They also used to ship detainees off to places like Syria (when the old government still stood) and Pakistan, among others so that the secret police of these countries could tourture (and in some case murder/disappear) people with another buffer to the USA. A lot of people seemed to have been grabbed, tourtured, interrogated and made to confess to anything just purely because of the colour of their skin.
It's interesting to see a section of the media going mental over Anders Breivik enrolling in a university course from his jail cell. Leaving aside the similarity between their beliefs and his, I'm not sure why this should be seen as a problem. He's a lunatic, but the overall idea of those in prison using the time constructively is a positive thing, isn't it? The revolving-door prison system that a lot of people seem to favour is just stupid.
It was a weird one. I was in Turkey at the airport and it happened both when I was on my way into Bodrum and when I was on my way back to England. This experience happened a week after some news reports were talking about blokes, who looked to be of Asian or Middle Eastern descent and had huge beards, were about to join ISIS and they were on their way to Syria through Turkey. I understand that the security need to be vigilant, but first of all, my beard isn't even that thick. Second of all, even after they checked my passport and found out it was legitimate, they thought I had a faulty VISA and were giving me bizarre looks when they were analysing both documents. I went on holiday with a group of friends, all of whom were English, and they were allowed to go straight through but I was being kept back significantly longer. Eventually they let me through, but they seemed reluctant to do so. Then when I was at the airport on the way back to Gatwick, before I could enter the plane, I was stopped and asked to show them my hand luggage and then they did another body check on me when my other friends were allowed to go straight through. No-one said anything bad to me and I'm not going to embellish what happened as if it was some sort of traumatic experience, but it was worrying that I was subjected to some suspicious looks and that I was the one who was constantly being searched and having my luggage checked on numerous occasions. In fact, I was quite angry about it.
I was listening to a programme on Radio 4 after Gove spoke about Prison reform, in it they said that there is a drive to try and increase access to educational programmes within the justice system, so that prison really is a rehabilitative environment rather than simply a punishment, where you sit and 'consider your crimes' without any meaningful input. The problem is though that the vast majority of prisoners (those serving sentences of 4 years or under) don't qualify for access to these programmes. So for the majority of low level crime, many of the offenders simply sit in prison, mix with other criminals, learn about criminal behaviour, harbour a resentment for the justice system and inevitably come out and re-offend within 12 months, and end up back in prison.
Is that true ? ****ing Hell Gove was all softly softly the other day and it was interesting that Obama has just given a big speech on the disproportionate rates of their citizens incarcerated in the US .... All the while, private security companies jockey for contracts to build/run prisons. Personally I don't think anybody should be locked up unless they represent a clear danger to anybody else. But there are some mixed messages coming out about the prison service.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/dec/05/prison-book-ban-unlawful-court-chris-grayling Unsurprisingly, it was ruled to be unlawful, but what sort of moron would think it was a good idea (especially when inmates are banged up 23 hours per day).
Crazy, but not altogether surprising from a party that see's prison as 'punishment' rather than rehabilitation. The idea of locking somebody up, often in isolation for 23 hrs per day and expecting them to come out as a reformed and well adjusted citizen is ****ing ludicrous.
I agree. Instead, we should amputate a minor body part instead. Nothing that would make them dependent on others in daily life - just the little fingers or a couple of toes for shop lifting, working up to an ear or the whole nose for bigger crimes. If convicted of a race related crime, then perma-stain the whole of their skin an appropriate colour. A little imagination with the punishments could really help reduce the level of crime
Away from football and politics. Mick Fanning an Aussie surfer was attacked by a Shark at Jeffrey's bay in South Africa today live on TV during a contest. Crazy stuff ! http://www.theguardian.com/sport/video/2015/jul/19/surfer-mick-fanning-shark-attack-j-bay-open-video
Unison and unite have come out and backed Jeremy Corbyn for the labour leadership today. If they vote him in as leader then I will definitely vote labour again. The idea that labour lost the election because they weren't right wing enough (coming from labour themselves) was a damning indictment of where the party are currently. Only 23% of people actually voted for the Tory party in England. It was never a mandate for a shift to the right. Corbyn may well be able to save the Labour Party from disappearing up the arses of the right wing politicians and businessmen and get them back on track to their true values of social justice.
I couldn't agree more Piskie. It's laughable that there's the claim that the centre-right labour party lead by a centre-right leader - Ed Milliband crashed in the election because they weren't more right and their politics didn't more resemble the Tory party. It seems that the massive swing of voters voting for parties like the SNP, Green Party, Plaid and UKIP who are looking for something different from the right wing, austerity language of Labour and the Conservatives didn't happen. But that the multinationals that own the mass media in this country (News International - Sun, Sun on Sunday, Sky News, The Times, Trinity Mirror - Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, People, Daily Record, Press Holdings - The Telegraph and the Spectator, Daily Mail & General Trust - Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Metro, London Evening Standard, ITN (and a tonne of different non-media companies), Guardian Media Group - Guardian & Observer) are the ones who are stating quite firmly that anyone who votes for Corbyn - the man who wants to punish tax dodging corporations and raise the corporation tax - will lose, as for some reason (never quite stated) he will never win an election. (despite successfully winning his seat on 8 (I think) separate occasions. Out of the Labourship leadership candidates one Corbyn has released an intelligent manifesto on how all the changes he wants will be paid for, and how easy it is to make things fairer, reduce the widening inequality gap between the rich and poor, and improve services. while another (Cooper) seems only to say that 'she is a woman and you should vote for her' then hem and haw over any issue. Liz Kendall seems to be a closet Tory who agrees with everything their doing - but you should vote for her, because she'll do it all in Labour colours. And Andy Burnham seems to be like the weathervane Mhairi Black speaks about - he says some good stuff, like he's strongly opposed to the welfare bill, and it's a red line issue - then feels abstains quietly is the best form of strong opposition.
The next 5 years will see an unchecked Tory party run riot over social, welfare, trade unions, NHS, workers rights, human rights, public sector, local councils, etc whilst championing the rights of big business over those of working people and push this country further to the right. If ever there was a need for a strong left wing element to counter this tide and offer a strong challenge in opposition, then it's now. The other labour candidates are just watered down Tories, they offer nothing in terms of true Labour values and their unashamed slating of Corbyn demonstrates exactly where they stand. Personally I think they have underestimated Corbyn and the mood amongst Labour supporting people and organisations. No true Labour supporter wants a shift to the right, there never was a mandate for that and the bollocks 23% of Tory share of the vote is simply an indictment on our 'first past the post system'. Labour lost the election because of Scotland, their share of the vote actually went up in England since the last election and Ed Milliband was supposed to be more left leaning. So if anything that is sign that Labour should be occupying the left not clamouring to move to the right.
I think that they're right about Corbyn being unable to win an election, though. The media won't let him.
That's the problem for Corbyn. Political success is far too much in the hands of the media. The big media corp owners will never back him. What I find startling in all of this though is that Corbyn isn't actually that left wing, he's simply an advocate for social and workplace justice. It's shows how far free market capitalism has been allowed to dictate the social agenda when anybody who talks about reducing the inequalities of wealth is seen as a left wing nutter.
The corporations want to force back worker's rights and even human rights, so it's no surprise that they don't like him. Anyone standing against the privatisation of basically everything and for enforcing taxes against those currently dodging them isn't going to get elected. The system's been intentionally broken.
I honestly fear for the next 5 years. At the moment there is basically no opposition to the right's agenda to privatise everything and reduce workers rights to the bare minimum. I worked for the NHS for 16 years and in that time I saw my own decision making process taken out of my hands because I was basing it on what was best suited to the needs of the patients, rather than what would generate the most income. If there isn't a strong opposition to the right, then the plan for the NHS is to dish out the profitable parts (with good outcomes) to the private sector and leave the non profitable parts (with poor outcomes) to an even more underfunded NHS. There is only one pot of public money to fund the NHS and increasingly that is being used to commission private provision (with poorer wages / standards for their staff) so that the end game with the NHS, is that with very little funding and trying to mop up the most difficult parts of health provision, will be made to be seen as failing. At that point, the rest of it will be privatised and the NHS will cease to exist in it's current guise. They'll keep the name, as the public wouldn't tolerate seeing it called the Private Health service or some such, but it will be in essence a service provided by private profit making companies funded by taxpayers money.
Where's the opposition going to come from, though? The media will destroy anyone who tries to oppose this ****.
The leveson enquiry could have gone someway to helping this situation by starting to break up the media monopolies and holding the media to some sort of accountability, but what a surprise it was watered down, ignored and then quietly forgotten after giving the newspapers more powers and less oversite (the opposite of what was recommended). While Corbyn may not get elected because of little media and big business support. (Though people power and momentum are carrying him quite far). I cant see any of the others getting elected either as the left and moderates in the party (and all the people who have only become members to vote for corbyn) will leave in droves for the greens, ukip and the nationalist parties, and labour will have exactly the same issue they had in May with the undecided voters - namely why would people who like right wing policies (austerity-lite, tory-lite) vote for labour when they can vote for the Tories who do the same policies so much better?
