Wednesday 20 October 2010
Monday 18 October 2010
More Bla-bla-bla Terminology
The pro-warming lobby can define all the bla-bla-bla terminology they wish for between themselves, but they may not cook-up that which describes their dissenters. That's for me, and my like, to define.
I am a global-warming dissenter, I am a climate-change atheist. I am not an carbon-footprint agnostic.
To describe anyone and everyone who is not just a lock, stock and barrel climate-warming zombie (or grubby-fingered benefactor) by use of such a handy little catch-all catch-phrase terminology as 'sceptic' is more than just a lazy writer's falsehood. It is a contribution to the carbon-warmer's PR brainwashing agenda. A cog in the grinding-wheel, consciously granted or not.
The term 'sceptic' is a detractor devised to take-away any depth of objection from those who call-out against the imposition of this unscientific tyranny to which our so called political representatives fain nothing but the most feeble and tepid of stances.
sceptic - a person inclined to question or doubt accepted opinions
doubt - a feeling of uncertainty or lack of conviction - archaic fear; be afraid
rhetoric - the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the exploitation of figures of speech and other compositional techniques - language designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect, but which is often regarded as lacking in sincerity or meaningful content
Saturday 16 October 2010
Self-censorship
Why Propaganda Trumps Truth
September 16, 2009
An article in the journal, Sociological Inquiry, casts light on the effectiveness of propaganda. Researchers examined why big lies succeed where little lies fail. Governments can get away with mass deceptions, but politicians cannot get away with sexual affairs.
The researchers explain why so many Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11, years after it has become obvious that Iraq had nothing to do with the event. Americans developed elaborate rationalizations based on Bush administration propaganda that alleged Iraqi involvement and became deeply attached to their beliefs. Their emotional involvement became wrapped up in their personal identity and sense of morality. They looked for information that supported their beliefs and avoided information that challenged them, regardless of the facts of the matter.
In Mein Kampf, Hitler explained the believability of the Big Lie as compared to the small lie: “In the simplicity of their minds, people more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have such impudence. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and continue to think that there may be some other explanation.”
What the sociologists and Hitler are telling us is that by the time facts become clear, people are emotionally wedded to the beliefs planted by the propaganda and find it a wrenching experience to free themselves. It is more comfortable, instead, to denounce the truth-tellers than the liars whom the truth-tellers expose.
The psychology of belief retention even when those beliefs are wrong is a pillar of social cohesion and stability. It explains why, once change is effected, even revolutionary governments become conservative. The downside of belief retention is its prevention of the recognition of facts. Belief retention in the Soviet Union made the system unable to adjust to economic reality, and the Soviet Union collapsed. Today in the United States millions find it easier to chant “USA, USA, USA” than to accept facts that indicate the need for change.
The staying power of the Big Lie is the barrier through which the 9/11 Truth Movement is finding it difficult to break. The assertion that the 9/11 Truth Movement consists of conspiracy theorists and crackpots is obviously untrue. The leaders of the movement are highly qualified professionals, such as demolition experts, physicists, structural architects, engineers, pilots, and former high officials in the government. Unlike their critics parroting the government’s line, they know what they are talking about.
Here is a link to a presentation by the architect, Richard Gage, to a Canadian university audience. The video of the presentation is two hours long and seems to have been edited to shorten it down to two hours. Gage is low-key, but not a dazzling personality or a very articulate presenter. Perhaps that is because he is speaking to a university audience and takes for granted their familiarity with terms and concepts.
Those who believe the official 9/11 story and dismiss skeptics as kooks can test the validity of the sociologists’ findings and Hitler’s observation by watching the video and experiencing their reaction to evidence that challenges their beliefs. Are you able to watch the presentation without scoffing at someone who knows far more about it than you do? What is your response when you find that you cannot defend your beliefs against the evidence presented? Scoff some more? Become enraged?
Another problem that the 9/11 Truth Movement faces is that few people have the education to follow the technical and scientific aspects. The side that they believe tells them one thing; the side that they don’t believe tells them another. Most Americans have no basis to judge the relative merits of the arguments.
For example, consider the case of the Lockerbie bomber. One piece of “evidence” that was used to convict Magrahi was a piece of circuit board from a device that allegedly contained the Semtex that exploded the airliner. None of the people, who have very firm beliefs in Magrahi’s and Libya’s guilt and in the offense of the Scottish authorities in releasing Magrahi on allegedly humanitarian grounds, know that circuit boards of those days have very low combustion temperatures and go up in flames easily. Semtex produces very high temperatures. There would be nothing whatsoever left of a device that contained Semtex. It is obvious to an expert that the piece of circuit board was planted after the event.
I have asked on several occasions and have never had an answer, which does not mean that there isn’t one, how millions of pieces of unburnt, uncharred paper can be floating over lower Manhatten from the destruction of the WTC towers when the official explanation of the destruction is fires so hot and evenly distributed that they caused the massive steel structures to weaken and fail simultaneously so that the buildings fell in free fall time just as they would if they had been brought down by controlled demolition.
What is the explanation of fires so hot that steel fails but paper does not combust?
People don’t even notice the contradictions. Recently, an international team of scientists, who studied for 18 months dust samples produced by the twin towers’ destruction collected from three separate sources, reported their finding of nano-thermite in the dust. The US government had scientists dependent on the US government to debunk the finding on the grounds that the authenticity of custody of the samples could not be verified. In other words, someone had tampered with the samples and added the nano-thermite. This is all it took to discredit the finding, despite the obvious fact that access to thermite is strictly controlled and NO ONE except the US military and possibly Israel has access to nano-thermite.
The physicist, Steven Jones, has produced overwhelming evidence that explosives were used to bring down the buildings. His evidence is not engaged, examined, tested, and refuted. It is simply ignored.
Dr. Jones’ experience reminds me of that of my Oxford professor, the distinguished physical chemist and philosopher, Michael Polanyi. Polanyi was one of the 20th centuries great scientists. At one time every section chairman of the Royal Society was a Polanyi student. Many of his students won Nobel Prizes for their scientific work, such as Eugene Wigner at Princeton and Melvin Calvin at UC, Berkeley, and his son, John Polanyi, at the University of Toronto.
As a young man in the early years of the 20th century, Michael Polanyi discovered the explanation for chemical absorbtion. Scientific authority found the new theory too much of a challenge to existing beliefs and dismissed it. Even when Polanyi was one of the UK’s ranking scientists, he was unable to teach his theory. One half-century later his discovery was re-discovered by scientists at UC, Berkeley. The discovery was hailed, but then older scientists said that it was “Polanyi’s old error.” It turned out not to be an error. Polanyi was asked to address scientists on this half-century failure of science to recognize the truth. How had science, which is based on examining the evidence, gone so wrong. Polanyi’s answer was that science is a belief system just like everything else, and that his theory was outside the belief system.
That is what we observe all around us, not just about the perfidy of Muslims and 9/11.
As an economics scholar I had a very difficult time making my points about the Soviet economy, about Karl Marx’s theories, and about the supply-side impact of fiscal policy. Today I experience readers who become enraged just because I report on someone else’s work that is outside their belief system. Some readers think I should suppress work that is inconsistent with their beliefs and drive the author of the work into the ground. These readers never have any comprehension of the subject. They are simply emotionally offended.
What I find puzzling is the people I know who do not believe a word the government says about anything except 9/11. For reasons that escape me, they believe that the government that lies to them about everything else tells them the truth about 9/11. How can this be, I ask them. Did the government slip up once and tell the truth? My question does not cause them to rethink their belief in the government’s 9/11 story. Instead, they get angry with me for doubting their intelligence or their integrity or some such hallowed trait.
The problem faced by truth is the emotional needs of people. With 9/11 many Americans feel that they must believe their government so that they don’t feel like they are being unsupportive or unpatriotic, and they are very fearful of being called “terrorist sympathizers.” Others on the left-wing have emotional needs to believe that peoples oppressed by the US have delivered “blowbacks.” Some leftists think that America deserves these blowbacks and thus believe the government’s propaganda that Muslims attacked the US.
Naive people think that if the US government’s explanation of 9/11 was wrong, physicists and engineers would all speak up. Some have (see above). However, for most physicists and engineers this would be an act of suicide. Physicists owe their careers to government grants, and their departments are critically dependent on government funding. A physicist who speaks up essentially ends his university career. If he is a tenured professor, to appease Washington the university would buy out his tenure as BYU did in the case of the outspoken Steven Jones.
An engineering firm that spoke out would never again be awarded a government contract. In addition, its patriotic, flag-waving customers would regard the firm as a terrorist apologist and cease to do business with it.
In New York today there is an enormous push by 9/11 families for a real and independent investigation of the 9/11 events. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers have provided the necessary signatures on petitions that require the state to put the proposal for an independent commission up to vote. However, the state, so far, is not obeying the law.
Why are the tens of thousands of New Yorkers who are demanding a real investigation dismissed as conspiracy theorists? The 9/11 skeptics know far more about the events of that day than do the uninformed people who call them names. Most of the people I know who are content with the government’s official explanation have never examined the evidence. Yet, these no-nothings shout down those who have studied the matter closely.
There are, of course, some kooks. I have often wondered if these kooks are intentionally ridiculous in order to discredit knowledgeable skeptics.
Another problem that the 9/11 Truth Movement faces is that their natural allies, those who oppose the Bush/Obama wars and the internet sites that the antiwar movement maintains, are fearful of being branded traitorous and anti-American. It is hard enough to oppose a war against those the US government has successfully demonized. Antiwar sites believe that if they permit 9/11 to be questioned, it would brand them as “terrorist sympathizers” and discredit their opposition to the war. An exception is Information Clearing House.
Antiwar sites do not realize that, by accepting the 9/11 explanation, they have undermined their own opposition to the war. Once you accept that Muslim terrorists did it, it is difficult to oppose punishing them for the event. In recent months, important antiwar sites, such as Antiwar.com, have had difficulty with their fundraising, with their fundraising campaigns going on far longer than previously. They do not understand that if you grant the government its premise for war, it is impossible to oppose the war.
As far as I can tell, most Americans have far greater confidence in the government than they do in the truth. During the Great Depression the liberals with their New Deal succeeded in teaching Americans to trust the government as their protector. This took with the left and the right. Neither end of the political spectrum is capable of fundamental questioning of the government. This explains the ease with which our government routinely deceives the people.
Democracy is based on the assumption that people are rational beings who factually examine arguments and are not easily manipulated. Studies are not finding this to be the case. In my own experience in scholarship, public policy, and journalism, I have learned that everyone from professors to high school dropouts has difficulty with facts and analyses that do not fit with what they already believe. The notion that “we are not afraid to follow the truth wherever it may lead” is an extremely romantic and idealistic notion. I have seldom experienced open minds even in academic discourse or in the highest levels of government. Among the public at large, the ability to follow the truth wherever it may lead is almost non-existent.
The US government’s response to 9/11, regardless of who is responsible, has altered our country forever. Our civil liberties will never again be as safe as they were. America’s financial capability and living standards are forever lower. Our country’s prestige and world leadership are forever damaged. The first decade of the 21st century has been squandered in pointless wars, and it appears the second decade will also be squandered in the same pointless and bankrupting pursuit.
The most disturbing fact of all remains: The 9/11 event responsible for these adverse happenings has not been investigated.
Friday 15 October 2010
Professor of Physics at the University of California's letter of resignation to the American Physical Society.
Dear Curt:
When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago). Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence—it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.
It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.
So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example:
1. About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got the e-mail addresses. In its better days, APS used to encourage discussion of important issues, and indeed the Constitution cites that as its principal purpose. No more. Everything that has been done in the last year has been designed to silence debate
2. The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it. One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was the poison word incontrovertible, which describes few items in physics, certainly not this one. In response APS appointed a secret committee that never met, never troubled to speak to any skeptics, yet endorsed the Statement in its entirety. (They did admit that the tone was a bit strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe the evidence, a position supported by no one.) In the end, the Council kept the original statement, word for word, but approved a far longer “explanatory” screed, admitting that there were uncertainties, but brushing them aside to give blanket approval to the original. The original Statement, which still stands as the APS position, also contains what I consider pompous and asinine advice to all world governments, as if the APS were master of the universe. It is not, and I am embarrassed that our leaders seem to think it is. This is not fun and games, these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our national substance, and the reputation of the Society as a scientific society is at stake.
3. In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.
4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the APS membership list. We conformed in every way with the requirements of the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in mind—simply to bring the subject into the open.
5. To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to run a poll on the members’ interest in a TG on Climate and the Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition, and got lots of affirmative responses. (If you had asked about sex you would have gotten more expressions of interest.) There was of course no such petition or proposal, and you have now dropped the Environment part, so the whole matter is moot. (Any lawyer will tell you that you cannot collect signatures on a vague petition, and then fill in whatever you like.) The entire purpose of this exercise was to avoid your constitutional responsibility to take our petition to the Council.
6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.
APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?
I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people’s motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don’t think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.
I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.
Hal
Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, former Chairman; Former member Defense Science Board, chmn of Technology panel; Chairman DSB study on Nuclear Winter; Former member Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Former member, President’s Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee; Chairman APS study on Nuclear Reactor Safety
Chairman Risk Assessment Review Group; Co-founder and former Chairman of JASON; Former member USAF Scientific Advisory Board; Served in US Navy in WW II; books: Technological Risk (about, surprise, technological risk) and Why Flip a Coin (about decision making)
Wednesday 13 October 2010
PressEurop - a free and fair press NOT
So what has the lad from the Emerald Isle got to say on this matter? "Eurosceptics have been harping on for decades about how the EU is an assault on national sovereignty" damn and darn those silly indecisive sceptics, always 'harping on' about disundat they are.He continues; "In fact, there is nothing inherently wrong with the idea of EU integration but it must only proceed on a democratic basis". Well that's a 'fact' then Jason, a fact to be sure.
PRESSEUROP.EU's own, so called, EDITORIAL CHARTER confesses to a clear agenda of intent; 'to present public discussion of a wide range of issues relating to the European Project and “bring the European Union to life” through the prism of press coverage'. http://bit.ly/919yNy
Now I do not think I am dealing with semantics here if I take this to mean they want to “bring the European Union to life” - like Dr. Frankenstein - and are conversely clearly not wanting to 'kill the wretched thing off' nor, one can reasonably assume, do they really want to report in a fair and balanced way and see if it is actually 'living or dead' at any given moment.
In fairness they sort-of do admit to it actually being not alive, from the outset, as you cannot bring to life something that is already alive - if you get my drift.
All the bla-bla-bla terminology
The EU can define all the bla-bla-bla terminology they wish for between themselves, but they may not cook-up that which describes their dissenters. That's for me, and my like, to define.
I am an EU dissenter, I am an EU atheist. I am not an EU agnostic.
To describe anyone and everyone who is not just a lock, stock and barrel EU zombie (or grubby-fingered benefactor) by use of such a handy little catch-all catch-phrase terminology as 'sceptic' is more than just a lazy writer's falsehood. It is a contribution to the EU's PR brainwashing agenda. A cog in the grinding-wheel, consciously granted or not.
The term 'sceptic' is a detractor devised to take-away any depth of objection from those who call-out against the imposition of this undemocratic tyranny to which our so called political representatives fain nothing but the most feeble and tepid of stances.
sceptic - a person inclined to question or doubt accepted opinions
doubt - a feeling of uncertainty or lack of conviction - archaic fear; be afraid
rhetoric - the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the exploitation of figures of speech and other compositional techniques - language designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect, but which is often regarded as lacking in sincerity or meaningful content
Thursday 7 October 2010
Toxicology results awaited in Taser firm boss’s inquest probe - Local - Northampton Chronicle & Echo
FURTHER tests are being carried out to find the cause of death of a Northampton-based company director whose firm supplied Tasers used during the stand-off with gunman Raoul Moat, an inquest has heard.
An inquest into the death of Peter Boatman, 57, director of operations for Pro-Tect Systems, heard that post-mortem examinations are awaiting toxicology and histology tests.
Northamptonshire coroner Anne Pember said Mr Boatman had been discovered by a friend.
No members of Mr Boatman’s family were present at the inquest at Northampton General Hospital yesterday and during the short hearing the coroner adjourned the inquest to a date to be fixed.
Mr Boatman was found dead at his home in Reynard Way, Kingsthorpe, Northampton, on Friday, only three days after the Home Office revoked Pro-Tect Systems’ licence to import and sell Taser stun guns.
The move came after it emerged that the firm breached the terms of its licence by supplying X12 Tasers, which were still being tested by Government scientists, directly to police involved in the Moat manhunt.
On Friday, Mr Boatman’s business partner said the former police officer was “destroyed” by the furore. Pro-Tect’s managing director Kevin Coles said there was “no doubt” his colleague’s apparent suicide was linked to the week’s events.
Mr Boatman was previously in charge of assessing the merits of Tasers as head of operational training for Northamptonshire Police before leaving to join Pro-Tect.
Mr Boatman had been awarded the Queen’s Police Medal for his commitment to officer safety.
Pro-Tect breached its licence by supplying the X12 Tasers and XRep ammunition, which were still being tested by the Home Office, directly to two police forces.
Home Secretary Theresa May revoked the firm’s licence to import and sell Tasers following an investigation into the use of the weapons at the end of one of Britain’s biggest manhunts.
The company was facing possible action by Northamptonshire Police over the breach of the licence. Armed police fired two Tasers at Moat in an “effort to stop him taking his own life” in Rothbury, Northumberland, in the early hours of July 10.
The firm also breached the rules “governing the secure transport of the devices and ammunition”.
Taser boss's wife refuses to believe he took his life
Peter Boatman was found dead in his garden shed at his home on Reynard Way, Northampton, by his wife of 32 years Stephanie.
He was found slumped in a garden chair and had been killed by the fumes of a sit-on lawn mower that was running in the outhouse.
He shot dead one man and injured his ex-girlfriend and a police officer, before shooting himself in a stand-off with cops.Secretary Theresa May after it was found to have supplied Tasers that were still being tested to Northumbria Police in the chase of wanted killer Moat in July 2010.
Mrs Boatman told the inquest how she recalled Mr Boatman being on the phone before the Moat incident to Northumbria Police.
During that conversation the chief constable of Northumbria Police sanctioned the order of X-12 and XREP Tasers which were used against Moat.
Mrs Boatman told the inquest how they had watched the siege of Moat on the television and that Mr Boatman felt some responsibility for what had happened.
She said that Mr Boatman had had trouble sleeping after the event as he was worried about what would happen to the company. He had been to see his doctor who had prescribed some anti-depressants and he was also taking Nytol to help him sleep but they had made him drowsy during the day.
The inquest heard how Mr Boatman had organised several holidays in the months prior to his death with his daughter and grandchildren and a trip to Arizona with his wife.
Despite a loss of confidence he had never talked about taking his life.
Mrs Boatman said: “I will never know what happened, he may have fallen and I cannot believe that he took his own life. It’s inconceivable, he absolutely idolised me.”
His business partner Kevin Coles said that he would have made the same decisions to supply the weapons if he had been in Mr Boatman’s position.
Mr Coles said: “The most serious issue we were facing was prosecution but that wasn’t going to happen. “He was financially secure and even offered to work and give me the money because he said he could live comfortably on his pension. “Maybe something went ‘pop’ in his head? Did he fall asleep? Anyone who knew him would know he wouldn’t take his own life.”
Recording an open verdict, Coroner Ann Pember said: “Mr Boatman was found in his garden shed which was not locked, with his iPod in his ears. “I cannot say with reasonable doubt that Mr Boatman wished to end his life and I cannot presume this is was an accident and therefore return an open verdict.”
Wednesday 6 October 2010
Marching to a Comforting and Predictable Drum-beat
(As it is I have my phone full of free podcasts and never want for excellent music or talk 'programs' when on the move - indeed I don't think I will ever catch-up with what I have yet to listen to).
The problem is not artists, big corporate music companies or the few big cogs in the current digital music distribution market. It is the consumer. The consumer has become stupefied and soporific; how can I say this kindly? I can't. They are stupid and lazy. They are programmed to march to the comforting and predictable drum-beat of the big branded spoon-feeding money-relieving machines.
The opportunity is to offer an environment where people, consumers, realise it is OK to search, filter, discover and enjoy the enormous wealth of music that is 'out there'. Independently created, historic, global and varied. Right now they are so stuffed with the idea that it is only today's music, today's big name, that is valid. That is the paradigm that was sold by the record companies and is now almost hard-wired into the public's psychology. The fact is though; it actually does not need to be crafted-fashion 'branded' celebrity to be good, with-it, edgy, sexy or profitable. The task is to sell, or un-sell, that to the market.
I submit, frustrating though it may be, the fundamental core of the wish to MAKE people pay for content (music, film, news or whatever), the angry petulant desperate demand, is a dated paradigm.
The correct desire should be no more than to provide the best service possible; and along the way people will pay for a good service. The correct desire should be to provide that service at a price which reflects no more than the essential commercial margin in addition to the true, nuts and bolts, cost of provision (to allow for investment, development and a return).
It does not matter what you were selling the stuff for in the past. It matters not what you think something is worth or even what you can resoundingly prove enough people will be happy to pay for it to make a viable profit.
It is only by having an absolute monopoly, over all the content people want and over all the means of distribution people use, that the market can be forced to comply with price. That monopoly exists with copyright but not with distribution. It is the opening-up of distribution that is the game-changer so far.
The next step will be a further and enormous proliferation of available content. Presently the market, the customer, still thinks they have to draw their media from the traditional sources - but the market just takes time to adjust. It is the current content providers that must predict and adapt to the new paradigm.
People will pay for good content. Some people will pay a good price for the content they want. Most people, nearly everybody, will pay a peppercorn price for unlimited access to unlimited content.
King Canute the Great knew this. He sat in the sea to make clear he could not stop the tide no-matter how Great he was thought to be. Miss the boat and today's content providers will become tomorrows historic media archives.
Who knows what is in a man’s heart?
It is reasonable to assume that the prime objective was not because of the threat of (so called) WMD. This tissue of lies was patently cooked-up to attempt justify an otherwise unjustifiable attack.
It is reasonable to assume it was not carried-out to serve any interest of the civilian population of Iraq. They are in a manifold worse situation now, as a result of our attacking, and we cannot even answer how many innocents have died as a result (the murder and manslaughter of between 110,000 IBC to 1,100,000 Lancet).
If the object is thought to be related to ‘the war on terrorism’ this is manifestly false. Any form or threat of terrorism has only occurred as a result of attacking Iraq.
We can assume that these solemn truths will never be fully or broadly recognised because the resulting reparations due to and deserved by the people of Iraq would bankrupt us.
If the objective was related to the interests of Private Military Contractors, the complex of industries supplying Military requirements, oil production interests, central bankers and such; all their interests have been served, and served at the expense of the taxpaying public along with the populous of Iraq since and into the future. It has been a successful enterprise.
If the objective was to strengthen the security of Israel in a Middle East hostile to their presence and actions, as argued by Mark Weber here in: ‘Iraq-A War For Israel’ http://bit.ly/ccII7m then the outcome has been to reduce the threat to Israel considerably.
If the objective was to break a middle east nation that, whilst held together by a grossly unpalatable and harsh regime, did have a high standard of education, health care, women’s rights, self-determination and enterprise, a nation that had the potential to utilise its own petrochemical (and water) resource and enter the world-stage of developed nations, the attack and subsequent CPA mandate has achieved this aim.
If the objective was to demonstrate that disobedience towards the US/CIA imperialistic interests, such as that demonstrated by Iraq under Saddam Hussain, will not pass unpunished, that aim has been succinctly dealt.
For all those involved the British and American attack of Iraq has been a failure. But for all those who have stood-by whilst these events have taken place and subsequently reaped the rewards it certainly can be painted as a success.
But; who knows what is in a man’s heart?
I fancy that, however it may have been achieved, GW Bush was steered absolutely by those who advised him, those who were also a part of the political lobby group known as the Project for the New American Century (PNAC).
To read those named on the PNAC founding Statement of Principles is illuminating: http://bit.ly/9gOQcJ – The names included Jeb Bush (brother of GW), Dick Cheney, I. Lewis Libby (Scooter), Dan Quayle, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz amongst others.
PNAC’s stated aim was to make the case and rally support for: “American global leadership, [to] shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire”.
To President Clinton they wrote: ‘The only acceptable strategy is one that [removes] Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy. http://bit.ly/a82Sr9
In their report ‘Rebuilding America’s Defenses’ http://bit.ly/bU2a0F (PDF file) they wrote: ‘Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor. (Report-P51 PDF-P63)
On the 11th of September 2001 Robert Kagan, co-founder of PNAC, wrote in The Washington Post a piece titled ‘We Must Fight This War’ proclaiming “an attack far more awful than Pearl Harbor” http://bit.ly/9HvCSZ
It is against this background that we must comprehend Britain’s part is cast. It would be clear that the US was primed to react to the attack of 9/11 in the manner prescribed by those who dominated the political administration and in a manner that had too been expressed with resounding clarity.
For Blair here was a simple choice. Would we have stopped them? I doubt it. Would the world be a better place with the US operating in isolation, without seeking any backing from the UN, without the veil of credence offered by its old comrade and diplomatic good cop. Take Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, extraordinary rendition, water-boarding, torture by proxy, shock and awe, black sites, depleted uranium, cluster bombs for some examples and imagine how the US would have behaved if utterly unrestrained.
If Blair had stood-back and demanded a clear UN mandate to attack, how would the situation have stood if then Britain was immediately struck by its own ‘Pearl Harbour’ and perhaps one of even more devastating effect?