George Galloway blasts the Senate

I suspect that Coleman thought he would pile charges upon Galloway until he was so buried in them that he would not be capable of a coherent defense. I also suspect that Coleman went into politics as a result of being unable to earn a decent living in the courtroom.

MySweetLordEllpus

Interesting that you watched it, found it riveting, watched it again then on American tv...and found next to nothing. John Pilger wrote an interesting piece in last week's newstatesman about news manipulation and the role of journalists. Not just in the US but in Britain. Just found it an extract:

article begins

"In 1987 the sociologist Alex Carey, a second Orwell in his prophesies wrote "Managing Public Opinion: the corporate offensive". He described how in the US

"great progress [had been] made towards the ideal of a propaganda-managed democracy",

whose principal aim was to identify a rapacious business state

"with every cherished human value".

The power and meaning of true democracy, of the franchise itself, would be "transferred" to the propaganda of advertising, public relations and corporate-run news. This

"model of ideological control",

he predicted, would be adompted by other countries, such as Britain...

continues


On 6th August it will be the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima which, with the destruction of Nagasaki, stands as one of the greatest crimes. There is now a nuclear renaissance, led by the nuclear "haves", with America and Britain upgrading their battlefield nuclear weapons. The very real danger is, or should be, clear to all of us. The Guardian says Blair, having won his "historic" third term, ought tobe "humble". It is truly humbling that only 20% of eligible voters voted for him, the lowest figure in modern times, and that he has no true mandate. No, it is journalists who ought to be humble and do their job."

article ends.

Now its true that Pilger has had something of a downer on the US ever since he reported on Vietnam. I dont think he has ever recovered. So I take a quizzical view of some of his comments. But his central theme, that journalists have lost the plot (or rather are part of a plot they are only dimly aware of, or ignore) cannot be doubted in my view.

"Our right to know what our rulers are doing to people the world over is being lost in the new propaganda consensus"


........................................


Sumac said

Steve said, way up there:

Quote:
I'm not going to be disrespectful to my own country.

Oh, yeah? Since when?

Not sure if we are on the same wavelength old bean. Before this thread got going Setanta and I were digressing about Republicanism/Monarchy, and I said I had respect for the Queen as Head of State (and because of her qualities) but I myself would like to see us move towards a republic. If you have noticed a certain lack of deference on my behalf towards our elected politicians, no matter how senior, you would be quite right. Very few of them deserve any deference. But then none of them are Head of State. Unlike the US of course where your elected President is also Head of State, and George W Bush......


you know I think maybe there's something in this hereditary monarchy thing after all...

..................................................

Dys says

"mr steve still needs a sense of humour. (8 freakin' pounds for a pint!)"

I know its been difficult for you these last few days dys, what with moving between time zones, driving on the left in pounds then on the right in euros and coping with all sorts of funny measurements like quarts, kph, Imperial gallons per mile...

but if you must order your whisky in a pint pot... Good to see you recently...hope everything fine.

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JTT says

"Which man can you heave further, Steve, Tony Blair or George Galloway? First impressions can be misleading but it seems that he was spot on about everything.

Haven't you just done precisely what you're chastizing the Americans for doing?"


Sorry JTT this is lost on me. I dont like Galloway, but I thought he did a great job in putting certain republican warmongers firmly on the spot, and there was a nice irony here because it was he Galloway who was supposed to be in the hot seat. I support Tony Blair but not unconditionally. He needs (somesay has got given the election results) a very sharp smack on the wrist over Iraq.

I too think Galloway's a scoundrel, personally - based on his politics and the way he pursues them in general, I mean.

But I also think there's been a deliberate smear attempt, first by the right-wing press then by the Senate. The sheer shamelessness of launching the same insinuations again when the previous time they already resulted in a massive libel verdict - the assumption that, when the US body politic targets some common leftie European MP like that it can get away with any kind of unproven allegations, or declaring someone guilty before even questioning him, makes it especially gratifying to see Galloway unabashedly lambast them like that.

Especially because of how the American media, as the Lord rightly pointed out, appear to be utterly unable to overcome their deference and their fear of conservative backlash and official retaliation (you might not get invited to the next, rare Presidential press conference after all, let alone given the carefully and selectively granted chance to question the man) and actually find an authentically critical voice. To dare dig beneath the ten-second soundbite. Or worse of course, as the Lord's description of Fox shows.

None of which however fundamentally improves the very low esteem I hold Galloway in.

Well old bean, perhaps it is just semantics. You didn't say that you did not wish to criticize the monarchy or elected officials, but the country. Ah, what the hell, and why not criticize the monarchy as a form of government, or elected officials as forms of fools?

As to Pilger's comments: his prophecies are all too familiar, from where I sit.

FOX News? Give me a break. That isn't journalism, and most sentient citizens here know that. Problem is, most citizens here aren't sentient. And that same criticism about non-journalism and editorial selection of coverage goes for local affiliates of the big three as well.

And it matters NOT, whether or not Galloway is a scoundrel, has done morally bad or questionable things, is just another politician, or whatever.

That kind of throwing out the universe based on a piece of it being impure, or vice versa, is just the kind of illogical cognition that conservatives love to argue. And that so many ill-informed minds fall prey to.

Hmmmm, Sumac seemed to get it alright.

http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/05_05_15_corner-archive.asp#063431

I'm sorry, but American politicians just are not a match for experienced British politicians one-on-one.

Completely different styles as this has shown.

I;m sure Galloway is probably a scoundrel...he is after all, a politician.

Seeing him put that ass whipping on our boys in the Senate gave me mixed feelings. I was delighted to see him do it, because it's over due for these bullying, smug bastards. I also experienced feelings of gratitude that even now, as things slide downhill in our country we can still watch the bad guy get smacked even if the bad guy is one of our own. I also experienced a feeling of sadness because I truly believe those days will soon be over and free expression will be in the history books.

What are you on about? Galloway being a scoundrel or having done morally bad or questionable things or not doesn't matter to what? It certainly does matter to appraising what one thinks of the man and how one appreciates his political presence - which was what I was doing, in cursorily expressing my opinion about the man in general. I don't really know what you mean with the supposed illogical cognition in that, or how it would come down to "throwing out the universe" etc - ?

My opinion is straightforward enough: judging from what I've seen of the man and what I've read about his latest contentious election campaign in Bethnal Green and Bow, he is a crude populist, who habitually resorts to inflammatory rhetorics and does not seem to engage much in tackling issues beyond such rhetorics. I resent his decade-long devotion to the cause of Saddam-era Iraq, arguing both against military intervention and sanctions (the alternative being?), and I particularly dislike the direction his Respect party has led the far left in, to an odd kind of merger of religious conservatism and anti-Israelism with firebrand socialist populism.

None of that makes him a less entertaining and effective, caustic critic of the Iraq war and I've been especially glad to read of the hiding he gave the Senate. But in a thread about the man it's hardly irrelevant either. Perhaps embracing him and applauding him unquestioningly solely on the basis of his success in attacking Bush and Blair on Iraq, without bothering to go into the rest of his politics, is just as much a selective perception "ill-informed minds" risk "falling prey to". Perhaps it would be kind of like embracing an entire unknown universe based on one piece of it being pure?

The fact that conservatives hate him and have gone after him in despicable ways does not in itself make him a good person or a sound ideologue. Why would that be irrelevant to a thread about the man?

I heard excerpts on the radio. It was entertaining. As others have noted, few US politicians get anywhere if they sound too articulate. How refreshing to listen to someone who can express himself intelligently. He had those senators dumbfounded...

If politicians weren't illiterate clods how would the majority of Americans understand them?

I agree with nimh....and still not sure what was JTT and Sumac's point, however

During the recent election as you probably know, Galloway defeated Oona King (loyal Blairite) in the east end of London.

Galloway was thrown out of the Labour party for calling Tony Blair and George Bush "wolves" and making statements that could be seen as giving support to anti USUK forces in Iraq.

So winning a seat for his new party (called Respect membership : one person, G Galloway) and giving the senate committee a blasting must have been pretty good for him.

The reason I mention this is during the campaign all sorts of nastiness went on. King who is Jewish was attacked by radical Muslims supporting Galloway. (Car damaged, eggs thrown etc..plus all sorts of antisemitic language). Galloway tried to take some of the heat out of it, making clear the distinction between Judaism and Zionism, but then his radical supporters turned on him!

So we had Mr Galloway hiding under police protection whilst outside Islamists were denouncing him as False Prophet. Wonderful!

(True followers of Islam don't believe in voting apparantly..everything must be decreed by Allah, not man and certainly not women).

After a while the False Prophet was able to continue his campaign, and of course won. So he's back in parliament and able to make as many firebrand speeches attacking all and sundry as he wants.

Did anyone notice when he swore to tell the truth whether he affirmed or swore "by Almighty God". He didn't invoke the name Allah, I would have noticed that. Anyway False Prophets aren't too popular in that department.

Without disputing the points which Habibi has raised about the character of Mr. Galloway, i would like to point out that the topic of the thread is Mr. Galloway blasting the Senate. The topic might lead to elliptical references to Mr. Galloway's character, or lack thereof, but the central theme is his appearance before the Senate.

I have no brief to defend the man on charges regarding his character, or his political tactis. Quite honestly, i don't give a rat's ass how many scoundrels there are in Parliament, or how they got there. What concerns me is the number of scoundrels in Congress, how they got there, and what they are up to thereafter. It appears very likely that one particular pack of scoundrels in ordinary attempted to smear Galloway on the basis of unreliable evidence. If they have reliable evidence, let them produce it--and in the original, not in heavily censored, badly reproduced copies. The lowest slinking whore in Whitechapel (if that is where they still haunt the streets) would deserve a day in court before being condemned out of hand.

As an aside, i would like to note that StevetheAncient's new signature line just tickles the hell out of me.

I think Galloway deserves to be congratulated. No-one can deny it took balls to go over there and face his accusers. He couldn't be sure they wouldn't pull something out at the last moment that could sink him.

He managed to destroy the case against him, even referring to schoolboy errors of the Chairman Sen Norm Sombody. He put his accusers in the dock (I wonder if it was a co incidence that the Guardian ran a story about US firms cheating the oil embargo on the day of the hearing), and he had a good general swipe at all the warmongering venality that was going on in Iraq. I especially liked the several references to the illegality of the Iraq war which went unchallenged, and his dismissal of the suggestion that he had paid Saddam money as "beyond fantasy" or some such phrase.

George Galloway was an amateur boxer in his youth.

edited to include signature line

He really handled himself well. Our boys were totally outmatched. One of my favorite bytes was when he said that since he had been accused of taking so much money from Saddam that the idea that he gave them money was especially ludicrous.
Squinney and I both laughed long and heartily at that one.

So "Gorgeous" George Galloway vs. "Omnipotente" Committee: won a unanimous decision by the judges' scores of 78-75, 77-75, and 78-74.

Yes. But one wonders if he only won the round.

Something we will only know at such time as the Senate manages to produce credible evidence against him.

Even if such an eventuality occurs, it will not lessen the validity of his charge that the members of the subcommittee smeared his name and found him guilty in absentia, and only thereafter invited him to answer the charges.