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847 thoughts on “Blog Down

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  • Sofia Kibo Noh

    N_. 1 01pm

    Re France and Ireland. “Unfortunately, in both cases it is compulsory to notify the authorities and allow inspections.”

    In Ireland at least, the inspections at present and the culture benign. They seek to ensure that an unspecified “minimun level of education” is being provided. No insistence on curriculum or timetables. No inspection is made of the child.

    I can’t speak for the French system

    “In Germany home education is illegal, having been made illegal by the Nazi government in 1938.”

    Yes, Nazis were certainly unpleasant but not stupid. They knew how useful schooling could be for instilling false narratives and knee-jerk loyalty.

  • Passerby

    Keeping Out The Cameras and Reporters Simply Doesn’t Work

    Using the old “enclosed military area” excuse to prevent coverage of its occupation of Palestinian land has been going on for years. But the last time Israel played this game – in Jenin in 2000 – it was a disaster. Prevented from seeing the truth with their own eyes, reporters quoted Palestinians who claimed there had been a massacre by Israeli soldiers – and Israel spent years denying it. In fact, there was a massacre, but not on the scale that it was originally reported.

    *

    Dense Inert Metal Explosives

    The first reports about …. new weapon ….. chief of the
    emergency unit at Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa. Dr. Al-Saqqa said that Israel was using “a new chemical weapon” and its siege was“ a live exercise on a new ammunition that, so far, has resulted in killing 50 Palestinians and injuring 200.” He observed that, “despite the damage in internal soft tissue in the bodies of injured people, the fragments were not detected by X-ray. In other words, they had disappeared or dissolved inside the body.”
    #
    #
    ..Despite his pleas to the “international community” to investigate and lend assistance in treating the victims, “no one has lifted a finger”

    Yeah why you perverts are debating the zionistan, and don’t mind your own business?!!! Go find yourselves something to do you failures losers, and …… anit-s…. and leave the ziofuckwits alone to get on with:
    1- Segregation today!
    2- Segregation tomorrow!
    3- Segregation forever!

    Why o why you anit-s…. you!!

    NB The decapitation of little children in contact with Dense Inert Metal Explosive weapons explosions as per the design parameters of the weapon.

    * A war crime, but it is zionistan and it is OK for it to commit war crimes. !!

  • Passerby

    … union organisers would receive telephone calls late at night, in which they would hear tape recordings of their previous telephone calls with other officials.

    Phone calls were for wimps. At Weatherby roundabout on A1 the police cars were intercepting any vehicle that carried more than two male passengers, and searching the car and questioning the passengers. If these passengers were found to be miners the police were detaining them, and stopping them from travelling further North.

  • N_

    @Sofia

    Some home educators in Ireland don’t think the present registration system is benign.

    I recall when the present Irish system was set up, under the Education (Welfare) Act 2000. I knew about the creation of the NEWB, but I still did a double-take when someone first emailed me from an email address ending in @newb.ie ! 🙂

    Before then, despite the right which is stated unambiguously in the constitution, some home educators from the lower orders found themselves dragged to court, and if they said to the judge “Hey, what about my rights under Section 42(2) of the Constitution?”, the judge would just tell them to shut their mouths.

    In France, things were better before 1999, when the authorities decided to impose a tighter regime on home educators, under the pretext of protecting people from “sects”. That was when they first introduced registration and a compulsory curriculum. Never mind that their prosecution of the Scientologists around that time failed spectacularly, because they kept losing the legal papers. (More recently, the French state has been more successful in some of its prosecutions against that organisation.)

    State bureaucrats in many countries act on their view that it is “obviously” good for children to be forced to go to school, and parents’ protestations about the law can fall on deaf ears. For instance, in Sweden the law is that home educators have to use study materials provided by the local headmaster (I kid you not), but when one family tried to do so, the local headmaster refused to countenance the idea that children should be allowed not to go to school, and basically told them to make their child come to his school, or else. He refused to provide any materials. The parents were completely open about what they were doing, and in fact had been told to contact the local headmaster by the Ministry of Education. Eventually their child was kidnapped by the police at gunpoint when they were on a plane about to leave the country. Their poor son was kept in state care, allowed to see his parents once every 5 weeks as long as they told him they did not want him back. Since 2010 they have not been allowed to see him at all. All of this is totally illegal, but that hasn’t stopped it happening. When the ‘professionals’ get their teeth into someone… You can read abut the Domenic Johansson case here

  • Sofia Kibo Noh

    @N_. 3 23am

    I take your point. Thanks for the link.

    I heard the parents interviewed and got the impression that their issue was over having to be assessed over whether they were granted a right already constitutionally guaranteed. They had other children oalready on the register.

    Their challenger was dealt with in the Irish Civil Service’s time-honoured way. Although the Brits left after the War of Independence they made sure to leave behind a clone of their own political and administrative system. The Irish State has consistently shown itself to be deeply vindivtive towards small people who have the temerity to make any kind of challenge, whether anti-GMO protesters, abused women and children, or anyone really who doesn’t roll over for them.

    That’s why it’s so heartening to hear the rising acknowlegement for the courage of the likes of Clare Daly who refuse to be silenced.

    Back to the subject of home ed inspections in Ireland. I can only share my own personal experience. Although very formal, it seemed fair and thorough without being intimidating. My concern would be more that, the vagueness in the definition of “minimun level of education” leaves too much scope for would-be enforcers to harass home educators.

    That is why I feel that, for the present at least, the culture among this section of Irish educational beaurocrats is benign. Certainly far from the Kafkaesque situation in Sweden. What a nightmare the Johansson family.

  • Suhayl Saadi

    “… the West is also fighting Islamic extremism…” Anon.

    Really? In Libya? In Syria? In Saudi Arabia? Were it so simple!

    Or might it be more accurate to state that NATO (and separately, Russia) has its own perceived interests, which it pursues and these perceived interests sometimes coincide with Islamist extremists and sometimes do not? And that when these interests coincide, there is a tactical alliance b/w NATO and Islamist paramilitary extremists? And that there is a longstanding strategic alliance b/w NATO – especially the UK – and Saudi Arabia? And that Saudi Arabia is the major sponsor of Sunni Islamist extremism in the world?

  • Suhayl Saadi

    Jon, great post at 2:16pm. I agree with most of it. However, while the quote that follows may be true of liberal capitalist states, I’m not sure it’s true across the board: “I think it would be difficult to prove, but I’d wager that there would be a persuasive correlation between the power of the deep state and income inequality within the same country.”

    Well, China and the Warsaw Pact countries had relatively flat income distribution until economic change came in the early 1990s, and yet their deep states were very powerful indeed. They remain very powerful in China and Russia. Less so, in Eastern Europe, and progressively less as one moves further west.

  • Anon

    Some good points, Suhayl, and it certainly true that nothing is black and white in the murky world of foreign interests and alliances, but you have rather taken the quote out of its context, as you can surely see. The West being engaged in a fight against the Taliban, and Mulala being against them too, not to mention Western leaders weighing in to support her, my suspicion was that Dreoilin couldn’t bring herself to support the girl, seeing her, perhaps, as “Western-backed”, tainted merely by association with the West and its aims. Foreign policy doesn’t operate in black and white, but the mind of the Murrayista most certainly does!

  • Dreoilin

    “Dreoilin, how mean-spirited of you to try and undermine the good work being done by Mulala …. Is it because she is a Muslim fighting Islamic extremism, and because the West is also fighting Islamic extremism, that makes her a traitor in
    your eyes?” — Anon-with-biro-shades

    Don’t be a feckin eejit, please. I said she was being USED.

    And yes, shot in the head could have caused death or brain damage. A bullet in the neck — if it didn’t hit something vital like vocal chords or a carotid artery — could lodge or pass clean through without lasting damage. “Shot in the head” sounds a whole lot worse. That’s why it was repeated ad nauseam.

    You are, I assume, aware of other PR exercises engaged in by the U.S. The falsified story of Jessica Lynch for example?
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/may/15/iraq.usa2

    “It provides a remarkable insight into the real influence of Hollywood producers on the Pentagon’s media managers, and has produced a template from which America hopes to present its future wars.”

    And you remember the “babies thrown out of incubators” by Saddam’s men, a story put about by the U.S. but which emerged later to have been a
    fabrication told by the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador in Washington?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_%28testimony%29

    “Hill & Knowlton conducted a $1 million study to determine the best way to win support for strong action.[35] H & K had the Wirthington Group conduct focus groups to determine the best strategy that would influence public opinion.[36] The study found that an emphasis on atrocities, particularly the incubator story, was the most effective.[36]
    Hill & Knowlton is estimated to have been given as much as $12 million by the Kuwaitis for their public relations campaign.[37]”

    Cop yourself on. You need to read a lot more, and stop automatically swallowing the propaganda dished up to you by the US/UK and complicit media. What a useful little puppet you are.

    —————-

    Sofia, thanks. I’ll be back later, sometime.

  • Anon

    I must say that it appears my policy of buying a punnet of Israeli strawberries for every anti-Semitic comment seen has thus far been a tremendous success. As it stands, I will be buying just the one punnet for Fedup/Passerby’s Nazi-themed effort earlier. And if you all stay on your best behaviour, I might even buy some Palestinian olive oil!

  • Suhayl Saadi

    Anon, 4:59pm. Yes, I thought the assumption about ‘the West fighting Islamism’ needed critique and further analysis, as it’s clear that the actual situation is sometimes the diametric opposite of that. I do not think both history and current configurations demonstrate that the two things – perceived Western interests and Islamism – are not necessarily opposed.

    Malala’s certainly a powerful icon in Pakistan/Afghanistan. Whatever the provenance of those who see it as being in their interests to support her, the basic point is that the Islamists want to shut down education for girls in those countries. And that needs to be fought by the people in those countries. Unfortunately, while the West may be helpful for the individual – like Malala – who seek political asylum – overall, the battleground that is ‘Af-Pak’ is deeply complex and is the product of both regional and global power dynamics. Pakistan’s deep state is key. India’s too, actually.

    A movement for economic and political redistribution is the only long-term way to enlist and engage local populations against both such manipulation and the Islamist paramilitary/gangster elites of ‘Af-Pak’. Unfortunately, there is no sign of this happening.

    And so, while locally the ISAF has actually done some good work in Afghanistan, the continuing strategic sponsorship of Saudi Arabia/UAE and their sponsorship of Islamism/Islamist paramilitaries, as well as the perceived usefulness of those paramilitaries to NATO et al, militates against both the work of the ISAF and long-term solutions.

  • Suhayl Saadi

    Sorry, silly double negative, above. Should be:

    “I think that both history and current configurations demonstrate that the two things – perceived Western interests and Islamism – are not necessarily opposed.” Me.

  • Ben Franklin -Machine Gun Preacher (unleaded version)

    Similar in methodology or objectives, Suhayl? I think that thought needs some flesh on the bones.

  • A Node

    Tomorrow, Sunday 14th July, Radio 4 Extra at 13.30:
    Craig Murray – Murder in Samarkand

    Duration:
    1 hour, 30 minutes

    First broadcast:
    Saturday 20 February 2010

    David Hare’s witty portrait of an unlikely hero, based on the memoir by Craig Murray.

    Craig is proud to be sent as Ambassador to Uzbekistan, eager to work hard and also eager for fun. The combination takes him on a dangerous course both professionally and personally, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.

    Craig Murray played by David Tennant

  • Anon

    No, Dreoilin, you said she was being used and COACHED. On the basis of the way she looks at her father, you believe she is afraid of him. You then refer to her father owning two private schools to suggest he is in it for his own gain. Why do you always see the very worst motives and agendas in people? Most schools in Pakistan are privately run, the alternative for the poor is sponsorship to attend a madrasa, or no education at all. Being shot in the neck sounds as bad as the head to me. It is understandable that in a part of the world very difficult for journalists to access there was some early confusion. I am not interested in “other PR exercises”, so you have wasted space there.

  • Suhayl Saadi

    Perhaps we would do well to ask ourselves what would be likely to happen to girls’ education in Syria if power is won by the Islamist paramilitaries we are supplying with weapons and logistical support. And regardless of the official position, as in so many previous conflicts, ‘we’ will have found ways round it; think for a moment of Rhodesia, 1965-80. It is naive and patronising to imagine that ‘we’ can supply the supposedly ‘good rebels’ with weapons and expect, or try to fool our populations into believing, that those weapons will not be distributed widely. The same rapid-deployment Islamist paramilitaries have been active in ‘Af-Pak’, Libya, Mali and Syria. They work with, and draw on, local Islamist paramilitaries. They are a truly postmodern phenomenon, the epitome of globalisation and internationalism.

    That’s not to say in any way that the Assad regime was/is good, it’s most certainly not good with secret police and so on. And it is highly likely that all sides have committed atrocities in Syria. But what is happening now, and what would happen is the Islamists take over, is far worse.

    We ought to view the West’s apparent support for icons like Malala in this light. It is a deeply cynical support. Let’s not even begin to get into 1980s Afghanistan and what the West – mainly the US and UK – did then.

  • Flaming June

    Caroline Wyatt has just been reporting on the logistics of returning military equipment from Afghanistan to the UK.

    400 tons of brass spent cartridge cases.
    100 tons of aluminium ammunition boxes.
    etc etc.

    Shipping Out
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23296677

    How many lives have we taken? Gunner Rigby’s mother was saying that he was a gentle person and never hurt anyone. No not even on duty in Afghanistan with his machine gun I suppose.

    Of course, Ms Wyatt did not mention the overland route for the return of Mr Hammond’s junk that Karimov was providing at vast cost that Craig told us about.

    It was a great insult to the Afghan people to hear at the end of the piece that anything which is rubbish and of no value will be put into skips and dumped there. We are such nice people.

  • Anon

    Anyway, team, I must depart this place for the remainder of the day, as needs must elsewhere. Let us hope the punnet-count doesn’t go too high in my absence!

    Thanks for your answer, Suhayl. It is always interesting to read someone informed in the matter, unlike Dreoilin, who has visited a few fruity websites and believe she knows everything, while the rest of us sheeple are told we are just empty receptacles for government propaganda.

  • Suhayl Saadi

    “… the alternative for the poor is sponsorship to attend a madrasa, or no education at all.” Anon.

    Good point. And on the whole, the state schools are not of good quality. Hence the overwhelming need for massive and systemic dismantling of feudalism and redistibution of wealth with education and health programmes. That would be the best antidote to Islamist obscurantism.

  • Flaming June

    If Gordon Brown http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/12/malala-idol-un-speech-pupils
    and Plan UK Ltd and Plan International Ltd are involved in Malala Day then suspicions are confirmed.

    http://malaladay.org.uk/

    Any of the names familiar? http://www.plan-uk.org/about-us/our-people/patrons-and-directors

    The CEO is Tanya Barron. http://www.plan-uk.org/about-us/our-people/our-chief-executive/

    Their income is +£54m and spend +£55m Charity commission website Charity No.276035 Accounts to June 2012.

  • Herbie

    Jon

    Great stuff at 2.16pm.

    Perhaps you’ve heard of the lesser known NSA whistleblower, Russell Tice. He blew the whistle way back in 2004, though his story didn’t get much coverage in msm. They were covered up.

    His allegations include spying on for the purposes of blackmail, all the major figures in the US state, politics, media, judiciary, business, regulators and military etc. Basically a continuation of J E Hoover’s blackmailing operation at the FBI.

    This seems to me key to how it all works.

    http://www.corbettreport.com/?s=tice&x=0&y=0

  • Flaming June

    Anon asked why no mention here of the Brazilian uprising and the emphasis on Palestine.

    Brazilians are rising up against their own government. Brazil is an autonomous state.

    The Palestinians’ land has been occupied for 65 years and the people driven out. Those that remain and their children are terrorized and abused by Israel. Israel is not a state as it has no borders nor does it recognize international law.

    Here we discover that the usual involvement of the US with right wing oppositions in Latin America countries is present in Brazil too. Booz Allen are in there.

    ‘Meanwhile, more and more information is coming out in the Brazilian media about U.S. involvement with the conservative opposition party PSDB. In March, Folha de São Paulo announced that PSDB had hired former senior advisor to President Obama, David Axelrod to consult on social media campaigning for senator and likely presidential candidate for the 2014 elections, Aécio Neves. Yesterday, Carta Maior broke the story that Booz Allen, a company for which Eric Snowden had been a contractor, has been doing consulting work with the PSDB since the 1990s. The question remains whether or not this has anything to do with the social media campaigns that have fragmented the protests and created a general feeling of political instability in the country.’

    General Strike in Brazil Responds to Wave of Street Protests
    Written by Brian Mier (guest post)
    Friday, 12 July 2013 16:37
    http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/general-strike-in-brazil-responds-to-wave-of-street-protests

    Venceremos!

  • Herbie

    Presumably everyone has now worked out that Habby is posting as Anon.

    Why isn’t that considered dubious in itself?

  • Arbed

    Jon, 2.16pm

    It’s difficult to estimate the influence of such organisations, however: whilst levels of funding might be a measurable expression of power, intent is harder to put into an equation.

    Nothing like a good visual representation to help with that sort of estimate…

    Stasi vs. The NSA Back To Back: Who’s Worse – A Visual Guide:
    http://falkvinge.net/2013/07/05/stasi-vs-the-u-s-nsa-back-to-back-whos-worse-and-by-how-much/

    Quite short, but be sure to read through to the end. That final picture. Jaw-dropping.

  • Arbed

    Jon, 2.16pm

    I think it would be difficult to prove, but I’d wager that there would be a persuasive correlation between the power of the deep state and income inequality within the same country. Put another way, the power of such organisations rises in proportion to economic injustice, so that the increasing levels of predictable social unrest can be quashed.

    Agreed. Another metric I think that’s quite useful to look at is the militarization of the police. An on-the-ground overview of how that’s going in America at the moment:

    Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book:
    http://www.salon.com/2013/07/07/“why_did_you_shoot_me_i_was_reading_a_book_the_new_warrior_cop_is_out_of_control/?source=newsletter

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