HAPPY EASTER

I hate politics.  The painful irony of that is that one cannot feel so passionately about something one doesn't care about.  And that is possibly why I hate it so much.  I love people.  People are lovely.  Even the worst ones are vulnerable, feeling, passionate, creatures.  It all goes wrong when they harm you of course.  When they harm you personally it is bad enough but when they violate your love and compassion for life by desecrating some innocent child in front of your eyes it becomes intolerable.  A raging fire of fury rises up inside to oppose the malevolent force and to vanquish the vile transgression of everything you hold dear.  I am no stranger to intense anger at the profane injustices committed by corpses that still think they are alive.  And so we have politics; the art of fucking up an otherwise reasonable situation.

I have found it interesting that Jeremy Corbyn's initials are the same as those of an old friend of mine from 2,000 years ago.  It has always struck me that JC consistently puts himself at the front line of opposition to injustices both locally and internationally.  He is appreciated by many as a gentle man of honour and integrity.  I suspect that he is not ambitious in the normally presumed interpretation of that word and has little personal interest in being such a high profile figure let alone the leader of the opposition to HM Gov in the UK.  What I imagine he is ambitious about is justice and peace.  So far both JC's seem to have a lot in common.

I notice recently that the press have been putting words into his mouth.  Even to the extreme extent of the "Stupid Woman Gate" fiasco.  It has been conclusively demonstrated that he mouthed "stupid people" and anyway it should never have been an issue in the first place.  An irony never mentioned is how so many people were so quick to accuse him of what was clearly in their minds for them to have interpreted his lips as mouthing "stupid woman".  But that that issue could dominate the airwaves, even above an implausible drone attack on Gatwick, is juvenile and fatuous in the extreme.  Whilst May and her cohorts are performing very real and very dangerous fascist Nazi pantomime tricks in disguise, the public fall for the narrative projected by the main stream media, and hardly notice they are a substantial part of the problem.

Now I am suddenly hearing louder and louder anger and vitriol polarising around the false constructs of right and left politics and the leave and remain camps as if there is some coherent correlation between them.  Yet it doesn't take much awareness of recent history to see that they have very little common ground or relationship.

I sometimes see it as school children with an abusive teacher who always blames the head teacher and asks the class if they want to get rid of the head teacher as if that will shut them up and reinforce a status quo that suits the teacher.  Unfortunately for teacher the kids were ignorant of the details of the administrative hierarchy and were persuaded by irresponsible rabble rousers to oust the head teacher.  The teacher now sees this as an emerging opportunity to garner more personal power for their abusive treatment of their class of contemptible urchins.  The kids didn't realise that the head teacher was possibly a moderating influence on the teacher, much as the whole situation was evidently unsatisfactory.  What the kids did want, in the main, was to eject the unaccountable abusive dictators from the stage whatever their position or title.

All of my life experience to date informs me that this is not going to end well.  But strangely I am not without hope.  Going back to the comparisons between the two JCs I notice the crowd are now baying for JC's crucifixion.  Although many people decry the media because it is untrustworthy they still choose to believe the deliberately provocative sound bites and rise up in indignation and fear.  Sound bites that claim JC plans to leave the EU and JC won't allow a people's vote.  Suddenly the frightened people are literally calling JC treacherous for not saving their sorry souls.  Biblical or fucking what?

I have yet to see any substantial or convincing report of JC's views that confirm the above examples of  manipulative fear mongering.  JC possibly believes we should not, ideally, be in the EU and on that account he might be right.  It is worth remembering that he promoted and voted for remaining in the EU at the referendum because he believed it was the best way forward from that point in time.  The EU is a difficult, and sometimes unaccountable, political monster.  The EU is largely controlled by the IMF and the IMF is essentially neoliberal and extremely authoritarian and hierarchically oppressive.  A problem with the UK leaving the EU is that the UK government is clearly unaccountable, neoliberal, extremely authoritarian, and hierarchically oppressive. 

Suddenly and dramatically leaving the EU is most certainly a destructive act.  It might be possible, given the right time span, to renegotiate our arrangements and to withdraw from the less productive aspects of the relationship.  It is criminal that the Tories have had the best part of three years to negotiate and have essentially done nothing.  I imagine this is due to many factors including an inherent disbelief and a profound sense of denial.  Tories are essentially polarising adversarial competitive beasts and negotiations must have been akin to looking in a mirror.  Both sides probably became distracted by preening their own reflections.

We are currently in a catastrophic situation precipitated entirely by the dysfunctional Tory Party and their neoliberal fascist policies.  I suspect May and her cohorts have never managed to negotiate anything because they cannot imagine anything independent of the EU.  Hierarchical thugs are inherently cowards and rely on sycophantically gaining their bosses approval.  Take their boss away and they have no idea how to independently act responsibly.  Lord of the Flies springs to mind since Golding's novel was intentionally countering the rather banal self delusion represented in Ballantyne's novel The Coral Island.  Corbyn has made it clear that he will strongly oppose May's 'deal' and doesn't accept a 'no deal' exit from Europe.  He has also stated that from this point in time, given where we are, he would immediately go back to Brussels to attempt to get a better deal.  No one has made it explicit but this would include a holding position giving significant time to negotiate complex details.  This is not very far removed from putting 'Brexit' on hold.  And need I emphasise that he has not excluded the possibility that if he couldn't get a satisfactory arrangement that he would rescind Article 50.

But the public, the baying crowd, the frightened mob, daren't pause to think and seem to react to the smallest most succinct uncomplicated sound bite.  "Are you 'for' or 'against'?"  Corbyn is refusing to have words put into his mouth but too many of the public are happy to read and believe those words he has never uttered.  Corbyn has probably been the most consistently respectful politician to both leave and remain voters.  Corbyn maintains a perspective on the broader issues and the profound underlying forces in the political landscape.  Corbyn remains clear that whoever we have alliances with, whatever arrangements for trade we have, however we negotiate, we must always do it with the wellbeing of the population in mind.  He is clear this is the point of the negotiations.  This is why he doesn't polarise issues into winning or losing but remains focused on getting the best outcome for the people.

What we are being forced to confront is whether we, as a population, want consensual negotiated self governance and responsibility or do we want to remain irresponsible and hope some power structure or corporate interest will govern and control us.  I certainly do not want to leave the EU only to be ruled by an inhumane, neoliberal, dysfunctional, out of control, right wing, Tory Party.  I doubt leaving the EU dramatically now would bring anything but chaos and pain.  I would vote to remain in the EU if there were another opportunity.  But give me a genuine socialist system of collective governance in the UK I would prefer not to be dragged along with the imperial, capitalistic, neoliberal, out of control, European Union.  How to negotiate a different arrangement is beyond the scope of this missive.

It is not the idea of being out of Europe that frightens me.  It is being wretchedly dominated by inhumane neoliberal monsters that frightens me.  So in order of priority we need to get the Labour Party into government with Corbyn as Prime Minister and we need to rearrange our relationship with the EU.  So far I don't see that being a very different view from that espoused by JC.  But will the hysterical crowd vote for Barabbas or Jeremy Corbyn?

MONKEY BUSINESS IN THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Ever since I encountered the word 'politics' in my early years I have never understood what it means.  Sure I get the gist of its meaning and I can use the word in conversation and understand essentially what people seem to mean when they use the word.  But like so many things, on deeper examination it seems to transmogrify and extend insidious toxic tentacles into any crack or crevice and extend itself like a fungal infection across borders and domains until just about anything can be said to be infected with the substance that justifies calling it 'political'.

It appears that there is a lot of controversy arising over a proposed Iceland Christmas advert.

I like Iceland.  I knew an intense and creative Icelandic nun at art college and it was Iceland that spawned the incredible, the inimitable, the inspirational, the insightful, the beautiful creative genius and extraordinary singer that is Björk Guðmundsdóttir.  Iceland is also the home of Birgitta Jónsdóttir who was co-founder of the Pirate Party and highly influential in much of the Wikileaks controversy.  She contributed significantly to protecting truth and integrity in the age of mega-meta-data and created the International Modern Media Institute.  It was Iceland that jailed at least 26 high profile bankers in the wake of the 2008 financial disaster.

But that is not the Iceland which is the subject of this blog post.  The subject of this post and the surrounding controversy is the British supermarket chain which specialises in frozen food and pre-prepared meals.  Iceland Foods Limited (to use their correct title) planned to run an advert on British television in the run up to Christmas which Clearcast have allegedly banned.  I say 'allegedly' because it seems they don't 'ban' adverts but rather vet them for compliance with various rules and regulations.

Clearcast is effectively an 'independent' advisory service.  (Am I allowed to say "Independent my arse!" in this blog?  But there lies another story.)  Given they claim to be only an advisory service one has to ask one's self which channel is going to risk prosecution by running an advert which Clearcast has refused to clear?  According to a labyrinthine trail of definitions, guidelines, rules, regulations, and laws, Clearcast have determined that they have been "... unable to clear an ad for Iceland because we are concerned that it doesn’t comply with the political rules of the BCAP code."

BCAP stands for the Broadcast Code of Advertising Practice and is the defining standard used by the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) who are a 'self regulating' branch of the advertising industry in the UK.  The ASA, with which Comcast aspire to comply, is a non-statutory entity and as such, nominally, has no controlling power.  Well bugger me if this isn't beginning to sound like some non-specific sexually transmitted disease already.

Ofcom (Office of Communications) is the UK Government approved regulatory authority with responsibility to enforce the various statutory regulation and Acts of Parliament - or, in other words, to enforce the law.  A central law governing this issue of adverts and politics is the Communications Act 2003.  Specifically Part 3 Television and Radio Services ETC, Chapter 4 Regulatory provisions has a section entitled "Programme and fairness standards for television and radio" which contains a sub-section 321 entitled "Objectives for advertisements, sponsorship and product placement" in which clause 2 states: For the purposes of section 319(2)(g) an advertisement contravenes the prohibition on political advertising if it is: (a) an advertisement which is inserted by or on behalf of a body whose objects are wholly or mainly of a political nature; (b) an advertisement which is directed towards a political end; or (c) an advertisement which has a connection with an industrial dispute.

Well bugger me!

It is quite clear that, according to British Law, it would be illegal to air this particular footage as an advert on UK television.  In fact it seems to breach all three sub-clauses and, as such, is unequivocally in breach of the prohibition on political advertising in this Act of Parliament.

I would love to blame the Tories for this hideous assault on humanity but this Act was passed into law under the auspices of a certain purported war criminal going by the name of Tony Blair.  Tony Blair, lest you were not watching the show, was the latest Fascist Labour leader this country entertained.

If you see this cute little film as a reasonable way to communicate an important message about the harm being done in the pursuit of Palm Oil by psychopathic irresponsible global corporations, what can you do about it?  On one level this is too big an issue to deal with in this little blog.  We need a totally different 'political' structure and we need to pay more attention to the laws being created and the implications of those laws.  But on another level we can promote and publicise this film as much as possible, increase the controversy, complain to every department and politician, and make sure the issue goes viral.  We can support Iceland for raising the issue and for their opposition to the deforestation perpetrated by the Palm Oil industry.  Most importantly we need to change our own minds about the way we understand and respond to society.  We really need to stop complying with the corrupt social conventions which keep us all supporting the status quo.  We need to wreck havoc in the current 'political' landscape.  We must start to act as responsible individuals rather than responsible members of a corrupt and self destructive society.

There is generally too much assumption that the law is somehow good and that to be illegal is morally bad.  Laws, particularly nowadays, are being generated at an increasing rate in the corridors of power by self interested cabals of myopic and dysfunctional individuals.  The law can be wrong.  In fact much of the law is wrong.  It is irresponsible to comply with the law simply for your own convenience and comfort.  We need to break the law more often.  I'm not advocating breaking law for its own sake but rather braking immoral laws.  It is, after all, the only responsible thing to do.

HOW LIFE IMITATES ART

The muse of Recoil

Western culture has a profound problem and it is of the nature of imagining itself a superior observer of an essentially inanimate and lifeless universe.  This leads to a sense of entitlement and domination.  I have often wondered whether the Abrahamic religions are a self fulfilling prophecy or an observation of the inevitable.

I made the film Recoil as an expression of the profound self destructive nature of humanity or even the universe itself.  I summed it up once as God creating the universe and recoiling at the devastating catastrophe that it had created.  As with feedback it takes only one deviation from the universal void to observe itself and thereby become something more.  There is all the potential for this process to be beautiful in its resonating harmonic interaction.  But it can become mechanistic, aggressive, and self destructively violent, like a cosmic reaper destroying everything including its own soul.

As Carl Jung was at pains to point out the psyche is real.  His astute assertion was that an unreal thing cannot change the real world and yet this planet is littered with nuclear bombs.  His perceived dilemma was born of Western philosophy and its manner of separating the soul from the world as if we somehow possess the consciousness that is in fact the universe itself.

Recoil was designed to suggest the sublime potential of creativity whilst becoming the antithesis of itself and violently chewing itself up from the inside out.  It was intended to be extremely disturbing and difficult to watch.  It was an expression of my own sense of utter despair at the abhorrent cruelty and nihilistic behaviour manifest by humanity.

Turbulent distortions

It is supremely ironic that in the process of renovating Recoil a small deviation of negativity arises to extend its tentacles of discontent into any unwitting or available fissure to spread its virulent toxin of angst and despair.  Like negative feedback it attempts to ravage and consume its host to overwhelm and destroy all creativity returning the world to the bleak and meaningless void of darkness whilst echoing the words of Vishnu "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

It seems one individual insidiously insinuated himself under false pretences into the project for personal kudos and financial gain.  Having interfered to the point of causing unnecessary problems it seems the pathological response was to embark on an excessive smear campaign of defamation and slander to hide from the embarrassment of self realisation.  This individual has put a lot of effort into his crusade to whip up discontent, spread seeds of doubt, and muster a hue and cry apparently with the hope of forming a lynch mob.  The tirade of relentless harassment, abuse, stalking, and trolling has currently culminated in him inappropriately and illegally uploading a copy of Recoil to YouTube.

The vast majority of people who contributed to the project to rescue Recoil have remained either unaware of the disruption or silent on the matter.  It has been suggested that I might perhaps respond to this turbulence.  I am reluctant to be dragged into someone else's dysfunctional dilemma and resist the temptation to indulge in malicious gossip, fuelling flame wars, or feeding trolls on social media.

Calming Balm

Since the hideous Kraken from the deep has attempted to cast doubt in some people's minds I will reassure the crew that although these perturbations may feel a little disturbing they will pass and the voyage will continue on its charted course to its desired destination.

Recoil is a film whose time appears to be dawning.  It is a personal priority for me to make this film available to the public.  The fact that the film was created in the fertile artistic environment of the early 1980s in the northern industrial city of Sheffield and that the sound track was produced in conjunction with Stephen Mallinder of Cabaret Voltaire in their Western Works Studio and credited to myself and Cabaret Voltaire makes it especially interesting to music lovers and historical archivists of that era and genre.

Many enthusiastic friends and interested parties have generously contributed to the material costs involved in realising the restoration of this rare and otherwise obscure material.  As many people are aware, much work has already been done and the film has been digitised and restored successfully.  The process of producing DVDs is continuing.  As a labour of love there never has been any doubt in my mind that this project will be concluded successfully in spite of numerous unforeseen difficulties.

Due to my limited time and capacity there can be no assured deadline and all I can say is that I continue to put a lot of my available time and effort into the project.  I heard rumours that the project was dead but these are simply the voices of naysayers and false prophets of doom blowing on the wind in the parched and lifeless valley of death.

When a copy of Recoil was illegally uploaded to YouTube recently I immediately submitted a copyright infringement claim to get it removed because although I am keen for anyone and everyone to see the film it is not fair to those who have contributed financially to make the film publically available on YouTube before they get their DVDs.

QUICK - EAT THE BABIES

Razan al-Najjar, shot by the IDF on 1 June 2018

If you are strong and resolute and won't give in to terrorists that sounds just fine and dandy.  But what are the real issues behind this kind of self aggrandising bravado.  The terrorists kidnap your child and demand £100 or they will kill the child.  I'd pay if I believed it would save the child.  I'd probably pay anyway - just in case.  That might not resolve the general problem with ruthless leverage but the alternative seems to be to refuse to pay on principle.

Philosophically there is a lot that could be said about this but nature is a peculiar creature and it is full of treachery, deception, and leverage.  One issue to consider is the balance of life and what drives people to employ such dreadful tactics in the first place.  None of us are individuals as if we can somehow be an ideal 'human' in a vacuum.

The tragic convoluted and self contradictory rhetoric that surrounds many of the world's problematic conflicts are not so difficult to unravel if one steps back from the immediate emotional 'reaction' and thinks about them.  There are no easy solutions but there are ways to maintain a fairly clear perspective.

Razan al-Najjar was shot by the IDF.  The fact that she was a young female medic makes it all the more 'emotive'.  Ideally, if you want to utilise human sentiment, then getting babies shot or maimed is good for that.  In the case of the hypothetical kidnappers mentioned above I could refuse to pay and when they murdered my child I could get a lot of kudos and sympathy.  I could go one stage better than that and shoot my own child with a sniper rifle and claim they have no leverage now.  So where is this rational dissection taking us?

Netanyahu claims Hamas are deliberately creating "telegenically dead Palestinians" for sympathy on the world stage.  It's worse than that because the fourth Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir, is famously quoted as saying "We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children." and clearly the government still feel that way.  This perverted representation is not new to the Israeli government, it occurs all too often when justifying brutal oppression.  Joseph Goebbels, that lovely insightful PR man for the Nazi Party in Germany, the Reich Minister of Propaganda, used the same grotesquely contorted rational in his 1941 essay 'Das Reich' when he said "They knew the good-natured German Michael in us, always ready to shed sentimental tears for the injustice done to them. One suddenly has the impression that the Berlin Jewish population consists only of little babies whose childish helplessness might move us, or else fragile old ladies. The Jews send out the pitiable. They may confuse some harmless souls for a while, but not us. We know exactly what the situation is."

All of this taps deeply into the nihilistic nature of fear in the human psyche.  The fear of death is not resolved and so there is an incredible desperation to deny the fear rather than understand or accept it.  There becomes a perverted compulsion to prove one is somehow above fear, to demonstrate one's immunity to it.  It drives some people pathologically to demonstrate to the world, and really to themselves, that they can beat fear by killing others and not caring.  They begin to despise what they see as weakness in others.  And, when it becomes extreme, they justify to themselves that they are the victims of other people's attempts to make them 'feel'.  They have become precisely inhuman.

It would be like walking into someone else's house with a gun and telling them to leave because you want to live there.  Under threat of being shot they go into the garden and put a tent up.  Having settled in to their house you object to their littering the garden with their tents and their noisy children so you tell them to leave under threat of death.  They have nowhere to go so you shoot their children and blame them for forcing you to do it.  Oh no - it's not 'like' that  - it is exactly that.  The only difference being that Israel is doing it on a massive scale and the Western Powers turn a blind eye whilst sending in ammunition and more military hardware.

It is sick and perverted in the extreme for Israel to blame the Palestinians for forcing Israel to kill them because they happen to be alive.  National or religious labels aside, and dealing with this as a human issue, the Israeli government are killing their own children because they are afraid of their own vulnerability.  It is akin to shooting your own child so that no one can gain leverage over you.

I am reminded of the Greek mythological God Cronus who, on learning from his parents Gaia and Uranus that he was destined to be overthrown by his own children, ate them all as soon as they were born to prevent the prophecy.

Ref: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/gaza-protests-latest-idf-condemned-edited-video-angel-of-mercy-medic-razan-al-najjar-a8389611.html

MONETISING POVERTY

"Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X"
by Francis Bacon 1953

Someone posted a link to an article entitled: "Charities delivering DWP’s work programme 'must promise not to attack McVey'" and asked me what I thought. Ref: https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/charities-delivering-dwps-work-programme-must-promise-not-to-attack-mcvey/

Our culture is perverted - in the sense of it being turned from its natural course.  Words are changing meaning and concepts are being transmogrified.  I read a blog the other day which said "Anti-Semitism in the Labour Party should be sanctioned."  The writer appears relatively young and I guess not well read.  For me, I had to re-read it, disentangle it, and finally assess what they most likely meant it to mean.  Of course sanctioning something is to give it official legitimacy but the 'officials' have perverted the word by using it to 'sanction' their own otherwise illegitimate breach of contracts.  The word has now become synonymous with punish.  Punish is a word that simply legitimises (or sanctions) torture.

In the case of charities I don't know for how long they have been an abusive corruption of the concept of 'charity' but I suspect for thousands of years.  Recently, in the last 20 years or so, they seem to have been used quite deliberately by governments and corporations as a form of manipulation and control.

In February of last year I contacted National Debtline via their web chat:
Me: "Here's a question that I would like an answer to: As a charity, where do you get your funding. I'll pre-empt you with a guess; You get it largely from corporations and government. If I am right do you consider there may be a "conflict of interest?"
Him: "We are funded by Government and various banks and fuel companies, we can assure you that our advice is free and independent and we will always look to give you the best advice that suits your needs."
Me: "Hmm. That was predictable. I will apologise in advance if I seem a little unfriendly but I am very cynical and have spent many years seeking help in what I feel is a collapsing culture. And thank you for your frank answer regarding funding. People sometimes try to hide the underbelly of their operations."
Him: "There would be no reason for us to hide this."

I suspect he believed what he said but there is a conflict of interest and the problem with 'conflict of interest' is it's not always conscious or obvious.  It is paradigm orientated.  So the way they think of "debt" (like "sanctions" and "punishment") means something quite different to them than it might to me and yet we will appear to be speaking the same language.

I attempted to get some help from the Citizens Advice Bureau regarding rent and Council Tax some time back and I did point out that they seemed to have a conflict of interest since they are now a registered charity and get the majority of funding from the Council.  They clearly had no idea what I was talking about.  They, of course, couldn't help me because they are largely a triage operation who points people to other charities.  They pointed me to P3 (a charity helping the community or something) and I researched their funding which was primarily the Council.  But I continued along this path and the guy that came regularly to 'help' was only helping me find my way through their (the Council's) labyrinthine, bureaucratic, form filling exercises.  In other words he was helping the Council smooth out the path to whatever demonic realms lie beneath these perverted institutionalised mechanisms.  Genuine help may have included researching, and/or having knowledge about, the actual legality of Council Tax or special sub clauses that allow me to claim all my rent from the Council and/or have all my past 'debt' to the Council from unpaid Council Tax wiped from the record.  But these things were both beyond his capabilities and way outside his sphere of understanding.  He, of course, was eking a meagre living below the minimum wage and probably based on 'expenses' by doing this task which should be the responsible and professional operation of the Council.  Eventually, since I felt I was only being 'helped' to jump through the hoops of the bureaucratic circus ring for their ends and at my expense I wrote them a two page letter explaining how their conflict of interest was doing me more harm than good and pointed out that the help they offered was not the help they delivered and so they had declined to help me.  That will have been tidily filed away to no consequence and the world carries on.

When Mike, my nephew, attempted to take his own life in March last year because of the malicious nature of the DWP and their subcontracted private operators like Atos and Maximus I contacted Sue Marsh.  Sue Marsh was a protagonist in a group fighting the government over their devastating disability program and who produced the Spartacus Report which momentarily hit the headlines.  At some point she was offered a well paid job by Maximus as their Head of Customer Relations and took it.  This is a complex issue and pretty well all her thousands of supporters called her a Judas and decried her for working for the other side.  I entirely understand their perspective.  I made my position and views very clear to her and suggested I wanted to discuss these convoluted mechanism and how they work and the effective role they play in society - but most of all I wanted help for Mike.  Within less than 24 hours his benefits had been reinstated and he has since moved away and, as far as I can tell, is at least in a financially secure situation.  Sue did not take up my invitation to discuss these matters and I understand that too.  The reason I mention this is to close the gap between how charities are working within the greater construct of governments which are essentially subservient arms of the global corporations and how this extends all the way through the system to corporations actively ameliorating the harm they do.  This is, in some sense, the Neoliberal perception in the extreme.  Sue Marsh has been enrolled in a 'charitable' function within the combine harvester of the corporation to assist in reducing the attention grabbing screams of the children they slaughter.

I suspect it is impossible to do charitable work in any other way than a one to one activity nowadays.  If you acquire funds to operate a charity then you have to declare it and register as a charity.  As soon as you do that you become embroiled in the tangled web of the bureaucratic governmental establishment.  And there lies the inevitability of corruption.  They do not administer their hierarchical control at a loss - they couldn't.  And so not only does much of the money one acquires end up in the hands of the establishment, but one now has an inbuilt conflict of interest.  You might recall that the government introduced the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act in 2014 motivated by the desire to silenced the likes of the Trussell Trust and Oxfam regarding the massive increase in food banks in the UK in anticipation of the 2015 General Election.  Then there was the Anti-Advocacy Clause proposed for 2016 which I cannot establish whether it was enacted or transformed and disguised as something else but clearly a contentious piece of proposed legislation.  Now this latest obfuscated attempt to control and constrain charities into contractual straitjackets for the purposes of subcontracting what should be governmental activities in the first place.

It is far too complex and convoluted to attempt to clarify or comprehend without extensive, and probably impractical, research.  But the Government takes taxes to perform functions which it fails to perform and then manages and controls 'non-profit' (and that is virtually meaningless) 'charities', who collect more money from the public, to perform the functions for which they originally taxed the public.  To add to the complexity of this demonic fabrication the government doesn't actually 'collect' taxes it simply prints more money.  The national debt is essentially a record of the money printed and, as such, is not a 'debt' at all.

Charity is a laudable concept but organised charities are an abuse of people's good will and desire to help.  Governments manufacture poverty as a commodity they can monetise via charities they control.

JUST ONE MORE

Mr. Creosote from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.

My first impression of this attack on Syria is that it is a desperate attempt to muddy the waters to spoil any evidence, or lack of it, of the purported chemical attack in Douma.  Given that Syria has been working with the OPCW to destroy or dispose of all chemical weapons capabilities or stockpiles then the likes of the CIA and MI5 will be fully aware of any chemical plants that exist and what they contain.

I don't know if that scenario is accurate.  But it is crystal clear that they don't want the wider world to know what is going on.  We are expected to believe that they are serious minded people dealing with complex world problems and that they are doing what is best.  All of my life experience informs me that our culture and the majority of people go along with that manner of perception.  We are endlessly told by parents and teachers and politicians to not worry about the details and to just 'believe' them.  I don't mind doing that to an extent but my mind remains open and I continue to wonder and even ask questions.

Of course all of the troubles in the Middle East are complex and nothing that happens occurs for simple singular reasons.  Issues as different as world economics and individuals' personal pragmatic attempts to survive impact on each and every event.  No one could possibly understand exactly what is going on or how it all comes to pass.  But it is clear to me that this behaviour of the UK (in cahoots with so many other actors like the US, France, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and who knows who else) is clearly wrong.

It is wrong for several reasons.  To start with it is violent when there were alternatives.  It is also self contradictory on many levels not least of which being the espoused morality of violence being wrong.  The UK is laughably a Christian country which is clearly contradictory since Christianity, regardless of Augustine's nonsense, is non-violent.  It is contradictory that evidence is needed prior to a conviction and yet, in the midst of current concerns about fake news, the government decides to use a most ridiculously inconclusive video that arrived from their pals in Syria (their 'terrorist' pals) as conclusive evidence of whatever they want to conclude.  There was no evidence of a chemical attack in that video.  It was an interpretation placed on it.  Had there been a chemical attack the individuals with the cameras would have had the opportunity to film far more conclusive scenes.  And there is the nonsensical claim that in the very days Assad is taking control of the area he decided to attack it with chemical weapons.

And who, reading this, is aware that 8,000 civilians, all known to the Syrian government and the UN, have gone missing from Douma?  Jaish al-Islam (the ill-defined conglomerate of ideological 'terrorists' supported by the West) were holding Douma where the alleged chemical attack took place.  They had informed the Syrian authorities years ago of at least 8,000 named and identified hostages in Douma.  The various authorities like the UN are apparently aware of this information as are Western governments.  There was an agreement in place that the terrorists could have safe passage out of the area in exchange for the hostages.

As far as I can piece this together only a day or so before the exchange the terrorists fired missiles from Douma into greater Damascus and the Syrian forces fired back at two known sources.  It appears one building was hit and there were civilian casualties which were taken to the 'field hospital' where the video was sourced.  This is where at least one cameraman entered the hospital and shouted out that it was a chemical attack and began filming the scene which then included people dousing themselves and some children with water.  There were also people applying breathing masks to children.  This video was then supplied instantly to the Western governments who have asserted it is proof of a pointless and meaningless act of a James Bond style evil madman to murder children with frightening 'chemical weapons'.

Soon after this relatively insignificant event (relative to the current murder and mayhem around the world) the terrorists were given safe passage out of Douma but it then transpired there were less than a hundred of the hostages left.  In all likelihood the hostages have been starved and murdered by the Western terrorists because they needed food and water which was in short supply for the terrorists.  The White Helmets (who always appear well fed) have been embedded with these 'friendly' terrorists for years but have never managed to get any news out of the 8,000 people being starved and murdered.  They have had nothing to say about what was going on in Douma except to report a few real or alleged attacks by Assad.

When I think on these things I imagine myself as a terrorist in Douma.  Not a nasty terrorist but someone caught up in events and siding with people who are now engaged in violent resistance and revolution.  It's not hard to imagine given that if there were a civil war in the UK I would end up on the wrong side because I would be opposing the Tory government and they have all the power and weapons.  It really is not hard to imagine how, trapped in a suburb for years with very little food and water and with only hostages to stop the government flattening the place, that the hostages would be the first to go.

Most of us, when we are being honest with ourselves, recall moments in life where we have ended up doing something we felt was wrong because at the time we were desperate and could see no other way.  It takes a certain perspective to allow someone to hit you because you claim your own autonomy and will not be drawn into a fight.  Many people, when forced to act against the paradigms and conceptual constraints of our culture, cannot put the pieces together either before or after the event and end up feeling bewildered and wracked with what feels like unjust guilt.  This is because they conscribed to the rationale and moral framework of society by way of cooperating and co-existing with the people around them.  When they break these rules they still have the moral framework in their brain and they know they are 'wrong' but they know it was not their fault.  In extreme cases this can lead to attempted suicide and eventually the death of either themselves or someone else who appears to them to embody the malevolence of the social paradigms that are constantly constricting their ability to be autonomous.  We are all subject to these forces.

It is not too hard to understand that the terrorists would kill off the hostages on account of their belief that they would die otherwise.  They are so embedded in the wrong behaviour that a little more must seem par for the course.  And, importantly, they could not tell anyone since once they had killed the hostages there would be nothing to stop their enemy obliterating them.

It seems quite plausible that the supporters of these terrorists would be in cahoots with them to dispose of, or obfuscate, the evidence and run.  The UK, with all their other gang members, have done everything in their power to prevent the fall of Douma and, in the event of Syria liberating it, they have repeatedly tried to distract attention by pointing the finger at Russia and Assad with what they know will provoke outcry or, when that is failing, to resist and oppose any and every attempt to have a proper investigation.

It doesn't matter if my analysis of one aspect of this disastrous affair is correct or not, only that it is entirely consistent with events, it is plausible, and the UK government has done everything in their power to prevent anyone from ascertaining if this could be the case or not.  So whatever is going on it is at least as malevolent as this or worse.  But it is certainly not better.

And who, in the lower echelons of wealth in the UK, who is watching what is going on, can be in any doubt that the same mode of operation is being applied by the Tory government on the population of Britain.  We are literally their hostages and they are in the process of killing us off.  The dismantling of the welfare state and the health service along with public services and education are all destroying society in Britain.  This is without looking for specific references to numerous reports from various organisations naming and numbering the people actually killed as a direct result of the Tories actions.

The behaviour of the West is psychotic.  Psychosis is loosely defined as a person perceiving or interpreting events differently from the reality of the events around them.  We all suffer some degree of psychosis - we couldn't do otherwise - but it becomes a problem when the divide between perception and reality becomes severe and harmful.  It is typical behaviour based on unresolved historical events.  Western culture has, for hundreds of years (but rooted in thousands of years) focused on an egocentric interpretation of reality.  I don't mean the Freudian ego so much as 'central to the observer'.  We have so assumed the validity and importance of 'me' the observer that our entire cultural, scientific, religious, and philosophical frameworks assumes us to be real and alive and meaningful in an unreal, dead, and meaningless universe.  This has brought us in the West, not only to personal existential crises, but to a collective and cultural existential crisis too.

The powers that be are simply echoing the distorted interpretation of the culture.  That is why their overtly incorrect behaviour is supported by so many that they get away with it.  The population, along with various dynamics of conceptual interpretation of the world including cultural Stockholm Syndrome and cultural Cognitive Dissonance, are interpreting events in a way that seem more in line with their current paradigms.  Those paradigms are false and deviating at an ever increasing rate from the actual reality.  The existential crisis will cause the West to destroy the world rather than face the fact they don't exist.  Of course they do exist but not according to their distorted egocentric interpretation of the world.  The West is imploding and liable to explode.  China, Russia, and a few other observers are sitting on the sidelines hoping the catastrophic failure will not harm them too much.

The West is like Mr Creosote just about to eat that last wafer thin mint with Russia, Iran, and China looking on nervously from the next table.

MY LIFE IN THE SMOG OF GRUNGE

Once upon a time I was living in Oxfordshire developing noxious gas analysis software for a company that rents it to power stations and other exhaust emitting industrial plants.  I am meticulous and consequently slower than most, hence why I was only earning about £12,000 per annum.  My software is, however, superior and exceptionally bug free.

15 years pass by and I have endured an unbelievable divorce that makes the Skripal Novichok affair look like child's play.  I have been a single parent and spent 18 months struggling to defend my daughter, my nephew, and myself from a hideous eviction orchestrated by my erstwhile siblings (four harpies and a Napoleonic pretender) who cruelly coerced my mother to sign the most disgusting toxic narrative for their solicitor to present in court.

The three of us eventually landed in rented accommodation that we cannot afford sitting precariously in every respect on the banks of the Haven in Lincolnshire.  The stress and anxiety, caused primarily by the Tory's destruction of the fabric of society, proved unendurable for my nephew who attempted to take his own life before being whisked off to Wales.  This left my daughter and me rattling around this house, unemployed, disorientated, and ostracised by society.

For over a year now we have taken to strolling along the banks of the Haven which is tidal and fed through a sluice from the River Witham.  The Haven meanders its way out to the mud flats and sand banks of the Wash before finally reaching the North Sea.  Part of our walk takes us round an odorous sewage works and along a littered path called the Havenside Country Park.  From here we have been watching the construction of some monstrous industrial plant on the other side of the river.  Yesterday it started belching toxic exhaust and I assume someone is very happy to see their investment burst into life.

A search on the internet reveals the new cathedral for modern man to be a multifuel gasification plant.  Apparently these gasification plants process wood, industrial waste, and sometimes human body parts.  So I expect we will soon be able to fill our lungs with the slightly smoked aroma of charred foetuses and gangrenous toes.

And I ponder the intricate harmony of the complex circles of life that bring me to being near destitute whilst staring across a cold bleak river watching body parts incinerated for profit and belching noxious exhaust which is most likely being monitored by sophisticated software that I wrote all those years ago.

CRAIG MURRAY DOES IT AGAIN

See below for video.

Craig Murray once again clarifies some of the deliberate obfuscation surrounding the Novichok incident.  To be really pedantic I don't believe the government, or even Boris Johnson, have ever categorically stated that they have proof the Novichok was manufactured in, or even delivered by, Russia.  But they have attempted to imply that assertion so strongly that they have definitely got too close to the fire.

In fact they are being hoist on their own petard in this respect.  They attempt to treat the British public, and indeed the rest of the world, as so stupid that they will fall for the intended effect of allusion and implication as if it were the facts.  In other words they have relied on people's reasonable need to have the truth summed up fairly and correctly.  They have abused their privileged positions as ostensibly 'respectable' and 'honourable' Members of Parliament.  The ever increasingly fine lines being used to divide the truth from deception are becoming fractured and meaningless.  The actual effect of these deliberate deceptions is that the public are getting fed up by the relentless lies.

Of this interview Craig Murray says: "Here is some hard truth. And to those who criticise RT as a medium, I should be delighted to tell this on BBC, Sky or ITN but they do not allow people with credible experience telling truths which run counter to the propaganda."

ISRAEL ENGAGES IN OPEN CHEMICAL WARFARE

Israeli chemical drone warfare 30 March 2018

Israel joined the United Nations 11 May 1949.  The OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) is one of a number of Specialised Agencies within the UN.  There has been a Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) since 1675 when France and Germany agreed to prohibit the use of poisoned bullets.  The current UN OPCW CWC was agreed and entered into force on 29 April 1997.

There are two notable anomalies relating to this convention.  The first being that Tear Gas, or lachrymators in general, are prohibited from being mass produced, stored, and/or used in warfare but not for internal State use for the purposes of crowd control.  Had it prohibited internal State use then the Convention would likely never have been ratified.  The second anomaly is that although Israel has signed the CWC they have not ratified it.  This essentially means it is one of a very few countries who will not accede to inspections or verification by the UN OPCW.

On Monday 12 March 2018 a report appeared in The Times of Israel claiming that an unmanned aerial vehicle UAV (a quad copter or drone in common parlance) had been used on Friday 9 March 2018 to drop Tear Gas on protesting civilians in Gaza.  That was the first known use of this technology for chemical attacks on civilians.  A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces said the UAV was not operated by the army but by the Border Police.  The Border Police declined to answer any questions.

It is now widely reported that on Friday 30 March 2018 Israel has again used UAVs to drop Tear Gas on protesting civilians in Gaza.  Not only is Israel crossing a very dangerous line in terms of a general consensus of good and bad behaviour but they are clearly in breach of International Law.  It seems, on the surface, a mere convenient distraction that it is the Border Police as opposed to the Israeli Army that is operating these drones.  It is tantamount to a blatant admission of the seriousness of their breach of International Law by attempting to imply this is an internal matter involving the police rather than the army.

However, Gaza is not within the State of Israel.  For all the deliberate ambiguity about the international status of Palestine as a sovereign entity it is certainly not part of Israel.  It follows that Israel have launched chemical attacks outside of their own country which is an act of War.  According to the UN OPCW CWC this is a grave breach of International Law.  Israel's hope that they can defend themselves by claiming this act is internal and therefore not prohibited by the CWC is entirely incorrect.  Although Israel have not agreed to allow UN inspectors to examine their chemical production or stock pile they are, as signatories to the CWC, still bound by its prohibition of the use of Chemical Weapons in War.

For many years it has been understood by those who look into these matters that Israel develops a range of sophisticated methods for population control and oppression.  It is also interpreted that they use Palestine as a kind of laboratory for practical experimentation and to prove the efficacy of their products.  It is well understood within interested circles that weapons sell significantly better when proven in the field of operation.  Israel's market invariably grows each time they provide evidence of the successful application of their products.  One most dreadful case (amongst many) was their use of flechette missiles against children in UN protected hospitals in Gaza in 2014.

Israel is the world leader in drone development.  US and UK police and military regularly attend training and education courses in Israel run by the IDF.  US & UK finance Israel to a ridiculous level and although on the surface it is said to be to help them 'defend' themselves from external threats and terrorists it can also be seen as a research and development budget for population control products.  It is a strange thing that for all the rampaging of ISIS over the last few years they were never any kind of a threat to Israel.

The profound warning for the UK and US populations is that as Western economies are collapsing the powers that be are very concerned to impoverish and control the now redundant population.  Not only is Israel in breach of International Law and this is dangerous on the global stage but this technology has to be sold to someone and the biggest investors to date are the US and the UK.

Israel is indulging in chemical warfare.

WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE ANYWAY

Christ of Saint John of the Cross by Salvador Dalí [detail]

People were horrified that ISIS were destroying works of art, cultural heritage, and historical buildings.  But denigrating and destroying a mural representing capitalism living off the backs of the oppressed and demonising anyone who is not demonstrably outraged by an imposed interpretation of it, is perfectly acceptable in Britain today.

It won't be long before art galleries are searched and pictures removed and burnt in the streets if they depict a hint of anything that may be considered offensive to Jews.  Gerald Scarf will be up on the public gallows in front of a jeering crowd with Roger Waters beside him.  Pink Floyd, along with Wagner, will be banned in the UK in solidarity with the Jewish State of Israel.

No one will notice until it is too late that we are repeating history with a different set of pawns.  The most startling thing about this anti-anti-Semitic hysteria is the hysteria itself.  If people were less prone to exhibiting their fear via conveniently provided conduits there would be no issue.

Although we talk about the thought police and nefarious operators controlling what we think, there are very few people in the world who understand how it works.  The new connectivity via social media enables powerful interests to control the landscape and artefacts of your conscious thoughts.  They control what you are thinking about, what you are afraid of, what you are indignant about, and where you direct your pent up anger.

The anger is plentiful and, like pollution and the national debt, is still being fomented by a dysfunctional oppressive authoritarian culture.  Like water backing up behind a damn the potential is mounting and social media provides the valves and penstocks for powerful corporations to direct the energy to the desired turbines converting it into kinetic energy to power their own ends.

This latest outburst in the mass media is like involuntary projectile vomiting.  It is indicative of profound cultural distress and a societal nervous breakdown.  Those with obscene wealth in the world can do nothing else but utilise this convulsing to their own ends because they know nothing else.  It is simply another readily available resource to commodify for their own benefit.

Blaming the rich and powerful will never resolve the profound division that is destroying humanity.  If the proverbial meek are to inherit the Earth it is not by overpowering the powerful over them.  We have to begin to resist being manipulated.  The only power 'they' have over us is that their fear is satiated by provoking our fear.  We literally hand over our power by being afraid.  In childhood there is no option, but in adulthood it is arguably an obligation to come to terms with our own fear and not to feed others with it.  With good friends with honest hearts this is not such an impossible task as it appears.  After all - we're all going to die anyway.

IGNORANCE WILL DESTROY HUMANITY

Jonathan Goldstein falls off his horse outside the Houses of Parliament.

Or: Not the first JC to be crucified.

I've just heard Jonathan Goldstein, the Chair of the Jewish Leadership Council, interviewed on Radio 4 about a demonstration planned outside Parliament today objecting to anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.  There are so many things wrong with that.

Only yesterday the BBC were claiming that hundreds of people had marched against Brexit.  Apparently it was tens of thousands.  This is clearly state propaganda deliberately intended to pervert the public perception with shameless bias reporting.

Today the BBC see fit to highlight a petty entitled demonstration by a minority group ostensibly about an offensive mural because it contains a monopoly board.  Goldstein seemed to want to extend his complaint to include banking cartels creating global poverty and rogue states developing flechette missiles to kill children in hospitals.  I was only surprised he didn't want Shakespeare, Wagner, and Captain Pugwash put in room 101 too.

Humour aside this is a ruthless attempt to polarise a deliberately traumatised population in order to cause division and infighting to distract from the real problems that face Britain and humanity at large.  Goldstein is clearly a provocateur and a warmonger.  He does not, in reality, represent Jews, or even the Jewish community, but rather he represents what is possibly the most powerful and dangerous definable collective ideology on planet Earth.

There are so many issues converging in this misconstrued and misrepresented notion of anti-Semitism it would be hard, if not impossible, to delineate them.  There is the current surge of objection to abuse which is distorted and cynically exploited by the abusive hierarchy to fracture society for its own purposes of power over others.  There is the geopolitical power balance shifting like tectonic plates between the West, Russia, and China threatening all out nuclear destruction.  Humanity is facing the catastrophic collapse of its own ecosystem by innumerable irresponsible types of pollution.  We are also contributing to our own devastating demise by the wealth divide and extensive poverty, starvation, and death across the globe.

Of course there is a story about Jews.  There is a story about Christians and Muslims too.  There are stories about science, technology, power, and wealth as well.  In which story would anyone prefer us to frame our pointless and destructive arguments?  If Mr Goldstein and his mindless supporters had any integrity at all they would be demonstrating against the manifest injustices in the world and not the ones imagined and feared by a powerful elite.  Mr Goldstein is debasing and abusing the history and memory of those Jews, and many other oppressed groups, who historically have suffered at the hands of ruthless megalomaniacs.

Mr Goldstein's actions are profoundly dangerous and misguided.  This is not about the genuine injustices of anti-Semitism and that is clear.  This is ignorant and wilful power play.  This is about the powerful attempting to emotionally manipulate the weak for their own benefit.  This is one of what will turn out historically to be a discernible sequence of events attempting to terrorise the population into supporting the most hideous war as Western Culture insanely attempts to take out humanity in its final and resentful death throes.

I would suggest Mr Goldstein and his cronies have a trot along the road to Damascus in the hope of being provided with some enlightenment as to the real problems facing humanity; it's happened before apparently.  There is a lot of work to be done to feed the starving, house the homeless, and tend to the sick, but then perhaps Mr Goldstein regards Jesus as anti-Semitic too.

A MINISTER FOR TOE NAILS

The idea of a Minister for Loneliness is profoundly sinister.  The Tory Party is transmogrifying at an ever accelerating rate.  I have a view, a sort of general theory, that we, as humans, are in a continuous process of becoming consciously aware of the truth of our existence.  Part of this seems evident in the way that we persistently reveal our unconscious existence, via the material world, to our conscious mind.  It would be a bit heavy duty to try to justify that argument here but I see it continuously in the arena of abuse.  The more people hide from their own pain by attempting to deny it any conscious recognition then the more they behave in a manner which externalises their worst fears for all to see.

This idea is not new.  It is referenced (chronologically) in the I Ching, by Pythagoras, Plotinus, the Talmud, Rumi, Freud, Jung, and most schools of psychology since.  It is an axiom of much philosophy echoed in ideas such as that by discovering more about the world we are actually discovering more about ourselves.  This whole crystal ball of revelation includes what we experience both as good and evil.  It is almost the raw bones of existentialism and linguistic philosophy.  We are interpreting a world that mirrors ourselves.  A beautiful poetic illustration of this idea is summed up by Plotinus "Never did eye see the sun unless it had first become sunlike, and never can the soul have vision of the First Beauty unless itself be beautiful."

So what exactly is going on with our good leader, Theresa May, appointing a Minister for Loneliness?  We know she doesn't give a damn about the people, the actual living people, in this country.  What?  You disagree?  In order to avoid too much digression I will clarify that by saying that she may have sentimental feelings which she interprets as caring about people when she is at home with friends or drifting off to sleep at night but as Prime Minister of the UK she continues to interpret the world in such a way that she promotes and advances policies that evidently erode the social fabric and escalate the harm caused to the least well off in Britain.  She continues to support the wealthy and their tax havens as they pillage the country of all its wealth with the help of her government.  You don't need examples such as Grenfell and Carillion to prove the case but they do a fine job of highlighting the effects of her and her Party's policies.  Her government, and May specifically, vowed to re-house the survivors of Grenfell within three weeks.  Why?  To externalise her desire to appear, maybe even to herself, as a caring and compassionate human.  But they are still not re-housed.  She helps the Saudis bomb Yemen in secret whilst publically exhibiting serious concern for the devastating consequences for the people in Yemen.  But there are too many ways to illustrate that May's evident purpose is to convince the public that her concerns reflect their concerns; that she is what she thinks they want her to be.  It is the act of attempting to convince people rather than the act of being genuine.  It follows that she does not care, in any meaningful way, because it is an evident pretence.

I am not sure what world she lives in but mental health has risen on the political agenda in recent years.  It has risen largely because of the increasing number of problems becoming evident in that domain.  Those problems are mostly a consequence of a fundamental breakdown of a sense of social security.  This is clearly created and illustrated by the most horrible regime of the DWP and the privatisation and profiteering by vetting doctors assessments with corporate tick box exclusion mechanisms with targets.  I won't go on at this point but suffice it to say that Ken Loach's "I, Daniel Blake" will forever stand as a cultural indictment against this government and their ruthless democidal extravagances.

The Tories are clearly losing ground in the political tug of war and there have been numerous attempts recently to increase their share of the public vote.  They have even announced their intent to impress more people with very feeble and flawed policies they say are addressing the concerns of the younger voters such as housing and green issues.  But it is all vacuous, smoke and mirrors, and bluster.  They are perversely attempting to analyse the reasons for Jeremy Corbyn's popularity and Labour's rapidly increasing demographic reach with the sole objective of imitating them to steal their thunder to gain power to continue their ravages against the population of this country for their own benefit.  They are genuinely hideous parasitic beasts.

In attending to the welfare of people in this country the Tories have succeeded in even alerting the UN to their criminal inhumanity.  All their actions with respect to helping the poor have been aimed at getting rid of the poor.  They are not concerned with helping the poor out of poverty but in riding this country of poor people.  They do it in a number of ways including changing definitions and measuring points by which we count poverty.  They devise complicated methods of removing people from categories such as unemployed by fuelling what is called the gig economy, by advancing tax credits, by obstruction using sanctions and what has been judicially cast as slavery in their demands that people do voluntary work for their euphemised 'benefits'.  They encourage and enforce zero hours contracts to remove people from the status of unemployed whilst they are still receiving nothing for their efforts.  Their utter destruction of support for disabled people is almost beyond belief.  These policies are no accident.  These policies are well crafted methods of shrouding their greed and cruelty with a veil of good intention.  These policies are not made up in a back room but rather they are the sophisticated results of studying psychology, sociology, and methods of manipulation and controlling the populations.

We look back in recent history and begin to realise how the two World Wars were driven by the industrialisation of robbery with violence.  The world has moved on and it is less successful to pursue those obvious and transparent industrial methods and so more clandestine ways must be found.  Britain moved from its industrial base to a service economy during the 1980s and what I believe we are seeing is the evolution of the methods of these criminals to something akin to a service based approach to render their objectives of rape, pillage, death, and destruction for their own warped and demonic aspirations.  So the impetus to address mental health issues, for example, has rendered what is described by some as oppressive coercion by putting counsellors in every school, installing 'work coaches' in job centres, and establishing 'talking therapies' as the only available psychological assistance which is designed primarily to keep the chickens quiet whilst they are having their necks wrung.

What continues to happen is that people raise legitimate issues and concerns and the Tories process these topics through their tragically egocentric cognition and render an illusion of addressing the matter whist materially benefiting themselves.  They see this as good business; "What's in it for me?"  The culture, meanwhile, is so distorted by these egocentric authoritarian paradigms that, so far, the majority of the public are clearly fooled by these warped and distorted interpretations and proposed political policies to address the issues in the world.  All the time the evidence is mounting that the rulers are criminally insane and so, inevitably, their attempts to disguise reality are compelled to escalate to a new level.  You really can't criticise someone who wants to help lonely people so obviously the Tories want to appear to be concerned about lonely people.  They are so up their own backsides, to coin a phrase, that they create a Minister for Loneliness to impress the ignorant plebs (to use one of their own terms).

Altercast people as lonely with a feigned concern for their condition and they will interpret their own condition as lonely and will have no choice but to be grateful for the meagre cold bowl of companion gruel they are offered.  There is no accident here.  These are well studied methods of sociopolitical control.  This is the utilisation of information technology, metadata, and complex analytical algorithms, as a service based approach to creating mass ontological insecurity to the point of destroying the manufactured poor.  It is a self consuming, self contradictory, parasitic, and very sophisticated manifestation of the cruelty which the perpetrators are pathologically compelled to deny within themselves.  They are externalising their pain by projecting it onto others in order to manifest it in the world to be seen and acknowledged.  This is the very worst of humanity.

It is perhaps worth bearing in mind that what causes this 'evil' is the simple act of denying reality in the first place.  The evil is the imbalance, the distortion, the deviation from what is good.  It is not that we, as humans, are fundamentally evil and wish to deny it, but rather that we are vulnerable, sensitive, and creative and dare not own it because we are afraid of our own power.  It is actually the denial of the reality that is the evil.  But evil it is.  And, as far as I can determine, the denial of reality is most prevalent in the minds of those who wish to judge, demonise, and control others.  It is inherent in the Tory mindset to cling on to an internal construct of what the world 'should be' and to scream, fight, control, damage, and destroy all evidence in the real world that threatens to counter their desperate internal construct which is, by definition, a delusion.  In their denial of reality they are destroying reality and the evidence is clear for anyone who is looking with their eyes open.  We, collectively, are raising our subconscious knowledge into our conscious awareness and whilst we deny reality we deny ourselves.  Whilst we destroy reality we destroy ourselves.  All of this is only the consequence of a refusal to be what we are.  So we end up experiencing the denial instead of the reality.

Tories are now hoist by their own petard insofar as they have to maintain the illusion of their own goodness reflected in the magic mirror of their distorted world.  They have no choice, they are compelled, they are inevitably and inextricably drawn by their own denial into ever more ridiculous demonstration of their goodness.  It is clearly nonsense to have a Minister for Loneliness since that is one small category of emotional distress which is a mental or emotional health issue which comes under the auspices of the Department of Health and Social Security which they dismantled in the first place.  They cannot 'help' the lonely and will only make matters worse by attempting to force them to integrate with the Tory mindset which is probably a significant cause of the problem in the first place.  They will also attempt to draw people out from the shadows who are hiding from the dysfunctional Neoliberal State in order to coral them into the convenient pens for future slaughter.  The next thing, of course, will be to demonise them for costing the tax payer too much.  This nonsense, which is off the scale of toy town politics can only end in disaster.

I can't think of any other example of such trite, fatuous, and glaringly nonsensical government stupidity.  How utterly ludicrous to create a Minister for Loneliness.  What next?  A Minister for fucking Toe Nails?

DECAYING IN THE TOXIC WASTE OF HUMANITY

One week into January 2018.  In that week it seems I have lost two friends.  They've not died, just deserted me.  On one level it hardly matters but on another level it is profoundly upsetting.  It is upsetting because piece by piece the connections with some group, some history, some society, are being eroded and severed leaving me adrift in a world which makes no sense and one which I clearly don't belong to.

I can sense the fear.  It seems to be what often happens to children when their parents divorce.  Their friends at school, usually with no awareness of why, simply don't want to associate with them anymore.  They become ostracised and isolated.  It is not long before they become the object of criticism and cruelty.  It looks like an animal instinct of avoiding the sick, the weak, or the injured in the group.  These erstwhile friends are shunning me as a consequence of the breakup of the family.  In part they don't want to be associated with me lest they end up on the wrong side of the fence with the outcast, the leper, the mutant disease of the family.

We all have a diverse range of emotions and to some degree we need to express them.  I have a good friend with whom I can vent my frustration and fury about the state of the world.  There is a kind of adult consent.  For a while the internet provided an outlet for that rage.  I could make my criticisms of the social structure, the conventional norms, or the downright misconceptions of the culture.  In part the reason was anonymity.  By having a pseudonym, a Nom de Grrr, people who knew me didn't have to read it.  And there are people out there, the minority of course, who feel the same way.  They appreciate the expression because it begins to create another group of like minded people with which they can identify.

Another point that needs to be brought into this mix is that in needing someone to understand and accept us, parents all too often seem to think their captive innocents, their children, are some God given gift that they are free to abuse.  A plain sheet of paper upon which to spill their darkest ink.  Our culture has created the isolated family home, the hidden back room where torture and abuse can be played out with impunity and no one outside has the right to interfere or even express an opinion.  It is rife in our culture to the point that all institutions in the hierarchy from the education system to the government, rely on, utilise, and protect, this secret inner chamber of horrors.

The internet is facilitating the breakdown of the medieval castle and as it collapses the horrors and turmoil are spilling across communities.  The facade of respectability defends itself with expressed outrage at the crimes being exposed and attempts to bolster the charade by publically decrying the evils.  But these hideous writhing creatures emerging from the depths of the rubble are mere scapegoats and whipping boys for the monsters still compelled by the urge to dispose of their distress by injecting it into others.

My mother used to lock me in the porch "And you'll stay there until your father gets home." It wasn't as nightmarish as it sounds because the porch was cold but I was allowed a dressing gown and my father would just send me back to bed when he came in.  I would spend hours in that porch most often for something I had not done.  The internal dynamics of dysfunctional families are complex and unfathomable.  I don't recall the girls being punished in this way, just the boys.  Maybe my mother felt righteous in beating her daughters but was somehow inhibited from beating her sons lest it break their manhood.  Who can tell what is going on in the minds of these disturbed individuals.

But now I feel imprisoned and isolated in the porch of my life.  Those on the outside dare not break the spell, they dare not question the current arrangement, the power structure that appears to maintain their survival.  They collude with, and protect, the hideous abuse lest they get singled out and dragged screaming and undefended to the torture chamber within.  They know, by their own acceptance and compliance, that no one would come to their defence.  They know it is wrong but they are caught by their own sense of guilt at being party to it.

Of course we will continue to vote for and support, hail and promote, the most hideous, the most stupid, the most judgemental authoritarians amongst us, because it protects the failing hierarchical structure which currently appears to sustain us in our secret guilt.  We are victims of our own inhumanity.  We will rally round those opposing authority in other lands because it is a proxy for our own resentment whilst we dare not stand against our own oppressors.  We are tragic cowards clinging on to a life with no meaning, no substance, and certainly no value.

I have no desire to be here on this planet in this form.  I am isolated, scorned, blamed for others' failings, and deprived of any reasonable existence.  But I am here, with a daughter who I would not desert even to save my own soul.  My most sincere regret is that I was in any way responsible for bringing her into this conscious material existence.  All I can do, contained in the porch of my life, is hope that what I imagined might be possible can still happen for her.  Maybe humanity can turn some corner, maybe collectively we can alter course from this insane decent into hell.  Maybe another world is possible.  I might never know it, but if she finds herself in a good place, all of my suffering will have been worthwhile.

I am trapped in an echo chamber ringing with the cries of the lost souls around me.  I am immersed in a pit of their disowned failings and guilt.  I am smothered by their failure to deal with their own problems and choking on their desperation to hide it from themselves.  I am decaying and dissolving in the corrosive waste of humanity.  Roll on 2018.

ONE A DAY

Maybe I should determine to write a post every day in 2018.  It would be more sensible to aim at 4 or 5 a week.  That would either give me the weekends off or allow me almost 2 days per blog.  I could take another approach and aim to do 180 posts in the year and pace myself leaving space for a hypothetical holiday.

One problem I have keeping a blog is that it is not focused.  When I started writing on the internet it was primarily anything at all.  Pages like Something Interesting which takes a perspective on the vast complexity of the universe by examining the number of possibilities in a simple 8 by 8 grid of black and white squares.  I find this kind of enquiry useful and revealing when considering other complex issues related to science, politics, or even one's personal life.  Then there were pages like Do Aliens Wear Ties? which was a meandering ramble about the protocol of wearing ties in society whilst also being a suitable subject to attempt to advance my forays into affiliate marketing (which came to nought).  Of course I couldn't resist incidentally playing with the HTML and CSS to get a graded text colour from black to green.  It wasn't long before I was writing pages like God won't save stupid people! and weird satire like ICHTHYS FISH.

All of this was happening as the likes of Facebook and Twitter were being born and soon I was drawn into writing pages about issues in the world of politics.  Pages on the Arab spring like Egypt and the evolving Simulacra.  Then there was the profound information earthquake as WikiLeaks released the Collateral Murder video which I immediately became concerned about and put up pages like Julian Assange and WikiRebels: The Documentary.

As my own life was cascading uncontrollably down the rock strewn abyss of global neoliberalism I became more and more immersed in the collapse of Western Civilisation and, as it turns out, the possible collapse of humanity per se.  I was writing pages like Education or Indoctrination?... a potted history of state education and I BLAME THE PARENTS introducing Philip Zimbardo and his insights into the subjects of good and evil.  And there were the thousands and thousands of words written about my own personal difficulties including the well documented complaint against the Children Services at Children Services Abuse: Main Index.

I became quite perplexed at how the minutia of my life was mirroring the monumental happenings on the global stage (or vice versa).  Of course my interpretation of my personal world would affect my interpretation of global events but I knew that there was something else going on.  I won't begin to attempt to dissect and explain it now (perhaps that's a subject for the 180 posts in 2018) but with the accelerating growth of social media it became clear that I was not the only one experiencing this phenomenon.  I began more soul searching and wrote posts like Facing the terror and This Dystopian Matrix of Illusion.

My poor head, or rather my cognitive conceptual field, is boiling furiously with a billion issues ranging from the microscopic to the macroscopic and from the personal to the global.  I am constantly comparing conceptual patterns in the realms of quantum physics to the collective global existential crisis.  I have a million things I want to say and no time to say it.  I am undisciplined in my pursuits and end up quite incredibly frustrated and consequently distressed.  So perhaps it is worth my while attempting to construct an approach, a methodology, a regime, for formulating at least some of my ideas in a half way coherent manner.  Perhaps I should commit to 180 blog posts in 2018 which could possibly be aimed at a book or at least something constructive and meaningful.

In the mean time you will just have to follow this blog or email me from the slightly odd contact page on Toxic Drums and I will endeavour to keep you notified of progress.  Maybe I will write 180 blog posts and maybe I won't.