Suckered by the oil industry again (Grenfell Tower Fire = Muslim BBQ)

Observations on the state of the game known as the 'human race' – deadly winners and dead losers

Introduction - the karma of austerity - abstract

The Grenfell Tower blaze is a direct result of the system of austerity as the privileged elites vacuum everything of monetary value for themselves.

The punters get the plastic version of everything - plastic flammable cladding on their homes!

Jonathan Pie makes the point brilliantly in his short video – Papering over Poverty

The Grenfell inferno through the eyes of the UK Telegraph contains a video by Fabio Bebber on hand at the carnage. It's not pretty and one can discern the screams for help from the victims trapped in the towering inferno. The cladding and insulation were flammable made from oil! Who supplies the feedstock for plastic stuff – the oil industry.

Key points

1. The oil industry has played a major role in the development of human 20^th century civilisation and will through the 21^st.

2. The role of the oil industry collaborating with UK/US Empire interests has waged war and influenced government actions – criminally.

3. Over the last 30 years, state corporations acquire energy corporations, further entrenching the power of energy corporations in global governance

4. The involvement of money in politics has rendered the democracy useless in signalling necessary legislative programs to benefit most humans.

5. Public interest regulation is less likely under the current regime, as the large and moneyed interests tilt the playing field to advance their profit taking.

6. The Grenfell Towers Inferno is a direct consequence of the disregard for human rights by Western Governments (in this case the UK Government) – whose rationale for action in the world is claimed to 'advance human rights' – that is clearly a lie!

The Oil industry a brief synopsis on power and influence

We've been suckered by the oil industry for quite a while now.

Several old families and corporations were the initiators of the business of black gold the energy life blood of the twentieth century economy. It is the bulk of the modern economy too, accounting for 80+% of power generation when coal is added, 90% of transport and contributing a major portion of the material stock inputs in general goods manufacturing 'plastic universe' often single use with lasting deleterious effects.

Black gold was already in vogue with the coal barons, however they would share the power to motivate governments with the interests of the oil barons. In a sense they are parallel interests.

The image provides a snapshot of energy by energy end user. Transport uses 26.6% of global energy and oil provides 93% of that. Industrial uses over half of energy. The non fossil fuel sourced component is less than 15% of all energy.

Energy demand for the foreseeable will be sourced mainly from fossil fuels which in 2010 accounted for 84% of global use. It is estimated we will require a 56 % increase in supply by 2040. Fossil fuels are anticipated to provide close to 80% of the total. Note renewables share is only anticipated to increase from 5 – 7% in this chart from International Energy Outlook 2012.

The outlook for renewables is expanding in advance of forecasts, however the task to move from fossil fuels is gigantic.

Note: I'm not looking at climate change or greenhouse gases in this paper, more business as usual and looking from birth of the oil fired industrial revolution.

Oil Barons Rule lasted quite a while + consider the lasting institutional imprint on western thinking and action

In his day John D Rockefeller was the richest, and most powerful character on the world stage (notwithstanding the riches of the Rothschild interests and whomever else we don't know of. It was revealed that J.P.Morgan retained only 17% of his bank at the time of his death, the remainder by the Rothschilds).

The oil industry partly directed by the Rockefeller family along with a few British and European principles came to importance in the late 1800s. John D Rockefeller and the oil interests could wield governments they had power over to attack other governments hostile to the oil corporation's interests.

USMC Major General Smedley Butler's testimony and famous speech, War is a Racket makes this fact plain. During his 34-year career as a Marine, he participated in military actions in the Philippines, China, in Central America and the Caribbean during the Banana Wars, and France in World War I. Butler is well known for having later become an outspoken critic of U.S. wars and their consequences, as well as exposing the Business Plot, an alleged plan to overthrow the U.S. Government. He recounts the enormous profits and 21,000 millionaires that existed from WW1;

I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

Oil interests were bound tightly to the national interests of the governments concerned – initially UK and US, Dutch, and latterly the Sovereign Wealth Funds of oil rich states, Russia, China, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, Iran, Brunei. This played out powerfully, notably where the UK and the US authorities (Intelligence and Security departments) usurped democratic Iran with a coup and and imposed the Shah or absolute despot, here from the US CIA webpages to confirm the fact of the emerging method of dealing to foreign leaderships deemed hostile by the Western (Oil) Empire:

British colonialism faced its last stand in 1951 when the Iranian parliament nationalized the sprawling Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) after London refused to modify the firm's exploitative concession. "By a series of insensate actions," the British replied with prideful stubbornness, "the Iranian Government is causing a great enterprise, the proper functioning of which is of immense benefit not only to the United Kingdom and Iran but to the whole free world, to grind to a stop. Unless this is promptly checked, the whole of the free world will be much poorer and weaker, including the deluded Iranian people themselves." Of that attitude, Dean Acheson, the secretary of state at the time, later wrote: "Never had so few lost so much so stupidly and so fast." But the two sides were talking past each other. The Iranian prime minister, Mohammed Mossadeq, was "a visionary, a utopian, [and] a millenarian" who hated the British, writes Kinzer. "You do not know how crafty they are," Mossadeq told an American envoy sent to broker the impasse. "You do not know how evil they are. You do not know how they sully everything they touch."

The Truman administration resisted the efforts of some British arch-colonialists to use gunboat diplomacy, but elections in the United Kingdom and the United States in 1951 and 1952 tipped the scales decisively toward intervention. After the loss of India, Britain's new prime minster, Winston Churchill, was committed to stopping his country's empire from unraveling further. Eisenhower and his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, were dedicated to rolling back communism and defending democratic governments threatened by Moscow's machinations. In Iran's case, with diplomacy having failed and a military incursion infeasible (the Korean War was underway), they decided to take care of "that madman Mossadeq" through a covert action under the supervision of the secretary of state's brother, Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Allen Dulles. (Oddly, considering the current scholarly consensus that Eisenhower was in masterful control of his administration, Kinzer depicts him as beguiled by a moralistic John Foster and a cynical Allen.) Directing the operation was the CIA's charming and resourceful man in Tehran, Kermit Roosevelt, an OSS veteran, Arabist, chief of Middle East operations, and inheritor of some of his grandfather Theodore's love of adventure.

Foreign Office records from 35 years ago show elaborate efforts by the British embassy in Washington to keep secret Britain’s part in the overthrow of Iran’s democratically-elected Mosaddegh government.

Malcolm Byrne, deputy director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, said he believed British diplomats were still working to conceal MI6’s activities from more than half a century ago.

“Sixty years after the coup we are still not able to get a full picture of the role played by British and American intelligence,” he said. “It appears the reason is that history and current politics are intersecting and the British are still reluctant to have their role acknowledged.”

And what was the 2003 Iraq War about? Top Republican Leaders Say Iraq War Was Really about Oil March 19, 2013 by Washingtons Blog, which says;

For example, U.S. Secretary of Defense – and former 12-year Republican Senator – Chuck Hagel said of the Iraq war in 2007:

People say we’re not fighting for oil. Of course we are. They talk about America’s national interest. What the hell do you think they’re talking about? We’re not there for figs.

4 Star General John Abizaid – the former commander of CENTCOM with responsibility for Iraq – said:

Of course it’s about oil, it’s very much about oil, and we can’t really deny that.

Oil asset ownership shifts to state owned enterprises - National Oil Companies (NOC)

Oil infrastructure ownership has shifting toward predominantly state owned enterprises known as National Oil Companies (NOC). States become defacto enterprises, US.Inc, UK.Inc, Russia.Inc, China.Inc, Saudi Arabia.Inc and Venezuela.Inc etc.

BP and Exon Mobil are the largest investor owned oil corporations the following series of charts provide a snapshot, the first chart shows the change in ownership from 1970 to 2007, Russia and Venezuela feature large in gas and oil respectively.

The interest in Venezuela is because she holds the largest proven oil reserves in the world. There is in effect long term economic warfare being waged from Washington and the UK on many nations particularly Venezuela.

Black gold deposits follow the money – Venezuela and the near East

The Near East and Venezuela oil reserves are well worth fighting for, from a US perspective. The ability of oil interests, in conjunction with military industrial complex and finance interests, to sway governments to attack foreign powers with criminal aggression denies the Western Empire's proclaimed statements that they, “defend the human right for people to retain democratic power over their domestic governments.” The pressure piled up on the Venezuela and Iran governments ought be seen in this light.

Rex Tillerson US Secretary of State is ex CEO of Exxon Mobil. Several of Trumps other appointments are from the oil/energy interests. The oil and fossil fuel energy industry has seen massive support from the Trump administration. The Pentagon is being given new latitude to run the permanent war.

International Law

The Right to self determination is a UN Charter obligation, designed and agreed by the Western victors in the aftermath of World War Two. The fact that the UN Security Council was also designed to undermine this principle is an institutional fact. Extract from UN Charter Preamble;

We the peoples of the United Nations Determined

• to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
• to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
• to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
• to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

UK/US Empire versus International Law – and other hypocrisies – media willing prostitutes for empire

The UK/US Empire is constantly meddling in other nation's affairs. The mainstream media provides support as the propaganda arm of the establishment which is driven by both state and 'deep state' ambition. My recent NZ Press Council complaint illustrates this point in relation to the NZ Press (news media) and Government parallel tactics which deny effective space to 'speak truth to power'.

My complaint arose from Stuff online moderators disallowing my comments on two (2) Fairfax-Stuff articles. The first complaint was about a comment I made on an article written by NZ establishment left commentator Chris Trotter entitled; US President Donald Trump accuses Barack Obama of 'wire tapping' Trump Tower, March 2017.

The contemporary frenzy of attacks and counter-attacks, fake and alternative news as mainstream media (MSM) attempt to maintain control of the narrative or overton window of acceptable discourse, is institutionalised in Stuff's comment guidelines. It is not enlightenment behaviour, more it is typical of a global civil war and civilisational decadence as New Roman Empire burns – always the plebians and commoners first – so Grenfell Tower.

In refusing my complaint they confirm in real terms the narrow bubble of allowed 'url references' (website) one is 'allowed' to share in reader comments to provide support for one's asserted or attested facts. If there is no competition for the truth the corruption of truth by special interests invariably grows- the whole of this paper is a testament to this simple fact of reality.

So to ensure no false news, we have the assurance and say so of Stuff/Fairfax and the NZ Government as to what constitutes the truth – and ontheir track record. I kid you not!

The New Zealand Press Council supported Stuff and their editor Patrick Crewdson quite emphatically and without any regard to the merits of the matters I raised. They arrived at two findings;

1. Said that they lacked jurisdiction, and;

2. Made a statement about merit, despite their finding of lack of jurisdiction.

Then effectively dismissed my content and merits without dealing to them in any way.

The process is distorted and perverse.

I'm quietly determined to proceed to open the lock on transparency into government (and media/corporation) information, intelligence, decisions and action – particularly where they launch war, in coalition or singularly – it's usually criminal.

There is no institutional way around the corrupting blockage so Catch 22!

It is through this approach to the problem that we gain another perspective of the implications and consequences of the US state view of its Exceptionalism.

US Exceptionalism is the dominant power and point of difference in the world and largely determines the general trend and approach to global power politics – it has overseen the launch of many a war. Extract from February 2, 2016 False Flags Are Just a Conspiracy Theor … Admitted Fact by Washingtons Blog;

Presidents, Prime Ministers, Congressmen, Generals, Spooks, Soldiers and Police ADMIT to False Flag Terror.

In the following instances, officials in the government which carried out the attack (or seriously proposed an attack) admit to it, either orally, in writing, or through photographs or videos...

US claimed interference in their 'democracy' – Empire, MSM, bullshit and spying

Recent accusations by the US authorities over alleged Russian (state or independent pirates?) interference in the US November 2016 general election and Democrat National Committee (DNC) is hilarious for its irony! See Wikileaks Vault 7 release about US NSA development of hacking tools to enable everyone to be hacked!

The US has meddled in every nation's affairs and elections. It is a rabid hypocrite. Not only that, Clinton Curtis testified to the US Senate about being approached to develop code to fix Diebold voting machines, in October 2000 prior to US election that saw Bush Jnr elected in exceptional circumstances.

US corporations; oil/energy, finance, media interests and military industrial complex, are interlinked. The US has had a permanent national security agency since now named NSA since 1917. Why doesn't the NSA spy on Wall St to protect the US national interest to maintain a stable finance industry and avert foreseeable financial disasters and scandal? Dirty tricks and drug running have littered the global hot zones with a bad taste. The war party is easily assembled at the drop of a hat once tensions flare or are provoked.

There is a network of ownership distributed amongst a narrow oligarchy of billionaires, technocrats and corporations heads and their minions. These dispense largesse as they need to advance their private and group interests in the US social and political economy.

The UK/US led Western Empire ruthlessly pursue their interests - national and corporation (the same interest), across the expanse of the planet irrespective of boundary or opposition from the domestic jurisdictional and legal government! And often despite the opposition of the domestic population. There is often deep collusion between the despotic government with the US (Empire) interests pursuing economic development (mining, dam development, industrial farming) with poor outcomes for local or affected populations.

Facts about our democracies – they do not presently exist or have no effect on legislation!

Do we adjust our behaviour on the basis of scientific observations that suggest we ought to?

Princeton University study on US Congressional decision making examined the centrality of money to politics – the notion of democracy is denied categorically! The study is illuminating. It inspired a video which is well worth the 6 minutes. The Princeton University study says;

...analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. and;

When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.

Money in politics - there's this to reinforce what happens at US election time;

...we were able to compare the wins and losses to the amount of money spent on each race thanks to the resources at the centre for Responsive Politics.

Here’s the verdict. In 2012, the candidate who spent more money during the race won a whopping 95% of the time in the 429 house races with decisive conclusions, 406 races.

In the Senate, that number is slightly lower. The candidate who spent more won only 80% of the time in the 33 Senate elections this cycle.

Some of the candidates who pulled out a win despite being outspent include Chris Murphy in Connecticut, Deb Fischer in Nebraska, and Dean Heller in Nevada.

Also interesting is that this doesn’t even include outside independent spending, like money from Super PACs.

The corruption of money on politics - liberal democratic civilisation is consumed in decadence

The UK Guardian ran a piece 5 weeks earlier, 5 May 2017 by Branko Milanovic on the implications of inequality on the functioning of democracy, which returns to the theme of the Princeton Study. Branko Milanovic is the visiting presidential professor at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He is the author of “Global Inequality: a new approach for the age of globalization.”

the article states;

Finally, we need to look at the relationship between inequality and politics. In every political system, even a democracy, the rich tend to hold more political power. The danger is that this political power will be used to promote policies that further cement the economic power of the rich. The higher the inequality, the more likely we are to move away from democracy toward plutocracy.

Or oligarchy as suggested by the Princeton Study. What are the implications of the elites determining most of the rules and legislative program in the social and political economy?

US politics (UK/US Empire) is the epitome of money power which aggressively spreads its influence and interests around the planet by whatever means at its disposal. International law is meaningless in the context of US exceptionalism. In his introduction to the book, American Exceptionalism and Human Rights, Michael Ignatieff identifies three main types of exceptionalism: exemptionalism (supporting treaties as long as Americans are exempt from them); double standards (criticizing "others for not heeding the findings of international human rights bodies, but ignoring what these bodies say of the United States); and legal isolationism (the tendency of American judges to ignore other jurisdictions). The contributors use Ignatieff's essay as a jumping-off point to discuss specific types of exceptionalism--America's approach to capital punishment and to free speech, for example--or to explore the social, cultural, and institutional roots of exceptionalism.

The historic source of austerity – who determines who loses?

However, to apportion blame to its rightful place, the contemporary system is a product of the British led Central Banking system, established and largely run for the advantage of a select group of wealthy families in the UK, Europe and now US:

Also Rule by Secrecy by Jim Marr makes fascinating reading about the rich families driving the US social and political economy from page 55 of the pdf under the heading “Rockefellers”;

To say that David Rockefeller may be one of the most important men in America would be an understatement. According to Gary Allen, in the year 1973 alone, "David Rockefeller met with 27 heads of state, including the rulers of Russia and Red China." In 1976 when Australian president Malcolm Fraser visited the United States, he conferred with David Rockefeller before meeting President Gerald Ford. "This is truly incredible," wrote author Ralph Epperson, "because David Rockefeller has neither been elected or appointed to any governmental position where he could officially represent the United States government."

Ferdinand Lundberg's, The Rich and the Super Rich is study from 1968 into the cross ownership and network of control of global wealth by 60 or so families. It is testimony to the historical and continuous fact of “an oligarchy at the centre of power in the US” from page 3, Chapter One, “The Elect and the Damned” indicates that 50 years on we suffer the same indignities;

….Most Americans--citizens of the wealthiest, most powerful and most ideal-swathed country in the world--by a very wide margin own nothing more than their household goods, a few glittering gadgets such as automobiles and television sets (usually purchased on the installment plan, many at second hand) and the clothes on their backs. A horde if not a majority of Americans live in shacks, cabins, hovels, shanties, handme-down Victorian eyesores, rickety tenements and flaky apartment buildings--as the newspapers from time to time chortle that new Russian apartment-house construction is falling apart. (Conditions abroad, in the standard American view, are everywhere far worse than anywhere in the United States. The French, for example, could learn much about cooking from the Automat and Howard Johnson.)

At the same time, a relative handful of Americans are extravagantly endowed, like princes in the Arabian Nights tales. Their agents deafen a baffled world with a never ceasing chant about the occult merits of private-property ownership (good for everything that ails man and thoroughly familiar to the rest of the world, not invented in the United States), and the vaulting puissance of the American owners.

It would be difficult in the 1960's for a large majority of Americans to show fewer significant possessions if the country had long labored under a grasping dictatorship. How has this process been contrived of stripping threadbare most of the populace, which once at least owned small patches of virgin land? To this fascinating if off-color question we shall give some attention later.

The present rich elite - a few control most that there is to control

Finally to illustrate the problem continues and is contemporary here's a study from 2012 by Plos One researchers and presented in this TED talk by James Glattfelder, “Who Controls the World

The associated transcript gives the guts of James work;

Interestingly, complex systems are very hard to map into mathematical equations, so the usual physics approach doesn't really work here. So what do we know about complex systems? Well, it turns out that what looks like complex behavior from the outside is actually the result of a few simple rules of interaction. This means you can forget about the equations and just start to understand the system by looking at the interactions, so you can actually forget about the equations and you just start to look at the interactions. And it gets even better, because most complex systems have this amazing property called emergence. So this means that the system as a whole suddenly starts to show a behavior which cannot be understood or predicted by looking at the components of the system. So the whole is literally more than the sum of its parts. And all of this also means that you can forget about the individual parts of the system, how complex they are. So if it's a cell or a termite or a bird, you just focus on the rules of interaction.

As a result, networks are ideal representations of complex systems. The nodes in the network are the system's components, and the links are given by the interactions. So what equations are for physics, complex networks are for the study of complex systems.

This approach has been very successfully applied to many complex systems in physics, biology, computer science, the social sciences, but what about economics? Where are economic networks? This is a surprising and prominent gap in the literature. The study we published last year, called "The Network of Global Corporate Control," was the first extensive analysis of economic networks.

….Well, it turns out that the 737 top shareholders have the potential to collectively control 80 percent of the TNCs' value. Now remember, we started out with 600,000 nodes, so these 737 top players make up a bit more than 0.1 percent. They're mostly financial institutions in the US and the UK. And it gets even more extreme. There are 146 top players in the core, and they together have the potential to collectively control 40 percent of the TNCs' value.

What should you take home from all of this? Well, the high degree of control you saw is very extreme by any standard. The high degree of interconnectivity of the top players in the core could pose a significant systemic risk to the global economy. And we could easily reproduce the TNC network with a few simple rules. This means that its structure is probably the result of self-organization. It's an emergent property which depends on the rules of interaction in the system, so it's probably not the result of a top-down approach like a global conspiracy.

Our study "is an impression of the moon's surface. It's not a street map." So you should take the exact numbers in our study with a grain of salt, yet it "gave us a tantalizing glimpse of a brave new world of finance."

Now I'm rich what do I do with it?

What do super rich elites do? What does a billionaire value? Their values are reflected in the present legislative environment given they have the most money to dispense for the pursuit of their interests. The foregoing illustrates that the oligarchy both as individuals and in association within the “network of control” exert most influence over political decision making.

Do the super rich work for the social good? Pay tax – no way!

Is it even their role might be a reasonable side question?

If not how is the social good advanced? Who's job is it to ensure the social good?

The Panama Papers identified a small portion of the rich and lengths they go to hide assets to evade taxation. The Panama papers highlight the lengths that governments go to support their tax evasion schemes. New Zealand's ex bankster Prime Minister John Key said there was no problem with NZ foreign trusts identified in the Panama Papers! The conspiracy is extensive, it is global.

Again 14 June 2017! The UK Guardian highlights the ability of the elites to hide their wealth and evade lawful taxation;

“... we exploited a massive trove of data leaked from HSBC Switzerland, the so-called HSBC files, to fill this gap. In 2007 a systems engineer, Hervé Falciani, extracted the internal records of HSBC Private Bank, the Swiss subsidiary of HSBC. In 2008, Falciani turned the data over to the French government, who shared it with foreign tax administrations. The documents leaked by Falciani included the complete internal records of more than 30,000 clients of this Swiss bank in 2006-07.”

At the time of the leak, HSBC Switzerland was a major actor in the offshore wealth management industry. It managed US$118.4bn – about 4% of all the foreign wealth managed by Swiss banks. This is a unique source of information through which to study tax evasion, because the leak can be seen as a random event, and it comes from a large (and, the available evidence suggests, representative) offshore bank;

The higher one moves up the wealth distribution, the higher the probability of hiding assets. Scandinavian households in the top 0.01% of the wealth pyramid – the ultra-rich, who own more than $40m in net wealth each – are 250 times more likely than average to hide assets. Furthermore, the ultra-rich HSBC customers had considerably more wealth in their accounts than other customers – so although they were very few in number, they owned around half of all the wealth hidden at HSBC.

This pattern is not specific to HSBC or the Panama Papers. Over the last few years, thousands of Norwegians and Swedes have voluntarily declared previously hidden assets under a tax amnesty. Here again, the super-rich are found to own half of the total amount of offshore wealth.

So what are the consequences for inequality? At the very top of the pyramid, it is much greater than previously estimated. In Norway, where the available wealth data is particularly detailed, the super-wealthy appear to be 30% wealthier than previously thought, when all the wealth hidden in tax havens is taken into account. The share of wealth owned by the top 0.1% increases from 8% to 10%.

Since Scandinavians generally pay their taxes and hide little wealth in total, our results are likely to be even stronger in Great Britain and elsewhere. A more accurate measurement of tax evasion would likely increase inequality levels even more than in Scandinavia.

These results underscore a basic truth: in a world where wealth is globalised and where a big industry has specialised in helping the ultra-rich avoid and sometimes evade their taxes, our ability to track great fortunes – and to tax them appropriately – faces considerable challenges.

With ever diminishing budgets combined with powerful lobbies pushing self interest, the public interest runs a distant last place when governments legislate and regulate the social and political economy.

Grenfell Towering inferno – fate deals it's logical consequence – austerity by fire

With more for the elites and bugger the rest, the consequences are tragic for the majority of ordinary people - most recently in the UK with the graphic and tragic result of 70 plus people being barbecued on Wednesday 14 June 2017 at Grenfell Tower on Grenfell Road.

The Genfell Tower Muslim BBQ intersected – forensic journalism

Grenfell Tower block fire was an incident waiting to happen. The austerity program run by consecutive UK governments has entrenched poverty for the underclasses in Britain. It is one of the most unequal societies on the planet with its pretensions of aristocracy and privilege.

GrenfellAction Group, a grass-roots community group, has repeatedly raised concerns including fire safety concerns about the management of high-rise apartments and the shoddy and unsafe nature of them. In a blog raising social issues in the area, they criticised Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) for alleged failings spanning years. Grenfell Action Group make the following statement;

The Grenfell Action Group predict that it won’t be long before the words of this blog come back to haunt the KCTMO management and we will do everything in our power to ensure that those in authority know how long and how appallingly our landlord has ignored their responsibility to ensure the heath and safety of their tenants and leaseholders. They can’t say that they haven’t been warned! And;

It is a truly terrifying thought but the Grenfell Action Group firmly believe that only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord, the KCTMO, and bring an end to the dangerous living conditions and neglect of health and safety legislation that they inflict upon their tenants and leaseholders. We believe that the KCTMO are an evil, unprincipled, mini-mafia who have no business to be charged with the responsibility of looking after the every day management of large scale social housing estates and that their sordid collusion with the RBKC Council is a recipe for a future major disaster.

Unfortunately, the Grenfell Action Group have reached the conclusion that only an incident that results in serious loss of life of KCTMO residents will allow the external scrutiny to occur that will shine a light on the practices that characterise the malign governance of this non-functioning organisation.

Grenfell Action Group warnings to the KCTMO in 2013 gained Council's ire. They offered threats to pursue the Grenfell Action Group with legal action.

Grenfell Action Group reports on the aftermath for others housing adjacent Grenfell Tower, in the same projects. The ceilings and other surfaces of the Grenfell pyre were apparently coated in asbestos, which flaked off in the fury, and is now littered over the neighbourhood. Asbestos dust and other toxins from combustion of toxic plastics are being respired by residents of the housing project. Austerity includes getting a lungful of further insult to their terrible distress.

Apparently no one is doing monitoring of the air nor the nearby populations. Looking to the future for Grenfell project residents and nearby folk.

For comparison 9/11 responders and folk who were in the city in that aftermath are now suffering diseases likely contracted through overdoses of ground zero atmospheric and workplace toxins and dust pollution.

Asbestos is a mechanical irritant whose texture and small size make it particularly unacceptable to be breathed. They closed a nearby tube entrance to protect the air systems of the tube!

How are the Grenfell survivors being treated by the UK Authorities?

Shabby again - austerity is the mode of delivery of all State Services to the UK citizen and resident even when the state is largely the culpable authority in respect to any duty to care to those in it's realm! They are exposed for the criminals they are!

Suggestions there are many more dead victims from locals, however, we need sharp intelligence from the ground in Kensington to ascertain what might be the reality.

Notwithstanding, what any might claim, the authorities ought have a fair idea how many charred remains of the deceased residents and visitors that night they have since discovered. Eighty (80) is the number that I've heard most recently.

The Regulatory Bodies - those who are paid to prevent fire and protect the public

The regulatory surrender is apparent – the British Government building research and regulation body was privatised and made a charitable trust, 19 March 1997. Building Research Establishment Ltd (BRE) was initially founded in 1921 as the Building Research Board as part of the British Civil Service, as an effort to improve the quality of housing in the United Kingdom. It also has United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) Accredited Testing Laboratories including for fire resistance so as to test against its standards for fire performance of external thermal insulation for walls of multistorey buildings: (BR 135) Third edition for a price. In fact a google search for the BR135 standard fails to turn up the prized standards, the copyright law is so mean. However there are many reports highlighting the danger of flammable external insulation and cladding systems to properly inform regulators if they interested in ethically gaining their remuneration.

Two of the BRE Trustees are fire experts. Professor Jose Torero and Sir Ken Knight are distinguished in their careers. Sir Ken Knight was named as chair of a new panel looking at safety. Sir Ken has advocated for fire service cuts and against the installation of sprinkler systems in highrise apartments following previous fires.

So how did the UK arrive at a place where 181 (all) buildings tested since Grenfell have failed? What were the standards prior to 14 June 2017 that buildings allowed to be clad with petrol? The reality is that the regulations and standards were not enforced!

Lord Porter, chairman of the Local Government Association, attacked the Government for testing only the core of the panels on high-rise blocks and not the insulation behind them, which may not be fire-resistant.

“The Government has not done the retest properly,” the Tory peer said.

“They are not testing the whole system. We should be testing the insulation. There is more than a good chance that the insulation is probably the main problem.”

June 23 update from Celotex the manufacturer of the RS5000 rainscreen cladding system used on the towering inferno.

Grenfell Tower: Celotex is to stop the supply of RS5000 for use in rainscreen cladding systems in buildings over 18m tall

Celotex is shocked by the tragic events of the Grenfell Tower fire. Our thoughts are with everyone affected by this devastating human tragedy. We have been supplying building products for over forty years and as a business our focus has always been to supply safe insulation products to make better buildings.

We want to do everything that we can to support the Government’s ongoing response to the tragedy. We continue to offer our full cooperation with the investigations.

Celotex notes the comments made by Scotland Yard at this morning’s briefing in respect of the insulation used in Grenfell Tower. In view of the focus on rainscreen cladding systems and the insulation forming part of them, Celotex believes that the right thing to do is to stop the supply of Celotex RS5000 for rainscreen cladding systems in buildings over 18m tall with immediate effect (including in respect of ongoing projects), pending further clarity.

The BRE group are conducting the tests! I wonder if it is at the University of Edinburgh where Professor Jose Torero does his great job communicating science to the public?

The Grenfell Tower problem is not just a UK issue, as a similar cladding and insulation system is associated with the rapid spread of fires in Melbourne Australia in 2014, and the Dubai Marina Torch Tower in February 2015 was one of many in the heart of oil land. There are many more.

Politics as art - mass media medium by activists and cultural leaders who express the anguish of the victims – with their art

Austerity versus privilege, Jonathan Pie makes the point brilliantly in his short video as does poet Ben Okri performing the poem, titled Grenfell Tower, June 2017, on Channel 4 News;

“If you want to see how the poor die, come see Grenfell Tower.

See the tower, and let a world-changing dream flower.

Residents of the area call it the crematorium.

It has revealed the undercurrents of our age.

The poor who thought voting for the rich would save them.

The poor who believed all that the papers said.

The poor who listened with their fears.

The poor who live in their rooms and dream for their kids.

The poor are you and I, you in your garden of flowers,

In your house of books, who gaze from afar

At a destiny that draws near with another name.

Sometimes it takes an image to wake up a nation

From its secret shame. And here it is every name

Of someone burnt to death, on the stairs or in their room,

Who had no idea what they died for, or how they were betrayed.

They did not die when they died; their deaths happened long

Before. It happened in the minds of people who never saw

Them. It happened in the profit margins. It happened

In the laws. They died because money could be saved and made.”

Who was Grenfell? A soldier and knight for the UK Empire! More from gazing into the pyre

Grenfell Tower and adjacent Grenfell Road were named to commemorate a notable who served valiantly King and Country as a soldier, terrorising British enemies and furthering her ambitions and national interests in the period to World War 1.

Field Marshal Francis Wallace Grenfell, 1st Baron Grenfell, GCB, GCMG, PC (29 April 1841 – 27 January 1925) was a British Army officer. After serving as aide-de-camp to the Commander-in-Chief, South Africa, he fought in the 9th Xhosa War, the Anglo-Zulu War and then the Anglo-Egyptian War. He went on to become Sirdar (Commander-in-Chief) of the Egyptian Army and commanded the forces at the Battle of Suakin in December 1888 and at the Battle of Toski in August 1889 during the Mahdist War. After that he became Governor of Malta and then Commander-in-Chief, Ireland before retiring in 1908.

Baron Grenfell purchased his commission into the army where he dutifully dealt to the foreigners on behalf of the British aristocracy and Empire. His name now forever memorialised in the towering inferno that claimed so many lives who hail from the regions of past British Colonial Possessions (as were the possessed people – 'for their own good') where the honourable Field Marshall Grenfell applied his soldiering art. The poetics of karma and fate.

Upon his death the obituary in the British Spectator, 31 January 1925, accorded Baron Grenfell recognition for services rendered:

We much regret to record the death of Lord Grenfell, the Senior Field-Marshal of the Army, who died on Tuesday. Lord Grenfell will be chiefly remembered, of course, for his active part in the pacification of Egypt, and the defeat of the Mahdi. Perhaps the most picturesque incident in his career was when he was sent out to supersede Lord Kitchener in the task of the re-conquest of the Sudan. He, seeing that all was going well, refused to exercise his seniority and allowed Kitchener to complete his task at the battles of Omdurman and Atbara, and thus receive the credit which he deserved.

Who were the Mahdi that Grenfell assisted to defeat?

The Mahdist War (Arabic: الثورة المهدية‎‎ ath-Thawra al-Mahdī; 1881–99) was a British colonial war of the late 19th century, which was fought between the Mahdist Sudanese of the religious leader Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah, who had proclaimed himself the "Mahdi" of Islam (the "Guided One"), and the forces of the Khedivate of Egypt, initially, and later the forces of Britain. Eighteen years of war resulted in the joint-rule state of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1899–1956), a condominium of the British Empire and the Kingdom of Egypt.

The British participation in the war is called the Sudan Campaign, which is vividly described in The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan (1899) by Winston Churchill, a participant in the war; other names for this war are the "Mahdist Revolt", the "Anglo–Sudan War" and the "Sudanese Mahdist Revolt".

Over a century later - the post 9/11 war on terror destroys the same territories and Mahdi (Muslim) enemy – and they say history doesn't repeat?

Empire's modern war machine, its warriors and their technological awesomeness

The absurdity of the post 9/11 wars is again brought to public notice through the movies.

Brad Pitt plays a character reminiscent of a thinly-veiled version of General Stanley McChrystal, the gung-ho general who led US forces in Afghanistan until he was fired when a Rolling Stone journalist wrote a revealing article about him and his slightly out-of-control staff this from the Rolling Stone article;

One of the movie’s best scenes takes place in a conference hall in Germany, where Pitt is trying to drum up support for more allied troops to fight in Afghanistan. He comes armed with a whiteboard, and he deploys a bewildering flow chart about the dynamics of insurgency and counterinsurgency, but Tilda Swinton, playing a German member of parliament, blows it all to hell. She points out that the reason for invading Afghanistan was to crush Al Qaeda, which was based there with Osama bin Laden, and was pretty much chased out of the country in the first months of the invasion. After so many years of stalemate against the Taliban, what is the purpose of continuing to fight?

“As an elected representative of the people of Germany, it is my job to ensure that the personal ambitions of those who serve those people are kept in check,” Swinton says. “You have devoted your entire life, general, to the fighting of war, and this situation in Afghanistan for you is the culmination of all your years of training, all your years of ambition. This is the great moment of your life. It is understandable to me that you should have therefor a fetish for completion, to make your moment glorious. It is my job, however, to ensure that your personal ambitions are not entirely delusional and do not carry with them an unacceptable cost for everybody else.”

Peter Maass the reviewer goes on to report;

I met the kinds of officers and diplomats depicted so scathingly in “War Machine,” and while exaggerated in the movie, they are real. They probably mean well but they fail or refuse to see what everyone around them can see, and must pay for in blood. Our delusional leaders finally have the movie their insanity deserves.

Paul Craig Roberts identifies three main reasons for the ongoing post 9/11 wars;

The first reason has to do with the profits of the military/security complex.

The military/security complex is a combination of powerful private and governmental interests that need a threat to justify an annual budget that exceeds the GDP of many countries. War gives this combination of private and governmental interests a justification for its massive budget, a budget whose burden falls on American taxpayers whose real median family income has not risen for a couple of decades while their debt burden to support their living standard has risen.

The second reason has to do with the Neoconservative ideology of American world hegemony. According to the Neoconservatives, who most certainly are not conservative of any description, the collapse of communism and socialism means that History has chosen “Democratic Capitalism,” which is neither democratic nor capitalist, as the World’s Socio-Economic-Political system and it is Washington’s responsibility to impose Americanism on the entire world. Countries such as Russia, China, Syria, and Iran, who reject American hegemony must be destabilized and desroyed as they stand in the way of American unilateralism.

The Third reason has to do with Israel’s need for the water resources of Southern Lebanon. Twice Israel has sent the vaunted Israeli Army to occupy Southern Lebanon, and twice the vaunted Israeli Army was driven out by Hezbollah, a militia supported by Syria and Iran.

To be frank, Israel is using America to eliminate the Syrian and Iranian governments that provide military and economic support to Hezbollah. If Hezbollah’s suppliers can be eliminated by the Americans, Israel’s army can steal Southern Lebanon, just as it has stolen Palestine and parts of Syria.

The Muslim BBQ at Grenfell Tower just keeps on giving for the elites

A striking coincidence 14 June is the 71^st birthday of the leader of the free world - Donald Trump.

Hell yes it doesn't get better than Muslims cooked in the Grenfell Tower Birthday pyre for the misogynist and racist Donald Trump.

I wonder what interesting off the cuff comments Trump made on first hearing of the Grenfell funeral pyre?

Imagine at least one cooked Muslim for every year of the Orange Baboon's existence as a man on the planet. What a birthday treat!

Since his inauguration the US military have killed hundreds in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Sudan and wherever else. Many of these are non-combatants - civilians like you and I. Collateral damage in the eternal war.

Trump's promises and reality in his first 100 days of office were not the greatest. There was a bit of a settling in period where the US Administration and power players had to learn to do government Trump style. Notwithstanding all that, Trump has been the butt of the liberal establishment jokes at every point - except when it comes to waging war!

Trump's war making efforts will be hard pressed to match the genocidal record by Bush Jnr. and Obama, and the willing coalition of genocidal aggressive murders. Estimates range, however one suggestion is that 4 million Muslims have been sacrificed to the Western Empire's cannibalistic desire for blood and war. Trump might be the man to step it up a bit, he likes things to “Make America Great Again.”

What's the greatest bang for bucks in war – Nuclear bombs big and especially small!

The smaller the better apparently.

To date the US and its allies, are the only nation to employ Nuclear Weapons in anger.

1. Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

2. Whomever did the 9/11 demolition, deployed small nuclear devices in New York 2001. The US Geological Survey collected dust samples from near Ground Zero which confirm elements that are clear indications of a nuclear radiation event.

3. Allegations of Saudi Arabia – Israel collaboration in the deployment of mini nukes in Sudan are collaborated in video forensics;

Israeli / Saudi Arabia Tactical Nuclear Strike on Yemen2 stage dual warhead ! Bunker Buster Weapon ! A nuclear bunker buster, also known as an Deep Earth-Penetrating Weapon (EPW) First blast is the first stage blasting the surface layer and second blast (a few second later is the Main Charge detonating deep under the ground. This is not the Big ass Nukes of yesteryear:

Former IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) inspector, Jeff Smith, a nuclear physicist and VT editor, was the first to discover the nuclear attack on Yemen. Smith explains how a simple video provided proof acceptable to the IAEA:

“The combination of the cameras plastic lens and the photoelectric effect produced in the cameras CCD pick up chip (because it is basically a very large array of photo diodes) allows them to act as very good detectors of high level ionizing radiation. Low level radiation in this case is not of concern because it will not immediately kill you or have long term negative health effects.

By simply pointing the camera at an explosive event it will immediately determine if it is nuclear or not. When the camera’s CCD pick up chip is overloaded by excess radiation it will pixelize showing white sparkles all over the picture of the fireball or blast image area.”

Smith supplied a frame-by-frame analysis of the explosion, citing not only radiation, but a telltale nuclear flash whose duration and nature allowed rough approximation of the type of weapon used and the size of the fuel or “pit” that made up the core of the device.

US to spend $1trillion upgrading nuclear arsenal – who benefits?

Austerity for the military industrial complex – no way - austerity is for the powerless

The US during the Obama presidency announced a nuclear bomb upgrade over thirty (30) years to the value of $1trillion dollars. Obama announced that some of the money would be spent on constructing nuclear bombs with lower yields so small nuclear bombs. Small nuclear bombs that are more likely to be deployed in battle from the man they gave the Nobel Peace Prize to – the irony is gut wrenching!

That will be money spent at nuclear corporations on making awesome mass destruction weapons that are technically, militarily, and politically more likely to be used in anger against civil targets or with civil collateral damage. Nuclear weapons are technically illegal, although there is no power with sufficient force to enforce a ban.

The people of Aotearoa New Zealand led the global effort to request the International Court of Justice (ICJ) (the World Court) to give an advisory opinion on the illegality of nuclear weapons. The initiative was the idea of Christchurch's Harold Evans a retired District Court Judge inspired in 1986 by US based international law professor Richard Falk. Ultimately the World Court delivered its advisory position 8 July 1996 – the opinion declared that the threat and use of nuclear weapons as generally illegal and that states had an obligation to conclude negotiations to eliminate them. There was one qualification: the court could not determine the legality of the use of nuclear weapons by a state in the extreme circumstance of self defence, when its survival is at stake.¹

The initial request for an advisory opinion by the ICJ was presented by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 3 September 1993, but the ICJ did not render an opinion on this request because the WHO was ultra vires, or acting outside its legal capacity.

On 15 December 1994 the UN General Assembly adopted resolution A/RES/49/75K and accepted by the Court in January 1995. This asked the ICJ urgently to render its advisory opinion on the following question:

Is the threat or use of nuclear weapons in any circumstances permitted under international law?

The ICJ handed down an advisory opinion on 8 July 1996 the "Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons" case. The decision provides one of the few authoritative judicial decisions concerning the legality under international law of the use or the threatened use of nuclear weapons. The court undertook seven separate votes, all of which were passed:

1. The court decided to comply with the request for an advisory opinion;
2. The court replied that "There is in neither customary nor conventional international law any specific authorization of the threat or use of nuclear weapons";
3. The court replied that "There is in neither customary nor conventional international law any comprehensive and universal prohibition of the threat or use of nuclear weapons as such";
4. The court replied that "A threat or use of force by means of nuclear weapons that is contrary to Article 2, paragraph 4, of the United Nations Charter and that fails to meet all the requirements of Article 51, is unlawful";
5. The court replied that "A threat or use of nuclear weapons should also be compatible with the requirements of the international law applicable in armed conflict, particularly those of the principles and rules of humanitarian law, as well as with specific obligations under treaties and other undertakings which expressly deal with nuclear weapons"
6. The court replied that "the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law; However, in view of the current state of international law, and of the elements of fact at its disposal, the Court cannot conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which the very survival of a State would be at stake"
7. The court replied that "There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control".

That was 1996 and now 21 years later the world displays a remarkable lack of maturity in dealing with the nuclear threat and most other existential threats to mass survival for the long term.

The latest noises from the US White House indicate a willingness to ramp up the pressure in an already tense world.

Projected human population growth and energy demand

Projected humanpopulation, 9.6 billion people by 2050 and the growing demand for goods and services from development in the non-OECD world will drive pressure on resources, with largest demand projected from South Asia.

One can see clearly the US pivot to Asia strategy is about the curtailment of the rise of China. US paranoia about competitors (and the need for a foreign enemy real or imagined) has largely determined global defence and military posture since WW2.

The next map indicates so called risks to the development of oil and gas deposits to feed the energy needs of a 10 billion person planet.

Conclusions, implications and action to redeem the human race

Nafeez Ahmed is a British author and investigative journalist. Ahmed's academic work has focused on the systemic causes of mass violence. He has taught at the Department of International Relations, University of Sussex, and has lectured at Brunel University’s Politics & History Unit at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, for courses in international relations theory, contemporary history, empire and globalization. He is a former environment blogger for The Guardian, writing regularly for their Earth Insight website from March 2013 to July 2014.

The Guardian sacked him for an article detailing Israel's creation of a 'political climate' conducive to the exploitation of Gaza's considerable offshore gas reserves - 1.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, valued at $4 billion – which were discovered off the Gaza coast in 2000.

Since his termination from the Guardian Nafeez has written a blog Insurge -Intelligence. He highlights that the UK Government in partnership with private interests including Lloyds have identified that scientific model supported by UK Government Taskforce flags risk of civilisation’s collapse by 2040.

New scientific models supported by the British government’s Foreign Office show that if we don’t change course, in less than three decades industrial civilisation will essentially collapse due to catastrophic food shortages, triggered by a combination of climate change, water scarcity, energy crisis, and political instability.

Before you panic, the good news is that the scientists behind the model don’t believe it’s predictive. The model does not account for the reality that people will react to escalating crises by changing behavior and policies.

By successfully modelling the “impact of climate-induced drought on crop failures and the ensuing impact on food prices,” he said, the model can then be recalibrated to “experiment with different scenarios.”

“We ran the model forward to the year 2040, along a business-as-usual trajectory based on ‘do-nothing’ trends — that is, without any feedback loops that would change the underlying trend. The results show that based on plausible climate trends, and a total failure to change course, the global food supply system would face catastrophic losses, and an unprecedented epidemic of food riots. In this scenario, global society essentially collapses as food production falls permanently short of consumption.”

Another steering committee member raised their hand: “So is this going to happen? Is this a forecast?”

“No,” said Jones. “This scenario is based on simply running the model forward. The model is a short-term model. It’s not designed to run this long, as in the real world, trends are always likely to change, whether for better or worse.”

“Okay, but what you’re saying is that if there is no change in current trends, then this is the outcome?” continued the questioner.

Jones nodded with a half-smile. “Yes,” he said quietly.

For the first time, then, we know that in private, British and US government agencies are taking seriously long-standing scientific data showing that a business-as-usual trajectory will likely lead to civilisational collapse within a few decades — generating multiple near-term global disruptions along the way.

The question that remains is: what we are going to do about it?

Last words from Grenfell Action Group who quote 'The Radical Housing Network' on the UK Government announced Grenfell Tower fire inquiry;

“The appointment of Sir Martin Moore-Bick as the judge in the Grenfell inquiry is deeply distressing. Sir Moore-Bick has a track record of facilitating the social cleansing of London, approving Westminster Council’s decision to house a single mother with five children in Milton Keynes, 50 miles away from her family and networks, a decision later overturned by the Supreme Court. The government are clearly preparing a stitch-up, trying to put a judge at the heart of the establishment in charge of the inquiry, who supports the inhumane housing policies which have led to Grenfell.

How can we have faith in this panel to deliver the protection we need? These appointments are yet further evidence that the establishment is not committed to providing justice for Grenfell residents, and are unwilling to put in place measures which will prevent a tragedy of this enormity from happening again.”

Pilgrim Tucker, who worked for a while with the Grenfell Action Group and is continuing to support local residents, added:

“Residents from Lancaster West Estate asked Theresa May to involve them in the decision making on the Grenfell Inquiry. In appointing Sir Martin Moore-Bick, she has ignored them, and appointed a completely inappropriate judge. We have no faith that this inquiry will produce justice.”

Which reminds one of the thesis in Naomi Klein's insightful book Shock Doctrine.

Catch 22 blockage to transparency is 'the national interest and privileged information' shared between governments and corporations: but not the public – this must change!

Governments hide information from their constituencies – my paper and many others I've developed over the past few years prove this thesis.

The problem of secrecy and its effect on governance and decision making is key to resolving the human challenge in the twenty-first (21^st ) century. My next posts will address what I propose and do in this regard.

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1Chapter 25 The World Court Project: 'Principled Audacity', pages 257-263, Peace Power & Politics: How New Zealand became Nuclear Free (2013), Marie Leadbeater.