Impunity 1959


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.


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1,959 thoughts on “Impunity

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  • fool

    Once upon a time there was a tough family of fighting pirates with the unusual additional ability to charm as well as fight. They introduced some democracy on their boats and spoke about this as an ideal to those they raided. They spoke so well that those listening almost fell swoon to the tune, but kept their eyes on the pirates’ weaponry. These apprehensive captive audiences though it prudent to adopt the pirates’ style of talking about democracy and human rights. As time went on they opened up parliaments just like the pirates, but they also bought the pirates’ weapons and copied some of their other ways. In a generation or two some of the pirates grew fat and lulled themselves to sleep with their own stories of democracy and human rights. Poor old pirates… they didn’t know what was coming, or had some of them kept up their piratical skills. In short this is the story of Gladio in modern Europe, but it is also the story of Russia and of most societies and moreover of most if not all individuals.

    Wolf in Sheep’s clothing. If you want to dress like a sheep you need also to be capable of being a wolf. But there are limits. The essential limits are imposed by the wolf watching the sheep and the sheep watching the wolf….but its even harder than this, for the wolf must also watch itself with the heart of the sheep just as the sheep heart must watch the detached intelligence and ruthlessness of the wolf. That means (perhaps unfortunately) that those at the top of intelligence must carry the cross of having a heart. They can wear whatever bland brand of heart is good PR on their sleeves but their real heart must remain hidden.

    Life is meant to be difficult.

  • Mark Golding

    Your post at 22 Mar, 2015 – 12:40 am is subtle but contradictory on one hand, such as the statement: Putin wants globalisation on his terms – namely that allow a greater assertion of national power and a weakening of US hegemony. Globalisation in contemporary Western terms is the integration of power by a single entity, or more accurately American imperialism, a cartel or mono-polar world. The astute can fathom therefore ‘globalisation’ can be seen as a positive, negative or even marginal process.

    Putin believes in national power in a balanced bipolar world not undermined by military capabilities. After the September 11 attacks the United States articulated a doctrine that dictated its armed forces must be capable of fighting two wars anywhere in the world simultaneously, such as those in Afghanistan and Iraq. This doctrine is underwritten by a defence budget that is greater than those of the next fifteen industrialized countries combined, or forty percent of what the rest of the world spends on defence.

    On the other hand we identify the disinformation in your statement: ..the lie to Putin’s claim that “Crimea has always been an inseparable part of Russia”:

    The modern history of Crimea begins with the annexation by the Russian Empire in 1783. In 1921 the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was created. It was after the 2nd world war that Ukrainian born Khruschev denounced the Tatar deportation in his speech attacking Stalin’s legacy.

    During the Soviet era Crimea prospered as a tourist destination, and new sanatoria were built for the workers of the growing industrial state. Holiday makers from all over the Soviet Union relaxed on its beaches, and it became a favorite for tourists from East Germany. The infrastructure improved and manufacturing developed around the ports at Kerch and Sevastopol, and also in the capital, Simferopol. The Russian and Ukrainian populations more than doubled during this period: by 1989, there were 1.6 million Russians and 626,000 Ukrainians living in Crimea.

  • Resident Dissident

    “It’s like saying a supremacist conference in the US backed by David Duke means that Obama’s administration supports Neo-Nazis. ”

    I wasn’t aware that a former leader of Duke’s party was appointed to be the US ambassador to Nato or now serves in the Obama cabinet

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Rogozin

  • fool

    The wolf ceases to be a wolf when the sheep is dead.
    When the wolf has no heart he ceases to be a wolf and his pack falls apart to be replaced by greedy lying corrupt monkeys.
    If you want to take over a person or a society or a country kill its sheep / heart, but never kill your own or its over.

  • John Goss

    For those who do not read Russian I have attempted a translation to my comment at 8.36 am and would welcome any improvements. Thanks.

    “Russia forestalls the threat of 16 March 2015 by Igor Panarin

    After a lengthy spiritual isolation with the elders Vladimir Putin undertook some decisive steps which demonstrated the capability of Russia to conduct global war with the pro-British NATO block. The first of these began at 0800 on 16 March, with what is known as a “Sudden Strike” from the Northern Fleet and gradually involved all the military forces of Russia – Russia is capable of going to war with NATO in levels of deployment of conventional weapons and in readiness to use nuclear weapons at any moment. These are global doctrines – the large-scale deployment of military force(capability?) on atomic submarines before the start of military action. Something similar was produced in 2014 after the reunification of Crimea with Russia. The president of Russia during the course of an interview in the significant documentary “Crimea. The Road to a Homeland” on the nights of 15 and 16 March overtly cut itself off from any path of retreat and reinforced its decisiveness by its removal of atomic submarines with nuclear weapons for several hours to the shores of Great Britain – the main enemy of Russia. But 10 strategic warheads with the latest winged (finned) rockets were transferred to Sacred Crimea in preparation to carry out strikes on the headquarters of NATO and London’s secret centre of government.”

  • BrianFujisan

    sorry dueds..yes i hadawee dram last night always co incide it with stunning music.. anyhoo peace n light my friends

  • Resident Dissident

    The facts that Mr Goss wishes to deny

    1924
    After Lenin’s death, Joseph Stalin ascends to power.

    1928
    Stalin introduces a program of agricultural collectivization that forces farmers to give up their private land, equipment and livestock, and join state owned, factory-like collective farms. Stalin decides that collective farms would not only feed the industrial workers in the cities but could also provide a substantial amount of grain to be sold abroad, with the money used to finance his industrialization plans.

    1929
    Many Ukrainian farmers, known for their independence, still refuse to join the collective farms, which they regarded as similar to returning to the serfdom of earlier centuries. Stalin introduces a policy of “class warfare” in the countryside in order to break down resistance to collectivization. The successful farmers, or kurkuls, (kulaks, in Russian) are branded as the class enemy, and brutal enforcement by regular troops and secret police is used to “liquidate them as a class.” Eventually anyone who resists collectivization is considered a kurkul.

    1930
    1.5 million Ukrainians fall victim to Stalin’s “dekulakization” policies, Over the extended period of collectivization, armed dekulakization brigades forcibly confiscate land, livestock and other property, and evict entire families. Close to half a million individuals in Ukraine are dragged from their homes, packed into freight trains, and shipped to remote, uninhabited areas such as Siberia where they are left, often without food or shelter. A great many, especially children, die in transit or soon thereafter.

    1932-1933
    The Soviet government sharply increases Ukraine’s production quotas, ensuring that they could not be met. Starvation becomes widespread. In the summer of 1932, a decree is implemented that calls for the arrest or execution of any person – even a child — found taking as little as a few stalks of wheat or any possible food item from the fields where he worked. By decree, discriminatory voucher systems are implemented, and military blockades are erected around many Ukrainian villages preventing the transport of food into the villages and the hungry from leaving in search of food. Brigades of young activists from other Soviet regions are brought in to sweep through the villages and confiscate hidden grain, and eventually any and all food from the farmers’ homes. Stalin states of Ukraine that “the national question is in essence a rural question” and he and his commanders determine to “teach a lesson through famine” and ultimately, to deal a “crushing blow” to the backbone of Ukraine, its rural population.

    1933
    By June, at the height of the famine, people in Ukraine are dying at the rate of 30,000 a day, nearly a third of them are children under 10. Between 1932-34, approximately 4 million deaths are attributed to starvation within the borders of Soviet Ukraine. This does not include deportations, executions, or deaths from ordinary causes. Stalin denies to the world that there is any famine in Ukraine, and continues to export millions of tons of grain, more than enough to have saved every starving man, woman and child.

  • Richard

    I too grew up in the postwar years when we thought Britain was honest, civil service and police incorruptible, doctors, bankers and lawyers there to help us. I too realize now it was no more so then than now. Look at the case of Dr. John Bodkin Adams, a mass-murdering GP on the scale of Shipman, covered-up by the establishment even at cabinet level because – not in spite of, but because – he had ongoing homosexual involvement with leading Conservatives. Look at the case of Robert Boothby and the Kray twins’ club. His abuse under threats of young boys covered up, the press in the conspiracy, just because his sexual involvement with leading Tory and Labour figures of both sexes. The difference the 60s made is that for the first time celebrities of working-class origin were allowed inside the fence of privilege.

  • Resident Dissident

    I wish some people would realise that arguing about homelands and what belongs to whom in much of the former Soviet Union is a pretty dangerous game the consequences of which we saw to graphic effect in much of the Balkans. The ethnic patters are pretty confused and were made even more confused by the nationalities policies of Stalin and the Soviet Union – what is needed is sensitivity, tolerance and respect for existing boundaries, languages and customs – landgrabs, supplying arms, occupying state buildings and nationalistic flag waving (by either side and calls to breach ceasefires will really get no one anywhere.

    There are plenty of ethnic Russians throughout the Ukraine – just as there are many ethnic Ukrainians living in Moscow and other major Russian cities, and there are not a few with mixed parentage. As well as Mr Goss Hitler was rather keen on talking about homelands, similarly he also failed to define the limits of those homelands and it was only too late that we appreciated that there really were no limits.

  • Clark

    Resident Dissident, I agree. Somehow, the activists for peace in all countries have to stand together. But I do not know how this can be achieved.

  • Clark

    RD, even if all those calling for peace do stand together, recent events suggest that they are likely to be ineffective. In 2003 demonstrations against the attack on Iraq took place simultaneously in many major cities across the world. The governments ignored them.

  • Dreoilin

    Homeland

    “Today, there’s nothing alien about that most un-American of terms. It has slipped so smoothly into our lives that “Homeland” is the name of a popular TV show, and college students looking for a good livelihood can now get a BA or an MA coast to coast in… yep, homeland security. (“You can build a career helping to protect our nation by earning your Bachelor of Science Degree in Homeland and Corporate Security at St. John’s University.”) And if you happen to be into securing the homeland, you can even join the “corporate and homeland security club” on campus. After college, given the money pouring into the “field,” the sky’s the limit.”

    Excerpt from
    http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175655/tomgram%3A_kramer_and_hellman,_the_washington_creation_that_ate_your_lunch/

  • Dreoilin

    “In 2003 demonstrations against the attack on Iraq took place simultaneously in many major cities across the world.”

    30 million people in all, i read. And yes, they were ignored.

    Which makes me wonder what is the point of the long-running argument going on on this blog?

    What exactly are people hoping to achieve vis a vis Ukraine/Putin/NATO?

  • Mark Golding

    Interesting John. I notice another Igor Panarin translation from his-‘Counting the losses of foreign military in the Donbas from the pros’ (Mar 3). I cannot at this stage confirm the accuracy albeit other sources such as Liveleak, Globalresearch and Globalsecurity are analogous.

    Conservative and ‘anti-speed’ MP, Aegis chairman and illegal quad bike rider Sir Arthur Nicholas Winston Soames declined to admit any private British operation in Ukraine. (lulz) – (training the Ukraine Army). What is the remuneration for services rendered Mr Soames?

    Source:
    http://vk.com/?w=wall-57424472_50559

    The loss of foreign mercenaries and NATO troops in Donbass during the period from 2 May 2014 to 15 February 2015 has been estimated at 1,200 people.

    The greatest losses among foreign mercenaries, suffered in the punitive [Ukraine anti-terrorist] operation, were as follows:

    Polish PMC (Private Military Company) “ASBS Othago” lost 394 men (killed and wounded)

    American PMCs “Greystone” lost 180 people

    American PMCs “Academi” (until 2009 known as Blackwater) lost 269 people

    The Baltic women snipers lost 26 people, and the CIA lost 25 employees.

    In addition, according to some experts, among the encircled punitive troops in Debaltseve, about 25% of the personnel (approximately 2,200 people) were NATO troops and foreign mercenaries. This explains the diplomatic activity of the leaders of the West and earlier arrival in Moscow of the heads of state of France and Germany. We can assume the losses in the Debaltsevo cauldron among NATO military and NATO allies (killed and wounded) to be:

    1. Airborne Service UK – about 20 people
    2. United States Military Special Operations Forces – about 15 people
    3. French Foreign Legion – 10 people
    4. Polish military – about 10 people
    5. Israeli military – about 10 people
    6. Croatian military – about 10 people

  • Clark

    RD, the problem seems to be in people’s hearts. Even on these comment threads we see people with more allegiance to one government or another than to people and to peace.

    We do not even have an appropriate word. I do not wish to oppose the UK government, “my” government, or confront it, or fight it when it proposes yet another war. I want to be part of a movement offering a better alternative, and I want for the majority to see that the alternative is better, and for the governments to express the will of those people.

    And there is the mass media, the various mass media in the different parts of the world; someone please help me express this.

  • Resident Dissident

    “What exactly are people hoping to achieve vis a vis Ukraine/Putin/NATO?”

    I suspect people said the same about those who opposed appeasement in the 1930s

  • Clark

    Dreoilin, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m trying to connect, trying to establish a consensus that’s broad enough to bring a majority together.

    If we can’t even manage that here, what hope internationally?

  • Resident Dissident

    Clark

    I think you have to be careful when it comes to drawing parallels between Iraq and the Russia/countries of the former Soviet Union. Putin is not as bad to his own people (or his neighbours) as Saddam and the situation on the ground is completely different, although I don’t think anyone would argue that the failure to understand the situation on the ground in Iraq didn’t contribute to the mess that occurred after Saddam’s removal.

    I’m afraid I am not a pacifist and I do believe that there are cases when force is necessary – though the removal of Putin is not one of those.

  • Dreoilin

    “Dreoilin, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m trying to connect, trying to establish a consensus that’s broad enough to bring a majority together.”

    For what purpose, Clark? As you noted yourself, the demonstrations against the invasion of Iraq had no effect.

  • Clark

    Mark Golding, vk.com won’t even display a home-page without Javascript. I generally do not trust such sites. Where does vk.com say the information comes from? I doubt that a US source, especially a pro-Kiev source would refer to “Donbass”.

  • Dreoilin

    “What exactly are people hoping to achieve vis a vis Ukraine/Putin/NATO?”

    “I suspect people said the same about those who opposed appeasement in the 1930s”

    That’s not an answer. That’s a sidestep. What are you or anyone else trying to achieve by taking up almost two threads on this blog about Ukraine/Putin/NATO?

  • Clark

    RD, I’m not drawing such a parallel. I’m pointing out that governments disregard the will of their people, and mass media manipulate that will.

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