CRUISE MISSILE OBLITERATES STOCKHOLM

Cruise Missile Obliterates Stockholm!

At 3.0 am this morning, a cruise missile with a nuclear warhead landed in the centre of Stockholm. The city is now flattened, and there is at the moment no report of any survivors .

At 10.0 am the Chinese broadcast an ultimatum to the Swedish Government: if they did not hand over IKEA, its entire stock, its financial assets in totality, China was declaring war on Sweden. Commentators hastened to condemn the oriental perfidy which attacks first, and then declares war after the pre-emptive strike.

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Absurd of course.

Sweden is almost certain never to be invaded, because it has given up invading other countries. The last significant war fought by Sweden was two hundred years ago, the Russian-Swedish war of 1808 – 1809. (There was then a minor war in 1814, when Sweden invaded Norway; it did not last long, or cause many casualties)

Dare we say the Swedish people have sensibly realised there is nothing to be gained by fighting wars?

We can find a long list of Swiss wars … in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth, centuries.. But the only war in the last two hundred years was the Sonderbund War, a civil war fought between the League of Catholic cantons and the Swiss Federation. It lasted from November 3rd to November 26th, 1847. There were less than a hundred casualties. Immediately the Federal army had won, they started ministering to the wounded, an action which led to the founding of the Red Cross.

I think we might certainly say the Swiss have sensibly realised there is nothing to be gained by fighting wars.

What is the role of Government?

The role of Government is to defend the lives of its citizens, and to maintain the currency.

Which Government has defended the lives of its citizens more successfully, that of the United Kingdom or that of Sweden?

Let us imagine the answer to that question given by a British mother who has received the body of her son blown to unrecognisable bits by an Iraqi or Afghan bomb.

Ban All Political Parties

Ban All Political Parties

I popped in to my local filling station for a carton of milk, and asked the man at the cash desk whether he was ready to form a government. Without hesitation, he said “Obvious what we need: fixed term parliament for two years, and the best minds from all three parties working together to get us out of the mess.”

I haven’t had deep conversations with him; he is no “homespun philosopher.” I guess he would be perfectly happy to describe himself as an ordinary working man.

How infinitely preferable it would be to have him organising the political system rather than the puffed-up nonentities who claim leadership over us.

This is the point. Anyone and everyone can see how to approach the problem: we have all got to do without a bit of what we’ve taken for granted over the last thirty years when we lived beyond our means. But that means all of us, not just nurses, teachers, and postmen; it means seriously taxing all incomes over £100,000. It means ordering the bankers to repay the money they have robbed from us under licence, and to surrender their passports so they are confined to this country for the next five years. It means the armed forces coming home from Afghanistan; it means Britain not buying a replacement for Trident; it means politicians not strutting around as if they were leaders of a “Great Nation”, for we are no longer a “Great Nation.” It means members of Parliament willingly and eagerly taking a salary exactly the same as a teacher’s.

There is, of course, one more thing. For the next two years all political parties must be dissolved; all party funds must be frozen; all party offices must be turned into temporary residences for the homeless. Members of Parliament must sit at random in the House of Commons. All ministerial offices will be held jointly by two, three, or four, people acting in concert.

Then there is a chance that the good old spirit of the good old British working man and working woman will rise to the occasion, and the jokes will be cracked, and the trousers patched, and once again the folk, the ordinary folk, will pull victory out of the defeat into which our self-serving, conceited, and supremely incompetent, leaders have led us.

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Coalition Election: Neighbourhood and Family Values

This is A Manifesto for the Red, Yellow, & Blue, Party

One party above all deserves to lead the country. A party with the right attitude. A party that cares about People, that puts People First.

These are the pledges of The Red, Yellow, & Blue, Party to You, to You personally, to You and Your Family, to You and Your Neighbourhood.


We Pledge Action on the NHS. The NHS is The Red, Yellow, & Blue, Party’s Top Priority. We Pledge To Further Strengthen The NHS. We Will Ensure Frontline Services In The NHS Are Protected.

We Pledge Transport For All. We Will Work To Improve Access To Transport. We Pledge Better Train Services From London. We Will Invest In Public Transport.

We Pledge Action On Education, Fair School Funding, Raising Standards in Schools, Giving Schools The Extra Money They Need To Support Struggling Children.

We Pledge More Police; We Will Put More Police On Patrol.

How could anyone not vote for a party which pledges to do all this.

Well, as you might guess this manifesto is composed of quotations from the three political brochures which have been put through my door by the Conservative, Labour, and Lib-Dem parties. There are a few minor differences: the conservatives, surprisingly, do not mention the Police; Labour does not mention Education.

They all believe in Fairness and Change, and Making a Difference. Why don’t we ask for three votes instead of one, so that we can vote for all three of them?

There is another thing these three brochures have in common:

None of them mention how they are going to pay for the wonderful promises they are making us.

Are we stupid? Well The Red, Yellow, & Blue, Party thinks we are.

But how do we show them we’re not really stupid? That’s the problem.


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Afghan Civilian Casualties, Queen’s Regulations, & PTSD Complex

On Friday March 5th, 2010, Lance Corporal Joe Glenton was sentenced to 9 months in a military prison for going absent without leave during the summer of 2007,as his unit was preparing to return to Afghanistan. He first went to Afghanistan in February 2006 with 4 Logistic Support Regiment

His defence lawyer, Nick Wrack said “He (Joe Glenton) thought he was going to help Afghanistan, to help the local people. The experience and the reality began to conflict with that.”

After going AWOL, Joe travelled in South East Asia and Australia, then flew back to Britain, handed himself in to the military authorities, but then campaigned against the Afghan war, delivering a letter to the Prime Minister, and addressing a rally in Trafalgar Square.

Is it right to send Joe Glenton to prison for 9 months? Well, Army discipline
insists on punishing him for going absent. What sort of verdict would a civilian court have reached?

During the 1950’s, popular feeling turned against the death penalty. There were instances of juries refusing to bring in a verdict of ‘Murder’, because they did not want to be responsible for sending someone to judicial death. Thus the law of innocence and guilt was brought into contempt because the punishment exceeded what most people regarded as right.

If Joe Glenton had been tried in a civilian court, and if I had been on the jury, I should have voted for his acquittal, even though it was apparent that he had gone absent without leave. In previous posts, I’ve argued that the Afghan war is unwinnable, Senior British officers agree. It is being waged for no clear reason. Certainly no member of the British Government has ever seriously explained why British soldiers are being sent there to be killed and wounded.

Joe Glenton, however, offers us a different perspective on the war. His defence lawyer said “He (Joe Glenton) thought he was going to help Afghanistan, to help the local people. The experience and the reality began to conflict with that.”

We are regularly told NATO forces are in Afghanistan to help the country.

It has been difficult to calculate the number of Afghan civilians killed. But, by every estimate, more have been killed by NATO forces than by the Taliban and Afghan warlords. One estimate reckons between four thousand and five and a half thousand killed by Afghans, but between five and a half thousand killed and eight and a half thousand killed by NATO.

There are also the indirect deaths, including a vast number of children who have died as a result of starvation; one Afghan estimate states that 120,000 Afghan civilians have been forced out of their homes.

How does killing Afghans help Afghanistan?

If neither the British or the American government can give a good reason for continuing the war, and if NATO forces have killed more innocent people than the Afghan forces, we should now judge the war as not only ill-conceived, not only unwinnable, but also immoral.

Joe Glenton went to Afghanistan hoping to help the Afghans. Our leaders affirm that to be the purpose of the war. Joe Glenton has given up 9 months of his life for protesting that if we cannot help the Afghans, we should bring the troops home.

You may not approve of War Resisters International. But if the war in Afghanistan continues, protest against it is bound to grow, and to become more violent.

How does killing Afghans help Afghanistan? Bring the troops home.

Participation Politics & Tony Benn

The Guardian on March 17th, 2005, contained an article by Tony Benn titled Not apathy, but anger.

“My own experience,” he wrote “four years after leaving parliament to devote more time to politics, has convinced me that, far from being apathetic, most people are angry that no one seems to be listening to them; nor do they believe what they are told. Anger and mistrust are highly political responses and in no sense can they be described as apathy.”

Tony Benn is living up to what he promised. He tours the country incessantly, calling on British citizens disillusioned with government, politicians, Parliament, and the inadequacy of a system which describes itself as democracy, but is not democracy, to take to the streets in public protest.

One of the causes for which he campaigns tirelessly is the call to bring back British troops from Afghanistan. Anyone who bothers to read history will know that no foreign power has ever succeeded in occupying Afghanistan.

The Afghan war is unwinnable. NATO should admit defeat, and if NATO insists on continuing to fight, Britain should anyhow withdraw its troops.

The Afghan war is unwinnable.

Bring the troops home.

See next post

War wrong? War stupid.

I guess the majority of British people now think it was wrong for Mr Blair to follow Mr Bush and order the invasion of Iraq. Wrong. Wrong. An illegal war. Invading Iraq meant disregarding the principles of the United Nations. Blair’s decision now seems not only wrong morally, but also very stupid.

The real motive for invading Iraq must have been to get hold of as much Iraqi oil as possible. Has this been successful? We are kept in the dark.

What is the morality of sending British soldiers to fight in Afghanistan? Well, we could argue that for a long time. But, in a way, we don’t need to argue the morality, because we can simply say that the Afghan war is a very stupid mistake.

Read history. No foreign power has ever conquered Afghanistan. However we judge the morality of invading Afghanistan, there is only one sensible course of action left now: admit defeat, withdraw as soon as possible, and save the lives of British soldiers.

The Anger of the Apathetic

As I said in my previous blog, The Guardian on March 17th, 2005, contained an article by Tony Benn www.tonybenn.com.archive.html titled Not apathy, but anger.

“My own experience,” he wrote “four years after leaving parliament to devote more time to politics, has convinced me that, far from being apathetic, most people are angry that no one seems to be listening to them.”
I think this is a serious challenge to the citizens of Britain. How can we best follow the implications of Tony Benn’s Guardian article? There are two ways in which to push the debate forward. The first is to consider how and where we, the citizens of Britain, can influence government, and take more part in government. This of course needs a huge amount of discussion, and will be developed later, Alternatively, we jump immediately into current political debates about urgent political problems. The two most obvious and most urgent are the war in Afghanistan and the ‘drugs problem.’ In his ‘Evenings with Tony Benn’ Tony speaks eloquently on these two topics. There is no doubt where he stands on both these questions. For myself, I cannot see how any sensible person could disagree. Watch this space.

Guy Fawkes and Tony Benn

Not apathy, but anger, an article by Tony Benn www.tonybenn.com.archive.html news.bbc.co.uk in The Guardian of March 17th, 2005, contained this paragraph:

“My own experience,” he wrote “four years after leaving parliament to devote more time to politics, has convinced me that, far from being apathetic, most people are angry that no one seems to be listening to them.”

My aim in writing The Guy Fawkes Option was to follow up on what Tony Benn wrote when he announced he was leaving Parliament to devote more time to politics. Tony himself tours Britain tirelessly; his message: politicians must not ignore the citizens of this country.

There is the reverse to this coin. The citizens of this country should start a continuous debate on how we can take more control of the way our nation is governed. I’ve called this project — an ongoing debate of citizens — The Guy Fawkes Option.