Gordon Brown and wee Dougie Alexander once bestrode the world, bombing much of it. Now these mighty egos are confined within Elderslie Village Hall.
The problem is, the average member of the population does not have a high opinion of the dynamic duo. So it is essential that they are kept away from average people, and instead paraded only before vetted audiences of Labour activists. There are not very many of those; so the venues are tiny, with a small number of carefully bunched people holding silly placards, photographed by a compliant media only from carefully prepared angles.
Now I plunge happily into politically incorrect ground. As normal people have abandoned it and Labour has come down to the core of its core support, it is truly striking how remarkably ugly its hardcore activists are. I don’t mean that in any metaphorical sense. I mean that they are an aesthetic disaster. It is not a product of poverty, as the core support are all well employed as research assistants or doing pretendy youth work jobs for Labour councils. Other parties do not have such challenging physiognomy. It is very seldom you can look at a room and say Gordon Brown is one of the best looking people there. Perhaps Blair’s crimes have been written on the faces of all the complicit.
Douglas Alexander not only facilitated the use of Diego Garcia for torture and extraordinary rendition, in an act of extreme hypocrisy the evil little shit also declared a “marine conservation area” around it. In the 1960’s Britain forcibly deported the entire population of the islands to make way for the US Air Base. Faced with a continual political and legal fight for them to return, Alexander sought to make it impossible with his “marine conservation area”. There is nobody who better represents Scottish Labour’s loss of its soul than Alexander. If Mhairi beats him I shall be extremely happy.
Just a thought on NATO expansion….
As with any bureaucracy, especially a business, if you aren’t growing, you are dying. NATO was designed to counter the Soviets. With it’s dissolution it was necessary to creep the mission. A new lease on old grudges is the goal of the neocons and NATO is the grinding stone.
“Fred actually believes that the SNP deliberately chose Hitler’s birthday to launch their manifesto.
Fred has lost the right to be taken seriously.
Fred has lost it.”
Fuck off and die retard.
Cunt.
“Yes Node I have to agree with you there, I’m beginning to wonder if Fred’s okay, Clarke knows more about him,maybe he could speak with him.”
I call Nationalists Nazis because cunts like you behave like Nazis.
Criticise the SNP and their politics receive personal attacks and intimidation.
THose are the tactics of the Nazi.
Now fuck off and die retard.
Did anyone else see Nicola Sturgeon on “The Leader Interviews”? Evan Davis spent 30 minutes trying to make her say something that could be construed as a Bolshie Scot telling the English how to run their country. She avoided every trap with charm, humour and straight talking. Davis’s intent was clearly to make non-Scottish voters fear and mistrust her. I would be surprised if it didn’t have the opposite effect. In re-butting his scaremongering, she made a convincing case that the interests of Scotland largely coincide with the interests of the rest of the UK.
I will vote SNP because I’m pro-Independence, or more precisely, anti-Westminster. However, even if the SNP didn’t already have my vote, I think she would have won me over with that interview. She was magnificent!
Fred : rant … swear …. etc ….
So I’m not allowed to point out when you’re talking shite now, Fred?
“So I’m not allowed to point out when you’re talking shite now, Fred?”
I said fuck off and die retard.
NATO may not want to die, but why are its members unwilling to let it die? In the past, alliances did die. The Holy Alliance died. The Dreikaiserbund died. The Triple Alliance and Triple Entente died. The Warsaw Pact died.
What’s so special about NATO?
It’s easy to be persuasive when you say things that you believe, and your opponents spout nonsense that they do not believe.
“Fred : rant … swear …. etc ….”
“So I’m not allowed to point out when you’re talking shite now, Fred?”
_______________________
Node yes I watched Nicola Sturgeon’s interview,I agree she was done to earth and straightforward answering questions other party politicians would’ve dodged.
As for Fred,don’t waste your time, he’s full of anger which he seems to be having difficulty dealing with,maybe he has underlying issues,it would explain a lot.
“Whats so special about NATO?”
It depends on whose ox is being gored. Natural selection is the accepted process but human intervention on near extinct species is emotion-based. Some bureaucracies are more equal than others.
“As for Fred,don’t waste your time, he’s full of anger which he seems to be having difficulty dealing with,maybe he has underlying issues,it would explain a lot.”
I said fuck off and die retard.
“It’s easy to be persuasive when you say things that you believe, and your opponents spout nonsense that they do not believe.”
So true, so true. If only the trolls were around to read it. They would see where they are going wrong!
“I said fuck off and die retard”
Yawn.
How about you take responsibility for your posts instead of going nuclear every time someone questions you? Since the referendum campaign, you have been repeatedly challenged for misquoting reports, linking to fraudulent documents and lying. When you’ve been pulled up about it, the only defence you’ve offered is that others do it too. Pathetic. You claim to only flame people when they attack you personally. Nonsense. You use it as a get-out clause so you don’t have to justify your increasingly desperate lies and smears.
Your hatred of the SNP doesn’t bother me, that’s your business. I do have a problem when you try to deliberately mislead me – you’re wasting my time and that gives me the right to challenge you over it. If you want respect, don’t make ridiculous claims. If you really believe your claims, then justify them when challenged. If you want to be laughed at, carry on claiming the SNP celebrate Hitler’s birthday and swear at anyone who disagrees with you
Komodo
27 Apr, 2015 – 12:49 pm
Best heads-up for a while – shame nobody can see the coffers for the coins. Infinite growth is impossible. The banks burn. The enlightened take to the streets followed by the sheeple.
Probably in my life-time.
“Yawn.”
Fuck off and die fucking retard cunt.
snigger
“snigger”
Cunt.
As this thread seems to have died the death, no apologies for this…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOa7uO6L_uA
Some very silly bikes there.
Err.. Clark, and others who have held on to their sanity. Yes you interpreted my post correctly – I was trying to tell a story of what I saw myself and what I heard first hand from people I am inclined to trust such as close friends and family. I do not deny the existence of nazis in Ukraine, as I do not deny the existence of the same in the UK. I just did not see evidence of them on my trip, or that they are in any way in charge and I thought it would be a useful thing to report. And yes this was not a total surprise to me – I have been in regular contact with friends and family in Ukraine. It is of course possible that there is a vast conspiracy that is skillfully hidden from view, causing me and my friends and family to perceive a mass movement that is not really there.. Oh my God I get it – nothing is true and everything is possible 🙂
Including coups d’etats by 300 well trained orange revolutionaries. You can believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast, if you try.
Over and out,
Evgueni (whose English grammar is suspiciously good!)
Evgueni, thanks. It would encourage me if the commenters discussing this would return here and ask you some questions about your experiences and reports from your friends and family, but I expect that they will be more eager to project their description of the Ukraine situation in the limelight of whichever is currently the most recent thread. But I have a question myself. You wrote:
Please expand upon this, with examples, if you can and are willing.
Clark, glad I returned, with an example ready as it happens. I had spotted John Goss’s post of 27 Apr, 2015 – 7:35 pm in which he refers to the ‘eyewitness account’ by a Ukrainian woman of a child being crucified in Slaviansk by Ukrainian soldiers on the day that the Ukrainian Army arrived there. John Goss considers this to be credible, which demonstrates amply just how prejudiced and gullible and without shame he is. This particular propaganda piece is notorious, so there is no shortage of information online that exposes it as a lie – though everything I have seen is in Russian:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%BF%D1%8F%D1%82%D1%8B%D0%B9+%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B1%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%BA+%D0%B2+%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B2%D1%8F%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B5
Stop Fake have compiled a report in English:
http://www.stopfake.org/en/lies-crucifixion-on-channel-one/
What upset my Russian friend when he visited family in Cheliabinsk was the sheer scale and relentlessness of this continuous demonisation of Ukrainians on Russian TV, constantly referred to as nazis, banderovets, death squad bandits, junta. My friends mentioned also some news reports appearing on Russian TV of cannibalism of babies in the Ukraine. Some links to examples here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/RussianUkrainianWar/comments/2wsfmb/the_hilarity_hysteria_and_madness_of_russian/
The point of all this incredibly crude propaganda? I tend to agree with Nemtsov’s analysis: “They know what they are doing. They do it cynically, in cold blood, with mean spirit. It is a method of mobilising naive and trusting people, sincere people, who believe what they are shown on Russian TV. Is is an opportunity to draw these people in as cannon fodder. Because Pitin considers them to be nothing more than cannon fodder. When they are killed in Luhansk and Donetsk, Putin forgets about them in 2 seconds. If this ‘Goebbels’ kind of propaganda is not stopped then the war in the East Ukraine will never cease.”
(Source https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS8miLfLHbc), translation is mine.
@Evgueni, care to read, care to comment ?
http://thesaker.is/if-this-isnt-fascism-and-a-junta-then-what-is-it/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/28/widespread-use-of-torture-by-ukrainian-army-and-security-services/
@Macky, from your links:
“The coup in Ukraine, which the West shamefully..” – the starting line of the piece. Both presidential elections and Parliamentary elections have taken place in Ukraine since the ousting of Yanukovuich. How is this compatible with fascism and junta? This is a Kafkaesque propaganda piece, are you not able to see it?
“War Crimes of the Armed Forces and Security Forces of Ukraine: Torture and Inhumane Treatment… by Moscow-based Foundation for the Study of Democracy”. You are asking me to take this seriously and to ignore Amnesty International and other agencies that do not share the conclusions of this report. You must be aware that war leads to atrocities, undoubtedly there will be some on both sides. That is the most likely reality.
Here is another report that offers in my mind the most credible explanation for this torrent of Kafkaesque propaganda emanating from Russia:
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press-2015/harsh-laws-and-violence-drive-global-decline#.VUDBeZMXtSB
Quoting from this:
“Among the most troubling trends identified in 2014 was the more active and aggressive use of propaganda — often false or openly threatening — to warp the media environment and crowd out authentic journalism.
This phenomenon was especially pronounced in Russia, where state-controlled national television stations broadcast nonstop campaigns of demonization directed at the internal opposition, neighboring countries whose policies have displeased Moscow, and the broader democratic world. Russian media played a major role in preparing the Russian public for war with Ukraine. As Dmitriy Kiselyov, head of the Kremlin’s international news enterprise, asserted in April 2014, “Information wars have already become standard practice and the main type of warfare. The bombers are now sent in after the information campaign.”
Quoting again, from under the heading The Worst of The Worst:
“Crimea — analyzed separately for the first time in the current edition — and Syria joined the bottom-ranked cohort in 2014. In these settings, independent media are either nonexistent or barely able to operate, the press acts as a mouthpiece for the regime, citizens’ access to unbiased information is severely limited, and dissent is crushed through imprisonment, torture, and other forms of repression. Crimea became subject to Russian press laws after its occupation and annexation in early 2014, and its media faced restrictive regulations and widespread violence. Iran continues to earn its place among the Worst of the Worst as one of the world’s leading jailers of journalists, including Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian, who has been detained without charge since July 2014.”
@Evgueni,
“– the starting line of the piece”
You don’t find the cynical whitewashing description of “the transfer of power” to disguise the appalling bloodshed that was the regime change finale of the Maidan, deeply disgusting ?!
“Both presidential elections and Parliamentary elections have taken place in Ukraine since the ousting”
How can any elections be considered valid when millions chose, or could not, vote: plus any elections held in a country in civil turmoil & unrest cannot be fair & democratic by definition.
Presumably with a straight face, you dismiss the torture report by asserting that it cannot be taken “seriously”, and at the same time offer material from Freedom House as credible! This infamous US CIA linked NGO is not only well known for being Russophobic, not only known for being criticized by academics like Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman as being an instrument of Washington, not only known for being partisan by meddling directly iro Ukraine internal affairs, but even our very own Host discovered how readily they do Washington’s bidding;
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/books/review/McKelvey2-t.html?_r=0
You go on about Russian propaganda in Russia, and “state-controlled national television” inverting the Ukraine narrative, but very few Westerners are influenced by this; instead, afaik, with the exception of our Host, every leading Western commentator from the Left or progressive liberal side, and very many respected & veteran independent reporters & journalists, are all stating that the Russian narrative is indeed the correct narrative as opposed to the reverse image being pumped out by our MSM.
I’m going to be frankly honest with you & say that so far I have found your responses to be very shallow & suspiciously devoid of any serious merit.
@Macky
I struggle to see logic in your post above. Flawed elections are better than none, there is strong a priori evidence that forces loyal to Yanukovich did most of the killing, when the gamble didn’t pay off there was no going back.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/30/exclusive-photographs-expose-russian-trained-killers-in-kiev.html
Russian propaganda is real and monstrous, I can experience it directly so I have no doubt. The most serious criticism levelled at Freedom House is that of bias, not of inverting the truth. Perhaps this source is less objectionable for you:
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/russia-putin-revolutionizing-information-warfare/379880/
They take Bill Gates’ money. Is Bill Gates a ‘russophobe’? Or perhaps you are a victim of Putin’s propaganda machine? The two statements are not mutually exclusive..
Evgueni’s personal testimony:
This seems a remarkably appropriate description of John Goss’ comments, too.
Yet neither Macky nor John Goss have ever mentioned these elections, so far as I remember. Only Resident Dissident, and now Evgueni, have informed me of these.
Macky responded:
1) This argument would only be consistent with the pro-Kremlin media description of Ukraine if the pro-fascist vote had increased. In fact the pro-fascist vote has decreased, indicating that the pro-Kremlin media description of fascist oppression within Ukraine is false.
2) John Goss and Macky do not apply such an argument to the referendum in Crimea, despite nearly universal condemnation of it by other governments.
I’m aware of claims of bias against Freedom House, but by changing just the final word of this section from “journalism” to “comments”:
we get a remarkably good description of the styles of John Goss and Macky when they comment about Ukraine on these threads. Wittingly or unwittingly, John Goss and Macky have been propagandising with very similar style and bias as those alleged of the Kremlin, and so far have not denied that they do so deliberately despite me asking them this directly.
Given that Craig’s diplomatic experience and involvement with Russian-oriented countries, his popularity, and his criticism of the Russian elite make this blog a logical target, it is logically consistent to suspect that John Goss and/or Macky may comment as part of the pro-Kremlin propaganda organisations that are known to be active.
@Evgueni, re the snipers, I guess you have missed both the BBC report that featured an interview with a self-confess Maidan sniper, and also the recent revelation by a Polish MEP, that the Maidan snipers were trained in Poland, and were responsible for killing 20 policemen & 40 demonstrators.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31359021
http://tass.ru/en/world/790717
And this is rather a different impression of the city you say that you recently visited;
http://redstaroverdonbass.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/one-year-after-massacre-odessa-resists_27.html
@Clark, that you didn’t know about these sham elections confirms that you really know next to nothing about subjects that you have the front to try to preach to others about.
That you cannot see that you are in trying to compare these sham elections with the referendum in Crimea, you are really trying to compare stars with star-fish, just highlights your scary irrationality.
The rest of your paranoid clap-trap is frankly, just crap.
Macky, I presented logical arguments about elections and a referendum. You have responded with personally aggressive abuse. In doing so, were following instructions? Please answer.
Please explain how and why elections you claim to be rigged resulted in a drop in support for the parties you claim rigged them. Please answer.
Janusz Korwin-Mikke is a single source who presents no corroborating evidence. What we can say about him with certainty is that he has misrepresented Paet’s words:
http://www.stopfake.org/en/member-of-polish-parliament-lies-about-maidan-snipers/
The Ukrainian doctor Olga Bohomolets who is supposed to have suggested to him that the same people had shot both protesters and police – denied saying this, stating that she had only operated on wounded protesters.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10677370/Ukraine-Russia-crisis-live.html
(Ctrl+f, Olga)
The BBC piece shows that at least two people on the protesters’ side opened fire on 20 Feb. After just 20 minutes, one of these was escorted out of Kiev by protesters’ own security (there is no information about the other one). The article does not offer any certainties other than that for whatever reason there appears to be no active investigation of these claims – corruption being a possible explanation.
The last link you provide is a hate piece. PRB is a fiction – its site is registered in Moscow, is hosted in Russia, contact telephone number is a Moscow mobile. Registered address for PRB does not exist (it is a private dwelling).
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1558113831117909&set=a.1480299365566023.1073741829.100007579217221&type=1&theater