Dark Days Ahead
I spent a largely unremarkable holiday in Tunisia back in the 80’s. It was so unremarkable I can’t remember whether I was in Sousse or not. It was very hot and, in the time-honoured phrase of the heinous Western Imperialist, the locals were friendly. I saw an advert for holidays in Tunisia just the other day. As it happens I had no particular desire to go back; I am not so keen on the heat, that’s all, though I would quite like to see some historical sites. But I thought to myself: even if I did, no way would I go. My reasons were instinctive, but now I have cause to examine them it would come down to this. Much of North and Sub Saharan Africa and large parts of the Near and Middle East (however you define them) are in a violent melt down. Tunisia is a nascent democracy surrounded by very dangerous places, and although I was not aware until analysis of the latest events, I am not surprised to hear that it has its own cadre of ISIS supporting radicals. It just seemed to me that it would be a potentially dangerous place to be.
In that sense I could be accused of acceding to the terrorists’ agenda, of allowing them to win. I would probably plead guilty to that charge; although I would prefer to say that I would merely be being prudent. The chance of me being gunned down or paraded in an orange jump suit before the world’s media before having my head sawn off would be very small, I know; but as I write this the bodies of people who are guilty of no more than wanting a holiday in the sun are being counted and identified. It was a wicked act, a cowardly act, and a heinous crime. I also feel for the people of Tunisia, who will suffer too now, as their vital tourist industry probably contracts, if not goes into melt down. And so jobs are lost, poverty ensues. Poverty and despair feed violence and extremism and hate, and so the cycle goes on. A good day’s work, then, for the terrorists.
When I started writing for our Landlady I borrowed the name Gildas from a historical figure, Gildas the Monk, who lived sometime in the 500’s AD. It was partly an accidental thing, but there was a degree of serendipity about it, because he chronicled what he (rightly) believed to be a failure of moral and political leadership amongst the elite of the Roman-British of the day, and was witnessing the collapse of that society before aggressive invaders, particularly the Saxons. In my darker moments I suppose I can see certain parallels today.
Here is how I see it. This is what our politicians won’t say because they either don’t understand it or they dare not or wont for expedient reasons. After millennia of conflict Europe has not only achieved a sophisticated, elegant civilisation in terms of art, culture, science, law and politics, but also a degree of peace and stability. That civilisation faces two threats. One is the global Jihadist movement of which ISIS is just one fanatical offspring. It is intellectually dishonest to hand out the “this has nothing to do with Islam banner” every time we get one of these atrocious events. Just because many Muslims don’t behave in this way does not mean that there is not a strain of Islamic thought which is supremacist, violent in the extreme, cruel to the point of obsession with torture and death, and to a degree racist in the extreme. As IS’s chief propagandist is quoted as saying in the papers yesterday in a message to its adherents: “Muslims! Embark and hasten forward to jihad! Oh Holy warriors, rush and go make Ramadan a month of calamities for infidels”. As it happens, those infidels appear to include Shia Muslims, whom the fundamentalist Sunni regard as heretics.
This movement is not going to stop unless it is destroyed, or we are destroyed. The fight will be brought to us whether we want it or not. It is the Terminator of religious dogma; you cannot reason with it, you cannot bargain with it, and it absolutely will not stop.
The second major threat is uncontrolled and massive migration. I am not talking about people getting work permits and coming to do skilled jobs. I am talking about seismic shifts in population, and when these have happened in history they have always swept away the recipient civilisation. One of the crucial factors in bringing down the Roman Empire was the migration of tribes such as the Vandals, the Visigoths and other lesser known such as the Subei, who in turn were seeking to get away from the migration of the brutal Huns. In the end the infrastructure collapsed, and the new arrivals did what all such house-guests do; they sacked Rome.
At the moment, thousands are arriving in Greece, Italy and also Malta. Amongst them are people who are fleeing terrible regimes. I would bet that amongst them are also those who adhere to the IS creed, too. But the real problem is the numbers. There is a debate about the degree to which they are asylum seekers or economic migrants. To a degree, this is immaterial. There are not tens of thousands of people in North and Sub-Saharan Africa and the Near and Middle East who would, probably perfectly understandably, want to flee the dangerous and un-civilised conditions of their present lives; there are tens of millions. With unrestricted migration there will come all the things the people know about, but the politically correct denigrate people for saying: crime, overstretched housing, chaos, and the breakdown of civil society. These threats are real, and I do not know what the answer is to them. If there is an answer, I don’t trust our lords and masters to come up with ones, or implement them. That might involve being seen to get their hands dirty, and that is not something politicians like to be seen doing.
I will give you one brief example of how the Establishment has viewed what I regard as being in the modern jargon, “existential threats” to the security of the nation. The famous Law Lord, Lord Hoffmann (a patron of Amnesty International) once had to deal with the issue of whether Al-Qaeda terrorism amounted to a “War on the UK”. He said that the threat of terrorism to Britain did not constitute a ‘war or other public emergency threatening the life of the nation’. He further held that it was insufficient merely to produce evidence of a credible plot to commit terrorist outrages since that did not meet the need to show that the threat of terrorism constituted a public emergency threatening the life of the nation.
According to Lord Hoffmann: “The Armada threatened to destroy the life of the nation, not by loss of life in battle, but by subjecting English institutions to the rule of Spain and the Inquisition. The same was true of the threat posed to the United Kingdom by Nazi Germany in the Second World War. This country, more than any other in the world, has an unbroken history of living for centuries under institutions and in accordance with values which show a recognisable continuity … I am willing to accept that credible evidence of such plots exists. The events of 11 September 2001 in New York and Washington and 11 March 2003 in Madrid make it entirely likely that the threat of similar atrocities in the United Kingdom is a real one …This is a nation which has been tested in adversity, which has survived physical destruction and catastrophic loss of life. I do not underestimate the ability of fanatical groups of terrorists to kill and destroy, but they do not threaten the life of the nation. Whether we would survive Hitler hung in the balance, but there is no doubt that we shall survive Al‑Qaeda. The Spanish people have not said that what happened in Madrid, hideous crime as it was, threatened the life of their nation. Their legendary pride would not allow it. Terrorist violence, serious as it is, does not threaten our institutions of government or our existence as a civil community”
Brilliant fool. I fear dark days ahead.
Gildas the Monk
-
June 28, 2015 at 9:44 am -
As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see “the River Tiber foaming with much blood.”
Channelling Enoch?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3643823/Enoch-Powells-Rivers-of-Blood-speech.html
-
June 28, 2015 at 10:03 am -
I don’t think Gildas was concerned merely with ‘immigration’, but with an ideology so implaccably opposed to our own civilisation that it will destroy it by any means possible. So no, not really channelling Enoch in this instance.
-
June 28, 2015 at 12:00 pm -
I think Enoch Powell was imagining the English massacring Jamaicans.
-
June 28, 2015 at 1:36 pm -
I think whatever Powell may or may not have imagined is pretty well irrelevant to the present discussion.
-
June 28, 2015 at 3:37 pm -
Not entirely:- In the late 1960s/early 1970s Enoch Powell stated that the greatest threat to Western civilisation was not Soviet Communism, was not Chinese Communism, but was in fact, Islamic extremism.
His ‘imagination’ was pretty spot-on.
-
June 28, 2015 at 9:57 pm -
Spot on now, but back then he was talking complete bollocks, if that’s what he was saying. To be honest, it’s the first I’ve heard that Enoch was especially interetsed in Islam. It’s only about 25 years since the Daily Mail was running leaders expresing the view that “Asians”, with their “traditional family values” were now more British than the British, who had become a race of louche, indisciplined debauchees.
-
June 28, 2015 at 11:52 pm -
Yup:- Some Asians (Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists) do have a very family-oriented culture. But then 25 years ago, the powers-that-be according to another Mail (Birmingham Mail) were aware of the growing problem – and did nowt.
http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/birmingham-city-council-hid-links-8131813
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 10:01 am -
Quite
-
June 28, 2015 at 10:01 am -
By recalling previous threats to Britain’s freedoms, Lord Hoffmann evidently fails to grasp that ISIS and its various affiliated companies are not a traditional army representing a nation state that can be fought in the manner of an old-fashioned war. So many of these incidents are in the hands of a lone wolf acting on his own twisted impulses, and to seek to crush the threat by launching any sort of military invasion would only turn the danger levels up to eleven. After all, one could argue such tactics in the recent past have inadvertently put us where we are now. It is indeed a condundrum that appears to have no clear-cut solution at this moment in time, alas.
-
June 28, 2015 at 11:51 am -
Exactly so, Petunia. It is a failure to recognise the nature of the threat. Of course Al Quada or IS are not about to seep ashore in landing craft and march on London. But they don’t have to do that to cause mayhem, disaster and a a threat to democracy whether by reactionary laws, or by the political agendas of those who either support its aims or cower before it. 38 people shot dead on a beach, nay of not most of them British, is a pretty good example of a war, in my book.
-
June 28, 2015 at 12:03 pm -
A closer analogy is the violent anarchist movement of the decades before WW I. They used bombs and assassinations to spread terror, hoping to bring about the triumph of their ideology.
The Muslim Brotherhood is more like the Comintern.
-
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 10:08 am -
A key question for those in denial is “Would any of this have happened without Islam?”.
The unavoidable truth is that Islam is the single common link upon which the recent surge in international terrorism and state-failure is rooted. In order to reverse this, the ‘civilised’ world must first bite some difficult political bullets, before using some real ones to eliminate the root-cause. It will not.-
June 28, 2015 at 7:30 pm -
I think similar situations would have arisen had Islam never been invented. After all, 9/11, Madrid and 7/7 were inside jobs, not “al Qaeda” attacks – al Qaeda being a made-up name by the CIA and bin Laden being their employee.
‘IS’ and every other group get away with it as long as it suits the Establishment/Elite’s agenda and it certainly does because as Gildas says, mass migration ends up destroying the civilisation that existed. Former KGB subversion agent, Yuri Bezmenov confirms that once our religion has been wiped out the country will collapse.
He also explained that the KGB spread “equality” to achieve the same purpose. We now have such confusion over ‘sexuality’ that two blokes or two women can ‘marry’ each other and with half of the UK’s babies being born to unmarried women, the Fabian’s age-old dream to destroy the family is being realised.
The goal is to destroy all national sovereignty by all manner of social engineering and media propaganda.
One could say that the biggest threat to our liberty is our own voters who keep voting in the destroyers. Cameron again for more mass immigration and more PC social engineering.
They are replacing our Judeo-Christian laws and values, which brought us relative freedom and fairness, with manmade laws designed to lead us into global governance. The humanists think they are so clever and ‘free-thinking’ that their arrogance blinds them to the unbelievable damage they are doing.
We are probably 3/4 of the way there. Our so-called government is told what to do by Brussels, Geneva and elsewhere (like those agreements made at climate summits).
We are heading for a worldwide police state. Islam, like immigrants, homosexuals, feminists, humanists, environmentalists and bleeding heart liberals are just being used to get us there.
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 10:09 am -
One problem is that Europe has become inward-looking and obsessed with the problems of it’s own administration. It tends to regard the existential threat posed by extreme Islam as an annoying distraction, not the real and present (and growing) danger that it is becoming.
Gildas, I share your concern.
-
June 28, 2015 at 1:01 pm -
The other problem is that we’ve taken what should be an external (to Britain, Europe etc) threat and turned it into an internal one via mass immigration
-
June 28, 2015 at 1:49 pm -
I’m no fan of mass immigration either (as opposed to controlled immigration, which can be very beneficial), but Britain isn’t the seat of ISIL’s ideology. True, some are ‘radicalised’ whilst living in Britain, but it seems the proportion is lower than in some other countries (notably Belgium, for some reason). It is the case that ISIL claim to be smuggling some of their ‘fighters’ in with the refugees and migrants crossing the Med; one hopes the EU authorities have taken note, though I suspect that haven’t quite woken up yet.
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 7:11 pm -
Not exactly , Engineer. The problem with Europe, or particularly the UK, is the emergence of an educated class, what you might call the Guardianistas, who, because they are reasonable , civilised types, refuse to believe that everyone else doesn’t share their values. Unfortunately most of the media, particularly the bbc and those in senior public sevice, education and the legal profession, fall into this category.
I frequent a rugby forum which has many posters , particularly Uni and educational bods, who fall completely into this category. There are a handfull of expats, such as myself, with years of experience of life in Islamic countries , and when we point out that the Rop’ers really do intend to take over , and really do believe the whole will of Allah thingie, we are vilified as racists.
This goes hand in hand with a casual contempt for people such as Ukip supporters or obviously working class movements such as EDL.-
June 28, 2015 at 11:14 pm -
I agree with you about the ‘Guardianista bien penseurs’. They forget too easily that freedom and democracy do not defend themselves, and that there are ideologies that hate them. Given that within living memory we have had to expend vast amounts of blood and treasure to defend freedom and democracy from an evil within Europe’s bounds, you have to wonder why they have forgotten so quickly.
-
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 10:10 am -
The past always looms large just now, whether Irish or Palestinian. Viper in the bosom and all that jazz.
http://articles.latimes.com/1990-05-31/news/mn-911_1_tel-aviv -
June 28, 2015 at 10:12 am -
Gildas, I recommend you try http://www.globalresearch.ca & study the origins of ISIS.
They are a Western construct, as is Al-Qaeda, originally subsidised & trained as a proxy Western army to oust the then USSR from Afghanistan.Since the false flag atrocity of 9/11, Al-Qaeda are the Muslim bogey men, as are ISIS, committing professionally well publicised atrocities to build the anti-Muslim hate needed to build public sentiment toward WW III.
While it is the West which has illegally bombed & invaded, on the basis of lies, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, thrown Saudi at Yemen, etc, etc
Our own Lords & Masters have conducted the disastrous wars which have created these unfortunate refugees.These people are mere unfortunate “Pawns in the Game”, a book I recommend greatly, by William Guy Carr.
We indigenous people are also pawns in the games of the Globalists, & our fates, as I look at Greece being raped, are none too pretty.John Doran.
-
June 28, 2015 at 10:31 am -
One of the great strengths of Western civilisation is that, provided they harm nobody, nutters are generally tolerated. Even in the Raccoon Arms snug.
-
June 28, 2015 at 10:47 am -
nutters are generally tolerated. Even in the Raccoon Arms snug.
A fact, for which, I light a candle daily to St.Procyon….any normal pub would have kicked my rather cute Dwarfish butt to the kerb long since.
-
June 28, 2015 at 12:12 pm -
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/04/05/important-ae911truth-seeks-aia-call-911-investigation/
I studied at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, in Bedford Square, when a kid. I’m 61 now, & have 40 years experience in the construction industry. Some simple & undeniable, if inconvenient, truths:
1) 2 planes cannot cause 3 perfectly controlled demolitions.
2) Building 7 “fell” 23 minutes after the BBC reported it gone, without any plane impact.
3) The landlord Silverstein is on record as saying “We pulled it.” – A demolition term.
4) The 2 towers were designed to absorb plane impacts.
5) The 3 buildings fell at free-fall speed, which is only possible if all internal structure has been removed – a controlled demolition.
6) Never in history has fire caused the demolition of a steel framed structure. It’s a physical impossibility.
7) Office fires do not generate heat enough to soften steel, never mind cause its instant evaporation, simultaneously, over 100 stories.I could go on, but: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/04/05/important-ae911truth-seeks-aia-call-911-investigation/
You do not deserve the label you post under.
-
June 28, 2015 at 2:01 pm -
I earned the label I post under, the hard way.
May I respectfully suggest that you go and do some research on the failure of large steel-framed structures, and the effects of elevated temperature on the mechanical properties of steels. One thing is very clear – Al Qaida and their plane hijackers had a far better grasp of the engineering than you do.
-
June 28, 2015 at 7:58 pm -
* Al Qaida and their plane hijackers had a far better grasp of the engineering than you do *
Now I think you are straying into conspiracy theory yourself. They would have had no more idea of what was going to happen than the best qualified architects and engineers in the West, because if you maintain they knew the Jenga Towers would fall down, then how come they were so clever if the cream of America’s experts seemed to not have the faintest notion?-
June 28, 2015 at 11:32 pm -
Conspiracy theory? No. Bin Laden held a degree in structural engineering. He knew that a strike low enough down a very tall building of slightly unconventional design would cause structural weakness by impact damage and by fire reducing the mechanical properties of structural steel. The sheer mass of the building above could then be enough to cause the top of the building to collapse onto the lower part. He couldn’t be sure that would enough to cause total collapse of the whole structure, but he did know that it would enough to cause extensive damage and mass panic. The result probably exceeded his expectations structurally, but it certainly caused mass panic.
It seems that the possibility of aircraft strike was considered during the buildings’ design, following a serious incident when a B52 bomber struck the Empire State Building. With the benefit of hindsight, that consideration was inadequate; sadly that’s sometimes how engineering knowledge advances – we didn’t expect that, why did it happen, and how do we prevent it again? I’ll bet everybody does aircraft strike impact analyses on new tall building designs these days.
-
June 29, 2015 at 9:31 am -
Crashing jet liners into skyscrapers would extensive damage? Do you really need to be a structural genius to figure that out? From what I recall of the behaviour of most of the poor souls involved, there was remarkably little panic, so he got that wrong.
It was the single biggest miscalculation possible and he doomed his people and his cause to defeat. What an idiot.
-
-
-
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 12:17 pm -
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/04/05/important-ae911truth-seeks-aia-call-911-investigation/
My previous comment is “in moderation”.
-
June 28, 2015 at 1:16 pm -
John,
I’m a great believer in Conspiracy theories, but you are just plain wrong with this one. Besides, your Architectural qualifications are immaterial, because no Architects’ course does structural engineering at the requisite (if any) level.
These two towers may well have been designed to absorb the impact of a light aircraft, but not fuel laden jets going considerably faster. The structure relied on floors bracing the exterior columns, as this building was of unconventional design. Once you knock out some bracing, it’s going to collapse. Note the planes struck some way down, and all the structure weight on top of that is available to buckle the members below at temperatures far short of melting, and once the whole lot gets going, it has dynamic as well as static loading.
Nearby buildings are simply going to collapse under the blast effects of a nearly collapse, and this doesn’t always happen immediately after the initial effect: look at buildings that fall down minutes, hours or days after an earthquake.
Don’t equate what happened to the WTC with an office fire – that alone ranks you as someone who knows little and cares less.
As it happens, if I’d been Bush, I’d have taken a rather more fierce line than just to invade Iraq.
-
June 28, 2015 at 2:10 pm -
The collapse of two major structures will produce significant localised seismic effects. Add that to the blast effect, and damage to nearby structures is a distinct possibility. Catastrophic failure is not inevitable, but the chances are greatly raised.
-
June 29, 2015 at 2:12 am -
-
June 29, 2015 at 2:32 am -
-
June 29, 2015 at 8:43 am -
Nice one, Mr. Ecks.
Just too many coincidences, eh?-
June 29, 2015 at 8:54 am -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MoIQ3I0CE
Or, put in search box: 9/11 Truth v BBC (court case 25/2/13) Tony RookeBBC reported “fall” 23 mins before it happened. Tony Rooke refused to pay his licence fee to a terrorist complicit BBC.
He won his day in court.
Building 7 fell & was filmed falling at free fall speed. IE all internal structure removed, aka controlled demolition.
Building 7 was not impacted by a plane.
As Rooke says: “You can’t deny Newtons’ laws of psychics”-
June 29, 2015 at 9:07 am -
Easy link has gone, surprise, surprise, but the search box route still works.
-
-
-
-
June 29, 2015 at 8:45 am -
Struck by heavy debris from collapse of the North tower, causing serious structural damage and starting several fires (electrical short-curcuits?). The fires could not be effectively fought because of low water pressure. As the afternoon progressed, a bulge started to appear in the South side, and reports of creaking and other damage were made. As a result of those reports, the decision was made to evacuate the building and the area around it (which might explain John Doran’s “We pulled it” comment), so there were no casualties resulting when the building finally collapsed.
-
-
June 29, 2015 at 9:00 am -
What seismic effects?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vadSaWyozgThere was no seismic record because the towers were so thoroughly demolished they blew away in billowing clouds of dust.
-
June 29, 2015 at 9:11 am -
Or, put in search box: Dr Judy Wood: Evidence of breakthrough energy technology on 9/11
No Seismic recording, & the towers were in a bowl, most vulnerable to seismic shocks.
-
-
-
June 29, 2015 at 9:53 am -
Why Iraq?
& the towers were designed to withstand the impact of several fully laden 757shttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU961SGps8g
Or, put in search box: BEST 9/11 DOCUMENTARY EVER! (FULL MOVIE)
1 hr 45 mins.-
June 29, 2015 at 9:55 am -
OK John – enough is enough. This is a discussion about events in Tunisia, not a free for all on the Twin Towers.
-
June 29, 2015 at 10:07 am -
It’s all tied together, Anna.
The US has created a never ending “War on Terror” through the false flag twin towers slaughter, & ISIS on TV are keeping that Western emotion stoked. Tunisia is the latest chapter in that war.
This is not a point to be buried or sneered at. It’s the diabolic reality we inhabit.
If you ,or any of your guests can disprove me on any single point I’ve made, I’ll be pleased to be corrected.
JD.
-
June 29, 2015 at 10:14 am -
If they’re all as clever as you believe John, then I would suggest resistance is as futile as any attempt to dissuade you from your worship of these diabolically clever geniuses. They always used to remark that a genius was just a neuron north of a lunatic and Western Peace-nik Policy has been nothing if not idiotic for about twenty years, starting in the former Yugoslavia.
-
June 29, 2015 at 12:46 pm -
This also:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOb92R34jxo
In fairness–while I am entirely willing to believe the “leadership” of the US and the West in general evil enough to kill 3000 innocent people to further their tyrannical ends, it has always bugged me as to HOW they might have done it. Stuffing 3 buildings with explosives and wiring them would have been a monster job.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 10:38 am -
I look at Greece being raped
A more accurate analogy would be that Greece was a Syphilitic Streetwalker (which would make Italy a crackwhore) whose hot looks and willingness to do ‘3 ways blanko’ brought her to the attention of the town’s Uberpimp. In a moment of weakness and Viagra induced stupids, he, the fat Uberpimp, was persuaded to install her in a High Class brothel. Once in the lap of luxury, Greece led the high life, highballing cokes and champagne and instead of following her fellow ‘escorts’ example didn’t save, didn’t take out fixed return life insurance policy. First she blew through her own earnings and then spent the commission that she should have passed on to the brothel’s Madame Merkel. Finally she started wheedling ‘loans’ from the other girls and when that no longer worked she graduated to ‘demands with menaces’, blamng everyone but herself and her coke addiction for her woes.
-
June 28, 2015 at 12:20 pm -
Try John Ward’s blog to grasp the Greek rape scenario. John is an astute analyst of globalism.
-
June 28, 2015 at 1:02 pm -
“US will fight Russia down to the last Euro & the last European, & our politicians will allow it, it seems. It’s madness” -JD in another place.
I find it hard to disagree with that.
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 5:00 pm -
Nice analogy, Dwarf.
To extend; now she looks like being kicked out of the brothel for non payment of dues, there’s nice rich Mr Putin who would like to be her new sugar daddy, for a little help with pipelines and ports, of course. Wonder what the other pimps are thinking?
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 10:57 am -
You really should read some books written by people resident on planet Earth, not this false flag garbage.
-
June 28, 2015 at 12:28 pm -
The book I recommended above was written by a WWII Canadian naval intelligence officer, after 40 years research into why the World was not prospering. His conclusion in 2 words? The Banksters.
Try Bill Still’s masterful history of banking: The Money Masters. 3.5 hrs on youtube, or his Wizard of OZ work, which too few people realise is a banking allegory.
-
June 28, 2015 at 12:40 pm -
Two books:
Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope.
G. Edward Griffin, The creature from Jeckyl Island.Both are respected researchers & historians & Griffin is now involved in exposing the Chemtrails disgrace.
-
June 28, 2015 at 1:07 pm -
Been there, read that, got the T-shirt:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1954955/reviews-8
now say something intelligent.
-
June 29, 2015 at 9:19 am -
That’s a pretty fair assessment of Bill Still’s work.
-
June 29, 2015 at 9:34 am -
& for something intelligent:
The Taliban offered to surrender Bin Laden if Bush provided some evidence. He couldn’t, so US/Nato invaded Afghanistan, I think one month later. A full invasion takes months to plan & prepare, so this was obviously pre-planned months in advance.
If it was just Bin Laden they were after, a small operation by special forces would have sufficed, but Osama was never the real agenda.
The West had been negotiating for a pipeline, but the Taliban wanted too much money. The West’s negotiator, Hamid Karzai was later installed as the West’s puppet in chief. We went to war to save International Financiers a few quid.
Next the 1%s got fabulously valuable mineral rights.
Last but certainly not least, to my mind, is the Taliban had the poppy acreage under cultivation down to almost zero.
Now, after a 14 year occupation, the heroin producing acreage is at an historic high.
We went to war for the drug barons, & to fcuk up the youth of the West-
June 29, 2015 at 9:38 am -
* We went to war for the drug barons, & to fcuk up the youth of the West *
Oh fcuk, it’s not all about the bloody cheeeldren now is it?….-
June 29, 2015 at 9:57 am -
I have sons & grandchildren. Yes the youth are a concern of mine.
Afghanistan now is producing enough to supply world Heroin demand.
If that’s not a concern to you…..
-
June 29, 2015 at 10:00 am -
Are they just the boys who can’t say no?
Have a half on me and chill out a bit. It’s a bit early for a pint where I am.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 5:41 pm -
‘False Flag’ – bullshit. With respect.
-
June 29, 2015 at 9:44 am -
False flag, just like Pearl Harbour, Gulf of Tonkin, Lusitania, USS Maine, like Hitler faking an invasion by Poles.
When a nation wants to enlist its people for war, an event to galvanise their emotions is staged. A time honoured historic tradition.How likely is it that 19 Saudis armed with box cutters hijacked 4 airliners & flew them into the most heavily defended airspace in the world for ~ 2 hours, without getting shot down?
Then Afghanistan gets invaded, then Iraq, but never Saudi Arabia?
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 7:30 pm -
Well spoken sir, I blame George Bush and Blair, idiots.
-
June 29, 2015 at 9:46 am -
Greedy psychopaths, mass murderers & war criminals, the pair.
I’d love to see them in the dock.
-
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 10:14 am -
Good to see you back , Gildas, your Sunday posts have been sorely missed- not that Pet’s were in anyway bad, far far from it, but your musing on Sundays always have that touch of Radio4 whereas Pet dwells among the columns of Gonzo, Trainspotters and the bottom drawer of Mulder’s filing cabinet.
However, I note you have failed to give us any cat related news. This must be corrected.
-
June 28, 2015 at 11:56 am -
You are most kind, BD. I shall endeavour to rectify this matter. Old Cat is proving problematic at the moment. My latest attempt to get him to the vet ended with my in casualty. Not quite stitches, but a tetanus and anti biotics were needed, and I may have a scar. It’s just that he is terrified, poor little fellow. He is asleep on his cushion at the moment, full of warm chicken. I bought a miniature blender of the type you use to make baby food or pate to make his food a little easier for hos mouth, since he has had a few teeth out. Young Cat from next doors has no such issues, and is fast asleep on my bed, similarly replete.
-
June 28, 2015 at 1:07 pm -
Thank you
It’s just that he is terrified, poor little fellow. SNORK! I shall have to bear that in mind when next I encounter a large, black, hoody wearing, mugger armed to the teeth (or in Old Cat’s case, what few teeth he has left).
-
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 10:23 am -
OK… I’m going to don my tin foil hat and expect to be told I’m paranoid (“You’re paranoid”)…
Could it be that the Powers That Be really just don’t give a shit? That tiny percentage of the world’s population who have accrued power and wealth are really the ones in charge (no, I’m not going David Icke here). They know that our planet’s resources are finite and that they are becoming depleted and increasingly costly to extract. That includes water and, within the next 20 years, food. They know that one of the drivers of this is increasing population and demands that all have decent standards of living.
Do you think it would not be largely in their interests if a limited cull is carried out? I am not suggesting they meet in darkened rooms to plan this – more like they recognise that confrontation between the lower orders of all continents is inevitable and that , actually, if they sit back and hunker down and let us get on with it, it will not harm their own interests in the long run. I think they recognise a confluence of naturally occurring circumstances is bringing things to a head and as far as they concerned, it’s best to just let us get on with it. I’m sure those with wealth and power have isolated 2nd homes away from the centres of population which will experience the worst. But once we have all killed each other, or died from other circumstances, there will be enough remaining to peaceably move in to the now-deserted areas to recommence civilisation as we know it. And civilisation will be needed for the continued acquisition of wealth.
After all, the current western civilisation we have grew up from the ashes of Rome after it had been sacked, and Rome from Greece before it. There is nothing to say it cannot happen again. The wealthy will keep their sources of knowledge and technology and will be able to build on what we already know.
I’m not on a Marxist rant here saying the solution is to overthrow those in power and to come together across the world in internationalist brotherly love – it ain’t gonna happen (to quote Ed) and all of us (me included) have our own interests at heart before those of others. But I find it remarkable we have ISIS, Greece/EU/Brexit, the Ukraine, African migration (and indeed south Asian migration towards Australia), Boko Haram, the decline of the welfare states across Europe and various gun atrocities/allegations of out-of-control policing in USA all at the same time.
Yeah, I know. I’m paranoid. Or maybe I’ve been infected with cynicism.
-
June 28, 2015 at 12:56 pm -
Such an elite would do far better to maintain peace and stability because nothing delivers luxury better than a smoothly functioning world economy.
The problem is that many of those who wield power are infected with various ideas that don’t necessarily work in everyone’s – even their own – best interests. Daniel C Dennett gives the example of an ant that keeps crawling to the top of a long blade of grass until it is devoured as prey. Its brain has been infected by a parasite that controls its behaviour. Dennett was referring to religion that can affect human behaviour in an analogous way, but the same applies to political correctness which destroys free speech and hence the basis of all scientific and social progress in the West, to post colonial guilt which manifests as mass immigration and hence destroys by sheer numbers the Western nations subjected to it, and many other -isms and movements I could name that I’ll you having to plough through now.
-
June 28, 2015 at 12:58 pm -
A vast cull is under way, windsock, at least since 1972, that I know of.
DDT was “banned” as carcinogenic, June 1972. It wasn’t. People had eaten it in tests for 2 years proving it safe as the Sweeny report to Congress showed, April 1972.
DDT was an effective anti-malaria agent, & the “ban” caused more 3rd world deaths than Hitler caused, approx 50 million.
The biggest scandal of the 20th Century.
Why “banned” in quotation marks?
Because DDT was never formally banned. Foreign leaders were told: “order more DDT, you get no more foreign aid”.
Foreign leaders kept trousering the foreign aid & letting their people die.
Go to http://www.junkscience.com & put DDT in search box.-
June 28, 2015 at 1:37 pm -
Book, exposing the Global Warming/Climate Change scam, & the DDT scandal: State of Fear, by Michael Crichton. A best seller.
Dated, at 2005, I still reckon it the best introduction for newcomers to the GW/CC hoax.
Book dealing in more detail with other “Environmental” scares, including DDT:
Wildavsky, Aaron. But is it True? A Citizen’s Guide to Environmental Health and Safety Issues.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995
Asbestos, Ozone Hole, Acid Rain, Global Warming & 25 pages on DDT.
The then head of the US EPA, Environmental Protection Agency denounced DDT as carcinogenic, June 1972.
He did not read the Sweeny report. The EPA should more accurately be known as the Human Slaughter Agency.
This vast (93%?) depopulation is an unpublicised aim of the so-called “Green” movement.
Environmentalism, thoroughly worthy, has been hijacked by Communism, which killed 100 million of its own people during the 20th Century. Look into Greenpeace & Friends of the Earth. Jonathan Porritt has openly recommended a huge population reduction.
Another Malthusian control freak coward.-
June 28, 2015 at 3:30 pm -
John Doran would prefer you to read a fictional novel rather than actual climate science research….
Those who read The Slog will recognise this “debate”, where I point John to various web sites that disprove his wild AGW Denier claims (which he ignores).
Whereas, in reality, 2015 is currently the hottest year recorded thus far. CO2 levels are at a level last seen a few million years ago (when humans didn’t exist). Arctic sea ice is still melting. Glaciers are still melting. The oceans are still accumulating massive amounts of heat. I could go on – try http://www.skepticalscience.com for more gory details.But JohnDoran would have you believe that all the research and data is fake. He would have you believe that a theory, first proposed over 150 years ago and not substantially disproved since, is a lie. That tens of thousands of researchers in hundreds of different scientific disciplines have been bought off or bribed to produce false results. That someone, somewhere is coordinating what all this alleged fake research should say and handing out the money to those who comply.
What JohnDoran doesn’t seem to realise is that his Denier opinion is paid for and promulgated by fossil fuel companies, copying the tactics used by tobacco companies to cast doubt on the link between smoking and cancer, the old “Merchants of Doubt”. JohnDoran shows no interest in learning the science behind AGW – he’s been directed to numerous sites during our “debates” at The Slog but chooses not to read them. As already noted by others up-thread, John Doran doesn’t really know what he’s talking about and refuses to do the simplest background research. If anyone here hasn’t read Lewandowsky’s papers last year, on conspiracy ideation, I can recommend them.-
June 28, 2015 at 6:28 pm -
copying the tactics used by tobacco companies to cast doubt on the link between smoking and cancer,
There’s a real, proven, causal link between smoking and cancer ? (and btw I am so not a fan of,nor in the pay of,Big Tobacco-more’s the pity). Or did you just mean that whole ‘link’ thing in the Dollesque sense that a lot of the people who die from cancer were smokers or might have known a smoker or maybe have seen one on the street one morning? I would refer you to the relevant papers but 1. I’m not JD and 2.you’ll probably know them (if not then start with the ‘Doctor’s Study’).
-
June 28, 2015 at 6:29 pm -
June 29, 2015 at 9:50 am -
“There’s a real, proven, causal link between smoking and cancer ?”
Yes.
http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/tobacco/cessation-fact-sheet
And smokers die younger, not only of cancer, but also of a variety of circulation and lung diseases.That doesn’t mean every single smoker dies young and every single non-smoker lives to be 100.
-
-
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 2:58 pm -
JohnDoran would have you believe that the ONLY reason DDT was banned was due to possible carcinogenity – this is untrue. Concerns about bio accumulation (DDT can persist in the food chain for years) and its effects as a hormone disruptor were also involved in the decision. Later research has cast some doubt on some of the concerns raised at the time; but DDT is still licensed to combat malaria (rather than as a general crop pesticide). Mothers on this site will be pleased to know that their breast milk now contains much less DDT than before the ban was put into effect.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDTThose here who also read The Slog will recognise that John Doran has been corrected on this conspiracy theory before…
-
June 28, 2015 at 9:40 pm -
Im not sure who I pity more, the Faithful or the Heretic. Neither seems to do their own thinking, neither has the remotest chance of changing the views of the other and, yet, they spend every spare moment kicking lumps out of the other. Why do you feel such a desperate need to support an ideology that you will waste your time ‘exposing’ someone whose views are so plainly idiosyncratic and uninfluential? Is it the sport?
-
June 29, 2015 at 8:32 am -
@Edgar – because over on The Slog the views espoused by JD are taken seriously by some readers. Because crack-pottery is infectious if not countered. Because my intent is not to convince JD to change his mind, as I know that is hopeless.
-
June 29, 2015 at 11:14 am -
Edgar, how does idiosyncratic fit with not doing my own thinking?
-
-
June 29, 2015 at 9:53 am -
The main reason DDT was banned was that it was killing off the birds of prey at the top of the food chain. More precisely, it led to their laying thin-shelled eggs which didn’t survive.
We are also at the top of the food chain.
-
-
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 10:37 am -
A small point – South Asian immigration to Australia ( illegal variety, by boat) has virtually ceased.
Because they didn’t let them in and instead sent them to camps outside Australia.
We can argue forever about the ethics of that but it’s pretty much undeniable – if they know they won’t get in, they stop coming.-
June 28, 2015 at 10:42 am -
instead sent them to camps outside Australia
a possible new use for the country formerly known as ‘Greece’?
-
June 28, 2015 at 11:04 am -
It hasn’t stopped. Theyy are still leaving Burma, and Sri Lanka or Bangladesh and getting stuck in the Philipines or Indonesia or Thailand.
-
June 28, 2015 at 12:12 pm -
Likewise people are still leaving Eritrea and Syria and Zimbabwe. Nothing will reduce this movement except peace, good government and prosperity in those countries.
The problem with Britain is that it is prosperous, free and peaceful. It is one of the best places in the world to live. Naturally people want to live here.
We should elect an extreme left wing government led by a power-mad Marxist. The economy would then collapse and immigration would be greatly reduced. After thirty years in power, the Leader would be sealing the borders to prevent people from leaving.
-
June 28, 2015 at 3:37 pm -
Since we have had years of what in British conservative eyes has been ‘an extreme left wing government led by a power-mad Marxist’, then perhaps you can imagine what a paradise Britain would have been if left simply to prosper.
Harold Wilson may not have stopped people leaving, but the £50 travel cash limit meant that there were certain things they couldn’t do when they were on holiday.
-
June 28, 2015 at 8:01 pm -
* We should elect an extreme left wing government led by a power-mad Marxist. *
Arthur Scargill… your moment has finally arrived…
See, it’s all Thatchers fault for blocking what would have been the best thing for the country….
-
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 10:02 pm
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 10:49 am -
I was in Sousse until 5 days ago; a beautiful country, wonderful culture, great sites to visit (El Djem is a far better preserved colosseum than the one in Rome). Indeed our Landlady sent me worried E Mails, thinking I might still be there. Book a holiday there NOW – it is no less safe than London is or was 10 years ago. Tunisia is gorgeous. Mad loonies can strike anywhere. Mock ISICK. Reject them. Do not take small sects of bonkers killers seriously. And Open All Borders. It’s time civilization started treating the human race as a human race, coped with regional problems, stopped being isolationist and took advantage of the best the world can offer all of us whilst defending and helping ALL of us. We are a species, not a nation.
-
June 28, 2015 at 10:56 am -
Indeed our Landlady sent me worried E Mails,
That says a lot about the kind of person who runs this establishment.
-
June 28, 2015 at 11:24 am -
I didn’t like to think of Jonathan plastered over a foreign ceiling – rather than plastered under one…
-
June 28, 2015 at 11:40 am -
You naughty capitalist Raccoon, you! “If anybody’s going to get plastered, they’ll be putting their beer tokens in MY till!”
-
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 10:59 am -
Joe Orton like Tunisia as well. Nuff said.
-
June 28, 2015 at 11:05 am -
I thought it was Morocco?
-
June 28, 2015 at 11:09 am -
Libya I thought.
-
June 28, 2015 at 11:25 am -
Impossible to be accurate when consumed by homophobic rage…
-
June 28, 2015 at 11:47 am -
Oh, that.
-
-
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 11:50 am -
“It’s time civilization started treating the human race as a human race, coped with regional problems, stopped being isolationist and took advantage of the best the world can offer all of us whilst defending and helping ALL of us. We are a species, not a nation.”
YES!
But that’s going to be effing hard work because you don’t only have to change attitudes in this country, but the whole world. And honestly, how realistically achievable is that?
-
June 28, 2015 at 6:06 pm -
Oh yes it won’t be easy. I don’t expect to see all borders opened in my lifetime. But it is inevitable eventually, with the many problems it will bring. Humanity will eventually see who the big enemy is and it’s not part of our own species.
-
June 28, 2015 at 9:58 pm -
I’m sorry to say that I think your implicit suggestion of a little longer than your lifetime is wildly optimistic. We think ourselves civilised and a step away from Utopia, but, perhaps, nothing could be further from the truth. The Renaissance has come and gone: what we are seeing are the destabilising effects of over-population, instant gratification, the abandonment of responsibility, and the alarming surge in trial-by-media. This degeneracy is a juggernaut. A million good men and women, organised and dedicated, would be hard-pressed even to slow it down. Wishful thinking would be wise to just step out of the way.
-
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 10:01 pm -
I would normally think like you and went to Morocco just after the Tunisian museum attack (feeling slightly nervous). But at this stage two major attacks in three months is starting to put Tunisia into the distinctly unstable category. It is not Yemen or Somalia but it is hard to see with Libya in anarchy on its borders and a weak government that there is much they can do to stop the handful of nutters it would take to stage further attacks.
-
June 29, 2015 at 6:56 am -
I would think mass gatherings in Western countries are far more likely to be targets of the barking loonies myself and locking the stable door after the horse has bolted was never clever. Mind you, in cliche world (which we all live in today – our thoughts are with friends and family and other superficial bollocks) lightning does sometimes strike twice in the same spot. I would not advocate holidays in war zones or Ebola areas but otherwise – enjoy yourself, it’s later than we think.
-
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 10:51 am -
Doesnt a certain tribe attack their friends and blame it on their enemies!
-
June 28, 2015 at 11:03 am -
I’m an immigrant. I was recruited in from another European country to do a specific job. There was no need for a worker’s visa as my family was British, although something would have been arranged otherwise. Yet Britain seems to be committed to importing the least-well-educated, incompatible specimens it can find. I’m lucky enough to have had a good education, a very good job, reasonable solvency and a love of Britain. None of these seemed to count towards gaining British citizenship.
In these last ten years, I’ve witnessed a seismic shift. It was happening soon after I arrived, on the 7th of July 2005 – but it has gathered momentum. When I moved to where I now live six years ago, I was unhappy with the chavs. They have been unseated by others. It’s palpable, it’s tangible, it’s evident.
We are frogs in a slowly-heating saucepan.
-
June 28, 2015 at 11:43 am -
Spot on, Twenty Rothmans.
-
June 28, 2015 at 6:31 pm -
The boiling frog analogy is very true. Practically everyone I know who has been living outside of the UK for the last decade makes similar comments. These days when I visit the UK I feel like I’m living in an episode of “the prisoner” everyone has gone totally insane
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 9:57 pm -
Are the chavs also in the saucepan?
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 11:45 am -
It was happening soon after I arrived, on the 7th of July 2005
In the sense of ‘destroying Britain’ 7/7 was naught but a damp squib compared to the 01.07.07 -that day was the death knoll for the England of my youth. The 7/7 bombers never even came close, they ‘just’ murdered people.
-
June 28, 2015 at 11:51 am -
This October coming, it will be the 1283rd anniversary of the battle of Tours. Enough reason alone, I think, for those of us who regard this as having been a Good Thing to have our own little Ramadan.
But with beer…
-
June 28, 2015 at 12:04 pm -
Europe will soon undergo a radical political change, simply because the problem is very transparent.
It is beginning to affect people directly.
The current governments are tied up in PC chains of their own making.
Right wing political parties are springing up all over Europe, the first progressive domino to fall will be France.Just watch.
http://europe.newsweek.com/marine-le-pen-leads-french-presidential-poll-30-vote-303066
It isn’t a problem that cannot be solved, it is a problem requiring an all too obvious solution.
Boot out the current establishment, the radical blood soaked Islamists are not going to win, in fact they are going to sweep away every progressive political party in Europe.
Will people just lie down and die?
Probably not.ps
I hope… -
June 28, 2015 at 12:55 pm -
Gildas – totally agree, also with Engineer’s comment re. the self obsession of the EU project.
I also think the loonies in charge of the asylum need to be a bit less obsessed with their ideals and a bit more practical. I haven’t forgotten seeing the migrants trying to get into, not out of South Africa in the mid 1980s. Meanwhile polite society here wouldn’t buy an Outspan orange even though apartheid was already being dismantled.
My view is that successive governments have given up on border/immigration control & are attempting manage by watching everybody whenever possible. Don’t think it worked that well for the Stasi, but they were keeping people in, not out, and hey – ho, we have modern technology and we know just how good our government is at making that work.
I don’t think the Bleeding heart Broadcasting Corporation has helped in all this, but then I’m prejudiced. -
June 28, 2015 at 2:59 pm -
Seems to me that the Charleston shooter and the Sousse gunman have more in common than one might think.
The issue of the Confederate flag is really bringing the American version of Isis out of the woodwork. In both cases disturbed nutters are likely to be influenced to kill innocent people for delusional reasons.
-
June 28, 2015 at 3:06 pm -
In the present, the days of Facebook and the other efforts – ‘sochul meejah’, the newspapers gleefully inform us that,
“we have never been so interconnected and……………………. wow just wowee!”
So much chatter, so little information passed and people talking at you – not to you.
Apple, Chrome, Samsung, everybody is “killing us” – economically speaking and yet……………….
It wasn’t Churchill who got Britain through the war – too crafty by half was he even though a great orator, he certainly was. No, now call it what you will but the only descriptor might be – a ‘collective will’ – because once we were dragged into it – I guess the Brits mainly thought, “we’ve got to finish it” and a bit of help from Ivan and some from Bud’ and united in anger, we got it done. Alas, Germany was ‘rearming’ as we crossed the Rhine – the Hun’s industrial might – are just the same old companies who backed the Nazis – today and not even ironic.
Through 39-45, perhaps we were a nation then, underfed, poor and a bit credulous but at least a fairly coherent tribe – on the surface at any rate.
Now, in the Britain of 2015 and since Circa 1992 – I am not sure what we are, Unless, to describe it [Britain] as a province of the EU superstate. I can discern no collective psyche and the sap is long risen, the leaves dry and branches wither.Britain, it is, a land rent asunder, from North to South and where the abyssal social divide is augmented by the phalanxes of the public sector aristocracy and their allies – bedfellows in the corporate sector and legal profession. A public-corporate sector aristocracy in step tune with the march of the bureaucrat and he/she always knows best – even if they’ve only just achieved their Health, tourism and recreation-Sociology degree – no science just lots of BS hypothesizing.
Jackbooted, an army of Common Purpose who ordain what the rest must do – plus those who feed on the public money teat extension – Capita and a myriad of smaller concerns ie suppliers of consultants to the NHS would be a good example. We have the banksters, the auditors and the politicians and the Champagne Socialistas in north London and all of them prefer Alejandra, Jan, Mikhail to John, Gary and Tracy – just see the schools ‘we’ put them in – keep them out and gated communities at that.There’s no communication! Society divided and this is about a version of apartheid white ghettoisation as much as protecting the minority ethnic strain, the social divide, the ‘us and them’ factor means despite the communications big bang we are more isolated, apart and incomunicado, than, we were at the time of those who roamed our shores going – a – viking.
Woe betides us now, in a malevolence not seen since Nazism and comes the Islamist bomber, decapitation and knifing, and I am pretty sure that, they will be able to lay their hands on some quite sophisticated ordnance. From, the subcontinent but we let them in from the Maghreb and anywhere east of Suez – they started coming in the 50’s and 60’s and a trickle became a monsoon flood. We alter our laws, actually the authorities remake laws to suit the incomer – it’s too late? Probably.
And still we don’t talk to each other – “use your app” – a cynic could say.
Now, do some reading about – the history of the Balkans would be a good area to research – where, there is no understanding, just 500 years of bloody vendettas. Dave (Cameron) – has no idea.
-
June 28, 2015 at 3:34 pm -
Now, do some reading about
If that was aimed at Gildas you might find he has read more history books and, worse still, the sources than anyone here. Shame cos I was enjoying your post. You’re not wrong about German Industry. I worked for several German firms who, if there was ever any justice in the world would have been dissolved, preferably in their own acid production and their sites salted after the war.
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 4:44 pm -
Gildas
You alluded to the fall of the Roman empire and I think there are parallels. The most important is that they, the citizens of Rome, thought it couldn’t happen. Why should anybody wish to destroy their civilisation? In fact most of those attacking did not want to destroy Rome, rather take it over. Was it the Goths who after sacking Rome ordered a circus in the Coliseum?
However, the worst parallel is the total disbelief group. Those who do not realise that Western civilisation is metaphorically a very pleasant raft floating on an ocean of s***t. The nearer the centre of the raft (somewhere around the editorial offices of The Guardian) the less the acceptance of the existence of the ocean and even the raft with all its imperfections and a perception that all it needs is goodwill and an end to western capitalism – the root of all evil – and the few puddles of s***t they accept are out there will miraculously dry up and the world will be perfect place.
There are three groups of people. Most raft inhabitants who are reasonably happy, the second group exists both on the raft and off it; they hate its existence for a host of reasons, many irrational and include the ‘it ain’t fair’ bunch, and finally the much much larger group off the raft who, perfectly reasonably, want to get on it. If even a small portion get on the raft, it sinks. These are the ones who would want a circus when they had taken over.
I suspect you have read Gibbon’s ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’, and Kipling ‘Recessional’…. lest you forget, lest you forget-
June 28, 2015 at 5:16 pm -
I also recommend the original: De Excidio Et Conquestu Britanniae (On the ruin and conquest of Britain). A tantalising glimpse – we could have learned so much more if my forbear had given more info and less of a rant!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Excidio_et_Conquestu_Britanniae
-
June 28, 2015 at 7:45 pm -
To my shame, and with a family member who is an ASNAC masters I hadn’t even heard of it ( I get talking to’s on medieval welsh for heavens sake, and before you comment, on apostrophe crime). I’ll get it and read it, thanks.
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 9:56 pm -
I recently had my hands on a book by a prominent US (I think) academic who argued that the Germanic invaders actually held the crumbling Rome together for longer than it otherwise would have lasted. I can remember neither the man’s name nor the publisher but it was a very serious big name one.
-
June 29, 2015 at 8:38 am -
I see the point: many were incorporated into the Imperial army as soldiers. But in the end….
-
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 5:13 pm -
Naturally the Home Secretary repeated the line “It has nothing to do with Islam” this morning. And of course the Massacre of the Huguenots had nothing to do with Christianity. If you’re a Muslim or a Christian with a murderous disposition it must be jolly useful to believe in an anthropormophic God who has a mind and feelings just like yours.
Dark days ahead indeed, Gildas. I’ve not been very optimistic about the future of humanity ever since, as a young Londoner awaiting call-up, I heard about the concentration camps that were being liberated in supposedly “Christian” Europe. I still don’t understand how so many of the descendents of the Age of Enlightenment, of Beethoven, Bach, etc etc could reach such depths of depravity. The Holocaust and all the other horrors that have happened since, plus demented fundamentalism, climate change, species extinction, despoilment of our habitat, and so on cause me to think that perhaps the days of Homo sapiens (sapiens!) are numbered.
It’s a pity that the beliefs of the Abrahamic religions got stuck in the doctrinal mud so long ago. If only religious thought had evolved in step with scientific discovery, perhaps Einstein’s belief in a superior mind that reveals itself in the world of experience would have been more widely shared and developed. But we are where we are as they say, and whatever some vile jihardist gets up to, we must remember “it’s nothing to do with Islam”.
-
June 28, 2015 at 7:58 pm -
Yes, the Christian religion has nothing to boast about – it was, after all, a Christian abbot who, when the crusader knights asked how they were to sort out the heretic Cathars from the “real” Christians in a captured town, replied “Kill them all; God will know His own”. Lest you think I’m only down on the Christians, pretty much every religion, including Buddhism, has had long and ugly episodes of violence (Jainism and Quakerism appear to be the only exceptions, but I daresay Gildas will come up with something to contradict that). And lest you think I’m only down on religion, here’s three names for you: Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot. Not forgetting Hitler, of course. And not forgetting Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Armenia…..
Yes, violence and cruelty seem to be part of the human condition, quite separate from religion and political belief. It’s often said that psychopaths constitute 5% of the population; no idea where the figure is from, but my own experience tells me that it’s close enough. The world population is increasing and is now over 7 billion; my calculator tell me that means there are probably around 350,000,000 psychopaths – all potential emotionless killers and murderers – in a world where food and other resources are increasingly falling short and climate change is fuelling the movement of populations.
Quite honestly, I often wake in the night and worry about what will happen to my grandchildren.-
June 28, 2015 at 9:47 pm -
* that means there are probably around 350,000,000 psychopaths *
Sounds like a job for Operation Yewtree…-
June 28, 2015 at 10:16 pm -
it was, after all, a Christian abbot who, when the crusader knights asked how they were to sort out the heretic Cathars from the “real” Christians in a captured town, replied “Kill them all; God will know His own
Far be it from me to defend a papal legate, Inquistor and rabble rousing Fanatic but Amalric is only reputed to uttered the immortal lines “Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius (Kill them all. For the Lord knoweth them that are His.)”. Mind you, if he didn’t actually say it then he, sure as God made foaming mouth True Believers, thought it.
-
-
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 5:19 pm -
Can’t add much to this debate but it does seem at times that much of the Western world is in the process of slowly committing cultural suicide. Sad I miss the country I grew up in.
-
June 28, 2015 at 8:02 pm -
That is perhaps the saddest, and yet most accurate comment on this post.
-
June 28, 2015 at 9:13 pm -
Thank you, I am sad for my grandchildren who will never know that world and fearful what sort of world they will grow up in. I will likely be gone before things come to a head as I think it will eventually. If the politicians don’t wake up I think the people will and realise this will be a war they will have to win. It took us hundreds of years to go from the days of religious wars to democracy so perhaps we should not be surprised that the Islamic countries that went from the camel to the jet with none of the experience of transition.
-
June 28, 2015 at 10:02 pm -
Assuming 42 refers to 1942, I think you should check out what was going on in many parts of Europe in the year of your birth and stop worrying so much. Back in 1996 our own streets weren’t safe to walk in, never mind the beaches of North Africa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Manchester_bombing
Two years later we had the Good Friday Agreement.
-
-
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 5:45 pm -
June 28, 2015 at 7:40 pm -
Religion, of all kinds, is peculiarly susceptible to perversion by psychopaths and manipulators. Unfortunately, the distortions seem to be well-nigh ineradicable in the short term, but, in the longer term, they seem to fade away. Over the last century, Christianity has become a shadow of its former self probably because people felt growingly uneasy about the historical hypocrisy. Likewise, I hope, good-hearted, fair-minded Muslims will gradually distance themselves from the formalities of their religion, become more secular and ‘integrated’, and the fanatics will lose their legitimacy and have nothing to claim. God willing, religion will slip away one peaceful night and only the soulless assassins will mourn.
-
June 28, 2015 at 8:59 pm -
My observation of the Judiciary is that the higher up it they are, the more stupid, biased and unpleasant they become.
There has only been one murder in the street wherein I live in my time here – the murder of a young Christian lad by a Muslim who did not care for the fact that the boy was dating his daughter. This of course has nothing to do with Islam – nevertheless I go out of my way to be pleasant to my Muslim neighbour – just in case.
Always wonder what would have happened had Hannibal marched into Rome.
-
June 28, 2015 at 9:52 pm -
“After millennia of conflict Europe has not only achieved a sophisticated, elegant civilisation in terms of art, culture, science, law and politics”
Gildas certainly hasn’t been near my High Street on a Saturday Night and undoubtedly remains in ignorance of Big Brother and a dozen other pillars of contemporary culture. Dare I say his rather hermit like existence might be linked to a lack of judgement of ISIS? It is first of all a threat to millions of ordinary people living in the Middle East who have no more interest in this development than the population of the UK would have had in having Revd Iain Paisley as Prime Minister in 1995.
Which brings up the question of why the situation is like this: and the sad answer is that it is the result of the utterly reckless ‘war on terror’ of Bush and Blair. Indeed we might add in Cameron whose idiotic topling of Gadaffi has resulted in a power vacuum which has lead to terrorism in previously stable Tunisia and millions of refugees desperate to leave the chaos of north Africa.
I would urge Gildas to put away both his rosy spectacles and his horror of the ‘massed hordes’ about to destroy the fine peaks of culture that have brought us Katie Hopkins and ask why the Middle East is in this situation and what responsibility Britain (or its politicians) bear for this miserable situation. It is horrific that dozens of holidaymakers have died this week and it is equal horrific that the Middle East has been plunged into chaos by the cretinous foreign policy of recent US and UK governments of all parties (Republican/Democrat and Labour/Conservative).
-
June 29, 2015 at 8:47 am -
You may be surprised to learn that I agree with quite a lot of that, Mr Horse, or at least recognise that you have made valid points. There is only so much one can do in an amateur blog, when one has a “real world” job and so forth. In fact three or four years ago I wrote a piece which was highly skeptical of “the West’s” incursions into places where it really did not know what it was doing, the one at the timne being Libya, where, at the behest of David Cameron in particular as it seemed to me, NATO was acting as the “RAF” – Rebel Air Force. As to which my line at the time was, well, that looks great, but beware the Law of Unintended Consequences. Quite a lot of those Unintended Consequences may now be being played out.
-
June 29, 2015 at 9:42 am -
Henry The Horse makes valid points about how a culture can degenerate and destroy itself through too much comfort and laziness. However, banging on about Blair and Bush shows how Henry has not accepted that there are ideologies that are simply evil. Blair and Bush may have exacerbated a situation because of their methods. But that doesn’t mean that the problem didn’t exist, or that they “created” one. They just dealt with an evil in a wrong way.
And the irony is that we are saying that this situation was “created” by two people, yet we continue to ignore the fact that millions of muslims have free will too, to act and to to deal with the evils that lie within their religion. He mentions Ian Paisley. Therefore he will know that the IRA and the “Troubles” (as it is so prettily described) in Irlenad in the 70s would not have happened if it were not for the passive support and encouragement on both sides, of people and families who were not personally directly involved in the actual activities.
-
June 29, 2015 at 9:46 am -
Not so passive in the case of Eire. Their government deliberately obstructed and obfuscated throughout the growth of Terrorism in the post-war West – an infection now spreading like a cancer. Where do ISIS and their ilk get all their money from? Insanely wealthy Wahhabist Sauds and the like, who have a ring of American steel to protect them, just as the Irish did (in effect).
-
June 29, 2015 at 10:20 am -
Well the Syrians and Kurds seem to having been giving it their best as far as I have seen. Good luck to them and I can’t see what more can have been done. Again, it is a situation where if our politicians could have kept themselves out of things the situation would be a lot better. Assad might not be your democrat of the year but at least he held the country together.
I don’t think ‘evil’ is a particularly helpful word. Blair and Cameron through individual decisions that lay in their hands have, inadvertently or not, been the cause of ten and hundreds of thousands of deaths. I don’t think either is an evil man. Neither do I think most of those involved in ISIS are. They are fanatical in the way many Europeans have been down the centuries. Most of all in many of their acts they have been blind to the suffering they have caused in the name of an ideal. But that is not so exceptional. We have had such killers in northern Ireland within living memory.
-
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 10:29 pm -
God I’m depressed again now. What was that post the other day, about suicides in my age group? Is it really any wonder?
-
June 29, 2015 at 12:05 am -
Light and shade – Saturday’s was silly!
-
June 29, 2015 at 8:36 am -
To quote from that Pink Floyd classic Echoes;
And no one showed us to the land
And no one knows the where’s or why’s
But something stirs and something tries
And starts to climb towards the lightI much prefer the light. That’s why several years ago I decided to adopt the same tactics as the Ostrich. I stopped watching TV, gave up Radio, and didn’t read papers – all because I wanted to shield myself from all the shit that was going on in the world. I came to this blog because I’d been made aware of the allegations against Savile and thinking that they were preposterous, wanted to hear the other side of the story. Maybe the time has come for me to once again bury my head.
-
-
-
June 28, 2015 at 11:50 pm -
I think it is possible to defeat this evil, but a multi-pronged attack is required. Firstly, defeating ISIL (and whatever arises in it’s place) militarily wherever it can be fought. Secondly, defeating it diplomatically by isolating any government willing to harbour it. Thirdly, by ensuring stable government in those countries currentl lacking it. Fourthly, by encouraging moderate Islam to defeat extreme Islam theologically.
First one we can probably do (but won’t – yet). Second one, a bit trickier. Third and fourth – now that’s not so easy. Got to be done, though, or we can wave bye-bye to Western ideas of democracy, peace and freedom.
-
June 29, 2015 at 6:36 am -
Splendid post, Gildas, utterly splendid.
-
June 29, 2015 at 7:10 am -
I guess we’ll have to write off the current generation of useless political ‘leaders’ and look to the future generation for…
What?
Oh, FFS!
-
June 29, 2015 at 8:58 am -
It is a lovely cool morning, the birdies are tweeting, the garden is blooming, God is in his heaven and all is wrong with the world. We humans are constitutionally unable to live in peace. Power seeking, politics and religion, resources are the usual reasons why chaos happens. There are too many of us. We seem not to be able to use knowledge or the Internet wisely for the good of mankind. Goodness knows what that scientist who thought up the Internet thinks of the uses some psychos make of the Internet in the last few years. Surely there is something to be done to retain use for innocent purposes. We have so rapidly become addicted to the Internet. Screams about free speech erupt as soon as any mention of curtailing use. How to blow up your local mosque full of the sect you dislike, or the market place full of mums and their children. The weapons makers go ever more exotic. Funny that, as you can kill millions with a sharp edged weapon! Pull down a town with simple technology and destroy natural living groups with modern goodies and germs up your nose. I look up and see con trails in the sky, the plane leaving Docklands airport roars overhead every 3 minutes. I see no swallows or swifts and very few stars, unlike my childhood, when the milky was there in all its glory. We have wrought these changes. We live in comfort…….for how long? Moan about austerity while others are murdered and starve.
-
June 29, 2015 at 10:42 am -
I could see the Milky Way in my childhood because it was war time and there was a blackout.
Bear in mind that the songs of birds are about defending territory. Wars happen when social animals defend territory.
-
-
June 29, 2015 at 9:02 am -
Civil wars in all the countries affected by Moslem immigration remains a possibility and the ultimate nightmare. A time will come when it will be easier for that to happen – and virtually impossible to end.
-
June 29, 2015 at 9:28 am -
I think the only thing an ordinary person can do is to stop being afraid of expressing disapproval with Islam itself – either as a religion or as an ideology. The fact that there are nice kind people who follow a dangerous belief should not prevent us from expressing disapproval. We mock and jeer other beliefs we disapprove of quite openly.
I am not advocating mocking or jeering. I am suggesting that ordinary people become simply stronger in expressing disapproval of Islam as a belief. I think we should ask David Cameron, for example, where his evidence is that “Islam is a religion of Peace” – why do we allow a white, British agnostic/christian politician to instruct us to accept his statement?
I believe we should also be prepared to have an alternative to Islam…if we disapprove of something it is only reasonable that we will be challenged to suggest what belief or lifestyle is preferable. This means also having the courage to stand up for Christian values – either as signed-up christians or as “Golden Rule” secularists. And we have to start living our beliefs.
-
June 29, 2015 at 12:14 pm -
I saw the milky way well before the war and wondered at its glory. During the war there was tape all over all the windows and searchlights all around. The threat of being gauged by shrapnel if you went outside. There are things called clouds too and there were fogs and long light summer evenings. After the war the stars slowly melted away, then most disapeared from view, so did wild flowers and vacant sites to play out on. I asked my tame robin why he sings all year. He told me he loved singing as it is advertising his presence and entertaining the humans who give him/her seeds to eat and water to drink. The blackbird was on a chimney piping away. He is happy too this year…..hasn’t been on the internet or heard the news.
-
June 29, 2015 at 12:26 pm -
I expect you’re old enough to remember when we positively welcomed 27,000 Asian refugees from Uganda.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Asians_from_Uganda
-
{ 143 comments… read them below or add one }