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Tuesday 25 August 2009

Sarah McDermott | 15:58 UK time, Tuesday, 25 August 2009

Here's Kirsty with news of what's happening tonight on the programme:

As I write we are awaiting Gordon Brown's press conference on the occasion of Benjamin Netanyahu's visit, but while he will want to focus on discussions over the Middle East, journalists will also want the PM to break his silence on Lockerbie. Alex Salmond might not need to hear his views one way or another but the fact that it was a decision of the Scottish Government doesn't mean that there isn't a desire to hear what the British leader has to say. For the prime minister's return we've assembled the Newsnight political panel to discuss Labour's summer and look ahead to the political challenges in the weeks ahead.

Caster Semenya returned to South Africa to a terrific welcome after the firestorm that broke following her fantastic victory in the women's 800 metres World Championships. The IAAF have announced they are subjecting Semenya to a "gender verification test". The head of South African athletics has described Semenya's treatment as "racism pure and simple." Tonight we'll be debating whether the questions surrounding her performance are justified or not.

And from Sue Lloyd Roberts a film from Spain which explores the legacy of Franco's repression 70 years after the end of the civil war: three years of conflict, half a million dead, and the brutality of a regime which tore children from their parents forever and placed them in orphanages or with nationalist parents. As volunteers excavate mass graves just kilometres from the tourist beaches of Malaga, the divisions and hatred have not disappeared but lie close to the surface. .

Join us later.

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    AN END TO TOILET DOOR-ISM

    I have been calling for an end of gender-typing for years and in conjunction, for 'all-gender' sports (plus a range of toilets for these, those, and various don't-knows). While we are at it, let us also end the ridiculous designation-by-country, relating to team events. Return the Olympics to their original form: turn up - compete - NAKED; all genders and ethnicities, on one footing.

  • Comment number 2.

    Hi JJ, re 57 on the previous blog

    I just want to live in one world where there are no them and us's

    we are all the same, some nice, some not,

    hateful demagogues as Mr Bolton seems to appear to be, seek to divide, spread hate, a lot of which seems to be hate for themselves projected onto the rest of the world

    most folk just want to live together,

    why so much hate in this world, why do we promote hateful people to office,why do programmes like Newsnight give them a platform?

    reading the ethos of gutsy organisations like the marines, here and in countries like the US, the view of the real warrior is NOTHING like that espoused by people like Bolton,

    snoozenight seem to like to give people like him a platform to stir things up and spead their sort of muck across the airwaves,

    sorry newsnight this is lazy, irresponsble, crass journalism,

    I switched off last night as Bolton started, there is enough of this stuff in the world, the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ need to try harder

  • Comment number 3.

    BROWN IS ANGRY AGAIN (I HOPE HE REMEMBERS TO SMILE)

    He seems to think that 'real men' get angry just as Blair thought 'pretty straight kinds of guy' smile all the time.

    The few ninnies left voting need guidance. The question they should ponder is: "How do we get these weird specimens in high positions?"

    I suppose I must be happy that Brown is 'angry and repulsed' this time, rather than 'angry and sad' - the latter (recently uttered) leaves my poor brain in a tangle.





  • Comment number 4.

    COMPASSIONATE RELEASE

    Could start here




    Celtic Lion

  • Comment number 5.

    "JERUSALEM IS NOT A SETTLEMENT"

    Indeed - Jerusalem is the Sacred Capital of the Promised Land given by The One God to His Chosen People. No wonder Catholic Tony has run away from his job as 'Middle East Fixer' (though I would guess he is still being paid).

    How can anyone in their right mind witter on about a 'two state solution' when god is so blatantly partisan? The guy is a jealous smiter - you just don't tangle with them - especially when they are omni-powerful.

    I don't think Tony, Barack et al, are being quite straight with us. Could that be?

  • Comment number 6.

    Hi

    from



    someone mentioned the SNP on this site,


    'Just imagine if the SNP put up a candidate in this seat in 2010:

    Conservative: 21000
    Labour: 16000
    SNP: 5000
    Lib Dem: 4500
    Other: 2000
    Majority: 5000


    'political immortality awaits someone hoisting the Saltire there,

    it will cost you just £500 plus the support of 10 registered voters who don't event have to vote for you,

    and I'm sure the following would be interested in such a candidature,





    you have a year to start making contacts there,

    Good hunting!

  • Comment number 7.

    1) SEMENYA NEIN AND 2) NETANYAHU'S CHUTZPAH

    Semenya :- It's a complex issue and it has nothing to do with gender (which can be changed by legal process). It's not just genitalia which matters, so 'dropping one's pants' is useless (if not offensive), and it is not just sex chromosomes either, as there are cases of XX males and XY females. We all start as females (even if XX or XY) but the SRY gene on the Y chromosome turns initially an initially female foetus to a male through a complex chain involving testosterone and other factors. This is not something which Newsnight will likely be able to handle easily, even with Susan's help, I suspect. Sexual dimorphism itself is a bit of a misleading notion, as some males can be cerebrally feminized and vice-versa. It's something which has important implications well beyond sport prowess. It's a good topic for highlighting the true nature of diversity, as is the and CAH and NCAH.

    Netanyahu's chutzpah:- it's all very well his talking about a demilitarized Palestine, but is there a quid pro quo here, i.e a demilitarised Israel, if so, all well and good, but I very much doubt that's what he means. he just wants a demilitarised Palestine I suspect? If you managed to interview him, I hope you asked him about this.

  • Comment number 8.

    erratum (#7) "SRY gene on the Y chromosome turns an initially female foetus to a male through a complex chain involving testosterone and other factors"

  • Comment number 9.

    bubblegumTriffid (#2) "we are all the same, some nice, some not"

    It would be nice if that were so, and we were all the same and had been rendered different just by lifetime experience, as that would mean that experience (reasoning/learning/education/therapy/rehabilitation) could also reverse or correct what the environment made wrong. The environment is not what many believe it to be, and in one sense, it goes way back in its selection of behaviours via genes, which in turn drive behaviour today. Alas, evidence now overwhelmingly seems to suggest that many people are labouring under a delusion. People appear to be the way they are largely because of their genetic make up, and some people account for a disproportionate amount of harm, just as some people account for a disproportionate amount of good. We all need to face up to this and give up on biological alchemy.

  • Comment number 10.

    Hi JJ

    thank you for 9

    In favour of nurture rather than nature might be that when we were living in the caves and for much of human history we have being barbaric, but now given the chance most of us live by certain rules,
    the genes are the same though?

    best wishes

  • Comment number 11.

    All the hand wringing by politicians in Westminster & Washington about the releasing of Megrahi would, even if he were guilty, be the grossest hypocrisy. The same applies even moreso about any attempt to criticise their treatment of the Palestinians.

    It is now a year & a half since Carla del Ponte, the chief prosecutor of the NATO funded Yugoslav War crimes commission admitted that she had known for 8 years that NATO police (formerly the NATO organised & armed KLA "freedom fighters" had been allowed to kidnap & disappear 1,300 Serb civilians & been proven to have dissected, at least a very large number of them, while still alive, to supply body parts for western hospitals. Can anybody deny that, even if the Libyans had been involved in the Pan Am bomb, that in sheer disgusting Nazi style horror it does not come even close to what NATO police perpetrated under our government's authority. This is only a small part of the atrocities carried out by NATO elements before, during & after that war. Atrocities which match in obscenity, if not in numbers, anything that happened at Auschwitz. Atrocities which have gone essentially as unreported by our media as the Holocaust was by Germany's.

    In light of the fact that the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ have regularly criticised Israeli leaders for things not remotely as serious as this (not to say not remotely as proven) I trust the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ will not treat criticism of our own leaders as less acceptable than criticism of Jewish ones. Until all those complicit in NATO crimes have been brought to justice let us not hear anything from politicians responsible about their concern for alleged human rights abuses by anybody else in the world.

  • Comment number 12.

    barrie (#3) "I suppose I must be happy that Brown is 'angry and repulsed' this time, rather than 'angry and sad' - the latter (recently uttered) leaves my poor brain in a tangle."

    Maybe it's all these 'Communications Directors/Advisors' (aka journalists') influence. Elsewhere, they all seem to spend an awful lot of time asking otherwise rational people quite iane questons (do they teach that in media college these days?) Tey ask what people 'think and feel' instead of asking what happened or what they are going to do etc, i.e what matters. Maybe Mr Brown and colleagues have all been told that people just like knowing about their mental states, so, they oblige? After all, their mental states don't actually do anything of consequence, so it's really just a way of their appearing to say something, which doesn't actually amount to anything. It's why a lot of Newsnight isn't worth watching these days, alas.

  • Comment number 13.

    #7 BGT

    "political immortality awaits someone hoisting the Saltire there,"

    They seem to be starting in North Africa though,



    Three days later the global, UK and Scottish economies did collapse.

  • Comment number 14.

    #13 was the result of a request to do an assessment of First Minister Alex Salmond's speech at the Council of Foreign Relations New York and the Scottish Government's subsequent economic development strategy.



    As it had be known for years the timing, the extent and the magnitude of the economic crash in 2008. The SNP already having been informed in January 2006. An accurate assessment was simple to produce.

  • Comment number 15.

    bubblegumTriffid (#10) The 'rules' which ants and bees etc live by, are they not expressed by their genes as behaviours. How are we any different? Most of us are probably just ignorant as to how behavioural-genetics works A few hundred thousand years is not that long, and it's probably only about 30,000 since we branched and changed lost/mutated pigmentation. We differ, but our rules are still embedded in differences in our genetic expressions, which are selected/reinforced by our environments. Normal-speak is wrong. ;-)

  • Comment number 16.

    Hi KCL

    re the Saltires in Tripoli, I think you made a very good point a couple of days ago when you asked the question -where did they come from?

    not a question that seems to have been asked but it does seem like a bit of a set up? are there any close up photos of the people carrying them? can they be identified, ie do they work for the Libyan Government, this all said, there does need to be a full investigation into Lockerbie,

    did the person involved actually commit the crime, if so who else was involved, if he was involved we need to know and I suggest ALL -ALL -ALL those involved high and low be brought to justice as well,

    one way and the other, however this is all played out, there is a lot of fudging going on.

    ie if a Head of state ordered this, he must be tried, -----while remembering that one head of state's daughter was killed by another head of state,

    ie if one of our leaders had one of their children killed by a state, would we talk to them? ? ?

    finally this is the first I have heard of the comments in # 11, could the newsnight team look into this please

    best wishes

    PS perhaps the Saltires were left over from the war in the Western Desert?

  • Comment number 17.

    Hi JJ

    thank you for 15, I'll have a think about your post, and come back to you, maybe not tonight though, need to have a think on this,

    best wishes

  • Comment number 18.

    #10 BGT

    This is a good introduction. Edward O'Wilson is now working on extinction rates.



    One of the areas covered is as a society becomes more complex genetics plays a decreasing amount compared to culture. Unfortunately outside of the scope of this book, we have to ask the question:

    Who controls the culture?

  • Comment number 19.

    #56 from previous page
    Mr Singleton
    I don't really care whether you get on or not with jj, so blog away with him but I'd be grateful if you could leave me out of it. Methinks, you do not understand what he's been and continues to be up to and are just being plainly naive giving him any credit. As streetphotobeing has pointed out recently, you sometimes write well and you can be funny, as opposed to jj who takes himself very seriously.
    You see, provocation is fine if it leads somewhere but have you achieved anything real through your blogging to change something for the better or have you shifted anyone's perception to become, let's say, a wiser person? You quite oftent bang on about it, not least on your own website. I do not get upset about you or jj trying to undermine me, etc, but feel I need to explain things to the other bloggers who might perceive me through your idle postings. My mind couldn't be clearer at the moment and I'm constantly receiving confirmation of appreciation for what I'm doing.

  • Comment number 20.

    #49 from previous page - continuation
    To the list of people who have given me great support and so helping me open up and be really myself, as opposed to what happened after my studies at SSEES, University of London, causing years of misery for me, I would like to add some politicians who have been respectful of what I represent, a singer or two, a film director and a few actresses. I won't mention their names here but some of them feature on my flckr site.
    Well, I think I'll mention one person here. I have a feeling that Dizzee Rascal has done a few lovely things recently to brighten one of my twirling days. If that's true, thank you Dizzee!

  • Comment number 21.

    Come on moderator do something about this mim persecution complex rubbish, once upon at time this was a serious political blog

  • Comment number 22.

    from mimpromptu to Mr Singleton again
    jj likes mandy, barrie doesn't like mandy - how does Mr Singleton square this one up?

  • Comment number 23.

    Ref "nothing to do with us here in Westminster"
    As a letter in The Times pointed out, the decision to release Megrahi might have been made in Edinburgh, but the decision to allow the convicted criminal to leave the UK is NOT a matter for the SNP administration, but for the UK government.
    I am surprised no-one has raised this issue before, if it is true...
    Surely only the very naive would believe that such an internationally important matter would be left entirely to the jumped-up local council that the SNP (barely) commands.

  • Comment number 24.

    I THREW DOWN AN OLIVE BRANCH - AND GOT A PUNCTURE. (#19)

    What a rubbish peacemaker I turned out to be Mim. That will be my last attempt - promise. Over and out.

  • Comment number 25.

    brossen99 (#21) "Come on moderator do something about this mim persecution complex rubbish"

    Is it a 'Polish' thing?

  • Comment number 26.

    #24 from mimpromptu to Mr Singleton
    I've always suspected you were a soulful human and worth fighting for.

  • Comment number 27.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 28.

    I have a great respect for Sue Lloyd Roberts as a film maker but sadly I don't think tonight's documentary did justice to the enormous persecution which the Catholic Church had to endure in Spain prior to and especially during the Civil War. The magisterial history of the war by Hugh Thomas is a good source but also specifically Catholic Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War by Fray de Urbel- not for the faint hearted it contains some horrific pictures- nuns lined up to have their heads shaved and humiliated in public as an example. It explains but, of course, does not excuse the attitude of the authorities to those with a communist family background.

    The most remarkable story is of the gypsy, Ceferino Gimenez Malla now a Blessed who was executed for defending a priest from attack and continuing to wish to say his rosary, who died shouting Long Live Christ the King. Long before this he was unjustly accused in court of stealing and a charector witness stated "El Pele is not a thief, he is San Ceferino, patron of Gypsies" which exactly what he became.

  • Comment number 29.

  • Comment number 30.

  • Comment number 31.

    barrie (#24) Not much to work with I'm afraid.

    As to newsnight itself tonight, it appears to have degenerated into GossipNight. The Political Panel is back, and it's classic - do they see it as other see it? Still maybe there's an appreciative audience of what they think others think?

    It's all nonsense though.

    See #12

  • Comment number 32.

  • Comment number 33.





    Tear down that moustahce! Mr Bolton; what are you hiding?

    .....

  • Comment number 34.

    some are away with the fairies..whats goin on!

    Anyhow, JJ, I reckon tonights newsnight was very good. Kirsty getting stuck into a battle weary Tessa, it must be so hard to defend a hack. The chitchat afterwards with the usual three pundits. Another good solid report from Mark Urban. The Spanish civil war report was interesting. Something i new nothing about until a George orwell bio was tossed my way when in my 20s. Wacopedia: Some are more equal than others; some editors are more equal than others, long live egalitarianism. Plus you have the added bonus of a stunning Kirsty Wark red stripe top and a pair of good solid shoes ( i miss nothing, blink and there gone). JJ, what more do you want?...your own show? Speak to the commissioning editor of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ and get yourself a pilot show on primetime, we'll call it the 'Jaded Jean show with friends' (no ironic pun intended). You can have Armadilo Henderson and Gerald mchalfwit on as guests...we've not heard of them but what do you expect, its a pilot. And I'll come and warm your audience up (am cheap)...i'll be in the wings, all ears. I think its a goer, what do you think?

  • Comment number 35.

    thecookieducker (#34) I don't think the country is quite ready for that yet do you? In better times, you'd be welcome as a warm-up person, but I think you're selling yourself short there...;-)

    What do I really really want? A little more balance and truth is what I want.

    Take the coverage of the Spanish Civil War, how many people understand that 'the communists' (Statistics/Stalinists) were shooting 'the communists/anarchists' (Trotskyites aka POUM and CNT). Ken Loach (friend of the SWP) covered that bit quite well in his film I thought. What many people don't seem to understand these days is that 'communism' outside the USSR in the 1930s tended to be anarchistic Trotskyism (in my book one step from the neocons and their free-market anarchism when examined for outcome rather than stated ideology) and that nationalists were just trying to hold this at bay everywhere (it was essentially a Jewish political-economic movement, and always has been if one looks into it). That we saw the Catholics being vilified as fascists should be a heads-up to some given what happened in 1492 and the ensuring Inquisition to root out entryists. The same thing happened in Syria/Iraq - Baathism having been started by a Catholic, and Saddam Hussein revering Stalin. In fact, if one looks into Hitler, Stalin and the Catholic church, it all makes perfect sense, the Protestants being history's 'Trots', all the way back to the English Civil War's Puritans and further back. Christianity itself, is one must recall, a Jewish political invention.

    What I thought was wrong last night was that none of this was made clear in the context of the Spanish Civil War. Hitler's Germany and Franco's Spain were aligned against International Bolshevism, not Socialism in One Country (USSR like Germany. Spain was not part of the Axis Powers in WWII though. However, by 1939 Germany and the USSR were effectively allies via the Non Aggression Pact, and their common enemy was the COMINTERN, as I have referenced before in these blogs (recall the minutes of the meeting between Von Ribbentrop and Molotov etc where the Germans said that the joke in Berlin was that Stalin was going to join the anti-Comintern Pact?).

    Sadly, as usual, last night's piece was just another emotive vilification of nationalism, aka statism. Such vilification is bad for Britain, but very good for the campaign for Britain as Balkanized free-market EU NUTS (Regional Assemblies). I reckon it's why we are regularly dosed with all this anarchistic propaganda. Not that many producing it need know this of course.

  • Comment number 36.

    Good morning Moderating team

    I try to keep within the house rules on this blog, not sure why 30 hasn't appeared?

    please could you email me

    best wishes
    BGT

  • Comment number 37.

    #37 BGT

    "please could you email me"

    Are you serious? NN still hasn't replied to an email that the 2007 floods were known about and deliberately allowed to happen.

    £5 billion of damage. Kirsty last night referred to Lockerbie being the most devastating terrorist incident on British soil. All it would have taken in 2007 was for a nursing home hospital, school bus, train to have been taken out. And that would have been.

  • Comment number 38.

    gillibrand (#28) "I have a great respect for Sue Lloyd Roberts as a film maker"

    Why? In this instance the 'piece' appeared to have been produced and directed by Emote-R-Us. This is becoming an all too common trademark of TV investigative journalism these days. A sign of our sad propaganda laden times I suggest.

  • Comment number 39.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 40.

    A really great piece on the Spanish Civil War and the aftermath that was pertinent to understanding the social fabric of Spain and also had important historical detail and contemporary human reactions to the past to provide a full picture.

    Excellent.

  • Comment number 41.

    On the Spanish Civil War you can see how some Socialist "statists" - as some posters on this page see Stalinists and National Socialists - in the UK are likely to be disappointed if they move to the far right BNP thinking they are all "statists" at the end of the day.

    The graves and the deliberated lack of compassion shown to these ideological "allies" was just the dry run. Children torn from parents.

    After the marriage of convenience that led to the USSR and Germany being allies it was back to cold blooded murder in Stalingrad.

    How would the BNP cancel membership in their ideal world I wonder?

  • Comment number 42.

    There was the inevitable sexual sadist and paedophile on the Spanish Civil war piece. I suppose the sexual attitudes of those on the far right are tolerated if they don't actually impinge ideologically and perhaps even bind the individual closer to the party.

    Pure evil.

  • Comment number 43.

    On the Spanish Civil war again.

    It is interesting that many of the far right posters who pollute this page see Stalin and his ejection of "anarchists and Trotskyites", some of whom were Jews, as the basis of the identification of the "Jewish Communist International". The "internal political threat" then led to the persecution of Jews - but they talk of Holocaust "agnosticism" whilst citing statistics to suggest there was no Holocaust.

    So before they shot the communists I wonder if they thanked them.

    Perhaps it was just Hitler, with short term psychological needs, finding "clothes" that would explain what he was going to do anyway.

  • Comment number 44.

    #35 Jaded_Jean

    "What many people don't seem to understand these days is that 'communism' outside the USSR in the 1930s tended to be anarchistic Trotskyism"

    Hence Stalin sent men and material and even shot Philbys handler because he failed to persuade Philby to shoot Franco.

    Your thoughts are at least consistently blatantly inaccurate and childishly constructed.

  • Comment number 45.

    The Roma were shot in Spain, gassed in the Holocaust and they have been persecuted even today with the Northern Ireland incident.

    Having seen the section on the paedophile fascist priest I wonder whether those juveniles in Belfast who beat a Roma woman with a four day old child were "groomed" from an early age for this role.

    Perhaps they come from well established far right families.

    Its perhaps more likely though that they were induced to these acts.

  • Comment number 46.

    #19 mimpropmtu

    "Mr Singleton
    I don't really care whether you get on or not with jj, so blog away with him but I'd be grateful if you could leave me out of it. Methinks, you do not understand what he's been and continues to be up to and are just being plainly naive giving him any credit"

    Not a bit of it.

    barriesingleton used to play the dummy to the "genius" of jaded_jean in a risible "Ladybird book of far right ideology explained to the masses" routine at weekends.

    Why do you think there are so many far right posters on the page? They are trying to break into a new, hip, elite and if possible sway the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ to their hideous views. The idiots dream of social acceptance.

    There also used to be a ploy of the posters (who had said they were NOT Nazis and the BNP) queuing up to try and pressure Newsnight to improve coverage of the far right.

    You don't have to rattle Jaded_Jeans cage too much to see the genuine thoughts on Hitler.


    You can see how people in the UK today who are likely to be put up against the wall would vote BNP - the far right are that stupid!

    I, like most of the UK, am "an anarchist and Trotskyite" as I "paint Hitler as darkly as possible for party political reasons". As above "anarchists" were enthusiastically shot by Stalinists and by Nazis in Spain.

    The "party political reasons", in their parlance means I am either a Jew or a "running dog of the Jews" I believe. Thats a Lib Dem voter who reads centre left papers and so on.

    You are either for them or against them and most people who would have seen the Spanish War piece would take the view that should they ever get to a civil war situation in the UK you fight to the last man and the last drop of blood.

    BUT lets not get too heavy on this ... if you just do your thing and don't let them set the agenda they are defeated on this page. The more "normal posters" the more likely they are to be drowned out and to slip off and find some dark place elsewhere where they can torment themselves and others.

  • Comment number 47.

    On the Arctic Sea if the "pirates" turn out to have an engineering/fitter background they might have been there to change the appearance of the ship from the "Arctic Sea" so that they could claim on the insurance for the "lost" ship.

  • Comment number 48.

    USA website to boycott the uk?

    from their tone one might think the uk is the new iran?

    now their mask has come off we no longer have to pretend to think their vexacious wars are rational.

    gas at seven year lows. profits up 80%. a massive exploitation of the british people by foreign multinationals overseen by a enouched regulator?

  • Comment number 49.

    'Climate Camp descends on London today with the police promising to take a low-key approach to the climate change protests to avoid the trouble that flared during the G20 summit.'

    In retrospect is spying on Emma Thompson for being associated with Plane Stupid the best use of resource or would the authorities have been better keeping an eye on the far right?

    The former reflect public concern, but they may not approve of the methods, on the environment.

    The latter have recently given birth to would be bombers like Lewington and the chap in the North East arrested with his son for inciting others to terrorism and possession of ricin.

    Its a tough choice isn't it.

  • Comment number 50.

    Its ironic that New Labour lost a lot of domestic support over Iraq and gained a Medal for Tony Blair with the US.

    Now New Labour has lost a lot of support in the US over Lockerbie in favour of money and oil with Libya.

    Whether Mandelson was doing dodgey deals I don't know. I do know that even in my world Brown would not be so stupid as to do that without some kind of reason.

    Do they have any new information on how likely there is to be a painful carbon shortage in 2020 and whether that will knock a barely recovered globalised economy back to the floor?

    Its either that or they now know that it wasn't the Libyans at all and so do not feel bound by loyalty.

    There were rumours of al Megrahi putting "something" into the public domain - is that in the offing?

  • Comment number 51.

    Sarah Palin has been out of the news for days and as she seems to be an addict can we expect more outlandish comments from her regarding Obama soon?

    Has a President ever sued?

    Most probably he will look stunned and bemused - because he is. Like Biden who was asked if he was a communist in the campaign.

    When the Republicans talk about "death camps" and you can read the genuine believers in such acts on this page it does show that they have lost it in the Republican Party.

    I suspect Jews in the US "the internal political threat", as Jaded_Jean would call them, will see the accusations as cheap devices. The "anarchists and Trotskyites" (solely Jaded_Jean analysis again) pretty well comprise the rest.

    Barring Von Bruun who awaits trial, I believe, for murder of a security guard at a US Holocaust Memorial.

    But would the Republicans really want the US Friends of the BNP and/or the Klan vote?

    I think not.

  • Comment number 52.

    #35. At 09:40am on 26 Aug 2009, JadedJean wrote:

    'thecookieducker (#34) I don't think the country is quite ready for that yet do you? In better times, you'd be welcome as a warm-up person, but I think you're selling yourself short there...;-)'

    The cookieducker could carry a cute little flag and then you all get down to gassing the internal political threats like Jews, people of race, "anarchists and Trotskyites" and anybody who has a pulse and/or a brain.

    The country will never be ready for that.

  • Comment number 53.

    I was at Downing Street yesterday afternoon and witnessed three Palestinian women and one man being arrested and taken away for shouting 'Free Palestine' and for this they were locked up. We make more over football hooliganism in this country than we do over sleepwalking in our decision to abandon the right to protest. We always appease Israeli and American foreign policy, first over Palestine and second over General Pinochet's 'illness'. We pillory a Scottish minster for daring to be 'independent' whilst we always bend the knee.

  • Comment number 54.

    I thought that last night's piece on the Spanish Civil War lacked sufficient context. It gave the viewer little or no background to the Civil War itself but rather dealt with the heinous actions of some "Catholic fascists". These actions were of course heinous and deserve to be highlighted. Of course there were atrocities committed against supporters of the 'democratically elected government. Nobody can deny this. However, what this piece should have done was to provide viewers with a proper contextual basis rather than simply taking the easy way out and vilifying Nationalists, either rightly or wrongly. The only pro-Franco voice, for example, was obviously a raving facsist himself and lacked any degree of objectivity. Perhaps an interview with a Spanish historian might have been more appropriate? Unfortunately, however, the lazy option was taken. The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ knew that this would receive a sympathetic ear from viewers when the crimes of 'right wing governments' are presented in this fashion.

    I wonder would the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ consider commissioning a piece on the slaughter of thousands of Catholic priests and religious by supporters of the Republican government? I think not for somehow the murder of "right wing Catholics" does not have the same appeal as the the murder of left wing, anticlerical communists. No surprise there so.

  • Comment number 55.

    #1 Barrie ~ While we are at it, let us also end the ridiculous designation-by-country, relating to team events. Return the Olympics to their original form: turn up - compete - NAKED; all genders and ethnicities, on one footing.

    That is an excellent idea and I agree, I've thought for some time, why doesn't everyone take part just as an indivedual. After all most athletes seem to migrate to another country and take up citizenship if it's to their advantage. And the welcoming country loves having an athlete who can actually win something. And as for naked, even I would start watching the Olympics again, something I haven't done for years. ; )

  • Comment number 56.

    #46; i'd like to take this opportunity to buy you a metaphorical drink. Well said!

  • Comment number 57.

    thegangofone (#43) "It is interesting that many [edited out falsehoods/abuse]... see Stalin and his ejection of "anarchists and Trotskyites", some of whom were Jews, as the basis of the identification of the "Jewish Communist International"."

    Those who see are not blind. That you find it interesting does not appear help you learn. As an aid to that, please read the following Hansard :

    HANSARD 1803–2005 → 1910s → 1919 → August 1919 → 11 August 1919 → Commons Sitting → RUSSIA.
    JEWS.HC Deb 11 August 1919 vol 119 cc880-1 880
    § 73. Mr. RAPER asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the percentage of Jews in Central Russia 881 is estimated to be only 2 per cent. of the total population, which is mainly Christian; and whether he has any information to the effect that the various departments of the Bolshevist Government, which claims to be the national Government of Russia, are mainly controlled by Jews?

    § Sir H. GREENWOOD The most recent statistics I have seen give the percentage of Jews in European Russia as 4 per cent. of the total population. The answer to the last portion of the hon. Member's question is in the affirmative.

    § Mr. RAPER Is my hon. Friend aware that a considerable amount of prejudice is being excited in this country on account of the statement that the Bolshevik movement is headed by Jews, and would it not be better to take measures to enlighten the country as to the real character of these Bolshevik Jews?

    § Sir H. GREENWOOD I would ask my hon. Friend to accept the answer I have given, which covers this question.

    § Colonel WEDGWOOD Would not the best way be to prevent my hon. Friend from asking questions designed to create prejudice against the Jews?"


    I suspect it was not made more public at the time, because of fears of rioting in the East End of London (a largely Jewish area) given that many Gentile British men lost their lives fighting the Germans on the Western Front after the German High command sent the Jewish Bolsheviks/anarchists into Russia in 1917 to get Russia off their Eastern front, thus resulting in even more British deaths on the Western Front?

    Then read published in the Illustrated Sunday Herald in February 1920. Martin Gilbert would probably have something circumlocutory about this I suspect but he would only have to read what Churchill had said in Hansard earlier. You should note that in any government, there are rivals In Russia, Stalin's rivals were the original Bolsheviks, including Trotsky, Radek, Zinoviev, Kamenev etc, all Jewish

    The fact it that it used to be common knowledge that the Russian revolution was led by (largely foreign) Jews, many moving over from NYC (see Bernard Russell's autobiography on this). It's also well documented, even in Jewish newspapers in Israel, that much of the 'red terror' was at the hands of Jews, meted out against Gentiles. Stalin purged the original Bolsheviks in the 1930s as part of the establishment of Socialism in One Country aka National Socialism. At that point many of the Jews over in the USA became anti-USSR, after WWII, here was a Cold War. USA Jewish Trotskyites (or anarchists if you prefer) morphed later into the Necons. See my comments on Robert Peston's most recent blog for more on this.

    I advise you to stop sneering at history and just learn to accept it. Or do you wish to peddle untruths in pursuit of your own Libertarian (anarchistic) political agenda as a Liberal Democrat perhaps? Do you even understand what you are peddling? Perhaps you should just accept that religions in the past were essentially political movements and that Jews have Ben very good at this? The 'Catholics' ran an Inquisition in Europe, especially Spain. This targeted closet Jews as Heretics. That was another name for subversives. The Puritans' New Model Army during the English Civil was funded by Dutch Jews. Remember how they attacked churches and wanted a return to the Old Testament (The Jewish bible)? Protestantism vs Catholicism is just an older version of this old battle. Subversives made out that they were just innocently going about their own business of course. The problem was that their business was out of sync with their host nation's customs and laws. It's why Henry VIII got himself into trouble. On the other hand, one could say that England did very well out of it in later centuries, lots of 'settlements' everywhere, just like the USA has.

    It would help your own peace of mind if you stopped using highly emotive language and abuse. It won't work on me, I see it as evidence of irrationality. It would also help if you ceased abusing people and misrepresenting what they post.

  • Comment number 58.

    thegangofone (#46) ""The "party political reasons", in their parlance means I am either a Jew or a "running dog of the Jews" I believe."

    But you believe all sorts of things which are clealry false, as does mimpromptu, kashibeyaz and streetphotobeing. From those false assumptions you collectively infer all sorts of other falsehoods. Providing your with corrective feedback just elicits offensive from each of you, and you all appear to think (from your subsequent behaviours) that a) if your assumptions are shown to be false, that this is a humiliating sleight, rather an addition to your education, b) that just because just believe something to be true that suffices to make it true.

    It really is most bizarre from the perspective of neutral observers. It is a sign of narcissism. A sign that you can not see other people's points of view, only share those who already have your own, which is, if you think about it, no more than narcissistic egocentrism. None of you appear to know the first thing, it would seem, about the growth of knowledge. Instead, you are prejudiced and misperceive other people's helpful feedback as personal attacks.

    This is obviously the case, as others respond to the same material quite differently. They have learned in life to welcome other people's feedback in this way. These are educated/educable people.

    Sadly, narcissism is incorrigible. What many of you will not see is how you are used as anarchistic 'useful idiots', and how the whole process can be unwitting, for all concerned, i.e. it is not an intentional, conspiratorial, process. It takes someone trained in Behaviour Analysis to see this perhaps.

    QED

  • Comment number 59.

    go1: I wouldn't want to spend an hour in your head...I'd soon be reaching for the Tablets. Every shadow must have a Nazi in it...frightening.

    "The cookieducker could carry a cute little flag and then you all get down to gassing the internal political threats like Jews, people of race, "anarchists and Trotskyites" and anybody who has a pulse and/or a brain."..

    GO1, what planet are you on exactly?..i can't see many tourists clamoring in taking a shuttle any time soon to your world. The tour bus guide would ask the passengers to avert their eyes. " under no circumstances look to your left".

    This next quote of yours is illustrative of how far you have really gone...from the land of rational thinking:
    "..to gassing the internal political threats like Jews.."

    I have a regular job and a couple of creative roles in life, a family, 5 daughters, the memory of a dog, a gold fish won at the fair in 1996, a car, middle aged (44yrs) and a gym in the garage, ectectra..but never once have i ever entertained gassing anyone who i perceive as a political treat.. not once! I will argue and debate the pitfalls of multiculturalism all day long but not once has it entered my head in the "gassing" of anybody. Some are arguing that the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ and newsnight in particular are swinging a bit to the right. Well all they are doing is waking up to the reality of a shift in thinking on the streets of the UK. Maybe we have been to easy on immigration, maybe the political left have exposed the British citizen to a possible frightening future, for some its already here with cultures not compatible with the majority. Our tolerance level has expired, and hence the rise of the political right, nationalism...the far right. The far left whom are short of any common sense, who would not listen to the concerns of others or lacked any understanding of history in looking for inherent dangers, inturn gave birth to the new English nationalism. In bending over backwards to all quarters in the naive belief the left were doing the right thing only ever gave life to the BNP...Nick Griffin and the rise of the BNP/far right is your baby, not mine.

    P:S the dog was a German shepherd, but Knowing your mind, I can guess where you'll go with that.

  • Comment number 60.

    erratum (#35) "statistics/Stalinists = statists/Stalinists" (anachistic spell-checker? ;-))

  • Comment number 61.

    Sarah:

    Sue Lloyd Roberts a film from Spain

    I am glad, that she was able to do a film about the Spain during the Franco adminstration and/or regime....

    =Dennis Junior=

  • Comment number 62.

    oh no, don't get us on the Spanish civil war...we'll be here all night

  • Comment number 63.

    Hi Moderating team

    thank you for 30

    I will try to stay within the spirit of the house rules, also not to get a bit personal, difficult when an MEP slates the NHS to Fox news, there may be a further nugget to dig out on this I fear,
    for close calls on the postings I hope I make the right call

    best wishes

  • Comment number 64.

    FAR RIGHT - NOT NATIONALISTS

    People really should stop talking about 'the far-right' or extreme right-wing the way they do as it's New-Speak. The 'far-right' would be no rule of law, no state, just complete individualism, i.e anarchism - total free-market, laissez-faire.

    To describe nationalists or national socialists as 'far-right' is therefore either wrong, or egregious propaganda.

    National Socialists are leftists. Stalin's USSR was National Socialist. The Old Labour Party was National Socialist. It is contrasted with International Socialism, which is anti nation state. This has far more in common with globalism where there are no trade barriers, cosmopolitanism. The very thing Stalinist USSR and Hitler's Germany opposed. Hitler wanted an alliance with Britain. He offered to provide troops to defend it in fact.

    Guess who spun it another way? International Socialists. Look up the today. They are Social Democrats. Stalin called them Social Fascists! he despised them (as Trotskyites) just as Hitler did. They are hand in glove (rose?) with the free marketeers. Stalin saw this, so did Hitler.

    Just browse back to the New Labour funding scandal covered by Newsnight.

  • Comment number 65.

    errata (#58) Many typos etc, apologies. Hopefully (????), those concerned get the drift....

  • Comment number 66.

    I would love to know which music was used for the report on Spain's past...

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