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.
Tony M, there are no comments of yours in the moderation queue, the spam, or the trash. Did a comment of yours not appear? It could be a technical glitch. If a comment if yours is in the moderation queue, you should be able to see it with “your comment is awaiting moderation” at the bottom in bold.
‘Yet more land occupied, settlements built, homes destroyed, olive trees uprooted, shipping vessels sunk and yet another murderous onslaught on Gaza.’
Yet America’s ambassador to the UN, Samatha Power, claims the ‘negotiating table’ beween Israel and the Palestinians cannot be tilted just a fraction away from Israel’s favour by the UN resolution she has just voted against-
http://www.juancole.com/2015/01/defeat-resolution-palestine.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Such hate in ‘her’ heart. Who is she?
“We are closer to a transformational change in society than you may realise.”
Oh, you know something that we plebs don’t?
You arrogant, ignorant tosser! How can you possibly think that you know more than we do? Because you get entertained in France by an ambassador? Oh, my, you’re such a great man!
I love the fact that, along with the haters of other people and things here, Craig’s critics – and which of us is perfect? – invariably reveal themselves in their diatribes. Such scatter-gun spite, such petty vindictive viciousness. Do carry on – it makes trying to be open-minded and factual seem so much more attractive.
Id anyone wants to read a bleak appraisal on the stage American civilization has reached (for America read the UK – we are not far behind) here is:
The Golden Age
by Christy Rodgers / December 29th, 2014
Who will remember what this age was like? And how will it be remembered? For the abyss of silence at the center of all the noise? The fierce shadow cast by all the blazing lights that never went off, that shone night and day?
The one terminal war foreshadowed endlessly in the last century shattered into a dozen endless wars all going on simultaneously, fought only by the poorest people in the most degraded landscapes? (Where there was nothing but oil. Nothing but diamonds. Nothing but cobalt.) Two towers coming down, a hundred towers going up. The slums stretching as far as the eye can see. The cities that are factories, the farms that are factories, the ships that are factories. The plants that are machines. The animals that are machines. The factories that are cities. The first trillionaires?
/..
http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/12/the-golden-age/
@
Mary
1 Jan, 2015 – 8:39 am
Shanghai, actually. Not HK. A terrible tragedy.
Who would want to lose their young lives scrambling for free fake US dollars?
Too sad.
@
Mary
1 Jan, 2015 – 12:41 pm
Hazarding a guess, Jim wotsisname in drag ..
Robert Crawford, thanks again. Craig said something similar somewhere, it could be in Murder in Samarkand, something like “just keep chipping away; eventually the marble will crack”.
I was staying in Glasgow at the time of the referendum. I wrote this to a friend about the day the result was announced:
OldMark, thanks for the video. Sorry, I’m too down to complement it properly.
Meg, is there anything I can do to help you feel better? Craig’s not perfect but he doesn’t deserve all that. I hope you read Murder in Samarkand one day; the radio play is OK, but the book provides deeper insight.
Mary’s link, a Howl for our times. Mind-blowing, thanks.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/12/the-golden-age/
Mary
Thanks for that insight from Christy Rodgers – perhaps you could explain why if the US is so awful (and the UK in your case) why dippy hippies like Ms Rodgers continue to live there rather than in some far off paradise like ISIS, North Korea, Syria etc. Why do they want to stay and become machines and live in slums etc. – there is surely some kind of logical disconnect there.
This blog came into existence as part of Craig’s response to torture, but the comments section demonstrates something very important. The cruelty that enables people to inflict pain upon others is a nearly universal human characteristic. It is part of our genetic composition. Nearly everyone here has responded with anger to some comment or other over time. We are all familiar with the feeling of wanting to hurt another person.
You could argue that we only want to hurt their feelings, but this was reflected in the US torture programme: the most officially sanctioned forms of torture were designed to avoid any physical damage to the victims – namely, waterboarding and solitary confinement in “Supermax” conditions.
Making a distinction between emotional abuse and physical abuse is entirely arbitrary; restricting abuse to the emotional sphere is merely a way of avoiding blame.
Hogmanay is a time for reflection and I have been reflecting on how Hogmanay has changed. I went to the village yesterday to stock up on essentials and get a bit of food as well when I asked the shop keeper when they would be open again, “tomorrow” she replied, oh how times have changed.
I recall seeing a documentary where someone claimed that all politics in Britain today can be traced back to the Civil Wars. There are two basic types of people, Roundheads and Cavaliers. One side puritan, authoritarian, regimented, parliamentarian and the other libertarian, royalist, fun loving long haired hippy types.
We have representatives of the three kingdoms here and I wonder which side they identify themselves with, the fun loving ale swilling Royalists or the Parliamentarians who made Christmas illegal. Cavalier or Covenanter. Where do the political parties stand?
PS Clark’s quite right – Meg, watch out, spite may feel exciting, but it burns you, you know.
RD: is that really a question? Not only was it made quite clear in the piece that this was a global problem – there’s nowhere to run to – vast parts of the US are awful, because of what has been done to them. Detroit? With a concomitant rise, as the piece also makes clear, in the the shiny artisan-loaf-shaped baubles strung over the slums, the prisons, the factories, the pollution, the deforestation, the waste.
“I’d wish you a happy new year Dreoilin, but there’s nothing good within me to offer it from.”
Not true. It’s never true, Clark. And may I say, “One day at a time”. Don’t expect anything or anticipate anything about tomorrow. It worked for me and I was baaaad. Really bad. It takes practice though. I wouldn’t allow myself to think further ahead than bedtime on a given day. I’d make plans for future events, alright, and then put them to one side until they arose.
“Other people aren’t cruel, but if you’re hurt they shy away, and that feels cruel.”
Yes, it does. But it’s not because they don’t care. It’s because they don’t know what to say. So they feel awkward and find it easier to turn away. But myself, I prefer to deal with that than deal with irrelevant small talk.
All the best for 2015.
Craig.
The people of Glasgow were grieving for their lost Independence. That is why Glasgow was quiet. We could have been out on the streets rioting and wrecking. That would have been stupid. It would also have given the opposition ammunition to rubbish us.
We are on the “up” again with an election this year and next.
There could be surprises for those who think they have won.
I see the English P.M. thinks his way is the only way. Aye right!
The worm/s are going to turn. You’ll all see.
Love always wins in the end.
The bad and badness always perish.
The Meg
“And apologise to Jim Murphy”
Well. At least we know where this clown’s coming from.
Nulab hack. Neocons Utd. Murder Inc. The John Birch Society.
Soon to be united with the SNP, I believe.
The key really is the extent to which the SNP as a party can encompass the broader movement for Scottish independence, and that’s what those who favour independence need to be looking at.
Are they even interested in that broader coalition or are they merely seeking to use it to further their own much narrower party interest.
The omens are not good, I’m afraid.
Craig would certainly have been an advantage to the broader movement for Scottish independence, but obviously not to the SNP party interest.
The SNP have failed to take up the offer from the broader coalition of pro-independence parties for an electoral pact, again putting party interest before country.
Unless the new membership can impose upon the central committee of the SNP the broader Scottish interest then all will be lost, as so often before of course.
The major way in which the new membership can impose the broader interest upon this SNP clique is to completely reject at constituency level those whom the party leadership especially support.
Look for non-alligned Scotland firsters and reject the party hacks.
There’ll only be one chance to get this right, before the momentum is lost.
Clark. Sorry, that was meant for you, not Craig.
Dreoilin, thank you, and Happy New Year to you.
Fred, I cannot answer within the categories that you’ve pre-defined.
“There are two basic types of people, Roundheads and Cavaliers. One side puritan, authoritarian, regimented, parliamentarian and the other libertarian, royalist, fun loving long haired hippy types.”
A rather one sided description if I might say.
Robert Crawford, yes, it was grief. There was rioting and disorder that night, in and around George Square; it was the vindictive victory celebrations of some of the No camp. Some of them, I stress; a tiny minority.
Meanwhile at a remote airport in the Highlands of Scotland…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNlFpXP4Pek
I have a visitor so I’ll drop out of this conversation for now…
Thanks to many for their support; best wishes to all.
I’d reckon Meg is the same person who has been traducing Craig Murray in similar terms on social media and on assorted websites, principally on Wings over Scotland, this last six months or more, probably longer, heedless of SNP party rules forbidding exactly that sort of behaviour towards fellow members. Not surprisingly eventually after endless provocation, Craig hit back, but in conciliatory tones only to be criticised for doing even that, as his wriggling detractor and her followers characterised his entirely justified, tolerant patient frustrated enquiring response as some sort of bolt from the blue, a coming out of nowhere ‘attack’ on little old innocent her. File under one of 2014’s many flea-bites, remarkable only for coming from one of the SNP’s very own fifth-column.
Language is not always correct. ‘You are not important to anyone’ may mean you are natural, normal, traditional or typical.
Washington claimed to the world their ultimatum to Japan in 1945 had been rebuffed by the word ‘mokusatsu’ in the Japanese reply signal. Mokusatsu means ‘We withhold comment – pending discussion’ –
The US laughed excitedly, free to play with their new toys, ‘Little Boy’ and ‘Fat Man’ they turned confusion into two hundred thousand plus pillars of radioactive ‘ground zero’ dust.
Today ‘first strike’ means ‘last strike’ ‘security’ means ‘danger’ ‘defence’ means ‘profit’ and ‘war’ means ‘peace’.
Oh I nearly forgot ‘vanish from the pages of time’ means ‘wiped off the map.’
“This is a polemic blog. It adopts positions of rigid intellectual reasoning and pushes through their consequences to the limit. Its aim is to provoke debate and make people think. As I am sure you have realised, opposing opinions are not only tolerated they are positively welcomed (though often very robustly challenged by other commenters). The aim is absolutely not for people to agree with me. In fact I have often said I would seriously worry about anyone who agreed with everything I post. I don’t even agree with all of it myself. The aim is to stimulate debate.”
Very very good.
Because I do not agree with your argument Craig that the British army officers abandoning their men in the 19th century led to disrespect of the USUKIS forces in the end of the 20th.
Firstly, those 19th century men, serving soldiers, were there because of dreams of empire, a vicious brand of nationalism and not as nowadays because of a vicious brand of lie in the form of twin towers being demolished by Zionist neo-cons.
Secondly, in the 20th century campaign wounded Afghans were treated next to USUKIS wounded in adjacent beds.
Nothing wrong trying to connect the dots of history, but if like me you hear the infants of the Pakistani community in our street having been taught by their Muslim parents to curse you , an native English Muslim, as an obscene ogre of gora otherness, you would realise that humans will try to push square pegs into round holes in every age and every community. It does not therefore follow that what they say about you is true or even a guesstimate at truth. Prejudice attracts rumours and lies, without any help from reality, like garbage attracts vermin.
The only way any community can be over-run is with through the betrayal of political would-be beneficiaries selling their own people for personal opportunity. both the 19th and the 20th century soldiers were the victim of massive fraud.
I personally would place the blame further up the food chain than the officers or even the generals. Burnes was a spy infiltrating the Empire’s Indian spies. Now the spywork is done closer to home in the nest of spies which now resides in London.
It’s a bit shabby to place blame on underlings who were themselves taking orders from the spy class to which Burnes belonged.
“Thanks for that insight from Christy Rodgers – perhaps you could explain why if the US is so awful (and the UK in your case) why dippy hippies like Ms Rodgers continue to live there rather than in some far off paradise like ISIS, North Korea, Syria etc.”
Perhaps people are trying not to get bombed or droned by NATO countries!
If there’s a parallel a better one is with the Spanish Civil War.
On one side the Popular Front: republicans, socialists, communists, anarchists, trade-union members, the have-nots.
On the other the Falangists: rightist types, monarchists, priests, landowners, army officers, and Fascists.
There was even a Spanish miners’ strike put down with exceptional brutality.
Our own Popular Front however have yet to gain control through the limited illusory democracy permitted, the part of Franco remains as yet uncast, but there are plenty vying for the role.
Oh, Fred, there you have me .. brought up puritan, roundheaded, pig headed, predestined Presbyterian for heaven’s sake, but all my heroes were the bad cavalier types, uncurable romantics from Bonnie Prince Charlie to Padraig Pearse and other such assorted villains along the way.
I think you’re on to something there!