UK Censuses are usually held every ten years, in years that end with a '1'. So, the next census is due in 2011. Sixty-five thousand households in Lancaster will soon be receiving census questionnaires. No, the city hasn’t slipped into a time-warp. It’s going to be a ‘guinea pig’, testing out approaches for the real UK-wide census which is still scheduled for 2011.
While I understand the need for testing things out in advance, I do wish that Glenn Watson, the man in charge of this mini-census, could have phrased things slightly differently on the Radio Lancashire news when he was saying why Lancaster had been chosen for this honour.
Lancaster, we are told, is a “dynamic vibrant city”. Well, that doesn’t sound too bad. So far so good, but ... “it’s got a seaside town”. That presumably is a reference to Morecambe. I don’t think Morecambe people think like that. Lancaster hasn’t “got” Morecambe any more than Manchester United has “got” Manchester City.
Change the world.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
We decided at the Nuremberg Trials that planning aggressive war & bombing civilians were war crimes & massacring, ethnic cleansing, genocide & mass kidnap & rape were crimes against humanity. There is no question that the LibDem leaders, without exception, enthusiastically supported an aggressive war against Yugoslavia conducted overwhelmingly by bombing civilians. That after the occupation of Kosovo they unanimously supported the Massacres, such as Dragodan where at least 210 civilians were murdered by our police, widespread genocide, the ethnic cleansing of at least 350,000 & the kidnap & sale to brothels of thousands, probably 10s of thousands of children. It gas since become public that the British government knew & thus party leaders who are Privy Councillors would have known, that our police kidnapped at at least 1,300 Serbs & dissected them while still alive to sell the parts to our hospitals.
ReplyDeleteThere is clearly a prima faci case that all those involved, including all the leaders of the party, are personally guilty of these war crimes & crimes against humanity.It seems to me that this is a serious charge yet not only have all LibDem MP's refused to defend themselves in any fact based way* but neither has any
LibDem blogger & the party has made it a condition of membership that one support this genocide. Indeed most of them (listed here http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2009/09/lib-dem-bloggers-who-censor-in-nazi.html) have also censored mention of the facts. It should be unnecessary to point out that censorship (& indeed genocide) is anathema to any real liberal.
I am therefore seeking to find if there is a single "Liberal Democrat" anywhere among the alleged 60,000 members who feels it is possible to dispute, in any factual way, the prima faci case that the entire party leadership are guilty of war crimes, genocide & worse crimes even Hitler didn't match in the Nazi cause. Alternately is there any single party member who disproves of such atrocities 7 supports the application of the rule of law to such people.
* The sole person to have been publicly willing to defend the party is Baroness Shirley Williams who admitted that we had done such things but that it was alright because "Milosevic did the same". She supported that allegation by stating that she personally had seen Yugoslav police carrying out the same atrocities as our police when she visited Belgrade in 1995. While I have to accept this as representing the absolute pinnacle of honesty of which she is capable nobody else has seen this & all other sources say that the fighting in Kosovo took place in Kosovo in 1998/9. When asked to give details of these alleged acts she has repeatedly refused. I'm afraid before accepting that there is any truth in her words I would have to see independent evidence.
I’m not quite sure what this might have to do with Lancaster “owning” Morecambe. You know, I have blogged about war before, so there are more relevant comments that you could have responded to.
ReplyDeleteHowever I note from your own blog that you are making a list of Liberal Democrats who fail to counter your accusations. It seems from this that you are systematically targeting every Liberal Democrat blog, and presumably this keeps you too busy to actually read the blogs you’re commenting on. However, does it occur to you that in some cases the lack of response is because not every blogger appreciates comment spamming?
Nevertheless, you do address some real issues, and I don’t believe in avoiding issues, however they are raised.
You make some quite remarkable accusations. You say, for instance, that “the party has made it a condition of membership that one support this genocide”. I may not be qualified to comment on what leaders of the party are or have been privy to, but I can assure you that as a party member I have never been required to support any form of genocide, and I think that every other party member will wholeheartedly endorse this from their own experience. If any party were to make support for genocide mandatory, it would be difficult (and that’s an understatement) to keep this situation a secret. At the very least, the members would have to know about this policy.
While it may be possible to question past Liberal Democrat policy in the Balkans, the whole point of any intervention there was to oppose genocide. And while the propaganda which led up to war might have been over-simplified, and there might have been more than enough blame to go around on all sides, you are quite correct when you say that genocide is anathema to any real Liberal. It is anathema no matter which side may be committing it. I doubt that you will find any Liberal Democrats who will say otherwise.
Unfortunately it isn’t always possible to stop genocide by barging in militarily in a complex situation where there is entrenched hatred and mistrust built up over decades or even centuries. What we should always prefer, wherever possible, is to spread a liberal attitude; to defuse the hatred and the mistrust, and make warring parties realise that there are many decent human beings in every community. War always has to be a last resort, and very rarely does it solve anything.
I was expelled from the party, nominally for being an economic liberal but on another blog the person fronting the Executive's decision said it was actually because I opposed genocide. Ergo that is a condition of membership. Party members who are silent but loyal when the leaders are committing genocide are supporting it, if only with that silence. Try opposing this genocide yourself, rather than being silently complicit & see what happens.
ReplyDeleteThe whole point of the intervention was never to oppose genocide. Genocide could have been avoided either by trying to keep the country together or even by dividing it on ethnic lines. We did neither. We supported people we knew to be WW2-Nazis publicly committed to (in the case of Croatia & Bosnia) or already engaged in (the Kosovo war) racial genocide to take & "cleanse" ethnicly Serb territory. Ashdown was obviously aware of his friends antecedents & intent & complicit in supporting it.
The total failure to find any evidence against Milosevic proves there was no campaign of genocide on the Yugoslav side. The fact that the British Foreign Minister told parliament 2 months before we started bombing, that the genocide was being carried out by the Nazis, gangsters & sex slavers NATO hired & armed as the KLA proves, beyond any possible question, that NATO (with the enthsiasm of Nazi Ashdown) went to war for the specific & deliberate purpose of participating in racial genocide. Their behaviour after signing for a temporary occuption of Kosovo, promising to run it in a secure & non-racist manner, has produced far worse genocide & ethnic cleansing than Hitler's.
If you feel anything there, or in my previous post, is not factual please say what.
I apologise for inadvertently posting this to you twice. When combating the amount of censorship LibDems (& the MSM) such things are unfortunately inevitable.
On the question of whether it is permissable to oppose genocide - are you prepared to say that you accept the definitions of war crimes & crimes against humanity we used at Nuremburg & that if there is a prima faci case against party leaders that they committed such war crimes & crimes against humanity they should face a fair trial?
Neil, you say that you were told your expulsion happened because you opposed genocide. I very much doubt that you were told this in those exact terms. Rather, I suspect you were told that your expulsion happened because you repeatedly accused both your party and its leadership of being complicit in genocide (and of being Nazi, et cetera). Not quite the same thing.
ReplyDelete"The whole point of the intervention was never to oppose genocide. Genocide could have been avoided either by trying to keep the country together or even by dividing it on ethnic lines. We did neither."
Yugoslavia fell apart in the 1990's because it was a loosely-affiliated collection of mutually antagonistic states which had only been held together by the sheer force of Tito's willpower.
All the warring parts were still armed to the teeth from the country's "Socialist Federal Republic" days, making the wars of secession spectacularly brutal and bloody. Even so, the UN and NATO had no power to intervene, either to keep the country together or to divide it on ethnic lines. On what grounds could we have intervened, say to keep the country together? "NATO believes in keeping failed communist countries intact long after the regimes which held them together have become history"? I hardly think so. Even if we had intervened on such grounds, what could we have achieved other than the possible triggering of World War 3?
Nevertheless, it was widely felt that something had to be done when the scale of the ongoing brutality became apparent, so the UN declared various areas to be "safe areas" which should be free from any armed attack. And when in 1995 thousands were killed and tens of thousands
"ethnically cleansed" in the so-called "safe area" of Srebrenica, and this was followed by yet more massacres elsewhere, there were really only two choices - dissolve the UN, on the grounds that it was even more ineffectual than its predecessor the League of Nations had been, or actually do something in an attempt to make the "safe areas" safe. NATO chose the latter course.
Whether everything NATO did was right is open to question, but it quickly brought an end to the war in Bosnia by forcing Serbs to the negotiating table. Later NATO intervetion brought an end to the war in Kosovo. Without such interventions there might by now be just a smoking hole where Yugoslavia used to be.
"The total failure to find any evidence against Milosevic proves there was no campaign of genocide on the Yugoslav side."
I have to disagree. Milosevic was the political leader. He would hardly have been out in the field, raping and mutilating and massacring with his own bare hands. But there were plenty of Serbs who did get their hands dirty. Many were convicted on overwhelming evidence. The full evidence against Milosevic himself didn't all come to light because he died during his trial at the Hague, but there can be little doubt that he was a major force behind the descent of Yugoslavia into ethnic turmoil.
As for the rest of what you say, you ask me to point out what is not factual. I would say "the whole of it". There may still be some problems in the Balkans. That is only to be expected, given the
history of the region. But I suspect that it is in far better shape than it would have been in without NATO intervention. In any case, your claim that "NATO .. went to war for the specific & deliberate
purpose of participating in racial genocide" is simply incredible. What gain do you see for NATO in this "specific & deliberate purpose"? Do you think they get some sort of perverted pleasure just from the contemplation of it? Also your immoderate throwing around of labels such as "Nazi" doesn't add to your credibility. I suggest that you take a few deep breaths, then take a long hard look at what you have written, and at everything that Liberal Democrats have told you in reply.
To claim that NATO brought an end to the war in Kosovo is as disingenuous as to say that Hitler brought peace to the Jews. The war in Kosovo was started by NATO. The KLA were a terrorist organisation organised armed & trained by NATO (this is why Ashdown took a leave of absence from leading the party during the war). They hired drug lords, gangsters, former Nazis, sex slavers & people who dissected babies for medical materials, scum like Ashdown then trained them in terrorism & then NATO sent in the bombers. When NATO occupied the place they gave the KLA police uniforms & far from enforcing peace sent them out to commit massacres such as Dragodan (matching My Lai or Lidici except in peacetime) & expand their genocide & worse. I note that even in defending NATO you do not dispute this. The comparison with claiming Hitler brought peace to the Jews is clear.
ReplyDeleteIn 4 1/2 years no actual evidence could be produced against Milosevic & the entire prosecution case had been put - what is your basis for saying the prosecution didn't put the full case. That is why he was poisoned. By the standard of evidence you require - ie none -, every single member of your party should personally be hung for murder & child rape etc. which I think would be excessive but which you, if you believe Serbs are not Untermensch, would wish to apply everywhere.
If we accept "the whole of it" as non-factual as representing the standard of truth to which you aim we must accept you deny that any bombing of Yugoslavs ever took place. That is clearly a lie.
It is a statement of fact that NATO went to war to help the KLA & a statement of fact that NATO knew their KLA employees were the ones engaged in racial genocide. Ut us therefore impossible for anybody, except holocaust deniers to pretend they did not, deliberately go to war for the purpose of carrying out genocide, & indeed have carried it out under the occupation too. As for the motivation- NATO wants power
http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2007/02/yugoslavia-motivation_26.html
Was the Jewish Holocaust is a hoax because Hitler had no reason to do so? Filth like Hitler, Ashdown, Campbell, Williams, Himmler etc don't need human reasons that is why they are such scum.
Now if you, or any other member of the party, feels able to point out a single non-factual statement...
It is difficult to point out a single non-factual statement in such a morass of non-factuality. However, I could begin with "the war in Kosovo was started by NATO" (the preceding statement, with its Hitler reference, is not so much non-factual as incredible and absurd). Kosovo slid gradually into war over the period 1996-1998, with escalating conflict between various ethnic and national groups, including numerous atrocities. The NATO intervention in 1999 was clearly a response to massacres of civilians, and its stated intention was to resolve the conflict by forcibly restraining the two sides. Serbs, while not being the only villains, had been key players in many of the massacres, with Kosovars and Albanians as victims. According to Wikipedia, referring to the Racak incident: "Rolling TV cameras featured United States Ambassador William Walker walking through mutilated bodies of Albanians. Shortly after that he held a press conference where he stated that he had just witnessed Serbian crimes against civilians". This, together with television pictures of refugees being driven out of Kosovo made a vivid and simple case for NATO's actions, such that any Western opposition to those actions at the time was extremely muted. NATO's action was widely, indeed almost universally, seen as both necessary and appropriate.
ReplyDeleteOf course, none of the many massacres actually counts for you, except where there is a possibility that Serbs or Yugoslavs were victimised. Hence your reference to "massacres such as Dragodan" which to you are a match for My Lai but which according to more measured opinions might not even have happened. True, there was a mass grave found at Dragodan - but it was in a cemetery, in a region where many battles had been fought, and where it was established procedure for combatants after a battle to bury their unidentified dead opponents in unmarked graves. The bodies found at Dragodan could have been the result of the scouring of numerous conflict sites over a wide area and an extended period. See http://www.kosovo.net/massgraves.html
Even if there was a Dragodan massacre, it would have been just one of many, conducted by various groups against various other groups, and it would have occurred before NATO involvement. NATO was restricted to investigating the situation, NOT instigating it.
And that is as far as I can go in engaging with you while remaining within the bounds of rational discourse. In your own blog you refer to '"Liberal Democrats", Nazis and other such parasitic pond life'. Here you make statements about how "every single member of your party should personally be hung for murder & child rape etc". While admittedly you do not say that this is your own personal opinion (preferring to ascribe it to me, in some twisted way), you go on to say "filth like Hitler, Ashdown, Campbell, Williams, Himmler etc don't need human reasons that is why they are such scum". All this without providing even the slightest shred of evidence which would justify the juxtaposing of those names. This leads me to conclude that you are too far gone even to recognise that you are far gone. So I ask you, once again, to take some deep breaths and to reflect on what you have written.
You are factually wrong on 2 levels in denying NATO started the war. Firstly the obvious one that, legally, as a war, rather than a terrorist campaign it only started when NATO bonbers went into action. You are also wrong in pretending that the terrorist campaign was independent of NATO. The KLA received large amounts of NATO material (their own propaganda films showed them wearing german uniform parkas). They could not have become a significant terrorist force in a couple of years without NATO recruiting, organising, training & arming these gangsters, drug dealers, sex slavers & baby dissectors so even as a terrorist campaign NATO started it.
ReplyDeleteSince the NATO attacks were aimed at helping the KLA who were admitted as being responsible for the genocide you are right that NATO's war was a "response to massacres" - they went to war to assist in that genocide.
The independent Finnish forensic examination of Racak shows that the "civilians" were KLA terrorists who died in combat after they had broken the cease fire to carry out genocide. Faced with the proof Walker admitted, during the Milosevic "trial", that he had lied. If you claim Racak justifies NATO genocide then you are claiming that the fact that the Germans fabricated a Polish attack on Germany (they dreesed up concentration camp victims in Polish uniforms & shot them) justifies Hitler's war. Racak was the same.
Even the british government has admitted the Dregodna massacre though, with a unanimity Goebbels would like, our media have censored any mention of it. Some of the identified bodies are of people who were alive when NATO (in this case Britain since it was our zone) occupied it. They were still alive when our police arrested them. However you are right that Dragodan was only 1 of many massacres, albeit the one with the largest proven bodycount of 210. With the exception of KLA combat casualties no significant site has been shown to have been caused by Yugoslav forces & the worst were certainly carried out, under our occupation, by our police. That is pue & simple NATO genocide & is indeed comparable to Lidici.
I have provided overwhelming evidence that Ashdown, Campbell & Williams did indeed engage in an aggressive & hebcecriminal war & that they did so, knowingly, for the purpose of assisting in what they knew to be a campiagn of racial genocide. Evidence against Hitler & Himmler is available elsewhere.
I note you cannot even bring yourself to say that if there is a prima faci case that they did so they should, as the law requires, face a fair trial. Nor can anybody else at all in your party. That alone proves the entire party racist supporters of genocide.
Neil. This is your third comment on "Does Lancaster have Morecambe?" All three have had nothing to do with my blog. You have hijacked it with your own agenda and have ignored my comments even though they addressed your concerns. However I will deal with your final paragraph. I presume that prima faci is Scottish for prima facie. I know of no case prima facie or otherwise, against anyone. Look up the meaning of prima facie and you will see that one party has a burden of proof, which requires them to present prima facie evidence for all the essential facts in its case. If they cannot, their claim may be dismissed without any need for a response by other parties. So nobody has to find evidence. It is not my job or Paddy Ashdown's to supply you with evidence. You may have supplied evidence to somebody at some point but you haven't done so to me. Neil, your thoughts are not mainstream. NATO forces work for peace.
ReplyDeleteYou write in your blog that "THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS HAVE DECIDED THAT THIS BLOG IS LIKELY TO BE MISTAKEN FOR AN OFFICIAL PARTY SITE (no really, unanimous decision) I PROMISE IT ISN'T SO ENTER FREELY & OF YOUR OWN WILL". I always think that people are shouting when capital letters are used so I will stay calm and say that my blog is not an official party site. You have mistaken my site for something else. If you care to look back at the previous 175 blog entries you will see that nobody has been throwing insults. You accuse me of not answering you but I have quoted you then made my comments and I have been quite extensive in my replies. Your comments generally ignored mine.
Your last sentence "that alone proves the entire party racist supporters of genocide" is pure nonsense. It is not a liberal principle to stop people from airing their views but I, like the party, have decided that enough is enough. The comments stop here.
Michael,
ReplyDeleteNice try, but I don't think you could've ever got through. Charles Crawford, a Foreign Office expert, told Neil how Serbs in Belgrade had treated Albanians "as some sort of inferior race", and that "Serbia blew it, to the point of making even the KLA seem reasonable". The conclusions Neil drew from this? a) Charles Crawford thinks the KLA are reasonable, and b) the Foreign Office are slightly more racist than the SS.
It's one thing to be pro-Serb. It's another to think that all Serbs (especially St. Milosevic) are paragons of virtue and that the Liberal Democrats are child-sex-slaving, mass-murdering, live-victim-dissecting Nazi scum. Neil gives other conspiracy theorists a bad name.
What diatribe.
ReplyDeleteThe response should have been nothing more than, "You are entitled to your views".
ggd
So, what should he have said?
ReplyDeleteggd
Neil can, and does say what he wants and he is free to do so. However he says Milosevic did nothing wrong, NATO are bad, and Liberal Democrats are evil. Prior to these blog entries I had written nothing publicly on this subject but now I am public enemy number one. This is Neil's logic which I eventually asked him to keep to his own blog. He could have commented on ownership of Morecambe by Lancaster!
ReplyDeleteI should have been more specific and said, "So, what should Glenn Watson have said?"
ReplyDeleteSadly, because Neil got you hooked you automatically thought I was referring to him, but my reference was to the original article.
ggd
I think Glenn was prpbably correct in what he was saying but it was just the editing on the radio that made it sound like Lancaster has Morecambe. What about saying, this constituency incorporates the historic city of Lancaster, the seaside resort of Morecambe and folow this with a description of places like Carnforth and Hornby.
ReplyDelete