Why Scotland should vote "YES" to independence.

VOTE "YES" FOR AN INDEPENDENT SCOTLAND.

There are plenty of small countries like Norway, the Isle of Man and Monaco which flourish as independent entities.  There is no fundamental reason why Scotland cannot do so.  There is no inherent dependency on the rest of the UK and Westminster in particular.  In fact the Scots have traditionally been a fiery independent lot not succumbing to being usurped too readily.  Vote to un-usurp yourselves.

All arguments for remaining in the UK are self contradictory, spurious or downright stupid.  Westminster is not a benign parent looking after a dependent child who would come to harm if they weren't there to support them.  If the UK wants Scotland to remain in the UK it is for the benefit of Westminster.  If Scotland was a burden they would encourage the Scots to become independent wouldn't they?  Westminster wants what Scotland has got.  And Westminster evidently wants it for its own aggrandizement and wealth as they continually keep Scotland impoverished by design.

If Scotland is independent and Westminster wants what Scotland has got then Westminster will simply have to make suitable arrangements with Scotland to continue to share the wealth.  This can only be good for Scotland.  Current arrangements would be severed but new ones would be formed - and more directly in the interests of the Scottish people.

Consider, also, two possible scenarios:
1/ Scotland votes "Yes" to independence.  Either they do well in which case it was the right decision or they do not do so well in which case, since Westminster is so desperate to 'keep' Scotland, the independence would clearly be reversible.
2/  Scotland votes "No" to independence.  Westminster continues their 'austerity' policies, selling off of the NHS, privatising everything in sight and generally abusing that poor northern region somewhere up there in the cold and wet north.  Westminster gets a vote of confidence in their policies which are clearly destructive to the general mass of 'people' in the UK and things probably get worse.  What is even worse than that is the Scots will never be asked again because Westminster will forever use the excuse that Scotland was asked and wanted to stay in the UK.

So the first option is reversible and the second option is irreversible.

My reason (being English) for wanting Scottish independence is primarily to give a strong message of no confidence to the elite oligarchs in Westminster.  It would significantly undermine their legitimacy and weaken them in general.

Please tell all your friends in Scotland to wake up and if they can't be bothered to find out the facts then please just don't vote.  Voting in ignorance is probably a dangerous crime.

Voting "Yes" for an independent Scotland will shake things up a bit and will be the best thing that has possibly ever happened to the UK.  Scotland will flourish and right wing permanent war and austerity will be undermined in Westminster.

Humanity is awakening and humanity has to awaken to have any chance of living sustainably and harmoniously on this planet.  Please have the courage to grasp the future and do the right thing.

VOTE "YES" FOR AN INDEPENDENT SCOTLAND.

CBN "How Britain Became a Global Exporter of Terrorism"

Still image from the CBN video below.

I am in the peculiar position of not liking politics and not having a good mind for their mode of discourse and discussion.  I don't either study world events nor do I recall facts and figures well but I have a good analytical mind.  My observations don't fit well in the general political debating arena but they are profound and valid.  So I present them in my own inimitable way and very few people take much notice.  I do converse with both sides of the 'argument' in the political spectrum because I am more interested in how this ridiculous oppositional, competitive and aggressive situation arises.  my objectives are to stop abuse and destruction and to promote sustainable and harmonious existence.

A friend of mine in the USA posted this video (he shall be named Dave for anonymity) and I responded.  Having written my thoughts I decided to post them on my blog to possibly reach a little wider audience.

My response to Dave:

What a pile of inflammatory nonsense.  Are people so stupid that they can't even ask why?  Did parents and teachers so criticise children for asking that simple question that they no longer know how to ask it?

I will respond directly to you Dave and my comments are there for any wider audience.

First of all religions have historically been a rallying call to the wider population.  Religion is never actually the reason or justification for violence.  All Abrahamic religions purport to believe in peace and justice and all have used it to justify the slaughter of other human beings.

What does one collectively call the major western alliances?  USA, Britain, Israel, Germany, France, Europe, Saudi Arabia, Australia, etc. ... this collection of countries which, to varying degrees, are on a self announced mission of expansionism and control?  The term "New World Order" has been discredited by association with "conspiracy theorists" who themselves have been ironically discredited by an illegal conspiracy by the CIA.  But it is American politicians who use the phrase "New World Order" to refer to their wider objectives.  Some people refer to the USA to simplify things because the relationships between UK and USA are of one kind and the relationships between USA and Europe are somewhat different and the Israel piece of the jigsaw is unique in many respects but collectively they form a significant interconnected powerbase so I'll settle for Western Powers for the time being.

The Western Powers have been on a violent mission to occupy, control or influence the Middle East for (more than) decades.  I am not a dedicated historian but even since 9/11 it has been clear what is going on.  American politicians wanted to invade Iraq and Afghanistan and needed a "Pearl Harbour" event to rally the Americans' support for such an invasion.  That was all documented before 9/11.  They got what they wanted in the 9/11 event.  It doesn't matter who was responsible although the evidence strongly suggests it was a false flag.  So in what way could that event possibly be justification for invading those two countries?  There has never been any proof that Osama bin Laden was involved - just assertions and pronouncements from war mongering politicians.  Osama bin Laden was the owner of a 'respectable' Saudi Arabian construction company who the CIA funded to operate as militia in Afghanistan to kill Russians.  No one ever presented evidence that Afghanistan was somehow responsible but they invaded the country on that pretext.  They have all but destroyed that country.  But what about Iraq?  Sadam was backed by the Western Powers to hassle Iran for years but that wasn't good enough especially when they were then strong enough to shout 'foul' over the oil issue.  So the Western Powers invaded the country and killed a million civilians in the process of destroying its political and material infrastructure. (They also stole all its money and that is well documented if you look into the subject.)  What did that have to do with 9/11?  They made their aggression generic under the banner "War on Terror", an Orwellian perversion if ever there was one, and accused Iraq of having "Weapons of Mass Destruction" (another utterly perverse misuse of a phrase) which was proven false by the UN.  But why would that stop the invasion?  I recall all too well that both Bush and Blair invoked the Christian God to rally popular support for their 'good' war.

How do you suppose people in Iraq view "Christianity" when the most powerful nation on the planet claims its own God wants to destroy people in Iraq?  Does your brain somehow not equate killing hundreds of thousands of people as murder if it is done with sophisticated military equipment?

We are being 'terrorised' by the Western Powers' propaganda and perverse perspective.  Take, for example, two phrases continuously regurgitated to conjure terror in the minds of the simpletons in the West: "Allāhu Akbar" and "Islamic Jihad".  We have the same equivalent phrases in the Christian West, e.g. "Good God" and "Christian Soldiers".  When you use the 'English'/'Christian' terms you always understand the human benign compassion behind them but when wogs, no, sorry, Jews, no sorry, niggers, no sorry, Muslims (I knew I'd get it right in the end.) use a foreign language we are encouraged to believe it is ignorant and aggressive.  Of course it is sometimes - we are all human after all - but Bush used the phrases aggressively and you don't appear to notice or object.

What about these two ridiculous events: the James Foley Video and the Murder of Lee Rigby mentioned in the video?  Relating to Lee Rigby: How many innocents have been murdered on their home ground in Afghanistan and Iraq by American and British soldiers?  We'd be overwhelmed if each one got the level of attention by the Western Media.  And he was a soldier, not a civilian.  Relating to the James Foley Video: It has already been exposed as a hoax even in the Main Stream Media for God's sake (oops there I go again "Allāhu Akbar" in English).  But has that stopped them using it to incite hatred against anyone in the Middle East they want to bash to fuck next?  No, they sidestep the fact that it was a hoax, never asking why, or what is going on, and continue with the idea that James Foley was killed some time somewhere and that is so unacceptable we must invade the Middle East!  Where do the eleven (I expect more) journalists killed by the Israeli war machine in Gaza get this level of indignation and publicity?  They don't Dave because they don't care one iota about life - they care about their oppositional objectives.  They care about aggression, oppression, coercion, control and abuse.

You have an idea of my views on the gun laws in the USA and you support 'people' owning guns.  Why?  Correct me if I am wrong but it is because if the government disarm the population you see the possibility that they have more power and control to oppress people.  Armed, the population are harder to oppress because there is a bigger risk of violent opposition to violence against the population.  What the hell do you think the "Jihadists" are doing?  They oppose oppression.  Don't be drawn into this ridiculous polarisation by citing violent idiots doing the shouting as somehow representing the population at large.  If one did that then you, Dave, are just another American wilfully responsible for murdering hundreds of thousands of peaceful citizens in Iraq.  Are you unaware that the majority of Iraqis have the same aspirations to all the good things in life as the majority of Americans?

We are embarked on an insane destructive permanent war scenario for the benefit of the elite.  Citing the Queen in this video as representing Christianity and civilisation is the biggest joke of all.  Have you ever read the story of the "Emperor's new clothes"?  The pomp and ceremony, the disgusting display of opulence, the ruthless hierarchical extravagance is staring you in the face but you can't see it.  Is this what "Christ" advocated?  No - quite the opposite - he opposed it.

This video is nasty ignorant trash designed to incite hatred.  It is not in any meaningful way informative or helpful.

Letter from Cees Hamelink to Putin voicing the opinions of millions.

Professor Cees Hamelink

A letter sent by a prominent Dutch Professor to Russian president Vladimir Putin has attracted much media attention in Europe.  The letter was written by Professor Cees Hamelink and signed by dozens of Dutch intellectuals and professors. Below is the letter in its entirety.

Dear Mr. President Putin,

Please accept our apologies on behalf of a great many people here in the Netherlands for our Government and our Media. The facts concerning MH17 are twisted to defame you and your country.

We are powerless onlookers, as we witness how the Western Nations, led by the United States, accuse Russia of crimes they commit themselves more than anybody else. We reject the double standards that are used for Russia and the West. In our societies, sufficient evidence is required for a conviction. The way you and your Nation are convicted for 'crimes' without evidence, is ruthless and despicable.

You have saved us from a conflict in Syria that could have escalated into a World War. The mass killing of innocent Syrian civilians through gassing by ‘Al-­‐Qaeda’ terrorists, trained and armed by the US and paid for by Saudi Arabia, was blamed on Assad. In doing so, the West hoped public opinion would turn against Assad, paving the way for an attack on Syria.

Not long after this, Western forces have built up, trained and armed an ‘opposition’ in the Ukraine, to prepare a coup against the legitimate Government in Kiev. The putschists taking over were quickly recognized by Western Governments. They were provided with loans from our tax money to prop their new Government up.

The people of the Crimea did not agree with this and showed this with peaceful demonstrations. Anonymous snipers and violence by Ukrainian troops turned these demonstrations into demands for independence from Kiev. Whether you support these separatist movements is immaterial, considering the blatant Imperialism of the West.

Russia is wrongly accused, without evidence or investigation, of delivering the weapons systems that allegedly brought down MH17. For this reason Western Governments claim they have a right to economically pressure Russia.

We, awake citizens of the West, who see the lies and machinations of our Governments, wish to offer you our apologies for what is done in our name.
It’s unfortunately true, that our media have lost all independence and are just mouthpieces for the Powers that Be. Because of this, Western people tend to have a warped view of reality and are unable to hold their politicians to account.

Our hopes are focused on your wisdom. We want Peace. We see that Western Governments do not serve the people but are working towards a New World Order. The destruction of sovereign nations and the killing of millions of innocent people is, seemingly, a price worth paying for them, to achieve this goal.

We, the people of the Netherlands, want Peace and Justice, also for and with Russia.
We hope to make clear that the Dutch Government speaks for itself only. We pray our efforts will help to diffuse the rising tensions between our Nations.

Sincerely,

Professor Cees Hamelink

I have copied this letter to my blog on the grounds of creating more copies of it on the internet.
I do so with complete respect and regard to the authors and the recipient.
There are more people who want peace and sustainable living for humanity on this planet than want continued strife, war, poverty and debasement.  These people must wake up and stand up against this insane authoritarian hierarchy which acts with complete impunity and cannot be allowed to get away with it for the sake of all future humans and life on this planet.

The references I have are:
http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/25981/53/
http://theinfounderground.com/smf/index.php?topic=18601.0

A BARREN STREET

A poem written from a dream.

A BARREN STREET

OH GOD I CRY TO THEE FOR HELP
AND YET WITH NONE I PLEAD STILL MORE

WHENCE MAN HAST THOU,
WITH ICE AND THORNS AND THIGHS
STILL WET UPON THIS SAND
CRIED OUT FOR MORE.

AND SO TOO SUN, WITH BLESSINGS SWEET,
WITH BURNING CRAVE FOR LESS.
OH MAN WHERE DUST THOU GO,
HOW LONG CAN THOU ENDURE,
AND THEN WITH ALL THAT IS NOT HERE
WE BLEAT AMONGST THE WOLVES.
TAKE DOWN WHAT GOOD THOU HAILS
AND LOVE FOR THEM AS NOT WILL KNOW.
INSIDE THERE WAS,
AND YET WITH ORANGE BRIGHT,
YOU KNOW NOT WHAT.

TAKE YOUR TRUST AWAY AS BITTER NOW IT WAS.
THEN WHENCE YOUR YOUNG HEART CRIES ALOUD
NOT THEN NOR NOW AND IN IT THOU DOST FEEL,
TAKE LOVE NOT TALENT WHENCE YOU GO.

ANON BRIGHT LOVE, ANON.

A POET ONCE DID WANDER WHENCE HE SPOKE.
TODAY THOU DUST.

YOUR BURNING HAND WILL LOVE WHAT SHAKES YOU NOT,
FOR PEACE IS NOT THE THRONG THAT PLACES MEN,
UNTO THE WORLD THIS PUZZLE NOW WE TAKE
AND DUST IT ROUND OUR MINDS.

OH GOD I PLEAD TO THEE FOR HELP
AND NOW WITH NONE I CRY STILL MORE.
OH MAN WHO MEASURES THINGS FOR MEASURE'S SAKE,
UNTIL YOU DIE NOT ONE SHALL BE REVEALED.
TAKE DOWN YOUR SHINING PRIDE YOUR LAMPS OF LIFE
AND REST SECURE UPON YOUR CERTAIN GRAVE.

David Cameron pronounces freewill is dead: "We Have No Choice But To Fight"

An article in the infamous Huffington Post claims that Mr Cameron has made a pronouncement that free will is dead.  Or at least he admits to having no free will himself and collectively applies that to the rest of Britain.  He is reported to have said "We Have No Choice".  Personally I think we do not possess the function that we call free will.  I have (as have many others) debated the question of free will.  There are many arguments against the existence of free will and sometimes, watching the behaviour of humans in world history, my tendency to conclude this is strengthened.  I do actually think we have some functionality that does manifest itself as what we call free will and that is complex but one thing is for sure: authoritarians require free will to exist precisely to justify culpability of people they want to control.  It's all very paradoxical.  So what is David Cameron suggesting when he claims he has no choice but to fight?  Well, he's abdicating responsibility and implying impunity for himself and the rest of Britain if they take their sophisticated military into another land and blow the hell out of a bunch of people (doubtless including children; those collateral darlings we so love to see splattered across the media to justify our outrage).

So in a satirical vein I proposed the alternative speech that was not reported by the press:

The full report of David CupCake's announcement...

[To camera] "We paid an actor named Trevor Slattery to masquerade as the evil 'Mandarin' in charge of a terrorist organisation called Ten Rings which we armed to the teeth (at great profit to ourselves) ... sorry, there's someone talking in my earpiece ...
[Speaking quietly to earpiece] What?  Say again ... Wrong film? You say it's not Iron Man 3 - it's The New World Order?  Ok ... sorry
[Back to camera] ... We paid an actor, trained by Mossad, called Simon Elliot to masquerade as the evil 'Al-Baghdadi' in charge of a terrorist organisation called ISIS which we armed to the teeth (at great profit to ourselves) to wreck Syria and now we want to arm the Kurds (at a wonderful profit for us too) to fight IS to give us an excuse to send our troops to fight and die for us to gain control of massive oil reserves in the Middle East.
[To earpiece] What? Don't tell them the truth?  What ... sorry ... yes ... um you say IS is a threat to Britain?  How? ... Sorry what? ... did you say 'cupcakes' ok ...
[To camera] Er ... Cupcakes.

That was the humorous take on it - now for something completely serious.

When I scanned the article the following quote shocked me.  This sort of rhetoric is becoming more common and apparently more acceptable without question.

Cameron also took [sic] out IS supporters at home - warning that anyone "walking around with Isis flags or trying to recruit people to their terrorist cause" would be arrested. "We are a tolerant people, but no tolerance should allow the room for this sort of poisonous extremism in our country," he said after talks with Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe.

Almost 50 IS-related videos were among 28,000 pieces of terrorist-related material taken down from the internet, he added. Cameron said he hoped for a "new start" in Iraqi politics as newly-appointed prime minister Haider al-Abadi seeks to form an inclusive administration that will unite behind opposition to IS.

And he promised a concerted diplomatic push to secure the support of countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Egypt, Turkey "and even perhaps Iran" to effort to counter the extremists.

My internal alarm bells rang.  First of all the whole point of a democracy is that everyone gets to say their bit.  So if a particular view is extreme and held by a few it is not a problem.  If it is held by many then that is the whole point of democracy.  You can't call controlling people's views democratic - it is dictatorship - by definition.  So if 20 people want to walk around with ISIS flags that is called freedom.  But it appears David Cameron, in consultation with a fatuous unqualified numbskull called Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe (titicular aggrandizement or what?) can just announce that people will be arrested for carrying a flag.  He goes on to emphasize "We are a tolerant people" which is clearly not true in his case.  His reference to there being no room for poisonous extremism is ironic.  My thoughts simply jump to Israel and wonder at the 'poisonous' and 'extremist' nature of that regime and David Cameron's support of them.  People have every right to support Israel (not the UK Government but that is a different matter) and they have every right to support Palestine and even Hamas if they want.  Hamas is demonised as a 'terrorist organisation' by the British Government but I have never encountered the idea that people should be arrested for carrying a Hamas or, indeed, a Palestinian flag.  So the alarm bells ring; what is David Cameron afraid of?  What is the British Government hiding?

The next paragraph goes on to say that they are censoring information on the internet.  That is disturbing.  Whatever happened to free speech?  Why are the 'authorities' so afraid of ISIS and their views?  He goes on to say the UK is seeking collusion with countries that some would consider terrorist in their own right.  Are people still unaware that Saudi Arabia funded the 9/11 attack?  There is no reasonable doubt about that in the minds of people who research these things, only in the media controlled public domain.  Well if 9/11 was a terrorist act that puts Saudi Arabia in the same frame.  Interestingly it also puts the USA in the same frame since it was probably their money in the first place.  And what of Egypt?  They had a revolution to escape the grasps of a dictator and democratically elected a government which the military deposed shooting 800 of government supporters in a peaceful protest.  Again, not mentioned much in the main stream media but in a report by Human Rights Watch they conclude Egypt’s actions likely constituted a crime against humanity, one of the worst violations of international law.  Now would that be classed as terrorism?  And my recollection is that Iran has been tarred by the label 'terrorist' by the UK Government in the past too.  What's changed?

Although I am not a well informed political beast I am more than suspicious about the shenanigans and machinations of the UK (and US) government.  My humorous 'speech by Cameron' refers to the film Iron Man 3 .  If you haven't seen it you should.  The Mandarin, a much feared ruthless leader of the terrorist organisation Ten Rings, turns out to be just a front man who is actually an actor paid for by the mad scientist Aldrich Killian in an attempt to get the US to buy his weapons.  It appears, even in the main stream media, that there is much doubt and mystery about the self acclaimed leader of ISIS.  He goes by the name of Al-Baghdadi which is known to be a  nom de guerre.  There is much speculation but his past does not indicate any radical nature or involvement.  There is suggestion that his real name is Simon Elliot and he was trained by Mossad which is supported by an alleged Snowden leak.  I am very sceptical about these claims but what they do illustrate is that there is no clarity in the official story to refute them.  They also make a lot of sense - they are plausible.

Sometimes people tend to feel that these 'conspiracy theories' are so extreme and they can't imagine their own government (that they have strangely been indoctrinated to believe) would be involved in such utterly extreme clandestine illusion.  But consider Iron Man 3, for example; who can imagine how that movie was made?  We just assume that there are many creative minds, clever experts and much sophisticated technology to create a brilliant, coherent story with convincing special effects.  Why would we imagine that governments, which have far more resources than Hollywood, couldn't or wouldn't use their resources to construct whatever illusion they required as the cultural conceptualisation of world affairs.  Most people, on thinking about it, might actually feel it was a failure if they didn't.  Given that there is virtually nothing nowadays to distinguish one illusion from another we have to look elsewhere to build our concept of the world.  One way of doing this is to weigh up the plausibility of the stories.  One thing, perhaps the only thing, we have to go on is our selves - our own experience and understanding of other people's behaviour and feelings.

Given that ISIS has been funded and armed by the US government for its activities in Syria then it is clearly not without connections.  The same thing occurred with Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan; The CIA funded and armed a Saudi Arabian construction company to fight off the Russians who were invading.  They set themselves up as Islamic freedom fighters living in the mountains and harassing the Russian military until they left.  Osama bin Laden was later targeted by the USA as most wanted man in the world when it suited them.  But for ten years they couldn't find this man!  It seems far more likely, when they can send drones in to foreign countries and knock off anyone they wish without a trial, that the 'story' of Osama bin Laden was far more useful to them than killing him.  Like a good soap opera what did they do when they wanted the story to end?  They killed him off.  Where was the evidence?  They say they threw the body overboard.  Is that plausible?  The most wanted man in the world, hunted for ten years, the motive for any military action anywhere the US and the UK cared to venture, thrown overboard leaving no evidence?  It is seriously implausible.  In fact it is not true.  I can say that with as much certainty as I can say there is not a teapot orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars (that is a reference to Bertrand Russell's proposition) because it is neither provable nor disprovable and as such becomes irrelevant - the US government ensured that outcome - which leads to the strong implication that the fate of Osama bin Laden was not as purported by the US.

It seems Al-Baghdadi is another stooge planted by the Western Powers or "The New World Order" for the manipulation of the population for their own malicious agenda.

But when the great man David CupCake speaks out the British public all say "Aaaaaaah" like the little green men in Toy Story.

Iain Duncan Smith intensifies welfare reforms

I was reading the comments left by readers of an article in the Guardian entitled "Welfare reform: will Iain Duncan Smith's benefits revolution happen?".  I was particularly impressed by a comment written by someone using the name Election2015UK.  So I asked Election2015UK if I could reproduce his comment on my blog.  He replied:

Yes, of course. Please feel free to do so.
In fact, anyone can use anything I write anywhere.
You could even put this licence on it to make it look snazzy.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

So here is the comment by Election2015UK for your delectation and education:

If you want to completely fuck something up beyond all hope of repair, put a congenital idiot in charge.

The purpose, the role, the mission of Iain Duncan Smith in this government is to destroy the social security system and he is doing a mighty fine job, which is why he remains in office.

This is a massive neoliberal achievement, on the same scale as privatising the NHS, so people should not imagine that the catastrophic wholesale destruction is a result of Iain Duncan Smith's stupidity and uselessness.

This is the masterplan.

Even inside government there are profound doubts. After £40m was written off on IT systems that are no longer fit for purpose, it recently emerged that the body responsible for grading its implementation, the Major Projects Authority, had "reset" UC as an entirely new project, meaning that it was classed as having been sent back to the drawing board. It had failed all its tests, so it was starting again.

Didn't a new category of disaster have to be invented especially for Iain Duncan Smith and Universal Credit?

Wasn't the old designation a simple red-amber-green traffic light system?

Then a blaring klaxon, flashing neon lights, tsunami of shit, planets falling from the heavens, global nuclear Winter universal meltdown had to be created to illustrate the Old Testament scale the IDS disaster.

...fraud is the "Achilles heel" of universal credit. "Organised crime is already sophisticated at using identity theft and ghost employees, and the risk of organised crime infiltrating the state benefit system is significant. Relying on remote central IT systems, removing local knowledge and human contact, will make it easier for fraudsters."

Remember how David Cameron strutted into Parliament shortly after limping into office and declared that the social security system was being plundered by fraudsters to the tune of £5.2 billion per annum?

At the time, the government's own figures put fraud at about £670 million.

The rest was down to clerical error.

There was also always about £12-16 billion sitting in the pot unclaimed, so inept and clumsy were the fraudsters who were supposed to be milking the system.

This is nothing about money and all about ideology.

This is all about handing the state to crony corporations and making the life choices of the poor to either work for next to nothing or die in a ditch.

This is a good article, but could we have some detailed figures on how much money Iain Duncan Smith has cost the country?

Not the piffling £40 million or so his IT disasters have so far cost or the £ hundreds of millions in write-offs or his claims for underpants and breakfasts.

The last figure on the bald head of this human catastrophe was in the order of £5 billion, but it would be nice to get an accurate, up-to-date figure.

That is all money that used to have your name on it, the hardworking, striving taxpayers of Broekn Britain.

All that money, squandered and pissed up the ideological wall of kicking the poor and disabled and sick and unemployed.

So, instead of paying effective loose change for a universal social security system on which you may also one day hope to rely, you will now pay a small fortune.

Has there ever been a promise of reductions in tax and Natioanl Insurance contributions once social security has been dismantled and the NHS has been privatised - or even when the banks have paid back all those billions filched from your pockets to save them from bankruptcy?

Because, if everything is to be handed to profiteers, they should not need to be propped up by the state, using your money, should they?

Sorry, that is also part of the plan.

Your tax money is their income stream, their offshore, tax-havened profits.

So, if you have been obediently kicking the poor on Iain Duncan Smith's barked commands, more fool you.

Because you are the poor, dumb schmuck paying for it all and you will continue to do so forever.

This is a scam, a heist and you have probably been cheerleading your own mugging.

Which would, unbelievably, make Iain Duncan Smith look like a genius in comparison.

Excellent!

Ancient hatred stalks the land once more

I read the following letter on the Independent web site at:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/letters/letters-ancient-hatred-stalks-the-land-once-more-9670038.html

I’m just an ordinary middle-aged Londoner.
I work in an office. I go to football. I like eating out. I enjoy the arts. I am a proud family man. I give up time for charity work. I try to be a decent contributing member of society. I pay my taxes honestly. But there appears to be something that sets me and my kind apart.

At park gates in East London a friend of mine gets told to f**k off for photographing a flag. At a pub in Bath my wife gets called scum when she mentions her background.  In a student hall in Manchester a friend’s son is asked to leave as the specially prepared food he chose to eat is not permitted because it carries a label written in a language used by a country that is “banned” by the student union.

In Belfast a historic blue plaque is removed to deny part of my history.  In theatres in Edinburgh and London I am told to denounce my opinions or lose the right to perform.    A sportsman in Ireland tweets if he sees my kind he’ll punch us in the face and recommends others follow suit.

Protesters across the country show no shame in shouting that my historical persecutors were right and social media is rife with vitriol towards me (even from so-called friends). And in Bradford I’m told that I am not even permitted to enter the city.

What is this? Racism.  Where is this? Britain and Ireland. When is this?  Now. Who am I? I am a Jew.

Never again, we say, never again.

Stephen Spencer Ryde
London N3

Stephen Ryde feels the issue warrants a public debate and so do I.  Since there is no 'comment' facility I felt that  I should respond with my concerns too.

Prejudice is appalling and tragic, born of ignorance and resentment.

I accept that 'anti-Semitism' may be on the rise in the UK and is illegitimate and harmful.

I feel that manipulators use religion, race and other divisions to foster prejudice for their own ends.

The Israeli right wing Zionists abuse Judaism for their own purposes including expelling (and murdering) the population of a country they illegally occupy and in that respect are indistinguishable from the Third Reich.

So I am left with the problem of what Stephen Spencer Ryde is trying to communicate in this letter.

My worry is that Stephen is putting a bias on his claims of prejudice (though I could be wrong) but the idea that students are banned because of a language on a label sounds so ignorant it beggars belief.  Was that why his friend’s son was "asked to leave" or was it because the product was made in Israel?  In what way has Bradford banned Stephen?  He says it is because he is a Jew but I have not heard of this before.  What I have heard is that Bradford has announced a policy of boycotting Israeli produce.  In what way does that affect Stephen?

So I am concerned by this letter and the underlying allusion.  Racism (a word nowadays uncomfortably used to refer more emotively to the generic phenomenon of prejudice) is entirely unacceptable.  People need to rise above judging others by the colour of their trousers, the design of their flag or the particular set of mystical ceremonies they ascribe to and understand that injustice is the enemy - institutionalised authoritarian injustice.  I have an uncomfortable feeling that Stephen is party to the whole prejudicial nonsense by writing this letter.  If he is experiencing genuine prejudice, and I have little doubt that he is, then where does he refer to the instigation of this prejudice?  Where does he clarify the source of this problem?  Why is he so quiet on the subject of Israel?

Israel claims itself to be a 'Jewish State'.  It is no more 'Jewish' than the Third Reich was 'Christian'.

Anti-Semitism should be opposed wherever it raises its ugly head.  But is Stephen fuelling division and insidiously fostering support for Israel's barbaric and unacceptable brutality?  Is Stephen being ignorant?

My letter of support for Cameron's policy on Israel

David Cameron MP Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 10 Downing Street London SW1A 2AA

11 August 2014

Dear David Cameron

I write to you as the current occupier of the position of Prime Minister of Great Britain and I respectfully request that you pass this message on to all the members of your government.

I wish to extend my thanks to you for your policies in the Middle East and in particular for your staunch support for the beleaguered state of Israel.

Had you been a little more circumspect it is possible that a large proportion of UK citizens may not have realised the severity of the problems and issues involving Israel.  But you and your government have been clear and straightforward in your unwavering support of Israel and its right to defend itself.  Had you not rallied the media, and the BBC in particular, to help support the desired view that the troubles in that part of the world were relatively minor and, although unpleasant, were right and morally justifiable, many people may have thought the Israeli response to the three murdered children in the West Bank was an overreaction.

Your government's statements, policies and actions have effectively resolved a transition in my life which some might call a paradigm shift.  It is more than that because I have always been a supporter of truth and justice but I have also always been dismayed at the apparent irresolvable paradoxes in the world of politics.  But you have provided me with an almost profound clarity.

During the second World War the people of Britain refused to be intimidated by a brutal dictator and their resolve was even strengthened in the face of the blitz.  People were willing to endure the most awful conditions to stand united against oppression.  During these more recent difficult times of economic depression in Britain your government has rallied the people to stand together and endure hardship to get this country through the bad times.

There are, of course, the opposing views that bailing out the banks, reducing the benefits bill, cutting back on legal aid, withholding money from poor residents to reduce the spare room subsidy bill, holding down minimum wage and public sector pay rises, cutting back on the arts, lending money to youngsters for their education, 'sanctioning' the illegal withholding of unemployment payments, vetting the sick and disabled, forcing people to work for private companies for their unemployment benefit thereby profiting the private company at the expense of the 'hard working' tax payer (which is tantamount to slavery)  and so many of your tough decision are not a good thing.

But you were in danger of getting away with it.  Then Israel let the proverbial cat out of the bag.  What were you to do?  How could you oppose oppression?  So without really understanding what you were doing you reacted in the only way possible - you defended Israel.  You defended the indefensible.  You defended the most barbarous, inhumane, savage, cruel, ruthless, bizarre, obscenity enacted by a world power against innocent civilians trapped in an enclave, blockaded and impoverished for years and held down by a UK backed military dictatorship called Egypt.  Wow!

Now I understand.  Had you come out against the overt crimes being committed by Israel you may have maintained the illusion.  Israel is acting illegally and they are using illegal weapons.  I don't know if you are aware but it doesn't take the United Nations or the International Criminal Court to make a crime exist, it only takes them to acknowledge that it is a crime.  They are clearly impotent at the moment - that does not change the facts.  Your policies have exposed your true perspective and agenda.  Your response to the genocide in Gaza has revealed your complicity in this insane behaviour of the Western powers.  Had you objected to the slaughter of innocents with the most heinous weaponry by your ludicrous ally I might not have realised that it is your very paradigm to oppress and devastate humanity for your own benefit.

You have effectively been rumbled.  You have become transparent.  Your deceptions, double standards, immorality and criminality have been exposed.  People can see right through your facade of moral righteousness to the wretched, self serving, pathological insanity within.  You have inadvertently precipitated an awakening of consciousness in the UK.  It is for that reason that I thank you "for your policies in the Middle East and in particular for your staunch support for the beleaguered state of Israel."  It is beleaguered by its own compulsive dysfunctional behaviour.  It appears you are of the same mindset.

I will not be voting Conservative at the next election.

Yours sincerely





Sam Spruce
B.A. M.Sc. MBCS CITP

The David Attenborough hoax.

David Attenborough

This kind of propaganda is pathetic and troublesome.

I found a post on Facebook today that quoted David Attenborough as saying:

I am unaware of any animal that is as cruel as Israelis -- not even crocodiles. They bomb schools, hospitals, refugee camps, orphanages, UN feeding stations, water works, power plants, ambulances, kids playing on the beach. They put millions of people in a siege. They shoot children going to school. They kidnap kids and harvest their organs. They inject prisoners with disease pathogens before releasing them. They murder by land sea and air. And worst of all, they slander their defenceless victims as "terrorists".

The post has been put on Facebook by an entity called Sotirios Sooty Thoupi who is aware that there is something amiss as he states that the post keeps getting blocked but fails to corroborate his claim with a link to any authentic source.  Here is the link to the post (which may be blocked) https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152157267417282, and here is a screen shot of the offending post as I found it:

Screenshot of Sotirios Sooty Thoupi's post.

On further investigation it appears this quote attributed to David Attenborough is entirely fictional.

The most probably source is from this page on Press TV's web site in the comments.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/07/21/372201/israel-drops-phosphorus-bombs-on-gaza/

Screen shot of Press TV comment.

There is also an exact copy of the text not attributed to David Attenborough by someone going by the name of Aaron Cohen on the Independent's Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/TheIndependentOnline/photos/a.315767831635.155802.13312631635/10152199587196636/

Screen shot of comment on Independent's Facebook page.

Then there is another example posted by umbrokhan786 on:
http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/20/33698242-israel-zionist-jews-killing-innocent-people-page-11.html

... and the list goes on.  But nowhere could I find any serious suggestion that David Attenborough is the author of the statement.

So why lie?  Why falsely attribute this quote to David Attenborough attempting to give it weight and credibility?  Obviously this obfuscates the real situation and can only make it worse not better.  On a simple level the question does not need answering as most people 'understand' why someone does it whether they agree with them or not.  It seems on the face of it that this is a destructive and unnecessary abuse.  But there is more to it than that.  There are several issues it raises that are worth considering.

Conditioned values:
There is the question as to how we rate the truth of what we read.  By claiming David Attenborough said it we tend to rate its credibility higher than if someone by the name of Sotirios Sooty Thoupi said it.  We are less likely to question it if it comes from a source we respect.  This leads to the worrying issue of why we so often believe our 'leaders' who we know lie repeatedly.  That, of course, is the authoritarian oppression.  We have been conditioned (or many of us to varying degrees) to accept under threat of pain (be it emotional, psychological or physical) what the people in authority decree.  We need to get over that one.

Discerning the truth:
Then there is the issue of obfuscation and disinformation to deal with.  Sotirios Sooty Thoupi is in fact delivering a vital service, rather like that of computer virus writers.  On the surface it appears it is simply a bad thing but on investigation it turns out to be necessary.  In simple terms we need biological viruses in the real world to maintain a robust and evolving immune system.  We need viruses in the world of computers to force us to make them resilient against threats.  Even if we lived in a world of naive trust there are still external 'bugs' and physical events that would threaten what we now rely on to survive.  But worse, if we were not well protected then a rare malevolence would find it very easy to step in and take control.  Misinformation on both sides helps in strengthening our ability to discern truth from fiction.

Bias:
There is the issue of bias that this kind of thing highlights too.  We do have a propensity to believe what we want to believe more readily than that which we don't want to believe.  There is, of course, a grave danger in this tendency.  It is one thing to check to see if there is corroborating evidence to support a theory or belief but it is more fundamentally robust to search for evidence against our view.  This was well understood and explained philosophically by Karl Popper in his theories of falsification.

This sort of 'positive' deception is as bad as the 'negative' deception but does help us stand back from both to get a more rational view.  There is a lot of trouble in our world today and mostly people don't seem to like it.  I think it is fear that drives many to be self contradictory and belligerent.  I have my own theories about the human neurological network and how it creates the illusion of cognition.  A salient part of the theory is that we copy the world in our physical being to aid interaction with the world.  It is memory of sorts.  If things are working well the copy is fairly good and the openness to learning more remains largely intact.  However, if the process of absorbing experience is interrupted the copy is necessarily faulty.  This leads to inconsistent and flawed comprehension.  It, ironically, often leads to more of the same because similar events are processed through the faulty understanding and strengthen the misunderstanding.  People get more belligerent and extreme as time goes on.  It is akin to the popular term 'cognitive dissonance'.  Stuff doesn't seem right because the internal world view is contradictory and yet the experience of each part seems real.  There then becomes this bizarre situation where people try to change the outside world to force it to match their inner flaws.  The consequences are obvious.

I am often accused of 'sitting on the fence'.  But I take sides.  I side with truth, justice, compassion, cooperation and generally what are regarded as peaceful and creative values.  I oppose lies, manipulation, aggression, abuse and division.

So, much as I accept the existential reality of the avatar 'Sotirios Sooty Thoupi' and his miscreant meme, and I understand to some degree how it plugs into the whole, it remains the case that I dislike and disagree with this sort of misinformation.  It is abusive to David Attenborough and to the viewer.  It also becomes the very thing it appears to be objecting to.

Letter to an unknown soldier

My "letter to an unknown soldier"
(for this project: http://www.1418now.org.uk/letter/)

Dear Soldier

I am writing to you from one hundred years in the future.  I recently had my own revelation about life after my own existence.  It was interesting to believe for a moment in the world that exists without me in it.  The world has existed now without you in it for one hundred years and you may wonder what you have contributed to that world.

There are many people who fight or don't fight for their own particular reason.  It appears that many of your comrades are of the opinion that fighting to oppose a cruel and violent regime, that wishes to invade and destroy other countries, is a noble and worthwhile pursuit.  The resistance to violent oppression and subjugation is undoubtedly an honourable motive.  The willingness to sacrifice your life if necessary to defend your comrades, your family and, indeed, your country is without doubt laudable.  It seems to me that most aggression is motivated against perceived injustice and in that regard most people are benign and well motivated.

The paradoxical tragedy is that the result of such motives are often the manifestation of the very world one wants to prevent.  But the equally paradoxical question raises its ugly head "If I don't stop their violence, who will?"

It transpires, one hundred years later, that you are part of an industrialised war machine.  It's the "Ford Motor Company" production line of violence.  It seems to have gone from strength to strength since the Great War in which you are a participant.  It transpires that it was never a war to end wars but more of a war to organise and industrialise war for the profit of a few at the expense of the many.  A clever and complex machine of slavery and subjugation.  A war to perpetuate war.

If only it were as simple as either fighting or not fighting then we could all stop.  But the world of humans is more complex than that.  The world I live in appears locally to be a better world than that of the majority in Britain in your time.  Life has improved in many ways.  Some of those improvements are a direct consequence of the desperate attempt to improve military capabilities.  You would hardly believe the technology we live with today.  But there are many improvements that are the product of human ingenuity and creativity without the military motive as well.  It is hard to determine where we might be without the incessant violence in which humanity indulges.  And although the world may be better in some ways, and the quality of life be an improvement for many, it remains true that for the majority of humanity things are no better and possibly worse.

So I am left with the profound puzzle as to what is the best thing for a person in your position to be doing.  What would I wish I could do in your place?  Unravelling this problem is far more obvious than one might imagine.  Committing to the solution is another matter.

Opposing oppression seems central to the moral human motive and justification to get angry and fight.  It follows that we should all oppose oppression whenever we encounter it.  The trouble with oppression is that the oppressor threatens harm and so opposing it is harmful in some way to one's self.  By avoiding opposing oppression for immediate relief leads to a world which gives rise to the sort of insane violence in which you are currently indulged.  So the really courageous thing to do is to oppose your real oppressors; the commanders and generals who threaten to shoot you if you don't do their bidding and kill other people in the same unfortunate position as yourself.  The really noble thing to do is to oppose the government full of wealthy individuals willing to 'play' the people for their own benefit.  The truly honourable thing to do is to object to the people who are willing to moralise about the need for others to fight a war whilst being entirely unwilling to join you on the front line.  They will kill you either way.  The difference being that if you die for them you are leaving your children back home in a world governed by them, controlled by them and ultimately abused by them.  We all have to ask ourselves what we are really opposed to and then stand against it.

We are all human.  Humans are transient manifestations of a complex system.  We are in some very real way all the same.  So I am your future as you are my past.  Do I want to be a subservient soldier dominated by peer pressure to enact violence that I abhor for fear of being ostracised and possibly executed?  After my death, when no one can harm me, who would I wish I were?  I would wish I had stood against the real oppressor; the one currently at my back with a gun.  But I am only human and I don't know what I would have done in your position.  I would probably have gone along with the whole affair just like you.  So I do not judge or criticise you for what you are doing but I can assure you, one hundred years in the future, I admire conscientious objectors far more than I admire soldiers.  I am fortunate in that I have never been faced with such an impossible choice.

So I wish you well in your unfortunate circumstances and would hope that you come out of this war alive except that I am reliably informed you don't.  I will always honour your memory and I will always oppose those who promote and support war.  You have my deepest love and I will treasure and protect your future world to the best of my ability.

With respect
Sam Spruce

Authoritarian depravity

Child's legs in rubble in Gaza

Israel and the other culpable Western countries have utterly and totally  debased humanity.  Not only myself but millions of people around the world will never forget this outrage.  There is brutality around the world but never before has the major so called 'civilised' self acclaimed super power alliance indulged in such wanton vicious ugly criminal and inhumane torture and murder in so brazen and flagrant way.  The insanity is stunning.  The base cruelty is staggering.  There is no question in the minds of many experienced professional observers that this is some of the worst excesses of 'civilised' depravity ever witnessed.  There may be individual cases worse but this is like the head teacher shooting the children with impunity whilst the world looks on as if he's doing his job.  And the USA re-arms Israel!

There is no 'winning' possible.  Israel, as some kind of identifiable entity, has lost all semblance of sanity.  It is not only Israel because it is the self described New World Order - the unbelievably arrogant subset of right wing oligarchs who seriously believe themselves superior beings like the ancient Egyptian Pharaohs - who are engaged in this obscene madness.  They cannot win because their children will hate them.  Any future population will find this behaviour abhorrent in the extreme; It is totally off the scale.

Israel is self destructing.  And the USA and the UK are entirely with them.  We no longer have a civilisation.

Trying to see both sides

Girl at scene of blast in Gaza Park 28 July 2014

There are lots of varying perspectives of this atrocity in Gaza.  I want to understand as much as I can.  That means listening to all sides.  I watch videos presented by Zionists as justification for Israel's perspective.  ISIS murdering swathes of prisoners, heads on sticks in Syria, and more.  In a way it is 'good science' - Popper's falsification and all that.  The idea is to try as hard as possible to disprove your theory.  I have lots of supporting evidence for the view that Israel has gone berserk and is in the act of what might prove to be the most profound inhumanity this planet has ever witnessed.  I'm not suggesting it is the largest but possibly the most significant philosophically.  One of the most 'civilised' and 'advanced' nations on the planet being witnessed engaging in such inhumane slaughter may prove a turning point in the consciousness of humanity.  Respectable men in suits gorging themselves on the entrails of innocent children - it conjures a disturbing image that even Quentin Tarantino hasn't constructed yet.  So I want to know how awful this 'enemy' is.  I want to know what depths of depravity it reaches.  I want to know how dreadful and contagious is the evil that it represents that it warrants all effort, with no expense, compassion or humanity spared to rid the world of it.  I even want to know what they 'think' might justify this holocaust.

I was locating the source of a video which is of the assault on the civilians (including ambulances, doctors, press) who were attending a strike which had happened 5 minutes earlier.  The second assault killed many including the journalist Rami Rayan whilst standing next to an ambulance.  It is here:

Live video of the explosion that killed RamiRayan 30 July 2014

In the comments someone who clearly 'understood' the Israeli point of view responded to bewilderment that the Israelis would target an ambulance by saying "why would that surprise you?" and they followed it with this video:

Why the IDF attack ambulances

If this is the best they can come up with (so to speak) they have clearly lost the argument.  I am still searching for the heinous crimes which Israel would need to justify their behaviour.

None of us are perfect and it would be insane to try to suggest that the smallest infringement of someone else's 'rights' might justify murder (let alone the slaughter of their family and neighbours including the dog).  It would be insane to suggest that Palestinians must be faultless or their extermination is justified.  So I want to see and hear both parties grievances.  So far the internet seems bereft of any significant evidence of the crimes against Israel which would in any way explain this inhumanity.

Of course one also has to look inside the heads of these humans (metaphorically of course).  If there were any explanation (and actually there must be) for this behaviour it would seem to reside in the conceptual world.  It is inside people's heads.  There are two arenas that spring to mind that contribute: 1) The 'fear' inside Israel's 'head'.  This does look like the fear that Palestinians or 'others' would destroy them if they didn't destroy them first. 2) The subjective projection by us all onto the objective world.  There is much to be thought about and to be discussed but on the second point it strikes me the thing that perpetuates this relentless violence in the world is because each of us is 'subjugated'.  Our 'subjective' view is perverted.  Our 'subjective' view is actually the reflected view of our parents (guardians, teachers, figures of authority, peers etc.).  In other words we don't actually see the world from our perspective but rather see ourselves as our parents see us and adjust our 'world view' to conform with a 'safe' image of us.  In other words we absorb (for want of brevity) the judgemental value system from our culture and keep trying to understand any conflict in terms of who is right and who is wrong.  Our subjective view is hijacked by some other - we are subjugated to them.  I know this is covered in complex detail in psychology, sociology, political theory, etc. but it needs to be understood how 'we' are driving this insanity.

The overview, however, is clear:  There is never any 'justification' for this insane slaughter of disarmed people.