My world view changed forever when, after 20 years in the Foreign Office, I saw colleagues I knew and liked go along with Britain’s complicity in the most terrible tortures, as detailed stunningly in the recent Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee Report. They also went along with keeping the policy secret, deliberately disregarding all normal record taking procedures, to the extent that the Committee noted:
131. We note that we have not seen the minutes of these meetings either: this causes us great concern. Policy discussions on such an important issue should have been minuted. We support Mr Murray’s own conclusion that were it not for his actions these matters may never have come to light.
The people doing these things were not ordinarily bad people; they were just trying to keep their jobs, comforting themselves with the thought that they were only civil servants obeying orders. Many were also actuated by the nasty “patriotism” that grips in time of war, as we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. Almost nobody in the FCO stood up against the torture or against the illegal war – Elizabeth Wilmshurst, Carne Ross and I were the only ones to leave over it.
I then had the still more mortifying experience of the Foreign Office seeking to punish my dissent by bringing a series of accusations of gross misconduct – some of them criminal – against me. The people bringing the accusations knew full well they were false. The people investigating them knew they were false from about day 2. But I was put through a hellish six months of trial by media before being acquitted on all the original counts (found guilty of revealing the charges, whose existence was an official secret!). The people who did this to me were people I knew.
I had served as First Secretary in the British Embassy in Poland, and bumped up startlingly against the history of the Holocaust in that time, including through involvement with organising the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. What had struck me most forcibly was the sheer scale of the Holocaust operation, the tens of thousands of people who had been complicit in administering it. I could never understand how that could happen – until I saw ordinary, decent people in the FCO facilitate extraordinary rendition and torture. Then I understood, for the first time, the banality of evil or, perhaps more precisely, the ubiquity of evil. Of course, I am not comparing the scale of what happened to the Holocaust – but evil can operate on different scales.
I believe I see it again today. I do not believe that the majority of journalists in the BBC, who pump out a continual stream of “Corbyn is an anti-semite” propaganda, believe in their hearts that Corbyn is a racist at all. They are just doing their job, which is to help the BBC avert the prospect of a radical government in the UK threatening the massive wealth share of the global elite. They would argue that they are just reporting what others say; but it is of course the selection of what they report and how they report it which reflect their agenda.
The truth, of which I am certain, is this. If there genuinely was the claimed existential threat to Jews in Britain, of the type which engulfed Europe’s Jews in the 1930’s, Jeremy Corbyn, Billy Bragg, Roger Waters and I may humbly add myself would be among the few who would die alongside them on the barricades, resisting. Yet these are today loudly called “anti-semites” for supporting the right to oppose the oppression of the Palestinians. The journalists currently promoting those accusations, if it came to the crunch, would be polishing state propaganda and the civil servants writing railway dockets. That is how it works. I have seen it. Close up.
Just as a thought experiment. Go sit though a recent Brian Cox lecture.
The contrast with the “The backbone of England” comment/sentiment, And tell me all this is about fighting for something other than regressive notions & attitudes from a bygone age.
This is a good one.
https://youtu.be/enSXh4YY9Ws?t=8m41s
I like the take at the end on religion “vs” science’ also.
Nationalism, Racism. All these things are so bloody absurd on the face of things. Yet it’s used in the name of some kind of progress? Just look at the driving mentality of the right wing. & it seems to me ever more “liberals” coming out of the woodwork as xenophobes.
I thinks it’s very much a generational thing. But to see so many of these people in places of influence, just for their own ego etc. Yea, get behind them why don’t you, superman is going to save “the west”…Look at his backbone. …..WTF? Just WTF.
All very Saganesque Ishmael, I recall that L.Ron Hubbard, once commamded a navy ship before his days of Scientology. Hubbard had other US ships hunt a non-existant sub, and he was unceremoniously dump out the navy for firing live shells at Mexico.
Still the comic book scribe, landed well in Dianetics, the E-Meter, and eventually his Church of Scientology paid off for him.
Of course it’s all just a load of codswallop funded by very rich actors we all know, who front the organisation.
It’s a shame, there where some good things in scientology I thought, But yea, crazy organisation.
What good things in scientology? I haven’t heard of any.
Oh I’d say the brainwashing of new members and the extreme intimidation and death threats, of those who managed to flee the cult are two for starters.
The Church of Fear
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/01/the-church-of-fear/
Well….(Separately from the organisation) some emphasis on physical/mental health, healing past experiences/trauma. I don’t remember details now.
like most cult movements they are collections of past things & current understanding informes them, so they often have elements of things i find interesting. Why many join them i guess, they get something from it.
“So I cloth my naked villainy” ?.. But even in very top down or exploitative scenarios, These things are not simply black and white.
& that is not to say I think as an organisation it should be kept going, Or Ok that it got to the place in did very quick, I don’t. …Clearly the harms cased/causing don’t justify it overall.
So very different from Islam then – a religion that sanctions the death penalty for apostasy.
Still much better to focus on scientology as their members do not routinely issue fatwahs on those who “insult” their religion.
Republicofscotland
“Still the comic book scribe, landed well in Dianetics, the E-Meter, and eventually his Church of Scientology paid off for him.”
Of course L.Ron Hubbard was a disciple of Aleister Crowley. Have you read the Book of Lies?
“Of course L.Ron Hubbard was a disciple of Aleister Crowley. Have you read the Book of Lies?”
I can’t say I have Dave, though that infamous picture of Crowley springs to mind, you know the one, when his name arises.
I didn’t know he was disciple of his either, thanks for enlightening me.
That is also totally wrong. Hubbard was somewhat of a conman. Long before Scientology or even Dianetics, Hubbard joinedwhat I shall call for brevity a black magic association created by Crowley in California, which revolved around a brilliant young physicist named Jack Parsons. There was a magical contretemps and Parsons killed himself. One wonders, where were the FBI? There is a book on Parsons and the gang, called “Sex & Rockets”:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sex-Rockets-Occult-World-Parsons/dp/0922915970
Thank you Rowan for that very interesting snippet.
Scientology was a marvellous conception, when you think about it. After his brief foray as an okay-ish science fiction writer, (Typewriter in the Sky and Fear aren’t bad psychological Horror/SF I seem to recall) Hubbard found an effortless way to separate rich, erm, celebrities from their money without ever doing another days work. Positively victimless compared to the usual topics of conversation around here.
People interested in the Trump obstruction of justice and Russia investigations may be interested in following this impeachment-specialist-lawyer:
https://twitter.com/rossgarber?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
@ Observer August 9, 2018 at 16:55
Why on earth was not Clinton charged with obstruction pf justice for shredding documents and wiping hard drives, and not providing her servers to the FBI?
I reckon no matter what crimes Boobus Orangicus may have committed, he knows where Clinton’s and others’ ‘skeletons’ are buried, just as Clinton and others know where Boobus Orangicus’ ‘skeletons’ are buried.
That is one of the beauties of US ‘Democracy’, and it ensured J Edgar Hoover a very long stint as head of the FBI, though he was a crook, a hypocrite and inept. He even went so far as to say there was no organised crime problem in the US.
People interested in the obstruction of justice, fake Russia investigations instead of countries that were much more active against Trump may be interested in following these suspects:
https://www.gchq.gov.uk/news-article/director-hannigan-gchq-step-down
https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/intelligence-community-executives-brief-congress-on-current-cyber-threats
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol-60-no-2/the-presidents-book-of-secrets.html etc etc
Oh and this too https://spectator.org/who-hired-stefan-halper/ or if you insist on Twitter try https://twitter.com/EagleEdMartin/status/1026927229459152896
I don’t particularly like Trump, but you should remember that there seem to be two orthogonal solutions to “the Trump election fiddle”
‘Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Britain’s richest person and a leading business cheerleader for Brexit, is to leave the UK for Monaco to save tax on his £21bn fortune – despite previously saying Britain would thrive outside the EU.
Ratcliffe, the boss of petrochemicals company Ineos, which has sales of $54bn, is making preparations to upsticks and move to the tax-free principality of Monaco to avoid UK taxes on his sizeable wealth – estimated at £21bn, reports The Guardian.
The impending move for Britain’s wealthiest person will no doubt come as a surprise, particularly to fellow ardent Brexiteers, having previously intimated that the UK would thrive post-Brexit as a “perfectly successful” as a standalone country.’
Britain’s richest person & Brexiteer quitting UK for Monaco to save tax on £21bn fortune
https://www.rt.com/uk/435556-britain-richest-leave-uk/
The two ideas are not incompatible, Sharp Ears. Let me help you : it is quite possible that the UK will thrive outside the EU and that it will continue to have a tax regime which very rich people will want to escape from.
Presumably he is moving because he is having difficulty keeping the Inland Revenue from sniffing round his affairs, so is moving to Monaco, a well known tax haven. I fail to see what this has to do with the Brexit debate unless Remainers of which I assume you are one, think we should go easy on taxing international billionaires resident in the UK, to ensure they keep their bank accounts here. Monaco has restricted membership of the EU, via France.
Loony, as Craig hasn’t chucked you off this blog yet.
Do us a favour. Just change your name to Islamophobe, Then just post a full stop every-time you want to say something. Job done.
Easy for you. And everyone knows the point of your contribution to this blog.
In the mean time I’m going to devote some time to the quantum theory of gravity. Built on science pioneered by islamic scholars.
Gravity is one of the four fundamental forces of physics, the other three being electromagnetism, weak nuclear and strong nuclear. Newton’s Laws of Motion are directly based on ideas of Galileo’s concepts of inertia.
Gravity a fascinating subject, the film isn’t too bad either. The Steve Price theme tune/song is breathtaking.
I’m sure you’ll agree.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V6_dVjo60c8
Agree.
It’s been a while since i visited the subject. ….Criminal negligence really.
Alternatively, RoS, gravity begins at home… well, if Ivor Cutler is to be believed!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt-GeuNAQKU
I intend doing you no such favor.
I would appreciate it if you would stop telling lies about me – but I do not expect you to do that.
If I am wrong then I will apologize and retract. So tell me does the religion of Islam sanction the death penalty for apostasy or not? Does the religion of Islam issue, or support the issuing, of fatwas on those who insult the Islamic religion?
In order to assist you in answering these questions here is a handy little list of countries that impose the death penalty for apostasy – please note that not one of them is a Scientology majority country
https://www.indy100.com/article/the-countries-where-apostasy-is-punishable-by-death–Z110j2Uwxb
Here is some background information on Salman Rushdie – a man who was and is subjected to a Fatwa for insulting Islam
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/salman-rushdie-iranian-state-media-renew-fatwa-on-satanic-verses-author-with-600000-bounty-a6887141.html
Just in case you were thinking of arguing that Rushdie was a one off case here is some information regarding an attack in Paris against the French magazine Charlie Hebdo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo_shooting
As I say if I am wrong I will apologize – if I am not wrong then your lies and smears will be exposed for what they are.
You don’t seem to get it. & you think I’m going to entertain you continuing your habitual return to the subject?
The proof is in the pudding. You are “wrong”, you betray yourself in your focus.
I get it OK. You are determined to lie and dissemble in order to avoid actually addressing any issues.
You calculate that your fake morality and manufactured outrage will be sufficient to put reason to the sword. Always remember you are not arguing with me – you are arguing with reason. That makes you many things – unreasonable being the very least of those things.
Well Pope Francis has sat on the fence on the Rushdie saga. He condems Rushdie’s Satanic Verse’s, the line between critique and hate speech grows thinner by the day. But he also condems the fatwa on Rushdie.
I suppose the ex-night club bouncer of Buenos Aires, and first ever Jesuit Pope, Francis, has to sit on the fence on this one, as he too is in the religion business.
The fatwa condemned Rushdie for blasphemy against Allah that he committed in the UK. The U.S. now intends to condemn Australian citizen Assange to life imprisonment or worse for blasphemy against the U.S. that he committed in the UK.
Loony
You may be right but this is not a major problem. How many people where executed for this in 2017? Do yoi have figures? Looking at the death penalty 53 countries still have this and prominent amongst them is the US. A total of about 950 were executed in the world in 2017, far fewer than extrajudicial murder of ‘collateral damage’ caused by war on terror and not including war crimes of bombing civilians and using snipers to kill innocent civilians.
It is typical of your style that you choose a topic like this and persist with it. It is also typical that you will probably not answer this but go on with your favourite subject.
I do not know how many people were executed for apostasy in 2017 as figures are not easy to come by. Not many would be my guess.
Amnesty International estimates that excluding China 993 people were executed in 2017. Executions in China are a state secret, but China is thought to execute more people than the rest of the world combined.
People are being killed as a consequence of unlawful violence all over the world – this is more or less a constant feature of pretty much all human societies. I am not sure how the actions of criminals are relevant to Judicial systems beyond the fact that functioning Judicial systems act to punish criminals within the framework of the law.
The point is that it is a fact that Islam sanctions the death penalty for apostasy. It seems pretty obvious that anyone who mentions this fact is instantly abused and accused of Islamophobia. Facts are simply facts they are not subject to phobias.
I am interested in highlighting rank hypocrisy. It is pretty clear that the UK now has effective blasphemy laws – but the people were never consulted and the politicians are too cowardly to admit what they have done by stealth. If people want blasphemy laws that is up to them – just ask them first.
This man was effectively executed for blasphemy
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-37021385
If this is what the people want then it needs to be incorporated into law. If this is what the people want and it is not incorporated into law then, as in this case, people will administer their own justice.
How can you know what the people want unless you ask them? How can the people know what they want when relevant facts are kept secret from them? and where some people seek to create an environment where the facts, even if known, are not allowed to be discussed.
Loony
I am not sure what your tirade is about. The death sentence for apostasy is not practiced in this country. This man is a deluded killer who is using false Islamic beliefs to carry out his paranoid fantasies. Why are you using this as a generalisation? Revealing hypocrisy is one thing but false analogies and deductions is something else.
Nobody on this blog condones killing for apostasy but this as well as any other criticism of Islam must be done in a constructive framework that places this in context.
Islam has been a very open religion at its outset. The Arab invasion of Andalus was an example of tolerance and peaceful co-existence of the three Abrahamic religions which all prospered at the time. Unlike the Catholic church in the middle ages, Islam was very tolerant and did not lead to the mass executions of ‘savages’ and ‘infidels’ that both the Spanish empire, in the name of the Catholic church, and the British empire in the name of Christianity. There has been a major reversal of a lot of this and far less tolerance which unfortunately has been encouraged by the British in the ME who supported the backward islamists in Egypt and Saudi Arabia so as to stifle nationalist movements. It is unfortunately these same neo-imperialist right wing nutters that continue to support these regimes against secular societies. Read Mark Curtis to get more insight, that is if you are really interested.
To Charlie Bostock who says:
“It is true that saying something like ” the Neo-con gang are almost exclusively Jewish and many important bankers are Jewish” IS a social observation (I shan’t comment om its accuracy).
But the real question is : WHY do you choose to make that particular observation?”
I assure you my statement is accurate: You might not like it but is accurate: You just need to do some research via Wikipedia. I also read books by ex-political advisors who know the Neo-cons – they have been exposed. In fact, the Neo-cons issued a declaration “Project for the New American Century” which even brazenly declares that world domination is their aim.
The whole free market “Neo-con-trick” was created by Milton Friedman, who happened to be a Jew.
As to WHY I make the observation that Jews are so dominant in political and economic power: Well, because, if you read my original comment properly, I think it is wrong for any group that has a common self-interest to control the world’s affairs. It doesn’t matter if they are Jews or Martians. Of course, I’m also trying to emphasise the ties that the US has with Israel which provides the right wing Israel government with disproportionate power and influence. In fact its a symbiotic thing – US influences Israel and Israel influences the US.
I assure you that I’m not a racist because I really admire people like Albert Einstein; Noam Chomsky; Karl Marx; Rosalind Franklin; Baruch Spinoza; Niels Bohr etc. – all Jewish. Noam Chomsky is well-known for speaking out against the Neo-con insanity.
You are wasting your time there Garth. Zionist Israel supporters do not have any time for the facts of the matter or reasoning.
Symbiosis, or parasitism? If the host dies, that means it’s parasitism (and unsuccessful parasitism at that, as a successful parasite allows the host to live).
Lysias
The host does not have to die in parasitism. In symbiosis both benefit, in parasitism one organism benefits at the expense of the other. As you point out succesfulnparasites don’t kill their host just keep exploiting them.
GC – “The whole free market “Neo-con-trick” was created by Milton Friedman, who happened to be a Jew.”
Friedman wasn’t a neo-con he was a neo liberal. Milton Friedman wasn’t a Jew, he rejected religion and described himself as an agnostic. Mind you, even if he was a Jew, how would that matter? I thought people were free to choose which religion they wished to follow. Friedrich Hayek, another important figure in the development of neo liberalism was also an agnostic, but if he had been a Catholic how would that matter?
GC – ” …. Jews are so dominant in political and economic power”
I doubt if this true: in China, politicians are probably atheist, in Russia Russian orthodox (if anything), in India, Hindu and Muslim, in the EU atheist/Christian, in the US Christian, etc, etc.
Of course, it’s not the religion that matters, it’s the policies. May would probably describe herself as Christian, whilst implementing policies that impoverish more and more children, whilst handing even more money to the rich through tax cuts.
Iraq – a country with a 5,000 year old history, and beyond, yet we wrecked it.
British Museum to return looted 5,000-year-old artefacts to Iraq – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45132517
Syria and Iraq are the cradle of civilisation and we had a good go at wrecking both.
“Iraq – a country with a 5,000 year old history, and beyond”
Yes indeed, and for several of those millenia it was one of the slave empires of antiquity
Did you know that the Sumerian Code of Ur-Nammu included laws relating to slaves, written circa 2100 – 2050 BCE and that the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, dating to c. 1700 BCE, also made distinctions between the freeborn, freed and slave?
I can do without your history lessons thanks.
The Old Testament also countenances slavery, if memory serves.
The old testement is one of the most hate-filled and violence-inciting pieces of dogma you can imagine. If you communicated ideas from Leviticus online as your own views, you’d probably get locked up today.
“The Old Testament also countenances slavery, if memory serves.”
Good use of the verb “to countenance”. Lysias. I think you’re using it to give the impression that the Old Testament “approves of” or “accepts” slavery in a positive way. Can you provide some chapter and verse to back up your claim?
Certainly – Here’s a small sample:
Colossians 3:22
Slaves, you must always obey your earthly masters. Try to please them at all times, and not just when you think they are watching. Honour the Lord and serve your masters with your whole heart.
Ephesians 6:5 (New Testament)
Slaves, obey your human masters with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as you would Christ.
1 Peter 2:18 (NT)
Servants, you must obey your masters and always show respect to them. Do this, not only to those who are kind and thoughtful, but also to those who are cruel.
And of course, everyone’s favourite, Leviticus:
Leviticus 25:44-46 :
‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.
Note the imperative not to treat _Israelites_ cruelly. It doesn’t matter so much for anyone else, by implication.
Sharp Ears
“I can do without your history lessons thanks.”
But if you don’t mind I’ll keep giving them as and when necessary thanks.
See them as the equivalent of your long cut and pastes about the careers, finances. spouses and relatives of people in the public eye.
and Palestine which you have ignored.
Have you got a spouse? Just asking.
Do you also know that slavery was abolished in the US as late as 1865? Also laws of segregation in the US as recently as the sixties?Also that some countries still run a two tier system depending on your race, otherwise known as apartheid?
Trump/Bandar just offed some future ISIS players on a school bus in Yenen. Winning was never sweeter.
*US/Saudi
‘As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton made weapons transfer to the Saudi government a “top priority,” according to her closest military aide.’
https://theintercept.com/2016/02/22/saudi-christmas-present/
PS
There is about as much chance of Shia kids joining ISIS as there would have been of Madam President condemning the Saudi assault on Yemen.
So the bus strike was a mistake.?
It was a blatant act of revenge.
You sound like a mistake.
To take a course in sarcasm Trow. Itll do wonders for your socialization.
You should take courses in getting your facts straight, as you claimed that the US was the leader in making the atrocity, as it was just more implementation of the Mediterranean Dialogue for Israel’s benefit.
I am not looking for any wonders.
The US Central Command said it was not involved Are you so desperate that you have to support Sauidi and Israeli war crimes?
@ Ben August 9, 2018 at 18:42
Somehow, you seem to have got hold of the wrong end of the stick (again) – the Houthis and there children are not ISIS – ISIS are the creation of the West and it’s war-criminal cronies. The Saudi ‘Coalition’ are employing them as they did in Syria, to kill and terrorise the local people.
I have the ironic end of the stick my good man. Try it out. I’m sure you’re capable.
I suppose he’s saying that Trump is killing innocents, like what Hillary would have done.
So there!
That’s the level of debate from Dems in the US, at the moment.
Trump just went out and stole their base like Reagan did in the 80s. And as the Dems were being managed by Hillary and her dim mates, they never noticed. Even Bill said he pointed out that flaw in her campaign, but was ignored.
Bannon often refers to this flaw as well.
That’s the story being sold to Dems and all others who take an interest in the political game.
Then, what about what they did to poor old Bernie.
This is either the most poorly managed campaign in contemporary history, or,it was purposely made bad and Hillary stood down because Trump was the chosen one.
I mean, she even assisted him towards the Republican nomination.
And then all those weird seizures all over the place.
Everything she did, only helped Trump.
Couldn’t have won without her help.
And media, he was never off it, and she very rarely on.
The whole Alt-Right, Breitbart, Rebel Media etc thing.
That was the demolition of Hillary’s pitch before she even got started. But still she continued with the same pitch.
Nah, she was written out of the script, but contractually had to play her part to the end.
That’s an interesting thought Herbie, it does feel like the west is dispensing with its democratic facade, but your theory does imply a level of competence that seems beyond certainly trump, or the Dems.
Did you know the Dems had a pre election guest lecture on how to win from John McTernan? Now there’s a thing, take advice from the OG spotty oik. Who were it motbfor jim Murphy would hold the title of Man who lost Scottish Labour the vote single handedly.
“your theory does imply a level of competence that seems beyond certainly trump, or the Dems.”
Well, Bannon was certainly scripting things from the Trump end. Bit of a weird polymath/actionman thing going on there with Steve.
Military. Harvard. Banking. Hollywood. Media. Politics. All the major organs of state. That’s what you call a good education.
I’d be interested in what contacts there were between the Clinton and Trump teams.
Who managed Hillary’s campaign. It was Bill, wasn’t it.
Why didn’t they have the top campaign bloke in the country?
And the best analytics and all, like Bill had back in the day.
Nah. And everyone knows Sanders would have beat Trump.
The script was simply that Trump was the hero. That’s it.
I mean, all the media that are throwing shit at him daily, their owners are friends of his.
It’s just a game, a distraction, to cover what’s going on in the financial, economic, trade and geopolitical sphere.
Punch ‘n Judy for the kids, whilst the parents get on with work.
Herbie
‘Punch ‘n Judy for the kids, whilst the parents get on with work.’
Now that I agree with, as Michael Hudson says, it’s the politicians job to deliver the public to the corporations – after WW2 and a well trained army coming back from war that took the GI bill. These days were lucky if we get, what? 2% off income tax and what? What exactly were the Dems promising to give the votes? Face it they know we’re useless.
Tangentially reminds me of how new labour is actively trying to loose any prospects of a labour government by relentless attacks on Corbyn.
“Wow. The Israeli Foreign Ministry demanded the BBC change their headline – which said Israeli air strikes “kill pregnant women and baby” – and the BBC did as they were told. Astonishing.”-
https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1027617633645088769
If Owen Jones is astonished, he’s naive.
It may be time for those of a critical bent towards prevailing conditions to use less media.
A truism for anyone.
Yea, or/and use it better. .i stay on the fringes, out of the main current flow. You can’t get a good look at things swept up in all that.
Someone who genuinely cares about Palestinians would be delighted to see Owen Jones tweet this.
A J.w hater would be furious that a mainstream journalist is spoiling the “J.ws control the media” conspiracy narrative.
I don’t doubt Owen Jones’s good intentions. Some of us are neither delighted nor furious, just weary to hear good-intentioned people make observations which can be made until the cows come home without damaging the BBC and the Z__nist media effort one bit. Owen Jones will have had his card marked but the mark won’t say “threat”.
@ Anon1 August 9, 2018 at 20:58
In this case it is the I^raeli Minitry of Foreign Affairs who are controlling our ‘Flagship’ British Propaganda Corporation; and the BPC says ‘Certainly sir, three bags full sir, anything else we can do for you?’.
What with Shai Masot’s £1m slush fund towards getting rid of Corbyn, and their bribing MP’s with expenses-paid trips to I^rael (and probably blackmailing some too), it’s a wonder HMG hasn’t sent the Ambassador packing, and demanded the International Community sanction them for interfering in our electoral process and our media.
As they won’t, it’s up to us – BDS!
Something seems to have changed in BBC land. They actually showed the results of Saudi aggression on Yemeni citizens on prime time news.
Nothing has changed. These are meant to show that the BBC is concerned about ‘balance’ and of course this outrage could not be hidden.
So often you can read ‘Israel says’ in their ‘reports’.
The Israelis have ‘soldiers’. The Palestinians have ‘militants’.
In BBC speak, Israelis are killed whereas Palestinians die; sounds as if the latter’s deaths are almost accidental doesn’t it?
@ Ishmael August 9, 2018 at 19:46
It’s here, too: ‘Israel demanded – and BBC changed its headline’: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/250275
And here: ‘‘This is a lie’: Israeli spokesman uses angry Twitter diplomacy to directly accuse BBC of bias’:
https://www.rt.com/uk/435568-israeli-spokesman-nahshon-bbc/
This certainly isn’t ‘fake news’; the Jerusalem Post and other outlets also run with it.
I vonder vot our own MSM will have to say about it?
I^rael can’t possible allow some tinpot banana regime’s flagship TV and Radio Propaganda Corporation get away with telling the truth, for a change. If the FACTS are correct, then the HEADLINE was correct – simples.
No matter how much we detest the BPC, they should not be branded a liar by a foreign regime when they (for a change) tell it like it is.
@Ishmael,
I have said for a long time that the Israelis (not Jews please note), wield undue influence in our government (all parties) and our media.
What a disgusting situation, but how do we change it and make more people aware of what is happening?
If Muslims were as well represented in the House of Commons they would have over 200 MP.s. Imagine what the Tommy Robinson’s of this land would have to say about that.
I’ve just read Boris Johnson’s Torygraph article that everyone is talking about. As well as the burqa-postbox association that is dear to the far right, he also references “Viking individualism“.
The phrase dates back more than a century (it’s in Andrew Alexander Bruce’s Property and Society, 1916), but did
Stephen BannonJohnson get it from the white nationalist Caesar Tort’s book The Fair Race’s Darkest Hour (2016)?It sounds like just the sort of idea that US white racist “kill the race mixers” types might have in their wee heads.
Bruce was a judge in North Dakota in the US.
(Note: Christiania is about the only thing worth citing if someone is trying to argue that any part of Scandinavia is home to individualism. Scandinavia is one of the most samey places in Europe.)
It wont be for much longer if the current trend of importing the third world continues. As well as all the boring Scandi stuff, you can have terrorism, gang rape, grenade warfare and burqas galore!! Who doesn’t want that for their rich, boring and peaceful home? Only a racist apparently.
Pray tell if we didn’t want those things why did we wish them on Syrians?
N_
The offending article was probably ghosted by some Tory bimbo in exchange for sex.
how anybody can say that a racist can be erudite defeats me. it’s like saying the shark that bit half my body mass had a very fine set of teeth.
Of course racists can be erudite. Houston Stewart Chamberlain was erudite. Count de Gobineau was erudite.
So when did being anti-islam, islamophobic if you like, make you a racist? I thought racism meant being biased against someone due to their skin colour or possibly their ethnic origin. This is surely not the same thing as being biased against someone due to their religion. If I am hostile say, to Scientologists or Christian Scientists, or Mormons or even, as a Moslem to Chrstians, that does not make me a racist.
@MaryPaul – Agreed, but there are more things going on than the words on the paper. (And besides, I doubt he had in mind the J__ish women who wear the burqa.) “Xenophobia” is a better term.
For the record, let there be no doubt that Boris Johnson is racist. He has called Turks goat-botherers and Barack Obama a part-Kenyan with an “ancestral dislike” of Britain, and he has referred to “piccaninnies” (a term also used by Enoch Powell) and “watermelon smiles”.
They say there’s nothing new in art. Boris pretends to engage his visual imagination while in reality using a sordid, stale and not original racist description about foreigners. He borrowed if from the Dutch racist politicians and we all know exactly what he means. Just because someone pretends they are doing the opposite, does not mean they are in fact. It just makes the insult more poisonous.
He could have said that burqas remind him of medieval costume which seem to the modern eye rather antique and old-fashioned. But he didn’t. He de-personalised the women and he also stigmatised them. His purpose was to appeal to the Dutch racist politicians because he knows they have been banned from preaching their hate-speech in the UK. It is inevitable that he will be dismissed from the Tory Party simply because he has the arrogance not to apologise.
Well said Dominic Grieve for saying he wouldn’t serve under him.
Ya’ll gotta stop taking hits off the GAZPROM pipe.?
Ben I’m detecting a very bongy tone to all your posts tonight are you entertaining yourself?
I have been watching the BBC documentary about Australia. Simon Reeve the presenter interviewed ‘High Rise Harry’ aka Harry Triguboff, born to Russian parents who fled to China after the revolution. He came to Australia from Tianjin in China. He is supposedly one of the richest men in the country having developed a series of apartment buildings
Note his ‘philanthropy’ and the country to which it is directed. Not to Russia, China or Australia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Triguboff
‘Note his ‘philanthropy’ and the country to which it is directed. Not to Russia, China or Australia’
What’s wrong with that? I’m Australian. After my wife’s family, my philanthropy is directed via the Catholic Church to selected communities in the Indo-Pacific to which I feel a deep connection. It’s Harry’s money and he can give it to whoever he wants, within the law. Your scribbles are more than tinged with anti semitic hate. Why?
Bostik and you are birds of a feather.
Please remember the Palestinians.
“The Conservative Party is institutionally racist – but that’s always been a core component of their political offer. That’s the essence of their appeal.”- https://twitter.com/AyoCaesar/status/1027580095089795072
The absolute shitstorm that has been created over likening a burqa to a letterbox. What the hell has happened to this country?
Modernisation?
A big fuss about nothing I agree but nothing compared with what Corbyn has had to put with recently. At least it’s taken the heat off him for a short while.
One rather expects the toffs to respect women. Obviously his bottom was insufficiently spanked as a child. This little insult will cost him his career as a politician, but there again war criminals that end up like Blair and Hague when they have been over-used cut rather pathetic figures. I think ten years of despicable violence perpetrated by his friends in Al Qaida and Isis will get him an honour and a blimpdom for services rendered to the Zionist cause.
Wanna reference for that?
Try this: http://www.voltairenet.org/article202314.html
Definitely time for war-criminal Boris to make a sharpish exit.
If you think this is about an item of clothing, your are deluded or disingenuous. Or just determined to keep stirring the pot.
To judge by what @Anon1 typed above about Scandinavia, he gets that this is about pushing the racist far-right (and pro-Znazi) “Britainstan” idea, and not only that but he’s helping out.
Then there’s the question of Boris Johnson personally. A new party if formed could be right-wing Labour, perhaps recruiting Anna Soubry and a very few Tory MPs, or the Liberal Democrats could do something clever (as they did to help defeat Labour the last time Labour had a leftish platform before 2016, which was in 1983), or there could be a far-right party outside of the mainstream Tory party.
But…assuming that something called the Conservative party is going to continue, which seems a safe assumption, then it seems safe to predict that at least 90% of its MPs and members will say they want to “pull together” behind the new leader, whoever it is. Can anyone really picture Boris in that role? Perhaps Boris himself can. Cocaine is known to make some people think they can do anything.
Unlike Boris, Enoch Powell wasn’t a cocaine-addicted liar who was in the habit of using women and forcing them to sign non-disclosure agreements. An NDA in some of these circumstances isn’t just an NDA of the kind that might be signed in the film business, drafted by intellectual property lawyers. It’s an act of terror. It says “let’s make this absolutely clear – you have agreed to keep your mouth shut because you know what’s best for you”.
“assuming that something called the Conservative party is going to continue, which seems a safe assumption ”
The newspaper headlines yesterday were saying that Tory incompetence and infighting are crashing the pound and financial institutions are selling anything British.
If Boris wants to occupy the corner of British politics that is occupied by racist extremism because he thinks he can pin the blame for the economy crashing on Fox and Rees-Morgue, then he will be consigned to political oblivion, like all the other little racist sects before him.
Trump complimented him because he can see he’s a dangerous idiot and a dweller of the neo-con swamp. Boris’s foreign policy has led to the biggest military and diplomatic defeat ever by the British state. It’s attempt to destroy Syria using extreme violence by proxy jihadists has permanently removed this country from any global credibility. When you are in a hole .. stop digging. He’s a brainless twit so I do;’t know why I’m wasting my virtual breath.
Remember Boris Johnson and Darius Guppy?
BJ was prepared to break the law.
https://youtu.be/iDJWkS2A9T0
Unfortunately for the Left, the Right has superior widget skills for the sake of unity/victory. They clone better and walk the straight and narrow feeder line with goose stepping enthusiasm.
The Left can’t organize a trip to the crapper because they spend their time arguing which side of the roll should the paper hang.
They delight in straining out some gnat of exception while swallowing their own camel of an agenda just to be a Schmarter for the sake of dealing a blow to their imagined opponent. Schisms spring from sects of cul-de-sac ideologies complete with neighbors engaged in street fights for the sake of individual ego boosting.
It’s a sad state when you consider the combined education and intellect displayed by both sides and the imperious victories of the Right.
Still on the left right train, Ben? Tried the have’s versus the have nots?
How will those comfortable in their daily routines feel when their allorment has been raided, their golden labrador slain and the coffee morning been usurped by a local Boris militia meeting
Steeles balls should be roasted, for he is the dirty link that tried to oust your president, all very tasty home cooking , selfinduced harm.
But, not to worry we are apt at.throwing a scripal or two into purdah, aaaand then we.blame the Russkies for everything.
Why have you not gone fishing or something?
I note the lack of Leftist defense in your unusual diatribe. Assange got his hand up yet arse?
Which soul sucking mod wants to self identify as Protectorate of the Nevermind?
Is California still burning? Best put things right in your own patch.
Dont need protection from you Ben, but your preferred left right argy bargy is failing to get attention. How about volunteering for some veteran fire fighting outfit, saving instead of destroying, they give you a onesie to boot.
“Is California still burning? Best put things right in your own patch”
I agree. If more commenters on here followed that advice, there’d be a hell of a lot more on the NHS and so on, and a hell of a lot less on the Middle East.
You fake Leftists sure know how to hurt yourselves
Has Boris Johnson been dragged through the streets and flayed alive by a baying mob of delirious shitlibs yet? Has he been buried up to his neck and stoned in the Islamic fashion? We need the left to start demanding the harshest of Islamic punishment for Boris if we are to consider him anywhere near as brilliant as Trump.
You are right. The mythical militant leftists, and the 5th columnist Muslim army is entirely a far-right / alt-right/ fascist invention.
Very glad you’ve finally seen through all that fevered BS.
The left are the fifth column. I’ve watched them rot this country out for as long as I’ve been politically aware. The immigration debate is just a proxy. Very few people actually hate Muslims or immigrants.
Don’t worry, those were only milk teeth. The real ones will come through soon.
“Very few people actually hate Muslims or immigrants.”
If you believe that, you can’t have been watching things in this country very attentively.
A useful place for picking up the vibe among British army personnel in particular is Arrse.co.uk, their main webforum site. (Anybody can join.) Many if not most are itching for race war, clash of civilisations, whatever you want to call it, and with lots of deaths, to break out in Bradford etc., as part of what they perceive to be the same fight as has been waged in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq. They were, which won’t surprise anybody, very heavily in favour of Brexit.
Soon anon1 soon. First he will try and make us believe that this is the way posh boys start a ‘debate’, poor soul.
If mouthing off bile and prejudice would be a commonwealth games discipline he would win the gold. You dont start a debate by throwing invectives…
Im not surprised he has problems with women when he picks on them. Not PM material nby a long shot.
In fact how is it possible to offend something that doesn’t have an identity? How can you humiliate or shame someone who effectively doesn’t exist?
You mean an anonymous poster, maybe who’s too cowardly to even give their first name?
But you prove your case well enough. You are, indeed, incapable of shame.
No I mean a letterbox.
Too cowardly to give even my first name? Why do you say that Glenn? Because you only give your first name and that is no different to calling yourself Anon.
Funnily enough, the great majority of those who accuse others of being too cowardly to give their real name don’t give their real name either.
As Anon1 observed, giving a first name only is pretty feeble and in no way justifies the high moral tone adopted by Mr Glenn X.
Am I right that Boris Johnson didn’t get a scholarship to Eton? I just checked and he didn’t even get a first at Oxford.
Will he get his US citizenship back that he renounced a few months after he became the British foreign secretary?
Boris renounced his US passport himself to avoid double taxation. The yanks slapped him with a big tax bill that he refused to pay and ripped up his passport.
Have you got a source for that, @John A? The tax bill story was around for years, and there was talk too that he was going to renounce citizenship but he didn’t until a few months after he became Foreign Secretary. Renunciation of US citizenship is not simply a matter of ripping up your passport. At least that’s not how it works from the US state’s point of view. It’s something you have to apply for and is granted, which Boris did. And it doesn’t get you out of your tax liability. In fact I doubt they will even let you renounce if you owe tax. I haven’t heard anything about Boris’s renunciation being connected to a refusal to pay tax, so if you have got a source I would be very interested to read it.
Source N_
here you go
https://americansoverseas.org/en/boris-johnson-turns-in-passport-because-of-american-taxes/
Who said he did get a first at Oxford and how is that relevant to anything?
Nobody, and it suggests he wasn’t bright, which is relevant to the proposition that he believes he can be the next prime minister.
well I would take issue that having an Oxford first should be a
requirement to be PM. I know several people with Oxford firsts including my sister in law, and I can confidently say they do not possess any of the attributes which I imagine are needed to be PM. Nor does it make you “bright”. It just demonstrates you know a lot about a specific set of subjects in theory and are good at reproducing that information in exams.
Unfortunately, several dolts have run with scissors and muscharacterized me, I assume out of abject ignorance and a incurious disposition.
I am a creature of the Left, not the Right. The obtuse seem confused about much that occurs outside their myopic trance.
Is Putin a Leftist?
It would seem a bit anachronistic.
Why then do Leftists like Assange and Stone make excuses? It’s a quandary..
West = bad
Putin = anti-West
Therefore:
Putin = good !
You can apply the same formula to Assad, Iran, North Korea, etc. They’ll excuse any crime. In the old days it was the Soviet Union but one of two diehards like John Goss and bevin keep it going.
Most people, at least sensible ones, don’t see the world like that in black and white. It’s better to think in terms of degrees or scale say 1-10. Therefore, you can think Russia is bad, but also think some of the stuff we do is bad. If say Finland is a 1 and Russia is a 7 on the badness scale, where are we?
1-10 ,with 10 being extremely bad.
I’d certainly say the Scandinavian countries lead the world in terms of quality proportionate system democracies and transparency – the two key defences against encroaching tyranny. Tyranny only arises with complicity among like-minded people.
We have a prime minister in waiting who is on 1, and a prime minister desperately throwing furniture in the path of justice on 10. Mix them together and we are collectively on 5 or 6. I doubt Mrs may will be doing any more snap elections, so I suppose the alternative is a cult suicide like Masada over-looking the Dead Sea. The Tories would rather see our nation destroyed than concede to honesty and common-sense in the form of Jeremy Corbyn.
Assange is a market libertarian.
I hope that all is well with Craig, who seems to have gone back doune the rabbit hole.
We’re still waiting for the promised further ruminations on the Skripal, etc. caper– especially because it’s been overtaken by developments.
I was contacted here in the US by an expatriate relative, who was shocked by the US government’s malicious and meretricious decision to use the fraudulent “Russia done it!” slander as a pretext for ratcheting up belligerent Russophobia.
I was surprised, but not shocked, at the depths to which the US/UK governments descend. I could only reply, “They don’t call ’em ‘Big Lies’ for nothing!”
Indeed Big Lies as not meant to fail, just like some banks or companies are declared Too Big To Fail: deep state in action. Usually politicians sit to short to be able to pull this off: they do make nice mouthpieces though, like new Obama around the 2008 financial crisis. G.W. Bush on the other hand had a long carrier in the CIA and White house and was part of it.
Q. Where is Sergei Skripall?
£10m of taxpayers’ money was expended on the Salisbury theatrical. And the rest I would surmise.
The article in the Independent on this topic also states that £347,000’s worth of Police Cars have had to be destroyed due to fears of contamination by exposure to the alleged nerve agent. Would have been a lot less expensive to pick up some Baby wipes from the nearest Aldi and pop them through the Car Wash.
May should indict these two Skripalgate Russkies without delay. CPS has done the paperwork. Guardian has given its approval. Boris is onside. What’s holding her back?
Barnier will get the message. What embassy can he hole up in? He wants to die in his bed.
May has discovered that drip feeding facts, which could also mean alternative facts, innuendos of the type developed by faltering politicians and blatant lies is s far better way of surviving when you have no majority, no mandate and no clue as to how to proceed. She has done so well by not getting anywhere.
Can any of the local pundits here imagine a sensible explanation as to why Nethanyahoo is supporting Al Qaida /ISIS along “his” Golan border? I can’t. For Erdogan in Idlib I can – birds of a feather.
Aren’t these maniacs also anti-Zionists?
Al Qaida maniacs?
The British have been using ” fanatics ” for hundreds of years, and Russia has been dealing with its neighbours for thousands of years. The Great Game has just been lost in Syria. We are in an alliance called USUKIS and the POTUS has just gone AWOL. That leaves Boris sucking his thumb in the under-stairs cupboard and Israel pushing as hard as it can against the cupboard door to stop anybody coming in.
Maybe our future king will regret having boasted about our part in the Great Game, but he has other , ceremonial duties to learn.
The fact that Pritti Patel wanted to use dollops of British austerity savings to assist Ansar al Islam’s injured poses problems. Either British Tories are maniacs for thinking they could pull off such a scam, or Iraqi islamists are maniacs for fighting for Israel. The islamists have been torture-rendition-psychologically modified.
I find it hard to condemn people who have been re-programmed against their will. That leaves us with the problem of the Tory maniacs who have been in power since 1979. There is no existing institution that could effectively bring to justice these idiots because they themselves set up the institutions to promote the interests of Tory madness.
The Gulag might have spaces available, or some Turkish jail?
Oh My Fuck..What a Sickening Sad Day yesterday was..( Nagasaki Day )
Some of the Footage coming out of Yemem.. Fucking Hell.. Wee Souls Lost to western Greed..
and Bless Bayan and Family too..Slaughtered .And Fuck the bbc..And the U.N.. For Allowing These War Crimes. Cowards..War Criminals in Fact
Poor little mites Brian. Starved. Then shredded, burnt and killed. And we, ‘the British’ support the head choppers and their coalition and even supply the planes and the missiles.
Crying children treated after bus airstrike
http://news.sky.com/video/share-11466997
These are some of the reports linking Israel with the Terrorists of Jabhat al Nusra or IS or the ‘moderate rebels’
1. For a long time, the most persistent pockets of Islamist control in South Syria were on the borders between Syria and the occupied Golan. In the case of the Yarmouk pocket held by IS and surrounded by ‘moderate’ rebels on one side, the Jordanians on the other and the Israelis in the Golan, there was no possible source of supply of weapons except through those two states. Both states did not seem to mind IS on thier borders.
2. It has been a well documented fact that Islamic fighters have received medical treatment in Israel.
3. On several occasions weapons supplied by Israel with Hebrew script were found after the terrorists were overrun by the SAA.
4. The IAF has actively bombed Syrian army positions, as well as bases and airports, often associated with advances of the Syrian army against the terrorists.
5. Recently unknown planes bombed an area near Deir Ezzor occupied by all Hashd Al Sha’abi from Iraq, fighting IS, and US denied involvement as third threatened their forces in Iraq with reprisals. It is widely assumed that these planes were IAF plant.
6. Recently Israel collaborated in the evacuation of over 400 white Helmets from Syria to be settled in the West. Less reported is that also 4 terrorist leaders were evacuated at the same time. Humanitarian evacuation of civilians was denied.
7. Israeli ministers from time to time made declarations that they would rather have the terrorist so called Islamists on their borders than the SG and SAA.
8. The very well known incident of Priti Patel’s visit to the Golan and the attempt to divert overseas development funds to the rebels through the IDF shows complicity between UKG , IG and the terrorist rebels.
9. The terrorists never attacked Israel.
10. Turkey ‘s involvement with the rebels is well known. What is also well known is that Turkey is a member of NATO and wanted to use the rebels to fulfil aims such as to neutralise the Kurds but also some territorial designs on Syria. Much of the industrial hardware looted from Aleppo during the occupation of East Aleppo and al Najjar industrial area of Aleppo found thier way to Turkey. Turkey had a thriving oil trade with IS until the Russians put a stop to it in 2015. It is alleged that some of this oil also found its way to Israel.
There is probably more, much more but enough for now.
Oded Yinon – The plan for a greater Israel refers.
An excellent interview. Her love for the Palestinian people in their great suffering shines through.
https://www.rt.com/shows/going-underground/435399-palestine-us-gaza-freedom/
This very courageous little surgeon was making her second attempt to enter Gaza.
Illegal blockade for 12 years enforced by arms – since proper election of the Hamas party. Recurrent massive bombardment etc
Illegal ‘kidnapping’ (euphemism) along with 21 others. (7 on the following boat) One man ‘tasered’ 3 times, once in the HEAD.
Illegal imprisonment for 2 days.
Theft of all cameras etc and money.
Do watch this interview. Starts at 3.20 minutes. And embrace a good human. Compare with Nikki Haley say and HMG which continues to be a major arms supplier to Israel.
ISRAEL IS THE REAL PROBLEM
Elite power cannot abide a serious challenge to its established position. And that is what Labour under Jeremy Corbyn represents to the Tory government, the corporate, financial and banking sectors, and the ‘mainstream’ media. The manufactured ‘antisemitism crisis’ is the last throw of the dice for those desperate to prevent a progressive politician taking power in the UK: someone who supports Palestinians and genuine peace in the Middle East, a strong National Health Service and a secure Welfare State, a properly-funded education system, and an economy in which people matter; someone who rejects endless war and complicity with oppressive, war criminal ‘allies’, such as the United States, Saudi Arabia and Israel.’
/..
http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2018/876-israel-is-the-real-problem.html
An excellent summary and sitrep.
A problem.
“The” problem (as you illustrated) is more concentrated finance. etc.
The BBC. Are they having a laugh?
Can we film the Ecuadorian embassy from your house?’ BBC asks residents to install Assange cam
9 Aug 2018
The BBC has sent a letter to residents living opposite the Ecuadorian embassy in London, asking if they can install cameras on their property to cover “the Julian Assange story.”
The letter, a copy of which was tweeted by the WikiLeaks account, asks “whether you might be willing to consider the possibility of having access to some of your outside space for our coverage of the Julian Assange story.”
“We’re looking to install a small weatherproof camera overlooking the Ecuadorian embassy. We would like to rent the space on your [property] for access.”
The WikiLeaks tweet also claims that the “UK government already has several robot cameras pointed at the embassy steps.”’
https://www.rt.com/uk/435553-bbc-julian-assange-embassy/
WikiLeaks tweeted a reply saying that HMG already have several robot cameras stationed opposite at No 22.
🙂
@ Sharp Ears August 10, 2018 at 08:37
Makes perfect sense, really. RT has a 24/7 cameraman opposite on the pavement. It is clearly cheaper to have a camera sited on or in a building opposite.
So how many cameras are there opposite the Ecuadorean
Embassy?
Would someone like to explain to me how being opposed to a specific religion and its beliefs, makes you a racist? I could be for example, be anti-Catholic. That does not make me a racist, anymore than a Muslim being anti-Christian is a racist. Racism is not the same as religious bias or prejudice. For what it’s worth, Boris’s long -suffering wife is half Indian.
It’s not, but when you constantly attack/degrade other groups? & when there are comparable religious issues that don’t get noticed by these “critics”. Do you think many women in marriages aren’t constantly oppressed? Made to do things by husbands, treaded like slaves? Yet when some do this in the muslim religion? like those who may force some women to vale ?
Borris is a clear racist. His whole life is copying churchill, just picks another set of people to constantly degrade. This rhetoric of “criticising slam” is a cover by people who constantly attack it, made whole careers out of it. Just flip it, imagine them criticising J,w’s in this manner. ? I don’t know if the nazis believes they constituted a “race”, but that’s not the point, the nazis believed THEY did, they they where part of a superior race/culture.
Borris does this because it’s ok in his eyes, “they” are “backward” or whatever, so can be dehumanised. .
It is the same because it comes from a place of “racial” superiority of ones own culture, while obfuscating any issues often analogous to what they critique in others.
And what “specific-beliefs” ? That is an essentialist trope.
I don’t know if the nazis believed*-
Basically they only recognise (regardless of they may say in the dark) this essentialist fundimenalist “nature” of islam. This is the PR they spew out day after day.
Yes they may remark “not all muslims” etc, at some time in their career, but spend 99% of the time painting the whole as that segment, the fringes.
Can you see the irony in this?
On a thread about people who ignore wrong doing, a poster tells how he allowed his wife to be verbally abused and she is the one who must modify her behaviour. This “tool” is to protect her from his and others’ lust!
I down know what poster your taking about. But I am talking about wrong doing, or it’s political use via the “others” narrative..
I know people who have this possessive attitude over “their” wife. How it manifests, the types coercion are beside the point. Or not for some it seems, they only look at some by certain cultures. Even when they are so alike (imo because they’re so alike, e.g. We always see in others our worst traits)
“Do you think many women in marriages aren’t constantly oppressed? Made to do things by husbands, treaded like slaves?”
Are these husbands following any type of teaching that they interpret as justifying there behaviour?
“Yet when some do this in the muslim religion? like those who may force some women to vale ?”
Are these husbands following any type of teaching that they interpret as justifying there behaviour?
Giyane stated on this thread that he “only” asks his wife to cover her face if there are disgusting remarks made towards her at the market in Birmingham”. So his wife gets verbally abused and his reaction is to ask her to cover her face. Apparently the veil is a tool in Giyane’s box.
Are you ok with this?
I detest bullies of any kind!
“Are these husbands following any type of teaching that they interpret as justifying there behaviour?”
Yes. they are. The institution of marriage derived from christian dogma. It’s bloody riddled with suggestive (if not explicit) notions of the subjugation of women. The father “gives away” the bride etc etc. The whole thing rests on a tradition of female comodification..
The marriage vow has been changed dramatically. A woman no longer has to obey. There are no formulas for marriage any more. I’d bet that most western domestic abusers of any type are not religious at all.
Yes indeed it is a muddle, created I hasten to say by the two current rows rows at different ends. I guess the answer is that you are entitled to be opposed to religious and indeed other beliefs but not entitled to gratuitously offend people’s beliefs. This is why the BoJo statement was offensive, it is meant to be so and not meant to be a constructive debate about the Burka or Islam. The fact that his wife is half Indian is neither here or there, you can be a racist whatever race you or your wife belong to.
With Boris Johnson it’s intentional playground style insults. Added to the recent reports of more insults and attacks on Muslim women it’s pathetic. It’s like contributing to a debate on obesity by saying ‘Ha ha these people look like beached whales or tubs of lard’. Maybe not exactly racism except that he thinks he can freely poke fun at any group of people to bolster his support or make people laugh, and it encourages insults from others.
The issue surely is when Muslims regard any negative comments about any aspect of their religion as disrespectful and insulting. Apart from anything else this shuts down all debate. Unlike the Islamic world, Northern Europe is secular and makes a distinction between church and state, which Islam does not. Criticism of Islam in Northern Europe is not illegal, nor is it racist, nor a hate crime. It may seem critical of and disrespectful to Moslems but that in itself is not illegal nor indeed racist. I am opposed to women wearing the veil which I feel demeans women, AND has security implications in a world where terrorism is widespread. When I say this, then some Muslims will feel insulted and accuse me of disrespecting their faith. That is the price of living in a secular society.
It is frequently claimed that the niqab is a woman’s choice and freely chosen. Sometimes maybe but is this always the case? I do not think so. I have lived in North Africa with a Muslim family and have friends in the Muslim community, and met women who assure me that they would prefer not to cover their faces but this is insisted upon by more conservative members of their wider community. As has also been pointed out, covering the face is a cultural tradition in some branches of Islam. It is one interpretation of the Koran’s exhortation to dress modestly but is not found universally in Moslem communities world wide.
A destigtion in theory. In reality it’s all tied in.
As said, so is marriage “freely chosen” but it’s not that simple. See The origin of family property & the state by Friedrich Engels. You don’t think our economics coerce behaviour? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6fy6E4YDvM
YOU feel it demeans, many don’t. And what implication for terrorism? The tope of the “muilim-terrorist” ? Far more serous terror by men in suites. Yes, sometimes it’s not the case, one assumes in more conservative/fundamentalist sorts of islam. That our government fawns over. As it does our religious economy.
People being forced to do something by their community or family is a different issue from childish jokes about appearance, and if it needs addressing legally there’s more than clothes to consider. I think that I should be able to walk around covered in a tablecloth if I like, not the state’s business. And I also agree with Sayeeda Warsi that the way to encourage integration is not to encourage insults and general unpleasantness. It wasn’t that long ago that England too had much stricter rules for respectable ladies clothing.
So are there any means by which I could raise concerns about or criticise pressure on Muslim women in the UK to cover their faces? I suspect not. I will be told it is their right to choose with the implications is always freely chosen, and I have no right to intervene, not being a Moslem and thereby closing down the debate.
As I explained earlier above, I have !I did with a Moslem family in North Africa and I have close ties to some young female Moslems who tell they are under pressure to cover their faces from the more conservative members of their family and community. One young woman did make a stand and was made very unhappy by many family members refusing to speak. to her. Also why is it only women who are required to cover their faces not men? The answer of course lies in archaic attitudes to women.
I do not think the niqab has a place in modern UK society. If a woman wants to show her modesty and re!igious affiliation what is wrong with the hijab?
Mary Paul
This is a complex issue which needs to be tackled in a sensitive manner. If you are concerned about these women then criticising the practice of wearing a Burka is totally counterproductive. Women who wear the Burka usually come from backgrounds that are very conservative and who have lived all their lives in a system where they behave they are required to behave. Emancipation, like democracy is a gradual process of education and these women as well as their society need to be educated in a sensitive way. The BoJo approach is similar to the West’s approach to introducing democracy by humanitarian bombing. The traditions have to be changed slowly and by consensus.
You see, the problem here is that a lot of what is said here is just looking at a symptom but without trying to tackle underlying causes. If Bojo or for that matter you, really hate this practice then attack the source, the paternalistic society which give rise to this practice, but you will find that BoJo in fact and all his ilk are very reluctant to criticise one of the countries that is most oppressive to women, because they are good for our trade, so instead the attack the poor defenceless victims of suppression instead of the source of suppression.
Ctrl Alt Del
How Twitter et al can send you down the memory hole.
I Was Banned for Life From Twitter
I became persona non grata after a heated exchange over the media’s complicity with the government. The mob won.
By PETER VAN BUREN • August 9, 2018
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/i-was-banned-for-life-from-twitter/
There is no common land on the internet. It is all private.
Interesting.
Heard someone talking about a scheme where peeps donated say 5% of their hard drive to create a public server.
There’s a lot of unused capacity out there to take on even the largest private server farm.
As polls go this one doesn’t do Corbyn any favours. I suppose the anti-Semitism row has played its part.
https://mobile.twitter.com/britainelects/status/1027662993486766081
“Anything for YouGov” poll:
CON: 39% (+1)
LAB: 35% (-3)
LD: 10% (-)
UKIP: 7% (+1)
I put those figures into Baxter and the result was a Tory majority of 0 (325 seats), but in practice there would be “momentum” and the BBC etc. would push the idea that Labour under Corbyn had promise but is now busted.
For many voters, the spectacle of Jeremy Corbyn being pursued by those who throw the word “anti-Semitic” at him has little to do with any thesis, capable of being debated, that he is anti-J__ish (which he is not) or that anti-J__ish feeling exists in the Labour party (which it does not). Think of it more as a cartoon – an obscene cartoon that’s soaked in the blood of Arab babies. Man with soft voice who doesn’t look like a film start gets pursued and accused, offers quiet defence, doesn’t satisfy his attackers, gets pursued and attacked again, says sorry, still gets attacked. Yes it’s vicious – so were the attacks on Michael Foot – and voters in Britain have little or no record of electing underdogs. This is crowd psychology.
If Corbyn doesn’t go along with those pressing for mandatory reselection there’s probably no point, the idea of his govt been held to ransom by the current PLP plotters is a terrible prospect. Mandatory reselection, preferably carried out for all current MPs over one weekend and resulting in as few high-profile deselections, would generate a week or two of bad headlines. But it’d be worth it in order to have a chance of running any sort of stable govt and party.
‘being held to ransom’ that should be.
re, Soothmoother august 10, 2018 at 10:29
“The marriage vow has been changed dramatically. A woman no longer has to obey. There are no formulas for marriage any more. I’d bet that most western domestic abusers of any type are not religious at all.”
Some letter may change but that means squat. in reality.
Yes many do have to obey, in reality, or face Consequences or coercion. It’s embedded across the culture.
You think these religious traditions don’t inform our culture anymore ? No. most marriages they do “give away” the daughter, this is important and recognised symbology. Ubiquitous to this day.
ps, Also, Thanks Soothmoother
You’ve helped me nail down why I have the feeling I do towards well adjusted members of society.
Many cultural things continue and are deeply embedded, regardless of whether young passive TV-watching mobile phone-using consumerist dickheads think everything was invented anew five minutes ago. It doesn’t matter how many people tell survey companies they’re “agnostic” or “atheist”.
“Agnostic” was coined by proto-eugenicist nutter Thomas Huxley.
For example
* weddings involve public statement of commitment and public congratulation and acceptance by both families
* sibling favouritism is rife and can cause lifelong problems
* when it occurs, marital infidelity often causes huge problems
* some family members try to rob other family members’ inheritances
* sometimes one spouse’s family doesn’t accept a marriage
and so on
etc. etc. etc.
There’s little or no sign of any change to any of this, except that many today keep their heads up their butts, because Facebook and Twitter told them to.
Atheism is paper thin and has no real background to it.
Good stuff.
That Globalist Orwellian project to reduce humanity to atomic individualism, can’t happen then, can it.
The closest was China, I suppose.
And in the West, many thought yer gender politics would lead to the disintegration of the family.
But yeah, ya can’t thwart Logos.
I think elites have given up on the Bolshevik approach and are returning to more traditional management style.
Finally, bended their knee to God.
Why do women curtsy like this?
Theresa May’s awkward curtsy returns for Prince William at Battle of Amiens commemorations
PM attending event to celebrate centenary of Battle of Amiens and start of Hundred Days Offensive
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/theresa-may-curtsy-royal-family-prince-william-amiens-ceremony-a8484766.html
She is a total creep.
Will she become Lady May of Sonning after she is given the order of the boot?
Tittle tattle in the Heil.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3692795/Move-Chipping-Norton-Wall-wall-celebrities-English-Stilton-cheese-new-PM-lives-village-exclusive-makes-Dave-s-Oxfordshire-enclave-look-common.html