Tories back in power! F***ing AWESOME!!

Homesick...

For reasons that aren't important right now, I find myself in a position where I have to choose between continuing to be an expat or returning home to the UK

Until a few days ago I was all set to click the button, buy the ticket and return back to Blighty. A decision my family and close friends were supportive of

And then something interesting happened

Quite a few of my friends and family have started suggesting that I hold my horses and think about hanging on for a bit, certainly until my right to return to somewhere a long way from the UK becomes unconditional

Some have pointed to the relatively high cost of living and dire economic prospects of the UK as a reason for staying away. Both of which are very fair points. From the point of view of anyone who isn't an oligarch, the UK fucked

A couple of other people though have cited the newly, er, 'elected' Conservative government as a primo reason for keeping the Hell away from Dodge


Bollocks

Personally, I think the Tories back in power is awesome news and the best conceivable outcome for the recent General Election

and the fact that the Tories have been forced into an unholy coalition with the Lib-Dems is just icing on the cake

It matters not a jot which figurehead is in charge of the supposed government. The Lords of Finance Capital controlled what went on in the UK before the General Election, and continue to do so after the General Election

What can change as the result of the election is people's perceptions of what is being done to them

I remember 20 years ago when a quarter of a million angry people tore up London in protest against a Community Charge which, in the scheme of things, was pretty much fuck all

And since then, with the noble exception of the protest against the invasion of Iraq, not a fucking squeak

Maybe, now that the Tories are nominally in charge, all those muppets who stood by all the ghastly things Nu Labour inflicted on the UK and world over the last 13 years might get off their arses and start opposing some of those ghastly things

Instead of supporting a political party on the basis that 'At least they're not the Tories' maybe it's about time a few more people defined their beliefs in terms of what they think is right and decent

because there ain't been much in the way of righteous and decency in the way the UK has been governed for a long, long time

-

edit: and hats off to the Daily Mash, it continues to be by far and away the best serious news channel in the United Kingdom..

"Meanwhile the prospect of a Labour-led 'progressive' coalition has been welcomed by thousands of limbless Iraqis, torture victims and people whose DNA is now kept on a database because they signed a petition in the post office about a new bypass.

Abdul Al-Kaleem, a former limb owner from Basra, said: "I admire the British Labour Party. They managed to progress my legs off very efficiently, while my Uncle Karim was progressed over a wide area.

"I remember being handed what was left of his chin and thinking 'yes, this is definitely progress'..."

.

On not trusting anyone, not even yourself

I think it's fair to say that anyone who has used the Internet has been sucked in by at least some disinfo bullcrap at some point in their surfing

There is, after all, an awful lot of it about

Mind you, there's awful lot of it about in the longer-established media.

I had a jaw-dropping conversation with a couple of people just before Christmas who patiently explained to me that the reason why Jean Charles de Menezes got shot was because he jumped over a ticket barrier and ignored repeated challenges from the police to stop running. They absolutely refused to accept anything different from me

And they never use the Internet

As it happens, I personally believe that the majority of 'serious' mainstream news coverage qualifies as disinformation to some extent or another

but back to the Internet...

I raise the subject of disinfo because I received a couple of emails from chums yesterday morning pointing me towards a video nasty of the alleged aftermath of an Israeli bombing attack in Gaza

The video struck me as being suspect for several reasons

- it was pixelated as fuck
- there was no supporting information about who allegedly took the footage, or where, or when
- the accompanying text on the original hosting site said 'copy available for download spread'

Because I'm a person who has never felt comfortable about giving or receiving commands, the thought of anonymous fuckers who I don't know from Adam urging me to spread/ duplicate/ forward something has the uncomfortable air of a chain letter about it to me

What the Internet was invented for...

As a general rule, if a video clip, or creepy letter, is strong enough I am perfectly capable of deciding whether I'm going to circulate it or not, and to who

And it comes as absolutely no fucking surprise to discover that the video in question was subsequently 'exposed' as a fraud by those reptiles over at Little Green Footballs.

They would be the same reptiles who exposed the doctoring of photos of the Israeli airforce plastering Lebanon in 2006

Lebanon 2006 - before and after 'shopping'. As you can see the impact of the Israeli air attacks has been exaggerated to an outrageous degree by visual trickery

It's a funny game this disinfowar business. Expose a little photoshopping of the aftermath of a Israeli bomb attack and all those cluster bombs, cluster bombs which are still killing people two years on, simply melt away

We should, however, be thankful for the efforts of Little Green Footballs, the Hasbara crowd and all the other shills, cheats and trolls out there.

They're doing us a favour

They're reminding us not to be gullible fuckwits

Just because someone is making noises you want to hear or offering up material that seems to support your pre-existing beliefs that is no reason to throw your critical faculties into the toilet.

If you don't trust this video

...then why the f*** should you trust this one?

If you don't apply the same level of rigour to your own beliefs as you apply to those beliefs you disagree with then you're allowing yourself to become a hypocrite and a fool

And I'm not excluding myself from the list of potential fuckwits.

Like I said, we've all been there and will almost certainly be there again

.

Time to buy some roubles?

Cheers to anon for this link to a clip of Dmitry Medvedev declaring war on the dollar whilst simultaneously doing a very passable Thomas Jefferson impression





Peculiar times indeed

The really impressive thing is that you can hardly see Putin's lips move throughout

.

Political Puppets ...now available in Black

Back again

After a couple of weeks away in the Boondocks I returned home to discover that billions of people around the world appear to be gripped by post-election euphoria...

Key triumphant as Clark era ends

The astute voters of New Zealand can now look forward to a future of glittering prosperity, packed with the kind of economic 'reforms' much beloved by the likes of the IMF and the World Bank, delivered by an ex.(?) employee of the Federal Reserve

There really is nowhere to run to

-

Meanwhile, in the wake of a only slightly less globally significant election, quite a few people appear to be whacking off deliriously at the prospect of America's first Blackish President

President-Elect Barack Obama

Yay!

Presumably, the people who think that Obama's election is going to change anything are the same kind of fucknuts who thought that the election of Margaret Thatcher 30 years ago heralded a new era in gender equality or who didn't feel like vomiting when exposed to the 'Things Can Only Get Better' mediawankfest that accompanied the 1997 General Election

As it happens, clips of people dancing in the Millennium Dome to 'Things Can Only Get Better' in 1997 are thin on the Internet - I suspect eternal, irredeemable shame has got something to do with it - and I've only been able to locate this partial record put up by a Labour Party droid...





One comment underneath that clip's page on Youtube really did bring out the misanthrope in me. Does any species capable of supporting even a solitary individual as stupid as this really deserve to survive...

"The Conservatives may be leading in the polls at the moment, however, would David Cameron be able to take on the world banking system like Gordon Brown has? I think not..."


Fast forward back to 2008 and anyone who expects true change for the good from a President-elect who surrounds himself with psychos like Emanuel, Volcker or Brzezinski truly is an uttter, utter fucknut

One comment I saw over at Lord P.'s blog sums up my own feelings about the US Presidential Election nicely...

"What happens when you replace a sociopathic lunatic with an eloquent, sane man who espouses the exact same policies?

The Daily Mash

A very good question imho. One we're about to find the answer to

.

Sweary Chops of the Month - Sergei Lavrov

Well, I've just about caught up with ten days of news and views, after some time away from a phone line, and the award for best news story of the month so far is an easy win for this one...

'Who the fuck are you to lecture me?': Russian minister's extraordinary rant at David Miliband

What a disgrace!! Why was this Russian national permitted to direct a torrent of foul-mouthed abuse at the British Foreign Secretary, when there are million of Britons patiently waiting for their turn?

I've no doubt that all fellow loons have already luxuriated in the story's foul-mouthed goodness but, if you haven't already, make sure to read the relevant readers' comments underneath any on-line newspaper which permits them

As well as enjoying the torrent of abuse directed by commentators at Milliband for its own sake, there's also a small glimmer of hope from the fact that, in spite of that blanket of skewed mass media coverage of the Ossetian conflict, virtually no-one, no-one on-line anyway, has swallowed it

.

I want to have David Davis' babies - well, maybe not quite

David Davis feeling a littl' bit country

One of the key reasons why our current government has been able to get away with the shocking things that it has over the last eleven years has been the equally shocking lack of opposition to its behaviour

Traditional, nominally Left Wing, Labour Party fanboy activists have given the government a free ride on the basis that ‘it’s better than having the Tories in power’

And any voices of dissent given mainstream media access have been be carefully hand picked for their qualities of establishment-friendly ineffectiveness

The Labour government has NOT been better than having the Tories in power – we’ve seen more wars, more inequality, more corporate corruption, more authoritarianism than even Thatchler could have dreamed of getting away with. The only reason why people have taken so long noticing is that they’ve been bought off by unprecedented levels of debt. Debt that is now going to have be paid off in one way or another – which will lead to a lot of people finally realising that their lives have been sold off to the banking system in exchange for not very much at all

And as for the hand-picked shills who represent the voice of establishment-sanctioned dissent, I find it very difficult to put into words just how thoroughly depressed I was by the demonstration against the 42 Day Detention Bill organised by ‘Liberty’ in Parliament Square earlier this week

“The Lib Dem and Tory home affairs spokesmen, and the outspoken left-wing Labour MP, were outshone as James Bond actress Honor Blackman and fashion designer Vivienne Westwood came to Westminster. They were all there for a photoshoot, organised by the pressure group Liberty, to protest against government plans to extend pre-charge terror detentions to a maximum of 42 days.”

Fight Fascism!! Buy a T-Shirt!!
Kapow!! Take that Shadowy Overlords!!

The director of Liberty is, of course, Shami Chakrabarti

Shami’s CV in a nutshell…

• Worked as a Barrister for the Home Office 1996-2001
• Leaves(?) Home Office and Joins Liberty 10th September 2001
• Appointed director of Liberty September 2003

Shami is the first person to be called whenever someone is required to speak out against the latest legislative monstrosity and you can rest assured that she could organise photoshoots featuring scary undead celebrity crones for the next 5,000 years and not change a single fucking thing

In short, opposition to the creeping fascism we’ve experienced for the last eleven years has been carefully managed and all sewn up

And then David Davis pulled his little stunt yesterday



Davis may be an egotistical, self-serving, right wing moonbat but the mass confusion of the establishment press and other politicians caused by his resignation seems to be genuine

And after eleven years of ineffective opposition to creeping fascism I’m personally not fussy any more

(LWTC247)

This appears to be a genuinely off-script event and something which could, though the chances are admittedly tiny, upset the carefully managed false Left vs. Right dichotomy which is used to blind us all

There are some principles which should transcend people’s party political beliefs – it is wrong to kill, it is wrong to steal and it is also wrong to subjugate the many to suit the interests of the tiny few

This should be obvious enough stuff but a lot of people have been conned into overlooking basic moral principles through a media-led focus on irrelevancy and bullshit

(The Daily Mash)

Forget for a moment, whether Davis is being principled or not, and think for a moment what do his actions, and the reaction to his actions, say about what has passed for opposition to the onset of fascism over the last decade

The chances are that Davis’ Libertarian stunt is going to die on its arse in a very public and humiliating way – there are many powerful interests that will accept nothing less. But there’s a chance, just a tiny one, that Davis’ actions could have unexpected consequences which no end of Chakrabountybarti-Liberty style bullshit could ever deliver.

.