Bubblehammerblog

Could it be that the current massacre happening in the Gaza Ghetto is a kind of warped game show, whereby the Israeli electorate, especially those in Sderot & Ashkalon, get to watch & assess the relative ruthlessness & brutality of the contestants before they vote for them?

I keep having to stop myself from using the word crime - but it's a debased coinage in the absence of any meaningful idea of international law. Whatever Israel does, & says is kosher, & America agrees, is de facto not a crime. This is obvious. Were it a crime for Israel to first starve one & a half million people, then bomb their crowded cities killing hundreds of civilians, then surely there'd be a massive wave of outrage, condemnation, & demands to put a stop to it from the international community?

But here's a piece from the Israeli daily Haaretz, presented to illustrate, for the benefit of the antisemites whose opinions stain the comment pages of the world's best news sites, that not all of 'the jews' are cheering the carnage from the sidelines.

And could it be that the feeble Abu Mazen & the leaders of Fatah, along with the puppet rulers of the Arab regimes, are complicit in all this? Is this what is meant when they say that 'it would not have happened if Palestinians had been united'? Abu Mazen has made clear his willingness to take over the running of Gaza should Hamas do the decent thing & capitulate. The West Bank based Palestinian Authority has, after all, been helping the Israelis to tighten their seige of Gaza. See here, for instance :

And could not Barack Obama, perhaps sporting the 'I Love Sderot' teeshirt he got earlier this year, have deployed his famed eloquence more effectively than his single comment so far: ‘If my daughters were living in a house that was being threatened by rocket attacks, I would do whatever it takes to end that situation.’ ?

We're clearly begining this year as we mean to go on.

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As disparate but linked militant youth protests simultaneously erupt in a number of countries across the continent, French President Nicholas Sarkozy has retreated on two controversial pieces of domestic legislation out of fear that a spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of 1968.

Mr Sarkozy, the outgoing chairman of the six-month rotating European Union presidency, has dropped plans for changes to high school curricula and Sunday retail opening hours in dread that the "Greek syndrome" - the two-week-long youth riots that have rocked the country with the most widespread unrest since the overthrow of the military junta in 1974 - could spread to France, or even across the continent.

"We can't have a European May '68 for Christmas," the French leader said to his cabinet, according to reports in Le Canard Enchaîné, referring to the left-wing student protests and general strike in France in 1968 that led to the eventual collapse of the government of Charles De Gaulle.

Similar protests took place that year around the world, particularly in the United States and Germany, but the 'événements' of '68 hold a unique place in the French political imagination.

Note my recent post pointing to evidence that Sarkozy might be a longstanding CIA asset.

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With the current economic crisis throwing up numbers in the order of billions & trillions, almost rendering them meaningless through repetition, these amazing photographs by Chris Jordan offer an antidote to inumeracy.

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Young Chuck moved to Texas and bought a Donkey from a farmer for $100.00.

The farmer agreed to deliver the Donkey the next day. The next day he drove up and said, 'Sorry son, but I have some bad news, the donkey died.'

Chuck replied, 'Well, then just give me my money back.'

The farmer said, 'Can't do that. I went and spent it already.'

Chuck said, 'Ok, then, just bring me the dead donkey.'

The farmer asked, 'What ya gonna do with him?

Chuck said, 'I'm going to raffle him off.'

The farmer said, You can't raffle off a dead donkey!'

Chuck said, 'Sure I can, Watch me.. I just won't tell anybody he's dead.'

A month later, the farmer met up with Chuck and asked, 'What happened with that dead donkey?'

Chuck said, 'I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars a piece and made a profit of $898.00.'

The farmer said, 'Didn't anyone complain?'

Chuck said, 'Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back.'

Chuck now works for the government as a top advisor on the Bailout Plan!

(Thanks to Futurefastforward.com )

And this from Woodrow Wilson:

I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial
nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world, no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.

Woodrow Wilson, US President

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Some people might not be aware that the many tentacled French corporation Veolia, which may supply you with water, or empty your dustbins, is the same Veolia that is currently building a light railway in the East Jerusalem region to connect illegal Israeli settlements built on occupied Palestinian land.

You can see a video here.

Can Veolia's transit system fairly be called apartheid trams? Yes. The people who live in the settlements are racists, who have no intention of allowing arabs to live beside them, except perhaps as roadsweepers.

The building of a permanent transport system between the settlements will further consolidate the ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem, making any peace solution based on the 1967 borders & a shared capital almost impossible.

I checked & found that my Local Authority contracts Veolia Environmental Services , & enquiring emails will be sent to my local councillors, (all Green, as it happens.) Why not do the same?

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Slow posts over the past week or so. This is because I'm appearing in Panto in a small town in West Yorkshire. Despite being just over six feet I'm playing leading dwarf Soapy, in Snow White & the Seven Dwarves, an exhausting role that requires a wearisome amount of waddling around the stage in massively oversize boots. It's a talking part, & I have to painfully deliver my half dozen lines in a loud high pitched shriek. The theatre is only heated during performances so it's freezing. Snow White is being played by a preening young woman who once appeared in the teen soap Hollyoakes. Her dressing room has a one bar electric heater installed, & she refuses to share it with the rest of the cast.

For those who aren't familiar with Panto - it's a peculiarly English form of entertainment, performed usually for children, in order to humiliate entertainers with declining or extinct careers. I won't elaborate, since Panto is a national disgrace, which no country with claims to civilisation would countenance.

I earn a little more for my thrice weekly Panto appearances than I would for, say, collecting fares on the tram, or scanning groceries at a supermarket. Panto is the exception to my dictum that I wouldn't work for anyone daft enough to employ me.

I'm intending to take my revenge on the night of the final performance. Moments after the curtain I'll take the stage in my Soapy costume & deliver a speech to the assembled children & parents about the government's plans to encourage schools to routinely search pupils for drugs, weapons & stolen goods.

If my oratory is able to convey some of my outrage at this proposal, & touches the conscience of a single parent, before I'm bum's rushed off the stage & bundled away by security, then it'll be worth it.

For the past few days I've been putting together a draft speech. Were it not for the kiddies, it would begin Wake up, you stupid bastards!

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Mandelson, at the weekend: "Internationally people say to me, Your Prime Minister has been transformed. His standing has soared. People really do look to him like some Moses figure who is going to lead them away from this economic mess to the promised land."

I present the above quote to indicate the level of delusion now gripping some sections of our governing classes, & the stark contrast between their perceptions & those of the reality-bound general public, or what used to be called the masses.

Anyone who has much of a memory, & has paid the least attention to recent events in the world, can conceive an outline of what's happened - we've been been gobbling up credit, the banks are sitting on worthless piles of paper, nartural resources suddenly look finite...

And Moses proclaims, Give banks money to get credit circulating, stimulate more growth, spend more on stuff, like you did when you thought it was free.

We don't demand enough of our Prophets.

I live in a large Post Industrial city in the North of England. When I was a kid the city was predominantly black or dark brown, as were the rivers that ran through it. In the city centre the sandstone civic buildings were bible black. Whole swathes of the city were nothing but long roads of huge factories, rust & black corrugated iron, with big peeling green 'vacancies' boards at the gates. Flames from furnace doors licked the night sky, the earth shook with the thud of forge hammers. People coughed & steamed on packed buses, sang in pubs on Thursday nights.

In thirty years the city has been transformed. It can now be viewed in colour. The civic buildings have been scrubbed, tubs of exotic foliage surround them. The gleaming city centre shops are ringed by broad roads jammed with shiny new cars. Cranes sweep the sky. The factories have gone. Singing is not encouraged on licensed premises.

Something always troubled me about this metamorphosis. I've studied economics at an English redbrick university, though the course lectures & tutorials had, by sheer bad luck, been scheduled to conflict with my drink & drugs intake, so I was denied the chance to develop a proper grasp of the subject. But I did manage to gain the insight that the creation wealth is related in some fundamental way to the production of goods.

I've witnessed this profound change, from a city manufacturing metal stuff that was hauled out on lorries & trains, to a richer, more modern one that appears to make nothing. How would I explain this to an enquiring ten year old?

Which brings me to my introduction. I usually refuse to click on the Google sponsored ad you see on stacked at the sides of webpages. The other day I found myself looking at a website I'd clicked on before I could stop myself. Oddly, it didn't seem to want flog me anything, saying at the bottom of the page: If you are formulating a strategy for a business or are an individual trying to safeguard the future for your family we can help you to understand the underlying trends and to anticipate what the future holds.

After half an hour of reading I had the impression that here was as clearly presented & plausible an explantion of the current economic crisis as I've come across. Read it here at How it Ends.

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