Caught red-handed with smoking gun

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

26 March 2013

UK LABOUR PARTY LEADER CONDONES SLAVE LABOUR

For a long time now the radical left in Britain has been fossicking for incontrovertible evidence that would incriminate the leader of the UK Labour Party, Edward Miliband, as an unreconstructed Blairite.

Antony Blair was UK Prime Minister (PM) from 1997 to 2007. Although he was then leader of the Labour Party – a one-time socialist party that had been moving steadily to the right since its foundation – Blair made it his business to turn the party into a hotbed of conservative reaction rivalling the traditionally reactionary Tory Party. In fact, Blair made no secret of his admiration for a ruthless earlier Tory Leader, Margaret “Iron Lady” Thatcher, who was PM from 1979 to 1990. The word “socialism” itself was anathema to Blair and he is said never to have used the term. Abroad Blair led his country into the disastrous Iraq War (2003-2011), in which up to 600 000 people were slaughtered. At home, he espoused “triangulation”, which entailed following a “Middle Way” between moderate social reaction and extreme social reaction. An arch opponent of human rights, he ignored the poor and the weak but was “intensely relaxed” in the presence of the “filthy rich”.

Blair eventually became so unpopular that he was forced to resign as PM and his equally unpopular pro-capitalist successor Gordon Brown (PM from 2007 to 2010) was subsequently ousted by the Tories and Liberal Democrats in the 2010 parliamentary elections.

CAIN AND ABEL

Edward “Cain” Miliband succeeded Brown as leader of the Labour Party in 2010 after an epic fratricidal contest for the job with his brother David “Abel” Miliband.

Afraid of being contaminated by the unpopularity of his predecessors, Miliband immediately sought to play down his past involvement with Blairism.

However, the fact remains that Miliband was a junior minister under Anthony Blair and served twice as a minister under Gordon Brown, so it is not surprising that he still reeked of Blairism.

However, it has been difficult to substantiate this he has studiously avoided announcing any policies at all since he became Labour Party leader.

THE INVISIBLE MAN

The Miliband strategy is to do nothing – since anything he might do could be criticized – in the hope that the snowballing unpopularity of the current Tory/Liberal Democrat coalition Government will allow the premiership to fall into his lap when it next comes up for grabs in the 2015 parliamentary elections.

This strategy has turned out to be double-edged. On the one hand, it does mean that nothing Miliband proposes can be criticized for the simple reason that he proposes nothing. On the other hand, it means he rarely enjoys the life-giving oxygen of political publicity. In fact, in political circles, he is known as the Invisible Man.

As a result of Miliband’s policy of not putting forward any policies, it has been very difficult to pin on him the fatally damaging charge that he is an unreformed Blairite who, in office, would not hesitate to continue the lurch to the right pioneered by this predecessors.

However, last week the mask  dropped and Miliband was caught bang to rights with a smoking gun in his hand. The hard-as-nails dyed-in-the-wool Blairite reactionary had at last been outed.

It happened like this.

SLAVE LABOUR IN ROMAN BRITAIN

Among a slew of hard-right policies, the UK coalition Government has introduced a workfare scheme which involves unemployed people being forced to work for nothing in dead-end jobs. In Roman times this was known as slave labour. Today it is called workfare. In point of fact, it is not really work – how can it be work if it is not remunerated? – and it is self-evidently not fair.

Benefits have been cut or stopped for jobless people who refuse to take part in the workfare programme.

Then suddenly last month on 12 February 2013 an unexpected bolt from the blue stopped the welfare scheme in its tracks.

Three senior judges at the UK Court of Appeal ruled that the workfare scheme was illegal as the regulations in question had not been laid before parliament as was required by law.

Moreover,  since the judges also ruled that their decision would take immediate effect, those victims of workfare whose benefits had been withdrawn were entitled to have them restored. As a result, some 250 000 people are estimated to be entitled to rebates of perhaps £130 million.

CONSTERNATION IN WHITEHALL

Cue consternation in government offices in Whitehall!

The Government immediately drew up new emergency regulations countermanding the judges’ ruling. These regulations it presented to parliament for a vote on 19 March 2013 last week. The regulations were intended to be retroactive, thus preventing the payment of any rebates due under the court ruling.

And here at last we come to the point of this story.

It was generally thought that even a reactionary Labour leadership would baulk at approving a slave labour programme which it had been criticizing for months.

Moreover, if Labour voted against the new regulations, the Government risked losing the vote.

That was not, however, how things turned out.

“MILIBLAIR” BARES HIS FANGS

To the general astonishment of political analysts, when the vote came up, Miliband instructed Labour parliamentarians to abstain. Members of the Labour shadow cabinet were threatened with losing their jobs if they voted against the regulations.

Nonetheless, 44 Labour Members of Parliament defied the party whip and voted against the new slave labour programme. They included a parliamentary private secretary who resigned from the Labour shadow government rather than abstain in the vote.

However, this rebellion was not enough to prevent the measure being approved.

Miliband had thus ensured that the new slave labour regulations were approved and that no rebate would be paid to the hundreds of thousands of unemployed people whose benefits had been stopped illegally by the Government.

As a result, Miliband’s Blairite credentials are now permanently on display for all to see.

The Labour leadership’s action has attracted bitter criticism on the broad left, not only among the Labour Members of Parliament (MPs) who rebelled against the party whip.

For instance, in the London Guardian on 22 March 2013, Len McCluskey, general secretary of the Unite union, is quoted as saying: “Abstention in the vote risks being seen as tacit acceptance of forced labour. Labour needs to understand that it is the opposition to a disastrous government waging class war against the poor. Labour failed to provide that opposition, with the honourable exception of the 44 MPs who stood up for core Labour values of decency and justice”.

It is understood that the UK Supreme Court is being asked to declare the new regulations a breach of human rights and a flagrant denial of justice.  Moreover, the constitution committee in the House of Lords is said to have questioned whether the new regulations can be implemented retrospectively under the constitution.

Whatever happens to these particular regulations, the whole country now knows without a shadow of doubt that Miliband and his political cohorts stand firmly in the Blairite camp. Hopefully, it will bear that in mind when it votes for a new parliament in 2015.

 

——–

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012) 

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——-

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Politics, UK | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Cypriot shipwreck

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

25 March 2013

 

Methinks the wind hath spoke aloud at land;

A fuller blast ne’er shook our battlements;

If it hath ruffian’d so upon the sea, 

What ribs of oak, when mountains melt on them,

Can hold the mortise? What shall we hear of this?

Othello, Act II, Scene I, Lines 5 to 9. The New Clarendon Shakespeare series published in 1968 by Oxford University Press. Montano, Othello’s predecessor in the Government of Venice, is on the quay in a Cypriot port witnessing a terrifying storm which threatens to sink all ships at sea that day.

So, inevitably, back we go to Cyprus. And it won’t be the last time. This sorry saga is going to run and run.

We are referring, of course, to the financial “agreement” forced down the throats of the Cypriot people by the triad – the European Commission in Brussels, the European Central Bank in Frankfurt and the International Monetary Fund in Washington – with the connivance of the newly elected rightwing President of Cyprus Nicos Anastasiades.

Let us make a number of simple points:

1. The “agreement” was thrashed out last night (Sunday 24 March 2013) in emergency last-minute talks in Brussels between the triad and the Cypriot Government. It was subsequently adopted by the finance ministers of the 17 states belonging to the euro currency zone.

2. The agreement was approved by the Cypriot Parliament last Friday (22 March 2013).  We shall repeat that. The agreement thrashed out last night was approved by the Cypriot Parliament last Friday. Hence, there is no need for the Parliament to consider the agreement again since it has already done so. Last Friday the Cypriot Parliament okayed an agreement that did not exist until last night. The Cypriots have a clever Parliament. It is stuffed with clairvoyants.

3.  We also learn that key details of the agreement have not yet been decided. So an agreement has been reached – but not key details of that agreement. These details include the percentage that is to be stolen from Cypriot bank depositors who have the misfortune to have savings of over € 100 000 ($ 129 000 or £ 85 000). So this agreement that the Cypriot Parliament has agreed in advance of its existence is an agreement lacking in the details of what has actually been agreed. Has the Cypriot Government given the triad a blank sheet of paper?

4. The Cypriot banks are in trouble because they had substantial outstanding investments in Greece when that country became bankrupt last year. The first result of the Greek bankruptcy was that banks that had given the Greeks credit, including the Cypriot banks, were forced by the triad to take a hair-cut: some of the money owed to them was simply written off. The second result was that the austerity imposed on Greece by the triad in exchange for a bail-out resulted in an economic depression.  Cyprus is not only a major investor in Greece. It is also a major Greek trading partner. Cypriot exports, therefore, were badly hit by the Greek depression and many of its commercial loans turned sour.  Hence, the triad’s earlier attack on Greece was directly responsible for the current straits of Cyprus.

5. A substantial percentage – the exact figure has yet to be decided – of Cypriot bank deposits of more than € 100 000 are to be stolen by the Cypriot Government in order to reduce the amount of the bail-out that Cyprus needs from the triad. A substantial portion of these deposits are owned by Russians. Apparently, it’s okay to steal Russian deposits. The argument is that this is all laundered money that was secreted out of Russia to avoid tax. Well, if that is the case, why, for years, did the European Union regulatory authorities – not least the European Central Bank, which is part of the triad – allow Cyprus to build up a huge banking sector based on laundered Russian money? Of course, in reality as opposed to propaganda, the money is not all laundered nor is it all owned by Russians. Cyprus is bound to have a significant number of non-Russian investors and, in any case, there are a substantial number of wealthy Cypriots with bank deposits of over € 100 000. All these are now to have a substantial portion of their savings confiscated. What message does that send out to international investors in the eurozone?  What has happened in Cyprus, could it not happen to those with bank deposits in other eurozone countries that are in trouble, for instance, Portugal, Spain or Italy? In fact, only today 25 March 2013 Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Dutch finance minister and chair of the group of eurozone finance ministers, suggested that the Cypriot deal, involving a levy on bank deposits, could form a template in any future bail-out. Europe and US stock markets fell on hearing the news. Potential investors in Europe will think twice in future before committing.

6. As the richest country in Europe, Germany is expected to stump up most of the funds needed in any bail-out. Hence, Germany is naturally concerned to limit the amount of any bail-out to a minimum. However, there is a growing feeling, particularly in the peripheral countries of the eurozone, that Germany has taken too readily to wielding the big stick. Germany seems to think that everybody should act like Germans. And if they do not, they should be made to act like Germans. Unfortunately for the Germans, Europe is a diverse continent, its constituent states having different traditions, different cultures, different economies. The pressure from northern Europe to strong-arm these diverse states into becoming mini-Germanies could easily provoke unfortunate nationalist reactions, some of which we have already seen in austerity-hit Greece. With its own 20 C history to reflect on, Germany of all countries should, in its own interest, be exercising the maximum degree of diplomacy in these trying times. Attempts to stigmatise the peoples of southern Europe as lazy and corrupt and hence deserving to be punished by austerity will undoubtedly be counter-productive and work against the long-term interests of those northern Europeans who, unlike the inhabitants of the periphery, have gleaned lasting benefits from the existence of the eurozone.

Antigone1984:

Readers interested in this subject might like to check out some of our earlier posts in this connection:

Spectacular bank heist in Cyprus

The Fourth Reich

Nuremberg and Athens

Germany gets a new Land – Griechenland

Anyone for Baden-Baden?

Playing with Greek fire

 

——–

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012) 

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——-

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Cyprus, Economics, Europe, Germany, Greece, Politics | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Preacher v. Wall Street

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

24 March 2013

A DEN OF THIEVES

12 And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,

13 And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.

The Gospel according to St Matthew, Chaper 21, Verses 12 and 13. Authorized King James Version of 1611 AD.

Antigone1984:

However you look at this passage, JC does not seem to have a very high opinion of the money men.

But then JC never had the chance to work for a Wall Street investment bank.

You see, they see things differently in Lower Manhattan.

Take the view expressed by Goldman Sachs chairman and chief executive officer Lloyd Blankfein in a newspaper interview in November 2009. As head honcho of a multi-national blue-chip investment house, Blankfein felt confident enough to tell the interviewer than he was “doing God’s work”.

Now what do you say to that, JC?

And, while we’re about it, how many bucks did you make in the preaching business?

Not as much as Lloyd Blankfein, I’d guess. According to Forbes, whose calculation was based on data for the year before,  the top gun at Goldman Sachs raked in a tidy $21.74 million compensation in 2012.

By the way, the hitherto clean-shaven Mr Blankfein has been seen about New York lately sporting a beard.

Why the new look?

Could it be that he is trying to look a bit more like that Great Beardie in the sky whose acolyte he claims to be?

——–

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012) 

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——-

Posted in Economics, Religion, Uncategorized, USA | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Power-laundering

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

22 March 2013

This is a post in an occasional series highlighting canny tactics for ambitious political anoraks seeking to worm their way to the top of the political dung heap.

POWER-LAUNDERING

Power-laundering means ensuring that dodgy high-level decisions leave no written, recorded or electronic trace so that responsibility for them, if they go wrong, is taken entirely by the intermediate or junior echelons that have implemented them. Power-laundering is an essential arm in the arsenal of any political leader with aspirations to long-term survival.

——–

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012) 

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——-

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Politics | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Taking sides

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

21 March 2013

TAKING SIDES

In the autumn of 1937 the London-based Left Review asked 148 writers to take sides in respect of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), which pitted Generalísimo Francisco Franco’s Nationalist Insurgents against the Loyalist Republicans defending the legitimate Spanish Government. The request was formulated as follows:

THE QUESTION

To the Writers and Poets of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales

It is clear to many of us throughout the whole world that now, as certainly never before, we are determined or compelled to take sides. The equivocal attitude, the Ivory Tower, the paradoxical, the ironic detachment, will no longer do.

We have seen murder and destruction by Fascism in Italy, in Germany – the organization there of social injustice and cultural death – and how revived, imperial Rome, abetted by international treachery, has conquered her place in the Abyssinian sun. The dark millions in the colonies are unavenged.

Today the struggle is in Spain. Tomorrow it may be in other countries – our own. But there are some who, despite the martyrdom of Durango and Guernica, the enduring agony of Madrid, of Bilbao, and Germany’s shelling of Almeria, are still in doubt, or who aver that it is possible that Fascism may be what it proclaims it is: “the saviour of civilization”.

This is the question we are asking you: Are you for, or against, the legal Government and the People of Republican Spain? Are your for, or against, Franco and Fascism? For it is impossible any longer to take no side.

Writers and Poets, we wish to print your answers. We wish the world to know what you, writers and poets, who are amongst the most sensitive instruments of a nation, feel.

The Question was signed by 12 leading intellectuals: Louis Aragon, W.H. Auden, José Bergamin, Jean Richard Bloch, Nancy Cunard, Brian Howard, Heinrich Mann, Ivor Montagu, Pablo Neruda, Ramón J. Sender, Stephen Spender and Tristan Tzara.

Of the 148 writers polled, 127 supported the Loyalists, 16 stayed on the fence, and 5 sided with Franco.

 ——–

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012) 

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——-

 

 

Posted in Germany, Ireland, Italy, Literature, Politics, Spain, UK | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The Iraq war: 10 years on

Posted on March 20, 2013 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

20 March 2013

THE  IRAQ WAR

20 March 2003 to 18 December 2011

On 15 and 16 February 2003 in the biggest coordinated public protest in history up to 30 million people in up to 60 countries  demonstrated against the threatened invasion of Iraq by the US and Britain.

The leaders of the United States and Britain, George W. Bush (US President 2001-2009) and Anthony Blair (UK Prime Minister 1997-2007), ignored the protest.

They also by-passed the United Nations when it failed to sanction the invasion, UN approval being necessary to make the invasion legal under international law

Ten years ago today the United States and Britain began the bombardment, invasion and occupation of Iraq.

The initial excuse for initiating the war was to prevent Iraq unleashing its weapons of mass destruction against the west.

After the invasion, however, it was became clear that Iraq did not have any weapons of mass destruction.

So what were the invaders to say now?

Having occupied Iraq at great financial cost, they were  certainly not going to pull out, no matter that the excuse that they had given for going in in the first place did not hold water.

So they invented another justification, that is to say, they minted a new excuse for the invasion – after the invasion had taken place.

This was that the war had been started to bring peace and freedom to the people of Iraq.

How then did the importation of freedom to Iraq turn out.?

Well, all that happened, in practice, was that the Shia dictator Nour al-Maliki replaced the Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein.

And what about bringing peace to Iraq?

Well, sad to say, violence on an incalculable scale has continued unabated since the war started on 20 March 2003, including the period since it officially ended on 18 December  2011.

Only yesterday, on 19 March 2013, in an attack clearly designed to mark the tenth anniversary of the start of the war, at least 65 people died and 240 were injured in a series of explosions in the Iraqi capital Baghdad aimed at destabilising the al-Maliki government.

What were the real aims of the western attack on Iraq?

Obviously, opinions differ, depending on one’s assessment of the evidence.

However, it is possible to argue at least that the real aims of the war included:

1. turning Iraq, a country with a strategic location in the heart of the Middle East,  into a docile US satellite state hosting US bases capable of reacting rapidly to quash any threat to western interests in the region –  not least popular uprisings in the various medieval Middle East sheikhdoms allied to the west.

Was this achieved?

Not at all. The Americans were kicked out of Iraq on 18 December 2011. Their request to leave US military bases on Iraqi soil was flatly rejected by an ungrateful Iraqi government.  Even worse, al-Maliki’s Shia government allied itself lickety-split with America’s No 1 enemy, the neighbouring Shia state of Iran, a country allegedly on the brink of developing nuclear weapons.

2. protecting the export of oil from Iraq to the west. Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary from 2001 to 2006, is reputed, perhaps apocryphally, to have said: “It’s not our fault if America’s oil lies buried under the sands of the Middle East.”

Was this achieved?

American oil companies have certainly been bidding for participation in the development of Iraq’s oilfields. However, the internecine warfare that, despite 10 years of strife, is still tearing the country apart has seriously impeded Iraqi oil production.

What was achieved then?

1. Up to one million unnecessary deaths, perhaps three million other casualties and an estimated five million people displaced from their homes or driven into exile.

2. A financial outlay – still not definitive – of one, two or three trillion US dollars, depending on which estimate you believe.

3.. The myth of  American  military invincibility has been punctured yet again,  the  previous US defeat in the Vietnam War (1955-1975) having taught them nothing.  Western prestige and western trade have suffered immeasurably as a result.

4. Since the start of the Iraq war, American and British citizens anywhere in the world have been – and still are – sitting targets for assassination by Islamists out to revenge the invasion.

To conclude, then, let’s raise a glass to the two guys without whose zealous pursuit of western aggrandisement this war would never have taken place.

THANKS A LOT, GEORGE AND TONY.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

 ——-

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012) 

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——-

Posted in Iran, Iraq, UK, USA | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Domestic extremists and secret police

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

19 March 2013

Ever vigilant to protect Britain’s national security, the country’s secret police have unearthed a hitherto somewhat neglected category of threat – the domestic extremist.

Take John Catt, for instance.

John is a clean-shaven 88-year-old British pensioner with no criminal record.

That’s it. Those are the facts.

On the basis of those facts, it must be obvious to any sane right-thinking person that John is a potential danger to the state.

That is why he has been included on a secret police database of domestic extremists.

Unsurprisingly, given his blameless life, John was unhappy at his inclusion on the database.

He asked the police to delete his name from it.

You must be joking, police told him. Your name will stay on the database. End of story.

But it was not the end of the story.

Last Thursday, 14 March, three senior British judges at Britain’s Appeal Court ordered Bernard Hogan-Howe, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, to delete Carr’s name from the database of domestic extremists.

The judges ruled that Catt’s human rights had been violated.

For four years, police compiling the database had included items of suspect information about Catt, such as the fact that he was “clean-shaven” and “had slogans on his clothes”.

Even worse, he had also “drawn sketches” at political demonstrations.

To be fair to the police, they did try to argue their corner.

Catt is a peace activist. He has often attended demonstrations against a US-owned company near his home in Brighton that is involved in the arms trade. Sometimes, according to police claims reported in the press, these demonstrations had descended into disorder. Catt, therefore, was someone who associated with “those who had a propensity to violence and crime”. Hence, his name could legitimately be included on the database.

The Appeal Court, however, found that despite the fact that Catt had been attending such demonstrations for years, it had never been suggested that he indulged in criminal activity or encouraged others to do so.

According to a report in the London Guardian on 15 March 2013, the court said it appeared that police had been recording “the names of any persons they can identify, regardless of the particular nature of their participation”.

The newspaper said that after the judgement Catt made the following comment:

“I hope this judgement will bring an end to the abusive and intimidatory monitoring of peaceful protesters by police forces nationwide. Police surveillance of this kind only serves to undermine our democracy and deter lawful protest.”

Police are said to be considering an appeal against the ruling.

Antigone1984:

The logic behind secret police surveillance is simple.

All citizens are potential criminals. Therefore, surveillance of all citizens is justified: any one of them might become an actual criminal. 

Another police line of argument goes as follows: if people are innocent, they have nothing to fear from police monitoring. Police will only act against them if they are involved in crime. In which case the monitoring will have clearly been justified. 

The right of citizens to live their private lives without interference from the state seems to be beyond the ken of the police. 

The surveillance of Catt as a domestic extremist is just the tip of the iceberg of secret police monitoring of UK citizens opposed to the political status quo.

According the Guardian, he is one of thousands of law-abiding anti-establishment campaigners whose names are filed on the database of domestic extremists.

However, the database represents only one aspect of police surveillance.

For decades Britain’s secret police have infiltrated lawful protest groups and demonstrations. Spooks have been embedded for years in radical groups, reporting back to police HQ on the groups’ activities and sometimes allegedly inciting them to take illegal action. Some spooks have even formed sexual relationships with protesters in order to substantiate their bona fide commitment to the aims of the protest movements.

The War on Terror launched by US President George W. Bush after the terrorist attack on New York in September 2001 led to a massive expansion of secret police surveillance in the west. UK Prime Minister, Anthony Blair, Bush’s close ally, gave the go-ahead for a massive recruitment of secret police officers, particularly for MI5 (domestic counter-espionage) and MI6 (British espionage overseas) operations.

As far as one can gather – obviously no hard information about covert activities is made public – Britain is awash with secret agents spying not only on foreigners but also on law-abiding British citizens.

We have yet to hear a police chief anywhere speak up in favour of free speech or the right to protest.

In the western media we hear a lot about the Russian KGB, the East German Stasi, the Israeli Mossad, etc. About our own secret police there is generally a deafening silence. And, in any case, there is one golden rule that is never broken: covert western intelligence agents  – aka, secret police – are never ever referred to by the press as secret police.  It is other states – generally those regarded by our rulers as being hostile to the west – that have secret police. We ourselves have patriotic under-cover crime-busting sleuths. 

What, in any case, is an “extremist”?

This is the conventional syllogism:

“An extremist is someone whose opinions differ radically from mine.

My views are eminently reasonable and balanced.

Your views are irrational, unfounded and over the top.

You, therefore, are indisputably an extremist.”

——–

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012) 

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

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Posted in Police, UK, USA | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Spectacular bank heist in Cyprus

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

18 March 2013

A gang of ruthless bank robbers has been caught red-handed in the tiny Mediterranean island of Cyprus.

The robbers, all foreign, were caught with a haul of nearly € 6 billion in bank deposits.

Unfortunately, they soon overpowered those who rumbled the break-in – the people of Cyprus – and escaped to their lairs overseas.

Even more shocking is the discovery that the recently elected President of Cyprus Nicos Anastasiades has admitted being implicated in the raid.

The robbers have been identified as belonging to a notorious international triad of sado-monetarists – the European Commission from Brussels, the European Central Bank from Frankfurt and the International Monetary Fund from Washington.

It has been known for some time that rightwinger Anastasiades had close ideological affinities with the triad and that he belonged to the same sado-monetarist family. It is also understood that the triad had campaigned actively for his election three weeks ago, on 24 February 2013, so that they would have “their man” in pole position when the heist took place.

Armed with lethal “bail-out” pistols, the safe-breakers threatened Anastasiades with the collapse of the entire Cypriot banking system unless he co-operated with them in the heist.

As a result of the burglary, everyone who has deposits of up to € 100 000 in a Cypriot bank has automatically lost nearly 7 % of their savings. Those with deposits of over € 100 000 have lost nearly 10 %.

According to press reports, Anastasiades had earlier promised the Cypriot electorate that their bank deposits would be safe in his hands.

Cyprus is not the first country that this band of ne’er-do-wells has attacked.

Wielding their notorious “austerity” jemmy, the robbers have an inglorious record of pillage and plunder in other European states rendered defenceless within the strait-jacket of the euro currency that the triad had initially tricked them into donning with the false promise that it would lead them into a land flowing with milk and honey.

However, this is the first time that they have looted the private bank accounts of individual depositors.

Fear is now spreading throughout Europe that Cyprus may be simply a dummy run for the raiders. Savers with bank deposits in other European states, many of which have already been pistol-whipped in triad “bail-outs”, are now quaking in their shoes.

Greece, Portugal and Ireland, in particular, may be in the firing-line alongside Italy and Spain.

International investors are now likely to give the European Union a wide berth when they consider where to place their funds.

And who could blame them?

Antigone1984:

A more conventional account of what happened might run like this:

In the boom years, like other banks in euro-currency zone, the Cypriot banks had lent out excessively. After 2008, when the boom collapsed, many of the loans turned sour and so today the  banks find themselves critically short of capital.

What to do?

The triad – Brussels, Frankfurt and Washington – have delivered an ultimatum to the Cypriot state: we will bail out your banks with a loan of € 10 billion provided that you get your hands on another € 5.8 billion by raiding your savers’ bank deposits.

The triad’s man on the inside, Presient Anastasiades. agreed.

As a result, savers with deposits of up to € 100 000 are scheduled to lose 6.75 % of their savings. Those with deposits of over € 100 000 are in line to lose 9.9%.

This appears to run directly contrary to a European Union agreement in 2008 which was interpreted to mean that bank deposits of up to € 100 000 at least would be protected under any circumstances.

So what have we here in a nutshell?

The Cypriot banks are being bailed out by robbing the bank’s depositors.

In most countries to walk off with depositors’ hard-earned savings is regarded as an extremely serious crime.

Instead, the seizure of personal bank deposits is being passed off as a “stability levy”.

As a result of the imposition of this “stability levy”, stock markets plunged today throughout the world – in Europe, Asia and America – with billions of dollars being wiped off the value of shares.

Banks in Cyprus have been closed till Thursday (21 March 2013) because of the crisis.

A much-postponed meeting of the Cypriot parliament is due to meet tomorrow evening (19 March 2013) to vote on the “rescue” package.  Anastasiades’ Democratic Rally party has only 20 seats in the 56-member assembly and so will need the support of other parties to ratify the deal. It is by no means certain that he will get it.

International condemnation of the move, led by Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose nationals have invested heavily in Cyprus, has been widespread. Financial analysts across the globe have been scathing in their condemnation of the move, which has radically undermined the European Union’s standing as a safe haven for international investment.

If this is stability, then I’m a Dutchman.

Good night.

——–

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012) 

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

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Posted in Economics, Europe, Greece, Russia, USA | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

“Sod off, you stupid prat!”

Posted on March 17, 2013 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

17 March 2013

A VICTORY FOR FREE SPEECH

On 23 February 2008 at the annual agricultural show in Paris a farmer refused to shake hands with the then President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, a rightwinger, who was paying an official visit to the show.

Sarkozy’s riposte was swift and brutal. “Casse-toi, pov’ con!” he told the farmer. “Sod off, you stupid prat!”

On 28 August 2008 Sarkozy was in a motorcade visiting the town of Laval in western France when a leftwing activist called Hervé Eon held up an A-4 sized cardboard placard bearing the legend “Sod off, you stupid prat”.

Retribution was not slow in coming.

Eon, a former social worker, aged 61, was immediately arrested.

He was subsequently charged with offending the head of state contrary to a law passed in 1881.

On 6 November 2008 the Laval magistrates’ court convicted Eon of offending the French head of state and imposed a fine of 30 euros (roughly $40 or £26), which was suspended provided that no subsequent offence was committed.

Eon appealed but his appeal was rejected by both the initial and final French courts of appeal.

He then appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), whose rulings take precedence over national court decisions.

Last week, on 14 March 2013, the ECHR ruled in favour of Eon and quashed his conviction on the grounds that his protest was political. Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which forms the basis of decisions by the ECHR, protects freedom of speech in political life.

In the final round of the French presidential election on 6 May 2012 Sarkozy, who had been president since 2007,  lost out to his centre-left rival François Hollande.

Antigone1984:

Readers might take note that this is not a Gulf sheikhdom dictatorship that we are talking about here, but a leading western democracy at the heart of the European Union.

France, ironically, was the home of Voltaire (1694-1778), the leading champion of freedom of expression in 18 C Europe. Voltaire’s remark to the French philosopher Helvétius (1715-1771) – “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” – has remained a clarion-call to champions of free speech ever since.

Readers might also note that when Sarkozy said “Sod off, you stupid prat” to a farmer at the 2008 agricultural show his remark was greeted with a resounding lack of reaction from the French legal establishment.

It would seem then that in France the President can slag off a citizen with impunity but a citizen cannot legally respond in kind.

On cannot help but recall the ruling of the pig dictators in the satire “Animal Farm” published in 1945 by the English political writer George Orwell (1903-1950): “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others”.

Thank goodness, at least, for supranational jurisdiction. The ECHR does not always get it right, but in its absence national despotism would go unchecked.

The French press has contrasted Sarkozy’s crude response to public criticism with that of Jacques Chirac, his rightwing predecessor, who was president from 1995 to 2007.

When Chirac was confronted by a protester who called out “idiot” to him at a public event, Chirac turned to the man and calmly replied: “Pleased to meet you, Idiot. My name is Chirac.”

——–

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012) 

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

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Homo politicus (2)

Posted on March 16, 2013 by Antigone1984.com

Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

16 March 2013

 

HOW POLITICIANS REGARD THEMSELVES

“There is, simply, no way of reconciling the taxi-driver/saloon-bar wisdom [which generally contemns politicians as scoundrels] with the way that so many politicians would like to see themselves. Their preferred adjectives would be idealistic, noble, selfless. They would like to be thought of as not so much in politics as in something called ‘public life’, in which they are ‘public servants’. From this perspective, they are not our rulers: the ‘masters’ are the people and the politicians are merely doing our bidding. The soldiers of this selfless army have been called to the colours by a passion to right wrongs, to fight injustice and to leave the world a better place than they found it. Personal advantage is the last thing on their mind and they could be earning much more money, doing a lot less work, somewhere else. Which they would certainly be doing were they not sacrificing themselves for an ungrateful nation.”

Extract from page 14 of “The Political Animal” by Jeremy Paxman published by Michael Joseph in 2002.

This post is the sequel to “Homo politicus (1), which we published yesterday 15 March 2013.

Readers who want to look further into this topic might like to check out Antigone1984’s essay “Partitocracy v. Democracy” in section 2 below. This fits the low esteem enjoyed by politicians into a party-political context.

——–

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012) 

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

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Posted in Politics, UK, USA | Tagged , | Leave a comment