As I write, with over 75% of all yesterday’s English local election results in, Labour has a net gain of 55 councillors compared to the high water mark of the 2014 result in these wards, while the Tories have a net gain of one seat against a 2014 result which was regarded at the time as disastrous for them, and led the Daily Telegraph to editoralise “David Cameron Must Now Assuage the Voters’ Rage”.
Yet both the BBC and Sky News, have all night and this morning, treated these results, in which the Labour Party has increased by 3% an already record number of councillors in this election cycle, as a disaster. What is more, they have used that false analysis to plug again and again the “anti-Semitism in the Labour Party” witch-hunt. It was of course the continuous exacerbation of this mostly false accusation by Blairite MP’s which – deliberately on their part – stopped the Labour Party doing still better. The Blairites are all over the airwaves plugging this meme again today.
What is more this Labour result has been achieved despite the complete collapse of the UKIP vote, which collapse had been expected to boost the Tory Party. In fact the net loss of over 100 UKIP seats has not resulted in overall net gains for the Tory Party, even though those ex-UKIP voters demonstrably did mostly split to Tory. The very substantial UKIP voter reinforcements simply saved the Tories from doing still worse. The Liberal Democrats are showing some signs of life.
Yesterday was World Press Freedom Day, and the tendentious media misrepresentation of the election results reminds me why I could not get excited about it. A media with the extremely concentrated ownership we see in the UK can never be free, and certainly does not represent a wide spread of political opinions. Even the views of the official Leader of the Opposition are almost entirely deemed to be outside the Overton window. In Scotland the Scottish government is subject to unreasoning media attack, day in and day out, which contrasts strikingly with the treatment of Westminster ministers and issues.
There is a seriously worrying example from Leeds of the decline of free speech, where disgracefully a meeting discussing the bias of the corporate and state media has now been banned by Leeds City Council because of its content. We are not allowed even to get together to discuss media bias. Retired Ambassador Peter Ford, Professors Piers Robinson and Tim Hayward, Vanessa Beeley and Robert Stuart were to address the meeting at Leeds City Museum entitled “Media on Trial”. I cannot sufficiently express my outrage that Leeds City Council feels it is right to ban a meeting with very distinguished speakers, because it is questioning the government and establishment line on Syria. Freedom of speech really is dead.
British society truly has changed fundamentally if a former British Ambassador to Syria is banned from speaking in public premises on his area of expertise. What is still worse is the tone of this sneering report from Huffington Post, now firmly a part of corporate media, in which Chris York libels the speakers as “Assad supporters”, interviews none of the speakers and nobody to make the argument for free speech, but does manage to interview the “founder” of the jihadist “White Helmets.” In terms of banning dissent while simultaneously ramping up the official narrative, York has won himself top establishment brownie points. The man – and I use the term loosely – is unfit for polite company.
Half a cup of novichok: https://www.rt.com/news/425886-opcw-novichok-grams-correction/
Personally, I do not think this immense factor-1000 exaggeration was by made accident. Why?
Because OPCW director-general Ahmet Uzumcu was quick to point out that such a large quantity would indicate to state actors were involved, not students, in an effort to conveniently narrow down the possible perpetrators of the ‘Salisbury event’.
Like I said — I smell a rat, and it’s coming from the direction of the ingenious OPCW.
How do you put a genie back into a bottle? You don’t.
Not sure it is the OPCW but just the dollar-corruptible agents within.
Note btw. in the video fragment the itty-bitty, almost subliminal, lies and subtle disinformation by this intelligence expert Ingram.
bj I’ve just put a comment on your RT article which contains a link to the Yulia Skripal petition. Can anyone see it?
I don’t see anything that would refer to a ‘petition’. I wouldn’t know what to look for. I do see the parade of ‘social media’, but I tend to avoid those, and it’s probably not what you are getting at.
Maybe you should take a screenshot to show what you mean and put that up on something like Dropbox or the like.
Nobody sees it except me. Hang around and I’ll show you.
These are the two comments I added.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/127161425@N07/41177711244/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/127161425@N07/27026457877/in/dateposted-public/
These are two screen shots where the petition disappears a few seconds after it is posted. No indication of a deletion. I had to be really quick to capture the first/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/127161425@N07/40996188215/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/127161425@N07/41894921511/in/dateposted-public/
This should be major news but I guess my Flikr account may go dead next. The deep state does not want this petition to succeed. I wonder why.
It seems to me these are in the comments section. I don’t readily see the comments section on the page, but don’t panic.
Why don’t you fire up a different type of browser and visit the site without logging in, and see if anything is the matter.
I wouldn’t worry too much.
Well of course they are in the comments section. I did not write the RT article you posted. I am not panicking. 🙂
Large enough to kill many but not large enough to smuggle through the 100 ml threshold for liquids in hand luggage according to the Guardian. Very subtle.
I am on the continent, so to speak, but hearing George Galloway just now makes me wonder what all the sulking and trolling is all about here: “it’s the biggest Labour win since 1971”, says George, and if this would have been GE, Corbyn would now be kissing HMQ’s hand and accepting her offer to form a cabinet.
Enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ltsxfKb39I
Thanks, bj. Shocking misinformation again from the ‘respectable’ media.
You need to have spent time in the Middle East like I did in the 1950`s to be aware of what was going down.This lays it out quite well.
Secret cables and reports by the U.S., Saudi and Israeli intelligence agencies indicate that the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline, military and intelligence planners quickly arrived at the consensus that fomenting a Sunni uprising in Syria to overthrow the uncooperative Bashar Assad was a feasible path to achieving the shared objective of completing the Qatar/Turkey gas link. In 2009, according to WikiLeaks, soon after Bashar Assad rejected the Qatar pipeline, the CIA began funding opposition groups in Syria. It is important to note that this was well before the Arab Spring-engendered uprising against Assad.
Bashar Assad’s family is Alawite, a Muslim sect widely perceived as aligned with the Shiite camp. “Bashar Assad was never supposed to be president,” journalist Seymour Hersh told me in an interview. “His father brought him back from medical school in London when his elder brother, the heir apparent, was killed in a car crash.” Before the war started, according to Hersh, Assad was moving to liberalize the country. “They had internet and newspapers and ATM machines and Assad wanted to move toward the west. After 9/11, he gave thousands of invaluable files to the CIA on jihadist radicals, who he considered a mutual enemy.” Assad’s regime was deliberately secular and Syria was impressively diverse. The Syrian government and military, for example, were 80 percent Sunni. Assad maintained peace among his diverse peoples by a strong, disciplined army loyal to the Assad family, an allegiance secured by a nationally esteemed and highly paid officer corps, a coldly efficient intelligence apparatus and a penchant for brutality that, prior to the war, was rather moderate compared to those of other Mideast leaders, including our current allies. According to Hersh, “He certainly wasn’t beheading people every Wednesday like the Saudis do in Mecca.” http://internationaltimes.it/why-the-arabs-dont-want-us-in-syria/
You’re quoting Seymour Hersch (and the quotes look promising), but then give a link to an article by … Robert Kennedy Jr.
Needs fixing.
The links do work https://www.politico.eu/article/why-the-arabs-dont-want-us-in-syria-mideast-conflict-oil-intervention/
Same thing, an article by Robert Kennedy Jr. (wheerin Hersch of course is not mentioned).
I am looking for the article by Seymour Hersch that you just interestingly quoted from.
Found it, my mistake, apologies — I misspelled the name, it is Hersh, not Hersch.
Off topic: Just coming from the concert of Roger Waters in Sofia. There are a lot of things you Brits must be proud of. One of them is the old badass Roger. He demolished all those mother fuckers – your government, Trump, the EU puppets, all the pigs. And the show was superb. No words for the music! The sad thing nowadays is that Roger is one of the few who really cares. All of these artists today are useless scum.
Who else if not the brightest minds should open the ship eyes. It used to be different 50 years ago. Roger is 74. What after him!?
p.s. Hands down your Brits always has had the best Rock and Roll! Superb class and quality of these gentlemen! Americans are not even close in this area to you 🙂
Well said P
And yes Roger has been Superb, and Brave in his Politics..Denouncing White Helmets, Israeli crimes ect.
Yes Brian, that is it. This is the oxymoron. There are so many things I like about Britain. You actually can teach the other countries to so many things and yet we see the nastiest of the former British empire. Shame
Unlike the BBC, Brian, here promoting the Giro d’Italia which started in Israel. Froome has been paid a reported £1.6m to take part. Shame on him, Brailsford, Team Sky and all the British cyclists.
‘By then Sky and race organisers RCS will hope the attention is all on the roads and racing rather than the politics of sport and its starting place.
The Giro is the largest international sporting event that Israel has hosted, and in a region beset by seemingly intractable conflict that means the wider context has been impossible to ignore here in Jerusalem.
You pay to host a race like this, with the Israeli government and billionaire Sylvan Adams rumoured to have spent £14m to bring these first three days of racing to the country.
Adams also runs the Israeli Cycling Academy, one of the four teams granted a wildcard into the race, and in Guy Niv and Guy Sagiv the nation will now have the first Grand Tour riders in its history. A velodrome is being built in Jerusalem and much made of the wider cycling legacy that will be created.’
Giro d’Italia: Chris Froome in spotlight at start in Jerusalem
By Tom Fordyce Chief sports writer in Jerusalem
3 May 2018
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/43990193
PS Don’t mention the drugs! Brailsford appeared before the DCMS committee.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/former-team-sky-doctor-lifts-the-lid-on-teams-medical-practices-and-grey-areas/
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/mar/11/team-sky-chris-froome-dave-brailsford-report-crisis
Appalling to note that the Giro d’Italia is taking place in Israel of all places with immoral Team Sky attending. Money talks and this perhaps explains why Froome’s doping case has been so drawn out even though the UCI has already rejected his explanations.It should be noted that Froome has been caught with double the allowed amount of Sabutamol.Riders in previous cases have received lengthy bans. Interestingly, both Froome and Wiggins have previously taken TUEs (WADA says it is a fairly simple pocess) and Team Sky’s lack of credibility and moral bankruptcy (including the Jiffy Bag debacle) have been rightly slammed by the DCMS committee as you mention.Marginal gains are usually ‘too good to be true’ and perhaps on reflection they are the best team to participate in Israel.
The actress, Natalie Portman on the other hand by refusing to participate in Israel’s Genesis Prize ceremony sends a clear message.
Thanks for your comment. It’s a farce isn’t it and totally corrupt.
More on Adams, ‘a real estate tycoon’, who made aliyah from Canada with his British wife.
No irony here. ‘“I want to show people how normal Israel is — that it is a modern, western, pluralistic and free nation where everyone gets along.”’
https://www.thejc.com/sport/sport-news/cycling-4-7-1.451448
His father Marcel Abramovich, aged 97, is in the Forbes List of Billionaires.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Adams
Abramovich > Adams https://www.forbes.com/profile/marcel-adams/
Interesting to note that the British corporate entity (Tour Racing Ltd) is 85% owned by Sky UK Ltd and 15% by 21st Century Fox.The Murdochs influence here is obvious.
https://inrng.com/2016/07/the-finances-of-team-sky-2015/
It is also noted that Murdoch and Rothschild are shareholders and Board members of Genie Energy. Cheney is also a Board member. Genie Oil and Gas are involved in shale oil exploration on occupied Syrian land, clearly illegal under international law.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/27/rupert-murdoch-and-the-israeli-genie/
This perhaps explains Murdoch’s Times nefarious reporting on Syria (especially Douma) and the Skirpal case.
Natalie Portman’s courageous decision not to attend the Genesis Awards ceremony has been lambasted by right-wing activist Rabbi Shmuley Boteach via a $50K advert in the New York Times. Billionaire Sheldon Adelson (ardently pro- Israel and large funder of the republican party) supports Shmuley’s World Values Network and conservative actism.
https://therealnews.com/stories/natalie-portmans-boycott-of-netanyahu-prompts-attack-by-billionaire-backed-right-wing-rabbi-shimuley-boteach
Moreover, ‘Adelson even offered to help fund the (US) embassy (move to Jerusalem) back in December, around the same time Trump made his controversial announcement’. Considered highly irregular the legality of accepting a private donation is being seriously questioned.
https://www.vox.com/world/2018/2/23/17044284/adelson-gop-trump-jerusalem-embassy-israel-palestinians
Farcical if it weren’t so serious and dangerous.
Thanks for the review and personal comment!
nice post p! i agree with your comments – british music scene and that roger is willing to speak truth to power.. kudos to him!
I totally agree with what Craig writes here and am becoming desperately concerned about the trajectory the UK corporate media is on as it seeks to twist and turn public opinion in favour of this appalling tory clique in government and the anti-Russia phobia on one hand and anti-semitic meme on the other.
A more competent analysis of the local election results rather than the mere propaganda they are trying to feed us would show that England’s politics is deadlocked seemingly along brexshit lines but there is nowhere for the toxic tories to go. Their most extreme racist, xenophobic supporters have all come home and this notwithstanding, they are stil in decline, although admittedly not yet terminally so. Labour therefore holds all the cards, even with Jeremy Corbyn, whom I admire even though I am no Labourite, as leader.
The next UK general election must be fought along the lines of an informal broad left rainbow alliance and in Scotland and Wales the SNP and Plaid Cymru must continue to garner support from all quarters and more to the point of that be supported by all who want meaningful, incremental change in our society.
This means strategic planning for tactical voting on a scale never seen before and for Labour to abandon its deep seated animosity towards the national parties.
What do others think?
**
Mochyn69
Of course you would say that wouldn’t you,
Not being a ‘Labourite’? So this is the old discussion about tactical voting and it is very clearly against the interest, and the rules, of the Labour Party to encourage anybody but the conservatives type voting. It makes a party appear to be less of an alternative to government and merely a protest party, as many accused Corbyn of being during the first anti-Corbyn phase when his opponents thought they would easily displace him. We can also see what the effect of this type of voting had when it got the Lib Dem’s as partners in the Cameron government with disasterous effects for the country and the LDs.
Unlike you I am proud to be a ‘Labourite’ , although I prefer the longer and more precise term, Labour Party member. under Corbyn’s leadership.
Good for you.
But I simply cannot fully endorse Labour, not least because of the way the branch offices operate in Scotland and Wales although I had some time for Carwyn until he capitulated to Westminster on post-brexshit devolution.
I am well aware of the Lib-Dem-Vermin disaster and would certainly not advocate a coalition.
But Labour under Corbyn’s leadership may have to be prepared to consider anything up to a confidence-and-supply type agreement with one or more of the national parties to form a workng majority after the next election.
**
Mochyn69,
I agree it’s your comments regarding the media interpretation of the English local election results. I have just looked at the BBCs categorisation of it as neck and neck between Labour and the Tories. Labour won more than a thousand seats more than the Tories on the night, gained 77 seats, while the Tories lost 35. The 35 would have been more had they not gained from the UKIP collapse. The Labour result in London was the best for almost 50 years. And, it was not just the so called right wing media, the Blairite and closet Mayites of the NEW stesman are damning Labour with faint praise and highlighting the ‘antisemitism issue with regard to Barnet.
I am a former Labour member and voter. I live in Scotland and support independence. I still consider myself a democratic socialist, but I am unlikely, in what remains of my life to vote for Labour in Scotland again. I had begun to have doubts during the Blair/Brown ascendancy, with the praise o Mrs Thatcher, the courting of the city, the market ideology, Iraq, the corruption, etc. So, what had become a principled voting habit stopped.
The conduct of Labour during the 2014 referendum was shameful, and, in its cavilling ranks at Holyrood we see the bile flecked kneejerk oppositionism still embittered at their denied ‘entitlement’.
I see some signs of hope in the Corbyn inspired renaissance in England, but his sanguineness about Scotland (and Wales) determining their own future, soon fell to the anger of the Labour clique: “We hate these SNP and Green bastards”.
We see in things like the recent bombast of Owen Jones towards the Greens that they really should stop their silliness and join Labour. At root, Labour in England, and amongst Momentum is English colonialist. Nevertheless, developments in London and elsewhere indicate that a questioning of the England/Britain construct is emerging. It has some way to go, because Labour has no ideas on Ireland; indeed, it seems erased from the mental geography. Yet, it is along the edges of Fermanagh and Armagh and Derry, that the UK will crumble.
Sorry but labour are dead in Scotland and will go the same way in Wales unless they change leader to one who is more EU friendly. Brexit is the game changer and they still don’t get it.
Wales voted for brexit i thought by a similar margin to the uk. Welsh Labour just needs to get rid of the old guard of soft-blairites infesting the party imo – eu-friendly or not isn’t the main issue here.
This is totally misinformed as is the entire policy of the SNP on Europe.
Scottish independence is possible but only with its own currency outside the EU.
I doubt you understand the structure of the EU, as I have yet to find a Remain supporter that understands the EU structure, although it is also true few supporting leave understand the EU structure.
I really do not understand this delusional misty eyed nostalgia for the EU all supported by the logical coherence as a belief in father Christmas and the tooth fairy?
I fail to see any significant positive effects of the EU?
Do you think it is good policy to have a limit on the level of government debt/deficit set at EU level?
Do you think it is a good idea for the EU to prohibit state aid that offers subsidy to state provided services not available to private enterprises? Particularly as these rules have to be embedded in UK legislation as a member of the EU (such as in the social care act 2012 that allowed Branson to sue Surrey NHS for projected loss of income).
Do you think that having free movement of capital, as required as one of the four freedoms underpinning the single market is a good idea, given the destabilizing effects of hot speculative money?
Do you think that the investor state dispute mechanism (similar to TTP and TTIP) embedded in the Canada deal (CETA) that allows companies to sue countries for projected loss of income is a good idea?
Do you think it is good policy for your elected EU representative to not be able to propose legislation as only the unelected EU commission can propose laws and also rule on state aid and running an excessive budget deficit and can impose fines (Euro members) or withold direct funding (non Euro members).
Do you think it is a good idea that state aid has to be pre approved by the EU commission?
If free movement of capital is such a good idea why does China not have this and why was Japan successful until the US imposed opening up of its economy using the threat of quotas/tariffs with the plaza accord in 1985?
Do you think it is a good idea for counties to borrow in what is effectively a foreign currency as the individual member cannot create the currency they are borrowing in, as only the private banks can create money as debt with only the ECB able to create money not as interest bearing debt?
This has problems as the individual central banks cannot monetise its government debt if need be or offer unlimited liquidity to act as a back stop to to its private banks. The EU apparently ignoring all that is know about the viability of how to create a stable currency and banking sector. Baghot wrote his ‘Lombard Street’ at the end of the 1800’s, who suggested liquidity should be provided at penalty rates on interest on good security by the central bank to its private banks.
Do you think it is a good idea to have a fixed currency without fiscal transfers, as this failed spectacularly with the gold standard in the run up to and after the great crash in 1929?
If you think any of the above EU policies are incorrect and want them changed, how do you get them changed, and who do you approach?
I fail to see how anyone can in good faith support the EU after it has enforced cuts in the minimum wage pensions medicine and unemployment benefit and forced the whole sale privatising of its income producing assets, the massive increase in destitution and suicides and pretend to be on the left.
reg
Of course to a great extent I agree with you. But the problem is that getting out of the EU will not reverse any of these issues. The EU’s failure in my mind has been the lack of true indipendence from the current dominence of the US in foreign and monetary policy and instead of forming a third block joined the US block. I am not sure that any Western country outside the EU will be able to resist and reverse any of the EU policies but will find itself saddled with more serious lack of indipendence. The true enemy is not the EU but the globalist neoliberas otherwise you have to convince many of us here of why the extreme right wing in U.K. is so pro-leave and also so pro hanging on the tailcoats of the US.
my 2penneth is… keep your plaid, keep your snp, but realise it is impossible for you to win an election and a Corbyn Labour with give your party the most face time in coalition. I would of course advise vote Labour in the first place, but certainly don’t attack Labour or Corbyn just because you don’t vote for it, because even though you don’t vote for it, it offers you a big chance to be heard, even without coalition.
Don’t expect Labour to ever declare they would be happy to go into coalition though. Shouting anything but the opposite would split the vote further, helping the torries with their one party plan. Blairites might advocate it, just to sabotage Corbyn.
MSM tried to make Corbyn look weak/unreasonable by trying to get him to say whether he would go into coalition. Of course it makes sense to go into coalition if you have to, but he can only say no before the votes are cast. Sounds like some of you bought it. Even when you’re aware of what msm does, it still gets you. I know a lot of Corbyn supporters who will say, ‘yeah, but I worry he’s a weak leader though’… How the hell would they know?… Because it’s trickled in beside the main attacks on him; same old story; through the msm, with no evidence. If anything, the actual evidence says the opposite.
Well put, my very thoughts. I sometimes have moments of wondering if Corbyn should be tougher. I find the Blairites willing to split the party because for them it is better to have a Tory rule than a Corbyn rule, incredible really. But what makes Corbyn what he is, is exactly that he will not use these divisive methods to attack the Blairites even though deselection would be a very nice thing to contemplate.
Exactly. It’s almost as if he is too good a politician. In the true sense rather than the sleazy evader we have become accustomed to in politics. Would love to see him just end them, but it looks like we just have to be patient while he does it the correct way.
I don’t think there is anything ‘weak’ about Jeremy Corbyn at all. I think we need a Prime Minister like him who is thoughtful, doesn’t talk in soundbites, doesn’t say ‘how high’ when the MSM say ‘JUMP’ and crucifies May at PMQs every time with facts, evidence and incisive questions. Above all though, I think he has shown admirable strength, dignity and focus to task and politics and led two successful election campaigns in terms of significant increases in the Labour vote, in the fact of one of the most vicious, malicious and sustained MSM campaign against him and from within the Party by dissenters to social democracy. I strongly suspect that if this was the Tories they would be bleating on about the biased MSM, BBC, Social Media etc and be making complaints to any Press body or organisation who would bother to listen. Corbyn has the inner strength and courage which comes from his unwavering commitment to what he believes is right and believes in – he doesn’t need to Grandstand – he just quietly and patiently stick to task and focus.
Craig.
Please set up a one off donation option including Paypal.
I do not do repeating donations but do make one off donations to blogs and media that I respect, your blog is one of these so will definitely receive the occasional one-off.
Regards Carl.
I agree with that – I know paypal costs the payee but it is a safe way for us to send money#
The ‘greater fool theory’ is the modus operandi of the people behind the scenes who rule the world.
They know the ‘system’ of irredeemable currency will eventually fail & so they have to trick the public to extend the survival of the $.
Many of our leaders serve these people, but they fail to see that they cannot serve two masters.
And this is their undoing as more and more people connect the dots while they scurry around trying to put the lid back on Pandora’s box,
a box that they opened with their treachery & lies.
I completey concur with your comments. I cannot believe what is happening. Worst of all, a friend of mine with a long career as a journalist in the mainstream media recently attacked me, a former reporter for the Independent, BBC etc and an author, as being pro Russia and pro Assad when I queried the official Skripal and Douma versions. One starts to feel like the heroine of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers when she catches the eye of her erstwhile companion,
played by Donald Sutherland, on an escalator. He turns around – and instead of smiling discreetly to comfort her points his finger, shrieks and identifies her to the aliens.
Guilt and shame. Hard to live with. Fingers must be pointed. That none of them are willing to stick their head above the parapet is a message to the rest of us about who they are afraid of, who they really think did it. And it’s not Putin.
Trump’s latest speech was even more eery. There was an echo effect. He was standing on a stage in Dallas, where else, defending US gun laws at an NRA rally. All we needed were raised right arms and a ‘Heil’.
He was sounding off about us again and how one of our hospitals is a war zone, covered in blood. No exaggeration there then Donald.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-44008157/trump-knife-blood-on-uk-hospital-floors
At least we did not hear ‘from these cold, dead hands’ Charlton Heston style. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTdO-w3xnpw
Remembering this lovely Irishwoman who died four years ago.
Anne Clinton: Palestine solidarity and anti-war activist – Rest in Power
http://www.ipsc.ie/press-releases/anne-clinton-palestine-solidarity-and-anti-war-activist-rest-in-power
Note she was also at the Shannon protests where US military aircraft were landing.
She is on this video.https://youtu.be/zhIEUmdVTow
Diamonds are not the Palestinians’ best friends.
Have any of these Leeds MPs had any say in the cancellation of the Syria meeting at the City Museum?
https://democracy.leeds.gov.uk/mgMemberIndexMP.aspx?bcr=1
Someone doesn’t want the truth to be told. Hilary Benn for instance? Leeds Central.
A truth like this one for instance?
The MoD accidentally confirmed that UK drones have been sending down thermobaric bombs on Syria.
https://dronewars.net/2018/05/02/mod-accidentally-reveals-british-drones-firing-thermobaric-missiles-in-syria/
Marcus BBC 2002 – The heat and pressure effects are formidable – soldiers caught in the blast could have the air sucked from their bodies and even their internal organs catastrophically destroyed. Thermobaric weapons are closely related to so-called fuel-air explosives – where the explosive cloud is provided by a volatile gas or liquid.’ As used by the US in Afghanistan.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1850000/images/_1854371_thermo_bomb3_inf300.gif
Much more comfortable than a ‘novichok’.
If Ahmet the Turk is correct about his ’50-100g of Novichok’ then the entirety of Salisbury will need to be demolished. Brace yourselves.
Summer is here; and May and Johnners will plunge us into war with Russia on Privy Council terms, Parliament being useless, ignorant and overly feminized. Anything to distract from the Brexit trainwreck.
We begin fire bombing sailsbury at noon!.
Yeah, Amusingly the 100g idea didn’t last long however I wonder whether it was initially reported with serious intent or a simple error given it’s somewhat muted, partially comedic, media reception.
Obviously whilst our free and independent press somewhat hopped on the “militarised quantity” bandwagon ignoring the basic absurdity of the statement I still wonder who the hell told Üzümcü that quantity was involved in the first place.
Open Letter to all 650 MPs at Westminster
Dear motley crew of rabble rousers, charlatans, spivs, swindlers and generally odious busybodies (with a few honorable exceptions)
The day when Britain could even remotely claim to be a nation of Free Speech, the rights of men/women/the rest has passed. The funeral of UK freedoms took place the day a meeting presenting five eminent speakers holding the MSM to account was banned by political pressure on a public sector hosting body.
In the 1980s, the UK Ambassador of the odious South African Apartheid regime was invited to the Cambridge Union Society to debate apartheid. I attended, believing it better to hear the justifications, the better to rebut and refute them. He was robustly voted down by students who upheld the right to free speech as it should be upheld, namely listening to views you find abhorrent, repulsive and blood boiling…..
Now we presume to bomb other nations whilst saying our own conduct cannot be critically examined. We all know the UK media is full of types the exact opposite to squealing millenial students (they are hard boiled, strident, bullying opinionated slimeballs in the main), hence it would be absurd to claim they are too soft to face critical statements.
They criticise anything and everything they wish to. Not big enough to take what they dish out? Is Geordie Grieg really a submissive wimp with a fantasy of being whipped by Rebekah Brooks? Is Katherine Viner really a scared little girl who bursts into tears if her editorial line on Syria is challenged? Is David Aaronovitch really a flakey yiddish outcast who will descend into the mire of depression if his views on Israel are robustly contradicted?
Come on.
A line has been crossed and all propaganda about the UK being the upholder of freedom is now cretinous lying.
From now on an increasing intolerance to Establishment claptrap will emerge, a decisive rejection of Establishment politics will take hold and the whole role of Westminster, Whitehall and the City of London in upholding this sorry farce will drive forward either revolt, revolution or political renewal.
You all had quite enough chances.
Your time is up.
And good riddance will be the sords of an increasing number….
Ban us from voting? The ballot box will be rejected as the voice of democracy……
Lamp posts do have uses other than illumination you know….
It is just that it is rare that things get that far…..
Aux barricades mes frères? I don’t think so, The populace has been lured away by their ‘smart’ phones, reality shows on the goggle box and the right of endless men and women in lycra running, jumping, kicking balls and cycling wearing Lycra, aided by Branson’s Virgin and Virgin Media, viz the London Marathon and the Limpics.
Here in 2012 all the street cabinets for cable. installed by Branson’s predecessors, were plastered with images of Farrah and Bolt wearing their Virgin colours. Now they have gone, leaving the cabinets devoid of paint and adding to the shabbiness of this town, once smart and lively and now grubby and quiet. Jessica Ennis Hill has been acquired by a SA owned health insurance company for Sky adverts feat. the speaking dachshund voiced by Ade Edmondson. I bet the advertising has paid off in both cases.
May Ayres (a wonderful sculptor and totally unrecognized) produced ‘Passengers’ for her God’s Wars Exhibition in Bethnal Green in 2011. Her work should be in a national gallery.
https://mayayres.com/war/passengers-w-120cm-2011/ Click to enlarge. Note the earphones. No speak. No see. Nothing.
Most are asleep, on their gadgets, or dead from the neck up.
duh. ‘sight of….
Not intended to hurt someone’s feelings or believes, it’s just a part of Russian mentality – to laugh at what we consider absurd.
Once in the Eden, God says to Adam and Eve:
– My dear children, I’ve got 2 new gifts for you. First is the ability to pee standing up on feet.
Adam immediately asks this gift to be passed to him, and God blesses him with this ability.
– How happy I am! It was my dream! Thank you so much! It’s wonderful ! – Adam yells and tests his new ability everywhere in the Eden. He makes it onto grass, and bushes, and trees, and animals…
– My God, – Eve says, – What is the second gift?
– It is common sense, my child, – God answers.
– Let’s give it to Adam before he he p***s all over heaven.
Theresa May raising half of the world agains Russia on ‘highly likely’ ground – is Adam
Donald Trump hitting Syria before proofs of chemical attack – is Adam
Brithish people empowering their Prime Minister with the privilege to start war without Parliament’s consent – is Adam
Tatyana
I enjoy reading your posts which give insight into some Russian traits. The sense of humour is interesting and I can also glean some of that from the speeches and the way expressions are formed by Putin, Lavrov and Zakharova. It seems to me that there is a total misunderstanding and total block of this understanding of what is shared between Russia and the world in what the West has sought in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union. First they sought to exploit Russia in the Yeltsin years and now they seem to seek to demonise and isolate Russia.
hmm, the more I hear from actual Russians, the more I think your minds work differently, like your higher up on the evolutionary chain. Your humour is more philosophical, as if your average Jo has an IQ of 150.
My interpretation would be this though. I see it more as Maybot is the penis, Trump is the erratic flow of pi$$ streaming from her. The people, not just the British, are god, but someone has all our unicorns or something because our god is in chains.
Trump and Maybot may be the wrong way round though. Could be more like trump is the knob, and everyone bending over for him is the rich steaming jet of urine. Or maybe whatever drives the entity that holds the chains of god is the shlong, and their actions (through the likes of corporations, msm, and governments) are the pi$$ and also the chains.
This is my kind of philosophy. Screw determinism vs free will.
We have been dumbed down – Americanized via the audio visual and printed media and by the social media too.
I don’t think it is about IQ, it is just a good joke that I remembered.
By the way, the most fun reading I had in my childhood was “Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)” and “Midnight Summer Dream” – both are excellent samples of good humor.
I have read neither, which probably goes some way to explain why my sense of humour is so juvenile, usually resorting to potty humour, and likely most often only amusing me. One day I will strive to be less selfish and less annoying, so thank you for the recommendations 😉
sounds like a logical outcome. Luckily I don’t think EU et al are so susceptible to such ignorance, just because we are so easily able to walk in the shoes of our neighbours. Probably part of the reason America or the powers that be wants to influence the whole of the EU simultaneously. Another thing that serves to keep us ignorant is fear. I see so many stories on the news which are devised to keep us scared. Worst winter in x years. Worst drought in July since… More deaths in London than New York etc etc. A population in fear is easier to control. Keeping your head down. Live to work, and work to retire. Stay ignorant.
Thank you 🙂
let’s exercise more humor,
if Trump is Adam, so who is Netanyahu driving his attention to another piece of yet un-spoiled land? As if saying – hey, look what we get on Iran, you may save a trip for your battleships.
Netanyahu is the bum hole through which Trump is emitted of course.
@flatulence
I think you can easily catch humor and understand metaphor in the joke:
Two honorable gentlemen were spending their week-end together. They had little entertainment and didn’t know how to kill the rest of time. Soon, one of them said
– hey, friend, what do you think of homosexuality?
– never tried it and I think it is not obscene.
– oh, come on, you retrograde fossil. It is pleasant and they even get married in church nowadays. Let me show you!…
……
Some time later, with pain in his *backside* the second gentleman says
– Enough, now it’s my turn, let ME on top, friend.
– No, I’m not a friend of dirty fa**ot!
——–
It is a very good illustration of how I see Russia destroyed her chemical weapons, US and UK still ‘have not enough money to complete’
well just thank goodness Russia didn’t enjoy taking it up the bum!
Hopefully one day, our kids or our grandkids will be able see Russia’s bending over as a step towards a mutually satisfying and rewarding relationship, gay or straight.
in the meantime… To bastardise another gay joke:
UK, France, and the US come together to mourn their ex gay partner, the Taliban, and are discussing how to dispose of his ashes. France suggests we draw a nice cartoon and toast with a glass a wine, US suggests we sprinkle the ashes in the sea and pretend it never happened. UK says, “Lets do it all over again in a new land with someone new, where we can mix the ashes into a seriously hot curry and share it”.
“Great, but why the curry?” everyone asks.
“So we can feel him rip through our ar$es one more time” says the UK.
For anyone interested in (so far as I know) unverifiable conspiracy theories try this:
Up to 200 British military advisers in Syria (read SAS) have been killed or captured by the Russians.
http://freewestmedia.com/2018/04/11/skripal-affair-real-reason-is-capture-of-200-sas-soldiers-in-ghouta/
If any of this is true then presumably the UK government could never go public – far too sensitive and embarrassing. What could they do? Well they could poison an old Russian bloke in Salisbury, blame the Russians and create and leverage widespread diplomatic reprisals. They could also get their mates to join them in bombing targets in Syria on obviously bogus grounds.
Presumably they could then go to the Russians and say look what we can do, why not let our soldiers go and then we will stop doing these things – obviously expressed in more diplomatic terms.
This, or something like it, has the advantage of providing a coherent rationale for a series of actions that otherwise appear to be without rhyme or reason.
It is known that the SAS are in Syria as around April 1st the British confirmed the death of an SAS soldier in Syria.
https://news.sky.com/story/british-sas-soldier-killed-by-is-in-syria-named-as-sergeant-matt-tonroe-11311534
Loony
Very feasible: look also
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cswj3s
Contrary to how they were reported by the MSM, Thursday’s local elections delivered Labour’s best election result since 1971 and its largest share of the vote since 1945.
Had it been a general election, Corbyn would today be PM.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ltsxfKb39I
It all begs the question: Why was it left to Sam Coates of the Times and George Galloway on his radio show to point this out? Surely Corbyn himself and the coterie of Labour talking heads who appeared throughout the day on the media should have been roaring about this. If the Tories had achieved such a result there would not be a person in the country today who would not be aware of it.
Nasty stuff about Livingstone in the Soaraway Sun today to coincide with the election results and this trash from one Natasha Clark, updated @ 1.44am. She self describes as Digital Westminster Correspondent! previously of CityAM and Politics Home. The editor of the latter is Kevin Schofield from the Wadsworth/Smeeth smear set up.
JEZ NOT GOOD ENOUGH How Labour blew their chance of historic election breakthrough
Anti-Semitism rows, Momentum’s army scaring off voters and young lefties failing to turn up probably led to a failure to break through for Labour
By Natasha Clark
4th May 2018, 5:25 pm
Updated: 5th May 2018, 1:44 am
LABOUR has been left disappointed today with a poor set of local election results.
A perfect storm of anti-Semitism rows, Jeremy Corbyn’s feeble response to the Russian spy scandal and a set of overly optimistic predictions led to the party failing to make the gains they were desperately pushing for.
I won’t give a link.
Just under 1.5million copies of the Sun are sold daily. Add the readership where it is left lying around and in the purchasers’ homes.
Yes, a day after outstanding election results for Labour and the settled narrative has become: Corbyn is a let down and needs to go. No idea why Corbyn is content for this perception to take root. Reminds me of how Brown and Miliband allowed the “Labour-social-spending-caused-the-deficit” myth to open the doors to savage austerity.
yes indeed. But the proof is in the pudding. The fact that results were good suggests that people may be waking up and seeing through the news fiction. This result even after the none stops attacks on and within the Labour party.
What is there to say that Corbyn is “content to let this myth take root” or that Miliband “allowed the Labour-social-spending-caused-the-defecit myth to open the doors to savage austerity”?
Its not as if either of them could do anything about what appears in the papers or on TV.
“JEZ NOT GOOD ENOUGH How Labour blew their chance of historic election breakthrough”
Is it just me, or does anyone else read this as “Tories are so completely crap, why didn’t Labour do better?”
Is everyone in the country so stupid as not to realise that you can’t play down the Labour results without, by implication, rubbishing the Tories? The MSM obviously think they are.
Not in Liverpool where there has been a 29 year boycott of the Sun newspaper since the 1989 Hillsborough tragedy.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-17113382
Direct action pays. Boycott the dysfunctional corporate media, hit them where it hurts.
That in reply to @Sharp Ears May 5, 2018 at 09:50 above.
Yes Mochyn 69 I remember the disgraceful slur on the people over Hillsborough by Kelvin Mackenzie. Where is he now? Nobody cares. Very satisfying to read of one failed attempt at new verntures after another on here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin_MacKenzie
.
On the white helmets and their links to jihadis.
Not sure if this video has been mentioned before. If it has, apologies. Its John Cantlie, at the time a hostage of Isis, in one of the Isis propoganda videos, who appears to be reporting on a recent drone strike against IS. The ensuing disruption appears to be well attended by what he refers to in the video as “the Islamic State Fire Brigade” – its clearly the white helmets. https://youtu.be/eVQzkxqHVNY?t=455
Speaks for itself, really.
This too.
Who’s Funding the White Helmets?
Reality Check
by Ben Swann / May 4th, 2018
You’ve no doubt heard of the White Helmets, aka the Syria Civil Defense. They claim to be a neutral entity in Syria. They say they are just helping people caught in the middle of a civil war. But are they? Follow the money and you will find numerous ties to government funding from not only the U.S., but the U.K., Netherlands, Denmark and Germany. We untangle these ties to the White Helmets in a Reality Check you won’t get anywhere else.
https://dissidentvoice.org/2018/05/whos-funding-the-white-helmets/ Rather annoying voice on the video I’m afraid but it’s only 6 minutes in length. Factual.
Dissident Voice is an excellent little website run by Angie Tibbs. You can see what’s been posted up in the LH column on the front page.
I have been listening to left-leaning intellectuals moaning about the media all my life. I don’t know why they bother. Nothing positive comes of this moaning and the only people that listen are other comradely types.
Two things, which are related, need to be said here.
1) the problem isn’t the media, it’s the mass of people who happily distract themselves with crap like sport and soap operas who are the problem. In this information age that we live in, there’s really no excuse for being blind to the truth and alternative opinion. Thus, they choose to be blind and ignorant.
2) freedom of speech, in terms of being able to express and disseminate alternative views, has never been so easy. We are in a much healthier state now, thanks to technology, to communicate and challenge government and the concentrated corporate media than we ever have been.
Both of these points need to be looked at together, at the same time, if you want to explain why there’s s lack of real resistance in politics today. Despite so much in favour of dissident opinion, it has failed and is failing to win win arguments and achieve meaningful political results.
In my opinion, then, there’s too many people who devote themselves to online activism. That would be fine if it worked but it doesn’t, not really. The opposition are fighting online and in the real world, on two fronts, where alternative opinion seems to have gotten lazy and resigned itself to blogs like this and nothing much else.
What’s ridiculous and disappointing is that so many people think it’s radical to sit on blogs like this and exchange ideas. I see them on here all the time, talking about how their every move is probably being watched by big brother. When will you learn — big brother couldn’t be happier that you waste your time on here doing nothing.
Anyway, back to your revolutions.
“the problem isn’t the media”
When it’s the only place the majority are getting their information from it is a decided problem, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not.
So you just agreed with me and don’t even know it. The problem is the people who choose it as a source of news and information.
And yet you couldn’t be more damning of the tiny minority who have chosen craig as a source of information. Please tell me which segment of the population, other than your good self, is matching up to your expectations of a proper citizen.
I think there is certainly an element of truth in what you say but I think it is too easy to dismiss the masses as being distracted by “crap like sport and soap operas”, as you put it.
I think a rather large proportion of the population probably are indeed “blind to the truth and alternative opinion”.
However, I would apportion more blame to the media than to the “masses”. When the mainstream media is virtually all controlled by rich right wing/Tory proprietors, editors and their lackeys it is surely unfair to blame the readership. Brainwashing is surely a very powerful tool – even when used on intelligent people.
We are told the BBC is impartial and people should be able to accept that because the BBC signs a charter to promise to be impart information without bias. The BBC clearly breaks that contract repeatedly and regularly proves itself to be an arm of government propaganda. What I’m saying is that I think that if the media was more balanced in its reporting and investigative journalism, most people would not vote for this appalling Tory government.
Most people don’t have time to “read between the lines” and find the real truth about the deceptions and Nazi-like propaganda that we have to put up with. However, I don’t blame them because they’re often struggling to make ends meet etc. That said, it is in their interests to make time to question the constant crap that the media spouts.
So I don’t think we disagree entirely – its just a matter of emphasis, I suppose.
Forget what I’m doing, I’m exceptional.
Facts are facts. On one hand we have about 40% of the population who are basically thick or pig ignorant (I’ve always struggled to tell the difference between thick and pig ignorant). On the other end of the spectrum we have “radicals” on ego trips who think a few carefully chosen words on some blog actually matter.
There was a time not so long ago when radicals were actually radical. They put themselves in front of trucks and got in the way of warrant sales, for example. And they were successful sometimes — not always, but sometimes. They pretty much put an end to the poll tax and Thatcher.
Our definition of a radical today has changed. Now it’s someone who churns out a few paragraphs a day on some blog that a few hundred people might read. To my knowledge these modern day radicals have had no success whatsoever in the real world.
If we were to look at it in structural terms rather than personalise it, we’d admit quite freely that from the perspective of those want to thwart progressive thought and radicalism, the way it is now couldn’t suit them more. And they have capitalised on this too, that’s why ‘the right’ basically (literally) get away with murder.
And so you can be as radical and revolutionary as you want online. It’s the political equivalent of banging your head against a wall that few people even know exists. Meanwhile, back in the jungle, where radicals used to roam, the right wing crackpots are running riot.
The people I feel sorry for most in all this are those in the third world and places like Palestine who used to rely on radicals over here in the west doing things that helped a little. Those days are over. Eloquently worded blog posts are cold comfort when you’re watching a bulldozer demolish your life.
Hatuey, yeah well hypocrisy aside, I get what your saying, and maybe your hostility towards people on here is just your feeling of impotence manifested in anger. You want something to happen and you are a doer and being a sayer and talking to sayers is ticking you off.
Just what would you have us do that would make any difference? At the very least, until there is something that can be done, we can discuss what is going on to try and derive our own versions of the truth. Forums like this and alt news are key to spreading that way of thinking, which is itself combating the domestic psyops and waking the blissfully ignorant you hate so much. They could be on our side, but at the moment they are victims. This way, if there ever were a movement where we could go to action, we are much more reachable and already awake.
No. The media is largely right wing and stuff like The Sun is highly manipulative. They play on the average person being too damn tired after their day at work supporting rich land owners to challenge anything or go into depth about anything
Joel, that’s only a problem if the majority who read/listen to the MSM actually give a damn about anything other than sport.
The problem with social media is that it becomes an echo chamber, as neatly demonstrated by the Brexit referendum. The Remainers were confident of winning because all their friends and associates on social media were remainers and they came across few dissenting voices. Craig’s blog is an echo chamber too, with the vast majority of dissenting voices being trolls. Sure there is something that is more likely than the official/MSM narrative to be the truth out there on the internet, but how many can be bothered to look?
We’ve just had a demonstration, that when the chips are down and it comes to actual voting, all the crap spewed out by the MSM has had little effect. We had a similar demonstration at the last GE. Craig is complaining that the MSM are spinning the results as a disaster for Labour, but why? Why interrupt your enemy when he is busy making a mistake? Anyone with half a brain, who cares about such things can see that a) it’s not a disaster and b) that any attempt to say “Labour didn’t do as well as they should have done” is, by implication, rubbishing their darling Tories.
One of the most successful Labour PMs was Clement Attlee, who famously ignored what the papers said. Perhaps JC is just emulating him. He could do a lot worse.
“We’ve just had a demonstration, that when the chips are down and it comes to actual voting, all the crap spewed out by the MSM has had little effect.”
Oh, I’m not so sure about that Bayard. I think the mainstream media often has a tremendous effect on the electorate.
Look how much damage the smears have done to Corbyn for example, which in turn damages Labour’s chances in any election.
I have the impression that some of the time the mainstream media has, as you say, has little obvious effect. However, I think the subtle, and often not so subtle, continual and predominant negativity toward the left wing produces a back drop of anti-Socialist, anti-Corbyn, feeling among the population.
“Look how much damage the smears have done to Corbyn for example,”
How do you know the smears have done him damage? By reading the same MSM that is smearing him? It’s all very well saying apropos of Thursday and the last GE, “Corbyn did well, but he could have done better”, but nobody ever knows what would have happened, they only know what did happen. In real life, there are no control experiments. Sure, sometimes you can make a damn good guess, but that’s all it is, a guess.
Hat tip to the people of Liverpool for not buying the Sun, and rightly so.
I hear a lot of you quote this that and the other newspapers. Don’t you realise buying newspapers only adds fuel to the fire that is burning you? As well as paying the BBC and Skye to alter your knowledge as to what is real and what is not.
What is the worst paper you can buy? While your prejudices grope around for an answer let me tell you this, you don’t need a newspaper if you have Central Heating. Modern toilet paper is much more hygenic, and your bum prefers it. Now what is the worst paper you can buy? Answer, “a Sunday newspaper”. Why? Because it has all day to get at you! What day is tomorrow? Give yourself a treat. Make love instead, even if it is only with yourself. Use your imagination, visualise what you really want. What you think about, you bring about. Try it.
As far as watching and or listening to the news. Only do so ONCE a day. You will find it is good for your mental health.
@ Garth Carthy. I think one of the most successful propaganda coups pulled off by the BBC is convincing so many people it’s left-wing, and therefore anything they don’t like about it (covering for Savile; the license fee is a tax etc), or its programme content, they instinctively blame the left, which actually reinforces their anti-left bias. It’s not often you can irritate people and have them blame your opponents for it.
Great points. I am not sure that people are blinded to the truth. It’s just that it’s not as interesting as dreams or postures – there’s an episode of Only Fools and Horses, the tv sitcom, where Del Boy (our anti-hero), a working class and scraping along character, proudly walks through the streets displaying his filofax (an aspiring professional’s essential at the time), thus projecting himself as something he was not. The point is not where yoiu are but where you can feel you are, with the help, if apt, of a filofax, Hunter wellies and Barbour jackets or…a politico/military story that positions you as the valiant knight fighting the forces of evil. It is not the truth that will move people away from this but a more interesting story. What is that? Dunno! High level guess, appeal to evolutionary instincts about being able to promote the next generation by having good access to resources and to attract good breeding material by showing strength and security? How could it be spread? Dunno.
Regretting the end of mass movements is not useful. At a time when people lacked a voice (and had a sense of common interest), that was useful. Now everyone can speak (not just on radical blogs: facebook will do) and they are able to advance their unique stance. The great success of Google and facebook has been to harness these different opinions into a mainstream, acceptable narrative. Perhaps what is really needed is a link mechanism that genuinely brings people’s interests together outside the mass media (inc. facebook), a sort of, “…other people who thought this also thought….” but about real issues. Maybe we would still need leaders (not moderators or facilitators but way out there nutters with passion and commitment who would lead the rest….) but we should work with the online medium. It’s huge.
Much of the above is predicated on my belief that people can’t do wars if the mass of the population disagree. That might be bollocks!
Thanks for the encouragement Hatuey
By permitting private interests to control public information the West has hobbled itself and may end up destroying itself.
The Singaporeans are wiser and, as a result, 75% of them trust their pluralist media. The Chinese are wiser still and 90% of them trust their government media. Their private media, not so much.
There has been many big propaganda coups pulled off successfully in Britain.
I am thinking of a real bigee, 18 years and 4 months ago.
The MK2 con against computer buffs and IT experts.
Need security experts to look into your hard drives. (and get all your information/data while charging you for doing so).
If it is on MSM often enough, even the clever will swallow it, hook line and sinker.
Oh when oh when are you going to waken up? Make it soon, please.
Events in Syria are a rather far remove from the topic of local council elections. However, this very recent feature by Russia Today https://www.rt.com/op-ed/425751-us-war-military-invade/ entitled ‘I know which country the US will invade next (by Lee Camp, and originally published by ‘Truthdig’) gives voice to a very persuasive argument as to the motives behind seemingly persistent unrest in the Middle East. Even more surprising is the realisation that the hypothesis under examination (threatening the Petro-dollar) was previously explored by Comedian Rob Newman almost a decade ago. His quite brilliant presentation was eventually filmed and can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DCwafIntj0
I gather it has since been released on DVD.
You should have heard the errand boy Alistair Campbell of the late Robert Maxwell on the Today this morning! The Today should have warned listeners to have a sick bucket bucket ready.
By the way, the endless rants about anti-Semitism are actually a form of racism since they imply that one can criticize anyone, but…!!!
Plus semites like the Palestinians somehow are never ‘covered’ by this cry about ‘anti-semitism’.
It’s not that semites cannot be anti-semites; that’s what Palestinian leaders (e.g. Abbas this week) are accused of. It’s just that Israeli semites of the fascist and/or Zionist kind shall never be accused of anti-semitism, never ever, even if they are anti-Palestinian.
BJ. Campbell was on Radio Scotland this morning, before 10am. Spouting the same anti Corbyn guff. Accusation of anti semitism in party as a sign of a failure of leadership. It’s the Blairites striking back. Their last chance?
The BBC website shows the Tories as losing 33 seats net. The Press Association shows the net loss as 93. BBC bias again?
The BBC apparently works with the trigesimal (base-30) number system.
Tower Hamlets has gone to Labour from NOC. They now have 42 councillors with a gain of 20 – 3 from the Tories and 17 from Independents.
All results are in now.
One thing not mentioned here Craig is that many people were turned away from polling stations due to lack of appropriate ID even though they had polling cards. One council asked for passports, driving licence or bus pass. There are many, probably thousands of people who don’t have such ID. I, and no doubt others would like to know how many were turned away and how it would have affected the election results.
About 4000 turned away, but some could have returned with the correct documents.
In the 2017 election there were 170 reported cases of ‘voter fraud’ Of those the police took no action in 107 of them. Around 32 million?? people voted. The Strength of the Tory vote is situated in God’s waiting room.
Time for a touch of an Anglo Jim Crow.
The peace activism in Syria is partly to blame for this by obsessively focussing on the scenes of panic ridden emergency centers in Douma where indeed children and adults were being misused as gas poison victims.
The real victims however, the dozens who died of mouth foaming asphyxiation (https://www.rt.com/news/423968-douma-gas-attack-aftermath-footage/), have been denied their very existance.
The peace activists in Syria, the Russian and Syrian spokespersons are pointing at r̷e̷b̷b̷e̷l̷ terrorist makeshift chemical weapons labs and at the same time claiming it was all staged. What exactly are they trying to convey to the already shocked public uncapable of dispassionate reasoning by broadcast trauma.
Best to wait for the OPCW report. Bodies are being exhumed for tests. There were reports from the scene that deaths were due to dust inhalation and that the WH created a panic by shouting ‘Gas’. All of the hosing down with water was theatre.
OPCW Spokesperson’s Statement on Fact-Finding Mission Deployment to Douma
Friday, 04 May 2018
THE HAGUE, Netherlands
https://www.opcw.org/news/article/opcw-spokespersons-statement-on-fact-finding-mission-deployment-to-douma/
Hope that there is no monkey business.
@Benoit Hanridge
I’ve seen investigation by Bellingcat and I find it very convincing.
I noticed too, that Russians concentrate on hospital video, which is definitely staged. I’m Russian and my outmost fear is Russians can hide Assad’s use of chemical weapons. I wish I had the same trust in my government as some British people do in their.
There are many Pro and Contra for both possibilities. I hope they will make it clear soon.
So you’re not attending the anti-Putin protests in Moscow today Tatyana.
mmm… Russia is big, Sharp Ears, I’m not living in Moscow 🙂
I’m a housewife and hobbyist, just left my favourite soap-operas for the sake of Skripal’s case, because it is much more catching. I’m not interested in politics, I just watch Salisbury and Syria events.
I agree that Russia shouldn’t be cast as some saint who can do no wrong. The point is to keep an open mind.
When the whole Ukraine thing was going on, I thought, oh crap, Putin is going to be the new Hitler. That’s when I first started reading alt media and was able to gather a more balanced view of what was going on, and I was very anxious that is was in fact possible that Russia were in the right and I saw it as evil. And now with Syria they appear to just be helping prevent Syria become the next Afghanistan etc, whether they ‘like’ Assad or not.
With the corrupt view portrayed in the media, it is far easier to believe Russia is in the right, or more in the right, and therefore use of chemical weapons would be a ridiculous move by them or Assad. If Assad were to use them then he risks losing Russia and being obliterated, or being ousted by Russia itself. If Russia were nearly as dirty as the West, then they could oust him anyway and hold Syria in the name of maintaining peace, stability, fighting IS/terrorism and rebuilding. Russia to cover up the use of CW for Assad would also be counter-intuitive because it is far too risky and would undermine their position globally giving the west an open goal to move on the Russian fringes, claiming Russian aggression with an unquestioning EU and general public.
“I’ve seen investigation by Bellingcat and I find it very convincing.”
Did you really mean that?
@SA
yes, I meant exactly it is very convincing. Here is the link
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2018/04/11/open-source-survey-alleged-chemical-attacks-douma-7th-april-2018/comment-page-4/
I also have a feeling that this blog is closely surveyed by certain persons (of course I may just be paranoid), therefore I will not underline contraversial aspects I see in this investigation. If you want to discover it yourself, you must watch closely what is shown, then examine attentively what is said, and at last get what is NOT shown and said. Pay attention to figures, timeline and lacunae.
You can do it with paper and pencil, it is an easy task, just put it in a table like
– detail 1 – false – true – unknown
– detail 2 – false – true – unknown
etc
Then cross out false and unknown and line up all true’s in a conclusion.
The problem is that it is not really so simple. The sources are all from the rebels and ‘activists’ and therefore one sided. There is also a conflict in wha is being portrayed at one point as an attack with chlorine and then also Sarin, which is later dismissed. The friction of dropping canisters if chlorine from helicopters to kill 34 people seems to be amateurish to say rthe least given the availablility to the Syrian airforce of more sophisticated weapons and this method of killing is not only inefficient but counterproductive in view of the possible reaction by the ‘international community’ which renders this a stupid weapon to use, even by a so called ‘brutal dictator,. Bellingcat is known to be partisan and uses such expressions as geolocation and so on to appear to be accurate but it is all whitewash.
You should know Tatyana that Bellingcat is a production of Eliot Higgins.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_Higgins
His website is producing and promoting lies and untruths about President Assad. He works for the Atlantic Council. Find out about them. A bunch of neocon warmongers who are supporting the continuous wars by the West against brown skinned people.
See references within Medialens’ alert viz
‘Surprisingly, the Bellingcat website, which publishes the findings of ‘citizen journalist’ investigations, appears to be taken seriously by some very high-profile progressives.
In the Independent, Green Party leader Caroline Lucas also mentioned the Syrian army ‘Mi-8’ helicopters. Why? Because she had read the same Bellingcat blog as Mason, to which she linked:
‘From the evidence we’ve seen so far it appears that the latest chemical attack was likely by Mi-8 helicopters, probably from the forces of Syria’s murderous President Assad.’
On Democracy Now!, journalist Glenn Greenwald said of Douma:
‘I think that it’s—the evidence is quite overwhelming that the perpetrators of this chemical weapons attack, as well as previous ones, is the Assad government…’
There are eight other references to ‘Bellingcat’ on the link
http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2018/868-douma-part-1.html
I made mention earlier (11:51) of Rob Newman’s excellent ‘History of Oil’ to which I provided a link. Unfortunately I have since discovered that the poster’s sound is out of synch, so here’s a better link to same: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIpm_8v80hw
What’s more, at 19;04 mins. into the show he quotes Tony Blair: “There is also a real problem of word fatigue, I mean people should realize, when we’re talking about chemical and biological agents, we’re not just talking about, you know, washing powders and detergents”
Unless of course you’re NHS England who confidently recommend the latter as a repellent of the former.
I’d quite forgotten just how good this show is. It remains topical up to the minute.
Given that Leeds City Council is Labour controlled, we have an opposition party, her Majesty’s opposition party, lining up with the government to suppress opposition to the state. So what is the point in voting Labour or any other party for that matter?
Therefore worrying about who ‘won’ the election is like worrying about the outcome a Punch & Judy Show.
Does it matter anymore (if it ever did)?
Hi Willie, The decision about the use of the hall will not be made by the Councillors but by the relevant Dept that manages it. That is not to say a councillor will make their view known – however, they are not allowed to interfere in day-to-day routine Council business decisions. I strongly suspect the Head of the relevant Dept has had some great pressure brought to bear on him from a Government Organisation – a councillor wouldn’t be able to exercise the kind of pressure required to change the decision. It could also be by the MSM and local media itself – Council’s these days are extremely sensitive to any negative reporting about them!
Reality Check by Benn Swan: Who’s Funding the White Helmets?
From the Youtube description:
You’ve no doubt heard of the White Helmets, aka the Syria Civil Defense. They claim to be a neutral entity in Syria. They say they are just helping people caught in the middle of a civil war. But are they?
Follow the money and you will find numerous ties to government funding from not only the U.S., but the U.K., Netherlands, Denmark and Germany.
We untangle these ties to the White Helmets in a Reality Check you won’t get anywhere else.
https://youtu.be/0EXtHoOi7_4
Transcript posted at: http://truthinmedia.com/reality-check-funding-white-helmets/
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/05/37463/comment-page-3/#comment-746394
Snap Silvio. Two is better than one though. Cheers.
am related to an ex-labour councillor and now alderman of leeds city. have ssked her if sh is aware of the situation re this debate or discussion. shere your outrage craig. the ludicrous monopilisation of mass media by vested interests and establishment stooges is very obvious. it is strange how so few people seem to care or are even aware.
Peter Ford, Piers Robinso, Tim Hayward, Vanessa Beeley and Robert Stuart are nothing but trolls spreading lies because they support ASSads genocide against Syrian civilians that do not support him.
Isreali’s tend to use the highlighted insult of ASSad. Not that it would be a surprise. Isreal has a curious mix of friends. For instance, a number of Hamas operatives have abandoned the Palestinian struggle and joined Al Nusra or similar. Netanyahu claims that Hamas and ISIS/Al Qaeda are one and the same. However, he hasn’t been able to explain why he instructs the IDF to assist (in many ways) the aforementioned terrorist groups. Of course there is nothing new about this really, we already knew that Netanyahu was a lying hypocrite amongst many other things. The ones who should really take notice about this unlikely friendship are those that claim to be Friends of Palestine. It’s impossible.
The extremists haven’t (even) verbally supported the people of Gaza during their recent slaughter and maiming at the hands of Isreal. This claim of Islamic allegiance by the extremists is demonstrably untrue when it won’t raise a finger to the primary killer of Muslims in the Middle East and the decades long torturers of Palestinians.
Oh and Tanner London, you are wrong about Syrians not supporting President Assad. He is even praised by his critics in Syria for the way he has held the country together, despite the efforts of the Isreali regime and its partners such as Al Nusra.
DD
Don’t take this guy seriously. But what you wrote illustrates how these propagandists work. They say one thing but their actions show how the do something completely different. You have exposed thier hypocrisy.
Peter Ford, Piers Robinson, Tim Hayward, Vanessa Beeley and Robert Stuart are nirhing but trolls spreading lies because they support ASSads genocide against Syrian civilians that do not support him.
You forgot to add “Snark”.
pebkac — you seem to be not enlightened.
@Tanner
Britain does have other towns and cities other than London. The attempt to make your nonsense ‘home grown’ might be more likely to succeed had you chosen a more obscure municipality. I would suggest Scunthorpe 🙂
BTW tanneries were extremely pungent as they used stale urine to treat the flayed skins. Nobody wished to live in their vicinity. Apt don’t you think?