This is the Coffee House Wall for this week. I won’t say that it is your chance to communicate with us, as we are all in this together. It is, nevertheless, the Blog post that has no particular theme, and where everything is on topic. Let’s just remember that we want to avoid ad hominem attacks on others. We don’t want to engage with trolls. We want to moderate our language ourselves as responsible and mature adults, choosing to use fruity language only where it is necessary. This is our opportunity to show what the Spectator Coffee House Wall could have been like.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2100565/Spanish-village-goes-peseta-euro-crisis-takes-hold.html
And so it begins. Tee hee.
I know of French in my old village in the Laguedoc who hung onto their FF when the change-over came. (I was living there at the time.) And have also heard of multitudes of Germans with shoe boxes stuffed with DMs in the attic.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9080452/Britain-being-overtaken-by-militant-secularists-says-Baroness-Warsi.html
Our old favourite “Baroness” Warsi who just happened to have “official business”in Pakistan at the exact time of her cousins’s wedding in, uh, Pakistan so was able to fly and drive round at the expense of the British taxpayer, has surprised me by saying something worth while. “Britain is being overtaken by militant secularists”.
Indeed it is true, but why did people of faith allow themselves to be bullied as they have? Why have they never brought the socialists to heel? Admittedly a bit hard for Dave, as he doesn’t have a majority, but no one else seems to speak out for religion (ARBI – any religion but islam), which is eerie.
Regarding the Falklands: I know the islands are ours by right, and it is a disgrace the country has grown so weak under Labour numpties that the Argentines doubt our ability to defend them, but I’ll pass on a story from a mate in the RAF.
The Islanders apparently made repeated complaints about our armed forces lads calling them “Bennies” in honour of the retarded bumkin in the old Crossroads soap opera.
The order duly came from on high to cease using the label, so our lads started greeting the locals with a cheery, “Hello, Still!”
When the locals asked why on Earth they were being called “Still,” they were kindly given the explanation:
“Because you’re still a ****ing Benny.”
@Verity 13th, 22:12
I fear the socialist fifth column has so invaded the Christian Churches that they are themselves becoming socialism in action.
Isaac Asimov called it ‘Roblock’; when an entity, given two conflicting instructions, ceased to function because it was incapable of deciding whether it should/could ignore either order.
My view is :The Falkands/St.Helena/Gibraltar should be offered full membership of the U.K.;hence representation at Westminster.
@Radford NG 14th, 10:42
Yup. One has to ask, “If the French can do it, what are the insuperable problems our government sees?”
Ostrich (occasionally)
The insuperable problem is that our government is composed of a majority of Bennies.
By the way, the full gravitas of Hollywood’s Thomas Jefferson has just been brought to bear on the question: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2100858/Sean-Penn-blasts-UK-refusing-hand-Falkland-Islands-Argentina.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE9r6VA-Qmo&feature=related
THE DEVONSHIRE CAROL
The lambkin in the manger the light upon the lea
The moorland yields to glory the shepherd bends the knee
And all are wrapped in grace and all are gifted mirth
Peace walks upon this blessed land
Peace walks upon this blessed land
Peace walks upon this blessed land
Goodwill upon all Earth
The ploughboy at his traces, the line upon the land
Holds gifts by Nature’s graces her bounty to command
And all are wrapped in grace and all are gifted mirth
Peace walks upon this blessed land
Peace walks upon this blessed land
Peace walks upon this blessed land
Goodwill upon all Earth
Tommy in the meadow, Tommy in the byre
Tommy on the firestep, Tommy on the wire
And those who walked in war and those who walked in peace
And those who walked this blessed land
And those who walked this blessed land
And those who walked this blessed land
Their souls shall never cease.
Stand to, me bonny lads, stand to and make you ready
Stand to, me bonny lads, hold the line right steady
Let bright bands rule the flame, this day shall bear your name
Stand to, me bonny lads, hold the line right steady
And those who walked in war and those who cherished peace
And those who walked this blessed land
And those who walked this blessed land
And those who walked this blessed land
Their souls shall never cease.
Sean Penn, with his latest utterances, clearly shows himself to be an ignorant fool, doesn’t he?
Sean Penn made an utterance that was reported? Why? Who do I contact, as my cat has some interesting opinions that deserve a wider audience.
SP seems to believe that a British presence on the Falkland Islands is ‘colonialism’. He hasn’t seen fit to explain just who he believes we are colonising; perhaps he’s representing the penguins liberation front?
If they were Muslims on the Falklands, then Sean Penn would support them. They’d be Palestinian brethren.
Warsi! Notice how carefully positioned it all is, no doubt straight out of Dave’s Carlton TV spinning days.
Let’s get Warsi, who the public despises, to stand up for religion, which they want to hear more about.
It’s so transparent.
And so nauseating.
My slogan “Verity’s cat for president of Argentina!” seems to have been “moderated” – is this a first instance on this refuge from the Old Wall?
Perhaps I need to explain myself in a longer post than the “disappeared”. Verity above asks in sarcastic astonishment “Sean Penn made an utterance that was reported?” and suggests that her cat also has much to say which would be of equal interest to the reading public.
What is noteworthy, and is the only thing noteworthy, about Sean Penn’s views however is that they were expressed in the context of an audience with president Kirchner of Argentina and thereby became a significant political, and I would say hostile, act.
I have no doubt that Verity’s cat has been properly educated and brought up. I therefore have confidence that as president of Argentina the feline would on the subject of the Falklands at least express sound, robust opinions which would not be entirely popular in Buenos Aires, but which might be more historically and democratically accurate than those of the present incumbent. As it has been in Mexico for some time now, and may even have been born and educated there, there would be an added bonus that puss would be able to address the Argentine people in their own language rather than that of the Malvinas.
I’ve not moderated it. I can’t see it waiting to be moderated either. I can only imagine that for some reason or other it nevr reached the server safely.
Do try again. If I moderate a post I will certainly contact the person concerned, but I have no intention of moderating things at present.
The country is falling apart and Camoron gets his MSM lackeys to fill the airwaves and column inches with guff from ‘Baroness’ (failed to get elected as an MP) Warsi and is going to tax everybody’s drink.
Do you see how he did that? Waited for the VAT rise to go out of the (fiddled) inflation figures and then taxed everyone some more under the phoney pretext he’s stopping underage drinking.
He’s a PR spiv. And, underneath all his huskie-loving flufiness, a spiteful one at that.
Peter
Actually, it was up for a short while – posts go up here with admirable speed.
****
There is an article in the DT today on David Hockney and Picasso by Martin Gayford, sometime art critic of the Spectator. I very much enjoyed Paul Johnson’s regular column in that magazine, though he was disparaging of Picasso.
Accepting at face value the introduction to the Old Wall in the Spectator which invited suggestions, I posted there asking the editor to commission a debate between the two writers on the merits and demerits of Picasso. Unfortunately, the proposal was never taken up and nothing published. Since no man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money, there is no chance of seeing their exchange of views on the subject here – but what a pity!
From a blog called Sister Toldjah and reposted from Chicago Boyz … It looks like pc nazi-creep is going on in schools in the US as well …
http://sistertoldjah.com/archives/2012/02/14/nc-nanny-state-watch/
Is anyone in contact with Nicholas who used to post on the old Wall? I used to enjoy his contributions.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/9082439/Parents-of-Stephen-Lawrence-killers-could-face-investigation.html
What puzzles me about this is; if someone is convicted after pleading not guilty, then the jury are disbelieving the defence case. They are, bluntly, calling the defence witnesses liars.
So how common is it to prosecute the witnesses in an unsuccessful defence for perjury?
Peter
I also hope that Nicholas continues to post here – but perhaps he needs the grist of a troll…
Ha ha! From DT comments:
_________________________
willis579
Yesterday 11:09 PM
If you translate “Sean Penn has a point ” in Spanish back to English it reads,
“Sean Penn is a prick ”
Fancy that !!
Ah so this is where the wall has moved to…… took me a while to find it.
So do you think that The mighty UK could actually win the Falklands again. it was a close run thing last time. Will the US let you use there base. Perhaps you could just print more money and buy the place off them, Japan does this a lot.
I did laugh at this, Living in America I wish they would let it go
http://youtu.be/mFFM3Ui4Xvw
Sax, the Falklands is a British possession. We’ve had it before Argentina was invented. Someone suggested yesterday and I think it is a good idea, that we do as France does, and make all our small possessions an actual part of Britain. We could call them … oh …. shires. That would be Malta, Gibraltar, the Falklands, etc.
Another by-product of the above suggestion would be that all these people would have the right of British citizens to vote in British elections and this may balance out some of the islamic swill who, although not citizens, have an inexplicable right to vote in our elections.
David Cameron should deal with this bizarre circumstance, which doesn’t apply in any other country in the world.
Yes. Where is Nicholas?
Malta is an independent republic. Or as independent as any EU country can be.
Dean, didn’t know the finer points of Malta’s status.
RE: The Lawrence perjury file
Prosecutions for perjury on the witness stand are very rare but they do happen in high profile cases to try to put fear into the public not to ever try it themselves. It certainly gets tongues wagging. Remember Jeffrey Archer? The authorities like the odd case like that.
This case is all about public opinion so if they think they can successfully prosecute they will.
And when they pursue the attackers of white people with as much vigour then, well, hell will freeze over.
What’s with this conflation of “atheist” or “secularist” with “socialist”? Not since my misspent youth have I dabbled with socialism, yet the advancing years have convinced me of two things: that the state should be there to protect its citizens from the malign intentions of other, and not much else, and that this life is all there is, live it to the full because their is no sky-being to answer to when its all over.
I don’t proselytise or otherwise make a fuss; I read Hitchens (god rest his soul!), Mills, Dawkins, et al as well as the Telegraph and the Spectator. I don’t personally believe that religion has anything to offer and should have no role to play in a civilised, 21st century society. That’s not militant, that’s the view that I have and I would hope that all of you would agree that I am entitled to hold. So can we please have less of the disparaging posts about atheists and secularists and our malign impact on society?
A passionate, well-researched article on Greece’s predicament by Peter Oborne today in the DT is worth reading if you’ve first taken your blood pressure pills. In the days when the classics were part of an Englishman’s education, we would have more people insisting that the British government support the Greek people against the EU.
Here’s a shocking fact from Mr. Oborne’s piece:
“…the fall in national output [of Great Britain] during the Depression – from peak to trough – was never more than 10 per cent. In Greece, gross domestic product is already down about 13 per cent since 2008, and according to experts is likely to fall a further 7 per cent by the end of this year. In other words, by this Christmas, Greece’s depression will have been twice as deep as the infamous economic catastrophe that struck Britain 80 years ago. ”
and he is mindful of what this means for the ordinary people in Greece.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/9084305/The-callous-cruelty-of-the-EU-is-destroying-Greece-a-once-proud-country.html
And who is Peter O’bore’s favourite British politician?
Unelected ‘Baroness’ Warsi. She tried to get elected as an MP and the public told her where to go.
How can O’bore bang on about Papademos being a parachuted-in politician when he writes so effusively about parachuted-in Warsi?
O’bore really is one of the slimiest characters in British journalism today and his Holy Joe veneer of morality just makes him an even bigger hypocrite.
Tulip seems to mistake the messenger, Peter Oborne, for the message, the parlous state of Greece under the EU Commission.
Speaking of messengers, I notice that Sean Penn moved on from Argentina to Uruguay where he was photographed arm in arm with the president there and saying that he thought it unthinkable that Prince William be sent to the Falklands.
Sean Penn last year opined that the Tea Party wished to lynch president Obama and called for Mr. Obama to visit the Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York. He had come out in support of Mr. Obama’s bid for the presidency in 2008 and one has to wonder to what extent he is, on his South American travels, an informal envoy of the White House.
An American view sympathetic to Britain’s position on the Falklands and damning of the Obama administration’s policy can be found at http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/02/15/obama-sending-wrong-message-on-the-falklands/
By implication, the article does increase concern at Great Britain’s run-down of its military in a world in which the USA has become less reliable.
No, I don’t support the eurozone or the European Union and I agree that it is a wicked, spiteful construct.
Peter O’bore is not the only person to have worked that out.
I am just pointing out that I am deeply suspicious of a man who’s always trying to cover himself with moral preening and pride.
I don’t need O’bore to tell me the Euro project is a disaster but I do need someone to explain how I am to take seriously anyone who writes trash like this:
“Warsi’s top-flight performance now puts her among the best four or five figures in David Cameron’s senior team and should earn her a top place in any Cameron cabinet.”
Just to repeat, Peter O’bore says he believes in democracy and so objects to parachuted-in Papademos, so why does he think parachuted-in Warsi deserves “a top place” in the cabinet.
It’s rank and gross hypocrisy.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1222601/PETER-OBORNE-Is-David-Cameron-making-catastrophic-mistake-Iain-Duncan-Smith.html#ixzz1mUpGFmE4
Dean (Feb 15th, 10:35)
You say that if someone is convicted after pleading not guilty, then the jury are disbelieving the defence case and that this puzzles you. They are, you say, – ‘calling the defence witnesses liars’.
I don’t think that is necessarily so. Just to take one perhaps over-simplified example, a defence witness may, quite truthfully say that he saw the accused on a bridge at 9 o’clock. The accused’s counsel may then point out that the alleged crime was committed not on the bridge, but at 9.05, in a house one mile away – and that there is no evidence that the accused was able to – or did – manage to get to the house in a mere 5 minutes. Counsel would argue that this casts substantial doubt on the accused’s guilt.
Been complaining about the weather in the UK (and Mexico)? Have a shufti at this:
http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/07/10341356-a-frozen-waterfall-and-other-surreal-photos-from-an-iced-over-germany
And if you’re thinking of joining Verity, South of the Border, take a look at this:
http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/american_studies/once_the_needle_goes_in_i.php
And for Chomsky watchers, Protein Wisdom blog, which is the process of a re-jig, leaves this little satirical tease to keep us amused while the decorators are in:
Extract:
>The protein wisdom interview: Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT. He is the author of dozens of books, including Power and Terror and Middle East Illusions. His book 9-11 was an international bestseller.
protein wisdom: “To borrow a question from David Barsamian, in recent years, the Pentagon and then the media have adopted the term ‘collateral damage’ to describe the death of civilians. Talk about the role of language in shaping and forming people’s understanding of events.”
Chomsky: “What do we say…?”
protein wisdom: “Sorry. Please talk about it.”
Chomsky: “Well, it’s as old as history. It has nothing much to do with language. Language is the way we interact and communicate, so, naturally, the means of communication and the conceptual background that’s behind it, which is more important, are used to try to shape attitudes and opinions and induce conformity and subordination. Not surprisingly, it was created in the more democratic societies. The first –”
protein wisdom: “– Wait, why ‘not surprisingly’?”
Chomsky: “I beg your pardon?”
protein wisdom: “You said, ‘not surprisingly, it was created in the more democratic societies.’ First, what is ‘it’? And second, why is it not ‘surprising’ that ‘it’ was created in more democratic societies?”
Chomsky: “You asked about the role of language in shaping and forming people’s understanding of events, did you not?”
protein wisdom: “I did indeed.”
Chomsky: “So then that’s the ‘it’ I refer to. Now, the first coordinated propaganda ministry –”
protein wisdom: “– Wait, time out, sorry. The ‘it’ refers to the role of language in shaping and forming people’s understanding of events…?”
Chomsky: “Yes, now if you’ll just let me –”
protein wisdom: “– So then, ‘it’ — the role of language in shaping and forming people’s understanding of events — has, and I’m quoting you now, ‘nothing much to do with language’?”
Chomsky: “Did I say that–?”
protein wisdom: “– Language has nothing much to do with language. I’m afraid you did, yes.”
Chomsky: “Oh. Well, skip that, then. It was just bullshit. The real answer is, that during World War I, the British Ministry of Information had the task, as they put it, of controlling the mind of the world. What they were particularly concerned with –”
protein wisdom: “– Sorry to interrupt again, but you understand the MI to have been using that phrase figuratively, correct?”
Chomsky: “Who’s this now?”
protein wisdom: “When the Ministry of Information talked of ‘controlling the mind of the world,’ they didn’t mean that literally, correct? — no ray guns for zapping people with mind-control beams or anything like that…”
Chomsky: “Oh heavens no –”
protein wisdom: “–because I have to ask, given your penchant for paranoid fantasy –”
Chomsky: “– I’m talking of a concentrated rhetorical effort to direct and control information flow. What they were particularly concerned with was the mind of America and, more specifically, the mind of American intellectuals. They thought that if they could convince American intellectuals of the nobility of the British war effort –”
protein wisdom: “– I’m sorry, here I go again interrupting you. But wouldn’t any set of intellectuals you’re able to reduce to a single mind — in this case, ‘the mind of American intellectuals,’ as you’ve characterized it — be anti-intellectual, almost by definition?”
Chomsky: “– excuse me?”
protein wisdom: “– that is, how can such a group, distinguished as it supposedly is by its systematic questioning of received wisdom — be reduced to a single mind without, in effect, deconstructing the entire concept of intellectualism?”
Chomsky: “– But, um, you see, if they could convince the American intellectuals of the nobility of the British war effort, then American intellectuals could succeed in driving the basically pacifist population of the United States, which didn’t want to have anything to do with European wars, rightly, into a fit of fanaticism and hysteria –”
protein wisdom: “– are you saying Americans shouldn’t worry about overseas wars, Dr. Chomsky? We should turn our backs on, say, extra-continental genocides, for example?–”
Chomsky: “– which would get them to join the war. The mind-control rays wouldn’t come until much much later — developed by Dow Corning, in fact, under a secret mandate from Nixon and the Israelis and Howard Hunt as a way to neuter the communists –”
protein widom: “–Okay, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’d like to go back to this question of language. Clearly, there’s a huge gap on the Iraq war between U.S. public opinion and the rest of the world. What is it, do you think, that makes the US population so susceptible to propaganda?”
Chomsky: “…and the, y’know, the whole Warren Commission. East Timor. Latin America. The CIA…”
protein wisdom: “Dr. Chomsky…?”
Chomsky: “Yes, sorry. That’s a good question. I don’t say it’s more susceptible to propaganda; it’s more susceptible to fear. It’s a frightened country. The reasons for this — I don’t, frankly, understand them, but they’re there –”
protein wisdom: “– Well, could it have something to do with insane, fanatical Islamic extremists — nihilists bent on returning the world to a pre-Enlightenment theocracy by way of the doomsday sword — declaring war on us, do you think?”
Chomsky: “– Islamic what now? Oh, no, no. You’re contemporizing. The reasons for this country’s fear go way back in American history. It probably has to do with the conquest of the continent, where you had to exterminate the native population; slavery, where you had to control a population that was regarded as dangerous, because you never knew when they were going to turn on you –”
protein wisdom: ” — yeah, that’s great stuff, Noam, but on September 12, 2001, not many of us were thinking about exterminating Indians or stringing Chris Tucker up in a tree. I mean, isn’t it possible that the very real spectacle of 9-11 is what ‘frightened’ the country into its current state of resolve, and lead to its government marshalling resources in its own defense — and not some vague, homogenized burden of collective cultural guilt? Which, how do we pick that up, by the way? Do they sprinkle it onto McDonald’s fries? How does that work, exactly…?”
Chomsky: “The last time the US was threatened was the War of 1812. Since then it just conquers others. And somehow this engenders a sense that somebody is going to come after us –”
protein wisdom: “– Who have we ‘conquered’? Really. I mean, that sounds so Hessian. Or is it Prussian…?”*
Chomsky: “– So the country ends up being very frightened. There is a reason why Karl Rove is the most important person in the administration. He is the public relations expert in charge of crafting the images. So you can drive through the domestic agendas, carry out the international policies by frightening people and creating the impression that a powerful leader is going to save you from imminent destruction –”
protein wisdom: “– Ask the Spanish about those ‘images,’ why don’t ya –”
Chomsky: “– The Times virtually says it because it’s very hard to keep hidden. It is second nature.”
protein wisdom: “What is second nature?”
Chomsky: “It.”
protein wisdom: “Ah, yes. Next question: One of the new lexical constructions that I’d like you to comment on is ’embedded journalists.'”
Chomsky:
protein wisdom: “Please.”
Chomsky: “That’s an interesting one. It is interesting that journalists are willing to accept it. No honest journalist would be willing to describe himself or herself as ’embedded.’ To say, ‘I’m an embedded journalist'” is to say ‘I’m a government propagandist.’ But it’s accepted. And it helps implant the conception that anything we do is right and just; so therefore, if you’re embedded in an American unit, you’re objective. Actually, the same thing showed up, in some ways even more dramatically, in the Peter Arnett case. Peter Arnett is an experienced, respected journalist with a lot of achievements to his credit. He’s hated here precisely for that reason. The same reason Robert Fisk is hated.”
protein wisdom: “Uh huh. Be honest now: does what you just said make any sense to you?”
Chomsky: [laughs] “Ok, you got me –”
protein wisdom: [laughing] “– because, y’know, cuckoo cuckoo!”
Chomsky: “– thought maybe I could slip that one by…”
protein wisdom: “Now. You were an active and early dissident in the 1960s opposing US intervention in Indochina. You have now the perspective of what was going on then and what is going on now. Describe how dissent has evolved in the United States. Please.”
Chomsky: “Actually, there was another article in the New York Times that describes how the professors are antiwar activists, but the students aren’t. Not like it used to be, when the students were the antiwar activists. What the reporter is talking about is that around 1970 — and it’s true — by 1970 students were active antiwar protesters. But that’s after eight years of a U.S. war against South Vietnam, which by then had extended to all of Indochina, which had practically wiped the place out. For years, though, even in a place like Boston, a liberal city –”
protein wisdom: “– the hell you say –”
Chomsky: “– you couldn’t have public meetings against the war because they would be broken up by students, with the support of the media. You would have to have hundreds of state police around to allow speakers like me to escape unscathed. The protests came after years and years of war. By then, hundreds of thousands of people had been killed, much of Vietnam had been destroyed –”
protein wisdom: “– like you said would happen in Afghanistan –”
Chomsky: “– But all of that is wiped out of history, because it tells too much of the truth –”
protein wisdom: “– how ‘wiped out of history,’ exactly? I mean, you just retold it here. And I’m sure this isn’t the first time you’ve trotted it out, either.”
Chomsky: “Figure of speech.”
protein wisdom: “I see. Kinda expect more precise language from a linguist, though –”
Chomsky: “– moving on, it involved years and years of hard work of plenty of young people, mostly young, which finally ended up getting a protest movement.”
protein wisdom: “And that’s a more effective dynamic, in your estimation — having students involved, moreso than having the movement run by the old guard, the professors (many of them alumnists of those Vietnam era protests), as is happening today…?
Chomsky: “Well, who would you rather bang after a long day of shouting rhythmic slogans and carrying heavy cardboard signs: a wide-eyed 18-year old whose pink breasts are still perky with idealism, or some grizzled old poli-sci hag with an Iron Butterfly tattoo on her sagging, wrinkled ass?”
protein wisdom: “I take it that was a rhetorical question…”
Chomsky: “‘f you say so.”
protein wisdom: “Last question: How many antiwar linguists do you suppose it takes to change a lightbulb?”
Chomsky: “How many what now? –”
protein wisdom: “Antiwar linguists. Like you, for example. How many of you would it take to change a lightbulb?”
Chomsky: “Hmm. Well, that would depend on what you mean by ‘change,’ I should think… ”
protein wisdom: “Exactly. You’re priceless, Noam. Don’t ever change.”<
Re: Prezza’s bid to become an elected police commissioner.
_________________
Shock and awe on a rush hour train heading south through Doncaster recently, when a member of the public tried to use his carriage’s lavatory facilities. Upon pressing the ‘open’ button, the door swished back to reveal none other than the seated form of the former Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, trousers around ankles.
Prezza immediately began bellowing ‘Shut the bloody door!’ The shocked member of the public tried to oblige, pressing the button to close the cubicle door. Unfortunately Prezza responded by jabbing the button from inside the lavatory, so the door slid back and forth, affording flashes of the incandescent politician every time.
The member of the public retreated down the carriage as increasingly bellicose epithets were hurled at him by the former Deputy Prime minister until one final, and successful jab of Prezza’s finger finally closed the door of the lavatory door on the whole sorry incident.
– ‘A flash in the can’, The Oldie, Feb 2012
much comment on the intellectualy malnourished Sean Penn. The talentless one is eager to see the Falklands returned to Argentina. Now then, the islands have been British since 1833 and as Texas was annexed by the United States in 1847 can we take it as read that the egregious Mr. P will be demanding the return of Texas to Mexico?
Mr Penn is a Californian. California was taken from Mexico in a blatant act of imperialist colonialism. Or was it colonialist imperialism?
Anyway, we must join hand-in-hand with our brothers, the oppressed, and let our battle cry be ‘Viva Pancho Villa!’
@Stephen Maybery
You might like this;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwh-h6pHN1Y
Someone should mention Hawaii to Sean Penn. What was that about “colonialist”? Oh, yeah, ‘cos it’s a “State” of the USA that doesn’t count. I love the smell of hypocrisy in the afternoon.
Nicholas … and Alaska. What rational reason is there for Alaska, which is attached to Canada, to be a US state, Sean Penn? Anchorage, which is certainly not the most northerly place in Alaska is around 2,500 miles from Seattle.
And what about Hawaii, state of phantom birth certificates?
Sorry to be away from the Wall for a while. I have had to go to London yesterday and today. At least today I was invited to lunch at the Carlton Club. Am I the only person without a London club? 🙁
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2101858/Scottish-Independence-David-Cameron-tell-Scotland-stronger-together.html Open prior to reading.
This illustrates everything I loathe about the repulsive, highly self-regarding and completely-distanced-from-realty David Shamoron of Hen’s Arse Hall.
A small breakfast table and TWO big boxes of Scots Porridge Oats set in the middle of the table. (Why? Doesn’t porridge usually get cooked in the kitchen? And why two boxes, unless to show the pack from two angles?) A HUGE pitcher of milk. One plate. One pretend eater at the table (Dave) pouring the giant caraffe of milk. Inexplicably, there are also two whole unopened packs of Scottish-made biscuits on an otherwise deserted breakfast table with the lone breakfaster manhandling his giant caraffe of milk.
Product placement for morons!
So many questions, so little time, but this illustration of Dave’s incompetence as a PR man and his reptilian lack of understanding of how British people live and act is aces. A pitcher holding probably two quarts of milk for one man miming eating porridge oats? And two boxes of porridge oats on the table? Does he think Scots cook porridge at the breakfast table?
And the Scottish lady inexplicably also seated at the table, regarding him with ill-disguised, bored cotempt is my favourite. David Shamorron has found his Gordon Brown/Mrs Duffy moment!!
P from M – No. I don’t have one either.
Verity/Nicholas
But remember – Penn is mightier than the sword. And next time I speak to Governor Palin, Alaska about your whimsical assertion.
London club? I used to own one – it was made of lawful lignum vitae. Useful to have handy, but rarely had to use it. There were many other more suitable ‘accommodations’.
Good to see your welcome prose Nicholas; how about a proper post? Looking forward to it with great anticipation. Add some gravitas to the proceedings.
Bruce F (12.07)
Dickhead (ex) Deputy-Dawg in diesel dunny dumps on Doncaster, en passant, eh? Charming! Shut that dow-wer!
Frank P 17:25 – Por favor, explicar ! I suspect something to do with Up-Against-The-Office-Door Prescott, but don’t get the “diesel” bit. Has he met a Doncaster diesel dyke he’s trying to convert? What? What?
Oh Dear. What can he matter be;
One ‘old labour’ unlocked in the lavatory
He was there for everyone there to see.
Yes, everyone saw he was bare.
Verity – diesel train?? Dunny – dumper?? Catch up gal, you don’t usually miss the train. 🙁
Frank P 17:56 – Don’t get it. Is diesel dyke just an American term?
I would be very grateful if Nicholas would consider sending me a proper blog post, and if Frank P would consider writing another.
P from M, may I respectfully suggest that you ask Boudicca, a supporter of UKIP and a splendid writer, to bung us some occasional thoughts. She always gets tons of responses when she joins political discussions on any of The Telegraph’s blogs. She is a cool, lucid, rational writer and a pleasure to read.
Camoron’s Scottish photo opportunity!
I’ve laughed like a drain all day.
Dewey-eyed pose in front of painting of man in kilt. It’s actually an illustration off a box of porridge. It would be sad if we broke up the Union! Ah ha, like it’s a fairy story. “I feel sad.” How pathetic.
And the photo in the canteen. The expression on the face of the worker sat opposite him. Where the other photos were cheesiness, this was unintended truth. A pampered imbecile pretending to care for his subjects, having a bowl of ‘hearty’, as the advertising spivs call it, porrididge.
Please vote for independence Scotland, it will give all the UK the political enema it needs. No more LibLabCon.
And then when I thought I wouldn’t stop laughing, Chris Huhne refused to get in the dock and had to be yelled at by the beak.
What did he think this was? Prosecution-lite, because I’m an MP?
We’re not really prosecuting you, Huhne. It’s like the PR photo op stunts you and Camoron like pulling. Don’t stand in the dock to give the worst possible impression to the press gallery, stage manage it so you’re sat in the well of the court beside your barrister. Who the hell does he think he is?
What’s the betting the wife will refuse to give evidence over and above what she said to the Sunday Times and so won’t go into the witness box and that he’ll give evidence to say “Look, she didn’t mean it, she was upset. She doesn’t want to have to answer for comments like that in a court of law that were just mean to harm my career”?
Acquittal to follow, trebles all round for the lawyers, he’ll be wasting money on windmills again within a year?
Astute observations, Tulip. You have a keen eye and a rational mind. Agree that the Huhne charade looks suspiciously to me like a set up for an aquittal. But let’s watch it unfold – the ’emails’ may be crucial. In any case it may be difficult to find 12 good men/women and true who don’t hate speed cameras more than they hate – er – eccentric (in more ways than one) politicians. And it’s at least an even bet that someone on the panel will be muttering sotto voce, “There but for the grace of God…”
And how did the CPS not realise that it would be a terrible waste of public money to bring to court Harry Rednapp, a jovial popular manager of one of London’s most successful football teams, on an alleged tax evasion case when the country is having it’s arse taxed off by a government that uses the extortionate tax revenue to subsidise ‘the poor’ of countries that hate our guts – and to support the Muslim Brotherhood ‘rebels’ across the Middle East (who, once they get their hands on the levers power will be yelling, “Kill the pigs and infidels” and then doing just that)? A no brainer, if ever I saw one. Pour encourager les autres, I suppose? If so, that misfired, too, didn’t it?
In the meantime gangsters roam the streets of Britain without too much hindrance from the long arm of the law and Abu Qaturda gives us the finger of derision as we feed him and his family and supply him with legal aid to take the piss out of us. Funny Old World.
Verity (18.16)
You obviously missed Andy Car Park’s account, at 12.07 above, of ‘Lord’ Tosspot caught in flagrante deshitto. door unlocked, on a diesel train passing through Doncaster.
WDGTDWI?
btw the equivalent of diesel dyke in the UK is bull dyke, as I’m sure you are aware. You are a tease.
From The Telegraph, 17 Feb, regarding the sentencing of the islamic panty bomber about to land in Detroit, who went into the loo as the plane descended to perform a “ritual cleansing” before setting off his underwear, “After performing a ritual cleansing in the airplane’s bathroom, he returned to his seat and attempted to ignite the device he carried in his underwear. However, it produced smoke and small flames but did not cause any serious damage. ”
Except, presumably, to the content of the jihadi’s panties. Anyway, to have a good time in prison, he’ll have to learn to turn the other cheek.
Comment would be superfluous, but he’s been banged up for life
Frank P writes: “btw the equivalent of diesel dyke in the UK is bull dyke, as I’m sure you are aware. You are a tease.”
They used to be called bull dykes in the US too. I assume the change in nomenklature was brought about by animal rights activists.
Someone just sent us this. Frighteningly, it seems to me that it applies just as much to the British education system as it does to that in America. –
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid949801312001?bckey=AQ~~%2cAAAACEco_Vk~%2c9bOat4XcfB_88ri1a3UMdKnLpH9aM8Fv&bclid=0&bctid=1271237687001
“Gabriel comments that “anyone who voices his or her opinion contrary to ‘politically correct think’ is immediately tagged” a “racist” or “bigot” and that this has resulted in a “social paranoia which discourages free thought and expression.””
And haven’t we just seen that precisely at work at the old Spectator Coffee House. It was the very essence of the collective troll-borne attack that all regular commentators there are racists and bigots. Even the editor Fraser Nelson, with his attenuated sensitivity to the subject, seems to have succumbed to that. Will the truth about the attacks on the Coffee House and why it was closed ever be known? Probably neather.
Nicholas
The possibility did occur to me that the troll attacks were in part an inside job, especially with the appearance of “Eddie” in December, permitting the magazine to present the closure of the Wall as an act of exasperation.
Cui bono?
Bruce F (ACP) Feb 16th, 12:07
The train song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEv6dqVPLSM
Malfleur ,Feb 17th, 10:00
I agree, it stinks.
“Cui bono?” The so called “moderators” ?
The yanks bought Louisiana from the French in 1803? The French then used the money to wage war on the English.
Time Wilson on souther accents: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4-n7Sfzt-M
Ostensibly, the Wall had to be closed because it overstretched moderatorial ‘resources’.
Odd then that a post from Patsy Shaw (15.02.12 12:56, Douglas Murray/Baroness Warsi) consisting of fabricated quotes from the Talmud, the fraudulence of which takes less than a minute to trace, retains pride of place in the comment thread after nearly 48 hours.
One can only surmise that those busy beaver moderators, worn clean out by the profanities on the Wall, have yet to get their lazy arses out of bed to expunge filth lower than the blood libel. But perhaps we shouldn’t worry too much. No doubt procedures are in place.
Malfleur – there was something suspicious about how things developed when ‘Eddie’ first appeared. He dished out some incredible ad hominem stuff whilst alleging that he was only “reciprocating”. He was, but the comments he objected to were fairly mild by comparison with his own efforts. A review of his posts revealed derogatory, ad hominem comments about anyone who disagreed with him in almost every one. When I tried a few ‘test’ complaints the offensive posts remained up. My fairly harmless limerick about Eddie’s capacity to dish out ad hominem comments but not to receive them disappeared almost at once. I noticed that he, like others, specifically seemed to target those regular commentators (probably) deemed most prolific in posting right wing counters or challenges to the cant we are daily fed. And he did so, exactly like the other trolls, by characterising them in hyperbolic pejoratives as extremists, nutters, etc., by attributing beliefs to them that they had not even expressed. In other words to perpetuate the current media trend of invalidating and marginalising unwanted opinion by characterising it as being beyond the acceptable pale even when it clearly is not.
Then the ad hominem exchanges seemed to be characterised by the Spectator staff as “six to one, half a dozen to the other”. They weren’t, IMHO, and they seemed unable to distinguish between the very personal attacks that presumed beliefs by people which had never been expressed and those more generally directed against specific political views and/or political figures. By being so vehemently anti-left and prepared to express it there I became de facto, a class oppressor, a ‘racist, a ‘bigot’, a ‘fascist’, a supporter of Pinochet, a ‘revanchist’, ‘unreasonable’, etc. On the aggressive atheist front opposition to Eddie meant one was an Christian fundamentalist nutter.
Eddie proclaimed himself a writer of “articles” and I did wonder if he was a Spectator staffer or someone with some influence over the magazine or its Editor. I used to enjoy the Spectator as a rational, reasoned, broad-minded and mature conservative haven amongst so much leftist dross but I have to say the whole Coffee House Wall business has left me feeling pretty disgusted with it. They seemed to have bought in to the whole modern media shrill hysteria and trivia nonsense. The way the Shaws were allowed to peddle their own bigotry and make their intimidating threats, then practically have the last word, the proliferation of lefty staffers, the absence of honest and robust ” call it like it is” journalism – about Neathergate for example – and the apparent effectiveness of the leftist trolls in disrupting things and raising the “offence” ante made it intriguing as to what exactly was going on behind the scenes.
I think there is a definite threat to freedom of expression in this country and the way the law has been developed – badly from New Labour’s overtly PC nimbyism – panders to the troublemakers and those who want to shut down debate on the basis of being “offended”. The whole “Don’t shout fire in a crowded theatre” gambit begun by the likes of Hoon. It must be fairly easy now to intimidate a relatively low circulation magazine like the Spectator by the threat of the police since any complaint, however malicious or frivolous, appears to be acted upon. The police seem to have abandoned the light hand due diligence of making discreet enquiries first before sending out the heavy hand ‘Brazil’ SWAT team of 20 masked, overalled thugs to break down doors and make arrests. For example I noticed after making a few disparaging posts about him that it become impossible to include the words “Tariq” and “Ali” in a comment at the Wall.
Nicholas:
Rod Liddle has a piece running entitled ‘Authoritarianism in action’.
I attempted to post something pointing out the case of the 179 alleged EDL members who were arrested coming out of a pub after one of them had tweeted that they were going to St Paul’s to attack the ‘Occupy’ camp.
My post, which contained no obscenities or racist language, never appeared.
Irony is a word much misused these days.
First, this morning, may I pass on a piece from my naughty niece who regularly, though mostly unsuccessfully, attempts to encourage me about the possible benefits of senior citizenship:
http://biggeekdad.com/2011/01/senior-olympic-synchronized-swimming/
It is well worth the four minutes of your time to view the clip and a round of virtual applause to the participants, God love ’em!
Frank P … Many, many thanks! That was wonderful! Is duly winging its way all over the place! Great laugh to start the day!
Nicholas and Malfleur
I learned this morning from a source that has hitherto been utterly impeccable that the Shavian troll/s mob has been traced and identified. Not surprisingly it is a ‘he’ (with associates) not a ‘she’ and has a real name that indicates Hellenic origins. I deduce that it may account for the predominance of Greek sobriquets among the trolls who persistently attacked the ‘other’ CH Wall (and apparently other blogs and the Twitterati – I don’t frequent the latter, so I wouldn’t know).
So Mr ‘NH’ – we know who you are – and where you are – so perhaps you’d now like to STFU! You’re being very silly and some people may take very serious offence.”
The answer may be Duuuuh! but how to you subscribe to this site?
Melanie reviews her own last appearance on Question Time in Plymouth and is saddened by ‘Middle England’s’ attitude to the Iranian threat:
http://melaniephillips.com/middle-britains-amoral-drift
Extract:
” … Yet the last question was a bouncer. A woman asked whether, “since Israel has many more nuclear weapons than Iran”, we should agree with President Obama’s statement that no option (in other words, war with Iran) should be ruled out.
The question was based on an astonishing premise. In presenting such symmetry between Israel and Iran, it equated aggressor and victim.
For the reason Israel possesses nuclear weapons is to defend itself against attempted genocide. And one reason why Iran is racing to develop nuclear weapons is to fulfil the aim it repeatedly announces – to perpetrate genocide against Israel.
The premise was thus an odious one. Yet the audience cheered the absurd assertion that we couldn’t believe anything said about the menace of Iran since we’d been told lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
The question is how “Middle Britain” has come to nod along with such a disgusting symmetry. And behind that lies the deeper question of how, with all evidence pointing to an imminent nuclear Iran, and with the Iranian terrorist-supporting regime waging a self-declared war against the west, people remain seemingly oblivious to the threat it poses not just to Israel but to the world. …”
I completely concur with her dismay. Read it all, please.
Btw, she is another who has been plagued by the “Shaw” nutter.
Rod Liddle has another piece up called ‘British jobs for foreign workers’.
My comment was the first. Now it has been removed.
Is there some sort of blacklist at the Spectator? Was it something I said?
The urgency with which we must try to sweep away LibLabCon was illustrated today be Trevor Phillips equating Christianity with Islam.
Remember the bonfire of the quangos?
I know we all know, but it’s worth repeating. Phillips is unelected, earns £200,000 per year and has government work outsourced to a ‘consultancy’ he owns, which costs the taxpayer countless thousands more.
Nice non-job if you can get it.
Tulip; how does one ‘sweep away LibLabCon’?
This is not a rhetorical point, I’d really like to know.
Dean, you can try not voting for them, which I think more people need to have the courage to do.
Or – and this I think is a more realistic option – you can grab the thin end of a wedge, when it presents itself, and use that to undermine the status quo.
We have already seen one of those pass us by in the shape of the AV referendum. We know how the British vote in European elections, the voting system of which is not far away from AV and we find LibLabCon are seriously punished.
The golden opportunity that now presents itself is the vote on Scottish independence. Success would re-draw the political map completely and see a melting down of LibLabCon as people realised the old compromises with people they’d rather not have in their camp were no longer needed.
I say this with admiration for the people of Scotland for having caught Labour out. Labour never thought they would see an SNP majority in Holyrood or they’d never have let them have independence.
I believe national autonomy would concentrate voters’ minds in England in a not dissimilar fashion.
Ten years ago nobody would have believed a tiny Scottish party could have done all this.
I am not a Scot and have no ties to the place. Likewise, I’m not especially interested in proportional representation. I’m interested in how we can get the job done. If we see a means to an end, we must seek to exploit it and play the politicians at their own game.
I merely seek a template for how we can sweep away LibLabCon. When I see with my own eyes what has happened in Scotland, what else am I to think?
Some sort of break with the established parties clearly is possible and I hope Salmond delivers for Scotland and for all of us.
Thanks for a considered reply – I’ll think about that.
We need to sweep away the destructive Trevor Phillips whose intellectual capacity would not earn him a place in in middle management in a company.
He is what the Americans used to call a “token”.
Quite apart from his lack of intellectual ballast, he is a nasty piece of work. I think he was judged intellectually inadequate some decades ago, but he had the feral slyness to put himself about as a token.
He’s repulsive to look at, although I realise that isn’t his fault … except that his face reflects his upptiness.
An interesting post, Tulip. I would be sorry to see the United Kingdom break up just to teach Labour (I include Cameron’s “Tories” in this description) a lesson.
I would rather see people develop the sudden sense to vote for UKIP and hose David Cameron and his cohorts down the drain.
Frank P and Nicholas
Interesting comments on the Spectator troll affair; thank you.
*****
One aspect of the intrusion of islamic ideology into civil and political society was reflected last year in the concerns expressed over the widespread provision of “halal” food without the knowledge of the consumer. A similar debate, but from a different angle, is being conducted in the USA over the Obama administration’s efforts to require the Roman Catholic Church to take out insurance against the risk of practices which it opposes.This blog and comments illuminates the issue and its contradictions created by the American nanny state: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/02/17/ham-catholic-religious-freedom-contraception-obamacare/
In Great Britain, a large part of the problem, if not a conscious wish to demolish our culture in the interests of political control, perhaps springs from a sense of inadequacy on the part of our political class when they measure the country against the USA. “America is a melting pot of cultures and strong for that reason; Great Britain should be a melting pot of cultures and we will become strong again”, its subconscious tells it, and by this fallacious tube which informs its policies and its ideology gives birth to the non-British Britain – the DisUnited States of Britain.
The Spectator trolls were often, in my view, a skirmishing line of the misconceived army which has been assembled and thrown into action in recent years against the best in our political and cultural life.
Dean/Tulip
This might give you some ideas about what can be done: I know they’re talking about US politics, but the broad principles obtain throughout the West:
http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/5minute_arguments/conservatives_sharpen_you.php
Thanks for that Frank P. I am completely open-minded about how LibLabCon can be undermined and if anyone else can spot chinks in the armour of the political machine, do air your views.
On the censorship front, I’d say free speech is under attack as never before. We see armies of Left-wing trolls out and about trying to smear blogs and individuals, alongside them is a mainstream media that has seen its power diluted by the web and, even people who you thought might be more decent, want sterner laws on Twitter and so on. I don’t use Twitter but I don’t see why it needs censoring.
Finally, I’m sure some of you will have seen this story already, but if you haven’t, it’s one more illustration of how our masters laugh at us behind their electric gates.
Their top priority is the prosecution of Emma West. Tells you all you need to know (I wonder if Emma West can afford the counsel employed by Harry Redknapp?)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2102895/East-Europeans-create-crimewave-capital-revealed-responsible-11-000-offences-year.html
Tulip (09:03)
Amazing statistics from the DM piece, thank you. The paragraph that really caught my eye was this one:
“A UK Border Agency spokesman said: ‘Any foreign national offender sentenced to more than 12 months in prison is automatically recommended for deportation.”
Shouldn’t that read ‘Any foreign national convicted of a criminal offence is automatically deported’?
Why the qualifications? ‘Recommendations’ from front line law enforcement agencies are invariably ignored by the Judges these days and, it seems, a 12 month sentence is now only imposed after a list of previous convictions and a variety of other lenient measures have been tried.
Any foreign national convicted of any criminal offence should be automatically deported. Period! In fact we are reaching the point where even indigenous repeat offenders should be considered for transportation. I can’t see the Ozzies wanting them any more, but surely HM still has sovereignty over some barren territory, somewhere on the planet, where ‘facilities’ could be built?
For several decades now governments of both stripes (I suppose I should say all three stripes, if you count the LimpDems as anything other than a short-term prosthetic) have betrayed the sharp end coppers and their Bramshill- brainwashed senior officers have colluded in that betrayal.
Those holding the Office of Constable (of all ranks) have been stripped of their power to enforce the law and their prosecutorial powers have been usurped by a band of second rate lawyers who weren’t good enough to make it in a partnership or chambers and who have their heads buried in the Neather (sic) regions of the activist/politicians. Now they are threatening the populace of England with another overlay of interference in the shape of wastrels and failed politicians, such as the gross figure of Lard Prezza of Gobbledegook as ‘Police Commissioners’. Does one have to even ask why the members of the criminal class are ROTFLTFAO?
This is it Frank P.
The lawyers are pushing a political agenda, as lawyers always have done, but never with so much success and so much Gramscian intent.
The wording is designed to look as if deportation will happen, but as you point out, it is ‘recommended for’ that stops that happening. A whole new legal process must take place for that to happen and deportations, although they do happen, are as rare as hen’s teeth.
The Establishment has the whole thing sewn up like some Kafkaseque nightmare. You think you’re getting somewhere and then no, the system sends you up another blind alley.
The Telegraph finds council houses being sub-let for thousands by ‘poor’ tenants.
It is only just about to be made a criminal offence (why?), but has been a civil offence for years.
I found out why the councils themselves don’t police this sub-letting properly themselves last summer when my niece came back from a room she had viewed. The room and the cottage were picture perfect, the same with the view at the back.
But the landlord was very young. What was he doing in a two-bedroom picture postcard cottage in an oh-so desirable postcode? Lottery winner? Inherited it?
No. He had worked in the council’s housing dpeartment and bagged this place for himself and was shamelessly sub-letting it. The council had plenty of wonderful homes like this – but not if you’re dim enough to work.
The staff in council housing offices have for years refused to put the spotlight on this practice because it’s been such a nice little earner for so many of them. And we don’t want to go throwing out the public sector baby with all the other bathwater, do we?
So they bury it.
It’s just another part of our completley corrupt system of local government. It would need a federal syle Elliot Ness unit to arrive unannounced in local government offices to clean it all up.
Look at this fraudster:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/news/9089813/The-Olympic-council-flats-for-5000-a-week.html
This one from Stratfor should be of interest to Verity in particular, but the ramifications go wider than her current domicile:
Meth in Mexico: A Turning Point in the Drug War?
By Ben West | February 16, 2012
Mexican authorities announced Feb. 8 the largest seizure of methamphetamine in Mexican history — and possibly the largest ever anywhere — on a ranch outside of Guadalajara. The total haul was 15 tons of pure methamphetamine along with a laboratory capable of producing all the methamphetamine seized. While authorities are not linking the methamphetamine to any specific criminal group, Guadalajara is a known stronghold of the Sinaloa Federation, and previous seizures there have been connected to the group.
Methamphetamine, a synthetic drug manufactured in personal labs for decades, is nothing new in Mexico or the United States. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has led numerous crusades against the drug, increasing regulations on its ingredients to try to keep it from gaining a foothold in the United States. While the DEA’s efforts have succeeded in limiting production of the drug in the United States, consumption has risen steadily over the past two decades. The increasing DEA pressure on U.S. suppliers and the growing demand for methamphetamine have driven large-scale production of the drug outside the borders of the United States. Given Mexico’s proximity and the pervasiveness of organized criminal elements seeking new markets, it makes sense that methamphetamine would be produced on an industrial scale there. Indeed, Mexico has provided an environment for a scale of production far greater than anything ever seen in the United States.
But last week’s methamphetamine seizure sheds light on a deeper shift in organized criminal activity in Mexico — one that could mark a breakthrough in the violent stalemate that has existed between the Sinaloa Federation, Los Zetas and the government for the past five years and has led to an estimated 50,000 deaths. It also reveals a pattern in North American organized crime activity that can be seen throughout the 20th century as well as a business opportunity that could transform criminal groups in Mexico from the drug trafficking intermediaries they are today to controllers of an independent and profitable illicit market.
While the trafficking groups in Mexico are commonly called “cartels” (even Stratfor uses the term), they are not really cartels. A cartel is a combination of groups cooperating to control the supply of a commodity. The primary purpose of a cartel is to set the price of a commodity so that buyers cannot negotiate lower prices. The current conflict in Mexico over cocaine and marijuana smuggling routes shows that there are deep rifts between rival groups like the Sinaloa Federation and Los Zetas. There is no sign that they are cooperating with each other to set the price of cocaine or marijuana. Also, since most of the Mexican criminal groups are involved in a diverse array of criminal activities, their interests go beyond drug trafficking. They are perhaps most accurately described as “transnational criminal organizations” (TCOs), the label currently favored by the DEA.
Examples from the Past
While the level of violence in Mexico right now is unprecedented, it is important to remember that the Mexican TCOs are businesses. They do use violence in conducting business, but their top priority is to make profits, not kill people. The history of organized crime shows many examples of groups engaging in violence to control an illegal product. During the early 20th century in North America, to take advantage of Prohibition in the United States, organized criminal empires were built around the bootlegging industry. After the repeal of Prohibition, gambling and casinos became the hot market. Control over Las Vegas and other major gambling hubs was a business both dangerous and profitable. Control over the U.S. heroin market was consolidated and then dismantled during the 1960s and 1970s. Then came cocaine and the rise in power, wealth and violence of Colombian groups like the Medellin and Cali cartels.
But as U.S. and Colombian law enforcement cracked down on the Colombian cartels — interdicting them in Colombia and closing down their Caribbean smuggling corridors — Colombian producers had to turn to the Mexicans to traffic cocaine through Mexico to the United States. To this day, however, Colombian criminal groups descended from the Medellin and Cali cartels control the cultivation and production of cocaine in South America, while Mexican groups increasingly oversee the trafficking of the drug to the United States, Europe and Africa.
The Mexican Weakness
While violence has been used in the past to eliminate or coerce competitors and physically take control of an illegal market, it has not proved to be a solution in recent years for Mexican TCOs. The Medellin cartel became infamous for attacking Colombian state officials and competitors who tried to weaken its grasp over the cocaine market. Going back further, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel is thought to have been murdered over disagreements about his handling of the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. Before that, Prohibition saw numerous murders over control of liquor shipments and territory. In Mexico, we are seeing an escalating level of such violence, but few of the business resolutions that would be expected to come about as a result.
Geography helps explain this. In Mexico, the Sierra Madre mountain range splits the east coast and the west from the center. The Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean coastal plains tend to develop their own power bases separate from each other.
Mexican drug traffickers are also split by market forces. With Colombian criminal groups still largely controlling the production of cocaine in jungle laboratories, Mexican traffickers are essentially middlemen. They must run the gauntlet of U.S.-led international interdiction efforts by using a combination of Central American traffickers, corruption and street-gang enforcers. They also have to move the cocaine across the U.S. border, where it gets distributed by hundreds of street gangs.
Profit is the primary motivation at every step, and each hurdle the Mexican traffickers have to clear cuts into their profit margins. The cocaine producers in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia can play the Sinaloa Federation and Los Zetas (as well as others) off of each other to strengthen their own bargaining position. And even though keeping the traffickers split appears to create massive amounts of violence in Mexico, it benefits the politicians and officials there, who can leverage at least the presence of a competitor for better bribes and payoffs.
For Mexican drug traffickers, competition is bad for the bottom line, since it allows other actors to exploit each side to get a larger share of the market. Essentially, everyone else in the cocaine market benefits by keeping the traffickers split. The more actors involved in cocaine trafficking, the harder it is to control it.
The Solution
Historically, organized criminal groups have relied on control of a market for their source of wealth and power. But the current situation in Mexico, and the cocaine trade in general, prevents the Mexican groups (or anyone) from controlling the market outright. As long as geography and market forces keep the traffickers split, all sides in Mexico will try to use violence to get more control over territory and market access. We assume that Mexico’s geography will not change dramatically any time soon, but market forces are much more temporal.
Mexican criminal organizations can overcome their weakness in the cocaine market by investing the money they have earned (billions of dollars, according to the most conservative estimates) into the control of other markets. Ultimately, cocaine is impossible for the Mexicans to control because the coca plant can only grow in sufficient quantity in the foothills of the Andes. It would be prohibitively expensive for the Mexicans to take over control of coca cultivation and cocaine production there. Mexican criminal organizations are increasing their presence in the heroin market, but while they can grow poppies in Mexico and produce black-tar heroin, Afghanistan still controls a dominant share of the white heroin market — around 90 percent.
What Mexicans can control is the methamphetamine market. What we are seeing in Mexico right now — unprecedented amounts of the seized drug — is reminiscent of what we saw over the past century in the infancy of the illegal liquor, gambling, heroin and cocaine markets: an organized criminal group industrializing production in or control of a loosely organized industry and using that control to set prices and increase its power. Again, while illegal methamphetamine has been produced in the United States for decades, regulatory pressure and law enforcement efforts have kept it at a small scale; seizures are typically measured in pounds or kilograms and producers are on the run.
Mexican producers have also been in the market for a long time, but over the past year we have seen seizures go from being measured in kilograms to being measured in metric tons. In other words, we are seeing evidence that methamphetamine production has increased several orders of magnitude and is fast becoming an industrialized process.
In addition to the 15 tons seized last week, we saw a record seizure of 675 tons of methylamine, a key ingredient of methamphetamine, in Mexico in December. From 2010 to 2011, seizures of precursor chemicals like methylamine in Mexico increased 400 percent, from 400 tons to 1,600 tons. These most recent reports are similar to reports in the 1920s of U.S. liquor seizures going from barrels to shiploads, which indicated bootlegging was being conducted on an industrial scale. They are also eerily similar to the record cocaine seizure in 1984 in Tranquilandia, Colombia, when Colombian National Police uncovered a network of jungle cocaine labs along with 13.8 metric tons of cocaine. It was the watershed moment, when authorities moved from measuring cocaine busts in kilograms to measuring them in tons, and it marked the Medellin cartel’s rise to power over the cocaine market.
A True Mexican Criminal Industry?
Anyone can make methamphetamine, but it is a huge organizational, financial and legal challenge to make it on the industrial level that appears to be happening in Mexico. The main difference between the U.S. labs and the Mexican labs is the kind of input chemicals they use. The U.S. labs use pseudoephedrine, a pharmaceutical product heavily regulated by the DEA, as a starting material, while Mexican labs use methylamine, a chemical with many industrial applications that is more difficult to regulate. And while pseudoephedrine comes in small individual packages of cold pills, methylamine is bought in 208-liter (55-gallon) barrels. The Mexican process requires experienced chemists who have mastered synthesizing methamphetamine on a large scale, which gives them an advantage over the small-time amateurs working in U.S. methamphetamine labs.
Thus, while methamphetamine consumption has been steadily growing in the United States for the past two decades — and at roughly $100 per gram, unpure methamphetamine is just as profitable on the street as cocaine — it is even more profitable for Mexican traffickers. Methamphetamine does not come with the overhead costs of purchasing cocaine from Colombians and trafficking valuable merchandise through some of the most dangerous countries in the Western Hemisphere. Precursor materials such as methylamine used in methamphetamine production are cheap, and East Asian producers appear to be perfectly willing to sell the chemicals to Mexico. And because methamphetamine is a synthetic drug, its production does not depend on agriculture like cocaine and marijuana production does. There is no need to control large swaths of cropland and there is less risk of losing product to adverse weather or eradication efforts.
For the Mexican TCOs, industrializing and controlling the methamphetamine market offers a level of real control over a market that is not possible with cocaine. We expect fighting over the methamphetamine market to maintain violence at its current levels, but once a group comes out on top it will have far more resources to expel or absorb rival TCOs. This process may not sound ideal, but methamphetamine could pick the winner in the Mexican drug war.
Frank P – Thanks for the link, but I find it utterly baffling.
‘Stop rushing to talk radio so the conservative host can try and convince you not to raise taxes in a recession, not interfere in children’s lunches, not break up families, not advance the goals of America’s enemies.’
He’s advising conservatives, right? Why would they need a conservative ‘shock jock’ to dissuade them?
‘Be a soldier for your views!’ ‘Don’t engage with lefties!’
It’s just confused.
Malfleur 00:27 a.m. Bingo. I have been saying this for years!
Re Mexico and drugs, I cannot comment because I don’t know enough about it, but I know for sure that the government of President Calderon is determined to conquer it and he is a very clever man (three degrees … one of them a Masters from . The most dangerous state in Mexico is contiguous with Jalisco (capital: Guadalajara) – Michoacan.
The President’s sister is standing for Governor of Michoacan. This is how committed the Mexican government is to cleansing the country of its drug trade. Mexico is between the major grower and supplier, Colombia, and the world’s major customer, the United States.
Obama doesn’t seem that committed to doing much about the customer side, possibly because of a warm interest in drugs in his younger years, so Mexico is fighting this battle alone.
President Calderon has a Master’s Degree in Economics, and a Second Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard. He is a brave and committed opponent of drugs.
Meant to type Master’s from Harvard.
Regarding Obama, let us not forget that he applied to an Ivy League (I believe it was Harvard … can’t be arsed to look it up) for a grant AS A THIRD WORLD STUDENT. On his Indonesian passport.
An American, entitled to the most powerful passport in the world, was travelling on an Indonesian passport. Because he, inexplicably, did not have an American passport. Although they were living in Indonesia, when he was old enough to have his own passport, his mother could have gone down to the American Embassy in Jakarta and applied for his US passport with his birth certificate proving he was born in the US. I wonder why she didn’t do that.
Dean (15:27)
It’s a p.o.v! Take from it what you want, or read the comments on the comment. Gerard summed it up neatly with both his headline and his later comment at 4:40pm on 16th Feb, imho. “Stealth and scopes!”
If you were to succinctly sum up what is needed in the UK in such clear terms, you could well get a knock at the door for inciting violence. OTOH, if you are a Muslim ‘cleric’ and you overtly incite others to violence and plan to ‘kill all the infidels’ and ‘wipe Israel off the map’, you get housed in a nice gaff somewhere in the ‘burbs, guarded around the clock by a combination of Funnies and the Plod and your large family of dependants is supplied with all it needs to live a comfortable life, as the ECHR has decreed. FMOBB!
I think myself that the message from that little debate is not too baffling. It’s “Do something!” rather than enter into polemics with the enemy. Sadly my active days are over for a numbers of reasons apart from old age, which is the most debilitating. But I would urge all young coppers, “Don’t take shit from your ‘superiors’ – enforce the law, best you can with the powers of arrest that remain – and when you are obstructed from doing your duty, or not provided with the scope and resources to carry it out effectively. Squeal! Loudly! Write en masse to the press (probably not the Murdoch press just at this moment in time, or you’ll get roped into that feckin’ Yard charade) but claim your right to police your patch without political hindrance – and then get on with it.”
It’s what I did before I hung my boots up – and despite some incoming flak – did it moderately successfully.
“If you are silent in order to facilitate your career, then your ‘career’ isn’t worth a J Arthur.” is what I say to all young coppers that I meet these days. But they have been told, in the equivalent of a Madrassa known as Peel House in Hendon NW9, that all policemen who served before 1982 were probably both racist and corrupt, so ignore their advice. Thus, when one fixes them with a glittering eye and offers sage counsel based on a lifetime of experience, the lip curls as they remember the wink and nod from Hendon Training School. In my young days, the cry used to be “All Coppers Are Bastards” (ACAB); the acronym tattooed on the fingers of recidivist blagsmen who knew to their cost that it was true. It was one way of spotting a CRO man, if you happened to miss the scent downwind. These days the slogan would be MCAFTLGTPA (and the old lags would have to use their toes as well as their fingers to get the message out). Perhaps I overstate the case a little? But we’re certainly headed in that direction – stand on me!
My posting (Feb 17th, – 04:30) linked to a site about the influence being bought by Saudi money over the U.S. education system.
Here’s another one. The expression The Third Jihad seems very apposite – http://www.thethirdjihad.com/about_new.php
It all makes me wonder what else Saudi money is financing.
There is, for example, a great outcry from ‘environmentalists’ against anything that might free the world from its excessive dependence on oil from the Middle East in general and from Saudi Arabia in particular.
Examples of this are the hysterical opposition to fracking for natural gas (which is a process that is growing in many parts of the world, & not just around Blackpool); the propaganda falsely accusing the rapidly growing Canadian Tar Sands industry (which produces oil) of causing excessive pollution; the opposition – supposedly on environmental grounds – to the building of a pipeline to carry oil from the Tar Sands to the southern USA; and similar opposition to building a pipeline to move oil from the Tar Sands to Canada’s west coast so that it can be shipped to China.
It was interesting to read that advertisements describing the product of the Canadian Tar Sands as “ethical oil” were reacted to by, if I recall correctly, official protests from Saudi Arabia.
It makes me wonder too – how much more western opinion is being swayed by, and how far are western politicians and institutions being influenced and bought by, and how deeply is the west being undermined by Saudi money? We should of course be careful not to be paranoid, but there does seem to be a pattern here.
To my mind both America and Britain need to free themselves not just from dependence on Middle Eastern oil, but from religiously motivated political brainwashing and national and cultural betrayals financed by Middle Eastern money – and perpetrated by far too many of their own people.
Saudi money is everywhere and, as we all know, there is such thing as a free halal lunch.
In Oxford, there used to be an Islamic study centre, which was a tiny little building.
Oxford – seen by the weak-minded as an intellectual and cultural fount – now has a massive, gleaming Islamic study centre, popular with the fashionable students taking Islamic studies there.
Thus the intellectual and cultural direction of country shifts in favour of You Know What.
It’s Wahhabi hush money.
They really are a piece of work.
Tulip, that’s funny. Exeter university has just opened one, too
http://socialsciences.exeter.ac.uk/iais/
This is a prime example of LibLabCon ‘all in it together’ (you bet they are).
This is about something fundamental. Labour tried it, but then backed down so who’s having a second go at it? The Conservatives.
I repeat, it’s fundamental. To use one of PJ O’Rourke’s three rules for living: never trade freedom for security, beause you’ll never get the first one back.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet/9090617/Phone-and-email-records-to-be-stored-in-new-spy-plan.html
When this becomes law, the LibLabCon dictatorship will all be patting each other’s backs at how they’ve hoodwinked us all again.
I’ve just managed to get this posted in the Spectator in response to strident malevolence from the Shaw and Pseudomachus syndicates. In case it’s removed I’m airing a revised & expanded revised here.
————————————————-
The problem of Iran
The most determinedly bloodthirsty populations in the world, with governments to match, are those in the Middle East. But they do not include the Israelis. Israelis are instead the first victims on their lists – with the rest of the world’s Infidels following closely behind.
About ten years ago, the world saw Muslim Pakistani terrorism against Hindu India bring the two countries to the very brink of nuclear war. There is no reason to imagine that Iran, once it has a nuclear bomb or two, will be any more restrained. To the Islamic mind, the existence of Israel and the desire to exterminate its population is an even stronger and adamantine compulsion than the Pakistani ambition to seize the whole of Kashmir.
Moreover, quite apart from the Islamic component, there is political instability in Iran itself. In circumstances like that , leaders (whether Islamic or not) have often tried to strengthen their regimes and to unite their populations by embarking on a foreign war. One of the more recent examples was General Galtieri’s Falklands adventure.
I’ve said it before. Annex the oilfields, pay them fair royalties. Foreign workers living in armed compounds. These people have a prolific paedophile for a prophet. Little six-year old Aisha was his favourite “wife” but far from the only one. And apart from the “wives”, there were the concubines. Read the q´ran. I am only quoting.
Really enjoyed reading the Stratfor article from Frank P. The proposed solution, if I read it correctly, seems to be to hope one side wins and enjoys a monopoly. I think “financial gravity” often works against monopolies in the long run.
Problem: Mexicans are shooting each other. They shooting each other because they are in an illegal business, and illegal businesses cannot use lawyers or the authorities to settle disputes.
Two possible solutions:
Solution 1. Ruin the business. Only one route – ruin demand. This would involve governments in consuming countries introducing hefty penalties for anyone in possession.
Problem: Most wetern nations run by cowardly low-quality types, who are scared of the first example of the son / daughter of a top-level politician getting 15+ years in the clink. Western politicians also follow the ridiculous religion that says people are not responsible for their actions, and it is the “evil drugs” which “harm communities” (Theodore Dalrymple for one has dismissed this nonsense – scum are scum, and drug-addicted criminals were criminals before they were addicts.)
Solution 2. Tell the drug barons they can operate freely if they give up the violence. Tell police chiefs they can take as many bribes as they like if they “unofficially mediate” on behalf of the state to ensure there is no violence on their patch. Bring the full weight of the armed forces on any who don’t play along.
Possible problem: politically incorrect, and may cause problems in relations with US, with “nasty, evil” narcotics still flowing out of the country to turn nice, placid western idiots into one-man crime waves etc etc.
Question: Is the above really a problem? Why should Mexico give a toss what the US thinks? How many billions is the US in debt to Mexico? $30bn a few years ago, but that has probably grown – who is the master here?
Verity says President Calderon is a clever man, and he also went to Harvard – which produced a certain retarded “Law Professor” who commits contempt of court live on TV (yes, bedwetter-in-chief Obama) so Calderon must know as well as we do that the current US regime is ermm… “ignorable” to be ultra-polite.
Maybe I’ve missed something obvious, but that seems the logical conclusion
Richard from Christchurch (01:56 18th Feb)
Hahahahaha.
I hope you read the book by Dr Daniels/Dalrymple entitled ‘Romancing Opiates: Pharmacological Lies And The Addiction Bureaucracy’ (2006). It is the text book of sound sense on the subject of Dangerous Drugs policies and practices, not to mention the wicked practice of doctors prescribing narcotics to addicts.
It is impossible ‘logically’ to decriminalise distribution and abuse of mind-altering pharmaceutical substances and it is unlikely ever to happen in the UK, except through localised police neglect in enforcing the law; proscription will always be a necessary concomitant of prescription. If any panel of serious legislators convenes to consider reshaping statutes in relation to pharmaceutical products across the spectrum – or even mind-altering vegetation (and I have been part of such think-wanks and mad-hatters tea parties), the first things that emerges rapidly is the foolishness of the concept of legalising the distribution of dope by anyone to anyone. It’s a barmy idea, not to mention a deeply baleful one.
Appreciating your witty response to the Stratfor essay, I would only question your last sentence (as a fun exercise, of course); no ‘conclusion’ is logical because there is no such phenomenon as a ‘conclusion’ to anything; the word is meaningless except as a device to indicate exhaustion of ideas. Everything is part of the continuum. Even one’s demise is not a conclusion but merely a rearrangement of substance which is probably indestructible and possibly even eternal. Which puts this platform for the craic; Iran; Israel; Obama; Adele; Dean Martin (or was it Sammy Davis Jr); the price of peas; Patriccia (aka Nick); Wilhelm and even Christ’s Church, into perspective: “the ‘stuff that dreams are made of …’
As you’ve probably guessed, I’m only here at this moment because I can’t sleep. That’s due to the prescribed and perfectly legal cytotoxic shite that is currently coursing through my claret, which I am told is necessary to avoid my own premature rearrangement within the continuum. Whilst so far this has been partly successful, it tends to lead to the sort of rambling that you just read. Perhaps I should hit the sack again and try harder? Mind how you go!
Napoleon on Vienna: “If you start to take Vienna – take Vienna”
Major-General James Mattis, commander, 1st Marine Division – on the first battle of Fallujah: “if you’re going to take Vienna, take fucking Vienna!”
William Hague, British Foreign Minister: “I think Israel, like everyone else in the world, should be giving a real chance to the approach we adopted: very serious economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure, and the readiness to negotiate with Iran”
George Laird on barnstorming form over the appearance of Chris Huhne and ex-wife up before the beak.
http://glasgowunihumanrights.blogspot.com/2012/02/lib-dem-mp-chris-huhne-appears-in-court.html
His contributor, wullie, presumably as in Sunday Post, sounds like a braw lad. ‘Ah doobt whether his ruggie will wait for him.’
‘Ruggie’. Bwaaahahaha!
Regarding the Mexican illegal drug industry, Richard of Chrisrchurch asks
“Maybe I’ve missed something obvious…..”
Yes, you have.
Haven’t you seen those films where the detective/informant advises “Follow the money”?
No discussion of the international illegal drugs empires can be complete without recognition of who controls those empires; the banks.
As Pablo Escobar discovered even the richest and most vicious drugs ‘lord’ is just a ‘gofer’.
Without your bankers a billion dollars is just a fire hazard. Poor Pablo had an aircraft hangar filled with US$ 100 bills after he fell out with his bosss.
They refused to launder ‘his’ money at less than 1/8 ratio.
Pablo was confused about who actually owned the industry. He got mixed up regarding who was working for whom.
Poor thing.
‘Drugs Lords’ are less confused these days, thats why they turn up on the television so much less.
Bloomberg (amongst others) has more for those who are interested.
Try;-
‘Banks Financing Mexico Gangs Admitted in Wells Fargo Deal’
By Michael Smith – Jun 29, 2010 5:00 AM GMT+0100
“….This was no isolated incident. Wachovia, it turns out, had made a habit of helping move money for Mexican drug smugglers. Wells Fargo & Co., which bought Wachovia in 2008, has admitted in court that its unit failed to monitor and report suspected money laundering by narcotics traffickers — including the cash used to buy four planes that shipped a total of 22 tons of cocaine.
The admission came in an agreement that Charlotte, North Carolina-based Wachovia struck with federal prosecutors in March, and it sheds light on the largely undocumented role of U.S. banks in contributing to the violent drug trade that has convulsed Mexico for the past four years. ”
PS Well done for setting up this site P. from M.
Richard of Christchurch … Saying President Calderon “went to Harvard” doesn’t quite cover it. He has a Master’s in Government Administration from Harvard, a degree which is taught, of course, and tested, in the English language. So President Calderon earned an advanced degree from one of the most highly regarded learning institutions in the world, in his second language. And it is his second Master’s degree.
His administration has been aggressive, to say the least, in fighting the drugs trade. It is Mexico’s misfortune to be the country between the major supplier, Colombia, and the major, major, MAJOR customer, the United States. Obama doesn’t seem that committed, to say the least, and as drugs are Colombia’s major income earner, that country has done nothing effective to discourage the trade.
Drugs come overland, in the main, because you can’t stop millions of cars, trucks, vans and motorcycles travelling on the highways of this vast country every day. It’s easier to patrol offshore, by ship and helicopter, which is why most drugs are transported overland.
Police and miilitary involved in the drug fight in Mexico are the only people in Mexico allowed to mask their faces, and this is because if they are recognised on a raid, or going to a raid, the drug kings’ employees take their photos, identify them, and go and wipe out their wives, children and parents. These men who stay stalwart and remain committed to beating the drug trade are heroes.
And President Calderon is, as the head of government, publically and provably committed. His sister is standing for Governor of the most dangerous (I guess after, or at least equal with, Baja California) state in in the entire country … Michoacan, a horrible state.
Also, read John Richardson’s compelling post above.
Verity!
Fancy meeting you here.
Also, I read somewhere that AWK 1 was poorly; hope your feeling better if you read this Anne.
Thanks, Frank P above, as always.
AWK, if you are poorly, I hope you are on the road to recovery.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2103707/Mother-Nicola-Allen-slams-Griffin-Primary-School-branding-sons-question-racist-incident.html#
A little Caucasian English boy innocently enquired of a Negro child if he is black because he comes from Africa. A reasonable and intelligent conclusion for a small child to draw. The result, it goes without saying, was an immediate branding of the little English native as a”racist”.
Seeing similar incidents, I now conclude that the plan is to frighten the ancient owners of the land into silence and pretence that they haven’t noticed an ethicity, and to defer to that ethicity under the guise of “not hurting their feelings”. In other words, ceding the ownership position in their own country, on behalf of all of us.
A giant hosing out is the only solution. With any luck, the large numbers of lefties at rallies and the Notting Hill Carnival will be hosed out at the same time.
I do know how to spell “ethnicity” but the n jams after I type the h for some reason.
Verity @ 15:56
I also read the latest reports* from the front line in the war against potential racism in seven year old children.
I would say that the objective is to criminalise everybody in the whole of society.
The whole point of ‘laws’ that protect how someone feels is that everyone will be guilty one day. For example, it won’t be long until the logical consequence of the lie that: fat = a disease is reached ie
“Too fat you can die.
Too thin you can die.
This is a serious issue that society has ignored for too long.
So, saying something that makes me feel that I should eat more/less is hurtful and DANGEROUS.
Therefore, I will call the Police if you say something about my weight that I feel is offensive and hurtful and therefore will make me unhappy and thus more/less liable to eat.”
Race is irrelevant in this systematic attack upon freedom. Hatred is irrelevant. Reality is irrelevant. Truth is irrelevant.
What DOES matter is the pathetic cowardice of some people. Sadly the vast majority of English white parents of any class.
As for the PC brigade; these scum are like vampires; they need you to invite them into your homes to have power over you.
The mother in today’s newspapers chose to send her child to a school with a vigorous ‘Anti Racist Policy’.
This policy is not a secret.
The school & teachers & all the rest are LEGALLY OBLIGED TO ACT AS THEY DID**
The school is doing exactly what it has clearly explained it will do.
Let’s be honest, the mother pretending to be shocked is pathetic; this has been going on for years and years. Where has she been?
All the other mothers at the school are still choosing to send their children there despite the madness.
The papers have not reported one single other mother acting in defense of THEIR child’s right to behave normally in the playground. To ask innocent (though sensible) questions. Not one.
Perhaps it will be their turn to be SHOCKED and get into the paper next week.
Pretending not to notice that you are packed into a cattle truck, freezing to death and hurtling into the darkness at the mercy of those who hate your guts……does not seem to be working. Let’s try saying to people;
“Look, don’t act surprised.
Acting surprised is just an excuse to yourself for not doing anything.
You deserve to be in the clutches of those who hate you if you give them your votes (Lib/Lab/Con), your money (BBC), your mind (MSM) your children’s minds (Sex instruction lessons) your obedience (fill in the form …yes we need all the details I’m afraid) etc etc.
You even allow them to tell you what words to speak.
It’s your fault.
Honest, you had every chance to defend yourself but you were too busy watching TV or waiting for someone else to protect you.
So take it like the slave that you are or fight back.
No-one else is coming around the corner to save you.
It’s no-one else’s problem.
What have you EVER done to protect the freedoms you were born with??????
Exactly.
That’s the problem.
You.”
*Sick of breathless ‘shock….outrage….fury’ type journalism. It does not help and can give the impression that we still live in a decent society. We do not.
** Though I would not hesitate to be arrested for refusing to comply (you know I’m a teacher) I look around me Verity and I have to tell you….it’s a pretty lonely position to take. Parent’s know this. They know teachers have zero discretion.
Why should a teacher sacrifice their job/career/liberty when not one parent makes any effort for THEIR OWN children until there is a knock at the door??
I have seen and heard how all this play out at school gates and bus stops and the ethnic children know that the state automatically affords them the privilege of victimhood.
With that licence duly in their hands they don’t hesitate to taunt and beat uo white children or to give backchat to bus drivers and other adults in the vicinity. They know they always have default victimhood to fall back on. It’s a license to do what they want, innit?
It’s this sense of privilege that led to that white boy being attacked with a hammer in Swindon and to that white boy having his face mangled in Manchester last week.
And what does the paper have in it today? Doreen Lawrence saying ethinic children are treated as unequal.
For those of you who didn’t know by the way, Neville Lawrence worked on Paul Dacre’s mansion many years ago, after which the Daily Mail became very interested in that case and got exclusive rights to their story.
John Richardson, thanks for an excruciating post.
It is usually the lowest of the low who behave like this, because they spend their lives longing to be superior to someone … and being seen to be superior. As in judging a little white indigene “racist” for making a perfectly intelligent observation. Now that these people have somehow managed, inexplicably, to grab the whip hand – and, indeed, have been ALLOWED to grab the whip hand – I wouldn’t live in the land of my birth again.
Debka reports that in the last 24 hours “Moscow recalled Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kutznetsov from the Syrian port of Tartus to its home base at Severomorsk on the Kola Peninsula”.
Hi Verity.
Yep.
It is always the lowest who delight in having a little bit of power over anyone a little less powerful than themselves. It’s simple. They can’t help themselves.
So, when these low elements in society are given this power we need to ask why?
Why would a decision be taken to unleash these a-social* elements on wider society? Why give these elements the force of law and the confidence to know that they will will be backed by the usual suspects; police, social workers…….any agents of the Welfare state really?
The answer is that societal break down is the objective of these actions.
This is what we are facing.
*We should include those in illegal non-travelling gangs for example.
“It’s this sense of privilege that led to that white boy being attacked with a hammer in Swindon and to that white boy having his face mangled in Manchester last week.”
Tulip, above.
Hello ‘Tulip’
I’m afraid you are more wrong than right on this one.
What I mean is that we are ALL under attack from this process of criminalising the innocent & empowering the malcontents.
Not just white, male ,sexually normal, middle class homeowners
I came across the following and the final phrase reminded me of your above post…
“WASHINGTON — Called to a Florida school that could not cope, police led the disorderly student away in handcuffs, all 40 pounds of her 5-year-old self. In a Solomonic compromise, schools in Broward County, Fla., banned running at recess. Long Beach, N.J., removed signs warning swimmers about riptides, although the oblivious tides continued. The warning label on a five-inch fishing lure with a three-pronged hook says, “Harmful if swallowed”; the label on a letter opener says, “Safety goggle recommended.”
No official at the Florida school would put a restraining arm around the misbehaving child lest he or she be sued, as a young member of Teach for America was, for $20 million (the school settled for $90,000), because the teacher put a hand on the back of a turbulent seventh-grader to direct him to leave the classroom. Another teacher’s career was ruined by accusations arising from her having positioned a child’s fingers on a flute. A 2004 survey reported that 78 percent of middle and high school teachers have been subjected to legal threats from students bristling with rights. Students, sensing the anxiety that seizes schools when law intrudes into incidental relations, challenge teachers’ authority……..”
From ‘Townhallcom’ an American ‘conservative’ effort that I confess I cannot vouch for.
Point being the NWO is criminalising EVERYBODY just not all at once. See my above post using the example of obesity.
Regards.
What is the end point of the NWO, though? Do they really want a planet full of stupid fat people who can’t figure out systems, operate complicated machinery or invent anything and just sit around eatiing? Is Julia Middleton the template?
Also, why have the populations allowed it to happen? Why did they allow these low people into positions of power?
Speaking of low people, any more comical news on John Prescott’s notion that he is qualified to be a police chief? He looked quite fat in the last photo I saw of him. Does that mean that he has conquered the bulemia he was suffering from? Chief of Police. Bulemia sufferer. Can you spell “fantasist”?
We have touched on this already, but can I commend it to you all as it seems to me to be the story of our times.
Some get it.
Too many do not.
Just as LibLabCon is a pantomime to make the public think they can take sides, so in America Republican-Democrat is just another version of that pantomime.
One of the commenters underneath this piece points the finger at George Soros for pulling the plug on this expose. I don’t know if he did but you wouldn’t put it past him, would you?
Judge Andrew Napolitano “more or less described the American regime as a two-party state that creates and manipulates public opinion in order to maintain and increase its power. It doesn’t matter who wins elections, he argued, since candidates never attempt to carry out their campaign promises.”
And for pointing that out, he was taken off air.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2103843/Political-thought-control-alive-right-wing-America.html#ixzz1myOYbYcU
Mark Steyn, who we weren’t allowed to quote on The Speccie, here in a typically dazzling interview:
http://www.hughhewitt.com/transcripts.aspx?id=cbde0d86-3a48-4752-a8b0-dfe918379062
I have had a comment or two submitted by telemachus. Should he be allowed to post, perhaps under moderation? What is the general will of the demos here?
The troll that ruined the other wall is a nasty, spiteful coward who is engaged in all sorts of nasty hate campaigns. Deny him the oxygen of an audience and he will suffocate and die.
If he has something meaningful to say then let him post under his own name.
“What is the end point of the NWO, though?”
Hi Verity.
As you will realise, the concept of this NWO is central to my understanding of the world that we live in.
The emerging NWO has been the motivating force behind every major world event since circa 1900, some say earlier.
I would like to share my understanding of the ‘end point’ or ‘end game’ of the NWO with you but we probably need to narrow the discussion a little to save time and overcome the restrictions of this medium.
So, are you more interested in economics & wealth/demography/human social evolution/technology/’politics’/warfare/the use of religion or whatever?
Regs.
——————–
“If he has something meaningful to say then let him post under his own name.”
Ironic really ‘Troll hunter’, that you should take that view (tee hee).
——————————————————————————————————
Pete from Maidstone regarding trolls.
From my perspective the problem with trolls is that they bring out the worst in people who may otherwise be worth reading.
Peter Hitchens (who of course criticised telemachus) spends a huge amount of time dissecting the rubbish that his blog can attract. It is sooo boring and has contributed to the decline of his blog. Yet, he simply cannot help himself, on and on he goes criticising idiots frauds and liars. Oh well.
I visit this site & others to share ideas attempt to influence opinion and have my mistakes and misunderstandings exposed by others who are better informed.
That’s the point.
Scrolling past endless spiteful and insincere exchanges makes me wonder if I’m wasting time.
It’s like sitting in a bar listening to two drunks arguing at the other end of the table. Forever and ever……
Just ask ‘Troll hunter’….whoever he/she is…..
No. I do not want Telemachus on this site, he was part of the claque who destroyed the old wall and he would do his damndest to do the same here. Why is that individual so eager to intrude himself upon us? this is a site for right wing people who enjoy discourse amongst like minded folk, so let him clear off to the Guardian.
Verity and John Richardson: Thanks for your good wishes. Keep the flag flying!
stephen maybury: I agree with stephen. After all your hard work John of M, why see it all go down the pan? They are bound to try and ilfiltrate sooner or later, so let’s enjoy the calm before the storm.
Re Telemachus. Agree with Stephen Maybery. Censorship? Yep. Fight them with their own weapons. Besides, he never showed any inclination to debate sensibly beyond parroting leftist propaganda and provocations and/or characterising those who disagreed with him by various hyperbolic leftist pejoratives. I bet he is just itching to intrude here with his “we this” and “we that” dogma or his wretched “charter”. Don’t give him the satisfaction. We can be perfectly reasonable without the likes of him.
PfM – Vote no admittance. If he had had anything interesting or amusing to say (since he was born), he would have said it by now. Trolls in the sense of village idiots should be welcomed for their unwitting comic potential. telemachus had no potential, comic or otherwise. He was just an attention seeking pest.
On trolls: Surely the main complaint that persisted over the our previous playground at the Speccie, was the glitch in software that resulted in the comment box refusing a large proportion of submitted comments and the frequent delay (or out of sync appearance) of comments that did make the cut. On a personal note, I did NOT find that many of my comments were ‘moderated’ (surprisingly so sometimes, because I do often resort to scatology in attempting to amuse). Some of my comments were later removed, I suspect, after a complaint to the moderator from whoever was the target of the comment. Fair enough – the effect had already been felt – so WTF?. I quite enjoyed the exchanges between the trolls and, for example, Nicholas; they gave him the opportunity to construct a devastating critique of Agitprops messages and motives. I’m just sad that those posts are no longer available for our reference. If he kept them in his own files, perhaps he could collate them and ask Pete to have a link on the New Coffee House sidebar, so that we have access to them for our own satisfaction or to quote if appropriate? The same for anyone else that feels that they waxed fluent on matters of the moment in an original way.
So should Peter from Maidstone allow the ‘trolls’ to comment here? My opinion is – leave it to his discretion. If he allows some of them through, then he must expect, of course, that the full power of the Big Berthas in our armoury will be turned on them (with the bounds of legal considerations). But we must allow him to moderate if he feels in anyway vulnerable to legal sanctions – either as a result of troll posts or the responses. Is that fair?
If the trolls want to chance their arm in this arena – bring it on, says I. Particularly as there is no longer a Guardian reader moderating our efforts. Those of us who wish to engage can, the rest of us have a scroll key – which can sometimes be more effective: as we often point out – replying to trolls often provides them with the oxygen that keeps Agitprop breathing. while ignoring their crap deflates their egos. But we run the risk of merely becoming part of the blandosphere if we only indulge in mutual reinforcement of similar political views. We need a little grist to the mill; surely we can handle the usual suspects, can’t we? Particularly if, as I strongly suspect, one particularly obnoxious bubble and squeak is the author of most of the guff that emanates from the pro-Marxist, pro-Islamist faction, who seems to have a hard on for the regular crew that contributed most to old CH site and, happily, have now migrated to this one. A little bird told me that something is afoot to spike the guns of that particular inimical imp.
That’s my two penn’orth, FWIW.
I would also repeat, as I have done so often along with others here, that Pete Hoskin, the Speccy blog obermeister was not the problem. He tried very hard but I suspect he lacked the resources and personal support necessary to make that project function efficiently. I have much less time for his editor or those who pull Nelson’s strings.
It is for Peter of M. to decide about Telemachus, as it is his site, and I have the highest respect for P of M’s opinions. My own feeling is that Telemachus, although not particularly malicious, was not only excruciatingly boring, he was also ubiquitous in that he never posted once, but what seemed like 25 times on the same thread. The result was that the continual scrolling past his “offerings” became such a nuisance that I used to lose interest in the thread. Perhaps if allowed in, he could be rationed to no more than one post per thread?
Anne, I do hope you are feeling better now. All my good wishes to you.
P from M -I agree with Troll Hunter. Telemachus viciously and destructively ruined threads that others were engaged in courteously and temperately, and also flung poo like a monkey with his ad hominem attacks and sneering name calling. I cannot think of a single reason anyone would want him here or imagine he has anything to say that anyone would read.
AWK, I join in Lescam’s good wishes for getting back on your feet.
Having read above comments re trolls I’ve had an idea.
Why not let the troll in question plead his case?
Why not let him explain why he want’s to post HERE?
He should be able to do that in less than 35,000 words. When/if he tries to be clever about his intentions then he will be exposed as, as mentioned above; he is not very smart.
Personally, I hope he is not in being allowed to post for reasons that I explain above.
In any case for once I would read a post of his, and actually be somewhat interested in what it says. Huuum.
(ps what do AWK1 & Verity think?)
TM’ is still commenting on other blogs in the CH; anyone wishing to engage with him/her/it can surely do it there. Thus it’s hardly an act of censorship to exclude him from here, although I suspect he would happily hurl that accusation around. (and his other favourite, of being unwilling to engage in “reasoned debate”.)
I’m sure Ko-ko’s view would be that, “He wouldn’t be missed”.
“He should be able to do that in less than 35,000 words”
ROFLMAO!!
A technical point P v M: how are you going to stack the dated Wall (I note this one is already past it’s sell-by)? Are you going to let it run as a monthly segment then archive it on to the side bar with with any posts for that month? Just askin’.
Telemachus is a self-congratulatory little prick who took sniggering delight in wrecking threads while awarding himself ersatz moral superiority. In other words, an immature, destructive and unwordly (in that he imagined he was impressing people) individual whose effect was that of an irritant.
I cannot think of a single reason why he should be awarded posting privileges on this blog.
Lesley C (Lescam) Thanks for your good wishes. You have all cheered me up from this sick bed of misery. Fortunately, not often ill, so I am a lousy patient. This is a type of flu that hangs on, horrible!
Regarding the trolls, I don’t believe in giving rotters a second chance. Apart from being spiteful and hurtful, T (and all his/her/its) gang are very boring. Being daft is worse than being wicked, its terrible to be bored to death.
AWK writes, re pointless trolls, “Being daft is worse than being wicked, its terrible to be bored to death.”
True words! And one thing about trolls, as we have found out … they are predictable. And they’re all drab writers.
Frank P “It is impossible ‘logically’ to decriminalise distribution and abuse of mind-altering pharmaceutical substances and it is unlikely ever to happen in the UK”
Hello, Frank P. I remember dear old Luton in the 80s and 90s. Distribution and abuse of mind-altering pharmaceutical substances was as decriminalised as it could be, in that the chances of arrest and prosecution of any of the tens of thousands using or selling them were close to zero.
I say ‘close to zero’ because there would be the occasional arrest and prosecution of a dealer – for one reason only: a rival dealer had tipped off the police.
Bedfordshire Police, like many forces, lose most of their capable officers to the better pay and prospects of the Met, which is probably why the force ‘adopted a hands-off policy’ or, to be less politically correct, a ‘Bedfordshire Police’s mincing little poofters staying huddled inside their offices for fear of anything nasty happening’ policy.
That is why I’ve never understood the pampered children of the wealthy squealing that they want drugs ‘de-criminalised’ For Heaven’s sake! This is England, where CRIME has been ‘de-criminalised’ (apart from ‘hate crimes’ of course)
The following, seen on the BBC web, is perhaps one of the most unpleasant examples of the poor state of British farm animal husbandry. It is strange that the farmer did not notice his animal was lookig unhealthy, but also, the condition of pasture land used. British farmers are afraid of investing in TB vaccine and would prefer to cull innocent badgers. Perhaps, it would be better to cull the casual human visitors who pollute the land.
A Cornish farmer has claimed to have lost up to £1,000 in income after one of his “prized bullocks” was found to be infected by human tapeworm.
Beef farmer Robert Trezise said a west Cornwall abattoir found the animal to be unfit for human consumption.
He said people using his fields as an “impromptu toilet” could have been the cause.
He claimed the abattoir told him the only possible way it could have been infected was by “eating human faeces”.
One can only pray that a more indecent and sinister reason is for this infection from man to beast?
Missed vital word out “There is NOT a more indecent reason for this infection from man to beast”
As an inhabitant of the countryside I can tell stories about the behaviour of my fellow humans that would turn your hair. My sister who lives up the valley clears enough rubber to make a decent mini tyre every Monday.
To all fellow posters, thanks a lot for your concern during my recent illness. I am now on the road to recovery, but will be posting no longer. Why? Because truly I see no point in it. The whole establishment stinks, and I’m going to enjoy the time I have left without the aggravation of seeing the inferior taking over. I hate what is happening here, multiculturalism, political correctness, the uneducated leading the ignorant, greedy abortionists calling themelves doctors, stinking east europeans trailing grease everywhere they pollute. Muslims despoiling British youth which stands no chance as most of their mothers are slags. I shall fill my days with good literature, music and equally fine food and only the best of civilised living. So goodbye, dear friends, perhaps (if only) there will be a revolution, and only the highest levels of civility, urbanity and culture will be the norm. Perhaps we will awake one day to a new dawn, finding the BBC has vanished into a rather dreary dunghill, and the dictators of today ground down into the earth they straddled so arrogantly. Maybe the Day of Elitism is yet to come.
AWK 1
I hope that you reconsider promptly.
You are a brick in the wall that we need.
Haaay…
Wait a minute.
AWK 1, your post seems to be on the wrong thread!
Ha. Resignation is therefore null & void and you must continue to Blog!!
It’s in the Rules..
‘sin there, you just check.
John Richardson, seriously John, I appreciate your kind words but I am so angry and disgusted with all that is happening, and just need to enjoy some of the beautiful things still left us. I will be reading all the postings, and look for something positive, but these latest revelations of child abuse have really disturbed me. The most frightening part is that one knows that when it comes to crunch, the lunatic and criminal judiciary will do nothing, too afraid of treading on toes.
There is little concern at the extadition of a businessman to the US on trumped up charges while they refuse to send a Muslim terrorist to Jordon
leviathan (15:35)
Well – we don’t know what’s behind this at present, do we? Keith Vaz heard evidence before his Home Affairs committee this morning from the wife and son of the extradited ‘victim’. I’d like to hear what the Septics have to say – eventually – about the evidence. Wouldn’t you? One supposes that it’s an arms sanction busting rap; not unknown for ‘respectable’ Brit businessmen to make a few bob at that game. Hold your fire until we get the griff, is my advice. The process may be iffy, its true. But as Jo Friday would say, “Gimme the facts, just the facts.” The politics of the cobbled together extradition agreement is another matter and that does need an airing – not sure it will get it – in today’s terrorism climate? Perhaps they’re after a plea-bargain and witness statement and think this is the way to go about it.
What’s the ‘leviathan’ moniker meant to convey to us, btw? Hope it is just that you’re hoping to have a whale of a time here – on message – and that you don’t turn out to be just another Mob(y)ile-Dick-of-a-troll from the Hellenic One’s Agitprop, arm? You’re not the dead whale that was washed up hereabouts a few weeks ago, are you? If so I can smell you from here.