Rob, at Broadsheet Rag, says, about Hastilow's resignation:Now I might disagree with certain parts of Hatilow’s article. Also mindless racism is sickening — I don’t believe his article falls into this category. But if you are going to debate an issue, varied opinions are required.
I'd go further. There are clearly sickening things like the BNP and Irving being given a platform by the Oxford Union to spew their ideas out but even here, why not?
I wouldn't have invited them and the Oxford Union top guns have rocks in their collective heads but to bow to pressure not to represent a point of view is just plain wrong.
It's wrong at anytime but especially when the lights are going out all over the "free" world and the next five years or so will see only the party line able to be supported openly.
Don't forget Courtney's article about this very principle:
Finally, to come back to Hastilow himself - what was he doing if not representing the Black Country point of view? Isn't that precisely what he should have been doing? To say that Enoch Powell was right and that we'd see rivers of blood is precisely what we are going to see if the Deobandi have their way.
Hastilow wasn't even saying this. He was speaking of "uncontrolled" immigration. Well who could argue against that? Look at the Romi in Italy now, riding in on the backs of the ordinary Romanians. Why should the Italians put up with that? For what altruistic reason?
Introduce me to an individual Romi or Jamaican. Fine, we've met and he might become my friend. If I decide I don't like him, it could well be that I don't like that individual. Good and bad people in any grouping. Why is that racist? If she's female, does this become sexist? If she's gay, does that make me anti-gay now?
For goodness sake, pro-active groups get so tied up in their own rights and are so sensitive to the slightest criticism that all members of that group have to be blanket-accepted? Give me a break.
But wholesale immigration of one group or other cannot be good, especially if they bring with them a history of criminality and non-assimilation, non-integration. In other words, a ghetto mentality. That is completely wrong.
If there was a strong British sub-community over here where I am living, I'd not join it. I'd have friends from there as I do from among the native population but for what to cut oneself off from the locals? Why bother coming here if that's one's attitude?
There needs to be some rationale in this debate but first we must ensure that we can continue to actually have the debate in the first place.
UPDATE: Wolfie mentions the Heffer piece in the Telegraph - it should be read.
It's wrong at anytime but especially when the lights are going out all over the "free" world and the next five years or so will see only the party line able to be supported openly.
Don't forget Courtney's article about this very principle:
My defense of free speech means that we should have the right to ridicule or hammer our opponents in open debate - indeed, this is the whole point. It now appears that the greatest threat to our right to free speech comes not from the misogynists of the BNP, or Holocaust deniers like the discredited historian David Irving, the fiercest critics of free speech come instead from those on the left.Not sure that Left and Right are applicable tags any more - it's more Statist & Despotic versus Free and Democratic and no prizes for guessing where I am on this scale. It was Lenin who cynicaly observed: "Freedom is precious, so precious it needs to be rationed." That sums up the Statist's position:
We believe in freedom but only as long as someone doesn't ... a ... b ... c and so on.Courtney again:
... it's about our liberty to be able to listen to a debate and all the arguments, whether they are dumb arguments or not, we need this liberty in order to judge for ourselves - it is this freedom that the left seem to fear the most ...We not only need this freedom, we absolutely must fight for it, as our gallant and caring leadership slowly but inexorably and surreptitiously tightens the noose around our societal neck and every fresh piece of legislation is another blow to our hopes, as human beings, of enjoying the dignity of actually being human.
Finally, to come back to Hastilow himself - what was he doing if not representing the Black Country point of view? Isn't that precisely what he should have been doing? To say that Enoch Powell was right and that we'd see rivers of blood is precisely what we are going to see if the Deobandi have their way.
Hastilow wasn't even saying this. He was speaking of "uncontrolled" immigration. Well who could argue against that? Look at the Romi in Italy now, riding in on the backs of the ordinary Romanians. Why should the Italians put up with that? For what altruistic reason?
Introduce me to an individual Romi or Jamaican. Fine, we've met and he might become my friend. If I decide I don't like him, it could well be that I don't like that individual. Good and bad people in any grouping. Why is that racist? If she's female, does this become sexist? If she's gay, does that make me anti-gay now?
For goodness sake, pro-active groups get so tied up in their own rights and are so sensitive to the slightest criticism that all members of that group have to be blanket-accepted? Give me a break.
But wholesale immigration of one group or other cannot be good, especially if they bring with them a history of criminality and non-assimilation, non-integration. In other words, a ghetto mentality. That is completely wrong.
If there was a strong British sub-community over here where I am living, I'd not join it. I'd have friends from there as I do from among the native population but for what to cut oneself off from the locals? Why bother coming here if that's one's attitude?
There needs to be some rationale in this debate but first we must ensure that we can continue to actually have the debate in the first place.
UPDATE: Wolfie mentions the Heffer piece in the Telegraph - it should be read.
We will never have the debate.
ReplyDeleteIt has been progressively stifled for the last 50 years.
The first to stifle debate were our own parliamentary representatives, all those years ago.
It progressed from there.
I offer this. It is part of a speech, dated but relevant.
At the bottom are links to archived speeches, and to a very, erm, interesting blogsite.
Good details about the total subversion of democracy, - - well, of damn near everything.
Explains a lot about London, and Ken, too.
They are all a "must read"
Mr Prescott the Deputy Prime Minister says that the regions are his idea, and his idea alone and he has been working on it for 30 years. Wrong, Mr Prescott.
The EU Commission and its few British Quislings say that the source is the all British Wartime Commissions, which remained in civil defence planning for several decades after the end of the war. Wrong again.
It’s all in the treaty of Rome and in the acquis commaunitaire.
The Preamble of the 1957 treaty includes this: ‘to strengthen the unity of their economies and ensure their harmonious development by reducing the differences existing between the various regions and backwardness of the less favoured regions’. The treaty clauses are peppered with references to regions.
The 1960s was a decade of advance for the EEC’s regional policy. In 1961 the European Commission held its first conference and set up three committees to look at running regional policy across the EEC.
These reports formed the basis of the 1965 First Commission Communication on Regional Policy. The Commission emphasised that its authority on regions came from the treaty of Rome and said every country must draw up regional economic policies.
The First Community Economic Programme of 1966 to 1970 emphasised integrating regional with national policies.
Working parties of senior civil servants from member states met regularly to advise on regional policy.
In 1969 in a second more substantial statement, the Commission said that all economic and social policy had to be determined at the European level or the region but NOT by nation states…and I quote ‘if member states were to remain responsible for regional policy then development of the Community would be jeopardised’.
The EEC began to give grants on a regional basis ensuring that the member countries would eventually change their systems of local government to receive crumbs from the Brussels’ table. That has a name – it is bribery.
So when we signed the treaty of Rome British local government was doomed. We signed up to regional government. We signed up to that EU statement ‘if member states were to remain responsible for regional policy then development of the Community would be jeopardised.’
Do you remember a debate about it in the Commons? No - there wasn’t one. But there is no doubt that both Labour and Conservative governments - Wilson’s, Callaghan’s and Heath’s all knew. They were part of it. They just didn’t tell us.
Now fast-forward 30 years. What we see emerging is highly centralised power; few checks and balances; minimal democracy; influence given to unelected vested interests.
We are in what Brussels calls the Post Democratic Era.
The London Assembly is an example of the extreme centralisation of power that is taking place in all 12 British regions. I was going to stand for the Conservatives for the London Assembly, but when I investigated what I would actually do should I be elected, I realised the best I could achieve would be to write to Ken Livingstone and he could then throw my paper in the bin.
I would probably be representing the voters to a waste paper basket. The same centralising of power is true in all the Assemblies, elected or unelected.
Ken’s powers of patronage are extreme – those of a 21st century baron.
He appoints all 15 members of Transport for London; all 16 members of the London Development Agency; nearly half of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority; the board of the Cultural Strategy Group; the London Health Commission executive and just over half of the Metropolitan Police Authority. He has a role in the appointment, discipline and removal of senior police officers. That should start alarm bells ringing!
An explosion of new posts surrounds every regional assembly. There are the
civil servants, the lobby groups and, another 50 and more new quangos. The cost to all of us is huge.
Let me concentrate on the lobbyists. 'Unelected stakeholders' is a concept foreign to Britain. A stakeholder is the antithesis of democracy. But these supplicants sit in the unelected assemblies. When the assemblies are eventually elected, the lobbyists will be banished to committee rooms - for form’s sake - but they will still be part of the Assembly.
Because there are not enough seats for all of them, new organisations represent a mish mash of lobby groups simply to produce a single member to ‘represent’ them in the assemblies.
For example, every region now has a Council of Faiths to represent Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Bahais, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Druids and Pagans. That produces one man to sit in the assembly. In the South West Assembly it happens to be a Quaker from North Somerset.
A new network of Economic Partnerships represents councils, health trusts, universities, and government quangos. Again one person represents these different groups inside the Assembly.
Add in the CBI, the TUC, ethnic minorities, Help the Aged the UK Youth Parliament for those aged between 11 and 18 and too young to vote but not too young for the Assemblies. And on and on.
Even more bizarre, an organisation or council can be represented in the Assembly through several different stakeholders, so diffuse is the structure. It’s a veritable cats’ cradle.
But it isn’t democracy. It isn’t transparent. What happened to one man, one vote?
So far the Assemblies have limited powers – no doubt they will get more but we have not yet been allowed to know what they might be – we are in the dark. At present they write strategic plans within the Brussels spatial plan and lobby Brussels for money.
And to lobby for money the regions have permanent offices in Brussels. So too do the county councils. There are over 150 such offices in Brussels representing regions across the European Union.
For what is happening in this country is also happening across the EU. Every country is divided into regions, sub regions, and sub sub regions, interlinked by roads, railways, electricity cables and gas pipelines to ensure dependency on neighbouring regions and to cut across national borders deliberately with the aim of destroying them. All induced by grants from Brussels.
Who defines a region? Well it isn’t us. HMG in its White Paper ‘Your Region Your Choice’ says ‘that it is not necessary for a region to have a strong historic identity to create a modern one,’ adding boundaries will ‘generate a good deal of fervour’ but no one will be able to come up with better ones so the ‘standard regional boundaries are right.’ That begs the question of whose ‘standard’ boundaries.
The answer is Eurostat, the EU’s statistical service in Luxembourg. These boundaries have been used since at least 1961 in Community legislation. And it’s all done by population.
Last year this system was enforced throughout EU by regulation - every local authority has to use it. The excuse was the enlargement of EU. Her are the populations for the regions:
Region 3 million 7 million
Sub region 800,000 3 million
Sub sub region 150,000 800,000
In the UK we already have regions but now here are sub regions and sub sub regions.
The division of this country has still further to go right down to the parish councils.
In the Brussels' plan London is region number UKI with 2 sub regions: an outer and an inner. And London will have five sub sub regions.
Ken Livingstone says he will abolish the 32 London boroughs 5 super boroughs, neatly fitting that Brussels plan.
There will be no City of London and there will be far reaching financial and planning repercussions.
Every county council will be abolished. Devon County Council is now a sub sub region of the EU, UKK43, pending its abolition.
And there will be no England.
We in the reunited Kingdom are going through huge changes, but what is happening elsewhere in the EU? Here are some examples:
*
France has real problems. President Mitterand in 1982 created 22 regions with limited powers. But President Chirac campaigned in 2002 on decentralisation assuring electors that the first article of the French constitution, France is ‘a single and indivisible republic’, was sacrosanct. In France this has not been presented as EU issue: it is simply a matter for France. If it succeeds the map of France will revert to the way it looked in mediaeval times.
*
Portugal voted ‘no’ to regions in a 1998 referendum. But the next year regional development agencies were imposed on the Portuguese: Unelected partnerships of local vested interests or stakeholders.
*
Poland had to change to join EU, applicant countries now have to. In 1998 its 49 provinces were abolished and 16 regions introduced.
*
The only ones not to change are the 16 German Lander
I have painted a dispiriting, disheartening and dire picture. Successive British Governments have sold us out.
All of us in this hall and many more besides are fighting back. So let me return to my introductory remarks. Faced with this attack we cannot negotiate, appease or reason. The only way is out.
http://thesocietyofqualifiedarchivists.blogspot.com/2007/09/common-purpose.html
http://www.lindsayjenkins.com/index.html
http://www.lindsayjenkins.com/independence_ebbing_full.htm
http://www.lindsayjenkins.com/speaking_out.htm
Hat Tip, Omnium, well, almost:)
We are in what Brussels calls the Post Democratic Era.
ReplyDelete(from the previous post)
In her book Beyond Authority, Middleton argues for a leadership style that enables [Common Purpose graduates] to lead beyond the traditional boundaries and constraints of their organizations. This of course means beyond the constraints of democratic accountability, whether at local or national level. As Peter Mandelson, former Communist and European Commissioner put it in March 1998
it may be that the era of pure representative democracy is slowly coming to an end
We have therefore arrived at the truth: Common Purpose is concerned with something beyond democracy. It is concerned with the so-called post-democratic society and supranational government. In short, Common Purpose is a front for the European Union and the next major step towards Communist world rule. The fact the common purpose of Common Purpose is not actually stated anywhere by the organisation is confirmation of this. It is implied only and only for the elite.
We have a partner, James.
And More
ReplyDeleteJames: I have also picked up on the censorship of freedom of speech.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all I agree completely with your penultimate paragraph.
ReplyDeleteNow I would consider myself left-wingish but not statist and despotic! I have just read the whole of Hastilow's article and it seems to be a reasoned argument to me. However, the trouble is it has been seized upon and sensationalised and he must have known this would happen. It was hardly wise. I know you're now going to say that that's exactly what you are trying to point out, James - that free speech is being stifled and Hastilow is correct when he says it is certainly being stifled on this issue. I find myself surprised to be defending him so I'll shut up now.
Lot to internalize here and thanks for the last comment, Welshcakes.
ReplyDeleteI have another post up now, on racism rather than free speech.
Lot to internalize here and thanks for the last comment, Welshcakes.
ReplyDeleteI have another post up now, on racism rather than free speech.
Interesting article in the Telegraph here on the subject (with rabbid comment thread naturally).
ReplyDeleteThere is always something to learn over here m'lord.
ReplyDelete"...pro-active groups get so tied up in their own rights and are so sensitive to the slightest criticism..."
ReplyDeleteMake no mistake mate, it's a war of attrition. Look at it from the immigrants view. What would you think if you could go to Africa or India and set up shop there, steal their jobs, steal their women, and steal their money and they did nothing to stop you. No, certain slimey scumbags there actually helped you steal everything and then to top it all they attacked the native indians and africans and called them racists and nazis! What would you think? You would probably think these people dont even stand up for themselves. That is what immigrants think of us! Fuck all the scum who say we're this and that, we're not. God knows, you cannot even emigrate to India. As for Israel, forget it! Not unless you're one of the so-called master race known as god's children!
"Wholesale immigration of one group or other cannot be good, especially if they bring with them a history of criminality and non-assimilation, non-integration. In other words, a ghetto mentality. That is completely wrong"
Of course it's wrong. Why the fuck should we put up with it? We were never asked! Go to the Indian embassy and ask to emigrate there. They'll tell you to f off!
Well, speaking of "Free Speech", which we can honestly say is on its last gasp in this once proud nation, one other freedom that we increasingly seem to be loosing is the freedom, or the absolute right, to life
ReplyDeleteA conceptual freedom, maybe, but not a fact anymore.
I refer to these links, concerning the death of Dr Kelly.
Do please read the links. There may be duplication, but each one actually teases out more incriminating evidence.
http://thesocietyofqualifiedarchivists.blogspot.com/2007_06_18_archive.html
http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles-new/?p=488
http://dr-david-kelly.blogspot.com/
And on this one, tab down to 24 July, 2006
http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles-new/?m=200607
Now, the main point is surely that the coroners hearing was never completed, yet a Full Death Certificate was issued shortly after the coroner was summoned to a meeting with Home Office Officials.
This is highly significant because although the inquest was opened, it was adjourned because of the Hutton inquiry and was never completed.
The Lord Chancellor’s office told the coroner that Hutton would establish the cause of death, just like an inquest. But this was not true. The inquiry did not have the legal powers to establish the cause, nor did it attempt to do so. It merely accepted without demur what now appears to have been a cock and bull story about arteries and pills.
The normal practice in such circumstances would be for the coroner to issue a temporary death certificate pending the official inquiry. But in this case, he issued an unprecedented full death certificate just one week after the inquiry started into the circumstances of Dr Kelly’s demise — and after he had held a meeting with Home Office officials.
This was all — to put it mildly — highly irregular. But at the time, no one noticed because everyone was transfixed by the political spectacle of the fight to the death between the Government and the BBC.
We have Dunblane cover-up, with 100 year wall of silence.
We have the Dr Kelly cover-up, and the Legal Travesty over a Full Death Certificate, before a coroners verdict has been given.
We have the Marconi "suicides"
We have daily failings in every sphere of combat, attributable to MOD failings, and daily stories of injured soldiers awaiting ludicrous compensation payments, maltreatment in NHS hospitals (indeed the badly wounded are treated at US facilities) and similar catastrophes caused by official cretins.
How much longer must we tolerate a conniving, collection of bare faced liars, who lost all concept of honesty, integrity, good faith, and indeed anything remotely describable as humanity, that call themselves politicians, or civil servants, years ago.
Firing Squad at dawn.
More on Marconi
ReplyDeleteEven more on Dr Kelly
ReplyDeleteI thank you for this amazing amount of material to digest. I'll paste the comments section here to Word and read it slowly.
ReplyDelete