NYT / AP - "Balkans Reel as Number of Migrants Hits Record" | Sweden's Double Standards

ꕤ Article SOURCE http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/28/world/europe/balkans-slovenia-reel-as-number-of-refugees-migrants-hits-record.html?smid=tw-nytimesworld&smtyp=cur&_r=0 Balkans Reel as Number of Migrants Hits Record By BARBARA SURK and RICK LYMANOCT.  27, 2015 Groups of refugees and migrants waited in a Slovenian border town, a stopping point for most on their journey to northern Europe.  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS on Publish Date October 27, 2015. SENTILJ, Slovenia — The small Balkan nations on the path of the human migration through Europe are seeing record numbers of asylum-seekers cross their borders, and are overwhelmed in their ability to manage the human flow. Despite hopes that plummeting temperatures and treacherous seas would finally slow the tide of refugees flowing into the heart of Europe, fresh fighting in Syria and growing fears of border closings are driving more migrants to undertake the treacherous trek. At the moment, the biggest crunch appears to be on the southern border of Slovenia, a small Alpine nation on the Adriatic Sea that has become the gateway to Europe for migrants since Hungary closed its border with Croatia on Oct. 16. In recent days, fights have broken out over blankets and in the line of migrants waiting in this northern Slovenian border town to cross the frontier into Austria. There were also growing signs of tension between refugees from Syria, fleeing a growing war in their homeland, and migrants from other nations. In the past 10 days, 83,600 migrants have crossed into Slovenia, government officials said, while 57,981 have crossed from Slovenia into Austria, and 14,000 are waiting in government reception centers. The remaining 12,000 or so are at government registration centers, stuck on trains or buses, or simply in the open, roughing it in the increasingly cold fields and forests of the ragged foothills. “When Hungary closed its border, the Slovenian politicians said, ‘Oh, we are prepared,’ ” said Natasa Pirc Musar, president of the Slovenian Red Cross. “They said Slovenia could handle 2,500 people a day. The problem is, we are getting 10,000 a day and hearing reports that it will soon grow to 13,000. This is something Slovenia cannot cope with anymore.” On Sunday, European Union officials approved a 17-point plan that may not see fruition for months. It includes more accommodations in Greece, the European Union country the migrants usually enter first, as well as along the entire migrant trail through the Balkans, plus fresh reserves of border guards and injections of cash to help financially struggling Balkan nations pay for all of this. Slovenia’s foreign minister, Karl Erjavec, said his country would welcome the support of other European countries, including 400 new police officers. But he warned that Slovenia could not accommodate the growing number of people in need for long without outside support. If help does not come soon, he said, the country will take unilateral measures, including potentially building its own fence along the Croatian border and deploying additional troops to guard the frontier. “All plans remain on the table if promises from the Brussels summit are not fulfilled,” Mr. Erjavec said. Refugee officials worry that it is too little too late, and that the new plan will suffer the same fate as all of the previous, ineffectual European Union efforts to manage and cope with the largest movement of people across Europe since World War II. “This should have been done months ago,” said Babar Baloch, spokesman in Hungary for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Mrs. Pirc Musar, the Slovenian Red Cross president, said, “We are trying to use a small fire extinguisher to kill a giant fire.” Meanwhile, migrants — exhausted, cold and frequently forced to stop — are growing impatient, crossing one border after another. In recent months European nations have worked to block the main route taken by migrants fleeing war and upheaval. Groups of young men from Afghanistan and other countries, noticeably more aggressive toward the police than the terrified families traveling with them, are becoming a challenge for the authorities and other refugees. CONTINUE READING ARTICLE - HERE http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/28/world/europe/balkans-slovenia-reel-as-number-of-refugees-migrants-hits-record.html?smid=tw-nytimesworld&smtyp=cur&_r=0 ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- COMMENT It is estimated that only 20% of the unstoppable tide that has descended upon Europe are Syrian refugees, according to multiple recent mainstream sources.  As a Sweden source has indicated (today) that Sweden's getting 'less than one in three' Syrians making their way through to Sweden, the guess is that the overall figure of Syrian refugees among the throng is actually significantly lower than that reported. Sweden, taking the Multikulti-R-Us crown, as US-serving neoliberal 'Marxist' EU immigration-destination (with Germany in hot pursuit for the honour), is also -- unsurprisingly -- the 'liberal'-fascist press suppression capital, a press that's heavily taxpayer subsidised.   So the Swedish taxpayers get screwed twice over, but who's keeping count.  The magnanimous state of Sweden sure ain't. Germany, with her own heavy-duty state interest in media & therefore no doubt decades long experience in spinning state propaganda, since Goebbels handed over the baton, is the political dissent suppression Meccca of Europe, alongside its Swedish counterpart. Sweden and Germany:  the evil EU twins.   Who would have guessed?  lol Germany also has the dubious distinction of appointing an ex-Stasi  East German snitch as the Fourth Reich social-media-suppressing Facebook censorship snitch, and, of course, Facebook is more than happy to oblige, because Mutti Merkel and Mark Zuckerberg know what's best for all Germans -- especially the jacked off ordinary Germans. Mutti Merkel's Fourth Reich also resorts to press blackouts to keep the German sheeple ignorant and therefore in line. As Sweden's not to be relied upon for provision of straight immigration figures, and as Sweden is as dodgy as all f*ck (see Julian Assange, detained on trumped up 'allegations' 5 years, no charge), I'd be inclined to conclude Europe's migrant deluge comprises perhaps as little as 10% Syrian refugees landing in Europe. But who'd know?  Germany and Sweden sure as hell don't.  EU doesn't.  There's no medicals.  There's no quarantine.  There's no papers.  But, hey, there's false papers.  Oh, and there's even 700 freshly minted German refugees that have just gone missing in Germany.  Uh-oh!  Most are physically capable young men from demolished, chaotic and/or impoverished surrounding countries.  'Syrian refugees' is the mainstream media sound-bite, often an anti-al-Assad propaganda 'blame card', and also a convenient narrative for this largely Western intervention-induced mass non-European migration frenzy. Judging by previous statements made by politicians, it's safe to ignore anything European politicians have to say:  the European sheeple need to be pacified.  And talk is cheap.  It's plain that Europe's politicians have got no plan and, sadly, no balls.  National sovereignty is dead in Europe. Nothing will come of warnings and 'threats' to restore territorial and social order.  And, in terms of social order, the horse has already bolted.  So whatever 'remedies' are eventually taken, the problem remains. Immigration avoidance strategists take note:  Mutti Merkel's German Open Haus immigration overland march from Greece and Turkey is, of course, making a b-line for the generous, soft, easy policy marks:  Mutti's most accommodating (but disgruntled) Germany, and Sweden's 'feminist foreign policy'  schizo neoliberal-'Marxist' cultural integration Nordic play-pen involving:  knife-wielding maniacs, shootings, frequent grenade tossing, rioting, and fire-setting ... to start with. 'Human traffickers' on a mission to make a fast buck, kindly supplying discarded life vests to many, many thousands of Middle Eastern would-be permanent European residents per day -- every day, is an incongruity nobody's bothered to question or explain.  Screw you, ideologically sold out, deceitful, complicit, and useless elite and corporate fascist serving mainstream press.  The cynic in me sees this Great Migration as a highly organised (and highly expensive), adept feat of logistics ... and, therefore, not so legit.   Of course, the deceitful, lying, double-dealing politicians who have aided and abetted aggressive US-led foreign policy (and have also clearly sold out their own nations and peoples, as US-servile war strategy secondary 'weapons' and their societies as ill-fitting receptacles for displaced Middle Eastern and African migration) knew what to expect from well before 2011, when they partnered in the US-led murder of Gaddafi, plunging Libya into destruction and civil war, before moving right along to:  training, arming, and otherwise supporting terrorist proxies that the West has set upon beleaguered Syria. So, looking past the razzle-dazzle of theatre of state and military (and past the state and media propaganda), Syria is yet another attempted regime change in the Middle East -- in the service of nothing but corporate fascism.  I honestly believe that's the bottom line -- always.  I should probably point out here that it cannot just be the West alone responsible for everything, although, yes, there's masses of interference that is wrong (including an illegal war).  But big, bad US-led allies cannot force proxies in the region do what they don't want to do, or force them to fight among themselves.  So the people in the region -- including Arab players in the region -- also play a part in the destruction and displacement from the region. From my point of view, the domestic public bears no responsibility whatsoever for taking on the blowback problems (including refugees and immigrants) created by the politician shills for corporate fascism, when the crap eventually hits the fan and world populations start moving.  To my way of thinking, nobody is obligated to self-destruct, and certainly not because of decisions made by lying, cheating, con artist politicians that don't even really represent or hear the public. There's indication that Bashar al-Assad has been targeted by the US and its allies since 2006 (mentioned by WikiLeaks), so this European apocalypse is a long time in the making. Yet these servants of corporate fascism did no forward planning?  I don't think so.  The ugly truth is that they do not care about their suffering domestic populations -- they do not care about their own blood or their own land -- and they do not care about the future of Europe itself. The massive displacement of inhabitants from Libya, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and beyond, is predictable once you know the pattern to look for:  intervention/regime-change/war/civil-war, displacement, refugees, immigration (or something like that). As I think I may have said before, any experienced politics observer would have predicted this 'catastrophe', let alone governments who have prior experience with exactly this sort of displacement, and as first world governments who have no shortage of experts and advisers on hand. The highly predictable results of multiple US-led military actions, terrorist proxy destabilisations, and economic sanction assaults on the Middle East, that have been aided and abetted by key European players, would have been very plain to corporate fascist serving lying and scheming European politicians. So these treasonous politicians have squandered an opportunity of at least six years (if not more) to plan, to take control and to take appropriate action to avert what amounts to foreign civilian invasion of Europe. Lying, scheming, cheating, treacherous, European politicians could have made arrangements for in-situ humanitarian assistance for the eligible among those that have been consistently migrating into Europe from Africa and the Middle East for years now, well before Mutti Merkel unleashed mayhem upon Europe. The actions of these European politicians are a gross breach of duty of care to their domestic populations and are, in my opinion, undemocratic and incalculably costly acts of colluding criminal politicians that have placed European nations' long-term social welfare and national security in ongoing and permanent peril. Mutti's Ministry of Truth EXTRACTS ONLY Angela Merkel declares death of German multiculturalism Chancellor's remarks, which claimed multiculturalism had 'failed utterly', interpreted as a shift rightwards from previous views Kate Connolly in Berlin Monday 18 October 2010 06.27 AEDT Chancellor Angela Merkel has declared the death of multiculturalism in Germany, saying that it had "failed utterly" , in what has been interpreted as a startling shift from her previous views. The German leader said it had been an illusion to think that Germans and foreign workers could "live happily side by side". "We kidded ourselves for a while that they wouldn't stay, but that's not the reality," she said at a conference of the youth wing of her Christian Democratic Union party at the weekend, referring to the gastarbeiters, or guest workers, who arrived in Germany to fill a labour shortage during the economic boom of the 1960s. "Of course the tendency had been to say, 'let's adopt the multicultural concept and live happily side by side, and be happy to be living with each other'. But this concept has failed, and failed utterly," she said, without elaborating on the nature and causes of this failure. Merkel's verdict marks a shift in her previously liberal line on immigration which had always put her at odds with the more conservative wing of the party. While she stressed in the same speech that immigrants were welcome in Germany and that Islam was a part of the nation's modern-day culture, her remarks positioned her closer to Horst Seehofer, the Bavarian state premier of the Christian Social Union, who last week called for an end to immigration from Turkey and Arab countries. They also align her with Thilo Sarrazin, the former Bundesbank member whose book on how the failure of many of Germany's 16 million immigrants to integrate was contributing to Germany's decline led to his dismissal. Sharing the same podium as Merkel in Potsdam, Seehofer also said "multiculturalism is dead" and that both the rightwing parties were committed to a "dominant German culture". If Germany did not revise its immigration policies, he said, it was in danger of becoming "the world's welfare office". Seehofer insisted his statement was "an attempt to stop rightwing lunatics" but Jürgen Trittin, for the Greens, called the comments "shabby" and in danger of "lending social acceptability to views similar to those of rightwing extremists". There is a labour shortage in Germany. The chamber of industry and commerce has said Germany is short of 400,000 skilled workers and the gap costs €25bn a year, equivalent to 1% of growth annually. While industrialists have called on the government to remove obstacles stopping more skilled workers entering Germany, citing lengthy bureaucratic procedures as well as unrealistic thresholds, others say that long-term unemployed German workers should be given more of a chance first. Merkel insisted in her speech that immigrant workers should not be considered "until we have done all we can to help our own people to become qualified and give them a chance". The issue has caused tension within Merkel's year-old coalition with the pro-business Free Democrats. ... What they said "At the start of the 60s we invited the guest-workers to Germany. We kidded ourselves for a while that they wouldn't stay, that one day they'd go home. That isn't what happened. And of course the tendency was to say: let's be 'multikulti' and live next to each other and enjoy being together, [but] this concept has failed, failed utterly." Angela Merkel, German chancellor "Germany should … get tougher on those who refuse to integrate before opening itself up to further immigration." Horst Seehofer, Bavarian state premier "Integration is the achievement of one who has integrated … I don't have to recognise anyone who lives from the state, rejects that state, refuses to ensure his children receive an education and continues to produce little headscarfed girls." "A large number of the Arabs and Turks living in this city (Berlin) has no productive function other than selling fruit and vegetables". "Turks are conquering Germany in the same way as Kosovars conquered Kosovo – with a high birth rate." Thilo Sarrazin, former Bundesbank board member http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/17/angela-merkel-germany-multiculturalism-failures Sweden Sweden: It Is Considered Racism Only If the Victims Are Not White by Ingrid Carlqvist October 27, 2015 at 5:00 am http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6760/sweden-victims-racism -------------------- I'm half anticipating a civil war in Europe.  But I think that might be stretching things too far at this point in time, as the only Europeans armed and willing to stand their ground and fight for their land, and their identity, are the people of Novorossiya. ꕤ

Transcript - Audio - JULIAN ASSANGE Interview By Kostas Ephemera, The Press Project

ꕤ Transcript SOURCE http://www.thepressproject.gr/podcast/final_assange.mp3 TRANSCRIPT [for quotations, confirm audio] INTERVIEW JULIAN ASSANGE, WIKILEAKS INTERVIEWED BY: Kostas Ephemera The Press Project Podcast On:  Monday, 20th October 2015 AUDIO SOURCE http://www.thepressproject.gr/podcast/final_assange.mp3 Hi, I'm  Kostas Ephemera from the Press Project, and I'm speaking to you from the Embassy of Ecuador. I'm here with Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, and he's agreed to give us some answers for the Greek audience. The first question is:  through the work of WikiLeaks & people like Edward Snowden, people now know that the system is corrupted.  Although we've had movements like the Indignados and Occupy Wall Street, they don't seem to last.  Why is that? Julian Assange, WikiLeaks The visible, apparent failure of Occupy Wall Street to produce a clear result has discouraged people, at least in the West, from engaging in large, mass gatherings. However, a great many lessons and networks did emerge from Occupy Wall Street and have continued on in other areas. More generally, the problem of mankind has always been its lack of understanding about how the world actually works, and the first task of human beings is to educate themselves and each other.  That is what has led to all the advances that mankind has achieved. Further advances in relation to how to restructure society or how to produce better institutions can only occur as a result of: (a) new information which further reveals how modern human institutions actually behave; and (b) the conveyance of that information into people's heads, in an accurate manner. The problem of (a) is the problem of secrecy.  The problem of (b) is the problem of media accuracy. Kostas Ephemera, The Press Project OK, you spoke of the media.  When you started WikiLeaks, you collaborated with some of the biggest international media, but after a while they backed off.  Why? Julian Assange, WikiLeaks Well, all institutions eventually become defined by their own quest for power, regardless of how they start. Large media organisations have been around for a long time and are powerful and, so, their management and ownership class, has learnt how to exploit that power by doing favours for other power groups that are around them, or defending their own social class or their shareholders directly. The only exception is when the organisation is small, or where it has an ideological leader that has firm control over the organisation's destiny, or, perhaps, where its business model is populist and directly relies on its readers. 2:56 As a result of our publications, we have contracts with more than a hundred and ten (110) different media organisations around the world, and in a number of different publishing projects, we've given all those hundred and ten (110) media organisations exactly the same material and, so, we're able to compare results. And we can see the geopolitical biases, cultural biases, the political interference from owners, the political interference from the management class, and redaction and censorship, for political purposes or because of fears of legal costs, or because of cultural sensitivities. For example, The Guardian newspaper, El Pais, Le Monde & The New York Times, extensively redacted material in the diplomatic cables publication, for reasons other than protecting people from retribution, whereas The Hindu newspaper (which is the highest quality English newspaper in India), only redacted two cables. 4:07 Kostas Ephemera, The Press Project *** [???]  the dictum "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" works, after all, for the system. Julian Assange, WikiLeaks First of all, the national security state is very powerful. In the United States, the  Defence Department alone feeds ten percent (10%) of the US population in terms of its salaries and direct contracts. That ten percent (10%) of the population has a social group on its periphery.  It's people they are related to.  For example, they have good friends, business partners.  It maybe extends to thirty (30%) or forty (40%) percent of the entire US population. Media proprietors tend to have many business interests and, so, those business interests intersect with the national security state. So there has been suppression of the story, first of all. Secondly, it is a complex story about spy agencies and it involves the interception of nearly the entire world. It's not easy for people to imagine such a thing and still believe in it. This interception is a lot like the concept of god:  it is invisible; intangible; knows what you're doing; knows what everyone is doing; it seems that one has to take it on faith. The fact is, strangely, mass surveillance is the first god in that respect, that has been proven to exist, that even atheists can believe in. 5:53 But-- atheists can say they believe in, but, really, most people don't believe in things they haven't directly seen themselves, because most people don't see direct -- they don't see the National Security Agency or GCHQ spies under their bed -- they don't understand the danger. 6:17 But I'm pleased that they don't understand the danger, because if everyone understood the danger, the response wouldn't be to stop mass surveillance:  the response, by most people, would be become extremely conformist. Now, this old result of 'nothing wrong'.  So what is it? 'If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.' That encodes within it exactly the problem. People try and guess what it is that these powerful agencies might consider wrong, and they are not sure where the boundaries are, and so they adjust their own behaviour and start to self-censor.  But it's intellectually bankrupt. 7:00 In the end, even if you are a baker, not involved in any politics at all, its not simply a matter of arbitrary injustice might trip you up anyway, because of confusion and incompetence in the national security state.  But it is necessary to protect forces in society that keep society honest. For example, human rights activists, journalists, and opposition politicians. These are all involved in preventing society collapsing due to corruption or incompetence. And if those elements can't operate, then society will decay. 7:46 And it will even affect 'the baker' when society does decay. So it's not just about you. It is about this professional class of people who are involved in trying to holding government to account. If they can't hold government to account, government will go bad. Kostas Ephemera, The Press Project Oh, yeah. Lately, governments are becoming more aggressive, while their people find it harder to control them. Are conspiracy theorists not wild enough anymore? 8:11 Julian Assange, WikiLeaks The US government is prosecuting me for conspiracy to commit espionage and general conspiracy. And the government has conspiracy theories about the people, and even laws called 'conspiracy'. It is interesting if you look at some conspiracy.  You know, some unfounded paranoid conspiracy theories, spread around by people about the capacities of the National Security Agency and some other national spying services, they were not paranoid about. 8:46 I knew that at that time, and we know even more now. But the bigger concern is where all of that is going. I like to joke that the only thing that has saved mankind is bureaucracy, corruption and incompetence, because massive spy agencies like the National Security Agency that are intercepting nearly all the world's electronic communication, of nearly every person, would completely dominate the Earth if they were not corrupt, if they were not bureaucratic, and if they were not incompetent. But, fortunately, secrecy breeds incompetence and corruption, and these are very large secret organisations, so they are also very corrupt ones -- corrupt and incompetent. The problem is that the commercial sector like Google and Facebook are not corrupt or incompetent, as traditionally defined. They are in a highly competitive commercial market and so they have become extremely efficient at collecting information, and the security agencies then simply stick their fangs into the big corporate players and suck the information out from there. Kostas Ephemera, The Press Project Let me ask you something different. Greece, now, has a left-wing government with very friendly relationships with Ecuador and with *** [???] How would you like to ask Greece for political asylum? 10:08 Julian Assange, WikiLeaks I would be very interested to hear of such an offer from Greece, as we know there's a lot of support from the Greek population, and it would be a legally and politically important gesture here in Europe. It's an interesting question [whether] the true nature of Greek power permits such an action or not. Kostas Ephemera, The Press Project Why do you think Greek government is powerless to offer you asylum? 10:33 Julian Assange, WikiLeaks If I had been Cyprus, what would I have done in this conflict with the troika? I can see that there's different arguments for going different ways, but what I would have found most interesting would be to use the conflict to create an intense unity within Greece and, provided you have control over the police, the army and the law, and you have a healthy population and no natural disasters, you can do a lot. But there is really that question. And you effectively create a war-time footing, which has effectively been a problem like war for Greece, and Greece has survived much harsher circumstances in war, so there's no reason to believe it couldn't survive a conflict of that type and, in fact, a number of good things might come out of that conflict -- but only if you have control of the police and the army.  And, I think, the reality is that Syriza did not have full control over those three services, so that was not an option. 11:42 Kostas Ephemera, The Press Project In Greece, we have suffered and continue to suffer the results of austerity. Does the TTIP mean such kind of austerity for the whole of Europe? Julian Assange, WikiLeaks TTIP is the US-EU portion of a much grander project. That grand project [is] the three t'd agreements:  TTIP, TISA, and TPP. It's a project to create a new grand enclosure, a modern form perhaps analogous to the partition of Africa or the construction of the European Union -- a new economic and legal regime that will incorporate fifty-two (52) nations -- 1.6 billion people -- and, most importantly, two-thirds of global GDP. It has been constructed politically by playing the China card. So whenever something that radical and that large occurs, it's because it has the backing of several powerful forces. In this case, it has the backing of the major US multinationals, who have been always trying to achieve agreements like this. But it has also managed to get the backing of the US national security class, who view it as a strategic way of isolating China, India and Russia. 13:07 By playing that China card, they've also scared much of the establishment in Western Europe to coming into the system, and a lot of the South-East Asian countries like Australia. It is the most radical construction of an international regime since the construction of Europe [ie the European Union], and it cements once and for all, international and neoliberalism [interests?] into those fifty-two (52) countries, in a binding international treaty which is exceedingly difficult to withdraw from -- much more difficult than Greece withdrawing from Europe [ie the European Union]. 13:45 It covers nearly every aspect of the economy:  transportation, all services -- and services make up about seventy-five percent (75%) of the European economy, so that means all internet services, banking services, consulting engineers and accountants.  In fact, it covers everything that you can't drop on your foot. [Laughter] 14:10 It arises -- let's go back to World War II. After World War II, the US had fifty percent (50%) of the global GDP and it started to construct some international institutions to deal with that and the  Bretton Woods system, the WTO [World Trade Organisation] and, eventually the WTO became an institution with its own goals to expand, and it included India, Brazil, Russia and China. And the WTO became too democratised for the United States and there was several rounds of negotiation in the WTO in the 2000s, called the Doha Rounds, to negotiate some mutual lowering -- lower of tariffs and other mechanisms -- and the the US didn't like where things were going.  So it effectively created a negotiation outside the WTO with its allies that it could push around, and the result is those T-3 agreements. So, as negotiations originally started in Doha show, [the US] set up this legal and trading system covering two-thirds of global GDP.  So its multinationals get what [they] want and, also, to isolate China. 15:35 To my mind, the single most significant issue is that it locks in, for at least decades, the US model of global multinational-led neoliberalism -- this radical new form of international neoliberalism -- which means that if Greece elects a different government, or Syriza wants to go a different way, it can't.  It's too late.  There's clauses in the treaty, such as if the government tries to introduce new legislation it will be penalised. 16:25 It may even be seriously anti-economic. It does introduce the establishment of a great many new monopolies for the US pharmaceutical and copyright industries, which is anti-economic. But just having such an invasive level of regulation for ninety-seven percent (97%) of industry in an international trade agreement suggests that it will calcify around economic activity. 17:01 It's very hard to change this international agreement, and as industry changes and new inventions come onto the scene, and there's new ways of working and new ways of trading, countries which have signed up to this treaty system will be bogged down in this international regulation. 17:22 Kostas Ephemera, The Press Project One last question. These days, the refugee crisis is the main issue for all Euro summits, but the people who participate in those meetings are the very same leaders of countries who sold their weapons, or, actually, their armies actively contributed to the bombing of the refugee countries. What are your thoughts on that? 17:40 Julian Assange, WikiLeaks Well, it's a moral disgrace, you know, that the US is not taking Syrian refugees, and that the UK has said it will take only four thousand (4,000) per year over five (5) years. It's no surprise to anyone.  But, I mean, the situation comes about as a result of US, UK and French policy in the Middle East, together with the behaviour of US regional allies in the Middle East -- Qatar, Turkey, Jordan, Israel and Saudi Arabia. But we published cables, including in my new book -- The WikiLeaks Files -- showing that the US has been trying to overthrow the Syrian government since at least 2006 and has very serious plans to do that; was trying to make the Syrian government 'paranoid,' trying to get it to 'over-react' by instilling that fear and paranoia, trying to make it worried about coups; trying to stir up sectarian tensions between Sunni and Shi'ites; trying to make its efforts to stop the originator of ISIS -- the ISI, the Islamic State of Iraq -- to make Syria look weak, and the fact that it was trying to crack down on terrorists at all, pushed that as an example of Syrian government not having full control over its territory, to encourage the government overthrow; trying to stop foreign investment in Syria and secretly funding a variety of NGOs in Syria and, also, *** [???], using Saudi and Egypt to help push that along. There's an interesting question:  what is even in it for the US, this result? 19:37 Well, it's not about the US population as a whole, of course.  It's about the particular factions that pushed for it -- whether they have a benefit -- and, of course, the CIA perceives they have a benefit.  They create a problem and then they're given a greater budget to clean 'the problem' up. Similarly, with the contractors, arms dealers and arms manufacturers:  if there's no 'problem', then their budgets are cut.  So they create problems. It's also part of a grand area strategy to, you know, weaken Hezbollah, to allow Israel greater control over Golan Heights and maybe a buffer zone as well; to knock out a regional ally of Iran; to knock out the last Russian base, that's left outside the former Soviet Union, in Tartus; to create a path for a gas pipeline [with] a proposed path from Qatar to Saudi, up through Syria to Europe, which will compete with Russian gas. 20:39 So there's like, as I said before:  like most significant changes that happen in the world, they happen because significant forces come together, and with multiple motivations. It's what we see here. But an easily predictable disaster.  But from the US perspective there's nothing for them to dislike about having Europe flooded with Syrian refugees. In fact, we have an interesting speculation about the refugee movements.  We looked through our cables. So the speculation was this: occasionally, opponents of a country will engage in strategic depopulation -- which is, to decrease the fighting capacity of a government, you try and get people to flee the country. 21:28 In the case of Syria, it is predominantly the middle class that is fleeing, because it is the most able to flee -- it has the language skills, money, some connections, and that's the engineering class, the management class, the bureaucratic class, precisely the class that is needed to keep the government functioning, and encouraging it to flee Syria -- for example, Germany saying that they will accept any refugees and by Turkey taking nearly two (2) million refugees, it does significantly weaken the Syrian government. 22:09 So we looked for other recent precedents of that. In 2007, the Iraqi government made a formal demand of Germany to stop encouraging migration from Iraq to Germany. Now, in that case clearly Germany wasn't trying to collapse the Iraqi government, but nonetheless the Iraqi government was feeling the same effect, that it was weakening its governing capacity. Sweden, in the Iraq war, is documented in the cables as making its contribution to the Iraq war, as it said to the United States, the acceptance of the Iraqi refugees was part of its contribution. So, regardless of whether there is design behind it, the forces engaged in trying to overthrow the Syrian government must be happy with the results. Kostas Ephemera, The Press Project We have the same effect of brain-drain from Greece due to the economic crisis now.  Or the brains go. Julian Assange, WikiLeaks Exactly. So, the result is to weaken. As a political asylee myself, I'm not suggesting at all that Syrians shouldn't be treated kindly as refugees. But we should understand that engaging in the situation that causes depopulation of a country does encourage its collapse. Kostas Ephemera, The Press Project Thank you very much. --- end audio --- More Article by Kostas Ephemera  (Greek)  http://www.thepressproject.gr/article/83422/Ligi-ora-me-ton-Julian-Assange  (English translation)   here 2014 US population estimated at 322,583,006 -- ref:  http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/us-population/ USA DOD Beneficiaries Therefore, 10% of that estimate total population is equal to 32,258,300.6 Americans -- ie over 32-million US citizens benefit directly from US Dept of Defence. Adding estimates of periphery associations, perhaps up to over one-third of the total US population would benefit, either directly or indirectly, from the US Dept of Defence. Troika = European Troika  /  tripartite committee led by European Commission (Eurogroup) with European Central Bank (ECB) & the International Monetary Fund (IMF) - representing the European Union (EU) in its foreign relations, particularly re common foreign policy & security policy -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_troika Syriza - a left-wing political party in Greece, originally founded in 2004 as a coalition of left-wing and radical left parties. It is the largest party in the Hellenic Parliament, with party chairman Alexis Tsipras serving as Prime Minister of Greece -- ref:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syriza Bretton Woods system -- landmark system for monetary and exchange rate management established in 1944  - ref:  http://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/brettonwoodsagreement.asp ꕤ

Recipe - rajma (bean curry)

ꕤ Video SOURCE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iTijn-gZCU ❤ ❤ Rajma Punjabi Chawla's Kitchen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iTijn-gZCU ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- COMMENT Made this rajma (bean curry) the other night.  Very yummy, quick & easy. I cheated & improvised. What I used: x2 -  can kidney beans - drained & rinsed x1 -  can lentils - drained & rinsed x2 -  can diced tomatoes x2 - onion, diced x2 - cloves garlic, large - diced x2 - tsp ginger 3   tsp  - Garam Masala 1   tsp  - Cumin 1   tsp  - Coriander 1   tsp  - chili 1.5 tsp - Tumeric 1 bay leaf (fried) 3 tins kettle boiled water (as in use an empty tin) Salt to taste, nearing end of cooking time 2 dollops butter (as no ghee handy; tastes fine) *fresh coriander [25-30 mins cooking, after 'gravy' or tomato base prepared] *I use normal utensils for measurements, so a teaspoon is a teaspoon in my kitchen. ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- It's the first time I've done this method of preparing a seasoned and reduced 'tomato base'.  It turned out very nice, and it was just as easy to make as it looks on video. Used a combo of canned kidney beans and a tin of lentils I had on hand, to get rid of the lentils (as I never got around to making lentil burgers).  Tasted fine.  The bet is you can throw in anything and it would still taste good.  lol I got a bit carried away with the amount of chilli I put in (3 tsp), as I wasn't taking into account how much I would be reducing the liquid -- and I like quite a thick mix, so it was well reduced. It was painful.  lol   Lips & tongue hurt.  Nose ran.  I've reduced the amount of chilli to 1 tsp for next time (but those that don't like chilli might want to think that one over). I don't keep ghee on hand and couldn't be bothered heating butter to separate solids.  Just threw in a couple of dollops of butter before serving.  Tasted fine to me. Served with rice & natural yoghurt.  Didn't have any fresh coriander on hand, so I made do by throwing in coriander spice (along with the other spices, when preparing the base).  Left-over amount frozen.   ꕤ

Weev On Cuckservative Gavin McInnes & More

ꕤ Video SOURCE | here "I'm Going To Prison For Arithmetic" Andrew Auernheimer aka Weev March 2013 Source  | here YouTube Comment Wei Bin Wang 2 months ago "To explain the 'hack' that he did: On the Apple site, they gave a number to any registered user who uses the site in its URL, and that was what save them the page with their saved email address. What weev did was just add 1 to it, press enter, and it spat out another person's email address. Do the same thing several more times and you'll eventually end up with everyone's email addresses. Hence why he said he was "going to prison for arithmetic." On how he used it, he didn't use it for anything malicious, he just gave his discovery to a journalist. The safest move was to report the exploit to Apple and get a free job or recommendation on his future career, but it's not in his character to do that. The real fault lies in the incompetent design of such a site that made this "gaping hole" in their security. If weev wasn't there, it was only a matter of time before someone else decided to be curious and add 1 to the number of the URL on that site and discover the exploit themselves. The way both the media blasted this out of proportions and the way the judicial system handled it is in some ways surprising, and in other ways very disappointing. The guy just added 1 to a number on a website URL a few times and he gets a trip to prison...for arithmetic! Even to this day, I can't believe he got sentenced to jail for that." source | as above YouTube Comment WellingtonBikeCam01 1 year ago "Someone from AT&T should be in jail over this one." source | as above non-pc Cuckservative "No defense for Gavin McInnes" http://weev.livejournal.com/413176.html#comments Video, Post & Comments ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- COMMENT Bear with video #1 ... it's a little high-energy and seems too much like hard work trying to figure what's going on at first, but it's worthwhile persevering. Jaw-dropping what this guy went to prison for in the US (and the ridiculously huge financial penalty they've slapped him with). Above are a couple of the comments I liked on that YouTube source link. Finally, there's a humorous comment on the state of the MSM. I find this Weev guy funny.  Funny interesting.   And funny humorous, too. Wish I was as creative as Weev.  lol ꕤ

Corrupt Crown Prosecution Service Advised Sweden NOT To Interview Assange in 5-Year No Charge Trumped Up Holding Case

ꕤ Article SOURCE http://m.espresso.repubblica.it/internazionale/2015/10/16/news/five-years-confined-new-foia-documents-shed-light-on-the-julian-assange-case-1.235129 Five years confined: New Foia documents shed light on the Julian Assange case The role of the Crown Prosecution Service lawyers in advising the Swedish prosecutors, their comments on the extradition case as not being handled as just another extradition request, the questioning in the embassy that never took place. Files obtained by l'Espresso under the Freedom of Information Act provide a five-year account of the Swedish case against the WikiLeaks founder  di Stefania Maurizi  19 ottobre 2015 The Scotland Yard agents encircling the embassy and guarding Julian Assange night and day have been removed.  But the police siege which is estimated to have cost 12 million pounds over the last three years is far from over, as the Metropolitan police admits in its press release: Scotland Yard «will make every effort to arrest him», deploying «a number of overt and covert tactics». He has been confined in the Ecuadorian embassy in Knightsbridge since June 19th, 2012.  Next December 7th will mark five years since the founder of WikiLeaks lost his freedom, ending up first under house arrest and then confined in the embassy in a roughly 20 square-meter room. «Despite the efforts of many people», wrote Scotland Yard last week, «there is no imminent prospect of a diplomatic or legal resolution to this issue». A clear admission that the judiciary case against Julian Assange has become a legal and diplomatic quagmire. L'Espresso has filed two comprehensive Freedom of Information Act (Foia) requests in Sweden and  Britain to access the Assange file and reconstruct the case. We have requested documents from the Swedish Prosecution Authority in Stockholm – which has been conducting a criminal investigation for the last five years on Assange, still in its preliminary phase - and from the "Crown Prosecution Service" in London, the principal prosecuting authority for England and Wales, which has provided support to the Swedish Prosecution Authority on the Assange case. While the British have rejected all of our Foia requests, the Swedish released 226 pages of documents to l'Espresso. Whether these pages represent a major portion of the Assange file or only a small set of documents is hard to say.  To our request on the exact number of pages held by the Swedish Prosecution Authority, the Swedish replied that it was impossible to say, as many documents only exist as individual electronic documents, requiring too many resources to count all the pages. Instead the Crown Prosecution Service replied that the task was not possible for the opposite reason: the information is voluminous and mostly held in paper format, hence ascertaining the exact number of pages would be too time-consuming and expensive. The files obtained under Foia reveal that from the very beginning, the "Crown Prosecution Service" in London advised the Swedish prosecutors against the investigative strategy that could have led to a quick closure of the preliminary investigation: questioning Assange in London – as he has requested on many occasions - rather than extraditing him to Stockholm, as the Swedish prosecutors have always tried to do. In January 2011, not even two months after Julian Assange had been arrested in London, a lawyer at the Crown Prosecution Service, Mr. Paul Close, strongly advised the Swedish magistrates against questioning the WikiLeaks' founder in London. According to Close, the appropriate strategy was to interview him «only on his surrender to Sweden and in accordance with Swedish law». Writing to the Swedish prosecutors, Mr. Close sustains that «it is simply amazing how much work this case is generating. It sometimes seems like an industry. It is certainly non stop. Please do not think that the case is being dealt with as just another extradition request». The documents also reveal that in April 2015 – a month after Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny had changed her mind and finally agreed, after almost five years of legal paralysis, to question Assange in London at the Ecuadorian embassy –WikiLeaks' founder promptly agreed to the questioning and to providing a DNA sample. The questioning was supposed to take place in London the 17th and 18th of June, as agreed upon by the parties, but the Swedish contacted the Ecuadorian authorities for permission and assistance only at the last minute, so the questioning, awaited  by Assange and the Swedish prosecutors for years, was ultimately aborted. Five months that shook the world  It all began in August 2010, less than a month after WikiLeaks had published the US secret documents on the Afghan War, infuriating the Pentagon and the US government. On August 20, 2010 the Swedish prosecutors opened an investigation on Julian Assange, requesting his arrest for the suspected rape and sexual molestation of two Swedish women. The case immediately collapsed, however: the Swedish prosecutor, Eva Finne, revoked the arrest and terminated the preliminary investigation on rape, whilst preserving the investigation on sexual molestation. Assange was questioned by the Swedish police about this episode the 31st of August. The next day a different prosecutor, Marianne Ny, reopened the rape investigation after Mr. Claes Borgström, the lawyer for the two women, asked Marianne Ny to review the case. On September 27, Assange flew for Berlin to meet, among other journalists, l'Espresso. Two weeks before Assange left Sweden, his Swedish lawyer at that time, Björn Hurtig, had asked Marianne Ny whether there were any problems with Assange leaving Sweden. «By telephone», writes Ny in a document handed over to l'Espresso, «Mr. Hurtig was informed that there were some investigative measures still outstanding before a new interview with Julian Assange would be relevant and that there was no arrest warrant issued for him». Since there was no hindrance, Assange left Sweden, flying to Berlin where he met l'Espresso the 27th of September, late in the evening. When he arrived at our appointment, he explained that his luggage had been lost in the direct flight from Stockholm: only his shoulder bag containing his laptop was left. As a matter of fact, he arrived at our appointment with only the shoulder bag, laptop and a clear plastic bag containing a t-shirt, a toothbrush, and some small bottles of soap, as l'Espresso immediately reported in an article. It was that 27th September that the Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny ordered the arrest of Julian Assange in absentia. The preliminary investigation conducted by Marianne Ny focused on three alleged crimes: rape (less serious crime), unlawful coercion and sexual molestation. In the documents released to l'Espresso, Ny reconstructs the difficulties in interviewing Assange in 2010, when in five short months Assange and his organization were publishing a deluge of secret US documents never seen before. While Ny reconstructs these difficulties, Björn Hurtig reminds prosecutor Ny that he had suggested various dates for the questioning of his client: «Neither the times we had then suggested nor another occasion suggested were acceptable to you; on some occasions, our proposed times were too far in the future (a few weeks time); another occasion, one of your investigator was ill», Hurtig writes, adding that it seems «strange that a hearing could not take place because an investigator was ill». Marianne Ny forges ahead, ordering the detention of Julian Assange: «this measure is taken as it has been impossible to interview him during the investigation», writes the Swedish Prosecution Authority in its website. To execute the detention, Ny issues a European arrest warrant for Assange and on December 1st, 2010, an Interpol red notice makes him wanted all around the world. Six days later, Assange turns himself over to the police while in London, where he had just started publishing 251.287 cables of the US diplomacy in collaboration with the Guardian and with a team of international media. A few days after his arrest, Assange is granted bail, sent to Ellingham Hall under house arrest with an electronic bracelet tracking his every move. Since 2010, Julian Assange has always opposed the extradition to Sweden requested by Marianne Ny to perform an interview with him. Ny has always insisted that questioning him in the embassy «would lower the quality of the interview», whereas Assange has always fought extradition to Sweden, convinced that it paves the way to extradition to the US, where there is an ongoing investigation on the publication of the US secret documents by WikiLeaks. A special extradition? To put on paper that the extradition case of Julian Assange is not an ordinary extradition is a lawyer at the Crown Prosecution Service in London: Mr. Paul Close. In an email to the Swedish prosecutors dated 13 January 2011, Close writes: «It is simply amazing how much work this case is generating. It sometimes seems like an industry. It is certainly no stop. Please do not think that the case is being dealt with as just another extradition request». What makes the Assange case special? Mr. Close does not explain this. However, in his email exchange with the Swedish, he seems pleased that two days earlier, the 11th of January 2011, the extradition hearing at the Belmarsh Magistrates' Court was not exactly an exciting event for journalists: «It was all rather boring and technical, which of course is precisely what I wanted to happen». Two weeks after these comments, January 25th 2011, Paul Close is even more straightforward with the Swedish prosecutors: «My earlier advice remains, that in my view it would not be prudent for the Swedish authorities to try to interview the defendant in the UK». «Any attempt to interview him under strict Swedish law”, Close continues, «would invariably be fraught with problems». He therefore concludes: «Thus I suggest you interview him only on his surrender to Sweden and in accordance with the Swedish law. As we have discussed your prosecution is well based on the existing evidence and is sufficient to proceed to trial, which is the prosecution's intention». The following couple of paragraphs of this email were censored and not released under the Foia. Two things are interesting in this email exchange between the Crown Prosecution Service' lawyer and the Swedish prosecutors: Paul Close uses the word “defendant” in referring to Assange, a term which under English law indicates an individual who has already been charged with a crime, whereas in January 2011 the WikiLeaks' founder had not been charged, nor has he been charged with a crime in the last five years. In addition, Close claims that the Swedish prosecutors already intended to bring Julian Assange to trial, even before any questioning had taken place. It should be noted that just six days before this email, Marianne Ny had sent a letter to Mr. Paul Close explaining: «According to the Swedish law, a decision to prosecute may not be taken at the stage that the preliminary investigation is currently at. The decision concerning prosecution, i.e. legal proceedings, may not be made until the preliminary investigation has been concluded». L'Espresso filed a comprehensive Foia request to the Crown Prosecution Service asking for access to the entire Assange file, including the full correspondence, if any, with the US Department of Justice and with the US State Department. Our Foia has been rejected in full. To our request to acquire any correspondence with the US authorities, the Crown Prosecution Service replied: «we neither confirm nor deny whether we hold any relevant information». Whereas the Swedish Prosecution Authority and the Swedish Ministry of Justice replied that «there has been no correspondence between Sweden and the US regarding the Assange case». A diplomatic impasse that joins a judicial paralysis  From 2010 until March 2015, the Swedish investigation  remained at a standstill: Stockholm prosecutors have always insisted on extradition as the only solution to question Assange and decide whether or not to charge him once and for all. Assange has always opposed extradition tooth and nail, fighting it in the UK and Swedish courts without success. When, in June 2012, he exhausted all his legal options to resist extradition, he took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, Knightsbridge, where Ecuador granted him political asylum, as the Ecuadorian authorities judged that the risk of Assange being extradited to the US and prosecuted for his journalistic work is well-founded. Since June 19, 2012, Assange is confined to the embassy in precarious conditions: he has no access to a garden or even to a small courtyard where he could enjoy a breath of fresh air and sunlight, so indispensable for his health. This turn of events has added a diplomatic impasse to the judicial paralysis, as the British authorities have always declared that under no conditions will they offer a safe passage to allow the WikiLeaks' founder to leave the embassy and enjoy asylum. Last week, Assange's lawyers and the Ecuadorian authorities denounced that the British are denying him safe passage to a hospital for an MRI scan to diagnose the causes of severe pain. As for Sweden, it has always rejected the idea that Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy because the risk of extradition to the US is real: Sweden considers his confinement in the embassy as a merely voluntary choice, which he could reverse any time. This diplomatic impasse seems as intractable as the judicial paralysis. In November 2012, as revealed by a document released to l'Espresso under Foia, a British diplomat tried to meet Marianne Ny. «I have no idea why the Brit Vice-Ambassador wants to meet with you," writes the Crown Prosecution Service's lawyer, Paul Close, to Marianne Ny, who apparently had asked him about the diplomat: «I can but assume that as you mix in those social circles it is hardly surprising!». The very long-awaited questioning  Only in March 2015, the Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny agreed to question Assange in London, at the Ecuadorian embassy. What made Ny suddenly change her mind after almost five years? According to the Swedish Prosecution Authority, two facts made Ny accept this possibility: the incumbent statute of limitations for two of the alleged crimes – sexual molestation and unlawful coercion, due to expire in August 2015 – and the fact that in November 2014, the Stockholm Court of Appeal, while rejecting Assange's request to lift the arrest warrant, had criticized Marianne Ny for lack of progress in the criminal case, issuing a clear press release: «The Court of Appeal notes, however, that the investigation into the suspected crimes has come to a halt and considers that the failure of the prosecutors to examine alternative avenues is not in line with their obligation – in the interests of everyone concerned – to move the preliminary investigation forward». Asked by the Swedish prosecutors whether he consented to questioning in the embassy on the 16th of April 2015, Julian Assange confirms, through his current Swedish lawyers, Thomas Olsson and Per Samuelsson, that he agreed to be questioned in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and to provide a DNA sample. The parties agree that the questioning and the acquisition of DNA should take place the 17th and 18th of June. However, the documents released to us under Foia reveal that the Swedish authorities contacted the Ecuadorian ambassador in London, Juan Falconi Puig, at the very last minute to ask him for permission and assistance. The 12th of June, Marianne Ny realized that the Ecuadorian ambassador has not yet received «any communication from the Swedish authorities». As a matter of fact, the long waited interrogation aborted. Assange's lawyer, Per Samuelsson, explains to l'Espresso what he thinks made the questioning collapse: «One prosecutor travelled to London together with a police-officer. When they were in London Marianne Ny, their boss, cancelled the whole thing due to the fact that Sweden had not gotten the permission from Ecuador. Sweden applied way too late». The documents obtained by l'Espresso confirm that the Swedish investigative team sent to London did not get access to the embassy because the Ecuadorian authorities had been contacted by Sweden too late. «I am sure you are informed that a diplomatic procedure has to be followed. At this point I have to inform you that I am being transferred to a new post as Ambassador», Juan Falconi writes to Ny the 19th of June, adding: «Therefore, as from July this affair will be handled by the new Ambassador, Mr. Carlos Abad Ortiz». Last August, Marianne Ny discontinued the investigation on two of the alleged crimes: unlawful coercion and sexual molestation due to statute of limitations. On that occasion, the Swedish prosecutor declared: «Julian Assange, on his own accord, has evaded prosecution by seeking refuge in the Embassy of Ecuador», and adding: «Since the autumn of 2010, I have tried to gain permission to interview Julian Assange, but he has consistently refused to appear. When the statute of limitation approached, we chose to attempt to interview him in London. A request to interview him on the premises of the Embassy of Ecuador was submitted in the beginning of June, but a permission has yet to be received». No mention at all of the Swedish authorities’ tardiness in contacting Ecuador. With the statute of limitations, both the two Swedish women and Julian Assange lost any opportunity to obtain justice for two of the three alleged crimes under investigation since 2010. Under Swedish law, a person under investigation cannot oppose the statute of limitations, as the Swedish Prosecution Authority confirmed to l'Espresso. So the WikiLeaks' founder cannot reject the statute of limitations in an attempt to prove his innocence and clear his name. The Swedish preliminary investigation on Julian Assange is proceeding with respect to what Swedish law considers the less serious category of rape: Assange allegedly had unprotected sex with one of the two Swedish women while she was asleep. Apparently, they had had sexual intercourse before that episode and she had expressed wish that a condom be used. The statute of limitations for this alleged crime will expire in August 2020. Will Assange ever be questioned? http://m.espresso.repubblica.it/internazionale/2015/10/16/news/five-years-confined-new-foia-documents-shed-light-on-the-julian-assange-case-1.235129 ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- COMMENT At a hefty price-tag in the millions, along with the exceptions involved in this legal, diplomatic, political and media assault on Assange (who is held 5 years without charge), anyone can see that this isn't about a torn condom or sex without a rubber:  this is state and legal corruption aimed at POLITICAL PERSECUTION of a journalist who exposed state war crimes. What is more appalling (to me) than war crimes, illegal war abroad, torture, and millions of dead as a result of illegal war,  is that:  THERE IS NO JUSTICE in the Swedish or in the British homelands. Just as the governments are corrupt, the judicial system is corrupt also.  I think it's safe to say, that this corruption is most likely pervasive, long-standing and a feature of government and its institutions. So what is society such as this?  The societies we live in are just a lie and all our assumptions are false. We live in a corrupt world where psychopaths pull the strings, and might is right:  whether that be the might of a corrupt state's civil institutions, or the might of the corrupt state's enforcers, such as the police, military, and intelligence agencies (with their spies, infiltrators, and assassins), that all in unison (including the government and puppet politicians) serve interests of only the powerful elites. It all amounts to the same thing:  rule/control and maintenance of power over the people by deceit and force. So that would mean, anything in this world is permissible -- so long as you can get away with it. ------------------ *Therefore:  all government / power is corrupt (some more than others, I guess). ꕤ

The Lady of Shalott

ꕤ poem SOURCE https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/lady-shalott The Lady of Shalott, 1888 John William Waterhouse (Tate Britain, London) ♖  The Lady of Shalott Lord Alfred Tennyson, 1809 - 1892 Part I   ♞ On either side the river lie Long fields of barley and of rye, That clothe the wold and meet the sky; And through the field the road runs by To many-towered Camelot; And up and down the people go, Gazing where the lilies blow Round an island there below, The island of Shalott. Willows whiten, aspens quiver, Little breezes dusk and shiver Through the wave that runs for ever By the island in the river Flowing down to Camelot. Four grey walls, and four grey towers, Overlook a space of flowers, And the silent isle imbowers The Lady of Shalott. By the margin, willow-veiled, Slide the heavy barges trailed By slow horses; and unhailed The shallop flitteth silken-sailed Skimming down to Camelot: But who hath seen her wave her hand? Or at the casement seen her stand? Or is she known in all the land, The Lady of Shalott? Only reapers, reaping early In among the bearded barley, Hear a song that echoes cheerly From the river winding clearly, Down to towered Camelot: And by the moon the reaper weary, Piling sheaves in uplands airy, Listening, whispers "‘Tis the fairy Lady of Shalott.” Part II There she weaves by night and day A magic web with colours gay. She has heard a whisper say, A curse is on her if she stay To look down to Camelot. She knows not what the curse may be, And so she weaveth steadily, And little other care hath she, The Lady of Shalott. And moving through a mirror clear That hangs before her all the year, Shadows of the world appear. There she sees the highway near Winding down to Camelot: There the river eddy whirls, And there the surly village-churls, And the red cloaks of market girls, Pass onward from Shalott. Sometimes a troop of damsels glad, An abbot on an ambling pad, Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad, Or long-haired page in crimson clad, Goes by to towered Camelot; And sometimes through the mirror blue The knights come riding two and two: She hath no loyal knight and true, The Lady of Shalott. But in her web she still delights To weave the mirror’s magic sights, For often through the silent nights A funeral, with plumes and lights And music, went to Camelot: Or when the moon was overhead, Came two young lovers lately wed; “I am half sick of shadows," said The Lady of Shalott. Part III A bow-shot from her bower-eaves, He rode between the barley-sheaves, The sun came dazzling through the leaves, And flamed upon the brazen greaves Of bold Sir Lancelot. A red-cross knight for ever kneeled To a lady in his shield, That sparkled on the yellow field, Beside remote Shalott. The gemmy bridle glittered free, Like to some branch of stars we see Hung in the golden Galaxy. The bridle bells rang merrily As he rode down to Camelot: And from his blazoned baldric slung A mighty silver bugle hung, And as he rode his armour rung, Beside remote Shalott. All in the blue unclouded weather Thick-jewelled shone the saddle-leather, The helmet and the helmet-feather Burned like one burning flame together, As he rode down to Camelot. As often through the purple night, Below the starry clusters bright, Some bearded meteor, trailing light, Moves over still Shalott. His broad clear brow in sunlight glowed; On burnished hooves his war-horse trode; From underneath his helmet flowed His coal-black curls as on he rode, As he rode down to Camelot. From the bank and from the river He flashed into the crystal mirror, “Tirra lirra," by the river Sang Sir Lancelot. She left the web, she left the loom, She made three paces through the room, She saw the water-lily bloom, She saw the helmet and the plume, She looked down to Camelot. Out flew the web and floated wide; The mirror cracked from side to side; “The curse is come upon me," cried The Lady of Shalott. Part IV In the stormy east-wind straining, The pale yellow woods were waning, The broad stream in his banks complaining, Heavily the low sky raining Over towered Camelot; Down she came and found a boat Beneath a willow left afloat, And round about the prow she wrote The Lady of Shalott. And down the river’s dim expanse, Like some bold seër in a trance Seeing all his own mischance-- With a glassy countenance Did she look to Camelot. And at the closing of the day She loosed the chain, and down she lay; The broad stream bore her far away, The Lady of Shalott. Lying, robed in snowy white That loosely flew to left and right-- The leaves upon her falling light-- Through the noises of the night She floated down to Camelot: And as the boat-head wound along The willowy hills and fields among, They heard her singing her last song, The Lady of Shalott. Heard a carol, mournful, holy, Chanted loudly, chanted lowly, Till her blood was frozen slowly, And her eyes were darkened wholly, Turned to towered Camelot. For ere she reached upon the tide The first house by the water-side, Singing in her song she died, The Lady of Shalott. Under tower and balcony, By garden-wall and gallery, A gleaming shape she floated by, Dead-pale between the houses high, Silent into Camelot. Out upon the wharfs they came, Knight and burgher, lord and dame, And round the prow they read her name, The Lady of Shalott. Who is this? and what is here? And in the lighted palace near Died the sound of royal cheer; And they crossed themselves for fear, All the knights at Camelot: But Lancelot mused a little space; He said, “She has a lovely face; God in his mercy lend her grace, The Lady of Shalott.” ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- ꕤ