In The End They Kill Each Other

I've also been reading a little book on Italy's short lived colonization of Libya.
It all started around 1911. Italy picked a fight with the Turks and then took over the Turkish Libyan provinces. Some of the locals did not care for the Italians so the Italians shot, gassed, hanged and bombed them.
Out of a population of about 800,000, some 80,000 died as a result of the Italians civilizing mission, through violence, famine and disease.
Indeed, in 1911, Libyans were the first  to be on the receiving end of  humanitarian bombing, the centenary of which was so joyfully celebrated by NATO bombers slaughtering thousands more Libyans in 2011.
All the European imperial powers gaily slaughtered the locals under their command, even the British, from time to time. As Mr. Trump told the Americans (brave, brave) we didn't just kill bad people.
Once the Europeans got used to murdering foreigners they turned on each other in two wars of mass destruction.

Living In Cities

It is many years now since I first heard the name of Oswald Spengler and his book, 'The Decline of the West'. It is a big book, so I have put off reading it till now.
It was written a hundred years ago, so if the West was in decline then, goodness knows what Herr Spengler would make of our decadent times. Could he have imagined that 2+2=5, that the whole concept of womanhood is questioned, that women's wash rooms and women's sport may soon be abolished, that homosexuality is no longer a lifestyle choice, but biologically determined, that our gender is not biologically determined, and that a man is now quite possibly a woman, deep, very deep, inside, that the rich are good and left wing, that the poor are bad and right wing, that hyper capitalism is socialism, and, and............all in the name of Equality?
I suppose nothing like this has ever been seen before.
Except it probably has.
For Spengler, living in cities was a sure sign of the decay of a civilization. The melting pot of city life destroyed the values and the vision of a people.
Strangely, the urbanization of the Industrial Revolution did not lead to a total collapse of English Civilization. A young adult in 1950 could still relate to the England of Wesley and Wilkes and back to Good Queen Bess. To some extent Ulster Protestants still maintain the memory of their culture. But a young adult in England, in 2017 has no memory, no connection with England's past. They do not know what it means to live in a free country, based on Christian concepts of love and freedom, with mutual aid and respect underpinning a largely peaceful society at ease with itself.
City life, with its anonymity and its egotism, is finally killing off a thousand years of common values.

A Progressive Speaks

I’m angry and disappointed, disgusted and sad
Just the thought of racism makes me mad
I've fought foul prejudice since I was a lad
Me? No! I'm not anti-Semitic

My criticism of Israel is based purely on fact
Its whole way of life is capitalism gone mad
Of all countries it's the baddest of the bad
Me? No! I'm not anti-Semitic

It's not all Jews, just the Zionists I abhor
They are fine when Israel they humbly deplore
It's a shame they live in fear, behind closed doors
Me? No! I'm not anti-Semitic

Israel's the problem, I tell ya
Forget Russia, America, Africa,
It's a Zionist plot, it’s a no brainer!
Me? No! I'm not anti-Semitic

Zionists finance wars
They cause governments to fall
Usurers bleed the poor
They are Other, not the same
Control the world is their aim
It's them, it's them, it’s them who are to blame

Heil! Heil! Heil!

Me? No! I'm not anti-Semitic

The Community Of The Good

The Community of the Good is a concept I came across recently. They are the same people as Those Who Know Better Than Us, The Caring, etc. etc.
It is strange to think that millions of people out there are 'good'. They walk the world in  righteousness, supporting Greenpeace, Momentum, Hate Not Hope, Unite For Fascism, and so on. They know each other because each one has a cause, they all love the 'victim', and they hate ordinary folk like crazy.
A whole new concept of goodness has been invented that involves climate change, racism, sexism, and loving Islam.
Curiously, it has all been done without the help of God.
The Community of the Good are the Pharisees of today, seeking out the sin in others, punishing, and ensuring that they themselves are economically comfortable.
Will they eventually miss God and turn to Islam? I would imagine so. These conformists, these moralists, have no use for Christianity, no use for love, or freedom.
The Community of the Good is out to get you. Better run!

Man and Woman

I have been reading a book on gender violence in the Middle East and North Africa, often abreviated to MENA. Perhaps it should be NAME. Do North Africans mind coming second?
The book brought up the issue of the English generic term 'Man' to signify humanity, as opposed to 'Woman'.
Apparently this is sexist, but I have always thought otherwise.
It is true to say that I am a 'man' and it would be fair to say that my wife is a 'man', but she is also more than a man. She is a man with a womb, WO(MB)+ MAN.
I am merely a man, just a man, but she is more than a man, she is a woman.
So, it is fair to say that we are both 'Man', but only one of us is a 'Woman'.
My wife is more than me. The English language shows that the female is greater than the male.

Patriarchy or Systems of Domination?

Normally, I take Feminist talk with a pinch of salt, particularly when they go on about male violence. After all, here in this quiet little English town there is no known case, within living memory, of a man having killed his wife or significant other. Somebody told me, however, that a woman killed her husband some ten years or more back, something I do not recollect myself.
Then, a woman told me that a guy I know used to beat up her sister when they were married. He is not a rough type of guy but a bit 'deep' and moody.
I suppose there have always been 'bad uns', and I suppose people may well occasionally, and regretfully, trade blows when tired and emotional, but I was brought up to believe that hitting a girl was strictly forbidden, taboo, haram. Boys could trade blows and play their rough games, but girls were completely out of it. In the home especially, the woman was always boss, and was to be treated with the utmost respect.
So it seems odd, indeed preposterous, that some societies should see systematic physical aggression against women by men, as somehow reasonable and legitimate. How on earth did women and men come to bring about such societies? Surely nature dictates that men love women. When a woman cries we are concerned. We want to protect her, cherish her. After all she will one day, perhaps, bear our children in her womb.
There are two types of relationships in this world, those of co-operation and those of domination. In a marriage of co-operation it does not really matter who does the washing up and who earns more or less money. It is about pulling together.
Normally women like to remain in close contact with other female relatives. Considering that bearing and caring for children, in their early years, is difficult and tiring work, it is no surprise that for women, a close support network is vitally important.
It seems that when women are taken from their homes and sent to live with strangers, that is when
they are vulnerable, whether it is isolated middle class women who follow their husbands' careers, or young girls who are forced to live under the domination of their mother-in-law.
Abuse of men and women occurs when systems of domination prevail.
Unfortunately, Official Feminism is not interested in overthrowing systems of domination. Instead they wish to perpetuate the domination of the Officer Class. Technology has brought women into the public sphere, and Official Feminism seeks to maintain the privileges of those who give orders by defining equality in bourgeois and biological terms, to divide women from men, to justify their privilege in terms of biology, like their ancestors, the Colonialists and the Fascists. They wish to divide us by gender and race.
At no point do they criticize Hierarchy. They want to integrate women in the hierarchy.
The real divide is not biological, but social. The divide is between rich and poor, rulers and ruled. The poor get poorer and the rich get richer and the overseers want to get their snouts in the trough. Far from abolishing 'Patriarchy' they seek to re-enforce hierarchy and domination, and create a new ever intrusive 'Neo-Pariarchy.'

Poetic Voices

I listened to Dylan Thomas speaking his poetry
His voice rich and Welsh yet posh at the same time
Though educated he kept his ethnicity
Authentic sophistication in rhyme

Sylvia Plath read a poem about 'Daddy'
Harsh, bitter and extremely unpleasant
Shoved her head in the oven when she threw a paddy
Indulgent, rootless, cooked as a pheasant

And Gentleman Jim Reeves reading Robert Service
Far too smooth, too fireside to paddle a canoe
Forests and mountains and bears would make him nervous
Dan McGrew would make him boo-hoo

Sometimes I wonder if I'm missing a trick
There's something in it that just doesn't click
Maybe I'm too fond of taking the mick
Or maybe, just maybe, I'm just a bit thick.