“There are those with their hands on the financial reins and too many of them are sociopaths”.

money is power and power corrupts.

Big problem is absolute power corrupts absolutely and as we are seeing worldwide, since the collapse of Communism, that Capitalism has got greedy again. “Not just what’s yours is mine and mine’s my own”, but “Dickensian, Victorian, Scrooge,Child Labour, Company Store,Tolpuddle martyrs, hanged for stealing a loaf of bread” greedy.

The West has “Occupy campaigns” protesting at the fact that Democracy is being stolen by those with the money to buy our politicians.

Countries such as Greece have even had unelected puppet rulers foisted on them to extort money from the populace by raiding their pension funds and selling off all State assets. Such behaviour has led to strikes, which may eventually turn violent.

Russia has had blatantly rigged elections to support an ex-KGB, turned Gangster leader, and its people are out calling for new elections.

In North Africa, we hgave the Arab Spring, where corrupt despots are being ousted and external powers ( CIA, Al Quaeda Russian Maffia) are trying to seize control to usurp the people’s attempt to achieve democracy .

Meanwhile in the Horn of Africa, the people have been completely subdued and are starving because of unfettered bandits masquerading as a Government.

In China, we are seeing the worst version of Victorian corruption and pollution, with cases of adulterated food killing people, moneylenders destroying businesses and Smog in Beijing, China, so bad that Flights have had to be cancelled (this is just news that has managed to leak out).

In Mexico and neighbouring countries, people are being killed, without let, by drug cartels that have bribed or intimidated the organs of the official Government.

I daresay that there are other stories out there, all saying the same thing. “There are those with their hands on the financial reins and too many of them are sociopaths”.

Hackers are a national asset

19 year old Paul Cleary must be quite good at what he does, if his hacking of the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency was sufficient for him to be tracked down and arrested.
The depressing aspect of this story is that even if he is convicted here, those, who are supposed to represent our interests, will probably hand him over to the Americans.
Quite apart from the distastefulness of such disregard for rights of a British citizen, there’s the implied waste of national assets.
The American attitude to such people, based on past instances, is offer a choice between incarceration and collaboration. They sign them up and use their skills.
If we do hand Paul Cleary over to the Americans, he may well end up hacking the same computers, on behalf of the Americans.
At best Paul Cleary and other members of LuizSec have been annoyances.
Any Security networks that need to be kept safe, will probably have already been compromised by the CIA and their Chinese Government counterparts.
I, personally, wouldn’t give much hope for the integrity of S.O.C.A.’s files, considering the size of their funding and resources, in comparison with those available to the Russian Mafia,  Al Qaeda and most privately owned conglomerates.

Yes, Prime Minister and Wikileaks

I have enjoyed the recent  re-run of the “No, Minister”, “Yes, Prime Minister” series, on UK Gold.

 It reflects so much of our present discomforts, as has Lady Thatcher’s papers have done.

The constant duplicity, such as that portrayed in the episode on diplomatic relations over the “St. George islands”, the pro-Arab Foreign Office, The Gung-Ho U.S. foreign Policy, in respect of our special relationship, and The Prime Minister having to be briefed by The Israeli Ambassador, all make the stuff coming out of Wiki-Leaks seem so trivial and by comparison.

The Wikileaks stuff seems even tamer, when viewing “Have I got News for you” , when Ian Hislop tries to prod guests into making the same sort of insider knowledge public.

It seems obvious that most of these “Confidential” secrets are well known to those in Government circles and its environs. Why it should upset the CIA so much is a puzzle. I can only assume that it’s a case of “I know that you know but it’s OK, so long as neither of us admits it.”. All the while it’s actually gossip that most of the Public take as much notice of as a dog turd on the pavement. We’d rather it wasn’t there but would be surprised if it wasn’t, given the sort of people who might be responsible for it having been left there.