Politicians you trust/admire/respect etc

[scottdisco]

Oil For Food

i realise the above links don't deal with all the controversy that's arisen over the OFF scandal but to be perfectly frank a lot of the media coverage of this in the USA is, essentially, innuendo.

if all the things UN critics are saying happened did happen then fair enough let's have accountability but it's difficult to have a balanced discussion of the OFF scandal etc. in the States right now because the American media machine etc is so ludicrously anti-UN for the time being (and i'm not denying there are a great many things we shouldn't slag the UN off for, as i believe the board here might have already discussed, of course i'm not), so it really is difficult to get to the nub of the matter with all the mud flying around.

so for the time being a politically-motivated witch-hunt is pretty much what's going on, so i don't think occasional CASI reliance on UN documents back then etc invalidates any of their arguments or, indeed, moral force.

 

[scottdisco]

well

bugger me it's just me here isn't it, i think i need a word with myself outside.

i'm off for a fish-fry cheers

 

[scottdisco]

well, to clarify...

...OK i admit the above characterisation of American media on UN is amplified and something (OK, very, to be fair) of a simplistic sketch (that said there is some dumb shit said about the UN but hey Fox are fair and balanced so what you gon' do) but it's for sake of banter and argument so fair dos i plead.

anyway i know plenty of people that like to stir the stereotype marked 'Nasty Ol' US Media' ranging from the extreme - my dad (Lib Dem voter, broadsheet-reader, FWIW) who on the blower to me the other day (he's on Blighty time, i'm currently in Chicago) was all 'so are the papers and telly covering the tsunami over there?'; it's like 'bloody ell dad, i know they're parochial, but even the Yanks aren't THAT insular!!'

- to the subtle,
e.g. a second cousin of mine (British) who teaches world affairs/US foreign policy at George Washington uni in D.C., and when she's back in Albion feeds her Guardianista dinner parties all they want to hear about the evil Yankee right-wingers (by all accounts) even if - imo - it sounds like a right load of caricatured, unfair dross.

anyway i'm getting ahead of myself...

 

[sufi]

bugger me it's just me here isn't it

nah, but you seem to be spinning along so splendidly, why should anyone want to interrupt?

 

[Andrew]

And I just want to say that, contrary to certain smears, I didn't join Labour because I fancy Oona King.

If you must know, she fancies me. She kept calling me up in the middle of the night, begging me to help her destroy Galloway in the upcoming local election.

I said yes because I'm nice.

sorry dont know how to quote thing,
but say I wanted help destroy galloway how would I got about it (I live in Bethnal green and quite like onna king, and much rather have her repressenting me than that total numpty Galloway)

 

[red_shift]

el sup

Sufi posted a pic of marcos in balaclava and pipe. Apparently pipe smoking is now very fashionable among mexican students.

Anyway, here's some good marcos stuff:

“Wisdom does not consist in knowing the world, but in imagining the ways it should go to become better”

“the great world power has not yet found the power to destroy dreams. Until it does, we will keep on dreaming, that is to say, we will keep on triumphing"

“Neoliberalism […] imposes a total war: the destruction of nations and groups of nations in order to homogenize them with the Northamerican capitalist model. A war then, a world war, the IV [which, oliver, makes yr war on terror wwV ]. The worst and cruelest. The one which neoliberalism unleashes in all places and by all means against humanity”

“A world war: the most brutal, the most complete, the most universal, the most effective”

“[zapatismo seeks,] against the international of terror representing neoliberalism, […] the international of hope. […] The international of hope. Not the bureaucracy of hope, not the opposite image and thus the same as that which annihilates us. Not the power with a new sign or new clothing”

“our weapons are words […] not as a way of communicating something, but of creating something”

 

[craner]

I know, I called it WWIV without compunction right after Woolsey. He beat me to it, the bastard.

I hope we win. I don't want to be ruled, or even threatened, by theocrats. (Boom. Bang. Pow.)

As for beating Galloway: the disgrace is that, despite dear Oona having a bit of crush on me, the Labour beaucrats are too busy vetting my Kurd sympathies to process my membership, which means they may yet forfeit my considerable charm and talent, which would be a pretty damn bad indictment of them, I think.

I have a first class literature degree and a Roman nose and I'm well up on Syria.

Schmucks.

 

[craner]

Andrew, email me above.

 

[luka]

supporting the war didn't play too well in bethnal green. i find it hard to imagine galloway winning but people tell me it's inevitable.

 

[craner]

Well yes, there's that. I don't think it's inevitable, though.

 

[luka]

nor do i.

 

[craner]

Craig Murray, former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan, excelled himself last year.

He's not a hero or anything, he just did what any human being would do in the same situation. That, these days, is rare enough to warrent respect.

His speeches continued to criticise the Uzbek Government and he was championed by the opposition.

Some even carried placards outside the embassy saying: "We Love Craig Murray."

Mr Murray spent a long sick-leave in London last year, but returned to public life with vigour and even let a British TV crew film him in a bar in Tashkent.

He was expected to return this week to Uzbekistan after the summer break.

He never went back to Uzbekistan, and even faced disciplinery hearings by his party back home. A disgraceful episode.

Half the problem is with the notion of 'a diplomat' anyway. Funnily enough, Perle and Frum analyse this conidtion with some aplomb in An End to Evil, but for rather different reasons. Or, at least, with a rather different agenda.

Craig Murray: a man in tinted glasses who you can trust.

 

[craner]

And I do appreciate the fact that he insisted on being interviewed in a bar.

Precisely what I would have done in his situation.

A man after my own heart.

Isn't there a rapper called Craig Murray too? Or is it Kraig?

 

[egg]

yeah didn't he do 'the most beautifullest thing in the world' or something?

produced by erick sermon was he?

 

[sufi]

murray's disqualified

diplomat = civil servant not politician

 

[sufi]

erick sermon disqualified

nuff respeck for 'just like music', but ....

unfortunately also disqualified on a technicality

 

[luka]

his name is keith murray

 

[craner]

I know nothing.

 

[craner]

Jean Kirkpatrick RIP

 

[swears]

No mention of Lech Wałęsa so far?