THE VOICE OF REASON
Solon, (born c. 630 BCE—died c. 560 BCE), Athenian statesman, known as one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece (the others were Chilon of Sparta, Thales of Miletus, Bias of Priene, Cleobulus of Lindos, Pittacus of Mytilene, and Periander of Corinth). Solon ended exclusive aristocratic control of the government, substituted a system of control by the wealthy, and introduced a new and more humane law code. He was also a noted poet.
"I would not be sad if my son were to kill Westerners", the mother of a young jihadist tells Mark Lowen pic.twitter.com/qtBT3gpEFp
— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) November 6, 2014
The rise and fall of Default Man - Grayson Perry's NS essay on the Great White Male http://t.co/leYhSPeiSB
— New Statesman (@NewStatesman) October 8, 2014
@Grammarly_man I will only be satisfied after you sum up what you think the tranny potter said about #defaultman in a tweet.
— Claire Khaw (@ntfem) October 9, 2014
@Grammarly_man The dominant culture dominates, naturally. If you are the most powerful nation and race on earth, people would imitate you.
— Claire Khaw (@ntfem) October 9, 2014
@Grammarly_man In a way the tranny potter is doing no more than stating the obvious. Why would he mock the race he is a member of though?
— Claire Khaw (@ntfem) October 9, 2014
@Grammarly_man Why would the tranny potter mock his own sex? Because he thinks he is better than the straight white male, I suppose.
— Claire Khaw (@ntfem) October 9, 2014
@Grammarly_man What would the tranny potter think he is better than the straight white male if he is also a straight white male? #defaultman
— Claire Khaw (@ntfem) October 9, 2014
@Grammarly_man If tranny potter thinks he is better than straight white male it must be because he thinks being a tranny makes him better.
— Claire Khaw (@ntfem) October 9, 2014
@Grammarly_man Why does tranny potter think being a tranny potter is better than being a straight white male? He doesn't say. #defaultman
— Claire Khaw (@ntfem) October 9, 2014
@Grammarly_man Would tranny potter like it if most straight white males became tranny potters too and would the world become a better place?
— Claire Khaw (@ntfem) October 9, 2014
@Grammarly_man I would suggest that tranny potter would not like it if most straight white men became tranny potters like him. #defaultman
— Claire Khaw (@ntfem) October 9, 2014
@Grammarly_man If most straight white men became tranny potters like the tranny potter, the tranny potter would be out of a job. #defaultman
— Claire Khaw (@ntfem) October 9, 2014
@Grammarly_man Wd straight white women n feminists cheering Perry on like it if most straight white men became tranny potters? #defaultman
— Claire Khaw (@ntfem) October 9, 2014
@Grammarly_man So that's why what the tranny potter said is nonsensical making the people cheering him on fools to themselves. #defaultman
— Claire Khaw (@ntfem) October 9, 2014
Grammarly Man was so impressed by my answer that he asked me for a snog and wanted me to call him.
@ntfem Nicely done. I'm a straight, white handsome male myself. Fancy a snog...?
— Rob Coker (@Grammarly_man) October 9, 2014
@ntfem You have the wit and the charm of an urban raccoon.
Call me...
— Rob Coker (@Grammarly_man) October 9, 2014
Do feminists and their mangina running dogs who cheer on the fall of the patriarchy have shit for brains?
GRAYSON PERRY FOR KING AND QUEEN OF ENGLAND. Imagine how BRILLIANT our country would look if he was. — Caitlin Moran (@caitlinmoran) October 8, 2014
Answers in a comment below, please, on what you think IS/ISIS/ISIL would do to a nation of tranny potters and his default woman, apart from behead them and then sell their default women and default children as slaves.
You could also tell the Tranny Potter in person what you think about the default man by by going to the Tranny Potter Show, if he is taking questions, and if you don't mind paying £15+ for the privilege of doing so. The best and worst of Britain's Commie Pinko Feminazi Homos, as well as Martin Amis, will be in attendance, as you can see at http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/grayson-perry-in-conversation-with-miranda-sawyer-tickets-13049384059
If anyone wants to pay for my ticket, I will gladly go and point out a few home truths to the assembled libtards.
"Hello, I am John Cantlie, the British citizen abandoned by my government and a long-term prisoner of the Islamic State.
President Obama's address on the 13th anniversay of the 9/11 finally stopped all the ninnying around as he laid down his four-stage strategy for confronting the Islamic State. There were no big surprises: US aircraft would provide the airpower, while a mix of Iraqi Army, Iraqi National Guard (not yet formed), Peshmurga fighters and Iranians (not mentioned) will do the ground operations. The border between Iraq and Syria will be open and Syrian Rebels will be armed. and all of this with only 475 extra US advisory personnel doing the job, and not a single US soldier with his boots on the ground.
"We will lead a broad coalition to roll back the Islamic State," said Obama. We are hitting ground targets while Iraqi forces go on the offence. "I will not hesitate to take action against the Islamic State in Syria", he said.
Now, exactly when Gulf War 3 will start and how long it will take isn't covered. The US advisers working with the Iraqi Army have described their performance as "consistently grim", for arming and training an effective National Guard of Sunni fighters in Western Iraq will take months to achieve. The Free Syrian Army are proven to be an undisciplined, corrupt and largely ineffective fighting force.
As recently as 7 September a senior US intelligence official said, "Our intelligence assessment has no serious consideration to work with the FSA. Giving the FSA 500 million now is a completely pointless exercise, never mind that the FSA sells the weapons to the arms dealers and gives them to smugglers and much of them ends up with Islamic State.
Air power is good at taking out specific targets but it is not much good at taking and holding ground. For that you need effective and disciplined troops, and it is hard to see how this hotch-potch army with its history of under-performing is going to be any form of credible infantry.
After the speech, Peter Baker of the New York Times observed that "Obama is plunging the United States into one of the bloodiest, most vicious conflicts now in existence. He will pass his successor a volatile and incomplete war, much as his predecessor left one for him. Mr Baker goes on to comment that while previous Presidents enjoyed a surge of public support when they took the nation to war, the public is not rallying behind Obama this time round. Now, polls indicate that while the American public support action against the Islamic State, they do not think Obama is the man for the job, which goes a long way in explaining the simplistic language used in his last speech. Obama was at pains to point out that groups of killers have the capacity to do great harm. That was the case before 9/11 and remains today. If this reality wasn't changed by two arrogant wars before, why would a third change it now?
Obama described the Islamic State as "not Islamic. No religion condones the killing of innocents and a vast number of their victims have been Muslim. The Islamic State has no vision other than a slaughter of all who stand in its way."
Now, if by innocents he means women and children, the Islamic State did not kill the Christian Yazidi women of Mosul and Sinja. This is an undeniable fact, and they do not regard the Shia as Muslims at all. In fact, according to them the Shia are considered worse than Americans, as they are apostates claiming to be Muslims while worshiping the dead. And the Islamic State does have a vision: they have created an autonomous and functioning Caliphate. But expanding on the complex social and political issues of the region isn't going to work when it is war you want. And so the speech was full of hyperbole about how America would save the innocent men, woman and children. "This is American leadership at its best," said Obama. "We stand with people who fight for their own freedom," he said, before the speech descended into prideful chest-beating about how the USA always saves the world, singlehandedly. It was all disappointingly predictable: America is good, the Islamic State is bad, and they will be defeated using aircraft and a motley collection of fighters on the ground.
For their part, the Islamic State say they welcome meeting Obama's under construction army.
I am disgusted by the comments from my Facebook friends who variously said:
"Probably one episode maybe two. Hasnt he said all there is to say by now?"
"He bored me to tears with his droning on. I tuned him out after about the third quote from some U.S. official."
Claire Khaw: Wow. People just don't care about foreign policy no matter how many times or how hard it bites them in the bum!
"No they don't care at all unless it starts to affect their everyday lives."
"If you asked, most people would say that they do support British foreign policy as they give every year to Red Nose Day and Children in Need."
"Lol what can I say? People nowadays have short attention spans! They need to make it interesting as they did some of their other videos. No one wants to just hear this guy talking, just going on and on. It's BORING."
Claire Khaw: I thought you would be different.
"They need to chop a couple of fingers off or an ear in the middle of his broadcast, just to make us 'sit up & listen'.........I didn't get to the end of part three either. Whatever the intention was it's now lost."
Claire it's not a case of being different, there's just no point to it now.
"Maybe it's his voice, Claire. Even *he* sounded (and looked) bored with it all! So how do you expect anyone else to be engaged?"
Claire Khaw: YouTube thought it was interesting enough to have removed links to the video.
Hint to ISIS:
If you have dancing girls behind him, people might watch to the end.
@MagpieLee "This video has been removed as a violation of YouTube's policy against spam, scams and commercially deceptive content."
— Claire Khaw (@ntfem) September 24, 2014
Hello there. I am the British citizen abandoned by my government and a long-term prisoner of the Islamic State.
In this program, we’ll see how the Western governments are hastily marching towards all-out war in Iraq and Syria without paying any heed to the lessons of the recent past, and how they are using the persuasive approach to lure the public back into the conflict.
So, let’s get straight to the point with a quote from former- C.I.A.-chief-turned-vigorous anti- intervention-campaigner Michael Scheuer: ‘President Obama does not have the slightest intention of defeating the Islamic State, which would require the aerial slaughter and boots in on the ground and the demolishing of the mujahedin' - Michael Scheur whose knowledge of the Muslim Nation and the complexity of their society is considerable adds "18 years into our war with the Islamists our government has given no public sign that it has the slightest awareness of what its enemies are fighting for.
Now, there are two solid points here.
The Obama Administration is so perplexed as they marched back into Iraq that they tap-dancing on the issue in a "we're getting involved but we're not really getting involved" kind of way. You know, air strikes but no troops on the ground, limited operation time, no mission creep, all those pre-combat agreements that tend to get forgotten after the first six months of nasty tough stuff.
The pre-9/11 Afghans are already back in control of large areas of Afghanistan while the full might of the American war machine couldn't destroy the Islamic State in Iraq before.
So, now the State is far stronger now than ever it was.
What is this latest ill-advised foray really supposed to achieve? And Scheur's point is aptly made. As ever, the entire reason why we are at war with the Islamists and what they are fighting for is brilliantly avoided by all.
Senior US politicians seem content to call the Islamic State nasty names: "awful", "vile", "a cancer", "an insult to our values", but such petty insults don't really do much harm to the most powerful jihadist movement seen in recent history. That the Western governments were caught napping by the sheer speed of the Islamic State growth is now a given. "Intelligence officers failed to anticipate the emergence of the Islamic State", says Tom Kean, the former New Jersey Governor. "We certainly didn't anticipate them going across the border into Iraq and declaring themselves a Caliphate."
Obama and his allies were well and truly caught by surprise. [Photos of Obama and his allies being caught by surprise.]
The President once called George Bush's Iraq conflict "a dumb war" and couldn't want to distance America from it when he came into power. Now he is being inexorably drawn back in. But he is at pains to point out that this not the equivalent of the Iraq War. In fact, it is far more complicated and prone to failure. There is a newly-elected pro-American Iranian regime in Iran. They wait eagerly for further American intervention to strengthen the Iranian Crescent in the Middle East.
But the appointment of a new puppet is an important piece of the puzzle in America's Gulf War Free[?] as it allows them to get involved quickly via a proxy. Iraq's leaders should know that "America will stand shoulder to shoulder with Iraqis as they implement their National Plan", gushed John Kerry on the 9th of September - meaning our National Plan to tackle the Islamic State. Everyone now is getting involved. Denmark and France have sent air power. Britain is arming the Kurds. Iran is sending troops. Contracts are being sought in Iraq and even Bashar Al Assad until earlier this year - the most hated and villainised tyrant in the Arab world - is being approached for permission to enter Syria.
"Can the Islamic State be defeated without addressing that part of their organisation that resides in Syria?" asked General Martin Dempsey.
The answer is NO.
It's all quite a circus - air strikes, the creation of last-minute puppet governments, advisory teams of the ground, wooing previous enemies to join in and trans-border incursions into a country that has been in a state of civil war for three years - all the while completely underestimating the strength and fighting zeal of the opponent. Not since Vietnam have we witnessed such a potential mess in the making.
Current estimates of 15,000 troops needed to fight the Islamic State are laughably low. The State has more mujahideen than this. This is not some undisciplined outfit with a few Kalashnikovs.
We started with Michael Scheuer, so let us give him the final word for now: "Think what you will of the Islamists and their brand of war-making," he says, "but they have been in the field fighting since 1979 and their movement has never been larger, more popular or as well-armed as it is today.
@BBCr4today@HazelBlearsMP Radicalisation occurs when someone, whether Muslim or not, feels CERTAIN that the UK government are the bad guys.
— Claire Khaw (@ntfem) September 18, 2014
@BBCr4today@HazelBlearsMP People resort to terrorism when they know that participating in the political process is futile. Ask Breivik.
— Claire Khaw (@ntfem) September 18, 2014
@BBCr4today@HazelBlearsMP Is government trying to get anyone who disagrees with government policy branded an extremist to lock us all up?
— Claire Khaw (@ntfem) September 18, 2014
@BBCr4today@HazelBlearsMP Radicalisation = coming to the conclusion that participating in the political process is a mug's game and futile
— Claire Khaw (@ntfem) September 18, 2014
@BBCr4today@HazelBlearsMP How 2 stop radicalisation: being prepared to discuss government policy HONESTLY. y not do that? Faster n cheaper.
— Claire Khaw (@ntfem) September 18, 2014
