I call this the SciFi-Babe Editorial Comment Page; but, make no mistake, this is MY page. I'm not out to entertain you, here. I'm giving vent to things that totally piss me off. Stupid things, like bigotry and deliberate ignorance - like a new slave who doesn't clean the shower stall because they can't find the cleaner, and is too stupid/lazy to ask someone. Are they determined to get a good thrashing? Is that their intent? Am I so terrifying that they can't approach me with a simple question? Well, it depends on what I'm doing, and who I'm doing it to, I suppose, but there are many ways to obtain information. The key is to actually want to make the effort. Sadly, most do not.
And so, I shall continue to express my outrage/concern/disdain for as long as it pleases me to do so. And you, my dear reader, are perfectly entitled to disagree with me if you wish to do so - right up until the point in your life at which you find yourself wearing my collar...
There exists in all nations, a group of individuals who lack any vestige of humanity, who lust after power, money and control over their fellow man. Israel is no different in this regard. Do not fan the flames of prejudice with ill-considered emotions and speech. Hold the right people responsible. They are the the U.S., European and Israeli ruling elites. They are to blame, not the Jewish people as a whole!
HISTORY LESSON: The Dunkirk evacuation, codenamed 'Operation Dynamo' by the British, was the evacuation of Allied soldiers from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, France, between May 26 and June 4, 1940, when British, French and Canadian troops were cut off by the German army during the Battle of Dunkirk in the Second World War. Winston Churchill called it the greatest military defeat for many centuries, warning that "the whole root, the core, and brain of the British Army" was stranded in Dunkirk.
Note that part about the 'greatest military defeat for many centuries'. Yeah, that's right! The military leaders and planners got out-thought by those of the German army, whose sudden thrust cut the British Expeditionary Force off from the rest of the British forces in France, who were subsequently captured, as were two French Divisions who courageously remained behind to cover the retreat. All the heavy equipment and vehicles the British shipped to France were abandoned. Six British and three French destroyers were sunk. In addition, 19 British destroyers were damaged. Over 200 of the Allied sea craft, manned by civilian voluteers, were sunk, with an equal number damaged. Winston Churchill revealed in his volumes on World War II that the Royal Air Force played a most important role protecting the retreating troops from the Luftwaffe. Without the support of the RAF, the allies would not have had such a successful evacuation. The RAF lost 145 planes to the German Luftwaffe's 132.
So, here we go again! Some grand-high-poobar screws up - in this case, the British Government and the Financial Elite - and we, the great unwashed must gird our loins, strap on the old breast plate, sharpen our rusty swords and sally forth to pull their charred chestnuts out of the fire. Of, course, the public will rise to the challenge because, quite simply, the Government will not. They will continue to lie to us, tax us, spy on us, invade harmless countries, waste a fortune on new aircraft carriers, export high-paid jobs, permit unconstrained immigration, destroy our freedoms and permit their 'friends' to continue with their daylight robbery of our hard earned wealth. Though every fiber of our being screams, " Fuck em' ", they know we have no choice. I hope that when things return to normal, as they will, sometime, the British public votes every one of these worthless cretins out of power.
The Maya creation myth states that all of the physical world was created from the blood of the Gods. City rulers were required, therefore, to offer their own blood in ritual sacrifice to the Gods to maintain the physical world on a City by City basis. Blood was drawn from cuts to the tongue, the fingers and the genitals. The rulers lived like, well, Kings. The entire focus and wellbeing of the City state required the total submission of the masses to the King, since all blessings, be they a good harvest, plentiful rainfall, victory in battle, the fertility of themselves and their livestock flowed, they believed, through the blood sacrifice of the King. An interesting side note, here: when the first Christian priests arrived and began teaching that Christ died on the cross to pay for mankind's sins, the message struck a chord in the Maya. It was, after all, a blood ritual from their viewpoint.
In time, unreliable rainfall patterns, over population, constant wars and resource depletion forced the collapse of this, some say, unique civilization. But the fall came not from the suffering of the people. It came from the people's loss of faith in their Kings. Simply put, they could not deliver what was needed, yet still demanded total subservience, a maintenance of their exalted lifestyle and a willingness to die in service of the King. In the end, despite the blood of vast numbers of victims - including children - being spilt on sacrificial alters across the Maya homeland, all to no avail, the Maya simply walked away from their impressive cities and returned to the jungle. Their civilization was irretrievably broken by the time the first Europeans arrived - unlike that of the Aztec.
The Maya underworld was called Xibalba (the 'X' is pronounced as a 'Sh'). It was a dreadful place, deep underground (caves were therefore places both of dread and worship for the Maya) where the dead suffered eternal torment and were used to feed the insatiable blood-lust of the Gods.
The parallels with the current situation in our modern world are significant. Our leaders daily lavish bailouts on banks and the financial elite, despite their being the cause of our suffering. They use tax payer's money to reward themselves huge bonuses. They refuse to say where OUR money is going! Non-banking entities, like Amex, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are switching to being banks (in name only, of course) so after completing a simple, two page application, they, too, can receive truck loads of tax payer money. Anyone, large or small, who actually MAKES something people might want to buy, will be left to rot. The politicians could care less about those whose wealth is being destroyed, or whose hard earned cash is being funnelled to these greed-soaked cretins. It will not be long, in my opinion, before the masses lose complete faith and trust in their national leadership, if they haven't already, and simply walk away. Their departure may leave riotous devastation behind it, or it may not. Some people will seek vengeance, most will not. At some point, however, the modern world will follow the Maya into Xibalba, perhaps never to rise again.
It's a damn shame those who claim the right to lead, never seem to have time to read a friggin' history book or two!
Doesn't it seem reasonable that Madoff's Jewishness would encourage other Jews to invest with him? Would not sharing a common heritage with him, apparently, be grounds for trust? Indeed, might he not have played on this shared ethnicity> Christians rip off Christians, Muslims, Jews - even atheists and agnostics - all the time. Is there a similar groundswell of public outrage directed at Christians when that happens? I think not. The offenders are merely castigated for their mendacity and greed.
The Madoff case is still moving forward, so I shall step aside from it in the interest of Judicial fairness. The case against the Jews, however, I wish to pursue further.
As a species, we have always lived with the threat of failure. Ego is a tough cookie! It will often do anything rather than admit culpability (the Bush Syndrome, for want of a better example). While we do live in a society where much of the crap that assails our daily lives is not of our making, when it is of our making, it is convenient to look elsewhere for the cause, because, by doing so, we are able to avoid the need for a close examination of our own behavior and, stemming from that, the need for change and, more importantly, RESPONSIBILITY.
Perhaps it is the complexity of modern life that stretches our competence to the breaking point? Perhaps, we really are better suited to a simple agrarian life than one continually undermined by the quicksands of fashion, political expediancy, an ever changing tax code and constantly evolving technical gadgetry?
The fact is: the majority of us do not exert much control over our own lives - and not by chance. It has been the policy of the political elite in all western nations, certainly since the sixties - when the vibrant energy of the emerging youth/drug culture seemed to threaten the established order of the world - to engage in massive, carefully camouflaged, social engineering programs, designed, specifically, to encourage dependency on the State. Many of the social initiatives introduced into western societies have sought the erosion of a well informed middle-class (those who typically hold governments to account) by the exportation of high paid manufacturing and research jobs to countries with lower wages and no environmental/worker protection. The use of mass - often illegal- immigration has forced a lowering of working class wages, to the clear advantage of manufacturing company profitablility. Governments, while protesting their innocence in the matter have, to a man (and woman) done little to increase border security. And Britain, to which every immigrant who made it to the French side of the English Channel was directed, while the French police held the wire fence up for them, refused, despite frequent demands from its citizens, to declare war on the French! I do not understand why the British Government was so reluctant. Declaring war on the French has always been a vote catcher!
Right to work legislation, in states like Arizona, coupled with the mass transfer of jobs overseas, has engendered a fear of losing one's job. Employees work harder and longer hours. They take fewer sick and vacation days. This all works to the benefit of the large corporations, which have also seen their tax liabilities reduced. Heavily manipulated inflation figures have maintained pensions and inflation based annual wage raises well below true inflation levels. Both corporations and governments have benefited from this 'fixing down' of the inflation rate. It has improved corporate bottom lines and, thus, CEO remuneration and shareholder value - driving the stock markets to new heights - and has also helped to balance the governments' books, since Social Security programs have become nothing more than inverse Ponzi schemes, this past decade, as there are insufficient new, highly paid contributors, these days (because of government policies on immigration and job exportation) to pay for ongoing and future commitments, which only increase as the population ages. This trickery has reduced real incomes significantly over the past two decades, preparing the way for the public's embrace of the housing bubble, as each home became an ATM.
There is little doubt that this housing bubble was likely to happen, but obviously, the Bush Administration (like its European counterparts) decided, for political reasons, to ignore the potential threat. I base my accusation on the fact that many U.S. States sought to have more regulation put in place to control predatory lending. They were prevented from doing so by the Federal Government. In Britain, it was more likely the laisé-faire attitude of the political/financial elite that resulted in yet another housing crash. In Europe, who knows what went on?
There is, however, no doubt in my mind that, whether there was regulatory malfeasance, or the regulatory dogs were chained up in their kennels, both the housing markets in the U.S. and the U.K. - possibly in Spain, too - were intentionally driven for political gain. Every weapon in the arsenal of the various Central Banks was to be rolled out, if a bubble grew too large, to keep the housing boom going, despite the fact that it was overheating as far back as 2001 - in Britain, this had happened the first time in 1984-6. While the national governments in the U.S., the U.K. and Europe were pursuing their own political agendas, this process dovetailed nicely with the aims of the so-called, Banking Elite, who had themselves orchestrated two previous financial crashes in the 20th century. Why do I believe this? Simple! Had such government action been at odds with the aims of the Banking Elite, it would have not been permitted.
The first financial crash, in 1907, was orchestrated as a means to sell the American people on the idea of permitting the setting up of a Central Bank - and which was, indeed, set up in 1913. The second crash came in 1929. In both instances, it seems to this 'innocent' that the idea back then was not to en-slave the masses - that would have to wait for technology to catch up - but simply to bankrupt the independent backing sector, which served local communities, so the Central Bank and it's band of heroes, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Lazards, et al., could attain total control over the American Banking system. It was done, quite simply, by causing panic in the minds of the sheep. After 1929, the holding of gold was made illegal in the U.S.. The dollar bill no longer contained the promise that it could be exchanged for gold. At that point the American currency became worth what the Bankers said it was worth!
With such a track record of rapacious greed, lethal intent and ouright mendacity on file and in the history books, the Elite are undoubtedly complicit, once more, in the present nightmare, The various bailout programs being rolled out today were already on the books, so to speak, when and if the chickens came home to roost. One has only to consider the fact that the Treasury Secretary, himself a Goldman man, demanded the bailout be authorized by use of the threat of societal collapse and martial law and, yet, provided only a three page plan to explain how this vast sum of money would be used. This was an overt demonstration of the contempt the powers that be have for our representatives. Yes, they prolonged the debate (for all of a few days) but, in the end, they knew which side their bread was buttered on!
This hesitation to comply with, what can only be described as a bank heist, may seem at odds with previous government cooperation with the Banking Elite. Not so! No politician, even though he or she are ready and willing to sell their people out - and had to be to get nominated for election in the first place - likes to think they have have lost total control. Besides, being nominated is only the start, they have to be voted into office, or re-elected, at least to maintain the illusion of a democratic process, for the present, at least. Most politicians have two faces: one is a caring, humanitarian, man-of-the-people persona (for the voter), the other is the bought and paid for traitor (for the employer) - though there are, of course, many who NEVER sell out. They will, however, never be elected to high office! Anyway, back to the bailout.
This theft of tax payer money will ensure that none of the members of the banking elite will suffer financially, which they have, of course. They were badly burned because their insatiable greed got the better of them. Those Investment Banking members who front the Elite, and which survived 2008 have, overnight, changed to regular banks because they are TOTALLY INSOLVENT, as is most of the banking sector - except, of course, the local banks, who avoided risky practices. The elite DID get carried away; or, rather, the system they constructed was too complex even for them to control. Having at last ensured their survival, at tax payer expense, they are now using tax payer's money to purchase other, independent banks. Yep, the old quid pro quo is still in place and the Master Plan for the One World Government, One World Bank, One World Army proceeds at an undiminished rate.
In Britain, shortly after the beginning of the 'Thatcher Years' in 1979, a government policy was rolled out to offer mortgages to renters of the large council housing stock (publically owned, that is) that had grown up post WWII. The thinking seems to have been that if renters, who normally voted Labour (Democrat in the U.S.) could be helped to purchase the homes they rented, they would, as a result of becoming homeowners, begin to identify with other property and business owners, and vote for Thatcher's Conservative Party (Republican). The mortgage providers were encouraged to take part, quite possibly, because the Conservatives were seen as being more pro-business than Labour. A continued Conservative majority would likely ensure continuity in the U.K. business environment, all things being equal! Perhaps there was some kind of quid pro quo? We shall probably never know.
Thatcher's plan worked! The U.K. housing market took off like a scalded cat. Many existing restrictions, like proof of base earnings - less overtime and bonuses, which were, rightly so, considered unreliable income - and the previously conservative ratio of outstanding loan amount to annual salary were waived. The market bubbled and collapsed five years later. The Government avoided the blame and was re-elected... Twice! Thatcher, of course, engaged in other social engineering. She espoused the concept of the 'me first', 'self-reliant' citizen, private pension funds and health care - though the existing 'free at the point of demand Health service' continued to exist. It seems the Iron Lady had her limits, and private health care was often provided within and using the facilities and staff of the public health service - leastwise until more private hospitals were built. This amorphous creature exists today! On other fronts, she encouraged public share ownership in newly privatized utility companies. Price controls had to be introduced, eventually, as the new management pushed up prices. Conservatism, it seems, can never exist without the calming hand of socialism! She used the windfall tax income from the newly exploited North Sea oil fields to hand out massive tax cuts - effectively 'buying' the next four elections for her party. Thatcher was a very good friend of Ronald Reagan. They shared an ideology!
Karl Rove, I would imagine, was also to become a devoted fan of the Iron Lady! The concept of the permanent Republican Majority was obviously very doable. Rove's idea was, in essence, a development of the Carter Administration's Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), enacted by Congress in 1977 (12 U.S.C. 2901). It could be said, therefore, that what was created in the U.S. in 1977 was speedily adopted in Britain in 1979, returning to America, seriously bent out of shape, once that great cauldron of socio-economic experimentation - Thatcher's Britain - had worked out the wrinkles. I'm fairly convinced Carter's original intentions were honorable, but the legislation he introduced did, in fact, facilitate the provision of affordable mortgages for poorer African-American families - typically supporters of the Democrats. Not so Thatcher's and Rove's. But it would hardly be the first time that good intentions were hijacked by the darker side of politics.
It was unfortunate that the Internet Bubble collapsed just as G.W. Bush and Rove were entering the White House. The FED was likely more than happy to go along with Rove's desire to emulate Thatcher's version of the Carter plan. From Greenpsan's viewpoint, it likely seemed to be a good way of re-liquidating the markets by stimulating consumer spending so the well connected could get their money out - like the crazy oil prices recently were orchestrated by the likes of Goldman Sachs, so they could recoup their losses from the financial collapse.
The housing markets across the U.S. and Europe - even China - are falling apart, as we speak: in Britain, for the third time. Contrary to the claims of some, the bankers did not organize it so they could pick up foreclosed houses at pennies on the dollar. The bubble burst because that's what bubbles always do.
Of course, governments will never accept the blame. They will never admit they castrated their watch dogs, or cut deals with the bankers to pursue their political ends; nor will the upstanding citizens, across the globe, who blew their imaginary wealth on mindless consumption, or refinanced themselves into a new boat, car or kitchen remodel but forgot they'd have to pay for them. No, it was rogue traders, unprincipled lenders, an act of God, the Russians, the Chinese... Anyone but them! We've seen this 'transfer of blame' before, of course. The public generally takes its lead from the highest in the land. Hillary Clinton, herself, has regularly claimed the Iraqi's are to blame for the state of their country because they won't embrace the democracy they've been given by Operation Iraqi Freedom. The media echoes this stupid accusation. The people embrace it. The Afghans will doubtless be expected step up and accept their responsibility for the debacle unfolding in their land.
As the crisis accelerates, the media are offering false hope and paliatives. Straw men are being raised for burning. Still innocent, until proven guilty, Madoff has become a household name. His Jew ethnicity is not overlooked. The S.E.C., who should have seen this coming and stepped in to stop it, has walked away whistling, with its hands in it pockets, stopping occasionally to look back to see if anyone has noticed them leaving the scene of the crime.
The Central Banks across the world are dropping their rates to zero and running their printing presses full bore. In time, deflation will become Weimar Republic-like inflation and interest rates will go through the roof, putting more people out of work and on the streets. At this point, as tempers fray - and since many financiers and bankers happen to be Jewish - I suspect the impoverished, rebellious, and happily uninformed masses will, in order to protect their fragile egos, come to the logical conclusion that the Jews did it!
This is outrageous, though perfectly within the normal behavior of the venal, mendacious and congenitally duplicitous cretins that form the so-called ruling elites of the known world. Shit, as my father once told me, always floats to the top. How unlike they are to the hundreds of companies - like FED EX - who are struggling to make payroll and whose management are sharing in the sacrifice of their workers? But, of course, these are decent, hard working people, who actually contribute to the economy, not the elite, the war profiteers and 'deal-makers' who suck on the life blood of the masses and contribute little. Not long ago, society held those who succeed through the sweat of their brow and the strength of their back (to quote Pirates of the Caribbean) in high esteem. No so, today. It is the parasite which is now fêted.
Well, I have news for the Central Bankers and their coat holding partners in crime, the politicians - not forgetting, of course, the 'Messiah-in-waiting', Obama - three million fat cat crooks and paper-pushers, lording it over three hundred million poverty-stricken serfs, does not an economy make. What it does make is a seething cauldron of resentment.
And, before the thirty (or is it a hundred?) intelligence agencies in the U.S., the U.K. and Europe begin trawling my emails, snail-mail and phone records, I am NOT inciting rebellion, here. I AM, however, suggesting that these 'Lords of Creation' go to a local book store, the Library of Congress, or a flea market in the Charing Cross Road, and purchase a book on history. You know, the stuff that happened before and which is going to happen again, because none of these mental midgets has the intelligence of my golden retriever, Benji, who is pre-occupied, right now, with the local bitch-in-heat, and spends every waking moment sitting at the door, whining to be given the chance to get at her. Benji neither eats nor sleeps. His IQ is in the sub-basement. Based on the performance of our political masters, he has a lot of company.
Somewhere, in Washington, London and Brussels, there are a bitches in heat. Find them and get them 'fixed', before it's too late!
Stupidity is a description often levelled at those who claim leadership over us when a policy - which common sense suggests is bound to fail - is nevertheless pursued and does, indeed, fail.
Murderous intent, the strongest indictment of any government's malfeasance, is best demonstrated, in today's context, by its following or espousing policies which result in civilian deaths in the hundreds of thousands, the unnecessary death of thousands of its own soldiers and the destruction of both the target nation(s) and the economy of the nation(s) which initiated the aggression.
Here is a poem written by Rudyard Kipling, towards the end of the 19 th century, when Britain was involved in conflict in the North West Frontier: roughly speaking, the Afghanistan/present day Pakistan border.
Insanity, stupidity or murderous intent? You decide.
ARITHMETIC ON THE FRONTIER
A great and glorious thing it is
To learn, for seven years or so,
The Lord knows what of that and this,
Ere reckoned fit to face the foe --
The flying bullet down the Pass,
That whistles clear: "All flesh is grass."
Three hundred pounds per annum spent
On making brain and body meeter
For all the murderous intent
Comprised in "villanous saltpetre!"
And after -- ask the Yusufzaies
What comes of all our 'ologies.
A scrimmage in a Border Station --
A canter down some dark defile --
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail --
The Crammer's boast, the Squadron's pride,
Shot like a rabbit in a ride!
No proposition Euclid wrote,
No formulae the text-books know,
Will turn the bullet from your coat,
Or ward the tulwar's downward blow
Strike hard who cares -- shoot straight who can --
The odds are on the cheaper man.
One sword-knot stolen from the camp
Will pay for all the school expenses
Of any Kurrum Valley scamp
Who knows no word of moods and tenses,
But, being blessed with perfect sight,
Picks off our mess-mates left and right.
With home-bred hordes the hillsides teem,
The troopships bring us one by one,
At vast expense of time and steam,
To slay Afridis where they run.
The "captives of our bow and spear"
Are cheap, alas! as we are dear.
NOTES:
The 'Yusufzai' are one of the largest Pashtun tribes, the majority of which reside in the North West Frontier Province.
The 'Jezai' is an Afghan matchlock or flintlock musket fired from a forked rest. It is a simple, cost-efficient and often hand-made musket.
'Crammer': One who crams (prepares) a pupil hastily for an examination, or a pupil who is thus prepared.
The 'Tulwar' is a curved sword with a hilt design that features a disc pommel. It is light and forward balanced to allow a quick yepowerfulul cut to be delivered.
'Afridi' is the name of a Pashtun tribe which inhabits about 1,000 square miles of rough hilly area in the eastern Safed Koh range, west of the Peshawar Valley.
DOES SHE REALLY BELIEVE THIS BULL? Posted 9/30/08
The L.A. Times reported and I quote: "Soon after Sarah Palin was elected mayor of the foothill town of Wasilla, Alaska, she startled a local music teacher by insisting in casual conversation that men and dinosaurs coexisted on an Earth created 6,000 years ago -- about 65 million years after scientists say most dinosaurs became extinct -- the teacher said.
After conducting a college band and watching Palin deliver a commencement address to a small group of home-schooled students in June 1997, Wasilla resident Philip Munger said, he asked the young mayor about her religious beliefs.
Palin told him that "dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth at the same time," Munger said. When he asked her about prehistoric fossils and tracks dating back millions of years, Palin said "she had seen pictures of human footprints inside the tracks," recalled Munger, who teaches music at the University of Alaska in Anchorage and has regularly criticized Palin in recent years on his liberal political blog, called Progressive Alaska." End quote.
Okay....
Let me start by saying if an individual wants to believe that early humans strolled through the world with their trusty Velociraptor trotting at their side, ever ready to chase after that thrown bone, I could care less. It is, after all, a free world - at least for the moment. And if, maybe, the playful creature brought it back, like my devoted Golden Retriever, Benji, or just lay down and ate it... Well, all to the good. It's a nice bedtime story.
I say I could care less, but, in truth, I guess it depends on the individual spouting this belief and their potential impact on the world. Sarah Palin would be, if elected, Vice President, and in a position to adversely affect the entire scientific community within the U.S.. Bush has been especially guilty of this kind of suppression, but for the benefit of corporations and the wealthy elite - his base - as opposed to the benefit of our souls. Palin's adherence to the 'End Times' prophecy might easily sound the death nell for the environment and endangered species, á la Bush (but for the above named reasons, which have nothing to do with religion). After all, why bother to look after the planet when you're gonna get raptured?
Religious freedom is the cornerstone of a democratic and tolerant society, but it has no place in Government. Look at the mess many of the Islamic Theocracies are in, as was Europe, under the Catholic Church during the middle ages; or consider the extermination of most of South America's indigenous societies (Aztec, Toltec, Maya, Olmec), perpetrated by European powers, under the guise of a Grand Christian Awakening, and given 'theological' cover by the ever 'charitable' and 'humanitarian' Church of Rome. Though it is religious fervor that drives such missionary zeal in the individual, by allowing itself to be co-opted by government, religion facilitates its use as a cloak for a baser purposes, such as: hegemony, corporate enrichment, resource theft and population culling. The theft of the Aztec gold, by the Spanish, and the forced labor silver mining operations they set up caused the death of millions of native people. The wholesale eradication of the Mayan culture was a crime. The Maya were an advanced civilization, in any one's eyes, except for the Vatican.
Having been created in our Creator's image, we have been given the gift of 'choice'. We are permitted the freedom to embrace or to deny our Creator and must accept the results that stem from that choice when we are judged in death. We MAY NOT condemn or slaughter others who have come to a different conclusion, although, of course, we have the freedom to choose to do so. Nor do we have the right to judge them, though, again, we have that choice. No elected government, driven by religious fervor, should have the right to condemn the rest of humanity to a living hell, in a world laid waste by their adherence to a belief, based on a highly contentious interpretation of one prophet, writing in a different time, under a different tyrannical regime.
So, answer me this, Sarah. If humans existed at the same time as dinosaurs, how come there are no images of them in cave paintings? There are mammoths, deer, sabre-tooth tigers, birds, bison, even lions and tigers to be seen in caves in France, Australia - even in Kentucky - but, absolutely no Hadrosaurs, Triceratops, Diplodocus (you'd have thought our ancestors would have noticed a animal as big as a four story house wandering around, wouldn't you?) and no Pterodactyls swooping through the air recorded for posterity. I'd think long and hard before you speak on this subject again. Otherwise, the world at large might start thinking you're one of those Right-Wing Nut jobs!
FINALLY, THEIR PLANS HAVE COME TO FRUITION: Posted 9/21/08
This is possibly the saddest day of my life! The loss of both parents, a partner of eight years and numerous, treasured dogs caused me considerably less pain than witnessing the sale of three hundred million Americans into financial slavery. As with Britain and Europe before it, the United States is now a feudal society; a dark and spirit crushing construct of the twisted, mendacious and venal impulses of the banking and political ruling elites. George was positively beaming on TV today! Prescott Bush's desire for a fascist dictatorship has, after a mere seventy years, come to pass with - and who would have thought it - him at the helm. Clearly, Christmas has come early for the Decider.
This is, as I say, a sad day. A day better spent in bed with the covers pulled over one's head.
All those wonderful, beautiful boys who crossed the ocean to fight and die in Europe during the Second World War have been betrayed. Their countrymen and women who scrimped and saved to buy War Bonds, worked all hours of the day to build ships, aircraft and tanks to defeat Hitler's war machine have been betrayed. The plumber, the salesclerk, the hospital worker, the cop on the street corner, the barman, the construction worker - the list is endless - have been betrayed. All those who daily work to put food on the table, a roof over their head. All have been betrayed. My American friends - truly the kindest people one could wish to meet - have been betrayed. Their future has been sold to the lawless, criminal incompetents who bought favorable legislation - or a lack of it - from corrupt politicians of both parties. Lickspittles who sought public office not to serve but to line their pockets and groom their egos.
Today, the bankers, through their place man at the Treasury, usurped the power of Congress. Today, the politicians sold America, and ultimately the entire world, to the Central Bankers. Traitors! Every one of them!
TODAY, WE MARK THE PASSING OF THE UNITED KINGDOM: Posted 8/27/08
At the turn of the last century, the United Kingdom, then known as Great Britain, was lord of all it surveyed: an empire, covering most of the globe, acquired as all empires are, by bribery, mendacity and outright brutality. How the mighty are fallen? Now, in 2008, Britain is flat broke. It is a police state whose population is monitored ceaselessly, in the home, in public and at the work place. For the third time in a generation, the housing market is in free fall. For the third time in a generation, there is a recession. Only rich Russians can afford to purchase a home in London. The country has been swamped with immigrants from Poland. The government dabbles and fiddles with education and health care so frequently that more people are contracted to manage the changes and create performance reports than are actually employed to deliver those services. But, surely, these occurrences are merely symptomatic of a democracy at work? Why would I believe the nation is bankrupt? Simply this:
The Inland Revenue (the U.S. equivalent is the IRS) will acquire powers to enter business premises and private homes used for business to check for errors that are "careless, but non-deliberate", and will be permitted to levy penalties worth up to 30% of an unpaid tax bill.
A woman who pays £4,000 (~US$8,000) per year to ride the train for her daily commute is fined by the train police. What was her crime? She stood in an area marked off for baggage since there was nowhere else to stand or sit - even though she paid for a season ticket. So what? If the train is about to be underway and there isn't anything in the baggage area, why should anyone care? New baggage isn't going to suddenly spring into existence and require use of that space. But after they fined her on the spot the equivalent of about US$169.00, they told she could upgrade her ticket for £12.
A father of four was taken to court and fined because he overfilled his wheelie-bin by just four inches. With his trash collected only once a fortnight, these days, Gareth Corkhill's wheelie bin was so full the lid wouldn't shut. And for that, he finds himself with a criminal record. Magistrates convicted the 26-year-old bus driver after hearing evidence that the lid was four inches ajar, which is against rules to stop bins overflowing. He was ordered to pay £210 (US$400) - a week's wages - after he declined to pay an on-the-spot fine imposed by the local council's bin police, who visited him wearing stab-proof vests and carrying photographic evidence of his crime. To add insult to injury he was told to pay a £15 victim surcharge to help victims of violence - despite there being no victim - and threatened with prison if he failed to pay. (dailymail.co.uk)
Say some bad language in public? You can be fined for that, too.
McDonald's restaurants in the UK have put license-plate cameras in their drive-through parking lots. The cameras watch how long you eat for. If you go over 45 minutes, a fine is sent to your house automatically, charging you £125 (~US$250) and if you don't pay, the fine goes up and up and up.
Two Saudi Arabian students have been fined £800 (~US$1,600) after causing an alert at Edinburgh's Waverley station by wearing Halloween masks as a prank. Edinburgh Sheriff Court heard the pair were accused of causing fear and alarm. (news.bbc.co.uk)
A UK train operator is prosecuting passengers for putting their feet on their seats. Merseyrail said it takes action to stop anti-social behavior on the network and cut down on damage to carriages. Miss Jennings, who was wearing flip-flops at the time, was issued with a summons to appear in court by an enforcement officer. Miss Jennings faced a criminal conviction which could have cost her the chance of a career as a teacher. But on Tuesday Chester magistrates decided to impose no penalty on the math student and branded the decision to prosecute her "draconian". Miss Jennings, from Oldham, admitted "willfully interfering with the comfort or convenience" of other passengers. She was given an absolute discharge, which means she will pay no fine and has no conviction against her name. Is this a victory for common sense? Hardly! It has emerged that Merseyrail is to take 600 more passengers to court for putting their feet on its seats. (dailymail.co.uk)
WHEN GOVERNMENT (LOCAL OR NATIONAL) STARTS FINING AND TAXING EXCESSIVELY, IT'S DESPERATELY SHORT OF MONEY.
This has always been true of my government. But there's more to this than simple budget balancing. Bad things are going to happen, soon, and the powers that be want to know that they can control the masses so they can hang onto their ill-gotten gains. Americans should NOT laugh. Your turn is coming!
WILL SOMEONE PLEASE THROW THIS WORTHLESS BASTARD IN JAIL?: Posted 8/24/08
Goddamit! The financial markets are in free fall, working people are losing their homes and pensions, deflation is destroying businesses, unemployment is increasing, food is about to get scarce, gas and diesel prices are going through the roof, floods are destroying the mid-West, fires are consuming the West Coast, banks are close to failing, there are two corporate/war profiteer/elitist sellouts running for president and where is George? Well, at least he's not claiming Executive Privilege. He's out there, in the full glare of the spotlight, trying to whip up support for another fucking war, or falling down drunk at the Olympics, or spewing hypocritical crap about Russian aggression at Putin after his [Bush's] placeman in Georgia, Sakashvilli, pre-emptively invaded South Ossetia, using American and Israeli supplied equipment, on which the Georgians had been trained by America and Israel. Now, the Russians are pissed at the Israelis and promising to sell the Iranians their latest S300 ground-to-air defense system - they already started delivering the Tor-M1 missile system to Iran - and upgrading the ports of Tartus and Latakia, in Syria, to receive Russian warships.
Bush must take responsibility for the increase in tensions with Russia. Post, the collapse of the USSR, Bush's father promised that the US/NATO would not move to include the former Russian satellites of Ukraine, Georgia etc in NATO. This promise was broken. Russia is now to be encircled by an American provided, American controlled, Missile Defense System sited in these former Soviet nations. This provocation is crazy. Russia's help is needed to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue, as well as many other international problems. It has nowhere near the sort of wonderful new toys the Pentagon enjoys. An attack on Russia - like Sakashvilli's on South Ossetia - will be met with a nuclear strike on the nation from which the attack came. Nukes are all the Russians have, in numbers. They will use them. And still the Grand Game is played, with other former Russian nations being encouraged (bribed) to permit American missiles on their territory. Sure, Clinton started this stupidity in the Balkans, but Bush, and Rice (the White House Tea Lady) have gone for broke. It amazes me that Rice, who claims expertise in Russian history - sadly, as it relates to pre-WWII - would encourage the man with a 'Commander-in-Chief' badge on his jockey shorts, but I guess she's overwhelmed by his brilliance and not thinking too clearly. It gives me no happiness to know that Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski, that Russia-phobic expert from the Carter years - and the originator of the Mujahideen, a CIA funded group set up and trained in Pakistan to fight the Russians in Afghanistan - is acting as an advisor to the incoming Obama administration. The Game continues!
Do we really want another war in which the indescribable might of the American War Machine will be unleashed on a civilian Iranian population, ably supported by their opportunistic coat-carriers, the British, the French, the Germans, the Italians, the Brazilians (well, one Frigate, anyway) and those wily Canadians, who choose their wars a little more carefully?
The possible use of tactical nuclear weapons will cause incalculable fatalities, the destruction of the global economy and $15 a gallon gas, if you can find it. Worse yet: do we really want another Cold War with the Russians? Americans, alone, have the power to stop this lunacy because their politicians are the ones busting to start another conflict, or to whom the Israeli Government will defer before they take things into their own hands. The member nations of the aforementioned Honorable Guild of Coat Carriers are only along for the ride, letting America sacrifice its youth on a foreign battlefield while they and their corporate cronies pick up the odd reconstruction contract and that oh so useful black stuff. Tell your Senators and Congressmen and women they must stop this genocidal tyrant or you will throw them out of office. If you don't. If you stand by and let it happen, then DAMN YOU. And, damn those squeaky clean Europeans for trying to profit from it!
HAS IT BEEN A YEAR, ALREADY, SINCE I LAST POSTED?: Posted 6/6/08
Strange times, these. A year ago, I was living in the lap of luxury in Northern California. Now, I'm living in the lap of luxury in Belize, Central America. Belize is a fascinating place! A former colony of Britain (British Honduras), it has been, for the last 26 years, an independent 'gateway' between the Caribbean Islands and the Central American nations of Honduras, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and Panama.
It's a beautiful, under-populated, country, full of Mayan ruins, three thousand species of trees, bright, colorful flowers, copious wild life, dreadful roads and an electricity supply which daily gives one the very clear impression that the place has been invaded - think Baghdad.
Most of the newcomers here are American and British, with a few Europeans and Guatemalans, doubtless fleeing the excesses and failures of their administrations. Not that the next U.S. Administration will be any better - witness Messiah-In-Waiting, Obama's desire to escalate the war in Afghanistan, his "all options remain open" tirade on Iran and McBush's insistence that Iraq is just peachy and the U.S. economy will recover if only those at the top, who currently have all of the money, get to keep it and can add to it with continued tax cuts. Britain, under Brown, is steadily going down the drain - a project started under the Thatcher Government (the famous, 'Third Way').
The truth is, anyone with an IQ above room temperature can see the entire, global, economic house of cards is going to blow sky high. Talk about denial. Belize politics is no less corrupt - the previous Prime Minister stole $40 million dollars from the treasury - but they do talk about it, on the street and in the newspapers, they are trying to get the money back, and Hattieville Prison is way worse than Fulsom or Pellican Bay.
Farm land is still cheap, here. The climate is conducive to growing one's own food. It is still very free, since the government can't afford surveillance equipment and the people are friendly and welcoming. In truth, I love it!
WHO SHOULD PAY FOR CARING FOR THE WAR WOUNDED?: Posted 3/17/07
So, they managed to get the Iraqi Government to come up with legislation to divvy up Iraq's oil? Assuming they actually manage to get any out of the ground, what with the pipelines being blown up, the smuggling and all-around thievery that's going on there. But, given a fair wind, Western Oil companies will surely get what they've been after for years. They must be positively salivating at the very real prospect of getting back into Iran, now, after seeing their installations and oil fields nationalized by the Ayatollahs!
Yes, there have been many winners! You know them all by name, of course. Yet, none of this could have happened without the very real sacrifice made by the men and women of the military. That is what makes the Walter Reed story so disgraceful.
Nothing has changed since the time of Major General Smedley Butler. The U.S. military is still rendering the world safe for what Naomi Klein calls Disaster Capitalism. In my not so humble opinion, each of the corporations that stands to profit from war, or has already profited, and is now busy relocating its headquarters to Dubai so it doesn't have to pay taxes on those profits should be made to contribute, say, one or two percent of its revenues to taking care of the people who really made all of that possible for them.
It won't happen, of course, any more than it happened for the average Roman foot soldier, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be said.
So, its up to us, like always. Make a donation, volunteer your time. Anything! But do something.
By the way, not all charities provide the best use of your donations. Many absorb up to 80 or 85 per cent of their income in administration costs. The most efficient ones can be found by visiting the Charity Navigator web site. The Disabled American Veterans Charity has one of the best ratings.
JUDAS IS ALIVE AND WELL: Posted 3/16/07
I am really pissed about this story! I read, today, that YAHOO has been handing over the identities of bloggers to the Chinese Government, which has then imprisoned them for using words like, 'Democracy' and 'Freedom'. This is DISGUSTING!
BOYCOTT these pariahs. They are facilitating the imprisonment of people whose only crime is to use an 'inappropriate' word; and they're doing it just to make money.
SUDDENLY, PATRICK BUCHANAN MAKES SENSE!: Posted 3/4/07
Some time ago, I read Patrick Buchanan's's book, "State of Emergency". It seemed xenophobic and unnecessarily pessimistic in terms of its suggestion that the days of the white race were numbered. It seemed to be just another 'White Supremacist' diatribe. Perhaps I've grown up? I finally understand what he was trying to say. I have to confess to having a sneaking regard for his opinions, these days. He was always against Bush's little Mesopotamian war and, to his credit, strives to avoid saying, 'I told you so', whenever he is invited to express an opinion on its progress. Is the white race under threat? Does it matter? I guess that's a personal perspective we each of us need to firm up on, in our own minds.
The fact is, across Europe, including Russia, and in North America, reproductive rates have fallen amongst the white populations to below replacement levels. We are faced with massive immigration - some legal, most illegal. Our culture, not that it was especially wonderful to start with, what with Empires, wars, slavery and capitalism is not so much being diluted but overwhelmed. Pro-Nazi groups are resurgent, even in Holland - that historic bastion of tolerance. Increased violence against immigrants will almost certainly ensue in Europe, but it will scarcely begin to stem the tide - and then, only for a generation or two. We must start to think about how the world will look in fifty years, over which time countries like Egypt will be doubling their populations.
Capitalism has failed everyone except its privileged few. We relatively wealthy Europeans and North Americans are slowly becoming the minority. Our political and financial control and exploitation of the poor in foreign lands should cease. We should strive to make them our equals, in terms of their per-capita income, life expectancy and aspirations; and that means programs resulting in significant wealth transfer - as tough as those things may be. If we don't, we will be drowned beneath a tidal wave of immigration as the poor of our world seek to obtain for themselves that which we take for granted. Unless, of course, after Iran, we take out Egypt, Indonesia, India, the Sudan, Algeria, South America (they're all commies anyway, now) and Central and Southern Africa! What do I know? Perhaps that plan is already in play?
WHY DOES FECAL MATTER ALWAYS FLOAT TO THE TOP?: Posted 3/1/07
As a human, I can make observations on the human condition. As a person born in England, I have a perfect right to express my opinion on its shortcomings. But, as an alien - Goddess I hate that word! - who spends much of her time in the United States, I am only too aware that I am a guest and, as such, should not caste aspersions. With that in mind, I will angle my outburst to the politicians who rule that jewel of an island which lies a little to the north of France and, for my American readers, across the pond.
The British dislike war. We've had enough of it. Oh, we're happy to engage in acts of mindless aggression at soccer games, but wars, these days, are not usually fought for reasons like racial hatred, team rivalry, or some notion of genetic superiority; they are being fought for resources and perceived, national imperatives or alliances. More than a million British citizens marched against the invasion of Iraq. They didn't understand the real reasons Blair had for his decision, of course, because they weren't told them. And, since the reasons they were given eventually turned out to be complete BULL SHIT, they got angry, disconnected themselves even further from the political process and went back to drinking, bitching about public transport, the health service, beating the crap out of Arsenal supporters, or reliving the old religious wars - Protestant against Catholic - every time that Glasgow played soccer against Celtic Rangers.
Having existed for several thousand years in one form or another, suffered four invasions, and countless despotic rulers, both domestic and foreign - some of whom we decapitated - the British have developed a healthy suspicion of those who claim to be our betters. We do not riot like the French, because we are instinctively law abiding, having struggled for so long to establish the rule of law. But we DO hold them accountable, as Mr. Blair is finding out to his very obvious chagrin.
Being elected is a far more credible reason for claiming the right to rule a nation, as opposed to simply popping out of the 'right' womb and claiming a right of succession, but that does not, and should not, mean that we, the people, have no right to the truth. Without it, there can be no cohesiveness to our society. Without it, there can be no common good. Without it, only distrust, disdain and dissolution can exist. So, who are these upstarts that claim they and only they have the inside track?
Few politicians have practical experience in running a business. ALL, however, subscribe to the "ENTITLED TO RULE" philosophy, be it from a position of privilege, wealth, or some misguided desire to MAKE A DIFFERENCE in the lives of the "ordinary citizen" - a nomenclature I find both offensive and demeaning.
At the risk of being categorized as a miss-informed Brit, let me say I do not regard George W. Bush as being an evil person. Quite the reverse, in fact. What I do suggest, and the same goes for many of the sad collection of blowhards and incompetents who populate the British Parliament, is that he came to his elevated position from a life of privilege and familial disconnect. If you have never been hungry or homeless, how can you truly understand these problems? You can sympathize with such individuals, but they are not uppermost in your mind when you decide to reduce funding for social programs. Witness Barbara Bush's comments on those unfortunate victims of Hurricane Katrina as they languished in the New Orleans Astrodome. To paraphrase, "This must be working out quite nicely for them." This insensitive comment, akin to Marie Antoinette's 'Let them eat cake' is symptomatic of the disconnect suffered by the ruling elites.
Europe, and Britain in particular, has never really shrugged off the feudal societal model that first emerged in the Dark Ages. Having fled these oppressive monarchies in Europe, to establish a Republic in the new world, Americans have now, by accident or indifference, created their own monarchist dynasties - the Bushes, the Clintons, the Kennedys and the Gores. The British, of course, have never been without them - though Oliver Cromwell gave it a good shot! Should Hilary Clinton succeed in her presidential bid, Americans will, provided she gains a second term, have been ruled by two families for almost thirty years. And if Jeb Bush runs, in 2016, potentially, for forty years. That's a monarchy! No other word for it.
From the 11 th, through to the beginning of the 20 th century, the British were governed by Royal Imperative, though this was diluted to some degree by the influence of the Parliamentary system which began to assert itself during the 17 th century. It was at that point that foreign policy began to be shifted away from monarch against monarch - land grabs, if you will - towards a policy more in favor of enriching Mercantile interests (the East India Trading Company of Pirates of the Caribbean fame, for instance). From those small beginnings, the British Empire grew.
Since the turn of the 20 th century, the British have more and more been governed by pseudo-dictatorships, carefully wrapped in a cloak of democracy. This held true until the Thatcher years came upon us. It was during those halcyon days of miner's strikes, the first housing bubble and that triumph of military adventurism, the slow motion re-taking of the Falkland Islands from those despicable Argies, that glimpses of the true face of the ruling elite were revealed, though great efforts were taken to minimize the exposure. Careful analysis of this long distance military campaign suggests the sending of British forces to a remote spot at the bottom of the world had less to do with saving a small group of Britons - whose children were typically sent to Buenos Aires for their education - than saving Thatcher's political career: which it did. She was re-elected on a tide of mindless nationalism.
So, why aren't the elite still trying to prevent us from seeing them for what they really are? In truth, the answer is technology. All of the levers of control - CC TV surveillance, phone, email and internet snooping, curtailment of civil liberties by the introduction of various 'anti-terrorism' acts, anti-social behavior laws and so forth are firmly in place. They no longer have to care that they might be seen to be acting in a manner which screams total indifference to the wishes and desires of their people - which has always been born of a conviction that they and they alone know what's best, even though the great unwashed masses consistently demonstrate a significantly greater level of common sense, together with a pragmatic willingness to get along with others. So, is it any surprise that Blair felt sufficiently confident in his position of Grand High Poobar that he could now openly ignore the vocal protest, by more than a million Britons, against the proposed invasion of Iraq? I think he was surprised by the protests. But he stuck to the decision, because George was counting on him.
One should not be surprised that Blair did not tell the truth about the real purpose for the sending of British troops to that troubled land: redefining the political map of the middle east, regime changes and oil (why buy it from the Russians when you can steal it from the Hajis: a long standing British tradition). That would have caused a public revolt far greater than the anti-war protest. Such an adventure would have smacked too much of 'Empire', and too many Britons (and Commonwealth citizens) have died over the years for that day-dream. So, instead of coming clean and telling us he was stealing Iraqi resources - which the British would have gone ballistic over - he claimed that he was, in fact, protecting us from Saddam and his WMD, which sort of seemed patriotic. The anti-war groups had nowhere to go and could gather no wider, national support. If they persisted, it was they, not Blair, who were un-patriotic. Cunning motherf*cker!
Now, the truth is out. But Blair's gone and he's making millions!
More importantly, the cloak of democracy had been discarded.
So why fecal matter always floating to the top? Simply, wealth and privilege are anti-Darwinian! They insulate these individuals from the day to day struggle of putting a roof over your head and food on the table. They breed a sense of entitlement and non-accountability. Screw up and you get bailed out by a family friend, instead of bankruptcy and homelessness. They are also trans-national in nature. The elite classes have far more in common with their equals in other countries than with their own people. Witness the Bush relationship with the House of Saud, which survived even the outrage of 9/11, and the very public knowledge that 16 of the hijackers were Saudi citizens. Witness Blair being invited to teach (preach?) religion at an American university. Again, that disconnect!
When Octavian Caesar inherited the crown from the tyrannical Julius Caesar, he, together with his new friend, Mark Anthony, arranged for the slaughter of hundreds of wealthy 'opponents', including Cicero, who sadly backed the wrong horses: BRUTUS and CASSIUS. With their victorious army baying for their wages to be paid, grand larceny and mass murder seemed to be the way to go. These rulers were steeped in 'entitlement'. But were they good for Rome? Of course not. As we work our way down through the last days of the Roman Empire, and meet such geniuses as Nero, Caligula and Claudius, we see a gradual dumbing down process at work. All of these rulers, despite their shortcomings, were supported by those who sought to make money from that support, or to see the successful outcome of their own agendas. They were the 'front men', allowed to indulge their whims, given free reign to their appetites and paranoias, then discarded when their defects began to have a negative effect on the interests of their supporters. Blair is no exception to this rule; nor, I would suggest, is Bush.
A sense of entitlement, whether it is the result of privilege or conviction is no guarantee of ability. Indeed, it is usually a guarantee of a lack of it.
WHY AREN'T WE GOOD ENOUGH FOR THEM?: Posted 2/27/07
It's interesting how often we discover profound observations on the human condition in the annals of popular entertainment. Interesting, but hardly unexpected, given art is nothing but a reflection of our true nature - or, in the case of Star Trek and suchlike, how we would wish ourselves to be. Perhaps, that is why it's called, Science FICTION? Paraphrasing a line from Joss Wheedon's cult movie, 'Serenity', "Governments always come back to the idea that they can make people better." Better than what? Than we were? Than we are?
Perhaps the greatest virtue a citizen can possess is being 'Law Abiding'. There is no doubt that communities, be they family groups or nations, depend for their survival on the cooperation and the shared common purpose of their members. In the insect world, that has been taken to extremes by the sublimation of self and the willingness to die so that the nest can continue to exist. But this is a programmed, instinctive response. Humans make decisions. They often CHOOSE to sacrifice themselves for another. And that's a good thing. But what about racial, gender or sexual orientation discrimination?
Prejudice is learned from our parents, our communities, our religious organizations, or encouraged by our governments. But it goes beyond that. Racism has all too frequently been a tool, used by our leaders, both religious and civil, to justify and encourage our killing of an enemy on their behalf (see the report on 'Species Pseudo-Differentiation'). Note: THEIR behalf, seldom ours.
If you are an embryonic religion, you need to establish clear blue water between yourselves and the religion you are trying to supplant. So, if gays are tolerated by that religion, you must declare them to be an abomination. You also need your members to breed freely, to make your numbers grow quickly. So, make being gay illegal. A sin. Convert or die. Want to destroy a religion based on Goddess worship? Disrespect women. Call them names. Show them to be weak, manipulative, and works of the devil. Want to steal a country from its occupants? Call them savages. Accuse them of barbarism. Call them... Godless.
But we are different, now. Evolved. We need to become tolerant and respectful of others - though we once were tolerant, before there was the right and the left, before elections, before Kings, Empires, Prime Ministers and Presidents. And to achieve that, we now need to be re-educated, controlled, restrained, punished, rather than being left to depend on our own sense of humanity, our gregarious nature and instinct to work together for mutual benefit. I have lived alongside peoples from all parts of the world. Indeed, I have worked in over one hundred countries and lived in seven. And I have been welcomed in all of them. Throughout the Cold War, my government (the British Government) told me that the Russians wanted to kill me. I never once found a Russian citizen that tried to, or showed the slightest sign of wanting to. I am not alone in this. Most people can and do get on: until, that is, they are overwhelmed by illegal and uncontrolled immigration, terrorism, or misinformation, both political and media. When there is resentment towards others, it is not, necessarily, a failure of the individual human spirit, it is more often a failure of those who govern us. When governments mess up, we must be controlled. It is in that way that our leaders seek to have us blame ourselves for the problem and not ask questions of them. Anything, but hold them accountable! To research this further, use the search engine of your choice and look up the term, "Blowback". It's not pretty! I promise you that!
WE MUST STOP THE CHINESE FROM GETTING MIDDLE EAST OIL: Posted 2/22/07
It's only a rumor, disseminated by left-wing bloggers, but it has a ring of truth about it, given the lack of judgment displayed by our leadership in the west. Personally, I'm not happy about the Iranians having nukes, but with Pakistan, India, the Israelis and soon, the Saudis, having them, I can't say I blame them for wanting to try.
Dialogue would seem to be needed. But that's been ruled out. Air strikes are the panacea we've selected. Another Islamic country turned to rubble. One is happenstance. Two is suspiciously racist.
But, back to keeping Iranian oil out of Chinese hands, so we can control the speed of their economic growth. Duh! Know what? Cornered rats tend to do crazy things. Not that I'm saying the Chinese are rodents, you understand - it's an expression. If we limit their access to oil supplies from Iran, will they go to war with us? Will they dump their billions of dollars worth of bonds and destroy the dollar? Who knows? But what if they decided to switch to alternative energy? What if, goddess forbid, they went all out and perfected fusion reactor power generation? What if they convinced western high tech companies to forget trying to convert the US away from an oil based economy and to come invest and work in China? Shell is already doing just that! The best laid plans of mice and men....
Remember, one of the greatest military strategists of all time, Sun Tzu, was Chinese. His best advice? Never fight unless you have to (that is, don't fight wars of choice) and never choose to engage in an endless war. The Chinese tend to think out of the box. They also have the advantage that they are not a democracy, which means their government can change policy on a dime, regardless of public protest and the effect on their citizens. It could be that, by trying to contain them, we will end up freeing them from their dependency on oil and risk consigning our own, oil based economy to the garbage can of history, because, since we own all the Iraqi and Iranian oil fields we have no imperative to change.
WHY ARE WE SEEING SO MANY UFO'S?: Posted 2/17/07
We live in cynical and depressing times! It cannot be healthy for citizens, in any nation, to presume that their government is lying to them - all day, every day. True or not, our leaders are damned if they do and damned if they don't.
The world is a mess! Life has become too complex, the climate too unpredictable, the future too uncertain. Our sense of wellbeing is so degraded that I'm wondering if we aren't, as a species, so desperate for someone, or something, to lift us up from our despond that we are looking to aliens to solve our problems. To have disconnected ourselves from the political process, to have placed our future salvation in the hands of creatures we do not even know for certain exist - let alone, who live close enough to us to be able to actually travel here - is dreadfully sad, and VERY dangerous! Our problems have been caused by US - Humans!
If the planet is running out of resources, it is because WE have used them up like there's no tomorrow. Don't blame the oil companies if oil is running out. WE bought the gas-guzzlers. We insisted on changing them every two years - or when the ash tray was full. Don't blame the government for initiating resource wars on our behalf. WE want to pay bottom dollar for everything. We choose the disposable item marketing model: buy cheap and throw it away when it breaks a day later. American washing machines, refrigerators and pickup trucks were well made and used to last for years. They still do. But WE want the latest gizmo, as cheap as possible.
Why is China on the rise? Because they make things cheaper than we can. Pensions, benefits, health care all make Western manufacturing more costly. Pensions. Where is it written that we are never to be responsible for saving for our own retirement, or at least contribute to it? Save? No way! We'd sooner refi' the house and spend the equity on stuff we don't need. Who made us do that? Did the thought police turn up at our doors and hold a gun to our heads while we signed the mortgage application? And what about health care costs? A buck a day? Four bucks a day? Five? Sorry! We can't afford that. We are sicker than we need to be because we choose to drink to excess, smoke, do drugs and eat crap. Yet we blame the government, fast food outlets, and everyone else. Everyone, that is, except ourselves. Sure corporations spend billions on advertising, and the government spends just a couple of million telling us how to eat healthy, but they DO tell us. An apple is cheaper than a Burger with Fries, but we feed them to the kids because it's way too hard to teach them to eat healthy. Kids don't do well at school? Damn teachers! It's never our fault, is it? It's THEIR fault. Jeez, what a bunch of wimpy subbies?
The answer is not to be found in the skies. It is not to be found one day a week in church. It is to be found in our own hearts, in our own homes, in our places of work. Stop hoping for salvation from above. Start taking responsibility for the results of your own actions and appetites and decide to change. Alternatively, get yourself a lounger, open a beer and eat a hot dog. Then, light a cigarette, lay back, stare at the sky, and wait and hope.
OH, HOW THEY DO MISS THOSE GOOD OLD DAYS!: Posted 2/14/07
Life goes in cycles. At the cellular level, cells die and are replaced. Life is born, grows, reproduces and dies. As with life, so goes a society. From its early, enthusiastic beginnings, it gradually matures. Peace and prosperity abound, at first, and then the fittest (read greediest and most ruthless) individuals finally manage to assume control over its processes, bugger it all up for the majority, and eventually destroy it. Unfortunately for humanity, like corrupted genetic code, those who seek ultimate control, as if it were their birthright, remain, ready to destroy our world, even as the next society struggles to be born from the ashes of the last. As with Greece, so went Rome and the Egypt of the Ptolemy Dynasty. Did you know, the library of Alexandria, which contained all the knowledge of the ages, was destroyed by the orders of one man: Julius Caesar? Oh, not intentionally, of course, but as a result of his desire to make sure that if he needed to get troops to Egypt quickly, the way to the sea was open. He did it by ordering his men to set fire to merchant ships in Alexandria's harbor. They caught fire, their masts fell into the street, and poof, the library burned down. One man can make a difference, after all!
Then we had the rise of the Church of Rome, persecution, the suppression of scientific investigation, the imposition of marshal law across Europe, the Crusades. The Dark Ages! A time when most of Europe's population labored under the oppressive feet of the nobility. A time when lies, brutality and the theft of property went unchallenged. A time when a starving peasant would be hung for killing one of his lord's deer.
And today? We are spied upon. Our enemies are chosen for us and off we go to fight them. We are treated as criminals in our own homes by the criminals who walk the corridors of our government buildings. We may not challenge the decisions of our leaders without fearing arrest. Soon, in America, the government will orchestrate or use as a pretext some brutal slaying of innocents to pass legislation. They will come to confiscate your guns. They will use soldiers to back up the police, or declare Martial Law. They might not use American soldiers, in case they refuse to obey. They might offer foreigners U.S. citizenship as a means of filling the ranks. Once disarmed, the citizenry, like the British, will be helpless to defend themselves against the predations and authoritarianism of the government. Freedom could become a memory.
Whether it actually happens, matters not. The fear remains. And, nowhere, apart from among the so-called, 'ordinary people', is there the slightest evidence that the teachings of Jesus and the commandments Moses brought to the world have any meaning, no matter how often those who would rule us invoke them as they embark, dragging us behind them, upon their next adventure!
FROM A CITIZEN OF A MEMBER OF THE "COALITION OF THE WILLING": Posted 6/23/06
I have a friend, several in fact, who live in Britain and Europe. I am in regular contact with them and we talk about everything from the World Cup (yawn) to cars and gas prices and vacations - even the odd submissive (Is importing one from Europe still legal?) Anyway, they recently wrote me about Bush's little junket to Europe. Not a popular man, El-Presidente. His response, of course, was to tell them to forget Iraq, that's history, water under the bridge... A comma, in fact!
But that's not what's really bothering them, now. It's the next little money-making adventure that has them all a dither. Iran? North Korea? Which? And nukes? We're thinking of using nukes? This could get out of hand VERY quickly, and suck in a lot more nations, like Russia and China. It could encourage countries to drop the dollar as the reserve currency for international transactions (not just oil) to punish us, which would bugger us all up. But it might be worth it to them to try and stop us in this way. That, of course, will leave us broke and without friends, and our peerless leaders will doubtless decide we don't need friends. And besides, we've got more nukes than everyone else.
Our nukes against their nukes. Oh, my, the end-times people are gonna love that one!
Do we know for a fact that our Creator really wants to have a one on one with each of us, right now, this year? If not exactly arrogant, it is surely presumptuous. Think about it! Soon?
GLOBAL WARMING: Posted 5/22/06
This is getting too ridiculous for words! Time to crack the whip and paddle a few asses, I think. So, what has my underwear in a bunch, this week? Well, I have been watching with slightly more than idle curiosity the posturing and 'choosing sides' antics of the press, the oil and gas special interest groups, the politicians, the 'experts' and the scientific community at large as they struggle with the issue of Global Warming. One side wants to plunge us back into the stone age, while the other wants to keep selling the stuff we put in our cars and trucks for as long as they can. Who gives a gnat's left testicle who's right or who's wrong. I, for one, don't. This is just another stupid blame game. "You buggered the environment." "Oh, no we didn't." "Oh, yes you did." Dee dum dee dum.... Like a couple of submissives trying to avoid a sound thrashing. And I'm TIRED of it!
The earth is a living thing. Volcanoes, earth quakes, the angle of the earth's axis to the plane of the ecliptic, which is constantly changing, forest fires - even the temperature of the sun - all have an effect on the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, as well as the proven cyclical nature of the global climate. When we consider that one volcanic eruption can put as much sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere as all of the emissions from all of the chimneys in all of the world do in one year, it comes down to our best guess - depending on which side you're on - as to what, if any, impact we humans are having on nature's balance.
Where did all the coal come from? Tropical forests, that's where. Tropical, as in WARM. Yes, indeed! Pennsylvania was a tropical paradise once. And wasn't there a recent Ice Age, or is that a fantasy dreamed up by the guys at Pixar? And what about the period of warming during the middle-ages? The Chinese sailed to the North Pole and found not a smidgen of ice, anywhere? And didn't Eric the Red - of Viking fame - colonize Greenland about then?
Screw who's fault it is! Look at the facts. The Arctic is melting; or is it? Could there be a volcanic hot spot beneath it - part of the Ring OF Fire? The Antarctic ice is increasing. The Atlantic Ocean is clearly warmer, meaning hurricanes forming in the Gulf of Mexico are more powerful. Glaciers all over the world are melting. The salt water Atlantic Conveyor, which carries warm water to Britain and Western Europe is being disrupted by large amounts of fresh water from the arctic, which will result in Britain and Scandinavia, maybe, becoming an average of five degrees centigrade cooler. And that's a lot.
Chances are, the warming is part of an underlying natural cycle, and we, by our consumption of fossil fuels are simply exacerbating it. What is unclear is how much effect reducing CO2 emissions, even to zero, would have on the process. If we don't, we might lengthen the cycle, even disrupt it... permanently. On the other hand, there's a very real chance that by overreacting, we will wind up plunging the world into a disastrous and largely unnecessary recession. Oh, and have you noticed that it isn't until the credits are about to roll on yet another 'Climate Catastrophe' documentary on the Discovery Channel that the commentary mentions the trivial detail that humans have removed fifty percent of the world's rain forests? That couldn't possibly be a contributing factor to the apparent alteration of global rainfall patterns, could it? Don't trees take in carbon dioxide to fuel their growth? This is one just more opportunity for the powers that be to impose even more control over us and make a few bucks. Forget Holocaust Deniers being locked up. Climate change deniers might well end up receiving the same punishment.
That said: The change, as my mother said when she hit menopause, is upon us, and it's way past time to start figuring out how in hell we're going to live with it, in a climate of open and truthful dialogue. And, if we are responsible, the recriminations, as I often tell Sashi, can and will come later!
FEARFUL RISE OF THE INSCRUTABLE ORIENTAL: Posted 6/16/06
Here we go again. Xenophobia grips us all like a tightly laced corset. Lou Dobbs preaches an end to all we hold dear in society if the Yellow Peril that is modern day China is not constrained, and quickly. Better get the Republicans to put another motion on the floor, like the one yesterday on Iraq. Fat lot of bloody good that'll do, but it will make them look all Congressional and Senatorial, even if it's one of the few stands, if not the only one, they can take that won't piss off their corporate masters! So what has Dobbs worked up? Nothing less than the Chinese plan to take over the world. Shudder! You mean like the New World Order people, the Catholic Church, Haliburton, the Kennedys, the Bushes and that nefarious cat in the 'Cats and Dogs' movie?
The Chinese? Take over the world? I ask you.
These are the people who built the Seven Gorges Dam across the Yellow River, to produce hydro-electric power, and displaced half a million people to do it. Stop and think for a moment. Why is the Yellow River yellow? Because its carrying millions of tons of soil, right along with it. You know, the stuff that clogs turbines and spill ways. The stuff that will make the Seven Gorges Dam a useless piece of concrete in two decades or less. And what kind of economy are the Chinese building. Why, an oil based one, just as the world is starting to run out of the stuff. Am I alone, here, or do you get the idea that they are not the sharpest tools in the box?
China's emergence as a world trading power is based on one thing: cheap labor. They provide the hands and eyes western companies need to maximize shareholder value and elevate corporate pay scales. And they will keep sending jobs to China, until another, cheaper, work force - likely ours unless Mr. Dobbs prevails - hoves to on the horizon.
Want to beat the Chinese? Stop exporting jobs. Switch America to a renewable resource/nuclear energy based economy. Unfortunately, that would be one of the measures the Senate and Congress could never ever send to the floor. Too many golfing trips to Scotland are at risk from that one!
BIGOTS AND OTHER PRIMITIVE LIFE FORMS: Posted Posted 6/15/06
I suppose, truth to tell, that I fall under the category of 'libertine', rather than 'liberal', although I am neither dogmatic in my approach to life/politics, nor am I on a mission to convert others to my beliefs. I am also not a Jew.
Whether you believe in the Goddess, God, Allah, Jehovah, Buddha, or a Wiener as your Supreme Being, you share with me (should you take time to think about it, of course) an understanding - a sense, if you will - that there is, within us all, something which is truly special: a little piece of the Divine Creator. It is truly a gift! A connection with the One from whom all things came. The sad truth is, however, that certain peoples have come to believe, over time - perhaps, since time began - that only they have this Divine Spark, and that other races or nationalities do not. That is such arrogant bull crap that, even I, when confronted by someone spouting this rubbish, am lost for the words to express my total contempt - fortunately, only briefly, I might add.
Let's look to the middle east, the most visible location of racial and religious motivated strife, though Asia is not entirely untouched by this.
It's the fault of the Jews, leftist web sites clamor. They're sucking us into another war, fought on their behalf, and with our soldiers. They own Congress. Bastards! That's bull crap, and the people making these accusations know it.
In the interests of brevity (you are at liberty to do your own research on the subject), I am going to resist a chronological outline of the history of the Jews. Though not entirely innocent, as regards aggression towards the Elamites, the Canaanites and suchlike, during their formative years, they do not have a grand design to rule the entire planet. That is something the Catholic Church wants to do - not to mention the U.N.. The Jew has, in fact, been on the receiving end of bigotry for two thousand years or more, based on little more than propaganda.
During the early days of Christianity, in Europe, the word was spread, not by books - most people couldn't read - but by Passion Plays. The villains of the Passion Play - the one's who stood accused of killing Christ - were Jews. I thought it was Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor of Judea, who did the deed. Silly me! Anyway, many is the time that a receptive audience rose to its feet, applauded the performance, and then went out and righteously slaughtered a couple of hundred Jews in the name of God. Remember him? The One who created us all? Who are we to presume to think that we have the inside track on what is required of us? Oh, of course, Jews were created so we could run around blaming them for all of life's little problems.
In their wanderings through Europe, and latterly the US, they were noted for their cosmopolitan outlook on life. Where they settled, they absorbed and followed local customs, while tending to live together and insisting that their members marry within their faith. Is it wrong to wish to retain one's own beliefs and culture?
I'm a ex-pat, living in Belize. I still like Fish and Chips (and refuse to call them 'fries' - be they of the French or Freedom variety. I have tea and cakes at four in the afternoon. I seek out and socialize with other Brits. - not because I reject the culture of my new home, but because, occasionally, I enjoy spending time with people with whom I have a shared, frame of cultural reference. I can't stand reggae, preferring, instead, an occasional dose of AC/DC, Def Leopard and Queen. For their part, the Jews took care of each other. Is this not the purpose of the Freemasons, the Skull and Bones Society, the Atheneum Club, or the countless other, members-only groups that pervade society?
In my own life, I have encountered many Jews. They are proud of their heritage. And, why not? Aren't we? They ask only to be allowed to keep to their beliefs and accord the same freedom to others; but that old 'Blood Guilt' still keeps rearing its ugly head, thanks, in part, to the efforts of Mel Gibson's 'Passion of the Christ'. And, then, of course, there's that old chestnut: the Jews think non-Jews are sub-human. Weren't the plains indians in America, the tribesman in Africa, the Aztec in South America, the Hindu and the Muslim in India during the British Raj, as well as the Arab similarly looked down upon by white, Christian, colonists?
Move forward to the last century. Again, do your own research. I would suggest consulting the United Nations web site at this link: http://www.un.org/Depts/dpa/ngo/history.html as a start. Sadly - and it's an excuse all to frequently used to excuse aggression against Israel - none of the Arab countries, including the Persians (Iran), were members of the League of Nations. They had no say in the matter. But that does not give them an excuse to seek the destruction of the Jewish people. They justify their actions by alluding to an autonomous Palestinian state, which had not existed for some time - being ruled by the British after the First World War and the Turkish Ottoman Empire prior to that. One can certainly accuse the Britsh Government of hubris, perhaps, mendacity, since Palestine was the only former Ottoman territory not given autonomy post WWI. Instead, it became a British Mandate for the purposes, as stated in the 'Balfour Declaration, of 'the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people'. During the years of the British Palestine Mandate, from 1922 to 1947, large-scale Jewish immigration from abroad, mainly from Eastern Europe, took place - the numbers swelling in the 1930s with the Nazi persecution of Jewish populations. Palestinian demands for independence and resistance to Jewish immigration led to a rebellion in 1937, followed by continuing terrorism and violence from both sides during and immediately after World War II. Britain tried to implement various formulas to bring independence to a land ravaged by violence. In 1947, Britain turned the problem over to the United Nations.
There is little reason to doubt the sincerity of Lord Balfour. Though not a Jew, he had always been interested in the 'Jewish Question' (see http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Zionism/balfourintro.html). Under Chamberlain, the British Foreign Secretary at the time, a plan was considered to grant the Jewish people across the world the opportunity to create a homeland in East Africa, under protection of the British flag. But it had one serious defect. It attempted to find a home for the Jewish race in a region far removed from the country where that race was nurtured and that religion came into being. Politics is more often than not a matter of creating commercial opportunities. It is fair to ask, therefore, despite Balfour's good intentions, was the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine really about giving Jews a chance to create their own nation, or was it simply co-opted within a political strategy, formed by the British Government, to prevent the creation of a unified Islamic Caliphate in the Middle East?
A look at the events that took place in the Sudan in 1882 gives a context, I believe, to the position of the British Government at the time it chose to make the aims of the Balfour Declaration a political fact post WWI. I quote from the Islamic History Source Book - http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/islam/1885khartoum1.html "In I882 there arose in the Sudan, a province of Upper Egypt, one Mohammed Ahmed, who called himself the Mahdi or Messiah, and invited all true believers to join in a holy war against the Christians. Thousands of wild tribesmen flocked to his banner, and in the following year he annihilated an army of eleven thousand English and Egyptians that had attempted to subdue the revolt. Rather than send more soldiers to die in the deserts of the Upper Nile, England decided to abandon the province. But first the thousands of Europeans who had taken refuge in Khartoum and other towns of the Sudan must be rescued from their perilous position. In this crisis, the Government turned to the one man who could effect the withdrawal if it was still possible, and in January, 1884, appointed General Gordon to superintend the evacuation of the Sudan."
Khartoum came under siege the next month and on 26th January 1885 the rebels broke into the city, killing Gordon (against the Mahdi's instructions) and the other defenders. The British relief force arrived two days later. The British public reacted to his death by acclaiming 'Gordon of Khartoum', who had had a strong Christian faith, a martyred warrior-saint and by blaming the government, particularly Gladstone, for failing to relieve the siege. The British Government, I believe, came, over time, to the conclusion that the Arab people should never, again, be permitted to join together and rise up against British Colonial and commercial interests in the Middle East - hence their support for the Balfour Declaration. Looked at from this perspective, it might be fair to think that the Jews are less 'sinners' than sinned against: becoming, in fact, a thorn in the side of the Arab nations, thereby causing their fragmentation. America, which assumed so much of the British Empire in the Middle East, post WWII, has simply adopted this policy, possibly without any kind of review as to its continued effectiveness. Indeed, one often hears the phrase: 'Israel is America's aircraft carrier in the middle-east'. Could it really be any clearer?
The Bush White House wanted this war in Iraq. This was always about oil. Grabbing it and using it to fuel America, keeping it buried to jack up the profits, or to stop the Chinese and Indians from getting their hands on it, to better control their rise to power. It was about contracts for Haliburton, Bechtel and the other corporations with leverage in the White House. And Iran? Same thinking!
Oh, I hear you. That only means that the Jews have infiltrated the government so effectively that they now get America to fight their wars for them. MORE BULL SHIT! Get it through your thick heads: Zionism does not stand for racism. It is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, which holds that Jews, like any other nation, are entitled to a homeland. Sadly, there is nothing to prevent unscrupulous individuals from hijacking any movement for their own advantage or agenda. The extreme actions of clearly racist, right wing political groups in Israel, certain lobbyists in Washington and the dual-nationality neo-conservatives in America and Europe, have all been conducted under the rubric of Zionism. These acts are not subscribed to or endorsed by the majority of the Jewish people, and there are countless numbers of Jews who denounce its brutally, nationalistic goals. Read Jewish web sites. There's a real fight going on between the average Jewish citizen, the Israeli Army, the Israeli Government (which has both hawks and doves) and the settlers who daily destroy Palestinian homes and farms. Do we not have our extreme groups: survivalists, neo-Nazis and fundamentalist groups of all kinds? Were the Boor, who colonized South Africa and the British, who founded Australia and New Zealand, any less forceful in their drive to expand their lands? Did not the Australian Government take Aborigini children from their families by force in an attempt to 'civilize' them? Did not an American administration forcefully steralize black people? I suppose, giving native-American indians blankets infected with small-pox doesn't count, either? Yes, pulling up olive trees and denying the Palestinian people access to food, power and medical assistance is criminal, but the Israeli extremists are not the only people who have ever done this sort of thing. It is wrong; but it is also hypocritical in the extreme that they should be treated as if they were.
I grew up in England. For most of my life, I lived with the threat of an IRA (Irish Republican Army) bomb attack. I was fifty yards away from one when it detonated in Manchester. That kind of uncertainty makes you, and your government, do crazy and sometimes extreme things. Its about time the Arab world got over itself and established a peaceful relationship with Israel. It is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of wisdom.
The truth is, if American politicians - or European politicians, for that matter - were so worried about the survival of the Jewish and Palestinian peoples, they'd have fixed the problem years ago. The same goes for Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, U.A.E., Dubai and the rest of the Middle Eastern Arab nations. Has any one of the leaders of these countries offered help or land to the displaced Palestinians? Of course not! They are using them for their own political purposes: as a means of diverting attention from their constant predation on their own people. In a word: survival! It is nothing more than a blame game!
Let me pose you a question. If you were a small country, surrounded on all sides by people who want you gone, running out of water, with few natural resources, and you had a big brother you could call on, blackmail or otherwise influence to help you out... would you? If America is a hostage to fortune in regards to Israel's survival, it is because members of this and previous administrations, both in America and Europe, have done precious little to resolve the Palestinian issue, preferring, instead, to use Israel as a Trojan horse to weaken and divide the Arab nations; a strategy that only works because the leaders of the Arab nations affected by this grand design are dumber than my dog's crap. Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel. The other Arab nations can do the same. Israel is NOT going anywhere! Nor should it!
If you have a problem with a single Jewish person, native-American, African-American or Caucasian, well, it happens. We all meet people who rub us the wrong way. But BIGOTRY against an entire people is hypocritical, and just plain wrong!
REALITY CHECK: Posted 5/21/06
Being a science fiction writer has the advantage of allowing me to write about things in society that really bother me - like politics, religion, war and the environment - without offending anyone. It's fiction. Right? On another world. Now, the penny has dropped. By not offending anyone, by using fictitious events on make believe worlds, I can hardly complain that people will ignore my underlying motivation for saying what I do: a) because they're not that smart, or, b) because it's not real. So, today, I've decided to reflect on the way things are here, on planet Earth.
There is an ever growing percentage of the American population - myself included - who think that the current administration lied to take us to war with Iraq. Some go further, and claim that 9/11 was a carefully orchestrated conspiracy to make this pre-emptive invasion acceptable to the public. I leave that question to the 'experts'. But, let's look at the invasion in the context of what is happening globally, and in particular, with the growing clamor to invade Iran. Sure Hussein was not a nice person, but we supported him in his war against Iran - a war that claimed three million lives. And didn't we leave him in power after the Gulf War? So what could have made attacking Hussein suddenly so important?
Well, this is what I think.
Firstly, it was about establishing a superior and unchallenged military presence in the middle east to more easily ensure a continued supply of cheap oil for us - an aim that has clearly not borne fruit. Alternatively, it might have been about keeping the oil under the ground, and off the market, so that the global price would remain high, bringing good times for all. In that case, it could be called a resounding success! Secondly, it was about protecting the value of the Dollar. I do not count defending Israel against an attack. They have enough Nukes to turn all of Iraq into glass beads, without our help.
Hussein, during the food for oil program, suddenly insisted that Iraqi oil be sold in Euros, and not Dollars. He made a lot more money for his oil, but ultimately, that was a decision that sealed his fate. Post invasion, Iraqi oil sales were switched back to Dollars. Odd that Iran is close to doing the same thing, as well as cozying up to the Russians and Chinese, which means their oil will go there, too, most likely, and now it, too, is under threat of attack. Venezuela is considering doing the same, by the way. Perhaps they're next? Apart from seizing oil reserves, why would defending the Dollar be important enough to go to war over? To buy oil, countries must hold a supply of Dollars. Switch to Euros, and they move their holdings of foreign currency to Euros, devaluing the Dollar. It's a little more complex than that, of course, but you can research it if you want to. This is my question: If the administration had told the truth, that this was about oil supplies and protecting the value of the Dollar in your pocket book, rather than the crap about WMD and Al'Qaeda links, would you have said, "No!"; or would you have put your own self-interest above that of the Iraqi's and supported the invasion anyway? I confess the question makes me a little uncomfortable.
"LIFE GOES ON, I GUESS!" Posted 05/14/06
QUESTION: Aren't sacrifices necessary, and to be expected, when political leaders take their people into a war - be it just or otherwise? As the Hepee embark on another, some say unnecessary and miss-guided, military campaign, it would seem not!
COMMENT: The recent history of Goramanda is replete with conflicts motivated by geo-political, or geo-economic, considerations. This Class 'M' (earth-like) world, orbiting a middle-aged, yellow dwarf star, known as Theta Carinae, is home to an unusually large number of nations, arising from centuries of immigration from several of its close neighbors. After decades of cold-war stalemate between the 'Hepee' and their philosophically mortal enemy, the 'Coda', the Hepee's economic and military might, based on free market corporate banditry, as opposed to centralized, bureaucratic incompetence, prevailed and they emerged as Goramanda's only super-power. Once the acknowledged and widely respected guardian and protector of global peace and democracy, its military budget is now greater than that of the next twenty richest nations added together. Its economy depends on cheap, foreign energy supplies. Its manufacturing base has moved to countries with lower labour costs, resulting in high deficit spending, while the political process has been hijacked by corporate and religious lobbyists.
Foreign policy decisions are always driven by self-interest. That's a given. But who's self-interest - the people's, or the corporate/political elite? Other nations have advanced to a point where they are now competing with the Hepee for Goramanda's finite energy reserves, and the Hepee are in desperate financial straights, heralding the day when they will be unable to afford the energy they so freely consume. Hepee foreign policy has therefore shifted in the past few years to controlling those global energy reserves - albeit under the guise of spreading peace and democracy to some 'troubled part of the world'. And yet, while soldiers and innocent civilians die, the majority of the Hepee people continue to go about their day to day existence, it seems, with only an occasional thought to the suffering that is the inevitable price of their continued and luxurious lifestyle.
So, should we condemn those who sit at their sidewalk café tables, sipping iced tea, or crawl in dense traffic along the expressways in their massive air-conditioned skimmers, or shop at the thousands of strip malls for things they can't afford and rarely need, or should we, perhaps, think of other such conflicts, at other such times, on other such worlds? Consumption based societies have one thing in common: they need and demand continuity of supply, at a low cost. Be it gold, corn, oil, slaves or energy, a nation relies upon its leaders to maintain the status quo - no questions asked. And those leaders, themselves, must appear to keep the faith in order that they may hold onto what is most important to them - the accumulation of wealth and the retention of power.
There are such things as 'moral' conflicts, of course: struggles against tyranny and oppression, which mobilize entire populations and demand extreme sacrifices, which are freely given. But this is not the case, here. The military is a volunteer force, drawn from the ranks of the unemployed and working classes. There are no sons and daughters of high ranking political leaders, the ruling elite, or the middle classes in this man's army. Indeed, serving in the military is considered beneath most of the population who aspire to be celebrities, lawyers, share traders and car salesmen. There is a total disconnect, resulting in a complete indifference to what is actually being done in their name. They are in denial: denial that their culture is being sustained by depriving others of theirs. As for those who actively support the actions of their leaders, and there are many, do they slavishly believe what their leaders are telling them out of fear, the belief that their culture, their religion, and their way of life are superior in every way to those they are attacking, or that they are in some way making the world, and their own nation a safer place? At least those ancient peoples could claim ignorance of what was being done in their name in far flung places, though they certainly turned a blind eye when confronted by the truth. With twenty-four hour news feeds and blow by blow political analysis, that is no longer the case on Goramanda! Mind you, it also doesn't help when the government does everything it can - concealing the true body count, the true costs and fabricating a consumer boom - to encourage this disconnect!
If history tells us anything, it is that, eventually, all things must end. And that goes for empires, too!
A HOUSE DIVIDED: Posted 5/13/06
Sepulda Prime is a world with a federal system of government. Each tribe/nation has its own government, or Canton, responsible for its own people, development, lands and taxation. Its members are elected by poll every three years. Above these Cantons, and responsible for interstellar relations and global security is the Assembly.
Recently, the Assembly has been overtaken by numerous scandals arising from the lobbying activities of certain Canton Representatives. As corporations always seem to do, many on Sepulda Prime have grown to such a size that they span the entire planet, setting agendas which go way beyond the ability of the individual Cantons to control them. A few are now placing the entire world in danger from environmental destruction. With their stranglehold on the day to day functioning of the Assembly, they have defeated every environmental initiative and now have, in the person of the head of the Assembly, Garon Hoosna, an advocate for ever more disregard for the planetary eco-system.
But all is not lost. A few Cantons have enacted legislation governing the local activities of the corporations, with almost universal support from their citizens, which is at odds with that proposed by the Assembly. The battle is joined. The outcome is not a formality. Corporate power and Government corruption are not reigned in over night. Sepulda Prime stands at a crossroads and is in the process of making the most important decision in its history. I wish them luck!
