Decision Time
The leadership of Israel is about to make a momentous decision. Should they decide to attack the Iranian nuclear facility or not?
There is compelling evidence that on June 2 the Israeli Air Force flew up to 100 of its jet fighters, F15’s and F16’s, some 900 miles towards Greece in a full dress rehearsal for flying a similar distance to Iran. The BBC and New York Times report that this was to test and rehearse Israel’s capacity to take a full fleet of fighters, refueling tankers, and helicopter rescue teams.
The Israeli exercise was seemingly designed to send a clear message to Tehran that Israel has the power and will to attack Iran.
Warnings against any such action were immediately announced by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Viktorovich Lavrovand and were echoed by the head of the UN atomic energy commission, the nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei. I am confident that this lawyer who became a career United Nations diplomat, and who was born and educated in Cairo, and who worked (1964-80) in the Egyptian diplomatic service, becoming special assistant to the foreign minister (1974-78) is a total neutral when it concerns Israel.
Iran continues to insist its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes, but Israel sees Iran's development of the technology as a serious threat.
The Iranians are continuing to defy a UN demand to stop their uranium enrichment program and the Security Council approved a third round of sanctions against Iran over the issue in March 2008.
No one knows if any of what has been said and done means an attack on Iran is imminent as previous talk of such action dissipated after a US intelligence report at the end of 2007 indicated their belief that Iran had, at that time, given up its nuclear weapons programme.
Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the UN's watchdog, said an attack would put Iran on a "crash course" to building nuclear weapons.
"A military strike, in my opinion, would be worse than anything possible - it would turn the region into a fireball," he told the television station, Al Arabiya. "It would make me unable to continue my work," he said. Too bad if we lose this undoubtedly good man’s efforts but we’d live without him, but could Israel live with the consequences of an Iranian nuclear strike if he was wrong?
The international diplomatic community is insistent that Israel must give diplomacy more of a chance to succeed. I usually subscribe to the Winston Churchill motto that “Jaw, jaw is better than war war,” but we all need to remember that the Iranian leadership, led by the mad Iranian President has a direct correlation with Churchill’s nemesis, Adolf Hitler. Both these despots contain at the core of their belief system, a total hate for the Jewish people. Hitler perpetrated the holocaust and the Iranian President; Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the world’s leading holocaust denier. He simply insists it didn’t happen. Iran's president called for Israel to be moved to Europe. "If European countries claim that they have killed Jews in World War II... why don't they provide the Zionist regime with a piece of Europe," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Iranian television.” Germany and Austria can provide the... regime with two or three provinces for this regime to establish itself, and the issue will be resolved." Clearly we are talking about a lunatic who is capable of doing exactly what he threatens, just like Hitler.
Let’s weigh up the risks. In one scenario Israel attacks and fails, perhaps unable to reach or destroy the targets. The ramifications would be very bad for Israel and the men and women she might lose but not a problem for anyone else. A second scenario is Israel succeeds in its attack and eliminates the Iranian capacity to develop its nuclear bombs. The possibility thereafter is that Iran or its surrogates, mainly Hamas and Hezbollah, launch a series of asymmetric counter strikes against Israel. The consequences would be awful but not unbearable.
The last option for Israel is that it does nothing and just hopes that the threat goes away. The probability is that this would be a fatal mistake on Israel’s behalf, one from which there is no possibility of recovery. Remember the Iranian President has announced, on several occasions that Israel will cease to exist and be wiped from the face of the earth.
If your enemy has repeatedly sworn to wipe you out, do you wait or get your revenge in first? In circumstance such as these it isn’t madness to attack, it’s lunacy to wait.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Friday, June 20, 2008
Doers
Almost every day someone tells me they have a great idea. This has been happening all my adult life, especially since I started to make films, run companies or direct study at universities. Originally I found this very flattering. How great that people wanted to show me their terrific ideas that were about to change the world as we know it.
It took me a very long time to understand that this wasn’t the point. Most people are showing you their idea because they want you to help them.
Why admire people who simply have ideas and then think this makes them wonderful. Ideas are like anal orifices, everyone has one. I admire people who complete ideas and turn them into a finished article. These people are doers rather than dreamers. Just such a person is Jon Mackley.
Jon used to work with me when he was a very young man, and I was merely younger. He jobs became progressively less menial, as he went up the ranks in our small, but taxing firm. I should add that he is still a youngish man, well comparatively, but not quite so youthful. Jon went to university after his work with my family’s business and I believe he earned two degrees plus a doctorate.
Whilst working as a lecturer and completing his doctorate he also found the time to write his learned book, “The Legend of St. Brendan” which describes how the Irish abbot journeys to Paradise and the marvelous encounters he experiences. It will soon be available on Amazon books and I hope some of you buy it. Good luck with the book J.S. you deserve it, you’re a talented and hard working man, which I always knew, but add to that the most important of all accolades, Jon, you’re a doer!
It took me a very long time to understand that this wasn’t the point. Most people are showing you their idea because they want you to help them.
Why admire people who simply have ideas and then think this makes them wonderful. Ideas are like anal orifices, everyone has one. I admire people who complete ideas and turn them into a finished article. These people are doers rather than dreamers. Just such a person is Jon Mackley.
Jon used to work with me when he was a very young man, and I was merely younger. He jobs became progressively less menial, as he went up the ranks in our small, but taxing firm. I should add that he is still a youngish man, well comparatively, but not quite so youthful. Jon went to university after his work with my family’s business and I believe he earned two degrees plus a doctorate.
Whilst working as a lecturer and completing his doctorate he also found the time to write his learned book, “The Legend of St. Brendan” which describes how the Irish abbot journeys to Paradise and the marvelous encounters he experiences. It will soon be available on Amazon books and I hope some of you buy it. Good luck with the book J.S. you deserve it, you’re a talented and hard working man, which I always knew, but add to that the most important of all accolades, Jon, you’re a doer!
Friends
Beginning about fifteen years ago I started to meet friends from my childhood. It started when I was editing a small video series I had produced in London. Someone saw my name, and remembering me from our mutual childhood he contacted me. His name is Roger. I recalled a tall, blond, thin guy when he was young. Time passes, and now Roger, although still tall, is no longer the proud owner of a head full of lustrous blond hair, and you couldn’t call him thin, but underneath the years he’s still the same Roger I lived one street away from. I suppose we all some carbuncles on us now, and perhaps a few pounds of excess baggage. But when I look at Roger I still see the hopeful teenager, and I guess he feels the same way about me.
Then I was looking for a house a few years later in Stanmore, the same district I had spent some of my formative years. The real estate agent told me that the house I was looking at was also being reviewed by another couple, and that they would be at the agency later the same day. I heard them mention the name Nigel, and that being a pretty unusual name, I asked whether it was a man called Nigel Schneider, and the woman clearly thought I was toying with her. It was indeed, the same Nigel I had last seen a bit more than forty years before at our secondary school, Harrow High School for Boys.
I followed up and met Nigel and it was reassuring to discover that his memories of school and adolescence were the same as mine. Up to that point I had begun to think I must have imagined some of the strange and deviant teachers it was our misfortune to encounter. Along with the good memories we had endured paedophilia from some of the senior staff that no one believed. I remember writing about this for our unofficial school magazine, Fanfare, which I produced with another great friend of the time, Michael Elton. Our publication was soon brought to an end despite it being a big success. We told our parents about the constant groping of some of the male staff, and in those less enlightened times, we were ignored. It was only when our headmaster was arrested for importuning outside a Gentlemen’s public lavatory in Harrow and was, as a consequence, banned from teaching at any boys’ school were we believed.
Some things have changed for the better, and the control of inappropriate adult supervision is certainly one of them.
More recently I received a communication from two friends who I went to primary school with. Jeff and Neville. The school was Holland House in Edgware, on the outskirts of North West London. These two venerable gentlemen hadn’t seen each other in nearly fifty years. At their reunion my name came up, in the spirit of whatever happened to Tony Klinger. They knew I had gone into the entertainment business but nothing much more. Whilst they raised my name the partner of Neville, soon to be wife, (mazeltov for later this month!) Roz, overheard. Earlier that same day she had been in contact about the charity showing of my film, Full Circle, for the charity she works at, WJR. By ridiculous fluke she was able to tell the guys where I was that day!
Some people call that kismet, but in our vernacular we would call it bashert, our way of saying an event is fated or predestined.
We have since followed through and become friends once more. But I have to admit that when I look at Neville particularly, I see the eager ten or eleven year old and not the middle aged man. I wonder if that’s why it’s so particularly comforting to rekindle these old relationships. It’s like throwing on a comfortable old sweater, you know it isn’t the most fashionable shape or colour, but it feels good, smells better and keeps you warm. I wonder if he sees the grey haired me, or the small boy in the pictures he had kept of us? We were both in the boxing and soccer teams, and we were small and nervous about getting hit on the nose. My mother used to let me go to school on boxing match days with the admonition, “don’t let them hit you on the face!” I did try mum, no one ducked lower or more often than me, but still they tried to hit me, the bastards. Happily they didn’t connect too often on the Klinger proboscis, as I only lost once.
I remember my grandfather’s friend, a famed ex champion boxer, telling me, “hit them on the nose and in the kishkeh, they’ll sprout some claret and be sick and it’ll be all over! Roughly translated it meant I should hit them on the nose to make it bleed and in the belly. Schoolboy amateur boxers and their families never did understand that it’s best not to eat for many hours before a fight. I have to admit that in my mind I was boxing like Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammad Ali) but I was floating like a bumblebee and stinging like a butterfly.
But in the small world of Holland House School we were holding our own and building happy memories. Looking back its hard not to see everything through a rosy glow of happy memories. Of course the world was not in sepia, and the sun didn’t always shine, but it was a simpler world, and there seemed to be a clearer distinction between right and wrong. There was less grey, more black and white. The world was better for this clarity and it certainly felt better. Wouldn’t it be great if our present society were to rediscover some of those forgotten, simple, straightforward core values of civility, courtesy and honesty?
Then I was looking for a house a few years later in Stanmore, the same district I had spent some of my formative years. The real estate agent told me that the house I was looking at was also being reviewed by another couple, and that they would be at the agency later the same day. I heard them mention the name Nigel, and that being a pretty unusual name, I asked whether it was a man called Nigel Schneider, and the woman clearly thought I was toying with her. It was indeed, the same Nigel I had last seen a bit more than forty years before at our secondary school, Harrow High School for Boys.
I followed up and met Nigel and it was reassuring to discover that his memories of school and adolescence were the same as mine. Up to that point I had begun to think I must have imagined some of the strange and deviant teachers it was our misfortune to encounter. Along with the good memories we had endured paedophilia from some of the senior staff that no one believed. I remember writing about this for our unofficial school magazine, Fanfare, which I produced with another great friend of the time, Michael Elton. Our publication was soon brought to an end despite it being a big success. We told our parents about the constant groping of some of the male staff, and in those less enlightened times, we were ignored. It was only when our headmaster was arrested for importuning outside a Gentlemen’s public lavatory in Harrow and was, as a consequence, banned from teaching at any boys’ school were we believed.
Some things have changed for the better, and the control of inappropriate adult supervision is certainly one of them.
More recently I received a communication from two friends who I went to primary school with. Jeff and Neville. The school was Holland House in Edgware, on the outskirts of North West London. These two venerable gentlemen hadn’t seen each other in nearly fifty years. At their reunion my name came up, in the spirit of whatever happened to Tony Klinger. They knew I had gone into the entertainment business but nothing much more. Whilst they raised my name the partner of Neville, soon to be wife, (mazeltov for later this month!) Roz, overheard. Earlier that same day she had been in contact about the charity showing of my film, Full Circle, for the charity she works at, WJR. By ridiculous fluke she was able to tell the guys where I was that day!
Some people call that kismet, but in our vernacular we would call it bashert, our way of saying an event is fated or predestined.
We have since followed through and become friends once more. But I have to admit that when I look at Neville particularly, I see the eager ten or eleven year old and not the middle aged man. I wonder if that’s why it’s so particularly comforting to rekindle these old relationships. It’s like throwing on a comfortable old sweater, you know it isn’t the most fashionable shape or colour, but it feels good, smells better and keeps you warm. I wonder if he sees the grey haired me, or the small boy in the pictures he had kept of us? We were both in the boxing and soccer teams, and we were small and nervous about getting hit on the nose. My mother used to let me go to school on boxing match days with the admonition, “don’t let them hit you on the face!” I did try mum, no one ducked lower or more often than me, but still they tried to hit me, the bastards. Happily they didn’t connect too often on the Klinger proboscis, as I only lost once.
I remember my grandfather’s friend, a famed ex champion boxer, telling me, “hit them on the nose and in the kishkeh, they’ll sprout some claret and be sick and it’ll be all over! Roughly translated it meant I should hit them on the nose to make it bleed and in the belly. Schoolboy amateur boxers and their families never did understand that it’s best not to eat for many hours before a fight. I have to admit that in my mind I was boxing like Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammad Ali) but I was floating like a bumblebee and stinging like a butterfly.
But in the small world of Holland House School we were holding our own and building happy memories. Looking back its hard not to see everything through a rosy glow of happy memories. Of course the world was not in sepia, and the sun didn’t always shine, but it was a simpler world, and there seemed to be a clearer distinction between right and wrong. There was less grey, more black and white. The world was better for this clarity and it certainly felt better. Wouldn’t it be great if our present society were to rediscover some of those forgotten, simple, straightforward core values of civility, courtesy and honesty?
Thursday, June 19, 2008
UnGovernment
There continues to be ever more strange happenings that beg to be commented upon in dear old blighty Some of these events might seem to be disconnected but I insist there is a common theme.
Over the last few days the judicial system decided, in its infinite wisdom, to release Abu Qatada from prison. This is a man variously described as a “fanatical preacher”, “the right hand man in Europe of Osama Bin Laden” and “the spiritual father of European acts of terror”. It is said that this spreader of hate influenced others to attack the West, including civilians, despite his living in comfort, in England. This is made worse by the fact that he gained entry fourteen years ago into this country with a fake passport. The reason he could not be deported was because in Jordan, he was wanted for capital offences, which could result “in an unfair trial which could then result in his being executed. Our laws don’t allow us to extradite prisoners to a third country where that could be the consequence.
When the judge granted him bail, he stated that there were no grounds for keeping Abu Qatada in prison. How about these grounds –for being a murdering, lying, deceitful bastard who should be sent back to Jordan to be tried and executed?
We also had official notification that the inflation rate in the UK had reached 3.3%, it’s highest rate for 16 years. This doesn’t sound so bad, but that would only be the case if this figure were accurate. Of course it isn’t. This is the inflation rate if you deduct falling house prices and similar drops in items that simply wouldn’t see in the real inflationary spiral, currently overtaking us. If you take that out of the equation the real inflation rate is more like 10% to 20% on everyday living costs such as oil, gas, petrol and food. These are the items that affect us all and which are spiralling out of reach.
My only bright spot is that as we have to pay to look after the criminal bastard Abu Qatada by handing him money so he can live on bail in the manner to which he has become accustomed, but at least there’s the thought that his benefit will be eaten up a bit by the inflation we’re all now going to suffer. Then again, I bet you he gets an inflation linked rise in the money we give him so that he can laugh some more at us.
Whilst on the subject of madmen and idiots it has been repeatedly asked of me that I voice the opinion of the majority who ask this question, why has no country sanctioned the assassination of Robert Mugabe? I genuinely don’t agree with the state sanctioned killing of anyone, but when that someone qualifies as some kind of black Hitler you are forced to the conclusion that the world would be better off if Mugabe simply ceased to exist.
Staying with the idiots, and yet another of these, the unjustifiably perky, always pesky Hazel Blears, Secretary for the Communities in our Ruritarian government, had her computer stolen. As in the last nine recent instances of our leaders and custodians losing our top-secret information, it contained secrets and confidential information that should not be in the public domain. I have two questions in this regard;
1. Why are these secret files ever removed from the offices of these officials unless there is a concrete reason for doing so?
2. Failing which, if they do have to be allowed out of the offices in which they are secure, why are these documents not encrypted before they are put onto anyone’s computer?
The government’s official idiot spokesman will say, “there will be an immediate and wide ranging enquiry, and no cover up.” which we all know will exonerate anyone senior as some junior and faceless bureaucrat takes the punishment in return for a comfortable pension, unless he or she has a conscience, in which case they will commit suicide, real or professional. As for the patronizing Ms. Blears, she who never admits to any wrongdoing or blemish will no doubt attempt to spin this incident so that she is not only blameless but able to lecture us, her public, on how to live our lives as she does, perfectly, with a smile locked on her silly, patronizing face. It seems obvious to me that the only reason this incompetent still has a government job is that our Prime Minister keeps her in government so he can look good when compared.
Perhaps those of you who don’t know the background need a quick reminder. Over the last few days there was the mysterious case of the senior civil servant who worked as a Cabinet official who after confessing to his error, was suspended after leaving top-secret documents on a train, followed, one day later with Treasury papers dealing with global terrorism, and how its funded, found on a second train. Then there was the laptop belonging to the deputy chief constable of Avon and Somerset, who clearly has access to top-secret information, which was stolen from his car. These are just the most recent of ten or so manifestations of incompetence to a degree not seen outside of a Pink Panther movie.
Or do you agree with my theory, that I voiced a few days back, in which I surmised that such an outbreak of happenings defy the cock up theory and become a much more likely plot to expose and get rid of this government?
I expect exploding cakes, men in wheelchairs unable to hear the old German national anthem without giving the Nazi salute and others saying the immortal words, “I will tell you the code, only once!” Our leadership is a total farce and the only people who don’t appear to know this is our leadership. The message to the whole sorry bunch of them is listen to the voice of the people and go!
Over the last few days the judicial system decided, in its infinite wisdom, to release Abu Qatada from prison. This is a man variously described as a “fanatical preacher”, “the right hand man in Europe of Osama Bin Laden” and “the spiritual father of European acts of terror”. It is said that this spreader of hate influenced others to attack the West, including civilians, despite his living in comfort, in England. This is made worse by the fact that he gained entry fourteen years ago into this country with a fake passport. The reason he could not be deported was because in Jordan, he was wanted for capital offences, which could result “in an unfair trial which could then result in his being executed. Our laws don’t allow us to extradite prisoners to a third country where that could be the consequence.
When the judge granted him bail, he stated that there were no grounds for keeping Abu Qatada in prison. How about these grounds –for being a murdering, lying, deceitful bastard who should be sent back to Jordan to be tried and executed?
We also had official notification that the inflation rate in the UK had reached 3.3%, it’s highest rate for 16 years. This doesn’t sound so bad, but that would only be the case if this figure were accurate. Of course it isn’t. This is the inflation rate if you deduct falling house prices and similar drops in items that simply wouldn’t see in the real inflationary spiral, currently overtaking us. If you take that out of the equation the real inflation rate is more like 10% to 20% on everyday living costs such as oil, gas, petrol and food. These are the items that affect us all and which are spiralling out of reach.
My only bright spot is that as we have to pay to look after the criminal bastard Abu Qatada by handing him money so he can live on bail in the manner to which he has become accustomed, but at least there’s the thought that his benefit will be eaten up a bit by the inflation we’re all now going to suffer. Then again, I bet you he gets an inflation linked rise in the money we give him so that he can laugh some more at us.
Whilst on the subject of madmen and idiots it has been repeatedly asked of me that I voice the opinion of the majority who ask this question, why has no country sanctioned the assassination of Robert Mugabe? I genuinely don’t agree with the state sanctioned killing of anyone, but when that someone qualifies as some kind of black Hitler you are forced to the conclusion that the world would be better off if Mugabe simply ceased to exist.
Staying with the idiots, and yet another of these, the unjustifiably perky, always pesky Hazel Blears, Secretary for the Communities in our Ruritarian government, had her computer stolen. As in the last nine recent instances of our leaders and custodians losing our top-secret information, it contained secrets and confidential information that should not be in the public domain. I have two questions in this regard;
1. Why are these secret files ever removed from the offices of these officials unless there is a concrete reason for doing so?
2. Failing which, if they do have to be allowed out of the offices in which they are secure, why are these documents not encrypted before they are put onto anyone’s computer?
The government’s official idiot spokesman will say, “there will be an immediate and wide ranging enquiry, and no cover up.” which we all know will exonerate anyone senior as some junior and faceless bureaucrat takes the punishment in return for a comfortable pension, unless he or she has a conscience, in which case they will commit suicide, real or professional. As for the patronizing Ms. Blears, she who never admits to any wrongdoing or blemish will no doubt attempt to spin this incident so that she is not only blameless but able to lecture us, her public, on how to live our lives as she does, perfectly, with a smile locked on her silly, patronizing face. It seems obvious to me that the only reason this incompetent still has a government job is that our Prime Minister keeps her in government so he can look good when compared.
Perhaps those of you who don’t know the background need a quick reminder. Over the last few days there was the mysterious case of the senior civil servant who worked as a Cabinet official who after confessing to his error, was suspended after leaving top-secret documents on a train, followed, one day later with Treasury papers dealing with global terrorism, and how its funded, found on a second train. Then there was the laptop belonging to the deputy chief constable of Avon and Somerset, who clearly has access to top-secret information, which was stolen from his car. These are just the most recent of ten or so manifestations of incompetence to a degree not seen outside of a Pink Panther movie.
Or do you agree with my theory, that I voiced a few days back, in which I surmised that such an outbreak of happenings defy the cock up theory and become a much more likely plot to expose and get rid of this government?
I expect exploding cakes, men in wheelchairs unable to hear the old German national anthem without giving the Nazi salute and others saying the immortal words, “I will tell you the code, only once!” Our leadership is a total farce and the only people who don’t appear to know this is our leadership. The message to the whole sorry bunch of them is listen to the voice of the people and go!
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
America
During those particularly American rites of passage, the Primaries and later, the election for President we tend to forget the bigger issues. What is happening to the USA and its place in the world?
The last few days have seen President Bush visit the UK and address his place in history. It was almost surreal to see the outgoing President standing shoulder to shoulder with our fairly new Prime Minister. In fact they looked as if someone must have got the running order wrong. The President looked great, almost floating a foot above the ground, whereas the Prime Minister looked like the world had just pooped on his head. Not a bad idea perhaps?
From the outside it might look as if the two big armed conflicts, in Iraq and Afghanistan, should be America’s principal concern. Although these are undeniably important, they pale into insignificance against the fast looming economic crisis that faces America. With a national debt of more than $2 trillion (that is two thousand billion dollars!) and a still staggeringly high balance of trade deficit, America will not, in future, be able to borrow and spend its way out of recession, and this could lead to leaps in unemployment, business confidence collapsing, and therefore a depression.
It is not that America cannot and does not manufacture anything anymore, which might be the common misconception, but it doesn’t make much for the consumer when compared to its new Asian economic foes. America still supplies the world with heavy machinery, big ticket, heavy, industrial items, creative industries output and raw materials. From the latest statistics it is still the world’s biggest manufacturer. The trouble comes from the fact that it is also, by much bigger margins, the world’s biggest consumer. There are several possible outcomes to this imbalance.
America could and maybe should work hard to increase its exports even further. This will be helped, and is, to a degree happening because of the shrinking value of the US $. Once the mightiest and simplest manifestation of American hegemony over the global economic system it is no longer anything but an embarrassment. Two months ago, in Mexico, I had my U.S. dollars rejected by Mexican shopkeepers who would once have been fighting for these symbols of American financial muscle. I remember the same thing once happening to me, in the seventies, with our pounds sterling, and it is a very unpleasant reminder that things are seriously wrong with your country and its place in the world order, when this happens.
On the plus side America is already fairly well placed in terms of its productivity and output levels. There has been good recent investment in plant and machinery, but as the recession bites there is a concomitant decrease in consumer demand that results in less need for this increasing efficiency. Investing more in infrastructure was the right thing to do, but it probably came too late in the economic cycle.
If America’s consumerism helped to fuel the recent boom in the economic cycle could its own rapidly decreasing consumer demand save it from itself? I doubt this is a possibility because the poor credit situation and the consequent lack of liquidity are presently locked in a negative spiral. It’s as if we have to beat ourselves up economically first, then we can look at the other side of the suffering.
Of course the best thing that America could do for itself as a short and medium term fix is to reduce the amount of everything it consumes. This would damage the rest of the world because we have become addicted to the drug that was created via America’s consumer spending. Long term America is going to have to reduce on almost everything it uses, or we are all going to have even more major problems. For example there just isn’t enough fuel in the world for it to be sustainable for about 20% of the world’s gasoline to be used on the freeways of California.
We have not come to the bottom of this economic downturn yet and one of its prime causes was the sub prime mortgage debacle from which there can be no easy escape. It is unavoidable that there will be more pain to come from the lunacy our bankers imposed on the rest of us with their profligacy and stupidity. Their greed seemed to make them forget their own rules and codes and common sense. Because there was big money to be had while the music played no one remembered that it was bound to stop. There were no soft landings to be found.
However poorly reported it has been Bush and Brown will have been told that there have been food riots in several countries around the globe in the last months, and similarly there have been further violent riots about the price and availability of oil products. We stand together on the edge of a general breakdown of international law and order, divided by days from disintegration.
The sovereign investment groups do have enough money to strap a financial parachute onto America’s back as it leaps into the precipitous drop into the money chasm so that their landing is cushioned. I’m not sure that they aren’t getting too much fun watching the US discomforted. The Germans have a word for it, “schadenfreude”, which means the sheer pleasure of observing someone you don’t like, suffer misfortune. The big funds come out of the oil rich Arab states, China and some other Asian success stories. I think they’ll enjoy America suffering. However, in the end where else is there for them to invest that’s a better, bigger investment opportunity which they can also enjoy living in if all else fails. America has gone from being the engine to become the envied lifestyle.
I have always liked America and what it has stood for historically. I don’t believe it has unfailingly done the right thing, but name a single country that has. It has tried to do the right thing on most occasions and that’s a big plus for the rest of us. America is, therefore, generally a benign influence and a guardian for what’s right and decent. Despite the protests against Bush for breathing in and out I am convinced that most people share my positivism towards the USA. My reason for saying this is not because there has been a poll on which I can base this argument; it’s subtler than that. But ask yourself what television and films you watch, what music you listen to, what games you play and books you read? The odds are enormously high that the vast majority of these will come from America. Add to this the shops, the clothing lines, the restaurants, fast food outlets and coffee bars, predominately from the States. We are culturally very closely linked to America, not because we have to be, but because most of us want to be. The sneering glitterati will stick their noses up at this argument as they despise America, but are nevertheless irresistibly drawn towards it.
Does this decreasing economic power of the American juggernaut lessen the country’s ability to dictate events politically on a global scale? Not yet, is the answer for now. America is still the sole superpower; able to project its power, economically, socially and militarily around the world, when and how it wants. But this will not continue to be the case if the American economy fails to get its own economic house in order. I think, on balance, that this is more than a desirable outcome if you love our western form of democracy and lifestyle.
The last few days have seen President Bush visit the UK and address his place in history. It was almost surreal to see the outgoing President standing shoulder to shoulder with our fairly new Prime Minister. In fact they looked as if someone must have got the running order wrong. The President looked great, almost floating a foot above the ground, whereas the Prime Minister looked like the world had just pooped on his head. Not a bad idea perhaps?
From the outside it might look as if the two big armed conflicts, in Iraq and Afghanistan, should be America’s principal concern. Although these are undeniably important, they pale into insignificance against the fast looming economic crisis that faces America. With a national debt of more than $2 trillion (that is two thousand billion dollars!) and a still staggeringly high balance of trade deficit, America will not, in future, be able to borrow and spend its way out of recession, and this could lead to leaps in unemployment, business confidence collapsing, and therefore a depression.
It is not that America cannot and does not manufacture anything anymore, which might be the common misconception, but it doesn’t make much for the consumer when compared to its new Asian economic foes. America still supplies the world with heavy machinery, big ticket, heavy, industrial items, creative industries output and raw materials. From the latest statistics it is still the world’s biggest manufacturer. The trouble comes from the fact that it is also, by much bigger margins, the world’s biggest consumer. There are several possible outcomes to this imbalance.
America could and maybe should work hard to increase its exports even further. This will be helped, and is, to a degree happening because of the shrinking value of the US $. Once the mightiest and simplest manifestation of American hegemony over the global economic system it is no longer anything but an embarrassment. Two months ago, in Mexico, I had my U.S. dollars rejected by Mexican shopkeepers who would once have been fighting for these symbols of American financial muscle. I remember the same thing once happening to me, in the seventies, with our pounds sterling, and it is a very unpleasant reminder that things are seriously wrong with your country and its place in the world order, when this happens.
On the plus side America is already fairly well placed in terms of its productivity and output levels. There has been good recent investment in plant and machinery, but as the recession bites there is a concomitant decrease in consumer demand that results in less need for this increasing efficiency. Investing more in infrastructure was the right thing to do, but it probably came too late in the economic cycle.
If America’s consumerism helped to fuel the recent boom in the economic cycle could its own rapidly decreasing consumer demand save it from itself? I doubt this is a possibility because the poor credit situation and the consequent lack of liquidity are presently locked in a negative spiral. It’s as if we have to beat ourselves up economically first, then we can look at the other side of the suffering.
Of course the best thing that America could do for itself as a short and medium term fix is to reduce the amount of everything it consumes. This would damage the rest of the world because we have become addicted to the drug that was created via America’s consumer spending. Long term America is going to have to reduce on almost everything it uses, or we are all going to have even more major problems. For example there just isn’t enough fuel in the world for it to be sustainable for about 20% of the world’s gasoline to be used on the freeways of California.
We have not come to the bottom of this economic downturn yet and one of its prime causes was the sub prime mortgage debacle from which there can be no easy escape. It is unavoidable that there will be more pain to come from the lunacy our bankers imposed on the rest of us with their profligacy and stupidity. Their greed seemed to make them forget their own rules and codes and common sense. Because there was big money to be had while the music played no one remembered that it was bound to stop. There were no soft landings to be found.
However poorly reported it has been Bush and Brown will have been told that there have been food riots in several countries around the globe in the last months, and similarly there have been further violent riots about the price and availability of oil products. We stand together on the edge of a general breakdown of international law and order, divided by days from disintegration.
The sovereign investment groups do have enough money to strap a financial parachute onto America’s back as it leaps into the precipitous drop into the money chasm so that their landing is cushioned. I’m not sure that they aren’t getting too much fun watching the US discomforted. The Germans have a word for it, “schadenfreude”, which means the sheer pleasure of observing someone you don’t like, suffer misfortune. The big funds come out of the oil rich Arab states, China and some other Asian success stories. I think they’ll enjoy America suffering. However, in the end where else is there for them to invest that’s a better, bigger investment opportunity which they can also enjoy living in if all else fails. America has gone from being the engine to become the envied lifestyle.
I have always liked America and what it has stood for historically. I don’t believe it has unfailingly done the right thing, but name a single country that has. It has tried to do the right thing on most occasions and that’s a big plus for the rest of us. America is, therefore, generally a benign influence and a guardian for what’s right and decent. Despite the protests against Bush for breathing in and out I am convinced that most people share my positivism towards the USA. My reason for saying this is not because there has been a poll on which I can base this argument; it’s subtler than that. But ask yourself what television and films you watch, what music you listen to, what games you play and books you read? The odds are enormously high that the vast majority of these will come from America. Add to this the shops, the clothing lines, the restaurants, fast food outlets and coffee bars, predominately from the States. We are culturally very closely linked to America, not because we have to be, but because most of us want to be. The sneering glitterati will stick their noses up at this argument as they despise America, but are nevertheless irresistibly drawn towards it.
Does this decreasing economic power of the American juggernaut lessen the country’s ability to dictate events politically on a global scale? Not yet, is the answer for now. America is still the sole superpower; able to project its power, economically, socially and militarily around the world, when and how it wants. But this will not continue to be the case if the American economy fails to get its own economic house in order. I think, on balance, that this is more than a desirable outcome if you love our western form of democracy and lifestyle.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Listening
Listening To The People
There are matters of liberty and democracy that the British government is ignoring at the peril of both it and the society it exists to serve. Over the weekend I sat with a group of middle class people, the type who form the backbone of England. These are not wide-eyed radicals; by and large they are a calm group, patient, friendly, almost docile in their decency. I can report that they are now becoming very impatient and angry with the British leadership, unable to accept what’s happening and convinced that no one in governmental power is listening to their concerns. I do not pretend that this is a scientifically chosen or representative group, but I am prepared to bet that this is the view of the vast majority of British people. These are the issues they discussed and I list them in the order they raised them, not in my personal priority listing. On all these matters I am expressing the unanimous view except where I state otherwise.
Prison sentencing is too lax. Life has to mean life for murder, or other serious crime. It is not acceptable that life has come to mean 15 years in the UK, with up to one third off for good behavior. The common view is that if we need to build more prisons we should get on with doing it.
If the system will not allow “proper” life meaning life sentences the consensus is that capital punishment must be reintroduced. I was only one of two who expressed a dissenting view on this. I believe that capital punishment is premeditated murder by the state, which cannot justify taking a life in revenge for taking a life. If it’s wrong for an individual to murder someone, it must be equally wrong for the state to do the same. There is also the reasonable chance that mistakes, that are unalterable, could and would be made.
People no longer understand our criminal justice system, and have lost faith in its fairness, efficiency and transparency. No one in this group believed in the top level of management in the police service any more, although there was widespread respect for the men and women on the beat. There was universal belief that they had too much paper work to do, and that most of this was motivated by political correctness rather than to help maintain law and order and protect the citizenry.
There is total belief in and admiration for the efficiency and bravery of our armed forces. But there is a common perception that they are mismanaged, under resourced and equipped. The old saying from World War 1 comes to mind when the German leader described the British armed forces thus, “Lions led by donkeys.”
Everyone believed that the current fuel taxes and duties are grotesquely high and must be urgently reduced. Only one person felt that the proposed additional duties would in any way help the environment although they provided no evidence as to why they thought this was so. Their view was that if we didn’t take such measures now our children and grandchildren would be fighting for food and other resources.
The entire group thought that the British Prime Minister is a second rater, unable to lead and unwilling to listen. It also should be said that Gordon Brown is as unlucky as his predecessor was lucky. Blair had another huge advantage over his successor, charisma by the truckload whereas Brown is a black hole in the charm stakes. I don’t think anyone can dispute this, including the increasingly peevish PM. If Gordon were a political genius I would love to see any evidence, as would the country. If he’s a nice guy then we need some help us to see it.
Above all the group was furious that we, as a nation, are being spied upon, relentlessly and with increasing frequency. There was only one supporter for the huge increase of CCTV cameras, whereas everyone else was vehemently opposed. The supporter trotted out that old canard “If you’ve done nothing wrong what have you got to worry about?” The correct response is that this constant spying intrudes into our privacy and the presumption of our common innocence. The fact that the nearly 5 million cameras in this small country do occasionally catch a criminal does not mean that there are no other means by which those criminals would have been caught had there been no cameras. Add to this the almost unbelievable and daft spying now directed by the tin pot dictators in our town halls. This includes placing hundreds of thousands of concealed mini cameras in our waste bins to detect whether or not we are correctly sorting our rubbish according to their environmentally friendly regulations. At the same time no official appears to do anything when many families living in sinkhole housing estates throw their rubbish over their balcony parapets, so that they don’t have to bother walking down the steps in order to place it in the correct bins. No one could fabricate such lunacy, but it’s happening all over Britain today.
I think my fellow Brits are right to feel and express these views and it’s long overdue that this, the previously silent majority, is listened to. The British are the most placid of nations, until they are made angry, and then they are an implacable and terrible enemy to those who have offended their sense of decency and fair play. History is peppered with the bleached bones of tyrants destroyed by the British when they became angry.
There are matters of liberty and democracy that the British government is ignoring at the peril of both it and the society it exists to serve. Over the weekend I sat with a group of middle class people, the type who form the backbone of England. These are not wide-eyed radicals; by and large they are a calm group, patient, friendly, almost docile in their decency. I can report that they are now becoming very impatient and angry with the British leadership, unable to accept what’s happening and convinced that no one in governmental power is listening to their concerns. I do not pretend that this is a scientifically chosen or representative group, but I am prepared to bet that this is the view of the vast majority of British people. These are the issues they discussed and I list them in the order they raised them, not in my personal priority listing. On all these matters I am expressing the unanimous view except where I state otherwise.
Prison sentencing is too lax. Life has to mean life for murder, or other serious crime. It is not acceptable that life has come to mean 15 years in the UK, with up to one third off for good behavior. The common view is that if we need to build more prisons we should get on with doing it.
If the system will not allow “proper” life meaning life sentences the consensus is that capital punishment must be reintroduced. I was only one of two who expressed a dissenting view on this. I believe that capital punishment is premeditated murder by the state, which cannot justify taking a life in revenge for taking a life. If it’s wrong for an individual to murder someone, it must be equally wrong for the state to do the same. There is also the reasonable chance that mistakes, that are unalterable, could and would be made.
People no longer understand our criminal justice system, and have lost faith in its fairness, efficiency and transparency. No one in this group believed in the top level of management in the police service any more, although there was widespread respect for the men and women on the beat. There was universal belief that they had too much paper work to do, and that most of this was motivated by political correctness rather than to help maintain law and order and protect the citizenry.
There is total belief in and admiration for the efficiency and bravery of our armed forces. But there is a common perception that they are mismanaged, under resourced and equipped. The old saying from World War 1 comes to mind when the German leader described the British armed forces thus, “Lions led by donkeys.”
Everyone believed that the current fuel taxes and duties are grotesquely high and must be urgently reduced. Only one person felt that the proposed additional duties would in any way help the environment although they provided no evidence as to why they thought this was so. Their view was that if we didn’t take such measures now our children and grandchildren would be fighting for food and other resources.
The entire group thought that the British Prime Minister is a second rater, unable to lead and unwilling to listen. It also should be said that Gordon Brown is as unlucky as his predecessor was lucky. Blair had another huge advantage over his successor, charisma by the truckload whereas Brown is a black hole in the charm stakes. I don’t think anyone can dispute this, including the increasingly peevish PM. If Gordon were a political genius I would love to see any evidence, as would the country. If he’s a nice guy then we need some help us to see it.
Above all the group was furious that we, as a nation, are being spied upon, relentlessly and with increasing frequency. There was only one supporter for the huge increase of CCTV cameras, whereas everyone else was vehemently opposed. The supporter trotted out that old canard “If you’ve done nothing wrong what have you got to worry about?” The correct response is that this constant spying intrudes into our privacy and the presumption of our common innocence. The fact that the nearly 5 million cameras in this small country do occasionally catch a criminal does not mean that there are no other means by which those criminals would have been caught had there been no cameras. Add to this the almost unbelievable and daft spying now directed by the tin pot dictators in our town halls. This includes placing hundreds of thousands of concealed mini cameras in our waste bins to detect whether or not we are correctly sorting our rubbish according to their environmentally friendly regulations. At the same time no official appears to do anything when many families living in sinkhole housing estates throw their rubbish over their balcony parapets, so that they don’t have to bother walking down the steps in order to place it in the correct bins. No one could fabricate such lunacy, but it’s happening all over Britain today.
I think my fellow Brits are right to feel and express these views and it’s long overdue that this, the previously silent majority, is listened to. The British are the most placid of nations, until they are made angry, and then they are an implacable and terrible enemy to those who have offended their sense of decency and fair play. History is peppered with the bleached bones of tyrants destroyed by the British when they became angry.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Secrets
Yet another of our country’s secrets were lost over the weekend। This is the ninth recorded incident over the last few months. It must set a record for ineptitude never before achieved.
Several thoughts occur to me. Perhaps there are just so many bits of secret information being transported around the country that the sheer scale of the transportation of these bits and pieces will result in some of them being mislaid.
Another theory could be that for some strange reason a whole bunch of our most senior secret bureaucrats all decided to get into their nearest train, bus, taxi, airplane or public space so that they could leave top secret information laying around in an envelope marked Top Secret.
We now know that these lapses were not caused by theft of these articles or breaches in internal security. It seems as though, in the majority of cases, senior officials simply walked out of their offices with vital documents that they then appear to have forgotten and “mislaid.”
A person I know, who used to work in Intelligence, told me of another possibility. He stated that this series of events looked much more like a series of attempted “dead letter drops” in which an agent was intending topass information on to a third party. He does know much more about this type of thing than me, but although my normal inclination is to heartily subscribe to the cock up theory I can’t see how any organization would get it so wrong so often and so publicly, unless they wanted to.
There is also a disturbing uniformity to the reactions of the people finding such documents, folders, computers and discs. Almost every time the offending lost item has been handed in to the BBC or a newspaper and then on to the police or security services. Personally I find this strange, as I would deliver an item of such type to the police or directly to the security service. Why would you give it to the BBC or a newspaper first?
All these accidents and oversights where items of top secret or a confidential nature follow a disturbing pattern. They all give the appearance of overwhelming official incompetence. Do you believe that?
Has everyone suddenly become totally stupid? There is another possibility, and this is so far fetched it makes you stop and think. Perhaps this series of errors was not a bunch of innocent accidents. Is it possible that there are people within the security services who decided there needed to be a change in the way the government was handling intelligence issues. What better way to weaken and demoralize senior government than by discrediting it?
If you wanted to achieve this goal there would be no better method than a series of accidents such as these. Is this not more likely than 9 separate, serious incidents in less than one year?
I leave you to draw your own conclusions whilst we all carefully monitor progress on what’s sure to be an interesting series of investigations.
Several thoughts occur to me. Perhaps there are just so many bits of secret information being transported around the country that the sheer scale of the transportation of these bits and pieces will result in some of them being mislaid.
Another theory could be that for some strange reason a whole bunch of our most senior secret bureaucrats all decided to get into their nearest train, bus, taxi, airplane or public space so that they could leave top secret information laying around in an envelope marked Top Secret.
We now know that these lapses were not caused by theft of these articles or breaches in internal security. It seems as though, in the majority of cases, senior officials simply walked out of their offices with vital documents that they then appear to have forgotten and “mislaid.”
A person I know, who used to work in Intelligence, told me of another possibility. He stated that this series of events looked much more like a series of attempted “dead letter drops” in which an agent was intending topass information on to a third party. He does know much more about this type of thing than me, but although my normal inclination is to heartily subscribe to the cock up theory I can’t see how any organization would get it so wrong so often and so publicly, unless they wanted to.
There is also a disturbing uniformity to the reactions of the people finding such documents, folders, computers and discs. Almost every time the offending lost item has been handed in to the BBC or a newspaper and then on to the police or security services. Personally I find this strange, as I would deliver an item of such type to the police or directly to the security service. Why would you give it to the BBC or a newspaper first?
All these accidents and oversights where items of top secret or a confidential nature follow a disturbing pattern. They all give the appearance of overwhelming official incompetence. Do you believe that?
Has everyone suddenly become totally stupid? There is another possibility, and this is so far fetched it makes you stop and think. Perhaps this series of errors was not a bunch of innocent accidents. Is it possible that there are people within the security services who decided there needed to be a change in the way the government was handling intelligence issues. What better way to weaken and demoralize senior government than by discrediting it?
If you wanted to achieve this goal there would be no better method than a series of accidents such as these. Is this not more likely than 9 separate, serious incidents in less than one year?
I leave you to draw your own conclusions whilst we all carefully monitor progress on what’s sure to be an interesting series of investigations.
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