The barefaced lie about Gadaffi being killed in the crossfire bodes ill for the openness, transparency and good government we can expect to see now in Libya. But today I am worrying about the effect on our society of human death as entertainment. I have never been an apologist for Gadaffi, but if his regime tortured and murdered, the remedy is not to torture and murder him – even the Nazis were given due process.
This murder is becoming the norm. It was a NATO air strike which took out Gadaffi’s escaping convoy and first wounded him. Two days ago two teenage sons of Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical US/Yemeni cleric executed without trial last week, were executed by a US drone attack as they had dinner. They were aged 16 and 19. They had committed no crime I can find alleged against them. There has been no publicity.
All this killing brings triumphalist politicians smirking on our screens. We seem to have become as dehumanised as ancient Rome. Little human pity is expressed for the way Gadaffi was killed – indeed there is notably less media reflection of pity or revulsion than there was at the (at least judicial) hanging of Saddam Hussein. Is that a measure of the descent into bloodlust barbarism in our society? The complete lack of empathy towards the traveller families being torn from their homes at Dale Farm is part of the same brutalism towards “the other”. Why don’t we go the whole way and have them eaten by lions in the ring?
History shows that bloody appetite once aroused feeds upon itself. We have already had Defence Secretary Hammond on Sky News today positing NATO action now against Syria, while the current US proto-pretext for attacking Iran – the fantasy plot against the Saudi Ambassador – is as believable as Gadaffi’s death in the crossfire.
More death is on the way, to keep the circus going. Then the crowds may not notice there is no bread – no jobs, and their earnings and income eaten up by huge state enforced transfers to the bankers, whether by bailouts or “quantitive easing”.
Quantitive Easing is the best con of all for the ruling classes. In the UK, the £225 billion of printed money to date under quantitive easing has been – every single penny – given to the bankers. Good money for bad, used to buy up the junk bonds which the bankers bought in their terrible investment decision making, and for which fake assets they had awarded themselves many, many billions in personal bonuses. They are rescued from the consequences of their disastrous judgements by the Bank of England printing (in old parlance) new, good money to buy the rubbish they invested in. The result – more rounds of huge personal bonuses for celebrating bankers!! Hooray!!! For you and I, stagflation.
30 months ago, when I explained that Q.E. was another huge transfer to the bankers and predicted it would lead to stagflation, I was widely ridiculed across the web. Now we have the stagflation and everything I predicted has come to pass.
All of which you would normally expect to make people pretty unhappy at the biggest transfer of wealth from poor to rich in history.
Quick! More War! More Militarism! More Blood! More Executions! More Victory for Democracy! Keep the Peasants Happy!
Get a Move On There! Come On!! Come On!! More Blood!! More Blood, Quick, Damn You!!
This murder is becoming the norm. It was a NATO air strike which took out Gadaffi’s escaping convoy and first wounded him. Two days ago two teenage sons of Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical US/Yemeni cleric executed without trial last week, were executed by a US drone attack as they had dinner. They were aged 16 and 19. They had committed no crime I can find alleged against them. There has been no publicity.
All this killing brings triumphalist politicians smirking on our screens. We seem to have become as dehumanised as ancient Rome. Little human pity is expressed for the way Gadaffi was killed – indeed there is notably less media reflection of pity or revulsion than there was at the (at least judicial) hanging of Saddam Hussein. Is that a measure of the descent into bloodlust barbarism in our society? The complete lack of empathy towards the traveller families being torn from their homes at Dale Farm is part of the same brutalism towards “the other”. Why don’t we go the whole way and have them eaten by lions in the ring?
History shows that bloody appetite once aroused feeds upon itself. We have already had Defence Secretary Hammond on Sky News today positing NATO action now against Syria, while the current US proto-pretext for attacking Iran – the fantasy plot against the Saudi Ambassador – is as believable as Gadaffi’s death in the crossfire.
More death is on the way, to keep the circus going. Then the crowds may not notice there is no bread – no jobs, and their earnings and income eaten up by huge state enforced transfers to the bankers, whether by bailouts or “quantitive easing”.
Quantitive Easing is the best con of all for the ruling classes. In the UK, the £225 billion of printed money to date under quantitive easing has been – every single penny – given to the bankers. Good money for bad, used to buy up the junk bonds which the bankers bought in their terrible investment decision making, and for which fake assets they had awarded themselves many, many billions in personal bonuses. They are rescued from the consequences of their disastrous judgements by the Bank of England printing (in old parlance) new, good money to buy the rubbish they invested in. The result – more rounds of huge personal bonuses for celebrating bankers!! Hooray!!! For you and I, stagflation.
30 months ago, when I explained that Q.E. was another huge transfer to the bankers and predicted it would lead to stagflation, I was widely ridiculed across the web. Now we have the stagflation and everything I predicted has come to pass.
All of which you would normally expect to make people pretty unhappy at the biggest transfer of wealth from poor to rich in history.
Quick! More War! More Militarism! More Blood! More Executions! More Victory for Democracy! Keep the Peasants Happy!
Get a Move On There! Come On!! Come On!! More Blood!! More Blood, Quick, Damn You!!
