Whatever Happened to "Yes we can" ?

I believe it still exists in the USA. The British think the phrase is too short. We prefer the longer version: “Yes we can, but here are some reasons why we shouldn’t”.

This is being applied mercilessly by the Home Office concerning the Ukraine refugee crisis. While Ireland and other European countries are enthusiastically taking in these desperate people, our Home Office (which is run by incompetent half-wits) is constructing an obstacle course in the shape of Visa Application forms of unfeasible length, containing such questions as Are you a War Criminal?

Then these applications appear to be dealt with on an individual basis, with no consideration being given to possible links with others; for example, a 4-year old girl was issued with a Visa, but not her mother! (So, good luck with making that journey little girl!)

That’s not the end of it; regarding the Homes for Refugees scheme, local authorities are now putting their bureaucratic noses into whether the receiving home might have potential hazards for children, such as garden ponds or electrical sockets positioned too near the floor.

Give me a break! These people have come from apartment blocks reduced to rubble, they’ve watched their relatives being executed on the streets, and seen women being raped. They’ve been starved of food and water. So now they are to be subjected to the fresh unimaginable horrors of a garden pond and low-lying plug sockets?!

By the way, the beauty of a British electrical plug socket is that you cannot poke something into the positive/neutral sockets. Try it. You need the longer of the three pins of a plug to be inserted to ‘open’ the two dangerous sockets. Our own children are not endangered by our plug sockets, so why would anyone else’s children be?

All of this is the perfect application of “Yes we can, but here are some reasons why we shouldn’t”.

An apoplectic Nick Ferrari on LBC radio this morning (I was worried for his health) was shouting “For God’s sake, sack the bloody lot of ‘em and get the Military in to do the job. The military are not only efficient, but also have compassion”. I couldn’t agree more.

"BREXIT" - Forward to the Past!!

The "Brexiteer" desire to leave the EU is a largely ENGLISH phenomenon, not shared by Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. The glory days to which they aspire to return were BRITISH glory days, not ENGLISH glory days. But were they glory days? After we had defeated NAZI Germany which, as I recall, we didn't do alone, we became the "Sick Man of Europe". And the British Empire? That ended well, didn't it?! Now we are apparently the fifth largest economy in the world (and we achieved that as part of the EU).

When (if) we leave the EU, it's likely that Scotland will want to break away, and how long before Wales wants to follow suit? And across the Irish Sea, we will have once again returned to a controlled border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, reversing a major feature of the Northern Ireland Peace Process.

Then, when major international companies have removed themselves, or no longer wish to set up shop here, you'll be so proud of your new pathetic little country, won't you?! And how glad you will be that it is now ruled by a realigned hard-right Conservative government under new management who will still have another four years to ruin the NHS, exploit working people, whilst pretending that ENGLAND on its own has huge influence, before you can wake up and think about getting rid of them (that in itself not being in any way guaranteed).

"But", say the Brexiteers, "At least you can throw out your own politicians if you don't like them". Ah, yes .. under a system by which the Government of the day is normally supported by about one third of the voters.

"But", say the Brexiteers, "We can trade with the rest of the world." Well, I'm sorry, but I had the distinct impression we did that anyway. Half the stuff in my house is Chinese for God's sake! And if I shop in Marks & Spencers for underwear or Christmas presents I find they are made in Egypt or India. We drive Fords and Chevrolets and Hyundais and Kias. Some of us stuff our faces with Swiss chocolate, and if I'm eating more healthily I'm eating vegetables from Kenya.

This whole Referendum thing is in itself alien to the way we govern ourselves anyway. The Prime Minister was running scared of UKIP and that nice Mr Farage, and so promised us we would be allowed to decide for ourselves this matter of great national importance. I thought that is what we elected our Government to do, backed by a professional Civil Service. Why don't we extend it to other importance stuff? How many aircraft carriers should we have? Oh, I don't know, I'll have a word with my hairdresser; he'll know. Should we allow unqualified teachers in our schools? Oh, I don't know, let's have a word with those guys hurling bricks at the French Police; they'll have an idea. And what should be our policy on the fishing industry? Oh, I don't know, but there's a guy down the pub who failed all his GCSEs, with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the science of sustainable fish stocks.

But since we do have this Referendum, there are only a few days left for Brexiteers with suicidal thoughts to use their heads instead of their gut feelings, and step back from the edge of the cliff.

The EU is deeply flawed in many respects, but we should be in there, leading from the front, making things better. I'm proud of my country, and I want it to have influence, both outside of the EU and within the EU.

"The Naked Communist" by W Cleon Skousen - A Review

My attention was drawn to this book by a man I know well who is concerned about Communist infiltration into British, American and European governments. He is of the opinion that the goal of the European Union is to turn Europe into a Communist Collective.

I disagree fundamentally with this view, which appears to be a symptom of extreme right-wing paranoia, as well as being in complete contradiction to the reality on the ground.

"The Naked Communist" was cited as evidence to support his view, so I bought it and read it.

Scousen's aim was to strip away the deceitful clothing that hid the true face and body of Communism, hence the title.

The book (published 56 years ago) has some merit in providing a useful summary of the history of Communism and its "founding fathers", if I may use that term. It was interesting to learn that Karl Marx never did a day's work in his life and neglected his wife and children to a disgraceful degree. He appeared to have not a single person he could call his friend, with the possible exception of his co-theorist, Friedrich Engels.

Both the book and it's author Skousen were products of their time: the "Iron Curtain" had fallen across the middle of Europe and all the people to the east of it had been enslaved by a tyrannical dictatorship purporting to be the answer to the problems of mankind. Communism was being presented to the rest of the world as the only way to a truly happy society. It was, of course, nothing of the kind, since it militated against man's natural instincts and could only be maintained by ruthless suppression of natural aspirations, the imposition of fear, and the frequent use of mass executions.

It was in reality a vehicle for the maintenance of power by the few over the many. At the end of the 2nd World War, in which it had been expedient to join forces with Russia and its satellites to destroy the evil of Hitler's Nazis, we found ourselves faced with an equally evil empire in the shape of the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) presided over by one Joseph Stalin.

It is difficult to decide which man was the most monstrous - Hitler or Stalin. Neither had any moral compass and would stoop to any degree of depravity and international diplomatic deceit to get their way. Both used similar methods to maintain their hold on power.

And yet, after 1945, intellectuals and others in the "West" were quite happy to accept Communism as a genuinely desirable aspiration. Communist cells successfully established themselves within the USA, the "mothership" of Capitalism. The Communists believed that Capitalism was doomed to fail, but the process should be speeded up by a policy of disruption and discontent so that people would rise up and destroy their governments. During the 25 years following the end of World War 2 the Communist Party of Britain grew in strength, the British Labour Party was infiltrated, and Communist agitators within the Trade Union movement all but destroyed the British car industry, and wreaked havoc with many other industries.

Skousen's book correctly indicated what had already happened in this regard, correctly summarised what was already happening, but failed to foresee one or two important developments. He cannot be blamed for this because none of us has an infallible crystal ball.

What he didn't, or couldn't see, was that it was Communism itself that contained the seeds of its own destruction. The manifest failure of the major Communist countries to feed their own people without external help, the manifest failure to produce goods that people wanted, and the manifest failure to produce the proletarian utopia promised by Marx and Engels led - albeit painfully slowly - to a growing sense of unease within the major Communist leaderships and the people oppressed by them. Yugoslavia's Tito successfully distanced himself from the USSR, there were uprisings in Hungary (ruthlessly put down), and the Communist leader of Czechoslovakia, Alexendar Dubcek, attempted to install a kind of humanitarian and democratic communism in his country. Predictably at the time, he failed, and his Russian masters replaced him unceremoniously after the Russian tanks had been sent in.

Most significantly, though, was the gradual dawning of reality on the communist mothership itself, with the succession of Mikhail Gorbachev to the leadership of the Party in the USSR. But by this time it was already too late for a top-down rejection of Communism; the people began to rise up against their communist oppressors, first in Poland, then in East Germany. The movement spread. In 1989 the infamous Berlin Wall was demolished whilst the leadership and the "People's Army" stood by in bemused passive support. The rest of the "Iron Curtain" duly melted away.

It's ironic that the "proletariat" who were supposed to be bring down capitalism brought down communism instead!

I am not saying that Communism is a dead duck, but there is only one major Communist Country left in the world, and that is North Korea. I don't think many people are going to cite North Korea as an example of proletarian Utopia. It's just another ruthlessly oppressed people under the yoke of a dictator and a powerful army. Even so-called Communist China has somehow found an accommodation with a kind of free enterprise within its own country. It is "communist" mainly by virtue of it still being a single-party State. The Party is not practising full Communism, but it is all-powerful nevertheless.

Communism as a worldwide aspiration has imploded.

I believe it is important to know a little about Cleon Skousen and the things that influenced his way of thinking. Having drawn our attention to the history and the methods of Communism, and warned us of the consequences of ignoring those methods, he goes on towards the end of his book by trying to instil his own philosophies into the life of the "American Student", strongly advising that rather than submitting to the deceit of communism we should be submitting to the certainties of the Bible. He advocates the enthusiastic study of the Bible, and he implies that atheists are three quarters along the way to being Communists.

It is at this point that I fundamentally disagree with him; his advocacy of religion in general, and of the Judeo-Christian religions in particular as being the only way forward detracts from the value of the earlier parts of his book. Since he wrote that book, the world has moved on somewhat. I accept many of the creditable aspects of some religions and their followers, but I (and many others) cannot accept that atheism = communism = evil. 

I would ask, are the following (to name but a few) either Communists or Evil? .. Albert Einstein, Richard Dawkins, Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie, Billy Connolly, Bill Gates, Eddie Izzard, Ernest Hemingway, Katherine Hepburn, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, John Lennon, Barry Manilow, Ian McKellen, Terry Pratchett, Daniel Radcliffe, Alan Turing .. I could go on for pages, but I'll spare the reader.

Cleon Skousen was a far-right radical Conservative and a Mormon who worked for a short while with the FBI. He was later Chief of Police in Salt Lake City for 4 years. Mayor Bracken Lee said that although Skousen was an anti-communist he "ran the police department in exactly the same manner as the Communists in Russia operate their government."

Skousen disregarded all federal regulatory agencies and argued for the abolition of everything from the Occupational Health and Safety Administration to the Environmental Protection Agency. He also wanted to repeal the minimum wage, eliminate unions, nullify anti-discrimination laws, sell off public lands and national parks, end the direct election of Senators, eliminate income tax, and remove the separation between church and state.

Finally, the question .. is communism still infiltrating western society and is the goal of the European Union a Communist Collective?

Skousen sees no difference between Communism and Socialism ("except by their means of gaining power"). This is so way off the mark! Communism gains power by force, and retains power by force. Socialism gains power by majority vote and loses power by majority vote. To equate the two is sheer ignorance. In 1945 Britain elected a Socialist Government with a landslide majority. (I would say that was Britain's only Socialist Government). In 1951 that Socialist Government was dismissed by the British electorate. Subsequent successes by the British Labour Party were due to their abandoning socialism for a form of social democracy prepared to integrate with the idea of a free-market economy.

Whatever criticisms one can throw at the concept of the European Union - and there are many - the idea that it is working towards a Communist Collective is preposterous. Who could imagine that the people of Europe who for decades suffered either under the jackboot of Nazism, or the iron fist of Communism (in some cases one followed by the other) would countenance a return to something similar?

In Britain the Communist Party boasted 60,000 members after the War (still only about 0.1% of the population). It was disbanded in 1991. True, some ex-members went on to form other left-wing groups, most of which allied themselves to democracy rather than enforced one-party government. One such group is "Unlock Democracy" which is a left-leaning campaign group that works to promote participatory democracy across the political spectrum.

Communism is not the current threat to our way of life. The new threat is another -ism: militant Islamism.

If someone looks at Europe and sees Communism, then he fails to understand what Communism really is or was. Perhaps he should read Skousen's book? Oh damn! He already has!

British Bars & Cafes: are you being served?

Considering that, for many years now, so many British holidaymakers have experienced and enjoyed what France, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Spain (to name but a few) have to offer, it is somewhat surprising and disturbing that our own cafes and bars have not caught up with the kind of service we have come to expect on our visits to the rest of Europe.

In these more enlightened countries you can walk into a bar or café, sit down at a table, and expect to be approached by a waiter or waitress ready to take your order. Even more impressively, if the weather’s nice you might sit down at an outside table in the middle of a town square and as if by magic someone will appear out of a doorway somewhere and be ready to serve you.

Try that in Britain. You’ll have a long wait.

I often wonder how confused our Continental visitors to these shores must be when they sit at a table and nothing happens. With any luck they will have read some tourist guide book for visiting Britain where it might have been explained to them that in the majority of cases they need to walk up to a bar or counter (and perhaps join a queue) to place their order. Only then can they confidently sit at their table and wait for their order to arrive.

Isn't it about time we rose up as a nation and demanded something better? Why do we put up with it?

The other day, in my own village, I had a bit of time to kill and so decided to play the tourist for an hour, strolling around looking at the shops. I decided to go into one café for a cup of coffee. I’d not been in there before. On entering I said “Good Morning” to a young lady clearing a table, and she responded. I found myself a table adjacent to the one she was clearing and sat down. The place was not very busy at this time. She finished clearing the table and disappeared. I sat reading my newspaper for ten minutes and was totally ignored.

I looked towards the rear of the premises and there was a service counter, and I suspected that I should have gone up to this and place an order. I didn't even to bother to investigate. I got up and walked out. I'm suggesting that this is what we should all be doing: walking out.

I found a second café around the corner, sat down at a table and was immediately approached by the lady (who ran the place) to take my order. Guess which one of the two cafes I’ll be going to next time I want a cup of coffee in my own village.

A few years ago, the then Prime Minister Tony Blair talked about introducing “Continental Café Culture” to our towns and cities. I suggest the first requirement is for café owners to provide something resembling Continental Café Service before we get anywhere near achieving a “Continental Café Culture”.  For the most part, it hasn't yet happened.

Thatcher the Marmite Politician

I want to say, honestly, before writing anything else, that Margaret Thatcher always gave me the creeps. She made my skin crawl every time she opened her mouth. She was truly the "Marmite Politician". (For anyone not familiar with Marmite , it's a savoury spread made from yeast extract, and people either love it or hate it). Thatcher produced an equivalent divergence of opinion throughout the UK. I was one of those who hated her, with every fibre of my being.

 I am not such an idiot that I cannot recognise she had some positive qualities, and I am ready to acknowledge that she deserved some credit in certain areas; and I do not subscribe to the current torrent of abuse and vitriol populating the pages of Facebook and Twitter. Nor do I condone the idea of dancing in the streets because someone has died (with the possible exception of Adolph Hitler).  Ironically Thatcher was in part responsible for what has become a more brutalised society that is prepared to indulge in such behaviour. She implied there was no such thing as society, and encouraged an ethos in which the advancement of "self" was the way to go.

So now she has departed this life, it is time not to indulge in vitriolic abuse and bad behaviour. I would like to look back on her time in office dispassionately at why she was such a divisive figure. There were positives and negatives. In my own view (and apparently the view of about 40% of the country) the negatives hugely outweighed the positives. Here is my own (far from exhaustive) list of "positives" and "negatives" ..

Positives

1. In 1979, Britain was a basket case. The Trade Unions ran the country, i.e., mostly held it to ransom. Dictatorial union leaders and shop stewards brought their members out on strike at the drop of a hat. We made cars that fell to bits. Our public services were hide bound in inefficiency and bureaucracy. Our power supplies were unreliable.  Domestic rubbish piled up in the streets. The dead were left unburied.

Margaret Thatcher's government introduced controversial legislation to democratize the trade union movement, preventing wildcat strikes and emasculating the powers of individual trade union leaders to pursue their own political interests (which at that time seemed to be driven by an insane belief in the benefits of Communism). In this respect, over the coming years British Industry was able to start functioning again, based on the premise that in order to survive it was necessary to produce goods that other people wanted to buy.

OK - so that's one Positive.

I've only got two others:

 

2. She was not prepared to countenance the idea that a foreign power could engineer a military take-over of a group of islands in the south Atlantic considered to be British Sovereign territory.  I have always been prepared to consider the counter claim made by Argentina, but to my mind you do not settle it by military invasion, and so Margaret Thatcher did right, in the circumstances of the day, to send a British Task Force to take back the Falklands.

On the back of that successful operation, she was able to secure a second election victory by a grateful nation (which up to then was increasingly wary of everything else she was doing).

3. On the world stage she stood up to any other country's leaders without fear, and usually got her way.

I'm afraid that's the end of my Positives. In my opinion - job done. Thank you and good-bye; sadly not to be.

Negatives

1. She gave tenants of Council Houses (social housing) the legal right to purchase their home from the Local Authority, at a discounted price. This should have been a Positive (and it was for many people) but it became a Negative because she prohibited Local Authorities from investing the receipts from Council House sales in the building of new homes to rent. The theory, of course, is that property owners seem more likely to vote Conservative, than Council Tenants. Consequently local authorities were piling up huge financial reserves none of which could be used for the very important purpose of providing much-needed homes. That problem is still with us today.

2. She encouraged the closure of great swathes of manufacturing industry, including 99% of the country's coal mines, on the grounds of their financial inefficiency. This was done with such speed and apparent scant regard for the consequences on the hundreds of thousands of people thrown out of work, that the bitterness engendered survives to this day. No thought was given to making these industries efficient and serving the country. Just close them down.

3. Local Council services used to be funded (in addition to government grants) by the imposition of a tax system known as "The Rates". What you paid depended upon the notional "Rateable Value" of your house. The bigger and grander the property, the more you paid. Council tenants were exempt, and if you didn't own property you didn't pay rates. This was clearly unfair and needed reform. Margaret Thatcher's solution was a disaster .. The "Community Charge" - which came to be known as the "Poll Tax". Quite simply this stated that every individual paid a set sum per year, irrespective of whether you were a low-paid worker living in a two-up/two-down Victorian terrace house, or whether you were a member of the "landed gentry" living in a great stately pile on a country estate. Basically the richest man in the country paid the same local taxes as the poorest. Clearly this was no fairer than the system it replaced. It was foisted on Scotland first as an experiment, and then on the rest of the country. It caused social unrest, protests, and riots in the streets.

The legacy of this is that the whole of Scotland can now boast only one Conservative Member of Parliament.

One of the first actions of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative successor was to abolish the "Poll Tax".

Well, it seems I've listed three Negatives and three Positives. I could go on and on with the Negatives but I fear I have gone on for too long already, so I'll leave it here as an even split between good and bad; back to the Marmite analogy!

The Internet - A Civilising Influence?

I read in today's on-line edition of the New York Times that some rural communities in the USA are suffering an outbreak of malicious gossip using on-line forums and social networking sites. People are revealing themselves as being unpleasant, disgusting and downright evil; they are able to do this because they can hide behind the cloak of anonymity.

Although the World Wide Web has much to commend it - free exchange of information, educational sites, the arts, the making of Internet friends and so on - like much of life it also reflects a darker side of humanity. And it has become so easy to reveal that darker side.

In Britain the other day, a number of coal miners in Wales died in a mining accident. It wasn't long before some idiots (that word is too kind for them) started posting callous and racist comments on Facebook. Some were saying it was a good thing because they were Welsh. Others said it was a pity more didn't die. This kind of thing is almost unbelievable, and yet we must believe that this depraved behaviour does exist, and it is too our collective shame that it does. In this particular case, many complaints were made to the Police and they have launched an investigation with a view to closing down those offensive pages.

I find all this hugely depressing.