Sunny Hundal is pulling the Nick Cohen trick of claiming that “Lefties” who fail to applaud every action of Bush, Blair, Netanyahu and Obomber are actually supporting Osama Bin Laden’s cause.
The Taliban is an excrescence but it is not a spontaneous outpuring of human evil. Its roots lie in the devastation of Afghanistan by foreign invasion, first by the Soviets and then by the Americans, coupled with the failings of Pakistani society due in very large part to hideously corrupt governments and politically powerful military, aided and abetted by the West. The Taliban is, in short, as much a symptom as a cause of disaster.
Hundal is a sad figure. He asked me to join Liberal Conspiracy when it started, and I refused on the grounds it was going to be a vehicle for New Labour war criminals. It has become precisely that. Hundal’s basic decency has predictably been eroded as he was sucked in by the neo-con establishment. He joined New Labour and the Guardian and is now in the states working for the drone-killer President who has launched a campaign against free speech which has seen the prosecution of more whistleblowers under Obama than under all previous US presidents combined. Hundal recently helped the anti-whistleblower cause further by publishing a fawning “exclusive” interview with the odious Harriet Harman (Of course it’s exclusive – who the fuck other than sell-out Hundal wants to talk to Harman) repeatedly labeling Julian Assange as guilty of rape.
Hundal’s question “Why do lefties keep ignoring the threat of the taliban to Pakistanis” is a stupid slur. “Why is Sunny Hundal a neo-con lickspittle?” is a question worth discussion.
I think two things influenced George Monbiot to change his stance. One was the emergence of the “Green Nuclear” intellectuals, including James Lovelock.
The other was a result of the polarisation in the debate about nuclear power. Monbiot is quite right to point out the amount of poor “science” and scaremongering promoted by the anti-nuclear power campaigners.
There is a knee-jerk response of “all nuclear is bad” that is quite prevalent. I’m considering returning to university to study nuclear engineering. I’ve become very interested in the possibility of designing nuclear reactors to “burn up” the “spent fuel”, thus finding a solution to the stockpiles of nuclear “waste”, and generating a lot of electricity in the process. Many people display an immediate suspicion and abhorrence to this idea; it’s “nuclear” so it must be “bad”.
It’s almost impossible to be regarded as moderate in the nuclear power debate. Each camp identifies a moderate as being on the opposite side.
It’s not even that Monbiot can find some novel or compelling justification for his turnaround. It’s nothing startling, just the old ‘the lights will go out’ fearmongering line as trialled by Bernard Ingham in his latter role as hireling nuclear energy lobbyist, a decade or more ago. Is he still alive and channelling Mrs Thatcher? I’d rather have any number of weather events and natural disasters than one more nuclear accident, the cumulative dosage is mounting. Overlooked again and again is the high probability of our and most coastally located nuclear plants being inundated and ending up distant offshore smoking ruins, with modest rises in sea levels, freak waves or coastal erosion. It might be that with our past dalliances and escapades with powerful nuclear horror, we have already sown the seeds of our extinction. The Government’s plans for new bubbling cauldrons of death all over the country has multi-party support: like invasion of Iraq did. When they sing the same tired songs from the same song sheet, terrible things usually happen, the decisions so misguided and short-sighted that even blame must be apportioned in advance.
Cl;ark, nuclear is fine, as long as its Thorium and molten salt reactors, but the intention of our current and past operators were to produce weapons grade plutonium in a world riveted by cold war and obsessed with being bigger and better than then other side.
If Britain has the largest latent capacity to produce benign alternative energy from its natural environment, without the need of nuclear power or long term obligation to recessive and active waste, should we be forced into a pro plutonium straight jacket when we full well know that the end result is a planned indiscriminate annihilation.
We do know that the use of nuclear weapons is theoretically illegal as it will definitely pollute and involve third parties, so is the decisive planning to do more of the same also illegal?
This is O/T just in from a friend, would love to know what Craig heard about this move to enrich the Met.
http://www.theinsider.org/news/article.asp?id=0393
And as so aptly tried and tested by their favourite news rag, both party political giants are normal, they conform to the rest of society in their daily habits.
Gideon, Oh Gideon, have you brought your favourite whips…..
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/276931?123
For oneself, Monbiot, even if he is right on the environmental side of the nuclear debate, there is a huge deficit of nuclear power, in its current incarnation, that he neglects: the power of the state.
Isn’t nuclear power the very symbol of the power of the modern state? Invisible to the eye, immensely powerful compared to the individual, unaccountable to the electorate, produced in maximum security installations by esoterically trained personnel, prone to concealing operational failures, downplaying risks (through use of sympathetic ‘objective’ scientists, aggressive PR, etc) and so on. Not to mention the industry being an unholy alliance of the private and the public, a brilliant example of the ‘too big to fail’ model, along with the public bearing the external costs (massive pollution, enormous startup and decommissioning fees) and also providing lavish subsidies at every step. There is also the vulgar socio-economic fact that the Monbiots of the world can afford to live far away (relatively) from sites of nuclear production.
If Monbiot was arguing for some corresponding paradigm shift that would democratize the production of nuclear power, then I would have more sympathy for his argument. But to transfer one’s allegiance to nuclear power without doing that, is to simultaneously affirm one’s faith in the nuclear power industry, and that, to me, is ludicrous, particularly when one considers Monbiot’s gaze clears up considerably when he writes about the institutional rot and democratic shortfalls of contemporary UK society.
Suhayl Saadi, ++ for your comment of 15 Oct, 11:17 am.
Clark: All nuclear is bad, this isn’t a knee-jerk response. Glad to have been of assistance. And don’t call me a Luddite or I’ll smash up your machines.
Cryptonym at 15 Oct, 12:36 pm
This is exactly this sort of exaggeration that has alienated Monboit and others like him from the anti-nuclear camp.
The argument has become so polarised that it is difficult to make sense of it. The anti-nuclear body make it sound as though harnessing renewable power is a simple proposition, and they don’t give proper credence to the dangers in other methods of power production.
Even the worst estimates of deaths from the nuclear power industry are in a similar range to the deaths from other power production industries, on a deaths per unit energy comparison.
But there is the “waste” already produced to clean up. We can’t dispose of that if we abandon the development of nuclear technology, which seems to be what the anti-nuclear lobby are aiming for.
Nevermind, current power reactors are not used to produce weapon material. The old UK Magnox reactors were dual purpose as was Chernobyl, but the current, much larger reactors are not. There is more than enough plutonium for the warmongers already; it long since turned from an acquisition problem to a disposal problem. I think we’ve got about sixty tonnes of it at Sellotape.
kingfelix, ++ for your comment of 15 Oct, 12:53 pm. Yes, decisions about nuclear technology need to be put back in the hands of the people, but with the current polarisation it would be difficult to have any sensible debate. Firstly, full disclosure is needed. The government and industry need to be transparent and accountable. Of course, they’re going to be reluctant to do that, partly because it will expose the vested interests concerned, but also because they know that the anti-nuclear lobby will fall on them like a ton of bricks, exploiting people’s scientific ignorance to score cheap points.
The fight is going to need an armistice before any sensible debate can occur.
I’m with Monbiot on nuclear energy – though not quite as shrill. Renewables are beginning to prove their commercial viability – notably in the rapid spread of small wind turbines augmenting farm supplies in the countryside as well as in the major companies’ investment in offshore wind farms. But the case is far from made, and commercial pressures can be pretty daunting, eg:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-16/china-solar-silicon-production-curbed-30-to-lift-prices-energy.html
Until the green solutions become general, with the next generation of developments emerging from laboratories into production, we need a stable and continuous source of power which at any rate does not excessively increase CO2 emissions. Ideally, it does not originate from the Caspian or Saudi Arabia. Nuclear power fits the bill, unfortunately. As an interim solution only.
Mind you, there is a prevalent mindset that insists that 90% of the cars you see on the road, though designed to hold four people at least (and in the case of 4X4’s, six people, three large dogs, the daughter’s pony and several cases of Bordeaux) are occupied only by the driver. That buses are for the old and destitute. That supermarkets and shopping malls have to be heated to 25 Centigrade throughout the year. That…the list is endless. Obvious conclusion: energy is undervalued in this society. Its cost needs to go up. And then those wonderful market forces will happily encourage less costly energy sources
Come on Cryptonym, aren’t you going to suggest that the “spent” fuel be “shot into the Sun”? Or have the anti-nukes finally worked out that trying to lift all our nuclear mess through our own atmosphere is a really bad idea?
Hoo hoo, watch it Komodo; you’ll have the “The UN Is A Tool Of The Illuminati Planning To Kill Billions” lobby on your back!
And this is why nuclear should be taken out of the hands of governments and their fund-raisers. They tell lies. The myth perpetuated for more than half a century that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were dropped to end the Second World War is total bunkum.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-real-reason-america-used-nuclear-weapons-against-japan-it-was-not-to-end-the-war-or-save-lives/5308192
Correction to my own comment of 15 Oct, 1:20 pm:
Decisions about nuclear technology need to be put in the hands of the people for the first time ever. But the people also need sufficient scientific literacy to hold a meaningful debate.
Hoo hoo, watch it Komodo; you’ll have the “The UN Is A Tool Of The Illuminati Planning To Kill Billions” lobby on your back!
No room. I already have “Lizards From Mars Did 9/11” and “Craig Murray Is A Tool of the Rothschilds” there. Perhaps on a foreleg?
Thanks Suhayl. I bow to your greater knowledge. However, the taliban are portrayed as the enemy in the corporate media. Presumably that is what we are being told to accept. Anything which adds to the given image is welcomed I assume. I have just heard Ms Burley of Sky News spit the word ‘taliban’ out when she gave the headline – ’emergency treatment in the uk for young girl shot in Pakistan by the taliban’.
Another question. How has the human condition been advanced by the jump from the 23 mile high capsule? I note that Red Bull were one of the sponsors. Every day I collect five or six empty discarded Red Bull tins when out with my dog. Just saying.
Now that we are completely off topic.
Has anyone else noticed that the so called high altitude jump on Sunday was faked?
If you look very closely at this video you can see how it was done.
http://www.dumpert.nl/embed/6394742/6eb9eea8/
John Goss, yes, the meme that nukes ended WWII has been repeated for decades, but it has always been obvious to anyone who thought about it that it was mere propaganda. A single demonstration on an unpopulated region would have been entirely sufficient.
V droll Derek.
Cameron and Salmond are kept in detention after school to write their lines.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/63497000/jpg/_63497859_016241363-1.jpg
Clark,
Any knowledge/views on the Zinsser affadavit?
i.e. nuclear test over the Baltic in Oct ’44
From Mary:
The danger from propaganda is multi-directional. It not only obscures the truth, it suggests a direction to react in when the propaganda is recognised as such. But propaganda is constructed on the basis of what position it is convenient to project, so there is no reason to assume that propaganda points directly away from the truth.
The Taliban are a convenient target for propaganda. I expect that the UN Security Council powers would like to keep India and Pakistan’s nukes pointing directly at each other, so they concentrate on the Taliban to avoid confronting Pakistan directly.
More on Malala.
The Staged Malala Yousafzai Story: You’re With Malala or You’re With the Turrrrorrists
http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2012/10/12/the-staged-malala-yousafzai-story-youre-with-malala-or-youre-with-the-turrrrorrists/
which links to
The Staged Malala Yousafzai Story: CBS Crops Image to Hide Malala Walking to Chopper with Father
{http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/the-staged-malala-yousafzai-story-cbs-crops-image-to-hide-malala-walking-to-chopper-with-father/}
Thanks to author Scott Creighton.
Never heard of it Billy, but I thought you believed that some Tesla device could just snap all nuclear blast into hyperspace where it could be neutralised with sodium bicarbonate.
Give me a reputable link and I’ll read it. If it’s another of your time-wasters….
Your first five words would have sufficed.
Ah well I can’t reach sh/p-eople that far below the curve…
The current drive is to monopolise and control energy supplies and operators, the real idea of alternative generation being taken up by communities for their own benefit has not really taken off yet, he says whilst the wind and rain is pummelling his windowpane and his plastic greenhouse is disintegrating from the amounts of energy available.
Rivers, streams, estuaries, tidal sea currents, wave heights, their motion, wind, solar, more reservoirs, a national water distribution system…..the amounts of rainwater that falls annually.. should some of that be held back to generate peak time electricity?
I argue that what is given as facts on consumption is wrong, that we do not know our real consumption levels because our mainly older housing stock is not updated insulated and or energy efficient. Without a parallel national energy saving campaign running next to the promotion of community energy generating schemes most suitable to a respective area, we would be blowing new smoke after old, the idea is to come away from fossil burning.
Concentrated solar power is such a dramatically good idea using the latest available technology, a simple alternative that is cheaper than nuclear, more reliable as the sun shines all the time in deserts, with alternative power sources supplying the nights needs.
I also have an argument with sustainability, whilst I know for sure that CSP would be there for a long time, I could not rely on fissile material for longer than 150 years, at a very long stretch. All issues surrounding nuclear fissile materials add to our already stretch health and safety list in society, it is exorbitantly expensive to protect society from nuclear radiation, we know that even low level rads. can have cell mutating effects, never mind the enriched materials used in nuclear reactors.
Fallujahs birth defects have not gone up by a factor of ten, compared to pre Iraq war times, for nothing, its was the heavy use of depleted Uranium munitions we used to flatten the City that has lead to this, so why would we want to perpetuate more nuclear sources which will go wrong, we had a few accidents now to know this, when we can do different.
The only reason to persist with nuclear power is commercial and military but this debate is never had in public and any incoming Government must swear to keep the nuclear status quo.
One should not do so, I would swear to dismantle it, bit by barking mad bit.
Except for the emergency reactor, should all else fail, sea currents stop, tides are asleep, no wind for weeks, the sun is on holiday and worse off all, the gas has run out on our patio heaters.
O/T a great debate this morning, for once.
Will we soon face up to a decriminalised situation in Britain, I’m sure that the lick spittle this thread is about would love to use this emotive issue to smirk and schmooze himself into the Washington DC prohibition circles, if they still exist, have not been taken over by coffee&crack mornings.
My very public thanks to prof. Nutt and MS sufferer Julie, both who made their points very eloquently. thanks also to the Met for sending a lower than normally gifted officer to confuse their stance even further. His use of tabloid terms was duly noted.
Enjoy
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01nb23h/5_live_Breakfast_Your_Call_15_10_2012/
Clark.
If you deny the Conspiracy theories, what is your own theory.
Please enlighten us?
Just human nature hoo hoo.
I’d never heard of Sunny Hundal until I googled him. Seems to have abandoned his cultural heritage, anyway (no beard, no hair, no turban, no dagger). As Harry’s Place – no fan of Craig’s btw – noticed, his political allegiances seem to be disposable as well:
Sunny Hundal, the
Labour Tory Lib DemLabour supporting blogger…http://hurryupharry.org/2010/05/27/what-is-the-point-of-sunny-hundal/
There is a Hundal video there too. Warning: extremely silly, and cameraman is not always upright.
Apparently he’s going to vote Green in the first round of the London elections – try to keep up, Harry – and is a right-on feminist from way back.
“What is the point of Sunny Hundal?” seems to address the matter better.
“Decisions about nuclear technology need to be put in the hands of the people for the first time ever. But the people also need sufficient scientific literacy to hold a meaningful debate.”
As a matter of fact popular attitudes towards nuclear power have been very generous, optimistic and dangerously trusting. Mistakenly, in my view, the public still gives nuclear power the benefit of the doubt. And assumes that those who control it are careful and public spirited.
What is needed in public debate is a proper distrust of the ruling class and its cannibalistic practices. If people were allowed to examine both the real economic costs of this form of power generation and the incalculable potential dangers it poses to the planet they would insist on the careful and exact dismantling of nuclear infrastructure, and a rigorous cost benefit analysis before any new experiments were permitted.
At the very least they would insist that no further waste should be produced before an explanation of how it was to be disposed of had been furnished.
The suggestion that “scientific literacy” should be a qualification for participation in this vital debate is question begging of the most basic kind.