Wednesday, December 24, 2008

It's that time of year again...

43 comments:

Anonymous said...

Meanwhile...


Ho ho ho.

Anonymous said...

Harold Pinter is dead.

He is best remembered for his Nobel Prize speech (at least in the minds of the few who heard it...)

The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be forgiven.

Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries. Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn't know it.

It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2005/pinter-lecture-e.html

For all the others, his speech never happened...

Anonymous said...

Pinters speech was incredile.
But as a sign of the times, it achieved the grand sum of...
nothing

The human race is doomed.
And not undeservedly so.


lwtc247

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQS8yBS0bDo&feature=related

Stef said...

Pinters speech was incredile.
But as a sign of the times, it achieved the grand sum of...
nothing

The human race is doomed.
And not undeservedly so.


not necessarily so

one thing Pinter's speech did achieve was a reminder that people are capable of being better

though, watching the news today, it's easy to forget that

Anonymous said...

If Pinter's speech "achieved the grand sum of... nothing", then what sense is there in blogging about the injustices of the world?

Anonymous said...

The governor of the Bank of Spain on Sunday issued a bleak assessment of the economic crisis, warning that the world faced a "total" financial meltdown unseen since the Great Depression.

"The lack of confidence is total," Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez said in an interview with Spain's El Pais daily.

"The inter-bank (lending) market is not functioning and this is generating vicious cycles: consumers are not consuming, businessmen are not taking on workers, investors are not investing and the banks are not lending.

"There is an almost total paralysis from which no-one is escaping," he said, adding that any recovery -- pencilled in by optimists for the end of 2009 and the start of 2010 -- could be delayed if confidence is not restored.

Ordonez recognised that falling oil prices and lower taxes could kick-start a faster-than-anticipated recovery, but warned that a deepening cycle of falling consumer demand, rising unemployment and an ongoing lending squeeze could not be ruled out.

"This is the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression" of 1929, he added.


yeeeeehaaa!!.

All the best for 2009!

ziz said...

"If Pinter's speech "achieved the grand sum of... nothing", then what sense is there in blogging about the injustices of the world?"

As far as this blogiste is concerned the sure and certain knowledge he did something to try and make things better and to expose therotten system that prevails.

Consequently will die a happier person.

Naturally my family think I am barmy.

Stef said...

I do it because I choose Life

paul said...

But as a sign of the times, it achieved the grand sum of...
nothing


Well it reminded some people that they are not barmy, or alone.

The power of negative thinking is greatly undervalued. Until a majority of people understand that they have been royally, systematically fucked, then we are not going to see much change.

The leaky, cranky world of the internet is one of the things we still have, but hardly a magic bullet.

Maybe we are just like jim hawkins in the apple barrel, we have heard the plan, but remain powerless as yet.

The big problem is that you can't forget what you've heard.

Anonymous said...

Trainspotting.Great movie

Stef said...

shame that Ewan McGregor did end up choosing the leeesureware and matching travel luggage though

paul said...

Never really got trainspotting, though I am highly impressed with mr macgregor's latest work with Davidoff, the gentleman's cologne manufacturer.

Stef said...

They make more sense combined

Anonymous said...

"Well it reminded some people that they are not barmy, or alone.

The power of negative thinking is greatly undervalued. Until a majority of people understand that they have been royally, systematically fucked, then we are not going to see much change.
"

Seconded.

Anonymous said...

combined is much better.That´s the trouble with actors,,some of them anyway,,,get carried away with their own piss and importance.They are after all just entertainers highly paid jesters of sorts paid too much money to provide "entertainment" to keep some of the masses in fantasy land,,,meanwhile in the real world.

Israeli helicopters fly over the Gaza Strip for a second round of attacks after killing at least 210 people in their previous attack.

Military gunboats have also been approaching the coastal territory, witnesses told Press TV on Saturday.

Earlier in the day, Israeli aircraft launched a massive offensive against the territory, killing at least 180 people and wounding hundreds others.

The death toll, mostly civilians according to the Palestinian Hamas, is expected to rise.

The Israeli Army announced Saturday that the airstrikes "will continue, will be expanded, and will deepen if necessary," the Israeli daily Ha'aretz reported.


I think it´s time for someone big enough to flatten Israel.

Anonymous said...

"Never really got trainspotting," it was a documentary exploring life in Edinburgh.

Anonymous said...

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ZERDspeWfm8

Anonymous said...

@ Parabellum
I notice you don't say I'm wrong, and more generally, it seems as if some grafting onto a simple observation has taken place. Nowhere at any stage was it said Pinters speech was useless, and neither was there the slightest suggestion of anything like that.

Pinters speech has achieved nothing, and my blog hasn't anything either or anyone elses blog for that matter. Only effective action will change things. I know it's been so long that we've seen any that it is easy to slip from the mind.

In itself, the spreading of info doesn't constitute a change or achieve a change in anything.

Do we sit in a corner and go out like slime or do we go down fighting?

Action stems from info dissemination dear chaps, but the phenoix can fly only when its feathers are grown.

'nothr point:

All this talk of doom and gloom... If TSTB (the scum that be) do manage to blow this latest bubble to encapsulate the current bursting bubble, can you imagine the accolades these scum would receive? They'll name cities, stars and planets after these bastards.

It's productive to remind Loons not to add to the 'with one wave of my hand I can dissipate the gloom' Tarot death card just yet, for that reason.

What’s the progress on the comments bar Stef?

Stef said...

What’s the progress on the comments bar Stef?

Blogger is still unwell

You get what you pay for I suppose

Stef said...

@lwtc247

I suspect that I am less disheartened than you because I have been more consistently pessimistic about the prospects of change for the Good in the short to medium term

Personally speaking, I never expected my blog (or any blog) to change anything

I don't promote this blog and I put zero effort into presenting a targeted, focused message

Just because the economic, and other, messes which are starting to engulf the world were eminently predictable that doesn't mean that we were in a position to do anything to stop them.

And even if we had been in a position to stop some minor manifestations of wickedness early on, before the evil intent behind them became fully manifest, would that have been the right thing to do for the long term?

It brings me no pleasure to say that certain things have to run their course before a useful number of people understand how the world now really works

As for effective action, I'm non violent and believe that mass civil disobedience is the way forward

But first you need a mass

And an educated mass at that

The struggle has barely started

This blog and the thousands of others like it out there have been a series of little chats whilst we've been waiting

Stef said...

PS On the subject of struggling, one lesson I've learned, at some considerable personal cost, is to only engage in conflict/ struggle if a couple of conditions are met...

- there is a clear and worthwhile objective

- you know you're going to win

If either condition is not met, I find it's best to fuck off somewhere out of the way whilst you build up your resources and decide WTF it is you want to fight for

aka

"You don't win wars by dying for your country, you win wars by making some other guy die for his country"

Stef said...

PPS It's also worth remembering that there have been some successful skirmishes over the last couple of years

I'm thinking of the July 7th Group for example. It's also pretty clear that the powers that be are intensely irritated by Lord Patel's output and I experienced a personal high point when I heard David Icke regurgitating a little bit of research I did earlier this year, tying in fearless freedom campaigner, David Davis with a bunch of pro ID card PR bastards

And then, of course, there's the whole Conspiraloon thing which I think was a masterstroke of self-deprecation

All good for the old morale. All total irrelevant fluff in the face of what very possibly lies ahead

Stef said...

It's also worth pointing out that, thanks to the web and nothing else, the understanding of the role played by the banking system has come along in leaps and bounds in a very short space of time

Four or five years ago when I first dipped my toes into on-line Loonery it was all Sumerian tablets and UFO based laser weapons. Now it's the loons, and not the established, state sanctioned Left who are talking about, and getting their heads around, the abuse of finance capital and the onset of neofeudalism

With a little bit more time and thought they might even coalesce into a coherent political movement

paul said...

"Never really got trainspotting," it was a documentary exploring life in Edinburgh.

My impression was that it was a mannered, sentimental, ill cast caricature of life in edinburgh, filmed largely in glasgow, barely held together by a pop sound track.

But that's just my opinion.

Anonymous said...

Interesting you say that about people's attitudes Stef. It didn't take long for my partner to agree with me on a number of issues.

She found out through experience that the government is only there to screw people over instead of helping them (case in point, "public services" being nothing of the sort).

Anonymous said...

I think the Israelis have decided rather than a Turkey shoot they´ll have a Palestinian shoot

"It's that time of year again..."

Anonymous said...

"PPS It's also worth remembering that there have been some successful skirmishes over the last couple of years

I'm thinking of the July 7th Group for example.
"

One of the impressive things about the July 7th Group has been their self-discipline. They have pointedly not tendered any competing hypotheses, no matter how tempting. This has meant that the critics of the July 7th Group have had nothing to criticise but the anomalies that were pointed out by the Group. Since these anomalies were a critical part of the government narrative (eg train times, cctv footage) it hasn't been possible to criticise the J7Group.

Very impressive strategy.

Further, when the narrative had to be re-written it made the gov and all their Ikean-Repeaters look utterly stupid if not deceitful.

Anonymous said...

Stef, regarding your fear of a spotless sun: I can ease your pain a bit.

While I think that the sun's influence on climate is far bigger than than that of CO2, the effect is "smeared out" in time over a period of something like a decade. So even if we would would miss solar cycle 24, it would take a couple of years until we could measure an effect (Otherwise we would see a pronounced 11 year cycle in temperatures - which we don't). To get something like a little ice age, we would need (in my uneducated guess) at least two or three missed sun cycles. So we are talking about slightly colder in 10 years and rather cold in 20 years - in the earliest worst case scenario. If we have a weak cycle 24 (instead of none at all) we would get another 11 years on top of that.

Anonymous said...

re lwtc247: I was a bit dispirited by you being so dispirited... :-)

I think we have to distinguish between two things:
1. What we do.
2. What we achieve.

For the first, my only personal option is to do what I perceive as right: To fight the powers that are, to fight against injustice and suffering. You have to do what you think is right. Some people think it is the best thing to primarily advance themselves - but I judge the people here differently. If I guess right, then you really don't have any of other option, same as Marx and King and Pinter, you have to fight against the world as it is and try to make it better.

As for the second, we should have no illusions. We will not achieve a just world (whatever we perceive as one) within our lifetimes. So what can we do? We can give it a push in the right direction. And a just world will not be achieved by the few enlightened who are handing it down to the dumb masses. A just world can only be acquired by the people. So I guess the course is clear: Spread the word, incite people to think, show solidarity to those who follow a similar path (even if you differ in details), never loose your courage and never compromise on what you want to achieve. Choose your battles and find out were you can get the best punch out of you. Maybe focus on something, but never forget the whole picture.

Don't despair, we are not alone.

Anonymous said...

And regarding the media, we will see something very interesting in the coming years. The big media will loose more and more grip over the masses. Not because the masses will be more enlightened and stop watching and reading that crap. No the attention will be more and more fractured - and it is attention that big media needs, because it converts attention into profit. Big media is going to shrink. The authority figures in the news will have less and less reach. People are going to divert their attention to new channels and are going to learn that they can't trust blindly anything they read or hear. People are going to be more critical, not because the news are going to better made, but because the news are going to be made with far less money. It is going to be more difficult for what Parenti calls a dominant paradigm to emerge. Exciting times!

Anonymous said...

And thinking about it, if we really would want to change the world for the better, there are two field we must address:

1. Capitalism does work only for the few. Develop an alternative economy.

2. Address the problems of Public State vs. Deep State (as Peter Dale Scott calls it). Develop strategies to fight the Deep State, give the Public State back to the people.

Merkin said...

Blogger is still unwell.

Craig Murray has had a lot of problems too - and he is not on blogspot.

'This blog has been down for a few days because, immediately after I sent out all the pdfs of The Catholic Orangemen, I suffered a massive hacker attack originating in both Glasgow and the Czech Republic which penetrated my substantial defences and exported a lot of information. I called in The Geek Squad to sort it - that really is a very impressive commercial service - but it took them a solid couple of days to get me up and running again.

I try not to get paranoid about all this. Hacker attacks happen for purely commercial motives. A month ago my laptop was stolen from my hallway and that happens too. Someone ransacked my Ghanaian office at night six weeks ago, and that also can happen to anyone. But I would have to be superhuman not to worry about it.

http://tinyurl.com/7adkgu

And even more interesting :

'We are back online again after the site banned my own IP address from posting for two days! Finally comments are freed up; another bug in the system was giving people a message purporting to come from me, saying rather rudely that I would decide whether to approve comments "at my own convenience", and that there was no need to follow up to find what had happened to your comment. It then dumped the comments somewhere into the ether.'

http://tinyurl.com/86c6r5

Anonymous said...

And never forget Occam's laser: Don't attribute something to Sumerian UFOs, when you can explain it with human stupidity.

Stef: The combined Trainspotting/Ewan McGregor advert is really grant!

Anonymous said...

I just uploaded a video to youtube.
The music I had done a year or so ago.It was waiting for an event like this.

Gaza 2008.Israeli attack.

Anonymous said...

And tying it all together: The British Rail Flying Saucer and the Astrochicken (Sorry, no Astroturkey. While wikipedia is a reflection of the dominant paradigm (and therefore a bit problematic), it never ceases to amaze me...

Anonymous said...

@ Parabellum said 28 December 2008 16:05

Nice comments. I have great empathy with them. Pinter of course did right in making that speech. I remember watching it shortly after he got his award. It was fantastic, but it has yet to bear fruit, that was my point.

I don't agree when Stef said pick a fight you know you can win, as there are principles that superceed that, but of course there are lost causes NOT worth fighting about too.

As for the correct resolution of
what we do and
what we achieve

In amongst all the doing, it is wise to plan along the way, for the day when the physical side of things takes over. You can bet TSTB are. Remember the MOD document strategic trends or summut like that, or in the US, the ready to go detention 'camps', the army normalising their presence in the street, acting as police etc.

And this point has relevance to J7. What they have done is certainly deeply admirable, but they have been criticised by the establishment prone to write off anything as 'fruitcake' that isn't containable by the official story.

And surely if the facts point in one direction, is it really so good not to persue that? And lets hope, one day the facts will be examined by some body with power in the UK or elsewhere. Again, TSTB will have their plan on how to takcle it or the aftermath. So once more, planning is advantageous.

Last thing... solidarity. This has always been a sore point with me. Loons are a fragmented bunch and it's this makes us week

I've seen a number of v. large ego's in the loon camp. There seems to be an inability to just let a loon be, if one happens to disagree with him/her on some certain point. An obvious example is David Shayler. If we wants to munch a few shrooms in the toilets and do a bit of preaching, then great. Far better to have him doing what he can on towards the general resistance, rather than being told politely to 'go away'. Isn't social freedom and liberation of the the mind and expression part of the objectives of the struggle?

Yes the old gate-keepers thing crops up, but we really need to learn to cherry pick in this particular dept I feel.

Sleepy now...
Gnight

Stef said...

@lwtc247

re. being fragmented and leaders, self-appointed or otherwise

Peter Dale Scott nails it in the last minute of this talk...

- let's not get too centralised
improve communications between like minded individuals and groups
- let's not set ourselves up to with one leader who can be co-opted or imprisoned
- our diversity is our strength

Shayler has a special place in the hearts of some of the people who pass through here because they have met him and, quite simply, they don't trust him or his (ex) handler. His recent behaviour has given none of us any reason to revise that opinion

David Icke is another example of a Man Who Would Be King

I've already posted a link to this 3 hour long talk he gave at the Haltemprice by election earlier this year and f**k me if I don't agree with and endorse most of what he says. The problem is, of course, even though he didn't mention any space lizards during that particular presentation, there's nothing stopping him doing so during the next one; leaving anyone who has endorsed him looking like a complete a bell end.

Stef said...

@parabellum

thanks for the links - I am ashamed to confess that I knew nothing about the British Rail flying saucer until today

wonderful

re. Ice Ages

nope, not expecting a Maunder style mini ice age - just the possibility of a very cold few years, just as the the creaking liquid hydrocarbon delivery infrastructure starts falling over

Stef said...

@lwtc247

Come on Craig. You're hot on Central Asia, but utterly pants on the ME

lol

paul said...

RE: lw
One of the nice things about loons is that they are tolerant, do not believe they have the truth or hate the idea that a modern, technologically developed* society can be a good one.

Cunts like david shayler can go fuck themselves, and anyone who takes his 'revelations' (british govt planned to kill quadaffi - wow! reagan actually bombed his home, murdered his grand daughter) are welcome to join him.

But that's not to say I disagree with you that a broad church is required, I disagree with just about everyone on detail, but am more than happy to go along with people of obvious good heart.

paul said...

* to preempt unnecessary controversy I mean a society which can provide nutrition, shelter, care and justice - nothing more.

Anonymous said...

As a side note: While I otherwise fully agree with the PDS clip you posted (no central power), I think he is a bit off base when it comes to Poland. The "20 years of work" in Poland he gleams about didn't change the situation in Poland much, it was the failure of the (central) Soviet power that imploded all socialist satellite state regimes. It was not the coalition of the left and the right "who have driven the Soviets out". And if you look at Poland today, it has fallen prey those powers (like the two Kaczyńskis) today, who PDS wants to fight. Sigh. (And I would like to know how much the CIA meddled in those "socialist" states - both during and post Soviet time.) Ah, fuck, sometimes I'm optmistic, sometimes I'm pessimistic, just like PDS.