With no sense of irony, a “liberal” media which rightly excoriates the President of Gambia for failing to accept an election result, continues to do precisely the same thing in the case of Donald Trump. No invective is too strong to be cast against a man whose election the “liberal” media did everything possible to prevent.
With the happy resignation of Stephen Daisley, a strong contender for worst journalist in the World is now Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian. He takes the irony to an entirely new level. He claims that Trump will destroy the legacy by which smaller nations “long looked to the US to maintain something close to a rules-based international system.” He completely ignores the fact that the greatest single hammer blow against the rules based international system was delivered by Freedland’s idol Tony Blair, when he supported the invasion of Iraq without a Security Council Resolution and in the specific knowledge that, if the matter of force were properly put to the Security Council, it would not merely meet three vetoes but lose a majority vote.
The UN, and the rule of international law, have never recovered from that hammer blow, which Freedland enthusiastically cheered on. Nor has Freedland apparently noticed that the smaller nations rather detest than worship the USA. It has invaded and bombed them, interfered in their elections, supported right wing coups and armies, run destabilising CIA drug rings in them, and armed and even sometimes led dictatorial death squads. Look at all those US Security Council vetoes and the resolutions that never got to a vote because of threatened US vetoes. Look at all those General Assembly votes that were everyone against the USA, Israel and the poor occupied Marshall Islands. Freedland’s hymn to the Pax Americana is a sick joke. For much of the world, a period of American isolationism would be extremely welcome.
I am thankfully too clear-headed to like Trump because of the extraordinary campaign of vilification to which he has been subjected. Freedland has no shame about repeating the lie that Trump kept Hitler’s speeches by his bedside. I was in a position to know for sure that the “Russian hacking” elements of the extraordinary “Manchurian candidate” rubbish which the entire establishment threw at Trump was definitively untrue. I had the background and training to see that the Christopher Steele dossier was not only nonsense, but a fake, not in fact produced seriatim on the dates claimed. The involvement of the US security services in spreading lies as intelligence to undermine an incoming President will go down as a crucial moment in US history. We have not yet seen the denouement of that story.
But none of that makes Trump a good person. He could be an appalling monster and still be subjected to dirty tricks by other very bad people. There is much about Trump to dislike. His sensible desire for better relations with Russia is matched by a stupid drive to goad China.
Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric did tap in to the populist racism which is unfortunately sweeping developed countries at the moment. The very wealthy have succeeded in diverting justified anger at the results of globalisation on to immigrant populations, who are themselves victims of globalisation. By shamelessly tapping in to the deep wells of popular atavism, the elite have managed the extraordinary trick of escaping the wrath their appalling profiteering and extreme levels of wealth should bring. His words on race in his inauguration address were good, but does he really mean them? His anti-Muslim rhetoric remains deeply troubling. His ludicrous boast yesterday that he would end radical Islamic terrorism is precisely indicative of the counter-productive stupidity that feeds it.
I am a free trader and dislike the march of protectionism. But on the other hand, international trade agreements have become routinely not about tariffs but much more about the allocation of resources within the states concerned, mandating a neo-liberal model and giving extraordinary legal status to multinational companies. The collapse of the current model of international trade agreement, if that is what Trump really heralds, has both its positive and negative aspects.
It is of course a major question whether the establishment and his own Republican party allow him to do anything too radical at all. My own suspicion is that after all the huffing and puffing, nothing much is going to change. The key intra-party battle will probably be over the only policy he affirmed in any detail yesterday, the return of New Deal type state infrastructure spending. The idea of a massive state funded programme of national infrastructure, particularly in transport, to get heavy industry back on its feet, is the very antithesis of neo-liberalism. I think yesterday cleared up the question of whether Trump really meant it – he does. Will he be allowed to do it by a party committed to small state and balanced budgets, is a huge question. As Trump is also committed to tax cuts, it implies a massive budget deficit – with which Trump might well be comfortable. If Trump does succeed, it could fundamentally shift the way western governments look at economics, turning back the clock to the happier days before the advent of monetarism.
So that is Trump. Much that is bad but some fascinating things to watch. I suppose the reason I can’t join in the “it’s a disaster” screams, is that I thought it was already a disaster. The neo-liberal, warmongering orthodoxies did not have my support, despite Obama’s suave veneer. The pandering to racist populism of Trump is bad, and we must keep a watch on it. He may turn out not really to be different at all. Like all politicians, personal enrichment will doubtless be high on his agenda. But I do not start from the presumption the world is now a worse place than it was last week. I shall wait and see.
Ms Nicola Sturgeon warned: “It seems the Westminster Tory Government now think they can do anything they like to Scotland and get away with it. They must start to understand how wrong they are.”
Yet The Scottish Donald, (his sainted mother, Mary Anne MacLeod was born in the village of Tong, Lewis, Scotland,
was a native Scottish Gaelic), on her bible he sworn his oath to the people of America, has chosen to invite Theresa May to be his first official visitor, how upsetting it must be for Sturgeon to be so snubbed.
You reap what you sow.
Norton.
I don’t know if you know this, probably not, but Donald Trump isn’t particularly popular in Scotland, indeed from the interviews I’ve seen with residents from Tong (pronounced Tongue) he isnt popular there either, if I recall correctly he’s only visited his ancestral home once or twice in his lifetime.
I know that the SNP including Salmond and Sturgeon, are not fans of Trump and his antics, nor is Patrick Harvey of the Greens a fan,Trump has a Scottish mother and carries around her bible, but in the eyes of many many Scots, Trump is as Scottish as pizza or curry.
So I’m pretty sure Sturgeon won’t be too upset at May or Farage having access to the Donald.
“I suppose the reason I can’t join in the “it’s a disaster” screams, is that I thought it was already a disaster. ”
It was in many ways, but there are degrees of disaster. The Bush II presidency was a considerably greater disaster than the Obama presidency. This has all the hallmarks of also being worse – in particular when you consider Trump’s views on and approach to climate change, which you should really incorporate into your analysis here.
What are the views and approach of Trump regarding climate change?
The chances are that his main view is to ignore climate change and that he will fail to propose or implement any policies calculated to limit or reverse climate change. If this proves to be accurate then he will be aligning himself with the actions of substantially every living person in the western hemisphere.
Consider that in the UK in 1982 there were approximately 12 million motor vehicles. Today there are about 44 million. Did Donald Trump either persuade or force people to buy all these vehicles? Maybe you live in a house and if so the chances are that your house is much warmer in winter than a house of 100 years ago would have been. If people think there is a problem with climate change people are free to turn their heating off. Donald Trump does not compel you to heat your house.
The simple fact is that no-one cares sufficiently about climate change to make material changes to their lifestyles. Climate change policies are fundamentally dishonest in that they have nothing to do with the climate and everything to do with the redistribution of wealth.
Donald Trump is not responsible for your day to day decisions. You are.
Loony
I agree.
It might be just possible that human activities are increasing the amount of CO2 in the biosphere.
But it is an unimaginable small amount.
Round my way, thousands of new houses are being put up for migrants.
Trees are being ripped out, streams narrowed and much concrete /paving /tarmac is installed.
The environmental damage is great but very little effect on global warming.
Better things to obsess about.
Almost nobody gives a shit about global warming
other than those who will make money out of it
or the virtue signalers, the pink hat build bridges not walls brigade
Michael, no one is building houses for migrants. You were obviously an intelligent guy once but really? You just sound like an old confused duffer.
In the period 1997-2007 net immigration to the UK totaled around 3 million. Average household size throughout this period remained relatively constant at about 2.3 persons per household.
In order for your contention to be true then one of the following must also be true (i) There are in excess of 3 million homeless people in the UK or (ii) the UK had a surplus housing stock that totaled a bare minimum of 1.3 million unoccupied houses. As immigration is still ongoing then presumably the UK continues to run a housing surplus so large that net immigration of 300,000 plus per year does not materially erode this surplus.
Perhaps you can let me know either where I can find 3 million homeless people or alternatively where I can find vast quantities of empty houses.
Shatnersrug
ever wondered why we voted BREXIT
ever wondered why people voted Trump
“Climate change policies are fundamentally dishonest in that they have nothing to do with the climate and everything to do with the redistribution of wealth.”
___________
Thankfully the measurement of CO2 in the atmosphere has been going on since the mid-50’s before the alt-right and fake news became prominent.
The Keeling Curves attests to that.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeling_Curve
Very interesting – how does taking money away from people and giving it to other people have an effect on the Keeling Curves?
I think you global warming extremists might know that about one thousand times more people die from the cold in Europe than die from the heat.
Very few German civilians had been killed by the Russians until they invaded Germany in 1945. But it was predictable in 1943-4 that the Russians would invade and kill a lot of German civilians.
you are selfcentred to ignore what scientist believe is going to happen. Kiss good bye to New York and London, their unsustainable positions mean that they will be flooded, and more.
You try and argues the future impact of our behaviour away by citing today’s climate extremes, what an armchair job.
Not to worry, Habby won’t pull you up, he loves fake news as much as you do.
Thankfully the measurement of CO2 in the atmosphere has been going on since the mid-50’s before the alt-right and fake news became prominent.
The Keeling Curves attests to that.
If they do keep cutting down the trees and doing a burn off as in Indonesia the sea water heats and you get
precipitation.which creates abnormal weather effects around the world.
Sorry, could you explain that one a bit more clearly? Some credible references would be good too, much as I’d like to take your word as read. Thanks.
It probably “boils” down to an increased number of human beings, alive at one time and each having a desire for having more than they need, I blame advertising.
“The simple fact is that no-one cares sufficiently about climate change to make material changes to their lifestyles. ”
To a large extent, that is true. And that is exactly why it is so important for governments to make changes such as mandating greater use of renewable energy, and why the Paris agreement (underwhelming though it was), which Trump plans to undermine, is so important.
Most people as in “The Voters” do not give a shit.
If they did give a shit, they would vote in the bleeding heart Liberal Democrats of the Loony Greens but they did not.
In America they just voted in The Scottish Donald, who does not want to understand or believe in global warming.
We live in Democracies, wave your pink hat in the air and sing,
not our president,
see if it makes any difference.
“The Scottish Donald”. Again you are half right. Using that fraction of wit you exercise to feed your racist innuendo. You are truly in vogue with your fakery. Which makes you a fakir or something sounding similar.
Man made climate change is a globalist scam, a global fear to excuse global governance in the interests of the 1%.
Write up a paper on it, Dave. The world will give you a Nobel prize, surely, for exposing this scam.
After all, what is observed to be happening right now is in line with the prediction of scientists since the 1970s. Your proof of how such an enormous “scam” was perpetrated will be a relief to mankind.
In the meantime, the 1% (who make nothing at all off fossil fuels and extraction generally – the oil industry is entirely owned and run by the little guy!) will be gnashing their teeth when you, ahem, reveal the “truth” – it’s business as usual, so just forget about any environmental concerns!
Yup. That’ll stick it to those elitist 1%’ers.
Unbelievable.
UK government wasted £100m on cancelled carbon capture project
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-38687835
This is the sort of crap that happens when you pander to the Loony Greens
and the pink hat brigade
public money is pissed up the wall
but the climate changes – not one jot
Fascinating insight, Norton – the “loony greens” are in charge of government these days, are they?
With your superb analytic skills, I look forward to your explanation of how that happened.
glennuk
a little while ago The Liberal Democrats were in a coalition with the Conservatives, the LibDems are quite partial to Loony Green idiology
That tosser Clegg forced Call Me Dave to take on loony tune ideas.
Once the loony LibDems were out on their lying ears, Call Me Dave said
“Ditch The Green Crap”
David Cameron was at the centre of a storm on Thursday over whether he ordered aides to “get rid of all the green crap” from energy bills in a drive to bring down costs.
The language, attributed to Cameron in the Sun newspaper by a senior Tory source, sparked a furious reaction from campaigners accusing the prime minister of abandoning his promise to run the greenest government ever.
Although Downing Street said it did not “recognise” the phrase
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/21/david-cameron-green-crap-comments-storm
I hope that helps Glennuk
That’s the best you’ve got? The Lib Dems were a junior partner in coalition, two governments ago, and that means the “loony greens” are in charge – now, today, at this moment?
Even you must be able to realise what a uselessly weak argument that is. FFS, Norton – be honest and get past the Express-orientated, unthinking knee-jerk reaction for once in your life.
“Loony Greens” – or any other kind of greens – have not had a hearing in this country ever. Stop pretending that they are driving all of government policy – worldwide – and have produced a conspiracy to corrupt the _entire_ scientific community.
Gah, I waste my time. You are simply not capable of thinking through this obvious twaddle you’re peddling as if it were your mission in life. Greens secretly in charge, my freaking arse. What sort of idiot would seriously entertain that for a moment.
glennuk
you might understand that The Loony Greens are not in charge, they have never been in charge – correct assessment.
However the Loony Liberal Democrats were a thorn in the side of the Conservative government – for five long years.
They foisted all sorts of twaddle onto poor old Dave.
He did suck it up and pretended that it was his think – like pink weddings – windmills -solar panel feed ins and the like
but mostly it was not Dave’s thing.
After the Lying Liberals were ditched by our discerning electorate – things started to change -rapidly.
Cameron wound back on re-newables.
Put the ball on course for Trident, all the stuff the Loony Liberals did not want.
I hope that helps Glennuk
Lead piping was very popular where you grew up as a young kid, right Norton?
The “loony greens” are not in charge. They never were. It must have escaped your notice, but massively wealthy energy companies, banksters and retail exploiters have been a bit more popular with governments in the past 28 years or so than “loony greens”.
Why you should think “loony greens” prevail upon public policy is easy to understand. A mind rotted away by the gutter-press like the Mail, Express and other right-wing rags ran by the ultra-rich, which people like you are eager to believe, will accept such obvious BS.
Does trying to think hurt that badly, Norton, that you no longer dare to even attempt it? Can’t you just give it a moment’s consideration, instead of blasting us with your thoughtless slogans, parroted from the Express somewhere?
The point is, the scam isn’t really a green policy, its a scam portrayed as green, that’s part of the scam. There is nothing green in the worthwhile sense of the word from erecting uneconomic wind farms in areas of natural beauty, to make private landowners rich from subsidies. whist the local coal mine is closed, creating an energy crisis, requiring more expensive than coal subsidised nuclear power, to help subsidies Trident which fuels nuclear proliferation that is a real man made threat to humanity!
Kind of tough to know which point to address in that stream-of-conciousness line there, Dave.
There appeared to be over 16 individual points, all of which were concluded without argument or evidence, yet bundled up as if tying a conclusion.
Please stop wasting time. It is a precious resource.
To assist. When the Berlin Wall fell, it resulted in many homeless communists, who joined the green movement who had genuine concerns about pollution and sustainability and subverted it to create a Red-Green movement to continue the failed communist war on capitalism in green camouflage.
It proved successful because the Red-Greens in Germany became a coalition partner in government. In Germany coalition works by giving one party specific portfolios rather than all sitting around the table discussing all the issues. The greens got energy policy and the global warming madness began. This new old time religion has a natural following due to mankind’s innate pessimism that the end of the world is nigh, and its all our fault. The same vanity/insanity led the early church to believe the Sun revolved around Earth.
The success of the European Greens, led to our own eccentric but wonderful Ecology party changing its name to attract funding due to their success in the polls from EU greens and they too promoted the new orthodoxy/scare. And as it got popular the money men appeared to make a killing from this new old time religion.
The former Ecology party was wonderful because their Big Idea was population control, but as the UK population was falling, this would inevitably translate into opposing immigration, but the new Red-Greens think opposing open door immigration is “racist” so that genuinely green Big Idea had to be dropped.
But the scare benefited others e.g. it became an excuse for EU/Global governance, because e.g. air pollution doesn’t stop at borders, and it became “Left” nonsense in favour of EU, and big business used it as an excuse to move industry abroad, where they emitted the same CO2 but labour and taxes was cheaper. Also big financial institutions are making vast profits from the carbon trading part of the scam.
The scare fed through to the politicians because that’s where the votes lie. In 1994 the Greens came third, displacing the Lib Dems in the European elections and that’s when the Lib Dems adopted greenery to get back in the game and adopted the scare, which in turn influenced Lab/Cons.
And that’s when the “Right” nuclear lobby saw their chance to promote nuclear power as the green alternative to coal. This is far more expensive, but hey if it saves the planet, except it also a helps fund Trident renewal via every ones fuel bills. Hence those Red-Greens who want to save the planet, help promote a scam that becomes an argument for nuclear power and nuclear proliferation that is a genuine man made threat to the planet.
Whereas coal is cheap and cheerful with many beneficial by-products to be used in chemical and construction industry and UK is sitting on vast deposits of it and any pollution can be managed with improved technology. But whereas the coal miners were once the vanguard of the working class, they are now viewed by the new “Left” and globalists” as enemies of planet earth.
~~~~~There is much about Trump to dislike. His sensible desire for better relations with Russia is matched by a stupid drive to goad China.~~~~~
This looks like a version of Obama’s fraud when he emphasised aggression against Afghanistan rather than Iraw, just when the US aggression against Iraq was ending. The trouble with it is that Russia and China are big boys who can play by big boys’ games by big boys’ rules, not querulous protectorates like Britain or Poland or helpless victims like Palestine and Yemen.
“The Bush II presidency was a considerably greater disaster than the Obama presidency.”
I disagree Bush’s presidency was widely opposed. When it ended there was massive opposition to every aspect of it: neo-con foreign policy, Guantanamo and torture, mass surveillance and assassinations, regime change and neo-liberal economic policies which ‘left the middle class behind,” crooked bankers…
It was on this wave of opposition that Obama was elected, winning the votes, despite traditional racism and Republican dog whistling, of the people.
Eight years later not only has Obama normalised the worst excesses of Bush, institutionalised neo-liberal and neo-con policies and shown High Finance favours that would have brought the pitchforks to Washington under a Republican President, but he has also completely neutered the Black Caucus and turned the most radical constituency in the US-the African Americans- into silent accomplices and in Congress the couple of dozen voices in favour of decency have been reduced to one or two. Thanks to Obama, and Clinton too, the Democratic Party has been reduced to being a more urbane version of the selfish moronic Republicans.
Again, there is some truth to all of this. But it was the Bush administration that took the original steps that set the Middle East on fire (Obama arguably fanned the flames, but the Iraq war kicked everything off and nothing Obama did matches that in its catastrophic consequences), and it was the Bush administration that massively set back the fight against climate change, something that will have enormous long-term consequences for the whole world.
Just think; the “Land of the Free” is finally led by a man who is so mercifully free of the ravages of intelligence. Cor baby, that’s really free!
Hey Zebedee. Where did you spring from?
I’m sure that Billionaire, POTUS, Donald J Trump wishes he had just a modicum of your intelligence, wealth and ugly or non existent women.
A rare John Otway reference. Don’t see many of those these days…or, indeed, any days. Kudos.
Apparently Trump has sacked all foreign ambassadors and made few replacements yet.
http://presstv.com/Detail/2017/01/22/507265/US-ambassadors-Donald-Trump
John,
In a humorous way – I must say that the Commander in Chief just used his favourite phrase – “You’re fired” – and on his first day in office to boot.
More seriously – I believe that the world is in for a precarious ride with this man as President of the US. I can explain. Some years ago I had a few long conversations with someone who was in a senior position for ‘Voice of America’ with special assignment and responsibilities for Eastern Europe during the Cold War when the Soviet Union was extant. I lamented the likes of Rumsfeld and others of his ilk acting as public servants for the US. He explained that after university he had started his career with the OSS ( precursor to the CIA). With much clarity he explained that in his day, certain public positions required the necessary formal background and training. His main point was that a number of politically compliant hacks ( versus trained professionals) were being appointed left, right and center at the time – which fact he lamented.
All the foregoing to say that the most that one can see and anticipate going forward:-
1. It seems to me that with no transition period the newly appointed Ambassador may not have any proper briefing when he commences his appointment. At the very least, Trump should have had in mind his recent briefing from Obama and the two First Ladies meeting, then likewise understand that these helpful exchanges would not only smack of courtesy but be most helpful in practical administrative terms.
2. In global political terms, if a US Ambassador, is unceremoniously ordered to end his appointment, then:-
i) Who fills the role when he/she immediately leaves the appointed post?
ii) What is the channel of communication for the interim until a new Ambassador is appointed and starts to occupy his post and performing his duties? E.g. especially any important political issues are unfolding at the very instant that the outgoing Ambassador demits office as ordered? And…
iii) As I asked above – what about the practicalities of gaining insights from the outgoing Ambassador duly conveyed to the incumbent?
Not being an Ambassador as Craig Murray was – I can but wonder out loud regarding these matters of state.
Conclusion: brace for continued impetuousness from ‘The Donald’ in the coming four years!
Hi Courtney,
Trump is definitely a wild card. I notice the US ambassador to the Ukraine, Geroffrey Pyatt, had already gone some months back.
As to who fills the ambassador’s shoes I am guessing nobody until new ambassadors are appointed. I guess junior staffers will deal with important things like issuing visas and what have you.
There are some worrying sides to Trump. He is clearly a man with a mission and one not likely to be easily shoved around. He does things and does them fast. That does not mean these things are good.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-white-house-president-global-warming-climate-change-environment-a7538206.html
Pyatt was moved to Greece. Probably to ensure any opposition to the austery policies being forced on Greece is crushed and the Greeks dont cosy up to Russia or fight the neocon plans for Cyprus.
Turkey is currently ( unhappily) in NATO, it is hemmed in by antagonists, Iran, Russia, Greece, Syria, Iraq, E.U.
Turkey has recently stated that: Turkey is finished without Cyprus.
Cyprus is pivotal in many ways.
It is the listening /command post of Fives Eyes in the Mediterranean / Middle East.
At the moment Turkey has something like 30,000 troops, stationed in Northern Cyprus.
The population of Northern Cyprus is said to be 313,626,
so there is almost one Turkish soldier ( from Turkey) for each Turkish Cypriot living in Northern Cyprus.
This must be one of the highest proportions of soldiers to civilians, anywhere in the world?
Cyprus is outside the crescent of Greek islands, that surround Mediterranean Turkey,
so has the ability to be an unsurrounded Military /Naval /trading post, like Tartus, Syria, for the Russians.
There is a vast Methane / Oil reservoir in the Eastern Mediterranean, only the smallest fraction of this basin is
within ( present Turkey) that part of present day Turkey, Hatay Province, was stolen from Syria, by Turkey.
This is the province where The Turkoman Free Syria Army, were set up inside and by Turkey, for the destruction of Syria. Turkey does not wish to miss out on the massive energy resource of the Eastern Mediterranean but possibly even more important strategically is the Golden Triangle, presently involving Israel, Cyprus and Greece.
This will make Cyprus the energy distribution hub for the Eastern Mediterranean and Southern Europe.
The Liquid Natural Gas plant is being contructed in Cyprus, pipelines are being constucted by Gazprom, to take gas from Israel to Cyprus, then on to Crete, later on to mainland Greece for interconnection with all of Europe.
Power indeed but just out of the grasp of The Sultan of Turkey.
There’s been a large build-up of NATO forces on Russia’s borders in recent weeks, and it seems that the batshit crazies in Washington want to provoke some kind of conflict.
If Trump is genuine, it might make sense for him to immediately fire US ambassadors who are promoting this confrontation. This sends a very strong peace message to Russia. An even stronger message, of course, will be to withdraw these NATO troops. We’ll have to wait and see.
RT: US military truck overturns on Polish road, spills tank shells. In Piaski, near the Polish border with Germany.
It’s amazing how politicians in these vassal countries, including Norway where the US are also moving soldiers and hardware, are forever cryiing ‘Russian aggression’ while their countries are being occupied by US forces. And it is occupation, the US troops are immune from the national legislation in the countries and the bases are US territory.
Interesting view from Pepe Escobar.
A bit high on speculation and anonymous sources but entertaining.
Some good comments as well.
Forgot the link. It’s late.
http://thesaker.is/heres-how-the-trump-presidency-will-play-out27909-2/
thanks for that link to pepe, Wren, the last three words, ‘brace for impact’ I suppose describe the only action humanity has been left with.
Will we see Ambassador Farrage emerge from the swamp? Trumps price for being nice to us?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38711418
Ministry of Truth
Well, Theresa May has let us down by being extremely evasive.
Parliament were asked to vote on a new fleet of Nuclear Submarines and new Nuclear weapons, yet Parliament were not specifically told about the Trident misfire, that aimed for our friends, the Americans.
This is a huge amount of public money, no facts should be obscured from Parliament.
Whitehall covered up 1st-time failure of Trident ballistic missile test near US coast – report
https://www.rt.com/uk/374703-british-trident-test-failure/
A Trident missile fired last year from a Royal Navy nuclear submarine off the Florida coast malfunctioned and headed to the mainland during a routine test, but Whitehall ordered a news blackout to avoid “severe panic,” the Sunday Times reported.
The Trident ballistic missile was set to be tested for the first time in four years by the HMS Vengeance last June off the Florida coast, according to the Sunday Times.
Vengeance, the fourth and final Vanguard-class nuclear-capable submarine of the Royal Navy, had undergone a refit in Devonport dockyard before heading out for a firing test to verify if the ship and her crew were ready for active service. In June last year, the submarine docked at Port Canaveral in Florida, the US base employed by the Royal Navy for final checks, before launching an unarmed Trident missile into the so-called “Eastern firing range” off the west coast of Africa.
There have only been five firing tests by UK Vanguard-class submarines in the 21st century, the Sunday Times wrote, and the launches are usually big occasions for the Royal Navy, as the missiles cost 17 million pounds ($21 million) apiece.
No news reports followed the test, however, and no usual “successful test flight” announcement was made at that time.
A navy source told the newspaper that “something went wrong” after the Trident was fired from the submerged submarine. Details of the failure were not officially disclosed, but the source believes the missile might have veered off in the wrong direction toward the American mainland instead of heading across the Atlantic.
“There was severe panic that this test launch was not successful. Senior figures in military and government were keen that the information was not made public,” the source said. A malfunction of the ballistic missile – deemed the backbone of British strategic deterrent – could lead to terrifying casualties. It could also raise questions about the reliability of the Royal Navy’s nuclear arsenals.
“Ultimately, Downing Street decided to cover up the failed test,” the source added. “If the information was made public, they knew how damaging it would be to the credibility of our nuclear deterrent. The upcoming Trident vote made it all the more sensitive.”
UK Prime Minister Theresa May avoided any mention of the failed test to ensure that MPs approve spending of 40 billion pounds on new Trident submarines, in her first major speech before last July.
Theresa May is culpable in this terrifying cover up.
She should go.
She should go for lots of reasons.
Well, she is going somewhere. Brooming off to lick the boots of Trump her new master and saviour. Their Special Relationship will be heralded on her return. Possibly she will be waving a piece of white paper as she descends from the clouds.
Documentary about Scotland coming up on Channel 4 at 10:05pm.
Very droll Anon 1!
From Trump’s speech at CIA:
Boasting of military/law enforcement support, implicitly but ambiguously associating CIA with them.
“beautiful statue of Dr. Martin Luther King… [long digression for suspense] “they said — it was very interesting — that Donald Trump took down the bust”
“we won’t have [5th, 6th…?] columns. (Laughter.) You understand that? (Applause.) We get rid of the columns.”
Explicit taunting about CIA criminality. This is going to be very interesting.
After the Sean Spicer denials about the inauguration figures today, I have firmly changed my mind. Trump is even more dangerous than we ever feared. He aims to destroy the free press and cover up for any failings of his administration by lies which cannot be challenged. He will then have total control.
MBC,
To support what you have posted – see mine at 20:59 above.
Additionally what Sean Spicer stated was not a damn lie; for, as one of Trump’s insiders said – it was just “alternative facts”.
For example – conventionally we count and add that 2+2 = 4
But, alternatively,could say:-
2+2 = 22.
Now – do you get it? One uses the “alternative” counting methodology to get the “alternative facts”
Lügenpresse – the term the Nazis used to describe the “lying press” (when they reported something factual, but not an Official Truth) – has actually been used by the Trumpanzies :
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/10/24/the-ugly-history-of-luegenpresse-a-nazi-slur-shouted-at-a-trump-rally/?utm_term=.58ee0ee991b2
Bad enough that a bunch of
brown shirtsTrump supporters are engaged in this sort of thing, but now it’s coming from top officials like Reince Priebus too, even Fox finds it a bit much:https://youtu.be/IPAADWcc25E
From the top, the new administration is being staffed by liars and know-nothing idiots (like Rick Perry, heading up the Department of Energy, an agency which he said he wanted to abolish five years ago, and had no idea of its actual function until a week ago).
There is no need for you to worry. Trump cannot destroy the free press because it has already been destroyed – some say it was Bill Clinton’s crowning achievement.
6 corporations control 90% of US media – and if you think these corporations care about you or your access to information then maybe I can sell you a nice bridge.
Why do you think Carlos Slim wants to control the NYT – here is a clue for you all it is not because he has any interest in a free press.
Maybe you remember all the WMD stockpiles in Iraq that the press told you there and just waiting to be fired, or how about the new meme that nuclear war with Russia is good for you.
See how the British political classes prostrate themselves at the alter of Murdoch. Contrast that with Trump calling them out for the lying sophists that they are.
You seem to be a victim of your imagined free press. Trump has very little control over anything and is surrounded by enemies who occupy positions of power within the deep state. What Trump has is no fear of them – and that they cannot abide.
There has been very little Free Press in the Western world for many years, see the recently deceased German journalist Udo Ulfkotte book on the compromised Western Media.
The likes of the Washington Post, NY Times and Uk Guardian will not be missed. Same for CNN and BBC.
And what do you know, El Chapo’s getting extradited to the care of the Trump DOJ. One more CIA slush fund about to dry up in the sunshine. Does Ladbroke’s have a line of a Trump assassination? It really looks to be a cage match with the CIA mafia.
Thank you for telling the truth about the damage that was done to ther UN by Tony Blair. It is not something I have ever seen written down before.
Yesterday, which was Trump’s first full day in office, there was some quite extraordinary stuff: firstly, when Trump gave a speech at the CIA headquarters in Langley, and he totally steamed into the mainstream media; and secondly, not long after this speech, Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer gave his first official press briefing, and once again there was a blistering attack on the media. I’ve never seen this kind of thing before with any US President.
Today, Trump and Vice President Mike Pence administered the Oath of Office for White House senior staff members. For those interested…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_sIbIFD4xw
As an addendum:
‘White House alienates WikiLeaks by refusing to release Trump’s tax returns’
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/22/white-house-refuses-release-trump-tax-returns-wikileaks
Once again, there’s no way that Wikileaks and Assange of old would ever make such overtly political statements.
But no one here wants to talk about the fact that Assange has been black-bagged and Wikileaks is compromised.
Otherwise you might have to face up to the fact that you live in 1984-Land.
Treeza’s Trident uk/us Mad Toys, well phrased that eh, Mutually Assured Destruction,
The Marr Show –
Evasion number 1 – She Knew
Evasion number 2 – She Knew Alright.
Evasion number 3 – She knew Alright..Hardly important though, Is It.
Evasion number 4 – Anti- independence ( No Voters ) Hold head in hands.
A crowd sourcing trailer for a short film….from the Clyde..Nuclear Sub Accident.. Gourock / Greenock
Scenes..where I often Walk and Light beach fires into the summer Twilight.
https://socialscreen.co.uk/films/benchmark-6
There have been a number of posters here arguing against the consensus of informed scientific opinion on climate change. I’m reminded of this quote, as relevant to the climate denialists elsewhere in the world as Asimov relates to those anti-intellectuals in the US:
—-
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
~ Isaac Asimov
I wonder what type of person Asimov was thinking about when he made his observations.
Could it be people that have identified a problem which may not have a solution and if it does would involve mass starvation on an epic scale. The science of food production is quite settled, there is no debate and no dissent – food production at the scale required to feed the global population relies almost entirely on oil and lots of it.
Loony, suppose I absolutely agree with you. Would it not make sense to recognise this problem immediately, and address it head on, rather than deny its existence?
Just look at the problem.
The world’s population is increasing at an exponential rate. The amount of CO2 as a component of the atmosphere is increasing more rapidly still, largely as a result of our burning vast amount of fossil fuels and destroying forests, as just two contributory factors.
The planet is warming, alarmingly rapidly, and we are arguably past the tipping point.
Are you suggesting we do not address any of these problems, or even recognise them, for some reason?
There is no possibility of this problem being addressed. Therefore whether the existence of the problem is accepted or denied is irrelevant. Consider just 2 facts out out a cast of thousands.
Coal is said to be a major agent in climate change. Since 1980 global coal consumption has doubled.
In 1980 the US imported 8% of its fresh asparagus supply. Today it imports well over 40%. A lot of the imported asparagus comes from Chile. It is estimated that it takes 97 calories of transport energy to import 1 calorie of asparagus food energy from Chile.
That global warming is a scam is obvious. There is ,money to be made out of renewable energy. There is no money to be made by ceasing to fly millions of tonnes of asparagus around the world.
I love this “money to be made out of renewable energy” argument, used by people like yourself as proof that GCC _must_ be a scam.
But the fact that countless billions are being made by oil, coal and gas extraction by multi-nationals every quarter is totally irrelevant!
Flying asparagus around – seriously, is that the best you’ve got? We have a US administration packed with extraction industry executives and their stooges, yet somehow you think a Giant Conspiracy exists to con everyone with “green” technology, even though our government doesn’t give a damn about it.
It’s hard to know where one should start addressing such cock-eyed thinking that produces arguments like yours.
The point of the asparagus example was to demonstrate the energy cost of food.If it costs you 96 calories of energy for 1 calorie of food – then you are using an awful lot of energy. If you use materially less energy then you will get materially less food. This means mass starvation on an epic scale. Who do you propose should be selected as starvation victims? People remain outraged by the Nazi holocaust – but the logic of your position is to propose something that is orders of magnitude larger in scale.
In the end no-one is going to buy your argument and people will readily kill and die for an alternative that, should they survive, will allow them to eat. Even if global warming makes the planet uninhabitable then people will still choose species destruction over their own elective starvation.
If you don’t think this is true then all you have to do is stop eating for a while and see how hungry you need to get before concern for your own well being overrides your concern for the future of the planet.
“…so many centuries after the Creation it is unlikely that anyone could find hitherto unknown lands of any value.”
Christopher Columbus
“Rail travel at high speeds is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.”
Dionysius Lardner, Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy at University College, London
“Well-informed people know it is impossible to transmit the voice over wires and that were it possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical value.”
Boston Post
And so on.
On the other hand… “Solar can already generate more energy than oil, says major scientific review and is twice as powerful than previously thought”
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/solar-is-already-producing-more-energy-than-oil-says-major-scientific-review-873d5f779f03#.lcbw6zuba
J – You appear confused, which is hardly surprising given the quality of the article you linked.
What Mr. Ahmed is actually talking about is something called the Energy Return of Energy Invested (“ERoEI). His contention is that with regard to solar then for every unit of energy invested then it can produce as much (or maybe more) energy than an alternative investment in oil.
This is probably true, and it is likely that overtime solar will become more competitive on an ERoEI basis.
Elsewhere in his article he opines that solar can produce 14 times more energy than the energy invested in producing the solar plant. Again this is likely true and it is possible that further incremental improvements will be made.
The question is why this is true. The answer revolves around a declining ERoEI for oil. Not so long ago oil was being produced with an ERoEI of around 25 (i.e. you got around 25 times more energy than the energy required to access the energy source). This number has been in steady and irreversible decline. Things will get worse.
There is still a lot of cheap oil left in Saudi Arabia and this boosts the aggregate ERoEI for the worlds energy supplies. Data for Saudi Arabia is not accessible and so most analysis is little more than conjecture. However you can look at the Cantarell field in Mexico
This is a super giant oil field – which means it is low cost and has a high ERoEI. It was discovered in 1976 reached a maximum production flow of 1.16 million barrels per day, but is now decline and is producing less than half its peak rate. The depletion of such fields pushes down the global ERoEI. The reason for this is that all forms of replacement energy are more expensive – whether that be solar or ultra deep water oil fields.
Rising energy costs have consequences. Additionally solar does not have a comparable energy density to oil. For example there are no serious proposals to power large jet aircraft by solar power. This too has consequences.
again you show you are not on the ball, loony.
http://orgprints.org/14846/1/14846.pdf
Piers Corbyn is a climatologist and makes his living from accurate weather forecasts and says carbon dioxide, natural or man made, plays no part in determining climate, see weatheraction.com
You find one guy, a bit of a crank, and that’s your “truth” – right?
Never mind that this one guy has no peer reviewed papers on the subject. Never mind that 99.5% of genuine scientists disagree with him. You like what you hear from him, and that’s all you need.
‘Strewth… have you considered taking up Scientology? They really value the strong credulity that you’re demonstrating here.
Its dishonest and untrue to say almost “all the scientists agree”. Untrue because they don’t (the 96% figure was spun from a survey of a handful of people) and dishonest because science covers a multitude of disciplines and most scientists are not qualified on the subject. Most are no more qualified than the layman to pontificate on the scam, although almost “all people with elementary common sense agree” its a scam!
Those scientifically qualified are climatologists of which Piers Corbyn is one and like minded climatologists held an alternative conference to coincide with the Paris climate summit/jamboree. Their scientists are not climatologists or for that matter even scientists, but almost all civil servants spinning scientific research to meet a political agenda.
It’s dishonest and untrue to falsely attribute a quote to someone, as you did with me right above.
If you put “quotation marks” around a supposed quote, you really ought to be quoting them verbatim.
Piers Corbyn is a dodgy weatherman, not a climatologist. He has no peer reviewed papers, or the necessary qualifications to be counted as those in a position to authoritatively declare the truth about global warming.
Still, if he’s singing your tune, he’s your boy – and don’t let facts (or truth) stop you.
Glennuk
perhaps you could enlighten us with your idea how this will pan out.
Do you think we will be frying in our beds in fifty years time,
or perhaps we will have given up all Carbon based fuels and live in unheated mud-huts.
MH: “ perhaps you could enlighten us with your idea how this will pan out.”
Not very well, I’m afraid. We are currently witnessing a mass extinction event, and even our species – humans – are already being affected badly in many parts of the world.
It’s possible that with a global effort, one involving cooporation of humanity not known before, we could arrest it. Even that is doubtful now. But while we have vested interest (the fossil fuel industry in particular) sewing the seeds of doubt about whether global warming is even happening at all, and with all their useful idiots hooting away the whole time, we’re not going to see the action we need.
I checked Piers Corbyn out a few years back, I had a friend who was a fan of his who raved about how good he was. I checked his predictions for the previous year against what actually happened and he was little better than chance. Occasionally he got it bang on and those times he shouted it from the rooftops but all the predictions he got wrong he kept quit about giving the illusion he was always right.
Him and his brother are in the same game, selling an illusion.
Its difficult to get weather forecasting right, but he must be quite good at it as he makes his living from it. But he has an interest in the matter and can, unlike some scientific boffins, explain in elementary terms why many things determine climate, including the impact of the sun, moon, oceans, water vapour, volcanoes and tilt of the planet.
He says carbon dioxide plays no part, but for the sake of mathematical possibility, even if carbon dioxide plays a tiny part, the fact is man made emissions are only a tiny fraction of naturally occurring and variable carbon dioxide, so the man made bit is entirely irrelevant.
There are people who make their livings predicting which horses will win races as well. They must be good if they make their livings out of it so if you want to make a lot of money put £100 on every prediction they make. You can’t lose, can you?
Fred
Corbyn the elder predicted the record breaking cold of December 2010 a few months before it hit the UK- but many of his monthly forecasts since have been way off target, as you state.
The guy is probably correct to say that solar/lunar events have an effect on the weather (and thus feed into the climate data), and he runs his operation on a shoestring. By stressing these factors he does point out a flaw in mainstream ‘climate science’ which sees climate and weather on earth as a ‘closed’ ecosystem- when in actual fact the solar/lunar factors that Piers Corbyn highlights do almost certainly have a measurable impact.
No climate scientists don’t see the earth as a closed ecosystem. They know the earth, sea and atmosphere warms up during the day and the earth loses heat at night. They can measure how much heat is absorbed by the earth and they have satellites which can accurately measure how much heat is radiated into space by the earth and even at which frequencies. They can measure what effect solar fluctuations have.
Yes and they can measure the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and they calculate it as 0.038% and the man made bit is a tiny fraction of this and because the natural bit varies in quantity it easily eclipses anything man produces. But the vast majority of carbon dioxide is trapped within the oceans and when the sun shines the oceans evaporate releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and when its cold the carbon dioxide sinks back into the oceans and into general vegetation growth. Hence increases in CO2 follow rather than causes increases in temperature.
On this basis and once considering all the many other things that determine climate, why try to bamboozle people with the idea that the tiny man made bit of CO2 emissions determines climate, unless you are part of the scam!
The Global Warming Alarmists, think the world is going to get eight degrees warmer, bloody bring it on, it is freezing in Southern England.
People live in Arabia where it is much hotter than England, so it will be alright, even if the ludicrous predictions come true, which they will not.
I’ll sleep peacefully, without alarm.
0.038% doesn’t sound much but that is 3,000,000,000,000 tonnes which is a lot of co2 and is almost 40% greater that the pre-industrial amount.
@MN: Regarding the 8 degrees…
It’s a bit more complicated than that. A few degrees rise doesn’t just mean it’ll be nice and warm, so – hey! – what’s the problem?
I do wish you’d undertake just a little research to know what you’re talking about before making pronouncements.
You could get this book, for instance, or at least read the review and brief summary on it :
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/apr/23/scienceandnature.climatechange
You’ll find that a few degrees means planetary extinction. Not just Mediterranean-style weather.
I recall Janner holding up in the Lords a tiny piece of material, it looked like a piece of mud guard from a bike, and chillingly said this was the remains of a deadly rocket fired into Israel and so lets not forget the Israeli victims of the attack on Gaza!
I think its called chutzpah and involves condemning a push with the same horror and equivalence as a crime of mass-murder.
I think glenn_uk displays the same chutzpah when extrapolating Armageddon from a tiny fraction of man made carbon dioxide emissions. I know I didn’t have to mention Janner, but if you saw him make the comment it really showed the bare faced audacity to make a mountain out of a mole hill shared by the “warmists”.
If you go back to the Eocene, 56 to 40 million years ago,
there were vast swings in Global Warming, from very warm, to the start of Antartica freezing, before which there was virtually now ice-cover.
No one was burning coal /gas /oil,
there were no people.
When the Angiosperms became capable of covering a much larger part of the earth, they offered many niches for other life, thing got much more complicated, there was a big sink for Carbon in this much greater terrestrial biosphere.
The Global Warming Alarmists have told us that when the world warms it will get wetter as well as warmer, most warming will be felt from the tropics to the poles.
There is a VAST swathe of land in the Northern Hemisphere, Siberia /Canada/Alaska/Greenland/Northern Europe,
that could benefit, by being a bit wetter and warmer.
If the world does warm a few degrees, ice and semi-frozen ground could green-over.
Thus absorbing Carbon dioxide.
So, life will take care of life.
For most of the time of the world, it was not dominated by Ice-Caps, to have both poles iced-up is very unusual.
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wise people so full of doubts.
~ Bertrand Russell
Good quote.
“…and wise people so full of doubts.”
I doubt that very much…
😉
An outfit called Media Lens has been around since 2001 highlighting the lies and the false narrative purveyed by the media. It has garnered much support from people like John Piilger.
In 1988 Noam Chomsky co authored Manufacturing Consent in which he laid out the case against the media.
From time to time Craig Murray highlights problems with the media and Wikileaks repeatedly reports truthful and relevant information that the mainstream media refuses to publish.
By and large all of the people and organizations referred to above are supported by left leaning intellectuals and various human rights activists and so forth. By and large these are the same people who despise and revile Donald Trump.
Donald Trump has achieved in days what Media Lens, Chomsky, Pilger, Murray and Wikileaks have never achieved and never would or could achieve. He has gone after the media, called them out as the liars they are and totally marginalized them. Yet still you despise Trump. Could it possibly be that for some the journey was everything and that it was never intended that the destination be reached.
…and the greatest irony of all? Donald Trump empowered a woman to deliver the fatal blows – much to the outrage and disgust of all those who define themselves as feminists and constantly rage against the misogyny of Trump and the evils of the patriarchy.
It’s precisely the same nonsense we saw with media and Corbyn, Assange, Putin and now Trump.
Media can’t stand anyone who challenges the elite order.
That’s all it’s about.
And yet some people fall for it every time.
Time after time.
Every time.
It’s like their minds are wiped after the last incidence.
And they just play out the same old script again.
Dunno what that is.
But it ain’t rational thinking man.
Seems more like programming of some description.
We might be talking about rather different things here.
Trump is a lunatic, a liar, a molester and has racist, sexist and generally bigoted views besides being a bit of a crook (to say the least) with mob connections and severe narcissistic tendencies.
Putin is much along the same lines, but vastly more controlled and has a nasty habit of getting people killed if they oppose him.
It’s tough to put them in the same sentence as Corbyn, and the rather dubious fellow we know as Assange (given his recent untimely, dare I say partisan influence in the US elections).
If the media are now doing their job, and being rightly critical of Trump, it does not automatically mean Trump is some sort of righteous guy all of a sudden. He’s as bad an extremist as the Republican party could find to nominate.
It’s a reflection of the cynicism with which we rightly hold the media, but when they’re highly critical all of a sudden, it doesn’t mean they’re without question wrong to be highly critical. I think they’re underplaying it.
Perhaps we should just see it as the NewYork/New Jersey mob taking over from the Chicago crowd(detailed by the late lamented Sherman Skolnik) Incidentally both the Donald and Hilllary( but not Bill) were listed as Illuminati progammers((Springmeier,Frank and C.Wheeler.). It must take very wise or cunning(‘klever’ in German)operatives to play such fools.
Or are we the fools being played?
“(given his recent untimely, dare I say partisan influence in the US elections).”
Too early to say. It could turn out to have been strategically brilliant. Depends what happens next.
Here’s a start.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-abortion-men_us_5886369be4b0e3a7356a7910
Don’t suppose he’ll lose any sleep over it.
Lot’s of meaningless conflations in that article, but it is the HuffPo, itself a barometer of ‘Liberal’ hypocrisy. Didn’t they make the argument that voting against Clinton was a vote against feminism? The sort of feminism which values white middle class American women over say, just about any woman in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya or Yemen for example.
In any case I was musing about the longer term effects of Trumpotus. Not necessarily limited to his actions or to his term of office. What can’t happen next is that so called Liberals sit back on their laurels and wank on about American exceptionalism. For things to change they have to get worse, especially for the very people who prospered under Obama, while the fate of so many others who were quite literally destroyed by Nobel peace laureate Obama and his policies escaped their notice.
So you think it’s good that a small but high profile media organisation like WikiLeaks can use its media power and resources to help sway an election as some kind of ‘shake up of the system’ (as Zizek put it, maybe Assange too)? This is what disturbs me, aside from Trump being elected, full stop. The uncertainty involved means, obviously, that the result could be much worse, plunging the US and the world into a period of authoritarianism (and where’s the ‘free world’ to rescue it this time?). The whole idea has struck me from the start as a small bunch of white highly-educated and privileged men with a certain kind of power at their disposal deciding to risk the well-being and lives of many (women, ethnic minorities, immigrants so far in Trump’s list of targets) in some kind of social experiment, betting that the ‘shake up’ may have a positive result some way down the line, who knows where. And if not? Who will suffer most. Correct me if I’m wrong.
And that I have to say is the generous interpretation of the effective support given to the Trump campaign. Other less generous interpretations have been made. I’m willing to accept this one for now. But it’s still fundamentally flawed and ridiculously presumptuous.
Recap: the scenario during the final election campaign was (A) Clinton wins but with the left highly mobilized by the Sanders campaign, having forced various concessions to her policy program and the Democrat party structure, ready to pressurize her administration and move it leftwards, energized by various social movements (Black Lives Matter, Dakota Pipeline protests, workers movements and so on) or (B) Trump, aided by Republican majorities in Congress, promising to suppress these social movements, ignore global warming, ban science proving global warming, impose bans on Muslims, build a fresh new apartheid wall, roll back abortion laws and women’s rights, deregulate the banks, escalate military spending etc. – all now being duly delivered. Option B was seriously better?
Aurora : “Option B was seriously better?”
As far as a surprising number of people here are concerned, yes – because Hillary didn’t pass their purity test. I don’t mean in terms of numbers, but surprising for the individuals concerned – who ought to know a lot better, and ragged on Clinton endlessly, yet were astonishingly sanguine about the prospects of a Trump administration, such as Bevin.
I find that baffling too.
Glenn, so basically the few (Assange and co.) deciding what’s best for the many. Again. Struggling to think how that breaks from traditional power structures.
Aurora: “Struggling to think how that breaks from traditional power structures.”
Perhaps we have a new intelligentsia, who – when they’re in positions to do so – can influence major events, while having little to gain (or lose!) themselves, despite having relatively little actual power. But they can decide that great sacrifice has to be made, in order to bring forward The Greater Good.
Let’s encourage this idiotic fascist, the thinking goes, and that will bring the revolution forward that much sooner. But maybe it won’t, maybe it’ll just ratchet the whole system still further to the right, even while time is seriously running out as far as humanity’s survival is concerned.
They liked to say in Stalin’s time, that you cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs. Old ways of thinking die hard.
Glenn, there’s a touch of accelerationism about the let’s-back-Trump idea that contemporary capitalism (neoliberalism) has to be destabalized and radicalized for the worse via some authoritarian nationalist militarist (aka fascist) figure like Trump in order to improve (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerationism). The problem is that there are two brands of accelerationism, left-wing, which works with marginalized social groups, imagining much more democratic and egalitarian forms of governance after capitalism, and not in favour of the authoritarian chaos option; and right-wing, more interested in some mythical posthuman technical evolution for the few and uninterested in the effects on the mass of the population. Your guess is as good as mine as to which is in play here. But I’d say follow the connections to the social groups. Or the absence of them.
First point, I find Trump disturbing but I’m not so insecure that I have to demonstrate this continuously.
Aurora and Glenn, do I infer correctly from your comments that if I fail to denounce Trump regularly I am sympathetic to him? Must I excoriate the days hate figure as a preface to every comment? Is the brainwashing so complete and the group think so powerful? If I’m required to utter “Trump is evil” with every breath, that is precisely as disturbing as the Trump phenomenon itself, because it implies so many things about you both. Seriously, have a think about what you are both demanding.
Perhaps it’s because I don’t have a television, some fifteen years now. Obviously I don’t react as I’m required to.
Second point, wikileaks exists precisely to deliver informed consent to the public discourse and to narrow the gap between what power says privately and publicly. If you are suspicious of this motive then I am quite frankly suspicious of both of yours. Unlike you, I would prefer to be informed.
Third point, you seem to demand that the continent wide media machinery be the arbiter of truth and that what power actually does and says in private be omitted from the picture and the discourse. Unfortunately power does not feel the same about what you do and say in private.
Fourth point in the form of a few questions:
If my speculation is correct, that the release was strategic, tell me precisely how and why that is an invalid activity?
Do you prefer that America exercises it’s power to decide the political course of all other nations? US interventions across Latin America, the Middle East, Europe, the UK and Asia are very well documented and understood. None shall have any right of reply?
Aurora & Glenn
I suggest you share a lack of courage and imagination with those you berate. Of course it is idiotic for any self declared socialist to not oppose multi millionaire Trump. However, it is equally idiotic for liberals to support the war monger Clinton. No candidate for either party deserves our support. The individuals are irrelevent. The system needs changing. Your lesser evilism, just another option in supporting the system, prolongs the tyranny.
Glenn, the egg/omelette phrase seems to originate with an 18C French royalist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_de_Charette
Aurora, I would love to know what left wing groups these days advocate accelerationism within “marginalized social groups”. I am not aware of any group who genuinely combines the two. Is this really a real thing?
Phil there has been active campaigning for Trump and against Hillary on this blog not least Craig’s claim he was instrumental in leaking DNC emails.
The “lesser of the two evils” does not wash, if a doctor kills a healthy patient so he can use their organs to save the lives of two sick patients who would otherwise die that is still murder, the doctor’s actions killed the man whether two people are saved or not, the only right action for the doctor was inaction. The two patients will die but that isn’t the doctor’s responsibility where as the death of the one patient would be.
Those who were instrumental in supporting Trump must take some responsibility for what he does in his presidency, saying Hillary would have been worse is no excuse.
J, I wasn’t ‘berating’ you – I was responding to your description of WikiLeaks partisan influence in the US elections being ‘strategically brilliant’. I question any such strategy’s arrogance, sense of entitlement, logic and optimism. Your defensive response actually suggests you’re less detached from the personalization of the debate over Trump than you (or Phil Ex-Frog) seem to think. The danger from Trump is not his idiosyncratic, unstable personality as much as the fact that this erratic behaviour is an excellent cover for his ‘advisory team’ – who will undoubtedly be the ones to wield power – to set up a new form of plutocracy and corporate authoritarianism in a geopolitically reconfigured US and world. The alternative was highly active social movements in the US working to try to change the already known – the neoliberal Clinton. Instead those movements will now be violently suppressed.
You also seem to deduce that I oppose WikiLeaks releasing the Podesta emails. I don’t in principle, though I think they should have been redacted – i.e. some kind of evaluation of public necessity and the right to privacy needs to operate. My real objection though is to the ‘strategic use’ of that information as an on-going element of the electoral campaign – the partisan influence you said may well prove ‘brilliant’. I think it’s reasonable to question that argument. (Others would simply question the motives: i.e. that an elected Trump would not subsequently pursue WikiLeaks/Assange in the same way as Clinton.)
J, apologies, the ‘berating’ comment came from Phil.
Phil, I’ve no real idea about examples of accelerationism in social practice rather than theory. I wasn’t advocating anything of the kind.
I welcome the clarification but also point toward conflation in your response.
Your insistence of partisan intent on behalf of wikileaks is precisely why I do not accept that I need to demonstrate any view of Trump as a precursor to discussion. This is quite prevalent. Just as disapproval of Putin is required in order to criticise Clinton. I reject the premise. I can’t control what inferences you make nor do I seek to. But there is a relationship revealed by your insistent implying of partisan attachment. Action to render either American party or individual within them more visible is to be welcomed, but is merely partisan according to you.
Second there is precisely no evidence that even a strategic leak is ‘partisan.’ Why should it necessarily be? You’ve failed to demonstrate how or why. I don’t accept the premise that neo-conservative and neo-liberal are different except through perception management. In the details of each, all difference disappears. Each appeals to a different set of assumptions while delivering the same economic and political program.
I should have written, “…essentially the same economic and political program.”
“Each appeals to a different set of assumptions while delivering the same economic and political program.”
I think Neo-liberal is usually used to describe economic policy and Neo-conservative political.
We can’t spare this man, he fights.
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/01/httpswwwwashingtonpostcomnewsthe-fixwp20170106its-about-to-get-much-tougher-for-donald-trump-to-doubt-the-intelli.html
Echoing Lincoln’s words about Gen. Grant.
With US ambassadors appointed during Obama’s tenure being asked to resign, who will actually represent The US at the Astana conference on Syria?Earlier Tass was reporting there would be no US delegation but only the US ambassador(to Kazakhstan?).
Al least , Trump seems to be using his own lines to brief him.Trump favored Tulsi Gabbard’s fact -finding trip to Damascus last week(Lord Levy was not available), so could be a definite shift to emphasis on a single secular country(watan) approach and US/UK withdrawal..
The US was not going to take part in the Astana conference. Then they were only going to have observer status. Anyone will do, even the toilet cleaner.
By the way, it is the political appointee ambassadors who have not been renewed, not the professional diplomats. Something like 80 ambassadors out of how many members of the UN are there – 216?
2nd By the way, watan doesn’t mean secular country. It is more like “nation”, “homeland”.
I am a little bit surprised that anyone thought Theresa May was anything but a liar.
She oozes the lie of Tory drip-down monetarism. She has perfected the art of not listening, while pretending to listen. She has been chosen by the nasty party to represent them. Her game over Brexit is to create confrontation , which will ultimately lead to the Brexit vote to leave failing.
Kayda shaytana dhaeefaa. The devil’s plan is weak.
The problem with Corbyn is that old school Leftism believes that self-employment is a punishable sin. The entire former communist bloc and the un-industrialised Middle East and Africa where most of the immigrants come from, and all of us Thatcher-f**ked, all believe that self-employment gives us a shred of personal freedom.
Please could someone talk to this fossil, and humbly request that if he is not going to speak, like Trump has, against the neo=colonial neo=conservative swamp and its war=mongering, nobody is going to listen to his nasty Old Labour waffle about closed=shop work=place politicking.
If Corbyn is not prepared to address the neo-cons without fear, or accept the role of small business in the economy, he will allow the Tories to privatise the NHS and other state assets which need to be centrally run.
Why can’t Corbyn pin-point May’s appalling addiction to lying? She’s a total fraud, but the only person who can’t see, or expose it, it is Jeremy Corbyn. Is he just too nice a man to be a politician?
Been a While.. But This Chunky Mark is Good –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_e8FFlUbgQ
I must admit, although I have been following the “Civil” War in Syria, for some time, I am at a loss to understand what the conference in
Astana, is suppose to accomplish?
Turkey / Australia / U.S.A. / Canada / U.K. / France / Israel / Saudi Arabia / Jordan / Bahrain / Qatar / U.A.E. / Morocco
and possibly others have been trying to rip apart Syria, probably so it can’t be put back again.
I think it was / is possibly about access for hydrocarbons from Asia into Europe.
But why the conference in Astana.
The Evil OBOMBA / CLINTON duo have been put out to grass.
Turkey is flummoxed, almost delirious, probably still dangerous but like a staggering, old fighter, not sure what he is trying to achieve, other than to remain standing.
The tree winners would seem to be Assad /Putin and Iraq.
So what could there be to discuss.
Could it be pipelines?
Sorry – got – jumbled.
The three winners would seem to be Assad, Putin and Iran.
I expect that Syria will become part of Russia.
That would make slightly more safe for the Christians, who once were a majority but more recently were about a quarter of the population, now down to a tenth or even less.
The Yazidis, the Kurds, the Jews and other groups.
I expect that pipelines will be run from the Caspian sea, this being a carbon – hub , into Iran, then into Iraq, then into Syria, to link in with the Golden Triangle of pipelines linking Israel / Cyprus / Greece and eventually Lebanon and The European Union.
I expect that Kuwait / Saudi Arabia / Bahrain / U.A.E. /Qatar will be excluded.
I love the status of this article! Uncategorized! This is the reality, it isn’t categorized yet! We should wait for a while and see if the product is the same as the marketing promises!
Aubrey….
NO. Some.. in fact Hundreds have been in Direct Confab on this Site
Madona said “Yes, I’m angry. Yes, I am outraged. Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House. But I know that this won’t change anything,” she said in her speech.
After Madonna made the comments, White House chief of staff Reince Priebus told Fox News: “One of the singers said she wanted to blow up the White House. I mean, can you imagine saying that about President Obama?”
Kellyanne Conway, a senior White House aide, described Madonna’s speech as “destructive”.
She also drew attention to some reports that the secret service had been made aware of the singer’s comments.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38716714
O.K. what is it with these people
they are insulated from poverty, they live in bubbles, yet they spout complete bullshit and expect adulation, she is a particularly sad case.
She would do better to stay home and do some knitting.
Throw names Of YIR choice ..Throw Them to the winds.. Some of of are Game to go Out there..OUTER HEBRIDES
@ Michael
I’d posted a link separately about this before reading your own comment. Sorry about that.
Madonna’s comments were quite disgraceful and I’m certain that if she was an ordinary Muslim making the same sort of comments she’d be in Gitmo by now.
The CIA National Intelligence Bulletin for June 7th 1975 makes interesting reading.
It says how in the EU referendum 58% of Scots voted to remain which was a blow to the Nationalists as they had urged people to vote Leave so they could claim England had dragged Scotland into the EC against their will.
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP79T00975A027800010012-0.pdf
Not much changes.
World ‘Has Stopped Watching’ Apartheid
https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-1556-World-has-stopped-watching-apartheid
‘worse than South Africa’.
Emailed my MP.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38716714
I hadn’t read about Madonna’s comment, while on that march in defence of “democracy” until today when I saw this on the BBC (in the Arts and Entertainment section, would you believe?).
She claims her comment:
“Yes, I’m angry. Yes, I am outraged. Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House. But I know that this won’t change anything,”
was taken “out of context”.
Really? I wonder what the reaction would have been had a Muslim said the same thing. I fear they’d be under arrest by now and on the way to Gitmo having been recognised as someone who had been “radicalised” and therefore “terrorist threat” to the US. When you publicly refer to “blowing up the White House” I’m afraid context doesn’t come into it! At the very least Madonna was seeking to incite rage in others.
The very fact that these idiotic celebrities see themselves as some sort of sign post for everyone else in the field of politics is so absurd it would be funny were it not so serious. I hear our own “national treasure” Helen Mirren was at the march too. Heaven help us if these sad people are to be seen as relevant or as our saviours! Perhaps the even more depressing thing is that the media treats them and presents them as such.
I wonder what would have happened if Trump had said the same thing…and if someone had invited his squalls of rage by publishing it.
My Little Phoney:
http://images.dailykos.com/images/350540/story_image/TMW2017-01-18color.png?1484509140
*Downing Street confirmed on Monday morning that May knew about the malfunction before MPs voted on the system’s renewal.*
https://www.rt.com/uk/374776-labour-snp-trident-malfunction/
Slightly more reassuring that Theresa May had been told about the Trident missile gone astray.
It would have been terrible, if they had kept it from her, evidence of Deep State, sprarating the Prime minister of the United Kingdom from strategic information, however it was infantile, to hold this information back from Parliament, when they were being asked to vote on a new, vastly expensive tranche of Trident /missiles.
On balance I am against am against us having nuclear weapons, I am also against nuclear power, much prefer coal.
They could have just put off, asking Parliament, to nod through re-newal of Trident.
I am unsure, why the rush for new nuclear electric and new nuclear missiles, was this to please OBOMBA / CLINTON?
Scotland
A FRENCH nuclear energy company is trying to keep Scotland’s aging power stations open years longer than is allowed
under current United Kingdom government regulations.
EDF Energy is asking the UK government’s nuclear watchdog to allow its power station in Hunterston, North Ayrshire,
to continue running until it is 47 years old, and its facility in Torness, East Lothian, to remain open until it is 42 years old.
The power plants were designed to last only 30 years, according to investigative news site the Ferret.
The revelation has caused concern among experts and politicians,
who fear continued use of the nuclear reactors could put the public at risk.
https://www.rt.com/uk/374788-nuclear-plant-edf-safety/
The quick answer to Électricité de France is NO
Another influential think tank report shows that Brexit will be a unmitigated disaster for the British economy.
A report by the EY Item Club, which used the Treasuries own economic model to make its forecasts showed, that the disaster known as Brexit, will see economic growth slow down, unemployment rise sharply and squeezed consumer spending over at least a three year period.
Brexit will be a hammer blow to the people of Britian, the Tories are determined to push it through with the aid of the Labour party, as Corbyn vows to whip his MP’s into backing Article 50.
So you think Britain is too wee, too poor and too stupid to leave Europe then.
Corbyn has indeed said MPs will be made to follow his line.
Personally I don’t think that will work. Owen Smith has already declared he will not do it. Others will take a similar position.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/24/remoaner-article-50-brexit-labour
I was sorry to hear Mr Corbyn saying that it doesn’t matter, that “the will of the people” must carry the day. Referenda can be useful but not on issues as huge as this. Would you buy a house without having it surveyed and valued first?
The sensible thing would have been to acknowledge what happened at the referendum (despite vast numbers not even voting incidentally) but it should also have been acknowledged that the result was just over half for and just under half against. We’ve heard various Leave politicians claim that people voted by a wide margin to leave when that just isn’t true. (Giselle Stuart is claiming in the Guardian today that Leave won “a landslide victory”.) We also had two parts of the UK voting to Remain, they’re now being ignored as well despite having their own governments.
Surely the government of the time should have stated that there would be further work done on the terms and the consequences of leaving the EU before allowing Parliament itself to decide ultimately which way we would go?
Suck it up
we are leaving.
The Government of Theresa May is committed to hard brexit.
No going back
whatever Gina Miller thinks or says.
‘There is NO turning back!’ David Davis warns Remoaner M.P.s
they will face the full wrath of the public if they use Supreme Court ruling to block Brexit
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4150822/Judges-ruling-PM-executive-powers-trigger-Brexit.html#ixzz4Wh9amAl9
Brexit: Supreme Court says Parliament must give Article 50 go-ahead
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38720320
Parliament must vote on whether the government can start the Brexit process, the Supreme Court has ruled.
The judgement means Theresa May cannot begin talks with the EU until MPs and peers give their backing – although this is expected to happen in time for the government’s 31 March deadline.
But the court ruled the Scottish Parliament and Welsh and Northern Ireland assemblies did not need a say.
Good news Scotland can’t block Brexit.
Britain’s Supreme Court has ruled Parliament has the right to vote on Article 50 before it is triggered by the prime minister. The decision marks a serious blow for the Conservative government, which had sought to bypass the legislature.
The most powerful court in the land has upheld a High Court decision that ruled it unconstitutional for UK Prime Minister Theresa May to formally trigger the process of leaving the EU without first consulting MPs.
https://www.rt.com/uk/374880-may-trigger-brexit-supreme/
UKSC confirms (by majority of 8:3) that an Act of Parliament is needed before Article 50 can be triggered 1/2 http://ow.ly/Ljhi308idsP
9:39 AM – 24 Jan 2017
Eleven Supreme Court Justices delivered the ruling on Tuesday morning, following a four-day hearing last December.
Now that the government has been denied the use of royal prerogative to invoke Article 50, the matter will be put before the House of Commons, where MPs are expected to debate a one-line bill on the issue.
I did not see that comming.
Mrs.Theresa May must have the knife sharpener in – for the judges.
“Suck it up”
Charming!
“..Brexit, will see economic growth slow down, unemployment rise sharply..”
How will we tell the difference?
Oxymoron or Metaphor?
MI6 and its U.S. intelligence chums need to remember their designated and legislated roles
within a democracy to serve the government and protect national security by gathering
intelligence, assessing it impartially and making recommendations on which the government
of the day will choose to act or not as the case may be.
The spies are not there to fake intelligence to suit the agenda of a particular regime, as happened
in the run-up to the illegal Iraq War, nor are they there to endemically spy on their own populations
(and the rest of the world, as we know post-Snowden) in a pointless hunt for subversive activity,
which often translates into legitimate political activism and acts of individual expression).
And most especially the intelligence agencies should not be trying to subvert democratically elected
governments. And yet this is what the CIA and a former senior MI6 officer, along with their powerful
political allies, appear to be now attempting against Trump. Annie Machon
THE OLD EXPRESSION TO THE VICTOR BELONG THE SPOILS. YOU REMEMBER, YOU ALWAYS SAY KEEP THE OIL. I WASN’T A FAN OF IRAQ, I DIDN’T WANT TO GO INTO IRAQ. BUT I WILL TELL YOU, WHEN WE WERE IN, WE GOT OUT WRONG. I ALWAYS SAID, IN ADDITION TO THAT, I SAID IT FOR ECONOMIC REASONS, BUT IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT, MIKE, IF WE KEPT THE OIL YOU PROBABLY WOULDN’T HAVE ISIS BECAUSE THAT’S WHERE THEY MADE THEIR MONEY IN THE FIRST PLACE SO WE HAVE KEPT THE OIL. BUT, OKAY. MAYBE WE’LL HAVE ANOTHER CHANCE. Donald Trump
Scotland’s desperate trip to Brussels: MSPs in hunt for allies to keep them chained to EU
SCOTTISH MPs have travelled to Brussels in a desperate bid to rally support for the nation remaining tied to the European Single Market.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/757749/msps-eu-allies-scotland-brussels-brexit-nicola-sturgeon
The MSPs are expected to meet with senior German MEP David McAllister, who is vice president of the European People’s Party in the European Parliament, and Danuta Hubner, the chairman of the parliament’s Constitutional Affairs Committee.
Prime Minister of The United Kingdom Theresa May has made clear the UK will leave the single market when it leaves the EU.
Game set Match over to Nicola
Meanwhile the gaff prone UK Secretary of State for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs, has cancelled a crucial meeting with Home nations, despite the EU Transition Forum being a “joint” exercise by all four administrations.
Andrea Leadsom, the Brexiteer who claimed things will be fine after Brexit, as Britian will export biscuits and jam around the globe, cancelled even though Article 50 is close to being triggered.
It is yet another example of the British government showing a lack of respect for the Home nations and their concerns over the disaster known as Brexit.
Don’t worry about it. Scotland will be leaving soon.
RoS it may begin to dawn on you, that we have all, walked through a new door.
That door is the way to freedom, freedom from the hated European Union.
It might be upsetting for the S.N.P. to keep being snubbed by TRUMP / MAY/ E.U.
Get used to it.
We are leaving and this means Scotland as well.
Girls. Behave. You are not in a Carry On film on Paradise Camping. You are on a serious blog with serious political discussion. That is why the head master, wrong sex but anyway, Mrs May, and the head teacher, wrong sex but anyway, Mr Trump, find themselves unexpectedly attracted to eachother.
Trump will neutralise the French and German ambitions for a Federal EU, return Syria to its Sunni people which USUKIS could and should have done 6 years ago. The CIA wanted to sell arms and kill Muslims. The CIA will now work for America not Israel.
That will have drained the immediate neo-con swamp in the Middle East. Ukraine can be sorted out by fresh elections removing the Neo-Nazis , and the rest of the neo-con chaos will be sorted out through business deals as usual.
I do expect TRUMP to say it like it is, as far as The Crimea is concerned, that the people of Crimea voted to return to the fold of Mother Russia and get pensions.
They would be torn to shreds if they were made to re-join Nazi Ukraine.
Most of the people of The Crimea are of Russian extraction, they know which side their bread is buttered, both sides if they stick with Putin, neither side if they get taken by The Ukraine.
“Girls. Behave. You are not in a Carry On film on Paradise Camping. ”
________
Giyane.
Don’t you mean Carry on Brexiting, even the now long gone Sid James couldn’t have imagined a bigger farce than Brexit.
No doubt in the future a slapstick comedy will be produced, with prominent actors playing the inept Brexiteers. ?
I’m sure Norton a (Alf Garnett) type character will disagree.
“RoS it may begin to dawn on you, that we have all, walked through a new door.”
________
Michael, Scotland and NI are being dragged through the exit door of the Single Market, by a Tory government who only has one MP in Scotland, contrary to what May says (a British vote) Scotland didn’t vote to leave.
As for your version of freedom, I find it rather macabre, for by leaving the EU and its human rights behind, you are constricting freedom not encouraging it.
Ah, RoS we seem to have developed views looking through opposite ends of the telescope.
I see a rosy view of sunlit uplands, all vineyards and cider apple trees, much fewer migrants, much fewer rules
more healthy, more free.
You seem from your end to see gloom and despondency, a decline in to penury.
You can look through my end of the telescope, if you wish.
“You can look through my end of the telescope, if you wish.”
Michael.
Your telescope has a narrow minded splendid isolationist view, one where Johnny Foreigner and his likes are not particularly welcome in Britain.
A view of Europe as a second class type citizen compared to the majestic British first class citizen.
You see the EU as a foreign mix of thievery and corruption, even though your view from the parochial finals of Westminster, is oblivious to the machinations of your own government.
I feel pity for you and the likes of Anon1, who see Johnny Foreigner as a threat, instead of a sounding board, of which you could if you wanted to, learn more about their culture.
Indeed people of the UK in general often dont even bother to learn the language, of the countries they’ve chosen to live in outside the English speaking world.
Don’t worry about it. Scotland will be leaving soon.
We did not ALL walk through a new door Michael. Just over half did, just under half went through a different door. Maybe you should think about that instead of insulting people in the way you just have.
Hannigan is resigning as head of GCHQ, for ‘personal reasons’. He was appointed in 2014.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38723040
Wonder what lies behind it?
“Wonder what lies behind it?”
Lies.