Sid Walker

My apologies for being absent from the forum for several days. My last two posts were not intended to be lobbed into the thread - then abandoned. Indeed, I had intended to post something following John Simkin's latest, fascinating post. But real life got in the way of my good intentions. Anyhow, I notice that my absence hasn't prevented John Dolva and Len Colby from carrying on a discussion that reflects their usual high standard of literacy and intellectual integrity. Len, as I am only a bear of medium size brain, I think I'll just focus on just one of your paragraphs. First, I will be tiresome and ask Len for a reference that backs up his assertion that I claim to be "knowledgeable about the Holocaust". I don't think you can find one, Len, because I'm not aware of ever having made such a statement. A retraction would therefore be nice. Second, "if this is true... blah blah" merits only the response "it isn't true". Third, I'll pass on debating the "mobile gas van" issue. It's tangential to the thread and IMO it's not fair to John Simkin's work on Churchill and the Duke of Kent assassination that it become entangled with a brawl over such a tangential issue. If you'd like to start a thread about it, please do. You may also like to start a thread to discuss the proposition that non-experts have "no business challenging the accepted history of the event agreed upon by all contemporary observers and every historian except one who has looked into it". I'd definitely like to join you in debate on that thread. Finally, you wrote: "As I indicated I thought and still stink he knew about the vans but was being disingenuous." I'm sorry you still stink Len. Turning now to John Dolva and his interesting prose... John, the reason that I asked you to explain "The White Armies had failed, and Hitler, and his backers, real enemy were the Bolschevics." is because I couldn't understand what on earth you meant by the statement. That may be because: (1) the sentence was not properly proof-read; (2) you were making a point I genuinely don't understand; (3) what you wrote is rubbish; (4) a combination of the above In any event, your lengthy reply has helped firm up my view on which of those alternatives is most probable. Here is your additional explanation once again, for the historical record:

John, I've shortened some of your post for brevity and bolded the bits I query in particular. 1/ What do you mean by this?: "The White Armies had failed, and Hitler, and his backers, real enemy were the Bolschevics." 2/ I've never heard of "mobile gas vans" before. Please forgive my ignorance. Can you explain what they were, who used them, how they were used - and could I trouble you for a reference? 3/ It has been widely trumpeted in our times that various US business interests traded with the Nazis. However, as I'm sure you know, that activity became illegal once the USA became directly involved in the war. Contrast the US lend lease program supporting the USSR's war effort. This was assistance on a massive scale, directly targeted at bolstering Soviet Russia's fighting capability. You mention it as a throwaway. I think it deserves rather more emphasis in a fair account of the war.

In Appendix 3 of Churchill's War 2, David Irving returns to the topic of Sikorski's death, the subject of his 1967 book Accident. His account of the 1969 're-opening' of the case by Harold Wilson - and the 'conclusion' of that episode - as described in archival material subsequently released, is a classic case study of how so-called 'Intelligence Agencies' manage Prime Ministers - a real life prototype for the 'Yes Minister' series.

Public healthcare kills! Mr Murdoch advises that a socialized health system can seriously damage your health.

When I say 'globalism', what I mean is a conscious drive to create global instituitions - and global governance over-arching other levels of governance. It's a different concept from 'globalization', which I'd define as the technologically-driven internationalization of economic activity. Socialists were in at the beginning of the race to create global institutions that represented the common interest of humanity. The First International came long before any global institutions existed to reflect the interests of capital. Unfortunately, from my perspective, the socialist hare has been very erratic in the last century and a half, while the capitalist tortoise kept going steadily... taking more and more control, step by step, of the very terms of mainstream debate about how to build global institutions commensurate with the needs of contemporary humanity. Meanwhile, humanity has been subjected to intensifying globalization. The consequence is the messy inter-national disorder of our times. Global institutions that we do have - such as the UN - have been tamed and/or warped. The global institutions that we need to have are barely discussed in mainstream discourse. The world's people - as a whole - feel utterly disempowered. The most powerful elements of the elite are able to make most of the running in shaping the world to their liking. Only strong populist and nationalist regimes offer some kind of effective resistance to the gradual emergence of a global police state controlled by an unaccountable elite. Yet ironically, the greatest threat to the elite's overweening power - IMO - is the development of a really effective global polity. There a historical parallel. In the early period of industrialization, capitalism ran rampant in Britain. Few environmental controls. Pitiful workers' rights. Slums, work-houses... not a pretty sight. Revolution was in the air. The capitalist system became more workable and stable as governments with stronger popular mandates increasingly regulated economic activity. The result was not socialism - but a much more livable capitalist-dominated society with some socialist elements. National regulation of capitalism was adequate in that era - but today it's a bad joke. Most trade in our times is within and between multinationals. Capital flows are truly global. By letting capitalism go global - but failing to provide an effective regulatory framework for global capitalism - we have created a potential hell for ourselves. In the worst case scenario, our malfunctioning, hijacked global political economy could wreck the biosphere and destroy humanity as a whole.

Mark... you mean it's really just one big doctor-ing conspiracy? It figures. Dr Watson... Dr No... Dr Goebbels... Dr Al-Zawahri... Dr David Death... Now Nelson too! Anyone noticed how Ron Paul used to make a living? Scary! But yes, as you pointed out, the Australian media has tumbled to the great medical conspiracy and is now reporting this dire threat to our way of life with its customary fearless gusto. "Those who cure you will kill you!". Too right! PS. What about nurses?

I think you have it right, Mark. Last night's media amounted to a carpeting for Nelson. Incidentally, has anyone else noticed that the Right Execrable Brendan Nelson is a doctor? Very suss, IMO. What does it mean? Shouldn't we vet our 'Defence' Ministers more carefully? Does he have links with international terror? (easy to answer that one!) Nice Steve Bell cartoon in the Guardian:

You must be very forgiving, Evan - and that's an excellent virtue in most cases, IMO. Now imagine the 9-11 murderers had snuffed out at least one of your own family members. Would you still be so sanguine about all the discrepancies, anomalies, willful destruction of evidence, astonishingly poor memories and inconclusive inquiries? Or would you just shrug, mutter "whatever!" or "they did their best!" or "pity about their memories!" like the decent, trusting forgiving man you obviously are?

Thanks John Very interesting. Where did you come across photos of Gary Webb's corpse?

I agree with you that the official rich list is probably not to be trusted. I believe at least one family fortune is so vast it has consciously been kept out of the limelight for a long time. I think the institutional framework of the current world order needs more attention. It is neither a world of nation-states, nor is it a truly global political economy. It's somewhere in between. This chaotic international disorder, so brilliantly characterised by Phillip Allott in Eunomia, serves the interest of the unaccountable mega-rich very well. On the one hand, global capital flows means that almost the entire world is their oyster. On the other hand, the lack of a coherent global taxation system enables them to contribute very little to the community while their wealth escalates. I fall into that unusual category of people who believes that 9-11 and the JFK assassination were inside jobs ("a conspiracy theorist" in common parlance) and who also believes that we urgently need to develop a global system of governance, decentralized by all means, but global nevertheless. "Conspiracy theorists" typically fall over themselves with paranoia at the merest suggestion of "globalism". While I comprehend and sympathize to a large degree with their concerns, I think they are much mistaken in rejecting globalism out of hand. In my opinion, a managed global economy with global taxation offers the only serious prospect that we'll ever take the ruling class off welfare. It would also provide the basis for more effectively taxing transnational corporations. I wonder, indeed, wither anti-globalist paranoia has not been deliberately fostered in that part of the community that poses the greatest threat to the criminals responsible for outrages such as the slaying of JFK and the 9-11 black op. As the saying goes, the technique of infamy...

Castro may have 'poor health', but he does enjoy the benefits of a world class public health system (unusual in Northern America). It's true that hurricanes have become more frequent in Cuba thanks to gas-guzzling gringos, but Cuba's emergency response system is also state-of-the-art (not the toy system that ordinary US citizens are expected to survive). Finally, although Fidel gave up Cuban cigars a few decades later than JFK, his health remains much better than the latter's. So fanatical Castro-haters may be disappointed if they think he's just about to meet his maker. He might outlive another generation of would-be assassins. That must annoy them intensely. But are Castro-haters influential in the CIA these days? Personally, I thought that hexing Fidel Castro is low down on the CIA's priority list in this brave new era. This is, after all, the first decade of the well-advertised 100 Years Terror Wars against a different class of dusky-skinned enemy. The main thing today is to blat Islamofascists anywhere and everywhere, just in case anyone hadn't heard. In 2007, Uncle Sam and the bossy little nephew round his neck have many more juicy fish to fry than a bony old Caribbean revolutionary from a by-gone era. Truth is, I suspect, they always did.

I'm not sure what you're really saying, Stephen. I'll do a crude paraphrase. Please correct me if and where I have it wrong. (1) there's a huge disparity of wealth, with a small minority who are 'super-rich'... (2) the super-rich is like a caste; inherited wealth is really the only gateway to membership. (3) the super-rich are cynical and use ploys such as nationalism and religion to divide and rule the masses (99.9%+?) I agree with (1). It is really just a statement of fact, based on well-known and widely available statistics. (2) seems a lot more problematic to me. It does not make sufficient allowance for socio-economic mobility and the self-made man phenomenon. How do Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Aristotle Onassis or Rafiq Hariri fit into this caste paradigm? (3) also seems very problematic to me. You imply the super-rich, as a united whole, collude to defend their interests as a class/caste. The truth, IMO, is much more subtle. Some enormously wealthy folk collude and conspire. Others don't. There are networks of collusion - just like there are in other social classes. These networks themselves cut across social strata.

I assume you mean Socrates, since as far as I know Sophocles was more of a playwright than he was a logician. But maybe you didn't know. It's probably all Greek to Tim, Daniel.

Speaker of the House John McCormack. It would have been ironic if McCormack were to become the beneficiary of the Dallas coup. In the 1930s he headed the McCormack-Dickstein Committee that investigated the fascist Wall Street plot to overthrow Roosevelt. Of course no one was brought to justice for that plot, any more than anyone was brought to justice for Dallas. Thanks Ron. Whether McCormack would have fit the script as a 'suitable' POTUS depends on one's take about who was really behind the JFK assassination. Does anyone know if McCormack ever expressed doubts about the Warren Commission?

grow up, smell the roses! What?

Lee, Perhaps a plan to blow him up might have been used if they had to abort Dealey Plaza at the last minute. The war on terror (Cuban, of course) might have begun 44 years ago. Worst nightmare for the plotters would have been if DP had been unsuccessful, inflicting minor wounds. In such a situation I can't see how blowing him up shortly thereafter would be credible, despite the fact that the public in 1963 believed almost anything they were told to believe. In this situation some kind of Plan B involving Parkland Hospital might have been a contingency, imo, and the plotters would have soiled their pants at such a potentially disastrous turn of events. In any case, I agree with you and other posters that there was no way he was getting out of Dallas alive. This is very interesting stuff, IMO - and my gut feeling tells me it is close to the bone. One question for Lee. Wouldn't a car bomb in the underpass have killed Johnson as well as Kennedy? In that situation, who would have become the new President?

I can live with it, Sid. The most serious questions facing the Anglosphere today. And yet not a single politician of stature - at least, none that I'm aware - is asking any of them. It is a catastrophe; and will, if current trends are not reversed quickly and decisively, destroy our societies far more effectively than any external threats. Paul Well said!

I admire your steadfast refusal to consider the rich history of agent provocateur and false flag ops. Er, why? Why the disposition to see it from the establishment's point of view? The great lesson history teaches us is that we should start from the assumption that the terrorist activity has state sponsorship - until proven otherwise. Relatedly, what the rubes think they are doing, and what their masters really intend, have a tendency to be poles apart. In the case of 9/11, for example, the FBI early went on record as believing that the hijackers in among the passengers thought they were taking part in an old fashioned skyjacking, not a suicide mission. And of the men in the cockpit, was Mohammad Atta, for example, really a devout Muslim, with a head full of virgins? Or just not in nightclubs when knocking back the vodka? A final thought: Given that every time a bomb explodes the spooks' budgets increase significantly, what countervailing incentives are there for them to do better? After all, whoever heard of a spook sacked or disciplined for failing to prevent a bombing? Andy I'm no photographic expert, but I'd say the photo you have posted on this thread depicts a few people staring at a burning car. Location? Couldn't say. It looks a little like my local shopping precinct. Significance? Pass. I think the sentences I bolded in Paul's latest reply deserve an answer. I'll call it the Rigby Theorem of Spook Self-Interest. I hope the author isn't upset by that. I paraphrase. Exactly what accountability controls apply to these people? Are there any? How would we ever know? Regarding my pursuit of an exact Dawkins citation from you, I am merely calling you on a rather boorish assertion that you made earlier on in this thread. Brushing aside my quote from a scientist who made more than one significant contribution during his long career, you said that in your "considered opinion" Hoyle's work had been "blown out of the water" by Richard Dawkins. You happen to touch on a subject of interest to me, so I'm not merely probing to see whether anything actually underlies your "considered opinion" other than huff and puff. Believe it or not, I'm actually interested to hear your answer - if you have one.

Perhaps when you start the new thread Andy, you could provide at least one of the exact Dawkins references that persuaded you he has "pretty much blown (Hoyle) out the water". I've been looking myself for a detailed refutation of Hoyle by Dawkins. Thanks in anticipation. Please speak for yourself regarding lack of biological education, Mr Walker. Not for both of us. If you feel like a booster, I suggest a look at this review on Gert Korthof's excellent website. Another smidgen to add to your collection. Your snide remark about the NHS finding new ways of killing its clients is noted. I guess you're looking for a private hospital with a 'No Arabs, No Muslims' sign over the door? FWIW, the official version of the latest Anglo-Australian bomb saga, as evolve, continues to strike me as implausible in the extreme. I'd like to say "we shall see"... but with the recent gutting of the judicial system aka new 'terrorism' laws, it's not at all clear whether we ever shall. Especially when so many people like you - supposedly left wing with concern for civil liberties - still serve as apologists for the growing police state, instead of vocal and potentially influential opponents. While waiting for the new thread to be set up, Andy - and eagerly awaiting the citation from Dawkins that in your "considered opinion" demolishes Hoyle's arguments, I came across this entry on Richard Dawkins in "A Who's Who of Media Skeptics" Now, for me this is disappointing. I hope it's not an accurate account of Richard Dawkins' behaviour. If so, my esteem for his intellect is much diminished. I thought you might agree about that, Andy. What's a rationalist up to, refusing rational debate? Then recalled some of our earlier disucssions. Perhaps it's precisely these 'qualities' in Dawkins that you find so appealing? Back to the terror-bombs-Muslims-Australia-doctors-Glasgow-fear-and-loathing front. Not much to report from down-under. One dark-skinned doctor released. One still interned. If he's talking, we don't know, because no-one's talking about what he's talking about. So the Australian mass media stays on target, relatively unbothered by facts, and does what it does best: assume and lie. This evening, ABC Lateline intereviewed an Muslim ex-Islamist from Britain (geddit?) He claimed that once upon a time he was a dangerous extremist - but then he saw the light. We were told he has a book out, exposing British Islamism from the inside. I'll discover his name tomorrow when the transcript appears on the ABC website and provide a link. Presumably he's also been let loose on the British mass media? A very articulate and plausible young man, I thought, on first hearing. But I couldn't help but reflect, as the interview progressed, that he seemed the epitome of a tutored turncoat. His comments on the terror-medicine nexus were frankly ridiculous... Of course, I speak as someone who doesn't credit the official conspiracy story about 9-11. I don't believe in auto-collapsing steel-framed towerblocks that turn into dust after a fuel fire. Bin Laden scares me as much as Emmanuel Goldstein. So I am biased. Perhaps the nutcases who develop these absurd typologies classify people like me as islamized non-Muslims? Pink-skins who eschew prayer mats and don't believe in state-sponsored fairy-tales. A dreadful threat to global security!

This bar chart is instructive, David: Source: Afghan opium production ’soars’ Things were looking grim indeed circa 2001. Apparently the Taliban took the 'War on Drugs' rather too seriously. Solution? Switch wars.

An interesting anecdote...

No he didn't, Tim. The paragraph you cited was from James Carroll's article entitled CIA’s Darkest Secret.

David, Not sure if you are still visiting this thread... but just in case, I'd like to comment rather late on this earlier post of yours. When I read accounts of the contacts between JFK conspiracy researchers and Chomsky over several decades - in articles and letters by Vincent Salandria, Michael Morrissey and others - I found it quite impossible to ascribe Chomsky's behaviour to an ideological blind spot. Chomsky has played a calculated game of evasion and distortion over the assassination of JFK since at least the 1960s. I.F. Stone did the same thing, way in 1964. He took umbrage over Bertrand Russell's suggestion that the Warren Commission was seriously flawed. Wholly out of character, the same Stone whose trademark quotation was "governments lie", announced without equivocation that Russell's critique was a disgraceful slur on good men. This kind of behaviour triggers the alarm on my crap detector. How about yours?

Evan, Surely it's more than sensationalism if - and I admit it is an IF - the 'canon' is not in reality just an ordinary civilian, but is instead playing a conscious role in hyping up this latest terror scare. The Telegraph one could accuse of sensationalism (although I suspect the editor might take it as a compliment). The vicar might more accurately be described as a spook - or at minimum, a stooge of spooks. Incidentally, in a similar vein, last night I watched an interview with a former 'friend' of one of the accused doctors during his time at Cambridge. With friends like that, the hapless man clearly needs no enemies. Although the interviewee was introduced as a devout Muslim, he devoted most of the interview to confirming suspicions that the terrorist suspect is, indeed, a very dangerous character. Nothing substantial was adduced to support this proposition... just oodles of innuendo. These well-timed roll-outs of supporting innuendo do not seem accidental to me. They are not just 'sensationalism'. They are a controlled release of supporting spin. The difference is not a mere quibble. It goes to motivation and complicity.