I have never considered myself a Marxist. I came to adulthood at the end of the one, forty year long, period in the history of Western civilisation when there was a reduction in the chasm between the rich and ordinary people.
In consequence I believed that a tolerable society might be achieved by simple measures to ameliorate capitalism. I grew up with public ownership of utilities, natural monopolies and strategic industries, with free healthcare and medicines, free university tuition with good maintenance grants, schools under control of elected local councils, controlled fair rents including the private sector, significant public housing.
We thought it would last forever.
In 1973 I joined the Liberal Party. Much of the 1974 Liberal Party manifesto I could still believe in now. The above things like public ownership of utilities and major industries and free education were not in the manifesto, because they did not have to be – they already existed and were the basic structure. The manifesto added things like a basic guaranteed income for everybody in society, compulsory worker shareholdings in those industries not nationalised, workers’ councils, and a rent freeze in both public and private sectors.
I am not claiming it as a great socialist document – there were signs of right-wing thought creeping in, like a shift to indirect taxation. But the truth is that the Liberal Party manifesto of 1974 was at least as left as Corbyn’s manifesto. Some of its ideas were far ahead of their time – like the idea that continuous economic growth and increasing consumption are not sustainable or desirable.
Believing in essentially the same things now, I find myself on the far left – without ever having moved!
Here are a couple of extracts from the 1974 Liberal manifesto which may surprise you. This kind of language you will not hear from Keir Starmer’s Labour Party – indeed it would probably get you thrown out:
That Liberal Party is of course gone, along with the radical, anti-war, anti-unionist traditions of British liberalism. They were diluted by the merger with the SDP and finally killed off by Nick Clegg and the “Orange Bookers” who turned the hybrid party fully neoliberal, a doctrine with almost no resemblance to the liberalism it claims to reassert.
Those hardy souls who follow and support this blog are witnessing the last knockings of the legacy of political thought that was bestowed by John Stuart Mill, William Hazlitt, John Ruskin, John A Hobson, Charles Kingsley, Bertrand Russell, William Beveridge and many others, seasoned by Piotr Kropotkin and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. I don’t imagine any further generation attempting to be active in politics will develop their worldview with those thinkers as their primary motivators.
But the point of this self-absorbed drivel is that I am not a Marxist and do not come from an organised labour or socialist background or mindset.
The key thought towards which I am plodding through this morass of explanation is this: I grew up in the one era when capitalism was sufficiently moderated by palliative measures that it seemed a reasonable way to conduct society. That ended around 1980 when the doctrine of neoliberalism took hold of the Western world. In the UK, that doctrine now firmly controls the Conservative, Lib Dem, Labour and SNP parties and is promoted relentlessly by both state and corporate media.
The result of this neoliberal domination has been a massive and accelerating expansion in the gap between the ultra-wealthy and the rest of society, to the extent that ordinary, once middle-class people struggle to pay the bills required simply to live. The situation has become unsustainable.
In short, it turns out Marx was right. The crisis of capitalism is now upon us. Neoliberalism (another word for designing state systems deliberately to lead to incredible concentrations of wealth amid general poverty) is coming to the end of its course. There are no palliative measures that will make the situation bearable. A radical change in the ownership of assets is the only thing that will address the situation – starting with public ownership of all energy companies, from hydrocarbon extractors like Shell and BP, through gas, electricity and fuel generators and manufacturers, distributors and retailers.
Nationalisation should be done properly, without compensating shareholders. If I had to choose between compensating the shareholders and imprisoning them, I would imprison them. I suggest we do neither.
That is only one sector and only the start. But it is a good start. I frequently pass the Grangemouth refinery and am amazed that all that land, massive equipment, all those chemicals and processes, go primarily to the benefit of Britain’s richest man, Jim Ratcliffe, who is considering buying Manchester United as his latest toy, while his workers protest at another real-terms pay cut.
This obscenity cannot continue forever.
Wars are not incidental to neoliberalism. They are an essential part of the programme, because untrammelled consumerism requires massive acquisition of natural resources. Constant war has the helpful side-benefit for the global elite of enormous profit to the military industrial complex. The cost in human misery and death is kept at a discreet distance from the Western world save for refugee flows, which meet with a response increasingly founded in the denial of humanity.
The promotion of continual war has led to the acceleration of crisis. Much of the current cost of living explosion can be directly attributed to the provoked, prolonged and pointless war in Ukraine, while neoliberal doctrine forbids control of the horrendous associated profiteering of the energy companies.
There is going to be public anger, come spring, of a strength and reach not seen in my lifetime. The ultra wealthy and their political servants know this, and therefore strong action is being taken to forestall public protest. The new Policing Act is only one of a raft of measures being brought in to clamp down on avenues for free expression of public discontent. Demonstrations can simply be banned if they are “noisy” or an “inconvenience”. The 2 million person march against the Iraq War in London, for example, could have been banned on both grounds.
I met and talked last weekend at the Beautiful Days festival with the admirable Steve Bray; we don’t agree on everything but his public concern is genuine. He is getting used to being removed by police from Parliament Square after being specifically targeted in legislation. I reminded him – and I remind you – that the Blair government had also banned protest near the Westminster parliament, and the Scottish parliament has recently taken powers to do the same. Intolerance of dissent is a feature of modern neoliberalism, as people in Canada and New Zealand are also witnessing – or as Julian Assange might tell you.
But in addition to legislative and state attack on protest, the neoliberal state is also ramping up its more subtle elements of control. The security services are continually being expanded. The media is not only increasingly concentrated, it is increasingly under direct security service influence – the Integrity Initiative, the Paul Mason revelations, and the barely disguised spookery of Luke Harding and Mark Urban all being small elements of a massive web designed to control the popular imagination.
The splitting of the political left by identity politics has been the go-to weapon of the state for several decades now. The replacement of horizontal class solidarity by vertical gender solidarity being the most obvious tool, epitomised by the notion that it was better to elect the multi millionaire, corrupt, neoliberal warmonger Hillary Clinton than the class politics espousing Bernie Sanders, simply because the warmonger was a woman.
A specific use of this tool has been the weaponisation of fake sexual allegations against any individual likely to be a threat to the state. You see this in the cases of Julian Assange, Tommy Sheridan, Scott Ritter and Alex Salmond (they tried it on me when I left the FCO but had to drop it because they could not find – despite massive efforts – any woman who knew me who would say anything bad about me).
Those in power know that the portion of the left who identify as feminist, which is almost all of us, are highly susceptible to support alleged victims due to the extreme difficulties of real victims in obtaining justice. This makes sexual allegations, no matter how fake, very effective in removing the support base of anti-establishment figures.
The propaganda narrative against Assange, Salmond, Ritter and Sheridan depends on the idea that at the very moment that each of these men reached the peak of a lifetime’s endeavour and posed the maximum threat to the state, they lost focus, lost their marbles and acted very wrongly towards women, despite no previous history of such behaviour.
It astonishes me that anybody does not see through it.
Rather quaintly, they use different methods on women. Brigadier Janis Karpinski was the chosen patsy to take the blame for the USA’s Abu Ghraib atrocities (entirely unfairly – she had no role or authority in the CIA controlled portion of the jail where the atrocities took place). Dismissed from her post, she was prepared to testify to a memo personally signed by Donald Rumsfeld authorising torture.
How did the US security services fit up a woman, not a man, who threatened the powers that be? Shoplifting. The day after her enforced resignation, Karpinski was “caught shoplifting”. Because of course, when at the eye of an international storm and under CIA surveillance, you immediately go out and steal some clothes.
The cynical weaponisation of the trans debate has taken the art of using identity politics to split the left to a whole new level, and in particular to alienate the younger generation from traditional left feminists. It has also been used successfully – and remarkably – to neuter the most potent current threat to the UK state, by driving both the non neoliberals and the more ardent Independence supporters out of the SNP.
Similar to the use of gender politics to undermine class solidarity is the weaponisation of accusations of anti-semitism. Just as accusations of misogyny, however false, succeed in alienating left unity, so do allegations of racism.
Here it is not so much that accusations were believed – the conflation of criticism of the crimes of Israel with criticism of Jews per se being all too obvious – as that the attack was so blistering, with the full weight of the establishment political and media class behind it, that people cowered rather than face up to it. The worst example of cowering being Jeremy Corbyn.
One lesson from both the “leaked report” and the Forde report is that Corbyn and his office believed that if they threw enough sacrifices to the wolves, betraying decent people like Tony Greenstein (son of a Rabbi), Mark Wadsworth and Ken Livingstone, then the wolves would be appeased.
Israel is the last large scale project of colonisation by physical occupation of a conquered land by European people. Ukraine and Israel are the two current neo-liberal violence projects, which it is not permitted to criticise. The banning of any nuance of opinion on Ukraine should frighten everybody who is thinking rationally. If you are thinking rationally, try this small antidote to the unremitting propaganda:
The Ukraine war is unusual in the attempt to enforce wartime levels of unanimity of narrative on the population, in western countries which are not only not combatants in the war, but not even formally allied to Ukraine. The United States was a party to the Vietnam War, but it was still possible for Americans to criticise that war without having all media access banned. Today you cannot criticise Ukraine in the state or corporate media at all, and your social media access is likely to be severely restricted unless you follow the official propaganda narrative.
This is the Establishment’s strongest method of control – the labeling of opposing opinion as “misinformation” or “disinformation”, even when there is no genuine evidential base that makes the official “facts” unassailable, as with Douma or the Skripals. To ask questions is stigmatised as traitorous and entirely illegitimate, while official journalists simply regurgitate government “information”.
Yet, despite this interwoven system of dampening all dissent from the neoliberal agenda, the Establishment remains terrified of the public reaction to the crisis that is about to hit. The controlled opposition is therefore used to attack actual opposition. Keir Starmer’s banning of Labour MPs from union picket lines is a clear example of this.
We are seeing for the first time in many years an assertion of the rights of organised labour in the face of the massive attack on workers’ real incomes. This is the first time many adults under thirty will ever have encountered the notion that ordinary people are able to defend themselves against exploitation – that is one reason the impressive Mick Lynch has been such a revelation, and is viewed by the “elite” as such a threat.
The Starmer line is that strikes inconvenience the public, which you will recall is the government excuse for banning protest also. Well, of course they do. So does the spiral of real terms wage cuts. The fractured workers of the gig economy are now showing interest in unionising and organising; this is too little and too late to avert the crisis that is about to hit us, but a useful indication of the will to resist.
Popular resistance terrifies the elite and thus must be demonised. The political class is to be protected from insult or contradiction. You may recall in February it was headline news that Keir Starmer was “mobbed” in Whitehall as he walked down the street, by protestors shouting at him over lockdown and over his role in the non-prosecution of Jimmy Savile (and, less reported, in the extradition of Julian Assange).
In fact, nothing happened. Aerial photographs showed that the protestors numbered about a dozen, that they were heavily outnumbered by Starmer’s handlers and the police. The only, mild, violence was initiated by the police. There was no threat to Starmer other than the threat of being verbally opposed by members of the public on subjects he did not wish to be discussed.
This protection of highly paid politicians from the public, this claim that it is extremely bad behaviour for ordinary people to confront elite politicians with an opposing view, is an extraordinary assertion that the people must not challenge their betters.
We are going to see a great deal more of this in the coming crisis. There is currently the most extraordinary manifestation of it in Scotland where the Chief Constable has announced an investigation into people daring to protest against the Tory leadership hustings in Perth.
In truth, absolutely nothing abnormal happened. People protested. Nobody spat at anybody – there is no evidence of it at all, nobody saw it, none of scores of media cameras and people’s telephones captured it, none of the very large police presence witnessed it, not a single journalist claims to have personally seen this “spitting”. Yet the entire media reported it, to delegitimise the protest.
These are the “reports” the Chief Constable refers to – unevidenced media lies. That is the basis of policing today.
An egg – singular – may or may not have been thrown. Media showed photographs of a single broken egg on the pavement after the event. Again, footage of it flying through the air is conspicuously absent. Someone may have just dropped their shopping. It may even be a false flag egg!
Personally, I don’t care if somebody did throw an egg at a Tory. Egg throwing at politicians is a traditional expression of popular protest with hundreds of years of history behind it. It is not really dangerous – I am not aware of a single instance of a politician being maimed by a flying egg – and carries a comedic punch. Personally I would rather see the custard pie, but those crowd barriers…
But what really rattled the political class was the lack of deference shown to their agents of control, the client journalists. One such creature, the BBC’s James Cook, walked through the barriers dividing the journalist pool from the pen for the public, and walked up to the barriers to provoke a reaction.
The propaganda of the BBC is particularly unpopular in Scotland, so Mr Cook got the reaction he expected. He was shouted at, and called a “traitor” and “scum”. The most vociferous abuse came from one particular individual not known to local activists, who may or may not have been an agent provocateur. That the British security state employs such tactics is beyond dispute. But I do not enormously care if he was an agent or a genuinely annoyed member of the public.
The fact is this. Mr Cook, like Mr Starmer above, got shouted at. He did not get hit. He was not the victim of the great egg throwing scandal. Nobody spat at him. Mr Cook met with verbal disapprobation of his journalistic output, after approaching people specifically to that purpose.
Here is a photo of James Cook immediately after the “someone spoke rudely to me” incident, showing exactly how shaken and concerned he was:
The reaction from the controlled, neoliberal opposition in Scotland was off the scale.
The notion that the BBC does “not support any viewpoint”, particularly on Independence, is laughable. Also how much scrutinising of the Ukrainian government has it been undertaking recently?
Mr Cook has form in claiming that Scots expressing their opinion in the street amounts to some form of illegitimate mob or riot, when it is in fact perfectly peaceable.
A couple of days after the Perth non-incident, the neoliberal controlled opposition were joining in with the client journalists in their claims to victim status.
The interesting thing here is that these neo-liberal politicians plainly believe that it ought not to be allowed for people to call them or their journalistic enablers traitors or scum. The expression of popular protest is in itself illegitimate, according to their worldview. Politicians are using the verbal armoury of cancel culture – talk of “offence” and “safety”, as reasons to limit freedom of speech – to justify the suppression of criticism of those who wield the power of the state.
This extends to the suppression of free speech and popular protest under the guise of protecting employee rights. The neoliberal opposition quickly hit on this line on the Perth incident. Mr Cook should not have been abused because he was only an employee “doing his job”. Everyone has a right to be protected from abuse in the workplace.
As though voicing state propaganda is the same as serving coffee and as though Cook’s work is morally neutral. It is not.
Perhaps aware that journalists are not the most popular recipients of public sympathy, James Cook decided to spread the accusation of abuse wider:
Here James Cook is simply lying. I have very frequently heard extreme discontent at the BBC expressed by Independence supporters, both at public demonstrations, including outside BBC Scotland HQ, and in meetings. I have never once heard any anger expressed at staff other than the lying “journalists”.
In meetings I frequently express the view that upon Independence, BBC Scotland should be closed down and everybody made redundant (I last expressed this in Dunfermline last month). I have taken to always adding that this should apply only to editorial and journalistic staff and not to technical, clerical and industrial staff. The reason I always add it now is that, if I don’t, I am invariably corrected from the floor. There is no animus against these people.
Cook is making it up, which I suppose is his profession.
The resonances to wider cancel culture are not accidental. That the near approach of capitalism to its crisis is marked by both legal and social suppression of freedom of speech is not an accident. There is a strong resonance between the Perth incident and the cancellation of the Edinburgh Fringe show of veteran Glaswegian comic Jerry Sadowitz, for which the excuse given – accepted by a remarkable number of people on the left – was that the workers’ rights of the staff of the venue were affected.
This co-option of workers as state censors is remarkable given the complete disinterest in staff rights shown by the state in general, and by the large Edinburgh Fringe employers in particular. As food for thought, here is a 1987 transcript of Sadowitz’ act where he discusses the Establishment protected paedophile, Jimmy Savile:
“There have been serious allegations in the news of child abuse in Cleveland. Now to my mind there is only one way of finding out whether it is true or not, and that is to call in Jimmy Savile. You can’t afford to fuck about, bring in an expert. Am I right? Now a friend of mine reckons that Jimmy Savile is a paedophile, rubbish he’s a child-bender. That’s why he does all the fucking charity work, it’s to gain public sympathy for when his fucking case comes up. I’ve always known that. Aye, aye, well he may have fooled you, not fucking me, I am telling you that. He doesn’t fool this big-nosed Jewish bastard over here, I’m telling you that. I have always thought that if you took the action of a voice and turned it into a wank you would get Jimmy Savile wouldn’t you? (Savile masturbating impersonation).”
Read that with an eye to how many things in it could today have got Sadowitz banned, because somebody on the staff could have taken offence or been triggered. Pretty well every single sentence. Yet Sadowitz was one of a tiny number of people prepared to tell the truth about Savile.
I hope that puts you off the idea of canceling free speech “on behalf of workers’ rights”.
To sum up.
The 2008 banking bailout gave hundreds of billions of dollars straight to the ultra-wealthy, to be paid for by ordinary people through over a decade of austerity cuts to social services, real terms cuts in pay, and increased taxation. In the current crisis the plan is to advance money in some form to ordinary people, for them to pay off by a further decade of the same.
In neither instance was taking money from those with billions in personal wealth even considered.
The neoliberal phase of super-capitalism has run its course. The gap between the wealthy and ordinary people has become so extreme that, even in the West, ordinary people no longer can afford to live decently. Consumerism has desperately depleted natural resources and accelerated climate change. The policy of perpetual war has finally undermined the world economy to a fatal degree.
The situation is not sustainable, but the global elite have no intention to give up sufficient of their massive wealth to make any difference. They seek to control society through the propaganda model and through increasing state repression of dissent, allied to an assault on “incorrect” thought by censorship of the internet and by populist demonisation. “Left” causes such as identity politics and protection from offence have been weaponised to support this suppression.
There is no democratic outlet for popular anger. The “opposition” parties which people can vote for are all under firm neoliberal, warmonger control. Democracy has ceased to present any effective choice that offers any hope of real change. The revival of interest in organised labour and the willingness of young people to engage in direct action in the field of climate change offer some avenues for activism, but it is too little, too late.
Yet this will not hold. Discontent is now so strong, and public anger becoming so widespread, that change is coming. With no available democratic mechanism for change and a firm clampdown on the development of coherent radical programmes and on radical organisation, that change will initially manifest in chaos.
The Establishment response? They clutch at their pearls, twitch at their curtains and condemn the uncouth masses.
————————————————-
Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.
Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.
Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.
Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:
Paypal address for one-off donations: [email protected]
Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:
Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB
Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a
Subscriptions are still preferred to donations as I can’t run the blog without some certainty of future income, but I understand why some people prefer not to commit to that.
After observation and analysis, Marx came to a conclusion. In a nutshell when contradictions in society become so contradictory or “unbearable”, society and modus operandi will change. From slavery came feudalism, then capitalism, and all will end with communism! A couple of things went wrong in the real world. Marx predicted that contradictions will arise in the most developed countries, Britain and USA! Soviet Marxists took feudal Russia into Socialism (transition stage between capitalism and communism) and likewise some other not-so-developed countries.
Regarding Gas prices, in theory it’s ridiculous. Gas extracted on British soil is “private property” sold to Brits at “market price”. In a decade or two water will be sold at “market price”. By that time we will not have people indoctrinated by cold war rhetoric and some family wo/man will get annoyed for their children with no food, water and heat. Of course they will mention the Soviet Union and how that turned out, and they will not understand.?
I do not think Marx had any ideology, just analysis and different factions had different ideas about which way is best! The Soviet model was different from Yugoslav, Albanian or Chinese, etc.
And if I am not mistaken, revolution has to be bloody because the Exploitation class will not surrender but will do anything to keep their privilege. The army and police are on their side, not to mention the media. BTW, there are 2 main news wholesellers – Reuters and AP – and all others are “retailers”, a bit like a gas company selling us gas that comes from the North Sea via pipelines owned by the National Grid distributed around the country via the same pipes built many years ago by the State. Viva the free market and rentier class!
The problem might be China! Those “communists” are not doing that bad after all.
Superb article. This, together with Jonathan Cook’s 27th August Blog ‘The Noble Lie‘ – which questions the very notion of whether we live any more in a democracy – are the two essential current analyses of our time. No need to read anything else.
I agree.
Meanwhile we trundle further into the morass of crazy ideas. If our SAS boys were involved in the daredevil nuclear plant commando mission, the Russians might retaliate.
We’ve got a stranded aircraft carrier up the creek in the Solent with propellor shaft failure.
On August 22nd, the Russian Airforce deployed 3 MiG31s that can carry and launch at 59000ft, having taken off some 63 seconds earlier, hypersonic Kinzhal 47-M2 missiles. Joe Biden says these are ‘almost impossible to stop’. They can destroy a brand new aircraft carrier like the prince of wales, bringing a kinetic force equivalent to 4000tons of TNT, (over a quarter of the LittleBoy that blitzed Hiroshima), a mere 1500kms away – in under 20 secs.
In all that’s 80 odd seconds.
(And there’d be a little ‘Collateral Murder’ surely.)
They don’t need international airspace, they just need to take off and get to 59,000ft in just over a minute.
20 secs later we get to collect the insurance.
We’re 100 seconds away from midnight on the Doomsday clock. Maybe that should be adjusted.
Or we start talking.
I recognise your view Jeremy albeit Russia’s operation in Ukraine is in the bag notwithstanding British attempts by ex SBS/SAS ex ‘D’ Squadron elites with satcomms to frustrate the IAEA mission.
A Kinzhal missile travelling at Mach 14 would have a kinetic energy equivalent to around a mere 4 tonnes of TNT, Jeremy, and if launched from a distance of 1500 km would take more than 375 seconds to arrive by my maths. On their Victory Day back in May, Russia launched three of them at Ukraine, probably from a Tu-22M Backfire, and at least one hit a hotel in the Odes(s)a region – not sure if that was the intended target. They managed to put two people in hospital but no one was killed. It doesn’t seem to be quite the whatever-the-Ruskie-word-for-‘wunderwaffen’-is that some people think.
As per my sources, if you live in a reasonably large city in the UK or France, I’d be more worried about Kh-102 cruise missiles with 250 kiloton (15 times Hiroshima) warheads trundling along at a fairly pedestrian Mach 0.6 (don’t need to be zippy when you’re pretty much invisible to radar) after being dispatched from one of these ugly ****ers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-95#/media/File:Russian_Bear_'H'_Aircraft_MOD_45158140.jpg
I bow to your math in my internetted ignorance. The six minutes you suggest will give me time to clear my bowels. Their invisibility, penetration and punch in a system that has parts ‘unidentified’ north of scotland and is non-nuclear mean I may not even get to hear about it where I am. No wmd, no crisis.
And I’d evacuate the boat, cos it’s a floating hotel at the moment!
My summary: Can we put the toys away and start talking?
I felt compelled to recast Jonathan Cook’s conclusion:
I don’t remember an insistence that anyone condemn Tony Blair or George W. Bush for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 before they could be heard or taken seriously. Or that they denounce the U.S.-backed overthrow of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi that plunged that country into murderous chaos. Or that they deplore the West’s material support for Saudi Arabia’s slaughter of Yemen’s population, including Britain’s sale of planes, bombs and training to Riyadh. Or that they criticize the West’s backing of head-chopping jihadists in Syria (who coincidentally now appear to be drifting into Ukraine to become our allies again). Or that they decry decades of Western support for Israel as it has disappeared the Palestinian people.
Nothing that you believed in can or will offset the enormous world-encompassing crisis to come.
Nationalization of industry, welfare redistribution, subsidy – these are still liberal solutions. You were and are part of the left-wing of Capital. You absolutely believed in and believe in now the efficacy of market economics. You, like millions of others, simply believe that the “edges need to be sanded off” through government intervention. This is, as Marx has it, bourgeois socialism. You are a bourgeois socialist. You reject production for use. You accept money as a mechanism of exchange. You deplore direct, unmediated worker control of the means of production.
We do not need the 1974 Liberal Manifesto. We need social revolution, however violent, however catastrophic.
Oops, to my dissapointment after all I am a bourgeois socialist (Champagne socialist). We might be able to sand it off so much that it becomes palatable and postpone the collapse of capitalism for a decade or two or whatever. Sanding off the edges might be the way forward until the edges become so sharp that people get hurt and decide to revolt. What I am trying to say is that the “Western world” was sanding the edges until the collapse of Socialist countries, and now they are going backwards economically and socially. Burgeois Socialism is better than reactionaryism, where we are now!
Empty rhetoric! What concrete measures do you suggest? ”direct, unmediated worker control of the means of production” means?
” ”direct, unmediated worker control of the means of production” means?”
What I suspect it means is that the shareholders are deprived of their shares, the senior management is sacked and everyone else magically discovers a talent for running large businesses through a system where all important decisions are taken by a vote of the entire workforce, or, better still, discussion until a unanimous decision can be made. In small businesses, the workers already have unmediated control of the means of production, because they already are the owners of the business.
Can’t see any evidence that those who have been running large businesses have shown any talent for it other than enriching themselves. Take energy: there are the workers of the enterprise that includes the managers, the intermediate users and end users. Therefore a three-in- one board of administration elected from all three groups.
Some sectors and prices simply don’t belong into private hands.
Most sectors though should be completely free of state intervention.
The problem nowadays is that all sectors are mixed and messed up in those regards, with the public sector thereby now having gotten totally out of hand, finance-, size- and influence-wise.
“When one individual inflicts bodily injury upon another, such injury that death results, we call the deed manslaughter; when the assailant knew in advance that the injury would be fatal, we call his deed murder. But when society places hundreds of proletarians in such a position that they inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death, one which is quite as much a death by violence as that by the sword or bullet; when it deprives thousands of the necessaries of life, places them under conditions in which they cannot live – forces them, through the strong arm of the law, to remain in such conditions until that death ensues which is the inevitable consequence – knows that these thousands of victims must perish, and yet permits these conditions to remain, its deed is murder just as surely as the deed of the single individual; disguised, malicious murder, murder against which none can defend himself, which does not seem what it is, because no man sees the murderer, because the death of the victim seems a natural one, since the offence is more one of omission than of commission. But murder it remains.”
From ‘The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844’ by Friedrich Engels
(Free to download from Gutenberg.org – https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17306 )
The Covid crisis authority and currently cost-of-living threats to the material well being of British humans are in place to distract us from four Bills before Parliament to limit the role of the independent judiciary, increase secret courts, repeal the Human Rights Act, and restrict the freedom of the independent press.
https://www.statewatch.org/brexit-goodbye-and-hello-the-new-eu-uk-security-architecture-civil-liberties-and-democratic-control/
Chiefly and above is the call by NeoCons in Parliament to abolish the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which covers the activities of the security and intelligence agencies. For instance without such ruling ministers and spies would be given immunity from collusion in serious crimes. Non-governmental organisations such as Reprieve, Protect, Privacy International, Transparency Internationaland and more, some of which have been given grants by overseas governments while carrying out important transparency work, could face prosecution under the new laws.
Also we must consider abrogation or revisions and reversals to the Human Rights Act. The Act for example has enabled bereaved families to demand full inquests into the deaths of army recruits at Deepcut barracks, and independent inquiries into the abuse and in one case, death of Iraqis detained by British forces.
The Campaign for Freedom of Information and human rights charity Article 19 said that the changes were “oppressive and disproportionate”.https://www.cfoi.org.uk/
Ai technology such as facial recognition tracking is already coded and exists in the public realm only as a tool for the elite to control society.
Orwell’s dystopia is firmly in place and we are confronting an apocalypse. This IS the final battlefield.
“Orwell’s dystopia is firmly in place and we are confronting an apocalypse. This IS the final battlefield.”
Western governments are the enemies of Western Values.
Coming to a town near you?
‘In Prague, 50 thousand people came to a rally: they demand that the authorities take a neutral position on the conflict in Ukraine
The rally that is taking place at these minutes is called “The Czech Republic first of all.” The participants call on the government to resign, and the authorities to provide the country with cheap gas.
In addition, the participants demand the return of freedom of speech in the media and social networks. They also urge “to stop diluting the nation with Ukrainian refugees” ‘
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/9243
So let me get this straight.
On ‘our side’ we have very dangerous people, wanting a war and who have been encouraging the provocation of this war.
On the ‘enemy side’ you have very stupid (and dangerous) people, who decide to respond by committing a ‘criminal act of aggression’ and invading the country coerced into doing the provocation.
Apparently you can condemn the aggression whilst appreciating that the provocation was the cause.
So violent provocation with the threat of even more violence, backed up by your very violent friends, is not a justification for a violent response ?
Furthermore this is supported by international legal definition ?
Does a ‘legal’ war still involve your ambassador actually handing over a ’declaration note’ ?
Speaking about lack of ‘rational discourse’, for the life of me, I cannot get my mind to rationalise this utter garbage, in any sense whatsoever !
Possibly, in some far away future time, an interplanetary court might come to regard the provocation of war, with likely escalation towards avoidable nuclear annihilation, as an ‘insanely criminal act of aggression’.
Collective insanity seems to be everywhere, protected by a propaganda campaign unprecedented in my lifetime, supported by young and naive ‘disinformation’ experts (well paid) and older commentators (even better paid) who really should know better. What more could go wrong ?
Or is this all going very much to plan, for some people ?
For ‘invade’ read ‘aid’ protect, assist or synonymous with present rigor, – help?
I feel you Foggon…I’m coming over all Victor Meldrew myself over this dangerous nonsense.
“What more could go wrong ?”
Zerohedge reports today that “in Germany, $2 trillion of value added depends on $20 billion of gas from Russia… …that’s 100-times leverage – much more than Lehman’s”
And the governments of Germany, Austria, and today Sweden, will bail out their energy traders, wait for it, “to isolate this in one market so it doesn’t infect the financial sector”
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/sweden-austria-start-bailing-out-energy-companies-triggering-europes-minsky-moment
Strangely apt, since all this springs from the West’s failure to ensure that the Minsk Accords were honoured (in the hope of turning Russia into a failed state ripe for plunder).
Sarcasm . For many people and Industries (Petroleum and MIC) is going really good. Oil companies are making literally tens of Billion profits and even Russia instead earning Billion a day now earns 2 Billion a day. It is a small price to pay in support of Ukrainians by ordinary people in UK or EU. I am guessing that LNG shippers are not complaining either. Military budgets are also up. Even India 5 doubled import of Russia Oil. BTW Brits are waking up and started campaign Don’t pay .uk https://dontpay.uk. I am not advocating not paying el & gas bill because BP and Shell & Exxon etc. have to live and get rewarded while the plebs have to put a jumper on. Brits are too fat so heat or eat is great. When you are cold you burn calories and if you don’t add calories by next summer they will be like an eel. According to BBC BP made to my undertanding Quarterly profit April -June of paltry 6-7 f ing Billion
I forgot to adress this brilliant idea of putting a cap on Russia oil. So Russian Oil will be traded/cost half the price of USA oil, and countries will buy more the expensive option for ideological reasons. Most countries have so called long-term contracts with a favourable price from Russia. So some country desperate for oil tells Russia we are buying @ $50 top and then Russia says what. If you do not sell it to us at $50 we will buy oil at $100 . How about $80. Sounds good.
” Coming to a town near you? “
The Prague protest is part of a wider anti-government protest organised by a union of the far left and far right. I can’t see that happening in this country.
” They also urge “to stop diluting the nation with Ukrainian refugees” ‘ “
We don’t need that kind of eugenics/racism either.
So how many Iraqi, Afghan etc refugees should ‘we’ morally accept?
The promoters of capitalism certainly currently seem to be behaving bizarrely, out of line with market resolution of problems and illiberally with everything it does backfiring.
Their increasing use of sanctions to stifle competition only harms those who would otherwise be their potential customers.
G7 talks about a price cap on Russian oil and gas when that simply results in savvy countries buying them at Russia’s already discount prices and selling them on to the same G7 countries at an even higher price.
The USA living with dementia President gives a speech with backcloth more reminiscent of Hitler’s Germany that accuses a large proportion of Americans as being the “enemies within” and dividing the whole population into “us” and “them” in contrast to his election platform of promising unity.
The UK Tory government on the other hand is adopting a more or less laissez-faire approach to the cost of living crisis, when that is crying out for responsible government management.
There is a German Foreign Minister this week reported as saying she would put Ukraine’s interest above those of the people who voted her into her position.
Today (03.09. 2022) the people of Prague are giving their version of Enough is Enough in Wenceslas Square, which was where they celebrated their independence from communism and embraced capitalism. So yes this is perhaps a “seize the opportunity” moment to change, but the big questions are how and in what direction?
India is buying Russian oil at deep discount, and selling the refined products to the EU. China is buying Russian LNG and selling it back to the EU at premium price. Saudi Arabia is buying Russian oil and (presumably) selling it back to the EU. All the while the EU (and others) are paying over the odds for LNG and countries like Pakistan, Sri Lanka are unable to even get a delivery of LNG.
This latest act of desperation by the G7 will end in the same stat as their 7 (or is it 8?) Rounds of sanction – an absolute farce that hurts them more than it does Russia……..Again!
The sheer arrogance of the G7 thinking they can dictate to OPEC+ the price of oil will just drive the Gulf states closer to BRICS and settlement for oil trades in a mutually beneficial currency – aka the beginning of the end of the petro-dollar.
The EU on its current trajectory is done. The UK is done. The US will suffer some severe pain, but survive much better than Europe. The Metals and Chemical industries in Europe are already at 50% capacity due to excessive energy costs.
Meanwhile in Holland, it costs more to charge your electric vehicle than it would to use gas / petrol !
Could you provide a link to Mrs Baerbrook prioritising Ukraines interests before that of Germany’s please Crispa?
This sounds like a glitch or wind up to Germans.
‘ Baerbock made the remarkable comments during an event in Prague August 30th organized by the NGO Forum 2000.
“If I give the promise to people in Ukraine – ‘We stand with you, as long as you need us’ – then I want to deliver. No matter what my German voters think, but I want to deliver to the people of Ukraine,” ‘
Recorded on video, in English.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/german-foreign-minister-says-support-ukraine-will-continue-no-matter-what-voters-think
Thanks John, another gate keeper who is completely wrong.
She promises to defend democracy in Ukraine, no matter what the people who elected her think. So she is holding two contradictory thoughts simultaneously, classic “doublethink”.
To understand who her real clients are, it is perhaps useful to look into the sponsors of Forum 2000, chief among whom is the neo-con National Endowment for Democracy.
“The USA living with dementia President gives a speech with backcloth more reminiscent of Hitler’s Germany that accuses a large proportion of Americans as being the “enemies within” and dividing the whole population into “us” and “them” in contrast to his election platform of promising unity.”
I liked that backdrop, you can never have too much red and black.
All good points.
The biggest attempted suicide of an economy lies with Germany and unless it builds more capacity to store gas/oil in the next year, what they have already stored will run out in months during winter.
The West (except for the US currently) are running round like headless chickens, as they are technocrats and not very good politicians.
The US in my opinion were flying round the media pre Ukraine invasion telling us that Russia will invade and the reason for that is that they wrote the script.
This is a US Proxy War and the Ukrainian people are the reluctant actors in an US Play.
Europe acted like a rabbit cought in the US’s headlights and Germany went from being a currently peaceful nation into a big donater to NATO (for all intents and purposes a US body) – The Swiss dropped their neutrality and two other countries joined NATO at the drop of a hat.
The question is what have they done all this stupidity for?
My opinion is that the real target is China as it really is coming up the track to challenge for world economic dominance and Russia is being welcomed into China’s sphere of influence, as are many African countries.
It is this that animates the US strategic planners and because their plan is wrong, and will continue to be wrong, they need to continue the Ukrania/Russia conflict for as long as possible to try and weaken Russia, and by definition China.
The Tipping Point for Chinese influence economically that people like Bannon warned of has tipped – there is no going back short of a proper big war now in my view.
The Neo-liberal economic Empire is over and like Samson bringing down the Temple I dread to think what the US will do next.
The thing is, the rest of the West and the world in general doesn’t have to do what the US wants now as the US is in rapid decline; but it won’t bow out with a wimper – it may be a bang.
Missing one point here – the biggest gas storage in Germany actually was owned by Gazprom. At least until Germany “nationalized” it. Its primary purpose is to act as a backup in case of any issues with the gas supply, and as extra capacity during high demand in winter.
Add that to the estimated $300Billion in foreign reserves that was frozen by the West and you can understand the Russians are a little bit pissed. It’s a miracle they supplied their gas for as long as they did.
UK did have gas storage at Rough until Centrica shut it down (when I was on it in 1990s the Wellhead platform was out of bounds due to a longstanding gas leak), but that field was more used by Centrica playing the spot market for profit than a national storage.
The Rough gas storage facility has re-opened.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2022/aug/31/the-rough-gas-storage-tale-is-typical-of-tory-ministers-complacency
Not yet it hasn’t.
“Permits are approved and Kwasi Kwarteng, business secretary until next week, just has to nail down a contract with Centrica, Rough’s owner.”
I was on it maybe 2002 and it was falling to bits even then. 2006 there was a major vessel rupture resulting in a major fire and a couple of people injured. Probably out of 20 or so rigs I was on in the North Sea, it was one of the worst with respect to structural integrity.
UK is a net importer of gas, mostly from Norway.
Now Norway is the major supplier to the rest of Europe since our (b)leaders have shut out Russian supply, and Turkmenistan is cosying up to Russia by declining to make up the deficit.
Bottom line, even if Rough storage is reinstated after 7 years of shutdown, (and you can sure, zero maintenance), it’s difficult to see where would be the source of excess gas for storage.
Article states that it got permission to reopen and the quantity of gas storage is worth 10 (ten) days’ consumption. I stopped reading the rest is where it will take billions in “repair”. Tories are Great. Pears, why do you claim that facility is re-opened, contrary to the first half of the article?
Happy to know that Lizz T can promise that Gas and El will be provided From 22/December to the 2/January. Christmas and New year must go ?
I find it all rather laughable, that Europe can impose widespread sanctions on Russia, and that the likes of Facebook and Instagram can postpone their hate policies, especially on calling for the killing of Russians, add in the almost pogrom-like attacks on Russians, their children and businesses throughout Europe, and when Russia tells Europe that there’s an oil leak in a gas turbine that supplies Europe (there’s probably no leak to speak of) the Western media accuses Russia of cutting off gas supplies.
Well yes, I’m surprised Russia didn’t cut the gas off sooner with the thousands of sanctions placed upon it, some which have backfired on the West. The latest, which probably led to the gas cut-off, is a price cap on Russian oil and refusing to insure tankers that transport Russian oil.
The West/Europe appears to want to have it both ways when it comes to Russia, it wants to impose widespread and far reaching sanctions and ostracise Russians from Europe, but it also wants its gas and oil at a fair price at the same time.
It’s going to be a long cold Winter for Europe, worse still its industries might grind to a halt, with mass unemployment food and fuel shortages. We’ll see how long Europeans put up with this before they storm the bastille so to speak. When will the Europeans wake up and stop acting in the interests of the USA. The UK is also complicit in its actions, we have the FM of Scotland twice calling for a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which could lead the kick-off of WWIII. We had the PM Johnson fly out to Ukraine the other day to make sure the Ukrainian troops carried out their most recent suicide mission which was total failure, and we have a new PM in the wings more than likely Liz Truss, as the Tory membership would never elect an Indian man to number ten.
Truss is making all the noises of a hardliner, and that she won’t know, or more like care, how damaging the cost of living crisis will be on those who are at the poorer end of the scale.
Well said, RoS!
” Ukrainian troops carried out their most recent suicide mission which was total failure “
You mean they didn’t kill themselves?
When you run at a bunker with your gun that is a suicide mission. You are right you did not kill yourself, but a guy with machinegun in the bunker killed you. Well done Pears I will just read your philosophical and logics post! But where you are right is in WW2 people did run at a bunker with a hand grenade and managed to kill bunker staff.
Pears Morgaine.
I think it was a recent offensive near Kherson, and it turned out that the main battle ground was on flat open steppes, no cover whatsoever, the Ukrainian force had tanks and artillery, and the troops were trained by the British, but none of this matters if don’t have air superiority as Russian forces have. The Russian forces circled round behind the Ukrainian forces and blew the three bridges behind them, so they literally had no exit.
Did Johnson fly out to Kiev to a day or so before the offensive to make sure Zelensky carried it out, mind you when the dust settles Zelensky can head off to his mansion in Florida, and live the high life with his huge pile of cash in his bank account.
Apparently we have to wait for a week before Mary E. Truss will elucidate what she wants to do, more procrastination. Did any other PM say ‘suck it and see what I can come up with next week’ once they were selected by 0.3% of the Tory Party?
She has already said that she wants to serve all those rich people by cutting their taxes instantly in the hope that they will invest during a recession and inflation going up to 22% by next year.
She did not say that tax cuts will be proportional to the development she hopes to achieve, no levers on the rich, but plenty of Bills in the pipeline for the general public to be levered the moment they so much as squeak. The establishment’s best choice, they have a PM that is fully controlled and putty in their hands.
Today the still reigning monarch will inquire as to how best the returns from Crowm Estate’s massive profits be invested. Mind, that does not mean she would want to receive tax cuts for ‘developing’ anything that creates meaningful work for the unwashed.
Raised by hardline left parents, Mary will now act contrary and be the best right-wing Conservative PM we have seen; that is what some children do when they are growing up, wetting their own nest.
I do not expect her to get a handle on this proxy war, sanctions ‘R us’, self-generated crisis. If you do not want to invest in more sustainable developments, because it goes against your past allies in the oil and gas lobby whom you have supported with taxes for decades, then we will have two options: a masochistic position where we take it all on the chin despite what it WILL do to us; and a more radical option, when everyone withdraws their money from banks to buy pitchforks and what little food they can buy for it.
Leave you with a fictional letter written to Viz:
“I hadn’t visited the Uk in many years, but on a recent trip I passed a petrol station and, looking at the sign on the forecourt, was pleased to see that petrol is still only around £2 a gallon, same as it was back in the 1970’s. You lucky sods!”
” when Russia tells Europe that there’s an oil leak in a gas turbine that supplies Europe (there’s probably no leak to speak of) the Western media accuses Russia of cutting off gas supplies.”
They are still happy to supply gas via Nordstream 2, but, strangely, the Germans don’t want them to, so who has cut off the gas supply?
“Nicola Sturgeon: Hurling abuse at journalists is never acceptable.”
My preference if they stray from Integrity Initiative guidelines or upset Washington is straightforward imprisonment.
yes, we do it best in the UK – best strip search them before they’re put on suicide watch, as after 3 years inside, conditions meet Washington’s requirements even better than their promised levels of abuse!
One doesn’t need to go all the way back to Marx, which, let’s face it, isn’t that easy to read; a German 19th trait! One can delve into Thomas Piketty and his Capital in the 21st Century, which sort of updates Classical Marx for contemporary readers, but, basically comes to the same conclusions. What we are experiencing is the rise of neo-feudalism in advanced economies and in our social and political structures. It’s not ‘neo-liberal.’ It’s neo-feudal! This lurch away from ‘modernity’ raises an awful lot of, mostly, very unpleasant questions about the distribution of wealth and power in society in the advanced western economies, not least in relation to fundamental human rights, like freedom of speech and a free press, which are casualties of the rise of neo-feudalism.
Marx/Engels are not hard to read.
Piketty is definitely one to avoid – as “Marxist” as a zit on Bob Dylan’s arse. On the other hand: Ernest Mandel, Robert Brenner, David Harvey, Giovanni Arrighi, New Left Review (https://newleftreview.org/), Monthly Review (https://monthlyreview.org/)…the list goes on.
There is a whole world of Marxist scholarship out there waiting to “red pill” your brain.
Republicofscotland, regarding the leak –
this is a funny story with this turbine. I’ve already stopped watching comedy shows, I just need to read the news for a laugh.
Well, the turbine left for Canada. According to the contract, it had to arrive in Russia after repair. In a sealed package, with proper conditions for transportation and storage, and upon acceptance, an inspection of experts and signing of the act should have taken place.
Instead, the turbine was sent to Germany and many people expressed their “expert opinions” by taking photos next to the turbine. I mean Mr. Scholz.
All this fuss about the turbine has generated a lot of discussion, in a humorous and even harshly sarcastic tone.
Like “Olaf Scholz personally examined the turbine for Nord Stream. He touched the turbine, sniffed the turbine, licked the turbine until he realized that he didn’t fucking understand gas supply equipment.”
Or Turbine solution found! Send it to Ukraine, and there the Russians will seize it.
Or, the most funny, but this humor needs some introduction and a million apologies, I’m just translating, I’m not the author of it. Well, some time ago a meme was popular on Ru-net. It was a screenshot of a message, written in poor Russian, by some illiterate man, most probably of eastern or asian origin. The message was obviously fishing for intimate pictures of women. The message said: ‘Hello, I gynecologist. Send me pics of your pisussy and l watch it are swollen or what’.
Now, when Mr. Scholz published a photo of himself with the turbine, someone commented ‘Hello, I Scholz. Send me your turbussy and I watch if it swollen or what’
—
The leack was real, the act on leackage is signed by Siemens experts.
ah, forgot to mention another
sillywise politicians’ suggestion on price cap.People here have fun. Someone said that if they start the Price Cap on Russian oil, then Russia may want to introduce Size Cap on oil barrel, say 10 litres is quite enough 🙂 Like, you know, there are metric and imperial measurment systems, so we can invent one more unit. Euro-barrel, Russian style.
Pigeon English, Don’t Pay initiative got some attention on russian social media
https://pikabu.ru/story/shotlandtsyi_szhigayut_scheta_za_yelektrichestvo_vozle_shtabkvartiryi_yenergeticheskogo_regulyatora_glazgo_myi_ne_platim_9407099
here is a piece of the discussion under the news, the most popular comments:
– what are they happy about? no need to pay now? there was only an 80% increase in the tariff
– they said that Europeans are rich. They will just pay a little more. Or did something go wrong?
– They are generally not accustomed to such increases. Because their regulators used to work with ours under long-term contracts, the prices did not rise for years. But now, bang! increased by a tangible amount. Protest since
– Will have to get used to. Russophobia is an expensive pleasure.
– Let’s see how it all turns out. Hope it doesn’t get completely shitty here, don’t give a fuck about them there at all.
—
The discussion had continuation. Another user posted:
Response to “Scots Burn Electricity Bills Near Glasgow Energy Regulator Headquarters: ‘We Don’t Pay!'”
https://pikabu.ru/story/otvet_na_post_shotlandtsyi_szhigayut_scheta_za_yelektrichestvo_vozle_shtabkvartiryi_yenergeticheskogo_regulyatora_glazgo_myi_ne_platim_9410000
1) Support Scotland’s aspirations to secede from the UK.
2) Fill it up with cheap LNG, build a nuclear power plant.
3) Together with China, become the guarantor of the Scotland’s security.
4) Send military experts, missiles, air defense equipment.
5) Remind the world that people have the right to self-determination.
The posting got twice Like Button hits, compared to the initial piece of news 🙂
” 5) Remind the world that people have the right to self-determination. “
Unless they’re Ukrainian of course.
More precisely – Unless the occupier is an official friend (or indeed us). Then the occupation is OK, and the aggressor can do whatever they like with impunity.
It’s only an absolute outrage if an occupier (or attacker) is an official enemy.
Pears
or unless they are Krimeans or Russians in East Ukraine or Basque or Catalonian or many others.
What chance do the ‘Krimeans’ or the people of Donbas have for self-determination? They’re going to be absorbed into Russia whether they like it or not, a process which is already well underway.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/05/russian-journalist-ivan-safronov-sentenced-to-22-years-in-prison
“Reporter handed a record sentence for trumped-up treason charges that shocked supporters inside the court”
We can do better than that: “Reporter handed a record sentence without even a trial for trumped-up treason charges that shocked supporters” is more like it. Come on Pears, admit it, we do this sort of thing so much more efficiently, we don’t waste our time with courts.
That link has nothing to do with Krimea or self determination. Why do you post irelevant links or fake claims like the gas storage facility is up-and-running in the UK (whatever name).
Predictable ‘whataboutery’. You think the west does worse so this is OK.
The link wasn’t intended to have anything to do with Crimea or self determination.
FYI after a £1 billion upgrade the Rough gas storage was cleared for operation by safety inspectors on the 15th August and the OK to start operations by the regulator last week. It’s open for business.
Honest journalists from The Guardian forgot to mention one tiny detail – Safronov was paid for passing secrets to his clients. In every country it is called espionage, aka selling secret security info for money. I believe that The Guardian, this beacon of integrity, this stronghold of true journalism, forgot to report this tiny insignificant detail by some absurd misunderstanding, completely unintentionally.
More on honest journalism. You may like the video report by Euronews
https://youtu.be/4ZoF5ZkkFiQ?t=77
watch the kids at 1:17, you may recognize the gesture these two cute little ukrainian girls in the background perform.
Looks much like the gesture on the photo here
https://pikabu.ru/story/moskovskie_koltsevyie_zhdut_v_budushchem_takikh_ambitsioznyikh_ukrainok_9426615
That is what I call honest journalism, showing things as they are.
Unlike ukrainian media, blurring nazi tattoos and insignia in their reports. BBC does the same.
—
Recently I watched an interview of a woman, the wife of an Azov guy. She was telling many normal things, how she loves her husband, how she helps the fight etc etc. In the end she was asked what’s the name of her pet dog. She answered it’s Adik.
– Adik? You mean the full name is Adolf?
– Yes.
– Like Hitler?
– Why Hitler? No, it’s just a name.
– I thought so because of your swastika tatoos, the same as on your husband.
– I don’t want to talk about that.
—
Pears, I’d like you to comment on tattoo on the face here
https://youtu.be/9AwAJGk50Ms?t=46
Someone suggested the tattoo celebrates the the Cape of Good Hope discovery by Bartolomeu Dias. I find the explanation far too fetched. Very much interested to know your version.
” Nearly 100,000 people have signed an online petition accusing the authorities of cooking up fake proof of Safronov’s guilt under the cover of state secrecy which surrounds the case, something the Kremlin has denied. “
They claim he was paid $248 which is not only an odd sum but not a great deal of money.
Girls in that video are waving to the departing soldiers.
I’ve no idea why that man has a number tattooed on his right cheek. Possibly it’s the last 4 digits of his service number so he can be identified if killed. That would make more sense.
predictable.
I suggest ‘an ancient Jewish salute’ and ‘ancient Jewdaic runes’, makes more sense.
First explore Maidan 2014
Then what and why shit started happening in Ukraine. Why and how had we Minsk 1 & 2 agreement and was it ever implemented and enforced by co-signers (France and Germany)?
What was happening in so-called Donbas from 2014-2022? Mutual shelling for 8 years. Where were Ukraine forces stationed?
On the border with the self-proclaimed “self-determination” terrorist-infested Donbas. What was UA goal?
Txs God UK doesn’t have constitution otherwise Scottish Independence would be illegal, like it is in most unitarist states.
Scotland has to leave reactionary Britain! Sturgeon, Salmond etc. are so much smarter, better, and human compared to Boris J or Lizz T, or even T May or D Cameron.
When Kosovo declared independence, in the late 90s, from internationally recognized borders of Serbia a) we supported it
and
b) Putin said “we are oppening Pandora’s box”. Like it or not reality is different, and every one can secede at first and join a neighbouring state or stay independent. Russians in Crimea seceded and joined Russia, and last year Donbas wanted to secede and maybe join “Mother Russia”.
If Northern Ireland was either 80% Catholic or Orange there is no doubt where would they be. It is very simple.
“Unless they’re Ukrainian of course.”
When they get to be told what to do by the US.
Nice to have you back!
You Russians should stop paying 10 £ a month for el and gas?. (or is it much more?)
I do not think price increase will be just 80% but much much more! I don’t mind, as long it’s good for Ukraine but on condition
that Ukraine stops using Russian gas and stops gaspipes going trough Ukraine and getting paid for it.
We got what we asked for and we still blame Putin for gas/oil price. As someone wrote “Putin is obeying sanctions”
It looks more likely, protests across EU than in Russia. (Brits do not protest as long as they have Mc Donald, Burger King and KFC)
Can Russians cope with big chains leaving? When Mc Donald closed we all expected revolution!
On positive side less consumption of fossil fuel better for the environment!
You should not underestimate our ingenuity (stupidity). We will give let’s say £100 a month to a household so they can pay “EL/Gas distributor (private company) so they can pay “providers”(private) of el/gas and it might be some other players involved in pyramid. It will cost as they love to call it taxpayer cca 50 Billion which the pyramid scheme will get. I am frustrated!!!!!!!!!!!
I really don’t know how much do we pay, my husband pays the bills. And, we don’t cook with gas, only electric stoves in my house. I have no idea how much do people normally consume. I checked retail gas price in Russia is about 7 roubles per cubic meter. It is 70 roubles per 1 pound currency rate.
I can only offer another sarcastic advice 🙂
“Note to Europeans.
For many years people oppressed low temperatures. They called them “holodryga”, “dubak” and other words that have a clearly negative marking. Progressive Europeans must renounce the imposed temperature stereotypes and generally abandon the concepts of ‘warm’ and ‘cold’. It is proposed to refer to them as ‘temperature No. 1’ and ‘temperature No. 2’ in the future. Vocabulary should be temperature neutral. To say that cold is bad is now wrong.
It is necessary to abandon value judgments and accept the temperature as it is. It is important to accept the fact that there are a large number of different temperatures and this is normal. If the government says that the temperature in your apartment, equal to +5⁰, identifies itself as +30⁰, you should respect this feature of it and call it that way. Toxic thermophiles will be banned from social networks and subjected to obstruction. All who complain that they are cold will be recognized as frostophobes. Inciting hatred for the cold is now an extremist crime.”
I might be wrong regarding gas and el prices. Tonight I watched on youtube English guy in St. P as someone said wicked sense of humour. Maybe el is not as cheap as I expected. I would strongly racomend . iEarlGrey
The price of electricity is about 4 rubles per kilowatts in residential buildings. In my workshop (non-residential premises) 1 kilowatt costs about 10 rubles, and I consume there about 40-50 kilowatts per month. This is from 400 to 500 rubles, which means from 5 to 7 pounds per month.
Quite affordable.
The chucking of Sunak for Liz ‘effing’ T, seems to be an acknowledgement that the Collective Waste has decided it can’t woo the Old East India slaves into being the southern front against China and more importantly the SCO, BRI, new financial banking system. The main meeting of the SCO this month is the bright star in the sky we are being stopped from looking at. As if we are all turning the collective Nelsonian eye to the Truth. Sunak and the rest of the Empires House Slaves will now be retreated as we are led into further xenophobia against the 85% of humanity.
It’s easier if we are made poor and our savings and assets are destroyed. It helps if we are unable to afford to travel into that majority world. It makes it much simpler if we are further put into punishment mode and then told its down to the ‘furrners’ and that our hope only lies with the hedge funders.
The fascist state chose Truss when the population had been messaged into picking Sunak. It won’t play well with these dupe tory Asian voters.
The real grass roots Europeans are already in the streets – they are beyond left, right.
Ah don’t you just love the smell of the decaying Dominate Empire in the morning ?
Chief of the General Staff, AUKUS NATO and Five Power have told Truss to freeze energy bills with public money to prevent (a) a haemorrhage of support for the war in Ukraine (b) strikes, demonstrations and riots. The outstretched hand will achieve subservience throughout the sheeple domain.
Might as well face it….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EH1G4EwljM
DunGroanin
I think you will see Asian Tories taking the lead in fawning over Liz Truss. I have been strongly reprimanded by an Asian Tory OBE for disrespecting Cameron when he was in power. Forster broke the taboo about the underdog British female fancying the underdog in Asia.
There is a green light for Asian entrepreneurs and British Trusses to have a long and prosperous love affair.
Which will take their Tory minds off their little problem on the North West Frontier , Ukraine, where our SAS boys are taking a drubbing.
G mate, the Asian trad Labour are being encouraged to return to that auto-vote.
It’s the only way the Great Knight Dope Starmzies Alt-Tories will ever get back in!
It’s a show.
A powerful truthful analysis. Most of this will never be acknowledged by our babbling 24hr state and corporate media.. The photo of the BBC creature neatly encapsulates the slide into dystopia.
Debt is the shadow of profit. The hellish American aggression is the complement of their greed.
“Believing in the same things now, I find myself on the far left” – Glen Greenwald made a similar point, except he finds himself on the far right.
He’s always been against the security state, foreign wars, censorship, but now the Democrats support these these things, while Republicans question them.
Greenwald finds his bread is buttered on the side of toadying to the far right. Having established “lefty” credentials, he’s qualified to pretend to be the “reasonable” left. In fact, he’s the sell-out left, same with Jimmy Dore etc.
Very simplistic to say the Democrats ‘support’ the security state etc. while the Repubs question them. The Repubs ‘question’ any investigation into their semi-deity Trump, to the point of reflexively calling anything looking into that incredibly corrupt bastard a “witch-hunt”, a “democrat plot” and so on. The FBI investigated every Muslim for years, and every black movement for decades, and the Repubs never had a problem with that. In fact, the only problem they do have is when they finally investigate far right terrorists, white supremacists, and of course the Dear Leader himself for his blatantly obvious criminal activity.