The number of people still prepared to defend the Iraq War in public is tiny. The interesting thing is the very strong correlation between those people, and those prepared to pretend to give credence to the farcical sexual allegations about Julian Assange. Zoe Williams Guardian piece about what a jolly good chap Blair is I find breathtaking. War crimes like Blair’s result in terrible anguish for millions. I am prepared for purposes of argument to believe that Williams’ anguish for female victims of crime is genuine; why she can’t extend that to the tens of thousands of women who were raped because of Blair’s Iraq War, or had the still worse agony of seeing their children killed and mutilated I don’t know. Nick Cohen is just very, very sad. I just hold up these two in the hope that those deceived by feminist political correctness into following their lead against Assange will see to what they are subscribing.
Rather a side issue, but even if we accept Zoe Williams view that dead Iraqi children don’t matter, she appears not to have noticed that Blair introduced tuition fees, academies, kick-started NHS privatization, allowed the banksters’ bonanza leading to worldwide economic crash and oversaw the greatest widening of the gap between rich and poor in British history.
Forbes List of The World’s Biggest Companies:
http://www.forbes.com/global2000/#page:1_sort:0_direction:asc_search:_filter:All%20industries_filter:All%20countries_filter:All%20states
Correction to my post 2 above:
I might even make an argument that some companies are more powerful than any nation.
What You’re Saying About Habbabreak
Ba’al Zevul: “Habbabreak – the season ticket for your train of thought.”
Dreoilin: “Many thanks!”
Fred: “You have created a weapon.”
John Goss: “Thank you sincerely.”
Nevermind: “Just joined the habbabreak club.”
Potlurk: “Habbabreak really improves the threads.”
Sofia Kibo Noh: “IT REALLY REALLY WORKS! …AND IT’S SO KIND TO MY HANDS!!!”
Wow, thank you!
Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !
12 Apr, 2014 – 1:04 pm
“A cultural difference which we in the West can’t do much about (whether unfortunately or not) as such ‘marriages’ take place outside our jurisdiction (unlike, for example, FGM occurring in the UK where something can and should be done).”
What about male genital mutilation carried out in the UK Habbabkuk?
Fred at 1.24:
‘ “The problem is also : should one visit the sins of the father onto the child? The answer is probably no, and judgement should be based (to the extent possible)on whether the shittiness of the father has been passed on to the child.”
Researches have found strong evidence that psychopathy is genetic.’
I refer also to Habbabkuk’s comment to which this is a response.
Habbabkuk: of course political dynasties are an old thing: for centuries the Roman Empire was run this way, every Emperor wanted his progeny to succeed him, the success rate was low because most of the kids got bumped off by political rivals.
Another example was the great aristo families in this country during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Your suggestion, Habbabkuk, about local selection committees reminds me of Plato’s arguments about the ideal government in which candidates were weeded out as children and carefully nurtured, educated etc.
I only mention these points because debate about ideal forms of government is not something I have noticed much on this blog. Its important to notice the faults and deficiencies of the system but I sometimes find myself wondering where people think the kind of change they want is going to come from.
Regarding your point Fred about psychopathy: I worked for a number of years with people who had that label and I formed the clear impression that psychopathy was the result first and foremost of sustained childhood abuse, but I’d be interested in the research you mention.
I’m not sure that in the medical sense someone like Blair or for that matter Hitler is a psychopath. I have read biographies of both characters and you wouldn’t obviously identify major abuse in their upbringing. Having said that of course it is not always obvious.
Mr Scorgie
“What about male genital mutilation carried out in the UK Habbabkuk?”
__________________
What about it, Doug? What is it you’d like to know?
Mary
“The Foundation declines to say how much it is paying Peter Welby.’”
________________
Of course I hold no brief for Peter Welby, but it might perhaps be good to point out that most companies and organizations would decline to give third parties information on how much their employees earned. It’s called data protection/protection of personal information.
I’m sure that if I asked you – and the other Eminences – to tell me what your monthly income was, you’d quite rightly tell me to mind my own business. But feel free to prove me wrong, of course!
“I only mention these points because debate about ideal forms of government is not something I have noticed much on this blog. Its important to notice the faults and deficiencies of the system but I sometimes find myself wondering where people think the kind of change they want is going to come from.”
It’s a discussion of what ‘ideal form of government’ doesn’t include; a process of elimination that seems to suggest Capitalism doesn’t work in it’s present guise. If one is happy with the current form, more than likely you’re part of the problem, rather than the solution.
Conjunction
Thank you for that – interesting!
Re the 18th and 19th century grand families, you’re right, but that’s why I specifically said something like “in modern British politics”; perhaps I should have been more precise and said “in 20th century British politics.
Memory probably fails, but the only (entirely)post-WW1 examples that come to mind – at least as far as monisters are concerned – are the Heathcoat-Amorys (uncle/nephew) and the Brookes (father and son).
“Monisters” – not monsters, ministers
Write to the Daily Mail then. They said it.
Neville Chamberlain was a nephew of Joseph Chamberlain who had been perhaps the chief instigator of the Boer war, and of course Churchill’s father had been a cabinet minister.
It was a terrible problem in the Roman Empire, compounded by the fact that after about 150AD the military was totally corrupt and basically you couldn’t last six weeks as Emperor unless the praetorian Guard backed you.
The praetorian Guard perhaps being the prototype for the military industrial complex we have now.
Fred 12 Apr, 2014 – 1:24 pm
“Researches have found strong evidence that psychopathy is genetic.”
I would also like to know about this research.
Here’s some related research: Which US President Was The Biggest Psychopath?.
conjunction 12 Apr, 2014 – 4:32 pm
The most promising system of government I’m aware of was practised successfully until a couple of years ago. Under this system ….
∙Child mortality rates dropped from 70 per thousand live births to 19.
∙Life expectancy rose from 61 to 74 years of age.
∙Education was a human right and it was free for all citizens. The pupil teacher ratio in Libya’s primary schools was of the order of 17:1. If a citizen was unable to find employment after graduation the State would pay that person the average salary of their profession.
∙Health care was a human right and it was free for all citizens. The country had some of the best health care in the world. If a citizen neaded treatment that could be better supplied by another country, the government would pay to fly the citizen to that country and pay for his treatment.
∙Women’s rights were exemplary. Women had equal rights, not only as a philosophy, but in practice. In secondary and tertiary education, girls outnumbered boys by 10%.
∙Essential consumer items were subject to strict price controls. For example, the price of petrol was around $0.14 per litre and 40 loaves of bread cost just $0.15.
∙ Free land and seeds were provided to anyone who wanted to farm
∙Each citizen had $500/month from the country’s oil revenue deposited directly into their bank account.
∙Each newly married couple was gifted $60,000 to do with as they please; furnish their home, take a holiday, honeymoon, buy car, etc.
The system was Direct Democracy, and the country was Lybia.
Libya is no longer a direct democracy. Child mortality has rocketed. Life expectancy has plummeted. Education is only for the wealthy and privileged.Health care is practically non existent for the ordinary citizen. Women are 2nd class citizens, and girls no longer get education. Prices of food and fuel are beyond the reach of ordinary people and malnutrition is a major problem. No free land. No share of oil revenues. No state gifts.
R.I.P. Muammar Gaddafi, a great man, brutally murdered for greed.
Direct Democracy under Gaddafi:
http://www.countercurrents.org/chengu120113.htm
Words are just words Guano, lyrics that appease the mind with few exceptions such as ‘no’ -absolutely not, no way, not by any means.
2013 was a bad year for the empire, the neo-conservatives wanted war in Syria to boot out the government of President Assad and the people in Britain said ‘no’ and of course Russian diplomacy averted that war which made the preemptive war mongers determined to get a/their victory against Russia with the help of the EU and escalating pressure from an expanding NATO.
In the same way people can be effective by saying ‘no’ to the Western media that is continually regurgitating, spitting and spewing what is coming out of this British dictatorship and Washington.
This media coverage has proved to be a corruption of facts, an omission of any detail that hinders their skewed contour, it is also a breach of trust by the 60-70% of those compliant or wrapped around the finger of words and pictures from so called solid, true blue dependable sources.
This skewing of facts is the MO even witnessed here on CraigMurray, the techniques of the low ground, the subservient that divide and clutter Craig’s pages.
‘No’ can put us minions back in the saddle, it is only a jump up in consciousness.
The very reason Qadaffi was eliminated. He took the West’s admonition to bring democracy to the ME more seriously than they intended. Stepping on their toes was unforgiveable.
Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !
12 Apr, 2014 – 4:33 pm
Mr Scorgie
“What about male genital mutilation carried out in the UK Habbabkuk?”
_________________
“What about it, Doug? What is it you’d like to know?”
Habbabkuk you are obviously against FGM. I asked for your view on MGM (male genital mutilation.
Habbakuk if you don’t answer it’s no skin off my nose.
“I would also like to know about this research.”
Looking for stuff by Dr Robert Hare is a good place to start.
A. Node
Thankyou. I enjoyed reading your link.
And yet, (Wikipedia):
‘Several foreign governments and analysts have stated that a large share of the business enterprise was controlled by Gaddafi, his family, and the government.[77] A leaked US diplomatic cable said that the Libyan economy was “a kleptocracy in which the government – either the Gaddafi family itself or its close political allies – has a direct stake in anything worth buying, selling or owning”.[78] According to US officials, Gaddafi amassed a vast personal fortune during his 42-year leadership.’
and
‘In 2009 and 2011, the Freedom of the Press Index rated Libya the most-censored state in the Middle East and North Africa.’
and
‘[The Revolutionary Committees occasionally kept tight control over internal dissent; reportedly, ten to twenty percent of Libyans worked as informants for these committees, with surveillance taking place in the government, in factories, and in the education sector.[91] The government sometimes executed dissidents through public hangings and mutilations and re-broadcast them on public television channels.[91][92] Up to the mid-1980s, Libya’s intelligence service conducted assassinations of Libyan dissidents around the world.’
I am being devil’s advocate and I have deliberately picked out from the Wiki entry on the Libyan Civil War what seem to me the most damning criticisms of what was, as you say, in many respects apparently an ideal one party system. Wiki of course also says that the penalty for starting an alternative political party was death. The idea then I suppose was that the internal democratic structures worked well in many ways but you couldn’t criticise them.
” Churchill’s father had been a cabinet minister.”
If you look further back you’ll find the odd slave owner or so as well, possibly even the odd slave.
Then there is George Bush’s granddaddy Prescot.
Mary (re Peter Welby’s salary)
“Write to the Daily Mail then. They said it.”
____________________
I shan’t do that, because I – unlike you seem to be – don’t care what his salary is.
Furthermore – on a point of methodology – the Daily Mail may have said it, but you chose to bring it to our attention. So I feel quite justified in replying to you.
*********************
Buy GBP, USD and Israeli shekels!
conjunction
If you want to find criticism of Gaddafi and Lybia, it won’t be hard. Try the BBC website for starters.
Better to see if you can refute any of the facts and figures I’ve given, and if you can’t, how does that square with the Wiki entry …. and what may we then deduce about Wikipedia?
Saturday night beckons. I’ll pick this up tomorrow.
“∙Child mortality rates dropped from 70 per thousand live births to 19. ”
Compared to 5.3 per thousand in the evil indirect democracy capitalist UK and that’s one of the worst in the developed world.
“∙Life expectancy rose from 61 to 74 years of age. ”
Compared to 81 in the (see above) UK.
Can’t be bothered to dismantle the rest but suffice to say that since Gaddafi’s overthrow, allegedly engineered by the west, the left have felt the need to remould the dictator as some kind of saint and Libya as something approaching utopia. The truth is that there was no democracy in Libya, salaries were low and the Gaddafi’s squandered most of the oil wealth on themselves.
Conjunction
“Neville Chamberlain was a nephew of Joseph Chamberlain who had been perhaps the chief instigator of the Boer war, and of course Churchill’s father had been a cabinet minister.”
________________
Certainly, and this is why I wrote “the only (entirely)post-WW1 examples that come to mind..”
A. Node
I have no reason to question any of your figures. The wikipedia entry confirms many of the things you say. I am not trying to win an argument here I am simply drawing attention to some other reported facts about Libya.
Habbabkuk
Sorry,I misread your comment. Of course it’s endemic in the US now, perhaps its a thing that happens to countries when they’re cock of the walk.
Kempe.
Just got time to refute this:
“Can’t be bothered to dismantle the rest but suffice to say that since Gaddafi’s overthrow, allegedly engineered by the west, the left have felt the need to remould the dictator as some kind of saint and Libya as something approaching utopia. ”
http://libyanfreepress.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/smoking-gun-gaddafi-was-to-receive-u-n-human-rights-award/
BTW, “can’t be bothered” …. really?
Breaking:
Palestine accepted to Geneva Convention
Mr Scorgie
“Habbabkuk you are obviously against FGM. I asked for your view on MGM (male genital mutilation.”
and
“Habbakuk if you don’t answer it’s no skin off my nose.”
__________________
You aren’t really interested in my view, but I’m happy to give it to you.
I am opposed to FGM and am neutral on the question of male circumcision. This view is based on what I understand medical opinion to be, namely that FGM causes (and is probably practised because ) loss of sexual pleasure during intercourse when the girl has grown up, whereas male circumcision doesn’t. Indeed, some would go so far as to claim that the guy with the circumcised penis is the better cocksman (less prone to premature ejaculation and so on). My view arises out of the belief – which I do hope you share, Doug, that women have the same right to sexual pleasure as men.
BTW, I believe you may have quizzed me on this before. Do you have a personal interest in the question of male circumcision (you may have been circumcised as an infant and now wish you hadn’t been, or vice-versa) by any chance?