I had a rather peculiar happy thought today, caused by a somewhat aggressive phone call I received yesterday. The happy thought is that, while I am generally regarded as a pleasant and amusing fellow, there are a small but definite number of people who absolutely detest me.
How can that be a happy thought? Well, let me list them. I do not include people I surmise may dislike me, but only those I know for sure are aware of my existence and have said very nasty things about me:
Islam Karimov
Tony Blair
Jerry Rawlings
Gordon Brown
Tim Spicer
Jack Straw
Alisher Usmanov
Peter Mandelson
Gulnara Karimova
Baroness Amos
Lord Taylor of Blackburn
David Aaronovitch
That really is a collection of deeply unlovely people. If I have managed to do anything to protect anyone else from the effects of their relentlessly succesful and acquisitive lives, then I have achieved something in my life after all.
david
for Dick Cheney Craig is probably just a friend he hasn’t shot in the face yet
MJ wrote “Regarding Blair, is it true that his recent conversion to Catholicism has rather a lot to do with his ambition to becime President of the EU (Lord help us)?”
…or failing that Pope perhaps? (I wonder which would be more lucrative…)
SUHAYL SAADI wrote:
“Don’t lose heart, John! Vigorous discourse – with those whom we disagree or partially agree or even with those with whom we almost entirely agree – is a sign of internal strength.”
And trying to behave like King Canute, attempting to hold back the tide is a sign of insanity. The British people are accepting total surveillance of their lives, and this is symbolic of things generally.
The government wants to spend £12 billion OF OUR MONEY on building a centralized database on all our electronic communication activity, and no one is saying or doing a damn thing.
I spoke to one ISP that keeps a record of their users’ activity – the e-mails they send, the Web sites they visit, etc. – and they said they have received a number of police requests that they have REFUSED because they were trivial.
This is why the people in government want to spend £12 billion of our money, so that they can access all our records without any oversight or court order – that’s how it looks, and only someone born yesterday would think otherwise. And no one should fool themselves that the contents of their e-mails, etc., are safe. The software inside black boxes has been kept secret, and this extra information has, in some cases, been found to be siphoned off – and don’t think it was by accident either.
There should be outrage that government departments, local councils, health care providers, police, and others, will soon be able to snoop on our private lives any time they want without any accountability or oversight. This is NOT about fighting crime or terrorism. This is about total control of our lives. This is about those in power considering themselves the supreme beings to which we must all defer and justify ourselves.
All aspects of our lives are increasingly being regulated via surveillance, from driving our cars, building extensions to our homes, to how we behave in the street – and this control will soon be extended to the Internet.
The French wouldn’t even stand for a database on their politicians’ online activity, let alone one on tens of millions of ordinary citizens.
When I’ve tried to explain this to others, they say, well, we’re being spied on already, so what does it matter? They don’t see the difference between intelligence services doing a “bit” of eavesdropping for fighting terrorism, with a government that wants to hold a record of everything every citizen does online and off, and make this information available to numerous government departments for purposes completely unrelated to terrorism.
“Struggle has never been easy.”
There is no struggle going on in this country.
“Don’t give up!”
I haven’t given up. The British people have, and, as I said, I would be insane to think I’m capable of achieving that which King Canute could not.
Obama does one “good” thing, and even Craig Murray now thinks he’s a genuine guy.
Those in government are the nice guys, the caring guys, while us, the public, are vermin, incapable of working out who is nice, who is nasty, and what is in our best interests.
Even Craig criticised me when I made some negative posts about Britain – when I was feeling somewhat depressed – and he said all I do is complain, or words to that effect. I don’t trust anyone involved in politics – I think that’s a sensible stance to take.
“I also mentioned some time ago that at this time political websites would be infiltrated en masse by organised pro-Israeli elements…”
My problem is with the British. All our freedoms are being taken away, and, soon, I won’t even be allowed to be critical of anything. I don’t want to live in a country like this, I don’t want to live like this – in an open prison! So, I’m concentrating on emigrating one day, and not wasting my life on politics, which is a very dirty, evil, business.
People on here, for example, have said that Britain should not be joining the U.S. in its criminal foreign policy, as if we are the good guys. Britain had an empire – we have never been the good guys abroad. It was Britain, for example, that wanted the Shah installed into power so that the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (BP) could keep taking Iranian oil under an agreement that impoverished the Iranians. But Britain was forced to enlist U.S. help after Mossadeq kicked the British out, suspicious that something was afoot – as, indeed, it was.
But thanks, Suhayl Saadi, for the friendly response to my post. You’re clearly not a politician. 😉
Good post, Other John, but it isn’t true that “no one is saying or doing a damn thing”. See:
http://www.modernliberty.net/
Add a second voice to Suhayl Saadi, Other John.
Politicians are like arseholes, they follow you every where you go. So leaving one political slave colony (a nation state) to go to another is no escape.
Freedom is as much psychological as physical, probably more so. You can never be physically free until you believe you are.
Having said that, at least I have discovered ‘nobody’ from these – Craig’s ‘comments’ section – and his blog. I cherish those small oasis’ of sanity in an insane world.
The predatory perverts of politics will continue their egotistical holocaust against humanity (with the financial backing of big business) and all the powerless can do is oppose it as best they can in their own individual way.
Lord Taylor of Blackburn is one small facet of the terrorism of greed.
As for the masochistic masses as long as they refuse to see what is in front of them there is little you can do to save them. They prefer to be abused by the sadistic elite to being responsible – such is human history.
I don’t see anhilation on the horizon – just the continuation of that history.
As for Obama, he is going to be about as radical as my backside. Being black means nothing. He is another President, the forty-forth. If he were genuinely radical he would never have made it through the selection process for the job – systems are self-sustaining.
Still, if you find a utopia out there make up a spare bed, mate. I don’t even know if this will get ‘published’ or pulled for being to bleak. My view of reality scares off most people.
Either way, good luck for the future, wherever it may be. Later.
Hullo Mike, too kind by half. And ‘sanity’ mate? Do you understand nothing? I’m not sane in a mad world. I’m mad in a sane world. I say this because only a mad man would think the former is true. And I’m certainly not that!
Oh dear, did I just disappear up my own clacker? Damn.
Otherwise, Other John, perhaps you should come to Australia. And as you walk out of Sydney airport and are met by the lorikeets hanging upside down in the paperbarks, you can take a deep breath and ask yourself, ‘Could it be? Is this my country?’ And in doing so you will have instantly become like every other Australian asking precisely the same question.
Just beginning to try and understand all this Thanks Craig, for the books with believable facts. If John Major can get away with openly profiting from armaments, war, why should’t Straw, Taylor etc.?
Hi nobody
“Do you understand nothing?”
When I was young I thought I understood everything; when I was older I thought I understood nothing; and now I think nothing is understandable.
“I’m not sane in a mad world. I’m mad in a sane world.”
I can beat your hand – I’m mad in a mad world!
Clackers ahoy!
Mr Murray
In your list you missed the previous and current ambassadors of Uzbekistan in London and their political advisers who, especially previous ones, played a significant role in pressing on Foreign Office and getting you sucked from your job.
Anyone know what Aaronovitch said about Craig? He’s my fave (IE: Most despicable new labour zionist toady) journo of the Decent Left. Nick Cohen a close second.
I shall continue to recommend this blog on Guardian CiF ; Craig– you seriously shame the majority of so-called journalists .
How long before you do a Shayler/Icke and declare yourself the Son of God?
I love the use of the word ‘broadcaster’ at the top of the blog. Is this presently the most pretentiously used word in the English language? The moment I heard someone use the phrase ‘The broadcaster, Vanessa Feltz’ I thought that had topped it, but then I saw your blog.
Keep drinking the Kool-Aid.
if the comments here represent those that “like” you as opposed to those that “dislike” you, i would like to make this observation……………..whilst those that feature on your list may take exception to your viewpoint, they are still eminent and learned people who deserve respect, unlike those who appear to support your position. they seem to be a motley crew of the usual suspects. when your “like” team reads along the lines of your “dislike” team i will pay more attention. right now you seem to be a goofball and a crackpot with a tendency towards grandiosity.