The nauseating smugness of the Davos gathering is sickening enough at the best of times. In these very bad times, it is unbearable. The idea that we just need to recover confidence and get credit moving again, was precisely what the promoters of the South Seas and Darien schemes said when those schemes collapsed. The Church of England were quite right to characterise New Labour’s proposed remedies as “An addict returning to his drug”.
Brown’s extraordinary reliance on paid advisers from the merchant banks themselves to devise the way forward is laughable – not to mention the hideously unpleasant Baroness Vedera, one of the endless stream of democratically unaccountable Brown cronies parachuted into the Lords as ministers. And if one more penny of public money gets put into the banks without all bank bosses and staff being put on civil service pay rates, I am organising a tax strike.
Am in the middle of moving house, so no more from me until the end of the week.
Eddie, you really are a schmuck!
You didn’t provide any evidence Chavez encouraged attacks against the Jews. Not that I, for one minute, ever thought you weren’t doing anything other than lying upon reading your turrets like drivel.
And as for Pilgers ‘sacking…
Are you referring to this? “The magazine is refusing to recognise the National Union of Journalists, has made a number of long-time staffers redundant, and has apparently ditched star columnist John Pilger” {my emphasis} – Dave Osler, one of The New Statesman’s regular contributors on 20th Jan 2009.
So you know better than Osler? ?” rriiiight, but wait!, what’s this…?
“The politics of bollocks” 05 February 2009 – John Pilger in… The New Statesman. http://www.newstatesman.com/writers/john_pilger.
Another lie Eddie? Really. Give me the address of a trusted friend, and I’ll send you a tenner for you to buy some tissues, so you can buy some tissues to try and wipe off the copious amounts of dodo that covers you; even if it so too late.
Actually eddie was correct up to a certain point. See this link. The Guardian did announce that Mr Pilger had been got rid of but then retracted. The circulation is tiny so no one reads him in any case.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jan/19/new-statesman-job-cuts
Eddie was right up to the point where he was wrong. Yeah.
Not that would matter to someone of Eddie perspective.
The NSm circulation may be small (I dont know either way) but Pilger is hailed as one of the people who is responsible for the % readership it actually holds.
These days, “dead tree media” as the inspirational Bridget Dunne sometimes calls it, face HUGE revenue problems, mostly due to the WWweb. Even widely read internet sites face a revenue problem. Look at InformationClearingHouse.
Something like over 1m readers a month, yet only about 140 people respond to the monthly appeals. Given that Tom constantly has to point out his costs have not been met, it seems of those 140 contributors, the average donation is quite small – I would speculate.
Pilger I’m sure does have large readership. On ICH, his articles quickly attract comments. +’ve or -‘ve still indicate readership.
Pilger is also regarded as a REAL journalist. His documentaries on Cambodia were astounding. I was in a state of shock for weeks (yes, real physical shock) when I watched his year zero documentary and that was only about a year ago – long after the worst of the famine had occurred. I still feel the old shock when I think about it.
Pilgers latin and South American reportage, his Vietnam, E.Timor, Indonesian, Chagosians, victims of Globalisation, Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan and even the on the horrid propaganda the west pumped out in the cold war are a ceaseless demonstration of the pinnicle of that ancient art we used to call journalism.
Pilger also warned of the snake in the grass mass murdering filthy sadist child killer Tony f’ing Blair. But like Obama peoples desperate need for something else, ANYTHING else (must be better than what we had before) made those words of warning vanish like mist on a sunny day.
Within the journalism ‘profession’ (yeah, very apt word if I must say so myself) Pilger is a mountain amongst some very scared little obedient mice.
Eddie being a tick on the back of one of those mice can’t seem to perceive that mountain however.
But so what.
Let Eddie continue to see what Eddie wants to.
The NS circulation is about 18,000 – tiny really. Pilger has a great appeal to student types because he sees the world in black and white but I don’t think many people beyond such circles view him seriously these days. His work tends to be sloppy and poorly researched and it opens him up to often valid criticism from other commentators.
“His work tends to be sloppy and poorly researched” – I’m VERY familiar with Pilger’s work.
I don’t recognise ANY of that description in his work. Can you give me some examples of his “sloppy and poor research”??
Thanks.
Protean,
Why do people who happen to disagree with pure fact just because it suits them always say that an author is “sloppy and poorly researched”. His facts are considerably better researched than anything that passes for 99.9% of journalism these days.
It really is very lazy to accuse someone of black and white thinking just because you find their facts uncomfortable. It’s like that damned awful BBC banging on about impartiality. The truth is not defined in such ridiculous ways. Sometimes the truth demands that one side of a story is exposed as stupid or immoral or just plain evil simply because that is the truth. Facts are the sacred thing, not impartiality which may be exercised over time and space but not within each individual piece of reporting. If the facts demand a conclusion then that should be pursued. Mitigation can be offered where appropriate, but that is not always the case.
Dear lwtc247,
I’m not a stickler for these things. I just notice them in the work of others, unfortuantely, not in my own. It’s a irritating blind spot.
You might want to use it again, so, it’s called tourette’s syndrome. A ‘turret’ is something on castle or a tank.
When I was a boy, John Pilger used to roam the world writing about things he saw for the millions of people who read the Daily Mirror in the UK.
It must have been a young journalist’s dream come true. His brief was simple. The editor thought his readers needed to know something about what was happening out there. So off he went.
Pilger’s career trajectory is instructive and illustrates how the press in Britain has degenerated over the years. Once he had a readership of millions, now he’s almost hanging on by his teeth, a marginalised figure, with a column in the New Statesman, even though his status is almost legendary and his style hasn’t changed. What’s changed is the media landscape around him and the country. The room for honest dissent has been squeezed tighter and tighter.
His last flourish, at least in the mainstream media in the UK, was once again in the Daily Mirror, where he stripped the New Labour lies about the necessity of invading Iraq to the bone. The form of honesty and open criticism of the Anglo-American war policy is unacceptable, and soon Pilger was gone and the Daily Mirror and its editor Peers Morgan were neutered by the security services.
I doubt Pilger will ever be allowed back into mainstream press again. He’s just too honest and he’s clearly ‘unreliable.’
What’s amusing is that we are always being told that we live in a democracy, with individual freedom, yet, if one looks at the press it’s striking how uniform the nationals are on most subjects of importance, especially foreign policy. For example, the invasion of Iraq can be called a ‘mistake’ or a ‘blunder’ but hardly ever a ‘crime.’ This would be going too far.
Israel’s illegal colonies are only referred to as ‘settlements.’ The phrase ‘occupied territories’ is nowhere to be found. And the most important one, the United States is a benign power, that makes mistakes, but is really trying to do good in the world.
This last bit is an article of faith, and the consequences of being perceived as ‘off-message’ on this one are serious, one is deemed ‘radioactive.’ Justin Webb, the BBC’s North America editor, even has/had a radio series called ‘America – Empire of Freedom.’ Think about that for a second. An Empire, of Freedom! I almost thought it was meant to be ironic. It isn’t. What it shows is that Webb has internalised the attitudes and ideology of American Imperial dogma and self-delusion to the degree where he opens himself up to ridicule. But that doesn’t matter to a true, useful, and above all loyal servant of the Empire.
But aren’t these kinf of people, who inhabit all sections of our society, personified by Blair, really ‘traitors’ to the UK? In the sense that they put the interests of a foreign power, the United States, first, because they know where their bread is buttered. Loyalty is handsomely rewarded, dissent is punished in comparison.
I don’t find Pilger’s fact uncomfortable because they are’nt really facts. The problem with Pilger is that he has a certain world view that is old-fashioned, so the reason he is now a marginalised figure is that he is a bit of a dinosaur, living on past glories. What he did, he did well, a bit like Michael Moore, but as soon as you start to analyse his style you realise it is not at all objective and that it is full of errors. You can find plenty of critiques of his work from serious commentators all over the web so I don’t think I need to list them for you. He has an agenda and that is his problem, so in that sense he is not a seeker after “truth” (whatever that is) as you suggest, but a seeker after “facts” that fit his agenda. He seems to think the cold war is still in progress.
Sorry, I dropped out of the conversation there for a minute. A pod of jellyfish had washed up on the beach and I had to run around ladling water on them and otherwise encourage to swim back etc. Eventually I remembered it was whales we do this for and not jellyfish. I did feel a bit silly.
Writerman, how nicely put that was. You nailed it to a tee. And without mixing any metaphors too. On the subject of Pilger I’ve got my fingers crossed that he continues with his documentaries and sells them himself via his website. I bought some. They’re brilliant.
Otherwise Eddie, what were you doing referring to a thing I wrote about disinfo merchants and Venezuela? Why not send people here? You’ll groove on this one since it’s me agreeing with the rightness of our various governments declaring war on foreigners. Check it out Eddie. It’ll be music to your ears.
PS Fingers crossed html links work in these comments.
Nope, didn’t work. Let’s try this –
http://churchofnobody.blogspot.com/2009/01/i-cease-opposition-government-was-right.html
February 7, 2009
“Kissinger Sent to Russia to Cut New World Order Deal”
“It is yet another glaring example there is no difference between Bush, Obama, or anybody else anointed by the global elite to serve as presidential window dressing ?” the Daily Telegraph reports this morning that former Reichsminister of State and Rockefeller minion Henry Kissinger was dispatched by the Obama administration to talk with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev about reducing stockpiles of nuclear warheads.”
“The CFR, Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderbergers have one objective ?” to create world government under the guise of a New World Order”…
http://tinyurl.com/c4rsqj
“The CFR, Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderbergers have one objective ?” to create world government under the guise of a New World Order”…
The increasing boldness with which the likes of Kissinger and our own Mr Brown make their calls for a New World Order are a reflection of how close they feel they are to their goal. As things stand, I’d call it confidence rather than hubris, as the majority of people’s thought processes are almost entirely dormant when it comes to the meaning of this phrase.
Both wars and economic crises are meant to change society irreversibly – a fact plainly demonstrated by history. There will be no return to ‘the way things were’.
“We use our grant-making power so as to alter life in the United States that it can be comfortably merged with the Soviet Union.”
http://www.supremelaw.org/authors/dodd/interview.htm
Needless to say, the above does not apply only to the US.
Corporations will become largely indistinguishable from government as per the Mussolini model. The vast bulk of the population will exist solely to serve this apparatus as per the Communist model. Those who have labeled the NWO ‘global feudalism’ are indeed very close to the mark.
The way to stop this is to fill in the missing pieces between the end goal and the present and to then tell people what is going to happen next. Those who scoffed two years ago as I told them their economy was going to be deliberately destroyed are rather more receptive now.
The other thing to keep in mind at all times is that none of this can be accomplished without our help. Every time we choose ‘convenience’ over informed consideration of consequences we drive another nail into the coffin of self-determination and freedom. This ‘oyster card’ mentality has to be reversed.
“This ‘oyster card’ mentality has to be reversed.”
Me thinks it’s too late.Time will tell.
Great quality of exchange of information and thoughts, the moment the shills quiet down, thank you all.
George Dutton, you want to be right ? Or you know something we don’t ?
There may be some glimmers of hope here and there. Russia’s swift dispatch of Georgia (read CIA/Israel) in August was probably a major and unexpected setback for the NWO.
The imminent closure of the US base in Kyrgyzstan is another major setback.
The financial meltdown may have gone a bit too far – even elite Fed banks like Morgan Chase are wobbling.
Growing social unrest and protests worldwide may pressage a growing awareness and politicisation.
The Codex Alimentarius, perhaps the most immediate threat, seems to be stalling.
Chin up guys, there’s still a lot to play for.
“Russia’s swift dispatch of Georgia (read CIA/Israel) in August was probably a major and unexpected setback for the NWO.”
95 percent of visible politics is theatre, there to bring the public mind around to accepting the unacceptable.
The Georgia fiasco was indeed an example of that remaining 5 percent. It wasn’t in the script. The closer we get to the final chapter, the more in-fighting we are going to see between the players vying to be on top when the Great Plan concludes.
As to the economic ‘crisis’ – controlling a slow-motion train wreck of your own creation is never an easy task. A few losses for the big win is perfectly acceptable.
Governments have long planned for the predictable riots that will ensue. Provided control over the police and military can be maintained there is little in this to give them pause.
“Evil has every advantage but one – imagination” W. H. Auden
We should take this piece of wisdom very seriously – and apply it to our actions. Power relies on the same old tricks working time after time. And they do – until someone throws something unexpected into the machinery . . . .
How is Codex stalling, MJ ?
They built up the USA, communist Russia (see Antony Sutton), “modern” Iran (Iran-Contra etc) and Israel just like they financed Hitler (see “The final solution to Adolf Hitler” by Jim Condit), they are preparing a WW3 of West against East, inciting Christians Jews and Muslims against each other, all are meant to be destroyed during their Monopoly game.
Yes we are quite predatory and even more programmable. Destroying is easier then protecting and building. They are already killing a third of us with cancer and the medical death industry. Money is in their hands and people increasingly corrupt. Secret services and societies are a well established power base, the mass media totally controlled, unrest usually directed from above. Planned destruction of nature, cultures and overpopulation is reaching a point where many are ready and secretly willing to participate in a global culling (see Georgia guidestones by Lucis Trust NY) and genocide.
If the banksters wish to destroy everything, they will, however if they wish to build something new, it is still possible they overestimate their power to transform humanity into a herd of suicidal egoists. Their game theory is flawed and they might fall victim to their own deceptions before they reach their goal of total control.
“How is Codex stalling, MJ ?”
Correct if I’m wrong, but with regard to supplements I understand that the European Court has made at least one significant amendment to the proposed legislation in that the onus will be on the drug companies to prove they are harmful, not on the producers to prove they are safe. It looks therefore as though we are not going to lose our supplements at the end of this year.
I understand also that the main Codex meetings are getting increasingly bogged down in procedural issues, with China and Brazil being particularly disruptive in this regard. Again, correct me if I’m wrong.
Great, thank you.
Where do you follow those news ?
Frank:
“Governments have long planned for the predictable riots that will ensue. Provided control over the police and military can be maintained there is little in this to give them pause.”
True, but my point was really about increased awareness and politicisation. The more transparent their agenda becomes and the more heavy-handed their enforcment of it becomes – as it must – then perhaps the more likely it is that the slumbering giant that is the global population will at last awake and exercise its imagination.
Researcher:
“Where do you follow those news ?”
Good question. I was following matters Codex very closely up until a couple of months ago, when I stumbled across the above, heaved a sigh of relief and moved on. Unfortunately the pages where I read them are no longer in my history folder. It may need some intense googling.
Thanks for caring deeply, MJ.
Do you know the Firefox extension Breadcrumbs ?
It creates a searchable archive of the contents of visited websites:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2954
Craig, this would be an interesting subject, where can one follow news as little manipulated as possible, just to keep an overview of developments ?
“George Dutton, you want to be right ?”
researcher
What a VERY stupid thing to say to someone.Didn’t you read my post I said..”Me thinks”…Still in your case stupid is as stupid be…”Me thinks”.
Why do you think it’s too late ?
“Why do you think it’s too late ?”
What is there to tell you it is NOT too late…That is the question (I sound like Thatcher there).
But to answer your question…
Science and technology have given the few unprecedented powers to control ALL off mankind,and the given history off mankind and how in the past he has used power to gain control of his fellow man.Also (you have to think about this)when did mankind EVER make a weapon to kill/control his fellow man and NOT use it to do so…sooner then later?.I can’t think off one?…I said “unprecedented powers” above…well that is not true (as such)the romans came up with new ways to fight this gave them GREAT powers to control many nations…now what did they do with this power.
Idiocy is usually described as “endlessly repeating the same process, hoping for a different result”.
George:
“What is there to tell you it is NOT too late”
The fact that it hasn’t quite happened yet, in its entirety at least.
“the romans came up with new ways to fight this gave them GREAT powers”
Yet eventually they were defeated.
“Yet eventually they were defeated.”
MJ
As I said above…”Science and technology have given the few unprecedented powers to control ALL off mankind”…Even the early/late Romans didn’t have that power (as such).But then again,I am telling you nothing you don’t already know in your heart MJ…
http://tinyurl.com/con87a
Those in need of a cheer-up could do worse than visit the Grauniad’s Cif section, wherein a government tool foolishly attempts to put ID card/UKBC critics’ minds at rest.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/09/ukbordersagency-idcards
I’ve never witnessed such an undiluted outpouring of scorn on that site as this post has produced. Not a single comment even remotely in her defense. Enjoy.
False optimism can be dangerous.
But to lose hope in advance (“Time will tell”) has effects like defeatism.
I don’t like hurting your feelings, George Dutton, but emotions are the often decisive foundations of our actions. These underlying motivations need to be discussed without intimidation or ridicule. You think we have lost already, but your thoughts as explained above are much thinner then what you posted before. That’s why i’m glad that you say you don’t cling to your conclusion.
Why would MJ know in his heart that we have lost already ?
Verismo, the comments there are encouraging. Signs of a population well aquainted with a totally detached and authoritarian government, yet not intimidated.