Cameron the Moral Crusader

I must begin my post by recognising that the House of Commons vote not to engage in military action against the Syrians did, for once, display a modicum of common sense. I say a modicum because the vote was only by a majority of thirteen. Cameron admitted during his speech that he did not have evidence that conclusively proved that Assad had indeed been responsible for the chemical attacks. Now, and this is an important point, the fundamental cornerstone of the rule of law is that  anyone is innocent until proven guilty.

The hypocrisy of the British and US governments is staggering. They are fulminating furiously about a set of events they admit they cannot prove and constantly preach the moral case for acting against the Syrians. These are two administrations that systematically use and justify torture, that kidnap people from anywhere in the world without charge, without proof of their activities, that lock people away for tens of years with no trial, with no legal representation, without telling them why, without access to their families and without any discernible end to their nightmare. These are two administrations that access all of our emails, our texts, our phone calls and that ignore the law, break the law, and quite casually break their own constitutions. There cannot be any greater immoral administrations anywhere in the world. The Americans send pilotless drones all over the Middle East and casually kill hundreds of innocent people. When Madeleine Albright, the US Ambassador to the United Nations was asked how she responded to the fact that sanctions against the Iraqi's had killed over half a million children she replied that it was worth it. This is the country that dropped so much chemical weaponry on Vietnam and Cambodia that they still haven't recovered from it 40 years later. It has recently been demonstrated that the British systematically tortured and murdered thousands of Keynans who were members or suspected members of the Mau Mau. The British burned them alive and mutilated them.

In its so-called war on terror, the UK government has quite openly subverted the rule of law, lied through its teeth, murdered, tortured and kidnapped but has the gall to describe its motivations as moral. I must be missing something!!

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

Visit Syria before Syria visits you!!

I haven't posted for a week now because I have been watching events unfolding over the Syrian conflict with growing trepidation and alarm. I thought that I was beyond being surprised by the stupidity of our governments and the gang of imbeciles that pose as our members of parliament. I have come to the conclusion that if we could combine the intellects of all of the members of the House of Commons we would not manage to produce a halfwit. These people are genuinely going to debate military intervention in Syria. Never mind what they decide, the fact that they are debating it should require them to be swept from office immediately and barred from ever holding public office again.

We have suffered a military catastrophe and worldwide humiliation in Iraq. We have already lost all initiative and credibility in Afghanistan and are desperately seeking a way out of what is quite simply a debacle, and we are seriously considering intervening in a situation that will bring us nothing but disaster. Make no mistake, Syria will be the step too far. The Islamic world is on the point of saying enough is enough and we can expect a retaliation that will cause immense suffering and pain for our peoples. It is clear that the British and Americans simply enjoy killing people, particularly people they consider inferior and who reject the Anglo-American world view.

As I write there is no proof that any of the justifications they are trotting out for military intervention have evidence to support them. They claim that they have a moral duty, but what about the moral duty they owe their own people who have to live with the persistent lies that we have no money for health, education, welfare and may waken up tomorrow to discover that they have magically found millions of pounds that they can afford for the purpose of waging another war. It should be clear to everyone in this country that these people have no morals. Where were their morals when Saddam Hussein was killing tens of thousands of Kurds with chemical weaponry? Oh I forgot, he was one of the good guys then as he was fighting those terrible Iranians that we don't like. By the way, these are the people who are telling the Scots that we are better together. If you believe such people and trust anything they say, then you deserve each other. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

Full Spectrum Dominance

One of the depressing aspects of the spotlight being rightly focused on this government's serious abuse of its powers under so-called anti terror measures, is how supposedly informed commentators are all relating the intensification of the use of anti-terrorist legislation to the events of 11th September 2001. This is quite wrong. (If I may digress, I try to resist referring to that day as 9/11 because, to Europeans, 9/11 means the 9th of November, and the 9th of November marks a far worse tragedy than the 11th of September, as the 9th of November 1938 was what became known as Kristalnacht and marked the actual implementation of the Holocaust and the Final Solution to the Jewish Problem to use Nazi parlance. Our own version of Kristalnacht is looming ever closer).

However, to return to this government's motives for the war against our liberty, the real reason for all this assault on our rights is their obsession with free market neoliberal economics. The war on terror is their excuse, but is not the reason. The attack on the Twin Towers was actually a godsend to our neoliberal masters as it gave them the excuse to crackdown on anyone who attempted to question their policies and their activities. Naomi Klein showed us how they operate in her book the Shock Doctrine, which is essential reading for anyone interested in modern government and politics.

Whenever anyone wishes to examine the motives of the Americans, it must always be remembered that their stated aim is full spectrum dominance, which simply means controlling the entire world. To achieve this dominance, the Americans have enlisted their very own supporters club, the Westminster Parliament. The purpose of this dominance is to convert the entire world to the American model of free market economics that we call neoliberalism and their first experiment is the conversion of the United Kingdom into a state of the American Union in all but name. It is almost complete. Thus, this experiment, and the economic model that is its goal, must not, and will not, be challenged and any challenge to Anglo/American dominance throughout the world will be deemed terrorist.

Thus, the so-called war on terror is a smokescreen to protect the elite and its bankers and financial class  as they accumulate ever greater wealth and power. As I've already said, the real threat to our freedom and safety comes, not from external terrorists, but our politicians and police forces who are determined that they will be nether challenged or held accountable. You have been warned

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

You should all fear the lessons of David Miranda

I posted my last blog in too much of a hurry and in a state of anger and concern over the descent of my country into a police state. One point I should make in relation to what happened to David Miranda is that neither the government or the police were prepared to comment on the incident or proffer any explanation. This is completely unacceptable and should fill each citizen of the UK with both anger and trepidation.

As I have said, both politicians and the police are the ultimate examples of public servants. They are there for a function, to govern and police the nation on behalf of the members of society who finance them and pay their wages. In other words, each of us, in a small and minor way, are the government and the police's employers. As a result neither government nor the state financed legal professions have any right whatsoever to refuse to answer questions about their activities to the people on whom they are totally dependent for their livelihood. They cannot be allowed to operate without clarity, openness and transparency. They are the wielders of power in society, and must never be allowed to abuse their power by turning it against the population or innocent parties. Their power comes from their position, and their position arises from the people. Both government and the police are what we call derivative, that is they derive their purpose and their functions from a source, and the source is the people. They do not exist because of any other reason. In addition, never forget that the idea that if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear is one of our masters biggest lies. What happened to David Miranda is ample proof of that, and never forget that Jean Charles De Menezes was shot six times in the head for absolutely nothing.

What has happened in the past 30 years is that Britain has lost its claim to be a democracy. A democracy is a demos kritas, a society ruled by the people. What happens in modern Britain is that we have the dubious luxury of voting every four or five years for a group of people who completely ignore the people once they gain office and persistently and consistently lie through their teeth. I do not wish to bore you as I could write a book about this situation but the British people will have to waken up to the dangers that they face from their own government and its forces of law and order. I say its forces of law and order as the police in particular ceased to belong to the people a long time ago. They now exist to simply do the ruling elites bidding at all times. I have said before, Westminster is a lost cause, we must have independence from this corrupt institution as a matter of urgency. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

I trust you are aware of the news that David Miranda, a Brazilian national was arrested by police at Heathrow Airport, held for nine hours and questioned by six anti-terrorist agents. His crime is that he is the partner of the American journalist Glen Greenwald who writes in the Guardian and who has exposed the extent of spying on all of us by the American National Security Agency and our own GCHQ. This is a serious abuse, both of police powers and of anti-terror legislation. But what is more serious is the refusal of the police to release details of why, and on whose authority they did this. It is also a serious wake up call to the extent that our authorities are under the control of their American masters and to what lengths they will go to please the Americans and do their dirty work for them.

I have written before that we must never lose sight of what government and its agencies are, what their functions are and to whom they are accountable. Britain is adopting all of the structure of a police state and the authorities are targeting anyone and everyone who dares challenge their activities. Authorities are exactly that, they operate under the authority of the people of the country who invest them with their authority and to whom they are accountable, given that the people appoint them, support them, finance them and pay their wages and pensions. Governments and police forces do not have rights, only people have rights. Governments and the police have authority, but it is a qualified authority that can be withdrawn if they lose sight of their purpose and function and begin to operate outside of their authority.

This incident is serious, as it now appears that journalists who criticise the government are being treated as terrorists. But more important is that this government and its police forces seem to think that not only the journalists, but their families and their associates are also fair targets for their vindictiveness and malice. This is the very activities that we condemned in the Nazis and the KGB. As Simon Jenkins pointed out in todays Guardian, even the Mafia's code of honour forbade them to target the families and loved ones of their enemies. So, our authorities are displaying a lower level of moral conduct than the Sopranos, and that was not meant to be a joke!

This country and its traditional moral order and freedoms are under serious assault by a bunch of gangsters masquerading as politicians. We had better waken up to the dangers soon. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat.

There Is No Alternative

Since the election of Margaret Thatcher, all our neoliberal governments have been consistently telling us that there is no alternative to their economic model and the policies they promote to further the aims and goals of that model. Indeed, the first minister sacked by Thatcher was Norman St John Stevas in 1981 because he refused to associate with Thatcher's lie which he quite correctly considered ridiculous and an obvious fraud, and nicknamed her TINA (There Is No Alternative). Politics and economics are always concerned with choices between many diverse alternatives, and any politician who tells us that there are no alternatives should be driven from office and forbidden to hold a public position ever again as they are either an unscrupulous liar or an imbecile though they are probably both. St John Stevas was at least honest enough to realise and admit that.

Economics is not a science, it is a particular form of human behaviour that involves moral and ethical principles because, amongst other things, as I said above, it involves choice. You see, the statement that there is no alternative is a moral statement, because, if there are no alternatives to the policies and programmes being pursued by the policy makers at any given historical period those policies and programmes must be, by definition, right. In addition, should anyone propose alternatives to such policies and programmes, they must be, by definition, wrong. In other words, according to Thatcher and her cronies, you do not have a choice. This is a very good example of the Nazi propaganda expert Joseph Goebbels’ advice that if you are going to tell a lie, tell a big lie, and tell it often. This is a lie that is so obvious that it beggars the imagination that anyone would consider it for a second. However, it is very successful and is widely accepted as a fact, proving Goebbels’ point. In any economic decision there are a multitude of alternatives, there are choices galore, you may not like most of them, but they are available if you want them. What governments are telling you when they say this, is that their economic policies are the only ones available that will work, and that all other policies are not only wrong, but will fail. They are also claiming that the economic model they are operating by is the only viable and correct model available. This is like going into the butchers for a steak for your dinner and the butcher telling you that he/she has run out of steak and has only chicken left for sale, and you can only have chicken for dinner as there is no other alternative. Yes there is, you can go to another shop that does have steak for sale! You could have lamb or pork; you can go buy a pizza or some fish and chips. There are numerous alternatives available; you have choices. You are only limited in choice and alternatives if you insist on purchasing in that one shop. As a result, successive governments, beginning with Margaret Thatcher, have been insisting that there is indeed only one shop, that you have no choice and that their model, and their interpretation of free market economic capitalism, is correct and the only one that will work and provide you with your dinner, which of course, will have to be chicken. They have therefore been persistently lying to the British people for over 30 years at this time of writing, thereby engaging in immoral behaviour. Even if they themselves deeply believe it, it is still a lie, and if they do believe it then they are criminally stupid and manifestly unfit for government.

What is worse though is that a gullible public has bought into this nonsense and accepts it despite all the evidence of its stupidity that is all around them. This is the model that has brought the Western world to its knees and has been exposed as legalised gangsterism. Should anyone wish any more discussion on this subject please feel free to ask, or, if you feel that I am talking nonsense then please forward your objections, I welcome them and will respond as honestly as I can!!!

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

Better Together? Aye Right!!!

Anyone who thinks that we are 'better together' and wants Scotland to stay within the United Kingdom should ponder the latest opinion polls. Todays Guardian gives the latest poll figures of support as Labour 35%, Tories 32%, Lib Dems 14%, UKIP 10%.

So, following the next general election, on the assumption that Labour don't lose any more support, we will have another coalition government. So, your scenario is a coalition of Labour and Lib Dem, another term of Tories and Lib Dem, or the wonderful prospect of a coalition of Tory and UKIP. How do you fancy any of those?

It is indicative of how far right the general UK population has moved when, three years into this government with all the hardship it is responsible for, that the polls can reflect such intentions. It shows the power of the propaganda churned out daily by the tabloids and how people can genuinely believe what they are told in the face of the evidence all around them. As the old saying goes, there are none so blind as those who will not see. However, another reason for this is that the people don't trust Labour, and who can blame them? As I said in an earlier post, with Labour committing itself to adopt all of the Tories policies you might as well just vote Tory. Labour are genuinely hopeless, in the sense that they are offering no hope of any change or any relief from the damage being done to society. Therefore, the aftermath of the next election, regardless of how it turns out will result in more cuts, more zero hour contracts, more hardship for the poor and disadvantaged, more persecution of immigrants and people on benefits, more privatisation of health, education, welfare etc.

How anyone with a shred of intelligence can support such a prospect defies understanding, and even if you don't support an independent Scotland, you can kiss goodbye to the prospect of Scottish politicians having any influence on meaningful decision-making as it affect Scottish affairs. We will have no Scottish Tory MPs representing us, a smattering of Lib Dems, and a gang of Labour politicians who are completely under the domination of London, who are, as I just reminded you, completely committed to doing the Tories job for them. That is not a sarcastic comment, that is what Milliband and Balls told us they were going to do. I am going to do another post later today on the subject of the persistent Westminster propaganda that there are no alternatives. I was going to add it to this post, but that would make it too big. If you wished to be persuaded by a persistent and obvious lie then it's your choice, but you have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

The Unemployed should all be Homeless

I have to apologise for the gap in posting as I have been unavailable for the past week or so. I have been pondering what to comment on as I am sure many of you get tired being reminded of how unpleasant life can be in modern Britain and how unpleasant our government is. However, I found this little gem in the comments section of the Independent newspaper from a poster commenting on a piece in the paper and thought how it sums up the typical attitudes of so many people in our society towards the disadvantaged. It also reminded me how successfully the Tories have demonised such people and justified callousness and hatred, because this piece demonstrates both. As I have said before, this is an example of the true legacy of Thatcher.

Why should anyone who is not working have a spare room ... or even a place of their own when millions who work cannot afford either of these luxuries?

Here we have an opinion of someone whom we must assume is educated and has a modicum of intelligence. Yet this person posts in a national newspaper that millions of people in Britain who are in work have neither a place of their own or a spare room! Not hundreds, or even thousands of people in work, but millions. In addition, this person considers a home and a spare room as a luxury that should not be available to the unemployed and thinks that it is a cause for genuine outrage that the unemployed should have a home when someone who is working does not. I know many people who do not work, have a place of their own and have at least one spare room, they're called pensioners. They have worked all their lives, have raised families, and are now on their own, but I assume that this person believes that they should now give up the home they have lived in all their lives and have raised their family in because they have a spare room and that is a luxury that they are no longer entitled to. That thinking actually mirrors the governments position by the way as the bedroom tax is a deliberate government policy to penalise people who are on some form of benefit but have spare capacity in their home.

The last figures I have to hand are from 2010, so forgive me for being a bit out of date, but in 2010 there were 61,000 homeless households in England according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. I shall use the English figures as they make up the majority of the UK population. In the same year, there were 737,491 empty homes in England according to the Empty Homes Agency. Now, assuming that each household consists of the average 2.4 people, that makes the homeless total in England for 2010, 146,400 people. So, not only were there approximately 12 empty properties for every homeless household available, their were approximately 5 empty properties for every homeless man, woman, and child. Why, when there are homeless people, is there such a surplus of accommodation in our country? Why does our noble commentator from the Independent fail to advocate giving the homeless some of these properties? Indeed, why does the government not make such arrangements?

You see, such attitudes are indicative of the poisonous propaganda churned out on a daily basis by people like the journalists from the Mail and the Express, and from government spokespeople, particularly from the departments under Iain Duncan Smith. The problem is that their arguments and opinions have no factual basis. I could go on for hours about such garbage as passes for informed debate in this country today, but the fact that someone would even write such stuff into a national newspaper tells you all you want to know about the modern UK. Britain is indeed a sad society.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

Don't blame Adam Smith

I was contemplating the phenomenon of zero hours contracts after my last post, and was considering the situation whereby half a million people in Britain are dependent on foodbanks in the fifth richest country in the world. Such a situation is the result of a dogmatic ideology, economic free market neoliberalism. It has been the guiding philosophy of all British parliamentarians since 1979 and is reducing Britain to a barbarian 19th century ruin. I was also considering how the fundamentals of this ideology are normally associated with the writings of Adam Smith. So, I returned to my copy of Smith's Wealth of Nations to try to some clues as to what Smith, the supposed champion of the free market, would think about zero hours contracts and foodbanks for working people? In his book, The Wealth of Nations Smith writes

Servants, labourers, and workmen of different kinds, make up the far greater part of every great political society. But what improves the circumstances of the greater part, can never be regarded as any inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged.

and

The liberal reward of labour, as it encourages the propagation, so it increases the industry of the common people. The wages of labour are the encouragement of industry, which, like every other human quality, improves in proportion to the encouragement it receives. A plentiful subsistence increases the bodily strength of the labourer, and the comfortable hope of bettering his condition, and of ending his days, perhaps, in ease and plenty, animates him to exert that strength to the utmost.

Wealth of Nations ch.V111 The Wages of Labour

I trust you will agree with me that Adam Smith does not appear to have much in common with our neoliberal coalition government, especially when he observes that

All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.

And in a passage that sums our modern British approach to the poor and disadvantaged Smith writes in his Theory of Moral Sentiments that
 

This disposition to admire—and almost to worship—the rich and the powerful, and to despise or at least neglect persons of poor and mean condition, is (on one hand) necessary to establish and maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, and (on the other) the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments. Moralists all down the centuries have complained that wealth and greatness are often given the respect and admiration that only wisdom and virtue should receive, and that poverty and weakness are quite wrongly treated with the contempt that should be reserved for vice and folly.

 

What I am trying to point out here is that the supposed foundations of free market theory as practiced today are false. Our masters are operating by false theories and hypotheses, and like all false hypotheses must lead to false conclusions. That is fundamentally why our economy failed and has not effected any form of meaningful recovery and why our morality is so corrupt in that we blame all the ills in our society on the wrong people and approve the punishment of the poor, the disadvantaged and people on benefits.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat