Post by Stallit 2 de Halfo on Jul 26, 2007 0:18:47 GMT
This is a good piece. Ever wonder whats with all the media attention given to Geldof with his "feed the world" and Band aid crap?
Here's one explanation. Sorry if its a little muddled up. Its from a comment in the "Class war" paper.
Who was Bob Aiding?
May I add a few words to the review of "The Enemy Within" in the
last edition of CW? Revealing as it is about the secret state's tactics used against the miners in the great strike, it omits one important detail: the role of the "Band Aid" famine relief concert.
Before Band Aid, the miners were winning. Contrary to what the
papers were saying, the Tory government was getting increasingly desperate. Stockpiles of coal were dwindling faster than planned, and sympathetic strike action by workers in other countries had prevented imports of coal from every country except Peru and
Colombia, countries with vicious fascist governments where coal is
mined by slave, convict and child labour, and Dockers were forced to
load coal onto ships literally at gunpoint.
In Britain, gas, oil and nuclear-fired power stations were forced to
operate flat out, far beyond their original design tolerances and safety
limits: for example, Bradwell nuclear power station in north Essex
suffered a Preliminary Meltdown Alarm and only armed officers of
the Nuclear Energy Authority Special Constabulary stopped the
workers from evacuating! Even so, there were voltage reductions (at
night, between midnight and 0600 when no one would notice) and
severe economies imposed on industry; of course the press barons
agreed not to print anything about this, and anyone who might tell
got a visit from the state, and the words "Official Secrets Act" and
"Hilda Murrell" (who was murdered by state agents to stop her
revealing embarrassing facts about the sinking of the Belgrano
during the Falklands War) were used.
Despite all this, the public were starting to ask awkward questions,
and the government desperately needed to divert public attention
away from the strike, as well as public sympathy - although the
government had intercepted money sent from Libya and Russia, and
frozen the NUM's bank accounts, the strike was being kept going by
cash donations and bucket collections. The Tories realised they
needed to cut these off to defeat the miners. They needed to find
another "good cause" for the public to give money to. They found
one in Ethiopia.
In 1974 the Emperor of Ethiopia, the oldest established monarchy in
the world, was overthrown in a revolution, and replaced by the
Democratic Ethiopian Revolutionary Government (DERG) led by
Colonel Mengistu, who immediately began the biggest and most
comprehensive programmes of land and wealth distribution the
world had ever seen. This horrified the governments of the west,
who afraid of another "good example" like Nicaragua, immediately
began their campaign to bring the DERG down, beginning with a
proxy invasion via Somalia in 1977. When this was beaten off, the
west then sent arms to every criminal, malcontent ne-er do well,
mercenary and opportunist within Ethiopia, calling them the Eritrean
Liberation Front (Eritrea was originally a colony of Italy formed out
of territory seized by Italy from Ethiopia after the battle of Adowa in
the 1880s, Mussolini came back for the rest of Ethiopia in 1936)
With western arms, advisors and tactical and logistical help, the ELF
quickly took control of the eastern half of the country, driving the
entire population off their farms but refusing to allow them to cross
into western Ethiopia where the DERG still ruled. Consequently
these dispossessed people starved. However the infamous BBC
broadcast by Michael Buerk, which alerted the world to the famine,
blamed Mengistu and the DERG for the famine! In fact, in the
DERG controlled half of the country there was no famine, but the
TV audience was not allowed to know that!
Having found their good cause, the Tories now needed someone to
front it for them. They found it in Bob Geldof. Previously Geldof had
been lead singer for the pop group The Boomtown Rats. However
his hits, and the groups career came to an end when they released "I
Don't Like Mondays", which told the story of a California school
shooting. For some reason the Americans thought Geldof was
exploiting a national tragedy, and responded by every radio station
banning every Rats record, and public bonfires of their back
catalogue. The Rats went bust and broke up. Geldof himself went
bankrupt and was reduced to living off the earnings of his wife Paula
Yates from TV, but even these dried up after The Tube was taken
off air and her show "Sex With Paula" was cancelled after Mary
Whitehouse threatened legal action. The Geldofs were reduced to
living on handouts from friends (the few they had left) in a house
they had borrowed from Elton John. This was an arrangement John
found highly amusing, he insisted on dragging Geldof behind him
like a dog, saying things like "I don't object to punk rockers, in fact
everyone should keep one around, they keep the mice down".
When Thatcher asked Geldof if he would front a famine relief
operation for her, which would generate an immense amount of
favourable publicity for him, and for which he would be richly
rewarded, he jumped at the chance. The idea that Geldof organised
the entire thing himself, with the help of his friends in the rock
business, is ludicrous, when he could not even organise a job for
himself. In any case, Band Aid never received the result it claimed it
did. Although it raised millions of pounds, it was all wasted. Band
Aid's organisers insisted in channelling all the food it bought
through a single port (Asmara) with the result that the port became
choked and food rotted on the quayside. Band Aid's solution was to
buy a fleet of trucks locally, however the trucks proved to be so
much scrap metal and were useless. In the end, the legitimate
famine relief agencies, Oxfam, War on Want and Christian Aid, sent
a delegation to see Geldof at his hotel and told him that if he did not
get out of their way, they would pull out and tell the world what a
pig's ear he had made of everything. Geldof and the rest of his
celebrity friends (Lenny Henry et al) were reduced to "photo
opportunities" posing with this or that starving orphan, when they
were not sitting by the hotel pool!
Unfortunately for the miners, Band Aid had the desired effect.
Bucket donations dried up as the public told collectors that they had
given to Ethiopia instead, in many cases bucket collectors were
verbally abused in the street, and worse. With no money coming in
to the strike fund, the miners were effectively starved back to work.
Geldof was well rewarded of course, the government virtually gave
him his own TV production company (Planet 24 Productions) which
has landed many valuable contracts thanks to friends in high places,
although its only asset seems to be Jonathan Ross, whom they hold
under permanent contract, and about whom it is said "He thinks he
is Peter Cook, acts like Bernard Braden, wants to be David Frost, but
sorry Jonathan, you are Simon Dee". That, and the knighthood
(which legally Geldof is not entitled to being Irish, not British)
certainly helps to grease a few pathways into business.
Incidentally Geldof was the only Irish entertainer to refuse to
contribute to an LP released to raise funds for the families of the
1981 Irish hunger strikers.
Here's one explanation. Sorry if its a little muddled up. Its from a comment in the "Class war" paper.
Who was Bob Aiding?
May I add a few words to the review of "The Enemy Within" in the
last edition of CW? Revealing as it is about the secret state's tactics used against the miners in the great strike, it omits one important detail: the role of the "Band Aid" famine relief concert.
Before Band Aid, the miners were winning. Contrary to what the
papers were saying, the Tory government was getting increasingly desperate. Stockpiles of coal were dwindling faster than planned, and sympathetic strike action by workers in other countries had prevented imports of coal from every country except Peru and
Colombia, countries with vicious fascist governments where coal is
mined by slave, convict and child labour, and Dockers were forced to
load coal onto ships literally at gunpoint.
In Britain, gas, oil and nuclear-fired power stations were forced to
operate flat out, far beyond their original design tolerances and safety
limits: for example, Bradwell nuclear power station in north Essex
suffered a Preliminary Meltdown Alarm and only armed officers of
the Nuclear Energy Authority Special Constabulary stopped the
workers from evacuating! Even so, there were voltage reductions (at
night, between midnight and 0600 when no one would notice) and
severe economies imposed on industry; of course the press barons
agreed not to print anything about this, and anyone who might tell
got a visit from the state, and the words "Official Secrets Act" and
"Hilda Murrell" (who was murdered by state agents to stop her
revealing embarrassing facts about the sinking of the Belgrano
during the Falklands War) were used.
Despite all this, the public were starting to ask awkward questions,
and the government desperately needed to divert public attention
away from the strike, as well as public sympathy - although the
government had intercepted money sent from Libya and Russia, and
frozen the NUM's bank accounts, the strike was being kept going by
cash donations and bucket collections. The Tories realised they
needed to cut these off to defeat the miners. They needed to find
another "good cause" for the public to give money to. They found
one in Ethiopia.
In 1974 the Emperor of Ethiopia, the oldest established monarchy in
the world, was overthrown in a revolution, and replaced by the
Democratic Ethiopian Revolutionary Government (DERG) led by
Colonel Mengistu, who immediately began the biggest and most
comprehensive programmes of land and wealth distribution the
world had ever seen. This horrified the governments of the west,
who afraid of another "good example" like Nicaragua, immediately
began their campaign to bring the DERG down, beginning with a
proxy invasion via Somalia in 1977. When this was beaten off, the
west then sent arms to every criminal, malcontent ne-er do well,
mercenary and opportunist within Ethiopia, calling them the Eritrean
Liberation Front (Eritrea was originally a colony of Italy formed out
of territory seized by Italy from Ethiopia after the battle of Adowa in
the 1880s, Mussolini came back for the rest of Ethiopia in 1936)
With western arms, advisors and tactical and logistical help, the ELF
quickly took control of the eastern half of the country, driving the
entire population off their farms but refusing to allow them to cross
into western Ethiopia where the DERG still ruled. Consequently
these dispossessed people starved. However the infamous BBC
broadcast by Michael Buerk, which alerted the world to the famine,
blamed Mengistu and the DERG for the famine! In fact, in the
DERG controlled half of the country there was no famine, but the
TV audience was not allowed to know that!
Having found their good cause, the Tories now needed someone to
front it for them. They found it in Bob Geldof. Previously Geldof had
been lead singer for the pop group The Boomtown Rats. However
his hits, and the groups career came to an end when they released "I
Don't Like Mondays", which told the story of a California school
shooting. For some reason the Americans thought Geldof was
exploiting a national tragedy, and responded by every radio station
banning every Rats record, and public bonfires of their back
catalogue. The Rats went bust and broke up. Geldof himself went
bankrupt and was reduced to living off the earnings of his wife Paula
Yates from TV, but even these dried up after The Tube was taken
off air and her show "Sex With Paula" was cancelled after Mary
Whitehouse threatened legal action. The Geldofs were reduced to
living on handouts from friends (the few they had left) in a house
they had borrowed from Elton John. This was an arrangement John
found highly amusing, he insisted on dragging Geldof behind him
like a dog, saying things like "I don't object to punk rockers, in fact
everyone should keep one around, they keep the mice down".
When Thatcher asked Geldof if he would front a famine relief
operation for her, which would generate an immense amount of
favourable publicity for him, and for which he would be richly
rewarded, he jumped at the chance. The idea that Geldof organised
the entire thing himself, with the help of his friends in the rock
business, is ludicrous, when he could not even organise a job for
himself. In any case, Band Aid never received the result it claimed it
did. Although it raised millions of pounds, it was all wasted. Band
Aid's organisers insisted in channelling all the food it bought
through a single port (Asmara) with the result that the port became
choked and food rotted on the quayside. Band Aid's solution was to
buy a fleet of trucks locally, however the trucks proved to be so
much scrap metal and were useless. In the end, the legitimate
famine relief agencies, Oxfam, War on Want and Christian Aid, sent
a delegation to see Geldof at his hotel and told him that if he did not
get out of their way, they would pull out and tell the world what a
pig's ear he had made of everything. Geldof and the rest of his
celebrity friends (Lenny Henry et al) were reduced to "photo
opportunities" posing with this or that starving orphan, when they
were not sitting by the hotel pool!
Unfortunately for the miners, Band Aid had the desired effect.
Bucket donations dried up as the public told collectors that they had
given to Ethiopia instead, in many cases bucket collectors were
verbally abused in the street, and worse. With no money coming in
to the strike fund, the miners were effectively starved back to work.
Geldof was well rewarded of course, the government virtually gave
him his own TV production company (Planet 24 Productions) which
has landed many valuable contracts thanks to friends in high places,
although its only asset seems to be Jonathan Ross, whom they hold
under permanent contract, and about whom it is said "He thinks he
is Peter Cook, acts like Bernard Braden, wants to be David Frost, but
sorry Jonathan, you are Simon Dee". That, and the knighthood
(which legally Geldof is not entitled to being Irish, not British)
certainly helps to grease a few pathways into business.
Incidentally Geldof was the only Irish entertainer to refuse to
contribute to an LP released to raise funds for the families of the
1981 Irish hunger strikers.