RANT OR RAVE? Julian Assange Granted Asylum

I should have been happy, overjoyed in fact (!!!), about the news yesterday that Julian Assange had been granted political asylum by Ecuador. So this should be a rave. Yet even with that news I am niggled by fear and apprehension - apprehension borne of how ugly this entire affair got this week and how it could yet get a lot uglier. Hence my need to also rant about this.



So, let me deconstruct the affair as I see it as succinctly as possible:

The Victim: Julian Assange. There are two camps in the world today - those who believe Julian Assange is being persecuted on the one side, and those who believe he is a 'terrorist' and a 'threat' to American hegemony (read: imperialism) on the other side. There is no room for grey - it's that black and white.

The Heroes: Ecuador. I admittedly had my doubts that the Ecuadorian government would capitulate to Western (read: American) pressure. Many had those doubts and fears. Even his mother must have had her fears an doubts. But they came through for Julian, in unapologetic, crystal clear and frankly stunning terms. This small South American country did what very few countries would dare to do. All power to Ecuador for what they have done this week. Simon Bolivar would be proud.

The Enemy/ Bitch Whore of the Arch Enemy: The United Kingdom. When it's foreign affairs crowd even dares to suggest that the UK would see fit to rip right through centuries of diplomacy and international customary law and storm the Ecuadorian embassy to seize Assange, then it is a country that has lost all sense of the rule of law and its own sense of self. It's democracy and legal system is a sham. All so it can do the bidding of its Imperial Master. The UK should be ashamed of itself.

The Passive-Aggressive Bitch Whore: Sweden. This Scandinavian country, always so smug in its own sense of level-minded, content democracy, is at the very epicentre of this entire crisis. All it had to do was reassure Ecuador that Assange would not be extradited to the United States once handed over to Sweden by the UK. This Sweden refused to do, which spoke volumes - and the Ecuadoreans rightly saw this as overwhelming evidence of the political persecution of Assange. Game over. Sweden is a sham democracy doing the shabby bidding of the biggest bully of them all. It too should be thoroughly ashamed of itself.

The Arch Enemy: The United States. Need one say more?

And that's what this entire debacle boils down to: a man who did nothing more than publish the truth about the shocking shenanigans of world powers is being persecuted by three of what were once the most respected democracies on Earth.

And that is why, whilst I can rave about Julian Assange being granted his asylum, I can only rant at all the other malevolent ingredients in this putrid mix.

And I am sincerely, genuinely, horribly worried at how the entire Julian Assange affair may yet unravel. And expose the true, sickening nature of the world in which we live.

Do you get my point?

RAVE: Brilliant Image re Iceland Crisis

As a follow up to my rather lengthy rant about the Icelandic vote tomorrow on their 'debt' to the UK and Netherlands, I could not resist raving about this brilliant image I just came across:

It shows a bulldog (synonymous with the UK and, by extension, Gordon Brown) standing over a map of Iceland. Sheer, simple brilliance - it says it all.

Due credit for this image is given to the Debtonation site - a brilliant site that I highly recommend (www.debtonation.org) with insights regarding the current financial crisis.

RANT: Sovereign Debt - the UK 'Slide' Show

Sovereign Debt - ah yes, my pet economic issue of the day. Here comes another rant on this issue, scant days after my first one on it.

The big talk this past week was about how now it was not only Portugal or Ireland or Greece or Italy or Spain or (the infamous 'PIGIS' group of European countries) that may be in danger of default on their sovereign debt but...nay, wait for it...

the United Kingdom.

Oh, how that particular news filled me with a delicious sense of irony. I did get a big kick out of hearing that the UK's budget deficit could very soon balloon to even larger than that of the much-maligned Greece.

Don't get me wrong: this is not some anti-British tirade on my part. I lived in England for five years, got an excellent degree at a respected English university and made some truly wonderful friends of whom I care about to this very day. My love of British music, cinema, humour and much beside, years and years in the making, know no bounds.

No, this is not some childish tirade against the English, the British or anything Anglo. Rather, it is an all-out assault on that mother of all centres for global financial markets and, therefore, economic terrorism, namely 'The City', as London's financial district is pedantically referred to by many.



And throw in that appalling British government for good measure.

London is, along with Wall Street in New York City, the most important centre for global finance. Much is said and ranted about regarding the obscene bonuses and stock option payouts, etc, being paid in this economic recession to corporate America and, in particular, on Wall Street. However, the City of London and all its British banks, investment banks and financiers are not doing too shabbily either.

The levels of cynical gorging by these 'City' financial rogues at the trough, much of it with the help of billions of pounds in taxpayer money by the British government, are plain S-I-C-K-E-N-I-N-G.

And all of this has been done with the full blessing and collusion of the Gordon Brown government.

Hence, my being tickled pink at hearing that the UK may soon join the likes of Spain or Ireland or even...gasp...Greece as yet another example of a government that is simply too much in debt to pay all of its creditors and domestic obligations.

I snicker at the news because turns out that having the 'financial epicentre' of the global financial scene in your own back garden is no guarantee against having an economy as up to pawpaws as that of Greece. Delicious.

I snicker at the news because that's what you get for racking up billions and billions of pounds for fighting wars that you had no rhyme or reason to get involved in. Yes, Britain, what the hell are you doing having been part of the illegal Iraq war and still stuck in the morass that is Afghanistan?

And I think I'll puke from here all the way to Buckingham Palace if I hear any of that 'our brave men in uniform fighting for our freedom' crap on faux-news stations like Sky News or even the BBC one more time. Your brave men in uniform are tragically losing their lives for nothing. That's tragic. And stop all that patriotic chest-thumping. You lost your empire ages ago. Get over it.

And I snicker hardest because the UK recently tried to bully Iceland into bailing out British investors over the collapse of Icesave, an Icelandic investment fund (this along with those other bullies, the Netherlands). Gordon Brown invoked anti-terrorism legislation against Iceland in late 2008 because of the threat of Iceland defaulting on payments to the UK. Yes, anti-terrorism laws! Iceland was understandably outraged at being considered a 'terrorist state'. Diplomatic relations between the two countries, centuries-long allies, plummeted to all-time lows. All over money.

Even worse, it has even been alleged in some media that Gordon Brown himself is said to have made the OUTRAGEOUS statement that, if need be, the UK would be willing to invade Iceland because of their 'terrorist-like activities' in not paying up. What the hell is going on here?!!

And all of this by Brown with the full-blown pressure and constant braying of and by the 'City of London'. Not to mention that it is those pompous twats in their pinstripe suits and driving their Jaguars and Bentleys to their Home Counties weekend homes that will benefit most if Iceland capitulates and pays out the UK. That is, pays for what was the result of the 'financial shenanigans' (read: economic terrorist activities) of a few Icelandic investment bankers in full cohorts with a whole bunch of 'City' bankers and the like.

The Icelandic President refused to sign the law that would beholden Iceland to 'honour' those debts (all power to him for that) and a referendum on that issue yet awaits the Icelandic people in March. More on that very soon.

So, let's recap:

We have a country's government that has seen fit to terrorize another sovereign European country over a few billion pounds that was largely caused by the badly regulated financial mechanisms and market in its own country.

We have two successive governments that have ensnared a country and its soldiers in immoral and illegal wars that are only strengthening terrorism, not weakening it.

And we have a financial heartland that is at the very heart of what has been and continues to be so horrendously wrong with world economics and financial systems.

And now the warmongering bully that genuflects to 'the City' at every given moment has an economy that is tanking quicker and worse than most others.

Talk about karma.

So, yes, that's why I get a mischievous thrill out of seeing the UK's economy slip-sliding even further down as it rides on the coattails of those City bastards.

I don't wish unemployment or hard times on any of my friends or the people that I love and care about in the UK. Of course I don't. The British people deserve so much better than the corrupt financial masters and their government puppets that they currently have. In fact, the rest of the world deserves and needs better than that, so inflated is the financial clout that the City of London exerts in the world's economy.

What I do wish is for more sanity in British politics - highly unlikely given New Labour's track record to date, not to mention that the slimy David Cameron and his creepy Tories will be even more in the pocket of the City of London. The Tories and the City have been best buddies for ages. Conservatives and fat cat financiers, like really ugly, decrepit birds, always flock together.

Even more importantly, I can only hope that the ongoing economic crisis will somehow metamorphose into a significant and meaningful overhaul of the current capitalism-out-of-control that currently plagues the world.

Uber-capitalism and its equally demented side-kick, globalized finance, must be stopped once and for all and a more rational, equitable and sustainable system of capitalism (or something even better of the ilk) evolve in its place.

The likes of the City of London and Wall Street need to be relegated to nothing more than a sideshow in global economics. If that's at all possible. They've been the Ringmasters of this Three-Ring Circus from Hell for long enough.

For now, the UK economy gets everything it deserves.

Do you get my point?

RANT: Blair the (B)LIAR

It seems appropriate that my first rant of my blog must have something to do with the war in Iraq. And, in particular, it has to do with that stooge and schmuck known as Tony Blair and his appearance yesterday before the Iraq Inquiry in the UK.

It took me a day just to compose myself and write this post.

Words cannot fully express how I feel about this. Not to mention how my stomach turned listening to his convoluted lies and backtracking on all that he did back in 2003. I couldn't watch much of it - my anger knew no bounds.

I say he's a stooge because any sane, objective person should know that he got the UK into an illegal, immoral and cynical (oil anyone?) war because of his 'special relationship' lapping up everything that bowlegged, cowboy wannabe joke known as Dubya had to say. And he's a schmuck because he, the Grand Machiavelli that saw the demise of the old Labour party and the ushering in of the travesty that is 'New Labour', is a disgraceful, false (little) human being. Or pod person - take your pick.

His smirking appearance before the Inquiry (a sham in and of itself, by the way) was unbelievable in the display of stupendous mendacity and sheer arrogance. Now the bastard claims that 'regime change' was the goal from the very beginning. Um, interesting, Mr. Bliar. That's NOT what you and El Presidente Arbusto said at the time, you lying, snivelling sack of shit. Oh Tonykins, your constant, deafening mantra at the time was but three letters - WMD. Remember? Not all of us are suffering from early onset Alzheimer's, you shameless liar.

He even had the gall to appear irritated and impatient with some of the Inquiry questions. Like some paternalistic headmaster tut-tutting that a bunch of schoolkids 'just don't get' how terribly 'difficult' and 'complex' his job was. Boo hoo. What a bloody nerve.

For all his countless lies to his own country and the rest of the world, for all the tens of thousands of deaths he and his Texan Neo-Nazi Ringmaster have caused in Iraq (alone) since 2003, I have only this to say - Tony Blair should be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity. It's really quite simple.

Do you get my point?