Left of Sinister

Another Day Older and Deeper in Debt

2019-11-20T09:18:00.001+00:00

Just watched all the ITV leaders' shows. What a bunch of professional Gaslighters! I don't believe any of them and sadly, as it so often is, our voting choice is "pick the lesser numpty"!

Once again the main political parties have based their manifestos on borrowing Billions, or in some cases Trillions!
Have you noticed how they never ask us if we want to take out loans so large our grandchildren's grandchildren will still be paying them back?
We already owe £2.3 Trillion (about a 1/3 of million per person) and it increases at a rate of £5,000+ per second! PER SECOND!
Current UK repayments on that debt previous governments have already shackled us to amounts to £46 billion a year! £46,000,000,000.00 ! (That would fund 1/3 of the NHS!)
No political party should be considering borrowing even a single penny! And instead should be promoting a 100 year moratorium on Government borrowing or, at the very least, no more borrowing until we've paid off the hideously embarrassing current massive debt.

All "1st world" economies should be shrinking their unfair share of the global economy - let the developing countries catch up - and then maybe we can have a truly equal world. Every country should be aiming for a net-zero-growth, sustainable, self-sufficient(wherever possible) economy.

No gods - No masters - No slaves

Collective Responsibility

2019-09-27T10:52:00.002+01:00

Remember how much heat tech used to generate?
Ever burn your fingers changing a 100w light-bulb after it had been on only 5 minutes?
Ever wonder what all that wasted extra heat was doing?
New tech is so low powered it's likely anyone born after 2000 would have to live a 1000 years to match the carbon we oldies burned innocently watching our Christmas movies on valve sets. But the point is this is not about who's to blame, us oldies didn't know how much energy a valve set was consuming, how much damage watching Morecambe and Wise Xmas special was doing to the globe. Us oldies didn't know that vaccination and better medicines would double the global population in our life time, doubling the rate of drain on resources and amplifying pollutants thereby. We were just living, being good citizens, consuming what we were 'expected' to consume, living within the law, expecting our governments to fulfil their number one mission to keep us safe. None of us realised they were not.

Now that we do know though...
Any who do not take on the responsibility of their actions and limit their energy use to counterbalance what they have, however innocently, already burned, can only be viewed as an wholly irresponsible hedonist.

Very simply - for every penny one spends there is a pollution/carbon cost.
Any act whatever, any travel, any purchase at all that is not an absolute necessity, that is undertaken purely for one's pleasure, is burning a piece of the future for short term gratification.
Perhaps L'oreal should be asked to stop telling women "You're are worth it" because, in the current climate crisis, what they are saying they are worth is "a few minutes less clean air for your descendants to breathe". From my point of view, presenting a fake image of oneself by dying one's hair is insufficient reason for the pollution produced by that dye's manufacture and use. Be honest about your hair - Go grey for your grandchildren's, grandchildren.
A case can easily be made to end all motor racing - In the current climate crisis, who can go fastest, in what is about to be an obsolete mode of locomotion, is an utterly irresponsible abuse of energy.
Ground all air "pleasure" flights - Nobody's desire to experience another culture is worth the carbon cost of getting them there.
Come to that; ban all advertising for luxury(unnecessary) products. If we don't know it's there, we can't buy it, fewer will be manufactured and at a slower rate - carbon will be saved.

A side note, shopping is not a hobby, get at a hobby.

If the future goes into the toilet, it won't be down to the fat cats' avarice, or any one group, it will be down to all those hedonists who, in the light of clear evidence of the damage their lifestyle was causing, refused to curtail their selfish consumption. Neither Governments nor scientists can save the future - Only the will of 7 billion people, ALL taking responsibility for tempering their own desires can ensure humanity endures.

We need a new 21st century twist on an old saying...
If it ain't broke...
You don't need to shop for a new one.

I wholly support Greta.

I hold these truths self-evident

2018-04-27T11:16:00.000+01:00

For those of you who do not know I am a Briton; born and bred in Wales in Great Britain. I would not usually step into a debate over the laws of foreign soil; such topics are for they who have deep roots to their comprehension of their own land's documents and so I feel such topics are for those native to their land. However, recently, as part of discussion on "natural law" and "anarchy", I was sent a link to the United States of America's Declaration of Independence.
I had not read it fully before, it's only of passing interest to us foreigners, but the second paragraph stopped me and, while I wholly admire the elegance of the language, have the greatest respect for the honourable intent of the sentiments expressed and the venerable thinkers involved, and find little fault with the rest of the text, there's much that is troubling about the second paragraph of the declaration.

No offence is meant by this post; I was asked to investigate, so I have.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness..."

"We hold these truths to be self-evident" On consideration this statement actually imparts... "These truths may not be self-evident or true be we, in our fallible wisdom, currently perceive them to be both and have agreed to consider them as such."

"That all men are created equal" - "Equal" is not in evidence. If "created" here means "moment of conception" equal is not the case. All sperm is genetically different from the next, all eggs are genetically different from the next. Environmental factors affecting the pregnant mother's well-being shapes each individual pregnancy so that, as we know, babies cannot be said to be born physically or mentally equal. Human interaction as we grow, and interactions with environment, society, family, friend and foe have effect on each of us through childhood to adults, where physical and mental equality is not in evidence in human society, even, often, between twins!

"that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights;" - To comply with the later penned Constitution's 1st amendment prohibiting the establishment by government of any form of theistic belief system and to avoid the embarrassing and improper implication of establishing belief in a deity brought about by the omission of an "s" at the end of 'creator', usage of "creator" must be taken to imply only the biological parents of the individual, but then the notion of "unalienable rights" becomes problematic. While parents may endow rights on their offspring, those rights are not inalienable because the parent deemed them so. The rights themselves must be inalienable, not bestowed by some imagined or real "authority". The point of natural rights is surely that no authority is capable of endowing them, partly because, I think, it takes a society/civilisation to identify them as such.

"that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" - This is not in evidence. In all but human society(the rule of natural law in the rest of the cosmos) a creature has life and liberty only until it gets eaten or dies of disease or injury. No right to continued life is bestowed or implied by birth. As neither surviving nor being free to live are "rights" outside human society, neither life nor liberty can be said to be inalienable rights outside that realm, so the pursuit of happiness, being conceptually subjective to the genetics and life experiences of an individual member of a human society, similarly cannot be considered an inalienable right.

It seems to me the whole and sole point of a constitution amongst any group is to artificially level the playing field, to create a synthetic space in which natural law is restricted, prohibited, subverted or excluded; a constitution equalises the inherent inequalities of life in a human society by the implementation of a set of principles, which bestow on all members, regardless of the physical or mental abilities or the fiscal worth bestowed on them by their creators, an ethical equality.
It seems to me that the authority of such a document comes from the collective people's will for all members of that society to be considered equal under the laws of that society, all having the same rights and responsibilities; that they collectively choose to make life, liberty and happiness their principles is not subject to any but their own collective authority.
The words of the opening paragraphs seem to have a similar purpose to Henry VIII declaring his own hotline to god; making him directly answerable to the deity rather than being subject to the tyranny of the Catholic church's hotline. These words similarly move the newly formed American people from the tyranny of a monarch's deity hotline, to being directly answerable to that deity. I feel they only appear to grab freedom and on close inspection actually only transfer the 'ownership' of its souls from King to Deity. It's understandable that they should adopt the form they have, in the initial instance it was a tyrant king the were addressing, but it's a sadness that such a strident vision for an egalitarian future free of tyranny should be so shackled to the tyranny of theism that its founding document attributes the properties it identifies and annexes for its people as "inalienable rights" to any authority other than the living members of the society to whom the document pertains.

As I implied at the start there maybe context of which I, as a foreigner, am unaware so if you find fault or have comments, feel free.

A History of Anarchy

2018-04-27T11:15:00.001+01:00

A recent discussion with a proponent of "Natural law" and "Anarchy" prompted what follows...

Illustration 1.

Anarchy reigns...

A man rapes.
A boy is born.
The boy grows and strays from the mother to a fearful locale.
The mother finds her boy just in time and a scolding ensues.
The mother prohibits him from such locales.
Anarchy diminishes.

Some years later the boy gets a look in his eye and starts to chase a girl.
The mother catches him and educates him to not be rapey.
The boy says "Hello" to the girl.

Anarchy ends.

Illustration 2.

Anarchy reigns...
No authority rules the lawless land, individual family/tribal settlements pepper the land with little or no interaction.

A creature, never seen before, eats one settlement's goats in the night.
Next morning the 1st person to approach the 'Lion', to shoo it away, gets eaten.
The second person now knows there's a chance of being eaten and approaches from a different direction but also becomes part of breakfast.
The third person realises there’s a very high probability of getting eaten, collects the tribe's adults together and, with weapons, all chase the lion from the settlement.
On returning victorious the tribe make their 1st law:
When a Lion threatens what is ours protection and the restoration of the peace becomes the highest priority of all able bodied adult members of the tribe.
Anarchy diminishes.

Some weeks later, some smart lass recognises an oversight in the law and after consideration the tribe create their 1st amendment of their 1st law:
When what is ours comes under threat, protection and the restoration of the peace becomes the highest priority of all able bodied adult members of the tribe.
Anarchy diminishes.

Some generations later, the tribe's development now includes trading and business with other settlements and a feeling grows that the "all able bodied adult members" is an inconvenience, an argument is made that the interruptions in trade to quell threats was detrimental to the economy. A small boy who only understood the law from the story of how the tribe chased the lion voiced a notion; "If everyone paid a little bit, we could pay some people to chase lions away for us." Upon reflection their 2nd amendment was penned.
It is the highest priority of all able bodied adult members of the tribe to contribute to the upkeep of a force to police any threats, maintain the peace and to protect what is ours.

Anarchy ends.

It seems to me civilization is born of the rule of the laws made by generations of our ancestral kin as responses to, and a consequence of, the anarchy those eminent forebears experienced.
For me, anyone who thinks "we should abandon civilisation and give anarchy a try" is myopically seeking an impossible future knowing "we" have already rejected it from previous experience. That law exists shows anarchy was insufficient. And I say impossible future because returning to anarchy is pure fantasy: "There should be anarchy" is a diktat. Just speaking the words exposes the hypocrisy! As anarchy is not a system, and can have no authority who could continuously impart the ideology of 'anarchy', humans will make rules which they perceive make communal living easier. Law is abided by because it greases the wheels of communal living, replacing bloodshed and beatings with peaceful discourse. And, because humans are humans, what one has another wants law spreads.
From what I see, hierarchical authority structures are part of our DNA; what works for the family becomes transposed to the tribe, the society and civilisation. For me, when it comes right down to it any instance of universal global anarchy which may come about can last only until the next time a mother scolds her child.

Ecosystem is not Economy

2017-12-17T11:15:00.001+00:00

The UK Parliamentary MP's audible disdain for Britons is deafening...

Labour:             "We know what's best for you, you lovely, lovely thickoes."
Conservative:   "We know what's best for the country, you horrid, horrid thickoes."
Libdem:            "We've listened to the, er, less than average and we know what's best for, er, them."

Business:          "Hey Parliament, we want to be rich, so, your choice, ensure the thickoes have more babies or import more workers."

Tories:              "Oh, immigrants I think, they're far cheaper, we don't need to contribute to raising them, educating them or even training them in the job they'll do, it's clearly just economic sense, and we don't need to have that difficult conversation with the thickoes about falling native birthrates."

Parliament:       "Oooh yes! Immigrants will help us(MPs) get rich enough to not have to interact with the thickoes! Yes, 'immigrants is the best thing for the economy'!"

Britons:            "Excuse me, shouldn't we be making this decision?"

Parliament:      "We're your PARLIAMENT, you made US sovereign! We know what's best for the economy, don't you worry you're little heads about it!"

Britons:           "But shouldn't the country's economy shrink to fit the population? Growth beyond the population size is just growth for growth's sake; resource wasting greed, isn't it? Further though, Humans are not an unlimited resource; we cannot keep drawing people from their homelands, without impacting those homelands. Every percentage point of 'unnatural' growth 'this place' makes, directly diminishes 'another place'! No nation has the right to suck the world dry of the brightest, accumulating vast wealth 'here', when their businesses could choose to grow in those homelands, growing their economies until equilibrium is achieved. Can such a policy produce anything but corporate-brand zombie nations? Rather than corporate-greed driven mass migrations, which impose without consent transformation of the human ecosystem on both ends, if we want true global equality, where even the concept of a richest and poorest nation fades to history, shouldn't economic equilibrium, in tune with natural native birthrates, be the goal?"

Parliament:      "Shhhh! We're very busy growing the economy, sweetie, here's a crayon!"

I am Briton so it's from my perspective but I suspect many, everywhere hear similar disdain from their corporate brown-nosing politicos too.

Blaming Grandma

2016-06-27T08:50:00.000+01:00

Dear UK 18 to 24 year olds,
It wasn't your grandma and granddad who decided your futures...

In the UK there are on average 724,000 births a year.
So an estimate of the UK population between the ages of 18 and 24 years old (6 yrs X 724,000) is 4,344,000 voters.

Voter turnout in this 18 to 24 year old age group was about 36% or 1,563,840 voters so...
From 7am to 10pm on 23rd June 2016 approximately 2,780,160 potential voters in this age group were snoozing(or something).

Now, we know 75% of the conscious 18 to 24 year olds voted Remain, which is approximately 1,215,000 votes.

And we also know, Leave won by 1,269,501 votes so...

If those 18 to 24 year olds who did not vote, had voted in the same ratio
and 75% of the 2,780,160 snoozers had visited a polling station,
there would have been another 2,085,120 votes for Remain.

Meaning Remain would have won by 815,619

Stop blaming the little old ladies and apologise to your grandparents!
It’s your friends and peers you should be furious with.

Turns out,
believing in democracy and the power of your vote and giving enough of a shit to turn up, really helps to win a referendum!

Irreconcilable Differences

2016-06-13T13:14:00.001+01:00

Action:
A passionate relationship runs its course, there is still some love but one partner leaves for a new start.
Reaction:
The remaining partner rubbishes the former lover's reputation to everyone they knew and demands all shun the leaver.

Action:
A gang member sees no future in gang-banging and leaves.
Reaction:
The gang pops a cap in the poor chap's bottom.

Action:
A member of a Drug cartel chooses to leave.
Reaction:
The cartel have her knee-capped.

Action:
A member of, what so many politicians like to call, "one of the world's great religions" has a revelation and leaves the faith.
Reaction:
The family of the "blasphemous spawn of Satan" think about killing their "shameful heretic child" but settle on disowning "the demon."

Action:
After a disagreement over restrictive trading practices, a trader chooses to resign membership of a Trade Guild.
Reaction:
The guild sends word "all traders, in all trades, will deal harshly with the former member, or suffer similar penalty."

Action:
An honourable, strong and well respected long time partner in a trading block decides to take a different direction.
Reaction:
The trading block imposes tariffs and sanctions as punishment.

Different shovellers, shovelling the same shit.
It's a bully's market boys and girls.
While it's not much consolation, if they're the sort of people who pull this sort of tantrum, they have proved you were right in leaving.

My relationship with the EU started before I was born when my allegiance was pledged in a "marriage", arranged by representatives of my parents' generation. It seemed to work well enough for a while but started falling apart when I was about 30. I had grown out of my youthful naivety and had started to see through the flush of the romantic ideal of greater unity to the many troubling flaws of the arrangement. I noticed many great pillars of what was, had gone; fishing, steel, coal, aircraft manufacture, all sorts of heavy industry had virtually disappeared, even car manufacturing had been absorbed by the other parties to the contract. The relationship has been in trouble since I learnt of the corrosive contract changes in the Maastricht Treaty. And each new version of the arrangement, insisted upon by the other parties over the past twenty years, has only served to further distance us but, because of the deeply restrictive nature of the contract, I've been forced to wait nearly a quarter of century for my first opportunity to make my feelings known.

Citing irreconcilable differences.
I voted to leave the EU.

Only they are responsible for the maturity of their reaction.

If they are true friends they will understand their friend's need to leave the shared accommodation and support that brave decision as fully as they can.

Circling The Great Drain

2016-06-11T10:44:00.001+01:00

Some 800,000 years ago, before Britain was called Britain or was even an island, the first Briton was born to the first British mother.⁽¹⁾
For a third of a million years the species of Britain lived, hunted and gathered but many died in the harsh environment. Those who survived, as with all species, gave birth to those better suited to live in that ecosystem; species were formed and changed by the geographical, environmental and nutritional peculiarities of the island. About 400,000 years ago a couple of massive floods, likely lasting several months each and totalling more than the flood that separated Europe from Africa millions of years before, burst through from Doggerland and formed the channel, mostly separating Britain from Europe.
Over the next 180,000 years the cave-dwelling Palaeolithic Homo Erectus and Neanderthal Britons, and the other species of Britain which were sustaining them in their evolution with the newly formed country, had it increasingly tough as they retreated South away from the encroaching ice.⁽²⁾
When 20,000 years ago the last ice age ended the Brits expanded again, eradicating or taming the wild beasts and making the land better suited to the next evolution of their species; old men planting trees they'll never sit in the shade of, etc. 16,000 years later they had built a civilisation powerful enough to trade extensively with Europe(Beaker & Bell, Celts) and to source, transport and erect Stonehenge.
After the final land route to Europe was consumed by the sea, another 4,000 years of civilisation and trade with Europe and the wider world passed before Julius Caesar arrived with a couple of Legions in 55BCE to invade and expand his European Empire. The Britons put up a fight and he sailed away. A year or so later he returned with his European army of multiple legions and invaded, consolidated the Northern reaches of his European Empire and, possibly introduced slavery to Britain for the first time.⁽³⁾
It seems though, from the genetic record, there was very little intermingling, the Britons must have kept their legs closed to the Romans for the 400 years of occupation because the evidence suggests the nature of the Britons remained virtually unchanged.
Artificially dependent on the Roman Empire's super-state structure to function, Britain's civilisation collapsed when the Empire withdrew in 407ACE. The Germanic peoples of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, knowing the riches of Britain from their time as Roman Legionaries defending Britain, saw their chance of better land and invaded, consolidated England and brought, it is argued, up to 200,000 settlers. The intermarrying of those Saxon settlers with the English Britons, under the 400 years or so of Saxon occupation, has contributed up to 30% of the DNA of the English today. In 793ACE the Vikings invaded. After 200 years of battles, where again the Britons seem, from the genetic record, to have mostly kept their legs together, the Vikings are eventually subdued with what seems to have been an amount of gold which crippled Saxon Britain, and the Saxon overlords continued rule over the Britons until 1066.
Both the Vikings and the Normans invaded that year and the ensuing defeat of the Saxons saw new Norman invaders occupying Britain by force of stone castle and horse but, once again, it seems the British ladies largely evaded impregnation by the interlopers, though it seems the Normans brought with them a very defined sense of class and generally avoided marrying the natives, who they considered beneath them (first signs of the famous "British" snootiness perhaps?). Anyway this latest band of insurgents took control and remained rulers. Britain's current(mostly) form was born out of the troubles of that last invasion and occupation; the doomsday book freed 28,000 Britons and Saxons from slavery, Oxford University was founded and Magna carta was signed, laying the groundwork for ANY and ALL to be held accountable by the law of the land. It was about time, for over a thousand years the Britons had been tenants and slaves in the land they had spent nearly a million years tending!
For the next thousand years the Britain we know today has grown from that basis of elitist control, various families, houses and factions vying for power.
Eventually Britain consolidated under a powerful crown, a single leader 'chosen by god'. The might of 'god's will' enabling the elites to rule(it's god's plan u know!) and the mass of taxes(or promise of future taxes) enabled the elites to create fully equipped standing armies to do their bidding. Those of us who are grunts(the powerless) today, would have been grunts then, and just as I have no desire to harm any other human, neither did the grunts then. The people had no wish to go to war with Spain, France, or anywhere else. The elites have never declared war on any country because a band of illiterate Britons, who knew nothing of country X, rocked up to the palace and said "You know that country we've never heard of, we'd like to go and take it over." Never once! All battles fought were commanded by the elites. Those Britons unlucky enough to be conscripted to fight in the elite's wars had no wish to go, they were farmers and bakers, they, like any modern human, like my granddad in the last war, just wanted a happy family life with the chance of a good feed and an afternoon nap on a Sunday.
The best excuse for empire building ever conceived, "The Christian god wants you to be missionaries and spread his most holy and rational words to the primitive savages who have not had the privilege of hearing them" encouraged the European descendants of the Normans and Saxons to set sail from Britain and France, and the Spanish from Spain, each with conscripted armies to spread the word and plunder the world.
For centuries, millions of Britons, but also the poor of each of the Empire building European nations, were conscripted to serve the greed of the elites. For centuries, in every army, the soldier who refused to follow orders was killed, as example to others; "If I refuse to shoot that 'godless savage' I've been ordered to, the man behind me will shoot me for being a traitor" is a powerful motivator for any human whose family is relying for their survival on his continuing, if meagre, soldier's pay, especially when they had army chaplains, the only moral guide available to them, preaching "the Bible tells us the godless are the work of Satan".
While those unfortunate slaves of the powerful were off around the world acting on the orders of the elites, a great many more Britons, just as uneducated and illiterate as those in servitude of war, were at home, toiling away, having babies, raising houses and bridges, building Britain, trading peacefully, continuing their lives, and taking some comfort from the understanding that 'the righteous word of the one true god was being carried to those poor, currently damned, savages' and fed a daily diet of 'news' by the elites of how these 'clearly demonic, uncivilised peoples are irrationally rejecting the civilising word of the lord'.
All war machines that have existed have been elites vying for gold and using the poor as tools to fulfil their avarice.
This elitist enslavement of the Britons by the ruling classes continued for centuries, up until 1960 when national service was ended.
At the end of the second world war, when then the elite's subjugation of British citizens began to wane, the Britons created the National Health Service and Welfare State just as the rest of the world, those whom had been subjugated as per the elite's wishes, decided it was time to blame the repeatedly subjugated and enslaved Britons for the crimes of the elites, who commanded the invasions of most of the rest of the world.

To my knowledge, in nearly a million years of taming this island the native Britons have never chosen to invade anyone.

Since the 60s the ruling elites of Britain have continued to enslave the public, not by conscripting them but by both not fully informing them of the current situation and directly lying to conceal it. Take the Iraq war for a recent example. I would not have voted for it. I should have been asked but was not. The then Prime minister(elite) ordered the country's standing army to war for reasons other than defence. I am not responsible for what happened. The elites acted, as always with the excuse "it's in the country's best interest" while completely ignoring the will of the people. Before the 1970s vote to join what was then the EEC, the then Prime Minister Edward Heath clearly lied to the public and parliament about the nature of the EEC's future, and each PM who has signed a treaty with Europe since, has known full well they were lying to the Britons. But as heinous as these crimes against democracy were, they pale in comparison to the biggest omission, hidden from view by the same sorts of concerns that enabled the recent Rotherham Rape scandal, the declining birth-rate of the native Britons. Half a century ago the British public should have been informed by parliament that native Britons were reproducing at an unsustainably low rate and, while the native birth-rate of a society is in decline, there are very few options.

1. Bring in foreign workers so the gold keeps flowing to the rich.
2. Shrink the economy to match the population/birth-rate.
3. Offer incentives to native women to have more than 2 children,(maybe a large cash award for each additional child) and make it a condition of residency for non-natives to leave the country in the event of a second pregnancy.
4. Offer incentives to ex-pats to repatriate, and to Non-natives to repatriate.
Or a combination thereof(and others).

But for various reasons, one of which I'm sure was not wanting to be accused of racism, as in Rotherham, the public was not informed and instead the money-hungry, gold fetishists, unsurprisingly, defaulted and have remained defaulted to solution number 1.

The facts remain simple and clear, while more immigrants arrive in Britain than there are native Britons born to it, peaceful immigration will finally consume the family line of 'Homo Brito' more thoroughly than all the combined invading armies of the past. In fact it's painful irony that more have arrived in Britain since hostilities ceased in 1945 than arrived in all of the invasions of history added together.
With so few native births, Britons, and Western culture in general come to that, are in a declining spiral to extinction. Without an immediate, audacious and likely politically controversial conservation programme, such as is mentioned above, it may already be too late to save this unique variety of the human species.(And the same is true for many, including Japan, Finland and Russia). I don't know the word for when a society sleepwalks to extinction but the Britons are in the process of it; the next couple of centuries will see the end of us and yet another 'way of being human' will be lost to history, consumed this time not by a band of slaughtering invaders but by economic greed.
And what are we doing to prop up this culture? Here, in Wales, there are programmes where people can learn to speak Welsh - Saving the culture for... who exactly? In very few generations there will be no natives born to the culture.
In the current situation free movement of people only benefits the elites who want to keep the gold flowing to them, and does so at the wholly detrimental expense of concealing the dangerously low native birth-rate problem, thereby hastening the demise of a variety of humanity who gave the world so much genius.
If we Britons want to have any chance of reversing our demise, we have only two options..
End all immigration immediately; impose a zero entry policy until the native birth-rate rises to above 2.1 children per native woman, so Britain is experiencing proper the real growth brought by an increasing native population, not merely the hollow, capitalist measure of economic success held as paramount by myopic gold fetishists.
Or, Accept the modern British woman's ideological decision that the planet needs less people, which I've heard from many women since we, in the 'West', have been "saving the planet, man", as a reason to have fewer children, and impose a rule on immigrants that they can have no more children than the British women have deemed a proper and sensible birth rate for the modern female, and as a nation work toward spreading the message of their ecologically generous ideological choice to the rest of the world, along with the contraceptive means to achieve it.
Either option requires tight control of borders for decades.

For any who are confused, I'm not advocating the conservation of one peoples at the expense of another, this is not about hatred of others but love of my own. As a compassionate human race, every day we instigate and maintain conservation programmes designed to aid in the survival and preserve endangered species across all the globe. Look at the effort put into preserving Pandas for example. And I doubt any would propose allowing either the African or Indian elephant to go extinct simply because 'we don't need the diversity'. I see no difference in advocating similarly sage advice for any people in danger of extinction because of low birth rate and high immigration.

I'm a Gog, born and bred in North Wales, a poet, artist, writer, a flame haired, speckled, blue skinned atheist, born within spitting distance of where pre-christian druids performed their ceremonies so, naturally, I identify as a descendant of the original Britons and I am helplessly witnessing our genetic and cultural suicide.
I do not think the furore over immigration is actually about immigration per se, most Britons are not xenophobic, I think it's about the Britons becoming subconsciously, and increasingly consciously, aware that the level of immigration and the relatively higher birthrate of those new arrivals, is more than the native, ideologically chosen, 'unhealthy' birthrate can withstand and that the current disparity in figures can only lead to the extinction of Britain, replaced with a tribute band of its former self. And, with that loss, the possible loss of the planet saving goal their informally collective choices were working toward.

More than enough damage has been done to the Britons by unelected elites.

-*--*--*-

(1) I suggest it is highly unlikely that the evidence supporting the 800,000 year date⁽⁴⁾ was not generated by this land's very first arrivals, so we may assume 800,000 years is a conservative estimate for the date of the 1st Briton.

(2) I've been unable to find data proving British species wholly evacuated 'Britain' during this period so...
Humans survive living relatively near glaciers, above the arctic circle Inuits build igloos.

The recent report from Norfolk⁽⁴⁾ carries a suggestion of human control of fire even a million years ago.

There is evidence to suggest Humans survived the last ice age.⁽⁵⁾

With such an enormous increase in the mass of ice comes a fall in sea levels.

For the Britons, experiencing the approaching ice, Britain would have grasslands, increasing west and south each season to, eventually, as far as West as the UK continental shelf with a coastline stretching as far South as Spain.

It's likely the receding tides also revealed many caves, currently beneath the sea, which would provide shelter.

As we see in aboriginal modern humans, in both Australia and America, incremental, prey-tracking winter and summer migration is a method of group survival.
From points 1,2,3 we can say that surviving an ice age is possible.
From points 4,5,6,7 we can say there was sufficient opportunity for survival.
In the absence of evidence wholly disproving the speculation, given these variables, it does not seem unreasonable to hypothesise the earliest Britons, they who had already spent 1/2 million years with the Isles as 'home', 'stayed'.

(3)There are records of enslaved Britons in ancient Greece, though it's possible Britons in Britain did not know slavery was the fate of those who went missing. It's equally possible the practise existed in Briton before then, I just know of no record before Commius in 50BCE.

DNA links:
The first fine-scale genetic map of the British Isles.
Genetic study reveals 30% of white British DNA has German ancestry.
The Anglo-Saxon Invasion: Britain Is More Germanic than It Thinks.

History links:
(4) Scientists find 800,000-year-old footprints in UK
(5) DNA evidence proves that early humans survived the last Ice Age
Dam-busting ‘megaflood’ made Britain an island.
Ice Age Maps showing the extent of the ice sheets.
Timeline of British history.
Invaders.

Another Rule For The Rest

2016-06-10T10:58:00.001+01:00

Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union prohibits cartels that could disrupt free competition in the European Economic Area's internal market.
The article details points and clauses for honourable trade practises for parties within the European Union.
These points and clauses, as I understand them, are laudable, honourable modes of practise and I wholeheartedly support them; I mean, the practises are honourable because they are honourable, not because the European Union deems them to be so.
Now, as I see it, if cartels were good for a market the EU would not have bothered penning Article 101, written as it is to specifically to prevent their formation in the market, so we can say that the EU views cartels as dishonourable.
Surely then, treating those who are not members of the Union differently, by imposing tariffs etc, prevents competitive forces from outside the membership, distorts the single market's true performance and disrupts free competition in the world, which, as I see it, turns the Union into a cartel in the global marketplace; a self preserving club, with one rule for the 'blue-eyed boys' and another rule for the rest, who are collectively acting dishonourably toward the rest of the world.

For me, all nations should be treated and traded with equally.
I would always vote to leave a dishonourable association.
I will vote to leave the EU.

United in Diversity

2016-05-28T09:54:00.000+01:00

"The motto means that, via the EU, Europeans are united in working together for peace and prosperity, and that the many different cultures, traditions and languages in Europe are a positive asset for the continent.
Article

The motto of the European Union since the 90's has been "united in diversity", like, I suppose, an orchestra; each instrument of distinct form and sound fulfilling a unique role in the ensemble. So, okay, the EU is countries not instruments but I think it's a fair analogy of the motto.
So how did the EU come to the conclusion that preserving the union's many different cultures, traditions and languages meant "the free movement of people", the ideology that encourages each and every diverse culture to mix with every other of the diverse cultures? How does free movement protect the diversity of the union? What consideration was given by the EU politburo before imposing their mass movement ideology? I mean, did they spend a quarter of a century on testing, to determine the optimum rate at which new arrivals can be properly assimilated into a country's culture before irreparable damage is done to that origin of diversity? Or, to extrapolate further, where the numbers of those arriving in a nation reach a quantity which outstrips the numbers born of its indigenous culture, does the immigration serve only to dissolve the wellspring of that distinctive culture, thereby undermining or even destroying the diversity this union is supposed to celebrate? Without detailed data on such effects, can it not be said that the EU was negligent in imposing the ideology? And, if they did not 'do the math', as they seem to have not, must we not consider the EU's ideological misjudgement to be either incompetence of epic proportions or that it is running a different agenda?
We have all heard the phrase in relation to the European project "multiculturalism has not worked"; should we assume then that, belying its own motto, assimilation was never the aim? That the goal was always multiculturalism? That they really have no wish to support the diversity of the union?
I give as example the 'previously undiscovered Amazonian tribe'; a great many would argue for the preservation of their way of life, to enable them to retain their culture and traditions, the essence of their diversity from our way of living.
Assimilation here would be... any new person joining the tribe, would be JOINING the tribe and would learn the tribe's ways.
Multiculturalism here would be... ignoring the tribe's protests, the new person sets up a satellite TV & Lazyboy in the middle of the tribe's camp and starts handing out croissants and bratwurst.
As a further illustration, I think we would all agree that when romantic partners marry, they should not be forced to become each other, one opinion, one way of doing things, one wardrobe, one shoe box and one sexuality. Each should be encouraged and supported in maintaining their distinctive personality within the union; their strength in unity born of their differing perspectives an opinions.
I see no reason why we would advise differently for countries.

The high-minded ideal of the EU multiculturalists seems to be: Every European street containing a representative of each of the diverse nations best celebrates the diverse cultures of the Union. I don't see it that way; I think that would instead produce a new homogeneous culture, a coagulation of the cultures, which does nothing to protect the origins of the union's diversity and can only serve to undermine that particular wellspring.
However, have the EU simply failed, as a consequence of their ideological zeal, to realise neat multicultural streets would not form but instead ex-pat micro-nations would grow within states? Or, was it always the goal to create a new homogeneous Euro-culture? A goal which has been repeatedly denied by Europhiles and publicly utterly ruled out by every UK Prime minister who ever signed an EU treaty. A goal then, which would appear to have the hallmarks of an underhanded, undermining of the democratic rights of those diverse peoples.

As I see it, united in diversity should seek to maintain the wellsprings of diversity making up the union, not dilute and diminish them for short term, treasure-hunting, economic migration. If those coming to Britain are coming to be British, to abandon their old culture because they see British culture as more suited to how and who they want to be, so be it, when the infrastructure and housing becomes available, they are welcome to join us. It would be sad if they arrived to find Britain no longer existed because the EU had done nothing to protect our unique culture.
In my opinion, on seeing many more migrating to Britain than can be reasonably be absorbed while still retaining British culture, and to prevent the new mass influx feeling to the Britons like the dreaded invasion of WW2 had merely been postponed, the EU should have acted immediately, suspending the free movement of people to Britain, invoking a points system for entry, under UK control, to remain in place until an independent oversight body reported Britain had managed to assimilate the influx into British society. This would have been the EU protecting the diversity of the union. That they did not act so, is deeply troubling.

I am discomforted by both the Remain and Leave options.

I am wholly in favour of peace, freedom of trade, unity of purpose, equality, caring for our environment and all the other liberal principles which both the UK and the EU hold high and therefore wish to vote Remain to support all those high ideals but find I am unable to.
As it stands, because of the utterly unnecessary and highly disrespectful, multicultural ideological imposition by the EU and Cameron's woeful renegotiation, a remain vote would continue to include the free movement of people at invasion-scale levels, which will inevitably bring the destruction of the diversity the EU claims to celebrate. I do not wish to vote leave but the EU's intransigent headlong rush to a new incorporated multicultural paradigm is a wholly unacceptable imposition and I am left without option.

My hope is that voting leave will not be the end but the start, that it will send a message to Cameron to discover what made the British public vote leave, then to offer the public a second chance. When it comes down to it, for all its many faults, the European Union is a spectacular achievement and nobody really wants it to end in failure because of ideological intransigence. With a mandate of what the British people actually want, instead of his own agenda, Cameron could easily go to back to Europe and say "These are the changes that must be made for us to stay." If the Europhiles really value the project more than the ideological impasse they will change. A leave vote would be a great kick up the arse of even most zealously obstinate Europhile, a clear message to the politburo and the wider world that ideological intransigence, whether political or religious, is unacceptable.

Finally, to pick up the orchestra analogy; On occasion, a Kazoo band is lovely but for my everyday listening pleasure I'd rather hear Elgar performed by a 28 piece symphony orchestra.

This is not the only issue I would want fixed before choosing remain; I'm wholly opposed to any secular union having such and overtly theological anthem but that goes for the UK too.

For my thoughts on what respectful immigration may look like see Generation Matters
For my thoughts on how to decide who is a suitable candidate for enrolment amongst the Britons see Britishness Test
(Both should be considered as only consultation documents)

Apologies to the Dead

2016-05-08T10:46:00.001+01:00

My Great Great Great Great Great Great Great granddad, Shaka, was Zulu
so apologies for the Zulu Kingdom.

My Great Great Great Great Great Great uncle, Caesar, was Italian
so apologies for the Roman Empire.

My Great Great Great Great Great granddad, Temüjin, was Mongol
so apologies for the Horde.

My Great Great Great Great uncle, Uthman, was Arabian
so apologies for the Caliphate.

My Great Great Great aunt, Elizabeth, was English
so apologies for the beginning of the Empire.

My Great Great granddad, Pizarro, was Spanish
so apologies for the Empire.

My Great uncle, Napoleon, was French
so apologies for the Empire.

My Grandma, Victoria, was English
so apologies for the Empire, again.

My Grandpa, George, was English
so a further, final apology for the Empire.

My Uncle, Adolf, was German
so apologies for the Nazis.

These utterly meaningless apologies were brought to you
by one of millions of descendants who are wholly innocent
of all acts prior to our own age of maturity.

Only the fathers can make amends for the sins of the fathers.
If they died before you extracted your pound of flesh,
it's over.

Forfending Barbarism

2016-01-20T12:25:00.000+00:00

A helpful cheat-sheet for those of this world who civilisation left behind and sadly, were raised as Barbarians.
(For Barbarians everywhere; not especially those in Cologne on New Years Eve.)

1. You may not touch a woman you do not know.
2. If you are acquainted with a woman, you may not touch her without her clear permission and consent.
3. If a woman has given permission and consent for you to touch her, the permission and consent is temporary, for a duration to be decided by the woman alone.
4. When the woman withdraws the permission and consent, you must IMMEDIATELY discontinue touching the woman.

Hope this was helpful.

Backbone

2015-10-08T21:36:00.001+01:00

Dear beardy-weirdy nutbag-in-chief of the current Islamist band of brainwashed bastards.

Hi, current Prime Minister of one of those pesky infidel countries of the west here, we call it Great Britain; a lovely place whose kind, generous and quite frankly brilliant people left behind medieval thinking, such as that which you which to impose, way back, I forget when, must have been, oooh, medieval times!
Anyway, as you may have heard our nuclear deterrent, commonly known as Trident, is coming up to its use-by date and it seems such a shame to just throw away those extremely expensive missiles without ever having even tried them so, rather than just force them into the pedal-bin and hope the bin men don't notice, I thought I'd attempt to get some value from the investment made in them and maybe avoid the cost of disposing of them properly into the bargain, sort of two birds one stone, you understand.

To this end, and after much research into the many groups of nutbag religious fanatics threatening global warfare forever, which comprised a shortlist with an unsurprisingly Islamic theme, I'm delighted to inform you your band of tantrum teens has been selected by duly elected committee to receive the dog's bollox of regime ending fireworks displays.

With this mind, please take note:
The nuclear submarines housing our entire stock of nuclear weapons are currently positioning themselves to deliver their full payload to your door, don't worry the postage is covered, and, in exactly one week, they will launch and inflict, what I'm reliably and succinctly informed, is a radioactive hole of fucking monstrous proportions in the part of the world you have commandeered. So, in the spirit of fair play, which I know is a concept unknown to you but which is extremely important to us, I would like to extend an invitation to yourself and your fighters to sit back and enjoy the show.

To all those innocents currently subjected to the barbarism and savagery the regime imposes, don't worry, in a week it will all be over. :) You have three options, leave fairly quickly, rise up and overthrow your oppressors or stay cowering in your religiously propagated haze and get blown to paradise or purgatory alongside them.

To all fighters who know what it means to have royally pissed-off a fucking fearsome Briton and full well know thermonuclear death and destruction WILL rain on the lands infected with this insidious Islamic plague and make it uninhabitable for a century or more, lay down your arms, walk, hands on head, to the nearest opposing forces and throw yourselves on their mercy.

Best regards to all for a speedy resolution in this matter.

Yours with reluctant but imminent ~~threat~~ promise (you brought it on yourselves),
P.M. UK.

Pomp Trumps Principles

2015-09-18T11:40:00.001+01:00

Jeremy Corbyn, the new Labour leader has accepted the Prime Minister’s invitation to join the Privy Council, a largely ceremonial body where members are given national security and intelligence briefings and gain the title "Right honourable".

It seems that to join the Privy Council one is required to kneel before and kiss the hand of the Monarch!
What century are we living in? Entry to this high-most club should not require demeaning oneself or ones values.
Is it not so, that we have equality high on our agenda?
Have we not recently had equality of gender in marriage?
Is it not right that a black woman has no more or less rights than a white man?
Do we not agree that girls and boys have parity in the eyes of the law?
How then is it the right and proper way to proceed, to make a one human kneel, against their wishes, before another?
How is there equality and mutual respect in such an imposition?
How is forcing someone to bend to your will, valuing their honour or principles?
How is the compulsion to the bended knee not bullying?
If Jez went and stood before her Maj and did not bend, would he be 'persuaded'? Would an MI5 chap in shades lean in and rest the heavy hand of a muscular arm on our Jez's shoulder 'til his knees buckled to the cushion(like a cushion makes it acceptable)? Or would he simply be escorted from Buck house in a "You don't do the hazing you can't be in our gang" imposition. Either way it smacks of every Mafia, Banana Republic, Corrupt religious leader and Street Gang movie I've ever seen.
Surely one should be respected for one's beliefs and principles, not expected to corrupt oneself and lie or act, under duress, merely to give the appearance of conformity?
And the words of the oath compound the problem! For me swearing "by almighty god" would make the oath meaningless. "I swear by the pretend being, you pretend exists, the following things." It's nonsense!
Then for a Republican who in essence, at the very least intellectually, IS a member of the potential group to which another part of the oath refers, those who would work against the monarchy, it would be wholly dishonest to not own up to a priori contravention of that component of the oath! To take the oath without the admission would make it all pure theatre, merely to overcome the entry requirements! And, in making that admission, could one be a part of that council? Wouldn't one thereby be prohibited simply for being honest, honourable and principled? And wouldn't the council be excluding thereby a person showing exactly the sort of principled behaviour the council should be proud to welcome? How does this support free speech and open discourse?
To force this prostration and oath in this form is ludicrous.
And when both parties know the act would be pretence and flimflam, a fraud to gain entry, how can either consider the other honourable? Surely, it only encourages a corrupt and distrusting mindset? And doesn't it highlight the need for reform of these entrenched prejudices against those of a differing view?

And kiss her Maj's hand?
A Throwback to slapping a warm wet one on the Cardinal's gracious ring perhaps?
Makes me sick.

How can it be right and proper in 21st century Britain that ancient pomp trumps honourable, principled behaviour?
To the British Government - get this sorted - No Briton should be allowed to treat another as a slave or be expected to accept a requirement to act as one.
You should well know what Britons never, never will be.

It Is Just Cricket

2015-09-16T17:50:00.001+01:00

On Jeremy Corbyn's peaceful resistance to singing the British national anthem at the recent Battle of Britain service.
The problem is that the national anthem is not inclusive. One may feel pride in the achievements of the nation but be fundamentally opposed to the meaning, history and non-inclusive nature of the song.
It discomforts me to sing the anthem. It is not because I am a republican, I'm not, I mean I mostly am, but there are specific caveats to me claiming the label, but rather because, as some of you may know, I am atheist and anti-theism activist and as such utterly opposed to the promotion of fantasy fables, which call for my demise, and corrupts facts into a mockery of the intelligent.
The anthem's themes and lyrics are derisive of me; why would I sing along as if all was okay and I had not noticed this disrespect?
It would be dishonest of me to sing them, the words are meaningless:

"Nonexistent being save our gracious Queen"??

While I wish the lady all the very best in the world, and have a soft spot for her for numerous reasons, asking for her protection from a fantasy figure makes the anthem meaningless to me; even as insult:

"I wish no real being to save our head of state."

Integrity is a cornerstone of this country's love affair with fair play, it's not claiming the catch with one foot over the boundary rope. It's being honest, even in the face of injury to one's family, friends, cricket team, social group or society.
Does the British public really expect those of us with integrity to abandon strongly held principles so that the establishment and they can pretend there are no differing voices in the country?
I do not sing the British national anthem for a set of principled objections, Jeremy did not sing for his different set.

The British national anthem is a stinging reminder that our country hates unbelievers but how many more UK residents are there who do not feel included in this for their own set of objections?

I am Welsh, I have no such issues with my homeland's, the Welsh national anthem

Isn't it time for a fresh set of lyrics, lyrics inoffensive to all, so we can all partake in an unfettered show of pride in our nation?

Milk and Lamb and Sustainability

2015-08-11T10:30:00.001+01:00

I'm sad for the UK farmers at the moment. They are under great financial stresses, suffering under global financial pressures from cheap milk prices and a glut of New Zealand lamb. Seems to me the playing field should be more reflective of local limitations; it is just not possible for a UK farmer who is confined within the costs of UK economy to produce Milk(or anything) as cheaply as a farmer in a country with a low wage economy.
So how do we build that market of a more sensitive nature?
Well, two birds with one stone; we can look to more eco-friendly behaviour.
There should be an Unsustainability Tax to inhibit the profit-driven carbon-hungry trend to "buy at the cheapest price and transport".
If for every 1000 miles of travel an item must make to reach its point of sale, a tax of 8% was applied to the sale price of that product, the cost of transporting say milk from say China to UK would be doubled or maybe tripled, making it comparable with the cost of producing milk in the UK. The collected tax could be specifically allocated for agricultural sector in the UK and not be absorbed into other government departments.
If every country on Earth carried the same policy, transportation of goods would likely reduce and those businesses who wish to expand into other countries would have no other viable option but to create manufacturing plants/farms etc nearer to the country of sale, which could, in turn, redistribute the manufacturing jobs which have been so lacking in the UK since corporations noticed they could pay slave wages in less well developed countries.
Could a single tax do all that? I dunno but it's got to be worth a try.

Equalization of Marriage

2015-06-28T19:54:00.001+01:00

Heartiest congratulations to all the humans who have benefited or will benefit from the recent USA equalization of marriage and commiserations, but with a tiny sticky-out tongue, to all the bigots who feel scared or upset about it.

This was a great day for the States and a fab message to reiterate around the world to those hideous oppressive regimes and theocracies who ban love.

The legalization raises a legal issue though or, rather, a question related to the legal system or, more correctly, the correctional system. And a question, the absence of a solution for which, has been doing my noodle in for a couple of weeks.

I don't know about the USA but here in UK it's legal for an inmate to marry.

Given that prisons are separated by sex and not gender, it's entirely possible for two gay prisoners to fall in love and, as there's no 'legal impediment'(couldn't resist) for which the state can deny that which hetero prisoners are allowed, two gay prisoners are allowed to marry; as was this case⁽¹⁾ in the UK a couple of months ago - it's what started me pondering it.

So to the question.
Is it right that inter-prisoner same-sex love can flourish within prison but hetero love has no chance?
It just doesn't seem very equal.
To bring equality to the new situation, made unequal as a symptom of the equalization of marriage, is it maybe time to reconsider prisons in relation to relationships?
And, if so, how?
One would hope, of course, to find a solution that's fair and equal to one and all but segregation by both sex and gender won't do it: Lesbians would still be together and gay men the same but hetero male and female would still need to be segregated to safeguard both the women's virtue/dignity and the marriages/relationships of both sexes already existing with partners outside.
Would married couples' prisons be a solution?
Ban marriage between prisoners? Seems the opposite of the kind of life-affirming, looking-to-make-a-future sort of thinking one would assume the correctional facilities would wish to encourage.

I don't know what the answer is.

Is it a puzzle or am I just being a bit thick?

Any answers, I'm all ears.

⁽¹⁾ Convicted murderers become first gay couple to marry in prison ~ Guardian Article. 28 March 2015

Agree or Disagree With Election Debates

2015-03-23T10:07:00.004+00:00

When I learned that there will be an election debate, which will include the 3 main UK parties and 4 'others' and that that "debate" will only last for a couple of hours, I thought, as I suspect did many, "that's only gonna be a few mins each"! Hardly long enough for each of them to really explain anything.
That was about a week ago, since then I've been festering on it and I think I may have found a solution...

Rather than ask the candidates questions, it would be more time efficient and likely more revealing if the candidates were presented with statements whith which they could only agree or disagree. Each candidate could be standing behind a podium with two buttons on it and for each statement their choice lights a thin green horizontal line on their podium, which would then stay lit. At the end of the session each candidate would have a unique profile.
The show could be split into parts where the statements are group by subject, Part 1 Education. Part 2 Religion. Part 3 Economy. Part 4 etc.

Example statements to which the answer is only "AGREE" or "DISAGREE".

The universe was created by a god.
Evolution is true.
Humans and chimpanzees evolved from a common ancestor.
Children should have the right to stay free of religious indoctrination until 18.
There is no life after death.
Religion should have no place in schools.
Religion should have no place in a courts.
Religious courts have no place in a modern democratic system.
Legalising Gay marriage was right.
Abortion is woman's right and choice alone.
Genital mutilation is always bad.
I have read the Bible cover to cover.
I have read the Qur'an cover to cover.
I have read the Torah cover to cover.
I have read the Baghavad Gita cover to cover.
I have read many religious texts - they're all wrong.
Religious texts are full of supremacist hate speech.
Religions should have representatives in the house of lords.
Climate change is man-made.
Fracking is good for the environment.
Adoption should always be to two parents.
Kidnappers should be paid.
All Banks should be public owned.
Only fluent English speakers should be able to apply for a UK passport.
Prisoners should have the right to vote.
Cannabis should be legalised.
Legalisation of Cannabis could benefit the economy.
As the most damaging drugs, alcohol and tobacco should also be illegal.
Zero hours contracts should be minimum hours contracts.
Affordable housing is more important than green belts.
University education should be free.
Minimum wage should be a living wage.
The Dog licence was a good idea.
A nationalised rail system is fairer.
Businesses should have the right to pick and choose the customers they serve.
Sugar should be taxed.
Fat should be taxed.
Care homes should be NHS run.
Domestic solar power should be government funded loans.
People should be allowed to own only one permanent residence.
There should be a bed available for every Homeless person.

I realise my statement examples are leaning towards revealing the candidates spiritual beliefs, but I think it's important to know how fanatically a prospective leader pretends in bollocks. However, I'm sure the more politically minded could think up more ingenious ways to get the politicians to tell us who they really are/what they really think but I think the method with suitably considered 'statements' would reveal them in the their grott or glory.
I think this sort of debate format could be a lot of fun, and all without ever having to hear a word from them!

Please note, the statements above are not necessarily the opinion or position I hold, they are merely examples written to illicit an clean/easy agree/disagree response.

Observing Labour

2015-02-28T09:58:00.001+00:00

Just sent a version of this letter to my Labour MP.

Dear My Labour MP,
Hope you're well.

Firstly, thank you very much for your service thus far and I hope many more years of the same. As far as I'm concerned you seem to be a prime example of what an MP should be. Kudos.

The reason I'm writing is to inform you that if our Labour candidate was not you, I would not be able to bring myself to vote Labour. I want to make this absolutely clear, my vote in May will be for you, not for the Labour front bench. If I could do so, I would vote for you as the MP for this constituency but withhold my vote from Labour.

A few reasons...

Ed Miliband: The unions screwed us; don't misunderstand me, he seems perfectly suited to a behind-the-scenes brains-of-the-team role but his brother should have taken the leadership. We'd be streets ahead in the polls if he had. I don’t know quite how Ed manages it but even when he’s telling the truth it comes across as not quite true.

Harriet Harman: Fantastic but seems a bit ditsy! I don’t know what it is but there's a not-quite-on-the-balliness about her. I love her though and have a feeling she's going to end up being the best female Prime minister we were never lucky enough to have.

Douglas Alexander: Who? There's not much to say, he's just sort of absent. I can’t recall a memorable appearance in any TV news, Question Time, Politics show or Commons performance.

Ed Balls: Comes across as an idiot; he looks and converses like he should be leaning on a gate with the Two Ronnies! I genuinely fear for the country's finances with Balls-up in the exchequer.

Yvettte Cooper: Seems squashed and dominated in Balls-up's shadow. Even though I've seen a couple of her speeches and, on her rare appearances front and centre in the chamber, I've been impressed, I keep wondering what on Earth she is doing with Balls-up! And by extension of the thought, can someone who chooses Balls-up as a life partner be considered as a maker of wise choices? From the outside it seems like a mismatch, seems like he's been riding her more brilliant coattails but has got where he has because he's male.

Andy Burnham: Comes across like an android. Nothing against androids and he can be whoever he wants but he looks like Thunderbirds-puppet! It's tough to take a Thunderbirds puppet looking android seriously.

Chuka Umunna: He's confident, I can give him that; he has a surety in his delivery but I always get the impression he's just waiting for his turn in the big chair.

Caroline Flint: Doesn't come across as the sharpest tool in the box; actually, lately, she seems like she forgot where she left her sharpener!

Hilary Benn and Angela Eagle: Clearly competent but neither looks like they have the personality to light up a room.

The rest: No opinion; not seen sufficient of them on any political/news show to draw any conclusion.

I do realise that you, being acquainted with some of these people, will likely have a different view of them and that I do not know any of them, but the same can be said for the great majority of the voting public, we may only go on impressions we’ve gleaned from their appearances.

The biggest problem for me is the front bench don't seem like a team, possibly because there's no noticeable core around which such a cohesive unit could form. Ed’s pretending to be as nasty as shiny-Dave but failing because he's just not a shark and comes off looking like it's just a bit of handbags, which, as the stereotype suggests, is only likely to draw a gaggle of girls seeking a dance! And nobody he's surrounded with seems to be capable of delivering a witty or cutting remark!
Also, with the exception of Hilary Benn and Harriet Harman, none of the above give the appearance of 'trustworthy'. I realise it's the nature of the game to be circumspect in answering interviewers but it comes across, every single time, as dishonest. I've lost count of the number of times an MP has wasted 3 minutes of my life giving his/her long-winded and extremely detailed, round-the-houses way of saying "I don't know", without having to actually say "I don't know", in order to later be able to deny knowing!
Anyone wondering why there’s no interest in voting should look to MP’s responses. The corporations have ensured the general populace doesn’t have the time to waste listening to you guys pretend your shiny policy promise has not just all-gone-tits-up!

I'm sick of all the mealy-mouthed, weaselling from all parties.
I'm sick of hearing politicians of all parties not 'own it' when they are busted.
I'm sick of hearing about how they need more money; so much for public service!

I hope you've noticed that not once here have I mentioned policies. There's no point, there's only a razor blade between the parties. I am a socialist, always have been. What I've seen from Labour in the last 20 years is corporate toadying, not unionised strength. I see no grand socialist vision for the future like we've seen with the great red moments of the past, I see only pitifully lost capitalist good-time socialists pretending they are doing more than merely fiddling with dials the corporations allow them to play with. Where is the not-for-profit state-owned electric company, which installs solar panels on all homes for free, providing free electricity for everyone, achieving our climate change commitments in full, releasing millions from gas & oil dependency for heating and lighting, putting a stop to senior citizens dying of cold in their homes and generating a sizeable, saleable surplus to recover the initial outlay of installation costs? Seems a no brainer to me and even the current, apparently uninspired and unimaginative, Labour front bench should be able to come up with something that requires zero brains!
I see no such socialist schemes, nothing. Is socialism dead in the Labour party?
If only we had a top-team, who looked and sounded like world statesmen and women, with the vision and skill to give the country back its balls and take the reins from the Corporations! But we don’t, what we have as leadership of the greatest socialist party the world has ever known, looks and sounds like the sixth-form debating society’s B-team!
My Granddad died a few years ago; he was an RSM in Artillery in WWII. He was very proud that his generation had thwarted fascism, built a welfare state and the NHS. I'm glad he's not here to see the NHS and the country’s socialist roots being so dismantled for corporate greed.

And, for the love of reason and justice, burn some bankers at the stake! A stack of money was stolen from us and nothing has been done! If it had been a homeless guy, he'd have been crucified! Want to know why politicians are so mistrusted, count the number of bankers in prison. Oh and last but not least - the 'pink' bus - dreadful. Foot-shot again! Are we now to expect Postman Pat to rock up in his red van to entice 20 year olds to vote?

Please don’t assume any of the complaints above are directed at you.
Like I said before, I will be voting for you, not Labour.
All the very best for the election.

Regards,

If you agree in whole or part, feel free to make a copy, edit it to suit your views and send it to yours.

Generation Matters

2012-03-09T23:53:00.000+00:00

Recently I've heard first generation UK citizens say "I don't know what Britishness is, no British person I've asked can define it."
I wonder does not being able to receive a sound-bite answer to a question, now equate to 'there is no answer'?
My people have lived on this land since the time before time, we are the people who made this land habitable even before we quarried the Stone for the Henge. Admittedly there's a French Count somewhere in the family tree and there is some Italian heritage, some Irish, some English but the core of the lineage is Welsh and I and mine have thousands of years of history on this island.
The nature of living on an Island doesn't lend itself to creating a description of what it is to live here, to be a Briton. When all who are here already know, there is no need.
Strikes me, if you have to ask 'what is it to be British?', you are looking for a cheap shortcut, an easy way to integrate, which is a fair enough strategy but don't expect any answer, that may come your way, to make you the equal of an 'old-one' in a land where, in a generational sense, you are novice.
Can a first year violin student appreciate the nuance depths that a veteran world class 1st chair violinist is able to discern?
Can the novice gain the same comprehension his master has amassed just by being told for what to listen? Or must the novice merely come to the knowledge via their own experience?
Why should the essence of Britishness be delivered like a 'welcome pack' to a newcomer, shouldn't the newcomer have to struggle to the truths of being a Briton, to value and truly understand them?
If you are handed a sound-bite, you can disagree with it, tear it to pieces, compare it to what someone else said was Britishness. These can be then disregarded as confusing and the newcomer, unable to find a simple answer, reverts to the tribal baggage they brought with them, 'because they already understand that'.
I wonder how many Argentinian, Jamaican or Australian citizens, if asked "what is it to be 'X'?", would be able, without preparation, to define it over in a drink in a pub? Probably about the same amount as the Brits, I expect.
A Nations longevity may also be a key factor; for newer countries it may be relatively easy to define what it is to be a citizen of that country, the examples of what the people who have lived there have done/thought/written etc are fewer, merely by way of the chronology, but for a country/society that has existed for multiple millenniums, France, China, India, Britain, Greece etc, the list of deeds, accomplishments, heroes to follow etc is almost endless. Each Briton, if asked to name a list of historical UK figures who have meant much to them, would likely produce a similar top of list but the lower reaches would likely include local heroes, obscure experts in their field or even relatives.
The difference between an 'old-one' in a country and a new immigrant to it, is kind of like comparing a complex organism to an amoeba. (Take no offence this merely an analogy, I'm not calling anyone an amoeba.)
There are multiple stages of evolution to get from amoeba to complex organism. If you could tell an amoeba what it is to be a complex organism, would you then expect the amoeba to be able to become, in the space of a single generation, as suitably adapted to living in the complex organism's environment as the complex organism has evolved over centuries to become? Further, would you expect the complex organism to be able to formulate an answer to the question "What is it to be a complex organism?" that the amoeba could or would understand?
There is no bigotry here, if I were to go and live in another social structure, I would be the amoeba and the majority would be the complex organism.

So why not make a clear global rule - 'generations matter'?
We have, in most countries, the idea that an immigrant will start at the bottom, take the rubbish jobs, work their way up and they can go as high as they can/wish. We're aware, in general, that this means the first generation immigrant is going to live their life in the lowest working bracket. They work for a better life for their offspring. The offspring, the 2nd generation, having been educated in the society and made personal friendships and contacts within the society and may get a more prestigious position, degree level education etc. The third generation may progress up the capitalist scale similarly. This is a loose philosophical example only; the social-climb may take 10 generations etc.
Now, all that is understood and considered fair enough, so what about voting rights?
Does a newcomer's views on "What's good for the country" matter as much as the views of those who have lived in and experienced the country for, in some cases, hundreds of generations?
Surely length of tenure brings a deeper comprehension of what the country is?

Seems to me the greatest problem with the immigration policy of any country comes when the people who have very deep roots in that land, start to see the nature of the land change too quickly. Change is inevitable and more than acceptable to most but if we truly want to be inclusive, social change should not out-pace the oldest current citizen.
Why should the oldest member, who has proven their worth, not be more valued than the newest, who has not?
Why should people who have already spent their lives building up a life for their children and grandchildren have to go to their graves believing the work they've put in will be soon subsumed by the influx of another culture? And only because the political system gives away responsibility for the care of the country to those who know nothing about what it means to be a member of it.
We all know old people have a great wealth of stories of actual real history and facts, sometimes in great detail about the history of the landscape, how our systems work and have worked. Time team were once digging in a Loch in Scotland. Halfway through the show an old guy, a local farmer, strolled up and said to the chap who was GPS mapping, to paraphrase, "the causeway you're after is over there; I used to be able to walk across it when I was a boy."
So, why should any new immigrants, to anywhere, get an instant say in how that country functions?
'We' expect them to 'pay their dues' by working their way up the financial ladder, so why is there such a big disconnect from expecting them to also wait to 'have a say' until they too can spot the nuances of Britishness as can an 'old-one'?
It doesn't matter that those nuances 'the how and the why' of being a Brit are perhaps unspoken, 'feelings' of how grandma Elizabeth did this, or how great uncle Henry did that, the sense of what it is to be a Briton must be stronger in those who have generations of history of the experience of being here. Family stories of how great-great-great(etc) Aunt Margaret sneaked provisions into her Roundhead comrades under siege or how great-etc-etc-granddad Tom rescued dozens from a mine collapse, remain untold to all but locals, a part of family history, unspoken.
Like I said, there's no bigotry here, this is merely a proposal, a suggestion that I feel would go some way to alleviating the pressure, felt by those who have lived in a country for almost countless generations, from the influx of new ways, wishes and wants of those who have come to seek their fortune.
Is it not fair to say "feel free to come and seek your fortune but that fortune is seekable only because of the way we've done things for generations." ?

So, to the proposal, or consultation notion, if you will:
To start with, I understand the complexity of the proposal, I have no idea if it's in any way achievable or even possible without first generating a genetic profile for all citizens however...

For each generation of your family tree that can be traced to living in this country, the family/bloodline/lineage(?) gets the right to one fifth of a vote. Five generations of family on these shores, gives you one vote. One might even go so far as to suggest one vote for the generation regardless of number of members of that generation?
To define it a little more, without that full voting right,(one might call it full citizenship) you don't have the right to hold council office, be a representative of the community, MP etc. Local residents have cultural/spiritual veto on any building you may wish to construct/modify etc. You'd still get the human rights afforded anyone but the ability of any immigrant influx to have an effect on the social structure would be moderated; not 'no change' but merely a slower paced change, more respectful of those who have poured generations of blood, sweat, tears and life into building the nation's foundations.
This is not because immigrants are of lesser value, it's because we are not the owners of this land, we are the custodians of it, our ancestors forged what we have now from dense forest and wild beast, why should their opinion die at their life's end? Their contribution continues; Brunel's bridges still stand but he didn't bash in the rivets. We've all, throughout the centuries, enjoyed the value of Shakespeare but we've done so in theatres built by our great grandfathers'.
Just to be clear, whilst I am speaking from my own perspective about my own country, I would promote a scheme like this, where longevity of citizenship and thereby recognition of contribution to the country are valued, for every country.

Like I said this is just a suggestion, an attempt at easing tension amongst the existing residents ("Old Ones") who feel undervalued, that their politicians have abandoned the core of Britons to the whim of economics so, in the spirit of the post, for this post only, only those who have lived in this country for five generations many comment....
Only joking as always say what you want.

As some of you may be aware this is not the first time I've glanced at this issue, what being a Brit means and has meant to me and my family is here.

Occupy Your Life

2012-01-20T19:30:00.000+00:00

Freedom, it is almost never given
It must almost always be taken.

We all feel a tide rising, we see the oppressed rise.
We see the Arab spring and Occupy; a mood, changing.
We see the poor push back.
We see the ultimate culmination of continued pressure from the rich on the poor.
We expect protest. We expect violence. We expect a war.

But protest, violence and war will only fuel THEIR system.

THEIR war machine will trample all.
THEIR police will arrest.
THEIR justice system will process.
THEIR prisons will fill.
THEIR pockets will swell from the taxes you pay to the firms that run THEIR system.

There is another way, it still has a price but a different price.
A cost of sweat and privation but, if we do it right, not one drop of blood need be spilt, not one head cracked and we will have civilisation our way.

For more than a decade now, certainly in the UK but I suspect it's across the world, I've been hearing "consumer led recovery", "consumer driven economy" and other such statements on TV reports and documentaries as comments on how we will get out of this or that financial mess...
but if you break "consumer led" down, what does that mean?

"The ordinary punter on minimum wage who works very hard for a puny living will be sold a load of old tat he or she didn't need in the first place. The government make a load of tax from it and corporations will sell a lot of tat but the real bonus for us, as a government is that punter will have to work harder to pay for the extravagance and so productivity will rise and that'll lead us out of..."

... etc.

THEIR system runs on OUR consumption
If we stop consuming, THEIR power is withdrawn.
THEY want a war on THEIR terms where THEIR machine for controlling the people can make them some money.

Why duel with the corps on THEIR battleground, using THEIR weapons?

We should fight on our turf, terms and time.
We should be the enemy they weren't expecting.

Everything is already in place for this to work.
And all it take is for those who wish to participate in bringing a change to our civilisation to act as though we are in a true war.
It's the ONLY bloodless way to break the corporate and banking stranglehold. And I'm not talking about taking up weapons and bashing, I'm talking about choosing to impose on oneself the rationing that would be imposed, but accepted as necessary, by the constraints of a real war. In WWII Britain there was great hardship because all the humanpower and cash was going to support the war effort. It's why it was called the war effort
People managed; they 'made do' to support the fighters.
This notion is no more; 'make do to support the fight against greed'.

Work for you, only spend what you MUST.
Don't buy fast or microwave food, y'know, the time-saving ready meals - peel you own veg!
Wherever you can, grow your own food and, if you can, go veggy. - Even a window box can grow something and don't see it as pitiful, even if you only grow enough veg in a year to make 1 meal, that's 1 meal's worth of profit you've removed from the machine and, if a million simply grow a plate of veg that's a million plates of profit lost.

It's not the final straw that breaks the camel's back it's the great weight of the rest of the straw

Barter.
Don't buy anything new until the old one breaks.
Don't follow fashion. - Saving humanity is a great excuse to give up keeping up with THEIR definition of your 'look'.
Have one pair of shoes per season; every pair of shoes you leave in the shop, the more we win.
Ladies, and some gents, don't dye your hair, paint nails, wear make-up.
Gents, and some ladies, don't go to watch the corporation owned football clubs, take YOUR money to local club.
Use your church/town hall for special occasions; don't use restaurants, do it yourselves.
Limit vehicle journeys. - If you can buy a more fuel efficient vehicle.
Read more; use your library, it's free entertainment.
Make do and mend; repair everything.
Do not watch THEIR TV shows; they're designed to make you want THEIR stuff.
Use the Internet more.
Waste nothing.
Go solar/wind/renewable as much as you can. - If you can manage it go off grid entirely. If that sounds to much trouble buy a solar battery charger and recharge for free.
Demand vocational education in schools; education OUR way not THEIRS, WE pay for it we should have a say in it. - Do you want your kids taught stuff they've no wish/need to know? If the kids are taught stuff they are naturally suited to learning, they're going to be happier. If they all wanna be rock stars let 'em, give it two weeks and 1 or two in each school will be, clearly to all, way better than all others who will lose interest and want to be something else. We are humans, we all want to feel we are useful, have a purpose, but we all also want to be recognised, not necessarily as 'the best' but at least as 'a worthy member'.

The fewer of THEIR products you buy the less power THEY have over you.
And the less power THEY have over you, the less THEY have over me too.
The more dependant on THEIR consumerist teat we are the longer we must work in THEIR mills.

If you look at in simple terms;
If we really want to bring an end to the riches generated by the consumerist society, we must stop consuming so avariciously.

If we want to end their greed we must surely curtail our own.

Every penny you don't spend is one penny less in THEIR fat wallet.
Every effort you make takes a penny of THEIR power.

We can make the change, it's going to be hard, we'll ALL have to break a sweat, even if it is only metaphysical perspiration caused by lack of that special item you wanted to buy, but all we really have to do is...

Occupy Our Lives
DIG FOR FREEDOM?

http://youtu.be/5NgvJkFM7jM?t=7m38s

A Very British Revolution

2011-11-06T11:03:00.000+00:00

A bedtime story.

"Teacher was talking about the banking crisis today, granddad. Were you alive then? I mean, do you remember it?
"I do. It was a terrible time, lad; a great big mess and all caused by greedy, corrupt bankers and businessmen, the selfish blighters"
"That's like what Miss said but it's not happening now, is it granddad? We must have got out of the big mess, didn't we?"
"I we did, lad, but it was one person who got us out of it really. It was a crisp Monday morning in December of… Let me see, it'd have been about 2012. A small, wrinkly, grey-haired old lady with a bit of a limp, hobbled into the Lloyds TSB branch in the ancient village of Banker-come-Quietly, bundled up to the counter and stated in a surprisingly sturdy voice. 'I own this bank or at least it was partly bought using my taxes. I figure, why pay another bank to look after my affairs? Why not let the bank I own do it? Why own a dog and pay your neighbour to have her make her dog bark! Eh? Eh? '_{(click to tweet.)}
The cashier was dumbfounded but listening patiently. As was Albert Stone; another local OAP just on his way to play bowls. Penny Workwell, he thought, was making more sense than he'd heard in years.
Penny continued, hoisting a bag onto the counter. "Here's all my accounts and insurances, my credit cards accounts, mortgage details and such, and I want to avail myself of this banks versions of all these things; basically I want Lloyds to handle all my finances, and I want a good deal too as I'm part owner."
Albert left and hurried off to Bowls club. He was already convinced and as he suspected, within minutes of telling the other members they cancelled the practice and all rushed home to collect financial papers or, in many cases, "talk to the wife/husband".
Albert was on his way to do the same, "Fan's always been good with this stuff, she'll see the worth of it." he thought, knowing that he could see the worth of it but not really knowing why; it wasn't one of those factually driven, logical decisions, more of a gut reaction, "I just knew from the moment I heard Penny in the bank that it was the right thing to do, Fan." he started as he burst through the kitchen door. Half an hour later, Albert and Fan were part of a growing queue of largely senior citizens, all largely discussing how it was a bit like the complete the opposite of the Northern Rock thing and praising Penny's brainwave. Albert's mobile phone rang while they were waiting to get to the counter. It was their daughter. Albert explained what was happening.
For the first few days this is how it was, a spider-web of defections to Lloyds linked via family or friend. Then someone tweeted...
"#PennySays put all your money in Lloyds - We already own it, we might as well profit from it." _{(click to tweet.)}
Within minutes a local BBC news reporter was asking the manager of a local bank for comment "Oh yes, yes remarkable," the banker mumbled, "started middle of last week; sudden unexpected closing of individual accounts and people weren't just closing a single product but their entire portfolios! When I went home on Friday I'd considered it a freak blip; 'the week of mysteriously disappearing bank accounts' but by Saturday afternoon it was clear all the leading banks, except one, were reporting similar."
Later that evening the reporter, more used to covering stray cow and fete stories, homed in on Penny. The subsequent impromptu camera phone interview somehow found its way to Youtube and went viral.
"Mrs Workwell, you realise you have started something of a revolution that's got the financial pundits in a spin?"
"Revolution? Well, I don't know that I started… No, if it's a revolution then so be it. Good, it's been a long time coming, the 1% have had it their way too long! It's time for the usually silent 99% to point out that it's by the sweat of ALL our brows that civilization is built. _{(click to tweet.)} A billion years of evolutionary shoulder standing gives all of us more right to an equal share of the resources and profits than some 'legal' certificate of ownership won in a derivatives poker game that's guarded by lawyers. I just thought that this would be a way to take back a bit of the power, to not support those who do not support me. I just thought, it's all the banks who have screwed us, all those bankers who played fast and loose with our livelihoods, they all work for all the banks that we don't own. So I decided to I wanted to change that. But I'm too cronky too occupy a tent like all those heroic freedom fighters all over the world, so I made a spot off tea and I was just dunking my rich tea finger when it struck me; I'll occupy the bank, from the inside.
But now, with the revolution, if we're all taking our cash and mortgages and other financial accounts and transferring them all to the bank we own then, then all the other banks will be screwed! He-he-he, and just deserts too, I think.
And when we are all in the one bank, as we're already the indirect part owners, why not profit-share-holders or something? Why not make this the bank the bank of Britons; a really strong institution in the global market place? One thing has become clear over the last four years, no matter what, the bankers take all the profit, so we should be the bankers.
The capital wealth of 60 million people, that's got to be more secure, hasn't it?
If we make Lloyds the only game in town, it would be one of the most powerful institutions in the world!
And when we all are the company's shareholders and we all are investors, we can call the shots; we can have the bank make all those lovely profits for us and with those profits I think we should buy things. Proper real assets, like business. I mean if we are going to be forced to live in a corporate controlled capitalist bureaucracy then let's be players rather than a flock of grazing consumers. We should buy things like Camelot, we all play; why should we not all profit from it?
But that's for the future, after the funds are moved and after the politicians, who already know they are at the whim of the corporations, also realise that the Britons are one of those corporations."
Penny was loud and clear across the nation and her words resonated with the millions suffering because of the banks."

It was like a call to arms and the next morning it started, first a trickle but by the afternoon the Lloyds online servers had crashed and the banks were taking appointments two months in advance.
Nobody really knew why this was going to be better, it was all gut reaction a general feeling that there would be less chance of the politico-banking class of the old guard finding a way to screw us if we did it.

In the next couple of weeks many banks had to close down and hundreds of very rich people had to stump up to the share holders. It was very sad; we probably shouldn't have laughed.

About a month later, a group of account holders who were already shareholders managed to convince their MP's to raise the notion of shares in the bank for all the account holders. The MP's saw it as a chance to formalize voting and pushed for what turned out to be very sensible but I was against it at the time, shares for registered voters with accounts.

The people’s petition came along next, part of the government’s online e-petition scheme. The petition promoted the notion that now that there was in effect a people’s bank, the people’s bank should hold the people’s tax purse. All taxes should be paid weekly into high interest accounts in the bank. At the end of each tax year, after internal provision for tax avoidance had been carried out by the lawyers and accountants of the people the bank negotiated the overall tax bill directly with the government on the people’s behalf. There were clauses and subclauses and a stack of legal wording I didn't really understand but the bottom line was the people of Britain then had as much control over their personal finances and tax liability as the big corporations.

The next year saw huge changes. Someone posted a plan online for a way to fix the debt crisis; the rumours said it was Penny but nobody really knew. The government were instructed to act on our behalf, at our behest, they called it; I loved that, nice undertone of behead, behest has.
Things started changing, someone pointed out how the Women's Institute would do a wonderful job of NHS housekeeping and in short order NHS spending had been slashed and we had proper matrons running things. The prime minister of the time, we called him "is the Camera on"; a right smarmy Toff he was, he had this big scheme, it was called something, now what was it; about society taking control of itself? Probably doesn't matter. Anyway, he likely wasn’t expecting the people to take back the reigns in quite the way it happened.
To be fair though lad, I don't think any of us knew.

Within six months things started to look rosier. I remember my granddad said it was like it was after World war II, everyone was a mixture of hopeful and releaved. The snivelling politicians snidely attempted to claim credit for the new, genuine, collective spirit but we all knew it was Penny's brainwave. And it wasn't the last we heard from Penny, or at least from the legend of her, every good idea about economic recovery was rumoured to be down her. There was even a, well, I suppose it you'd call it a motto, though I doubt she penned it...
"Penny takes care of the Pound, so the people can care for themselves." _{(click to tweet.)}
I don't think any of it was really down to her, apart from the first notion, but she'd become like, Old Lady Britannia or Bouddicca in our minds and, to be honest, she started it all so fair enough.
Soon, groups formed, people wanting to buy this thing or that, started forming clubs and buying all sorts of things. If I remember right, it started when 40,000 of the latest model TV's were purchased by the bank acting for one of the groups; buying direct from the manufacturers cut out credit costs, wholesalers, middlemen and crooks. The bulk purchase brought savings of scale on transportation costs and even the warranty period was improved for the purchase clubs and the idea grew and gave a guiding beacon to recovery. By 2015 the UK had experience it's first year of steady 3% growth in over a decade and all because one old lady had a hunch."
"Penny was fantasic, eh granddad, like a super-granny or something."
"Ha ha, she was."
"Night, granddad."
"Good night lad."

Occupy Earth

2011-11-02T15:01:00.000+00:00

I love the Occupy movement, kudos to all sitting in tents or waving banners but from what I've been hearing in the media about, and not only about the St. Pauls protest is that the protestors do not have a direction. Indeed a good indicator of this perceive lack of purpose is that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has today taken some sort of a lead himself and pointed at the Robin Hood Tax as a way forward against the intransigent financial players who we saw this week in London have awarded themselves on average almost 50% pay rise.

To be fair to everyone involved, the Occupy movement could use some direction, some distillation of purpose if you will, something which is more than the generalised, fuzzy message it has thus far projected, "It's not fair! You Bankers caused it but we're paying for it! We've had enough of your self-serving, selfish shit.", spoken in a largely polite manner with a general undertone of "less capitalism, please." the way civilised people are supposed to protest.
So, I can see the point of the media pundits et al for questioning, "What’s it all about? What do you want?" but I feel they’ve mistaken Occupy’s lack of form and structure for a lack of direction. Whereas, from what I see, there IS a direction and it is not necessarily as the converse inference "More socialism, please" implies; a battle-cry from which I'm sure many conservatives or republicans would reel.

No, I feel the answer is in what we've all been saying for the last four years, and many of us a lot longer.
"It's not fair."
It's not fair when 1% get half the cash.
It's not fair that bankers have not been jailed for the packaging and selling the junk debts.
It's not fair that the poorest and average earners are losing homes and businesses while the rich get huge bonuses.

I’m sure you see the theme. It is only fair when everyone feels everyone's getting a fair share. And everyone loves shares. The markets love shares, the Conservative / Republican capitalists love shares and even the Socialist / Democrat like to feel they are sharing in the collective wealth.
For hundreds of years the very few have controlled everything but now, if we handle it right, the very many can cut a new deal. Whilst the individual's point of view is held 'sacrosanct', the human race is not a race of individuals, we are a race of collectives; whether team, tribe or nation, we are best when we support each other.
This is OUR planet, the rich are rich by our labour they will share the wealth.

Every voter/citizen/indigenous/man/woman/child/what-have-you in every country deserves free shares in the banks. Not ordinary shares however.
At the end of the financial year, the banks profits, audited and regulated by our governments will be divided in two, one half is the bank's to spread between its shareholders etc.
The other half is split equally between all the citizens of the country.
These are the new rules coz we, the 99%, say so.
But this needs to be done collectively, we need to call for it globally, we need to do this in every country at once. So the banks have no place to hide.

And as a final thought

Democracy is defined by Oxford English Dictionary as…
“government by the whole population”

I hope you've noticed there is no mention there of ballot box, paper slip, electronic or otherwise.
Just like in Egypt's part in the recent 'Arab Spring', when the mass of the people imposed democracy on the country. They actually took their first democratic vote by sitting down in the Tahrir square.
That was democracy on the hoof, in action, in the raw, the reality of the majority making the decision.

In any poll 99% is not merely an opinion, a minority view, it's a decisive victory.
The 99% have simply decided we will not be the poor and trodden anymore, we want a fair share of our collectively built civilization.
That’s the decision, get used to it.

Raffle the Armour

2011-10-31T00:28:00.000+00:00

On a fellow UK atheist's blog recently I read...

"The British Army will have to abandon 1,800 armoured vehicles when it withdraws from Afghanistan because the government cannot afford to bring them home.
Military officials are drawing up plans to leave Mastiff and Warthog troop carriers and Jackal reconnaissance vehicles in Helmand province, despite the £3billion cost of buying them."

Article

I did a bit of searching and largely because I didn't look very hard but also I think because the story seems to originate from a paid article on the Sunday Times, the only other mention of this I could find is a clip from British Forces News but it's enough to confirm the article..

The info below the clip on Youtube includes…

" A Ministry of Defence spokesman is quoted as saying that no final decision on the future of the vehicles has been made, but "all options are being considered". "

3 billion quid, divided by 1800 vehicles = £1.5 Million+ each, to be abandoned!
Seems just a tad wasteful to me.
Fair enough leave some for the local forces and what-have-you but here's another option to add to the considerations.

Raffle 'em.
Allocate every service man/woman who has just been sacked or is going to be sacked from duty because of this banker caused 'austerity' drive and enter them into a draw for the 1800 pieces of excess kit.

It would be a nice gesture from the government; our representatives showing they have, y'know, a heart. I mean they're all pretty new at it, but their hearts can’t have completely shrivelled up already. Wouldn't it go some way to saying, "We really can't do anything about you losing your job, the country's been completely screwed by the bastard careless bankers etc. but we'd rather you guys benefit from the leftover kit than just abandon it."

Yeah, I realise there'd be stuff that would need to be stripped out for security etc. but that's easy done and bingo, so to speak, 1800 civilian ex-service personnel have a nice 'drive' home in their brand new 'golden handshake', civilian registered vehicles.

Or would be too impossible?