Dashing off to London now to do an interview with George Galloway for his crowd sourced documentary “The Killing of Tony Blair”. Sounds less like a film, more like a good idea.
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I mean, we are all against a nuclear war, right?
@Herbie: Thanks for that. Just shows you can’t your eyes off media scrutiny for long – you miss something important. I assume this was after the election.
Thatcher really was a menace, wasn’t she. But even she wouldn’t have bombed Belgrade like Clinton and Blair in 1999. Another question, because, like Craig, I was also mostly absent from watching the news during that bombing era (because I couldn’t bear it…). Why didn’t Russia intervene at that point to protect its former Warsaw Pact ally against an attack that was blatantly against International Law? Or has Putin been patiently waiting for 15 years to redress the balance in some way?
Probably at least partly answering my own question with this excellent piece of BBC web journalism in the pre-Hutton days, and probably before No.10 saw an opportunity to editorially influence the website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/325989.stm
Peacewisher
“Why didn’t Russia intervene at that point to protect its former Warsaw Pact ally against an attack that was blatantly against International Law?”
Russia had intervened in the period building up to it, but ultimately Russia was weak militarily, financially and had a poor leader.
They seem to be much better off now on all those metrics, especially since they got rid of western bankers.
I wonder could we do the same.
Thanks, Herbie. These will indeed be interesting times.
Technicolour: Not me mate. After all, I’m one of those “MAD leftists” who don’t even like to see animals exploited for an assumed entitlement to a arbitrary preference of the palate. After all, “might is right” when it comes to exploitation – and most people prove it at every mealtime.
@Peacewisher (25 Mar, 2014 – 12:19 am)
Yugoslavia was never a Warsaw Pact member. The Yalta conference between Churchill (whose close confidantes were riddled with Russian agents, Cambridge ring etc.) Roosevelt (whose close confidantes were riddled with Russian agents, Zionists) and Stalin, at which Europe was crudely carved up, Poland physically moved completely westwards, Yugoslavia was divided 75%/25% as simple as that, in terms of influence, neither west nor east asserting overall control, by mutual agreement. Personal ties between Tito and Stalin did bind them closely, but the spirit of the Yalta agreements were respected by the USSR and it never asserted itself there, or incorporated it in the Warsaw Pact. Along with Yugoslavia, Greece too had a similar ambiguous status, 50/50, unlike everywhere else which were placed one side or another of the iron curtain they together built.
It was more or less at this time that Ukraine the modern day former soviet socialist republic was created separately rather than incorporated into Russia proper, of which it was effectively part, a separate state would give the Soviet bloc an additional UN member state, compensating for the British Empire’s multiple seats through its pseudo-autonomous Commonwealth countries, with Britain claiming more seats for ever more colonies and Stalin doing likewise conjuring ever more new SSRs as the conference wore on. The superstructure of the UN, the UNSC, the permanent members and the UNSC veto were all decided during these negotiations.
Poland occupied a great deal of time, Churchill was bitterly upset that Poland was not on the western side, given its torment and its brave allied fight, its pilots huge role in the Battle of Britain and Polish cryptographers early crucial inroads on Enigma, Roosevelt did not consider it important and he and Stalin humiliated and marginalised Churchill, the Polish people themselves were thought torn between the functioning popular Russian backed temporary eastern government which along with Russian forces had helped drive the Germans westwards, and the British supported and still London based government-in-exile; its borders were extremely fluid and were to be altered dramatically at Germany’s expense beyond that agreed, but all knowing probably that Russia would take a corresponding eastern portion of post-Versailles Poland for itself. Poland would still be no nearer resolution by the later Postsdam conference when Truman replaced the dead Roosevelt and Clement Atlee accompanied Churchill. Poland got a far worse deal than some of new Yugoslavia’s component parts, many of which were fanatically pro-Nazi to the end. Churchill could not attain for Poland the same almost afterthought non-aligned status of Greece or even the less advantageous position of Yugoslavia. As Truman by then knew the nuclear bomb tests were successful, and would be informing Stalin of this at conference end, their interest in detailed negotiations, or obtaining the guarantees for Poland Churchill was still inisistent upon, was even less than it had been at Yalta.
Utterly disgraceful opportunist piece by Richard Seymour
Christopher Hitchens, Nick Cohen, et al – eat your heart out:
http://www.leninology.com/2014/03/against-imperialist-intervention-in.html?m=1
The thread of comments on Medialens here.
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1395699840.html
Ot
http://m.smh.com.au/environment/a-turning-point-for-deforestation-20130205-2dwps.html?utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=appna2012&utm_content=A-turning-point-for-deforestation&utm_campaign=app
Scott poynton a socialist of the highest calibre.
Look what they are doing for us!
RD you’ve got a nerve addressing me after this morning’s outburst.
And you have a nerve even posting after saying I supported Svoboda and was a blackshirt. Who do you think you are thinking you can insult people with impunity.
John Goss
“If anybody’s to blame for a misunderstanding of who Yulia Timoshenko is it is Anna Raccoon who does not mention she is married. Perhaps the focus should be on her.”
________________________
Can’t let you get away with that, Mr Goss. Mary’s “strange that her father’s name was Abramovich” was culled from Wikipedia, not from Anna Racoon and it was that which I was asking about.
So I repeat my question to Mary (but you can answer in her stead if you wish):
What is so “strange” about someone being called Abramovich?
Tiny M
“Along with Yugoslavia, Greece too had a similar ambiguous status, 50/50,…”
________________
Incorrect. Greece was 90% / 10% ( to balance Romania and Bulgaria)
“Having a very young child who caught German measles/rubella before the vaccination age because that disease became more prevalent because of the fall off in MMR vaccination rates I would urge any parent to ignore the drivel of those who know very little about the subject.”
_____________________
I fully agree. And find it shameful that one of the regulars here should advocate fewer vaccinations in infancy in order, it seems, (1) to get in a dig at “Big Pharma” and (2) to avoid expressing approval of the intention of the govt to make the meningitis B vaccination available under the NHS.
This is the same hypocrite who complained about me asking someone whether he was (metaphorically) blind.
Mary
OK, here’s an offer in order to achieve closure.
If you’re willing to express regret for your posts about “Abramovych” and infant vaccinations, I’ll let those two matters drop.
That’s fair enough, isn’t it?
@Mary (25 Mar, 2014 – 6:26 am)
Agree, shocking, just from reading the Medialens commentary, I think I’ll spare myself reading the whole article. Compare Seymour’s (whoever the hell he is) ultranationalist ideas: “Do we have no interest in the politics of nationalist belonging?” with Scottish Independence supporter’s enlightened view: “At the moment, none of the main political actors speak to the widespread interest in an anti-nationalist support for independence. ‘Anti-nationalist’ in the sense that people may vote yes not because they believe in some kind of Scottish manifest destiny but out of a desire to renew a workable democracy amid the systemic dysfunctions of the British state.”
http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2014/03/21/why-anti-nationalists-should-vote-yes/
“And you have a nerve even posting after saying I supported Svoboda and was a blackshirt. Who do you think you are thinking you can insult people with impunity.”
But that’s where you’re wrong. I never particularly targeted you and I can only assume, as I assumed yesterday, that guild had a part in this assumption. If I did particularly target you as being a blackshirt show me where and I will see if an apology is in order.
guild = guilt
Given that the BBC gets a lot of stick on this blog, I was just wondering what commenters thought about the govts’s apparent willingness to consider de-criminalising non-payment of the licence fee?
Any competent authoritarian will recognise that decriminalisation will result in reduced payment of the license fee, which with its multilayered management and Archaean culture, will help destroy the BBC completely. I will say nothing of Cameron’s(or Gove’s, or Johnson’s) frequent contacts with Rupert Murdoch, still less of Gove’s wife’s handy little sinecure under Dacre…
…as Clark says, “Attempting to score party-political points on a blog like this seems pretty cheap, similar to the support for the Russian military response in Crimea.”
It is cheap, in every sense. But they’re getting desperate.
One of the Ukrainian Nazis shot dead by, Russians, Ukrainians or the west. It looks like they were all after Alexander Muzychko.
http://nsnbc.me/2014/03/25/ukraine-pravy-sector-leader-muzychko-shot-dead/
“Which is EXACTLY why it’s splendid news that the jab will henceforth be offered on the NHS and therefore FREE.
Aren’t you pleased about that?”
Delighted. It fully illustrates the advantage of keeping the NHS out of the hands of private enterprise, especially those enterprises specifically set up to leech taxpayer’s money for the inefficient provision of services (1). Which is why I mentioned it. Your point being?
(1) viz, eg. PFI contractors.
http://www.if.org.uk/archives/3453/new-figures-reveal-weight-of-pfi-burden-on-nhs-trusts
Boosting the economy, of course….Jersey’s economy. Or the Caymans’
http://www.private-eye.co.uk/sections.php?section_link=news&issue=1362
Like to comment on Cameron’s commitment to clamp down on tax evasion, buggerlugs?
I bet you wouldn’t.
Interesting well worth reading essential background to events and recent history in Ukraine, from fall of Soviet Union up to the articles publication in 2010, not including the most recent western organised turmoil, but predicting it.
http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/print/Ukraine%20and%20a%20Tectonic%20Shift%20in%20Heartland%20Power.pdf
I also think this is an interesting paper from 2012.
http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/print/Dagestan%20Syria%20comes%20to%20Russia.pdf
It was Alexander Muzychko who beat up a clerk in a prosecutor’s office in a widely watched video. His Nazi background, fighting alongside the right wing Chechnyans against the Russians marked his personal history in the gallery of rogues.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlKEF5uoU_I
When they get rid of all the Nazis, fascists and blackshirts in the new Ukrainian government there will be nobody left to vote for.
Tony M thank you for the link to a very well-researched article on the Ukraine. From the first part I reached the conclusion that the resources, like great topsoil, granite and other minerals in the Ukraine are what the west is after in its aims of World Spectral Domination. Learning about how western powers had co-ordinated their efforts to usurp a previous properly-run election in order to steal these was reminiscent of how Karl Rove got George W. Bush illegally elected. They live lies. It is why I go to Russia Today to get some semblance of truth to mix with the disinformation of our own media.
“When Yushchenko lost the 2004 election to Viktor Yanukovych,several elements worked in concert to create an aura of fraud around the results, and to mobilize popular support for a new run-off. Using the Pora and other youth groups, especially election monitors, in coordination with key western media such as CNN and BBC, a second election was organized that allowed Yushchenko to squeak out a narrow margin of victory in January 2005 and declare himself President. The US State Department reportedly spent some $20 million to secure a US-friendly outcome in the Ukraine Presidency.”
They haven’t found the actual site (as far as I know), but they’re quoting new data from Immarsat.
They haven’t said yet what that data is.
It’s bollocks, IMO. Long before Inmarsat “developed” its whizzo new “analysis” of the relatively useless ping data, hugely expensive SAR resources were en route to a constrained region of the Southern Ocean. This (to me) suggests that much better data was already available to confirm that the southern arc was the one followed by the flight,either from undisclosed electronic surveillance (reception of the pings by another satellite would have been sufficient to disambiguate the Inmarsat data) or high-resolution optical sensors. In turn, this indicates input from -probably US – military sources. Inmarsat were obliged to conceal this. IMHO.
“Scottish Independence supporter’s enlightened view:”
As soon as they stop shouting “BIAS”, “UNFAIR”, “SCAREMONGERING” long enough to tell anybody what it is.
You wouldn’t have the Scottish government’s deficit forecasts handy would you?
BeelZeBubble
“Given that the BBC gets a lot of stick on this blog, I was just wondering what commenters thought about the govts’s apparent willingness to consider de-criminalising non-payment of the licence fee?”
____________________
Got you there, didn’t I – you’re in the proverbial cleft stick, caught between your dislike for the BBC (which you and your fellow Eminences continually slate) and your inability to admit that the present govt can do anything right. So you seek to divert 🙂
You need to sharpen up.
“What is so “strange” about someone being called Abramovich?”
Strange she wasn’t called “The Annihilator”. Now will you let it drop? There are important issues to be discussed on this blog but certain people are only interested in point-scoring. It lowers the intellect of comments, is distracting, and generally comes from those incapable of having an engaging debate. So mod(s) please watch for this. Eliminate it and the blog will start to attract again the good people who have been staying away. Thanks.
Meanwhile, in Uzbekistan –
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26713383
Has Gulnara finally fallen from grace?
There again, where would the cowpat flies have to breed if you wasn’t here.