Category: Politics

Dear Son,

I was being a bit vain today. I did a Google search to see if my post on Tommy the Grass had been indexed as my WordPress installation has become mangled and the fantastic “Counterize” is not working properly. I’m going to fix it eventually.

I came across a site by Kevin Williamson, he even has a Wiki entry. There is a graphic on his web site that contains the following text:

For so long as 100 of us remain alive we shall never accept subjection to the domination of the English. For we fight not for glory, or riches or honour, but for freedom alone which no good man will consent to loose but his life.

The quote comes from the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath. A group of Scottish Noblemen and clerics wrote to the Pope on behalf of the King (Robert the Bruce) asking him to intervene and tell the English King to leave Scotland alone.

What I find strange is that a self confessed “libertarian socialist” would quote from a bunch of reactionary landowners and clerics. He must have his reasons; maybe he likes the words irrespective of who said them. A failing of mine is that I cannot divorce the words from the actions of the speaker. Noble men and clerics complaining about the murder of their fellow Scots sticks in my throat – these same men would quite happily let the same people starve while they stayed fat. And I won’t get started on the crimes committed by the Catholic Church – crimes they were committing way back in 1320.

Nationalism is a dangerous thing. I warned you about Political Correctness in the past and I’ll extend this warning. The same rubbish regarding “all whites are racists” is extended to nationalism. In the shadowy liberal white middle class inspired world of political correctness loving your country and hating people from other countries is bad thing unless that is, there is some sort of liberation struggle involved. And then it’s good thing. But not always. When oppressed minorities use nationalism it’s okay – unless it’s Israel of course. Then it’s not. Zionism started off as form of national liberation for an oppressed people without a state and morphed into a terrorist state but this is no surprise as this is the only direction nationalism can ever take.

Nationalism is a love one’s country, it means the interests of the county come before the interest of individuals. The only thing is; countries are an artificial invention. The borders between different countries have moved over the years and in some places are still very fluid and ill defined. So on one day a person should be loving certain people but when the border moves a little they should be hating the very same people. We have people swearing allegiance to flags – how people can align themselves with a piece of cloth is beyond me. But exponents of the practise say that when you swear allegiance to a flag it is a symbolic act where you affirm you allegiance to your country. Which is just as silly as pledging yourself to a piece of cloth (even if it is superior flag material) – a country is a human invention just like a hair dryer or a washing machine just not as useful.

Others argue that what binds a country together is a shared culture. Cultures are in a constant state of flux, always changing. The change comes from immigrants bringing new forms of music, art, food e.t.c. or from people looking beyond their borders. Nationalists claim some sort of “National Identity” which is nothing more than certain cultural elements stuck in time i.e. traditions. All traditions are invented. At some point in history an event or way of doing something is done for the first time and some people think “what a good idea, let’s do that again next week/next month/next year”. Nationalism attempts to make these “traditions” entrenched – not because they are necessarily the best way of doing something but because if things change then the whole idea of “National Identity” crumbles. The very idea that x million people likes exactly the same thing is utter rubbish.

Nationalism, like any irrational belief system (religion for example), puts the basic needs of human beings into at least second place. That’s because the non-existent “national need” comes first. Who decides what is and isn’t in the national interest? I can’t answer that question, son. But what I do know is that the national interest is invoked whenever basic human rights are to be removed, whenever the poorest people are to made poorer or a country needs people to sacrifice themselves in a war for the benefit of the rich. The three things usually happen around the same time.

Swearing allegiance to a country is another part of nationalism. The idea is quite simply; a person swears that they will put their country first. It doesn’t really matter if the country in question commits atrocities – you have sworn an oath, so you are duty bound to join in. Many oaths invoke god, something Christians should never ever do:

Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord.’ But I say to you, do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.

The reported words of Jesus in Mathew, Chapter 5, verses 33 to 37.

Nationalism throws up some very irrational beliefs. Image someone firing rockets at you but with the power of Nationalism the blame for the bombing goes not to the people who are firing the rockets but other people. This scenario is being played out in Israel where Israeli Arabs are blaming the Jews for the Hezbollah rockets killing them. The bombs are targeted, armed and fired by Hezbollah and they are to blame for every death they cause. The people firing the bombs have a choice about whether they fire the rockets or not. The Jewish population is not forcing them to fire off these rockets – the individual members of Hezbollah do that. The same is also true for the people of Lebanon. They are not responsible for the Israeli army killing them either. But we have a Jewish man on the TV saying that for each Jew killed a thousand of “theirs” should be killed.

Many people argue that “national liberation” enhances democracy. If Scotland, for example, were to get independence it would be more democratic because the 5 million people of Scotland would be closer to their elected representatives. But the fallacy of nationalism being benign is shown with a quick look at a Scottish Independence web site that contains the following quote:

My own son, a member of Independence First, says that he is Scottish first, and British second. In fact, a huge percentage of the population of Scotland would say that.

I personally consider myself Scottish, full stop.

So neither the son, nor the father actually considers themselves human beings. The father is “Scottish” full stop. What exactly does that mean? It takes a lot of self-deluded nonsense to ignore and dismiss the fact that one is a human being, a member of a family that encompasses 6 billion other human beings in an unbroken line that stretches back 100,000 years, give or take a few millennia.

“Them” and “Us” is the product of nationalism. But there is no “them”, only “us”, all six billion of us.

Dear Son,

I’m going to stick my neck out and make some predictions regarding the terrors raids last Thursday.

• The “terror” raid information came from a person (or people) tourtured in Pakistan.
• The information gained under duress was fiction, the guy just wanted them to stop hurting him and made up a fantastic story.

One of the people arrested in the terror raids has alrady been released without charge – how many more to follow?

It will be interesting to see if I’m right or way off the money. Only time will tell.

Dear Son,

early this morning about 21 people were arrested under anti-terror legislation regarding a plot to blow up airplanes flying from the UK to the USA. Restrictions are in place regarding hand baggage, the new regulations ban anything being taken on the plane except tickets and a passport.

The idea being floated is that the people arrested were trying to get some sort of liquid bomb on board.

I am having difficulty swallowing this one. When a Brazillian was shot on the tube the police claimed that the man shot was involved in attempting bombings the day before. This turned out to be rubbish. We have had the ricin plot that never was, the raid in Forest Gate and the Red Mercury nuke in a suitcase that turned out to be tosh.

The government is busy pushing the line that those suspected of terrorist offences should be held for upto 90 days and that they should be able to issue control orders – effective house arrest.

The term “better safe than sorry” is doing the rounds at the moment. Some people are ready to accept the loss of basic freedoms in return for security. The sinister threat of an unseen hand is how fascism has traditionally gained supporters – until there are no freedoms left. By then it is too late for people to affect change.

The way to ensure we keep our freedoms is not to give them up. Not a single one, for any reason, ever.

Dear Son,

Tommy Sheridan has been in the news recently and if he hadn’t opened his stupid mouth I wouldn’t be writing about this hypocritical Trotskyite streak of urine. But he did, so I am.

Where to start? Well let’s start with recent events. The News of the World, allegedly a newspaper, printed many “stories” claiming that Sheridan had taken part in orgies and extra-marital affairs. A member of the Scottish parliament and former leader of the Scottish Socialist Party, Sheridan sued and the jury decided that these “stories” were just that: made up tosh. Sheridan got a 200k pay out and his name cleared.

Sheridan co-founded the Scottish Socialist Party a few years ago. He stepped down as leader to fight his case against the News of the World. He was miffed that three members of the Scottish Socialist Party, including the new leader, gave evidence against him in the court case.

The BBC reports today that Sheridan has branded the people who gave evidence against him as “scabs”. He likened the three to men who broke the miners strike of 1984-85. It would seem that crossing Tommy Sheridan is the same as crossing the whole of the working class, in his own mind anyway.
He is quick to evoke the Miners strike of 1984-85, the main feature of which was the Police attacking striking miners and the miners defending themselves. The act of self-defence was then portrayed by the media as “violent miners” not worthy of support.

During the late 1980’s the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher decided on a new way of funding local government – the Community Charge. It would take hours for me to write up the different reasons why this Poll tax was unfair and I was not the only person to refuse to pay. Up and down the country groups sprang up opposing the tax. Being good opportunistic and parasitic Trotskyites, Militant (recently kicked out of the Labour Party) jumped in and claimed “leadership” of the anti-Poll tax movement. After appointing themselves leaders of the anti-Poll tax movement they then appointed Tommy Sheridan as the head.

On the 31st March 1990 mass protests were organised in London and Glasgow against the unpopular and unfair Poll Tax. At the London demonstration the Police blocked demonstrators from leaving one street and then forced those behind into a tight corner. When demonstrators complained, they were attacked by the police and some of them decided to defend themselves – just like the miners in 1984/85. A full-scale riot ensued.

You would image that Tommy Sheridan would be on the side of people defending themselves against a violent attack by the state. But you would be wrong. He condemned the people defending themselves and stated his organisation would investigate to find the culprits – other “leaders” stated that they would name names. They quickly bought into the principle that it was the work of a few mindless violent extremists and said as much to the press.

Sheridan and his crew were worried that the riot would generate bad press for him and his paper selling party – he and his ilk have no care for the issues or the people affected, they just want to sell papers and join the political gravy train. So it is no surprise that he sold out all and sundry to try and keep his position and influence.

In the matter of his Party comrades testifying against him, Sheridan is quoted as saying:

I’ll never forgive, no chance.

I haven’t forgotten Tommy that you are a “grass”. I will not forgive either.

Dear Son,

Today would have been Grandma Caudle’s 69th Birthday. So we went out to lunch today to celebrate.

On coming home I find out the news that at least 54 people have been killed in an Israeli air strike on Lebanon. 34 of the dead were children.

When television and Internet news talks of Hezbollah they call them “Muslim Extremists”, but the Israeli government is never called a group of “Jewish Extremists”. But this is actually what they are. The difference between the actions of Hezbollah, al-qaeda, the Government of the United States and the Government of Israel are none, they are exactly the same.

The Jewish Extremists blame Hezbollah for the deaths because, according to the BBC:

Israel said the Shia militant group was responsible for the Qana strike, because it used the town to launch rockets.

I have written here how Muslim Extremists blamed the people of the UK for the bombings on the 7th July 2005 because they re-elected Tony Blair. I said at that the time that this was rubbish and why it was rubbish. The same arguments apply here; the Jewish Extremists refuse to accept that they are nothing more than common murders and attempt to justify their killings. They claim that they had told people to leave the area or face being bombed. al-qaeda has warned many times what certain governments around the world need to do to avoid being bombed. When these edicts are announced world leaders queue up to pontificate about “not bowing to terrorism”. But when the Jewish Extremists set out their demands so that people can avoid being bombed, they are treated as statesmen and armed by the USA government.

Although we do get some weasel words from Condoleezza Rice:

We are also pushing for an urgent end to the current hostilities, but the views of the parties on how to achieve this are different.

The government of the USA thinks arming the Jewish Extremists is the way forward as they sell Israel the arms necessary to kill the 54 people in the first place.

In 1984 Orwell gives us the word blackwhite:

Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known in Newspeak as doublethink.

To understand the minds of the assembled Extremists in light of the World Trade Centre, Milan and London bombings and the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraqi we have to have to identify and understand blackwhite when we see it. And this episode is a case study.

Dear Son, 

A year on from the 7th July 2005 bombings there will be a two minute silence to remember the dead, the suffering of the injured and the bravery and dedication of the rescuers and health professionals. Fifty two people died on that fateful day and I don’t want you to think that I have anything other than sympathy for the families of the dead and the people injured. They know more than most the pain and misery caused by bombs killing innocent people. 

There was a lot of debate recently about failures in intelligence gathering and how the bombers slipped through the net. The argument and debate seems to have missed the point that the intelligence agencies warned the government that if an invasion of Iraq went ahead there was an increased risk of terrorist attacks on main land Britain. And this happened. The idea that there is no link between the actions of the 7/7 bombers and Iraq is pure fantasy but it is the constant line the government of the day pumps out.

Fifty two lives to be lost in a single day is a lot. Since the invasion of Iraq about 34,000 Iraqi civilians have died, that is about 31 people per day (or a 7/7 style bomb attack every two days, all 547 of them) killed because of the decision to invade to Iraq.

There will be no two minute silence for these people.

Dear Son,

copper prices have gone through the roof. So much so that the Royal Mint has warned against melting coins.

Coins minted before 1992 are made from copper and are worth twice there face value. Now this is a little odd I think. How can the physical piece of money actually be worth twice the value stamped on it? Quite easily as the coin is only a physical representation of the value of the money but representations of an item have to be true and accurate for that representation to hold. And in this case the whole façade, for me at any rate, collapses and the role of money and value seem rather odd.
 
For the economic system to work a lot of disbelief has to be suspended. How can it be possible to buy and sell money? How can different currencies have different values? Think about a loaf of bread made in France and one made in the UK, imagine that they have been made with the same ingredients and cooked in exactly the same sort of oven. Why should they be different prices when one currency is converted from one to another? The ingredients are plentiful in both countries, the labour cost is exactly the same but by artificial means the prices are different.

There can only every be a finite amount of money in the global economic system, if too much money is sloshing around the system then inflation takes over and the buying power of a certain amount of money is reduced. Because of this golden rule when certain people decide to horde money then others have to go without. One extreme of this rule is private jets and luxury yachts – at the other end is starvation and disease.

While everyone agrees that pieces of paper and metal disks have a certain value and accept the abstract notion that they have a "value" we will continue to need money and starvation and poverty will continue.

Dear Son,

I started writing this blog after the 7th July 2005 bombings in London which I had the unfortunate misfortune to witness the aftermath at Aldgate East tube station. And it is to this subject I return again. I keep returning to this subject because the justification of killing people is the root cause of all that is wrong in this world. The value of human life is nil for so many people and this worthlessness seems to start with certain individuals themselves.

Today in Iraq more suicide bombers have reeked their personal type of terror, just as they did on July 7th in London. They are so motivated in their beliefs that they are prepared to die for them – so far nothing so bad. The bit I don’t understand is why they insist on killing others. Do they know, on a personal basis, the people they are about to kill? If they did then maybe the people they have targeted are nasty murdering scum who need to be taken out to save many more lives and they are doing the majority a favour and saving lives. There is no evidence to suggest that these suicide bombers are nothing more than random killers who are interested more in the number of people they kill than the life stories of the individuals them selves.

If these suicide bombers are so intent on killing themselves, then why do they have to make others suffer? During the Vietnam war Buddhist monks protested against their oppression in the South by setting themselves on fire in Saigon. They committed ritual suicide and sent a powerful message to the world without hurting anyone except them selves. So why don’t these suicide bombers follow this example and simply set themselves on fire well away from other people?

And let us extend this principle to leaders of countries engaged in war. In the old days leaders of factions would ride at the front of their army and risk their own lives. They wouldn’t send someone else’s sons into battle and hide away along way from the front. Any person who wasn’t ready to risk their own life would find very people ready to risk their own. This may lead to a lot less wars.