Archive for February 3rd, 2013
I’m bored. Quick, Fresh Money…
An Act I play
Lord Edward Campbell and his wife Lady Victorine are sitting in the reading room, a fire roaring in the traditional fireplace. Victorine is leisurely flipping delicately a fashion magazine.
Edward has dusted off an old volume, red leathered cover, and sitting tight, legs resting on a cushion, and meticulously lighting his pipe.
Apparently, Edward is not coming to term to start reading. Victorine looks sideways at her husband.
Victorine: Dear, I have been noticing that you were not yourself lately. Any bother?
Edward: You’re quite perceptive dear. It is my impression that any promotion is not forthcoming any time soon.
Victorine: Oh my! Those nasty budget cuts have long arms. The cuts attained the hard working professionals in the foreign office, the best in the kingdom, I hear say…
Edward: My impressionof this predicament has preceded the budget cut frenzy for a couple of years. And I have my idea on the causes for my tacit demotion in the eyes of the higher ups.
Victorine: Do you mean that you are ready to open up to me dear? Frankly, I barely can wait any longer. Our friends have been murmuring on our feet-dragging for receiving guests…
Edward: Do you recall that evening we had dinner with Lord Gordon three years ago?
Victorine: I surely can recall this lovely evening. It was quite an eye opener and the frank communication on this “double moral standard” that is practiced within the aristocratic institutional circles… Something in that direction, I guess…
Edward: It was pretty much an easy going conversation. Expressing our opinions and openly divulging our emotions that got me in hot water…
Victorine: As I can remember, Lord Gordon told stories of his own kinds of double moral standard practices in the Exchequer circles. Am I wrong?
Edward: All higher up in institutions have variations on these practices, and the extent of talking about.
Victorine: Do I surmise that the foreign office is far more tighter on these stories, keep them under lid outside the circle?
Edward: You see, the trouble comes for telling our stories in the privacy of our homes. At work, we are entitled to express all our scorns and doubts and concerns… An attitude that never tarnish obeying orders and following guidelines…
Victorine: Am I to understand that the moral standard at work is an institution of its own and barely can be reformed or modified?
Edward: What I learned since my tacit demotion is that we must keep at work the details of moral standards accepted at work, and never transfer it outside the premises. This attitude is categorized under State Secret interests…
Victorine: And at home, only home moral standards are to be discussed?
Edward: It is agreed upon in the circle that this a good pragmatic scheme that is very feasible to maneuver around for the types of people hired in the foreign office. Still, there are occasions whee it becomes too hard not to rebel against what is obviously a blatant tyranical and hypocritical situation to handle, day in, day out. There are conditions that make us fail to put the lid on these stories…
Victorine: Am I getting the hint that the institution denied you jobs that imposes you Not to make improper decisions, until further notice, ever since it got wind of your babbling during that dinner?
Edward: I like your witty a clever innuendos, your interpretation of matters. Actually, it took me more than a month to realize that I was considered not of a character, strong enough to juggle and withstand two moral standards. Practically, you are correct…
Victorine: Do you feel relieved that you were saved from making obnoxious decisions? Are you more comfortable not being obligated to deal with confounding emotional equilibrium?
Edward: I cannot but miss the good old time when I were welcomed in this vicious circle of authority figures. It was a convincing motto: “What is good for the Crown is good for the British citizens”
Victorine: This is a normal behavior: Frankly, it is hard to change after two decades of getting into a certain habit…
Edward: It is not necessarily a matter of seeking higher pay checks. It is not easy to be carted out of exquisite privileges of this bad elite club. There was this palpable sentiment that “All is legitimate and commendable as long as you are a member of an institution of old traditions and customs”
Victorine: Are you referring to the elite clubs of old money or old aristocracy?
Edward: They are the same elite clubs and interchangeable.
Victorine: I was under the impression that the clubs of old money are behind maintaining the behavior of two moral standards in our Empire…
Edward: The difficulty is that the clubs of old money are frequently in a state of boredom and badly need fresh excitements, which can only be satisfied by constant infusion of fresh money…
Victorine: Fresh money? Why? I thought they had plenty of money to go around in philanthropic associations…
Edward: They do have plenty of money and this kind of money is tied up in well-oiled business cycles. The old money is already codified, legalized, cleaned, and transferred within formal and expected disbursement. This old club has difficulty dipping into the old and stable money without getting into risky investigations of “where did you get all that money in the first place…”
Victorine: And where are the sources of fresh money?
Edward: Mostly, fresh money comes from overseas, from shady governments in developing countries that still rely on their former colonial powers to cover up their oligarchic business dealings…
Victorine: You mean like casinos, sex slave, illegal weapon shipments…
Edward: Those business are peanuts. The old money hit the jackpot when a few of the old mandated States have vast oil reserves and the oligarchy wants most of the money to be transferred to their own accounts, in countries like in Guinea Equatorial, Gabon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia…
Victorine: And extraction of diamond, gold…
Edward: The interesting raw materials that old money invest in are uranium, copper, tin, heavy metals… any material used in technology and aerospace industries, just to keep a military edge… The basic interests of the military and old money cannot be dissociated…
Victorine: Do you feel my dear that a cultural change is overtaking the foreign office?
Edward: Fundamentally, I may say never. The Office is getting more sensitive to public outcry and is gearing up to a wave of public soft announcements that would appease the citizens. Mind you, direct mandated power is over and it is no longer a la mode.
Victorine: I am thinking of testing your approach…
Edward: What do you mean?
Victorine: How about inviting to dinner the personal secretary to the minister, or someone very close to him personally who is known to immediately relay the discussion?
Edward: And exacerbate my situation?
Victorine: I think this is kind of targetting two bird in one dinner. If nothing changes in your position then we have tried. Most likely, you might be elevated to send the right message in the circles, for a while. And the other benefit is that you may revert to your normal self: dealing comfortably with double moral standards…
Six former Israel security heads of the Shin Bet, and… Spoke out
Posted by: adonis49 on: February 3, 2013
Six former Israel security heads of the Shin Bet, and… Spoke out
Six former heads of the Shin Bet, Israel’s secretive internal security service, have spoken out as a group for the first time and are making stunning revelations.
The men who were responsible for keeping Israel “safe from terrorists” now say they are afraid for Israel’s future as a democratic and Jewish state.
Israeli film director Dror Moreh managed to get them all to sit down for his new documentary: “The Gatekeepers.” It is the story of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories, as told by the people at the crossroads of some of the most crucial moments in the security history of the country.
Samuel Burke, in CNN posted:
“If there is someone who understands the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it’s those guys,” the director told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.
Against the backdrop of the currently frozen peace process, all six argue – to varying degrees – that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land is bad for the state of Israel.
The oldest amongst the former chiefs, Avraham Shalom, says Israel lost touch with how to coexist with the Palestinians as far back as the aftermath of the Six Day War of 1967, with the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, when the country started doubling down on terrorism.
“We forgot about the Palestinian issue,” Shalom says in the film.
A major impediment to a meaningful strategy, they say, are the Jewish extremists inside Israel – people like the Jewish Israeli who assassinated Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin, or the 1980 plot to blow up the Dome of the Rock Islamic shrine in Jerusalem.
A central theme of the documentary is the idea that Israel has incredible tactics, but lacks long-term strategy: The security apparatus is able to pacify terrorists, but
Moreh said he was shocked to hear Avrahamif operations do not support a move toward a peace settlement, then they are meaningless. Shalom, Austrian-born and a refugee of the Nazis, compare the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories to Germany’s occupation of Europe.
“Bear in mind that Avraham Shalom was born in Vienna,” Moreh said. “And at the Kristallnacht he was forced by his mother to go to school and was beaten almost to death by his classmates… Avraham said: ‘I experienced firsthand what it means to be under a racist regime.’”
Moreh knew that he had to include that part of the interview in the film. “I said to myself I have to keep it, because he understands what he speaks.”
“Only Jews can say those kind of words,” he told Amanpour. “And only they can have the justification to speak as they spoke in the film.”
The filmmaker said that this is “the most pro-Israel film” he could have created. “When you see the Titanic heading toward the iceberg, what would you do?”
A spokesperson for current Israel Prime Minister said Benjamin Netanyahu had not seen “The Gatekeepers,” and had no plans to do so.
“I think the fact that the PM of Israel is not willing to watch a film with six former heads of shin bet speaking and conveying a message to the Israeli public – to him and to the world. I think it just speaks about his personality,” Moreh said.
Critics accuse Moreh of cherry picking to advance a political agenda that falls on the left-wing of the Israeli political spectrum.
“They are all pragmatists,” Moreh told Amanpour about the subjects. “These are the six heads of the secret service of Israel saying in one and clear voice enough of the occupation – you cannot argue with that.”
Moreh said that none of the former chiefs has come to him with any problems with the final product and all of them told him they stand behind the film.
READ MORE: Did the Israeli military defy PM Netanyahu?
Adonis Diaries 