Well, it is nice to be free again, though as I said on release, I shall never really feel free while Julian is still imprisoned and while Scotland is still part of an imperialist United Kingdom. I expect most of you have seen my release, but for those who have not:
The support of readers of this blog was particularly important to maintaining my mental health while in jail. Well over 2,000 people wrote to me in prison by post or by the peculiar prisoner email service (emails were printed out and given to me – I then hand-wrote replies which were scanned and sent by the jail). I read every word sent to me, and was very grateful for the books, magazines, poetry and the stories of people’s lives. It was companionship.
It also gave me much more of a feel for the community who read this blog, which truly is worldwide. I particularly treasured all those who wrote to say that they sometimes – or even generally – disagree with what I write, but enjoy the intellectual exercise and supply of under-reported facts and independent opinion. Because as regular readers know, it has always been my intention to activate thought and to inform; never to cultivate unthinking support. That seems to have succeeded splendidly well, as people sent me reams of argument on what they feel I am wrong about; which I much enjoyed.
I shall write about prison and the justice system in the coming days and weeks. I learnt a very great deal. But today as I get my own writing muscles working again, I thought I would give you my overview on COP26.
If Glasgow 2021 is remembered at all, it will be as the moment when big finance came to the party. Politicians and those who control them now largely accept that the public demand mitigation of climate change, and that this will perforce alter some of the ways that big money makes money. Glasgow 21 was rather more sinister than blah blah blah – it was the formal endorsement of the view that public endeavour is not the solution to climate change, rather the answer lies in “trillions of dollars” of private investment from banks and private equity which, Johnson announced, is all ready to go.
Johnson told us that governments can mobilise billions, while the private sector can mobilise trillions, as though that money was not created by government in the first instance. The Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero provides an answer to the question “What does a representative sample of evil people responsible for despoiling the planet look like?” We receive assurances like this:
Already, a fundamental shift in capital is accelerating as the world’s largest asset owners and managers, controlling over USD$30 trillion, join the UN-backed Race to Zero campaign.
No “respectable” media or body is going to question the taxpayer subsidies, tax breaks and above all taxpayer guaranteed returns the big financial sharks are going to get – because it is all to combat climate change. This is an even bigger spree in the offing for the fatcats than the banker bailouts that led to the decade of austerity. In order to ensure the private sector money rolls in, you and I will be meeting R & D costs and then picking up any losses: the wealthy will be hoovering up the profits.
They also need to keep consumers consuming. There is no government interest in distributed power generation solutions.
Consider this. If you insulated every home in the country, and put solar panels on every roof, non-local energy usage would be greatly reduced and people’s energy bills would fall. But insulating homes, especially older ones, is much more labour intensive than it is capital intensive. It would create hundreds of thousands of jobs. But material costs are comparatively small, and then after insulation consumers will not be paying big energy bills. This is not in the least a fatcat friendly policy.
But what if you leave homes pumping heat into the atmosphere, forget local generation and instead build a new network of nuclear power stations? There is nothing more conducive to the concentration of economic and social power than the nuclear industry, with its inextricable links to the security state. Electricity can still be sold to the helots, whose self-sufficiency and freedom will in no way be enhanced.
Nobody should be surprised the government is showing much more interest in nuclear power than in home insulation or domestic solar panels.
Similarly expect to see much government support given to “blue hydrogen”, which liberates more CO2 from natural gas than does burning the gas in a power station. It employs fossil fuel and the promises to continue the economic centralisation of the current energy market, so is very attractive to the ruling classes. Green hydrogen, however, requires wind turbines (or potentially solar power in Africa) and water, and is therefore potentially susceptible to production by large communities rather than by oil giants.
Nuclear power, blue hydrogen – expect to have these and other high centralisation, high energy schemes foisted on us now as “solutions.” They are in fact solutions, in this sense. In Glasgow the people were shut out while the global super-wealthy asked themselves this vital question:
“The planet is heading for environmental destruction: how do we make money out of that?”
They believe they have found some of the answers.
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Good to have you back, Mr. Murray!
x
I just skimmed through the UK version to see and read any additional material, or should I say the first page of it, which consists of the first 18 reasons, but when I clicked on ‘Go to the next page’, it just brought up the first page again. I assume it’s not just me, or my laptop, so I’ll contact them to let them know. Meanwhile, here’s a link to the original version:
https://www.fluoridealert.org/wp-content/uploads/50-reasons.pdf
It’s a real shame that Nikola Tesla’s vision and technology patents which would’ve ensured genuinely green and free energy for all people, were snuffed out and his character assassinated more than a 100 years ago… But we know why that was eh?
Pioneering inventors following in his spirit have come close to actualising the zero point energy technology which would solve all of our energy needs if only they remained alive.. So many of them have mysteriously died through the years and their marvelous, makeshift laboratories trashed.
This a great article to step back into the arena with craig and it’s good to have you back… The corporate ‘green revolution’ will ensure debt slavery for the masses and the genuine environmentalists frozen out.
– “Nikola Tesla’s vision and technology patents which would’ve ensured genuinely green and free energy for all people”
Merely an urban myth, unfortunately. Right as Tesla was about many things, especially AC power grids as we all use these days, he was wrong about that. Yet Tesla was a hero; his response to Edison’s propaganda of electrocuting animals on stage brings tears to my eyes.
– “Pioneering inventors following in his spirit have come close to actualising the zero point energy technology which would solve all of our energy needs if only they remained alive.. So many of them have mysteriously died through the years and their marvelous, makeshift laboratories trashed.”
Unfortunately untrue as well. Physics and electrical engineering are well understood, not conspiracies of enforced silence to exploit the common folk. Many such stories are spread by “free energy” investment scammers.
Rosemary Hart, I regret having to have been critical, and I’d choose Tesla rather than Edison any day.
But such stories of a few lone, inspired mavericks suppressed by a scientific community consisting mostly of dupes orchestrated by an overarching, all-knowing evil conspiracy are just too similar in their structure to the spurious arguments deployed in the attempt to discredit climate change, eg. the following sort of thing from the previous page of comments:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/12/concentration-of-power/comment-page-2/#comment-1002767
I disagree with your conclusions Clark, having studied the work and pioneering research of Nassim Haramein, the brilliant physicist and his insight into the Unified Field, and the technology he has been working on.. He’s very close to the paradigm shift. Fascinating science which doesn’t get much exposure.
https://www.resonancescience.org/about-nassim-haramein
Rosemary Hart. Indeed, we also have to look at our own lifestyles, eat and drink less, soon the NHS will be completely sold off and we will all have to buy health insurance like in US. Who can afford operations in US? Not many. We have to consume less, live simpler lives and try and become less reliant on the state, easier said than done. Our politicians have failed us. The lock downs have been an accurate rehearsal for future life, total governmental control of work, travel, money and health. No wonder so many people just want to escape somehow. There are thousands living in Stealth Vans to escape exorbitant landlordism. No longer a flight of fancy by a few young adventures, but forced reality. Living off grid, learnig about solar power, led bulbs, wi-fi, insulation, water supply and filters, different cooking and heating methods etc..
I thought Nicola Tesla sounded like a New Labour politician, or maybe the SNP. I wonder why.
As Garibaldi showed you only need a thousand and someone to lead.
Presently, we have thousands and no one to lead. Who will step up?
Michael Biyd. The people have been disarmed in many ways. No written constitution, an un independent Judiciary, militarised police force, a rotten state controlled media and the state having a monopoly of arms and a cocaine snorting MPs. Prince Charles as our next King. A true Democracy. There a great film about Italian unification, will find name, but at the end after a successful revolution the people have to hand in their weapons……
Its fitting that the title of Craig’s piece Concentration of Power, is what occurred after Italian Unification. I can’t recall the film, but it must have been Pier Paolo Pasolini. A man of the present living in the past. An essay by Robin Cross explains his films and influences of Gramchi. Great films
Could the film that you’re referring to be Roberto Rossellini’s “Viva L’Italia” (shorter cut AKA “Garibaldi”)?
MJ thanks, will look it up. Cheers
Great to see you out and about again. Sorry didn’t write whilst you were banged up. Spent six months on remand for an alleged crime that never happened only to be told to go home and forget it. The result of a former commissioner for the Met trying to curry favour in SA.
Was happy to continue financial support of your blog. Good luck.
Welcome back to what passes for freedom, Mr Murray.
Just my opinion, based entirely on propaganda in the South African media, but it does seem as if the renewable energy corporations have the capacity to lie every bit as much as the fossil fuel corporations. Perhaps this is why it’s so hard to get one’s hands on how well or ill renewables work to replace fossil fuel sources.
In South Africa the fossil fuel company is in state hands and state funded (although not state-run; there’s a Byzantine system in place because the administration has to be private to facilitate privatisation) and this has been generating decreasing amounts of electricity for the last decade despite receiving massive subsidies and two new coal-fired power plants. Meanwhile five thousand megawatts of installed renewable capacity (mostly wind turbines made in Italy and owned by foreign companies) have provided no improvement in the regular blackouts we suffer under. The solution, we are told, is more installed renewable capacity, preferably with expensive, short-lived batteries purchased from the United States.
We don’t have any Craig Murrays in our country, unfortunately.
You may not currently have any Craig Murray’s currently in your country MFB.
But you did not so long ago MFB. Thinking back Nelson Mandela, Joe Stobo and many more were visionaries who strove to overturn the apartheid colonial rule. They achieved that end but in doing so have now been replaced by others with absolutely none of the commitment and vision of those who fought apartheid. Only the colour of the faces has changed.
A bit like Scotland and the SNP where the party who secured the return of the Scottish Parliament, albeit devolved, are now the Gauleiters for their Westminster masters.
9*/Indeed..Ect
Asking Minors What they get up to..Oral ..Anal When … My Daughter and I Differ on this one… BIG TIME
I have no links to studies etc., but conceptually, electricity supply must involve many parts that are hard to coordinate with multiple owners. In this example (and in Texas etc.) you have unreliable clean energy and thermal power stations. With sufficient capacity, you get clean power when available and thermal when needed. It gets more complicated with nuclear power in the mix. The problem with many owners is how much different generators are paid and how. Individual generators only gain when there are occasional shortages, especially in the bidding system of pricing. The country (home users, business users, industry) gains from lower average price, hence, surplus of capacity. Bulk of thermal and nuclear capacity does not involve much of innovation, mature or imported technologies, I cannot see any benefits from them being private except enabling different types of graft than in purely state owned system. Clean power can as well be private, that involves one type of graft: manipulating price guarantees etc. through lobbying, but it can be manageable — although there is no patent for identifying and electing honest politicians.
From the description, South Africa has deficit of capacity, especially thermal/nuclear that operate when the wind blows less. The costs and lobbying reduce the investment in sufficient “dirty” capacity. Lobbying sidelines the calculation of the total cost of the system rather than invariable optimistic estimates for “green solutions” that ignore systemic implications, longevity of system components etc. Like in Europe and parts of USA.
– “There is nothing more conducive to the concentration of economic and social power than the nuclear industry, with its inextricable links to the security state.”
Who says?
Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to present,
From the year of the Windscale fire and the Kyshtym disaster,
Symbol of the open road and the freedom of the highway,
The 1957 Ford Nucleon!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon
It was signalled in advance by the list of COP26 “sponsors” that it was a farce — these were some of the planet’s mega polluters. It was then concluded that hope resides not only with the oil companies and SUV makers but with private equity and hedge fund sharks, who must be showered with taxpayer subsidies.
Naturally the whole farce was legitimated in the public mind by corporate media. But it is also worth noting a tweet posted last weekend by professional righteous environmentalist George Monbiot.
Quote Tweet
George Monbiot
@GeorgeMonbiot
· 5 Dec
In February 2020, I was asked on the BBC who I supported for Labour leader. I hadn’t given much thought to it. I’ve never been a member of any party, and none of the candidates inspired me. I said something nice about Lisa Nandy, partly because no one else had mentioned her.
Show this thread
9:25 am · 6 Dec 2021·Twitter for iPhone
None of the candidates inspired the anguished Earth Man, not even the candidate (Rebecca Long-Bailey) who designed Labour’s Green New Deal and promised to build on the party’s radical green agenda if she was elected.
Ever feel like you’re being played?
Monbiot won’t make any sense until he aligns his foreign policy with his environmentalism. He treats equality as an aspiration rather than a practice.
Monbiot is OK when he sticks to his patch. He’s awful when he ventures into politics, especially international politics.
Monbiot’s patch is supposed to be the climate catastrophe … Why do you think he pretends he was unaware of RLB’s radical manifesto to address it?
Because he can’t reconcile Rebecca Long-Bailey’s foreign policy with his environmentalism. He can’t see, or let himself see, that Western military aggression centres around control of hydrocarbons. He can’t see that Gaza sits above a gas field, and that Murdoch’s Genie Energy has illegal permission from Israel to extract hydrocarbons in the Israel-occupied Golan Heights, which are Syrian territory. Etc etc. Iran, and the CIA’s 1953 Operation Ajax on behalf of BP? Monbiot daren’t see such things.
Seems likely. Probably no coincidence he favoured Lisa Nandy, a rightwing foreign policy hawk.
Yep. And until he addresses that, he can say things like “we have to go to the heart of capitalism and overthrow it” but they can’t be taken seriously.
Jay asks “Ever feel like you’re being played”….. it becomes a wearisome and uphill struggle pointing this out when so many here, and elsewhere, happily go along with the poppycock from the alarmists.
But put up with it we will have to do for now, the transition from alarmist to realist is not instant.
The proposals that are on the table to meet the target of NetZero by 2050 do not even meet a workable energy policy, which I accept must include fossil fuels and nuclear in the mix…_
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/599602
Advanced economies only work with adequate and dependable energy supplies. Solar and wind have proved to be unreliable for any competent thinker to accept as a suitable source of energy…_
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/599602
Net Zero is destined to fail, if people and governments really want to tackle climate change then they need to find another, more realistic and affordable way.
Net Zero is, IMO, predicated on three main areas:
1) Recycling, re-use and reduction – this is good and is do-able – but no interest or adequate funding from government;
2) Planting Trees – this is good and is do-able – but again no interest or adequate funding from government;
3) Carbon Capture Systems (CCS) – these have NOT been able to scale up, but tend to be the major idea pushed by governments because it allows continued polluting.
The whole area of net zero is awash with green hype and is fueling a feeding frenzy by corrupt organisations and venture capitalists who will clean up the subsidies and deliver nothing.
Stevie Boy. China is leading the way with these and thats good as its the biggest manufacturing economy and acknowledged what will happen to it and everyone.
Brian Fujisan. Alexander Mercouris has readouts of the official statements by the respective US and Russia reports on what was discussed between the secure video between Biden and Putin.
One more Thank You from me to you, @Wikikettle, for bringing Alexander Mercouris here.
I listened to his Putin-Biden video-conference report today, and I found it very informative. Seems like Mercouris has access to information which is not even covered in mainstream Russian media.
Also, he speaks clearly and distinctly and I mostly don’t turn on the subtitles.
Native speakers, can you please tell me, what is his accent?
Tatyana. I am very sorry that we in the Collective West have this constant pressure on your Russia. We drew you into Afghanistan to bog you down, raped your country in the 90’s, put NATO in nearly all your ex Soviet buffer states when we promised not to. We are still trying to in Georgia Belarus and Ukraine. We even thought we could take over your naval base in Crimea ! Putin has done a good job restoring your country and its dignity. He would I am sure prefer to spend much less on defence and more on the social benefit of the people with such a relatively small economy. Yet with the history of European invasions of your huge resourceful landmass they just won’t stop. Thankfully Russia, China and Iran feel strong enough to say no to US domination. All this talk of human rights when they leave a trail of devastated countries, break International Law by illegal blockades and assasinations. Many countries in the South are silently hoping that this Empire packs its bags and goes home to let everyone breathe and develop their own economy the way they want to and not at the direction of US Dollar monopoly. Amen
Wikikettle
uh, going online I’m generally ready for the fact that outside the family I represent my family;
outside my city I’m perseived as a typical representative of my city;
and being on the Scottish site, most likely, I will be perceived as a typical resident of Russia.
Too big for me, but thanks.
In fact, the Russians hardly care for regrets or apology. We prefer to keep things real.
What happened that have happened already. One cannot rewrite the history. One can learn from history.
We don’t mind admitting someone else’s strength, someone else’s superiority. No shame in this, if the competition was fair play. Like sports.
The Russian concept of world’s peace is something like this:
– I’m safe at my home
– You’re safe at your home
– We can have common interests and beneficial cooperation
– We trust each other
– We respect each other’s ‘features’ and try to not notice each other’s ‘bugs’.
Easy. Common human living side-by-side, diplomacy, not teaching your religion to me. Let things go naturally. Everyone is respected and safe.
I guess Mercouris maybe Greek accent? Very distinct pronunciation, I met similar manner once in Italian people speaking English as if they were reading Latin text.
Tatyana, “ Native speakers, can you please tell me, what is his accent?”
It sounds London (south east / estuary / Essex). Probably North London Cypriot? Pretty standard Southern non -posh.
Anyone else got better guess?
> Net Zero is destined to fail, if people and governments really want to tackle climate change then they need to find another, more realistic and affordable way.
Like, maybe, cutting emmisions?
CC&S is decades away.
Nuclear *could* be made to work, but it’s very expensive, so Big Money is all over it, making it politically awkward
Recycling is putting the burden on consumers, and absolving the big polluters. And it requires universal buy-in, which isn’t available.
/me not offering a solution; I don’t have one. My grandchildren might be able to figure one out.
Stevie Boy
IMHO the renewables industry is only part of the solution to global warming. Freon gases are completely unnatural and uncontrollable by legislation. They are much more dangerous to the atmosphere than CO2.
Yet conventional Tory Red and Blue wisdom is that the answer is Heat Pumps.
No. Freon at the moment are the main problem, and they are produced in the manufacture of some types of thermal insulation. The SCIENCE, like Big Pharma is controlled by capitalist monopolies, and therefore Capitalism is the greatest enemy to intellectual honesty and finding solutions to climate change.
Scrap capitalism is the most single important thing to solve climate change. IMHO.
DiggerUK: “…poppycock from the alarmists”.
We need to talk. I repeat, the Arctic is melting away; Bangladesh, Florida and many islands are disappearing under rising sea level; heatwaves, wildfires and storms are increasing in frequency and severity; increased atmospheric CO2 is acidifying the oceans and half the Great Barrier Reef is already dead. These are just a few examples.
– “Advanced economies only work with adequate and dependable energy supplies”
True. And the ongoing industrial / technical revolution is running into a depletion / pollution bottleneck, which it had to at some point. Maybe the “advanced economy” is not advanced enough to prepare for the future and protect limited resources?
What is so wrong with a call to slow down?
Clark – the Arctic is NOT melting away. Go to http://www.nsidc.org to get the latest – Arctic Ice is at its most healthy levels since 2014 and the 30-40 year decrease in annual arctic ice is now stabilised and if anything starting to rise slowly again.
The evidence is voluminous that the Arctic has experienced periods of less sea ice decades and centuries ago. It’s just that we’ve only had detailed satellite data since 1979.
Can you tell me heart on heart that Arctic Sea Ice in 1979 was NOT at local maximum levels and that they may well return to such levels in the 2040s/2050s?
I don’t think you can.
But Rhys, we’ve already lost all the ice here and in the rest of europe. There isn’t even an ice cube floating around in the North Sea these days.
Then we lost Doggerland to flooding, now I can’t lake my family walking for the refugees from Doggerland doing what Doggers do in the woods…_
http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glacial-geology/british-irish-ice-sheet/last-glacial-maximum/the-last-ice-sheet-in-the-north-sea/
Flippancy, Digger? That’s twice you’ve neglected to engage. Given the enormity of the issues, and that you’re frantically flogging a caution-to-the-wind referendum started by a denier of global heating, you should at least treat the matter with the seriousness it deserves.
Rhys Jaggar, you wish to descend into details. I am unsurprised:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Doubt_Is_Their_Product&oldid=1017012325#Title
– “Doubt is our product,” Michaels quotes a cigarette executive as saying, “since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the minds of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy.” Michaels argues that, for decades, cigarette manufacturers knew that their product was hazardous to people’s health, but hired mercenary scientists who “manufactured uncertainty by questioning every study, dissecting every method, and disputing every conclusion”. In doing so the tobacco industry waged a campaign that “successfully delayed regulation and victim compensation for decades”.
But at least the site you linked to looks reputable, so here are some headlines and snippets from their current homepage. Headlines are emphasised in the original; other emphasis my own:
– News:
– 30 November 2021- Rainfall in the Arctic will soon be more common than snowfall. More rain than snow will fall in the Arctic and this transition will occur decades earlier than previously predicted…
– 8 November 2021 – Mountain and polar groups seek urgent COP26 decision. Mountain and polar groups at the twenty-sixth United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) are calling for more consideration of the dire global impacts that will result should governments not take greater action as the climate talks in Glasgow begin their second and final week.
– 22 September 2021 – Arctic sea ice has reached minimum extent for 2021. Arctic sea ice has likely reached its minimum extent for the year, at 4.72 million square kilometers (1.82 million square miles) on September 16, 2021, according to scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado Boulder. The 2021 minimum is the twelfth lowest in the nearly 43-year satellite record. The last 15 years are the lowest 15 sea ice extents in the satellite record.
– 14 September 2021 – NSIDC partners with local mural artist at Street Wise Boulder festival to illustrate Arctic sea ice decline. Each September, the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado Boulder informs the public of the annual Arctic sea ice minimum extent, an indicator of how climate change is affecting the Arctic, the fastest-warming region of the globe.
– Team awarded NSF grant to teach virtual explorers about permafrost, Arctic climate change.
So your own position is diametrically opposed to that of the National Snow and Ice Data Center. What’s going on here? Which of you more likely has some political axe to grind? Maybe I’ll look into pre-1979 ice extent, if I get the time, but I’ve been on a lot of similar quests before and they all turned out to be nonsense.
As I said, and will continue to say, the receding Arctic ice is just an example. There are copious signs everywhere of global heating and other damage to the biosphere. These diverse, multiple and conspicuous observations build into a clear and very consistent picture of severe disruption of the biosphere, no matter the strange catalogues of random anomalies kindly assembled for public consumption by the denial industry.
“…..the Arctic is NOT melting away. Go to http://www.nsidc.org“
Really? From the site you referenced this is the graph of average monthly sea ice extent:
https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2021/12/monthly_ice_11_NH_v3.0-copy.png
“The evidence is voluminous that the Arctic has experienced periods of less sea ice decades and centuries ago.”
The evidence is also voluminous that large areas of land that were previously above sea level are now under sea such as the land bridge between Britian and Ireland.
ET, Rhys Jaggar won’t accept that dataset. He already specified; “It’s just that we’ve only had detailed satellite data since 1979”.
See, “what they don’t want you to know” is that there was really lots less ice before satellites became available in 1979, where “they” refers to the nearly all-pervasive conspiracy of socialist scientists only Republicans and Tories are sensible enough to see for what they are, who fake all this data and make up fake theory so that extreme inequality can be imposed upon the world’s poor, which is who denialist Tories and Republicans really care about the most, obviously 😀
Beware of descending into details because that’s where the messy data and outlier papers are, which can and have been cherry-picked and misrepresented. Down among that stuff is the place to find material for manufacturing doubt and controversy. Those who support the status quo need only create confusion in order to obstruct and delay change; self-consistent theory is not needed.
See, it was a complete coincidence that satellite data became available just as Arctic ice was at a peak, the denialists will say, and the reduction we’ve seen since is merely predictable reversion to the mean.
It was also a set of lucky coincidences for the alarmists that they raised their fake global warming scare in the 1980s, just as the ice went into decline, and sea level happened to be rising, and the Great Barrier Reef started its periodic, perfectly natural die-off, and all the other indicators of climate and ecological emergency. That, or they knew these changes were coming for other, perfectly innocuous reasons, so they set up their fake reasons to take advantage of them. Devilishly clever, these commie scientists.
“US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Robert Menendez said on Tuesday that he is preparing the most severe sanctions ever imposed on Russia if the latter invades Ukraine.”
I think they called them the mother of all sanctions, will the US backed Ukraine goad Russia, or commit an act of aggression that would see Russia invade Ukraine, and would the US follow through with its threats.
https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/ukraine/2021/ukraine-211207-sputnik02.htm
Republicofscotland. Well the neocons are so thick in number and name…that they will set in motion a huge economic crisis. Oil prices will rocket to over $300 according to their own banks reports, much more others say. The previous sanctions only made Russia work to become self-sufficient in many sectors like food and technology. All the US has left is to withdraw SWIFT and blockade Russia and China stopping it using the Dollar, this will be painful but eventually lead to many countries buying and selling in their own currency removing the free lunch the US has had since WW2. Arrogant and not so clever as they think. A constructed idea of an imaginary star spangled banner fluttering over death and destruction.
Mr.Mendes’ opinion was on focus in one of TV shows recently. The TV host emphasized that Mr. Mendes said ‘Russian people’ instead of their common figure of speech ‘Russian authority’ or ‘Russian regime’.
They played wittingly and rather convincing, with the idea that the US senate no longer pretends to care for democracy, being openly hostile to the whole population of the country.
The NED’s president Carl Gershman, openly admitted in a Washington Post article that the 2014 coup in Ukraine goal was to try and topple Russian president Putin.
Gershman? What a name to put in one line with Nuland aka Ber Nudelman of Ukrainian Jews, with Blinken of Ashkenazi Jews, and undoubtfully with pro-Israel senator Menendez
One may wonder if Ukraine is really of interest for NATO, or if it’s somewhat of interest for Israel? I understand it’s wild idea, and I understansd I’m again giving you all the oppotinity to call me anti-semite, but really, the set of persons spreading lies about “Russian invasion” is weird.
The lies they spread are well exposed in Anatoly Shariy’s report on the US Senate hearing after Putin and Biden conference.
That Nuland thing poses herself as an expert on Russia when she even doesn’t know that Ekaterinburg and Sverdlovsk is the same city. Well reminds me of Psaki with her silly remarks on Belorussian sea or whatever else stupid.
Ukraine is certainly of interest to NATO because it’s “the gas-tap of Europe”. If there’s a pro-Israel, pro-conflict old-boys network using aggression to control fossil fuel supply, well, that looks a lot like the usual neoconservative formula to me.
Ukrainian ‘gas-tap’ is pretty outdated and worn out already, as it was built during the Soviet era and left without proper maintenance during ‘independent’ Ukraine period.
Also, to have a ‘tap’ working, one should ‘hire’ a reliable operator, who won’t neglect his obligations for political reasons.
And, on top of that, there’s no use to maintain a golden tap operated by a naughty whimsical partner, if the pipe itself is empty.
In other words, I find it most reasonable decision to build NS2 and let Germany to be the ‘gas-tap of Europe, because the Germans are truly reliable operator.
As to Israel’s alleged interest in the Ukraine-Russia conflict – I’m not sure if I can mention the Russian involvement in Syria crisis, that made Israel’s position more fragile. I can guess they’d like to keep the Golan Heights.
In general, strange enough I can’t name a Western politician who were pro-Israel and pro-Russian at the same time. I can name lots of pro-Israel and anti-Russian, many of them. I’d say, pro-Israelism and anti-Russianism go along as a set, as fish and chips 🙂
Tatyana, that sounds reasonable to me. There’s too much corporate ambition driving NATO. It needs to stop; the world needs to cooperate.
One of the wilder ideas out in the ether right now is that the Jews want ‘Jewish States’ outside the Middle East and two which are being mooted involve Ukraine and Patagonia.
I have no knowledge one way or the other, but I can’t imagine Jews being too enamoured by me or anyone else asking them whether the Jewish people have an insatiable quest for Lebensraum right now?!
Rhys Jaggar
I know nothing about Patagonia and claims to it, but I can confidently speak about Ukraine.
The territory of modern Ukraine (+ some parts of modern Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Belarus) was the outskirts of the Russian Empire for the settlement of Jews. Literally, Katherine II in the end of 18th century ordered to establish the “line” – Google Translate suggest the phrase Pale of Settlement – where the Jews could legally live and possess property.
I can imagine that over several centuries a lot of property was created there. With the emergence of modern Israel and the massive resettlement there, it’s possible that there maybe claims for the property remaining in modern Ukraine. The main oligarch of Ukraine Kolomoisky could comment on this better.
I wonder if anyone can point to any time, anywhere, that US-invoked sanctions “worked”, in the sense of achieving their stated aim of a state capitulating to US demands? There have been more internationally agreed sanctions, such as Rhodesia and South Africa that may have been effective. The sanctions on Libya might have achieved getting the Lockerbie “suspects” to trial, but obvious there was no long term benefit as that country was attacked anyway. But in the bigger picture? Cuba? Iraq? Iran? Sudan? Venezuela? etc. Sanctions in the main are a form of punishment of great severity inflicted on the citizens of the country sanctioned, which is illegal under international law. Russia and Putin would just scorn such attempts. Napoleon and Germany’s examples and a knowledge of Russian history should tell you that Russia has a proud and resilient citizenry, who are used to great hardship and coping or overcoming them. In the meantime the US seems to be falling apart – as predicted by many, but perhaps most entertainingly and insightfully by Dmitri Orlov. He wrote this in 1996
“A decade and a half ago the world went from bipolar to unipolar, because one of the poles fell apart: The S.U. is no more. The other pole – symmetrically named the U.S. – has not fallen apart – yet, but there are ominous rumblings on the horizon. The collapse of the United States seems about as unlikely now as the collapse of the Soviet Union seemed in 1985”
And this is what Putin said the other week:
“But I’ll tell you what the problem is, as a former citizen of the Soviet Union. The problem of empires is that they imagine themselves to be so powerful that they can allow themselves small miscalculations and errors. Some they’ll bribe, some they’ll scare, some they’ll make a deal with, some they’ll give glass beads, some they’ll frighten with warships—and this will fix problems. But the number of problems continues to grow. There comes a moment when they can no longer cope with them. The United States are making sure-footed strides directly along the path of the Soviet Union.”.
Mr Murray
I am one of those who frequently disagrees with you on certain topics and where realistic energy generation is concerned, I am going to disagree with you again.
First I will say where I do agree with you.
1. Trying to limit the energy inefficiencies of current housing stock.
Obviously, much of UK housing was built in an era of cheap coal without thought for insulation nor energy efficiency. My final year roomsin Cambridge were a marvellous example of that, being wonderful rooms during the summer vac and absolutely perishing cold when the Cam froze for 6 weeks in winter 1986. My solution as a healthy 21 year old was to use my 5 season mountaineering sleeping bag under the blankets (that bag was suitable for Everest temperatures, after all) and to wear my balaclava to limit heat loss from my head. I spent as much time as possible in the college- and departmental libraries, which were adequately heated, along with the JCR bar which stayed open until such time as I normally went to sleep. The point being: the rooms were about as energy efficient as Scotland is desertified and overheating.
Clearly, we can’t just knock down all the housing stock in one go and many of them still have many years of useful life left in them, if they can be appropriately insulated. Windows are just as important as loft insulation, as are draught excluders on external doors. Modern windows actually leak less heat than bricks and mortar, which is why Hufhaus, a niche supplier of high quality homes from their base in Germany, use so many external windows in their bespoke buildings. Underfloor heating provides a more healthy distribution of heat than radiators and where appropriate, such solutions should be recommended.
Equally clearly, new builds should be built according to proper standards of energy efficiency. For those green fanatics, straw bales are an extremely effective form of thermal insulation for the niche self-build sector and they are admirably carbon neutral. However,there are plenty of solutions which will save much energy which are actually made of hydrocarbon-based products. Insulated concrete formwork is one such technology, which allows installation of external walls at the rate of 1 floor per day. It uses hydrocarbon-based moulds into which concrete is poured and sets within them.
2. Focussing on the healthiness of homes rather than just ‘net zero’. It’s well known now that humans deprived of adequate light levels in homes are less healthy than those whose houses are designed with plenty of light incoming in mind. This suggests that high quality window/glass technology should be an intrinsic part of a healthy housing sector. Making glass uses carbon and that is not a crime. Anyone who thinks we should live inside black boxes with underfloor heating and artificial lighting is really not a very caring human being. High quality glass insulates well, provides humans with adequate lighting and can, in some cases, actually be used to generate energy from sunlight.
3. Focussing on the reallties of how to create reliable baseline power supplies. Everyone knows that, in winter, solar power is not going to provide anything reliable, especially not in the western halves of Wales and Scotland where a semi-continuous weather diet of wind, rain, sleet and snow is par for the course for 3 or four months each winter. Similarly, I don’t think the Shetlands are the first port of call for wind turbines, because far too often the wind is blowing far too intensely for the turbines to be operated safely. The fact is that you need a nice amount of wind without too many hurricanes. The disaster scenario for wind is a stable high pressure for six weeks in December and January. I’ve seen that happen in Europe and the UK would run out of power if that happened in a wind-based baseline power scenario.
The only currently viable solutions for baseline power supply are: gas-fired power stations; coal-fired power stations; and nuclear power stations. None fit the net zero agenda but there needs to be an analagous set of ‘net human health’ metrics put alongside all the net zero fanaticism. Net zero is evil if hundreds of thousands of Scots become ill through winter cold, after all. It is a dogma which should be tested for its applicability to higher goals, namely human health.
4. There is not a climate ’emergency’ in any way: what there has been since 1990 is a climate hobgoblin to replace ‘reds in the bed’. It’s noticeable that just as the evidence for a climate ’emergency’ is falling to bits that ‘reds in the bed’ is make a comeback in terms of Russophobia and Sinophobia.
Anyone studying Arctic Sea Ice (see http://www.nsidc.org for daily satellite image) knows that the decrease in Arctic Ice has bottomed out and the evidence is now stronger for multidecadal cyclical oscillations in Arctic Ice than it is for ever more rapid disappearance. Those who focus on data have long observed that as Arctic Ice decreased, Antarctic Ice increased and now Antarctic Ice is starting to decrease again as signs of recovery in the Arctic are evident.
There is absolutely zero evidence that the frequency and intensity of hurricanes has increased the past 120 years. Zero. But still the climate heating liars run nonsense in the press about it.
There is absolutely conclusive evidence that the number of humans dying due to extreme weather events has decreased the past 120 years. It is not possible to even debate such data. They are irrefutable and blow the alarmist nonsense out of the water.
There is also absolute evidence that agricultural productivity has increased hugely as the temperature has risen slightly since the early 1800s. Anyone who thinks that the climate in 1816 would be nirvana needs to see a shrink who treats nutcases. And anyone who thinks that there haven’t been significantly warmer periods than today in the past 10,000 years is wilfully ignorance a plethora of irrefutable scientific data.
5. Where debate actually needs to focus in an adult, meaningful way, is the hydrological cycle and how water goes from ocean to atmosphere to land, to underground sinks etc etc.
We as a species are living very often in parts of the world where rainfall is not reliable and severe droughts are a centuries-long feature of weather variability.
California didn’t help itself destroying the natural ecosystem that the ‘western pioneers’ found, since intensive agriculture the Californian way may be suited to SE England or Germany, but it isn’t suited to a Mediterranean climate. California has rhetorical civil wars going on about the role of dams, how the natural river flooding cycles can be mimicked in a controlled way to return water to water tables, how it manages the ecosystems of its river headwaters etc etc. There are competing interests and a lot of people looking to live in a water-scarce environment….
We are also not considering the natural benefits that accrued to nature from rivers flooding periodically. It’s obvious that all the great rivers of the world flood, sometimes incredibly so (just look at what happened in the Central Valley of California in 1861/2). It’s obvious that living right by such rivers is asking to have your house flooded. It’s arguable that you should have ground floors not for accommodation but simply as outdoor shelters usable in the majority of times when floods do not visit. Half of SE Asia builds its residences on stilts, so it’s hardly anything novel.
We are not managing our roads to divert rainwater into ditches to allow return of water to water tables, rather than sending it straight to drains which send the water straight out to sea again. The whole process of water draining through substrata cleanses that water of impurities, solids etc etc. Storing water underground is far, far more efficient than in reservoirs, because down there it is dark, cool and you don’t have 40C sun belting down to evaporate it all. Nature had all the solutions pat long before humans thought they knew better….
We are still not encouraging enough retention of water closer to where it falls – the more it emerges more slowly, the less flooding that will occur.
6. Why is ‘net zero’ being driven by the 0.01% billionaires?
I still don’t understand why large swathes of the 99.9% don’t start withdrawing from the current Western financial cartels. Then they wouldn’t need the billionaires’ money to make the world go round.
The normal people of the world need to come up with their own solutions and set them up to exclude the demands of the billionaires. The place to start is that set of people who have paid off their mortgages and are financially secure. They don’t need fractional reserve banking any more. They can have solutions focussed on people, not on avarice. Building Societies were a Victorian invention linking up the cashed up seniors with youngsters wanting to start a family. They were an excellent invention building bonds between generations, including obligations on both sides. It is high time they re-emerged to replace banks which pay 0.1% interest in £50,000 deposited….
If people really want a ‘revolution’ based on environmental responsibility, they are going to have to eliminate all the hobgoblins and scams that are found in green arenas, just as they have been in all parts of human endeavour since time immemorial.
They are, most of all, going to have to focus on prioritising the majority, not the tiny so called elites.
The elites have proven anything but elite over Covid19. They have in fact used Covid19 as a pre-planned heist of the Millennium.
It’s time for ‘the normal people’ to step up to the plate and work things out for themselves.
The solutions will probably be simpler, less duplicitous and more inclusive.
I don’t call it socialism.
I call it being community-minded.
There’s a big difference…..
Thanks for your sober and well-reasoned post.
Greedy elites have been playing well-meaning people over the climate scam for many years and now they are doing exactly the same over the covid scam. The disease is real, if generally mild, but fear has been systematically weaponized to provide the pretext for a massive attack on working class people under the guise of protecting their health.
The last two years have seen the greatest ever transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in world history. And while the poor have been locked down and muzzled, the oligarchs like Gates and Bezos have partied like there’s no tomorrow. Just look what these two did in Glasgow.
Toby – “…the covid scam. The disease is real, if generally mild,”
Covid’s real threat is more social than personal, but thinking individualistically (as we are continually conditioned to do) obscures it.
Covid spreads very fast, and it makes 3% to 5% of the people who get it so ill that they need hospital. It’s these two features together that make covid such a problem. Without social restrictions, it rips through a population so fast that it overwhelms the hospitals. If it wasn’t so infectious it could be coped with, but making animal viruses more infectious to humans was precisely what New York’s EcoHealth Alliance contracted Wuhan Institute of Virology to do.
What is the correct social policy to deal with this? Post the army at hospitals to exclude anyone seeking treatment with breathing difficulties?
It doesn’t matter what goes wrong it is and will be “weaponized to provide the pretext for a massive attack on working class people”; that’s neoliberalism and austerity, AKA Disaster Capitalism.
Rhys Jaggar – “Anyone studying Arctic Sea Ice (see http://www.nsidc.org for daily satellite image) knows that the decrease in Arctic Ice has bottomed out”
Really? Doesn’t look like it to me:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Arctic-death-spiral.jpg
The very site you cited, nsidc.org, says that summer 2020 was the second lowest in the 42 year record:
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-arctic-summer-sea-ice-lowest.html
– “It’s been a crazy year up north, with sea ice at a near-record low… heat waves in Siberia, and massive forest fires,” said Mark Serreze, director of NSIDC. “The year 2020 will stand as an exclamation point on the downward trend in Arctic sea ice extent. We are headed towards a seasonally ice-free Arctic Ocean, and this year is another nail in the coffin.”
Evening all. Dont know what you all think about the Ukraine amassing half of its armed forces to the east close to Donbass, but it does not get mentioned in our media.
Tonight war birds are out in force over Norfolk playing their killing games in the sky, Ms Truss who could not fathom the Environmental or foreign trade portfolio, is now mimicking Thatcher and is talking of supporting the Ukrainian Government in defense of a non NATO country.
This international posturing, waiting for eyes to blink, by a country that can’t afford to look after its injured soldiers of previous conflicts and colonial analities, is showing how much their power is waning and their systems are crumbling.
We the people will never be asked whether we want a war, we will not be asked when nuclear power stations are forced on us in ignorance, and Crimbo seems to be their preferred time to lull us with moldwine and threats of control, be it for some half covid or seeking to criminalise protests and free speech.
I am glad that Craig is healthy and in one piece, together with family. Wished I could have got to Edinburgh during Arwen to be there the morning of his release, but I had to turn around in Ely.
Looking forward to meeting him again DTRH.
Great to have you back Craig.
I look forward again to reading your take on current affairs.Where do you begin with the state of things presently though? Strange times indeed.
Stay strong.
I GIVE UP !!!
Each day I have been coming to web sites such as this plus BBC, Guardian etc to get news on the Julian Assange / US appeal case. The hearing took only two days yet its coming up to two months and still no word.
There is something drastically wrong with the system when judges can take so long for what should be a straight forward case. All the time a man convicted of nothing except skipping bail on a bogus claim of sex impropriety sits in horrible and life threatening conditions in jail. As it turns out he had good reason to skip bail as there were hidden agendas and subterfuge at play cutting across his basic rights.
This waiting by Assange is mental torture. Actually its mental torture for myself just waiting..waiting..waiting..wai…
I doubt that British judges are much more than window-dressing. When someone is convicted, I think it goes to the invisible people at the Home Office, who decide the convict’s fate and then the Judge calls another hearing to deliver the sentence. The decision about a release date for those who are imprisoned was taken away from judges in the 70s when parole was put in the hands of the Parole Board, a quango. I met someone who was on the board for Dartmoor, in the dark days of the 1980s. A typical hereditary middle-class nonentity, a palpable rubber-stamp.
In the 30s and 40s in Germany, this function was provided by the Gestapo who, if the civilian court had imposed an “excessively lenient” sentence, arrested people as they were released from prison and took them to a concentration camp. Sometimes the defence brief appealed against the sentence due to its brevity to try to keep the client in gaol, out of a concentration camp. The British system is subtler but just as unjust.
Here’s a website on how judges decide sentences:
https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/verdicts-and-sentencing
It says that judges are guided by a number of considerations, including the level of sentences in similar cases in the past – this is called ‘case law’.
I’m not a lawyer, but it seems to me that in Craig’s sentence, if the guidelines were not followed properly, e.g. the sentence was disproportionate compared to similar cases in the past, that may be grounds for appeal. That apart from making unfair distinctions between independent journalists and those more liable to have their impartiality compromised by their relationships (corporate or personal) with powerful people.
The official line perhaps but what about those “reports”?
If you mean reports about the health and circumstances of the accused, then one ground for appeal might be (non-lawyer opinion) that they weren’t properly taken into account when sentencing. Is that what you meant?
No, I meant that it’s a euphemism for when the judge gets instructions from the Home Office.
Craig – it is very good to see you again – and very good that you are in such good shape after your time in Saughton.
I’m wondering if there is any way to prosecute the judges. Of course the judgement should be overturned. At the same time, the judgement was clearly malicious and an abuse of power – I’m wondering if the legislature would allow Lady Dorrian to be prosecuted and banged up – not to mention all those who went along with it and gave their approval.
On the climate issue and CO2 – has it ever occurred to the greedy Western governments to actually pay substantial sums of money to countries like Brazil (and other countries which have the climate for it) to extend their rain forests? In other words, give the countries that can make a huge difference to turning CO2 into oxygen (and carbon) a good incentive to do so?
The USA/UK seem to be very good at criticising other countries and imposing sanctions – which hit the ordinary people, but don’t really have any effect on those in government. They don’t seem very good at showing generosity.
It is good that you are ‘free’ again. Four months away can be a long time. For the rest of us during that time we have become more diminished. The country is being ‘strangled’ bit by bit. People don’t want to know where the road of jabs they are on ends. No one questions and no one cares. Boosters? I’ll have couple of them, they joke. It’s so funny, to them. It is shocking and despairing. It is impossible to see the Scotland you dream for because the heart and soul needed from the people, to not comply with their own downfall, is simply not there. After two years in the presence of evil, the tunnel is dark and is getting darker. Those two years have destroyed so many and so many still to come. If ever there was a ‘braveheart’ in Scotland, it was totally silent those past two years. Scotland could have done better, could have shown its true brave heart, but no, it didn’t appear. Yes, I’m a bit off topic because others are talking about something else. Good luck!
We all have to consume less. None of us *needs* a detached 9-bedroom gated mansion with gym and 4 en-suite rooms, integrated double garage and two gas-guzzlers parked up the private drive.
I agree. The gas guzzlers should be replaced by more fuel-economic vehicles. 🙂
Yes, cutting back and sharing fairly looks like the safest and easiest way through this bottleneck.
Insulate Britain!
https://www.insulatebritain.com/
@Pemba, I’m shocked you should ask Digger Mansions to go from our current detached 9-bedroom gated mansion with gym and 4 en-suite rooms, integrated double garage and two gas-guzzlers parked up the private drive and downsize to a property without a gate!!
FYI.
Ruling on the US’s appeal against refusal to extradite Julian Assange will be given tomorrow, December 10th at 10.15am at the Court of Appeal in London.
https://www.rt.com/uk/542707-assange-appeal-us-extradition-ruling/
Welcome back, Craig.
Best wishes from Iceland.
Craig Murray is just out of prison and the witchfinder generals office instructs its foot soldiers to interview him, to find a mole who revealed the truth.
The Stasi party’s (SNP) chief wants to hunt down the truth teller by the looks of things.
https://twitter.com/CraigMurrayOrg/status/1468953097745489925
They will be wanting to derail the ECHR train!
Toot toot all aboard we are going to Strasbourg!
The bastards ready to turn the screw with JA in the morning.
Time to settle down and drift off with a bit of thrashing by the colonials (Cricket) – Global England a sorry sight!
It is interesting that the police didn’t interview Craig Murray on this matter while he was in prison and not exactly busy – and when he didn’t have access to twitter and wouldn’t have been able to communicate to the whole world that a policeman had just come to interview him, asking who leaked the material to Kenny Macaskill.
It is almost as if the police want the whole world to know – and they want it to be put in as bad a light as possible. Perhaps they just don’t like being asked to do Nicola Sturgeon’s dirty work.
I’d happily claim to have done it myself if there was any way to make the claim look plausible – just to take the heat off the guy who dunnit.
You, sir, have been missed! A voice like no other, and it is respected and heard.
Welcome back, the Honourable-Ever Craig Murray!
Julian Assange can be extradited to the US from the UK, the High Court has ruled
This country is dog doo doo.
That’s your opinion. Among our political leaders and journalists there’s genuine pride and relief at having delivered for the Hegemon:
“We’re very good at this sort of thing…”
Yes, these dogs lick their lips while re-cycling their own doo doo.
This decision is so dreadful.
I genuinely can’t believe what’s going on in this country
British court condemns Assange to death.
I wonder if this will trigger the release of ‘the Death Vault’?
Am I right in guessing that the Death Vault a cache of classified documents that wikileaks intends to release by way of reprisal, if Assange is extradited to the USA?
MJ
It was rumoured that parts of Vault 7 were held back (this is said to be the release that triggered the extradition proceedings) but there are also earlier documents that were withheld.
This may just be internet tittle-tattle.
Remember Assange every time a corporate shill, either in the media or parliament, carps on about human rights abuses in China or Russia.
This is a totally flawed logic, aka whataboutism. What happens is Russia or China is horrible, and whatever happens to JA (I am personally horrified by the recent developments) cannot and should not become an excuse for dictators across the world.
As I expected the High Court has accepted the US case and overturned Baraitser’s block on extradition. No surprises there. The fight continues but how cruel for Mr A and family.
Welcome back Craig.
You are right about the big business fraud that is Cop26. But sadly it goes much further. The whole climate panic is an elite scam designed to strip the plebs of the benefits of industrialisation and take us back to a new age of serfdom.
The big clue lies in all those business jets that flew in oligarchs like Bill Gates. No one should delude themselves that that these billionaires care what happens to working class people or the environment. It is all about money and power – and placing all the benefits of modern life back in the hands of the few.
I don’t want to bore people with a lengthy post, but if you want to see what’s really happening with climate and energy, check out Dr North’s blog at http://www.eureferendum.com/ There’s a lot of interesting material there which merits careful reading.
@Toby, North and son with their blogs, EU Referendum which is c.c., on Turbulent Times, https://www.turbulenttimes.co.uk/news/front-page/politics-fin-de-siecle/ , are worth a visit, but there are better alternative Denier Sites.
Albeit with a libertarian slant you can go to https://wattsupwiththat.com/ …they garner a lot of support from the “all Alarmists are commies” school of thought. But do provide a lot of non alarmist research. A bit UScentric with posters, but international with its science and research articles.
My personal favourite Denier Site is The Global Warming Policy Foundation’s , NetZeroWatch… https://www.netzerowatch.com/ Very much UKcentric…_
– “The whole climate panic is an elite scam designed to strip the plebs of the benefits of industrialisation and take us back to a new age of serfdom.”
Really? Do please explain to readers how an “elite scam” can cause ocean pH to fall, sea level to rise and half the Great Barrier Reef to die.
– “The big clue lies in all those business jets that flew in oligarchs like Bill Gates.”
Funny, isn’t it? Accusations of hypocrisy are directed against activists and protesters, vilifying them in the minds of the public, whereas hypocrisy among the mega rich apparently indicates that global heating is a hoax. I suspect that a neoliberal propaganda ratchet is at work.
Not good news or Julian. USA wins appeal…_
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59608641
I, as a lawyer, can’t wait to read the laughable (if the outcome weren’t so tragic) judicial prancing and contorting by the judges to reach their finding.
But anyone who expected the courts to offer anything to JA needs their head examining.
Ingwe – no, we didn’t expect the courts to offer anything different, but very disappointing nonetheless (and we expected to be disappointed).
I wonder if this means that Ireland will now be thrown under a bus and we can expect a super-duper trade deal between the UK and the USA. Or have they sold their souls to the devil for absolutely nothing?
If in every court appeal a party could refine its arguments to suit the verdict then every court case would result in appeals. The US had every opportunity to present its original case. There was no flaws in the ruling. No newly discovered evidence. No discredited evidence except on the side of the US.
So I would like to hear from experienced legal professions just how on earth did the US win its challenge.
Peter Mo,
The issue against the US was that Assange would be subjected to inhumane conditions and that his health was threatened. The US in turn gave assurances and seems to have agreed to permit him to serve any sentence in Australia.
However, all that aside, the critical legal issue is that this is a politically motivated extradition application. On that ground alone, under extradition law, such a politically motivated application is a solid reason for refusing extradition.
The appeals will continue.
I’m not sure how useful an appeal will be – when clearly the entire judiciary is corrupt.
Jimmy,
That is of course the point of the entire farce – to keep Julian tied up in the appeal process and away from the USA where he might actually win his trial and embarrass the government. Belmarsh is in effect acting as Guantanamo Bay keeping Julian on permanent remand.
If that is the case you should write to tell him to stop appealing.
joel – no – we don’t tell him not to appeal, but if that’s the case then we should consider a pitchfork and kalashnikov solution.
I do think that following their rule book and paying QCs an awful lot of money to present a case before judges who have no intention of listening to the arguments presented, in a trial-without-a-jury situation is a total waste of time and money.
We need to start considering alternative solutions.
I don’t think the US has any intention of conducting a trial of JA, so he will not end up in any Australian jail
Like in Guantanamo, they will keep him locked up without trial essntally forever.
They might be wishing for some accident to befall him,but are probably happy he is in perpertual state of pain, discomfort, stress or worse -simply as an example.
I am stunned that the UK legal non-establishment has not leaned on their peers here, it is clear that the Law has chosen its bedfellows, and it ain’t us.
I read that the UK Justice System has determined that an assurance given by the USA (whoever that might be), MUST be taken at face value. How bizarre.
I thought the Law examined precedent, conduct, perjury and all sorts of matter. Justice done and seen to be done and all that.
No arm of the US government or justice system attributes any value to any promise they ever give. Discarded at the drop of a hat when convenient. There are countless stories attesting to that. We all know so many of them.
The “Law” is an Ass, and all those who work within it should be ashamed to their cores.
The law should be of the people, by the people, for the people. I suspect a jury of the people would have found both JA and CM entirely innocent, and freed on the spot. Had they known their rights, they would no dout also dragged the Judges over the coals.
I just don’t get it. When have prosecutors won over a jury on the basis of which jail a defendant is sent to?
Even the President of the USA wouldn’t be able to give assurances. There is such a thing as separation of powers. So who gave the assurances and more importantly what authority did they have?
Look… back in 2006 when Biden was running with Obama he gave the assurance they would close Guantanamo within one month of their office. 15 years later I guess we still have the “assurance”
If the US didn’t bring up the assurances in the original trial then the defense had no opportunity to challenge them. Is that justice?
There are so many things wrong with this legal ruling its really become a joke.
Something that has occurred to at various times since the Ecuadorian embassy is….
Would it be better to not appeal and try to win in the US.
They are clearly in a conspiracy to drag this out. I think that is why she found against extradition on the far more
nebulous basis of whether Assuage would commit suicide, Rather than far more egregious strikes against the US. She knew that could be successfully appealed and that would need to happen before we got to the more serious issues.
The US could be a more receptive judicial system, they actually believe in Habeas Corpus and journalism is the only profession specifically protected in their constitution.
If I was Assange and could still think clearly, I would consider it. Stop playing their game, meet them head on?
According to the CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou Julian’s case over there is scheduled for the Eastern District of Virginia, to be heard by a notorious hanging judge and a jury dominated by security state employees.
https://sputniknews.com/20210316/julian-assange-cant-receive-a-fair-trial-in-the-us-cia-whistleblower-john-kiriakou-explains-1082339581.html
bbc news , Wikileaks founder Julian Assange can be extradited from the UK to the US, the High Court has ruled.
Yes as expected the final cut was left to some old farts, but it shouldn’t be forgotten that the real stitch up was done by the Braitser creature..British justice a threadbare crone holding weighted scales.