I am delighted that a new canpaign has started today against the state enforced child slavery in the uzbek cotton industry, especially as this campaign originates in Germany, where a significant portion of society appears to have finally woken up to the reality of the German government’s appalling complicity in the Nazi style regime and atrocities of Karimov.
However in the UK it remains the case that since the coalition government came to power, there has not been one single government statement on the human rights atrocities in Uzbekistan or – even more damning of our sham democracy – one single statement or question from New Labour.
Intellectual honesty, indeed.
If you look at the evidence so far, you’ll see that Habby portrays himself as censorious, paternalistic and authoritarian.
What sort of politics would such a person support?
Of course, the Israeli IOF is up to that trick. They were also putting the stuff into gas canisters and firing them at Palestinian protesters.
Israel’s skunk works creates new tool for protests
News
Reuters
by: Noah Browning
Monday, September 3, 2012
Israel’s skunk works creates new tool for protests
A Palestinian protester flees Israel’s new skunk weapon during a West Bank rally on Monday. The noxious fluid is Israel’s latest nonviolent tool for quelling unrest within its borders. Photo Credit:Wikimedia Imagine taking a chunk of rotting corpse from a stagnant sewer, placing it in a blender and spraying the filthy liquid in your face. …
This is “skunk”, a fearsome but non-lethal tool in Israel’s arsenal of weapons for crowd control.
It comes in armored tanker trucks fitted with a cannon that can spray a jet of stinking fluid over crowds who know how to cope with plain old tear gas.
Habbabkuk at 27 Jan, 12:03 pm: thank you for that considered reply; I feel that it is now my turn to request of you more balance and more consideration of your language before you click the “Submit Comment” button. Your original criticism seemed to be of M. Laurent Louis as a person, which could be seen as an attempt to discredit all that he says and does. You have since (12:03 pm) narrowed this to criticism of his recent speech regarding Mali, which is apparently where you wished it to fall in the first place.
Please try to make greater allowances for human limitations. We discuss many issues on these threads; most of them would be highly complex, each on its own. To consider such matters in our 1.5 kg brains, simplification is inevitably required. Thank God that we all think in somewhat different ways, yet also have a strong urge to seek consensus; thus does our whole exceed the sum of our parts.
The point that I’m (not very successfully) trying to make is that you yourself contribute to “conspiracy theorism” when you dismiss people as “conspiracy theorists” (or “publicity hayseeds”). In the inevitable simplification process in some reader’s minds, you will have placed yourself in the camp of “the conspirators” – indeed, it is impossible for me to rule out the possibility that anyone, including you, is indeed such a conspirator. It is unfair of you to criticise polarised opinions in others if your own arguments are part of the cause. Again, this could be interpreted as a deliberate ploy: polarise the argument a little to deliberately provoke a (very human) over-reaction, thus manoeuvring your “opponents” into a discreditable position, and then pounce…
The process of consensus development and subsequent sifting is so important to a functional free society that any attempt to discredit people simply because they support a minority consensus should be opposed. The arguments can be countered, but the people who advance the arguments must be treated with respect. The alternative to this would be that only “sheeple of the mainstream” would be accorded respect; I assume that you would find that unacceptable.
If you can’t beat them join them. In an attempt to play the same sovereignty game than the rest of NATO’s cold warriors, Germany has purchased armed drones from Israhell.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-plans-to-deploy-armed-drones-in-combat-abroad-a-879633.html
This also means that Germany is now open to drone attack, off course, and they do not have to be as big as they are, they can come in bits that fit into a piece of luggage and be assembled were they are going to be used, mini drones with a payload of a few kilograms can fly through the entrance of the German or any other Parliament, given the right electrickery and directions.
Whatever bad you wish on others be prepared to receive yourself!
This article provides a more intellectually honest assessment of the history and currents of holocaust memorial.
Can there be anything more dishonest and disgusting than using the memorial of a massacre as cover for the current ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. Of course not. Yet this is where we are.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33728.htm
Now the independence movement of the Tuareg’s for an autonomous region in Azwad/Mali’s northern region, has fallen to the propaganda merchants of the BND.
Their decades long fight for recognition is now being tainted with the all incumbent ‘terrorists’ tag
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/leader-of-malian-islamists-once-helped-german-government-a-878724.html
“Cyril Smith named in Barnes abuse case ”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/cyril-smith-named-in-barnes-abuse-case-8468370.html
A look into the mind of a psychopath. A man who can only get gratification from having power over little children. Power to cause them pain, power to abuse degrade and humiliate them, power to get away with it.
Yet this man had no trouble becoming leader of a political party.
The system is rotten from the top down, this is the sort of man the system favours.
@ Clark – we’re turning onto a couple of lovebirds, aren’t we ! 🙂
No, seriously, just two points and then we should probably stop.
1/. No, I think my distaste for M. Louis goes well beyond his Mali speech; the more I read about him (I’ve taken a quick crash course) – and this includes familiarizing myself with his ‘political priorities’ – the more I find him in-credible, not serious, a publicity seeker, etc. The only reason I bothered to find out about him was because on the basis of his one speech on Mali several of the more impressionable members here seemed to deify the man. By inviting study of his somewhat chequered career and his ‘political priorities’ I was merely trying to get people to think a little before throwing themselves around his neck so enthusiastically.
2/. On behaviour (mine and others). I think that if you look at almost all of these exchanges honestly and with an open mind you’ll have to admit that my initial posts on any matter always include a question or an observation. And I think you’ll also have to admit that I very, very rarely get a reasoned answer to the point I’ve made or a answer to my question. Of course this is because those questions or observations are literally unanswerable – or at least unanswerable without the other poster losing face. In this situation, the other poster will refuse to answer (which I think speaks for itself) or then resorts to abuse, or a questioning of motives, or whatever. If my comments and questions serve to make people think a little before putting finger to keyboard then I feel I might have done some small service to this blog (a blog which I do like, as it happens).
@ nevermind: 27 Jan, 2013 – 2:48 pm
You’re absolutely right, it would be trivially easy. Even an entry level kit (now about £500 and falling) can carry more than a kilogram for a couple of miles on a full battery. The processor has onboard GPS plus accelerometer, barometric altimeter, gyroscope which together give the capability of programming in an exact remote position (for example 11 feet above the Cenataph at 11.11 on the 11th of the 11th) and triggering an event (for example releasing a litre of red paint).
David, at 14h51 today, in presenting us with an article by Michael Parenti on holocausts and massacres large and small, says that that article provides a “more intellectually honest assessment of the history and currents of holocaust memorial”.
Could I ask David with what is he comparing Parent’s assessment in order to arrive at the conclusion that it is “more intellectually honest”?
And secondly, I should like to ask David if he rules out the possibility that he so approves of Parenti’s aassessment because it might reflect his own.
The concentrated horror over a relatively short time of a great many deaths in the midst of a seismic conflict of ‘the holocaust’ is a lesser Holocaust than the protracted 65 year long persecution of the Palestinian people. The latter is the greater in its enormity and horror. The Jewish and many others victims terror of that wartime period, the accelerated deaths of those who never got out and across the Atlantic or who weren’t safe behind the Urals, exhorting the Russian peasantry to fight their battle for them, seems the more compassionate option as far as systematic murdering goes, without dragging it out. Hitler’s eastern henchmen’s 6 year reign of terror was by comparision, quickly nipped in the bud. Successive Israeli leaders however – every single one of which has rivalled Hitler, copied his methods in a sort of fetishistic warped appreciation, recognising a fellow fantic and fiend – remain unchecked in their barbarous persecutions and killing sprees, have had the greater reign of terror from 1948 to the present day.
As that 1940s Jewish Holocaust is alluded to almost every other day somewhere in our mainstream media, so this is a day to put aside the Jewish Holocaust. There is not one day of the year, every year on which atrocious acts by the Israeli regime are not perpetrated on the prostrate Palestinian people, this day is one we should think of and act for them as much as any other. If the point of the exercise is not to let it happen again, why have we and are we letting it happen again -our governments and press playing us for fools?
Boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), worldwide must have some effect, but not so much on a country which lives entirely on constant subsidy, is bribed not to attack its neighbours but spends most of its aid and bribes on weaponry, attacking the weak and weary still yet.
Long overdue de-recognition, de-legitimisation of the rogue Israeli state is the next and inevitable step, hurting only their haughty fake prestige. Given an inch they take a mile.
“State prosecutors who investigated the late Aaron Swartz had planned to let him off with a stern warning, but federal prosecutor Carmen Ortiz took over and chose to make an example of the Internet activist, according to a report in Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly.”
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57565927-38/swartz-didnt-face-prison-until-feds-took-over-case-report-says/
It would have been much easier for the Feds if they had recruited Aaron, sent him to the ME and ‘droned’ him.
Excellent comment from Cryptonym.
~~~~~
Bonuses of £9bn are about to be paid or have already been paid to Goldman Sachs employees. Payment was going to be delayed to after April when the new lower tax rate applies but they had a twinge of conscience and decided against doing so.
This is how just some of these earnings arise. Revolting. How do they live with themselves and work in such a system?
Friday, January 25, 2013
Goldman Sachs Made 400 Million Betting On Food Prices In 2012 While Hundreds Of Millions Starved
Michael Snyder, Contributor
http://www.activistpost.com/2013/01/goldman-sachs-made-400-million-betting.html#more
Clark, thank you for your advice–that seems to work, a relief.
The GWOT includes whistleblowers who dilute the narrative and slow the hegemony.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-is-increasing-pressure-on-suspects-in-stuxnet-inquiry/2013/01/26/f475095e-6733-11e2-93e1-475791032daf_story.html
Federal investigators looking into disclosures of classified information about a cyberoperation that targeted Iran’s nuclear program have increased pressure on current and former senior government officials suspected of involvement, according to people familiar with the investigation.
“The inquiry, which was started by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. last June, is examining leaks about a computer virus developed jointly by the United States and Israel that damaged nuclear centrifuges at Iran’s primary uranium enrichment plant. The U.S. code name for the operation was Olympic Games, but the wider world knew the mysterious computer worm as Stuxnet.
Prosecutors are pursuing “everybody — at pretty high levels, too,” said one person familiar with the investigation. “There are many people who’ve been contacted from different agencies.””
What I was saying earlier about the dangers of long distance flights.
‘Official records from the Civil Aviation Authority show that pilots and crew have to put on their oxygen masks at least five times a week to combat suspected ‘fume events’.
In some cases, crew members have passed out – while passengers have been left in the dark.’
http://news.onlinenigeria.com/nigeria-news/8463-two-top-ba-pilots-die-within-days-of-each-other-after-complaining-of-long-term-health-effects-of-breathing-in-toxic-oil-fumes-while-flying.html
More in the D Mail.
It appears that LibDem MP David Ward quoted from Saint Elie Wiesel (aka The Weasel) when making his comments about Israel and the Palestinians (words about it being impossible to remain silent when evil was being done).
The Weasel is reported to have been furious; admitting that he had been quoted correctly, he nevertheless found it disgusting that his own words had been used against Israel.
I feel very sorry for The Weasel and I share his pain. Deeply.
Mary @ 27 Jan, 2013 – 9:07 am
The brain-dead Zombies of the BBC were talking about Anne Frank’s Diary on The Andrew Marr Show. When they mentioned a particular passage I wondered whether it was from that part of the diary written in ball point pen. I won’t bother pointing people to Mr Biro’s Wikipedia page because that would be anti-Semitic.
It would also be disgraceful and disgusting to mention in passing Meyer Levin, who was awarded $50,000 by a US court against Otto Frank “for work done on the Anne Frank diary”. The amount subsequently paid is unknown because it was settled out of court after Otto Frank appealed and a legal counter action was made by Levin.
Meyer Levin is widely credited with introducing the ‘non-fiction novel’ when “Complusion” was published. Non-fiction novels have become the hallmark of Jewish Holocaust writings, employed by the likes of Elie Wiesel. Wiesel publicly admits that his memoir is ‘fictional truth’. Indeed when it was first published it was done so under the category of “Fiction”, it was then latter changed to “Autobiographical Fiction” and is now an “”Autobiography”.
No, habby. What Parenti is doing is making an argument, and a rather compelling one at that. You may challenge his argument should you wish. You may even challenge its components, but please bear in mind that making an argument is not quite the same as having an argument nor indeed is talking about questions quite the same as answering them.
Any failure on your part to challenge his argument will, not unreasonably, be deemed a failure to challenge his argument and readers may then draw their own conclusions as they see fit.
Here it is again:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33728.htm
‘Nuff said…
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/appeals-court-to-activists-nope-you-cant-see-what-else-the-feds-have-on-you/
Letter from the Liberal Democrat ‘Chief Whip’ (what a stupid title in a democracy btw) to the Holocaust Education Trust.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/122300465/ChiefWhipLetter
~~~
Letter from the Secretary of the Liberal Friends of Palestine to said ‘Chief Whip’.
The Rt Hon Alistair Carmichael
House of Commons
Westminster
SW1A 0AA
27 January 2013
Dear Alistair
re David Ward
You simply cannot say that David Ward’s views are not consistent with those of Liberal Democrat members.
Liberal Democrat members – from the content of my mailbox – are beside themselves with joy that there is one member of Parliament who considers hanging on to his job secondary in importance to speaking out against a truly vile abuse of human rights and international law.
Courage and principle are extremely rare qualities in a politician – and you will find that there are many people in both houses who absolutely agree with David but are simply too frightened to say so.
Is this acceptable? Is keeping quiet on the siege of Gaza and facilitating the cruel dispossession of a people from its land, a good way to pay tribute to the eleven million (Samantha Power’s figures) who died in the Holocaust?
What is unacceptable is that the Holocaust should be used as emotional blackmail to silence the truth.
Please retract your words on the beliefs of Liberal Democrat members. We are the grass roots who joined the party because we valued fairness, justice and liberty. David Ward speaks for us.
Yours sincerely
Sally FitzHarris,
Secretary, Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine
~~~
PS I am not a member of any political party. A friend who is a member of the Liberals sent this to me. Carmichael’s letter is on the internet.
Another great interview with Chris Hedges exploring the role of the real reporter and the other. Unusually for Chris he’s quite amusing here. Haven’t seen so much of that lately
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sghyDCzIqMk#!
It’s worse than sad that a man like him cannot today be employed in mainstream media.
Why Britain must crush Syria and smash Iran in 2013.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=MPL2CReZaHI#!
Cryptonym – A timely, laconic and well thought out comment – Thank-you.
Chris Hedges has produced a new book in conjunction with Joe Sacco.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jZe411pO_js
‘Journalist Chris Hedges and graphic artist Joe Sacco traveled to the most depressed pockets of the United States to combine narrative nonfiction with graphic art in their book Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt (www.daysofdestructiondaysofrevolt.com).
Together they report from the vast and growing zones of sacrifice imposed across the U.S. by the corporate state. From the streets of Camden, New Jersey, the devastated coal fields of West Virginia, the Lakota reservation of Pine Ridge, South Dakota and among undocumented agricultural workers in Florida, Hedges and Sacco offer a ground up view of existence when the marketplace rules, when corporate capitalism is unregulated and unfettered.’
~~~
Joe Sacco also produced this marvellous work http://www.amazon.com/Footnotes-Gaza-Graphic-Joe-Sacco/dp/0805092773 which was very well reviewed and before that ‘Palestine’ which had an introduction by Edward Said.
Footnotes in Gaza – “Sacco brings the conflict down to the most human level, allowing us to imagine our way inside it, to make the desperation he discovers, in some small way, our own.”—Los Angeles Times
Rafah, a town at the bottommost tip of the Gaza Strip, has long been a notorious flashpoint in the bitter Middle East conflict. Buried deep in the archives is one bloody incident, in 1956, that left 111 Palestinians shot dead by Israeli soldiers. Seemingly a footnote to a long history of killing, that day in Rafah—cold-blooded massacre or dreadful mistake—reveals the competing truths that have come to define an intractable war.
In a quest to get to the heart of what happened, Joe Sacco immerses himself in the daily life of Rafah and the neighboring town of Khan Younis, uncovering Gaza past and present. As in Palestine and Safe Area Goražde, his unique visual journalism renders a contested landscape in brilliant, meticulous detail. Spanning fifty years, moving fluidly between one war and the next, Footnotes in Gaza—Sacco’s most ambitious work to date—transforms a critical conflict of our age into intimate and immediate experience.
Whither Egypt?
Breaking News just now
Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has declared a state of emergency in the city of Port Said after deadly rioting in response to a court judgment.
A daily curfew from 21:00 to 06:00 will be imposed for 30 days beginning on Monday, also covering Suez and Ismalia, he said in a TV speech to the nation.
At least 33 people have been killed in unrest over the weekend.
Protests erupted after a court sentenced 21 local people over deadly football violence nearly a year ago.
Mr Morsi said he mighty take further steps “for the sake of Egypt” as it was his “duty” as president.
Mary; The 21 found guilty were paid Hooligans meting out justice to the masses.
“An Egyptian court ruled against the fans of the Port Said al-Masri soccer/ football team, sentencing 21 of them to death for their role in provoking a stampede on the field last year. It is widely believed in Egypt that the al-Masri fans, called ultras or football hoodlums, deliberately caused the stampede, which killed dozens of people, and that they were hand in glove with Old Regime security officials who wanted to punish the al-Ahli ultras for their role in making the revolution against Hosni Mubarak. The court appears to have taken this theory seriously.”
Juan Cole
Nice try, David (18h44), but not quite good enough;
Michael Parenti didn’t claim that his article was a “more intellectually honest assessment. It was you who made that claim on his behalf.
It follows therefore that it is not for me to analyse or give a mark to Mr Parent’s article, but it is for you to exxplain why you think it is “more intellectually honest” than other articles on the same subject.
I hope that’s poiunted you in the right direction and I now await your reasoned argument in favour of Mr Parenti’s article with great interest.
911 would have ended up as another holohoax in history had it not have been for the mother of all smoking guns – the SYMMETRICAL free-fall of a 47 story skyscraper UNIFORMLY across its ENTIRE 100 YARD LENGTH and 70 YARD WIDTH, with not even ONE steel column resisting – watch-able 24/7 worldwide thanks to the internet and YouTube. The odds of such a symmetrical occurrence exceed the 2.5 billion to one chance of an error in DNA evidence! Silverstein & ilk got away with it, with blanket coverage on a dumb american audience well cocooned in their zio media, but were unable to “pull” the legs of a worldwide audience. And then there was the BBC gaffe that occurred as the psyops tactical team forgot about the one hour DST in England.
@ Lemon Puffss (18h16).
Elie Wiesel and his notion of “fictional truth” – yes, I’ve come across that one of his but remember it as something like “things can be true although they never happened” (an example of which was, if I remember correctly, when he talked about having been hit by a car in New York and “flying ten blocks” or similar.).
BTW – I once posted about that annoying designation “child of holocaust survivors”. Ornitholgists who dream of spotting the first brown-titted flirtbird to visit out shores in the spring will readily understand my pride when I announce that I have just seen, in print for the very first time, the expression “grandson of a holocaust survivor”.
Roll on 2050, we’ll have got up to the great grandchildren by then.