Am I just tilting at windmills now?

Friends, I have been running this blog (and Seeking Utopia before it) for a long, long time. It is obvious to me that, based on visits, comments and page views, interest in this blog has been steadily declining.

Whether it has to do with the growth of Facebook and Twitter I don’t know. Whether it has to do with me losing my edge, I don’t know. Perhaps it has to do with my atheism or my hard-hitting revelations about America. Perhaps people are just too busy trying to survive the current economic disaster to spend time reading blogs and writing comments. Perhaps it’s just there are better blogs than mine or perhaps mine has simply reached its use-by date.

Anyway, whatever the reason or reasons, I am not going to wait for the time to arrive when I am writing posts for two or three occasional visitors.

I will leave this post open for a week and write no others. Perhaps, when or if you visit, you might be kind enough to give me some feedback as to what you think might be wrong, what might be contributing to the unexpected malaise.

This information will help me to work out what to do and/or what to change.

In the interim, take care of yourselves!

They slaughtered the Indians. They fought the British and the French.

Then the Americans turned on each other. (see above)

Now they initiate wars everywhere.

Friends, we have some news today which needs discussion. First of all, the Wikileaks exposure via some major newspapers show clearly that things in Afghanistan are not what we have been led to believe. In fact, the truth is that the U.S. has been lying through its teeth. What do they say: Truth is the first casualty of war!

I’m sure you’ve been following the Wikileaks story and admired the bravery of Julian Assange who, putting himself in danger, released 91,000 U.S. military reports that show that war crimes have been committed in Afghanistan and things are not going as well as claimed. Surprise, surprise!

The reports detailed allegations that U.S. forces sought to cover up civilian deaths in Afghanistan and described American concerns that Pakistan secretly aided Taliban militants even as it accepted billions of dollars in U.S. aid. What a tangled web we weave, eh?

The next piece of news concerns the approval of $37 billion dollars by Congress for the Afghan war effort.

This $37 billion is in addition to about $130 billion Congress already approved for Afghanistan and Iraq for this year. But this fact will blow you away: Congress has appropriated more than $1 trillion for the two wars since 2001.

Now, I don’t know about you but I find it difficult to get my mind around figures as large as these. And if one trillion dollars had been spent on alleviating world poverty or reducing preventable diseases or on medical research how different out world would be.

Instead, one trillion dollars have been spent on killing folk, destroying their two countries, leaving one of them in total chaos with daily suicide bombings and a government that is completely corrupt while the other is under renewed attack using all the latest military hardware that demented, bloodthirsty people can dream up.

This news today shows clearly that the imperial U.S., despite being nearly bankrupt, is a danger to the world especially given the distinct possibility that it is seriously considering attacking Iran with nukes!

The U.S. has completely lost the plot.

It happened long, long ago.

This could be you! Don’t miss out on all the fun.

Friends, the thought struck me the other day that Australia is a nothing nation. Sure, we are good at sport and we have kangaroos but other that that we’re small cheese in the world hierarchy.

I looked around at other nations for some guide as to what to do, especially at the world’s leading nation. As a result I came to the conclusion that the way to move up in the world pecking order is to put together a large army then wage war on foreign countries, especially those that have scarce resources.

What follows are some recommendations which will help to get Australia out of its embarrassing minor status and into the big league.

PREPARING AUSTRALIA FOR WAR.

There are several things we must do quickly. First we must get our fun-loving, beer-drinking citizens to think that war is good, that war is necessary, that Australia is a bonfire on the hill.

We need to start in kindergarten, show war movies with John Wayne and Arnie the Terminator in them, get children to stop their play and understand that war is good, that war is necessary, that there exist Evil Nations that envy our lifestyle and want to take it from us and that we have to smash them, quickly reduce their lands to rubble.

As the work begins with children, we need to run a parallel course for adults, show the same movies to them, make violent video games free, introduce knuckle dusters into all football codes, perhaps even clubs so that the oval is splashed with blood and the people scream for more as they once did in Ancient Rome.

Then we need to turn most of our manufacturing industries into armament manufacturers. To hell with making cars and tennis racquets! What are we? Wussies!

We need Australian tanks and fighter planes and warships and missiles which we can use ourselves or, eventually, sell to others who are also wanting to get into the war game which is an exciting worldwide phenomenon. There’s lots of money in it to. Lots, to say nothing about the joy of killing other humans, perhaps even torturing them.

Next the Government needs to stop wasting money on health and education (unless it is war education) and pensions and unemployment benefits. While our industries are gearing up we need to spend lots of taxpayers’ money on shiny new weapons and nuclear bomb technology and armaments from France, the U.K., the States, etc,. This will  quickly build up our navy, our air force, our army, eventually get us into the top ten strongest armies like Israel.

Next we need to introduce conscription, put men and women into a branch of the Armed Services from sixteen to twenty-one, get them thinking right: that war in normal and how heroic and noble it is to die for your country especially the grand funerals they’ll get. We must get them skilled in killing, get them to understand that our enemies are not humans at all and don’t deserve to live on this earth with us, the ‘goodies’, the righteous whom God blesses.

WHO WILL WE FIGHT?

Once we are ready for action, we have to choose someone to invade and occupy so that we can get our numbers of military bases on foreign soil up to a respectable level. I mean, we don’t have any at the moment and this is to our deep shame. Other nations, well at least one of them, have hundreds!

Probably the first nation for us to invade is Fiji. They have a dodgy Government there and we can say we are bringing them democracy and freedom and human rights.  That’s always a good thing to say because no one then questions the brutality you engage in then or the casualty figures.

Then there is New Zealand and East Timor. Once we’ve cut our teeth on these formidable opponents, sorry, enemies, we can start to look further afield. Japan is not that far away and neither is Samoa or New Guinea.

HOW WILL WE KNOW WHEN WE’RE IN THE BIG LEAGUE?

We’ll know Australia is becoming a force to be reckoned with when people around the world start to hate us. The more they hate us, the better. When everyone hates us, that will be our defining moment.

Long live war!

“Once lead this people into war and they’ll forget that ever was such a thing as tolerance.“

Woodrow Wilson.

Friends, I’ve finally worked out what is wrong with the human race. The problem: evolution has let us down!

We have have been evolving over hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of years. How do I know? Well, we have lost much of the hair we used to have, our heads have become more rounded (and, for some, bigger), our tails have fallen off, we have become taller, and our male genitalia has increased in size from that of the Great Apes and females have developed larger breasts.

But what about our intelligence? Has it kept pace with our physical development? The answer is clearly NO!

Now it is obvious that we do have a twisted, sick type of technical intelligence. It has enabled us to build nuclear bombs enough to blow up a universe or two, rockets that can hit a small target on the other side of the world, satellites that spy on every nation, depleted uranium explosives that keep on keeping on, germs that can wipe out the human race, chemicals that do terrible things to peoples’ eyes, skin and lungs, fighter jets that can break the sound barrier and take off vertically, submarines that are nuclear powered, etc. Aren’t we clever?

The answer is clearly, NO! We haven’t got enough intelligence to work out how to stop wars, how to live together in peace, or how to stop destroying our world.

So what is the answer to this paradox? It’s obvious. We need to return to our roots.

Obviously we need to throw away all our war toys and our technology and return to the caves from whence we came. Then, while we huddle around fires and grunt, perhaps, over another million years or two, our intelligence might broaden and we might be able to think sensibly about social issues and how to engender cooperation between nations rather than endlessly beating our chests and fighting and killing and being consumed by greed.

Eventually, we might be able to see that war is barbaric and only interests people who best can be described as psychopathic morons. Eventually we might understand that our world must be protected rather than raped and pillaged by entrepreneurs who can best be described as greedy morons.

Eventually we might understand that there is no God or life after death and send all religious fraudsters on their way. Eventually we might spend our lives living with and accepting reality while trying to make life as enjoyable as possible for everyone via sharing and caring.

Eventually we might think that getting a job is for slaves and instead involve ourselves in painting and sculpture, growing our own crops, weaving our own garments, writing plays and poetry, discussing philosophy, living in communes, worshiping nature and the seasons, etc.

Is there no other solution, you ask? Well there is. We could engage in a bit of genetic tinkering, perhaps broaden our intelligence that way. But it’s unlikely that those who rule us would agree with that because they don’t want anything to change, not while they are manipulating us for their own benefit: for money, for power.

But if we don’t go back to the caves or change our genes, we will soon end up in a nuclear holocaust and it will be game over for humans and planet earth.

If that happens, what is our legacy? To have been the only species which destroyed itself and its habitat, a species that was selectively intelligent but, in the main, in all the wrong areas?

Friends, I’d like you to meet Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller.

Who is she, you ask? You may be surprised to know that she was the head of MI5 in the U.K. from 2002 to 2007. Obviously she is a bright lady who knows lots of things.

Why do I think a post about her is important? Well, she is currently involved in a U.K.  inquiry into the Iraq War which the U.S., the U.K. and Australia were involved in. According to Al Jazeera, during the course of the inquiry, she said:

“There was a lack of evidence linking Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi leader, to the September 11 attacks in the US.”

“Arguably we gave Osama bin Laden his Iraqi jihad, so that he was able to move into Iraq in a way that he was not before.”

“Undoubtedly the war increased the threat [of domestic attacks in the U.K.], and by 2004 we were pretty well swamped”.

“The war had radicalised a whole generation of young people and that some British Muslims perceived the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan to be an attack on Islam.”

“Between 2001 and 2008, Britain investigated about 16 “substantial” domestic plots, of which about 12 were stopped,” she told the hearing. Of course, you will remember that, in July 2005, four suicide bombers detonated bombs on London’s transport network, killing 52 commuters and injuring hundreds more.

Friends, the gist of her evidence is that Saddam did not cause 9/11, Iraq did not have Weapons of Mass Destruction, Iraq posed no threat to the U.K. or Australia or America, and the invasion of Iraq has led to an increase in terrorism and the growth of Al Queda not a decrease.

So much for the duplicitous Western propaganda which we are drowning in. All this talk about “We have to fight ‘terrists over there’ before they engulf us is pure crap.

The world is being sucked into endless war by a nation that is more interested in controlling the world and its resources rather than bringing enlightenment or democracy to the world. Iraq today is in complete turmoil with daily suicide bombings killing scores of Iraqi citizens. Afghanistan isn’t much  better. And the U.S., nearly bankrupt, is now trying to get the nuking of Iran up and running.

The Americans, aided by the U.K. and even Australia (to a small extent), is destroying nation after nation for no credible reason and the Baroness has exposed their lies.

She is a brave woman, an honest woman. We should admire her.

This man has a job which he really enjoys!

Friends, the Federal election is up and running in Australia. It will be held on August 21st.

The leaders of the two main parties have come out with their vacuous slogans and promises rain down on us like confetti at a lavish wedding. One of the parties is concentrating on pushing how important it is to work hard to get a good education (which they’ll provide) so you can end up with a good, well-paid job (which they’ll guarantee) and a big house and a ritzy car.

Now this is a commonly held view in many Western countries. It is the basic foundation stone of capitalism which relies on having skilled workers who earn lots of money so they can buy the goods and services which capitalism produces. And if you don’t have the money, the considerate capitalists will provide you with unlimited credit. This means that those who control the capitalist system can skim off lots of money from the hardworking producers and consumers so that they can live in lavish harbour-side mansions and own private jets.

Now, in this time of financial crisis, a child starts off a four or five attending school. Then it moves to secondary and perhaps tertiary education, then, eventually gets a job and is encouraged to try to get to the top.

At the other end of the cycle, because of the financial crisis, the working life is now being extended with talk of people working until they are 70 and over. This means that people spend most of their lives working (assuming there are jobs available). 4 to 70 is 66 years! It doesn’t leave a lot of time for other activities, does it?

And, given that health issues often begin around 60,  by the time you reach 70, you are most likely to be stuffed anyway and unable to take on other pursuits.

Now, what other options are available other than getting a traditional job? Well, let’s think. What about if someone wanted to pursue some artistic avenue, look inside themselves to see what is there rather than getting a job to make some boss rich. Where would a person go? Nowhere, of course.

Our education system, in the main, is not set up to cater for artistic people or any other kind. Our education system, in the main, educates people (assuming you call rote-learning education), so they can move through the primary, secondary and tertiary levels of education and come out the other end ready to get a job and work until they drop.

If you were born a potential Shakespeare or Rembrandt or T.S. Eliot or Michelangelo or Da Vinci, etc, too bad. Our society hasn’t got time for such time-wasters. Become a manager or politician or lawyer, purchase a BMW, and, voila,  your life is perfect! Yeah.

Likewise we don’t want people going bush and living off the land or growing their own food. We don’t want people living in communes and developing spiritual dimensions or becoming sun worshipers. You can’t tax such people and the capitalists can’t skim money off them because they haven’t got any. And besides, such people are generally peaceful and don’t join the military which will never do.

Friends, could I be controversial for a change and suggest that the ‘getting a job’ mindset is the biggest crock of crap that humans have ever been sold. It is even a bigger crock than religion. Last night, I saw on television a sweat shop in India which churns out leather jackets for the Western market. The boss, who pays his workers who slave in appalling and unhygienic conditions next to nothing, sells the jackets for a $100 and they sell to people higher up the food chain in other countries for $600. Hey, that’s capitalism for you! It ensures that a few screw the many.

Friends, getting a job has ensured the enslavement of most of the human race and has also guaranteed that most people spend their lives in boredom and drudgery.

But, worse, they never discover their real potential!

What a terrible waste!

These little people don’t know about hatred, greed and killing yet!

Reuters reports that Fidel Castro’s sudden re-emergence after four years in seclusion has raised questions about what it all means.

But Reuters say his message has been consistent. Fidel said: “A devastating war is at hand if the United States, in alliance with Israel, tries to enforce international sanctions against Iran for its nuclear activities.” He has also predicted the United States will attack North Korea.

To contrast with Fidel’s dire predictions (which are echoed by many)  and to feature hope, I have chosen an image which suggests peace, something that the deranged, neanderthal, warmongering American leadership and the Corporate Barons and Religious Fundamentalists who support them, have clearly forgotten the meaning of.

America’s insatiable, barbaric war machine must be destroyed.

Think peace not war!

Friends, there is a new term that I have coined. That is called ‘Americanism’. If you want to know what it means, just study the map shown above.

On the map, light green shows where America has stationed 1,000 or more troops. The mid-green shows where there are more than 100, while the purple shows where America has full use of military facilities.

O.K. you can say that there is still a lot of grey where America has no control. But the key point is to look at the strategic spread. Given the fact that America also has navies spread across the world’s oceans, there is no part of the world which American armed forces can’t reach quickly and effectively.

And of course, American missiles are stationed everywhere, ones with nuclear warheads which can also reach most places.

Also you need to consider the resources that nations caught up in the web of Americanism have, resources like oil and minerals. It’s no accident that America is in Iraq and mineral-rich Afghanistan or that it is plotting to attack oil-rich Iran.

The country which has the biggest military force and the best strategic placement of it, and is heavily into invasions and occupations and torture, and is trying to gain control of the major proportion of the world’s scarce resources would seem to me to be seeking to gain control of the world, not for the benefit of mankind, but exclusively for its own benefit (with some crumbs thrown to its toadying ‘allies’).

This friends is what I mean by Americanism. Like Zionism, it too is potentially a real danger to freedom and human rights and true democracy.

Remember, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely!

Each morning, at dawn, the sun rises heralding a new day and, potentially, a new beginning.

Yet, all too often, each day is just a replica of those that have gone before.

Why not make your next dawn the start of something new?

Ecstatic Spanish supporters celebrate Spain’s World Cup Win!

In Uganda, 72 people watching the final game were blown up!

Friends, life is full of ironies, of extremes. The top picture shows the rapture of Spanish fans as their team clinched the title of the best footballing nation in the world. Look at the faces, the joy, the unbridled excitement.

I did not choose a picture of the carnage that resulted from the suicide bombing in Uganda. You can draw your own mental pictures of what it might’ve looked like, the charred, dismembered bodies of those who, with friends, were happily and innocently watching the Cup Final.

The people who carried out this massacre in Uganda are Islamic extremists. Under different names, they operate all over the Middle East and blowing up innocent people, men, women and children, is their specialty. They try to foment fear, try to punish people who don’t embrace an extreme brand of Islam, the kind that allows the stoning of women who are alleged to have committed adultery, the kind that keeps women in servitude, in bondage. I condemn them strongly.

But then, as you know, I have no time for brutal extremists of any kind. I don’t care if they are Christian, Judaic, Islamic, Hindu, Anarchists, who cares! They are scum who are deranged by their twisted convictions, scum who believe that the ends always justify the means.

For example, in place of the lower picture I could’ve used photographs from Gaza, ones taken while the Israelis carried out their genocide the Xmas before last. I could’ve used photographs taken of Afghan wedding parties that were hit by American missiles.

I could’ve used photographs taken in Pakistan which show the results of drone attacks on what turned out to be civilians. I could’ve shown a recent suicide attack by Islamic extremists in Iran which killed and injured hundreds of people. I could’ve shown photographs taken in India…

The world is full of horrific photographs which show man’s inhumanity to man, inhumanity carried out daily by people of every colour and creed. Let he who is innocent cast the first stone!

The World Cup showed that the nations of the world can come together in peace, can compete fairly, can, for a month, put aside killing and profiting from war.

But evil, greed, and lust for power, which permeates every nation (some much more so than others), never seems to rest. We are the poorer for it yet we allow it to continue.

It’s time to stop the killing, all killing! It’s time to seek a better way, a peaceful way.