The collective shrug with which the Western media and political class noted the attempted assassination of Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico has been telling.
Can you imagine the outrage and emotion that would have been expressed by Western powers if not Fico but a pro-Ukraine, anti-Russian leader within the EU had been attacked? The new orders for weapons that would have been presented to the arms manufacturers, the troops that would have been deployed, the sabres that would have been rattled?
Instead we have the media telling us that Fico opposed sending arms to Ukraine and opposed threatening Russia. We are told he did not accept the mainstream narrative on Covid vaccinations. The media do not quite say he deserved to be shot, but they come very, very close.
Fellow EU leaders followed correct form in making statements of shock and disgust at the attack on Fico, but they were formal and perfunctory. The “not actually one of us” message was very clear.
There are now an ordered set of neoliberal beliefs to which anybody in a Western nation participating in public affairs must subscribe, or they are beyond the pale.
Not to subscribe to all of these beliefs makes you a “populist”, a “conspiracy theorist”, a “Putin puppet” or a “useful idiot”.
These are some of the “key beliefs”:
1) Wealth is only created by a small number of ultra-wealthy capitalists on whom the employment of everybody else ultimately depends.
2) The laws governing financial structures must therefore tend to concentrate wealth to these individuals, so that they may deploy it as they choose.
3) State-created currency must only be concentrated in and distributed to private financial institutions.
4) Public spending is always less efficient than private spending.
5) Russia, China and Iran pose an existential threat to the West. That comprises both an economic threat and a physical, military threat.
6) Colonialism was a boon to the world, bringing economic development, trade and education to people of inferior cultures.
7) Islam is a threat to Western values and to world development.
8) Israel is a necessary project for spreading Western values to the uncivilised Middle East.
9) Security necessitates devoting very substantial resources to arms production and the waging of continual war.
10) Nothing must threaten the military and arms industry interest. No battle against corruption or crime can override the need for the security military industrial complex to be completely unchallenged and internally supreme.
Within this architecture of belief, other orthodoxies hang dependent, such as the correct way to respond to a complex pandemic, or support for NATO and impunity for the security services. (Support for Israel is probably better portrayed as a dependent point, but with the subject of Gaza so prominent at the moment I have figuratively moved it into the main structure.)
Any deviation on any point of belief is a challenge to the entire system, and thus must be eradicated. You will note there is no room whatsoever, within this architecture of thought, for values like freedom of speech or freedom of assembly. They simply do not fit. Nor is it possible within this architecture to incorporate actual democracy, which would give people a choice of what to believe.
If you accept this architecture of thought, then you must argue that the Genocide in Gaza is a good thing, and it threatens the entire structure if you state that it is not a good thing. That is why we have witnessed the spectacle of politicians defying and then repressing their own people, willing to place all of their political capital at the service of genocidal Zionism.
Words struggle to convey the horrors we have all seen from Gaza, and in no way does it lessen the terrible suffering nor the extent of the crime to observe that it has caused a major rift in the neoliberal belief system which cannot be hidden from the people.
Gaza has ramifications leading to questioning throughout the system. Why is Tik Tok being banned, to stop people getting information on Gaza? Why is it a problem that the platform is owned by China?
What has China done that makes in an enemy? China has no military designs on the West. Of recent purchases most of us have made of physical goods, a high proportion have come from China. Why is an important trade partner an “enemy”?
Why is Russia our enemy? The notion that the Russian army is going to land on the Wash is utterly implausible. The Russian state, over centuries and wildly differing regimes, has never had the slightest desire to invade the British Isles. In the UK, under various governments, for almost three centuries charlatans have been claiming a threat of Russian invasion to justify higher defence expenditure.
Why the need to have “enemies” at all?
One designated “enemy” is David McBride. He is the latest whistleblower to be jailed for serving humanity. An Australian military lawyer, he blew the whistle on war crimes by Australian forces in Afghanistan.
Now there is no dispute that the war crimes were real. There is no dispute that they were being covered up. There is no dispute that McBride released true information that was being hidden from the public.
But that does not matter. McBride was sentenced to five and a half years for leaking documents. As is the case in both the US and UK as well as Australia, there was no public interest defence allowed in McBride’s whistleblowing.
The case is slightly complicated by the fact that McBride claimed he did not leak the documents to expose the war crimes, but rather the opposite; to prevent the heavy-handed investigation of individual soldiers. Whatever the motive, nobody has in fact faced any punishment for the war crimes revealed by McBride, while McBride is in jail for exposing them.
The slavish worship of “national security” is of course similarly at play in the case of Julian Assange, who has another court date on Monday. He has already served five years in a dreadful maximum security jail, after seven years detained in the Ecuadorean Embassy, for his exposure of extensive war crimes for which nobody has been punished. Again, no public interest defence is permitted.
Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London #FreeJulianAssange #FreePalestine pic.twitter.com/XnPRcjprKV
— Naila (@BrownNaila) October 20, 2023
I am for once hopeful that we shall see Julian free very soon. Asked to give an assurance to the court that Julian Assange will not be barred from claiming First Amendment freedom of speech rights on the grounds of his nationality, the US government has replied that he will be able to argue in court that he should not be so barred.
That is of course not the same thing.
The “rules-based order” that has replaced international law in the neoliberal mind, depends on ad hoc rules designed to enforce the neoliberal thought construct outlined above. In the International Court of Justice in South Africa vs Israel, we will witness whether the established legal system retains enough self-respect to uphold actual law against these “rules”.
At the High Court in London we shall witness the High Court of England and Wales face the same test. In the face of blatant refusal by the United States to comply with the stipulated assurances, will the High Court maintain its intellectual self-respect? Or will it bow down to the dictates of the neoliberal world order?
It is a key moment. I believe the neoliberal structure is cracking. Who can be saved?
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Imagine the fuss if someone with a good aim shot Ricky Sunk, and a commentator started talking about how he was in hock to the USA and even kept a home there, and starved UK public services of funds which he laundered through Ukraine in order to prolong its unwinnable war, and that this meant that UK society was bitterly divided so we could sort of understand where the shooter was coming from.
“Ricky Sunk” – lol
Or Richy Skunknack
Russia, China and the USA are too big for their boots. International peace will prevail only when no country can bully another. The larger, more powerful and more militarized countries should be broken up. If there were less discrepancy between countries, whether demographic, economic or military, the world would be a safer place.
Who’s going to do that then ? And what is the ideal size ? Sounds like a job for the new world government – no thanks, I’ll pass (and you forgot India and the EU).
The EU is a collection of democratic states of which membership is voluntary. Any country that wants to can leave. If any part of China, the USA or the USA tried to secede, there would be hell to pay. Like you I have no idea how you can force or persuade the over-large states to break. What I do know is that until they do there will be no peace.
Collection of democratic states or not, when it comes to bullying others it is in the same very league as the other culprints mentioned here.
great plan, Walter 🙂
Just a tiny remark: you’ll need to make a ban on Unions, you know, such as the European one. No small States should be United, right? Otherwise, they’d be able to bully ordinary non-united states.
And especially no military alliances, such as the North Atlantic Treaty. Stop these potential bullies from uniting!
Of course, you’re clever guy and you’ll think about how to ensure that. You’ll probably come to the idea of creating your own Union
with Blackjack and hookers, purely out of good intentions, right? And of course you would need some kind of military force to carry out your noble higher mission. Well, like, such a special military alliance for the sake of everyone’s safety.Swiss f*ckin’ watch.
I can see your point wrt USA. And China can be rather aggressive in its immediate neighbourhood. But Russia causes no problems, only acts internationally when its hand is forced by the USA.
Also China’s extreme authoritarianism is empowered by its relationship with Russia, which again is forced by the USA.
Break up the USA into three parts
– The 13 colonies
– The Western seaboard states
– The rest
And the world would be a happier place. There’s no reason to break Russia up. China is a whole different question.
The world had its chance to break the US up when the South tried to secede.
I saw on X, Kaja Kallas, Estonia PM. say something like this, but with only one country in mind, Russia. Never mind USA or the idea that EU drives Estonia or small countries join power blocs and the rest of it. Go back in time and city states, Athens, Sparta etc were often on a war footing with one another. Being a small state is no guarantor of being at peace with one’s neighbours. Look at Israel.
Genuine question. Are the rules of the “rules-based order” actually written down somewhere? I have never seen a politician quizzed on what the rules are or whereabouts they can be read. Perhaps one of the neocon fraternity can enlighten us.
What an excellent question!
I’m not a neocon but the whole point, as I see it, is that the rules are never written down. They are whatever we say they are at any particular point in time, and they change to fit the events.
The same goes for ‘western values.’
Brian c
As far as I understand it was a process, without one pivotal moment with a before and after.
By outsourcing decisions originally only to be attended to by UN and its organs, to institutions that could be more easily controlled by US/NATO.
Following might help:
2 legal texts on rules-based order:
Moscow Journal of International Law:
“The Term “Rules-based International Order” in International Legal Discourses”
Nov. 2021
https://www.mjil.ru/jour/article/view/1190
SA´s John Dugard:
“The choice before us: International law or a ‘rules-based international order’?”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 February 2023
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/leiden-journal-of-international-law/article/choice-before-us-international-law-or-a-rulesbased-international-order/7BEDE2312FDF9D6225E16988FD18BAF0
The Americans make the rules (and revise/change/ignore them when they become inconvenient) and everyone else obeys their orders. Simples!
“I make the rules buddy, get over it”
You will find a potted history of the use of the phrase ‘rules based order’ (RBO) here: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/leiden-journal-of-international-law/article/choice-before-us-international-law-or-a-rulesbased-international-order/7BEDE2312FDF9D6225E16988FD18BAF0
It appears to be an American invention designed to give favour to rules that do not contradict the US constitution in the way international law does.
Thanks. A generous interpretation that one. Even Mr Dugard himself admits this Rules-Based Order is “undefined,” with rules “yet to be enunciated”. I think he would struggle to refute Frank and Stevie Boy’s interpretation, especially after the West’s attack on Gaza, although I doubt it’s an interpretation that will ever be endorsed by Cambridge University Press.
This simply means “Our rules for you, exceptions from any rules for us!”
Craig said that “Instead we have the media telling us that Fico opposed sending arms to Ukraine and opposed threatening Russia. We are told he did not accept the mainstream narrative on Covid vaccinations. The media do not quite say he deserved to be shot, but they come very, very close.”
Of course Fico does oppose sending arms to Ukraine.
No one in the media has even hinted that Fico deserves to be shot and the referenced rather good piece by John Kampfner doesn’t remotely suggest that.
If Fico does die another Russophile authoritarian shit will replace him.
So tankies need not worry.
anybody sane and not invested in maintaining a US stranglehold on the world opposed sending arms to Ukraine, and opposed the NATO/US instigation which kicked off the war in the first place. bootlickers the world over, on the other hand, rejoice at the success of the money laundry, never mind the destruction of Ukraine.
Pretzel Attack
Presumably ok for China, Iran and DPRK to supply arms and munitions to Russia?
and why not JK redux, since it is opposing the most dangerous, aggressive, and lawless power on the planet?
JK redux
I am not supportive of the invasion but weapons from China/Iran/DPRK do not matter no, it is because the arms going to Ukraine from the west only prolong the suffering and risk escalation of a real World war, not to mention Ukraine will invevitably lose the war so sending more arms now makes no sense than keeping the human carnage going – that is why Slovakia, Hungary are against weapons going to Ukraine.
Russia on the other hand have all the weapons they need, it is not like Russia will run out of vital arms, ammo.
Jack
At the risk of being argumentative; if Putin didn’t need drones from Iran and artillery shells from DPRK, he wouldn’t have troubled himself to offer the quid(s) pro quo that he had to offer both.
Not to mention the considerations that Putin must have offered that nice Mr Xi for his support.
Many Americans opposed supplying weapons to Britain during WW2. No doubt some for humanitarian reasons (end this hopeless war now).
Happily the USA did the right thing in the end then as we may hope it will now.
JK Redux
The weapons, ammo Russia get from other nations is not vital in their war, they are an addition. Russia could after all strike Ukrainian government building etc today with their own ballistic missiles. That is the type of weaponry that give Russia the upper hand in this war.
Russian forces have taken more territory in six weeks than Ukraine managed in six months last year, the Washington Post admitted on Friday, describing the 2023 effort by Kiev as “lackluster” and “disappointing.”
https://swentr.site/russia/597809-russian-advance-ukraine-offensive/
If Ukraine got nowhere during their hyped up counter offensive, what will? Nothing in my book, only more human suffering and perhaps losing even more of their land.
” The weapons, ammo Russia get from other nations is not vital in their war, ”
I think it is. It’s telling that Russia has only been able to make any progress when Ukraine ran out of ammunition.
Pears Morgaine
When are Ukraine supposed to be able to take all their regions with that logic, considering:
Exclusive: Russia producing three times more artillery shells than US and Europe for Ukraine
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/10/politics/russia-artillery-shell-production-us-europe-ukraine/index.html
The truth is they wont be able to outmatch Russia. In terms of soldiers, ammo, arms, Russia is years ahead of Ukraine.
Note, how P. Morgan missed the fall of Soledar in January 2023 and taking of Bakhmut last Spring to make his point that “It’s telling that Russia has only been able to make any progress when Ukraine ran out of ammunition.”
Well put.
“If Fico does die another Russophile authoritarian shit will replace him”.
From my brief study of Slovak politics that would seem to be far from guaranteed.
Mind, the party that the shooter is reported to support, “Progressive Slovakia”, founded in 2017, has all the hallmarks of a USA, CIA-engineered movement. No doubt it will get the support of USA ‘mafia tactics supporting’ tankies.
A great read, Craig. I’ve have certainly been taken aback multiple times throughout my life at the sheer, self-contradictory illiberalism of mainstream liberal thought and polity. I wonder if you think this is a modern phenomena – that liberal principles, rights and institutions really were held to be as important and foundational as the marketing material insists, but encountered a sharp decline as various pain points and crises of legitimacy in the neoliberal project forced them to be jettisoned? Or whether, in contrast, you think the manifesto you list above was always internally prioritised, and this is merely a case of the mask coming off?
I also read with interest your contention that a tenet of the liberal ultras is that colonialism was a boon for the developing world. I suspect if you were to ask a self-identifying member of this tribe, they would insist it was globalism that provided these benefits, and repudiate colonialism as racist, exploitative wealth extraction for which we should all be very sorry. That they amount to the same project, the former achieving with markets what the latter did with force of arms, is not something they would officially acknowledge.
I don’t know, it doesn’t take much for liberals to start apologising for colonialism. Gordon Brown was an incorrigible Empire apologist and every Zionist in every liberal political party and media outlet is by definition a supporter of colonialism.
It was very interesting to see Fico’s Deputy PM when interviewed on Al Jazeera tv, talk to a reporter with a picture/painting of Che Guevara in the background in what looked like a parliamentary office.
*David* McBride, not Daniel. [ Mod: Duly corrected – thanks. ] His concern was a little too complicated for everyday journalism to convey. His concern was that Australian involvement in Afghanistan was being mismanaged by the upper echelon of commanding officers, including that they were ordering conspicuous investigations of soldiers who were involved in incidents which did not require investigation in order to create the perception that ‘something was being done’, while allowing actual war crimes by decorated soldiers to go unpunished. There is now, finally, the Afghanistan Inquiry Implementation Oversight Panel final report, recommending ‘consideration’ of holding senior command responsible for the murders; it was released the day after David McBride was sentenced to 5 years 8 months prison.
McBride was a lawyer with the Australian Special Forces, which gives a clue to where he was coming from.
“Of recent purchases most of us have made of physical goods, a high proportion have come from China. Why is an important trade partner an “enemy”? It is an enemy because the West cannot compete with it; in order to make a fast buck the major US companies offshored many of its products made in the US to China who could manufacture them at a fraction of the price. (Apple for instance still manufacture 95% of iPhones etc in China.) For many years the US complained that Germany should not use cheap Russian gas because German exports were far cheaper than the US equivalents, piped gas for instance, of course Lord Ismay’s contention i.e.“keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” factored in that decision, Biden assured us of that when the NordStream pipeline was blown up.
Let’s face it, the US/Israel are rogue states that only a combination of the big boys in BRICS (China, Russia, India and Iran) can put in its place, hopefully without a nuclear exchange.
The ‘British’ judicial system has already faced many, many tests of its integrity, honesty and independence, particularly over the last 10 years. To my mind it has failed every time. It is corrupt and controlled by the corrupt.
I fear Assange is going to have to rely on american ‘justice’.
My responses: 1. Not a divine dogma and may be freely disbelieved. Likewise 3. I understand Biden is acting against 2. and Starmer against 4. Concerning 5., Putin has been doing a Hitler with Austria corresponding to Georgia, Czechoslovakia to Crimea and Poland to Ukraine. Unstopped he will go after the Baltic States next and then Scandinavia. Hopefully Ukrainian democracy will endure. слава україні !
China might engage in industrial espionage and economic warfare more than anything. Iran could threaten the West’s oil supply and trade through the Gulf, but that’s all. 6. is nonsense, no argument there. 7. Islam is not a threat any more than Irish terrorism, so the prognosis should be good (but let MI5 keep an eye on hotheads). 8. Israel is an apartheid state. A racially exclusive democracy is no democracy. Western civilization doesn’t need such an ambassador, who treats Palestinians as the Nazis treated Jews. BDS should help move Palestine from apartheid to full democracy between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, similar to apartheid South Africa. 9. Even Churchill cautioned against succumbing to war fever. 10. Parliament, democratically elected should be supreme, and the MIC learn that democratically elected government are the boss, or else.
Keep drinking the cool-aid, or maybe that’s cool-usaid …
Handwringing that Israel “treats Palestinians as the Nazis treated Jews” yet boosting for Biden and Starmer .. No cognitive dissonance there whatsoever.
Marks for the attempt at a point by point analysis, but response to 5 is as evidence free as you can get.
You’re so blinded by your ideology you’re not seeing what’s going on. Making yourself look like a fool. Fico is a mafia boss. He paid for the murder of a journalist he didn’t like. I’m not saying he deserved to be shot but I’m not surprised.
Maybe you should stick to writing about things you actually know something about.
‘I’m not saying he deserved to be shot but I’m not surprised.’
If you truly believe Fico was a Mafia boss responsible for executions then I don’t see a problem with you saying he deserved to be shot.
The arrested Slovakian would-be assassin is yet reportedly another ‘lone wolf’ with ultra-right political leanings. Similar to the murder of Jo Cox (pre-Brexit) this attempt came shortly before European elections, yet neither perpetrator appeared to have had any prior police record and their political activity was merely as fringe members. The UK police never seemed very interested in where Thomas Mair obtained the weapon he used to shoot Jo Cox. I will be interested to see if the Slovakian police show more urgency, but the omens are not good. Fico’s security detail must have been extremely lax if the assailant was able to loosen off 5 shots.
JFK’s Secret Service detail in Dallas was remarkably lackadaisical.
Lysias are you sure they were in Dallas?
Jan: “He paid for the murder of a journalist he didn’t like. I’m not saying he deserved to be shot but I’m not surprised.”
Nutty and co-conspirators have paid for the murder of forty thousand Palestinians or so; they have a genocidal racial antipathy to these unfortunate people. I am not saying they deserve to be shot, but when they are I won’t be surprised – but I think it more likely they will be Qaddafi-fied.
All the evidence appears to point towards Thomas Mair being framed:
https://iaindavis.com/thomas-mair/
The following is what Thomas Mair said to a local reporter in
20192010:Thomas Mair, 46, started volunteering at the park after learning about the opportunity through the Mirfield-based Pathways Day Centre for adults with mental health problems.
He said: “I can honestly say it has done me more good than all the psychotherapy and medication in the world. “Many people who suffer from mental illness are socially isolated and disconnected from society, feelings of worthlessness are also common mainly caused by long-term unemployment.
“All these problems are alleviated by doing voluntary work.
“Getting out of the house and meeting new people is a good thing, but more important in my view is doing physically demanding and useful labour.
“When you have finished there is a feeling of achievement which is emotionally rewarding and psychologically fulfilling.
“For people for whom full-time, paid employment is not possible for a variety of reasons, voluntary work offers a socially positive and therapeutic alternative.”
Doesn’t come across at all as a deranged right-wing nut-job, does he. Entirely the opposite.
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Oakwell+Hall+thriving+with+help+of+volunteers.-a0227735906
Thomas Mair, or Mr Death-to-Traitors-Freedom-for-Britain as he prefers to be known, refused to enter a plea at his pre-trial hearing and made no attempt to defend himself in court, Allan. As well as Jo Cox’s murder, he was also found guilty of GBH towards Bernard Carter-Kenny, who attempted to intervene in the attack, and who I’d imagine would have said something if he believed that the wrong man was on trial. The murder happened six years after his 2010 interview (most of which was probably fabricated by the local reporter) – a lot of things could have happened in the intervening period.
‘I’m not saying jo Cox deserved to be shot but I’m not surprised.’
Dodgy dealings, remainer, ISIS, white helmets, …, at the time, not everyone believed the sun shone out of her rS. Just saying.
I’m not saying JFK deserved to be shot but I’m not surprised he was
I’m not saying my mate’s grandad deserved to be shot for cowardice in WW1 but I’m not surprised he was
I’m not saying Jill Dando deserved to be shot but I’m not surprised she was – actually I’m lying, I was very surprised she was
I’m not saying will moon deserves to shot but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was – he lives next door to known criminals – fly with the crows, get shot with the crows
Would these be your “NGO” funded or oligarch paid “journalists” and were any accusations actually proven or just arse-pulled to suit a narrative?
We’ve all heard the same scripts, insults and tag-phrases before. So I for one am not impressed by it at all anymore.
Is the failed Austrian painter going to be dug up next? Because that one is *very* tiresome.
Islamaphobic too; Fico’s on record as saying that not one Muslim will be permitted to enter Slovakia.
To be fair, the Eastern European experience of Islam is not the same as the British Isles’ etc. We got migration from the subcontinent.
They got Ottoman armies, and everyone in the Balkans & Eastern Europe pretty much agrees that the Ottomans were complete monsters. Even if that was all they can agree on.
Also giving the messy botch Europe has made of migration, and all the issues it’s stirring up.
One can’t blame a politician from echoing the sentiment, that the best solution is not have the issue to start with…
So you are as good as saying Fico deserved to be shot. Shows where you are coming from.
Nothing Fico may have said matches anything currently coming out of the USA and Israel or parroted by their zionist supporters. The shooter was almost certainly a patsy simpleton funded by a western NGO. Another color revolution in the making. Watch out Georgia.
No he doesn’t deserve to be shot. Nobody deserves to be shot. What he also doesn’t deserve is to be lionised as an all-round good guy. As already mentioned, his connection to organised crime is well documented.
It’s clear that Fico has annoyed the powers that be in the West, and that, in my opinion, excuses a multitude of sins.
We are seeing an elite that knows it has lost.
These are acts of desperate men.
For those not sure of the background in McBride’s case take a look at this.
https://consortiumnews.com/2024/05/16/john-kiriakou-the-heroism-of-david-mcbride/
Has there ever been democracy in the UK?
And all the flailing, US superpower has left to share with the world… is chaos.
No. Democracy can never be achieved in any country using FPTP.
Democracy can’t be achieved in any country while a few possess the assets and cash
Hmm, my favourite story of the historical British stalker-like obsession with Russia. Manifesting via militarism, was the famous pop-up guns in a bunch of forts in South lsland of New Zealand.
This absurdity seems bad enough when Britain had a globe-spanning empire. Now the country is the USA’s Renfield, and can’t keep s**t out of the drinking water.
Developing countries will have travel warning, about the UK having disease outbreaks. Due to tainted water supplies. Plenty of cash for Israel, Ukraine & aircraft carriers that don’t sail, with planes that can’t fly though.
Good thing Russia, China, North Korea and probably Iran. Have nukes else the f**kwits in Westminster would tried tail-wagging the dog into an all out war. Using America’s army to do the actual fighting.
It is so blindingly obvious that the genocide in Gaza is unequivocally bad that the adamant refusal of the west (its leading lights anyway) to allow this to be said is by far the most sinister thing I have ever experienced. What is wrong with people that they impose this truly evil position onto us? What is wrong with our fellow citizens that they accept us? This is a nightmare.
Meanwhile, note also the coverage of the “progressive”, “brave”, “enlightened” young protestors in Georgia, and then compare it with the vilification as anti Semitic the actually progressive, brave and enlightened anti genocide young protestors in the West.
The West is as morally dysfunctional as you can get. (I won’t apologise for referring to morality – even though I know liberals regard it with distaste.)
“I won’t apologise for referring to morality – even though I know liberals regard it with distaste.”
For a moral realist, all human constructions of morality are fallible (like all human constructions of natural phenomena); and this reflection leads immediately to a form of liberalism, one that is poles apart from moral relativism.
(I’m no philosopher, but this is something I have always meant to read some philosophical books about. I’ve also long hoped that Craig would write an article about the concept – or rather the concepts, plural – of liberalism. We live in strange times, when the unexamined and probably mutually contradictory assumptions of “liberalism” seem to have degenerated into something resembling fascism. I find the whole thing almost impossible to make sense of; so I’m sorry if my comments make little sense! I’ll get me coat.)
Bramble – “This is a nightmare”
“If you think this world is bad, you should see some of the others”
— Philip K Dick
Twirlip don’t apologise, your comment make sense to me
As for coats I am not allowed to take mine off but if you have to get yours, I’ll hold while you put it on, then we can go together
I’m afraid that you are all being “had” by your host..
He has stated quite openly in the past that he is not a socialist, let alone a communist/Marxist, but rather a liberal.
Think about that for a moment. The “liberals elite”/“middle class” “…educated to the highest levels to fill positions in the professions and the State’s apparatuses, run and reproduce ideologically (via the “education” system) the capitalist mode of production “on behalf” of the capitalist class.”.
OK, that’s liberals tout court; but what about that subset – “liberals with a conscience” – who do Good Things and recognise that “the system” isn’t working perfectly? What do they want to see happen/change?
It turns out, as our host has confirmed in the past, that they want a return to the “© Golden Age of Liberal Democracy”, the “up” economic cycle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kondratiev_wave) of c.1945-1970. Sounds good, I remember it, but let’s dig a little deeper.
What paid for that “Golden Age”? Oh shit, Cold War military spending. How far did this “Golden Age” spread? “The West”. Oh shit, that’s only c.10% of the world’s population at that time. Under what conditions were the rest of the world’s population living? Varying degrees of poverty and starvation, plus the deaths (15-20M) and destruction caused by the anti-communist and resource-pillaging coups and proxy wars initiated by the “Golden Age” West. Fuck.
But don’t worry, folks – no cause for alarm: the “good” liberal education that the “middle class” were getting made sure that everyone left the academy knowing that, no matter how bad things got, “there is no (acceptable) alternative”.
This “Liberal TINAA” was/is quite different from the “Thatcherite TINA”. The latter was a rallying cry for the neo-liberal “cure” for mid-1970s stagflation that was just being introduced in the West. As such, it was merely the symptom of a myopic intra-capitalist squabble between two economic schools. “Liberal TINAA”, however, was/is more profound and has been in existence since the 1917 Russian Revolution, which gives the clue to its purpose: to state and to persuade the population that there is no acceptable alternative to Capitalism, despite its genocidal history.
How could one describe the behaviour of someone who repeatedly calls out the failures of a system whilst simultaneously maintaining that “there is no (acceptable) alternative”? It’s a poser.
Try as you might with something incomprehensible to me, but whatever, it is not a response to “there are now an ordered set of neoliberal beliefs to which anybody in a Western nation participating in public affairs must subscribe, or they are beyond the pale”.
I remember reading a long time ago a paper, which I think was written by a Runciman (there are several) that was along the lines of liberal democracies being happily liberal until their ideas were challenged and to which they reacted by being as oppressive as the “illiberal” regimes to which they were ideologically opposed. This seems to be happening today, so there does not seem to be any inconsistency in a true “liberal” challenging the illiberalism as otherwise falsely presented by the collective west today. Just exposure of its hypocrisy and double standards.
I think Craig has been having several rethinks. He recently admitted he has rethought his attitude about Russia and the war in Ukraine. Now he’s running for a seat in Parliament for George Galloway’s Workers Party, which is a socialist party.
I think all of us have recently had to do a lot of rethinking, as it increasingly becomes evident how evil our ostensibly liberal governments really are.
People who never change their views throughout their life never evolve and become irrelevant.
Some people are unable to admit to themselves that they were wrong.
I have a great theory about this! If you let me express it 🙂
It’s a pity that I can’t insert a Putin and Tucker Carlson meme here
We, the people inhabiting this planet, come from the same genetic root. Over time, expanding our habitat, we settled further and further from each other, and inevitably we had to invent different ways to transmit information: from cave paintings to Boolean algebra, Morse code and the Internet where a robot translates for you any message from a fellow-human to a language you understand.
We have learned to communicate not only factual information, such as the color of grass or the number of cows, but we have also invented Art to communicate our emotions.
This is possible because we are sisters and brothers from the same biological root, we are built the same. That thing inside our skull that digests information, it works the same way for everyone. And the limbic system too. It means that when we are safe and full, we all experience a positive range of emotions with dopamine, serotonin or whatever. And seeing people die, we all experience negative emotions, with cortisol, adrenaline and the like.
What I’m saying is that in the abstract we are all antennas and receivers, and have decoders built into us.
So, why is it that people have opposing opinions about the same event?
Obviously, the problem lies precisely in communication. I.e. the “antenna” may be faulty and doesn’t transmit all the information, or doesn’t work at all. In today’s real world, these are banned, or censored, or controlled media.
Or the problem is in the “receiver”, which could be, for example, a very old receiver, always tuned to the same wavelength, standing in its cozy garage, and its function is only to broadcast old songs to its elderly owner.
Well, one cannot discount the fact that the “decoder settings” may also be corrupted; medicine says that there’s a fairly large percentage of psychopaths. Like, you know, when reporting the death of a human being, such a corrupted decoder may experience a rush of dopamine that will cause his facial muscles to adopt a joyful expression, his throat muscles to produce laughter, and his arm muscles to produce applause – as Hillary reported the death of Qaddafi.
In general, when people are able to change their minds, I’m always happy. Because reality is the same, and people are the same, so ideally we all should have the same opinion about events (except maybe the emotional temperature may differ due to cultural differences).
And that’s why I’m skeptical of horror stories that tell me that somewhere far away there are absolutely terrible humans doing absolutely terrible things. I always keep in mind that our assessments depend on the completeness and quality of the information.
Part of the brain should be working (like an upper house) to make adjustments to the decoder and change its Overton window,
The decoder is really just like AI as it predicts what we see based within the parameters set by the other part of the brain which operates in a way no one has understood to limit our perceptions.
The parameters are perhaps partly biological genetic cultural personal and sometimes immediate. So, though we all are one, we are running on different versions or adaptations of the same master programme.
(Problem with AI is it lacks this other element).
in my opinion, the main feature that makes communication possible in principle is empathy (experts please advise if the term is incorrect). Namely, we are able to identify ourselves with other people, anticipating their reactions to our signals, based precisely on the fact that we are the same.
Simply put, we expect from the interlocutor the reaction that we ourselves would produce if we were in his place. For example, if we do not involve spoken language, but use gesture coding, then we are able to communicate to our interlocutor a piece of the meaning “food” simply by raising our hand to our mouth and imitating chewing. At the same time, we assume that the interlocutor will think the same way as ourselves, and by building a simple associative series, he will probably guess that we are hungry.
This is not rocket science, but completely natural things from the real world. This can be observed everywhere by anyone, and can be reproduced many times with the same outcome. An indisputable fact of reality.
It’s even more mysterious how it’s even possible that a person demands more weapons to kill more humans, and the listeners warmly support and rejoice. Are they all psychopaths or what?
Those who call for a ceasefire and for full-fledged communication to resolve the conflict, are declared enemies of humanity.
How is this possible? Who believes this?
Our ego likes to convince us we are doing right.
“I think Craig has been having several rethinks.”
… which I think is a remarkable fact in itself and cannot be hailed enough.
Who else out there operating public platforms and engaging in political discourse that deserves its name would be capable and willing to admit to this – albeit deeply human and “normal” behaviour.
Alexander Mercouris once described it as “steep learning curve” which he has experienced.
Yet, apparently 90% out there have always known what they know now. Oddly so. Especially among those who are professionally entrusted with caring over knowledge in society and how to spread and teach it – which is one of the disasters and civilisational failures in the West we are currently witnessing (and which has probably shocked me most among all the other horrific events, which however I have gotten used to before).
‘He has stated quite openly in the past that he is not a socialist, let alone a communist/Marxist, but rather a liberal.’
He’s a Trueper! Like all the best journalists on the planet.
This is decent piece John, talking about stuff I know little about – nowt wrong with that.
A few textual points. Mr Murray is your host as well as mine which suggests logical refutation of your contention that “you are all being had” etc.
Another issue I feel needs addressing regarding this problematic contention of yours relates to your purpose – what do you hope to achieve by relating this information?
As I understand it, there is a large and growing body of work that concerns the evolutionary logic of deception, i.e. asserting what the speaker knows is not true or acting like something it isn’t so etc. As this the body of research has grown, it has become apparent that a model describing self-deception was equally as important (if not more so) than the model of deception involving others, in explaining the neurological and behavioural phenomenon of “deception”. The suggestion being that self-deception is one of the primary functions of our brains – if not the primary function in the human evolutionary experience.
So here is how it goes – I deceive myself, Mr Murray deceives me, you deceive me. Equally you both fool yourselves in your attempts to fool me, whether successful or not – so it follows that even if you both successfully deceive me, the main channel is my own self-deception and your own separate self-deceptions; being tricked is an effect of the qualities of one’s own self-deception.
The “Interregnum” – “The Revaluation of All Values” – “The Reification of Names”, call it what you will. The days of a voice, a viewpoint holding primacy, are gone.
So thanks for the warning: it is refreshingly old fashioned and adorable! Especially since I haven’t believed a word I have said or thought in at least the last five years – though probably a good deal longer, lol.
WM
You raise an interesting issue.
Self-deception may be necessary to survive in authoritarian societies where suspicion that a particular individual does not believe the official narrative may lead to his imprisonment or worse.
Also a society in which too few believe the official narrative may be less cohesive and therefore less effective at war when war is necessary.
JACK et al., since you criticize the Arab states for not taking action –
On the issue of complicity by the Arab states: over at “naked capitalism” – which features a new conversation between Michael Hudson/GREEN pres. candidate Jill Stein and Blogger “Nima” – Hudson (being Stein´s policy advisor for the campaign) makes this important point on the US using the possession of 50% of Arab oil revenue to pressure them suppressing their own Palestinian population – which supports my point that the Israel lobby is in essence secondary, and just a means to an end which is defined by the US, not Israel:
“(…)
Well, I can bring Saudi Arabia into all of this. Jill didn’t mention it, but you’ve seen 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. Now suppose that their population that’s largely Palestinian rises up as they may do in Jordan or in Egypt. Well, if they rise up, they’re going to give pressure. You have to take the Palestinian side and break relations with Israel.
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.
At a certain point, if Saudi Arabia that I think has applied for membership in BRICS, if it does indeed support BRICS, what is it going to do with the foreign reserves? Well, obviously the BRICS are going to say, we want you to keep your savings as part of the new civilization. I think if they anticipate doing that, they should begin to withdraw their savings in the United States. Again, put it into gold and other or each other’s currencies.
Well, you can imagine what that will do to the dollar. And if the dollar goes down, there goes the American price index way up. So the cost of America supporting the war in the Near East, and it’s really America’s war. Everyone says they’re blaming Netanyahu and it’s Israel’s war. All these bombs are Americans. It’s the Americans that tell the Israelis where to bomb. It’s the Americans that tell Israeli leaders, and I’ve heard them tell Netanyahu’s leader in person, you are a landed aircraft carrier. I’ve sat in on these discussions.
And the Americans want this war against Palestine. It’s the first step of greater Israel taking over Near Eastern oil on behalf of the United States. Obviously, it will get some for itself. But this is America looks at oil as the key to the world’s energy and hence the world’s industrial production. And if it controls oil, as well as food, then it can have a stranglehold on countries that do not produce their own and non oil energy and do not produce their own food. So this is the implicit threat to the Americans of the BRICS and the new economic order. And it’s the promise to the global majority that yes, there can be a new civilization. We don’t have to do what America and Europe is doing. We can make our own fate. That’s what the whole fight is going to be about. And it’s going to be fought in the financial area, the trade area, and I’m afraid the military area too.
(…)”
“All these bombs are Americans. It’s the Americans that tell the Israelis where to bomb. It’s the Americans that tell Israeli leaders, and I’ve heard them tell Netanyahu’s leader in person, you are a landed aircraft carrier.”
— Michael Hudson
“Here come the planes
They’re American planes,
made in America”
— O Superman, Laurie Anderson (1982)
Back in 1982 when this track came out on Anderson’s “Big Science” album, America didn’t look like the globe-consuming monster it does today – the USSR was still going and party politics in Britain and more widely, Europe was not entirely a construct of the “intelligence” services as it is today, or so it seemed back in those innocent, carefree days of Superpower clash and nuclear nightmare diplomacy, lol.
Reagan and Thatcher came to power with the electorate fragmenting – the “Reagan” democrats and similar in Britain voting for policies that ushered all this in – Neo-Liberalism, surely the point of the Electoral College and FPTP voting in Britain. The Post-War consensus began to die , literally. Once the Sovs collapsed, the mass killing of brown people began in earnest in order to keep the economy primed, to keep the ultra-wealthists in the manner they have become accustomed to.
Other artists as well as Anderson could see what this meant, it took me considerably longer, only waking from my slumber when I realised I lived in a country that tortured people, torturing them for no real reason, just for “the lolz” it seems. What do you think of the lyrics of this next excerpt, AG?
“History will repeat itself
Crisis point, we’re near the hour
Counterforce will do no good
Hot U.S. I feel your power
Hitler proves that funky stuff
It’s not for you and me, girl (no, no no)
Europe’s an unhappy land
They’ve had their fascist groove thang
Democrats are out of power
Across that great wide ocean
Reagan’s president elect
Fascist God in motion
Generals tell him what to do
Stop your good time dancing
Train their guns on me and you
Fascist thing advancing”
— Fascist Groove Thang, Heaven 17 (1981)
pretty neat…
particularly considering the record cover, as far as YT shows (also as a remix with Star Wars imagery…🤔)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV5dbcOmw6I
I guess this text would be no-go in good ol´ Germany today…
(And while listening into that, mix in the Star Defense Initiative, which was also designed to disappropriate German – formerly fascist – corporations of their patents, while at the same time enriching them through ripping off the German state – so you could argue them artists all felt what would come next – which did – with a 10 year interregnum – but the additional benefit of digital and web. 2.0)
p.s. “Hitler proves that funky stuff”
Luftwaffe had a design for a wing-only bomber that could have been able to fly at extreme altitudes and thus reach Washington. Plan was to bomb them. The design would have worked but they ran out of time. Reminds me of “THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE”, via P.K. Dick it all makes sense.
As regards the book you mention, have you watched the speech he gave in Metz in 1977? It is on Rumble here
https://rumble.com/v39tsm5-philip-k-dick-the-1977-metz-france-address-english.html
It is a little disjointed but delicious. He discusses a truly remarkable set of ideas that lead everywhere and nowhere. One concerns Highcastle it is a mindbender – he wrote a character, a woman with knowledge of our reality, who meets the Man in the Highcastle at the end of the novel. This man is a writer and he has written a novel about our reality as scifi in his reality. Some time after publication she appeared in this world and made contact with the author bringing information from the fictional world he wrote!? I suppose it might be a metaphor lol
Great song, but the Beeb banned it of course, worried that Reagan might sue. Or so they said.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/(We_Don%27t_Need_This)_Fascist_Groove_Thang
Yes Alan it ripped the dance floors of yore
Precisely.
Sounds far-fetched to me, Clark. Why would Israel agree to attempt to colonise the Gulf States on behalf of the US when it wouldn’t even *sell* American-made weapons to Ukraine in 2022 at the US’s request, lest it upset the Russians?
On a related note, with regard your comment on the previous thread:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2024/05/shameless-2/comment-page-1/#comment-1060054
Do you have a link to ‘British Gas’ (presumably you mean BG Group, which is now part of Shell) being awarded gas extraction licences in Gaza’s EEZ by the Israelis shortly after October 7th?
Not “colonise the Gulf States” as you put it; “taking over Near Eastern oil”, as AG’s quote put it in the comment I endorsed. Different process in a different region. Israeli weapons sales or the lack thereof seems so insignificant by comparison as to be irrelevant.
Yes, I meant British Gas Group or BG Group; I got it right in my reply to your reply – though really, who cares what the latest name is? These companies buy and sell each other so frequently it’s hard to keep track of the names, and they’re all heads of the same hydra anyway.
Just came across another excellent article reposted by JVL. Here’s their introduction (by the web editor, Richard Kuper):
Molly Schumann worked for a public broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, for five years.
She shows in great detail how discrimination against Palestinians is embedded in the very structure of reporting practice in the Corporation.
Before October 7 it was expressed in a lack of interest in good stories, such that it hadn’t taken Schumann “long to realize that the subject of Israel-Palestine was to be avoided wherever possible”.
“After October 7, I dreaded going into work: every shift, the impact of the biases went into overdrive. Even at this early stage, Israeli officials were making genocidal statements that were ignored in our coverage.”
It soon became clear that Palestinian stories and interviewees were treated with suspicion at best, with a need for caveats to be inserted in advance in ways that didn’t happen with other stories. Double standards abounded. Live interviews with Palestinians were shunned because they couldn’t be censored.
Schumann eventually resigned at the end of November, “relieved that I was no longer complicit in the manufacturing of consent for a genocidal war of revenge”.
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/cbc-has-whitewashed-israels-crimes-in-gaza-i-saw-it-firsthand/
thx!
I don’t believe blowing up Nordstream would have been authorized if they didn’t already intend to use oil and gas offshore from Gaza as a substitute. And that would mean that the genocide was already foreseen and approved months in advance.
We’re talking about the highest power centers in the West. The kind of people who give orders to Western media and governments.
Yes, I have wondered on a few occasions if ‘October 7th’ was instigated by Israel through insiders.
Hamas was ‘created’ by the Israelis to counteract the PLO. Go figure.
I don’t know. That would require a forward-planning capability with account taken of unintended consequences that I think is beyond the West’s politically tiny and increasingly unhinged minds.
In my opinion they haven’t a clue as to what they are doing or why beyond sound bite thinking in terms of “Israel has the right to defend itself” and “Russia must not be allowed to win”.
The trouble is they do not recognise their own stupidity and accept that for example, as I read in a news outlet, Romania is having to buy Russian gas at three times the price it would have paid for the same gas without sanctions. Never mind the consequences for the Romanian people, indeed for any of us wherever we are in the collective west.
Great piece. Thoughtful, concise, and brilliantly analyzed synopsis of the status quo. Arguably, one of your best works, which says a lot.
Thanks for this, and all your efforts against the neoliberal narrative. You are heard and appreciated.
I’ve now posted two comments in the past few hours in the panel at the top of the comments section so that they would appear at the end of the comments, and on both occasions they have appeared as a reply to a previous comment I posted. On the first occasion it happened – once I realised it had – I had time to copy it before I deleted it (and then post it again, successfully). But this time I didn’t realise until the 5 mins had almost run out, and managed to delete it, but didn’t have time to copy it so that I could post it again. And I probably spent a good ten minutes typing it out. Thing is of course, why is it happening?
Anyway, this is what I posted, and all I’m gonna say this time is please share far and wide:
THOMAS MAIR IS INNOCENT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBByXtO-g34 (1min 21secs)
I suppose I should at least point out – as I did initially (and to save people looking for it) – that I searched for Part 2, but it doesn’t appear to exist.
[ When a commenter deletes their own comment, it goes into the blog bin (which is visible to the mods). Here is the earlier comment that you deleted: ]
Allan Howard
May 19, 2024 at 05:15
I came across this earlier, and saved it to a new tab to check out later. I assumed it was a documentary (perhaps posted on youtube by Richard D Hall), and that it was probably gonna be quite long. But I was completely wrong, and although it only lasts for a minute and twenty-one seconds, it’s probably way more effective than any lengthy documentary made to try and prove Thomas Mair’s innocence. I’m posting it here at the end of the comments (at the time of typing) – as opposed to posting it as a reply to my initial comment on the issue up the page – so that as many people as possible see this post and, as such, hopefully check out the vid. It really is spot on, and it would be great if folks could share it far and wide (perhaps along with the clip I posted earlier regards what Thomas said about doing voluntary work and how beneficial he found it etc):
THOMAS MAIR IS INNOCENT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBByXtO-g34
NB I’ve searched for Part 2 but it doesn’t appear to exist
Many thanks.
“I’m posting it here at the end of the comments (at the time of typing) – as opposed to posting it as a reply to my initial comment on the issue up the page – so that as many people as possible see this post and, as such, hopefully check out the vid.”
FYI, Allan Howard, the practice of posting replies without using the ‘Reply’ button is discouraged here because it fragments discussions, leaving related pieces of arguments in different parts of the page (or even on different pages). Please use the blog comments facility as intended. Replies posted in the wrong place – including as a new unthreaded comment – will be eligible for deletion.
Will do.
Reading blog comments often prompt thoughts that are worth exploring more fully in a comment in the mainstream. Including a link back to the comment that inspired it and the reply to that comment would be a good idea as would also expanding the comment theme to make it worthwhile as a stand alone.
There is a question as to whether comments posted in reply get as many eyeballs as mainstream comments. From my own browsing of Craig’s blog I do not go back to the beginning of comment pages to see new replies but can see new mainstream comments by recording the time and/or url of the last one that I saw, searching for that one and proceeding from there.
Searching for unseen replies by partial or full timestamp of the last reply seen might work or the full timestamp of the last seen whether mainstream or reply but requires a notepad to record them.
Making sufficient expansion and back references as requirements for non-deletion and introducing a Mod comment to the effect of inserted words above or a link to such a requirement would also be a good idea.
AH.
I strongly suggest taking a copy of your comment before posting and spell check it in a word-processor. Do not copy the WP document back to your comment as it will likely mess up the line breaks. If you make changes in the WP document copy them individually back to WordPress to let the latter choose the line breaks..
less than a decade ago Cameron and Osborne were (quite sensibly) courting and praising Beijing.
China became an “enemy” because the Tories were suddenly told by Washington it is. no other reason.
UK media and academia memory-holed the previous friendly and cooperative relationship, and likewise began representing China as an irreconcilable enemy and grave threat.
it has been an object lesson in how Britain works.
Yes, it’s a supreme irony. We were told Brexit would enable the UK to link up with fast growing Asian economies in place of the “sclerotic” EU. China of course being the prime example. Yet even by that time, we’d signaled to China that they were wasting their time engaging with us as it’d all be undone with one yank on the poodle’s leash. Once again leaving us with nothing.
I seriously believe that the majority of UK politicians are actual enemies of this country and its peoples.
Stevie
I fully agree with what you are saying. In fact, I’ll go a bit further and say our government and opposition are actually at war with us.
And notice how anti-China stories are now being floated in the media – including the Guardian and BBC – almost as much as anti-Russian ones. The propaganda machine is hard at work.
Britain on the global stage, is the USA’s Renfield.
It’s a very “special” relationship.
We call it “The US Empire” but it real name should be “The Kleptoplutocratic And Oligarchic States of NATO North America and Europe”. All the Western nations are solidly part of it and there is no possibility of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, The UK or France or any NATO nation going against the wishes of the US government or the Global ruling class.
“KEIR STARMER JOINED SECRETIVE CIA-LINKED GROUP WHILE SERVING IN CORBYN’S SHADOW CABINET
Starmer served on the Trilateral Commission alongside two former heads of the CIA without telling Jeremy Corbyn—who would have blocked it, Declassified can reveal.
By Matt Kennard
26 July 2023”
https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmer-joined-secretive-cia-linked-group-while-serving-in-corbyns-shadow-cabinet/
‘Nuff said.
George Dale.
As far as I’m aware you don’t join the (TC) Trilateral Commission: they ask you. You need to be invited to join. Also, one-time SNP FM Nicola Sturgeon is a member as well.
Check out members here:
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Trilateral_Commission
A generally good piece if a little rambling. Mildly puzzled by references to “the correct way to respond to a complex pandemic” and “mainstream narrative on Covid vaccinations”. Is that specifically about Fico? Or a critique of how good or bad global governments have been in dealing with Covid? Because it really feels like current global policy is to ignore it.
Skwawkbox posted this a couple of days ago, and is well worth a whirl (and ‘Tony’ posted a good one in the comments):
‘Video: Braverman gets stony silent treatment from Gaza student protesters’ (vid 2mins 33secs)
https://skwawkbox.org/2024/05/17/video-braverman-gets-stony-silent-treatment-from-gaza-student-protesters/
The tweet of the video has now had 4.3m views.
The color revolution in Georgia moves forward with the help of the corrupt, bought and paid for president.
https://www.rt.com/russia/597835-georgian-president-vetoes-controversial-law/
Welcome to “Greater Türkiye”, Stevie Boy.
Armenia is already “oven ready” – their leader, Pashinyan, has been giving strategic locations away to Azerbaijan and is an “integrationist” which minimally means he will give Azerbaijan a land corridor through Armenia into Türkiye and maximally give the country’s sovereignty away to Azerbaijan or Türkiye or both.
Pashinyan acts like the Armenian Genocide perpetrated by “the Sublime Porte” or “the Committee of Union and Progress” as it was then known never happened – in those days before Hitler’s star had risen. Hitler who cited the Turkish method of gassing the useless eaters approvingly. Yet Pashinyan seems willing to hitch his wagon to the powers that did for over 1,000,000 Armenians and the attempted destruction of the Armenian nation.
p.s. Listening to Armenian journalists speaking a few weeks ago, it was mentioned that Azerbaijan is sloshing large amounts of money around the global media system to suppress the “news-worthiness” of stories from this general area – that is how the Newsbiz operates, apparently.
Pashinyan is a stooge of both the US and France. Like Sashkavilli, he is trying to deliver his country to the NATO EU US orbit and away from Russia.
As for “‘Hitler who cited the Turkish method of gassing’ the useless eaters approvingly”, you obviously know very little of what went on in Anatolia during the first world war – nor before or after.
Blue Dotterel I do believe Hitler is recorded in the historical record observing that use of blocked up caves and poison gas had affected his thought on such matters
As for what went in Anatolia at the time I have a pretty good idea – you might be surprised
I am very glad you have responded – after posting I hoped for you to come and you came
So answer me this . If you could get the chance to tell the story of what you believe went on in Anatolia at that time in a few lines, without hyperbole or subterfuge, could you do this you? Also can you make a comment on the Churchill sponsored Greek incursion at end of WW1?
Some several years ago, I spent 3 months reading an extremely detailed history of the Turkish Army 1914-1920. I hardly knew any place or personage mentioned in in the first volume, it was a struggle but by the time I finished volume three it was a fair bit easier. It was an incredible story that blew me away, in an incredible environment and region and I have spent along time ruminating on this matter. My opinions are not lightly cast. If you are able to contribute I would be grateful
Let’s have a reference on blocked up caves and poison gas. Sounds a lot like beheaded babies baked in ovens.
Stevie Boy.
And here’s why.
“Salome Zourabichvili is a spooky French diplomat who became President of Georgia in 2018.
She wants to take her country into NATO and the European Union. ”
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Salome_Zourabichvili
Meh, Georgia’s path to NATO and the EU got blocked in 2008. Due to Saakashvili’s (currently in prison) witless attempt to take South Ossetia by force.
All the current kerfuffles whipped up by the “NGO’s” & cargo-cultists, are a rearguard action. Because they lost the political high ground, to people who aren’t terminally stupid/compromised.
Armenia seems to have screwed itself though, even if it isn’t Ukraine-tier screwed.
Yet…
“Armenia seems to have screwed itself though, even if it isn’t Ukraine-tier screwed.”
Yip, it’s a US satellite. There are 2000 American diplomats in Armenia; no doubt the (US) will keep pushing Armenia in its war with Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Azerbaijan has ties with Russia.
If the West could install a puppet regime in Azerbaijan, they would have control of the only country that borders both Russia and Iran.
Aliyev II, the King of Kings of Azerbaijan is demanding a land corridor through Armenia to Turkiye , in a speech he gave about three weeks ago, according to Armenian journalist Hovik Manucharyan, speaking on “Syriana Analysis” on the 24th April.
Aliyev II inherited his place from his father Aliyev I, a former KGB apparatchik and former First Secretary of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, who finished his communist career as First Deputy-Premier of the USSR. As the USSR imploded, he saw the writing on the wall – which of course read “ALIYEV”
Azerbaijan is very friendly with Israel and America. It has been buying large amounts of weapons from Israel, and America amongst many other sources, particularly in the recent past. Azerbaijani oil flows to Israel through Iraq and Turkiye. Azerbaijan is tooled up and ready to march.
Erdogan is involved with all this. Five Eyes plus one (Israel) orchestrates. I suspect Aliyev II has long since been signed up to the pirate fleet. On his own he is a mere freebooter – together a new Turkic “Empire” – a shiny new satrap for “the Ancient Empire”
How the spoils will be divvied-up is anyones guess but I am sure there will be plenty to go round.
Will Moon.
News reporting that a helicopter has crashed in or around the border or Azerbaijan the occupants are said to be the Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Iran’s Foreign Minister.
If the helicopter is found to have been brought down and the occupants are dead we can expect Iran to retaliate if and when evidence points in a specific direction.
I have been hearing rumours that Azerbaijan is crawling with Israeli operatives for quite a while.
It is odd Fico, now this, who or what is next?
It is a geopolitical ballet – Iranian leadership removed – Syria under the cosh, Iraq divided, Egypt zombiefied, free speech being abolished here – so many remarkable conjunctions.
Republic of Scotland, if I had said to you yesterday that the next movement would be the attempted destabilisation of Iran, probably by an attempt to kill or discredit the leadership, what would you said or thought?
I’m watching interview Prof Maranda on Rumble, 5 seconds the sound has gone
Will Moon.
Yes I agree first Fico and then Raisi, who is next Lukashenko? the EU has recently reiterated its sanctions against Iran’s nuclear programme we also have Iraq telling the (US) and the (UN) Mission that it wants both out of the country.
The French are being booted out of everywhere so they are taking their frustration out on the Kanak people of New Caledonia.
Yet the Azerbaijani oil flows through Iraq as well as Türkiye on it’s way to the apartheid entity – so until this supply line is closed I would expect too much from Iraq.
Will Moon
“Yet the Azerbaijani oil flows through Iraq as well as Türkiye on it’s way to the apartheid entity”
A source on that one? I don’t see how that is supposed to work geographically. Turkey yes, Iraq no.
Also this from your link, Stevie Boy:
“The presidential veto is seen as largely symbolic, as parliament is controlled by the ruling Georgian Dream party, which is expected to overrule it.”
I think she said the only view Georgians can have is one that looks to Europe.
This fits with Mr Murray’s point above concerning the professed “beliefs” required to get on in this frenzied totalitarianism, oddly still described as liberalism or whatever by some.
It shows the power of wealth, in both the promise of prosperity for the individual and the threat of ruination, exclusion from the games these mofos play – if you are not one of the ones to be killed, there is good chance , if you do what you are told, you will prosper
Will Moon.
Yes. Why, look to Europe and especially Nato: there’s no guarantee that Nato will trigger Article 5 if a lesser member is attacked, and if your country is in a strategic position then it will end up hosting foreign nukes and thus the country would have just acquired a huge bullseye upon it.
For me Europe is just an extension of US hegemony; joining the EU means your country becomes a small part of that. Looking at the war in Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza, it’s obvious that the likes of Germany and France – two big hitters in the EU – default to the US: in my opinion Atlanticists and Zionists – the latter due to the weight of the first hold sway over the EU.
Mr. Murray on direct point in relation to U$uAl….
George Monbiot • Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems
https://archive.org/details/2016-04-15_George-Monbiot_Neoliberalism_The-ideology-at-the-root-of-all-our-problems_The-Guardian
This is because the West has soft power. Russia does not. Western rulers are by definition legitimate, and when they arrest opponents or suspend freedom of speech, the press and assembly or cancel elections and simply remain in office nobody raises a peep, because they are doing this to save democracy, see?
Anti-western leaders are by definition tyrants, and anything they do is done to destroy democracy and because they hate freedom.
No, not fair, but fair has nothing to do with it.
Concerning enemies, a Scary Enemy is needed for two reasons:
1. To justify why we can’t have nice things. Healthcare? Infrastructure? Education? We don’t have time for that now, don’t you know we gotta fight Saddam/Milosevic/Bin Laden/Saddam again/Ghadaffi/Assad/ISIS/Putin/Hamas/Houthis/ad nauseam?
2. To justify crackdowns on civil liberties. You and your namby-pamby Bill of Rights, you hate our freedom! What, are you on the side of the fascists/communists/Islamicists/Russians/ ad nauseam?
Nowadays there are more “key beliefs”:
1) Mass immigration is good and necessary and immigrants must be supported by the State in their land of destination.
2) LGTBQ+ s are poor dears who must be protected from hate.
3) Any opposition to the 2 key beliefs above is hate.
4) Hate can’t be allowed in the public space.
5) So haters will get big fines or jail time.