Carnival.

Getty Image, taken from BBC News site.

       The closer it gets the more I despair, I am of course referring to Cop-26, or as I prefer to call it, Cop-out-26 Carnival. It is a carnival, a gigantic show, an illusion, those who think that something great will come out of this extravaganza are naive in the extreme and sadly missing the facts. As I stated in a previous blog, the largest oil and gas producing companies have plans to increase production, not to reduce production. Now the BBC has released leak documents that show that governments and large corporations are lobbying the UN to play down the need to move rapidly away from fossil fuels. Another stated strategy for tackling this climate disaster is for richer countries to pay more to poorer countries to help them develop green policies. The leaked documents also show that rich countries are now questioning that strategy.

       We are being told by the Mafia in the Kremlin in George Square that it will show case Glasgow. What will happen is we will have a massive lockdown in Glasgow, where the citizens will be restricted and banned from large swaths of their city and their daily lives disrupted. So it will be a case of showcasing our city without the people of the city. The media will have a frenzy of a party chasing after That massive entourage of the rich and powerful and their army of security, who are jetting across the planet to grab a spot of publicity at the carnival. They will spout sounds that they think the people will like to hear, and spout them without a shred of belief in what they are saying. They will do their best to grab centre stage and create the illusion that they are the greenest government on the planet. Then they will all go back to their opulent lives of greed and exploitation, and carry on as if nothing had happened.
        The planet is not going to be saved by the rich and powerful, who are doing very well from its destruction. They are not going to listen to your appeals for change, if it means jeopardising their wealth and privileges, they are not going to be moved by your petitions if it means curtailing their opulent lifestyles, and they are quite happy to let your march from A to B, as long as you do it to the their prescribed formula.
       It will take massive direct action by the people, an eruption of righteous anger right across the planet, the like of which we have never seen before. The price of quiet appealing and protest marches is the extinction of our species along with millions of others. There is not enough time to pontificate with the destroyers, the plunderers, the exploiters, the minutes are being counted down, your children and grand children are the ones we sacrifice if we continue our appealing to the powers that be.

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info   

Phony Tears.

Beirut, Lebanon, today.

 Beirut, Lebanon, July 2006 after Israeli bombing

 

Beirut, Lebanon, 2006 after Israeli bombing.

 

        I always get sick in my stomach when I hear officials of various states weep at death and destruction in other countries, when they themselves are responsible for shedding the blood of countless thousands across infrastructure they have destroyed, time and time again. Beirut has experienced a disaster of blitzkrieg proportions and its nearest neighbour, who has on several occasions devastated the infrastructure and killed thousands of citizens of Lebanon and Beirut, now stands with tears that burns holes in truth and ridicules humanity. Israel has no shame, no humanity, what has happened in Beirut has been perpetrated on a greater scale in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank, time and time again by Israel. I saw no tears then, and I don't accept their tears now.

 

Gaza after an Israeli visit.

The following article first appeared in Haaretz

     Official Israel presented itself as shocked at the disaster that struck its neighbor, Lebanon, yesterday. Almost everyone put on a sorrowful face. Except for Richard Silverstein, who writes a blog, Tikkun Olam, no one accused Israel of causing the disaster. Except for Moshe Feiglin and a few other racists, no one expressed satanic joy over it. Fortunately, former Israeli army spokesman Avi Benayahu ran Feiglin out of the race: “With such statements, you don’t belong to the Jewish people,” declared Benayahu, the man of Jewish morality, and the stain was removed.
     Benayahu is right: The Jewish state never caused such disasters, and when our enemies fell it never rejoiced. The Israel Defense Forces, whose voice Benayahu was, never such caused destruction and devastation, certainly not in Lebanon, certainly not in Beirut. What does the IDF have to do with the destruction of infrastructure? An explosion in the Beirut port? Why would the most moral army in the world have anything to do with bombing population centers? And so the country’s leaders hastened to offer help to the stricken land of the cedars, such a typical Jewish and Israeli gesture, human, lofty and moving to the point of tears.
     True, the Israel Air Force thumbs its nose at Lebanon’s sovereignty and flies through its skies as if they were its own. True, Israel has devastated Lebanon twice in war, but who’s counting. Israel’s president issued a statement of condolences to the Lebanese people, the prime minister and the ministers of foreign affairs and defense said they had “given instructions to offer humanitarian and medical assistance to Lebanon.”
     As if all this beneficence was not enough, the mayor of Tel Aviv ordered the municipality building illuminated with the colors of the Lebanese flag. Words fail. All past hatred has been set aside, Israel is now a friend in need to its suffering neighbor. Maybe it was Tu B’Av, the holiday of love, marked yesterday. But still, a vague memory threatens to spoil the how-beautiful-we-are party, which we love so much around here.
      Was it not that same defense minister that only last week threatened that same Lebanon with destruction of infrastructure? Didn’t the prime minister also threaten Lebanon? And how does destruction of infrastructure look in Lebanon? Just like what was seen in Lebanon on Tuesday. The sound of thunder shook the city, black smoke billowed over it, destruction and devastation, civilian blood spilled, 4,000 injured at hospital doors, as described in horror by the ambassador of a European country in Beirut, who had previously served in Israel. She was injured Tuesday in the blast and was in shock.
    Half of Israel and the entire IDF General Staff know how to recite the acclaimed Dahiya Doctrine. Every second politician has threatened to carry it out. That is our language with Lebanon and Gaza. It’s the doctrine espoused by the Israeli Carl von Clausewitz, former chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, the current hope of the Israeli left, when he was chief of the Northern Command.
     And what is this sophisticated doctrine? It’s the use of disproportionate, unbridled force against infrastructure, the sowing of destruction and shedding of as much blood as possible. “Flattening” – to teach the enemy a lesson “once and for all.” The IDF has tried this more than once in the past, in Lebanon and in Gaza, and it was a dizzying success story. It looks just like what was seen in Beirut on Tuesday.
     Not a week had passed since Israel threatened to destroy infrastructure in Lebanon if Hezbollah dared avenge the killing of one of its fighters in a limited military action on the border, and Israel the destroyer becomes Israel the merciful. Would you accept humanitarian aid from such a country? Is there a more sickening show of hypocrisy?
    When Israel demolished Dahiya and other neighborhoods in Beirut, the Tel Aviv Municipality building was not illuminated with the colors of the Lebanese flag. When Israel killed thousands of innocent women and children, old and young, in Gaza during the criminal Operation Cast Lead and Operation Protective Edge, the municipality was not lit up in the colors of the Palestinian flag. But on Wednesday we were all so humane, so Lebanese for a moment. Until the next Dahiya.

     Gideon Levy is an Israeli journalist and author. Levy writes opinion pieces and a weekly column for the newspaper Haaretz that often focus on the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. Levy has won prizes for his articles on human rights in the Israeli-occupied territories. - "Source" -

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Public Gets Shafted, The Parasites Get Pampered.

 

       Once again we see the priorities of this parasite controlled state. While ideologically driven austerity is forcing down the living standards of most ordinary people, our lords and masters have decided to spend £4 billion doing repairs the that monument to British imperialism, The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, and as you and I know, that cost is likely to rise as time goes by. Then in the next breath, we are to spend £360 million repairing Lizzie Windsor's house in London, known as Buckingham Palace. No doubt that will rise as time goes on. I know that there is this lie being spouted that it is really Lizzie that is paying for this as the money will come from that raised by the "crown estates". However, that money is raised from parts of the UK and goes to the government for it to spend as it sees fit. It slides a portion back to Lizzie and her family to keep them in the style they don't deserve, the rest it spends as government money. So the £360 million repair money, is coming out of money that could go towards easing some social problems, of which we have many, but we know the priorities of that cabal with its fingers on the purse strings of "our" money. 

In need of urgent repair.

       So where would you like to see that £4 billion + the £360 million go, perhaps to train more teachers, or doctors, or nurses.  Perhaps sort out some of the problems in social care. Of course you know that that will not happen, as the wealth of this country is earmarked for the wealthy of this country, that's how this system of capitalism works. You can live in cold damp houses, you can struggle to feed your kids, you can watch your health service crumble before being sold off, you can see you education system come apart at the seams. However, that's your lot, it is called austerity, an ideology that never extends to that army of pompous parasites that take it for granted that they should be privileged and pandered to for their every desire.This is capitalism as it was intended to work, it has another name, it's called plundering the poor, and it's doing just fine, you get shafted, they get pampered. Ah, the wonders and beauty of capitalism.

 You're doing just fine.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

 

The Cruel Hypocrisy Of Capitalism.

 

 

         Following on from yesterday's post on children dying from starvation, we are now informed that the world is facing its worst humanitarian crisis since the formation of the UN, 60 years ago. More than 20 million people in four countries in Africa are facing starvation, 20 million adults, children and elderly, coming face to face with an avoidable cruel, slow death. While this man made human tragedy is rapidly unfolding, our great leaders sitting in opulence are wringing their hands and crying crocodile tears, in one of the most gigantic displays of mass hypocrisy that the world has seen. They speak as if this nightmare has just sprung up suddenly, caught them by surprise, and they shake their heads spouting the figure of $5 billion needed to alleviate this suffering, as if this was a massive stumbling block to getting on with solving this tragedy. $5 billion dollars? Where's the problem? To put that in perspective, here in Scotland two asset management companies have just merged, creating a pot of assets of £660 billion, just to be shuffled around the world to make more money for those who already have much too much money, the Rothschild family is reckoned to be worth some where between $300-$400 billion, the Walton family of Wal-Mart fame, is sitting on approximately  $149 billion, then we have smiling generous Bill Gates with $79 billion. So where is the problem in raising a paltry $5 billion to save 20 million people from starvation?  

       Another factor in this cruel, insane an hypocritical scenario, is the fact that Africa is extremely rich in natural resources, which are being plundered by the developed nations. Those developed nations are happy and willing to pour billions of pounds of weaponry into this plundering process, creating mayhem and unimaginable suffering. Weapon sales to Africa for the period 2010-14 show an increase of 45% on the period 2005-09. Was the famine problem not starting to show its ugly face at that stage? However, we mustn't in any way impede the growth of the arms industry and its profits.  

       What we are seeing epitomises capitalism, the only criteria is the growth of wealth, not its distribution. The cost of that growth in human misery is irrelevant. This famine will play its self out on the cruel inhumane stage of capitalism. The need for wealth to alleviate it will be a struggle, despite the fact that the world is awash with wealth, that wealth will continue to flow into fewer and fewer hands, and other famines, other avoidable human tragedies will come an go. Unless of course we get rid of the system that causes and aggravates these situations. Capitalism is the problem, not the world, we can shape the world in a more humane and just fashion, we have the resources, we have the ability, we have the imagination, when will we have the will and determination to end this festering cancer of capitalism that is eating humanity and destroying the planet? Must another 20 million people face the slow cruel death of starvation?

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Platitudes and Hypocrisy, The State's Contribution.

 

        Doesn’t it strike you as rather hypocritical that the state can move to open up shelters and facilities for all those threatened with possible flooding, but is hell bent on ignoring the thousands that are homeless across the country, even as the temperature plummets, we don’t hear of the state organising local communities to open up shelter and facilities for these vulnerable and suffering people. According to the organisation Shelter, there are approximately 16,000 homeless in the South East of England alone, and this pattern rolls out across the entire country in varying degrees. Of course this is happening on an apocalyptic scale across Europe, as those hundreds of thousands of migrants, fleeing war, death, misery, torture and deprivation, find themselves bedding down in tents covered in snow or huddle together in any closed or semi-closed place they can find. We are talking about men, women, children, and elderly, this is the true face of “civilised”, rich, capitalist Europe.

            This vast army of homeless, traumatised, fleeing individuals, and families are trapped in pockets across the continent, and for months, according to the babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media, they have been invisible. However, now for what ever reason, their plight is making the news again, we are seeing them huddle together, and in one journalist’s photo opportunity, saw them burning railway sleepers to try to keep warm. What will come of this sudden thrusting of their misery onto the headlines? Well going on past records, nothing,

           They will be dropped and the new headlines will be of some celebrity’s latest “scandal”, talk of the stock exchange, of how sales are up or down, and the latest on the Queen’s cold. That vast army of weary, wandering, traumatised fleeing people will once again become invisible, and calm will be returned to the “civilised” continent of Europe. Europe is rich in all manner of resources, it has cesspools filled with money, it has an abundance of skills, it is awash with wealth, well capable of resolving the “migrants” situation with humanity and dignity, but this will not happen. The overpowering out pouring from the various states across capitalist Europe is hypocrisy, it is the only answer they have to the problems of the ordinary people. If we keep the same system, we will be cursed with the same answers.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk