This blog remains, as far as I am aware, blocked in Russia. (Am receiving messages it is not currently blocked, at least on several major ISPs, which is good news). It is, to the best of my knowledge, the only western political blog of wide readership which advocates stripping Russia of all the colonial possessions it obtained contemporaneously with, indeed in competition with, the growth of the British Empire. That a blog which champions Independence for, inter alia, Dagestan, Chechnya and Tatarstan, and which says Crimea should be given back to the Tatars, is condemned by the political Establishment as pro-Kremlin is, on the face of it, paradoxical.
The reason for it is, of course, that this blog also views Russia’s opposition to neo-con Western militarily enforced hegemony throughout the Middle East and developing world, as an essential though inadequate counter-balance. It also combats the rampant Russophobia of our media and political class, and the widespread, deliberate whipping up of hatred against a great culture and people, central to our European heritage. That involves exposing propaganda lies like Salisbury and Douma. The Establishment really do hate that. As neither Salisbury nor Douma, nor much else in the Western narrative, stands up to even a little intellectual scrutiny, the media and Establishment seek to demonise this blog as in some sense a Russian agency. The amusing thing is, of course, that neither this blog nor its author has ever received a penny from any Russian source, while the Establishment rolls around in oligarch cash.
There was an amusing new twist this week where the Times newspaper claimed that Russian trolls were behind the “attacks” on Nicola Sturgeon, otherwise known as telling the truth about Nicola Sturgeon’s actions. Why the Times, and most of the unionist media Establishment especially the BBC, has been so very keen to defend Nicola Sturgeon and under-report the evidence against her (and continue to make wild accusations against Alex Salmond) would be an interesting digression. Suffice it to say, that after five years with a pro-Independence majority at Holyrood, after Brexit, and with a clear mandate for a referendum on Independence, Nicola has not called one.
One of the Integrity Initiative’s on-call Russophobes, David Leask, wrote in the Times:
Mainstream Scottish nationalists have long suspected pro-Kremlin social media of targeting the first minister, particularly since her criticism of the Salisbury attacks in 2018.
However, analysts have rarely been able to draw a significant direct line between so-called troll factories and tweets aimed at Sturgeon and her party.
New data published by Twitter on hundreds of Kremlin or Iranian accounts removed for attempting to “manipulate the platform” show some activity with a Scottish flavour.
About two dozen accounts linked to the authoritarian governments tweeted or retweeted pro-independence or other Scottish messaging and have been banned.
Two accounts Twitter linked to the Iranians, each with many thousands of followers, have repeatedly retweeted Craig Murray, a blogger and former ambassador to Uzbekistan, who is one of Sturgeon’s most ferocious critics. There is no suggestion Murray, who has a substantial online presence, was aware of or sought such support.
So there we have it. It is the Russians targeting Nicola, because my 90,000 twitter followers included 2 “linked to” Iran, who retweeted some of my tweets.
Which twitter accounts were these? Which tweets did they retweet? We don’t know. One of Sturgeon’s acolytes tweeted the “evidence” for this, which was a link to a twitter statement on its website on the suspension of Russian-linked accounts. That gave a link to what it claimed as “evidence”, but that was simply a cache of 1.5 Gb worth of tweets, very many thousands of them, with no explanation as to why they were said to be Russian linked. How the “Iranian-linked” tweets involving me were pulled out of this enormous cache – and why – is a very interesting question. [I can’t actually rediscover the tweet or the report page on twitter with its unevidenced assertions. If anybody can, please post it in comments below]
The Times report is an entirely evidence-free zone, but its principal complaint appears to be that “Kremlin-linked” accounts have been tweeting material under the hashtag #dissolvetheunion. It then gives this quote:
Joanna Szostek, who teaches political communication at the University of Glasgow, described it as the latest move in a game of “whack-a-mole . . . It’s interesting that a few of these accounts are also pushing #dissolvetheunion tweets. Anything that weakens a major Nato member would presumably look good from Russia’s point of view.”
But the longest bit of the article, its substance, is the quote from the SNP’s own uber-Russophobe Stewart MacDonald who gives a disquisition on how terrible it is that the evil Russians should – advocate for Scottish Independence. MacDonald, who carries a British Army issued visitor ID in his wallet and has snaps of himself in combat fatigues observing British Army exercises, both of which he has been known to show hopefully to impressionable young people, is far better known for his enthusiasm for NATO, Israel and the corrupt government of Ukraine than he is for Scottish Independence. I suspect deep down he fantasises about going to war against the Russians with the British Army. Why he is in the SNP, nobody knows. Why anybody thinks that Russia advocating for Scotland’s Independence would make Russia Scotland’s enemy, is quite beyond me.
There is an extremely bad history of misidentification of Russian trolls by the right wing loons paid to undertake such work, particularly Leask’s old comrade-in-arms Ben Nimmo, who famously outed Ian the Russian Bot. This ought to be the most famous video of all time and be played weekly in schools to vaccinate children against government propaganda.
Unfortunately, very many governments do actively sponsor social media and mainstream media disinformation. The Integrity Initiative was one major such secret black propaganda operation, linked to the Salisbury event among other things, and it is hilarious in a dark sort of way that journalists like Leask, who took the Integrity Initiative’s shilling, get upset at alleged Russian initatives which are essentially the same thing.
Almost entirely unreported in the British media was last week’s revelation by The Grayzone of a new FCO covert propaganda operation involving (and funding) Bellingcat, the BBC and Reuters Thomson.
The UK FCO projects were carried out covertly, and in partnership with purportedly independent, high-profile online media outfits including Bellingcat, Meduza, and the Pussy Riot-founded Mediazona. Bellingcat’s participation apparently included a UK FCO intervention in North Macedonia’s 2019 elections on behalf of the pro-NATO candidate.
The intelligence contractors that oversaw that operation, the Zinc Network, boasted of establishing “a network of YouTubers in Russia and Central Asia” while “supporting participants [to] make and receive international payments without being registered as external sources of funding.” The firm also touted its ability to “activate a range of content” to support anti-government protests inside Russia.
The new documents provide critical background on the role of NATO member states like the UK in influencing the color revolution-style protests waged in Belarus in 2020, and raise unsettling questions about the intrigue and unrest surrounding jailed Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny.
Twitter not only suppressed dissemination of this information, it put a warning on those tweets it did allow into selected timelines, that information came from hacked material. It has never done that to the pro-Western outpourings of Bellingcat. But my profound congratulations to our friends at Anonymous for bringing more of this murk to light.
You might like to compare this document from an FCO-funded contractor, with Stewart MacDonald’s horror that Russia should allegedly sponsor a few tweets favouring Scottish Independence:
Or this from another FCO-funded contractor:
The FCO role in Belsat, the entirely NATO member funded “Belarussian” TV channel based in Poland, is also of great current interest,
Do read through the Grayzone article, which is excellent. Remember this: when it comes to every form of devious behaviour, it is the British state which wrote the book.
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Regarding the issue of reviving historical ethnic territories, here are few relevant paragraphs from a 1958 lecture ‘THE CRITERIA OF PROGRESSIVE AND REACTIONARY TENDENCIES IN HISTORY’ by Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977) —
“In the conflict of politics the opposite terms ‘progressive’ and ‘reactionary’ are often used in a demagogical sense.[…] Can such standards have an objective basis in the inner nature of history itself, or are they nothing more than unverifiable measures of a merely subjective appreciation of the course of a historical process? […]
“It is the ‘opening‐up’ process of human culture also which alone can give rise to national individualities. A nation viewed as a socio‐cultural unit should be sharply distinguished from the primitive ethnical unity which is called a popular or tribal community. A real national cultural whole is not a natural product of ‘blood and soil’, but the result of a process of differentiation and integration in the cultural formation of human society. In a national community all ethnical differences between the various groups of a population are integrated into a new individual whole which lacks the undifferentiated totalitarian traits of a closed and primitive unit of society.
“It was, therefore, an unmistakable proof of the reactionary character of the Nazi myth of ‘blood and soil’ that it tried to undermine the national consciousness of the Germanic peoples by reviving the primitive ethnic idea of “Volkstum” [“ethnicity”/ “national characteristics” etc]. Similarly, it is an unmistakable proof of the retrograde tendency of all modern totalitarian political systems that they attempt to annihilate the process of cultural differentiation and individualization by a methodical mental equalizing (“Gleichschaltung” [enforced conformity]) of all cultural spheres, thereby implying a fundamental denial of the value of the individual personality in the opening-up process of history.
“The counter‐revolutionary political movement in the first half of the nineteenth century which strove for a restoration of the feudal regime in its broader sense, with its undifferentiated patrimonial conception of political authority, was doubtless also of a reactionary character. It wished to restore a political system which was incompatible with the national integration and the idea of the state. For this reason it was doomed to disappear as soon as the progressive line of politico‐historical development of the latter were realized.
“[T]he process of cultural differentiation and integration is at the same time a process of increasing individualization of human culture, in so far as it is only in a culture which has been opened up and differentiated that individuality assumes a really historical significance. It is true that in primitive closed cultural areas individuality is not lacking. But in consequence of the rigid dominance of tradition this individuality retains a certain traditional uniformity, so that from generation to generation such closed cultures display in general the same individual features. It is for this reason that historiography in its proper sense takes no interest in these cultural individualities.
“As soon, however, as the process of differentiation and integration commences, the historical task of individual cultural dispositions and talents becomes manifest. Every individual contribution to the opening up of the cultural aspect of human society is a contribution to the cultural development of mankind which has a world‐wide perspective. Accordingly the individuality of cultural leaders and groups assumes a deepened historical sense.”
(Herman Dooyeweerd was a top-level mainstream philosopher and overtly Christian thinker. The above quote is from his 1958 lecture: ‘Maatstaven ter onderkenning van progressive en reactionaire bewegingen in de historische ontwikkeling’, Verslag van de plechtige viering van het 150-jarig betaan der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen.)
“..“The counter‐revolutionary political movement in the first half of the nineteenth century which strove for a restoration of the feudal regime in its broader sense, with its undifferentiated patrimonial conception of political authority, was doubtless also of a reactionary character. It wished to restore a political system which was incompatible with the national integration and the idea of the state…”
Perhaps I misunderstand Dooyeweerd’s meaning, but I’m inclined to disagree. In my view, and particularly in the UK and northwestern Europe, the reactionary impulse was aimed at the emerging capitalist and industrialist society striving for a restoration not of feudalism (whatever that might be) but of community and the acceptance of the ancient principle that the poor and the labourer have furst claim upon the product of the land.
The emerging capitalist ideology uniquely held that it was necessary to dispossess and reduce to precarity/insecurity the worker, otherwise he would refuse to work. The reaction to this discovery, like the reaction to the notion of surplus population, was to lead to, inter alia, socialist movements.
Thanks for your comment, Bevin. Your reservations entirely understandable, given the piecemeal nature of my quote from Dooyeweerd. In context he clarifies the word “feudal” with a historical Dutch reference:
“Anyone who after the French Revolution wanted to put the clock back to the political order of the ‘feudal régime’ was indeed guilty of reaction in the typically historical sense of the word. Nobody who really thinks historically will hesitate to agree with this judgment. Every historian will say that the partial restoration of the undifferentiated seigniorial rights in the Netherlands in the years 1814 and 1815 was an atavism. But why do we come to this conclusion? The answer is because the restoration of these rights contradicted the modern idea of the State which in the course of historical development had conquered the undifferentiated particularism of the feudal system.” (A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol 2, p 236)
For the rest, his view does seem to pretty much chime with your own:
“This individualistic liberal conception of the rule of law [first formulated by LOCKE] was allied with the political program of the classical school of economics. The latter propagated its adage ‘laissez faire, laissez aller’, the unrestrained freeplay of the social forces in economic life. In this economic individualism economic life was strongly rationalized. The medieval forms of corporative life in the monopolistic guilds were shattered. They were calculated to fence in economic life, not to expand it. […] A hard-headed calculation of private profits became the only rule of conduct in economic life; it broke every bond with economic communal principles. […] The individualistic rationalizing and technicizing of economic life was presently to reduce thousands of labourers to actual wage-slavery. […] Under the guidance of the ideas of romanticism, after the French Revolution had been liquidated, the Restoration-movement was to follow a seemingly historical, but indeed reactionary policy, which in its turn was to evoke the resistance of liberalism in the XIXth century. And this liberalism itself could not fail to evoke the mighty reaction of socialism and communism.” (A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol 2, pp 360-2)
Also, echoing and expanding the above:
“Classical liberal political theory, in close cooperation with the new science of economics (the physiocratic and so-called Classical School) was therefore the first to make a basic distinction between state and civil society. Both of these new theories, dominated by the humanistic ground-motive of ‘nature and freedom’, enjoyed exceptional success. This occurred first in England, where the so-called mercantilist policies, which had led to complete government control of trade and industry, were abolished; next in France, where the French Revolution had cleared away the last remnants of feudalism. As a result, the structure of the state began to distinguish itself clearly from the private spheres of life. In accordance with the revolutionary program, which did not tolerate an intermediary between the state and the individual, not only old guilds but also new social organizations were forbidden, even when new structures were a proper response to the differentiation of society. Consequently, ‘civil society’ acquired a thoroughly individualistic character that satisfied the requirements of the liberal economic ideas of the Physiocrats and the Classical School. Within a short time a new type of person appeared on the scene: the free entrepreneur who was no longer hampered in any of his undertakings. Economic life entered upon a period of immense expansion. But at the same time untold suffering awaited the labourers. The position of the worker was drastically altered at this time by the structural changes introduced into the process of production. The development of large-scale manufacturing firms brought with it an intense division of labour among a massive contingent of labourers working within a single factory. Later, when machinery was introduced into the factory, giant industries began to appear. In the first volume of his famous ‘Das Kapital’ Karl Marx presented a sociological analysis of the influences of these structural changes on contemporary life as a whole. His analysis is still extremely important.[…] As Marx correctly observed, the guild system excluded any division of labour that separated the workers from their means of production and that made these means the monopolistic property of the investor of capital.” (Roots of Western Culture, pp95,6)
For myself, there remains an as yet unresolved conundrum in Art history. While progressive Impressionism happens in France in the later 19 Century, there appears in Britain that curious mix of reaction and progression manifest in the mutually related Pre-Raphaelite, Gothic Revival, and Arts & Crafts movements.
Hello Craig,
This is just to let you know, that your blog is not blocked in Russia, and I personally didn’t experience any issues with accessing it for about last three years, since I discovered it.
So maybe it is some technical issues that people can interpret as block but being an ‘evil Russian’ I would advice them to check their infrastructure first.
It must make a very quick and satisfying response to those charging someone with being a creature of the Kremlin to ask, rhetorically, “Why then, is my blog banned in Russia?”
this reminds me of the karl rove quote – “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors… and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
and of course the misdirection from the empire seems to work to a certain degree… craig is left to just study what the empire does…. craig would be better off ignoring this crap… and for the record – i don’t agree with some of craig’s thoughts on russia – but that is besides the point.. this is a clear example of obfuscation on the part of the UK empire with its MSM minions in tow… thanks for your work craig..
Since Rove said that, the percentage of people in Western so-called “democracies” who believe what they are told has drastically diminished. The ability of Rove’s successors to act, as he boasted, has also in consequence drastically diminished.
The West is now in the position the Communist bloc was in when Vaclav Havel wrote “The Power of the Powerless”: neither the government nor the ruled believe the official lies, and they both know that nobody believes them.
I remember when I was stationed in Berlin 1970-72, I bought and read Andrei Amalrik’s “Can the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?” (Lest somebody discovers it was not published in English until after 1972, let me say that I read it in German.) When I read it, I found it interesting, but I found it hard to believe that the USSR had so few years ahead of it. But, as it turned out, Amalrik did not get it so wrong.
I remember suggesting to Habbabkuk on this forum some 10 years ago, that the collapse of the U.S. was coming into view, and he ridiculed me. Well, it turns out it was not so ridiculous.
i think you are right in your conclusion at the end lysias… the parallels are interesting here… although it is not immediately obvious, i think you are correct in the rest of your commentary too… cheers..
Didn’t read the book, so cannot judge how convincing it is, but my personal opinion is that SU could well survive if it was not stupid and weak Gorbachev, and power hungry Eltsin. I’m sure if it was Eltsin instead of Gorbachev there was no SU destruction.
Unfortunately (in this case in my view) or fortunately (in other cases) history seems to be made by personalities.
Remember the pictures of Khrushchev in an American supermarket during his visit there ?
If the USSR had been able to reach such a level, then there may be grounds for suggesting it could have not only survived, but gone on to bigger and better. One might even suggest that the Khrushchev era was the last chance at achieving progress ? No doubt some of his ideas were plain wrong, but they only got through because the habit of healthy debate had been crushed for so many years by Stalin. In the end the reactionaries of the Party were the ones responsible for bad ideas being implemented, and the consequent return to a stasis of political leadership.
Dear Alexander,
I must admit I know very, very little about the Soviet leadership from 1917 to 1991 but it is my impression that all General Secretaries of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Khrushchev onwards, with the exceptions of Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko (both of whom were short-lived in the position), to Vladimir Ivashko, the last such office-holder, had personal or family ties to Ukraine.
That the most powerful politicians in the USSR from 1953 to 1991 had such connections to the Ukrainian SSR surely had an influence on the economic decisions made in Moscow that determined where particular industries would be located, how resources, capital and labour might be allocated to particular areas, and even on administrative decision-making, as in the case of Khrushchev’s decision in 1954 to make Crimea part of the Ukrainian SSR, without consulting the Supreme Soviet or his Cabinet, supposedly to streamline the work involved in supplying water from the RSFSR through the Ukrainian SSR to the Crimean Peninsula – which I suppose would have involved two sets of bureaucratic decisions to make that possible had Crimea stayed as part of the RSFSR, whereas if Crimea were part of the Ukr SSR, then there would only be one set of bureaucratic decisions.
At the time of the Soviet Union’s break-up in 1991, Ukraine was probably the most industrialised republic in the USSR and a major centre of the Soviet aerospace industry if not the major centre.
Had the Soviet leadership drawn from a different pool of candidates with a much more diverse background, the concentration of industry in Ukraine, economic and industrial development across the USSR might have been more evenly spread and the post-1991 consequences might have been very different for the Russian Federation.
That most Soviet leaders from 1953 to 1991 turned out to have personal connections to the Ukrainian SSR suggests that the decisions to choose them were being made by a group or network of people within the Presidium or Supreme Soviet.
Hello Jan,
To certain extent you are correct but not absolutely. if we take Khruchev, Brezhnev and Gorbachev, and exclude those short-lived, out of them Khruschev and Brezhnev indeed spent sufficient time in Ukraine, Brezhnev even was born on Ukrainian territory but Gorbachev didn’t have any relations with Ukraine as far as I know.
And you are right that Ukraine was very well positioned (some say better than any other republic) economically at the time of Soviet Union break up.
But I wouldn’t relate that to Khrushchev and Brezhnev. That was actually policy of Soviet Union trying to evenly develop territories, to make sure that there are no big differences between different parts of the country. It wasn’t only Ukraine which was being developed, same goes for Baltics and south republics. Of course there was some specialisation but in general they tried to do it harmoniously, so republics would cooperate with each other, not just draw resources from other (point aside: opposite to what happens in EU in my opinion).
Having said that I certainly cannot exclude possibility for some decisions being affected by personal relations but I wouldn’t say that it was any hidden agenda to prefer Ukraine over other republics and consciously place her in better position.
Makes you wonder how the Kremlin finds time to run that vast country with all this micromanaging of UK affairs.
Pictures the scene in the Kremlin…
Mr President, we’re facing more trouble in the Khabarovsk region.
Shut up, I’m catching up on the latest developments in the row over Geoff Aberdein’s testimony.
And these pathetic journos call you a conspiracy theorist.
I’ve got to bring home the bacon?
I’d think you ‘d be better addressing that to the likes of Ben Nimmo and co.
I suspect the average Russian citizen would argue that it isn’t run at all, at least not for them.
It’s long past time they voted for somebody approved of by our elites.
Do not judge, or you will be judged 🙂
I think you’re mixing 2 things, quality of management and who benefits from that management, and on both of them I can argue that you are not correct.
Of course, it is run, and in some cases better than many other countries not excluding EU, UK or US.
And Russian people do benefit from how it is run, maybe some benefit more some less but still it is run to benefit Russia and her people, much more nowadays than it was in 90s.
Have you ever been here? Come and judge for yourself 🙂
Most in Russia have a better standard of living than they did in the 1990s. I see that the population, which drastically declined in the 1990s and then increased again, has started to decrease once again though. Why is that?
If Britain were to experience what Russia did in the early 1990s, there would be famine here. No doubt about that.
‘… I see that the population, which drastically declined in the 1990s and then increased again, has started to decrease once again though. Why is that?…’
Birth rates fell during the 1990s, which fact helps account for the decline in population then. This means that the demographic group aged in its 20s and soon 30s is one of the smallest, if not the smallest, groups in Russia. The small size of this group has some impact on the size of the overall population increase (or decrease).
You might like to read Anatoly Karlin’s posts at The Unz Review on population growth and fertility rates in Russia. No need to read the comments in the comments forums: many of those are racist rubbish, to be honest.
It is pointless trying to appease the alt-centre by showing tough on Russia. You will never appease them and win their respect. Furthermore elite smears like putin puppet etc do not even register with the general public.
The discussion of Skripal is a case in point, illustrated by public perception of the supposed putin puppet extrodinaire Jeremy Corbyn. YouGov polling in 2019 found that, among voters who previously supported Corbyn before turning against him, his positions on defence were mentioned by just 1 percent of respondents, whilst nobody mentioned his response to the Skripal poisoning. The media firestorm around Skripal had no demonstrable impact on the polls.
You will never get a fair hearing from crazed ,bad faith Russiaphobes, north or south of the border. These people won’t t be content until there is another patsy like Yeltsin installed in Moscow. So why give any nod of credence to their Russia hating storylines?
There’s a more sinister side to what these professional Russophobes: Carole Cadwalladr, David Leask or Ben Nimmo et al, are doing.
Their absurd McCarthyite-era accusatory behaviour, is not only stymieing free speech and debate domestically, the false false grievances they’ve created in the west which could eventually lead to war. The number of politicians who fall for their unevidenced BS about election interference, is frighteningly large.
Do those politicians actually believe what they are saying?
Yes, I think many MPs and MEPs do, judging by recent overwhelming votes in favour of more sanctions in the European parliament and the harsh rhetoric from leaders.
Repeat a claim often enough and it becomes the accepted truth. As with Labour’s ‘endemic’ antisemitism problem, which demonstrably (0.03% reported incidence rate) never actually existed beyond the media lies being widely propagated.
Their perceptions of Russia could being partly shaped by disinformation that’s being deliberately pumped out by these ‘agenda’ journos. It wouldn’t be the first time in history.
Lysias
If a politician ever believed what he/she or half way in between was saying, they wouldn’t be a politician, they’d be a human being, and they’re not not too sure if they’re coming or going.
Maybe the definition of a politician is someone who definitely doesn’t believe what they saying. Hence the absolute nonsense of political Islam , or for that matter political Christianity, political Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism or voodooism.
Israel / Islamic State killed 650 Christians at worship or minding their own business in Sri Lanka. So Modi locks down India controlled Kashmir in return. Islam is equipped with a set of instructions not to behave in that way, in order not to generate revulsion. Revulsion is ok when you’re on the doing end, but not so fine on the receiving end.
Politics is a pure waste of time.
Lysias
The military coup in Myanmar has occurred imho in response to Saudi Arabia training the Rohinga Muslims in Jihad, the West recruiting the Naqshabandi Sufis to Jihad and Erdogan visibly flexing his military might in Syria, Libya and Azerbaijan.
The world is wise enough to understand the pattern of the West’s use of Islamism by provoking totalitarian regimes into military crackdowns, and then launching rescue bombing missions.
It works where there is oil to be stolen. It doesn’t work otherwise.
If I was China I would be telling both North Korea and Myanmar to brace themselves for war , now that Trump has gone. The problem is US hegemony, not the weak little countries in the cross hairs of NATO’s bombs.
Giyane
The imams who praised Islamic State for murdering Christians in worship or tourists enjoying a holiday in Sri Lanka have neither basic knowledge of the teachings of Islam about ‘ people of the Book’ nor indeed basic common sense, to inform them .
All they have is deep cultural.ignorance and the folly of youth as an excuse.
Carol Cadavre, David Non-Livingsk and Ben ‘Russian troll’ UnAnimmo 🙂
Ben Wallace at al….frightening…that all this costs us impoverished taxpayers absolutely billions when everything is added up….why ?????
“There’s a more sinister side to what these professional Russophobes: Carole Cadwalladr, David Leask or Ben Nimmo et al, are doing.”
You forgot Luke “some Russian boys did it and ran away” Harding.
It’s the same politicians who ‘fell for’ equally unevidenced narratives justifying austerity and branding Corbyn another Hitler. We are not blessed with a high principled ruling class.
“both of which he has been known to show hopefully to impressionable young people”
You lad!
Will Craig cite any factual basis for his “awareness” that his blog is blocked in Russia? If not “currently” by “major ISPs”, then ever by any?
I don’t doubt he can support the assertion, but in light of the comments here and of his concession in the second, parenthetical sentence of the post, I think some explanation would be enlightening.
Someone should promptly report the blog to Roskomnadzor. It should be banned. I suppose Craig was just assuming the Russian regulator were doing their job.
The ‘Ros’ part in ‘Roscomnadzor’ stands for ‘Russia’ and I cannot see how they can block a Scottish site. They are not Google or Amazon.
They blocked the computers in Russia from accessing it. This can be worked around with a VPN. China has a separate internet, and I believe that is what is getting introduced soon to Russia. It was big news when Roskomnadzor were blocking access to Telegram, surely you would know and remember that.
Are you serious? Why on earth Roscomnadsor would care about Craigs blog? We have in Russia sites and medias that telling what they want about Putin and nobody blocks them.
Telegram was blocked (or rather there were efforts to block it) because it refused to cooperate with law enforcements and that was against the law. It is not blocked any more, looks like they found common ground.
LinkedIn is blocked because it refused to place servers that collect personal information of Russian people in Russia, which is also required by law.
So it is only those blocked that are not abide by law, and I don’t really see how Craig might break it, unless I missed something.
Maybe if he decides to put his efforts and energy into supporting independence of Tataria, Chechnya, Crimea, and other Russian regions, which indeed is against the law in Russia, then he might be considered for blocking. But I think he is too busy now with his home affairs (both country-wise and home literally), so it is highly unlikely.
VK seems like it’s building into a real free from arbitrary censorship social media platform, from reports.
I don’t do social media as my preferred choice of communication, anyone using it?
I’m using it; it seems fairly objective relative to Facebook in particular. FB, from which I was permanently banned 5 months ago for anti-Nazi posts, ones that just happened to include actual photographs of WW II-era Nazis. The one that finally got me was a post on Canadian Ukrainian Nazis and their public statuary and sculptures dedicated to the likes of Stefan Bandera and ilk. They are shrines to the bastards, and Canada’s government keeps them displayed prominently. Of course Canada’s current Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland is the granddaughter of a prominent Ukrainian Nazi, Michael Chomiak, who was brought in to Canada along with so many others following WW II.
Does anyone know Amnesty International’s position regarding Julian Assange?
Yes, they finally came out in support of him, probably too late but it enables them to claim after the fact that they supported him. A bit like when the guardian supported the Labour Party 5 minutes before the vote even though they’d been smashing them for the previous 5 years
Max Blumenthal is a brilliant young Journalist who actually travels to these places and follows in the footsteps of the Great Robert Fisk.
Max is brilliant.
Yes. Thank goodness for so many indies these days determined to seek out truths….eg Peter Ford ex Syrian Ambassador and his group……John Helmer….moon alabama…..Mathew Ehret is very good too….Escobar …Engdahl…guy from Brussels ….Rattansi….Caitlyn forgot surname…Kit Klarenburg..the lady
who reported on Azerbaijahn silk airlines illegal arms exports… etc.
Assange.
I have a fair inkling of the takeover of AI as a DS adjunct from the early 90’s, when it started pushing the Dalai Lama as a major cause. It really became a secret policeman’s ball sack.
Equally I am suspicious of ‘young’ Blumenthal. How far did that fruit drop from the old tree?
It has become glaringly obvious that another SJW , Vanessa Beastly, a Diplomats daughter, has shown to be a fake news purveyor with her Covid denialism and ever closer association with agitprop sites. Bartlett , a mini-me Vanessa too has led her followers onto slippery paths.
I suppose I am saying that dynastic players are automatically suspect until PROVED they have irreversibly left the fold.
When Max renounces and ‘kills’ his Fathers works and record in detail – he knows plenty, he grew up in the environ where he would have seen and heard much – and fucks Hillary’s and Bill’s lethal achievements over their ‘careers’, and puts himself irreversibly beyond their palatial grounds – I can not believe his Gautamaesque incarnation.
DunGroanin. I hope you are wrong for all our sakes. I can see how the guy who runs TYT has been exposed by Jimmy Dore. No doubt Max reads this challenge from you and disowns his father.
I asked them 2 days ago why Assange is not a PoC, no reply yet.
Too late and too quietly I guess.
These stooges only stand up for those their masters want them to stand up for.
I am talking about Amnesty International.
Amnesty has been receiving FCO / MI-6 funds for years. American intel/military funds as well.
I’m sorry, but you blog is not blocked in Russia. Posting this from Moscow, no proxy/anything used.
Not sure the Russians would spend too much time or money trying to ‘undermine NATO’ as they do such a great job of it themselves. Cavorting with bonafide Nazis in Kiev and dancing cheek to cheek with Al Qaeda (or whatever name they’ve been re-branded this week by the CIA) in Syria, any credibility they had has been long lost.
Calling from Taganskiy District, Central Moscow!
I can access your blog, Mr. Murray
Yes comrade. I am also able to access this blog through a Russian Federation ISP.
Twitter is a cesspit and its ephemera probably best ignored as a rule. But I did notice this evening a hostile attack on Craig Murray about his Navalny blog by an Eva Karene Bartlett. As I also follow indirectly much of Eva Bartlett’s outputs, which deal in the main with Syria alongside Vanessa Beeley et al I cannot but think that Eva Karene Bartlett has deliberately posed as the Eva Bartlett to traduce those who suspect (like I do) that Navalny is a west sponsored and well paid con man in place to inspire Russophobia to the limit. Ironically I seem to recall that Craig (unlike me as just a reader of his blog) was opposed to his being jailed. So what is going on in the shitty twittersphere?
,
What’s up with Pete Wishart?
He’s either developing a twitter persecution complex, or he’s suffering from a recurring nightmare in which he’s been chased by Craig and a thousand conspiracy theorists?
That was meant sarcastically btw. I don’t think he’s got a Twitter persecution complex. But he is being overly defensive, blocking SNP voters/supporters seems silly.
Work of an instant to confirm that Eva Karene Bartlett and Eva Bartlett are indeed one of the same. Bartlett is employed by RT and Assad once described her and Beeley as his “female soldiers”. I wouldn’t expect much in the way of unbiased opinion from either.
Kempe we never hear the story from the side of the secular government in Syria. Plenty of fake news from what our own papers are paid to say. So Beeley is a rare counter point. Question..can you give an example of her reportage that has false information in it please ?
Would you also say that Chris Hedges on RT is biased and gives false information. What about Afshin Ratansi on RT ? These people all worked for the MSM and found they were not free to report the truth.
I am sure Alex Salmond only worked at RT because the BBC would never give him a editorial free platform.
The Great Robert Fisk’s report of the US shooting down an Iranian civilian airline was censored by Murdock causing him to leave and join the Independent.
Well seeing as you’re already pre-disposed to condemn anything not coming from the Syrian government as ‘fake news’ I can’t see much point. You can have a read of this if you want:-
https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-eva-bartletts-claims-about-syrian-children
Beeley does not work for the Syrian Government, nor did Fisk. Syria would be under the boot of the Black flags if it was not for the Russians. It would have been broken up. It currently has ISiS, US and Turkish invaders. Majority of its army is Sunni. Israel occupies the Golan. No EU sanctions on Israel then ? Israel bombs it most days. US now also. Every approach and offer the Government makes to its Kurdish region is rejected. Sanctions on top. While we complain about not being able to go on our holidays. What a sad brutal world they live in.
https://hannenabintuherland.com/mideast/swedish-doctors-for-human-rights-white-helmets-staged-attack/
They used to have links to video on YouTube, but they were pretty graphic – babies ODing on opium with procedures that even a layman like myself can see were not being carried out by doctors.
The headquarters of the White Helmets in Aleppo for example? Next to Al Qaeda headquarters. But of course, nothing to see there, move along!
@Kempe. That’s hardly a definitive take-down of Eva Bartlett, as the author himself admits. And one that may have been commissioned by the UK government, bearing in mind its strong interest in justifying the White Helmets. The author presumes in all other facts the UK govt’s version of history.
RE “Work of an instant to confirm that Eva Karene Bartlett and Eva Bartlett are indeed one of the same” (Presumably one and the same)
Yes Wikipedia does indeed confirm that.
It is a measure of how controversial a person is by how many edits a Wikipedia entry has. And, of course, how many were done by the usual suspects. Bartlett’s entry is no exception, when you look through the references cited to back up the entry you see no objective and independent assessment of her views, indeed the first line in the entry is to dismiss her as a conspiracy theorist, before it going on to dismiss her as a tool of the Russians. This is why we do not rely on Wikipedia, because it only uses the words of paid hacks in the thrall of media moguls it only confirms that main stream media is unreliable in reporting the facts of contemporary and historical events. This is why we turn to outsiders like Craig Murray to express alternative views to the narrative we are fed.
indeed, i wonder if “phillip cross” was one of the editors.
“Phillip Cross edits Max Blumenthal too. The Grayzone is cited as ‘unreliable’ therein. Even Jimmy Dore gets the ‘treatment.’
Try reading them, you might be surprised.
Dear Crispa,
Eva Bartlett criticised Craig Murray’s post “Navalny Should Be Released” (January 22, 2021) because Murray simply assumed that Navalny was arrested in Moscow on his arrival back there on the Russian President’s personal order with no proof or evidence that Putin had done anything of the kind. In this, Murray was as ignorant as the mainstream news media most of us here commenting on Craig Murray’s blog have fled. Murray goes on to assert, again without proof or evidence, that Putin and his supposed cronies are guilty of even worse white-collar crimes than what Navalny has committed.
Bartlett notes in her Twitter thread that Navalny violated his parole conditrions even before he made his trip to Tomsk, in relation to his 2014 conviction for embezzlement when he and his brother Oleg supposedly did work for Yves Rocher’s Russian office (which the two actually contracted out to a cheaper company, without informing Yves Rocher).
thanks jen.. hopefully the posters immediately above your post, read your comments here too..
Thanks, always appreciate good information.
Thank you, Jen!
Navalny’s brother was getting his salary for bringing customers to his employee – the Russian Post. Instead, Navalny brothers contracted Ives Rosher out, to their family small business – a basket weaving artisan company. I guess it involved some illegal scheme, as it’s extremely hard to imagine a basket weaving artisans making logistics for Ives Rosher.
Alex Navalny doesn’t like to talk about that, he prefers to say he is imprisoned for political reasons 🙂
Yes the issue was that Alexei and Oleg Navalny undertook to do delivery work for Yves Rocher and then, without YR’s knowledge, contracted the work out again to a much cheaper delivery company (which may have been the basket-weaving company as you say) and kept the profits for themselves. YR could have contracted directly with this other company and not paid out so much. Oleg Navalny ended up going to jail for 3.5 years for his role in the scam, the same amount of time that Alexei Navalny got in house arrest.
Alexei Navalny then did something similar when he was hired as a business consultant for Kirovles, the state timber company based in Kirov oblast. He formed a company to buy timber at reduced prices from Kirovles and then sold the timber to Kirovles’ customers at prices Kirovles would have charged. Kirovles went bankrupt as a result – it must have sold its timber to Navalny at close to or even below the costs of timber production in Kirov region (and timber production seems to me a tricky business to forecast and plan for, due to the nature of the life cycle of pine trees and the conditions they require to grow well) – and all its employees lost their jobs. In addition, Navalny tried to bully one Kirovles employee into working for him.
Some anti-corruption crusader Navalny turned out to be.
Thanks for the clarification. That does make sense. It’s good that some people can navigate their way through the Twitter quagmire better than I can or am usually prepared to do. The snippet I read just looked like a gratuitous ad hominem attack, which is sadly characteristic of Twitter use.
Not a problem! … and the thread that began with your original comment flushed out a troll who relies on biased mainstream news sources so that was a bonus!
Just to flag the MSM micromanaging the Sturgeon Affair, the On-Groaniads venerable star cartoonist has written a ‘If’ strip for this week. The punchline will come on Thursday.
But comments have not been turned on! Frit.
Lively comments on here springing from the Russian angle and CM’s devilish retort. You got them again sir.
I’ll give the pot a stir with – how about Alaska? Wasn’t that Russian not long ago?
” Alaska? Wasn’t that Russian not long ago? “
Yes but they sold it to the US in 1867 because it was costing them too much. It went for $7.2 million, about $127 million today so a bargain. A bit different as it wasn’t actually invaded but then white Americans bought a lot of land from the native peoples, usually for trinkets.
Yes the Tsar sold it. It’s as if our Queen sold Scotland to the Russians.
Relations between Russia and the United States were very close at the time. Russia supported the Union in the American Civil War. Russian troop movements in Europe helped to discourage Britain and France from actively supporting the Confederacy. A Russian fleet called at San Francisco in 1863 or so in support of the Union. Tsar Alexander II, the liberator of the serfs, supported the Emancipation Proclamation.
Russia, having just been defeated by Britain and France in the Crimean War, was no friend of those powers at the time.
Which is the real reason Russian fleets were sent to New York and San Francisco; to get them into ice-free harbours from where they could threaten British and French trade routes.
I visited the Commander Islands, the Russian end of the Aleutian Islands in 2014. Allegedly the Czar has meant to sell them to the US with Alaska but there was a cock up on the conveyancing front and they stayed with Russia. Quite fortuitous from the Russian perspective the way things have turned out.
Craig you are doing a great job, sadly I don’t possess your ability to write.
When I wake up in the morning I’ll stick a couple of hundred in your account to help continue the battle.
Sorry craig didn’t send cash but increased subscription instead.
I still don’t know why our esteemed host keeps banging on about Crimea and Russia.
Or did he forget that not Russia denied an independent status of Crimea, but Ukraine…twice after a referendum?
And that after the coup in Kiev Crimea decided on a referendum – supported by Russia only after the government of the RF had ascertained that at least 70% + were in favour of a referendum to join the RF.
Has it also occurred to the esteemed host that the option “independence” would simply be a non issue with regards to the hostile stance of Kiev towards the Russian Majority?
In the ’91 referendum the parts of the USSR he demands independence for – Dagestan, Chechnya and Tatarstan – already have achieved an autonomous status, even if not full independence?
Maybe that is not enough for the Craig, but after all – all those three voted in the 91 referendum to remain part a reformed Union, Dagestan and Tatarstan with respectively >87%, Checheno-Ingushetia with 76%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Soviet_Union_referendum#:~:text=The%20referendum's%20question%20was%20approved,dissolved%20on%2026%20December%201991.
And what about returning Crimea to the Tartars who at present are a minority of 11%…how democratic would that be? When the majority of Tartars already live in their own Republic with quite some autonomy.
” Has it also occurred to the esteemed host that the option “independence” would simply be a non issue “
We’ll never know because the option of independence didn’t appear on the ballot paper.
It did not appear on the ballot because the option in light of the aggression by the government in Kiev would have left Crimea defenseless – see what happens in Donbass.
Also that attempt a been tried twice before, with the second one achieving some autonomy, which was however thrown into doubt when Kiev indicated it would sent troops to Crimea and dismantle the local parliament.
So the only options were be part of Russia or a previous agreement with Ukraine that had already failed.
That sounds free and fair.
Dear Kempe, I’ve spent some time thinking on the problem posted by you, about the Independence option for the Crimean referendum.
The only conclusion that I was able to come to is – the crimeans don’t separate themselves as a unique nation from either Russians or Ukrainians. They still believe we all are the same larger Slav people, only with temporarily separate political agendas. Apparently the Russian one suited them more than the Ukrainian.
Peter I have too agree with you but Craig is only human and can’t be right about everything
Craig you possibly spent to long a time with the FCO
How can you support Scotland leaving the union and joining EU but condemn Crimea splitting with Ukraine and joining the Russian Federation. ?????
I am hoping its a “Rhetorical Device” by Craig. I am sure he doesn’t want to see a US Naval base in Crimea.
Its amazing that young people and older joined the International Brigades to fight in Spain against Franco and Fasisism in the 30’s ! Now we watch Jimmy Dore and type on Craig’s website. As Lavrov said, what a load of pussies.
To call the referendum in the Crimea “fake” would be very Trumpian.
The Crimea is being seen through the bitter tears of Scottish nationalism. Some Scottish nationalists thought the outcome of the 2014 referendum resulted from English agents stuffing ballot boxes too. What an insult to the people of Scotland! But for some, the Partei *is* the Volk.
While the supply of Russian money to previous Scottish recipients may have dried up, there may possibly be a few dribbles available from a Trumper direction, perhaps with a US loony evangelical Christian stamp on some of it. After all, for some the question mark over Hunter Biden’s business activities was the most important issue in the US election…
Got to wonder whether Trump will show his face soon in Scotland as he did in June 2016, the month of the Brexit referendum.
N_
Trump booked air force 1 for a visit to Scotland in January, but NS told him not to come.
She probably made it clear that if he did come he would be sent to the Bute House dungeons along with others already being re-programmed.
“linked to the authoritarian governments…” – I lost track a bit there, I thought the Times was referencing the Scottish and UK government post covid.
So Putin has changed who he is backing in Scotland? I’m reminded of the old Cockney joke “Never trust a copper. You don’t know when he might turn straight.”
One has to factor in that
“Russia’s opposition to neo-con Western militarily enforced hegemony throughout the Middle East and developing world”.
I have no idea what “neo-con” means, but Russia recently threw much of Nagorno-Karabakh to the Israeli-armed Azeri wolves. As the Cockney wisdom has it, “Never trust a copper…”
How much trust should there be in somebody who claims to have “no idea” what neo-con means?
“I have no idea what “neo-con” means…”
Wikipedia is your friend.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism
Nagorno-Karabakh: unfortunately for them, the Armenians in N-K had bitten off more than they could chew. They weren’t blameless. If Russia had not stepped in when it did they looked likely to lose everything. The Azeris weren’t willing give up their gains, but they were willing to accept a ceasefire and settlement along the line of actual control. It won’t make Armenians and Azeris into buddies, but it stopped them killing each other. Well done again, Russia.
Cadwalldr, Leask, Nimmo, Cohen, Aaranovitch, Harding et al….they obviously get told what to write so who can take them seriously as journalists?
Very similar to Garavelli, Wark, Sarah Smith, Fraser Nelson in the Scottish monde.
Their output is so skewed and ridiculous I doubt they even believe the guff themselves.
Still…what price journalistic integrity when there’s oodles of lolly in the bank and invites to all the best parties?
Aaronovvitch – truly a stooge for the NWO
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Aaronovitch#Political_views
I thought he had disappeared but not so.
https://twitter.com/DAaronovitch?
Tie in the RCP; their mouth piece Spiked.
Don’t forget the goon Young, and scion Toynbee, the Tank Regiment cadre at the BBC … all the other ‘children’ of Thatcherism that run the ‘liberal left’ or the neoliberal arm of the Gollum the monster that was created to fool us centuries ago, to make us believe the Left/Right paradigm and it’s inevitable centrism wher they always wanted to steer us.
They are by the nature of the uncontrolled refraction offered by the Internet much easier to see as a rainbow is in the sky, which through many interactions of white light with water molecules, shows it’s true colours.
The official left and right are far-right, not centrist.
Centrism by definition must be a construct just as its parameters ‘left’ & ‘right’ are.
They even hubristically created a name for that construct. The Overton Window. I see they don’t refer to that much now days.
What information is there about what the people in Dagestan, Chechnya, Tatarstan and Crimea want?
Since the powers that be want to create their own reality the teachers of political communication et. al. just have to be stupider and stupider to believe that reality.
NATO? Isn’t that the military “alliance” that the SNP wants an “independent” Scotland to join, and indeed promised prior to the 2014 referendum that Scotland would join?
At least Scotland is on the North Atlantic, contrary to Afghanistan or Irak where this “NATO” is busy.
Nasty American Tricks Association: Europe wake up!
No, no it’s been rebranded it’s now the North American Terrorist Organisation.
“(T)he Establishment rolls around in oligarch cash” – well, exactly. And it has done for about 30 years. And those oligarchs who are so in awe of the oak-panelled board rooms in the City of London and in the older colleges of Oxford university, and whose brats tend to attend top English private schools (what a giveaway), mostly retain big investments in Russia and are not at all at loggerheads with the Russian government even if they love it in Knightsbridge and at Royal Ascot.
Boris Berezovsky stretched, but a kind of China/Taiwan setup in international Russian circles never quite got established.
Craig A friend in Ekaterinburg(Sverdlovsk) tells me he can read your page, without VPN.
You are right on the rank amateurism of the anti-Russian elements in UK
To paraphrase Neville, Russia is a far away country of which we know little, so there’s really no great need for any degree of professionalism amongst the anti Russian elements. They can safely rely upon the well worn costumes that were created decades ago. 🙂
This is most certainly NOT blocked in Russia
Moreover, it has never been blocked in Russia.
I can confirm this since I’ve been reading Craig’s website for at least four years.
Speaking of Motes and beams.
Just because you know and like J Doleman doesn’t mean that he has not proven himself to be the kind of maggot brained bully, who clearly wasn’t punched in the face often enough at school.
His disgusting smears of A Salmond are a matter of public record.
I notice he is claiming that he did nothing wrong because the anonymity order wasn’t in place. If so ; a. Why did he delete his tweet and b. why did nobody else publish the names of the alphabetties, if doing so during the trial wasn’t contempt?
The man is guilty. Guilty of being a tosser , and guilty of forcing Dorian Gray’s order destroying Scottish democracy.
Missed questioning of Crown Agent today, only caught the end of AG. Any links please.
Presumably he is appearing later than the proceedings which this report refers to. It is another Carrell production.
Scottish government to release legal advice on Salmond court action
Move comes after it emerged deputy first minister, John Swinney, faced cross-party censure
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/mar/02/scottish-government-to-release-legal-advice-on-salmond-court-action
Sturgeon is on tomorrow.
‘The committee is again questioning the lord advocate, James Wolffe QC, on Tuesday morning, along with crown agent David Harvie.
Wolffe began his evidence by robustly rejecting cover-up claims, including assertions from Salmond last week, allegations from some opposition MSPs and on social media, or that the Crown Office had been politically influenced or biased in its decisions.
Salmond is furious the Crown Office refuses to release evidence he says proves collusion by senior figures in the Scottish National party to get him prosecuted, and also that it asked Holyrood to heavily edit one of his submissions.
Wolffe said all Crown Office decisions were based on the law, and independent of any outside influence. He said David Harvie, the crown agent who is the Crown Office’s head of prosecutions, was an “exceptional public servant” and a man of utmost integrity.
“Any suggestion from any quarter that the Crown’s decision making has at any time been influenced by political considerations or improper motivations would be wholly without foundation. Insinuations and assertions to the contrary are baseless,” he said.’
“Wolffe said all Crown Office decisions were based on the law, and independent of any outside influence. He said David Harvie, the crown agent who is the Crown Office’s head of prosecutions, was an “exceptional public servant” and a man of utmost integrity.”
And, apparently an MI5 operative.
“Wolffe said all Crown Office decisions were based on the law, and independent of any outside influence. He said David Harvie, the crown agent who is the Crown Office’s head of prosecutions, was an “exceptional public servant” and a man of utmost integrity.”
“Any suggestion from any quarter that the Crown’s decision making has at any time been influenced by political considerations or improper motivations would be wholly without foundation. Insinuations and assertions to the contrary are baseless,” he said.’
Wolff also had to “publicly apologised for wrongly prosecuting two of the men who investigated the takeover of Rangers Football Club”
They settled out of court with the Crown Office in December and were both awarded £10.5 million in damages while legal costs are expected to be in excess of £3m.
The Crown Office has admitted that the prosecution that followed was “malicious”.
Lord Advocate James Wolffe made a statement in the Scottish Parliament in which he apologised for the prosecution and admitted that decisions made were “indefensible in law”, but denied anyone had acted with malice.
He said: “I concluded that those decisions proceeded without probable cause, i.e. without a proper evidential basis – in circumstances which met the legal test for malicious prosecution.”
So the prosecutions “met the legal test for malicious prosecutions”, but none of his “professional” “exceptional” public servants could possibly do anything wrong.
Malicious sophistry comes nowhere near describing the Wolff man!
In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values.
Other than his stutter, Mr Wolff showed no visible signs of mental stress – although he did when in Parliament.
He may well therefore be displaying common signs of psychopathy:
Its all there!
James Wolffe is markedly more confident on Zoom than in the Committee room. Perhaps he feels empowered when his arse is planked in his plush offices.
Under questioning from Murdo Fraser, a Tory and fellow lawyer, Fraser dares to raise Alex Salmond’s accusation of “cover-up in the Crown Office”.
Wolffe replies; “… any suggestion of improper motive or improper behaviour is the most serious slur on their (Crown Office functionaries) professional character and integrity and it SHOULD not be entertained for a moment by the Committee.”.
Why shouldn’t the Committee “entertain” an allegation coming from a former First Minister? Why should the Committee refuse to conduct THEIR business with an open mind.
It’s almost as if a Committee of the SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT are merely jumped-up peasants who shouldn’t be questioning their Lords & Masters in the Edinburgh Legal Establishment.
Heavy robes of office are nice to show but a pain to wear. Plus dragging a pillow, lumbar support and a heating pad to meetings is cumbersome.
“Why the Times, and most of the unionist media Establishment especially the BBC, has been so very keen to defend Nicola Sturgeon and under-report the evidence against her (and continue to make wild accusations against Alex Salmond) would be an interesting digression.”
I prefer to pretend she’s regarded as a grave threat to the Union.
“That a blog which champions Independence for, inter alia, Dagestan, Chechnya and Tatarstan, and which says Crimea should be given back to the Tatars, is condemned by the political Establishment as pro-Kremlin is, on the face of it, paradoxical.”
Our host periodically “champions” those causes. As a fan of this site, and admirer of many good works of our host, I count my blessing that he does it rather rarely, and I have a faint suspicion that it can be tactical. That said, there is a division with blurred lines with people who champion “ethics” and those who champion “morality”. The former have some rules that they strive to apply without bias — hard to do, but the effort matters. A conduct is condemnable or not according to these rules. The latter focus on determining who are the good people and who are the bad ones. After much effort spend on that, deciding what deserves condemnation is easy: if a good person/people did it, it I good, and if a bad. person/people did it, it has to be condemned, like the annexation of Crimea and developing/marketing Sputnik V vaccine.
This quickly lets one conclude that drives for secessions in Scotland, Catalonia, Dagestan etc. are good, while in Crimea and Donbas they are bad.
Of course, the division between two approaches/camps Is blurred, and as I wrote above, I am glad that Craig, most of the time, is on the side I like. And the damage on the other times is very limited. Partially because Craig is such a slacker on Russian/Putin misdeeds, the power to be are not appeased. Then again, perhaps without those token efforts Craig would be already in prison? Not a fanciful question…
I agree on your assessment about ethics/morality approach.
I see a logical fallacy in the latter, because ‘morality’ applies to an individual alone. But when a situation involves more than 1 person, then it’s their actions that we assess. The actions may be (or not be) ethical, in normal human understanding it means ‘if the action harmed someone? ‘ or, if the action did harmed someone then the question is ‘was that harmful action absolutely necessary in that situation?’
That’s how it works, thanks my philosophy professors Nelly Akopovna Ter-Gevorkyan and Rafael Bagdasaryan 🙂
“Beam in Your Own Eye” would be apt.
meant supportively
Sturgeon is a hero at the BBC, and The Guardian, because she is a Brussels fawning half-wit, despite fronting a party that advocated leaving the EU in 2014 without a shred of evidence then – or now – that Scotland would be welcomed back into it.