This is my last comment for the year as we are off to spend Hogmanay as the guests of an Ambassador in Paris. Out of deference to my family, who have had the brunt of it these last few days, I am definitely not taking the laptop, so I will no longer be able to take part in the popular new bloodsport of proving your loyalty to the SNP by being nasty to Craig Murray.
My parting thought is that, as every year of my entire life, it has been a disastrous one for the Palestinians. Yet more land occupied, settlements built, homes destroyed, olive trees uprooted, shipping vessels sunk and yet another murderous onslaught on Gaza.
I warmly recommend this rare public appearance by Col. Larry Wilkerson, ex-Chief of Staff to Colin Powell and a fellow recipient of the Sam Adams Award for Integrity. His brief musings here on Israel and Syria come from a deep store of knowledge and a razor-sharp intellect.
Do have a wonderful celebration. The future will be good. We are closer to a transformational change in society than you may realise.
You couldn’t make this stuff up. From a feminist no less!!
She thinks it’s ok that only a minority believes in killing women for adultery in most Islamic countries, and in those where they are a majority, well that’s the fault of the West!!!
So Technicolour the feminist, who is usually razor sharp on castigating men for the most minor of sexist transgressions, so much so that they often don’t know they have made them, such sexist beasts that they are, is absolutely uncritical of state-sanctioned stoning, beating and murder of women for adultery. Doesn’t want to know. Political correctness and perceived anti-racism trumps everything.
Technicolour
“Anon, the good honest counter-argument to the suggestion that the UK stops meddling in other countries, please?”
I did not support either war, but they are hardly a justification for stoning to death some poor woman in Indonesia, are they? Surely not even in lefty la-la land?
Technicolour
“It did not, clearly, interview children, or babies, or people in care homes, or any number of people who are Muslim and might also be expected to have a voice for peace.”
Oh I see you’re taking the piss. You are aren’t you?
@Technicolor: pretty damning (as well as ironic) that the two countries that were most radical about that aspect of Sharia Law were the two countries that have been introduced to Western Democracy, 21st Century style…
And yes… a sample that size would probably have a 5-6% error.
Anon, assuming that you believe that such polls indicate that Islam is a problem, what do you suggest as a sensible course of action? What policies do you believe should be set and what actions taken?
Mary
“Welby and his cohort are safe in their palaces and vicarages whilst Muslims have been shredded and burned.”
Another classic from Mary. YCNMIU.
Thanks for exposing Anons incredibly one sided list of links as biased, Clark, also for Ian’s links to important business coming up.
I have to say that Tony M. has really nailed the interlopers here to the mast. I very much hope that this person calling him/herself Meg is not an SNP member, one would not want to meet ‘it’ in the dark.
Looks like that Ms Katie Hopkins had a go at the Ebola nurse because of her very own problems with trying to get her awful TV pilot, a sort of female Jeremy Kyle type program into the news, causing a little stir amongst the few sun readers following her, if they can manage more than read the headline that is, to get publicity for the waste of time and space she hopes to get off on and get paid for.
There are actually trailers for her trashy bile and I hope one of the obese people she is using/victimising, she has to keep a safe distance to them, will sit on her face until she shuts up.
Anon, you seem to be trying to discredit Technicolour rather than engaging with the facts of the debate. Please engage more sensibly; Technicolour has only the political power of a single voter, does not set foreign policy, does not maintain armed forces, etc.
Clark
“Anon, assuming that you believe that such polls indicate that Islam is a problem, what do you suggest as a sensible course of action? What policies do you believe should be set and what actions taken?”
Completely false premise. I do not believe Islam is a problem, Clark, so don’t try pulling that one. There is clearly a very significant minority of extremist Muslims in this country who believe things that are entirely incompitable with our culture and values. Every poll indicates so.
Back later.
Nevermind, for you; “Dirty Fat Person Sits on President’s Face”:
http://www.coldbacon.com/pics/kliban/bksitonface.jpg
The Frankfurt School did the early work on mass media. There’s quite a lot of work on media.
Perhaps there’s something about the nature of broadcast media itself which lends itself to emm, shall we say, poor outcomes.
“Anon, ……. Please engage more sensibly”
Waste of time mate, it’s all about dispersing energy. The means are the end. Divert and disrupt.
Anon, There is clearly a very significant minority of people in all countries who believe things that are entirely incompitable with any decent set of cultures and values.
But you’ve framed this as “us (Brits) versus them (Muslims)”.
Why? And what do you think should be done about it?
I am somewhat bemused that anyone could confuse survey/poll results with facts.
As a research professional half my life, I know how easy it is to deliver the desired result to any client sponsoring (i.e., paying for) such surveys.
‘“Welby and his cohort are safe in their palaces and vicarages whilst Muslims have been shredded and burned.”
Another classic from Mary.’
It is a completely true statement of fact. Before Welby, the same applies to Williams and Carey and that nasty piece of work, the ex Bishop of Rochester.
Wall St seems to have gone back to knocking the Brazilian Real at the moment. My, these investors are fickle!
Screw this. Last comment for a mounth, at least. I’ll keep an eye open though and it’d be heartening to see some kind of change.
Ishmael, I agree that registration would improve the debate on this site. I’ve suggested that to Craig many times, but he does not agree. Ah well, it’s his blog.
“She thinks it’s ok that only a minority believes in killing women for adultery in most Islamic countries, and in those where they are a majority, well that’s the fault of the West!!!”
What I think is irrelevant, and unstated. I pointed you at the original source material and the facts.
Clark: “Anon, There is clearly a very significant minority of people in all countries who believe things that are entirely incompitable with any decent set of cultures and values.
But you’ve framed this as “us (Brits) versus them (Muslims)”.
Why?”
Seconded.
Is it absolutely necessary that the ex Bishop of Rochester be a nasty piece of work for nasty outcomes to occur.
Or, is there something about the Church of England itself that leads to nasty outcomes?
I’m not saying that there aren’t nasty people out there.
I’m just saying that all the research shows that there is something about organisations and institutions that can produce nasty outcomes even when lovely people make up the bulk of their membership, their chain of command and so on.
I’m sure Weber said something about this as well, in addition to the research we’ve already discussed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P04JCvBWAXg
Tim @12:29pm What on earth can Yushchenko have been thinking of in appeasing the Banderists in that way, and look what it has lead to, by not facing them down then. Of course even back in 2010 the the US government’s admitted $5billion would already have been lining the pockets of Kievs Nazis and their curious and unlikely bedfellows, the oligarchs and their media puppets. It’s not even about Ukranian nationalism, Bandera would clearly have been on the Nazi payroll long before world war 2 kicked off, with just a short interruption, if any, at the end of the war before the British added him to their payroll, a playboy with a cushy pad and multiple clean identities in Berlin. What comprises ‘Heroism’ in Ukranian terms looks like self interested opportunism and greed; even before world war two began it wouldn’t be a mistake to characterise Bandera as a seasoned serial killer for kicks and for hire. Perhaps his switch from working for the Nazis to betray Ukraine, to working for the British to betray Ukraine wouldn’t have been such a giant step for him: old bosses, new bosses, all pretty much the same really, Ukraine just a forsaken waypoint for each on the long dreamed of route East.
Scouse Billy, there are of course inaccuracies and bias in all polls, but the results obtained don’t seem unrealistic. A much bigger problem is the way the results have been misrepresented by various media outlets, especially thereligionofpeace.com, and I think by Anon, though he hasn’t really answered me on that point yet.
That list of opinion polls has already been discussed on Reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/2bg671/german_protesters_chant_jews_to_the_gas_chambers/cj59ez7
Herbie, 2:24 pm
Mass media greatly influences public opinion, which makes mass media a nexus of great power… and power corrupts.
Cause and effect.
It’s Not the Koran, It’s Us
The corporate media chorus wilfully ignores that U.S. actions, not Islam, fuel jihadism.
By Leonard C. Goodman
January 01, 2015 For a brief time after the 9/11 terror attacks, Americans could be heard asking the reasonable question: Why do these men from Middle Eastern countries (back then, mostly Saudis) hate us so much that they would give their own lives to cause us pain? Within a few weeks, the official explanation became: They hate us for our freedom, end of story.
When you follow the money, it is easy to understand why the government avoided any honest discussion of the causes of terrorism. By one estimate, U.S. taxpayers have squandered $10 trillion over four decades to protect the flow of oil on behalf of multinational corporations. The result is an empire of U.S. military bases which have garrisoned the Greater Middle East. In the Persian Gulf alone, the United States has bases in every country save Iran. These bases support repressive, undemocratic regimes, and act as staging grounds to launch wars, interventions and drone strikes. And they generate tremendous profits for defense contractors.
The existence of these bases helps generate radicalism, anti-American sentiment and terrorist attacks. The drone attacks have incited even more hatred for us, which should come as little surprise. The U.S. uses drones to incinerate suspected militants (and anyone else in the vicinity) on secret evidence, but only if they are living in Muslim nations like Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq or Somalia. We don’t fly killer drones over dangerous neighborhoods in Detroit or Chicago, or in Iguala, Mexico, where 43 students were recently massacred by gang members aided by corrupt police.
The fact that our misguided foreign policy creates terrorism is almost never discussed in polite society. There is of course no justification for a terror attack on innocents. But if our leaders truly cared as much about protecting Americans from terror as they do about protecting corporate profits, they would have an honest discussion of what’s prompting the violence.
/..
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40605.htm
Leonard Goodman is a Chicago criminal defense lawyer and Adjunct Professor of Law at DePaul University
@Herbie: Institutions take a particular stance, which opposes “the sum of the parts” because their employees allow them to…
At one time, employees stood together on important issues, with the support of principled trades union membership.
At this time, employees too often have a “dog-eat-dog” relationship, and trades union representatives too often have been corrupted to support whichever dog is flavour of the month. Whistle-blowers get dismissed.
In future… ? I’m optimistic, like the first line of Craig’s original message, but people have to think for themselves and not even once turn a blind eye to injustice. An institution is a society in microcosm.
@Ishmael: I’ve long been an admirer of Blake. Also on a theme of opposites, “The Lamb” and “The Tyger”.
Clark: “…the results obtained don’t seem unrealistic.”
QED – you presume to have a handle on what is “realistic”, how?
Think about it.
“Mass media greatly influences public opinion, which makes mass media a nexus of great power… and power corrupts.”
Indeed it does.
But what about the people working within media organisations.
It isn’t necessary, is it, that they themselves are particularly nasty or evil for horrible outcomes to occur.
I’m sure most people working in big media organisations think themselves wonderful people and it’s very difficult to argue otherwise.
I know we do it through frustration etc but it’s very difficult to gain traction through arguing that the lovely people working at the BBC for example, are in reality quite horrible and nasty.
Thankfully we don’t have to do that.
We just have to keep pushing the abundant research that shows quite clearly that ordinary nice people can easily become complicit in horrible crimes just simply through working for one of these organisations, even though they themselves are happy and content in their work and see absolutely nothing wrong in it.
Someone was looking at this again recently.
This piece isn’t entirely accurate but it gives the general idea:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/famous-milgram-electric-shocks-experiment-drew-wrong-conclusions-about-evil-say-psychologists-9712600.html