There is a conspiracy theory about nearly everything. So claims that swine flu was a scam come as no surprise. ‘This was a pandemic that never really was’ according to Paul Flynn, MP who prepared a recent report on the flu pandemic for the Council of Europe.1 The report expresses alarm about the way the pandemic was handled. It criticizes the proportionality of the response and argues that over reaction led to waste of public money, distortion of public health priorities and unjustified fears about health risks. It identifies ‘grave shortcomings’ in the transparency of decision-making processes and concerns about the influence of the pharmaceutical industry. The World Health Organization (WHO) comes in for particular criticism for failing to publish the declarations of interest of members of its Emergency Committee, the group advising director general Dr Margaret Chan on the pandemic response.
These themes are taken up by Cohen and Carter2 in the British Medical Journal. They found that key scientists had done paid work for pharmaceutical firms that stood to gain from advice they gave to WHO. However, declarations made by members of the Emergency Committee, and of other WHO committees that helped produce influenza preparedness plans, have never been disclosed by WHO. Even the identities of the 16 member Emergency Committee remain a closely guarded secret.
This article goes on to conclude that conflict of interest is not necessarily a problem, so long as it is accompanied by transparency.
It is then followed by a declaration of interest by the author;
Conflict of interest: M.R.E. is a member of the UK Scientific Pandemic Influenza Advisory Committee and the UK Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies.
In light of this transparency the article may now be re-read as simply ‘DON’T BLAME US – IT WAS THEM THAT DID IT!’.
The author discounts the conspiracies as merely a ‘cock-up’, yet notes above that “the identities of the 16 member Emergency Committee remain a closely guarded secret”. So how can a conspiracy be so easily discounted? It is certainly no simple ‘cock-up’ for GSK, Merck et al., whose coffers now bulge with extra billions of taxpayer’s hard-earned. For their part, it was carefully managed business run at state and global levels to ensure maximum profitability, as it always is. Please ensure you read this article on marketing HPV vaccine if you think otherwise.
So we are left with public health and public money being manipulated for the benefit of shareholders in Big Pharma as a result of actions (or inactions) and recommendations of unknown persons within an unaccountable advisory body known to have close links to… Big Pharma. Sound like a conspiracy yet?
John Pilger has an article at Lew Rockwell, saying that Tony Blair “must be prosecuted”. Anyone that has an interest in permanently stopping the war machine and ending the state knows that prosecuting Blair, as satisfying as that event might be, will do nothing to stop the war machine and its murderous intentions towards Iran.
Lets do it.
Tony Blair must be prosecuted, not indulged like his mentor Peter Mandelson.
I for one, am sick and tired of the soap opera of political personalities and the writers who promote it by talking about it. It hasn’t done anything to stop the war machine in the past, and it will not going forward. This sort of thinking distracts from getting to the solution, as people vent all their energy on hating a single individual instead of the war machine itself.
There are an unlimited supply of Blairs waiting to fill his shoes. Anything other than an idea to stop the next Blair from taking the levers of the war machine in his hands is a waste of time.
Both have produced self-serving memoirs for which they have been paid fortunes. Blair’s will appear next month and earn him £4.6 million. Now consider Britain’s Proceeds of Crime Act. Blair conspired in and executed an unprovoked war of aggression against a defenseless country, which the Nuremberg judges in 1946 described as the “paramount war crime.” This has caused, according to scholarly studies, the deaths of more than a million people, a figure that exceeds the Fordham University estimate of deaths in the Rwandan genocide.
I could not care less about how much money Blair makes from his memoirs. If the price of stopping the war machine for all time is that Blair becomes a multi billionaire, so be it.
This is nothing more than jealousy politics wrapped in a cloak of moral outrage over the genocide committed by Blair. Once again, this is a complete distraction from what sensible people should be thinking about; the next ‘Blair’ and Iran.
People like Pilger, by failing to get to the solution and distracting everyone with his brilliantly crafted exposés is actually a part of the problem. Like Tony Benn and StopWar, these people are not spreading the solution; they are diffusing the anger of the vast majority who are sick of war and want a stop put to it.
In addition, four million Iraqis have been forced to flee their homes and a majority of children have descended into malnutrition and trauma. Cancer rates near the cities of Fallujah, Najaf and Basra (the latter “liberated” by the British) are now revealed as higher than those at Hiroshima. “UK forces used about 1.9 metric tons of depleted uranium ammunition in the Iraq war in 2003,” the Defense Secretary Liam Fox told parliament on 22 July. A range of toxic “antipersonnel” weapons, such as cluster bombs, was employed by British and American forces.
We know all of this, and all of it is now irrelevant.
The only thing that matters is the next war and how it is to be stopped. Nothing can be done to de-poison Iraq, and an eloquent recital of the crimes committed there will do nothing to stop the attack on Iran. We know this, because similar writing was done before the Iraq colonisation for decades; from Agent Orange on the crimes of the war machine have been carefully documented and exposed. More exposure will not stop the next outrage. John Pilger, who is deeply experienced in all of this, knows this perfectly.
Such carnage was justified with lies that have been repeatedly exposed. On 29 January 2003, Blair told parliament, “We do know of links between al-Qaida and Iraq ….” Last month, the former head of the intelligence service, MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller, told the Chilcot inquiry, “There is no credible intelligence to suggest that connection … [it was the invasion] that gave Osama bin Laden his Iraqi jihad.” Asked to what extent the invasion exacerbated the threat to Britain from terrorism, she replied, “Substantially.”
Once again, BLAH BLAH BLAH.
The bombings in London on 7 July 2005 were a direct consequence of Blair’s actions.
Documents released by the High Court show that Blair allowed British citizens to be abducted and tortured. The then foreign secretary, Jack Straw, decided in January 2002 that Guantanamo was the “best way” to ensure UK nationals were “securely held.”
So what? Blair is out of office and Labour are not in government. What do you have to say about what is happening NOW and what is being planned NOW? And is what you say going to make any difference? These are the questions that need to be asked; these are the points that need to be made, not all of this emotion stoking garbage.
Instead of remorse, Blair has demonstrated a voracious and secretive greed.
Once again, who cares if Blair shows remorse? Will that bring back the dead, or clean up the mess he left behind? Will it stop Iran from suffering the same fate? Of course it will not; Pilger (an author himeself) only cares about how much money Blair is making through his lucrative publishing deals, “I do not murder anyone and I cannot sell the number of books Blair does. I am telling the truth, history is on my side, I have the moral high ground, why can I not sell as many books as a mass murderer? ITS NOT FAIR!”.
Since stepping down as prime minister in 2007, he has accumulated an estimated £20 million, much of it as a result of his ties with the Bush administration. The House of Commons Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, which vets jobs taken by former ministers, was pressured not to make public Blair’s “consultancy” deals with the Kuwaiti royal family and the South Korean oil giant UI Energy Corporation. He gets £2 million a year “advising” the American investment bank J P Morgan and undisclosed sums from financial services companies. He makes millions from speeches, including reportedly £200,000 for one speech in China.
More jealousy, more nonsense, all of it irrelevant to the next act of mass murder and none of it able to bring back a single life.
In his unpaid but expenses-rich role as the West’s “peace envoy” in the Middle East, Blair is, in effect, a voice of Israel, which awarded him a $1 million “peace prize.” In other words, his wealth has grown rapidly since he launched, with George W. Bush, the bloodbath in Iraq.
No mention of BDS which is the best way of making people change their ways. Why not? This article is a complete waste of time!
His collaborators are numerous. The Cabinet in March 2003 knew a great deal about the conspiracy to attack Iraq. Jack Straw, later appointed “justice secretary,” suppressed the relevant Cabinet minutes in defiance of an order by the Information Commissioner to release them. Most of those now running for the Labour Party leadership supported Blair’s epic crime, rising as one to salute his final appearance in the Commons. As foreign secretary, David Miliband, sought to cover Britain’s complicity in torture, and promoted Iran as the next “threat.”
So, what should be DONE about the personalities who are about to step into the cockpit of the war machine? We know they are all for mass murder, no matter what their names are. Stop wasting everyone’s time with the soap opera!
Journalists who once fawned on Blair as “mystical” and amplified his vainglorious bids now pretend they were his critics all along.
And if they were critics all along, what difference would that have made? None whatsoever.
As for the media’s gulling of the public, only the Observer’s David Rose, to his great credit, has apologized. The WikiLeaks’ exposés, released with a moral objective of truth with justice, have been bracing for a public force-fed on complicit, lobby journalism. Verbose celebrity historians like Niall Ferguson, who rejoiced in Blair’s rejuvenation of “enlightened” imperialism, remain silent on the “moral truancy,” as Pankaj Mishra wrote, “of [those] paid to intelligently interpret the contemporary world.”
All of this, except the Wikileaks exposé is irrelevant.
Apologies are irrelevant.
Journalists are irrelevant.
Historians are irrelevant.
The only thing that matters is what is going to happen next, and how it can be stopped. If it is true that the majority do not want more war, then war can be stopped. The massive march against the Iraq invasion showed that there are literally tens of millions of people in the UK alone who do not want any more war. The question is, what can they do (or more likely refrain from doing) to stop it.
We know that marching again would be totally pointless, and that for every one of the two million people who marched on that day, there were probably five people who would have gone but who did not make it. We wrote about this before.
Something oblique, unexpected, unstoppable, simple and effective needs to be unleashed. That is the only way an attack on Iran will be stopped. What is for sure is that this strategy will never come from a journalist or a historian.
Wikileaks has demonstrated that it is possible to damage the war machine. So effective is its operation, run by a handful of people with almost no money at all, that there have been open calls for its public face to be assassinated.
That is what we need; a harnessing of all the tools we have to hand to make it impossible for the war machine to operate. Wikileaks does what it does without marching, demonstrating, picketing or any of the other now discredited 20th Century methods of changing the world.
Even in the face of this revolution, the Pilgers of this world keep harping on like its 1999.
Is it wishful thinking that Blair will be collared? Just as the Cameron government understands the “threat” of a law that makes Britain a risky stopover for Israeli war criminals, a similar risk awaits Blair in a number of countries and jurisdictions, at least of being apprehended and questioned. He is now Britain’s Kissinger, who has long planned his travel outside the United States with the care of a fugitive.
If Blair is collared, then what? All of the above still applies, and if Kissinger is a war criminal, and you compare Blair to Kissinger, then Blair has a long life of influence and wealth ahead of him, no matter what you say or write.
Two recent events add weight to this. On 15 June, the International Criminal Court made the landmark decision of adding aggression to its list of war crimes to be prosecuted. This is defined as a “crime committed by a political or military leader which by its character, gravity and scale constituted a manifest violation of the [United Nations] Charter.” International lawyers described this as a “giant leap.” Britain is a signatory to the Rome statute that created the court and is bound by its decisions.
But not retroactively, and its over broad, as what is or is not a ‘crime’ is open to debate (dumping the dollar might be construed as an act that in its character, gravity and scale could be construed as a ‘crime’ by some). Statists want more state power knowing (or not) that this leads to more war, more aggression as people are forced to conform to artificial ‘norms of society’.
On 21 July, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, standing at the Commons despatch box, declared the invasion of Iraq illegal. For all the later “clarification” that he was speaking personally, he had made “a statement that the international court would be interested in,” said Philippe Sands, professor of international law at University College London.
I have a new phrase to describe Pilger, StopWar and all the other well meaning statists who incessantly whine about the war machine without offering any solutions ‘The Cathartics‘. I like it!
The Cathartics grasp onto any word or slip of the tongue and then scream and shout about it like it means something when it means precisely nothing. The House of Commons is the one of the centre stages of the soap opera, and Pilger quoting lines from its script is no better than a scarf wearing washer woman recounting what happened on Coronation street last night as if it were real.
Tony Blair came from Britain’s upper middle classes who, having rejoiced in his unctuous ascendancy, might now reflect on the principles of right and wrong they require of their own children. The suffering of the children of Iraq will remain a specter haunting Britain while Blair remains free to profit.
Blair, reflecting on what he did means nothing. What Pilger actually means is he should feel ashamed of making so much money out of his publishing deal and post PM contracts. Get over it Pilger; Blair lining his pockets is not the problem.
As for the principles of right and wrong he requires of his own children, that is an entirely personal matter that is also, not the problem, and I guarantee you that Blair is not haunted in any way by what he did. He believes that what he did was of benefit in the long run, and nothing you can say will change that. Finally, venting jealousy is a poor substitute for a solution to the end of the war machine.
What a total waste of time; Lew Rockwell, one of the biggest websites in the world, where articles are not only read but copied, re-posted and emailed by the millions; a platform of extraordinary reach, has been used by this man to spew a completely pointless jealous rage piece, repeating what everyone already knows about Iraq, singularly failing to mention even a single possible solution to the next war crime. Even offering a bad solution would be better than nothing. Not a single hyperlink to any resource that could help stop the possible attack on Iran… but there is a link to Amazon so you can buy his book.
If the attack on Iran is to be stopped, do not look to John Pilger for an answer. It will emerge from the internets via social networks, and then, all of a sudden, the war machine will be shut down.
What we are waiting for is a text; a small piece of writing containing the very simple instructions that everyone needs to follow to bring down the machine. The idea is coalescing in the mind of someone somewhere, and soon, it will arrive in your inbox, or in your timeline and it will hit you with its simplicity and its beauty. You will commit to doing it and you will forward it to all your friends and re-tweet it, and the machine will die on that day.
Tony Benn, war enabler and thief has a piece over in the Grauniad that simply cannot be allowed to stand:
The time to organise resistance is now
We reject these cuts as simply malicious ideological vandalism, hitting the most vulnerable the hardest. Join us in the fight
Gravity is not an ideology, it is a fact. In this matter, the fact is that the state is STEALING money from the productive to disburse as it sees fit. This is theft, pure and simple. It is immoral and unacceptable to decent people.
It is time to organise a broad movement of active resistance to the Con-Dem government’s budget intentions. They plan the most savage spending cuts since the 1930s, which will wreck the lives of millions by devastating our jobs, pay, pensions, NHS, education, transport, postal and other services.
What has wrecked the lives of millions is SOCIALISM. The STATE is responsible for all the ills that have been suffered in the twentieth century, and thanks to the internet, everyone can now see that this is the case.
There is no such thing as ‘our jobs’ jobs are created by entrepreneurs, not the state. They are not collective property; they are the property of the people who create them. Pay is what is due to people who do work. The rate of pay is a private matter between employer and the employed. The state should have no say in that private contract whatsoever. Education is not the business of the state; it is not a right, but is in reality, a good like Health Care. Transport is also no business of the state, and niether is the delivery of anything, including the post, and any other service, like the internet, which some deluded people want to claim is a right.
The government claims the cuts are unavoidable because the welfare state has been too generous. This is nonsense. Ordinary people are being forced to pay for the bankers’ profligacy.
This is a straw man argument. It is completely wrong that anyone other than the shareholders and depositors in banks were made to bail out the banks. In a properly functioning country, no one would be forced to pay for a bailout, or other people’s food or anything else, and the fact that this has happened is no excuse for more organized theft by the state.
The £11bn welfare cuts, rise in VAT to 20%, and 25% reductions across government departments target the most vulnerable – disabled people, single parents, those on housing benefit, black and other ethnic minority communities, students, migrant workers, LGBT people and pensioners.
It is absolutely wrong that the state should levy a ‘value added tax’. This is an unjustifiable interposition in the private transactions of individuals. As for that shopping list of people who are going to suffer because of these cuts, they would not be suffering at all if everyone were free to interact economically with 100% of their money, and those that were left out would be take care of by charity.
One thing is for sure, Labour and socialism has utterly failed to produce the prosperity that they promise again and again, and they will never be able to produce it. All they can do is destroy capital, technology and redistribute wealth by force.
If their ideas were great, people would voluntarily finance them. The fact is that people who are creative and productive see their sham for what it is, and run from it like horses run from fire.
Women are expected to bear 75% of the burden. The poorest will be hit six times harder than the richest. Internal Treasury documents estimate 1.3 million job losses in public and private sectors.
The ‘public sector’ is entirely parasitic. Those jobs are not real jobs; they are invented by government and financed by people who are productive in the real economy.
What happens in the ‘private sector’ or the real economy, is not the affair of the state, and if the state had no power to interfere in the real economy, it would be many times more prosperous, with greater opportunities for both job seekers and entrepreneurs.
We reject this malicious vandalism and resolve to campaign for a radical alternative, with the level of determination shown by trade unionists and social movements in Greece and other European countries.
You cant make stuff like this up.
This man is a representative of the most malicious, vindictive, destructive and anti-human philosophy ever known to man. They are violent thieves who steal money from the productive to give away to their friends and to finance their hair brained schemes.
What do they mean by ‘radical alternative’? What can it possibly mean other than more theft, more wealth redistribution, a return to Orwellian bureaucracy and everything evil that all the British are fed up to the teeth with?
These people understand NOTHING about economics and money. Even a child can be made to understand it if they read the right books.
And as for other European countries, Britain is not a European country. Everyone has had ENOUGH of Europe and its insane policies, and rioting like the Greek parasites will only destroy the infrastructure that you need to steal the billions you are craving for like the vampires you are.
I have a feeling that Tony Benn and his band of modern day Robin Hood criminals are going to find that everyone hates them, will not tolerate being stolen from by them, and will push back against them with such ferocity that they will be knocked over.
This government of millionaires says “we’re all in it together” and “there is no alternative”. But, for the wealthy, corporation tax is being cut, the bank levy is a pittance, and top salaries and bonuses have already been restored to pre-crash levels.
Like it or not, it is the millionares and everyone beneath them that owns and runs a business that creates all the wealth in any country. They should be cherished, free to operate their businesses as they see fit, without any interference from the state of any kind. If you want to start a union, that is entirely your absolute right; but the owners of businesses also have rights, and yours do not trump theirs.
This is the principle, that everyone has the same rights, that Tony Benn cannot accept. His position, in his mind, is one of superiority. His rights trump all others. The rights of his friends and followers trump the rights of all others.
He is DEAD WRONG.
An alternative budget would place the banks under democratic control, and raise revenue by increasing tax for the rich, plugging tax loopholes, withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, abolishing the nuclear “deterrent” by cancelling the Trident replacement.
Banks are private property. What Benn is advocating is that the banks be nationalised, STOLEN from their owners if you will. Once again, the word ‘democratic’ is being used as a synonym for ‘fair’, ‘just’, ‘honest’, and ‘good’ when it is none of those things. Democratic control means control of the mob, against the wishes of the owners of property. That is THEFT, IMMORAL and EVIL.
Raising revenue by increasing tax for the rich is just theft. There should be no taxation by the state, full stop. The state should not be engaged in wars of aggression, no matter where they are being fought. And without a state, there would be no money for a nuclear deterrent unless everyone voluntarily wanted to pay for one, which I doubt would ever happen.
All of our problems come from the state, and people like Tony Benn, who control it.
An alternative strategy could use these resources to: support welfare; develop homes, schools, and hospitals; and foster a green approach to public spending – investing in renewable energy and public transport, thereby creating a million jobs.
Oppose cuts and privatisation in our workplaces, community and welfare services.
Those workplaces do not belong to you, they belong to the people who created them you THIEF! The welfare services you claim are yours are financed by money you STEAL.
Fight rising unemployment and support organisations of unemployed people.
Fighting rising unemployment can only be done correctly by freeing business to do what it does best, creating jobs, capital and progress. We do not need you, or the state to make this magic happen.
Develop and support an alternative programme for economic and social recovery.
There is no alternative to reality. Money and human nature are fixed. Go and read about it.
Oppose all proposals to “solve” the crisis through racism and other forms of scapegoating.
And no scapegoating of the people who create the jobs you want so badly, the ‘rich’!
Liaise closely with similar opposition movements in other countries.
No matter how many people you gather together in your bogus and immoral cause, you will still be bogus and immoral.
Organise information, meetings, conferences, marches and demonstrations.
Support the development of a national co-ordinating coalition of resistance.
That sounds to me like a call to arms to all thieves. Absolutely appalling. They want more theft, more immoral redistribution of wealth, more tyranny, more bureaucracy, a bigger hungrier state, more control over business. Just how stupid can people be?
It seems that there is no limit.
We urge those who support this statement to attend the Organising Conference on 27 November 2010 (10am-5pm), at Camden Centre, Town Hall, London, WC1H 9JE.
Great numbers of people failed to see it coming. “My relations and friends were stupid. They didn’t understand what inflation meant. Our solicitors were no better. My mother’s bank manager gave her appalling advice,” said one well-connected woman.
“You used to see the appearance of their flats gradually changing. One remembered where there used to be a picture or a carpet, or a secretaire. Eventually their rooms would be almost empty. Some of them begged — not in the streets — but by making casual visits. One knew too well what they had come for.”
Corruption became rampant. People were stripped of their coat and shoes at knife-point on the street. The winners were those who — by luck or design — had borrowed heavily from banks to buy hard assets, or industrial conglomerates that had issued debentures. There was a great transfer of wealth from saver to debtor, though the Reichstag later passed a law linking old contracts to the gold price. Creditors clawed back something.
A conspiracy theory took root that the inflation was a Jewish plot to ruin Germany. The currency became known as “Judefetzen” (Jew- confetti), hinting at the chain of events that would lead to Kristallnacht a decade later.
While the Weimar tale is a timeless study of social disintegration, it cannot shed much light on events today.
[…]
My emphasis.
Cannot shed much light on events today?
This is so irrational, contradictory and ridiculous that we could be forgiven for concluding that Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is working under the constraints of a D-Notice, preventing him from spelling out explicitly what is about to take place for fear of the disruption that would ensue, should the emperor’s naked state be publicly declared.
What he has done in this article is the next best thing; he obliquely spelled out the precise nature of what is going to happen in the USA, UK and all over Europe should hyperinflation suddenly kick in, and then put in a disclaimer right at the end of the section, to indemnify himself and get past the Telegraph editors.
That is the only explanation for this line. All of the factors are here for an inevitable hyperinflationary event. The parallels to the German hyperinflation are eerily similar, including the mass ignorance of what inflation is, what money is, etc etc.
So, what should you do to protect yourself from this coming hyperinflation? Evans-Pritchard tells you in this section:
Foreigners with dollars, pounds, Swiss francs, or Czech crowns lived in opulence. They were hated. “Times made us cynical. Everybody saw an enemy in everybody else,” said Erna von Pustau, daughter of a Hamburg fish merchant.
[…]
The message is clear; you need to hold currencies other than the ones that are about to go critical mass in a hyperinflationary spiral. You need to own gold. You need to own Swiss Francs. You should not own the Euro and under no circumstances, should you own the Federal Reserve Note (the ‘US Dollar’).
So what about the Pound Sterling? What are its characteristics, and why does Evans-Pritchard believe that it is immune from hyperinflation? Why has Evans-Pritchard completely (deliberately?) ignored the Pound and its nature in this discussion? He says:
This is not a picture of America, or Britain, or Europe in 2010.
Why not? What is the precise difference between the money used in the Weimar hyperinflation and the US Dollar, or for that matter the Zimbabwe Dollar (which no longer exists)?
The answer is that there is no difference.
Now, lets do what Evans-Pritchard is apparently forbidden from doing, using only the Google, and ask a fundamental question.
The contemporary sterling is a fiat currency which is backed only by securities; in essence IOUs from the Treasury that represent future income from the taxation of the population. Some economists term this ‘currency by trust’ as sterling relies on the faith of the user rather than any physical specie.
The bank of England has outsourced the manufacturing of its notes to the private company De La Rue:
De La Rue announces that it has been selected by the Bank of England to be its preferred banknote printing supplier. This follows an announcement by the Bank today that it has decided to contract out its banknote printing operations at Debden, Essex, to a commercial company. This will enable the Bank to lower the costs of the supply of its banknotes, while for staff it opens up the possibility of bringing in more work to Debden.
So. In five minutes we discover that the pound is worth precisely nothing. It can be printed at will in any quantity the Bank of England desires for any purpose that the state chooses, without any constraints whatsoever.
If you also factor in fractional reserve banking where UK banks are legally permitted to create money at will, you have a system, just like the one about to implode in the USA, the Federal Reserve System, that cannot possibly be immune to collapse.
If Sterling is immune from collapse, I would like to know precisely how it is different to every other paper money fiat currency that has ever existed.
Did you know that:
At heart, this economic crisis is in fact a currency crisis. Throughout history no paper currency (or “fiat currency”, since it is accepted as money by virtue of Government fiat or decree) has survived, and this time will be no different. The average lifespan of fiat currencies has been 16 years*. The present system is unique in that it has survived for 38 years and for the first time ALL countries throughout the world are on a fiat money standard. This means that the resulting crash will be on the scale of something the world has never seen.
All of the countries in this list experienced government created hyperinflation in the twentieth century. If each of these countries had not had government monopolies on the creation of money and legal tender laws, opting instead for a completely market driven commodity money system of currencies created by entrepreneurs whose business it is to manufacture money, they would not have experienced this problem. The sole exception in the above list in terms of the century of hyperinflation is the USA which had its experience in the nineteenth century, so they are about to have a second experience of it.
This is what Ambrose Evans-Pritchard will not touch in his articles… and its understandable why he does not touch upon this matter. Why should he do anything that might precipitate the inevitable collapse of Sterling? What can he possibly gain from telling the truth that anyone who is reading his article, and who therefore can use the Google, can access for themselves? He will only be made a scapegoat for the collapse which is going to happen wether he writes about it or not. We have all seen how governments and the press will use anything and any person as scapegoat to deflect blame from the true causes of a ‘financial crisis’.
Pity is what you should feel for Ambrose Evans-Pritchard. He is caught between a rock and a hard place, knowing the inevitable, desperate to warn everyone but unable to do so, either because of orders from above or his instinct for self preservation.
An article from Activist Post has gone demi viral. It lists the top ten ways the ever-present collectivist ‘we’ are being tracked.
It has some good points in it, but as usual there are two sides to every story, and that article only gives one side; the side of the omnipotent, ill defined ‘Big Brother’ abusing the little people.
Here is the other side; how you can avoid being tracked, the reality of this ‘tracking’ and who is truly responsible for these abuses.
GPS — Global positioning chips are now appearing in everything from U.S. passports, cell phones, to cars. More common uses include tracking employees, and for all forms of private investigation. Apple recently announced they are collecting the precise location of iPhone users via GPS for public viewing in addition to spying on users in other ways.
First of all, RFID is not the same as GPS. The article linked from this section, from 2005, says only that the US is requiring RFID in passports. The fact of the matter is that ‘your’ passport (many countries assert that the passport remains the property of the issuing government, even after you pay for it to be issued to you), if it has an RFID chip in it, and if that chip is broken, is still acceptable, world-wide, as a travel document. The danger from an RFID passport is that people can copy its contents (your picture and personal details) without touching the passport. You can stop this by hammering your passport as soon as it is issued to you. Of course, as you travel, the secondary ways of registering your entry and exit from a country kick in. But the RFID part can be nullified. You CAN take control of that aspect.
Now for the ‘GPS’ that GSM phones use. Some phones have a true GPS chip in them that uses the Global Positioning System. iPhones like the iPhone 3 and iPhone 4 have it, the iPhone 2G does not. The iPhone 2G and phones that do not have a GPS chip in them use triangulation, or Mobile Phone Locating. In either case, if you do not want anyone to know where you are, you can either refrain from using mobile phones or turn the phone off when you are not using it. Knowing your location is a trade off for the utility of having a mobile phone. The choice is yours wether or not you accept this trade off.
Internet — Internet browsers are recording your every move forming detailed cookies on your activities. The NSA has been exposed as having cookies on their site that don’t expire until 2035. Major search engines know where you surfed last summer, and online purchases are databased, supposedly for advertising and customer service uses. IP addresses are collected and even made public. Controversial websites can be flagged internally by government sites, as well as re-routing all traffic to block sites the government wants to censor. It has now been fully admitted that social networks provide NO privacy to users, while technologies for real-time social network monitoring are already being used. The Cybersecurity Act attempts to legalize the collection and exploitation of your personal information. Apple’s iPhone also has browsing data recorded and stored. All of this despite the overwhelming opposition to cybersurveillance by citizens.
Internet browsers can be set to not “record your every move”. They do not “form” cookies. A cookie is a file containing information placed by websites on your computer. You can set your browser to reject all cookies, and all modern browsers have this ability. If you do not want the NSA to put cookies on your computer, then do not visit websites owned by the NSA, or do so from a computer that is not your own. Even if you do visit a website owned by the NSA, and they set a cookie with an expiry date of 2035, you can delete it from your computer. The same goes for major search engines. If you do not want your IP address to be recorded by a website, use a proxy service to change your IP before you surf to sites that you do not trust.
If you have concerns about browser security, you should not, under any circumstances, use Internet Explorer from Microsoft. Use instead, either Firefox or Google Chrome. Both of these browsers are free, it is easy to migrate to them, and so you have no excuse whatsoever not to use them. Google Chrome even has an ‘incognito’ mode, which:
For times when you want to browse in stealth mode, for example, to plan surprises like gifts or birthdays, Google Chrome offers the incognito browsing mode. Here’s how the incognito mode works:
Webpages that you open and files downloaded while you are incognito aren’t recorded in your browsing and download histories.
All new cookies are deleted after you close all incognito windows that you’ve opened.
Changes made to your Google Chrome bookmarks and general settings while in incognito mode are always saved.
And since these browsers are Open Source, they are less likely to be compromised by your enemies to spy on you with built in back doors.
Controversial websites can be flagged internally by government sites, as well as re-routing all traffic to block sites the government wants to censor.
Governments can flag sites all they like. This has no effect on you being tracked. Even China cannot block sites that it wants to censor, so this is simply not the case, and once again, has nothing to do with tracking you.
You should not use social networking sites in a way that will compromise your security. Do not post photos of yourself, for example. Photos of you and your friends can and will be scanned with facial recognition software, putting names to faces for anyone who has the money to pay the social networking provider for access to your network of friends. Scrips erint.
UPDATE: Told you so: Billionaire entrepreneur Marc Cuban has just invested in a facial recognition startup that has the explicit aim of harvesting identified, recognised and tagged faces of users from Facebook to create an application that will be able to identify you via cameras owned by the company that are placed in stores, in hotels, and on billboards. Just like these scenes from Minority Report.
UPDATE NUMBER 2
Details of 100m Facebook users collected and published: Personal details of 100m Facebook users have been collected and published on the net by a security consultant.
Ron Bowes used a piece of code to scan Facebook profiles, collecting data not hidden by the user’s privacy settings.
The list, which has been shared as a downloadable file, contains the URL of every searchable Facebook user’s profile, their name and unique ID.
Mr Bowes said he published the data to highlight privacy issues, but Facebook said it was already public information.
The file has spread rapidly across the net.
On the Pirate Bay, the world’s biggest file-sharing website, the list was being distributed and downloaded by more than 1,000 users.
One user, going by the name of lusifer69, described the list as “awesome and a little terrifying”.
Download the file of 100,000,000 Facebook users for yourself Even if you were smart enough to set your Facebook profile to private, your friends who were not so smart have exposed your details simply by being ‘friends’ with you.
END UPDATE
Once again, the iPhone’s ability to store a list of the sites you have visited is something that you can erase. You cannot erase the GSM internet access providers list of sites you have visited of course. If you volunteer to use these services, that is the price you have to pay. Your duty is to know this, understand that you have a choice, and then to make an informed choice.
RFID — Forget your credit cards which are meticulously tracked, or the membership cards for things so insignificant as movie rentals which require your SSN. Everyone has Costco, CVS, grocery-chain cards, and a wallet or purse full of many more. RFID “proximity cards” take tracking to a new level in uses ranging from loyalty cards, student ID, physical access, and computer network access. Latest developments include an RFID powder developed by Hitachi, for which the multitude of uses are endless — perhaps including tracking hard currency so we can’t even keep cash undetected. (Also see microchips below).
Credit cards are a voluntary service provided by private companies. No one would use them if the credit card companies did not keep a list of all the money you had spent on them. These lists are an essential part of the credit card service. What the companies do with that list, above and beyond keeping it for the purposes of accounting is another matter entirely of course, but the core fact remains that you are not obliged to use a credit card and so any tracking that emerges from it is something you are entering into voluntarily.
If you have an SSN (and many people do not) it is up to you to refuse to divulge it to anyone. If you believe that your privacy is worth less than the value of a movie rental, then that decision is yours, and you cannot blame anyone but yourself if your SSN and its associated details appears in databases where it should not.
It is not factually correct to say that, “Everyone has Costco, CVS, grocery-chain cards, and a wallet or purse full of many more”. Many people do not carry these cards, precisely because they are aware of the privacy implications. Those people who have chosen to carry those cards do so because they are getting a financial benefit from them. They have traded their privacy for a small amount of money or convenience. They may not have made an informed choice, but nevertheless, they have voluntarily entered into an agreement with a private company. If you do not want people to know what you are spending your money on, you must choose not to carry these cards.
Student ID is once again, a voluntary contract between the student and an educational institution. Physical access (I assume, in the workplace) is once again, part of the terms of a contract between you and your employer. Neither of these is compulsory.
RFID powder embedded in currency is an entirely bad thing. Sound money is the private property of the rightful owner of it, and banknotes that are the property of the state, even though you have earned that money, are illegitimate on their face. This is quite apart from the fact that Fiat Currencies are entirely counterfeit and inherently immoral.
If you do not want to have your money tracked, you should first understand what money is, buy gold to store your savings and support all efforts to remove the power to create money out of the hands of the state, by rejecting paper money. ‘We’ can keep cash undetected. Once again, there are ways to stop the state and its agents from tracking you; you simply have to understand what it is you are doing and then stop doing what is harmful to you.
Traffic cameras — License plate recognition has been used to remotely automate duties of the traffic police in the United States, but have been proven to have dual use in England such as to mark activists under the Terrorism Act. Perhaps the most common use will be to raise money and shore up budget deficits via traffic violations, but uses may descend to such “Big Brother” tactics as monitors telling pedestrians not to litter as talking cameras already do in the UK.
Computer cameras and microphones — The fact that laptops — contributed by taxpayers — spied on public school children (at home) is outrageous. Years ago Google began officially to use computer “audio fingerprinting” for advertising uses. They have admitted to working with the NSA, the premier surveillance network in the world. Private communications companies already have been exposed routing communications to the NSA. Now, keyword tools — typed and spoken — link to the global security matrix.
Public sound surveillance — This technology has come a long way from only being able to detect gunshots in public areas, to now listening in to whispers for dangerous “keywords.” This technology has been launched in Europe to “monitor conversations” to detect “verbal aggression” in public places. Sound Intelligence is the manufacturer of technology to analyze speech, and their website touts how it can easily be integrated into other systems.
Now we come to an important distinction that must be made when we think about theses systems. It is the distinction between the state and the private.
The things that you allow the state to do to you in its capacity as the holder of a monopoly on violence are completely different to your voluntarily entering into contracts with private companies.
If you do not understand this distinction, then you do not understand the proper role of government and your relationship to it. You can be confused by the simple distinction between the problem of the state knowing everything about your shopping habits, and the fact that your supermarket loyalty card firm knows all of your shopping habits through your voluntary interaction with it.
It must be said also, that if you are caught by one of these systems, you have the option of simply not paying whatever fine they write down on paper and post to you. Every day in London, which is ringed by a ‘Congestion Charge Zone’, many tens of thousands of people simply refuse to pay without any consequence whatsoever. Diplomats do not pay of course, but here I am talking about ‘ordinary’ people who simply ignore the fines and notices that are sent to them. This story is kept out of the news because it is well understood that if everyone knew that a significant number of people were not paying, the system would collapse. And by system, I mean the fact that out of every eight pounds charged to drivers, only three pounds is sent to the state. The London Congestion Charge is nothing more than a racket designed to fleece drivers, and a pretext to give police real time access to the details of every car entering central London.
ANPR is a problem that goes to the root of how countries are run and private property. This is something you need to think carefully about as you spray ‘your’ number plate.
The same is true for CCTV cameras. The new government in the UK is making sounds that it wants to roll back this nightmare, but the same general attributes apply; these cameras do not prevent crime of any kind and are an affront to all decent people. Just how corrosive these cameras are is made clear when you step off of a plane into a country where there is no CCTV. The presence of cameras everywhere is oppressive, dehumanising and completely at odds with a free country.
The fact that laptops — contributed by taxpayers — spied on public school children (at home) is outrageous.
What is outrageous in this case is that people have had money stolen from them to provide laptops to other people. If you accept a stolen laptop in this way, with all the conditions attached to it, then you have only yourself to blame, for entering into an immoral contract with the state.
You are not obliged to use Google’s services. If they track you, it is because you consent to being tracked by them.
Your traffic going through NSA scanners is a part of how the internet works. If you do not want anyone to read your traffic, then you are at liberty to encrypt your connection and communications, using any of the many free tools that are readily available. You will then have the benefit of the internet without the surveillance of the content of your communications.
There is no excuse for not encrypting your communications, and it is unacceptable for thinking people to continually complain about email privacy when easy to use and unbreakable military grade tools are available to use for free.
Public sound surveillance, like CCTV is an immoral affront, and all instances of it should be met with whatever civil disobedience is required to have it permanently stopped.
Biometrics — The most popular biometric authentication scheme employed for the last few years has been Iris Recognition. The main applications are entry control, ATMs and Government programs. Recently, network companies and governments have utilized biometric authentication including fingerprint analysis, iris recognition, voice recognition, or combinations of these for use in National identification cards.
Iris scanning for entry control is done by employers. You should not enter into contracts with employers who use these systems. If a bank requires your fingerprint to provide services to you, then you should close your account if they refuse to accept your custom on terms that are satisfactory to you. Government programmes that involve compulsory fingerprinting should be met by civil disobedience and absolute refusal. As for National Identification cards, readers of this blog know our record in this regard.
DNA — Blood from babies has been taken for all people under the age of 38. In England, DNA was sent to secret databases from routine heel prick tests. Several reports have revealed covert Pentagon databases of DNA for “terrorists” and now DNA from all American citizens is databased. Digital DNA is now being used as well to combat hackers.
Microchips — Microsoft’s HealthVault and VeriMed partnership is to create RFID implantable microchips. Microchips for tracking our precious pets is becoming commonplace and serves to condition us to accept putting them in our children in the future. The FDA has already approved this technology for humans and is marketing it as a medical miracle, again for our safety.
The blood taken in the ‘heel prick tests’ the author is talking about is for the Guthrie Test . What they do not tell you when this test is done upon the birth of your baby is that these blots of blood on paper cards are then used for purposes other than the single purpose of testing for diseases. They are stored in ‘DNA Banks’ for who knows what uses.
Digital DNA is something that has nothing to do with biology, and it should not be conflated with human DNA and the implications of its misuse.
The same goes for implantable RFID chips; this should not appear with and has nothing to do with DNA, but is in fact related to passports.
This is not nitpicking. It is crucially important, as the pace of innovation accelerates, that anyone with any concern for their privacy be able to distinguish between different entities and disciplines properly. If you do not know the difference between “Digital DNA” and the double helix that can be used to identify you, then you are less likely to be able to understand what is meant when someone claims that when you touch a keyboard in an internet cafe, your DNA can be used to identify you.
Facial recognition — Anonymity in public is over. Admittedly used at Obama’s campaign events, sporting events, and most recently at the G8/G20 protests in Canada. This technology is also harvesting data from Facebook images and surely will be tied into the street “traffic” cameras.
All of this is leading to Predictive Behavior Technology — It is not enough to have logged and charted where we have been; the surveillance state wants to know where we are going through psychological profiling. It’s been marketed for such uses as blocking hackers. Things seem to have advanced to a point where a truly scientific Orwellian world is at hand. It is estimated that computers know to a 93% accuracy where you will be, before you make your first move. Nanotech is slated to play a big role in going even further as scientists are using nanoparticles to directly influence behavior and decision making.
Facial recognition can best be described as a set of software tools that can be used recognise a face in a digital image. If you buy iPhoto 9, you can use these tools to help you organise your photos. Facial recognition is not bad in and of itself, in the same way that guns or hammers are not bad. All things can be put to bad uses, and facial recognition is just another tool.
CCTV combined with facial recognition in the hands of the state is a bad thing. Once the CCTV cameras are removed by mass civil disobedience, then facial recognition used in that system becomes a moot point. I have already covered the issue of the voluntary submission and cataloguing of your personal photos and information on Facebook and social networking sites.
Predictive Behavior technology can be likened to earthquake prediction technology. You can predict the arrival of ‘The Big One‘ down to the minute and second, but that will do nothing to stop the complete destruction of entire cities.
When the pressure of these compulsory totalitarian systems becomes too great, there will be a seismic event that will topple governments. With their systems, they may be able to time its coming, but they will not be able to prevent its consequences.
Above all, this is what people need to understand when they read fear-mongering pieces like this Activist Post pice. There is nothing the state can do in the face of total civil disobedience.
Many of us are asking: What would someone do with all of this information to keep us tracked, traced, and databased? It seems the designers have no regard for the right to privacy and desire to become the Controllers of us all.
You see? The fact is that no matter what data they collect, (most of it handed over and organised voluntarily by individuals) they cannot control everyone. There are not enough of them.
The beginning of the change will come when the people who believe that demonstrating is a useful tool wake up and realise that demonstrations are a form of control. When these millions turn their hands to tactics that are effective, non violent and with discreet ‘deliverables’ in the form of goals the ground will shake and all of these evil surveillance systems will be no more.
Wow! That Copenhagen package really worked. Global warming has been dramatically reversed. In fact, if Al Gore could see his way to turning the heat back up just a little, most of us would be deeply appreciative…
“Climate science” is the oxymoron of the century. There is not a city, town or hamlet in the country that has had its weather conditions correctly forecast, over periods as short as 12 hours, during the past week. This is the “exceptionally mild winter” that the climate change buffoons warned us would occur as a consequence of global warming. Their credibility is 20 degrees below zero.
Yet nothing shames them, nothing persuades them to come out of the bunker with their hands high and “fess up”. Patronisingly fobbing off the public with fabricated excuses has become second nature to them. Latterly they have been concocting alibis about the Gulf Stream to explain Britain’s Arctic conditions. Uh-huh? Is it the Gulf Stream that has frozen the Vistula and given Poland a temperature of –25C? Is it the Gulf Stream that has caused the worst blizzards in Beijing since 1951?
The entire Northern Hemisphere is frozen. The world looks like a Christmas pudding with icing on the top. That is completely normal, part of the random climate fluctuations with which our ancestors were familiar. Yet fraudulent scientists have gained millions of pounds by taking selective samples of natural climate change, whipping up a Grande Peur and using it to advance the cause of world government, state control and fiscal despoliation of citizens.
2010 should be the year when all that ends. It is time for Zero Tolerance of AGW fraudsters and their political masters. It is time to say: Green taxes? We won’t pay them. Nor will we vote for or permit to remain in office any politician or party that supports the AGW fraud. This year is one of those rare occasions when we have an opportunity to punish and control our political masters – provided Britons have the will to break with the two-party system.
You can start by refusing to pay for the ridiculous and pointless ‘energy efficiency’ certifications required by the EU for anyone who is renting or selling their house.
But why not go all the way? Why not refuse to pay this astronomically large and illegitimate debt that the governments have run up so that a small cabal of bankers can have money transferred to them?
The pressures that are mounting in the hearts of every man (as we can read in Gerald Warner’s piece above) are going to cause an explosion (or more accurately an implosion), bringing about the sudden end of the state. There need not be any violence or disruption; just like it happened in South Africa and East Germany, all of a sudden, it will all simply end and everyone will wake up in a very different place. This is coming. It is inevitable. The only thing that is unsure is what the shape of that place will be after it happens.
There is a comment on James Randi’s blog that is just too good to miss.
Those of you interested in science will be well aware of James Randi. He, like the deceased Phillip Klass and the ridiculous James Oberg, are Ostrich Posturers ‘First Class’ when it comes to things that they would simply rather not believe to be true, despite evidence to the contrary.
Now James Randi has committed blasphemy by denying AGW, and has been roasted for it. He is not the only one by the way, to have to suffer this astonishing and shabby behaviour.
I have no sympathy for him; you cannot pick and choose what you want to believe is true in the face of irrefutable evidence and call yourself a rational man, and that is exactly what James Randi has done in the past, and it is similar to what he is doing now by back-pedalling from a standpoint of pure logic on the subject of ‘Climate Change’ and the ‘scientists’ that promote it.
Now for some definitions:
Argument from authority
Argument from authority or appeal to authority is a logical fallacy, where it is argued that a statement is correct because the statement is made by a person or source that is commonly regarded as authoritative. The most general structure of this argument is:
Source A says that p.
Source A is authoritative.
Therefore, p is true.
This is a fallacy because the truth or falsity of the claim is not necessarily related to the personal qualities of the claimant, and because the premises can be true, and the conclusion false (an authoritative claim can turn out to be false). It is also known as argumentum ad verecundiam (Latin: argument to respect) or ipse dixit (Latin: he himself said it).
On the other hand, arguments from authority are an important part of informal logic. Since we cannot have expert knowledge of many subjects, we often rely on the judgments of those who do. There is no fallacy involved in simply arguing that the assertion made by an authority is true. The fallacy only arises when it is claimed or implied that the authority is infallible in principle and can hence be exempted from criticism.
This is the argument used by Eco loons who claim that AGW must be true “because a scientist says so”. Of course, the opposite is also true; just because a scientist says it isn’t true, we cannot accept that it is not true solely on the basis that it is a scientists that says so.
And now to the blog comment, here it is:
——-
What specifically WOULD you accept as evidence of global warming? What evidence science could uncover would you accept as proof that climate change is real?
Point ONE:/b] The appeal to authority fallacy is fully functional here because AGWers have not provided the tiniest piece of EVIDENCE for sustaining their HYPOTHESIS. It has been already falsified many times but religious AGWers still claim “they have evidence”. They are simply mistaking ASSUMPTIONS for evidence. They call “evidence” computer models projections. They are simply their programmer’s opinion. Let’s define it once and for all: GIGO. Models have been failing to project (not to mention “predict”) the last ten years plateau and decline in temperatures as shown in this IPCC AR4 graph has observed temperatures added showing the decline.
They have failed to prove any acceleration increase in sea levels. Actually, sea level increase rate was an average of 2.4 mm/year during the last 300 years, and has progressively reduced to 1.75 and 1.4 mm/year. That’s FACTUAL EVIDENCE.
I need no evidence to know and accept that climate changes, and does it continuously, in fact, it does it four times every year. And has been changing since Earth’s was created as ALL geological and paleoclimatic evidences show.
I have all evidences needed to know that the Earth’s temperatures have risen since the Little Ice Age, and all necessary evidences to know that during the 20th Century temperatures went up 4 times and down another four times, including the present temperature decline, while CO2 levels have risen in a lineal way, which PROVES its lack of correlation with temperatures, that is, that CO2 increases causes temperature increases as claimed by the AGWer’s hypothesis.
I would accept AGW Hypothesis could be right IF someone showed me that CO2 has the ability to increase surface temperatures more than 0.4 W/m2 with a doubling of its atmospheric concentration. Someone that proves to me that CO2 has not logarithmic properties when increasing its concentration levels as shown in Australian astronomer David Archibald’s graph.
Someone who can prove that during the last glacial termination CO2 DID NOT[7B] increase between 600-800 years after temperatures increased, as demonstrated by Monnin et al, (2000), a peer reviewed study published in Science and not refuted until yesterday, which proves that CO2/temperatures correlation is 100% inverse to IPCC and warmers claims, that is, temperatures rise first, CO2 levels follow.
If you can provide me with SOME FACTUAL EVIDENCE, not ASSUMPTIONS, PROJECTIONS, CLAIMS, or press releases, then I will admit AGW is real. Meanwhile, enjoy a proof of why the forcing theory as by the IPCC idea is completely flawed:
the temperature record as read from this central Greenland ice core. It gives us about as close as we can come to a direct, experimental measurement of temperature at that one spot for the past 50,000 years. As far as I know, the data are not adjusted according to any fancy computer climate model or anything else like that.
so in other words, these are the FACTS, as opposed to FRAUDULENTLY MANIPULATED DATA of the Phil Jones / Piltdown man school. If after reading that page (and everything else that is based on the facts) and you still believe in AGW, you have a problem, just like Phillip Klass, James Oberg, Carl Sagan, James Randi, Seth Schlockstack and all the other religious fanatics and science cultists out there who bury their heads in the sand, plug their ears with their fingers and say ‘LA LA LA LA LA I’M NOT LISTENINNNNNNG!!!!!’.
Finally, this guide to the debating tactics of fake sceptics is something that you need to have in the back of your mind whenever you read any newspaper, blog, blog comment or watch TV News (if you still do that).
Lydia Baker of Save the Children said world leaders had “effectively signed a death warrant for many of the world’s poorest children. Up to 250,000 children from poor communities could die before the next major meeting in Mexico at the end of next year.”
250,000 children could die next year from Global Warming or ‘Climate Change’?
Just what sort of sick and twisted people are these? Are they really this stupid, deluded and unhinged? If they are not, then they (and the Gruauniad editors who let this tripe go into print) must think that their readers are a bunch of total retards, who will believe any scaremongering alarm words that they print.
No one is going to die between now and the end of 2010 because of AGW or ‘Climate Change’. That is a LIE pure and simple.
Using the thought of children dying to promote AGW is just about as low as you can get. Saying that they are going to die NEXT YEAR because of it is beyond insane.
The Copenhagen Accord is based on a proposal tabled on Friday by a US-led group of five nations – including China, India, Brazil and South Africa – that President Barack Obama called a “meaningful agreement”.
The accord includes a recognition to limit temperature rises to less than 2C (3.6F)
“Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings. For there is none worthy of the name but God, whom heaven, earth and sea obey”.
So spoke King Canute the Great, the legend says, seated on his throne on the seashore, waves lapping round his feet. Canute had learned that his flattering courtiers claimed he was “So great, he could command the tides of the sea to go back”. Now Canute was not only a religious man, but also a clever politician. He knew his limitations – even if his courtiers did not – so he had his throne carried to the seashore and sat on it as the tide came in, commanding the waves to advance no further. When they didn’t, he had made his point that, though the deeds of kings might appear ‘great’ in the minds of men, they were as nothing in the face of God’s power. […]
Initial reports of 208 deaths between 1 June and 8 November2009 were received. Of these, 138 met the case definition asbeing related to pandemic A/H1N1. The others were excluded fromanalysis because the initial clinical suspicion was not borneout by investigation and hence the case definition was not met(n=56) or because they did not yet fulfil the case definitionbut death certification or results of postmortem tests wereoutstanding (n=14).An estimated 540 000 people (range 240 000-1 100 000) in Englandhad symptomatic pandemic A/H1N1 infection in the study period.With this denominator, the case fatality rate was 26 (11-66)deaths per 100 000 cases.
My emphasis.
So H1N1 flu is considerably less lethal than other pandemic strains. Also, the vaccine has been pushed at young adults and children as being particularly at risk. However, Sir Liam’s own statistical analysis concludes:
The paper showed the estimated death rate was lowest among children aged five to 14, with around 11 deaths per 100,000 population.
It was highest for those aged over 65, with 980 per 100,000.
So, mortality is 0.026%.
Or is it?
The Health Protection Agency has carried out studies looking for evidence of antibodies to H1N1, denoting exposure, in the general population and concludes that:
‘Normal’ flu has a symptomatic/asymptomatic ratio of around 1:1, which means only 50% of people who contract the virus will show any symptoms and end up on the statistical database as a flu victim. This ratio seems to be even lower with H1N1, with as few as 1 in 10 children (the “highest risk group”) showing symptoms. Therefore at least 2, and possibly up to 5, times as many people as estimated have had swine flu.
But! Sir Liam, in his BMJ study, only used confirmed cases of swine flu to work out the mortality rate. If we look at the current death toll of 283 as 0.026%, this implies around 1.08 million people have had swine flu.
If we factor in the other 50%-80% of non-reported cases, we end up with an actual mortality rate of 0.013% – 0.0052%. At the upper rate (0.013%) this means over 23 million people would need to get swine flu in order to generate 3000 deaths, which is at the lower end of the deaths from ‘normal’ winter flu.
In spite of this, we are still being treated to heart-string non-journalism like this, from state propagandists BBQ:
Despite seeming to state that she died from syptoms not normally associated with flu, but noted in many post-partum problems:
She was later transferred to London’s Royal Brompton Hospital for specialist treatment, but died on November 29 after developing complications including deep vein thrombosis and bleeding on her brain.
A personal and familial tradegy, yes. A reason to get every pregnant woman vaccinated, definitely no.
As a final aside on swine flu, around 70% of those people with symptoms have been given Tamiflu. Here is a nice report which suggests Tamiflu is… er… shit. More of your money wasted, scammed from an ignorant government into the pockets of BigPharma. Roche is also accused of hiding trials data on the effectiveness of Tamiflu. You can look it up. Scamiflu!
There is a common element to almost all the bad things that are and have been swirling around us for decades. Here are three examples.
We already know that ‘Global Warming‘ is junk science and a complete fraud. Now there are no doubts left for even the most ardent religious fanatic that spouts Anthropogenic Global Warming garbage or its latest incarnation ‘Climate Change’.
You can read the rundown at The Telegraph. Put plainly, these people have been caught with their pants down. They have been caught trying to nobble a scientific journal, deliberately leaving out data so that they can make their case and so on and so on; every single thing that honest scientists cannot do if they are to remain objective and true scientists, they have been caught doing.
This perversion of science and the truth is behind the Cap and Trade legislation that will destroy America’s economy. It powers the thinking behind the absurd ‘saved carbon’ displays that are attached to solar panels. (in this example one million pounds was spent on solar panels, whilst the castle itself is falling to pieces due to damp). It is behind the ridiculous and illogical ban on incandescent light bulbs. It is behind the absurd rainbow styled energy rating certificates that the EU mandates for all properties that are for rent or sale (the owner is forced to pay for inspection to get a certificate; a new burocrazy), and that even extend to devices. It is behind the proposed personal carbon trading schemes that will create an artificial economy based around ‘carbon’, where you will have to swipe an ID Card whenever you buy anything or travel anywhere.
These corrupt scientists have concocted a complex and difficult to penetrate lie, so that the world economy can be distorted and a few people can become billionaires in this new artificial economy that will sit on top of the real economy. They ignore the truth, suppress it and suppress and destroy the reputation of anyone that tries to uncover their lies so that they can personally benefit.
The same thing is happening with Education in the UK:
Government’s key adviser on Academies makes millions …from setting up Academies
A key Government adviser on Labour’s flagship City Academy scheme is now earning millions of pounds in fees from the taxpayer by setting up the controversial schools.
The scheme was at the centre of the so-called ‘cash for peerages’ scandal when police were called in to investigate claims that Labour was offering honours to businessmen who invested in the schools.
Now a series of leaked documents, obtained by The Mail on Sunday, reveal how the Government’s vision of local business helping to rescue failing schools has been replaced by fat-cat consultancy firms earning huge fees to set them up.
If you have been reading BLOGDIAL you already know that Home Education has been under serious and increasing threat for over five years, culminating in a scandalous, fallacious and vile report by Graham Badman, that, precisely like the Climate Change scientists involved in the scandal above, revolves around the misuse of statistics, fabrication, baseless opinion and fear mongering, all of which is designed to engineer legislation whose sole aim is totalitarian control over people who were previously at liberty to live as they chose, so that a few people can make money out of the existence of children.
This fear mongering was supported by evil social workers and fake charities (NSPCC) who all repeated lies about Home Education for the sole reason that it would provide them with unprecedented access to children for financial and other, more sinister purposes.
Finally we have the spectacle of ‘Lord’ Mandelson and his nauseating and corrupt intervention into the workings of the internet at the behest of the buggy whip wielding entertainment industry.
The frictionless distribution offered by the internet represents the greatest opportunity ever for artists to expose and profit from their work. Copyright was originally envisioned as a way to encourage creativity by guaranteeing the makers of works a short time period where they would have the exclusive power to control who can do what with copies of their works, after which, everyone would be able to exercise their property rights over the copies that they own.
Now copyright is a weapon that is being used to destroy the property rights of individuals, as well as the rights of speech of people world-wide.
This is being done by Mandelson at the direct command of the entertainment industry, who, if they could, would shut down the internet entirely to preserve their ancient and hopelessly broken business model.
These luddites (the book publishers and newspaper hacks are no better) would see the greatest invention since the Gutenberg Press crippled and made less useful, for no good reason at all, simply because they lack the skills and imagination to make use of it.
Now.
All of the matters above have one thing in common; the common stink that you smell whenever you encounter matters like this. That stink is the smell of THE STATE.
Without the state, none of these things could happen; they all rely on the state to ruin progress, rape, steal money and destroy life.
The monsters involved in Education rely on money from the state to do their evil with children. That includes the people who designed and sold ContactPoint, who are making money directly off of children. Without the state, there could be no ContactPoint contract.
The same goes for those academies; the contracts to create them could not exist without the state. Some argue that education itself would cease without the state running it. This is completely false.
Every evil to do with education comes out of the state’s involvement in it. The Home Education scandal in the UK is a direct result of the state provision of education, and compulsory schooling laws; were it not for that, there would be no ‘School Attendance Orders’ that could be issued to parents. If the state was not responsible for the education of anyone, which it should not be, the idea that Home Educators should be registered would never have arisen.
The state is the rotten smell behind it.
The blatantly corrupt and evil Mandelson, plainly and clearly acting at the behest of the entertainment industry, would not be able to create a new set of laws in addition to The Copyright and Patents Act if the state did not act on behalf of industry to facilitate the monopoly on ‘intellectual property’. As is made clear in the book in the previous link, we would all be better off in every sphere of life without copyrights and patents. The internet has partially demonstrated how a copyright free world could operate and bring huge benefits to everyone who consumes and creates works. If there were no state, there would be no threat of the crippling of the internet, and the even more astonishing threat of unlimited powers to do anything as long as it is in the service of protecting copyright.
The state is the rotten smell behind it.
The Anthropogenic Global Warming hoax, a scam second only to the Federal Reserve System in its magnitude, is another example of how in the absence of a state, scientists would have little (or at least different) incentives for falsifying data.
Without a state mandating widespread changes in how people voluntarily interact with each other, it would be impossible to build a business on a lie like ‘Carbon Capture’ or ‘Carbon Footprints’, or gain employment based on a lie. Artificial stimulus of industries to cater to this Climate Change lie could not exist; the capital used to create them would be diverted into places where it is needed. An example of this is, once again, the incandescent light bulb. Capital has been diverted away from improving it and into new, unpleasant, poisonous bulbs. The incandescent light bulb, had capital not been diverted away from developing it, would have greatly exceeded its current efficiency, if indeed, that is what the market required of manufacturers.
The fact is that since AGW is false, energy efficiency is not a priority with regard to ‘carbon emissions’. You may want to spend less money on your electricity bill, but that is an entirely different matter to the artificial, state created pressure put on the light bulb industry, powered by corrupt and lying scientists.
Once again, the state is the rotten smell behind it.
The only way that everyone will be free to live to their fullest potential, is in a situation where there is no state. There is no need for a state. There is no need for one to protect anyone, ensure anything, to educate anyone or to foster creativity. All of these assumptions, that a state is needed for these functions, is false.
You cannot, on the one hand, be for your own individual rights, but be for the banning of smoking, or the banning of hunting, for example. If you are for the banning of anything by the state, you are against whatever rights you wish to claim for yourself. If you are for the taxing of the rich, so that they pay ‘their fair share’ then you are against your own individual rights, and furthermore, you are an advocate of theft by violence, as are the people who insist that ‘something must be done’ about Home Education, or ‘pollution’, or file sharers. The people who advocate these things are all violent types, and there is no escaping it. All of this is an unavoidable fact, and many people are having a great crisis in their lives because they are being unconsciously confronted with the stark reality that they hold and espouse two conflicting beliefs simultaneously.
Before you can begin to think clearly, you have to address the root of a problem and then align your thinking correctly so that there are no contradictions. The outcome might be unpleasant, but in the end, it is the only way to develop a mode of thought that when it is applied to or tested against anything, returns the correct, and logically consistent answer every time, giving you an opportunity to get to a solution.
The state is the cause of everyone’s problems. It destroys or distorts everything it touches. The sooner it has been gotten rid of, the better. This is the fact, the unspeakable, unthinkable fact that you must come to understand if you are interested in your rights and the protection of them.
Originally, passengers had to remove their jackets when passing through airport security. Then it was belts, and soon shoes had to come off too. But those who feared that losing one’s trousers was the next logical step will find scant comfort in the news that an x-ray machine that produces “naked” images of passengers will be introduced at a British international airport today.
As well as enabling staff to instantly spot any hidden weapons or explosives, the full-body scanner being trialled at Manchester airport will leave little to the imagination of airport security staff. It will reveal a clear outline of passengers genitalia, as well as any false limbs, breast enlargements or body piercings.
It makes you wonder what evil the people at Manchester airport are supposed to have done to deserve this trial in addition to the requirement for staff to get biometric ID cards.
But of course an unfounded supposition of guilt would be no excuse for rolling out this sort of scheme and you know this.
You also know that it is part of the ‘security theatre’ to inure people to more intrusion into their lives. This was said at the time of removing belts and shoes and now we see the attempted introduction of this technology (for at least the second time). This incrementally increasing intrusion cannot be disputed, however it can and should be resisted.
The Guardian fails in questioning this (are the existing detection methods effective or already too onerous?) or alerting the general reader.
Travellers can refuse to undergo the virtual strip at Terminal 2 and choose a traditional “pat down” search instead, according to the airport, which admits that some travellers may feel uncomfortable about using the new technology.
This of course makes the system unable to enhance security. Another parroting fail too.
The scan’s black and white image will be seen by one officer in a remote location before it is deleted, said Sarah Barrett, head of customer experience at the airport.
The image will be transmitted across a computer network and (at least temporarily) stored in some form memory. The procedure will create of images of a very personal nature that are not under the control of the passenger and will be viewed by someone unknown.
Anyone being scanned is being asked to consent to someone else creating and owning the following property; an image of themselves unclothed to be viewed by an unknown third party in unknown circumstances. You know yourself whether this acceptable.
The transmission and ‘remote access’ of the images may be compromised, at the least the remote viewer may be able to take screenshots. The article does not mention a lower age limit.
Is the ‘head of customer experience’ the best person to ask about such technology? Guardian mega-fail.
“Most of our customers do not like the traditional ‘pat down’ search, they find it too intrusive, but they still want to be kept safe. This scanner completely takes away the hassle of needing to undress. The images are not erotic or pornographic and they cannot be stored or captured in any way,” she said.
What hassle of needing to undress? Why is an increased level of search required? Is it purely to remind passengers they are being ‘kept safe’ because they are now used to pat down procedures?
As passengers will not have to remove their coats, shoes or belts, the scanner will – in theory – speed up the check-in process. Frequent flyers will not be at risk from the low-level radiation, which is 20,000 times less powerful than a dental x-ray, Barrett said.
“Passengers can go through this machine 5,000 times a year each without worrying, it is super safe and the amount of radiation transmitted is tiny,” she said.
Hmm presumably this will be marketed to frequent flyers as a way to jump queues. Nothing like eager volunteers to make a trial run smoothly.
The scanners, made by the firm RapiScan Systems at a cost of £80,000 each, were trialled at Heathrow airport in 2004. The Department for Transport will decide whether to install them permanently at the end of the trial, which is expected to last for a year.
A nice little earner for the vendor. Now, this technology has been on trial since 2004 and not implemented, in the intervening period the actual ‘enhanced security’ at airports has not been compromised, so why exactly is it necessary to trial it again other than the vendor wants another bite at the cookie.
Why will the Department of Transport take the decision to install these devices rather than the Home Office? Is it because they know less about border control issues?
Electromagnetic waves are beamed on to passengers while they stand in a booth, and a virtual three-dimensional “naked” image is created from the reflected energy. Security officials in the US have pioneered the use of the scanners at New York and Los Angeles airports and they are gradually being introduced at other airports in the country.
What the US does is its own business and irrelevent to the argument.
In light of the death of a teenage girl in the UK following HPV vaccination* and the outrageously rapid PR campaign to take blame away from the vaccine [“The postmortem examination was carried out with unprecedented speed. That and the unusual step taken by Grainger in making a public announcement of the early results, not much more than a day after Natalie’s death, are a clear indication of the anxiety among public health officials over the potential threat to the national teenage vaccination programme.“], and the ongoing push towards H1N1 mass vaccinations, the following article is now essential reading. Before posting selected excerpts, please note that with regard to HPV vaccines –
There is no evidence that HPV vaccination protects against cervical cancer.
There is no evidence that the protection against HPV infection from vaccination lasts more than 6 years
There is concern that mass vaccination costing billions per annum will have no effect on cervical cancer rates or mortality
There is concern that women will reduce their Papanicolaou (smear) testing frequency once vaccinated, possibly increasing cancer rates
Vaccinating against HPV16 and HPV18 may leave a pathological niche which will be rapidly filled by other HPV strains to unknown effect.
These are not my opinions, they are those of the highest qualified physicians writing in the editorials of the best jourmals about HPV vaccine.
This HPV vaccine was approved by the US Food and Drug Administrationin 2006,2 and worldwide sales in 2008 were $1.4 billion.3 Inthe United States, 25% of girls aged 13 to17 years have receivedat least 1 of 3 recommended doses.4 […] This HPV vaccine […] wasidentified by a trade name, Gardasil, and promoted primarilyto “guard” not against HPV viruses or sexually transmitted diseasesbut against cervical cancer.5 The marketing campaign that followed,according to Merck’s chief executive officer, proceeded “flawlessly.”6In 2006, Gardasil was named the pharmaceutical “brand of theyear” for building “a market out of thin air.”6
Merck developed and tested an HPV-16 vaccine […]. Because of“ethical and scientific” concerns,5 investigators did not makecervical cancer their end point, substituting, as a “reasonablesurrogate,”5 persistent HPV infection. Still, they concludedthat “[i]mmunizing HPV-16-negative women may reduce their riskof cervical cancer.”5
Accompanying editorials were more circumspect. The vaccine appearedmost effective against the least dangerous cellular changesand not protective or therapeutic for women with prior infections.Although HPV-16 and HPV-18 were most frequently associated withcellular changes, “the contribution of non-vaccine HPV types . . . wassizeable.”16 Another editorial suggested that “[t]he new treatmentraises many scientific, medical, economic, and sociologicalquestions.”17
“We still lack sufficient evidence of an effectivevaccine against cervical cancer.”21 No data were available toestablish the duration of efficacy, possible adverse effectson natural immunity, whether vaccinated women will forgo Papanicolaoutests, and whether after suppressing HPV-16 and HPV-18, “otherstrains may emerge as significant oncogenic serotypes.”21 Accordingly,the editorial concluded, “With so many essential questions stillunanswered, there is good reason to be cautious about introducinglarge-scale vaccination programs.”21
The manufacturer’s marketing strategy […]:avoid limiting the vaccine to high-risk populations, promoteit for all women, and secure government reimbursement and mandates.To these ends, Merck funded established PMAs including the AmericanCollege of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and smaller groups,including the American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology(ASCCP), the Society of Gynecologic Oncologists (SGO), and theAmerican College Health Association (ACHA).
The [Merck-provided] Speaker Lecture Kit encourages speakers and their audiencesto help in “convincing states and federal agencies to pay forthe vaccine, convincing insurance to pay for it [and] encouragingstate mandates for use” (slide 131).10 “All of us who are involvedwith cervical disease are going to need [to] work at the stateand local levels to assure that the HPV vaccines are funded”(notes, slide 128).10
Society of Gynecologic Oncologists. […] Determined to increase industry funding, the SGO in 2006 establishedwhat was in effect an HPV vaccine speakers’ bureau.39 Fundedby Merck, along with GlaxoSmithKline, Cytyc, and Myriad, […]. Panel members, some with financial tiesto Merck, composed the curriculum and, initially, deliveredthe talks (34 speakers in 16 states).41–42
The SGO teaching materials omitted cautionary qualifications.The frequently asked questions section, for example, openedwith “Why is this vaccine important?” The answer repeated themanufacturer’s explanation: “This is the first vaccine directedagainst a cancer.”43[…] It didnot include data on disparities in cervical cancer incidenceand outcomes. This section also failed to include questionssuch as “Do I still need Papanicolaou tests?” “How long willefficacy last?” “How long has the vaccine been used?” and “Mightrisks outweigh benefits?”
American College Health Association. […] With funding from this vaccine manufacturer, the ACHA createdan HPV Vaccine Toolkit for clinicians, including talking points,sample e-mail messages to students and parents, sample pressreleases, and public service announcements.46 If a female studentresponded “no” when asked if she was sexually active, clinicianswere supposed to explain that the HPV vaccine is most effectivefor her.46 If she was sexually active, clinicians were instructedto say that she probably had not been infected with all 4 viruses.46
A sample letter/e-mail to students announced a new vaccine “thatprotects against HPV—and it could help save your life.”46It listed college students’ everyday worries—dates, examinations,roommates—and declared, “Well now there’s something youdon’t have to worry about anymore. And this worry is a big one.Why worry about cervical cancer?”46 Sample public service announcementsreiterated the message: “Hey ladies. You worry about tests. . . . Youworry about your next date. Well now there’s something you don’thave to worry about any more—and it could help save yourlife.”46 Sample letters to parents included the following: “Willshe get good grades? Will she call home often? The last thingyou want her to worry about is cervical cancer. . . . Encourageyour daughter to ‘Be Smarter and Get Vaccinated’at the Student Health Service—it could help save her life.”46In none of these cases was Merck funding mentioned.
As marketing of this HPV vaccine demonstrates, pharmaceuticalcompany campaigns can undercut the most cost-effective and appropriateuse of new agents to the detriment of adolescent health. Bymaking this vaccine’s target disease cervical cancer, the sexualtransmission of HPV was minimized, the threat of cervical cancerto all adolescents maximized, and the subpopulations most atrisk practically ignored.
My emphasis at end. This is a beautiful piece of well-considered, fully-referenced writing that has undergone the peer-review process and whose authors fully declare their competing interests (none) and funding sources (charity). Next time you read about HPV, chickenpox, MMR, HBV, swine flu or any other new and ‘essential’ vaccine, this article provides the context in which it should be evaluated.
*Addendum: It is worth noting that dying from a ‘serious underlying medical condition’ post-vaccination is now considered an excuse for having no concern about HPV vaccine. In the case of swine flu, the vast majority of the (relatively few) deaths were in indiviuals with ‘serious underlying medical conditions’, yet each death was treated as yet another warning as to how deadly and vicious this virus was/is to the general population. Horses for vaccination courses, n’est pas?
The BBQ is at it again, uncritically repeating the state’s lies:
Paedophile checks scheme defended
This is not a system of ‘Paedophile checks’ this is a system that will cause MILLIONS of INNOCENT people to be put in a database for no good reason. To call this a ‘Paedophile Checks Scheme’ is simply not factual.
The head of a government scheme to vet adults who work with children has hit out at criticism of the initiative.
Sir Roger Singleton, chairman of the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA), said people need to “calm down” and consider the issue “rationally”.
It is Roger Singleton who should have considered this rationally in the first place. Any rational, logical person can see instantly that this ISA is a foolish and illogical proposal. The recent clutch of paedophiles caught in nurseries, all of them CRB checked, demonstrates amply that any system of vetting is a flawed concept. All of the people who have recently been caught were CRB checked; what Roger Singleton is suggesting, which is completely irrational, is that a further system of checks on top of the CRB will be able to do what the CRB cannot. It is illogical on its face. Anyone who says otherwise is irrational, and I put it to you that Roger Singleton is irrational and illogical for being a willing part in it.
The ISA has come under fire after it emerged parents who regularly give children lifts to sports or social clubs will have to undergo checks.
People who ignore the new regulations face fines of up to £5,000.
This has nothing to do with protecting children; it is a scheme whereby millions of people, should they succeed, will be forced to enter the NIR and ID Card scheme. That is its true purpose, since it is clear that the ISA cannot protect a single child.
The Home Office’s Vetting and Barring Scheme, which is designed to protect children from paedophiles, covers adults who are in regular contact with young people.
If this system was designed to protect children from paedophiles, then the design is a complete failure. Also, Roger Singleton needs to say PRECISELY HOW this system will protect children. Of course, he cannot say how because it CANNOT, just as CRB checks cannot protect anyone. CRB checks and ISA checks cannot predict the future behavior of anyone; that is why they will always fail to do what they say it should do. This is well known to both the Home Office and anyone with a single working brain cell. The true purpose of this, once again, is to act as midwife to the NIR and ID Card.
‘Public outcry’
Anyone taking part in activities involving “frequent” or “intensive” contact with children or vulnerable adults three times in a month, every month, or once overnight, must register with the ISA.
Even if the ISA could predict the behavior of people, these arbitrary rules mean that anyone having contact with children less than the requirements above will not have to be vetted. It is nonsense on stilts.
The first people who are going to run to be included in this database are people who have no criminal record of any kind and who are paedophiles. By registering with this sinister scheme, they will have the stamp of safety and certification by the state. They will then be given license to attack children at will, and since everyone has lost all common sense, they will be immediately trusted simply because the government says they are trustworthy. This is the same modus operandi that we can assume the paedophile nursery workers operate under; get CRB certified and then you can work with children unfettered. In the case of these nursery children, their victims could not even speak to say that something wrong was happening. This ISA and CRB / ‘the state knows all’ insanity is putting children at risk by creating a system whereby dangerous animals can be put with children and given trust that they have not earned.
All school governors, doctors, nurses, teachers, dentists and prison officers must also sign up.
OR they can all refuse en masse. Dentists have no need to sign up for this at all – they can simply refuse to treat children! All of the other people on that list, especially in education, already have to have CRB checks, so what is the purpose of this extra layer of false security for? It is to put them all in the NIR.
People must go through a series of checks and have their names put on a list of approved individuals. Those seeking employment would have to pay £64 for the checks – but the charge would be waived for volunteers.
Its not about the money STUPID.
Informal arrangements between parents will not be covered.
And of course, most abuse happens between people who know each other, not stranger abuse.
“ It is about ensuring that those people who have already been dismissed by their employers for inappropriate behaviour with children do not simply up sticks and move elsewhere ”
Sir Roger Singleton Independent Safeguarding Authority
This is a total lie. If someone has been dismissed for inappropriate behavior with children there should have been a prosecution, otherwise there would be no grounds for dismissal. If the person is convicted, then they are put in the criminal database and that is the end of their career when it comes to children.
If no prosecution happens, then the person is INNOCENT FULL STOP.
What this ISA does is rely on hearsay to destroy people’s reputations. It is a repugnant and highly immoral system, and the people behind it and who are promoting it share its worst aspects; they are REPUGNANT and HIGHLY IMMORAL.
Sir Roger, whose agency will run the vetting scheme, said: “We need to calm down and consider carefully and rationally what this scheme is and is not about.
It is with a completely calm and rational mind (and logical mind) that the criticisms to this have been forged. It is Roger Singleton who has reacted hysterically and irrationally to the statistically insignificant cases of abuse. To put EVERYONE in a database because of the actions of a few criminals is an irrational knee-jerk reaction, born out of hysteria and unwarranted fear.
“It is not about interfering with the sensible arrangements which parents make with each other to take their children to schools and clubs.
It is not that now, but it will be in the future, when the database is open to search by anyone over the internet for a small fee.
“It is not about subjecting a quarter of the population to intensive scrutiny of their personal lives and it is not about creating mistrust between adults and children or discouraging volunteering.”
This is a lie. The ISA will use hearsay and rumor to determine wether or not someone should be listed in their database. Even harsh words are enough to get you on their list of bad people:
The Safeguarding Authority are looking for events with ‘relevant conduct’ – awful jargon – which means they’re looking for reports of ‘abusive’ behaviour (and one can argue quite convincingly ‘politically incorrect’ behaviour), irrespective of whether or not you’ve been convicted of a crime. Been on the Jeremy Kyle show? Had an unfavourable story printed about you in the Metro? Someone written about you on the internet? Ever pissed off a social worker? Importantly, has anyone made any complaints about you to the police or the council, whether or not you went to trial?
In stage one, they’re not interested in whether or not the event happened. They simply check whether or not the reported behaviour meets the criteria they’re looking for.
So let’s see what this includes (even the list listed is listed as ‘non exhaustive’ by the way)
Any remark or comment by others that causes distress
Excessive or unwanted familiarity, shouting, swearing, name-calling.
Okay, so I’ve gone through their list of ‘relevant conduct’ and picked out the bit we’re all guilty of at one time or another. We all have our bad days, our weak moments… but sarcasm? Being disrespectful? Shouting? If you haven’t, then congratulations. For the rest of us, we need to hope the Safeguarding Authority haven’t heard about our ‘abusive’ behavior.
None of that has anything to do with ‘Paedophile Checks’ does it?
The people behind this are LYING when they say that it is not there to get into the details of your life; if they are taking records to the level of detail that is described above, it means that someone is putting on your ISA record the fact that you said any of the things above. It means that there is a file on you containing the words that you have uttered, wether in public or in private.
That counts, to any rational and sensible person, as intensive scrutiny of the personal lives of millions of people.
He added: “It is about ensuring that those people who have already been dismissed by their employers for inappropriate behaviour with children do not simply up sticks and move elsewhere in the country to continue their abuse.
Utter rubbish, as their own documents demonstrate. If someone has been dismissed because they are a paedophile, they should be prosecuted, convicted and incarcerated, not put on a database and left at large to continue to rape. Is that what this idiot is suggesting? Because that is the result of what he is saying.
“And it is about bringing an end to the need for repeated CRB checks which so many people have found irritating. ISA registration is a one-off process for a single fee.”
And this is the truly irrational part. Is Roger Singleton really saying that people who go into this ISA system will only have to be checked once? Is he REALLY THAT INSANE? Think about this scenario; your son joins a soccer club, and then joins a cricket club. The head of the soccer club will have to check you against the ISA database, and then the cricket club organizer will have to ALSO check you against the ISA database. How is the ISA in ANY WAY DIFFERENT in this respect? Will the ISA telepathically transmit the details of your good character to every organization in the country? Of course not; Roger Singleton is demonstrating the great facility to not tell the truth that New Labour are expert at. And once again, the BBC fails to pull him up on this whopper – how EXACTLY is the ISA going to end the need for repeated CRB checks? How is a SINGLE CHECK going to transfer information to different people who need to know if a person is not barred?
This is PURE BULLSHIT!
‘Insulting’
The scheme will run in England, Wales and Northern Ireland from next month, and a separate but aligned scheme is being set up in Scotland, to be introduced next year.
Separate but equal… ‘Scotland the brave’… HAHAHAHA!!!
But critics claim it is threatening civil liberties and may deter volunteers.
“ When you get this degree of public outcry, there is generally a good reason for it ”
Wes Cuell , NSPCC
Translation, “People are stupid but they are not THAT stupid”
The NSPCC’s children’s services director Wes Cuell told the Sunday Telegraph the move could stop people doing things that were “perfectly safe and normal”.
There is nothing normal about this, and the people who created it and who promote it. They are subhuman monsters, criminally minded paedophile enablers, fear-mongers, cretins and communists. They are The Cancer that is Killing Britain. Their every instinct is perverted, their solutions are bankrupt both morally and financially. They are against the family, against nature and against God. Finally the British people are waking up and saying NO; this far and NO FARTHER.
“The warning signs are now out there that this scheme will stop people doing things that are perfectly safe and normal: things that they shouldn’t be prevented from doing.
“I think we are getting a bit too close to crossing the line about what is acceptable in the court of public opinion.
That line was crossed long ago, with the idea of the NIR and the ID Card. This scheme is a direct offshoot of that corrupted and immoral thinking, and it is only now that they are trying to put it together that everyone is beginning to see what it really means.
“We don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
Who is this ‘WE’ that these morons keep talking about?!
Mr Cuell stressed that while it was important to strengthen rules to protect children from potential sex offenders, overzealous interpretation of the regulations could threaten civil liberties.
The only thing that needs to be strengthened is the length of prison term given to those who commit and are convicted of these crimes. They should all be put away for life. Or even executed. Once the small number of them are all incarcerated, the problem will disappear.
Children’s authors, including Philip Pullman and Michael Morpurgo, have complained the requirement is “insulting” and say they will stop visiting schools.
Earlier this week children’s minister Delyth Morgan said safeguarding children was the government’s priority and it was about ensuring people in a position of trust who work with children are safe to do so.
She says alot of things, and once again, if it is about safeguarding children, she needs to say, in detail, how the ISA is going to do that. Of course she cannot do this, because the ISA cannot protect anyone, and neither can a CRB. These checks can only tell you what a person has been previously convicted of, and that does nothing to protect you if the criminal has never been caught.
The scheme was recommended by the Bichard report into the Soham murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman by college caretaker Ian Huntley.
And of course, the BBC fails to mention that Huntley was a known criminal who passed CRB checks. Because he passed the checks he was trusted immediately by the people who employed him. This is the fundamental error of the idea that a computer can bestow trustworthiness onto a human being.
Since roughly a third of sexual crimes are committed by people without a previous conviction, it is inevitable that some people with apparently excellent credentials but sinister intentions are going to get jobs working with children or vulnerable adults. And we will only know when it is too late.
Putting eleven million people into a database CANNOT protect children. Roger Singleton knows this, and so does Delyth ‘Mutterschwein’ Morgan. This is about getting the maximum number of people onto the NIR. This is about humiliating and conditioning the British public to accept machine mediated trust. This is about dehumanizing people, destroying the natural instincts of the British, substituting distrust and fear for every natural impulse that people normally have. This is about putting the state in the middle of every single thing that you do, no matter what it is or where it happens. This is about building a dossier on every person, where if you hold opinions that the state does not like, you are BARRED.
Kill it all with fire say I.
FURTHERMORE
Mimi Majick points out the following, “What if a parent is accused of some politically incorrect infraction of the kind the ISA say they are taking into consideration. Does this then mean that they are not fit to be in charge of their own children?“. The number of people who are politically incorrect runs to the millions. Jonathan Ross for example, has said things that fall into the ‘Demeaning, disrespectful, humiliating’ category; are his children going to be put on the at risk database because of his sense of humor? What about all the people who hold political views that are not liked by the prejudiced apparatchiks at the ISA, for example, BNP members, who whilst no one likes them, have the absolute right to believe whatever they like.
Finally, because this ISA is being mislabeled as a ‘paedophile checklist’ anyone who finds themselves on it will be mislabeled as a paedophile when in fact someone just doesn’t like the things that they say or write.
"Perhaps the greatest danger of overreaction, though, happens when a government feels it must respond to popular clamour after a high-profile event involving an innocent or vulnerable victim. When a baby is killed, or there is a murder by someone identified as mentally ill or someone on probation, people are reasonably shocked and feel that "something must be done" to prevent such things happening again.
Why do they think that extra bureaucracy will help? While the causes of individual tragedies may be apparent, this does not mean that similar events can be easily prevented in future. That's because they are essentially unpredictable: the underlying problem is that the most shocking "bad" things happen to, or are done by, people deemed to be low-risk, and so attempts to prevent all "bad" things often have a high cost for little apparent gain. This idea is probably best explained through an example.
Let's consider what are officially termed "serious further offences" (SFOs) in the UK. Suppose 1 in 1600 of the total number of people on probation commits such an offence, but that some are more likely to offend than others. These high-risk people offend at three times the rate of the low-risk. Suppose 7.5 per cent of probationers are classified as high-risk. If you locked them all up, what might be the consequences? It is counter-intuitive, but you would make very little impact, and all for considerable cost and loss of liberty.
How so? Imagine you had 8000 people on probation. Of these, 600 (7.5 per cent) are high-risk, and 1 of them commits an SFO. The other 7400 are low-risk – only one-third as likely to commit an SFO – and 4 of these offend. Overall, by locking up all high-risk cases you will prevent only 1 out of the total of 5 offences: 80 per cent of the SFOs will still occur. So what appears to be a reasonable policy could be an overreaction."
David Spiegelhalter is Winton Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk at the University of Cambridge
Which brings us on to New Zealand, where it seems that people in government have at least half a working brain-cell:
Echoing then Minister of Education Dr Lockwood Smith in 1994, that he could not justify the expense of regular reviews on such a low-risk group as home educators, Chief Review Officer Graham Stoop wrote in February this year that reviews of home educators are not efficient or effective. Posted on the ERO website is the following: “From 1 July 2009 ERO will carry out reviews only when requested by the Secretary for Education, or in other particular circumstances.”
This is in line with the present central government’s drive to cut bureaucratic costs. Minister in charge of the ERO, Anne Tolley, said in February: “I have asked ERO to identify schools that are performing consistently well and, accordingly, from March 1, these schools will be exempt from the current three-yearly ERO reviews and will instead be reviewed every four to five years.”
In December 2008, the Finance Minister advised Cabinet to do a line-byline review of expenditure. Home Education reviews were found to account for $283,000 out of a total budget of $28,675,000 or 0.987% (less than 1%). Graham Stoop wrote: “This programme is considered to be low risk to the education priorities of the Government. In 2007/08 ERO completed 644 homeschooling reviews from a total of 6,169 homeschooled students [at an average cost of $439.44 per review]. ERO could not provide assurance that the terms of exemption were being met in only 35 of the 644 reviews [a 5.4% “failure” rate]. This has been the pattern over many years.”
About 35 reviews a year will continue to be made, reviews initiated by the MoE as a result of concerns brought to the Ministry’s notice about particular home educating families. It was felt by home educators in discussions with the ERO back in the years from 1994 to 1999 when no regular reviews were being held, that the bad eggs rose to the top and became very obvious to everyone. Consequently, more exemptions were revoked during that time, with fewer reviews being held, than in the years prior to 1994.
A senior member of the ERO, with with every race, every ethnic background and every level of citizen. It is best to have this experience when one is equipped to discern the difference between ability and pretense, morality and stupidity, propinquity and friendship. And when one can defend what one knows and believes. It is, after all, crucial to understand and respect differences, but first one must establish one’s own identity. Education is slow; socialization is quick. (From the foreward of Otto Scott’s Great Christian Revolution: How Christianity Transformed the World. The Reformer Library. Windsor, New York 1995) much experience in dealing with home education reviews, wrote the following in an email dated 30 July:
The reality is home schooling has been found to be low risk. Several things stand out in my mind relating to home schooling and they are:
home schooling families have support from other homeschoolers and access to people through support networks and
through the Internet;
home schooling families are no longer isolated unless they choose to be;
there is easy access to a considerable range of resources;
the skills of home schooling parents are well used;• home schooling is being seen more as a viable educational option;
ICT is a powerful communication and information gathering tool and home schooling families use this tool;
people liked the affirmation that home schooling reviews affirmed good practice; and
despite initial concerns the feedback ERO has received relating to the home school review process is mostly positive. This person also felt that home education reviews would not be reinstated for quite some time.
Conjecture will not be slow among home eduators in relation to “what will the MoE do now? Will they make it more difficult to get an exemption?” There is no particular reason to believe this, apart from the obvious fact that National has the same totalitarian tendencies as does Labour…they only tend to move a bit slower. This coalition with the ACT Party, however, does changethings a bit.
Heather Roy of the ACT Party is an Associate Minister of Education… home education fits perfectly into their philosophy of freedom of choice for parents in education and freedom of self determination in how to order one’s family affairs.
Back in 1995, the MoE instituted, for one year only, voluntary written reviews wherein home educators wrote to the MoE about how their home education enterprise was doing. The MoE said they really enjoyed reading the reviews as it was the only feedback they ever got from home educators after issuing the exemptions, the ERO being the ones to contact home educators after that. But the MoE also caught a lot of flak as a result of requesting these reviews, being accused of going outside their statutory powers in asking for such reviews and of trying to get home educators to incriminate themselves, etc.
What we home educators need to remember just now is that the current coalition government with ACT MPs holding Ministerial portfolios means we have friends in Parliament and an officially friendly MoE philosophy for the time being. This is a time to raise the flag of accomplishments, achievements, discoveries, the joys, benefits and satisfactions of the home education option to the population at largeand to the MPs in particular.
From TEACH Bulletin
No 130 July 2009
To see the rest of the articles in the July 2009 TEACH Bulletin: http://hef.org.nz/teach-bulletin/
And there you have it. Perhaps Home Educators in the UK will consider moving to New Zealand to remain free. All those who are fat need not apply of course.
Which brings us to this superb post from Sometimes its Peaceful:
I've been through the twelve parts of my critique of the Badman report[opens pdf] with a highlighting pen now, and it seems that the main points arising from it can be separated into five distinct categories:
Language issues, in which sentences are carefully crafted to partially obscure their full meaning, or selective quoting is employed, or certain key or trigger words are used to convey a message not explicitly stated;
Safeguarding and child protection issues;
Legal issues;
Logical issues – or otherwise! By which I mean those points that are contradictory or just not logically coherent; and
Financial issues.
In today's post I'm focusing on the main points arising in the category of 'Language':
1.4 I have taken account of the views of local authorities who are strongly of the opinion that the current guidelines are unworkable in that they are contradictory and confer responsibility without power.
(Carefully not mentioning the views of local authorities who are not of that opinion, thereby giving the appearance that they don't exist.)
1.5 However, there has to be a balance between the rights of the parents and the rights of the child.
– and several other similar phrases, such as:
11.2 I have sought to strike a balance between the rights of parents and the rights of the child..
– but nothing about the parental duty set out in Section 7 of the 1996 Education Act. This is reinforced so frequently throughout the report that I think it must be deliberately contrived to set up the erroneous implication that there is some conflict between children's and parents' rights.
From Recommendation 1:
■ Registration should be renewed annually.
But the proposal is not actually for registration, but for a system of licensing. There must be a reason why it's not given its proper name and this can only be to do with presentation.
Recommendation 7
…
■ That parents be required to allow the child through exhibition or other means to demonstrate both attainment and progress in accord with the statement of intent lodged at the time of registration.
– convoluted, illogical phraseology ('required to allow') straining to conceal its real meaning ('compelled to coerce') behind a mask of artificial geniality. The reason for this can only be that the author knows the true meaning is publicly unpalatable and I'm therefore delighted that home educators have been exposing it for what it is.
8.4 I understand the argument but do not accept it in its entirety in that attendance at school brings other eyes to bear, and does provide opportunity for the child to disclose to a trusted adult.
This is a cunningly slipped-in suggestion that the only trusted adults are to be found in schools. There are quite a few other similar semi-subliminal messages contained in the report.
There are also many explicit and implied references to 'support', in recommendations 1, 10, 12, 17, 18 and 20 as well as throughout the text, but nothing about the consequences to a family, parent or child who opts to decline such offers of 'support'. However, read in context the unspoken threat becomes apparent: permission to home educate will be denied. Such 'support' is actually therefore compulsory coercion and nothing resembling the "act of sustaining, advocacy, help, backing" or "encouragement" described in my dictionary's definition of the word.
With all of the above plus the liberal peppering of the report with such buzzwords as 'safeguarding', 'outcomes' (only certain varieties of these are acceptable), and 'targets' (set by governments, not families), amongst others, I think it's a strong defence to call the whole thing out, and for exactly what it is. Our language is being stolen from us, in this and the rest of the endless tsunami of reports, recommendations, guidances and regulations with which the people of England have been besieged in recent years. We need to claim it back.
This is one of the most important posts on the Badman report.
What the report does, by a deliberate misuse of language is sneak in the licensing of Home Education. If you are a Home Educator, and you accept to 'register', you are in effect, applying for a license to be a parent, and if you fail to comply with the terms of what the Local Authority thinks you should be doing as a parent, then your license will be revoked, and they will take responsibility for your children by forcing you to send them to school.
Absolutely dastardly and unacceptable.
If the report had been written honestly, and had used English correctly, then the word 'license' would have been used to describe the recommended process or registration and annual review.
But you already know about the true nature and intent behind this report.
The Mediterranean country, which receives about 15 million tourists every year, has confirmed more than 700 swine flu cases and no deaths, but world health experts say the true number of cases globally is far higher as only a few patients get tested.
“We decided that the entire population, all citizens and residents, without any exception, will be vaccinated against the flu,” Health Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos said after a ministerial meeting.
Greece has already earmarked 40 million euros for vaccines and has placed orders with Novartis, Glaxo and Sanofi for 8 million vaccine doses, to be received gradually by January.
Vaccine experts say people will likely need two doses of vaccine to be protected from H1N1 swine flu, so Greece would need a total of 24 million doses to vaccinate its entire population. Other countries are taking similar steps.
“Greece will order 16 million more doses from the same companies in the future,” a health ministry official who declined to be named told Reuters.
Vaccination against swine flu will be mandatory for all students of private and public schools in the UAE when schools open in September, the director general of the Ministry of Health has said.
Vaccination will be mandatory for the country’s 630,000 students and will be free of charge, Dr Ali Bin Shakar told UAE daily Emarat Alyoum.
Only children over the age of five are included in the programme, which will cost the government around AED3.2m ($871,000).
Meanwhile, the U.S. government has put states on notice that swine flu vaccinations will begin in October. The editor of the popular blog “Pissed Off Former Democrat” phoned the legal council at the Arkansas State Health Department to seek advice about obtaining waiver forms for a future mass swine flu vaccination program. Only to be told that mandatory vaccines were constitutional and could be enforced at gunpoint by the government if necessary.
“the federal government will buy vaccine from manufacturers and share it for free among the states, which must then “try and get this in the arms of the targeted population as soon as possible,”
All this is in the contest of less than 1000 deaths WORLDWIDE, from millions of cases. For some US perspective, for example: “regular winter flu, […] kills 36,000 Americans a year” … and there’s no mandatory vaccination.
In the UK, which has had around 30 deaths so far; “In a normal outbreak of seasonal flu, some 6,000 people lose their lives. And in the last epidemic, that of 1999/2000, flu killed 21,000.“
In its lethality, swine flu is milder than vanilla flu. Much milder. From reported cases we are told that “the swine flu outbreak, still only in its early stages, is already worse than last year’s winter flu, which was itself the biggest outbreak for nine years.” Yet last year many thousands of people died from winter flu.
Did you hear the calls for mandatory vaccination? No?
Therefore, given this push to inject anyone and everyone whose government can pay for the vaccine, one must ask the question: WTF!?!?!
That is, in this case, WHY THE FUCK!!!!???
If we start with a paranoid question, we could ask exactly what is it that They want you to bend over and be injected with? One could rationally argue that, given the poor medical justifications, neither the US or UK govs would risk a mandated programme (with all the public order problems that entails) just for a swine flu vaccine.
Of the more paranoid suggestions I have heard, one maintained that this was to be the first of a two-part ‘killer’ jab The second part would be given at the ‘next pandemic’, thus bringing about the mass population reduction desired by The Elite/Bilderberg/NWO.
It’s immunologically possible (I don’t know about chemically possible, but I assume so); they could try and sensitise people to a certain antigen and then induce disease (autoimmune type or acute allergy-type rather than bug-mediated) with a second dose of that same antigen. But its a very roundabout route.
The problems are that it would be a bit blatant, and needs a different pandemic for the second mandatory jab. It would be much easier just to release a really vicious virus. To which They would already have a vaccine, obviously.
Thus, having excluded the paranoid, we are left with the probable, which is all too obvious. This is nothing more than, as one clever person put it, “sheep-shearing on a grand scale”. You are being used as fodder for a corporate machine to make money. Nothing more, nothing less.
Britain’s biggest pharmaceutical company is preparing to sell £3bn worth of swine flu drugs this year, it emerged today.
GlaxoSmithKline revealed its vaccine, one of the world’s first, could be available by September after the UK government placed advance orders for 60m doses.
It also disclosed that international governments were stockpiling large supplies of GSK’s anti-viral treatment Relenza, which can relieve swine flu symptoms.
Worldwide sales from the two drugs are expected to reach £3bn by January, but the company rejected claims it was exploiting the pandemic – stressing that profits would be much lower once development costs were taken into account.
Some of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies are reaping billions of dollars in extra revenue amid global concern about the spread of swine flu.
Analysts expect to see a boost in sales from GlaxoSmithKline, Roche and Sanofi-Aventis when the companies report first-half earnings lifted by government contracts for flu vaccines and antiviral medicines.
Not bad in a global recession, eh? We could go on, but you know where the G is.
Ever get the feeling you’ve been had?
So, lets assume you’re still feeling a bit worried about swine flu and are still considering letting them give you a skin pop. Just read this update on why not to have the vaccine… from the WHO H1N1 site:
The reason why GBS developed in association with that specific vaccine has never been firmly established. The potential for the development of a similar risk with future vaccines can never be firmly excluded. However, the influenza A (H1N1) vaccine will be manufactured according to established standards and post marketing surveillance will be conducted to monitor potential development of any serious adverse events following administration of vaccine. Safety monitoring systems are an integral part of strategies for the implementation of the new pandemic influenza vaccines.
In other words; If you die we will know the vaccine is Not Good.
You are the guinea pigs.
Do not complain.
You have been warned.
We already have your money.
NO REFUNDS.
“National regulatory authorities have put into place expedited processes that do not compromise on the quality and safety of the vaccine.”
No compromise necessary since there is no quality control or safety testing until it is in your arm.
The Independent, that bird-cage liner which is ferociously opposed to Home Education, has let rip again with a piece designed to divide Home Educators and set up a pretext for the government agenda of ending Home Education.
What the author, ‘Simon Webb’, fails to understand is that first they come for the most ‘other’ group and then they move on to you. You all know the poem:
First they came for the Autonomous Learners
and I did not speak out – because I was not an Autonomous Learners.
Then they came for the Christian Home Educators
and I did not speak out – because I was not a Christian.
Then they came for the Structured Learners.
and I did not speak out – because I was not a Structured Learner.
Then they came for me –
and by then there was no one left to speak out for me.
Pastor Martin Niemöller
Once they enshrine home inspections as perfectly reasonable, they will then begin to shut down all types of Home Education that they do not like. If you are Home Educating for religious reasons, they will shut you down if you do not teach their ideas of how religion should be taught, or what a moral person is or is not, or anything to do with sin. For example. If you do not like the state curriculum, they will shut you down. And in this context, ‘shut you down’ means kidnap your child and force it to attend a school.
Autonomous learners are an easy target. I will be making a post about them shortly. In the meanwhile, lets pick apart this piece of writing:
Simon Webb: We must get tough on home schooling
Who is the ‘we’ that he is talking about? Autonomous learners are not a part of the ‘we’ he is describing, that is for sure. What Simon Webb is advocating is that violence should be used against Autonomous Learners to stop them from Home Educating in this way. The very title of this piece uses the phrase ‘get tough’, which explicitly implies the violence he is calling for.
He is calling for the state to organize raiding parties to kidnap the children of Autonomous Learners so that they can be put into schools. This is violence pure and simple. He is willing to use others to commit violence to force his own opinions on Autonomous Learners.
Most people, if asked about home education, would probably picture a child being tutored at home by his parents; perhaps working at the kitchen table rather than sitting in a classroom. This was indeed the case with my own daughter whom I have taught since she was a baby. Sadly, this image is very much the exception in British home education.
All of this is irrelevant. There are as many ways to Home Educate as there are people doing it. Some are Autonomous Learners. Others are not. Some people live in a small house where the biggest flat surface is the kitchen table. Others live in houses with plenty of space. Whatever the ‘many people’ in this paragraph choose to believe, people have the right to Home Educate as they see fit, and Simon Webb and his ilk do not have the right to contract with others to use violence to make people conform to his notion of what is good and bad education.
The most popular educational method used by those who withdraw their children from school in this country is known as autonomous education and involves nobody teaching children anything at all!
How do you know this? There are no statistics detailing the numbers of Home Educators, and there are no numbers saying what sort of Education each family has chosen to do. This is a statement that is not based on facts.
I believe this peculiar technique is causing incalculable damage to the thousands of home educated children upon whom it is used.
What you believeis your own business. Some people might think that you should not be Home Educating your daughter, and in fact, if you went to live in Germany, you would be committing a crime by doing so. Just because you BELIEVE something, that is not in any way a basis for violence to be called for against the people who are educating in a way that you do not agree with.
Autonomous education is based on a simple principle: that children alone are the best judges of what they should learn and when they should learn it. If a child wishes to spend the day slumped in front of a television or games console, this is not a problem, the choice is his. Many autonomous educators go even further, asserting that it is for the child to decide on bedtimes, diet and other aspects of lifestyle. To see how this works in practice, we cannot do better than look at “How People Home Educate” on the website of Education Otherwise, a registered charity working in the field.
A mother writes about educating her children, aged 10 and seven, whom she describes as “night owls”, at home. They apparently have no bedtimes and get up “later than I would like”. She says: “Their days are often filled with television and lots of play”.
And what on earth does this have to do with Simon Webb? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Autonomous Learners do not try and force you to become one; you can Home Educate in any way you see fit. What is most disturbing here is that Simon Webb thinks that his experience of life applies to everyone else equally. This is a fundamentally wrong, almost autistic view of the world, where other people are not real, but are objects without any will or separate internal dialogue; only SIMON is able to think, only HIS WORLD VIEW is the right one, and when he goes to sleep, the world doesn’t even exist until he wakes up again. Other people DO exist, they are very real, they have their own thoughts and their own lives, their own priorities and philosophies and those lives and thoughts are nothing to do with anyone else but them. If that is not the case, then they become the property of someone else, the property of a ‘Simon Webb’ who knows best about what is good for all families.
There is no academic work at all. Neither child can read but she says: “They will read one day and will do so because they want to, not because somebody tells them to.”
1 in 5 adults in the UK cannot read. Many leave school semi literate. Autonomous Learners are learners who are learning in their own time and in their own way. I have met some of them (at an examination centre this summer for an English Language paper) without even knowing I was speaking to an Autonomous Learner. That says all you need to know about them. And even if they do not want to take exams, that is none of anyone’s business.
As a description of the odd week or so during the school holidays, this is perfectly acceptable; as a long-term lifestyle for growing children, it verges upon the neglectful. Yet this account is quoted with evident approval by the largest organisation for home educators in this country.
And this, my friends, is the government line; that Home Education is somehow linked to child safety. Now we see that they are going to spin their pretext around to neglect, and Autonomous Learners are going to be the example they hold up to prove that Home Education must be ‘brought under control’.
Autonomous Learner families are not neglectful in any way. They are families just like any other, who have great care for their children. A person with an intact moral centre and principles will instantly understand that Autonomous Learning is just another choice that people make, just as converting to a religion is, or moving to another country is. These choices are personal, private, not the affair of the state, and they are certainly not the affair of busy body statists who are violent.
No wonder such parents are vehemently opposed to new legislation which would enable local education authorities to check up on the education being provided for children taught at home.
All decent Home Educators are vehemently opposed to new legislation. They are fully aware that any changes in the law could bring a total end to Home Education in the UK. They are not naive, prejudiced or stupid when it comes to their Home Education, or their rights. They understand that this is a threat to not only them and their Home Education, but it is a threat to all parents in the UK. They also understand that this is not just a threat to their children now, but it is a threat to their children should they become parents in the future. They also understand that holding up Autonomous Learners to be sacrificed is completely despicable, wrong, unjustified and evil.
As I have said over and over, there are many types of Home Educator, many different philosophies and approaches. This Simon Webb character is a certain type; a statist, prejudiced, collectivist. The difference between him and an Autonomous Learner is that an Autonomous Learner is quite happy to have Simon Webb and his daughter Home Educating in whatever way they see fit, without making a judgment on them. Simon Webb on the other hand, wants only his narrow vision of what Home Education is to be the norm. This is a most unpleasant sort of philosophy; one that is not accepting of other people.
The disadvantages of this system are probably obvious to most parents.
And the advantages are totally unknown to most parents, since many people, including journalists, in the UK know nothing whatsoever about Home Education in the first place. There are many advantages to Autonomous Learning. In the United States they call it Unschooling. It is being done because it works.
Once again, what is obvious to most parents today might not be so obvious at another time. There was a time when it was ‘obvious’ that people from different ‘races’ should not be married and have children, or that people should own other people as property, or that the death penalty is completely right. Some people think that all those things are completely legitimate even today. What the majority thinks is not a rubber stamp or guarantee of moral correctness.
Our children are most decidedly not the best judges of what is wholesome and good for them.
We do not know about your children Mr. Webb. If you say that they are not the best judges of what is wholesome and good for them, we will take your word for it; you are their parent, you know them best, you have their best interests at heart, and you can be trusted to do what is right for them.
Or are you having pronoun problems again?!
Many children and teenagers, if left to their own devices, would not surface until lunchtime. Following a sugary snack of biscuits and fizzy pop, they might spend the afternoon playing computer games or watching television.
So what?
Do you REALLY think that it is your business, or the business of the state to know what time a child gets up in the morning… or afternoon? Do you REALLY believe that it is your business to know if a child eats s sugary snack of biscuits and fizzy pop? Both of which were bought by the parents, with their own money? Do you REALLY believe it is your affair that a child, under the supervision of its parents plays computer games (which, once again, were bought with the parents own money and explicit approval) or watches television all afternoon?
Just what sort of world is it that you are advocating?
I think we know what sort of world it is; a dystopia, a totalitarian nightmare, a world of total surveillance, right into the home, where your every action is monitored and controlled by the state.
Lo and behold, Mr. Balls and Mr. Webb concur:
The British government is to put the more irresponsible families under CCTV supervision in their homes – just to ensure their children attend school, go to bed on time and eat proper meals. Private security guards will also be sent round to carry out home checks, while parents will be given help to combat drug and alcohol addiction, Children’s Secretary Ed Balls says.
It would be a rare child who chose instead to get up at 7am or 8am, eating a healthy breakfast of wholemeal toast washed down with a glass of mineral water before settling down to teach himself algebra! That is why we as adults assume responsibility for the welfare, physical and mental, of our offspring.
So, getting up ‘early’ is more beneficial than getting up ‘late’. For what reason? To learn regimentation that will be necessary when the child enters the workplace as a drone perhaps. And once again, we have Mr. Webbs ‘breakfast of champions’; this, according to him, is ‘healthy eating’. No doubt his CCTV surveilled families will be made to swallow it.
Parents do not “assume responsibility for the welfare, physical and mental, of our offspring”. By virtue of becoming a parent, an automatic duty, responsibility and right comes into being. Foster parents assume responsibility; what Mr. Webb is implying is that children are not attached to their parents in any moral or legal way when they are born. But of course, this must be the case, if ‘we’ are going to use violence to force Autonomous Learning to be outlawed.
As the law stands, any parent can withdraw a child from school simply by notifying the head in writing.
And why should this not be the case? Children are not the property of the state, or of a school; they are the sole responsibility of the parent, and if the parent, who voluntarily contracts with a school for the service of education, does not for any reason require that service at any time, he or she or they have the ABSOLUTE RIGHT to withdraw a child,, with or without prior notice.
The LEA can make informal enquiries about the education being given to the child, but has no right to enter the home or interview the child.
This exactly as it should be, except for the part where the LEA makes informal inquiries. Removing your child from school is the choice of a parent. They are not and should not be answerable to anyone. If they are, then they become property.
For many, this is the end of their education.
This is simply not so. There are no statistics to say it is so. So why has Mr. Webb said it?
According to the recent review of home education conducted by Graham Badman,
there may be as many as 80,000 home-educated children in Britain.
And there you have it. There MAY BE 80,000. There are no statistics, and so every assertion in this sad article that refers to figures is known not to be true by Mr. Webb because he knows there are no numbers.
Under current arrangements, nobody has the slightest idea what sort of education, if any, many of these children are receiving.
But we do know what sort of education people are getting in the state schools, which may be the reason why Mr. Webb, who lives in ‘inner London’, has educated his own child from birth at home.
I wonder how Mr Webb will have responded to all the queries he is bound to have had about socialization; if he has kept his child at home in a small room all these years, surely it is missing out on the playground ‘rough and tumble’ that so many people think is essential to becoming a well rounded person; and what about the exposure to different cultures and peoples that Mr. Webb’s child would undoubtedly have met in an inner London school? Multi Cultural society needs to be actively engaged with and inclusive; if his child has never met anyone outside its cultural group, it will surely be disadvantaged… and no, eating a curry on a saturday night is not sufficient.
Just what is it that Mr. Webb is running from?
I could have gone much further with all of that, but I am sure you get the point. The point is that Simon Webb wants the best for his child, and so he home educated it. That is his right. No one has the right to come into his home uninvited to tell him how he should educate his child, and certainly no one has the right to use violence to take his child from him and sent it to an inner city London school. Perish the thought.
This is hardly a satisfactory state of affairs.
Utter rubbish. Satisfactory TO WHO? The Autonomous Learners are VERY SATISFIED with what they are doing. Just what the hell are you talking about?
My daughter and I welcomed the representative of our LEA into our home once a year to show what we had been doing, but many parents are determined not to allow the LEA any access to their homes.
You welcomed the representative of the LEA into your home. That is your choice and your business. Just because you did that, it cannot be extrapolated that everyone everywhere must ALSO do it. Why do you not go further:
“I home educated my child from birth; everyone in Britain should do so also.”
“I sent my child to a State School; everyone in Britain should do so also.”
“I sent my child to a Public School; everyone in Britain should do so also.”
“I sent my child to a live with my relatives in Australia; everyone in Britain should do so also.”
“I sent my child to a Koran Chain School; everyone in Britain should do so also.”
Its just totally absurd.
Under those circumstances, it is impossible for the local authority to have the least idea what is happening with regard to the child’s education.
And there is no problem with this. It is not the Local Authority’s place to know what is happening with the education of children that are not in the school systems they are responsible for. The curriculum that children in private schools follow is not the responsibility of the Local Authority, and the same is true for Home Educators.
It is high time that LEAs were given the power to check up on the wellbeing and educational attainments of these children.
Why? Home Education has been working brilliantly for decades (actually generations) with no interference whatsoever. Why NOW is it ‘high time’? This is more unsubstantiated nonsense by a promoter of the nanny state. And of course, the very idea that Home Educated children need to have their wellbeing checkup up on is completely false. Statistically, Home Educated children are more safe than children who attend schools; thanks to AheD we are now in the possession of ACUTAL STATISTICS that prove this.
The furious opposition to any change in the law is spearheaded by autonomous educators who are, not surprisingly, anxious to prevent anybody from assessing the efficacy of their educational provision.
Once again, unsubstantiated nonsense. As for the proficiency of their educational provision, I would not even go there. Despite what everyone might think is the case, Autonomous Learners and Unschoolers do very well… whatever that means which is not up to you or me.
While fighting for their own “rights”, such people are denying their children one of the most important rights that other children in this country enjoy; the right to a proper education.
Astonishing. There are people who would say that Mr. Webb is denying his child a proper education by keeping it out of school. They would say that it is missing out on all the things I listed and more. Who is going to stick up for Mr. Webb when it is decided that his form of Home Education is unacceptable?
The writer is a home-educating parent who works with children with special needs in inner London
This is a matter of principle. It is a matter of what a parent is and what the proper role of government is.
There are people in Britain, ‘The Cancer That is Killing Britain’, who are willing to give up their liberties to make the ever present other ‘safe’. I fear this article is written by one of those people.
The idea that one type of Home Education is superior to another is false. Home Education is tailored to the needs of the children who receive it. Only the parent can decide what that should be and how it should work. If the state decides, then the child becomes the property of the state.
People who advocate this are advocating the ownership of people, which is slavery.
The real reason why the collectivists are scrambling to shut down Home Education is that the people this process produces are a real threat, and Autonomous Learners are the most dangerous of all Home Educated people. They are the ones who were never spoon fed education; who came to the realization themselves that they needed to read, and who then go on to university purely because they want to, with the powerful idea instilled in them that they can do and achieve whatever they want, and that nothing can stand in their way.
A person like that is a fearful prospect for those that want every nail to be hammered down.
FURTHERMORE
Look at all the comments that are flooding in on the article at the Independent website from where we get this gem:
Where Mr. Webb feels the heat of an ignoramus hurling vile insults at him and his daughter. In the light of this, HOW is it possible that he can launch an attack on Autonomous Learners like this, having suffered this way himself?!
and NOW we see why this piece was written and published; take a look at this GoogleDocs document!!!
