Chris Smith: People Want the Advertising Standards Authority to Act on Political Claims

I agree with most of this post, however, in my 60 odd years of life on this earth I have found that there are not many politicians in who you can believe in, be they red, blue, green, purple, orange, yellow and others. However, there are some in which there is some form of belief and others practically none. They all promise the earth and unfound riches in their manifestos and only when they assume power can the truths be revealed.

You cast your vote and hope for the best.

Regarding Brexit nothing has come forth as we have not Brexited and will not be doing so until March 2019 or may be not, depending on whether there will be a transition deal or not.

Everything is so up in the air and no one on either side in the UK or Europe can be sure of the final outcome. We can all speculate on what the outcome or outcomes will or can be and who will be in power if and when we do or not do Brexit.

That length of string is getting longer or is it shorter, day by day.

Beastrabban\'s Weblog

This is another fascinating little video from RT’s Going Underground. Host Afshin Rattansi talks to the former cabinet minister under Blair, Chris Smith, above his decision to oppose the Invasion of Iraq, his work in the Advertising Standards Authority, and Brexit.

Smith was Blair’s Culture Secretary, and the author of a book, Creative Britain. The cover showed him wielding a professional movie/TV camera. He states he opposed the Iraq invasion because it was ‘obviously the wrong the policy’. He also states that during his time with the Advertising Standards Authority, people wrote in asking them if they could possibly act against the misleading political advertising in elections. Smith states that this is sadly impossible. Their constitution limits them to commercial advertising only, and they have no power to prosecute or punishment politicians that lie.

On the subject of Brexit, he and Rattansi clearly hold different views. Smith appears…

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Jimmy Dore on the MIT Professor Showing Trump Wrong about Sarin Gas Attack in Syria

Just who is telling the truth, is it propaganda on both sides.

In any conflict it is not just the innocent that suffer, but also the truth.

The innocents should be the prime consideration on all sides of any conflict, not the last, as is shown and proven many times.

Beastrabban\'s Weblog

As well as appearing on Counterpunch’s website, Theodore A. Postol also appeared on RT, and his analysis of the Sarin gas attack in Syria was also covered by Jimmy Dore. Postol is the emeritus professor of Science, Technology and National Security at MIT. He concluded that, contrary to what the American government and Syrian rebels were saying, the poison gas that killed the people of Khan Shaykhun was not dropped as a bomb from a plane, but was released from an improved ground-based weapon, about 12 cm long. Trump and the American media have claimed that the attack was the responsibility of Assad, and launched an attack by Tomohawk missiles on the air force base, from which the attack was supposedly launched, in reprisal.

In this video, Dore savagely critiques the statements of Trump, Sean Spicer and other members of the White House. He makes the point that the American…

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Books on the Criminal Psychology of Tony Blair

Blair was never a moderate and he certainly is not now, he was only interested in himself and his surge for power and he has not changed. Whether he was like this from the start, I can not say, but that is where he came to.

As for Trump, he is there from the start and no one knows what he will do next, perhaps, even himself.

We have been and still are in very worrying times.

Yon made reference to Dr David Kelly taking his own life, but did he, for we only have the word and reports from the establishment and they can and do alter facts and reports as they see fit. This is seen from the evidence produced by Blair re the weapons of mass destruction, they are all lies, lies and more lies, or is it Fake News as Trump states all the time. His news is fake and what he refers to as fake is correct news.

The world is a complete mess and I have not even mentioned Putin for he is a completely separate chapter.

If the prisons were full of corrupt leaders then there would be no room for the ordinary criminal.

Beastrabban\'s Weblog

Looking through the politics section of one of the secondhand bookshops in Cheltenham the other day, I also found two books arguing that Tony Blair was malign and psychologically unfit for office. One was by the Old Labour MP, Leo Abse, the other by the founder of the SDP and now Lib Dem, Dr David Owen. Abse’s book, the Politics of Perversion, used psychoanalytic theory to argue that Blair had the ruthless psychology of a clinical pervert. Owen’s book, the Hubris of Power, argued that Bush and Blair had spent so long in power, that they had become arrogant, believing they could get away with anything, no matter how unjust or despicable.

I only casually flicked through them, but just looking at Blair’s single-minded promotion of the Iraq Invasion, which in turn involved peddling lies, deceit and the persecution of dissenting officials – to the point where one…

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Learning the lesson of Iraq (or not)

In politics there are no good guys, for what may be good for one is not good for the other. In any situation the power base is prime and the victor wishes to have all the spoils, whether this be good for the population. In any of these conflicts the population of any of the areas are not the problem, but they are the ones that suffer. The victors take, take take, without a thought of the population and the desecration the conflicts have caused.

It is in this respect that the victor is never victorious for no matter what the result you create enemies within the population, when the victor would expect friends.

Just think of yourself in this situation who have lost a leadership which was all out for themselves to be replaced by a weaker but often similar leadership, if in fact there is any effective leadership as all fractions will take what they can.

Would it have been best to not become involved in the first place for at least most, if not all would know were they are.

There are no good guys.

Phil Ebersole's Blog

Back in 2003, I thought the U.S. invasion of Iraq might be a good idea.

I thought we Americans could atone for all the suffering we had caused the Iraqi people by the low-level war by the Clinton administration by overthrowing the evil tyrant Saddam—and, yes, he really was evil and a tyrant—and allowing the Iraqis to choose their own government.

The United States would then, so I thought, have a democratic ally in the Middle East whose people were genuinely pro-American, and would free ourselves from dependence on the Saudi monarchy.

The U.S. invasion made things worse, both from the standpoint of the Iraqi people and of us Americans.   Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed, hundreds of thousands became refugees.

Maybe there would have been a different result if the U.S. occupation authorities’ priorities had not been to get control of Iraqi oil and create money-making opportunities for…

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More Military Tension between NATO and Russia; Pat Mills Right in ABC Warriors

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Mike today put up a very chilling report about the escalation of military tensions between NATO and Russia. Russia has deployed Iskander missiles in its westernmost province of Kaliningrad. Formerly Koenigsberg, this is small Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania, was formerly part of Pommerania under the old Reich. The missiles are capable of carrying nuclear weapons, and are presumed capable of reaching Berlin, or the various Baltic states.

Russia is believed to be deploying these missiles in response to NATO manoeuvres in eastern Europe, and the stationing of four more NATO battalions in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. These were in response to Russia sending troops into Ukraine.

Mike states that he recalls either Gorbachev or possibly Yeltsin receiving a promise from NATO that it would not expand into the Russian’s back garden. He is correct. That promise was given. And broken. NATO’s borders are now right up to…

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Secular Talk on Poor Americans Now Using Pet Antibiotics

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This is a story from another side of the Pond, but it’s relevant because it shows the kind of horrific medical system that the Blairites and the Tories are introducing over here through the destruction of the NHS. In this piece from the atheist/ secularist news channel, Secular Talk, Kyle Kulinski comments on a story in Raw Story from a report from a respected medical journal, The Journal of Antibiotics. A survey was done of 400 people in Houston, Texas, asking them how they obtained their antibiotics. These were people, who needed the drug, not those who did not. Kulinski is very clear to dispel this possible misunderstanding, as the overprescription of antibiotics is a separate issue. It’s responsible for the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria, which is a serious threat to health around the world.

This is about people, who genuinely need the drug. It investigated how people…

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Counterpunch: Obama Will Not Permit American Chilcot Inquiry

Is it not strange that democracy means different things in different areas, both in time and place. Where is accountability in all this.

There is the rule of law and order for us all to act within, but when power is the chief criteria is there adherence to law and order. Or does power Trump law and order, for if it does then America and the world need to be fearful of a possible result from the American Presidental Elections.

Beastrabban\'s Weblog

After the Chilcot inquiry finally released its report this week, which found that Tony Blair had misled parliament and the British people into a bloody and illegal war in Iraq, some parts of the American left are bitter that there will not be a similar inquiry and condemnation of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and co in the Land of the Free. This is due to Obama and the Democrats, who have shown themselves every bit as hawkish and Bush’s Republican administration, which started the War. Kyle Kulinski of Secular Talk has pointed out how Obama, despite his initial anti-war rhetoric, has been every bit as zealous in continuing the war, including assassination by drone, as his Republican predecessors. This is highly ironic, and once again shows the how farcical the decisions of the Nobel Committee are, as Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. As indeed was Henry Kissinger, despite the…

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The Videos by Jimmy Dore on Tony Blair and the Chilcot Report

I thank Chilcot and Jimmy Dore for their condemnation of Tony Blair. It as all been said, no one can be unaware that Tony Blair is the biggest liar in the world and he created the current situation in the Middle East and was the creator of modern radicalisation. This does not mean that George W Bush is an innocent, for he is as guilty as Blair, but that is for the people of America to comment on.

For Blair what should the next step be, there needs to be a process started to bring him to court for being a ‘War Criminal’ for if there is not, we are all complicit in being war criminals.

So be warned Presidents and Prime Ministers in waiting you are accountable for your action both now and in the future. Any atrocities created by these actions are on your shoulders and your shoulders alone for which you will suffer the consecquences.

Beastrabban\'s Weblog

In the three videos below, the left-wing American comedian Jimmy Dore gives an almost line-by-line, sentence-by-sentence commentary on Blair’s speech responding to the findings of the Chilcot inquiry into the invasion of Iraq. This has found that it was indeed an illegal war; that it was launched before all the opportunities of reaching a peaceful settlement had been exhausted; that there was no proper preparation for its conclusion and the restoration of peace afterwards; and that the invasion would result in further ethnic violence, bloodshed and the involvement of Iran.

Dore calls Blair what he is: a war criminal, who is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of servicemen, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and for the rise of the bloody Islamist radicals of Daesh/ISIS. But these videos shows Blair is completely unrepentant. He tries to pass the blame instead on a ‘gridlocked’ UN, which could not come to…

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Vox Political on Chilcot’s Damning Verdict on Blair, and What His Readers Think

I did support Gulf War 1 to ensure the liberation of Kuwait and could not understand why the allied forces did not pursue further into Iraq to topple Saddam, So I could have supported the evental removal of Saddam. However I have always been untrusting of Blair, but did rejoice in the overthrow of Saddam, so the rights of all Iraqs could be progressed. But as we were only too aware, after the event, that no constructive plans of operation had been thought through. Blair and Bush by their actions created a vaccum in which allowed the formation of Daesh to be created from some of the forces which had originally,appeared, to support the Bush/Blair initiative.

From this lessons should have been learned, but this did not prevent the removal of Gaddafi in Lybria to create a further vacuum.

it is clear, that the prresiding factor was oil, as Blair and Bush have not taken similar actions in other countries where oil in not a factor, Zimbarbre being only one example.

With the evidence of the Chilcot report and the current state of the Middle East it is amazing that Blair still feels he was justified in his actions and would do it again.

He and Bush are totally responsible for the current state of the Middle East so Blair should be prosecuted as a War Criminal, as accountability should have a bearing on decisions made by persons when they hold positions of responsibility.

The families need closure and while the Chilcot report goes some way with this, the prosecution of Blair would be even more closure.

Blair needs to be made responsible and accountable for his actions and not so glibly make comments that in no way answer his ctitics and the evidence.

Beastrabban\'s Weblog

Mike over at Vox Political has reblogged a piece from the Guardian by Owen Jones, laying out how damning the Chilcot report is of Tony Blair and his decision to lead the country into war. Owen Jones is a fine journalist, who clearly and accurately explains the issues. I’ve read and quoted from his book Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Class, which is very good, and has rightly received great praise. He also has another book out The Establishment: Who They Are and How They Get Away with it. I’ve been thinking about that one, but have avoided buying it so far on the grounds that it might make me too furious.

Mike also asks what his readers think of the Iraq War. He asks

Do any of you believe the war was justified, as Ann Clwyd still does (apparently)? Have any of you come to believe that?…

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Norman Finkelstein on the Coming Break-Up of American Zionism: Part 1

Beastrabban\'s Weblog

I’ve put up several videos recently criticising Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, and examining the growing disconnection – ‘distancing’, in the jargon of the sociologists who’ve studied it – of young American Jews with Israel. The speakers in these videos have included the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, and the American historians and activists Norman Finkelstein and Elizabeth Baltzer, both of whom are descended from Holocaust survivors. As I’ve made clear in previous posts, I’ve been prompted to do this because of the smears against leading members of the Labour party – Ken Livingstone, Naz Shah and Jackie Walker, amongst others, of anti-Semitism. Those accused are not to my knowledge anti-Semites. The above three certainly aren’t. Leninspart in his 1987 book, Livingstone’s Labour, states quite clearly that all forms of racism, whether against Blacks, Jews or the Irish, is the worst form of reaction, and needs to be opposed. Naz…

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