Category Archives: Intolerance

Ethics? Be Warned. All of Us Will Be Tested.

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ITALY-FRANCE-WEATHER-FEATURE

Folk who write will at some stage cite ‘The Muse’. According to Ancient Greek literature there were nine of them, each with an allotted art, science or as we would recognise it, genre. In this case, for my defence I will cite that Melpomene the Muse of Tragedy has been, for some time, nagging at me to get this done.

The final push was made by listening to an audio book version of Prompt and Utter Destruction by J. Samuel Walker an historian whose subject matter is the nuclear age. Originally published in 1997, and revised in 2004 this is a work that would be in its inception 30 years old. In this the author manages to accomplish the near impossible of balancing the pros and cons of the US use of atomic weapons on Japan in 1945, while at the same time sewing compelling doubt as to whether the reasons given at the time were wholly valid. He also argues that a proposed invasion of Japan was not ‘a given’ as was D-Day, nor that the projected loss of American lives were actually a set in stone documentation, and finally that the Japanese view within government towards a peace accord was in existence. At this stage I would confess to having used the opposites as concrete evidence why the nuclear bombs were used. The author in his balanced arguments, with no railing or emotive language, no blanket condemning of the USA as the usual source of most evils lead me to believe that all which I judged to be hard fact was not ‘necessarily so’ (as the song goes). That said, having listened and respected the writer’s research and questions I was still left with the feeling of the subject of the Atom Bomb attacks ‘They were still going to happen’ . By then the whole dynamic of American, Soviet and Japanese interactions had reached a critical stage in which amongst the milieu of Human Interactions, Reactions, Anticipations, Suspicions and Motivations made the dropping of the Atom Bombs an inevitability. 

That assertion will strike some folk as outrageous, some others will believe I am ducking an awkward question on account of being locked into a belief. Both reactions are quite acceptable and understandable. My response would be to read or listen to this book, then put yourself in the position of Truman, those around him, those involved in the Manhattan project and those out in the front lines. The qualifier being don’t just drop yourself in there are you are at this moment, imagine you have been in that war-time atmosphere for a long while, you have been living it, every day and night it has been with you, sets backs, costs, pressures, pains. 

And that’s where we stop. For all of this has been an introduction to a thornier topic. Not one where we ask hypothetical questions of historical events which have happened and cannot be erased. Using this measuring stick let us look into the Present and the Future, which is where we dwell and where we have a say in the shaping of, being that say small or even large.   

I am guessing from the politically inclined blogs I subscribe to and the vast majority of replies to those blog posts that most folk involved are of liberal and what you would call tolerant outlooks. They don’t think wars are inevitable, they have a great dislike of privately owned firearms, they believe in the general freedom of adults to associate with other adults in whatever mutually respectful relationships there are, they have no problems with folk of any race, they accept a person’s right to religion, belief system or absence of belief systems, just so long as those do not promote hate or intolerance, they feel the same way about politics. They do have very strong views about those who promote intolerance, lack compassion, and who assume they have a mandate to impose their will on others while being hypocritical about their own ‘rights’. In short the folk ‘around here’ are what I would call ‘The Nice Guys’. Angry, frustrated, incandescent even, but ‘Nice’, because you want all folks, every where just to live unfettered by pressures of hate, intolerance and injustice. Right?

Just suppose then

There is some prominent hatemonger or conspiracy snake oil merchant in town. One who is supporting the very heavy political hitters you loath, this person is one of the rising stars in that movement, and just by some chance, you happen upon the sight of a shooter, obviously intent on targeting that person you hate. So what do you do? You have five seconds. No real time to reflect on the pros and the cons. You do raise an alarm? Try to stop them. Or do you steal away back into the shadows let ‘What will be will be,’ or whatever phrase you think suits your frame of mind. After all you are not actually pulling the trigger, you don’t know the shooter. The target is such a loathsome, you think dangerous person, implicated in such hateful stuff as to be at least complicit in violence. And does not ‘The Good Book’ say ‘Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword’ (or something like that). Do you let the bomb fall?

Here’s another one…

By some chance you find yourself by a couple of degrees of separation in the company of folk whose general views you might share, but you are a bit leery of some of the language, maybe a bit too ‘rich’ for you. Some are talking about meeting violence with violence if necessary and so forth, hoping some figure on the Right gets shot. Someone might in a roundabout way even cite the IRA as an example of what might happen; in a way which suggests they would not mind. It wouldn’t take a security analyst to reckon some of these folk might step beyond just shouting off steam. Would you feel you should notify ‘someone’ or would you just back off, sever all links because you don’t want to get involved, that’s their outlook, not mine. Nothing to do with me. And stifle that mischievous ‘but good luck guys’ 

Turning to something more plausible…

Someone you think as offensive on the Right dies, maybe not in a dramatic way. Perhaps through an accident or ill-health. And  after all that time of witnessing their behaviour which offends you, in that instant you say or think – ‘Yeah. They had it coming. Boo-hoo. Like I cared’. There. That was easy wasn’t it? You didn’t do anything. You are not responsible. You are unsullied. You just spoke your mind, that’s all. Well, yes, you couldn’t help but feel just a little twitch of joy. But that was only natural. Because, after all- they had it coming. Well, yes, that’s fine. Isn’t it?. Let’s move on. And you wish to be spared the hysterical eulogies from their followers or the throw away commentaries from the pundits, etc, etc. 

Be honest dear reader. None of us are saints. None of us come close to ‘Pure of Heart’. We take our stance and we have our views. In the scheme of things we may, have not so much a moral high ground, but have the least worst options in one case which in this mess which is Humanity. We may be on the ‘good’ side, well in The Big Picture of The Welfare of Humanity. We may celebrate a cause. Currently you may be cheering on Ukraine’s stand against Russia. So ask yourself this very hard question. Do I accept the losses of tens of thousand of Russian soldiers as a necessity? You can grieve their deaths of course. You can wish they had not happened. But are you accepting them? And if not, then what do you say to Ukrainians, today?   

Some choices made are so obviously bad, so filled with a hateful or callous vibe they are repellent to most folk. Then there are the rest where the two, maybe three of four or more sides of the argument come into a jarring kaleidoscopic panorama, that if stared at for too long could tip you off of your allegorical feet. Reaction? What sort of Reaction? Constructive Reaction? When does that tip into Destructive Reaction? Then there is No Reaction? Just what does that mean? Apathy? Or quiet acquiescence, soft enough not to give you guilt by association, you hope. Or maybe paralysed by exasperation- that’s a common affliction, maybe the most understandable and acceptable for most folk, of course it may  not be the correct one; there is always the anguished  ‘But. What can I do?‘. Who can claim, tired from their ordinary days, they’ve not gone there? 

Once more this is not the place where I present you with a tidy Ethical Solution to fit all situations.  After all, this post is about Human Nature. Just when was that ever straight forward, neat, simple to package up in a snappy paragraph?

When faced with various levels and themes of Human Disputes, Transgressions and Conflicts, the individual rarely has the same measure of response based on one Ethical Stance, because in addition Emotions play a part and they will be a variable. Yours might be the correct one at the correct time, the unstable place where your previous views of Right and Wrong just do not seem to suit. Your choice. Your reaction. This is not History where you have the opportunity to sift the evidence of what had been and you have no responsibility in the participation. This is happening now, or will happen.

And here I conclude.

Sorry that I have no neat answers or a tidy ending. 

Oh, just one last thought hit me. 

Watch out for those Inevitabilities, they sneak up on you. 

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A Few Random Commentaries. S’All

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Thoughtful

(I thought it would be nice to start with a relaxing sort of picture).

Anyway, bearing in mind the sort of stuff you encounter in the public domain, whatever the source, the following have occurred to me.

Truth is the preserve of natural events, such as letting go of a stone and its falls on your foot, or standing in the rain and getting wet. Everything else we do or believe is up to interpretation, evaluation or hindsight.

I do try and avoid too much viewing of  social media platforms such as Facebook or Instagram. The output thereupon leads me to wonder if the Government described in Nineteen Eighty Four was simply too intense, over thinking the problems and just needed to tone it down a notch or two. Now that mindset cannot be healthy, either.

Usually an extreme right winger has only to open their mouth and you know you are in the company of an idiot. Whereas their opposite number on the left will spend an hour or so talking, or producing ten pages before you reach the same conclusion. (Note to self: Caution….Mr Hugh Bris might be around).

If someone does claim something is a False Flag operation there is a very high probability you are listening to or reading something from someone who has come across something they violently do not like but have not the patience or constructive mindset to form a sensible, and intelligent argument. Or simply cannot because there is no evidence to support their claim.

If you have worked in Government Service long enough, the twin ideas of highly organised operations to enact a Conspiracy and efficiently cover it up is such a laughable notion. It is more likely that said government will float the idea of a Conspiracy to cover up and distract the public from some immense screw up.

History suggests the salutary lesson that those who start wars do not often get to finish them on their terms.

Thanks to Climate Change Deniers you can’t even use the old fall back of discussing the weather as a neutral topic of conversation.

Avoid on-line reviews that have the heading ‘Meh’. It indicates the person has a short attention span and never bothered to pay attention to the themes of the work.

I might be wrong, but probably am not, but it would appear that the word ‘Woke’ was once only used by folk who wanted to appear sharp and up with the times, but is now appears only to be used by folk  who don’t like social progress or equality.

We all have our triggers and tipping points where we slip from calls for justice into demands for retribution. Beware they don’t settle into a habit.

There are actually Facts, it’s just that they get swamped in social media commentary.

As long as it has a willing audience Evil is very adept at appearing reasonable, plain, common sense.

Great people who achieve Great Things still do not deserve a free pass on every aspect of their lives. Do not deify them.  But do not allow others to try and remove the achievements by concentrating on those failures.

Within ourselves in those deep secret places we would rather not visit, there lurk our irrational types of prejudices. Admit they are there, but do not pay them court. Keep their doors locked and barred to stifle their whisperings.

Never take Democracy for granted. Not only can it be taken from you by the snap of the fingers, but also by slow, steady, seemingly acceptable degrees. The latter being the most effective. On the other hand lurks one of the great questions on Democracy. How much you are prepared to sacrifice to ensure you do not lose it all to the ever restless forces of Intolerance?

You can justify anything, as long as you ignore Justice.

AND FINALLY

We can all come up with apparently wise and incisive comments. We can all Talk The Talk. The question is (note to self). Can we Walk The Walk?

9/11. Its Other Toxic Fall-out

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World Trade Center Attacked

394261 14: A fiery blasts rocks the World Trade Center after being hit by two planes September 11, 2001 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Forward and Warning: This is a very long post. Nothing about the events of 20 years ago can be encapsulated in mere statements. These are strong views, strongly put. In particularly the last paragraphs. The views are strong because of what has happened to the nation I was once so fond of, and at times might even have emigrated to. I am angry with all those who have pulled her down. In this post I chose one culpable group.

Revisit and Response

We reach the 20th anniversary of the most effective terrorist attack on American Soil. Those of us of adult age or late childhood/teens can remember where we were and the subsequent hours as we drew in the shock and awe of the event. I remember the news seeping into the UK from 2.30 pm onwards; coming out of work at 5pm and noticing the streets of my small town almost empty as if everything had stopped and everyone was watching news feeds, making sure what they heard had actually taken place. A death toll in hundreds upon hundreds? Surely not. But there they were, images of planes crashing into two towers and one managing to strike the pentagon too. A classic surprise attack. Maybe not so much of a shock in the UK, we’d been suffering the smaller scale Irish Republican attacks for years and were aware how much death and damage home trained and resourced folk determined and directed could cause.

Then came the aftershock 400+ emergency services personnel were killed, and another aircraft had been brought down by the passengers’ sacrifices. Both losses enshrined as an heroic acts and maybe the deaths of the emergency personnel resonated deeper, they were rushing in as other rushed away.

There would be other ramifications, trauma through loss, injury or survivor guilt, health issues through the toxic fallout, innocent Muslims or anyone not of white skin attacked. And two large scale military operations taking more lives and with no victory parades at the end.

There is another though, not the first instance but arguably at one the most insidious, most ridiculous and still all pervasive, like a cancer corrupting the body social and politic, spreading its poisons and thus causing similar sicknesses. This being that the events of 9/11 were a conspiracy promulgated by a mix of government, commercial enterprises, Israel (of course- Jews y’see) and the CIA, FBI etc etc.

Now I am not going to wade through the morass of little details, twisted, fabricated, pounced with a morbid glee to suit this inane premise. This is not the place to explain to the most dogged of these folk yet again why they are incorrect. It is a task as pointless as explaining to an adolescent why they should keep their bedroom tidy without being told. There will be drama, excuses, accusations, and storming outs. And why should you have to suffer yet again that annoyance? In the USA you have suffered 4 years of Trump as alleged president you do not need more immaturity.

This is actually a series of direct challenges to these folk to their flawed thinking and in consequence their true motivation, which many of them may not be aware of.

First Assumption.

The US government was involved.

Hostility to the Bush administration was wide and understandable. After the 2000 presidential election’s sojourn through the legal tangles of electoral laws, a lot of folk who did not vote for the winner would feel aggrieved. Now the usual response would be to blame the administration for flaws in security which allowed this to happen. However thanks to the JFK Conspiracy Cottage Industry, Watergate(The one dirty trick which was caught out) and Oliver Stone’s ‘Big Sleep’ take on JFK’s death the ground work was already set for Conspiracy Addicts and Zealots Against Bush to burst into action. Of course there was something ‘fishy’. How could a bunch of men living in caves possibly carry out this act. Never mind that one attack had been semi-successful in 1993. They could not have done it. NO it had to be a government conspiracy, carried out by….

A bunch of White, Educated Americans. Only White Educated Americans could have possibly planned and been ruthless enough to have done this. This line of thinking runs racism in two directions. The first one being that only White folk do evil things as second nature, everyone else had extenuating circumstances; well apart from those in the Far East, because we all know about Fu Man Chu; right?. The second flow of racism is that it is quite impossible for not-white men living in caves to think up such complicated and sophisticated plots. Never mind the times they succeeded since the 1970s, never mind that in one region they beat back the USSR. According the Conspiracy Schools even if they were the trigger men, they were, all right up to the top manipulated by White Americans, because only Whites are this clever. Ironically the only other extremist conspiracy addicts who didn’t buy into this were Nazis, KKK and other like-minded folk, folk who had never even heard of Islam were suddenly experts. So there we are. Buy into Conspiracy by White Governments and you might as well sign up to the odious Jones of Info-Whores. (Of course I did leave out the last resort of all ignorant folk be they right, left, liberal etc, etc, Israel was involved (that’s the polite term for ‘Jews’ these days), which is kind of odd since there are any number of polluted, warped, bastardised versions of Fatwahs around saying its the duty of Muslims to kill Jews)

Second Assumption 

Because I read it in A Book or On Line.

There have always been armchair generals and followers of the Simplistic School of Politics who bandy about words and phrases they have picked up from somewhere which pushed their buttons, without having the faintest genuine idea as to what they are truly talking about. Every subject is replete with the hack authors and their willing followers. The ones I noticed are popular amongst the addict fellowship are for instance  ‘Psi-Op’; ‘False Flag’ ; if you happen to question their own practical experience in such matters they either get very tangential or tell you its obvious and you are either Sheep, Sheeple or a Shill; some of the more inventive will tell you they were told by someone they cannot name, which be fair is a bit of a cop-out, as unverifiable sources are easy to manufacture. For quite some time folk of this ilk have been desperately trying to show how clever, astute, and thus superior they are to the rest of us by ‘knowing something’. Sadly there is so much fiction peddled along these lines, it is understandable it sinks into the conscious, like in the old Westerns where the hero was only shot in the left shoulder and we all believed that was not a serious wound because he kept on shooting (even if he was left-handed). Amongst all this armchair-babble by folk ‘knowledgeable’ in this area there is only one ‘False Flag Psi-Op’ which is possible- That the security services of the USA  set up the Conspiracy Theory networks themselves to detract from any ideas incompetence or complacency played a role in the events of 9/11. This makes as much, in fact even more sense that the stuff swilling around.               

Third Assumption

The Shadowy Cabal 

This is from another set of the myths which are as old as communities, and is a left-over from the time certain folk of a community would hike off somewhere secret to do secret things. These evolved into secret societies, exclusive clubs, higher echelons of belief systems and so on. Naturally those not selected either because of class, lack of resources or not being of the right status would tend to get jealous and feel left out during hard-times; these being more common than good-times, from jealously you get hostility and folklore to support that. Some wishing to elevate themselves of their own status would endeavour to prove they knew about ‘what went on’ , so if you couldn’t be a member of the secret lot, you could least to a member of those who watched the secret lot.

Now it has to be said government tends to take on this veneer. There are decisions made in private, some with good cause (telling enemies of your defence and security plans is not a good idea) and others because it would have been bad politics to let the raw process made public (who knows what the Markets will think, for instance). And that is how it is. Where the system breaks down is when the word ‘Conspiracy’ gets into the accounts; things get overheated. Let’s examine this in the 9/11 spectrum.

So assume a secret cabal of government, financiers, favoured foreigners and throw in a few religious folk decided sending plans into targeted locations in the USA would suit their nefarious purposes. Now those folk will have to draw other folk in, because the thought of a clutch of late middle aged to elderly males doing all the arranging, meetings, placing explosives and falsifying signals etc themselves is pretty hard work and likely for several of them to have coronaries or strokes. Thus in the art of delegation they must bring in other folk who in turn would do the same thing. As this goes down the line the numbers grow exponentially and three figure numbers start to appear. As all these people are presumably not going to go back to hermit-like existences  after the event, they will have personal contacts and the numbers by degrees of separation expand to four figures. This is all very well if we are talking about  The Day The President experimented with transgenderism we can all keep that quiet, right? But any event that killed nearly 3,000 people? Do you honestly think that everyone involved in that is going to keep quiet? That the knowledge would not burrow into their minds and spirits and in the resulting corrosion of guilt or anger at not getting a good enough rewards, thus causing them to give the game away? Not just the one or two beloved by the Conspiracy folk, but whole swathes of them, enough to have every professional and genuine investigative journalist on the trail, every opposition politician asking questions? Do I have to mention Watergate?….Obviously I have to. Coupled to that, such small cabals given to such thoughts and evils are prey to paranoia and rivalries and are not known for United Fronts. No one is big enough not to be thrown under the bus if it suits the rest. The idea that this mythical cabal would cling loyally together does not work. French Revolution, USSR, Nazi Germany, Communist Russia to name but a few with bloody hands were never solid dependable fraternities, many were booted to the wall or knives of some sort were drawn. For this idea to hold water we are at best in Darren Brown, Hollywood or Comic Book territory, at worst the rancid racist works such as The Protocols of Zion.

Overview  Then.  

Whether folk like it or not the guerrilla or the terrorist moves in the shadows, seeking out the opportunities, the weaknesses, the possibilities. As an IRA member once said ‘One Lucky Day’. To survive they live in subterfuge, more aware than most their lives are conditional. Above all they are dedicated. Some may already consider themselves dead, waking to their successful end. You have seen enough examples since 2001, surely.

  It is of comfort for some to think all is controlled by ‘The Government’, the conspiracy addicts feel safer with believing there is ‘a plan’. They would prefer not to think their lives are conditional upon what as in the scheme of things are random events, be they natural or enacted by those who are not part of their society. It is far easier for an American 9/11 Conspiracy Theorist to believe the events of 9th September 2001 were enacted by a government than to hold to the concept that this day they could be shot down by a random gunman, struck by ice falling off of an aircraft wing, hit by lightening, killed in collision with a vehicle which had brake failure, in the wrong place when a tree blew over, or where there was a mud/rock slide, an elevator lift system failed and so on. They would rather have someone remote and unseen to blame. That takes the natural chaos out of Life.   

There Is More To It Than That 

If this was all there was to the 9/11  Conspiracy annoying as it would be I would not trouble to write a post of this length, in fact my comments would probably be limited to a reply to some other post. This is not the case. The principal reason to assail them with basic challenges and at such length is because of The Cause & Effect this particular grouping has had in society as such. John & Robert Kennedy’s assassination were world-wide events, but in the human perception; politicians and leaders get killed from time to time, you are shocked, you grieve and you move on; even if JFK’s death did spawn that cottage industry, nothing else changed. 9/11 by its scope and being seen live; did. To repeat we all know where we were and what we did. To claim that as being false at such length and depth  made The Conspiracy more viable than ever in the 20th/21st century. It settled into the American conscious not just on the Left or Liberal wings but on the Right too. The Right had dallied with this: McCarthy Era, Fluoride in Water, Lyrics in Rock Songs Played Backwards and always that National Government was essentially trying out to take your (ie White) freedoms away. But now it had a bedrock to work with. If 9/11 was a Conspiracy and gosh there was a lot of ‘evidence’, then who knows what else was going on??? The 9/11 Conspiracy had opened the door.  

Sandy Hook was bad enough, but for the parents to be accused of being actors and threatened.

QAnon which once could only have figured in the book by the masters of the satirical and fantastic such as Carl Hiaassen has now become a solid belief system for far, far too many.

The vile, poison of anti-Semitism and its literature of Hate is back and sits comfortably with other Conspiracy works.

A teenager concerned with environmental issues was subject to hideous abuse and accusations of being a front for….. Well apart from World Wide Socialism I could never make out what? The Thunberg-phobes are not renowned for their eloquence or ability to write more than five or six words; ten at tops, then a link to some spurious site

If these were not bad enough a creature of media indulgence with no experience of anything other than questionable property dealings and cult-like following on TV became president not by a popular vote but through a freak of the voting system. Because ‘apparently the whole system was rotten and filled with conspiracies’. This individual then proceeded to court the far-right and break his Oath of Office from day one. When we thought this could not be topped as the 2020 election results came in, what did the spoilt brat of privilege do? Why? He cried Fraud and Conspiracy, and later gathered a rabble to try and storm the Whitehouse. In early years his antics at the election would have damned him to obscurity and ridicule, but in this Age of Conspiracy? No. He had credence amongst the majority of the 70,000,000+ who had voted for him. Thus the toxicity of The Conspiracy nurtured by the 9/11 adherents to this Unholy Cult had its greatest triumph, the acceptable assault on the Democratic process.

The next words are going to seem very harsh indeed. They may even hurt some who have hung on this far while doubting my argument. But I make no apologies. No more than those who support Gun Control will cut any slack for those of the NRA who cling to The Right to Bear Lots of Arms. Gun Control will tell Gun Rights they also have blood on their hands for the random killings

Because if that style of accusation works in one case it works in another.

If you cling to the 9/11 Conspiracy, you are culpable of the spread of the Conspiracy in any form as an argument. In that case you carry some of the weight of Sandy Hook’s aftermath. You must bear a part played in the farce of the 2016 presidential election and the subsequent years. Your brothers and sisters in fantasy and ignorance attacked The Whitehouse and threatened and took lives on the 6th January 2021.

And people are dying of Covid through denial, let us not forget.

Nearly 3,000 people died on the 9th & 10th September 2001, many more lives were wrecked in the aftermath, more would die in Iraq and Afghanistan in the years ahead. In the USA I could not begin to count the death, injuries and intimidations caused by Hate Crime of one sort or another. To repeat you very nearly lost your seat of government and many elected officials on the 6th January 2021.

By your denial of the rational and the factual, by your RPG indulgence as some fearless seeker of The Truth (whatever that might be in the broad sweep of Humanity’s dealings down the ages), you insult those who died, those who suffered and those who worked to seek out the true villains. You do as much as Al-Qaeda could ever have hoped for.

A Lesson Left Unlearnt.

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In Western folklore World War II started on 1st September 1939 with the German invasion of Poland. As far as the then British and French Empires were concerned it commenced on the 3rd September 1939 in response to the aforementioned invasion. From a Chinese / Japanese perspective this war started on the 7th June 1937, although military activity had been taking place since September 1931. Before this China had been riven by civil wars and warlords since arguably 1927 although scholars of the region would no doubt move that date back further. While Russia and Japan fought between 1938 to 1939 in a region of North-East China and the communist state of Mongolia. Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935 and there was a civil war in Spain between 1936 to 1939. Total casualties through military action, deliberate murder, sickness, famine and as in all wars error have been estimated between 70,000,000 to 85,000,000. Think on those last two figures. We can’t be certain what happened to 15,000,000 people. Imagine this ‘Oh. We’re not too sure what happened to most of the folk of New York and London, we found about a million of them though,’ (Bothe have populations in the 8,000,000 region)

Following on from the end of WWII on the 1st September 1945 would follow a series of civil wars, social turmoils and independence struggles which would give rise to more loss of life and misery. And these were the ones taking place between 1945 to 1950. Still in the echoes of WWII. No major victorious power was spared these nor those nations under its sway.

From there on each subsequent decade had its series of major conflicts and minor ones which might have made a fleeting glance somewhere in the record. Some involved large swathes of the populations; others a 1% to 5% of the local population. A child crying is a child crying, a woman raped is a woman raped, dead person is a dead person, whether the perpetrators were security forces, ‘resistance fighters’ or local opportunistic bandits  it’s all the same to the victims and their families.

Some folk would like to make this simple and blame one root cause, that is like trying to catch fog and put it in a bowl. You take aware one cause and we, Humanity will find another. If we did not put down our guns after the events ceasing in 1945 then we are the flaw in the system. Not one government, not one belief system, not one perceived injustice. It is us.

This of course is as old as our history. Each war or conflict  has its own sets of unfinished business. The problem now is whereas as before as long as our numbers were small, the world could indulge our follies. No longer. Our time is running out. The clock started ticking in 1930.   

It’s Not Religion That’s The Problem.

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  There is one common flaw that us Humans all share, this being that we are all too willing to blame a system be it political, theistic, atheistic, cultural, social or whatever. We all assume that if ‘we’ got rid of ‘that’ (irrespective of the opinions of the followers / believers) things would be better because into the gap would flow rational thought, understanding and all those negatives would evaporate.

And we would all live happily ever after.

Cut to end music and credits.

This idea, nice though it would be and goodness knows I have subscribed to it so many times over the years (Far Left Socialist writing here). The hard and sad fact is take something away from Humanity which they have been misusing and they will find something else to misuse and pervert in a short space of time. Classic case being post Revolutionary Communist states and if die hard apologists persist I am wrong, then let’s talk about Pol Pot, shall we?

Another Human flaw being that if we do not like something then we will go looking for the worst case example of that ‘something’ to prove our point. Never mind that within the something there are numerous variations and differing opinions. As long as we can find that shocking example (and there usually are plenty) then we will be content or justifiably outraged depending on our mood.

So let’s look at religion. Firstly if I try and go blundering about discussing all religions I am bound to offend some of my fellow theists as I don’t know everything about every one of them, just enough to appreciate all have a common code of ethics which everyone is supposed to adhere to, but don’t. Therefore I will firstly narrow down to the three Abrahamic religions, as regards Islam and Judaism it is essential to be brief here too because not being a practitioner of either I have no right to go preaching about either, thus simple observations

  1. There are 1.9 billion Muslims. IF they were all fanatics intent on world domination and force-converting the rest of the world I think we might have noticed a few more invasions and ravening hordes. The notion that all Muslims are a threat is grotesque and just another excuse for other races to hide their racism. Tell an NRA member all gun owners are dangerous and potential mass killers and see what they feel about that parallel.
  2. NO the Jews are not all devious business and financial manipulators bent on world domination. If you had been persecuted for one thousand years by every other group and forced into certain occupations by corrupt or ignorant governing powers then you would develop a certain caution in your culture. So get your perspectives sorted there people. And I am also looking at other minority groups who have suffered persecution and thus should know better. And before we go any further Israel’s current administration is what happens when right-wing exclusivity takes hold, it is not the sole flaw of Jews, every nation around the world has that stain in some form…Ask their minorities.   

Thus I move onto home ground. Christianity, which itself has a fine history of folk who think they know better than God and so go around slaughtering other Christians to ensure that they, the group doing the slaughtering have a place in Heaven. After a while they decided that slaughtering was not beneficial to the economy, so they calmed do a bit, settled on persecution and eventually into simple suspicion and not letting ‘those folk’ have the better jobs, housing, etc. And before anyone tries to tell me that The Communists learnt that from Religion I have to say ‘You’re reaching folks’. There were times when Trade Wars..were…well wars. It’s the Human thing again. Get angry. Hit. Don’t think. Grab the loot    

When viewing the antics and the hypocrisies of those who wave a Bible about and tell you about a selected line out of the Testaments which suits their arguments, then it is only natural to despair. However this in itself is selective. Be honest you know you have gone there to disagree with them; the opposite side of the coin as the ‘true believers’. Barely regulated, unedited YouTube available to anyone….seriously, that’s not the way to judge the Big Picture.   

So here I am.(pre-covid). At Mass in a Catholic place of worship. The Mass begins. We come to the Homily…..and I don’t recall one calling on us to gather up our wrath or sharp implements assail non-catholics, march on places of government, or not render unto Caesar things which are Caesar’s. I do recall a lot about getting our ethical acts together and start thinking about our personal short-comings and how we should stop paying lip service to the English version literal of the Bible and look at the meaning.

And cut to New Testament Gospel According to Matthew Chapter 7. The whole chapter, not neat little bits. The whole instruction from Christ:

7 “Judge[a] not, that you be not judged. 2 For with what [b]judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. 3 And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

6 “Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.

Keep Asking, Seeking, Knocking

7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! 12 Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

The Narrow Way

13 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 [c]Because narrow is the gate and [d]difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.

You Will Know Them by Their Fruits

15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them.

I Never Knew You

21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’

Build on the Rock

24 “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: 25 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.

26 “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: 27 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”

28 And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at His teaching, 29 for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

 

Yes, that is the full instruction. That is how it should be. Anyone see anything there about killing anyone? Anything there about getting wealthy on religion? Anything there about starting wars? Persecuting minorities?   Have a look at verses 15-20…..AND that is what is going on in the Kingdoms of Humanity. Jesus warned about that, as had the Old Testament Prophets, and here we are still doing it while hiding behind fogs of words and firecrackers of sound-bites. And before we move on….consider verses 1-5…………Yes….all of us. Humanity in all its flawed stumbling ways.  

So across the politics. My neighbourhood: Socialism & Socialists. Many of them like to announce their credentials as against war, looking for justice, worrying about minorities, seeking equality. And yet I have witnessed packs turn on journalists who did not agree with their views (Free Speech?) with a MAGA like ferocity. They turned their back on the sufferings of millions in Syria because of some odd notions to do with American imperialism. They have indulged in the old European Sport of Anti-Semitism under the guise of being concerned about Palestinians and very cross with you when you ask why they are not equally concerned about other groups around the world. Pretended that Putin was not as bad as American Presidents…..until rumours started that Russians were funding the Conservative Party and Brexit……        

And we could go onto. Into the polite and not so polite manoeuvres in The Arts, Entertainments, of course the pestilences that crowd Social Media (Shaming, Trolling, Misogyny, Malice and so forth). And on and on.

In short don’t go looking for some convenient or fashionable reason to collect up the World’s ills and blame it all on that.

It’s in you and me. It lurks in all of us. The problem and the cure are the same Humanity.     

Writings and Our Faiths or Beliefs

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We all have faiths and beliefs. Be they in those close to us, or our community, or way of life, or politics, outlooks, religion, science, art, following….I could go on, thinking up other categories. Our faiths and beliefs are part of who we are, we change them, we lose some, we find others; we gain strength from them, if we are of such stature we suffer for them. No matter which way you look at it or care to frame your explanations you are demonstrating one or the other, most likely both.

Of course some are not constructive, or positive. Some are built on Intolerance, Hate, Opportunism and Self-Aggrandisement; to name but a few of Humanity’s myriad failings and short-comings. Thus someone having faiths and beliefs is not always something to be celebrated by everyone who comes into contact with them.

Thus it follows that anyone who sits down to write, anything, will have as motivation those two factors working away within them. Not always Faith and Belief in themselves, because many of us are fragile creatures plagued by doubts. If you do write though, you will be expressing Faith and Belief in the processes which turn ideas into words on a page. At times you may feel ragged, wondering if it is all worthwhile, and yet at the same infuriating instance still be drawn back to ‘The Page’. This is because deep within there works Faith in your ability to write and Belief in the very creative process. They will not leave you alone.

Slight aside, but have no fear gentle reader, ’tis simply me getting there….

For some parts of The Christian Community starting on the 28th March was Holy Week which basically chronicles Christ’s journey to the Crucifixion. A time of reflection and meditation….annnndd if you’re honest with yourself about what another spiritual botch up you made since last Holy Week and do try and do better this time (sigh…as opposed to self-hatred. That is not what it is all about people). As with many spiritual, theistic systems the actually basic are all about being positive and compassionate to your fellow beings and not try and grab everything for yourself…… So with this in mind…….

I would say have when writing have trust in The Faith and Belief of the writing processes. Do not expect this to be an easy path. 

Just remember when you are writing you also have a responsibility. Write what you will, with one caveat, do not be cruel to those who are trying to be innocent of Intolerance, The Sweeping Generalisation is a soft weapon of Evil. I know I have been as guilty of its use as any.   

Wishing you well in your endeavours 

 

On War. The Fearful Logic.

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Foreword: This post will reveal comments some may consider callous, triumphalist or even suggesting War is a viable solution. None of these were the intention. However once a writer makes a statement that statement is open to many interpretations and so are the writer’s motives. This has always be the case. Thus with eyes open I accept that risk. 

Firstly you will have to accept that  the first thing which springs to my mind when someone mentions  ‘6th August’ is ‘Clare’ s birthday’ (our second child and younger daughter). It is when I read posts on Facebook or Word Press that I am reminded in 1945 the A-Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, on the 9th it was the turn of Nagasaki, on the 15th August Japan surrendered and the documents were signed on the 2nd September.

There will be many evocative, genuine posts condemning the event on the 6th August 1945. I respect their views.

But I do not agree. For I have read, some might say too much, military history and have therefore become subsumed in The Fearful Logic of War. I have looked in very deeply and seen the places where civil and civilian perceptions are left behind and a vast and complex set of other values take over. Some might already be getting angry that this post might be the justification of war or worse the some sort of condemnation at those who take an opposite view. Let me clarify.

This is a warning as to when The Fearful Logic is released on a national scale. When indeed the Dogs of War are let slip.

These opening words are also found on a post by the excellent and consistently hard-working Jill Dennison: (I would strongly recommend you follow this blog, so much going on there)

75 Years Ago- 6 August 1945

My response:

“Don’t stand too close and be advised not to read too much on the subject because it changes the perspective. Just read the words of this writer, the third maybe fourth hand observer. A reader and studier of Military and of War. And bear in mind these words come in all damn analytical sincerity.

The use of the A-Bombs was the result of a military logic in which the Japanese Military High Command had played its part, in its fanatical intransigence to twisted version of the Bushido code and determination not to lose face.

For three years the forces of the USA had slowly, inexorably pushed those of Imperial Japan back towards the homelands, paying a fearful price in ‘blood and treasure’. In response the Japanese Imperial forces did not display by western standards understandable conventional responses by surrendering or retreating when nothing was to be gained in defending land but threw away the lives of its own men and women in indoctrinated slaughter masking as honourable suicide, at a cost to both sides.

War requires a foe to surrender,  be conquered, annihilated or the attacker just plain give up, that is what happens when The Beast is released. Japan was not willing to continuance the first option. An invasion of the home islands of a nation in such a mindset would present a death toll far in excess of anything so far experienced by the USA and by the Japanese Civil population who would have been coerced/convinced into the defence. War requires a swift conclusion where possible. The USA had the weapon. The USA used it. This is the logic of War. The hard, certain, decision making process which exists in such an atmosphere. (You’ll recall Jill I mentioned a reply a while back and have said several times how when Democracies are brought into war they can be as deadly as their totalitarian foes.)

The use of the A-Bomb was a foregone conclusion, from the moment the Japanese Military adopted the defence at the cost of suicide policy. There was no war crime here, there was the steady, deadly, fearful march of the logic and cause and effect of War. Never forget that War works under a different set of values, your people are dying, haunted by the cost in lives in WWI military planners in the West looked to minimise their losses.

The feature of the A-Bombs were they caused a great deal of deaths in a swift spectacular manner. The firebombing of cities of Germany and Japan by conventional weaponry were causing similar death tolls, but in slower manner. They caused us fright though, once we knew ‘The Other Side’ had them and could level our cities also in minutes and there would be no legendary ‘London Blitz’ scenario (over glamorised), there would be death, wastelands and nuclear aftermath (as opposed to unexploded munitions left buried in the earth aftermath).

War demands this behaviour of the parties. The battlefields are nationwide, and the populations are part of the machinery of war. This was ever so. You could claim (as some in the South would) that Sherman was a war criminal for he carried out his march in deliberately destructive fashion. This is War and when nations lock horns and we summon up War, we do so at our own peril, because we then leave our civilian outlooks behind in pursuit of Victory.

I will leave you with one thought which I have never read or heard voiced in The West. Would those in China, Philippines, Malaya, Burma, Singapore or in the military Prisoner of War camps who suffered the capricious and cruel occupations of the Imperial Japanese Forces have objected to the use of those bombs upon the nation which occupied them?

Lee of the Confederacy said the right thing as he viewed the slaughter at one battlefield:

‘It is as well War is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it,’

In my opinion Jill, not a crime but a fearful warning as to what WAR requires of us when we invoke it. It changes all the rules, all the judgments, all the values. Even to read of it in too much detail will change your outlook.”

There were a number of other points swirling around in my mind, but I did not wish to hijack Jill’s post my reply was quite long enough for a response to a post. Thus at this juncture let me proceed deeper.

No side comes out of War with clean hands, reputations intact or even with their original intentions fulfilled. Once War is lose then to a certain extent ethical control amongst other factors is lost. The nation or community invests lives and effort into the defeat of the foe and lives are not given lightly; the deaths are either sources of concern, sources of glorification or measures of how ‘well’ one side or the other is doing, thus each death carries a certain value, those values you will have noticed are manifold. In its chaos, tangle of emotions, and twists of intentions the results themselves are subjected to constant review and evaluation. To say ‘History is written by the victor’ is a mammoth over-simplification which does not take into account the fact that History is constantly viewed through the prism of The Present. Thus the dread question will always arise ‘Was It Worth It?’

‘Was It Worth It?’

This a very dangerous question to ask, even more so to answer. The answer is always ‘It depends who you ask?’. Someone in the UK or the USA might well voice the opinion we should never have got involved in WWI. If you were a Belgium or French citizen in the German occupied zones and subject to brutal reprisals for acts of sabotage and ‘terrorism’ or shipped of to work in journey as slave labour then you might have a quite different answer. Consider the Korean War which might have been forgotten by now were it not for repeats of M*A*S*H and compare the two states on that peninsula. AS for WWII against two militarily aggressive, brutal and racist states? The problem being in WWII the Democracies- for Whites that is- required the partnership with another militarily aggressive brutal state- the jury is out on the racist issue. Citing these examples you could say the wars were unavoidable.

‘Were they unavoidable?’

Yes, No or Maybe. The problem with wars is when you start to look for the root cause. Take WWII, German revisionist folk lore insisted the nation was tricked or betrayed into surrender. So WWI was the cause? You have to look back to not just the expansion of the various European empires which had formulated a sort of set of rules but the outbreaks of nationalism across the whole continent in which who sections of the populations demanded their slice and the expense of other sections. So you go in the 19th Century, and have to go back to the revolts of 1848, which themselves had resonances in the upheaval during the Napoleonic era and French aggression, which in turn had roots in the French Revolution, which- Do you want me to go on?

On the other side of the globe two vibrant expansionist powers were moving into collision in the Pacific, Sino, SE Asia region. USA and Japan. Yes Britain and France in the 1930s could have let Nazi Germany have its way as long as it kept its crimes indoors and pointed eastwards. That would not have stopped the USA-Japanese confrontation.

Are Wars avoidable? In the current state of Human Society, no. We’re stuck with them. Unless there is a world wide movement of whole populations who are prepared to risk their lives in non-violent protest and their relatives and friends are prepared to accept the deaths as being ‘just’ and ‘acceptable’. We can march, we can don ironic masks we can post up impassioned or fashionable statements on Social Media, but until we are ready to stand there and take the blows and the deaths without equal retort all that is so much noise and no more. The acts may dissuade one government or two from taking part but it does not stop The War, ask anyone in Syria how much they appreciated the  actions of the UK ‘Stop The War Coalition’, better still ask Assad and Putin how much they appreciated ‘Stop The War Coalition’.

War goes deep into our mindset and our community. The urge to defend and strike back, one from pre-human evolution. We haven’t got passed that stage. We might not. Doing away with War is a full-time day and night task full of contradictions and questions which cannot be answered simply. It is achievable……but at its own cost

I would wish for Compassion, Respect and Tolerance. But I realise there are folk who would never embrace those ideals. Thus if to assert  The Only Justifiable Intolerance is Intolerance of Intolerance, how far does one go to ensure this will be so?

Will for the rest of Humanity’s time on this planet  there be the motto:

Si vis pacem, para bellum 

“If you want peace prepare for war”

Beware. It Lies (and lies) Within.

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On the 11th July 1943 the polish inhabitants of the village Kisielin were slaughtered.

Kisielin massacre

This village was situated in the Volhynia region of central eastern Europe, a location around South-Eastern Poland, South-Western Belarus and Western Ukraine. This was not carried out by German forces. This was carried out by units of and sympathisers with the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a nationalist group with a long and complex history.

Ukrainian Insurgent Army

And was the beginning of a genocidal campaign which would spread into Eastern Galicia and by the end of the summer of 1943 would have claimed upwards of 100,000 lives. The German authorities did not intervene.

Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia

(ask any military buff or WWII in Europe reader about July 1943 and they will probably cite the Battle of Kursk in Russia as the most important event of the time)

The events, the peoples and the organisation involved have only been chosen because today is the anniversary of what could be termed the start of one of the many slaughters of civilians during WWII; itself one of many wars renowned for such activity.

If I were so inclined I could most likely fill up the rest of 2020 with daily posts on the evidence of mass killings of civilians of one group by mobs or militias (much the same thing) of another group and present depressing but overwhelming evidence that:

Firstly: No one nation, people or society has clean hands when it comes to the mistreatment of another nation, people or society. We all of us have dirty places we would rather not have historians rake over, or if they do we get very annoyed and start hurling insults at the said historians and their ‘agenda’

Secondly: Nationalism or people ‘fighting for their freedom’ is not a concept replete with tolerant, democratically minded folk fired up with the urge to throw off a repressive government. History is depressingly full of examples when a people have gained their freedom  they (a) Start persecuting minorities within their borders (b) Start of civil war. Basically nationalist groups want things run their way by their people. 

Freedom is a word too often bandied around; so much so it becomes devalued to ‘I don’t care about you ‘I ‘ want things to be MY way. Heritage and National History are also terms which can, are and will be used to cover up the nasty little back-stabbings, hypocrisies and excuses for dirty deeds which call into question the general moral compass of a people who when analysed can be shown to be just as intolerant as their previous masters.

The flaw lies not within one government (which ever ones happens to be the fashionable whipping boy of the time), there are plenty who can compete for that prize at any given decade. Although it is comfortable to blame one form of government for being lesser than another (ie ‘ours’) a brief trip around a nation’s sounding boards will reveal (again) no nation is spotless. Spare me revolutionary talk that’s for dreamers, malcontents and folk who’ve read the book or watched the film V for Vendetta and took it seriously,

Thought for the Day

George Orwell’s Animal Farm is the painfully accurate commentary. Anarchy may be fine for very small groups of easy going people who live far from anyone else.

The flaw lies within the person. Within each and everyone of us, the sometimes very small itch to scratch and blame ‘those people’  for being wrong and thus worthless, other times the frustrated anger to rage against anyone who opposes our views. It works like this:

‘I have strong views, based on earnestly thought out opinions and justifiable grievances.

YOU are narrow-minded and don’t comprehend. YOU might even be dangerous. ‘

We all do it, we all dash to judgement and ‘sound off’. Fortunately most of us vent it off to long-suffering friends or family, the TV or the ever voracious Social Media. Very few of us take to the streets waving banners suggesting ‘Someone Else’ is the problem.

And there is the tricky danger. There are manifold injustices and inequalities. Legion of issues which need reform or revaluation. The problem lies in when we start to focus those issues as being the fault of one section of society, when we parcel certain groups of folk up. True you can censure some for their Intolerance or Irresponsibility; but to pick on the whole section they come from? Might as well build a huge cage to lock us all in and fire the keys off on a journey to the Sun.

What happened on the 11th July 1943 in one part of central and eastern Europe is an indication and warning of when our flaws are left to fester down the centuries, when one ill-deed or one piece of ignorant is allowed to take root as a general and indisputable series of facts. Sure we can all cite the ‘Payback Excuse’, trouble is: there is Payback for Payback for Payback for Payback….you get the idea.

Never fool yourself into thinking ‘it couldn’t happen here’. Just look down your own history and not that many miles for where you live (even five hundred miles is not very far in global terms), there’s the warning.

And never think you would not be on the giving or receiving end of injustices; the circumstances which lead down those roads are always fearfully close, Six Degrees of Separation does not just relate to relationships of people; it can apply to circumstances.

When it comes down to it The Only Acceptable Intolerance is the Intolerance of Intolerance 

The rest is tragedy and woe waiting to happen.