempts, in each of those three countries.

    I think some people in the west have difficulty understanding that the governments of Correa, Chavez and Morales are genuinely popular and deservedly so. That’s the main reason the right-wing opposition isn’t getting anywhere.

    Which isn’t to say Chavez isn’t militarily very bright. It’s quite amazing that the right wing controls most of the media and practically the whole of the school-teaching profession in Venezuela. Chavez has gone round these obstacles, big time. Sounds obvious, but nobody did that before he did! Conventional wisdom said dual power couldn’t last. But he tore up the rule book.

    Are you saying Barankov is Uncle Sam’s man, a kind of Belarusian equivalent of Alexei Navalny in Russia? If he is, why was he given asylum in Ecuador in the first place? Just asking!

  • VivaEcuador

    @Nuid:

    That is exactly what I mean. It is pure grandstanding and a dirt cheap way to get her name on record as a “defender of press freedom”.

  • nuid

    O/T
    When people in Britain and Ireland become depressed by their financial problems, they sometimes commit suicide. In the USA, they pick up a gun:

    Fatal Shooting at Empire State Building
    One Victim Killed; Gunman, Who Had Lost His Job, Is Dead
    By JAMES BARRON, WENDY RUDERMAN and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM 5 minutes ago

    Ten people were shot, at least one fatally, by a gunman who opened fire outside the Empire State Building on Friday. The shooter was identified as Jeffrey Johnson, 53.
    http://www.nytimes.com/?smid=tw-bna

    (or perhaps some here will say it’s all part of a plot by the U.S. Gov’t in preparation of a swoop on privately held weapons)

  • nuid

    “It is pure grandstanding and a dirt cheap way to get her name on record as a “defender of press freedom”.”

    Yes, as I said, ludicrous.

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