On Sunday I spoke alongside Jeremy Corbyn and others at a packed meeting in Oslo to discuss freedom in the modern world, with particular reference to Julian Assange and to Guantanamo. It was a truly inspirational event.
It finished at 6.30 pm local time. The speakers were then mobbed by well-wishers and those wanting to give contact details or request campaigning help. Books were given and signed, and a great many selfies were taken. I saw Jeremy pose literally for dozens of selfies with beaming supporters.
Finally making it out of the hall and into the street, Jeremy was approached by a couple, man and wife, requesting a selfie. We then continued down the street to the hotel, for a quick wash and brush up, before leaving again for an 8pm dinner reservation.
The man who had approached Jeremy in the street with his wife turns out to have been Hans Jorgen Johansen, an obscure far right activist. He almost immediately posted his selfie with Jeremy to Facebook. As we were ordering dinner in the restaurant, arch neo-con journalist Oz Katerji was tweeting out the photo of Corbyn and the “Neo-Nazi” to the world. (No link because I have been blocked by Katerji for years).
Johansen was not a speaker at the meeting, not an organiser, and not on the platform. It is not plain if he was in the 200 strong audience at all – it was a public meeting. He approached on the street outside.
I could only find one of the Norwegians with us who had ever even heard of Johansen, who has just 6,000 followers. Yet in less than an hour of this obscure figure putting up a photo with Corbyn, it was being tweeted out by Katerji.
Now how did Katerji come so very quickly to see the Facebook page of this obscure Norwegian? I can find no evidence of Katerji ever having written anything on Norway, and none of him monitoring the far right.
Katerji’s interests very much lie elsewhere.
A former Murdoch hack, Katerji is the archetypal neo-con journalist whose every production aggressively promotes the position and interests of the security services and NATO.
Katerji first came to my attention as the most vehement of propagandists for the extreme jihadists in Syria, funded and armed of course by the US and Saudi Arabia.
There was no false flag chemical weapons attack staged by the jihadists so obvious that Katerji would not promote it, and as his beloved head choppers were beaten back by Russian forces, Katerji completely became immersed in hatred. He called me an “Islamophobe” and Edward Snowden a “full time Putin propagandist”.
Katerji’s support for Israel also became increasingly fierce and uncompromising, with anybody expressing concern for the Palestinians denounced by him as anti-semitic. He produced an entire podcast series giving the views of extreme zionist right wingers on Jeremy Corbyn.
It was therefore no surprise when, at the time of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it turned out Katerji was safely ensconced in a pleasant Kiev flat, with some very enviable company. He has been churning out the most ludicrously biased of NATO propaganda narratives on Ukraine ever since, presumably to his personal profit.
So a highly obscure right wing extremist takes a selfie with Jeremy on an Oslo street and under an hour later it is in the possession of Oz Katerji, of all people, who tweets it out.
Not a set-up at all…
Katerji’s role in this stinks. Whether Johansen is exactly what he seems is also an open question.
The gaps in Johansen’s public cv may simply be because he is such a minor figure, but from Norwegian wikipedia it seems he took 6 years over an undergraduate economics degree from 1990 to 1996, and then in 1997 Johansen was working briefly in mining in the Philippines.
That is not an obvious move for a new Norwegian economics graduate, and the only source is his own word for it. There is then a complete gap in his cv from 1997 to 2000 before he reappears in Norway and gets into far right politics.
The key point on what happened in Oslo is of course is that this man was not a part of the event and that Corbyn had not the slightest idea who he was. That did not, however, stop the BBC, the Mail and other outlets running this ludicrous non-story to bring up more “Corbyn antisemitic” slurs.
The next morning, afer a meeting with young activists, we went for a guided tour of the Munch Museum. Despite the completely bad faith media storm created against him, as we went round the museum Jeremy, as usual, happily posed with the many ordinary people who approached him. He will always remain a good man.
Postscript
In the interests of complete transparency, I should own up to a personal message exchange with John Sweeney, including a reference to Oz Katerji, at the very start of the Russian invasion, when Russian forces attempted quickly to take Kiev.
I reveal this in order to avoid the charge of hypocrisy. I was offering to help Sweeney and also Oz Katerji escape if necessary. I may disagree with or dislike somebody, that does not mean I wish them harm.
Given that John Sweeney’s part of the conversation is merely a six word rejection, I do not think I am betraying his confidence.
To extend the transparency further, the money referred to was all given two months later to help cover the financial losses of the Doune the Rabbit Hole Festival in 2022.
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Jeremy Corbyn is a better man than I. You are a good man too. I can think of quite a few Labour politicians and media hacks I wish harm to after their disgusting smears. Democracy is compromised by their wilful lies and sabotage, but instead of punishment, many are likely to be rewarded with much more power.
Jeremy Corby is STUPID
He hasn’t had an original idea since 1975, thinks the world has not changed since then & opposes aiding Ukraine … “nuff said” ?????
He mentioned JC and JA.
I just watched. Was in tears.
John Waters
The rock star
Tonight at the dome in London, extra night tomorrow.
This Is Not A Drill tour.
Superlative.
Dumb uniformed AS holes.
They didn’t get any love.
He Did.
Thank you John.
If you in London tomorrow. Or anywhere he is playing.
SEE THIS SHOW.
It’s the only real life geo-politics by a musician these days.
X
@DunGroanin,
Roger Waters?
Yup.
There is a John Waters who is a US film director – https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000691/
Jeremy Corbyn may be a nice person, but that is never enough. Such people need to be winners.
Yes, he talked the talk, but sadly he wasn’t capable of walking the walk. Being a great loser is of no comfort to those who placed great hope in him.
Now we are stuck with a shit deal on the table, a deal that means if we get rid of the tories, we get a guaranteed monster in their place. Stop sucking up to such incompetent losers as Corbyn, we need to move forward. Those who were inspired by Corbyn, as I was, need to stay in the Labour Party and start afresh.
Despairing over who is right or wrong is unimportant, they need to be winners, or what’s the point…_
Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer offer less than nothing to most of the country yet are winners in the game of UK politics. How do you explain it?
Incidentally you must be aware of the rule changes the Labour Party has instituted making it impossible for a leftwinger to ever again be elected leader? They were very widely publicised a couple of years ago.
It’s easily explained, once you realise that there is no actual reason for a politician to carry out any of his promises or to represent the interests of his “constituents”.
In reality, the true constituents of MPs are the corporations and their wealthy owners who pay the MPs. As the old saying has it, an honest politician is one who stays bought.
Top politicians in the West are those who are sufficiently hungry for power, wealth, and notoriety and sufficiently unscrupulous to lie, cheat, and stab colleagues in the back every day. To such people there is no real obstacle except for the competition of their like-minded fellows. That sets up a race to the bottom in which only the very worst ever reach the top.
Ironic, isn’t it, that our “democratic” system, set up with such hopes and trust, turns out to have been almost designed to select the very worst members of society and put them in charge? One of Murphy’s Laws probably covers it.
Meanwhile, countries lucky enough to be ruled by “dictators” and “strongmen” are often far better governed (and safer). Of course, there is a substantial risk that any given dictator will turn out to be very nasty. But our Western system pretty well guarantees that.
Incidentally, for all the talk about “authoritarianism” and “the rule of law”, there is not much difference in those dimensions between the West and Russia or China. All nations have vast masses of laws and regulations, which allow those in power to do much as they please. (Although China seems to be far ahead in the art of keeping corruption to a minimum).
And can you really say, after thinking it through, that Mr Putin or Mr Xi is any more “authoritarian” than Mr Sunak, Mr Biden, or Mr Macron? The main difference is that Putin and Xi have been in charge for long enough that the effects of their work are clearly visible – and both Russia and China are forging ahead. In the West we have a convenient system by which the rulers are switched every four or five years, so that any disasters can always be blamed on the previous lot. Clever, but cynical – exactly as you would expect of unscrupulous, cynical liars.
This ignores the deplorable treatment that he received from within his own party. I have no doubt that many voters noticed the white-anting and, reasonably enough, decided that they could not support a party that would not support its leader.
Jeremy Corbyn is a decent man, predictably and deplorably dealt with by the damp-lipped media and even worse by members of his own party, some of whom purport to be his friends. I disagree with much of what he believes but never doubt his altruism nor his integrity. If he is expected to compromise on his ideals simply to achieve office (‘win power’ [sic]) then that says more about the system than it does about him.
We need to change how we choose our leaders. We need to stop choosing bastards who only care about winning and start choosing good people with good ideas about how to make things better for all of us. And we need to stop admiring thugs and bullies and liars and conmen – the alphas who like to flaunt their brawn – and start admiring the modest thinkers with compassionate hearts who care about other people. Currently we get exactly the monsters we deserve.
Well said. We don’t want more of the same, even if they’re nice. JC was defeated by a system that has no morals and cares not a jot for our country or our people – they are our enemies Damn them all.
so much wrong with your post I am unable to respond, as my breathing has been affected. Your trite comments are not in the least intelligent ( walk and talk etc is just such a hackneyed cliche). you talk about the ‘monster’ that the Labour party has become (assuming you mean Starmer and his coterie of sycophants).
Corbyn represents a decency that is notable for its absence in our political environment. In Scotland the self colonisation of the SNP is now exposed to anyone who cares to look. My hope is that the reality about Starmer will be revealed over the coming year and the great Starmer plan to outdo the Tories by some variant of centrist totalitarianism will crumble. It is far from settled.
The first step would be to bloody the nose of both Labour and SNP by an emergence of ALBA in the probable Rutherglen by election (or Mgt Ferrier standing as an independent) I would even welcome a resurgence of the LIB dems as a sink for soft Tories and Labour dimwits (or preferably an indy seeking party) if it was to open a path for some new initiative in Scotland. For sure Labour is not a remotely desirable development in Scotland although I am pretty sure the SNP will be electorally walloped in any by-election. Their inept mediocrity is brutally revealed by recent events.
I will remind you of this rubbish after the next election.
Please explain – don’t just make such a meaningless comment. What is your point? (assuming you have one)
deepgreen,
“you talk about the ‘monster’ that the Labour party has become (assuming you mean Starmer and his coterie of sycophants)”…… Yes.
If Sunak wins, we possibly see Starmer ousted, but get another tory government… or Starmer gets kept on even if he loses. Or if Starmer wins we get stuck with him for who knows how long.
Sometimes every deal on the table is a shit deal…_
Digger OK I get your point but I hope/ think that the current competition between extreme centrism (yes I know it is an oxymoron) must come to an end. I don’t know how it will end. Starmer is chasing the Tory vote and has to create an attractive package to voters who are certain of their self-righteousness and deluded about their understanding of a very unstable world. Suella Braverman is barely coherent but meets with the approval of the Tory rump. Sunak is perfectly well aware of her limits/shortcomings (and some other of the tory numptocracy (like Mogg). He only recently got rid of Andrew Bridgen. Truss is like a rampant case of political syphilis. Nadine Dorries is a stalwart of the current crop but has the IQ of a glacial erratic (boulder), which kind of puts Ms Coffey into perspective. I am glad to say that Sunak has his hands full trying to juggle that lot into a government.
I think Starmer is also juggling with some dodgy customers. Their political vision is very restricted by their noses sniffing Starmer’s arse.
The SNP are pondering the end of their era of easy money. Honestly, what use is Pete Wishart to anyone? Supreme irony if the SNP lose their WM presence but with Wishart left holding the fort. The SNP are completely out of their depth. Political ineptitude at a depth never before plumbed.
Something has to give way. I wouldn’t like to try to make a prediction, other than that there will be many unexpected events over the next year.
Extreme Centrism is only an oxymoron if you think it means a political between half way between Left and Right. That isn’t what it represents: The politics of the “Centre” is about maintaining the status quo, and promoting the existing power relationships, support of the security services and institutions of control. It rejects the virtues of both the Left AND the Right, it has an antithetical relationship towards Society and Socialism, and dismisses appeals to traditional values and customs instead framing itself as the “pragmatic” “Third Way”.
As things stand you have a choice of three tory parties in England and four in Scotland. None of them can stand up and say just how they differ from each other. In order to qualify as the lesser evil something about them has to be less evil. Reference to policies from twenty or thirty years ago doesn’t count. IMHO this may be by design.
Politics is not about individuals – never has been – never will be.
I think Jeremy Corbyn is a Humanist and very principled. His Achilles Heel was his belief in Democracy and the Parliamentary Road to Socialism. A cynical Leftie like me knows that this can never be allowed to happen any where in the West.
The political parameters of policy and debate these days in the West that it looks like this (!) – the exclamation mark meaning no widening of debate or policy – except towards the right of course as is happening in Europe and the English speaking AUKUS countries.
As Michael Hudson says (see the comment) there is no way (short of war) that the BRICS can be stopped.
The MSM talk about ‘Existential’ threats and they are way behind the reality curve. “Existential”reat by an existing perceived enemy. They are totally wrong – the BRICS are already getting on with their reality and not the West’s delusion. It isn’t going to happen – it is happening.
Michael Hudson’s observations are bang on – the aim of the proxy war in Ukraine ostensibly looks like a war against Russia (it is) but the subtext (the reality) is to destroy or bring the EU and other European countries under US economic and political control.
The Germans are shooting themselves in the foot not with a rifle – but a Machine Gun.
Macron doesn’t like the look of all this at all and wants NATO/OTAN to only operate in the Atlantic areas and not as far as Japan – Australia and New Zealand – i.e the South China Seas. He is fearful of all this US pressure getting out of hand. Quite rightly he views it (privately of course) as the beginning of the break up of the EU.
Hudson is right – Macron is right – it is the beginning. Also remember the Chinese Belt Road Initiatve was pencilled in to end up at Germany under Merkel. This is not dismilar to the blowing up of the Nord Stream Pipeline but on a geographical European scale.
It is a battle between the Progressives against the Regressives.
The US has never in my living memory made any country it touched better off or even a better Democracy. In fact it is busy ruining its own deformed form of Democracy. I don’t like either Trump or Biden but so-called Democrats have been playing the game of voting for the least worst for decades.
The complete failure of Social Democracy to tame capitalism’s excesses ended after 1972 after dollarisation. You need to bribe enough voters to keep the show on the road to continue with the delusion that democracy represents everyone and the rise of the billionaires and those who work for them is obvious for those with eyes to see that you don’t gain anything out of the charade.
There was a Senator from a while ago who was asked about needing a majority by a media pundit. Paraphrasing here but his reply was: “We don’t need a majority – we just need enough voters to vote for us”
The “enough” is rapidly running out as Starmer may find out eventually. Of course I’m afraid he is too politically dim to realise what’s really going on in the UK – nevermind the world. His advisers must be too.
As usual the UK politicians will continue to work with the World’s Regressives not the Progressives.
@ DiggerUK
Are you mad? The Liarbour Partei is and always has been a far-right toilet for the Tories (Officials) to sit on when out of office. Stop supporting this disgusting organisation and stop voting in fascist elections or you’re as big a loser as Corbyn.
So much apathy for Starmer’s Labour, so many rightfully disillusioned with the stale British political scene.
Corbyn’s treatment has been so outrageous, I wish he’d respond by launching and fronting a new party. Corbyn need only take a ceremonial presidential type role not necessarily standing for election again himself.
Corbyn’s ready-made Peace and Justice Project turned political party (PJP) wouldn’t be some futile gesture. Even under rigid FPTP it could take votes and potentially play a decisive role. A low cost membership and realistically it’d have 200,000 members within a month of launch, rivalling the big two, and such numbers would illustrate the desire for real change.
The unpopular establishment legacy media’ panicked response attacks (free publicity) could even see it becoming the UK’s largest political party. The new party need only run candidates against Labour’s right-wing MPs. They could deliver a hung parliament, denying Starmer and possibly even force his resignation. A hung parliament in which the Lib Dems or SNP force compromise on Labour eg. voting reform, federalism and HoL reform and defend the NHS. This would certainly be better than an outright Labour majority. It’d also stymie Starmer’s authoritarian instincts.
“Now we are stuck with a shit deal on the table, a deal that means if we get rid of the tories, we get a guaranteed monster in their place.”
Ah, the reckless courage of the non-combatant! ‘Tis better to have tried and failed than not to have tried at all. If JC hadn’t stood for election, all that would have happened is that we would have got a Starmer-like figure as leader a lot earlier and the Tories would have had a much easier ride for the last few decades.
Bayard,
“JC” did stand. And failed. Foot and Benn didn’t achieve much either,
But as the song says… We’ll keep the Red Flag flying here…_
Well, why didn’t you have a go then?
I couldn’t get on a short list to stand as mp. Your “non-combatant” ad hominem is not playing the ball.
Chances for socialists come along and no faction stays in power for ever, neither do the cliques who support them.
But the red flag keeps flying…_
Digger, how can you be a winner when you’ve got the whole of the MSM and most of the MPs in your own party working against you to bring you down. Jeremy is probably the most smeared politician EVER, and I don’t mean just in the UK, but the WHOLE world. And they’re STILL at it!
Funnily enough I just came across a Jewish Chronicle article the other day about Ed Milliband that was inadvertantly very enlightening. I had read one or two things in the past year or two about how some Jewish organisations weren’t very happy with him regards his stance on Israel/Palestine, but I had no idea how deep it ran until I happened to come across the JC article, by chance, whilst doing some research about something else (the Jewish Labour Movement). The article – from July 2015, when the leadership contest had not long begun – was headlined ‘Who is prepared to point Labour in the right direction on Israel’, and in the article it says ‘Miliband may have inflicted severe damage on Labour’s relationship with Britain’s Jews…..’, and shortly thereafter a light went on!
If the Jewish Chronicle was hostile to Ed Milliband, then it’s pretty certain that the other Jewish newspapers were as well, along with the BoD and LFI and the CST et al, and yet they didn’t use Jeremy Corbyn to try and discredit him even more. Practically ALL the stuff that was dug up and thrown at Jeremy – apart from the totally ludicrous Jeffrey Epshtein episode – was from the five years or so before he, Jeremy, was elected leader – ie the Mural, the English irony, the wreath-laying, the foreword to the book etc – and yet none of it became an issue at the time, and I don’t recall any trawling of LP members or councillors or candidates etc going on during Milliband’s time as leader either. But I think we can be 100% certain that MI5 was keeping a very close eye on Jeremy and, as such, was well aware of what he said in response to Mear One about the mural, and the wreath-laying in Tunisia etc, and could have used them (passed each one on to a journalist or whomever) – when they just happened by chance ‘to come to light’ – to discredit Milliband and the Labour Party, along with this and that, that they dug up on social media accounts of members etc.
Amd the only reason they DIDN’T, I assume, is/was because he was Jewish, and it would have been a bit far-fetched for a lot of people to do to HIM, what they were later to do to Jeremy – eg that he was enabling antisemitism and that he posed an existential threat to British Jews etc, etc, etc.
https://www.thejc.com/life-and-culture/all/who-is-prepared-to-point-labour-in-the-right-direction-on-israel-1.67680
It was a reasonable mistake at the time, but the idea Putin (or more sensibly Russia) was trying to take Kiev was always a nonstarter. It is blatant propaganda of the kind that is causing hundreds of thousands of unnecessary Ukrainian deaths.
First the SMO involved about 100k Russian military, you’d need almost all of them just to hold a city the size of Kiev.
More importantly it ignores the BIG achievement of the first month. Ukraine had spent 7 years building up firing positions and layers fo defences outside the Donbas so that they could continue to fire on civilian and provoke the bear. The idea was that any Russian counter out of Donbas would be very very difficult. The immediate challenge for Russia would be putting in enough artillery between Donetsk and Ukraine positions to be able to out gun Ukraine in Ukraine’s strongest point.
February was an attempt with maybe 50k troops to force Ukraine’s forces to withdraw from their attacking positions and allow the Russian artillery to get into place. It worked perfectly.
There was no attack directly on Kiev or on Kharkov. There was an attack on the Hostomel airport, nearby Bucha, Bucha’s twin town, Irpin. This was threatening because it was 25km NW of Kiev – the opposite side to where Ukraine’s main forces were concentrated. When the Ukrainian forces did turn up, the Russians famously exited pdq.
The West likes to use Thousand Sq Km as its metric for measuring the success in Ukraine. Russia took some 25,000 sqkm in that first few weeks – clearly it is a pretty useless measure (A sensible person would use soldiers dead as a metric – but at Ukraine 250k, Russia about 45-50k, no western media will go there).
In sq km, Russia gave up about 10,000 almost immediately. Russia left very few people in the NE, so the recapture much much later by Ukraine of the famous 6,000 is really odd not because it was a Ukraine success but because they took almost 6 months to do it. In anycase the sq Km metric is currently Russia 25,000 Ukraine 16,000 with 16,000 a side being gained with very little fighting. The net score is Russia is up 9,000 sq kim (in rough figures).
So the question is why did Ukraine leave its North and South borders empty when the CIA had been non-stop predicting that very thing – a Russian invasion. Nobody expected the invasion – because the warning was about something else.f Rather the warning was to support the False flag event that would have happened shortly to justify a Ukrainian attack on Donbas!!
(note 1. that Ukrainian shelling of Donbas civilians in February jumped to much higher levels ahead of the SMO. 2. Most of Ukrainian and Western Rhetoric has always been about Ukraine re-capturing Crimea and Donbas, at no point has any speech been a reaction to a Russian invasion, the topic remains a Ukrainan attack on pro-Russian territories because that is exactly what Zelensky was promising Ukrainians in 2021.
There are a lot of additional reasons why western spin meisters want to paint the first month as a Russian disaster rather than the hugely successful diversionary it was. The 2nd Ukrainian army around June 2022 was largely based on the former Soviet equipment supplied by all the former Warsaw pact countries and the huge numbers of naive Ukrainians that were called up or volunteered along with foreign volunteers. An honest reporting would have meant this was not possible. Still today people think that supporting Ukraine is honorable rather than simply sending young lambs and forced mutton to their deaths.
Then the MIC can hardly admit the useless effect of their weapons or Nato the ineffectiveness of Nato training and communication systems.
But mostly because politicians actually do know how tragic the continuation of this war is for Ukraine, its call ups, wives and children. If that got out many politicians would/should have their careers ended in a moment.
Captured plans show that Russian forces hoped to capture Kyiv within a few days, troops involved had their dress uniforms with them for the victory parade. An essential part of the plan was to fly in mass reinforcements through Hostomel airport but the first Russian assault was repelled and when they did manage to take it the retreating Ukrainians had done enough sabotage to render it unusable.
Naturally the tankies who can’t stomach the concept that the Russians could’ve got anything wrong have to dress the failure up as something else.
perhaps you have a link?
thx
Plenty; but why don’t we let Mr Droy go first.
I’ll take that as a negative.
Does it matter? All material issuing from the Western propaganda mills is suspect by its origin. Virtually nothing we are told about the world is true and almost all the “evidence” is counterfeit.
Rubbish – Such plans if they physically exist are a construct of British intelligence.
As are certain commentators … (ignoring the obvious oxymoron).
Utter guff, did they bring Mussolini’s horse as well for the victory march? The war was always going to be decided on the central front, where the Allies have been on the offensive all along.
Once upon a time we used to ridicule the likes of Mary Whitehouse for condemning a book or a film she hadn’t seen. Seems nowadays it’s acceptable even if you don’t know it even exists.
I love a captured plan narrative
*troops involved had their dress uniforms with them for the victory parade*
—————–
LMAO!
That right there discredits ANYTHING you have to post on the subject of Kiev.
Troops in the field don’t carry their f**king dress uniforms on them, OR in their immediate logistic-chain, when they’re entering bloody combat!
If you must spew gutter-press effusions on us. At least be entertaining rather than boring.
Say the Russians deployed a zeppelin to carry a giant statue of Stalin to be installed on Maidan Square, say they’d trained giant flocks of sparrows to peck the eyes out Ukraineian defenders, or had bred an army of Urak-Hai under the Urals to replace the first wave of hapless cannon-fodder conscripts armed with pointy sticks.
“Captured plans show that Russian forces hoped to capture Kyiv within a few days…”
And I hope to be left a legacy of several million pounds within a few days. I am not expecting that with any great confidence, however.
A competently planned military (or business) operation foresees a very wide range of possible outcomes, and plans for all contingencies.
Had the Ukrainians been ready and willing to kick out the Kiev junta and welcome the Russians with open arms, the Russians would have been foolish not to be prepared for such a contingency. In view of the disgustingly cruel and cynical (and overtly, indeed proudly, Nazi) nature of the Kiev regime, it would have been natural to hope that the citizens would jump at the chance to get rid of them.
As it turned out, the Ukrainians had been so thoroughly brainwashed and terrorised that they remained quiescent while their soldiers put up a firm and consistent resistance to the Russian SMO. The Ukrainian armed forces, remember, were at that time easily the strongest in Europe apart from Russia’s. So the Russians brought out plan B (of the scores they would have prepared beforehand) and began working on that.
Then NATO began arming the Kiev people with more and more weapons of greater and greater cost and power, sending special forces to fight with them, and planning operations for them. As well as the huge amounts of highly detailed intelligence they had been providing from the start of the SMO (and long before).
The Russians, adhering to their policy of causing no more death and destruction that absolutely unavoidable to achieve their goals of denazification and demilitarisation, responded to each stiffening of the resistance by gradually increasing the force they applied. At every stage, the Russians maintained a substantial superiority and continued to accomplish their objectives – although very few people in the West seem to have understood what those objectives were.
Right now it seems that another contingency has materialised, which the Russians certainly foresaw and prepared for. After a year and more of pumping immense sums of money and vast amounts of weapons and ammunition into Ukraine, Western governments are becoming impatient to see results. So they have been putting more and more pressure on Kiev to launch what Dima of Military Summary calls, with classic Russian dry humour, “The Greatest Counter-Offensive”. Apparently it began on Monday, when several brigades drove clamly right into Russian minefields without any attempt at clearing the mines. So far, several thousand Ukrainian soldiers are reported dead or wounded, and over 50 precious tanks destroyed.
Kiev has declared that this was by no means the promised great counter-offensive. Although, as that was promised for “spring”, it seems to have slipped somewhat.
Perhaps the rule is that, if it fails, it wasn’t The Great Counter-Offensive. In which case, we may never see that happen at all.
The reason that no Western media – or any credible media – are claiming that 250k Ukrainians have been killed in the war/SMO, Michael, is because that figure is inconceivable when you consider that it would mean an additional 500k seriously wounded at least, whereas there are only around 400k personnel in the regular Ukrainian armed forces and Territorial Defence Forces (most of which have yet to be sent to the front) combined.
Overall, the true numbers killed are highly likely to be in the following ranges: Ukrainian military – 30-50k; Russians/Separatists – 60-100k; Civilians 10-30k.
Ah, yes, “highly likely”. Isn’t that code for “stuff made up by British Intelligence”?
Thanks for your reply Bayard. I can assure you that I’m nothing to do with British Intelligence, except inasmuch as I’m British and am reasonably intelligent – or so I like to think. The ratio of casualties between opposing forces of similar capabilities in typical combined arms warfare situations is generally around 3:1 vis-a-vis attackers versus defenders, as it’s considerably easier to defend from entrenched positions than to attack (and in urban warfare this ratio can go up to 6:1). In this war, the Russians have by and large been the attacking force. A generally lower ratio of Russian to Ukrainian deaths of between 1.2:1 and 3.3:1 has been estimated though (the most likely value is circa 2:1), to reflect the fact that the Russians have used considerably more artillery etc than the Ukrainians (although often with less accuracy) – artillery/missile strikes being responsible for the majority of casualties.
“I can assure you that I’m nothing to do with British Intelligence, except inasmuch as I’m British and am reasonably intelligent ”
You don’t have to be connected with Intelligence to believe and repeat their propaganda they release into the public domain as “news”.
From an analysis of the Battle of Bakhmut: “Ultimately, it’s difficult to believe that the kill ratio favors Ukraine for the simple reason that the Russians have enjoyed a tremendous advantage in firepower. Ukrainian soldiers speak freely about Russia’s enormous superiority in artillery, and at one point it was suggested that the AFU was outgunned by ten to one. The New Yorker’s interview subjects claimed that their battalion’s mortar section had a ration of a mere five shells per day! “
Thanks for your reply Bayard. The above figures are my own objective assessments of fatalities – I’m not just repeating MoD press releases. If the Russians had such ‘enormous superiority in artillery’ that could render the usual rules of urban warfare null & void, then why did it take them 10 [TEN] months to take Bakhmut (not including its western outskirts), resulting in the deaths of 20,000 [TWENTY THOUSAND] Wagner fighters alone, according to Wagner’s own boss Yevgeny Prigozhin?
Neither side has released reliable casualty figures so any numbers are going to be guesswork biased with wishful thinking.
That total of about 750,000 casualties corresponds quite closely to the final butcher’s bill in the American “Civil War” – or, as some prefer to call it, the War to Conquer the CSA.
Admittedly the Americans took over four years to kill and maim that many. But their war was much more evenly balanced until its final stages. And the means of destruction were much more primitive.
Thanks for your reply Tom. I see we’re back on the US Civil War again. It’s generally thought that over 1.5 million people died or were wounded as result of that conflict, but there were considerably more people fighting than in Ukraine and, as you say, it went on for over four years. Apart from the early stages of the War/SMO in Ukraine, when Russian armour in the north became Javelin & NLAW fodder, I’d say that overall it’s been reasonably evenly belanced: no side thus far has obtained a decisive upper hand.
Anyway, have I got this right? You think that the leaders of the Confederate States had a right to do what they wanted, including allowing people to own slaves, without being subject to invasion by their neighbour to the north. But you don’t think that an elected president and government in Ukraine have the right to a military capability, and therefore it deserves to be invaded by its neighbour to the north, and east?
“Anyway, have I got this right? You think that the leaders of the Confederate States had a right to do what they wanted, including allowing people to own slaves, without being subject to invasion by their neighbour to the north. But you don’t think that an elected president and government in Ukraine have the right to a military capability, and therefore it deserves to be invaded by its neighbour to the north, and east?”
Yes and yes.
“Elected president and government” forsooth. After an armed and murderous revolt from which the real elected president barely escaped alive, thanks to the timely arrival of Russian helicopters. After the burning alive of dozens of citizens who disagreed with the “elected president and government”, and the clubbing to death of those who escaped – while the police looked on cheerfully. After the “elected president and government” had launched a full invasion of Donbass to compel its inhabitants to submit, and had spent over 7 years attacking Donbass with all the weapons of war, including ballistic missiles, bombers, mortars, and heavy artillery. After the “elected president and government” had agreed to the two (count ’em!) Minsk Agreements, which (according to President Poroshenko himself) they never had the slightest intention of implementing, and to which they agreed in order to buy time to arm themselves to the teeth and build fortifications that make the Maginot Line look like a beaver dam. After they had encouraged the US government to set up literally dozens of “research establishments” in which staff worked assiduously to develop diseases and means of transmitting them to Russians. After the “elected president” had publicly announced his intention of acquiring nuclear weapons with which to threaten Moscow. After they had collected enough troops and weapons to overrun Donbass, and possibly to invade Russia itself.
The “elected president and government” to which you refer were – and still are – overtly Nazi, violently cruel, utterly contemptuous of law, religion, and decency, and contemptuously open in their service to the mad warmongers of Washington and London.
Thanks for your reply Tom. President Zelensky was elected in 2019 (five years after Maidan), by which time the War in Donbas(s) had settled down to an entrenched stalemate with only a few hundred combatants on each side being killed each year. In the first round of the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election, voters were free to vote for pro-Russian candidates and parties if they so wished, but collectively they only obtained around 15% of the vote and so none progressed to the second round.
Can I ask if you have any evidence that the Zelensky government is ‘overtly’ (or even covertly) Nazi – or that there are US biolabs in Ukraine developing diseases that kill only Russians (something that, with genetics and the immune system being what they are, would be virtually impossible to do)? Lastly, I see you’ve outed yourself as a supporter of chattel slavery. It’s not a particularly modern view, but each to their own.
Lapsed Agnostic, your remarks about Ukraine reveal either such dreadful ignorance or such cynicism that I will not take the time and effort to rebut them. It would take a long time, and then you would not believe me. So go on thinking the way you do, and good luck to you.
The only statement of yours with which I take issue is that about chattel slavery. You wrote:
“You think that the leaders of the Confederate States had a right to do what they wanted, including allowing people to own slaves, without being subject to invasion by their neighbour to the north”.
I do firmly assert that no purely internal matter, including the maintenance of chattel slavery, justifies the invasion of an independent sovereign nation by another. The leaders of any sovereign nation do have the right to rule that nation as they think best, usually in line with the prevailing beliefs and customs of that nation.
Do you insist that the US government MUST immediately invade Saudi Arabia to overthrow its government, which most certainly allows and supports chattel slavery; denies all women fundamental human rights; and executes people for acts and statements which would not be crimes in the UK?
Indeed, your line of argument, that moral indignation justifies unprovoked wars of aggression – the supreme international crime – would logically force the US government to attack and overthrow itself. Since 1945 it has launched dozens of such unprovoked wars of aggression, and thus killed at the very least 10 million foreigners who had done nothing to deserve that fate.
Thanks for your reply Tom. It wouldn’t take a long time to disabuse me of my ‘dreadful ignorance’ about Ukraine (the country in which both my niece & nephew were born, by the way). All you need to do is write: ‘Evidence for Zelensky government being overtly Nazi:’ and then post a link to a relevant URL; ‘Evidence for US biolabs in Ukraine:’ and post a link to another URL. As Alexandr Orlov says: Simples.
Re: ‘I do firmly assert that no purely internal matter, including the maintenance of chattel slavery, justifies the invasion of an independent sovereign nation by another. The leaders of any sovereign nation do have the right to rule that nation as they think best, usually in line with the prevailing beliefs and customs of that nation.’
So what about Ukraine then? Does it not count? I don’t insist that US must invade Saudi, not least because chattel slavery has been outlawed there since 1962.
The only unprovoked wars the US has launched since 1945 were the Iraq War (ca. 400,000 excess deaths) and (arguably) the War in Afghanistan (ca. 200,000 excess deaths). All the others (Korea, Vietnam & the Gulf War) were provoked by nation states invading (or materially supporting insurgencies in) other nation states, and the US and its allies being requested to assist by the latter.
merely from what I read here:
Oz Katerji is puzzling to say the least.
And appears not to be an honest character.
Or so deep into career-making, that he has forgotten what decency in fact means.
(I would guess were he in the position of Gonzalo Lira now he would have to fear less.)
But I assume I too would have helped.
Thx for this short account from Oslo.
Oz Katerji is objectively a terrible human being, yet he is incredibly popular with “liberals” who regard themselves as wholly respectable and decent. How can it be explained?
I must suppose that he says the things in his inimitable scatological and vituperative way which your “liberals” would like to say themselves but won’t or can’t. Someone with influence might become offended, they want to appear civilized, above the fray, etc. What I am wondering: is anyone intimidated by his brand of ignorant invective? Does anyone here happen to know who are his sponsors?
Offering to help this snake get out of Ukraine? Have you not forgotten the story of the man who rescued the frozen snake from the snow? Or perhaps the folk tale about the scorpion and the frog?
Also, for the record, it was the VDV outside of the airport Kiev, not “the Chechens,” which makes me wonder just how badly misinformed you are even today on the war.
You might be a reformed member of the British elite, but you’re still got that elitist mindset.
PS – It makes me want to vomit that you considered (even for a second) financing the sexual exploitation of the women of Ukraine.
Err that was a joke, you silly person, and not in any sense either location specific or intended to be taken literally. It is simply a lighthearted way to offer to meet whatever urgent needs of the moment may be – as I think is obvious to anybody.
interestingly, I tend to describe myself as a “bad woman”, meaning that my occupation is more traditional for men than for women. If someone hinted to me that this could imply a sense of sexual exploitation, it would made me laugh! But it seems that this is the first and obvious meaning for you? Hehe 🙂 one needs to be careful when inventing jokes in a non-native language. God, I even joked that I have a good command of the tongue!
Hi Tatyana – did you ever read any of the writings of Darya Dugova? A week before her death in a car bomb her father expressed pride on his Facebook page that she was number one on a list for sanctions by the west, for her investigative journalism I believe
Here we have Oz himself with Anjem Choudary that pledged allegiance to ISIS
https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/948333683152482304
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anjem_Choudary
Compared to Corbyn, who obviously cannot know every single person coming up to him for selfies, Oz certainly know who Choudary is.
He’s tweeted a response to Craig’s blog piece in which he distorts the opinions expressed within it.
No one is suggesting some of these bit players are full time spooks, but many DO seem to be associated with various senior figures and their undemocratic, secretive propaganda initiatives coming from the FCO/DoD /NATO/MI6. Initiatives aimed at message control; reinforcing official govt narratives plus smearing those (including academics) whose only interest is getting at the unvarnished truth – if only for the purpose accurate historical records.
As with the Integrity Initiative, it’s unethical for anyone calling themselves an independent journalist to cosy up to the intel community on the promise of a steady stream of intel for future stories posing as investigations. Stories that in previous eras used to be the healthier unfiltered product of genuinely independent investigative reporters. You don’t have to be a genius to realise that all you’ll become is a conduit for misinformation and disinformation yourself, whether knowingly or otherwise. Spooks are not going to give you anything that casts themselves in a bad light, or calls into question an official narrative.
The ability to discuss anything Russia or Ukraine related, and unfolding events, objectively, has been all but removed in the UK by these overly defensive McCarthyite zealots. There’s got to be a middle ground permitted, between being rabidly gung ho pro-Ukraine and a ‘Putin shill’ as they label anyone questioning western aims or strategy.
Interesting how the MSM seemingly puts it on the same level as actually sharing a platform at the NatC conference, or being invited to a private dinner Trump-style, without bothering to do the most basic of journalistic methods as checking with eyewitnesses or looking at the timetable of events… Of course, the fact they don’t just makes it look even more like a CBBC “Stitch Up”-style event. Speaking of dinners, it’s obscene who gets invited – or gets to invite themselves – to dinner at No. 10.
By the by, for those of us non-conversant in FCO parlance, what does “bad women” refer to in the context of an evacuation/escape?
The reason I ask is because my initial reaction was very similar to Sam’s above – not an unreasonable reaction given the use of the term and the networks that run them.
Thus the question becomes: is the reason the authorities can’t actually stop traffickers because they are used by those very authorities as an evac and “disappearing” network/infrastructure…?
It would hardly be surprising if the Tories were actually funding/creating a problem they claim only they can solve
Seems remarkable that this Oz Katerji would expect anyone to believe this – that a very well known and popular politician, who meets with thousands of people at a time, would know everything about the background of every individual who stops him for a selfie.
Indeed, what about every outstretched hand – surely the owner of each is fully vetted before momentarily clasping it? Doesn’t every politician doing a round of glad-handing do this?
The real question is just how stupid does Oz Katerji take his readers to be? But in fairness, he might be genuine – perhaps he really is that stupid himself.
“The real question is just how stupid does Oz Katerji take his readers to be?”
Not stupid, just prejudiced or lazy – the difference between can’t think, won’t think and can’t be arsed to think.. Those whose prejudices it confirms will believe it. Those who think about it for more than a minute or so will see it for the rubbish it is.
Worth listening to a very angry Roger Waters. I was thinking of the pain Jeremy Corbyn must feel as I watched it.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/world-exclusive-84149098
Oz Katjeri’s support for the fanatically intolerant Sunni head choppers in Syria always seemed bizarre juxtaposed against the fact he’s a self-outed bisexual man : https://twitter.com/OzKaterji/status/1499807737068371981. These very same western and Gulf monarchy sponsored jihadists were summarily executing Syrian truck drivers remember, their alleged crime? Giving the wrong answer to the question of how many times a day they pray (devout Shia pray three times, Sunni five times).
Oz, like many others linked to the intel community and other assorted so-called anti-disinformation experts, tends to prefer ad hom attacks, untested assertions of attribution and intimidation tactics on those who question official narratives. Playground level insults and misrepresentation of opponents’ positions, in place of objective, open civilised discussion, are the norm. He, along with Paul Mason and the BBC’s Marianna Spring et al, are part of the burgeoning Censorship Industrial Complex. On which, Michael Shellenberger noted:
“The insincere human is not open. He is averse to sitting and hashing out differences with adversaries. He may issue brief, peremptory messages. He avoids challenges. He ignores criticism. He does not explain. He refuses engagement.”
“The ‘anti-misinformation’ projects are obvious miscarriages of civility, decency, and the rule of law. We must rediscover the norms of openness, tolerance, and free speech that dignify humankind. Science depends on confidence, and confidence depends on those liberal norms.”
[this criticism applies to most of the anti-disinformation merchants and their modus operandi, also despotic Starmer’s obnoxiously intolerant, increasingly anti-democratic Labour party]
There’s an event in London discussing this very subject with Matt Taibbi, Russell Brand and Michael Shellenberger on June 22 with the launch of a new free speech alliance to dismantle the Censorship Industrial Complex.
Any thoughts on whether such a conference might be more in the interests of those who like to change their twitter handle to “Fact Check UK” during a GE leadership debate…?
Frankly to start with It wouldn’t effect him if everyone in Syria got their head cut off, and that outcome suited the people who pay-him-to-write-what-he-writes-to-get-paid.
So any *seeming* contradictions are irrelevant. Regard him as a purely soulless mercenary who doesn’t care about the details or morality of his jobs so long as he gets paid.
I see what you mean. Your article has provoked a foul emission of abuse and smearing. He seems a deeply unpleasant establishment man baby.
https://twitter.com/OzKaterji/status/1666373903013363715
It’s good of you to defend Corbyn from this puerile smear attempt but will he defend himself this time or apologise as usual?
A certain (rather decent) type of Britisher is all too prone to apologise first and think later. A friend of mine, on being told off rather harshly for apologising too much, apologised.
Obviously such apologies must be rather superficial and not thought through. They are more in the nature of social amenities than serious statements. The underlying intention is no doubt to assure the other person of the speaker’s fundamental good nature and good intentions.
Here is Oz in a photo with real nazis in Ukraine:
Posing in the same photo with swedish nazi warrior Mikael Skillt and the infamous nazi-saluting Azov secretary Olena Semenyaka
https://twitter.com/jrc1921/status/1503274333917138949 (click ‘view’)
So much for his alleged anti-fascism/nazism/pro-human rights bs..
Why has Ozzie not repented posing with these people? Or is he pro-nazi perhaps? What a bozo.
Decency is light years away from winning, in politics or elsewhere.
Relates to Craig as well, as his approach to making Scotland independent clearly impedes the process and is most certainly counterproductive in the extreme.
A “free” Scotland not just doesn’t equal a nice, clean and righteous Scotland. These two are a universe apart and won’t meet ever.
“Decency is light years away from winning, in politics or elsewhere”.
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that decency absolutely excludes winning, especially in politics where appearances are all that counts. In business a decent person can occasionally succeed, provided the success is based on actual achievement rather than popularity.
sorry that your evening was bad with such medial attack,
I assume, Oz Katerji is a pre$$titute on a paycheck from miX, statecraft etc… choose a pick.
and Hans Jorgen Johansen, is he really an acknowledged far right activist or rather only self-proclaimed?
you should do a follow up on him in few months…maybe he will be exposed as a placed “agent” 😉
are such “things” happen often for j.corbyn?
The irony of course is that Katerji, Sweeney and Co do not actually give a damn about antisemitism, as illustrated by their gleeful support for literal Nazis. This being Britain however everybody must accept that these venal figures are all admirable anti racists and it is Jeremy Corbyn who is a racist. And accept it without question forever, no matter the countervailing evidence or just plain common sense. A totally normal, serious country.
and your point is in the context of the post and the comments?
As if the UK MSM and all its affiliated neocon arms along with Tory MPs and his own Labour MPs hadn’t smeared him enough we now had this blatant set up to further traduce Jeremy Corbyn’s reputation, obviously they still fear him, just as they still fear the likes of you and Alex Salmond and quite few other truth speakers.
Apologies to the overtly sensitive, but isn’t this the exact same thing that the ‘establishment’ (Democrats) are doing to Trump in the land of the free ?
The establishment is terrified of anyone with even a smidgen of socialist sentiments because this may restrict their profiteering and looting of the public purse.
OK, Trump is an authoritarian populist, not a socialist. The mainstream Democratic establishment, not to be confused with the permanent government, AKA Deep State, hates Trump because he defeated their anointed It Girl, Mme. C. Careers and egos were at stake. I do believe Trump is indeed as intelligent and wily as his supporters keep telling us, ad nauseum, but, also, emotionally and intellectually shallow. Do not you British have a saying about someone having “no bottom”? He is, for example, not capable of understanding that any emotion other than jealousy animates the legions of American women who can’t stand his idle, semi-educated decorative wife. Four languages, indeed. Who exactly has heard her speak any language other than English and her native tongue–Serbo-Croat? BTW, we rather like Mrs. Biden (we think she needs to fire her stylist), and a fairly substantial majority of us are the worst kind of adoring fan girls over Mrs. Obama
As for Dems not being willing to allow T-Rump to govern, he knew or should have known, what he was letting himself in for. Don’t forget that the Reps. did exactly the same thing to Obama. The Donald has some basic common sense which told him that NAFTA was a bad deal, unrestricted immigration is not good policy, and the public is fed up with overseas military adventurism. Had he not been too lazy and volatile to run a tight ship, and send the useless son-in-law back home, he might have accomplished much.
Note that SIL has provoked the revenge candidacy of former Gov. Christie, who knows he can’t win himself, but he sure can keep Boy Jared away from levers of power.
I didn’t know that Melania was a Vice President and had important role.
Melania is from Slovenija and her native tongue is Slovenian to be pedantic.
Whether she speaks Serbo-Croat I don’t know but it would count as extra language.
I would guess that she probably speaks a bit of Italian.( modelling) .
American women are known for their multilingualism.
Thanks for the correction as to what language is spoken in Slovenia. Foreign languages are another subject not much taught in American public school these days, along with history and geography. Most of us do speak a smidgeon of Spanish. There is a backstory relating to our dislike of Melania, which is that the Republicans have tried to make a campaign issue out of the alleged insufferableness of more than one Democratic Presidential candidate’s wife. They fell on their faces when they tried it with Mrs. Obama. Then, when Trump was elected, the Republican publicity machine tried to push a meme of her as some kind of iconic American woman, and most of us outside of bright red suburbia were not buying it. Anyone who chooses life in the public eye, and she did deliberately choose it, can be criticized. I never said she influenced policy, but nor did the real VP, Mr. Pence.
“The establishment is terrified of anyone with even a smidgen of socialist sentiments because this may restrict their profiteering and looting of the public purse”.
Exactly so. Congratulations on such a pithy and cogent statement.
It occurs to me that this may also help to explain the proliferation of the awful word “societal”, which people presumably choose because they fear to say “social”. Too close to “socialism”, which as everyone knows is tantamount to communism.
Personally I don’t know what outlets Katerj is broadcast on, indeed until this last post of Craig’s I had never heard of him, still less what avenues of reply these media afford. However, I consider that interested parties should mercilessly harp on about this and any other blatant journalistic faux Pas committed by this individual, of the form: “Well Katerj was involved in spreading fake news surrounding the meeting of Jeremy Corbyn and the neonazi, so how can we believe him on THIS issue.” The tactic should be adopted with all other verifiable peddlers of substandard journalism, ad infinitum, or at least as nauseam
It isn’t a very effective smear campaign against Corbyn when most people don’t believe it. The Americans wouldn’t allow an opponent of NATO to win the 2019 election, so they hid behind bogus antisemitism as an excuse, and used British operators in the Labour Party and media to peddle their lies. The losers in the end were the discredited Johnson and the media, whose pronouncements about British foreign policy, and notably Brexit and Ukraine, seem increasingly absurd.
It’s hard to gauge how many people believe it when all the official mouthpieces repeat it without question and take it as a universal truth (as with Julian Assange, the “unprovoked” proxy war, the criminal attempt to dismantle Syria etc). Are there still sane people out there who reject all these lies, and who are being silenced? How can we tell – they are being silenced. And when so many people in the population at large, the voters, just repeat the “truths” spewed out by the propaganda mills as if they believed them, whether they do or not (it is obviously convenient for pro Brexiters, racists, anti immigrant bigots etc to accept lies as truth if they fit their prejudices) then effectively these lies have become de facto truths since they are the basis for actual decisions and behaviour in the real world. We are living in a world which has had its foundation of objective truth removed.
“Are there still sane people out there who reject all these lies, and who are being silenced?”
Yes, there are sane(ish) people who know the ‘news’ and the ‘news’ papers are total bollocks, but the psychos in charge know what a powerful weapon ubiquitous propaganda is. They have finely honed their craft over the years – witness the nudge units, the Behavioural Insights Team, 77th Brigade, BBC, Sky, C4, ITV, ‘fact checkers’ etc etc ad nauseam. (BBC Verify? You’ve got to be kidding me.)
Their lies are increasing exponentially as the wheels fall off the whole shitshow.
The problem is this, the problem is that… the problem is industrial civilization. It was a bad idea.
Jonathan Cook has a good article about the BBC ‘verify’ initiative here:
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/2023-06-02/bbc-disinformation-peddling/
Six years ago this week 40% voted for Jeremy Corbyn despite a tsunami of lies from every quarter of the media. Will Digger UK’s winner Sir Keir match that? Let’s see.
But why did Corbyn not clinch the deal 2 years later? Antisemitism smears? No, those had filled the air for a year before 2017. The 2019 collapse was the work of Sir Remain, Alastair, Sir Tony, Lord Peter and all their fans who forced Corbyn to adopt a Try Again 2nd Referendum policy.
The people with least credibility today bemoaning unquestioning acceptance of official truths are those who fell for the transparently anti-Corbyn/ anti-democracy “People’s Vote” psyop. Do any of them accept even now that they were duped by arch establishment centrists or acknowledge their disastrous policy was antidemocratic and primarily intended to destroy Corbyn, the left and effectively end meaningful democracy in the UK? To be fair most do and are delighted with how it turned out.
O/T
Just noted that the High Court has refused Assange right to appeal… Very bad news indeed.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12174521/Julian-Assange-loses-appeal-against-extradition-espionage-charges.html
Strasbourg was always going to be the home of all our hopes in this case. The nagging anxiety I have is that the ECHR has been depressingly timid in protecting individual rights in the teeth of state policy. The recent stymying of the UK government plans to ship asylum seekers to Rwanda does not genuinely cut across the grain here as the government is acting in direct contravention of international protocols to which this country is a signatory.
Europe’s response to the blowing up of the Nordstream pipelines is the best indicator of what the ECHR will do in relation to Julian Assange.
Yes, it’s obvious (to me) that the ECHR, UN, WHO, etc. have been bought off by the USA, Soros, Gates, etc. We may be lucky, but I’m not optimistic. The USA is totally evil and the UK is totally corrupt, that’s where we are today in our democratic, freedom loving world.
To my great regret, Mr Assange appears to have been doomed for several years now. Probably going back to his sojourn in Sweden after he dissed Uncle Sam. A big target appeared on his back, and since then everyone who wants to curry favour with the Yanks has been ready to participate in scapegoating him.
The only upside – though not for him – is that the affair has made unmistakably, crystal clear that none of the renowned institutions of Western “democracy” are in any way proof against subversion by our real rulers. Even the law and the “justice” system are easily recruited to the cause of tyrrany and oppression.
It’s exactly like the Mafia, but on a vastly greater scale. Whatever you do, don’t disoblige the Don – or, worse still, speak disparagingly of him. Punishment will be exemplary.
Here’s an interesting and timely article on the abuser Nick Cohen that serves to link many of the areas covered herein (Corbyn, Katerji, Assange, Murray, Philip Cross).
https://thegrayzone.com/2023/06/08/british-media-pro-war-sex-pest-nick-cohen/
Jeez, bad stuff there. Back in the day, I really thought Cohen was a good guy! Even bought a book of his about ‘New’ Labour. Makes me wonder about Private Eye too.
I bought “Private Eye” compulsively from the first issue. It was when Hislop took over that the rot set in.
In the good old days Messrs Ingrams, Rushton, Booker, Foot, Cook, etc. used to enjoy poking fun at “Punch” – a perfectly respectable and somewhat humorous magazine read by the elderly and sedate. They mocked it because it was elderly, sedate, and utterly conservative.
Ironically, under Hislop “Private Eye” has metamorphosed into “Punch”. The only parts left worth reading are the cartoons.
(in reply to Stevie Boy)
Just in case anybody doesn’t already know, Philip Cross has been PERMANENTLY blocked from editing Wikipedia since October last year (by a self-declared Zionist admin), having been blocked before on two separate occasions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Philip_Cross&oldid=1119061064#Blocked_indefinitely_(1st_year_AE)
Oops, sorry, he was previously blocked 3 times, not 2. Good article from Klarenberg, as usual, apart from that oversight.
Back in the late 1990a I thought that Nick Cohen was a fine journalist writing for the Independent, The Guardian and The Observer. I especially recall pieces he wrote on the deaths of Joy Gardner and Alton Manning, black victims of state violence whom we must remember as martyrs to human dignity. Choice cuts from his Observer columns were collected in the anthology, Cruel Britannia. Cohen repeatedly likened the relationship between New Labour and the British left as being akin to that between an abusive partner and their spouse – a cycle of betrayal and assault consistently ending in forgiveness from the injured party. Tony Blair opined that: “If I listened to Nick Cohen I would never win an election.” From where I am standing this is a recommendation in itself. One persistent note of dissonance in this era between Cohen’s viewpoint and my own concerned the position of Tibet, with Cohen blithely unconcerned about the pro-independence movement in this enclave whereas I felt, and feel, that even a tiny nation such as this ought to have the right of self-determination. Though it does, to a certain degree, leave me open to the vastly overused charge of antisemitism, I could not help wondering, given that his surname derives from the Hebrew for ‘priest’, whether this was down to parallels with Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
Although terms obvious cure for an abusive relationship would seem to be separation, and this was clearly the remedy advocated by Cohen for the left to adopt towards Blair’s entryist government, he denounced as “clowns” Americans who deserted Al Gore for Ralph Nader in the year 2000, allowing Dubya to capture the White House. Given that Cohen would subsequently endorse the interminable series of wars launched by the Bush administration and inherited by its putatively, though not pragmatically, liberal and pacifist successors in the defining global ethos of the new millennium to date, Cohen is guilty of political gyrations of a most bizarre kind. Cohen has put it on record that he is an atheist, and in the early noughties described Zionism as a form of colonialism. I cannot help but wonder if the primum mobile behind his outlook, and that of many other pro-Israel journalists – and here I would list Jonathan Freedland, Howard Jacobsen and Dominic Lawson – as exemplifying, in my own honest opinion, the trend of supporting whatever global movement most surely allows the flourishing of the Jewish state, notwithstanding that Israel has been, since its inception, a fascist apartheid venture, and in latter years has not even pretended to be anything other with any measure of conviction.
By the way, I purchased a copy of Cruel Britannia from Manchester’s Empire collectables store second hand, by which time its author was clearly a shill for the Nelson movement and I was unwilling to patronize his work if so doing would grant him any royalties. Having comprehensively rejected most of the views espoused therein Cohen would be a hypocrite to desire anything other.
Cornudet:
There are people like Coen/ Aaronovich/ Mason etc who have grown up as lefties and have become dis-illusioned with leftism because of the dis-illusion with the outcome.
No surprise there.
Socialism within one country was always an illusion/deception within itself and it collapsed very quickly as the ex-Soviet masses who gained very little out of it did not therefore defend it.
Hello Yeltsin and his ‘Shock Therapy’ which worked a treat and led to the Putin-favoured Oligarchs and the non-favoured Oligarchs such as the likes of Bill Browder represent on behalf of his dead mentor Beresovsky.
When Oligarchs fall out.
As I have said before – there are people who work for and the employees and this really needs to be understood in my opinion.
The people like Biden – Johnson – Netanyahu and so on are not the employers, they are the employed.
The MSM are the employees of the employed and the rich run the employment agency.
Step out of line and you will become the un-employed and those who work in the MSM know this very well.
Hence the stances from all.
The Soviet Union didn’t experience Socialism though. They experienced Communism. The two are not the same – as you will understand if you read George Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia”.
SLIGHT problem
Assange appears to be in the pay of the petrostates
His wikileaks “probe” nearly derailed the facts of Global Warming … how very convenient for petrostates, including Putin’s Russia
The Oil pushers were all over it in seconds ….
Could you elaborate further on this? With quotes from the source material?
Given his tweet on Thursday, his record for upholding democracy and almost unfailingly honourable conduct, I’d have expected Corbyn to vote in favour of the Privileges Committee’s report on Partygate.
Does anyone know why he wasn’t present, or abstained?