I have a guilty political secret. I do not detest Gordon Brown. That is such an unfashionable opinion that I don’t really expect any comments at all to agree with it. And yes, I do realise that he went along with the Iraq War and all the other horrors of the Blair era. Interestingly, I don’t remember the question of what Gordon Brown really thought about Iraq ever being discussed; he deserves condemnation for having not tried to stop it, and perhaps he was indeed an enthusiast. And I am well aware that the Private Finance Initiative is a terrible disaster, and that he oversaw creeping privatisation in the health services, and – worst of all – the introduction of tuition fees.
And yet I cannot dislike him. Probably because I just know too many people who have known him through decades, who are themselves good people, and who like him. Around Edinburgh and Fife you will find it hard to find people who actually know him who share the hatred and contempt he seems to arouse among the political and media classes of London.
As a general rule I do not like or dislike people according to their politics, but rather according to the sincerity of their political beliefs and the goodwill with which they hold them. I am sure Anders Breivik is sincere in his political beliefs, but those are lacking in goodwill. Sincerity is not enough – humanity and inclusiveness are also important.
There are one nation Tories who seem to me perfectly decent people, genuinely trying to do good. I don’t hate them because their political conclusions on the best way to do good are different to mine. Gordon Brown I put rather in the same category – I feel he was trying to do good for ordinary people, he just got it wrong.
Blair is in a whole different category again – insincere, absolutely focused on attaining personal power, and with a Messianic belief that what is good for him must be good for the World. The Guardian is publishing some emails around the Blair Brown rivalry this week. I don’t care and won’t read them. But while I see Blair as quite properly damned for eternity to the seventh pit of hell, I don’t think Brown deserves anything worse than North Queensferry.
I have been in Ghana the last 20 days living in a house with no internet connection and working (extremely hard) in an office with virtually no internet connection – not enough to load WordPress. I hope to get more chance to blog shortly.
I am certain, that Villager (s) ip is being used by more than one person, If not before, then certainly now, i find it impossible to believe that one adult’s mindset, ways of expressing one’self Esp regards writing style, can almost exactly match another individual’s mindset style in a matter of months – ( H ) is back
“There is no advertisement revenue, and there is no glory to be had by tolerating these disruptive fuckwits, is there?”
Two minutes later, QED. So predictable. And u call this “debate”:
https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&tab=nw#filter=0&hl=en&q=ziofuckwits&safe=off&start=0
About 231 results (0.09 seconds) and you took how long to summarise my piercing observations and questions.
“Why do we need to put up with these sorts around this blog?”
LOL 🙂 Yes quite why do we? Just muzzle someone who disagrees with you; much simpler!
Fujisan, ring Hasbara Central and find out.
Villagersan
@ N_
Whereas some forum members feel the need to hastily try to, and often times with impromptu-erected roadblocks, stop the flow of information from reaching this board via various inroads, others supply links to provide numerous and/or different angles that one might want to venture into and see events in a ‘different’ light or from ‘another vantage point.’
My uncles used to say, “If you go shark fishin’, don’t break bread over the waves, bring bloody bait.”
So far, that thoughtfulness has netted the predictable results.
Roi Tov.
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
Condolences to anyone who has lost loved ones [where ever you are].
Villager in such a short space of time you come back at me with ONLY the second time i have been called fujisan, And the first time was by whom??? So you have so Closely studied every post of (H) that within moments you remember that, that’s either sinister or Sad, Still highly supect
Call any fucking central…it’s the same ip Two minds
Conduit Closed
resident dissident 21 Sep, 2013 – 9:38 pm
“those who can appreciate shades of grey, and understand that the hope for the future lies in such diversity” – Isn’t it a question of degree? The vast majority of the time these politician turnip heads: ARE slaves to ‘the party’, ARE slaves to big money, ARE egoists, ARE careerists, ARE manipulators and the ALL pledge loyalty to the Queen.
To get hope from the 1% (or so) time they dip into independent thought, or ‘grey’ is simply irresponsible.
Kenya
1) Why: The attack is believed to be retaliation against Kenya for its military operations in southern Somalia.
2) Who: Americans, Canadians, English, Swedish and Finnish citizens [of Somalian descent].
3) This means that the billions invested in HS have created yet another hapless strain of horse manure and Rand Beers‘ incompetence should be punishable by law.
Six Americans Among Nairobi Mall Attackers – Rep. King Urges Increased Surveillance of Ethnic Somalis in US
Rep Peter King Kill, kill, kill.
2 Sept 2013
Congressman Peter King said on CNN Monday that even if Congress votes no on Syria, President Obama should still take military action
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/rep-peter-king-on-cnn-obama-should-strike-syria-even-if-congress-votes-no/
22 Sep 2013
And of course that’s got Rep. Peter King (R – NY) all fired up about ethnic Somalis again, urging the FBI and local police departments across the US to keep a careful eye on “Somali-American communities” for possible follow-up strikes.
King’s been after Somali-Americans for years, claiming they are potential threats to national security and holding Congressional hearings on the “risks” posed by them and other religious minorities.
http://news.antiwar.com/2013/09/22/six-americans-among-nairobi-mall-attackers/
King formerly served as the Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, where he drew attention in early 2011 for holding hearings on the extent of radicalization of Muslim Americans. He also sits on the Financial Services Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He stepped down after his seventh year as Homeland Security Chair because of self-imposed Republican term limits. He remains a member of the committee.
He’s a candidate for the 2016 Presidential election. Pro Bush, pro Iraq War, anti closure Guantanamo, pro Panetta and Petraeus for Defence and CIA respectively, called Wikileaks a ‘terrorist organisation’, etc etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_T._King
God help us all if he ever gets into the White House. He does not like Muslims.
Mr Lopez and the embassy security officer were present on the scene….??? Really?
‘The Westgate mall, with shops like Nike, Adidas and Bose, has Israeli ownership, and security personnel have in the past identified the mall as a likely terror target in the city. Haaretz spoke on the phone with one of the Israeli owners, Alex Trajtenberg, who confirmed he is a partner in the mall but declined to comment further.
Officials in the Israeli foreign ministry said that three Israeli citizens that were in the mall at the time of the attack were able to escape unharmed and were collected by the Deputy Israeli Ambassador to Kenya Yaki Lopez and the embassy security officer that were present on the scene.
Two Israeli men that managed to escape on their own and an Israeli woman that hid in one of the businesses and was rescued by the local security forces. A senior official at the foreign ministry said that the families of the Israelis that escaped the incident were informed. The ministry said that beyond these persons it is believed that no other Israelis were present.’
http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/1.548088
~~~
Alex Trajtenberg and family
http://www.unibon.com.ar/en_development.swf
An Argentinian domain there.
The name of a Manuel Trajtenberg crops up in a list of candidates for governorship of the Bank of Israel.
Don’t cry for these bankers, Argentina
How is it that three contenders for Bank of Israel governorship hail from Cordoba?http://www.haaretz.com/business/.premium-1.543096
@ Mary,
Off topic:
Q: …if he ever gets into the White House.
R: Although I’m 100% for a first female POTUS to run the place, I have this recurring nightmare it will be Hillary.
Where’s Lee when you need him?
As regards the shopping centre attack in Nairobi I think back to the Bilderberg meeting in Watford this year. One of the items on the agenda was “The challenge of Africa”. You would not be surprised to know that not one African, as far as I have been able to determine, was invited to this power-group’s attempt to dominate the world. Every news event now I question. I suspect that the man in the US who went mad in a military establishment just had a grudge. But how does anybody know any more after 9/11 and all the other false flags? It’s like “The Boy who cried Wolf”. Will we know when the wolf really comes?
Daniel Yes agree. btw I should have acknowledged your link above.
~~~
Cameron has cut short his visit to Balmoral to chair a COBRA meeting. Why? Upping the terrrrrr alert?
@ Daniel Rich 22 Sep, 2013 – 11:50 pm
Your reference to South Park reminded me that the 9/11 Conspiracy, in which Cartman has been claiming the Jews, Kyle in particular, is responsible, was solved in the Season Ten episode, “Mystery of the Urinal Deuce”. The Hardly Boys discover that the 9/11 Conspiracy was, in truth, a Government Conspiracy created by the Government into order to make the Government look more powerful than it really was.
It’s a reasonable explanation. The toons know far more than we do. South Park and to a lesser extent The Simpsons explain current events. SpongeBob I don’t know about; can’t see anything overtly political in Bikini Bottom, unless the secret recipe for Crabby Patties is an allegory for something.
To keep the Kenyan mall conspiracy going, it’s alleged Samantha Lewthwaite, the widow of London 7/7 bomber Jermaine Lindsay, was involved on site. And it’s alleged three of the Kenya attackers are from the US.
And.. and… it’s alleged that fifty days before 9/11, Larry Silverstein’s Silverstein Properties and Frank Lowy’s Westfield America secured a 99-year lease on World Trade Center Buildings One, Two, Four and Five. Silverstein already owned Building Seven.
It’s further alleged that Frank Lowy has an interest in the Kenyan Westgate mall.
In the spirit of modern journalism I’ve not verified any of this — some from an anti-semetic page — but present it
nonetheless for your consideration.
There’s a major stink that the Kenyan attackers gloated on Twitter and Twitter was powerless to shut them up. Twitter would disable one account and they’d switch to another. Expect immediate calls for Governments taking control of the Internets to prevent any such thing from happening again. Imagine, cowardly terrorists shamelessly gloating; only our side is allowed to gloat.
The attack on a Pakistani Christian congregation by two suicide bombers illustrates the need for greater security for minorities who are vulnerable to being attacked as scapegoats.
Pakistan needs to get a grip on Islamism within its own borders, and this will be difficult because Pakistan was founded as a Muslim country (albeit with ideals of tolerance), and this made it possible for Islamism to be promoted for political gain in the 60s and 70s, which helped to create the present situation. A future generation will have to make the country a more tolerant place, if the present one cannot.
It makes us feel proud. NOT.
‘The families of almost 200 innocent victims of British military activity in Afghanistan have been compensated with barely £3,000 each, the Government has revealed.
The Ministry of Defence has paid out £563,000 to settle “common law claims” arising from the deaths of 185 civilian men, women and children since 2007, according to figures obtained by The Independent. The “fatality claims” include the deaths of Afghan civilians in botched air-strikes, crossfire and road accidents involving British forces who have been fighting the Taliban for more than a decade.’
MoD paid £3,000 compensation for Afghans killed by UK military
Rights groups claim payouts are pitifully low and do not give families sufficient help
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/mod-paid-3000-compensation-for-afghans-killed-by-uk-military-8833059.html
As someone here used to say endlessly ‘La vita e bella’. Life is not beautiful. It is bloody cheap especially if you have a brown skin. Disgusting and vile.
From the same piece – A report from the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (Unama) last month revealed that 1,319 Afghan civilians were killed and 2,533 injured in the first six months of 2013 – 23 per cent more than in the same period last year.
One can only utterly condemn the two recent terrorist attacks in Pakistan and Kenya. They were both hate crimes. These are innocents who have died, most of whom probably had no interest whatsoever in contentious religious or political matters. The last time there were terrorist attacks of this magnitude in Kenya, its tourism collapsed – so that many Kenyan citizens who work in the tourism and hospitality industries went on suffering.
One also wonders where our massive security/intelligence industry was. Tapping the phones of billions of innocent citizens as we have recently learnt, snooping into and sometimes disrupting the lives of decent people; yet they didn’t even see this recent Kenyan attack coming, though it has happened before, and Kenya should have been a known hot spot for issues like this.
Condolences to your friends loss Suhayl and thanks for explaining the finer differences of killing between the Jundullahs.
Many of these groups are funded by Saudi’s who seem to provide the US with a ready stream of jubilant martyrs walking into arms way, justifying the global chaos and acquisition of the means of resource transfers by ruthless force.
Prince Bandar should by now have a price on his head, just as Omar Al Bashir, wanted for genocide.
This Shia vs Sunni’s money wasting war does not care much whether other religions get hurt, but I bet there will be some fundamentalist Christians somewhere who are screaming blue murder.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/22/sudan-bashir-idUSL5N0HI10D20130922
what a cheeky monkey, arrest him, and warn prince Bandar as well, tell him that the moment he leaves his harem, he’s a target to the ICC.
While I have been totally against British military involvement in Afghanistan from the start, it is worth pointing out with regard to Mary’s misleading post of 9:07 am, that while £3,000 may be a paltry sum to the inhabitants of the leafy lanes of suburban Surrey, to the average Afghan, who earns just $450 per year, it represents a fortune, or over a decade of earnings.
Nothing, of course, can compensate for the loss of a loved one, but at least the British government does something to support their families. Unlike,, of course, the beloved Soviet Union, which paid nothing to the families of the million-plus victims of its brutal decade-long bombardment of Afghanistan.
Kenyan Bloodbath: Reaping the “Benefits” of US AFRICOM Collaboration
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.ie/2013/09/kenyan-bloodbath-reaping-benefits-of-us.html
@ Roderick Russell: “One also wonders where our massive security/intelligence industry was. Tapping the phones of billions of innocent citizens as we have recently learnt, snooping into and sometimes disrupting the lives of decent people; yet they didn’t even see this recent Kenyan attack coming, though it has happened before, and Kenya should have been a known hot spot for issues like this.”
“NSA director modeled war room after Star Trek’s Enterprise: The nifty workspace seemed to make an impression on the members of congress and other important visitors who dropped by to check it out. ‘Everybody wanted to sit in the chair at least once to pretend he was Jean-Luc Picard,’ a retired officer in charge of VIP visits told Foreign Policy.”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/15/nsa-mind-keith-alexander-star-trek
It’s a sham. There’s nothing BUT a glitzy showroom to impress congresspersons and ask for increased budgets. No gigawatts of computing power in the back room, just a movie set with flashing display screens scrolling Matrix-like symbols. The $$$ have long disappeared into hos, coke, poppy stuff, secret accounts and bribery.
Lavrov: US Pressuring Russia into Passing UN Resolution on Syria Allowing Military Force
By RT
“Our American partners are starting to blackmail us: ‘If Russia does not support a resolution under Chapter 7, then we will withdraw our support for Syria’s entry into the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). This is a complete departure from what I agreed with Secretary of State John Kerry’,”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36313.htm
Mary writes:
“Life is not beautiful. It is bloody cheap especially if you have a brown skin. Disgusting and vile.”
Yes, its bloody awful.
Take, for example, Pakistan, where just 0.5% pay income tax, and to which the British tax-payer sends £446 million a year.
O/T
On the subject of bad English (was it with @NR?) and whether Europe is any better for reading levels than the United States, I came across this yesterday
“I was at a literary conference and an editor at a publishing house read out some numbers.
At the time, the US was a country of about 315 million (give or take ten million). England had around one tenth of the population of the US, and Israel had roughly one sixth of England’s population (about 5 million). Despite the huge disparities in population, however, a “literary” best-seller in all three countries sold about the same number of copies over a given time period: 80,000. In other words, 5 million Israelis consumed as many first-rate novels as 315 million Americans. In other terms again, the average Israeli is 60 times more likely to read quality fiction than the average American.
“Disheartening for an American author of serious fiction. Even English readers put their Yank counterparts to shame.”
http://charlesbivona.com/your-writing-reflects-your-reading-by-vinceczyz/
I have no idea what he means by “even English readers” but the figures above are interesting.
Some American wrote yesterday in a blog comment that China has ‘a defense pack’ with Russia. And I’m seeing references to ‘towing the line’ all over the place. Towing it where?
@ NR, Dreoilin, Nevermind,
Would it be fair to say that Africa has been, and to a great extend still is, the west’s chessboard?
Think about all those precious resources. I don’t know who’s behind the attack in Kenya, but what I do know is that again innocents have paid the ultimate price for the wrongdoings and misgivings of others. No matter where that happens, it’s always a very sad state of affairs.
Once again , a big thanks to the allied forces for introducing the Additional members system into German politics, its a fair and proportional system.
Unlike Italy, were ‘connections’ decide who gets elected and after not performing, rejected, hence the many elections always cited by our party politicians as a bad example, trying to justify their abysmal offer of AV plus, not proportional, unfair and a glorified FPTP system.
Merkel’s re-election, with an increased majority, and for the first time, a small overall majority, has changed party history.
The ‘wherever the wind comes from’ FDP, the German Lib Dems., were thrown out of Parliament, are not available for coalition talks. The SPD, mooted as the natural grand coalition partner would be an awkward bedfellow, so the talk is now of a coalition with the Green Party.
This morning Evan Davis on radio 4 was assuring a long term ( 20 years) German member of parliament, that we have a coalition too, he ask as to how long the coalition talks would last in Germany. Well he got an answer insofar that a week is the minimum.
Evan, coalition talks have nothing to do with the British practise of speed dating, it has to do with agreeing to take on as many policies from two party’s as could possibly be, reflecting a wider representation in their forthcoming work, rather than the one party dominance we are subjected to here.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/conservatives-react-to-success-of-merkel-in-german-election-a-923824.html
last GE in Germany was abysmal, only 70.8% of eligible voters bothered, this time turnout was better they said.
Iain Orr
Funnily enough, when I have seen your comments some very distant bell goes ting a ling. I think our paths may have crossed slightly a very long time ago.
I went to neighbouring high school but had a lot to do socially with the Kirkcaldy lot, as Kirkcaldy was the biggest town around with all the facilities, such as cinemas and record shops. My first ‘proper’ girlfriend was from Kirkcaldy. Used to nip up to the Rio (if I remember the name rightly) cinema just up from the Sinclairtown high-rise flats where she lived on the 13th floor. Her mother was into all things Danish and used to feed me on delicious smorrebrod (excuse spelling) and introduced me to real coffee, minimalism and Frank Sinatra played on the Bang and Olufson sound system, as opposed to the tea and jeely pieces on copey plain loaf, impossible clutter and domestic chaos, Dansette and Jimmy Shand bluebell polka, that prevailed at home. (It seemed like heaven up there looking over the Forth to Edinburgh).
I had a particular connection to Brown through family, so heard stuff, albeit at slightly second hand.
It is perhaps harsh for such as I to pass comment. At one level GB is a very accomplished person. He has risen to a great position and been central to some of the big events of the last 20 years. All that without really being part of the unspoken ‘one of us’ metropolitan elite. Blair qualified, (just), but I think Brown was always ‘not quite right socially’ in those elevated circles of London. Pure snobbery, of course, but that is the world that power operates in.
I am absolutely certain that we will have acquaintances in common, although I have been away from Fife for 40 odd years.
I have one other minor insight into Brown. In the noughties, post Iraq, pre-financial crash, when Brown was C of E he was in an as private meeting, at which an acquaintance was present, as was Vince Cable.
Brown made it very clear, according to the account I was given, that he had no worries about the activities of the Banks- or credit/housing booms; his main concern was tax receipts because that was what was to fuel his reformism and embedding of his policies, vis a vis the NHS and welfare policy.
Now that may not seem like news, nut it reveals a couple of things, the more important of which, (I think) was a mindset that was essentially ‘do-gooderism’and connects up with his early childhood and manse upbringing-where from a socially protected and informed position of authority (but nevertheless technically connected to the ‘congregation’ by the principles of Presbyterianism) the minister went out to relieve suffering and administer to the poor.
Intellectually I am sure he had bolted on some Marxism and socialist theory but at heart he was an authoritarian Victorian do-gooder.
Of course the Labour party’s roots are as much connected to the reformist, temperance, benign authoritarianism religious movements of Methodism and Presbyterianism, than the more European Marxist socialism. Which brings us to the second point about Brown-his naivety in relation to the financial industry. That deep socialist suspicion of the activities of bankers and the financial industry is much more Marxist than Methodism/Presbyterianism-so it is not so surprising that Brown should be ‘naive’ w.r.t. ‘the banks’. Besides which, Mandelson had established the Nulabour principle of endorsing champagne socialism and filthy -richism-(essentially turning a blind eye to corruption (as it is a fight to be avoided- as it is a battle that cannot be won because it provokes resistance in powerful quarters).
I doubt if Brown really was really naive about the banks. He was making choices in the context of the labour government, where Blair was the leader, but these choices were also suspect and only supported by the core of his semi-Victorian do-gooderism-end justifies the means- (a little suffering to here to achieve great things there).
I think it is highly likely that, in many ways, Brown was ‘done over’ by the power of that malicious heart of the ‘Empire’ but at the same time I can’t help thinking that he was also the author of his own sorry position. He could have destroyed Blair simply by resigning at the same time as Robin Cook.
Of course he would probably have destroyed Nulabour in the process-but essentially I do not believe that he did not know the finer detail of the way that Blair had arrived at the decision to go to war, just as Robin Cook undoubtedly knew, essentially as far as I am concerned, to g to war on behalf of ‘bankers’ and ‘entrepreneurs’ and that the process was deeply dishonest and concerned with replacing one kind of corruption (Saddam’s)_with another(Bush/Blair’s), but at the cost of countless lives of innocents.
Brown’s position is (even now) quite revealing. If one looks at the current manifestation of ‘Labour’ it is clear that it is philosophiclly clapped out and can only offer a watered down version of neo-liberal hyper-consumerism. A brief look around at the people who now inhabit ‘labour’ in Scotland (Lamont et al)- is deeply depressing. They are so morally and philosophically compromised it is becoming laughably tragic.Milliband is haunted by the irreconcilable nature of the various strands of Labourism. Brown’s do-gooderism is failed.
Blair(ism) and Mandelsonian elitism is disreputable beyond all redemption,regardless of his private papal audiences. The unions are indignant at the exploitation of their money while Milliband cannot deliver anything reforming the relationship without actually destroying the relationship, while all the time resistance to the empty philosophy and naked malice of the Tories and Cleggerism is collapsing.
http://www.mintpressnews.com/huge-underground-water-reserves-found-under-drought-ridden-kenya/169400/
There is another angle to the ongoing assualt on Kenya which has been in progress for a number of years. Israel attacked Lebanon hoping to set up a ‘buffer zone’ which would have included the Litani River. Hezbollah set them strait. Israel is in desperate need of water and has even tried to ‘negotiate’ with the Libyan Government [sic] to get a slice of Gaddaffis ‘man made river’ .
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/Israeli-forces-enter-Nairobi-mall-Kenyan-presidents-nephew-fiancee-among-dead/articleshow/22898722.cms
Many of Kenya’s ruling elite were in the Israeli owned/controlled shopping centre when the carnage erupted. And now we hear IDF storm-troopers are running around the place with guns, but of course everyone killed will die at the hands of the ‘terrorists’.
CIA/MI6/Mossad/ISI = Al Qaeda (Middle East oil and gas) = Al Shabab (Somalia – Africas largest unexploited resources) = Boko Haram (African oil and gas) = AFRICOM.
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/3-israelis-escape-as-nairobi-shopping-center-attack-continues/2013/09/22/
Hey, it can’t be the Israelis, look they’re being targetted too. See see, look. Luckily they managed to escape while everyone else is being shot like fish in a barrel.
“The Israelis have just entered and they are rescuing the hostages and the injured,”
The British Government stated on record that Operation Entebe was staged by Israel with the full co-operation of Idi Amin.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3407333,00.html
The old ‘uns are always the good ‘uns. It it aint broke don’t fix it. US/UK/Israeli state actors pretending to be terrorists – yet again.
The Israel/Idid Amin relationship.
http://middleeastrealitycheck.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/idi-amin-friends.html
Good points NR, were is the NSA when it comes to the crunch, what have they picked up in internet traffic and phone calls before the attack.
How come they did not track the ‘apparent’ three Somali citizens living in the US with their fiendish and widespread terror net?
This is the sort of action they should have picked up. Why the heck have they failed and what of mossad, no wind at all of this action?
Or, did these intelligence agencies knew of the attack and let it happen, to sharpen us all up and make it clear that the Al Quaeda terrorist we supply with arms in Syria, are the same scrots who are mates with Al Shabab.