Leanne is a schoolgirl who gave a talk about something she believed in for a school speaking competition. But she spoke outside the right wing comfort area, and thus her speech got attacked online and then pulled. The Speakers’ Trust charity stated that “Following vile and hateful comments posted online during this Bank Holiday weekend Speakers Trust removed the video of Leanne’s speech.” It has since been reinstated.
The current aggressive campaign against anybody who speaks out for Palestine is gathering force. It’s most obvious manifestation lies in the ridiculous claims of “anti-semitism” against many left wing or radical campaigners who have worked against all racism their entire lives. As the establishment becomes more desperate to portray any thought or expression outside their neo-con orthodoxy as illegitimate, the related attack on supporters of Palestine becomes increasingly shrill.
It is very possible to plot the demonisation of radical thought in stark and recent examples. It brings to mind the demonisation of the Chartists as violent revolutionaries. For example, those in the openly left wing campaign for Scottish independence were repeatedly and regularly accused by the mainstream media of vicious online abuse. Bernie Sanders supporters were quite falsely portrayed throughout the mainstream media as violent after the Nevada Democratic Convention, even though widely available video evidence showing what really happened was totally contrary to what was reported. The 38 Degrees petition against the Tory bias of Laura Kuenssberg was withdrawn as “misogynist”, a charge echoed by the entire mainstream media, even though there is virtually no evidence of any associated misogynist abuse. Similarly the very slight three second mocking of Kuenssberg by the audience at a recent Corbyn event was, again with total absence of evidence, portrayed throughout all mainstream UK media as anti-woman rather than anti-Tory. The right wing meme that left wing Corbyn support is anti-female recurs almost daily in the mainstream media.
On the positive side, the establishment’s patently shrill demonisation of radical opposition is a reaction to a very definite upswell against the results of neo-liberalism. There is no denying that the SNP, Corbyn and Bernie Sanders phenomena on the one hand, and the Trump and UKIP phenomena on the other, represent a significant upsurge of popular discontent with the status quo. The Trump and UKIP side of that movement reflects a deliberate attempt by the Establishment to use the mainstream media to divert the focus of discontent away from the exploiters and burgeoning billionaires, and focus it on “foreigner” scapegoats.
The popular momentum is linked to intellectual momentum. Thomas Piketty and others proved the glaringly obvious, that neo-liberalism vastly increased wealth disparity in society. The recent IMF Research Department paper on the consequences of neo-liberalism made quite a splash. It agreed that neo-liberalism had caused a vast and growing wealth gap, and made a very significant apercu that “Increased inequality in turn hurts the level and sustainability of growth.” This is a vital challenge to neo-liberal orthodoxy. Simply put, if Mike Ashley has billions while his thousands of harassed agency workers are struggling to survive, there is less money actually circulating in the economy buying goods and services from local business and providing balanced and sustainable economic growth. Massive inequality does not drive economic growth, it damages it.
There seems to be a reluctance to accept that the Sports Direct story of massive degradation and exploitation is the inevitable consequence of the neo-liberal bonfire of workers’ rights and attack on the trade unions. Compulsory proper employment contracts with protection from dismissal and compulsory recognition of union representation are safeguards vitally needed to redress the imbalance between the fat-cats and those desperate to make a living. A minimum wage – even a living wage – is of little use if you are soiling yourself because you are scared to take time to go to the toilet, and can be dismissed on a whim of your employer.
A great many of the population now realise that they work in declining conditions and with declining means, to make an elite ever more super-rich. The mainstream media are the tool by which the population is to be controlled. Bernie Sanders’ heroic fight is drawing to a close for the present. I am hopeful that the appalling non-choice which Americans face for President will serve to fan popular discontent further and prove a Pyrrhic establishment victory over Sanders. The examples of demonisation of anti-establishment people with which I started this article all have one thing in common. They are attacks on people putting over radical views by means outside the mainstream media – social media and citizen journalism, or old fashioned standing up at meetings or organising together. The inspirational combination of new media and old fashioned community campaigning has been the hallmark of the Scottish independence, Corbyn and Sanders campaigns. It is the methodology that must give a blueprint and hope for the future.
“The inspirational combination of new media and old fashioned community campaigning has been the hallmark of the Scottish independence, Corbyn and Sanders campaigns”
Only Corbyn actually won anything. One out of three is moderately respectable but hardly inspirational..
Couldn’t disagree more. Five years ago, nobody would have dreamed a declared socialist could get so close to the Democratic nomination, or that 45% of Scots would vote for Independence.. Both are signs of a massive shift in popular mood against the establishment. If your point is it is not the end it is the beginning, that is self-evidently true. But do not downplay the significance.
You might add, Craig that there is no doubt that in the primary election process what Americans call “the fix was in.”
Clinton’s victory was built upon individual state campaigns which, at best, featured extraordinary biass on the part of those charged with running the campaigns (200,000 lost voters in Brooklyn alone) and voter suppression (most notably in Arizona and Puerto Rico where thousands of polling places were closed down on short notice) and, at worst, epic miscounting.
Had the primaries been fairly run, Sanders would have triumphed over Hillary as Obama had eight years ago.
Hillary won the primaries by cheating. She will lose the General Election because of it.
It is as well to remember that Sanders has never run in a general election on the Democratic ticket. He has always run as an Independent or a Democratic Socialist. It is by no means impossible that he will do so again, in November, for the Presidency.
It is true that he pledged himself, at the beginning of the campaign to respect the verdict of the voters. But that pledge has been voided by the actions of the DLC and Clinton in their blatant and serial contempt for the democratic process.
It is most unlikely that Sanders would run third party. Just yesterday, he agreed to meet with Obama on Thursday, and his campaign manager was in conversation with Hillary’s.
Myself, I intend to vote third party, for Jill Stein of the Green Party. It’s striking how the mainstream media here in the U.S. never mention her, even when they’re discussing what disgruntled Sanders supporters might do.
Across the ages, we hear the voices of those who can’t accept that others might disagree with them: “IT’S A CONSPIRACY!!!”
So true – despite what they all might say Clinton overwhelmingly won the popular vote in the Democratic primaries.
And this is the sort of thing that’s driving the shift.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/wpp-boss-martin-sorrell-to-face-pay-package-opposition-from-a-pension-fund-group-a7067856.html
I’m wondering if the best way to induce a change might not be to encourage the fat shits to pay themselves ever-more absurd sums for their inessential activities…
A far better way would be to throw a few of them in jail. A spell as “wing bike” at the tender hands of the worst elements of the criminal classes would do a lot pour encourager les autres.
Hmmm. I fully agree in principle, but first we have to get to a position where ripping off the workforce and the state is given equal status to selling smack on a problem estate. There’s a curious inability on the part of our leaders to see that trousering the pension fund and flogging the business to an asset-stripper is actually theft. There is a vague realisation, though, that paying the CEO megasquids while the shareholders have to get by on kilosquids might be valid cause for mild criticism. That’s our starting point. It’s a long way away from my favourite interpretation of your scheme, which is to put them in HMP Durham indefinitely. (Why? Because it’s close enough to the town for the cons to hear the clock striking every single quarter-hour.)
Yes, prison assault and rape is very funny!
It is and it reminds me if how principles are infinitely bendable according to individual case.
Some time ago I (half jestingly) expressed a certain grim satisfaction at the way Colonel Khaddafi met his end. The underlying thought was that the way he was put to death was no worse than the treatment he had meted out to some of his political opponents over the years.
My post was met with howls of rage and protest and I harvested the usual run of comments (“supporter of torture”, “fascist swine”, etc.
And now, lo and behold, what do we read but
“a spell as “wing bike” at the tender hands of the worst elements of the criminal classes would do a lot pour encourager les autres.”?
I am looking forward with keen anticipation to similar howls of rage and protest.
I disagree. But, you know a better way?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/bhs-sir-philip-green-sports-direct-mike-ashley-dominic-chappell-administration-collapse-a7070681.html
11000 jobs gone, and the taxpayer picks up the pension liability.
They’re as much a threat to the community as any burglar.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/45/part/IV/chapter/X/crossheading/offences-of-fraud-deception-etc
I would go after the pension trustees and advisers who allowed the pension fund to be treated in the manner that it was. One of the real problems in the UK is that the investment management industry does not exercise the governance that it should – so that people like Sorrell can get away with paying himself as he does. It is our money in Pensions and investments that gives them the right to continue to perpetuate the current awful corporate governance that we have. Rather than the nihilism and street theatre that occupies so many perhaps people need to understand and start to use the structures that are already in place – some are already doing so but they need a lot more help and expertise.
I wonder whether refusing to participate in the rigged US elections would be the most appropriate course of action now – spoiling, abstaining, None of the Above etc. – the fewer people vote, the less legitimacy any elected government has.
The last couple of elections in the UK had record low turnouts. Did you notice the victors doing much hand-wringing, concerned that perhaps they lacked a genuine mandate to govern? I didn’t.
[Shrug.] If you don’t want to have a voice in how the country is governed, you don’t have to. But then you don’t get to complain about how your fellow citizens vote.
They’ll just blame it on voter apathy. It’s what they want. The thing to do is to vote third party.
That’s right: Gary Johnson for President!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Libertarian_National_Convention
Jill Stein is the candidate who clearly condemns Israeli crimes. Her economic and social programs are much more in line with Sanders’s. Johnson may not be a doctrinaire libertarian, but his program has clearly been influenced by the Libertarian Party for which he is running. He wants to replace the personal and corporate income taxes with a consumption tax. He wants to shrink the government by 20 percent. He wants to reduce Social Security by raising the retirement age and means-testing it.
Yes, great huh? (Well, not all of it, but no candidate is perfect.)
I was under the impression that consumption taxes (as opposed to direct taxes) were regressive as they bear, relatively, more heavily on those of low income.
But perhaps Mr Johnson has found a way of squaring that particular circle…..
Perhaps I was not clear enough for some people to understand. I meant to suggest that people should vote for Jill Stein, not Gary Johnson.
That is regrettably often the case.
The recurring deliberate ambiguity doesn’t help either, of course.
I think most people would have understood. But it does no harm to make myself clearer.
Yep split the liberal vote and let in Trump – which is of course the wet dream of all the nihilists.
In the spirit of hearing all sides, let’s listen to Brian of London, who was involved in raising the matter of this speech:
“This is a commentary and explanation of Leanne Mohamad’s first place winning “Speak Out” presentation entitled “Birds not Bombs”.
This is video contains extracts from her speech intended to evince Jew hatred and hatred for the Jewish State of Israel in the audience. I carefully explain how this is a step toward recruiting soldiers to fight on behalf of the Islamic State (ISIS).”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbeKsLE72y4
Disturbing stuff.
There’s so much wrong with this it’s hard to know where to begin. But that’s what we’re dealing with.
Brian doesn’t do much better here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBzEqgfSx2o&feature=youtu.be
I wonder does Brian post to this board.
Would certainly explain a lot.
Anyway, Brian runs this site as well:
http://www.israellycool.com/
Quite the little trooper, eh.
This kind of thing has always surprised and worried me, too. If human beings are so intelligent, how come they are forever advancing fallacious arguments that they must realise are false?
It was a remark by the SF writer Robert Heinlein (a very neglected thinker, IMHO) that set me on the road to understanding. He said that man is not a rational animal, but a rationalizing animal. There is a huge amount of meaning in that apparently simple comment.
I think what Heinlein was getting at was that we don’t use our intelligence to work out how the world works and what we can do for the best as a species. Instead, each of us wants certain things, and we use our intelligence very much as a tool or weapon to get what we want. Among other things, this explains why people are so prone to profess incompatible beliefs. If I want A, that may motivate me to advance theory X which will help me to get A. And if I want B, that may lead me to advance theory Y. What philosophers and other logical people fail to grasp is that I simple don’t care whether X and Y are compatible, or indeed if they are utterly contradictory.
Thus Israelis, on the whole, want to remain secure in their present homes and work and lifestyle. All of them must know, to a greater or lesser extent, that everything they have in Israel depends on very large-scale crimes against humanity. But that knowledge does not help them to get what they want – which is to keep what they have and not be troubled by ethical concerns or remorse. So they profess beliefs which make it all OK, and project the evil and harm onto others – mostly the Palestinians, although Iran gets its share too. And anyone who, like Leanne, explains to them in simple, cogent, irrefutable terms what they have done wrong and are still doing wrong, goes right to the top of their hit list because she threatens their peace of mind – and, worse still, if she could convince enough other people, might even threaten their continued enjoyment of the fruits of crime.
I’m not sure that quoting Heinlein was a good idea. Starship Troopers was rather fascistic, presenting the opposition as bugs who have to be exterminated. The rest that I’ve read is American 1950s, America good, bad guys bad.
.” I wonder does Brian post on this board ”
………………………………………………………………………………………..
Interesting thought as some appear to hold similar opinions perhaps less coarsely expressed for a different audience……..but similar thought processes.
Well, it would seem that “Brian of London” at least manages to run his own website/blog rather than just cuckooing on those of others.
In the light of the cuckooing that goes on on this blog, one should perhaps give “Brian of London” (whoever he is) credit for that.
Bullying schoolgirls is what zionism is for.
Yes! That and running the world media!
No, that’s an antisemitic fantasy, zionists are a proxy, not a lobby.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HyyaL5n7l_ReK4Aou7wf5TzC0CNa_CxttSSPhdN6ZTg/mobilebasic?pli=1
…and the not so young.
Transcript – Investigation Hearing into Suspension of Tony Greenstein from Labour Party 30th May 2016
“Compulsory proper employment contracts with protection from dismissal and compulsory recognition of union representation are safeguards vitally needed to redress the imbalance between the fat-cats and those desperate to make a living.”
Wouldn’t it be better to address the imbalances at source? Underlying the existing exploitative system is the fact that, despite the lip service paid to principles such as equality of opportunity etc, some people are given effective control over land (the primary source of wealth, which nobody can live without) while others are obliged to pay for the use of it. This leads to a constant flow of wealth from the poor to the rich and it’s that underlying inequality which creates the insecurity.
The problem with what you’re suggesting above is that it is aimed at curtailing a liberty which, in a healthy society, we would want to protect: if we all started out on relatively equal terms, tight constraints on employment contracts shouldn’t be necessary – which is why the right is so successful as portraying them as an unwarranted intrusion.
The irony is that current laws governing the inheritance of land don’t even have any solid historical foundations. Its roots lie in the time when landownership was part of the machinery of government, and the existing system in which private rights are regarded as sacrosanct came about by neglect rather than design. Given that those laws are also blatantly incompatible with uncontroversial principles, we ought to recognise them as the weakest point of the whole edifice but even on the left I’ve found there’s a strange reluctance to attack the problem at such a fundamental level.
Malcolm
I agree. Both land ownership and the ownership of enterprises need to be addressed at a fundamental level.
Thanks for the response, Craig.
My feeling is that ownership of enterprises will become much easier to reform once ownership of real-estate has been put on a healthier footing so I tend to focus on land. That’s partly because the laws on ownership of enterprises were essentially derived from land ownership law, but also because concentration of land ownership traps us in a way that ownership of enterprises doesn’t; it’s possible to create new enterprises but we can’t create new land.
The reforms I’ve been advocating start with a very simple clarification of inheritance law that would make it primarily about passing on responsibility (as it used to be originally), followed by some restructuring of the real-estate market in a way that would allow a fair system to be introduced over the course of a generation or so. If you’re interested, I’ve written about it on my own (not very active) blog, linked to through my name.
You just have to read Edmund Spenser’s “View of the State of Ireland” to realize how central to the English mind property law was, and how horrific communal ownership of land seemed. Same thing with the Highland Clearances, I belueve.
I’ve never understood why people always assume that the only alternative to the existing system is communal ownership.
For the record, the reforms I advocate do maintain the principle of private ownership (and don’t involve significant redistribution). But they would establish that our private ownership of land is only for our own lifetime and that the powers we have to nominate a successor are a residue of the time when freehold ownership of land was essentially adminstrative. The way those powers are expected to be exercised would therefore change significantly.
That sounds interesting. I shall check out your blog. Thank you.
I think they should both be owned by the proletariat…
So who owns enterprises at present?
The Bourgeoisie!
I don’t think it’s much use proposing legislative reform unless you have the means to obtain it. And that (in a democratic context) involves educating the majority of the public as to where its best interests lie, in the face of the best onlaught professional PR can throw at the argument on behalf of the vested interests who actually own everything. That constant flow of wealth from the poor to the rich creating that underlying inequality which creates the insecurity. is intentional. Insecurity, and “making the consumer moderately dissatisfied with what he has” (hat-tip, Henry Ford) form the feedback loop which ensures the success of consumer capitalism. Nowadays, the insecurity vastly outguns the perceived need to do anything about the system. It’s sauve-qui-peut.
Good luck with your reforms, but I think it’ll take much longer than a generation, as a democratic project. Which leaves us with…
“I don’t think it’s much use proposing legislative reform unless you have the means to obtain it”
There’s undoubtedly a trap there, but we certainly can’t expect to get public support for reform if we can’t articulate it ourselves. To my mind, proposing viable legislative reform is an essential step in developing the means to obtain it.
I think it might also be a prerequisite for successfully stretching the law, which is often a key part of getting the public stirred up about an injustice: it’s much easier to justify acting outside the law if you’re able to show not only that there is an undeniable injustice but also that there’s a viable reform which the establishment has wilfully refused to implement.
we certainly can’t expect to get public support for reform if we can’t articulate it ourselves.
Agree.
To my mind, proposing viable legislative reform is an essential step in developing the means to obtain it.
If I’m not being wilfully obtuse, that reads like linear thinking. IMO while the end may determine the means, exploring the options for the former must involve exploring the options for the latter, in parallel. As this will be a long project, it would be as well to get consideration of both end and means under way asap, crossreferencing progress in the one with progress in the other. And it must leave room for opportunism. I don’t think a long-term linear Plan is wholly appropriate to the task. A lot of ducking and weaving will be required, precisely as it was by the neoliberals in the course of getting to the present state of affairs. They had a simple goal, an easily-defined end: ‘more money for the right people’ – beyond that the process was one of directed evolution and subversion. There may be no need to define the end more closely than ‘equal shares for all’. In this approach legislative reform would be piecemeal and progressive, anticipating and countering obstacles advanced by the corporatists. It would not be an objective, complete and clear in itself.
Another quibble – in order to change society (in brief) we need to change the law. But in order to be able to effect that change, we need to change society – and that’s getting rather circular for my taste. Small, coordinated incremental adjustments to each are all I can hope for.
It’s always good to know others are thinking about this, though. I’m just leery of being blinded to the absence of tracks through the morass, by the radiance of the New Jerusalem on the distant horizon.
“IMO while the end may determine the means, exploring the options for the former must involve exploring the options for the latter, in parallel. As this will be a long project, it would be as well to get consideration of both end and means under way asap”
I totally agree on ends and means needing to be considered in parallel but land reform is a project which has been going on for quite a few centuries already. A key moment for me was realising that the reforms that land rights activists are demanding today are essentially the same as the Diggers were demanding more than 350 years ago. That’s why I’ve looked for reforms which could be brought in over a generation or two without active redistribution.
“Small, coordinated incremental adjustments to each are all I can hope for”
Incremental adjustments are generally fairly easy for opponents to reverse or neutralise. I think small, coordinated watershed adjustments are more promising. The reform I’m proposing to inheritance law, for example, is about as small as a legislative reform could be but it would shift the dynamics of the system in a way which would be very hard to reverse: it wouldn’t remove landowners’ power to designate their successor but that power would revert to being a responsibility rather than a right, so they would be expected to exercise it in the public interest – which means that bequests which foster inequality would be open to challenge in a way they’re not currently.
That would be a small reform in the sense that it would leave a lot of detail to be resolved later (probably mostly through case law) but it would have a profound effect. And, in principle at least, it’s a reform which would be very hard to object to since current practice is incompatible both with uncontroversial principles and with its own origins. In practice, of course, there’s a huge psychological barrier in the minds of the general public and I don’t know any simple way get past that.
Which is why I also explore parallel options. One of those is a more general, constitutional reform to introduce a requirement for laws to be consistent with generally-accepted uncontroversial principles (Coherent Law) though it too would be hard to get implemented through conventional processes. Although it’s a reform which politicians would find hard to object to rationally, its consequences would be too transformational for the establishment to embrace willingly and it’s not something that the public is ever likely to agitate for.
The fact that those changes are unlikely to be brought in through conventional political processes doesn’t mean they’re not worth advocating, however. In practice, a lot of reform only happens when enforcement of unjust law becomes too heavy-handed for the general public to ignore but, to my mind, it’s only when conventional channels can be shown to be inadequate that stretching the law becomes justified (I’ve a definition of Lawful Rebellion in my blog post The Route to Reform). From that perspective, I’d say that proposing reforms, even when you’re sure the proposals will be ignored, is an essential preparation for a more radical challenge.
Incremental adjustments are generally fairly easy for opponents to reverse or neutralise.
But in total. it’s just as hard work, perhaps harder, to nullify a series of small adjustments as a single big one. I’m thinking asymmetric warfare here. ‘We’ ( I use the term for convenience) can’t defeat the system on its own terms. We haven’t got the big publicity, legal, lobbying and enforcement options (yet). Let’s look at the Sun’s take on your inheritance responsibility act: THAT’s WUFF! YOUR LEGACY MUST BE GIVEN TO DOG’S HOME!
Still and all, good luck.
‘The Trump and UKIP side of that movement reflects a deliberate attempt by the Establishment to use the mainstream media to divert the focus of discontent away from the exploiters and burgeoning billionaires, and focus it on “foreigner” scapegoats’.
That turns out not to be the case. I hold no brief for Trump – although as far as I can see independence of the establishment is his main distinguishing feature – but UKIP (of which I am proud to be a member) is strongly anti-establishment in almost every imaginable way.
The establishment wants us to remain in the EU – UKIP was founded to get us out. (Incidentally, Craig wants us to remain in – so perhaps by his logic that makes him an establishment tool).
If you watched the “non-debate” on ITV last night, you cannot have failed to notice that Nigel Farage was deploring the low-pay culture that is a consequence of opening our borders to large numbers of people from countries with lower standards of living. While some of his questioners seemed very keen to maintain the low-pay culture, giving me a strong impression that they were wage-payers rather than wage-earners.
How do you make a party that is on the side of ordinary workers, and wants them to be paid decently, out to be “establishment”? Obviously it was those arguing against Nigel, and urging the advantages of a low-pay society, who are “establishment”.
As to the fuss about immigration and racism that is always raked up by UKIP’s opponents, it is very similar indeed to the pro-Israel pseudo-outrage that Craig writes about in this article. One of UKIP’s problems is that it is not about appearance but about substance. Frankly, many of its leaders and spokespeople could not get jobs as supermodels, as they do not have the requisite good hair and teeth and fruity voices. To make matters worse, they persist in citing hard facts and figures and using logic in their arguments – which many people and most politicians find downright offensive.
Nobody in UKIP has ever claimed that particular kinds of people are not welcome as immigrants. It’s a matter of quantity, not quality. It’s undeniable that some of the most talented, hard-working and creative people who have ever lived in Britain were immigrants or children of immigrants. But the UK is the most crowded country in Europe (apart from Malta, I think) and we have to set limits. Our population is a little under 1 percent of the global population, and our country seems to be a very attractive destination for people from other countries. We can’t let a billion immigrants in, nor yet 100 million, and 10 million would seriously harm our society and probably dilute or entirely destroy many of the things that make Britain such a good place to live. So we have to set numerical limits – harsh, but fair. And it’s reasonable that, having done so, we should try to select the people who can contribute most to our country – doctors, nurses, teachers, scientists, businesspeople, whatever.
…strongly anti-establishment in almost every imaginable way.
Except, for one, that it is funded by a £200 -millionaire who is into insurance and diamond mining.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/mar/27/arron-banks-the-millionaire-hoping-to-bankroll-uk-into-brexit
Haven’t heard a lot from UKIP on the subject of global financial structures at all, for some reason. Just immigration.
http://theleveller.org/2015/05/ukip-vichy/
And while there are good reasons to vote for leaving, the thought of UKIP participating in a subsequent government isn’t, from my own antiestablishment point of view, an attractive one.
I don’t see much to worry about in Arron Banks. Indeed, like many other UKIP people he has obvious imperfections and may seem a little flaky – in sharp contrast to the highly-groomed, sleek shiny Hollywood glamour of mainline politicians. I like that. The guy is human, and apparently not making an effort to disguise the fact or airbrush his imperfections. He has made £200 million in insurance, and I have no problem with that. Insurance certainly is a racket, but it’s a fairly mild one compared to most of the financial world. Nobody forces you to buy insurance (apart from things like car insurance) and it is fairly competitive.
Reading the article you cited, I notice Banks had this to say about Cameron and the Tories.
“Cameron has morphed into a blue version of Blair,” he says. “If you allow unlimited immigration it affects the poorest much more than the rich. Where I live in south Gloucestershire everyone is rich. You might see a charming Latvian waiter in the pub and think this is all fine. If you live in a poor area where people have flooded in, compressed your wages and caused real trouble, that’s where the pain is being felt.”
That sums up exactly what I said in a previous comment: UKIP are on the side of ordinary working people, even if that means opposing the business establishment.
Being successful in business doesn’t mean agreement with establishment positions. And how is UKIP supposed to achieve anything without a wealthy backer anyway? You evidently have a chip on your shoulder about successful people and a loathing of UKIP which you have never been able to justify satisfactorily with your vague huffing and puffing about rich backers and ‘Atlanticists’. I get the distinct impression that you are just cheesed off that the viable alternatives are not coming from your side of the political spectrum.
I agree with you, I can not see anything whatsoever “Establishment” about UKIP it equally loathes Blair and his heir, and has far more in common Jeremy Corbyn.
UKIP is a bogus party, manufactured to corral Little Englander uber-fascists, uber-racists, to frighten the uber-fascists and uber-racists in the Tory (Official) partei with the prospect of a split. UKIP plays the role of the nazi partei in the early 30s, despised by its paymasters but kept alive just in case.
May I recommend an interesting analysis by George Monbiot – it’s about the power of neo-liberalism being stronger for being relatively unrecognised as being an ideology. Instead its tenets are portrayed as “natural” with amazing success, which leads many to believe there’s no alternative to the current system.
http://www.monbiot.com/2016/04/15/the-zombie-doctrine/
I’m not sure that shouting “IT’S A CONSPIRACY!!!” counts as “analysis”, not even if you get it printed in a national newspaper.
Call it by its real name, neo-fascism and Monbiot will run for cover.
Re. the prevailing ideology towards the shrinking of government and the privatisation of everything.
In the ideological world we inhabit, contesting interests and parties use “public” and “private” not only to describe but also to celebrate and condemn. Any serious inquiry into the meaning of privatization must begin, therefore, by unloading the complex freight that the public-private distinction carries. In this section I analyze, first, the general uses of the public-private distinction and, second, the recent political application of the concept of privatization.
https://www.princeton.edu/~starr/articles/articles80-89/Starr-MeaningPrivatization-88.htm
http://freespeechonisrael.org.uk/national-uk-paper-names-online-abusers-schoolgirl-leanne-mohamad/
And the Independent Newspaper tracked down the nasty pro-Israeli trolls who hurled vile abuse at the schoolgirl Leanne Mohamad . A Zionist outfit called ‘ Israellycool ‘.who are rather upset at being outed .
I am hopeful that the appalling non-choice which Americans face for President will serve to fan popular discontent further and prove a Pyrrhic establishment victory over Sanders.
Same here, but unfortunately the disgust at the candidates offered will play into the hands of the Establishment. “Voter apathy” is the conclusion, as if people simply don’t care. Or even more cynically, as some New Labour stooge said after NL were returned on a particularly low turnout, it’s because everyone is so happy, they don’t want to change anything. Wasn’t that Beckett?
Astonishing that Trump barely gets a few thousand to one of his rallies, but they get wall-to-wall coverage. Sanders fills stadiums, and it barely gets a mention.
Yes Glenn, voter apathy is almost certain to be the result. Turnout in the US is already very low. In terms of the eligible population, many of whom are not registered and cannot register to vote, it is reaching the point at which the ability of the ‘system’ of representative government to legitimise the status quo is close to disappearing.
In that sense minuscule participation matters.
Apathy is a loaded term, try boycott.
Your guys of course had no problem with voter apathy – they even did so well that they beat their 100% target in some cases.
What the heck are you accusing us of now – who exactly are “your guys” when they’re at home?
While freely hurling your baseless accusations around in your customary fashion, it would behoove you to be a little less cryptic. I – for one – can’t be bothered figuring out what particular lie/slur you might wish to imply on every occasion.
You’re right. Only 394 people voted in the Democratic caucases in North Dakota yesterday, so there’s no way that delegates should be awarded on that basis. Clearly the overwhelming majority of Democrats in North Dakota were disgusted with the candidates, and wanted no North Dakota delegates to be sent to the Convention at all!
The right place for reposting this;
Norman Finkelstein leaves a comment in support if the Palestinian schoolgirl censored from a ironically named “Speak Out Challenge!”
“I find this episode appalling. What’s going on across the pond? Have the Brits lost all their marbles? If a Jewish girl memorialized her family who perished in the Nazi holocaust, would she be disqualified on the ground that her presentation wasn’t uplifting or might have offended a Teutonic nationalist? My goodness, not even a diminutive Winston Churchill would have passed muster with these judges. I once appeared on UK’s Hard Talk to debate the Israel-Palestine topic. The presenter wouldn’t let me speak. One viewer called the program “Hard to Talk.” Maybe this competition should be rechristened, Speak Out–At Your Peril!”
Norman Finkelstein, Brooklyn, NY”
https://www.change.org/p/jack-petchey-foundation-uncensor-british-palestinian-award-winning-schoolgirl
And this;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnnK-GHP5Kc
A brilliant young man!
Hear bloody hear!
Hear hear. In short it’s becoming much harder for the corporate media (the Blairite Guardian included) to fool most of the people most of the time. Chakrabortty, who has written therein this week about the collapse of democratic legitimacy amid an as-yet unbroken neoliberal hegemony.
http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/158735/schoolgirls-winning-anti-israel-speech-unanimously-voted-out-competition-final
And here’s how a certain newspaper relished the treatment of schoolgirl Leanne Mohamad and her ‘ anti-Israel ‘ speech sponsored by the Sir Jack Petchey Foundation reminding us that Sir Jack Petchey is a proud Patron of the JLGB [ Jewish Lads and Girls Brigade ].
Very pleased to see you linking that IMF research paper.
It cannot be understated how significant a moment this is in economic thought. Liberal economists have for around a decade been debating the connection between inequality and growth, with a split between those (like Joseph Stiglitz) who thought there was a causal linkage, and those (like Paul Krugman) who weren’t convinced.
Piketty meanwhile has provided the ammunition to remove any argument just how unequal our society has become, and for the IMF to weigh in on neoliberal policies as a cause is a very big deal. I personally thought that if inequality was a drag on growth, it was going to show up as during the post-financial crisis economies (which continue to be hobbled by weak demand), but for the IMF to argue it applies more broadly… that’s a seismic moment.
Yes, I agree entirely. Interestingly enough though there have been some quite good mainstream articles on the IMF paper, they missed the centrality of the argument that inequality reduces growth.
I guess the enormity of the conclusion might take a little time to be absorbed.
Just re-reading my comment, I should add that liberal economists who for a while weren’t certain about the inequality-growth linkage were pointing to other reasons why growing inequality was a problem. And some of them, I know first-hand, didn’t want to make the claim that inequality hinders growth for fear that if it wasn’t correct, they would lose credibility on their other arguments.
The IMF has now given such people cover. Assuming the IMF research holds up, and I’d be shocked if Olivier Blanchard’s people had made major errors, they have removed the last remaining intellectual hurdle to a full-on assault on the level of inequality we see today. It really is a very big deal.
Well, inequality reduces growth, ceteris paribus. The devil is in the detail. (And God forbid that an econ result might actually be directly applicable.)
“inequality reduces growth, ceteris paribus”
Except, that really hasn’t been orthodoxy. It’s a very big deal if it becomes a tenet of mainstream thinking; and the IMF saying so significantly increases the chance it forces its way in there.
It hasn’t been that long that I learned in undergraduate microeconomics that just about everything has decreasing marginal utility, including money. From that it follows quite straightforwardly, in 2nd year macro if memory serves, that consumption rates are decreasing in income. And that’s all you need to set out a model where inequality reduces growth, ceteris paribus.
The difficulty is that this would be a static model. The arguments in favour of allowing more inequality rely solely on dynamic effects: entrepreneurship and innovation. I’m not so fussed about the former, but I do have a problem with the latter. As the (self-described Marxist) econoblogger Chris Dillow tends to put it, innovation doesn’t pay much. (eg. http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2016/05/labours-economic-answers.html ) Companies that innovate typically only get to keep a small fraction of the gains associated with the innovation, while the 2nd company to market is often much better off. If we want companies to keep inventing cool stuff, we either need them to continue to not realise that they’re getting screwed, or we need to allow them a significant share of the spoils.
Why was there so much growth and prosperity during the decades after WWII, when inequality was greatly reduced?
Laissez-faire economics, the theology of the 21st century, the orthodoxy justifying the governing ideology of neolieralism.
Not surprising that it took a classicist like Jowett to recognize the bankruptcy of economism.
Because during the war lots of things were bombed to pieces that had to be rebuilt after the war, creating a massive impulse into the economy. Likewise the growth of the labour force increased aggregate demand as well as aggregate supply. Today, the opposite is true in both cases, which is why lots of brainy people are talking about secular stagnation.
“From that it follows quite straightforwardly, in 2nd year macro if memory serves, that consumption rates are decreasing in income. And that’s all you need to set out a model where inequality reduces growth, ceteris paribus.”
But here’s exactly why this model is not accepted – it only works as you describe it if you assume consumption is the only driver of growth.
That’s never been orthodoxy – and I’d guess, it never will be either. But proving that a significantly skewed income distribution depresses consumption to the point where it is not offset by other factors, that’s what’s at stake here.
In Macro 101 ISLM models the rate of consumption c influences aggregate demand and thereby growth. Of course, long-term endogenous growth models are a different story, that’s true.
It is to be hoped that the worm is turning. Future generations, inshallah, will look back in horror on the sheer numbers of those whose lives ended prematurely (a rough definition of murder, that) as a direct result of neo-liberal ‘reforms.”
At one end of the scale we have Putin’s assessment that more Russians died as a result of the ‘shock therapy’ administered to Russia’s economy in the 1990s than in the Second World War. At the other end we have the persistent reports of young job seekers, and others ‘sanctioned’ by the state, killing themselves rather than face further suffering and humiliation.
The library shelves bow under the weight of volumes ‘proving’ that the Great Leap Forward killed millions, that Collectivisation in Russia did the same and there is some truth in such claims: economic policies do kill. They always have done but none, in history, have ever been as lethal as the policies of the Washington Consensus and modern neo-liberalism.
As the Master of Balliol Benjamin Jowett said, and I don’t think that I have posted this here before but…
” “I have always felt a certain horror of Political Economists since I heard one of them say that the famine in Ireland would not kill more than a million people, and that would scarcely be enough to do much good.”
There’s growing mainstream literature that post-crisis countries that rejected the Washington consensus performed better than those that “took their medicine”.
Malaysia in the late nineties and Iceland a decade later have not gone unnoticed, and what’s happening in the European periphery, especially, has really focused attention.
Beggar-thy-neighbour works fine, unless everybody tries it. It’s the lefty version of Germany’s war on arithmetic.
That’s certainly true – in the European case, the single currency (and German hegemony) forces neoliberal policy to prevail, but that’s exactly how the holes in the neoliberal arguments are being exposed. If you don’t have the currency constraint, why do you need to follow the neoliberal policy mix? If you can devalue your currency, and you can impose capital controls, you don’t need to sell-off state assets/liberalize labour laws/open your country to foreign competition to foster a recovery.
How does the single currency force any particular policy to prevail?
And in what universe is it helpful for everyone to devalue their currency at the same time?
Ended prematurely how? Life expectancy, the quality of medical care, etc. have never been higher.
Not in the U.S. The latest statistics show life expectancy falling and the death rate rising.
Really? Not according to actual, ya know, evidence: https://www.google.co.uk/search?num=100&newwindow=1&safe=off&site=&source=hp&q=us+life+expectancy&oq=US+life+expe&gs_l=hp.3.0.0l10.1160.2445.0.4574.13.10.0.3.3.0.217.1091.6j3j1.10.0….0…1c.1.64.hp..0.12.928.0..35i39j0i131j0i20.9FGJfo48Scc
Life expectancy falling and the death rate rising? I thought that was Russia.
The U.S. has started to suffer what Russia did in the 1990s. Certainly broad segments of the population have. Thanks to neoliberal policies.
Has life expectancy in Russia started rising again?
Bevin.
It was Ken Livingstone, who said, “Capitalism has killed more people than Hitler.”
Well, as we’ve been reminded only recently, Ken Livingston says lots of dumb things.
Martinned.
Possibly?
But that’s not one of them.
Are you kidding me? I thought you were one of the less insane commenters here. This statement is completely bonkers.
“Are you kidding me? I thought you were one of the less insane commenters here. This statement is completely bonkers.”
_______________
Martinned.
And I you ! ?
_______________
Martinned said.
“I assume he means that lots of people died…”
Deliciously droll, thank you for that, it brought a smile to my face ?
That’s a nice sound bite and may even be true. But I think we could benefit from more info on what exactly he means by capitalism and how he understands “killed”.
I assume he means that lots of people died…
Spoken like a true believer in free-market fundamentalism.
Funny how people didn’t start dying from the failure of the potato crop until Palmerston lost office and Lord John Russell’s laissez-faire ministry took over.
Palmerston was in opposition from 1841-1846, before that he was foreign secretary. The famine started in 1845, in the middle of the cabinet of Robert Peel. Palmerston didn’t become Prime Minister until 1855.
My mistake. I was confusing him with Robert Peel, whose ministry was the one that prevented starvation.
Given that Peel was already Prime Minister since 1841, how do the Whigs get blamed for the famine and not him?
Paper trail. It was civil servants in Russell’s government who wrote documents justifying — and then carried out — a government policy of doing nothing to prevent starvation.
Peel’s ministry, in contrast, had intervened, to a limited extent, but enough to prevent starvation.
Cecil Woodham-Smith wrote all about it.
Martinned
I guess you’re right. That’s the funny thing about people – they die.
I suppose that once a population has grown considerably, sooner or later more people die.
BTW, may I put on record my disagreement with Lysias’s notion that dying has something to do with laissez-faire economics, a notion which, if it were true, would suggest that no one died under a communist economy.
There’s death, which is inevitable. And then there’s increased and accelerated death, which can be caused by policies, and which can be detected with statistics.
Was the Holocaust a nonevent, because those people were eventually going to die anyway.
I have always felt that the Potato Famine was the reductio ad absurdum of laissez-faire. But I guess people need to be retaught that lesson every couple of generations.
Imperfect markets: there was no (effective) market for insurance, otherwise the Irish would have been fine.
The corn laws were the opposite of laissez faire surely?
And that’s why the fall of Peel’s giverment and the takeover by Russell’s laissez-faire government coincided with the repeal of the Corn Laws. Unfortunately, that also meant laissez-faire with respect to the Potato Famine.
government. I have the strong suspicion that a lot of these misspellings are caused by Autocorrect.
“At one end of the scale we have Putin’s assessment that more Russians died as a result of the ‘shock therapy’ administered to Russia’s economy in the 1990s than in the Second World War.”
Source please – I have my doubts that he ever said this – I don’t think it would go down particularly well with the Nationalist audience at which he usually aims himself, and anyone who has been to Russia knows the very deep reverence in which the sacrifice of WW2 is held.
“I am hopeful that the appalling non-choice which Americans face for President will serve to fan popular discontent further and prove a Pyrrhic establishment victory over Sanders”
I suspect the establishment fears most a Trump victory because he’s not in its back pocket. Trump has a large and enthusiastic following in the US, like it or not. Clinton is obviously the establishment’s choice and will be declared president regardless.
Craig should stick to UK politics as his dogged support of Sanders overlooks his flip-flopping over the popular will.
First Bernie was all for mobilizing the electorate to vote for him, but when this failed despite taking advantage of independent voters wherever he could, he is now trying to caucus the superior delegates to join him.
Hillary declined to take this route back in 2008 because it would simply turn off the furious Obama supporters, guaranteeing that she would lose in the general election.
Some democrat Bernie, socialist or otherwise!
Trump gave a powerful speech last night. Hillary is an extremely untalented political campaigner. Trump could well win.
I must have seen different speeches, as The Donald’s from the teleprompter for a small group of rabid supporters , and with his bimbos behind was completely lacking in his customary passion while Hillary’s speech was quite inspiring.
And if Trump keeps mouthing his racist lunacy, he may well be dumped before the November election.
I heard Trump’s speech on the radio. His speech conspicuously lacked the racism of which you complain.
Trump is Obama without the mask.
What we have here is a polemical piece devoid of coherent thought.
What is so heroic about Bernie Sanders? – a man who voted in favor of funding the Iraq war. Sure Sanders looks good next to Clinton, but then who wouldn’t? What about the treatment of people like Ralph Nader by the Democratic Party.
The true hallmark of Jeremy Corbyn is that since 1983, and on every single occasion he has been asked, he has voted against the EU. Suddenly he claims to be in favor of the EU and yet provides no hint of an explanation as what has suddenly compelled him to change his mind.
The EU with its expansionist ambitions and doctrine of free movement is guaranteed to exert continual downward pressure on wages. This is just a matter of math and is not even arguable. Large numbers of immigrants from outside the EU accelerate the downward pressure on wages but also raises costs (be they housing costs or the costs of accessing or funding public services. So, how can you have people arguing against low wages, but in favor of the EU. It is like saying I like it be both night and day at the same time.
If you are in favor of the EU then you are in favor of low wages. It is that simple and twists of logic deployed by educated liberals to avoid recognizing that simple truth are bizarre to behold.
Mike Ashley is a great man in so far as he is honest and he is showing everyone a vision of the future – a future that the EU will ensure will be there for more and more people.
Obviously extreme inequality damages economic growth. This has nothing to do with Piketty and everything to do with theory of the velocity of money. Something that has been understood for a very long time, and something which is largely free from controversy. So, why is wealth inequality growing? Could it be that the people busy amassing the wealth of the world understand that the game is over – there is no more economic growth. Meanwhile schizophrenics, otherwise known as liberals, go around bleating about poverty caused by a lack of economic growth and catastrophic climate change caused by too much economic growth.
“What is so heroic about Bernie Sanders? – a man who voted in favor of funding the Iraq war.”
You know Sanders wasn’t even a senator when the vote for invading Iraq took place, right?
Please don’t conflate voting for the war, with various Iraq funding bills – much of which were tied to veterans’ bills, unemployment benefits and so on – that is just so simplistic it plays into the cynical hands of those that bundle such legislation.
Sanders did vote for the more specific bills condemning the treatment of Iraq prisoners, for instance. Take a look at his record yourself:
https://votesmart.org/candidate/key-votes/27110/bernie-sanders/47/military-personnel?p=1
There is a lot about Sanders not to like – I was just trying a shorthand explanation.
Basically Sanders is allowing himself to be played – presenting a humanitarian face of a party that has been completely captured by corporate interests. He has promised to endorse Clinton (if she wins the nomination, and which she has because she says she has – who cares about votes and voters? Not Hillary), and he has allowed Clinton to obliquely associate herself with his views. Basically he has played his allotted role in providing fake legitimacy to the fake democratic process that besmirches the USA.
Chris Hedges explains
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/15/chris-hedges-on-bernie-sanders-and-the-corporate-democrats/
Trump is now the best hope for the US and by obvious extension the rest of the world. That statement alone is testament to the truly desperate position that we have engineered for ourselves. I am not hopeful that the liberal intelligentsia will realize this sad truth – too much indoctrination and self censorship.
who cares about votes and voters?
Indeed: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/hillary-clinton-clinches-democratic-nomination-according-to-ap/
Here is a rather more nuanced article
https://theintercept.com/2016/06/07/perfect-end-to-democratic-primary-anonymous-super-delegates-declare-winner-through-media/
@Loony: I think “nuanced” isn’t really the word you were looking for. Might I suggest “article that agrees with my priors”?
Not sure I can agree with that analysis, Loony.
He is (and always has been) an “independent”, although he caucuses with the Democratic Party on most issues.
By allowing La Clinton “to be associated with his views”, as you say, he has very effectively pushed her campaign to a more socialist position. Any democratic socialist would surely see this as a good thing, and it’s excellent that Sanders stayed in the race for as long as he did.
Hedges produces some great writing, but if he’s saying Trump is the best hope (in any regard), he’s off his chump. Having a lunatic, lying megalomaniac fascist in charge of anything but his own padded cell is clearly a bad thing for all concerned.
“This is just a matter of math”.
Maybe go back to grade school?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy
No-one is saying that the demand for labor is static. What they are saying is that any increase in the demand for labor is countered by an increase in supply that exceeds any increase in demand.
Therefore when supply of labor increases faster than any increase in demand then downward pressure is exerted on wages.
If a generous interpretation is taken of your point then you would need to explain why real wages in the UK have failed to increase despite the UK adding millions to its population and having relatively low unemployment.
Objection, assuming facts not in evidence. Adding foreign workers to the UK labour market adds to supply as well as demand, unless you think those foreign workers survive on nothing but pure air.
As for why real wages haven’t increased, the answer – as often in economics – is that Institutions Matter. (Capitalisation for emphasis.) Real wages aren’t going anywhere unless workers have the bargaining power they need to bargain for wage increases. And absent effective unionisation, they don’t. As for the causes of that, you can take your pick: Thatcher, increased individualism, shift to the services sector, “competitiveness, a dangerous obsession”, etc.
Martinned.
Who about the slow erosion of workers rights by continuous Westminster governments at the behest of their capitalist donors?
@Republic: At least two items in my (non-exhaustive) list fall in that category.
Maybe or maybe not.
Take Mike Ashley as an example. Would he pay higher wages if his workforce was unionized, or would he just shut down his business? His business provides nothing of value, and cheap Asian manufactured garments can be readily acquired from thousands of already existing outlets.
How can a workforce effectively unionize if the workers themselves are engaged in an activity of zero or negative value to the economy.
Take giant fast food organizations – again providing nothing of value and requiring little in the way of skill from their employees. If employees get too uppity then they are out on the street and replaced by robots.
His business provides nothing of value
WTF??? It’s not like I shop there, but to say that all the sporting goods, clothes, etc. sold by his company have no value is silly in the extreme.
In the presence of effective unionisation, he and his competitors would incur higher labour costs, employ fewer people, and sell fewer goods at higher prices. Whether that ultimately makes his workers and society better off is not for me to say.
~~~~~Could it be that the people busy amassing the wealth of the world understand that the game is over – there is no more economic growth.~~~~~
Curses! You wrote it first.
Well it’s interesting that you mention the ‘Juenssberg affair’ again, and propagate the outright lie that there was no evidence of misogynist abuse. As I pointed out to you at the time, and you are very well aware, David Babbs of 38 degrees, and Joe the originator of the petition, both vouched for the deeply unpleasant abuse they witnessed in Tweets linked to Joe’s petition. This was the reason for taking it down. They forwarded the 35,000 or so names already on the petition itself. The lack of ‘screen grab’ evidence seemed to be enough in your eyes to cast doubt on their word. As I laboriously showed to you, the evidence for Kuenssberg’s purported bias was flimsy to non-existent. You pointedly failed to address this issue, or provide any evidence yourself for your claims. A tad hypocritical of you Craig, as I pointed out at the time.
Further, you have pointedly refused to extend any word of sympathy for Osama Nassar or his friends, profiled in the Amnesty International piece I linked to. Your apparent monomaniacal devotion to the Palestinian cause seems to leave no room for other equally deserving people, and makes something of a mockery of your purported ‘humanitarian’ concerns.
You also do not censor or castigate openly anti-Semitic posts in this blog, which leaves the suspicion in ones mind that you may actually advocate such views yourself. You can deny it, but the implication is there to be drawn.
Also, no castigation of the blatantly homophobic bile from another poster on here recently. It’s not looking good for you Craig.
Jim,
That is a bit silly. You say my failure to respond to a homophobic comment means I agree with it. At the same time you complain I have not responded to one of your comments. The answer is I had not read either.
I make no claim to read all the comments on this blog. I read well less than half. What I agree with is what I write. The comments are an open forum for debate. It is ludicrous to claim I agree with comments because I do not reply to them. By that logic I also agree with your own earlier comment you refer to.
Disingenuous and feeble Craig, you made claims about the ‘lack of evidence’ for David Babbs’ and Joe’s witnessing the misogynistic abuse, in the form of screen grabs. In other words you were calling them liars. And failed to provide any evidence for the purported horrendous bias from Laura Kuenssberg. You can’t seriously expect anyone to believe you are so ‘above all this’ and busy with Iskander Barnes (which I’ll buy by the way!) that you fail to read anything on your own blog? There has been some extremely dubious stuff posted here recently, some from purported ‘activists’ in the Momentum and ‘Stop the War’ coalitions. Allying themselves with absolutely vile homophobes and anti-Semites.
Defenders of Israeli crimes are absolutely vile.
I’m not defending them, as you well know from my posting history, so don’t try that disingenuous bull.
On the other hand, you do ally yourself with another poster on this site who does, and I never see you condemning him, quite the opposite. Tag team tactics.
Nope another lie, I’ve blown hot and cold with Habbs, we have very different politics, but as I pointed out previously, I’ll have him over a hundred Bevin’s.
Tag team tactics. Nobody is fooled.
Lysias.
You do have a point Lysias, when I pointed out to Jim our keyboard humanitarian that Amnesty International, a prerequisite, in many of Jim’s posts, that they’d condemned the British sales and use by the Saudi-coalition of illegal cluster bombs.
Jim our passionate seeker of justice, claimed he addressed the article earlier on, his radical and freedom fighting comment on the subject extended to, calling the Guardian newspaper which carried the article the “evil MSM.”
There’s more chance of finding WMD’s in Iraq, than there is of, finding a humanitarian bone in our dear Jim’s body.
BT in Rhondda valley, this weekend Jim?
Says the JFK and 9/11 conspiraloon.
RoS :
Your post is unintelligible. Are you claiming Amnesty International support the selling of cluster bombs from uk companies or something?
You seriously think that anyone reads every word on all the thousands of posts on this blog?
You’re either off your chump, or a bit of a liar yourself, Jimbo.
See my post below Glen. This place is definitely not good for ones mental health I’ll give you that. ?
I do, Glenn.
As several Excellences and their hangers-on have found out to their cost.
Of course, it helps if one is intelligent, widely-read, of sceptical mind and unwilling to let various unhealthy views to go unchallenged.
“Unhealthy” again.
Habb.
Well it’s an open secret, as to why you read every comment, it is afterall your remit, but for whom do you work? Now there’s a poser.
Remember your passionate plea for “real lives” comments? Now would be a good time to honour that plea. ?
RoS
I think you misunderstood my “real lives” comment.
What I meant was that I’m pretty certain that the unhealthy, extremist posters on here do not speak the same language at their workplace or in the pub or even with their friends and acquaintances, ie, in real life. Can you imagine a “Bevin” talking the same way in real life as he talks on here? Of course not.
“Can you imagine a “Bevin” talking the same way in real life as he talks on here? Of course not.”
______________
Habb.
Bevin aside does your, we shall call it down shift, when your not actively diverting attention from Craig’s post etc, match your above sentence ?
Do you stroll around whever it is you stroll around ? calling people, friends, loved ones, colleagues etc, eminences, excellences and hanger- ons ?
Go on Habb, I know you’re dying to tell us. ?
Re my 20.05pm comment should read “wherever” my apologies.
Jim
Anti-Semitic comments do indeed get posted here sometimes. They get deleted when seen by me or a mod, as does any other racism.
Peter Tatchell I regard as a hero. of course I do not always agree with him on everything, but a great man.
I really haven’t looked at comments on the blog, hardly at all, in the last fortnight. And I really have never looked at the majority of them since day 1 of the blog.
I hold no brief for Assad and have no problem supporting amnesty on Osama Nassar. Not wanting to bomb a people back to the Stone Age should not be confused with supporting bad rulers. Opposition to the Iraq War did not make me a fan of Saddam.
On 38 Degrees, I very fairly published the full transcript of my conversation. I am sorry to say it seemed to me they were lying. How do you interpret that transcript? https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/05/38-degrees-refuse-release-evidence-sexist-abuse-laura-kuenssberg/
Just seen this Craig, I wouldn’t have posted my last comment if I had. ?
Except for the last bit there. I don’t think they were lying, it’s just a transcript of an awkward conversation you had with one of the 38 Degree team. Why would Joe himself lie? It doesn’t add up to me. Anyway, enough in the subject, we’ll have to agree to disagree.
Having read your reply again Craig I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, perhaps you are so busy, I’ve no idea. Anyway, no offence intended, for what it’s worth I don’t seriously believe you are anti-Semitic. Some of the dubious and outright vile stuff on here recently is worrying though. Homophobic hate material, previously propagated against Peter Tatchell by the BNP of all organisations. And supposedly ‘left-leaning’ people on here ally themselves with such people. Not a good look to put it mildly.
Craig is most certainly not anti-semitic and I am more than willing to believe he doesn’t read every comment (for reasons of time and – even better – inclination).
The problem is, given the above, certain people will take what Craig writes about Israel/Palestine, and, indeed, other matters, as an opportunity to lay their cuckoo eggs in the nest he provides.
This is one of the reasons why I believe that the blog would not suffer in the slightest if it were no longer to provide for a comments facility.
Let’s face it – this blog stands or falls on whether enough people find Craig’s posts interesting (and/or original and/or well-written and/or well-argued) enough to be worth reading.
Judging by its rankings in the “most-read” league of political blogs that is the case.
The vast majority of readers do not come here to hear the likes of “Bevin”, N_, Macky, Nevermind and so on.
All for now.
“Let’s face it – this blog stands or falls on whether enough people find Craig’s posts interesting (and/or original and/or well-written and/or well-argued) enough to be worth reading.”
__________________
Habb.
Well we can rule your uninformative efforts out immediately surely. ?
I am saddened to note that the confusion I identified in you a few days ago seems to persist.
If you believe that this blog would benefit from being comment free then surely your way forward is clear – you should desist forthwith from posting any comments of your own. If only you can concentrate long enough to see through the fog of your own confusion then you will appreciate both the simplicity and the moral imperative of my suggestion.
For the sake of your own sense of well being I do hope not to read anything further from you.
Loony
“If you believe that this blog would benefit from being comment free then surely your way forward is clear – you should desist forthwith from posting any comments of your own.”
__________________
The logic is impeccable. However, your idea has the disadvantage that the cuckoos’ views would remain unchallenged.
Don’t get me wrong. By no means all of the comments here are otiose, unreflective, provocative and mere expressions of personal obsessions – on this thread, for example, comments by Baal and eddie-g provide added-value (in my opinion). But they are in a minority and it seems to me that the added-value they bring is outweighed by the damage caused, if only in reputational terms, by (as an example) the Bevins, RoSs, RobGs et al of this blog.
Disabling all comments
“Don’t get me wrong. By no means all of the comments here are otiose, unreflective, provocative and mere expressions of personal obsessions”
_______________
Habb.
Don’t be so harsh on yourself old chap, you did post that one comment a while back that appeared to actually be informative and interesting.
Since then however, you haven’t quite covered yourself in glory, shall we say . ?
RoS
That’s the point, actually, isn’t it – many of the Eminences and their hangers-on give precisely the impression that they are trying to cover themselves with glory, to obtain the approval of their fellows. That thought of course ties in with my belief that they would not speak the same language in public (ie, in their real lives).
Habb.
See my 20.05pm comment.
Go on Habb, let us all know, you know you want to.
“And supposedly ‘left-leaning’ people on here ally themselves with such people.”
Such as by voting in Blair as PM three times. In his first six years in office Blair ordered British troops into battle five times, more than any other prime minister in British history, and still they continued to vote for him. Now, suddenly, they’re all peace-loving hippies again.
Of course, now they vote Scottish Nationalist and for Scottish independence, and pretend they never ever voted Labour, and maybe they went to confession and said a few “Hail Mary”s to ensure they don’t suffer any pangs of guilt.
Craig; “That is a bit silly. You say my failure to respond to a homophobic comment means I agree with it”
Rather more than silly, when there is no homophobic comment, unless of course you count his falsification by deliberately misquoting the actual words that I wrote;
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/05/i-daniel-blake/comment-page-5/#comment-600238
As to guilt by omission, seems as natural as guilty by association in the irrational mind of some;
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/06/back-to-the-fray/comment-page-4/#comment-601020
You posted smears previously propagated by the BNP to paint Peter Tatchell as a paedophile. It’s all there for anyone to read, your denials are pointless.
See below;
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/06/listen-leanne-mohamad-listen-everybody/comment-page-1/#comment-601226
The smears again just in case you missed the link to the stuff tried by the BNP and yourself :
http://www.petertatchell.net/lgbt_rights/age_of_consent/Under-age-sex-Statement-of-clarification-by-Peter-Tatchell.htm
Talking of abuse, which you are: Is there any reason why you find abuse by other people so offensive and yet reserve for yourself the right to spew abuse at anyone who holds views that are contrary to your own?
Any answer not garnished with abuse would be appreciated.
Smearing Peter Tatchell as a paedophile I find pretty disgusting. I haven’t seen you or anyone else stand up for him, which leads me to suspect that you rather dislike him and his politics too. He’s worth a hundred or a thousand Magisterial Davises or others of that ilk.
Providing a list of some of the dodgy things that Tatchell has said in his words in response to your assert that he is a ““superb person”,, is not smearing.
I wonder what your reaction would be if it had been anybody else, say a Muslim, who had said those words about the “great joy” derived from paedophilia ?
Yes it is smearing. This statement shows the BNP have tried that already :
http://www.petertatchell.net/lgbt_rights/age_of_consent/Under-age-sex-Statement-of-clarification-by-Peter-Tatchell.htm
No, it’s quoting somebody’s own words back to counter the assertion that person is a “superb person”; I have no idea what the BNP have or haven’t said about Tatchell, I don’t tend to read their stuff !
Don’t lie. You posted quotes out of context, just as the BNP did, to paint Peter Tatchell as a paedophile. You also posted quotes trying to insinuate he was some sort of anti-Semite. And made overt homophobic insinuations against myself suggest ‘intimacy’ between myself and Peter Tatchell, which you have tried multiple times to deny, posting obfuscatory links to try and deflect from what is there in the site history for anyone to see for themselves.
No, the lies are all yours; I simply posted quotes from a quotes site in response to you lauding him as some sort of “superb person” ;
http://www.inspiringquotes.us/author/7157-peter-tatchell
Your problem is that many have seen through him as being one of the fake “Anti-War” Left, just like anybody with an ounce of honest commonsense can see through you.
No, you posted quotes out of context to try and smear a person who has been a hero of the left for many years, and had suffered serious physical assault for many years, notably from some of your Russian friends of the fascist persuasion :
http://gu.com/p/4gqt3?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Maybe a hero of yours Dim Jim, but not to anybody who can see through his war-mongering propaganda, first noted at the time of Iraq by those with more than a couple of brain cells.
So that’ll be Craig himself you disagree with then Macky me old mate? He sees Peter Tatchell as a hero of the left, you disparage him as a paedophile. It’s quite clear who’s doing the smearing.
@Dim Jim,
You really must be new here if you think I’m worried about disagreeing with Craig ! However on Syria I think his position is closer to mine than it is to yours.
Yes, it’s crystal clear who is doing the smearing here, and it’s not me.
Your loosely worded comment can be read as though I have described Tatchell as a pedophile. I have not.
I have no interest in Peter Tatchell one way or the other. Given that I have no interest in him then for what reason would I “stand up for him”?
I understand that he was beaten up in Russia – did you go Russia to “stand up for him”?
And calling out lowlifes like our homophobic friend is not abuse, you need to check your definitions.
What antisemitic posts are you referring to, Jim?
There are lots of them, just read back for several weeks. It’s not overt some of it, but nevertheless obvious.
Oh there are lots of them, eh? We’ll just have to take your word for it (you being so honest, an’ all) – don’t trouble yourself with substantiating your slurs.
They are not slurs, I’ve read stuff about ‘International Jewry’ from purported trade union activists on here. Israel being a ‘foul stench in the nostrils of humanity’ from Bevin. Tendentious links to the RNLI yesterday purporting to be caring about schoolchildren a safety. Don’t try and tell me I’m lying. Up above you were banging on about nobody reading all the posts on here. You obviously don’t. I do.
This is a free comment site, Jim – one of very few about the place. Some people abuse the privilege. I gather the mods (who are unpaid volunteers working in their free time) do weed out the more blatant stuff when they spot it, but it’s a bit rich to expect the blog host to “own” every comment in every post by every person.
I’ve been away for a few weeks, and damned if I’ll read back everything I might have missed, together with all the on-going garbage. If you want to trawl it, hoping to find something over which you can take offence (on your own time), more fool you.
Is this how you spend your free time, seriously?
Manifestly anti-Semitic postings may be made here in bad faith, just to discredit the blog.
Lysias :
Why don’t you call them out then? Or the repulsive homophobe? Silence speaks as loudly as words.
It’s tragic I know, seriously not good for my mental health. I’m getting a good 7 mile run in every day though, so it’s not all bad! But yep, it’s time to say goodbye.
“I’m getting a good 7 mile run in every day though, so it’s not all bad!”
Jolly good – I like running myself. But if you really do that sort of mileage, pushing 50 miles/week, I’d have thought you’d have learned to pace yourself by now 😉
No point in coming at this like your life depends on it, and wanting to pick an argument with everyone simultaneously. Take the 1/2 marathon –> full marathon approach. Some people pass you, let them – you might be able to catch them in due course. Maybe not, of course – but if you’re in it for the long haul, you have to get into your stride a bit better.
I’ve been having some good conversations with running partners about that very subject! ‘No mans land training’ etc, and having the discipline to rest and go easy. Some posters on here need countering though, I won’t let hateful homophobia and dodgy anti-Semitic stuff go by without comment. And outright liars line Bevin are beyond the pale.
Like not line.
“I’ve been having some good conversations with running partners about that very subject! ‘No mans land training’ etc, and having the discipline to rest and go easy. Some posters on here need countering though, I won’t let hateful homophobia and dodgy anti-Semitic stuff go by without comment.”
Fair enough about the bigotry – nobody should get a pass on that – and thank you for your other reply, in which you confirm that you’re no apologist for Israel’s crimes against humanity on general principles. You’ll find a few posters currently humping your leg are exactly that – Israel first, right or – very much more often – wrong.
On running, some of the best advice I can offer is to run your own race. You can run someone else’s, but in all likelihood they won’t match your performance (either better or worse), and will slow you down or over-extend you. They might well not even finish the race. Pick your own pace, and stick to it.
Personally, I am way too competitive too. I’ll push too hard and often end up with injuries/strains for very little purpose. Even when it’s the first run in a while, or while recovering, I’ll get over-enthusiastic and risk setting myself back badly.
Restraint is the name of the game, particularly once one starts heading into their 40’s !
Cheers Glen, just seen your reply! I’m actually in my 50’s now, still loving my running, it’s been part of my life for decades. No road stuff these days though, I’m doing fell races…absolutely fantastic (agonising) fun! I came to racing late, it was always just for fun before. Very hard to hold back and ‘run my own race’ for the reasons you warn about! Starting slow does seem to work, but so easy to hare off too fast! Cheers for the chat ?
I hope you won’t be offended, Daniel, but your avatar does remind me a little of that Tony Blair Christmas card which showed him and Cherie holding little Leo.
“There is no denying that the SNP, Corbyn and Bernie Sanders phenomena on the one hand, and the Trump and UKIP phenomena on the other, represent a significant upsurge of popular discontent with the status quo. ”
In Scotland the SNP are the status quo, they have been in government nine years now.
About time they stopped pretending to be the radical alternative.
How many MPs did the SNP have prior to the last General Election? Status Quo?
They have been the government in Scotland for nine years, as I said.
If you make a sensible argument and its denounced as racist or anti-Semitic you may think you have been misunderstood, but if on all other occasions you get the same response, particularly from those who would fit the description themselves, then its safe to conclude you are just being insulted and you may as well insult them back on the same terms. I.e. Don’t call me a racist, anti-Semitic, you racist, anti-Semitic! But due to the partisan way these insults are applied it may be best to add a descriptive term e.g. You Zionist anti-Semitic!
Its a contradiction to be pro-EU and anti-austerity, because austerity is EU austerity, imposed to save the Euro. The pro-EU “SNP/Left” resolve the contraction by calling it Tory austerity, but Labour proposed similar cuts to balance the books! So both Labour and Tory austerity is EU austerity and thus if you vote Remain you are voting for austerity as stated by Gisela Stuart of Labour GO on the Daily Politics.
Wait, how does the EU (a set of institutions) get blamed for a set of dumb policies? By that logic, we should abolish HM Treasury as well.
> There is no denying that the SNP, Corbyn and Bernie Sanders phenomena
> on the one hand, and the Trump and UKIP phenomena on the other,
> represent a significant upsurge of popular discontent with the status
> quo.
The former wish to accelerate what is called ‘progress’ and the latter
wish to reverse it. It is the difference between seeking to be more
holy than the established priesthood and uttering blasphemies.
> The Trump and UKIP side of that movement reflects a deliberate
> attempt by the Establishment to use the mainstream media to divert the
> focus of discontent away…
The establishment loathes UKIP and it hates Trump with a passion,
since Trump is closer to success. If the establishment could make
them disappear, it would get rid of both before you can say
‘inclusiveness’.
> Compulsory proper employment contracts with protection from
> dismissal and compulsory recognition of union representation are
> safeguards vitally needed
“To solve employment problems, increase the risks and costs of
employing people.” This logic would be a puzzle to our hypothetical
friend the Martian, until he notices it’s just another case of
holiness-seeking.
Angry “Jim” is doing a fine job of distracting from what Craig has just posted about; I hardly think that’s accidental.
I posted a direct piece to Craig addressing some of the issues he alluded to you lying little troll.
Hey yehudon your chosen slip is showing, the way you insult the cattle !
Like accusing him of advocating homophobic views himself. ?!! 😀
It’s noticeable how a bunch of pro-establishment blatherers have shown up on this thread and started posting voluminously. Craig’s piece seems to have struck a nerve.
Manifestly anti-Semitic postings may be made here in bad faith, just to discredit the blog.
Why don’t you call them out then? Or the horrendous homophobe? Silence speaks as loudly as words.
Would you call out the abuse of the occupied Palestinians, and the crimes of Israel, just so we know you’re on the level with us?
Otherwise, it might appear that you’re just selectively taking offence.
Personally, I’m more than happy to call out bigots of any variety. I’ll call out religious nutcases of whatever persuasion too, and for good measure also denounce the filthy and cruel practices involved in the dead animal consumption industry.
For instance, Ehud Barak has called out Israel for showing signs of fascism. “Defence” minister Liberman has suggested an Israeli Arab is a “traitor” and called for him to be beheaded. Do you condemn this yourself?
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Netanyahu-Liberman-government-showing-signs-of-fascism-Ehud-Barak-says-454557
Glen-uk :
Yep, I’ve done that multiple times on this blog. I’ve no time whatsoever for the horrendous behaviour of the Israeli state, the plight of the Palestinians causes me just as much pain as I presume it does yourself. The difference is that I am not blinded by ideology to the plight of other deserving causes such as, say, that of Osama Nassar and his friends in Syria, profiled by Amnesty International. Many of the posters in here show zero respect for him. Therefore I have zero respect for them, and question their ‘humanitarian’ motivations. Pretty simple stuff really.
This is Osama’s Amnesty profile piece :
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2016/03/underground-and-under-fire-an-activists-life-in-syria-since-2011/
You mean like the comment from” BDS Now!3:
“Hey yehudon your chosen slip is showing, the way you insult the cattle !”?
You do seem very clued up on those tactics, don’t you…..
It’s struck me a hypocritical bull, frankly.
“Blatherers”? Surely not.
Anyway, let’s have less of this blather and I suggest you bring in this new dawn by telling us about a few of the books you’ve been reading recently.
The devils have taken over everywhere, the only weapon left against this festering apartheid is BDS NOW !!
If the habubs here dont like such anti-semantic posts, they can flee like rats on a sinking ship.
The “devils” – there you go. I bet Adolf and his friends thought of the Jews as devils.
Perhaps this blog’s expert on 1930s Germany – I refer, of course, to our Transatlantic Friend – could confirm or deny the above?
Jimmed out. There are 32 mentions of his name.. so far.
Do not engage.
I’ve noticed you don’t post anything but vague accusations against me. Nothing of substance regarding the issues being debated. So really, you are the troll here. As somebody pointed out to you yesterday or the day before.
Jim seems quite reasonable to me. I don’t impute any hidden motives to him. But I agree comments should helpfully move on.
Cheers Craig!
@Craig, Is that when he’s not being “a bit silly”, like accusing you of being a sly anti-Semite & being homophobic, as well as a fake humanitarian ? !
I think you’ve accused Craig of quite a few nasty things in your time, “Macks”. Both on Squonk, after you flounced off from this blog after being told off, and here again after you crept back in.
True or false?
Difference Habba-Clown is that I speak my mind without stooping to make irrational smears or maliciously mis-quoting people’s words; that sort of dishonesty & lying is what separates trolls from others.
Oh dear, “Macks”!
Self-awareness 101 appears to be required in your case, wouldn’t you say?
Actually I was a little hasty there Craig, before the conversation moves on it would be interesting to hear your views in the plight of Osama Nassar and his friends in Syria, and whether your sympathies are with them just as strongly as with the Palestinian cause? Or whether you seriously think David Babbs and Joe were lying about the abuse they witnessed? Or any evidence of LK’s horrendous anti-Corbyn bias for that matter? One poster did provide some election night coverage footage but it was rather feeble to put it kindly.
Ignore that Craig, just seen your reply above.
Careful Jimbo, just because Craig is being over generous towards you, despite being a victim himself of being smeared by having his own words delibrately mis-quoted, doesn’t mean that you can bank on getting away treating him as you treat others here
I don’t suppose there’s a chance of an “ignore” button? It seems to me that one flacking tactic here, is to fill a thread with balderdash to hook those not well versed in Dr Dade.
It’s no use Keith, Dr Dade will never work here for a variety of reasons, chief one being that this blog is very troll friendly, in that trolls keep getting treated as regular commentators, occasionally are even fed from the top, so Dr Dade as a solution is always going to be sabotaged.
I think you’ve got them seriously worried, Jim – hence the lamentable quality of the “replies” to your comments.
You’ve touched many raw nerves in a short time and your refusal to let yourself be brow-beaten just compounds your offence.
But take comfort from my example – despite their best efforts over the last couple of years, I’m still here! 🙂
Habb.
Lamentably. ?
You’ll just have to live with it, RoS 🙂
******************
By the way, I see that someone is posting under a BDS handle and that reminds me that you still haven’t told us whether you yourself are doing anything practical like supporting BDS through not purchasing Israeli goods and services.
Surely a clear “yes” from you would serve as inspiration to those of your admirers who have perhaps not yet taken the plunge?
Habb.
Two words “real lives”
RoS
BDS – yes or no? 🙂
“Jim” may be Anon1 wearing a chador behind a burka, to hide his pink yarmulke?
It’s hard work though Habbs, I need to get away once and for all. ?
Jim.
Now now Jim, don’t make promises you can’t keep. ?
Tag team at work.
It’s horribly compulsive stuff RoS, shoot me, I beg you! ?
17h15 UK time. What’s that in Washington (allegedly)? 🙂
“It’s horribly compulsive stuff RoS, shoot me, I beg you!”
_______________
Not at all Jim, we’ll leave that task up to Al-Qaeda, and the moderates, of which Britain’s ally the US has teamed up with in Syria according to the former British ambassador to Syria Peter Ford.
https://www.rt.com/news/345636-us-siding-al-qaeda-ford/
I’m sure Jim our ardent and very vocal humanitarian will be extremely outraged at this, in a literal sense of course.
I’m sitting here in anticipation, of Jim’s backlash on the US and it’s terrorist buddy Al-Qaeda, and how detrimental the alliance made in hell, will be to poor Syrian citizens.
Go on Jim let it rip, god bless you.
I thought RobG was the shooter on this blog?
On topic, and as there’s a background screenshot of this blog, I can’t help wondering if “Sp00ky Skeletonman” might be somebody here !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhUeyh_MeY0
Nothing there Macks old boy. More dissembling, trying to conflate the petition itself with the misogynistic abuse witnessed on Twitter by David Babbs of 38 degrees, and Joe the petition’s organiser. They witnessed it and decided to take down Joe’s petition. There is also no evidence of the purported horrendous bias by LK which was the reason for Joe’s petition in the first place. Nice try though!
@Dim Jim, I wasn’t trying anything but if you want me to, then here goes; just the fact itself that not only did LK & AN arranged for the resignation of Stephen Doughty live on the Daily Politics Show, but they timed it just mere minutes before a PMQ confrontation, and so gave Cameron hot off the press ammo to mock Corbyn, does actually seem very bias to me, and suspect enough for the ‘output editor’ of the Daily Politics take down a Blog post about how it was all pre-arranged & not spontaneous as it was made to appear so.
Read over about it;
http://zelo-street.blogspot.fr/2016/01/laura-kuenssberg-not-good-enough.html
http://evolvepolitics.com/bbc-admit-intentionally-damaging-corbyn-leadership-contrived-live-resignation/
You really do need to keep up! Doughty himself was absolutely fine with the arrangement, and was critical of Seumas Milne’s email criticising the BBC for their terrible crime. And as several people pointed out at the time, if this was a shadow Tory minister doing the same thing, does anyone really suggest the Daily Politics would not do the same? Give me a break.
@Dim Jim, yes of course Blarite Doughty was ok with it !
No, I don’t think they would have done it for a shadow Tory minister, just on the weight of the BBC being a State Broadcaster, noted for its notorious for pro-Establishment bias; or do you really believe it is impartial & truly independent ? 😀
No evidence presented Macks, just opinion. Anything to say regarding the attempted conflation of the petition comments with the Twitter abuse witnessed by 38 degrees and Joe, the petitions originator, which led to their taking the petition down?
@Dim Jim, In the absence of convenient “here I am evidence” that can be put in box, that wrongdoers have a tendency of disposing of, such as deleted bog posts, you can only use such circumstantial evidence, plus of course basic commonsense & rational reasoning; unfortunately two qualities you seem to lack in abundance.
There is of course evidence from studies for BBC bias (which you carefully avoided addressing), such as this one;
http://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-how-biased-is-the-bbc-17028
As to the conflation of the petition with Twitter comments, I believe that was done deliberately & shamefully as a pretext for taking the petition down
I’m away today and i’m not going to waste time on silly trolling comments. (Jim really ought to learn that plurals do not need apostrophes, though. But then, there are much more important things for him to learn too.)
Regarding the deaths caused by neo-liberal policies in Russia, and elsewhere, including the United States where life expectancy of certain well defined classes has been falling for a decade or so, the facts are not really disputable. And anyone sincerely interested will find them soon enough.
Regarding the historical consequences of capitalist imperialism the numbers of those killed by both sides of that coin are incalculable. And include dozens of genocides, particularly in the Americas but also in Asia, most notably India and most famously Bengal.
No historian would seriously dispute the facts though anyone may interpret them, honestly, in a variety of ways.
In other words, you’re blaming capitalism for all deaths – and particularly the violent ones – since the dawn of time. OK, that clarifies things, I suppose.
Martinned
Well Bevin does have a point, in a round about way, didn’t homosapiens, due to there expansion, (earliest form of capitalism) and need for new assets, ie lands, hunting grounds etc, lead to the demise of the Neanderthals ?
Though to read some comments on here (present company excluded) you’d think Neanderthals were alive and well. ?
“bevin
June 8, 2016 at 18:24
I’m away today ..”
____________________
So there is a God after all 🙂
Comrades,
Along with Cameron and Osborne, the banks and the corporations and the IMF, and Tony Blair, our blog Leader wants us to remain in the EU. He wants to flood the country with unlimited mass-immigration of cheap labour for the benefit of the wealthy elite. And he wants to borrow and borrow and spend more than ever before in order to break the records set by the current government and plunge the nation ever further into catastrophic levels of national debt.
Murray is with the Establishment on all these key points. He is certainly no Dissident as he likes to present himself, hence his embarrassed silence in the run-up to the most important political decision of our times.
The capitalists want to give the government free money. If the Treasury really try, they can get the capitalists to pay HMG in order to get it to take their money. What can be more anti-establishment than that?
I think you will find that the “free money” comes by way of the (virtual) printing press.
Meanwhile in the real world Munich Re is hoarding cash and buying gold so not to give any of its money to the government. A move so ludicrous that Commerzbank is now evaluating its own options to store $ billions of cash in its own vaults.
Should all work out well.
Free money ? Is that like talking loans out on negative interest rates ? 🙂
http://cluborlov.blogspot.fr/2016/06/the-money-cult.html#more
“What can be more anti-establishment than that? ”
_______
Martinned.
Dare I say it a Milton Friedman “helicopter drop.” And it would stimulate the economy, all that consumer buying, Habb could even buy a new script for in here, god knows he needs a new one. ?
Works for me…
You should also listen to Junichiro Koizumi, who was prime minister of Japan from 2001 to 2006. Koizumi was one of the longest serving prime ministers in the recent decades of total economic turmoil in Japan. The turmoil was all down to neo-con ideology/policies, as was Fukushima…
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201605190065.html
Naoto Kan was prime minister of Japan when the Fukushima disaster began in 2011. Kan, like Koizumi, was always pro-nuclear and is now strongly anti-nuclear…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYv3w63us5k
Both these former prime ministers of Japan finally understood what nuclear power really is (the vast majority of people have no real scientific understanding of it, which is what those in power want). So, while I ally myself with the Palestinian cause there are much bigger fish to fry; and all the fish in the Pacific Ocean are now not so slowly dying.
There are three full-size commercial nuclear reactors on the coast of Japan in complete and ongoing meltdown, and it’s been going on for more than five years now. Never in the history of the human race have we faced anything as disastrous as this.
Totally uncontrolled, Fukushima is pumping the equivalent energy of about one zillion electric bar fires into the environment every single day; and you wonder why the worldwide weather is so fucked-up at the moment; and hey, let’s not worry about the death of the Pacific Ocean, which is now far advanced.
I realise that I’m speaking to fellow inmates of the asylum known as planet neo-con, but one can only try…
“So, while I ally myself with the Palestinian cause…”
_____________________
That’s good to hear, RoB.
Make we therefore take it that you support and practise BDS?
(Note to myself: will RobG be more forthcoming than RoS? 🙂 )
Yup, the lunatics are now definitely in control of the asylum.
The lunatics don’t even understand that they are also dead people walking.
Beam me up, Scotty…
Can’t see any evidence of anti-Semitism in her speech. The problem is usually the white Christian people who hijack the Israel-Palestine issue to further their neo-Nazi and medievalist Jew-hating agendas, not actual Palestinians who criticise the Israeli government. Even if a kid did make an anti-Semitic, racist, sexist or homophobic speech then there is an argument for allowing them to do so if this was an exercise in giving them the opportunity to exercise their freedom of speech. True, incitement to hatred is against the law, but if someone wants to say how much they dislike Jews, women, Catholics, the French, the Irish, the Scots, black people, LGBT folk or Israelis then they should be free to do so – even if the majority of us find those views abhorrent. In my opinion, a person should even be free to make their case of paedophilia – whilst obviously not engaging in it and abusing kids. We can’t just censor views that we may disagree with as these views will only go underground anyway and the Nazis and paedos will get to use the fact their free speech was suppressed to play martyr.
“Can’t see any evidence of anti-Semitism in her speech. The problem is usually the white Christian people”
_________________
Can anyone see the faux pas in Becky Cohen’s above sentence ?
I wonder if Jim, our enthusiastic humanitarian, will take issue with Becky’s comment.
I know I will, Becky for the love of god, please, please use paragraphs, or no one will read (Habb aside) that ruddy great lump of text.
Re paragraph indiscipline, RoS, I do hope you’ll be making the same point to our absent friend “Bev” when he returns.
Just to be consistent, RoS, you know. I know you are an impartial sort of chap who always speaks his mind, after all, you told us so yourself. 🙂
MODERATOR – urgent!!
My last comment (above) made me sound like RoS. Please delete it forthwith.
I see you are practiced in the art of expressing subliminal acceptable racism.
Oh yes all those white Christian people with their “neo-Nazi, medievalist,Jew hating agendas” Maybe it would have been more politically correct to refer to white Christian men.
What is it with all this hatred of white people, and why is it acceptable to besmirch an entire racial group with some off hand remark designed to show nothing more than how politically correct you are.