Now updated with Campaign Launch Video below.
In December 1980 I stood alongside George Galloway in Caird Square as the flag of Palestine was hoisted above Dundee City Chambers to mark the twinning of Dundee with Nablus in the West Bank. I was 22 years old.
George had led the campaign for the twinning, against much opposition. In those days I worked alongside George to support the striking miners, in support of striking workers at Timex and NCR as Thatcherism ripped through the city, in the Anti-Nazi League and in other causes.
George and I never had the same politics. But we cooperated.
And now we are together working to do everything within our power to halt the sickening genocide of the Palestinian People in Gaza and indeed in the West Bank. Because that is the absolute priority at this moment.
Both major parties support arms sales to Israel, military cooperation with Israel, intelligence links to Israel and trade with Israel. We have to give people something else to vote for.
But I am happy to say I also firmly support the need to give an alternative to the Thatcherite economic policy offered by both Labour and Tory.
I heard Rachel Reeves launch Labour’s economic policy yesterday and the emphasis on fiscal rigidity, on tax cuts, on allowing untrammelled capital formation, bore no trace of social democratic, let alone socialist thinking.
The return to the homely analogies of state finances with family finances absolutely mirrored Thatcher and either wilfully embraced a fallacy or showed extraordinary ignorance.
Fundamental reform is needed as late-stage capitalism hurtles towards unsustainable wealth inequality and widespread lack of opportunity in a helot society. I am very pleased to align myself with the Workers Party on nationalisation of Rail, Water, Energy and all natural monopolies – which has always been my position. That is just a start.
Finally the Tory stance of Starmer, banging on about “Border security” and endorsing huge amounts of money pumped to the military-industrial complex, sickens me in supposedly coming from a left-wing party.
Starmer leads a Genocide Party and is as Tory as they come.
There isn’t a cigarette paper on domestic policy between Labour and Tory. But I am unapologetic in admitting that I would not be in Blackburn fighting this election were it not for Gaza.
Will a politician who is prepared to be complicit in thousands of children being slaughtered in Gaza, genuinely care about the education of your child as a poor person in the UK?
George and I still hold different views on many things, but the notion that you have to cancel anybody with whom you disagree on anything is a foolish one and can only lead to a general decline in intellectual rigour.
Here are George and I debating Scottish Independence. I hope it is an example of how two people can hold fundamentally opposed positions on an issue, and debate them openly without softening of the differences, yet with mutual respect.
Now we have to win this election in Blackburn and send a message against genocide, and provide me with a platform in the House of Commons where I can take forward my views as expressed for two decades on this blog.
This is the moment when I need help. Come here now and join the campaign on the streets of Blackburn. Come now from wherever you are. Give a few days or weeks to working against the genocide.
Accommodation here is strangely expensive; if you have a sleeping bag we can find floor space.
If you can help in any way please email [email protected]. Otherwise donations to the election fund are very essential!
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Hundreds of thousands of casualties in another mass bombing of civilians this century.
Worse than WW2.
Not In My Name. There should be hell to pay by the bomb makers.
‘ 🅰pocalypsis 🅰pocalypseos 🇷🇺 🇨🇳 🅉 retweeted
‘Trita Parsi
@tparsi
6h
WOW!
Israel has dropped more bombs on Gaza than was dropped on Dresden, London, and Hamburg during WWII!!
The US and Germany provided the vast majority of these bombs to Israel.’
It Does Seem like it, DunGroanin… And Now we are Really in the Shit
with Russia Giving Warnings… They are Done with Diplomacy with the US … They do not Bluff….
I live on the Clyde so I will Die first.
Getting v. serious, as these weapon systems are so sophisticated and complex they are effectively US-controlled attacks on Russia. Were sophisticated Chinese or Russian weaponry hitting targets in the US mainland, fired from Mexico and Cuba, would the US simply shrug it off? I think we know the answer. I do wonder what Russia will do next?
The Russian leadership can’t keep making empty threats. Options include cutting trans-Atlantic fiber cables; an EMP attack to neutralise major Ukrainian infrastructure. Or providing the Houthis with P-800 Oniks to start sinking US and UK naval ships; or possibly helping Iran become a nuclear power and destabilising US-friendly regimes the ME: Egypt and Jordan, to make Israel’s security situation untenable. Israel has sided with Ukraine and Ukraine (Zelensky) has bizarrely sided with Israel. Or all of the aforementioned.
I don’t think Russia will use battlefield tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, as some commentators in the West predict, because the front is approx. 750 miles too large for tactical nukes to be effective. And the international condemnation would be on a different level. No doubt though Russia can hurt the US and UK in multiple ways.
If I were you, I’d think about buying or renting a flat mid-way up a Glasgow tower block, Brian (assuming you don’t live in one already) – they essentially act as high-rise nuclear bunkers.
“they essentially act as high-rise nuclear bunkers”
Would you care to expand on the intriguing implications of this statement?
Thanks for your reply Will. If you live on the mid-level floors of a high-rise block, like I used to do when I lived in Leeds, there’ll be lots of concrete above you and lots of concrete below you. This will absorb most of the gamma radiation from the fall-out that has settled on the roof of your tower block and the ground below. The only thing you need to worry about is the fall-out that settles on your window sills, though there won’t be too much of this since most of it will have landed on the sills above you, and it won’t take more than a few seconds to brush off what little there is. After about three days inside your flat, the radiation levels will have declined to the extent that it’s safe to go outside for several hours at a time to get food etc, which will be in abundance if you have an axe to break into shops etc (most of their owners/managers will be dead of radiation sickness). Hope this helps.
Have you played a few post-apocalypse video games?
The thing is, it’s not the physical damage to the social organism that is the issue in my opinion – it is the “moral”
I mentioned to AG recently the gargantuan anabasis that took as France fell in 1940. I think 12 million people hit the road as central authority vanished in a few hours. The assemblage of confusion which emerged, as extant in diaries, letters and some provincial administration records is literally beyond comprehension. I read an excellent academic text several years ago. It was really well done on the research side but I could sense the author was trying to transmit their own amazed response to the research they had done through stylistics etc but when I had read it a few times I got a completely different image from anything I have ever imagined or heard of.
In Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”, he describes the exploitation of the ivory resources in “the Belgian Congo”. The author suggests there were no rules at all to this exploitation, that anything could be done “out there” – it strikes me that “out there” – i.e. “the Belgian Congo” – may well be similar to a post-atomic apocalypse. Consider this character sketch of “the Manager of the Central Station” – where the ivory extracted was receipted and shipped to the coast and then to Europe.
“But he was great. He was great by this little thing that it was impossible to tell what could control such a man. He never gave that secret away. Perhaps there was nothing within him. Such a suspicion made one pause—for out there there were no external checks. Once when various tropical diseases had laid low almost every ‘agent’ in the station, he was heard to say, ‘Men who come out here should have no entrails.’ He sealed the utterance with that smile of his, as though it had been a door opening into a darkness he had in his keeping.”
Thanks for your reply Will. I don’t play any video games. If the worst does happen – and I reckon there’s about a 5-10% chance per year now, not helped by the US’s recent decision to allow Western weapons in Ukrainian hands to be used on Russian soil – then, rather than being worried about the ‘moral damage to the social organism’, I’ll be more concerned with simple survival.
Will Lunar It always amazes me Zero Talk of Stanislav _
The Man Who Saved the World Trailer 1 (2015) – Stanislav Petrov, Kevin Costner Documentary HD – YouTube, 1m 40s
“Few people know of him… Yet hundreds of millions of people are alive because of him. The actions of Stanislav Petrov, a retired Soviet military officer, prevented the start of a worldwide nuclear war and the devastation of much of the Earth.”
Brian, after watching the clip, I am pleased to observe the Stranglers were being provocative and challenging us all to do better when they sang this lol!
“Whatever happened to the heroes?
Whatever happened to the heroes?
Whatever happened to all the heroes?
All the Shakespearoes?
They watched their Rome burn
Whatever happened to all the heroes?
Whatever happened to all the heroes?
No more heroes any more
No more heroes any more”
No More Heroes Any More The Stranglers(1977)
Stan’s is a great story and behind it an enduring image – a folk story with a happy end, eminently suitable for the era of “Nuclear Nightmare Diplomacy” we’re living through now.
O dearest lapsed omnivorous one, it is hard to say whether the Apocalypse will cater for vegans or vegetarians etc but I think not. In which case you will find a redistribution and reclassification of linguistic terms concerning your future survival-bent self amongst many other changes on “The New Frontier”
This point brings me to my main thought regarding your future, survival-bent self. As some ancient non-woke poets sang “A man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest”. What, if after the balloon goes up, you, yourself go through a revaluation, of all the thoughts you ever had? Another character from Conrad again, talking about going “out there”
“ ‘I always ask leave, in the interests of science, to measure the crania of those going out there,’ he said. ‘And when they come back, too?’ I asked. ‘Oh, I never see them,’ he remarked; ‘and, moreover, the changes take place inside, you know.’ He smiled, as if at some quiet joke. ‘So you are going out there. Famous. Interesting, too.’ He gave me a searching glance, and made another note. ‘Ever any madness in your family?’ “
Whatever survived, it woulidn’t be “you” – more like a four legged cockroach with added value though considerably less resilient than the the dominant eight legged ones that would be everywhere – it wouldn’t take them many generations to increase their size massively but look on the bright side as you sit by the fire toasting these delightful morsels and ponder – once Klaus Schwab wanted you to eat “Ze Bugs” now you are more than willing to do this without being told – returned once more to your true evolutionary, omnivorous niche, lapsed no longer
Thanks for your reply Will. Who says I wouldn’t survive? I reckon about 5% of the UK population will, though I won’t be eating bugs – I’ll mostly be eating oats.
Enjoy the weekend.
P.S. Cockroaches are insects, so they usually have six legs.
Where from? The supermarket?
Four legs, six legs, eight legs what is the difference? Being a cockroach is a state of mind, and cockroaches have been in this state of mind for quite a while; the survivors will have to get with the program.
Brianfujisan
Just a few weeks ago I found out that the world´s first Petrov memorial spot (outside Russia may be?) is located in the West German miners´ town of Oberhausen. (Which is mostly known for its avantgarde short flm festival.)
see:
“Why the world’s first monument to the “Man who saved the world” is located in the Ruhr area”
May 19, 2021
https://ostexperte-de.translate.goog/stanislaw-petrow-in-oberhausen/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp
p.s. the site has a disclaimer at the end:
“This text first appeared on RT Germany . Ostexperte.de strives to provide a wide range of opinions. Debate contributions and comments do not have to reflect the editorial team’s view.”
Apparently they felt compelled to justify publication of a text in honour of the guy who has saved our ass.
The author is a good scholar and peace activist, old school. Fighting the warmongering since day #1.
A site Petrov´s son put online:
http://sep1939.ru/
Brian, the last time the British navy tried firing one of their missiles it just fell back into the sea. If their nukes are of the same level of maintenance, I don’t think the Russians would bother about them. If that is of any comfort. Anyway you could ask Russia not to touch Scotland as you all seem friendly and TRUSTWORTHY. It is the trustworthiness of the nato/US that bothers Russia. Rise up and declare independence!!! Lots of thoughts in a few lines.
Rosemary Thanks. …I often Think about Sadako Sasaki
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/the-story-of-sadako-sasaki.htm#:~:text=Sadako%20survived%20the%20bombing%20of,will%20have%20their%20wish%20granted.
Than you for the link Brian. We should not forget people like Sadako, nor should we let our “leaders” forget either. I was watching part of the Plenary Session of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum yesterday. President Putin and Sergey Karaganov were having a discussion and about the question of nuclear weapons, Putin stated that Russia’s policy on its use of these things is very precisely laid out for all to see. He also said quite clearly that “we are not there yet” with regard to the use of nuclear weapons. Macron has backed off sending troops to Ukraine – good. However, the wild card is the instability of the US. I’m hoping myself that enough people there will see this and vote for Jill Stein who seems to be a very sane voice in a very psychotic country.
I was reading also that the disconnect between the German people and its present government policy is very wide – can’t find the link but I think it was about East/West antagonism also part of SPIEF. AG may have picked it up and know if it is very useful.
Here’s the link to the German guy. How could I forget that name! Must be getting old.
https://www.rt.com/russia/598921-germans-disagree-berlin-russia-policy/ It is part of a SPIEF panel discussion which included Scott Ritter, Jackson Hinkle, and Karin Kneissl.
The UK military has also been materially assisting the genocide in three main ways:
ferrying US bombs to Israel through its vast Cyprus airbase;
RAF spy flights over Gaza, including during the recent Rafah tent massacre;
training the Israeli military.
The British government also withdrew funding for UNRWA when the world knew famine was stalking Gaza. Unlike other European governments London has refused to reinstate funding despite knowing the “justification” they had used to inflict famine has turned out to be a pack of lies.
https://www.declassifieduk.org/icc-must-investigate-british-ministers-for-complicity-in-gaza-war-crimes/
So Netanyahu is invited to address Congress and only Bernie is angry enough to raise the matter of an arrest warrant from the ICC.
Congress responds by sanctions against the UN.
https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-analysis/2024/06/05/israel-us-icc-vote/
The tail truly wags the dog and rule of law is being made an ass
I very much enjoyed your speech, Mr Murray – cathartic and moving
I am no expert in these matters but for me the rhetoric, at some point, dissolved into something more personal – something like a testimony. A testimony about yourself and the things that you have seen and the things that you know. I was virtually cheering by the time you reached terminus ie I was cheering on my own in cyberspace lol
The point you made about “Modi watching” chills me (maybe surprising in a speech of such grave content) and is a thought I should have had myself considering I followed Modi’s rise and subsequent rule fairly closely but I guess that is what leaders are for, to focus attention on the connections between past and ongoing events and possible future events. It brought Fitzgerald’s image of the advert in “the Valley of Ashes” for the oculist, HJ Eckleburg, to my mind and not in any sort of good way.
I find your passion here remarkable. It sounded like the passion of a younger person than your mature appearance might suggest. I commend you for displaying this passion and for preserving it in the long years of blight that recent British history has been for so many Britons, very well done – onward forever onward
Wanna quickly point at a rare occasion of bravery among German reporters which I have highlighted in the Gaza forum:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/breaking-news-gaza-only/page/22/#post-98540
During a recent German government’s press conference Baerbock’s lies about mass rape videos were pointed out and the press guys lost it insulting the German reporter!
Yeah! Because they are aware that it’s true.
It’s a drop only but still.
(For months I was calling people’s attention to Electronic Intifada’s reporting. Eventually all our scattered voices did get through.)
Stevie Boy
May 31, 2024 at 11:45
Being Scotland I have to ask are they real ladies? _
Both My Daughters are Jiu Jitsu Experts Lol So Stop being Funny
The doubling down of oppression of half the population has been hard to witness: from diminishing achievements with headlines sounding surprised that
A. Woman has achieved something usually reserved for men (name not in the headline),
to ignoring WASPI women made destitute by a change in the law which they had not been notified of,
to cutting child benefit for more than 2 children and punishing single parents by cutting childcare services while expecting them to work,
to refusing to include gender-based hate crime in hate crime legislation because women are not designated a ‘minority’ vulnerable group,
to condemning men who choose to live as women and women who choose to live as men,
to filling the media with scantily dressed beautiful women who are often disrespected for being iconic and having leadership.
Gender is functionally biological for reproduction, but qualities associated with gender are not hard and fast but a sliding scale, so gender-based abuse goes against any presenting qualities attributed to female biological gender.
Institutional sexism, like institutional racism, is entrenchment of power by those who hold it firmly in their grip.
Unequal rights are a regressing sign of too many years of Conservative rule. Perhaps this can be addressed in a changed government. Perhaps not, since the Labour Party NEC simply rubberstamps its own selection to safe seats… oh well….
J.K. Rowling has it that “Trans rights are the biggest assault on women’s rights in my lifetime”, Alyson. I wonder if there’s any chance that someone could inform her that over 200 million women & girls on this planet don’t possess a clitoral glans, with a large majority of them having been involuntarily excised (mostly by other women) after 1965.
JK Rowling has alienated quite a large sector of her Harry Potter fan base by using her platform to promote her bias against people with gender dysphoria who feel more comfortable rejecting gender tramlines which limit personal experience for those who feel they don’t fit the criteria.
For my own 2 penn’orth there are some men who maraud as women in order to access female safe spaces and so some women feel unsafe around wolves dressed as lambs, while other biological women whose strength and aptitude better suit traditional male employment and industry, have no tolerance for misogynist mainstream diminishment. Focussing on genitalia might be a way to identify the Jewish lobby in positions of power, but has no bearing on which gender people feel most comfortable aligning their life plans with. Oppression of people with feminine characteristics is a political and legislative issue which could be addressed by expanding hate crime legislation to all vulnerable people.
Thanks for your reply, Alyson. Personally, I think I’m fairly pro trans rights – though I don’t agree with self-ID, and believe that trans people who want a Gender Recognition Certificate should be taking the appropriate cross-hormones (or hormone blockers) before they are given one.
Enjoy the weekend.
P.S. A large majority of circumcised men in North America, and a smaller majority in Western Europe, are not Jewish.
Nah.
In a crazy world it’s important to poke fun and laugh at the madness.
Respect to your daughters, I also have some expertise in that area.
Kool
I often wonder Why Petrov is not Celebrated –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaPXVJWHji4&t=3s
NEC member Luke Akehurst [I love Israel] parachuted into North Durham and had a hot reception from protestors on arrival. In the past two days he has deleted 2,179 tweets, in one he encouraged and supported colonization and Palestinian land theft.
“I’m in favour of the major West Bank settlement blocks becoming part of Israel, and for the Golan Heights to remain part of Israel”.
Whereas Faiza Shaheen was deselected by Labour because after trawling through her last 10 years communications they found 2 anodyne tweets which they did not like, and out she goes.
Akehurst can trash International Law on the West Bank and Golan Heights and now he is flavour of the month with Starmer.
No one in the party seems to have a good word to say about him. Indeed, most find his views utterly abhorrent; yet there he sits on the NEC – an elected position?
It makes absolutely no sense, could the voting process be rigged? Apparently, they use something called Anonyvoter, the clue is in the name: https://anonyvoter.com/
The Israeli lobby clearly has lots of sway, as we saw with the near-instantaneous anti-antisemitism flash mobs – all holding identical printed placards – during Corbyn’s tenure (allegedly handed out by Israeli embassy officials). They were even allowed to protest directly outside Westminster, in a breach of normal protest distancing rules. This, without the police dispersing them. In the anti-Corbyn protests you had known individuals photographed, who were from the Israeli embassy, whipping the crowd up.
Why are authorities allowing unscrupulous Israeli state actors to conduct overt political interference in the UK? I get the security services & armed forces didn’t like Corbyn much, but that shouldn’t give Israel a free pass to interfere and walk all over us.
More on Anonyvoter here : https://labourhub.org.uk/2024/03/22/labour-leadership-in-vote-rigging-allegations-scandal/
Quote:
“In one selection cited in the report, a moderate candidate won just 10 percent of the in-person vote but 62 percent of the Anonyvoter online vote, according to a breakdown shared by local Party figures.”
I’d suggest that Israel isn’t involved in political interference in the UK, it actually controls the Labour Party, and to a lesser extent, the tories.
I do think banning these ‘Friends of [insert country]’ operations would be a good start. They are a form intimidation i.e. Aren’t you our friend? Why not?
It shouldn’t be necessary to say really, but we elect politicians to represent us, not wear metaphorical loyalty badges to other states in the ME, or elsewhere.
There ‘s a clear correlation too between being a leading LFI figures and them then deepening relations with that state. Be it 5 star junkets, the Israelis know how to lavish these MPs with a taste of the good life. Very hard to take a hard line on Israel, if you’re still wearing a suntan courtesy of the Israeli govt.
The current breed of politicians only represent themselves, certainly not us or the country. To my mind they are all fifth columnists, enemies of us and the country – I certainly won’t be approving or complicit with their corrupt actions by voting for any of them. It’s the height of hypocrisy for any of them on this day to be talking about the personal sacrifices peoples made during WW2. And all for what, certainly it wasn’t for the corrupt banana republic the UK has become.
Before Gaza, the ICC, and ICJ shifted attitudes, it was getting like fanatical, brainwashed cult worship. A competition among western leaders to see who can profess the most subservience, the most loyalty and undying love for the state of Israel.
Israel can probably get away anything on our soil, because politicians and securocrats are so conditioned and indeed brainwashed to instinctively side with Israel.
There appears to be another headache, and possibly serious setback emerging for the Western entitled elites in the form of a distinct wobbly by the slippery Mr Erdoğan, Türkiye’s current leader and head of NATO’s largest Army. Looking like he’s getting a lot of flak domestically, with plenty of good Turkish folk none too happy with the current state of affairs vis a vis Gaza and the NATO/Ukraine/Russia conflict. Having witnessed the fate of Europe’s largest Army these past couple of years, his military leaders are none too keen to be the next in line to take up the baton, as NATO slowly gets dragged in deeper and deeper, and the consequences more severe. There’s already rumours of the US spy drone setting off from Italy, crossing Bulgaria and then disappear from the radars somewhere over the Black Sea, but as yet no mention in our msm. Back to Mr Erdoğan (a born survivor if ever there was one) BRICS beckons, wise move to take and follow his fellow neighbours and Turkic relatives, plus there’s even talk of normalising relations with Syria’s Assad. So much conjecture, rumour, moving and shaking going on, it’s quite a head thrash to keep up these days. Poor old Joe must be in a quandary, perhaps they just don’t tell him. Btw: did the Houthis really land a hit on the aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower causing it to slink away out of range? Will we be told?
Seen the stirring video. Good luck in Blackburn!
Apparently Spain will join South Africa at the ICJ: That will mark the first western nation doing that:
Spain says to join South Africa’s Gaza genocide case against Israel at ICJ
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/6/spain-says-will-join-gaza-genocide-case-against-israel-at-icj
Interesting about Spain. I was wondering why I kept seeing lurid stories in the Mail about (allegedly) British people causing drunken trouble at Spanish holiday resorts. Coincidence? Probably not with our government-sponsored media. When nations ‘step out of line’ with the British Foreign Office, I notice how there are suddenly disparaging stories about that country in the newspapers – recently Ireland.
Yes exactly, I believe South Africa, after they took on Israel at the ICJ, also became very negatively framed by the western MSM all of a sudden. For a nation that was hardly in the news at all, it was quite suspicious how the journalists all of a sudden began to pile on the ANC party.
Every genocide has a silver lining – for some.
As suspected.
“the United States is unloading new anti-drone weapons via Gaza’s aid pier to test the technology for use in the Russo-Ukraine conflict.”
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240606/us-uses-aid-pier-to-roll-out-new-military-tech-for-testing-in-gaza-1118799094.html
The genocide has also given the British Establishment a common purpose.
https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/sunak-praises-starmer-for-supporting-israels-right-to-defend-itself-in-tetchy-tv-debate/
This is their D-Day and they are Resolute!
Did you see how they shoehorned Zelensky into the D-Day commemorations?
Totally inappropriate, as was not inviting Russian representatives, given the Soviet sacrifice. A sacrifice without which the UK would’ve surely been defeated…eventually. Historians suggest the Red Army accounted for 75–80% of the casualties that the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS suffered during the war, some put the figure as high as 93% of all Nazi casualties! It’s just petty and vindictive to insult their memory, by making them somehow culpable for the US/UK proxy war in Ukraine.
Our current crop of leaders would’ve probably spent WWII hiding in bunkers, or getting draft deferments, like ultra-hawk Dick Cheney did during the Vietnam war.
Of course Putin wouldn’t have attended anyway, because of the outstanding int. arrest warrant, but some official could have been invited.
Goose
“Did you see how they shoehorned Zelensky into the D-Day commemorations?
Totally inappropriate, as was not inviting Russian representatives, given the Soviet sacrifice.”
You’d have invited the former KGB colonel Putin but not the democratically elected Zelenskiy.
Happily the decision wasn’t made by tankies. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie.
And as for the Soviet sacrifice, Ukraine played the same (involuntary) pro rata part as Russia.
The magnitude of Soviet losses were in part due to Stalin’s homicidal incompetence – he murdered much of his officer corps and indeed the Polish officer corps before the Nazi invasion.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre
JK redux
Putin would never have attended anyway. I was thinking of someone from say a Russian veterans’ association, like the All-Russian Officer Assembly perhaps. That veterans group has even criticised the operation in Ukraine as “a failure”.
And this ‘Tankie’ stuff is just childish labeling. My views are more complex than that. I certainly don’t want Russian tanks pushing through eastern or western Europe. I’m neither pro-Russia, nor pro-Ukraine; I see weaknesses and strengths in both sides’ arguments. And I think it ridiculous that Slavic people, with their shared culture and history, are killing each other. Kyiv had a chance to keep the country united via implementing federalism, remember, and at western urging, rejected that.
It’s an insult often made by those who couldn’t find Ukraine on a map before 24 February 2022.
And here, why it’s wrong to label people: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/alternative-truths/201005/why-its-dangerous-label-people
Fine speech Mr Murray, and good luck. I hope the people of Blackburn realise they have an opportunity to elect a great one.
The pariah state of Israel needs to be hit with tough sanctions, not endless indulgence by Keir Starmer and others. Starmer must not, not ever, be given power in the UK. He must be regarded as a social outcast, never to be trusted.
I kinda welcome the rise of Farage & Reform. Though, I don’t like the man or his ideas, but the thing is, he can potentially play a useful democratic role in limiting Labour’s majority, perhaps? If you assume we live in a tightly controlled democracy, in which the establishment see voters even having a say as a nuisance, and they’ve thus conspired to make that say as meaningless as possible, by imposing Starmer v Sunak. Then the Tories drifting into oblivion, probably isn’t part of the controlling establishment’s plan.
People like Paul Mason want a huge Labour majority, presumably so Starmer can ram any military action through the HoC in the face of limited opposition, much like Blair did over Iraq. Will Iran be to Starmer, what Iraq was to Blair? Starmer remember, in his 10 pledges, promised a ‘Prevention of Military Intervention Act’ alongside a commitment to no more illegal wars.. It’d be completely outrageous, if having abandoned that pledge, he undertook the kinds of actions that pledge was intended to prevent. But that’s Starmer, a man seemingly devoid of scruples.
Labour are said to be terrified that Farage could end up as the official opposition leader, because he’s an unknown quantity, like a British Trump – an outsider to the uniparty.
True Goose Farage is like a British Trump but reform may need Reform with Sunak terminal and Starmer a Zionist stooge with Israel in his back pocket!
They pulled a weird stunt at the last election (2019), whereby they all but collapsed the Brexit Party, and urged people to back Johnson. And it was weird, because previously they’d rejected Johnson’s “oven ready” Brexit deal as half-baked, which it was.
Reform are basically the Brexit Party Reform’ed if you like. Most are disgruntled ex-Tories, angry over perceived inaction on immigration and a failure to exploit Brexit’s alleged ‘advantages,’ i.e. the so-called Singapore-on-Thames option . They certainly aren’t a left-wing outfit, and most, like Richard Tice and his wife, Isabel Oakeshott, have lambasted the NHS as a bastion of neocommunism; a monolithic public sector monstrosity. They’d privatise it given the chance, no doubt. Farage himself is an ex-investment banker afaik too.
It would be great if there could be some crossover alliance between people like Craig, Galloway etc with pro-palestinian political oppositional voices in the middle east because the current corrupt arab leaders are still left passive, unfazed by the genocide being perpetrated right next to them. Time is nigh though, the current arab leaders seems to be in hurry establishing some new pro-israel facts on the ground, locking these nations to establish a pro-israel irreversible policies for years, decades to come.
Saudi Arabia largely removes negative portrayal of Israel from its school curriculum
In marked shift from the past, Saudi textbooks no longer define Zionism as ‘racist,’ indicating progress towards a ‘warm peace’ such as that with the UAE, expert says
https://www.timesofisrael.com/saudi-arabia-largely-removes-negative-portrayal-of-israel-from-its-school-curriculum/
KSA isn’t a democracy, neither is Egypt, or Jordan. If the wider Ummah could be given expression, Israel would face an impossible security situation. If the US and specifically the dollar ever loses its preeminent financial status, Israel will be history too.
If all these countries were to allow the full public expression of support for Palestine; starting with Egypt, the US would shortly after stop hundreds of millions of dollars of military aid to el-Sisi, vital to his regime’s survival & protection it pays soldiers wages etc. And as Trump said, “KSA’s rulers couldn’t survive two weeks without US support”. The US is Israel’s regional protector and underwriter, much more so than the British are. The British protect Bahrain’s unpopular royal family from its population’s democracy demands, by providing surveillance of pro-democracy activists, who are often tortured or even killed. No doubt using the FVEYs base at Muscat, Oman, that captures traffic, surprised that listening base hasn’t been mercilessly targeted by the Houthis tbh. Jordan is in a similar position to Egypt, albeit with a vastly smaller population.
The US & UK are ultimately responsible for the denial of democracy across the ME, and the Palestinian suffering. I wouldn’t use terms like ‘the Great Satan’ but it’s not hard to see why such descriptions are widely used.
Read this (link below) for an example of the of god complex/ infallibility ‘groupthink’ among western officials and their media cheerleaders. It’s this, that is the real driver towards WWIII.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/06/iran-russia-china-qatar-turkey-world-war-three/
These people are incapable of any kind of introspection, or self doubt, or understanding of the historic enmities and contexts driving conflicts. Western elites simply see themselves and every decision they take as infallible. All the problems in the world are the fault of others; those dastardly lesser countries, that are fiendishly trying to subvert our perfect western societies 24/7. The author makes all sorts of allegations then provides zero evidence in support. Even my own family believe some of this shit, because it’s repeated in the press and on TV so much by incurious, unquestioningly pundits and presenters. It becomes the truth by uncontested repetition.
A genuine, truly objective investigation into any of his assertions would imho, easily show most of them to be bogus. There is simply no evidence we are being subjected to massive disinformation campaigns by Russia and China, yet it’s constantly repeated as if proven. That’s why there won’t be any such investigation, because it suits western intel to keep the anti-Russia, anti-China drumbeat going, even if it leads to WWIII and they and their families being annihilated.
When their own families turn on them, these people still won’t get it, or accept it is they who were in the wrong.
“I wouldn’t use terms like ‘the Great Satan’ but it’s not hard to see why such descriptions are widely used.”
Who is using this term “widely” Goose I haven’t heard it much recently. In the light of imperfect memory your usage of this term is the first time I have heard it in several years.
Comparatives are inherently ambiguous – the range between “big baddie” and “supreme metaphysical entity of ultimate evil” as mental referents for “the Great Satan” is considerable – in view of your previous comments I will veer more towards “big baddie” lol
Michael Hudson explains how difficult it would be for Saudi Arabia (and others) to stand up to the US. Russia, with a parity in nuclear weapons, has just had its foreign reserves confiscated. What can the Saudis do? Of course they can, and should, do something; they may (for self-preservation) be forced to. It will not be easy.
“Saudi Arabia is in a squeeze. All of its national wealth, its government money, is held in the United States because when it increased the oil prices in 1974 and 75, it was told that you can charge as much as you want for your oil, but you have to keep the proceeds in the United States. We’re not going to let you buy any American industry that’s important, any company that’s an American company. You can buy treasury bonds, you can buy overall stocks, you can buy real estate like the Japanese have done and lost their shirts on, but you have to keep your money here, then charge whatever you want as long as we get all of what you charge. [ … ] The Americans are holding all of Saudi Arabia’s and Kuwait’s and the United Arab Republic’s money in the United States hostage. They can do to the Arab countries just exactly what they did to Russia and Venezuela: simply confiscate it.”
Does Michael Hudson not know that Egypt ceased officially calling itself the United Arab Republic in 1971, Harry?
I am sure this was a typo from Hudson, since Egypt has very little oil to export, whereas the United Arab Emirates does
Yes. Russia saw this coming in 2014 and started to de-dollarize and to invest in real money, ie. Gold.
Anyone and everyone who has investments in the USA needs to wake up and take notice. There are also serious questions about the actual existence of gold reserves held in the USA. Is all the gold there or has it disappeared elsewhere ?
Despite what the V-Dem Democracy Index says, Goose, technically, Jordan is more of a democracy than the UK, since the royal veto on legislation can be overridden by two-thirds majorities in both its Senate and (elected) House of Representatives. No such mechanism exists in UK law should the king refuse to grant royal assent.
The murderous Zionists commit yet again another war crime, one of many. Only force will stop the genocide, for the Zionists will not stop ethnically cleansing Gaza until every last Palestinian is either murdered or forced out of their own lands.
The west won’t step in and stop the genocide.
“The UN Palestinian refugee agency’s chief has said that Israel bombed one of its schools in Gaza “without prior warning” to thousands of displaced sheltering there.
“Another UNRWA school turned shelter attacked,” said Philippe Lazzarini, the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
“Attacking, targeting or using UN buildings for military purposes are a blatant disregard of International Humanitarian law,” he wrote on social media platform X on Thursday.
The Israeli military on Thursday killed at least 40 Palestinians, including children in a school-turned-shelter in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli strike targeted the UN-run school sheltering displaced people in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the center of the besieged Palestinian territory.
Lazzarini stated that UNRWA “shares the coordinates of all its facilities (including this school) with the Israeli army and other parties in the conflict.”
“Targeting @UN premises or using them for military purposes cannot become the new norm,” said Lazzarini, who added that the school was sheltering 6,000 displaced people when it was hit.”
Bluster and hot air from the UN, just another USA cutout. If they had any balls they’d eject the USA, Israel and the UK from the UN. United Nations, really, united under what banner?
And the slaughter, aided and abetted by British and American munitions and support goes on unabated.
For me I have resolved not to buy any Israeli produce. That is how I can contribute to sending a message to this horrible state of Israel.
Last year I bought resin Keter Group resin garden furniture benches. Relatively expensive I did not realize that Keter Group, which sells products worldwide was Israeli and with its headquarters in an affluent town near Tel Aviv named after Theodore Hertzl, the founder of modern Zionism.
But now I know, and now needing a new garden shed I am taking action and NOT – and I mean NOT – buying a Keter product despite their ubiquity in garden centre product retailers everywhere.
I will go for alternatives and avoid their products. A good timber shed made with UK grown wood might be my option or a steel shed even. But not Keter Group plastic product.
And the two Keter benches I bought I can only say that the quality was not the best. This I found out after assembly when the back of the bench seats did not interlock rigidly to give a solid fit.
So for me, avoid Keter products is my message.
The No Thanks app is available for Android in the Play store and, so far as I know, Apple has it too. The app lists things to boycott and you can scan bar codes to check them out. Eg with supermarkets, Lidl, Tesco and Waitrose are on the list for differing reasons that the app will tell you. Aldi, Asda, Co-op, Morrisons and Sainsburys aren’t though of course they stock items that are. We don’t have Waitrose here but I haven’t set foot in previous haunts Lidl and Tesco since checking the list. Not a huge sacrifice.
Michal Hudson explains why Saudi Arabia and other Gulfies are in a bind.
“Saudi Arabia is in a squeeze. All of its national wealth, its government money, is held in the United States because when it increased the oil prices in 1974 and 75, it was told that you can charge as much as you want for your oil, but you have to keep the proceeds in the United States. We’re not going to let you buy any American industry that’s important, any company that’s an American company. You can buy treasury bonds, you can buy overall stocks, you can buy real estate like the Japanese have done and lost their shirts on, but you have to keep your money here, then charge whatever you want as long as we get all of what you charge.
Well, now they’ve done that since 1974. This is 50 years of their savings are there. Well, if they do that, the Americans are holding all of Saudi Arabia’s and Kuwait’s and the United Arab Republic’s money in the United States hostage. They can do to the Arab countries just exactly what they did to Russia and Venezuela: simply confiscate it”
Of course the Saudis should do something even as a matter of self-preservation; it will be difficult.
My above comment applies to Iraq also. When the US invaded Iraq, they set up the ‘Iraq Oil Fund’ whereby all receipts of oil sales would be deposited in the US Federal reserve, and the US would dole out (on a monthly basis) all expenses for running the Iraqi government. Trump threatened the Iraqis to withhold this monthly stipend if the Iraqis did not do as they were told. For instance cancel all their deals with China and not ask for US troops to be withdrawn. The mafia are choirboys compared to the US government.
That corrupt witch, our European Hillary, Ursula von der Leyen is also part of this : March 2024 : European Union announces €7.4 billion package of aid for Egypt https://www.euronews.com/2024/03/17/european-union-announces-74-billion-package-of-aid-for-egypt
Egypt has an estimated 70,000 political prisoners! I’d ask European officials how can they justify massive, billions in aid increases, without it being tied to democratic progress and no political prisoners? Biden even promised he’d insist on that in his election campaign.
Where are these much vaunted ‘values’ ?
Isn’t the truth, hundreds of millions are suffering dictatorships because it suits tiny Israel. And our leadership are pure hypocrites.
She’s also has padded Jordan with hundreds of millions of Euros. To keep them in line over Gaza?
Further proof of what she is :
https://x.com/cprazevedo/status/1798833660310806936
Carlos Azevedo
@cprazevedo
Today, Ursula von der Leyen came to Porto to support the governmental party’s candidate for the European elections. Pro-Palestine protesters interrupted her speech, and she told them, “If you were in Moscow, you would be arrested in 2 minutes.” And so, our police arrested some.
“I’m back in the USSR
You don’t know how lucky you are, boy
Back in the US
Back in the US
Back in the USSR”
The Beatles called this one right here Goose
That Pol is like a return to the days of Imperial grandees during the reign of the Kaiser in her sheer lack of accountability – the arrogance is inherent – her mien morphs between one that is dealing with witless children and a pest exterminator examining an insect colony before “rectifying” the situation The manner in which this leadership cadre/unit (?) transmits and receives information gives me the creeps. Do you remember the Tory MP and rabid ideologue known as “The Vulcan”, John Redwood? These are people in the grip of anti-human mind virus – true believers in Thatcher’s dictum “There is no such thing as society only (rich) individuals”
She’s terrible. In Germany, she was seen as arrogant and utterly incompetent as Defence minister. So much so, Merkel couldn’t wait to get rid of her.
She’s built a little empire as Commission President, despite no personal democratic mandate. She’s hiding her Pfizergate activities behind ‘official EU business,’ despite her family’s financial connections. She sees her role as shadowing US foreign policy, on everything, as if working out of the US State Department. She’s kinda like a US European ambassador. The EU is permeated with undemocratic practices though, and pompous overreaching officialdom. The EU has four presidents, none of whom are directly elected by the people: European Paliament, Council; Commission and ECB.
Despite all this, I do support free trade across Europe and even a common currency makes sense, though the ECB needs reform. But as for the rest of the EU, it needs radical democratisation and far more transparency.
I think the de-legitimisation of these despotic functionaries is an important goal
I remember alarm bells ringing in my head when Blair “de-politicised” the Bank of England, allowing it to set monetary policy or whatever outside the control of the government, supervised by the “wise men” lol . I thought corporate fascism writ large – a coterie of central bankers controlling fiscal policy with no democratic accountability, what could possibly go wrong? International in scope, even the Russians seem plugged into this occult (i.e. hidden and unseen) circuit.
Who does a “central banker” work for, if there is no democratic control? In our case “UK plc” of course but the demos have no input into any decision made – is this not economic tyranny, Goose? And then think of the post-Breton Woods world, were coordination by supranational bodies began exercising increasing influence on our lives. It seems that these “events, dear boy, events” have all led, somewhat fortuitously for the oligarchs amongst us, to creation of conditions for the greatest concentration of capital we have ever known.
There was an interesting interview the other day with a Finn, a political scientist called Tuomas Malinen. He was offering some thoughts how, if there was more to the situation than “events, dear boy, events” how an analysis might be attempted by a broad review of policy and executive action using the tools of the social sciences. He uses Ukraine as his example but I’m suspect his thoughts may have wider applicability. I suggest this because it is a current discussion but he has a substack: his bio made me laugh – boxing (semi-contact), lol.
“Associate Professor of Economics and a CEO of GnS Economics with over 16 years of academic research experience and over ten years of analysis experience. Hobbies: Gym, boxing (semi-contact), music, travelling. Currently based in: Helsinki, Finland”
Interview below – he looks like one tough hombre – for a political scientist!
https://rumble.com/v4zhxxe–red-alert-prepare-for-the-unthinkable-in-ukraine-syriana-analysis-w-tuomas.html
Goose
re: VdL
Unfortunately I am still eating and buying one of her cookies (Bahlsen Chokini).
https://www.worldofsweets.de/Bahlsen-Chokini-150g.301423.html
(I do much baking myself but I haven´t figured out the dough´s consistence so far without using certain chemicals they use in industrial production.)
p.s. within a year they raised the price by over 60%
I assume she directly profits from the raise in energy prices.
This time they have not started a pantomime war between European ‘powers’ because the Public wouldn’t go along with it. Real polls across Europe prove that. Only a minority wants to support the deluded Ukraine and thinks it ok to have war with Russia . The same deluded minorities as previous centuries.
That whistling sound all across Europeans? It’s not tinnitus left over from Covid!
it’s the WW2 dead whirring away in their graves as the Germans and US and King Charles the Turd celebrate D-Day and the liberation of Europe from errr… Fascism with…err, the Allies … errr the Axis – shultz goose stepping past napoleonic attired troupers in Normandy!
At least the Italians appear to have the good grace to run before getting involved again.
The rest of them are apologists for the putrid empire who claim to have ‘clean hands’ but are just some perfumed, rotten establishment turds, just like our unelected monarchy.
DunGroanin I spoke to a school teacher the other day, modern history I think.
She said that the teaching of recent Brit history has had a new “irreducible” primitive added to the brew – “The Men on the Spot”. This concept being used to begin the fight back to keep the glories of Empire, the “blood sweat and tears” of Trafalgar, Waterloo, The Blitz, D-Day etc but leave the “blood, sweat and tears”.of the Bengal Famine, the bloody suppression of “the Indian Mutiny”, the Opium Trade, Rhodes and the rest of the “Conquistadors” etc etc to those naughty but nebulous, genocidal and racist “Men on the Spot”, whoever they were, whatever they did and for whatever reason they did what they did in serving the interests of whoever it was who paid for, benefitted from or appropriated as a result of the behaviour of “the Men on the Spot” – the “free radicals” of Imperial control lol
Although the Americans may have all the arabs money, the arabs still have the oil. Presumably, if they were brave enough, they could cut off the West and maybe just deal with BRICS nations. The West would grind to a halt pretty quickly without Arab oil.
You may recall that Saddam was giving free electricity to the people of Iraq and had been considering selling oil in return for euros. This idea wasn’t well received by the dollar hegemony.
As for Gaddafi, he was building a megalopolis on the Mediterranean coast to offer a centre of finance to rival the world bank. His son Saif had written the blueprint for his LSE PhD thesis which was subsequently disallowed for plagiarism, while his tutor resigned in disgust. This was considered in articles in the Financial Times. Our Tony was sent to tell his old friend Muammar, sorry old friend, but we won’t allow this. Gaddafi allegedly laughed, incredulous that our little pipsqueak had the audacity to tell him he could not establish a new currency which would offer interest free loans, with an upfront sum fee to be repaid first, and this would be for African countries to invest in and develop their own resources.
The city was half built when we did not allow him to complete it.
Morning all from Blackburn. Response on the door is absolutely brilliant, people have Palestine flags in their windows.
Yesterday I read this excellent exposure by Naila Kauser, of the lies our media swallowed about the released hostages.
This article is telling of the relations hostages had with their captors and how the Zionist Government twisted facts alienating the released hostages and their families as well as the human rights organisations that were obstructed and ignored.
A must read, imho. There is still time for volunteers to come here and help btw. 😊
https://nailaforthepeople.substack.com/p/israeli-government-is-the-greatest
Great work Nevermind… Hero.
And also As the Grey zone had
s told LIES By Israel
It appears the Greens are kicking people out for allegedly slighting Israel. https://x.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1798825982855622716
Why is it, anything anyone alleges about Israel or the IDF, without also providing irrefutable proof, is automatically a ‘conspiracy theory’ or ‘anti-Semitic’? Yet it’s open season for Lies about Palestine and events that didn’t happen on Oct 7th? E.g. mass rapes, 40 beheaded babies – cooked in ovens, and what ever other twisted fantasies Zionists’ fevered imaginations can come up with.
The Green Party is captured by the zionist movement (and concomitantly by NATO warmongers.)
Its members are perfectly happy with it.
They voted to adopt the comedy zionist “IHRA” definition of antisemitism and also to abandon the party’s longstanding opposition to NATO.
To see where it all ends up check out Annalena Baerbock in Germany.
Reza
They’ve likely been infiltrated to some extent, for sure. The intel agencies have seen the environment, as an issue, zoom up the political agenda and capture the minds of the young, Greta mania and all that. You didn’t think they were going to let – as intel agencies see them- radical, anti-war pot smoking hippies – as the Greens were, pollute the minds of the young?
It’s always baffled me how the security establishment justify such interference in politics. And I can only think they rationalise it by imagining scenarios where their foreign opponents are controlling ‘radical hippy’ candidates. It goes back to that ‘groupthink’ thing, ,whereby someone suggests something may be happening, and it doesn’t have to be true, because over time it becomes accepted as fact with no new supporting evidence: uncontested repetition.
Look at the current political situation in Europe, literally no politician in the west, bar Mick Wallace and Clare Daly, dare question the strategy in Ukraine, for fear of accusations of somehow being Kremlin mouthpieces. The security establishment may as well take over, because they are controlling by intimidation, already.
Cont.
Britain is also addicted to secrecy.
So you’ve got super powerful, unaccountable intel agencies and blanket secrecy. There is a good argument to be made that domestic military intelligence (MI5) should have been folded into the police after the war (peace time). In the US, their domestic equivalent is the FBI, and its directors get very public, hellish grillings from politicians over their own, and the agency’s conduct. The UK has is the all-encompassing ISC, that (rarely) meets, in secret, and is stacked with establishment worthies; worthies whom the PM picks in consultation with the very heads of the intel agencies they are supposed to scrutinise. It’s akin picking your own judge and jury.
And we call this arrangement accountable democracy.
The Green in Germany are rabidly on the right, ripped apart by false factionalism and stooges like Baerbrook.
Find me a quote that says the GPEW are supporting Zionism…
2-state zionism is official Green Party policy. They are ruthlessly enforcing a zionist definition of “antisemitism”. The party leader is a Jewish zionist who refuses to mention the word genocide and is still pushing the Corbyn antisemitism scam. Combine the zionism with their NATO decision, their strict Nord Stream omerta and the direction is quite clear — Baerbockism.
(A rhetorical question, Goose, but I’ll answer it anyway.) It’s because that’s how the corporate-owned media (and governments) control the masses. Through lies, lies, propaganda and more lies.
The mainstream media’s duty is to promote the Israeli ‘narrative’ (ie, fiction) and help the establishment suppress truth, by calling any criticism ‘antisemitic’. It feels almost surreal to witness this happening – but it is.
The government spouts lies, beats peaceful protesters, and supplies weapons etc. to help the Israelis’ with their ethnic cleansing and mass murder. But it’s ok because Western values, democracy etc. etc.
If only people would just vote harder…
James
This is a good piece today, by David Frost, of all people. I probably wouldn’t agree with Frost on much, politically speaking, but this nails the problem with those trying to control dissent and enforce narratives:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/08/bbc-verify-becoming-a-tool-for-elite-control-of-discourse/
This is why the anti-disinformation brigade – aka, the censorship industrial complex, are desperately trying, fruitlessly, to find Russian connections to domestic political dissent throughout Europe. Because, without that evidence, they know they are just morons, abusing their power spying on their fellow citizens for no good reason at all.
Goose, that was a good article, though it was stating the obvious, to some extent. BBC Verify always had a sinister ‘this is what you should think’ vibe to it.
Your point about censorship is well made. The ‘security’ services are truly paranoid (witness the frothing ‘Paul Mason’). Their culture makes them believe terrorists and spies lurk around every corner. It’s akin to a religion, or maybe more like mental illness. This leads them to actually create spies/agents, which ‘enemy’ countries counter with their own spies, thus producing a self-perpetuating ‘intelligence’ reality (all reinforced by Hollywood propaganda depictions of heroic CIA / MI5 / secret agent characters).
These unaccountable psychos are spying on people, lying and worse, and there’s no way to vote them out – they remain in place, whatever the party of government.
How they operate is not so different from the Stasi, only now technology has made it so much easier for them.
As to the BBC fact checking Farage’s (whom I have no time for) view on net zero, ‘net zero’ is a huge joke. Industrial civilization is entirely dependent on FF. So-called renewables are totally dependent of FF for their manufacture and maintenance, without even considering the vast amounts of mined (using diesel machines) materials needed to build them. The only way ‘net zero’ can happen is by complete civilizational collapse.