Honoured to give the keynote speech at Amnesty’s conference on torture in London yesterday. Then dashed back to Edinburgh for a very romantic evening with Nadira – and Cameron!
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Habbabkuk (la vita è bella)
9 Mar, 2015 – 11:38 pm:
“RobG
By the way, I have noticed that you tend to get apocalyptic late in the evening.
Are you a drinker?”
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The level of delusion and self denial shown by the likes of you is both very sick and very sad, whomever you work for.
Are you going to deny that there are thousands of nuclear weapons still on hair-trigger alert?
Are you going to deny that the Ukraine crisis (and we can argue the toss about who caused it, although it seems pretty obvious) is ramping-up nuclear destruction to a considerable dgree?
Do you have family and friends? Do you care for their well-being? Or are you one of the dinosaur psychos who think we’re all ‘better dead than red’?
I mean, how fecking mad does it have to get before the likes of you stop rubbishing people who only speak facts and the truth?
You remind me of that couple in Raymond Briggs famous feature-length cartoon, ‘When the Wind Blows’, which was a satire on nuclear war, back in the 1980s when most people still understood the reality of nuclear war, and politicians still responded accordingly.
But now all we have are muppets, thunderbird puppets and people who are quite willing to take a dollar to put out any poxy propaganda that the government so desires.
You are all completely corrupt and mad. You do know that, don’t you?
“if anyone here is capable of thinking beyond the dichotomous view of the world promoted by the corporate media.”
Don’t you think that some here just project the reverse view of the same dichotomy?
“and he has inherited a country which is in fact an empire with a long history of authoritarianism and zero history of real democracy.”
And do you think there is any evidence that he has made any attempt to change the direction of travel with regard to authoritarianism or democracy? Or don’t you think Russians, whether in Russia or Ukraine, are capable of handling real democracy give the chance?
Dear Resident Diss. Thank you for your input. Sadly you have asked questions without answering any of the questions I posed earlier. I don’t know the answers to your questions because unlike you and certain other posters on this site, I don’t know the answer to everything. Indeed you may find when you reach full maturity that you realize, the older you get, the less you know. I sincerely hope things get better for you.
Lysias
Even in Soviet times the underlying morality and ethics of Russians put a limit on the worst extremes, and I have no doubt that much of that came from their religion. Most humanists and atheists have no problem in taking values and ethics from religion, given that in their view such things are entirely man made anyway, and I have no doubt that many Russians kept their religious values going through the darkest times – secret christening were often the norm and a visit to the dead relatives at a Russian graveyard at Easter would only confirm the depth of religious feeling. However you are very wrong if you thing Putin’s use of the Orthodox Church has anything to do with deeply held religious values (or failing that you have no idea of what are religious values), rather than a crude attempt to whip up a rather crude Russian nationalism.
RD, Solzhenitsyn took a different view of the revival of Christianity in Russia under Putin from yours. Would you say he had not idea of what religious values are?
No idea, that should have been.
Summerhead
Strangely enough I am old enough to identify a rhetorical question when I see one. And you know what you do with rhetorical questions I presume?
“”Does Putin’s wrongness (if it is thus as purported by various armchair war enthusiasts on this thread )?
Perhaps if you want to be serious you could explain why you believe Putin has been moving Russia in the right direct away from authoritarianism and towards democracy? I am quite clear that such a thing cannot be achieved overnight or even over the 14 years that Putin has been in power – but I’m afraid however much I try I cannot see that the direction of travel has been in the right direction. Put perhaps we could have something other than rhetoric as to why you believe the opposite?
You poor sods, hysterically reliving the Red Scare while you’ve got Big Brother’s boot on your face. Crooked parvenu Philip Hammond has decreed that debate on the human right to privacy cannot be allowed to “run on forever.” Your government is determined to “draw a line under the debate” by legislating early in the next parliament.” So prepare to shut up, you poor slavish Brits. And why not, the UK has shite for industry anyway, the whole motley assemblage subsists by sucking US dick.
Break it the fuck up already.
Lysias
I think you should bear in mid that the interview with Solzhenitsyn was nearly 8 years ago – since then I think the hands off role of the Russian state to religion that Solzhenitsyn pointed too has changed somewhat – look at the protections/tax privelges offered to the Orthodox Church, the supportive statements of the Orthodox Church to Putin and vice versa, and the vendetta being pursued against other Christian churches.
Minipax
And whose boot is on ordinary Russians faces – or shouldn’t we worry about that as well?
Not if the cost of allowing our own masters to pretend to try to liberate Russians is only to allow those masters to tighten our own shackles.
James I died in 1625. At his bedside was George Villiers, the 1st Duke of Buckingham. Villiers had been the King’s favourite for more than a decade. James called the Duke of Buckingham his “sweet child and wife”. Buckingham, who was openly gay, wrote to the King: “I naturally so love your person, and adore all your other parts, which are more than ever one man had”.
In 1627, Villiers/Duke of Buckingham launched an expedition against La Rochelle, where the Huguenots (French Protestants) were rebelling against the Catholic King Henry IV of France. With a force of 100 ships and 6,000 men, Buckingham invaded the Ile de Ré, with the objective of controlling the approaches to La Rochelle and encouraging the rebellion in the city. The troops of the French King fought back and laid siege to the island. It went on for two and a half months, during which Buckingham lost more than 5,000 of his men and eventually had to retreat to England. The following year, while organising another campaign against the French, Buckingham was stabbed to death by one of his disgruntled officers in the Greyhound Pub in Portsmouth – Buckingham was a rather incompetent military commander, and, along with his perceived sexual deviancy, it made the general populace celebrate his death.
Nothing ever changes with these a-holes. The difference is that they now, with modern technology, have the ability to destroy our world.
It is the duty of every sentient being to stand-up against the psychos and make sure that our world survives.
(Please note, I have no problem with people’s sexuality. I mention it here because it’s a good example of how history gets air-brushed, particularly with regard to those who we seem to want to call royals.)
Just in case anyone gets worried about .”
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While I’m at it, I should let you know that if I bother to post tomorrow I am likely do so under the nick “Jumpin’ Jack Flash, He’s a Gas).
So no shouts of sock-puppet please, you’ve been informed. 🙂
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” However you are very wrong if you thing Putin’s use of the Orthodox Church has anything to do with deeply held religious values (or failing that you have no idea of what are religious values), rather than a crude attempt to whip up a rather crude Russian nationalism.”
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The above is spot on. I would just add “credulous” to “very wrong” in the first line.
Given his background as a career KGB officer, the idea that President Putin holds genuine religious values shows amazing naivety.
Furthermore, and in connection with the above,large parts of the Orthodox Church, and many of its leaders, have a history (and not only in the SU/Russia) of being co-opted by the secular power. Not to say corrupted.
Jumpin’ Jack Flash, have you ever looked-up the backgrounds of people in the UK and US governments?
Just wondering…
We’re doomed…doomed I tell ye.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frAEmhqdLFs
As humans we all argue about things, but we now never argue about our own self-destruction.
That’s the sickness.
Try to understand it.
@Resident Dissident, no need to embellished, I was simply putting Hitchens in a group with other haters of Religion ;
https://alwaysquestionauthority.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/1017454_581091971929773_1209106017_n.jpg?w=584&h=328
It really must stick in your throat that Putin’s amazingly high popularity with his people is ever increasing, a popularity that Western politicians can only fantasize about in wet-dreams.
@RobG, thank you for the Caldicott Symposium clips; I have recently posted links to some of Robert Parry’ s articles. Here’s somebody else just as on the ball;
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/10/nato-lies-and-provocations/
Russian artillery ? BS What the satellite pics really showed.
http://www.channel4.com/news/china-ukraine-farmland-food-security-investment-overseas
“Russian artillery ? BS What the satellite pics really showed.”
Except that what is on those pictures doesn’t look anything like what is on these pictures.
http://www.channel4.com/news/ukraine-russia-nato-satellite-image-soldiers-territory
Look at them man, they aren’t the same.
Macky, the recent Der Spiegel article that gets referred to by CounterPunch is not alone in Europe.
I know you don’t need to look between the headlines, but if others do they might have noticed a recent story about an EU Commissioner calling for a European Army.
This was immediately blasted by the USUK media, for the usual neocon reasons.
If anyone’s interested I’ll try to dig up stuff about this tomorrow. It basically comes down to the fact that many in the EU are totally pissed-off with the USUK imperial attitude, and the fact that by deliberately baiting Russia they are risking a nuclear exchange that will destroy all life on the planet.
It’s just business, USUK will say, the same psychos people vote for and support.
Please tell me we’re not going to war on the basis of these horrible grainy images, where everyone sees what they want to see, like some mass Rorschach test.
Can we no longer afford big spectaculars like Pearl Harbor, where it’s like real obvious.
Surely if we really wanted to sort out the Ukraine, we’d just federalize the thing, send in aid, restore order and be done with it.
The Russians, Germans, French and Italians would all go along with that.
Why won’t the US and UK.
Why do they want escalation in a standoff with Russia. What’s their game.
It’s obviously not about the Ukraine, is it.
@Fred
Really crap pics Fred.You would think NATO would show really good pics or maybe their
technology has not really advanced which I do not believe one bit.Why don`t they show real pics?
Do you have any knowledge about advance satellite imaging or not ? Or non-linear stochastic resonance?
If you do you wont find very much about it on the internet.
“Really crap pics Fred.You would think NATO would show really good pics or maybe their
technology has not really advanced which I do not believe one bit.Why don`t they show real pics?”.
What is in your picture has cutting bars on the front, that is what makes them harvesters, they are a lot wider that the rest of the vehicle. What is in the pictures I posted obviously does not have them. Why keep going on about the quality of the pictures when the quality is more than good enough to see that those are not harvesters.
They are not the same. Nothing else matters.
Herbie, as you well know, most wars start in the most idiotic of ways.
I can’t now remember who termed the phrase: “the banality of evil” (something to do with the Nazis, no doubt), and by that I mean people just have to understand the reality of the scumbags (and their agents) who rule us.
In historic terms the dynamic has changed only very recently, with modern communications (but not the web internet, which is now almost completely controlled). I’ve had accounts with the likes of Google for years, but now they demand my telephone number before they will allow me to post vids over 15 minutes.
I have no problem with this, because I tell them to stuff it, and I can easily post videos in other ways.
The point is, they keep asking for your telephone number, and in particular your mobile number, and a mobile number can constantly pinpoint you down to any square metre on Earth.
I really don’t want that kind of intrusion/surveillance. Many people don’t seem to mind it though.
Well said, Summerhead.
There are plenty of examples of totalitarian tendencies in the UK… have been for many years probably starting with N. Ireland internment. The latest veiled threat about “The Right to Privacy” is almost unbelievable for a state that prides itself in its long traditions of democracy.
@Fred “They are not the same. Nothing else matters.”
Been smoking to much Fred.http://internationaltimes.it/stoned-with-snow-part-one/
Minipax
10 Mar, 2015 – 10:45 pm:
“You poor sods, hysterically reliving the Red Scare while you’ve got Big Brother’s boot on your face. Crooked parvenu Philip Hammond has decreed that debate on the human right to privacy cannot be allowed to “run on forever.” Your government is determined to “draw a line under the debate” by legislating early in the next parliament.” So prepare to shut up, you poor slavish Brits. And why not, the UK has shite for industry anyway, the whole motley assemblage subsists by sucking US dick.
Break it the fuck up already.”
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I’ve really no idea what they are talking about either, except the GCHQ brigade, who have an obvious agenda.
It’s all so corrupt it’s beyond belief.
@RobG: Either they’ve resigned themselves to “know their place”, or they don’t realise. Putting 2 and 2 together, and daring to say the answer is 4… despite what others with big mouths may say takes a bit of guts.