The Inquest into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales has at last received an admission from Mr Al Fayed's barrister that there was never any evidence that there had been a conspiracy emanating from the Duke of Edinburgh and spreading downwards through British society to murder Princess Diana in 1997.
Down on our little allotment, Nosher and I received this news with stoical indifference. It was a nice enough day - warm for the time of year but a little cloudy - and we had a lot to do in order to get our planting up to date (in England gardening always seems to be behind schedule, if there is a schedule at all, that is).
Nonetheless, we found time to spend a few moments excavating our indifference to see if any more substantial opinions lay underneath.
'It was always going to end in a verdict of accidental death anyway' opined Nosher.
'Even that seems too bland a verdict for the death of a princess' I said 'and would conceal the fact that the British taxpayer has had to foot an extraordinary bill for an Inquest of several millions of pounds simply to pander to the conspiracy mania of a grieving father who just happens to be extremely rich and evidently has no one around him willing to tell him he's made a fool of himself.'
We stood for a while surveying our little plots, now beginning to reveal the results of hours of labour planting and toiling in circumstances that are to us far more congenial than any life of wealth and privilege.
'The irony' said Nosher after a few moments 'is that the greatest financial burden of paying for this inquest will inevitably be imposed on marginal taxpayers on low incomes who just fall within the tax system, who will end up paying extra tax on incomes that are already very low.'
'Whereas Al Fayed will shrug off the millions he's paying his legal team as if it were small change' I added. 'All in order to embarrass the British Royal family because they did not give him what he wanted years ago.'
We turned back to our planting, and I continued to ponder the reality behind the headlines and sentimental fawning always exhibited by the mass media the instant anyone mentions the name 'Diana'.
The truth is that reckless, ignorance and stupidity killed Diana, although I doubt whether that will be the verdict of the Inquest. The recklessness of the driver at propelling a heavy vehicle at dangerously high speeds in a concrete tunnel, the ignorance of Diana in not wearing a seatbelt (which would almost certainly have saved her life) and the stupidity of her consort in allowing both circumstances to proceed without wisely intervening to reduce the risk and the consequences of the already foreseeable disaster, given all the the factors in play at the time.
The official verdict will almost certainly be accidental death - but the tragic demise of a woman loved by millions for her gauche sentimentality and ceaseless adoption of charitable causes cannot conceal the uncomfortable facts. Diana grew up in the midst of great wealth and privilege, was subject to an arranged marriage which came complete with the 'other woman', and then used what little intelligence she possessed in an attempt to manipulate the media and gain popular support amongst the credulous and over-sentimental masses. In the latter she succeeded, in the former only partly so, because she then became a victim of the myth she had so assiduously created, and the mass-media became the bane of her life and in no small say contributed to the circumstances of her death.
Such are the wages of recklessness, ignorance, and stupidity.
More from http://www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com/ soon.
Find out more at http://www.paulsturdee.co.uk/
and http://www.pgsbooks.co.uk/
Paul Sturdee's book Is God a Terrorist? is available from Amazon and all good booksellers.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Sunday, March 30, 2008
How the Free Market Rewards Failure
As the US and UK Governments strive to stave off recession following the Bear Stearns and Northern Rock fiascos, news has arrived at our little allotment which reveals just how flawed is the 'free market' model currently promoted by our idiot political leaders.
The news concerned the rewards received by the former chief executive of Northern Rock for his bad management in driving his Bank to financial collapse by borrowing mega-amounts of money in a volatile financial market and then finding he didn't have enough revenue to pay the interest charges, and couldn't borrow any more for this purpose either. No doubt the remainder of the former board members of Northern Rock received substantial pay-offs too for their part in the fiasco, and I suspect much the same applies to the senior executives of Bear Stearns.
Down on our little allotment in deepest South Gloucester in the good old Dis-United Kingdom, the news that the former chief executive of Northern Rock had received a £750,ooo pay-off for failure found Nosher and me in reflective mood.
'I thought the so-called "free market" was supposed to reward success but not failure' remarked Nosher 'so that only successful business executives and entrepreneurs flourished, and unsuccessful ones reaped the results of their failure by going bust or in some other form of financial penalty.'
We were leaning on our spades on our respective allotment plots, on a gloriously fine afternoon, the warm sun almost making one forget that an economic recession loomed on the horizon like a dark cloud.
'Well, the free market model is based on the notion that what drives people to engage in economic activity is a combination of greed and fear' I responded 'but what Adam Smith never explained in The Wealth of Nations was that any government intervention to protect the vulnerable in society was bound to distort the market in favour of the greediest people at the top of the economic food chain.'
'You mean that the greediest and most powerful capitalists and their henchmen can hold the country to ransome, even when they've driven their businesses to ruin?' Nosher asked.
'That's exactly what I mean' I said 'if the business is a large bank the failure of which might precipitate a recession, then it is in the interests of the country as a whole to patch things up. In the US the Federal Reserve persuaded another bank to buy out Bear Stearns, whereas in this country our idiot chancellor dithered and in the end has spent billions of pounds propping up and then belatedly nationalising Northern Rock.'
For a few minutes Nosher and I gazed in silence on the beautiful sight of the sunlight making the leaves of the willow trees glisten and dance in the light, warm breeze. Then Nosher looked across at me quizzically.
'Do you mean that Darling the Farthing should have allowed Northern Rock to go under?' he asked.
'Well, I don't see how it could have made things any worse' I replied 'and then, once in receivership the viable parts of the bank could have been sold off, to the Government if no one else would take them, and the rest liquidated. Then the country would have got its hands on the bank for peanuts instead of the billions we paid, and the chief executive and his board who created the fiasco would have been out on their arses, where they belonged, without even a brass farthing. And the other banks who loaned Northern Rock all this money in the first place would also have lost money - but lending money is a speculative business too, and should be liable to the risks that go with any speculative venture.'
'But what about the depositors and the shareholders, and the mortgage holders, and the employees' Nosher persisted 'what about them?'
'The shareholders would have got nothing - but that's what is supposed to happen when a business fails in a free market' I explained. 'Buying shares is a speculative investment that involves risk - what's the point of the taxpayer rewarding them for having kept their shares in a reckless, badly managed enterprise that collapsed? As for the depositors and mortgage-holders and employees, there's no reason why the Government could not have imposed conditions upon the sale of assets that protected the interests of these groups, who are, after all, the innocent parties in all this.'
Nosher turned a couple of sods with his spade, then leant on the handle and looked at me in puzzlement.
'It still seems all wrong to me' said Nosher 'after all, why should the greediest and most powerful people who run big companies be able to arrange things so that they get paid enormous amounts of other people's money as a reward for their own failure in losing these same people money in the first place? I just can't understand how it can be allowed to go on. It's a situation in which any chief executive and the board can write their own contracts to ensure that however incompetent they are they're going to come out ahead of everyone else. How can that be right?'
'It isn't right, but it's what happens' I replied 'greed always wins out in a free market, and the people with most power arrange things to feed their own greed, whilst the vulnerable are left to meet their needs from the crumbs that fall from the rich man's table. That's how it's always been, and I suspect always will be, so long as greed trumps compassion and fairness.'
We turned back to our digging, whilst in the trees around us the birds sang their song of spring in the warm sunshine.
As I turned the fertile soil I pondered the economic pundits' latest forecast that the UK economy would escape recession. With all the banks putting up interest rates far above the Bank of England's base rate, and severely restricting their lending, it's a clear case of talking up confidence in the face of imminent disaster.
For many years now our entire financial sector has been built on reckless lending and bad risks, and these risks permeate the entire economy. The new restrictions, combined with high interest rates on existing loans, will seriously dampen the consumer's desire to buy goods. And that can mean only one thing: recession.
How serious the recession will be, and to what extent Gordon the Moron and Darling the Farthing can deceive us that it's really a minor economic slow-down, remains to be seen.
More from www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com soon.
Find out more at www.paulsturdee.co.uk
and www.PGSBooks.co.uk
Paul Sturdee's book Is God a Terrorist? is available from Amazon and all good booksellers.
The news concerned the rewards received by the former chief executive of Northern Rock for his bad management in driving his Bank to financial collapse by borrowing mega-amounts of money in a volatile financial market and then finding he didn't have enough revenue to pay the interest charges, and couldn't borrow any more for this purpose either. No doubt the remainder of the former board members of Northern Rock received substantial pay-offs too for their part in the fiasco, and I suspect much the same applies to the senior executives of Bear Stearns.
Down on our little allotment in deepest South Gloucester in the good old Dis-United Kingdom, the news that the former chief executive of Northern Rock had received a £750,ooo pay-off for failure found Nosher and me in reflective mood.
'I thought the so-called "free market" was supposed to reward success but not failure' remarked Nosher 'so that only successful business executives and entrepreneurs flourished, and unsuccessful ones reaped the results of their failure by going bust or in some other form of financial penalty.'
We were leaning on our spades on our respective allotment plots, on a gloriously fine afternoon, the warm sun almost making one forget that an economic recession loomed on the horizon like a dark cloud.
'Well, the free market model is based on the notion that what drives people to engage in economic activity is a combination of greed and fear' I responded 'but what Adam Smith never explained in The Wealth of Nations was that any government intervention to protect the vulnerable in society was bound to distort the market in favour of the greediest people at the top of the economic food chain.'
'You mean that the greediest and most powerful capitalists and their henchmen can hold the country to ransome, even when they've driven their businesses to ruin?' Nosher asked.
'That's exactly what I mean' I said 'if the business is a large bank the failure of which might precipitate a recession, then it is in the interests of the country as a whole to patch things up. In the US the Federal Reserve persuaded another bank to buy out Bear Stearns, whereas in this country our idiot chancellor dithered and in the end has spent billions of pounds propping up and then belatedly nationalising Northern Rock.'
For a few minutes Nosher and I gazed in silence on the beautiful sight of the sunlight making the leaves of the willow trees glisten and dance in the light, warm breeze. Then Nosher looked across at me quizzically.
'Do you mean that Darling the Farthing should have allowed Northern Rock to go under?' he asked.
'Well, I don't see how it could have made things any worse' I replied 'and then, once in receivership the viable parts of the bank could have been sold off, to the Government if no one else would take them, and the rest liquidated. Then the country would have got its hands on the bank for peanuts instead of the billions we paid, and the chief executive and his board who created the fiasco would have been out on their arses, where they belonged, without even a brass farthing. And the other banks who loaned Northern Rock all this money in the first place would also have lost money - but lending money is a speculative business too, and should be liable to the risks that go with any speculative venture.'
'But what about the depositors and the shareholders, and the mortgage holders, and the employees' Nosher persisted 'what about them?'
'The shareholders would have got nothing - but that's what is supposed to happen when a business fails in a free market' I explained. 'Buying shares is a speculative investment that involves risk - what's the point of the taxpayer rewarding them for having kept their shares in a reckless, badly managed enterprise that collapsed? As for the depositors and mortgage-holders and employees, there's no reason why the Government could not have imposed conditions upon the sale of assets that protected the interests of these groups, who are, after all, the innocent parties in all this.'
Nosher turned a couple of sods with his spade, then leant on the handle and looked at me in puzzlement.
'It still seems all wrong to me' said Nosher 'after all, why should the greediest and most powerful people who run big companies be able to arrange things so that they get paid enormous amounts of other people's money as a reward for their own failure in losing these same people money in the first place? I just can't understand how it can be allowed to go on. It's a situation in which any chief executive and the board can write their own contracts to ensure that however incompetent they are they're going to come out ahead of everyone else. How can that be right?'
'It isn't right, but it's what happens' I replied 'greed always wins out in a free market, and the people with most power arrange things to feed their own greed, whilst the vulnerable are left to meet their needs from the crumbs that fall from the rich man's table. That's how it's always been, and I suspect always will be, so long as greed trumps compassion and fairness.'
We turned back to our digging, whilst in the trees around us the birds sang their song of spring in the warm sunshine.
As I turned the fertile soil I pondered the economic pundits' latest forecast that the UK economy would escape recession. With all the banks putting up interest rates far above the Bank of England's base rate, and severely restricting their lending, it's a clear case of talking up confidence in the face of imminent disaster.
For many years now our entire financial sector has been built on reckless lending and bad risks, and these risks permeate the entire economy. The new restrictions, combined with high interest rates on existing loans, will seriously dampen the consumer's desire to buy goods. And that can mean only one thing: recession.
How serious the recession will be, and to what extent Gordon the Moron and Darling the Farthing can deceive us that it's really a minor economic slow-down, remains to be seen.
More from www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com soon.
Find out more at www.paulsturdee.co.uk
and www.PGSBooks.co.uk
Paul Sturdee's book Is God a Terrorist? is available from Amazon and all good booksellers.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Immigration and the Decline of Englishness
After almost fifty years of self-deceiving pseudo-liberals slowly destroying our tiny country's culture and values, the inexorable decline of Englishness has finally been tacitly admitted by a Government minister.
Down on our little allotment, Nosher and me had been ruminating over the implications for several days until, one rainy afternoon, Nosher finally blurted out his thoughts.
'If a Government minister can actually admit that uncontrolled immigration is swamping the country's social services and hospitals' he said 'what does that imply about how bad things really are? Because they never tell us the whole truth.'
We were sitting in Nosher's little shed, the rain beating down on the roof, looking out through a cobwebbed window at the sodden landscape. The Government minister in question (his identity easily forgotten, like so many of Gordon the Moron's Assistants in Idiocy) had made the admission on BBC Radio 4's World at One programme.
'Well, if they have felt the need to finally admit the partial truth' I replied 'it means that they can no longer deny what's actually going on without looking insane as well as dishonestly stupid.'
In the same week an independent inquiry into the Dis-United Kingdom's asylum policy had reported that it is 'inhumane and oppressive'.
The Government, who had actually commissioned the report, instantly denied everything. Talk about being divorced from reality.
The idiotic implementation of the policy to make this tiny country of ours the asylum and immigration capital of the world has resulted in the availability of social services and health services to our indigenous population being overwhelmed to the point of collapse in some areas.
There are some pseudo-liberals who insist that 'asylum' is a completely different issue from 'immigration'. But the effect upon the poorer people of this country (i.e., not the politicians and their pseudo-liberal allies in the media, who are well-insulated from the effects) is to make life less and less tolerable for the most vulnerable indigenous people of our country. Us English natives.
And the fact that the asylum system has now been revealed as being inhumane and oppressive indicates just how hypocritical the people in charge of this country really are.
'Come and seek asylum in Britain!' they say officially 'all are welcome!' And then the subtext: 'But when you get here we'll treat you worse than dogs until we're satisfied you're genuine.'
The reality is that the social and economic impact of asylum seekers, once they're admitted, is much the same as that of uncontrolled immigration: they use up scarce social resources that are already seriously overstretched providing for the needs of UK citizens.
And yet the pseudo-liberal champions of pseudo-liberal values in the media and the social and political elite of our country instantly denounce anyone who raises this very important issue as 'racist' and/or 'fascist', thus revealing themselves to be crypto-fascists as well as pseudo-liberals.
The nonsense of 'Political Correctness' reveals just how far we've moved towards the dismantling of the free and open society we're supposed to be living in.
If you are a politician or public official, or a public figure, it is no longer possible to tell the truth without strenuous and dishonest attempts by the guardians of 'Political Correctness' to discredit you and thus destroy your credibility.
The actual truth about the reality of daily life for us little people, the ordinary indigenous citizens of England, is now suppressed in the name of the pseudo-truths spawned by 'Political Correctness'.
'The real impact of all this uncontrolled immigration' Nosher continued, as if he hadn't heard my thoughts 'is that the values of Englishness are rapidly disappearing. In many areas of the country there's no such thing as Englishness anymore, and those of us who values our Englishness are insulted and denigrated at every turn by the ignorant idiots who think they're in charge.'
'Do you mean so-called traditional English values like fair-play, and tolerance, and freedom of opportunity' I commented 'because they are largely a myth dreamt up by a self-serving political, media, and economic elite.'
'No!' Nosher replied emphatically 'I mean the traditional English habit, ever since the Normans invaded in 1066, of ordinary English people distrusting those who claim the right to lead us, and of us little people at the bottom of society sticking together to protect our interests and preserve our way of life by warding off oppression from interfering busy-bodies who want to take our money and give us only empty promises in return. That healthy distrust of authority and of the good intentions of well-meaning but ultimately ignorant and self-deceiving do-gooders has now almost all gone. There is no common consciousness constituting "Englishness" anymore - it's been destroyed, and with it the traditional English values of community, self-reliance, reciprocity, and self-deprecation are going too.'
A great gust of wind suddenly shook Nosher's shed (allotment sheds are precarious structures at the best of times). Inside we both looked up at the roof to see if it had been damaged. No rain dripped through so we breathed a sigh of relief. Nosher tapped the wooden structure approvingly.
'She'll see me through a few more years yet' he said.
'If you consider that the real rate of unemployment in this country now amounts to around a third of the total adult population (excluding the retired)' I commented 'and fewer and fewer taxpayers are now being required to support the ever-growing number of asylum and immigration cases who claim social benefits from the Government, as well as the millions of English people who can't or won't work, it can't be long now before the entire socio-economic system of this country starts to collapse.'
Nosher nodded in agreement. Then he gave a little chuckle.
'Someone down at the pub came up with a good idea last night' he said. 'If you are English and you don't currently qualify for any social benefits, then the best thing to do is to move to Rumania, obtain citizenship there, and then move back here as an immigrant and claim benefits as a Rumanian citizen. Suddenly the authorities will be throwing every benefit under the sun at you!'
'The only way to stop that sort of thing going on is for England to declare independence from the UK, leave the EU, and re-establish control over our borders once more' I said. 'But that will never happen. Because the idiots who are now in charge of this country don't care a jot about England and the English: "Now we're all citizens of the world!" they crow in their self-deceiving stupidity. It's all right to be Welsh or Scottish, of course, because their little mini-states are subsidised by the English taxpayer. But to be English is a mug's game. If I were thirty years younger I'd emigrate.'
Another squall of rain hit the little shed, which shook alarmingly.
'This storm's a bit like uncontrolled immigration' Nosher remarked 'except that a storm is something we can't actually stop from happening, whereas immigration is something it is possible to do something about, if the political will were there to do it.'
'Except that the political will isn't there' I said 'and by the time Gordon the Moron or his successor actually do anything about it, the damage will already be irreversible.'
'Aye, we're doomed!' said Nosher, doing his Private Fraser impression from Dad's Army 'we're doomed, I say, doomed!'
More from www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com soon.
Find out more at www.paulsturdee.co.uk
and www.PGSBooks.co.uk
Paul Sturdee's book Is God a Terrorist? is available from Amazon and all good booksellers.
Down on our little allotment, Nosher and me had been ruminating over the implications for several days until, one rainy afternoon, Nosher finally blurted out his thoughts.
'If a Government minister can actually admit that uncontrolled immigration is swamping the country's social services and hospitals' he said 'what does that imply about how bad things really are? Because they never tell us the whole truth.'
We were sitting in Nosher's little shed, the rain beating down on the roof, looking out through a cobwebbed window at the sodden landscape. The Government minister in question (his identity easily forgotten, like so many of Gordon the Moron's Assistants in Idiocy) had made the admission on BBC Radio 4's World at One programme.
'Well, if they have felt the need to finally admit the partial truth' I replied 'it means that they can no longer deny what's actually going on without looking insane as well as dishonestly stupid.'
In the same week an independent inquiry into the Dis-United Kingdom's asylum policy had reported that it is 'inhumane and oppressive'.
The Government, who had actually commissioned the report, instantly denied everything. Talk about being divorced from reality.
The idiotic implementation of the policy to make this tiny country of ours the asylum and immigration capital of the world has resulted in the availability of social services and health services to our indigenous population being overwhelmed to the point of collapse in some areas.
There are some pseudo-liberals who insist that 'asylum' is a completely different issue from 'immigration'. But the effect upon the poorer people of this country (i.e., not the politicians and their pseudo-liberal allies in the media, who are well-insulated from the effects) is to make life less and less tolerable for the most vulnerable indigenous people of our country. Us English natives.
And the fact that the asylum system has now been revealed as being inhumane and oppressive indicates just how hypocritical the people in charge of this country really are.
'Come and seek asylum in Britain!' they say officially 'all are welcome!' And then the subtext: 'But when you get here we'll treat you worse than dogs until we're satisfied you're genuine.'
The reality is that the social and economic impact of asylum seekers, once they're admitted, is much the same as that of uncontrolled immigration: they use up scarce social resources that are already seriously overstretched providing for the needs of UK citizens.
And yet the pseudo-liberal champions of pseudo-liberal values in the media and the social and political elite of our country instantly denounce anyone who raises this very important issue as 'racist' and/or 'fascist', thus revealing themselves to be crypto-fascists as well as pseudo-liberals.
The nonsense of 'Political Correctness' reveals just how far we've moved towards the dismantling of the free and open society we're supposed to be living in.
If you are a politician or public official, or a public figure, it is no longer possible to tell the truth without strenuous and dishonest attempts by the guardians of 'Political Correctness' to discredit you and thus destroy your credibility.
The actual truth about the reality of daily life for us little people, the ordinary indigenous citizens of England, is now suppressed in the name of the pseudo-truths spawned by 'Political Correctness'.
'The real impact of all this uncontrolled immigration' Nosher continued, as if he hadn't heard my thoughts 'is that the values of Englishness are rapidly disappearing. In many areas of the country there's no such thing as Englishness anymore, and those of us who values our Englishness are insulted and denigrated at every turn by the ignorant idiots who think they're in charge.'
'Do you mean so-called traditional English values like fair-play, and tolerance, and freedom of opportunity' I commented 'because they are largely a myth dreamt up by a self-serving political, media, and economic elite.'
'No!' Nosher replied emphatically 'I mean the traditional English habit, ever since the Normans invaded in 1066, of ordinary English people distrusting those who claim the right to lead us, and of us little people at the bottom of society sticking together to protect our interests and preserve our way of life by warding off oppression from interfering busy-bodies who want to take our money and give us only empty promises in return. That healthy distrust of authority and of the good intentions of well-meaning but ultimately ignorant and self-deceiving do-gooders has now almost all gone. There is no common consciousness constituting "Englishness" anymore - it's been destroyed, and with it the traditional English values of community, self-reliance, reciprocity, and self-deprecation are going too.'
A great gust of wind suddenly shook Nosher's shed (allotment sheds are precarious structures at the best of times). Inside we both looked up at the roof to see if it had been damaged. No rain dripped through so we breathed a sigh of relief. Nosher tapped the wooden structure approvingly.
'She'll see me through a few more years yet' he said.
'If you consider that the real rate of unemployment in this country now amounts to around a third of the total adult population (excluding the retired)' I commented 'and fewer and fewer taxpayers are now being required to support the ever-growing number of asylum and immigration cases who claim social benefits from the Government, as well as the millions of English people who can't or won't work, it can't be long now before the entire socio-economic system of this country starts to collapse.'
Nosher nodded in agreement. Then he gave a little chuckle.
'Someone down at the pub came up with a good idea last night' he said. 'If you are English and you don't currently qualify for any social benefits, then the best thing to do is to move to Rumania, obtain citizenship there, and then move back here as an immigrant and claim benefits as a Rumanian citizen. Suddenly the authorities will be throwing every benefit under the sun at you!'
'The only way to stop that sort of thing going on is for England to declare independence from the UK, leave the EU, and re-establish control over our borders once more' I said. 'But that will never happen. Because the idiots who are now in charge of this country don't care a jot about England and the English: "Now we're all citizens of the world!" they crow in their self-deceiving stupidity. It's all right to be Welsh or Scottish, of course, because their little mini-states are subsidised by the English taxpayer. But to be English is a mug's game. If I were thirty years younger I'd emigrate.'
Another squall of rain hit the little shed, which shook alarmingly.
'This storm's a bit like uncontrolled immigration' Nosher remarked 'except that a storm is something we can't actually stop from happening, whereas immigration is something it is possible to do something about, if the political will were there to do it.'
'Except that the political will isn't there' I said 'and by the time Gordon the Moron or his successor actually do anything about it, the damage will already be irreversible.'
'Aye, we're doomed!' said Nosher, doing his Private Fraser impression from Dad's Army 'we're doomed, I say, doomed!'
More from www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com soon.
Find out more at www.paulsturdee.co.uk
and www.PGSBooks.co.uk
Paul Sturdee's book Is God a Terrorist? is available from Amazon and all good booksellers.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Bush's 'Defining Moment' for Iraq - May God Help Us All!
After yet another day of worsening civil war in Iraq, the leader of the free world, President George W. Bush (otherwise known as 'slash and burn' in all those countries the US has invaded under his watch) appeared on television in an attempt to calm the fears of us little allotment holders.
'This is a defining moment in the history of free Iraq' George W. proudly announced at a press conference. 'Iraq has had many defining moments in the past, and this is one of them.'
Well, that calmed some nerves, I can tell you. Down on our little allotment Nosher and I solemnly sipped parsnip wine in Nosher's allotment shed and nodded in agreement.
'If Iraq has many more defining moments like this' said Nosher 'The Americans may as well give up trying to make a profit out of Iraq's oil and set up a chain of funeral homes - they'll make more money that way.'
'Did you know that American gunships rocketed Basra yesterday?' I asked.
'Was that because the British have done such a good job of training the Iraqis to keep the peace there?' inquired Nosher.
'I guess it must be' I replied 'the Iraqi army has gone in now and the place is worse than ever. And many other places in Iraq have erupted into more violence then ever before. Sounds like "free" Iraq is just the kind of place the average American family would like to bring up their children.'
'Well, Bush and Blair can't say they weren't warned' commented Nosher. 'Under Saddam Hussein every household had to possess a loaded AK47 in readiness to repel any invaders. So what do the Americans and British do? Depose Saddam and bomb Iraq back to the Stone Age. Hardly surprising that almost every Iraqi hates the Americans and British and wants them out.'
We watched the sun dip behind the willow trees, and got ready to go home for supper.
'I wonder if the next leader of the free world will be any better than Bush?' I wondered out loud as we locked our respective shed doors in the hastening gloom.
'I wouldn't bet on it' said Nosher 'American presidents don't get elected because they're competent or compassionate - they appeal to the greed, fear and arrogant self-deceit of the American electorate. So whoever wins the next election will still be rampaging around the world pretending to be its saviour whilst trying to make a fast buck out of any impoverished country they can overwhelm with lop-sided trade deals euphemistically called "aid".'
We walked slowly down the lane towards home, listening to the birds twittering in the trees in the dusk.
'Did you know that America donates almost the smallest proportion of its GDP in foreign aid of any Western country?' I said 'less than one per cent, whilst a little county like Denmarks gives three times as much. And yet the average American believes their country is the most generous in the world. That's how deceived they are'.
'Still, mustn't be too unkind to the Yanks' cautioned Nosher 'After all, they're ruthlessly indoctrinated from birth to believe they are the best and wisest and kindest and most blessed nation on earth, and also the last bastion of freedom and liberty. How they reconcile all this is beyond me, but at least us English have the great advantage that we don't believe a word our leaders tell us on principle. It's in our genes.'
At the little crossroads we parted company, and as I walked towards home through the lengthening shadows of evening I pondered on the self-deceit and moral narcissism that keeps America from being aware of just how hypocritical it is. At least we English know our leaders are hypocrites, and what that makes us.
Please note, if you're a Yank Nosher and I have nothing against you personally - we like Americans, at least the ones we've met - but we don't like what American is doing to itself and to the world. Some self-insight and modesty is needed, but that's never been America's strong point, has it?
Still, as long as there are allotment holders in the world there's some hope that civilisation may survive. So our advice to America and all Americans is: take up allotment gardening. It could change your lives for the better and if it kept you from interfering in other people's countries the world would be a better place too.
More from http://www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com/ soon.
Find out more at http://www.paulsturdee.co.uk/
and http://www.pgsbooks.co.uk/
Paul Sturdee's book Is God a Terrorist? is available on Amazon and from all good booksellers.
'This is a defining moment in the history of free Iraq' George W. proudly announced at a press conference. 'Iraq has had many defining moments in the past, and this is one of them.'
Well, that calmed some nerves, I can tell you. Down on our little allotment Nosher and I solemnly sipped parsnip wine in Nosher's allotment shed and nodded in agreement.
'If Iraq has many more defining moments like this' said Nosher 'The Americans may as well give up trying to make a profit out of Iraq's oil and set up a chain of funeral homes - they'll make more money that way.'
'Did you know that American gunships rocketed Basra yesterday?' I asked.
'Was that because the British have done such a good job of training the Iraqis to keep the peace there?' inquired Nosher.
'I guess it must be' I replied 'the Iraqi army has gone in now and the place is worse than ever. And many other places in Iraq have erupted into more violence then ever before. Sounds like "free" Iraq is just the kind of place the average American family would like to bring up their children.'
'Well, Bush and Blair can't say they weren't warned' commented Nosher. 'Under Saddam Hussein every household had to possess a loaded AK47 in readiness to repel any invaders. So what do the Americans and British do? Depose Saddam and bomb Iraq back to the Stone Age. Hardly surprising that almost every Iraqi hates the Americans and British and wants them out.'
We watched the sun dip behind the willow trees, and got ready to go home for supper.
'I wonder if the next leader of the free world will be any better than Bush?' I wondered out loud as we locked our respective shed doors in the hastening gloom.
'I wouldn't bet on it' said Nosher 'American presidents don't get elected because they're competent or compassionate - they appeal to the greed, fear and arrogant self-deceit of the American electorate. So whoever wins the next election will still be rampaging around the world pretending to be its saviour whilst trying to make a fast buck out of any impoverished country they can overwhelm with lop-sided trade deals euphemistically called "aid".'
We walked slowly down the lane towards home, listening to the birds twittering in the trees in the dusk.
'Did you know that America donates almost the smallest proportion of its GDP in foreign aid of any Western country?' I said 'less than one per cent, whilst a little county like Denmarks gives three times as much. And yet the average American believes their country is the most generous in the world. That's how deceived they are'.
'Still, mustn't be too unkind to the Yanks' cautioned Nosher 'After all, they're ruthlessly indoctrinated from birth to believe they are the best and wisest and kindest and most blessed nation on earth, and also the last bastion of freedom and liberty. How they reconcile all this is beyond me, but at least us English have the great advantage that we don't believe a word our leaders tell us on principle. It's in our genes.'
At the little crossroads we parted company, and as I walked towards home through the lengthening shadows of evening I pondered on the self-deceit and moral narcissism that keeps America from being aware of just how hypocritical it is. At least we English know our leaders are hypocrites, and what that makes us.
Please note, if you're a Yank Nosher and I have nothing against you personally - we like Americans, at least the ones we've met - but we don't like what American is doing to itself and to the world. Some self-insight and modesty is needed, but that's never been America's strong point, has it?
Still, as long as there are allotment holders in the world there's some hope that civilisation may survive. So our advice to America and all Americans is: take up allotment gardening. It could change your lives for the better and if it kept you from interfering in other people's countries the world would be a better place too.
More from http://www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com/ soon.
Find out more at http://www.paulsturdee.co.uk/
and http://www.pgsbooks.co.uk/
Paul Sturdee's book Is God a Terrorist? is available on Amazon and from all good booksellers.
Anglo-French Summit an Expensive Farce
So much that is wrong in the world, so few allotment-holders to try to put it right. The result was that Nosher and me were overwhelmed by choice for the topic of our post-tilling discussion. We were sitting on our old deckchairs in the gloriously warm afternoon sun - spring has definitely sprung in the good old Dis-United Kingdom, even if only for one day. So as we sipped Nosher's parsnip wine, we surveyed the issues of the day to discern which should occupy us for a few minutes of rest and relaxation.
First, there's the gigantic cock-up at Heathrow's Terminal 5. A disaster waiting to happen some might say, given that the technology received all the money and attention, but the staff training was woefully inadequate. Let's hope BA don't organise their planes in the same way.
Second, there's the cock-up the Chinese made in organising a stage-managed news conference with supposedly 'tame' Buddhist monks who then went feral and spoiled it all. Just goes to show that totalitarian rulers can never know just how much they and their lackeys are hated by the people they oppress. Look out, Gordon the Moron!
Third, there's the pantomime of President Sarkozy's state visit to London, and all the nonsense that the fawning mass-media have been putting out about how his latest ex-model wife lends a touch of glamour to the proceedings. Bollocks, the lot of it. Nosher and I decided to run with this one.
If a touch of glamour is all we need to make thing work properly in the Dis-United Kingdom there's no end of young women willing to take their clothes off for a few bob and show us their assets. It's drivel, of course, and those who run the mass-media must know it, but they also know it sells their output to the punters.
After forty years of slowly destroying our education system (child-centred learning, and all that) we now have children who pretty much do as they please for their entire school careers, with the result that the majority grow up into being credulous gullible idiots who are easily persuaded that a touch of glamour is good for the country. That's if they bother to take any interest in current affairs, of course - most don't, and those that do will soon discover that the BBC News output is now run as a sub-department of children's programming, being aimed primarily at the sub-teen audience. Any serious news is limited to usually peripheral issues discussed with news correspondents in a patronising style that comes straight from 'Blue Peter' (for you Yanks, that's an irritatingly puerile children's programme aimed at the sub-teen market). Those of us who have adult brains have to watch Channel 4 TV News instead. Goodbye, BBC!
The entire state visit of the midget president, was, of course, an expensive charade, the cost of which could easily have paid for a new NHS hospital somewhere - or, better still, cancelled all the disastrous hospital cleaning contracts in favour of directly employed NHS cleaning staff managed by the Ward Sisters - then we'd once again have clean hospitals and hospital acquired infections would become a thing of the past.
But all that's far too obvious for the vainglorious egotistical idiots who rule over us. So we have a midget French President talking nonsense in Francais to Gordon the Moron who talks nonsense in English. And the Household Cavalry parading up and down looking ridiculous in their ceremonial uniforms, and a state banquet at Buckingham Palace (well, the Royals have to be given something to do occasionally, don't they?). And it was all at the taxpayer's expense. Haven't seen that issue raised anywhere in the mass-media.
Gordon the Moron tried to appease malcontents like me by saying he'd cut the order for 'Idiot One' (the new Prime Ministerial plane) down to one plane instead of two (admitting there is more than one idiot in the Government would have been a step too far for Gordon). He desparately wants his own plane - after all, all the important countries in the world provide a private jet for their leaders, so why shouldn't Gordon the Moron have one?
Meanwhile, the one thing of any significance that was announced during the summit was that Britain and France would be co-operating more. Let's run that by you again. Britain and France will be co-operating more. Couldn't that have been put in an email between London and Paris, and vice-versa? Oh, no, that would have been far too lack-lustre. Let's spend millions of pounds unnecessarily on pandering to the egos of the idiots who think they're in charge and have a lavish state visit, and the mass media will undoubtedly approve because they know it will provide lots of free current affairs and news output for them. So we, the poor taxpayers, are taken for a ride as usual, and our hard-earned money (the few of us who are still working and/or paying tax, that is) will be spent on a junket for the already over-privileged. Situation normal.
And now to the real reason for the midget president's visit. Britain needs more nuclear reactors, and soon, or the nation's widescreen TVs are going to have blank screens due to a lack of electricity. And, since the idiots who rule over us have all but destroyed our nuclear industry, whereas the French have nurtured theirs, we need to suck up to the French to persuade them that once we've bought new reactors from them, we won't try and undercut their electricity prices at home.
And President Sarkozy? Why is he so keen to suck up to Gordon the Moron? Because he wants to show off his new wife to the world, that's why. After all, it's not every midget president who gets to bonk a beautiful catwalk model who used to take her clothes off in public, for money.
Just like the rest of us, under the expensive designer clothes, aren't they? The difference is that they get to spend most of our money whilst we get given bugger all by them.
'Nuff said.
More from www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com soon.
Find out more at www.paulsturdee.co.uk
and www.PGSBooks.co.uk
Paul Sturdee's book Is God a Terrorist? is available from Amazon and all good booksellers.
First, there's the gigantic cock-up at Heathrow's Terminal 5. A disaster waiting to happen some might say, given that the technology received all the money and attention, but the staff training was woefully inadequate. Let's hope BA don't organise their planes in the same way.
Second, there's the cock-up the Chinese made in organising a stage-managed news conference with supposedly 'tame' Buddhist monks who then went feral and spoiled it all. Just goes to show that totalitarian rulers can never know just how much they and their lackeys are hated by the people they oppress. Look out, Gordon the Moron!
Third, there's the pantomime of President Sarkozy's state visit to London, and all the nonsense that the fawning mass-media have been putting out about how his latest ex-model wife lends a touch of glamour to the proceedings. Bollocks, the lot of it. Nosher and I decided to run with this one.
If a touch of glamour is all we need to make thing work properly in the Dis-United Kingdom there's no end of young women willing to take their clothes off for a few bob and show us their assets. It's drivel, of course, and those who run the mass-media must know it, but they also know it sells their output to the punters.
After forty years of slowly destroying our education system (child-centred learning, and all that) we now have children who pretty much do as they please for their entire school careers, with the result that the majority grow up into being credulous gullible idiots who are easily persuaded that a touch of glamour is good for the country. That's if they bother to take any interest in current affairs, of course - most don't, and those that do will soon discover that the BBC News output is now run as a sub-department of children's programming, being aimed primarily at the sub-teen audience. Any serious news is limited to usually peripheral issues discussed with news correspondents in a patronising style that comes straight from 'Blue Peter' (for you Yanks, that's an irritatingly puerile children's programme aimed at the sub-teen market). Those of us who have adult brains have to watch Channel 4 TV News instead. Goodbye, BBC!
The entire state visit of the midget president, was, of course, an expensive charade, the cost of which could easily have paid for a new NHS hospital somewhere - or, better still, cancelled all the disastrous hospital cleaning contracts in favour of directly employed NHS cleaning staff managed by the Ward Sisters - then we'd once again have clean hospitals and hospital acquired infections would become a thing of the past.
But all that's far too obvious for the vainglorious egotistical idiots who rule over us. So we have a midget French President talking nonsense in Francais to Gordon the Moron who talks nonsense in English. And the Household Cavalry parading up and down looking ridiculous in their ceremonial uniforms, and a state banquet at Buckingham Palace (well, the Royals have to be given something to do occasionally, don't they?). And it was all at the taxpayer's expense. Haven't seen that issue raised anywhere in the mass-media.
Gordon the Moron tried to appease malcontents like me by saying he'd cut the order for 'Idiot One' (the new Prime Ministerial plane) down to one plane instead of two (admitting there is more than one idiot in the Government would have been a step too far for Gordon). He desparately wants his own plane - after all, all the important countries in the world provide a private jet for their leaders, so why shouldn't Gordon the Moron have one?
Meanwhile, the one thing of any significance that was announced during the summit was that Britain and France would be co-operating more. Let's run that by you again. Britain and France will be co-operating more. Couldn't that have been put in an email between London and Paris, and vice-versa? Oh, no, that would have been far too lack-lustre. Let's spend millions of pounds unnecessarily on pandering to the egos of the idiots who think they're in charge and have a lavish state visit, and the mass media will undoubtedly approve because they know it will provide lots of free current affairs and news output for them. So we, the poor taxpayers, are taken for a ride as usual, and our hard-earned money (the few of us who are still working and/or paying tax, that is) will be spent on a junket for the already over-privileged. Situation normal.
And now to the real reason for the midget president's visit. Britain needs more nuclear reactors, and soon, or the nation's widescreen TVs are going to have blank screens due to a lack of electricity. And, since the idiots who rule over us have all but destroyed our nuclear industry, whereas the French have nurtured theirs, we need to suck up to the French to persuade them that once we've bought new reactors from them, we won't try and undercut their electricity prices at home.
And President Sarkozy? Why is he so keen to suck up to Gordon the Moron? Because he wants to show off his new wife to the world, that's why. After all, it's not every midget president who gets to bonk a beautiful catwalk model who used to take her clothes off in public, for money.
Just like the rest of us, under the expensive designer clothes, aren't they? The difference is that they get to spend most of our money whilst we get given bugger all by them.
'Nuff said.
More from www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com soon.
Find out more at www.paulsturdee.co.uk
and www.PGSBooks.co.uk
Paul Sturdee's book Is God a Terrorist? is available from Amazon and all good booksellers.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Call to Make UK a Christian Nation - But What About the Vegetables?
Down on our little allotment plots my best mate Nosher and I are still chuckling over two pronouncements made last weekend by those who think they are in charge. We are wondering whether they should also be applied to our vegetables.
First, Gordon the Moron announced that the law regulating the flying of the national flags of the Dis-United Kingdom was going to be relaxed, so as to foster a sense of national identity. Given that Gordon the Moron and his predecessors have done just about everything possible to destroy our sense of national identity, this move should be viewed with suspicion - patriotism being both the first and last resort of scoundrels.
Second, the Bishop of Rochester issued a call for the UK to be made once more a Christian nation, claiming that our sense of Christian identity had been eroded by the modern consumer culture (or whatever, it doesn't much matter).
These pronouncements by the 'great and the good' have caused puzzlement to Nosher and me. Let's deal with the 'Christian nation' part first.
Now, it is true that our cultural heritage in the Dis-United Kingdom is dominated by Christianity - because the vast majority of our ancestors had it forced upon them at the point of a sword or through threats of torture and execution. And then successive generations were indoctrinated until that they believed they were superior to everyone else and had the right to force their religion on others. It was only when modern secular liberalism developed in the twentieth century that religious freedom resulted in the vast majority of people in this country abandoning the practices of Christianity. Because they had a free choice.
Due to our Christian history, it is hardly surprising then that Christian messages and motifs abound in our modern culture. But that doesn't mean that we are a Christian country, or that attempts should be made to turn us back into one.
The vast majority of people in this country do not attend any religious services, and even if they might say they believe in a God or gods, that does not entitle anyone else to hijack their freedom and declare that the country is Christian. Nosher likened this to telling his vegetables that they should be Christians instead of sun-worshippers.
'It doesn't matter what label I give them, they'll still worship the sun' he said 'that's what makes them vegetables. And so long as they grow big and tasty, and produce lots of seed, and don't mind me eating them when I wish, I don't care much what or who they worship!' The same principals should apply, of course, to people. Apart from getting eaten by Nosher.
The best solution, in our view, would be to declare a fully secular state with no special privileges for any religion, and to ensure that organised religions stopped their cynical manipulations as they try to gain extra advantages over one another. Then all religions would be equal, and all believers and non-believers would be equal. That, it seems to Nosher and me, and to our vegetables, is a most just and fair solution that will bring wisdom, tolerance and harmony to our land. And put a stop to all the hypocrisy.
And what about the flag flying? Well, in 1924 the British Government passed a law forbidding the flying of the national flags except under very specific and restricted circumstances, thus depriving the general population of any sense of ownership of their sense of national identity. Not surprising then, that successive generations have gradually lost their patriotic attachment. It takes real negative genius to destroy something without anyone actually noticing what is taking place.
Of course the law has not been enforced particularly stringently since the late 1960s, when Union Jack underpants became fashionable for a while, but the point had been made: we're the people, and we'll do what we want with our national flag.
So now we're being told that we can officially fly the flag again, although the Union Jack must be at the top if the flag of our own country (in Nosher's and my case, the red cross of England) is to be flown too. I can't see Nosher obeying that injunction - he sees himself as English first and British second, and that's how it should be. But our political masters see things differently - they want to rub our noses in it and make sure that being English counts for nothing in this Dis-United Kingdom ruled by self-deceiving idiots blinded by their own conceit and illusions of influence.
It would be like Nosher telling his carrots that they are root vegetables first and carrots only second. If you're a carrot, it's the other way around, so Nosher lets them think what they want. Obvious really, but not to the people who think they're in charge of the country, and for whom their distorted sense of personal authority matters more than what us ordinary people actually feel, think, or believe.
Well, it's a lovely day in this little corner of South Gloucestershire, and allotments don't look after themselves, so it's back to work.
More from http://www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com/ soon.
Find out more at http://www.paulsturdee.co.uk/
and http://www.pgsbooks.co.uk/
Paul Sturdee's book Is God a Terrorist? is available from Amazon and all good booksellers.
First, Gordon the Moron announced that the law regulating the flying of the national flags of the Dis-United Kingdom was going to be relaxed, so as to foster a sense of national identity. Given that Gordon the Moron and his predecessors have done just about everything possible to destroy our sense of national identity, this move should be viewed with suspicion - patriotism being both the first and last resort of scoundrels.
Second, the Bishop of Rochester issued a call for the UK to be made once more a Christian nation, claiming that our sense of Christian identity had been eroded by the modern consumer culture (or whatever, it doesn't much matter).
These pronouncements by the 'great and the good' have caused puzzlement to Nosher and me. Let's deal with the 'Christian nation' part first.
Now, it is true that our cultural heritage in the Dis-United Kingdom is dominated by Christianity - because the vast majority of our ancestors had it forced upon them at the point of a sword or through threats of torture and execution. And then successive generations were indoctrinated until that they believed they were superior to everyone else and had the right to force their religion on others. It was only when modern secular liberalism developed in the twentieth century that religious freedom resulted in the vast majority of people in this country abandoning the practices of Christianity. Because they had a free choice.
Due to our Christian history, it is hardly surprising then that Christian messages and motifs abound in our modern culture. But that doesn't mean that we are a Christian country, or that attempts should be made to turn us back into one.
The vast majority of people in this country do not attend any religious services, and even if they might say they believe in a God or gods, that does not entitle anyone else to hijack their freedom and declare that the country is Christian. Nosher likened this to telling his vegetables that they should be Christians instead of sun-worshippers.
'It doesn't matter what label I give them, they'll still worship the sun' he said 'that's what makes them vegetables. And so long as they grow big and tasty, and produce lots of seed, and don't mind me eating them when I wish, I don't care much what or who they worship!' The same principals should apply, of course, to people. Apart from getting eaten by Nosher.
The best solution, in our view, would be to declare a fully secular state with no special privileges for any religion, and to ensure that organised religions stopped their cynical manipulations as they try to gain extra advantages over one another. Then all religions would be equal, and all believers and non-believers would be equal. That, it seems to Nosher and me, and to our vegetables, is a most just and fair solution that will bring wisdom, tolerance and harmony to our land. And put a stop to all the hypocrisy.
And what about the flag flying? Well, in 1924 the British Government passed a law forbidding the flying of the national flags except under very specific and restricted circumstances, thus depriving the general population of any sense of ownership of their sense of national identity. Not surprising then, that successive generations have gradually lost their patriotic attachment. It takes real negative genius to destroy something without anyone actually noticing what is taking place.
Of course the law has not been enforced particularly stringently since the late 1960s, when Union Jack underpants became fashionable for a while, but the point had been made: we're the people, and we'll do what we want with our national flag.
So now we're being told that we can officially fly the flag again, although the Union Jack must be at the top if the flag of our own country (in Nosher's and my case, the red cross of England) is to be flown too. I can't see Nosher obeying that injunction - he sees himself as English first and British second, and that's how it should be. But our political masters see things differently - they want to rub our noses in it and make sure that being English counts for nothing in this Dis-United Kingdom ruled by self-deceiving idiots blinded by their own conceit and illusions of influence.
It would be like Nosher telling his carrots that they are root vegetables first and carrots only second. If you're a carrot, it's the other way around, so Nosher lets them think what they want. Obvious really, but not to the people who think they're in charge of the country, and for whom their distorted sense of personal authority matters more than what us ordinary people actually feel, think, or believe.
Well, it's a lovely day in this little corner of South Gloucestershire, and allotments don't look after themselves, so it's back to work.
More from http://www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com/ soon.
Find out more at http://www.paulsturdee.co.uk/
and http://www.pgsbooks.co.uk/
Paul Sturdee's book Is God a Terrorist? is available from Amazon and all good booksellers.
Gordon the Moron Gets Something Right at Last (well, almost).
Here in the good old Dis-United Kingdom Gordon the Moron and his idiot-infested Government are trumpeting their Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill as a landmark piece of legislation which will go down as a great achievement of this New Labour Government.
Down on our little allotment Nosher and I are unconvinced of this. In between setting our cloches and planting our seed trays in the little greenhouse each of us has on his plot, we chat about the issues of the day. And how Gordon the Moron and his fumbling cronies have handled the current situation is a case of getting it (almost) right (after great effort and more consultation than almost any other Bill in recent history) and then cocking it up at the very end.
The Bill itself is something that almost everyone wants and is undoubtedly in the best interests of the country and perhaps of the world. The best opportunity to develop treatments and cures for a range of at present incurable and fatal diseases is stem cell research.
And so the Bill will allow stem cells to be grown from unused fertilised nuclei left over from human fertilisation treatments. These are not human beings, they are not even, strictly speaking, embryos, they are in fact pre-embryonic clusters of cells, since they will never develop functioning nervous systems, hearts or lungs. The wording of the Bill (in permitting the interpretation that these pre-embryonic clusters are 'embryos') is an unfortunate inaccuracy, perhaps due to the lawyers drafting it not understanding what they were writing. And these are supposed to be the intelligent ones, folks!
Research based on other sources of stem cells has thus far been unproductive, and, according to the leading scientists in this field of reseach, the best chance of making progress lies with the techniques specified in the Bill.
Where Gordon the Moron got it wrong was in completely underestimating the determination of certain religious groups (particularly the Roman Catholic hierarchy) to make a scene as the Bill goes through Parliament. Such religious groups are not in the least deterred by the prospect of their selfish beliefs condemning millions of people to a lifetime of suffering followed by an early, painful and distressing death - they are insisting that the relevant clauses in the Bill constitute a moral crime and should be abandoned.
Now, Nosher and I accept that we live in a parliamentary democracy, and, given the lamentably low quality of our political representatives and their aptitude for poor judgement, we also accept that many of the laws we are obliged to live under are flawed, often unjust and frequently unfair, and more often than not improperly implemented. But that's no reason for blocking legislation that actually holds the promise of improving the lives of a large group of people afflicted with currently incurable diseases.
A little known truth is that this Bill was not the idea of anyone in Government - New Labour only adopted this legislation because of pressure from very influential members of the medical and scientific community, and interested patients' groups, and presumably someone at Government level decided it would be a useful coup for New Labour to have this new legislation on their record as their achievement. Due to the inherently tribalistic and authoritarian nature of modern party politics, any Bill without Government support or at least acquiescence, stands no chance of becoming law.
And so the passing of this Bill through Parliament became viewed as a matter of imposing Gordon the Moron's authority and power upon his party, rather than an issue of conscience for those Labour MPs who, in their misguided enthusiasm for condemning others to suffer for their beliefs, find themselves unwilling to vote with their party on this Bill. And that's where Gordon the Moron has cocked it up.
Of course he should have recognised that there would be some rebels who would cause him problems, but, given their determination to make a scene (in their eyes turning themselves into martyrs for their cause - i.e., condemning others to suffer for their beliefs) what Gordon the Moron should have done was offered a free vote from the very beginning. For a free vote will make not a jot of difference to the final outcome - there is so much cross-party support for this Bill that it will go through in any case.
Instead Gordon the Moron has come up with a devious and cunning plan that will allow rebel MPs to vote against specific clauses but imposes a three-line whip on the final version of the Bill. Since the Bill, including the clauses in question, will get through anyway, the result will be that Gordon the Moron's Cabinet will lose a handful of ministers who will, under parliamentary protocols, be obliged to resign their ministerial positions. This constitutes an 'own-goal' for Gordon the Moron, but may perhaps turn out to be in the best interests of the country, since amongst the ministers are some who are undoubtedly the least competent of the current crop. I suppose much depends upon whom Gordon the Moron selects to replace them, and his record of wise judgement in choosing cronies is thus far not encouraging.
And so the stumbling dance of fumbling incompetence goes on, mainly due to the inherent human capacity for conceit and self-deceit, and the depressing yet totally predictable consequences of good intentions combined with lamentable ignorance and not a little stupidity. Add to this already disaster-prone mix a little religious dogmatism, bigotry and stubbornness and you end up with the mess we so often find ourselves in, which we revisit with such great frequency one might reasonably conclude an intelligent species would devise some more constructive alternative.
Nosher and I are content, meanwhile, to tend our little allotment plots, living in peace and harmony with our environment. We seek to live our lives without inflicting harm to anyone else, still less do we wish to condemn others to suffer for our own beliefs, however enlightened we might think them to be. Perhaps the Roman Catholic Church could learn a thing or two from us...and maybe Gordon the Moron too!
More from http://www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com soon
Find out more at http://www.paulsturdee.co.uk
and http://www.PGSBooks.co.uk
Paul Sturdee's book Is God a Terrorist? is available on Amazon and from all good booksellers.
Down on our little allotment Nosher and I are unconvinced of this. In between setting our cloches and planting our seed trays in the little greenhouse each of us has on his plot, we chat about the issues of the day. And how Gordon the Moron and his fumbling cronies have handled the current situation is a case of getting it (almost) right (after great effort and more consultation than almost any other Bill in recent history) and then cocking it up at the very end.
The Bill itself is something that almost everyone wants and is undoubtedly in the best interests of the country and perhaps of the world. The best opportunity to develop treatments and cures for a range of at present incurable and fatal diseases is stem cell research.
And so the Bill will allow stem cells to be grown from unused fertilised nuclei left over from human fertilisation treatments. These are not human beings, they are not even, strictly speaking, embryos, they are in fact pre-embryonic clusters of cells, since they will never develop functioning nervous systems, hearts or lungs. The wording of the Bill (in permitting the interpretation that these pre-embryonic clusters are 'embryos') is an unfortunate inaccuracy, perhaps due to the lawyers drafting it not understanding what they were writing. And these are supposed to be the intelligent ones, folks!
Research based on other sources of stem cells has thus far been unproductive, and, according to the leading scientists in this field of reseach, the best chance of making progress lies with the techniques specified in the Bill.
Where Gordon the Moron got it wrong was in completely underestimating the determination of certain religious groups (particularly the Roman Catholic hierarchy) to make a scene as the Bill goes through Parliament. Such religious groups are not in the least deterred by the prospect of their selfish beliefs condemning millions of people to a lifetime of suffering followed by an early, painful and distressing death - they are insisting that the relevant clauses in the Bill constitute a moral crime and should be abandoned.
Now, Nosher and I accept that we live in a parliamentary democracy, and, given the lamentably low quality of our political representatives and their aptitude for poor judgement, we also accept that many of the laws we are obliged to live under are flawed, often unjust and frequently unfair, and more often than not improperly implemented. But that's no reason for blocking legislation that actually holds the promise of improving the lives of a large group of people afflicted with currently incurable diseases.
A little known truth is that this Bill was not the idea of anyone in Government - New Labour only adopted this legislation because of pressure from very influential members of the medical and scientific community, and interested patients' groups, and presumably someone at Government level decided it would be a useful coup for New Labour to have this new legislation on their record as their achievement. Due to the inherently tribalistic and authoritarian nature of modern party politics, any Bill without Government support or at least acquiescence, stands no chance of becoming law.
And so the passing of this Bill through Parliament became viewed as a matter of imposing Gordon the Moron's authority and power upon his party, rather than an issue of conscience for those Labour MPs who, in their misguided enthusiasm for condemning others to suffer for their beliefs, find themselves unwilling to vote with their party on this Bill. And that's where Gordon the Moron has cocked it up.
Of course he should have recognised that there would be some rebels who would cause him problems, but, given their determination to make a scene (in their eyes turning themselves into martyrs for their cause - i.e., condemning others to suffer for their beliefs) what Gordon the Moron should have done was offered a free vote from the very beginning. For a free vote will make not a jot of difference to the final outcome - there is so much cross-party support for this Bill that it will go through in any case.
Instead Gordon the Moron has come up with a devious and cunning plan that will allow rebel MPs to vote against specific clauses but imposes a three-line whip on the final version of the Bill. Since the Bill, including the clauses in question, will get through anyway, the result will be that Gordon the Moron's Cabinet will lose a handful of ministers who will, under parliamentary protocols, be obliged to resign their ministerial positions. This constitutes an 'own-goal' for Gordon the Moron, but may perhaps turn out to be in the best interests of the country, since amongst the ministers are some who are undoubtedly the least competent of the current crop. I suppose much depends upon whom Gordon the Moron selects to replace them, and his record of wise judgement in choosing cronies is thus far not encouraging.
And so the stumbling dance of fumbling incompetence goes on, mainly due to the inherent human capacity for conceit and self-deceit, and the depressing yet totally predictable consequences of good intentions combined with lamentable ignorance and not a little stupidity. Add to this already disaster-prone mix a little religious dogmatism, bigotry and stubbornness and you end up with the mess we so often find ourselves in, which we revisit with such great frequency one might reasonably conclude an intelligent species would devise some more constructive alternative.
Nosher and I are content, meanwhile, to tend our little allotment plots, living in peace and harmony with our environment. We seek to live our lives without inflicting harm to anyone else, still less do we wish to condemn others to suffer for our own beliefs, however enlightened we might think them to be. Perhaps the Roman Catholic Church could learn a thing or two from us...and maybe Gordon the Moron too!
More from http://www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com soon
Find out more at http://www.paulsturdee.co.uk
and http://www.PGSBooks.co.uk
Paul Sturdee's book Is God a Terrorist? is available on Amazon and from all good booksellers.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
The Allotment Inspection
The Little Allotment on which Nosher and I have our plots is owned by the Local Authority, and every year someone from the Council comes to inspect that we are behaving ourselves and not using it for illicit purposes. For years we used to look forward to our annual inspection because the man who carried it out, Bert, was head of the Council's gardening team, a keen allotment gardener himself and an old friend. So Bert's annual visit was an occasion to get out the parsnip wine and have a friendly chat.
Then, last year, Bert retired, gave up his allotment, and moved away from the area. Rumour was rife as to who the new allotment inspector would be, but the Chair of our allotment committee, Gordon the Moron, was giving nothing away.
And so, one afternoon recently, when Nosher and me were toiling away on our little plots on an otherwise empty allotment, a shiny new car turned off the lane onto the muddy dirt track that leads up to the allotment. There were two women in it, and neither looked thrilled about what they saw.
'If this is the allotment inspection, where the hell is Gordon the Moron?' Nosher asked, a rhetorical gesture since he knew I had no answer.
The car stopped about a hundred yards from us, and the two women got out, the expressions on their faces indicating they would much rather be somewhere else, perhaps visiting a dead relative, anywhere else but here.
'They're certainly not dressed for the occasion' I remarked 'look more like office workers to me.'
The younger of the two women held a clipboard, and, in their sensible office shoes, a few faltering steps towards us revealed that their greatest enemy was mud, and perhaps vanity. At this point the older one looked across at us, hardly able to conceal her disgust at what she saw.
Admittedly, Nosher is not the epitome of fashionable elegance in allotment wear: a torn and frayed jacked sits atop a ragged shirt that probably saw service in the Boer war, his faded brown trousers are held up by a piece of bailer twine, and his black wellingtons are replete with a large pink sticking plaster across the toe of the right foot, covering up the hole that he accidentally made with his fork a couple of days ago. I have to confess my appearance is not much better.
'Excuse me!' the older woman calls out. 'Can you help us?'
At this point Nosher gave me a conspiratorial wink, then turned with his best Norman Stanley Fletcher smile to address the two women.
'Where-ever you think you are' said Nosher 'You don't want to be here, believe me. This is no place for well-dressed women. I suggest you go home.'
On hearing this the older of the two women gave Nosher a scornful glare.
'I'll have you know I'm Councillor Audrey Orme-Hetherington-Bayliss, chair of the Estates Committee, and my companion is Ms Tracy Dewhurst, Manager of the Estates Department. We're here to carry out the allotment inspection, and whether you like it or not, that's exactly what we're going to do!'
Nosher chuckled happily at the thought of these two ignoramuses inspecting our allotment.
'Well, in that case, I'd better help you' he said. Since Nosher had a rule about never volunteering for anything, this meant mischief was afoot. As we trudged through the mud towards the two women, it became clearer that the younger of the two, who was only in her twenties, was completely out of her depth, clutching her clipboard as if her life depended upon it.
Nosher stopped a short distance away and looked them up and down as if inspecting their attire.
'Have either of you ever been on an allotment before?' he asked 'and, as a politician, Councillor Orme-Hetherington-Bayliss, I expect an answer that is at least intelligible.'
'No' Tracy Dewhurst replied without hesitation. I was beginning to like her.
'In all my years as Town Councillor' said Councillor Orme-Hetherington-Bayliss evasively 'I have visited hundreds of locations in my official capacity, amongst which have been numerous sites devoted to horticulture.'
'I'll take that as a "no" then', said Nosher.
At that moment the bird that, as children, we used to call the 'squeaky-gate bird' started its characteristic call up in the trees. Nosher looked across to where the sound came from, and then, a faint smile playing across his lips, looked the two women up and down again.
'Great Tits' he remarked, looking the Councillor straight in the eyes.
'I beg your pardon!' spluttered Counciller Orme-Hetherington-Bayliss with great indignation 'I haven't come here to be insulted!'
Meanwhile Tracy Dewhurst looked down at the ground trying not to smile. I thought I detected a slight reddening of her face, but she obviously knew the game was up.
'Do you know nothing about the countryside?' Nosher asked of the Counciller, a mischievous smile playing across his face 'that's Great Tits you can hear calling, look, there's one over there in the willows, and over on the other side of the allotment in the beech tree there's another one calling back.' He looked across at Tracy Dewhurst with a much friendlier smile. 'Now, why don't you give me that clipboard Ms Dewhurst, and I'll save you a lot of trouble by ticking the boxes for you.'
Meanwhile, the Councillor's face had contorted into a savage grimace.
'I haven't come here to play games with you!' she announced 'I'm here to look for an excuse to close this allotment down so that we can sell it and use the money to refurbish the council offices.'
On hearing this Nosher's face assumed an expression of unalloyed joy and triumph.
'Well, Mrs Orme-Hetherington-Bayliss, you may like to think you'll get away with it, but I can assure you that you won't succeed. For one thing, the allotment's kept up perfectly, and secondly, if you'd read the legal paperwork attached to the deeds of this ground, you will discover a restrictive covenant that prevents the Council from ever selling it or using it for any purpose other than as allotments for the people of this area.'
Nosher finished with a flourish, took the clipboard from an unresisting Tracy Dewhurst, and commenced ticking the appropriate boxes on the inspection form.
Mrs Orme-Hetherington-Bayliss stared at these proceedings with as much aplomb as she could muster, which was very little. At last, after gazing around like a drowning sailor searching for a liferaft, her eyes lit up and she pointed at something at the far end of the allotment.
'There!' she cried 'there! That great pile of mess! That's a clear sign you are not keeping this place clean and tidy - I can fail the inspection on that alone!' Mrs Orme-Hetherington-Bayliss's face twisted itself into an expression of evil joy. In return Nosher looked upon her with a mixture of pity and scorn.
'That' he said 'is a compost heap. Every little plot on the allotment has one. It's an accepted part of running an allotment. You can't fail the inspection because of what you think are untidy compost heaps - they're meant to be like that. You'll just make yourself look an idiot, but then you wouldn't have to try too hard.'
With this he handed the clipboard back to Tracy Dewhurst.
Whilst Tracy Dewhurst averted her face from the Councillor's gaze (for the former was doing her best not to give in to helpless laughter) Mrs Orme-Hetherington-Bayliss stared hopelessly at Nosher. She knew she'd met her match.
'I won't forget you' she said, her voice full of resentment 'what is your name?'
'Everyone calls me Nosher' said Nosher helpfully.
'I will be putting in a formal complaint to the Chairman of the Allotment Committee about your behaviour' said Mrs Orme-Hetherington-Bayliss through gritted teeth.
'Be my guest' replied Nosher 'what will you complain about - that we helped you identify some Great Tits or that we helped you tick the boxes on the form because you didn't know what a compost heap looks like? Either way, Gordon the Moron will think you're an idiot.'
'Gordon the Moron?' Mrs Orme-Hetherington-Bayliss stuttered. 'You mean Gordon Brown? How can you be so disrespectful?!'
'Because' said Nosher 'although you politicians are doing your best to make it otherwise, this is still a free country, well, almost, and I speak as I find. The reason Gordon the Moron was not here to meet you was probably because he couldn't face ten minutes in your company so chickened out. Make of that what you wish, I've some digging to do.'
And with that Nosher turned and we both trudged back to our little plots, whilst behind us we could here the strained sounds of a car being reversed back down the muddy track by someone who had never quite got the hang of reversing a car in a straight line.
As we resumed our digging on our little plots it occurred to me that ignorance has its uses, especially when that ignorance resides in other people. As to the ethics of exploiting other people's ignorance, that is perhaps best left for another discussion.
More from www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com
soon.
Find out more at www.paulsturdee.co.uk
and
www.PGSBooks.co.uk
Paul Sturdee's book Is God a Terrorist? is available from Amazon and all good booksellers.
Then, last year, Bert retired, gave up his allotment, and moved away from the area. Rumour was rife as to who the new allotment inspector would be, but the Chair of our allotment committee, Gordon the Moron, was giving nothing away.
And so, one afternoon recently, when Nosher and me were toiling away on our little plots on an otherwise empty allotment, a shiny new car turned off the lane onto the muddy dirt track that leads up to the allotment. There were two women in it, and neither looked thrilled about what they saw.
'If this is the allotment inspection, where the hell is Gordon the Moron?' Nosher asked, a rhetorical gesture since he knew I had no answer.
The car stopped about a hundred yards from us, and the two women got out, the expressions on their faces indicating they would much rather be somewhere else, perhaps visiting a dead relative, anywhere else but here.
'They're certainly not dressed for the occasion' I remarked 'look more like office workers to me.'
The younger of the two women held a clipboard, and, in their sensible office shoes, a few faltering steps towards us revealed that their greatest enemy was mud, and perhaps vanity. At this point the older one looked across at us, hardly able to conceal her disgust at what she saw.
Admittedly, Nosher is not the epitome of fashionable elegance in allotment wear: a torn and frayed jacked sits atop a ragged shirt that probably saw service in the Boer war, his faded brown trousers are held up by a piece of bailer twine, and his black wellingtons are replete with a large pink sticking plaster across the toe of the right foot, covering up the hole that he accidentally made with his fork a couple of days ago. I have to confess my appearance is not much better.
'Excuse me!' the older woman calls out. 'Can you help us?'
At this point Nosher gave me a conspiratorial wink, then turned with his best Norman Stanley Fletcher smile to address the two women.
'Where-ever you think you are' said Nosher 'You don't want to be here, believe me. This is no place for well-dressed women. I suggest you go home.'
On hearing this the older of the two women gave Nosher a scornful glare.
'I'll have you know I'm Councillor Audrey Orme-Hetherington-Bayliss, chair of the Estates Committee, and my companion is Ms Tracy Dewhurst, Manager of the Estates Department. We're here to carry out the allotment inspection, and whether you like it or not, that's exactly what we're going to do!'
Nosher chuckled happily at the thought of these two ignoramuses inspecting our allotment.
'Well, in that case, I'd better help you' he said. Since Nosher had a rule about never volunteering for anything, this meant mischief was afoot. As we trudged through the mud towards the two women, it became clearer that the younger of the two, who was only in her twenties, was completely out of her depth, clutching her clipboard as if her life depended upon it.
Nosher stopped a short distance away and looked them up and down as if inspecting their attire.
'Have either of you ever been on an allotment before?' he asked 'and, as a politician, Councillor Orme-Hetherington-Bayliss, I expect an answer that is at least intelligible.'
'No' Tracy Dewhurst replied without hesitation. I was beginning to like her.
'In all my years as Town Councillor' said Councillor Orme-Hetherington-Bayliss evasively 'I have visited hundreds of locations in my official capacity, amongst which have been numerous sites devoted to horticulture.'
'I'll take that as a "no" then', said Nosher.
At that moment the bird that, as children, we used to call the 'squeaky-gate bird' started its characteristic call up in the trees. Nosher looked across to where the sound came from, and then, a faint smile playing across his lips, looked the two women up and down again.
'Great Tits' he remarked, looking the Councillor straight in the eyes.
'I beg your pardon!' spluttered Counciller Orme-Hetherington-Bayliss with great indignation 'I haven't come here to be insulted!'
Meanwhile Tracy Dewhurst looked down at the ground trying not to smile. I thought I detected a slight reddening of her face, but she obviously knew the game was up.
'Do you know nothing about the countryside?' Nosher asked of the Counciller, a mischievous smile playing across his face 'that's Great Tits you can hear calling, look, there's one over there in the willows, and over on the other side of the allotment in the beech tree there's another one calling back.' He looked across at Tracy Dewhurst with a much friendlier smile. 'Now, why don't you give me that clipboard Ms Dewhurst, and I'll save you a lot of trouble by ticking the boxes for you.'
Meanwhile, the Councillor's face had contorted into a savage grimace.
'I haven't come here to play games with you!' she announced 'I'm here to look for an excuse to close this allotment down so that we can sell it and use the money to refurbish the council offices.'
On hearing this Nosher's face assumed an expression of unalloyed joy and triumph.
'Well, Mrs Orme-Hetherington-Bayliss, you may like to think you'll get away with it, but I can assure you that you won't succeed. For one thing, the allotment's kept up perfectly, and secondly, if you'd read the legal paperwork attached to the deeds of this ground, you will discover a restrictive covenant that prevents the Council from ever selling it or using it for any purpose other than as allotments for the people of this area.'
Nosher finished with a flourish, took the clipboard from an unresisting Tracy Dewhurst, and commenced ticking the appropriate boxes on the inspection form.
Mrs Orme-Hetherington-Bayliss stared at these proceedings with as much aplomb as she could muster, which was very little. At last, after gazing around like a drowning sailor searching for a liferaft, her eyes lit up and she pointed at something at the far end of the allotment.
'There!' she cried 'there! That great pile of mess! That's a clear sign you are not keeping this place clean and tidy - I can fail the inspection on that alone!' Mrs Orme-Hetherington-Bayliss's face twisted itself into an expression of evil joy. In return Nosher looked upon her with a mixture of pity and scorn.
'That' he said 'is a compost heap. Every little plot on the allotment has one. It's an accepted part of running an allotment. You can't fail the inspection because of what you think are untidy compost heaps - they're meant to be like that. You'll just make yourself look an idiot, but then you wouldn't have to try too hard.'
With this he handed the clipboard back to Tracy Dewhurst.
Whilst Tracy Dewhurst averted her face from the Councillor's gaze (for the former was doing her best not to give in to helpless laughter) Mrs Orme-Hetherington-Bayliss stared hopelessly at Nosher. She knew she'd met her match.
'I won't forget you' she said, her voice full of resentment 'what is your name?'
'Everyone calls me Nosher' said Nosher helpfully.
'I will be putting in a formal complaint to the Chairman of the Allotment Committee about your behaviour' said Mrs Orme-Hetherington-Bayliss through gritted teeth.
'Be my guest' replied Nosher 'what will you complain about - that we helped you identify some Great Tits or that we helped you tick the boxes on the form because you didn't know what a compost heap looks like? Either way, Gordon the Moron will think you're an idiot.'
'Gordon the Moron?' Mrs Orme-Hetherington-Bayliss stuttered. 'You mean Gordon Brown? How can you be so disrespectful?!'
'Because' said Nosher 'although you politicians are doing your best to make it otherwise, this is still a free country, well, almost, and I speak as I find. The reason Gordon the Moron was not here to meet you was probably because he couldn't face ten minutes in your company so chickened out. Make of that what you wish, I've some digging to do.'
And with that Nosher turned and we both trudged back to our little plots, whilst behind us we could here the strained sounds of a car being reversed back down the muddy track by someone who had never quite got the hang of reversing a car in a straight line.
As we resumed our digging on our little plots it occurred to me that ignorance has its uses, especially when that ignorance resides in other people. As to the ethics of exploiting other people's ignorance, that is perhaps best left for another discussion.
More from www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com
soon.
Find out more at www.paulsturdee.co.uk
and
www.PGSBooks.co.uk
Paul Sturdee's book Is God a Terrorist? is available from Amazon and all good booksellers.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Ignorance and Deceit in the Service of God
Here in the good old Dis-United Kingdom the furore continues over the Government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill (yes, I know I got it the wrong way round in my previous post). The Roman Catholic Cardinal of England, the very creepy Cormac Murphy O'Conner, has now added his ignorance and self-deceit to the outrageous misrepresentation offered a couple of days ago by his Scottish equivalent.
These are, of course, men who consider themselves chosen by God to tell us all what to believe and how to behave, but such self-serving moral narcissism rarely impresses anyone with a streak of independence running through their veins.
Down on our little allotment, Nosher and I have continued to debate the merits of igorance and deceit in the service of God (if He or She actually exists, of course). Imagine our delight when Lord Winston, the country's foremost expert on human fertility, contributed his opinion that the spreading of 'untruths' threatened the 'probity' of the Catholic Church. That's a polite way of referring to a much more serious offence against moral purity, and, if you read your history carefully (avoid the Catholic versions because they're propaganda) you'll find that the Catholic Church has never spurned 'untruths' when they suited its purpose.
It is, of course, an irony of staggering proportions that an institution and its leaders who pride themselves on being the guardians of our moral welfare should so actively involve themselves in perpetuating not only their own ignorance but also that of the more credulous and gullible people who look to them for guidance and instruction.
The nub of the matter is not whether a free vote is allowed in Parliament (it will make no difference to the outcome - the Bill will go through, and for good reasons), it is whether a minority of religious dogmatists should be allowed to spread 'untruths' in the service of their God and remain unexposed for what they really are.
The use of human nuclei (fertilised already during treatment for infertility) removed from the human cell in which they originated and implanted in an animal cell in order to create living test-tube is what is at issue. Normally such nuclei would be destroyed - their use in research to find cures for at present incurable diseases seems eminently reasonable to the vast majority of people whose main concern is to reduce the suffering of the victims of such diseases.
But the Catholic Church takes a different view. Using a fertilised nucleus in this way apparently constitutes a violation of the human rights of this little nucleus. This is a bit like saying the removing a tumour from a patient and then destroying it violates the human rights of the living cells of that tumour.
A fertilised human egg is only a potential human being, not the real thing. Yet some decades ago the Vatican instructed all Catholics everywhere that a fertilised human egg constituted a human being and had been given a soul by God at the moment of conception (there's absolutely no evidence for the latter of course - it's metaphysical speculation and religious dogma).
Now, neither Nosher nor I have any objection to people believing such things - our objection is when religious believers take it upon themselves to tell the rest of us how we should live our lives, and, what is even worse, employ their ignorance and self-deceit to propagate untruthful nonsense about 'Frankenstein science' in order to scare others and, ultimately condemn millions of people around the world to excruciating suffering from diseases that stem-cell research offers the best hope of curing.
So, the very people whose moral narcissism leads them to believe they are morally superior to the rest of us don't seem to mind at all condemning others to suffer for their selfish beliefs.
I think that says it all.
More from http://www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com/ soon.
Find out more at http://www.paulsturdee.co.uk/
and http://www.pgsbooks.co.uk/
Paul Sturdee's book Is God a Terrorist? is available from Amazon and all good bookshops.
These are, of course, men who consider themselves chosen by God to tell us all what to believe and how to behave, but such self-serving moral narcissism rarely impresses anyone with a streak of independence running through their veins.
Down on our little allotment, Nosher and I have continued to debate the merits of igorance and deceit in the service of God (if He or She actually exists, of course). Imagine our delight when Lord Winston, the country's foremost expert on human fertility, contributed his opinion that the spreading of 'untruths' threatened the 'probity' of the Catholic Church. That's a polite way of referring to a much more serious offence against moral purity, and, if you read your history carefully (avoid the Catholic versions because they're propaganda) you'll find that the Catholic Church has never spurned 'untruths' when they suited its purpose.
It is, of course, an irony of staggering proportions that an institution and its leaders who pride themselves on being the guardians of our moral welfare should so actively involve themselves in perpetuating not only their own ignorance but also that of the more credulous and gullible people who look to them for guidance and instruction.
The nub of the matter is not whether a free vote is allowed in Parliament (it will make no difference to the outcome - the Bill will go through, and for good reasons), it is whether a minority of religious dogmatists should be allowed to spread 'untruths' in the service of their God and remain unexposed for what they really are.
The use of human nuclei (fertilised already during treatment for infertility) removed from the human cell in which they originated and implanted in an animal cell in order to create living test-tube is what is at issue. Normally such nuclei would be destroyed - their use in research to find cures for at present incurable diseases seems eminently reasonable to the vast majority of people whose main concern is to reduce the suffering of the victims of such diseases.
But the Catholic Church takes a different view. Using a fertilised nucleus in this way apparently constitutes a violation of the human rights of this little nucleus. This is a bit like saying the removing a tumour from a patient and then destroying it violates the human rights of the living cells of that tumour.
A fertilised human egg is only a potential human being, not the real thing. Yet some decades ago the Vatican instructed all Catholics everywhere that a fertilised human egg constituted a human being and had been given a soul by God at the moment of conception (there's absolutely no evidence for the latter of course - it's metaphysical speculation and religious dogma).
Now, neither Nosher nor I have any objection to people believing such things - our objection is when religious believers take it upon themselves to tell the rest of us how we should live our lives, and, what is even worse, employ their ignorance and self-deceit to propagate untruthful nonsense about 'Frankenstein science' in order to scare others and, ultimately condemn millions of people around the world to excruciating suffering from diseases that stem-cell research offers the best hope of curing.
So, the very people whose moral narcissism leads them to believe they are morally superior to the rest of us don't seem to mind at all condemning others to suffer for their selfish beliefs.
I think that says it all.
More from http://www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com/ soon.
Find out more at http://www.paulsturdee.co.uk/
and http://www.pgsbooks.co.uk/
Paul Sturdee's book Is God a Terrorist? is available from Amazon and all good bookshops.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Making Others Suffer For Your Beliefs
Here in the good old Dis-United Kingdom a furore has erupted over the public intervention of the Roman Catholic Cardinal of Scotland (Keith O'Brien) into the debate over the Government's Human Embryology and Fertilisation Bill, due to be debated in the Commons very soon. Apparently, Keith O'Brien has been attempting to influence his more credulous followers that the Bill will allow the creation of 'Frankenstein' science and destroy human rights. The most senior scientists in the country have gone on record rejecting this view as an intemperate misrepresentation.
Down on our little allotment, Nosher and I were debating the merits of the issues one afternoon whilst holed up in Nosher's shed against the biting north wind. Every so often a severe gust would make the shed tremble. The weather was sunny but the wind too cold to work outside, too cold even for parsnip wine, so I opted for hot vegetable soup out of my thermos whilst Nosher had a mug of tea.
'Being as my only spiritual impulse is towards vegetables' Nosher started 'I think that stem cell research should be supported and the sooner we get cures for MS, Parkinson's and Altzheimer's the better.'
'Don't you think it's a bit creepy' I responded 'that the leadership of the Catholic Church should condemn this important research on the basis that it violates the human rights of a cluster of non-viable pre-embryonic cells, and yet is content to watch millions of people suffering and dying from MS, Parkinson's and Altzheimer's? They leave us in no doubt that, if they had the political power, they'd ban it, along with contraception and abortion'.
'Creepy, yes, surprizing, no' replied Nosher. 'After all, the Catholic Church has, since its creation, probably caused more death and suffering than any other thing on the planet except natural disasters. Even now, in countries where it has any political influence, it bans abortions even on ectopic pregnancies, thus condemning tens of thousands of women to die in excruciating agony every year from a easily treatable condition in which the embryo has no chance of survival anyway. That's how cynical these people are in making others suffer for their own selfish beliefs.'
Well, Nosher may be an atheist, but I've a completely open mind on the existence of a Supreme Being - I just find people rather arrogant when they insist the one they believe in has to be the one the rest of us should grovel to. Which means, of course (since they got there first) that they take it upon themselves to claim the moral high ground and the right to boss the rest of us around.
'It seems to me' I said 'that Cardinal O'brien is relying on sentimental religiosity and a large dash of dogmatic bigotry in claiming that a fertilised human nucleus implanted in an animal cell (in effect, a living test-tube) has human rights which are then violated by doing experiments on it and terminating it after a couple of weeks when it has only grown to a few hundred cells without a functioning nervous system, heart or anything else for that matter. It can't feel pain, and is not even a potential human being, since it would not have the capacity to implant in a human uterus.'
Nosher gave me a wry look.
'Since when have the facts got in the way of religious bigots?' replied Nosher. 'As far as Catholic dogma goes, the fertilised egg is given a soul by God, and is thus considered inviolable - even though the writers of the New Testament were completely ignorant of fertilised eggs, so the doctrine was constructed by the Church many many centuries later to re-inforce male dominance over the reproductive process in an age when men thought they should have uncontested control over their women. Come to think of it, I'm not sure the doctrines of the Catholic Church are much different today'. Nosher finished with a mischievous smile.
'Well, whatever the situation is' I said 'it seems to me that anyone who is prepared to impose his or her beliefs on the rest of us and as a result cause dreadful suffering to millions of people is very, very creepy.'
As another gust of wind caused the shed to tremble, I took another mouthful of hot vegetable soup. At least we do not live in a country where a manipulative religious leader can whip up the more credulous and extreme of his followers into a frenzy of violent hostility resulting in the brutalisation and violent death of anyone seen as their opponents. Not yet, anyway, but who knows? After all, that's how the First Crusade started in 1095, and, underneath our conceits and self-deceit we humans haven't advanced much since then.
More from www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com soon.
To find out more go to www.paulsturdee.co.uk
and www.PGSBooks.co.uk
Paul Sturdee's book Is God a Terrorist? is available from Amazon and all good bookshops.
Down on our little allotment, Nosher and I were debating the merits of the issues one afternoon whilst holed up in Nosher's shed against the biting north wind. Every so often a severe gust would make the shed tremble. The weather was sunny but the wind too cold to work outside, too cold even for parsnip wine, so I opted for hot vegetable soup out of my thermos whilst Nosher had a mug of tea.
'Being as my only spiritual impulse is towards vegetables' Nosher started 'I think that stem cell research should be supported and the sooner we get cures for MS, Parkinson's and Altzheimer's the better.'
'Don't you think it's a bit creepy' I responded 'that the leadership of the Catholic Church should condemn this important research on the basis that it violates the human rights of a cluster of non-viable pre-embryonic cells, and yet is content to watch millions of people suffering and dying from MS, Parkinson's and Altzheimer's? They leave us in no doubt that, if they had the political power, they'd ban it, along with contraception and abortion'.
'Creepy, yes, surprizing, no' replied Nosher. 'After all, the Catholic Church has, since its creation, probably caused more death and suffering than any other thing on the planet except natural disasters. Even now, in countries where it has any political influence, it bans abortions even on ectopic pregnancies, thus condemning tens of thousands of women to die in excruciating agony every year from a easily treatable condition in which the embryo has no chance of survival anyway. That's how cynical these people are in making others suffer for their own selfish beliefs.'
Well, Nosher may be an atheist, but I've a completely open mind on the existence of a Supreme Being - I just find people rather arrogant when they insist the one they believe in has to be the one the rest of us should grovel to. Which means, of course (since they got there first) that they take it upon themselves to claim the moral high ground and the right to boss the rest of us around.
'It seems to me' I said 'that Cardinal O'brien is relying on sentimental religiosity and a large dash of dogmatic bigotry in claiming that a fertilised human nucleus implanted in an animal cell (in effect, a living test-tube) has human rights which are then violated by doing experiments on it and terminating it after a couple of weeks when it has only grown to a few hundred cells without a functioning nervous system, heart or anything else for that matter. It can't feel pain, and is not even a potential human being, since it would not have the capacity to implant in a human uterus.'
Nosher gave me a wry look.
'Since when have the facts got in the way of religious bigots?' replied Nosher. 'As far as Catholic dogma goes, the fertilised egg is given a soul by God, and is thus considered inviolable - even though the writers of the New Testament were completely ignorant of fertilised eggs, so the doctrine was constructed by the Church many many centuries later to re-inforce male dominance over the reproductive process in an age when men thought they should have uncontested control over their women. Come to think of it, I'm not sure the doctrines of the Catholic Church are much different today'. Nosher finished with a mischievous smile.
'Well, whatever the situation is' I said 'it seems to me that anyone who is prepared to impose his or her beliefs on the rest of us and as a result cause dreadful suffering to millions of people is very, very creepy.'
As another gust of wind caused the shed to tremble, I took another mouthful of hot vegetable soup. At least we do not live in a country where a manipulative religious leader can whip up the more credulous and extreme of his followers into a frenzy of violent hostility resulting in the brutalisation and violent death of anyone seen as their opponents. Not yet, anyway, but who knows? After all, that's how the First Crusade started in 1095, and, underneath our conceits and self-deceit we humans haven't advanced much since then.
More from www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com soon.
To find out more go to www.paulsturdee.co.uk
and www.PGSBooks.co.uk
Paul Sturdee's book Is God a Terrorist? is available from Amazon and all good bookshops.
The Cruelty of Political Cynicism
A good day down on our little allotment is one in which we get a lot done - digging, planting, and so on. A bad day is arriving one morning to find that inclement weather or trainee yobs have wrought havoc on our little plots. Of course, neither happens very often, and each is something we simply have to learn to live with. For American readers I should add, by way of explanation, that foul-mouthed destructive yobs are now a permanent feature of life in the good old Dis-United Kingdom, and very few are apprehended by the local constabulary, and even when they are, they are given a light slap on the wrist by the Courts, and then allowed to continue on the career ladder of crime so that they soon turn into violent thugs.
The situation is very different, of course, if things go wrong and you're fighting on the front line in Iraq or Afghanistan, as I discovered one afternoon when Nosher suddenly drove his spade with unaccustomed violence into the ground.
'Those bastard politicians have got me going again!' he declared, his face tight with anger.
'What is it this time?' I inquired, hoping that years of allotment working had given Nosher's cardiovascular system the strength to hold out against the onslaught he had unleashed.
'Did you know' he went on 'that the MOD has been paying more in compensation to their office workers for repetitive strain injury to a typist's finger or a strained back than they do to the seriously injured and permanently disabled service men and women coming back from the front line?'
As I struggled to make sense of the political cynicism of this situation I leant on my spade and watched the willows fluttering in the refreshingly cold north wind, the sunshine making the spindly pale green leaves glitter as they moved. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan seemed far away, and suddenly I felt very lucky to be able to live in a country that has not experienced a war fought on its own soil for over sixty years.
'I regret to say that it does not surprise me very much at all' I said after a few minutes. 'Throughout history political leaders have manipulated the patriotism of their followers in order to get them to fight for unworthy causes, and then neglected them when the worst happens. That the self-deceiving idiots who currently rule over us should be doing the same thing is a case of them knowing they can get away with it'.
Nosher's face reddened with anger.
'But why? Why?' he blurted out 'Why would any decent human being knowingly inflict cruelty upon another, especially one who has risked life and limb on the battlefield for his or her country, and come home injured and/or disabled? The Government knows that compensation payments are grossly inadequate to provide a lifetime's care with dignity to a permanently disabled serviceman or women, and yet they persist with this cruel system whereby the total amount is deliberately held below the level a typist can obtain for a strained finger! It's political cynicism at its most cruel and contemptible!'
'Because they know they can get away with it' I repeated slowly. 'Gordon the Moron might ooze sincerity at remembrance services, but as Chancellor of the Exchequer he was responsible for setting limits for military expenditure, and it is simply impossible that he cannot know the current system of compensation is grossly unfair, cruel and contemptible. This is a clear case when the person at the top cannot pretend he doesn't know the appalling consequences of his decisions - there has, after all, been enough publicity about them in the media.'
'That's why I think he's a cynical bastard' said Nosher 'if he had a shred of decency he would change the compensation system immediately - he's the boss, so he can do it!'
'But he's also a politician in office - arguably they all become cynical bastards the instant they achieve power, even if they weren't beforehand' I said. 'Admittedly, our forces are at last beginning to receive some better equipment on the front line, but to provide proper and adequate compensation for those injured and disabled would cost very little, in real terms - maybe Gordon the Moron could skimp a little on the next planned redoration of his offices and Prime Ministerial premises - come to think of it, why do these egocentric bastards have to spend so much on office carpets and flock wallpaper?'
'I neither know nor care!' Nosher said angrily 'but I know what I'd be tempted to do if Gordon Brown appeared here right now in front of me!' As he said this he once again drove his spade into the ground with such force the earth shook and clods of soil flew in all directions.
'Let's get the rest of this digging done' I suggested, wanting some quiet in which to think things over.
Our once great country, the now Dis-United Kingdom, is now a place in which unruly children are permitted to become trainee yobs, rewarded by kindness so that they progress to being violent thugs, drug addicts, robbers and murderers, and then, when they are eventually released from the prison sentence they worked so hard to achieve (to get jailed in the UK these days requires a serious and consistent commitment to illegality) they are provided with all sorts of services and support from literally hundreds of charities that exist for the benefit of ex-jail-birds.
In contrast, the number of charities that support victims of crime or injured police officers can be counted on the fingers of one hand, as can the number of charities that provide support for disabled service men and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
There's something terribly wrong with the values of a country that gives far more attention to those who would destroy anything worthwhile in their lives and in society at the slightest opportunity, whilst this same country neglects those who give so much and who make great sacrifices to sustain the civil society our politicians claim to be protecting.
Too many excuses from bleeding-heart liberals, not enough insight into what makes a society worth living in, or worth making sacrifices for. No wonder so many don't want to work for a living, no wonder so many prefer to commit crime and take drugs rather than face up to the challenges of living a decent, law-abiding life.
I guess Nosher and me, well, we're simply too old and too old-fashioned in our outlook to want to exploit the system for all it's worth whilst making sure we give nothing in return.
Meanwhile, if you're thinking of joining any branch of the British Armed Services because Gordon the Moron says your country needs you, first give a thought to how this same Gordon the Moron will treat you when you need his help. It might put you off the idea. Politicans get the armed services they deserve, and our current crop of cynical self-deceiving politicians deserve merely our contempt.
More from www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com soon.
To find out more go to www.paulsturdee.co.uk
and www.PGSBooks.co.uk
The situation is very different, of course, if things go wrong and you're fighting on the front line in Iraq or Afghanistan, as I discovered one afternoon when Nosher suddenly drove his spade with unaccustomed violence into the ground.
'Those bastard politicians have got me going again!' he declared, his face tight with anger.
'What is it this time?' I inquired, hoping that years of allotment working had given Nosher's cardiovascular system the strength to hold out against the onslaught he had unleashed.
'Did you know' he went on 'that the MOD has been paying more in compensation to their office workers for repetitive strain injury to a typist's finger or a strained back than they do to the seriously injured and permanently disabled service men and women coming back from the front line?'
As I struggled to make sense of the political cynicism of this situation I leant on my spade and watched the willows fluttering in the refreshingly cold north wind, the sunshine making the spindly pale green leaves glitter as they moved. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan seemed far away, and suddenly I felt very lucky to be able to live in a country that has not experienced a war fought on its own soil for over sixty years.
'I regret to say that it does not surprise me very much at all' I said after a few minutes. 'Throughout history political leaders have manipulated the patriotism of their followers in order to get them to fight for unworthy causes, and then neglected them when the worst happens. That the self-deceiving idiots who currently rule over us should be doing the same thing is a case of them knowing they can get away with it'.
Nosher's face reddened with anger.
'But why? Why?' he blurted out 'Why would any decent human being knowingly inflict cruelty upon another, especially one who has risked life and limb on the battlefield for his or her country, and come home injured and/or disabled? The Government knows that compensation payments are grossly inadequate to provide a lifetime's care with dignity to a permanently disabled serviceman or women, and yet they persist with this cruel system whereby the total amount is deliberately held below the level a typist can obtain for a strained finger! It's political cynicism at its most cruel and contemptible!'
'Because they know they can get away with it' I repeated slowly. 'Gordon the Moron might ooze sincerity at remembrance services, but as Chancellor of the Exchequer he was responsible for setting limits for military expenditure, and it is simply impossible that he cannot know the current system of compensation is grossly unfair, cruel and contemptible. This is a clear case when the person at the top cannot pretend he doesn't know the appalling consequences of his decisions - there has, after all, been enough publicity about them in the media.'
'That's why I think he's a cynical bastard' said Nosher 'if he had a shred of decency he would change the compensation system immediately - he's the boss, so he can do it!'
'But he's also a politician in office - arguably they all become cynical bastards the instant they achieve power, even if they weren't beforehand' I said. 'Admittedly, our forces are at last beginning to receive some better equipment on the front line, but to provide proper and adequate compensation for those injured and disabled would cost very little, in real terms - maybe Gordon the Moron could skimp a little on the next planned redoration of his offices and Prime Ministerial premises - come to think of it, why do these egocentric bastards have to spend so much on office carpets and flock wallpaper?'
'I neither know nor care!' Nosher said angrily 'but I know what I'd be tempted to do if Gordon Brown appeared here right now in front of me!' As he said this he once again drove his spade into the ground with such force the earth shook and clods of soil flew in all directions.
'Let's get the rest of this digging done' I suggested, wanting some quiet in which to think things over.
Our once great country, the now Dis-United Kingdom, is now a place in which unruly children are permitted to become trainee yobs, rewarded by kindness so that they progress to being violent thugs, drug addicts, robbers and murderers, and then, when they are eventually released from the prison sentence they worked so hard to achieve (to get jailed in the UK these days requires a serious and consistent commitment to illegality) they are provided with all sorts of services and support from literally hundreds of charities that exist for the benefit of ex-jail-birds.
In contrast, the number of charities that support victims of crime or injured police officers can be counted on the fingers of one hand, as can the number of charities that provide support for disabled service men and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
There's something terribly wrong with the values of a country that gives far more attention to those who would destroy anything worthwhile in their lives and in society at the slightest opportunity, whilst this same country neglects those who give so much and who make great sacrifices to sustain the civil society our politicians claim to be protecting.
Too many excuses from bleeding-heart liberals, not enough insight into what makes a society worth living in, or worth making sacrifices for. No wonder so many don't want to work for a living, no wonder so many prefer to commit crime and take drugs rather than face up to the challenges of living a decent, law-abiding life.
I guess Nosher and me, well, we're simply too old and too old-fashioned in our outlook to want to exploit the system for all it's worth whilst making sure we give nothing in return.
Meanwhile, if you're thinking of joining any branch of the British Armed Services because Gordon the Moron says your country needs you, first give a thought to how this same Gordon the Moron will treat you when you need his help. It might put you off the idea. Politicans get the armed services they deserve, and our current crop of cynical self-deceiving politicians deserve merely our contempt.
More from www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com soon.
To find out more go to www.paulsturdee.co.uk
and www.PGSBooks.co.uk
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Is Iraq War 'Noble, Just and Necessary'?
On the 5th anniversary of start of the Iraq War, the man who thinks he rules the world gave a speech in which he announced the Iraq War is 'noble, just, and necessary' and claimed victory was now within sight.
This is a man who struggles to construct coherent and grammatical sentences ('Is our children learning?'). But his verbal dexterity is greatly improved when such sentences include expressions of America's military might and avowed intention to dominate the world, or set out the supposedly grave threats facing the world's only hyperpower (these threats are constituted by any impediment to America's capability to make a profit). Then, suddenly George W. Bush is almost eloquent, because what seems to matter to him most is making money and impressing his countrymen with boasts about how great America is. A perfect combination, one might say, for a country that considers the rest of the world to be its own backyard yet is almost totally ignorant of anything that happens beyond the local Walmart.
Down on our little allotment in South Gloucestershire in the good old Dis-United Kindgom (a little cul-de-sac on the edge of Europe that is now merely a supine colony of the US) my best mate Nosher and me were debating the merits of the President's speech.
'The words "noble, just, and necessary" sound incongruous in connection with the Iraq War' opined Nosher 'and when they're uttered by a man with little grasp of what the concepts actually mean I think we can dismiss them as idle propaganda'.
'I think the words "brutal, stupid and pointless" are closer to the truth' I replied 'when one considers that Iraq was on the verge of total economic and political collapse when the war started, due to twelve years of UN sanctions.'
'And' added Nosher 'there were no weapons of mass destruction, which the American Government must have known since it boasted its spy satellites could see every square inch of Iraq in great detail. In reality, Bush and his cronies wanted Iraq's oil, and America has a long history of invading countries simply in order to make a profit out of them.'
We leant on our spades and looked up at a solitary crow flying past.
'They didn't learn much from Vietnam, did they?' I said. 'The Iraq War will end up costing much more than the lives of Americans and Iraqis - the long-term outcome may be the collapse of America's position in the world'.
The crow settled on a beech tree a hundred yards away and cawed at us.
'Well' said Nosher with evident satisfaction 'America is now the world's largest debtor nation, and spends an enormous proportion of its GDP on sustaining the world's largest and most technologically advanced military, and a tiny proportion of its GDP on foreign "aid", the latter being merely a device used to enslave the recipients to America's will. Meanwhile its own population has a falling life-expectation and poorer health than most other developed countries - because the rich are too selfish to fund a proper welfare system for the poor'.
'The US is the most aggressive, selfish, and greedy country in the world' I concluded 'and also the most self-deceiving. The sooner its creditors pull the plug on it and induce it to start behaving like a civilised country the better, although I guess there's a serious risk America will see this as an act of hostility and start yet another pointless war and kill lots of innocent people in the process.'
'Yep' agreed Nosher 'any country that thinks victory is constituted by expelling Al Qaeda from Iraq when it wasn't even in Iraq at the beginning of the war that was ostensibly started to expel Al Qaeda is facing an uncomfortable reality-check at some point in time.'
'All we can hope for is that the self-deceiving idiots who rule the Dis-United Kingdom develop sufficient insight to leave America to its fate and make this country independent once again' I said 'although the chances of that are so slim I guess we have to accept the inevitable. The UK is doomed - just as you said a few days ago, Nosher'.
The crow launched itself from the beech tree and flapped lazily away in the direction of America. Probably a secret robotic spy aircraft that had already reported our conversation to the CIA.
'Might as well get the rest of my seed potatoes in the ground' said Nosher 'then I can restrict my reliance on the products of the big food corporations to as little as possible.'
As we both commenced digging again I couldn't help wondering how a species that prefers to spend its time passively watching junk television rather than attempting to discover the truth about what is done in their name could possible survive for very much longer. And I don't just mean the inhabitants of the US. In the Dis-United Kingdom our population is rapidly becoming just as adept at harbouring deliberate ignorance as part of their process of self-deception. Personally, I prefer vegetables. They're less self-deceiving.
More from www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com soon.
Find out more at www.paulsturdee.co.uk and
www.PGSBooks.co.uk
This is a man who struggles to construct coherent and grammatical sentences ('Is our children learning?'). But his verbal dexterity is greatly improved when such sentences include expressions of America's military might and avowed intention to dominate the world, or set out the supposedly grave threats facing the world's only hyperpower (these threats are constituted by any impediment to America's capability to make a profit). Then, suddenly George W. Bush is almost eloquent, because what seems to matter to him most is making money and impressing his countrymen with boasts about how great America is. A perfect combination, one might say, for a country that considers the rest of the world to be its own backyard yet is almost totally ignorant of anything that happens beyond the local Walmart.
Down on our little allotment in South Gloucestershire in the good old Dis-United Kindgom (a little cul-de-sac on the edge of Europe that is now merely a supine colony of the US) my best mate Nosher and me were debating the merits of the President's speech.
'The words "noble, just, and necessary" sound incongruous in connection with the Iraq War' opined Nosher 'and when they're uttered by a man with little grasp of what the concepts actually mean I think we can dismiss them as idle propaganda'.
'I think the words "brutal, stupid and pointless" are closer to the truth' I replied 'when one considers that Iraq was on the verge of total economic and political collapse when the war started, due to twelve years of UN sanctions.'
'And' added Nosher 'there were no weapons of mass destruction, which the American Government must have known since it boasted its spy satellites could see every square inch of Iraq in great detail. In reality, Bush and his cronies wanted Iraq's oil, and America has a long history of invading countries simply in order to make a profit out of them.'
We leant on our spades and looked up at a solitary crow flying past.
'They didn't learn much from Vietnam, did they?' I said. 'The Iraq War will end up costing much more than the lives of Americans and Iraqis - the long-term outcome may be the collapse of America's position in the world'.
The crow settled on a beech tree a hundred yards away and cawed at us.
'Well' said Nosher with evident satisfaction 'America is now the world's largest debtor nation, and spends an enormous proportion of its GDP on sustaining the world's largest and most technologically advanced military, and a tiny proportion of its GDP on foreign "aid", the latter being merely a device used to enslave the recipients to America's will. Meanwhile its own population has a falling life-expectation and poorer health than most other developed countries - because the rich are too selfish to fund a proper welfare system for the poor'.
'The US is the most aggressive, selfish, and greedy country in the world' I concluded 'and also the most self-deceiving. The sooner its creditors pull the plug on it and induce it to start behaving like a civilised country the better, although I guess there's a serious risk America will see this as an act of hostility and start yet another pointless war and kill lots of innocent people in the process.'
'Yep' agreed Nosher 'any country that thinks victory is constituted by expelling Al Qaeda from Iraq when it wasn't even in Iraq at the beginning of the war that was ostensibly started to expel Al Qaeda is facing an uncomfortable reality-check at some point in time.'
'All we can hope for is that the self-deceiving idiots who rule the Dis-United Kingdom develop sufficient insight to leave America to its fate and make this country independent once again' I said 'although the chances of that are so slim I guess we have to accept the inevitable. The UK is doomed - just as you said a few days ago, Nosher'.
The crow launched itself from the beech tree and flapped lazily away in the direction of America. Probably a secret robotic spy aircraft that had already reported our conversation to the CIA.
'Might as well get the rest of my seed potatoes in the ground' said Nosher 'then I can restrict my reliance on the products of the big food corporations to as little as possible.'
As we both commenced digging again I couldn't help wondering how a species that prefers to spend its time passively watching junk television rather than attempting to discover the truth about what is done in their name could possible survive for very much longer. And I don't just mean the inhabitants of the US. In the Dis-United Kingdom our population is rapidly becoming just as adept at harbouring deliberate ignorance as part of their process of self-deception. Personally, I prefer vegetables. They're less self-deceiving.
More from www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com soon.
Find out more at www.paulsturdee.co.uk and
www.PGSBooks.co.uk
Another Reason to be Ashamed of Being British
Wednesday 19th March 2008 brings yet another reason to be ashamed of being British. Today hundreds of retired Gurkha soldiers will hand back their medals to the British Government in protest at not being allowed to remain in Britain after their long military service to this country.
But the pasty-faced bureaucrats and politicians who make the rules will not let them, because they retired before a certain (and quite arbitrary date).
As usual, those who consider themselves fit to rule over us have demonstrated a singular lack of compassion and commitment to the values they claim Britain stands for.
These Gurkhas are very brave men who have spent many years risking their lives for this country - under any fair system of assessment they would be considered valuable additions to our population. But no, Gordon the Moron and his lackeys would rather let in all and sundry than give these men a fair break.
It is not only a disgraceful abnegation of everything Britain is supposed to stand for, but a callous and cynical dismissal of the contribution these brave Gurkhas have made to the security of our country.
Gordon the Moron and his lackeys should be ashamed of of themselves - but I don't think they will be, for I doubt they're capable of making the moral leap from being cynical manipulators of people and situations to being properly morally-developed human beings.
They may yet surprise me, but I'm not holding my breath.
Meanwhile, down on the allotment, Nosher and I will continue to do our best to give every vegetable a fair break, which is more than Gordon the Moron and his lackeys deserve.
More from www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com
soon.
Find out more at www.paulsturdee.co.uk
and www.PGSBooks.co.uk
But the pasty-faced bureaucrats and politicians who make the rules will not let them, because they retired before a certain (and quite arbitrary date).
As usual, those who consider themselves fit to rule over us have demonstrated a singular lack of compassion and commitment to the values they claim Britain stands for.
These Gurkhas are very brave men who have spent many years risking their lives for this country - under any fair system of assessment they would be considered valuable additions to our population. But no, Gordon the Moron and his lackeys would rather let in all and sundry than give these men a fair break.
It is not only a disgraceful abnegation of everything Britain is supposed to stand for, but a callous and cynical dismissal of the contribution these brave Gurkhas have made to the security of our country.
Gordon the Moron and his lackeys should be ashamed of of themselves - but I don't think they will be, for I doubt they're capable of making the moral leap from being cynical manipulators of people and situations to being properly morally-developed human beings.
They may yet surprise me, but I'm not holding my breath.
Meanwhile, down on the allotment, Nosher and I will continue to do our best to give every vegetable a fair break, which is more than Gordon the Moron and his lackeys deserve.
More from www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com
soon.
Find out more at www.paulsturdee.co.uk
and www.PGSBooks.co.uk
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
How to Survive the Financial Crash
We were both digging our respective allotment plots one afternoon when Nosher suddenly stopped and leant on his spade, looking up at the grey clouds scudding overhead.
'Honey is the roof of all weevils' I thought I heard him say. So I stopped digging too and looked across at him.
'What was that, Nosh?'
'Money is the root of all evil!' he said, a lot louder.
'Is that a religious pronouncement or are you a bit short?'
'It's this financial crash that's coming' he explained 'first Northern Rock and now Bear Stearns in the States. For twenty years the moneylenders in the US and UK have been pushing supposedly cheap money at poorer and poorer people, and now some pretty big chickens are coming home to roost.'
'How does that make money the root of all evil?' I asked.
'Because the the loan salesmen would take big commissions for persuading poor people in rented accommodation to buy their properties with big mortgages on the basis that it would cost them less. It never did, because then they had to spend money maintaining their homes, which they didn't have to do before. And when they got sick or lost their jobs, they lost even the roof over their heads and were poorer than ever. And that's what the financial markets have just woken up to - there's billions of pounds of debt out there that's never going to be repaid.'
'So what's the solution to all this?'
'A moneyless economy' said Nosher emphatically 'bartering and skill-sharing, then you always know where you are'.
'And how did you arrive at this conclusion?' I asked.
'In the Army, doing National Service in the 1950s' Nosher replied. 'I learned three things in the Army: 1. Never volunteer for anything; 2. Keep your head down, and 3. Know who your friends are - your real friends. And that's how I've lived ever since, even more so now I'm retired.'
In the distance we could see a heron flying low along the course of the river.
'So why hasn't it caught on?' I asked.
'Because most young people these days don't have any worthwhile skills to share, and don't know how to barter. They've grown up to be seduced by the idea that money can buy anything, when all it does is feed greed and insecurity. When I was a young lad you had to learn a trade, and you saved up for things. You saved money by learning how to fix your car yourself, making your own furniture, learning useful skills that would serve you well for your whole life. And if you weren't able to do something, you always knew a mate who did, so you could offer to do something for him that he couldn't do and he'd repay the compliment. No money ever changed hands.'
'But if everyone did that the economy would collapse because no taxes would be paid' I objected.
'Sod the beancounters!' exclaimed Nosher with some vehemence. 'They get enough money from taxing everything we buy - and besides, bartering and skill-sharing are not illegal. But we live in an age of big government and they want us all to have enormous mortgages and big debts because that means we're all afraid of losing our jobs so we keep quiet and behave ourselves. And then they squeeze us dry with more and more taxes until we're poorer than we were in the first place. If this carries on more and more people will wake up to the idea that they can live perfectly adequate lives with very little money, simply by bartering and skill-sharing. Look at seed-exchanges - that's an idea that's really beginning to take off.'
'And that was the result of the Common Market seed licensing law of 1973' I remarked 'so not everything that comes out of the EU is bad after all!'
'You're still wet behind the ears!' said Nosher 'the Common Market banned thousands of native English seeds overnight because the big seed producers didn't license them - which was exactly what big business wanted. The pasty-faced bureaucrats in Brussels simply believed all the nonsense they were told by the business lobby. But some people found a way around the law - it's still legal to swap seeds or give them away, and as a result thousands of plant varieties were saved for posterity, despite the best attempts of the cretins in Brussels to destroy our native varieties. So that's what we allotment gardeners do - we swap our seeds or give them away, and say 'bollocks!' to the seed producers who tried to kill them off.'
'So what you're saying is that to survive the financial crash we should all get off our backsides and learn some useful skills and then learn how to skill-share and barter instead of buying everything as part of the money economy' I said.
'That's it exactly' agreed Nosher 'and the sooner it happens the better!'
As we both started digging again I couldn't help feeling that perhaps he had a point after all.
More from www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com soon.
Find out more at www.paulsturdee.co.uk and
www.PGSBooks.co.uk
'Honey is the roof of all weevils' I thought I heard him say. So I stopped digging too and looked across at him.
'What was that, Nosh?'
'Money is the root of all evil!' he said, a lot louder.
'Is that a religious pronouncement or are you a bit short?'
'It's this financial crash that's coming' he explained 'first Northern Rock and now Bear Stearns in the States. For twenty years the moneylenders in the US and UK have been pushing supposedly cheap money at poorer and poorer people, and now some pretty big chickens are coming home to roost.'
'How does that make money the root of all evil?' I asked.
'Because the the loan salesmen would take big commissions for persuading poor people in rented accommodation to buy their properties with big mortgages on the basis that it would cost them less. It never did, because then they had to spend money maintaining their homes, which they didn't have to do before. And when they got sick or lost their jobs, they lost even the roof over their heads and were poorer than ever. And that's what the financial markets have just woken up to - there's billions of pounds of debt out there that's never going to be repaid.'
'So what's the solution to all this?'
'A moneyless economy' said Nosher emphatically 'bartering and skill-sharing, then you always know where you are'.
'And how did you arrive at this conclusion?' I asked.
'In the Army, doing National Service in the 1950s' Nosher replied. 'I learned three things in the Army: 1. Never volunteer for anything; 2. Keep your head down, and 3. Know who your friends are - your real friends. And that's how I've lived ever since, even more so now I'm retired.'
In the distance we could see a heron flying low along the course of the river.
'So why hasn't it caught on?' I asked.
'Because most young people these days don't have any worthwhile skills to share, and don't know how to barter. They've grown up to be seduced by the idea that money can buy anything, when all it does is feed greed and insecurity. When I was a young lad you had to learn a trade, and you saved up for things. You saved money by learning how to fix your car yourself, making your own furniture, learning useful skills that would serve you well for your whole life. And if you weren't able to do something, you always knew a mate who did, so you could offer to do something for him that he couldn't do and he'd repay the compliment. No money ever changed hands.'
'But if everyone did that the economy would collapse because no taxes would be paid' I objected.
'Sod the beancounters!' exclaimed Nosher with some vehemence. 'They get enough money from taxing everything we buy - and besides, bartering and skill-sharing are not illegal. But we live in an age of big government and they want us all to have enormous mortgages and big debts because that means we're all afraid of losing our jobs so we keep quiet and behave ourselves. And then they squeeze us dry with more and more taxes until we're poorer than we were in the first place. If this carries on more and more people will wake up to the idea that they can live perfectly adequate lives with very little money, simply by bartering and skill-sharing. Look at seed-exchanges - that's an idea that's really beginning to take off.'
'And that was the result of the Common Market seed licensing law of 1973' I remarked 'so not everything that comes out of the EU is bad after all!'
'You're still wet behind the ears!' said Nosher 'the Common Market banned thousands of native English seeds overnight because the big seed producers didn't license them - which was exactly what big business wanted. The pasty-faced bureaucrats in Brussels simply believed all the nonsense they were told by the business lobby. But some people found a way around the law - it's still legal to swap seeds or give them away, and as a result thousands of plant varieties were saved for posterity, despite the best attempts of the cretins in Brussels to destroy our native varieties. So that's what we allotment gardeners do - we swap our seeds or give them away, and say 'bollocks!' to the seed producers who tried to kill them off.'
'So what you're saying is that to survive the financial crash we should all get off our backsides and learn some useful skills and then learn how to skill-share and barter instead of buying everything as part of the money economy' I said.
'That's it exactly' agreed Nosher 'and the sooner it happens the better!'
As we both started digging again I couldn't help feeling that perhaps he had a point after all.
More from www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com soon.
Find out more at www.paulsturdee.co.uk and
www.PGSBooks.co.uk
Monday, March 17, 2008
Ashamed to be British
After a few hours' work on our allotments my best mate Nosher and I were ready for a relaxing break sitting on our old deck chairs by Nosher's shed, enjoying some sunshine for a change. It wasn't long before a suitable topic of conversation came up.
'Did you watch the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary last night?' Nosher suddenly asked, as if there was something on his mind. 'Iraq - The Lost Generation' he added, by way of being more specific.
'Yes, and it made me feel ashamed to be British' I replied 'to think that in our name millions of Iraqis have been forced to flee their country to live like paupers in Syria and Jordan. What were these idiots Bush and Blair, and their advisers, thinking of when they started this pointless war?'
Nosher looked at me as if my question was that of an imbecile.
'It doesn't take a genius to work it out' he said 'America wanted Iraq's oil, and Blair, ever the sycophant, wanted to bask in the glow of greatness emanating from George W. Bush. Except that only the most self-deceived or deluded of individuals can detect any glow at all coming from George W., unless it's coming from his little mind working overtime trying to think up some phrase that might, in time, actually form part of a comprehensible sentence. And, in any case, none of them were too bothered by the prospect of tens of thousands of Iraqis dying and millions more being consigned to lives of misery and suffering as a result.'
'What was most shameful of all the misery and suffering portrayed in that documentary' I said 'was the situation of the men who had worked as interpreters for the British and who had then, on spurious grounds, been refused asylum here. They are afraid even of their own countrymen, in case the sectarian extremists identify them and execute them.'
Nosher nodded in agreement.
'I too feel ashamed to be British' he said ruefully 'to think that our country poses as the liberator of Iraq and then carelessly discards those Iraqis who risked their lives to help as if they were so much rubbish. How would it hurt Britain to let them have asylum here? And yet the British Government has come up with an arcane set of rules deliberately designed to reject the applications of most of the men who worked as interpreters for us. It really is the most cynical and shameful act of all in a war that has been characterised from the start by cynicism and a lack of compassion for those who are on the receiving end of our supposedly good intentions.'
Nosher sat back in his old deckchair and looked over the neat rows of plants growing on his plot.
Not too far away we could hear the bluetits singing their message of spring over in the willow trees.
'I have absolutely no doubt there are pasty-faced men and women sitting in their comfortable offices in some government building somewhere already fabricating the official 'truth' about Iraq' I said 'making it out to be a great victory on behalf of Western enlightenment, and all the inconvenient facts will be buried or quietly forgotten. Just like all the innocent victims of the stupidity of Bush and Blair and their supporters, who will be consigned to the dustbin of history'.
Nosher did a little of his sage nodding, then said:
'You know, the greatest tragedy of all is that the suffering of others at our hands is so quickly and easily overlooked and forgotten. And that's exactly how the US and UK Governments want it - so much for their high principles.'
More from http://www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com/ soon.
Find out more at http://www.paulsturdee.co.uk/ and
http://www.pgsbooks.co.uk/
'Did you watch the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary last night?' Nosher suddenly asked, as if there was something on his mind. 'Iraq - The Lost Generation' he added, by way of being more specific.
'Yes, and it made me feel ashamed to be British' I replied 'to think that in our name millions of Iraqis have been forced to flee their country to live like paupers in Syria and Jordan. What were these idiots Bush and Blair, and their advisers, thinking of when they started this pointless war?'
Nosher looked at me as if my question was that of an imbecile.
'It doesn't take a genius to work it out' he said 'America wanted Iraq's oil, and Blair, ever the sycophant, wanted to bask in the glow of greatness emanating from George W. Bush. Except that only the most self-deceived or deluded of individuals can detect any glow at all coming from George W., unless it's coming from his little mind working overtime trying to think up some phrase that might, in time, actually form part of a comprehensible sentence. And, in any case, none of them were too bothered by the prospect of tens of thousands of Iraqis dying and millions more being consigned to lives of misery and suffering as a result.'
'What was most shameful of all the misery and suffering portrayed in that documentary' I said 'was the situation of the men who had worked as interpreters for the British and who had then, on spurious grounds, been refused asylum here. They are afraid even of their own countrymen, in case the sectarian extremists identify them and execute them.'
Nosher nodded in agreement.
'I too feel ashamed to be British' he said ruefully 'to think that our country poses as the liberator of Iraq and then carelessly discards those Iraqis who risked their lives to help as if they were so much rubbish. How would it hurt Britain to let them have asylum here? And yet the British Government has come up with an arcane set of rules deliberately designed to reject the applications of most of the men who worked as interpreters for us. It really is the most cynical and shameful act of all in a war that has been characterised from the start by cynicism and a lack of compassion for those who are on the receiving end of our supposedly good intentions.'
Nosher sat back in his old deckchair and looked over the neat rows of plants growing on his plot.
Not too far away we could hear the bluetits singing their message of spring over in the willow trees.
'I have absolutely no doubt there are pasty-faced men and women sitting in their comfortable offices in some government building somewhere already fabricating the official 'truth' about Iraq' I said 'making it out to be a great victory on behalf of Western enlightenment, and all the inconvenient facts will be buried or quietly forgotten. Just like all the innocent victims of the stupidity of Bush and Blair and their supporters, who will be consigned to the dustbin of history'.
Nosher did a little of his sage nodding, then said:
'You know, the greatest tragedy of all is that the suffering of others at our hands is so quickly and easily overlooked and forgotten. And that's exactly how the US and UK Governments want it - so much for their high principles.'
More from http://www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com/ soon.
Find out more at http://www.paulsturdee.co.uk/ and
http://www.pgsbooks.co.uk/
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Are Tracy Emin's Twisted Knickers Art?
I arrived down at the allotment one morning recently to find the rain still pouring down and the ground too wet to work. Nosher was already sat in his shed, wine glass in hand. My knock at the door was anwered with:
'Abandon hope and enter, in that order!'
Having ensconced myself on the second deckchair inside, a wine glass was thrust into my hand and immediately filled with parsnip wine.
'Are you planning on sitting in here all day?' I enquired.
'No choice, really' replied Nosher 'my wife wants to be left alone to do some work for her latest evening class - the deal is if it's still raining at 4pm she'll drive over and take me home'.
It transpired that Mrs Nosher had wanted to do something useful at nightschool this year, but all the artisan courses were fully subscribed, so she ended up in Art and Design.
'So what's useful about Art and Design?' I couldn't resist asking.
'Advanced Welding' said Nosher ruminatively 'she's got to make something artistic out of bits of rusty twisted metal. That's why, at this very moment, she's in my garage with the welding torch sticking bits of metal together'.
'How does she think that might be useful?'
'Well, ever since doing architecture A-level a couple of years ago' Nosher explained 'she's had this idea about building a futuristic house with a steel frame, and for that she needs to know how to weld'.
'Still' I said 'she might show real talent and be able to sell her work - imagine that - some idiots will pay good money for any old rubbish these days'.
Nosher nodded sagely.
'Well, if Tracy Emins can get some pretentious prat to pay several thousand pounds for her unmade bed, when there are millions of teenagers out there who would happily hand theirs over for the price of a bottle of cider, then all we have to do is find some rich idiots and we're in the money'.
'It's not as if we know that many people with lots of money and absolutely no taste, is it Nosh?'
'I know lots of people with no taste - finding ones that haven't spent all their money on the latest widescreen TV is the problem' commented Nosher.
'While we're working on that little problem, perhaps we could think of a title for your wife's piece of welding sculpture' I suggested.
'Tracy Emin's Twisted Knickers' said Nosher emphatically.
'But is that art?' I said, feeling that somehow we had got to the bottom of the issue.
'I couldn't give a monkeys' said Nosher 'so long as there's an idiot out there who'll give me some money for it'.
After a long sleep, during which I kept dreaming of finding myself holding Tracy Emin's Twisted Knickers whilst everyone down at the pub laughed at me, we awoke to find that a small blue car had appeared on the muddy track a hundred yards away.
'Hope she hasn't been waiting for too long!' Nosher said 'or my tea will be going cold. Would you like a lift home?'
As we trudged through the mud towards the little blue car, I couldn't help thinking that it's a crazy world in which rich people are prepared to pay thousands of pounds for someone else's unmade bed whilst millions of people around the world haven't even got enough money to buy any food with.
More from www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com soon.
For more info please visit www.paulsturdee.co.uk and
www.PGSBooks.co.uk
'Abandon hope and enter, in that order!'
Having ensconced myself on the second deckchair inside, a wine glass was thrust into my hand and immediately filled with parsnip wine.
'Are you planning on sitting in here all day?' I enquired.
'No choice, really' replied Nosher 'my wife wants to be left alone to do some work for her latest evening class - the deal is if it's still raining at 4pm she'll drive over and take me home'.
It transpired that Mrs Nosher had wanted to do something useful at nightschool this year, but all the artisan courses were fully subscribed, so she ended up in Art and Design.
'So what's useful about Art and Design?' I couldn't resist asking.
'Advanced Welding' said Nosher ruminatively 'she's got to make something artistic out of bits of rusty twisted metal. That's why, at this very moment, she's in my garage with the welding torch sticking bits of metal together'.
'How does she think that might be useful?'
'Well, ever since doing architecture A-level a couple of years ago' Nosher explained 'she's had this idea about building a futuristic house with a steel frame, and for that she needs to know how to weld'.
'Still' I said 'she might show real talent and be able to sell her work - imagine that - some idiots will pay good money for any old rubbish these days'.
Nosher nodded sagely.
'Well, if Tracy Emins can get some pretentious prat to pay several thousand pounds for her unmade bed, when there are millions of teenagers out there who would happily hand theirs over for the price of a bottle of cider, then all we have to do is find some rich idiots and we're in the money'.
'It's not as if we know that many people with lots of money and absolutely no taste, is it Nosh?'
'I know lots of people with no taste - finding ones that haven't spent all their money on the latest widescreen TV is the problem' commented Nosher.
'While we're working on that little problem, perhaps we could think of a title for your wife's piece of welding sculpture' I suggested.
'Tracy Emin's Twisted Knickers' said Nosher emphatically.
'But is that art?' I said, feeling that somehow we had got to the bottom of the issue.
'I couldn't give a monkeys' said Nosher 'so long as there's an idiot out there who'll give me some money for it'.
After a long sleep, during which I kept dreaming of finding myself holding Tracy Emin's Twisted Knickers whilst everyone down at the pub laughed at me, we awoke to find that a small blue car had appeared on the muddy track a hundred yards away.
'Hope she hasn't been waiting for too long!' Nosher said 'or my tea will be going cold. Would you like a lift home?'
As we trudged through the mud towards the little blue car, I couldn't help thinking that it's a crazy world in which rich people are prepared to pay thousands of pounds for someone else's unmade bed whilst millions of people around the world haven't even got enough money to buy any food with.
More from www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com soon.
For more info please visit www.paulsturdee.co.uk and
www.PGSBooks.co.uk
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Why the UK is Now Doomed
Rain, Rain, Rain. Here in the good old Dis-United Kingdom grey wet weather is part of the landscape, so much so that if we get more than two sunny days in a row people start becoming nostalgic about the rain.
So down on the allotment, with the interminable rain falling all around us, Nosher and I were hunkered down in Nosher's shed drinking his parsnip wine (it's not very alcoholic, but the flavour is excellent).
'I suppose you heard about the parliamentary debate on the Lisbon Treaty during your convalescence?' said Nosher as his opening gambit.
'You mean the complete and utter failure of our elected representatives to safeguard the interests of the people, or even to tell them the truth?' I replied.
'Exactly so' said Nosher, pouring himself another glass. 'We are now destined to have a permenent EU President whose powers will be decided later on by the EU governments, not by democratically consulting the people.'
'Well, it's par for the course' I added 'after all, our politicians have lied to us for 40 years about Europe, and now we're headed for a European super-state without even so much as a referendum.'
'To think I even voted to stay in the Common Market in 1975, because I believed all their lies' Nosher sighed and looked mournfully into his wine glass. 'And now we're just a cul-de-sac on the edge of Europe, staggering under the weight of stupid EU laws we didn't vote for, while being used as a dumping ground for cheap Eastern European labour.'
'And to make matters worse, we are also a colony of the US, ever since the 2003 Extradiction Act made it possible for the US to extradite any UK citizen merely on suspicion, with no reciprocal right for the UK. Which means' I continued 'that you or I could be whisked off in the middle of the night by armed police, flown over the Atlantic and then simply disappear into the US justice system for years without our Government, which is supposed to protect us, ever murmuring a hint of protest. That's hardly the situation of a free and sovereign nation.'
'Aye' said Nosher, imitating Private Fraser from Dad's Army 'We're doomed, doomed!'
We emptied our glasses in silence, the grey clouds heavy with rain matching our mood exactly.
Even more depressingly, the self-deceiving morons who brought all this about are still in power, with friends on both sides of the House, and show no signs of ever developing any insight into their stupidity.
There really is no hope.
More from http://www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com/ soon.
Also visit http://www.paulsturdee.co.uk/
and http://www.pgsbooks.co.uk/
So down on the allotment, with the interminable rain falling all around us, Nosher and I were hunkered down in Nosher's shed drinking his parsnip wine (it's not very alcoholic, but the flavour is excellent).
'I suppose you heard about the parliamentary debate on the Lisbon Treaty during your convalescence?' said Nosher as his opening gambit.
'You mean the complete and utter failure of our elected representatives to safeguard the interests of the people, or even to tell them the truth?' I replied.
'Exactly so' said Nosher, pouring himself another glass. 'We are now destined to have a permenent EU President whose powers will be decided later on by the EU governments, not by democratically consulting the people.'
'Well, it's par for the course' I added 'after all, our politicians have lied to us for 40 years about Europe, and now we're headed for a European super-state without even so much as a referendum.'
'To think I even voted to stay in the Common Market in 1975, because I believed all their lies' Nosher sighed and looked mournfully into his wine glass. 'And now we're just a cul-de-sac on the edge of Europe, staggering under the weight of stupid EU laws we didn't vote for, while being used as a dumping ground for cheap Eastern European labour.'
'And to make matters worse, we are also a colony of the US, ever since the 2003 Extradiction Act made it possible for the US to extradite any UK citizen merely on suspicion, with no reciprocal right for the UK. Which means' I continued 'that you or I could be whisked off in the middle of the night by armed police, flown over the Atlantic and then simply disappear into the US justice system for years without our Government, which is supposed to protect us, ever murmuring a hint of protest. That's hardly the situation of a free and sovereign nation.'
'Aye' said Nosher, imitating Private Fraser from Dad's Army 'We're doomed, doomed!'
We emptied our glasses in silence, the grey clouds heavy with rain matching our mood exactly.
Even more depressingly, the self-deceiving morons who brought all this about are still in power, with friends on both sides of the House, and show no signs of ever developing any insight into their stupidity.
There really is no hope.
More from http://www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com/ soon.
Also visit http://www.paulsturdee.co.uk/
and http://www.pgsbooks.co.uk/
Friday, March 14, 2008
Should UK Children Swear Allegiance to the Queen?
After nearly a month out of action, I finally returned to my little allotment plot to see how well the weeds had grown in my absence (occasioned by a little surgery to some delicate regions). My best mate Nosher had done wonders tending not only his own plot but mine as well, so a couple of hours' effort saw the parsnips planted and the broad beans put in. Then it was time to retreat to Nosher's shed and a glass of parsnip wine.
'So much has happened since you've been gone' remarked Nosher 'it's difficult to know where to start'.
'Well, I heard about our idiot-infested government prevaricating about nationalising Northern Rock from my hospital bed' I replied 'and now that they've done it (at a cost of several thousand pounds for every single taxpayer) the shareholders are now vociferously demanding compensation for a bankrupt bank that was worthless in any case and should have been allowed to fail. Greed and fear - that's what makes the world go round.'
'Well, what about the idea that the ill-educated and ignorant schoolchildren of the Dis-United Kingdom should be made to swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen?' Nosher inquired.
'Sounds like blatant indoctrination to me' I said 'I heard that most people think it's a cretinously stupid idea'.
'Cretinously stupid?' Nosher spluttered on his parsnip wine. 'What do these idiots think they're trying to do - turn us into mindlessly patriotic bigots like the Americans?'
'Isn't that a but harsh?' I countered. 'After all, it's true that American schoolchildren have no choice but to swear allegiance to their flag, but at least they're not pledging their loyalty to an idiot like Bush'.
'But it's still indoctrination!' Nosher was by now almost beside himself with indignation. 'And here in the Dis-United Kingdom, why on earth should anyone swear allegiance to the Queen? What does the Queen stand for? Inherited privilege and dodgy government, that's what! I'd be quite happy to commit myself to work for the good of English people (I'm English first and foremost) of any colour and creed, and to uphold the human rights of the poor, the vulnerable and the dispossesed, but everyone else can go take a running jump into the nearest sewage treatment plant.'
'What about the Welsh and the Scots?' I asked.
'They don't even want to be part of the UK, so they can look after themselves' replied Nosher 'and, in any case, every single English taxpayer is subsidising Welsh and Scottish devolution - they wouldn't cope very well without English taxpayers' money.'
'Do you get all this stuff from the back of seed-packets?' I inquired.
As the sun dipped below the willow trees we pondered upon the latest distortion of truth by our unscrupulous government - apparently they're trying to re-write history by presenting schools with a white-washed version of the Iraq War to teach to gullible children. Before long we'll no doubt have a Ministry of Truth just like in George Orwell's novel 1984. Or perhaps it exists already under another name...
More from http://www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com/ soon.
To find out more go to http://www.paulsturdee.co.uk/
or http://www.pgsbooks.co.uk/
'So much has happened since you've been gone' remarked Nosher 'it's difficult to know where to start'.
'Well, I heard about our idiot-infested government prevaricating about nationalising Northern Rock from my hospital bed' I replied 'and now that they've done it (at a cost of several thousand pounds for every single taxpayer) the shareholders are now vociferously demanding compensation for a bankrupt bank that was worthless in any case and should have been allowed to fail. Greed and fear - that's what makes the world go round.'
'Well, what about the idea that the ill-educated and ignorant schoolchildren of the Dis-United Kingdom should be made to swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen?' Nosher inquired.
'Sounds like blatant indoctrination to me' I said 'I heard that most people think it's a cretinously stupid idea'.
'Cretinously stupid?' Nosher spluttered on his parsnip wine. 'What do these idiots think they're trying to do - turn us into mindlessly patriotic bigots like the Americans?'
'Isn't that a but harsh?' I countered. 'After all, it's true that American schoolchildren have no choice but to swear allegiance to their flag, but at least they're not pledging their loyalty to an idiot like Bush'.
'But it's still indoctrination!' Nosher was by now almost beside himself with indignation. 'And here in the Dis-United Kingdom, why on earth should anyone swear allegiance to the Queen? What does the Queen stand for? Inherited privilege and dodgy government, that's what! I'd be quite happy to commit myself to work for the good of English people (I'm English first and foremost) of any colour and creed, and to uphold the human rights of the poor, the vulnerable and the dispossesed, but everyone else can go take a running jump into the nearest sewage treatment plant.'
'What about the Welsh and the Scots?' I asked.
'They don't even want to be part of the UK, so they can look after themselves' replied Nosher 'and, in any case, every single English taxpayer is subsidising Welsh and Scottish devolution - they wouldn't cope very well without English taxpayers' money.'
'Do you get all this stuff from the back of seed-packets?' I inquired.
As the sun dipped below the willow trees we pondered upon the latest distortion of truth by our unscrupulous government - apparently they're trying to re-write history by presenting schools with a white-washed version of the Iraq War to teach to gullible children. Before long we'll no doubt have a Ministry of Truth just like in George Orwell's novel 1984. Or perhaps it exists already under another name...
More from http://www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com/ soon.
To find out more go to http://www.paulsturdee.co.uk/
or http://www.pgsbooks.co.uk/
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