tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1331581987009321012024-03-13T20:22:22.875-07:00A Musing MichaelMichael in Milton Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17965744962327164553noreply@blogger.comBlogger85125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133158198700932101.post-19636644764621087252020-08-01T05:12:00.001-07:002020-08-01T05:12:59.125-07:00Nothing disrupts the system like an inquisitive mind<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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July 2020 – Any persuader worth his/her salt knows that a good way to direct a conversation is to ask questions. A simple “why?” or “why not?” is invaluable in this context and it tends to prolong the engagement.<br />
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If a salesman invites you to buy his product and you decline, a simple ‘Why?’ from him (why don’t you want to buy?) could often lead you and me into a labyrinth of defensive answers, including our own ‘white’ lies, that could continue the conversation until he finds our weak spot. But the same is true when you or I ask the same question of him. That’s when his lies begin to come out.<br />
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Forget his wish to ‘see you right’, or ‘it would be just perfect for your needs’, or ‘you know it makes sense’. Lies, all lies. His job is to get you to buy his product and, one way or another, his payment depends upon it. Especially in these days of agencies and franchises and no-contract employment. Under those circumstances rare is the salesman who would refrain from closing a sale on the grounds of ‘it just isn’t right for you’. They are out there but they are few and far between.<br />
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However, we tend to differentiate subconsciously between the private trader and those who appear to have authority over us, such as police, or men in hi-viz jackets and hard hats, or the man from the Council. Then, we tend not to ask ‘why’. When told to jump, all too often, our unspoken response is ‘how high?’ It’s a very British thing, doncha know? As in, there’s no need for rudeness after all is said and done.<br />
We tend to grant authority over us to those who have the chutzpah to act as though they have it already. (Wikipedia defines chutzpah as: “Chutzpah is the quality of audacity, for good or for bad. It derives from the Hebrew word ḥutspâ, meaning "insolence", "cheek" or "audacity".) With that information, I just had to look up Roget’s 21st century thesaurus: Thesaurus.com for synonyms and antonyms.<br />
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SYNONYMS FOR AUDACIOUS<br />
•<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>adventurous<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>aweless<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>enterprising<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>smart ass<br />
•<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>bold<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>brassy<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>fearless<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>unafraid<br />
•<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>courageous<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>brave<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>gutty<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> uncurbed<br />
•<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>foolhardy<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>cheeky<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>intrepid<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>undaunted<br />
•<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>resolute<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>daredevil<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>nervy<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>ungoverned<br />
•<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>risky<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>dauntless<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>rash<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>venturesome<br />
ANTONYMS FOR AUDACIOUS<br />
•<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>afraid<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>shy<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>modest<br />
•<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>careful<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>timid<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>reserved<br />
•<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>cautious<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>weak<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> yielding<br />
•<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>cowardly<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>gentle<br />
•<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>fearful<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>humble<br />
•<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>meek<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>mild<br />
Now, use just your best guess, please. In your opinion, which of those two lists best describes “Britons never, ever, shall be slaves”? There is no need for the second, alternative question.<br />
Note, please, that none of those synonyms include the idea of offensiveness, intimidation, hooliganism or rudeness. Nowhere is there a suggestion of PRIDE, which anyway usually goes before a fall. You might even say that these definitions cover my often-used mantra of <br />
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Cause no harm</div>
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Be honest</div>
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Be peaceful</div>
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Be responsible</div>
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Isn’t that interesting?<br />
Here is another question I’ve been musing about recently. How do WE value things? Do we use the same value system as almost everyone else or are we different in some way?<br />
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A couple of thoughts came to me while I was half listening to a news reader on voyeur-vision warbling on about how something had ‘cost’ the NHS so-and-so amounts of money. My first thought was that the corporation known as NHS has no money beyond that which the pollies give from general taxation or, maybe, borrowing from the banks.<br />
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The second was to note that whatever it was that was being reported on had been performed by living people, presumably, for the benefit of other living people, but was being valued in money terms. How come? How can we value what we do for the well-being of each other in terms of fiat currency which is created out of thin air and described as interest-bearing debt, or has been forcibly demanded from ordinary working people and described as ‘tax’ or ‘National Insurance’, automatically taken from us under threat of harm if it isn’t paid? (Please excuse the over-long sentence but this subject makes me cross).<br />
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Which part of “Cause no harm/Be honest/Be peaceful/Be responsible” best describes those transactions? In asking this, I acknowledge in advance that ‘the labourer is worthy of his hire’ – (Luke 10:7,1 Timothy 5:18, Matthew 10:10, Leviticus 19:13, Deuteronomy 24:15). In other words: It’s in the book that we should be paid for our labour! Even when the corporation has no money.<br />
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It has been well observed – and then ignored by most – that ‘The LOVE OF MONEY is a root of all evil’. Another question: Why is this statement ignored by so many? We all know that we came into this world naked, ignorant, and penniless. We shall certainly leave this world penniless, probably dressed to impress, and possibly a little better informed (which isn’t the same as being wiser) when we leave it. But as the pharaohs of old Egypt have shown down the centuries, despite our best efforts, we cannot take it with us, and death and others can still take it from us.<br />
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And I wonder, just how dumb are we that we will not understand these things. There now. There’s another question for us to think about.<br />
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(MD)<br />
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<br />Michael in Milton Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17965744962327164553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133158198700932101.post-10973593582466141512020-07-07T12:45:00.000-07:002020-07-07T12:45:03.565-07:00We don't know what we don't knowEarly July 2020 – Cast your mind back to a time when people thought (believed) that the Earth is flat. And it was so, because it was taught so at university, until all that changed. At the time, they just didn’t know what they didn’t know.<br />
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Now cast your mind back to a time when people thought (believed) that the Sun orbits the Earth. And it was so, because it was taught so as knowledge at university, until all that changed. They just didn’t know what they didn’t know. (As it happens, according to Time magazine in February 2014:<br />
“1 in 4 Americans Apparently Unaware the Earth Orbits the Sun.”)<br />
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Now go back to when HIRUDOTHERAPY - the application of leeches to the skin - were thought (believed) to be helpful in treating all sorts of conditions, from headaches to haemorrhoids. And it was so, because it was taught so as knowledge at medical universities everywhere, until all that changed. They just didn’t know what they didn’t know. For example, about pain suppressants and antibiotics.<br />
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The point is, we cannot rely on science to provide us with all the right answers all the time. It can provide us with seemingly right answers to date in time. But we still don’t know what we don’t know.<br />
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If the opposite is true (ie we CAN rely on science to provide us with all the right answers all the time), we could shut down most research in universities on the grounds that we know all there is to know therefore further research is pointless. We are as gods!<br />
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So, what value is there in Professors and doctors telling politicians what is and what isn’t true while still wanting to be paid to continue researching? Is it an admission that they don’t know what they don’t know? None of us do. Which means that instructions to ‘lock down’, to keep xyz distance apart from others, to not sing in a pub or a church, are just the understanding we have today. We don’t know what understanding we shall have tomorrow. But, for lack of full understanding, businesses, jobs, travel and education (!) have been shut down across the world (except in Denmark, apparently) and families ruined because we trusted people who didn’t know and wouldn’t admit that they didn’t know what they didn’t know. Give him the money, Mabel. (As Wilfred Pickles used to say).<br />
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That is only partly a silly argument, of course. But it does highlight the difference between research and tuition in universities, and between those ‘students’ who just want a certificate that will lead to a job and those who have permanent curiosity about their subjects of choice. It’s when they begin to advise politicians that the troubles begin, it seems to me.<br />
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Politicians are a whole different matter, of course. Far too many seem to care more about what is expedient than what might be true. That means, if the proposed solution fits, go for it, and worry about the consequences before the next election. Oooh! How cynical does one have to be to find something that looks and feels like truth?<br />
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I listened to BBC Radio4 this morning as journalists interviewed all and sundry about closed theatres, opening pubs and restaurants, and what is generally referred to as ‘the return to normal(ity)’. The accepted premise is that the way we lived pre-CV19 was ‘normal’. To my mind that represents a sophisticated attitude, meaning ‘complex and probably not natural’. Maybe ‘abnormal’?<br />
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Stay with me and my thought processes on this one. Is it ‘normal’ to spend 2-3 hours a day travelling to and from a place of work? Of course not. It has ‘become normal’ but that is a different matter.<br />
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Is it normal to live in the equivalent of a small box, stacked one on top of another into a tower of ‘flats’? Of course not, but it has ‘become normal’. It most certainly isn’t ‘natural’. Put another way, it is un-natural or even ab-normal, but it seems to work for some people, some of the time.<br />
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What I’m really describing is our comfort zone. We might not like it especially, but we stay with it because it feels more acceptable and comfortable than any change might turn out to be. What timid souls we can be. How conservative.<br />
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Others don’t want change because it wasn’t their idea, and then it becomes political. We know those people as socialists, or communists or just about anything else ending in -ists or -holes. Undecideds are liberals and they are the ‘whatevers’ of this world.<br />
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And there you have it. See how easy it is to create splits and dissent simply by applying a label? Sticks and stone can break my bones, but names can never hurt me. <b>HOW BIG is THAT lie?</b><br />
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<br />Michael in Milton Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17965744962327164553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133158198700932101.post-88971984303007264922020-06-19T04:13:00.001-07:002020-06-19T04:13:48.590-07:00Give a man a fish . . . . <div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Give a Man a Fish, and You Feed Him for a Day. </b></div>
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<b>Teach a Man to Fish, and You Feed Him for a Lifetime</b></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Mid-June 2020 – You have all heard that headlined proverb before. Mostly, we think we understand it. And, mostly, we fail to implement it or understand the consequences of not doing so.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">The proof in that particular pudding is seen all around us daily. The prime minister and/or his scientific advisers call for a lockdown, first in general and later in particular, especially identifying the elderly and infirm. Employees in most businesses are given ‘furlough’ - a noun which means ‘forced absence from work without pay’. The prime minister and his sycophants (sycophants today – back stabbers tomorrow) tell folks they shouldn’t worry because the government will pay those unfortunates up to £2,500 per month to alleviate the ensuing difficulties they will face. This, I suggest, is the equivalent of ‘giving a man a fish, and thus feeding him for a day’. Next day/week/month he will want to be fed again.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Generally speaking, this is how animal trainers train animals. First, make it clear to the animal what it is you want it to do; then reward the animal in some way when it complies. Reward usually means giving the animal some tidbit or tasty delicacy. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Human Resources (HR) people do it all the time. So do commercial organisations with their offers to customers of ‘if you buy this, we will give you that’. So do governments. So, how does it feel to be made aware now that you are being trained continuously, just like an animal?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">The complete proverb provides a possible solution. “Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Or, put in a slightly different way: Forget about trying to rebuild the broken system ALL OVER THE WORLD. There is no point in looking backwards because ‘If we continue to do as we’ve always done, we’re likely to get what we’ve always got’. Warts and all. Clearly, that isn’t good enough.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Instead, why not offer to retrain/reskill those who are enduring furlough but are willing to learn new skills, tasks, and trades, including entrepreneurship and how to build a business? That would provide many people with hope for the future rather than just giving them a little fishy on a little dishy when the boat comes in. It doesn’t seem to have registered with ‘the authorities’, however.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Sadly, the problem and the possible solution I’ve just offered for thoughtful consideration aren’t the whole story.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">The truth is that our pensions, social benefits and NHS system is just one, great, big PONZI scheme. What is a PONZI scheme, I hear you ask?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">It is a fraudulent ‘investment’ plan in which the investments of later investors are used to pay earlier investors, giving the appearance that the investments of the initial participants dramatically increase in value in a short amount of time. (<i>The Legal Free Dictionary</i>).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">So, we pay our National Insurance as we go (P.A.Y.E.) but that money isn’t invested. Instead, it pays out today to provide services to those who paid/contributed in a similar fashion over previous years. It looks as though their investment is coming good when they need it, but it isn’t because today’s NI benefits are paid out from the money paid in as NI contributions last week/month.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">As businesses and jobs disappear, so does the PAYE contribution until, eventually the system collapses through lack of funds. The NHS will collapse; state pension payments will cease; and everything we look to the government to supply, will cease. There is no salvation coming from ‘the government’. It has no money.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">In the meantime, banks remove themselves from the High Street and show themselves to be the international casinos they truly are. Soon, they will remove their ATMs from the High Street. There will be no cash and shop owners won’t want to accept cash because there are no local banks in which to deposit it at the end of the day. That is happening TODAY in my local High Street. There will be credits on a microchip on a square of plastic only, provided that you can represent some kind of value (or compliance) to the world. Those who are unable to provide for themselves will become pariahs. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Yet, despite all this, no one is taking steps to prepare people for their miserable future. Why would they? It wouldn’t go well in the political opinion polls. But don’t worry. We still have the Postcode Lottery to look forward to.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">I conclude that the intention in some unseen quarters is, over time, to allow or encourage large portions of society to go under; to fall sick and not be treated because the NHS and pensions are unaffordable; to die of starvation because they have no means of paying for food. (Because they haven’t complied with other ‘regulations’.) And at that stage people will understand that our money system is the biggest fraud of all. There is no money – just interest-bearing credit repayable to international Central banks. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Gordon Brown and HM Treasury sold at a discount 395 tonnes (approximately 58%) of the gold which previously had backed our money, over the period between 1999 and 2002, when gold prices were at their lowest in 20 years. Today he is the United Nations Special Global Envoy for Education, with all the ramifications of the New World Order which are embedded in that job title for us all to see.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">It crossed my mind a few moments ago that it just might be that those in positions of supposed authority over us (those we thought we had voted for), understand already that there is little future for us to worry about, if we continue to do as we’ve always done. THAT is something to concern ourselves about. But we never learn. Not now Primark is open again.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Somebody reminded me recently that after Archduke Franz Ferdinand Carl Ludwig Joseph Maria of Austria (18 December 1863 - 28 June 1914) was murdered and World War 1 broke out, some 8,500,000 soldiers died because of wounds and/or disease. The greatest number of casualties and wounds were inflicted by artillery, followed by small arms, and then by poison gas, according to Britannica.com. One against 8.5 million? Words fail me.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">According to the National World War II museum, WORLDWIDE CASUALTIES*</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Battle Deaths<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>15,000,000</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Battle Wounded<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>25,000,000</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Civilian Deaths<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>45,000,000</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">*Worldwide casualty estimates vary widely in several sources. The number of civilian deaths in China alone might well be more than 50,000,000.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">All of which causes me to reflect on how we elect our leaders; what power we are prepared to entrust to them, and how we ensure that the people are the authority in this land, not the here-today-gone- tomorrow politicians, and certainly NOT the political parties.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Don’t think of this as a silly idea concocted by an old man. This idea, born with Magna Carta 1215 has been the bedrock of our Constitution, and the Constitutions of much of the Commonwealth, since then. But generations of politicians, judiciary and bankers have worked without ceasing to steal the truth from us. Nevertheless, when you know the truth, it shall set you free.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">* * * *</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">For further information, I recommend you to research via www.democracydefined.org or the printed version </span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">published as: </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">DEMOCRACY DEFINED: The Manifesto</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"> ISBN 978-1-902848-26-</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"> By Kenn d’Oudney</span></div>
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Michael in Milton Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17965744962327164553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133158198700932101.post-5711861861080748002020-05-31T09:36:00.001-07:002020-05-31T09:36:46.787-07:00THAT'S THE WAY TO DO IT!<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> That’s the way to do it</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">June 1st, 2020 – Do you ever stop to think of the mountain of differences that separate mankind from his neighbours? I do, sometimes. And when I do, I’m totally amazed at the size of the job in front of us if we want to see life lived differently. Statisticians, economists, politicians, and the hacks who write for our various media, all seem to agree that ‘things will be different’ in future.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Probably they are right. After the happenings of the last three months who would take bets on the number of our population; who would take bets on the numbers who will be earning a living and who will be dependent on state support? Not many. It’s all more or less semi-intelligent guesswork, depending on which abacus or crystal ball is used.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Four nations form the political Kingdom sometimes known as Great Britain, which sometimes seems far from United. Many in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would prefer to live on these islands and speak a language other than English, if only they could make the idea popular. Some immigrants, especially in England would do the same.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The common religion is secularism, which stands aside from the Church of England, the (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland, the autonomous Anglican Church of Ireland, the Church in Wales, which is the Anglican Church in Wales, and the Roman Catholic Church. Spread among the nations are Independents, Methodists, Baptists, (Plymouth) Brethren, Quakers, 7th Day Adventists, Mormons, Pentecostal, Evangelical, Congregational, United Reformed, Uniting, and Eastern Orthodox.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then there are Jews (Judaism), Muslims, Buddhists, Sikh, Hindu, Atheism/Agnosticism, Confucianism, Rastafarians, Satanists. And more. Roughly 66 million people, or thereabouts. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Loosely speaking, they have one thing in common. With varying degrees of goodwill towards each other, they all stand apart on the principal of ‘I’m right, and you are wrong’. Against that, Ecumenicalism has a tough job.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Aside from multiple differences in language and religion across the four nations, there are also differing political views, all bearing a simple title which is <b>intended </b>to highlight their differences. Conservatives, Socialists, (Liberal) Democrats, Marxists, Communists, Fascists, the Greens, the Independents. Sub-divided yet again between male and female, and again between young and old, and again between healthy and sick, employed, and unemployed, owners of property and renters, leaders and followers, entrepreneurs and feckless, wealthy, and poor.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In other words, potentially, 66 million differing views about How To Do It. Life seems to be a Punch and Judy Show, with the emphasis on ‘show’.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then, in other moments of reflection, I consider the meaning and purpose of family. Those unique groups of people made up of father/husband, mother/wife, brothers/sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. If we watch our animal friends it seems the natural way for them is for mother to nurture the offspring, and father to be the provider of food and shelter, social positions which are swapped from time to time, presumably on grounds of expediency rather than desire for change.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Marauders know that the way to a ‘kill’ is first to separate the family and attack the weakest/youngest. And that is precisely what happens in the affairs of mankind. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Fathers and mothers might well try to instill good practices into the minds of their children, but they must also send their children to a place to be ‘educated’ by others. Worse, they permit a one-eyed monster that never sleeps, living in the corner of their family room to advise, inform and train their children. Even animals don’t do that!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In between being children and becoming young people, modern mankind finds it s-o-o easy to carry a permanent, portable version of the one-eyed monster in their hip pockets. What price then the well-intentioned parents and grandparents? The bear trap jaws of anti-everything encircles, enfeebles, and destroys the family and we weep for our lost happiness and seemingly fragile security. The animal kingdom shows us too often that the new ways and lifestyles we have adopted are not natural and not necessarily good for us.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">AND YET!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Who gave them power over you? YOU DID! Who acknowledged their titles and ranks? YOU DID! In secular terms, who claims to be a sovereign being? YOU DO! (You know your rights, doncha?). In Christian terms we assert that God is sovereign. In Islam (Allahu Akbar ‘God is greater’) and Judaism (Elohim gadol), the same but not as frequently used. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So, take your pick. Whichever one you choose, it will mean that YOU will have to address the world differently from here on. If you see yourself as sovereign there is no longer any requirement for you to kowtow to the physical powers that surround you unless you fear them, which isn’t the basis for any kind of happy family environment. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ditto if you adopt an alternative belief but if you do that, I think we aren’t speaking about natural things anymore. Rather, we’re addressing spiritual (super-natural) matters, and when that happens it isn’t just a matter of words. It really is a matter of who has the greater power - and it isn’t the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * * *</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russell</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Michael in Milton Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17965744962327164553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133158198700932101.post-72786966549263501792020-03-25T05:22:00.000-07:002020-03-25T05:22:10.757-07:00The Power of M<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Recently, </span></b><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I
mused about some of the 3-word phrases of instruction and encouragement uttered
by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and others among his playmates. The most
recent is: ‘Stay at Home’. Repeat them often enough and they become a mantra to
be repeated without thinking. “What do we want?” “When do we want it?”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Idly, I mused about the
expressed urgency to have the whole nation connected to broadband internet and
the money government was putting into private companies, such as Openreach, to
obtain this result. Why would government choose to spend taxpayer’s money to
hurry up private companies to do what they would get around to doing anyway in
the fullness of their own commercial time? Why? Surely, there are more important
things to spend it on. I see the ‘hurry-up’ related to ‘Stay at Home’? As in,
we need the hurry up first before we can get to promoting Stay at Home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">(For those who are unaware, <span style="background: white; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Openreach is a
functional division of telecommunications company <b><span style="background: yellow; mso-highlight: yellow;">BT plc</span></b>, that maintains the telephone
cables, ducts, cabinets and exchanges that connect nearly all homes and
businesses in the United Kingdom to the national broadband and telephone
network).</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Before drifting to sleep, I wondered if I could create a
three-word mantra to throw back at the chanters. I came up with “Money, money,
money.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span class="lf-line"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span class="lf-line"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Money, money, money</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
<span class="lf-line">Must be funny</span><br />
<span class="lf-line">In the rich man's world</span><br />
<span class="lf-line">Money, money, money</span><br />
<span class="lf-line">Always sunny</span><br />
<span class="lf-line">In the rich man's world</span><br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Hlk35976391"><span class="lf-line">Aha-ahaaa</span><br />
<span class="lf-line">All the things I could do</span><br />
<span class="lf-line">If I had a little money</span></a><br />
<span class="lf-line">It's a rich man's world</span></span><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="lf-line"><br /></span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="lf-line"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ah, money. </span><span class="js-about-item-abstr"><span style="background: white; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0cm;">In Jewish and Christian tradition, <b>the love of</b>
money is condemned as a sin primarily based on texts such as Ecclesiastes 5.10
and 1 Timothy 6:10. The Jewish and Christian condemnation relates to avarice
and greed rather than money itself. </span></span><b><span style="background: white; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #00278e; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_of_money">Wikipedia</a></span></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And that led me to ‘The
Power of M’. Everything in life seems to be ‘Monetarized’; or ‘Militarized’;
and then ‘Monopolized’. And ‘Magnified’. I Mused.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Beginning with money. Was it just
chance that among my reading that morning included:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 16.8pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<i><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">"The fact that these foolish
people are often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that they are not
independent. In conversation with them, one virtually feels that one is dealing
not at all with them as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like
that have taken possession of them. They are under a spell, blinded, misused,
and abused in their very being.</span></i><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<i><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Having
thus become a mindless tool, the foolish person will also be capable of any
evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where
the danger of <u>diabolical</u> misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and
for all destroy the human soul.” (</span></i><u><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">meaning</span></u><i><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> = </span></i><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">having the qualities of a devil; devilish; fiendish; outrageously
wicked: </span><span style="color: #4a4a4a; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">a diabolic plot; </span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">pertaining to or actuated by a devil.) - </span><b><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and
Papers From Prison</span></b><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<b><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 16.8pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">And: </span><i><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">"The
sense of responsibility in the financial community for the community as a whole
is not small. <b>It is nearly nil</b>. Perhaps this is inherent. In a community
where the primary concern is making money, one of the necessary rules is to
live and let live. To speak out against madness may be to ruin those who have
succumbed to it. So, the wise in Wall Street are nearly always silent. The
foolish thus have the field to themselves. None rebukes them." - </span></i><b><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash of 1929<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 16.8pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Or, as noted above, the love of money
is a root of all evil.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 16.8pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 16.8pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<b><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Monetarized </span></b><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">(or do I mean Monetized?)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h3 style="background: white; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">If
there were to be no ‘money’ it is likely there would be no reward system
involving competition. We would revert to barter which, stripped down, means
‘you do this for me, and I’ll do that for you. Deal?’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or, as the Book of Genesis puts it: </span><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+3%3A19&version=ESV"><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Genesis 3:19</span></a><span style="color: #625529; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> </span><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">By the sweat of your face you shall eat
bread</span></i></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, till you return to
the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you
shall return.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Not much room for freebies and
handouts there. If you don’t work, you don’t eat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 16.8pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<b><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Militarized</span></b><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h3 style="background: white; margin-top: 3.6pt;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">There
were no standing armies in days gone by. Roughly armed men of the land were
assembled by the King to fight on his behalf as and when the need arose. Some
were paid with salt – salarium – salary. S</span><span lang="LA" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: LA; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">alārium</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> <i>n</i> (<i>genitive</i> </span><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=salarii&action=edit&redlink=1" title="salarii (page does not exist)"><span lang="LA" style="color: #a55858; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: LA; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">salāriī</span></a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> <i>or</i> </span><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/salari#Latin" title="salari"><span lang="LA" style="color: #0b0080; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: LA; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">salārī</span></a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">); </span><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Latin_second_declension" title="Appendix:Latin second declension"><i><span style="color: #0b0080; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">second
declension</span></i></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1.2pt; margin-left: 38.4pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">a </span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/salary" title="salary"><span style="color: #0b0080; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">salary</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">, </span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stipend" title="stipend"><span style="color: #0b0080; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">stipend</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">, </span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/allowance" title="allowance"><span style="color: #0b0080; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">allowance</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">, </span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pension" title="pension"><span style="color: #0b0080; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">pension</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">; originally money given to soldiers
with which to buy salt<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1.2pt; margin-left: 38.4pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">a </span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><span style="color: #0b0080; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/meal" title="meal">meal</a></span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1.2pt; margin-left: 38.4pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">But that is schoolboy stuff and
philosophers and soldiers have thought much on these things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 19.4pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 19.4pt;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">“Every gun that is made, every
warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft
from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This
world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers,
the genius of its scientists, the hope of its children.”</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> - </span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">— <i>Dwight D.
Eisenhower</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">So, <b>money and military</b>
go hand in hand, it seems. </span><span class="lf-line"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Aha-ahaaa!
All the things I could do If I had a little money, says the politician. I can
help you there, says the banker.</span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 16.8pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 16.8pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<b><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Monopolized<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 16.8pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Everyone should understand that
almost everything that a government spends money on is part of an enormous
Ponzi scheme. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">(Ponzi Scheme = A fraudulent investment plan in which the contributions
of later joining members are used to pay earlier contributors, giving the
appearance that the contributors ‘investment’ dramatically increases in value
in a short period of time. A pension scheme can be a Ponzi scheme when it is
run by government because usually incoming funds (tax income) involves no long-term
investment. When income (tax) falls below outgoings, the shortfall is made up
by borrowing from central banks which happily provide interest-bearing credit.)
Illegal if YOU do it. Perfectly OK if government and banks do it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Magnified<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Now a question. Do all of us understand compound interest? It is the
mathematics of a banker. </span><span style="background: white; color: #111111; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Compound interest
(or compounding interest) is interest calculated on the initial principal,
which also includes all the accumulated interest of previous periods of a
deposit or loan.</span><span style="background: white; color: #111111; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"> </span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background: white; color: #111111; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Compound interest
can significantly boost investment (lending) returns over the long term. While
a £100,000 deposit that receives 5% simple interest would earn £50,000 in
interest over 10 years, compound interest of 5% on £10,000 would amount to £62,889.46
over the same period. That’s why credit cards and mortgages are so expensive no
matter what you are told about the interest rate.</span><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">What could we do to overcome or avoid the Power of M? Good question. We
couldn’t go back to simple barter. It is difficult to imagine how we could obtain
anything beyond our daily bread if the basis of exchange is barter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">We could take away from private bankers the right to print interest-bearing
credit ‘money’– hear them weep at the very idea – and have our own government
provide the needed liquidity. It has been done before!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #252525; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">“In
August 1914, at the outbreak of the First World War, to avoid the imminent
collapse of the private banks and the Bank of England itself, Parliament passed
a Bill through Parliament in two days which authorised HM Treasury – <strong><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">not</span></strong> the
Bank of England – to create, issue and control money that was debt-free and
interest-free because it was based entirely on the wealth and potential of the
British nation. The high-street banks reopened and people who had planned to
withdraw their savings in gold were more than happy to accept these new
Treasury notes created by HM Government and there were no problems at all
concerning inflation. The private banking system was saved from collapse but
unfortunately the politicians (who were, <strong><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">and still are</span></strong>,
subservient to the wishes of the City of London) went back to borrowing
debt-laden ‘money out of thin air’ from the private financial sector which
resulted in the bankers being able to make a killing out of the killing on the
Western Front. And it also meant that the National Debt went up
unlawfully from £650 million in 1914 to £7,500 million in 1919.” – </span><span style="color: #252525; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Justin Walker. <a href="http://www.britishconstitutiongroup.com/">www.britishconstitutiongroup.com</a>
and <a href="http://www.newchartistmovement.org.uk/">www.newchartistmovement.org.uk</a>
</span><span style="color: #252525; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">That must be worth thinking about. Mmmm!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />Michael in Milton Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17965744962327164553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133158198700932101.post-54017201121262871632020-02-25T04:51:00.000-08:002020-02-25T04:51:18.502-08:00Your name MEANS something<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>March 2020</b> – I read a report this morning that almost made me weep. The headline read: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Boris Govt: Releasing Report on Ethnicity of </b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b> Rape Gangs ‘Not in Public Interest’, Ministers Need ‘Safe Space’</b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It went on in some detail, including 16 mugshots of men, presumably gang members because the ‘credit’ on the photographs was given to West Yorkshire police.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“Boris Johnson’s government <b>(who, precisely?)</b> has refused to release a report on the ethnic background of grooming gangs, saying it is not in “the public interest” and would deprive ministers of a “safe space” to shape policy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The grooming gangs investigation was announced by Sajid Javid, the former Home Secretary, in 2018, with a pledge that he would “not let cultural or political sensitivities get in the way of understanding the problem and doing something about it”.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The promised transparency soon evaporated, however, with Home Office bureaucrats <b>(who, precisely?</b>) deciding that the report would in fact remain “internal” — and top-level politicians and parliamentarians <b>(who, precisely?)</b> representing constituencies plagued by grooming gangs questioning whether a real investigation was even carried out.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now attempts by the left-wing Independent news website (an inanimate concoction – <b>so who, precisely?</b>) to have the report disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act have foundered, with the Home Office <b>(who, precisely?)</b>, now led by Priti Patel, insisting it is not in “the public interest”. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Nor, presumably, in the interest of those unidentified persons in the Home Office.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Why should I almost weep over this article? Why should you care?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Have you ever heard the expression: ‘He who pays the piper calls the tune’? Well, bear in mind that every single one of those unidentified spokes persons mentioned above, is paid from the public purse. Which leads me to believe that the idiom ‘he who pays’ means that taxpayers (the public) have an over-ruling say in the matter, over-ruling the hirelings. We, the people/public, put them where they are, not to do what they want but to do what we want. That’s the way it must be if we, the people, are to be free people. (Unless, of course, we are NOT the piper payer. There could be better funded private payers simultaneously paying more, couldn’t there? Vested interests?) The idiom then would be about a dog and two masters.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">* * * *</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I don’t spend much time watching voyeur-vision, but I did a few weeks ago when the Hollywood epic Western film ‘Dances With Wolves’, starring Kevin Costner, was broadcast. It is twenty years old and I hadn’t seen it before.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">To my way of thinking the film is loaded with subliminal messages. (1) The Latoka Sioux Indians are just one of several native American tribes in that part of the world; (2) All of them identify first and foremost as of the same family; (3) They recognise hierarchy within the family. (4) Only men are named as Chiefs and names follow personal attributes or skills. (5) The ‘families’ formed into councils where equal time and attention was given to whoever spoke. (6) The councils could, if argued strongly enough, over-rule the Chief. (7) Strangers remained as strangers, even if they lived with the tribe, until such time as their worth to the tribe became evident through their actions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Put another way, it seemed to me like a prototype <b>Natural Law</b>; unsophisticated but strong and very fair. Call it God’s Law, if you will. Call it Common Law, if you will. Also call it Trial by Jury and Nullification by Jury if you are on my wavelength.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then I mused for a while on the meaning of names. I read an observation made years ago by a man named Lysander Spooner. His observation was: "To say that majorities, as such, have a right to rule minorities, is equivalent to saying that minorities have, and ought to have, no rights, except such as majorities please to allow them." - Lysander Spooner</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(According to Wikipedia Lysander Spooner grew to be an American political philosopher, essayist, pamphlet writer, Unitarian, abolitionist, individualist anarchist, legal theorist, a member of the socialist First International and entrepreneur of the 19th century).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I mused: “What were his parents thinking to give their child the name ‘Lysander’? I looked up the meaning of Lysander – it means ‘liberator’. Lysander was a Spartan naval and military commander in 400 BC (and a character in Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hmm.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I thought about my parents and my given name – Michael. Michael is an archangel in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and is of Hebrew origin. It means “who is like God”. Wikipedia also tells me that Michael is an archangel and an archangel is an angel of high rank. The word "archangel" itself is usually associated with the Abrahamic religions, but beings who are very similar to archangels are found in several religious traditions. So, what were MY parents thinking when they gave me that name? This is shaping up to be a good game, good game.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Moving on and experimenting with names which loom large: What does Elizabeth mean? Apparently, it, too, is of Hebrew origin, and the meaning of Elizabeth is "God is my oath". Can also mean "God's promise", "God's satisfaction" or "God's perfection". The usual English spelling of Elisabeth, which was the usual form until the 16th-century reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England, whose popularity made the "z" spelling more common ever since. In the Bible, Elizabeth was the mother of John the Baptist. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I’m slowing down now but still there are questions. Such as: Why do our names have meanings? Best answer I can come up with: Because we aren’t numbers. (Despite computers).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I conclude this muse with reference to the Christmas nativity play all of us know from our youth. Matthew 1:20-22 King James Version (KJV):</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">20</span> But while he (Joseph) thought on these things, behold, the angel of the LORD (Gabriel) appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">21</span> And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">22</span> Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Joseph is the English form of the biblical Hebrew name Yosef, meaning ‘God shall add another son.’</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">* * * *</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hmm (again). What IS in a name?</span><br />
<br />Michael in Milton Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17965744962327164553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133158198700932101.post-4669888842288212012020-01-15T10:17:00.000-08:002020-01-15T10:17:07.195-08:00I KNOW MY PLACE (and it isn't at your feet)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>January 2020</b> – Silly season is over and we’re all back to work and fully refreshed and energized. Aren’t we? Aw, c’mon. You can do better than pull a face and roll your eyes. Have you never heard the famous saying: “Smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone”?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Or (my) not-so-famous-saying: “Laugh and the world laughs at you”? That’s because we just don’t know what we don’t know – and we don’t know that we don’t know. Sadly, most don’t even want to know what they don’t know – unless it is gossip. But you can bet your sweet life that somebody else does and that, given the opportunity, they will use it to their advantage, not yours and not mine. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That said, we all know our rights, don’t we? Yeah, right. The only ‘right’ many have heard about is the right to remain silent, made known to them by a fellow man (or woman, if you want to be politically correct), usually wearing a uniform, who does his/her job with (y)our consent. However, anything you do say will be recorded and may be used against you (but not in support of you) if ever push comes to shove.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And that strikes at the heart of things as I see them. For example, did you know that if someone demands money from you . . . with menaces (as in ’give me your money, or else’) it is a criminal act? Of course you do. In popular parlance it is known as ‘mugging’. And did you know that you are quite within your rights to tell that person “No, go away. It’s my money and I’ve earned it”? Or words to that effect.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Of course you do. So, if that is true, how come it is ‘acceptable’ for a council or government tax collector to demand money from you/us – ‘or else’? And we pay whatever is demanded . . . or pay someone else whose full-time job it is to present a case to the mugger to pay less than the sum demanded, in return for payment for doing so. I’ve heard it said that ‘you can’t fix stoopid’ and it seems to be true. Or, as Albert Einstein put it: “The difference between genius and stupidity is: genius has its limits”.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Notice if you will, it is ‘the collector’ who demands your money on behalf of the corporation known as ‘the government’ or ‘the council’ or some other institution. The corporations have no life because they are a lifeless fiction and the corporations have no money, nor need any, until a corporate slave ventures out to demand money from some other living person. What a clever trick. The corporations and institutions are silent idols and false gods. Those who speak on their behalf are deceivers, liars and cheats. As I said earlier, you/we don’t know what we don’t know. Neither do they, sometimes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We know already that the City of London is a corporation, don’t we? We know that the BBC is a corporation. It says so on the label. So when a media outlet claims that ‘the BBC said’ or ‘the City said’ they are creating a terminological inexactitude (creating a lie) because a man-made lifeless creation is incapable of speech. The real statement is (said) made by a living person pretending to represent the lifeless corporate fiction. Therefore, that person has no authority over us unless we first give our consent to it. Or, conversely, that other person is a tyrant. How come? Because we are all equal in the sight of God even if we don’t see ourselves as equal in the sight of each other. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now, there’s a thought!</span><br />
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* * * *</div>
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<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What is the Real Deception when Liars, Cheaters, and Thieves Control the Narrative?</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By Gary D. Barnett</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">January 11, 2020</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“I was a CIA director, we lied, we cheated we stole… like, we had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Michael Pompeo ~ U.S. Secretary of State and former CIA Director</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Donald Trump, the current head of U.S. politics, has lied, cheated, and stole, as well as ordered and authorized murder and mayhem, but he is not the only one. This is a trait of most all presidents, all political parties, of Congress, the CIA, the mainstream media, and most all other government bureaucracies, especially the entire “security and intelligence” sector of government. There is such an extreme mass of deception and lies that it has become almost impossible to ferret out any truth. The truth does exist of course, but has been purposely disappeared by sinister forces that continue to control the national narrative.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have long held that any sane person should believe nothing, and question everything. During this time in our history, nothing could be more important for clarity of honest thought and knowledge. This is not just a slogan, but also a necessity of life, if one is ever to understand the real workings of this profoundly corrupt system we live under. Nothing is ever as it seems, because everything is far different than presented. This is the long-standing fact of politics and political deception. That of course means that we all live in a purely propagandist state.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Why all the deception? What is the point? What is there to gain? Who stands to benefit? And more importantly, who stands to lose?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What has been happening recently has created new levels of outright arrogance, lying, fraud, hypocrisy, and dishonesty. This contemptible situation could never see the light of day if the general population simply had any ability or desire to think or participate in intelligent thought, instead of floundering in abject indifference and ignorance. Any unquestioned continuation of current events created and prosecuted by those in power could easily lead to apocalyptic war across the world. This scenario is no longer science fiction, or the ramblings of falsely labelled conspiracy theorists; it is teetering on the edge of reality. The situation is dire, and any slight push at this point could lead to all out war.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The stupidity of modern common man causes me great angst. I have attempted to understand the masses seemingly forever, but I cannot gain any understanding of the behaviour of the mob, regardless of all my observance, study and research. Those who rule over this mob are much easier to figure out, because they have an obvious agenda, and benefit greatly from these non-thinking groups of lethargic fools.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The current ruling class, those elite at the top including banking and corporate magnates and others, and their pawns in politics, the mainstream media, the military, and certain other powerful entities, all have the same desires. These desires are power, money, and control over all others in society. This is what is sought, and this is what drives the strong to lord over the weak. This is why the constant deception exists. The point of it all is power. The gain is more power, more money, and more control. This class of people is the benefactor of all the lies and deceit, and they will stop at nothing to achieve total control. The losers are all the rest of us.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am taking this somewhat more philosophical approach instead of reporting on all the current lies in the news that are leading us into a risk of global annihilation, in order to expose the bigger picture. There are a good number of great minds that are continually telling the truth, and the truths being exposed in the alternative news are staggering to say the least. It seems as if every single event, whether considering what is being reported about Iraq, Iran, Syria, or other fabricated attacks without evidence, are nothing but lies. Attacks on commercial planes, or murderous assassinations meant only to cause certain outrage, or unguided rockets meant to miss the supposed real targets, are all lies or false flags of one sort or another. For these things to be so remarkably obvious to thinkers, and yet at the same time so elusive to the common people, seems unimaginable.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">No matter how much effort I expend in order to understand mankind, and why death, destruction, and power wins out over compassion and harmony, I continually fall short in my efforts. This has always been frustrating for me, as I truly want to see the best in man, but experience has dampened that desire. I only have respect for the individual, and it is my position that only individuals can seek and find the truth, and use that knowledge to better themselves and then become a light for others to follow. In other words, the individual is what will save us, not the collective mass of those non-thinkers who have become complicit in their own destruction.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I had enormous respect for Butler Shaffer, and he summed up this dilemma in just a few prescient words. Those words are on a bench where his ashes have been placed. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They read: <b>“Civilizations are created by individuals. They are destroyed by collectives.”</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(ends)</span><br />
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First published by www.lewrockwell.com. Reproduced here with kind permission of the author. www.garybarnett.com<br />
<br />Michael in Milton Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17965744962327164553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133158198700932101.post-75677034955203501872019-11-17T02:06:00.000-08:002019-11-17T02:06:03.848-08:00THOSE WHO OWN THE DEBT, OWN THE PEOPLE. (Proverbs 22:7) SO, WHO OWNS UK NATIONAL DEBT?<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>THOSE WHO OWN THE DEBT, </b></div>
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<b>OWN THE PEOPLE. (Proverbs 22:7)</b></div>
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<b>SO, WHO OWNS UK NATIONAL DEBT?</b></div>
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<b>LATE November 2019 </b>– Or, starting from the beginning, who creates UK National debt? If I borrow £10 from a friend it isn’t UK National debt. That is personal debt, pure and simple. And a friend who lends me £10 is no true friend if he/she expects to be paid interest on top of the borrowed amount. Friends just don’t do that to one another.</div>
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So, by this definition, if a nation borrows money at interest it is likely that the lender is not a friend who is lending to a friend. The lender is one who expects to profit from the agreement. It’s nothing personal, as they say; it’s just business.</div>
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I thought about this the other day after hearing our political party leaders – who are NOT your friends nor mine – tell us all about the billions of pounds they would borrow to buy your favour (your vote) and mine. Questions: (a) Borrow from whom? (b) To be repaid by whom?</div>
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Answers: Borrow from international banks and corporations to be repaid by We, the People. Our national debt has become so large that repayment is impossible in a lifetime, and our political party leaders are willing to sign us into greater debt slavery (with money which isn’t really money but is nothing more than credit) to be borrowed in our name. Then politicians promise to use the as-yet-unarranged-credit to bribe us to vote for them. We endorse the offer and the transaction by voting for the go-betweens who will arrange it. In fact, we endorse their complete manifesto – warts and all – by voting for the go-betweens, otherwise known as political parties and political party leaders. So, how does that make you feel? They sweet-talk you while they screw you.</div>
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We become complicit in our own enslavement by giving our consent (our vote) to unseen ‘lenders’ otherwise identified as international banks, starting with the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) in Basle, Switzerland, and Central Banks in each country, via narcissistic politicians who will be here today and gone tomorrow, leaving the debt to be repaid by generations yet to be born. Our children will spit on our graves because of our selfish stupidity today which enslaves them for all their tomorrows. (Echoes of something I heard on Remembrance Sunday church parade, perhaps?)</div>
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This morning I watched ’Breakfast’ on BBC voyeur-vision, broadcast from Auckland Castle in Bishop Auckland, my home town. One after another the local people spoke of their concerns . . . none of which seemed to include the “B” word. More government spending on various aspects of society featured high in their lists of importance and nothing was said about where the money might come from.</div>
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Few had a good word to say about politicians. One even asserted, with passion, that ‘politicians are our servants’. The interviewer let that pass, presumably because such heresy is too strong to be discussed on early morning voyeur-vision.</div>
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Here’s the rub (as Hamlet might have said). Nobody seemed ready or willing to take responsibility, neither for the situation we find ourselves in today, whether social, political, or economic, nor the possible solutions to the perceived problems. Nobody claimed ‘if it is to be, it is up to me’. Now there’s a thought. It seems that the solutions have to be provided by someone else, somehow. And all of us are guilty of that attitude in greater or lesser degree.</div>
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I call that evidence of powerlessness, an absence of power both real and perceived. Slaves are powerless . . . until they determine otherwise, rise up and accept the real price of real change.</div>
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Few ever remember that ‘the LOVE OF MONEY is the root of all evil.’ Not the money; the LOVE of it. How very convenient for bankers.</div>
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Of course, we all know that when our government applies to borrow ‘money’ there is no physical transfer of bullion equal to the value of the loan . . . don’t we? Which means that the loan can only be regarded as a very wide line of credit rather than a transfer of wealth. A super credit card, if you like. Government and central banks create the evidence of the loan in the form of additional printed currency notes. More notes in circulation results in the devaluation of all the notes in circulation. And don’t forget that the nation (our grand children and great grand children) must pay interest on the credit loan with the devalued notes by creating wealth through manufacturing and agriculture, both of which are struggling enterprises. You don’t hear much about that on main stream media. I wonder why?</div>
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Warren Buffet, the multi-billionaire, put his finger on it when he said: “In effect, our country has been behaving like an extraordinarily rich family that possesses an immense farm. In order to consume 4 percent more than we produce — that’s the trade deficit — we have, day by day, been both selling pieces of the farm and increasing the mortgage on what we still own.”</div>
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For additional, vital information on this subject see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9IH-XKQpOI&feature=em-subs_digest-vrecs</div>
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Later, I began to reflect once again on the Lisbon Treaty. It’s another of those ‘things’ that few ever remember to talk about. Certainly, our politicians during this election time are not giving the subject much airtime. I wonder why not?</div>
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PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW, LEAVERS AND REMAINERS .... “What will actually happen if we stay in the EU” is a question no Remainers will ever answer but here it is warts and all. </div>
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Check it out if you wish ——>> </div>
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http://www.theeuroprobe.org/2014-027-the-facts-about-the-lisbon-treaty/</div>
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There you will read:</div>
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A historical fact, yet hardly anyone is aware of it: the EU has been one political-economic unit, that is, one country, since the acceptance of the Lisbon Treaty at the end of year 2007. The Lisbon Treaty is the very same as the former EU Constitution. Only the façade elements – the word “constitution”, the flag and the anthem – are omitted from the text but in practice the very content of the EU Constitution itself is retained and implemented, the flag is used and the anthem is played on a regular basis. By the EU national leaders signing one federal constitution in 2007, the affected countries actually merged into one federal union governed by a superstate, which might be called “USE”. The main constitutional elements of the Lisbon Treaty:</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Abolishes the borders among the EU-states – establishes one common outside border for EU.</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Establishes the governmental functions, responsibilities and powers of the EU supranational state above the authority of Nation States.</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Provides for a gradual transfer of the legislative powers of the members states to the EU.</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Stipulates precedence of the federal law over state-law in case of conflict between the two.</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Provides for EU-military (2012 – 022), EU-tax and a secret agency to protect the EU-authorities.</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It is an anti-democratic constitution placing the unelected European Commission on the top of the decision-making hierarchy, directing the activity of the European Parliament.</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Its content is designed to protect the rights of private property against human rights, it forecasts to abolish all welfare benefits and to transfer via privatisation all values and resources of Europe into the ownership of the protected super-rich.</div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It is also an Enabling Treaty which means the EU can change anything in it without referring back to any elected body. It bypasses every democratic principle.</div>
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The historical relevance and importance of this fact: The Lisbon Treaty is an Enabling Act. It is virtually a clone of Hitler’s 1933 Enabling Act. That is, any of the clauses in it can be changed, added to, or deleted by unknown bureaucrats at any time without the knowledge of any elected person. The EU uses what is known as the Salami principle – take very thin slices at a time so its loss is not noticed but eventually they gain the whole salami. When the leaders of the EU-countries signed the Lisbon Treaty – either willingly or upon deceit and intimidation – they gave up the national sovereignty of their countries.</div>
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This is both the present and the future that the young people of today think was stolen from them? They should be on their knees thanking the nation for saving them from being turned into Orwellian automatons! </div>
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Forget 'Deals - No Deals' it's time for Remainers and Brexiteers to unite and see what's coming. </div>
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Now that you know all this, I have a new question for you: To whom will you give your vote and consent next month? THINK ABOUT IT between now and December 12th! It is important.</div>
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This is no time to box clever at the ballot box. Now is the time for TRUTH because THE TRUTH can set us FREE. </div>
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Michael in Milton Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17965744962327164553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133158198700932101.post-17248542608786422752019-11-06T09:42:00.000-08:002019-11-06T09:42:05.391-08:00An illusion of choice brings an illusion of freedom.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Close your eyes for a moment, and try to imagine a time when nobody had ever uttered the ‘B’ word. You are now in a time when the word has no meaning. Imagine that UK never joined the European Economic Community. In fact, try to imagine that EEC had never been invented. Difficult, I know, but try.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now think ahead a few weeks to our imminent general election and try to imagine the things politicians would try to persuade us to vote for. No ‘B’ word, don’t forget. Only humdrum matters that are raised at every election time – just as they were last time. Words like NHS, education, police, democracy, - but at all other times placed on the back burner, simmering, unfulfilled and unresolved, ready to be promised again at the next election. Truly, it was well said by someone who understood these things: “If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let you do it.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“We fall under the illusion of freedom when we consent to be governed. We believe we live in a fair and democratic society yet we fail to grasp the true meaning of words such as democratic, republic, inalienable, and consent. When we decipher the words, we find that we live in a reality of inequity; a ‘world for the taking’ by a few at the expense of the many. Only when we know who we are— a spiritual being having a human experience— will the system of slavery be changed.” – Rosanne Lindsay. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Do we yet know who we are?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is a truth that politicians will say almost anything to win your vote. And you don’t even have to vote for the individual candidate. A vote for the Party will do very nicely, thank you. Once the votes have been collected and counted you can go away to do more or less whatever else you like, until the next time the illusion of democracy and/or freedom is played out. (I say ‘and/or’ because they aren’t the same, even if you think they are).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Don’t ever overlook the fact that ‘the Party’ exists to maintain the existence of the Party, preferably in authority. It doesn’t exist for your benefit or mine. In this respect the willing but generally unsuspecting PPC (Prospective Parliamentary Candidate) is just as much a victim as you are. Woe betides the party member who fails to comply with party rules. The Whips will devour him/her and spit him out. Or the NEC will have him for breakfast. How free is THAT?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(I recall an instance a few years ago when I urged some younger work colleagues to vote at an imminent general election even though none had ever voted before. A day or so later one young person came back to tell me that, because of what I had said, she had decided to vote this time. I congratulated her but that wasn’t enough. She wanted me to know for WHO it was she intended to vote. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Even though I protested that it was none of my business – it is a matter between her and the ballot box – she insisted.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“I’m going to vote for Tony Blair”, she said triumphantly. Picture her face, if you can, when I replied: “You cannot vote for Tony Blair!” Confusion and hurt rolled into one. “Tony Blair is the PPC for the Labour Party in Sedgefield, County Durham. You don’t live in Sedgefield so you cannot vote for him. You can only vote within your own constituency.”) It turned out she had chosen Tony Blair because ‘he seems a nice man’. Weep because this story is true. It also turned out that she didn’t know who her local candidates were!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Despite all that I’ve written here none of us can truly ignore that the ‘B’ word follows us around everywhere – has done for three years - and there are brand new parties on the scene that weren’t on the scene at the last election. How bad is that? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">‘The System’ works after a fashion when there are only two contestants – and the First Past The Post (FPTP) winner takes all. It means that whichever party has the most votes, wins, regardless. Even if fewer than 50% of the electorate voted! The other party becomes Her Majesty’s virtually powerless, supposedly loyal, Opposition. Additional parties, if there are any, become the ‘also rans’. And I haven’t even mentioned the probability of fraudulent postal voting.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Under no terms could anybody describe that as evidence of democracy. Evidence of suffrage – yes, but not evidence of democracy. The opposite of democracy is autocracy, communism, fascism and tyranny. And if it isn’t democracy or freedom, why do we consent to it? Why do we accept the limitations placed upon us by the party system and their preferred FPTP? <b>Why?</b> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Our consent binds us into the master/slave system. Withholding our consent restores our natural freedom. Without this change we fall under the illusion of freedom which, years ago, could be summed up with “I’m free, white and over 21.” It was a lie then and it is still a lie today. (Over 18 today unless one particular party leader can persuade us to agree to the lower age of 16). Heaven forbid.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What to do?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>If our comfortable, mostly docile population would awake to the political dangers surrounding us and gather, constituency by constituency, to select from among their number, independent candidates (not representing a party) to represent them, we will have begun the change.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">2.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>If election to parliament is limited to a 12 months period and then subjected to annual satisfactory performance review (satisfactory to the voting constituents), just like any other employee would expect, we could virtually do away with general elections AND career politicians at the same time!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">3.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Sovereignty would be seen to be restored to the people and not claimed unlawfully by parties and parliamentarians.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">4.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The rights bestowed on the people by Magna Carta 1215 would be restored, as could the restoration of Common Law courts Trial by Jury and Jury Nullification of bad laws. (Restoration isn’t revolution).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">5.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Monarch would again be able to appoint a Prime Minister (and any other Secretary/Minister of State), instead of the self-interested Party Members of Parliament doing so. Magna Carta 1215 has already determined that the people may lawfully contest the Monarch’s decisions, if the need arises.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">To quote the late visionary, George Orwell: “In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We, the People, are no more puritans than are they, the politicians. People tell lies, too. But if We, the People, don’t change (ourselves, the things to which we consent, and our ways) it seems to me that there is not likely to be a future in which to live worth voting upon.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>Can we do it? YES, WE CAN! So let’s DO IT.</b></span></h2>
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Michael in Milton Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17965744962327164553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133158198700932101.post-79477732811809344822019-10-03T12:50:00.000-07:002019-10-03T12:50:40.958-07:00ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING<h2>
A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.</h2>
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<b>A<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">TTITUDE is EVERYTHING!</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">October 2019 – There isn’t anything new about that headline. The philosophy and the wording have been around for centuries. It was re-invented so eloquently in the voyeur-vision (UK version) 1990 political drama series ‘House of Cards’, starring the late Ian Richardson in the role of Francis Urquhart. He created the effortlessly repeatable response to so many potential arguments: “You might think that. I couldn’t possibly comment.” And then slyly smirked at the camera. I use these words quite often.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You might also think that, after centuries of arguments, wars, ‘I’m-right-you-are-wrong’ philosophy and egos on steroids, that as a nation we might be in a better social/political/relationship condition than we are. Clearly, we aren’t. For the most part what we see is what we’ve got, warts and all.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>WHICH MEANS</b> that if we could learn to adjust our attitudes, we could change everything. Some call it ‘biting your tongue’. It brings to mind the old joke about a stranger in Ireland asking an Irishman how best to get to Dublin? The Irishman allegedly replied: “Well, it might be better if you didn’t start from here.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some years ago, after a number of heart attacks and strokes, I submitted to triple by-pass heart surgery. Apart from providing me with another 20+ years of very enjoyable life that otherwise I would not have had, it also changed much about the way I look at the world. I consider myself extremely fortunate. My brother, four years younger than me, had one heart attack and died in his own back garden.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But, for me, after a lengthy period of convalescence I returned to my place of work and my immediate boss gave back to me the office I had occupied before I went away. (Someone else had used it while I was away, of course, but I was given it back. That was important to me). Friendly and familiar colleagues welcomed me back. Everything seemed familiar and comfortable and I knew I was very fortunate.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Almost the first thing I did as I surveyed my restored fiefdom was to peel off the ‘in’ and ‘out’ labels on the ‘in’ and ‘out’ letter trays on my desktop and replaced them with ‘easy come’ and ‘easy go’. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My attitude had changed because a man (a Professor) who had paid attention to his homework when he was a youth, had learned (possibly invented) the necessary surgical skills to give my life back to me. He had stood beside my anaesthetized body and held my heart in his hands while he and his team re-plumbed the pipe-work inside me. That is the sobering thought that changed my attitudes. I’d discovered that I wasn’t bullet proof after all.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Of course, I’d lost, or at least weakened, my competitive instinct at the same time. The war zone we call ‘business’ had become less important to me than it once had been. My responsibilities in life hadn’t changed but my attitude towards them had.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">OK. That’s my tale about attitude, so what to say about ‘a gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger’? Please don’t assume that makes me a softie. It doesn’t.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You see, I’ve learned that I came into this world with nothing beyond what my parents gave me. I shan’t leave this world with anything that I’ve acquired in the interim and everybody else is exactly the same. The baseball-type hat I acquired in the 1980s in Dubai, showing an image of what looked like a Rolls-Royce car and bearing the legend “He who dies with the most toys, wins”, was a lie. As is the Michael Douglas line “greed is good” (in the film Wall Street).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I don’t have to win every argument. I don’t have to be the ‘King of the castle’ and you don’t have to be the dirty rascal. I don’t have to live my life as a daily win-or-lose competition. Now that I’ve discovered it, that truth has set me free but I had to become powerless on an operating table to discover it. Not just helpless; powerless.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am no longer powerless.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have the power to say</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">‘Peace be upon you’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Rather than snarl</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">‘You are wrong and I am right’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">or</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">‘Who do you think you’re talking to?’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yea, though I walk through the valley . . . </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I will fear no evil.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Why? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Because a gentle answer turns away wrath.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Think about it.</span></div>
<br />Michael in Milton Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17965744962327164553noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133158198700932101.post-88219221110980226552019-09-21T05:49:00.000-07:002019-09-21T05:49:37.211-07:00A Short History of Western Civilization<span style="font-size: large;">WE CAN’T SOLVE PROBLEMS BY USING THE SAME KIND OF THINKING WE USED WHEN WE CREATED THEM.</span> –<br />
Albert Einstein<br />
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">
A Short History of Western Civilization</h3>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Late September 2019 – What an interesting idea! That we sometimes, maybe often, create our own problems. That’s a novel thought in a world which seems always ready to blame someone else, don’t you think?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It seems to me, too, that we can create problems even by not doing something. How can that be? It doesn’t make sense. Well, sit you comfortably . . . I wanna tell you a story (as Max Bygraves used to say).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>ONCE UPON A TIME,</b> long ago, the natural social group consisted of father, mother and children. Today we refer to them as the ‘nuclear’ family but the word ‘nuclear’ had no meaning long ago. Quite soon the nuclear family developed with grand-parents and grand-children and cousins. Out of those grew other nuclear families and it was the natural order of things for a while.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There must have come a time when the father of the group was too busy hunting and gathering food and shelter for his family to be able to take time out to make essential new tools and weapons, or pots and pans to put the food in. That’s probably when someone else from a different nuclear family would have said: “Tell you what. I’ll make spears and pots and pans for you if you will give me some of your food in exchange.” The fathers and mothers consented and so barter was born, the original socialist trading idea before capitalist money was invented. And all seemed well for a time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then the father and mother of a nuclear family learned that some families who weren’t actively hunting and gathering had learned to read and write (mostly Latin, it seemed), and they decided that they and their children should learn to read and write, too. Magically, another group of people (often church men), said: “Let me teach you and your children.” So the parents consented and gave up much of their power to train and influence their own children. The new persons taught them and their children Latin, which nobody other than church leaders spoke or wrote, plus anything else that seemed to them like a good idea. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After a while the confused father and mother looked again for someone to explain to them why they had become so confused. Some other people, who could also read and write, offered to explain and set rules for social interaction. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There were a lot of these people and many were called ‘Ian’. Sadly, they also suffered with ‘ticks’. According to www.medicinenet.com there are over 800 species of ticks throughout the world, but only two families of ticks, Ixodidae (hard ticks) and Argasidae (soft ticks), are known to transmit diseases or illness to humans. Hard ticks have a scutum, or hard plate, on their back while soft ticks do not.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">These Ians became known as ‘poly’ or ‘pollies’, from Latin poliō (“polish, smooth”) or, perhaps, from Ancient Greek πολύς (polús, “many, much”). Eventually the word ‘poli-tick-Ian’ came into common use to describe all of them. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The parents again consented to poli-tick-Ians taking the job of explaining and setting rules for social interaction. Some people loved them, some hated them, but too many blindly trusted them and didn’t realise that, in reality, they were parasites who were stealing the product of their labours (allegedly on behalf of the king). They made such plundering seem routine and normal and, later, called it ‘tax’. They stole the freedoms of the people but didn’t give very much back in return. In some countries they became known as ‘scribes and pharisees’, which implicitly raised them up and tried to pull them down all at the same time. It separated them from family.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The scribes and Pharisees liked to make rules for everyone else. It seemed to be more profitable for them and less laborious than making tools and farming. So, when the working fathers found themselves in dispute with one another and needed to put their arguments before other working fathers to determine who was right and who was wrong, some scribes and Pharisees said: “Let me be the judge of that.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Again, it seemed a good idea at the time and the parents gave their consent. But soon the working fathers found that their powers to manage their own lives and train their own children had been reduced to that of obedient servants . . . . obedient to the plunderers and scribes and Pharisees who could read and write and the judges who interpreted the rights and wrongs of complaints rather than allow the common jury of their peers to decide as they had always done. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The people were no longer free to determine how they lived. There was great wailing and gnashing of teeth at the loss of their essential freedom. The poli-tick-Ians said it was ‘democracy’ but poli-tick-Ians are known to say anything they think will keep them in their job.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Soon, barter became unfit for purpose and another medium of payment or exchange was needed. Scarce gold and silver came to their aid and values of exchange – labour or goods, in return for a measure of gold or silver – became the norm. Opportunists saw a new opportunity for personal benefit without having to be a farmer or a blacksmith. They offered to store the working man’s gold and silver safely and cheaply in a ‘bank’, and even began lending some of it to others in return for payment, which held their interest enormously. The parents consented and their new ‘servants’ became known as ‘bankers’, and other names.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The idea of providing a service rather than goods in exchange for reward wasn’t new, of course. The oldest ‘profession’ in the world is based on that concept. But the combination of all these new service providers allowed them to grow in stature from being ‘servants’ to being masters in their society. They made so many social decisions and kept to a minimum the decisions open to labourers to make for themselves. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">These changes created more confusion; they attacked the very existence of the nuclear family as a result of debt and endless new laws for the labourer either to comply with or to break, which made them law-breakers. They said the laws applied equally to everybody, but they didn’t.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">During this time many other services were offered (or imposed) on the producers of wealth. Some people were hired and swore an oath to up hold and ensure the peace and tranquillity of the community and were known as ‘policymen’. Again, they did their work only with the consent of the people. Over time there were many similar social service developments until, eventually, the ordinary man looked about him and wondered if he had done the right thing in giving his consent to strangers as often as he had? Of course, he hadn’t done the right thing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So ordinary men began to listen to the words of John Smith (and others), who told them of their right to common law which tested everything in front of a random 12-person jury. The jury is also empowered to test the validity of the laws handed to them by their poli-tick-ians, he said, and can nullify unfair/unjust laws. The judges and poli-tick-ians were horrified at this challenge to their dominance and even claimed that parliament is supremely sovereign. What Silly Billies. They couldn’t and cannot see that they are allowed to do what they do solely because the ordinary parents consented. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>The situation can be changed when those ordinary parents realise (begin to think differently) that change will follow when we withhold or withdraw our consent. That is where the change begins. Anything else leaves us living under tyranny and we are not free men at all.</b></span><br />
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Written and produced by Michael, standing under Common Law Court jurisdiction.</div>
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Member of the Democracy Defined campaign</div>
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Michael in Milton Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17965744962327164553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133158198700932101.post-89131526449649209542019-09-06T12:42:00.000-07:002019-09-06T12:42:37.262-07:00THE FRAUD OF DEMOCRACY<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw1hewWn_yF91ZGeTkz0nu1OEAhu-PZLsTx-ZfHnJc0T110N7JlSIfVCIpCGCl3t4ZyojD_omcT70YtFdTAYvjVDQI7lWDfCF-5LUtnITE3g2zO2hrExwNHDzW941Z9xkT7_ihtPIHUtqo/s1600/Thinking.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="148" data-original-width="105" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw1hewWn_yF91ZGeTkz0nu1OEAhu-PZLsTx-ZfHnJc0T110N7JlSIfVCIpCGCl3t4ZyojD_omcT70YtFdTAYvjVDQI7lWDfCF-5LUtnITE3g2zO2hrExwNHDzW941Z9xkT7_ihtPIHUtqo/s1600/Thinking.jpg" /></a></div>
September 2019 – Along with many others these past few days I have watched the pantomime that we used to call “The Mother of Parliaments” become a vague, sad imitation of itself. Along with many others I’m sick to death of what I’m hearing and viewing on voyeur-vision. I’m not at all sure that even George Orwell could have made it up.<br />
<br />
Thanks to the A.K. Chesterton Trust and the Candour writings of Ben Greene (1901-1978), as well as a friend in Yorkshire, I was introduced some while ago to one of Greene’s essays: <b>The British Constitution and the Corruption of Parliament</b>. I commend it to you. (www.candour.org.uk).<br />
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I’ve written in the past about the apparently casual way we use words. But even the word ‘casual’ is wrongly used. We seem to use words to conceal our thoughts and intentions rather than illuminate them. Lawyers and politicians are particularly good at this. Beware lawyers and politicians; they know their business and your interests are rarely the same as theirs.<br />
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Recently I came upon an explanation.<i> “As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.”</i> — Gore Vidal (1925-2012).<br />
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Since the dawn of time every empire has come to grief and fulfilled the pragmatic Persian observation: “This too shall pass.” Why should the British Empire (or American Empire) be any different?<br />
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The following article is from www.theburningplatform.com and was written by a guest contributor known as The Zman. I haven’t changed a word.<br />
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<b>The Fraud Of Democracy</b></h2>
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Guest Post by The Zman</div>
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One of the features of the current year is the regular reminder that western style democracy is a complete fraud. According to the political class, democracy allows for public policy to reflect the will of the people. The parties put forward candidates offering various policy proposals and the public signals their preferences by voting for one or the other candidates. The winners then set about trying to implement the policies they proposed. That’s how we’re told representative democracy works.<br />
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In reality, nothing like this happens. Instead, the parties put on a show for the voters, rarely intending to actually do what they claim. Instead, they manufacture differences between one another, so they can pretend the choice before the voters is stark. Once the election is over, the politicians go back to living their lives of leisure, waiting for instructions from the people who actually run things. The politicians are like robot actors, brought out for elections, then put back in storage.<br />
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The obvious example of this is the most recent American presidential election in which Donald Trump scored a stunning upset on the promise to reduce immigration, crackdown in illegal immigration and address the gross inequality resulting from globalization. So far, none of that has been done. Instead, he spent most of his presidency fighting a seditious coup to get him out of office. In fact, Trump’s three years are pretty much what Jeb Bush promised when he was running in the 2016 primary.<br />
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Notice that hardly anyone in either political party is terribly concerned about the FBI plot to overturn the election. Sure, there are a few lonely voices on the Republican side asking questions and demanding transparency. They have no support from leadership. On the Democrat side, they are actively colluding with the plotters to cover up the affair. One would think the people subject to the voters would care about the integrity of the process, but you would be wrong. The revealed preferences are on full display.<br />
<br />
An ugly as the Trump era has been, it is civil and decent compared to what is happening in Europe. The Italians are now watching their political class submarine the will of the people in an egregious series of deceits by the Five Star Movement. The Italians voted for a populist, anti-EU coalition. Instead, the Five Star Movement cut a deal with the internationalist, pro-EU party to sabotage the nationalists. The result is the exact opposite of what the people voted for in their last election.<br />
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In Britain, the government put a choice before the people back in 2016, as to whether remain in the EU or become an independent nation again. The public chose nationhood by a respectable margin. In any democracy, getting 52% of the vote, particularly in a highly popular election, is a solid majority. Here we are, more than three years on, and the political class is still debating whether to accept the election results. In other words, the elected officials are deciding whether the election results matter.<br />
To make matters worse, you now have members of one party actively colluding with members of other parties to undermine the orderly process in Parliament. Up until this week, the “remainers” could plausibly claim they are operating within the democratic process, despite thwarting the will of the people. Britain is not a pure democracy, so the pols have some leeway. Now, they are in active revolt against the system that they are sworn to uphold, in an effort to upend the result of the Brexit referendum.<br />
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In all of these cases, the question that never gets asked in the media is who is bribing these people to carry on this way. The most likely reason Five Star finked on its voters is the leaders took bribes from Brussels. In Britain, the “remainers” are certainly on the payroll of global enterprise. Those paymasters are most likely foreign. In the United States, of course, both political parties are wholly owned by the donor party. No one in the media bothers looking into it, as they are owned by the oligarchs as well.<br />
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The tell is that these shenanigans always work one way. You’ll never see the party of the globalist suddenly have a crisis of conscience and defect to the nationalists. It’s always the other way. There are no “remainers” siding with the Brexiteers in order to respect the will of the people, despite their own misgivings. In Washington, no globalists have switched teams to support Trump. In the charade that is democracy, the fink is always played by the same character in exactly the same way.<br />
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The reason we never see a politician break ranks in order to support the popular will against his own side is that western democracy is a fraud. Elections are a beard worn by the oligarchy to fool the public. The public space is filled with drama and outrage, drawing in the public. It is the circus half of the bread and circuses. Meanwhile, the oligarchs, most of whom are now foreign to the people over whom they rule, exercise the real power of the supposedly national governments of the West.<br />
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In the United States, both political parties are funded by the same people. For example, anyone questioning the endless wars for Israel gets pilloried, because Israel runs a massive lobbying operation to buy off both political parties. They work this racket in other Western countries as well. The tech giants operate in violation of the laws and civil order, because they own the politicians of both parties. Of course, the commentariat is being paid by the same people to maintain the fraud.<br />
Every society has an elite. This is the natural state of mankind. In a democracy, this reality is concealed from the public. Instead, it is one man, one vote. The people decide public policy. In reality, it is a handful of men and your votes mean nothing. Worse yet, those oligarchs pulling the strings are wholly unaccountable. They don’t have to answer to the public. Instead, they pay flunkies and coat holders to do it. Democracy is a fraud to distract the public, while their society is looted by oligarchs.<br />
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The worst part of it is the public, instead of peering behind the charade to see the string pullers, vents its anger on the actors. In 2016 the public voted against the status quo in the form of Donald Trump. Angry at that result, they voted for his opposition party in 2018, as a punishment against his party for their intransigence. In 2020, the public will probably throw Trump out for someone promising something different, but the result will be the same. The result is always the same. Democracy (<i>as we accept it – NUB</i>) is a fraud.<br />
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When the Plymouth Brethren fled this country all those years ago they didn’t leave in search of democracy. The word doesn’t appear anywhere in the American Constitution. They sought freedom. Think about it.<br />
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Here’s an interesting game to play each day. Whenever you hear a politician use the word ‘democracy’, change it in your own mind for the word ‘freedom’. You will soon come to the same conclusions that I have, I’m sure. <b>THINK ABOUT IT NEXT TIME YOU ARE CALLED UPON TO VOTE.</b><br />
(NUB)<br />
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<br />Michael in Milton Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17965744962327164553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133158198700932101.post-45428966054109062702019-08-09T12:44:00.001-07:002019-08-09T12:44:52.264-07:00Our Future Hangs in the Balance<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Mid August 2019 – I was rootling about in some older musings today and I came across this article by Delphine Palmowski. I believe it can withstand it if others would read it again, too.<br />
In my head, I linked it to a recent TV programme on Channel 5 fronted by Michael Portillo (ex Conservative government minister – Defence Secretary - under Margaret Thatcher) entitled: “The Trouble with the Tory Party.”<br />
In conversation with (Lord) Michael Heseltine on the subject of Brexit, Heseltine observed that ‘It isn’t about the economy, you know. It’s about POWER. About getting it and keeping it.”<br />
That sounds to me like the naked truth, sans varnish. As clearly as it can be, it says that the daily media debates about the consequences of Brexit are nothing more than smoke-and-mirrors. Read what Delphine (and Fred) have written and then join me in singing:<br />
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I can see clearly now the rain is gone</div>
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I can see all obstacles in my way</div>
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Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind</div>
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It's gonna be a bright (bright)</div>
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Bright (bright) sunshiny day</div>
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It's gonna be a bright (bright)</div>
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Bright (bright) sunshiny day</div>
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<b>OUR FUTURE HANGS IN THE BALANCE</b></h2>
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Guest Post by Delphine Palmowski</div>
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23 March 2019 - Everybody should read this and pass it on. But only, of course, if you care about our country. Otherwise ignore.<br />
Delphine<br />
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Reader Fred has just read the Lisbon Treaty - here is his astonishing report on it! Make a coffee, first......it is appalling the way the government have stitched us up and I am even more sure this will undoubtedly bring a civil revolt, or revolution a lot nearer and a lot quicker!<br />
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A lot of people really do need to read through these few bullet points!<br />
WHY IS NOBODY TALKING ABOUT THE LISBON TREATY, THE TREATY THAT COMES INTO FORCE 2020.<br />
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IT'S WORSE THAN THE SO CALLED DEAL - IF 99% OF THE BRITISH PUBLIC THINK THERESA MAY'S DEAL IS BAD, JUST LOOK AT THE LISBON TREATY!<br />
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PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW, LEAVERS AND REMAINERS .... “What will actually happen if we stay in the EU” is a question no remainer will ever answer but here it is warts and all.<br />
Check it out if you wish ——>><br />
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1: The UK along with all existing members of the EU lose their abstention veto in 2020 as laid down in the Lisbon Treaty when the system changes to that of majority acceptance with no abstentions, or vetoes , being allowed.<br />
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2: All member nations will become states of the new federal nation of the EU by 2022, as clearly laid out in the Lisbon treaty, with no exceptions or vetoes.<br />
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3: All member states must adopt the Euro by 2022 and any new member state must do so within 2 years of joining the EU - as laid down in the Lisbon treaty.<br />
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4: The London Stock Exchange will move to Frankfurt in 2020 and be integrated into the EU Stock Exchange, resulting in a loss of 200,000 plus jobs in the UK, because of the relocation. (This has already been pre-agreed and is only on a holding pattern due to the Brexit negotiations, which if Brexit does happen, the move is fully cancelled - but if not and the UK remains a member and it’s full steam ahead for the move.)<br />
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5: The EU Parliament and ECJ become supreme over all legislative bodies of the UK.<br />
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6: The UK will adopt 100% of whatever the EU Parliament and ECJ lays down without any means of abstention or veto, negating the need for the UK to have the Lords or even the Commons as we know it today.<br />
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7: The UK will NOT be able to make its own trade deals.<br />
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8: The UK will NOT be able to set its own trade tariffs.<br />
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9 The UK will NOT be able to set its own trade quotas.<br />
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10: The UK loses control of its fishing rights.<br />
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11: The UK loses control of its oil and gas rights.<br />
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12: The UK loses control of its borders and enters the Schengen region by 2022 - as clearly laid down in the Lisbon treaty.<br />
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13: The UK loses control of its planning legislation.<br />
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14: The UK loses control of its armed forces including its nuclear deterrent.<br />
15: The UK loses full control of its taxation policy.<br />
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16: The UK loses the ability to create its own laws and to implement them.<br />
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17: The UK loses its standing in the Commonwealth.<br />
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18: The UK loses control of any provinces or affiliated nations e.g.: Falklands, Cayman Islands, Gibraltar etc<br />
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19: The UK loses control of its judicial system<br />
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20: The UK loses control of its international policy<br />
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21: The UK loses full control of its national policy<br />
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22: The UK loses its right to call itself a nation in its own right.<br />
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23: The UK loses control of its space exploration program.<br />
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24: The UK loses control of its Aviation and Sea lane jurisdiction.<br />
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25: The UK loses its rebate in 2020 as laid down in the Lisbon treaty.<br />
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26: The UK’s contribution to the EU is set to increase by an average of 1.2bn pa and by 2.3bn pa by 2020.<br />
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<b>This is the future that the youths of today think we stole from them? They should be on their knees thanking us for saving them from being turned into Orwellian automatons! </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Forget 'Deals - No Deals' it's time for Remainers and Brexiteers to unite and see what's coming before it's too late. This is the whole reason they are dragging Brexit out. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>.......just so we can get to 2020 - then we have absolutely no choice anymore!</b><br />
<b>(ends)</b><br />
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Michael in Milton Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17965744962327164553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133158198700932101.post-53227666339821211652019-07-27T09:05:00.001-07:002019-07-27T09:05:24.303-07:00Things haven't always been this way<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>August 2019</b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"> – A propos nothing in particular, I stumbled upon the following article (see further down). It was written for an American audience rather than a British audience but the message is appropriate in each nation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">Years ago I worked for an international company which provided me with opportunities to work overseas. It also provided opportunity for my children to benefit from private education, both overseas and here in UK. Eventually, when local overseas education became not best-suited for purpose, my sons and daughter attended boarding school in England. There, for the boys, extra-curricular activities such as Army Cadets were available and some of their peers eventually left the school to go on to military service of one form or another. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">Membership of Cadets involved access to and supervised use of firearms on site and nobody at that time thought anything more about it. My sons proved themselves to be excellent shooters. They still are. One, no longer living in this country, lawfully carries a pistol in the course of his work (but not at other times). Neither of them has fired in anger – ever.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">In Britain, it is made out to be the act of a criminal to carry (or want to carry) a firearm but it wasn’t always so. Before World War 1 many people routinely carried weapons and many returned home after the war with their lawfully provided trophy weapons. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">In fact, I’m told that the design and spatial size of our House of Commons chamber came about in an effort to separate routinely armed, sword-wearing members on opposite sides of the House!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">* * * *</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Things Haven’t Always Been This Way</span></h2>
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Guest Post by Walter E. Williams</div>
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Here’s a suggestion. How about setting up some high school rifle clubs? Students would bring their own rifles to school, store them with the team coach and, after classes, collect them for practice. You say: “Williams, you must be crazy! To prevent gun violence, we must do all we can to keep guns out of the hands of kids.”<br />
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There’s a problem with this reasoning. Prior to the 1960s, many public high schools had shooting clubs. In New York City, shooting clubs were started at Boys, Curtis, Commercial, Manual Training and Stuyvesant high schools. Students carried their rifles to school on the subway and turned them over to their homeroom or gym teacher. Rifles were retrieved after school for target practice. In some rural areas across the nation, there was a long tradition of high school students hunting before classes and storing their rifles in the trunks of their cars, parked on school grounds, during the school day.<br />
Today, any school principal permitting rifles clubs or allowing rifles on school grounds would be fired, possibly imprisoned.<br />
<br />
Here’s my question: Have .30-30 caliber Winchesters and .22 caliber rifles changed to become more violent? If indeed rifles have become more violent, what can be done to pacify them? Will rifle psychiatric counselling help to stop these weapons from committing gun violence?<br />
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You say: “Williams, that’s lunacy! Guns are inanimate objects and as such cannot act.” You’re right. Only people can act. That means that we ought to abandon the phrase “gun violence” because guns cannot act and hence cannot be violent.<br />
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If guns haven’t changed, it must be that people, and what’s considered acceptable behaviour, have changed. Violence with guns is just a tiny example. What explains a lot of what we see today is growing cultural deviancy. Twenty-nine percent of white children, 53% of Hispanic children and 73% of black children are born to unmarried women.<br />
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The absence of a husband and father in the home is a strong contributing factor to poverty, school failure, crime, drug abuse, emotional disturbance and a host of other social problems. By the way, the low marriage rate among blacks is relatively new. Census data shows that a slightly higher percentage of black adults had married than white adults from 1890 to 1940. According to the 1938 Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, that year only 11% of black children and 3% of white children were born to unwed mothers.<br />
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In 1954, I graduated from Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin High School, the city’s poorest school. During those days, there were no school policemen. Today, close to 400 police patrol Philadelphia schools. According to federal education data, in the 2015-16 school year, 5.8% of the nation’s 3.8 million teachers were physically attacked by a student. Almost 10% were threatened with injury.<br />
<br />
<b>Other forms of cultural deviancy</b> are found in the music accepted today that advocates murder, rape and other vile acts. In previous generations, people were held responsible for their behaviour. Today, society at large pays for irresponsible behaviour. Years ago, there was little tolerance for the crude behaviour and language that are accepted today. To see men sitting while a woman was standing on a public conveyance was once unthinkable. Children addressing adults by their first name, and their use of foul language in the presence of, and often to, teachers and other adults, was unacceptable.<br />
<br />
<b>A society’s first line of defence is not the law or the criminal justice system but customs, traditions and moral values</b>. These behavioural norms, mostly imparted by example, word-of-mouth and religious teachings, represent a body of wisdom distilled over the ages through experience and trial and error. Police and laws can never replace these restraints on personal conduct. At best, the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of defence for a civilized society.<br />
<br />
Today’s true tragedy is that most people think what we see today has always been so. As such, today’s Americans Britons accept behaviour that our parents and grandparents never would have accepted.<br />
(ends)<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * * *</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">I’m not advocating the right to bear arms (although it is an argument that could be made at another time). Right now I’m advocating a return to the value systems once held to be true in our nation. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">How is a child able to honour ‘his father and his mother’ if father isn’t (ever) home and mother must leave home to work to make up the income shortage? How can a child grow up to not commit adultery when everyone around him/her seems to have little or no understanding of that directive? Especially when the providers of filmed entertainment on voyeur-vision see it as essential?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">How can a child obey the command to ‘do not steal’, when stealing is a way of life, not just by the poor but by corporations and banks? How can a child understand not to bear false witness (meaning lie), when everyone from the top down lies? And that’s only a few of the basic ten instructions.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It’s OK. I’m just musing. But what if straightening out some of this could be the beginning of our return to ancient values – which worked? There’s a thought. (md)</span><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * * * *</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Walter Edward Williams (born March 31, 1936) is an American economist, commentator, and academic. He is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University, as well as a syndicated columnist and author known for his classical liberal and libertarian conservative views.[2] His writings frequently appear on Townhall.com, WND, and Jewish World Review.</div>
Michael in Milton Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17965744962327164553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133158198700932101.post-51084594575874277652019-07-01T00:41:00.000-07:002019-07-01T00:41:03.258-07:00This just in . . . <div style="text-align: center;">
THEY ARE POLITICAL SPIROCHAETE!</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They are all the same</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They accept no blame</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They possess no shame</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They seek wealth and fame!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They lie, thieve and over eat</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They postulate the truth and cheat</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They utter words with meaning of deceit</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They manifest in a polluted culture of spirochaete!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They have our nation in a horrendous financial deficit</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They have forced the people into borrowing to the limit</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They have made our land the haven of the human illicit</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They have caused crime cost to skyrocket as explicit!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They support marriage for the hermaphrodite</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They claim transgender marriage is a hygienic legitimate</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They have no respect for heterosexual child that should dominate</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They believe these jurisdictions of the bible they should obliterate</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They are political imperatives of a New World Order; ordered to consummate!</span></div>
<br />
Colin Uebergang 5th May 2019<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: yellow;">Spirochaete: A bacterial disease</span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Who are ‘they’?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Don’t you just feel so grateful that we don’t live in the same country as ‘they’?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Or, maybe we do! (I do dislike ‘rap’.)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSFg-EhKd9BmI6vapVuAfUWXNJMQtYEyA-gsyZOWeuZL-zMcQFO8yOze5gDFK3ezcFYkdv-anWV3w_4_7QnRZzExscSJ0_w7RdS4i1rXicv7nqmgY-1S_qo03Fu26vh_QpznTaqLqSoK_b/s1600/Thinking.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="148" data-original-width="105" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSFg-EhKd9BmI6vapVuAfUWXNJMQtYEyA-gsyZOWeuZL-zMcQFO8yOze5gDFK3ezcFYkdv-anWV3w_4_7QnRZzExscSJ0_w7RdS4i1rXicv7nqmgY-1S_qo03Fu26vh_QpznTaqLqSoK_b/s200/Thinking.jpg" width="141" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">Also from
Australia this week <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">(from Ron Owen of Gympie, Queensland)<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em><span style="background: white;">“Socialism is the doctrine that man has no right to
exist for his own sake, that his life and his work do not belong to him, but
belong to society, that the only justification of his existence is his service
to society, and that society may dispose of him in any way it pleases for the
sake of whatever it deems to be its own tribal, collective good</span></em><span style="background: white;">.”</span></span><b><span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ayn Rand</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<b><span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">(Ayn Rand was a Russian-American writer and philosopher. She is known
for her two best-selling novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and for
developing a philosophical system she named Objectivism.)</span><b><span style="background: white; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">Strong words.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"> Not everyone will agree with her interpretation of
the word ‘socialism’, which is an interesting idea to muse upon – the meaning
of words, I mean. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">For
example, if I use the word ‘democracy’ does it mean the same thing to you as it
does to me; (for example, democracy in England is the same as or different to
Democracy in the Democratic Republic of Congo?); if I say ‘justice’ does it
mean the same thing to you as it does to me; if I refer to ‘crime’ are both of
us interpreting the meaning of the word in the same way? And ‘progress’ – does
that mean the same? In all four instances the answer is: ‘Probably not.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h1 style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; font-weight: normal;">I
put it to you that we don’t interpret these words (and others) in the same way.
Nor do our politicians, our police, our lawyers, even our parents! We speak
different languages that sound the same but aren’t the same. Such different
interpretations form the soundest of sound basis for never-ending argument,
deceit, misunderstanding and unhappiness. The Tower of Babel never had it so
good. (Genesis 11:1-9, if you want to look it up). And lawyers excel at it. Their<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>language is known as ‘legalese’. Many
aspiring and many actual politicians also use a different language. They call
it ‘diplomacy’. We tend to call it ‘duplicity’ or, perhaps, ‘lies’. <o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<h1 style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; font-weight: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></span></h1>
<h1 style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; font-weight: normal;">We
speak a different language to that of our parents because they are old and they
know nothing, whereas we are young and have been educated. We have been
educated by our peers; by voyeur-vision, newspapers, politicians, and teachers,
all of whom were educated by the same state-sponsored university
lecturers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>None of us seem very capable
of understanding the language known as ‘history’ because ‘history’ is the
language spoken by the winners of any dispute. And we all know that ‘winners’
come from the family of ‘I am right and you are wrong’. QED. </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal;">(</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">"quod erat demonstrandum").</span></i><span style="background: white; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="background: white; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Anything other than this is ridiculous, they tell
me. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">status quo</i> doesn’t need to
change much. It just needs to be tweaked every now and again!</span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<div>
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">OK.
Let’s see if we can agree on the meaning of the word <b>LIBERTY</b>. On-line
dictionaries offer several different ideas about the meaning but let’s see what
you make of this:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">“Life,
faculties, production – in other words, individuality, <b>liberty</b>, property
– this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these
three gifts from God <b>precede all human legislation, and are superior to it.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">“Life,
<b>liberty,</b> and <b>property</b> do not exist because men have made laws. On
the contrary, it was the fact that life, <b>liberty</b>, and <b>property </b>existed
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">beforehand</i> that caused men to make
laws in the first place.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">“..........Man
can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labour; by the ceaseless
application of his faculties to natural resources. <b>This process is the
origin of property</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">“But
it is also true that a man may live and satisfy his wants by seizing and
consuming the products of the labour of others. This process is the origin of
plunder. (This is much, much, wider than the idea of ‘tax’. - md)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">“Now
since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain – and since labour is pain in
itself – it follows that men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier
than work. History shows this quite clearly. And under these conditions,
neither religion nor morality can stop it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">“.
. . . . It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a
greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of
plunder. What are the consequences of such a perversion?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">“In
the first place, it erases from everyone’s conscience the distinction between
justice and injustice.” Think of how many politicians you have heard
supporting, undefined, ‘the Rule of Law’ when often the law itself might be
unjust. Worse, when the victim is <b>not permitted to declare his liberty</b>
to oppose an unjust law. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">“<b>When
plunder is abetted by the law</b>, it does not fear your courts, your police
and your prisons. Rather, it may call upon them for help.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">These
concepts were first brought to my attention by Frederic Bastiat in his classic
blueprint for a Free Society, his essay on ‘The Law’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">Think
on these things when you read of ‘the law’ and David Noakes and Lynn Thyer
(David having been imprisoned and Lynn pursued by an European Arrest Warrant to
imprison her for them both believing that they could help mankind with their
research into a cure for cancer, <b>which legally but unlawfully</b> attracts
an automatic charge of money laundering!; ‘the law’ and Common Law courts which
don’t require expensive legal beagles to interpret justice because ‘justice’
isn’t the idea behind Courts of Law (the ‘business’ of law is behind so-called
courts of law); and think of those ‘courts’ which extract the rewards of a
man’s labour from his pocket to someone else’s pocket for some alleged offence
that caused harm to no-one.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">THIS IS NOT LIBERTY! </span></b><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">This is evidence that we live in a prison without
walls and the scribes and Pharisees (politicians and lawyers) of our day
determine where the walls should be. Leaders of political parties merely
suggest where else the invisible walls might be if they should win control of
lawmaking. It is a perversion of the ideas of ‘justice’ and of ‘liberty’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">So,
now I offer you an alternative:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #652191; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I stand under our natural &
Common Law Trial</span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #652191; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">and Annulment by Jury Constitution.</span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #652191; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I promise to promote it at every
opportunity I have.</span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #652191; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Will you join me?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">* * * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<em><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">"Ask not what the government can do for you. <o:p></o:p></span></em></div>
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<em><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Ask what the government is doing to you." - </span></em><strong><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">David Friedman</span></strong><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Michael in Milton Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17965744962327164553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133158198700932101.post-31975366800255034322019-06-16T14:00:00.001-07:002019-06-16T14:00:47.603-07:00Come into my Parlour, said the spider to the fly<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7EMP9B7TCkpF3KIhN65jLKhoA_X8hs0_3Jd79WphLYk9ijg8_tGEJBVOnQUy5DkRE2synrzvDxop1wgirywhuGmXrDyfvvARsjEjwcFLSEKGG4cSmgtSnxQnhmEYaG7mJ3DHMd6944ilq/s1600/Thinking.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="148" data-original-width="105" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7EMP9B7TCkpF3KIhN65jLKhoA_X8hs0_3Jd79WphLYk9ijg8_tGEJBVOnQUy5DkRE2synrzvDxop1wgirywhuGmXrDyfvvARsjEjwcFLSEKGG4cSmgtSnxQnhmEYaG7mJ3DHMd6944ilq/s200/Thinking.jpg" width="141" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">June
2019 – </span></b><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’ve had a wonderful week this week. At least, it seems
so to me. I went down to London . . . by train . . . distance of about 54 miles
. . . which cost me £47.80 for an anytime, any train, day return ticket . . . and
I had to stand all the way to London!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">THOUGHT</span></b><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> –
If some bright spark decides one day to discontinue discounted ticket prices
(advance booking, season tickets, off peak, etc) will the real price for
everyone be £47.80? What will commuters do then? Shall we pay it, just as we’ve
paid increased prices over the years for our homes and cars? Or shall we say,
in effect, ‘stick it in your ear’? Companies/employers will continue to assist
staff with ticket loans as they do now or lose their staff but everyone else
will be at the mercy, or lack of it, of the railway owners. What a miserable
thought.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I went to London to support a man from Scotland who is
spearheading the drive to re-introduce Common Law Courts in UK. (<a href="http://www.commonlawcourt.com/">www.commonlawcourt.com</a>). The ‘legal profession’
doesn’t like the idea because there is no money it for them and it challenges
their contrived status. Yet the man (let’s call him John Smith) has a Power of
Attorney from the person he went to represent. The ‘professionals’ – the name
given to people who <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">do what they do for
money</i> wouldn’t recognise his power of attorney nor his paperwork and would
only respond to similar professionals. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So John sacked the original
professionals, as any of us would do with bolshie hired help. The opposite side
(of professionals) had to accept the lawful Common Law Court documents
presented by John and, in doing so they also accepted that he had standing. John’s
papers are currently with a judge and we await an update.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The case itself is interesting, too. The person John
Smith represents in his capacity as Power of Attorney is being pursued by the
professionals for allegedly selling unlicensed medication and claiming
beneficial results. His client faces an EU extradition warrant to send her to
France. (For further info please look up GcMAF and David Noakes). Such
accusations <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">AUTOMATICALLY</b> include a
charge of money laundering! Seriously! I’m not making it up. In France she could
be imprisoned for two years before anyone got around to hearing her case, such
is the French/EU way of doing things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">MEANWHILE</span></b><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> –
In the foyer of the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand, I met an ex-lawyer
who quit the ‘profession’ after she worked in it for two or so years. She
discovered corruption in her profession that we outside people know little
about, she said. Her interest, she said, was in the Common Law aspects of John
Smith’s case. Her true interest involved her stateless partner/husband who
cannot leave the country because the Home Office will not recognise him and
provide him with a passport. For some reason it is better in the eyes of
someone in ‘authority’ to keep him here without documents rather than let him
leave. I see that as nothing less than keeping him in an open prison but there
has to be more to it than that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">MEANWHILE
</span></b><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">–
In the same foyer of the same Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand, I met
another lady (of senior years) who I identified by her accent. She had travelled
93 miles by coach, without her ailing husband, to observe and be involved with
John’s Common Law challenge but her true interest was her own dispute with
lawyers and the NHS over the death of her baby daughter some years ago.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I can only guess at how many other <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">MEANWHILE</b>s might have been represented in the foyer of the Royal
Courts of Justice that day. Who knows what happens behind the front doors of
homes up and down our country? Just as importantly, WHO CARES? Not many, it
seems. Except the spiders in wait for the flies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">NEXT
DAY</span></b><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">
I spoke to a lady who has been battling corruption in the legal ‘profession’ –
those who do what they do for money – for 17 years as various of them have
tried to declare her and her husband bankrupt. It’s all to do with non-existent
mortgages but nobody wants to know – not lawyers, not police, not bankers. In
desperation she has accepted an offer by others to make a documentary about her
case which will be screened for the public next month. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">That</i></b> I must see! And I
phoned a friend to ask if she, too, planned to attend the show?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Yes, she plans to attend, and I went on to tell her
about my day at the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand. “Did you meet XYZ
while you were there?” she asked. “Yes”, I said in astonishment. “How do you
know that?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“She (the lady in dispute with the NHS <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">et al</i>) has just phoned me to tell me
about <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">her day</b> at the Royal Courts of
Justice in the Strand and spoke about this nice gentleman she had met there!”
Wow! You could have knocked me over with a feather.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So, in summary, in the course of 48 hours I’ve been in
contact with or been ever so slightly involved with:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family: Verdana;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A
man who was jailed for six months for allegedly selling unlicensed medical
treatments and for allegedly laundering money;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family: Verdana;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">His
partner who is resisting an EU extradition warrant for alleged similar
activities;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family: Verdana;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A
man who travelled from Scotland to London to represent her case, and was
ignored by the ‘pros’ because he isn’t a ‘pro’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family: Verdana;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">An
ex-lawyer who has a stateless partner who seems likely to know too much for it
to be allowed outside the country;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family: Verdana;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A
lady (couple) in unresolved dispute with lawyers and the NHS over the death of her
child many years ago;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family: Verdana;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">6.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A
lady and her husband battling to regain their good name and overturn claims
that otherwise will make them bankrupt when they are not bankrupt.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family: Verdana;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">7.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And
a railway company that charged £47.80 to transport me 54 miles there and 54 back,
packed in like cattle, plus £11 if I wanted to park in their car park.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family: Verdana;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">8.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The
Courts of Justice are actually the Courts of Business.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And here is the rub (as
Shakespeare might have said). None of this will improve <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">NO MATTER WHO</b> BECOMES THE NEXT LEADER OF THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY, THE
LABOUR PARTY, THE LIBERAL DEMOCRAT PARTY, THE ENGLISH DEMOCRAT PARTY, UK Independence
Party, THE GREEN PARTY or any other party.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As Henry David Thoreau
rightly observed: “The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation . . . .“<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 19.4pt; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Most ignorance is
vincible ignorance. We don’t know because we don’t want to know.</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> — <i>Aldous Huxley</i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><i><br /></i></span></b></div>
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<br />Michael in Milton Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17965744962327164553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133158198700932101.post-31951448718335900092019-06-03T13:18:00.000-07:002019-06-03T13:18:02.180-07:00Be Responsible<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--><span style="background: white; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">3<sup>rd</sup> June 2019 - “<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Tilbrook case</b> now before the Courts (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">which asserts we have already left the EU because May was not permitted
to use secondary legislation to delay past March 29th</i>) is either correct in
which case we have already left or wrong in which case the Government need only
not renew the extension on 31st October and we leave.” </span><span style="background: white; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">(Rodney Atkinson, </span><span style="background: white; color: #525252; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">English
academic, political and economic commentator, journalist, author and
businessman.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #525252; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We haven’t heard very much about ‘the Tilbrook case’ in
any main stream media, have we? I wonder why not? </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Robin Tilbrook</span></b><span style="background: white; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">, the Chairman of the English
Democrats and a Solicitor, has started a legal case to block the UK
Government from extending the Article 50 Notice or revoking it without having
to get an Act of Parliament. Like many more of us, I await a decision from the
High Court of Justice with keen anticipation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">* * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As I
write, <s>11</s><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><s>12</s><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>13 Conservative party MPs have announced
their intention to contest for the leadership of the Party, and thus become
Prime Minister, at least until the next General Election.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="background: white; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Plus James Cleverley and maybe a few more who are still
keeping their powder dry. Of course, if
you and I are not members of the Conservative and Unionist Party (membership
approximately +/- 160,000), we have no say in the matter. </span><span style="background: white; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">The
current population of the United Kingdom is 66,921,047 as of Monday,
May 27, 2019, based on the latest United Nations estimates. </span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Such
is the blessing of Democracy as interpreted by ‘the PARTY’. It seems to me that
<i>that</i> kind of supposed democracy is in
need of a good kicking, preferably by 66 million of us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">*
* * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When I woke up this morning I had the words of the
entertainer, Billy Crystal, on my mind when he was compere at one of the major
film festivals a few years ago. He invited contenders: “Ladies and Gentlemen –
start your egos.” So often do comedians
hit the nail on the head. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And again, from the late Nora Ephron (American film
director and writer): “</span><span style="background: white; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As far as the men who are
running for president are concerned, they aren't even people I would
date.” For ‘men’ read ‘men and
women’. For ‘president’ read ‘prime
minister’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Despite the rise and fall of Theresa
May, David Cameron, Tony Blair, John Major, Margaret Thatcher and any amount of
previous prime ministers, these ambitious know-alls still try to make us
believe that they know the answers to whatever problem the nation faces – and
we believe them, it seems. You couldn’t make it up. Except that is precisely
what we do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Many years ago in the days of Col. Gaddafi, during a
business visit to Tripoli, Libya, some locals from within my Libyan working
environment invited me out for the day to see the sights and to talk. We drove towards
the Gulf of Sirte to show me a training resort which was reserved for members
of the national football team, and others of similar privilege.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">They were pleased to be able to show off to me, a foreigner,
while at the same time eager to ask questions about my world which was so
clearly different to theirs. I
discovered that they wanted for themselves very much the same as most of us
want for ourselves. Each wanted a family home; a good education for their
children; a good salary; an opportunity to travel; a little money left at the
end of the month. That kind of thing. All of them spoke fractured English which
indicated to me that they, at least, had had a better-than-most education,
although Libya’s proximity to English-speaking Malta might have some bearing on
that. We shared ‘natural’ ambitions but we lived un-natural lives, differently.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Politics played no part in our conversations that day.
I refer to this tale only to illustrate how the ordinary man all over the world
wants ordinary common things for himself and his family. The psychopaths strive
for the power over us by offering ‘let me fix that for you.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So
here is my thought for this week</span></b><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">: I believe we live
un-natural lives but, deep down, we yearn for things ‘natural’. We seek natural
foods, natural environments, natural laws, natural relationships. Things
‘natural’ in our lives diminish when we start our egos and those around us
start their egos, too. Then we compete for position, for wealth, for status,
for advantage, and wonder why the world and his father seem to have utterly
screwed up. There is no peace in that kind of competition and those who do not
want peace are not our friends, no matter how they speak to us. As it says in the good book: </span><span style="background: white; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"There is no need to add to
the troubles each day brings".<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">To me ‘natural’ includes such things as the nuclear
family – father, mother, children. Father is the hunter/gatherer/provider of
food, shelter, secure environment, etc. Mother is the home-maker, raiser of
children, the steady hand of love and trust in the family; Children are taught
and are expected to honour their father and their mother – another quote from
the book. It is NOT natural to live at odds with this concept, but that is only
my belief and my belief counts for nothing outside my own home and family. That
said, if the ‘state’ has its way, my belief won’t count for much even within my
home and family. Think about that, if you will.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Many, even most, people disagree with my description and
press on towards what I term ‘sophisticated’ outlooks and lifestyles – in the
sense of them being un-natural. Father is not the head of the household; mother
is not the home-maker because she has a career she wants to maintain, or
believes she must; the children do NOT honour their parents by obeying them – and
that is just for starters. Voyeur-vision and internet widen the divide between
natural and sophisticated . . . and we call it ‘progress’. Those folks also
have the right to express their attitude to life and it isn’t any of my
business if they do so. <b>Nor is it any
business of government!</b> But it might explain why we have so many problems.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Our ‘lawmakers’ (writers of statutes) move further and
further away from the fairness of natural law and by doing so ‘add to the
troubles each day brings’. You can’t mess around with these things and not
expect problems as a result, even when the supposed objective is to minimize
those problems. Lawyers and barristers create fortunes for themselves by
withholding natural law decisions for their clients and charging for their
intimate knowledge of all that is un-natural in law. Their clients allow it
because they have not been allowed to know anything different.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And what of the children? Sent to a state school
(usually) to be educated by state teachers according to whichever state
curriculum is in vogue. Or, as linguist Prof Noam Chomsky of MIT puts it:
“Educated by whom, for what?” . . . and
much of the world condemns the supposedly biased influence of non-state education.
I weep for the coming generations! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">*
* * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">While I’m in the mood for a challenge, let me ask you
to think about how we can bring about the changes. I’d say we need to <b>Become RESPONSIBLE; </b>nothing much will
change in your favour if you leave it to politicians/government/bureaucrats.
You are a voting statistic or a target for a bribe of some kind. Little more
than that. <b>BUT MUCH MORE THAN THAT TO
YOUR FAMILY.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Last question(s). Do you think there is too much harmful plastic
on the planet? Well, easy-peasy solution. Don’t buy things wrapped in plastic.
It would be a start. You think you can’t
do it alone? Another easy-peasy solution: Seek out those of like mind and act
together whenever you can. You think you don’t know anyone of like mind? Then
take off your headset and speak to someone - anyone! Speak to the person in the
bus queue or the person behind you queuing to pay in the supermarket. Or the
school teacher who has custody of your child for most of the day. And smile
when you do so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">LET’S
DO IT!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">LET’S
BECOME RESPONSIBLE<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">****</span></div>
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</v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--></span>Michael in Milton Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17965744962327164553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133158198700932101.post-12572769824620335262019-05-20T15:49:00.000-07:002019-05-20T15:49:13.053-07:00US versus THEM<br />
<div style="background: white; line-height: 16.8pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<em><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">LATE MAY</span></b></em><em><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> - After my previous ‘muse’ entitled ‘The
Eyes Have It’ I thought at that time this next muse would be about money and
banking. Not so. The political shenanigans going on in Britain these days have
caused me to think again. And then I came across a quote by the late Bill Hicks,</span></em><span style="background: white; color: #525252; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.0pt;"> </span><span style="background: white; color: #525252; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">American
stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist and musician.</span><em><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 16.8pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<em><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">“I ascribe
to Mark Twain's theory that the last person who should be (<s>President)</s> Prime
Minister is the one who wants it the most. The one who should be picked is the
one who should be dragged kicking and screaming into the (<s>White House)</s>
House of Commons.”</span></em><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"> <strong><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">― Bill Hicks</span></strong><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That’s the theory. Then my thoughts turned to an
ancient instruction-cum-admonition which I first heard years ago. It reads: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Put not your trust in princes, nor in the
son of man, in whom there is no help.”</i> That’s the one that changed my mind
about what to write today. What if that turns out to be good advice?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In a few days time Mrs May expects Britain to vote in
the EU elections and by the time this muse sees the light of day the voting
will be over . . . but not the consequences of our actions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Who should we vote for/for whom should we vote? <span style="background: white; color: black;">Robin Tilbrook, the Chairman of the
English Democrats and a Solicitor, has started a case to block the UK
Government from extending the Article 50 Notice or revoking it without first having
to get an Act of Parliament.</span></span><span style="background: white; color: black;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black;"><br /></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“The constitutional law set out in the Gina
Millar case is, in my legal opinion, clear and unchallengeable that any attempt
to extend the Article 50 Notice or to revoke it without a specific Act of
Parliament will be invalid and unlawful. That would mean that if
there has been a purported attempt to extend the Notice by agreement without an
Act of Parliament that that would be invalid and <u>therefore we would be out
of the EU regardless of what the Government said we were.”</u> </span></i></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But you won’t find much about his case in
national media. If he wins his case it means that we have already left EU with
effect from 29<sup>th</sup> March, and the pseudo EU elections in this country
are unlawful (because we aren’t any longer members of the EU). Well, hush mah
mowf. Whoda thunk it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">All this raises another
question. If you nevertheless decide to vote, for whom should you vote? Bear in
mind that a ‘party’ is a corporation or institution, not a person and not a
‘who’. Here’s another question. What do you know about your regional
candidates? Do you even know their names? Under such circumstances WHY would
you try to put your trust in ‘princes’? Why would you try to put your trust in
a faceless corporation or institution? In Brussels and Strasbourg the
individuals have no power to represent your interests and they are rewarded
handsomely for being unable. Just ask Lord Peter Mandelson and Lord and Lady
Kinnock, all Labour party multi-millionaires because once-upon-a-time they were
EU commissioners. No wonder Mr Farage is making himself available for election
in the name of his new party! No wonder Lord Adonis is having a crack at it,
too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If you stop to think about it there is a reason why you
do the work that you do and don’t choose to do something else. It might be that
there are few local opportunities to do something else; it might be that you
really like doing what you do above all other opportunities; it might be that
you are just too content (or idle) to try to change. But, rest assured that the
man or woman who strives for power over people (ie a politician) is not an idle
person, or one without energy to fight for what he/she wants. People who seek
power are a peculiar people who have little clue about the history of mankind –
or else they believe they know better than everyone else. These are the people
who seek your votes. These are the people to whom you (and I) say ‘Rock on
Tommy – you and your party will do for me’. In short, we hand over our power
because we can’t be asked to use it ourselves, not even when it is likely to be
in our own best interest. And then we wonder why we didn’t get the cream. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We
didn’t give our full attention to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">ALL</b>
the points in that manifesto – just to those we liked. Or, worse, we were
beguiled by that seemingly attractive person with a microphone who keeps on
spouting off in Talk <u>Shows</u> (the clue is in the name – they are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">supposed</i> to be entertainment, doncha
know?) on voyeur-vision.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I wish I had a £pound for every time I’ve heard one
after another of them claim ‘they want what’s best for the country, and the
party’. And, of course, they know what the best is even if you aren’t too sure.
But we want what’s best for us, don’t we? Screw the rest. If that’s true then
we’re all as bad as one another and we vote for and often get what we deserve .
. . including the rubbish. So, be careful who you vote for/for whom you vote. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s not put our trust in princes (or corporations),
hey?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Some months ago I wrote an article (a muse) entitled ‘Who
Gave Them Dominion over us?’ One man replied with the correct answer. “We did”,
he said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having reminded myself of it, I’ve
just now read through it again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h2 style="background: white;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">I closed with an observation from the much respected Judge Andrew
Napolitano,</span><span style="background: #F7F7F7; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> the youngest life-tenured Superior Court </span><span style="background: #F7F7F7; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">judge</span><span style="background: #F7F7F7; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> in
the history of the State of New Jersey. He wrote:</span><span class="authorortitle"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></h2>
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<span style="color: #2b1b17; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Ultimately, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">we are responsible</b> for the folks we have elected and the things
they have done, whether secretive, hypocritical or in our faces. Ultimately, we
have the government we deserve. Will we change this before it is too late?” (Judge
Andrew Napolitano).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #2b1b17; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #2b1b17; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #2b1b17; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">WE gave
THEM dominion over us. <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #2b1b17; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Big
Mistake.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">With awareness, comes
responsibility<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Cause no harm <br />
Be honest<br />
Be peaceful<br />
</span></b><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Be responsible</span></b><span style="color: black; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Whether or not you are a member of a political party,
you didn’t choose the party leader. YOU didn’t chose Theresa May or Jeremy
Corbyn or any of the others. Someone else did. We have allowed them to hold
sway over us. And we have the nerve to say that ‘they’ are responsible.
Something ain’t right in the State of Denmark. (To paraphrase the Bard). And,
in the words of a popular song: ‘Watcha goin’ to do about it?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">*
* * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">See
also <a href="http://www.democracydefined.org/">www.democracydefined.org</a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="background: #00AEDA; color: black; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></b><span class="bold"><b><span style="color: black; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%;">I HAVE THE RIGHT TO VOTE, THEREFORE I LIVE IN A DEMOCRACY, RIGHT ?
- WRONG !</span></b></span><b><span style="color: black; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></b><span class="bold"></span><b><span style="color: red; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">"Suffrage does not define
democracy..."</span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Michael in Milton Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17965744962327164553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133158198700932101.post-81406950086496562542019-05-03T02:42:00.001-07:002019-05-03T02:42:12.376-07:00"Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry."<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">May 2019 - Anyone who has followed any of my earlier musings already knows something about my simple philosophies. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Whenever I can I prefer not to use labels to describe people because labels and names often can generate unhelpful images and prejudices in the minds of readers. Your experience of life is different to mine therefore your view of the world is likely to be different to mine in several respects. Harmony of thought is neither instant nor is it gained easily but accurate definition becomes easier if we can do away with ‘-ists’ and ‘-isms’.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Among other beliefs, some secular and some spiritual, I believe in individual FREEDOM: of expression and of religion; I believe in personal and family responsibility; I believe in the Rule of Law and Trial by Common Law Jury; I believe in limited government; and, mostly, I believe in a free market economy even though ‘free’ rarely means free. I know I’m not unusual because, from time to time, I find others who believe similarly.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I believe, too, that taxation is legal theft supported by menaces by the state and I believe that party politics work against the best interest and well-being of the people. THAT tends to make me a bit unusual.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Oh, and bankers are not our best friends despite what their adverts say.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>I believe</b> in the Rule of Law and Trial by Common Law Jury.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Think on this, if you will. It is the first requirement needed for a safe, sovereign, peaceful and prosperous United Kingdom. Common Law equates to natural law and by ‘natural’ law I’m not referring to gravity. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Natural law expresses itself as a common understanding of what is fair and what is not fair, based on the evidence presented to the jury. Children are instant experts at common and/or natural law. Adults certainly know about right and wrong. When it came to Trial by Jury our predecessors gave us the standard of 12 jurors to hear and judge the case arguments, and a convenor, now referred to as a judge. The Jury is called upon (required) to agree an unanimous verdict based on the evidence. In a Common Law court ‘no unanimity’ equals ‘not guilty’ or else the law itself is flawed and must be over ruled.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“The Full Restoration of our ancient and proven Common Law Trial by Jury and Annulment by Jury Constitution, wrote Justin Walker, puts us, the people, firmly back in authority over our agenda-driven and self-serving politicians, judges, lawyers and bankers by lawfully removing from them their powers to punish and deceive.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Years before we ever had a ‘Parliament’ the King John of England reluctantly agreed a treaty with his Lords, Barons and his subjects. It became known as Magna Carta 1215 and it forms the bedrock of our Constitution. When the treaty was agreed the intention was that it should continue to be a treaty ‘in perpetuity’ - it said so within the document - meaning for ever after.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(Encyclopaedia Britannica defines a treaty as: “The term treaty is used generically to describe a variety of instruments, including conventions, agreements, arrangements, protocols, covenants, charters, and acts. In the strict sense of the term, however, many such instruments are not treaties. The key distinguishing feature of a treaty is that it is binding.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(Treaties are expected to be executed in good faith, in keeping with the principle of pacta sunt servanda (Latin: “agreements must be kept”), arguably the oldest principle of international law. Without this principle, which is explicitly mentioned in many agreements, treaties would be neither binding nor enforceable.) Hence our problem with UK leaving EU, even though the treaty that binds us has get out clauses.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You’ve stayed with me thus far. Now there are two important questions in need of your consideration:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Can you think of any reasons why the Ten Commandments should not be displayed in a so-called court of law? According to George Carlin the real reason is because you cannot post ‘Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery’ and ‘Thou shalt not lie in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">2.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Can you think of any reasons why Judges, lawyers, police officers, won’t admit to the superiority of Common Law courts over state-sponsored courts?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Answer 2. There is no money in it for them, and no authority, either.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now can you see how truly precious Common Law Trial by Jury is to us? Can you understand how we have almost let this amazing gift slip through our fingers because we and our fathers listened to and believed those who would have dominion over us?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I often say there is nothing new under the sun and it holds true here. As Justin Walker wrote “The Full Restoration (nothing new) of our ancient and proven Common Law Trial by Jury and Annulment by Jury Constitution, puts us, the people, firmly back in authority.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And that, m’lud, is when the fighting began. If it is legal for the government to judge us according to statute law but illegal for we, the people, to judge ourselves according to Common Law Trial by Jury – we are moving towards tyranny with our eyes wide shut.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>WAKE UP!</b></span></h2>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">* * * * *</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For a more complete presentation on our democratic right to Common Law Trial by Jury and our Constitution emanating from Magna Carta 1215, </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I invite you to view </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>www.democracydefined.org</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>by Kenn d’Oudney.</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">* * * *</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Next time,</b> look for the second Requirement necessary for a safe, sovereign, peaceful United Kingdom and “The Creation of Prosperity for all by bringing back debt-free and interest-free Treasury money.”</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggovJdImntjCGbITzGpyVB5fyeb4IElhe9lL3O5rJFaLUAJdr6ePmcf-VtBdwEnL0B_QXP1AtKBMsiRtL8vTYJdEMYPna6Ysvc_YFLKoGXxf6yE4e840pbF14l1bRfprdIxOTF42dAfOo7/s1600/NCMCentredWithScales.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="967" height="126" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggovJdImntjCGbITzGpyVB5fyeb4IElhe9lL3O5rJFaLUAJdr6ePmcf-VtBdwEnL0B_QXP1AtKBMsiRtL8vTYJdEMYPna6Ysvc_YFLKoGXxf6yE4e840pbF14l1bRfprdIxOTF42dAfOo7/s200/NCMCentredWithScales.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Written and published by Michael<br />
www.newchartistmovement.org.uk<br />
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Michael in Milton Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17965744962327164553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133158198700932101.post-44163402063389401512019-04-22T07:46:00.000-07:002019-04-22T07:46:43.174-07:00As if by magic our liberty is stolen<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Whoever would overthrow the liberty </span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."</span></b></div>
Benjamin Franklin. American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman, diplomat, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Reflect on this headline, dear reader, and consider my often repeated observation that ‘there is nothing new under the Sun’. Liberty, as it was understood down the centuries, is being subdued all over the planet by those who would rule over us. As they have always done. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Through the power of modern telecommunications our rulers apply their rules as if on steroids. And we allow them to do so. Until.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Until we see them as they are. Not as concerned beneficiaries for you and me but as self-interested egotists. The warning coming to us from days of yore is the same as ever: ‘Give them an inch and they will take a mile’. (Or the metric equivalent). So, why give them an inch?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Like so many of us I’ve heard the various leaders of the packs who strut their stuff in search of popular acclaim and endorsement. I’ve read their newspaper articles; I’ve even attended various public meetings where some have tried to cast their spells on their willing adherents. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Perhaps, unbeknown to me, I’m becoming one of them because I write in an attempt to inform and wake others and cause minds to change. But I don’t want to be a leader. Not at my age.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What I want – what I really, really want – is to see the minds of family, friends, neighbours, community and country become <b>AWARE and AWAKE</b> to the diet of lies fed to them each day. I want them to ask WHO, WHAT, WHY, WHEN. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Children do it naturally all the time. Adults are too often too sophisticated (meaning un-natural) and too defensive of their own supposed status (meaning their pride) to stop and reflect. We have too few quiet moments in among the hurly-burly of work, family and other responsibilities. Think Simon and Garfunkel and their 59th Street Bridge Song (Feeling Groovy). “Slow down, you move too fast.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I think, too, of the words of media interrogator Sir Robin Day when he interviewed the then Defence Secretary, John Nott, at the time of the Falklands War. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(See https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4727494/Why-I-walked-out-on-Robin-Day.html)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">John Nott begins his explanation with the words: “MOST politicians have five minutes of fame before they disappear forever.” We, lemmings that we are, allow them their five minutes (figuratively speaking) and we and our children and grand children reap the whirlwind. Even that proverbial expression isn’t new. Look it up in the Old Testament, Hosea, chapter 8, verse 7. It’s in the book!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then think about the actions and words of our current Prime Minister, and our current Leader of the Opposition; the Leader of any other party you care to identify – all of them are here today and will be gone tomorrow, and our descendents will bear the benefits and the consequences which are our legacy <b>UNLESS WE STAND AND INSIST that ‘they’ STOP</b>. Cease and desist, as my old Head Master used to say. Better still, don’t allow them access-to-your-mind-time. Or, as Groucho Marx said: “I don’t want to join any club that would have me as a member.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Why? Because their assumptions and assertions are no better than yours or mine. In essence, time and time again they assert, in effect, ‘I’m right and you are wrong . . . unless you agree with me . . . in which case both of us are right.’ Rarely do ‘they’ admit that they are wrong. Why would they? They want your vote.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Groucho Marx also said; “Who are you going to believe? Me, or your own eyes?” Already the day is upon us when only ‘they’ are permitted freeness of speech. Everyone else is guilty of an –ism. And –isms aren’t allowed. That has to be worth thinking about.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">* * *</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And there is nothing new under the Sun.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">REALISE WITH REAL EYES THE REAL LIES</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Next time – what can we do about it?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
Michael in Milton Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17965744962327164553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133158198700932101.post-7534446852047913892019-04-06T21:46:00.000-07:002019-04-07T05:21:42.660-07:00I WANT TO BE FREE!<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There's no joy in my heart,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Only sorrow</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And I'm sad</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As a man can be</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I sit alone in the darkness</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Of my lonely room</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And this room</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Is a prison to me</span></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><div style="text-align: center;">
I look at my window</div>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And what to I see</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I see a bird</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Way up in the tree</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I want to be free free</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Free - ee - ee - ee</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I want to be free</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Like the bird in the tree</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
(Elvis Presley)</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">25“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">(The Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 6)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Now there’s a thought.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What it’s All Really About?</span></h3>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">by William Keyte</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Right, for goodness sake keep reading and don’t stop until the end! I'm going to try and break this subject down into short enough chunks that you won't think 'I can't read this now, I haven't got the time' - or something similar. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sorry to be a little bit irksome here, but not enough people are doing the reading. We need to get off our backsides and educate ourselves. If you do not know the material presented in this document, then you're already playing into the hands of the deep state which simply wants you as a spineless and compliant slave to the Orwellian corporate future that they’ve planned for all of us. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>What follows is some of the most important information you will receive about how the state and government is supposed to function.</b> If you find any of this information difficult to believe or swallow in any way then read the longer articles in the Learning Resources section of the New Chartist Website that back up these statements. www.newchartistmovement.com </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Here we go ... </span><br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Problem </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Many of us know already that humans are under extreme threat right now. The 'conspiracy theorists' were right all along. A small group (relatively speaking) are, indeed, engaged in conspiracy to defraud, harm and enslave the ordinary people. The conspiratorial nature of our reality is indeed undeniable, but it all stems from one problem: That people, now, following constant propaganda over millennia, are always looking for someone or something else to do things for them! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Stick with me, this is important. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The most obvious expression of this is in the formation of a government to do things for us. (Dangerous move - but OK, as long as you understand the principles laid out in this document). The system of governance that we (the people) created for our society has taken authority over us; but it should be the other way around: <b>The creator should always remain in authority over that which it has created. </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The government that we created to perform jobs for us, was infiltrated (along with practically every other government) by a cabalistic (meaning obscure, mysterious, dark and arcane) group which is now being used to control us. This wouldn't have happened if the fundamental principles of how a state is supposed to function always remained known and understood by the people. Specifically: <b>A legitimately-formed society always subordinates its government.</b> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The United Kingdom, once England, was and is meant to be a legitimately-formed state because its governing system was always intended to fall under the authority of the people. It was an example of true Equity in which all people are equal under the law. People are not subject to the law in slightly different ways and nor should some be more privileged than others. All are subject to it equally including the head-of-state, in our case: The Monarch.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">How? Read on, this is critical... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A bit of a Shock to Many </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It was never intended for the people to influence their government and state merely through voting in elections. That is not the primary mechanism by which the people hold their government to account - contrary to what most people believe. The real name for this system of voting in elections - especially a party political system - is 'Suffrage'. And as we all know, it doesn't work anyway. Most people believe, incorrectly, that this system of voting is called Democracy. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Wrong! This is the first surprise. We have been deceived about what Democracy really is. And when you understand what it really is, you'll realise very quickly that it is the most valuable thing the people can have. This will be a shock, even for many in the 'awake and aware' community - especially in America where it is common to argue that they are a republic, and not a democracy. This is false - they are actually both: a Democratic Republic. The ‘republic’ bit merely describes the style of the head of state (a president) as opposed to a Monarchy in the UK. But it's the 'Democratic' part that is the crucial bit - and you'll see why. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Read on - keep going! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The real constitutional mechanism by which our government is subordinated, and maintains us in authority is, in fact, the real definition of Democracy itself - and it’s not voting in elections! Many in the 'truth' movement have been tricked into believing that we don't want a Democracy - simply because we've been told, wrongly, it's about voting. It’s Not!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So What is Democracy Really? </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Real Democracy is what the conspirators have been desperate to hide over the last 800 years. It contains a very powerful mechanism that keeps the people in authority over their government at all times - not merely once every four or five years! This will surprise many. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Common Law Trial by Jury </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Don't stop reading - there's more to this, because <b>real Common Law Trial by Jury</b> (which doesn't operate today) contains a devastating weapon that has been deliberately hidden from the people. It's called <b>Annulment by Jury</b>. Most people think that Trial by Jury is simply there for us to judge the accused. No - that is not the only reason. In fact it could be argued that that is merely the secondary and less important reason for Trial by Jury. Full, unabridged Trial by Jury which should be in place today, allows the jury (a small sample of our community) to throw out government-created law (legislation). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yes, you did read that correctly! The real judges in a proper Common Law Trial are the jury: not the Judge! </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Judge's role has been renamed from 'Convenor' - merely an administrator. They won't like to hear that! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The jury is supposed to judge on all aspects of the case - which doesn't happen now. There are lots of crucially important things that I could tell you about real Trial by Jury, but I won't because I'm keeping this short and sweet. But this is the biggy!... If the accused has indeed technically broken the legislation, then as jurors, people think they are supposed to return a 'guilty' verdict to reflect the facts of the case and back-up the law. No! This is not the case. Because the jury is supposed to be judging on fairness and justice - specifically, they are looking for malicious intent. Does it feel right according to my conscience, to punish this man - regardless of whether he has technically broken the law? It is perfectly possible and right that a common law jury returns a not-guilty verdict even though the accused may have technically breached some piece of government legislation. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But, ladies and gentlemen, the effect of this is spectacular!... If that happens, then under Common Law, that piece of government legislation is found to be defective and begins the process of being extracted from the statute books!! That's the biggest bombshell for the political class because they don't like it up 'em. The people (could even be one individual) is responsible for throwing out government-created law! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Don't you just love it!? Think about it people, because, under common law, a guilty verdict can only be returned if it's unanimous (all jurors return a guilty decision), just one individual member of our community could be the cause of bringing about the end to an unfair, impractical or unworkable piece of legislation! One dissenter causes a Not-Guilty verdict. That's power of the people, ladies and gents. Now do you get it!?? This could happen at any point - whenever there is a trial. So government legislation is meant to be tested under Common Law at all times and is always subject to the authority of the people. The government’s own ‘law’ could and should be tested every day all over the country under our authority!! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Social Contract </b></span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That is the social contract that people talk about. We are led to believe in some rather vague, airy-fairy way that the social contract is all about the government being allowed to govern as long as the system of representation is maintained (voting). Rubbish! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The social contract is that the government is allowed to 'govern' as long as it remains subservient to the rule of law: which is the people being in judicial authority over them through Trial and Annulment by Jury - as it was in ancient Greece! Parliament is not sovereign: the people are sovereign. Sorry, politicians, life's such a bitch isn't it? In essence this means that the people are the government. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Different Jurisdictions of Law </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Just to clarify. There are different jurisdictions or 'layers' in law. Government is allowed to create ‘law’ (called legislation through creating Acts of Parliament). But all of this not only has to be ratified by our head-of-state - the Queen, but is also put to the test every single time it comes up in a trial. Common Law is a higher jurisdiction of law and is created by the people (not government) and not (as is often claimed by people in the Judiciary) judges. It is created through the decisions made by the people when they sit on juries. Common Law is a consolidation of the decisions of juries. All government-created ‘law’ (legislation) must be in alignment with Common Law. Now do you get the picture?! Where does all this come from? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Magna Carta 1215: the Original and Best </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That's your constitution, people! The last time I looked, it was definitely written as well. Yes, you have a written constitution - contrary again to what others would have you believe. And yes, in their nasty, conniving way, they created their own preferred ‘power-grabbing’ versions of it later on to replace the original that they didn’t like. But it was unlawful to attempt this - as these were only legislature versions (from parliament). The Government can’t write constitutional law and is not allowed to write itself into a higher position within that stratum. Government can only repeal or amend legislation – which means anything that government has created previously. Government cannot write itself into judicial authority. Government is contained within the Common Law. And the 1215 Magna Carta was written and sealed before the formation of parliament. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Effects of Brexit or Remain </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What happens if we affirm our position in EU and don't leave? All those powerful mechanisms I’ve just described, that protect the people and keep them in authority over their government will disappear, because EU doesn't have Common Law. In EU, you're guilty until proved innocent. EU doesn’t have Trial by Jury - because EU uses the Napoleonic system of law. Nasty! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now do you think staying in EU is a good thing? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Don't worry Remainers - most Brexiteers didn't have a clue about this either :-) They tricked everyone. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If you like what you have just read, then read more on the New Chartist Movement Website. Have a look at the 'Articles' and the 'Learning Resources' sections. Keep looking into this and Happy Reading!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">William Keyte • New Chartist Movement Campaign Team </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">https://www.newchartistmovement.org.uk </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">English Bill of Rights 1689</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Oops! I almost forgot the Bill of Rights in which it is written: </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“And I do declare that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state or potentate hath or ought to have any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm. So help me God.”</i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now there’s another thought.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Michael</span><br />
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Michael in Milton Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17965744962327164553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133158198700932101.post-59704307658213960112019-03-10T15:13:00.001-07:002019-03-10T15:13:09.962-07:00An open letter to UK Members of Parliament<b>From my department of useless information:</b> When I was a young man I joined the Labour Party under the rise-and-rise of Harold Wilson because he was such a refreshing change from so many others at that time. I had no idea who was my local constituency MP at the time. Like many, I voted for the pied piper.<br />
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When Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister I joined the Conservative Party because, unlike so many others of my age group, I found nothing much to dislike about her expressed political views. I had no idea then who was my local constituency MP. Again, like many I voted for the pied piper.<br />
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Today I am not a member of any party. I discovered some time ago that ‘the party’ exists for the continuation of the party. Fullstop. Constituents who aren’t members seem to be classed as useful idiots whose views and beliefs can be safely put to one side until the next election. Once the vote has been given it is taken to represent acceptance of ALL the party manifesto, even when some parts of the manifesto aren’t acceptable – take it or leave it. It doesn’t matter which party I’m talking about. The principle remains unchanged.<br />
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The divide within the parties today, especially over Brexit and the EU adds emphasis to my view. I didn’t have anything to do with electing Theresa May as Party leader and thus Prime Minister. If she says and does anything that I cannot condone – tough. It has nothing to do with me. It is to do with what SHE says and does, backed by faceless string pullers in the Civil Service. But the important thing, to her, is clearly to present a united front, insofar as that is possible. She wants to be the face of the pied piper.<br />
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Similarly, when Her Majesty the Queen applies pen to statute to make it law, she does so on the basis of what her advisers tell her, even if to do so breaches her Coronation Oath.<br />
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Archbishop of Canterbury: “Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern the Peoples of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, Pakistan, and Ceylon, and of your Possessions and the other Territories to any of them belonging or pertaining, according to their respective laws and customs?”<br />
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Queen Elizabeth II: “I solemnly promise so to do.”<br />
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Party MPs and Independents also take an Oath, as you know. “I (name of Member) swear by Almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors, according to law. So help me God.”<br />
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Some might adhere to this Oath but many clearly don’t. Their allegiance is too obviously jointly to their own career and the party first, and so QCs of the governing party + civil servants ‘advise the Queen’ as to what she should do. But they do not permit Her to publicly differ from their advice. She is not allowed ‘to govern’, not even in accord with our ‘respective laws and customs’. The concept of a prisoner in a gilded cage comes to mind.<br />
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The current population of the United Kingdom is 66,837,847 as of Saturday, March 9, 2019, based on the latest United Nations estimates. The votes in favour of Theresa May as MP for Maidenhead, with an electorate of 74,000+ was a reduced majority of 26,500 on a turnout of 58,200. Hardly what I’d call true representation – not even on a good day.<br />
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I conclude with a different observation. As recently as January 2019 Conservative MP Crispin Blunt put down an early day motion calling to abolish the practice of saying prayers at the beginning of parliamentary business in the House of Commons and House of Lords. A practice believed to have begun in 1558, I might add. Attendance is voluntary, I’m told, but I have no idea how many MPs participate. Mr Blunt isn’t the first to raise the subject and I’m sure he won’t be the last. Typically, he's talking about wanting to stop people from doing what they perhaps want to do while those who don't wish to participate are free anyway to stay away. How arrogant.<br />
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I’m told the Speaker's Chaplain usually reads the prayers. I could be pedantic and assert that reading prayers is different to praying. I take it that you know the form of the main prayer is as follows:<br />
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<i>"Lord, the God of righteousness and truth, grant to our Queen and her government, to Members of Parliament and all in positions of responsibility, the guidance of your Spirit. May they never lead the nation wrongly through love of power, desire to please, or unworthy ideals but laying aside all private interests and prejudices keep in mind their responsibility to seek to improve the condition of all mankind; so may your kingdom come and your name be hallowed. Amen." </i><br />
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In today’s climate it is little wonder that some MPs feel unable to utter those words and would wish them to be eliminated, but they are under no obligation.<br />
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Rightly or wrongly, Her Majesty bears the title of Head of the Church of England and the likes of Crispin Blunt seem to want to trample on that, too. It makes me wonder about the value of any oath involving government or Parliament or politician.<br />
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On my study wall is a quotation attributed to Sir Winston Churchill together with a photograph of him in his hey-day. It reads:<br />
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<b>“We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English Speaking World and which, through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, Habeas Corpus, Trial by Jury and the English Common Law, find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.”</b><br />
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I fear for my country. One day Her Majesty will pass; one day MPs and Lords will be moved out of the Palaces of Westminster to enable refurbishment, with no assurance that they will ever reassemble; one day a new head will be offered the Crown to be Monarch of a totally disunited and fractured Britain; and one day there will be a General Election which will recreate all the follies and illusions that we have today. You’ve heard the expression ‘United we Stand, Divided we Fall’ haven’t you?<br />
I could weep. And MPs dare to address each other as Honourable and Right Honourable when so many are seemingly without honour.<br />
<br />
Michael<br />
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Michael in Milton Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17965744962327164553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133158198700932101.post-86300544209289762752019-03-05T03:11:00.000-08:002019-03-05T03:11:16.595-08:00AS (some) OTHERS SEE US<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Socialism in the UK means no pools, no swearing and citizens pulling their own teeth</span></div>
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Guest Post by Simon Black</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUUXDpaUmm7BvGUQ9ps-DKgeWQDixjqNgXGWP3TbbMrZ1S1NN4i-Ij8BEQJynLdbkwwDavOKrNojKkRRrDVwFOt94k9T-imfWNiELv2ebytioAR4bU4aOY4t8fZTdNSyPoj8-7CYC0pFd4/s1600/Union+flag.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="499" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUUXDpaUmm7BvGUQ9ps-DKgeWQDixjqNgXGWP3TbbMrZ1S1NN4i-Ij8BEQJynLdbkwwDavOKrNojKkRRrDVwFOt94k9T-imfWNiELv2ebytioAR4bU4aOY4t8fZTdNSyPoj8-7CYC0pFd4/s320/Union+flag.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The events that I am about to describe to you are 100% true.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They have already happened to various people across the United Kingdom, which in some respects is leading the charge to 21st century “Big Brother” authoritarianism.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It’s all real, and it’s all disturbing. To humanize it a little bit we have pulled several true events together into a single story about a man we’ll call “George.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">George thinks he might stop by the community garden. His neighbours regularly gather there around a waist-deep, inflatable pool they purchased to beat the summer heat.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But then he remembers that the landlords ordered the pool removed… they were concerned that a burglar might inadvertently hurt himself while attempting to rob a home, so the pool needed to go. <i>(The Sun, 12 July 2018)</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Instead George figures he’ll get a start on some errands. He hops in his work van and stops for a bite to eat on the way into town.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But when George’s meat-lovers pizza arrives, it looks quite sparse and smaller than he remembers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“Public Health England has new standards we’re following,” the man behind the counter explains. “We’ve cut the meat and reduced the size… it’s to combat childhood obesity.”<i> (The Telegraph, 25 December 2018)</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Well I’m not a child, George thinks, but politely keeps it to himself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">George parks downtown, and still feeling a bit peckish, throws away the empty pizza box in the trash bag in the back of his van. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But before he can get his shopping started, a member of the local council enforcement approaches. He noticed the trash in the back of George’s work van.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“Do you have a waste carrier’s license, to carry rubbish in a commercial vehicle?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“What, to throw out my lunch? I didn’t toss it out the window, did I?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">George received a £300 fine. Yes, in the UK, you now need a license to have trash in your private property. <i>(The Sun 2nd August 2018)</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By now George is understandably feeling a bit peeved. And when he sees a sign that says police are conducting a facial recognition trial, he pulls his sweatshirt up over his face. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But he hasn’t gone 12 paces before officers pull him aside.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“It says participation isn’t mandatory,” George protests.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“Awful suspicious to cover your face,” the cops say. “What do you have to hide?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“Oh piss off!” George shouts. So the bobbies issue George a £90 public order fine for swearing. No, apparently you can’t opt out of “optional” facial recognition or swear in the UK. <i>(The Independent, 31 January 2019)</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Exasperated, George continues to the hardware store. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He has to buy a hammer and nails so that he and his neighbors can build a barricade in front of their homes. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There’s a big festival coming to town… and last year, police failed to stop revelers from inflicting massive property damage on shops and homes, in addition to multiple stabbings and a number of acid attacks. <i>(The Star, 25th August 2018)</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At first George thought the barriers were a bit overkill. Perhaps he could just get some pepper spray instead?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But when he checked the official UK police resource website, George was appalled to read that “The only fully legal self defence product at the moment is a rape alarm.” So, no pepper spray – too much liability.<i>(https://www.askthe.police.uk/content/Q589.htm )</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">George arrives home, ready to build, but gets a knock on the door.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It’s the UK anti-terrorism police unit. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They received a call from a concerned citizen who had seen the recent 'Life has No Rewind Button' commercials. The videos tell citizens to report any suspicious behaviour, because “Reporting suspicious activity won’t ruin lives, but it might save them.” <i>(Scott Shackford, associate editor.|Jan. 30, 2019 www.reason.com) </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Just like in the commercial, the citizen grew concerned when she saw George buying a hammer… Citizens are told to report on others who make purchases of weapons or “other objects that could be used to cause harm.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It takes George the better part of an hour to prove his innocence to the officers. By the time they leave, his damn tooth is aching again from all the stress.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What ever happened to that National Health Service request I made a year and a half ago? George thinks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He contacts the NHS, who tell him to wait patiently, he will be seen when the resources become available. But he’s already waited over a year. And he’s losing patience. Who knows how much longer it will take.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So George clamps a pair of pliers around his tooth… and he yanks it clean out. <i>(BBC.co.uk, 29th January 2019)</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Just another day in the Socialist UK.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(ends)</span></div>
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Well, it must be true. It was in the news.</div>
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On the other hand, you couldn’t make it up.</div>
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Michael in Milton Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17965744962327164553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133158198700932101.post-26390421043149865962019-02-28T04:16:00.001-08:002019-02-28T04:16:09.475-08:00A job, a job. My Kingdom for a job<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I’ll sell or give away anything for a job.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Don’t smile. It isn’t funny.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">From time to time when chatting among friends after someone we know has died, I reflect with a brief comment about the imminent funeral and say: “You know, I’ve never heard anyone stand at a grave side and say ‘he really did want to work his listed overtime next Saturday’.” And people then smile, wryly. They get the point.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We work for money to buy . . . food . . . clothes . . . a roof over our heads . . . a holiday in the sun . . . or anything you care to think of. But, sometimes, we lose sight of the cost of those things, and I’m not talking about pounds and pence. What I’m talking about is the simple phrase ‘we work for money . . . to buy.’ As in, “You know I work all day to get you money to buy you things”. (The Beatles)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The assumption implicit in that song is the idea that the ONLY way to satisfy any of our necessary and natural needs is first to work for money . . . and then all these things can be added. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It seems to me that’s the emphasis being laid upon Brexit by those who would rule over us. You could lose your job, your business, your income, your-everything-you’ve-ever-worked-for. It’s all about the money, honey. We call it scaremongering – and other things - don’t we?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">With those thoughts buzzing in my head I began to divide the world (families, neighbours, towns, counties, countries, continents) as I see them in my mind. The list is never-ending.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>On one hand<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>On the other hand</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Men<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Women</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Adults<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Adolescents and youths</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Educated<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Not-so-well-educated</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Single<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Married</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Conservatives<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> All the other political views</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Socialist<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>All other political views</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Christian<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>All the other religious beliefs</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Muslim<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>All other religious beliefs</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Religious beliefs<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> No religious beliefs</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Caucasian<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Non-Caucasian</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Native born<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Immigrant</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Good English<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Not so good English speaker</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Home owner<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Home renter</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Grateful<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Ungrateful</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Worker<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Unemployed</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Employer<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Employee</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Arrogant<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Humble</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Foreceful<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Timid</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Self Confident<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Not self confident</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Good speaker<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Not a good speaker</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Attractive <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Not so attractive appearance</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Friendly<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Not friendly</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Optimist<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Pessimist</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Selfish<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Selfless</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The list is endless but I’ll stop there. Jumble them in any way you like so that it isn’t a simple case of seemingly opposites but a mixture from real life of real people.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now tell me how you believe we can have a meeting of the minds easily! We can’t. There are too many mis-matches.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If that is the case, why on earth would you elect any one of these mismatches to be your representative . . . on your local council . . . in your associations . . . in your national assembly (meaning Parliament within UK). Especially when it isn’t YOU they will represent, and you know it. They are chosen by the PARTY managers who see them as worthy party representatives, and you know it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">WHY would you vote for them/the party and deceive yourself into believing that they are YOUR representatives when only the inside crowd have had any say in choosing them? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And the answer is? We do it because that’s the way we’ve always done it and because we’ve never acknowledged that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting to obtain a different result . . . is the essence of madness.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Oh, yes. That’s another ‘on the one hand and on the other hand’ match. Those who are mad, and those (in their own eyes) who are not mad. Both cannot be right.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So, going back to my opening headline – is all this Brexit hullaballoo about jobs (or potentially the lack of them)? Or is it about personal vested interests? Even when they are mis-matched and almost innumerable?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Could it be about national integrity? Clearly, it isn’t about maintaining our own Constitution, Magna Carta 1215, Common Law and Trial by Jury, Habeas Corpus, Rule of Law, Natural Law. I put it to you that these things aren’t spoken about openly because there are too many vested interests and such people (illusionists is the best I could call them) are, clearly, willing to give away our Kingdom for a horse or twenty pieces of silver equivalent.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We have another name for those people.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If my writing has struck a chord with you, please go to:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">www.newchartistmovement.org.uk for further information.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6wRQI-nli-QedW8cMO-mfAzjiDjhOiWnvRGOjahnOz5vWCQzIXwDsMS83VnE2fB1zi3zpFCaMlFtF5Y0gcH-OTos7NxJEKjccD_4Vepwl81mlFCzgnR84hwfOnP1UO8Pd2gHbu2sLkGmX/s1600/NCMCentredWithScales.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="967" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6wRQI-nli-QedW8cMO-mfAzjiDjhOiWnvRGOjahnOz5vWCQzIXwDsMS83VnE2fB1zi3zpFCaMlFtF5Y0gcH-OTos7NxJEKjccD_4Vepwl81mlFCzgnR84hwfOnP1UO8Pd2gHbu2sLkGmX/s320/NCMCentredWithScales.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The 2019 People’s Charter</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Six Requirements Needed to Collapse the Criminal ‘Deep State’</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1. Restoring our ancient and proven Common Law Trial by Jury Constitution that puts the people back in authority over our politicians, lawyers and bankers by removing from them their power to punish. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">2. Creating prosperity for all by bringing back debt-free and interestfree Treasury money that’s simply based on the wealth and labour of our nation – exactly as we did in 1914 with the enormously successful 'Bradbury Pound'. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">3. Ending the abuse and harm of all children whilst protecting the Common Law rights of parents so as to strengthen the family unit. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">4. Having the right numbers of Police and Armed Services needed to guarantee the sovereignty and protection of our country from all those who wish us harm. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">5. Exposing and removing a hidden and alien system of 'legalese' governance that uses outright fraud, deception and entrapment to unlawfully impoverish and constrain the ordinary people of our country. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">6. Ensuring that science is always used for the well-being and advancement of all and not for the profit and greed of the few.</span><br />
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Michael in Milton Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17965744962327164553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133158198700932101.post-89935204770087943022019-02-02T03:44:00.000-08:002019-02-03T05:49:28.519-08:00Time to Tell It Like It Is - UPDATED “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are moulded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized.<br />
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Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. … In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.” - <i>Edward Bernays – Propaganda</i><br />
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Stand up that person who said ‘Rubbish – I know what I know and I make up my own mind’. To you I say: ‘You are totally correct, Sir/Ma’am. But it is important that all of us recognise that we don’t know what we don’t know! That, surely, is self evident.<br />
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For example, when you place your baby in front of a voyeur-vision machine, you don’t know who created the programmes and images that are beamed into your child’s eyes and mind. Possibly, you don’t even think about it.<br />
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Similarly, when you kiss goodbye to your child on its first day at school, you trust everyone connected with education, from the Secretary of State for Education (of any political party) right down to classroom assistants, but you don’t know what they will do to your child’s understanding of the world. You don’t even know them. But, possibly, you don’t even think about it.<br />
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When your child is old enough to be given an i-phone or a computer and takes it to bed at night, you don’t know who is filling their mind with what. But, possibly, you don’t even think about it.<br />
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And when there is a hue and cry about the damage being done to the minds of our children because of what they see and hear on so-called ‘social media’? What then? Judging by the news media this week the immediate call is for regulation. I could weep.<br />
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Let me create a picture in your mind. You and I are standing together and I’ve just asked you to hold out your hand. You do as I ask. Great. Then I produce a cigarette lighter and ignite it right below your hand. No guessing what happens next – you pull away your hand.<br />
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Oops, sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Tell you what, let’s do it differently – let me use your other hand. ‘No way’, I hear you say. Why? Because you’ve learned not to play with fire. You didn’t have to think about it and no one needed to legislate for it.<br />
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So, tell me, what is so very different between fire burning your hand and the contents of social media burning your child’s mind? I suggest, not a lot. Maybe the solution is for the child not to go there rather than for its parents to demand restrictive legislation and allow them to continue to go there.<br />
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You still don’t know what you don’t know. You tell me again that you’ve never thought about it like that. Be encouraged. THINK ABOUT IT. Don’t wait for your child to be burned. It’s called ‘being responsible’.<br />
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What was that you said? ‘My kids wouldn’t put up with that’. So be it. That just means you’ve lost already and the propaganda people in social media, in mainstream media, in education, in government, win the cigar. We lose.<br />
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<b>“People who judge authoritatively what their liberties are, retain all the liberties they wish to enjoy. This is Liberty.”</b> – Kenn d’Oudrey – Democracy Defined, The Manifesto.</div>
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Media this morning suggested that the Prime Minister ‘could call a June General Election’ and, according to the headlines, ‘vows to battle for Britain’. Hmmm.</div>
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A General Election means that backroom boys in political parties write manifestos for public consumption designed to attract positive attention – for example, votes in favour of said party. The manifesto consists of promises and aspirations of all the things the party hasn’t yet done but, because they want your vote, they think might appeal to you and win your vote. If you vote for them you are entitled only to take all or nothing at all. Take it or leave it.</div>
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How different might this country be if we, the people, could vote on a manifesto on a line by line basis? How different might this country be if we voted for our own chosen and known-to-us local constituency candidate instead of someone chosen by a small group of local party members, endorsed by a national head office? How different might this country be if, after 12 months in Parliament, an MP could be recalled for performance assessment (just like any other employee) and either returned to Parliament to continue representing his constituents or else replaced?</div>
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You think that’s revolutionary? Not really. Not so very long ago it was considered a revolutionary idea to pay MPs! Today we pay them £74,000 a year from day one for up to five years, plus expenses/allowances, plus perks. No experience required but compliance with party rules preferred. AND WE VOTE FOR THEM! And they refer to each other as ‘Honourable’.</div>
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Worse, if they have reliable experience (according to government requirements) they could qualify to become a government minister, for extra pay, of course. Wow! As some Americans might say: You must be out of your cotton pickin’ tree!</div>
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On top of that, if the elected person declines to take an oath of allegiance to the Crown, as happens with representatives of Sinn Fein, the government makes a contribution to party funds.</div>
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I have little more to say other than it would be unfair to tar every MP with the same brush. Undoubted, some truly want to represent their constituents and will remain back benchers as long as they can. But it seems to me that they don’t validate the partisan system which is forced upon us. <b>WE validate the party system by voting for it.</b></div>
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I believe there are two possible solutions.</div>
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1.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>Passive.</b> Don’t vote at all and for five years put up with whatever result is called. </div>
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2.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>Active. </b>Find and support a person (or BE that person) who is willing to stand as an Independent representative for your constituency, and vote for him/her.</div>
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It isn’t rocket science.</div>
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PS: I'm too old to be active any more.</div>
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<br />Michael in Milton Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17965744962327164553noreply@blogger.com0