"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.

Another Mad Year - 2011

I had high hopes for 2011. I thought it was going to be unique. There’d never been a year called ‘2011’ before and the chances of their being another year called ‘2011’ seemed remote. Then I remembered I had high hopes at the beginning of every year and decided to be more rational in the future.

Anyway, this is how it panned out, in no particular order (as they say on the “X-Factor”).

Our Dear Leader, “Call me Dave” Cameron, decided that the National Health Service should be turned upside down, handing financial control to consortia of local GPs. None of this was in the Conservative or Liberal Democrat manifestos, but when were political manifestos ever worth more than a row of beans?

There was so much hostility from the professionals that the Government went away for another think. I think they are still thinking.

I hope they remember that basis of the NHS is that everybody, regardless of income, is entitled to receive hospital acquired infections free at the point of use.

The British Government (a Coalition of the Unwilling) held a referendum on changing the voting system. The Liberal Democrats had been pushing hard for this, and I supported it, being a life-long critic of the undemocratic “first past the post” system (which only works democratically if you have no more than two candidates). Anyway, the “Yes” Campaigners ran such an abysmal show, talking complete rubbish that the country voted for the status quo (which is Latin for rock music).

Some Arab nations protesting and fighting their way towards some kind of democracy, whilst a couple of European nations went in the opposite direction by being coerced into forming governments led by unelected technocrats.

Libya’s deranged Colonel Gaddafi

began losing control of his country after 40 years of dictatorship and farting in public. There was a major uprising in Benghazi (where the people were fed up with the stink) and the curly-headed madman used his Air Force to quell the uprising, declaring he would hunt down his own people like rats. Things were beginning to look so serious that the UN and NATO got involved, resulting in a NATO-controlled No-Fly Zone over the country, to thwart Gaddafi’s murderous activities. In a rare and relatively short display of successful military action involving no “boots on the ground” the Colonel was eventually defeated, meeting an undignified end being hauled out of sewer and shot.

As the flies began to congregate around his corpse I wondered about the efficiency of the no-fly zone.

A British comedian wondered why the self-styled Dictator only gave himself the rank of Colonel, putting himself no higher than someone qualified to sell fried chicken in a bucket.

Tunisia held its first democratic election in history and there was a 90% turnout. Imagine achieving that in Britain!

President Assad

(Arsehead?) of Syria got into a similar game to Gadaffi, slaughtering thousands of his own people who had the bare-faced cheek to protest against his repressive regime, but no sign of the Western Powers intervening in this case.

By the end of year it was reckoned that his forces had killed 5,000 and arrested 15,000 of his people, prompting calls for him to be brought before the International Court for crimes against humanity.

Then there was the “Eurozone” crisis. This was a crisis within a crisis. We already a worldwide economic crisis caused by a poorly regulated banking system either going berserk with other people’s money, or conducting fraudulent operations, or both. Within the European Union, countries like Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain reaped the whirlwind of their profligacy; Greece, in particular, was on the verge of collapse and required gigantic bale-outs from the rest of the “Eurozone”.

(Beware Greeks requiring gifts!)

American special forces located the whereabouts of Osama Bin Liner

(residing comfortably in Pakistan). They stormed the premises and killed him, thus ending a man-hunt that started after the tragic attack on the World Trade Centre.

Dave the Toff attended a special European Summit meeting in Brussels called to reach an agreement on rules to be followed to save the Euro. This currency had been doomed from its inception because it was set up without considering the political necessity to make participating countries function virtually as a single State for it work, and certain countries (Greece in particular) should never have been allowed to join, but the books were cooked (and the Greeks are not particularly noteworthy for their cooking). The UK had wisely decided to stay out of it. (Sterling work.)

Nevertheless, anything happening in the 17 countries using the Euro affects the UK’s trade with Europe and so it was necessary (along with nine other countries still using their own currency) to attend this Summit.

Instead of negotiating a deal protecting Britain’s interests, Cameron just refused to be party to the agreement signed by all the other 26 countries and took his bat and ball home to the rousing cheers of the Conservative Party’s rabid right-wing Europe-hating back-benchers. He was publicly criticised by his Liberal Democrat Deputy Prime Minister and several others.

Cameron now has one foot on the jetty and other on the boat that is departing. We can only hope he’s good at doing the splits, but in any case there’s still bound to be a big splash!

America’s motley collection of Republican circus clowns called the Tea Party drove their political bus into the presidential circus ring and the doors fell off in time-honoured fashion accompanied by the hooting and honking of mad ideas, political amnesia, suspect intelligence, and sexual scandals.

I had a brief e-mail correspondence with one of these guys and he wrote me long essayson the American Constitution, and the evils of Government. He said the Minimum Wage was a disaster and American healthcare was “the best in the world, and anyone can get access to it” (!) Free-market capitalism was the only way forward. He told me that if he met anyone who “wanted to be

controlled by government” he would “send him to England” and perhaps I would like to “send him anyone I knew who loves freedom”.

One of America’s right-wing backwoodsmen came back into the fray on behalf of the Tea Party Movement: Newt Gingrich. Imagine having an American President with a weird name!

In Italy, Prime Minister Sylvio Berlusconi raised the tone of political debate by declaring the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, to be an “unfuckable lard bucket”.

Japan suffered a horrific tsunami with huge loss of life and fatal damage to a nuclear power plant causing radiation leaks. This reopened the question in Britain of whether we should be building new nuclear power stations to secure our future power supplies. Meanwhile we continued to suffer from the installation of wind turbines – one of the biggest confidence tricks perpetrated on a gullible population (and government). There were now so many of these ineffectual eye-sores blighting the British countryside that if we could run them as propellers we could probably fly the country across the Atlantic.

What wondrous things are wind turbines!

When it’s freezing cold and we all need extra power, we can be without wind for days on end whilst they generate diddly squat. On other days when the wind blows hard they shut the damned things down to avoid damage. In one memorable instance a turbine was working so hard it caught fire. It’s hard to think of anything good to say about them unless you are a rich land owner getting even richer by allowing dozens of the things to sit on your land.

In Britain the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. The same thing happened in America but to an even worse extent.

Cambridge lost the Oxford v Cambridge University Boat Race by about 3 lengths – more bad news (unless you happen to be an Oxford supporter).

During the summer London and several other major cities in the UK were treated to an unprecedented outbreak of rioting and looting, sparked off by the Police in London shooting and killing a young man. Businesses were ruined, the Police were ineffectual, and there were many instances of outrageous behaviour. Eventually there were thousands of arrests and cases heard in courts operating all night. Severe sentences were handed out. It was notable that these scenes were not repeated in Scotland or Wales, thus reinforcing my view that the English are in many ways a defective race of people.

Trade Unions objecting to austerity measures that were going to affect their pensions combined and called a one-day strike near the end of the year. That demure and sensitive soul, Jeremy Clarkson (of Top Gear fame) declared on TV that the strikers should all be taken out and shot in front of their families.

Clarkson also took the opportunity this year of letting us know that people who jumped in front of trains to kill themselves were being very selfish holding up everyone else on the train. The train driver should be replaced and the train re-started, leaving the foxes and crows to deal with whatever bits of the body still remained scattered about the track. Clarkson’s mouth is so big he can get both feet into it, and with a bit of effort (and luck for the rest of us?) might even be able to swallow himself.

Another vile dictator died: Kim Jong-il of North Korea. We watched thousands of North Koreans wailing and gnashing their teeth at this tragedy that had overcome them, demonstrating the degree to which they had all been

brainwashed, or coerced, or both. No doubt this man (who appeared to one of the select few in North Korea who got enough to eat) arranged for his headstone to be engraved, “I told you I was –il”. He was replaced by his son (also well-fed).

Once again we saw that Communism turns its own philosophy upside down and produces an elite dynasty of all-powerful dictators. “Power to the people”? .. bollocks!

Talking of political philosophies, we have now firmly established (except in the eyes of Cuba, North Korea and China) that Communism doesn’t work. We appear also to have firmly established that Capitalism doesn’t work either. What 2012 needs is a new “–ism” that does work. Nobody’s come up with any useful ideas yet.

Britain celebrated the Christmas spirit by having a fatal stabbing in Oxford Street, a knife attack in the same area on the same day, and a fatal shooting in Manchester.

In conclusion, 2011 has been much like any other year in recent times, and 2012 will probably continue much in the same vein.

In other words, plus ça change plus c'est la même chose – which is French for Isn’t this where we came in?

Happy New Year to my six readers.