To be a non muslim

To be a non Muslim is a broad canvas. 

In terms of faith one can be as devout as a Muslim or a person of no religious faith at all. 

One can cover ones head as a symbol of pious observance or laugh at the concept of symbolising something superior to mankind. One can be Congregational by nature or sit alone observing others in wonderment at their diversity. The culture you were brought up under can have a strong or a weak effect on your views and everyday character. 

These are just some of the myriad traits which define who we are and, in essence, define us as diverse and different, not only our differences from being a Muslim, but from each other so why then are we having this conversation.

Well obviously the context has to do with the incidence of faith based violence in other parts of the world and the potential for it to spread onto our shores.

Why have these pockets of extreme violence, which go beyond anything we have seen on this scale for years, been perpetrated in the name of Religion. 

What has happened over the last 14 years, since the 9/11 attack symbolised a major retaliation by al Qaeda (in its role as a militant Islamic organisation founded by Osama bin Laden in 1988/89 out of the Afghanistan struggle with the Soviets), to what it saw as western imperialism

Is it purely the strength and success of the militant wing of the religion or is it that this religion is unique in having a militant wing at all. 

Muslims reading this page will no doubt disassociate themselves from any link to "militancy" as they pursue their faith but it can't be ignored that these militants ISIS, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda all proclaim to sail under the flag of Islamic faith and are an interpretation of Islamic determinism. 

Perhaps it's this concept of "determinism", the concept that every event, every human action is preceded by conditions that could cause "no other" event, that they are unique and have an inevitability which gives the Jihad his strength and which we, in our wish-washy consumeristic world, fear the most.

Give that as it may, we are faced with a force of nature, a massive world wide, faith based interpretation of how life should be lived in strict observance of rules, with strict punishments for ignoring those rules and which finally believes that they are unique in the eyes of God. 

There is no delicate way to put this. The power of that force, unless it reinterprets its belief in Gods omnipotence (for a Muslim impossible) or their overarching social construct regarding the way people live and conduct themselves which is in stark contrast to the way, at least we in the West are proceeding, then there's bound to be a clash at some time in the future for society at large to fall under the sway of Sharia Law.

Militancy can be covert as well as overt and the radicalisation of disenchanted youth under a united banner is a powerful disrupting influence in any society, especially in the era of globalisation where national allegiance is diminishing and people are becoming bewildered.
What do we do and should we do anything ?

If we simply drift along and hope that the immersion of cultures and beliefs will be sufficient to bring about some sort of equilibrium then I think the falseness of that premise is beginning to appear in our urban society. There is and will continue to be a massive tolerance shown by all sides but for the "non Muslim" there is no "focus" as to what his stance should be other than a capitulation of what he would call, his beliefs and way of life. In fact he / she has been on the back-foot for a number of years, accused in the media and the establishment that it was racist or somehow not British to point out a discomfort as the towns were changed in their racial and now religious construct. Things will turn out ok, "we know what's in your best interests don't worry".

Well people are beginning to worry. One has to accept that there is no turning back but we are perfectly right to suggest that from now on there has to be some ground rules even if these rules appear to fly against the semi religious fervour of the 'political correct' ideology which has held us in sway for a generation.

To be a Muslim

  Who am I, is a question that is answered very differently as a Muslim than by me, one who does not believe in God.

For me I am the product of my mother and father, I am the result of my environmental upbringing, I am the result of my experiences, I am the solitude of my passage through this life.

For a Muslim the answer is very different. A Muslim in effect doesn't have a life outside his faith, his thoughts and his actions are controlled at all times by his religion, his essence is his religion !! 
It begins with farz, obligation and ends with haram,what is forbidden.
It is a scale by which to live your life by and comes, not from within but from outside,from scripture. There are clear orders and permissions which provides the individual with direction and the Islamic community, with unity.
It encompasses and encloses this world and the other world completely.
It is an organising religion and therefore it's reach to the poor and disenfranchised is very strong.
To be a Muslim is in some ways akin to being in a club but a club with strict codes of practice. Belonging and sharing common goals is a strong incentive, especially if the rules are laid out for you five times a day at prayer. To be a Muslim is above history, it is a mode of being, an ideal which in some-ways creates within it a sense of being a super race in its mental construct. Perhaps in its "trans national" identity the Muslim feels the resentment any person, living under an occupying power, feels towards the occupier since his affinity is first and foremost to his faith which is often under attack !
 

Sealing a friendship.

Activity,activity, activity. To worship at the alter of activity is a question everyone with time on their hands must ask.
After living a life of being driven by work, not to have anything to do, in the sense of a routine, we are asked to create a schedule a time table of activity. This time the set of activities have little or no purpose other than to keep us occupied.
I'm not speaking of the altruistic service one can offer the community which many find satisfying or the realm of hobbies to take up now the time is available. When one had proper work to do the day starts with with an energy, a sense of opportunity of performance and hopefully achievement, but without the instilled 'contractual engagement' there's no zip to stimulate the senses. 

Now at the start of a day there is a whole series of questions, shall I, shan't I. Shall I 'shave' for instance, do I wear the same shirt as yesterday what time to climb out of bed, shall I eat breakfast first before the shower. And so one is continually testing the water trying to persuade a course of action when in the past we was on automatic. 
The point of looking forward to retirement was to get off the treadmill and have the supposed luxury of choice but choice can be a trap, too much debate too much analysis leads to
inaction even paralysis as one opts for the default position of doing nothing.
Doing nothing becomes attractive, it is choice about not making a choice, all the pressure is removed, there are few disappointments and it's cheap !!!
The social issue of doing things whilst you can, before infirmity or death play their part is taken care of so long as you realise that 'activity' for its own sake is a con and that perhaps we should banish the concept after a certain age.
For those who want to be up on the golf course at sparrows or pounding the road even earlier, their world is one of sunrises and camaraderie and please understand I am not knocking either but what if you want to skip the competitive banter or the sore thighs and find your own peace in ruminating, its equally rich and rewarding.
Perhaps the mind, being now off the leash, free from the contamination and stress brought on by the concerns at work, is your true companion, ready to elope on a flight of fancy at any hour of the day or night, trustworthy and yet not demanding, and it only requires a shift from the world of others to seal the friendship !!

That which falls outside scripture.

Oh, she wished it were different.

Listening to a radio presenter I genuinely admire trying to bat away the concepts that were being presented by Muslim mothers regarding the Islamisation of the Muslim youth, boys and girls which is arguably creating a separate subsection to our already multi-layered society. This in response to the news coverage of the three girls who appear to be on their way to Syria.

I have written in the past of how I fear the strength of the faith identified in the Quran, a strength made complete by the rigour of prayer and custom. It is a faith which transcends national boundaries and binds its members in an awareness of a regime mentality which strictly subverts and rejects, at its core all other sub sets of human consciousness which lie outside "the faith". Only "we" know the true path to salvation and the rest of you are alien to us. I must add that it is not only the Muslim faith which have at their root this infallibility, most faith based concerns busy with saving mankind have a belief in their uniqueness.
The strength of this conviction makes for a powerful concoction of 'self'-belief (something hard to find in this chaotic world) for the individual believer. A belief in ones 'self', supported and amplified when it is counted and magnified by the other faithful, raises the spectre of 'self' sacrifice' as a positive thing.
This self sacrifice, at its extreme can be evidenced in the sacrificial killing, usually accompanied by ones own suicide which finds fulfilment in blowing up and killing the non-believer.
This outcome is proceeded by aligning ones self with a group of people who are so deeply focused on the Jihad, (the eternal effort, the struggle to win the fight for the Muslim cause) a group where the human bond of faith is greater than all other bonds. The bond of family, the bond of country, the bond of friendship, all can be put aside for this larger, all consuming, coming together of ancient scripture to provide the missing structure to ones life which leaves the humdrum modern lifestyle a very poor second.
No wonder the detached, disenfranchised youth (a youth we have cranked up with a sense of their own importance) fall under the spell of the Mullah with his repetition of the old old stories that speak to the faithful like "manna from heaven".
If the bond he feels for other Muslims (a religious bond like no other, promulgated by prayer and ritual in the Mosque) for the ones hurting in Palestine and Iraq and the well publicised West's involvement in both, then their resentment towards the West knows no bounds since the harm is seen as towards that of a brother or sister.
It's the millennium old problem, when Politics clashes with tradition, tribal affiliation and faith, especially when the poorly conceived political policies are driven by market economics, the instability left behind is a breeding ground for resentment. This resentment, funnelled by religious ideology can capture adherents even within ones own cosy environment at home. People who feel their true allegiance is not fulfilled within 'multiculturalism', with is many divergent standards but rather needs to align with something they feel is more substantial such as the local Mosque, and the focus and support of the congregation to make sense of a fundamentally corrupted world. Perhaps sadly, by introducing another corruption !!!
In Ataturk's secular domination of Turkey he saw a threat in the power of the Muslim religion and, in effect banned all outward manifestations of the religion knowing that these outward symbols were powerful in uniting the faith. His prohibition has been derided by many in the western world for with-holding from society, part of its cultural heritage, part of its cultural wholeness but this democratic persuasion to allow all views and social structures the space to foster their opinion is not reciprocated and would not be allowed if the boot were on the other foot.
The Saudi Arabian state is one example where tolerance is not valued and religious Shari law brooks no divergence from theocratic values.

Force 4 and rising !

The clouds rolled in, darkening all the while until the light took on a wild glow as the atmosphere began to bubble and boil with electric currents penetrating the sky. A force 4 typhoon was on the cards and the weather station down on the point was relaying the fall in pressure every fifteen minutes to Control who had the responsibility to paste together all the information. 

Outside on the boulevard the palm trees were beginning to sway in the wind as it built up incrementally to a full blown gale. 
Most of the birds had long gone, heading inland in search of shelter leaving only the ones still with young to stay behind and chance their luck. Nature can be cruel to the small creatures, nests destroyed, hard won security blown away in a night of bedlam, which to the returning commuters listening to the weather warnings on the car radio meant no more than securing the patio door but for the rats and mice would mean a full scale evacuation as the inevitable waters rose.
The town council aware of their responsibilities, not least against litigation had already started to warn people against going out unless they had to. The schools had closed early and the mothers had swept up their precious cargo to scurry home and worry until dad arrived. As the wind freshened into a gale the sirens wailed their shrill warning, adding to the natural foreboding it made. The few still out on the street measure in their minds eye, how many blocks still to go !
At about 2am there was a tremendous crash and sound of breaking glass. Having only just  got to sleep from listening to the wailing wind rise, tormented like a banshee, wondering if the rope holding the canvas covers would hold, this crash was what you had feared.
Struggling into a raincoat and stepping out into the wind torn night you surveyed the wreckage. The wind had got under the garage roof and lifted the sheet of corrugated tin dislodging the plasterboard cladding and punching out the window. As the rain slewed down in a continuous sheet of water there was little you could do to save the situation and momentarily you thanked your stars you were on land and not tossing about on the sea.

Two minds are never alike

One of the greatest failings we have as individuals is that we live too long listening to ourselves. The constant communication we have internally sets up a surety of purpose and a belief in our integrity which under any other circumstance we would question. On any subject, we hold opinion and regularly confirm that opinion with an internal dialog that is passing through our heads. We continually self justify virtually every utterance we make since it comes, so to speak "straight from the horses mouth". Our method of finalising our thoughts is complicated by previously held opinion and by our background and upbringing, but it's surprising how constrained we are even listening to other argument by our own preconceived ideas.
Is this a bad thing ?


The meaning of the word individual speaks for who we are, we are individuals each separate and independent. This independent mind can be scary since if one were to consider that in a perfect world we would all be alone with our own unique views, untainted by herd think but also pretty lonely.

Realising one is alone, totally alone is both frightening and pretty mind blowing. Our lives are usually spent trying to win favour, trying to find common ground to break the impasse of being seen as a maverick, or self centred, of being seen as odd!! It's perfectly natural to try to find allegiances with others since some of our ideas are so fundamental to our thinking that we would feel an oddball if we were in a majority of one. The social aspect of our human make up needs the society we keep to think generally along the same lines and it is this search for a sense of common ground and, in a way, a loyalty to a set of ideals which makes us fragile. We can be disappointed where we would least think to find it. We create a presumption that we are all singing from the same hymn book and that knowing the words is the same as understanding the meaning.
Perhaps if we were to practice mental celibacy, perhaps always define our conversation with the understanding that not even 50% of what we say is understood in the way you would wish.
Would this lead to more reticence, more a willingness to withhold on the basis that what you say will inevitably be misconstrued, not with any malice but simply because two minds are never alike !!!!
 

Greek debt.

So the Greeks are reaching a point where they have to make a decision to exit the EU.

John Maynard Keynes made the point years ago that to force austerity on a nation which can not repay its loans only propels the nation to greater austerity and untold misery. 

The misery in Auschwitz was clearly a crime against humanity. The famine created by the ideological programs in the USSR during the Stalin era, was a crime against humanity. 
What sets these crimes against the current enforced pauperisation of a nation by the Banking fraternity of another, is that it is not done by the jackboot but by the sleek procedures of expensively suited executives who turn off the tap which they had so recently left on. If it were plumbing you would have a claim.
Even if you have been encouraged to run up debt by the financial practices of the time, clearly you are to blame for accepting the offer of a loan when you couldn't afford the repayments. But perhaps your financial situation has changed, perhaps the interest rates go up and the repayment agreement no longer covers the cost of servicing the loan. If you are an individual you can renegotiate the repayment schedule or declare yourself bankrupt which implies a complete secession of further loans and you are forced to live out of earnings.
These are the options for the Greeks but the Troika, but mainly the Germans, are demanding full repayment with no extension of the loan repayment period even though the Greeks are simply digging a deeper hole as their indebtedness rises because they have to borrow more to cover the repayment terms. As their debt increases the 'interest' increases in line with the risk.
One has to ask what is behind the trenchant actions of Wolfgang Schauble in his denial of any softening of the repayment schedule. Clearly the German Bankers are the most exposed to the indebtedness of Greece and others but in the history of the Common Market, now the European Union, German industry has benefited to the tune of trillions of Euros in trade. It was this trading market that initiated Germany and France to embark on the project.
If now a tiny economy has caught financial pneumonia, then to with hold penicillin is a crime for which, historically Germany can ill afford to practice !

The Church's message.

 The Church of England under the new Archbishop of Canterbury has launched an attack on the politicians from both the major parties, as well as the media, both left and right, in their reporting of political matters. We must remember "Political Matters" cover virtually all aspects of social activity and therefore it is relevant to the Church faithful and of great importance to all of us.

The issue is a statement the Church of England put out today asking for politicians of all persuasions to address the problems that beset the population as a whole, without accusing each other in the political 'cat calling' which reaches its unsightly apotheosis at Prime Ministers Question Time.
Archbishop Justin Welby is himself a political animal, having served time in Business. He brings a refreshing practical opinion to his religious duties as he identifies Christ's message and its combination of social and religious content, by identifying his ministry of being "of the people as well as about them". 

You must hear the media clamour. The pie faced Sky commentators hand in glove with the political establishment, harangue the Church for it having the audacity to engaging in the slightest whiff of criticism. The Church is being castigated for even suggesting that the ordinary man and women in the street is poorly served by the current political establishment and their bedfellows the political analysis's who interpret political dialogue with their own conclusions which we are asked to swallow verbatim. 
It was Henry the VIII who drew the Church under the control of a political ethos and it has been the political class which has, in the past derided the church for taking part in the political debate. The argument that the church would stick to religious matters surely misses the point. The religious debate is not only about the soul but about mans well being in general and it is this concern which makes it appropriate to comment on the political management.
A well reasoned discussion, rid of party allegiance would do us all the world of good !!

Gender values

  Why must women be given pride of place.

First off the boat, first through the door, first in line for benefit payments, when will it all end.
We hear the repeated claim that they perform better than the male at school, they are more sensitive and therefore more in tune, they can multi-task when we can't, if only they had a sense of direction !!!
Why do they fire looks at us with the power of a Trident Missile when we innocently make a comment to which they are opposed, where is their flexibility then ?
In times of yor when they happily succumbed to our guidance and protection, when their world was encapsulated in making scones and keeping the house tidy they listened with awe to their husband, revealing his day in the office or his pronouncements about the state of the nation.
Now everyone is an expert. You are as likely to hear two guys in a pub discussing the best marinade to use over the joint they have to cook when they get home, as to hear the women discussing an outrageous night out when anything goes and describing it is like a trophy hunt.
Strange times when because of the in-congruent nature of our relationship these days there is no right way or wrong way. Do you open a door, or make way for the supposed weaker sex or would doing so lead to a claim of being pejorative.
If in the rough and tumble of life one is encouraged to treat the sexes with no distinction. How then do we apply those subtle forms of differentiation which bring a smile to both parties, that signal the differences without point scoring. If in this gender blind world we forget what it was, when growing up, attracted us to the opposite sex in the first place. How we responded to the signs and became intrigued by the complications which socially set us, on the separate path whether we were a boy or girl.
If social engineering can drill down and remove the sexual structure which from birth distinguished us and made us respond differently, then we will have gained something at the price of loosing something far greater.

Whistle blowers

Whistle blowers are not a completely new phenomenon but since the Edward Snowden revelations and the pursuit of Julian Assange by the British Government who feel fit to spend millions ( I suppose at the Americans behest ) keeping him holed up in Ecuadorian Embassy based on spurious accusations from the Scandinavians about a rape charge, the particulars of which for some reason they will not furnish. 

Assange's real fear is that the charge is a smokescreen for the Americans to get their hands on him so they can take him to America to pay for making them appear the schmucks they are !!
It's also a sad reflection on America since it seems a forgone conclusion to assume "they" will bury him in their penal system for committing the terrible sin of revealing the dirty tricks that the American administration get up to. Not only against countries that can be classified as the enemy but also against ones allies with the information gathering power the US now has by having the entrails of the Internet lodged in their computers.
It must be remembered that a "whistle blower" is driven by the need to reveal what the State or in the case of private enterprise the Executive wish to keep hidden. This is not information that could be concluded as part of the normal process of business but is information that effect the ethical conduct of the way a company pursues its business. 
People who work for the State or Private Enterprise and who feel that their enterprise is being corrupted by illegality or bad business practice have a right to complain, first to their management and then outside the business to who ever they think will listen and do something.
Today we heard testimony from a man who 7 years ago, felt that certain practices used in the Financial Industry were corrupting. His attempt to blow the whistle led to his exclusion from the industry and when he presented his well documented case to the Financial Services Watch Dog they ignored him and swept his criticism under the proverbial carpet. It is only now several years later that his claims have been shown valid although not one person has been placed in court to answer to the law.
Corruption in high places is an oxymoron since to attain a position of power many must be thwarted, often by the dirty trick of innuendo and rumour within the Boardroom. Politics is Machiavellian in its backstabbing, slighting each other for position. How can we expect from these people that what comes naturally to them be routed out. How can we assume that there will be a Damascus conversion to transparency when their whole lives are based on lies and subterfuge. 

My boy Julius

I see Mrs Malema's boy is causing a rumpus again. Spoiling the 'State of the Nation' speech being made by your revered President Mr Zuma, it was an act too far and in came the "heavy's"to eject the troublesome boys in red !!

Such a fuss, so disrespectful, so demeaning for the world to see the way we behave ?
It has always struck me that the 'hypocrisy' practiced in the leading democracies, Europe and the US, can only be carried out by well versed establishments who have entrenched their position in a nations psychic.
In the West we happily genuflect to the shibboleth of power, the power of Parliament and of those who reside in her. We even believe that this power is directed in our best interests and that the outcomes benefit us, except that we are often confused as to who the "us" refers to.
Does the Troika in Europe have the best interest of the Greeks at heart or are their main concerns the German Banking industry ?
Does the IMF and its compadre the World Bank have the fledgling industries of Africa at heart when they set their terms ?
Have we become so enamoured by the sight of an expensive suite ( I wonder what a 'collective' of suits is called, perhaps a wardrobe ) that we forget, encased in the suite is a person with all the failings we have when faced with too much personal power. 

"My boy Julius" represents the Untouchables of the South African Rainbow Nation, the people living in the shacks, the no hoper's, the disenfranchised, the politically disembowelled. 
His message to Zuma is, "where is the money that the Africanisation of our nation was to bring"?
Where is the 'trickle down', which was supposed to come in terms of services and jobs when the levers of economic power are in the hands of a Blackman rather than a White man.
If Zuma or the nation on behalf of Zuma can afford to build a large house ( I wouldn't call it a "palace" such as we have over here, the "upkeep" of which costs many times the Zuma spread ) then with an equivalent sum of money, release land and make the squatters environment something more liveable.
This is Malema's territory and the frustration is written wide !!!

Enough is enough.

The definition of being paranoid is to suffer a split personality or many personalities continually moving from one persona to another never knowing who you really are.

Being English these days is confusing. 

To be English is to be asked to refute you ethnicity, to be constantly chivvied by the people who seek to influence us by suggesting that, as a race, we are pretty much a mongrel bunch linked to just about every culture, every ethnic strain that has crossed the planet. 
Or at least that's how they seek to portray us so that if and when we pose the question "this is our country and we should have a say in who lives here" we are shouted down with the retort that we owe so much to other nations and their cultures. We have no right say enough is enough and must rather, apologise for the past !!
It's been a very sophisticated piece of social engineering to redefine the ethnicity of natives of this country since regardless of what "societal engineers" would have us believe, there certainly are "ethnic" natives who in character and habit can call themselves English.
When I was born the great majority of the people would look at each other and recognise themselves as originating from this island for all its warts and poor habits.
After the terrible human toil of two World Wars the nation had a problem. We had become bankrupt. Not helped by American opportunism to ensure we were crippled and would be easily rolled over as the US embarked on its financial hegemony. We were forced into importing cheap labour from the Commonwealth and dressed it up as a repayment for the debt we owed the Commonwealth in the fight against Fascism. As we opened our doors to people of many disparate cultures and religious beliefs, the selling point was the wealth of diversity this influx would bring and rich the multitudinous spectrum of cultural would meld into our own to enrich it and make a better one.
The problem has been that Multiculturalism has divided the nation into a hotchpotch of cultures and beliefs. No attempt was made to identify and support the culture which was here before the changes which took place after the war.
The people who called themselves English have been let down by the Establishment.
The divisions which this class obsessed society has produced amongst its own homogenised people, enabled the functionaries in power to throw, to the wolves the ethnic poor and under educated in favour of the experiment. To produce a society made up of people from all over the world, each supposed to be equal but in fact, because they were deemed to be minorities, the immigrants were in many ways given preference.
The confusion the English man and women now feel living on this island is reaching paranoid proportions.
 I believe it was a factor in the Scottish wishing to obtain independence and renege on having to question who they are were a nation and what their values are.
Not the values bequeathed by the Westminster Bubble or the Muesli munching Political Correct intelligentsia but the real ones owned by the "ordinary people".
When I speak to a Russian he has a very clear idea of his nation, when I speak to a Bangladeshi he is very clear about his values, the Aussie loves his country, the German is proud of his Germanic background and the traits therein but we are continually asked to disburse any idea of our own history or cultural value for some artificial construct brought about by social engineering.
Enough is enough !!!

Don't poke the Russian bear in the eye.

How close sometimes we become to voting in power crazy presidents. 


Since his defeat as the Republican Parties candidate for President,John McCain has appeared on American TV like a belligerent prizefighter wanting one last go in the ring. His message is that of someone who believes not only in the totality of American power but of her special inalienable right to boss other nations of the world around and just imagine, he came close to having his finger on the "button"!!!
There is no way to provide proof against having a mad man in the White House. We had a pretty desperate couple in Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. Their gung ho paranoia after 9/11 led to the war on Iraq and the terrible destabilisation within the Middle East which is still going through its latest re enactment of old unresolved power schisms in the attempt to reassert the concept of a Religious Caliphate by ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria).
The stand off in the Ukraine is again pretty desperate. The issues started when the USA pushed for more influence in the area and an involvement of NATO in a part of the world which is sensitive to its historical alignment with Russia. Part of the Warsaw Pact, these countries, along Russia's boarder made up the USSR.
Repopulated by, either Russian people, who had been encouraged in Stalins time to move into these boarder States or, as close cousins with natural ties to Russian ideology and temperament, in the balance of power, they are important to both sides. Russia still smarting under its defeat at the hands of American finance during the Cold War is trying to regain some sense of it traditional importance in the region and under Vladimir Putin a man with the appetite of an old Kremlin Apparatchik, he will use all the old methodology including sabre rattling to instil his way. Just as ruthless as a Republican smelling new dollars will do anything to be amongst them, so Putin will take the world to the brink to establish his position in the Slavic world.
Don't poke the Russian bear in the eye and not expect a painful reaction.
 

Independent glory

I'm in one of my philosophical moods today as I ponder the importance we attach to the thoughts of others in our own evaluations. The question of what we call "in the minds eye", is unique to me and is part of my world and no one else's. The way I visualise a view of the mountains or the realism of a painting has to rely on me and the way I process the sensory images with my memories of similar images and the events that occurred in conjunction to seeing those images, were they happy memories or sad. This of course raises the true reality of the image we are looking at since if it can evoke different images, is there a single image we should all be able to see if we were rid of our prejudice.

As human beings are we mentally any more than a long line of prejudiced opinion and would we be saved from conformity by breaking every convention, other than the ones you can be arrested for, which, in itself raises the question, by who's rules are we bound. 

If my mind is a free agent to interpret what it sees and if the conclusion is, I am unique, why do I crave the recognition of others to feel happy. Particularly if the others I consult in my mind to find agreement are as wayward and as unique as I am, what use have I for their opinion

Why then do we seek conformity. Is it because there is no controversy only the tempting mode of acquiescence, what is the flavour of the month, we hold up our hand not wishing to be seen to be a rebel. Rebellion is usually portrayed as destructive whilst in fact it can be very creative, if for no other reason than that it challenges the status quo. The dreadful dead hand of the status quo, the maintenance at all costs of the existing pattern of social and political norms.
A healthy mind should be continually seeking out ways to break free and reinvent its self in all its unique and independent glory !!!

The dilemma of the vote

As many of us sleep walk towards the coming election in the UK the rabid yapping of the political animal is the one noise we can not ignore. It is getting louder more shrill and ridiculously absurd in its claims.

"We will", prepares us for an excursion into wonderland. Forgetting the inactivity of the last four years on policy matters which are now once more under discussion, we are again promised action to make life better for all of us.

As electioneering starts it's difficult to know where to start as Pandora's box is opened and the toys tumble out. Reality is tucked away and the sweets are passed around with increasing largesse. We are asked to put on hold the precarious financial state of the nation, to forget the reasons for the austerity program which has been inflicted on us and sit back in awe at the potential riches which will flow if this or that party is elected to govern.

The spinning plates are mesmerising, how magically they stay spinning on their axis. We  know instinctively that as the magician brings more and more plates into play, at some stage the laws of nature will take over and the plates will crash, one after the other but whilst the election show is in progress we are captivated.

Easily led, willing to believe that "they" know best, frightened to believe that they don't we are caught in a gigantic charade, a pantomime. We are drawn into the farce, unassuming, innocent people who's lives are being gambled away by the croupiers of business and politics, both mixed up in the dirty business of deceit and corruption.

The one for the money, the other for the power they weald their influence on our lives spinning a set of half truths they loose themselves in their hyperbole, disconnecting truth from reality they become wedded to the party machine reciting the party line oblivious of fact from fiction.

How are we to disconnect the supply of power  which is the source to their falsehood.

Democracy the equitable sharing of power within a society is thought best to operate through a universal franchise, one person one vote.

Each individual has an opportunity to consider the electoral profile of each party by listening and reading each parties manifesto, choosing which they consider would best suit their particular circumstances. Voting for the local candidate who represents that party should, if there are enough similar minded people who also vote for that party, secure a voice in the next parliament.

But here is where it goes wrong. To produce a so called strong government a voting machine capable of making decisions and carrying a specific manifesto forward, a "first past the post" winner takes all system was created.

A new Government will now only represent a 'minority' view.

The combined parties who have lost polled many more votes than the winner ( excluding  the people who for what ever reason decided not to vote). Clearly, the "majority" are now forced to witness policy enactment in Parliament to which they are opposed.

The system creates an enormous feeling of disfranchisement and the society lapses into political apathy.

I would like to suggest a radical solution, one which would draw on the strength of the many. Draw on views which at least would then be heard in parliamentary debate, with the possibility to influence decisions.

I propose that when the votes are counted, so many for each candidate and collectively, so many for each party, the pool of votes for a party, irrespective of regions would indicate the strength of support for that parties manifesto. Out of the total votes cast the percentage of the of people who voted for that particular party, irrespective of where in the country, would entitle that party to field so many Parliamentary Seats in Parliament.

The candidate chosen to sit would be a matter for the Party, much as the make up of Government is decided not by the voter but by the Party after the election has been held.

First past the post has created the situation where only in a few marginal seats can individual voters hope to influence the outcome at an election.

True Representative Government with all shades of opinion and ideological make up, ready to debate and more importantly represent the views of all the electorate, is currently not on offer but would be if my proposal were to come into effect.

I suppose to ask the usual incumbents to even consider relinquishing power is the equivalent of whistling at the moon !!

But just imagine,the Vote in Parliament would be a proper reflection of the people Parliament is supposed to represent. Parliaments function of designing and passing Acts which effect us all and which, at the moment, we feel excluded would be a truly democratic and not the farce we see today.

Perspective.

In the quest to "understand" one has to put into perspective the history of learning and of mankind's attempt to understand himself first and foremost, before he can turn his attention on others. 

Homers Iliad and it's companion the Odyssey were written around the period of the battle for Troy and it invoked man's position, vis a vis the gods, gods which represented the noble and idealistic features of life. Mankind borrowed from these mythical figures, his understanding of the complexity of life but mankind had no direct ,part to play in this theatre other than as observers.
The world and its norms were 'fixed' and 'pre-ordained'. What ever happened to you was fixed in the stars and the mythology which explained everything. 
Homer was writing about a period that pre-dates the glory of Greek philosophical thought. It pre-dates Socrates and his observance that man was tied through his relationship to the gods for structure in his everyday affairs to the teaching of Plato, when man first began to see himself rid of the mythological structure and consider himself an individual observing the world with a proper perspective of his place within it. Mankind was important if for no other reason than that he could begin to rationalise the world around and not process it with gods to carry his burden.
Plato and the philosophers who followed began to see mankind as having, within their individual status, the essence of "morality" and "ethics", the substance of "truth" and "law", all issues which are human.
We are describing a period 300 years before the birth of Christ, when the rest of Europe, the French,the Germans  (a recent description not much more than 200 years old) and the Brits, who were simply groups and tribes, no nationality, no name. Virtually every living soul on the planet other than the old civilisations of Mesopotamia Hinduism and the Chinese, were running, during this time of the magnificence of Greece, as near to being savages as makes no difference 
Today we decry the Greek for his extravagance and waste, his lack of western savvy about how a modern economy is run. We ask why can't the inventors of the democratic principle and orderly governance understand that paying tax to run a State is fundamental.
Well 2300 years ago they invented the idea, and only recently have we cottoned on to it.  Perhaps we should give them some slack ?

We need reform.

It seems to me that the sight of a proper left wing government in charge of the decision making in Greece is a refreshing sight.

Since 2007 and the crash of World Banking, trillions of $ have been handed over to the the banks to prop them up and we have to remind ourselves,  how the crisis came about.
It came about not by an act the Greeks Government, not by the cost of the Welfare State in Britain, not by the inefficiencies of inadequately educated working people but by the greed and the manipulation of the Investment Banking fraternity.
The richest market by far is the money market. The largest indebtedness is by the banks who, to this day hold trillions of dollars of bad debt, the result of the mad 'derivative trade' which distorted and mangled the true value of assets.
To blame the national provenance of taxation and the inability to balance the national book (the commonly held indictment of Greece, Italy, Spain,) is a travesty. 

The encouragement offered through low rates of interest (cheap money) was in the hands of the Banker and Central Banks who set the lending rate. 
Whilst investing instability within the Euro it is not now the main problem. The main problem now lies in the lasting damage to the banking system which has resulted from Quantitative Easing. Printing money and devaluing currencies across the board to buy the debt the banks hold.
The "Kings of Finance" have got away with it because the politicians refused to allow some of the banks to fail or even challenge the likes of Lloyd Blankfein in a court of law for irresponsible dealing and the wholesale practice of mis-selling on a massive scale. 
Democracy is now mired in a "pseudo democracy" throughout the world. Elections are bought. Election promises are trashed as soon as the parties are in power. Electors are treated with disdain by the elite who control all the levers of power.
To blame a relatively tiny plutocracy in Greece who were doing simply what their relatives in other countries were, and still are doing, is to avoid a truth - the system we have is corrupt.
Tax avoidance is the only game in town for the likes of Philip Greene, Amazon, Walmart, and the rest. The oligarchs who cluster in London to launder their money in the casino that is The City of London are many multiple times more guilty than the Greeks and who we are led, by the nose, to believe are the "bad boys".
It is so sad how soon we suffer amnesia and fail to comprehend how broken our capitalistic financial system is.
To try to mend it by austerity alone. To punish the poor and contrive to cut the heart out of any social support system whilst letting the rich race away over the horizon with their booty.
Perhaps it is time to be really radical. Perhaps we should support the rise of the far left, as it challenges the established power structure of Global Economics,  Perhaps we should start to dismember the cartels of the "born to rule" and the assumption that they can carry on as before.
Our own democratic system (the Mother of Parliaments) does not in any way represent the voter. The numbers of votes cast and the allocation of seats, in the "First Past the Post", winner takes all system, where a Prime Minister is invested with nearly absolute power, whilst winning less than a third of the vote and which in its self represents only a fraction of the total number of people in the country.
We need reform, we have to find a new way to obtain political representation which is much more inclusive and representative.
Perhaps having a 'built in affiliation of parties' based on the votes cast but allocated not as winners but representing a block of actual votes cast for a party. Many people vote for a minority party because they like their manifesto and it would refresh parliament for the people to see and hear their views as a representative block of opinion  thrashed out with due-consideration for all the electorate. 
Yes it would slow down the bills that pass for legislation but the bills would have a better chance of recognition by the voter if their views and opinion were contained as amendments.
Taking power away from the traditional power base would be an anathema to the Establishment but healthy for the rest of us !! 

A thoughtful synopsis.

Imagine the confusion in the medieval mind, through to this day, contrasting the moving drama of the God centred story in Genesis where humankind is created as man and women, with a code of rules by which to live by and the Aristotelian view of a world born from "slimy matter".

A disciple of Plato, Aristotle's books, his life's times work were destroyed, only his notes remain but what notes and what a breadth of learning and investigation. He made major advances in mathematics, logic, biology,physiology, astronomy philosophy, literature and rhetoric. 

In his ethics he postulated the concept of a "supreme good" which, as human beings we must pursue to find true happiness.
Not the satisfaction of immediate desire nor the sense of individual well being but a state of "human flourishing" !
Notice one has expanded the state from 'self' to the collective human situation, to be 'inclusive'. Plato had described the act, or our understanding of "goodness" to be a matter involving God. In the Aristotelian view, good is an ethical issue and is therefore something we desire and exists 'in this world' without the guiding hand of God.
Every object, including human beings have a function. The acorn falling to the ground has a function to make the next oak tree. In becoming an oak tree it was fulfilling its purpose.
This is true for humans as for every other species. The thing which sets us aside is our capacity to "reason". This ability to reason leads us to two types of virtue, moral and intellectual.
Moral virtues are 'character traits' such as generosity, honesty, patience, friendliness, whilst intellectual virtues consist of foresight and planning plus the ability to consider consequences. Moral virtues are acquired in childhood and are reinforced through repeated use. One becomes honest by being taught honesty.
The intellect is constantly interrogating the moral virtuous side to our character and the path through life is narrow in that it has to tread between, for instance, rashness on the one side and cowardice on the other, or between envy and spitefulness. Life therefore consists of threading oneself through the vices on either side.
Finding this mean centred approach may sound boring like the schoolmarm advice of the headmaster but it is a 'mean centred approach' based on human experience and tempered with the actual characteristic of the particular human being.
Some times it is appropriate to be angry or sometimes rash but it does encompass, doing the right thing, at the right time for which humanity is, in part, famous !

Lets sleep its Sunday

How important is it "not being able to say goodnight" ? As we settle down at the end of the day to be able to acknowledge that human discourse is at an end, for at least another day is important. The collaboration we share however small is finished as we independently fall asleep. As we fall asleep we fall into a place of isolation where the worries are forgotten and if blessed with sweet dreams, or non at all, one is obliged to stop thinking.

People living alone for what ever reason have no one to reflect their human hopes and fears.
With no one to share it can be a potentially frightening world particularly as one listens in the dead of night to the sound of your own ever more fragile system, wheezing away or the sudden unexpected pain which is probably nothing but being alone makes one feel vulnerable. Maybe if one had that the second opinion in the darkened room even if it was no more than a grunt, at least if you can hear a grunt, you are still alive !
Millions of people have to accommodate change but there are fundamental changes which when they happen open our psych up to the primeval fear of what it means to live and die and being alone at night brings such thoughts into focus.
Growing up at the adolescent stage one often had nightmares, bad dreams usually reflecting a condition of mind and usually reflecting our insecurity growing up and coming to terms with who you were in relation to society at large. Maturing, finding ones feet the bad dreams fell away to be replaced if you were lucky with good ones or at least by non at all which suggested you had the capacity for deep sleep without recall of the fantasy that plays out each night as our electrically motivated brain closes down.
It's amazing to think that without the stimulus of vision and an external awareness to prompt thoughts and reaction, a good part of our life is sublimated to relative inaction, the only useful thing the brain is called on to do is to keep the main physiological functions ticking over which they do without much prompting anyway. Much like our view of government the heart and the lungs, the kidneys and the stomach get on with their business without the fussy calls from head office which are so prevalent in the daytime.
But it is night time, the end of another busy day that the mind has its final flurry of activity, the what if syndrome flight or fight, a consolidation of the day's events in the book of remembrance which has to be poured over by the bookkeepers in the accounts department. What is our profit and loss statement like, will we have to ratchet up that loan of energy in the muscles department tomorrow to catch up or can we sleep in, its Sunday !

Abortion a lifestyle decision.

The question of abortion has come to the fore again. Scotland now a semi independent country is asking its legislators whether the abortion industry has strayed too far from the original concept of needful abortion and whether it needs reigning in.

Obviously I speak as a man, a man who will never be faced with the decision other than as a bystander to a woman's decision about what is to happen.
There are many men who at the time when this decision was made, partially on their behalf, were distraught at the thought that "their" baby was to be aborted. They were full cognoscente of the implication of bringing a baby into the world,a baby carrying half the man's DNA, the strands that would make the essential characteristics of the child as much his as hers.
The law is very clear, babies are women's business (except the cost ) and the decision is wholly hers.
Initially the criteria to abort was to cover mental and other abnormalities in the child and possibly the mother and whether the conception was through an act of rape. Clearly the argument went, it's the woman's body and under these circumstance she has the right to make the decision.
Of course there are three people involved in this decision,the women,the man and the unborn child and its this last consideration or lack of consideration that all the controversy is about. As abortion on demand has became a lifestyle decision and women began to see abortion as, a last chance contraceptive device we have to ask the question, what of those thousands of unborn, potential human beings which are being scrapped every day ?
And yet we dither and dather about the right for a person, in great pain, terminally ill, to take their own life but as a society we walk hand in hand with the termination clinics as they go about their business of murder on an industrial scale.

Torture.

The US is wringing its hands as the report on the methods used by the CIA to extract information from people detained as suspects, in the so called war on terror.
America had been shaken to the core. Having undertaken their part in many wars, including both World Wars, America had never been attacked or suffered civilian casualties and so the attack on 9/11 was a tremendous shock to the nation.
This triggered a no holds barred response in which any sense of democratic accountability was smothered under a blanket of Executive zeal which took its impetus from a President who seemed more at home in a Western than the dignified post of President.
War is a dirty game.
The Germans with the Gestapo, the Russians with their KGB, the Japanese and many other countries have had a hand in torture and used it as a plank in their interrogation methods. 

Much of the torture was actually undertaken in countries that lay outside the US. Egypt and Libya were but two of countries that undertook the horrific action of Water Boarding and other disgusting methods to get them to confess. 
These countries, mainly in the Middle East have no qualms about human rights.
As an example last year Egypt committed 188 people to death in one court decision ! Can you believe it. As far as I can see there was little coverage in the worlds media. I wonder why ?
Obviously there  is more than one standard in the world and we should keep this in mind when we criticise the USA.
We are all tempted at times to seek "other methods" in dealing with people we think are our enemies and are out to harm to us.
The "Dirty Harry" moves are a fictional example, where our hero moves out from under the stifling limitation of the law to kill those criminals that have themselves killed.
"An eye for an eye" has biblical connotations and in the dirty world of espionage I'm sure it's a question of kill or be killed.
Of course the United Nations has outlawed torture and supposedly, being "united", even the nations who would condone what the Charter upholds must be troubled knowing that in their own country, far away from the measured tranquillity of the General Assembly are practising the worst.