blessed britons

In 1965, [Denis] Healey asked Sir Donald Stokes, the head of Leyland Motors, to enquire into the possibility of establishing a sales body for British weapons...
[Following Stokes’ feasibility study], Sir Henry Hardman, the top civil servant at the MoD, said: ‘Sir Donald Stokes had indicated that it was often necessary to offer bribes to make sales... The commercial technique was to gather intelligence on the right people who controlled sales and purchases. When the right person was found, effort would be concentrated on him and, in time, a sale would be effected. Sir Donald stressed that a great many arms sales were made, not because anyone wanted the arms, but because of the commissions involved en route.’

— Tim Webb

Bribing for Britain

mad world

...ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.

— Stanley Milgram

in The Perils of Obedience

power

rushing to judgement

Submitted by antarchi on August 18, 2008 - 18:05.

The internet has been bubbling for 10 days now with experts on the Caucasus, Ossetia, Abkhazia, Georgia, and the big bad Russian bear. Everyone understands what's going on. No-one agrees with anyone else. Firm, decisive analyses from 'experts' (and a few experts) tell us precisely who did what, when, for which reason, and what we can expect to see next. Until you read the next analysis - which tells you exactly the opposite.

the owners of oil

Submitted by antarchi on March 5, 2008 - 01:50.

We must become the owners, or at any rate the controllers at the source, of at least a proportion of the supply (of oil) which we require....and obtain our oil supply, so far as possible, from sources under British control, or British influence.

get used to it world

Submitted by antarchi on September 17, 2007 - 00:56.

Pilger: What right have you - and I mean, you, the CIA, the United States Government - or any foreign power - what right do you have to do what you do in other countries?
Clarridge: National Security interests
Pilger: but... the people that you do it to have no say in this
Clarridge: Well... that's just tough. We are going to protect ourselves, and we're going to go on protecting ourselves, cos we end up protecting all of you. And let's not forget that. We'll intervene whenever we decide it's in our national security interests to intervene. And if you don't like it - lump it. Get used to it world: we're not going to put up with nonsense.

antarchy

Submitted by antarchi on August 31, 2007 - 16:27.

There are no set anarchist principles, no libertarian creed to which we must all swear allegiance. Anarchism – at least as I understand it – is a movement that tries to identify organisations exerting authority and domination, to ask them to justify their actions and, if they are unable to do so, as often happens, to try to supersede them.

as long as they conform

Submitted by antarchi on August 31, 2007 - 15:21.

People do not want - or often are not able - to perceive that they are conforming to external authority. They feel themselves to be very free - and indeed they are - as long as they conform. But power lies elsewhere.

It's not a mechanical phenomenon, but it's overwhelmingly true that the people who make it to decision-making positions (that is, what they think of as decision-making positions) are those who conform to the basic framework of the people who fundamentally own and run the society.