Like a garden overgrown, I have allowed this site to atrophy for a long while now. The weeds of inactivity have taken root here and I'm still unsure of when I will begin replanting it. Pulling up the deadwood of old ideas and reversing the informational entropy that has overtaken this place is a big task. One I'm not sure that I'm ready or even willing to begin.
Yet, the weeds grow, the world turns and the task must either be attempted or abandoned soon...
Of my own education I have not been idle. In my reverie I have piled the thoughts higher, attempted to expand the boundaries of what I know and can speak of with at least a modicum less ignorance than I had the day before. Yet, the task of sharing my conclusions with the wider world as I once did so enthusiastically here has eluded me.
There are many things I could say, some that perhaps still need to be said. But I cannot escape the sense that many of them already have been, by others more equal to the task and far more courageous and steadfast in the effort than I.
It looks, increasingly, as if those forces seeking to subjugate and ensnare, to enslave, corrupt, suffocate and subdue are in the ascendancy. The people of my nation slumber, like flowers in a field, in ignorance or denial of the machinery of harvest that approaches them. I sleep also. Yet, my sleep is not rest, nor is it blissful, for I hear the ominous rumble in the distance...
Where are the voices that will speak out at this late hour? Sounding the last warning, shaking the sleeping shrubs and flowers suddenly awake in their beds! Can they be awakened, can a flower that does not desire to bloom be awoken from dormancy? Is it worth the struggle, effort and risk required to attempt the task?
I don't know and because I can find neither the courage nor the certain will to decide, I oscillate, hesitate, drift...
An answer will not come, until I decide to move myself. I either bend my back to the task and raise myself from dormancy, accepting the work of the day as it comes, or I slip away quietly from this ground and cede it forever to the weeds.
Apologies to any regular visitors to this site for the lack of content in recent weeks. After the death of my Mum at the end of July, I decided to take a break from regular blogging and podcasting for a while. I will be back with new content in the very near future. In the meantime, I'd like to thank you for your continued interest in this website and inform you that I'll be back with some new and exciting content very soon.
My Mum died at the start of this month from a combination of
Clostridium difficile and cancer. Although she entered hospital some 3
months before because of the cancer, it was Clostridium difficile the
"scourge of the health service" that was listed as the primary cause of
her death.
You shouldn't die of something you contracted in a hospital. And its
recognised as an "infectious diarrhea occurring in hospitalized
patients in developed countries."
So much for "the best health system in the world" - Much is changing in our world, not all of it for the better.
Sorry that's all I have for right now. It's not much I know. Still I wanted to say hello again...
I was getting 100,000 hits a month here a little while back. Apparently
that's quite a lot, especially for a little site like mine. I have no
idea what it is now.
Thanks for showing up, if you did. :)
I'll be back soon, maybe... Sorry I can't be more definite folks, the tide of time and circumstance being what it is.
"God Bless each and every one of you" - and that's a quote. ;-)
The Telegraph is running a piece calling for an EU referendum and quoting a statement by Jean-Claude Juncker, premier of Luxembourg. In it Mr Juncker appears to imply that British people should only be consulted about matters which fundamentally affect they way they are governed, if they can be relied upon to support the constitutional position pre-selected for them by their leaders.
Speaking to Belgian newspaper Le Soir Mr Juncker he said,
"I am astonished at those who are afraid of the people: one can always explain that what is in the interest of Europe is in the interests of our countries. Britain is different. Of course there will be transfers of sovereignty. But would I be intelligent to draw the attention of public opinion to this fact?"
Mr Juncker went on to outline the considerable constitutional changes which have taken already place; all without any real input from the British people when he said,
"There is a single legal personality for the EU, the primacy of European law, a new architecture for foreign and security policy, there is an enormous extension in the fields of the EU's powers, there is Charter of Fundamental Rights."
The EU Constitution in printer friendly PDF format is here.
Comment
Certainly, framing the debate in such a way that the British people are
kept ignorant of vital facts on significant issues has been a well
trodden path taken by this current British government. Regardless of political ideology, undertaking a fundamental restructuring of the way in which nations are governed, without genuine public consultation or approval, cannot but bode ill for the future of participatory democracy.
An interesting viewpoint on the latest London car bombings from Larry
Johnson; interviewed here by MSNBC journalist Keith Olbermann. He is
introduced as "an ex-CIA agent. It's impossible to verify if Larry is
or isn't an ex-CIA agent, since its merely a statement made by the
journalist and no proof is offered. Nonethless his comments seem
insightful. Judge for yourselves...
Tests supervised by the Italian Army on a Carcano M91/38 bolt-action rifle, similar to the one said to have been used by Lee Harvey Oswald to kill President John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK), on November 22, 1963, claim that it would have taken at least 19 seconds to get off the three shots allegedly fired by Oswald.The Warren Commission, (responsible for the investigation into the murder), concluded that the shots which killed JFK, were fired by Oswald in only 7 seconds.
The report, was published by the Italian news agency ANSA and has since been picked up by United Press International (UPI) and reported briefly on Sky News. It is sketchy on details, claiming only that "The tests were done in a former Carcano factory in Terni." and that "In one test, a bullet was fired through two large pieces of meat to simulate the assumed path of a shot that the Warren Commission concluded struck Texas Gov. John Connally after passing through Kennedy's body. In the test, the bullet ended deformed, while the bullet in the Kennedy assassination remained intact."
Comment
It is strange that this report should appear in the same week that Time Magazine is running a piece on its website claiming that JFK's brother, Robert Francis Kennedy, (RFK) assassinated in June 1968, was "America's first J.F.K. assassination-conspiracy theorist." In the case of RFK, the man said to have been responsible for the murder, Palestinian Christian Sirhan Sirhan, has since retracted his admission of guilt and demanded a retrial, claiming that he was framed and that crucial evidence was destroyed.
75% of the American people believe that John Kennedy was killed by an organized conspiracy. A conspiracy which did not involve Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone. These days that belief is simply used as proof of the American peoples delusional desire to believe ill of their own government.
Lee Harvey Oswald was charged with the murder of JFK, but was himself murdered two days later by Jack Ruby before he could stand trial. Oswald famously claimed that he was not responsible for the murder and was in fact "a patsy". The Warren Commission concluded Oswald had acted alone. The House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in 1979 that there may have been a conspiracy. Nothing was ever done to follow up on this conclusion.
In the murder of JFK and its subsequent controversial aftermath, America became the victim of it's very own killing of the king ritual. An act, replete with tortured symbolism, which traumatized an era and enacted a profound shift in the psychic topography of American political life.
America was never the same after the death of JFK. The murder of his brother Robert; when he himself was campaigning to inherit the symbolic crown of the presidency, simply reinforced the terrible sense of helplessness that many Americans were beginning to feel. During an era of international war and internal strife, many desired a real change in the political and social culture of the Republic. It had looked (for a time), as if the Kennedy's; a newly crowned virile family dynasty would help to bring this change about.
After the assassinations, much of that idealism and hope was lost beneath the bodies of dead leaders and the endless carnage of a conflict in Vietnam. If there was a conspiracy to kill the Kennedy's and its end was to prevent the flowering of idealism into a genuine force for cultural and political transformation, then these two vile acts of sorcerous symbolism, could not have met with a greater degree of success.
With just 10 days left on the clock of his Prime Ministerial reign, Anthony Charles Blair is preparing to attend his final EU summit. It is expected that whilst in Germany on Thursday, Blair will give assent to plans for Britain to sign up to the "treaty on the functioning of the union" a document that many claim, is simply a repurposed version of the failed European Constitution. The original constitution was signed by EU leaders including Tony Blair in October 2004 - its ratification failed, when it was rejected by both the French and Dutch people in referendums in 2005.
Todays Sunday Times, quotes Monsieur Valerie Giscard d’Estaing, former French President and one of the amended treaties principal architects as saying. "The name is not important". Speaking to the French newspaper LeMonde, he said the public would "adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to
them directly”. The same Monsieur Giscard, revealed his true feelings about the European public's rejection of the previous version of the constitution in a lecture at the London School of Economics in 2006, when he said. "The rejection of the Constitution was a mistake which will have to be corrected."
This remodeled version, ratifies the European Union as a single legal entity with a "legal personality" allowing it to negotiate and sign binding international contracts and agreements. It confers upon this legal entity "exclusive competence" and determines that Member States may "exercise their competence to the extent that the Union has not exercised, or has decided to cease exercising, its competence." It also creates a position of European President within the European Council and a single foreign policy representative. Many constitutional experts feel this will erode the principle of national sovereignty and deal a significant blow to the power of nation states to govern themselves. The document states emphatically. "This Constitution shall have primacy over the laws of member states".
According to the Sunday Times, EU leaders have already discussed the idea of offering the new position of European President to Blair; a role which will undoubtedly carry significant prestige and no small measure of power. Given the legal primacy that the European Parliament assumes over all national governments this could effectively elevate Blair to an even higher level within the European elite.
UPDATE: Blair has sidestepped the European Presidential role, instead opting to take up a position as a special envoy for the Middle East Quartet with a portfolio focused on Palestinian economic reform.
Comment
It is plain that when the democratically expressed will of the people is not to pursue a path towards deeper European integration, those who consider themselves the only ones fit to decide, will consider such decisions "mistakes" to be ignored, corrected later, or treated as a temporary setbacks.
Of the 16 countries that have completed ratification, only 2 have done so via referendum; Luxembourg and Spain. Spain managed only a 42% turnout in its vote. France and Holland both rejected it. In all other cases, the Constitution was ratified by parliamentary vote and the people were not consulted.
The European Constitution has been rejected by half of the people who have actually had a chance to vote upon it; the fact that this means nothing to those pushing ahead with a mildly revised version, perfectly demonstrates the contempt the European political elite feel for the desires of those in whose name they pretend to govern.
Read a PDF reader friendly version of the Constitution here.
The 51st British Prime Minister Anthony Charles Blair is preparing to resign after a decade in power on June 27th. During his term in office, he has presided over a series of sweeping legislative and social changes. Many of these fundamentally alter our relationship to the state. They will have dramatic consequences upon our freedom to speak, think and act, far beyond the length of his tenure.
The 2001 Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act gave the Home Secretary the power to detain any foreign national indefinitely - without charge, or trial. Ironically in 1993, Anthony Charles Blair said - "deprivation of liberty should be through the courts and not through politicians."
The right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty has been severely weakened. The right, not to be punished for a crime, unless a court of your peers has proven your guilt beyond reasonable doubt has also been compromised. Law Lord, Lord Nicholls, said - "indefinite imprisonment without charge or trial is anathema in any country which observes the rule of law."
Over 3000 new criminal offenses have been created. The country has staggered under a welter of ASBO's, prevention orders, pre-crime proposals and Summary justice initiatives. Fixed penalty notices have been introduced; some Britons have already fallen foul of them, merely for wearing the wrong t-shirts, or using relatively mild and passive forms of profanity. It doesn't matter if you're guilty of an actual crime anymore, such things are determined on the spot by a police officer.
Personal privacy has been eroded - Britons are now the most surveilled people on earth. There are upwards of 4.2 million CCTV cameras in Britain and the government is continuing to trial more. Behavioral analysis systems, X-ray surveillance software, CCTV that listens to your conversations and shouts orders at you - all are being tested and implemented...
A massive database state is growing up, populated by tracking systems, RFID chips, GPS satellite and thermal imaging technologies, DNA profiling and identity databases. Richard Thomas, the UK's 'Information Commissioner said - "The pervasive use of surveillance undermines or destroys the inter-related trust relationships that are fundamental to the operation of the state."
The 2003 Extradition Act, allows British citizens to be extradited (kidnapped) to face criminal charges, torture and indefinite imprisonment in United States prisons, such as Guantanamo Bay. This despite a lack of hard evidence needed to support a case against them here in the UK. Amnesty International referred to Guantanamo Bay as - "A Gulag for our times."
Strangely, it seems that the majority of British people have failed to grasp the magnitude of the changes taking place, they are prepared to passively support them because they believe them necessary in combatting the threat of terrorism.
We have lost the freedom to demonstrate peacefully outside Downing Street or The Houses of Parliament; unless our demonstration first has the written approval of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. In 2002 Tony Blair said - " Every day I see protesters outside Downing Street... I may not like what they call me, but I thank God the can... That's freedom."
Thomas Jefferson once said that - "Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society."- In the ten year period that he has been Prime Minister, Anthony Charles Blair has ensured that the liberty of the British people has become increasingly invisible. We may not yet be living in a police state, but in ten short years of Blair, we have edged and an awful lot closer to one.
Apologies for the lack of recent content posted on this site. I've had a challenging month or two. I lost broadband access for about 4 weeks, then took a planned trip to Venice with my wife's family.
Recently, my family is dealing with a major illness affecting my Mum. There will be new content soon, but for the moment, my priorities are elsewhere.
I'm passionate about what I see happening around me. When I see: gross injustice, willful ignorance, barbarous brutality, or the stone-cold bullshit of propaganda and censorship being played out on the public stage, something inside of me cries out against it!
Restricting the right to peacefully protest, fingerprinting tens of thousands of schoolchildren, erecting a culture of pervasive surveillance, fighting unjust wars, that kill, maim and disfigure the innocent; these and a thousand other indignities and brutalities, are not the footprints of a society headed for the green fields of freedom. They are the tracks of a culture walking the hard stone road to tyranny.
I want to continue to live in a country where freedom thrives. I want to enjoy the right to think freely and speak openly. To hear and express opinion, without fear of being censored or punished, because my thoughts, or the thoughts of others, are not the politically correct or popular opinions of the day.
I wish to enjoy a fair reward for my labor, to live peaceably with my neighbor, in a country where the rights of individuals, to act, in accordance with laws that are just - and in accordance with their own deeply held personal beliefs, are above all preserved. Where privacy is a right, not a privilege, where freedom is a fact, not a platitude.
Yet for all my bravado, I feel alone in many ways. I am afraid that I have even been cowed of late. I begin to wonder if voices like mine, who do not wish to see a country where children are fingerprinted like criminals, or to live inside a culture of 'cradle to grave' surveillance, will be ignored. In my heart of hearts, I am afraid that a lesser nation is coming to pass.
Already it seems to me, that I live in a society where every citizen is viewed as a potential enemy of their own government. Once this mentality becomes endemic, it will define the way in which governments relate to their people. It will breed a socially toxic bacterium of institutional fear, informational distrust and identity suspicion. Everybody will be a either a potential victim or criminal; both types will be constantly monitored. It is already happening...
What I'm most afraid of, is that the ordinary everyday folk, who are the real hope of the future of freedom here; continue to maintain an enveloping silence, feign ignorance, change the subject, look away. When they see the rights our ancestors gave their lives to preserve being eroded in front of them. I think for me, that fear eats away at my optimism most of all.
I don't want to look into the eyes of my own child one day and say to them, that the reason they are not free, their government so callous, unjust and oppressive, is because I and millions like me, lacked the courage to fight to preserve the most basic and valuable of freedoms.
That we accepted trinkets, in place of treasures. Were pacified with platitudes and tolerated lies, when we should have demanded honesty and transparency- Surrendered to fear and ignorance, when we should have shown courage and wisdom, thus ignoring our better natures, and finally, bargained away our permanent liberties for an illusory cage of temporary safety.
These images are of Brian's original protest, which was removed by police in a raid on May 23 2006. The full protest has been re-assembled by artist Mark Wallinger as an exhibition entitled 'State Britain' at Tate Britain, London.
An interview with a group of solicitors protesting in Islington against planned reforms to the Legal Aid system.
They argue that these 'reforms' will force legal aid solicitors out of business; dramatically affect defendants access to the legal advice of their choice and diminish the quality of legal representation in court.
In part one of a two part show, Dissident Vox examines the paradigm of metaphysical naturalism and looks at the occult roots underlying the tree of modern science. He examines the influence of Sir Francis Bacon and asks what early role the secret brotherhoods of Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry played in the path to ascendancy of the scientific worldview.
