{"id":138713,"date":"2014-09-02T22:04:04","date_gmt":"2014-09-02T22:04:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=138713"},"modified":"2014-09-02T22:04:04","modified_gmt":"2014-09-02T22:04:04","slug":"insanity-war-criminal-tony-blair-awarded-philanthropist-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/insanity-war-criminal-tony-blair-awarded-philanthropist-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Insanity: War Criminal Tony Blair Awarded &#8216;Philanthropist Of The Year&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Mick Meaney<\/em><br \/>\n<em><a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Philanthropy<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>noun, plural philanthropies.<\/em><br \/>\n<em> 1.<\/em><br \/>\n<em> altruistic concern for human welfare and advancement, usually manifested by donations of money, property, or work to needy persons, by endowment of institutions of learning and hospitals, and by generosity to other socially useful purposes.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Read that definition.<\/p>\n<p>Now read it again with an image of Tony Blair in your minds eye.<\/p>\n<p>Are you seeing a disconnect here? Good.<\/p>\n<p>OK, let&#8217;s put Blair&#8217;s history of war crimes and profiteering to one side for a moment. Just days after a leaked document showed how Blair offered advice to\u00a0<span style=\"color: #2c2c2c;\">Kazakhstan\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>despot president Nursultan Nazarbayev<span style=\"color: #2c2c2c;\">\u00a0on how to deal with the media after it emerged that his\u00a0security forces massacred 14 unarmed protesters in 2011,\u00a0GQ magazine has somehow seen fit to name Blair\u00a0&#8216;Philanthropist Of The Year&#8217;.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The mind boggles.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #2c2c2c;\">Tony Blair Associates (or perhaps a more suited name would be Whitewash\u00a0Inc?) is estimated to receive around \u00a37 million a year to advise\u00a0Mr Nazarbayev.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cI think it best to meet head on the Zhanaozen issue,\u201d Mr Blair wrote to him.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cThe fact is you have made changes following it; but in any event these events, tragic though they were, should not obscure the enormous progress Kazakhstan has made.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cDealing with it in the way I suggest is the best way for the Western media.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cIt will also serve as a quote that can be used in the future setting out the basic case for Kazakhstan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A spokeswoman for war criminal\u00a0Blair claimed the\u00a0contract is to provide advice on government reform,\u00a0and not spin.<\/p>\n<p>She said: \u201cWhile Tony Blair has always made it clear there are real challenges for Kazakhstan over issues of human rights and political reform, and that these have to be dealt with, nonetheless, the country has made huge progress over the past 20 years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe letter was simply making these points, namely that the events of Zhanaozen were indeed tragic and they had to be confronted in any speech, not ignored.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What next? Will I have to wait with\u00a0bated breath for George W. Bush to be recognised for\u00a0&#8216;Improving the Human Condition&#8217;? Oh hang on, <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/university-of-denver-draws-heat-for-plan-to-present-george-w-bush-with-improving-human-condition-award\/\">that&#8217;s already happened<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mick Meaney RINF Alternative News Philanthropy noun, plural philanthropies. 1. altruistic concern for human welfare and advancement, usually manifested by donations of money, property, or work to needy persons, by endowment of institutions of learning and hospitals, and by generosity to other socially useful purposes. Read that definition. Now read it again with an image [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1239,"featured_media":107190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461],"tags":[43,759,760,761,660],"class_list":{"0":"post-138713","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials","8":"tag-tony-blair","9":"tag-george-bush","10":"tag-gq-magazine","11":"tag-nursultan-nazarbayev","12":"tag-war-crimes"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1239"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}