UK Labour leader to unveil rail nationalization plan
Press TV – September 20, 2015
UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is set to announce his plan for the full renationalization of the railways as his first major policy, reports say.
Corbyn will make the announcement at the Labour conference in Brighton next week, the Guardian says.
He will put forward plans for this to be one of the first acts of any Labour government led by him in 2020, meaning a third of the railways would be in public hands by the end of his first parliament in 2025, the report added.
Corbyn is not likely to have any difficulty getting the proposal through party conference which has voted for rail renationalization many times.
The Labour chief’s policies include spending more on public services like schools and hospitals, scrapping nuclear weapons, renationalizing industries like the railways, according to reports.
Since 1983, he has been member of parliament for the London constituency of Islington North. He is also a member of the Socialist Campaign Group, the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, Amnesty International, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Stop the War Coalition.
During his three decades in parliament, Corbyn has spent much of his time championing causes such as the Stop the War coalition, campaigning against the private finance initiative and supporting peace efforts in the Middle East.
British General Threatens ‘Mutiny’ Against Corbyn Leadership
Sputnik | 20.09.2015
An unnamed senior general in the British military threatened that a government headed by new Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn would face a “mutiny” from the military.
The general said that Corbyn could face “mass resignations at all levels” if he were to become prime minister. The statement is tied to Corbyn’s views on funding the British military’s Trident submarines or leave NATO.
“The general staff would not allow a prime minister to jeopardise the security of this country and I think people would use whatever means possible, fair or foul to prevent that,” the general told the Sunday Times.
According to the Guardian, previous attempts by the military to destabilize the British government took place in the 1960s and 1970s against Prime Minister Harold Wilson.
The Labour party’s new shadow Foreign Secretary previously said that the party would not back a withdrawal from NATO or scrapping the Trident program.
The fate of aircraft carriers is less clear, however, as the Guardian noted because there are members of the military who question their usefulness in modern warfare.
David Hirsh vs. Jeremy Corbyn
David Hirsh (left) and Jeremy Corbyn (right)
By Gilad Atzmon | September 19, 2015
In an open letter published in the Jewish Chronicle, notorious hard core Zionist David Hirsh advises the opposition leader what to do if he seeks ‘the trust of Jewish voters.’ As usual, Hirsh has produced an obscure document that reveals little other than the delusional level of Judeo-centrism symptomatic of Hirsh and his ilk.
Hirsh lists Corbyn’s ‘crimes:’ “You worked for Press TV, the Iranian regime’s propaganda channel and you recommend Russia Today, Putin’s version. You appear in cosy pictures with Hugo Chavez, with Hamas, with Gerry Adams (days after the Brighton bombing) and with Hezbollah. You said that Nato is the aggressor in Ukraine and that Daesh is no worse than the USA. You were the national chair of Stop the War even when it appeared to endorse the killing of British soldiers. You celebrated the anniversary of the Iranian revolution.”
Yet, despite this roster, Corbyn won the Labour leadership in a landslide victory that left the Blairites and the usual Sabbos Goyim far behind, isolated and humiliated. How did this happen? Simple, for the vast majority of Labour members, Corbyn’s ‘crimes’ were not a problem, quite the opposite. Labour party members made Corbyn their leader because they agree with the rationale behind his arguments and affiliations. They chose Corbyn as their leader because they are not happy with the Jewish Lobby hijacking their country’s politics.
Hirsh cites Fascism as a prime concern; but you would expect a Jewish academic to know what Fascism was and is. “You don’t have to be for starting a war with Daesh and Assad; but you do have to make it clear that in principle you side with those struggling against fascism and for democracy.” To this Jewish academic both Asad and Daesh are ‘Fascists.’ I guess that within the solipsistic kosher universe, Fascism is basically everything that Jews hate. But the true definition of Fascism is slightly more nuanced. Fascism is a pretty clear worldview. It is secular, nationalist, socialist and led by a strong government that is often authoritarian. Daesh, or any other Islamic system of government, can never be Fascist by definition.
The fact that Hirsh doesn’t understand Fascism is a little surprising, but let us see what anti Semitism means to the Jewish academic. “There has always been a temptation to imagine Jews as powerful, selling the oppressed to the exploiters for silver. The image of Jews as enablers of injustice, twisters of words and doers of evil runs deep.”
I don’t see how Corbyn is involved with any of the above, and, from an intellectual perspective, I can’t understand why is it more ‘conspiratorial’ to say that Jews are ‘too powerful’ than to claim that Jews are not powerful at all. The question of whether Jews are powerful can easily be measured statistically and demographically. However, if Jewish power is defined as the power to prevent us from looking into Jewish power then the ‘anti Semitism slur’ is the means used to effectuate such power.
“Antisemitism” Hirsh continues, “mobilises around vile myth instead of around rational critique.” I am puzzled again, is it really ‘irrational’ to examine or criticize the politics and culture of the most powerful people in our society? Was Max Weber’s search into the role of Protestants in capitalism irrational? Would examination of the cultural and ideological roots of the British aristocracy be irrational? Zionism was a promise to make Jews like all other people. At a minimum, Zionist Jews should insist that Jewish culture and politics be subject to the same criticism and scrutiny as other cultures.
Hirsh wants Corbyn to show that he understands “the distinction between criticism of Israel and antisemitism.” But this is a false distinction. The Jewish Chronicle that published Hirsh’s letter and rallied against Corbyn for two months claimed to speak in the name of the “majority of British Jews.” But the Jewish Chronicle is not exactly an Israeli paper, it is actually a Jewish paper. The BOD that also claims to represent British Jewry and was highly critical of Corbyn is not an Israeli body either, it is a British Jewish institution. Hirsh’s false distinction ignores the fact that Israel actually defines itself as the Jewish State and it seems that the vast majority of Jewish institutions support Israel and its existence as the Jews only State. The distinction between Jews and their state is far from obvious. In fact, the only person to offer a useful tool to address the topic by making categorical distinctions among Jews, Judaism and Jewishness is yours truly (The Wandering Who?, Zero Books).
Hirsh’s missive seems to express the wish that Corbyn becomes a Zionist Jew like Hirsh: “you say you hate antisemitism. So support those who fight for peace, not Hamas and Hezbollah who fight for victory over the Jews rather than peace with Israel.”
Corbyn won the Labour leadership in spite of a vile Jewish campaign against him run by the Jewish Chronicle and other Jewish outlets. Corbyn won the Labour leadership in part because he sees friends in Hamas and Hezbollah.
Seemingly, Hirsh wants to reinstate to role of the Jews in the party. “At the moment, lots of Jews feel locked out of the party; both the Labour Party and also the carnival of joy and optimism. Your new Labour Party does not feel like a safe place for Jews.”
I suppose that Hirsh may be correct in his observation. But Corbyn has nothing to do with it. The Jewish sense of rejection is clearly self-inflicted and a direct outcome of the usual pre-traumatic stress syndrome (Pre-TSD). British Jewish community leaders may want to look in the mirror and admit to themselves that once again they have managed to corner themselves.
Hirsh writes to Corbyn “you can bring lots of us back,” but he knows that this is a lie. Corbyn cannot bring anyone back. The Jewish hate fest against Corbyn and Labour is not going to stop or fade. However, Corbyn’s victory does indicate a sharp decline of Jewish power. Jewish history teaches us that when Jewish power declines, it happens very fast and the consequences are often tragic. Let us hope that this time things will be different, but for that to happen Jews must learn to self reflect. Instead of telling Corbyn what to do in order to appease the Jews, Hirsh and Jewish community leaders ought to ask themselves why the opposition to Jews is growing. If Jewish community leaders fail to find the answers, I would be happy to make my way to Golders Green and give them a brief lecture in exchange for a bag of shekels.
The push for “humanitarian invasion” continues
OffGuardian | September 19, 2015
Regardless of how tired, threadbare and discredited the entire “humanitarian war” meme is becoming, and no matter how transparent the agenda, the Guardian is continuing to push for a “humanitarian”, intervention in Syria.
Currently you can read Simon Jenkins wringing his hands and his conscience. He starts reasonably well, with a brief overview of the horrors inflicted by previous western attempts to bring peace to the world, which does at least acknowledge how cynically brutal we have been. But he betrays the agenda behind his avowed sense of outrage with a rather shocking u-turn in the final few paragraphs, in which he argues that since bombing doesn’t win wars, there really might be nothing else to do but get over all those silly non-interventionist scruples and get right behind a full scale invasion of Syria. Here are his words (emphasis ours)
“…If ever in the past quarter century there was a clear humanitarian case for intervening to pacify, reorder and restore good governance to a failed state, it must be in Syria. I still regard this as none of Britain’s business, which should be to help refugees. But if parliament were to decide otherwise, there is no other moral course but to insert ground troops. If winning is Cameron’s goal, he should put his army where his mouth is and pledge a massive British presence in a UN intervention force….”
Does Jenkins realise the west has already been “intervening” in Syria for at least the past three years, and this is the main reason the state is “failing”? Does he know anything of the claims the civil war is not a domestic protest movement gone rogue but a cynically organised foreign intervention?
Can he tell us what he means by ‘winning’ in this specific context?
Meanwhile, elsewhere at the Graun Natalie Nougayrede is begging Obama “not to play Putin’s game in Syria.” Because Putin isn’t to be trusted. Let’s allow Natalie to explain exactly why in her own unforgettable words:
“…But Putin’s intentions are best described by the man himself. In a recent interview he was clear about the kind of “political process” he has in mind: “Holding early parliamentary elections and establishing ties with the so-called healthy opposition, involving them in running the country” – all this “in agreement” with Assad.”
Elections? Power-sharing? Healthy opposition? What foolishness is this? But of course Natalie knows what this really means is “fake elections in a war torn country,” because Putin is playing the same game Kissinger played with the Khmer Rouge. This is a legitimate comparison you understand, and not some hysterically offensive bid to discredit by association. Assad is exactly like the Khmer Rouge. You heard it from Natalie.
Notably she doesn’t offer any specific alternatives to Putin’s crazy “democracy” fixation. What she does offer in abundance is scatter gun claims from the propaganda matrix. Everything is thrown in the mix here. Assad’s alleged “barrel bombs” of course get a mention, though the distortions and outright deceptions underpinning that narrative are not discussed. Assad being responsible for most civilian deaths is said as if it were a known fact and not merely an assertion, as is Assad’s army being “pumped up with new Russian weapons”(she links to an earlier Guardian article for “proof” of this, even though said article itself is reproducing nothing but hearsay, and contains a direct refutation by the Syrian ambassador to Moscow, who points out Russia has been supplying Syria with weapons quite openly for 40 years.)
All of this looks strained and frantic and hollow, because it is. The rationale behind western intervention has been discredited and exposed to the point where nothing honest can be said in its favour. While the US seems to be going for broke in the Middle east and worldwide, lies, smears and allusions are all the justification it has left. Like Jenkins, Natalie is asking us to believe diplomacy, negotiations and elections are just for tyrants and the Khmer Rouge, while illegally invading a sovereign country, supplanting and/or murdering its elected leader and killing thousands of innocent civilians in the process is the more ethical, democratic and freedom-loving thing to do.
But neither of them can quite bring themselves to say such a thing out loud.
We help the Guardian fix some of its reporting on Syria
OffGuardian | September 17, 2015
Martin Chulov needs a little help getting the narrative straight on Syria. Here are the portions of his article in today’s Guardian we think most in need of work:
A large convoy of Russian vehicles was reportedly on the move through central Syria on Wednesday, sparking new claims that renewed Russian support for the ailing Assad regime could lead to Moscow effectively running the war.
[…]
Separately, the citizen journalism project Bellingcat said on Wednesday that photographs of a Russian communications-jamming vehicle in Latakia region proved that a military buildup was under way.
“Newly published images showing a Russian R-166-0.5 (ultra) high-frequency signals (HF/VHF) vehicle driving through Syria’s coastal region now leaves little to no doubt on Russia’s intentions in Syria,” the report said. “The R-166-0.5 provides jam-resistant voice and data communications over a long range, enabling Russian troops to communicate with their bases in the coastal strongholds of Tartus and Latakia while operating far inland.”
“The whole package is being presented by Putin as part of a global and regional endeavour to stop IS,” said Middle East analyst and associate fellow at Chatham House, David Butter. “And, as such, it should provide the basis for cooperation between Russia, the US, the Europeans and the Arabs.
[…]
“They are doing more than supplementing the Syrians,” said a senior western official in London. “They are taking over the air war for them. The Syrians are not good at attacking ground forces.”
[…]
The Russian intervention comes at an especially complicated time in Syria’s civil war. Battle lines between the regime and a largely homegrown opposition have remained mostly static around Damascus and Aleppo, but have been fluid elsewhere.
[…]
However, senior Russian officials have repeatedly told counterparts in the Arab world that their stance stems largely from the US-led intervention in Libya in 2011, which Moscow saw as a trick and a threat to its influence.
“They are very much disrespectful of the regime as a partner and an ally,” said Harling. “But they completely share its view of the war’s cause and structure. They are anti-Islamist, anti-west and anti-democratic.
“They have been fighting a Cold War on their own, which naturally they have been winning in different ways. It plays well at home, where people have nothing but nostalgia to cling on to. They position themselves as standing up to western designs, as exemplified by Syria, and are saying to the region itself that [they] are a power to be contended with.”
Here’s how we think this should read, if we remove the spin (our modifications in italics):
“A large convoy of Russian-built vehicles was reportedly on the move through central Syria on Wednesday. Although Russian-built vehicles have formed a significant part of Syria’s military hardware for many years, some commenters are claiming these particular vehicles imply an increased level of Russian support, though they do not say why.”
Separately, the self-styled one-man “citizen journalism project” Bellingcat, whose “research” has been rejected by many professional analysts and attracted widespread ridicule, said on Wednesday that photographs of a Russian communications-jamming vehicle in Latakia region proved that a military buildup was under way, and used as evidence a photograph of some Russian-made hardware, claiming it “[enabled] Russian troops to communicate with their bases in the coastal strongholds of Tartus and Latakia while operating far inland.”
However, he appears to have forgotten that a Russian-made vehicle doesn’t necessarily have “Russian troops” inside it, and has made an idiotic leap of inference that overlooks the crucial fact Syria is full to bursting with Russian-built military hardware, all being used by Syrians.
[…]
“The whole package is […] part of a global and regional endeavour to stop IS,” said Middle East analyst and associate fellow at Chatham House, David Butter. “And, as such, it should provide the basis for cooperation between Russia, the US, the Europeans and the Arabs.”
“They are doing more than supplementing the Syrians,” said a senior western official in London. “They are taking over the air war against ISIS for them. The Syrians are not good at attacking ground forces.”
The Russian intervention comes at an especially complicated time in Syria’s civil war. Battle lines between the regime and a largely western-trained and supplied opposition, consisting almost entirely of radical jihadists have remained mostly static around Damascus and Aleppo, but have been fluid elsewhere.
However, senior Russian officials have repeatedly told counterparts in the Arab world that their stance stems largely from the US-led intervention in Libya in 2011, when the US used a UN mandated no-fly zone as a cover to launch an unsanctioned attack on the Libyan government, which Moscow saw as a trick and a violation of international law.
“They are very much disrespectful of the [Syrian] regime as a partner and an ally,” said Harling. “But they completely share its view of the war’s cause and structure. They are anti-US hegemony and anti-ISIS.
There Mr C, fixed it for you.
Britain Moves From Democracy to Authoritarian State in Pernicious Veil of Secrecy
By Graham Vanbergen | TruePublica | September 16, 2015
One should not forget that “Openness and participation are antidotes to surveillance and control”.
When David Cameron won the 2015 election one of the first things he said was; “For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone”. This ominous statement immediately threw a dark shroud over Britain’s civil liberties laws, its openness and participation.
Few of the mainstream establishment press thought this was worthy of mention. From ZeroHedge – It’s not just those domestic extremists and crazy “conspiracy theory” kooks who took serious issue with UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s overtly fascist language when it comes to freedom of expression in Great Britain.” The Independent was more sanguine – “This is the creepiest thing David Cameron has ever said.”
New powers being brought in by the Conservatives should be of great concern to everyone. They are expected to be the introduction of banning orders for organisations who use hate speech in public places, but whose activities fall short of proscription and include;
- New Extremism Disruption Orders to restrict people who seek to radicalise young people;
- Powers to close premises where extremists seek to influence others;
- Strengthening the powers of the Charity Commission to root out charities who misappropriate funds towards extremism and terrorism;
- Further immigration restrictions on extremists;
- A strengthened role for Ofcom to take action against channels which broadcast extremist content.
Simply take out the word ‘extremist’ from those five points and you have the existence of something completely different. Of course you could be forgiven for thinking that the government would not abuse such laws. But they already allow for such abuses to take place on current terror laws, for instance:
- The BBC is using laws designed to catch terrorists and organised crime networks to track down people who dodge the £145.50 licence fee.
- The Metropolitan Police Service has also come under fire for using the same powers to access the phone logs of journalists on two newspapers to trace their protected sources.
- In addition, Big Brother Watch discovered 372 councils had been authorised (by gov’t) to use the terror laws 9,607 times -the equivalent of around eleven spying missions a day to hunt down non-payment of council tax.
- Seven public authorities, including the BBC, refused under the Freedom of Information Act to disclose why or how often they had used the powers. The BBC now refuses 48% of such requests.
What is most striking about these events are that publicly funded bodies such as the BBC, the Police and local authorities are refusing to answer perfectly reasonable Freedom of Information Act requests. They are exercising powers they shouldn’t have but were given by a government that the electorate were not consulted on and do not approve of in the first place.
There is proof that local authorities have even used terror laws to surveillance dog fouling, underage sunbed users and people breaking smoking bans.
Now that the Conservative government in Britain has it’s feet under the desk it is preparing to enact new legislation that, under the guise of the “war on terror,” that will vastly expand police-state powers and essentially criminalise speech and other political activity.
Presented officially as an anti-terrorism bill, the proposed measures will be targeted at any popular opposition to the government’s policies of aggressive militarism abroad and austerity measures in Britain, or for that matter anything the government deems worthy of oppressing.
The new bill will include a series of measures targeting groups and individuals deemed by the government to be “extremist.” This term is defined so vaguely as to encompass a wide array of political activity.
The new bill will create extremist “disruption orders” for individuals and “banning orders” for groups. The targets for these new police powers will be those who have conducted “harmful” behaviour.
The “harmful” behaviour covers activities that pose “a risk of public disorder, a risk of harassment, even alarm or just distress or creating a ‘threat to the functioning of democracy’.”
This will be used to criminalise campaigns critical of government policy and protests, which are frequently dispersed by the police on precisely the grounds that they disrupt public order. The language also indicates that the government would have the authority to target those merely planning such activity prior to it taking place – and they would do that through mass surveillance.
UK intelligence agency GCHQ has already been caught acting unlawfully by spying on two international human rights organisations. In addition, last year it was revealed that GCHQ were illegally eavesdropping on sacrosanct lawyer-client conversations in order to both disrupt and make gains on negotiations. GCHQ failed to follow its own secret procedures. “If spying on human rights NGOs isn’t off-limits for GCHQ, then what is?” said Privacy International.
From here we can see we now have a vast illegal state surveillance system that Mussolini would have had wet dreams about. The government is slowly closing down Britain’s very open society and they intend on doing so using one of Britain’s finest philosophers and a well tried theory.
The Panopticon is a type of institutional building designed by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th century. The concept of the design is to allow a single watchman to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) inmates of an institution without the inmates being able to tell whether or not they are being watched. Although it is physically impossible for the single watchman to observe all cells at once, the fact that the inmates cannot know when they are being watched means that all inmates must act as though they are watched at all times, effectively controlling their own behaviour constantly.
The internet has become the architecture of the state managed panopticon.
Speaking to the Guardian weeks after his appointment as the UN special rapporteur on privacy, Joseph Cannataci described British surveillance oversight as being “a joke”, and said the situation is worse than anything George Orwell could have foreseen.
Terror laws we have are already being abused. One is reminded of 82 year old Mr Wolfgang‘s pass being seized and he then detained under the Terrorism Act for interrupting Tony Blair’s speech at the Labour party conference in 2005.
Some of the most egregious cases of misuse include: a council in Dorset putting three children and their parents under surveillance to check they were in the catchment area for the school they had applied to.
Like the prisoners of Jeremy Bentham’s building – there is nowhere to hide in the panopticon.
A report by the House of Lords Constitution Committee, Surveillance: Citizens and the State, had warned in 2009 that increasing use of surveillance by the government and private companies was a serious threat to freedoms and constitutional rights, stating, “The expansion in the use of surveillance represents one of the most significant changes in the life of the nation since the end of the Second World War. The government’s of 2010 and 2015 have taken no notice at all.
‘Tempora‘ was one such government mass surveillance and spying programme among many. It is alleged that GCHQ produces larger amounts of metadata than America’s NSA. By May 2012 300 GCHQ analysts and 250 NSA analysts had been assigned to sort data.
The amount and type of data collected and stored is mind-boggling. Every email, phone call, location data, relationships, family and friends, affairs, work, income, expenditure, social habits, it simply has no end. You would not write down the passwords to your email account, bank or Amazon account, social media platforms and give a stranger the list. But that is exactly what GCHQ and other organisations have got.
‘Optic Nerve‘, another UK state surveillance mission, intercepted and stored the webcam images of millions of internet users not suspected of wrongdoing. They have stored naked pictures of you, your little daughter and pictures you have sent to family and friends in a whole new level of violation of our users’ privacy. This was a biometric exercise of epic scale – collating nearly 2 million citizen images in just a few months.
On May 13th 2013, Edward Snowden made a dash via Hong Kong to Moscow. That June the spying and surveillance revelations came forth. And what came forth was the stunning realisation that our government has been lying to us about the sheer scale of state surveillance conducted on a truly industrial scale.
Not happy with all this illegal state activity over its citizens, new orders that the government are now seeking contain bans on individuals broadcasting their views on television, and anyone subject to an order will be compelled to submit any written publication, including social media posts, to the police before it is printed. In addition, the orders will make it illegal for individuals to attend or address public gatherings or protests.
Banning orders will allow the government to outlaw any organisations it feels is not in their interests. If such a move is taken, anyone found to be a member of such an organisation will be guilty of a criminal offence. Authorities will also be able to shut down premises used by groups.
Human rights group Privacy International branded the new proposal as an “assault on the rights of ordinary British citizens.”
As the Guardian’s home affairs editor wrote in an analysis of the proposal, “the official definition of non-violent extremism is already wide-ranging” and, as Big Brother Watch has pointed out, the national extremism database already includes the names of people who have done little more than organise meetings on environmental issues.”
Last year the government even attempted to hold an entire terrorism trial in secret before abandoning it at the last minute.
Together with a sweeping attack on democratic rights and legal norms, the Conservatives’ anti-terror bills will further advance the government’s right-wing agenda. Cameron’s proposals make clear that the Conservatives are determined to vastly expand the repressive powers of the state.
In little more than five years the state has gone from an open society of democratic principle to one that resembles an authoritarian state. Soon, it will be impossible to have a dinner party with friends without the state knowing about it and wanting to know the purpose of your gathering. Quite the opposite of his ‘big society’.
The British government and its intelligence services are acting under a pernicious veil of secrecy to the detriment of all citizens.
‘Lipstick on a pig’: EC’s proposed corporate court system slammed by campaigners
RT | September 16, 2015
Campaigners sharply condemned a European Commission (EC) proposal to create a new corporate court system to replace its highly controversial Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism on Wednesday.
The ISDS system is central to an EU-US trade agreement being negotiated behind closed doors, which could allow corporations to sue governments if they act against their interests.
Known as The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the trade deal has been shunned by almost 3 million European citizens. Some 97 percent of respondents to an EC consultation flatly rejected the trade deal’s ISDS dimension.
The EC put forward a proposal for an alternative court system on Wednesday – a move it said would make the ISDS mechanism more transparent and allow states to appeal against multinationals’ legal challenges. But campaigners say the suggested changes are merely cosmetic, and would still allow corporations to sue governments in secret court settings.
Another EU-Canada trade deal known as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), which is currently awaiting ratification, contains an old version of the ISDS mechanism. It has also received widespread opposition from campaigners worldwide.
Global Justice Now director Nick Dearden said the EC’s proposed new court system is effectively “a PR exercise.”
“The European Commission says that this new proposal is based on ‘substantial input’ from its public consultation, but 97 percent of the thousands of responses it received in this consultation were clearly opposed to ISDS in any form,” he said on Wednesday.
“This alternative proposal is essentially a PR exercise to get around the enormous controversy and opposition that has been generated by ISDS.”
Dearden said the proposed corporate court system will still give corporations unnerving new powers.
“The Commission can try to put lipstick on a pig, but this new proposal doesn’t change the fundamental problem of giving corporations frightening new powers at the expense of our national democracies,” he said.
“Although a little more transparency is no bad thing, the real issue at hand here is that of corporate power.
“This change shows the European Commission is feeling the pressure of nearly 3 million people opposing TTIP and CETA, the two looming deals featuring ISDS,” Dearden added. He noted, however, that the EC has failed to halt the ratification of CETA.
Redacted documents detailing covert meetings between the EC and powerful tobacco lobbyists recently compounded fears TTIP would allow tobacco giants to sue governments that attempt to legislate in the public interest.
The documents, which confirmed the EC had met with lobbyists paid to peddle the interests of Big Tobacco, were published in late August.
This glaring lack of transparency sparked widespread fear among TTIP’s critics that the trade deal would empower tobacco giants to sue governments that seek to regulate the tobacco industry more stringently.
Powerful tobacco firms have previously used comparable trade deals to sue the governments of other states, who sought to crack down on its advertising.
US tobacco giant Phillip Morris previously took legal action against the Australian government after it introduced mandatory plain cigarette packaging. The firm is also embroiled in a $25-million lawsuit against Uruguay’s government in a bid to stop it from enlarging health warnings on cigarette packaging.
Attorney General refuses to say whether UK has ‘blanket’ drone policy
Reprieve – September 15, 2015
The British Attorney General has today refused to say whether the Government has a ‘blanket’ or ‘case-by-case’ policy on carrying out targeted killings in countries with whom the UK is not at war.
Jeremy Wright was answering questions from MPs on the Justice Select Committee, who questioned him over the UK’s adoption of a US-style drone programme, as recently announced by the Prime Minister.
However, Mr Wright refused to give further details on the nature of the legal advice he had provided to his Government. Asked by Richard Arkless MP, “is the advice that you’ve delivered to the Government in relation to these drone strikes, will that be conducted on a case by case basis or are you giving them blanket authority to do this again if the circumstances arise?” he responded, “that’s another nice try… but I can’t I’m afraid go into the detail of the advice that I gave.”
The Attorney General also said there was a need to rethink what “imminence” means in relation to self-defence.
Commenting, Kat Craig, legal director at human rights charity Reprieve said: “It is alarming that the Attorney General does not feel the need to tell MPs or the public even the most broad details about the UK’s kill policy. All we currently know, is that the Prime Minister thinks he can authorise the killing of anyone, anywhere, without any parliamentary or judicial oversight. The UK appears to be going down the US route of a counter-productive, secret drone war which does more harm than good. When even US generals are warning that the drone programme causes more problems than it solves, it beggars belief that the British Government is adopting the model in full. We need a real debate, and for that we need the Government to come clean about this policy.”
Meet Jeremy Corbyn, Britain’s new Leader of the Opposition
By Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey – Pravda – September 13, 2015
Jeremy Corbyn has the Establishment on both sides of the Atlantic shaking in their boots. Representing a breath of fresh air, promising change and hope, the new leader of Britain’s Labour Party also represents a stand against austerity and a sensible economic policy which aims to stimulate the economy instead of stifling it.
The first act by Jeremy Corbyn after being elected on Saturday September 12 as Leader of Britain’s Labour Party (winning in the first round with almost 60 per cent of first-preference votes) was to send an e-mail to all Labour Party members and supporters promising to include them and their wishes in his policy-making process, asking them to forward questions to place to the Prime Minister, David Cameron, at Prime Minister’s Questions next Wednesday.
For Jeremy Corbyn, being Labour leader is about the opportunity to serve and to create viable public services. Indeed, his record presses all the right buttons for the socially leaning members of the public. And those who understand the first thing about economics.
Policy issues and some predictions
Let us take a look at the policies Jeremy Corbyn has supported and this will explain why he will cause concern and will be demonized by the media who will classify him as a dangerous radical who is unelectable and unstatesmanlike. The reason why, as we shall see, is that his policies go against the grain of government by proxy for the lobbies to which politicians today are connected and which place them in office or else close ranks around them when they are elected.
For a start, Jeremy Corbyn questions the pan-national weapons lobby called NATO, whose collective member states’ budget is a staggering one point two thousand billion USD each and every year – four times the amount it would cost to eradicate poverty, worldwide, forever. How Constitutional is it for any of the countries to have their foreign policy dictated by such a lobby? Predictably, the national security button will be pressed as enemies and dark forces are invented to justify NATO’s existence and new members are sought to bolster its budget and cater for the lobbies for which NATO is the cutting edge. Dictatorship of the Lobbies through the manipulation of fear.
Jeremy Corbyn opposed the war in Afghanistan (a foreign policy catastrophe in which the Taliban are paid not to attack), opposed the war in Iraq (another disaster which totally destabilized a sovereign state, murdered a million people and saw the creation of Islamic State), he opposed the war in Libya (another huge mistake) and opposes war in Syria. He is also Vice-Chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and a member of Amnesty International.
He was a campaigner against apartheid, worked to free the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six, people wrongly convicted as IRA bombers. Needless to say, the media will have a heyday over this but then again, what is wrong with working to free people who have been wrongly convicted?
Jeremy Corbyn understands that austerity shrinks the economy, destroying jobs, taking away workers’ rights gained over the last century and favors an approach which combats tax evasion, bringing more money into the treasury. In fact, his policies would bring in an extra 100 billion pounds in the short term. He plans a public investment scheme to create housing and plans to take rail franchises back into the public sector and supports renationalizing the energy sector. Strongly opposed to tuition fees, Jeremy Corbyn wants to create a National Education Service. A service, not a business.
On foreign policy, he rightly saw that the Ukraine crisis was caused by NATO’s attempt to expand eastwards. As regards Israel, he realizes that no progress is going to be made until talks are held between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah and he opposed sanctions against Iran.
Who is Jeremy Corbyn?
Born in 1949, he began his working career in the National Union of Public Employees, becoming an organizer for the Union. From here he went on to the National Union of Tailors and Garment Workers, was a member of a District Health Authority and was elected to Harringay Council, which he represented from 1974 to 1983 and was Secretary of the Islington Borough Labour Group.
He was elected as a Member of Parliament for Islington North in 1983 and has since been re-elected seven times. The Member of Parliament who claims the least expenses, he has served on the London Regional Select Committee, the Social Security Select Committee and the Justice Select Committee; he is Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Chagos Islands, on Mexico and Vice-Chair of the Group on Latin America and on Human Rights; he is member of the Groups on Bolivia, Britain-Palestine, Great Lakes and the International Parliamentary Union, among others. He is a vegetarian, an animal rights campaigner and supports the LGBT community.
For those who wish to see a health service run by a fascination with the bottom line, in which the haves get treated and the have-nots get second class treatment, for those who wish to see the education sector turned into a business in which you get a degree if you can pay and if you cannot, then you don’t get a chance, for those who wish to see train services cancelled, energy bills skyrocketing, for those who wish to be afraid to step outside the home after six o’clock, Jeremy Corbyn is a direct threat.
The question is, is Britain ready for Jeremy Corbyn?
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey can be contacted at timothy.hinchey@gmail.com
Anti-war Jeremy Corbyn attacked for defending white peace poppy
RT | September 15, 2015
Opponents of newly-elected Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn have attacked the Stop the War coalition chairman’s defense of the white peace poppy and lukewarm commitment to attend the annual Remembrance Day commemoration in November.
Corbyn made the remarks on Monday at the first Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) meeting since his triumph with an overwhelming 60 percent of the vote for the leadership on Saturday.
He refused to rule out wearing a white poppy during the ceremony held each year at the Cenotaph on Whitehall. His office has since insisted he will wear a traditional red poppy.
According to Politics Home, sources said Labour MPs present at the meeting were “shocked” by his comments.
“He was asked about the white poppy and offered a defense of it,” one MP said.
“He then said he attended memorial events in his own constituency and he wasn’t sure what would happen this year,” they added.
‘Hope Corbyn knows where to draw line’
Another MP claimed the public would be “appalled” if Corbyn stood at the Cenotaph wearing a white poppy.
“They will not understand it – they will think he is on a different planet. It is deeply offensive to our armed forces, who have given their lives for the democracy and freedoms he enjoys,” Labour MP Simon Danczuk said.
“I hope Jeremy will know where to draw the line on pushing a particular political agenda. The Cenotaph is no place to fight political battles.”
‘White poppies worn to oppose war’
Asked whether he would wear a red poppy, Corbyn said: “I don’t know what is going to happen this year.
“People wear white poppies because of their deep opposition to war.”
The Labour Party leader said he respects Remembrance Day regardless of what poppy he wears.
A spokeswoman later confirmed Corbyn, who attended the Battle of Britain commemorations on Tuesday, would wear a red poppy on Remembrance Sunday.
Just like the traditional red poppy, the white one is worn to remember those who died while emphasizing a lasting commitment to peace.
According to Stop the War, wearing a white poppy is a “respectful way to put peace at the heart of remembering those who died in war.”
However, opponents of the white poppy argue the red poppy already encompasses the sentiments claimed for the white poppy, such as “remembering all the victims of war.”
When the white poppy was first established in the 1930s, a number of women lost their jobs for wearing them, as it was believed the statement undermined those who had died in service.
In 2006, Channel 4 News anchor Jon Snow sparked controversy after refusing to wear a red poppy on air, saying demands for him to wear the traditional flower was “poppy fascism.”
Benign State Violence vs. Barbaric Terrorism
By Matt Peppe | Just the Facts | September 12, 2015
Seven months ago, UK Prime Minister David Cameron lamented the “sickening murder” of Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kaseasbeh by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). President Barack Obama also decried the “viciousness and barbarity” of the act. In his home country, al-Kaseasbeh was remembered as a “hero” and a “martyr” by government officials. Obama even declared his murder demonstrated ISIS’s “bankrupt” ideology. The killing was seen by the Western coalition and allied Arab monarchies fighting ISIS as a symbol of the evilness of their enemies, and by contrast the righteousness of their own cause.
The act that precipitated such a strong outpouring was the purported execution of the 26-year-old al-Kaseasbeh. He was burned alive inside a cage after several months in captivity. As part of ISIS’s propaganda campaign, they posted the video on Youtube. The authenticity of the video has since been questioned, but there is no doubt that regardless of the method used, he was indeed killed.
Al-Kaseasbeh was not an innocent civilian. In fact, he was a pilot in the Royal Jordanian Air Force who was bombing territory controlled by ISIS in an F-16 fighter jet. That is to say, he was an active combatant in military hostilities. His combatant status would be equivalent to an ISIS pilot (if they had an Air Force) apprehended after bombing New York City or London. Though it was reported in the British newspaper The Telegraph that al-Kaseasbeh was “kidnapped,” a military combatant engaged in armed conflict on the battlefield cannot be kidnapped. He was captured.
According to the Geneva Conventions, Prisoners of War enjoy protected status that guarantees their humane treatment and eventual release at the end of hostilities. “POWs cannot be prosecuted for taking a direct part in hostilities. Their detention is not a form of punishment, but only aims to prevent further participation in the conflict. They must be released and repatriated without delay after the end of hostilities,” writes the International Committee of the Red Cross.
ISIS would have no legal grounds to kill al-Kaseasbeh, but it was cynical and sanctimonious for the Western coalition to react with such outrage when he was killed. Those same countries have embraced and celebrated summary assassinations and executions on a scale far more massive than anything ISIS could ever be capable of.
Several weeks ago, Cameron ordered the assassination of two British citizens in Syria alleged to be ISIS militants.
“The strike against British citizen Reyaad Khan, the ‘target of the strike,’ was committed without approval from Parliament. British citizen Ruhul Amin, who was killed in the strike, was deemed an ‘associate’ worthy of death,” writes Kevin Gosztola in Shadowproof.
The British government has not declared war on Syria and has not released any legal justification for its actions. Naturally, any legal documentation they did produce would be merely psuedo-legal cover that would never withstand real judicial scrutiny.
Cameron’s actions in ordering the murder of his own citizens follows the well-treaded path of Obama, whose large-scale drone program in as many as seven countries (none of which the US Congress has declared war on) have killed more than 2,500 people in six years. The President has quipped that he is “really good at killing people.”
By any measure, the drone assassination program has been wildly reckless and ineffective. One study determined that missile strikes from unmanned drones, launched by remote-control jockeys in air-controlled trailers in the American desert, kill 28 unknown people for every intended target. In Pakistan, a study revealed that only 4% of those killed have been identified as members of al Qaeda.
Among the victims have been 12 people on their way to a wedding in Yemen, and a 13-year-old boy who said that he lived in constant fear of “death machines” that had already killed his father and brother before taking his own life.
“A lot of the kids in this area wake up from sleeping because of nightmares from then and some now have mental problems. They turned our area into hell and continuous horror, day and night, we even dream of them in our sleep,” the now-deceased boy, Mohammed Tuaiman, told The Guardian.
Before Cameron did so, Obama also targeted citizens of his own country for assassination without trial. The most well known case is of Anwar al-Awlaki, killed by a drone strike in 2011. The government claimed he was operationally active in al-Qaeda, but this was never tested in court.
“It is likely the real reason Anwar al-Awlaki was killed is that he was seen as a radicalizer whose ideological activities were capable of driving Western Muslims to terrorist violence,” writes Arun Kundnani in The Muslims Are Coming!.
In other words, the Obama administration decided his speech was not protected by the 1st amendment to the US Constitution, and rather than being obligated to test this theory in court they unilaterally claimed the right to assassinate him, the way King John of England would have been able to order the execution of one of his subjects before signing the Magna Carta 800 years ago.
Three weeks later, al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son was killed in a drone strike. An Obama adviser justified the strike by saying he should have “had a more responsible father.”
Writing on his blog, former British security services officer Craig Murray claims that in light of the decision 20 years ago by the European Court of Human Rights that targeted assassinations when an attack was no imminent were illegal, the British government cannot claim its drone strike in Syria “is anything other than murder.”
“For the government to claim the right to kill British people through sci-fi execution, based on highly unreliable secret intelligence and a secret declaration of legality, is so shocking I find it difficult to believe it is happening even as I type the words. Are we so cowed as to accept this?” Murray writes.
So what makes ISIS’s killing supposedly morally outrageous compared to the US and British drone strikes?
Was ISIS’s killing less morally justified? Al-Kaseasbeh was a combatant who had been dropping bombs on the people who eventually killed him. That much is beyond dispute. The US and UK kill people through drone strikes merely for being suspected militants who might one day seek to attack those countries.
Were ISIS’s methods less humane? Certainly burning a human being alive is sadistic and cruel. But is it any less so to incinerate a human being by a Hellfire missile? Former drone operator Brandon Bryant told NBC News that he saw his victim “running forward, he’s missing his right leg… And I watch this guy bleed out and, I mean, the blood is hot.” Is a drone strike less cruel because the operator is thousands of miles away from the bloodshed and watching on a screen rather than in person?
Were ISIS’s actions terrorism while the US/UK actions were not? As the late Mohammed Tuaiman attested, he and his neighbors were terrified by the omnipresence of the “death machines” that could at any second of the day blow him to pieces without warning or the possibility of escape. Were the people in ISIS controlled territory as terrorized as Tuaiman by the burning of the Jordanian pilot, who was specifically targeted because he had been caught after bombing the same people who now held him captive? Surely they were not more terrorized, though perhaps they might have been equally so.
It would by hypocritical to justify one form of extrajudicial killing while demonizing another. Yet that is exactly what happens when one form of violence is undertaken by a state and another is not. The New York Times is indicative of broader public opinion when it decries the “fanatical vision” of ISIS that has “shocked and terrified the peoples of Iraq and Syria,” while accepting Obama’s rationalizations of deaths via drone strikes as collateral damage, maintaining only that he should “provide a fuller accounting” to enable an “informed debate.”
The apologies for state violence enable the shredding of the rule of law as a method of accountability for those in power, while other states take advantage of technical advances to proliferate their own sci-fi violence against their own citizens and others.
“Pakistan is the latest member of a growing technological club of nations: those who have successfully weaponized drones,” writes Spencer Ackerman in The Guardian. “In addition to the US, UK and Israel, a recent New America Foundation report highlighted credible accounts that Iran, South Africa, France, China and Somalia possess armed drones, as do the terrorist groups [sic] Hamas and Hezbollah. Russia says it is working on its own model.”
One day in the not too distant future, the skies across the world may be full of drones from every country dispensing justice from Miami to Mumbai via Hellfire Missiles, relegating the rule of law and its method of trial by jury to the ash heap of history. And it will not be because of terrorist groups like ISIS that governments and the media are so forceful to condemn, but because of governments themselves and their lapdogs in the media who refuse to apply the same standards in judging violence to states that have their own Air Forces.
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From the Archives
US Also Destroyed Iraqi Water Supply During First Gulf War
International Humanitarian Law prohibits the attack, destruction, or rendering useless of objects indispensable to civilian survival.
By Kurt Nimmo | Another Day in the Empire | June 10, 2026
… During the first Gulf War, the United States “deliberately bombed Iraq’s water system,” Thomas J. Nagy, a professor at George Washington University, wrote in September, 2001. The Bush administration, “with malice aforethought,” “destroyed, removed, or rendered useless” Iraq’s ‘drinking water installations and supplies’… They amount to a systematic effort to, in the DIA’s own words, ‘fully degrade’ Iraq’s water sources.”
Nagy found declassified documents at the website of the Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses that detailed the effort to degrade Iraq’s water supply and commit a serious violation of humanitarian law. The documents included “Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerability,” “Disease Information,” “Disease Outbreaks in Iraq,” “Medical Problems in Iraq,” “Status of Disease at Refugee Camps,” “Health Conditions in Iraq,” and “Iraq: Assessment of Current Health Threats and Capabilities.”
Then Representative Cynthia McKinney, a Democrat from Georgia (subsequently removed from Congress), referred to the Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities document, and said, “Attacking the Iraqi public drinking water supply flagrantly targets civilians and is a violation of the Geneva Convention and of the fundamental laws of civilized nations.” … Read full article
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