"'Huge risks' of Cameron strategy" & "UKIP seeks to target Tory voters"

[ChrisCabbage]

For a brief history of the BNP (bearing in mind that this site is heavily biased against the BNP, but given its domain name, that shouldn't be a big surprise):

www.stopthebnp.org.uk/uncovered/pg01.htm

Contains some interesting quotes from Nick "I'm not a racist" Griffin.

 

[AcidTrash]

Hmm. Searchlight. They have their own sinister crooks too. Not exactly the most balanced website on the planet.

 

[JPsychodelicacy]

My sources tell me the BNP are receiving donations of over 100k a week at the moment. They're not targeting anyone. People are going to them. The main three paries stayed silent over this and did not say what most decent people were thinking. The BNP did.

There you go again... "most decent people" believe that Islam and immigration are the root of their problems. Where are you getting this information from? Who are your fabled "sources"?

Again, just more Daily Mail/BNP codewords.

"And he suggested that any Muslims who want to live under a system of Shariah law should leave the country"

"But Sir Trevor - who has recently sparked controversy with his attacks on multi-culturalism and calls on ethnic minorities to integrate"
Sir Trevor Phillips - Commission for Racial Equality

But there are extremely few Muslims in the UK who want to live under a system of Sharia law - if they did, they wouldn't be here. It's all they can do to set up their own private mortgage lenders to set up a lending apparatus which doesn't conflict with the Qu'aran, let alone enforce Islamic law.

Sir Trevor Phillips has spent too long as part of the Establishment... Shame, because he is a clever man.

Which is alll I have said. And yet you call me a racist.

No, you also implied that the Asian politicians around where you live are all in with the suicide bombers just because of their race and/or origins. *That* is racist.

Incidentally, if you do your homework on the BNP you will learn that their anger is direct at the government for following the flawed doctrine of multiculturalism.
Immigration is secondary.

Bollocks. Their aim is and always has been to 'send the darkies back'. Anything else is just policical sugarcoating to attempt to persuade people they've changed. Fortunately all it takes is the occasional C18/BNP member to open his trap every so often (they're generally so pig ignorant they can't help themselves) to prove that they're the same hoary old Fuehrerprinzip fascists they've always been.

Still a good indicator though and I have seen plenty examples of Islam in this country trying to assert its own doctrine over the law of the land.

Care to proide an example? Or are these from your much-vaunted "sources" (your Combat 18 comrades, perchance?)

Has it occurred to you that people can come to similar conclusions without holding the same bias or prejudice?

Only if they listen to their prejudices above their reason. It's far easier to blame the comparatively powerless, such as immigrants and/or asylum seekers or minorities than it is to go up against the moneyed investor class that are the real root of the inequalities in this country (and globally for that matter). Immigrants and offshore workers are hired by the wealthy because they will work just as hard as locals (if not harder) for less money - this is called the 'profit motive', and it has driven conservatives and right-wingers from the get go. The illustrious list of people who subscribe to bringing this situation to bear includes the late James Goldsmith - the very man who founded the party you claim to support.

Do you get it yet, mon ami? Eviscerating the working people of this country is the stated aim of the people you claim are on your side.

With a massive pesions blackhole and an overburdened state and spiral number unemployed I think limiting immagration and pursuading our own back to work is vital. Leaving the EU has too many merits to go into here.

Well, I'd like you to go into it.

Please...

I haven't had a decent laugh all day.

Of course, if you don't i'm guessing it's just another one of those "as all decent people know" canards you seem to be so fond of. Get this through your skull - The world economy has changed irreversibly. We can no longer go it alone. And I for one would much rather be part of a dynamic. forward-looking Europe than the backward, superstitious and slowly collapsing United States (which would be the only alternative).

It's the same ideology. Islamofacism dogma sounds very much like left wing dogma. The feed off each other so why should the opposing aruments change?
It's a war of ideology.

Again, you are talking a load of gash (Apologies to Oonagh for taking her nick in vain, but I couldn't think of a better term). The dangerous mullahs (who are thankfully in the minority - even Iran has some form of secular governance) have more in common with the Dominionists that bend the ear of the right-wing of the US government (and have a small toehold here, such as Peniel Pentecostal who were in the news a few years back).

No self-respecting lefty in this day and age, certainly of my generation, considers Soviet centralism to be anything but an aberration that should not be emulated. Most lefties I know are fully capable of rational, independent thought, and are wont to use it, which is more than can be said of the members of the "Send 'em back" brigade I've encountered over the years.

I think you'll find the social safety nets of the last decade are far better than they ever have been. Some of which are monumentally detrimental to the economy.

Not true - it's all means-tested these days, far more stringently than it has ever been.

The only thing that is detrimental to the economy is that large corporate private enterprise is not regulated enough. The high-fliers cream off far too much money for the situation as it is to be sustainable. But they own the media, and so can abuse it to get the working and lower middle class fighting amongst themselves.

So you don't think social and employment legislation has made us uncompetetive and drives business out of the country?

No, I think unregulated business and laissez-faire capitalism is the problem, not the solution. We should be working together to build a better worl for us all, not embracing the Dominionist screed of "I've got mine, screw the rest of you".

In a few years, Europe will be more competitive than the States, because the investment classes there will do to that country what the Politburo and military did to the Soviet Union... overspend on weaponry and aggregate wealth and power in the hands of fewer and fewer people to the point where the country collapses under its own spending, because their fiat currency only has value as long as it is the primary currency for oil trading. As oil becomes more scarce, it becomes more likely that the only accepted currecy will revert to something with intrinsic value, such as gold.

Bollocks. The two are too intertwined. If one tanks, so does the other.

I think you're too blindsided by pro-US propaganda. We'll catch a cold, but they'll have something far worse. Face it - the Labour Party has done a Clinton and become the party of financial stability. Bush has proved (as Thatcher and Reagan did) that tax cuts for the rich and business deregulation favours only the obscenely wealthy, and the whole world can now see the supply-side lie for what it is, as the average US citizen has to work two or more jobs just to support a family of two.

How do you mean?

France has a superior healthcare system, all of Europe has better transport capabilities, Asia's economy is on the rise... there are many many places that are currently far more desirable than the UK. The primary reason people come here is not the so-calles 'soft touch' welfare system, but the fact that there already exist communities from their homeland.

When one is as strategically important and financially influential as Saudi you have to pick your battles. We don't have a magic wand.

Crap - we have no quarrel with the Middle Eastern countries, nor should we have. If we're so intersted in human rights we must apply those standards across the board, not pick and choose according to which despot we want on our side today.

You claim to be principled, yet your desire to see human rights upheld suddenly wanes if it will cost you more at the petrol station.

You, sirrah are no more than a narrow-minded, easily led and bigoted fraud.

J.

 

[AcidTrash]

There you go again... "most decent people" believe that Islam and immigration are the root of their problems. Where are you getting this information from? Who are your fabled "sources"?

Again, just more Daily Mail/BNP codewords.

Most decent people were venting their anger at the government for their show of cowardice and appeasement of fundamentalist Islam.

My sources are people in the ranks of political parties.

But there are extremely few Muslims in the UK who want to live under a system of Sharia law - if they did, they wouldn't be here. It's all they can do to set up their own private mortgage lenders to set up a lending apparatus which doesn't conflict with the Qu'aran, let alone enforce Islamic law.

The mad mullahs don't have the support of the majority of muslims in this country but because our government is falling over itself not to offend or upset them it's causing a lot of resentment toward the wider muslim community and driving them into the hands of the mad mullahs. It is the governments policy of appeasement thhat causes the friction. Most moderate muslims in this country would be delighted to see these fanatics locked up or deported because it would make thier lives easier. But instead we're giving them all the room they want to express their viriol for our way of life.

Sir Trevor Phillips has spent too long as part of the Establishment... Shame, because he is a clever man.

C'mon, you have to admit there's a problem when the CRE says the same thing as the BNP.

No, you also implied that the Asian politicians around where you live are all in with the suicide bombers just because of their race and/or origins. *That* is racist.

You'd decreed I was racist liong before I stopped taking that thread seriously when all I was saying that Islam is not being allowed to integrate and atively refuses to.

Bollocks. Their aim is and always has been to 'send the darkies back'. Anything else is just policical sugarcoating to attempt to persuade people they've changed. Fortunately all it takes is the occasional C18/BNP member to open his trap every so often (they're generally so pig ignorant they can't help themselves) to prove that they're the same hoary old Fuehrerprinzip fascists they've always been.

So why do they have a Sikh as one of their spokemen? I know two staunch allies of the party, both of whom are Jewish. The C18/NF part of BNP died with Tyndall. The mood is very much reform. People who spout any such views are expelled.

Only if they listen to their prejudices above their reason. It's far easier to blame the comparatively powerless, such as immigrants and/or asylum seekers or minorities than it is to go up against the moneyed investor class that are the real root of the inequalities in this country (and globally for that matter). Immigrants and offshore workers are hired by the wealthy because they will work just as hard as locals (if not harder) for less money - this is called the 'profit motive', and it has driven conservatives and right-wingers from the get go.

Nobody is blaming immigration for economic problems. that is an old and pointless argument. The problem here is social cohesion and that does have a great deal to do with immigration and integration policy.

The illustrious list of people who subscribe to bringing this situation to bear includes the late James Goldsmith - the very man who founded the party you claim to support.

James Goldsmith was never anything to do with UKIP.

Well, I'd like you to go into it.

Please...

I haven't had a decent laugh all day.

For a start it has no democratic mandate, it's undemocratic, corrupt, expensive, centralist, incompetant, protectionist and over zealous with red tape and regulation. It is an artificial constuct founded on the will of a political elite without the backing of the peoples of Europe. Exept for those with their fingers in the till.

Of course, if you don't i'm guessing it's just another one of those "as all decent people know" canards you seem to be so fond of. Get this through your skull -
The world economy has changed irreversibly. We can no longer go it alone. And I for one would much rather be part of a dynamic. forward-looking Europe than the backward, superstitious and slowly collapsing United States (which would be the only alternative).

You really don't know anything about the EU at all do you?

Again, you are talking a load of gash (Apologies to Oonagh for taking her nick in vain, but I couldn't think of a better term). The dangerous mullahs (who are thankfully in the minority - even Iran has some form of secular governance) have more in common with the Dominionists that bend the ear of the right-wing of the US government (and have a small toehold here, such as Peniel Pentecostal who were in the news a few years back).

LOL!!

No self-respecting lefty in this day and age, certainly of my generation, considers Soviet centralism to be anything but an aberration that should not be emulated.

Then how come you love the EU so much?

Most lefties I know are fully capable of rational, independent thought, and are wont to use it, which is more than can be said of the members of the "Send 'em back" brigade I've encountered over the years.

Yet I'm still waiting for evidence.

Not true - it's all means-tested these days, far more stringently than it has ever been.

You mean the forms are quite complex

The only thing that is detrimental to the economy is that large corporate private enterprise is not regulated enough. The high-fliers cream off far too much money for the situation as it is to be sustainable. But they own the media, and so can abuse it to get the working and lower middle class fighting amongst themselves.

Sorry but if you over regulate business you stifle it. Theres nothing like a new social welfare policy to send employers packing off to india and china. That's your EU social chapter for you. Everyone will have the right to a clean, safe, risk free working environment. Problem is, there will be nothing for us to do.

No, I think unregulated business and laissez-faire capitalism is the problem, not the solution. We should be working together to build a better worl for us all, not embracing the Dominionist screed of "I've got mine, screw the rest of you".

As above. over regulating busness makes them go to places like china where they can treat workers any way they like thus exporting exploitaion to a worse degree.

In a few years, Europe will be more competitive than the States, because the investment classes there will do to that country what the Politburo and military did to the Soviet Union...
overspend on weaponry and aggregate wealth and power in the hands of fewer and fewer people to the point where the country collapses under its own spending, because their fiat currency only has value as long as it is the primary currency for oil trading.

Ha! You don't know anything about european defense spending either do you?
And sorry but theres a pan european pensions crisis looming and even the guardian admits the Euro will struggle. Italy is even talking about pulling out of the Euro and the German people want the Mark back. The dollar will survive the euro.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/euro/story/0,11306,1499369,00.html

And they're the ones putting a positive spin on the euro.

As oil becomes more scarce, it becomes more likely that the only accepted currecy will revert to something with intrinsic value, such as gold.

Oh dear.

I think you're too blindsided by pro-US propaganda. We'll catch a cold, but they'll have something far worse.

I think you need to stay away from the BBC for a while.

Face it - the Labour Party has done a Clinton and become the party of financial stability.

WHAT???????? Browns welfare spending is bankrupting us. 42% tax burden for the individual and 44% employed by the state? That's not healthy economy mate.

Bush has proved (as Thatcher and Reagan did) that tax cuts for the rich and business deregulation favours only the obscenely wealthy, and the whole world can now see the supply-side lie for what it is, as the average US citizen has to work two or more jobs just to support a family of two.

Really.

France has a superior healthcare system, all of Europe has better transport capabilities

Europe has a better transport system because it's only 50 years old. We bombed most of it into dust during WW2 so it's all been rebuilt (by the americans no less).

, Asia's economy is on the rise... there are many many places that are currently far more desirable than the UK.

Mostly because the EU has made Britain an unfavourable prospect for free trade.
Again, Over taxed and over regulated.

The primary reason people come here is not the so-calles 'soft touch' welfare system, but the fact that there already exist communities from their homeland.

True but why should we take them? Especially when we have 2.7 million on incapacity benfit and god knows how many on the dole in the middle of a public funding crisis. They'r enot coming from india either. Chances of a decent living are much improved in india.

Crap - we have no quarrel with the Middle Eastern countries, nor should we have. If we're so intersted in human rights we must apply those standards across the board, not pick and choose according to which despot we want on our side today.

I would like to do something about Saudi Arabia but it's last on the agenda while they are allies in the war on terror. It's an important staging post for our airborne operations and could be vital if in the event we had to prevent the Isrealis from staring a war with Iran.

You claim to be principled, yet your desire to see human rights upheld suddenly wanes if it will cost you more at the petrol station.

Nothing to do with it. I would like to see democracy reach all those who want it. Control of oil is secondary. With the amount we've spent on this war we could have bought the oil we needed and probably bought a few new nuclear power stations too.

 

[JPsychodelicacy]

Most decent people were venting their anger at the government for their show of cowardice and appeasement of fundamentalist Islam. My sources are people in the ranks of political parties.

Yeah, the UKIP and BNP - they don't count.

C'mon, you have to admit there's a problem when the CRE says the same thing as the BNP.

The CRE is *not* saying the same thing as the BNP - that's a terrible abuse of language. All that they are saying in common is that there is a problem. They disagree fundamentally on wha tthe source of that problem is.

You'd decreed I was racist liong before I stopped taking that thread seriously when all I was saying that Islam is not being allowed to integrate and atively refuses to.

Again you are wrong... I live by the Finsbury Park mosque... they integrate quite peacefully and happily!

So why do they have a Sikh as one of their spokemen? I know two staunch allies of the party, both of whom are Jewish. The C18/NF part of BNP died with Tyndall. The mood is very much reform. People who spout any such views are expelled.

And if you believe that I've got a bridge I'd like to sell you. If they do have a Sikh as one of their spokesmen then they've probably persuaded him he's losing out due to new immigration - which is completely false, but can be quite persuasive if one can't be bothered to think the issue through.

James Goldsmith was never anything to do with UKIP.

No, he was Referendum Party which was later subsumed into the UKIP - same shit, different day.

For a start it has no democratic mandate, it's undemocratic, corrupt, expensive, centralist, incompetant, protectionist and over zealous with red tape and regulation. It is an artificial constuct founded on the will of a political elite without the backing of the peoples of Europe. Exept for those with their fingers in the till.

It's still infinitely better than the US 'F*ck everyone but me' mentality

You really don't know anything about the EU at all do you?

Then how come you love the EU so much?

Because it is a counterweight to the the government of the USA - the most evil, rapacious, socially and environmentally irresponsible gorilla of a government to exist in global history.

Sorry but if you over regulate business you stifle it. Theres nothing like a new social welfare policy to send employers packing off to india and china. That's your EU social chapter for you. Everyone will have the right to a clean, safe, risk free working environment. Problem is, there will be nothing for us to do.

As above. over regulating busness makes them go to places like china where they can treat workers any way they like thus exporting exploitaion to a worse degree.

There are many ways to sort this out.

The point is that unbridled capitalism is bad for humanity, bad for nature and bad for this planet. The attitude and constant warmongering of the US is proof of this. The 'war of ideology' that you claim is currently raging is nothing more than a smokescreen to hide a transparent attempt by the US to steal the resources of the Middle East to feed their addiction to oil. Why do you think that Iraq was invaded so soon after Saddam had switched to trading in Euros, and the war drums for Iran have been beating ever since they laid plans to do the same?

The laissez-faire capitalist US economy that you hold up as the ultimate way of doing things is utterly bankrupt from within, and all it will take to cause a major collapse that will make the fall of the Soviet Union look like a picnic by comparison is the collapse of the petrodollar.

The rise of the mullahs was precipitated by the actions of the CIA in the Nixon-Carter-Reagan era as a violent reaction to having a dictator placed upon them, selling their oil cheap as chips to the US. This has nothing to do with Muslims supporting the ideology of the global Caliphate - this has to do with them going to ideological strongmen who claim to protect their interests - just as the Italians did with Mussolini, the Germans and Austrians did with Hitler, and the Americans did with Bush after September the 11th.

Ha! You don't know anything about european defense spending either do you?
And sorry but theres a pan european pensions crisis looming and even the guardian admits the Euro will struggle. Italy is even talking about pulling out of the Euro and the German people want the Mark back. The dollar will survive the euro.

No it won't - the US is toast, no matter how many weapons it builds... the only uncertainty is how many people it will take with it when it goes.

My German friends definitely don't want the mark back. Maybe your mates in the NPD might though... you do seem to use far-right screeds to make most of your points.

We Europeans are moving past the antagonistic methods of war to get our way, preferring peace and diplomacy - and that is why we will survive the fall of the US if we all pull together.

I think you need to stay away from the BBC for a while.

The BBC is but one source of information I use

WHAT???????? Browns welfare spending is bankrupting us. 42% tax burden for the individual and 44% employed by the state? That's not healthy economy mate.

It's healthier than the poor working 2 or 3 minimum wage jobs to support their families, which is the current state in the US.

Mostly because the EU has made Britain an unfavourable prospect for free trade.
Again, Over taxed and over regulated.

Yeah, but it's a nicer place to live as a result - like all fascists, you consider the welfare of the people as secondary to the welfare of business and the super-rich.

True but why should we take them? Especially when we have 2.7 million on incapacity benfit and god knows how many on the dole in the middle of a public funding crisis. They'r enot coming from india either. Chances of a decent living are much improved in india.

Well, maybe we should do our darnedest to get these people healthy again. It was easy for your ilk to blame asylum seekers for not having jobs until it was pointed out that most of them were happy to work, it was just our immigration laws stopping them.

The problem is that you're too quick to blame things on 'layabouts' and 'dole cheats', when such people are actually an insubstantial minority. What is screwing things up globally is the greed of big business and the wealthy owners and investment classes driving said business. If they had a social conscience instead of being drivne solely by "F*ck everyone but me", then they'd employ locally rather than in China and India. It's the rich you should be blaming, not the poor and immigrants.

I would like to do something about Saudi Arabia but it's last on the agenda while they are allies in the war on terror. It's an important staging post for our airborne operations and could be vital if in the event we had to prevent the Isrealis from staring a war with Iran.

There is no 'war on terror' - it's a war for oil and resources. If Israel did attack Iran, it would be with either tacit or open US blessing and there would be nothing 'we' could do about it.

Nothing to do with it. I would like to see democracy reach all those who want it. Control of oil is secondary. With the amount we've spent on this war we could have bought the oil we needed and probably bought a few new nuclear power stations too.

But oil and nuclear power is destroying our planet. We need to find another way and we can't do that if the majority of our budget globally is spent on ever more ingenious ways of annihilating one another.

The whole point of things like the EU is so we can band togethre instead of fighting one another and that is why I support such things wholeheartedly.

J.

 

[AcidTrash]

Yeah, the UKIP and BNP - they don't count.

The CRE is *not* saying the same thing as the BNP - that's a terrible abuse of language. All that they are saying in common is that there is a problem. They disagree fundamentally on wha tthe source of that problem is.

CRE is saying some of the same things. See posted articvle. He has attacked multiculturalism as a political doctrine and told muslims who want to live under sharia law that they would be better off leaving.


Again you are wrong... I live by the Finsbury Park mosque... they integrate quite peacefully and happily!
[/QUOTE]

We have accepted the immigrant population into this country - not that we were given the choice - and we bit our collective tongues when we were told to embrace multiculturalism, myself in the expectation that, eventually, as did the Poles, the Jews, the West Indians and the others, they would become absorbed into the greater community and become essentially British.

But that is not happening with the Islamic communities. Outside of London - where there is a form of multiculturalism because it is too big for any one sect to dominate - the Islamic communities are becoming more distinct and more assertive. We harbour alien ghettos in our midst, filled with people who are not just unsympathetic to our way of life and our values but who, if not actively hostile to them, have no intention of absorbing them. By any measure, this is unacceptable.

And if you believe that I've got a bridge I'd like to sell you. If they do have a Sikh as one of their spokesmen then they've probably persuaded him he's losing out due to new immigration - which is completely false, but can be quite persuasive if one can't be bothered to think the issue through.

Either that or he's a sikh who has witnessed first hand the butchery of islam in India in 47 and is seeing history repeat itself.

I do share your scepticism about the BNP's reforms, especially given their somewhat tarnished (to put it mildly) heritage) However there is now a popular will to have a nationalist party. Given the treasonable ineptitude of UKIP and the comedy value of Veritas people are finding that there is only one place to turn at the ballot box to give the consensus in the commons the sharp shock it needs.

This means by sheer weight of numbers the outright scum of the party will be marginalised and if they speak up with any of their rantings then they are expelled. I know members who are saying this.

These are not skinhead millwall supporters. They are bank managers, activists, programmers, and yes, even NURSES!!!

The concept of a nationalist party has long been hijacked by fascists and the moderates are slowly taking it back. People are attracted to it because it's public face (the website) has many issues on it that are too hot for the mainstream parties. They are tired of the silence and will flock to the people who are at least willing to have the debate. The tories are compromised on so many issues because of their past that they cannot speak out. Most of the labour initiatives are continuation of conservative policy and so they bring themselves into the sh*t if they attack labour. This is why the old parties are dying and people are looking for a new set of ideas.

No, he was Referendum Party which was later subsumed into the UKIP - same shit, different day.

RP was a bit of a distateful sham. A very rich man buying his way into politics but it did serve its purpose. It forced labout to promse a referendum on Euro entry because there was a significant RP vote that could swing marginal seats. Whether Labour will stick to that we do not know but it did postpone early entry and now we may never join. Yes, UKIP picked up much of its support after RP died but the ensuing infighting and the Kilroy episode was enough to kill them as a credible force.

It's still infinitely better than the US 'F*ck everyone but me' mentality

If the US did have a fuck everyone else mentality they would have just left Saddam where he was and paid him for oil. They knew there was little risk of saddam using WMD's so why bother unless there was a greater task at hand. The removal of those dictators who violently oppress their people.
Oil is by the by. only 11% of US oil comes from the middle east.

Because it is a counterweight to the the government of the USA - the most evil, rapacious, socially and environmentally irresponsible gorilla of a government to exist in global history.

So you don't think Chinna compares in those stakes or the USSR of the last century or the butchers of middle africa? Sort your head out mate.

As for EU being a counterweight... How? An inward looking protectionist superstate that doesn't have the capacity to defend itself? The only way the EU can be a couterweight is by throwing in its strategic lot with China. Those evr so nice people in the East.

There are many ways to sort this out.

The point is that unbridled capitalism is bad for humanity, bad for nature and bad for this planet. The attitude and constant warmongering of the US is proof of this.

Un bridled capitalism is bad for humanity huh? Tell that to japan who could well have turned out like North Korea or VietNam. Capitalism is a bringer of economic freedom. It's why the chinese want it and their government resists it. Economic freedom means loss of control.

Ask yourself which side of the Berlin Wall you would have wanted to be on. Who was trying to escape into where?

You apparently do not have the slightest inclination of what gift it is for you to live in the capitalist west.

The 'war of ideology' that you claim is currently raging is nothing more than a smokescreen to hide a transparent attempt by the US to steal the resources of the Middle East to feed their addiction to oil.

It is not a smokescreen. It is an active intervention to remove religous oppressive rule. One which the americans can see is a major threat to democracy because its ideology is so opposit to our own.

We are not steling oil from Iraq. They will be paid and the oil revenues will go on rebuilding the infrastructure of Iraq which was destroyed by Baathist rule and the Iran/Iraq war. That revenue is more likely to be distributed accross the whole of Iraq than if we repeat the mistake of saudi and just handing over money to a select minority. This is to ensure that we never get another Saudi Arabia. Y'know, where the 911 hijackers came from. I think you're more likely to radicalise islam by creating more billionaire oil sheiks than if you rebuild their country and install systems of democracy.

The radicalised islam has nothing to do with with outr ppresence their. It is just another set of fanatics trying to fuill the power vacuum left by saddam and we should NOT let that happen. Unmless of course we do want them to slaughter each other.

Why do you think that Iraq was nvaded so soon after Saddam had switched to trading in Euros, and the war drums for Iran have been beating ever since they laid plans to do the same?

Now who's wheeling out straw men?

The laissez-faire capitalist US economy that you hold up as the ultimate way of doing things is utterly bankrupt from within, and all it will take to cause a major collapse that will make the fall of the Soviet Union look like a picnic by comparison is the collapse of the petrodollar.

It looks like it might at this rate. The difference between you and I is that you think that's a good thing. Given the alternatives I cannot imageine why.
It is more likely to happen with Britain turning its back on NATO.

However when the reality of the Euro sinks in and Europe realises it has to start plugging its leaks and filling the pensions black hole it will sink below parity with the dollar. It has no popular mandate. It is an artifical construct foisted on the peoples of europe, may of whom got no say in the matter and as soon as thier peoples elect a government who does give them a choice in the matter you will find that countries start to withdraw. Especially when they need to set their own interest rates. Expansion will also bankrupt the Euro because many of the new members are basket case economies who export very little and need massive subsidies. Even Trukey is no hedging its bets as to whether to join the EU. If there were a referendum tommorrow theres a 50/50 chance that even we would pull out..

The rise of the mullahs was precipitated by the actions of the CIA in the Nixon-Carter-Reagan era as a violent reaction to having a dictator placed upon them, selling their oil cheap as chips to the US.

Not really. The mullahs just filled the power vacuum. Do I need to explain the dynamic of the cold war proxy wars?

This has nothing to do with Muslims supporting the ideology of the global Caliphate - this has to do with them going to ideological strongmen who claim to protect their interests - just as the Italians did with Mussolini, the Germans and Austrians did with Hitler, and the Americans did with Bush after September the 11th.

And were any of them right?

No it won't - the US is toast, no matter how many weapons it builds... the only uncertainty is how many people it will take with it when it goes.

see above.

My German friends definitely don't want the mark back. Maybe your mates in the NPD might though... you do seem to use far-right screeds to make most of your points.

Its a big country. your greman friends are but few.

We Europeans are moving past the antagonistic methods of war to get our way, preferring peace and diplomacy - and that is why we will survive the fall of the US if we all pull together.

We're not moving past methods of war because of any great evolution. All we've done is cosied up to the russians and the chinese via the EU. It's because in Europe we are plagued by post colonial guilt and have lost the will to stand up for ourselves and are happy to be pushed around by fanatics and bullies.

When the barbarian hordes come marching in we'll just roll over and die. The americans will fight to the last man. I'd ratehr die with my boots on than pander to the forces of communism and islamofascism.

The BBC is but one source of information I use

Give it a rest then!!!!

It's healthier than the poor working 2 or 3 minimum wage jobs to support their families, which is the current state in the US.

It won't be when we're all bankrupt. I'd rather do 2 jobs and survive than have none and crawl through the shit to survive.

Yeah, but it's a nicer place to live as a result - like all fascists, you consider the welfare of the people as secondary to the welfare of business and the super-rich.

Without the private sector there can be no generation of outside wealth, therefore no jobs to pay for the welfare state. No rocket science.

Well, maybe we should do our darnedest to get these people healthy again.

Perhaps not mollycoddling them with benefits huh?

It was easy for your ilk to blame asylum seekers for not having jobs until it was pointed out that most of them were happy to work, it was just our immigration laws stopping them.

My ilk? which is?

I have never had a problem with economic migrant communities who contribute and obey the law.

The problem is that you're too quick to blame things on 'layabouts' and 'dole cheats', when such people are actually an insubstantial minority.

The problem is bigger than the figures tell. Combine the people shovelled on to incapacity benefit with people on JSA and new deal and combine that with the people herded into universities on crap course (thanks to blairs golden 50% rule) and you've got approaching 5 million unemployed. Thats bad news and hardly insubstantial.

What is screwing things up globally is the greed of big business and the wealthy owners and investment classes driving said business.

It does make for in efficient markets and make way for profiteering but that is a failure of market regulation and governance.
Private sector is not always a bad thing if it generates wealth for the country. This is why we can't tax them out of the country.

If they had a social conscience instead of being drivne solely by "F*ck everyone but me", then they'd employ locally rather than in China and India.

YEs but they dont have a social conscience and no amount of wishing makes it so , so it's either accept it or go bust. Besides, corporations are picking up on the conscience dollar and it is starting to have a positive impact. It's only in the last century where corporations have abandoned social programmes anyway. LArgely because they were taxed out of the ability to do it and the nanny state took over. Just look at the Carnegie libraries and the Lever estates on the Wirral, or even Sir Titus Salt who built an entire village for his mill workers. It was the envy of the industrialised world.

This is why we need smaller governments with lower taxes and let thbusiness take over from the nanny state. An unharrassed worker is a productive worker. They know this but while the government does it for them there is no incentive.

It's the rich you should be blaming, not the poor and immigrants.

For the finaol time, it's the governemtn I blame for appeasement. NOT the immigrants.

There is no 'war on terror' - it's a war for oil and resources. If Israel did attack Iran, it would be with either tacit or open US blessing and there would be nothing 'we' could do about it.

There is a war on terror. It is a war against those fanatics who blow themselves up and kill and maim civilians in the name of god to cease power for their own sect of Islam A very real threat and a global one.

It is possible that we would take military action to prevent Isreal entering a war. It would not be the first time.

But oil and nuclear power is destroying our planet

Is it? Oil has an impact but the latest generation nuclear stations are the cleanest and sfest energy available. Do some reading on the pebblebed reacotrsa employed by the french. This is why they do not have an acute energy crisis as we do.

. We need to find another way and we can't do that if the majority of our budget globally is spent on ever more ingenious ways of annihilating one another.

Pebble bed reactors. This will prevent us going to war with russia.
HAve a look at future gas supplies. Gas will be the next major diplomatic wrangle in Europe.

The whole point of things like the EU is so we can band togethre instead of fighting one another and that is why I support such things wholeheartedly.

And let brussels regulaate business out of competeiveness and bankrupt us all because of some high minded, woolly, statist, centralist socialist ideal? USSR MkII. or the beginnings of.

It will cause more fights than it saves in the end. It was founded on the coal and steel community to stop us fighting over those resources. The world has changed and so have our resources and that is why it is yesterdays solution for todays problems. It is not dynamic enough to survive and without a democratic mandate there will be a major price to pay.

 

[JPsychodelicacy]

Business is bad for us all - only the 'haves' and 'have mores' feel differently. We should all be working for the good of our fellow man, no matter where they come from.

If we took the money that the West was spending on weapons, we could cancel world debt and feed the hungry of the world a hundred times over - then we could all work together to find a way of transcending the limits of this planet we live on... you know, work together and explore space? Doesn't that sound better than endlessly fighting each other for the last scrap of resource, so that a minority can be the rulers of a barren lump of rock in the solar system?

The problem is that you're seeing fundamentalist Islam as the problem, when it is but one symptom of a disease caused by laissez-faire capitalism and the 'F*ck everyone but me' mentality as espoused by the Nixon/Reagan/Bush cadre. Saddam, while nominally Muslim, was a *secular ruler* and was only considered a nuisance to the US when he threatened Kuwait (who were slant-drilling across the border into his territory, which naturally got his back up). Even then, the Nixonite holdovers probably wouldn't have cared, but for the fact that with the fall of the Soviet Union, they no longer had an enemy with which to justify the absurd amount of money they were spending on arms. This is what *you* fail to understand, which is that the system of government that has been in place in the USA since the end of the Second World War can't function without an enemy, because most of the higher-ups all sit on the boards of weapons manufacturers and logistics companies. Without that there's simply no incentive for them to go into politics... Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfowitz et al certainly aren't doing it because they believe in helping people - quite the opposite.

You claim to want to see functioning democracy for all that want it - but the system you hold up as a shining example is not a democracy in any meaningful sense - it is a government of the super-rich, by the super-rich and for the super-rich and has been for the last 60 years. The Republican Party *owns* the manufacturers of the voting machines... it is therefore closer to the one-party state system of the USSR than any European state could ever *hope* to be.

What you also fail to realise is that the USSR was a grand experiment and a great idea, corrupted by Stalin and the advent of war. Humankind is not yet ready for true Communism (which is, after all, about nothing more than every man working for the good of his brother - your 'centralised, statist' paranoia is straight from the Nazi playbook), but I long for the day when it is.

Nationalism was the scourge of the 19th and 20th centuries, and I'd hate to say it ruin the 21st as well.

J.

 

[Xenomage]

My god this has to be the longest single page in ANY thread EVER....
Me, I reckon our country is great, but only 'cos some clever people are running the show. Leave it up to the majority vote for real and we'd be fucked. Fact is, your average guy/gal, simply doesn't know enough, is not in possession of all the facts! Leave the decision making to those in the know. Oh, and the ones with all the money.

Teehee

 

[Xenomage]

Humankind is not yet ready for true Communism (which is, after all, about nothing more than every man working for the good of his brother -

Hate to break it to you, but, it's never gonna be. There ain't enough acid in the world. Well....:irazz:

Fact is, true communism is a dream for a different species, wake up to that. No one is gonna change mankind from what it is, we should try and learn to deal with it as best we can, not try and force some ideal.... Any surprise communism got corrupted. Really?

In fairness to our nature, having somebody tell us all what to do is much more like the majority of mankind. Please, I recognise that most of the people on this forum are free thinkers (relatively...). But we are a tiny portion of the population of this planet. Sorry.

 

[JPsychodelicacy]

Hate to break it to you, but, it's never gonna be. There ain't enough acid in the world. Well....:irazz:

What makes you so sure that this is so? Why the defeatist attitude? If people like Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks had listened to you they'd still be disenfranchised and standing at the back of the bus.

You can't effect change without believing that it's possible. Note that the only ones who say that being "Fuck everyone but me" and "it's a dog eat dog world out there, and *this* dog's doin' the eatin'" are the ones it benefits to maintain the status quo. Where does it say that human beings are programmed to be fundamentally selfish in order to survive? I thought it was that that was supposed to separate the rational human from the instict-driven animals.

But we're getting philosophical now... I just wanted to nail another coffin in AcidTrash's denial that this whole shindig in the Middle East is anything other than a pissing contest for resources, and that -importantly- the people see resisting the US and UK as a way of holding on to their resources, and continue to see us as unchanged from our colonial days. *That* is why they resist us, not because of a clash of ideologies.

Observe :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,,1720810,00.html

"It is England that has imposed these mullahs on us," the cabbie mused, resisting all protestations at the notion's absurdity.

Suggestions that the convulsive events of 1979, which ushered in the Islamic republic, were manipulated and orchestrated by the British are widely accepted here as a given. It is a belief held, even before his reign was swept to oblivion in a revolutionary tidal wave, by the last shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

The shah echoed this mantra during his reign's last desperate days, telling the American ambassador, William Sullivan, that he "detected the hand of the English" behind the street demonstrations raging against him.

If the rest of the world has become accustomed to the American hegemonic age, to Iranians Inglestan still wields the true power, albeit stealthily. Behind events great and small, they are ready to perceive the sleight of a hidden British hand. Belief in the "old coloniser's" diabolic powers unites Iranians in a way matched by no other issue, including the Islamic regime's pursuit of nuclear technology.

Top of the Iranian grudge list is the 1953 coup that toppled the nationalist prime minister, Mohammed Mossadeq, and cemented the rule of the shah. The coup was executed largely by the CIA but its genesis lay with the British secret services.

And why did we do it, even back in 1953?

The British had been infuriated by Mossadeq's nationalisation of the Anglo-Iranian oil company, a move prompted by widespread anger at its refusal to share a fairer proportion of its profits (vital to Britain's tax revenues) with Iran.

All emphasis mine, but it makes for interesting, if not sobering reading.

I believe humanity has the ability to change for the better and start co-operating, I don't think I could get out bed in the morning if I didn't. It would help if our economic and political leaders started showing a better example though.

It is possible - In Japan, if a business is doing badly, the executive board all take a significant pay cut until things start improving. In the UK and US, the board either vote themselves a gigantic bonus as an 'incentive' and/or all take multi-million dollar golden parachutes if the firm is not doing well.

J.