Pissed Off

Not by anything in my own little world. At the moment- knock on wood (not you, Chris)- things are pretty good in Simonland.

On the other hand, the world outside...

Remember the guy who died of a heart attack at the G20 demo last week? Well, it would appear that he died after being hit and shoved over by a police officer. No provocation, far as anyone can tell. Just in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

I dare say some would say tough shit on him for getting involved with the demo. Funny, really, as the right to protest is supposedly one of the things that makes Britain so great. (Or so the drooling, brainwashed fuckwits still mindlessly braying that the Iraq war was a good idea keep telling us. It's just, like, totally unpatriotic to make use of it unless it's to agree with the government.)

But that misses the point anyway, because Ian Tomlinson wasn't even part of the demo. He was a newspaper seller. Just doing his job.

And what's the betting that the officers responsible get clean away with it?

Quite frankly, I wouldn't bet a used bottle top against that outcome. After all, the police in London can blow an innocent man's head off his shoulders, and the coroner will tell the jury that they cannot return a verdict of unlawful killing. Just ask Jean Charles de Menezes. Oh, no, you can't. He's dead. He'd done nothing wrong. But a group of armed cops acting more like an El Salvadorean death squad than Dixon of Dock Green pinned him down and put seven rounds in his head. And it's apparently nobody's fault.

Still, why should that surprise? Our ex-Prime Minister, Tony Blair, is a war criminal. No ifs, buts or maybes apply. He lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, lied about Iraqi links to 9/11- lied and lied some more so that he'd get his dirty little war. Funnily enough, before his resignation, the Sainted Tony was claiming that the Nuremberg Trials were no longer relevant. Well, after all, they not only set precedents about the rights of refugees (and where would the Right be if they couldn't blame the immigrants and asylum seekers for everything wrong with the country?) They set another precedent Blair has much more cause to worry about.

The Nazi leaders weren't just indicted and convicted for crimes against humanity. They were indicted and convicted for crimes against peace as well. That is, for planning and waging an aggressive war.

That is, when you attack another country without provocation. Like, say, when they have oil supplies you want to get your hands on. You dress it up with fancy justifications, claim it's really about self-defence, but anyone with more brain cells than a newt with a hangover knowns the truth.

Tony Blair planned and waged an aggressive war. Loathsome though Saddam Hussein and his regime were, they weren't the aggressors in that scenario. And you'd have to be pretty deluded to claim that the majority of Iraqis are better off now.

Let's not mince words (I haven't so far.) Tony Blair, and every MP who voted for this illegal and disgusting war, is a war criminal, and every goddamn one of the lying, murdering bastards deserves an appointment with a lamp-post and twenty feet of rope PDQ.

Will they get what they deserve?

Sure they will.

Oink, flap, oink, flap. (So says the pig who just flew past my window.)

Was there a point to this?

Yeah. There was.

You can know something intellectually. But knowing it emotionally is a different matter. And sometimes you have to learn it all over again. And again.

What did I learn today?

That there's one rule for the rich and powerful, and another rule for the rest of us. Total bastards control our countries and commit atrocious crimes, and they get clean away with it. And then they have the sheer fucking nerve to say that people don't respect the law.

Loathsome Scumbag Gets Dismantled...

...although sadly not literally.

The scumbag in question is my local MP, Hazel Blears. This dishonest, swivel-eyed, platitude-mouthing little apparatchik basically embodies the vileness that is 'NuLabour'- the pathetic travesty of the Labour Party that Tony Blair created.

Thatcherites dressed in left-liberal costumes, they've made out like bandits for the last 12 years, and Hazel's been right in the front of them. God knows how she keeps getting back in. Probably because, in Central Salford, you could put a fucking turnip up on the Labour ticket and it would get in. Understandably. Voting Conservative is right up there with unanaesthetised tooth extraction on the list of 'things I would willingly undergo.' Central Salford is one of the most impoverished areas in the country. A lot of questions have been raised about its so-called 'redevelopment', and just what benefits the local population are supposed to derive from it, but from Hazel, we hear not a peep. Not even when the Salford Star, a local mag with integrity and balls, is being deliberately run down and nobbled to silence it.

Anyway, George Monbiot of the Guardian has taken her to task here. Read and rejoice. It ain't stringing these crooked, warmongering, freedom-eroding bastards up from the lampposts they all belong on- together with Cameron and his fucking Tories, who are just the same old wolves in different sheep's clothing. But it'll do for a start.