After such an extended break from blogging, you will be deeply disappointed that I restart with something as mundane and trivial as Jeremy Clarkson. I have defended the man in the past, because I much enjoy Top Gear and consider that much of what he has been criticised for in the past had been an amusing winding-up of the po-faced of the kind I employ myself. But nasty, indeed vicious bullying of a subordinate should always be a sacking offence.
That did not ought to be the question, though. He hit someone and they had to go to hospital. Where are the police? They are incredibly fond of sweeping up scores of teenagers for thought crime, but here we have an actual violent assault that spills blood, and it seems completely out of the question the perpetrator is brought to account. Why is that? I had a personal experience a couple of years ago when I was very mildly hurt – less than young Oisin – in an assault, and the police insisted on arresting the perpetrator despite my repeated requests to them not to do so. They told me rather firmly that the idea that it is the victim who has a say in pressing charges, is a myth. Why was Clarkson not arrested?
I cannot in my mind dissociate this from the non-arrest of Jimmy Savile for his crimes, despite their being well-known and reported at the time. That seems to link in to the wider paedophilia scandal, and the question of why no action was taken even in the most blatant of cases when there was compelling evidence, such as that of the extremely nasty Greville Janner MP.
But then I think still more widely as to why, for example, Jack Straw has not been charged with the crime of misfeasance in public office after boasting of using his position to obtain “under the radar” changes in regulations to benefit commercial clients, in exchange for cash. I wonder why a large number of people did not go to jail for the HSBC tax avoidance schemes or the LIBOR rigging scandal, which involved long term dishonest manipulation by hundreds of very highly paid bankers.
At the top of the tree is of course the question of why Blair has not been charged for the crime of waging illegal war. The Chilcot Inquiry heard evidence that every single one of the FCO’s elite team of Legal Advisers believed that the invasion of Iraq was an illegal war of aggression. Yet now the media disparage as nutters those who say Blair should be charged.
Then I think of all the poor and desperate people who get jailed for stealing comparatively miniscule amounts in benefit fraud, or the boy who was jailed for stealing a bottle of water in the London riots.
The conclusion is that we do not have a system of justice in this country at all. We have a system where the wealthy and governing classes and those associated with them enjoy almost absolute impunity, broken in only the rarest of cases. At the same time those at the bottom of the pile are kicked hard to keep them there. There is no more chance of justice against those in power in the UK than there is of the killers of Nemtsov being brought to book in Russia.
But what has really scared me is this thought. This situation has been like this my entire life: and I have reached the age of 56 before I realised it. A very great many people have still not realised it at all.
What does not scare me is this. I realise that if the system of justice is completely corrupted, then there is no obligation on me to follow the laws of the state. In fact it would be wrong of me to do so. I must seek my ethical compass elsewhere than in the corrupt power structure which weighs so hard upon the people.
Clarkson Receives Million Signatures On Reinstatement Petition After Kneecapping BBC Disciplinary Board.
What a Prick.People are so anaesthetised.
http://internationaltimes.it/clarkson-receives-million-signatures-on-reinstatement-petition-after-kneecapping-bbc-disciplinary-board/
This year,in September,Queen Elizabeth II will become the longest reigning monarch in English history.
Along with this title she will also be the largest claimant of state benefits,since they were introduced around 1948.
“Macky, do you really think that Putin cares about Russian-speaking Ukrainians? Or anyone else but his friends and family?”
I don’t know what Macky thinks but I do think Putin cares. I do think he cares for the Crimean people and the Donbas people. The people who don’t care are the west and the Verkhovna Rada. They don’t mind how many die. This fascist puppet-state is the biggest obstacle to world peace (which I believe in, and I believe Putin believes in). If you had heard him speak about Crimea on Sunday night it was clear that his actions in Crimea had prevented its civilians ending up like those in Donbas. His big mistake, in my opinion, was not doing the same for Russian-speaking residents of Eastern Ukraine. Because he has been accused of intervening anyway. If he did intervene, to save more lives, it would be a moral stance. I would like to see peace – which there was before the fascists stole power.
Clark; “reports about the sniping that I’ve seen indicate that the supporters of the Kiev “new coalition” did it, but were encouraged and prompted to do so by a shadowy high-ranking (ex?) secret-service or military Russian. Sorry, I can’t remember the details; it was personal testimony of a sniper in the BBC article you linked, the one that altered my opinion.”
Even on just this one aspect of the many different evidential sources I gave, you still get it wrong. Here’s the article;
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31359021
No mention that the retired military officer who the Sniper talks about is “Russian”, so that is just your invention; in you read the article carefully you will see that the Sniper’s version is always contradicting that of Andriy Parubiy, “the Commandant of the Maidan”, who is now deputy speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, and is one of whose who is blaming it on Russian snipers, just as you would expect for a member of the Kiev Junta.
An important alert from Medialens, that serves as yet another warning against invented agression & pro-war demonisation; some people seem not to want to learn from even very recent history, and I don’t even mean only the ones who cheered the NATO attack on Libya on, as they now do for action against Syria & Russia;
http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2015/789-love-for-libya-2011-2015.html
I must say that I have been disappointed by Robert Parry’s coverage of almost everything. He seems to be a limited hang-out of American covert operations.
When he republished an article about LBJ’s X-files on Nixon’s apparent treason in subverting the President’s attempt to end the Vietnam war during the 1968 presidential campaign, I said that he should have added Nixon’s apparent murder of the former President when he returned to Texas on Air Force One under the medical supervision of Nixon’s private physician.
Nixon, it seems, had him killed by overdoses of dilantin.
The misdeeds of Nixon were partially reported in Robert Haldeman’s diaries, but Parry would not tolerate this suggestion about the likely murder though he had held up its appearance for it to undergo pre-posting moderation. only to delete it all after he received negative blowback from my posts.
He then deleted everything I had posted about James DiEugenio’s assistance of the Agency’s attempts to kill me in Portugal for complaining about President Clinton’s giving special treatment of Nixon from the White House.
Even Parry’s disclosures about Iran-Contra which was triggered by the assassination of Sweden’s PM Olof Palme never even suggested this assassination was its downfall.
@Clark: In the year of Magna Carta, 800 years on, that is a very valid point.
Germany was still in a semblance of democracy until the Nazi Party was allowed to take command over the law of the land.
But presumably you are talking about International Law, and that can’t be enforced until US is prepared to sign up to the ICC.
Agreed, John. Putin probably knew he’d get loads of flak over Crimea but he did it for Russia and the Crimean People.
Sucks big time to be an empire in decline, I guess. An empire no doubt feels it only does what it has to do to stay the alpha male empire while it still can.
Washington’s War on Russia
by MIKE WHITNEY
“In order to survive and preserve its leading role on the international stage, the US desperately needs to plunge Eurasia into chaos, (and) to cut economic ties between Europe and Asia-Pacific Region … Russia is the only (country) within this potential zone of instability that is capable of resistance. It is the only state that is ready to confront the Americans. Undermining Russia’s political will for resistance… is a vitally important task for America.”
snip
And what are Washington’s objectives?
Interestingly, even political analysts on the far right seem to agree about that point. For example, check out this quote from STRATFOR CEO George Friedman who summed it up in a recent presentation he delivered at The Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs. He said:
“The primordial interest of the United States, over which for centuries we have fought wars–the First, the Second and Cold Wars–has been the relationship between Germany and Russia, because united there, they’re the only force that could threaten us. And to make sure that that doesn’t happen.” … George Friedman at The Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs, Time 1:40 to 1:57)
Bingo. Ukraine has nothing to do with sovereignty, democracy or (alleged) Russian aggression. That’s all propaganda. It’s about power. It’s about imperial expansion. It’s about spheres of influence. It’s about staving off irreversible economic decline. It’s all part of the smash-mouth, scorched earth, take-no-prisoners geopolitical world in which we live, not the fake Disneyworld created by the western media. The US State Department and CIA toppled the elected-government in Ukraine and ordered the new junta regime to launch a desperate war of annihilation against its own people in the East, because, well, because they felt they had no other option. Had Putin’s ambitious plan to create a free trade zone between Lisbon to Vladivostok gone forward, then where would that leave the United States? Out in the cold, that’s where. The US would become an isolated island of dwindling significance whose massive account deficits and ballooning national debt would pave the way for years of brutal restructuring, declining standards of living, runaway inflation and burgeoning social unrest. Does anyone really believe that Washington would let that to happen when it has a “brand-spanking” trillion dollar war machine at its disposal?
Heck, no. Besides, Washington believes it has a historic right to rule the world, which is what one would expect when the sense of entitlement and hubris reach their terminal phase. Now check out this clip from an article by economist Jack Rasmus at CounterPunch:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/18/washingtons-war-on-russia/
Further to the USA as empire in decline:
The Rats are POURING out of DC’s Sinking Ship
As many here know, the East has been trying to formulate its banking alternatives for its member states these past several years. This is of monumental importance to Eurasian alliances, because without a network of lending institutions of their own, they’ve often been at the (lack of) mercy of the Western banking powers. For several years now, Eastern alliances such as the BRICS, have made a great deal of progress on this front.
That progress has been met with fear and loathing from DC and London, as previously, they’ve enjoyed the perks from being the world’s predatory lender through institutions like the World Bank and IMF.
During the last week however, while many of us weren’t looking, some very interesting developments have been taking place on the “grand chessboard”!
SNIP
At first, DC and London responded to the AIIB, as it did the BRICS Bank: with smarmy scorn. As time passed, however, and the powers that be began to see that the bank has gained serious traction, they switched tactics, from ridicule to threats. Obama and Cameron started applying tremendous pressure on their strongest “allies” to remain uninvolved with China’s alternative lending facility to the US’s Asian Development Bank.
Why wouldn’t they? After all, the real power of the US and UK has always been a money power. Without that banking and fiscal dominance and monopoly, and the ability to pyramid new debts upon the backs of humanity, their empire would come crashing down, double quick.
That’s precisely why this newest show-stopping announcement by UK officials must’ve come as complete shocker to the buzzards on the Potomac!
“Britain applies to join China-backed Asia bank, US is furious“
https://outofthebrambles.wordpress.com/2015/03/19/the-rats-are-pouring-out-of-dcs-sinking-ship/
You’re saying, and I can agree with that much, that it’s a proxy war, Goss. So neither Russia nor the US has declared war in this case…have they? Maybe that’s a little subtle for you.
Now I have been blocked from posting on The Local in Sweden – apparently because I posted that the inquiry into the murder of Dag Hammarskjold was a farce because it was relying on NSA intercepts about it.
The NSA will claim that it has nothing about it since there is no mention of it in James Bamford’s Body of Secrets: How America’s NSA and Britain’s GCHQ Eavesdrop On The World.
The only trouble with the book is that there is no mention of what the USS Oxford, its most sophisticated ship, was up to when he was killed.
The West is behaving more and more like a totalitarian society.
Re Craig’s interesting comment – “But what has really scared me is this thought. This situation has been like this my entire life: and I have reached the age of 56 before I realised it. A very great many people have still not realised it at all.”
I think that many people are beginning to go through this process of realization as the situation is getting worse.
A Corporate State disguised as a Liberal Democracy is a very dangerous thing. All the normal forms of oppression are there, but they are disguised. Everything is subtly done. Just as our secret police (a very necessary institution in a corporate State) take a Stasi-style Zersetzen approach to persecution rather than the bloodier medieval form of torture, so many of our other institutions are also geared to continue the myth that we are a liberal democracy whilst serving the needs of a corporate State.
For example, a liberal democracy cannot function without a free press and a commitment to the rule of law and in reality we have neither.
The measure of a democracy is not that the State adheres to the rule of law most of the time, but that it still adheres to the rule of law when its power elites are pulling the other way. And as for the press – well too much pressure from the MIs and some advertisers, D notices, draconian libel laws, etc. provide a very effective form of censorship without having to have a formal censor
“Maybe that’s a little subtle for you.”
I’ve been saying it’s a proxy war from the start. But it is a proxy war on behalf of US/NATO interests with a fascist government in power. You don’t need to be bright to work it out.
1921-Feb 2014 No Civil War
Feb 2014 Proxy coup government steals power on behalf of US
Feb 2014 – Feb 2015 Civil War to force civilians in Eastern Ukraine to accept a coup government it does not believe in, in which more than 6,000 die.
There is no doubt who started it. Yatsenyuk and the Nazis. Poroshenko came to power with promises to bring peace. His promise of peace meant to bomb the shit out of Eastern Ukraine into total submission. 1 million draft dodgers have fled to Russia. The first stage of the plan of these fascists did not succeed. But they have not held their hands up and said: “Sorry guys we fucked up! The economy is in tatters. We cannot pay your wages. We have got rid of most of the gold reserves for confetti dollars. Our only option is get bigger and better weapons from our western allies to bomb more shit out of your brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, in Eastern Ukraine.”
The arithmetic is simple.
I ask you, how can so many people, with such intelligence, be duped by so few in Washington, Westminster and Kiev?
Ba’al; ” So neither Russia nor the US has declared war in this case…have they? Maybe that’s a little subtle for you.”
You have no chance of stating anything valid if you continue to view the world with a Neo-Con mindset;
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/perhaps-you-missed-it-were-at-war-with-russia-2015-01-20
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/12/09/washingtons-frozen-war-against-russia/
Many more articles if you want, all saying the same, “proxy” only perhaps if you don’t count all the other measures, such as trying to destroy a country economically, trying to isolate internationally, & trying to instigate regime change.
Silvio.
The US sees the AIIB,as a threat to the World bank and although the UK,is one of the USA’s little subservient countries,every now and then the UK,does something without the permission of its superiors,in Washington.
Maybe the root problem with a degenerate society is that it doesn’t believe in anything, any more. Moral relativism, political correctness and a popular philosophical notion that there is no such thing as “reality” undermines a society’s sense of common identity and purpose. So with the leadership in cynical disarray, the majority of ‘the people’ drift into a form of amoral chaos. Historically, it seems that only cataclysms of biblical proportions are able to shake a people so violently that it brings about enduring change. So perhaps its time for the UK to have another war, on its own soil. Many already see one coming.
The UK had diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China long before the U.S. did.
http://wingsoverscotland.com
Ed Balls,commenting on Politics.co.uk
Balls,says he wouldn’t have changed anything that Osborne mentioned in yesterdays budget.
Labour and the Tories,they differ in name only.
Have quite a few of the insightful contributors.. Tony M, Fool, Mary got fed up and gone? All threads on this blog lead to repetitive bickering over the Ukraine crisis…looks to me like the trolls have won
Macky, with uncharacteristic brevity (in a 111-word sentence) said:
”
For those that didn’t die of asphyxiation while reading it, may I present what was actually said, concerning the London rioters.
MJ asked, “So is hanging to good for ‘em? Should we bring back National Service and the Workhouse?
CM answered: “No, they should go to prison, for lengths of time determined by their degree of participation in violence against people or which endangered life.”
Far from having been “disappeared”, the entire thread may be found here:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2011/08/the-good-delusion/
*
“All threads on this blog lead to repetitive bickering over the Ukraine crisis…”
Yes, it’s become very boring.
“looks to me like the trolls have won”
It’s not “the trolls” who are bickering. By and large.
@Glenn_uk; no actually I was reffering to the remarks made in a Post that Clark has found called “Policing Criminality”;
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2011/08/policing-criminality/
Check out the comments from Clark & myself back on page 1 about this; but thanks anyway, especially for this extra info.
SNP member posts homophobic insults to Ruth Davidson’s twitter account.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-31965631
“Germany was still in a semblance of democracy until the Nazi Party was allowed to take command over the law of the land.”
Yes, historically Nationalism has led to Totalitarianism.
“So Ba’al seems to be displaying the condition of evaluating the world through the Neo-Con mindset prism; trouble is, it’s so shallow as be a sham”
________________
The above is Macky’s take on the post by Ba’al Zevul at 12h19.
I, for my part, consider that post of Ba’al’s to be one of the best – perhaps the best – to have appeared on this blog on the subject of Ukraine/Putin’s Russia.
As Ba’al suggests, people should read his post carefully and reflect.
Macky: Thanks – OK, I didn’t see that one. It wouldn’t be the first time a post had disappeared, mind – we had the one about that lady back in the heady days of the Scottish referendum vanish on us. There might have been good reasons.
*
The subject has been talked to death around here, just about, but did you know there was plenty of good fracking to be had in the Ukraine, the protests over it were quickly (and quietly) quashed by the new government that took over in the coup, and that Joe Biden’s son is leading the way with fossil-fuel contracts over there right now?
If Russia was behaving like this in Mexico, it would be considered an act of war. But if Russia reacts, to anything at all, it must automatically be them big, bad, bullying Russians, against innocent, freedom loving us and our lovely little friends. Even if our new friends do have the unfortunate habit of waving swastikas around.
From those commies at NBC news:
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ukraine-crisis/german-tv-shows-nazi-symbols-helmets-ukraine-soldiers-n198961
Such references aren’t hard to find.
“Craig had real power; he was an ambassador.” — 1.26pm
Ambassadors don’t have “power” Clark.
They are told what line to take by their governments, and if they stray from that line (as Craig did) they are reprimanded. Normally that would be enough to make them pull their horns in, but in Craig’s case it wasn’t. So they got rid of him.
The OBR,don’t believe a word David Cameron says on immigration,many people don’t believe anything he says at all.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3001459/Even-government-advisers-rejecting-PM-s-migrant-pledge-Office-Budget-Responsibility-heaps-embarrassment-ministers-criticising-prediction.html
Jewish schools and synagogues will get £10million a year for guards to protect against anti-Semitic attacks, David Cameron announced last night.
In a hard-hitting speech to Jewish leaders last night, he promised not turn ‘a blind eye’ both to physical attacks and to ‘non-violent extremism’.
The Prime Minister said new money had been found in the Budget to protect the community.
Remarkable,that monies from the budget can be used to protect,a certain sector of society,it would seem, that they’re more important than you and I.
Could you even contemplate Westminster,allocating millions, to protect,Palestinians in the UK.
No? Neither could I.