My world view changed forever when, after 20 years in the Foreign Office, I saw colleagues I knew and liked go along with Britain’s complicity in the most terrible tortures, as detailed stunningly in the recent Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee Report. They also went along with keeping the policy secret, deliberately disregarding all normal record taking procedures, to the extent that the Committee noted:
131. We note that we have not seen the minutes of these meetings either: this causes us great concern. Policy discussions on such an important issue should have been minuted. We support Mr Murray’s own conclusion that were it not for his actions these matters may never have come to light.
The people doing these things were not ordinarily bad people; they were just trying to keep their jobs, comforting themselves with the thought that they were only civil servants obeying orders. Many were also actuated by the nasty “patriotism” that grips in time of war, as we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. Almost nobody in the FCO stood up against the torture or against the illegal war – Elizabeth Wilmshurst, Carne Ross and I were the only ones to leave over it.
I then had the still more mortifying experience of the Foreign Office seeking to punish my dissent by bringing a series of accusations of gross misconduct – some of them criminal – against me. The people bringing the accusations knew full well they were false. The people investigating them knew they were false from about day 2. But I was put through a hellish six months of trial by media before being acquitted on all the original counts (found guilty of revealing the charges, whose existence was an official secret!). The people who did this to me were people I knew.
I had served as First Secretary in the British Embassy in Poland, and bumped up startlingly against the history of the Holocaust in that time, including through involvement with organising the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. What had struck me most forcibly was the sheer scale of the Holocaust operation, the tens of thousands of people who had been complicit in administering it. I could never understand how that could happen – until I saw ordinary, decent people in the FCO facilitate extraordinary rendition and torture. Then I understood, for the first time, the banality of evil or, perhaps more precisely, the ubiquity of evil. Of course, I am not comparing the scale of what happened to the Holocaust – but evil can operate on different scales.
I believe I see it again today. I do not believe that the majority of journalists in the BBC, who pump out a continual stream of “Corbyn is an anti-semite” propaganda, believe in their hearts that Corbyn is a racist at all. They are just doing their job, which is to help the BBC avert the prospect of a radical government in the UK threatening the massive wealth share of the global elite. They would argue that they are just reporting what others say; but it is of course the selection of what they report and how they report it which reflect their agenda.
The truth, of which I am certain, is this. If there genuinely was the claimed existential threat to Jews in Britain, of the type which engulfed Europe’s Jews in the 1930’s, Jeremy Corbyn, Billy Bragg, Roger Waters and I may humbly add myself would be among the few who would die alongside them on the barricades, resisting. Yet these are today loudly called “anti-semites” for supporting the right to oppose the oppression of the Palestinians. The journalists currently promoting those accusations, if it came to the crunch, would be polishing state propaganda and the civil servants writing railway dockets. That is how it works. I have seen it. Close up.
A lot of the discussions about Burkagate or Letterboxgate do not take account of the fact that wearing the Burka is not dictated by religion or by racial or country affiliations. I am no expert but my understanding is that advocating wearing the Burka is an interpretation by some that women should dress in a modest way so as not to stir men’s lust, a concept not unknown to Victorian England. Some communities and some countries advocate or strongly enforce this but the majority of even practicing Muslim women do not wear the Burka. In the ME until about the 80’s most women didn’t even wear the veil in big cities and it was almost considered a peasant thing to wear even the less extreme forms of body covering and certainly not face covering. Changes occured with the rising of political Islam unfortunately and in places where the veil was not worn, it started to reappear. I am told that before the Syrian ‘civil war’ hardly any Syrian women wore even a modest veil but this has now increased because of fear of the Islamists.
So concentrating on the Burka is similar to targeting women who say wear ankle length skirts for ‘modesty’. It is not really a major political point worth discussing. It is cheap political point scoring of Johnson and all those bloggers in this website who defend him. Targeting political Islam and the regimes behind it is what is needed. It is extremely hypocritical to criticise the Burka wearers whilst arming their oppressors to the teeth.
Here is someone who has studied collusion between UK and political Islam.
https://twitter.com/markcurtis30
Funny, just about the time of the rise of neo-libralisum.
“One factor that is common and which is very significant is the Neo Liberal programme that was instituted globally, roughly around 35 years ago, around 1980 or a little before and picking up afterwards”
“A: Take the US or the British policy towards Islam. It has been highly supportive of the most radical elements of Islam. That is true of the British and it’s true of the Americans after they took over from the British. So who is the leading US ally in the Islamic world? Saudi Arabia, perhaps the most extreme, radical, fundamentalist State in the world. But certainly in the Islamic world. And a missionary State, which uses its huge resources to sponsor its Wahabist extremism through Madrasas and so on. It is the main source of Jihadism.” Noam chomsky
https://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/40986-noam-chomsky-the-us-has-a-history-of-supporting-muslim-extremists-in-the-middle-east .
Why is it only Muslim women in the UK who expected o show their piety and modesty by covering their faces? (apart from the usual quotient of religious males who adopt middle Eastern dress.) If a Muslim woman must wear a head covering, why don’t the majority of Muslim males in the UK also cover their heads as a sign of modesty?
When I lived in North Africa, I used to drive past a modern housing development going near where I worked. It had a large mural painted on a wall next to the entrance which showed a woman in the niqab alongside a bareheaded man in a natty dark western suit. There was some message underneath about the development being the latest in modern housing for Muslim families.
I was struck then as I am still today, by why Muslim men who adopt modern dress themselves, wish their female family members to wear something much more archaic. (I do realise that some older conservative Muslim women also favour it.)The answer seems to be that the men are using their female relatives to display their family’s devoutnessto the wider world while leaving themselves free to wear modern clothing.
Did you see Sharp Ears on here the other day deriding an actual Imam as “tame” for saying that the burqa should be banned? How did the Western left end up like this?
By supporting the view that people can wear whatever they want I suppose. Personal liberty and all that.
She was implying that the Imam is some kind of traitor. Like many in the far left she openly sides with radical Islam.
Not all are “expected” as you say. But I don’t know why you find this issue such an issue, with plenty of analogous circumstances across society.
The fact is few have influenced this more modern conservative bent more than western influence in the middle east over the past 40 odd years (and well before since we drew lines across the land “for them”).. Few others have the “power” or influence to do so.
In short (though your obviously free not to like it, I don’t in forced cases) but what about the roots, why this trend is emerging. What role we play in it’s continuation?… And we do. Just makes people more defensive, a personal attack.
People who are meant to represent us foster the conditions that have led to this.
And it’s not all necessarily negative. The precepts many have in the west arn’t necessarily good. The vanity & materialism, the narcissism. The arrogance that values most hold are somehow more virtuous.
Anon1.Do you have any evidence at all for that statement? Thought not. You might just as well have written ‘Many gerbils like the music of Mendelssohn’.
“why don’t the majority of Muslim males in the UK also cover their heads as a sign of modesty?”
There is a belief among Arab Muslims that women are at risk from men who are liable to get an overpowering stiffy whenever they see a woman of childbearing age whose hair is uncovered. This is reinforced by the culture among many Arab men of feeling up women whenever they get the chance, always assuming their mothers aren’t watching. Meanwhile “kufr” women are generally seen as whores, ready to drop their knickers for the said super-hot males as soon as they feel a hand grope them and realise that some kind of “gift” may be available if they play their cards right. (This is not an uncommon view that xenophobes hold about women who belong to “other” ethno-cultural groups than their own. For example the Yiddish word “shiksa” has strong connotations of “whore” too.) Of course there is no recognition by such men that they are being utter hypocrites and are big-time sluts themselves, but what else is new?
The belief is not widespread among Arab Muslims of either sex that men are at risk from women who will get overpoweringly sexually excited whenever they see a man capable of producing sperm whose hair is uncovered. Nor is there a culture among Arab women of feeling up men, whether they belong to that culture or come from outside it, whenever they get the chance.
You lived in North Africa, so surely you know all this?
Dunno about MaryPaul. But it certainly rings some bells from traveling in india.
I think perceptions in the wast are so bent by focusing on this, as to what life is like for most people living in the east.
Well said N_, exactly why women choose to wear burkas and niqabs.
It is the male psyche and sexual depravity, just as we.see in our very own catholic school bastions and past, although on the sly, that endangers pur lifes.
Boris wrote a calculated tabloid story for tabloid readers, very schock jockey’ish.
Why are you being so obsessive about what people want to wear? It is thier business. Change has to come from within a society not by interfering busybodies from outside. Anyway you seem to either miss the point of what I wrote or deliberately trying to change the subject to suit your own ideas.
You may have noticed a lot of the Muslim girls at universities in this country start out wearing Western clothes and then gradually start to cover themselves. I saw more than one at the university I attended actually end up in full face covering by the third year. There is usually no pressure brought to bear from the parents of these girls – in fact many of them came here to get away from religious oppression. They have been radicalized and the veil is their way of saying they reject the society, values and cultural norms of the host country. Once that veil goes on they won’t have anything to do with non-Muslims outside the necessary interactions.
Maybe they vote Tory and support the most radicalised fundamentalists in the islamic world.
What’s wrong with that?
“they won’t have anything to do with non-Muslims outside the necessary interactions”
Whose book are they taking a leaf out of?
Weird but true. It’s the why that’s interesting. Probably multiple drivers. Just for starters.
Personal reaction against cultural entropy. See also, Caladonian societies in the Scottish diaspora where exaggerated highland dress and imagined highland culture are indulged by those of a lowland ancestry.
Political power play and manipulation by group “elders” seeking to exercise control. See also, the Ordnung of the Amish where the daily activity is prescribed in astonishing detail by the all wise community elders. Bicycles bad, adult size wooden scooters good.
Oh so they have done it out of thier free will, not imposed by those evil men. And how do you know they have been ‘radicalised’? Did they come out with kalashnikovs?
Nuns also decide to withdraw from society and wear a veil. There is no outcry against nuns who have been ‘radicalised’ in the cause of the Catholic church
Regards the burka there’s a book about the Crusades by an Oxford historian (I can’t remember the author or title) which says the burka didn’t originate with Islam but with pre-Turkey Byzantium around the time of the Crusades, after the Byzantines had adopted Christianity.
Part of Chemring’s mission statement is the “detection of biological weapons”.
More Skripalgate evidence destruction.
Brexit threat to sandwiches, diabetics to start dropping dead within two days of leaving EU, pandemic of “super gonorrohea” to hit UK, channel tunnel to be filled in, British tourists to be shot dead by firing squad in Spain…
Anyone got any more? RoS in need!
“British mum Ellie Holman”, together with her “daughter Bibi”, are “held in Dubai”. R-i-i-i-ght!
How many passports has she got? For which countries? Do they include Britain? Just asking. Because we haven’t heard anything from the British Foreign Office or the Swedish Foreign ministry.
This has absolutely nothing to do with her drinking a glass of wine on her Emirates flight. That is just a totally b*llshit story.
A dentist in Britain, and therefore a moneygrabber who tell lies maybe 100 times a day to line her filthy pockets, she was told that her visa was invalid, and she was so angry (and perhaps tanked up) that she started filming people whom she doubtless viewed as dirty t*welhead immigration officials.
It’s not recorded whether she shouted the words “Do you know who I am?”
I doubt she has a doctorate from anywhere.
Was she on a drug-company paid jaunt? (Dentists gets loads of them, and they’re often to Dubai, because they’re too f*cking stupid and uninterested in the world to go anywhere other than luxury holiday resorts.) Or was she up to something more sinister? Or both?
She wants £30,000 for “legal fees and missed work” for having been held up in Dubai. No sh*t!! No flies on her! THIRTY THOUSAND POUNDS!
That suggests to me that an “insurance company” is involved in this.
Oh and her husband Gary Holman is at a software company called Rebel (http://www.rebel.agency). They say “We’re currently working with SmilePass the leading Biometrics Security (SaaS) organisation to produce a new set of Biometrics developer apps and a range of affordable Biometrics Software applications for a wide range of market sectors.”
The Rebel website makes me want to vomit, but perhaps someone with a stronger stomach than mine can take a look at it. The company claims to work with Boots, the NHS, Visa, Alliance Healthcare, Aviva, Google, and Hiscox. Hiscox is an insurer specialising in kidnap and ransom. Its cients are “high net worth individuals”, which presumably means billionaires or at least centimillionaires.
“SaaS” means “software as a service”, which is software kept on a remote server that users subscribe to, running their own devices as terminals. That kind of key-in-the-back is what smartphones are all about. Now imagine the position that a “leading biometrics security organisation” occupies if it runs such software in the area of biometrics. Nice work if you can get it.
According to the Sun, she has now been released. They also say “She claimed (she and her daughter) were dumped in a ‘baking hot and foul-smelling jail’ because consuming alcohol in the strict Arab state is illegal.” Dentists working in Britain take numerous drug-company-paid holidays in Dubai, and there is absolutely NO WAY that Ellie Holman would have been unaware that actually alcohol is NOT banned in Dubai, and in particular it’s NOT illegal to drink a glass of wine when the government-owned Emirates airline hands one to you on a plane, and if you have drunk such a glass of wine it’s NOT illegal to have retained some alcohol in your body by the time you get to the immigration check. This is all total c*ck.
Indeed the Scum itself goes on to say “Dr Holman was visiting Dubai with Bibi for a five-day break and it is understood she’s a regular visitor to the city where she is well-known in the Brit expat community.”
She could of course just be a “gimme gimme gimme” type without there having been anything especially sinister in her trip.
It could be that she is just so used to telling lies and getting her own way that she demanded to be allowed into the country even when an immigration official who probably receives an income about a tenth as big as hers told her that her visa wasn’t current. Airports can be very stressful for those who think they are better than everyone else.
But more may come out.
Somehow I don’t envisage Jeremy Hunt meeting her at Heathrow.
John Simpson has repeated the deceitful juxtaposition that Holman was arrested “after being asked by an immigration official if she had a drink on her 8-hour flight”. Actually she appears to have been told that her visa was not valid and to have refused to board a flight out of the country, behaviour which is likely to get you detained anywhere – even if you’re a £200K a year lying scammer of a dentist.
(She may have had a drink on the plane, or perhaps consumed some other substance – she looks as though she had time to take a photo of herself in the toilet on board, so what else did she have time in there for? – but as Simpson well knows, having a drink on the plane was not unlawful. All conversations in airports are sound-recorded, so if she sues for £30K – plus however much she has added on to that figure by the time she submits the claim – the audio files can be produced.)
Simpson then says “I never go to Dubai – (I) was once arrested for asking an idle (immigration) official to hurry because I had (a) connecting flight”.
Did you ask nicely, eh, John? Or do you think your time is more valuable than other people’s? I wonder whether he pushed to the front of a queue before asking.
The economy of Dubai could be “popped” at any time. Perhaps we are seeing forewaves. Oh the poor poor dentists of Britain!
Part of this story may involve the clash of hierarchies, which are not ordered the same way in all cultures.
This is one of my favourites: John Simpson getting a public dressing down from Putin
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XfA0E735zmo
total “c*ck ”
I love your implication that Holman’s hubby has created a fake visa.
Dentists are ideally placed to implant tracking devices into our gums.
The state needs insiders to operate its total spy network, but their supposed to play the game even in their free time like Nosey Parker. It’s good to see that the weight of all that immoral and illegal information will drive its operators to test out the system. The burden of bullsh*t is clearly unbearable for ordinary mortals to bear.
Anyone reading Rory Cormac’s Disrupt and Deny – OUP publication. Looks interesting as is the review in Lobster. Strange days indeed.
Anyone reading two volume study by Jeffrey Bale’s The Darkest Sides of Politics (Vol1 Postwar Fascism, Covert Ops and Terrorism) (Vol 2 State Terrorism) – Routledge Publication.
Is 2018 the dawn of a new transparency?
I would like to try a vale, Just to see what it’s like.
If we lived in a county that didn’t persecute it’s minorities. …I had quite enough of that growing up in school, just for thinking different thoughts. Planimo’s are not welcome in this society’s order.
Maybe in a city I would be less prone to some sort of attack. But in the small towns & more isolated places? nah, Again, just our “gay bar” needs half a dozen shit brick houses to police a safe space for them.
“I would like to try a vale, Just to see what it’s like.”
Ishmael surely you’ve stood in a valley before? Or do you mean this kind of vale? ?
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Vale
Spelling indocrinates via conformity to illogical arbitrary order. & is then used as a club against those who don’t conform as well. (That I never do to those I know with far less acceptable competence than me, they may be better people after all)
You will never win ROS, iv better thing’s to occupy my brain with. But thank’s for pointing out what I assume most can work out with little discomfort.
I sketch with words in letter form & it’s not in the least precious to me. On the contrary.
“Spelling indocrinates via conformity to illogical arbitrary order. & is then used as a club against those who don’t conform as well.”
Ishmael, lighten up a bit, it’s only a bit of fun, lets not turn it into some sort of matrix conditioning agenda.
It’s just a fact of life, not some hidden conspiracy, & people do it “naturally” to big themselves up.
If you hadn’t done it before under the rubric of a grin? I took it none serious the first time, & tbh not that bothered now, Just didn’t find it funny. I rarely do acutely, for reasons specified above.
I took it as maybe a good will attempt to help my spelling, at least on the surface that’s how most people who do it present it. But if you just want to pass it off as a joke, fine…
I happen to think it’s a pernicious meme, especially by establishment figures to help cement “legitimate” authority by a number of such devices, that equates to nothing more than memorising stuff like robots. See any “political debate” for working examples. Or any schools for this filtering mechanism.
Or the results we see all around us.
I can see Ishmael, first son of Abraham, and some say, the true covenant of god. That you’re a delicate soul, so I’ll tread carefully in future. ?
:
I really haven’t got barely the flying fuck of a clue as what that ridiculous space-wasting exchange was all about.
“Vale” is hardly “valley” mistakenly spelled. It’s a word all on its own. Those who insist that they’re free to mean whatever they intend to mean by either wild misspellings or just using words in weird ways are just as pompous as the grammar “NAZIs’ who insist on rigorous adherence to the “rules” of the language.
That’s my contribution to wasting space.
.
@Dennis Revell – well said mate, just what I was thinking.
@Dennis Revell
I think the entire exchange was the result of someone using ‘vale’ when perhaps they meant ‘veil’….which prompted the response and counter-response…..(but maybe I’m wrong and will be corrected by someone with more erudition than myself)
Jim Murphy, former leader of Scottish Labour has creeped out, “condemning Corbyn over anti-Semitism”. According to he BBC, “(I)n an unusual move, Jim Murphy paid for a full page advert in the J__ish Telegraph to highlight his concerns.”
Apparently the JT has printed the piece in its Glasgow edition and has put it on its Fa卐ebook page. They also quote from it extensively at their own website.
“Paid for”, LOL. Murphy is the one who is paid for.
Slu-u-u-u-urp!
Indeed N, Murphy is currently listed as a “contributor” at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.
Murphy’s political naunce, led Labour to losing 40 of its 41 seats in Scotland.
I put a link up yesterday N_ plus some links to Craig’s posts about him.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/07/the-ubiquity-of-evil/comment-page-17/#comment-768240
I see BLair is employing him now. I don’t suppose he declared that in his anti-Corbyn smear. The Finns soon got rid of him.
‘Henry Jackson Society membership
Jim Murphy is on the Political Council of the Henry Jackson Society,[89] a neo-conservative transatlantic think tank named in honour of Cold War anti-communist US Senator Henry M. Jackson. The society advocates an interventionist foreign policy by both non-military and military methods.
As Shadow Secretary of State for Defence, Murphy gave a speech at an HJS event entitled ‘A New Model for Intervention: How the UK Responds to Extremism in North and West Africa and Beyond’, arguing for the UK to remain engaged in defence policy beyond its borders, while learning lessons from past experiences.
In January 2015, the Scottish National Party (SNP) and Scottish Greens called on Murphy to resign from the Henry Jackson Society. In response the Henry Jackson Society reaffirmed its cross-partisan nature, saying “we believe … the broadest possible coalition of politicians – of which Jim Murphy is just one of 15 Labour parliamentarians to do so through our political advisory council – should engage with such ideas [of foreign policy].”
Post-parliament career
After the 2015 election, Murphy set up a consultancy and became an advisor to the Finnish non-profit Crisis Management Initiative (CMI), advising on “conflict resolution in central Asia”. In November 2016 Murphy took up an employed position as an adviser to Tony Blair.’
Wikipedia.
Totally evil.
Murphy’s Law, is the theory that if anything can go wrong it probably will. Named so after Edwards Airfoce base Captain Edward.A Murphy.
Jim Murphy, is himself just one big mistake.
The foul hypocrite and one time office of the Conservative Friends of Israel is ‘deeply concerned’.
‘ Alistair Burt
@AlistairBurtUK
22 hours ago
Deeply concerned by reports of yesterday’s attack in Sa’ada, Yemen, resulting in tragic deaths of so many children. Transparent investigation required. UK calls on all parties to prevent civilian casualties and to cooperate with UN to reach a lasting political solution in Yemen.’
The FCO MENA minister is extra good at hand wringing.
I see he followed that with another one about the deaths and injuries of Palestinians in Gaza. He has been saying the same over years.
How about banning LFOI from the party? Jennifer Gerber, director of LFOI, is spreading Znazi propaganda against the elected party leader, Jeremy Corbyn. He dared commemorate the Palestinian victims of cowardly Znazi aerial bombing in Tunisia, rather than cursing the mothers of the dead.
A group of us attempted to rid Parliament of these lobby groups for Israel some years ago, on the basis that British MPs who were members of Friends of Israel were working for a foreign power. They are elected by the British people not Israelis. We said that the existence of these lobby groups was in conflict with the Seven Standards in Public Life. We were thwarted. At the time the Committee on Standards in Public Life had two or three out of the eight members who were members of Friends of Israel Groups!
Selflessness – Holders of public office should act solely in terms of the public interest.
Integrity – Holders of public office must avoid placing themselves under any obligation to people or organisations that might try inappropriately to influence them in their work. They should not act or take decisions to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves, their family, or their friends. They must declare and resolve any interests and relationships.
Objectivity – Holders of public office must act and take decisions impartially, fairly and on merit, using the best evidence and without discrimination or bias.
Accountability – Holders of public office are accountable to the public for their decisions and actions and must submit themselves to the scrutiny necessary to ensure this.
Openness – Holders of public office should act and take decisions in an open and transparent manner. Information should not be withheld from the public unless there are clear and lawful reasons for so doing.
Honesty – Holders of public office should be truthful
Leadership – Holders of public office should exhibit these principles in their own behaviour. They should actively promote and robustly support the principles and be willing to challenge poor behaviour wherever it occurs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Standards_in_Public_Life
The chairman of the Committee then was Sir Christopher Kelly, a stooge, a place person. Five different chairmanships. Moves seamlessly from one to the next. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Kelly_(civil_servant)
The current Chairman is Lord Bew, a NI peer and a vocal supporter of Zionist Israel. YCNMIU.
Now Wales of Wikipedia is doing the same.
Wikipedia founder Wales sides with Israel against Gaza, suggests Corbyn is ‘antisemite’
US Politics Philip Weiss on August 10, 2018 11 Comments
https://mondoweiss.net/2018/08/wikipedia-suggests-antisemite/
Good for Ofer Neiman and many others who have sent him messages on Twitter.
‘Jimmy Wales, I’m an Israeli citizen. You are consistently silent (no, make that supportive of) an Israeli #apartheid regime which has killed thousands of Palestinian children. Oh, your hypocrisy.
…the root problem is a murderous Israeli siege on an impoverished open-air prison inhabited mostly by Palestinian refugees of Israel’s 1948 ethnic cleansing.
Jimmy Wales, how can you be so oblivious to the underlying reality of occupation and siege? Here’s some useful information from an Israeli woman living near Gaza:’
I’ve received the annual begging letter from Wales for Wikipedia. Pity there isn’t a facility for telling him to “p*ss the f*ck off!
@ Ingwe August 11, 2018 at 17:24
You should tell him to ask the ‘Phillip Cross’ Conglomerate.
Love it, Paul Barbara.
A comment from the end of the Mondoweiss article linked by Sharp Ears:
– Dave Berkeley, an eco socialist responds: “That is the most depressing tweet I’ve seen for a long time. Wikipedia is one of the great achievements of our age. I didn’t realise Wales was like this. Time to fork wikipedia”
For those not familiar with Free Software, this does not mean to stick a fork into Wikipedia. Wikipedia is built from Free Software and is published and edited under copyleft licenses. Such licenses give anyone the right to copy the work, and to make derivative works.
So Wikipedia could be split or ‘forked’, the existing version continuing as it is, and the new prong of the fork proceeding under modified rules and/or new administrators.
I think this is quite a good idea. The fork could change the rules to be less accommodating to the corporate ‘news’ media, and practices like those of Philip Cross could be curtailed.
Just don’t understand why people can;t see that the root cause of these runaway fires and floods is unnecessary deforestation which humans compound by deliberate climate change and personal mischief.
Were there not floods and forest fires before man arrived on the scene?
There was a heck of a lot more forest, for a start.
True but natural fires don’t just occur in forests, such as bush fires, and the one most folk will know of the African savannah fires.
And what about Oceans?
There was a heck of a lot more life in the oceans, too.
Plus, the oceans are growing right now. Rising sea levels, you know.
@ glenn_nl August 11, 2018 at 19:13
I was looking for the testimony of a guy who sailed across the Pacific to the US (he had done it before), who reported on this occasion he saw virtually no life, fish or birds, except a whale that seemed to have a massive tumour and was clearly in dire straights, but can’t find it. Perhaps the following will do:
‘Fukushima: The West Coast of Canada & the USA Is Dying, Hundreds of Species Have Disappeared’:
http://www.thelibertybeacon.com/fukushima-the-west-coast-of-canada-the-usa-is-dying-hundreds-of-species-have-disappeared/
Also, the Gulf of Mexico is virtually devoid of sea creatures, after the BP ‘accident’ and subsequent ‘Corexit’ poisoning.
Then look around – where are the butterflies, moths, flies (apart from fruit flies), bees, birds, ladybirds?
Sure, plenty of pigeons, but sparrows, robins, other small, previously common birds?
And glyphosate etc. kills the tiny critters we don’t normally see, worms & other critters that live in the soil, and make the soil more productive.
Then we have the increasing human diseases, many having grown exponentially in numbers, and others virtually unheard of in the past.
Re Paul at 20.27
Was the link you wanted this? :https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/21/yachtsman-describes-horror-at-dead-rubbish-strewn-pacific-ocean
But you are nit factoring in the difference human presence and activity have made.
Just think about what has to be done to build a vacatiion place with all the comforts of home high up in the mountains – e.g., clearing land for roads, building sites, and proving all the desired services. It’s also the prescription for making a fire trap.
Of course humans have shaped the land, but natural fires and floods still occur do they not?
Deforestation is as you say mostly a human trait seeking profit, though it is also done to claim the land and build dwellings etc, usually at the expense of the flora and fauna.
You just din’t get it. The two most destructive fires in California were started deliberately by people, the driver who kept going until his truck’s sparks started the Carr fire in the North, and the guy in the South who started a fire to get back at a neighbor.
I don’t doubt it, I added that wildfires and floods occured before man arrived on the scene.
Now if I were to be pernickety on the matter, I could add that wildfires have occured for millions of years before man arose. Not to mention the sheer devastation caused by the Siberian and Indian traps.
In the process you are even denying climate change which even uneducated people can see all around.
Human development has opened up the planet to more devastating and common fires, floods, droughts, avalanches, and quakes.
The elementary climate scam!
Mog, note Dave’s lack of general scientific knowledge and his dismissal of expert sources, as I mentioned here:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/07/the-ubiquity-of-evil/comment-page-17/#comment-768369
Very, very useful to the establishment, this particular piece of conspirology.
Trowbridge @15.52pm
My reply hardly decries climate change, the planet goes through periods of warmer and cooler cycles. Right now humans are, by their actions, accelerating that process.
Agree with Clark. Climate change denial and vaccine conspiracies, not to mention others CTs detract from our plausibility and act as distractions.
@ SA August 11, 2018 at 18:35
Try telling vaccine-damaged children they are ‘conspiracy theorists’.
Who knows better than parents what their child was like before the vaccine, and how they changed (in many cases) immediately after.
Perhaps if you had a vaccine-damaged child, you would not be so gung-ho in your ‘conspiracy theory’ accusations.
But the Govt.’s and most of the Medical ‘Establishment’ say vaccines are safe? Indeed?
And you believe them? Do they ever lie? A better question might be, ‘do they ever tell the truth’, if there is profit in lying?
@ Trowbridge H. Ford August 11, 2018 at 15:52
Not only ‘opened it up’ to these things. Are you aware that all of these things, including earthquakes, can be deliberately caused by people?
Don’t bother to dispute that – the info is slam-dunk in the public sphere.
Try telling mothers of children killed or damaged because they got preventable diseases through not being vaccinated. There is something called science that can be used to find these things out but then there are also conspiracy theories, anecdotes and faith, you can choose what you like. As I said, a good distraction. Don’t really wish to discuss this further Paul, you see I was trained in science and you are not going to convince me.
Paul, yes some people are damaged by most medical procedures. The question is whether any given procedure does more good or harm. Such questions are intensively studied. Yes, industry-sponsored ‘research’ produces many dishonest answers, but that does not make the questions unanswerable, thank goodness.
The field you are considering is enormous, and you are not an expert. You are, forgive me, not even competent; someone who frequently accepts thin, misleading arguments presented by dodgy, partisan websites. I’m sorry to have said that, but someone has to muster the courage to tell you.
Ben Goldacre is an expert. He has made it his life’s work to gain the necessary understanding through study, to examine such matters in intricate detail, and then to publish his findings in clear, simple, checkable form despite the criticism heaped upon him for doing so. Yet you won’t even read his work, presumably because it will contradict some of your pet beliefs.
You should read Bad Science and then Bad Pharma. Firstly, you’d be surprised at just how widely critical Goldacre is. But it would also enable you to greatly increase your credibility, thereby making you a more effective activist.
Remember, “if they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t need to worry about answers”.
And Paul, there probably is a strong case that too many, badly tested vaccines are administered – in the United States, where the problems of commercial corruption are far worse than in Europe. This is highly relevant to the UK in the current situation of impending brexit, just as GMOs and pesticides are. We won’t have EU law (itself imperfect) to protect us much longer.
For heaven’s sake, read Goldacre and discover what the real issues are, rather than the red herrings you inadvertently keep trying to popularise.
Clark. Thanks for explaining this so well. I am afraid I find it frustrating how doctors, scientists and other professionals are dismissed as tools of the establishment. No question some are and no question the government does use some people for these purposes and silences others or neutralises them. But to live the way some bloggers do here thinking of the Ubiquity of Concpiracy, to coin a phrase, amounts to throwing the baby with the bath water.
What is also very clear, which you also point out, is that even when we have proof, like lies to parliament by Blair and complicity with torture and all the other obvious published proven conspiracies, that the politicians still get away with .
I have already given a succinct explanation of the scam, and you reply that all the scientists agree, which of course they don’t, particularly those qualified to speak on the subject, see WeatherAction.com. So I asked an elementary question, which presumably any scientist or bright child can answer.
That is if carbon dioxide makes up only a fraction of the atmosphere, about 0.038% and the human bit is a fraction of that, but eclipsed by natural variations, how can the human bit determine climate bearing in mind the many other things that determine climate such as Sun, Moon, Oceans, water vapour and gulf stream?
Dave, I think you posted the above in the wrong place; easily done. I didn’t claim “all scientists” etc., but an overwhelming consensus, and all major scientific bodies, which is the case. And please link your “succinct explanation of the scam”.
Dave, as to how human contribution could be significant within larger variation, I am not a climate scientist; are you? Please answer.
But my rationally based suspicions are that you’d have to consider the balance of addition and removal of CO2 from the atmosphere, equilibrium effects between atmospheric CO2 and CO2 dissolved in the oceans, accumulation / persistence of CO2 in both atmosphere and ocean, and other things I haven’t thought of.
But I’m sure that this has been and continues to be done.
See explanation @ Aug 12, 07.49
So you agree with scientists who say a fraction of atmospheric carbon dioxide generated by human activity determines climate?
Dave, the scientific consensus is that human CO2 contribution influences climate, not that it determines it.
I accept the consensus because the predictions made, decades ago, have been and continue to be confirmed. The predictions included that the overall world temperature would increase, the polar ice would diminish, and weather events would become more extreme. All confirmed. You can argue about Antarctic ice increasing, but it is variable and far outweighed by Arctic ice loss.
The subject is complex so detractors (who are in the pay of vested interests) can cherry-pick contradictions (such as the Antarctic ice variations). They do things like this:
https://static.skepticalscience.com/graphics/Escalator_2012_1024.gif
I’ve looked for your Aug 12, 07.49 explanation but not yet found it. I won’t search further because comments aren’t chronological. If you’re too paranoid to link you’ll just have to post it again.
Clark (to Dave): “I’ve looked for your Aug 12, 07.49 explanation but not yet found it. I won’t search further because comments aren’t chronological. If you’re too paranoid to link you’ll just have to post it again.”
You didn’t miss much. All he did is repeat his assertion that CO2 is “natural” so there’s nothing to worry about.
Glenn, thanks.
Dave, what I’m asking for is a social explanation of how the ‘scam’ is perpetrated, ie. how every major scientific body in the world has been caused to present a position that a majority of their members disagree with.
I think that such a large scale distortion operation would leave a lot of evidence. For instance, Ben Goldacre has documented extensive distortion in the publicly available descriptions of the effectiveness of medical drugs and their damaging side effects, to the benefit of the pharmaceutical companies and to the detriment of patients. It is indeed a scam, perpetrated with considerable help from certain academics and government agencies. He goes into great depth revealing how this occurs. It is indeed possible for the pharmaceutical companies to distort the medical literature, but not to hide that they have done so.
Clark: You’ve written a lot of good stuff here.
One of the problems is that Dave, and his fellow travelers, will find their attention called to a questionable practice – whether this be from greedy governments imposing “green taxes”, burning wood pellets as if that was going to solve CO2 emissions, or various scammers cashing in on the supposed green revolution, and take this as evidence – if not conclusive proof – that the entire thing must therefore be bogus.
(Whether Dave is actually genuine in thinking this, or just pretending to be for the sake of convincing others, or indeed himself, we cannot say – but it’s worth looking at the practice anyway.)
The merchants of doubt love this tactic. Look at those rich scientists, see – they’re all money-grubbers! Al Gore flies around in a plane! Environmentalists (a very few of them, anyway) are rich, and have large houses! Governments use “green taxes” to swindle us out of hard-earned money!
Yes, governments with their “green taxes” are doing us a huge disservice, by cynically taking money to discourage bad practices, while showing remarkable indifference to policies which really would make a lot of difference. Mass investment in public transport, making cycling a real option for most people, weatherisation of houses, and so on. But they don’t – they take the easy money and do little else.
So the entire thing can be called into question. The logic is as solid as claiming that, because there are crooked car dealers, actual roads, cars, traffic and so on do not actually exist. It’s a completely specious argument, but at least passes the laugh test, and there are no end of examples to repeat and rant on about, to supposedly drive the point home.
But we have been through this before, with Dave and others. The arguments get recycled as if never mentioned. It appears to be a common trait with people determined to ignore reality.
Glenn_nl, I’ve posted a reply to Dave elsewhere:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/07/the-ubiquity-of-evil/comment-page-21/#comment-769572
@Trowbridge – Can you please point to where you think RoS has denied climate change.
There is a huge difference between denying that humans are causing climate change and denying climate change. I hope you agree that to conflate the two positions, as is commonly done by propagandists in this field, and by politicians who have their speeches written for them, such as Barack Obama, is unacceptable.
RoS is absolutely right to say there has been major deforestation in the past. Not all of it was caused by fires and floods. Much was caused by climate change. Where do you think peat comes from? Areas that are now peat bogs were once forests, and only a few thousand years ago too.
Meanwhile there were ice fairs on the Thames in London until they had to stop in the 18th century because the climate changed. That was before the industrial revolution.
Look at the time scales of the two changes I have just mentioned. They are short.
That the climate has changed on a macro time scale (glacial and interglacial periods), and also on shorter time scales, with ups and downs on various scales within the interglacial periods, is a basic fact.
The climate has always changed, and it always will. And so long as there are “scientists” (a 19th century coinage), they probably won’t understand why. Proclaiming that climate change must be stopped is insane. Humans can’t stop climate change and shouldn’t want to or try to.
Big business and its politicians say otherwise. Perhaps they want human beings to continue doing wage-labour, shopping at Tesco’s, and picking at their smartphones, until the Sun becomes a red giant and the Earth gets burned up? The means by which we are supposed to assist them to achieve their sh*tty goal of sustaining capitalism is that we are all supposed to change our behaviour and help big business minimise its costs wherever we can, and to help “rationalise” all of distribution and consumption to that aim. Words that actually say something about who does what to whom, such as “pollution” and “waste”, are getting sidelined. We’re supposed to help our masters to the max – until, of course, the day comes when the existence of a big chunk of the population, and the current life expectancies of another big chunk, are declared to be obstacles in the way of the great goal.
If you love nature, let it change. That’s what nature does.
Bus driver in Bristol demands Muslim woman remove niqab.
Make no mistake: statements such as the one by Boris Johnson, and their fanning in the media, do have an influence in real people’s lives.
I don’t know whether there is a petition or something, but the bus company which is called First Bus should be boycotted until it disciplines this driver, apologises, compensates the woman for the harassment she has experienced, and makes it clear that this kind of harassment is not welcome on its buses.
There are likely to be more stories like this.
According to the company:
“Across the UK First Bus operates in a huge number of communities, including 40 of the country’s largest towns and cities. You can travel by First Bus in Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh, York, Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester, Swansea, Portsmouth, Southampton, Stoke, Leicester, Bristol, Norwich, Ipswich, Colchester, Plymouth, Taunton and many other cities, towns and villages.”
The company First Group also runs Greyhound buses in the US. Its directors are:
Wolfhart Hauser
Matthew Gregory
Warwick Brady
Jimmy Groombridge
Drummond Hall
Martha Poulter
David Robbie
Imelda Walsh
Jim Winestock
The company is based in Aberdeen, where its headquarters are at 395 King Street, Aberdeen, AB24 5RP. Its London office is at 8th floor, The Point, 37 North Wharf Road, London, W2 1AF.
we’re changing nature in bad ways. if you love nature, stop denying that we cause climate change. i can’t believe people are still using the forest fire argument to “debunk” the science, as if the assertion that there have always been forest fires, or climate change, somehow contradicts and invalidates the science.. yes, there were forest fires before man. and yet, man can set forest fires, too. climate changes when something causes it to; in the past, the humans didn’t cause it–they didn’t set the fire. but for the period of the industrial revolution, we’ve been causing it. it should be cooling slightly, instead of setting records for heat.
Its an elementary scam because atmospheric carbon dioxide is essential to life on Earth. At best its religious vanity to believe humans can determine the climate, the same vanity that led the early church to believe the Sun revolved around Earth due to us being God’s special creation!
so drowning is an elementary scam because water is necessary to life. can’t ingest too much water, it’s so good for you.
fences around swimming pools, elementary precautions, regulations about letting children jump in pools unsupervised, all are simply a plot by big government to tax you more.
or maybe that isn’t true either.
Atmospheric oxygen is also essential to life on Earth, but what happens if you try to breathe pure oxygen? What would happen if the atmospheric oxygen concentration was forced to be significantly higher? Wild fires perhaps?
In the 1970s it was realised that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were depleting Earth’s ozone layer which protects organisms from ultraviolet light from the Sun. In the 1980s CFCs were regulated.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is knowing so little that you don’t even realise that you don’t know. Learn.
There are confused and confusing statements.
First. No body is denying that climate change is a cyclical feature of the history of the earth. The current concern is that the way we are proceeding is accelerating this change and may lead to long term irreversible events beyond what is the expected cyclical events. There is an awful lot of science to prove some aspects of it.
Secondly. It is the big industries, the oil and the politicians who are not trying to do thier bit by encouraging pro capitalist practices that you do hate that are not interested in taking the nescessary means. The oil companies spend vast amounts trying to pretend to be green whilst being major polluters. Public money is spent to clean up the filth produced, read Naomi Klein.
Third. Are you also denying the real problem of plastic pollution? This is created for the convenience of big supermarkets and not us consumers. Why do three nectarines have to be packed in a polystyrene tray in the SMs? Why have these horrible undegradable plastic loops around beer cans?
Let us not get muddled in seeing the wrong conspiracies but focus on the real ones.
Its estimated the atmosphere is made up of 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen and the remaining 1% is made up of trace gases including carbon dioxide at about 0.04%. The vast majority of carbon dioxide is trapped in the oceans that cover over 75% of the planet.
When the Sun (which determines climate) burns hotter the oceans evaporate releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and when it cools the carbon dioxide sinks back into the oceans and into general vegetation growth. I.e. increases in carbon dioxide follows rather than causes an increase in temperature. And life on earth prefers a warmer climate, but its all beyond human control which is why the secret of human success is to manage rather than halt changes in climate.
Yes if you only breathe in oxygen or carbon dioxide (or water) you will die, but when you breathe in air, the body takes out a bit of oxygen and its the carbon dioxide in the mix that acts as the ‘irritant’ that makes you breathe out and carbon dioxide is the food plants breathe to make them grow, so more atmospheric carbon dioxide means a greener planet. Simples!
There are a range of interests that promote the elementary scam for different reasons. These include the nuclear power and weapons lobby who want high nuclear fuels bills to pay for Trident, the Globalists who want a global scare to excuse global governance and rule by the 1% and those who profit from the de-industrialisation of the West, the end of the world is nigh religious merchants and yes the ever present tax man that results in higher fuel bills for poor people.
The scam also illustrates how the Labour Party has abandoned its working class roots to embrace middle-class gender and sexual politics, because there was a year long miners strike to save our coal mines led by the “vanguard of the working class” who are now deemed “enemies of the planet”.
That said it also illustrates another Corbyn compromise in the interests of party unity, because his own brother Piers Corbyn @ WeatherAction.com has told him its a scam.
“When the Sun (which determines climate) ”
“The sun’s energy has decreased since the 1980s but the Earth keeps warming faster than before.”
https://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm
I looked and its the usual dissembling talking about surface rather than satellite temperature readings over a short period of time which illustrates the human vanity considering the Universe, Earth, Stars and everything have been around for millions of years involving changes in climate beyond imagination.
“When the Sun (which determines climate) ”
“The sun’s energy has decreased since the 1980s but the Earth keeps warming faster than before.”
https://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm
Re: Dave, 07:49.
Every major scientific body in the world has concluded that human fossil fuel use is increasing CO2 concentrations causing Earth to retain more heat. Dave is, therefore, promoting a conspiracy theory, despite the howls of outrage from conspirologists that they are maligned by the term, because somehow these scientific bodies must have been manipulated or coerced to produce conclusions suiting the vested interests that Dave names, while contradicting the preferred conclusions of other, equally or more powerful vested interests.
One of the major methods of promoting such conspiracy theories is ‘cherry-picking’; selecting, promoting and/or misrepresenting certain facts and/or fallacies, all chosen so as to support the desired conclusion.
It is as infuriating as it is unscientific, because it is back to front. Instead of starting with a question and investigating to find the best answers, the method starts with a preferred answer and arranges sound-bites to dismiss any other conclusion. It is, essentially, cheating and deceptive.
Yes Dave, human are vane, and you too are a human. Consider the overbearing vanity of championing your personal selection of marginal websites over the conclusions of every major scientific body in all the various countries the world.
Really what you need to do is accept that you’re promoting a conspiracy theory rather than a scientific one, and unearth in concrete form the connections and coercion by which the scientific bodies are controlled and coordinated.
Clark
Conspiracy theorists are like religious believers, they found the truth which can only be revealed to those who see the light. Often there is little to be gained by arguing with either because belief for them is stronger than reason.
SA, I’m illustrating what makes a theory specifically a conspiracy theory, and how such theories need to be argued in order to gain credibility, for the sake of various readers, and other commenters who advance similar theories. This is a public forum; the effects upon Dave’s opinions and my own are of relatively minor importance.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with conspiracy theories, but their proponents need to go at least some way towards unmasking the alleged conspiracy, or describe some other socio-political effect that produces the same result. Herman and Chomsky managed the latter with their Propaganda Model. Goldacre manages it in his writings which is why I repeatedly recommend them. Commenters like Dave need to recognise cherry-picking for what it is and why it fails to convince, and either come up with something better, or accept that they were mistaken.
Proposition:
To be useful, a theory mustn’t propose a conspiracy that expands without limit. If, every time evidence contradicts the theory, the response is merely “the conspiracy fabricated this evidence”, you’ve got conspirology rather than a testable theory. If, every time the theory predicts or requires evidence which seems to be absent, the response is always “the conspiracy covered it up”, again, you’ve got conspirology. Compare: “fossils were fabricated by God (or the Devil) to make the Earth appear older than it is. And so was carbon dating, and dendrochronology, and uranium isotope ratios, and ice cores, and…” – see how this drags in field after unrelated field, expanding without limit. In such cases Occam’s razor should be applied.
At some point, either the boundary of the alleged conspiracy has to start coming into focus and evidence of internal collusion must be produced, or you need some demonstrable social or institutional bias to account for the consensus your theory claims to be false, or some combination of these which together support the bulk of your theory.
Media bias theory, undue Israeli influence theory, and accusations of Western collusion with ‘Islamic’ extremists all pass these tests. Climate change denial, vaccine depopulation theory and chemtrail theory all fail them.
It appears you have replaced a deference for religious authority with a deference for scientific authority. The elementary point to consider is carbon dioxide is naturally occurring and variable and this means any carbon dioxide released due to human activity is easily eclipsed by natural variations making any attempt to manage human levels an academic waste of time.
I note that you’ve ignored the arguments I posted and replied with, essentially, denigration, and yet another cherry-picked soundbite.
No, not deference to authority; recognition that a widespread consensus such as exists about human-driven climate change, across a vast number of scientists in many different but interdependent fields, in diverse universities and diverse countries, is almost certainly more likely to be right than the small and shrinking number of dissenters.
We presumably only get one chance at this, and we don’t have a statistically significant sample of Earth-like planets to experiment on. If the vast majority of the scientific community tell me that the effects of some untried activity are unknown, but theory indicates that it’s likely to damage health and eventually cause death, I’d be a fool to try it out on the basis that they might be wrong, and if I recommended it to someone else I’d be acting unethically. If that someone proceeded with said activity and the initial effects predicted by the scientific community were broadly confirmed, as has been the case with emissions and climate change, with I’d be negligently reckless and utterly morally bankrupt if I continued to encourage them.
You speak of human vanity; time for a bit of humility on your part, I think.
Crossing the Irish sea at night a few years back was one (of a few) of the most depressing moments in my life. If you haven’t seen it recently, a nightmarish industrial landscape resembling the opening scenes of bladerunner, endless platforms, glaring lights and billowing gas flares. If the refineries at Runcorn were spreaed out a little and set down into the sea, that is what it looks like.
And fracking can bring it to an open space near you! Yippee!
In the Guardian today, Tisdall continues with his accusations of Russian use of CW.
He even quotes Hamish de B-G!
Banned 21 years ago, yet still the world stands by as chemical attacks go unchecked
Sanctions have been slapped on Russia over the Salisbury attack but atrocities are spiralling out of control elsewhere https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/11/chemical-weapons-syria-russian-us-sanctions
Simon Tisdall is a most unreliable source, starting with what the UK and USA have had when it comes to chemical weapons, what they were supposed to do with them, and what they actually did.
We were already aware of that.
Do you never tell us things we already know, Sharpie?
For the BBC now also that the Russians meddled with all elections, and carried out CW attacks in U.K. is ‘fact’ despite the fact that there is no evidence of either. The BBC is now living in an echo chamber to which it is constantly contributing and reinforcing.
Thier standard line now is that they are well balanced and impartial just because they say so.
The Burqa brigade, the Islamists, planted the chemical weapons in Syria because Russia was bombing them out of their Clinton enclaves. Hybris Johnson has been working the jihadists for years and is much admired . He also inhabits the outer reaches of legitimacy in terms of the breaking of international law. Fortunately for the world and for common sense the shenanigans of the conservative foreign policy introduced by Cameron and Hague in 2010, being broadly Zionist and jihadist based , had been anticipated by China and Russia, weapons and defence systems built which were capable of out-manoeuvring neo-con lies.
The burqa does not only belong to Islamists, it has a sensible function in Islam as I have mentioned before. Anyone who uses a burqa as a symbol of hypocrisy, whereby millions of Muslims are thrown out of their homes for the sake of political power, is bringing Islam into disrepute. The burqa is not just for these mischief-making slaves of Western zionist power. But Hubris Johnson wasn’t talking about his islamists in his newspaper drivel, he was talking about culture. He would do well to consider his own ridiculous bleached hair.
This is an intersting article on the burqa with regards to Morocco.
http://theconversation.com/why-moroccos-burqa-ban-is-more-than-just-a-security-measure-72120
Looks like Islamaphobia has spread to Morocco!
I think you misunderstand the difference between Islamophobia and fighting against fundamentalism. And that is really the crucial point here. This article is actually well balanced. What is happening in the Arab world unfortunately is a stepping backwards rather than forward. Salafism Islam , the origins of which is Saudi Arabia and the Gullf is seen by the majority of moderate Muslims as an aberration and not a mainstream of Islam. Islam before 1989s in the Arab world and west Africa was a tolerant religion and there was an opening to secularism. Sadly there has been a change led by these salafists and the Muslim brothers to revert to medieval practices and also sadly to say the west took the hypocritical step to side with the extremists.
This is why I find the current BJ controversy so hypocritical. If BJ attacks the Burqa on the basis of what this article describes, mainly a salafist import and a security risk, but at the same time attack the countries that support these policies then I would be the first to join in his praise. But he is resorting to comical methods without seriously looking at the deeper politics of our government’s support for salafists who support the terrorists.
The Arab world is not the entirety of Islam
Skyblaze
I am aware that the Arab world is not the entirety of Islam, I merely mentioned the Arab world in this context because it is in KSA where Islam was born and it is in KSA where Wahhabism has originated and is being actively exported. Also I know much more about the Arab world than elsewhere.
How extraordinary that you fail to mention anywhere in there the interference by UK, US, France and others in various Arab or the death and destruction brought to those countries.
it’s not bleached actually its natural and all the Johnson have it. It is also unusual to stay a natural platinum blonde as you age but Boris father and sister also have. so has my sister who is always being asked if she bleaches her hair. she does not it is natural and almost white it has been since she was born. it is same colour as Boris hair. It’s in their genes.
Ah! I thought you must be related!
For anyone interested in my reply to Alex Sobel and Hannah Weisfeld advocating the full IHRA definition so as to build consensus in the Labour Party see my Words that Carry Weight:
https://www.academia.edu/s/7db50ea29f/words-that-carry-weight
“Manifestations ( of anti-Semitism ) might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic.” IHRA.
No Christian nor Muslim can ever conceive of the state of Israel as a Jewish collectivity. Israel is a Holy Land where the many of prophets of Islam lived and preached. It is totally inconceivable that this geographical area can be conceived in isolation of its history by anyone who regards it as Holy. The definite#ion which causes the problem about anti-Semitism is the definition mentioned by the IHRA that the State of Israel is exclusively a Jewish collectivity, which it most obviously is not , either in historical, nor religious , nor contemporary political terms.
If you create a definition which itself contains a limitation of context with which the majority of the world does not agree, people are bound not only to breach the code, but continue to defy the premise upon which the code is built.
When you look into this issue it’s immediately obvious that the IHRA want Israel to be seen as the sole owners, proprietors, inhabitants, influence and concern of the Jewish people. This premise is self-evidently completely untrue. The IHRA have given an extremely narrow, political definition of Israel , with which most sensible people on the planet will continue to disagree. Well done the Labour Party for refusing to sign Israel, lock stock and barrell over to the Jews. By the IHRA definition I am an anti-Semite for refusing to define Israel as a solely Jewish concern. Nothing could be further from reality.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2018/08/full-text-ihra-s-working-definition-anti-semitism
“I can see Ishmael,- That you’re a delicate soul, so I’ll tread carefully in future. ?”
lol, …no, you really don’t. Just call it a political issue of mine, standing up for the Planimo’s.
& You do know how land “right’s” were initiated against the people don’t you? Your not from my class mate, and I don’t really respect the premises/traditions of your class. I long stopped taking it personally. The delicate ones are the people who spin in regular orbit. Not those with different brains, who are cast with “learning difficulties” etc.
Why do you think we have no heroes anymore? Constant sly ridicule & undermining.
….God ….Your responses are so predictable and patronising.
What’s the single basic thing required by this society to “get on” Skill in music, in art, in maths even? …Or what is necessary get anyway near the top political jobs, in a ubiquitous bureaucracy like ours? Creative thinking?
No. what’s most respected & most necessary is literature, filling out forms, etc. Reading and writing (just take a look at the “new left” for an example). It’s how control is maintained, like star wars you know? “How do we maintain control without the bureaucracy?” & It’s how people where separated from the land, for most could not read.
And yes it is also a personal issue acutely, that iv had to fight all my life, and will continue to fight against the well adjusted member of society who can’t seem to see their own overton restriction. And in most cases where they seem to enjoy pointing it out constantly, or can’t help it? To me it’s like clinging to their fragile orbit.
Im not about respecting that orbit, I mess with peoples gravity. Just by insisting on my own way.
Planimo – A rogue planet (also termed an interstellar planet, nomad planet, free-floating planet, orphan planet, wandering planet, starless planet, or sunless planet) is a planetary-mass object that orbits a galactic centre directly…
(: …I like my new found place in the universe.
So you’re a kind of a Blue Straggler then, a kind of acception to the rule so to speak ?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_straggler
& i’d add separated them from themselves, as well as people from the land. Placing themselves in a conceptual imagined higherachy. Basically a mental picture they “live” inside to stroke a fragile ego & keep them feeling like they control things, when they are inept & are generally the least able to adapt.
This separation is alluded to by David Graeber, …& Varoufakis in his greek tragedy.. If you want academic sources.
“Why do you think we have no heroes anymore? ”
Ishmael.
You’re very wrong on that Ishmael, surgeons who save peoples lives are heroes. As are fire fighters, nurses, and those that goes the extra mile to help others in their times of need.
It’s just that we’ve been led to believe that movie stars, tv stars, sport people and successful business folk are what we should look up to as heroes.
Instead we should look to those I’ve mentioned and scientists, who make life changing break throughs as well.
Surely life hasn’t jaded you to the point that you can’t see real heroes in action every day, all around you, or has it?
Republicofscotland,
Great comment. Our real heroes now go completely unsung, and the last thing that most of them want is any publicity.
We are drowned in propaganda and trash, whilst it is just another day for them, even if it is just a policeman, with the firemen, and medics, scraping what’s left of the human roadkill off the road.
Someone has to do it, and I seriously respect them.
I wouldn’t p1ss on a politican, though I might throw up on one.
Tony
What makes you think I was excluding them? But as far as politics and much of modern culture goes? it’s the same well that’s drawn from.
The proof is in the pudding. That many nurses certainly won’t have as a result.
And though I fully support more reactionary institutions that help people. Much is because of the horrendous order we still live in.
A real unsung hero is someone who can go through life, with it’s injustices, unfairness and while witnessing the most horrific behaviour from fellow creatures and not live in a state of perpetual hate. If people can raise themselves above hate, even hatred for Boris Johnson (which, I know, is very difficult) they will be heroic, and will have partaken in a victory over those (like Boris Johnson) who use hate as a weapon of control.
Deb
Do we hate BJ? Do we hate the Tories? Should we? Is hatred not consuming energies that are better spent carefully undermining those who , incompetent as they are, have been thrown into a situation they cannot control.
It is the system and not the individuals that we should concentrate on. Our political system is not fit for purpose. Why would TM have so much power to decide the fate of this country without having been elected by a minority of electorate, having a slender majority in coalition or should I say collusion with a fundamentalist party, having the power to fire individuals who might be more competent than her. And this is democracy!
Well said RoS – ordinary people who do extraordinary things. Instead of being lauded by society, these real heroes are cast aside for plastic ones who fill our TV screens, the self promoting and the vacuous.
Ishmael,
“Why do you think we have no heroes anymore?”
Various members of The Stranglers are still alive, doing well and playing Festivals. Hugh Cornwell was on last weekend, doing mostly his new own original stuff. Other Stranglers are also playing live this summer under the name “The Stranglers”
“The Stranglers – No More Heroes (TopPop) (1977) (HD)” (Taking The P1ss out of the BBC – cos they weren’t allowed to play live)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gfIgA-PYyQ
Tony
(Actually not the BBC, but a Dutch TV Station)
Yea, but let’s not pretend we have anything like that noways, in new forms.
As robert smith of The Cure said, it’s pretty awful to see our society being dumbed down.
I guess my aim is see how, reveal the mechanisms. For myself & others. And I think a lot of it is the confidence in themselves. That’s what’s been missing. And it doesn’t take any academics, in the contrary, that’s not our politics.
I’m finding many who ACT confident, it’s just an act, many are just old bigots (not that it’s a product or age necessarily, as many of the youth now follow these dinosaurs, see the “alt-right” following Murdock, or Trump or Jordan peterson etc, all the new right figures ) ..But that’s how I picture them. Even the new left are pretty lack lustre & institutionalised. Yes they have read a lot, but who gives a ….
It’s like finkelstein said on JC in that Novara interview, Sorry, iv got my own business to focus on, ……in my own way..
Confirmation, it it was needed, of Gina Haspel’s involvement and her complicity in the programme of rendition and torture.
‘The extreme torture of a suspected al-Qaeda terrorist, including waterboarding, forced nudity and a “walling technique,” have been detailed in newly declassified cables sent by a current CIA director Gina Haspel.
The cables, sent by Haspel to agency headquarters in late 2002, reveal the torture of suspect Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri at the secret US detention facility in Thailand. The CIA believed the Saudi Arabian suspect was involved in the planning of the USS Cole bombing in Yemen in 2000 and believed he knew about other planned attacks.
The cables, most of which were either written or authorised by Haspel, reveal Nashiri’s weeks-long interrogation included waterboarding, forced nudity, shackling, being slammed against walls, confined in a small box and enduring mock executions.
READ MORE: Court finds Lithuania & Romania in breach of torture ban while hosting CIA black sites’
Declassified cables sent by CIA Director Gina Haspel reveal extreme torture of al-Qaeda suspect
https://www.rt.com/usa/435735-gina-haspel-cia-torture/
An awful reminder of what went on in Bush and Blair’s War on Terror.
Apologies for being wrecked stupid a few nights ago, a bottle of Merlot and intelligent convo are aliens. Hope you enjoyed the music tho =)
I’m an older millennial and like so many here, just feel so gutted at our world being destroyed by fascism, oligarchies and just outright liars who think they can destroy everything good to get what they want and survive? Scum like that are incapable of learning and fear ppl like Corbyn who want to decentralise power and aid Democracy.
Ppl are beginning to realise, i won’t hope now but the fat lady ain’t singing yet
I LOVE dancing, this is old but think it’s the best dance track eva =) Underworld king of snake fat boy slim mix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZoqC-HQXbs
Naa, can’t beat the original imo. (:
Reference. https://youtu.be/tAObCHEjZrs?t=6m1s
Bless and hugs Ishmael, seriously hear you bro. The remix is a killer for me tho
No problem. I get it. …
This article is all about what’s really happening to me, the Israeli Govt with their stupid stooges has led to this: https://tech2.org/israel/israels-holocaust-credit-line-is-running-out-israel-news/
That article was originally posted in Haaretz, what’s happening is AS is being so cheapened, disbelief in current stuff is prob the norm and anger could be the next step. Ordinary Jewish ppl seriously need to adopt a not in my name stance, Israel is an apartheid, rascist state under Netanyahu’s Govt. Sort it out!
Must admit I was loosing a lot of faith in Israel. The recent internal protests where a real eye opener. I should have known better, but it’s been so long seeing any focus on more left wing peoples movements.
& then I saw some commentary highlighting the generation divide, something about a younger person relating the protest to a grumpy father or someone. & I thought well yes, just like us.
Or maybe not me personally so much, I’m getting on a bit, but yea.
I hear you lovely bro Ishmael,sadly i think it cld lead to just being sick of Jewish ppl, which is so unfair sort of cos it’s some of your leaders, which are the prob.
There must be fairness and truth, that is the solution
– “There must be fairness and truth, that is the solution”
Indeed. Truth -> Justice -> Peace
It is a chain of dependencies; each element depends upon the one preceding it, and one can only become truthful through self-discipline and self-scrutiny.
Do you remember the Swedish woman who stopped the plane taking off because it was deporting a migrant?
Well you’ll never guess what…
https://youtu.be/EXkqZnq4z-I
Unbefuckinglievable.
Conspiracy theorist and alt right chickenhawk teenage wannabe shock jock. Just another one of these Alex Jones fanboys. Yes you are right, he is totally unbelievable.
So how was she to know?
The government promise to “get tough on asylum seekers”, and a man is being deported to Afghanistan, which is a war zone, has suffered our corrupt puppet government of drug lords, and has been fought over, back and forth in the “Great Game” of the “great powers” for hundreds of years.
So a woman takes a stand. What are you saying, Anon1? That he’s a migrant, so she should just trust the authorities? Like ours, that have been deporting the migrants that were encouraged to come here decades ago, to drive buses for us whites?
That Israel receives your support should tell anyone exactly what sort of state it is. That you smear all Muslims with the behaviour of the murderous extremists that Israel support as proxy attackers gives the measure of your hypocrisy.
Resident Dissident, Habbabkuk, are you coming to support Anon1 like you so often used to? Or is the carefully cultivated illusion all falling apart?
Look it’s on RT so it must be true!!
https://www.rt.com/news/434789-sweden-migrant-deported-assault/
Maybe she should’ve checked her facts beforehand.
I seem to remember the deportee she ended up defending was not the one she planned to protect, because the authorities switched the deportees flights at the last minute (no doubt to undermine the demonstration). But of course our shock-jock is not bothered about trivia like the truth, even less his supporters on this blog.
“I seem to remember the deportee she ended up defending was not the one she planned to protect, because the authorities switched the deportees flights at the last minute (no doubt to undermine the demonstration).”
Yes, of course, the authorities carried out a Baldrick type cunnng trick to undermine the demo! Care to source that assertion (links and so on)?
Non 1, Kemp and S(t)ock, 3 ducks in a row!
Or, three ponies, one trick.
Ducks will always win over paper tigers (tissue paper tigers, more like it) !
LBC carried a timely interview with Swedish plane passengers, who witnessed her protest. Some were angry, some supported the young lady. It was reported on LBC that the authorities had switched planes for the original deportee, but there was someone else on the delayed flight that was being renditioned. I have no links because I was listening to the live program, CB/H. Hope that helps.
Renditioned, on a passenger flight? Sounds very unlikely.
But thanks for the additional information from LBC, which makes the situation much clearer.
Yay Clark, p’raps the R-word as shorthand for legally enforced deportation was a bit too much, but some have died, that we know of.
My take is that it’s (‘R’) not the adequate response, for two reasons.
A) Apocryphally, the ex-military Jean-Mare Le Pen whilst in an executive somewhere in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, amnestified and rendited (small-R) many third-country-nationals. He sent them home, with 1000Frs in pocket, as part of his immigration led political career. It allegedly didn’t work, as many/most later returned to France, exclaiming ‘nice holiday – let us know when you’ll organize the next repatriation flights and I’ll sign-up again!’ However JMLP remains a euro-deputé, arguably France’s most successful politician?
Of course, they say, now we have total biometric awareness. Except young Korean ladies of leisure, excluded from Japan , have occasionally been detected with fake biometrics. With the accept/reject ratio being so sensitive, we don’t know how many are getting through.
B) Finally tho’, you have to look at the numbers. Whilst the Conservative party/UKIP froth about 10,000 teens in Sangatte – the actualité over the near-medium term is eight-hundred-million ‘african’ children & teens potentially on the move. NATO/DoHS will be reaching for their tactical nukes!, sadly.
This implies some other solution than legally enforced deportation will soon be needed. Probably, if sanity prevails, we might get the opposite of BDS. We might invest in ‘african’ infrastructures & educations, we might partner rather than power-play. 800M might stay at home. Put the nukes away.
Fiction gets there first?, movie-review site Rotten Tomatoes highest ever rated reviewed film https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/black_panther_2018/
Of course , we could just leave the required investment and education to China’s OBOR, but that then eventually implies moving to live in a cave near Auckland, apparently.
@Laguerre – please provide a credible link to your little fantasy story.
I watched Sunday Morning Live on BBC this morning, and following Boris Johnsons widely rerported reamrks, they were having a debate about Islamophobia, which became a bit farcical, when a progressive Imam – Dr Taj Hargey, Imam of the Oxford Islamic Congregation and Director of the Muslim Education Centre of Oxford – was called Islamophobic for airing his views on the Burkha and Niqab, saying that they were a personal choice and not required by the Quran.
This was all a bit too much for Owen Jones and the Burkha clad geneticist from Wales, who tried to say that he didn’t know anything about Islam.
It was all too much for the BBC presenter as well, because he tried to shut up Dr Hargey when he made references to the Quran, which were in fact totally relevant.
Laguerre doesn’t do links, not even when invited. Very un-academic behaviour for a claimed academic (footnotes, sources and all that…)
My sympathies are with you that you take Sunday Morning Live, on BBC, seriously.
Oh, was it a planned demonstration and the authorities found out about it in advance? The media outlets I checked must have omitted that rather significant point. “Ever Wished You Were Better Informed?”
When even ultra-loyalist Clark gives Laguerre a kick you know the latter’s latest utterance is not quite…….halal.
That was a kick at the ‘news’ media, not at Laguerre. I shall add to my reply to Radar O’Reilly to make that clearer.
Re the Yemeni school bus tragedy, one of the side effects of making a dumb bomb smart by bolting on a guidance section is that in the explosion there seems to be a good chance that that guidance section is not blown to bits. This is not a problem if it is buried under tons of rubble or no-one is worried as who dropped it or its source is known.
It can be a problem when the target is a Yemeni bus and a fin from the guidance section, complete with serial number is found. Which appears to be what has happened. Photos are now appearing on Twitter showing the remains of a Lockheed Martin Paveway 11 fin that would have been on the front of a standard US Mk82 bomb turning it into a GBU-12. Saudi order several thousand of these back in 2015.
Bearing in mind that the Houtis are not known for falsifying information, this was not an accidental strike with a dumb bomb but an accurate intentional hit. A similar fin was found at the wedding bombing back in April. But we can rest easy in the knowledge that, according to the State Department spokeslady yesterday, the US has asked the Saudis to do a full investigation. Mind you that nice US lady at the UN has already said that the bus was being used as a ‘human shield’.
Its very sad that almost no-one in power anywhere in the World gives a shit about the tragedy that is unfolding daily in Yemen.
The death toll in that incident is now 67.
“Saudi order several thousand of these back in 2015.”
Several thousand will not last that long. In the period Mar 2015- Aug 2016 Saudi conducted 15,498 strikes on Yemen. It is not inconceivable that the USAF is taking part under the umbrella of the ‘Saudi led coalition’.
@ Deb O’Nair August 12, 2018 at 00:42
There was credible strong suspicion that ‘ME Exceptionals’ in Saudi-painted aircraft where also engaged, as Saudi Arabia didn’t have aircraft capable of carrying the particular bombs used on at least one occasion.
Brexit is coming. Wake up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS7pcHreUcU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXR1K_RvkhI
Ishmael,
Thank you for the links. I have wondered what happened to the stop the war campaign. Clearly they drank from the wrong cup.
Oh.. and I get it too :). Remix is more powerful.
Obama helped the Saudis kill Yemenis with drone strikes. The emergency measures, have been in place seen 01, THE us govt just ]lie and treat Americans like slaves
@ Cesca August 12, 2018 at 01:20
‘AMERICA’S MILITARIZED ECONOMY’: https://southfront.org/americas-militarized-economy/
‘Donald Trump’s biggest success, thus far into his Presidency, has been his sale of $400 billion (originally $350 billion) of U.S.-made weapons to the Saudi Arabian Government, which is owned by its royal family, after whom that nation is named. This sale alone is big enough to be called Trump’s “jobs plan” for Americans. It is also the biggest weapons-sale in all of history. It’s 400 billion dollars, not 400 million dollars; it is gigantic, and, by far, unprecedented in world-history.
The weapons that the Sauds and their friends, the 7 monarchies that constitute the United Arab Emirates, are using right now, in order to conquer and subdue Yemen, are almost entirely made in America. That’s terrific business for America. Not only are Americans employed, in strategically important congressional districts (that is, politically important congressional districts), to manufacture this equipment for mass-murdering in foreign lands that never threatened (much less invaded) America, but the countries that purchase this equipment are thereby made dependent upon the services of those American manufacturers, and of the taxpayer-funded U.S. ‘Defense’ Department and its private military contractors such as Lockheed Martin, to maintain this equipment, and to train the local military enforcers, on how to operate these weapons. Consequently, foreign customers of U.S. military firms are buying not only U.S. weapons, but the U.S. Government’s protection — the protection by the U.S. military, of those monarchs….’
Lives mean nothing to these evil creatures. If the public were informed about what is really going on, they would elect decent politicians. But the MSM is in the pockets of the Banksters, Corporations and foreign interests, so nothing will change.
There is a slight chance for a real change in the UK, if Jeremy Corbyn is elected, which is why it is so necessary to expose the attacks on him on such phony trumped-up charges such as anti-Semitism and being a ‘friend of terrorists’.
The inhabitants of illegally occupied territories have a right to fight their occupiers – they are ‘Freedom Fighters’, not ‘terrorists’.
God, Iv been so blind.
The truth of Libya. … & Owen Jones & co.
This fits together about every issue I have with “the left” … And labour.
Imperialism on Trial – Joti Brar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFbWgd23qIE
Ishmael,
I may have replied to the wrong comment… but see above.
Ya Gotta be Brave..Or Able.. We went to the bbc Bias Protest… It’s the usual Fucking Crap – ” What Flag is That ”
Palestinian
Aye Don’t agree with That flag being here, they send Missles into Israel”
Listeningwater – ” where did you here that the bbc ”
Aye
On the Plus side I have vever been so Photgraphed as I was today with My Palestine Flag..and met wonderful people that gave us Info,, That lead me to driving to see Palestine Refugee children Live in Dumbarton Tonight…Amazing
This Starts With Listeningwater Holding my Flag.whils I get some Video..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1U1_oqim1s
And A Few hours later Palestininian Refugee Children .. On MY River in Dumbarton –
https://www.youtube.com/feed/history
@ Brianfujisan August 12, 2018 at 03:39
It was scheduled to be from 13:00 – 16:00, but was apparently changed at the last minute. I got there at 15:05, and there was no one there; then a lady walked up and joined me. She said everyone had left at 14:30.
So we stayed, till about 16:30, me giving the British Propaganda Corporation a bit of welly on my megaphone. A Press TV crew came along (they also probably thought it was going on till 16:00) and interviewed us both – I don’t know if the interviews were used.
Good on you Brian.
lol.
Well done. May get me one of them.
Boris Johnson should really comment on this to redeem himself. Relationships with Saudi Arabia should be suspended and all arms sakes cancelled and that is even before we consider the atrocities in Yemen.
https://amp.news.com.au/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-women-beheaded-in-street-corpses-dangling-from-cranes/news-story/e9b9a2a9f158285818106049e922aff1?__twitter_impression=true
His father (playing around in India with other oldies in a reality show – did he need the money?) has stuck up for him.
Wish that the odious self-publicizing Johnson mob would disappear from the scene.
‘Boris Johnson returns from holiday to burka row as dad Stanley says son was ‘spot on’ and ‘should’ve gone further’
The former I’m a Celebrity star believed his son was exercising his “freedom of speech” and said there are circumstances where a ban would be “in order”‘
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/boris-johnson-returns-holiday-burka-13068618
And his sister. I’m not sure how Johnson could have gone much further than comparing Islamic women with bank robbers and letterboxes – but that’s the upper classes for you, I suppose.
suicide bombers…you can just tell these types are itching to say that
The sister too. It’s called chutzpah.
Rachel Johnson: I do apologise for my brother Boris… he didn’t go NEARLY far enough!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6050835/Rachel-Johnson-apologise-brother-Boris-didnt-NEARLY-far-enough.html
Yes, Sharpie, that’s the funny thing about parents – they tend to stick up for their kids. Of course I understand that non-parents sometimes have problems understanding that.
Charlie boy
Remember what happened to that Leadsom woman when she weaponised motherhood ?
“A row with no end? Labour, Israel and Anti-Semitism”
novara media discussion w norman finklestein and barnaby raine
.https://novaramedia.com/2018/08/06/a-row-with-no-end-labour-israel-and-antisemitism/
finklestein’s intervention on 40min is like a refreshing shower.
Isun’t it. & how walker had to interject after with, “obviously arn’t my views” after. …And the fact all the clips, (and praise) they posted was all of the other guy, When if you go to YT or look under many of the clips posted on twitter? Similar comment to yours.
With friend like these?
And these are the people who moan about media miss-representation? …I was right god dam it. And Varoufakis was right in his interview with them, basically saying you need to get over you left bias.
The issus is access, and they know they won’t get it backing what is the more popular view.
I really question their ‘communist’ credentials, (& “muslim” with ash) If it’s not all so much just trendy london sticky labels. How can they not once reference CPGB-ML ?
There was a very large protest in Tel Aviv yesterday against the new law..
‘Resist apartheid!’ Arab Israelis protest controversial ‘J.wish nation-state’ law (VIDEO)
12 Aug 2018
Chanting ‘resist apartheid’ and ‘we are all brothers’, thousands of protesters rallied in Tel Aviv against the controversial new law that has proclaimed Israel to be the nation-state of just the J.wish people.
Protesters carried banners demanding equality between the J.ws and other nationalities and religions in Israel.
“We are here to call for equality, for full citizenship and equal rights on individual levels and on the rational level. We are here also to say ‘Netanyahu, you cannot decide to continue the occupation and to deny the rights of the Palestinians only by law’,” Aida Touma-Suleiman from the Joint List Party told RT’s Ruptly.
The controversial law, which had been in the works since 2011 and was strongly supported by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has sparked a wave of protests, which have spilled over the Israeli border and angered the influential Jewish diaspora in the US. The critics of the bill argue that its wording makes some 1.8 million Israeli Arabs, a quarter of the population, second-class citizens.
Meanwhile supporters of the law argue it is not different from what is written in the Israeli constitution, and is rather symbolic. “This is the homeland state of the J.ws,” Middle East expert Reuven Berko told RT, noting that no one in Europe protests against crosses on national flags.’
https://www.rt.com/news/435754-israel-jewish-state-protest/
Q. Is Berko for real?
That demo was covered quite extensively on the excellent Israeli satellite TV channel i24News (recommended viewing, by the way).
The demo demonstrates yet again that democracy and the right of unhindered public protest are alive and well in Israel. This is of course unique in the Middle East.
BTW, did anyone see the recent video footage of Russian police breaking up an attempted gay rights march and arresting those who turned up? God knows what would have happened of it had been a political demo as the Israeli one!
By unhindered do you mean not shot at and killed by snipers?
Spot on!
Astonished by CB’s response below. Does Charles keep up with the news?…
Sorry, above…
What Charles Bostock means is that protesters in Israel don’t get shot – apparently neglecting that Palestinian protesters do get shot – whereas protesters in other Middle Eastern countries do get shot – apparently further neglecting that protesters on other Middle Eastern countries do get shot because Western politicians have helped facilitate it:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2011/03/the-invasion-of-bahrain/
Not really a surprise that you were mystified.
Unhindered only if you’re J_w_sh Israeli. And no, Israel is not alone in that – you’re just repeating the standard Israeli propaganda line, as all hasbarists do, because they get a little money in the pocket each time they say it.
Laguerre
So you claim I get paid to post on here.
On what basis do you say that?
Is that how you respond to other posters with whose opinions you happen to disagree?
Do posters who disagree with your opinions accuse you of being paid by someone?
You’ve told us you’re an academic. Is that how you respond to students of yours who disagree with what you tell them?
“This is of course unique in the Middle East.”
point being missed totally
Maybe it is a good place to point out here that Israel is a democracy alright, a selective democracy, or should it be an exclusive democracy?