Face to face, with the man who sold the world

The British Prime Minister - Is he ours (the UK’s), or is he theirs (the EU’s)?

“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” as the song says and to paraphrase, it’s beginning to look a lot like he is theirs.

Cameron happily says and promises almost anything to get into power – a referendum for instance.

But in practice - That is an entirely different thing. He will never willingly allow the British electorate a European issue related referendum. Not unless he can fix it to give the “right” result with a "Have you stopped beating your wife?, Yes or No” type question. He has already shown where he stands by suppressing a free vote on the subject. Unfortunately the so-called Loyal Opposition seem equally shy of the subject.

When you think about it is hardly surprising. The Conservatives basically picked him because he was a clone of Tony Bliar An acorn that fell a little too close to the tree it seems.

Interestingly the other “Boy from Brazil” his deputy Clegg looks suspiciously Blairish in the right light too. Clearly despite the misleading (all things to all people – how Bliar is that) title “Liberal” and “Democrat” it is questionable if he is either.

Clearly he feels he and the state have a far greater right to have a say as to what is done with private property than the rightful owners and the only way to ultimately enforce that way is - well force - So for all his spin that is pure authoritarian socialism. Cameron/Clegg birds of a feather.

So, the Euro, literally at least partly “jerry built” on foundations of the very best sand.

Now the North wind doth blow and it is in deep deep doo-doo. Rather than contemplate a soft landing the princes of Europe, the political elite, now seem hell bent on an all or nothing approach, metaphorically ready to shoot the first person to make a run for it.

To paraphrase Bowie, Oh no. Not us. We never lost control – Holding the threat of financial Armageddon over Europe to force, what would effectively be a political union, at least on the Euro-zone States. A Superstate in anybody honest’s book.

Ironically having attempted to dominate Europe and the world by hook individually it now looks as if France and Germany may be within a whisker of being shoehorned into dominating it collectively by crook, so to speak. Déjà vu, is a ironically a suitably continental expression for where we find ourselves.

The Greek and the Italian electorate have found out what this means, they essentially no longer have elected heads of state. They have Eurocrats, Commissars instead.

Rather like the EU in fact, although it has a “decorative parliament” it is effectively ruled by Commissioners who’s finances are so murky no hones accountant will sign off on an audit of them. It has a so-called president that no electorate voted for.

Its laws and justice system are essentially Statist, authoritarian, Napoleonic, more guilty until proven innocent. More “Do you have a permit to do that?” as opposed to “It’s not against the law”.. Continental oil to the English speaker’s water.

Surely a point, if ever there were one, for the UK to stop and think to it’s self. “Hang on a mo!” Is this really what I signed up for when I joined what I was promised was just a friendly trade association the Common Market”?

Back when we were so eager we dumped so many of our existing profitable trade partners and markets to do it too.

The Common Market looked quite sexy and cute back then didn’t it, wearing a beret, a sexy pencil skirt, smoking a cool Gauloises and quoting beat poetry, you had so much in common. That was then, this is now.

Now she wants different things, she looks sort of shifty, a little scary like her mother and suspiciously like she spent the savings and wants to claim your life insurance money. They are mushrooms in the stroganoff aren’t they? Oh and the door seems to be locked.

So a perfect time to have a referendum then, you might think. A vitally necessary time. Dave Cameron clearly does not. And one has to question his fitness to hold the office he does because of that. Is he really fit for purpose? Is he representing our interests at all. There is a word for someone like that.

So, a not unreasonable interpretation of the question:

“Do you want to be assimilated by the Borg or not?” :-)

Taking the Wikileak

It is becoming difficult to decide if Wikileaks is, on balance, a force for the betterment of mankind - or the reverse.

I must admit that I was initially inclined to the former view, but of late I am somewhat reluctantly coming round to the latter.

Now I am naturally inclined to see something like Wikileaks as on the side of the angels, so that is really saying something. I have no doubt that if people discover incompetence wrongdoing or cover-up in the organisation they work for they should be able raise the matter and get it addressed internally - and if not to blow the whistle on it.

What has really pushed me into mentally classifying the Wikileaks site as a net disbenefit is the release of the US diplomatic communications.

There seems to be something irresponsibly, parochially naive about the mentality behind these releases the site have made, something self-congratulatory and it is an interesting choice of news organisations Julian Assange has chosen to share the greater details with.

One suspects it says something about his politics. Being suspicious, one wonders if any cash or quid-pro-quo is involved.

I find it difficult to imagine these releases of diplomatic information will not ultimately cost actual lives.

It may be Wikileaks is of the view you can’t make omelettes without breaking eggs. There are a disturbing number of people who seem to take that view. I can’t help feeling It a bankrupt, lazy, way of thinking, from a site who’s’ only real justification is taking the moral high ground.

Apologists have argued that US Diplomats should be more careful about their cables.

This is disingenuous. Diplomats are there to smooth situations and argue a countries part... well diplomatically with foreign powers. They are also there to give their own government a warts and all accurate clear eyed view of things. To do less would be a disservice to their nation and make for improperly informed faulty decision making.

They must be brutally honest in their assessments with their own government – not ‘diplomatic’.

It is not even as if we don't all know such frank assesments are made in private, or as if we don't all know the value of tempering our public utterances, unless we are so socially inept for it to be classed as a 'condition'. The mere fact that such communications exist can hardly be cause to lay them bare. They may on the face of it seem two faced, but there needs to be some greater over-riding need.

To argue they should be more careful suggests either a flippant, possibly deliberate misunderstanding, or the sort of thinking that can justify stealing someone’s TV if they forget to lock their door when they go out.

To me it all seems uncomfortably like someone overhearing a husband and wife privately discussing a used car salesman, his merchandise and their available cash in the middle of making a deal – and then shouting it out to all and sundry including the staff in the car dealership. Basically a pretty scummy thing to do in those circumstances.

Politicians have denounced the site, some suggesting it be classed as a terrorist organisation. Intriguingly one of those particularly incensed is Representative Peter King (New York), possibly suffering from a serious case of double standards, is calling for Wikileaks to be designated as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization" and outlawed in the US.

A long supporter of the political wing of the IRA he might know a thing or two about “foreign terrorist organizations”...

On balance it is probably not a terrorist organisation. Although one fears there can be little doubt that some of the information they release will be of succour and assistance to terrorist organisations and powers unfriendly to the US.These latest releases seem more akin to spying than to terrorism. The documents were clearly stolen. Wikileaks will argue what they are doing is justified in the greater public interest.

It may have been true in the past. In this and in recent instances that is surely questionable. One wonders why no one has attempted to legally gag the site as might be a newspaper. One wonders if that is largely to avoid inflaming conspiracists imaginations.

Interestingly Wikileaks claimed to be under ‘cyber attack’ just prior to their releasing the information. A denial of service attack they claimed. This is where multiple botnet controlled computers are made to access a site in huge numbers. Assange seemed to imply the US might be behind the ‘attack’ attempting to ‘silence’ the site.

It all sounds most ‘conspiracy theory’ish until, if you have even half a brain, you realise there would have been massive worldwide interest in the site after they touted the so-called release. This would have resulted in huge numbers of people attempting to access the site, especially just before the information was published as they kept checking back – Still it helps pump Assange’s ego and publicity machine some more.

No deliberate ‘denial of service’ just overwhelming interest. Weirdly many media outlets uncritically pass the denial of service clams on unchallenged, don’t reporters have any understanding of the net?