What Links Expenses and Torture: New Labour’s Total Immorality.

by craig on May 8, 2009 7:48 am in UK Policy

It is good that details of MPs expenses have got out. I am sad if they were sold rather than leaked in the public interest, but they should have been available, unredacted, anyway.

Having said that, the Telegraph has made a massive pig’s ear of its big scoop. It majors on Gordon Brown paying his cleaner through his brother. That sounds to me unwise of Brown, but really not a huge front page story. I am not convinced Gordon Brown fiddled anything.

On the other hand, Hazel Blears changing her official second home designation three times in a year, in order to get the taxpayer to pay for furnishing all her homes, is simply crooked. As are Hoon’s multiple home arrangements. Jack Straw only paid back his “accidental” excessive claims for mortgage and council tax after the Freedom of Information Act ruling that expenses would be published. The Telegraph throws away the really crooked transactions in the odd phrase.

Straw’s expenses are particularly interesting. He has lived in a series of London government mansions ever since 1997. The taxpayer pays for his Blackburn flat, but his real home is his £1million plus Cotswolds property. Just where Straw gets all his money is an interesting question. Some real investigative journalism into Straw’s relationship with his bagman, Lord Taylor of Blackburn, and the peddling of influence for the defence industry, would be more interesting than anything the Telegraph reports today.

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2007/08/more_lord_scumb.html

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2007/08/theres_good_mon.html

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/01/jack_straws_cor.html

But I am struck by the continued government mantra of “It was all within the rules”, which Harriet Harman is being trotted round the television studios to spout this morning. Harriet has the job because she hasn’t made dodgy claims. She is old money. Her family don’t even notice the odd £100,000.

But this idea that it is OK to stretch the rules to the limit – with no worry whether it is right or wrong – is not a minor point. It is done for advantage, so it is immoral, not amoral.

It is an issue which has been heavily on my mind since I gave evidence on ministerial complicity in torture to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights last week. Nobody except me and possibly Cranley Onslow showed any horror at torture. There was instead a discussion on the finest details of whether there was any possible way this may be declared legal, “within the rules”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF9spgagSHI

Even on an issue like torture, right and wrong seems to have disappeared completely from our national political discourse. Is it any wonder they are fiddling their expenses?

47 Comments

  1. Silent Hunter

    8 May, 2009 - 8:31 am

    LABOUR ARE REPRESSIVE & AUTHORITARIAN SCUM.

    They are unfit for government and should be removed from power immediately.

    WE WANT AN IMMEDIATE GENERAL ELECTION.

  2. JimmyGiro

    8 May, 2009 - 8:49 am

    Silent Hunter,

    We need a bloody revolution, it isn’t just Zanu-Labour, who happend to get their fingers caught in the till, it is the whole system.

    A general election will simply take us from the frying pan to the fire, as we will surely end up with a Conservative ‘one-party’ state as before.

    We need to make it undesirable in a basic animal sense for anybody, left or right, to believe they are safe to commit sleaze or malfeasance. There needs to be a violent object lesson played out for all to see and learn from, that taking liberties with liberty has personal consequence.

    I don’t think that embarrassing politicians is sufficient, since it presumes they have a sense of decency and integrity to appeal to; therefore we need to resort to something a little more direct to their ill-gotten welfare.

  3. dreoilin

    8 May, 2009 - 9:57 am

    “I don’t think that embarrassing politicians is sufficient, since it presumes they have a sense of decency and integrity to appeal to”

    Plus, they can produce a ‘terrorist plot’ to take up media time at the drop of a hat (guaranteed). Today’s news is tomorrow’s fishwrap, and never more so than in this generation of information overload and short attention spans. I wonder is anyone under 30 reading this blog? I would hope so but …

  4. dreoilin

    8 May, 2009 - 10:02 am

    Blair and Gordon’s lot remind me so much of BushCo. Right and wrong don’t matter – teasing out words and their meanings to get around the law is all they’re interested in, apparently. Do they have consciences? They’re not visible.

  5. Leo Davidson

    8 May, 2009 - 10:05 am

    It should be illegal to refer, in any official capacity, to any of these people as “The Honourable Gentleman” (etc.) as it is clearly a contemptuous lie.

    It’s irritating to think of all the times the government have harped on about benefit frauds and asylum seekers (or for that matter things like IR35) while so many MPs have been systematically playing the system and leeching off the state to this day.

    Reminds me of when the benefits fraud people had that annoying ad campaign a few years ago, and opened a website where you could grass people up. I grassed up the biggest benefit frauds I could think of:

    http://www.pretentiousname.com/temp/benefits.gif

    AFAIK they did not act on my tip-off. :-)

    …back to the main story: It’s good in a way. That these people behave in a consistently immoral way, whenever given the chance, makes it harder to overlook or excuse any of their actions.

    The excuse that they meant well over Iraq and it was all just a big messy mistake — rather than an evil plan by evil people to do evil things — doesn’t wash so well when the evidence suggests that these people lie, cheat and steal every time the opportunity arises.

    If Obama ever actually follows through with his promise to close Guantanamo, I’d suggest that as a new state-sponsored home for this lot. Give them a taste of their own medicine. They are the real terrorists*, after all. (*People who use fear of violence to further a political agenda.)

  6. mary

    8 May, 2009 - 10:09 am

    Everything you say is so true Craig.

    Wrong Onslow though. Cranley was an MP and related.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cranley_Onslow,_Baron_Onslow_of_Woking

  7. Abe Rene

    8 May, 2009 - 10:44 am

    The General Election next year will bring retribution, and it may happen even earlier if the government loses a vote of confidence. And that could happen soon, if we see dissent over the proposed privatisation of the post office and the treatment of Iraqi interpreters.

  8. Anon

    8 May, 2009 - 10:49 am

    Bush declaring that his opponents in the ‘war on terra’ lost their rights under the Geneva Convention, which was raised in front of the JCHR, was a statement which the JCHR committee were enourmously relieved to hear. It took the small amount of edge out of the proceedings that a blanket cover-all excuse had been issued by a higher power.

    We have to challenge the illegality of these Zionist scumbags. It doesn’t matter how many politicians and generals hide in the petticoats of the Zionist Neo-Cons, Obama’s administration must prosecute their illegality. At the moment he is running scared. If he doesn’t, the Brezinsky Neo-Dems will intensify the unacceptable actions that the UK has to accept in oil-rich regimes in order to stay in the trans-Atlantic colonial club.

    In reality, long before these further extremes of violence hit our newspaper headlines we will be knocking on Europe’s door to please , please bail us out and accept us under their economic wing.

    The victorious Tories will be so humiliated by this event that nasty New Labour will be restored to power with Mr Nasty Blair as Told you so in chief. Blears needs to keep practising her Uzbessy-where? and buying new curtains every time she blows her nose or worse on the old ones.

    That is the future of British politics unless Bush aand Blair are locked up for their crimes. We will be hiding under the petticoats of Europe and looking the other way at Genghis Khan proportions of destruction in order for the US to continue to avoid changing its habits of oil consumption. With our imminent technological know-how, nobody needs oil or war. These bastards just like bashing Muslims. They’ll even run out them one day if they carry on this way.

  9. Jaded

    8 May, 2009 - 10:50 am

    You are quite right about Jack Straw and some of the mass media. The BBC sort of said he had done something ‘wrong’, but didn’t explicitly say it like that. More shockingly, GMTV this morning said they accepted he had made an innocent ‘mistake’ and that he had paid it back ‘around’ the time of the High Court ruling and did not specify it was actually ‘after’. A guy from The Telegraph even went along with that! Good old Harriet then said ‘none of these claims would have been paid out in the first place if they were ‘wrong”, but Straw’s antics singlehandedly contradict that statement. Think of how much we are losing in Europe to all of this corruption. MP’s should be MP’s for the right reasons and be beyond reproach. They should not have second jobs, should have no business connections and live and breath being honest and setting an example for the rest of us. They may not be a panacea, but i’m voting UKIP.

  10. George Dutton

    8 May, 2009 - 11:11 am

    And to think a single mother/father who works a few hours a week while claiming inadequate benefits to house,cloth and feed her/his children must be burnt at the stake and demonised.

  11. Ruth

    8 May, 2009 - 11:24 am

    I agree with JimGiro. A change of government will make no difference whatsoever.

    There is such massive corruption at the heart of government (those that make policy and direct the party in power) that when ministers fiddle expenses it is accepted behaviour.

    The real criminality of government is in its hidden economic measures.

  12. Jaded

    8 May, 2009 - 11:29 am

    Between the Tories and New Labour yes. If the Lib Dems get in it will make some difference and if UKIP get in it would make more difference. The key is pushing hard for immediate changes if an alternative party does get in. An alternative party actually getting in is the difficulty.

  13. tris

    8 May, 2009 - 11:30 am

    Where, oh where would this shoddy bunch of chancers be without blind “rules” and “targets”?

  14. nextus

    8 May, 2009 - 12:33 pm

    Morals are hugely important in politics. The government serves as the state’s moral executive, charged with implementing the moral will of the masses, and it needs to make major ethical choices when the rules have not yet been laid down. The MPs reveal their moral character by the choices they make, but they can’t rely on the ‘all within the rules’ mantra to justify them. And they know it.

    As their spokesperson, Harman voluntarily acknowledged the seriousness of their failure to command public confidence, the limitations of the rules and the steps needed to address them. But it’s too late. Her comment that the claims were made ‘in good faith’ is utterly false; the MPs who deviated from the normal patterns of reasonable claims were clearly twisting the rules in order to profiteer from the public purse ?” there could be no other purpose. So now we have a measure of their true moral nature, it’s up to us to judge their suitability for acting as our executive.

    If they broke the law, they would be judged by the judiciary; if they breached the rules (as some did) they should be judged by the institution imposing the rules. Transgressions of common morality are to be judged by the people. Unfortunately, the parliamentary system gives the electorate scant influence over politicians and the party system offers little choice between them.

    Time and again they’ve deviated from decency to the maximum extent, even reinterpreting definitions in the rules (e.g. ‘second home’, ‘complicity’, ‘torture’) to spite the underlying ethics. If the moral executive thinks that’s OK, we’re in trouble. How can we hold them morally accountable? Joint Committees and Public Enquiries aren’t up to the job, because they think their role is only to enforce the rules. So how else can we do it??

  15. JimmyGiro

    8 May, 2009 - 12:43 pm

    Hmmm, cui bono ?

    Having looked at some of these reports, it seems like we have two lists; the list of the named and the default list of the un-named.

    The second list is what I’d call the Harriet Harman list of the ‘un-named’, since she and those others not in the named list, will benefit relatively in as much as they are covered in less shit.

    Expect Harriet Harman to be promoted by the ‘un-named’, as the next party leader, very soon whilst the smell is still fresh.

  16. kathz

    8 May, 2009 - 1:41 pm

    I noticed that the Today programme said no Tory spokesman was willing to speak on the subject. Presumably we’ll soon hear about their expenses.

  17. Jason

    8 May, 2009 - 2:28 pm

    One MP chappie showed what a good sort he was by saying, “I left 40000UKP unclaimed…”

    Translated for normal folk:

    “I’m honest, because I could’ve stolen more.”

    This notion that morality is unimportant, that all that matters is “not breaking the rules” and that, even when this happens, it is always a question of “an oversight”, “an admin error”, “an inadvertent…” etc. The politicians just will no longer take any measure of personal responsibility. We could also push the point that issues that used to produce automatic resignations no longer do. And even those who do resign, Mandelson or Blunkett, appear to be on pieces of elastic and bounce back into view months later!

    The Tories are no better though.

  18. rules_my_foot

    8 May, 2009 - 2:59 pm

    Rules are Rules, so we are told!!!!!

    Who the effing hell wrote up these rules?

    The same bunch of benefit scrounging, fraudsters, whose selection to the post was based on their predisposition to lining their own pockets, and those of their masters, with nothing planned for change of any sorts for the great unwashed.

    Anyone whom ever entertained the notions of trying to bring about equity, liberty, and egality, in anyone of the major parties have always been branded; radical, loose cannon, extremist, ad nauseam. Simply put the current bunch of crooks sitting there and making up the rules as they go along, and then proclaiming the moral high ground by pointing to all and sundry that blame the rules not us Gov! Are only engaged in sophistry, for the benefit of confusing the addled brained punter another day, and claim yet another expense claim.

    Finally, Craig points out that Telegraph have made a pig’s ear out of the data, trouble is he is mistaken, Telegraph does not give a hoot about the expenses, all it, and its sponsors are busy with; is to foment an early election, and if not set up the grounds for the coming elections so that the new batch of the piggies can be trotted out and set up closer to the trough, so that these too can get their turn and get on with some serious claiming business, whilst keeping busy to the schedules of criminalizing we the people even more, and perhaps go as far as introducing a tariff for breaking wind, nuder the pretext of cutting down the emissions contributory to the global warming, hence slapping a fifty pence tax on a can of beans, and the rest of the food stuff, to keep the money rolling in, for the fear of frightening the millionaires off of our shores in search of a better tax haven.

    Lets face it, all those whom want to change our world for the better are left out, whilst a bunch of career politicians are left to get in to do a job which most of the people would do for free at a great expense. It is about time that on the application form for the “job” the following question is added; “how much remuneration would you expect if elected?”

  19. anticant

    8 May, 2009 - 2:59 pm

    Craig, I hope you will endorse Charles’s latest post. It seems a great idea to me.

  20. sam

    8 May, 2009 - 3:06 pm

    Bingo.

    The whole outrageous pig-trough fraud is inextricably and ineluctably part of a piece.

    This government manifests authentic signs and symptoms of deepest corruption. One of which signs is that no one involved appears to be able to recognise the terminal disease they harbour. That is the epitome of corruption, surely?

    One could almost feel pity for the whole herd – but only if their concerted activities were not so thoroughly immoral, evil and murderous.

    The huge problem is that this corruption now infests every layer of government and local government as well as just about all other gvt-dependent organisations.

    The even bigger problem is how to recover from this evil immorality. Once this administration is out, we’re going to be constantly regaled with horror story upon horror story about corruptions from minor to major. It’ll take the UK decades to recover. I believe things have become that rotten. We may even need a cleansing, redemptive Nuremburg moment.

  21. anticant

    8 May, 2009 - 3:51 pm

    You’re absolutely right, Sam. I’ve been bleating on for ages about the collapse of public morality. The worst part is, this government and their minions don’t seem to know what morality is, let alone that they haven’t got any. Yet they are constantly lecturing us on standards, how we should behave, etc. etc. like a lot of drunken nannies on a bender.

  22. Courtenay Barnett

    8 May, 2009 - 4:31 pm

    George – you say:-

    ” I agree with JimGiro. A change of government will make no difference whatsoever.

    There is such massive corruption at the heart of government (those that make policy and direct the party in power) that when ministers fiddle expenses it is accepted behaviour.

    The real criminality of government is in its hidden economic measures.”

    And – do you really think that the Troies are going to be any better? Sounds like a ‘change of system’ is what is needed…

  23. Jaded

    8 May, 2009 - 5:16 pm

    I think you are mistakenly reading above the comments as to the identity of who authored them – instead of below – on the odd occasion Courtenay.

  24. Polo

    8 May, 2009 - 7:16 pm

    I am a former Irish civil servant. I have travelled a fair bit in my work dealing with international financial institutions. When abroad, I always identified with what I call the Anglo-Saxon view of expenses. It was clear that British participants in meetings were always very aware that their expenses were financed by the taxpayer. They were careful spenders.

    I don’t know to what extent this was inbred or due to careful supervision of their expenses at home base. But no matter. It was an attitude, and one which I shared.

    At the end of my year’s service on the board of a multilateral financial institution HQ’d in London (how many of these are there?) it was pointed out to me that I could have had a ball with a corporate credit card, but the thought had never even occurred to me to put in for one. Again a question of attitude.

    There must be many civil servants in this position and they must be disgusted by the current attitude of the political class to swill the trough dry. I certainly am.

    BTW: “Anglo-saxon” is meant here in a complimentary sense equating to careful husbandry (& wifedry!)which I am sure the Celtic periphery would be happy to identify with.

  25. George Dutton

    8 May, 2009 - 11:14 pm

    “New Labour’s Total Immorality”

    7 May 2009

    “More pensioners living in poverty”

    “The number of pensioners living in poverty in Scotland has increased by 20,000, according to new figures”…

    http://tinyurl.com/p8e9go

  26. Courtenay Barnett

    9 May, 2009 - 1:53 am

    Jaded said: – “I think you are mistakenly reading above the comments as to the identity of who authored them – instead of below – on the odd occasion Courtenay.”

    Thanks for pointing out. Guess I got it ” bottom side up” instead of “bottom side down” – so to speak – huh?

  27. George Dutton

    9 May, 2009 - 8:32 am

    “Guess I got it ” bottom side up” instead of “bottom side down” – so to speak”

    “If the world is upside down the way it is now, wouldn’t we have to turn it over to get it to stand up straight?”

    Eduardo Galeano

    http://upsidedownworld.org/main/

  28. D. Edmund Brady

    9 May, 2009 - 10:30 am

    The only thing that matters now in our

    once great country is multi culturalism,

    political correctness, and the well being of those whores in Westminster, and it is all our own fault. That any human being is prepared to countenance torture for any reason at all is an illustration of what we have become. Our

    Christian heritage, and the principles

    of our civilisation are daily under remoresless attack, especially by our

    Marxist enemies that mysteriously the

    British people keep voting in, and yes

    that also includes the (sic) conservative party, with a very small c.

    Unless a real nationalist government takes control soon we will all become

    drones to the NWO. The EU will devour us

    when our “Leaders” go to them, as is planned, for financial help. God help us

    and our poor children.

  29. paul dray

    9 May, 2009 - 12:02 pm

    I find this incredulous, not because I am surprised, but because of the extent and the sheer blatant arrogance that these greedy burghers express themselves in excuses…I was on benefits of less than £80 a week for me and my little girl (I am a single parent- the causeof the split up from her mother? Financial stress brought on by paying more than half our meagre salaries on tax and rent). I had to beg a charity for help with a fridge, washing machine, and vacum cleaner (as I have asthma)…The State told me I can wash our clothes in the bath, buy food daily, and I can use a brush to sweep the dust from the busy main road where we lived…The MPs in question are earning £150,000 plus, that equates to just under £3,000 a week!! And they still get £22,000 to furnish a flat!! Why? When I am on the poverty line, they are earning way above wot I earned in a year, do they get such help?

    I only hope that there is a God and he will judge and punish these greedy people…

  30. Jaded

    9 May, 2009 - 12:35 pm

    ‘Thanks for pointing out. Guess I got it ” bottom side up” instead of “bottom side down” – so to speak – huh?’

    Yes, I can easily see how you got confusd though. Read a comment in the middle of the thread and it does seem logical that the author and comment would be in between the lines. When you decide to post a reply to a particular comment at the bottom of the thread you don’t happen to notice that the last entry on the thread is the author and not the comment. I think we should have a big debate about this. :-0

  31. Ian McKenzie

    9 May, 2009 - 2:18 pm

    Jealousy will cause a lot of in fighting and back-stabbing here. I think contrary to what most commentors seem to believe, that these “expenses” will always have existed as “perks” of the job, and any of the nouveaux riche will have fed greedily at the trough to maximise their “perks” each tax year. That it happens doesn’t surprise me, that anyone else is surprised does.

    The whole two party political pantomime involving the vote for either cheek of the same arse needs scrapping, as we will never get a politician who hasn’t been selected by the current system.

    The MSM are a tool of the elite albeit sometimes unwittingly. Very effectively controlling public opinion none the less. We will be carefully steered through all this shit ’till the swine flu starts up or Israel attacks Iran.

    The whole system needs an overhaul from the top down so that a genuinely representative and accountable government is installed.

    Take care guys, ian.

  32. Rob Piper

    9 May, 2009 - 2:39 pm

    It has always amazed me that during the late 1930s Hitler and his Nazi regime had to work within the legal system to define their ability to persecute and eliminate ‘undesirable’ minorities.

    Just because something falls under the statement of being legal does not mean that it is Lawful. We all live under a legal commercial system and most of us presume (with encouragement from those we allow to govern us) that this makes it a Lawful and Just system.

    Legal = Lawful is a complete lie.

    Those that we have allowed to govern us have usurped our authority and even changed the meaning of words so that whilst we feel what is wrong, one finds it difficult to explain why.

    We live in a One party state and as such change can never come through the legal electoral system.

    Only by refusing to play this rigged game can one have any hope of true change.

    I, for one, refuse to take any heed of deceivers and live MY life as I see fit within the truths I know to be right.

    We all need to be the adults that we truly are and not act as the children that need to be governed by ‘someone that knows better’.

  33. anticant

    9 May, 2009 - 6:07 pm

    They didn’t. Hitler passed emergency laws and established an effective dictatorship within weeks of being elected Chancellor in January 1933.

  34. Olive Farmer

    9 May, 2009 - 11:27 pm

    This is I think the first time I have visited this site and commented. I hope more experienced contributors will forgive my ignorance in some areas, which I am trying to address.

    The problem we have is clear and enormously difficult to overcome. A very old and highly organised bloodline of conspirators have achieved such an all- encompassing dominance for such a long period of time in so many aspects of “life” that we live in a world which is almost completely made up of false assumptions and deviant realities. The result, as they anticipated, is that it is impossible for any one person (or in fact any group of people without the organisation and control over resource that governments or the incredibly wealthy have) can perceive the entirety of the false reality. As each generation passes the recruitment and absorption into their system of the people who control all aspects of our lives becomes more systematic, wholesale and complete. They have their controlling influence on the world’s religions, governments and the police, army and security apparatus, on education, on healthcare, in the supply of energy, food and water and via their “global warming” crusade soon to be control over and taxation on the very air we breathe. Their poisoning of food and water supplies and their control over the legal and illegal drug trades designed to dumb down their herd is augmented by their control of the press. Their control of the world’s money supply, their usury and the indebtedness of every nation state and so the whole of mankind to them is the root and branch of their control and the means by which they recruit their apparatchiks.

    They decide the issues, they decide the agenda. They always control both sides of every issue and have historically proven their ability to do so. There can be no doubt that they are already taking the lead and will try to assume control of the loose coalitions increasingly found on the internet categorised as “conspiracy theorists”. Knowing their sphere of command and taking as read their ability to carry out false flag operations it is only a matter of time before anyone that visits a site such as this will be categorised as a terrorist, vilified in the press for the “education” of the herd, made an example of and used as an excuse for the introduction of more draconian regulations.

    The evil that these people perpetrate is so far ranging as to beggar belief.

    Every war is theirs.

    Every baby that takes a bullet.

    Every person that dies because of their sick control of drug companies’ research and their deliberate burying of cures for the major illness plagues (and probably their promulgation in the first place).

    Every person that lives a life of fear; fear of debt, fear of war, fear of acts of terrorism, fear of disease, fear of impoverishment, fear for the future.

    All of these can be laid at their door.

    What is rarely seen on sites such as these is an answer. This is hardly surprising. What can one man conceive of that can defeat these evil conspirators? They have recruited into their ranks and subverted the morality and bent to their will the finest minds and the most aggressive and psychopathic mentalities for centuries. They have a long established family business, and that business is domination, and they are extremely good at it. The majority of people are ignorant of their crimes and believe the reality these people create for them and scoff at alternative views of reality and vilify and even attack those that propose a different truth, even one that is self evident. Many ordinary people are caught in their web of control as participators and don’t even recognise the fact: the doctor prescribing their drugs, the teacher teaching (unknowingly) false science and false history, the policeman watching you via his cameras, the soldier shooting for a false patriotism defending you from an invented enemy, worse of all the bureaucrats enforcing their regulations , the bank employees selling their usury, the press reporting their world view.

    Even amongst this community there are many who cling to elements of the lies fed to them. No man can be truly free of every element of their false reality. We all of us believe in one bit of history that is a lie, buy one product that is a poison, believe in a scripture that they created, follow a blog that they are behind, believe in a misguided notion of supremacy, buy one piece of their system, vote for “the other party”. “We” argue amongst ourselves when unity of a massive scale is required.

    When an organisation of such complexity and depth such as this evil empire presents itself the answering struggle has to be either as well funded, well organised, have the same access to media and the same control over repressive forces (police, army, secret services, the entire apparatus of control) as the opposition , or it has to find a different route. That different route can only be an idea. One single, simple, popular, unarguable, achievable concept that can bring down the edifice of control and reshape the world. We can decide what that shape will be afterwards, the important thing is to decide on the one idea and make it happen, right now. Take that idea and spread it in every way we can, through every media we can access (even by spending our own money), in every conversation we have, in every language in the world to every person in the world. One idea that will spread faster than their viruses and more powerfully than they can control.

    As John Pilger said in one of his excellent documentaries there are two world powers, America and public opinion. The latter should be harnessed to take from the ruling elite all of those instruments of Government power and control which they currently access via their control of the major political parties in all the world’s democracies.

    Maybe that idea should be that, at every election in the world in countries where elections are held, electors choose only candidates who are not and never have been members or affiliates of political parties.

    The rallying cry : “Start Again”

  35. Jaded

    10 May, 2009 - 12:59 am

    I’m not going to nitpick. I do agree with a fair bit of that. The trouble is as soon as any opposition begins to form a coherent structure and becomes a serious threat they will seek to ruthlessly eliminate it. You are quite right that people like us are probably being monitored on this blog right now. I don’t want to see any bloodshed, even for the ‘baddies’. After winning, we can stick them all on the Galapagos Islands or something and hope they evolve. I think, for the moment at least, that our war is to spread enlightenment and knowledge. Things are certainly moving forward in that respect. The internet is very hard for them to control. I’m sure they are looking into it as we speak though! :-0

  36. anticant

    10 May, 2009 - 6:39 am

    “A very old and highly organised bloodline of conspirators have achieved an all- encompassing dominance for such a long period of time…”

    Names, please! Who are these people? They sound like the devil incarnate. Illuminati? Bilderburgers? Freemasons? Rosicrucians? The Rothschilds? The Vatican? The Fed? Hollywood?

    I suppose taking a spine-chilling gallop down paranoia gulch saves you from the trouble of analysing the world situation more sensibly.

    We are indeed in a situation where some powerful tails are wagging large inert dogs – always have been – but I don’t believe for a moment that there is a single all-wise all-knowing all-powerful bunch of people manipulating everything. That’s far too simplistic. It also conveniently lets you and me off the hook of taking responsibility for anything ourselves.

  37. Ian McKenzie

    10 May, 2009 - 8:43 am

    I suppose taking a spine-chilling gallop down paranoia gulch saves you from the trouble of analysing the world situation more sensibly.

    you mock my friend, yet if you believe that the governments decide issues unpressured by powerful groups of very rich people, then it is you who is disillusioned, or perhaps you are happy with the status quo.

  38. Ian McKenzie

    10 May, 2009 - 8:47 am

    Olive Farmer. well written post. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

  39. anticant

    10 May, 2009 - 9:03 am

    Yes, I do believe that but I don’t believe it is a single tightly-knit group of super-intelligent omniscient all-powerful titans. I think there are quite a lot of sinister backroom influences at work, but not just one tiny handful of evil bogeymen. If you go down that road, you merely end up feeling more and more helpless and frightened and don’t take any action to improve matters you could in fact have an influence upon.

  40. anticant

    10 May, 2009 - 9:30 am

    In fact, I think the situation is much worse than the Illuminati/Bilderburger bugaboo. I think that a growing number of countries’ governments, including the USA and to some extent our own, have been infiltrated by an increasingly powerful international criminal mafia who make no pretence of having any global political interests or goals, and whose sole concern is making money by whatever means they can, no holds barred. They operate in the first place through corruption, and don’t hesitate to resort to violence when necessary. The international drugs trade is a case in point, as is arms dealing. And our current methods of policing fraud are quite inadequate to tackle the problem (witness Blair’s closing down the BAE/Saudi arms deal fraud investigation).

  41. salialioli

    10 May, 2009 - 9:30 am

    Anticant said: “I suppose taking a spine-chilling gallop down paranoia gulch saves you from the trouble of analysing the world situation more sensibly” and “It also conveniently lets you and me off the hook of taking responsibility for anything ourselves.”

    Well hey! That’s great anticant, I think Olive Farmer is utterly and completely right in all her/his analysis, but you are an anti-united front come to sneer with an insupportably superior take on others’ opinions. Who +do+ you think you are? Sensible?

    It is spine-chilling to read your words, as obviously you have not understood a single word.

    My humble thanks to Olive, a person who is alive and breathing unlike the dead negative mister anti-whatever ….

    Dear me. What is it about “No man can be truly free of every element of their false reality. We all of us believe in one bit of history that is a lie, buy one product that is a poison, believe in a scripture that they created, follow a blog that they are behind, believe in a misguided notion of supremacy, buy one piece of their system, vote for “the other party”. “We” argue amongst ourselves when unity of a massive scale is required… (end quote)” that anticant doesn’t understand?

    I am no paranoid individual, yet in this high weirdness that we find ourselves I agree with Olive, “A very old and highly organised bloodline of conspirators have achieved such an all- encompassing dominance for such a long period of time in so many aspects of “life” that we live in a world which is almost completely made up of false assumptions and deviant realities. The result, as they anticipated, is that it is impossible for any one person …. [to] ……perceive the entirety of the false reality.”

    Name names you cry. Is this sensible?

    And Olive Farmer nails it again, “What is rarely seen on sites such as these is an answer. This is hardly surprising. What can one man conceive of that can defeat these evil conspirators?”

    Olive didn’t suggest this wasn’t one huge operation. Your double negative not Olive’s. Who said this was a tiny little group?

    Well I have an answer. Work for free. It’s the only thing that can break power. Any work, create the meme. Every time I try it I reap rewards ten-fold more valuable in human goodwill than can be calculated in monetary units.

    Thank you Craig, for all you do. Many appreciate your efforts.

  42. Ian McKenzie

    10 May, 2009 - 10:08 am

    Some good points anti’ but I still think Olive farmer is not far from the mark. Sal’s also on the money. Nice to see thinking isn’t dead.

  43. anticant

    10 May, 2009 - 10:27 am

    Well, Salialioli, if you agree with Olive, fine. There’s no need to sneer at me in such a rude way because I find her thesis too simplistic.

    My point is that not everything which happens is the result of deliberate and conscious conspiracy. I grant you there are such conspiracies – 9/11 was one of them – but the series of events they set in train are not pre-planned or foreseen in detail.

    Once an event like 9/11 has occurred, there are plenty of ‘useful idiots’ to act out the script. And don’t forget the cock-up theory. Please read my previous post of 9.30am to understand my viewpoint better. My point is that common criminality may be even more influential than deliberate political manipulation.

    And if you want to continue debating with me, leave out the personal insults. (It’s not insulting to suggest that someone is rather paranoid. We most of us are these days. And with good reason.)

  44. Ian McKenzie

    10 May, 2009 - 12:55 pm

    Your take then anticant on why our government are implementing all manner of police state laws under the pretext of fighting “non-existent” terror?? also the allowing of mass immigration, and the promotion of homosexuality and lesbianism using the press and the film industry. Gordon Brown behind it all I suppose???.

  45. anticant

    10 May, 2009 - 5:34 pm

    The government drum up all these hugely inflated and mostly entirely empty terrorist scares because they are fed paranoid false intelligence by our very right-wing security services and also by the CIA. After all, there’s a lot of potential career development in professional spookery.

    The point I keep trying to make is that while there may well be elements of deliberate conspiracy and ‘false flag’ operations in what’s happening, most of it results from genuine naivety, confusion and alarm on the part of ministers and officials.

    But as they are such a cluless and incompeteng lot in so many respects, are you really surprised?

  46. anticant

    10 May, 2009 - 5:35 pm

    Sorry – my typing’s going to pot.

  47. Ian McKenzie

    10 May, 2009 - 8:00 pm

    No problem anticant, take care, ian.

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