It says a huge amount about the confidence of the royal family, that they feel able to respond to their Nazi home movie with nothing other than outrage that anybody should see it. They make no denial they were giving Nazi salutes, no statement that the royal family did not support the Nazis. Of course the young children had no idea of the implications. But the adults most certainly did. The missing figure is the cameraman, future King George, who was filming his wife and brother displaying the family sympathies.
The royal family were of course German themselves – completely so. Since George I every royal marriage in line of succession had been conducted in strict accordance with the Furstenprivatrecht, to a member of a German royal family. The Queen Mother, who was of course not expected to feature in promulgating the line of succession, was the first significant exception in 220 years. She was evidently trying hard to fit in. But I am not sure German-ness has much to do with it. Nazi sympathies were much more common in the aristocracy than generally admitted. Their vast wealth and massive land ownership contrasted with the horrific poverty and malnutrition of the 1930’s, led the aristocracy to fear a very real prospect of being stood against a wall and shot. Fascism appeared to offer social amelioration for the workers with continued privilege for the aristocrats. It is completely untrue that its racism, totalitarianism and violence was unknown in 1933-4. They knew what they were doing.
Happily fascism was defeated. The royal family is of course only the tip of the iceberg of whitewashed fascist support – without even starting on industrialists, newspaper proprietors, the Kennedys, etc. etc. But the Buckingham Palace option of outrage that anybody should ever remember is very sad – still more sad that such a position gets such popular support.
We never did get round to shooting the aristocrats.
I am an optimist in politics. My experience of life has taught me that altruism is a far stronger human urge than selfishness. Modern political fashion is based on the denigration of the urge to cooperation, and I do not believe will survive.
Which leads me to believe we are now living in an embarrassing past. Future generations will look back at the massive and exponentially expanding gap between rich and poor, at the super state security services and near total surveillance, at the violent wars waged in ill-disguised annexation of resources, and be amazed that people could support it. I also think that enormous shame will attach to all those who support the excruciatingly slow genocide of the Palestinians. That will be part of our embarrassing past.
The bloody cost of apartheid: Israel kills twice in two days
Ben White
23 July 2015
Israeli occupation forces have killed again: the victim this time was Falah Abu Maria, a 52-year-old father shot dead in Beit Ummar, a village in the southern West Bank.
Abu Maria’s death came just a day after 21-year-old Muhammad ‘Alawna had been shot dead near Jenin. Israel has now killed 17 Palestinians in 2015 to date, and wounded dozens more.
Falah Abu Maria was killed during an Israeli arrest raid of his family home, which took place at around 3am. According to eyewitnesses, Israeli soldiers stormed the house, and fired two live rounds at Mohammad, one of Abu Maria’s sons; another son was also injured.
/..
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/blogs/politics/20001-the-bloody-cost-of-apartheid-israel-kills-twice-in-two-days
“He doesn’t. He lives in Wolverhampton and plays video games.”
PMSL. You really pwned him there, Komodo.
Thinking of poor governmental decisions, Westminster’s sanctioning of the nuclear power station at Hinckley Point springs to mind.
So expensive is nuclear power, that the UK government is set to subsidise that one power station to the tune of €108 billion Euros or (£77 billion pounds).
These astronomical figures don’t even take into account of the decommissioning costs that future generations will be met with, infact the Hinckley C subsidised are so ridiculously large that a consortium of energy suppliers,in Germany and Austria have lodged a complaint with European Court.
And Miliband D speaking from his New York trough.
David Miliband Steers Labour Supporters Away From Corbyn
Thursday 23 July 2015
Video “Miliband: Labour ‘Needs New Ideas'”
Former Foreign Secretary David Miliband tells Sky News Tonight voters have sent Labour a clear message in the last two elections – that the party needs “new ideas, not old ones”. http://news.sky.com/video/1524310/miliband-labour-needs-new-ideas
~~
Spellcheck does not like ‘Miliband’. It suggests Militant, Multiband or Millbank.
You’re dredging that breitbart sewer now? Good grief, you must be desperate. What next, The Onion?
“Israel has now killed 17 Palestinians in 2015 to date”
A drop in the ocean compared to Muslim on Muslim violence. In fact I’d bet that’s fewer than the number of Palestinians killed by Hamas this year.
“‘Stand up’ as in, get back in your box and let Westminster ‘run’ Scotland?”
Just a couple of years ago if I rang the police I talked to someone in Caithness. Now if I call the police I talk to someone a hundred miles away in Inverness. They are now going to close the control centre in Inverness despite someone having been left in a ditch for three days.
That country which has the ghosts of the crofters moved in the clearances they are covering with windmills that will lose money for 20 years then stand there rotting and you couldn’t give a damn.
Police Scotland’s main job these days is to monitor social media for offensive comments.
Anon1L
” A drop in the ocean compared to Muslim on Muslim violence. In fact I’d bet that’s fewer than the number of Palestinians killed by Hamas this year.”
Has it escaped your notice that Hamas is an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was founded by British and Jewish spies in Egypt circa 1900 to foment fitna/strife in the Muslim world?
With Hamas and Israel, you are talking about one and the same organisation, USUKIS, enemy of Islam. which also incorporates Saudi Arabia’s takfirism, by which if you decide that someone else is not a Muslim you can take his life or his wife or his possessions. Saudi pilots are not allowed to kill other Muslims so they get Israeli pilots to do it for them.
The smallness of intellect that thinks you can cancel another person’s faith by your own human decision, when Allah alone knows the hearts of mankind, boggles the mind.
I do not accept the premise of your stupid statement, because it assumes that the murderer of a Muslim can be another Muslim. The murderer of a Muslim is consigned to the fire of Hell. It is an act of disbelief.
You continually conflate the violence of Political Islam in the two manifestations described above with Islam. Islam requires submission to God’s decision, while politics seeks to change God’s decision by deception and violence. These two things are incompatible, as you very well know.
The entire program of violence of Political Islam starting with friend of george Bush Usama Bin Laden to Daesh , is the warped concoction of USUKIS. Islam does not recognise its authority or its association with the enemies of Islam.
So you’re wasting your breath trying to conflate its terrorism with Islam. Rather conflate the terrorism of the West UKUSIS and its allies with the terrorism of Political Islam and its allies.
Sociopathic Nutters the lot of them.
Anon1
“Police Scotland’s main job these days is to monitor social media for offensive comments.”
Shut up you stupid man. The police monitor all kinds of communications for the purpose of intercepting crime.
The awareness of being monitored definitely changes the frormat of human psychology, because if you know you are being monitored you will not talk freely and you will deliberately mislead your monitorers some of the time.
Not being able to talk freely, and being subjected to the harrassment of being monitored, changes the spectrum of emotions from ordinary human expression, letting out feelings, to continuously playing a complex political game.
It is a very unhealthy situation – one that Craig lists among the things that will one day form part of our embarrassing past.
Simple human harmless human emotions are checked and criminalised while the political manipulations of the elite go unchecked even if they form part of a crime.
“Thinking of poor governmental decisions, Westminster’s sanctioning of the nuclear power station at Hinckley Point springs to mind.”
Not long back Scotland had a great deal of power at Westminster, the leaders of all three main parties were Scots representing Scottish constituencies. My own MP was a member of government with influence.
The Nationalists threw all that away.
That country which has the ghosts of the crofters moved in the clearances… conducted by the solidly Unionist aristocracy in order to make room for sheep with English and Borders shepherds…what’s the livestock on your croft, Fred?
“That country which has the ghosts of the crofters moved in the clearances… conducted by the solidly Unionist aristocracy in order to make room for sheep with English and Borders shepherds…what’s the livestock on your croft, Fred?”
Seems you know as little about the Clearances as Juteman.
The Clearances was Sutherland. This is where those cleared came to not where they came from.
Seems you know as little about the Clearances as Juteman.
And you maybe know less. Brush up on your research. Fr’ instance, the settlement at Badbea was populated by refugees from Berriedale, Ousdale and Langwell. You may care to tell me whether that was what is now Braemore and Langwell, near Helmsdale, or Langwell near Ullapool – if the former, all are in Caithness.
Whatever, they wouldn’t have had to move from the estates at all if they hadn’t been evicted by…the solidly *Unionist* aristocracy in order to make room for sheep with English and Borders shepherds, would they?
Once again, you are arguing blindly, and wrongly, for the sake of it. And so unnecessarily. This thread is on its fourth page, and it went to hell a long time ago. Only the regulars are reading it.
Anon1 is talking out of the top of his pointy hat.
The Conservatives and Anon1 claim they want Jeremy Corbyn to become party leader because it would make the Labour party unelectable. If they REALLY believed that, they would keep quiet rather than publicise the danger to their enemy. It follows that they ARE worried by the prospect of Corbyn winning and offering the electorate a chanced to vote for socialist policies.
It follows that they ARE worried by the prospect of Corbyn winning and offering the electorate a chanced to vote for socialist policies.
Absolutely. They saw what happened to centrist Labour in Scotland. They know why, and it wasn’t just a pro-independence vote. It was an anti-being-buggered-about-by-Oxford-PPE’s vote too. And they know the same demographic is chafing for a non-Establishment party to vote for in England. The double-bluff is worthy of Osborne himself, but that’s what it is. With UKIP eclipsed by its own incompetence, the left of the Labour Party is a huge threat.
Don’t be put off by the Torygraph telling you to vote for him. Just vote for him.
“Once again, you are arguing blindly, and wrongly, for the sake of it. And so unnecessarily.”
Where I live was never cleared that is for certain.
Jeremy Corbyn unelectable, eh?
No wonder elites are so worried. Sorry if this has been posted before.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-jeremy-corbyn-policies-that-most-people-actually-agree-with-10407148.html
Kind regards,
John
Where I live was never cleared that is for certain.
I can only guess that you live on the beach. Or…gwaannnn. Give us a link. You know you want to.
Ulbster, perhaps? Bit of a PR job there, I’m afraid.
http://clangunn.weebly.com/ulbster-estate-evictions.html
Anon1’s apologia : “In fact I’d bet that’s fewer than the number of Palestinians killed by Hamas this year.”
Maybe that could be worked into the national motto for Israel, something like “Bet we’re not as bad as Hamas!”
A notable achievement, which should make every Israeli citizen lift their chin.
Ba’al educated us about the clearances by saying
“in order to make room for sheep with English and Borders shepherds, would they? ”
That sounds very much like Tory unionists deep into their pastoral endeavors. But, good god, you are not suggesting that Fred is somehow related/ comparable to these English and Borders shepherds, are you?
His constant sniping at the SNP whilst unionists can’t do no wrong could be down some sort of genetic propensity.
I had a friend who worked for Customs and Excise, he always wondered why he so much liked baking cakes of the finest, the more complicated the better, incl three tier wedding cakes, until he researched his family of bakers, who came over to England from Niedersachsen during the early 1800’s and helped to set up the British sugar industry. he had a succession of bakers in the family.
I have not seen Mr. Brandt for over 15 years now, I wonder whether he watches the Mary Berry merrygoround……
Ditto, the Tory party and the other Tory party lite masquerading as the nulabor are all worried that Labour in fact would return back to its’ socialist roots and show these privateers and profiteers for what they are are; fucking parasites!
“Ulbster, perhaps? Bit of a PR job there, I’m afraid.”
The Ulbster Estates weren’t at Ulbster.
Low-end torque and meaty pipe-sounds are the draw for Hogophiles. Nothing deducted from the urge for a huge appendage extended from your loins on that score.
Ba’al : “2.8 secs isn’t half of “under 4″, Glenn. And I’m being honest. Mine is capable of 3.5, and I’m giving away 300cc and 50 bhp. Save your scorn for someone who can afford your insurance (and regular chain replacements). Each to their own, eh? (c**t.)”
It’s shaft driven, so chain replacements aren’t really a big overhead. 6500 miles between services too. The insurance was £165, so it’s not really a rich person’s toy.
The Ulbster Estates weren’t at Ulbster.
Your point being? Mine being that they were cleared, along with a lot of Caithness while you were claiming it was just Sutherland.
For newcomers to this, er, debate (it really takes two, but Fred doesn’t do debate), some background to that wonderful *Union* and a lead-in to the Highland Clearances – whose victims still apparently haunt expat* English sheep-farmer Fred, in low ghostly tones complaining about windfarms but happily failing to mention a semi-derelict radioactive pile which is costing millions to clean up and is sited (excusably if you’re a Londoner) in Caithness rather than Sussex, under UK control. If that ‘control’ is not too strong a word.
http://www.scotland.org.uk/history/act-union
*yeah, ok. But they’re still different countries geographically.
“Living is easy with eyes closed/misunderstanding is all you see” – John Lennon
Clearly ‘irrefutable’ proof has many ‘ifs, ands or buts’ to some here. So, with recent Chatham House rumbles of ‘partitioning’ Syria and reflecting Iran’s nuclear deal I revisited PM Cameron’s holy grail of ‘responsibility to protect’ albeit without who he actually feels responsible to and, to what he’s actually protecting.
The British are good at drawing lines on a map, yet geography cannot cause people to lose attachments to people and places they love and live with. This British inspired ‘crusade’ in the Middle East is fast dwindling through lack of applause, impotence and weakness instead of superiority. Peace and stability is apparently vaporous while Syria’s history ie the Sykes-Picot agreement (1916) the 1917 Balfour Declaration (in which Britain promised Zionists land it didn’t own known as Palestine or Southern Syria), and the 1920 San Remo Conference at which Britain, France, Italy, and Japan used rather arbitrary lines to create the French Mandate of Syria and Lebanon, the British Mandate of Palestine (including Jordan), and the British Mandate of Iraq is, well… best forgotten or perhaps re-written to appease future generations.
With historical proof, apologetically I suggest the neoteric Iran agreement, the weakening US alliance with Israel and last weeks announcement by Philip Hammond that Isarel’s stance with Iran is against British interests:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/israel-permanent-standoff–iran-foreign-secretar-philip-hammond-uk-britain-10390658.html
we can move towards accepting rights for Palestinians and return their land, mandate a return to Syria of the illegally occupied Golan Heights and more importantly stop the proxy war in Syria recognising chaos, violence, destitution, sectarian division, rage, and weaponry that flooded the region with the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 impacted Syria and of course led to the creation of groups like ISIS by proxy perversion of the Arab Spring.
Over 200,000 have died, over 3 million have left the country, six and a half million are internally displaced, 4.6 million are living where fighting is ongoing.
But who cares Anon1 – it’s just your arse – isn’t it?
Fair enough, Glenn. Not familiar with the bike at all, obviously. Just returning bile for bile, with Google’s assistance (I thought at the time – I bet the damn thing’s a shaftie, but the hell with it, I won’t check). As I say, each to their own, and I am perfectly happy with the acceleration of mine. 3.5 is the generally quoted figure, but everything’s happening too fast even at that to confirm it with a stopwatch. Yours is probably less likely to wheelie when pulling away, as it is a lot heavier, I gather. OTOH mine is easier to pick up if I am still alive after dropping it….
Well I’ve voted for Jeremy. A left-wing dinosaur is just what the Labour party needs to make it unelectable. The Labour Party is only ever electable when it moves to the centre ground. Ed Miliband took it a little to the left and was annihilated for it.
That leaves the don’t-votes, whom many here believe to be a huge army of inspired Corbynites just itching to get out there and vote for a left-winger. Sorry to break it to you folks, but they just don’t care about politics. That’s why they don’t vote. Only about one per cent of us are interested in politics. The rest who vote do so for the party that they think will allow them the most prosperity. And that ain’t Labour under Corbyn.
So I’ll take bets from any of you that Labour lose the next election under Corbyn, as you think I’m being disingenuous.