I used to have more stomach for this sort of thing...now I managed about 8 minutes of watching the deluded monstrosity not even wriggling in embarrassment before I had to look away...
Unfortunately we have to face the facts that Britain and the US are still spearheading the Imperialist movement that has served the economies of developed nations so successfully over the years...
There is no way on earth that a willing and able servant of Power like Blair will ever be charged with anything more than doing his duty...
If there were odds on Blair being charged that would only indicate a bookie too naive for the profession...
Should we be glad that they still bother with the charade of investigative justice? I don't know...is it a nod to what should be?..or is it an insult?
Yes, I agree with you Lester. The saddest part is that Blair feels at ease now to simply say that 'these guys should be taken on'; no legal basis, no moral framework, no multilateralism, just the full force of neo-imperialism.
I watched on and off and I agree, it was stomach churning. The buffoons on the panel were risible and Blair could waffle, obfuscate, and detract as much as he wished.
It's not just a sad day for the Iraq, UK, and US; it's a sad day for humanity.
That's what fascinates me though olching...the fact that he is so at ease - sure he's mouthing the unsaid thoughts of the collective body of angels that recline in the upper power hoarding echelons, and sure, he's orientated himself over the years to the subterfuge of democracy being about the decision making. He is, after all a politician who, inevitably walks the tight-rope between posture and reality, but I'm still unable to fully reconcile with myself how a person can function whilst either having being lobotomised of reflective honesty, or perpetually living a lie...
I am intrigued with the inquiry in purely psychological terms and I can never fully decide whether we are all merely subject to the micro-cultural pressures we inhabit...or whether there is conscious deviousness being acted out at every turn...
...I suppose it's both...and I realise there is a heavy value judgement in what I'm saying...but I do see Blair as mentally ill on one level...I see all the powered classes as having cultivated a sociopathic outlook that they are not able to recognise as being so...
Yes, I agree with you Lester. It's an incredible event to witness. I think you are right about the mental illness; I just gave it a few minutes thought. IT's barely conceivable that one might be able to live a perpetual lie without a level of sociopathy.
Of course it's a forum in which Blair feels at home; he knows the people, they know him - they agree with him. That's what's farcical about this.
It's a public performance in which everyone knows that everyone knows that it is a performance. But it's accepted. It's a new form of high religion, but I find it more frightening, because it impinges on the intellectual level far more heavily than anything I can think of that has gone before (perhaps in that sense it fits in with the 'totalitarian' approaches to the control of public intellect and knowledge).
Thanks very much olching, that is really complimentary from such a brilliant commentator as yourself - I'm flattered :)
Just to push this micro-culture behaviour a bit further I was just thinking over a cup of Assam (the perfect morning tea)that in fact Blair's sociopathic behaviour is the result of a lengthy initiation into a gang mentality...
...Nobody starts out thinking I'm going to start illegal wars and rob countries of their resources, but precisely like the slow orientation toward gang behaviour, where usually incremental steps normalise what from the outside is seen as anti-social activity, members become so acclimatised to the micro-cultural expectations that it's actually unfair to call them sociopathic in as much as they no longer share the norms and morals of mainstream society which they view as a threat to themselves...
...from this perspective Blair is just the biggest fucking Hoodie in town petulantly stomping about taking what he fuckin' wants ;)
...actually I do see both extremes of societies hierarchy as uncannily sharing very similar ostracising behaviour patterns where both end up feeling contemptuous to society as a whole...
‘It's a public performance in which everyone knows that everyone knows that it is a performance.’
I’m uncertain about this, Olching. I really think that Blair is a very naïve individual as well as being fairly ignorant. I’ve been writing a bit about this on Neil Clark’s blog.
‘It's a new form of high religion, but I find it more frightening, because it impinges on the intellectual level far more heavily than anything I can think of that has gone before (perhaps in that sense it fits in with the 'totalitarian' approaches to the control of public intellect and knowledge).’
Entirely agree here. But for me this is precisely why I am rather squeamish about the calls to arrest Blair. No matter how they may want to portray it now, in 2003 it was no case of the political/ media complex imploring ‘the joker’ not to take us to a pointless, unwinnable, counter-productive war. Much of the print media and the ‘opposition party’ were right behind him.
So what if Blair does go down for leading us into a horrific conflict? By 2008 the moral failures of the Iraq venture were plain for all to see, but large swathes of politicians and commentators were still calling for action against ‘Vladimir Putin’ when Dmitri Medvedev intervened in Ossetia.
I think you are right that what we've witnessed is something like 'cumulative radicalisation'. Undoubtedly so, and we have to place the bombing in Serbia in that line of radicalisation.
Gregor,
I really think that Blair is a very naïve individual as well as being fairly ignorant.
I don't think I agree with you here. Blair is not stupid - he's no Bush. He knows what he's doing, he knows how to obfuscate and it sadly works with a lot of people. They think he's making a convincing point when he's saying nothing precise. That's why he (and others like him) are so dangerous. They can say everything and nothing (see Cameron, who will probably be found out a bit earlier, because he's a bit thicker).
Yes, a lot of the media were behind him. Plus ca change. The cranks always side with the powerful.
Talking of which, isn't PeterBracken an utter cunt.
'I don't think I agree with you here. Blair is not stupid - he's no Bush.'
Well, I think you'd have to look far and wide for someone as thick as Dubya. I'm not defending Blair: he's said himself that he regrets nothing. But that isn't to say he gave any thought to the matter.
I'm unacquainted with Mr Bracken, but I'll take your word on it. There's no shortage of them on CIF (and some of them operate around the clock. I remember once waking up at 4.00 and checking The Guardian: there were already several negative comments under George Monbiot's article).
Bracken's a dick - no question - but what can you expect from a self-confessed Graduate of history, athiest[sic], equities trader?
I know he's committed major Cif-comment atrocities in your eyes but there's worse ... He reckons that poetry is word salad written in fits of pique - a bit like saying music's a splatter of random notes making a noise pattern.
Equities trader - jerk - how junior can you get? Ah well, let's hope he can aspire to greater things, like ... becoming an estate agent and learning to spell how to be a true non-believer.
True,...but I do think that Blair thought about it. I'm not convinced this was some frivolous decision, but rather a coldly calculated decision to harness and show more power.
Parallax/Gregor:
Yes, Bracken's a special one. I'm not sure I've ever seen him say anything of substance or anything that isn't empty rhetoric and ad hom.
The comment you linked, parallax, says is all. Dense and narcissistic.
Braken exemplifies the current revulsion for any kind of epistemological thinking...which does of course encourage the mindless ideologues that we are currently suffering...
Loath as I am to engage in tittle-tattle about other posters (yeah, right), I think you might have a point about Bracken. Not so much for what he says (which rarely rises above the banal liberalism of "the Economist" as far as I can see), but for his almost total lack of self-awareness and, most of all, for his general unpleasantness.
Your earthy Anglo-Saxon epithet is not far off the mark, I fear.
Thanks Pat and I quite agree. He is one of the most banal posters around (there are more banal posters, but I don't notice them due to an absence of pretensions).
16 comments:
I used to have more stomach for this sort of thing...now I managed about 8 minutes of watching the deluded monstrosity not even wriggling in embarrassment before I had to look away...
Unfortunately we have to face the facts that Britain and the US are still spearheading the Imperialist movement that has served the economies of developed nations so successfully over the years...
There is no way on earth that a willing and able servant of Power like Blair will ever be charged with anything more than doing his duty...
If there were odds on Blair being charged that would only indicate a bookie too naive for the profession...
Should we be glad that they still bother with the charade of investigative justice? I don't know...is it a nod to what should be?..or is it an insult?
Yes, I agree with you Lester. The saddest part is that Blair feels at ease now to simply say that 'these guys should be taken on'; no legal basis, no moral framework, no multilateralism, just the full force of neo-imperialism.
I watched on and off and I agree, it was stomach churning. The buffoons on the panel were risible and Blair could waffle, obfuscate, and detract as much as he wished.
It's not just a sad day for the Iraq, UK, and US; it's a sad day for humanity.
That's what fascinates me though olching...the fact that he is so at ease - sure he's mouthing the unsaid thoughts of the collective body of angels that recline in the upper power hoarding echelons, and sure, he's orientated himself over the years to the subterfuge of democracy being about the decision making. He is, after all a politician who, inevitably walks the tight-rope between posture and reality, but I'm still unable to fully reconcile with myself how a person can function whilst either having being lobotomised of reflective honesty, or perpetually living a lie...
I am intrigued with the inquiry in purely psychological terms and I can never fully decide whether we are all merely subject to the micro-cultural pressures we inhabit...or whether there is conscious deviousness being acted out at every turn...
...I suppose it's both...and I realise there is a heavy value judgement in what I'm saying...but I do see Blair as mentally ill on one level...I see all the powered classes as having cultivated a sociopathic outlook that they are not able to recognise as being so...
Yes, I agree with you Lester. It's an incredible event to witness. I think you are right about the mental illness; I just gave it a few minutes thought. IT's barely conceivable that one might be able to live a perpetual lie without a level of sociopathy.
Of course it's a forum in which Blair feels at home; he knows the people, they know him - they agree with him. That's what's farcical about this.
It's a public performance in which everyone knows that everyone knows that it is a performance. But it's accepted. It's a new form of high religion, but I find it more frightening, because it impinges on the intellectual level far more heavily than anything I can think of that has gone before (perhaps in that sense it fits in with the 'totalitarian' approaches to the control of public intellect and knowledge).
As always, Lester, I find your posts fascinating.
Thanks very much olching, that is really complimentary from such a brilliant commentator as yourself - I'm flattered :)
Just to push this micro-culture behaviour a bit further I was just thinking over a cup of Assam (the perfect morning tea)that in fact Blair's sociopathic behaviour is the result of a lengthy initiation into a gang mentality...
...Nobody starts out thinking I'm going to start illegal wars and rob countries of their resources, but precisely like the slow orientation toward gang behaviour, where usually incremental steps normalise what from the outside is seen as anti-social activity, members become so acclimatised to the micro-cultural expectations that it's actually unfair to call them sociopathic in as much as they no longer share the norms and morals of mainstream society which they view as a threat to themselves...
...from this perspective Blair is just the biggest fucking Hoodie in town petulantly stomping about taking what he fuckin' wants ;)
...actually I do see both extremes of societies hierarchy as uncannily sharing very similar ostracising behaviour patterns where both end up feeling contemptuous to society as a whole...
...right...another cup I think...cheers...
‘It's a public performance in which everyone knows that everyone knows that it is a performance.’
I’m uncertain about this, Olching. I really think that Blair is a very naïve individual as well as being fairly ignorant. I’ve been writing a bit about this on Neil Clark’s blog.
‘It's a new form of high religion, but I find it more frightening, because it impinges on the intellectual level far more heavily than anything I can think of that has gone before (perhaps in that sense it fits in with the 'totalitarian' approaches to the control of public intellect and knowledge).’
Entirely agree here. But for me this is precisely why I am rather squeamish about the calls to arrest Blair. No matter how they may want to portray it now, in 2003 it was no case of the political/ media complex imploring ‘the joker’ not to take us to a pointless, unwinnable, counter-productive war. Much of the print media and the ‘opposition party’ were right behind him.
So what if Blair does go down for leading us into a horrific conflict? By 2008 the moral failures of the Iraq venture were plain for all to see, but large swathes of politicians and commentators were still calling for action against ‘Vladimir Putin’ when Dmitri Medvedev intervened in Ossetia.
Lester,
I think you are right that what we've witnessed is something like 'cumulative radicalisation'. Undoubtedly so, and we have to place the bombing in Serbia in that line of radicalisation.
Gregor,
I really think that Blair is a very naïve individual as well as being fairly ignorant.
I don't think I agree with you here. Blair is not stupid - he's no Bush. He knows what he's doing, he knows how to obfuscate and it sadly works with a lot of people. They think he's making a convincing point when he's saying nothing precise. That's why he (and others like him) are so dangerous. They can say everything and nothing (see Cameron, who will probably be found out a bit earlier, because he's a bit thicker).
Yes, a lot of the media were behind him. Plus ca change. The cranks always side with the powerful.
Talking of which, isn't PeterBracken an utter cunt.
Who's Peter Bracken?
Google just came up with an Irish rugby player.
Czarny,
He's a troll who smears people at CiF. If you want to know what is wrong with CiF, it's commenters like him who have effectively ruined CiF.
Oh yeah, you're right. He is a c**t.
'I don't think I agree with you here. Blair is not stupid - he's no Bush.'
Well, I think you'd have to look far and wide for someone as thick as Dubya. I'm not defending Blair: he's said himself that he regrets nothing. But that isn't to say he gave any thought to the matter.
I'm unacquainted with Mr Bracken, but I'll take your word on it. There's no shortage of them on CIF (and some of them operate around the clock. I remember once waking up at 4.00 and checking The Guardian: there were already several negative comments under George Monbiot's article).
Bracken's a dick - no question - but what can you expect from a self-confessed Graduate of history, athiest[sic], equities trader?
I know he's committed major Cif-comment atrocities in your eyes but there's worse ... He reckons that poetry is word salad written in fits of pique - a bit like saying music's a splatter of random notes making a noise pattern.
Equities trader - jerk - how junior can you get? Ah well, let's hope he can aspire to greater things, like ... becoming an estate agent and learning to spell how to be a true non-believer.
GRegor,
True,...but I do think that Blair thought about it. I'm not convinced this was some frivolous decision, but rather a coldly calculated decision to harness and show more power.
Parallax/Gregor:
Yes, Bracken's a special one. I'm not sure I've ever seen him say anything of substance or anything that isn't empty rhetoric and ad hom.
The comment you linked, parallax, says is all. Dense and narcissistic.
Braken exemplifies the current revulsion for any kind of epistemological thinking...which does of course encourage the mindless ideologues that we are currently suffering...
Loath as I am to engage in tittle-tattle about other posters (yeah, right), I think you might have a point about Bracken. Not so much for what he says (which rarely rises above the banal liberalism of "the Economist" as far as I can see), but for his almost total lack of self-awareness and, most of all, for his general unpleasantness.
Your earthy Anglo-Saxon epithet is not far off the mark, I fear.
Thanks Pat and I quite agree. He is one of the most banal posters around (there are more banal posters, but I don't notice them due to an absence of pretensions).
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