GötterdämmerungThe UK's cascading constitutional crisis continues. The horrific fire at Grenfell Tower in London on June 14th, which occurred just 6 days after a snap election delivered a 'shock' hung parliament (the UK's second in just 7 years), has shaken the country to its core at a time when trust in the authorities is already teetering.
- (Germanic mythology) 'The twilight of the gods'. The myth of the destruction of the gods in a final battle with the forces of evil; the apocalypse.
- Any cataclysmic downfall or momentous, apocalyptic event, especially of a regime or an institution.
Up to 600 people lived in 120 flats in Grenfell Tower. The fire started at 1am (when it was probably almost fully occupied by sleeping residents) on the 4th floor. All 20 floors above that went up in flames in just 15 minutes. The government says the death toll stands at 79, but the names of not even half of those have been released. The true death toll is likely closer to 379. Locals are certain the death toll is being covered up. British MP David Lammy stated that the death toll is being covered up by Theresa May's party to prevent riots.The official line that '79 are dead and the toll is likely to rise' is the best the government can do to 'handle this till it goes away'.
But the fallout from this isn't going to just 'go away'.
Multiple terror attacks prior to the election, and the non-stop media coverage they received, were dwarfed in their impact on UK society by this accidental fire, the effects of which the state and media has been frantically trying to cover up or - please excuse the pun - put out. But that attempt is largely irrelevant at this point. We live in an age of instant digital communications, and while the government figured out how to 'manage' the fire's consequences, the people are talking directly with each other via social media and uploading hundreds of eyewitness accounts and commentaries on the event - many of which have gone viral - that bypass all central efforts to control the information flow.
We're starting to see how the 'controlled burn' of social control methods like terrorism are completely backfiring in the elites' faces. The terror attacks that are used to 'remind the people why they need us', have been rendered almost useless in the face of a surprise event that has people directing their outrage at the authorities. The timing of the Grenfell disaster, so soon after the Manchester and London terror attacks, apparently supercharged the backlash.
Assuming the cynical view that 'ISIS' had inside help with strategically injecting terror into the middle of arguably the UK's most important ever election campaign, and that the purpose was to encourage British people to look to the 'established' authorities for protection from Muslim terrorists that are murdering them, the Grenfell fire has completely reversed that narrative with many British people now accusing their government of murdering them.
Grenfell Tower was refurbished to the tune of £10 million last year with flammable plastic cladding that cost £22 per square meter. Non-flammable cladding cost £24 per sq meter. The flammable cladding was mounted on the exterior of the building because it was deemed an 'eyesore' to some residents of the surrounding wealthy borough of Kensington. In all their wishful thinking, their slashing of social services (including fire services) while enriching their friends, and their hubris in believing they could 'manage' events to keep Corbyn out and keep the country 'together' - they never saw this one coming.
It's not that they couldn't have foreseen the risk of a fatal fire: they had ample opportunity because for years the towers' residents were warning local authorities about fire hazards. What they couldn't foresee is the backlash and the socio-political consequences. Patrick Cockburn writes on the utter fecklessness of the UK regime as it scrambles for scapegoats:
"A sprinkler system, which would have suppressed the original blaze before it spread, was never installed because it would have cost a small amount of money. The Government is quoted, in words that it may come to regret, as saying that "it is the responsibility of the fire industry, rather than the Government, to market fire-sprinkling systems effectively."So Grenfell has had the reverse effect of all that pre-election terror: it has exposed the only real faultline in society - that between the people and the elite. All efforts to render Muslims untermenschen are certainly void in London where, for now at least, the great majority is united in grief with the victims, who were largely Muslim or black, and certainly all among society's poorest, and united in rage against "those who know the price of everything but the value of nothing," as one MP put it.
Neo-liberalism, the ideological vehicle of US-dominated 'globalization', arguably began in London with the election of Thatcher back in 1979. There were twists and turns from there to here, but by the time the 2008 financial crisis flared on Wall Street, the UK joined eurozone countries in imposing the 'cure' to the crisis - austerity - whose terrible toll provoked public backlash in the form of the Scottish independence referendum in 2014 (an event the UK only survived thanks, I am quite certain, to massive postal vote rigging by the security services), the election of Jeremy Corbyn to leader of the Labour party, the decision to call an in/out EU referendum, and the bombshell result of that referendum.
From crisis to crisis - some manufactured, others completely outside the security services' control - the UK is stumbling into an uncertain future. Like the political schizophrenia exposed in the US by the deep state's reaction to a reasonably honest independent coming to power, the British establishment is desperately clinging to power.
Another Hung Parliament
The Tower cardLabour's success on June 8th was a shock to the British intelligentsia, but not surprising to us. If anything, we're surprised Corbyn's party didn't win by a landslide. It's not just that Conservatives got as many seats as they did, but where they got them from: a dozen Scottish SNP seats. Around a third of Scots, the elections results told us, have apparently, sometime in the two years since the UK's last general election, fully reversed their support for breaking away from London-imposed austerity to asking for 'more please, sir.'
"The Tower is commonly interpreted as meaning danger, crisis, sudden change, destruction, higher learning, and liberation. In the Rider-Waite deck, the top of The Tower is a crown, which symbolizes materialistic thought being brought low."
Another notable result was the consolidation of an almost 50-50 split between Irish nationalist Sinn Fein and British loyalist Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in Northern Ireland. That the English Conservatives are now relying on minority Scottish Conservatives and (barely) majority 'Irish Conservatives' to form an all-UK government serves to highlight - and will almost certainly accentuate - the 'united' Kingdom's overall constitutional crisis.
Last week the 'victor' in the election, Theresa May, presented her incoming government's program to the queen, a formality that was rendered doubly hollow this year by the fact that the Conservatives have had to gut their election manifesto due to losing their majority share of seats in parliament at the polls and pay the Northern Ireland Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) £1 billion to secure a majority government.
Even before the election result, the EU was applying pressure on Downing Street in its Brexit negotiations by dangling the carrot of Irish unification before the Belfast and Dublin governments, citing the majority result in Northern Ireland for 'Remain' in the in/out EU referendum, and subsequent local fears of a 'hard' EU border within Ireland. The DUP would rather hang themselves (or the nationalist population of Northern Ireland) en masse than accept a united Ireland, so the scene is set for much fecklessness and skullduggery over the next year or two.
As the English are wont to say: 'Bloody hell, mate!' If the permanent bureaucracy in Westminster isn't careful - which I can just about guarantee you it won't be - it risks regime change in the form of both a republican/socialist overhaul of the British monarchy and the collapse of its union of anglo-celtic nations in the form of Irish unification and Scottish independence.
Failed state
What happened at Grenfell Tower is both symptomatic and symbolic of the fact that something is profoundly rotten in the state of Great Britain. While that could be said about the West in general - where the wheels are coming off the 'Washington Consensus', producing dislocations all over the place - I think the contradictions in the UK between how the state, and thus society, sees itself, and how it actually is, is particularly pronounced.
British youth has long since been corrupted: the country is joined only by the US for the highest rates of underage sex, teenage pregnancy, drug use, and alcohol use in the developed world. Its media is appalling, rating as the most right-wing (and not in any positive sense of that term) in Europe; and you've no doubt noticed the celeb-porn plastered all over the web pages of many of its biggest media platforms. London is the most corrupt city on Earth, a distinction earned by the unscrupulous behaviors of its elite minority and their banking/business ties with organized crime, military contractors and terrorists the world over.
And then there are the pedophilia scandals. As Home Secretary two years ago, Theresa May said that pedophilia is now "woven, covertly, into the fabric of our society", and she should know. In recent years, one after another pedophile network has come to light, revealing what can only be described as decades of child sex criminality on an industrial scale - and it was often taking place in the very studios of its trusted media, in the very institutions of its child care services, in the very grounds of its sporting establishments, and in the very halls of its government.
When a society devours its young like this, where else can it go but down in flames? With its bizarre decision to court disaster by calling the Brexit referendum, and its overtures to China in recent years, the British establishment's long-term strategy apparently foresaw the UK providing 'offshore' banking services for Yuan-denominated (and dominated) global trade, while keeping its own population cowed under a 'strategy of tension' (via outright terrorism and other forms of subterfuge). But reality and those annoying things called 'facts' have caught up with them.
Enter J.C.
As if he wasn't before the election, and before Grenfell, official polls now tell us that Jeremy Corbyn is the public's favourite to lead the country.
It cannot be stressed enough just how dangerous Corbyn is to the establishment. He has been an MP since 1983, and has a consistent track record of voting on principle in the House of Commons. He warned back then that gutting the country's real economy in favour of a fake one dedicated to 'manufacturing' financial instruments was a strategy that would end in tears; he warned that a fake 'left' under Tony Blair was bamboozling the country with its 'humanitarian wars' and 'third ways' in the late 1990s; and today he's still the same principled bloke that he was back then.
That is why the British security services immediately marked him as "a threat to national security" when he won the Labour leadership contest in September 2015. Why on Earth would Cameron have been saying such about Corbyn just months after winning what should have been a 5-year majority Conservative government? Because a reasonably fair society run by people with integrity is kryptonite to the UK's ruling elite, and because they sense that the general public wants exactly that.
In their 19th century elitist worldview, a Corbyn-led government would destroy their country; in reality, they have destroyed the country all by themselves, and Corbyn represents the only chance it has of saving itself - or, to be somewhat more pragmatic in diagnosis - the best chance it has of navigating the ship of state in these times of tumult, and of making course corrections without the country descending into chaotic and bloody revolution.
Scottish comedian and leftist commentator Frankie Boyle sounds a note of caution though: the UK establishment - even when it is on the racks; in fact, especially when it is on the racks - is made up of people whose sociopathic tendencies predispose them for handling crises well - not by solving them, mind you, but by turning them to their advantage and against the interests of the people. Rendered conscienceless via the British public school system, by the time they're in power, the self-styled British elite instinctively know what to do: whatever it takes to maintain the status quo. If you haven't seen it yet, check out the 1990 TV mini-series A Very British Coup to see the what the 'deep state' looks like on this side of the pond, and what awaits Corbyn should he become prime minister.
In just over a month's time, the UK passes the 20th anniversary mark of Princess Diana's death-by-'unlawful killing'. I don't know what if any connection that has with current events; I just thought I'd mention it. While I confess - as an Irishman - some measure of schadenfreude at seeing the true nature of 'great' Britain finally come out in the wash, I'm also happy for my British neighbours. It's a red day in England; 'ere the Sun rises!
Finally, here's Jeremy 'Jezza' Corbyn (did anyone else notice that his initials are J.C.?) taking to the stage this past weekend at the Glastonbury festival to tell 150,000 people (who had probably long ago despaired of politics) to keep the faith and love one another. Can you imagine Theresa May doing this? The poor woman would rather flee recklessly through yonder fields of wheat...
Reader Comments
Great job!
I love this from the link you mention: at the Independent Online: [Link]
"Chancellor Philip Hammond has claimed that the cladding used in the refurbishment - said to be the cheaper, more flammable of two options available to the supplier - is already banned on high rise buildings in the UK."
Insane: form over function - and re construction, usually rationaLIEzed as needed for 'energy savings'; and usually at worst involves wasted tax dollars - but 'cladding' (i.e., enclosing or clothing) a building with a flammable substance (the cheaper and more flammable of the two, no less) because the rich neighbors didn't like the look of non-flammable brick/concrete/metal is pretty close to unthinkably reckless and strongly indicates that this was a result was - if not openly, then secretly or subconsciously - 'hoped for' by those who wanted the building to look prettier, and to coincidentally, 'get rid of the neighbors.' (Oops, Neighbours.)
Now that's not exactly neighbourly.', eh? I can't picture Jesus Christ having approved the plans and I can't believe that such form over function to the point of "risk-of-loss-of-life-be-damned/not-calculated/not-an-issue" exists in the first place.
I also must note that the building was built in or about 1974 so it may well have been chock full of irremedial asbestos, just like the WTC buildings - whereupon they become huge white elephants because the cost of asbestos remediation was - and is -far more expensive than the value of the building. That of course was the situation in the WTC, but that problem 'magically' went away, with the prime schemer/front man Larry Silverstein, (who had insured the buildings for double indemnity in the event of terror attacks only six weeks before 9/11)* getting paid double the falsely alleged value of the buildings, for two separate terror attacks. {To clarify, the buildings - whose honest value was less than zero, were insured as if they were worth approximately price of a new skyscraper, so let's call it, for ease of example, say 1 Billion each on WTC1 and WTC2 (I don't know about 7). So Silverstein got fraudulently paid out $4 billion instead of two billion, for WTC 1 & 2.
IF there was asbestos as seems likely, and it likewise appears there was some private ownership, (per Wikipedia), someone ought to be doing some serious research as to a similar set up to 9/11 . This is particularly so as the fire started on the fourth floor, and Wikipedia states the lowest four floors were non residential. (News Flash: "Israeli Mossad owned company 'Urban Moving Systems' revealed to have rented out top corner flat where fire first broke out... (No)film at eleven." (Joking - but I put nothing as being 'too immoral' OR 'too wrong' for the powers that be these days.)
R.C.
*You try that with your house, and when you make your insurance claim, watch the SWAT team break your door down.
RC
I don't know the answer, but I do know that Cameron's bid to rid the cities of sink estates has just had it's biggest boost and within a few years there will be no undesirables living near the homes of the high flyers. As I posted on another article regarding the Kensington luxury apartments and their percentage of social housing...somebody needs to check these tenancy agreements, Right To Buy, Right To Acquire, because within 5 years I see there being no social housing left in this area.
I have been following your publications that appear on the SOTT.NET website since you started. I must tell your work is impeccable and well sourced. I just read your latest addition called -Grenfell-Tower-inferno,very very sad indeed. And I wanted to thank you in the sincerest of terms for your honesty, bravery, courage and tenacity in bringing us fellow newshawks your wonderful stories.I feel my purpose in life is similar to what they call a certain being in Buddhism, Bodhisattva which describes a certain type of being in Sanskrit, whose purpose in life is to awaken his fellow beings. I see that in you as well, and all the great folks at SOTT. It is happening the awakening is occurring because people like you and I speak truth to power.
"So what a Bodhisattva** vows, out of the spirit of bodhicitta, is to help all those beings reach Awakening. "
Many thanks Niall for all you do.
All the best
Jimmy Clarence
"Grenfell Tower was refurbished to the tune of £10 million last year with flammable plastic cladding that cost £22 per square meter. Inflammable cladding cost £24 per sq meter . The flammable cladding was mounted on the exterior of the building because it was deemed an 'eyesore' to some residents of the surrounding wealthy borough of Kensington. "
Well, greed and contempt for the masses are nothing new but I've rarely seen it illustrated in such an obvious way.
"While I confess - as an Irishman - some measure of schadenfreude."
That's one confused bit of snowflakemanship.
Gratuitous Wagner link.....[Link]
Niall is surrounded by people who want to help him, but the little he is able to receive doesn't do much good, 'cause he hasn't done any work on himself.
Comparing Brexit result maps with election results, note that Tory and DUP bases synch rather well with 'Leave'. It's sad really, especially given their ethnic, religious and cultural proximity with other northwest Europeans, Germans included. At least the Chosen Ones in the Middle East have a more concrete basis on which to set themselves apart.
I guess 300 years of 'ruling the waves' has produced a hard-to-crack barrier.
"Highland Fleet Lute is surrounded by people who want to help him, but the little he is able to receive doesn't do much good, 'cause he hasn't done any work on himself. "
It's funny though, seeing it come from HFL as he, from what I gather, has worked on himself (as per his own self assessment) and achieved 'autonomous' individuality... yet a huge chunk of his identity rests on myths and stories.... most of which are probably not even objectively true.
To be human... what an affliction. We are but there playthings....
We all live in a Nazi state anyway ... so the worse that would have happened is we would be speaking German
Zionism is only 150 years old, but a current of what is called British Israelism was running strong in the UK prior to that: [Link]
It wasn't so much about literal Jews in Britain as it was about a developing British 'manifest destiny'. A lot of English back then believed they were the original (or 'true') Jews. It survives to this day in people like Daniel Hannan: [Link]
Thanks for the links. I will read them later, and may even attempt posting one or two, lol.
"The government says the death toll stands at 79, but the names of not even half of those have been released. The true death toll is likely closer to 379. Locals are certain the death toll is being covered up. British MP David Lammy stated that the death toll is being covered up by Theresa May's party to prevent riots. The official line that '79 are dead and the toll is likely to rise' is the best the government can do to 'handle this till it goes away'."
The same kind of people who claim to want to protect their citizens from a threat, are a deadly threat to their citizens! It's a horrible reality, and as you wrote, they are not able to hide what truly happened and who was responsible for it. They keep saying it was a fridge that caused the fire, but people aren't buying it. We probably won't see justice being served, but it's good to see that people are aware of particular "snakes in suits" (Theresa May) and what's really going on.
also sad, how Americas 9/11 have similar traits, and yes, why didnt this tower fall?
maybe nobody thought to put explosives just over half way up,
may those who perished rest in peace, and those responsible, karma will get you one day..
The 'Tower' Card was a good analogy, and; And true in many other countries, if they could find someone with any "integrity"...
So much more in the article to ponder, too.
Not paying an extra £2/m2 for non-flammable cladding is an unconscionable decision, but sadly not surprising. From the very beginnings of the UK social housing boom in the 1960's it was always about 'profits before people'. The cladding used (as with 60 other high-rise blocks) could be viewed symbolically as an Establishment policy - a cheap but attractive veneer covering the underlying ugly, real and growing social ills of this country, which benefits the 'few and not the many'.
The 1984 documentary by Adam Curtis - The Great British Housing Disaster, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch5VorymiL4) which highlighted this approach is discussed in a Designing Buildings article.
"The new approach was summed up by one council leader as, "build it quickly, think later." The contractors began to build across the country with the mindset of building as cheaply and quickly as possible . The contractors' workforce was often unskilled labour on wages that were determined by how quickly work was completed, thereby tacitly encouraging the corner-cutting and time-saving that became endemic.
.......
Over the 10-year boom, a quarter-of-a-million flats were erected, housing up to 6 million council tenants who, in effect, were used as guinea pigs for testing new building systems that resulted in flats that were unfit for habitation . Councils were faced with the dilemma of privately acknowledging many flats were unsafe, but, in the face of inadequate central government funding, having to justify in public their decision to keep council tenants in the buildings. "
[Link]
An excerpt from the documentary regarding fire risk is particularly chilling given the Grenfell Tower tragedy. Remember that these failings were known back in 1984!
AC: "On the question of a fire risk do you think there are systems being used which represent a fire risk?"
Structural engineer: "Frankly, yes."
[Link]
In my opinion, they have 2 things that truly set them apart... of course other than conscience
1. Charm - the ability of charm to totally, completely neutralise you can't be underestimated. With charm, trust is won in its fullest extent. The masses will believe, will defend and will follow.
2. Money - the promise of wealth and even power is enough to snare pretty much anyone. They will dazzle you with the bourgeois lifestyle... you will want it, you will crave it. With that, you'll be willing to do pretty much anything....
Jeremy represents hope but don't be fooled to thinking that will equate to success or changing the course of history. We have enough public school educated individuals and their masses of followers to ensure that won't happen. Pretty much guaranteed.
A few fundamentals that will not be changing any time soon
- Russia is enemy number one.
- Acknowledgement to any serious degree of the depravity of the British elite and their minions. Some of their achievements, like slavery or conquest of lands and ongoing looting of resources are seen as what sets them apart, what makes them great... not what makes them totally and utterly contemptible. The majority rejoice and worship at the alter of evil for a lack of a better term. Good turned bad and bad turned good. The meaning of things changed.
- Equality. Sounds good on paper, bad in practice. The need for inequality will remain unchallenged. Some people need to feel good about themselves.
JC is awesome in the symbolic realm but I am not sure he will prevail beyond that.
[Link]
But don't worry, they'll be keeping the rich well away from the poor...
I feel this tweet sums up whats wrong with society and its fake empathy and humanity:
Admit it... we are all pretty much fake empaths. Feel sorry for this or that, outraged at this or that... complain about this or that... but at the end of the day, what makes us any different from these rich luxury flat owners? Symbolism anyone?
Where does empathy begin and where does it end?
If I see a homeless person on the street, should I give some spare change... how much? £2, £5 £10? I'd go for a meal with friends and blow through £40 and not think twice... but god forbid, I once gave a homeless guy £40 and I felt my stomach churn!
Anyone have any idea where it bloody begins or ends???? In all these years of living we concentrate on everything else other than being good humans, whatever that means. Our humanity is relegated in favour of other things.... survival, pursuit of happiness, self-interest etc etc.
:-!
It is in three parts about an hour long, and if I may say so, three hours well spent in watching.
It not only gives insight into the workings of the deep state in the UK, but also the Deep State in the US, do these guys ever change the hymn book.
[Link]
[Link]
[Link]
I like the ending, truth always outs lies in the end.
The name was brought into England following the Norman Conquest of 1066. Richard de Grenville came with the Conqueror in the train of Walter Giffard, Earl of Longeville and Buckingham.
The Grenville coat of arms Motto: “Thou may’st break, but shalt not bend me”