Partisan is, as Partisan does

When the level, non-partisan, and genuinely sympathetic report regarding the allegations of serial torture from Senator Feinstein’s committee was published (Sorry about the sarcasm) the usual suspects collectively cleared their throats, and unanimously condemned this bunch of criminals masquerading as employees of the CIA; for their terrible and illegal approach towards people whose only real ambition in their lives was to kill Americans. I would have thought that the first thing any committee, intent upon carving a way through the lies and serial attempts at covering up the truth about the nasty things which were alleged to have been done to these men, all of whom were seemingly arrested whilst on holiday in terror-strewn lands, would have been to interrogate the CIA leaders, ex-leaders and CIA staff who were engaged in these alleged acts of torture.

The rebuttal, shown on the website, is fairly damning to the Majority report, produced without a single interview from any senior or ex-senior CIA staffer. Reading through a small selection of rebuttal documents shows that both the White House and the Administration were briefed, aware, and approved of the techniques used to gain intelligence about people who were planning to kill Americans.

I applaud the CIA for their stance, but of course fully expect the Obama Administration to condemn the CIA, because after all, those nasty Republicans knew what was being done in America’s name, and all those orange jump-suit detainees were all completely innocent; well nearly all, except possibly one or even two bad apples, and they were picked up by mistake, possibly on jay-walking charges.

and the sewage-pit to the left? That’s Kabul.

We were told that our Forces were leaving Helmand, Camp Bastion, and the blood-stained sands of that slag-heap masquerading as the country of Afghanistan.

We were told here, and then there, and finally over there, that we were going; and then, finally, we left, but not without the final measure of corporate military bullshit being spewed by a man who really ought to have kept his mouth shut.

Brigadier Robert Thomson, the most senior British officer on the base, said he was delighted with how the manoeuvre took place.

“This is not an evacuation,” he said. “I am standing here without body armour and we are going at walking pace. This is a deliberately measured transfer of power to the Afghans.”

That statement was made on the 27^th October 2014.

We now read in the Sunday Times that the new Prez. of Afghanistan, knowing that he doesn’t have any sort of an air force, despite the $65 billions pumped into his shambles of a nation over the thirteen years since we went in and kicked the Taliban out, has repeatedly asked Cameron to send the Typhoons, the Tornadoes and the helicopters back in, because the Afghan National army is absolutely useless, with levels of corruption at all-time high levels, and desertion to the Taliban ranks seen as a good option.

So despite those other calls on the 40-year-old Tornados, and the lack of pilots for the Typhoons; 453 dead British just isn’t enough, and that sad number will rise, because that prick Cameron can’t say ‘no’ to his muslim buddies in Kabul.

Si vis pacem, para bellum

“If you want peace, prepare for war”

In these frenetic days, when news runs and broadcasts on a 24-hour basis, where updates are available, from of course the viewpoint of the broadcaster concerned, as fast as you can change channels, it is sometimes difficult to remember what, exactly, were last week’s headlines, and how did the stories turn out. We are deluged, over the past fortnight, with reports of how Ed Milliband FORGOT to mention the economy, the huge deficit between actual income and expenditure, as well as Labour’s plans to keep the deficit growing. Following from Labour, we heard how the Tory conference was shanghaied by the defection of yet another MP to UKIP, as well as the strange and twisted story of a Minister who sent explicit photos of himself to a complete stranger. We are told, again and again, that our only hope for an EU in-or-out referendum is to vote for the Tories, but strangely enough, we are not told what comprises the famous ‘package of demands’ which Cameron will present to a grumbling EU as his price for us staying in!

But amidst all the chatter, and the penis images, along with all the other fluff, lies and concealed bribes so prevalent in the political parties jamboree sessions, not much notice is taken of the headlines of less than three weeks previously; headlines which presage a conflict far deadlier and more relevant to us here in the United Kingdom than in some Arabic religious conflict in lands where we, literally, have no real reason to be. We should be reading of the shells raining down on tanks and armoured vehicles in places where a cease-fire is supposed to rule, we should be reading of hidden troop movements, of manoeuvres designed to bring pressure to bear by a ruthless Russia against a poorly-equipped and badly-defended Ukraine.

The commentators write of the real result of the break-up of UK Armed Forces, and where we had thirty squadrons in 1991, today we only have seven, and two of those squadrons were only rescued from dismemberment because they came in pretty handy when we bombed Libya. We should be sending jets and supporting NATO in Lithuania, and in Poland, but instead we are frittering away fuel and time flying over the Islamic State barbarians, without even dropping any bombs, because the intelligence isn’t what it used to be either!

The Ukraine is being dismantled piecemeal, with a weak Government grasping at the straws of ‘compromise’ offered by a cynical Putin, backed up by a competent military and a ruthless KGB, and we here in the West do literally f**k-all about it.

 

Now’s the day, and now’s the hour

George Monbiot, writing in the Guardian, presumably believes he is correct, whilst writing on the mainstream media’s coverage of the Scots Referendum on Independence. But I believe he is totally and absurdly wrong.

In all of Mr. Monbiot’s elegant phrasing; along with his condescension towards a Scots electorate which assumes they are just not capable of discerning when political bullshit is spread in their general direction: there does not appear the one truth which has been carefully and completely removed from the debate. That ‘truth’ is the simple fact that the Scots are not being offered a chance at an amorphous ‘Independence’, they are being offered a choice between one bunch of politicians and a vast civil service which governs undemocratically now, and government by another bunch of politicians and a smaller civil service which will also govern undemocratically in the future.

The same bunch of thieving clowns, albeit with different accents, will occupy all the leading roles in public life; the same, but smaller civil service will cling to their ‘rule books’ and deny a troubled Scots family a life-giving operation or treatment as they do now, the same, faceless bunch of thieving clowns will continue to pillage the national wallet, all in the course of making everyone equal, but not telling those same people that, in Orwell’s immortal words, ‘some are more equal that others’.

I would happily vote for a Party which would contend for my vote if they promised, graven in stone, to implement, for example, a system whereby a true ‘Recall’ would be made available not only for Members of a Scottish or indeed a Westminster Parliament, but also for all people in Public Life: a ‘recall’ with teeth, which would strip anyone ‘recalled’, of their ill-gotten riches, pensions and status, before condemning them to a life-long job as a ‘Deep-fried Mars-Bar’ taster, or the equivalent in England, which would probably be a sewage channel cleaner, or an apologist for a British politician.

The reality of ‘the Grey Men’

Taken from a Spectator essay by Christopher Booker

Among the millions of words which will be expended over the next four years on the first world war, very few will be devoted to explaining one of its greatest legacies of all, the effects of which continue to dominate our politics to this day. One of the best-kept secrets of the European Union is that the core idea which gave rise to it owed its genesis not to the second world war, as is generally supposed, but to the Great War a quarter of a century earlier. It was around that time that the man who can be described as ‘the Father of Europe’ was first inspired to the detailed vision which only after 1945 was he finally in a position to launch on its way.

More than a decade ago, when I was working with my colleague Dr Richard North on a history of ‘the European project’, nothing surprised us more than how completely historians had failed to uncover the real story of that project’s origins. Furthermore, this was not merely of historical interest. The missing piece of the jigsaw gives us such a crucial insight into the core idea which was to create and shape the European Union that the failure of David Cameron and our present-day politicians to take it on board makes much of what they are today all saying about Britain’s relations with ‘Europe’ just empty fluff.

The story began just after the outbreak of war in 1914, when two young men were appointed to organise the shipping between North America and Europe of food and vital war materials. One was a now forgotten British civil servant called Arthur Salter; the other was the Frenchman Jean Monnet, a former salesman for his family’s brandy firm. By 1917 they were so frustrated by the difficulty of hiring ships from all the international interests involved that they had a radical idea. What was needed, they agreed, was a body armed with ‘supranational’ powers to requisition the ships, overriding the wishes of their owners or any national government.

Sharing, and caring

 

 

“No, I want the computer, mainly because its where the photos of  Stompie’s murder and burial are stored.

You can have the washing machine, and the tumble drier.”

 

I have a dream……..

……….that one day, sometime in the dim and distant future, common sense will rear its head regarding the insane idea that a country, or an alliance of countries will make the Syrian Government back down from the use of poison gas and chemical weaponry by an attack using cruise missiles and ‘stand-off’ bombs.

• The Syrians, led by Assad, are fighting for their existence; and are winning with the able aid of Hezbollah’s fanatics. Who, in this crazy world, believes that an attack, no matter how broad, or threatening, or damaging, or awesome, will deter one swivel-eyed bunch of ragheads from attempting to wipe out another bunch of equally-swivel-eyed ragheads?
• A sizeable majority of the ‘Opposition’ in the field are harnessed and led by Al Quaeda affiliates. Has it occurred to the ‘bomber-boy’ buddies Obama, Cameron and Hollande that when the Tomahawks, Harpoons and Exocets begin to rain down on the airfields and radar stattions of Syria; that this will undoubtedly give heart and volition to even more ‘jihadi’ clowns to fight in the hope of killing the Alawites of Bashar Assad, and replacing them as rulers of an Islamic State along the user-friendly lines of the Islamic Republic of Iran? The Allies have, rather sensibly, refrained from supplying mobile anti-aircraft missiles to the disorganised clowns fighting Assad, as those same clowns have a rather strange affinity for attacking Western aircraft, and if you give them Stinger missiles, the next thing would be a BA 747 or an American Airlines Airbus slicing into the ground after its engines are blown off the wing!
• The belief amongst the ‘thinking elites’ of Islington and Chipping Norton that Syria will take note of a battering from the skies is ludicrous.
• Where is the proof that Assad’s regiments delivered the poisonous clouds which ‘killed’ hundreds? Assad’s armies are winning. Are they so stupid that they would unleash a deadly gas attack whilst the UN inspectors are seven miles away? What would be the purpose of that attack?
• Immediately upon the first missiles rain down on Syrian soil, the way is open for an immediate counter-strike upon a very close and really jumpy neighbour, who flies a six-pointed blue star, and who is closely allied to the USA, otherwise known as ‘The Great Satan’.
• The only winners in this war will be the suppliers of missiles, aircraft builders and hospital supply companies.

When ‘red line’ doesn’t come from a rev. counter

When will Western politicians even begin to understand that they do not know ANYTHING about Middle Eastern politics, religion, tribal loyalties or any thought which expresses an ideal that ‘if only we can kill a few of the bad guys, all will be well’? We read, week after week, and ramping up to daily briefings from ‘connected observers’ that the US, France, the UK and other ‘friendly’ Governments are drawing ‘red lines’ in the sand. These so-called ‘red lines’ are based around the possible use of chemical weaponry by the Assad government against the rebellious bunch who loosely fight under the title of the ‘Free Syria’ movement. Not much of the UN mentioned around those ‘red line’ ideas, but, since China and Russia still wield a veto, the rest of the Security Council knows only too well that their opponents have learned to read.

Someone must explain, using cards and symbols if necessary, what the difference is between dying from a tank shell, or a mortar shell, or a cluster bomb, or a pre-laid roadside bomb; and a death by means of a nerve gas, a chemical spray or a contaminated water supply? There are no degrees of death, you are either alive, or you are dead, so what is the difference?

We are now watching as Obama, pushed no doubt by his military, starts thinking along the lines of ‘surgical strikes’ and ‘contained out-reach’, along with all the other bullshit phrases so beloved of the ‘Liberal Elite’ who see something nasty happening half a world away, and demand that ‘something should be done’. Our own clown prince Prime Minister of course is repeating the same slogans, warning one set of murderous fools against killing another set of murdering idiots, all the while continuing to downgrade our own military machine which of course he wants to use to kill one or other of the aforementioned fools if they don’t behave.

MY six-pennorth? Stand well back, and let them all kill each other; lending a hand only to aid the one Country, Israel: which just wishes to be left in peace, but, because of the internecine politics and hatreds of the whole region, is set up as a target once the next set of wild-eyed radicals gains power in that whole blood-soaked area!

Waterboarding? Its for Sissies!

General Black Jack Pershing was born on September 13th, 1860, near Laclede, Mississippi, and died on July 15th, 1948, in Washington D.C.

Highlights of his life include:

1891 Professor of Military and Tactics, University of Nebraska
1898 Served in the Spanish-American War
1901 Awarded the rank of Captain
1906 Promoted to the rank of Brigadier General
1909 Military Governor of Moro Province, Philippines
1916 Promoted to Major General
1919 Promoted to General of the Armies
1921 Appointed Chief of Staff
1924 Retired from active duty after teaching at West Point

 

Just before World War I there were a number of terrorist attacks on United States forces in the Philippines by Muslim extremists. General Pershing captured 50 terrorists and had them tied to posts for execution.

He then had his men bring in two pigs and slaughter them in front of the now horrified terrorists.

According to the Koran Muslims are forbidden to eat pork or touch a pig. They believe to eat pork or touch a pig, its meat, its blood, or any of its by-products is to be instantly barred from paradise and the 72 virgins and dooms them to hell.

The soldiers then soaked their bullets in the pig’s blood, and proceeded to execute 49 of the terrorists by firing squad. The soldiers dug a large hole, dumped in the terrorist’s bodies, and covered them in pig blood, pig entrails, etc. Then they let the 50th man go.

And for the next 42 years there was not a single Muslim extremist attack anywhere in the world.

Perhaps it’s time for history to repeat itself in Iraq and Afghanistan?

The question is, where do we find another Black Jack Pershing?

Ted, Ned, and Dave to do the dishes.

Henry V111 and Ted Heath may seem strange bed-fellows, but one oversaw the rise of firstly English and later British Independence, and the other signed it away. The King, the ruler, knew what he wanted and foresaw for his kingdom, and determined to achieve it. He went against Catholic Rome, a faith and belief which he espoused and held to for years, because he saw the downfall of his line in the obdurate attitude of the Papal See on the thorny question of a marriage to a brother’s widow, once he found that this wife would not bring him Princes; heirs to a throne which was rocky at best, and calamitously unsound  on more than one path.

He wanted Anne Boleyn, she would not give him what he wanted without a wedding ring, so he broke with Rome. His further romantic liaisons, after the disappointment with Queen Anne, a wife for whom he had killed his best friend because Sir Thomas More would not make the Oath, all led to disappointment, although he tried and tried again. He established universities, he helped build the first navy; but his greatest achievement was to give England the first Elizabeth, the Queen who would go on to defend her Crown, to build a nation who bestrode the seas, whose trade, influence and plain straightforward bloody-mindedness made Britain a leader amongst the nations of Europe, and the World.

Ted Heath, on the other hand, probably never had a sexual encounter in his entire life, homo- or heterosexual. A ‘loner’ par excellence, his problem probably was that he just did not understand the needs of people who were different to him. The fact that these people were, to themselves, normal, probaly never occurred to a man who had always stood apart from everyone, and therefore had no clue about what was best for them. He didn’t understand working people, he was useless with the Union bosses, he didn’t understand that his own Party were desperate for change, but change they understood. His service in the Artillery during the Second World War proved he was no coward, but his knowledge of that war probabaly coloured his approach to the formation of the Common Market. He probably saw it as a means to ensure that Germany and France could never war against each other, and its enlargement he saw a a proper balance against American domination in both trade and power.

Like Margaret Thatcher, he never understood the truth about Europe, which is that it was a deeply-authoritarian and undemocratic creation, built, peopled and operated by politicians and apparatchiks who instinctively ‘knew’ that their way was best, and their creation allowed for no dissent, no opposition.  He lied all the way to the bank to get Britain in to the ‘Market’, giving away the huge resource of all our fishing grounds away to a bunch of clowns who had never even seen the sea before, and debasing himself, and us, to France to get in on any terms.

When he signed the Treaty of Rome, he threw away our sovereignty, and the talking shop in Westminster cannot get it back, and just about all of them don’t even want to try! The changes from ‘Market’ to ‘Economic Union’ to ‘European Union’ were stealthy, unadvertised and unknown to most Europeans, never mind the British. The pillock who sits in Downing Street is a typical ‘apparatchik’or manager. He is, as most will learn in due course, in love with the ‘idea’ of Europe, and is fascinated by it’s rituals, its pomp and self-importance, and has forgotten the offer of a Referendum on our membership of that dictatorial body, and fervently wishes that the rest of us would forget as well!

 

You put your right foot in, right foot out……..

Read an book named ‘An Old Captivity’ authored by Nevil Shute, which featured a story about Viking raiders who discovered North America, and was reminded about the time around 875 AD., somewhere loosely near Whitby on the coast of Yorkshire, when around the headland glided one of the infamous Viking longships, sail set taut and fully aloft, the crew of fierce warriors easily hauling on their oars as they propelled the longship onwards; the polished metal of the shields on the sides of the ship glistened in the sun, and the rhythm of the oarsmen only slowed as the boat slid to a gliding halt on the shingle beach. The raiders leapt over the gunwales of the craft into the water before running ashore in a disciplined race to end up in a perfect defence line facing their leader, an imposing figure in a feathered cloak!

Before the long ship had halted on the shore, a second longship appeared around the headland, heading for the shore as the first; the shields were bright, but not as polished as the leader’s, and the rigging and rowing was workmanlike, but not to the same standard as again, the leader! They also rowed and sailed ashore, climbed swiftly off the long ship, and marched to form up at right-angles to the first contingent at the Norse equivalent of Parade Rest!

While the second crew were disembarking, a third longship appeared around the headland, but this one sported a patched and loose mainsail, the oars were manned and moved as though every movement was a burden, the shields were tarnished and spattered with salt and blood, the longswords were nicked and dull! The vessel grounded with a sigh instead of a crunch, and the warriors fell over the sides and stumbled ashore, to line up with their comrades from ships one and two!

Once all had gathered, they all raised their swords, and called out, as one, “Hail Odin” before the cloaked leader stepped forward, speaking in a clear baritone voice;

“Norse Warriors, once more we come to deal our punishment to those weaklings who are not Vikings! Vessel One; fire and the sword!!”

At this invocation, the first crew shouted as one, “Hail Odin!”

The leader spoke again, “Vessel Two; pillage and plunder!” and the second crew also shouted “Hail Odin”.

The leader started to say, “Vessel Three,” but was interrupted by the first in line from the third long ship, a man with deep-sunken cheeks and a wan, pale complexion, similar to the rest of his crew, as he exclaimed dully, “Not rape again!”

Give me a fast ship, for I intend to go in harms way.

 

Been mainly laid low for about a week with a bad case of the ‘Lurgi’, so haven’t been interested in blogging, surfing or any other ‘ing’; as I was too busy feeling sorry for myself. While doing nothing much, I listened to the reports of the war against Israel by Hezbollah, and the stories from England about the Asian Pakistani morons who thought they might bring death to the skies over the atlantic, but my attention was caught by an interesting item about the enlargement of the Chinese Navy, and how it was seen as the first in a series of power moves to dominate and influence a huge part of the globe. Now while I tend to agree with much of what the commentator had to say about the huge expansion of the People’s Liberation Army Navy, (dead keen on their acronyms, P.L.A.N. these fiendishly clever Chinese!), I wondered if any of the listeners cared to think through the story to the background. Before the start of the Second World War, many industrialists within the huge circle of massive Western companies made fortunes from selling steel, coal and other raw materials to an ever-expanding Nazi Germany economy, supplying it with the very sinews upon which those same Germans made war so efficiently. The same industrialists made further huge fortunes from selling more steel, iron, coal etc. to the armies and navies of the Allies, who had banded together to defeat the evil stench of Nazi-ism which leached out from Berchtesgaden, Berlin and Munich.

So why the history lesson, the reader might ask? Simple, when you buy a cheap Chinese-made lighting fixture from Wal-Mart, or Asda, or B&Q; when you buy some Chinese-manufactured gloves costing, say, £17.50 when the home-made variety costs £30.00; when you outfit your new kitchen with clever devices which are stamped “Made in China”, you, dear reader, are helping to fund the building and training of one of the new super destroyers which will form the backbone of the P.L.A. Navy planning for the next decade. Perhaps you will have given some of YOUR hard-earned cash towards the purchase of another FRENCH helicopter, which, fitted with the appropriate GERMAN-designed torpedoes, will sit on the fantail of this new 35-knot destroyer as she heads out in convoys to test the resolve of an ageing American carrier fleet! The Chinese dictators, as they sip their tea in their luxurious conference rooms, must be silently splitting their sides with helpless laughter as they watch the Western urge to buy ‘cheaper’, help fund the ultimate onslaught, which will and can only be between America and China. The Achilles heel of Taiwan, which America has silently pledged to help at all costs, makes the United States uniquely vulnerable to an expanded Chinese Navy, where a unique experiment in democracy, sitting three hundred miles away from the slave labour camps emergent factories of industrial China, is threatened by a military who could roll over them in two days, but plan to do it in three!

As I have maybe stated before, the solution is in your own pockets. Buy from Korea, from Japan, from Slovakia or even from Sheffield, but never, ever, buy from the markets which are dominated by a single imperative, to bring the Chinese version of Communism back to the hosts who previously laboured under the boots of the Soviets, and on from them to the rest of the world!

Tell me the same old story; tell me the same old LIES!!!!!

When I was a younger man, if a senior politician was caught out either in a personal problem, such as an affair, or worse, homosexuality; they resigned! Flat out; just like that! Why, because if they didn’t resign, they’d be kicked out without so much as a moment’s hesitation by their boss, the Prime Minister; of whatever Party was in power! They’d been found wanting, and that was sufficient!So here we have the Deputy Prime Minister, who now has so many strikes against his nameplate that it’s beginning to look a little crowded in there, and what happens? Nowt! Why?The problems started because of who he is, a big thug with impeccable Union connections; a time-server of the first water who managed to find a safe Labour seat in Hull, and nobody’s been able to turf him out ever since he squirmed and greased his way past the selection board! He got elected Deputy as a reward for delivering Blair to his seat at the top, and our Tony’s not one to forget his friends, even if they are as useless as Prescott obviously is! He weaselled his way towards the second level of Government because he’s always been assiduous in keeping the power he’s been allowed to grab, and he’s always managed to keep the internal war between Brown and Blair mainly below the parapet!

So he was found out as having dipped into the office ink with his diary secretary, with sufficient prurient details, provided by the woman in question, to lever out any normal Minister within fifty seconds! But no, he stays on, keeping his place, jobs and staff! But then there’s a re-shuffle after Charles Clarke gets the boot, and he loses all his staff and jobs; but he still keeps his big house, plus his big apartment, plus his other flat, plus his two cars, plus his inflated salary! Then he gets photographed playing “CROQUET”, obviously a truly democratic and working-class sport if ever there was one; and loses his house to keep things quiet! Then the news gets broken that he went on a trip to America, and accepted massive hospitality from this super-rich American who is heavily into casinos. Now this guy was not focused on the success of the business, rather, he appeared to be more concerned with personal goals; so is into really-right wing politics, he was once named “greediest executive in America” by Forbes magazine, the US business bible. Prescott further visits him seven more times; but states that he was discussing “William Wilberforce” the old time legislator who helped outlaw slavery, and, wait for it, COWBOYS! Now many things I would believe, but a NuLabour ‘Cowboy’ learning about ‘cowboys’ from a super-rich billionaire whose only writ is profit is just a little rich, even coming from Prescott! Then other bloggers get wind of more women in Big John’s life, and he has to step up and state that it was just another blip on the radar horizon of life!

The question surely must be asked; how many more things have to be publicised before Blair finally breaks, and gets rid of this big, lying, philandering, seemingly-corrupt fraud?

A Fast Journey on “A Slow Boat to China”!

Watched a documentary on Channel Five a few months back, the title of the series was ‘SuperShips’, and it described in amazing detail the construction and running techniques of this giant container ship, ‘Shanghai Express’, which runs at a speed of 23.5 knots, equivalent to twenty-seven miles an hour. Now most of us, looking at this speed will say, ‘that’s not very fast’ but think again, that is very fast in terms of something which is carrying one hundred thousand and six metric tonnes, and travels at the same speed all twenty four hours of the day! The engineering spaces are akin to something out of ‘Star Trek’, the views of this monster pushing through an flat ocean with a ‘bone in her teeth’ (generating a huge bow wave, for the uninitiated) gave an impact of a superb ship doing the job it was created to do.

But let’s go a little further into the woodpile, and examine what exactly this ship is doing. She is carrying, as part of a fleet of four, one hundred thousand tonnes of goods every three weeks. Do the maths, and that works out to 6.92 million tonnes of manufactured goods imported from the Peoples Republic of China into the European Union every year. Now that is a lot of plastic toys, DVD players, rubbish bins, textiles and electronic bits and bobs! Some of it is crap, because the quality control methods in China are not the greatest, but a lot of it isn’t crap, it’s well-made, and equally well-designed, and worthy of your purchase; or is it?

Consider where this huge amount of cargo was made before the great industrial charge now present in China came on stream! This cargo, carried in the ‘Shanghai Express’ and her sister ships, managed by Hapag Lloyd, a German multi-national, is mirrored in the vessels of many other container ship companies running into the major container ports of Western Europe and America, so you now begin to get the picture of the huge inroads the Chinese have made in our marketplace. Now the marketplace for this huge amount of ‘everything’ existed before, because the Chinese haven’t invented new ‘everything’, no way! The old ‘everything’ used to be made by Thailand, and Japan, Korea and Brazil, and we made quite a bit of ‘everything’ in Europe, and more specifically in Britain. But over a period of about five to ten years ago, the Chinese got real clever, and allowed their workforce to initiate new ideas, expand their factories and modernise existing lines, build new cities and motorways to help carry and move the workforce and products which they are so good at selling to the West! All good and proper, opening up a country to modern manufacturing methods will surely enhance the Chinese, and make everyone richer? So the factories and offices in downtown Sao Paulo, or Bangkok, or Seoul, or Bolton were were forced to close because their markets had been grabbed by a cheaper, better organised manufacturing country! Well, not really, because this is still the same China which operates slave labour in the factories owned and operated by the PLA, (which, again for the uninitiated is short for The Peoples Liberation Army.) So now you begin to understand where the profits from your purchase of that really cheap refrigerator, or that shiny new DVD player from Curry’s or Dixon’s actually goes to! You are helping to fund a dictatorship, a Totalitarian Government ruling by decree, the same Government who sent the tanks and armoured carriers rolling into Tiananmen Square in 1989, and killing over five thousand, while injuring seven to ten thousand more!

In retrospect, Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States, was a disaster on wheels for America, his foreign policy strategies, among which was the removal of support for the Shah of Iran, thus helping place Khomeini and the mullahs in charge, and the signing away of the Panama Canal to a bunch of low-level criminals and drug-runners. But the one shining item in his portfolio was his acclaim of ‘Human Rights’, not the wishy-washy union- and liberal-friendly crap which is so loved by the European Union, but the real package, the freedom to worship, even if it’s a mish-mash of ideas like Falun Gong; the freedom to congregate, even in a place like Tiananmen Square and talk about honest reform of government; the freedom to say “get stuffed” to a uniformed bully; the freedoms laid down by the United Nations in 1948, but have long since been either forgotten or misplaced. He said in 1997, during a Foreign Policy speech, “The great democracies are not free because we are strong and prosperous. I believe we are strong and influential and prosperous because we are free. Throughout the world today, in free nations and in totalitarian countries as well, there is a preoccupation with the subject of human freedom, human rights. And I believe it is incumbent on us in this country to keep that discussion, that debate, that contention alive. No other country is as well-qualified as we to set an example. We have our own shortcomings and faults, and we should strive constantly and with courage to make sure that we are legitimately proud of what we have.”

Think hard on who you want to give your hard earned money to in the months and years ahead, when your neighbour’s son comes home with the news that his clothing factory is closing because the management are relocating to Chengdu or Wuhu; when you see an item on the television news that a factory is closing it’s production line because it cannot compete with the Chinese opposition, don’t remember the cheap coat which you bought without examining the label which said, proudly, ‘Made in China’

I have a dream, that one day we won’t trade with the ‘Slave Labour Regime’ of China

As readers may have seen in my previous blog postings on a prior site, I have long retained an interest in and a questioning attitude towards the Communist People’s Republic of China. From a viewpoint of trade, here we see an immense country attempting, and in certain areas succeeding, to join and lead the race towards the development of a vibrant economy. The huge developments in all areas of manufacturing have not, in my own view, been shadowed by similar rises in both freedom and choice!

In the U.K., for example, we have large enterprises almost totally dependant on supplies of cheap manufactured goods from China for their own continued dominance within their selected market-places. We see, for example, the shelves of the giant D.I.Y. chain B&Q are heavy with items from China, thus allowing the home-refurbishing masses of the United Kingdom to continue on their lasting quest for brighter kitchens, wallpaper replacement and new shower cabinets. We have forgotten perhaps that all these items, from kitchen cupboard door-handles to light fittings used to be sourced from areas much closer to home! They were built in Bradford, in Baden-Baden, in Bordeaux, in Brussels and in Budapest. The corporate decisions to relocate either manufacture or supply of the items which used to be built in Europe overto the cities and provinces of China are excused and justified by reasons of corporate profit, shareholder value and all the other tired excuses used to disguise a move to a cheaper, but not necessarily better manufacturing venue!

As was exampled by Apple, the U.S. giant of home electronics, their move to a Taiwanese manufacturer for their Ipods, promptly sub-contracted out to Mainland Chinese companies for the reputed saving of a few cents per unit cost, was spoken of as a corporate decision for corporate gain, but the loss of jobs in the workplaces of the United States and other Western countries who have advanced past the slave-labour ethic towards a dream of worker empowerment was devastating to say the least! The ethic behind investment should not, in my opinion, be always aimed at the largest possible return for the least possible outlay, because that way lies an over-heavy investment in what is possibly still the least free society in the world today! The replies by Apple that they were ensuring compliance with it’s’ ‘Code of Ethics’ is as shallow as the sheet of paper upon which the ‘Code’ is written! What guarantees that the Chinese company is holding to that ‘Code’? Not a great deal. When the Government snoops upon it’s citizens as to their Internet use, and bars them from even reaching any site which dares to criticise the Communist regime, the companies are only too willing to follow suit!

Suit us better that we do as I did when buying winter gloves last December. I was faced with gloves manufactured in China costing £19.50, or a similar specification glove made in Aberdeen, but costing £30.00. I paid £30.00, because I believe in supporting home-made and sourced equipment, and I do not believe in giving support to a Communist Regime where slavery is rampant, forced abortion is commonplace and the very concept of Freedom is a foreign idea!

Meanwhile, the Fuzzy-Wuzzies and Dervishes were growing restive

The headline for this posting is taken from one of my ‘favourite’ films, namely “The Four Feathers”, but also from the first version, filmed in 1939 by Alexander Korda, and of course the most Un-politically correct of the seven versions filmed! The Sudanese army fighting for the Mahdi were depicted as foolish fanatics, but they were after all fighting for their country and their leader, who was an ascetic religious figure descended, so he claimed, from their prophet Mohammed!

I did a project some time back at the National Gallery. While doing this contract, I met up with a few old-time characters from the P.S.A., which stands for the Public Services Administration, the body which used to carry out all of the repairs on publicly-owned and Government buildings. Really nice guys, very friendly and helpful. Now, the attitude to Security at the National Gallery was very lax, with up to thirty percent of the alarm switches and controls not working at any time! There was a beautifully engraved glass control desk, with all the areas literally picked out on the display, but, as I noticed, a hell of a number of switches were in the ‘out-of-use’ position because they just weren’t working!

We were talking about everything and nothing, and they happened to mention that they used to look after Lancaster House, the main conference venue for the Foreign Office, and I asked if that was where the famous conference was held where the Rhodesians were sold down the river, and everything was handed over to Mugabe and his buddies in Zanu P.F. The elder of the P.S.A. guys nodded at me, and said, “Course they were sold out, and the British Government was the ones who were doing the selling!!” He told me that every room in the centre was ‘bugged’, literally monitored by hidden microphones and tape-recorders, with the wiring actually built into the walls, and the sensitive microphones could pick up every word which was uttered! The hotel rooms and facities used by the White rhodesian delagation were also heavily monitored! A summary of the Rhodesian delegations stance on just about everything was delivered to the black ‘nationalist’ hotels, so that the Zanu Patriotic Front people knew exactly how and where the Rhodesian Government werte heading on any topic. The advantage this information must have given the black guys is inestimable; but just think of it as a game of poker, but a game whereby you already know the strength of every other player’s hands before they start betting!

So now we know that the British Government, led in those days by Margaret Thatcher, advised the black communist nationalist group led by Mugabe, so that they were able to counter every item laid down by the Smith and Muzorewa delegations. After the constitutional conference, the new High Commissioner, Lord Soames, went to Salisbury (now Harare) with strict instructions from Thatcher, “Get rid of this difficult bunch, let the Mugabe bunch in, and let’s get shot of the whole issue!” so we can now see that Robert Mugabe is, for once, telling the truth, it was down to the Brits to get them into power, and everything that has happened since, from the farmland grab to the ballot rigging, is all down to….Who? The bloody British Government!

I am, and always have been, a firm fan of Margaret (now Baroness) Thatcher, but on this particular item, as with many of the decisions taken since by both Tory and NuLabour Administrations, I feel that the outcome was to betray the inhabitants of that unfortunate and unhappy country, delivering them, as it did, into the tender arms of a megalomaniac despot, whose governance has been the ruination of that once prosperous and beautiful country!