I used to discuss foreign affairs with Tony Benn over tea in his kitchen in Holland Park when I lived a short walk away. I get a mention in his later published diaries in this regard. I was therefore saddened to hear his son, Hilary, at Labour Party Conference today align himself with the establishment in a way much more in tune with their aristocratic ancestors.
Benn was sending out neo-con friendly signals like there was no tomorrow. The first came from the very start, when he paid unnecessary and fulsome tribute to the really horrible wee Dougie Alexander who had “served his constituents extremely well”. That really was a pathetic lie. Wee Dougie paid no attention whatsoever to his constituents and took them entirely for granted. Labour’s lack in Scotland of any foundation in the people was what made it so easy for us to topple the Labour monolith.
Benn went on to advocate the “Responsibility to Protect”, the Blairite code for supporting United States military and especially bombing missions abroad. The thesis that Western bombing improves and stabilises countries appears tested well beyond destruction, but the neo-cons stick with it because of the corporate interests it does so much to boost.
Benn disgracefully then called in the body of little Alayn in argument for bombing Syria. He even noted that Alayn had fled Kobani, which “the BBC had reported as almost completely destroyed”, without mentioning – as the BBC did not mention – that some of that destruction had been caused by repeated American bombings of Kobani.
I am sorry that Tony’s son turned out to be a vicious, warmongering, lying, neo-con bastard.
🙂
Ben,
Reminds me of a Cheech and Chong movie from back in the day..cant recall which one..
Ishmael,
Ok man,best wishes.
Back to the Labour conference and the Wintour/Watt duo’s reportage thereof.
Wintour & Watt: Guardian’s shameless Anti-Corbyn duo stoop to new tabloid lows
September 28, 2015 – 6:42 pm
http://www.sodiumhaze.org/2015/09/28/wintour-watt-guardians-shameless-anti-corbyn-duo-stoop-to-new-tabloid-lows/
I remember it Jives. The guy was growing in his swimming pool which was covered with a camouflaged tarp. That was the one where Tommy searched through the ashtray for a roach and not finding any smoked an actual cockroach.
The good old days.
@Habba
“As for the “looting” you refer to, perhaps you should ask yourself whether the family firm of Assad & Sons (Est. decades ago, Torture, Murder and Despotism our Speciality, Barrel-bombing by Special Arrangement) hasn’t been doing its own little bit of looting…..”
Maybe they became infected from their next door neighbour Israel Cluster bombs and chemical shells and looting for oil on Golan Heights and much more.
Ben,
Yep thats the one..i seem to recall Stacey Keach as a dope adddled cop too…=)
Funny movies at that time in my life..
“Spooks gotta spook”
Init.
ps, We cannot win victory for ourselves, but we can give Frodo a chance. keep him blind to all else that moves in Mordor. Or grows under good cover.
Still talking to myself here on public QE through state purchases of cheap materials and energy. To do it in an overt public way would be nigh impossible, but to make use of a private vehicle could be possible, and there are some private vehicles going cheap. Maybe it would need a little skullduggery, but if those on here are right there is a pool of such talent available on the public sector pay roll.
Craig
Today’s meeting between Putin and Obama at the UN was a diplomatic moment as rare as a supermoon. Understandable therefore that you would get a pang of regret at your own inability to participate.
I have no time for lies, or politics as it is now called when it is really just lies. That puts you at the top of my list of heroes, and many others would agree with me, because you busted one of the ugliest lies of modern politics, the use of torture to alter the psychology of Islam’s soul into vicious and pointless self destruction, instead of a glorious witness to an ever living God.
Your blasting a hole in the wall to wall carpet of neo-con lies gets up the trolls’ noses, as they thought truth like spindles had long since been a forgotten concept.
As a temporal politician Hilary Benn has always been anti-rocking the boat and maybe his father’s courage in rocking the boat created that counter-influence on Hilary. I chose a to take a BA in English where my father was a mathematician and computer boffin. I’m sure my decision was 2 fingers up to his ideas, what a terrible son I must have been to him, but la vita e a bugger like that, wouldn’t you say?
Anyway it is on a day like this when Putin and Obama have a talk about Syria that major things can change. They know the world is listening to what they have to say, and the reason why the know it is because the likes of you have been bombarding them with truth at full volume. Well done and thank you. Nobody’s listening to Hilary Benn. He has nothing new to say.
John Spencer-Davis
Have you wee’d out your groin-grains yet? Not that I want to know, just that Blabberbox was on about his member he keeps in a cigar case in cotton wool under the bed earlier and I thought even the passing of kidney stones down a real one was more interesting than the plastic sex life of a troll. Skip on down ladies and gents.
Kidney stones are no joke and not a subject of jokes.
Ben
It’s better than a joke when the pain stops I think you’ll find.
Giyane
28/09/2015 9:33pm
If you don’t want to know, then I won’t bother to tell you.
What a peculiar post.
John
A minor correction, Craig. The Benns had no aristocratic ancestors. They came from trade and non-conformism – and politics (at least one member of the Benn family has sat in the Commons since 1892). But they were clearly energetic and some became rich, so that Tony Benn grew up in a five-storey Westminster mansion overlooking the Thames, staffed by a dozen or more servants.
Tony’s father was an MP and minister in the 1920s and 30s and was made a peer in 1942 (before life peerages were introduced). He chose the title “Viscount Stansgate”, after the Essex village where the family’s country house was located.
The title created “the impression that (Stansgate) is an ancient stately home, and that I came from one of the oldest aristocratic families in Britain – a myth nurtured by the tabloids for their own political purposes”, Tony Benn explained in one of his books (Dare to be a Daniel).
Jives: “And furthet Glenn,kindly dont distort my words.”
No distortion necessary – your words are right up there, encouraging poor Ishmael in his delusions. You idiot.
Glenn,
Grow up pal youre embarrassing yourself now.
My words are clear for anyone to read and your distortion of them reveal you as a really rather sad case.
“Tell me, were you ALWAYS so naive?”
Were you always a retard?
The old block. Sorry but it’s the Mail.
Hypocrisy, again.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2816554/Benn-s-legacy-hypocrisy-week-revealed-arch-socialist-left-5m-children-none-good-causes-s-just-start-breathtaking-story-riches-tax-avoidance-double-standards.html
Similar to the Miliband’s affairs.
Dave Lawton
28 Sep, 2015 – 8:33 pm
Almost missed that post. Thanks. I makes me think about laura poitras, think it was her someone refereed to as surveillance machine. I imagine any activism I do far less important and probably would not be of that nature…but yea, it’s food for thought.. Sure there are many ways of turning the tables….
Snowden also speaks of ways technology can increase personal safety/ space..I do very little atm. Think my HD Finlay dying in a machine may be an opportunity to try Tails or something. Again not that I feel i’m important but for self respect, more privacy…I always feel better just not having computers in my room.
I may just hand out my beautiful pictures free as activism. Probable be a traumatic experience for most of society. Im sure that’s drone territory stuff nowadays.
Andrew,
Thanks, I stand corrected.
When Tony Benn’s father William Benn switched from the Liberal Party to the Labour Party in 1927, he resigned his seat in Parliament and ran for and won another seat, saying,”The Labour Party is a Socialist Party, and I am standing as a Socialist.” http://spartacus-educational.com/TUbenn.htm
glenn
28 Sep, 2015 – 9:50 pm
Would you care to elaborate how you are so sure i’m delusional.? Perhaps you have, or must have (without knowing me) some kind of wealth of evidence the state does not do this sort of thing…
How about you post your evidence and i’ll post mine. On second thought, why don’t you just leave me alone, what do you care about my delusions? and if you really do, do me a favor and ……go away. Thanks.
Lysias
28/09/2015 10:11pm
Dick Taverne took the same course when he resigned from the Labour Party in 1972. Honourably, he also resigned as an MP and sought re-election by his constituents under a “Democratic Labour” manifesto. And he won, regaining his seat in March 1973.
Contrast that with the Members of Parliament who formed the Social Democratic Party in 1981. Twenty-eight came from Labour and one from the Conservative Party. Elected under the manifesto of one party, twenty-seven of those who walked out and joined another did not see fit to put their decision to their constituents for approval. The one honourable Member who did – Bruce Douglas-Mann – lost his seat to Angela Rumbold of the Conservatives.
Pack of hyenas.
Kind regards,
John
Correction. Twenty-eight hyenas. I forgot Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler.
J
Jives,
We are in agreement that there is general ignorance amongst the general populace about the levels of blanket surveillance carried about, and the malice of security services policy (e.g. the point Craig makes about the BND’s astro-turf party on the previous thread).
However whilst I agree it is important to avoid naivety, I think you are making an error in the other direction. How many people are under constant surveillance in the UK now, in your estimation? I think a thousand would be too many, in a nation of 60 million people. But, even if it is 10 thousand, or 20 thousand – think of how many people would be required to carry out these secret operations. What would these operatives be paid? Would the sec services get reliable and discreet agents for £30K a year? I think not – perhaps £40-60K might do it. And all of these field staff presumably need support staff back in London.
So, the sums involved, and the proportional increase of exposure, means that there is a natural limit to what operations can be carried out whilst ensuring the UK does not feel like police state. I’d wager that a lot of agents are hanging around mosques rather than pubs anyway, for obvious reasons.
Ishmael,
Jives means well, but I don’t think hearing the most paranoid interpretations of your unusual events is helpful for you, nor, in all likelihood, are they particularly realistic. Perhaps it would be better for you to write down the things you are worried about, and take them to a level-headed friend or family member, and ask them to reflect on them critically for you. I think you’ll find that your worry presently is having a magnifying effect.
In answer to your rhetorical question, yes, I try to have everyone’s interests at heart. Of course, I cannot tell you who to trust, but that’s a conundrum for everyone in real life, and not just on a blog! I hope you find some peace soon.
Jon.
Your first paragraph kinda reinforces my broader points though Jon doesnt it?
How many under constant surveillance you ask? Well who knows, i certainly don’t and nor likely you.
Dont tell Ishmael i mean well Jon.
Thats also patronising and balefully avuncular.
Read my posts Jon and see what i really said please.
Your first paragraph about the spooks malignancy is more damaging presently to Ishmael’s situation than my mere detailing of factual examples could ever be.
Sixty million!
Jon you are being disingenuous by stating;
Why? is the question that perhaps you can answer in your time.
In UK as it stands there 768 internal security agencies, in a seamless integrated security blanket, that is constantly sifting through the data collected via internal, phone calls; mobile/land, direct access to any number of services. With the resultant being as Rober Crawford has gone on record, that takes hearsay as the “data” in addition to the more sophisticated meta data processing.
Your reference to one thousand even does not cover the three thousand “terrorists” who are a threat to our security as per the latest MIFriendly reports. Furthermore the degrees of zersetzung applied to various citizens of course differs; from very intensive, to sporadic harassments.
Your contention somehow overlooks the search engines, and ISP holding on to the data for a period of two years mandated by laws, that is ample time for the data to get analysed and necessary measures taken!! The current ethos is everybody is a suspect unless cleared by the security services.
This discussion has made me listen back to the Tony Benn and David Davis, head to head before a public audience in Dec 2002 when Labour pre-meditated barabrous war crime in Iraq was on the agenda. From that to the hour long program and obitary of Benn by David Davis from 2014. What comes over from the latter is how despicably Davis used the opportunity of his passing to absolutely rubbish Tony Benn, a vicious vindictive crowing Tory propaganda piece, the BBC aided and abetted by Davis at their most wicked. What a despicable worm Davis turned out to be, saying things he would never have dared say to Benn, though had plenty of opportunity to say, to his face. It really is the most terrible low hit piece ever done from a corporation in the gutter coughing froth-filled blood. Shut the whole bloody lot of it down, sack the lot them. Cunts.
They’ve got a little list.
British IS Fighters Hit With UN Sanctions
The Government hopes the move will deter others considering following those who have already travelled to join Islamic State.
http://news.sky.com/story/1560551/british-is-fighters-hit-with-un-sanctions
‘One of the five names submitted by the UK to the UN is still to be approved, and more names are expected to be put forward.’
More of the ‘if you have not done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear’.