On 1 April Scotland’s notorious Hate Crime Act comes into force. I have explained before why it is so noxious. It has been condemned by every civil liberties body you can think of. Police Scotland have made matters still worse by telling their officers that the measure of whether a Hate Crime has been committed should be whether the person reporting it feels offended or threatened, and that the officer should make no objective judgment as to whether that is reasonable from the facts of the case.
But I want to concentrate on one very specific aspect of this legislation. It will apply to social media, and indeed it is highly probable that a very significant proportion of the “Hate Speech” will be found on social media.
It is a well-established principle in Scots law that anything published on the internet, which can be read in Scotland, is deemed to be published in Scotland. The act of publication is not deemed to be the person actually publishing the item, let us say in Tahiti. The act of publication is deemed to be the reader opening the item on their device in Scotland.
(To emphasise the total illogic of this approach, while it is the person opening it which constitutes the act of publication, it is not the person who opened it who is deemed to have published it but the original creator/publisher. To emphasise the state’s dishonest thinking still more: if however what is being opened is not, say, libel or hate speech but rather illegal pornography, then it is in that case the person who opened it who is deemed to have published it.)
So a person in Tahiti who publishes a tweet which is opened by and offends somebody in Scotland because it offends a protected characteristic, had committed a crime in Scotland, even though they never left their home in Tahiti and may never have been anywhere near Scotland.
I know this sounds completely crazy, but I do assure you it is absolutely true. As kindly confirmed here by the Dean of Faculty.
Craig is absolutely correct here. If it’s published online and read in Scotland then – in law – it is published in Scotland.
— Roddy Dunlop KC (@RoddyQC) March 15, 2024
This means, beyond a doubt, that hundreds of thousands, and possibly millions, of new crimes will be committed in Scotland every year from 1 April. Committed in Scotland by people who were, at the time, all over the world.
If you think that is bad, let me tell you it gets infinitely worse. In addition to holding that Scots courts have jurisdiction over anything published on the internet anywhere in the world, because if it can be read here it is published in Scotland, Scottish judges have also invented the doctrine of “continuing publication”.
As it is the act by the reader of opening the matter online which constitutes publication, every time it is opened by someone in Scotland from the internet that constitutes a new publication. So any “hate speech” that has been online for ten years constitutes a new offence if you read it in Scotland now. “Hate speech” as defined in the Act, anywhere on the Internet, no matter when or where it was published, is going to be a new crime in Scotland if someone opens it or reads it after 1 April.
What I have said is simply true. It is irrefutable. There may sometimes be argument over who committed the crime – for example, it may sometimes be the author or sometimes the publisher who is guilty (though on social media they are in most instances deemed the same person). But that a crime has been committed in Scotland is not in doubt.
So how will Police Scotland and the Crown Office cope?
Through selective prosecution. With literally millions of available criminal offences being committed annually, the authorities have fantastic latitude to choose who and who not to pursue.
In theory of course all crime should be pursued equally. In practice that will be impossible. Scotland will have put itself into this impossible situation by the combination of two terrible bits of law. Scotland’s legal doctrine on internet publication is appalling and Scotland’s new Hate Crime and Public Order Act is appalling. The combination of the two is almost indescribably bad.
Scotland’s internet doctrine that the entire internet is published in Scotland if you read it here, is a claim of universal jurisdiction over the internet. It should be derided into vanishing.
But the internet posed a dilemma for the courts. Either they had to accept a massive increase in freedom of speech, or claim jurisdiction over the entire internet. How do you enforce an injunction if somebody can simply publish the information from their home in Tahiti and you cannot touch them? Needless to say, the stupid and arrogant judges of Scotland went for the universal jurisdiction path and not the freedom path (to be plain, so have the courts in England and Wales).
There is, however, a real problem here. Outside the UK, Scottish judges can only get their hands on our “criminal” from Tahiti if they happen to come here, or by extradition. But extradition depends on the principle of dual criminality – the act has to be a criminal offence in the country being extradited both to and from. As there are few countries in the world willing to jail you for telling a story that starts “An Englishman, Scotsman and Irishman went into a pub”, extradition will be difficult in most cases.
It will, incidentally, certainly be an imprisonable offence in Scotland from 1 April to tell a joke beginning “An Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman went into a pub”. The police just need someone to complain.
But this opens a very interesting question with England and Wales. Plainly there is an enormous amount of online social interaction between Scots and people in England and Wales. The Scottish courts do not need to extradite people from England and Wales, the police just truss them up and deliver them. But is England really going to accept that a woman sitting at home in Leicester, who made a bad taste joke online whilst in Leicester that is perfectly legal in England, can be sent to Scotland and imprisoned?
Did anybody actually think that through, in passing this Act through the Scottish Parliament?
The Hate Crime Act makes it a criminal offence to insult somebody. You can go to jail for seven years for insulting somebody. That does not have to be your own insult. It includes by “displaying, publishing, distributing” “giving, sending, showing, playing” or “making the material available”. It includes giving someone an album that contains offensive lyrics, or acting in a performance that contains offensive lines. It really does.
The most basic notion of liberty has been discarded.
To make plain the culture wars motivation, three of the six protected characteristics are sexual orientation, transgender identity and variations in sex characteristics. I genuinely do not know what the last one means. It does not mean being male or female. Strangely enough it will still be perfectly legal to insult women or men.
Rather worryingly, much of the opposition to the bill comes from people who want to make more things illegal, rather than give the state less arbitrary power to bang up huge numbers of people.
The truth is that this appalling legislation was always a part of Nicola Sturgeon’s grand scheme to destroy the Scottish Independence movement from within through culture wars. Everybody sentient in Scotland knows that the entire intention is a massive abuse of process. Of the millions of people who could be prosecuted for online content read in Scotland, the intention is selectively to attack those who are gender critical.
Now I am in fact not gender critical myself. I still find the intolerance puzzling. But I absolutely defend the right of those who are convinced that trans people are a threat to women’s rights to state their position, free from the legal harassment that is about to be unleashed upon them.
What we are seeing is terrible repressive legislation, amplified by a terrible legal doctrine, leading to massive power by the state over individuals. We are going to see monumental abuse of process. The state will take completely arbitrary decisions on selective prosecution according to a state-political agenda, and will refuse to prosecute millions of other “crimes” under the same Act. This is fascism.
In the short term, I have no doubt that the Israeli lobby will be generating thousands of complaints of alleged anti-semitism aimed at those criticising Israel for its genocide. There is an extremely high correlation between Scottish unionism and Zionism which doubtless will be in play.
The situation contradicts, at the very least, articles 1, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 and 17 of the European Convention on Human Rights. A nightmare is coming.
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I’m sorry but as someone on the younger side, the hysteria around transgender people is quite simply hilarious. We’re talking about a few million people at most, spread across many different countries and cultures, often poor, alienated, alone and without much support from either family or friends. Yet this very tiny minority of discriminated people is somehow a menace to society at large?
I hope the people writing these comments sometimes proof read themselves and realize their venerable age is shining through…
“I’m sorry but as someone on the younger side, the hysteria around transgender people is quite simply hilarious. ”
HD.
Just wait until your a parent and some big burly bloke covered in tats, wearing a dress and sporting bright red lipstick and a beard enters into a women’s toilet where your future wee daughter is: the burly bloke is still, we shall say, intact; you’re not in that loo, or changing room etc, so you don’t know what MIGHT or might not be happening … is it worth the risk?
Does that still sound hysterical to you, or would you be concerned about it?
Republicofscotland
I live in France and the toilets are mixed sex. Mainly in the bars and cafes.
That’s a Sun style scenario. It’s being discussed as though it’s a craze like kids vaping.
Anyone fancy having a go at what the (usually utilised politically) term ‘Woke’ actually means? I’ll start:
Is it the idea of the ‘Woke’ that they have been unfairly treated in the past (say, slavery) and are being mistreated/ignored presently like the PO Owners or Waspie Women?
It all appears very manly to me – as in I’m a man and I have to show everyone how manly I am otherwise the ‘Anti-Woke’ will call me a ‘Snowflake’, and as a man I’ll collapse to my knees and end up blubbering in tears.
The funny thing with most anti-woke men is that they are all Middle and Upper Class well off Pansies (or Softy Walters for the Beano readers on here).
I suppose I will be hauled to Court for calling the Manly Anti-Woke Men Pansies – oh well………….
“Anyone fancy having a go at what the (usually utilised politically) term ‘Woke’ actually means?”
A while ago now it meant awake to how Western Imperialism really works, as used by Caitlin Johnstone for instance. Over the past couple of years it has changed to meaning someone who takes a certain position over various minorities in a way which ignores any issues involving class. I’m suspicious of that and I suspect that it does not serve the interests of the members of any of those minorities but rather some wider but hidden, political purpose.
“Woke” seems to be just the 21st-century version of “progressive”. People, mostly young and all callow, whose eyes have recently been opened to the fact that everyone else is incredibly stupid and wicked, and that everything that has been said or done in the past was wrong.
“Feeling that Peter was on his way back, the Neverland had again woke into life. We ought to use the pluperfect and say wakened, but woke is better and was always used by Peter”.
– J.M. Barrie, “Peter Pan”.
I read a comment where it was defined as “With Out Knowledge or Experience”…..
“Woke” is how a right winger tells a left winger to “Shut Up”.
Before “woke” existed, the term “politically correct” served the same function.
“Politically Correct” was Succeeded by “Politically Correct Gone Mad”, and soon no doubt “woke” will be replaced by “woke gone mad”.
Back in the eighties (pre-internet) I used to read the Australian Fairfax newspapers The Financial Review, The National Times and The Sydney Morning Herald. I think it was in The Herald but it could have been in either of the other two there appeared an article by James McClelland a former minister in the Labour Australian Federal Government under the headline “Right Wingers Find a New Way to Say Shut Up” . Those who can get access to the archives of the Former Fairfax but Now Nine newspaper might like to search for it. It is a very good article.
“Political correctness” is a concept first used in association with the pre- and post-1917 Russian Revolution and has nothing whatsoever to do with the term (derivation or usage) “woke”.
While “woke” may first have been a black slang term, it is more commonly used today as a pejorative criticism of “performative protest”, for example to describe the “sincerity” and “dedication” of those who would step over the body of a homeless person in their home town (without the slightest thought of stopping to offer help) on their way to attending a “progressive” demonstration against gender micro-aggressions in a country on the other side of the world.
This is not a new phenomenon. As someone who marched in the early 1970s against both war and racism, “professional protestors” just out for a “laugh” or a ruck with the police (agent provocateurs or dummies?) were a common sight. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose – viz. antifa and BLM.
Carlyle
Spot on.
John S do you remember the Benalla case circa 2017 in France. One of Macron’s presidential guards left the Palace and proceeded to a Yellow Vest demo and immediately upon arrival put on riot gear and started beating people up. It was a weird one – if your point about the sort of people one might meet at a demo is considered, I am not sure one might have met someone like Benalla at demos until very recently. His presence seemed recreational maybe, certainly unexplained in terms of motive – a bizarre window into Macron’s papier-mâché recreation of the court of Louis XIV.
He got three years but served no time yet did the crime on multiple vids.
I thought political correctness was a UK parliamentary convention presided over by the Speaker of the House to maintain the dignity of its members by preventing them from openly declaring that their opponents were lying or corrupt (even if they were).
What’s your point Mark? You don’t make a lot of sense
A “burly bloke with a beard” is not transgender, even if they are wearing a dress. But thankyou for your strawman. As for tats: have you seen the women in Arizona lately?
Kimpatsu.
“Do you need to have gender reassignment surgery to be trans?
You do not need to have had any surgery or medical intervention to be, or to be recognised as, trans. This has been established in law for a long time. A lot of media coverage is focused on trans people’s body parts and surgical procedures, which is invasive and dehumanising. ”
https://www.stonewall.org.uk/the-truth-about-trans
So basically intact guys who dress as women can enter women/girls toilets/changing rooms etc without having undergone surgery first.
There are countless video clips on the net of guys pretending to be women (using gender laws to gain access to women/girls safe spaces) doing disgusting things you know what I mean, of course this will also be a “strawman” to you.
No doubt there are also genuine guys who need to live as a woman for X amount of time to fulfill their goals, but as I had pointed out in the above the dangers are there for all to see, and with children in mind the risk is too great.
The guy you describe, RoS, is not transgender, but doing drag or crossdressing, and is not claiming to have transitioned. so he doesn’t come into the discussion.
Laguerre
in order to know whether the transition has been completed, you need, excuse me, to look under their skirt. I don’t think there will ever be a law that allows anyone to look down people’s underpants before letting them into women’s spaces.
Logically, if someone claims to be a trans woman and demands to be allowed into women’s spaces, then you simply have no legal way to verify the validity of such a demand.
The risks that RoS talks about – the key here is the sequence of events. That is, you must first let them in, and if bad things happen, they will happen after admission has been granted. So, in reality, even if you suspect that they may deceive you, still you have no legal means to prevent them from entering and doing what they intend to do.
Tatyana
The type of person RoS is describing is not even trying to be a woman. it’s just for joke or exhibitionism. This is because RoS doesn’t understand the difference between drag and transitioning. He mixes it all up.
Laguerre
Below I shared a link to the article “Experience: I regret transitioning”
Their quote:
“I understood that people would always be able to recognise me as having transitioned. I just wanted to be male, but I was always going to be trans.”
I want to say that I, like RoS, also do not distinguish between these gradations. To me it’s just a man pretending to be a woman, more or less successfully.
Dress it up anyway you like but ‘trans’ is simply a mental illness.
The UK’s Equalities & Human Rights Commission ruled in 2022, RoS, that management can exclude people who identify as trans (presumably including those with gender recognition certificates?) from toilets and changing rooms, without falling foul of discrimination law, for reasons that include enabling privacy and preventing trauma. You might be forgiven for thinking so, but Stonewall doesn’t actually make the law of the land.
RoS, I 100% agree with you, because 95% of transgender people nowadays do not medically transition at all.
That sounds hysterical to me.
Hardly an age thing is it?
Schools are pushing the trans agenda onto children. This is not necessarily about the trans people per se: this is about the gangs of perverts under the guise of the likes of StoneWall and Tatchell pushing their dubious agenda onto children. But maybe you’re right – maybe it’s only older people who care about children, and younger people don’t give a f*ck.
Another strawman. Your bigotry shows the need to protect trans people from the likes of you. But why not give the Transatlantic Call-in Show a bell?
StrawMAN!! Really? A rash determination of gender there don’t you think?
Stevie Boy, that is exactly what is happening, some people on here do not realise what is happening in our schools.
A tiny minority which is determined to shape society and the law the way it wants but which refuses to make any concessions to anybody else. A tiny minority which reacts to critics with threats, intimidation and violence. People have lost their livelihoods for expressing ‘gender critical’ views, even the Leader of the Opposition is too scared to define a woman.
Meanwhile impressionable children are being told that if they don’t comply with 1950s ideas of gender stereotypes then they were born in the wrong body and need to endure months of treatment with unlicensed drugs and potentially dangerous surgery to transition.
Months? Try a lifetime of medication in order to subvert a person’s innate physiological processes. We’re in the crazy situation where an adult man who feels inadequately manly and seeks to take exogenous androgenic hormones in order to have bigger muscles is seen as taboo and morally wrong but a prepubescent girl who decides she wants to be a boy taking similar doses of the same hormones is seen as desirable and virtuous, despite the negative physical consequences for the girl far outweighing those of the adult man.
Something has gone very wrong in a society where such a way of thinking prevails.
The way of thinking seems basic to current trends. Our government thinks that by passing a bill, it can will the reality that Rwanda is a country which is not safe to change. The US Empire thinks it makes reality by the second, willing its own provocations of countries it sees as rivals to be deemed innocently defensive and its proxy wars to be hailed as missions to bring peace and democracy. Zionists think that they can deny that Israel is committing genocide while committing genocide. It is the Triumph of the Will writ large. Reality can get stuffed.
It may technically be illegal, but it’s hardly taboo for men to take steroids for image and performance enhancing reasons, Bob, with an estimated 500,000 to a million of them regularly doing so in the UK alone (that’s around 4-8% of 16-40 year-old guys by my maths) – far greater than the number of people assigned female at birth taking testosterone. On the NHS, cross hormones (e.g. testosterone & estradiol) could only be prescribed to people identifying as trans who were 16 and older (and thus able to legally bring new life into this world) after at least a year of them taking puberty blockers. However, the NHS has recently announced that it will no longer prescribe puberty blockers to people under 18.
Correction: It’s NHS England that has stated that it will stop prescribing puberty blockers to under-18’s (presumably NHS Scotland & Wales are continuing as before) – though the children (which number fewer than 100 out of circa 7 million 10-17 year-olds in England) that are already being prescribed them will be able to continue taking them.
I agree with Pears Morgaine, and I never thought I’d say that.
Strange conjunctions have been considered a significant portent in many places and many times on this old earth Johnny – not in these thoroughly modern, most scientific of days of course. (As objective reality melts before our very eyes and stands revealed as a mass delusion lol)
Please explain, how a “tiny minoirity” is able to pass a law? In a democracy, laws are passed by voting in a legislative body, and for a law to pass there needs to be a majority who votes “aye”. So either this is not a minority or Scotland is a dictatorship.
Pears, that is exactly what is happening, in some schools it is like a social contagion. Starmer, Rayner and the other Labour MP’s (apart from Rosie Duffield) maintain that some women have a penis – they have publicly stated that. Just a slight correction though, very few transgender people nowadays have any sort of medication or surgery.
The danger isn’t the people who are actually transgender: not at all. The problem is the unintended empowerment of people such as rapists and exhibitionists due to poor legislation.
The main danger is from male perverts who claim to be transgender but are not. Many new laws all over the world are so badly written that a man with typical male equipment, a beard, stereotypical masculine clothing, and the worst form of macho behaviour, can just claim to be transgender and then successfully bully ‘her’ way into safe spaces for women such as female-only parking near a car park exit, dressing rooms, those weird toilets they have in the US where you have no privacy while relieving yourself, showers, saunas etc. Some may plan to rape women in these safe spaces – though the majority will probably just enjoy making women frightened and completely unable to do anything about the situation because expelling the pervert would technically be a hate crime.
A good example for what to expect when legislation is too one-sided is the British Columbia ‘trans woman’ who sued immigrant women who offered Brazilian waxing for women when they refused to let ‘her’ into their homes to perform this service. He arrived there as an obviously male person acting with typically male physically threatening behaviour, expecting to get ‘her’ penis waxed by vulnerable women who did not even know how to do that. It took way too long for the Canadian courts to sort out the resulting mess.
In more than one US state there have been instances of physically male sex defenders – including at least one serial rapist – forcing their way into female-only prisons by simply claiming to be transwomen. At least one of them (a 27-year-old murderer and carjacker in New Jersey) impregnated two fellow inmates before being moved to a trans facility, where they were the only inmate.
Genuine trans-rights activists are just as concerned about such cases as everyone else, and try to help prevent them by finding legislation that gets the nuances right. Unfortunately, the public discourse is instead dominated by fundamentalists who do not care about collateral damage at all.
HD
” Yet this very tiny minority of discriminated people is somehow a menace to society at large?”
Nobody has argued that this very tiny minority of discriminated people is somehow a menace to society at large. Instead they have argued that the political purpose the issue is being put to is a menace to society at large.
Could you please cite “Roddy”‘s sources for this legal opinion?
No but my own lawyers warned me of this law. Roddy is the Dean of the Faculty of Advocates,
Roddy’s a civil lawyer. He doesn’t specilise in criminal law.
Like the disastrous GRR that preceded it, this Bill provides a mechanism of control with one, true purpose.
And that is to weaken society and help bring about its eventual destruction.
Thank you for writing on the new “hate” speech law. I am an American and this is about the only time in recent times to be happy that I am one. We do have a growing problem of censorship, but I think that anyone trying to put something like this into a bill would get laughed at both from the opposition, but also from his constituents. So far.
The idea of Nicola Sturgeon using such insanity as a means to break up the SNP makes sense as I suspect that the more extreme elements of Identity Politics or Wokism in the United States was created and pushed to destroy the slightly American bread-and-butter issues Left apart and keep it separate from the rest of the population. A broad mass movement is something that they do not want and the general and growing corruption and poverty is anathema to most of us.
“ anyone trying to put something like this into a bill would get laughed at both from the opposition, but also from his constituents. So far.”
Interesting JBird – considering the view of America in British media – once wacky cousins now gone to the dogs is so clearly manipulated.
I was reading some former member of the American intelligence community, who made the point that for all the repressive power of the Patriot Act and the Espionage Act etc, the Official Secrets Act which obtains in Britain, and it’s supporting legislation, is considered far more expansive in philosophy and application than anything our “benighted” and “disfunctional” American cousins have to live with
The difference between being a “citizen of the Republic” as opposed to being a “subject of the Crown”?
” Through selective prosecution. With literally millions of available criminal offences being committed annually, the authorities have fantastic latitude to choose who and who not to pursue.”
Never a more accurate comment Mr Murray. This is a state weapon to allow the state to clamp down on who they choose. The Nazi’s could not have legislated better. This is what authoritarian fascist state legislators do.
Ultimately though all fascist authoritarian sectarian regimes fall and it is nor a pretty sight. Hate, utter hate for and a desire to overthrow the abusive regime always comes through.
And so it will here. Of that there is no doubt.
Right. In other words, with such a law, the state has the ability to declare any person a criminal at any point in time. It is enough just to find someone who agrees to say that they feel offended.
Hurt feelings laws are shaky ground. I sometimes miss the days of the early Internet, there was no such strict regulation. At the time, the popular phrase was “it’s the Internet, baby, they might tell you to fuck off here,” meaning that if you were too sensitive, you might want to stay away from the Internet.
A lot of people expressed a lot of their opinions and it is natural that some might not like some of them. That’s life.
Thanks Tatyana for confirming the opinion of the Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, who despite his title probably knows less than you about the jeopardy of “hurt feelings laws”.
Such laws have actually already been put to the test for decades on most playgrounds in kindergarten schools. Ask any parent or teacher.
Meanwhile, I’m sure all the readers of Craig’s blog will join in saying that your composure, restraint and self control is truly remarkable. Finding the strength to discuss future Scottish laws regarding gender critical expression while Russia has just suffered at the Crocus City Hall the most dramatic event in recent times is certainly worth full respect.
Is this a clumsy attempt at sarcasm, or are you planning to propose marriage to me? 🙂
Oh well, anyway, I’ve been on this site for too long and it’s all been here before. Nothing new from you Melrose, you really haven’t impressed me. Sorry to upset you, but it seems your attack failed because you overestimated your abilities.
Ad hominem again?
It touches one without moving the other…
I was paying a compliment, but your taking it as sarcasm says a lot. A lot, verified
ah, nicely you disguised your backhanded compliment 🙂 Well, let’s try to be more friendly, I hope you don’t mind adding a little real value to this discussion? Thank you.
so, dear friend Melrose, let me please ask you a linguistic and cultural question:
Is there a word in your native language that describes a person who behaves provocatively, literally tugging at the sleeve of the interlocutor, attracting attention to himself, but when he finally receives this attention, he squeals like a bitch and plays the victim?
If it hurts, don’t rub it in. That’s what we say. Get it?
Now, all fiddling around left aside, you find it hard to address the real question: who will be affected by this “farcical” law?
Well, I was going to leave another comment here for you, but since you’re giving up, then I guess I’d be inclined to exercise my legendary restraint, and refrain from rubbing it in.
To the point. So, who will be affected by this law:
Here is the story of a trans person who regretted transitioning.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/feb/03/experience-i-regret-transitioning
I can easily imagine a person who has, say, a child with gender dysphoria, and who read this story, and who was horrified by this unfortunate fate, and who wants to protect their child from a possible mistake, but is facing the legislation facilitating transition, juvenile justice, show business promoting transpeople, and big pharma promoting ready-made easy solutions.
I am one hundred percent sure that, expressing their despair and their powerlessness to convince their child, such a parent will choose harsh words when expressing their attitude towards transpeople. And his choice of words will be a completely normal human reaction. But that is precisely why they will become the target of this law.
Thank you for suggesting the word “farce”, it exactly describes this situation.
Don’t give up. We’ve got plenty of time. At least you have. And your English is excellent. From the North I would think.
Your story is interesting, but I believe you don’t personally know anyone whose child has experienced gender dysphoria. In real life, they usually react very differently.
You once said that opinions are like assholes, everyone’s got one
This is the very moment to say I agree with you on this 🙂
I’ll just add that the problem of some people – let’s call them ‘alternatively smart’ for the sake of tolerance – is that sometimes they have nothing substantive to answer, so they resort to showing theirs. Even if no one is interested in looking at it.
Ah, in case you find my comment hostile, here are some friendly smileys for you
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
You’re welcome. Be my guest. You seem to run out of reasonable points, and use vulgarity as a last resource.
As I previously mentioned, gender dysphoria is a serious subject, hardly ever addressed by people who have no information about it. There’s currently an attitude of denial, just like 30 years ago people wouldn’t admit the reality of climate change.
I looked up “gender dysphoria”, as it looked too scientific for my humble brain. According to Wikipedia, it is “…the distress a person experiences due to a mismatch between their gender identity—their personal sense of their own gender—and their sex assigned at birth”.
Cutting through the verbiage, sex is a matter of biological fact – although, as with everything else in nature, the law of excluded middle does not apply. A person can be biologically male, female, or various shades of in-between including full hermaphroditism. And a person’s sex is not “assigned at birth”; it is determined at conception.
“Gender”, on the other hand, seems to refer to the wishes or desires of a person to be of the other sex. Throughout history there have been very many men who would have liked to be women, and vice versa. Depending on the tolerance and empathy of each culture, they met with more or less understanding and kindness.
I have no problem at all accepting that some men prefer to comport themselves as women, and some women like to dress and behave like men. That should be entirely their affair, although they too should exercise some understanding and sympathy for the hayseeds who may be surprised or even shocked.
Where I have difficulty following is when a biological man, rather than adopting the dress and manners of a woman, declares that he IS a woman. (Or vice versa). I stand with Philip K. Dick, who explained that “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away”.
Hayseeds lol Tom
Odd coincidence you mention PKD’s coruscating dictum, it was running through my mind in a recent moment, as I struggled, in vain, to get sense out of nonsense, to find value in this great but terrible city known as Unthank – it was a mighty struggle but I knew all along I struggled in vain – I was fighting things I cannot see, I guess you might it call it my destiny but Tom I am changing
Agreed, Tom. Tatyana has a certain knack for using a vocabulary many English native speakers can find obscure. Unlike you, who uses the most reliable sources, like Wikipedia, to clear any potential confusion.
Even though, better check “gender” again. It’s not exactly what you seem to think. 🧐
In the Western world, legal sex is usually assigned at birth based on what babies’ genitals look like, Tom – and if there is any ambiguity, the doctors will make a decision on whether they are male or female and then surgery will probably follow. Since 2005, people over 18 in the UK have been able to change their legal sex by obtaining a gender recognition certificate, which they can use to change their birth certificate*.
Biological sex (i.e. whether an animal produces male or female gamates) is not always determined at conception; for example, a perfectly normal female XX zygote can end up being approximately half of a baby with fully male sex organs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/46,XX/46,XY
Ain’t Nature amazing? (Sorry for citing Wiki, Melrose, but it’s usually the best way for people to begin learning about topics that may be new to them.)
* The only instances in which such people are still legally recognised as their birth sex, are for purposes of acquiring hereditary peerages, or getting married in a Church of England church.
It’s quite okay. As I see it, agnostics often make the best believers…
You’re right about Wikipedia, it’s the most convenient primer for people who have never studied a certain subject. But it cracks me up in the sense countless comments have appeared on this blog stressing the major weaknesses and shortcomings of Wiki… before ending up by quoting it themselves… so funny.
Back to topic. Tatyana was the first to mention “gender dysphoria” which has nothing to do with abnormalities of sexual organs or functions. To the extent that it’s not uncommon to see people who have experienced this issue but are not “queer” in their sex life…
LA, the cases you cite seem to be extremely rare and, in practical terms, pathological. With over 8 billion humans alive, even the rarest of conditions occurs from time to time. But I do not agree that the existence of the occasional person with two complete sets of genes has anything to do with normal males who see fit to declare that they are females, with all the corresponding appurtenances and privileges.
You may have noticed that I explicitly stated that “as with everything else in nature, the law of excluded middle does not apply”. In other words, it is not the case that every human being is either strictly a male or a female (as those words are normally used).
I suppose it is true that doctors examine a new-born baby and decide whether to call it a boy or a girl – or something else. No doubt in the vast majority of cases they have no doubt at all that it is either a boy or a girl. Just as, if I see an elephant walking down the street, you might choose to say that I assign to it the name “elephant” based on what its nose, feet, and teeth look like. But in fact I just recognise it as an elephant.
Melrose, you wrote that “Tatyana has a certain knack for using a vocabulary many English native speakers can find obscure”.
Having read many of her comments over the past – can it be years now? – I mainly noticed how articulate she is, how easy it is to understand what she means, and how well she has mastered (can I say that?) English.
I have also noticed that many English native speakers (in the UK, USA, and other countries) are so deplorably backward in their education that they do sometimes have difficulty understanding simple English. Which rather tends to make educated foreigners look even better. I always remember that Joseph Conrad (Polish) and Vladimir Nabokov (Russian) are justly counted among the greatest writers of literary English.
As for Wikipedia, I certainly don’t uncritically believe anything I see there. But in response to certain statements, I find it the most appropriate source to quote.
Thanks for your reply Tom. I don’t have particularly strong opinions on whether men should be able to define themselves to be female merely by obtaining a GRC; however, the law is the law, and it’s been such since 2005*. I was just pointing out that biological sex is not always determined at conception. By my maths, I’d say that there are around a million people in the world that are 46,XX/46,XY chimeras, with most of them not being aware of it.
Thanks for your reply Melrose. To my mind, in reasonably free societies, it comes down to adults having the right to modify their bodies as they wish. Of course, some of them might come to regret it, but people regret all sorts of things.
* Most men are perfectly capable of gaining access to women without needing to enter their toilets or changing rooms. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been sexually assaulted over the years (by men & women as it happens, but never by an overtly trans person), though it’s never happened in either of those places.
it’s just Melrose being dishonest again. and then pretending to be a victim.
Everytime I hear people getting excited about this Trans nonsense, I recall Monty Python’s ‘Life of Brian‘. Comedy then, comedy now:
FRANCIS: Why are you always on about women, Stan?
STAN: I want to be one.
REG: What?
STAN: I want to be a woman. From now on, I want you all to call me ‘Loretta’.
REG: What?!
LORETTA: It’s my right as a man.
JUDITH: Well, why do you want to be Loretta, Stan?
LORETTA: I want to have babies.
REG: You want to have babies?!
LORETTA: It’s every man’s right to have babies if he wants them.
REG: But… you can’t have babies.
LORETTA: Don’t you oppress me.
REG: I’m not oppressing you, Stan. You haven’t got a womb! Where’s the foetus going to gestate?! You going to keep it in a box?!
LORETTA: crying
JUDITH: Here! I– I’ve got an idea. Suppose you agree that he can’t actually have babies, not having a womb, which is nobody’s fault, not even the Romans’, but that he can have the right to have babies.
FRANCIS: Good idea, Judith. We shall fight the oppressors for your right to have babies, brother. Sister. Sorry.
REG: What’s the point?
FRANCIS: What?
REG: What’s the point of fighting for his right to have babies when he can’t have babies?!
FRANCIS: It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression.
REG: Symbolic of his struggle against reality.
Whenever the law is a fools’ ass are its judges and upholding practitioners quite naturally in every extreme case to be deemed instigators and criminalising supporters of terrorism/anti-social high crimes and politically incorrect and corrupt perverse misdemeanours against humanity ….. and they be rightly universally treated as despicable and deplorable pariahs to enjoy the full force and rough vengeance of sweet justice from every violent baying mob that they have seeded?
Which, methinks, is an unpleasant and unwelcome but rational question for more than just Scotland to honestly answer, given the consequences of every wrong proposal whenever such as the above is certainly the case.
[ In response to Tom Welsh, March 24, 2024 at 10:04 ]
Tom, I stand with Philip K. Dick, I thought you should have said ‘excuse the pun’ or you were quoting from a member of the carry on films,
but he is a real person with an excellent view on life. Thankyou.
harry, I am afraid you have rather lost me with your comment. I thought PKD was widely known, especially since the films based on his books have enjoyed such critical and even financial success. He certainly was a real person with an excellent view of life, more because of than in spite of his adventures with mental illness and drugs.
I cut my SF teeth on “World of Chance” (aka “Solar Lottery”), “Time out of Joint”, “The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch”, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”, “Ubik”, and “VALIS” (the last of which is not strictly fiction).
What was the pun you suspected? And what was the link with the “Carry On” films?
I notice that Philip K. Dick also said this – which seems very relevant today, over 50 years later.
“If, as it seems, we are in the process of becoming a totalitarian society in which the state apparatus is all-powerful, the ethics most important for the survival of the true, free, human individual would be: cheat, lie, evade, fake it, be elsewhere, forge documents, build improved electronic gadgets in your garage that’ll outwit the gadgets used by the authorities”.
– Philip K. Dick, SF convention speech, Vancouver (February 1972)
http://www.philipkdickfans.com/resources/articles/canada-gains-a-noted-science-fiction-writer/
Tom I am disappointed with you, not an aficianado of the carry on films obviously, try this Carry On quote from ‘Carry on Abroad’
·”My name is Stuart Farquhar”. “Stupid what?” “STUART! FARQUHAR!” “Ahh, you Mr. Farqiarse!”
Mabe a character out of Monty Python’s ‘the life of Brian’ would be better ‘Biggus Dickus’ Sorry if this offends any snowflacks.
The double entendres keep flowing, for instance many Zerohedge articles about Fulton County DA Fany Willis read…
Another bite at the Fani: Judge Grants Trump’s Request to Appeal DA Disqualification Decision 22-3-24
Nathan Wade pulls out of Fani case after Fulton Fiasco 15-3-24. Absolutely disgusting I know. Then again it could be my filthy mind.
Good lord, this is the most insane law ever. It legislates against ordinary, healthy opinion. It legislates against being human!! Can you, Craig, now feel free enough to continue with this blog? Indeed, can we expect to see the quality of discussion on here reduced to guarded comments – some of which I see already? I had no idea. Well, we’ll see what happens I guess in the coming years. Remember that bad laws can always be repealed when governments change. Roll on a rout at the hustings!
Olly Perry, “Roll on a rout at the hustings!” sounds like a call to violence, i.e. “in a matter of minutes the attackers were routed”
Olly could you please turn yourself into your nearest police station and explain yourself, bring a change of clothing. /S
Olly, as we contribute to this blog, there are rabid transactivists getting ready to report J K Rowling on April 1st, for things she has reputedly said in the past. These transactivists are a very loud, angry, some might say unhinged minority, who will use this new law to persecute women and anyone who supports them.
There is a video clip on the Jimmy Dore Telegram channel from one of his shows https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpV18HK7VKo of a trans woman, though she neither looked nor sounded like one (there’s me with my gender stereotypes) who claimed to have had a uterus implant. She then went on to say that after lots of “gay sex” she thought that she might get pregnant and would proceed to become the first trans woman to get an abortion.
Do I understand this new law correctly? If I publicly expressed in the ways described in the law my total repugnance for this person’s total perversity and depravity, she could could accuse me under Part 3 cited above of “stirring up hatred” because she as a trans woman is acting as a “reasonable person” in claiming her human rights (to both sexuality and abortion); it is my behaviour that is abusive and I would be the one then to end up in prison.
Crispa, your intellect is very crisp. You understand the new law very correctly.
You just have a single week left to express your hateful feelings. The Dean of the Faculty made it very clear.
Or you can possibly choose exile and spend some time outside of the reach of Scotland, until it becomes an independent Republic and such laws are removed.
Or become a MP following the next election and thus enjoy parliamentary privilege.
Melrose.
On the contrary with the one weeks time sentence, I foresee this terribly unjust law as a tool to shut up Craig and many like him, the Keystone Cops aka Police Scotland doesn’t have the man/women power to fully enforce this ludicrous law, the whole idea in bringing about the HC Law is shut up or lock up major dissenting voices using this vague and wide ranging farcical law.
Oh Police Scotland after they’ve finished arresting those that the political hierarchy want arrested and banged up, will probably focus on the middle guys after that, and then some lower level dissenters and finally a small amount of individuals who have yelled hate crime down the phone at them.
But the real reason this dangerous law has been enacted is to shut people up from the Scottish indy movement, to criticising Israel, and defending the oppressed people of Palestine, Scotland is fast becoming an authoritarian state, which is only a hop skip and a jump from a fascist state.
RoS
I fear you will very quickly be proved correct about who this is intended to target. Certainly the last people it will be used to silence are genocidal Zionist racists (or in centrist establishment terms, “moderates”). In fact I doubt reactionaries and bigots of any stripe will be in much danger of having their collars felt. The primary target for silencing and demonization (as always) will be leftists, Muslims, foreign-policy heretics etc. People considered a genuine threat/ nuisance by the security state and both wings of the Scottish establishment.
I’m sorry, but that’s just rubbish. Look at the Scottish Government’s actions and words on Gaza. Does that sound like a fascist state to you?
Yousaf the Puppet and the SNP will say just about anything to garner votes, SNP string puller Angus Robertson is a good buddy of Mossad agent Shia Masot, Masot said of Robertson Angus is someone we can work with.
I hope that “Jo” sues the living shit out of Police Scotland.
I read Craig’s piece and didn’t see anything about men using transgender as a pretext to molest people in the toilets. Perhaps I was careless. He made the obvious point that denunciation had become part of the criminal law.
An Englishman, Scotsman and Irishman went into a pub. They were about to order their beer when one said “Hang on, we’ve come away without the Rabbi”. So they turned round and went off in search of their pal.
That’ll bring the house down.
So can we assume by the deafening silence that the UK/MI6 is behind the Crocus massacre ? They do have form in Manchester for this sort of thing.
What silence ?
Official death toll currently at 133, even 143 from other sources. Might be higher still…
Who’s behind this massacre? Plenty of choice, Putin is so popular. Where Prigozhin failed, others may succeed.
Manchester Arena, Bataclan. Not a good decade for concert-goers…
“Plenty of choice, Putin is so popular. ”
How, precisely, is killing a lot of Russian concert-goers supposed to impact negatively on Putin, and how is the attack simultaneously an attack on Putin and an attack by him, as you insinuate in your next comment?
For many years, Putin’s pledge to the Russian people has been to say “With me, law and order. Without me, chaos.”
Whoever they were, the terrorists chose to perform this massacre less than a week after the election that was supposed to be the epitome of Putin’s reign. He was clearly the target, not the crowd waiting for a Pik Nik concert. No doubt about it.
Cui bono Melrose?
” He was clearly the target, not the crowd waiting for a Pik Nik concert. No doubt about it.”
Funny that no-one else but you seems to have come to that conclusion. You still have yet to explain why, if he was the target, why his “protracted silence” is “suspicious”. Schrodinger’s president perhaps?
Cui bono, we’ll know for sure in a matter of days. Trust me.
The Tsar was assuredly taken by surprise by this horrible terror attack, but once he had made sure the crisis was over, he took the time to muse about the ways to reverse the tide, and convert his failure towards Russian security in a positive way. I.e. put the blame on Ukrainian connections, and thus justify in advance any form of future retaliation against the Kiev regime.
Simple as that. But it took him a few hours to work out the narrative…
Your window into Kremlin thinking is remarkable – this blog is lucky to have a dedicated Kremlin watcher who is willing to “knock it out” on a regular and if I may say, protracted basis.
Avanti Melrose.
“The Tsar was assuredly taken by surprise by this horrible terror attack,”
Feigned surprise, surely, if, as you suggest, he was really behind it, or are you now favouring “asleep at the wheel” as your avenue of attack over “evil dictator murdering his own people”. You get better optics if you choose this sort of thing in advance.
You are somehow blinded by your prejudices.
I never suggested Putin was “behind” this massacre. Quite the opposite. It was a foreign attack against HIM, the self-proclaimed champion of Russian security.
But once it had happened, his first instinct was to find a way to twist the events to HIS OWN advantage. Thus, to ignore the probable ISIS initiative and to underscore potential Ukrainian connections.
Thanks for your compliments, appreciated. Circular logic applies to your reasoning very well indeed.
yes, Melrose, the CIA and MI6 are up to their hairy armpits in this. don’t you think so?
They haven’t shaved those areas for a very long time.
It is common knowledge that, many years ago, CIA and MI6 were funding ISIS, or rather its prequels. But then, things changed like in a Bob Dylan song. Meanwhile, they probably still have a few assets in the cesspool. Which doesn’t mean they can pull the strings…
not its prequels Melrose, and not just many years ago but now, in Syria and in all likelihood in this latest terror operation to destabilize Russia, since that is the goal of the US, and hence the goal of all the yapping europoodles. and you still have not provided any evidence that Putin’s massive reelection victory was in any way rigged.
Thanks. I can always rely on you, when other more sensible readers eventually give up.
Your argument as you know is moot. I cannot PROVE the election was rigged any more than you can PROVE it wasn’t. Logics 101.
But at the end of the day, that’s not even what matters most. I mean, do you really think that Putin’s policies are in the best interest of the Russian people?
I am ready to listen to your position on this question, and to give you mine.
Yea Melrose that one in Nevada in 2017 with automated machine guns, in Paradise of all places.
Very tragic too of course
But the Vegas shooting was the action of a single deranged individual. Different story…
People died, same story – we don’t have to always focus on the baddies do we?
as opposed to the action of deranged Ukrainians and Western intelligence and hired killers.
Plenty of eyewitnesses that say multiple shooters, including from a helicopter.
Really. You mean, according to tabloids?
Helicopter, sure. Right next to the Strip. Why not a flying saucer?
Don’t forget there was plenty of video footage of the incident.
Yes, Melrose, Mr Putin is indeed popular – in Russia. As the guardian of the world’s largest country – almost twice the size of China, Canada, or the USA, with immense stores of almost untouched natural resources and, almost uniquely for an industrial society, not overpopulated – it is one of his many jobs to protect Russia and its citizens from the hordes of greedy, violent, scheming outsiders who would love to destroy its government, break it up into powerless regions, and steal its vast wealth.
So far he has discharged his duties impeccably, steering an uncannily precise line between avoidable violence and the deaths it causes on the one hand, and being the doormat the West would like him to be. Meanwhile he has ensured that every year was usefully spent devising and building state-of-the-art weapons that can defeat any attacker, and rebuilding Russia’s defences in order to keep its independence.
Naturally, Mr Putin has made an awful lot of enemies among the frustrated would-be plunderers.
Too bad.
But if he’s so popular, why rig elections ?
I’m afraid we have to agree to disagree…
No big deal, the new law doesn’t apply here. And nobody should feel insulted !
“But if he’s so popular, why rig elections ?”
An excellent example of circular logic: Putin is really unpopular, so he must have rigged the election which gave him 87% of the vote – if he had to rig the vote, that proves he’s unpopular.
If you were going to rig an election, which of the following outcomes would you go for:
45% of the vote, – very plausible, just enough to beat the other candidates,
55% of the vote – we don’t want it to looked rigged, after all
87% of the vote – rigged, schmigged, gotta show them who’s boss
99% of the vote – no-one will believe it, but what the hell, I am the greatest.
110% of the vote – because you deserve it?
Who said that anyone in Russia rigged elections? Everything seems to have been above board and Bristol fashion. International observers and all.
The only reason to say that Russia rigs elections is that the people who hate Russia are so off their heads that they have completely lost touch with reason and common sense.
Be careful, Tom. Nobody hates RUSSIA. At least, certainly not me.
Some people hate PUTINISTS. It’s completely different. They love other Russians, but reject the current regime and its sycophants.
In fact, it’s really easy to remember. Exactly the same nuance as between antisemitism and anti zionism.
if you are so intelligent, why do you fall for transparent propaganda about “rigged elections’ in Russia? conversely, you could just be dishonest.
Ad hominem again ?
“Play the ball, not the person” remember?
Pretzelattack
Imo, ‘rigged elections’ is a convenient narrative that removes at least two thorns from their brains.
First, they are irritated by the idea that Putin really has so much support, because they hate him.
Secondly, if they admitted that the support is really that significant, then it would be difficult to say that they do not hate “all of Russia.”
After all, they would have to say that they “hate 87% of Russians,” or that they “hate the majority of Russians.”
As you can see, the phrase would no longer be abstract. One could have assumed that if a person who is capable of hating about 120 million human beings at one time, then that is a damn lot of hatred.
So it’s easier to say that they hate just one person, Putin.
All of us have hated at least one person in our lives, like a rude cashier or a neighbor who occupies your parking space, so this is an ordinary emotion that is understandable to everyone and does not cause rejection in us. Easier to join hatred towards Putin, than joining hatred towards a nation.
Well, one more level up, philosophical observation, people rush around with their hatred as if it is the most valuable thing in their life. You understand that there are several ways to resolve this seething internal conflict: destroy the object of hatred, protect yourself from contact with the object of hatred, or destroy the hatred itself.
I observe that the latter is carefully avoided. Rather, on the contrary, hatred is nurtured and inflated. So Russia is preparing to react to the first two options, that is, they want to destroy or isolate us.
oh noes, Melrose asks dishonest question, gets an answer, and is suddenly the victim again. It isn’t an ad hominem attack if you can’t support the assumption that the election was rigged. and once again, you provide nothing to support it.
I’ll share a personal story, if you don’t mind. I hope that the story will not be considered off-topic, when the blog is dedicated to hate speech in Scotland, perhaps someone is curious to compare it with hatred in Russia.
So, with your kind permission, pour yourself some tea, this is going to be quite a while.
HATE & PREJUDICE in Krasnodar
As some of you may know, I own a workshop. This is one of a dozen small rooms in the semi-basement store of a residential building. My neighbors include a couple of beauty salons, a gym, a small entrepreneur’s warehouse, a flower shop and a small grocery store. One gets to any of our businesses via downstairs and a hall and we all pay a small amount per month for cleaning services, and we also chip in for minor repairs such as lighting or a broken door handle in common areas.
Grocery store guests sometimes create mess, like, you know, children with snacks, or awkward guests spilling beer, or a delivery person accidentally breaking a bottle of milk. So, cashiers have to take a mop and get it clean around the shop, sometimes. This store is located at the very entrance, so this “around the shop” includes a part of the hall and stairs.
Now that the scenery is set on stage, let’s move on to the hate.
Yesterday I left the workshop and was standing not far from the entrance checking my phone, when one of the cashiers, let’s call her Karen 🙂, came out of her store and stopped in the doorway, lighting a cigarette. Without looking at me, she said, as if addressing no one:
– There are ***(people), sitting over there in their ***hairdressings, rubbing their pussy, and as soon as I washed the floors, they urgently need to walk around and leave dirty marks.
In fact, she used very indecent words. A Russian word that sounded like the surname of the German Defense Minister, and a few more words that sounded like the way a Ukrainian official distorted the surname of a Chinese official recently.
Distracted from my thoughts, I looked at her – she was shaking off cigarette ash right at the place that she claimed she had just washed. I asked if she thought it’s normal to express herself in such words when speaking about people.
She gave me that Karen look and said something like, “That’s my style of speaking, you shouldn’t be offended, I didn’t mean you,” and looked down at my shoes.
A little more background. I wear textile shoes which I wash in the washing machine, and also a vacuum cleaner lives in my workshop, as it must be kept perfectly clean. Because if you are a jeweler, you quite often crawl around the floor in search of rolled-up scraps and jewelry, also you don’t want to send to your customers dirty wire, which inevitably ends up on the floor if you really make it in large quantities.
So, she looked at my shoes.
Then she looked at the floor and said: “Now seriously, these are your footprints.”
Hate and prejudice, part 2
…So, she looked at my shoes.
Then she looked at the floor and said: “Now seriously, these are your footprints.”
I took a deep breath and said I then rephrase my question and now it is – if she thought it’s acceptable to say that rude obscene words about me?
It was clear from her face that the question puzzled her, but not as much as it would have puzzled an innocent person who had not intended to offend me from the very beginning. Then, she made it that my question somehow enraged her; perhaps she intended to be rude but didn’t intend to go into open confrontation.
Well, I can’t remember exactly what she said, there was something incoherent about me living easy life (haha!) in a world of pink ponies and smiles (that’s partly true), where all people are kind and polite (haha again!), but her life is not like that and she considers it acceptable to express herself rudely. She cleans the floor and we just walk on it.
She stood there and I felt I was treated unfair and I smelled the lie.
Well, if you know me a little, you can easily guess what happened next.
With nothing else on my mind, but only wishing to find out the truth, I said: “Oh, let’s check if these are mine”, and I trampled on this place thoroughly.
Well, if you have ever met such a Karen in your life, then you can easily guess what happened next.
She gasped for air like a fish on dry land, unable to say a word. Her face … I was afraid that she would have a stroke.
—-
Oh, yes, today I saw her talking with our other neighbors, complaining about how deeply I offended HER yesterday.
Glad to see you’re back, Tatyana.
I enjoyed your short story.
I also appreciate your restraint, considering circumstances.
That we hold different opinions about the recent Russian election doesn’t erase more important points of agreement. I personally feel empathy with the Russian people, just like you obviously.
Once again, let’s draw the line between a nation and a political leader.
One more thing, Tatyana.
As I just mentioned, I feel very close with the Russian people. This despite disagreement with the current leadership. Believe me or not, but regularly I find myself supporting Russia against business associates, former colleagues, college friends or simple neighbors who hate Russia as a whole and look at it as pure evil.
So it takes a little determination to keep following my line. But I do.
Most regular commenters on this blog do not accept my remarks very well. I can perhaps get used to it. After all, the world at large views most of you guys as steadfast antisemites, against your vows. Likewise, I guess I must suffer that you think of me as Russianphobic.
Even though your recent demonstration about it was a total fallacy…
Little Melrose, all by myself. Against the bright minds of… bayard, harry law, pretzelattack, tom welsh, will moon… and mostly yourself. How could I not succumb ?
Even though commenting rules have recently been infringed without moderation. But loyalty has always its benefits.
If you agree, I think we can have fruitful conversations…
Well, now let’s test whether I have mastered English enough (thanks for the compliment, Tom Welsh!) to explain the outcome.
Hearing rude words about someone’s dirty footprints, I was completely sure that walking out of my clean workshop in my clean shoes, I simply could not leave any significant dirt on the floor.
Logic, I consider this one of my strengths.
But since the conversation found me when I was already outside, and she chose to escalate – did I say I consider logic one of my strengths? – I thought that now there was probably some dust on my soles, and the floor was probably still wet…
So, the test went perfectly – my footprints looked DIFFERENT, but they still were there, and there were a lot of them 🙂
Trolling, I don’t consider it my strong point, it just happens unintentionally sometimes.
I believe that people should not make unfounded guesses, much less express them in a rude manner, since this can cause them to experience unpleasant emotions yet after they themselves create the trouble, they tend to squeal like a bitch and play the victim.
I think you can ask anything you want, if you do it respectfully and politely. Even hatred can be expressed in a decent, civilized manner, right?
And by the way, where’s the Emperor when we most need him ?
“I believe that people should not make unfounded guesses, much less express them in a rude manner, since this can cause them to experience unpleasant emotions yet after they themselves create the trouble, they tend to squeal like a bitch and play the victim.”
Good that you can find the courage to look at yourself in the mirror. And yes, your English is excellent. Far better than that of others from the North.
Melrose claims “the world at large views most of you guys as steadfast antisemites”.
On the contrary, the world at large is appalled by the infanticide and mass starvation that the west is inflicting on Gaza. It is people who support this colonialist genocide and try to smear opposition to it that the world considers to be racist freaks. You would quickly find this out if you got out into the real world.
Dear Reza, both statements are not contradictory.
Thanks for joining, ready for a follow up
See, Tatyana, they’re not up to your standards.
I only comment on this blog in my spare time. Otherwise, I have – like you – a real life, a family, friends, business to run …
But even those who are 24/7 on the watch find it very difficult to answer the humble stance I happen to represent. Doesn’t matter.
Craig Murray’s blog is a perfect example of how the Internet should be run. Letting everyone have his word, sometimes clever, sometimes not…
Putin has self respect and a love for his country, the EU/US will learn the hard way if they spend the 300 Billion stolen Russian reserves on either reparations or arms for Ukraine. “We will use windfall profits from Russian assets frozen in Europe to financially support the purchase of weapons for Ukraine,” Scholz said as he listed European Union efforts to increase support for Ukraine. To which I hope Putin replied “Go ahead make my day” well aware the German economy is failing fast and that he [Putin] can give it the coup de grâce. That grinning clown Scholz really is as stupid as he looks.
“That grinning clown Scholz really is as stupid as he looks.”
I doubt it, but I expect he knows exactly which skeletons will come tumbling out of the cupboard, should he fail to toe the line.
Bayard, not the least frightening of the many recent political revelations is that virtually every single one of our beloved leaders has so many skeletons in his or her closet as to render him or her nothing more than a puppet.
Is there something in our political system that filters out all non-criminals at an early stage?
Steve – do you have proof that MI6 did the Manchester concert bombing, or is this yet more idle conjecture and knee-jerk conspiracy nonsense?
It amazes me that people can actually think we – the UK/US – have never pissed off the rest of the world enough to earn ourselves some genuine bona-fide terrorism, and it’s all got to be false flag stuff. Seriously, you must think we’ve been nothing but an exemplary model of truth, freedom, selflessness and generosity all this time.
This ‘silence’ you’re referring to is on the front page of every news publication worldwide that I’ve looked at. Have you managed to find this ‘silence’ anywhere yourself?
Agreed. The only person whose protracted silence might seem suspicious is Putin. It took him over 12 hours before he made a very short statement…
False flags are everywhere. But not always where you expect them to be.
Cutting a suspect’s ear in front of camera is a good way to get to the truth. Or so they pretend…
and some people support the neonazis wherever they find them Melrose, in Ukraine, or Russia, or Israel.
What about the UK ?
why don’t you identify the neonazis in the UK for me Melrose, and meanwhile explain why you support neonazis in Russia, like the late and mostly unlamented Navalny.
Once again, you make both questions and answers.
I’m afraid you have to repeat your class…
Pretender.
When did I ever mention Navalny?
Was he even RUSSIAN ?
I love you…
Marshmallow attack
glenn_nl, I have small knowledge of this attack but I have been told that the Royal Navy brought these terrorists to Britain – have I been misinformed?
You haven’t been misinformed; they had been evacuated from Libya, where they had been useful to the Washington/Westminster objective of destroying the Ba’athist government, commonly referred to by Western media as “the Gaddafi regime”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ba%27athism&oldid=1211573154
– “Ba’athism is based on the principles of secularism, Arab nationalism, pan-Arabism, and Arab socialism. Ba’athism advocates socialist economic policies such as state ownership of natural resources, protectionism, distribution of lands to peasants, and favour planned economies.”
Predictable, the “Western” alliance favours Arab monarchism over Arab socialism, and thus routinely uses such jihadists, their ideology being Wahhabism, the state religion of the Gulf Monarchies. It is a violent, puritanical, essentially fascist distortion of Islam. But these warriors’ personal motivation is religious; they do not realise that they are being manipulated for political ends. They are therefore very dangerous within liberal societies, where they see many ‘sins’ such as young, scantily clothed female performers, and feel that their duty to God is to punish the ‘sinners’ – just as they felt they were fighting “Godless communists” in Ba’athist states.
I expect that mostly the Western secret services attempt to monitor and contain jihadis on Western soil (see “the covenant of security”), but the occasional atrocity can always be turned to promoting Islamophobia and reducing civil liberties.
“It amazes me that people can actually think we – the UK/US – have never pissed off the rest of the world enough to earn ourselves some genuine bona-fide terrorism…”
The only really amazing fact is that so few people in the many countries we have terrorised and whose people we have slaughtered have seen fit to take revenge on any but the tiniest scale.
“All the Countries We’ve Ever Invaded: And the Few We Never Got Round To” by Stuart Laycock.
“All the Countries the Americans Have Ever Invaded: Making Friends and Influencing People?” by Christopher Kelly and Stuart Laycock.
The first book claims that “Out of 193 countries that are currently UN member states, we’ve invaded or fought conflicts in the territory of 171. That’s not far off a massive, jaw-dropping 90 per cent”.
The authors of the second book claim to have named the three (3) countries that the USA has never attacked, invaded, subverted, or otherwise molested.
It’s a sobering, and very rarely mentioned, fact that if you count only Korea, South-East Asia (Vietnam), and Iraq, the USA has killed at least 10 million people in unprovoked wars of aggression – the supreme international crime. Yet people yawn and go on about their business.
Yes Tom, a shocking indictment of the “civilized west”. Netanyahu probably believes all those so far 100,000 killed and injured Gazans will be forgotten about soon, then back to normal. Madeleine Albright when asked about the 500,000 children the US war in Iraq caused to be killed replied “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price—we think the price is worth it.”.
Hundreds of thousands or millions of people – most of them civilians – are killed in Asia, or Africa, or Latin America, and there is not a murmur in official quarters.
Yet if a few Jewish people are taken hostage, you would think the sky had fallen.
Racist? Oh no, not us!
It’s obvious to anyone (?) that the zionist Israelis are literally mad dogs. The thing is that the owners of those mad dogs are the USA, maybe with a part share by the UK.
As mentioned elsewhere, Bibi is not really the problem, he’s just a symptom. Sort out the USA and maybe things will improve. Unfortunately, we’re in this mess for the long run.
Serendipitously, I have just come across this, from the horse’s mouth:
“Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2022”
Congressional Research Service (As of March 2022).
https://web.archive.org/web/20230206033815/https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R42738
“This report lists hundreds of instances in which the United States has used its Armed Forces abroad in situations of military conflict or potential conflict or for other than normal peacetime purposes. It was compiled in part from various older lists and is intended primarily to provide a rough survey of past U.S. military ventures abroad, without reference to the magnitude of the given instance noted. The listing often contains references, especially from 1980 forward, to continuing military deployments, especially U.S. military participation in multinational operations associated with NATO or the United Nations. Most of these post-1980 instances are summaries based on presidential reports to Congress related to the War Powers Resolution. A comprehensive commentary regarding any of the instances listed is not undertaken here.
“The instances differ greatly in number of forces, purpose, extent of hostilities, and legal authorization. Eleven times in its history, the United States has formally declared war against foreign nations. These 11 U.S. war declarations encompassed five separate wars: the war with Great Britain declared in 1812; the war with Mexico declared in 1846; the war with Spain declared in 1898; the First World War, during which the United States declared war with Germany and with Austria-Hungary during 1917; and World War II, during which the United States declared war against Japan, Germany, and Italy in 1941, and against Bulgaria, Hungary, and Rumania in 1942”.
“Some of the instances were extended military engagements that might be considered undeclared wars. These include the Undeclared Naval War with France from 1798 to 1800; the First Barbary War from 1801 to 1805; the Second Barbary War of 1815; the Korean War of 1950-1953; the Vietnam War from 1964 to 1973; the Persian Gulf War of 1991; global actions against foreign terrorists after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States; and the war with Iraq in 2003. With the exception of the Korean War, all of these conflicts received congressional authorization in some form short of a formal declaration of war. Other, more recent instances have often involved deployment of U.S. military forces as part of a multinational operation associated with NATO or the United Nations”.
I would point out that, while it is true that “… the United States declared war against Japan, Germany, and Italy in 1941, and against Bulgaria, Hungary, and Rumania in 1942”, Japan and Germany had already declared war on the USA – so the American declaration of war was pure showmanship.
There is good evidence that the government / security services were supporting the Libyan Fighting Group based in Manchester in their plots against Gaddafi. After an Irish gangster that was controlling a lot of the crime in Manchester was killed by a car bomb the Libyan Fighting Group took over a lot of the crime. They were largely left alone by the police.
Salman Abedi the alleged bomber travelled back and for between Libya and UK with out any difficulty.
There is good evidence that the the alleged bomber left the Arena was followed by police and arrested at gun point.
Evidence witness statements from police, police audio log of police observing then following car, mobile video of armed arrest.
None of this included in Manchester inquiry.
see https://www.richplanet.net/ for more information
We ‘know’ Abedi was recruited and trained by UK security services, we know he was assisted in entering Libya by the UK Government and we know the Royal Navy evacuated him to the UK from Libya.
The UK government has blood on its hands but, as usual, no-one will suffer ANY consequences.
Who ever is behind that Crocus massacre, the tools were men identified as from ‘religion of peace’, so ok. Hate speech in Western woke eyes to even state that fact, and banned officially soon enough in Hollow Britain.
Irrelevant.
The Tajiks were recruited, trained and operated by Ukraine with assistance/direction from the USA/UK.
Religion is just chaff put out to confuse bigots and the gullible, the agenda is to destabilise Russia. End of.
Rarely Buddhists, Christians, Jews, Jains or Hindus. Deniers are the gullible bigots here. Keep on ignoring the Koran’s dark content to your own peril. How in Ramadan in the UK these days?
Rarely heard about, more like, antonym. The only one of those I can concede is Jains, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that is actually from a gap in my knowledge off hand.
Christians have ISIS-like terror groups, probably at least as many as Islam, and complete with child sex slavery and soldiery like the Lord’s Resistance Army which was even removed from US terror lists; Hindus perpetrate massacres against the followers of other religions like Sikhs, oppress Muslims, and have a strong nationalist core in India that fondly admires the Israeli apartheid state; speaking of, it is bizarre you list Jews as an exception to the rule considering Israel is an entire terrorist state of genocidal religious fanatics.
Buddhists are rather superstitious, unlike what most Westerners think, and outside of the general public that’s too busy going on pilgrimages to holy sites (like in the Sacred Mountains) to offer payment for blessings and see monuments of buddhas, you can find every sort of fanaticism you can dream of, as there are after all an enormous number of Buddhists and countless different sects, not all of which are as harmless as the typical panhandling monks you find occupying the sites of other religions they’ve displaced like at the Angkor Wat. Just look to Myanmar for one example, where Buddhists have played a key role in advocating for violence and genocide.
That said, Buddhism is no doubt a more peaceful religion, and don’t let my contrarianism and negativity given the subject at hand mislead you into thinking my sentiment toward Buddhists isn’t positive (nor is my attitude toward any others mentioned negative), but it’s not a religion free of sin (so to speak) to the degree people think.
It should hopefully go without saying I’m not suggesting every follower of these religions is like this when I use phrasing like “Hindus perpetrate…”, rather those perpetrators just happen to be of those religions, since my point is actually religious people are no different from anyone else and you can find violent extremists among any religion. Most religious people are as good (or bad, if you’re a misanthropist) as anyone else.
Further, anything about the “dark content” of the Quran, for example, as you said, is really absurd since scripture doesn’t matter at all except theologically. Beyond the abstract and in the realm of the practical, the only thing that matters is what a religion’s adherents actually do, which is what has an effect politically and socially on society and impacts lives.
For “free” people who have no access to rt.com:
First interrogation of Moscow terrorist attack suspect (VIDEO) : https://www.rt.com/russia/594774-simonyan-video-suspected-terrorist-interrogation/
The man says that before committing Friday’s atrocity, he had been to Türkiye. When asked what he did at the Crocus City concert venue on Friday evening, he replied: “I shot down… people.” The suspect added that he had committed the crime “for money,” detailing that he had been promised 500,000 rubles ($5,418). The alleged perpetrator claimed that half the sum had already been transferred to his debit card. The man also said that the curators, whom he supposedly does not know personally, had contacted him via Telegram messaging app, and arranged an arms cache for the assailants. According to the suspect, he had been “listening to sermons… by a preacher” on Telegram for some time before being approached by the supposed masterminds of Friday’s attack “around a month ago.”
Just prior to coming on to Craig’s site I was checking out any new articles that JVL have posted, and one of them was the following about the guy that runs Labour Against Antisemitism, and how he completely distorted an event so as to demonise the people involved. But I have a feeling that such malicious machinations would be protected, and especially given that the rabid right-wing tabloids do it all the time – ie the Sun and the Mail and the Express:
‘Alex Hearn claims to oppose antisemitism but undermines the fight against it’
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/alex-hearn-claims-to-oppose-antisemitism-but-undermines-the-fight-against-it/?comment_received=1#comment-row
I wonder if the comments in the comments sections of the Mail et al will be included, or excluded!
Remember the three Jewish newspapers front-page headline about Jeremy Corbyn being an existential threat to Britain’s Jews? And then there was Mike Pompeo:
…. Pompeo was asked: If Corbyn is elected “would you be willing to work with us to take on actions if life becomes very difficult for Jews in the UK?”
Pompeo responded: “It could be that Mr. Corbyn manages to run the gantlet and get elected. It’s possible. You should know, we won’t wait for him to do those things to begin to push back. We will do our level best. It’s too risky and too important and too hard once it’s already happened.”
These are just two examples, and there are dozens of such examples, but the one thing they all have in common is that not once does anyone making such claims elaborate about what they think the threat would amount to in practice. And the reason they don’t of course is because they couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t have sounded totally ludicrous and farcical to 99.999% of the adult popualation.
Surely demonising someone is tantamount to hate-speech, and should be prosecuted. As should deliberately duping and deceiving people via media platforms..
@Allan Howard
I honestly think the US Jewish community, Pompeo and parts of the US political establishment became convinced a Prime Minister Corbyn – a man who’d built his reputation fighting for social justice – may seek to pass discriminatory anti-Semitic legislation and was genuinely a threat to Jews. That may be completely absurd, but that’s how febrile and hysterical the reporting became about alleged antisemitism within the Labour party; with Momentum presented by the tabloids as being akin to modern day Brownshirts. You had supposedly rational broadsheet journalists, like Simon Heffer, claiming in all seriousness, without a hint of irony, that Corbyn wanted to “reopen Auschwitz concentration camp”. The establishment in both countries, whipped themselves up into a frenzy, using their own media distortions.
“like Simon Heffer, claiming in all seriousness, without a hint of irony, that Corbyn wanted to “reopen Auschwitz concentration camp””
Something wicked this way comes
good people sincerely in fear. absolutely no reason to believe otherwise.
Thing is that if someone has unfounded fears/paranoia that lead them to harm others, we normally call it a mental health issue and deal with the one causing the harm rather than attacking the people they harmed.
“The establishment in both countries, whipped themselves up into a frenzy, using their own media distortions.”
A tiny bubble of people busy making things up and then believing them themselves. No wonder everything is going so badly. That’s where the thirst for narrative control leads you.
I suspect that it is only a tiny minority that enjoy or see the need for the process of telling constant lies for an evil end, so that it is important that everyone else, even those involved in the dissemination, think that they are spreading the gospel. The result of this is that the decision makers end up in the latter category and thus bad decisions are made..
I suppose i’ll have to stop commenting on any blog which may be read in Scotland.
And you may also have to invent a time machine to take you back to those halcyon days before you started expressing yourself on the Internet – apparently, EVERYTHING is recorded and how former indiscretions are viewed legally, as an act of constant republication written on a blog archive somewhere that might be read in Scotland, is as yet unknown to the great unwashed.
Anyway Peter keep me updated on how things are going and if you have any luck with time displacement theory or any attendant technology, do let me know – I’m sure there a few of my own wicked thoughts floating around in Cyberspace, that could do with being “disappeared”
O/T.
Could it be true?
“Lawyers for Julian Assange and officials of the U.S. Justice Department are engaged in talks for a possible plea deal that could see Assange walk out of Belmarsh Prison in London as a free man, according to a report Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal.
The newspaper said the DOJ was considering whether to allow Assange to “plead guilty to a reduced charge of mishandling classified information,” which is a misdemeanor. He is currently charged with felonies for allegedly violating the U.S. Espionage Act and for conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, charges that carry as much as 175 years in prison.
A deal to accept guilt for mishandling classified information could see Assange “eventually” walk free if the five years he has already spent in London’s Belmarsh Prison is counted as time served, the newspaper said. ”
https://consortiumnews.com/2024/03/20/report-assange-in-plea-deal-talks/
Excellent news.
Once the deal is reached, all the clowns who thought they were powerful will feel their mistake the hard way.
And if Assange is a free man again soon, he can say Thank you a zillion times to Mr. Murray and a few others.
the deal to lie about his actions in order to get out of prison? this is exactly what the clowns like Obama and Biden and Trump, not to mention the local poodles in the UK want–to criminalize journalism. you’re pretending that would chasten them.
Time will tell.
I am convinced Julian Assange will accept a plea deal, if it can be made without him going to the US. That’s probably what is currently discussed.
Such outcome would probably be in his best interest, and then everyone who cares about investigative journalism already knows the lessons learned from this endless and sad saga. He doesn’t have to die as a hero for his cause. He’s suffered enough.
You sound like a good guy, so please avoid to make me say what I don’t. Thank you very much.
After complete stupidity come intelligence once again. Take heart it will happen, the only question is when. You will see the start once real people (not the current self serving puppets of those few (having delusions of Grandeur) that want to usurp all power to themselves) get back into Politics and the Judiciary. Only then will the wheel of time turn from self destruction to hope and rebuilding a positive future for the people, not just of Scotland all the other countries affected by this malisse.
beò an dòchas
I don’t agree with much on here.
But when I do agree it is when freedom, in all it’s forms, is being eroded away from all, usually with a tilt towards right of centre.
Craig is right here, this is literally fascism, where are the far lefty protestors? Where are the right wing? Where is anyone actually? Do we really have to wait till this is implemented and we start seeing the unveiling of the state’s mask before we actually do something.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
“ where are the far lefty protestors? Where are the right wing? Where is anyone actually?”
“And when they came for me there was no one left to speak out for me”
There is obviously a third way – raise a Hadran wall over the Internet and exercise full souverignity north of it. There are known working models.
Hadrian’s wall does not run along the scottish border.
But it may, as Solzhenitsyn noted, run through our own minds .
So if I am a Tahitian considering a holiday in Scotland (I know, I know…but for the purposes of the hypothetical bear with me) I should consider the possibility of being arrested on arrival for a past long-forgotten tweet?
Does Scotland not want a “tourism industry” anymore?
It’s more like the other way around. People targeted by this law are people residing in Scotland, not visitors. Who in particular? Read Craig’s lips…
By the way, with all due respect to Tahiti (another part of the world basically destroyed by foreign colonialism), this is – as you noted – a rather unlikely example. Folks there are more notorious for their graceful flowery necklaces than they are for fierce internet contributions…
Greece or Switzerland would be more reasonable candidates, if not northern England, as Mr Murray suggested.
Now saying that such a law will pave the way for arbitrary police action is only stating the obvious, as it was clearly designed to produce such effects.
Goose, contrary to what you say about Pompeo, I have little doubt that the CIA and Trump (and Pompeo) were all fully aware of the A/S smear campaign against Jeremy and his allies and left-wing members – ie aware that it WAS a smear campaign being waged against him (and his supporters). I mean once he became an MP, he was undoubtedly being monitored by the so-called security services, what with his campaigning against apartheid and his involvement with Sinn Fein, and his support for the Palestinians of course, which on being elected leader of the LP would have been of great concern to the PTB, both in the UK *and* the US. And Israel, of course. And they all knew that he was a threat precisely because he was – unlike them – a man of integrity and principles who genuinely wanted to change society for the better.
I mean was it really just coincidence that Naz Shah’s Facebook posts just happened to come to light just a week or two before the local elections in 2016, and the first that Jeremy was contesting as leader? Of course it wasn’t, and I have no doubt whatsoever that the hand of the intelligence services was behind it. And ditto Ken Livingstone being invited to defend her on Vanessa Feltz’ radio programme, and ditto The Daily Politics that lunchtime. They couldn’t have foreseen Ken saying what he said about Hitler supporting Zionism in relation to the Haavara Agreement (although he didn’t actually mention the agreement by name), but I have no doubt that ‘they’ were listening to the programme to see if he said anything they could twist and feign mountain-loads of outrage and condemnation about, but if not, then the plan was for John Mann to verbally attack him when he arrived at the studios to appear on The DP for supporting Naz Shah, and (fraudulently) accuse him of supporting what she said about Israel (the map of the US etc). And the OTHER part of the set-up was Jeremy being asked by Jon Pienaar, the BBC journalist if the LP (under his leadership) has an A/S problem (or crisis), which Jeremy denied and refuted and, as such, led to the following (not only in the Daily Mail of course, but right across the MSM):
‘Labour in crisis over ‘anti-semitic’ scandal: MPs demand Corbyn gets his ‘head out of the sand’ after Red Ken is SUSPENDED for claiming Hitler backed moving the Jews to Israel……’
Jeremy Corbyn tonight denied Labour was facing an anti-Semitism crisis despite being forced to suspend his old friend Ken Livingstone for claiming Hitler was a ‘Zionist’.
Mr Livingstone made the incendiary comments as he waded into the row over anti-Semitic Facebook posts by Labour MP Naz Shah, who was suspended by Mr Corbyn yesterday after hours of pressure.
Senior Labour MPs tonight expressed horror at the attempt to play down the explosive row, which has rocked the party just a week before crucial elections.
Former minister Ian Austin told MailOnline: ‘Just seven days from polling day and instead of knocking on doors like the rest of us, Ken Livingstone is treating us to his weird views on Adolf Hitler and his offensive views on Jewish people.
‘The media are talking about nothing else, the party is having to suspend people on almost a daily basis and Jeremy thinks there’s no problem?’
Mr Austin continued: ‘It looks like a pretty big problem to everyone else. Labour’s reputation is being destroyed and instead of pretending there’s no problem Jeremy needs to act and he needs to act now.’
John Woodcock, a senior backbencher, told MailOnline: ‘Many thousands of Labour members will be bewildered by the hideous remarks of Ken Livingstone and are looking to Jeremy Corbyn to swipe the moment and tackle Labour’s anti-Semitism problem.
‘He must not bury his head in the sand in the face of this madness.’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3563223/Ken-Livingstone-claims-Hitler-supported-Zionism-supported-moving-Jews-Israel-went-mad-ended-killing-six-million-Jews.html
The first A/S episode, so to speak, was the Oxford University Labour Club affair two or three months earlier, but this was the first time that it was being referred to as a ‘crisis’, and they obviously targeted Ken precisely because he was the most well-known ally of Jeremy’s. And this episode, as such, is when the A/S smear campaign really took off big time.
And how very convenient that there just happened to be a camera team there at the entrance to the studios when Ken arrived to appear on The Daily Politics!
camera crew, even!
And just for the record, it was John Mann who initiated the falsehood/smear that Ken said Hitler was a Zionist, and did so to Ken’s face (albeit from a different studio at the studios). Ken appeared not to catch it the first time Mann said it (because he didn’t respond), so Mann repeated it a minute or two later, and then Ken DID respond, and refuted it of course. But that didn’t stop the MSM repeating it ad nauseum – including the Guardian, and Ian Austin even came out with it in a Commons debate about antisemitism in April, 2018:
Let me be clear about this: Ken Livingstone claimed that Hitler was a Zionist. That is anti-Semitism, pure and simple. It happened more than two years ago, and there has been ample time to deal with it, so it is a disgrace that it has not been dealt with. Kick him out immediately. It should have been enough when the Community Security Trust, the Holocaust Educational Trust, the Jewish Labour Movement and the Jewish Leadership Council all said that it was enough, but we even had the Chief Rabbi speaking out and still nothing has happened. It is a disgrace. My hon. Friend should stand at the Dispatch Box and tell the leader of the Labour party that Livingstone must be booted out. Boot him out!
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2018-04-17/debates/9D70B2B4-39D7-4241-ACF8-13F7DFD8AEB2/Anti-Semitism (Column 255)
And note how he makes it look as if the CST et al have said the same re the Hitler was a Zionist falsehood, which I’m pretty sure none of them ever have (but that’s not to say they didn’t do their bit of course!). Yes, supposedly all these dozens of journalists and columnists et al believe that Ken said such an absurd thing. And the only person on the planet to have ever done so….. which he WOULD be, if he had!
Here’s the clip from The Daily Politics, in which both Andrew Neil and Jo Coburn chime in against Ken:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sBsVOrh3yA (4mins 37secs)
NB And you can be absolutely certain that every MP sitting in the chamber when Austin said what he said knew if was a falsehood. But no-one said anything of course.
About time for a break.
Is it a perverted sense of humor that led authorities to have that new farcical law apply to Scotland on APRIL FOOLS’ DAY ?
Well, pretty soon if you eat a mutton chop next to a vegan, you end up in a slammer.
Recently I saw a rather nice cartoon.
A man sitting at a table in a restaurant, to waitress: “I’m vegan. What do you suggest I get?”
Waitress: “A taxi”.
Poor waitress. She’s facing up to 7 years now
Mocking vegans for caring for animals and the environment has long been a real knee-slapper, wouldn’t you agree? It’s so clever, witty and above all original.
Vegans care about themselves in the 1st place.
If vegans believe that eschewing animal foods helps animals or the environment, that merely confirms what I have long suspected – that their fanaticism is rooted in profound ignorance.
What would become of farm animals if everyone stopped eating meat and dairy? Simple – there wouldn’t be any. We all have different subjective views of the value of life, but is it really better for a cow, a pig, or a hen never to be born rather than to live a reasonably comfortable life with plenty to eat and no danger from predators, before being quickly killed? I don’t really know. But I do know that, as a human being, I put my interests and those of my family and friends before those of animals.
As for the environment, it was getting along fine for 500 million years before humans multiplied to their present enormous numbers and began squeezing out other species. In particular, ungulates such as cattle, horses and deer are superbly adapted to living in symbiosis with grasslands and forests, as are pigs and poultry with woodland. Fishing was never a serious problem until the sheer demands of masses of people become excessive.
The “environment” – a word that actually means the surroundings *** of human societies *** – exists only in relation to those societies. In a world without humans, the term “environment” would be meaningless. (There would also be no basis for any moral judgments or actions, when you come to think of it). Thus our concern for the environment is bound to be hypocritical; we care about it only because it is what supports us and enables us to survive and thrive.
If you want to reduce the harm that humans do to the rest of the living world, the only sensible course is to plan for a gradual reduction of human population. About 1 billion could probably live sustainably on Earth with the current standard of living of well-off Westerners. The global population passed 2 billion in 1927, and 3 billion in 1959, when I was nearly 11. Today there are nearly 8.1 billion, including 1.4 billion Chinese and 1.4 billion Indians.
Any measures other than population reduction are just window dressing.
TW: “What would become of farm animals if everyone stopped eating meat and dairy? Simple – there wouldn’t be any.”
Tom, I really am surprised at your replies here. A reasonably well informed schoolboy ought to know that this rosy portrayal of farm life you describe is utter nonsense.
Chicken and pigs – which make up a large proportion of dead animals eaten – have short lives of absolute misery.
Beef cattle have destroyed vast amounts of forest to create land for their grazing, and you should clue yourself up a bit about the damage sheep have wrought on the landscape.
This is all so basic, I really am surprised to have to say it. But since it’s rather off-topic, I ask that you discuss this in the forums.
(I hope you won’t duck out with the same waffle you used to shy away from discussing climate change, after you made equally ignorant and simplistic – but very bold – assertions on that subject too. Don’t do a ‘Bayard’ on us, there’s a good chap!)
I do absolutely agree with you that overpopulation is a desperately urgent problem that hardly anyone has the courage to address.
I don’t agree with your suggestion that all concerns about the environment is ‘hypocritical’ (although you probably mean self-serving), since environmentalists do actually concern themselves with matters far away from any personal inconvenience.
Having an inhabitable planet to live on is very far from being ‘hypocritical’ !
I wouldn’t worry too much about us commentators on here. The PTB tend to go for commentators/influencers who have pretty big followings.
Craig is still a thorn in the Scottish Establishments side, so they are still after him and of course his great work on Julian Assange’s Political Prisonership.
I hear a Sky news presenter refer to Navalny as “Alexei” as if he knew him. Probably not, but the subconscious always reveals itself. He would not have said “Julian” when referring to Julian Assange.
Imagine Mrs Thatcher’s face if Robin Day or Brian Walden would have said: “Now Margaret, what do you think of …………………”
The Parliamentary Lobbyists are so deep in with their suppliers of info these days that they all know each other personally. Probably in the Commons Bar no doubt – a drunken man/woman speaks the truth.
Talking of ‘Truth’ I’ve read some comments about what ‘Wokery’ may be and the best one I’ve seen talks about circumnavigating Class. There are very few stories in the MSM that discuss Class and even the left uses other euphemisms to replace class in its discussions.
Noam Chomsky’s take on what Austerity means is bang on the money. “Austerity is a fancy term for Class War.”
No expert on what Woke actually means (maybe it means nothing in particular?), but I do know who it is aimed at, and even though the Anti- Woke don’t know it they are actually prosecuting Class War on behalf of their employers.
Part of the process of the Anti-woke supporters is to dismiss anyone’s genuine grievances as a weakness.
As I said, most of the purveyors of this nonsense come from the Middle and Upper Classes (there – I said “class” and I am not ashamed to do so) and to the well-off the effects of their politics become academic (all right-wing Libertarians suffer from this problem) and the politicians proper do the same.
Now the interesting thing is that the MPs who leap up and down in Parliament have been informing us of the benefits of Democracy whilst removing rights such as, no vote with out an ID card – but we are not in favour of a national ID Card in the UK say the same voices. More of these contradictory democratic rights/wrongs are in the pipeline – even under a Starmer Government.
The fact is is that the Right Wing have no other policies than Austerity and in order to implement the Class War they have to disguise or deflect by diversion from the main issues economically and politically – that in general is the idea of Anti-Wokery.
Would I be a Snowflake if I defended the rights of the Mentally Ill or Disabled people who are going to suffer for sure even under Starmer’s version of Austerity (that is his main task and the reason why the economic pressure is on to carry it out) and demand their democratic rights?
The irony is that the vast majority of the Anti-woke agree with Austerity and genuinely hate the poor and the Working Class. The upturned Politics of Envy – they are envious of the Poor. Of course they didn’t mind benefitting from the largesse of the State when the Banks they had their stashes in nearly collapsed in 2008.
Corporate Welfare but no Welfare for the poor. It’s Class war alright and I’m afraid the smaller (but worthy stuff) can only be done properly when the war is won. Nothing much will change until then. When that will happen – I have no idea but I can say with reasonable certainty that it will not start in the UK and will probably have to be imported by example.
For what it’s worth, I have to agree with you there.
It has long seemed to me that the theft of the term ‘woke’ is simply yet another right-wing appropriation of a left-wing rallying cry, with the intent to confuse, divide, diminish and side-line.
It appears to be working.
For my part , the politics of class outweigh all others. Constantly we have to remind ourselves what matters and who the enemy is.
While I’m at it, I infinitely prefer reading a single comment by Tatyana to the hundred tedious posturings of the various duty trolls on here.
“The fact is is that the Right Wing have no other policies than Austerity and in order to implement the Class War they have to disguise or deflect by diversion from the main issues economically and politically – that in general is the idea of Anti-Wokery.”
I strongly disagree, the opposite is true. In the USA at least, wokism found few supporters among the blue-collar workers and the poor, while it is supported by Jeff Bezos and his ilk. You are correct that this is a class war, but you confuse the sides. I’ve never seen as many BLM banners and rainbow flags as in Cambridge, MA where the median single family house price is well above $1M, but you won’t find these in poor rural communities like, say, Derry, NH just some 50 miles away. The woke is coming down from the top. The base of the anti-woke in the USA are the poor and low-middle-class working whites who stick to their traditional family values.
Moreover, in the USA they won’t understand what “austerity” means. This is something that happened to Greece, right? Like, the pandemic, maybe?
There is no direct austerity in the USA. On paper, taxes are progressive, Social Security is paid, Medicare and Medicaid are still there, like Fanny and Freddy, and the unemployment is record low. The misery comes indirectly, by inflation, by the growing gap between the average and the median wages (good jobs in manufacturing are replaced by low-paid jobs in service), and the decay of the middle class. The ratio of average house price to median wage had reached 7.5 by now. It has never been that high. It was about 4 in the 90’s and about 3-3.5 in the 60’s, the golden age of Fordism. This means that most of the Generation Z will never own a house. It’s the end of American Dream as we know it.
These are the bad news. But there are some good news too: If you are unhappy, just change your gender and you will be sooooooo protected!
While the left movements all over the world were failing to achieve any meaningful results in 2010-20 (see for example Omelets with Eggshells: On the Failure of the Millennial Left, by Alex Hochuli. American Affairs, VII(1)24, 88-108, for a good summary), wokism was a bone thrown to the masses, “You feel miserable? Here are more freedoms for you! You are free to change your gender and blame racism for everything!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82htndE2FXo
George Galloway highlights irony of British democracy in fiery parliament speech
To a nearly empty parliament
On how there is no possibility of debating the Foreign Secretary of the UK The Rt Hon Lord Cameron
Who as he is a Lord will not be available in parliament in this important time.
As Galloway talks of the ethnic cleansing in Palestine.
Of course the House of Commons was nearly empty. As Mr Galloway repeatedly stressed, what is the point of the House of Commons when the Foreign Secretary, Lord Cameron, attends the House of Lords instead so that representatives of the people cannot speak to him or even see him?
The famous British Parliament today has become completely irrelevant. All important decisions are made elsewhere – in secret. One day, we may all wake up to find out that the UK is at war with Russia, China, or both – and we will have had no warning of the decision, let alone any chance to influence it.
As for the contemptible MPs, they quite understandably prefer to absent themselves from “their” Chamber when Mr Galloway speaks. They do not want to hear the unpalatable home truths that he speaks. For all I know, they may also be covering their ears and shouting “La la la I can’t hear you!” Nevertheless, their responsibility is in no way decreased.
Eventually the tide turns against repressive regimes and it all ends in tears.
The Nazi’s in Germany eventually fell after the tide turned. Ditto in Spain.
More recently the oppressive sectarian regime in Northern Ireland ended after 30 years of misery. And all could have been avoided had an oppressive police force been disbanded and state sectarianism ended.
Instead, 30 years of slaughter. and misery. A Dirty War that need not, and should not have been
The authoritarian fascist state is alive and kicking in Scotland. Political prosecutions are already being deployed in Scotland. Lawfare with a corrupt police force, prosecution service and judiciary are now part of the political landscape.
It will all end in tears.
Woke ideology and its dubious values are surely another form of cultural imperialism imposed on peoples and cultures; i.e. woke is a set of beliefs that, mainly because of its weak/questionable scientific and also arguably moral basis, can only be enforced through intolerance and imposing coercive laws which seek to protect the narrow interest groups promoting the ideology and thus punishes dissenters and non-conformists. As Albert Memmi wrote: “What is fascism, if not a regime of oppression for the benefit of a few.”
There is an obvious irony here of a (‘hate crime’) law introduced by an allegedly ‘liberating’ national party that attacks an already subordinated Scottish people subjected to centuries of colonial oppression, a ‘condition’ which Aime Cesaire described as “hateful racism”.
Good luck eliciting sympathy for the cause of the colonially oppressed from the self-styled “antiwoke”.
Some of these vile people are no longer MSPs but we can vote the rest out of office, and we can start removing SNP MPs this year.
MSPs that voted FOR the HCB:
• Adam, George (Paisley) (SNP);
• Adamson, Clare (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
• Allan, Dr Alasdair (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
• Arthur, Tom (Renfrewshire South) (SNP)
• Baker, Claire (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Lab)
• Beattie, Colin (Midlothian North and Musselburgh) (SNP)
• Bibby, Neil (West Scotland) (Lab)
• Bowman, Bill (North East Scotland) (Con)
• Boyack, Sarah (Lothian) (Lab)
• Brown, Keith (Clackmannanshire and Dunblane) (SNP)
• Campbell, Aileen (Clydesdale) (SNP)
• Coffey, Willie (Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley) (SNP)
• Cole-Hamilton, Alex (Edinburgh Western) (LD)
• Constance, Angela (Almond Valley) (SNP)
• Crawford, Bruce (Stirling) (SNP)
• Cunningham, Roseanna (Perthshire South and Kinrossshire) (SNP)
• Denham, Ash (Edinburgh Eastern) (SNP)
• Doris, Bob (Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn) (SNP)
• Dornan, James (Glasgow Cathcart) (SNP)
• Ewing, Annabelle (Cowdenbeath) (SNP)
• Ewing, Fergus (Inverness and Nairn) (SNP)
• Fabiani, Linda (East Kilbride) (SNP)
• Fee, Mary (West Scotland) (Lab)
• Finnie, John (Highlands and Islands) (Green)
• FitzPatrick, Joe (Dundee City West) (SNP)
• Forbes, Kate (Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch) (SNP)
• Freeman, Jeane (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley) (SNP)
• Gibson, Kenneth (Cunninghame North) (SNP)
• Gilruth, Jenny (Mid Fife and Glenrothes) (SNP)
• Gougeon, Mairi (Angus North and Mearns) (SNP)
• Grahame, Christine (Midlothian South, Tweeddale and
• Lauderdale) (SNP)
• Gray, Iain (East Lothian) (Lab)
• Greer, Ross (West Scotland) (Green)
• Griffin, Mark (Central Scotland) (Lab)
• Harper, Emma (South Scotland) (SNP)
• Harvie, Patrick (Glasgow) (Green)
• Haughey, Clare (Rutherglen) (SNP)
• Hepburn, Jamie (Cumbernauld and Kilsyth) (SNP)
• Hyslop, Fiona (Linlithgow) (SNP)
• Johnson, Daniel (Edinburgh Southern) (Lab)
• Johnstone, Alison (Lothian) (Green)
• Kelly, James (Glasgow) (Lab)
• Lennon, Monica (Central Scotland) (Lab)
• Leonard, Richard (Central Scotland) (Lab)
• Lochhead, Richard (Moray) (SNP)
• Lyle, Richard (Uddingston and Bellshill) (SNP)
• MacDonald, Angus (Falkirk East) (SNP)
• MacDonald, Gordon (Edinburgh Pentlands) (SNP)
• Macdonald, Lewis (North East Scotland) (Lab)
• MacGregor, Fulton (Coatbridge and Chryston) (SNP)
• Mackay, Rona (Strathkelvin and Bearsden) (SNP)
• Macpherson, Ben (Edinburgh Northern and Leith) (SNP)
• Maguire, Ruth (Cunninghame South) (SNP)
• Martin, Gillian (Aberdeenshire East) (SNP)
• Mason, John (Glasgow Shettleston) (SNP)
• Matheson, Michael (Falkirk West) (SNP)
• McArthur, Liam (Orkney Islands) (LD)
• McKee, Ivan (Glasgow Provan) (SNP)
• McMillan, Stuart (Greenock and Inverclyde) (SNP)
• McNeill, Pauline (Glasgow) (Lab)
• Paterson, Gil (Clydebank and Milngavie) (SNP)
• Rennie, Willie (North East Fife) (LD)
• Robison, Shona (Dundee City East) (SNP)
• Ross, Gail (Caithness, Sutherland and Ross) (SNP)
• Rumbles, Mike (North East Scotland) (LD)
• Ruskell, Mark (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Green)
• Russell, Michael (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
• Sarwar, Anas (Glasgow) (Lab)
• Smyth, Colin (South Scotland) (Lab)
• Somerville, Shirley-Anne (Dunfermline) (SNP)
• Stevenson, Stewart (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP)
• Stewart, David (Highlands and Islands) (Lab)
• Stewart, Kevin (Aberdeen Central) (SNP)
• Sturgeon, Nicola (Glasgow Southside) (SNP)
• Swinney, John (Perthshire North) (SNP)
• Todd, Maree (Highlands and Islands) (SNP)
• Torrance, David (Kirkcaldy) (SNP)
• Watt, Maureen (Aberdeen South and North Kincardine) (SNP)
• Wheelhouse, Paul (South Scotland) (SNP)
• White, Sandra (Glasgow Kelvin) (SNP)
• Wishart, Beatrice (Shetland Islands) (LD)
• Yousaf, Humza (Glasgow Pollok) (SNP)
How many do approve a cease fire in Gaza?
As an inexperienced German tourist who would like to spend a vacation in Scotland again, should I perhaps look for another vacation destination? Is there an online database of the many, possibly incriminated, non-Scots who may, in the worst case, fear being punished or imprisoned in Scotland for having posted or published something on the internet at some point in the past from outside Scotland? If I can’t check this (preferably via an internet database) then I should probably avoid Scotland as a potential vacation destination in future! Is this a program to minimize tourism? Or is it a program to safely allow only lobotomized, sheep-like visitors into the country in the future? I’m sure this is just a satirical idea from an old Monty Python movie. It must surely be an April Fool’s joke. Craig, you have successfully fooled me!
Not a joke. But the only acceptable purpose of your trip must be
Hunting wild haggis
This only cannot be viewed as “hate speech” (to speak like the Yanks)
Maybe it would be wiser and safer to visit a free country like China instead.
I’m afraid Craig is right in his famous last words :
“A nightmare is coming”
The censorship will be EVERYWHERE come 1 April. Many writings will be redacted. Keyboards will be hacked, and trackpads also.
Nobody will care about European Conventions anymore.
So let’s enjoy our last few days of freedom and liberty!
Scotland making its own laws. Good job. First, gender law, now speech law. Looking forward to its full independence with no strings attached, lol.