I was called a traitor by a Conservative MEP in a committee meeting of the European Parliament to which I was giving eyewitness evidence on the UK’s complicity in torture and extraordinary rendition. Doubtless that is recorded in the minutes of the meeting, which means I am marked down on a forest of European Parliament paper as a traitor in each of the European Union’s 24 official languages.
Nobody turned a hair, least of all me. There were some giggles as the Tory MEP immediately walked out of the meeting, which was viewed as childish. But nobody thought of it as way outside the normal levels of political discourse. Indeed it was quite mild by European parliamentary standards. It is, of course, perfectly true that I used to represent the United Kingdom and now it is my dearest wish to destroy it as an institution. It is therefore arguable that I am technically a traitor. I am not scared of names.
My Scottish readers will have realised that this disquisition on treachery is a reference to the Labour Party’s published dossier of evil cybernats. The majority of those cited qualified as evil because of use of the word traitor. I am devastated I did not get included. I am unsure that my ego will ever recover.
It seems to me that, in an argument which revolves around what constitutes a nation, the idea of treachery to the nation is one that logically is bound to intrude, on all sides. Indeed it can be shown to intrude into the entire discourse around unionism and nationalism over centuries. I have used the term myself.
It seems to me context is important. There is a legitimate discourse on whether treachery to either the United Kingdom or to Scotland is involved in the independence conundrum. To make plain that some consider a position or act as traitorous has a place in robust political debate. I deplore the idea that politics must be reduced to genteel commonplaces over tiny areas of disagreement. Passion is important. But to imply violent retribution is different, and comes under bullying and threat.
“Traitor” should not be shunned like a racist epithet. It carries a meaning which is important.
@Glenn_uk
2 Jul, 2015 – 10:33 pm
I won’t go into details; suffice to say that Amazon have completely strangled the market for both authors and readers.
Many authors now put their books out in a wide variety of stores, including Apple, Barnes & Noble and Sony Reader Store, amongst others.
If you don’t want to buy it on Amazon, chances are you’ll find the title somewhere else.
[ Mod: If you want to bicker, please do it away from the front page. ]
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/06/some-rules-for-comment-moderation/
Nice goal-post transfer, Tech. My lack of support was evidenced by my voting and my campaign of email and phone-calls to elected reps.
Now back to the point….you aren’t Israeli, rather a UK citizen, but you haven’t revealed the source of your favour toward Israeli opportunism.
What axe do you grind?
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/07/wha-wad-be-a-traitor-knave/comment-page-2/#comment-536968
I didn’t start the bickering. It was always burning while the world was turning.
Mod: in what way is this bickering? People here are slating all ‘Israelis’ when their own governments are guilty of not only aiding and abetting the Israeli government’s crimes, but of having governments whose crimes are equally as appalling. How is it ‘bickering’ to ask how, before demonising the people of an entire nation, they feel they are able to take the moral high ground? By asking what they did in their own countries to stop the murder of hundreds of thousands of people in their name? These are surely relevant questions, not ‘bickering’.
” My lack of support was evidenced by my voting and my campaign of email and phone-calls to elected reps.”
So your question of what Israeli people are prepared to ‘sacrifice’ to stop mass murder would be happily answered by the question ‘a small amount of time and some phone bills’.
“Favour towards Israeli opportunism” – you are just kidding. “Opportunism” it is not. Torture and terror it is.
“‘a small amount of time and some phone bills’.”
Heh. If they, en masse, repudiated the fascism of their betters, the message would be heard. They are freaking politicians who focus on numbers and the numbers against the war in Iraq were small, just as in Israel. Now if you want to expunge the minority who oppose fascism from accountability, then you have something of a case. Otherwise, you are off base and biased toward the meager minority.
What axe do you grind?
@Ben, if you want a (semi-)level playing field best take it to the Moderation Rules Thread.
“the numbers against the war in Iraq were small”
It was an attack on Iraq, not a war, and no they were not small. In the UK and around the world, they were in the majority. Of course, in the US, you had Fox News.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_on_the_Iraq_War
” However, in the United States there was greater support for the war with a majority of 69% of people believing that the war was being handled well by George W. Bush and his administration, as opposed to in the later half of the 2000s with 54% of people in the United States believing in 2008 that it was the wrong decision to go to war up 32% since a poll in 2003.[1][2]
”
Yes. I am an American, not a Brit.
“at the end of February, the figures were 24% support, 67% oppose,”
https://www.ipsos-mori.com/newsevents/ca/287/Iraq-The-Last-PreWar-Polls.aspx
By cracking my way through the GSM network I have accessed the metal strip on the battery of John Goss’s mobile ‘phone and retrieved personal data that reveals him to be linguistically aggressive and hopelessly credulous. I would now like to remotely modify his cellphone so it bursts into flames next time he tries to charge it but I can’t, because he hasn’t followed his own advice of removing the safety temperature cut-out from his battery.
Fool. Read Snowden, for goodness sake. Listen to an Applebaum lecture. Read Schneier’s security blog. Removing that metal strip won’t make the blindest bit of difference to your private data, but it will make your ‘phone a fire risk. Laws were passed forcing the ‘phone companies to retain, and on demand reveal, records of all your communications – Five Eyes operatives can infiltrate software into your ‘phone to remotely activate the microphone and the camera. These are matters of public record. If you want to fall for disinformation remove that metal strip and then act like you’re safe from surveillance, but please remember put your ‘phone in the kitchen sink when you charge it.
Technicolour, good luck with the fact-free volumes within these talking heads. When people want a conflict and have picked their side, facts and evidence are a very minor consideration.
So, you aren’t going to address the inconsistency, Clark?
Ben, you’re tilting at windmills. Tech supports peace movements everywhere – no matter which “side”. Don’t you? It seems the only sensible approach to me. “Sides” are for governments and combatants. Peace is for people.
‘Tech supports peace movements, EVERYWHERE’
Yes. I’ve heard the spiel. The problem is peace movements are unbalanced by the powers who give permission to peace movements they prefer. The pry-bar transcends the limpness of peace movements in Israel.
An interesting fact from Glenn_UK:
“Not content with knowing which e-books you’ve bought, how fast you go through them, how many you’ve got and so on, this device will also notice how long you might linger on a particular passage, or your bookmarking habits. It’s effectively having that invisible hand (not of the market, just of some ghastly corporate entity) watching over your shoulder the entire time, noting every action.”
___________________
In the light of the above, Glenn, I wonder if you would agree with me that it is curious that a certain poster, who has told us he doesn’t have a cell phone because he doesn’t want to be spied on by having his movements tracked, should be such a fan of the Kindle? Cold there be a strange inconsistency there, I wonder?
BTW; Clark. You still haven’t reconciled your opinion on Squonk with that expressed here.
“Ben, you’re tilting at windmills.”
__________________
The mystery of Ben’s identity solved: he is of Mexican origin, family name Quixote.
Spanish, maroon. And I’m more like Sancho.
“By cracking my way through the GSM network I have accessed the metal strip on the battery of John Goss’s mobile ‘phone and retrieved personal data that reveals him to be linguistically aggressive and hopelessly credulous. I would now like to remotely modify his cellphone so it bursts into flames next time he tries to charge it but I can’t, because he hasn’t followed his own advice of removing the safety temperature cut-out from his battery.”
Most droll 🙂
But would it actually make sense to retain all that personal data on a magnetic strip on a mobile? It must be pretty awkward for spooks to sneak everyone’s mobile off them, examine that little strip, then sneak it back again without the owner noticing.
They must need to do this with great regularity too, since data needs to be collected virtually all the time.
So we have this secret strip, with all that data. And the telephone company is charged with getting and keeping that data… huh. If only there were some way to get all this data (on the mobile) transmitted somehow – ideally in a wireless fashion – to the telephone company, instead of having to be retained on that little metal strip.
Let’s just hope the secret services/ telephone companies never come up with a solution to this seemingly impossible problem!
Habbabkuk, have you read of the retroactive deletion of Orwell’s 1984 from Amazon Kindles? Delicious irony!
Clark; I am somewhat disappointed in your lack of response. I hope we can remain friends.
Habbabkuk: “In the light of the above, Glenn, I wonder if you would agree with me that it is curious that a certain poster, who has told us he doesn’t have a cell phone because he doesn’t want to be spied on by having his movements tracked, should be such a fan of the Kindle? Cold there be a strange inconsistency there, I wonder?”
I should say so. I’m not sure who you’re referring to (having not read every comment, some of which appear to have gone anyway), but perhaps they haven’t considered it. If you don’t want BB (Big Brother, or Big Business – as you’d prefer) knowing everything about your reading habits (including notes you might electronically put in the virtual margin), you would do well to avoid the Kindle and its ilk.
https://www.adbusters.org/blogs/blackspot_blog/melt_your_kindle.html
Ben, sorry, what discrepancy are you referring to?
What a simplistic line of argument?
Clark you are getting worse mate.
This site is infested with the shills for zionistan (just take a look at the unconscious drivel plastered around and the sites and the frequencies of said unconscious drivel injected into various threads), as is the case with any site that has a sizable readership. The total immorality of this mode of conduct aside, the most damaging results are the “apparent” opinions “prevalent”, that are fed to the simpletons elected as “it does play in Peoria”. this in turn provides the fig leaf for the continuation of the current endless wars and conflicts.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/07/wha-wad-be-a-traitor-knave/comment-page-2/#comment-536909
THE MEDIA, Clark. The Media….
“” “By the way, to break a blockade is illegal under international law.
Are you saying that it was illegal for the U.S., before it entered either of the two world wars, to send shipping to Britain (and France and Russia)?””
________________________
Lysias feigns ignorance of where the above quotation came from by exclaiming “Ah, so it was on Mondoweiss” (this after saying “I think that by saying nothing I will increase the probability that readers here will take a look at Mondoweiss”).
And disclaims authorship, thus: “If something was said on Mondoweiss (I assume by someone calling himself “Lysias”)…”.
So there are two Lysiases, bith blogging away busily. We are truly blessed.
Habbabkuk will make a prediction, based on the fact that the Mondoweiss blog (conveniently) only seems to carry the last 100 posts made and, therefore, evidence of posting soon disappears from the screen : we shall not be seeing any more posts signed Lysias on Mondoweiss for a while. 🙂
Ben, I don’t know anything about the Israeli Democracy Institute. Multiple polls by multiple organisations show half or more people all over the world as being in favour of peace in their own vicinity – which is exactly what we would expect, since peace is far more pleasant than war.
Polls also consistently show that when a country is engaged in war, and especially when conflict has just begun or has been escalated, more of that country’s people will support it than when polled at other times – this, too is unsurprising.
Most money-making media tends to spin for conflict. Conflict sells news media which in turn boosts advertising revenue; no surprises there, either.
Habba, you don’t seem to want to comment on my present analysis of the Middle East (7.08pm). Instead we’ve been subjected to poetry, polemics and pish.
We’re coming to get you, old chap, along with all your fellow psychos in MI-we’re-all-loons Dot Com.
You and your kind are traitors and an utter disgrace to my country.