The Peacock Throne of the Mughal Emperors was set at the heart of beautiful gardens, fountains and elegant courtyards. Poetry was as important to them as warfare. On the throne was set the inscription: “If there be heaven on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here.”
I am in Dubai. If there be hell on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here. Dubai. The land that taste forgot. Apparently designed to gather together as many as possible of the nastiest people from all continents, and give them anything their heart desires. I am sure, if you could just find the right person to chuck a spare million, you could make a snuff movie starring one of the unfortunate little Sri Lankans or Central Asians who are everywhere, doing all the work, but apparently invisible. Then you could go to a Spa.
It is as though someone had given Jordan a trillion dollars and a million slaves and invited her to construct the city of her dreams. For those who believe that consumption is the purpose of life, this is the new Mecca. I think I can sum it up best by saying that I am continually expecting to see Tony and Cherie come round the corner, followed by Mandy, Nat Rothschild, Deripaska and Gulnara. I met nicer people and my soul was less disturbed up country in the middle of the Sierra Leone civil war. My God, I want to get out of here, burn all my clothes and shower for a week.
“The land that taste forgot.”
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Who needs taste when you’ve got a sense of bling that would shame an L.A. crack gangster.
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Look at the population spread, less than 1 in 5 are actually Arabs. This is what happens when you make a business park a ‘sovereign’ state.
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“you could make a snuff movie starring one of the unfortunate little Sri Lankans”
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That was actually on C4 last week. Shocking, disgusting and undeniable evidence of terrible civilian atrocities. No UN resolutions, no unilateral sanctions from the US, no demands for regime change. Culprits? India and Israel.
Maybe a bit unfair to Jordan/Katie Price, not sure she’d be as comfortable with setting a million slaves to work, she is after all from a humble background.
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A lottery winner would be a better comparison, as isn’t that what really happened with OPEC? The only difference is that they created a lottery they would win every day.
I have never been to Dubai but your description sounds like Las Vegas. “The land that taste forgot” indeed.
A million for a snuff movie? Are you mad? Snuff movies cost tuppence ha’penny to make and with copies going for a couple thousand a pop the producers make out like bandits. As if snuff movie aficionados, even filthy rich ones, would think of paying a million bucks for one movie. Craziness.
Donald Perera, Sri Lanka’s ambassador to Israel: ‘For years Israel has aided our war on terror through the exchange of information and the sale of military technology and equipment… and we have received billions of dollars in aid over the past few years.’
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‘the exchange of information’ would be the Israeli military ‘advisors’ seconded to Sri Lanka telling them how to best kill the Tamils based on their experience of doing same to Pals in Gaza.
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http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/45297
Your opening reminded me a little of something by Bill Bryson:
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The way I see it, there are three reasons never to be unhappy.
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First, you were born. This in itself is a remarkable achievement. Did you know that each time your father ejaculated (and frankly he did it quite a lot) he produce roughly twenty-five million spermatozoa – enough to repopulate Britain every two days or so? For you to have been born, not only did you have to be among the few batches of sperm that had even a theoretical chance of prospering – in itself quit a long shot – but you then had to win a race against 24,999,999 or so other wriggling contenders, all rushing to swim the English Channel of your mother’s vagina in order to be the first ashore at the fertile egg of Boulogne, as it were. Being born was easily the most remarkable achievement of your whole life. And think: you could just as easily have been a flatworm.
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Second, you are alive. For the tiniest moment in the span of eternity you have the miraculous privilege to exist. For endless eons you were not. Soon you will cease to be once more. That you are able to sit here right now in this one never-to-be-repeated moment, reading this book, eating bon-bons, dreaming about hot sex with that scrumptious person from accounts, speculatively sniffing your armpits, doing whatever you are doing – just existing – is really wondrous beyond belief.
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Third, you have plenty to eat, you live in a time of peace and “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree” will never be number one again. If you bear these things in mind, you will never be truly unhappy again – though in fairness I must point out that if you find yourself alone in Weston-super-Mare on a rainy Tuesday evening you may come close.
Various UK nitwits thought that they would like a life in Dubai and were fleeced. One couple even believed that there would be a giant dome with snow and ski slopes. Their savings are represented by fading sale boards and empty dusty plots of sand. Their luxury cars are abandoned at the airport. The postdated cheques never got as far as the banks. Some of them live in dread of flights being rerouted to the Dubai airport where they would be arrested and imprisoned.
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http://www.radiotimes.com/episode/zxcb/homes-from-hell-dubai-dreams
Thanks, Craig. Your article is a nice complement and follow-up to an article I read yesterday on Counterpunch: “Dealing with Iran” by Ismael Hossein-zadeh (Professor Emeritus of Economics, Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa). Professor Hossein-zadeh analyses, among others, remarks by James Zogby (not his brother John): “As the Gulf States make significant progress, providing a model for development and growth, Iran remains trapped in an archaic system which feeds off of fear and anger, and goes nowhere.” As he points out, the Arab Gulf states produce little or nothing and are merely a playground for the wealthy to spend oil money on foreign imports.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/03/16/dealing-with-iran/
I can well understand one’s disgust with places like Dubai, but why the reference to Goethe?
Seems to me that if his experience with Duke Karl August of Weimar is any guide to go by, Goethe would be cleaning it up by joining everything that needs it rather than running away.
And even if he did, he would just be going to similar places like Las Vegas.
Seems that today’s Goethe is just was Dubai needs.
I’ve been through Dubai twice. The first time it was to take advantage of an Emirates stop over offer. A friend had waxed lyrical about the wonderful duty free which for some reason I wanted to see.The city itself has little to offer but oppressive heat.
I found it a place without a soul.Flying into Dubai, you are often sitting beside the modern day slaves,probably the first flights they’ve ever made,unused to cutlery and flying luxuriously into servitude.
Arriving early morning into Dubai, the workers in transit can be seen lying in row upon row sleeping waiting on their flights, the smell of sweaty feet mingling with the other offerings from Dubai International Airport.
Thatcherism alive and kicking in the desert.
Can understand your desire to get out asap.
What’s wrong with Oleg Deripaska? He associates with some unpleasant people but he has businesses to run and needs to. At least he’s achieved something of practical value in his life unlike the scumbag pols and moneymen you list.
Dubai has been build by and built for by frequent high fliers for the latter.
Goethe would have been tickled pink to suck up to the chlamydate few who dare to step into this unsustainable, morally defunct equilibrium, he liked the rich and famous.
Dubai or not tobuy, this is the question I will have to ask myself whence thinking about a copy of Alexander Burns and the massive impact its deliberations had on the writer, the perikls he had to go through to achieve this task and the unwitting, though well known destructuion he has metted out on to all others in the process.
Dubai the home of money eaters, tax evaders and those with skewitdth principles.
never have had the desire, or inclination, to waste all that lovely fuel, precious time, or my friends brains for a pitstop fry-up in Hades.
Anon_18 Mar, 2012 – 10:13 am
“Deripaska….At least he’s achieved something of practical value in his life”
yeah, just ask the Montenegrins: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-01/montenegrin-lawmakers-back-plan-to-take-kap-from-deripaska-s-en-.html
RUMAFIA:
“Oleg Deripaska – Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Basic Elementh”
http://rumafia.com/person.php?id=5
I felt the same way when i stayed at Trump Towers (on a super cheap deal) in Las Vegas. Only it was Mexicans and other central americans who were doing the service jobs.
A very ugly place indeed. It was interesting to visit the now faded parts-where Casinos from an earlier era persist, though eclipsed by the uptown venues and attractions. Very seedy and wasted and populated by God knows who. Who wants to frequent such places-the peeling paint and past glories of neon lighting, swirly pattern purple carpets, all now slightly smelly-is appealing in the same way a derelict addict 60 year old prostitute with a lot of makeup is appealing.
Those who believe the story of a lone gunman gone crazy killing 16 Afghans, raping two women, burning bodies of women and children, think again. Why would they want us to rapidly forget about it, and why would they use the same ‘mad’ lable, they used on Anders Breivig and others?
This from US general Allen some 22 days before this latests massacre, after the death of six soldiers, two from the US, in the wake of the Quoran burnings. Robert Fisk used this significant quote in his excellent article this week.
“Now is not the time for revenge for the deaths of two US soldiers killed in Thursday’s riots, he said’ resist whatever urge they might have to strike back. There will be moments like this when you are searching for the meaning of this loss and there will be moments like this when your emotions are governed by anger and a desire to strike back. Now is not the time for revenge, now is the time to look deep into your souls, remember your mission and discipline, remember who you are”.
This report from PressTV, the agency that was removed from the UK for reporting stuff the BBC duefully ignored. The report speaks of 15-20 soldiers, njot a single lone crazy gunman who must have been very busy shooting raping and burning all at once. AQ single gunman would have been overpowered, the story is pure faeces.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/232108.html
never have had the desire, or inclination, to waste all that lovely fuel, precious time, or my friends brains for a pitstop fry-up in Hades.
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Not with all that self-righteousness and sanctimony to spread.
‘Not with all that self-righteousness and sanctimony to spread.’
Says who? please explain whats social about polluting everyone elses space, knowing full well that you could act diferent if you wanted to do that?
Flying is about as antisocial as you can make it, it is only your own haste and belligerent convenience to yourself, that is relevant to choosing this mode of transport.
Bring back airships and take your time, if its too windy, tough, you have to postpone your journey.
hwat sanctimonious defense of the undefendable. Have you got children angry?
I agree Craig – Dubai, the perfect image of the 1% seen through the lens of a magnifying glass. Dubai,a Bakelite city built in steel and glass. The Las Vegos of the Arabian peninsular, similarly devoid of a soul and surrounded by a body of environmental defilement designed for instant gratification; a hedonistic paradise for gluttons to indulge in fast food, fast living and fast women.
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Descent into the mausoleums of the living dead, zombies who roam the malls consuming anything and everything to fill the hollowness of their existance.
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Dubai is warning to us of a moral failure of society obsessed with wealth and status.
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Dubai is not only morally bankrupt it is also financially bankrupt. The oil is diminished, the foreign workers have left leaving empty rooms that continually drain resources, evaporating a mirage once amplified by aid from Abu Dhabi.
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Like children’s castles in the sand washed away by a relentless sea, Dubai will return to arid dunes, a barren reminder of the ultimate fate of Western democracy corrupted by greed, perverted by deception and contaminated by the shameless murder of infants, toddlers and teens before they had a chance to experience the joy of giving back the parental love that developed their own souls..
Forgot the link:
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtzAwo1HU2w&feature=player_embedded
Hi Angry,
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Thanks for the Bryson quote.
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I hope you won’t think it too curmudgeonly of me to point out that for an awful lot of humanity being alive isn’t a ‘miraculous privilege’ at all. Instead it is one long exercise in purposeless suffering. For someone working 80 hours a week in a sweatshop, what consolation is it to know his sperm won the great egg race?
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I agree with him about Tie a Yellow Ribbon, though.
Craig, you have a complete media blackout in London for the doctors and nurses demonstrationas and of course your Goverement have no interest in the British people being informed that Syria has a much better NHS system than England as did Libya.
http://govermentterrorism.blogspot.com.es/2012/03/syria-nhs-british-media-blackout.html
Craig (and others),
Have you been following this story? it’s beginning to smell very fishy …
http://registan.net/index.php/2012/03/16/the-denver-posts-astounding-coverage-of-the-mukhtarov-case/
http://enews.fergananews.com/article.php?id=2744
What was so special in his bag that he would not let it go through thr X ray machine??
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03-18-2012 17:46
Israeli FM hit for rejecting security check
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Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman refused to put his bag through a security check as he left Korea on Thursday to Beijing, an airport official told local media, Saturday.
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Lieberman was in Seoul for a two-day visit to mark the 50th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two nations.
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He left through Incheon International Airport, after denying repeated requests by security officials to put his travel bag through an X-ray check, the airport official said, according to local media reports.
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Under security regulations, passengers are not allowed to board their planes without passing the examinations.
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/… http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2012/03/116_107178.html.
Dubai: You can expect to meet nicer people in Hell
Rich – Dubai: You can expect to meet nicer people in Hell…
Ah… but this is hell, nor am I out of it… (if you’re an asian wage-slave).
O/T A well researched piece from Paul Flynn MP on the troughers in both houses of parliament who have already benefited or will benefit from NHS privatisation. I felt sick as I read through the long list.
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http://paulflynnmp.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012/02/who-backs-nhs-unheaval.html
Mary, thanks for posting that link, it’s an amazing read (in a stomach-turning sort of way of course). It needs to be disseminated.
Who said “You turn if you want to. This lady’s not for turning.”?
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Well well well. Those in current possession of the lady’s inheritance are u-turning in a big way on the new aircraft carriers.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/mar/18/u-turn-aircraft-carriers-costs
Mar,
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Thanks for the link on the troughers. It used to be limited to brown envelopes now it is blatantly open and large scale.
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FWIW Lord David Owen has agreed to receive a copy the ‘Save Our NHS’ petition on Monday, prior to the final vote in the Lords. The target is 600,000 signatures (585143 so far). If you are interested, the petition can be signed at:
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http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/Protect_our_NHS_Petition#petition