Concentration of Power 351


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.

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

Recurring Donations



 

Paypal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

Subscriptions are still preferred to donations as I can’t run the blog without some certainty of future income, but I understand why some people prefer not to commit to that.


Allowed HTML - you can use: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

351 thoughts on “Concentration of Power

1 2 3 4 5
  • J Arther Nast

    Just before the holliday season and on a Friday too, straight out of the news management handbook. Well played by the boys in the back office.

  • Komodo

    Welcome back. You met injustice with dignity, and I hope I can say well done.

    Community solutions demand community commitment. This might have been possible pre-1914, but the concept of community is, in practical terms, all but dead today. Partly, of course, this is due to the financiers’ globalisation agenda – of which the EU is a good illustration – removing borders and any incentives for local autonomy. Not to mention the dilution of indigenous cultures by mass immigration, for purely economic ends. Oops. I didn’t mention it, honest.

    Still, it might work in Scotland. If the Scots were to become as hostile to globalisation as, say, us English Brexiteers…though that would make you Nazis too, I guess.

  • Republicofscotland

    I’m shocked that the US has won its appeal, meanwhile some mouthpiece from the HJS on LBC news claiming that Assange if extradited will only served 4 to 6 years in prison, aye right pull the other one its got bells on it. If they get Assange across the Atlantic I fear the worst, I’m also deeply disgusted by the UK judiciary and Crown Office for keeping Assange in prison without charge at the behest of the USA.

      • Republicofscotland

        Rhys.

        How much more can the man take, he’s been in one form of prison or another (arbitrary) since 2010, this whole bloody disgraceful event going on for years now must’ve taken it toll on Assange and his loved ones, we’ve been watching the UK/US governments rip this guys life apart in slow motion for a long time now, and for what because he had the audacity to tell the truth, and where the hell is the journalistic community on this one, don’t they realise that if Assange goes down so do they. Mind you many so called journalists are bought ad paid for.

        • Republicofscotland

          And where’s the bloody ECHR and UN when you need them, if Assange was an American being persecuted, as he is now, in Iran or China or Russia, the Western media and the UN and ECHR would be all over this, Nils Melzer has been pointing out the persecution of Assange for years now, we all know what’s going on.

    • Wikikettle

      They want to kill Julian, both US and UK. They are doing it it very very slowly through a sick barbarick Judicial play that runs and runs without a final judgment but engineering his demise.

  • DunGroanin

    These here who still irrationally believe that the necon nulabour Great Knight Hope is anything but a nasty piece of work, a thug and praetorian of Empire – maybe this will enlighten:

    https://thegrayzone.com/2020/06/05/five-questions-for-new-labour-leader-sir-keir-starmer-about-his-uk-and-us-national-security-establishment-links/

    ‘I have also obtained US government files revealing that you were also in Washington DC on November 9 2011 when you met with US Attorney General Eric Holder and five other officials from the US Department of Justice. Also present was Gary Balch, UK Liaison Prosecutor to the United States.
    At this time the CPS which you headed was handling the complex legal case surrounding WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange.

    Three weeks after your meeting with Holder, the attorney general met with the then British home secretary, Theresa May, alongside three other DOJ personnel, two of whom had been in the meeting with you.
    4. What role did you play in the CPS’s irregular handing of the Julian Assange case? ‘

    Etc.

  • Ingwe

    I should have known better!

    I prepared a long and detailed analysis of today’s judgment and found that, when I went back to the judgment itself to check a few things, my draft post on the ‘comment’ section had disappeared. I’m so demoralised by this and this judgment itself, I can’t, for the moment, be effing arsed to start again.

    So, if ever I decide to do the exercise again, I’ll do on Pages rather than on WordPress or whatever this blog uses.

    • DunGroanin

      Many moons ago I realised it better to pen my rant in notepad or other local doc – allowing a copy and paste into comments, it is safer.

    • M.J.

      It might re-appear, after the moderators have approved of it.


      [ Mod: Unfortunately not. Ingwe states it was only a draft version so therefore it only existed in a temporary state on Ingwe’s device and was never submitted to the blog server. ]

    • BrianFujisan

      Thanks for those Links Clark.

      Is it So, That the Establishment Murder under Austerity.. Covid .. And now a Truth teller in front of our Screens Whilst His Fiancee and young Children watch.. Sickens me.

      Chris Williamson had something to say on this Too – On RT – where Else.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrVm1vNZx5M

    • Robert Wursthaus

      In our brave new world it’s the West (USA, Five Eyes, Poodles) that define what is a crime, and the feelings and lives of our brown skinned brothers in the Middle East (and South America) count for nothing – this is the reality. The alternative ‘real truth’ is heresy and must be punished.
      As the late, great Robert Fisk reported, with regard to 9/11, the citizens of the USA cannot comprehend why people might hate them and make the correlation between ‘terrorism’ and the actions of the USA overseas. It is the same with Patel et al who cannot figure out why the ‘refugees’, from Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, etc. are willing to risk their lives to come to the UK.

  • vin_ot

    Having plotted to kill Julian Assange the US state assures its lapdog he will be safe in its care. Lapdog in full view of the world yelps yes, yes! Oh you craven beast.

    • M.J.

      Assange is going to be a hot potato even if the Americans get him, because of the precedent of the Pentagon Papers. His defense lawyers will no doubt put up a good fight, and Joe Biden might not want to alienate people like Bernie Sanders too much.
      So perhaps we should hope for his fate still. Maybe they’ll give him a relatively light sentence and ship him back to Australia.

      • vin_ot

        You should familiarise yourself with the history of the US pursuit of Assange and its case against him. It has all been detailed by Mr Murray every step of the way. At every stage it has been shot through with corruption and abuse of process. As Edward Snowden said yesterday, if this case is any guide we are living in dystopia.

      • vin_ot

        Why ignore the fact they were plotting to kill him? I know why the media does but why would a reader of Mr Murray’s blog?

        • M.J.

          Perhaps not every reader is into conspiracy theories of this type. Daniel Ellsberg was alive after Watergate, Craig is still alive and so is Assange.

          • vin_ot

            Not even the most craven establishment parrots have denied it or played the conspiracy theory card. So why are you?

          • johnny conspiranoid

            “Perhaps not every reader is into conspiracy theories of this type”

            It is a conspiracy fact that the US plotted to kill him. They said it themselves.

          • Clark

            Fact is not a converse of theory. Discussions are polarising too easily; we need to make more use of words such as suspicion, allegation, accusation, hypothesis and conjecture.

      • Deb O'Nair

        “Joe Biden might not want to alienate people like Bernie Sanders”

        Biden does what the CIA tell him, like the rest.

          • vin_ot

            He famously called Assange a hi-tech “terrorist ” I’m shocked somebody as curious and well-informed about this case as you wasn’t aware.

        • vin_ot

          I don’t think Joe needs any prompting from them. Although of course he would not want to upset the deceased sheepdog Bernie Sanders, who is now apparently a supporter of Julian Assange.

    • Peter Mo

      There are rules for appeals

      e.g. New Evidence

      1. whether the evidence could have been obtained with reasonable diligence for use before the lower court;
      2. whether the evidence is such that, if given, it would probably have an important influence on the result of the case (though it need not be decisive); and
      3. whether the evidence is apparently credible (though it need not be incontrovertible).

      However the US didn’t introduce new evidence. It changed its evidence. How did Assange’s lawyers react to this?

  • Ducky Lucky

    Nice beard! You look like a wizened Gandalf. Good to see you looking so well. Alas, whilst you were inside, the situation has just continued to worsen. The betrayal of the law earlier today by the politicised judiciary in their perverse decision to allow Assange to be handed over to the U.S. on what are political grounds is just another blow of the axe delivered by the political class. Lord, how I hate them.

  • Brendan

    Welcome back, Craig. I’ve got to admit I was surprised that they locked you up. I thought they only wanted to intimidate you with the threat of imprisonment. It looks like the legal system is even worse than I suspected.

    Today’s judgement against Julian Assange isn’t as surprising though, but I’m still hopeful that the USA will pardon him – not because of genuine humanitarian concerns but to stop the unwanted publicity that his trial will bring. They might fear the Barbara Streisand effect if they try too hard to silence Julian Assange for his role in exposing American war crimes.

  • DunGroanin

    The scurvy rag Guardian dares publish an editorial begging for Assange’s release! Along with some wormy words by Amnesty International!
    With friends like these…as the saying goes.

    I suggest Craig Murray invites them to invite him to pen an article inviting him to list the egregious writings of LaHyde and DS stooges of ii to put their sickly joke in perspective.

    • M.J.

      Would you have preferred it if the Guardian had published an editorial denouncing Assange instead? Didn’t think so.

      • johnny conspiranoid

        “Would you have preferred it if the Guardian had published an editorial denouncing Assange instead?”

        I would have preferred it if they had published a confesion and abject apology for their behaviour.

      • DunGroanin

        MJ , let me explain to not just you but all who gather here about the nasty Guardian the Jekyll and Hyde of U.K. liberal sensibility.

        They do NOT support Assange.
        THEY betrayed him. They have constantly lied about him.
        They have vilified him and are still doing so by not withdrawing any of their lies.

        Besides from a couple of fig leaf contributors who are edited out of the way – The Guardian and Observer are the ENEMIES of Truth and Justice.

        They have supported the Wars and Head Chopping Western proxy isis and White Helmets and destruction of the MENA from day one of Blair/Clinton/Bush era.
        As they do the 15000 uighers head choppers and their camp followers transplanted into Idlib by their Nato masters – 15,000! Read about them in the Groaniad? have you?

        They have supported the Apartheid regime and daily torture of millions of Palestinians for decades and and are arch fascist Zionist Liberal neocon/lib Trilateralists. Just like their latest NuLab worm tongue Starmer and his camp of poisonous NuLabRata.

        They hate real Labour and did the maximum damage to JC and the best chance this country had to return to a post war covenant of equality and security and public services.
        They were original Slave owner funded and haven’t changed their priorities even as they fooled genuine progressives such as me who believed their hair shirt bullshit from a teenager into my 50’s!

        So NO I WILL NOT BUY THEIR MEALY MOUTHED WORDS.

        Wake Up!

  • Ken Kenn

    Welcome back to the ‘ Democratic ‘ world Craig.

    Good to see you on the BBC but I’m afraid the BBC was busy telling the viewers their interpretion of events and not yours.

    So we are led to believe that reassurances from a ‘Rule of Law’-abiding democracy who told the Afghanis that they would look after them and then swiftly left them for dead (literally) within a week will look after Julian Assange?

    The judges involved ought to watch more television and find some things out.

    Doesn’t half remind me of The Flanders Pigeon Murderer trial in Blackadder.

    As usual the pro-US media hacks look on ashamed of themselves.

    Not only the US wish Julian would disappear as he is an embarrassment to them and each time they look in the mirror they see
    a nothingness.

    Once again great to see you at liberty.

  • squirrel

    Craig you say when referring to private sector trillions

    “… as though that money was not created by government in the first instance.”

    this might surprise you, but it isn’t. The majority of our currency is created by the banking sector, when they make loans. Only a tiny percentage is created by the central bank. It is an absurd state of affairs because the big picture is that we are renting our means of exchange. The private banks are effectively getting a skim on the entire economy, for really doing nothing but decide who they are next going to destroy and who they will keep afloat.

    Before anyone says I’m talking nonsense please read this from the Bank of England which confirms that our money is created by private banks and not the public sector https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/knowledgebank/how-is-money-created

    “This article explains how the majority of money in the modern economy is created by commercial banks making loans.”

    • squirrel

      to clarify, when a bank makes a loan they just create bookkeeping entries for the loan. That is the money: it did not exist in any tangible sense before the moment of loan creation. The bookkeeping entries, and the money, are not separate things. This is something that is conceptually so simple that hardly anyone understands it.

      • MI0

        I agree the money system enables the elites to live off rent, i.e. the labour and resources of other people.

        It’s a kind of scam, which is maybe why we are not taught about it at school.

        It’s a claim on wealth, not wealth itself.

        I mention US data scientist and energy blogger Chris Martensen again, because his site helped me understand the astounding con that is the money system.

        It is one of the reasons I loathe tory and tory-lite governments when they preach about ‘sound finance’ and magic money trees.

        Real wealth is what the people create out of labour and resources.

        We all briefly glimpsed this during the pandemic first ‘lock-down’ when even Tories had grudgingly to admit the existence of something they termed ‘key-workers.’

        Sadly the reality hidden all around us in plain sight is once again being co-opted, distorted and buried once more.

        The elites crave business as usual.

    • DunGroanin

      You are right Squirrel in that it is created via the private bankers / credit card companies / hire purchase finance co’s etc.
      BUT they can ONLY do so under license of the Government and only in the currency of that licence.
      Hence all currency is issued only via the Government and it is only they who have that power to grant that license.
      The Government daily instructs the BoE creation of money to be put into government employees’ and suppliers’ bank accounts.
      Daily. An overdraft. Written off daily as a ledger entry.
      It also creates daily the money reserves that allow the commercial banks to settle their inter banking (that money never sees the street) without which the whole sordid banking world would have hit the wall back in 08 – when Gordon saved the World and Banks with his QE whiz.
      Upon which great lie we daily live – a house of cards that had its collapsing walls repaired faster just to stop the whole edifice collapsing.
      It’s always been inevitable it will.
      The rich are just filling their boots with the free cash and converting as much as they can into ‘real’ wealth as the rest of us see the pots of money and assets evaporate!

  • DiggerUK

    It is the case that non-traditional media is the only format where open criticism of the judgement against Julian gets expressed. This from Fraser Myers, the deputy editor of Spiked…

    “Make no mistake, Assange is being criminalised for doing journalism. Yes, his publishing methods were unorthodox. Wikileaks published reams of classified documents, without filters or the editorial choices that would usually be made by a newspaper or news website.

    But the means he came by this information was actually quite run-of-the-mill. The ‘conspiracy’ and ‘espionage’ Assange stands accused of by the US amount to his attempt to cultivate sources, get more information out of them and keep them anonymous. Or, as it’s usually known, ‘journalism’.”

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/12/10/journalism-is-now-a-crime/

    • DunGroanin

      Spiked is DS agit prop – a left-right bridge. The RCP were recruited as kids to inhabit that spot and its leaderine was elevated to the Lords by her ‘arch enemy’ the tory party! Are you blind? Having delivered the BrexShit for the neocon/libs by coopting the poor against our hard won post war rights and regulations and welfare.
      You are either blind or you are shilling the same old shit – where now your ‘precious’ sovereignty? That never mattered in a ordinary persons life? Till some kippers and MSM stuffed it down our throats. Or are you a scion of some aristo ancient family that speaks French. Or just a trusty salt’o’earth three bags full canon fodder? As you lockstep with the Empires dregs.

      • DiggerUK

        @DG, Spiked is what Spiked is. Posters on here are what posters on here is. Curates eggs are what curates eggs is.
        That article is supportive of those, like us, who berate the injustice against Julian. Good grace demands we show appreciation for such actions.

        May I offer a word to the wise in the art of hurling ad hominems about. Less, is more…_

        p.s., what is DS Agitprop exactly…_

        • DunGroanin

          “What is DS agitprop?” Ah bless – well when you tire of asking the mirror, here is the wicked witch I refer to:

          ‘ A lifelong Eurosceptic, she was previously a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party but later began identifying as a libertarian. She became a registered supporter of the Brexit Party shortly after its formation and was elected as an MEP in the 2019 European Parliament election. She was nominated for a peerage by the Boris Johnson-led Conservative government in 2020,[1] despite her past opposition to the existence of the House of Lords.[2]’
          &
          ‘ Fox joined the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) as a student at the University of Warwick.[7] For the next twenty years, she was one of the RCP’s core activists and organisers. ’
          & finally
          ‘ Fox stayed with her ex-RCP members when the group transformed itself in the early 2000s into a network around the web magazine Spiked Online and the Institute of Ideas, both based in the former RCP offices and promoting libertarianism.’

          The thing about curates eggs is … you aren’t supposed to savour them.

          • DiggerUK

            I am well aware of RCP/Spiked links. They may be of crucial importance to you, but not so consequential to me. Fraser Myers wrote a praiseworthy article, I chose to praise him for that.

            I asked what you mean by DS Agitprop. If you choose to exercise your right to silence, fine. But it is not at all clear what you are saying, I’m asking for clarification of your cryptic acronym because my online search has come up blank, that’s all…_

          • DunGroanin

            Digger
            Do you mean that you don’t know DS = Deep State?
            As in The perma state? represented as the Crown and its minions?
            Or you don’t know what Agit Prop means?
            I really am trying to answer.

    • Stevie Boy

      Let’s not forget ?
      Assange was in the process of going through the Wikileaks documents, prior to publication, and redacting names to ensure people at risk were protected – Washington was aware of this. Guardian journalists published passwords that enabled unredacted documents to be viewed. THIS is what the so called ‘respectable’ MSM journalists did.
      Craig Murray was locked up because he is not a so called ‘respectable’ MSM Journalist and didn’t release details of Sturgeons Coven like the MSM actually did.

      • Clark

        Stevie Boy, well sad. You wrote:

        “Washington was aware of this.”

        I’ll just add; not only was Washington aware, they refused to collaborate in Wikileaks’ proposed redaction process. A recording of the relevant telephone call is available publicly.

        • Giyane

          Clark

          Julian Assange’s extradition is about political ancient history, 2003, when political zombie was alive and PM. Surely the PTB are now worried about those worn-out historical crimes.

          IMHO they are desperate to prevent any revelations about their creation of de-humanised Islamists by torture/rendition/ psychological re-programming ==>> the creation of Islamic State ==>> the capture of the main Middle Eastern oil reserves in Iraq and Libya?

          Of course they are aware that the entire world knows about these unpublished crimes, but they vaguely hope that by the skin of their gums they can hold onto the illusion of respectability for their pathetic lifetimes.

    • Clark

      “Wikileaks published reams of classified documents, without filters or the editorial choices that would usually be made by a newspaper or news website.”

      That’s what Dorrian found Craig guilty of. Neither Craig nor Wikileaks actually did so. But this apparently is where the battle line is being drawn.

      • Giyane

        Clark

        Not only did Luke Harding and the Guardian publish unredacted the files Julian Assange was busy redacting, but I was astonished to find that Facebook is being used in non- Western countries to incite genocide.
        Google ‘ Facebook incites genocide in Myanmar. ‘

        Whatever I am witness to or have been made aware of becomes part of my intellectual understanding. I can either act on it or choose to cover it up. If Facebook is being utilised to incite genocide , I have a moral duty to block it, even in its WhatsApp form.

        My mobile network refuses to provide picture messaging, so I have to use an app to send photos.
        But in countries where the interests of USUKIS are to fragment dissent, like Kurdistan, Facebook makes people busy with fake news about local corruption in order to conceal the real corruption of the colonisers.

        Scotland has the same oil production as Kurdistan, 4.4 million barells a day, and the potential of future oilfields. USUKIS are being absolutely disingenuous in their Cops 26 bullshit. They want to deter the Scots from Independence.

        I guarantee the UK Tories will find a way to exploit those Scottish oil discoveries by the use of greenwash, Facebook fake news and imprisoning independence supporters. Yet the limit of Comment on British corruption is civil parties at No 10. The empire is in safe hands.

  • Stevie Boy

    Excellent piece on Assange case by John Pilger on ConsortiumNews. Two extracts that demonstrate this IS a conspiracy by the UK, and that the USA ARE liars:

    1. “In their nine minutes of dismissal of journalist Assange’s fate, two of Britain’s most senior judges, including Lord Chief Justice Ian Burnett (a lifelong buddy of Sir Alan Duncan, Boris Johnson’s former foreign minister who arranged Assange’s brutal police kidnapping from the Ecuadorean embassy)”
    2. “David Mendoza Herrarte was extradited from Spain to the U.S. on the “promise” that he would serve his sentence in Spain. The Spanish courts regarded this as a binding condition. … Mendoza spent six years in the U.S. trying to return to Spain. Court documents show the United States denied his transfer application multiple times.”

    https://consortiumnews.com/2021/12/11/john-pilger-a-judicial-kidnapping/

    • BrianFujisan

      Stevie Boy..Well said John. P. in that Piece.
      The Evil treatment of Julian is very disturbing, and upsetting.. And all the way through, MSM Silence, Unforgivable.. Cowards.

      Also from Consortium News yesterday –

      Too Big to Free

      Assange is too important to the establishment to let get away. No matter that the C.I.A. wanted to kill him; no matter that the C.I.A. spied on his privileged conversations with his lawyers; no matter that the chief witness in the computer conspiracy charge admitted he made it all up.

      The Old Boy Network of trust between the rulers of the Anglo-Saxon powers was enough.

      To save their hides from more exposure about how they try to violently and deceptively dominate the world, they are willing to sacrifice the last vestiges of their pretend democracy.

      Julian Assange is that important to them.

      https://consortiumnews.com/2021/12/10/democracy-dying-in-the-darkness-of-the-assange-case/?

      • Natasha

        This Tribune piece by John Rees is very good too.

        The irony is a deep and bitter one. The defeat for Julian Assange’s lawyers in the Court of Appeal proved beyond doubt that their argument is correct. How so? It has always been a central contention of Julian Assange’s defence that the US government is bringing a political prosecution which should be thrown out because the Extradition Act specifically excludes political cases.

        The US prosecution’s lawyer, Jimmy Lewis, and his faithful assistant Clair Dobbin, make this point over and over again. Their whole original case in Westminster Magistrates Court was that Assange isn’t really a journalist and was just engaged in common-or-garden thievery. And yet, for all that, here they were in the appeal court relying on those most political of all political things: a diplomatic assurance from a government.

        https://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/12/the-latest-assange-decision-is-a-farce-but-the-fight-isnt-over/

  • Lena Ljungqvist

    I think I have paid £2/ for a couple of months now but I have not seen any articles is there a special way to get to it.

    • DunGroanin

      We don’t buy anything with our contributions – they are just contributions.
      Read the archives there is plenty to catchup on as our host recovers from his State induced silencing.

  • DiggerUK

    One of the few journalists in the legacy media who has spoken up for the appalling way Julian is being treated is Peter Hitchens from the Mail on Sunday. Here is an edited presentation from his most recent article on Julian.

    “Beguiled by assurances from the US government that they will not be too horrid to Julian Assange during the decades of hard prison time he faces in America, our judges on Friday allowed his extradition…..

    This is a totally political case that ought to have been thrown out on sight by the English courts…………

    Our Prime Minister is himself a former journalist, and there may still be enough of the trouble-making spirit in him to see that this is plain wrong. I do hope so. When Theresa May rightly blocked the court-approved extradition of Gary McKinnon to the USA in 2012, the American government did not take elaborate revenge on us……….”

    Few of the legacy media pass any critical comment of Julian’s treatment which is despicable. Peter Hitchens full article is contained in this link…

    https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2021/12/peter-hitchens-dont-rage-about-no-10s-party-be-angry-that-you-couldnt-enjoy-one-too.html

      • Wikikettle

        Words like anger, rage, indignation do not describe how I and millions around the world feel just now on news of Julian’s stroke. All those responsible for engineering his demise no doubt will sleep well and not care a toss. For they are the same group of spineless nobodies that have caused millions of slow lingering deaths of innocent humans whose names and life stories we are never told. That’s why the name ‘Julian’ means so much to me now. He is all those millions.

        • Lysias

          I’m not clear on the timing, but, if I understand the reports correctly, Assange suffered the stroke while attending remotely a court session. I believe this was the same session that reversed Baraitser’s judgment that Assange should not be extradited. How better to disprove the high court’s ostensible belief that Assange was not in danger?

          They’d killing the man. Knowingly.

    • Travesty of Justice

      Rusbridger and The Guardian should be imprisoned for releasing the codes – they betrayed Julian Assange. Shame on the criminal justice systems of Britain and USA: they insult the notion of natural justice. Britain and USA are warmongering dumps denying their war crimes in the Middle East. Julian Assange is a man to be respected by all: may those responsible for his torture and slow killing be brought to sorry ends, each and every one of them – and that includes judges on both sides of the Atlantic, who are corrupt to the core.
      Justice for Julian Assange: shame on Britain and USA: corrupt, filthy “democratic” dumps which murder innocent citizens who expose WAR CRIMES.


      [ Mod: Sorry, “Travesty of British / American Justice – none exists in either dump” was truncated because the ‘Name’ field is for a name, not a slogan. ]

      • Travesty of Justice

        Thank you – at least you left the original “Name” in your post, Mod.
        In this case, I use slogans, as the crimes committed against Julian Assange by the British and American criminal justice systems need all of our rage expressed. Writing here on columns will not get Julian Assange out of jail – people need to take to the streets to demonstrate against the corruption of the justice systems on both sides. In what terrifying times we live : USA and Britain are murdering Julian Assange. These are the countries which foment terror across our world.

  • james

    welcome back craig! i admire who you are and what you stand for.. we need more people in the world like you, and less like those who want to jail and censor those who speak truth to power…

  • deepgreenpuddock

    it’s great to see you back in circulation. Horrible news about Julian Assange. It illustrates the dire straits we are in politically. Utterly odious lying, corrupt, and self seeking Tory government. And a opposition leader with all the political guile and conviction of a feather duster – about as much use as a one-legged penalty taker, or a paper scaffold. More or less on his arse all the time.
    RE cop= interesting that you highlight the benefits of insulation and a decentralised energy system.

    ‘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’

    Agreed in principle but there are quite daunting technical issues related to the shockingly poor and neglected state of Scottish housing and the poorly enforced building standards. Solar (PV) panels in Scotland are of mixed benefit. Much of Scotland has poor insolation as well as poor insulation. There are also horrendous difficulties with ventilation as so much housing was designed for solid fuel burning with a flue providing an updraught which sucked in fresh air through windows and gaps.
    Retrofitting can be very, very labour intensive and disruptive. Each home would possibly require individual planning of an optimal solution. Not impossible but very tricky and we would need some new innovative technical solutions to upgrading housing stock to approach sustainability. It would also require very determined political leadership. Short term results are very unfavourable although long term effects are a liveable planet.

    • Clark

      “Each home would possibly require individual planning of an optimal solution.”

      A complete solution for the huge diversity of homes is not required in order to make a start. The energy efficiency of many, probably most homes could be significantly improved with simple, standardised solutions, and this would start reducing bills and emissions immediately – go for the low-hanging fruit first. Meanwhile, trickier problems such as those involving modified ventilation could be assessed.

      • Robert Wursthaus

        Of course the major problem for a lot of people is balancing their budget to enable them to live semi comfortably. How are economically challenged citizens supposed to afford the green bile vomited under mandate by various governments in the name of protecting the planet (or is that the rich ?); such as heat pumps, Electric Vehicles and yes Windmills and Solar Panels ? Okay for the middle classes not so good for the masses in their leaky, drafty hovels rented from the well off exploiters.
        Home insulation in the attics and walls and double glazing as a minimum, easily done and relatively affordable, and it works, but of course there is no profit to be exploited in doing something practical as opposed to virtue signaling unicorn projects loaded with subsidies for the corrupt to steal.

        • Clark

          “How are economically challenged citizens supposed to afford the green bile vomited under mandate by various governments in the name of protecting the planet..?”

          https://www.insulatebritain.com/

          – WE DEMAND

          – 1: That the UK government immediately promises to fully fund and take responsibility for the insulation of all social housing in Britain by 2025;

          – 2: That the UK government immediately promises to produce within four months a legally binding national plan to fully fund and take responsibility for the full low-energy and low-carbon whole-house retrofit , with no externalised costs, of all homes in Britain by 2030 as part of a just transition to full decarbonisation of all parts of society and the economy.

      • Deepgreenpuddock

        individual solutions is probably over stating it. The solution for a stone and lime house does not apply to a double brick skin, does not apply to a timber-framed house, does not apply to an 8 apartment block with prefabricated concrete panels; each apartment has different orientation and different prevailing conditions and different residents with different lifestyles.
        The point is that it is a complex problem and more insulation is only part of an answer. Type of insulaton?
        The real problem is that there is a legacy of actions from many decades ago that were answering entirely different problems to the climate change problem we face now.
        Even worse, there were underlying attitudes that defined the positions and decisions of the past.
        The scale of the current problem is immense.

        • Clark

          “The scale of the current problem is immense.”

          It is.

          Do you remember the national conversion from coal gas to natural gas? Every gas appliance appliance right across Britain had critical components changed.

          But that was back in the days when we actually had a government.

          • deepgreenpuddock

            yes I remember because the chemistry teacher Mr Hastings recommended buying shares in gas appliance manufacturers.ie the conversion from town gas to natural gas, which also spoiled some of his experiments because the temperature of the flame using town gas was higher than that achieved with natural gas.

  • Bill

    A great speech there Santa. Good to see you coming through that still vibrant and strong in your words and thoughts. I found what you said about prisoners and prison staff in jail very moving – fundamentally respecting and caring. I’m glad you raised this. I had no idea that per capita Scotland’s prison population is the highest in Europe – that’s completely outrageous for a country famous for its hospitality and kindness.

  • DunGroanin

    Surely if the yanks want to put Assange on trial they should be insisting that he has the best stroke treatment? The first 48 hours are crucial. The next two weeks is when it can make a difference in being in a dedicated stroke ward with specialist staff. They are secure wards.

    Is he in hospital? If not, Why not? What’s the Australian ambassador saying? Has the U.K. ambassador been summoned in Canberra? What does its Parliament say?

    • Jimmy Riddle

      DunGroanin – I’ll state explicitly what you have implied, because what you implied is clearly true and this has been clear for a long time.

      By now we all know that they want him dead.

    • Hector Sanchez

      Let’s not ignore the elephant in the room.
      The reality is that ‘the establishment’ (five eyes governments, EU, Israel, MSM, Davos Set) want Assange to die. The way things are going they will succeed. Then what ?

  • M.J.

    Here a q. about a definition. Someone once said to me that the USA is a “Third World country with money.” To my surprise a relation who lives there agreed. But surely “Third World” simply means poorer countries, i.e. without money. Does it mean just that there is more *visible* poverty there than in Western Europe, with a relative lack of public medical and social care facilities?

    • giyane

      M.J.

      If someone doesn’t want to communicate the truth then overcommunication is just a good an opaquing tool as emotional withdrawal and silence. For decades in the US powerful people have lived in prisons called executive residences and the poor die on the street. In this sense the US is like Delhi, and the Tories are desperate to reproduce this wealth disparity in Britain.

      Covid has supplied the Tories with a subject of conversation about fact-based knowledge and got the PM to mix it with a yeast of over-friendly , over-egged bs. No communication has been held with the electorate about the matters that concern us, planning permission, the NHS, Universal Credit or Green energy..
      Our proxy communicators , our ears, eyes and tongues are the journalists and the politicians.

      The Tories own the MSM, and they fabricated an election win for the Tories by using algorithms. So in effect our ears, eyes and tongues are tied, which is not at all the case in countries like Delhi. Our staus is that we are a very wealthy and very corrupt dictatorship, without any democracy or accountability, and those who comply with the government, whatever caste or tribe they may come from, will flourish economically under this dictatorship, and those who disagree will be forced to fail, without understanding how or why.

      The clue is Facebook’s new name Meta, short for metadata. The collection of 24/7 metadata gives the stasi absolute power to promote or destroy what is communcated in public. Sadly the mosques, churches, councils and parliaments, and all branches of the MSM have decided to gain power by agreeing with the dictatorship. To their everlasting shame, in a country that fought so hard for freedom of expression and belief, and social mobility. The ones who benefitted from these noble values, decided not to pass them on to future generations.

      US, UK and IS is now a fourth world , Anglo-Saxon continent , with neither wealth, nor now ideas. Worse than the 3rd world by a long way. We enter a new Dark Age.

1 2 3 4 5

Comments are closed.