The dreadfully stultified pageantry of the British state has been on full display the last couple of days, all mouldy ermine, fraying gold braid and musty velvet. But forms which evolved as a vibrant display of Imperial might have transmuted into rituals of obeisance, as the nonogenerian Prince Philip stumbles behind the Chinese President along lines of men wearing decaying bears on their heads. The sickness of Britain’s monarchical system was never more bluntly revealed than by the rictus grins of the aristocratic clowns balancing their tiaras at the state banquet.
The Chinese are the imperial masters now. Cameron begs them to build a nuclear power station for which the British state guarantees it will pay double the market price for electricity produced, for twenty years. And a government which has just announced the extension of thought crime to the expression of non-violent or anti-violent thought deemed “extreme”, has no locus to talk about human rights, a concept at least as alien to Teresa May as it is to the Chinese Communist Party. Britain has its own war criminals like Blair and Straw running around, immune and very wealthy.
The British state is an immoral entity which I view with disgust. That is what drives for me the imperative to early Scottish Independence to be rid of it. Every day as a British citizen is like bathing in sewage.
Some would opine that China gets a lot more out of its efforts in Africa than do the African countries themselves.
Oh what colon/ial wisdom, straight out of Habby’s backside. He’s received his Mogadon and Viagra scripts today, so anybody playing beachball on Haifa’s beach, watch out, Habby is going to get active for a few hours kicking the sand.
Not wishing to give Habba the satisfaction, but I don’t think there’s anything contentious about the notion that the African countries receiving most help from China are those with the most valuable mineral resources. But that’s not unique to China. China is on the qui vive for exports, too:
ww.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/09/09/should-you-worry-about-chinas-investments-in-africa/
China’s investment in Africa is much like that of the United States and Europe
BUT
China spends more in corrupt countries, and its aid is more easily diverted for political ends…. The Brookings Institution undertook a review of the Chinese government’s direct investments, and found a negative correlation with the World Bank’s Rule of Law index—which means that China is indeed more willing to invest in corrupt countries than are Western governments…
…official Chinese aid (comparable to OECD aid) disproportionately goes to the region where that country’s political leader was born. That’s not a good sign. Apparently Chinese aid is more likely to be deployed to the leader’s political advantage than is American or European aid.
OTOH, UK aid continues to flow to Rwanda, while Belgium. whose opinion of Kagame is a little lower than Hague’s or Blair’s (see pic), pulled its 40 M Euro last year:
http://www.anngarrison.com/audio/2014/12/21/545/belgium-cuts-40-million-euro-in-aid-to-rwanda
There probably isn’t a moral high ground.
What’s going on here? Grill Watson over his Lawson allegation, but not Zac Goldsmith?
Can’t possibly be a party thing. Lol.
http://myinforms.com/en/a/17935355-mps-committee-rejects-calls-to-question-zac-goldsmith-over-leon-brittan-claims/
Sorry, Brittan, not Lawson. Got my creeps confused.
“When lithium batteries die, they’re still worth £1,738 a tonne scrap. ”
I accept your offer, when can you collect?
Mary
You couldn’t make it up..too twisted… Cameron wearing a red poppy to remember the dead whilst on a visit to Saudi Arabia.. To sell the brutal dictatorship yet more weapons to create more war dead. Or in the case of Yemen, more Genocide.
Get your White peace Poppy here –
http://stopwar.org.uk/index.php/resources/white-poppy
In the meantime, Vlad the Kremlin Giza hit 90% public approval rating according to one of the Russia’s largest poll agencies. Few more % and he will be amongst God like leaders similar to Karimov, late Ceausescu and other famous gizzas.
Ba’al Zevul
Can you name me one “moral high” government when it comes to Africa? It has been used and abused for millennia’s, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Whites, now Chinese. Rich in minerals and wild life and poor in everything else, some call in African curse.
“Reminder. The last DEFENSIVE war was WWII 1939-45. All subsequent wars waged by this ‘country’ have been offensive and invasive.”
_______________
Korea?
I accept your offer, when can you collect?
Don’t be too hasty, Fred. I was talking about lithium in batteries, not your prescription.
Can you name me one “moral high” government when it comes to Africa?
No, and the indigenous governments are for the most part highly immoral too. As I said there’s no moral high ground currently.
OTOH, you could say much the same about Europe as regards successive waves of exploiters.
Thanks for that link Brian. The propaganda will be endless. It is only the 22nd October. Remembrance Sunday is on November 8th.
The BBC tell us how a poppy is made. Infantile stuff. But the people must be informed of such things.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34600863
No mention of the opium poppy culture we left behind, stronger than ever, in Afghanistan.
But they do have as the lead item on their ME page the accidental killing of an Israeli by a member of the IDF.
‘Israeli soldier kills Jewish civilian in identity mishap
An Israeli soldier has killed a Jewish Israeli civilian in Jerusalem after each confronted the other thinking they were an Arab attacker, reports say.
The man was shot after trying to grab the soldier’s gun during a scuffle, local media say.’
[..]
‘It is the latest case of mistaken identity amid the current security alert which has seen innocent civilians wounded or killed.
Earlier this week, a 19-year-old Eritrean migrant died after being mistaken for a gunman and then shot and beaten by passers-by at the time of an attack at a bus station in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba.
Last week, a Jewish Israeli stabbed and wounded another Jewish Israeli in an apparent revenge attack, in Haifa, northern Israel.
Eight Israelis have been killed and dozens wounded in attacks by Palestinians and an Israeli Arab since the start of this month. More than 40 Palestinians, including several of the attackers, have also been killed in the spiralling violence.
The upsurge began last month when tensions at a flashpoint holy site in Jerusalem revered by Jews and Muslims boiled over amid rumours Israel planned to relax long-standing rules to strengthen Jewish rights at the complex. Israel has repeatedly denied such claims.’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34602287
Mary
BTW, why the inverted commas around ‘country’ when referring to the UK?
If you meant to suggest that the UK is not a country (using the word in its usual sense) then you might be getting mixed up with ‘Palestine’?
*************
On the other hand, the State of Israel is very much a country, I think you’d agree.
Mary
“Thanks for that link Brian. The propaganda will be endless. It is only the 22nd October. Remembrance Sunday is on November 8th.”
________________
There are only 18 days between now and 8 November (Remembrance Sunday).
Hardly “endless” I should have said.
******************
Are you having a problem finding the right words today? Habbabkuk’s tip: reflect more, post less. Less is better.
One of Seumas Milne’s jobs will be to neutralize the attacks on what Jeremy Corbyn’s wears. The corporate media were comparing him to the butler in Downton Abbey at that banquet for lack of anything more important they could have reported.
Jeremy Corbyn’s choice of Comms Chief should delight his supporters and terrify his enemies
October 21st, 2015
http://www.thecanary.co/2015/10/21/jeremy-corbyns-choice-for-head-of-communications-should-delight-his-supporters-and-terrify-his-enemies/
Milne is compared to Cameron.
‘But the purposes to which both men put their privilege stand in stark contrast.
Milne went on to write for the Economist and the Guardian. He authored ‘The Enemy Within: The Secret War Against the Miners’ in which he excoriated the treatment of working British miners by the Thatcher government and railed against the harms caused by neoliberal economic policy. Tony Benn (another man who came from privilege but put it to use helping make Britain more equal) wrote at the time:
“Until Seumas Milne published this book, no one could have known the full extent of the treachery, deception and crude skulduggery that was practised by the establishment in its determination to secure the victory that it won…Seumas Milne has written a major work…He has told us how Britain is really governed.”
Naomi Klein called it “the best book on the Thatcher era” and John Pilger considers it “The most important exposé of contemporary political Britain I have read.”’
Mary
“The BBC tell us how a poppy is made. Infantile stuff. But the people must be informed of such things.”
_____________________
Think this one through, Mary.
If people know how to make their own poppies they won’t have to buy them from the evil, fascist, war-glorifying British Legion, will they.
And that, surely, would make you happy for a couple of minutes.
I shall buy two poppies, one for each lapel. And of course attend a Remembrance Sunday service and parade to express, in an inadequate way, my gratitude to those who died so that I may be free.
**********************
(Habbabreak off) – I see Mary is continuing to jump on my comments.
FYI, Mary, the opium poppy is a different species, Papaver somniferum to the common field poppy Papaver rhoeas on which the Remembrance poppy is modelled. And I am quite sure Afghanistan will get a mention as we have lost 456 service personnel there to date.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10629358
The futility of the war only enhances the need for remembering those who had to prosecute it.
(Habbabreak on)
For the media in this ‘country’ read ‘Amerika’.
Corporate Media Won’t Tell you Hillary Clinton is a Lying Fascist
Jack Balkwill / October 22nd, 2015
http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/10/corporate-media-wont-tell-you-hillary-clinton-is-a-lying-fascist/
I like the first lie – that she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary, famous for being the first to climb Mt Everest, when she was born six years before he was heard of. Silly woman.
It is a depressing read. The thought that she might succeed Obomber is awful. Remember ‘We came. We saw. He died.’ A hagwitch.
@ Mary.
I find the Hillary ‘phenomenon’ most odd. It appears that actual feminist writers support her, for basically no reason at all. Even the fact she’s female isn’t a reason, to any intelligent person. Clinton is about as likely to break the patriarcal status-quo as her husband, the rapist. Surely an actual feminist knows this, much better than I do?
I concede, I’m not well-read in feminism, and it’s not my area. But I’d be really intrigued to understand how a feminist could possibly vote for weird neocon Clinton. Maybe none of them actually do? The MSM is hardly representative …
@Tony O
Thank you for the nugget re. Anthony John Hill. It seems people like him (those that are capable of critical thinking and aware that the PTB do arrange false flags for their own agendas), are the real target of Cameron’s NVE legislation. I never thought that I would live to see the day where freedom of thought and expression would become outlawed in the U.K. The fact that Hill was in the same prison as Assange, and the MSM was blanketing Wikileaks in coverage while ignoring Hill’s case is curious to say the least. I have been troubled for some time about the coverage Assange receives given the acknowledged power wielded by the U.K. intelligence establishment over the press. The glimmer of hope remains with the British people as the old Anglo-Saxon institution of the jury did see justice done in Hill’s case.
“Don’t be too hasty, Fred. I was talking about lithium in batteries, not your prescription.”
OK, lithium ion batteries, real ones in the real world.
When I say lead acid batteries are worth £380 a tonne what I mean is that I can load a tonne of batteries onto my van, drive ten miles up the road to the scrap dealer and he will take 38 crisp ten pound notes out of his wallet and give them to me.
So how would you go about turning your tonne of lithium batteries into real world money?
as red poppies will be soon widely available
and white poppies will presumably be photoshopped onto Corbyn whether he actually wears one or not,
couldn’t the opposing sides just settle on a nice LGBT friendly (anti-Putin) PINK POPPY
(more background here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_poppy)
Ba’al
Jumping on your comments?? Seriously?? I would not want one of your poisonous bites would I so I just scroll on by your comments?
As I have said before – Get off my back!
Dear Mr Golding,
Thank you very much for supporting our policy on Syria. Please rest assured that our military involvement is aimed solely at suppressing terrorist activity in that country. The task of countering the global threat emanating from the “Islamic State” and other extremist groups requires genuinely collective efforts. In this regard, a helpful approach from the British Government would be much appreciated.
Our main goal in Syria remains the same, namely to promote a political settlement through an extensive intra-Syrian dialogue. Russia firmly believes that that is the only way to remove the causes of the systemic internal crisis in the country, to provide long-term stability, facilitate urgent political reforms and guarantee a peaceful future for Syria.
Kind regards,
Foreign Policy Team
Russian Embassy in London
“Corporate Media Won’t Tell you Hillary Clinton is a Lying Fascist”
Strangely, the article makes no mention of all those classified US military documents, traces of which were found on Hillary’s computer after she had hastily deleted them. Patriotic Americans may wonder whether there is any connection between this and the fact that Russia for instance is able routinely to disable US military surveillance and tracking systems.
Democracy = Shamocracy = Scamocracy = Corporatocracy but the gullible and naive are still taken in.
Sinn Fein MEP Matt Carthy tries to find out what the EU negotiators don’t want the hoi polloi to know about the TTIP trade deal:
So how would you go about turning your tonne of lithium batteries into real world money?
Phone round the scrappies and tell them I’ll sell to the first one who offers me a grand. They’ll come and collect it for a £700-odd profit and I’ll still make three times more than you.
nat an yahoo has been giving a speech, in which he says Hitler did not want to exterminate/burn the Jews. He maintains Hitler wanted to expel the Jews from Germany!
Is this H denial? (In more than one level)
In the same speech he adds it was the mufti of Jerusalem who told Hitler not to expel the Jews from Germany because there would be too many Jews in Palestine!!!
So the Mufti chap suggested Hitler burn all the Jews!
Revision of history nat fashion.
Netanyahu: Hitler Didn’t Want to Exterminate the Jews
Dear Mr (redacted),
Thank you very much for supporting our policy on Syria. Please rest assured that our military involvement is aimed solely at suppressing terrorist activity in that country.
They send that to all the Hartlepool casuals….
“Phone round the scrappies and tell them I’ll sell to the first one who offers me a grand. They’ll come and collect it for a £700-odd profit and I’ll still make three times more than you.”
Here we come to the crux of the matter, trying to discus real world issues with fantasists who create their own fantasy world as they go along.
So when you got tired of listening to scrappies laughing at you down the phone what would you do then?
In the real world someone who uses lead acid batteries as storage for their solar/wind system has a saleable asset when they reach the end of their useful life. Someone who uses lithium ion is left with a liability. No scrap yard in Britain buys lithium ion batteries from the general public.