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.
NATO still pushing for membership on the failed state. Isn’t the rule that there must not be border disputes? Power has but one overarching rule.
Clark; “Macky, so you are saying that NATO did not attack Iraq in 2003 because “opinions among members were divided”, yes? So NATO is not under the control of the US.”
As somebody who rates himself as a logical thinker, pay close attention; the US uses NATO to further its objectives, in the one & only known exceptional instance dating back to 2003, when it didn’t managed to use this handy tool, it still did what it wanted, simply because it can; it highly unlikely that in the present climate of the phony war on terror, NATO would ever again veto US plans, but even if they did, it doesn’t stop NATO being a very handy tool for the US for 99.99% of the time it wants to use it.
Clark; “What are these “carrots & sticks inducements”, and what evidence do you have for them? Since the countries we’re considering had previously been subsumed into the USSR, could they have wanted protection from Russia?”
Sorry I haven’t got the expertise or time to give you a detailed country by country analysis, but my thinking leads me to believe that the former parts of the USSR, as illustrated by Ukraine, are probably more motivated by the “grass is greener” mentality than actual fear of Russia; enticing EU/NATO membership prospects leads them to long for the imagined greener pastures of being able to live & work throughout Western Europe; and if in due course this did happened, the same people now championing their right to do so, will then be the same people complaining about the new influx of immigrants, as they did iro of the Poles.
Anyhow, in your eagerness to defend Craig antipathy to Russia, you are getting yourself all tied in knots to the extent of finding yourself very disloyally not seeking “ Craig’s opinions first and foremost” : 😀
“NATO is by far the largest danger to world peace. It should be dissolved as a matter of urgency.”
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/09/nato-an-idea-whose-time-has-gone/
What you said, Clark. What my earlier link said similarly implies that if Russia is attempting to extend its economic influence unilaterally, beyond its existing reach in Europe, then the entity blocking (and bound to block) that attempt would logically be the EU.
A useful distinction. Stir into the soup some completely amoral and interconnected global corporations who will ally with whoever seems to be winning for the sake of corporate profits – the neocons speak for these – and we have the current mess.
Clark, as to you being a Russophobe, it is what you appear to be from many of your past comments. But I have no time to search and recently your comments have been more tempered than when you went off on one. 🙂
If you don’t hate Russians I accept what you say and take it back. Perhaps soon you will start liking President Putin so in advance let me apologise for ever thinking you did not. 🙂
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_51977.htm
Clear enough.
Letter today to US politicos, from US companies worried about blowback & impunity
March 25, 2015
signed,
Access
Advocacy for Principled Action in Government
American – Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
American Association of Law Libraries
American Booksellers for Free Expression
American Civil Liberties Union
American Library Association
Application Developers Alliance
Association of Research Libraries
Brennan Center for Justice
Center for Democracy & Technology
CloudFlare, Inc.
Committee to Protect Journalists
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Computer & Communications Industry Association
The Constitution Project
Constitutional Alliance
Defending Dissent Foundation
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Engine Advocacy
Free Press Action Fund
FreedomWorks
Global Network Initiative
Government Accountability Project
Hackers & Founders
Human Rights Watch
Internet Association – {AirBnB, Amazon, AOL, Auction.com, Coinbase, ebay, Etsy, Expedia, Facebook, Gilt Group, Google, Groupon, IAC, LinkedIn, Lyft, monster, Netflix, Pandora, Pinterest, Practice Fusion, Rackspace, Reddit, Salesforce, Sidecar, Snapchat, SurveyMonkey, Tripadvisor, Twitter, Yahoo, Yelp, Uber, Zynga, About.com, Ask, Dictionary.com, Flickr, Half.com, Hotels.com, Match.com, okCupid, Paypal, RedLaser, StubHub, Vimeo}
Internet Infrastructure Coalition
Liberty Coalition
Mozilla
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
New America’s Open Technology Institute
Niskanen Center
OpenTheGovernment.org
PEN American Center
Project On Government Oversight
Public Knowledge
R Street
Reform Government Surveillance {Apple, Dropbox, Evernote, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter, Yahoo!}
ServInt
Silent Circle, LLC
Sonic
TechFreedom
Venture Politics
Wikimedia Foundation
World Press Freedom Committee,
Terrorists & paedos the lot of ’em?
John Goss, the countries participating in the invasion of Iraq were the US, UK, Australia and Poland. That makes three of the twenty-eight members of NATO. The utterly illegal invasion of Iraq was not a NATO operation.
From Ba’al’s link:
NATO and the 2003 campaign against Iraq
I honestly don’t think Clark hates anyone! At least, no more than I hate scrambled egg. Hate is too often the word used for mild theoretical dislike. It should be reserved for people you would cheerfully disembowel for the injury they have inflicted on you personally.
Macky, this from you is entirely illogical:
NATO membership is a military alliance. It has nothing whatsoever to do with freedom of movement and employment. EU membership and NATO membership are different things, as any fool can see.
Macky, you take your readers for idiots. I accuse you of deliberately conflating the EU with NATO for pro-Russian perception management.
@Ba’al Zevul “*At least he’s Ukrainian – donated spectacularly to the Clinton Foundation for the Ukrainian globalisation project.”
And to criminal Blair. It shows were Pinchuck is at.
Ba’al, I don’t hate anyone right now. The same as anyone else, I occasionally hate someone. It usually lasts between five seconds and fifteen minutes.
I neither like nor dislike Putin or any other political figures since I don’t know them. I either support or oppose policies, which are what matter.
Macky, are you religious?
Clark; Agree with your take on leaders good or bad by perception from a distance. People put too much trust in heroes with feet of clay. Ideas, however are bulletproof.
Ba’al at 2.07 Mandy Rice Davies
Ba’al at 2.13 No, I don’t think Clark hates anyone and I too think it is too strong a word. If I used it (did I) I apologise to one and all.
The 2003 Iraq War was a war of NATO countries acting individually. At the beginning there were only four countries made the invasion followed by some 25 other countries many members of NATO and including NATO advisors. So yes, it was a NATO war.
But semantics aside, the important issue is that Cameron is supplying troops and equipment to Ukraine to further a war that Putin, Merkel and Hollande brought to a close with the 2nd Minsk protocol: a peace protocol. Putin also brokered the first Minsk agreement (broken by Ukraine).
Poland is there again helping other NATO countries put pressure on Russia to kick off the US war with Russia. The US leaders will be sitting back and watching the spectacle. Russia wants peace. The US, the economy of which is down the pan, wants war. It is the only way this dying empire can survive. It is quite that simple. Why does only Macky, Peacemaker, one or two others and myself understand?
Clark; “I accuse you of deliberately conflating the EU with NATO for pro-Russian perception management.”
LOL ! I thought we got passed your paranoid stage of thinking everybody who disagreed with you over this was a Kremlin agent !
Let’s go over the point again;
You said that the former Russia states joined NATO because they feared Russia.
I said that I thought it was more to do with the “Grass is greener” factor, ie wanted to get closer to the West for mostly economic reasons rather than fear of Russian aggression.
Part & parcel of getting closer to the West is through membership of both the EU & NATO, which are increasingly linked, especially after the Berlin Plus agreement;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Plus_agreement
Simple enough I would have thought for anybody, or even any “fool” to follow without accusations of being Kremlin agents, or demands for one religious views ! 😀
John Goss 3:06 pm:
No it was not. Bush and Blair were the instigators, and they are both Neocons. The exaggerated and faked intelligence to try to drag other countries into it, but only got Poland and Australia.
John Goss, why do you wish to blame NATO? Is it because NATO prevents Russian military expansionism? Do you want Russia to take over its neighbouring countries or parts of them?
‘E’s gorn. Clarkson, that is to say.
Video: Israeli night raids on sleeping Palestinian children
Posted by The Editors on March 25, 2015, 10:23 am
Israeli human rights group B’Tselem today released two harrowing videos of heavily armed Israeli soldiers raiding the bedrooms of Palestinian children in the middle of the night.
The first video, above, is titled “Night search of Sameeh and Mai D’ana’s home, Hebron, 24 February 2015.”
The video was shot during a night raid on ten homes in the occupied West Bank city. B’Tselem does not say who shot the video, but typically the videos it releases are made by Palestinians.
/..
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1427278997.html
“I think NATO is by far the largest danger to world peace. It should be dissolved as a matter of urgency.
In the past dozen years, the armed forces of NATO countries, whether operating under the NATO banner or in related ad-hoc coalitions, have killed many hundreds of thousands of people. Of those hundreds of thousands of people, only a few hundred at most ever had any connection to any attack on a NATO country.
Whatever modern NATO has become, a defensive alliance it is not; that fact is beyond rational dispute.”
Interesting to revisit that much more sensible discussion here:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/09/nato-an-idea-whose-time-has-gone/
Shocking Mary – I will circulate the videos to raise awareness.
‘Time has come’ indeed Herbie – NATO (North Atlantic Terrorist Organisation…)
No longer is NATO a means of protecting the West from any enemy. The members themselves know this, and being an NATO ally has as much to do with choice of arms suppliers as the defence needs of individual members. The lack of trust within the organisation is obvious – it is merely a question of who will break ranks first, and who will have the nerve to do anything about it.
Henry Kamens
http://journal-neo.org/2015/03/21/nato-georgia-and-calls-for-an-eu-army-a-perfect-storm-brewing/
Clark I think Mark Golding has answered your question above. This fixation of yours with NATO, which you’ve been going on about for days is a total digression. The UK is a NATO country. The US is a NATO country. Poland is a NATO country. The agressors are NATO countries. I am not going down this silly path any more with you when we are on the verge of another war started by NATO countries. Will you let it drop? You’re behaving like a troll.
This is what’s trending in the US at the moment as regards Ukraine.
http://en.hunternews.ru/?p=618
I see it’s taken a g out of “aggressors” again.
Other NATO countries with troops in the Multi-National Force in Iraq: Romania, Estonia, Bulgaria, Denmark, Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Italy, Slovakia, Hungary, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Iceland.
I remember noticing how dishonest an organization NATO had become when I listened to NATO spokesman Jamie Shea spouting lies about the Kosovo War.
Well remembered Lysias. Smooth tongued as far as I remember. He is still there. Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges. Now there’s a title to conjure with.
Thanks for those links Mary, we have to expect the same in future from the BBC, more cover ups, more delinquencies and more nepotism, they might as well merge their news rooms with MI6 operations.Those who run perfectly good and wholesome drama departments must be spitting feathers at the incompetences of managers and the secrecy that hollows out its edifice.
Man management does not mean that you swaddle a spoiled brats every notion, shave their red pubes or arrange their outbursts in levels of intensity. Nor does it mean providing caravans so they can ‘meet’ their fans in private. Clarkson must be fired, there is no other option, that it took them so long is indicative of their writhing of hands, that they really have not changed much at all.
Now keep warm everyone, its freezing.
My views on NATO are well known, I served during the cold war and. The organisation has more polarised, has become more politically engrossed, an outward shopping window for new armaments in action. Some of NATO’s past doctrines state that it is niot acceptable for the Warsaw pact troops to advance beyond a certain point, without a NATO response.
So its very own encroachment into eastern block countries is not something which has anything to do with its past priorities. Remember folks, the cold war is over and it should not be revived by some biased NATO actions.
Who inside NATO is promoting this arming of Ukraine’s military and thereby for its outright fascists parties? And who in their right mind thinks that we should accept more fascists than we can cope with in Europe?
Fred
25/03/2015 9:28 am
If you believe that “most here” would agree that some commenters on this forum should be killed without warning, I do not believe you are correct.
Kind regards,
John