Tag Archives: politics

Departs Stage Left

I was saddened to read in today’s Daily Telegraph of the death of Tony Benn, the veteran Labour politician at the age of 88. Whether one agreed with Benn’s politics or not he was a powerful speaker and I have memories of listening to his oratory on BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions? I also recollect sitting in the college library leafing through “Writings On The Wall” edited by Benn, http://www.amazon.co.uk/Writings-Wall-Socialist-Anthology-1215-1984/dp/0571133355. A political giant has gone to that country from who’s bourne no traveller returns and politics will be the less vibrant for his departure.

Anyone For A Hair Cut?

On popping into the hairdressers this morning (I like to get my hair cut at least once a year whether it needs it or not), I learned that the leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband, had visited the Upper Norwood and Crystal Palace area in which I live, http://www.croydonguardian.co.uk/archive/2013/12/09/10864355.Labour_leader_Ed_Miliband_visits_small_businesses_in_Upper_Norwood_and_Crystal_Palace/. Apparently he popped into the shop but, I understand that he did not enjoy the attentions of the excellent hairdressers who, periodically have the dubious pleasure of cutting my own unruly mop! He did, however pop into the BookSeller Crow, a shop which I visit from time to time. The visit was aimed at promoting local small businesses of which BookSeller Crow is one such.

The above news pales into insignificance compared to the exploits of my guide dog, Trigger who decided, while I was having my hair cut, to present a towel to a gentleman who was also having his hair cut. It is the retriever in him which causes him to pick up all kinds of objects, my guide dog that is, not the customer.

Racism In America

Today’s Daily Mail has an article about the role played by black people in the history of the White House. The majority of those who built the White House where negro slaves while until very recently black servants where not considered equal with their white counterparts. I was, obviously aware of the history of racial segregation in the United States, however this article provided me with information of which I was previously unaware. For the article please visit http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2510890/New-film-The-Butler-reveals-White-Houses-shameful-history.html?ico=home

The Club

“Jock my dear chap its good to see you. I don’t think that I’ve seen you in the club since January”.

“Good to see you to Phillip old man. I haven’t visited the old place since December. I’ve been travelling in South America, Columbia mainly”.

“That would explain your absence. Can I get you a drink?” Phillip asked.

“Most kind old chap. I’ll have a whisky please” Jock replied.

Phillip signalled to one of the soberly dressed waiters.

“Yes Mr Drummond?”

“Two whiskies please Robert”.

“Certainly sir”.

“Bring them into the library there’s a good chap”.

“Of course sir”.

The two acquaintences ensconced themselves in huge leather armchairs in front of a blazing log fire. The fire light shone on the spines of the leather bound tomes which stood in the heavy oak bookcases. Jock lazily scanned the books his eyes pausing on an early edition of Hobbes’s Leviathan.

“And which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short” Jock said.

“Do you really hold such a pessimistic view of the human condition” Phillip said stretching his long legs out towards the open fire. “Life is good. We have this excellent whisky which we are enjoying in one of Pall Mall’s most exclusive clubs and you go quoting that old pessimist Thomas Hobbes”.

“One mans pesimist is another mans realist my dear chap. Hobbes saw the necessity of a strong government to keep the herd of humanity in order. Tell me Phillip my old friend what in your opinion is the greatest evil, that which man fears most?”

“Lack of individual freedom. The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany both comprehensively stamped on liberty with horrendous consequences”.

Jock smiled sadly.

“You are an all round good egg Phillip and that is one of the reasons I derive so much pleasure from your society. You are incorrect in your surmise though. The thing which man rightly fears most is the lack of social order. He fears the theft of his property by the great unwashed. He lives in terror of the rape of his wife by the sexual pervert lurking in the shadows. Beyond the bright lights of this club their lurks a stinking mass which can hardly be dignified with the name of human. Government is there to keep order, to protect us from the mob and when push comes to shove you and I really don’t care which government holds sway. Our concern is that the authorities keep our person and property free from molestation and the mob in check”.

“But my dear fellow by your logic any government is legitimate provided that it maintains social order. Do you really believe that Franco’s Spain and other similar regimes should be lauded on the grounds that they upheld social order?”

“Tell me old boy how much value would you place in democracy if the people out there” Jock said gesturing in the direction of the window, “decided to run riot and attack your flat in Mayfair?”

“That is extremely unlikely to happen. Democracy has deep roots in this country and the people do, on the whole support the system”.

“Indeed and I support democracy while the democratic system maintains order. Hobbes view was that any government which promotes social stability should be supported but if that system fails then the populace are entitled to switch their alegance to whichever individual or government is capable of preventing chaos. So I am a conditional democrat” Jock said with a smile.

“But dictatorships of the left and right have caused incalculable suffering. I don’t need to tell you about the Nazi’s murder of six million Jews or Stalin’s Gulags”.

“Dictatorships have indeed committed terrible atrocities. However when you face losing your life or property a strong dictator is the lesser of two evils. Weighing everything in the balance it is the lack of order which poses the greatest danger to humanity. Imagine that rather than sitting here in this gentlemans club enjoying fine whisky that you had to cower in a dark corner for fear of your life. That marauding gangs roamed at will across this green and pleasant land. Are you really telling me that under those circumstances you wouldn’t welcome a dictator with open arms provided that he put a stop to the anarchy?”

“I hope I wouldn’t embrace dictatorship. There are other ways of dealing with anarchy other than resorting to authoritarianism”.

“Oh Phillip my old friend you are such a liberal. You are undoubtedly one of the nicest, most civilised people I know but if push came to shove I believe that you would do anything to preserve the life and property of you and your family. Hobbes’s Leviathan is not merely a dusty old curiosity with no relevance to the 21st century. In Colombia I saw the truths of his great intellect reveal itself to me”.

“How so?”

“You know that successive governments have been fighting a losing war against the drug traffickers?”

“Of course its all over the media. Occasionally the authorities will kill or capture one of the leading drug barons but another quickly steps into his shoes”.

“Precisely so. However the really fascinating aspect of the whole Colombian situation is how many of these drug lords are regarded as heroes by the Colombians who live under their jurristiction. The barons provide healthcare and other forms of charity which helps to cement their hold. Granted there is a good deal of brutality but this isn’t the primary means by which the drug traffickers maintain their power. If you have nothing or very little and someone (anyone, even the devil) suddenly furnishes you with money which buys you comforts, you will embrace him as a liberator with open arms. For the poor of Colombia the drug barons release them from the state of nature allowing the people to flourish in an ordered society”.

“But what of the horrendous effects of drugs on the poor sods who’s lives are wrecked by them?”

“If you are a peasant farmer in Colombia is the stupidity of some junkie in the back streets of Leeds really going to be top of your priority? No your concern will be with the welfare of your family. The local drug lord has just provided you with the money to purchase medicine for your sick little girl so why should you care about some silly kid shooting up heroine on the other side of the world? The bottom line is my dear chap that people will do anything to survive”.

Jock paused his eyes taking on a far away look.

 

The hut stank of bird droppings. Chickens wandered in and out at will.

“You like young girl” the man at the coffee stall had asked.

“How young?” Jock had asked.

“Eighteen mister” the man said in broken English.

The child looked about thirteen. Jock hesitated, what was left of his moral compass holding him back.

“It OK mister. I need money. You fuck. No problem”.

Yes people would do anything for money and security however slight that security might be Jock thought as he finished his whisky.

“Good to see you Phillip old bean. I’ve no doubt that we will run into one another again soon” Jock said rising and shaking Phillip’s hand.

“Nice to see you to old man” Phillip said.

Phillip gazed out of the window as Jock Carmichael walked briskly away from the club. Was his acquaintance right? Was life a mere matter of dog eat dog with the necessity for government (any government however brutal) to maintain order?

“I hope not” Phillip muttered as he reached out his hand for the bell which summoned one of the waiters. Time for another drink he thought.

Disappearing Books

I love the solidity of paper books. The feel of a book in my hands coupled with that unique scent which books possess is, surely one of the pleasures of owning physical books. Naturally the greatest joy to be derived from books is the reading of them, however the physicality of books mingles with the reading experience producing a medley of pleasures.

In contrast to physical works e-books have the advantage of allowing the possessor to have a veritable library of literature without the inconvenience of books being piled up throughout their home. There is nothing wrong with having books occupying almost the entire floor of your spare room but unless you are lucky enough to inhabit a mantion there will come a point where one simply runs out of space! Another great advantage of e-books is that most are accessible to blind people such as myself. I can enjoy an e-book using the text to speech facility on my Kindle or Voiceover on my iPad.

Despite the many advantages of e-books they possess one major flaw – there ability to disappear without trace from websites. I recently experienced this for myself when my collection of short stories, “The First Time” vanished from Amazon’s Kindle store. The links still appeared on Google but on clicking on them the dreaded “404 page not found” error raised it’s cheery head. Fortunately I still had the original file on my computer and with the help of a friend “The First Time” was soon back on Amazon, however old broken links are still showing on Google (at the top of the search results) while the new (correct) links languish somewhere near the bottom. Now of course physical books can disappear also. A bookshop or library may take a decision to remove particular works from their shelves or at the more extreme end of the spectrum regimes such as Nazi Germany have burned books by authors of which they disapproved. However even if a book is comprehensively purged the chances are that the book will still survive in the hands of a few individuals to be passed around clandestinely. In contrast e-book retailers can with the aid of technology remotely delete books from devices. In practice this happens rarely due to the perfectly understandable angry reaction provoked among the owners of the works being removed. However in an authoritarian state in which all publishers are either owned by the government or subject to governmental interference one can imagine books disappearing from e-book readers. Don’t like that author because he is a “Conservative”, “Communist”, “Jew”, “Liberal”, “Christian” etc. No problem remotely delete their works from e-book readers. In practice I suspect that some technically savvy individuals would find ways to preserve their copies of banned books but many would no doubt disappear into the virtual trash can. Pause for thought?

I should point out that Amazon did not delete my book from e-readers nor did the company delete it from their site due to concerns over it’s contents. The book was removed due to a misunderstanding and is now, as I said above back up on Amazon and can be found here, http://www.amazon.com/The-First-Time-ebook/dp/B00FJGKY7Y/ref=la_B00CEECWHY_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1380885715&sr=1-4

The Date

Laura slipped on her favourite blue dress, the one with primroses embroidered on it. The dress showed a small amount of cleavage but not an excessive quantity for a first date Laura thought as she slipped on her black leather shoes.

God she hoped that this guy was better than the man she’d met last Saturday. John had spent the entire evening talking about his prowess in the world of gaming.

“You know I often get home from work at 6 and the first thing I do is turn on my Windows 8 PC. It is top of the range much more powerful than the computers which sent the first men into space. Anyway as I was saying I turn on the computer and start gaming straight away. I lose track of time. When I start its 6 but when I look at the computer screen often its after midnight.”

“So what else do you do?” Laura had asked.

John had turned to her a look of genuine puzzlement on his face

“What do you mean?”

“What about your friends, you must go for a beer on a Friday evening sometimes?”

“My world is gaming. I know lots of people through gaming. We have never met but that doesn’t matter, we play online, it’s cool!”

Laura had manfully persisted

“But surely you have the odd social event with colleagues?”

“Oh at Christmas everyone goes to the work’s do. I hate these things but I go to keep my boss happy but as soon as the meals over I make my excuses and leave. Anyway as I was saying gaming is absolutely fantastic, there are so many different games that its impossible to get bored”.

John broke off suddenly remembering something

“What do you do Laura?”

“I’m a secretary in a solicitors office but in the evening I like to go to the cinema, read or”,

“There is this really cool game” John had continued cutting Laura off mid sentence.

Please not another gamer Laura preyed as she exited the taxi and walked the short distance to the restaurant.

Laura recognised Tom immediately. At well over six feet in height and with his cropped blonde hair and pearcing blue eyes he was unmistakable. At least he looks like the man I’ve been chatting to online Laura thought. That was surely a good omen.

Tom stood up and pulled out a chair for Laura. The gesture touched her. Tom was a perfect gentleman. The evening was going to go well Laura thought as she sank down into the cushioned seat.

“Its lovely to meet you Laura although we have been chatting for so long online that I feel we are old friends already”.

“Its good to meet you too Tom” Laura said taking Tom’s strong hand. Laura flinched involuntarily under Tom’s strong grip. Her poor fingers felt like dainty wild flowers which have been crushed under the hob nailed boots of a farm labourer. “You are hurting me”.

“Sorry I don’t know my own strength sometimes” Tom said releasing Laura’s hand.

Laura rubbed her fingers trying to massage some life back into them.

“What would you like to eat? I can recommend the rump steak with fresh vegetables. It really is delicious” Tom said handing Laura a menu.

“OK I’ll join you in the steak”.

“Great. What would you like to drink? The house white is excellent”.

“I’ll just have an orange juice thanks”.

“OK” Tom said beckoning to the waitress, “two steaks please. An orange juice and a bottle of the house white”.

Laura raised her eyebrows. Surely Tom wasn’t going to drink an entire bottle of wine. Evidently he was and perhaps she shouldn’t judge him to harshly as Laura and her best friend Amanda had on occasions polished off a couple of bottles of wine on a Friday evening between the two of them.

“You are much prettier in person than on the website”.

Laura blushed

“Thank you. I’ll take that as a compliment”.

“You look very English with that lovely blonde hair and your corn flower blue eyes. Are your parents English?”

“Yes why do you ask?”

“It is important to me that the English way of life is preserved”.

Laura looked confused.

“England used to be a great nation. Half the world showed red on the map. Who built up Africa and India? Who constructed the railways and stopped the natives from tearing one another apart? I’ll tell you who did all that. It was us, the English we bestrode the globe like a great colossus. We where the workshop of the world. Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester produced cotton and other manufactured goods which where sent all over the globe. Do you know how we managed all this? Because we the English race have the blood of warriors running through our veins. Saxons, Vikings and Romans mingle in this great nation to make us what we are, a people who’s destiny is to rule the world”. Tom stopped a far away look in his eyes.

“Are you a conservative?” Laura asked. Tom’s views where well to the right of anything which her Daily Telegraph reading father had ever voiced but perhaps Tom was on the right of the party.

“Conservatism and Socialism its all part of the same old corrupt social order. Socialism and Capitalism are both responsible for bringing this once great land to it’s knees. There is a conspiracy to destroy us the white race to make Britain a racial hell hole in which through race mixing an inferior breed of muddy brown people emerges who the emerging world government can control”.

Tom broke off as the waitress brought over the wine and orange juice.

“Just look at her” Tom said once the waitress had moved out of earshot. Obviously mixed race. Some people have no pride. I mean how can a patriotic English man or woman sleep with a black? They are betraying the race and diluting the blood of our country. Can’t you see that Laura soon it will be to late if we don’t act now. We need a government which will put a stop to the rot. Kick out the immigrants and institute a programme of national regeneration”.

Laura didn’t know much about politics but she was feeling increasingly uneasy.

“But Tom that girl was almost certainly born here. She speaks with a south London accent like mine. Where should she go back to? Her home is here”.

“If a pig lives among swans it remains a pig. No amount of dressing it up to look like a swan will make it a swan. That girl can never be British (Tom said refilling his glass), she is a half breed who will be rejected by her own community and those English men and women who haven’t been juped by the jew infested cesspit which some call the media”.

“Tom you are frightening me. Those are the kind of views which lead to the concentration camps” Laura said her face turning deathly pale.

“Laura you have swallowed the same lies as most of the population. The so-called Final Solution is a fiction cooked up by international jewry to gain support for the state of Israel. The next time we meet I’ll let you have a copy of a little pamphlet I have called “Did Six Million Really die?” It comprehensively debunks the myth of the holocaust”.

“So my great grandfather thought against the Nazis for nothing, is that what you are saying” Laura said. She could feel her hands shaking in her lap and tears pricking at the back of her eyes.

“The war should never have happened. Hitler wasn’t interested in conquering Britain. We could have allied with Germany and ruled the world together. India and large parts of Africa not to mention Sri Lanka would still be ours. Imagine Laura a proud nation striding ever onwards into the sunlit uplands of prosperity. A strong, healthy white race untainted by foreign blood dominating the world. The wrong people where tried and executed at Nuremberg. Churchill should have swung from the end of a rope along with the other conservative, labour and liberal politicians who led this once proud people into a war against our European brothers. Look at young people today. They have no sense of belonging. The race soul is dying. The world is turning into one great Disney playground in which people move aimlessly from one thing to another without ever truly believing in anything. We need, desperately to reconnect with our great past, to become great again and dispel the sense of hopelessness which is destroying our people. Nationalism, sod it I’ll call it what it is as I’m not ashamed of what I am, National Socialism is the only solution to the insanity of race mixing. We need a new order in which the white people of the world join together retaining their national identities but federated in a commonwealth or union, all working together to preserve western civilisation. Have you ever read Mein Kampf, it’s a truly awe inspiring book. Hitler was a genious who’s feet Churchill wasn’t fit to wash. I’ll lend it to you when we next meet”.

The steaks arrived. Tom picked up his  cutlery and began to attack the steak with relish.

“Aren’t you hungry Laura?”

“No. Tom I’m not interested in politics but one thing I do know. I’m proud to be British but that pride has nothing to do with race. We are for all our faults a tolerant country. In the 1930s the UK took in a lot of refugees from Nazi Germany many of whom would have undoubtedly died had we not done so. David Erving and others who either downplay Nazi atrocities or deny that they happened are either stupid or they are deliberately trying to whitewash the past so that foolish people will embrace, oh what’s the word (Laura screwed up her pretty face in concentration), neo-nazi ideas. Quite frankly you make me want to throw up. You want to turn Britain into a nation of unthinking swastika waving robots all singing the same songs and marching to the same tunes. That isn’t what makes the country which I love great. It is the values of tolerance and the liberal democracy which you so detest which makes this land one I’m proud to call home. My dad often says that the English just want to be left alone to cultivate their gardens. Funny I used to think that dad was an old reactionary but, having met you I can see the inate decency in him and the other small l liberals who just want to be left alone to live their lives as they see fit”.

“Are you Jewish Laura? You spout the kind of poisonous rubbish pumped out by the Jewish controlled media”.

“I feel sorry for you Tom. You are so full of hate” Laura said standing up and reaching for her coat. Don’t contact me again”. Laura headed for the door and without looking back stepped out into the evening gloom.

The end

The Fascist In Your Bed

Imagine that you are in the dating game and that the man or woman of your dreams appears on the sceene. This is, I understand what happened in the case of a certain young lady who was in search of her knight in shining armour. Well not quite, for the man in question turned out to hold views which would have had him expelled from any centre-right (conservative) party. He was, in short a Fascist who openly avowed his admiration for Adolf Hitler. Needless to say that when the lady in question discovered the true colours of her date she removed herself so rapidly out of his clutches that one could not see her for dust.

The lady in question is not known to me. I am, however acquainted with a friend of hers and can vouch for the authenticity of the incident.

It occurred to me that the above incident would make for an interesting story without (obviously) naming the people involved or providing any clue to their identity. I hope to write a (fictional) story along these lines over the coming weeks.

Communal Living Anyone?

Can people live together in a state of equality by which I mean a society in which resources are shared equally and each individual contributes to the good of the whole community? The collapse of the former Soviet Union together with it’s former satelites in Eastern Europe has lead many to contend that such a state of afairs is pie in the sky. States which aim at equality inevitably degenerate into dictatorships which are neither equal or free the argument goes. But what about small communities or communes? Can groups of like minded individuals come together and live in a state of equality in which each person contributes to the common good? In any case how should we define the common good? Does it exist?

I have an idea for a story in which the above themes will be explored. I envisage a group of idealistic people joining together to farm the land in common and escape from what they perceive to be the materialism and corruption of capitalist society. Will their little community work or is it doomed to failure? Watch this space.

Mandrake

At university back in the dim and distant past I read history and politics. One of the books I read as part of The History of Political Thought was a slim tome by the Italian writer Machiavelli entitled “The Prince” which, in essence argues that might is right and that princes (those wielding power) are entitled to use whatever means are at their disposal to retain power. Machiavelli’s arguments have lead to him being labelled as immoral by some while others argue that he is a political realist who was describing the real world rather than the world as we would, ideally like it to be.

I was reminded of my studies when my friend Brian asked whether I would like to attend a production of Machiavelli’s “Mandrake” at the Brockley Jack Theatre, in London on Saturday 15 June, I wasn’t aware (or at any rate I’d forgotten) that Machiavelli had, in addition to “The Prince” written a farce, consequently I jumped at the opportunity to attend. The fact that the theatre is located above the Brockley Jack pub was, I must confess an added incentive to go along!

The description of the play as it appears on the Brockley Jack’s website is as follows:

“Mandrake – Machiavelli’s greatest sex farce.

 

Callimaco wants Lucrezia: Lucrezia is married to Sir Nicia. Sir Nicia wants children. Ligurio wants to please both Callimaco and Sir Nicia. But what happiness

can Lucrezia find? And Siro, the unpaid servant, how can he turn things to his advantage?

 

It’s about marriage, lust, adultery, corruption and deceit – all aided by the Mandrake Infusion. Machiavelli’s comedy is one of the landmarks of the Italian

Renaissance – it marks the break with Medieval drama and is the forerunner of Shakespeare’s comedies.

 

It played to packed houses in the Florence of the Medici; in Venice it was so popular that the audience overwhelmed the stage and made it impossible to

complete. And it has remained popular ever since.”

I’m looking forward to attending. For further information on the play and the Brockley Jack please visit http://www.brockleyjack.co.uk/brockley_jack_studio_whats_on.html