Friday 28 March 2014

Walter Ullmann - Popular Self-Government

From Walter Ullmann's book A History of Political Thought: The Middle Ages;

'And yet, if a closer study were to be made of the 'ordinary' way of life of the 'lower' sections of the populace, it would be found that they acted very much on the ascending principles of government, which, from a universal-historical standpoint, seems to be more germane, if also not more natural, to the unsophisticated than the highly complex and intellectual descending theory of government.'

'.......these numberless associations, unions, fraternities, communities, colleges, and so on, appeared as the answer to a natural urge of men to combine themselves into larger units. They pursued, partly, aims of self-preservation, partly, what would nowadays be called mutual insurances, partly, sectional interests - but, whatever their aim, the unions provided, so to speak, a shelter for the individual.But the organisation and structure of  these  associations was based on the ascending theory of government: it was they, the members themselves, who managed their own affairs without any direction 'from above': times of ploughing, harvesting, and fallowing were fixed by the village community itself, which also arranged for the policing of the fields. Water supply, utilization of  pastoral lands, the use to be made of rivers, wells, brooks, etc., compensation for damage to crops by cattle or fire, for damage to woods by unlicenced timbering, and so on, were subjects of regulations made by the community itself. The same applied to quarries, smithies, tileries, potteries, where working conditions were fixed. The mechanics by which the 'officers' of the village community came to be created were simple enough, and yet, incontrovertibly, proved the ever active urge to self-government.'

Thursday 27 March 2014

Domestic Violence And NATO

Mary Malone writes:
I don't know anyone who approves of domestic violence, yet it happens and always will happen. Undoubtedly, in societies like our own where militarism and hierarchy are glorified, and women objectified, the problem is going to be greater than in more 'primitive' societies, or working class and peasant communities where society is largely horizontal and reciprocal in nature.
Domestic violence is not the same as occasional violent spats, fights, arguments which  are, sad to say, part of the reality of our lives. We do not always behave with perfect equilibrium. Domestic violence is more to do with control, than simply the odd fight. An abusive partner seeks control - to inflate her or his own worth at the expensive of a partner who is belittled and isolated. If your partner trashes your friends, you can be sure s/he wants to control you. Likewise, if they try to egg you on in any dispute with your family you know that something is amiss.
Whether all this is a matter for the police is a different matter. A report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary seems to suggest that the police should do more. Apparently, the police receive a million calls related to domestic violence each year! There must be some neighbours who report abuse to the authorities every time they hear a raised voice! We know that there is a certain sort of busy-body addicted to denunciations. They are the life-blood of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and child abuse professionals, as they were the life-blood of the Gestapo.
Unless serious physical damage is caused, 'domestic violence' should not be a police matter. Within all relationships there is a great deal of manipulation. If this manipulation turns to intimidation the answer is to move out, to call on friends and society for support.
 People in England expect the State to look after them in old age and in sickness, in education and child crare, but the State cannot replace society in every instance.
We must reject the ever expanding reach of the State into our lives. It is the nature of the capitalist State to ever extend its power, to create new business for itself. It's foreign policy of NATO expansion in eastern Europe is part of the same impulse of hierarchical bureaucratic power that makes it wish to extend its influence into the most personal aspects of our previously private lives under the guise of policing 'abuse'.

Wednesday 26 March 2014

The Bombing Of Yugoslavia

This Monday just gone marked the fifteenth anniversary of the beginning of the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. Against the wishes of the United Nations, NATO air forces bombed Yugoslavia, in what was a war crime, as yet unpunished and never likely to be punished. The excuse for this expansion of NATO power was the old one of human rights and humanitarian intervention. The consequence was the establishment in Kosovo of a narco-mafia state and an enormous United States military base.
Bombs were dropped, sowing the land with depleted uranium. Cluster bombs were dropped causing their victims death if they were lucky, horrific injuries if not.
In reality, the bombing of Yugoslavia was small stuff compared to the later terrorist bombings of Iraq and Libya, but for the terrorists a precedent was set, the bombers got away with their crimes, and a new era of aggressive militarist expansion was set in place, as the Empire of Bases expanded while the West declined, sunk in decadence and debt.
Here is a list taken from a BBC report of 1st June 1999, entitled 'NATO's bombing blunders.'
5th April: homes hit in the mining town of Aleksinac.
12th April: train destroyed near Leskovak.
14th April: refugees bombed in Kosovo.
27th April: civilian homes struck in Surdulica.
28th April: Sofia hit - stray bomb on Bulgarian capital.
1st May: bus bombing at Luzane bridge, Pristina.
6th May: cluster bomb hits Nis - hospital and market bombed.
7th May: Chinese embassy hit in Belgrade.
13th May: Kosovo village bombed, children, homes and tractors mangled and destroyed.
19th May: Belgrade hospital struck.
30th May: civilians die on the bridge at Varvian, Serbia.
31st May: Apartment block struck at Novo Pazar.

Later on relatives of 50 Italian soldiers claimed that they had died as a result of exposure to depleted uranium.

No doubt Madeleine Albright thought it was a price worth paying for the expansion of NATO power.

Tuesday 25 March 2014

Testing

John Ball writes:
How many times have we all heard that sorry excuse for lazy agnosticism, 'I'd like to believe, but how can God allow so many horrible things to happen?' That's what they always say, those who wish to remain sunk in egotism.
There is the mirror image - Christians who tell you that God has done such and such for them, as if God never allows horrible things to happen to his people. Well, look at Job! Look at Jesus Christ himself. They tell you that God has a plan for us - well, if includes martyrdom, mutilation or brain damage I'd rather not know, thank you very much.
The third temptation when the devil taunted Jesus in the wilderness went along these lines; do something selfish, self centred, stupid and destructive and God will make sure that no harm will come to you.
This is the third temptation; after material well being, then power, we have the idolatry of the self.
It is the easiest of all the temptations to slip into, to believe that God is here to do our will, that the purpose of God is man, that the Creator must serve his creation.
But worship is the antithesis of self. Though we express our love for God through service  to others, serving people is not the purpose of God.

Monday 24 March 2014

The Motor Car And The War Against The Young

From my humble fourteenth century point of view, two of the the most astonishing things about your twentieth century existence (to call it a life, you would have to live a bit first), are the motor car and your enmity towards the young.
Children, as you call them, are prohibited from so doing so much, incarcerated as they are most of the day in their day prisons.They are not even allowed to work. No wonder they feel so unnecessary!
When I were a lad, if we weren't doing a few chores for our mam, we were outside playing. Playing out was the greatest treat of all. When you're little the world is so full of marvels. All the boys and girls played out, though it is true that the girls liked to stay at home closer to their mothers, helping with the sowing and the cooking and combing their hair and playing with their rag dolls.
These days it is almost heretical to say that little girls actually like being - well - girls, that really they prefer dancing to playing rugby (me too), but that is another matter.
It is the motor car that has really killed childhood. Kids don't even walk to day prison. They are taken everywhere by the motor car. And if they decide to walk or to play out, the motor car will come and mow them down.
Of course, cars are useful, but just think of the expense! Not only is there the initial cost of buying the damned thing, then there is the tax, the insurance, the maintenance.
It sets us 'free', the motor car. If, on a whim, we decide to travel fifty miles we can do so. Everywhere is near, yet what was once near is now nowhere to be seen. In the streets where people once walked and talked and the children played there is now a desert. Children stay indoors, confined to their home like a Moslem woman. They cannot simply walk down the street to meet their friends. Old people, as they begin to lose the plot, are in great danger. They too are imprisoned for their own safety.
If modern children do not grow up to be drug addled psychopaths it is truly amazing. Once upon a time the child would wonder and roam, exploring the fields and the ponds, the highways and the byways. The childhood of the past was a world of wonders. Modern childhood is a drab existence where little limbs and lungs are rarely exercised, confined to the four walls of the bedroom, the screen of the computer or the television.
Playing out is replaced by some supervised activity, organised, regimented by some depressing grown up.
What a joy it was back then to play out! To play out all day and to come back covered in bruises and scratches. What adventures we had back then in those primitive times!
But you who prefer things to freedom, have put an end to all that.

Sunday 23 March 2014

William Shakespeare - When Daffodils Begin To Peer

From 'The Winter's Tale':

When daffodils begin to peer -
With heigh! the doxy over the dale -
Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year,
For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.

The white sheet bleaching on the hedge -
With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing! -
Doth set my pugging tooth on edge,
For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.

The lark, that tirra-lyra chants -
With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay -
Are summer songs for me and my aunts,
While we lie tumbling in the hay.

A Verse On Sunday

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us, (and we beheld the glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.'

 God has taken on human form and lives amongst us, the Creator and his creation reconciled. John the Evangelist says that 'we' beheld his glory. The 'we' are the sons of God, given the eyesight to behold the glory of the Word made flesh. The Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, is the only begotten of the Father. Jesus Christ is of the essence of the Father - under his authority but equal, - like a human child is equal to its parents, yet subject to its parents' authority. He is begotten, not created - a very important thing to remember, the only begotten Son of God. He is divine through and through.
And for a brief few years Jesus 'dwelt among us.' He lived, suffered, loved as one of us. He never succumbed to sin, yet he knew temptation. He could not sin, for God cannot sin. It is God's nature to be full of Truth.
And grace too - God's irrevocable love for us, freely given, undeserved, unconditional and eternal.

Friday 21 March 2014

Walter Ullmann - Kings By The Grace Of God

From Walter Ullmann's 'History Of Political Thought - The Middle Ages'

'As a matter of fact, the visible result of the change from the earlier ascending theory of government to its descending counterpart can be found, as far as records show, amongst the Lombards in Northern Italy. The Lombard kings began from the late sixth century on to call themselves 'King by the grace of God' - the Rex Dei gratia' - and there is additional proof that the Anglo- Saxon kings in the seventh century had become familiar with the thesis of the king deriving his power from God and that kingship was conceived as a gift of God. From the eighth century onwards this designation became the standard with all kings of Western and Southern Europe. The meaning of this appellation seems clear enough. The king, who had hitherto been elected by the people or by its representative body, made it abundantly plain by this designation, that his kingship rested upon the good will, the favour, the 'grace' bestowed on him by God. The essential point is that thereby the close links which he had had with the people were severed, because the people conferred no power on him, could not therefore take it away by legal means, and was merely committed to him.'

'The law was given to the subjects or the people, not made by them. It is therefore understandable why law from the eighth century onwards became overwhelmingly royal law, and why this ousted the hitherto prevailing folk-law, the mainly customary law made by the folk (the people). Similarly, until the ascending thesis gave way to its counterpart, there also prevailed in the kingdom the peace guaranteed by the people itself - the so-called Volksfriede - which, on the application of the descending form of government gave way to peace guaranteed by the king (so-called  Koenigsfriede).'

'In the eighth century the king effectively emancipated himself from the fetters that had bound his ancestors to the people: he visibly detached himself from the people. It was a veritable reversal of things.'

Thursday 20 March 2014

Loving The Boss

Mary Malone writes:
One of the key functions of State Feminism is to present the current economic and political oppression in a good light.
Women's liberation, farcically called 'emancipation', an insult to the millions of people enslaved throughout history, even today in some Moslem countries, is presented as integration into the system of reward and punishment, of buy and sell, of working for the boss, of living for the boss.
For almost the entirety of human existence, only slaves worked for a boss. To be free meant to be autonomous, and for the vast majority of women work has always been free and independent.
In the first half of the the twentieth century, women's exclusion from many parts of the Economy was a problem for those in Power. Obviously, if a woman were at home looking after her children and her husband she could not be earning money and contributing tax. If she were preparing the food, making clothes, what good was that to the Powerful? She paid no taxes, so was useless to their Power.
So, women's essential work was denigrated, and the surplus value work of men was exalted.
The welfare state was introduced to destroy the Christian ethic and the mutual support of genuine communities, to take away a large part of the purpose of women's society.
Convenience foods and home appliances meant that women could earn and spend, running ever faster, like rats on a wheel, but vitally, most importantly, contributing taxation to Power.
Marriage was delayed, children aborted, debt encouraged at every turn, as like cows shepherded by the sheep bitches of State Feminism women were corralled into offices and factories throughout the land.
And the little children? Other women looked after the children, paid by the wages of the waged - more taxation, more Power.
And if the women were too exhausted to breed there was always plenty of cheap labour from the Third World.
This is the reality - loneliness, empty lives, debt, drugs, childlessness, toys - this is the State Feminist nightmare.
Men have always known that working for the boss is a humiliation. They will retire or work independently whenever the opportunity arrives.
But the State Feminist woman is the most degraded creature on the planet; a bully, a sycophant, a worm who will sell her birthright for a smiley face and a few toys.

Wednesday 19 March 2014

Marriage And The State

John Ball writes:
After much baloney and quite some acrimony, at last some politicians have made some sensible proposals about gay marriage and marriage in general. Both the Liberal Democrats and the United Kingdom Independence Party have suggested that in the matter of matrimony Church and State are divorced.
There was a time, not so long ago, when this country identified itself as a Christian country, more specifically a Protestant country, but this is no longer the case. Whereas fifty years ago marriage and a church wedding went together like a horse and carriage this is no longer the case. Huge amounts of people undergo no wedding, content to live as common law spouses. Most of those who marry officially do not get married in church. Not only do we now have an indigenous population that is largely agnostic, but we have a large population of English people who are Catholics, Jews, Hindus, Moslems, Buddhists, and many others.
Added to this mix we have the perfectly sensible introduction of civil partnerships where same sex couples can enjoy the same legal protections as heterosexual couples.
In reality, a civil wedding, a State wedding, is the same as a civil partnership.
Marriage is about making a public commitment, a declaration in the eyes of the community. Legal rights are a different matter.
So, for instance, a Moslem, or a South African traditionalist, may wish to be polygamous. In the eyes of the community to which he belongs, he wishes that four different women are acknowledged to be his wife, and they are happy with this arrangement, then who is to say that they are not married? Clearly, in law the state may only recognise one partner, but this might change in the future.
 A Christian marriage is a matter for the Church, not the State. A couple could chose to marry in the eyes of Church, but not sign up to the State version, though the State version is  only a declaration for legal purposes - next of kin, responsibility for children etc.
Hopefully, it would put an end to all the silly threats of persecutions of individuals who freely gather to share their faith, in the name of the Moloch of Equality.

Tuesday 18 March 2014

We All Paid The Price

John Ball writes:
Many years ago, during the Peasants Revolt, many wanted to reform the State, though some of us wanted to destroy it altogether. Wat Tyler, Jack Straw and many others could not believe that young King Richard would harm us. They said that he was surrounded by bad men, such as Archbishop Simon of Sudbury, and that once the King was released from the influence of evil advisers, then we would be happy under the rule of a benign king.
Of course, they were wrong. They were naive and foolish, and we all paid a heavy price for their misplaced trust.
I, myself, knew all along that they were wrong. In Luke's gospel, the devil tempts Jesus with earthly power, proclaiming the kingdoms of the earth to be in his, the devil's, domain.
 Yet, even these days, after a twentieth century in which the State murdered more people than ever before, people still prefer to believe that the State is good.
Yet, behind every act, the State threatens or commits violence.
With every act the State takes away your and my autonomy.
Yet, most people believe that if they vote in a 'democratic' election, then somehow it will be different. But it isn't.
The believers in the idol of the State tell you that the State provides health care, education, jobs and prosperity. But what sort of drug addled health does it provide, this murderous idol? What sort of education does it give, churning out masses of passive unskilled brainwashed consumers? What sort of jobs do you have - dull, repetitive, soul destroying, functional? And you call it prosperity when you don't even have time to think?
The State takes your taxes, that is your time and your labour. It takes you and your effort and moulds you as it wishes. And you thank it, and you want more of it.
The Welfare State does not educate, it does not provide health, and it does not provide a safety net. Instead it destroys society, friendship, mutual support. It diminishes you because it teaches you to think only for yourself.
You support equality, yet the more they preach equality to you, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, reflecting the reality of power, not the illusion of your lazy false democracy.
Democratic, equal, but certainly not free. Bound in mental slavery, crushed by debt servitude, conscripts of wage slavery, your children aborted or stupified by TV and drugs and state education, you think Cameron or Blair is the problem.
The Welfare State, the caring State, the benign, benevolent State, is just a mask that hides unbridled robbery and murder.
Yes, many years ago, Wat and Jack believed that the problem was the King's ministers and we all paid the price.

Today Ukraine, Tomorrow UK?

The people of the Ukraine obviously got it wrong when they voted for a government that preferred friendship with the Russian Federation to friendship with the European Union. Their democratic decision was not respected.
The people of the Crimea have voted overwhelmingly to cut their ties with the Ukraine and resume its historic ties to Russia. This vote conveniently for Russia, and inconveniently for the NATO alliance, allows Russia to keep its warm water naval base in the Crimea.
At the same time the United Kingdom government is bending over backwards to keep Scotland as part of the Union, being prepared to maximise devolution to maintain a political union about which neither Scots, nor English, nor Welsh, nor Irish are especially enthusiastic.
The political class wants the union for military reasons.
The question is: would Scotland be allowed to secede from the Union?
Likewise, if the United Kingdom held a referendum concerning a withdrawal from the European Union, and the electorate unwisely voted to keep Europe at arms length, would the vote be respected?
These days, since the Iraq fiasco, direct invasion has lost popularity with our masters. The number of armed forces personnel is being cut in both the UK and the USA. It is much easier to contract out violence to (paid) fanatics and mercenaries. We have seen how this has worked in the destabilisation and destruction of Syria (host to Russia's only Mediterranean naval base).
Indeed, the NATO - AlQaeda alliance is well cemented, having being forged in Afghanistan against the Russians, and continued with degrees of success in Chechnya, Bosnia, Libya, and today in Syria and Iraq.
The use of violent authoritarian racists in the Ukraine to overthrow a democratically elected government is a new twist.
Indeed, if NATO and the European Union wished to bring a rebellious Scotland, or an isolationist England to heal, who would they arm first, their jihadi clients amongst the Sunni fifth column, or a pseudo racist group amongst the indigenous population, created to destabilise, punish and control?
Should the population persist in voting the wrong way, we can be sure that the political class would let us understand the consequences before too long.

Sunday 16 March 2014

Robert Service - Equality

The Elders of the Tribe were grouped
And squatted in the Council Cave;
They seemed to be extremely pooped,
And some were grim, but all were grave:
The subject of their big To-do
Was axeman Chow, the son of Choo.

Then up spoke Tribal Wiseman Waw:
'Brothers, today I talk to grieve:
As an upholder of the Law
You know how deeply we believe
In Liberty, Fraternity,
And likewise in Equality.

'A chipper of the flint am I;
I make the weapons that you use,
And though to hunt I never try,
To bow to hunters I refuse:
But stalwart Chow, the son of Choo
Is equal to us any two.

'He is the warrior supreme,
The Super-caveman, one might say;
The pride of youth, the maiden's dream,
And in the chase the first to slay.
Where we are stunted he is tall:
In short, a menace to us all.

'He struts with throwing stone and spear;
And is not the first to wear
Around his waist and bully leer
The pelt of wolf and baby bear!
Admitting that he made the kill,
Why should he so exploit his skill?

'Comrades, grave counsel we must take,
And as he struts with jest and jibe,
Let us act swiftly lest he make
Himself Dictator of our Tribe:
The Gods have built him on their plan:
Let us reduce him to a man.'

And so they seized him in the night,
And on the sacrificial stone
The axe-men of the Tribe did smite,
Until one limb he ceased to own.
There! They had equalised the odds,
Foiling unfairness of the Gods.

So Chow has lost his throwing arm,
And goes around like every one;
No longer does he threaten harm,
And tribal justice has been done.
For men are equal, let us seek
To grade the Strong down to the weak.

A Verse On Sunday

The Gospel according to John, chapter 1, verse 13.
'Which were born not of blood, nor by the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.'

The sons of God, those who 'believed on his name', those who 'received him,' those to whom he gave 'power to become the sons of God,' when they came into the world as wee cute babies, were not born the sons of God.
Many wishful thinkers like to believe that God resides in all of us, that all of us are chosen by God. There are others who like to claim the credit for their faith, that they themselves are responsible for their faith, poor frail creatures that they are, that they made a decision to accept the Almighty.
Yet the new Israel, like the old Israel, are a chosen people.
A Christian is no more active in his birth in Christ than new born babies are active in their emergence from their mothers' wombs.
The sons of God are not born 'of blood', nor 'of the will of the flesh,' nor 'of the will of man', but solely, wholly, completely of the will of God.
The heathen enjoys the Common Grace of all Adam's descendants, - the joys of the world, its beauty, its love and laughter, the pleasure in creativity and prosperity - as well as the fruit of Common Sin, but the heathen lives absorbed in himself, above him only sky, and when his hour comes, he will suffer eternal death.
But the sons of God praise the Lord in this world, and bask in  his eternal truth, and will do so forever more, sons of the Eternal,  sons of God, elect, born of the will of God.

Friday 14 March 2014

Phaedra's Lament

Phaedra was the daughter of Pasiphae and Minos. Her half-brother was the Minotaur, as her mother had procreated with the Great Bull. Phaedra too was a passionate lady, and  had an enthusiasm for her stepson, Hippolytus. The French playwright, Racine, wrote a famous play about her, a play that Proust loved hugely. Phaedra also finds her way into Francesco Cilea's wonderful opera, Adriana Lecouvrier.
Here, from the English version of the libretto is Phaedra's Lament.

'Just Heavens!
What have I done today?

My husband comes,
With him his son: and I shall see the witness
Of my adulterous flame watch with what face
I greet his father, while my heart is big
With sighs he scorned, and tears that could not move him
Moisten mine eyes.

Thank you that his respect
For Theseus will induce him to conceal
My madness, nor disgrace his sire and king?

Will he be able to keep back the horror
He has for me? His silence would be in vain.
I know my treason, and I lack the boldness

Of those abandoned women who can taste
Tranquility in crime, and show a forehead.

Thursday 13 March 2014

English - The Language Of Liberty

The Third Man writes:
Here in Vienna, which is one of the major crossroads of Europe, a capital city that is near the borders of several different European countries, many people speak
 English, not just local Viennese, but Germans, and Slavs and Turks and whoever.
It is easy to put this use of English as a lingua franca down to the power of the Anglo Saxons, particularly the United States, but I prefer to see English as a language of choice, not one of necessity.
English is not German and it is not Russian. Too many people in these parts have known the tyrrany of German and Russian masters.
England and, more particularly the United States, represent freedom and democracy.
What does freedom mean? It means that we are all equal before the law. It means that there is no lord or lady, no duke or count, no commissar, no party member who can tell you what to do, who can demand your passport, and to direct you to live in such and such a town, wear these and those clothes, do this or that job, believe one thing, pray to their idol.
This is what freedom means, and this is what America, and the culture of the English language means.
Many Scots may wish to live in a politically correct bureaucratic hell hole and to drag England with it, and there are serious threats to liberty in both America and England, but for the rest of the world, subjected for centuries to the whim of command, they love to speak English, the language of liberty.

Wednesday 12 March 2014

Not In My Back Yard

Dick is always grumbling about all the immigrants in our little town, and indeed, for some people who live in areas that have been overrun by people of other cultures immigration is undoubtedly a bad thing.
It is all about numbers and the concentration of numbers. As an ethnic Englishman I don't particularly want to live in an area of what until recently counted as England, with a bunch of Italians or Russians or Japanese.
But, of course, I do like the easy travel and the chance to live in some exotic location. That is surely a good thing. Just this pat few weeks I have met Bulgarians, Turks, Irish, Albanians, Italians, Germans, Austrians, and Israelis.
This is very cool.
Not so long ago a culture was largely confined to a particular area, but not so these days. Culture adapts and grows or it stays the same and dies.
No, I don't want to live in a neighbourhood of foreigners either. I like to travel to meet the alien. But travel is getting easier and will continue to do so. And with the internet we can keep in touch with others around the globe.
For all the parochialism of nationalists in Scotland, Catalonia, and elsewhere, the day of the nation state is going fast.
We are returning to the era of vast empires with local administrations.
So welcome the foreigner in your midst, because one day you might want to be one too.

Tuesday 11 March 2014

Bread Of Heaven

John Ball writes:
During the season of Lent we are often reminded of Jesus's temptations at the hands of the Devil when he spent forty days in the wilderness without food.
It was when Jesus was at his weakest that the Devil came to him.
When Esau was tired and hungry he gave up his birthright for a bowl of food, his birthright being the love of God.
But when Jesus was tempted by the Devil, Jesus responded that man does not live by bread alone. Yes, we need physical bread , but we live, truly live, as sons of God, and not monkeys that see no further than their appetites, by eating the bread of heaven.
Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness. Most of us never get, nor make the opportunity to drop out of society for forty days, but we can contemplate God in our quieter moments.
Jesus did not go into the desert for his own benefit, but to give glory to God. Unlike the Buddhist or the moralist his mind was not turned in on himself.
 When we contemplate God, the living God, the God of love, then we give glory to him, and by doing so we claim our birthright of living in Love, knowing that love is what makes us truly alive.
Tempted as we are, goaded, prodded, worn out by daily struggle and the Devil whispering in our ear it is easy to forget that we are here to serve God, that the love of God, the love that we give in our work and our play and our family and friends is the true bread of heaven.

Monday 10 March 2014

Making Enemies

A German friend was giving me his slant on the dangerous standoff between the West and Russia.
He was telling me of his grandmother's experience in the Ruhr in the 1920s, of how the French occupying troops troops treated the local German population with scorn and contempt. He contrasted this to the American occupying troops in 1945, how the Americans treated the Germans to bubble gum, cigarettes and respect.
Then he turned to the defeat of Russia in the Cold War, how the West treated Russia with contempt, how by using international institutions such as the IMF and local placemen such as Yeltsin and his corrupt crony capitalist entourage, the West ripped the heart out of Russia, expropriating billions of dollars, causing Russians untold suffering and countless deaths.
From this low point, during the government of Mr. Putin, Russia has risen again, prosperous and proud, fully aware that the West only means to degrade them and reduce them to the level of third world serfs.
And such is the danger of the aggressive policy the West is pursuing against Russia.  NATO, in expanding its empire of bases has already taken over Libya, and is threatening Russia's only Mediterranean base in Syria. By aiming at Russia's historic base on the  Black Sea, NATO is attacking a core interest of the Russian State.
But, twenty five years ago, the West could have brought Russia in as a friend. As my German friend pointed out, the West could have introduced a sort of Marshall Plan, to integrate a prosperous Russia into a Western led world economy.
But it was not to be. Habits of domination die hard.

Sunday 9 March 2014

Robert Herrick - A True Lent

Is this a fast , - to keep
The larder lean,
And clean,
From fat of veal and sheep?

Is it to quit the dish
Of flesh, yet still
To fill
The platter high with fish?

Is it to fast an hour,
Or ragged to go,
Or show
A downcast look, and sour?

No! 'Tis a fast to dole
Thy sheaf of wheat
And meat,
Unto the hungry soul.

It is to fast from strife,
From old debate
And hate, -
To circumcise thy life.

To show a heart grief-rent;
To starve thy sin,
Not bin, -
And that's to keep thy Lent

Saturday 8 March 2014

A Verse On Sunday

The Gospel according to John, chapter 1, verse 12
'But as many received him, to them he gave power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.'

The previous verse is qualified a little here in this verse. The rejection of the Lord by his creatures is not absolute. Some people received him. Some saw the Living God in their midst.
And those who received him, the Lord gave eternal life, true life, not the half-life of appetite and gratification, but the life of the Kingdom of Heaven, giving glory to God, living eternally as the sons of God.
These blessed ones, 'the sons of God', believe on his name, that is they believe that Jesus of Nazareth was, and is, and will be, eternally the Son of God, made flesh, God Incarnate.
The Incarnation is a wonderful mystery, the unity of matter and God, the inclusion of the material in God, the reconciliation of Creator and creation. There is no duality here, no false Eastern spirituality of self-harm and bodily abuse, no hatred of the body. By being the Son of Man, God honoured our human existence. He lived and suffered and died, not only for us, but with us too. Such great love God stoops to bestow upon his creatures! The least we can do is to receive him with humble love and give all the glory to God.

Friday 7 March 2014

Dambisa Moyo - Winner Takes All

An excerpt from Dambisa Moyo's informative book, Winner Takes All:

'The estimated one billion people on earth who go without food every day are almost perfectly offset by the one billion people medically deemed to be obese, a disease attributable, at least in part, to overeating.
This shocking symmetry suggests that beyond the issue of waste, food is severely misallocated. But although reducing waste and more equitably allocating food are possibilities that quickly suggest themselves, they are also very expensive and, ultimately, should be unnecessary because many currently malnourished regions, like Africa, have plenty of tillable land sitting fallow. This unproductive land in the middle of a continent racked by hunger is, in turn, largely a result of a system of incentives and disincentives for food production.
We have already seen how each year many countries, including some of the world's leading industrialised economies, pursue aggressive subsidy and tariff programmes that effectively lock out the agricultural produce emanating from the rest of the world. The US Farm Bill and the European Common Agricultural Policy each pump hundreds of billions of dollars toward artificially bolstering their farmers and their domestic agricultural sectors. By covering much of the cost of production at home, these subsidies price other countries out of their food market. Not only do these government policies discourage food production elsewhere; they actually encourage overproduction of food at home. The resulting trade distortions tend to disproportionately disadvantage the world's poorest agricultural producing countries, such as those in Africa and South America.
The United States and France are two of the worst offenders. Fearful of relying on other nations for their food in the event of a global war and keen to protect their agricultural markets and win the backing of their powerful farming lobbies, these countries have pursued trade restrictions, subsidy packages, and barriers to keep out foreign produce. In the United States alone the total annual amount of farm subsidies stands at around 15 billion US dollars. The 2002 US Farm Security and Rural Investment Act has rewarded US farmers with nearly 200 billion US dollars in subsidies in the subsequent ten years, 70 billion US dollars more than previous programmes and representing as much as an 80% increase in certain subsidies.
The US subsidy programmes have the greatest effects on grain, including wheat, corn, sorghum, barley, rice, and oats, but they also include peanuts, tobacco, soybeans, cotton, sugar, and milk. Excess food production is often wasted or, in a nastily ironic twist, sent as food aid to regions where agricultural production has been decimated by the very government policies that have discouraged these poorer regions from growing crops.

Thursday 6 March 2014

Women Are No Better Than Men

Mary Malone writes:
There is a sort of reverse racism where the Irish or the Scots can say rude things about the English, but the English, however poor and battered they may be, are expected to bear upon themselves the sins, alleged or real of their race. I know Revolting Peasant has told me countless times how he is fed up with being blamed for the Potato Famine, the Highland Clearances and the Slavery of the Peoples of the Africa, despite the fact that this is historical garbage, and anyway, he and Dick were ploughing their fields and scattering (and drinking loco mead) at the time.
Likewise, women can use a sort of pseudo history to give themselves victim status, and in reverse sexist fashion, claim that women are better than men.
You only have to look at some of the dreadful modern women who have had power to realise that women are no better. In America, we see Hilary 'kill Gaddafi' Clinton or Madeleine 'a price worth paying' Albright, and in England facilitators of kiddie fiddlers such as Harriet Harman, Patricia Hewitt and Margaret Hodge, all of whom put their careers before the welfare of innocents, or Cherie Blair, wife of a war criminal who thinks we should put our careers before our children, not to mention the blessed Margaret, who for all her good intentions, screwed up big style.
 No, in this season of Lent, let us remember our own sins, and not those of others. Let us cut out the blame game. Some cultures may be better than others, sometimes men or women may appear to behave better than the complimentary gender, but deep down we  are  as bad as each other.

Wednesday 5 March 2014

Ukraine - A Reality Check

I've tried not to write about the ongoing power play in the Ukraine but, reading the news journals, the absurdity of what is being said by the Vichy press and the politicians of Soviet Britain becomes ever more clear. So, to make a few points:
The democratically elected Ukrainian government was overthrown last week.
The democratically elected government of the Ukraine was overthrown with the encouragement of our government, amongst others.
The new regime in Kiev is full of unsavoury characters, corrupt old politicos, racist fanatics, etc.
The Ukrainian coup was launched by people who want to leave their own country, but feared that they might have to stay.
The Crimea is part of Russia. We all know that. Florence Nightingale knew that.
The Ukraine is part of Russia. In 1917 it was part of Russia, and continued to be under the new name for Russia, the USSR.
Ukraine, the Russian Federation and Belarus are all part of 'Russia'. Moscow, Kiev and Minsk are all Russian cities. Napoleon knew that.
Very few people in Soviet Britain, apart from our masters, object to Vladimir Putin. Under his rule, Russia has regained its prosperity, and after 70 years or more of politically correct rule it is regaining its values.
Russia is the only remaining Christian world power. Like the Russians, most people value family and freedom, and not just health and safety.
How many countries has Russia bombed in the past twenty years?

Tuesday 4 March 2014

Lent - Christless Christianity

John Ball writes:
There's a lot of ignorance in this world and most of it is self-imposed. It's like there is a lead ceiling that prevents people from letting their minds and spirits fly. This lead ceiling is their own narcissism. Most people are deeply interested in themselves, view their 'lives' as spectators, consume their own minds and spirits as commodity consumers.
On Sunday I went to church and yet again I heard a sermon about our relationship with God, a sermon which was virtually Christ free. The minister believes this is what his congregation wants to hear, but is he right, and is it what God wants to hear?
It is a false gospel to speak about our loving Father, how he has a plan for us, about our commitment to him, without hardly mentioning Jesus Christ. It is Christ who takes us out of ourselves on wings up to heaven, to his reality of selfless sacrificial love.
They talk about being forgiven, but what is forgiveness without Christ? And how can we forgive others?
If it is our commitment that has given us a new start, and our decision that has given us a relationship with God, and our own efforts that keep us within the bounds of the high end of bourgeois righteousness, then what place Christ, who has to be dragged out now and again  like an embarrassing older relative?
What place the terrible and awesome events of the crucifixion and the resurrection in a service of jolly songs and self congratulation?
But these preachers of the false gospel, the self absorbed gospel, the psychotherapeutic gospel, like those who preach the social gospel,  chose to ignore Christ. There is little compassion, humility, forgiveness in such people. They are wolves in sheep's clothing, people more concerned with maintaining their position than telling the Truth.
A sermon should always preach Christ - Christ crucified and Christ resurrected.
How else should we praise our Lord? How else can we rise from the grave of the self?
Here in the season of Lent let us contemplate the greatness of Christ's forgiveness, how it is he who rescues us from the trough of despair, keeps us from falling into the pit of selfish depravity; he and not ourselves who raises up to the heights of selfless love.

Monday 3 March 2014

Boris Johnson - Remove Their Children

It is easy to dismiss Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, as an adulterous, narcissistic clown, but there again, so was Mussolini. Indeed, he is the one politician in the United Kingdom who actively promotes a personality cult. For this reason alone we should be wary if he were ever to reach high office, and we have good reason to scorn the electorate of that formerly English city, who have been so foolish to chose him.
Johnson's latest mutterings show his authoritarian leanings.
He wants Social Services to remove the children of a certain class of dissident, those he and they deign to be Islamists. I'm not very keen on these beardy hate mongers myself, but if they've done something wrong, then charge them under the law! If they haven't stolen, murdered, raped, attacked or intimidated anyone, then leave them alone!
To take away the children of political dissidents is a great evil. To remove the children from any parent is a terrible and grave act, full of awful repercussions for both the children and the parents. Once the principle of removal of children for ideological reasons has been established there will be no end to it.
All sorts of dissidents from 'nationalists' to 'social conservatives' to bloggers who step out of line will live under the shadow of the State kidnapping of their children.
Remove Johnson asap, or face the consequences of his corporate Bolshevik nightmare.

Sunday 2 March 2014

Sappho - The Lovely Grove Of Apple Trees

Leave Crete and come to this holy dwelling
To the lovely grove of apple trees
To your altars smoking with frankinsence.

Cool water rushes through the apple branches
Rose bushes lay their shadow on the ground
And from the glistening leaves
Sleep pours down

Here in the meadow my horses feed,
The gentle flowers of spring bloom,
And the wind blows softly.

Aphrodite, take this honey nectar
And pour it so gracefully into
Our golden cups
Mingling your joy with the festival of our love.

Saturday 1 March 2014

A Verse On Sunday

The Gospel according to John, chapter 1, verse 11:
'He came unto his own and his own received him not.'

This must be one of the saddest verses in the Bible.
Perhaps many of us feel excluded at times from those to whom we feel we belong, chiefly family, but also friends and colleagues and associates, exiled and rejected for who knows what reason.
Here, in this verse, we see the Lord not being recognised by the world he created. Blinded by self, sinful mankind could not see God in his own creation. Engrossed by our petty concerns people simply seek the aid of the nearest idol, some Saint Anthony, or some State Agency, or some Ideology 'ism' to help us through the day.
In some ways things have not changed much since Jesus walked the earth. As society collapses and service and sacrificial love become obsolete, and humanity thinks only of gratification and self righteousness, all around us we hear atheists prattling on in their stupidity and immaturity, peddling heir evil, rejecting the Lord, blinded by self and hate.