I am an unrepentant enthusiast for the European Union, indeed a European Federalist. I think the freedoms of movement of people and goods within the EU are the most profound political achievement of my lifetime, and have made the world a very much better place.
I am therefore flabbergasted by the group of unpleasant elitist bastards who apparently will lead the pro-EU campaign for the referendum. How could anybody wishing to win a vote believe that a Board including Peter Mandelson and Danny Alexander is going to help? While the appointment of Lord Rose seems to confirm belief in the “Michelle Mone theory”, that selling knickers grants universal expertise.
Most egregious of all, the Executive Director is Will Straw, whose main qualification is that his father is a war criminal. Founder of the rabid anti-Corbyn website Left Foot Forward and every bit as Atlanticist as Liam Fox, Will Straw is as insanely pro-United States hegemony and as ultra-Zionist as only an extreme Blairite can be. He really is a deeply unappealing figure.
I have no doubt they will be flooded with corporate money. But what I want to know is this. If this referendum is supposed to be a democratic exercise, where every citizen is equal, what grants this self-serving sample of the metropolitan elite the right to nominate themselves as the In campaign? I don’t see how any decent person can have anything to do with them. Having had a lot of respect for Caroline Lucas, I must say if she really is going to work alongside Will Straw then my respect for her is going to plummet.
Danny Cohen is leaving his £327,000 job at the BBC after 8 years. He needs a new challenge.
Whither next Danny?
‘In August, he admitted that the BBC could not compete with the finances of Netflix, which meant the streaming service turned down the corporation’s offer to co-produce new royal drama The Crown.
The Guardian has reported he is “considering offers from both UK and US companies”.’
BBC’s director of television Danny Cohen stands down
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-34514707
“Consider what this strategy means for civilians on the ground, especially refugees that the international community is already underfunding.
Even crazier, though, is that the US believed we could prevent our Saudi allies from pressing their advantage.
“A primary driving factor in Russia’s calculus was the realization that the Assad regime was militarily weakening and in danger of losing territory in northwestern Syria. The TOWs played an outsize role in that,” said Oubai Shahbandar, a Dubai-based consultant who used to work with the Syrian opposition.
“I think even the Americans were surprised at how successful they’ve been,” he added.
[snip]
But the TOW missile program is already in progress, and all the indications are that it will continue. Saudi Arabia, the chief supplier, has pledged a “military” response to the Russian incursion, and rebel commanders say they have been assured more will arrive imminently.
In any case, our “strategy” in Syria seemed to misunderstand both our Saudi allies and Assad, not to mention Russia’s, intent (unless they intent was to expand the proxy war beyond Ukraine). As well as the consequences.”
https://www.emptywheel.net/
Oh. By the way. A Russian missile has been finalized as the cause of MH17 according to those in the know.. 🙂
This isn’t about learning, Ken2, it is about power. The powers involved could not give a damn about the people being massacred. These people are in the way, that’s all. They will go on doing what they are doing till they get what they want.
Fred @10.40.
The “Dutch” report is worthless. It ought to be called the Kiev Regime report because everything in it had to be approved by the Kiev entity.
John Helmer-http://johnhelmer.net/?p=14270- is the best source for investigations into this event.
In the meantime perhaps you can tell us what possible motives the Donbas people or anyone siding with them would have for shooting down this airliner?
In fact the Ukrainian crisis is a very good example of the EU’s corruption.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/13/the-eu-has-lost-the-plot-in-ukraine/
The EU is an institution which has changed greatly since the days of the EEC. But, such is the human condition, thinking about ‘Europe’ in the UK has been ossified. People see ‘Europe’, despite its actions as, if nothing else, better than the Tory Establishment or the Atlanticist fans of American Empire, who as Old Mark points out are themselves EU supporters.
Those who see the EU as an alternative to submission to the Empire need to give their heads a shake: it is another way of submitting to Washington. Just as the euro is not an alternative to the dollar but a buttress to the Wall St system.
The arguments in favour of the EU generally resolve themselves-in a characteristically Benthamite way- into the ‘pragmatic’ choice of benevolent despotism over democracy. Underlying this is a fear of populism, often derived from the canard that the Nazis came to power by popular demand rather than through a series of brutal coups managed by the military and economic establishment, and a snobbish over valuation of European ways, mores and styles. The EU elites (if one can call the shower of slime to whom Craig refers as an elite) are not concerned at the institution’s lack of democracy because- as the Corbyn experience has shown- once the people get a choice the status quo (which makes the Straws part of an elite) becomes very shaky.
The record is clear enough: whenever the electorate gets a chance, as in the French, Dutch and Irish referenda, it rejects Brussels rule. And Brussels, as the Greeks can attest, not only ignores popular censure but denounces the electorate for its stupidity and irrationality.
Brecht spoke of the GDR’s government passing a motion of non-confidence in the people. In Brussels it happens regularly- the elites ruling the EU no more believe in democracy than the Hapsburgs or the Honhenzollerns did. And they have none of the saving graces of those unlamented dynasties.
The question EU enthusiasts ought to be asked is how they believe that democracy can be brought to the EU? What we know is that, over a period of about half a century the Commission has become more corrupt, less amenable to public opinion, more dictatorial. And ever more obviously the civilian face of NATO.
Nor is it coincidence that, during the same period, the democratic and social democratic parties across Europe have been hollowed out, their democratic elements have rotted away, and their leaderships have increasingly become incorporated into an Establishment dominated by employers and financiers.
Noteworthy that he has this tweet from Stand With Us on his Twitter.
https://twitter.com/StandWithUs/status/653623715570147328
StandWithUs
@StandWithUs
International Israel education & advocacy organization
( http://www.standwithus.com/ ) standwithus.com
Keep up the great work Mary.
Always a joy to see how you deal with the resident Zionist bully.
This is getting complicated
http://www.moonofalabama.org/
“Is there now really coordination between Russia and the U.S. to seal the Syrian-Turkish border witch would cut off the Islamic State but also the al-Qaeda “CIA rebels” from their supplies? This would destroy all Turkish plans for Syria: a “safe zone” in Syria under Turkman control, a Sunni ruled pipeline corridor from Qatar to Europe, the Turkish-Ottoman annexation of Aleppo. Turkey would be pushed back into a secondary role.
Do Russia and the U.S. now really make common cause and decided to screw Erdogan? This would make sense if the destruction of the Islamic State and all other terrorists in Syria is the common aim. That would be a change in the Obama administration’s policy. Up to now it only helped the “salafist principality” to grow and never seriously attacked it.
And if there is such cooperation why does the U.S still deliver thousands of TOWs to al-Qaeda which only kill more Syrians and prolong the fighting?
Gut reaction – there are such rogues on both sides I can’t tell which is worse
Sugar. Not Lord Sugar but sugar.
Head of Public Health England to be hauled before MPs
By Michelle Roberts
Health editor, BBC News online
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-34514350
Hunt should be facing the music. He has squelched the matter and now the buck is being passed.
Jeremy Hunt accused of suppressing evidence on benefits of ‘sugar tax’
Health select committee chair questioned whether political pressure had been applied to Hunt to prevent the release of important documents
11 October 2015
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/oct/11/jeremy-hunt-accused-suppressing-benefits-sugar-tax
Remember the sting on Straw, lobbying on behalf of E D & F Man to get raw sugar cane into the Ukraine, have it refined there and then export it?
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/02/23/uk-britain-politics-commodities-idUKKBN0LR1JP20150223
It is a powerful lobby group
Politicians should stand up to the sugar lobby
Observer editorial
12 January 2014
The food and drinks industries need swift and competent regulation
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/12/observer-editorial-campaign-against-sugar
It’s been the CIA that’s been delivering the TOWs to the Syrian rebels. The CIA often has an independent policy. http://jfkfacts.org/assassination/review/french-leader-charles-de-gaulle-thought-he-was-targetted-by-the-cia/
Kind of you to say that MerkinScot. No emissions so far from them or their supporters nocturnally! You would think it was their blog and that they are the moderators.
I am watching the debate on Theresa May’s draconian Immigration Bill. She is intending to appoint landlords as unpaid Border Agency operatives amongst other proposals. She is completely divisive. Sir Gerald Kaufman had just made a moving contribution. He said his parents would not have been allowed to come to this country (which he loves)if this sort of legislation had been in place at the time.
Many of the new entry of Conservatives, anxious to score Brownie points, are repellent in their racism.
““De Gaulle acknowledged that JFK himself was not behind the French officers’ rebellion, but the incident made it clear to both leaders something equally ominous: Kennedy was not in charge of his own government.”
The die was cast in 1947 with the National Security Act. Since then, POTUS is nearly an honorary position with little real power, except WAR POWERS. Natch!
The EU supports the poorer member States. The large richer countries support the poorer. A redistribution.
Support in this instance meaning lending them unrealistic amounts of money (which don’t find their way to the poorest citizens, unsurprisingly) under terms which mean that the poorest citizens suffer if their irresponsible governments default.
Meanwhile further redistribution occurs when migrant labour from the poorer countries is enabled to undercut basic wage levels in the richer ones, enabling the rich shareholders in the companies that employ them to add to their profits. While the poorer workers in the richer countries happily embrace the lowered wages, zero-hours contracts and part-time work that result. Whistle-while-you-work time!
In any event, with a debt of £1.5 trillion giving us an annual deficit of £25 billion, what unlimited riches we own!
The majority of States agree with that proposition.
It sure sanitises the labyrinthine depths of corruption, greed and mismanagement to which the EU is regrettably prone. And it conveniently concurs in the economic model which regards people as subordinate to a Greater Being living offshore with Its hedge fund.
Only a minority, the Elitists (tax evaders) in the UK want out.
That sort of statement requires confirmation, preferably by independent statistics.
I am quite certain you will find as many tax evaders want In as Out. With (eg) Mandelson, Blair and Stuart Rose on side, the In camp is hardly lacking in elite members, either.
I doubt if 4 million very ordinary UKIP supporters, some of whom almost certainly paid their taxes, will be switching to In. We shall see, if anyone is still awake come the referendum.
Other countries are waiting to join.
Naturally, it looks like a free lunch. Those lucky countries supplying a buffer zone between Russia and Europe may well make it. The EU will continue to reject Turkey because it is (a) too Muslim and (b) not quite as fond of human rights abuses as our noble ally Saudi Arabia, but still somewhat dodgy. I think it’s given up trying, anyway.
Improbable headline: SPANISH-built Tigra car in Woolwich smash. Diversions in place.
Suggested by their historical evolution and present day further convergence, the EU and NATO are synonomous, seamless parts of the same plan for subduing, controlling and exploiting Europe, devised mainly in the US and possibly the UK, but you cannot underestimate the contempt post-war US elites held for the UK or as they quaintly call it ‘England’. The governments of the ‘core’ countries of the EU as it now is, compelled with threat of diverse unpleasant consequences, the dreaded black spot, for a non-co-operative unenthusiastic embrace of both organisations. Coal and Steel being the initial concerns almost exclusively in the economic sphere, are coincidentally the ingredients for much heavy industrial uses, but particularly for arms manufacture, and NATO rather than servile nations’ forces being the customer and customers are ‘always right’. Then we can say NATO and the EU are one and the same in intent, in aims and in policy, operating at the macro level, one for the control of the economic sphere, another for the military, with much overlap and with the militaristic fascistic NATO very much the senior partner. Two cheeks of the same lardy US backside. Twin lures, a second string to their bow, a failsafe double lock on Europe. When the going gets tough, play the old good EU bad NATO routine.
General Gaulle never got over or forgave the sinking of the greater part of the French fleet in North Africa by Churchill, and despite having spent his war entirely in a bunker in London, threw a tantrum when he wasn’t going to be allowed to lead a ragtag French army at the head of the Americans on entering Paris. Churchill intervened with his controllers in the US, as the sight of the pompous ass making such a fool of himself before the world was to good to resist. The French enjoyed the joke so much they made him President.
For a more objective view of de Gaulle’s alleged “tantrum”, read When Roosevelt Planned to Govern France, by Charles Robertson. It was FDR who was being unreasonable about de Gaulle and France, until he was overruled by Churchill and Eisenhower.
Why were Cameron. May and Gove dealing with the repressive Saudi regime on the supply of ‘judicial services’ until a FT journalist rumbled them?
Hidden agreements on justice and policing: UK’s appeasement of Saudi Arabia
David Allen Green
Oct 12 2015
The UK Government will back away from a controversial £5.9m prisons deal with Saudi Arabia, which had reportedly sparked a row between members of the Cabinet. The column below on the UK’s relationship with Saudi Arabia was written before the decision.
http://blogs.ft.com/david-allen-green/2015/10/12/hidden-agreements-on-justice-and-policing-uks-appeasement-of-saudi-arabia/
UK pulls out of £5.9m Saudi jail deal
32 minutes ago
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34518706
Eisenhower’s main job was keeping Montgomery/Patton megalomania in check///DeGaulle notwithstanding.
Re MH17, taking the Dutch Safety Board at face value, there is now talk in the MSM of “bringing the perpetrators to justice”, which seems to me to assume that whoever fired the missile, did so deliberately to bring down a passenger plane; that’s seems unlikely as it would have been of no benefit to either side, so surely it was unintentional, an accident in the fog of war.
I remember reading reports that Putin’s plane was believed to be flying over, and that was the intended target, which would still makes this unintentional, so what charge is the criminal investigation aiming for ?
The BUK is too sophisticated to make this mistake. The radar signature of the plane, the distance between the engines particularly, would have triggered IFF features to avoid civilian aircraft including the Malaysian and Putin’s plane, by aborting, unless ‘it’ had been modified/over-ridden in quite invasive ways. Not so for heat-seeking air-to-air or close machine gun/cannon fire. The Dutch/Poroshenko report is just a re-iteration of the immediately given premature Corporate Media script. Ukraine/Kiev ATC sent the plane on that unlikely course with clear pre-meditation.
Several officers of the Cambridge Union have resigned in protest over a planned referendum on whether to invite Assange to speak (via videolink). http://thetab.com/uk/cambridge/2015/10/11/resignations-revealed-is-the-union-in-meltdown-58219
Appropriate comment under the article:
Back to the topic: Yes it is annoying that much of the EU has been hijacked by ghastly, self-serving corporate freeloaders, top-heavy bureaucracy, appalling extradition treaties with the USA and other hideous outcomes, but all of these would probably have happened anyway whether in or out.
The key is to focus on what the EU has enacted in favour of human rights and consumers. The impact alone of the fair terms and conditions in consumer contracts, which the UK is subject to, has overturned centuries of feudal exploitation of ordinary people. It doesn’t go far enough but it is better than nothing. So too the freedom of movement of people and trade overturns centuries of myopic, insular thinking. The fact that Mandelson and other beyond-the-pale characters are part of the stay-in movement does not invalidate the principle.
“Several officers of the Cambridge Union have resigned in protest…etc, etc…”
_______________________
It is good to see that our Transatlantic Friend (who claims to have attended an as yet unidentified Oxford college) developing an interest in matters relating to the University of Cambridge after having told us, many moons ago, that he had no idea whether Cambridge had a similar course of study to Oxford’s PPE.
The BBC is really starting to outdo itself on Palestinian-Israeli coverage. They think this is an unbiased article (just to pick the only one on their front page at the moment)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34513693
“There has been a spate of stabbings and gun attacks on Israelis by Palestinians since early October, and one apparent revenge stabbing by an Israeli.”
That’s the start and pretty much how it goes on. Its really all overwhelmingly Palestinian violence isn’t it. They don’t bother giving the figures of 7 Israelis killed vs at least 28 Palestinians. They’re too busy talking about a Hamas video.
They don’t understand what bias is.
Mary
I was just wondering whether you could put aside Israel/Palestine for as long as it takes for you to tell us your opinion of the European Union and whether Britain should stay in or leave?
Surely you must have an opinion on that question? This thread would be a most appropriate place for you to share it with us.
Michelle Mone is perfect for the job. Smart, successful, telegenic, and very right wing. It’s just a PR role, and as we all know, PR people don’t need to know anything about the issue at hand. I’ve no idea what Will Straw has ever done though, apart from be someone’s son. Not his fault who his Dad is, but it is his fault if he uses this relationship to further his career.
Anyhow, we really need a referendum on the TTIP. This will never happen.
“..figures of 7 Israelis killed vs at least 28 Palestinians”
____________________
Given the size of the population of the State of Israel compared to the populations of the Arab “states”* surrounding it, it could be argued that that ratio is distinctly to the disadvantage of the State of Israel.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* I am feeling generous at the moment , hence my use of that neutral word.
“Leonard Young”
“Back to the topic: Yes it is annoying that much of the EU has been hijacked by… top-heavy bureaucracy,…”
________________________
Could you explain what exactly you mean by “a top-heavy bureaucracy”?
Do you, for example, mean that there are too many Director-General and Directors as compared to the numbers of lower-graded staff? Or do you simply think there are too many EU civil servants?
Grateful if you could explain; failure to do so might make me suspect that you are simply parroting lazy old clichés. :°
OT: The Assange stuff was odd. I felt sorry for those bored policeman, hanging around outside some tiny embassy for no good reason, I hope they got good overtime. And now they can go home. One does wonder why. Perhaps the Swedish prosecutor has finally found her passport, and is about to make a visit? On the other hand, perhaps the yanks have had enough, and are about to just grab him and bundle him into a waiting chopper, with no demur from our idiot PM? The latter wouldn’t surprise me in the least. I’d be worried were I Assange.
Yes, it will be much easier to snatch and grab Assange now that it’s no longer the official story that his surroundings are under the observation of several policemen.
I read some place lately that Assange hasn’t dared to go out on the roof of the Ecuadorian embassy (even though that means he’s been deprived of sunlight for years now) because he’s afraid police might land on the roof and grab him. If people can land on the roof, then (if those people don’t have to worry about observing the diplomatic niceties the way policemen have to) I imagine they could easily penetrate into the inside of the embassy.