Russia does not have a functioning criminal justice system at all, in the sense of a trial mechanism aimed at determining innocence or guilt. Exactly as in Uzbekistan, the conviction rate in criminal trials is over 99%. If the prosecutors, who are inextricably an arm of the executive government, want to send you to jail, there is absolutely no judicial system to protect you. The judges are purely there for show.
When critics of Putin like Alexei Navalny are convicted, therefore, we have absolutely no reassurance that the motivation behind the prosecution or the assessment of guilt was genuine. Which is not to say that Navalny is innocent; I am in no position to judge. People are complex. I sacrificed my own pretty decent career to the cause of human rights, but in my personal and family life I was by no means the most moral of individuals. I see no reason for it to be impossible that all of Navalny’s excellent political work did not co-exist with a fatal weakness. But his criticisms of Putin made him a marked man, who the state was out to get, and the most probable explanation – especially as prosecutors had looked at the allegations before and decided not to proceed – is that he is suffering for his criticisms of the President rather than a genuine offence.
It fascinates me that the Western media view the previous decision by the prosecutors not to proceed as evidence the case is politically motivated against Navalny; but fail to draw the same conclusion from precisely the same circumstance in the Assange case.
David Ward MP has not been sent to jail. He has however had the Lib Dem whip removed, which under Clegg’s leadership perhaps he ought to consider an honour. It is rather a commonplace sentiment that it is a terribly sad thing, that their community having suffered dreadfully in the Holocaust, the European Jews involved in founding the state of Israel went on themselves to inflict terrible pain and devastation on the Palestinians in the Nakba. Both the Holocaust and the Nakba were horrific events of human suffering. For this not startling observation, David Ward is removed from the Liberal Democrats. He also stated that, with its ever increasing number of racially specific laws, its walls and racially restricted roads, Israel is becoming an apartheid state. That is so commonplace even Sky News’ security correspondent Sam Kiley said it a few months ago, without repercussion. In Russia you cannot say Putin is corrupt; in the UK you cannot say Israeli state policy is malign. Neither national state can claim to uphold freedom of speech. Meanwhile, of course, David Cameron announces plans to place filters on the internet access of all UK households.
In the United States, the House of Representatives failed by just 12 votes to make illegal the mass snooping by the NSA which was not widely publicised until Edward Snowden’s revelations. What Snowden said was so important that almost half the country’s legislators wished to act on his information. Yet the executive wish to pursue him and remove all his freedom for the rest of his life, as they are doing to Bradley Manning for Manning’s exposure of war crimes and extreme duplicity.
Around this complex of issues and the persons of Manning, Navalny, Snowden and Assange there is a kind of new ideological competition between the governments of Russia, the US and UK as to which is truly promoting the values of human freedom. The answer is none of them are. All these states are, largely in reaction to the liberating possibilities of the internet, promoting a concerted attack on freedom of speech and liberty of thought.
States are the enemy. We are the people.
@Doug – We have been lied to by the “Yorkshire Methodist” that he is also a “good Catholic boy” but methinks habba might just be another Lithuanian with a Scottish accent like Malcolm Rifkind. But Hoffman or Maxwell or whatever his name is, seems to enjoy flying out of Manchester to play volleyball with the DIY trannies on Tel Aviv beach.Might even be a “Lady Porter” in tax exile?
Doug Ref the cost of Thatcher’s funeral.
I was asked if I had eaten my hat!
I said:
Sorry. I never wear hats unlike the royal hangers-on who spend £thousands and thousands on millinery.
Plus Plus Plus… we will never know the true cost.
Margaret Thatcher’s funeral cost taxpayers more than £3m
Cabinet Office confirms policing and security costs for former prime minister’s funeral in April
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jul/29/margaret-thatcher-funeral-cost-taxpayers
Nota Bene Never, ever, believe anything this ‘government’ tells you.
@Komodo, Brian, Doug and generic Eministas.
Thanks for addressing Dad’s moan that we only have eyes for western abuses.
Yes, it does boil down “to the abuses are conducted in our name. We object.”
@Dad! You are welcome to broaden the debate. Let’s see who else is in the league. We might then be able to compare and see which states come out on top. Your call now.
Habba:
Douche.
I mean… buying this line…really.
Have you perchance forgotten to mention that President Mahmoud Abbas has said that the Palestinians will also be asked to vote in their own referendum on any peace deal?
Which seems rather fair to me – both sides to any peace deal will have their say in referenda.
1. There won’t be a peace deal. The facts on the ground are established. The US will not pressure Israel to dismantle its illegal settlements or vacate East Jerusalem, far less return Jerusalem as a whole to its status as a multi-faith city or allow free and unrestricted access between the various Palestinian enclaves.
2. When Gaza voted Hamas in, the Israelis were forced to concede that this was an acceptably free and fair election. Then they not only branded Hamas a terrorist organisation and refused to have any dealings with it, but coerced the US and Europe to do the same. Do you seriously think that any referendum by the West Bank, if not in the interests of European and American Jewish immigrants, will have any leverage at all? If the Jews vote against this hypothetical deal, that will be enough to scupper it.
2.
That the whataboutry Excrescences are first, foremost & only Trolls, is revealed beyond any doubt by their refusal to argue their “case” for the accusation regulatory posted here iro of an “anti-West narrative”. KOWN did bother some weeks ago now, to state the blindly obvious in response;
“No, I genuinely don’t believe in the existence of the ‘anti-West narrative’ that you frequently inveigh against. I do think most posters on this thread are united by disgust and anger for much of what the West does, but that is not the same thing. As for the examples you cite – mistreatment of women in India, for example – I think the reason people don’t post on such issues is simply that these things are universally condemned and hardly worth the effort of pointing out on a forum where it can be tacitly assumed most people are on the same page. What gets people’s goat here, I submit without a trace of faux-naivety, is those instances where there is a chasm between the cruel things the west does and the way they are laundered and perfumed by such organs as the BBC.”
Of course none of the Excrescences even tried to reply, despite repeated requests to do so; the best & all they can do is keep repeating the accusation, mantra like, just like a piece of religious mumbo-jumbo that is too sacred to be justified, and is in fact beyond rational explanation.
I repeat my own response to KOWN comment;
“Well said; that people can’t see the difference, it could because of experiencing a mirror projection of their own reflected prejudices, or perhaps even be indicative of some sort of mental disorder, which would also account for why these same people repeatedly insist that others must publically condemn that which only the most unprincipled would ever consider condoning.”
@Hasbarakuk.
Come on Dad! Don’t be so shy.
It’s his morning at the Aldi checkout, Sifia.
Sofia, apologies.
@Komodom.
No offense taken
heh
Approximately 18% of the West Bank has been designated as a closed military zone for training, or “firing
zone”; this is roughly the same amount of the West Bank under full Palestinian authority (Area A, 17.7%)….
Most of the families residing in or near the firing zones are herders, who rely on grazing
land for their livelihood. They routinely face restrictions on grazing livestock in these
areas and are subject to substantial fines and/or imprisonment. Reduced access to grazing areas has resulted in increased dependency on fodder and the overgrazing of some areas, both of which contribute to diminished livelihoods.
Residents of firing zones face a range of other difficulties including the confiscation of property, settler violence, harassment by soldiers, access and movement restrictions and/or water scarcity. Combined, these conditions [others are listed on the page – K] contribute to a coercive environment that creates pressure on Palestinian communities to leave these areas.
http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_firing_zone_factsheet_august_2012_english.pdf
The map says the rest.
Aparrently health chiefs as well as making a packet have made an admittance regarding the state of yhe NHS care. Included in the statemen apparrently staff are having to cut care time to individuals and make better appropiations .
@ Glenn uk.
What’s going on?
Ps I love shopping too.
How can anyone deny that ethnic cleansing is the objective? Does this look like Israel contemplating a Palestinian state? Answers, Habba. Answers.
http://nofiringzone918.org/2013/07/29/amnesty-international-appeals-against-eviction/
…But answer came there none
And this was scarcely odd, because
They’d eaten every one.
{Lewis Carroll: The Walrus and the Carpenter)
Peace process? Two-state solution? What sort of dreamland are we required to live in, Habba?
Economy Minister and Jewish Home Chairman Naftali Bennett is the latest MK to join a robust list of Israeli government coalition members who have publicly stated that the two-state solution is dead and that the notion of a Palestinian state is a thing of the past. Although it’s no new position for him, Bennett is making it clear that no matter what Prime Minister Netanyahu says or what polls show, the Israel of 2013 is squarely against a two-state solution.
Bennett stated that ”the idea of forming a Palestinian state in Israel has reached a dead end,” speaking at a settler council meeting Monday morning, comparing the “Palestinian problem” to a “piece of shrapnel” lodged in someone’s rear end; that one needs to learn to live with a pain in the ass rather than surgically remove it and risk becoming disabled.
Bennett also asserted there is no occupation, since Israeli Jews cannot be occupiers in their own home (echoing the Netanyahu-commissioned Levy Report from nearly a year ago that concluded there is no occupation) and called on Israel to annex Area C of the West Bank. This is similar to what Likud MK and former Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin said last year: “Today, almost 20 years since Oslo, one could clearly argue that the idea of separating between the nations has failed … Between the Jordan River and the sea, there can only be one state, Jewish and democratic, with a solid Jewish majority.”
Translation: It’s safe to come out of the woodwork now, lads. Indyk’s our boy.
http://972mag.com/one-by-one-israels-coalition-members-abandon-two-state-rhetoric/73829/
“Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and successful. They hate America, they hate Western civilization, they hate white males, they hate rationality. The reasons that leftists give for hating the West, etc. clearly do not correspond with their real motives. They SAY they hate the West because it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric and so forth, but where these same faults appear in socialist countries or in primitive cultures, the leftist finds excuses for them, or at best he GRUDGINGLY admits that they exist; whereas he ENTHUSIASTICALLY points out (and often greatly exaggerates) these faults where they appear in Western civilization. Thus it is clear that these faults are not the leftist’s real motive for hating America and the West. He hates America and the West because they are strong and successful.”
Ted Kaczynski (who had a fine mind before he lost it).
—
@Anon. 10 52am
“Leftists tend to hate anything…”
“Ted Kaczynski (who had a fine mind before he lost it).”
What a pity you quoted his later work.
I don’t see anything on the Press TV YouTube later than five days ago.
http://www.youtube.com/user/PressTVGlobalNews/videos
and the story is still up on their website
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/07/28/316016/google-disables-press-tv-youtube-account/
where they say
“We have not been able to upload any new videos since early Thursday,” said Press TV newsroom director, Hamid Reza Emadi, adding that Google has disabled the channel’s account without giving any explanation.
Anon, was that quote from before or after Kacynski having lost his mind? Because it makes perfect sense to me.
It’s the assumption that, er, ‘leftists’ (ie people who do not agree with him on the undiluted wonderfulness of global capitalism)…’hate’. In his lexicon, I am not allowed to ‘deplore’, ‘disparage’, ‘censure’, ‘object to’ or just plain ‘dislike’. No, it’s all or nothing. Possibly because ‘rightists’ are incapable of nuance or precision, and they simply think in soundbites? Or maybe hatred is all they understand?
Now I’d certainly hate, someone, or an entity, who evicted me from my property without compensation, knocked my house down and built his own on the site. Not for his nationality, but for his actions;
http://english.cntv.cn/program/newsupdate/20130730/101147.shtml
I deplore my country’s support for that entity, though. I don’t hate my country, and I don’t hate the West.
Around Nablus more than 2500 olive trees were destroyedh in the first two weeks of June.
The attackers were protected and the firefighters prevented by, guess which army?
Is this the prelude to a “Peace Process”?
More on the proposed monster rail network connecting the settlements (and further dividing the Palestinian bantustans):
The rail project, which has been in development for several years and sucked up several million shekels from the budget, appears, at first glance, to be the flagship plan for a future annexation. After all, what country declares that it intends to invest billions in territory not under its sovereignty?
Since we have not heard that this plan includes checkpoints at the railway stations, screening and X-ray booths, or any special manpower that will make the Palestinians late for their train every morning, one could conclude that the government plans to grant citizenship to the Palestinian train passengers, and that the train is a means to promote the forthcoming binational state.*
It’s clear to every intelligent person that the Israeli government is playing a childish game of “If only,” and that this fantasy will be buried before even one meter of track is built. Yet the members of the Supreme Planning Council in the occupied territories agreed to back the program. Who would not have wanted to be a fly on the wall during that weird debate?
Some details leaked out, including the question of why a line was needed in the sparsely populated Jordan Valley. The response of the planner – that the line is meant to transport tourists from the Dead Sea to Lake Kinneret – discloses the degree to which all those involved in this initiative are disengaged from reality.
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.538478
*couldn’t one? The excrescences could.
I’m nervous about the verdict in the Bradley Manning trial. They’ll be so anxious to make an example of him …
“That’s an outrageous charge with the greatest potential for dealing almost a deathblow to investigative journalism involving national security,” said Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, during a news conference Friday. “The interpretation of his motives is an absurd fantasy that he did this for fame or for his own purposes, let alone to give information to an enemy to which he clearly does not adhere a requirement for a treason charge anymore than I did.”
‘Manning Verdict May Topple Journalistic Paradigm’
http://truth-out.org/news/item/17854-bradley-manning-verdict-may-topple-a-journalistic-paradigm
PA bribed to attend?
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/07/26/presidential-memorandum-waiver-restriction-providing-funds-palestinian-a
Still, even if he doesn’t realise what he’s up against with the Israelis, an encouraging gesture from Obama.
Kaczynski wasn’t exactly a big believer in the wonderfulness of global capitalism, Komodo.
Jemand, I remember reading his manifesto some time ago and was absoloutely bowled over by how he dissects the pyschology of modern leftism. Absolutely everything he writes on it could be applied here to the Murrayistas, whether they be talking of the Gaza ‘concentration camp’, signing petitions to stop birds having their wings clipped, going to protests dressed in orange jumpsuits, or Mary bemoaning various “poor souls”. It could have been written about John Goss, for one!
Here is his manifesto should anyone be interested in reading it:
http://cyber.eserver.org/unabom.txt
I think using pipe-bombs to try and further one’s aims shows a degree of loss of sanity, but it may be argued that Kaczynski was acting rationally and with sanity throughout.
The sole purpose of the civil wars started by UK snipers in Syria and now being started by snipers in Egypt off the roof of Al Azhar Islamic University, between factions of power in Islam, those who acquiesce to foreign power in their Muslim countries, and those who are paid by foreign countries to oppose those foreign powers, is , to gain supply from and control of the copious water supplies of those two countries for the state of greater Israel.
If the LibDems don’t want to give me their whip, I’m still partial to a bit of strawberry instant whip with raspberries instead of cream.
Opinion shifting on NSA surveillance –
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/29/us/politics/momentum-builds-against-nsa-surveillance.html?src=recg
“I represent a very reasonable district in suburban Philadelphia, and my constituents are expressing a growing concern on the sweeping amounts of data that the government is compiling,” said Representative Michael G. Fitzpatrick, a moderate Republican who represents one of the few true swing districts left in the House and who voted on Wednesday to limit N.S.A. surveillance.
Hates the West, obviously.
Kaczynski wasn’t exactly a big believer in the wonderfulness of global capitalism, Komodo.
I was referring to your beliefs. Ambiguity unintentional, badly expressed. Evidence: most of your posts.
Kaczynski: What struck me was the similarity of his manifesto to the vaguely-structured rants that emerge when anyone literate, including myself, attempts to record their thoughts on life, the universe and everything for posterity. I have spared the public similar works on a couple of occasions, (a) because I found I was boring myself to death and (b) I realised that obtaining the necessary publicity by killing completely uninvolved people might well prove counterproductive either in the short or the long run.
See also “Mein Kampf”, in which some obvious truths are also embedded in a torrent of kack.
Good piece on the West Bank and the doomed nature of the peace process here, btw:
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/national_world/2013/07/30/west-bank-settlements-complicate-negotiations.html
Cross posted from Medialens.
Chris Hedges: Incarceration in America is a business.
Posted by MikeD on July 30, 2013, 9:15 am
Poor people, especially those of color, are worth nothing to corporations and private contractors if they are on the street. In jails and prisons, however, they each can generate corporate revenues of $30,000 to $40,000 a year. This use of the bodies of the poor to make money for corporations fuels the system of neoslavery that defines our prison system.
http://www.newsforage.com/2013/07/chris-hedges-poor-people-especially.html
The United States has spent $300 billion since 1980 to expand its prison system. We imprison 2.2 million people, 25 percent of the world’s prison population. For every 100,000 adults in this country there are 742 behind bars. Five million are on parole. Only 30 to 40 percent are white.
Incarceration has become a very lucrative business for an array of private contractors, most of whom send lobbyists to Washington to make sure the laws and legislation continue to funnel a steady supply of poor people into the prison complex. These private contractors, taking public money, build the prisons, provide food service, hire guards and run and administer detention facilities. It is imperative to their profits that there be a steady supply of new bodies.
Anon, John Goss is a good soul despite whatever political or personality differences exist between you two. He is also amenable to shifting ground when presented with compelling arguments.
Anyway, I did browse over TK’s manifesto some years ago and was impressed with his intelligence. How his ideas translated into homicidal actions, I never discovered. But your quote does effectively describe a certain kind of automatic contrarianism of the Left as a desperate attempt to distinguish themselves from the often cold-blooded egoism of the Right. That’s why I despise both.