I had almost brought myself to the point of formally announcing the closure of this blog.
I cannot explain to you why the trend of recent political society in the West depresses me to the point of introversion and withdrawal. Almost everyone else manages to get on with it. It is an accepted, even commonplace fact of political discourse that inequality is rampant, that the gap between rich and poor in our economy has been widening and the trend accelerates, that social mobility has been turned backwards and we have a government dominated not just by wealth and status but by inherited wealth and status. The state itself has become, ever more blatantly, a mechanism for funneling money from ordinary people and giving it to the very rich, be it in bank bailouts, quantitative easing doled again to the banks, private finance initiative payments (liabilities totalling over £200 billion in taxpayer paid interest in the NHS alone) or “market driven” takeover of public services, or a hundred more ways.
My own professional struggle, which focused on trying to block use of intelligence gained by torture, seems only an attempt to divert a tiny ripple within a tsunami of contempt for morality in public life. The practice of torture exploitation has not ended; the Gibson inquiry into official complicity with torture has been unceremoniously halted as the guilty and directly responsible polish the green leather benches of the House of Lords with their expensively suited rumps, or inhabit their offices as Permanent Under Secretaries, or command large offices in BP. The SAS, CIA and Saudis play at overmastering the Russians in a new proxy war in Syria that, yet again, thanks to foreign military interference promises to be a still greater evil than the regime that preceded it. The media propaganda is yet more cynically distorted to a simplistic portrayal of “our” good guys and the evil bad guys, when in truth, as nearly always, the leaderships in resource wars on all sides are bad and the interests of the people are far from their hearts.
Democracy in the UK has become almost meaningless. A monopoly of effective news flow by a deeply corrupt corporate media has crystallised the major party structures as the only real choices in the consciousness of the vast majority of voters. Those major parties have been so bought up by those same corporate interests that there is no genuine choice of policy on offer. If you were against the handing of untold billions of your money to the bankers, or the interminable and pointless Afghan War, you were one of a very large percentage of the population but had no mainstream party which respected, let alone represented, your view.
New horror after new horror representative of this dreadful state of affairs arises every day. The latest casualties in drone strikes, which kill 20 innocents for every alleged terrorist they succeed in executing without process of law. Three young British soldiers dead today for no purpose whatsoever. The first NHS Trust goes under because of PFI debt. This week the Bank of England is expected to print another £50 billion in quantitative easing and hand it straight to the banks to be eventually paid out in salaries and bonuses.
The extraordinary way in which the middlemen who facilitate financial transactions in trade, suddenly through distorted legal frameworks became the chief individual beneficiaries of activity in the physical economy, is revealed every week in more and more detail of horrific corruption. But nothing whatever is done to stop them, let alone punish the guilty. They own the entire political establishment.
Occasional shafts of humour penetrate the stygian murk. Chloe Smith is revealed as completely inadequate by Jeremy Paxman. We could have told him that – at the Norwich North byelection the Conservative Party were desperate never to allow her to face questioning, and on this blog I offered a cash reward to anybody who spotted her with less than five minders. It was never claimed.
What really made me laugh was the report in the Guardian that she was given her ministerial position in the Treasury by David Cameron in the mistaken belief that, as she had worked for Deloitte, she must know something about finance. Why this is really funny is that the only job she ever had at Deloitte was not, as variously reported in the mainstream media, in PR or human resources, but in fact to be seconded to the Conservative Party. Chloe never had any job except as Conservative Party staff. She was then taken on by Deloitte and instantly seconded back to the Conservative Party; her working for Deloitte at all was a fiction. Whether this was to evade political donation rules or just to burnish her CV as a parliamentary candidate, I have no idea.
That the experience Cameron thought qualified her as a Treasury minister was actually a secondment to the Tory Party by one of those lobbying major corporate financial interests – and Deloitte was the Royal Bank of Scotland’s auditors – is so rich it moves beyond satire. I can scarcely believe it myself. In fact it gave rise to such paroxysms of bitter laughter that I found the strength to blog again. Thank you Chloe and Dave for that, anyway.
Still, at least it’s summer, so not all bad.
It is not my idea of summer, at least where I live. And IT is nearly ALL bad.
viz Media Minefields and the Fog of War
http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/07/media-minefields-and-the-fog-of-war/
Some interesting events. Alternative takes and so on.
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http://www.marxismfestival.org.uk/
Agree with all the posters here – keep on keeping on, Craig – you have a lot of people behind you! For although genuinely progressive views are largely excluded from the media, there are glimmers of hope. I’m of the view that the Carr/Cameron episode drew attention to one of those many elephants in the room – the massive amount of legal tax avoidance that, if dealt with correctly, would negate the “requirement” for austerity measures. We could afford to escape PFI deals and rewrite +some+ of the mechanisms of massive inequality.
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True, the wall isn’t going to come down soon, but progress is progress. Just as we should have jailed more MPs on the fiddle, nevertheless a few were indeed put away. That was good in itself. Equally, criminal investigations into the Libor scandal may be a possibility, now that Diamond has resigned. Maybe not enough to achieve complete justice, but maybe enough to put some justified frighteners on a number of crooks milking the system.
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Carry on digging on the Werrity thing, btw. We need you on that. Did I imagine it, or was there more stuff to announce? And whatever happened to that story that was expected to turn up in Private Eye?
Suhayl, hey 🙂
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I’ve been to Marxism a couple of times, and their lectures/teach-ins are often excellent. The one minor drawback is that I’ve found the recruitment policy of many an SWP member to be too aggressive – and their annual jamboree is a hotbed of it. So I warmly commend people of a progressive view going to Marxism, but being very firm with recruiters on whether they wish to join up!
I remember your response when we were faced with zero coverage in Norwich. Within 12 days, most likely still a record, your team found a camera woman who could do the filming instantly,an editor, a hard feat to boot, and a company, although not British, who could do the work in record time, within 12 days your team brought out a DVD for every voters to watch in Norwich North, nobody ever did that.
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I feel the same and would like to reiterate Clark’s words. We are at the point were we should organise an alternative, rather than retreat or give up. Gatherings are called for as a matter of urgency and by next years set of County council elections, a field of candidates should oppose the existing agenda’s.
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The problem is the coverage, the vested interest will threaten newspapers with withdrawal of advertising revenues and more, the BBC will, as usual only be interested to perpetuate the status quo and their franchise, it has become a dependent oik, a spoiled brat that is in charge of flabbergasting us on a daily basis.
That means we ought to look further afield, get digital radio sorted and start campaigning, ideally already with a burning desire to get back to local agenda representation.
It all looks very hopeless, but compared to a single cell in Bagram jail, now under Afghan control, this is heaven.
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So, lets make it rain, hard, the sun will shine through eventually.
Relieved to see you back Craig.
The wet weather seems to bring out all sorts of slimey things from under stones. This one has links to Fox and Werrity among others.Michael Hintze
Craig, Don’t give up old chap. Here’s why:
http://youtu.be/zEssxCSlItw
And whatever happened to that story that was expected to turn up in Private Eye?
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Probably spiked by “Ratbiter”.
Craig
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I have been in the place you are now in for many a long year, I have to tell you, as I grow older and older I keep on coming back to the most depressing thought of all, it is not those that do all this evil upon this world, they are just a reflection of human mankind, not all I hasten to add, but, the good were always too few to make the difference. Mankind underwent his forty days and forty nights and failed within the first two seconds. I now live with only one forlorn hope that keeps me going and that is that given time mankind evolves into something better, “forlorn” I fear time is not on his side, I won’t give up though and neither should you, if for no other reason then to undergo your own individually “forty days and forty nights” and PASS…
I have said it before but I think we ought to club together and set up a fund for Craig so that he can concentrate on this blog and affairs in this very corrupt country, thus avoiding the need to travel around to make a living as he told us recently. He could become our unofficial MP and would do a better job than most of the clones in Westminster.
You had me worried for a while. Good to know you are back. Keep up the good work and greetings from Finland !
I had completely missed the fact that Agius has survived.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9371729/Bob-Diamond-resigns-as-Barclays-chief.html
don’t let the bastards grind you down..the quality of info you put out is 1st class..
shine the light on the darkness” and keep these bastards on the hop,.. if i may turn your gaze to a like minded top blog,then have a look at this, http://eyreinternational.wordpress.com/ this man like your self has chipped away at for an age,now bearing some interesting fruit. he was in the high court yesterday, maybe all week..check out the USA/Australia connection.all the dots are their,. i wish him the very best of blessings.
and if just found a nice link to gangsters in suits,,,the only guy who will tell it as it is on fine banking frauds..http://rt.com/programs/keiser-report/episode-308-max-keiser/
im not to sure of these white hat types,a lot of talk/not allot of action? but if its on the tap blog: so be it. http://the-tap.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/lord-james-libor-scandal-white-hats.html.. and
i love any one who talks of treachery & treason by our so called masters.:.erm” snakes and vipers.
.. http://www.acasefortreason.org.uk/ and http://vaticproject.blogspot.com/2012/04/great-british-lawful-rebellion-has.htmld
if the masses just turned of the TV for a week…if only..
re-post all links at will, of choice. Be the Change you want to see ! peace
Mr Murray, I echo the comments above. Your blog posts and the comments on this site are an oasis of sanity that assures many of us that we are not alone, and that sanity is not (always) statistical. Mary, I’m with you on the fund raising. Sibel Edmonds at the Boiling Frog post has something similar set up to fund her efforts.
Craig, you are a beacon of sanity and integrity.
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Your blog is one of the few places that isn’t controlled.
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The enemy has been at it for centuries, of course, and so “we, the people” have a long fight on our hands.
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But there is hope and you are part of that.
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Never give up – YNWA
Increasingly, like you, I feel despair for a corrupt political world. Honour and service are foreign and incomprehensible concepts to our current crop of media driven nonentities in parliament.
This of course means we need people like you to shine a light in the dark and shady corners even more.
Putting the world to rights over a few beers in Dundee Uni seems a long way away now!
Re the media and the workers’ revolution, I see that of the tabloids – including the Mail and Express -, only the Mirror has anything about banks on its front page. Given that many tabloid readers see the front page when they buy it, and pause only at Page 3 before turning to the footy at the back, this is not going to enhance the uprising of the proletariat. On the other hand, the Times’ second lead is the bank scandal…Murdoch has ceased to be Cameron’s chum, can’t think why.
Craig, you’re on the right side of everything. Except 9-11 (and subsequent false-flag outrages). Please take another look at it.
“Murdoch has ceased to be Cameron’s chum, can’t think why.”
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Has he ?. Murdoch knows Cameron was backed into a corner, the real person/persons behind it all is what Murdoch is thinking about, I wonder who/they are ?…A person that moves in a very dark world, say a high up in the NuLabour party, someone that makes things happen, a manipulater, a planner and a schemer of the darkest arts of political intrigue. Anyone come to mind ?.
I said Craig’s delivery was inspiring and I would like to substantiate that by revealing my understanding of his important points and his deliverance which to me affords a sense of freedom.
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Craig’s post is transparent and its balance discloses how he negates retreating from the absurb state of a world out of balance where control, power and the almighty dollar dominate, by humour and levity imparted in his last few paragraphs where depression is zapped by genuine laughter, unlike the guffaws of the power drunk corporate elite.
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Within his sombre lines of horror Craig said, ‘The SAS, CIA and Saudis play at overmastering the Russians in a new proxy war in Syria…’ a gem of understanding that opens a window on the accelerating push for Western dominance motivated by greed and fear.
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Greed we understand but I believe the West is cornered like a rat and fear invokes fight, a battle for control. The powers in Britain and America have been exposed; greed, corruption and deception is paraded on the fringes of information where us ‘plebs’ reside. The cat is out the bag and time has been made short for the gilt-edged class as awareness gathers and enlightenment dawns on us, the majority. Numbers invoke fear.
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Therefore without resorting to stupid myths I say the top drawer corporate breed have until years end to smash and bully their way into total dominion.
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Thus it is impossible to rest, we have to make our mark.
Great to see you back, Craig. Praise be.
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That report about torture in Syria was HRW-produced. It got a lot of caustic comments on Twitter (one of the reasons Twitter lifts my heart in the mornings.) I’ve spent much of my life following HRW and Amnesty, but I’m giving up since I’ve seen their handling of Syria.
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Twitter is reporting that it’s had more ‘requests’ for info or for blocking of material, from Gov’ts in 2012 so far, than it had in the whole of 2011, and it’s had a demand from the US Gov’t to provide Twitter details of one of the Occupy Wall St protesters.
http://news.yahoo.com/us-court-orders-twitter-hand-over-occupy-tweets-200058093.html
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The US commitment to freedom of speech has become a sad joke, just like the rest of the ‘freedom and democracy’ stuff they spout. Hypocrisy has become one of the most common words on Twitter, I’m glad to say.
http://www.ukcolumn.org/article/roger-hayes-arrested-tried-secret-court-imprisoned
welcome to stasi jack boot uk!! all in less than 8 hours, were next””…. peace
Should the chairman of the National Audit Office be a non-executive director of a global bank?
http://group.barclays.com/about-barclays/about-us/sir-andrew-likierman
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It is being said that the Diamond geezer is likely to leave with a year’s salary of £1.8m plus bonuses!! The Board are asking him to give up £18m in share options which he has been given but which have not been vested.
yew keep a troshin bor!
Guest 1.35pm. Are you alluding to Mandelslime?
The run of bad news for US Military Inc continues. Two RAF planes have collided in the Moray Firth area and a search is underway.
“Therefore without resorting to stupid myths I say the top drawer corporate breed have until years end to smash and bully their way into total dominion.”
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Mark Golding
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You are right, time is running out, but not for them, but for us, they have prepared for that/every eventuality, they planned it out decades ago, the day was always going to come, has history not taught us anything!!!. They will not “bully their way into total dominion”, they will use whatever force they need to gain…well, everything, that by the way is called the planet. The many that been murdered over the years will be but a fractional denomination by the time they have finished, or should that read, temporally finished.
“Guest 1.35pm. Are you alluding to Mandelslime?”
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I couldn’t possibly comment.
As our NHS is crumbling as lucrative as areas are swept up by corporate enterprise, I still have faith in that the majority of doctors are good doctors – they have the knowledge, skills and experience to deliver first class care. They are on our side if we are honest with them, therefore they also are under attack by the establishment(remember the London bus bomb right outside the BMA headquarters)? .
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The proposed revalidation of British doctors is a back-door enhanced appraisal attempt by GMC commissioners to divide and conquer the medical profession and hence reduce the impact on government policy by the BMA and others.
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Some doctors, a fratricidal few, has been seduced into working for Atos Healthcare, a French owned company engaged by this government. At £75/hr for ‘fitness to work’ Lima software controlled examinations, these ‘doctors’ who work 7 days/week can earn £10,000/month. From varied reports, patient care is way down on their agenda.
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http://bma.org.uk/news-views-analysis/news/2012/may/outcry-over-revalidation-role-for-commissioners