Impoverishing the Proletariat

The Labour Parties main reason for existence is the support and prosecution of the working classes interests. In order to achieve power it requires the support of some proportion of the middle classes who feel able to support those working class wishes.

Knowing Your Place In The System ...

It came into power in 1997, because it was perceived by some of the middle classes that the wealth that they had accrued in the Thatcher decades should be spread into the National Health Services and other social programs.

Remember The Junta?

I remember when the Falklands war broke out ....

 

Mrs Thatcher In The Falklands

 

.... there was such a anti-Thatcher feeling amongst the UK's Left Wing, that they *supported the Argentinians Military Junta's invasion.

 

Wacko

I can't ignore it, so an oblique look at the end of the Michael Jackson story........This is rather odd as I spoke about him in passing last week, and he passes away unexpectedly the next - its strange how fate works.

I am not going to waste too much time on an obituary, there will be millions of bloggers who have something to say (either good or bad), so I will simply say this..... There are times when too much money and fame are actually a hindrance to good health.

This is particularly so when the rich and powerful are surrounded by "My people" (a peculiarly American driven celebrity phenomenon). Lackeys and flunkies, who run around, ensuring that the centre of their little universe, "the star" has their every whim, no matter how childish, met.

I have often wondered when these flunkies collide with another 'stars' people in the same venue, whilst each trying to achieve the same goals for their 'star'. Is there a battle royal, or is there some internal and subtle weighing of "Stardom levels" e.g. Madonna vs Liam Gallagher (home win) and the lower flunkies back off (knowing that they can't win). Whereas ‘Madonna vs Bono’, might turn out to be more of a clash of the celebrity titans?

Anyway I digress, the point I was making was that these flunkies are not paid to say 'No' or in anyway gainsay their masters or mistresses wishes. They are simply paid to "make it so". This can easily lead to the Howard Hughes syndrome, whereby a mentally and physically sick man, who could very easily have been treated in the early days, was allowed to retreat into a twilight world of power and delusion, where treatment was no longer possible, and who ended up surrounded by minions whose best interests were best served by fuelling his phobias and delusions.

So it went with others such as 'Jacko', whose indiscretions are well documented, but whose ever more bizarre medical interventions and morally dubious activities, were aided (or at least not objected to), by staff who should certainly have pointed out how wrong it was for children to be 'sleeping over' with him, but whose livelihoods were based upon never saying no.

As a calendar (not anyone else) said "Money isn’t everything, but it certainly keeps the children in touch' ...... a joke that is amongst the kinder ones that have circulated around Mr. Jackson, since he started paying parents to remain silent about any alleged activities between himself and their offspring.

This ability to buy off complaints in the US, doesn't compare well with the UK, where Paul Gadd (aka "Gary Glitter"), a now minor 1980's celebrity singer has been imprisoned and put on the sex offenders register for similar accusations (with little girls), but contributes greatly towards the 'look the other way' mentality and culture amongst the lackeys who know whats going on.

If 'wacko' had been challenged before his behaviour had overstepped the mark, then his reputation may have been better, and a line would have been drawn about where 'celebrity behavior' ends, and common decency and legality begins. It's also possible that all the medical interventions he's alleged to have undertaken (many of which seem to have been totally unnecessary), may have contributed to his demise at the age of 50.

Undoubtedly he was talented, but he was a deeply flawed man.

Quote Of The Week

I am afraid that I don't know who wrote this, I saw it on the BBC "Have Your Say" pages probably on an Iran thread ...... who ever it was, 'Thanks', it made me laugh.

Obama "unclenches his fist", and the Iranians kick him between the legs!

Obama And The Iranians Have History

 If that doesn't about sum up the futility of President Obamas 'appeal to the Muslim world', then nothing does. Certainly the Iranians couldn't give a damn about his 'appeal.'

Back to the drawing board I suspect.

The Heart of Darkness

A couple of small follow ups .....

Follow Up

Last week I discussed the shocking revelation, that a poll in South Africa showed that one in four men were rapists, and one in eight was a serial rapist. Well surprisingly, the 'wimmin' at the BBC, decided that being an African male was no longer an excuse for being a rapist, so there was a follow up story.

However, instead of finding one of the rapists who was proud of their attitude (the vast majority of them), and asking why? They found the one repentant 'rapist' in South Africa, and chronicled his 'apology' to the woman he had raped (she had since been raped on two other occasions). The wave of criminality that seems to accompany African males around the world is still a 'no no' subject, but maybe this is a start in addressing the fact that there is an issue.

Still in the enlightened continent, the burning of old people to death as witches, is still apparently a popular tribal sport in Kenya. This latest story describes the casual burning alive of five elderly men and women in Itii village, as witnessed by a BBC reporter.

The total silence by the PC brigade, and their spineless politicians, on the subject of these horrible murders, and similarly on the mass rape of South African women, is more damming than anything else I could say about the PC sickness that is corrupting Western moral values.

Henry Allingham - Worlds Oldest Man

The world has a new oldest man and he's English! Henry Allingham is aged 113.

Just a quick resume, is enough to bring awe! Born on the 6th of June 1896, he was aged five when Queen Victoria died.

He is the last survivor of the Battle of Jutland, the last surviving member of the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) in which he served in the first world war, and the last surviving founding member of the Royal Air Force (RAF).

He remembers watching W. G. Grace playing cricket, around 1903-05, and also recalls seeing the City Imperial Volunteers return from the Second Boer War.

He has lived through the Wall Street Crash of 1929, as well as the current collapse, and in all, his life has spanned three centuries and six monarchs. The US president at his birth was Grover Cleveland (the 24th), and its now Barack Obama (the 44th).

Here's a few memorable events - there are thousands more I could list.

• 1901 - Queen Victoria dies
• 1914 - WWI begins
• 1917 - Russian Revolution
• 1929 - The Wall Street Crash
• 1939 - The Second World War starts
• 1945 - First atomic bomb detonated
• 1953 - Everest climbed for the first time
• 1963 - President Kennedy assassinated
• 1969 - Neil Armstrong walks on the Moon
• 1989 - Fall of the Berlin Wall
• 1990 - Nelson Mandela freed from prison after 27 years
• 2008 - US elects first black president

A life well lived, and remarkable in the events it has witnessed.

South African Rapists

The release of a poll of South African males, shows that one in four are admitted rapists, and that one in eight are serial rapists. They are not apologetic about it.

These figures are simply appalling, and in a civilised world would cause shock waves in the South African tourist industry, and demands that any society that could act this way be ostracised until it was reformed.

However as its "The Rainbow Nation" this complete collapse of civil behaviour is ignored, downplayed, or apologised away by all the foreign ministers, despite the imminence of the world cup next year. I wonder if this wilful downplaying, of the risks of sending their citizens to what is virtually a war zone (with 22,000 murders every year, rape apparently a national sport, and even visiting sports teams getting robbed, how else would you describe it?), are not actually in criminal neglect of their duty of care?

South Africa has fallen a long way in the last decade or so, and any PC apologists for a nation of rapists are welcome to debate this opinion with me.

An Apology to the Portugese Police

Recently I blogged disparagingly about the open sale of drugs in Portugal ..... 

Algarve Plagued By Drug Peddlers

.... well, how was I to know that the Portuguese government has totally abandoned fighting drug dealing?

The Court of the Mad Hatter

Colonel Gadaffi is visiting Italy ..... mad as a hatter.

The Michael Jackson of African politics (note the cutout from a newspaper, and the cardboard with campaign colours, pinned to his uniform!!), is seen here cutting a dashing sartorial figure, against a somewhat drab Premier Berlusconi.

There are pictures of Jackson with a goatee, but he looks so freakish that I prefer not to post them on the blog. He needed help years ago, before he excavated his face and lost his colour. But mad as others undoubtedly are, there can only be one Gadfather!

Africa Still Struggles

Mr Kofi Annan launched a report that urged Africa to drive its own development but (and theres always a but with Africa), he still wanted the aid donors to honour their commitments too.

However the report highlighted that corruption is costing Africa around $150bn (£92bn) a year.

Mr Annan said "Africa has transformed in my lifetime and the progress reached so far is proof that concrete achievements are possible amidst adversity. The economic, climate change and food security crises are all linked. They cannot be tackled separately. We need a new development model that provides security, stability, and addresses people's needs. Everyone needs to contribute. Business has a key role, as do Africa's trading and donor partners. But the primary responsibility to make it happen rests with Africa's political leaders."

The Africa panel who produced the report said the number of wars was sharply down. Fifteen years ago there were 13 civil wars. Now they claim that there are just three: Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia.

However African Analysts point out that this report ignores conflicts in Chad, the Central African Republic and Ethiopia, not to mention low-level insurgencies in at least another four states - including Nigeria.

In otherwords, Africa is still a basket case of wars and corruption.

Free Bird

Having an International arrest warrant out against him, need not cramp a ‘world leaders’ style.

Omar al-Bashir, the President of The Sudan wanders freely as a bird o'er vales and hills, Africa, and most of the Middle East, despite being wanted International Criminal Court, on charges of genocide.

As long as he stays in Islamic and African countries he can't be touched. So much for world justice or opinion.

Gordon Browns Body Lies A Moldering In A Political Grave

When you have a vote, sometimes the results are a nightmare, and thats what Gordon Brown is finding.

He has apparently been hung out like dead meat by his party, for anyone to take pot shots at, as no one in the party will sack him, for fear that one of them has to take the predicted election defeat in his place.

So he won a stay of execution (again), but will suffer 'death by a thousand cuts' over the next few months instead.

Crocodile Tears For Human Rights

The Sufi's of Somalia are apparently up in arms (literally in that country) over the desecration of their Mosques and graves sites by the hardliner Wahhabi, al-Shabab terrorists that they allowed to operate from their country.

But before we get too upset for the Sufi’s, remember that when the radicals take over, even their friends suffer ..... so lets not have too many crocodile tears from the Sufi's, who said nothing when Christian graves were scattered in Somalia .....

Crimes against humanity (which they say the mosque closures are), are not restricted to being only when Muslims are being upset. If the Sufi's are now saying that the Wahhabis are 'foreign', it all sounds a little too late to me.

The Wahhabis are not the sole root of militant Islam, and their erstwhile supporters and allies should remember that they have collaborated in attacks on us, when asking the West for help or sympathy.

Democracy Ain’t Working No More

There has to be a point when Parliament is considered to be the main defender of the UK citizen, because despite its extensive failings, it can’t really be said that ‘public safety’ is ignored.

I say this, because the British judiciary continue to display a reckless disregard for the safety of others, by thwarting every effort to deport scumbags back their own countries. Now they have decided that house arrest for people deemed a threat to national security, is only legal if the security services give disclosure of the evidence (and presumably therefore, from whom and how, it was obtained) to those accused.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am aware that Habeas Corpus has long been used as a means of redress, which a person can seek from the unlawful detention of themselves or of another person. It protects the individual from harming him or herself, or from being harmed by the judicial system. In fact the writ of habeas corpus has historically been an important instrument for the safeguarding of individual freedom, against arbitrary state action.

However, when we can’t remove persons who act against the state and the national security of the UK, because the courts insist that terrorists, murderers, rapists etc have ‘human rights’ that supercede those of the law abiding citizen. And that this 'right' means they can’t go back to a 'place of danger' (even though the ‘danger’ is often a legally sanctioned penalty, for their terrible crimes commited in that country), then how exactly can we defend ourselves?

I like many others, despair of the fact that an act of Parliament is no longer the law of the land, but merely an excuse for unelected judges to determine the social, immigration and public defence policies of the UK, often against the wishes of the general public, and the aims of the legislator.

What is democracy, if even those elected are subject to the decisions of the totally unelected?

Gordon's Knot Unravels

Sometime ago I suggested that Gordon Brown was

a) Not the right man for the job, and
b) Be lucky to make it to the next election as leader, before being comprehensively rejected by the English (if not the British).

Well it appears that we may be near that end game, with his popularity at an all time low, and his government in turmoil with Ministers leaving, and others deciding to leave him in office to take the inevitable wipe-out next June (in many instances it would seem stupid to take over the leadership now, so better to look "loyal" and earn a few "Brownie points" - sorry about that pun).

It's possible he will survive this crisis, after all its not the first, as his Premiership has floundered for over 12 months, and he may even not get beaten out of sight in a the next general election.

After all, a weeks along time in politics, but I for one wouldn't put £5 on either event, and nor would many others .....

However a note of warning to the Conservatives, the old swingometer, shows that the Tories need a swing of at least 11.5 percentage points, in order to get a 'working majority' (this because they have been so poorly supported in the last few elections), so a 'hung Parliament' is the most likely election result.

Being Uncharitable

I don't give to many foreign leaning charities or NGO's, or even little known local charities, not because I am heartless, or willing to let people die, but because I believe that vast amounts of the money raised goes to

• The administrators & charity workers
• Fraud
• Corruption or to other areas such as Terrorism.

This story illustrates my concerns. World Vision (A US charity) says that 90% of its aid to Liberia was stolen by locals employee's in a massive fraud. This was nearly $1,000,000 dollars pocketed by the staff.

My only surprise is that there aren't more revelations like this ...... but then this was only discovered after an anonymous local tip off, not because the charity had enough safeguards in place.

The Safest Way To Give To Charities In The UK?

I strongly suspect that many more scams like this would come to light if investigations took place and I also suspect that many 'Islamic charities' that operate in the West, are little more than terrorist fund raisers (much like the 'Irish Republican' collections by Noraid in the US were alleged to be in the 70's and 80's).