The fashionable left continues its attempt to co-opt and elevate gangsters and violent thieves by an extremely poor article in the Guardian on the Duggan shooting. The Guardian acknowledge that Duggan had a gun, and that it was loaded, but call him “unarmed” on the basis that it was in a shoebox. The police, incidentally, deny that.
It is still completely beyond me why so many commenters on this blog seek to conflate the genuine problems police confront as they are increasingly faced with violent armed criminals, with the genuinely indefensible police actions in cases like their killing of Jean Charles De Menezes. Refusal to acknowledge the difference devalues the arguments around what is and is not reasonable for the police to do. Duggan is not De Menezes. The police were quite right to believe that Duggan was armed. Something went wrong in that Duggan was shot – but it was not an action without reason.
At a banal level, I had a really horrible journey down from St Andrews yesterday on a very overcrowded East Coast train, with the now routine problem of people sitting on the floor between coaches. In the coach which I was in, two tables of young people were listening to extremely loud music on a boombox. It really was very unpleasant, and prevented others from sleeping, reading etc. Two or three passengers asked them to turn it down, which they would do for perhaps thirty seconds and then turn it right up again. One notably old lady who had the misfortune to be seated back to back with them was called a “stupid old cow”. The train staff seemed cowed and resorted to treating it all as a big joke. I tried to reason with them and got “Fuck off fat man” for my pains.
They were wearing sportswear. I pondered what a pity it was that they did not kick the old lady to death and go out and smash some more shop windows and steal some more sportswear. Then commenters on this blog could have explained to me they were an enlightened part of the revolutionary vanguard.
Bush and Blair to be tried for war crimes commencing Nov 19. Not reported in UK press of course.
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http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1321710825.html
With the greatest respect Mary, Atzmon is a psuedo-intellectual antisemite. Sometimes even zionists are right when it comes to antisemitism, although not very often it has to be said.
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I mean, Atzmon agrees with Hitler that the Tsarist forgery, ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ is indeed a forgery but that it is also true and needs to be taken seriously.
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Atzmon did question the Holocaust as the Hope Not Hate blog points out. He later tried to waffle put of it by claiming how history is just a narrative, and when that didn’t convince he then tried to claim his interest in the Holocaust is how it is used as a form of religion, and whatnot, in the usual psuedo-philosophical gibberish that comprises most of his racist output.
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The link below is the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, from a few years back, in reaction to Atzmon giving a talk to the Scottish PSC in which he asserted Jewish people have no place in the Palestine solidarity camapaign. He was denounced afterwards and isn’t allowed back for such a blatently racist demand.
http://www.scottishpsc.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1769:israel-shamir-admires-the-bnp-hitler-and-gilad-atzmon&catid=257&Itemid=200079
If it was me on the train I would have taken the boom box off them and smashed it to bits.
Time to make a stand, get the jobs worthy on the train to phone ahead for backup.
Joe, Atzmon fucking spot on. Crawl back under your rock with your fucking TIRED old anti-demotion con trick.
You have been busted, over and over and over.
Fucking iPhone, gets all fucking weird when typing anti-semitism – how can apple confuse semitism with demotion???
I rest my case.
“Fuck off fat man”
Craig have you considered going on a diet?
You must have put on some serious wait recently, because I was in the front row at a talk you gave a few years ago, you didn’t seem fat?
You must of put on the wait recently?
Anyway, good on you for trying to stick up for her.
“Fuck off fat man”
Craig have you considered going on a diet?
You must have put on some serious wait recently, because I was in the front row at a talk you gave a few years ago, you didn’t seem fat?
You must of put on the wait recently?
Anyway, good on you for trying to stick up for her.
You should have smacked them in the teeth Craig. Or called to police. Abusive and threatening behaviour. It’s because they know no one will do anything that they feel safe being abusive.
Suggest you read this. http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/after-all-i-am-a-proper-zionist-jew-by-gilad-atzmon.html
Stabwound Johnson:
“Complaining about Duggan doesn’t cheapen de Menezes – they thought Duggan had a gun on him. They thought wrong. They thought de Menezes was a suicide bomber. They thought wrong. We know enough about the de Menezes case to know that it was inexcusably stupid of the police to behave as they did. We don’t know enough about the Duggan case yet, but I’m not giving them the benefit of the doubt.”
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I suspect neither stupidity nor the police were responsible for the killing of de Menezes.
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There is some evidence that the Army’s Special Reconnaissance Unit was involved in the killing of de Menezes and that the Met were told to take the flak. I can’t remember all the sites I looked at but here’s one: http://www.tomgriffin.org/the_green_ribbon/2007/09/blair-confirms-.html
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It’s also been suggested that de Menezes was not a terrorist suspect, but a man who “knew too much”. About what…? Read around, and make your own mind up.
Thanks for the reading material suggestion Mary.
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Many of us anti-racists in Palestinian solidarity do read Atzmon racist waffle and have been doing for some time, unfortunately.
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Atzmon blames the recent economic crash on Jewish influence. Atzmon agrees with Hitler that the Protocols of the Elders are true. Atzmon questions the historical validity of the Holocaust and actively disseminates holocaust denial material describing it as a “great text”. Atzmon is praised by the KKK and the likes of David Duke. And plenty more antisemitism besides.
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Obviously your standards of what qualifies for racism are different from my own.
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Hilarious Atzmon joke – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RS1MaQ1d_Q
I agree with Geoff, above. It’s enough to put people off being “commenters”, and will do nothing to help the quality of the discussion.
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A couple of pieces down, is one on “Executed Britons”, in which it is proposed that execution without trial is an undesirable practice when carried out elsewhere by the USA. I agree, but don’t see any argument for regarding this case differently. If anything, it should have been easier to apply the proper procedures here.
@Mary. Link you provide to his site has Atzmon affirming in the most cynical & sarcastic — one might almost say diseased — fashion that he is indeed a holocaust denier in the commonly understood of the term. And a weird racist to boot. One does not need to be Jacques Derrida to see that. Is that what you intended?
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First sentence of his penultimate para reads: ‘A slightly confusing narrative.’ — Most charitable construction by far that may be put upon his own noxious ravings. Would that he were merely
extemporising.
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The modern State works in multifarious un-wonderful ways its crimes to perform.
‘sense of the term’
Bush and Blair
http://mathaba.net/news/?x=629395
Craig, surely there should be a contractual obligation by the train operator to ensure a peaceful journey and if their staff are unable to ensure this you should be entitled to compensation.
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Or am I being naive?
CM, I congratulate you on courageously tackling a bunch of railway yobs. However, I don’t see the “have a go” approach as an effective solution to this particular widespread problem. All it will likely get you is a kicked head or rude remarks about your “wait.”
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Are there really no laws in Britain against being an infernal nuisance in public? If there are, then the railway should enforce them and compensate those inconvenienced by that lack of enforcement.
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Here in this corner of the empire we have local bylaws against amplified music, which are generally respected and, in the breach, enforced.
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But perhaps the problem is in the absence of appropriate penalties for breach of anti-nuisance laws. In the 50′ and 60’s, the British were generally very well behaved in public. But then hooliganism was severely punished, by birching and borstal.
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The liberal-left abolished corporal punishment arguing, as I recall, that birching young males only served to provide old ladies with a sexual thrill. With hindsight, one has to wonder if that is all there was to it.
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Certainly, silly penalties like ASBO’s won’t cut it with your average British yob, which may explain why the lib-left has decided to abolish the British race and elect a new one by a combination of mass immigration and abortion (almost 200,000 of each a year).
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I believe this exterminationist solution is regrettable. There’s much to be said for the British yob, of “scum of the earth,” as Wellington described the valiant English troops who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo. They just need the right handling.
Fuck off Jobollocksm (yes this is iPhone bullshit) – apple is a disgrace!
Whether it’s in a train or a bus – loud ghetto-blasters (or whatever they call them these days) are just all too common.
It’s not about the music – it’s about the message – and that message is “FUCK YOU!” Though I’m never quite sure whether ‘tizzing’ iPlayers aren’t even more annoying – or people shouting into their cellphones for half the journey. At least if I like the music on the ghetto-blaster (invariably I don’t) I can at least hear it properly. The problem of course not being technology but almost non-existant good manners. Recently – even though retired and disabled – I got up from my bus seat and – raising my hat – offered it to a lady. She openly laughed at me! What the hell is happening to this country? Are there no values whatever, any more?
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The major blame for which lies both with those who have never learned or experienced what an older generation regard as good manners, along with those who stand for it – and that includes rail staff with a serious habit of vanishing at the slightest sign of trouble. The phenomena of staring at one’s boots muttering “I don’t want any trouble” when such trouble rears its head is far too frequent among both passengers and rail staff. Though, as Craig pointed out, the same rail staff wil raise heaven and earth if you don’t have EXACTLY the right rail ticket!
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I refuse to travel by train any longer – it’s about 4 years since I was last on one. Then, it took over 3 hours(with not the slightest explanation) to get from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Glasgow, by which time I’d totally missed a close relative’s university degree ceremony. Corporate shrugs were all I got in return for complaint – in fact indignation that I might actually have the temerity to complain! And that’s not even a fraction of the sum total of my complaint over 2 or 3 decades. In my life I’m fortunate that I’ve been obliged to use rail travel only 2 or 3 times a year – and I can’t recall a single train journey for decades that wasn’t a complete nightmare in one way or another. Including the time I was abandoned in rural Northumberland in the middle of the night because the coach door refused to open at Berwick – and no sympathy or acceptance of responsibility whatever from rail staff.
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I pity people who have to use rail travel because they have no other choice. The whole system – despite promises of improvements – still a total crock IMHO.
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In contrast, I have travelled by rail several times on the Continent – in my case, Netherlands and Germany – with not the slightest problem I can recall. Rail comapnies there – in my admittedly limited experience – seem actually to accept that travellers are important and not just a peripheral nuisance.
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These days I travel long-distance in the UK exclusively by coach (I drive, but at my age long journeys exhaust me.) If not entirely problem-free, it’s far cheaper and I’ve at least found coach drivers to be far more amenable to summarily ejecting those members of society who refuse to recognise the rights of others. To be fair I always try to alleviate any legals problem they might later have by providing my name and address as a witness – though I’m invariably alone among passengers in that respect.
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I have to laugh when politicians urge us all to support the environment by using public transport more. In my area of rural Scotland, I have to first ask – WHAT BLOODY PUBLIC TRANSPORT?!!! Around here you either drive a car or you’re effectively housebound – all claims of the local council, profiteering bus companies and other professional sycophantics nothwithstanding. It’s almost non-existant in the first place, and when I do find and use it, it’s shockingly expensive and I almost always regret it.
Revealed: Mark Duggan was not armed when shot by police
Investigators find no forensic evidence he was carrying gun when killed
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/nov/18/mark-duggan-ipcc-investigation-riots
Mr Murray, if this is the Guardian article that you are commenting on then you should be ashamed. This man Duggan was UNARMED when he was murdered by the police thug.
Not only did the police lie about the incident as they invariably do when ‘one of theirs’ shoots someone they also, literally, get away with murder.
No wonder the public have no confidence in them as they watch children drowning and do nothing except go after trivial pc so-called crimes. They should be givven a 007 prefix. In this case the only ‘Fashionable Left Stupidity’ is your disgusting thinking.
Off-topic (but since we’re all waiting patiently on the frozen metal benches of the specially-designed Northern Wind Tunnel aka Aberdeen Railway Station listening to a corporate yob speak very loudly on his mobile ‘phone), I see that Saif Gaddafi has been captured by the NTC in Libya. Not surprisingly, in view of the fate of his father and brother at the hands of the rebels, he looks terrified. Hand him over to a court or whatever, but no more snuff movies, please.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/19/saif-al-islam-gaddafi-capture-libya?newsfeed=true
On the admittedly far more important subject of the Duggan shooting – can I make one observation?
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And that is about peoples’ response to armed police. I have serious reservations about the increasing use of armed police – in my day a marksman armed with a revolver and Lee-Enfield rifle were usually required to be sufficient for any eventuality. These days SWAT teams armed with fearsome weaponry seem to be called in at the slightest provocation.
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But for once in the defence of policemen (and I say that in the firm conviction that, in my area at least, police are far more part of the problem than of the answer) – I have to ask about peoples’ response to them.
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Faced with armed police, I have to admit that my immediate impulse would be to comply absolutely – whatever my later challenge in court. Hard to challenge anything later if you’re (conveniently) dead.
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So – when a suspect is faced with armed police – I have to wonder what they imagine the end result of any resistance might be. Which ultimately raises, for me, only 2 possibilities.
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1) Duggan was armed – and hugely ill-advised not to accede immediately to a challenge from armed police. Though it seems unclear as to whether an effective challenge was ever issued.
or…
2) He was not armed, in which case he was murdered – as simple as that. That a weapon has been ‘found’ well after the event is – for me – a profoundly suspicious coincidence.
Agreed that we don’t want to feed provocative, derailing trolls and so best to keep one’s counsel, but just this once… no comment, cd? No gentle reprimand? Just silence? Might total silence not be taken as tacit consent?
Jack, esp. wrt public transport in rural Scotland but also the main commuter route b/w Glasgow and Edinburgh which is often over-congested, not enough carriages, etc., I agree.
“I wish there were more left wingers like you around Craig.
Along with the good folks at Spiked and Harry’s Place, you’re amongst the few with whom I feel I can – as a right-wing libertarian – have civilised disagreements with.”
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harrys place is disgusting (cant speak of spiked) .. pro zionist anti muslim/islam hate site .. a favourite reference point for hazel blears … (refer to the bicom post by craig)
The deaths of Duggan & Menezes have one paradoxical factor in common. Standard operating procedure.
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Specialist firearms units such as CO19 have for decades operated a de facto shoot-to-kill policy. Though for obvious reasons never publicly acknowledged, police training is designed to ensure in effect nothing less. The logic being that anything less (i.e. a merely wounded target) needlessly endangers officers’ lives. .
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This is why such killings are by no means uncommon — be it the unarmed man in Hackney brandishing a chair-leg, or the unarmed man in Sussex, for example, who was naked at time of death, having just jumped out of bed.
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The same logic requires in such circumstances dumdum (expanding) bullets, use of which has been banned in warfare since the Hague Convention of 1899 because of their devastating effect on the human body — the very reason units such as CO19 use them.
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The following documentary clip, despite its Scotland Yard press bureau framing, provides a graphic indication — 1.20 mins in — of the very likely physical circumstances seconds before Duggan’s death:
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http://bit.ly/nePowD
“Hand him over to a court or whatever, but no more snuff movies, please.”
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the UK/US and most of the NTC hierarchy (ex gaddafi loyalists) will want him dead as soon as possible .. so expect a kangaroo court and claims of justice being served in the style of saddam hussain.
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arent we running out of foreign bogeymen … pretty soon we’ll have to target our own on our soil .. its the way of fascists isnt it ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxIbhN-h2Sg
“Hand him over to a court or whatever, but no more snuff movies, please.”
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the UK/US and most of the NTC hierarchy (ex gaddafi loyalists) will want him dead as soon as possible .. so expect a kangaroo court and claims of justice being served in the style of saddam hussain.
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arent we running out of foreign bogeymen … pretty soon we’ll have to target our own on our soil .. its the way of fascists isnt it ?
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Yes
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Actually NO
the ELITE
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will always find [atsies
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I want to make myself unpopular!!!!!
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I suggest the term “ELITE” is far too fucking self-serving…I suggest we cut to the chase and just call them “SCUM”
I got a train from Dublin to Belfast a few months ago. It was slow but very smart and everyone was friendly.