Category Archives: Foreign Affairs

Some Fundamentals

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Some Fundamentals

by julijuxtaposed

First posted on June 5, 2013

I don’t hold much truck with orthodox religion but I support the right of those who do to practise their devotion in so far as it does not encroach on others. Neither am I an atheist – though I must admit to sounding like one if you miss the nuance. To me, religion seems to have little to do with God and everything to do with politics.

Every time there’s a debate about anything professing to relate to ‘God’ or ‘Faith’ it’s always couched in the context of orthodox religion or atheism versus orthodoxy. The thing that both frustrates and makes me smile is that, besides neither having much to do with sacredness or divinity, both also hold positions of non-evidence-based certainty. To me, framing the existence or non-existence of ‘Gods’ in such narrow terms as described and prescribed by patriarchy and orthodoxy (no, they’re not the same thing, though it’s tempting and amusing to tease that they are, considering the massive overlap) is stale and unimaginative – and distinctly unhelpful.

Nevertheless, that is the rubric within which most of the world keeps itself confined – be it through education, governance or ‘holy’ wars.

Each religion is mostly interchangeable with another: they alter their costumes a bit and change dates and the names of people and stuff but the basic tenets; the widest meaning in the message is generally the same.

And all religions have been, are and continue to be vehicles of both peaceful and violent thought and deed. At their best, they offer beautiful interpretations of Life’s mysteries and frameworks by which to live.

And at their worst they each have their fundamentalists; extremists who have terrorised and do terrorise those who don’t share their values. Yes, the Qur’an has verses which can be interpreted as permitting or even promoting violent retribution and punishment. So does the Old Testament. No Abrahamic Faith is immune and, looking further east, neither are the Hindus, nor the Buddhists.

Most religious people are moderate people who have no drive to convert or correct the behaviour of others. Many followers of the orthodox faiths pick and choose their adherences with varying degrees of guilt or comfort, be it using contraception, eating pig, imbibing intoxicants, marrying out of one’s faith, neglecting Confession – yada, yada. One only has to witness the majority approval for secular governance within the ‘first’ world and the majority who aspire to it in other regions of the globe to appreciate this: equal, educated, free and well-informed people; people who can rely on consistent and fair laws and a sufficient measure of security, don’t want or need to be told how to live by either the representatives of elected authority or by those who claim to represent a Higher One.

And therein lies the rub, doesn’t it? It always comes down to that same, basic list.

Major swathes of the world’s populations are being sold short while religious doctrine replaces basic education and information is exchanged for censorship. If religious dogma is your main or only source of common knowledge and experience, then it is little wonder that superstition, prejudice and taboos prevail and fester. And to force it on children is in the least, a grey kind of magic. Religion within mainstream education should be facilitated through philosophy, not through doctrine. Faith schools? No thank you. Save it for the Temple.

Law, governance and culture have been traditionally shaped and dictated by patriarchy and it is as loathe to giving up its self-righteous control freakery as, say, Monsanto or certain banksters. It is curious how those who claim to be so devout are so much more concerned for the souls of others than for their own. That there is no such thing as vicarious atonement seems to have escaped from their founts of wisdom.

Of course, any moral militant can find things to hate in the modern, secularising world: the aspiration for equality; for living according to one’s individual desires and needs; for being free to draw personal boundaries, exercise preferences. And so they do. But History is replete with religious violence, isn’t it…? Terrorism perpetrated by citizen groups, ‘democratic’ governments and state sovereigns alike.

Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims: all brilliantly misrepresenting their faiths; all desirous of imposing their ideology on others; all so certain. It is politics, mediaeval style. No wonder the atheists are bemused and pissed off.

The problem here isn’t ‘God’. The problem is cultish and political bigotry and fear. It is the arrogant and ultimately fruitless notion that you are the manager of another’s soul and free will. It is the pitiful demonstration of people who look upon the world with narrowed eyes, lacking appreciation for the greater beauty, ferocity and mystery of the human animal; who cannot recognise the paradox of life: that simple things are often made complex by their explanation and that things which seem complex are often very simple.

What the bigots fail to realise is that while they are perfectly entitled to their rigidly narrow and conjured opinions – so is everyone – it doesn’t give them the right to legislate for everyone based on them. This is why a secular society is the best way to protect and govern with equal and fair effect: the only way to prove that the majority, the minority and all the individuals therein feel and know that their rights are valued equally. Secular governance doesn’t mean you have to bury your faith. It recognises that not everyone has a faith and that no one faith is superior to another.

The Ultimate Theft

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How Britain’s Family Silver was Stolen Through Open Doors 

The Ultimate Theft

Growing up in the fifties it was customary to leave the back door open in many homes. Friends and neighbours would pop in and out, sharing resources and helping each other out. Material possessions were few.

Such practice is unusual today. Locks and alarms are fitted to houses, cars and even garden sheds. We live in a world of envy; we live in a materialist world where things matter, and it seems people don’t any more.  Advertisers feed on greed, along the lines of “Be the Envy of your Neighbourhood, Buy Me!”.

A mobile phone is safely tucked away. Insurance companies grow ever richer by our need for Things, our need to keep Things safe, and our mistrust of one another. Front doors are firmly locked against potential thieves – that’s everyone as no one trusts anyone any more. Meanwhile, through the back door, those assets we treasure most are stolen. Theft of our most basic needs, and of our right to access them is The Ultimate Theft. It is no accident that social housing, public utilities – Water (1) and Energy (2), transport (3), Elderly Care (4), The NHS (5), Hospitals (6), Schools (7), the Post Office (8), Fire Service (9), Prisons (10), Probation Service (11) – everything is being wrenched away from us, handed over to private Bankers, at home and abroad, in order that the rich elite can accumulate riches more than they can ever need. It’s real, it’s still happening now. We can ask why and how it has happened, and what we can do to stop it, for stop it we must.

What drives  the Ultimate Theft?

Why do the very rich who possess more than they can ever need crave more and more? Like a drug gives a false happiness, addiction is a replacement for some missing need.

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You may recall The Who’s lyrics from Tommy:

“The Who‘s lyrics proved so spot-on that a pleasurable dopamine hit convinced me to feature them in a second post about self-actualisation”

From: The Dopamine Project (12)

“I’m free, I’m free, and freedom tastes of reality
But you’ve been told many times before
Messiahs point you to the door
No one had the guts to leave the temple.” : The Who

The glitch that keeps us from reaching our true potential can be traced to primitive ancestors who cultivated natural cravings into addictions to food, sex, safety, power, acceptance, approval, attention, esteem, and status. To complicate matters, our more recent ancestors added unnatural addictions to dopamine-triggering substances, beliefs, and behaviors, e.g. money, religion, and drugs. Then they bequeathed their addictions to newborns who were indoctrinated by societies controlled by of out-of-control money, power, status, and/or religion addicts.

Since we’re talking about the same dopamine that junkies trigger with heroin, it’s no surprise that the symptoms are the same, i.e. self-deception, denial, and the dishonesty that allows addicts to continue doing the only thing addicts care about = vigilantly protecting dopamine flow.

Freedom tastes of reality = honesty = self-actualization.
Dopamine addiction tastes of delusion = dishonesty = denial of self-actualisation.

George Monbiot observes that “The politics of Envy is keenest among the very rich. (13)”   The means justifies the end. There is no pleasure in attainment and as drug addicts self control is minimal.

In order to grant the rich these pleasures, the social contract is reconfigured. The welfare state is dismantled. Essential public services are cut so that the rich may pay less tax. The public realm is privatised, the regulations restraining the ultra-wealthy and the companies they control are abandoned, and Edwardian levels of inequality are almost fetishised.

Think Left’s article “Increasing the sum of global well-being should be the ultimate and arching for every politician and party (14) ” emphasises that unregulated markets do not make people happy. Indeed, it seems very few people achieve happiness from unbridled capitalism. It is like a computer virus let loose, like a parasite which, while neglecting its host’s well-being is doomed. Parasites are what the very rich are. They make nothing. They do nothing. They just consume, and leave their toxic waste in their wake. In consuming their host which produces or modifies necessary resources, they cannot thrive. So, the driving factor of the ultimate theft is an obsession, a madness in pursuit of  unattainable happiness. Such a habit  has been proven to be a disaster to the world and its inhabitants which is totally out of control. Like the emperor who wears no clothes, we all know it is flawed, but no one dares say so.

How was the Ultimate Theft Achieved?  

The Ultimate Theft has been premeditated and manipulated. It has been meticulously planned since Thatcher and Reagan started their Neoliberalist Experiment. There is considerable evidence that the current government, whilst claiming to protect front line services had this intent. Think Left’s “Who said the NHS will be shown No  Mercy (15)”, and the Independent’s   recent “Secret Memo shows Michael Gove’s plan for Privatisation of Academies (7) ” refer to this, and there are countless other examples of evidence. Lack of clarity, and vagueness in plans is typical, and since election manifestos did not make such policies clear, the Coalition have no mandate.

Clause 39  of The  Magna Carta, in 1215. (16)

states: “We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either Justice or Right”. The Guardian reports that some privatisation of the Courts System (17) has already been planned, and there is confusion as to what will be sold off.

The justice secretary is a huge fan of outsourcing, and has a talent for ignoring troublesome evidence, however compelling. He also regards anything which smacks of rights – constitutional or human – as an irritant, an outmoded obstacle to thrusting reform, and to be dispatched as swiftly as possible. Certainly an 800-year-old prohibition on the sale of “justice or right” is not going to stand in his way. Not when there is money to be made by big business.

  • One tactic  to achieve the Ultimate Theft was to divide the working class by brainwashing them into believing that it was in their interests to buy shares into something they already owned (18). Like Pyramid Selling, the politicians themselves are bought by lobbyists to adopt policies to which they themselves have a conflict of interests – and yet the reality is that everyone is doomed by the continuation of a capitalist system which cannot work.

George Monbiot: continues: Politicians justify these changes, when not reciting bogus arguments about the deficit, with the incentives for enterprise that they create.

Behind that lies the promise or the hint that we will all be happier and more satisfied as a result. But this mindless, meaningless accumulation cannot satisfy even its beneficiaries, except perhaps – and temporarily – the man wobbling on the very top of the pile.

  • The myth that the private sector is more efficient than the public sector is yet another myth which we are invited to believe. There is plenty of evidence to the contrary.  Indeed, the simple fact is that the first responsibility of private companies is to their shareholders, and so the quality of service is secondary (Think Left Public Service or Private Profit (19). The attempt to justify this is to frame the argument that a service is failing, and then seek to take it over.
  • Governments cite “research” by Right Wing ‘Think Tanks’ funded by the rich, such as this recent article which justifies prison privatisation (20). The Huffington Past articles contradicts the claim. “ Privatisation will not Rehabilitate our Prisons (10)”
  • The attempts to control the means of communication of the Press and the media is not new. The BBC is in itself owned by the people of Britain, yet did not and does not present a true picture of the plans to privatise public services such as the NHS.
  • Creating distractions in the “News” is a well-used tactic, populist ideas of relive unimportance, celebrities and TV shows grab the headlines, burying bad news and hiding the Truth.
  • Alarming and frightening the public is often a deliberate tactic. “The Shock Doctrine” (21) or disaster politics  (22) will have people running into line, like lemmings off a cliff. As Herman Goering  (23) observed “The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peace makers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country”.
  • It is a natural instinct for a social animal such as mankind to feel pride in one’s family, in ones’s community. It may be 1.8 million years since some of us began to migrate out of Africa (24) , and we became  divided, but today, communication and travel has brought us together again. Politicians abuse the idea of patriotism for their own ends (Remember the Falklands?), and so divide the working people, so each blames the other. I have heard UKIP supporters claim that there are too many people in this country. There is plenty of land. The truth is that there are not enough jobs, because  the global capitalists just want the cheapest labour available. Oxfam  states (25) that the richest 100 billionaires could put an end to global poverty four times over.
  • Then there is the argument that we cannot afford public services because we cannot afford it, because of the Deficit. They say that Gordon Grown spent all the money. This is an argument based on lies, reinforced by the media (see Osborne and Cameron’s big deficit myth(26). It is the banks who are seen to have developed such a powerful system , a plutocracy that they can bring down an  entire country at will. (Gordon Brown didn’t spend all the money- the Banks did! (27)

The same applies to collective growth. Governments today have no vision but endless economic growth. They are judged not by the number of people in employment – let alone by the number of people in satisfying, pleasurable jobs – and not by the happiness of the population or the protection of the natural world. George Monbiot

One of the first actions of this parliament was to set up a fixed term parliament. Unable to achieve an overall majority, they knew it would be a one term parliament.

Nevertheless, their actions now are planning for further cuts beyond the next General Election.  Signing up to US/EU trade agreements would mean that the sell off of valued services such as our NHS would be lost forever. The warning from US officials is, if Britain leaves the EU, US trade agreements would be a risk. A Europe signing such agreements will surrender  But in return, Europe would have to give up existing protections on its agriculture, film industry and public services. (Guardian). (28)

Where is the democratic process? The  British people did not vote for this and do not want this. It must be openly discussed by our media. Is it?

 The Ultimate Solution: 

The madness is unsustainable. Money, by itself has no value, or meaning. It is just a token by which we can register exchange of labour, resources or skills. We can do the same by bartering  – see example (29)  If I grow some cabbages for your table, will you teach my child to read? These days, money is just a figure on a computer somewhere in the world. If all the computers in the world were to crash, would we then starve? It would depend on the labour of those of us who can grow food as to whether we can eat. Bankers would be redundant. They wouldn’t be missed!

The Labour Party must make a break with the madness of neoliberalism which Blair had continued , and be truthful about the deficit, and debt. Labour must pledge to reverse the privatisation of public utilities and services. Labour must work for tax justice, put an end to tax avoidance and support country-by-country-reporting, if not go it alone. Our elected representatives must work for the interests of people, not rich bankers. Britain does not need to accept control from global banks. This is not democracy. With our own currency, it would be possible to wipe out any debts by a Modern Jubilee as suggested by Steve Keen. (30)That is the way to put this at an end.

The modern “debt jubilee” is characterised as “quantitative easing for the public”. It has been boiled down to a procedure where the central bank does not create new money by buying the sovereign debt of the government. Instead, it takes an arbitrary number, writes a check for that number, and deposits it in the bank account of every individual in the nation. Debtors must use the newly-created money to pay down or pay off debt. Those who are not in debt can use it as a free windfall to spend or “invest” as they see fit.  

Modern Germany was built on a debt jubilee, this is the way to end the madness. In recovery, we should be planning for full employment, democratically owned and monitored public services, and building a just and more equal society, as Atlee’s government began in the Spirit of 1945. We need a new Spirit of 2015.

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

(Dopamine Project) “The self-deceptions, denials, and dishonesty we “re-lie” on to protect dopamine flow keep us from being here now, self-actualizing, experiencing true freedom, and fully comprehending what it means to be human beings sharing an impossible, incomprehensible, mystical, unfathomable, amazing, spiritual experience.”

References and Further Reading

  1. Watered Down Morality (Water Privatisation) Think Left 
  2. The Energy Trap: Think Left
  3.  Renationalise the Railways: Think Left
  4. Guardian: Privatising Care will inevitably lead to lower standards
  5. Left Futures: EU Health Regulations – improving patient’s rights pr more NHS privatisation?
  6. Weston Mercury: Hospital put up for sale sparks fight to protect it
  7. Independent: Secret Memo shows Michael Gove’s plan for privatisation of Academies.
  8. Huffington Post: Post Office Privatisation
  9. Daily Mirror: Fire Service  Privatisation
  10.  Huffington Post: Privatisation will not Rehabilitate our Prisons
  11. Guardian Ministers accused of dismantling Probation Service
  12. When, What, Why, and How the Who knew about Self Actualisation (Dopamine Project)
  13. George Monbiot: “Why the Politics of Envy are Keenest among the very rich.
  14. Increasing the sum of global well-being should be the ultimate and arching for every politician and party
  15. Who said the NHS will be shown No  Mercy
  16. Clause 39  of The  Magna Carta, in 1215.
  17. Guardian: Privatising the courts system: the public are not customers, they are citizens. 
  18. If you see Sid, Think Left
  19. Think Left Public Service or Private Profit
  20. BBC: Right Wing Think Tank  - Private firms better at running Prisons
  21. “The Shock Doctrine”
  22. Cameron and Co Demonstrate the Art of Disaster Politics
  23. Herman Goering: Quote
  24. Man’s Migration out of Africa: (Wikipedia Early Human Migrations)
  25.  Oxfam  states  that the richest 100 billionaires could put an end to global poverty four times over.  
  26. Osborne and Cameron’s big deficit myth
  27. Gordon Brown didn’t spend all the money- the Banks did!
  28. Guardian: EU Exit would put US trade deal at risk, Britain warned.
  29. Independent: Bartering: “Go swapping, it’s good for your wallet, and health
  30. Modern Jubilee as suggested by Steve Keen
  31. Pascale Bruckner: Happiness is a moment of Grace: Guardian
  32. Think Left: Academisation and the Demolition of our Education System
  33. Think Left The Penalities of Ostrich Politics and the Demolition of Welfare State and the NHS
  34. Web4Health: Causes of addiction and Eating disorders

For the Benefit of the Conservative Party – “FOR SALE – Local Hospital and Schools “

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For Sale – Hospitals and Schools 

For the Benefit of the Conservative Party

It is a testament to the Labour movement that ordinary people accept the norm that they have a right to education and free health care. Indeed, it is such an intrinsic part of their lives, that many have become complacent, younger generations almost believing it was always thus, when in fact this has all happened within living memory, and can be forgotten just as quickly.

 “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; power is ever stealing from the many to the few. The manna of popular liberty must be gathered each day or it is rotten. The living sap of today outgrows the dead rind of yesterday. The hand entrusted with power becomes, either form human depravity or esprit de corps, the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continued oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot; only by unintermitted agitation can a people be sufficiently awake to principle not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity” (1)

So while, we go about ordinary lives, quietly, innocently even, working, bringing up families… a government without a majority is taking advantage, by stealth.

Health:

Reports show more hospitals are  considering private ownership. My own local hospital  is Weston General Hospital.  ”Weston Area Health NHS Trust has announced that, as a small DGH (district general hospital), it is unable to achieve the Foundation Trust status that the Health and Social Care Act 2012 (HSCA) mandates that all NHS acute (hospital) Trusts must achieve by April next year. As a result, it is inviting ’expressions of interest’ from the ‘health market’:

The Guardian has reported how conditions in private hospitals  have deteriorated so much that NHS have stooped referring their patients there due to  damning reports on lack of basic hygiene. This is a national scandal and must be halted.

The Mount Alvernia hospital in Surrey, run by BMI Healthcare, one of Britain’s biggest private healthcare providers, agreed to suspend surgery earlier this week after the damning Care Quality Commission (CQC) report.

Care failures cited by the CQC report included a surgeon who operated without gloves in blood-stained shirt sleeves, and a child who was not seen by a paediatrician for seven hours despite their condition deteriorating.

Education

The Coalition’s practice to ensure privatisation  is to force schools to become academies, either by bribery of head teachers, of unjustified OFSTED criticism, claiming schools are failing. 

The Local Schools’s Network reports how individuals have been able to benefit at least half a million pounds and probably much more, while those working with children see their pay frozen. Such “consultants” can set up lucrative businesses, for example a Ms Griffin, in which she is listed as a consultant at the DFE and a Director of Griffin Taylor Consultancy Ltd.  And here is some information about her company’s financial position.  As it is an exempt small company, with only two directors, facts are limited but one thing seems clear, the DFE consultancy business is a very comfortable one.

Some schools who have had experience of such pressure have taken the alternative option to form co-operative schools rather than to hand over such assets to private companies. Local Schools should be run as consortia, working together, not competing for profits and results.. schools should be about children, and their needs.  Furthermore, Harold Wilson’s Open University was intended to provide access to life-long learning for all, and not to be subject to unaffordable tuition fees as introduced by the Coalition.

What we see happening is privatization of the NHS and state education, owned by us, you, me, and were intended for future generations. These are services built by thousands of working people: teachers, lecturers, nurses, midwives, doctors, cleaners, construction workers, electricians, IT specialists, cooks – those who are seeing job cuts and wages frozen. Now these precious state assets have become a source of income for friends and contributors to the Conservative Party via Hedge Funds.

It is a myth that private outperforms public. How do you measure performance of organizations such as the NHS or state education – by a healthy, well educated, highly skilled and employed workforce – or by the off shore bank balance of Conservative friends? The newly privatized organizations are answerable to their owners, not their users, their workers, or citizens contributing to society for mutual benefit, whatever their skills are.

The evidence shows a deterioration in quality, where the profit motive is a priority.  Labour must commit to a reversal of privatization of public services, and to bring again into democratic ownership and control, our essential utilities and public transport.  We must ensure that such services are exempt from US Trade agreements, and this is a platform on which Labour can challenge the likes of UKIP.

Please sign this petition to exempt the NHS, and support the challenge to exempt education too.

After all, the purpose of government is to assist people in achieving a civilized society, and to allow all that live in that society. It’s not just to line their own pockets. It’s time to put an end to it, if it’s not too late.

Genocide in Bangladesh

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English: Prime Minister David Cameron welcomed...

English: Prime Minister David Cameron welcomed the Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina to Downing Street. 27 January 2011 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Genocide in Bangladesh

This was posted earlier today by a British Imam who is visiting the region.

Hat Tip Richard Bowyer:

I have heard of brutality and despotism in various parts of the world but Hasina, the current Prime Ministers of Bangladesh has broken all records. Hasina and her government committed genocide on Bangladeshi people yesterday. They have massacred countless men in the depth of the night.Hefazote Islam and its supporters gathered in Dhaka city with the aim of putting extra pressure on the government to end its brutality, human rights abuse, political abduction, extrajudicial execution, aiding and abetting the shahbag secular fundamentalists and thug rule.

 In response the government gave an ultimatum to the protesters to leave the city by dusk or the government will resort to its tried and tested method of clearing the city.I have heard of evil dictators attacking their own people but Hasina, an elected parliamentarian and the Prime Minister of one of the most populous Muslim nations in the world has stooped so low that even the evil dictators appear angelic.

She massacred her own people while they slept.

The protesters gathered in a square as the night fell and began to rest. Some asleep, some engaged in chit chat and some in personal prayers.

At around 2.30am, while the protesters were resting and in the depth of the darkness that deepened over the city due to the government turning off the electricity from the entire area, the security forces moved in.

What followed was a cold blooded massacre of the protesters. In the darkness all that could be heard are tanks rolling, machine guns firing and people’s last harrowing cries as the bullets pierced their bodies, leaving them dead or injured.

I have heard of Slobodan Milosevic’s mass murder and mass graves in Bosnia but Hasina has gone one step further. Her security forces have simply vanished the bodies of those they have massacred.

No one knows how many people have been shot dead by the security services and nobody knows how many people have been injured either.

The media organisations that are trusted by the masses of people have been shut down, the remaining media have been given clear instructions to not report or show dead or injured bodies. There has been a total shut down of press freedom and the world does not have a clue as to what unfolded in the Dhaka city last night.

This was by the far the worst ever massacre of Bangladeshi people by any elected government.The current Awami League led government of Bangladesh is completely responsible for a premeditated and calculated slaughter of hundreds of Bangladeshi people. This government has orchestrated mass murder in the last 18 months at a scale that has not been witnessed in Bangladesh since the murders of thousands of Bangladeshis during the 1971 war. They have unashamedly silenced their opposition by taking their lives.

See also: