One principle of this blog is that I give my views whether they will be welcome or not, either to the general public or to the portion of the public who regularly read this blog. Since we started accepting subscriptions to keep it going, almost every article causes somebody to write to me saying they are canceling their subscription because they did not agree with me. I would much prefer anybody who is kindly giving money in the expectation of agreeing with everything I write, to cancel now. The purpose of this blog is to be intellectually challenging and provide food for thought, with facts and viewpoints not readily available in the mainstream media. It is about intellectual inquiry, not followership.
This is one of those occasions when I know that a significant number of people here will not agree with me. I like George Soros and consider him to be a good man. I should declare an interest; he once bought me a pizza, over 20 years ago. But I considered then, and I consider now, that Soros is a man who has devoted huge amounts of his personal resources, in terms of time and in terms of money, to attempting to make the world a better place, from motives of altruism.
Furthermore I believe that a lot of the work of the Open Society Institute, which I witnessed first hand, in Poland and Uzbekistan and elsewhere, is good work, particularly in the field of human rights and media freedom.
I believe that Roger Scruton’s attack on Soros, particularly in a venue in Hungary where the far right Prime Minister has conducted a truly hateful, state orchestrated, anti-semitic and anti-immigrant campaign against Soros, puts Scruton totally beyond the pale.
Soros frequently is cited in comments below the line on this blog as the personification of evil capitalism. Let me address the obvious elephants in the room. The first is how he made his money. This I make no attempt to defend. He has simply managed assets and traded derivative products, particularly in foreign exchange markets, and either by brilliance or sustained good luck, become extremely wealthy from an activity that provides no societal good. Indeed derivatives trading is a cancerous growth on modern economies, where the financial flows vastly exceed the value of trade in actual goods or genuine first party services.
However, people live and work in the economic situation that exists; to condemn people for not dropping out and going off-grid is to adopt a purist and ineffective position. I do not know how Soros got into the business line he adopted, but I am not condemning every individual working in trading. It is also worth stating that Soros’ ethnicity is utterly irrelevant to his career, and those who hint otherwise are offensive.
The second elephant in the room is that Soros appears aligned to the global spread of neo-liberalism, and to the Clinton camp with its warmongering foreign policy. Leaving aside for two paragraphs the question of whether or not that is true, the most important answer to that is that the man is entitled to his beliefs. To condemn him because his beliefs are not all my beliefs would be wrong. That Soros uses so much of his personal wealth to try to make the world a better place, according to his view of how society might best be structured, makes him a good man and not a bad man. That I may have a different view of how society should be structured is not the test; it is whether somebody is genuinely trying to do good by others.
Soros’ view of how society might best be structured is coloured by his past experience of the Eastern bloc. It is natural that anybody from what was occupied Hungary looks at Russia with a wary and distrustful eye. It is natural that those who understand the real failings of Soviet style central planning are dubious of schemes of socialism. But Soros is in fact fairly mainstream European social democrat with very liberal societal views. I genuinely do not understand his demonisation by large sections of the left. Soros is anathema to the right wing nationalist parties of Eastern Europe.
It is also worth pointing out that Soros’ view of his own profession is by no means straightforward. He argued extremely strongly for greater financial regulation, publishing highly informative and reasoned books on the subject, at the height of the craze for deregulation. He was not a supporter of the Big Bang or of Gordon Brown’s market worship. His 1998 opus, The Crisis of Global Capitalism, argues that financial markets are inherently unstable and swing like a wrecking ball not like a pendulum, and that globalisation is in fact an extension of Imperialism. That someone made so much money, from rules he believed should have been altered to stop him doing it, is a conundrum; but he is altogether a complicated character.
Finally, that Soros is a warmonger and supporter of US military attacks on the Middle East is not true. He opposed the Iraq war, and is generally against military intervention. His funding reaches so many NGO’s, of diverse views, it is always possible to find a tweet by Avaaz, or a report on Syrian human rights violations by Amnesty International, and make the claim “that is Soros shilling for war”. But in fact his influence on the vast array of civil society institutions he funds is extremely light touch, and they encompass widely differing viewpoints. Soros’ strong support for the warmonger Clinton is something I do not attempt to justify, other than to note that many people of liberal views are taken in by the old “liberal” establishment. It is quite a psychological step to accept it has gone full neo-con.
I most certainly do not agree with all of Soros’ views, or actions. But I agree with more of them than you may suppose. That all of his actions are motivated by a desire to make more money for himself or to benefit the ruling class, I am quite sure is not true. That he is a hawk and a warmonger I do not believe. That his efforts do a lot of real good I have witnessed first hand. The demonisation of Soros is lazy, inaccurate and unfair.
Craig,
As someone who tries to see the war in Syria from a Syrian perspective, I believe there is cause to worry about the role played by George Soros in the ongoing Syrian conflict.
In the 20th century, Syria had cause to protest the actions of big powers and their allies (even Australia since we gave up independent, responsible thinking to follow the UK and US into wars that crushed the attempts of other peoples to determine their country’s destiny):
https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/georgiapeacecoalition.wordpress.com/2015/07/16/anzacs-and-war-considering-a-syrian-perspective/amp/
After the start of the so- called Arab Spring in Syria, George Soros expressed support for the ‘Arab Springs’, or ‘revolutions’, comparing them to the ‘revolutions’ in central Europe, completely ignoring the nefarious roles played by foreign governments in a regime change agenda and their funding of ‘revolution’ in Syria.
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/world/europe/17iht-letter17.html
For the US and UK and allies to go to war against Syria in the 21st century, a romanticized ‘revolution’ has been invented. There are false flags, disinformation and an enemy – the evil ‘Assad’, the ‘regime’, the Alawites, any Sunni Syrians who don’t join the ‘revolution’ etc – is created and demonized, so there is an enemy in Syria for foreign fighters to hate and kill. (Syria would not be a natural enemy for mainstream non-Syrian Muslims or US or UK soldiers) People who raise questions are given little credence – they are ‘Assad apologists’. And of course, Iran and Hezbollah are the bogeymen, not Saudi Arabia (which funded much of the terror, apparently even sending prisoners on death row to fight in Syria – just a detail).
Key NGOs funded by Soros, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty international, have pretty consistently followed a partisan line on Syria, encouraging hatred and a group think that supports military intervention. The Syrian government is the enemy and Syrian soldiers are fair game.
It is a proxy war and we are all victims in a sense even if we are not in the firing line today. Soros may charm and appear magnanimous in some circles, but from the perspective of a Syrian, it would be fair to say he does not have good intentions; he lines up with the military industrial complex, helping to place NGOs, think tanks, academics, and the general population on the side of war and, effectively, terror.
Regards,
Susan
https://ahtribune.com/author.html?id=1014
:
Great comment!
Did you see my less temperate 😉 castigation of Mr. Murray?
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/11/scruton-and-soros/comment-page-4/#comment-801567
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Unfortunately the pervasive pursuit of hypercapitalism and the immense power at one end of the ‘open society’ spectrum, a place where nobody can stop billionaires from using great wealth to push their schemes for society, however misguided, is turning ‘giving’ into ‘taking’ and philanthropy into another form of control antithetical to the ‘better world’ equality view that Chan & Zuckerberg found irresistable.
Yet Soros has a developed mind. Indeed Soros recognises our existence is unpredictable and increasingly chaotic, where truth is absolute and objective while certainty must be subjective. The OSI has it’s origins in the belief that in our infinite ignorance we are all equal; that knowledge is shared and not just a weapon wielded by entities striving for power.
Good and helpful are worthwhile and are propensities that move an ability to confront chaos and the holy mess of conflict and despair.
Yes, George Soros is a ‘good man’ whose kindness contributes to peace and normality and yet requires us to do more.
If I’ve had doubts before, they have been dispelled. Thanks.
:
THat is even MORE delusional than Craig’s piece that prompted it.
I assume MK means that he or she merely SUSPECTED from some previous exchange that you are delusional, and that you’ve now confirmed that indeed you are.
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Thank you for writing such a balanced view of Soros. It has been uncomfortable trying to deduce what his motivations might be from biased sources, so reading about them from someone who may disagree with him nonethless is very helpful.
‘George Soros: Prophet of an “Open Society”: https://archives.globalresearch.ca/articles/TAL307A.html
‘The Arab Spring: Made in the USA’: https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-arab-spring-made-in-the-usa/5484950
Two good info sources on Soros, in particular his funding of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’, which so many still believe was a truly Arab phenomenon.
In reality, they were very well-prepared (‘…None were spontaneous – all required careful and lengthy (5+ years) planning, by the State Department, CIA pass through foundations, George Soros, and the pro-Israel lobby….).
Soros deserves all the opprobrium heaped upon him, and then some.
Paul Barbara
I Craig is buttering up his Tory insider spies with this story in order to pull off some coup against Brexit, he is very ill-advised. Maybe he is just trying to Soros out the men from the boys, the sheep from the goats. Maybe his pension depends on getting us peeps to somewhat strongly sweep the swingometer for a Market Research company working for Tory HQ so that they can write policies that will appeal to all sides at the next election.
Craig is from that generation that came in just after mine that grabbed the stick in the Thatcherite relay and ran. Soros makes money in order to persuade others to make money. Apparently thinking there are other more important things in life is in Tory terms a severe crime. In Tory terms, educating people to think like Thatcher is a failed mission which needs the kind of boost only the money-obsessed hero Soros can provide, or that other bunch of wonks on Dragon’s Den.
I wasn’t vaccinated when I was young with right-wing aspirations and nothing I have seen since convinces me the Tories are anything other than self-serving scum. They are certainly not politicians as Brexit clearly demonstrates. They are gamblers with us between the fingers of their grimy hands. It was probably a trick question anyway, for the purpose of divide and rule, but I personally agree with you Soros and his colour revolutions is fake news, a false distraction from the ruthless hegemony USUKIS wants to impose on the world. Even the black flag of Islamic State was black because of black gold, oil.
Paul
I agree that Soros and USG has a role to play in the Arab spring but I am not sure that the Israel lobby (whatever that means in this context) had any direct part to play other than a general policy matter. In fact the Israeli Government hates Soros because he does support some Palestinian NGOs.
@ SA November 10, 2018 at 07:15
Anything to do with the ME will be of immense interest to the ‘Lobby’, and as Sharp Ears says below, the Yinon Plan has the Balkanisation of all the large Arab or Muslim states as a primary goal towards a ‘Greater Israel’.
The ‘Lobby’ would hardly be sitting on their hands, but in the thick of the planning.
They had the motive, the ability and stood to gain by the fabricated ‘Arab Spring’.
See Oded Yinon – Plan for a Greater Israel
‘Both Becker and Polkinhorn admit that avowed enemies of Israel in the Middle East take the sequence of events—Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, the Golan Heights, its encirclement of Gaza, the invasion of Lebanon, its bombing of Iraq, airstrikes in Syria and its attempts at containing Iran’s nuclear capacities—when read in the light of the Yinon Plan and the Clean break analysis, to be proof that Israel is engaged in a modern version of The Great Game, with the backing of Zionist currents in the American neoconservative and Christian fundamentalist movements. They also conclude that Likud Party appears to have implemented both plans.’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yinon_Plan
and Prof Michel Chossudovsky – http://www.globalresearch.ca/greater-israel-the-zionist-plan-for-the-middle-east/5324815
Craig, I am very glad to read your reasoned defense of Soros. He is mostly unjustly vilified man who has done a lot of good and should be supported by anyone – which includes the great majority of readers of your blog – who believes in the liberal humane values, now so endangered, of our European societies. Lawrence
Lawrence
I was married to the grand-daughter of a Mond of ICI fame. The 8 metre high family portrait of the Mond family if cut down for the next generation would show about one shoe of the original painting. Two of my children are homeless. hence I strongly feel it is a total waste of time anybody accumulating vast fortunes. The great the fortune the more dysfunctional the family.
As to democracy, it is a system that has been harnessed for the majority of my lifetime to serve the interests of a foreign country, Israel, with over thirty years of constant destruction of the Muslim world to satisfy their revenge against the religion of Monotheism being handed to the followers of the prophet of our time Muhammad SAW. Soros represents to me the worst aspects of democracy, the ability to channel ignorance into terrible crimes. Is he a war-criminal? no, just a very stupid man.
‘CORPORATE ADVISORY & PROJECT FINANCE IN EMERGING MARKETS’
Get it?
No, please enlighten me.
It is a link from the advert above by Burley.
If you delve further SE you will find that the state Department funds some NGOs which deliver thier largesse to help individuals to start such businesses. Interestingly there is a blurred line between Governments, some NGOs and ‘charities’ and they are allocated different parts of the propaganda agenda.
@Lawrence Anderson Burley
“…the liberal humane values, now so endangered, of our European societies”.
Yah, those “liberal humane values”. But what exactly ARE those liberal humane values? As far as I can see the people who most shrilly claim to be “liberal”, both in Europe and the USA, hold views which real liberals would execrate.
Today both Russia and Iran are, in practice, more liberal than any Western country.
liberal
n adjective
1 respectful and accepting of behaviour or opinions different from one’s own. Ø(of a society, law, etc.) favourable to individual rights and freedoms. ØTheology regarding many traditional beliefs as dispensable, invalidated by modern thought, or liable to change.
2 (in a political context) favouring individual liberty, free trade, and moderate political and social reform. Ø(Liberal) relating to Liberals or a Liberal Party, especially (in the UK) relating to the Liberal Democrat party.
3 (of education) concerned with broadening general knowledge and experience.
4 (especially of an interpretation of a law) not strictly literal.
5 given, used, or giving in generous amounts.
n noun
1 a person of liberal views.
2 (Liberal) a supporter or member of a Liberal Party, especially (in the UK) a Liberal Democrat.
DERIVATIVES
liberalism noun
liberalist noun
liberalistic adjective
liberality noun
liberally adverb
liberalness noun
ORIGIN
Middle English (originally in sense ‘suitable for a free man’ hence ‘suitable for a gentleman’): via Old French from Latin liberalis, from liber ‘free (man)’.
There’s a big difference between the Liberal Party of Canada and the Liberal Party of Australia
Bertrand Russell’s “A Liberal Decalogue”
——————————————————-
The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows:
1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavour to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent that in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.
– Bertrand Russell: “A Liberal Decalogue”, from “The Best Answer to Fanaticism: Liberalism”, New York Times Magazine (16/December/1951); later printed in The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (1969), vol. 3: 1944-1967, pp. 71-2.
Well Craig I won’t be cancelling my subscription; after all it’s only two quid a month. But I have to say I have never read such a load of cock since the last time I visited the Guardian, and I am genuinely disappointed in you. I don’t expect to agree with everything you say, but there are limits…
Here is an alternative take:
“Good guys” do not become rich like Soros. In order to become rich like Soros you have to be a rapacious, self-obsessed, greed-maddened sociopath. . Anyone as rich as him is an integral cog in the whole Wall Street/City of London/MIC machine that has laid waste to the Middle East and North Africa, and your excuses on his behalf are pathetic. It’s like some guy standing outside a school selling drugs to kids and telling people “I’m really opposed to drugs really but I’m going to stand outside this school selling drugs to kids to make money anyway…”
The lizard-faced old reptile has now earned more money that he could ever need or want if he lived to be a billion years old, and the joy of accumulating money has grown stale. But the obsessive greed remains insatiable.
So now he has turned to power to in an attempt to satisfy that insatiable craving. And what does he do? Does he present himself for democratic election like the rest of us, stand up in front of the electorate, argue his case, and seek their mandate?
No. What he actually does is spend his money funding various unaccountable groups of self-righteous, ego-driven liberofascists, who if they ever got a sniff of real power would make the Cultural Revolution look like a holiday in Butlins. The primary objective, apparently, being to undermine democratic countries being governed by democratically-elected governments which are doing what their electorate elected them to do.
But! But! He’s doing all this with the best of intentions!
Well, he has been one of the main profiteers of an economic and political system that has destroyed the Middle East and created millions of refugees, and kept much of Africa in grinding poverty that has created millions of economic migrants. So why isn’t he spending any of his money making conditions better in the camps for the refugees, or making their home countries better for the migrants? Why is all his money going into unaccountable groups of self-righteous, ego-driven liberofascists whose role seems to be to ram the refugees and migrants down the throats of people who didn’t create them and don’t want them?
I don’t know. I guess it’s because “his, my boy, is a high and lonely destiny…” (© C.S. Lewis)
What Stonky wrote.
i’m shocked at Craig’s Soros brown-nosing. there is plenty of available evidence to contradict most of what Craig wrote, and far too many people btl asking anyone challenging Craig for “evidence”. lazy sods. it’s all out there. google is your friend.
google is your friend
No Google is your enemy. Its purpose is to deceive you by portraying a false picture of the world, so that you can be exploited.
Google and many other ‘free’ search facilities are a transaction. You tell it what you’re interested in, and it catalogues that against your identity, for selling to third parties. In return (or rather as bait), it tries to offer you links that you will like, ie. it’s an opinion entrencher. The effects are everywhere to be seen, as opinions polarise and harden.
Your social credit score is rising citizen
startpage.com is somewhat of an alternative.
Yup. It basically doesn’t work. It’s a Chinese style filter, and serves to ‘disappear’ web-sites which contradict Google World. Were I a finance guy, I’d short it, heavily. It’s search function is now just a shit product. Actually, I used to say that Google Maps was superb, and give them credit for that. I’m not so sure it is anymore. Obviously, it’s very good, but keeps prompting for location. Do people really want to be tracked by Google, and the Chinese communists? I do not think so. Fuck Google.
I used to like google maps but it takes athousand years to load. Bing maps works much better. Googles search function was trashed by Google years ago. Now it just throws a lot of dross that is nothing to do with the thing your searching for.
Your view of Soros is a refreshing counterpoint to Craig’s puff piece, Stonky.
I’m glad that Craig was never treated to tasty comfort food by, say, a White Helmet. We might learn that the Helmets are really hard-working, well-meaning chaps whose reputation has been scandalously and maliciously undermined by self-confirming, metastasizing slander.
I admit to my own inveterate prejudices: when I come across attempts to portray plutocrats sympathetically, especially as benevolent, altruistic humanitarians, my knee-jerk thought is “They’re called filthy rich for a reason.”
One would be hard to hit the nail as accurately as you did, Stonky, top marks, young sir.
If Soros wanted to mould the society he should have stood for election, then he would have a legitimate claim to convince the unwashed of his view of the world. His re-engineering efforts are based solely on his wealth, it’s this that’s wrong with him and our society in general. Those who govern us get leaned upon, are bombarded, often threatened with ideas from individuals fanatically obsessed with an issue, these individuals of whom Soros is one, almost never reflect the views of the majority. More often then not the politicians give up to the pressure, the result is the shite we’re in.
Good one, stonky. Good one, Baron.
Soros seems to be obsessed with “social engineering” and him being the top engineer in the house.
In other words, to play god or sun king or whatever.
His delusions have caused more suffering and death on the planet than a whole bunch of history’s best known villains together.
The only thing speaking for him, is that he is not the only barking mad psychopath billionaire around.
That is why ALL billionaires need to be disowned and their wealth put to better, fairer use.
Cap any filthy rich bastard’s wealth at 10 million quid. Enough for several generations of spoiled descendants to follow.
But not enough to play pretend messiah. Problem solved. Or at least minimised considerably.
This is a spoof , right ?
Don’t ask me. I’m a certified ignoramus.
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Agreed. Money, power in the wrong hands of the self-entitled. Blah blah.
Well spotted!
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It’s funny how no-one seems to see that there is a link between a financiers ability to make money to their ability to influence government policies. The financier doesn’t care about what they invest in (they will switch in a moment), but what they want to have is a stake in something that will change in value in a dramatic way – and changing political policies creates dramatic change. For instance they can buy undervalued assets in Russia under Yeltsin. They can speculate on currency recognising a government has their hands tied. They can bet on rising oil prices due to Middle East wars. They can bet for or against – so it doesn’t matter which way the change goes, but if they can influence or set the policy themselves (for good or bad), they play an insider’s hand.
So, for instance, if a country ‘flips’ out of a dictatorship, or undergoes political instability, asset prices drop and can be mopped up cheaply. If wars happen, defence firms flourish. If regulations increase, large companies face less competition and so become more monopolistic. If tariffs change, trading companies become more profitable. If a financier can cause political change of any sort, and has his investments lined up to take advantage of that change, there is a huge potential for profit – look at the billionaires created out of the fall of the USSR. That’s why the billionaire players funding the political parties, NGOs, academic posts, think tanks, PACs, conferences, and acting behind the scenes are so dangerous. If they believe in a political stance, they should stand for office. Otherwise they should be able to play politics, but not in areas they have investments.
Hobojo
Nail on head in one. The likes of Soros are gambling and we and our money are gambling chips. In condoning such speculative behaviour Craig’s morality muscles, like my granny’s pelvic floor muscles in her 90s, seem to be non-existent. There’s little point in trying to exercise muscles that don’t exist.
Why has Craig become a Soros apologist-lite version ? Because in the UKUSEU only desinformation agents can survive ?
When I worked in Mongolia I met several young people who owed their degrees nd careers to the Soros Foundation.
Soros made his fortune playing by the rules, and now he gives thousands of youngsters throughout the world a real chance. He is a humanist.
When I worked in in Afghanistan/Iraq/Libya/Syria you name it, I saw the remains of hundreds of thousands of hapless and helpless civilians spattered all over the road. They were victims of wars waged by the West’s MIC and their pals in Wall Street and the City of London, in order to make themselves even more obscenely rich than they already were.
When I took George Soros to task over this, he explained very gently and patiently to me: “Look. I have provided the means whereby some Mongolians can get degrees. This more than compensates for all these dead people. It’s like the medieval Catholic Church – you might do whatever appalling evil you liked, but as long as you paid the Church an ‘indulgence’, then it was cancelled out and you were back in God’s grace. So you see, these Mongolian degrees cancel out all the dead people, and allow me to call myself a ‘humanist’…”
I don’t believe that you worked in those places, and I don’t believe you ever met Soros.
Please look up Irony.
The trouble with the blogsphere is that anonymity offers a liars charter, of which you take full advantage. I might say that I don’t believe you know much science, but I know that you deliberately distort facts, because I’ve experienced it.
@Clark 13:15
You have a problem and I don’t want to make it worse so I’m not going to argue with you.
How utterly fucking condescending of you Blunderbuss. You come onto this blog where I was one of the team for years, and you try every trick in the book to pull the wool over my eyes; “Oh, he didn’t fall for that, let’s try this”, over and over. I call you out on it, and now you’re refraining from argument as a favour? Git to fook.
@Clark 13:39
Since you don’t understand irony you are likely to get upset on blogs. You won’t believe me but I am trying to avoid upsetting you.
You’re dead right I have a problem, the same one all humanity is suffering from; where I differ from you is that I can see it. Humans developed language, among other reasons, because it’s useful for deception and manipulation, and it’s so ingrained in us, so much part of our nature, that we’re so blind to our own deception that very few ever come to recognise it. You certainly should have recognised what you were up to; when you find yourself allying with an anti-Semite who proclaims that water doesn’t expand unless it’s in a boiler, you have all the evidence you need. But you show no recognition of the fact.
We all like to see deception exposed, but the liars are always deemed to be someone else, no matter which side’s argument you examine. Just as the majority regard themselves as above average at just about everything. If only we could stop those other people who lie… But what no one wants to consider is that the liars may be a part of everyone’s own mind.
Water can expand, but oceans don’t expand as they are too vast to be heated enough to expand, even the surface won’t expand much because it will evaporate or freeze rather than expand as water, as opposed to steam and ice, but water expands in controlled conditions such as steam engines. Hence saying water expands is true, but a point scoring deceit as an explanation for rising sea levels, which you of course know!
And it’s anti-Semitic to criticise someone with a Jewish name!
Dave, if you genuinely believe that you understand the expansion of water, let alone the oceans, you’re fooling yourself.
Water above 4 centigrade expands with increasing temperature. Global warming is causing sea level to rise, due to expansion of water, and due to ice on land melting.
Then there are the methane deposits:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKRpoP1s_0k
“I don’t believe that you worked in those places, and I don’t believe you ever met Soros…”
Well you are quite wrong. I worked in every one of these places, and the conversation with Soros went word-for-word as I have recorded. Verbatim.
What’s more, Tony Blair was there, bobbing around behind Soros’ shoulder like one of these sorry little jackanapes that used to shelter behind the coat-tails of the school bully, fawning in agreement with every insult and threat he threw out.
Once I’d been completely flummoxed by Soros, Blair popped out and threw in his penny-piece:
“Yar boo sucks!” he said. “All these million dead Iraqis – well I’m telling you they don’t count for gubbins! Because I created several hundred Sure Start jobs in the UK for otherwise unemployable middle-class wimminy people with degrees in Sociology of Batwoman and Lesbotic Yoga! So there!”
Utterly confounded by their arguments, I crept off with my tail between my legs.
surprised he didn’t say you’re either with us or you’re with the evil doers.
@Stonky 14:36
Too much information. Here is a shorter version:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony
Who would live in California? Absolutely terrifying wild fires in Malibu, Thousand Oaks and Woolsey. Trump is blaming poor forest management. In fact dry hot winds are coming in from the Nevada and Arizona desert regions rather than the prevailing damp Westerlies. I don’t think he will countenance climate change as a factor.
California wildfires: Nine dead and more than 150,000 evacuated
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-46155767
Sharp Ears
If you know anything about California climate you will know that Westerlies are NOT the prevailing winds. They are the direction from which precipitation comes and the reason California regularly suffers droughts is because blocking high pressues usually win out, pushing the rain north to Oregon, Washington and British Colombia.
California survives due to two things:
1) Occasional pineapple express set ups depositing metres of snow and more than ten inches of rain into the interior of the state, creating a snowpack for summer melt, rainfall filling up reservoirs and drenching agricultural soil.
2) Continual drainage of the Colorado river and piping in water from the north.
Early November is the end of the hot dry summer, not the middle of the rainy season.
But wildfires are getting bigger, burn for longer and do more damage, and it’s attributable to global warming:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283425168_Extreme_Fire_Season_in_California_A_Glimpse_Into_the_Future#full-text
@ Rhys Jaggar 12.59
WINDS – California lies within the zone of prevailing westerlies and on the east side of the semi-permanent high pressure area of the northeast Pacific Ocean. The basic flow in the free air above the State, therefore, is from the west or northwest during most of the year.
CLIMATE OF CALIFORNIA – Western Regional Climate Center
https://wrcc.dri.edu/narratives/CALIFORNIA.htm
@ Rhys Jaggar November 10, 2018 at 12:59
Check out the Geoengineering Watch link I posted below.
Dane Wigington (geoengineeringwatch) is a charlatan. For instance, he tries to pass off stroboscopic video effects as some mysterious effect of “frequency” upon water, conflating radio waves with physical vibration. He claims this is something that the scientific community are hiding from the public.
Blunderbuss will admit this, but don’t expect a warning; the more people fooled the merrier. Scientific literacy empowers people; that’s why the devious do everything they can to wreck it.
Like so many here, they are so determined that any mainstream opinion or evidence is false and a conspiracy, they are prepared to believe any old nonsense instead, especially if it has all the authority of a website they can link to. lol
Ian, it isn’t just many here; it’s proliferating across the Web. Fake news is the flip side of corporate propaganda.
Unless we want our new media to be policed by government or corporate authorities, we need to raise standards ourselves. This is why I spend so long trying to talk sense to the likes of Blunderbuss. People seem not to recognise the danger. Websites stuffed with misleading nonsense are just as useless as corporate propaganda.
In what way is corporate propaganda not fake news? Any distinction is itself propaganda, no?
Not climate change but changes in climate could play a part.
Well, sharp ears, my Family on my Dad’s side and my in-laws for a start. Then our extended family and an awful lot of friends. It’s quite terrifying watching it all on the news. Trump hate CA, as do most republicans I think they’d happily see her rendered to ash…
I hope they all stay safe. As you say, terrifying.
@ Sharp Ears November 10, 2018 at 10:57
I have a half-sister who lives in California with her family.
The reason for the drought and fires is explained here:
https://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/governor-newsom-geoengineering-and-unprecedented-wildfires/
The PTB really have it in for California.
Ignore Dane Wigington; he’s a charlatan.
@ Clark November 10, 2018 at 16:49
No, thanks, I’d sooner ignore you.
Paul, I can demonstrate the “stationary water” effect that Wigington says is a scientific cover-up. You can do it yourself, with your own camera or smartphone. There’s no need to take my word. Wigington is taking a perfectly normal effect and pretending it proves a scientific conspiracy. Don’t you remember the wagon wheels and aircraft propellers going backwards in the old black-and-white films? Same effect.
Wigington is a charlatan. It may be his purpose to discredit activists, or waste their time. He gets introduced by an ex-CIA spook, for goodness’ sake, who has blown the whistle on absolutely nothing.
Surely Paul’s old enough to remember the stroboscope lines on higher quality turntables back in the day? They worked with 50Hz lights, so you could adjust the turntable’s speed to more accurately spin at 33 1/3 rpm, 45rpm or 78rpm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroboscope
It isn’t _actually_ magic.
@ glenn_nl November 11, 2018 at 00:4I
I certainly remember 78’s, 45’s (records and Colts!) and 33’s, but certainly didn’t have a fancy record player with a strobe light.
In fact I remember, and used to play as a kid, the old wind-up ‘His Masters Voice’ type steel needle record players, with 78’s.
@Paul Barbara 14:43
I’ve been reading this:
https://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/geoengineering-and-greenhouse-gases-the-toxic-tug-of-war/
What Wigington seems to be saying is that geoengineers are trying to combat global warming by spraying aerosols. This seems to have been working for a while but is now resulting in serious side-effects.
Quote: “Atmospheric aerosols have historically had an overall cooling effect while the rapid buildup of greenhouse gases (primarily CO2 and CH4) have forced the climate to warm. The spraying of reflective aerosols from jet aircraft for “solar radiation management” programs in a highly destructive and highly toxic attempt to mitigate global warming has been going on for decades”.
If the alleged geoengineers are part of the effort to combat global warming, I don’t see why they would want to hide what they are doing.
@Paul Barbara
I think your reply to my 20:28 post has been removed.
@ Blunderbuss November 11, 2018 at 00:18
Thanks for the info. It wasn’t that informative, anyway.
here is an excellent video, from an ex-military whistleblower:
‘Geoengineering Whistleblower ~ Ex-Military ~ Kristen Meghan, Hauppauge, NY, January 18th, 2014’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHm0XhtDyZA
@ Blunderbuss November 11, 2018 at 00:18
On reading my comment, I realise it could be taken the wrong way:
‘..Thanks for the info. It wasn’t that informative, anyway…’
What I was referring to was my removed comment info, not your tip-off!.
@Paul Barbara 01:51
Thanks for the link to Kristen Meghan. The jokey bit near the beginning is rather distracting but the rest of it is very interesting.
I don’t see why you should be suspicious of “geoengineers” combating something (such as excessive quantities of CO2 in the atmosphere gradually causing a heating of the planet), when you also claim such an effect doesn’t exist!
I don’t claim that CO2 doesn’t contribute to global warming. I just claim that it is only one of many contributors.
You are one slippery customer, BB. Every time we try to pin you down on these “many contributors”, you dance around claiming they are not considered/ being deliberately ignored.
It is pointed out to you that these other factors are indeed and very much have been addressed, and you lose interest. When asked for evidence about these significant other factors you claim, you pretend to get annoyed and slope off after presenting the most feeble excuses for doubt.
You’re well rumbled, BB. I suggest you choose a new username, and pretend all over again, as the shill for the denialist industry (or useful idiot) that you so obviously are.
But personally, I see you as a rather good example of how weak the denialists’ arguments always prove to be. The same set of tough sounding objections which vapourise upon any questioning, but sound good to an uninformed observer. Over and over again. You must be very proud.
glenn_nl 01:39
You have a very fertile imagination. Nobody has given me any substantial evidence that water vapour or the solar magnetic field have been seriously considered by the IPCC. Yes, they mention them in internal documents, but they hardly ever tell the general public about them, so the general public (including policymakers) are only being told half the story. Who is being slippery? The excuse is “the general public wouldn’t understand it” but I suspect that what the IPCC is worried about is that the general public would understand it.
All you can do is to accuse me of being insincere. That’s not evidence of anything except a personal dislike of me.
– “Nobody has given me any substantial evidence that water vapour or the solar magnetic field have been seriously considered by the IPCC”
Why should anyone give it to you? Are you too lazy to go and look for yourself? You’re not too lazy to spread disinformation, therefore you have a motive; possibly monetary inducement or blackmail or something but probably just ego-inflation. You’ve even been given the links and sources, but still you refuse to look, and continue to proliferate disinformation; you must have a reason.
New communication technology has presented humanity with a choice – centralised control of information, individual responsibility, or nightmare chaos where anything and everything might be as valid as anything else and there’s no rational basis upon which to base decisions. I’m going for option 2. Authoritarians go for option 1. What sort of person goes for option 3?
@Clark 11:32
“Why should anyone give it to you?” Because I don’t need to prove anything. I just give my opinion. Whether you believe it or not is of no importance to me.
“you have a motive; possibly monetary inducement or blackmail or something but probably just ego-inflation”. No, none of those things, but since you don’t believe anything I say, I don’t suppose it will satisfy you.
” You’ve even been given the links and sources, but still you refuse to look, and continue to proliferate disinformation; you must have a reason”. You gave me a link to a page, I commented on that page and then you said I shouldn’t have commented on that page, I should have commented on some other page that you hadn’t linked to.
“New communication technology has presented humanity with a choice – centralised control of information, individual responsibility, or nightmare chaos…” Your definition of individual responsibility seems to be that I shouldn’t express my views because you disagree with them.
“If the alleged geoengineers are part of the effort to combat global warming, I don’t see why they would want to hide what they are doing.”
Because of the bit about it being highly destructive.
@Johny Conspiranoid 08:55
You are probably right. I’m new to the geoengineering theory and I haven’t yet formed an opinion on it. I think it started with good motives (making it rain in places that needed rain) but then got taken over by the military who saw it as a means of using weather as a weapon. The bit about combating global warming might be a cover story to hide the military project.
There was a 745 page report to the US Senate on weather modification in May 1978:
https://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/massive-us-senate-document-on-national-and-global-weather-modification/
You can download the whole document as a pdf file. I don’t think it’s a forgery. If it is, somebody has spent a lot of time writing it.
Why guess? The history of weather modification is well documented. China has an ongoing programme right now – for agricultural purposes in China. The US used weather modification against Vietnam from 1967 to 1972; it was highly classified, and called Operation Popeye. Seymore Hirsh helped expose it in the New York Times. The UN objected, and the US signed and ratified the The Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques in 1978
Anyone genuinely interested can go and look it up – links below based on numerous sources.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Popeye
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_Modification_Convention
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Modification_Operations_and_Research_Board
– “Operation Popeye (Project Controlled Weather Popeye / Motorpool / Intermediary-Compatriot) was a highly classified weather modification program in Southeast Asia during 1967–1972. The cloud seeding operation during the Vietnam War ran from March 20, 1967 until July 5, 1972 in an attempt to extend the monsoon season, specifically over areas of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The operation was used to induce rain and extend the East Asian Monsoon season in support of U.S. government efforts related to the War in Southeast Asia.
– The former U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert S. McNamara, was aware that there might be objections raised by the international scientific community but said in a memo to the president that such objections had not in the past been a basis for prevention of military activities considered to be in the interests of U.S. national security.
– The chemical weather modification program was conducted from Thailand over Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam and allegedly sponsored by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and CIA without the authorization of then Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird who had categorically denied to Congress that a program for modification of the weather for use as a tactical weapon even existed.”
Of course those who prefer to pretend that they have secret knowledge will simply dismiss sources listed at Wikipedia, and promote charlatans like Wigington who bamboozle their audience with simple stroboscopic effects etc.
@Clark 11:59
Wigington is actually on your side. He is just as concerned about man-made global warming as you are. OK, he got the “wiggly water jet” wrong but, just because he made one mistake, that does not mean everything he says is rubbish.
Thank you Paul Barbara for bringing all this up. I am glad this discussion is gaining some traction.
Geo-engineering, just like Soros’ social engineering or genetic manipulation, is yet another way of playing god.
Dr. Rosalie Bertell’s texts are another good starting point to understand what is going on.
Most of this stuff is military. Blocking the enemies’ communication capabilities, stealing moisture from one region and moving it elsewhere (..HAARP), and all kinds of other imaginable and unimaginable mischief.
All of it clandestine, none of it even remotely democratically legitimised. (Yet paid for by us daft underlings)
Just like those foolish stratospheric nuclear bomb tests in the 60s/70s, that went totally wrong and blew a giant hole into the ozone layer, which kept expanding instead of closing back up, like they expected according to their fucked-up calculations. Was anyone ever held responsible? My yes, you and I were! After all, the Club Of Rome quickly jumped in with their bollocks explanations, heaping the blame on regular Joe’s and Beth’s shoulders, scaring everyone into a “one world” “green agenda” submission.
Again, if you’re a sceptic, that’s great! Don’t believe a word! Just open your eyes for once, look up into the sky and observe that friggin foggy SRM pancake in front of the sun throughout the whole day. You will notice how aerosols are sprayed mainly right into the sun’s path, usually beginning in the morning before the sun has come up. You will notice how some of these planes turn their aerosol trails on and off and how some of them won’t show up on your flight radar app. You will notice irregular maneuvres and flight paths. And so on. Please, observe and then draw your conclusions. I do not claim to be a scientist. But I do know that if a scientist makes the same observation hundreds of times, he or she has a damn good case for follow-up research and publication.
I’m used to being called crazy, so go on, throw your tin foil at me. I will use it to rebuild my whole roof.
Johnsoned out!
The Johnson family a-go-go. They attract a disproportionate amount of media access cf other famiglie in the public eye.
Jo Johnson resigns from the Cabinet. He wants another vote!
Boris Johnson resigned from the Cabinet. He is the Brexiteer in Chief.
Rachel Johnson is given a place at the Pledge table on Sky News. Not sure of her position on the EU.
Stanley Johnson has been on LBC this morning with Matt Frei! Earlier on Sky News.
‘Sky News Politics – Stanley Johnson says he supports a people’s vote on Brexit and he believes Theresa May eventually will support a second vote as well Read more on Jo Johnson’s resignation here: https://twitter.com/SkyNewsPolitics/status/1060959747137028096/video/1
They’re simply covering all bases for future political high office from where the family fortune will, no doubt, be exponentially increased.
Reference Scruton.
‘Outrage at govt. advisor’s date rape comments sees right-wing come to his defense
10 Nov, 2018 08:52
Calls to sack philosopher Sir Roger Scruton, from an unpaid government role, have grown after quotes stating there was “no such crime” as date rape were attributed to him.
Buzzfeed News unearthed that in a 2005 lecture, Scruton dismissed both date rape and sexual harassment, saying the latter was just “impoliteness,” claiming that there was a “huge injustice” against those accused.
During the lecture, titled: ‘Sexual Morality for Heathens,’ at Rice University in Houston, Texas, the philosopher said that women who made date rape allegations were withdrawing consent retrospectively, because “the whole thing went too quickly.”
On Saturday, Housing secretary James Brokenshire announced that Scruton was appointed on the government’s new buildings commission.’
https://www.rt.com/uk/443425-scruton-tory-date-rape/
The ‘defenders’ are Toby Young, Niall Ferguson, Anne Applebaum (Washington Post) and Tim Stanley (Torygraph). Apologies if this content has already been posted.
Politicians who care or know about anything will always be buzzed and dive-bombed by politicians who will say anything for money. That’s all politics is in this day and age, a futile refutation of truth by vested interest lobbyists.
Soros is a prime example of a politician who operates for vested interests rather than truth. He has perfected the art of camouflaging the truth in a whole array of fictional issues, like Swift’s satire about which end to open an egg.
But there again if I was the problem , I suppose I would also try to spend my life proving that other people were the problem. Square pegs in round holes do eventually go in if you throw enough money at them. Much to the dismay of the ardent creators of the EU like Craig the occupants of Eastern Europe quite like tyrannical , mean, dictators and when given democracy gravitate towards that system.
So much of politics is about forcing people off the seat of power in order to place an even bigger and nastier backside in its place. So much of real life is knowing that politics will never get better, just swap one group of psychopaths for another , shoe-horned by lies. That really is the meaning of life. There is a much more worthy object of our attention Whose rules are justice itself. available in all good bookshops in translation from the Arabic.
@ Sharp Ears November 10, 2018 at 11:31
That settles it for me – Scruton is a bad ‘un, end of.
What a jerk.
As the British government, Trump and Netanyahu, go about the business of building walls, the British walls more literal than physical, though economically damaging. Today marks the 29th anniverasry of the fall of the Berlin wall.
The building of the Berlin wall, and its time dividing families and friends, (At one point a 1000 people a day were crossing from East to West Berlin, before Khrushchev gave the sanction to built the wall) showed us all just how damaging and alienating such imposing structures can be.
Infact Wall St, got it name from the wall, of a fort built to keep the indigenous people out. As for the Berlin wall, the Centre for Research on Contemporary History Potsdam and the Berlin Wall Memorial Site, reports that at least 138 people were shot dead, suffered fatal accidents or committed suicide after failed escape attempts across the Berlin Wall.
However human nature is if nothing resilient at times, and at 5000 people made it over or under the Berlin wall. The first of many to defect or more appropriately defy the barrier was Corporal Conrad Schumann, a East German border guard.
America POTUS JFK, said of the wall it was not a nice soloution, but it was a hell of a lot better than a war, on that I’m sure we can all agree.
Ironically Germany’s most iconic architectural endeavour, or one of them, the Brandeburg Gate, which was built by Prussian King Frederick William II, is whats left of a 18th century wall.
The Belfast wall is physical.
Yes indeed thank you for that, the walls also exist in Derry, Portadown and Lurgan, maybe one day they’ll go the same way as the Berlin wall.
Quoting from a weighty Guardian editorial directly (Feb 2018), who considered the globalist benefactor George Soros to have been a target of an organised anti-Semitic related hate campaign :- “Mr Soros has for years been the target of organised hate campaigns, often coloured with antisemitism”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/12/the-guardian-view-on-george-soros-the-best-of-the-1 (Percent)
Is this the same Guardian who participated seemingly in an organised anti-Semitic related hate campaign all summer long this year, attacking MI6’s new best friend, according to the Canary and the Star?
https://www.thecanary.co/exclusive/2018/11/09/how-the-guardian-met-accusations-of-inaccurate-and-misleading-reporting-with-a-wall-of-silence/
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/741644/brexit-news-general-election-labour-jeremy-corbyn-mi6?utm_source=color-revolutions-r-us
Is it that they genuinely can’t see the hypocrisy or just confidence that nobody in the mainstream will ever mention it?
They know what they’re doing. Arrogance over confidence
The controllers are totally cynical. Their tongues are forked. That’s all they’ve got to talk with. That goes for when they decide the line on racism or anti-Semitism and when they decide mantras such as “inclusive society”. Those who come on the stage aren’t top controllers and will mostly wear figleaves. Most journalists just want to stay in their jobs and after a quick snort of cocaine and a bump up of their expenses they probably forget what they said the day before anyway.
And another thing is that herd thought is always stupid, whether the herd is collective of top subject experts, communications experts, or whatever. Gustave Le Bon got this absolutely right in his The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895).
Meanwhile Britain’s two elite universities say they encourage “independent” thought. Yeah, right.
“Unless a man has talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden. Of what avail is freedom to choose if the self be ineffectual? We join a mass movement to escape individual responsibility, or, in the words of the ardent young Nazi, “to be free from freedom.” It was not sheer hypocrisy when the rank-and-file Nazis declared themselves not guilty of all the enormities they had committed. They considered themselves cheated and maligned when made to shoulder responsibility for obeying orders. Had they not joined the Nazi movement in order to be free from responsibility?”
– Eric Hoffer
Thanks for the links.
I’ve just had a quick look on the Canary site and was disappointed to see that they (in common with many other previously sane “progressive” sites – CounterPunch et al) – seem to fallen for the “Trump is a fascist” trope (to summarise all the anti-Trump dissembling in one phrase). At best, this represents lazy political posturing and puerile virtue-signalling; at worst, it reveals a stunning lack of knowledge of political theory and absence of critical thinking.
To consider only the MSM for one moment, for decades, the likes of Noam Chomsky and Armand Mattelart were lone Leftist voices calling out their ideological complicity/corruption. The MSM didn’t care because their ‘constituency’ was the Right. The Right didn’t care because, as well as being fundamentally pro-Capitalist (witness the longest, most intense fake news campaign of the 20th Century: the defamation of Communism), this MSM also supported their tactical agenda: the post-WW2 global US interventions and all the rest of it.
Everything changed, however, with the rise of the contemporary ‘populist’ movements reacting against the privations imposed by neo-liberal economic policies (as Wolfgang Streeck explains in his excellent article The Return of the Repressed in the March/April 2017 edition of New Left Review (https://newleftreview.org/II/104/wolfgang-streeck-the-return-of-the-repressed)). In attacking these movements on just about every spurious ground imaginable (from the ‘serious’ (neo-fascism) to the risible (‘Trump-Russia collusion’)), the MSM have simultaneously reduced their appeal to a very narrow range of opinion (they have become, in effect, echo chambers where members of the ‘cult’ talk to one another and not to the outside world), and allowed (finally, under the rubric of “fake news”) their corruption to become apparent to those on the Right as well as to those on the Left.
This attack from “their people”, their (former) constituency, is what is freaking the MSM out. Couple this with the threat from an ‘unmediated’ social media that is increasingly the ‘go to’ source for news/information for the post-baby boomer generations and you can understand where the disingenuous rage is coming from.
“(…) seem to fallen for the ‘Trump is a fascist’ trope (…) At best, this represents lazy political posturing and puerile virtue-signalling; at worst, it reveals a stunning lack of knowledge of political theory and absence of critical thinking.”
Funny that you write a comment of more than 300 words without arguing against it then. Sounds to me as though you’re the one who is engaged in “signalling”.
(I don’t much like your fashionable misuse of the word “trope” either. A trope is a rhetorical device such as irony or simile or antanaclasis. It’s not “something that people keep saying on the internet and that I’m going to call a trope to show how un-crowdfollowy I am”.)
“Political theory” and “critical thinking” indeed! What will you do next – report all the radicals to teacher?
It’s utterly accurate and on the ball to call the Trump movement “fascist”.
The point of concentrating on the media rather than whether the statement “Trump is a fascist” is correct or not (it isn’t) was that the Canary article was punching out the “poor, innocent ikkle Jim Acosta being bullied by mean ol’ Donald Trump” line. I was merely pointing out that that the MSM is anything but innocent and respectable: their blatant partisanship since the 2016 US Presidential election has been shameless and, as I hoped I had illustrated (if only schematically), ultimately self-destructive.
Oh, and my understanding of the meaning of ‘trope’ (and the sense in which it was used above) is that it refers to a lazy, cliched, non-literal device used to convey a negative impression about a subject/individual.
good one, Mr Pasons.
Haha, you’re referring to Canary and the Daily Star as your ‘evidence’? lol
I think the Guardian has been far too accommodating to those promoting the anti-Semitism against Corbyn and Momentum.
The Guardian labours under the outdated ideas of ‘balance’ and ‘right to reply’; the latter is well documented in Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science, though with regard to health journalism rather than politics. If a subject is in other media, the Guardian feels a need to cover it, but then must do so ‘fairly’, which means applying ‘balance’. Of course if the subject was a concocted non-issue in the first place, such as the anti-Semitism smears against Corbyn, the result is that it gets a lot of free publicity, half of it supportive, which plays right into the propagandists’ hands. Where there was nothing, readers are left wondering, “is there or isn’t there?”
Maybe progressive media could apply a principle similar to “Undue Weight”, as used at Wikipedia.
Another thing they could do is drill down into the problem. Conspiracy theories have been proliferating across the net, and a lot of them are either anti-Semitic or have strong anti-Semitic strands, which often go unnoticed by non anti-Semitic believers. Of course, the anti-Semitism will alarm the Jcwish community, who will be more attuned to recognising the anti-Semitism. This genuine concern is then exploited by the neoliberal, anti-Corbyn media. This is another reason that we should clean up our act on-line.
Self-censor or defeat bad ideas with good ones?
Well, the term “self censorship” seems a bit strong. Any media has to choose what to publish; far more is done and said in the world than can ever be reported. My feeling is that the anti-Semitism smears were given far more coverage than they warranted:
http://medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/search-the-archive.html?searchword=anti-semitism
And yes, always challenge wrong stuff with factual stuff.
@Clark – you’re a decent person. I see that. Let me ask you something: what do you think about 4chan turning an OK sign into a WP sign?
MK, I’d never heard of 4chan turning an OK sign into a WP sign. I’ll look it up.
@ Clark – https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ok-symbol-?
It all goes on in our heads. 4chan knows this among many others
OK, I found an article on “Know Your Meme” which says that the Media Matters website was first to claim that the OK gesture meant “White Power”, and 4Chan later decided to popularise the idea.
To me, this sort of thing is a nuisance. That gesture just meant “OK”. I’ve probably used it since the incident without knowing that it had acquired an additional connotation.
I think politics should be about policies. I’ve wondered if politicians should be banned from TV and radio, and media organisations banned from attaching photos of politicians to articles. My own idea seems draconian even to me, but bad decisions are made because emotion outweighs reason. Should one side win a vote because they have good orators or their representatives look good on telly? Should they lose a vote because a media editor chose a particularly gruesome photo of the spokesperson? Maybe governments should be restricted to releasing bland, text only policy statements.
@Clark. hop onto 4chan and tell them that Media Matters thought of it first. Go on, I double dare you 🙂
But seriously, MM, really? Who funds them?
I probably don’t want to talk to 4Chan.
Media Matters funded by Soros perchance? But a specific incident like that can’t really be attributed to funding.
There’s been a huge furore about Trump getting elected, but I think there’s a fairly simple explanation. The Democrats and the “progressive” media had just had their first black US president, and with Trump as the opposition they were convinced they’d now have their first woman – the US had been lagging behind on that. Then the e-mail leak, the Clinton camp’s betrayal of Sanders, and Trump won – and it’s the disappointment that’s triggered the hysteria.
Wow. The Guardian balanced? Are you serious. Please go and read medialens
The silence you hear is cognitive dissonance.
No not balance; “balance”. MediaLens is where I first read about the issue of illusory balance.
The fabricated anti-Semitism row is a very clear example. Surveys etc. indicate that anti-Semitism in the Labour party is about half the level of anti-Semitism in the Conservative party, and lower than in the population in general. In other words, anti-Semitism in the Labour party is a non-issue.
But allegations were made nonetheless. Treating them with “balance” consisted of giving both sides similar coverage, giving the appearance of “controversy”, when in fact there was nothing to report. Viola! “Is-there-or-isn’t-there” out of nothing.
MK, not cognitive dissonance; just shopping 🙂
“Jeremy Corbyn holds meeting with head of MI6 for the first time amid fears a collapse in Brexit negotiations could cause another snap election”
Yes, that’s in the Daily Star
But also
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6374019/Jeremy-Corbyn-holds-meeting-head-MI6-time.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/11/09/jeremy-corbyn-meets-head-mi6-first-time/ (Paywall)
And
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/jeremy-corbyn-meets-mi6-brexit-13566331
These are the ‘unreliable’ scribes that document our lives, and sometimes they transmit nuggets of info, amidst all their nipples and clebs. Read widely, don’t believe all that you read.
Quite amazing to read this from Craig.
The fundamental issue here is the question of plutocracy versus democracy.
It matters not whether Soros is a “good man” or not, or whether he is demonised unfairly or fairly. If you believe in the priniciples of democracy, then you must criticise Soros and his foundation’s work. To attack plutocracy is to stand opposed to the influence of concentrated personal wealth upon the political sphere, and whatever you perceive as Soros’ efforts in the fields of “human rights and media freedom”, you must conclude that he is the epitome of concentrated wealth used to further personal visions or whims. If you are a democrat then there is no space for the George Soros’ of the world, nor the system that promotes them and is in turn promoted by them.
If in fact we do consider the Craig’s take on the moral integrity of Soros (not necessary to criticise the piece), then we see a rhetorical chicanery at play:
‘He has simply managed assets and traded derivative products, particularly in foreign exchange markets, and either by brilliance or sustained good luck, become extremely wealthy from an activity that provides no societal good. Indeed derivatives trading is a cancerous growth on modern economies, where the financial flows vastly exceed the value of trade in actual goods or genuine first party services.
Brilliance or sustained good luck though, are not indicators of moral character (the point being considered by Craig). To become a billionaire in financial speculation requires moral depravity, i.e. a motivation by extreme greed and aggressive competition, it is as simple as that. The rest is mealy mouthed excuse for acquisitiveness and the power principle.
There is an argument circulating in the media, which tries to conflate criticism of Soros (and by extension, criticism of plutocracy in general) with anti-Semitism, and its hard not to read Craig’s article here as an recitation and amplification of this conflation.
Again Mr Murray you show just how naive you still are. Your apologia for Soros makes me cringe. Mr Soroa has funded, for example, the jihadist White Helmets, an organisation created by MI6 for the purpose of producing propaganda to justify the war on the people of Syria. Soros has funded organisations in this country to overthrow the outcome of the referendum on the European Union. He has funded Russophobic organisations such as European Values, which has used his money to smear hundreds of people as Putin’s “useful idiots”. He has funded organisations such as Political Capital Institute, an organisation that specialises in propagandising against both Orban and Putin simultaneously (which is neatly efficient). Soros used his money to fund the violent illegal overthrow of the democratic government of the Ukraine, putting Stepan Bandera idolising neo-Nazis in control of the state. Soros funded the riots that supposedly were a spontaneous reaction to the election of Trump in 2016. This list could be extended into a book that spans several volumes. To characterise such a list as the behaviour of a “good man” makes one wonder about your moral sense. As for the logical fallacy of claiming any criticism of Soros is anti-Semitic: this is pure nonsense: Soros is not a Jew; he is an atheist. It is the Nazis, and their ilk, who think Jewish is a “race” – everyone else knows it is a religion.
“Soros funded the riots that supposedly were a spontaneous reaction to the election of Trump in 2016”
Yes, I remember those. Rioters all dressed in brand-new designer “combat wear”.
@ MJ November 10, 2018 at 13:46
Talking about ‘..Rioters all dressed in brand-new designer “combat wear”.’, get a load of this:
‘Ukraine Protests Carefully Orchestrated: The Role of CANVAS, US-Financed “Color Revolution Training Group”:
https://www.globalresearch.ca/ukraine-protests-carefully-orchestrated-the-role-of-canvas-us-financed-color-revolution-training-group/5369906
Good that P Charles keeps bees but have you ever seen anything like these hives. Ridiculous or what. How the bees by royal appointment live. 🙂
Prince Charles gets three handmade beehives at Highgrove for his birthday
10 November 2018
When Fortnum & Mason commissioned a birthday present for the Prince of Wales, its choice couldn’t have been more appropriate: three exquisitely handcrafted beehives, a reference not only to the Prince’s concern for the plight of bees, but also to the hives on the roof of the Fortnums building, from which it produces its Piccadilly London Honey.
The Prince suggested a designer for the project: Anthony Paine, an architect known for blending classical references with contemporary buildings, whom he met several years ago and who has since worked on designs for the Prince in Cornwall and at Poundbury.
“The beehives were quite an extraordinary project,” Paine reflects. “I’ve not worked on anything… paywall
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/luxury/design/prince-charles-gets-three-handmade-beehives-highgrove-birthday/
Prince Charles, is apparently the oldest ever British heir in waiting, William IV, is the next oldest. Prince Charles, is also the longest serving Prince of Wales also.
He’s lived a cosseted life of privilege.
Gosh, yes! I thought “How about Edward VII?” but by the time he was Prince Charles’ present age he was dead – after being King for nine years.
As for the “cosseted life of privilege”, not really. Prince Charles never got a penny from the Civil List or the arrangements that replaced it; all his income comes from the Duchy of Cornwall. According to Wikipedia, “For the fiscal year ending 31 March 2013, the duchy was valued at £763 million, and annual profit was £19 million”.
So Prince Charles and his entire household have a total income of £19 million, and even if you count all the Duchy’s property as his (which it isn’t, because he can’t sell it off) he still wouldn’t even be a billionaire.
On the flip side, Prince Charles has normally carried out 500-600 official engagements every year for most of the past 50 years. That’s close to two every single day – weekends included.
I doubt if many of us would be willing to accept the opportunity to live out our whole lives in a gilded cage. Prince Charles has often come under fire (metaphorically) for speaking out about topics he thinks important – although as heir to the throne he arguably has that right. (He has made it clear that, as King, he would never do so and would comply strictly with the constitutional rules, as his mother has).
He has also come under fire literally, by fanatics who see him as a suitable target because of his role in the British establishment. And, of course, his great-uncle Lord Louis Mountbatten was murdered, with members of his family, by the IRA.
If you disapprove of the institution of constitutional monarchy, you should say so. But otherwise, it is utterly unfair to criticize the Royal Family for living lives of luxury. What country allows its head of state and family to live otherwise?
Bring back les rois fainéants?
Oh please spare me your royalist genuflecting, on how Prince Charles isn’t privileged or cosseted, and has terrible life in the spotlight.
It must be hell, receiving the best medical attention money can buy, or being chauffered around, or flown around in private jets. It must be unbearable, eating the best of foods at the swankiest of hotels, and it must be god awful living in the best of apartments that taxpayer money can buy.
It must be horrendous meeting business captains, who pass on inside info, or attending lavish balls and galas, without putting your hand in your pocket, because you know fine well the taxpayer is paying for you.
It must have been difficult growing up as a child, cosseted in every fashion, and receiving the best education the state can provide. God only knows how poor Charles managed as worldwide entrepreneurs, businessmen, global firms and nation states fawned over him, and presented lavish gifts to him, in exchange for royal approval or a word in the right ear.
It must have been a terrible burden knowning his children would receive all the benefits he’s received, with minimal financial expenditure, no worries for them getting onto the property ladder, or having to hold down a job.
Of course it mustve been so hurtful, to Charles when his Spiderweb letters, attempting to influence the governments of the day were rejected and made public, but I’m sure, Charles must live in fear of any Panama Papers revelation coming to light.
His life long cosseted mother, the Queen, was shown to own shares in a company (Brighthouse) that strips the poor of their money using high interest rates, and his son Prince Andrew, was caught feathering his own nest instead of bringing business to the UK, when he was a so called British ambassador for trade.
There’s a whole telephone books worth of shit on the parasitical royals but I can’t be arsed explaining it all to you.
“It must have been difficult growing up as a child, cosseted in every fashion, and receiving the best education the state can provide”.
Actually Prince Charles attended Gordonstoun – the same school as my brother – and Trinity College, Cambridge – the same college as me.
And that certainly isn’t because my family were wealthy plutocrats. My parents were Scots teachers, which meant they lived very frugally – but they knew the value of education.
If you think that boys at Gordonstoun are “cosseted in every fashion”, I suggest you inform yourself better. Sleeping on hard beds without extra blankets in winter, often rising at dawn; learning self-reliance and survival skills; serving on the school’s lifeboat crew; cross-country running in all weathers; and actual cold baths. After that, anyone would be quite ready for the Army.
And of course “the state” could have provided a far better education in terms of study and passing exams, for little or no more money. The choice of Gordonstoun was far-sighted and shrewd, helping to prepare Charles for the life he was going to lead.
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“There’s a whole telephone books worth of shit on the parasitical royals but I can’t be arsed explaining it all to you.”
@Repub Agreed. There should be no place for neo-feudal, moronic parasites in any civilised society.
Sub-human parasites are the causes of war, Grenfell, food banks, Aberfan, Orgreave, Peterloo, exploitation of those less privileged.
They have a special day once a year to glorify war and withholding resources from ordinary humans.
Sláinte.
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@ Tom Welsh November 10, 2018 at 17:17
‘…And, of course, his great-uncle Lord Louis Mountbatten was murdered, with members of his family, by the IRA…’
Perhaps with a little help from our ‘Dirty Tricks’ brigade?
‘Royal blown up by IRA ‘backed united Ireland’: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2007/dec/29/uk.past
And don’t forget HR Whatsit’s highly likely role in Princess Di’s murder…
Hang in there, Lizzie…
“And don’t forget HR Whatsit’s ‘highly likely’ role in Princess Di’s murder…”
Thanks! I couldn’t have put it more elegantly myself. Highly likely, just like the GU’s responsibility for the Skripal non-murder.
@ Sharp Ears November 10, 2018 at 13:42
They may well thrive. I doubt HR Whatsit allows the use of neonicotinoids, glyphosate or has cell-phone towers on his estate.
I do hope the bees don’t sting him!
What a fail!
Macron’s great grandfather was British.
‘Butcher George Robertson was just 19 during the Somme campaign, and won medals for his service before staying on in France after the war.
He married Frenchwoman Suzanne Leblond in Abbeville in 1919, and the couple had three daughters, including Jacqueline, who was born in 1922. Jacqueline went on to marry Andre Macron, and their son, Jean-Michel, is the father of Emmanuel Macron. The current French leader was born in 1977 in Amiens, the capital of the Somme department and the site of its own battle in 1918.’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6348983/Macron-meet-Somme-British-great-grandfather-fought.html
Interesting stuff Sharp Ears, although I would say that this type of thing is probably more common than you think, when you go back a few generations.
For instance Angela Merkel’s paternal grandfather was of Polish descent, he was a German policeman, who fought for the Polish Blue army, which caused a stir in Germany a few years back. I think its because the Polish Blue army fought against Germany during WWI.
Merkel’s father, Horst Kasner, was a member of Hitler’s Youth.
Is “irony” really the word for what will probably happen before March, as a British government takes office that favours a rock hard Brexit, put into office by events that have been triggered by the DUP, a bunch of corrupt flute-playing UVF-niks who are lying through their teeth when they say they care so much about keeping the Irish border open, and who are actually motivated by their hatred of the EU because they think it’s a den of Catholics?
Yes and I did say I hope the DUP bring the Tory government down, because not everything is 100% already determined.
No, N_, it’s because they think the EU is a den of thieves.
And they are quite right. Sanctimonious, hypocritical, two-faced, warmongering, murderous, cowardly thieves. Tony Blair would be right at home among them.
Luckily there’s zero chance of Soros’s billions influencing democracy in Europe, because he brought Craig a pizza once.
*bought* !
Some dedicated ‘Fed’ watchers observe pizza deliveries to the building as an indicator of late night policy disputes and even take on such jobs, so ‘Soros may well have brought pizzas at an earlier stage.
@ Kerchée Kerch;ee Coup
What are your favorite toppings? 🙂
This talk about Scruton has got me wondering about his recent activities and they are depressingly predictable. He has written a novel called “The Disappeared” about an immigrant child grooming gang and was given a fawning review in the Spectator by Douglas Murray (hopefully no relation to Craig). This Douglas Murray is himself the author of a tome called “The Strange Death of Europe” which gives us the usual doom mongering about the white race being swamped by the inferior breeds. See here:
https://medium.com/@buffsoldier_96/the-strange-case-of-douglas-murray-74a670150172
Roger has also been busy winning something called “Jeane Kirkpatrick Award for Academic Freedom”. (yes I’m afraid there is such a thing). Here is the account for those who can read it without vomiting:
https://acton.org/publications/transatlantic/2018/10/12/sir-roger-scruton-how-preserve-freedom-west
An excerpt from Roger’s speech:
“I’ve enjoyed the increasing certainty that there is a real distinction between true and fake knowledge, between truth and ideology, between the affirmation of an inheritance and resentment at one’s inability to receive it.”
The sting is in the last bit. The division is between those who affirm their inheritance (this inheritance seen as some kind of monolithic absolute good that must not be questioned) and – here it comes – “resentment” at one’s “inability to receive it”. Thus all critique, all questioning of the values of your superiors must be dismissed as a sign of personal failing. Here we have the usual Scruton emotional blackmail. You, puny commoner, have had bestowed upon you the glories of Western Civilisation. Those who are your infinite superiors created this world for you and you either bow down unconditionally or, if you attempt to engage in any critique at all, then you have shown yourself up as ….an enemy!
Scruton comes across like the Mafia Don who ways, “I bring you the finest food, the finest wine. And you wonder where it came from? Oh you shame me! You shame the family! You shame yourself!”
“He has written a novel called “The Disappeared” about an immigrant child grooming gang…”
Have you read that book? Or do you simply disapprove of books about certain types of criminal activity?
I am suspicious about the focus on “foreign culture” whenever a case of child grooming occurs and which involves non-whites. I have noticed glowing reviews of Scruton’s book but they tend to turn up in places like “Standpoint” magazine described here:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/can-prospect-and-standpoint-be-the-best-of-enemies-812040.html
An excerpt:
“Standpoint’s editor, Daniel Johnson, says it’s time the West stood up for itself: “There are certain dangerous fallacies that have grown up over the past few years, which Standpoint will challenge – myths such as multiculturalism or political correctness, which is stifling comment on anything from the environment to religion.”
Conservative with a small c, the magazine is staking out similar ground to Prospect, the centre-left monthly for which Johnson still writes. A former assistant editor at The Times and a writer for the Telegraph, he adds: “The old left and right divide is no longer valid. You have the spectacle of Ken Livingstone on the left finding common cause with the Islamists, while many on the liberal left have been made homeless by the Iraq war. The anti-US or anti-West view dominating the left is alien to them – this magazine will be a new home for them.””
It’s the same basic notion: We are under attack! We – the truly civilized are being menaced by those strange inferior and downright sinister outside forces. As if e.g. paedophilia was a specifically non-Western matter. Of course Scruton just loves this stuff and will pander to those prejudices gladly.
Who, apart from you, has ever stated that pedophilia was a specifically non western matter.? The media is full of stories about public figures ranging from Jimmy Savile through to allegations about Ted Heath. Who in their right mind could reach the conclusion that you postulate?
Almost certainly you consider opening yourself to allegations of stupidity is a price worth paying in order to muddy the waters. You are probably not talking about pedophilia, more likely you are referring to hebephilia – but hey who’s going to notice. Slip that one through and I’m on my way to victory.
The UK has a statutory age of consent of 16. Therefore if you are over the age of 16 and you have sex with someone who is say 15 then you are guilty of statutory rape. Not one single Muslim majority country has an age of consent – in these countries it is assumed that the age of consent coincides exactly with puberty and thus the actual age of consent could be as low as 11.
Why would you expect people to change their cultural thinking just because they happen to be in a country that is not reflective of their culture? I have been in many paces where alcohol is illegal – but that did not stop the British from drinking as much as possible when they could get their hands on alcohol. So why would people that habitually practice hebephilia stop doing so when they arrive in a country that specifically criminalizes the practice?
If you don’t like people like Douglas Murray, (who you falsely accuse of speaking about “inferior breeds”) then you had better wise up and start addressing these questions on your own initiative.
“Who, apart from you, has ever stated that pedophilia was a specifically non western matter.? ”
You just did.
Ah I see that like me English is not your first language. I guess I must have paid more attention in class than you.
“Not one Muslim majority country has an age of consent”
You are trying to practice disinformation:
https://www.ageofconsent.net/world
And very interestingly you are trying to defend LGBT rights but really not because that is what ultra conservatives do but because it suits your particular argument.
The word “paedophilia” is as ludicrous as “homophobia” – which, of course, means “fear of the same”.
Judy: I know I’m different, but from now on I’m going to try and be the same.
Howard: The same as what?
Judy: The same as people who aren’t different.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069495/quotes/qt0293073
“Paedophilia” means “love of children” – a most natural feeling, and something we should all be capable of. Ever since ancient Athens there has been a perfectly good word “paederast”, meaning someone who is sexually attracted to children. Since, however, ancient Athenians did not countenance sex with children any more than we do, the young men – usually in their twenties – who cultivated relationships (platonic or physical) with youths were supposed to wait until the eromenos (beloved) was an ephebe – that is 18 years old.
Once we start misusing words so radically, we are well on the road to lynching paediatricians and pedagogues. Even pedestrians should be careful.
Who has stated that others have stated “that pedophilia was a specifically non western matter”?
Strawman nonsense. You however, do “focus” on specific cultures routinely and you have rather tediously argued for a cultural predisposition toward paedophilia fairly directly as and more often by implication, as is required when the evidence and history do not support your general view of things.
Is it your job?
@ J Someone called Makropulos implied that there were efforts (naturally undefined efforts) afoot to to cause people to believe that pedophilia was a specifically non western matter.
I replied to that remark by pointing out the utter inanity of anyone believing that such could be the case. There is nothing strawman about it at all. Someone makes a remark that is demonstrably and provably false and I merely pointed this out.
This man has been convicted of horrendous crimes, and those crimes have been given a full airing in the media. Who could possibly believe that this has anything to do with any culture other than the culture from which he came
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Watkins_(Lostprophets)
or how about this guy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Black_(serial_killer)
There is no shortage of British criminals and only an insane person would pretend otherwise
I have never, ever argued that a cultural disposition exists toward pedophilia. I have however pointed out that a cultural disposition exists which promotes, or at least looks benignly, on hebephilia. These claims can be evidenced by reference to the law as it exists in certain jurisdictions. If you don’t like it perhaps you should spend less time on misrepresenting my words and more time lobbying various governments around the world to change their legal codes.
My point Loony is that when you here about a Muslim paedophile you are led to believe that he is a paedophile BECAUSE he is Muslim. When you hear about a white paedophile you are led to believe that he is a paedophile DESPITE his whiteness.
“I am suspicious about the focus on “foreign culture” whenever a case of child grooming occurs and which involves non-whites…”
Then stick to reading the Guardian, and you won’t ever have to worry about the “focus on foreign cultures” whenever a case of child grooming occurs that involves non-whites.
As a result of a heroic effort, they have managed refrain from providing a single column-inch of reporting on more than half of the grooming gang cases that have gone to trial so far. And on the rare occasions that they feel themselves forced to provide some coverage, it constitutes a single news report that provides the names of those convicted, along with the briefest possible mention of the years of bestial abuse of under-age girls that is generally involved. The last time they published an opinion piece on the subject was about six years ago.
In contrast, they were able to milk the story of a white working-class footballer who didn’t actually rape anyone to the tune of one hundred and eighty articles (count taken some time ago – might now be out of date).
Yep. Stick to the Guardian. That would be my advice.
@SA In order to be meaningful an age of consent must be expressed in numerical terms. The phrase “must be married” is not useful in determining an age of consent.
This is true for determining the age of or for anything. If you were to ask “how old is a tree?” The answer “it has leaves” would not be informative. “How old is the earth?” “It contains rocks”
Do you see the utter and total inanity of your remarks? Do you feel shame and embarrassment? I cannot believe that anyone can possibly be as stupid as you would have people believe you are.
Mor can I beleive your blatant obfuscations. You stated:
” Not one single Muslim majority country has an age of consent ”
Now that is a very clear statement in my view. Now back to this website:
https://www.ageofconsent.net/world
Age of Consent by country:
Algeria 16
Bangladesh 14
Azerbaijan 16
Egypt 18
Malaysia 16
Mauritania 16
Tunisia 18
Just a sample but all muslim majority states. The countries you quote Must be Married are our friends and allies such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, UAE and so on,
So please admit that you were wrong otherwise I wil reach other conclusions.
Any articles I’ve read by Roger Scruton have always been inscrutable (excuse the pun) and boring.
It doesn’t surprise me that another cultural snob, Douglas Murray likes his book.
Douglas Murray makes me want to throw something at the telly every time he makes his all too frequent, snotty, arrogant, condescending appearances.
There aren’t many people that really annoy me on TV but he and his Henry Jackson Society pals really make my blood boil!
I don’t know much about Soros but learning that he supports people like the Clintons is enough to put me off.
One of the easiest things in the world to accomplish would to be to make Douglas Murray disappear from public life. All you have to do is answer the questions he poses and then he would have nothing left to say.
For example the western world continues with a program of gay rights enacting all manner of legislation from anti discrimination laws through to gay marriage. Contemporaneously large numbers of people from dis-similar cultures are arriving as immigrants or refugees. A survey conducted in the UK revealed that over 50% of UK residents who adhere to the Muslim faith believe that homosexuality should be illegal – a minority believe that it should be punishable by death.
Exactly how do you reconcile these two competing forces? It could of course be that the question is too hard and so you develop the concept of racist questions and continue to deal with Douglas Murray by throwing as much shit at him as your little hands can hold.
No chance of making Douglas Murray disappear from public life. He is well supported by the old neo-con machinery. And his Strange Death of Europe book has glowing references to Enoch Powell and Ray Honeyford – the teacher who told us:
“‘Cultural enrichment’ is the approved term for the West Indian’s right to create an ear splitting cacophony for most of the night to the detriment of his neighbour’s sanity, or for the Notting Hill Festival whose success or failure is judged by the level of street crime which accompanies it.”
Of course these reactionary twats have carefully refashioned their vicious sentiments but as Stewart Lee noted, if political correctness has achieved nothing else, it has at least forced the Right to find more imaginitive ways to cloak their inherent racism.
Thank you for proving my point.
You will not address the questions that Murray poses but instead prefer diversion and insults.
Do you think homosexuality should be illegal? If so what do you propose to say to gay rights activists?
Do you think that homosexuals should not be subjected to any form of discrimination? If so what do you propose to say to those that wish to outlaw homosexuality and in some cases punish it by death?
All you have to do is provide a cogent and logically coherent answer and Murray will disappear from public life irrespective of his sources of support.
For so long as you pursue diversionary tactics, and fail to answer the questions then support for Douglas Murray will grow. You could say that people like you are the single most important reason that Murray stays in the public eye. Some would find it strange that those who appear to detest him so much are in fact his greatest source of support.
If you look in a mirror all you will see is Douglas Murray because you are he as he is you, but sadly you are not altogether. It has a name and it is called mental illness.
‘Reactionary twat’ Honeyford famously needed police protection to carry out his headmasterly duties after the Courts ruled his suspension by Bradford Council was unlawful, and subsequently took early retirement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Honeyford
Makropulos- should summary suspension from lawful employment and/or forced early retirement be the fate of all ‘reactionary twats’ in the UK, or was Honeyford in your view a special case ?
Homosexuality? What on earth are you talking about Loony? Oh I get it! Murray was a raging liberal with regard to gays but just wanted to ban everyone else. And as for Murray’s neocon credentials just check out this:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080201133647/http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/000809.php
It’s all here. Fukuyama, end of history, Leo Strauss etc. He even quotes that hack Mark Steyn who gleefully self-decribes as a “fully paid up right wing bastard”.
And as for Mr Honeyford, after his preposterous essay, he was targeted by parents who certainly had a right to express themselves. If they were disgusted by a teacher who treated their own offspring with such utter condescension you can hardly blame them.
You seem to have a lot to say about nothing, but nothing to say with regard to the questions posed.
You seem to be a cheerleader for a society that supports gay rights whilst simultaneously supporting groups of people that want homosexuality to be illegal.
How do you reconcile those two competing forces. It is a simple enough question, albeit a question that you appear fanatically dedicated to not answering
Loony you stated
“You seem to be a cheerleader for a society that supports gay rights whilst simultaneously supporting groups of people that want homosexuality to be illegal.
How do you reconcile those two competing forces. It is a simple enough question, albeit a question that you appear fanatically dedicated to not answering”.
You are using a fallacious argument as I pointed up above, but as usual, when it suits you you do not answer. In your defence of certain people but using a different set of arguments, some of which is disinformation.. See my earlier comment and if you have some useful answer please do so,
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/11/scruton-and-soros/comment-page-5/#comment-801953
What’s with the gay rights obsession Loony? It was you that mentioned gay rights. My case was Douglas Murray’s tacit racism. What you have done is to provide a complete distraction and then complain that I am avoiding your complete distraction!
The thing is easy to understand. Soros is a globalist. Therefore any who criticize Soros or Globalism are racists, sexists and anti-Semitic swine who should be expunged from the face of the Earth.
That incidentally is what the current incipient US civil war is about: Nation state democracy versus global governance by people you never heard of and wouldn’t trust if you had heard of them.
Take you pick: democratic nationalism and the welfare state, or plutocratic globalism and free pizza for members of the loyal servant class.
It’s not solely a US phenomenon, it’s a global, cultural, information war (among other things). Interesting use of memetic warfare.
“It’s not solely a US phenomenon”
No, obviously not. It’s Phony Bliar and Thereason May vesus the people of England, Merkel versus die deutsches volk, and post-nationalist Justin Trudeau against the Canadian people, etc. Difficult, in fact, to find a European majority country not dominated by traitors, other than Hungary and Russia, that is.
The worst of it is that globalism has so much superficial attractiveness. Who wouldn’t want the end of war, discrimination, chauvinism, and all kinds of hatred?
Sadly, once you start to learn about human nature you find that it just doesn’t work. One of the most depressing things I have ever experienced is seeing a great mind like Bertrand Russell or Einstein arguing for a world government that would abolish war. And what if some nation or other group starts arming itself with a view to using violence to further its interests? Oh, that’s easy – the world government would have all the atomic bombs, so they could just evaporate the rebels.
You also become familiar with Imhoff’s Law: a bureaucracy is very much like a cesspool, the really big chunks float to the top. And the bigger the bureaucracy…
Streeting and Berger take a break from demonizing Corbyn, to attack Scruton. The well worn a-s meme.
Sack Roger Scruton over Soros comments, demand Labour MPs
Housing commission chair under fire over ‘antisemitic conspiracy theories’
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/nov/06/sack-roger-scruton-over-soros-comments-demand-labour-mps
Old news.
Many people believed that they were ‘making the world a better place’ … I’d argue that Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Tony Blair, Clinton, Bush and many others have shared that belief in themselves with Soros… You should judge their actions by the outcomes not the intentions… Soros bet against the pound in the ERM nonsense and made a lot of money … I can’t believe he did that to make a better world and the result was few people in the UK losing their homes… I don’t blame or demonise Soros but saying that he is a ‘good man’ just because ‘he means well’ is a bit like saying ‘Hitler wasn’t all bad because he was a vegetarian’ …. The logic in your piece is a bit skewed … If you think that Soros’ action are good, then prove it… Your defence of him is more sloppy than the attacks you are objecting to…
Don’t forget Bono.
Is it possible to pursue a ruthless business ethic while at the same time being a private philanthropist? Good question. I have recently been reading about the history of Purdue Pharma, creators of Oxycontin and the unscrupulous way it was marketed and the legacy of misery, in the form of the opioid crisis in America, that has resulted.
Purdue Pharma owners, the Sackler family, used their company’s vast profits, to turn themselves into high philanthropists. This is a technique described by Stanford University Professor Robert Reich, as ” reputation laundering”. I assume some of the bankers behind the sub prime mortgage scandal were also generous philanthropists in private life.
Is it possible to be ethical in business and honourable? Yes I happen to know back from early days when we worked together. one of the UKs most successful businessmen and would describe him as both. But he made his fortune selling something useful at a price people could afford.
I am not sure just how honourable it is possible to be when dealing in the financial markets where the naivety or ignorance of your investors or competitors is regarded as as weakness to exploit.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/13/nyregion/13madoff.html
Philanthropy
“Is it possible to pursue a ruthless business ethic while at the same time being a private philanthropist?”
That seems simple enough. What is the final balance of good done versus evil? Usually you will find that the evil outweighs the good by several orders of magnitude – especially since the evil is done secretly, while the good is blazoned to the four corners of the earth and often much exaggerated.
And, of course – as with “foreign aid” – even what is claimed to be virtuous and altruistic often masks selfish, grasping evil.
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Yes. Rep laundering (at the expense of the have-nots). Sandel refers also.
Great post.
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The price of censorship, enjoy your mental illness!
Bye, petite bourgeois!
Is the Torygraph right to talk about Trump and Macron and a “Twitter spat” in such a way as to suggest that Macron has lowered himself to using that vile medium? I’ll be surprised and disappointed if so. I’m hoping it’s just a false implication that the subeditor placed in the headline.
In recent days Trump has been looking more and more on the ropes. He was doing his favourite masturbation and 666 hand signal in Jim Acosta’s face, combining it with finger jabbing, like a man who’s about to be carted off to a mental ward.”Let me run the country,” he whined. Now he does the between-the-legs triangle (see the above link) as Macron puts his hand on his knee. One day Pepe and Kek won’t be able to save this man. He’s not going to stay in office as long as Angela “Quadrilateral” Merkel.
Is Trump’s hand signal a variation of Merkel’s, known as the Merkel-Raute? Was he sending it to Macron?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkel-Raute
I think Donald would be better suited to Brigitte and Melania to Emmanuel. 🙂
I don’t think Macron needed his schoolteacher as his beard.
@Paul – I don’t think she’s just a beard. One question is how was she allowed to stay in her job at a Jesuit institution when the relationship was known about. Macron was picked out early on.
It may be related to Merkel’s sign, yes. Trump has used it for many years when sitting down.
In other news, I was pleased to see that Emmanuel Macron has said clearly that he prefers not to conduct diplomacy through tweets. It was about time that a foreign leader played the grownup towards Trump rather than butt-kissing him (most leaders), romantically holding his hand (Theresa May), looking at him as though he’s a bit eccentric but he’s still a lovely darling (Angela Merkel), or joining him in a game of tough alpha ball-crushers have a capos’ meeting (Vladimir Putin).
Interesting thing about this discussion is that no one has offered any reason to suppose that Scruton is either anti-Semitic or inaccurate in his claim that ““Many of the Budapest intelligentsia are Jewish, and form part of the extensive networks around the Soros empire,”
Are we to suppose, Craig, that many of the Budapest intelligentsia are not Jewish? I think that would be incorrect.
Are we, then, to suppose that Many of the Budapest intelligentsia do not form part of the extensive networks around the Soros empire? As to the truth or falsehood of that, I cannot speak, but in what way is it anti-Semitic?
Unless clarification on these points yields unanticipated proof of anti-Semitism it seems that you are hoping for another pizza.
“Are we to suppose, Craig, that many of the Budapest intelligentsia are not Jewish? I think that would be incorrect”.
No, you are just not allowed to mention anything like that. Whether it’s true makes no difference.
“No, you are just not allowed to mention anything like that. Whether it’s true makes no difference.”
Yes, Britain seemed a better country in the days whenNowaday people would say “sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”
Nowadays, it seems that anything said by non Jews about Jews that does not amount to vigorous self-flagellation is a serious offense.
“Northern Ireland’s four pro-Remain parties will display “a crucial show of unity at a crucial time” when they travel to London together on Monday, Sinn Féin Deputy Leader Michelle O’Neill has said.”
“The party leaders will be meeting with Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn, the Liberal Democrats, SNP and Plaid Cymru.”
https://www.derryjournal.com/news/pro-remain-ni-leaders-to-meet-with-labour-snp-and-plaid-cymru-in-crucial-show-of-unity-1-8700597
It doesn’t look like Theresa May will meet with them, I wonder if her boss Arlene Foster, told her not to.
What in god’s name are you wittering on about?
On this, Ian, we agree.