Who has time for fundamentals

How much more fulfilling it is to write than to read. 

Whilst not having the professional finished glaze of a fully paid up journalist or writer, still less the expertise of the expert, I still feel a stronger pull to expressing my own feelings than to read something similar from others.

Where do the words and phrases come from. 
You might start with an idea, something you saw, something you heard, something you dreamt but as the words go down on the page the piece begins to take on a form of its own. Words create avenues of thought, they glean new insights into what you think, they lead you on like a temptress into new fields of thought.
It's as if in the barrier between the conscience and the sub conscience is porous, a leaking membrane of reconstructed ideas and thoughts that tumble out to be digested and made whole by linking it with conscience experience.
It's quite exciting to read back and see how your hypotheses has developed with the telling. How the construction grew, a window fitted here to let new light in and a door there to gain access to another related idea. It's a journey which is founded on much we knew but is now embellished with other ideas, the reading of which make one smile with satisfaction or grimace with embarrassment if the conclusion has revealed more of oneself than you wished.
The difficulty is knowing when to stop and that of course begs the question "do you write for yourself or for the reader". If it's for yourself with an eye to the reader then given the impossibly short attention span of people today used to having their minds prompted by the television it's hard when many people complain my blog pieces are too long. It's the age of Twitter and the abbreviated code of text speak. The shorter the better. It's as if we had entered a world where there is a continuous firework display, ideas shooting off into the sky the substance of each subsumed by the next wiz bang. There's no pause, the noise of the display is enough, no cognisance is needed as the image is enough. Substance is an anathema it takes time and effort and anyway the scene is changing so fast who has time for fundamentals.

We are only human

  

The world seems to be made up of two different types of people.

The one sees the world through their 'own' needs, the other, through 'other' people's needs.
It's as simple as that.
The priorities of the first are clear they identify with their own specific issues. They understand the world through their own domain. They recognise other people through the commonality (if there is any) of their own ideas. They recognise the substance of their own plight through the plight of people who share their background.
Sixty years ago this concept was common across the nation, in fact it was common across all nations of the world. It was the bedrock of society, it represented a uniform platform, a measuring stick to guide you. Depending on which neighbourhood you lived in, people were largely the same.The sameness and the ignorance of much outside your neighbourhood created a unity amongst those you knew and lived alongside
The second person existed but as a tiny minority. They were on the fringes of society and were represented for instance by Beatrice's and Sidney Webb and the Fabian Society. These people were resolute in searching for answers in areas where a mismatch occurred, they were consumed with the need to "put right the wrongs" as they saw them. They were humanitarians.
Ignorance is both a bane and a bliss, too much knowledge disturbs that equilibrium we yearn for and of course today we have information overload, an industry of soothsayers, apologists, appeasement experts, people who exploit every wart, every attempt at being an individual, of having views which are nonconformist.
Not conforming is a heresy. Only if we pull together in the one direction, a direction we are told is the correct for all, as a collective, one they manipulate into a single unitary theoretically homogeneous unit.
Religion talks of a single god who loves us all and yet the institution of religious faith, the churches here on earth are at loggerheads with each other.
Humanitarians speak of the unity inherent in mankind's love and respect for each individual towards the other but whilst a lordly aim, it fails in reality so many tests.
From a beggar thy neighbour approach of Donald Trump, to the seemingly genuine concern of Obama towards the myriad hues of a complex world.
With the swirling nature of the African diaspora, like the dust from a Dervish dance obliterating the perspective, the reasons to be magnanimous are drowned by the scale.
We can't take it in, the myriad customs and affiliations which are totally foreign to us but have to be assimilated and more than just assimilated, given preference for a political end which is not our own.
Has the multicultural idea seen its day, overtaken by events which distorted any chance of a natural evolution. Was the idea bonkers to start with. Simply a dream or a guide towards behaviour such as "love they neighbour as yourself". It was never meant literally but simply to pose the paradox of getting along for the common good. But when the common good begins to feel threatening for the bulk of people then one has to recognise, we are only human !!

Living within ones means

  

Should we ditch the concept of social awareness, should we pull the plug on the growing financial black hole we call the Benefit System. Given our financial plight, with tax receipts not covering our current account and borrowings nearly out of control  can we afford the philanthropic objective which started as "social justice", in helping people who had fallen through the social cracks, to today's definition based on "rights" and a cultural shift where people aim to advance their lives within the envelope of a Benefit Culture.

Listening to "Any Answers" people rang in to question the insistence of people today demanding everything they want 'immediately' not willing to put off the purchase until they can afford it.

This assumption that life is intolerable if we don't have 'stuff' is a modern concept probably sown, along with the creation of the credit card, to inculcate in the masses that we ain't had it so good, whilst in fact we are plunging into bottomless debt with all the pressures and stress owing money brings. People can not understand the pride of self containment, in not being owned by anyone, in being able to 'cock a snoop' at any group or individual if you strongly disagreed.

The 'make do' was a strong emotional backstop.  It represented you as you were, no flashy condiments to your life  and if I may I strongly contend we were better off because of it.  We were grounded in a specifically individualistic way which bred 'our own' identity, not the identity founded on a Market compilation of a 'consumer' but a real person confident in what we wished to be.

Unadorned simplicity is crucial to our lives. We are who we are without being clothed in the Emperors new clothes. "Doing without" has a strong moral characteristic, there is strength in self imposed limits, it used to be the 'sine qua non' of people who felt proud to belong to the "working class" and the sense of integration it developed amongst like minded people. The "second hand", the "refurbished", the "mended" were all terms of thrift and self sufficiency. That term "self sufficiency" was emblematic of a society who valued themselves in the eyes of their brothers not as the owner of a new Jag but as someone who could make things work who could be trusted, who's word was valued more than all the flashy adornments which seem these days to be so sort after.

The death of Fidel Castro

With the death of Fidel Castro another part of the jigsaw of events which started with the Russian Revolution and the advent of communist ideology comes to a close.

Fast forward through the Leninist/Stalinist years to the period after the Second World War when communism really became an international force with communist sympathies
emerging all over the world. China, Vietnam, Korea countries in Africa and countries in South America where uprisings by colourful revolutionaries such as Che Guevara and Fidel Castro defeated the local dictatorship and created pockets of communist rational amongst the myriad poor in that stricken continent. Even today we see the pitiful contrast between the rich and the poor in Brazil, although carefully scripted, it was impossible not to see the Favala rising up the slopes of the hillsides around Rio de Janeiro.
Having grown up 'to the sound of a distant drum' be it in Eastern Europe, Asia, or Latin America, the conflict was always the West against Communism. Underlying the politics was the clash between Capitalism, 'a free wheeling use of financial resources' and the concept of a centralised "planned economy" where government controlled everything.
Even today I have friends who wistfully look back on the days of the USSR and miss the paternalism of those years. For us growing up in that era there was always conflict, always the clarion call to the barricades to shore up defences. Always the spectre of the bogeyman, the hidden force destined to do evil.
Castro was the charismatic, cigar chomping persona behind the that other way of doing business. John F Kennedy the urban youthful, good-looking dynamic versus the camouflaged battle dress, wild man of Cuba.
Today Havana is slowly recovering decades of under investment and repair. It's baroque style, it's flamboyant music, it's dance and the physicality of it young people all tell a tale of its unwillingness to concede. With all the financial weight the USA threw at him Castro succeeded in holding his people together using the tried and tested method of educating and protecting his people when they became ill. The youth of Cuba were amongst the most highly educated in the world, doctorates by the bucket load. The health service although creaking under the strain of embargo was a marvel.
It's interesting to reflect that in this country with all the opportunities to trade and provide an economic platform for the people, only a lessening proportion of the population are gaining any advantage as our education system is dissolving at only a slightly lesser pace than our health system. It is, as it always was a question of priorities.
Castro has his people's plight in his sights. Not globalised markets or special cabals with protection ensured. Not the obsession of the free market, still less the liberalisation of all markets so that regulation, designed to protect the weak is thrown out with an eye to ensuring only the strong succeed.
The Americans hated him, fed by the venom of rich Cubans who had fled to Florida when he overthrew President Batista they have fought their fellow countrymen for decades and only under Obama has the recognition, that this tiny island state has a right to exist emerged.
Castro lived to see the day, only just. The CIA made many attempts on his life but were not quite as accomplished as the KGB or for that matter MOSAD in this clandestine business and so he survived.
Revolutionaries paid homage to him whilst the Establishment reviled him, perhaps there is no more fitting epitaph !!!

When time was on our side

There was a time in the past when life was a simple thing to be experienced as a series of events particular to yourself. The outside world was cut off by a few miles of fields, the distant drone of traffic was leisurely since only a few could purchase a car or more importantly, felt the need to. The world and its proverbial oyster lay all around but not too far, that most of it couldn't be reached on foot or occasionally by the bus. The intricacies of our lives were local and not international, our friendships were with people we had grown up with and came from the same stock. Summer was a time of endless evenings when one escaped the strictures of guidance and guided yourself were ever your fancy took you. The nooks and crannies of the surrounding countryside were our hiding place, where we met up or trudged in twos and threes to meet and discuss what we were going to do next. There was no pre-planned agenda only the slow moving river of chance to catch our eye and trigger a thought which provoked action. We were innocently happy in our ignorance and allowed to persevere so by the absence of grown ups to determine what "they" thought more industrious.
Of course over the  next hill beyond the next milepost the actual world beckoned but we were oblivious of its calling or consequence.
Today we read of the turmoil in young people's lives as they feel forced, like pot house plants to present themselves for the toil of life's path at an ever earlier stage. The route of education and "success" is hatched earlier and earlier and the measurement of our very soul is made the business of "others".
The self awareness which developed slowly at a pace commensurate with our bodies is now the subject of departmental reports and media scrutiny. Under the microscope we look very different as we are dissected into parts. The whole person and their beautiful uniqueness is forgotten for a target of economic success, for fitting in to a plan not of our own making. Is it any wonder that suicide is on the up amongst the young or that mental illness is common. As we tinker with that most delicate flowering process fitting everyone into the same mould, developing within them the same aims do we not miss the creative, instinctual  development that people of my generation took for granted.

A view from the "Greasy Spoon"

Sitting in the "greasy spoon"one sees a whole side to humanity that is normally hidden.

People use these places as community centres, a place to have a cup of tea and a bacon butty and a chat with friends. Time is irrelevant, work is a far off mirage something remembered with a sort of fondness but now, on Benefits there is no need.
Time hangs slowly, each cup of tea or coffee is a sort of full stop between the periods of lassitude, a moment when they can remember when they had things to do and places to go. Wrapped in shawls to ward off the cold the faces peer out wreathed in care lines worn with worry, eyes darting around summing up the dangers as well as the opportunities, creatures of the Wild Wood always on guard.

I'm in an Arcade of small shops well, nearly shops since one stands on the outside transacting business with a shrewd, fly by night trader for goods that may or may not have fallen off a truck. The mobile phone is the most transacted item, the SIM cards and the protective covers. No security code is too difficult to bypass no request too risky, this is the street trader existing on the margins, one stop away from the open suitcase and an eye open for the cops.
Across from where I sit there is a beauty parlour where the women, always the optimist fight off the advancing years with a potion of this, an extension of that and a touch of paint as and when required. The fortunes women spend on the impossible fight against the ravages of time is worth half the national debt. Food on the table takes a back seat to a foliage treatment and wrinkle removal cream, we are after all more than what we appear but what we appear is more important, after all we can blag the rest.
The ubiquitous  Union Jack is draped across the back wall.  Few "Remainer's" in here although there is a steady stream of people who would claim a linage elsewhere.
At the moment a large black guy who claims linage with Mohamed Ali and George Foreman is treating us all to a loud diatribe of invective mixed with his love for England. His mind addled with Tennents Extra Strong Cider and a lifetime of marijuana is but an example of the flotsam and jetsam of a large multicultural city. Accepted, if not condoned people ignore him and eventually he drifts away to blast someone else. His day a mixture of images of who knows what, his nights probably spent in a refuge or a doorway somewhere, waiting the outcome of one more night in his Hell's Kitchen of an existence.

Not a place to redeem

It's often the case when you take the foot off the neck the dog bites you.

Within days of Donald Trump declaring his scepticism of Americas involvement in NATO the Russian announce placing missals in one of their vassal states.
Is this the start of a cold war or just the logical outcome of Americas continuing  interfering since the end of the Second World War, in the export of the. so called 'democratic process, which interfered with the election of someone they didn't like. 

A case in point is The Ukraine. Viktor Yanukovych who was the elected President of Ukraine was pro Russia and seen as not sufficiently pro EU. He had to be removed (2014) from office for fear of derailing the US in its drive to draw in the old satellite countries of the USSR, countries surrounding Russia, into an alliance with the EU, and incidentally setting up anti ballistic missile sites as part of a strategic containment program. 

A so called pro-democracy party, which in fact really resembled a bunch of fascist thugs was gathered together to promote unrest  on the streets, forcing the President to flee the country and eventually Parliament was overturned. The resultant tit for tat invasion of Crimea by Russia and the uprising of the Russian segment of the population followed and today we have an uneasy standoff with the country torn down the middle.
Of course if one had to choose between a Russian dictatorship or an American one, for us in the West there is no argument as to which to choose but the overt use of force, be it by tanks on Russia's side, or a financial and political insurrection by the Americans has a similar ring to it regarding what constitutes a sovereign state.
Iraqi, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Egypt, its a long list of ill conserved interventions undertaken on behalf of the drive to democratise these highly tribal countries and which has brought mayhem to the Middle East. Heavy handed dictatorship and oppression kept the conflicting forces of tribal affiliation under wraps but the "Athenian conjecture" that States are places of like minded people with common aims yearning for a system of governance where virtually everyone gets their say, is not in anyway ripe for much of the world, including China. 

Why must we in the West wish to foister our political concepts on the rest of the world through "Regime Change". I suppose it's ideological uniformity much like religious conformity where intolerance to your view is met with hatred.

 Trump at least seems to think it's all a lot of baloney and appears to want to face the world as a place to do business with, not as a place to redeem.

Yet another 'also ran'.

"Are we too caring". Is caring a normal human response or is it something we pay lip service to as a way of ameliorating our collective conscience.

In normal conversation in the pub or the supermarket, one rarely hears people racking their brains to moralise around the needs of "others".   It's a concept that is only discussed by the intelligentsia in their poking around, as they do, on subjects that seem beyond or irrelevant to us in our daily lives. Extraneous subject matter, racial slights, homophobic slights, gender slights are often the chaff of media as it allocates its precious time. Driven by a metronomic editor who, behind the scenes is prompting the interviewer to move on or be more incisive and we are left with the usual, "bits and pieces" of partly digested conversation.

This use of a liberal social agenda to propagate a "do or don't" instructive backdrop to virtually all we hear and read is meant to be educational but in fact is destructive. It turns people off because it's prescriptive, it talks down to the population as a whole, people who have more common sense in their tiny finger than the bog standard media type who's claim to fame has been the university path and, as is usually the case these days, a heft help from the society they grow up in, the private school. You will find it hard to find people in journalism and still more, in the visual media who don't come from that 7% private school population who go to what we call perversely, 'public schools'. Given that all the top echelons of the civil service, most of the ministers and prime ministers, and a preponderance of the CEOs CFOs and Board members in general also come from this precious gene pool, is it any wonder the general population feel so excluded, so manipulated and lied to. 

If you work on the principle that these social variances within society are the interesting case studies of a social science curriculum, based on "righting wrongs" then is it any wonder they get such a profound amount of air time.

And is it any wonder the ordinary Joe in the street begins to wonder what happened to "his story".   Is it any wonder that he becomes a fully paid up sceptic, that he looses faith in ever getting a hearing once he become an 'also ran' in the 'commiseration' stakes.

We the people

Why do virtually all the lead writers and pundits, the political commentators and the social commentators all declare their willingness to see the world reformed in a way in which the past is demonised and the future spoken of as an opportunity.

All the "isms" which we have been warned are no go areas of debate, racism, sexism, xenophobia, and the sub areas of fat'ism, thin'ism, behavioural problems, mental issues the list goes on and on. Enter at your peril to suggest that being more conservative in the way a young woman might dress or behave, is to bring the weight of the feminist world down on your shoulder in their proclaiming its a woman's right to dress as they wish, to drink as much as they wish to walk late at night where they wish and if they become lured into some situation where they are raped then the whole blame is on the rapist.

I can hear the crackle of static on the line now. How dare I compound the underlying primeval forces that lurk in all animals, (we after all are animals with a heavy coating of rules and regulations covering our actions) which rely on codes and signals to constrain or otherwise our actions with those precious rights and privilege they value above all else.

The writers and opinion former's would have us believe that our past was littered with tomfoolery that the customs and the warnings regarding behaviour, for instance was a slight to our innate "right" to be what ever we wish to be. "Our right" trumps any debate on any subject. Promiscuousness is encouraged, not only from a sexual aspect but from a whole range of interaction, lacking standards, acting without carefully judgement, indiscriminate, little forethought or critical judgement. These are the judgements from the past, which in this modernist world have no place in this frenzy to proclaim our rights. "Rights without responsibility", an anathema to people born in an age when personal constraint was seen as a good quality something to be proud of something which weighed your character against the illicit pleasures all men and women are prone to. 
The commentariat have nothing but disdain for people who ask questions and query the projected path. For them the issues are set in aspic they are founded on the inalienable right of people to be respected for what they are but without the important caveat that I also have the "right" to disagree.
To close down debate on the basis that it's not in "societies" interest is an arrogant conceit, a conceit emphasised by the assumptions of Brexit and the rise of Donald.

We are in for a bumpy ride

The image Donald Trump's family must have of him. He can walk on water.

His whole life has been one of attaining goals, mainly wealth seeded by his real estate father who built houses and housing estates, who lived a conservative success story, nothing remotely glitzy, nothing over the top like his son, even the family home was of a design which he used in this estates only a little larger.
His son, brash and extravagant recognised the importance of image of creating a name. The Trump name is everywhere bold brash extravagant it epitomises the splendour of being rich. Emblazoned on his buildings, on his plane and his golf courses, it's his name. There is no subtlety, it's the foot print of a giant, it's meant to impress you by the message it evokes, "We are special".
As he builds his real estate deals he takes no prisoners. He's rough tough and brutal with those who would oppose him, with litigation his favourite course of action.
His ability to conceptualise or rather, put his stamp on a project, I would suspect, is more, having found a 'trade mark image', right down to the bath taps he repeated the story over and over again. Much as it is said of the Hilton Hotels. They are all so similar across the world you have to remind yourself which country you are in since the decor in the room's, the hotel foyer, the restaurants are all planned to a standard. Even the people running them are trained to be the same, a sort of plastic cut out automated by head office to provide the Hilton experience.
Trumps success is to repeat alchemy in his buildings it's a quality the rich find attractive. The importance of the address, the sort of person you meet in the lift, the opulence and the exclusivity. A irresistible concoction for those who can afford it.
His trophy brides, are the benefit a rich man gives himself at the end of a hard day.
His children raised in a hot house of real estate deals, of over the top flamboyance, of working within the Trump dynasty and learning that power is a tremendous aphrodisiac they have been trained in the art of being a Trump.
His decision to become the next President of the United States was probably taken as an egotistical challenge. It was doable so long as you put into place the pieces needed to succeed. This time the real estate was the United States of America, the goal was to fallow the plan, leave no stone unturned in the reality extravaganza to capture the White House. His constituency were the people who would never dream of owning an apartment in one of his buildings but unlike the political establishment which he intended to challenge, who rarely looked outside their political bubble he knew the men and their families who were desperate to be heard, they were close to his construction workers, they were the warp and the weft of his empire.
Like a game show host,  promise them what they wanted to hear, jobs and stability, turn back the clock and become the inward looking power house they had been before the industrial capacity had been traded by Wall Street to the East. His pull was a simple message, why try to be everything to all people when the ones who count are back home rotting for lack of work. The real devils in his view were firstly the Libertarian policy makers followed by the financial guys who lived in a "no ones world" other than their own.
That robotic, posturing, aimlessly gesticulating woman who seemed like one of those battery adverts as she repeated time and time again the same old gestures which made her seem as false as the proverbial "two bob watch" was seen as implicitly establishment.  Intransigent, uncaring, idealistic but idealistic on the grand scale which seemed to provide no place for the homegrown individual American.
As the democratic mayors in certain major cities, proclaim their defiance of Trump, threatening to defy his proclaimed aim of rounding up "illegal" immigrants and deporting them en masse, you have the the absurdity of the 'humanitarian mind set' and the intolerance of the 'nationalist agenda' clash. Idealism v pragmatism, a conflict as old as mankind with no real solution.
We are in for a bumpy ride

It is sweet and right to die for your country

Listening to a beautiful program depicting the three Great War time poets Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Grieves one is struck by the fragility and sensibility of the compassionate mind in these young men so inadequately provisioned for the horror of trench warfare.

Minds that were already finely tuned to the nature of things around them were blown apart by the incessant pounding of the guns and the carnage it produced.

Rough hewn lads from the farms and factories were no better at coping with this man made hell but they at least probably saw in it all the rough usage of mankind much as in the factories and the poor domestic conditions many of them called home.

 But men like Owen were, like that classic Don McLean song, Vincent, Starry starry night, which recalls Vincent Van Gogh, "the world was never meant for one as beautiful as you".

The counterpoise between the conceptualised beauty in their minds eye and the trauma around them, he used his genius to translate not just the carnage but the strength and character of the situation.

There is also that death wish for the officer who could use his position to withdraw from the front when wounded and fain reasons for staying away, unlike the ordinary soldier who was in the trenches to stay, these young lieutenants and captains chose to return, as did Owen until "that bullet" found him. 

How crazy that the generals still demanded their "hundred yds of ground" whilst an Armistice was being negotiated. With days to go, as the war ground to a halt, Owen leading his men on a needless exercise was shot and killed along with many of his men. What a waste, what a crime !!

Starry starry night

Portraits hung in empty halls

Frame-less heads on nameless walls  

With eyes that watch the world and can't forget.

Like the strangers that you've met

Ragged men in ragged clothes 

The silver thorn of bloody rose

Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow.

Now I think I know

What you tried to say to me

And how you suffered for your sanity

And how you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they're not listening still

Perhaps they never will.

          -----------------------------

Bent double like old beggars under sacks

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through the sludge

Till on the haunting flairs we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on blood shod. All went lame all went blind

Drunk with fatigue, deaf even to the hoots
Of tired outstripped Five -nines that dropped behind.

Gas Gas! Quick boys! An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time

But someone was still yelling out stumbling

And floundering like a man in fire or lime

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light

As under a green sea I saw him drowning

In all my dreams before my helpless sight

He plunges at me guttering, choking, drowning

If in some smoothing dream you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in

And watch the white eyes writhe in his face

His hanging face like a devils sick of sin

If you could hear at every joint the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile incurable sores on innocent tongues

My friend you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory

The old lie, Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori

(It is sweet and right to die for your country)

Wilfred Owen

Eyes left

I am always moved at the plethora of faces and the intricacies of character those faces show as the old soldiers sailors and airman march past in what seems an unending parade. Proud and upright, this is their day to share a kinship few of us can understand.

The retired Sargent's scream, "eyes left" order as they draw abreast of the Cenotaph, these men, the lifeblood of the non-commissioned ranks, relish the role of barking the order and the men who many are in their 80s, instinctively snap their heads left as if they were still under orders.
The drum beats its tattoo, the marchers keep pace (as well as their old limbs can) to the foot fall of the man in front and slowly another years commemoration comes to a close.
I'm not sure how other nations do it but we seem to get the tone just right.   It's about first and foremost, the people, the essence of any society is its people and how we value them. No matter how often we close the streets and wheel out the aristocracy it's the sight of those trammelled features bristling with pride, respectful of who they represent and proud to pay homage to the fallen that makes it all worth while.

Homage to the fallen

A different day to the lighthearted pageantry of the Lord Mayors Day. 

Remembrance day is made of far more sombre stuff. The military bands have been playing a range of well known favourites. Music to march to, music to die to, something for all !! 

A single navel gun fires, dead on 11 to signal the start of a two minute silence. The camera depicts a silent London, only the gulls swoop across the sky scrape to signal there is life on the planet. The gun fires again and  the buglers strike up to play that haunting refrain, the last post.The assembly of the good and the famous.The politician, royalty, the old Commonwealth represented by its independent government officials, all wait in turn to lay their wreaths on the Cenotaph. It's a ceremony and a pecking order which reflects the Establishment as much as it commemorates the dead. It represents the people who sent these brave lost souls to their death. The Queen from a family in Germany which decided it needed war for its own reasons, a family which bridged the gap between "us" and "them" by being on both sides at once. It didn't stop them mobilising, of unfurling their maps and deciding what belong to who. It didn't stop them committing millions of young men to death, it didn't evaluate the death and destruction to the civilian population who lay in the path of their manoeuvres. To go to war over a slight to a cousin, or ostensibly the assassination of another cousin by an anarchist seems an unequal quid pro quo for the millions who bled to death on the fields of Flanders and elsewhere.

Brought up on Jack Tar and the exploits of Jack Cornwall, 16 years of age, standing by his burnt out gun, his shipmates dead around him, firing still as the disabled ship disengaged. Jack with shards of steel penetrating his chest awaited orders.

We all await orders but it's who is issuing that worries me.

Excluded from the project

It's an ever more frightening prospect.  "Liberte" that sanctuary of philosophical attainment, where freedom of speech lies at the head of a Parthenon of ideals, is being undermined by the very people who would claim to be its apostles.

This morning, Sunday, happens to be Remembrance Day. A regular feature of Sunday is popular program anchored by Andrew Marr in which people, largely politicians, are interviewed about current events. The phenomena of Brexit and Trump has caused parallels with Marie La Pen, the leader of the so called far-right party the National Front

Her father a bombastic, extremist, ideologue founded the party which a few years ago his daughter wrested from him. She has softened the image and brought it in from the extremes to be a contender for national prominence, possibly gaining ascendancy overall. She is a polished operator and argues for France, much as Trump argues for America and Nigel Farage argues for Britain. The trio are hated by the Libertarian simply because they proclaim hegemony over multiculturalism. 

The interview with La Pen has been lambasted by sections of the Libertarian because not only for what she represents but because the interview is to be broadcast on Remembrance Day which in their view stains the memory of the fallen.
One of the outstanding reminders of how long we have been kept cooped up in our box unable to discuss or have opinions other than those expressed by the Libertarian has been the strength of the backlash particularly in the USA, away from the "conventional wisdom" a wisdom to which it was thought we were all Ideologically neutered.
As always in these things, the swing away from the concept of 'embracing' everyone has taken the view, that we 'reject' everyone, other than "our tribe".
For 30 years we have undergone a drip drip convention to this humanitarian agenda of supporting the unusual. The problem arises when the 'unusual' become the 'usual' but they still push for more recognition. 

The unrecognised who thought for generations that they were secure in their viability within the nation and for whom, not long ago they were the nation. 

Under educated, allowed to fester in the poverty ghettos of our cities, these are people who reject the soft inclusive agenda of the Libertarian not because it is wrong but because they themselves were excluded from the project.

The bit that starts the blog

That inner clock keeps ticking away, washing our arteries and veins with blood but it's a clock with a time limit. We must be in awe at the mileage. Who or what determines the limit, God, or the diet, its open to question but lying in bed I sometimes wonder, which part will falter and when !

Such a complex apparatus. There's no badge on the nose, no reference to say how well this one is made. It's well over the warranty, and is running beyond the manufactures specification. The hoses must be perished by now and the cylinders definitely need a re-bore.
Each mile brings one closer to the terminus and sadly, all terminus's are unfriendly places, that end of the line feel with lights of suburbia behind and only darkness ahead. Of course if one keeps filling the tank there's no knowing how far you'll get, or what sights and sounds you will experience on the way, it's all a lottery since your ticket to ride has expired and the guard is looking for you.
Avoid the bumps and any excessive acceleration, keep the lubrication topped up and don't forget the water. Avoid reversing too fast, judging distance through the mirror is difficult but if you have to, do it with style and panache. Coast down the hills to save fuel and never rush the up the other side, you never know what you might meet around the bend.
The garage couldn't ensure that the last repair would last long since the manufacturer stopped making parts for this model. All they have is the bits and pieces they scrounge out of the scrap yard and of course the parts there have also past their useful life and what ever they replace your not guaranteed it won't conk out before yours.
The lungs rise and fall as they have all these years. It's amazing that the heart muscle is still pumping. All the rhythms which started on that day some time between conception and birth have been tried and tested, often abused. The body has coped with everything the brain has thrown at it. The thrill seeking, the quirky abstinence, the use of stimulants, and of course the over use of exercise as the brain of the young man sort to compete.
Now as I watch the rise and fall of my chest I wonder at its longevity, it's fundamental necessity, it's simplicity when compared to the emotional clap trap the brain and its pal the mind has concocted. Between them no mountain was too high, no river too broad, no option too far and the poor old body had no say in the matter.
Now it's the bodies turn, the limits are clear the options are controlled by the feedback.
Arthritic joints, lungs which work 50% on a good day all tell their tail of a redundancy in the not too distant future.
Recently I become an organ donor. Having compared by ageing bits to a worn out water-pump I wonder what they will consider of use. I can see him now holding the organ up to the light, squeezing it to gage its texture. 

The only really useful bit is tucked away in the cerebral cortex, the bit that kicks into life at 6.00am every morning and starts the blog.

The new man in the White House

Fluency of thought and adaptability are the hall marks of a leader. Fixed ideas and a fascination with ones own power are hall marks of a dangerous individual especially if he becomes the leader of a powerful nuclear nation.

Much of the role of a tough negotiator on a building site is having experts in the various fields of building design working for you and knowing the constraints of building regulations designed to ensure safety.
Politics is about not having any meaningful regulations. In fact if regulations get in the way the law allows you create new ones.
This is the mix which confronts the world with Donald Trumps elevation to the most powerful job in the world.
His attitude to NATO and Americas self adoption as the worlds policeman and arbitrator could well be coming to an end. His clear supposition that nations should bear the cost for the protection America affords, if you can't afford it you don't get it,is similar to his views on Obama Care and whilst brutal it has the ring of economic sense to it.
After the war it was in Americas interests to rebuild the world in the image it wanted to act as a market place for its goods. A mixture of self interest with a willingness to invest in a democratic dream to ensure a stable working market place. They were not religious converts destined to save us from ourselves but hardheaded businessmen planing for the future.
One thing led to another and they became embroiled in the Korean and the Vietnam wars which taught them that war in Asia was a very different prospect to war in Europe. NATO and alliance of European countries to counter the weight and might of the USSR was, with the enormous nuclear strength that the Americans developed, a counter weight to Stalin, a status quo was arrived at and the economic attrition of stockpiling nuclear weapons brought the Russians to their knees.

The Europeans had an easy ride they bore little of the cost and benefited from the immediacy of the security. The willingness of nations in Europe to set aside a relatively small amount of the annual budget has waned over the last 20 years as the countries became complacent with Russia's loss of power. Now with Putin on the block, sabre rattling and re emphasising old fashioned power we need the collective muscle of NATO to act as a counterweight.

Real politic is about to come home to roost. Jeremy Corbin's life long held wish for unilateral disarmament seems as far from reality as it ever has.

God Bless America

Like the Brexit vote, Donald Trumps election only now raises the issues behind the decision which should have been aired then.

In Brexit's case the difficulties of establishing a working relationship within the collective banking system for instance was never spelt out and given the banking system is the financial prop on which the country now survives it was crucial that we understand its importance.

This morning I was listening to a new voice describing Donald Trump. He described a man who would do any thing to win, who hated opposition, and who destroyed people who stood in his way.

Wow. That's hardly the description you want for the President of the United States.
A bully and man so narcissistic that his world evolves around what he values to the exclusion of anyone else's view.

Times are certainly going to be interesting.

Of course in politics it could be said that the description of the hubris which makes up the political chemistry is common amongst many of the governors and senators in the House so in some ways, since each is in some way sitting in his own self crated bubble the president can't fire them. 

President Obama was the antithesis of this in his quiet reasoned approach and his apparent humanity. His inability to make headway through Congress was not the paucity of his argument but in his willingness to believe you had to convince the opposition of not only the advantages to the people who elected all of them but that there was something in it for the Congressmen themselves. All his effort on winning Obama Care was not seen as bringing medical coverage to the people but the cost of doing so. Not a measure of the responsibility within a very wealth country to look after its citizens as measure of their civilisation but an evaluation of its citizens as a cost.

Putting a man on the moon was an acceptable cost, waging war against Osama bin Laden for having the effrontery to organise flying of a plane into the Twin Towers was an acceptable cost but providing that most valuable service for his own people at their time of greatest need and vulnerability was not worth the cost. How screwed up is that !!!

The Land of the Free and the Brave, with an overriding receipt of prizing the individual above the collective, of not securing the place for society as a whole within their vision. Their obsession on minimal governance and minuscule taxation, each for his own is the perfect mix for the American Dream so perhaps Donald will be just their man, whilst the rest of us wait to see.  God Bless America.

Having the time and space to grieve

Its an interesting concept this twin agenda women felt in the American election. The election to office of President but even more so, the election of a woman to hold that office.

The need felt by women to express their gender as equal and in many cases superior lies deep in their fibre. Largely men don't trouble themselves over these issues, a man or a women will elected, may the best person win but women who have thought of themselves as being dealt "second best" quite rightly feel that at moments when their team embodiment of who they are, a women, they feel even more cheated than just the political aspect and you could see it in their tears and the frustration in their voices.

Of course anyone could claim the discriminatory card. Black people could and do. Disabled people with more room for argument than most, could and do. Religions discriminate against each other (it's fundamental to who they are). The red heads versus the blond, the tall versus the short, the fat versus the thin. And lately the white male left behind in the dust buckets of towns that until 20 years ago were thriving.
Where ever you have difference you have competition, you have alliances and you have enemies and you invariably pick grievance as a way of expressing yourself
But there is no right way or wrong way, we are dealing with a human condition which notices the difference and seeks comfort from grouping together with others of similar disposition. Of course the very act of doing so only entrenches the sense of difference, with each grievance amplified in the group. The world seen through this prism becomes distorted by which ever  "ism" you are in, my grievance caps your grievance and a merry old contest of entitlement begins.
So as the tears flow they should consider the elections and human rights which they take for granted are seriously missing in two thirds of the world and, with such a large catchment, its astounding luck that that you have the time and sensitivity to worry about such things.

Coming home to roost

So the people have spoken and the pundits are in disarray.

A man who had no party behind him and who in fact had the party he was closest to turn their collective back on him has won against the political machine which is the Clinton family. The democrats poured millions of dollars into the campaign and it was always assumed that in America money talks the loudest. Trump was a natural target for the democrat, it was suggested he was misogynistic and yet he has a beautiful wife and daughter who both supported him, he has strong views against immigration and foreigners in general, all an anathema to the liberal think tank who are for ever searching for equality and common values, failing to recognise that the concept of common values depends on a common economic and cultural environment in which people growing up in a foreign county simply don't have. When the numbers are handle-able, assimilation is possible but when whole neighbourhoods become an imported counter culture then it's a recipe for trouble.

 The liberal is an optimist, they see the good in people and blind themselves to the bad.

Their intentions over the last 30 years or so has been to highlight the disadvantaged because of colour and physical disadvantages. They have worked hard to bring these people into the main stream and have largely been successful but the forgotten rump, the white male who used to work in the factories have been abandoned. It's this group Trump resonated with, it's this group that he offers to be at least a spokesperson when before, no one seemed to bother about them. This state of affairs dates back to the invention of the internet and its world wide instantaneous grasp to be able to do business anywhere and importantly have the manufacturing function right in amongst the poorest people in the world. The argument has always been the need to keep down costs, but to who's cost. 

Well today the people who's jobs were decimated by the greed of capitalism and its function of producing ever better results for the investor has come home to roost. 

Conscience does make cowards of us all.

The books of Jane Austen are riddled with the use of rank and prestige within society, a situation which still lives to this day. 

In those days the intricacies of form were a labyrinth  of formality and structure. In less than a two hundred years we have attained our savage face once again.

The curious tension that used to exist between male and female, the reserve and the respect are all gone. That first stolen kiss leading to a pounding heart and confusion as to what you were letting yourself in for. That involvement with a creature, so like yourself yet so different. It was if there had been a changing of the guard, with instructions now being issued by another individual for which you were only too happy to comply so long as you pleased the lass.

Clothes were no longer something to hide your frame and keep you warm, they became a fashion accessory something to attract attention. Hair, toiletry and the consumption of polo mints took on a substantive importance such as never before. In your mothers eyes at least, you were smashing.

The trials of unrequited love ❤️ were just beginning. The torture of being rejected was fresh. The lyrics of the songsmiths gained new relevance "If I fell in love with you would you promise to be true" was a sad refrain when she ditched you for the other fella. Oscars lament that "it was better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all" was no recompense.

They were marvellous years as much for the pathos as for the satisfaction. They are the moments you still remember as if it were only 'yesterday', (another lyric, another memory).

So Jane your writings still had relevance, a relevance today's young people would probably claim superfluous. Bing bash bong is the current trends one night stand arrangement. Living out of wedlock, raising children without a partner and wearing the single parent motherhood as a badge of honour.  

Of course it also carries the badge of choice and free will but in my estimation, free will is a difficult road to travel. You have to be hedonistic, self centred and selfish for it all not to carry with it a few pangs of conscience.

Verisimilitude

Verisimilitude is a lovely word. Difficult to pronounce if you have a thick tongue like mine but so apt in these days of cranked up emotion.

Whether it is the Brexit discussion or the truth about Hillary, whether we are watching an advert proclaiming the latest health food or reasons the stock market is rising we are fed a diet of verisimilitude, a smidgen here, a dollop there, just enough to make the wheels go around.
We are all so gullible but then we have had decades when what a person said was taken on face value. Only the deceitful played with your trust and if you were lucky you didn't have many of them around you.

 Newspapers such as the old, pre Murdock day, Times printed on lightweight paper emblazoned with a coat of arms, was the 'word' brought down the mountain, true -un-embellished fact, you could bet your life on it. There were of course 'others' of a less distinguished nature, from a stable not known for its veracity such as the News of the World but, like purchasing gin in a brown paper bag, you were identified leaving the newsagents with a copy.

Auntie (a term describing the BBC) was so well turned out, so precise, so clear of purpose - to give the news to the nation as received from dispatches. No messing around, no tarting up, no agenda to teach.
We were so lucky. The secrets remained secrets, quite rightly they were not for our titivation - they were secrets damn it.
Today we weave our way through a plethora of, he said she said, claim and counter claim, innuendo and aspersions, queen trumps  jack. It's all so confusing but of course it's more than just confusing since it undermines the fabric of society if everyone is seen to be lying. A lier was always frowned upon. It was if communication, painfully developed to help us progress as a species, had a virus that could destroy us all. That knowledge and trust could be destroyed. That we wouldn't know how to proceeded on the quicksands of deceit and treachery if our confidence was shaken.
Today with not only state propaganda but also from  those people purporting to claim that we can place our faith in them to lead us and make important decisions for us, if they are mired in duplicity, double dealing, trickery where do we turn for leadership.
Perhaps God has a place after all but then some would say, he invented verisimilitude.

The Law

Who to believe, who is implicated, what are the next revelations going to reveal.

In the final days of the run up to the American Elections Julian Assange has orchestrated a drip feed information leak with Hillary Clinton firmly in his sights.
The information is not a smoking gun where a victim lays on the floor in a pool of blood and the killer has a gun in his hand. Much of what has been levelled at Mrs Clinton seems to be, breaches of protocol (her use of a private email account) or innuendo such that the Saudi Arabian government who fund ISIS, also fund the Clinton Foundation and somehow this fact implies there is a connection between the crazies in Syria and the crazies in Washington.
Of course the whole business reveals the less then transparent dealings in the Capital of "capital" where a politically designed, unregulated capitalistic business system has unfettered power. The shady deals and shaky regulation makes a mockery of the of the importance of an independent judiciary. The opaque structure within a market led economy which demands freedom to wheel and deal has no sense of an "inter -connection" between it and society at large. The deals and the bribes are part and parcel of the way a contract is secured and if it is thought that "jobs are at risk" or tax revenues may dry up then the "end", proceeds any ethical consideration.
Wikileaks has been extremely useful in revealing warts and all much of what was hidden, dotting the I and crossing the T, but it has been done at a cost. The relationship between a population and its leaders can only prosper if the people believe that the law applies equally to the rich and powerful. If that trust is lost then anarchy is never far behind and whilst we may feel far removed and superior to the countries, such as in the Middle East, breaking down as I write we mustn't be so sure.  If the delicate balance begins to turn in our own country then forces which are prevalent in all societies might just tip that balance the wrong way.

 One of the saddest sights this morning was to see the newspaper headlines, virtually across the board, damming the judges for doing what they are paid to do, rule on the law. The issue of whether Parliament has the right to be involved, over the head of government, when "statutes", which are the province of parliament, are to be changed especially since there is no written constitution in place, only Parliament as a collective can change a statute.

Article 50, part of the constitutional membership agreement to join the EU, which will trigger our exit from the EU, will on its application set aside an existing statute taken at Maastricht when we joined the EU and therefore it needs parliaments approval to set it aside. That's the law and seems to me that as countries tread their own line in this increasingly turbulent world, only the precision of law can possibly fend off the tyranny of the fascist.

A room at the Inn

Having made a booking and driven many miles to see your "bed for the night" it always seems that the procedure for obtaining the key, advancing down the corridor on floor three looking for room 368, is to remove yourself from all you know and places you in a capsule in which a clock is ticking.

Reception confirming your presence brandishes a key with a reminder that dinner is served at eight o'clock sharp. The rules of the establishment are pasted on your door and as you struggle to fit the key the door eventually opens to a narrow cubical largely taken up with a bed and wardrobe. There might be a small desk with a pot of tea which only requires hot water and a complementary biscuit to make your welcome complete. Off to the left is the shower cubical and a sink. And as you peer around the door you are met by an apparition, yourself, tired and hungry staring back at you in the huge mirror. The ubiquitous multi channelled television waits, it is the only link to your own domestic nest 200 miles away but somehow reassuring in that the programs seem to be a common thread no matter where you are.
It's Tuesday and the meeting tomorrow will be much the same as last week, a sparring session to denote who is the Alpha male and how many widgets they will buy this time.
Hunger drives you down stairs to see what's cooking and also what else this less than salubrious establishment offers.The bar looks tired and the barman more so. Perhaps one before dinner to cheer myself up but even a splash of alcohol can't raise the spirits much and the conversation between strangers is hardly creative. 

Staying long. Where are you from. Going tomorrow, I see.

A little after eight the doors to the dining room swing open and there is a surge to find a seat. The menu, like the tablecloth hasn't been changed in a while but beggars can't be choosers. The swing door into the kitchen bangs open to reveal our waiter looking tired and somewhat depressed at the thought of being here, like the barman, (hang on it is the barman) takes our order and shuffles off into the kitchen.
The food is not unappealing since I am ravenous but the smell of cooked cabbage does little to lighten the spirits. Meals can be moments of absolute satisfaction, given the right company they can be memorable but eating with a bunch of company reps and a sprinkling of resident pensioners is hardly a salutary experience.
As you settle down in the double bed you wonder if this is what your dreams amount to since by Thursday you will be repeating everything over again with only the long drive home to look forward to.
The dream used to be of being in charge, not only of what you do or where you will be at any given time, but of not being part of someone else's calendar, of having your own space time a personal capsule and like captain Spock "go where no man has ever gone".

Things ain't what they used to be.

Having worn glasses virtually all my life I must have visited the optometrist on a regular basis over the years. As with all the professional organisations that one fleetingly interacts with, like the doctor and the dentist, some things have changed but much has stayed as it was. 

The chart on the wall and the lens holding device are all from the past. The new gadgets are the pre test analysis such as a pressure measurement and the ability to scan the eye in such a way as to pick up potential problems regarding the health of the eye itself.
The test still relies on an interchange of in formation but much of the information flowing from the patient is subjective. "Is that clearer" depends on an evaluation which is trying to be helpful but struggles to distinguish between "clear" or seemingly better defined in so far as contrast is concerned. There is a difference.

The test largely concentrates on each eye in turn but when the eyes work in tandem and there is an incremental lag between the two images, the frustration of the Optometrist is palpable as their own information is based on specific graduations in the strength of the lens they now have to cope with the subjective reality of someone's else's brain having difficulty blending two perfectly good optical signals with a phase shift which makes a mockery of all they are trying to do. 'Oh my god' is the look on the face of the Optometrist, whilst the poor old patient dearly wishes 'their reality' was more like the one expected of them.

Dentistry has changed much more radically, not only in the sphere of damping down the pain but also the administration of the painkillers. The tools of the trade remain much as they were, the pliers to pull the tooth out and the hooks to probe around are much as I remember them. One significant improvement has been the high speed pneumatic detail drill, such a far cry from the belt driven drill of my childhood, that and the use of gas with the dentist forcibly clamping the mask over your face like a kidnap artist.

In those days the drill, the gas, and the adversarial temperament of the dentist terrified his patient and made a trip to the dentist a thing to dread. Conversation is of course very one sided and usually resorts to grunts and even today the high pitched whine of the drill and the expectation of pain as the cavity gets deeper is synonymous with some sort of Disney cartoon comedy where you know the circular saw will not reach Mickey's chest but the look on Mickey's face tells you no one has told him yet.

A visit to the doctor is less reassuring these days.  Then the doctor knew the family pretty intimately he/she had been around at the birth and their  knowledge of every medical scare was imprinted on their memory when you walked through the door into the surgery. Taking your seat and noticing who was in the room so as to know your place when "next" was called was far simpler than under going the gauntlet of reception Today sadly the doctor doesn't know you from Adam. The practice has grown such that it's nothing more than an assembly line and with the clock ticking, you had better get down to discussing your medical problem and quick. Much of the small talk which used to reveal a lot to the doctor as the patient opened up to speak, was of emotional nature and revealed problems often laying behind the medical ones as for a minute or two a rapport was established. Today the computer holds your history, you are to it nothing more than bits and bytes whilst to the doctor, you are a blood test and a pathology report.

Trumpeting a different message

Is our comprehension of what is 'right and wrong' simply a prolonged intrusion into our collective mind using programs to re-educate us and pacify what we would have said were our deepest fears. 

Our deepest  fear is the fear of something we can not recognise. It was the bogey-man in our childhood, the unrecognisable shape, the thing under the bed waiting to pounce.

In those days the fear was fantasised it was a sublimely felt fear of something foreign to our common experience.

This description of a foreign experience is all around us today.  The fantasy is real and this reality has been the work of those who sought to remould public opinion toward what ever was foreign.

By foreign I don't just mean the people from foreign lands or their foreign ways and customs, (to say nothing of their food) but it's the foreignness of our belief system and again I am not talking of a religious based belief system but the beliefs which were  grounded in our psych as we grew up, the things you took for granted were your culture.

In virtually every area of this childish surety we have been re-educated, told that our values were wrong and pressurised to change them.

This world in which we now make our way is full of things of which we have, at its mildest, reservations , at its extreme, revulsion and yet these  dry natural  impulses to quantify and evaluate the current situation are demonised by the liberal movers and shakers, pigeon holed with derogatory terms, racist, or misogynist. Terms used to close down any further conversation or debate, the decisions have been made and you query them at your peril.

Of course this largely only effects the older person, those who held opinions before opinions were held for you !!

One of the saddest sights is seeing how the young are so pliant these days, easily manipulated by media propaganda. If they have interests and a willingness to visit the barricades it's on things of self interest such as University fees or the hopeless situation of a housing market which has been manipulated by middle class interests. Perhaps the global economy and the power of the banks can get the juices flowing but arguments regarding the social make up of society, or the pressures of contrasting cultures within a not so homogeneous society, is to process ideas that have been formalised and made instinctive in only a matter of a decade or two. The totalitarianism which has subsumed the youth in general is the work of a section of society who for one reason or another had to deal with a multi cultural, multi ethnic society which the political masters in this country had foisted on us to provide the low wage economy needed for high returns and a quick monetisation of their investment.

I was drawn to my diatribe this morning having started a book on Donald Trump written by one of his wildest advocates Ann Coulter. She speaks of the rage and the sense of impotence many Americans feel towards the establishment. She feels the insensitivity of  the establishment towards the Trump barrage against Liberal America is just what fuels the great rump of American people's contempt.

From Illinois to Montana the people are fed up with the Washington consensus, fed up with the "pork", fed up with the wise words and yearn for an expletive or two. Their world is made up of expletives especially when another bill comes through the door and they haven't the money to pay. Their world is simple it stretches back to when America believed in it manufacturing as a "productive" thing signifying its masculinity not the slithery trade in derivatives, or outsourcing to some far off land they had no idea existed until their factory closed down and the widgets were now made in  Fengshui.

Trump speaks a rough language, he is for them visceral, he is unpolished by years of diplomacy, that Machiavellian skill of deviousness and cunning, of being and saying the opposite of what you are. The Congress and the Senate, the White House, the whole plethora of coat tail activists is as far from their day to day needs as were the workers in Fengshui.

Trump has stirred them up, the hornets are terrifying the Liberals, perhaps their carefully contrived edifice is about to collapse.

Trumpeting a different message

Is our comprehension of what is 'right and wrong' simply a prolonged intrusion into our collective mind using programs to re-educate us and pacify what we would have said were our deepest fears. 

Our deepest  fear is the fear of something we can not recognise. 

It was the bogey-man in our childhood, the unrecognisable shape, the thing under the bed waiting to pounce.

In those days the fear was fantasised it was a sublimely felt fear of something foreign to our common experience.

This description of a foreign experience is all around us today.  The fantasy is real and this reality has been the work of those who sought to remould public opinion toward what ever was foreign.

By foreign I don't just mean the people from foreign lands or their foreign ways and customs, (to say nothing of their food) but it's the foreignness of our belief system and again I am not talking of a religious based belief system but the beliefs which were  grounded in our psych as we grew up, the things you took for granted were your culture.

In virtually every area of this childish surety we have been re-educated, told that our values were wrong and pressurised to change them.

 This world in which we now make our way is full of things of which we have, at its mildest, reservations , at its extreme, revulsion and yet these  dry natural  impulses to quantify and evaluate the current situation are demonised by the liberal movers and shakers, pigeon holed with derogatory terms, racist, or misogynist. Terms used to close down any further conversation or debate, the decisions have been made and you query them at your peril.

Of course this largely only effects the older person, those who held opinions before opinions were held for you !!

One of the saddest sights is seeing how the young are so pliant these days, easily manipulated by media propaganda. If they have interests and a willingness to visit the barricades it's on things of self interest such as University fees or the hopeless situation of a housing market which has been manipulated by middle class interests. Perhaps the global economy and the power of the banks can get the juices flowing but arguments regarding the social makeup of society, or the pressures of contrasting cultures within a not so homogeneous society, is to process ideas that have been formalised and made instinctive in only a matter of a decade or two. The totalitarianism which has subsumed the youth in general is the work of a section of society who for one reason or another had to deal with a multi cultural, multi ethnic society which the political masters in this country had foisted on us to provide the low wage economy needed for high returns and a quick monetisation of their investment.

I was drawn to my diatribe this morning having started a book on Donald Trump written by one of his wildest advocates Ann Coulter. She speaks of the rage and the sense of impotence many Americans feel towards the establishment. She feels the insensitivity of  the establishment towards the Trump barrage against Liberal America is just what fuels the great rump of American people's contempt. From Illinois to Montana the people are fed up with the Washington consensus, fed up with the "pork", fed up with the wise words and yearn for an expletive or two. Their world is made up of expletives especially when another bill comes through the door and they haven't the money to pay. Their world is simple it stretches back to when America believed in it manufacturing as a "productive" thing signifying its masculinity not the slithery trade in derivatives, or outsourcing to some far off land they had no idea existed until their factory closed down and the widgets were now made in  Fengshui.

Trump speaks a rough language, he is for them visceral, he is unpolished by years of diplomacy, that Machiavellian skill of deviousness and cunning, of being and saying the opposite of what you are. The Congress and the Senate, the White House, the whole plethora of coat tail activists is as far from their day to day needs as were the workers in Fengshui.

Trump has stirred them up, the hornets are terrifying the Liberals, perhaps their carefully contrived edifice is about to collapse.