In the week they took hundreds of pounds from people in severe poverty, MPs and Lords claim up to £3,750 each to return from their luxury holidays to spout off in honour of Margaret Thatcher. Meantime the media are busy classifying any potential protest or expression of opinion at the taxpayer funded funeral jamboree as “potential terrorism”.
Whether protest at the funeral is tasteful or not is a fair question. But there is no question it is perfectly lawful. There is virtually no understanding of the very notion of civil liberty in the mainstream media.
The “Scotsman”?
http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/music/news-and-features/ding-dong-the-witch-is-dead-fails-to-top-charts-1-2894757
No mention by the Scotsman of this – http://www.officialcharts.com/scottish-singles-chart/
The Falklands war a put up job?
“Cynics recall the Falkland’s conflict when British troops wore tee-shirts carrying the slogan, ‘I Fought for Coalite’. Dennis Thatcher, the then prime minister’s husband, was a major shareholder of that company. It held major commercial interests in the islands’ natural resources.”
From here.http://www.globalcrisisnews.com/world/the-arms-industry-will-be-pleased-2076/
Tech asks:
“Police manpower was even extended by the incorporation of Nazi paramilitary organizations as auxiliary policemen
Can you clarify how this is happening here?”
I didn’t say that British police are now the same as German Nazi police, but they’re certainly getting there
You’ve quite a substantial growth of poorly informed PCSOs, many, many of whom seen to suffer from authoritarian personality disorder. IOW, they seem to privilege status and uniform over due process. Additionally you’ve got the massive growth in the equally ill-trained private security apparatus, who suffer similar delusions.
““The Nazis centralized and fully funded the police to better combat criminal gangs and promote state security”
This government have been cutting police budgets for the last two years (with a freeze for this year, admittedly)”
BoldThey’ve been over funded for quite a few years now and already have the best of equipment and organisation at their disposal. The other more important thing is the centralising of Police forces, through national bodies. This has happened in the US too.
“Personally, I don’t think we or the police are there yet”
Not quite, but there won’t be much you can do about it when we do get there.
That’s why you need to be looking at the trend.
And that trend is similar to that described by The US Holocaust Museum of the German Nazi police.
I fail to see how anyone with eyes to see what’s going on in Britain could be so complacent.
MET Gauleiter, Hogan Howe’s, Nazi sounding “Total Policing” may be a bit of a clue for those who are slow. It’s a far cry from “Serving the Community”
The point is that the British police are in bad need of reform. They’re certainly at their most corrupt since they had to be reformed by Robert Mark in the 1970s, but it’s all probably much worse than that now.
Their powers, and particularly those that Blair bequeathed them are way out of kilter with any society that considers itself civil or democratic.
I dsuspect it’s all intentional though.
This is an example of what I mean about Republican/Democrat, Resident.
“As a result, at the behest of Aipac, Democrat Barbara Boxer, joined by Republican Roy Blunt, has introduced a bill that would provide for Israel’s membership in the program while vesting it with a right that no other country in this program has: namely, the right to exclude selected Americans from this visa-free right of entrance. In other words, the bill sponsored by these American senators would exempt Israel from a requirement that applies to every other nation on the planet, for no reason other than to allow the Israeli government to engage in racial, ethnic and religious discrimination against US citizens. As Lara Friedman explained when the Senate bill was first introduced, it “takes the extraordinary step of seeking to change the current US law to create a special and unique exception for Israel in US immigration law.” In sum, it is as pure and blatant an example of prioritizing the interests of the Israeli government over the rights of US citizens as one can imagine, and it’s being pushed by Aipac and a cast of bipartisan senators.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/13/barbara-boxer-aipac-israel-discrimination
I am ashamed to say my home state of California is represented by two of the biggest scions of the political universe.
Diane Feinstein- Barbara Boxer Democrat in name only.
@ Herbie :
Ken Loach is a very, very silly man for having said the following (as reported by ExPat):
“the biggest war Churchill fought was against the working class of his own country and people forget that.”
It is very, very silly to say that the war Churchill apparently fought against the working class of the UK was bigger than the war he fought against the Nazis.
And if you can’t understand that, you are as very silly as Ken Loach.
All clear now?
**********
La vita è bella, life is good!
This is quite interesting .The Sabotage Of Legitimate Dissent
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ISkqQ3hpW5E
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/ding-dong-witch-dead-shoots-1832579
Hi Dave; Good News ! The FBI sates, categorically, COINTELPRO ended in 1971 🙂
http://vault.fbi.gov/cointel-pro
BTW; I’m sure you know this guy…http://www.jinnwe.com/quest.php?id=1002
He picked up where Tesla left off.
I was reading something recently about a figure in the literary world, of left-wing persuasion (it may have been Raymond Williams), having said that there was no reason why a socialist should not be able to enjoy good wine and a fine cigar. Quite right too, of course.
And this led me to wonder as follows : does anyone happen to know how Arthur Scargill is getting on these days – what’s he up to (if anything), is life good to him materially speaking?
I of course refer to the Arthur Scargill who did more than any other single person in the country – far more than the Thatcher government – to bring about the destruction of entire mining communities through his overweening pride and confidence in his ability to take on the lawfully constituted government of the country for a second time and bring it down in furtherance of his own political
beliefs.
We are constantly being told that the Thatcher government brought about untold misery to thousands and “ruined the lives” of millions in the UK. Was our Arthur one of those thousands (or millions) I wonder?
************
La vita è bella, life is good (I’m sure it is for Arthur)
Habbakuk. At last!
“It is very, very silly to say that the war Churchill apparently fought against the working class of the UK was bigger than the war he fought against the Nazis.”
It’s not at all silly. I know that we have been encouraged to think of WWII as the fight against Fascism, but that was as fanciful as the concept of liberal intervention today, and to similar purposes.
WWII was a fight over power and resources, as all wars are. The Germans and Japanese wanted to have a bit of the action that Britain and France etc had.
Ultimately Britain lost that war, and very badly. The US was the main winner and arguably the Soviets. The Germans and Japanese having been put out of action allowed Britain and the US to benefit from their poorer industrial products until Germany and Japan got up to speed again.
It’s always easier though to fight an external enemy. Fighting within is a much more dangerous operation. You can lose everything in that kind of fight.
I’d say that the crushing of genuine socialst opposition in both the US and Britain were by far the greater battle. These were the defining events in the between the wars period.
People, for example, couldn’t believe today that during this period you had socialist mayors all over the US, and perhaps the loss of that perspective inclines some to the fairytale narratives of mainstream media.
Churchill was a right wing maverick who saw nothing in making allegiances with a genocidal Stalin and he brutally suppressed the 1939 South Wales miner strike.
One of his first task when forming his coalition with Labour was to stop free milk for kids, so Margaret was not the first milk snatcher, the Tory’s have form in delighting the working class with their little games.
This was his opinion of Stalin
“The past with its crimes, its follies and its tragedies, flashes away … I see the ten thousand villages of Russia, where the means of existence was wrung so hardly from the soil, but where there are still primordial human joys, where maidens laugh and children play … The cause of any Russian fighting for his hearth and home is the cause of free men and free peoples in every quarter of the globe.”
To say that he had a good relations with the working class is rewriting history, far from boring you to death with numbers, there were thousands of strikes during the war years.
@Habu-Clown, that you are low enough to pull up Doug on grounds of being “tasteless”, when you have been making offensive & tasteless remarks to Mary for months now, including specifically referencing her breasts & vagina, is not at all surprising, but totally expected from hypocritical low-life psycho-clowns.
@Dreoilin and Village, shame on you for attacking Mary because you took exception to Doug’s Post; either it’s irrational damnation by association, or you were just looking for any excuse to get at her.
@Mary, I don’t blame you for feeling that this Blog has become an “ increasingly unpleasant place”; thanks to the recent influx of trolls, it’s getting hard to distinguish it from cesspit blogs like “Harry’s Place”, which is probably where these low-lives crept over from.
@Craig/Jon, I’m all in favour of a light hands approach, but with Craig actually encouraging, and Jon also doing so by virtual of allowing all & everything, this Blog has deteriorated into a troll’s playground, which will turn away many people, so don’t expect it ever to be voted as high as 3rd most popular political blog again, unless some redeeming action is taken soon.
@Ben 8:43pm
Ben
Yes Eric is a world expert on Tesla have listened to his many interesting lectures.
The FBI may have stopped in your country.But the CIA were over here were infiltrating our universities and setting up fake companies and institutes well into the eighties during Thatchers time ,she gave them Carte blanche to disrupt the peace movement ie CND over here. I personally exposed two CIA| agents from our physics dept.They left the university quietly The American physicist`s working in the department were totally freaked out and did not like the idea of their own countrymen spying on them.
Herbie
The UK police forces are heading down a path to authoritarianism, as are other police forces in Europe and America, but it is politically driven.
Power corrupts.
Put a man in uniform and he feels powerful, more powerful than his non-uniformed “underlings”. Compound that with giving him powers of arrest and other powers like stop and search and the sense of power increases; it is an animal instinct based on male aggression and dominance; although women are not immune.
Add to that the camaraderie inherent in groups of similarly minded people like the police or the armed services or prison guards then a systemic abuse of power will develop that is self-preserving.
A sense of impunity exacerbates the corrupting influence of power.
Give people the power of life or death over others, with little or no likelihood of being held to account, then we are approaching absolute power and absolute corruption.
The UK police are just as susceptible to the corrupting influence of power as any other group and given different political circumstances could easily become as nasty as the Nazi’s were.
The watchword is beware.
Dave @ 9:32
Snark is difficult for me. FBI with all the connected dots (NSA, CIA, DHS local law enforcement) have to maintain their own self-importance, just like the military branches who are envious of the Air Force having aircraft, so must they all. You guys should have worked on military applications for your work. Then, they might have given some air. (snark, snark)
I see you remained on topic with your reference to Madame Pinochet.
Macky,
One wonders if it is the intent of Craig and Jon to destroy the blog and then close it down?
I find it hard to read Craig’s current treatment of his blog any other way.
I am reading a book called Industry and Empire.
E J Hobsbawm.
Craigs say’s in his previous post how the late Lady Thatcher
Destroyed British Industry; to be fair British industry was in decline long before and since the late Nineteenth centuru had relied on it’s empire for wealth.
What Came of Thatchers period in governmeny was a wave of private enterprise and finance much welcomed since the days where Britain was considered the workshop of the world.
Going back to the industrial revolution after those rich pickings of cotton and mills then tje reliance of India out steel and coal exports declined. We had technologological advancement bit lacked application. Our furnaces losing out to overseas competitors.
Our cal industry and railway industy together failed to maximise output, the collier’s owned undersized freight trains and neither they or the railways could agree to advamcement beneficial to all.
Only our armaments industry really entered the 20th century and the City London still playing a majot part in world financial dominance.
To be fair a Socialist government would struggle to make a succes of Britain and Liberals need to ask themselves how they lost control of this lovely country.
I don’t kmow much about Loyd George, where has liberal thought g
I don.t mean the politicaly correct indoctrination spewed out but thought based on good.
Sorry for Typing errors.
Is this the pushback for ‘Thatch’ slurs, ad hominems, which don’t even scratch the surface?
“The US Sedition Act
From Daniel: “Insulting the Emir of Kuwait:
“Kuwaitʼs information minister is defending a proposed media law that reports say could bring fines of about $1 million for insulting the Gulf nationʼs emir and other members of the ruling family.” This is what for America is the “Arab spring”. (thanks Sultan)
It’s actually quite American behavior, given that the Sedition Act was passed soon after the formation of the Republic in 1798 and which stated:
“Definition of offence: To write, print, utter or publish, or cause it to be done, or assist in it, any false, scandalous, and malicious writing against the government of the United States, or either House of Congress, or the President, with intent to defame, or bring either into contempt or disrepute, or to excite against either the hatred of the people of the United States, or to stir up sedition, or to excite unlawful combinations against the government, or to resist it, or to aid or encourage hostile designs of foreign nations.”
http://angryarab.blogspot.com.br/2013/04/the-us-sedition-act.html
“The UK police forces are heading down a path to authoritarianism, as are other police forces in Europe and America, but it is politically driven.”
That’s right. The real problem is the powers they now have, the centralisation of control. the rubber-stamping in Magistrates Courts, and the weird thought and pre-thought crimes, invented to “protect” us from the bogey man. Always works, that one, for some reason.
Other problems are decreasing access for many to good legal advice and an IPCC which is useless at regulating corrupion, crimes and other daily misdemeanors committed by Police. That’s the light touch thing again. Remember that.
When you throw in a media which not only is little interested in investigating injustice, but actively colludes with Police in criminality and at the same time acts as their PR operation, then you’ve quite a heady mix and a mix we haven’t seen since the 1930s.
It’s very clear the direction we’re going and it ain’t good.
With increasing unemployment and an economy and financial structure fast going down the toilet, it certainly isn’t going to get any better soon.
People just don’t notice the drip drip of fascism. They mostly don’t do wholes and each part encroachment is explained away as necessary to protect us from whatever. They just don’t see where it’s all leading. They don’t know it’s happened until they’re right there in it. They also don’t want to think evil intent of their leaders and opinion formers. other than in cartoonish terms. That’s much too conflictual to live with day to day and carry on working and bringing up family etc.
And then, what can you do about it anyway. All the major parties are top-down centralised, so you can’t just join a party and work your way up so easily anymore. All that grassroots democracy is gone. It’s all professionals now – business people and PR types seem to do well.
@ Nevermind (20h59) :
“To say that he had a good relations with the working class is rewriting history, far from boring you to death with numbers, there were thousands of strikes during the war years.”
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1/. I don’t recall anyone on this thread claiming that Churchill had ‘good relations’ with the working class. Whatever that means, by the way. There are however several on here who did claim the contrary.
2/. There were certainly strikes during WW2. In this context
– one could wonder whether those were necessarily patriotic actions at a time of grave national danger
– and one could also speculate on what would have been the fate of workers attempting to strike in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia during the same period. History does not seem to record any workers having been shot for striking in Britain.
*******
La vita è bella, life is good!
Yes “silly” is such a useful epithet to sling about by no nothing, heartless, spineless tools; it sounds like toys out of pram moment for the claque, or the “rubbish” cry of teenagers when confronted with ideas that are just too difficult to accept.
Ken Loach is silly like Stalky and Co are eminently sane.
@ Macky :
“@Craig/Jon, I’m all in favour of a light hands approach,”
Really? How does that accord with what you go on to say?
“but with Craig actually encouraging,”
Really? Can you elaborate on that?
“and Jon also doing so by virtual of allowing all & everything,”
You mean comments like Doug Scorgie’s disgusting post about Margaret Thatcher? Or perhaps Mary’s thinly disguised anti-Jew comments?
” this Blog has deteriorated into a troll’s playground, which will turn away many people,”
I suggest you look again at Dreoilin’s recent definition of a troll.
” so don’t expect it ever to be voted as high as 3rd most popular political blog again, unless some redeeming action is taken soon.”
Don’t be coy, man – what sort of ‘redemming action’ would you favour?
********
Do enlighten us, Macky – what sort of ‘redeeming action’ would you propose?
*********
Do stop navel-gazing and man up a little!
A quote from the Information Clearing House newsletter
“When you grow up in middle America you are inculcated from the earliest age with the belief – no, the understanding – that America is the richest and most powerful nation on earth because God likes us best. It has the most perfect form of government, the most exciting sporting events, the tastiest food and amplest portions, the largest cars, the cheapest gasoline, the most abundant natural resources, the most productive farms, the most devastating nuclear arsenal and the friendliest, most decent and most patriotic folks on Earth. Countries just don’t come any better. So why anyone would want to live anywhere else is practically incomprehensible. In a foreigner it is puzzling; in a native it is seditious. I used to feel this way myself.” – Bill Bryson
Ben Franklin -Machine Gun Preacher (unleaded version)
14 Apr, 2013 – 10:45 pm
The US Sedition Act
Ben, I believe it is still illegal in the UK to call for the abolition of the monarchy if it is put in writing; an archaic law that the Guardian newspaper had tried to overturn (but failed).
@Ben
“You guys should have worked on military applications for your work.”
I was in T boats with the SS then went on to work on Admiralty communications equipment.
So I know what you mean.
Thatchers Gov.was so paronoid with regards to the counterculture movement
they had every Hippy head shop and left wing bookshops under tight surveillance.Also I remember them sending
in their forces of Awe and Boredom with their sledge hammers to smash up our printing presses.Printing of radical pamphlets was forbidden.
More tasteless (but clean) jokes about Mrs T
Mrs Thatcher has died. The police are treating the death as hilarious.
Margaret Thatcher’s state funeral will be the first time the 21 gun salute will be fired directly at the coffin.
The Assault On Gold — Paul Craig Roberts
“For Americans, financial and economic Armageddon might be close at hand. The evidence for this conclusion is the concerted effort by the Federal Reserve and its dependent financial institutions to scare people away from gold and silver by driving down their prices …
continues
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/04/04/the-assault-on-gold-paul-craig-roberts/#
I’ve lurked around this ‘blog long enough to come to a couple of conclusions:
1. There are a lot of interesting points made.
2. Habakuk is a mewling quim.
Dreolin @ 11:26
Driving down the price of gold and silver, is the part of the Western strategy. Making investors believe the future value will be less than the dollar drives them away from that hedge against inflation. Hyperinflation has occurred a couple of times the last century
(China and Germany) The BRICS alliance may fail because of the debt instruments held (China is over a trillion dollars). But they may calculate that the dollar will still hold value, and they may be able to sell the Treasury bonds in the secondary market, and still come out smelling like a rose with their combined growth rate (6% as of 2010) even if they take a marginal hit. In the long term, they see nothing but advantage removing the Petrodollar from it’s immortal perch.