I love aphorisms and now find X indispensable for news and views

 

The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II

 '

‘What impressed most who saw [the Coronation] was the fact that the Queen herself appeared to be quite overwhelmed by the sacramental side of it. Hence, in the spectators, a feeling of (one hardly knows how to describe it) — awe — pity — pathos — mystery. The pressing of that huge, heavy crown on that small, young head becomes a sort of symbol of the situation of humanity itself: humanity called by God to be his vice-regent and high priest on earth, yet feeling so inadequate. As if he said, “In my inexorable love I shall lay upon the dust that you are glories and dangers and responsibilities beyond your understanding.”’ C.S. Lewis

This is exactly what I saw watching the film. I also saw how the British aristocratic establishment of the 19th century was assembled as part of a profoundly Christian hierarchy.

All this had changed essentially by the time our present King whom God preserve was crowned. England had become American, European, egalitarian and the television was king, not the King.

Why was it important whether Labour MPs were hostile to Israel? To whom exactly was it important?

 

Chris Mullin

@chrismullinexmp

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16h

Promoting Mandelson was the least of Morgan McSweeney's sins. He, above all, was responsible for injecting all that poison about Labour anti Semitism when Corbyn was in charge. For details see Get In by Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund.

An Israeli created a biological weapons lab in Las Vegas

Why did an Israeli create a biological weapons lab in Las Vegas? 

The Canary, a left-wing British magazine that Morgan McSweeney tried to destroy, reports suggestions that the plan was to stage a false flag operation so that a Muslim country got the blame.

(Morgan McSweeney who is the big political story in Great Britain today said "we need to destroy The Canary – before the Canary destroys the Labour right". But he has been destroyed first.)

"One thing we know: Epstein was no Mossad agent." Not so fast, Mr.Simons

Jake Wallace Simons is wrong when he says no former Israeli intelligence officer says Epstein was Mossad. At least one former Israeli Intelligence Officer, Ari Ben-Menashe, has repeatedly done so but is not reported in the papers. 

Why not?

He said for years that he knew Epstein from when they were in Mossad. 

He also says that Israel blackmails US presidents. 

Now he says ‘Calling Jeffrey Epstein a Russian or a Soviet agent is NONSENSE. I’m sure the Israelis are putting it out that he’s a Russian agent.’

The Telegraph always sounds like MI6 and Israeli propaganda.

But Jake Simons is right that Epstein wasn't a spy exactly but something different. He was a geopolitical player of some importance according to Alastair Crooke, and certainly he considered that he worked in the interests of Israel not America or Russia.  

Edward Snowden, in a 2015 video interview with The Guardian from Moscow

"When you say 'I don't care about the right to privacy because I have nothing to hide,' that's no different than saying 'I don't care about freedom of speech because I have nothing to say.'"

The elite revealed in the Epstein files wants war with Iran

The current president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, on Epstein’s island with former Israeli PM Ehud Barak.

Have you considered that the people in Epstein's milieu, who now want a war, are not going to make Iran a happier place?

Here we have Epstein not sounding like a Russian spy. 

More quotations

“Do we really want to be allies with a country that kidnaps young girls for rape, just so they can have dirt on American politicians and control our foreign policy?” Ana Kasparian, star of The Young Turks

"The British Empire, which saw a little island smaller than Michigan command a quarter of the world's surface, is one of the most magnificent achievements of history." Will Tanner, the American journalist not the English politician.

"If there is something more excellent than the truth, then that is God; if not, then truth itself is God." St. Augustine, in On Free Choice of the Will (De Libero Arbitrio)

Quotations

“I do not believe in what is known as the deep state, all these foundations acting behind the scenes or private groups that are allegedly ruling the world’s destinies. After all, people elected as presidents or prime ministers have what it takes to assert their own policy. But they steer a line that consists in deceit and implies immunity to feeling ashamed or blushing for lying to a partner. This is a fact and there are many people of this sort. Currently they have come into full view all over Europe and they are drawing no conclusions [from their mistakes].”

Sergey Lavrov three days ago

"Banjaxed though he is, it is likely that Sir Keir will stagger on for a while yet. Should this ultimately do for him, it will be a further irony if the first world leader brought down by the Epstein scandal is a British human rights lawyer who never met him." Andrew Rawnsley today

"This time we live in will go down in history as the time in which Western nations no longer had to get invaded by hostile armies in order to be conquered, the invader was actively invited in by a corrupt elite." 

Eva Vlaardingerbroek

"Of all bad men religious bad men are the worst." 
C. S. Lewis

X suggested this to me. Whether paedophiles or chaste, foreigners should leave Iran alone.

dart

@poordart

·

7h

If you're from any Western country, i dont actually care about how you feel about the Iranian political system Have you considered that your sadistic pedophile overlords are *not* the guys who will improve Iran? Or any other country for that matter, including your own

Mandelson scandal

How long will the Mandelson scandal continue in the Ukay? 

Until Sir K. Starmer resigns, which he may well and good riddance, or something else happens.

Mandy was a good choice for Ambassador to Washington, did a good job and not dropping an old friend who went to prison is not something bad, but you'd think it was. 

What came out in the emails - giving Epstein market sensitive information - is very bad indeed. 

He might end up in the clink.

But British scandals are absurd. Recently we had the scandal of a Chinese spy working in the House of Commons. The House of Commons knows no secrets!

Why won't any Americans be damaged by the Epstein emails?

The Mandy scandal will keep the Epstein one going though it may distract from the point of the Epstein scandal, which is Israel. Anything that keeps Epstein in the news is good at this stage.

Interesting Israel connection to Mandy, a convinced Zionist: he via McSweeney (also Zionist) got Starmer to expel anti Israel MPs on false accusations of antisemitism. It made no sense to me at the time. There are glimmers of sense now.

Memory

"Has it ever struck you that life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going?" Tennessee Williams

"He who does not read, at 70 years will have lived only one life, his own! He who reads, will have lived 5000 years: He was there when Cain killed Abel, when Renzo married Lucia, when Leopardi admired infinity... Because "Reading is backward immortality." Umberto Eco

"Gracious God, who was he, weak and friendless creature, that such a love should be poured out upon him? Not in vain--not in vain has he lived--hard and thankless should he be to think so--that has such a treasure given him. What is ambition compared to that, but selfish vanity? To be rich, to be famous? What do these profit a year hence, when other names sound louder than yours, when you lie hidden away under the ground, along with idle titles engraven on your coffin? But only true love lives after you--follows your memory with secret blessing--or precedes you, and intercedes for you. Non omnis moriar--if dying, I yet live in a tender heart or two; nor am lost and hopeless living, if a sainted departed soul still loves and prays for me." WM Thackeray, Henry Esmond, Chapter 20

Bad men

When it comes to the point, really bad men are just as rare as really good ones.
George Bernard Shaw

It is not possible there should be peace where virtue is not already put in practice beforehand. Let us form, if you please, a city entirely of covetous men, give them equal privileges, and let no one bear to be wronged, but let all wrong one another. Can that city possibly hold together? It is impossible. Again, is there peace amongst adulterers? No, not any two will you find of the same mind.

St. John Chrysostom, Homily 9 on Ephesians

At the core of all successful societies are procedures for blocking the advancement of bad men.
Paul Collier

Obviously Epstein worked for Israel - he might have done something for Russia but he said in the emails that he wanted to replace Putin

‘Calling Jeffrey Epstein a Russian or a Soviet agent is NONSENSE. I’m sure the Israelis are putting it out that he’s a Russian agent.’ Former Israeli Intelligence Officer Ari Ben-Menashe

Obviously.

How can people I greatly respect like Andrew Lownie and Andrew Marr suggest he was principally working for Russia? 

Ari Ben-Menashe said years ago that he knew Epstein was Mossad and that Israel blackmails US Presidents (Clinton over Lewinsky before that scandal became public, for example).

Why do the media never mention Mr. Ben-Menashe or his revelations?

A serious question.

Because the CIA or MI6 would not like it? I'm not sure how it works but would love to.

Quotations

“Before ‘enlightenment’, chop wood, carry water.
After ‘enlightenment’, chop wood, carry water.”
Zen Proverb

Only after years did I realise that Romania's profound and profoundly Orthodox religiosity and mysticism were the biggest reasons I so love her

 

Quotations

"People's opinions are mainly designed to make them feel comfortable; truth, for most people, is a secondary consideration". Bertrand, Earl Russell

"Isaiah Berlin once denounced somebody for being “that rare thing – a genuine charlatan”. He pointed out that few people, even quacks and imposters, deceive and manipulate all the time. Boris Johnson is a prime example of Berlin’s rare breed, who does just that with his boosterism, false promises and lying." Patrick Cockburn, October 2021

"Every man must define his identity against his mother. If he does not, he just falls back into her and is swallowed up." Camille Paglia

The media's lack of curiosity is the big story

Instead of pushing conspiracy theories about Epstein being a Russian agent the media might investigate whether the disgraced "Lord" Mandelson and his protegé Starmer's Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney have kompromat on Labour colleagues and whether the way they use it is legal. 

Both have aways been dedicated to Israel and MM got Starmer to expel Labour MPs whose only offence was hostility to Israel.

This is an interesting story but the media are sublimely indifferent. 

It would be different if the pair were linked to Russia or China.... or to Donald Trump or Viktor Orban.

Russiagate redivivus

Put in Epstein blackmail in Google News. All the stories are about Russia. Who makes the media do this?

The last of the Romans

Virginia Giuffre, who worked at Mar-a-Lago, was poached by Epstein from the resort and became part of his grooming circle, an accomplice as well as a victim.

 
When she exposed the entire operation, naming Prince Andrew etc, she did not mention Trump, her former employer. 

In fact she voted for him.

Epstein said he had a lot of dirt on Trump and Hillary. No doubt he had plenty but not enough because Trump fell out with him nevertheless.

Trump will suffer not from the contents of the Epstein files but the attempt to keep them secret.

The hero in all this is Thomas Massie, the Republican congressman who succeeded in getting the files published. Massie is the last of the Romans.

Trump and AIPEC intend to ensure he loses his seat.

Thiel is the next scandal

I had enormous hopes for JD Vance after his speech at Munich but he is a creature of Thiel and Thiel is the enemy of the West. Vance is complicit in Trump's crimes and asinine mistakes. He went along with Venezuela and Iran and justified ICE killings. Rubio is worse, of course.

Caitlin Johnstone is right, of course - you knew that, I suppose

Caitlin Johnstone@caitoz 9 hours ago:

Every news outlet, pundit and analyst who tries to tell you that Epstein was a Russian intelligence operative instead of an Israeli one is just telling you they're a propagandist. View it as a big flashing sign that says "Never trust anything from this source ever again."

Cenk Uygur:

A child given an assignment to figure out who Epstein worked for could do it in 15 minutes, but NOT A SINGLE REPORTER in legacy media has figured it out? They’re all covering up for Israel.

Russia and the USA have attacked numerous countries illegally. The USA is threatening Iran at the moment.

"In the last 100 years, Russia has attacked at least 19 countries, some as many as three or four times. None of those countries has ever attacked Russia." Kaja Kallas, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

Since 1945 the USA has bombed or invaded 29 countries, none of which had ever attacked the USA.

Afghanistan 1998, 2001
Bosnia 1994, 1995
Cambodia 1969-70
China 1945-46
Congo 1964
Cuba 1959-1961
El Salvador 1980s
Korea 1950-53
Guatemala 1954, 1960, 1967-69
Indonesia 1958

Laos 1964-73
Grenada 1983
Iraq 1991-2000s, 2015-26
Iran 1987
Korea 1950-53
Kuwait 1991
Lebanon 1983, 1984
Libya 1986, 2011-
Nicaragua 1980s
North Vietnam 1961-73
Pakistan 2003, 2006
Panama 1989
Peru 1965
Somalia 1993, 2007-08, 2010-
Sudan 1998
Syria 2014-
Yemen 2002, 2009, 2025
Yugoslavia 1999

Bombing China and North Vietnam was legal.

She is pretty srupid, isn't she? Yet she was Prime Minister of tiny, corrupt Estonia.

The argument for Israel

"What the “stolen land” people don’t understand is that virtually all of the land on the face of this earth has been conquered at one point in time. That’s life." Alana Mastrangelo.

An intelligent young Jewish woman, whom I met in a bar in New Orleans the Christmas before last, told me that there was absolutely nothing to be said in favour of Israel, but there is this to be said in Israel's favour.

I found this writing prompt on the net

 

Instead of heaven and hell, when you die, you find yourself in a room with a six year old girl who invites you to join her tea party. It dawns on you, you’re her imaginary friend. https://writing-prompt-s.tumblr.com/post/186843972314/instead-of-heaven-and-hell-when-you-die-you-find

Life and death

“When I look back at my life, I feel pain not because of suffering, but because of wasted time. I see how carelessly I lived, how often I ignored the quiet voice of my soul, how rarely I understood the value of a single moment. Only when death stood before me did I realize that life is not merely existence—it is a miracle. Every minute is a treasure, and in every breath, there is the possibility of happiness.” Dostoevsky wrote this after being sentenced to death by firing squad for participating in the Petrashevsky Circle and then seconds before execution receiving a reprieve from Tsar Nicholas I commuted his sentence to four years hard labour in Siberia.

"There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?" A gypsy talking to George Borrow

Quotations

'The Trump presidency wasn’t normal even in his first term, but something is different now. Americans are increasingly unnerved by the president’s rambling appearances and late-night screeds.' Karl Rove, Wall Street Journal

This was posted today by the editor of Drop Site News on X. The book is a must read. Ari Ben-Menashe worked with Epstein in Mossad but what he has to say, though always fascinating, goes unreported in the media.