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.
Evgueni:”Yawn… bring back Habbabkuk”
If you are bored about a discussion of politics on a political blog, then I guess you should not be here then; if looking for petty arguments, name calling, vicious insults,etc, then perhaps you should visit Harry’s Place & try posting a few pro-Palestinian comments.
What’s your agenda then Evgueni? Have you been around here for the last 10 months and seen what was going on?
Komodo said;
Take back the monetary control and let the state issue money based on its fungible assets, included the human asset.
Repeal the lopsided taxation laws, and the excuses; millionaires will run away! Good riddance to them, they are just making the place untidy.
We have enough funds to provide a reasonable quality of life for our citizens, if it were not for the banksters and their cohorts creating the current chaos for their own benefit, to purloin our hard earned wages.
But that is not Realpolitik either is it?
===
Evgueni said;
Why don’t you set up a blog and dedicate it to the cause, and enjoy the reservations to the full?
No need to subject the rest of this blog’s users to the tortuous “musings” of that character.
A 22 year old Palestinian has been shot and killed in a Jenin refugee camp by the Israelis.
There are four uses of the word ‘militant’ in this BBC report and the usual ‘Israel disputes it’ phrasing.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24123045
“Here’s a third – our government takes control of our currency from the bankers and we won’t need to borrow the money.”
Yup. That’s the one.
Can’t do it though until the banker’s threat to the financial system is extinguished.
It would help if people were more generally aware of how evil these bankers are. There’s a kind of conciousness of that growing, but it needs to be felt as you feel the activity of any other thief weho steals from you.
Good, A Node. At least that’s positive. Re diverting the military budget:
There IS a requirement for defence, and there is an irreduceable level of expenditure we need for that. Not all of the budget, by any means, would be available. And I stress, that money is just as dependent on the criminality of bankers as existing NHS funding is. The problem is much wider than the NHS. The options are:
1. Borrow money, and pay back much more money eventually. We’re up to our ears already. And we don’t have the option of borrowing at market rates. The more bonds we issue, the less value they have.
2. Fiddle the books and pump up a housing bubble.
Here’s a third – our government takes control of our currency from the bankers and we won’t need to borrow the money.
How does that work, then? Please do not confuse GDP with national income in your reply. What are we going to make/sell or who are we going to con into paying us if we do have control of the currency? Enough to pay for the NHS, even? Can you justify the assertion that we could live at anything like our current standard* without a bunch of financial chicanery? I can’t, much as I would like to.
*apart from the obvious victims of the system, needless to say.
Komodo 20 Sep, 2013 – 3:19 pm
Others have put it better than me …..
Abraham Lincoln, US President 1861-5. He created government issue money during the American Civil War and was assassinated.
Captain Henry Kerby MP, in an Early Day Motion tabled in 1964.
Thomas Jefferson in the debate over The Re-charter of the Bank Bill (1809).
Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France.
No Scottish independence for Gordo!
13 Sept 2013
Former prime minister Gordon Brown will argue that Scotland’s pensioners are better off within the Union when he gives a speech in his constituency.
Mr Brown will tell an audience in Kirkcaldy tomorrow that older people are assured a better deal on both state and private pensions with the pooled resources and shared risk that comes with being part of the UK.
The MP will address Scotland’s rising elderly population and what he believes are the implications of independence for pensioners.
Speaking at Kirkcaldy’s Old Kirk as part of the Fife Talks lecture series, Mr Brown will say: “Pensioners and prospective pensioners will ask whether – having contributed all their lives to their pensions paid from the UK Treasury – it makes any sense to have separate Scottish pensions, particularly when the average spending on all pensioner benefits per head of the Scottish population is £1,380 per year against only £1,318 in England.”
/..
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/scottish-independence-gordon-brown-courts-elderly-1-3091696
Komodo 20 Sep, 2013 – 8:50 am
“Blair claims not to be offshore…I find this interesting. Neither the Guardian nor the Mail does.”
Unfortunately I am only able to skim through here currently and feel I am missing the larger picture of your ongoing blair comment series. Please consider one large precis when you finish!
Seems like an opportune moment to remember that we all can help with the pursuit of blair, our very own home grown, real life, war criminal. As someone else said here not longf ago, what better way to spend a tenner.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/22595538/the-killing-of-tony-blair
http://www.arrestblair.org/
All true, A. Node.
Foreseen (often) but never forestalled. Every so often usurers get proscribed or chucked out, but they always come back, because they require repayment in the indefinite future for something nice right now. Even the austere Salafists of Saudi are enmeshed in their tentacles, and Islam forbids usury. Scratch a holyrolling Biblebelter, and you find a hedge fund manager. And I will only hint at the elephant in the room, and its history in Western finance.
I don’t think humanity at large has the moral fibre to do without them. That’s why I say, ‘realpolitik’ The best you can hope to do is contain their activities, and as they have everybody by the nuts at the moment, that’s going to be very, very difficult. So, methods, rather than objectives (agreed) or complaints (fruitless), are the priority.
Hi, Phil,
Thanks for that. Blair seems to hit the MSM every couple of years, and in between times gets on with his extravagant and self-serving lifestyle unencumbered by comment. The MSM’s coverage of his business affairs has been less than forensic, and while a couple of tax accountants have had a go, they seem to have lacked follow-up. I’ll repeat one appeal, if I may. If anyone has access to Gibraltar Companies House I would be grateful for anything on the two companies I mentioned. Registering is a performance, and I don’t know what I can get even if I do buy in. The company names suggest they are integral to the empire: I need to prove it.
Broon is just another British Nationalist that lies to his own people for the benefit of the British State. He might even marry a woman if he thought it would help him become Prime Minister.
When asked by a US reporter where he was born, he replied ‘North Britain’, he was so ashamed of his roots.
Sorry, Komodo.
I haven’t directly answered your question above :
“Can you justify the assertion that we could live at anything like our current standard* without a bunch of financial chicanery?”
The quotes demonstrate that for a couple of centuries, control of the money supply has been recognised by the movers and shakers as crucial to a nation’s financial well-being. Why this is no longer common knowledge is a testament to the control of the bankers over the media.
The history of the West can be understood as a battle for the right to issue money. The bankers won. The battle continues – Iraq, Lybia, soon Syria, all losing national control of their banking systems.
In simple terms, as Napoleon said above, the lender controls the debtor. The bankers who issue our currency do so by lending it to us. Every pound that is created is lent to us with interest. The system is designed to plunge us into deeper and deeper debt.
Then there’s boom and bust, easy if you control the money supply. The banks lend money freely, everybody borrows, the banks stop lending and there’s no longer enough money in the system for everybody to keep up the repayments, some go bancrupt, the banks seize the assets, repeat indefinitely.
It’s not a matter of moral fibre, any more than it’s true to say “I don’t think Iraqis have the moral fibre to control their own nation.” Their rights have been taken from them by brute force, ours by subterfuge and treachery, but if we ever hope to control our own destinies, we have to, before anything else, regain control of the right to issue our own currency.
Thanks deepgreen and Ian Orr and Tony F, I think we could probably get a consensus re the issue of PFI’s. They are now used for some medium sized spending on County councils, it takes a little digging but if you know where to look and do some maths and you will discover that there are small PFI’s as well, beyond their designated use, aims and objectives.
Thanks also to Passerby for pointing out that there is really nowhere for these Millionaires to run to, if he who runs the treasury and tax dep. had his shit together.
‘bad value for money’ said the Audit committee, I can only agree. PPI’s they are also not immune to being in favour of private companies, and if they go bust we pay all, the wider public.
So why not
Public Finance Initiatives, local municipal share ownership, you and me, financing infrastructure in return for a share in it. Councils and councillors becoming accountable and what is over and above the monies raised will come directly from Government, at an affordable rate. This model has one advantage, those small shareholders feel responsible enough to use whatever they financed, a small bond is very likely to be rewarded with overall success, sustainable success.
And in the word sustainability lies the crux.
Any system that strives towards this elusive goal, should be based on a financial structure that is based on real values, with an evolutionary regular adjustment according to enhancement that has occurred, or the degradation for that matter. By increasing diversity, in nature as well as in business you are enhancing diversity and increase the value it resembles overall, and for the next generation.
products that re-use the waste they produce for new products,a circular, zero pollution production system, second and third use engineering, cable less electricity transmission and generation, all these are sustainable ideas that would reduce our impact overall.
If banks base their deals on uncertainties and bet on these uncertainties to kick in, what it seems this is one of their current games, then that is unsustainable banking, confusing banking with third rate bookmaking.
Without a sustainable financial system we will not see a sustainable society emerge, the banking of sustainable values has to underline a just and equal community, smaller rather than bigger.
But then, you knew all this. defence spending is about as unsustainable as it gets.
Here, have a smile
Pixelation error at BBC gives UKIP leader Nigel Farage ‘Hitler’ moustache
http://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/pixelation-error-at-bbc-gives-ukip-leader-nigel-farage-hitler-moustache-29593294.html
Ben Franklin at 12.35 am. I signed this and urge others to do so. I also put the following message on my Facebook page.
“Help stop money-grabbing conglomerates (in this case Russian) from exploiting the earth’s resources and future generations.”
https://secure.greenpeace.org.uk/page/speakout/release-peaceful-protesters
It’s not a matter of moral fibre….
But it is.
To do without usury, you’re abandoning personal credit. Not just you, but anyone who wants a house or car without having the money to pay for it. Anyone whose washing machine goes phut after the housekeeping’s run out, and indeed anyone who aspires to a more than derisory rate of interest on their savings.
You, maybe: me, I pretty well live without credit, and I don’t buy stuff I don’t need with money I ain’t got. I am very conscious I am in an eccentric minority in this. Maybe the answer is education, education, education. Why should the devil have the best marketing slogans?
During the last few days, matters xenophobic have been centre stage yet again.
First came the “Burka or Niqab” the pontificates were talking about it as though it is a fashion statement, and also in this day and age of unreason, the catch phrase was; “balaclava”! Is it right; If a criminal wants to wear his balaclava in the courts?! Was the question. Is it right for cheese to look like chalk too? There must be something done about it, either put some food dye in the cheese or colour pigment in chalk I say!
Then it was the NHS getting it in the neck. Again! This time about those staff wearing a “Burka or Niqab” attending patients. Although there never was any indication of how many employees are in fact wearing the errant article?
Of course whilst kick down and suck up policies have been in full swing; there has been the news that smoking is to be banned in prisons. Evidently prisons are up for the privatisation next, and best to prepare the grounds for the up coming riots and the subsequent condemned building status of the prisons, which have banned smokes!
However, this is not enough, and the public is just not rising to the bait. After the defeat on Syria, and the court ruling that the female could keep her “Burka or Niqab” on and the Birmingham college set back. All this Muslim bashing getting nowhere, and Syria proving the case in point.
What do you know, the shrill hate campaign can be notched up higher, if the “internet”, “paedophile”, and “foreign hoards” can be conflated! DM has come up trumps with this farticle;
The leader giving the figures for the last two years (evidently the low figures won’t cut much mustard, so best use aggregate over few years) It starts with this;
Further we find the revelation;
This is of course a rearguard action, because to consider the “foreign hoards” at the cyber gate, would be pretty meaningless without their mastery of the English language.
Note the “Liberal” and “free society” (I should cocoa too) getting peppered around just for the good measures.
Then comes the solution;
Of course added to this are the best practices;
Although the good doctor fails to mention; the form is for the TV viewing (ie no porn channels made available on the cable TV unless signed for), not the internet. However, what does it matter TV, Internet, or the top shelf, for that matter. We need to ban everything pronto, and do it quick because these perverted foreign hoards, have caught the sleepy liberals nodding off, and are doing all manner of wrong doings, and raiding our cyberland. Oh the humanity, of it all, when will the Cyber Defence League come to the aid of the Beleaguered English?
Best censor the internet and make sure all order and harmony is back. Then attack Syria, and other Muslim countries for sure without any hassle.
@Dreoilin, did you see my post to you on the previous thread a little earlier ?
Habbabkuk was an amateur in the forum-sliding stakes compared to the post-midnight ramblings of the one and only Tony Opmoc.Tony was The Master.
I propose a celebrity deathmatch between the two.There could only be one winner.
Hi Tony,hope youre keeping well 🙂
Galloway v Gissin on the Iraq war on Al Jazeera.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0Mj8PdORKI&feature=player_embedded 24 mins
I said;
Further research ie the next click on the original farticle page goes to this story about “LtezGo Hunting” a Leicestershire group of ‘paedophile hunters’ going around doing what the vigilante do. So there is a CDL in place already.
“Pixelation error at BBC gives UKIP leader Nigel Farage ‘Hitler’ moustache”
Except on Farage it looks no more menacing than Charlie Chaplin’s – I think we should revert back to the original name and call it a ‘toothbrush moustache’ seeing as hardly anyone knows who Hitler is these days.
Read this…….http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/11/us/imagining-a-cyberattack-on-the-power-grid.html?_r=0
Then this………http://www.activistpost.com/2013/09/the-worlds-most-evil-corporation-issues.html
Komodo, I’m not talking about usury, that’s a different kettle of worms. I’m talking about control of the money supply at source. It’s fundamental to any economy. Whether that economy incorporates usury is secondary.
Well, OK, the ‘boom and bust’ part of my previous post was about usury, but for the bankers, that’s the icing on the cake – the real power is issuing the currency.
A couple of commenters have raised the question of Gordon Brown’s selling of the gold at knockdown prices
http://www.goldnewswire.net/did-gordon-brown-sell-uks-gold-to-keep-aig-and-rothschild-solvent-more-disclosures-on-how-the-ny-fed-manipulates-gold-prices
may be of interest. If correct, was he enthusiastically for it or was he intimidated into doing it?
Case solved. That, as now turns out, he was in receipt of such a steady flow of venomous & circulation-boosting leaks from the McBridal suite now explains—to me, at any rate—why Paul Dacre was for so long such a strangely ardent fan of Gordon Brown.
Meanwhile. Not just GCHQ. ‘It’s like our whole bodies were hacked.’ How UK’s secret police use sex as a surveillance tactic. NB: One of those who fell in a big way for a hairy plod was McLibel heroine Helen Steel.
http://vimeo.com/69093606
And. ‘Spied Upon.’ Preview screenings from October 9:
http://spiedupon.com/
Deepgreenpuddock (thankyou)has given us insight into the antecedent percipience that formed a path out of the conflicting mindset of Gordon Brown. A direction judged to establish Gordon Brown as an ’eminence’ in the annals of history not to be forgotten.
An insight into the informative threads that formed that judgement and moved Brown away from the antimilitarist influence of James Maxton towards the ideas of Gerald Kaufman, Robert Rubin, Pax Americana, neo-economics, NWO doctrine, the ruling class and corporate elite is clear.
Gordon Brown would become meshed into his father’s passion for Tel Aviv and ensnared into the exclusivity of the USUKIS axis as the center of a cohesive regional political economy and an elite international order.
To Brown and Blair the post war creation of a system of worldwide economic, political, and military dependencies/protectorates would be preserved at ANY cost(the status quo).
This system has evolved into a welfare system for US and British based multinational corporations and the status quo maintained by a false ‘war on Terror’ and preemptive wars.
Under this system, the corporate states have been given effective control over many of the internal and external policies of its dependent client states, laying down the pro-corporate economic and political rules that they must follow. These rules on open markets and open investments-including dollar dominance, IMF/World Bank policies, huge capital flows into Britain and America and the correct pricing of oil-have greatly benefited corporations controlled by the ruling class, helping make Britain and America the world’s most powerful economic actors.
To the British people the vote in Parliament on Syria marked a positive step towards peace. I am convinced this temporal event must build into a persistent and metaphysical social movement that can effectively put democracy and a peaceful foreign policy on the national agenda. Something more basic than a mere switch in the means of empire is needed at this juncture in human history.
A social movement that undertakes the kind of bold and uncompromising militancy required to put key issues on the agenda and to effect a fundamental reconstruction of society.
That means -“health care for all, full employment at a living wage, excellent public education, good retirement benefits, the right of workers to freely organize unions, affordable decent housing, ecological sanity, economic democracy, civil liberties, an end to all racism, sexism, and discrimination, fundamental electoral reform, and the democratization of the media. A unified social movement to demand a working people’s agenda needs to be born.”
http://collapseofindustrialcivilization.com/tag/lawrence-h-shoup/