Category: Uncategorized

The obscene, machiavellian  and calculating Tony Blair may  finally get  his come-upance.

George Galloway,  UK   MP, has launched a crowd-funding project  via    Kickstarter   entitled “The Killing of Tony Blair”, to raise £100,000   so  that George Galloway  can   produce a  film  about Tony Blair and his life of exploitation and mass murder for profit.

If this film  can really make a mark  with the public, there is a real chance that Blair and other war  criminals like him ,  will be making  their excuses  before the International  War Crimes Tribunal in  short order .

As of 28th  September,  the project had raised  £87,141  towards its £100,000 goal.

Make your donation now and make a real  difference for the future- lets stop  the killers!

I am  reminded of my own inevitable mortality by  this,  as  always,  superb  and quirky literary  piece by  Lewis Lapham entitled Memento Mori ; The Death of American Exceptionalism — and of Me .

It is a  reminder that  we do  not live forever;  and why  should we should choose to want to?

Yes, this life brings  to each of us a  superb melodrama of emotional  highs and lows ,  both wonderful  and tragic moments,  physical pain  and ecstasy.  But perhaps for me, it will not be a sad day  when  this feeble little ego; constructed upon  nothing but fear  and ignorance, departs this mortal  coil.

But what is indeed sad and tragic,  are those of us who continue to   hurt  our own and other species on  this little planet we chance to  be on, to  inflate our little fragile make-believe egos.

Once again  the United States is beating the drums for war;  just one more country it can  save by  killing its  population and destroying its infrastructure. The ludicrous nature of the arguments for war  put forward by  Obama, Kerry and  McCain  speak  volumes about the intellectual  capacity of those 3 gentlemen.

Bombing and murdering  another country’s people doesn’t stop  the bombing and murdering;  negotiations do. In  the end;  every  time,  the two parties must  come to  the table and talk.  However negotiating is, I recognise,  a  hard thing for bullies to  condescend to  do.

Perhaps wishful thinking on  my part,  but there does seem to be a growing understanding in  the world communities that these endless US wars in the Middle East  are in  fact  just pretexts for  destroying sovereign nations that might oppose US or Israeli interests in  the region.

It is instructive to listen to  Al Jazeera  attempting to whip  up  fear  that  the Assad government will do this or that if it is not stopped- the propaganda line is so obvious and implausible that  most people will  simply turn their news off.

The recent experience of what  happens when NATO and the US “liberate” another dark  skinned country ; Libya,Iraq, Yemen should be enough for anyone to  recognise that  liberation by  Western countries is not a benign  experience.  And as  Press TV notes, the US administration’s assessment  of “high  confidence” that  the Syrian  Assad regime carried out the chemical  attack  is an amazing piece of sophistry.   Since when was anyone convicted and sentenced to death  based on “high confidence”  that they had committed that offence?    Before we murder thousands  of people, and destroy  their capacity to live ordinary  lives-lets please have some evidence.  But that may be way too much to ask.

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Links

A great  article by  David Swanson  at  Washington’s Blog succinctly outlines the insanity of yet  another war.

A lovely article at  Just  World News from Helena Cobban on  the lunacy  of this war  and AIPAC’s lobbying

A   summary of the current  (9th  September 2013) state of affairs re Syria by  Lara Setrakian  at  Syria Deeply

Add blog to blog directory at OnToplist.com.

In the immortal  words of Cole Porter, “Anything Goes” in  the international  financial  world these days.  And while we are not yet  again  in  the giddy  1920′s leading up to  an even giddier depression, we are getting damned close!

The recent financial management fiasco  in Cyprus are very real proof that  the international sector hasn’t a clue;  from the small-minded reporters who  rub their hands in  glee that yet  another “irresponsible’   national  economy has bitten the dust, to the so-called national  Finance Ministers who  gloat  that  other irresponsible countries will  suffer the same fate as the Cypriots and  Russian “oligarchs”  (why please,  are all  rich Russians  “oligarchs”?).

It doesn’t seem to occur to  any of these so-called fiscal  experts that that they have abruptly and completely ripped the guts out of the banking sector across the Western  world. Given that the entire international  financial  sector is based on  sleight of hand and “confidence’ that things can only get better; we now are all in  deep  shit. One’s confidence may become a little shaky when you realise that once   things go  bad (because things have gone bad somewhere else -like Greece), you are going to  immediately lose almost  half of your savings. But lets not forget the small  Cypriot savers  who  now are unlikely to  ever be able to retrieve their measly savings, and without a job, may  simply starve, as the inexorable decline of the Cypriot economy gathers pace.

But what is your alternative to the bank?-stuffing your money under the mattress?,  or in your little safe in  the mattress? (recently invented by  an  imaginative businessman from Spain)- no – inflation is definitely going to  make that a pretty poor option-assuming you don’t get robbed first.

Others see their saviour in  Bitcoin,  suppliers for whom  have just  announced the first bitcoin ATM  in – guess where? -Nicosia,Cyprus. Lets hope the internet keeps working then…

Undoubtedly  the Cyprus economy  is minuscle in  comparison with other EU economies,  but for some reason their Northern EU neighbours have taken upon  themselves to  scapegoat  Cypriots, presumably not realising the mammoth impacts of their actions upon  themselves and the rest of the Western world.

But then really-why  am I  surprised?; the basis of capitalism is short-sighted greed and folly- why  should it be different this time?

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Postscript:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n09/james-meek/the-depositor-haircut

Economonitor: Cyprus Reopens for Business: NowWhat?

http://www.economonitor.com/blog/2013/03/cyprus-reopens-for-business-now-what/

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The BRICS Expose the West’s Hypocrisy By William Pesek

Who do they think they are, these upstart economies, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa?

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Betray Your Bank Before Your Bank Betrays You

By Jonathan Weil 

What’s a Slovenian with several hundred thousand euros in the bank supposed to do? Spread it out among at least a few different banks, that’s what. Or move the money out of the country, while it’s still possible.

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Cyprus: We apologise for any inconvenience…

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21965059

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