BoJo and the Three Cs

"I can hardly condemn UKIP as a bunch of boss-eyed, foam-flecked Euro hysterics, when I have been sometimes not far short of boss-eyed, foam-flecked hysteria myself."

I went along to the People's Question Time this week in Hammersmith Town Hall, mostly to see what Boris Johnson had to say for himself. I genuinely went with an open mind. I am not one to stick up for toffs but I do not begrudge someone because they have had a privileged upbringing. In fact, in a way it is good that we have so many upper class mummy's boys in government because unlike other countries, specifically in the developing world, they did not vie for a government post in order to get rich because obviously they are already stinking rich.

Bo Jo started with quoting dubious statistics about crime falling 25% and crime on transport falling 33%; oh clearly Boris if those figures are true there must be a direct correlation between an astounding fall in crime to your mayoralty! The first question that was posed to Boris was 'Would you feel safe walking in any street of London?' The non-Londoner replied 'yes' to which there was a burst of laughter amongst the audience.

My blood began boiling the more and more as I thought about all the robberies that occur in East Acton alone every day. A place which is mostly populated with pensioners. The lovely guys who took my phone http://musingsfromaneet.blogspot.com/2012/02/where-for-art-thou-i-phone.html (amongst the hundreds of women they have probably robbed,) took a woman's handbag outside the station and when she would not let go, smacked her around the face with their moped helmet. Pregnant women have had their phones alongside clumps of hair ripped out of their heads outside Hammersmith Hospital. The 60+ owner of my local laundrette got robbed on Du Cane Road whilst fetching something from her car. Boys as young as 12 tried to snatch the handbag of my friend's mum; a 4'11" Chinese lady. A gaggle of teens including a girl not too subtly asked my dad for 'the time'. Some years ago my mum was pushed to the floor and her bag taken, which had her late mother's diamond earrings in them. Basically there is almost no resident of East Acton that I know that has not been robbed in the area where they have grown up. Lest I forget that the police did not even turn up when I called them because understandably a Monday afternoon is way too busy a time for them to attend to a woman newly robbed, I thought these were third world problems...

If robberies occur in this tiny area every single day, you would think that there would be police ready to catch the thieves, and if not for the pure reasoning of catching everyday muggers and protecting the people who pay their wages, some inevitably must have links to bigger criminals they wish to catch. But no, what they actually do is a put a minuscule sign on the lamp post outside East Acton station (ironically I took a picture of the sign a week before my phone was snatched.) saying something like 'Beware of muggers' with a picture of a boy on a bike with a Scream mask on. Why not put a scarecrow there? A teddy? A banana maybe? They would all have been equally effective at deterring these criminals who have been cowering in their high tops since Boris Johnson became mayor.

Other gems Bo Jo dropped were 'Ken Livingstone spent thousands of pounds going to see FIDEL CASTRO (said slowly for effect)' and scoffed. When the election campaign was going on I agreed that too much money was wasted in Whitehall but Bo Jo has managed to spend MORE than Ken Livingstone. He attacked Ken's intentions to get subsidised 'but not even that subsidised' oil from Venezuela 'one of the poorest countries in Latin America'. Yes I'm sure your heart bleeds for the developing countries whose oil this country plunders, especially when the subsidy is only so-so.

A woman who was a business owner in Shepherds Bush, alongside other business owners asked Bo Jo to stop its 'redevelopment' aka letting investors run amok so Shepherds Bush can look like a generic piece of city crap. His response was 'I can't talk about it as the councillors are here'. The three 'C' words cahoots, capitalism and corruption springs to mind. After being given some more chances to speak on this issue, he did not and many people walked out. His reaction was unconcerned at best.

The blonde haired buffoon perfectly demonstrated not only that class doesn't mean you have class by scoffing and interrupting everyone he disagreed with, he did that politician pretend slick thing and answered questions with vague statements instead of his actual policies. 'Of course I don't agree with corporations not paying their taxes...' Yeah Boris keeps it real, describing his £250,000 he is paid by the Telegraph annually as 'chicken feed'. London please...

Kiddy Lines and Clichés

'Innocent until proven Muslim'

One of the things that kids used to love saying, I dunno, maybe they still do, is 'I can do what I want, it's a free country'. Even now, in relation to politics and revolutions, we often use the word 'freedom'. Why is it so important yet it remains so elusive? Not just in terms of actually gaining this thing called freedom but what it actually means. One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter, typifying that the definition is not clear.  Free doesn't cost anything yet it is still being fought for (by people) and is so feared (by governments).

When we are finally 'free' like we are in good ol Blighty, we tend to follow the law senselessly anyway. 'The law of the land', another cliché we like to cite, especially when it comes to immigrants and bearded clerics who we barely register as human beings equal to ourselves. We regard 'the law' so highly, but lots of laws are shit. They are chopped and changed by shitty people when it suits them. Current government: let's change the law to make life more shit for the bottom but not for the top, because the reason the country hasn't got any money is because of the poor, oh wait, hold on, that's not right.... we've actually given all our money to remedy the bad investments made by millionaires, that is LAWFUL but over-claiming benefits is not. Yup that makes sense. Oh never mind, law is still really important, especially when Defence Secretary Phillip Hammond comes on Question Time and says if we don't like the law we should just change it, we meaning white men in suits who do not know about the normal struggles of normal people. That's how important our laws are, he says we should just change the law and chuckles.

The right-wing press and our right-wing government are baying for Abu Qatada's blood. They have already blatantly ignored the law of the land and our free country by keeping him in prison for a whopping six and a half years without charge. It has taken that long for the European Court of Human Rights to rule his detention unlawful, I could have told the government that in six and a half seconds, not that they did not know his detention was unlawful. Now he has paid by losing six and a half years of his life because of the nature of our free country, a prolonged justice system. Not only has his detention proven we don't need Guantanamo to ignore the laws of our land but the government also want to deport him, because of the huge symbolism that would represent; that WE are in charge of our borders and not Brussels/ Strasbourg or whoever else can be possibly blamed for our 'problems'. If you are brown/black and especially bearded, and you don't like our country you can get out! proving that we still have not moved passed the 'let's just move all the criminals to a country we don't care about (Australia)' theory. Our government are bullies, and as much as they can try and infuriatingly and patronisingly deny it, they have still not moved on from their colonialist tendencies. WE can go into other countries and basically do what we please, or even put a stranglehold on their economies from the safety of our free country but if one 'hate preacher' comes to our country and denounces us, Cameron forbid!

It is obvious that 99% of governments are more into the glory and symbolism of being able to kick so-called extremist clerics out than real governance, but if we really had to fear him, wouldn't it be best to keep him here and keep an eye on him? Until they can kick him out (pshhh we'll see), that is exactly what they are going to do, enforcing a 22 hour curfew, a phone, internet and Mosque ban on him, which will inevitably be ruled illegal anyway. If there is anything that would make me want to terrorise, it would be exactly what they are doing to him, no? Proving that mind over matter is only right to a certain extent. But how oh how would the government be able to avoid the inevitable headlines such as 'Qatada is costing the taxpayer millions'? Hmmm it's a tough one, let's just pass him onto our Western puppet, sorry I mean buddy, and then we can rub our hands of him and claim a victory against terrorism. Terrorism, that thing we were fighting remember? In order to preserve the law of the land and our free country.

Right-wing Daily Maily reading apes are in agreement that this country is a bit of a joke, but for totally different reasons, the top rated comments on the Abu Qatada story include,

'If the horrible creature refuses to recognize the western culture surely he should refuse their protection on principle? He obviously is a hypocrite and a fat ugly one at that.'

'Just DEPORT the nerd,i have to get up 6 mornings a week on just above minimum wage to pay my taxes for people like him to live in comfort.I have not had a holiday for three years for my three children and wife.Come on lotto please get me out of this country.'

I started to write about these comments but where do you start?! Of course the worst rated comments luckily remind me that there are people who have common sense in my beloved country.

'Actually, the case against Abu Qatada is very weak. I mean, I don't like the things the guy says, but I also don't like a lot of things other people say, so should they all be locked up too? There has been NO EVIDENCE ever provided where we can see or hear him telling people to kill Jews, or kill Brits. So until someone shows me the evidence, he is innocent, because unlike my fellow brainwashed Brits, I don't believe all the nonsense that the politicians and media pump into our minds to keep up perpetually scared.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2100070/Abu-Qatadas-release-imminent-Downing-Street-says-considering-options-remove-him.html 

 

 

2011: We Care More About Kim Kardashian than the Arab Revolutions!

2011 is drawing to a close and what sums it up? According to Time Magazine it is the protester. Yet the REAL indication of anything in life apparently is Google. And the most Googled people are... Kim Kardashian and Rebecca Black. One a socialite turned sex tape star turned reality TV star, and the other a 13-year-old girl who put her music video on youtube and ended up receiving death threats due to the questionable quality of the song. I have nothing against these two people, they've done well in spite of their not so great beginnings of stardom. But the fact that in the UK the Arab Spring (or the economic crisis) did not feature is shocking but not surprising. 


The Middle East, 'what does that have to do with us?' A generation will claim. Well apparently a lot actually. We decided to fight alongside our ally, America after 9/11, by going to war in Afghanistan when Bin Laden had clearly already fled the country. We continued fighting there, but in order to justify this we then changed our tune and then were there because we were fighting the Taliban. Colonialisation apparently ended an age ago but there we were, in 2001 imposing regime change. What has the Afghan war achieved? They are the 2nd most corrupt country on earth, just after Somalia, a country which doesn't even have a government in most parts of the country. They remain one of the poorest countries on the face of this earth, despite billions having been invested/disappeared there. Thousands of Afghan civilians dead and livelihoods destroyed, did any of them hijack planes and fly them into anything?


Moron watch --->> To add insult to injury they have idiots like Ross Kemp (in Ross Kemp in Afghanistan) saying to them  that they should be grateful that we went in and rescued them from the villainous Taliban (when we didn't care before 9/11) and imposed democracy.


Then we have Iraq, one of the most disastrous wars of our era, obliterating the most ancient city in the world and creating sectarian strife which reverberated all over the Arab world. Putting aside the folly that was WMDs, Britain had everything to lose and nothing to gain from again, imposing regime change in a country that has nothing to do with us. Our foreign policies have many faults but it is my utmost belief that 7/7 would never have occurred had we not gone into yet another catastrophic war in Muslim lands. When Wikileaks exposed the devastating abuses of war that have happened, on top of what was already public knowledge e.g. Haditha, Abu Ghraib, the rape of a 14 year-old girl and then assassination of her, her 5-year-old sister and parents by US soldiers to name but a few, the things that made the news were the embarrassing diplomatic conversations, not the war crimes. Did any government even suffer for the war crimes committed under their watch? Did any of their children die? No. The only people apparently suffering judicially from exposing the people that are meant to be serving US are Bradley Manning and Julian Assange.


Moron watch --->> To add insult to injury, there was one American politician allowed to guest on Question Time claiming that the Arab revolutionaries would not have been inspired to revolt had Iraq not had the blessing of democracy imposed on them.


Next on George W. Bush's hitlist/axis of evil - Iran; the country ahead of its time in rejecting Western imperialism and corruption of their country. Do people not realise this is why America hates Iran? When I went to open a business account recently, what were the countries we were banned from trading with? North Korea, Cuba, Iran and Syria. Cuba - a harmless Caribbean country who had a revolution over 50 years ago, ejecting Batista and his American supported corruption. Syria, another non-Western puppet, funny that there are so many countries on the same level or worse as these countries yet conveniently, it is the countries that reject Western political influence that have sanctions imposed on them. A billboard I saw in New York ->>

We were quick to bomb Libya even though 2 minutes ago we were shaking hands with Gaddafi, all because Gaddafi was 'suddenly' going after civilians, so we bombed the civilians ourselves, going above and beyond the UN mandate of a no-fly zone and taking sides thus ensuring the political gains of the 'National Transitional Council'. Is that another regime change I sniff? Still it was the best PR war, we even had the privilege/puke-fest of a hall of Libyans apparently fawning over Cameron and Sarkozy. The media coverage of that war has a nice rosy tint despite there being protests at the new government already.

In my sister's access to business class in college, the class was assigned an essay on the Arab Spring and the role of women, most of her classmates lamented this subject, it dared to stretch their horizons beyond their X-Boxes and X-Factors*. Due to this essay alone, many dropped out and/or failed the course, they did not even WANT to research what was going on in the world, one even remarked that he could not care less if all these Arabs all blew themselves up. 

Even though the average British person may not give a tiny piece of bird shit about Arabs/the Middle East/North Africa/Muslims, you only have to look at our foreign minister's twitter @WilliamJHague to see that our politicians are absolutely obsessed with all things Middle East! But of course it's not just a one-way street, when a corruption investigation was launched into Saudi weapons dealing they blackmailed us not to go any further, lest they pull out of their anti-terrorism initiatives. Remember the reason we went into Afghanistan? Yet all but one of the 9/11 hijackers were actually Saudi.

I say in 2012 our foreign policy should reflect the will of the British people, just as Cameron defied all logic to pander to the anti-EU brigade of Britain, which is the majority of the country to be fair, perhaps we should keep our beak and money out of the Middle East. At least that's one thing I can agree with the right-wingers on.   

*see http://anbarrockny.blogspot.com/2011/12/brain-dead-people.html

Topless Fighters versus The Arab League

 ... They could not be a bigger juxtaposition but yet I don't know who is the bigger joke. This group of Ukranian women, protest topless to fight against prostitution and sex tourism. There is only a few of them but they have unsurprisingly gained a lot of media coverage. OK fair enough if you want to protest but protesting against female sexual exploitation by becoming the epitome of exploitation? They proclaim to be 'neo-feminists; their explanation has been that,

 "We're different from classic feminists. In order to gain a voice, they had to become like men. But we want a real women's revolution. Our naked protests are part of the fight for women's liberation. We have the right to use our bodies as weapons. It was men who made breasts into a secret."


I do not wish to give them any more publicity actually, but they have said something which has just pissed me right off. They want to take their 'message' to other countries, they have already done so in Italy in front of the pope. Not content with appearing half naked in front of the Catholic Church, they also hope to spread their 'message' i.e. protesting topless, to Muslim countries, including Iran, fully knowing the possible consequences of their actions. I was not bothered by them until they spouted this kind of patronising  superiority, making my eyes roll, nonsense. Speaking of the Muslim world that they speak of, there is so much wrong with what's happening at the moment the last thing that would be needed, if ever, is European topless women running the streets.

Then there is the Arab league, I had not even heard of these clowns until Britain, France and the US wanted to bomb Libya. They were the go to guys for the government to reference on Question Time et al in order to back up the decision to intervene/bomb the shit out of Libya. 'Well if the Arabs want us to bomb Libya it must be the right decision' Err the most disastrous decisions in the Middle East have been caused by despots condoning the bombing of their fellow Middle Easterns, have we already forgotten Iraq v Kuwait and Iraq v Iran. Both Western proxy wars backed by donkeys such as Mubarak and the Saudi regime.

The Arab League - let's review their decision making over the past year - Let's go into Libya. The Libyans themselves apparently asked for it, but they wanted a NO FLY ZONE, and instead got Britain, France, the US and NATO to specifically destroy Gaddafi targets thus ensuring a successful coup, plus a few civilians here and there. But what's a little civilian blood to secure some business interests and get rid of a loopy guy who you never really liked anyway.

Letting the Gulf states go into Bahrain with mercenaries in tow, to quash the Bahraini uprisings, where the authorities here killed at least 40 entirely peaceful protesters, threatened to rape school girls who participated in protests, destroyed Shia mosques, injured many people, imprisoned and tortured the doctors, dentists and nurses who were tending to the injured. Even when a report came out from Bahrain itself exposing some of their activities and absolving Iran of any involvement, the royal regime still claimed Iran was behind the protests.

Cringeingly pandering to Yemen president Ali Abdullah Saleh, giving him four different tailor-made agreements to step down whilst ensuring he receives immunity from prosecution, despite months of unrest and many being mercilessly killed by his unapologetic forces.

Now the Western puppets are going to impose economic sanctions on Syria for not complying with their demands to stop killing protesters. It's as if they are eating Starburst, and are not eating the orange ones cos they're the ones that taste a bit crap.

Yet silence when it comes to Palestine, (cue barrel of hay rolling past) remember them? They have been tirelessly resisting their overt degradation, the theft of their land and the murder of their children for decades. Even with all their oil, money, protests good and bad, a sudden interest in protecting civilians of other countries, nothing has changed at the top.

See http://raraproductions.blogspot.com/ & http://anbarrockny.blogspot.com/