Brothers.

Happiness

Happiness is a state of mind a state of being, I have waited a very very long time for mine. It exists in a cocoon, of the present time. What came before, what exists outside, what will happen later is still a part of my consciousness but for this time it is not included, it is all still there, always there. There must come a time when the things of which we have no control of no longer rule us.We never let go, but we must put this here and that there. 
Today I am as happy as I have ever been, and I feel that the future holds much happiness and much love. That is all I ever wanted from my life.

Lest we forget; Christ and the soldier

Christ and the Soldier

by Siegfried Sassoon (1916)

I

The straggled soldier halted -- stared at Him -- Then clumsily dumped down upon his knees, Gasping 

"O blessed crucifix, I'm beat !"

And Christ, still sentried by the seraphim, Near the front-line, between two splintered trees, Spoke him:

"My son, behold these hands and feet."

The soldier eyed him upward, limb by limb, Paused at the Face, then muttered, 

"Wounds like these Would shift a bloke to Blighty just a treat !" 

Christ, gazing downward, grieving and ungrim, Whispered, 

"I made for you the mysteries, Beyond all battles moves the Paraclete."

II

The soldier chucked his rifle in the dust, And slipped his pack, and wiped his neck, and said -- 

"O Christ Almighty, stop this bleeding fight !"

Above that hill the sky was stained like rust With smoke. In sullen daybreak flaring red The guns were thundering bombardment's blight. The soldier cried, 

"I was born full of lust, With hunger, thirst, and wishfulness to wed. Who cares today if I done wrong or right?" 

Christ asked all pitying,

"Can you put no trust In my known word that shrives each faithful head ? Am I not resurrection, life and light ?"

III

Machine-guns rattled from below the hill; High bullets flicked and whistled through the leaves; And smoke came drifting from exploding shells.

Christ said 

"Believe; and I can cleanse your ill. I have not died in vain between two thieves; Nor made a fruitless gift of miracles." 

The soldier answered, 

"Heal me if you will, Maybe there's comfort when a soul believes In mercy, and we need it in these hells. But be you for both sides ? I'm paid to kill And if I shoot a man his mother grieves. Does that come into what your teaching tells ?"

A bird lit on the Christ and twittered gay; Then a breeze passed and shook the ripening corn. A Red Cross waggon bumped along the track. Forsaken Jesus dreamed in the desolate day -- Uplifted Jesus, Prince of Peace forsworn -- An observation post for the attack. 

"Lord Jesus, ain't you got no more to say ?" 

Bowed hung that head below the crown of thorns. The soldier shifted, and picked up his pack, And slung his gun, and stumbled on his way.

"O God," he groaned,"why ever was I born ?"

... The battle boomed, and no reply came back.

Do not go gentle

Do not go gentle into that good night

Dylan Thomas, 1914 - 1953

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

We must ensure life continues in our galaxy.

Just a thought, as I am on the bus; We should not only be obsessed with sending humans to the nearest planets, we should be sending microbial life to all sectors of our galaxy. If it is unrealistic for us to ever travel beyond our solar system, and if the possibility exists that we are the first or only lifeforms in our galaxy, then we have a duty to ensure the survival of life,even if that life is not our species. At some point we should send out spacecrafts that will travel indefinitely  in every direction, until we sadly become extinct. Many of those crafts will by the law of averages crash into habitable planets, and if we continue to this for the next 1 million years until our eventual demise, one of those microbes will take hold and multiply, ensuring the continuation of life.

The economy. From me in 2010

Time for a revolution?

7 October 2010 at 05:00

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Chris Mercer 6.10.10

How to really fix the economy.

The more I think about this, the angrier I get. One hundred years ago, when the gap between the rich and the poor was also as wide as it is today there was revolution. But as George Orwell predicted, our society has become sanitised, our voices drowned out by the state. Big Brother is watching us, and we know it, and we accept it. We don't have the choice of rising up against the system anymore. The proletariat have been silenced.

We have a situation where the whole of society will have to pay dearly for the mistakes of just a few. This week in the UK, the government gave the go ahead for universities to begin charging students £10,000 for tuition. As it stands a degree will no more ensure a successful career than an O level would 30 years ago. This means students from poorer families will have to be saddled with student debt well into their 30s. Why are they paying when the generations before them benefitted so much from universal education, free and topped up by government help? 

Government services are being scaled back at an unprecedented level, but yet  taxes continue to rise. Hospitals, schools, police , emergency services, the list goes on, are all facing dramatic reductions in their ability to function.  Today the taxation system is everywhere, it is a part of everything we do. V.A.T increases the cost of necessities, car tax, road tax, inheritance tax, fuel duty, alcohol duty, property tax/stamp duty, Council rates/tax, and of course income tax.  These taxes are paid by everybody. In the UK V.A.T  was not supposed to be levied upon children's goods, but ask any parent about the cost of flights,books and clothes-today there is no difference between adults and children.  Taxation systems throughout the world are now efficient and the long arm of the taxman is very difficult to avoid. This means that governments' revenues are enormous. The majority of this windfall is paid for by normal people, 'upper middle class, middle class, working class, and even the great unwashed, those at the bottom of the tree.

 

Yet the return that normal people get back from that system is dwindling. The shortfall is the crux. The shortfall means that people have less to spend on leisure, consumer goods, luxuries. People only have enough to survive, to sustain themselves, to pay the myriad of  government and utility charges they are burdened with. As this group represent a very large majority of the population, the knock-on effect is drastic. No purchasing power for goods and services, no sales, no jobs, less tax revenue, more unemployed to share that revenue. An ever decreasing circle, and if we listen to the idiots charged with getting us out of this, a very bleak future indeed.

Some things do have to change. We are living longer and stronger, we must work longer too. We cannot continue to let people rot away in the welfare system, deserving or not. There are ways to deal with long term unemployed, but non more successful as making sure they have jobs to go to. How can we not have enough manpower to help the elderly, to sweep the streets, to clean the beaches, to paint the fences, to teach our children, and to build our homes? We have to find a way, to get everything done that needs to be done with the people that we have. That means of course paying a decent wage. We can't escape big government, we just have to pay for it.

 Back to the beginning though, and back to the reason for my anger. There are many reasons for the collapse of the world's economy, from the greed of banks that didn't care about the credit that they gave, that created  a false sense of security based completely in the 'never-never'. The arrogance and fraud of the markets and financial institutions take your breath away. Surely we cannot let them continue to produce nothing, and trade only in imaginary goods. To think that these people spend their days pressing buttons on keyboards, gambling with the wealth of nations, for no apparent reason is staggering to the extreme-how stupid are we to let this go on?

 Thatcher's idea that everyone should own their own home was seriously misguided, and still is.  In the frenzied race  that followed, the prices of those homes rose to way beyond the means of normal people. A run of the mill 2 bedroom house in the UK(outside London) now costs 20-30 year's salary!! I mean, really! That is unsustainable. It was great while it lasted for those able to buy and sell during those years, but now it's time to come back to earth. 

 The rich have become much, much richer and the poor much poorer, and that is a reality. Those least affected by all of this are the super rich and the rich. They are still paying the same amount of taxes in proportion to their worth as they were before all of this. In fact most of them have become richer. We find that more of the world's wealth is being controlled by a smaller group of people. In the case of the UK, we can also see that large corporations are becoming ever bigger monopolies and duopolies. These companies are able to dictate prices both to consumers and to those who supply them. There are areas of the UK that now remind me of those tumbleweed cowboy towns after the gold rush had moved on. In Hong Kong too, there is a definite danger that too few companies are beginning to strangle the very market that created them. Where is  the dynamism, creativity and competition?

 

It is time to redistribute the wealth again. We don't need communism to do this, again as Orwell pointed out, it doesn't work. We don't even need to give up on capitalism, it's not perfect but it's all we have.

The Americans are terrified of the word socialism, and to be fair it does probably give the wrong idea. Yet in the US right now we have the rise of 'The Tea Party' , which were able to galvanise themselves into existence just because of the fear that arose from Obama's Healthcare reform. The terms Socialism and Communism were bandied around so much, even in relation to Europe that rallies of frightened right wingers soon sprang up. The US has an uphill struggle in trying to even the score out, but after a few years of middle class hardship the tide may well turn.

So, we need capitalism with some very strict controls, with a touch of socialism(not a dirty word outside the US). The controls need to be put on banks, as well as just making a profit, they have a role to play in society. We can't trust them to regulate themselves, so we will have to do it. To begin with, they are more responsible for the mess that we are in  than any other group. Even if they didn't take any government money (Barclays, Hsbc), they still created the conditions for the banking collapse. I am not talking about a small levy on their revenues, but quite a hefty one. This levy must be agreed by the WTO, thereby ensuring the banks don't bugger off to avoid it.  Also a simple rule that if you do any business here you must pay , no matter where your headquarters are. That should bring a nice hefty sum into government coffers to get started with the real recovery.

 Next on the list are the large corporations, to begin with a large increase in business tax, with small and medium sized companies being given a reduction in tax. If the large companies don't like it-so what? Let them go. These commercial tax policies can implemented at least Europe wide, and once again if the companies want access to our markets, they will pay, one way or another.

Next is individual tax, the upper tax rate must be drastically increased, back to the levels of the 60s and 70s. The simple fact is, is that we have to rebuild. If we reduce the wealth of the wealthy, their purchasing power remains the same, they still buy the same things.That money is of much better use to the society that enabled them to gain so much wealth. As things improve this can be reduced again. In the case of the UK, a new law may need to be tabled that even if a citizen in the upper tax bracket was to leave the UK, they would still be required to pay that tax. There are not that many 'tax havens' left in the world, and certainly not many without reciprocal extradition treaties.

These measures alone are enough to balance the huge deficits of Western nations, but they are also sound measures for developing nations as well.

 

Of course balancing the budget is not enough, that only takes care of  governments' needs. It surprises me how the leaders of the world have for some reason forgotten basic economics or are completely ignorant of basic economic principles. It was hearing Warren Buffet today and his views on taxation that gave me hope. I have had the same views on macro economics since school , and have watched the exact opposite happening for the last twenty years. That's why it was so heartening to hear those views repeated by one of the richest men in the world today, and why I felt the urge to write about it.

So back to the matter at hand. Demand also needs to be encouraged. As we have learnt, that demand should not be driven by reckless credit. We need to change society's mindset. The majority of taxation should not be borne by the majority of people. Of course, we should still have a system whereas services are paid for, and only occasionally subsidised(except for health and education which should always be free). Our aim should still be that government, local and national should pay for itself , but that is not a reality yet-only an aim.  The majority need to be free from an overwhelming tax burden. Once they are free from that burden, they will have money to spend. These people are the middle classes, and the working classes. As they spend their money in the economy rather than give it to government, the economy grows. This in turn, generates jobs, and reduces the welfare cost to the government, and the cost of poverty to society.  Hey presto! We once again have a functioning capitalist economy, built on work, goods and services rather than credit, speculation and the tooth fairy.

 

Obama understands this but he is at the helm of a very rowdy ship, and his chances of success are very slim. In the UK, we have a coalition of imbeciles  who don't understand this, and can only think cuts, cuts, cuts, and oh yeah, more cuts! The money that they will get from these cuts is miniscule, and not nearly enough to address the deficit. They are also  blind to the effects that these cuts will have on both the economy and to society as a whole. If they continue on their present track, disaster is nigh. The labour party are no better. All of these politicians are more interested in tabloid headlines, opinion polls and jingoism than thinking outside the box, or of having the guts to really change things.

Hong Kong is run by the corporations and by giant property developers. It, ironically has huge reserves, but won't spend them, it would rather keep the money under the bed. This when its own citizens suffer, when schools and healthcare are woeful, when the elderly sweep the streets and live in cages.

 

Revolution in the end is what is needed,  unfortunately a peaceful one, in my opinion.

War! What is it good for......?

We go to war against a group that 2 months ago were on the verge of completing absolute genocide against a Christian minority group, and would have succeeded if not for the intervention of the U.S. Iraq, including Baghdad would now be under the control of the Caliphate if not for that intervention. A group that have declared war on you, me, your children, and have promised to bring fire on Earth. The Iraqi government has requested help, any action has a legal basis because the sovereign government have invited them. Inaction is criminal, the continued beheadings, not only of westerners, but anyone not of the right 'flavour' of Islam. Whole towns and cities are under what can only be described as a living hell. Left alone, the borders of this 'state' will reach to the Med, left alone the wealth of these evil men will enable them to kill in our cities. There have been mistakes made in the past, killing that chemical weapon using tyrant Sadam was not one of them, nor was the destruction of Gaddafi, once a tyrant begins indiscriminately killing his own citizens on the streets it's time to move in, no matter what the consequences are, after world war 2 the world powers promised to never let that happen again, it is about time we consistently stood up to that promise, as a unified world community. People in the UK question foreign aid, the alternative is what we have in Africa, a plague ridden continent with barely a functioning government, a breeding ground for not only disease but also despots and religious radicals. We stand by and do nothing, we will pay the price later! 

Justice for who?

Justice for who?

So the ex-civil servant Wu Wai Chun was spared a custodial sentence for inflicting 1st and 2nd degree burns to 2% of her Bangladeshi helper's  skin. This was after she pleaded not guilty, so no acceptance of doing wrong and therefore no remorse, a lesser sentence can sometimes be justified with an acceptance of guilt and real remorse, this is not the case here. 

How ridiculous that her current helper asked for leniency, was she given a choice? Was she coerced? How can this evil woman even be allowed to employ another helper?

This case sends a clear message to the Bangladeshi  government and other regional governments " Send your helpers here to be abused without any hope of justice or protection from The Hong Kong government. Shame on Hong Kong justice.

Bonnie Scotland

You take the high road....

Go if you have to, like a best friend moving on, it's up to you. We can't and won't stop you, but it would be wrong of a friend to not to make it clear we think it's wrong. 

We can understand why you want to go, who wouldn't, our employer is shit, Westminster that is. No one even voted those fuckers in, anyone north of the Watford Gap would secede from those feckers if they could! But that is what a democracy is, no use taking your ball home, stay and change the system, the rest of us need your support. The last prime minister was Scottish, even that cunt Cameron is of scottish descent, as have so so many been in power.

Together we built the most powerful empire the world has ever seen, together we fought Napoleon, the Boer war, the 2 world wars, we colonised  and modernised India, and of course Hong Kong and together we still punch far far above our weight in today's very dangerous world. The rest of us will be weaker without you, but we will adjust. You will become an Estonia or a Belgium, albeit a noisy Estonia or Belgium. 

Culturally we are even closer, find a group of  friends in London, Paris, Hong Kong, New York, and you have the proverbial joke, an Englishman, Welshman, Scottishman and an Irishman walk into a bar.... Opting out is not the end of the world, the Irishman is still with us in that bar, but that's a different story.

Once it's done it's done, and I don't believe some of the bullshit that's been said, the Irish have always worked freely and even continued to vote in the UK....100 years after independence!

But, I feel most Scottish people are as proud of the history and heritage of the United Kingdom as the rest of us. As it stands, the Union is a unique beacon in the world of how a union can indeed work, peacefully, and even after hundreds of years the seperate states can keep their unique identity within that union. 

But, and this is a fact, apart we are all weaker, in every way. In today's world that is not a good thing. 

Bitter heart

Bitterness and anger.
At some point we all find ourselves bitter and anger, but we fight through it, move on. For others it covers them and changes them absolutely, it defines them. Who they are is first thought of in those terms. A bitter, angry person is at the forefront, a normal rational person is hidden within.
Inside, the awareness is there, increased outbursts of rage, of jealousy, of spitefulness, and at first apologies to those at the receiving end. Bitterness works like a drug, it becomes unstoppable, it slowly works its way to the heart where it takes root and destroys from within. Like an addict, denial begins, the apologies stop, the blame is put elsewhere, a strong sense of self justification prevails... 'You would act like this if you were me'
Bitterness is the cause, anger is the effect. Anger is the outlet we use when we have lost control, in earlier life we are often angry, we lose control, as we age we are supposed to learn to control that anger, to mellow. By the time we reach our forties that anger should be well under control, even a thing long since gone. If not, there is a cause, a problem...addiction, illness, bitterness.
When that bitterness has reached the heart and overtaken who we are, the transformation is complete, lies are told to deflect blame, those lies are so strong they take hold on the whole perception of reality, truth and fiction, paranoia rules.
Those still around, are used and abused. This is the final crossroads, the point where escape is still possible, a realisation, an epithany, a look in the mirror, or the realisation that the only people still close to you either have no choice or are as bitter and twisted as yourself. Good friends left long before, either seeing what you have become or indeed been the victim of your wrath.
For some help or professional help, counselling, support groups, etc is sought, where invariably the question arises where did the bitterness that feeds the anger come from? Was it rejection as a child, was it a broken marriage?
The solution remains the same, move on, learn from the lessons life throws.....everybody has to, or it would be a bitter world. Everybody's childhood is not perfect, marriages break down everyday. Take the chip off your shoulder and move on...you have no other choice, except of course the other route at the crossroads,
and that is ultimately loneliness and destruction. I have seen too many take that route.

Marching into the abyss.

The march into the abyss continues; Soviet, sorry Russian troops massed on a sovereign nation's border, officially sanctioned racist insults against a serving American president, the real spectre of empty supermarkets in Moscow...you can't eat gas and oil, an escalating sanctions war,a growing Russian friendship with Iran regardless that the same country helped to fuel the Muslim insurgency in Russia's south, and a growing state apparatus crushing any protests or debate.
A cold war in all but name!

Stop the murder

The world has gone mad or was always mad, seems to me  that everything that was fought for during the world wars has been lost. Now, it is ok to kill children, and if you object you are accused of being racist. I have had to block some of my Russian friends as they will not believe their leader is a fascist dictator, that was 6 months ago, now the whole world is appeasing him.  I personally grieved for Jews in a ex-concentration camp! I cried when I was 9 years old in Germany, I paid my respects at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem 12 years later. I worked for and alongside Israelis and Palestinians in a Moshav, I loved all the people. The future back in 1992 seemed optimistic. That was before the walls, the siege. 

Now my heart bleeds, not for the Israelis drinking their Cappuccinos on their smart phones in Tel Aviv in their outdoor cafés, but for the countless children and families who only know death today, whose life has been torn by smart bombs, children like my children and your children. There can never be a justification, none, for killing children. The USA continues to be a part of this crime against humanity, the UK appeases it as does the rest of Europe, why do we tiptoe around this, it is because of our guilt in our roles during the holocaust. 

We certainly do all carry guilt for that dark dark part of history, but we made promises because of it, we made pledges that we would never let it happen again, but apparently that doesn't apply to those that suffered the holocaust. 

It is time the world, stood up and said No, this is not our world, let no one describe Israel as a Western developed nation again, the events that are occurring are more reminiscent of Rwanda than Tiannemen. 

I long for logic, but sadly today that does not appear to exist.

Stop Killing Children

#Gaza #Israel

Snug as a bug in a rug.

Jacob

Putin's propaganda and murdering web of lies.

Mr Putin's doublespeak recalls the days of the Soviet Union when Pravda claimed to tell the truth. This mendocracy will end in the same way as that one did: the lies will eventually unravel, especially as it becomes obvious how much money Mr Putin and his friends have stolen from the Russian people, and he will fall. The sad novelty is that the West takes a different attitude this time round. In the old days it was usually prepared to stand up to the Soviet Union, and call out its falsehoods. With Mr Putin it looks the other way.http://econ.st/1jZe9L4

Ten farewells to the Red Army 龔玥 - 十送紅軍

龔玥 - 十送紅軍
Beautiful song! Ten farewells to the red army.
The song remembers The Long March when the communists escaped the siege of the evil corrupt government of Chiang Kai Shek, the Kuoimintang. The people came together to overthrow the evil overlord. This was 1935, long before the atrocities committed by The Communist party 20 years later. It was still a noble cause, an idealistic cause. The comrades marched to a certain death, but for a reason, to free their people. That is where the emotion of the song comes. A beautiful song.

Hank's farewell.

Hank Moody's final letter.

Dear Karen,

I've been thinking about Us, the story of us. How the fuck do I sum it up? Has it been perfect? Hardly. Any story with me at the center of it will never be anything less than a big smiling mess. But here's what I know for sure—our time in the sun has been a thing of absolute fucking beauty. The nightmares, the hangovers, the fucking and the punching. The gorgeous shimmering insanity of the city of ours. Where for years I woke up, fucked up, said I was sorry, passed out and did it all over again. As a writer, I'm a sucker for happy endings. The guy gets the girl, she saves him from himself, fade to fucking black. As a guy who loves a girl, I realize there's no such thing. There's no sunset. There's just now, and there's just the two of us, which can be scary fucking ugly sometimes. But if you close your eyes and listen for the whisper of your heart—if you simply keep trying and never ever give up, no matter how many times you get it wrong, until the beginning and the end blur into something called until we meet again -- and that's it. I didn't know how to finish it, because it's not over. It'll never be over, as longs as there's you, and there's me, and there's hope, and grace.

Goodbye Motherfuckeeerrr!

Fuck The Sun and News Corp

Today's front page of The Sun celebrates the verdict of the hacking trial..(including the hacking of the phone of a murdered girl'sfamily)...."A victory for all Red Tops" and waxes lyrical about Rebecca Brooks being found innocent without a single mention of News Of The World editor Andy Coulson's guilt. They must think their readers are some stupid motherfuckers....oh wait! They are!

Monopoly

So PCCW have bought CSL, and now plan to hike up prices!
We live in an age of rampant corruption and monopolies. We already pay highly inflated prices for shit services, especially in telecommunications and in supermarkets, 7-11, Wellcome and Park N Shop still holding us to ransom with ever increasing and strangely similar prices.

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=30&art_id=146761&sid=42507789&con_type=1

Ban smoking?

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/stub-it-out-doctors-union-backs-lifelong-cigarettes-ban-for-all-children-born-after-2000-9559374.html

First I must say, I don't disagree with outlawing cigarettes for all those born after the year 2000, nobody wants their children to start smoking, including me.
What gets me is the hypocrisy.  How many people does alcohol kill every year, let's ban that too. How many deaths are caused worldwide by pollution from petrol driven private cars and through accidents? I don't drive and never will, and it pisses me off that I have to breath in the pollution from private cars, and risk my life on the roads as a pedestrian or bus passenger....take a bus! Will sugar, chocolate, and fast food be regulated for those born after 2000? Obesity being another major drain on health resources.
There is also the matter of personal freedom, as long as a smoker for example is not subjecting others to second hand smoke, unlike car owners, then surely it is their own choice. Yes, but it takes valuable resources away from the health service.....so does heart disease and diabetes and a myriad of other illnesses caused by alcohol and eating too much shit, or obesity as it is now called. So do car accidents and so does asthma brought on by the dire pollution in our cities.