…from those in peril on the sea!

From this:-

 

to this:-

 

 

with a total of some 760 containers rescued from the ship and the seashore, perhaps a salute to the brave men of the Salvor teams who risked their lives to get the job done.

 

 

 

start soul-searching? Bollocks!

The great debate is said to be commencing about Britain’s role in the world, and how wrong it was not to let Our Dave bomb Syria, even from a safe distance.

Allow me to place a few facts before the ATW audience, and see if you can agree with me that this isn’t the end of the world; isn’t the start of decay in our innermost souls; isn’t a sign that we are done for.

We are a trading nation, and our Armed Forces have always been committed to the protection of British interests around the world. One of the very few times when we went to war outside of those somewhat narrow confines is when we acted on Treaty obligations, and committed ourselves to a war against Hitler’s Germany; and it wasn’t until the war was nearly over did we begin to realise how lucky the world was that we did decide to fight. When the Death Camps were uncovered, when the long lists of those gassed, shot, poisoned or otherwise literally exterminated in the first tabulated Genocidal acts were seen by an angry world, Nuremberg was inevitable.

We should look and listen critically to the words of Chancellor Osborne, when he stated that, because we are a trading nation, we had a duty to intervene in a ‘civil war’; We have no trade with Syria, mainly because we have instituted sanctions against that unhappy country. The ONLY country in the immediate neighbourhood which is worthwhile signing a contract with is Israel, a democratic Nation which owes its very existence to a Britain who, despite or perhaps because of an Arab-oriented and very anti-semitic Foreign Office, finagled the Balfour Declaration into the first Jewish State. The rest of the Arabic crescent of so-called Nation-states, a ghastly rubble of despotic monarchs and ill-hidden military or religion-sodden dictatorships, aren’t worth bothering about, or risking a single British life to defend. The so-called Arab Emirates, another clutch of sandy despots, have oil, sun, sand and so-called holiday resorts; but try getting pissed just away from the main drag, or having a quick fumble with your girlfriend whilst not being married, and you will soon find out what they think of British attitudes. We are still attempting to extricate ourselves from the blood-soaked sands of Afghanistan, another dump where we may have been right to enter, but we should have got out one hell of a sight sooner that we are.

Yes, we are a trading nation, but we live in age when disputes are solved within civilized surroundings, within organizations such as the United Nations, ineffective though that rag-bag of territorial clowns might sometimes be. Our Armed forces are there to protect our people, and those we have stated that are under our protection by means of blood-ties, such as the Falklands, or even tiny Gibraltar. We have no right to state what is acceptable within a bloody civil war, partly because we did not put up much of an argument when America was dosing Laos and North Vietnam with Agent Orange, or wave our hands in horror when the F-105’s slammed their napalm down on the Vietcong and the Vietnamese alike. We didn’t say much about Georgia, when Russia came swanning in to carve out a big slice; mainly because it was none of our bloody business.

The Syrian war is a sad and bloody business, but it is their business; not ours: and we should spend very little time worrying about a truly sensible Parliamentary decision to stay the hell out of a shit-storm, especially when it ain’t our shit!

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.

Meat Market; or just modern bureaucracy?

When one reads of a child’s death at the hands of abusive and murderous ‘parents’, we usually shake our heads in mute incomprehension. I am the father of three adult kids, and within the term ‘father’ is held the truth that I am able to state that I helped bring forth into this world three fairly-well adjusted kids, and through a process of learning, adjustment and advice-osmosis; watched with pride as my two sons and a daughter navigated the pit- and prat-falls of youth to emerge as adults towards whom I can acknowledge with pride as mine own. They had the best of my life’s learning to lean upon, and I just cannot comprehend the grievous injuries inflicted upon defenceless young bodies which were similar in all respects to those three youngsters placed in my care.

When the ‘authorities’ finally take notice of neglect and violence inflicted on a child, the actions are usually the result of a ‘Case Conference’ where all interested parties have a chance to put their views forward, and often as not, the child or children are taken from parents deemed, in the opinion of course of the ‘experts’, as unfit to hold those children within their homes. They are then located with suitable ‘foster homes’, or sometimes group homes and many are placed for adoption.

Some commentators, such as the admirable Christopher Booker, have made their passions a crusade to fight against  the ‘Secret courts’ system, where children are taken at birth from mothers deemed ‘unfit’ on the say-so of social workers whose evidence is never questioned, but taken as gospel.

And where do many of these kids end up? They end up here,  in the forms displayed, as though their parents, many of whom are innocent of all crimes or allegations, can see their kids for one last time before they disappear into the anonymity of court-ordered adoption.

tear down this wall

Ignore, if you will, the unpleasant story which the Guardian reporter is telling; where he, along with the Washington Post, is exposing the huge amount of law-breaking by both the NSA and GCHQ. Ignore, as well, the fact that all this stems from an illegal act by Edward Snowden, when he betrayed the trust given him by ‘whistleblowing’ about the secret courts in the USA which demanded that Internet giants such as Yahoo and Google had no recourse but to supply the spies with their customers information.

Concentrate, instead on the fact of which we know; which is that a Brazilian national, David Miranda, was threatened and bullied, totally illegally, into supplying access passwords for laptop and mobile phones. Threatened with jail if he did not comply! We also know that the top civil servant Sir Jeremy Heywood went to the Guardian to bully them into destroying computer hard drives, under the gaze of shadowy figures from GCHQ.

And we now know that the orders for this totally illegal operation came from David Cameron himself.

Dyslexia? or just Dysfunction?

 

 

….. and should our local Lesbian, Gay and Transgender Community be really concerned?

and here is the News, read by Alvar Liddell…

Once upon a time, such as during the Second World War years, we might be said to have faith in the News, as broadcast by the BBC. Sixty-eight years later, we know better both for that time, and, unfortunately, for now. Newsworthy items, such as many defeats or setbacks, were routinely embargoed or prohibited from the newspapers or the BBC airwaves, in the spurious belief that, first of all, ‘the Government knows best’; and that news of defeats would support a movement for either surrender; or movement towards neutrality. The sinking of the battleship HMS Barham by a German torpedo was considered to be so internally delicate that news censorship was decreed, and was only lifted some three months after the sinking. The film of the tragedy was only revealed after the end of the war. Helen Duncan’s imprisonment was considered to be a direct result of the Barham’s sinking, as the Government wanted to keep any news of the tragedy under wraps.

So we now turn to today’s news, as published by our very own Goebbels organisation, the BBC Today Programme. We had a turgid piece about the production of a ‘hamburger’ costing around £250,000.00 and made or ‘grown’ from stem cells. Then the usual rubbish about sports, a piece about how a train was late, and a lot of chatter about ‘zero-hour contracts’, and how terrible they are, and how the Tory Government are so awful to allow them. Another episode of the long drawn-out saga of the Catholic Church and the latest scandal of sexual abuse by Benedictine monks in Scotland. Then the triumph of the BBC’s investigative journalists in the discovery that the dead Boston Bomber, the one who was actually killed by his younger brother as he drove over him whilst escaping, had ‘strong links’ to ‘Right Wing American hate sites on the Web’. I presume we were expected to infer from this ‘bombshell’ that the two clowns who killed three and maimed one hell of a lot more that day in Boston were not Muslim Jihadi murderers, but in fact were deeply influenced by the likes of Timothy McVeigh; and of course, by extension of that inference, by the BNP and the EDL.

I have visited the online spoutings of Anders Breivik of Norwegian infamy. Does this make me into a prospect for a mass murder? Of course it does not. I would like to pin a great many politicians to a wall, but I would just imprison them for a long, long time.

 

The BBC: a great successor to the proud traditions of Herr Goebbels, who would be so proud of what they have achieved with his perverted ideals!

Touch Me Not!

Some six years ago, I wrote a piece on the astounding number of ‘Untouchables’, or Dalits, to give them their Indian title, in the country which proudly advertises itself as ‘the largest Democracy in the world’. Largest, it may well be; but Democratic? No Way! Allow me to explain.

India is one of the world’s most heavily-populated countries, being second only to China in numbers, but apart from the well-known political and public figures, there is little awareness amongst the wider public in how India governs itself, both in terms of religion, politics and social structure. The main religion in India is Hinduism, and the social structure which has emerged from this belief structure is the “Caste” system, whereby a religion is allowed to dictate that people are only allowed to do certain jobs, marry certain women, and even are dictated how they are treated after their deaths. For the upper circles, who are known as ‘Brahmin’, the professions are religious priests, political and military leaders; land owners are from the ‘Kshatriya’ caste, the vast majority of laborers, artisans and technicians are ‘Shudra’; but the one “Caste” which is not well publicised or even acknowledged are the “Harijan”, otherwise known as the Dalits, or “Untouchables”. These people, sentenced by, and at birth, to be sewage workers, cleaners of filth and human refuse, number some twenty percent of the population, and in a country which prides itself upon it’s democratic roots and government, it is indeed a strange commentary that one-fifth of it’s population is barred from rising out of the sewers and into everyday life!

Although the actual discriminatory process against the ‘Dalits’ was outlawed by the first Independent Indian parliament, in practice this abuse of their ordinary rights as human beings has persisted, and in many areas grown stronger, as the ruling Hindu parties, whether in or out of power, all subscribe to the casual barring of some 220 million Indians from just about all state higher education, all technical education, most jobs which are not akin to the allegedly “unclean” tasks such as sewage workers or latrine cleaners. In many cafes or restaurants, separate glasses are kept for the Dalits, just in case a ‘higher caste’ person is defiled by contact with a “Dirty Dalit”. One Dalit who managed to attain a higher education was severely beaten by his classmates for daring to achieve a higher marks than they did. A practice for certain ‘higher-caste’ people in earlier times was to actually send servants down a road to ensure that they would not be contaminated by a Dalit’s gaze, never mind his presence.

One of the two most famous ‘Untouchables’ was Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, a mild-mannered but strong opponent of all discrimination, who was elected to the Constituent Assembly by the Bombay Legislature Congress Party. Dr Ambedkar joined Nehru’s Cabinet. He became the First Law Minister of Independent India and helped write India’s Constitution. His one regret was that he did not persuade Ghandi to support stronger anti-discrimination legislation, but his attempts were blocked by strong Hindu opposition. In his later years, he saw that opposition to the emancipation of his fellow ‘Dalits’ become further entrenched, despite the supposed end of discrimination.

The other political firebrand was one Kanshi Ram, who attempted to build his own political power base within the ‘Dalit’ community, and in fact managed to engineer the election of a Dalit woman, Mayawati, as chief minister in Uttar Pradesh, but has since accepted before his death that no one “Untouchable” organization is capable of coming to terms with the aspirations of a quarter-billion people!

So the next tactic of hundreds of thousands of Dalits is to convert to Buddhism; the thinking being that if they are no longer ‘Dalit’ in practice, they cannot be discriminated against, and it would be seen as doubly illegal for any to discriminate against a separate religion. They seem to have struck a nerve, because Hindi political parties in several Indian states are preparing legislation which would prevent any Hindu departing from their religion and accepting another God. Rajahstan and Madyha Pradesh have already introduced civil laws which would prevent any Dalit from leaving Hinduism without registering first with the state government, and Gujarat, a hardline Hindu state, is considering introducing a law which states that Buddhism is a version of Hinduism, so desperate are the traditional Hindu people to keep in servitude millions of their fellow countrymen.

 So here we stand, in the second most populous country on Earth, with the prospect of ‘affirmative action’ as one political solution proposed for all commerce in India, where any factory, office or workshop would have to employ a percentage of ‘Dalits’ in order to comply with the law, when it is almost universally accepted that ’Quotas’ never have, and never will, work. Why ‘affirmative action’? Because it’s a politician’s dream, to lay the burden for their stupidity and cupidity on someone else’s shoulders, because they couldn’t or wouldn’t grasp the thorny problem of stating, “No discrimination based on birth, color, belief or way of life is lawful, and thus shall not be allowed!” That is the solution, but it will be many years before the wider world sees an Indian “Untouchable” as a possible Prime Minister, if ever!

I write and recollect this post because, unknown to myself and probably 99% of the population of Great Britain, this disgusting philosophy is both resident and thriving in our cities and towns. According to an item broadcast at 01.30 minutes into the programme on today’s ‘Sunday’ on BBC Radio 4, the Coalition Government has purposely  delayed even publishing legislation covering ‘Caste Discrimination’ until after the next General Election. There are some one million Hindus resident in Great Britain, and in the past I have commented on the ’fact’ that they seem to have merged into our British society with minimum difficulty, with the sole exception of changing our burial laws to allow their open-air cremations in accord with their own custom and religion. It now has emerged that some 400,000 Indians living in these Islands are discriminated on a daily basis because of their BIRTH,  and hence because of the presumed ‘Caste’ and place in the rigid hierarchy of some weird religious writings, all of which, incidentally, were composed by, guess who? The Brahmins, otherwise known as the very top of the heap, and it is some ‘heap’, in daily Hindi life.

I listened to the weasel words of the Brahmin contributor to that Sunday Programme, and I could not help comparing my thoughts to those of the great Playwright and Author himself, when he wrote, “Firstly, lets kill all the lawyers’” Not, of course, because I wished that man evil, but because he spoke of the ‘great complexity’ of the problem; of the ‘great difficulty’ in removing this disgraceful, lunatic and truly hurtful religious discrimination from a large number of people who are suffering innumerable insults because of who their antecedents were some centuries ago!