Here am I spreaking at the Oxford Union, in entertaining mode.
You can see the other speeches in the debate. The Motion “This house still dreams the American Dream” was defeated.
The following week the motion “This house believes that Israel is a force for good in the Middle East” was also defeated. I hear Peter Tatchell was excellent.
I don not think the format of such debates is antiquated and irrelevant. It helps get students thinking, and you get a range of opinion denied an airing elsewhere. I can never get to say those things on the mainstream media.
@ Old Mark,
As George Galloway so eloquently said, “two cheeks of the same arse hole”
May I give my interpretation:-
On one side there is the Secretary of State saying that all is well.
One the other side is the President who is by way of Executive orders – authorising droning.
Are we a crazed and/or insane species – or- is there some sanity left in the world?
Ray McGovern – an analyst in the CIA. Intellectual type, not the kind of shoot and kill guy – just a person who is willing to tell the system, after analysis, what it is, on best assessment – needs to be done.
Then when he finally discovers that he has been working for corruption all those years – he turns. Now – hell! – how do we deal with a brilliant analyst?
What a dirty world we live in.
Courtenay Barrett: Obviously, the warriors are motivated by raw profit and greed and want war. War is actually good for business and fuck humanity. Then label anyone who dares to question the illogicality of the extant global architecture as – a “terrorist”. Orwell must be laughing in his grave as he reads my post.
An interesting point of view which I fear is mistaken. First of all, if Orwell were to read your post, despite being dead and despite probably having better things to do if he weren’t, he might be laughing at it rather than with it, because it is you who is distorting reality here by saying “anyone who dares to question” is a terrorist. I think it is a rather grotesque stretching of the concept “to question” to include the actions of flying planes into buildings, don’t you? I mean, I have to ask that in all seriousness, because I seem to remember a few years back you expressed a wish for a couple of hundred passengers to be “offed” when you heard about the underpant bomber. Was he another example of a tough interrogator?
Anyway, we can know a little about what Orwell might have thought from his actual words: Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writings of younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defence of western countries. The Russians, unlike the British, are not blamed for defending themselves by warlike means, and indeed all pacifist propaganda of this type avoids mention of Russia or China.
Clark: There are reasons that you should care. Your “clueless Yank watching FOX news” votes, and poor voting choices, particularly in the US, degrade everything for everyone. Your MacDonald’s-munchers have children; you probably agree that children should be protected from religious indoctrination; they’d be better off protected from corporately promoted products that are specifically designed to be habit-forming, too.
Hi Clark, I have to respectfully disagree here. For example, I have never said that parents should not raise their children to be religious. As for protection against “corporately-promoted products”, I find the term to vague to be of any use. Do you mean to say that all advertising should be banned? I can’t go along with that.
Also, given that only about 40-50% of eligible voters actually cast a ballot in the US there is a good chance that our hypothetical couch potato doesn’t even vote.
angrysoba, assuming that social problems remain localised is usually a mistake. Such arguments are often used to promote various “wars”, like the “War on Drugs” or the “War on Terror”. Somehow, this can morph into “it only harms those who indulge” depending upon which direction most benefits corporate profits.
I am afraid I don’t really understand this either. What assumptions are you assuming I am making? And how is the “war on drugs” or the “war on terror” (often referred to as the “global war on terror”) argued to be local?
Does it make any sense to engage in an argument about who is/was more brutal/corrupt, the US or the UK?
Our counties/governments are controlled not by ‘us’ but by people with no national loyalties.
If the USA is presently taking the lead in subjugating the world, that is just because it suits the strategy of those shadowy controllers. Before that, it suited them to use Britain in the same role. It is not the fault of Americans any more than the atrocities of the British Empire were the fault of ordinary Brits.
99% of the people in the world are chess pieces in a game being played over centuries, where a typical move is selling a slogan like ‘The American Dream’ to a whole generation in order to increase selfishness and greed in the next, and thus make them more controllable.
Individual nations are like slaves tossed into an arena and ordered to fight to the death. You’re going to see a lot of brutality and dirty fighting, but is there any point in saying the winner is ‘worse’ than the loser?
One of the main shills for war in 2003 is still at his keyboard churning out the poison.
Ten years on, the case for invading Iraq is still valid
A decade after Saddam was overthrown, why are some progressives still loath to celebrate his demise?
Nick Cohen The Observer, Sunday 3 March 2013
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/03/10-years-right-invaded-iraq
The same organ gives houseroom for the war criminal to produce some self aggrandisement and some puffery for his stooges Geldof and Bono. Wonder why he misses out his best mates Clinton and Gates? Are they not, too, saviours of the planet?
Aid has transformed Africa. Now is the time for growth and governance
Africa has made huge advances since the 2005 Glenagles summit – but it still needs our support
Tony Blair The Observer, Saturday 2 March 2013 21.30 GMT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/02/aid-africa-growth-tony-blair?INTCMP=SRCH
Some other items referring to the Iraq War in today’s Observer.
Don’t mention the Iraq war, William Hague tells cabinet
Tory foreign secretary’s directive not to discuss legality of war ahead of 10th anniversary sparks anger from Liberal Democrats
::
Katharine Gun: Ten years on, what happened to the woman who revealed dirty tricks on the UN Iraq war vote?
::
Kayla Williams: Occupying Iraq: a US army veteran’s ambivalence
I didn’t support the war, but it was my job to serve. And despite the huge costs, I can never accept my comrades died ‘in vain’
::
Valerie Plame Wilson and Joe Wilson: How the Bush administration sold the war – and we bought it
I always had the figure of 3% in my mind for the percentage of anti-war coverage in the media.
Not so it appears. It was 10%, although this entry states that in the US the figure was 3%.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_coverage_of_the_Iraq_War
In 2003, a study released by Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting stated the network news disproportionately focused on pro-war sources and left out many anti-war sources. According to the study, 64% of total sources were in favor of the Iraq War while total anti-war sources made up 10% of the media (only 3% of US sources were anti-war). The study stated that “viewers were more than six times as likely to see a pro-war source as one who was anti-war; with U.S. guests alone, the ratio increases to 25 to 1.”[21]
FAIR also conducted a similar study in February 2004. According to the study, which took place during October 2003, current or former government or military officials accounted for 76 percent of all 319 sources for news stories about Iraq which aired on network news channels.[22]
After the invasion, the editors of the New York Times apologized for its coverage of Hussein’s alleged weapons programs, acknowledging that “we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims (related to Iraqi weapons programs) as new evidence emerged — or failed to emerge.”[23]
Macky/Mary, have you read this article:
Minority Rules: Scientists Discover Tipping Point for the Spread of Ideas
http://news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=2902
Very interesting, revealing and encouraging! (to those who’ve spotted it earlier, i apologise for the repeat)
But, equally those who haven’t seen this video on the Road to WW3 Mark Golding posted earlier, here it is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HP7L8bw5QF4
Spread the word!
Julian Assange says “………polls show that I have the support of about 55 percent of the Swedish people. That is right in the middle compared to other countries, and better than in the US and Great Britain”
Resistance From a Cage: Julian Assange Speaks to Norwegian Journalist Eirik Vold
More:
Assange wants to make a deeper point. WikiLeaks, he says, is about more than just scandalous revelations and splashy headlines.
“In the same way that the ability to solve physical problems is limited by our understanding of physical laws, the ability to solve societal problems depends on our insight into human institutions. All political theories on how the world is and how it should be are built on such an understanding.”
By “institutions” Assange means governments, private companies and other networks of power groups. The problem, he explains, is that while institutions constantly change as they absorb new technology and make old theories outdated, the information about how they actually work is concealed, kept secret.
“Much of what we are being presented, and upon which we build our understanding of the world, is designed to make these institutions palatable for the outside world.”
“This is why only by knowing the internal communications of these institutions can we understand how they really work. So, if we want to make the world more just, if we want humanity to reach its heights and not its lows, then the first step is to get access to that information,” he says.
Read the whole article:
http://truth-out.org/news/item/14835-resistance-from-a-cage-julian-assange-speaks-to-norwegian-journalist-eirik-vold
WikiLeaks News:
Revolución published an in-depth interview with WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson, in which he discusses the current status of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, and Bradley Manning. The video is in English with Spanish subtitles.
http://revoluciontrespuntocero.com/kristinn-hrafnsson/
Link provided courtesy http://www.thisdayinwikileaks.org (Thank you!)
If some one wishes to be updated with latest technologies after
that he must be visit this web site and be up to
date all the time.
Yes Villager I did read it last night. The name of the institution was unfamiliar and I don’t know how to pronounce it. The concept is very interesting and has been tested to work. I wish dearly it would start happening and in this country in particular.
I have been listening to Claire Short, Jude Kelly and Iain Dale reviewing the papers with Sophie Raworth (the Head Girl of Upper VI) standing in for Marr who returns later in the year I read having left hospital. He was another who carried the Iraq war propaganda for Blair of course.
Anyway the foursome came to Assad and his interview. The words ‘softly spoken like all dictators’, ‘another Hitler’, ‘secret security state’, ‘masses killed and masses of refugees’ etc. They could not however quite bring themselves to call for all out war. Ghastly people.
Jude Kelly runs the South Bank complex and spoke of the festival that she is putting on for women’s rights celebrating International Women’s Day. Malala’s father is speaking. Jolly good Jude but there was no mention of the women and their children killed by ISAF drones and by Predator O’Drone’s kill policy, is there? I bet she has been through the Common Purpose machine.
Back to the Spring cleaning and to move the dust around. Cobwebs galore.
A coffee break. Housework is so boring.
PS I looked Jude Kelly up,. She is CP and quite blatant about it. CP International now!
http://www.commonpurpose.org/info/biographies/dishaaag/jude-kelly
http://www.ukcolumn.org/article/government-common-purpose near the bottom
I have just realized it is my late mother’s birthday. She was born in 1911. Left an orphan at a young age with her older sister and younger brother. In spite of that deprivation she became a loving and caring mother to my three brothers and myself.
Ooops! Missed this one:
Angry
You only have to look at the history of US involvement in South America to see that the US standard of living depended on dictators and poverty for the great mass of people living in its constituent contries.
The same pattern is repeated across the globe.
It’s fairly straightforward stuff.
Anywhere there are resources that the West needs, then the people of that country will not be allowed to enjoy self-determination. It’s as simple as that, to date at least.
Herb, it certainly sounds like standard dogma, although you haven’t demonstrated your claim.
Quango.
Chinese proverb.
I watch you watch me from camera in my backside
@ Villager
“ResDiss : “why don’t you listen to Ray McGoverns speech”
Which one? Why don’t you post the link?”
I don’t need to as Craig has already done so – unlike you I listen to both sides of a debate before spouting off.
@Mary
“Anyway the foursome came to Assad and his interview. The words ‘softly spoken like all dictators’, ‘another Hitler’, ‘secret security state’, ‘masses killed and masses of refugees’ etc. They could not however quite bring themselves to call for all out war. Ghastly people.”
And can we presume that you see Assad as something less than “ghastly” and not worthy of snide comments like that attributed to Sophie Raworth?
@ResDis
Your fellow crypto Kerry spent a year and a half of personal charm, upto early 2011 (there are rumsfeldy pictures too),trying to break Assads connections with the Iranians. All whilst Assad was ‘softly spoken like all dictators’, ‘another Hitler’, ‘secret security state’!! Yiddery yet again !!
Fake Muslims who spy on other Muslims through their fancy mobile phones would be well to remember the all-seeing eye of Allah who has stated in the Qur’an that spying is haram/forbidden. Fake sheikhs and mad mullahs abound.
The writeup on “the tipping point of ideas” is just hype, im only commenting on it because its been repeated at least 3 times and im grumpy. Its wide eyed hypertheory which completely ignores the substance of any ideas it might concern.
A Node
‘Our counties/governments are controlled not by ‘us’ but by people with no national loyalties.
If the USA is presently taking the lead in subjugating the world, that is just because it suits the strategy of those shadowy controllers. Before that, it suited them to use Britain in the same role. It is not the fault of Americans any more than the atrocities of the British Empire were the fault of ordinary Brits.’
I don’t think the Global CEOs run the world, and I’m quite sure it isn’t Whague and Cameron. So to whom are you referring? The usual unmentionables, Zionists, bankers, Saudi princes,? Or unmentionable unmentionables we don’t already know?
English Knight
I’m not a cypto anything – just like you and Guano are not a crypto anti semites.
O/T for this thread (well, I suppose the Swedish extradition of Assange could be said to be one American Dream ;))
The good folk from the Swedish forum Flashback have been making excellent use of the fact that Craig’s thread on Why I’m Convinced Anna Ardin is a Liar is still open and have caught Goran Rudling AND Anna Ardin in a rather clever Gotcha!
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/09/why-i-am-convinced-that-anna-ardin-is-a-liar/comment-page-6/#comment-396803
The comment below that one explains the context of it a bit more. Despite claiming that his Samtycke Ne (Consent Now) campaign aims to get the concept of consent introduced into Sweden’s sex crimes laws Goran Rudling has been silent on the issue throughout a 4-month debate on proposed amendments/expansion of sex crimes legislation. Flashback seem to have uncovered some sort of working relationship between Ardin and Rudling.
On the point of Sweden’s frankly crazy ideas about sex crimes, the latest seems to be a case of “webcam rape” in which the ‘perpetrator’ and ‘victim’ have never actually met in real life! Having had an early set-back in the District courts (they threw it out) the prosecutor of this particular case is now placing the matter in the hands of Marianne Ny’s Sex Crimes Development Unit in Gotenberg (yes, that is the name of the department she heads).
http://allehanda.se/blaljus/brott/1.5582163-aklagare-jag-kommer-att-overklaga- (use Google translate)
So, rape is no longer even a physical act in the minds of Swedish prosecutors? Heaven help us.
O/T but here’s the best news of the weekend-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21647937
This will puncture some of the bluster extruding from Cameron & Osborne; they can no longer argue that London bankers will decamp to Zurich to escape EU wide restrictions on bankers bonuses (should they be implemented). It will also put Farage on the spot- does he really believe we should opt for Swiss style independence, or is he simply a city spiv in Eurosceptic clothing ?
As for the Ed Miller Band, he could argue for Westminster legislation based on either the Swiss or the EU model. He could even say that a ‘bankers exodus’ (to Alpha Centauri perhaps?) might even be beneficial to the overheated London housing market, as demand at the top end recedes. But I doubt if he has the guts to do either.
The American Jews who lobby for Israel really take the biscuit. Me, me, me first!
AIPAC lobbies Congress to protect aid to Israel
With the sequester about to take a big bite out of the Pentagon’s budget, the American-Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is lobbying Congress to exempt US military aid to Israel, reports “The New York Jewish Week” correspondent Douglas Bloomfield, a AIPAC chief lobbyist for ten years, and now an independent consultant.
The New York Jewish Week” says that AIPAC will send thousands of its citizen lobbyists, who are participating in its annual policy conference, which begins on Sunday, to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to promote the organization’s agenda, including exempting US military aid to Israel from the sequester.
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000826476&fid=1725
Villager and Mary. I have some problems with this article: “Minority Rules: Scientists Discover Tipping Point for the Spread of Ideas”
http://news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=2902.
(1) The theory is based purely upon a computer model, therefore its accuracy depends on how closely it’s parameters reflect society.
That parameter doesn’t reflect society.
(2) A very powerful influence on society’s beliefs is the mainstream media, which contradicts and discredits the 10% while re-enforcing the beliefs of the 90%. There is no corresponding parameter in the models.
(3) What if two different factions of society hold mutually contradictory opinions, for example believers in two different religions. The theory is categoric:
According to the theory, there should never be a society containing two religions each of which is composed of 10% or more of the population
(4) From the point of view of the theory, the mainstream media is itself one of these “10% of committed opinion holders”.
As the most vocal and best connected ‘10%’, their opinions would surely prevail over other opinion groups. Again there is a contradiction as in (3) above.
(5) Even their example is dodgy : “…. the ongoing events in Tunisia and Egypt appear to exhibit a similar process ….”. Not very convincing if, like me, you believe that the ‘Arab Spring’ was engineered rather than spontaneous.
Bad science? Bad journalism? Deliberate introduction of a false meme?
“So, rape is no longer even a physical act in the minds of Swedish prosecutors? Heaven help us.”
Does it matter what they call it? The arsehole was talking under-age girls into exposing themselves on webcam then using the pictures to blackmail them into doing things they would rather not have done.
Lock him up and throw away the key on any charges they can make stick I say.
guano to me:
The more I learn, the longer the list of things I don’t know gets. My world model is constantly evolving, but I guess at the moment, the answer to your question is both of the above. Very probably the usual unmentionables and almost certainly some unknowns too.
I am sure of who is not running the world – the people we are told are.
Fred, nobody is disputing that what this under-age boy did was wrong. I am not condoning what he did but would like to ask you whether you made any discoveries of members of the opposite sex when you were young? Anyway you completely miss the point that Arbed made. It is a matter of law and changing the law to the point of stupidity.
From your response it seems like you would have the law changed so that a charge of ‘rape’ could eventually be applied to any male who was sexually attracted to a female, or played out his fantasies at home. This might be a crime, but it is not rape. There is an old story about the Scotsman who had a whiskey still in his back garden. He was arrested and charged even though he was not distilling whiskey. He asked on what grounds he was being charged. “For having the equipment to distil whiskey”. “Well then” said the Scot “I would also like to plead guilty to rape, because I have the equipment.” So perhaps you would like to see all boys emasculated at birth! I could think of a few warmongers!
@ Angry,
You say:-
“I think it is a rather grotesque stretching of the concept “to question” to include the actions of flying planes into buildings, don’t you? I mean, I have to ask that in all seriousness, because I seem to remember a few years back you expressed a wish for a couple of hundred passengers to be “offed” when you heard about the underpant bomber. Was he another example of a tough interrogator?”
It is quite obvious that there is a lot more to 9/11 than first meets the eye. Consider:-
http://www.911truth.org/
Makes sense to bomb an already devastated Afghanistan after the then Soviet Union was defeated. Which brings me to your other point:-
“The Russians, unlike the British, are not blamed for defending themselves by warlike means, and indeed all pacifist propaganda of this type avoids mention of Russia or China”
It is a given that big powers have a tendency to do bad things in the world. Yes – that is so. It is a question of degree and which ones do the worst things.