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I don’t seem to have posted that article about Pinochet’s Death Chamber, Clivex. I’ll look for it.
But on a totally different subject, if you get as mad as I do about having to use premium numbers to get through to companies – sometimes even to enquire about buying their products, here’s a terrrific site to get through to ordiary land lines:
http://www.saynoto0870.com/search.php
I find just entering the number, 045 or whatever, is just as effective if not more than entering the company’s name. You can’t always get the land line, but in most cases you can.
I thought it was about Chile, where Pinochet’s goons had trained dogs to rape women prisoners. But it took place in Guatemala, where, incidentally, some male Indians were given the choice of being baked alive in an oven or being castrated. Most of these South and Central American torturers were trained by in the US by the "School of the Americas", now renamed, surprise, surprise. The CIA oversaw things, evidently.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m … i_18311896
Do you really think ANY good could have come from such regimes, Clivex?
Driven by Friedmanite/Thatcherite, neoliberal, economic principles?Grimes
Milton friedman was an extreme libertarian nut IMO. He had some very strange and charmless views. But there were elements of what he proposed which appealed to the conventional right, ie Thatcher and Reagan. But they never in a million years went the whole hog. Public spending as a % of GDp barely dropped under Thactcher. thats hardly freidmanesque policy. And more importantly, neither leader at any time, proposed dictatorship. Not a hint of it
As for chomsky, please do not put him up as a beacon of democracy and freedom let alone opponent of state attrocities. You must be well aware of some of the less wonderful states that he has defended
That number is useful..i like it!
The dead-hand of socialist governance has nothing to offer………………except when the capitalist system is on it’s knees, perhaps you meant?
Privatise the profit
Nationalise the debtUnregulated capitalism can have a very large cake and can stuff its unacceptable face with it
You could argue however that it is capitalism that has driven the dramatic improvements in our standard of living over the last 150 years.
And stop splitting irrelevant hairs about "ownership" and "taking a stake".
You can dress it up any way you want, but these bailouts – temporary or otherwise – represent state intervention. Basically, the ar*se would have fallen out of the UK economy without it, so it was most definitely the correct thing to do, but lets not try and dress it up as anything other than state intervention on an unprecedented and massive scale.Massive difference. Absolutely crucial.
You might want to see workers councils running Barclays bank or whatever, but i dont want to see my employers lending facility being chwed over by the wheeltappers and shunters commitee over pies and pints with Freddie parrot face davis perfomring in the background
(mind you even he couldnthave done a worse job than some bankers)
You could argue however that it is capitalism that has driven the dramatic improvements in our standard of living over the last 150 years.
Just a bit.
Its interesting that despite this downturn the very idea of massive nationlisation of industry and services with goverment control (not stakes …huge difference) has simply not been on anyones agenda. There is simply no desire for it.
Clivex, at least one major Bank, at the governments behest, has:
a) effectively sacked it’s Chief Exec and Chairman
b) stated that no dividends will be paid to shareholders
c) stated that no bonuses will be paid to Exec or senior managersCall it whatever you want, but Her Maj’s Government is calling the shots that count, and whilst it isn’t dictating daily business direction, it is using its preference-share position to ‘protect its asset’. It may not be full-blooded nationalisation, but it’s undeniably state-control and/or influence over a previously free-market institution.
It has nothing whatsoever to do with what you or I may "want" – it is just fact, plain and simple.
Spot on, Drone.
You’re right about Thatcher, Clivex – she was realistic about what the country would stand at that time, and not the quite the natural despot, Blair was. He was the worst possible. But then his policies were even further to the right. The time was right for him, since he was able to keep conning the people for long enough, to make it impossible for the people to get rid of him. Apprently MI5 had groomed him at University, to kill our democracy. Only the Tories could be remain bad enough for NuLab to remained the only option.
As for Blair disowning Socialism. I think that was only after he came to power. But even if he never used the word, if you are familiar with his speeches he was posing as a left-wing firebrand just the same.When the only difference between him and the Tories was that he had an animal cunning and was more subtle. Always prepared to throw a few bones to the masses. Nothing much but something. And he was a consummate liar because he believed what he said simply because he said it.
Of course, every successful politician needs the media on his side, and though most of them favoured their more brutish, old pals, the Tories, they were pleased to have such an able accomplice in their plunder as Blair.
A few seconds ago, Cheney on the box giving a speech at a war memorial! "I had other priorities" was his response to questions about his multiple deferments in terms of his serving in Vietnam.
But not necessarily persuasively, Mac! I’d much prefer to live in a New Guinea hunter-gatherer society, where everyone looks after each other than a so-called sink estate where most of the youth have lost all hope and fall into drug addiction. Did you see the horror of the New Guinea natives on that TV programme when McIntyre took them to an old folks’ home? They were just appalled.
And don’t forget that much of the material affluence wasn’t shared, right up to WWII. There was dire poverty and malnutrition among the poor.
It’s intersting to see how even had-nosed media types have ben reduced to tears when they discvered the hardships their great grandparents or great-great granparents had to suffer. I’m convinced the only explanation is that whe we look into our genealogies and maybe at other times, deceased relatives make a psychic connection with us.
Apprently MI5 had groomed him at University, to kill our democracy
I’d be interested to read your source.
You could argue however that it is capitalism that has driven the dramatic improvements in our standard of living over the last 150 years.
Couldn’t really argue otherwise, given the tried and failed alternatives, as anyone who plays that microcosm of the free market in its purest form – the betting market – would surely testify
The problem is individuals/institutions seem too often to believe the freedom that the unfettered free market allows equates to a right to abuse it with impunity: a dog-eat-dog I’m-all-right-jack world where personal gain is all
Therefore firm regulation and a ‘mixed’ economical model would seem both necessary and wise. And that’s pretty much where I stand
Call it whatever you want, but Her Maj’s Government is calling the shots that count, and whilst it isn’t dictating daily business direction, it is using its preference-share position to ‘protect its asset’. It may not be full-blooded nationalisation, but it’s undeniably state-control and/or influence over a previously free-market institution.
No theyre not!
Bonuses still paid out by companies that needing bailing out? Where was the control there? Not even this basic PR consideration (its obscene frankly..) was addressed anywhere other than nrthern rock
And did they pass on the interest cut? the goverment had to plead with them and even them it doesnt kick in for a month with those that agreed it
There is virtually no control and unless they have a majority stake there cannot be. Only northern rock was fully nationlised. And that is and was a small player
You could argue however that it is capitalism that has driven the dramatic improvements in our standard of living over the last 150 years.
Couldn’t really argue otherwise.
Well you could argue with that. The ruling classes in this country up until the turn of the last century kept all the wealth for themselves. From the mill owners to the East India company, they kept the lot. The decision to share things out didn’t come out of some sort of altruistic christian notion, or unregulated capitalism. It was the revolution in Russia in 1917 and the election success of the first Labour government shortly after. The fear of losing it all drove the 80/20 split we have today .. better to give away 20% than lose 100%.
I’m sure the average North Korean and Cuban looks upon the hardships and deprivations of the capitalist worker with great sympathy.
It was a newspaper, Andrew. It would either have been the Mail or the Mirror. Quite a lengthy article. It didn’t give the impression that it was expected to be denied, either. But, in any case, it makes sense, doesn’t it. I
I’m loathe to concede that unions have ever been a problem, but I’m inclined to think the nobs were probably right. The trouble is, the continuous shift to the right of the Labour Party was no doubt due to them and their perjurious coporate media; so it was pot met kettle.
Blair was also quoted as telling a friend colleague that he would be PM, though it didn’t matter what party. I’m not sure that that was in that particular article though. Could have been in a later item.
Obviously, the decent Tories, Thatcher’s so-called "wets", evidently didn’t carry enough influence. The only tax I believe is fair is income tax, and I’d have it replace very other half-baked stealth tax/flat tax, including inheritance tax, but I was deeply impressed that Francis Pym left something like £2,300,000, when he could have distributed it to his family etc earlier and avoided paying appreciable death duties. I think it likely it was deliberate.
Cameron is a ruthless chancer, imo, Marb, as ruthless as any Tory before him, and just as duplicitous. But we’ll never agree on that. As Dave said, however, the prime villains of this oncoming crash were Thatcher and Reagn with their insane and crooked deregulation. That is a matter of historical fact.
As Dave said, however, the prime villains of this oncoming crash were Thatcher and Reagn with their insane and crooked deregulation. That is a matter of historical fact.
It is a matter of very very tenuous debate.
I would like to know what the alternatives that the left had in store for us in "crooked and insane" system which brought about 25 years of record growth and record prosperity. Even if the UK economy slips back 2% next year, we are still well ahead of where we were
So what is it then?
A continuation of 1979? The nationlisation of the FTSE 100?
The only certainty is that if we had continued as we were, every western economy would have streaked past us. Remember teh "british disease"? The "sick man of europe". The left had NO solutions to this, except more of teh same, which is why they were hammered.
I would like to know what our growthwould have been in the city hadnt been deregulated, industries continued to stumble along like British Leyland and new business was suffocated by taxes and soc ialist hostitily at birth
Well that’s quite an easy one to answer Clive .. France and Germany seem to have done all right, without going down the loony route that we did.
You seem to be confusing progression with politic ideology. The 70’s thing would have sorted itself out like it did elsewhere, without the poll tax and all the other craziness.
France privitised its industries just as enthusisaticlly as Thatcher did. After thatcher. Germanys economy has not performed wonderfully well in recent times…comparitively. they themselves do not not have a state dominated economy anyway
Or maybe you wanted to compare uk with the GDR?
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