FLASH GORDON

Can The Real Flash Gordon Please Stand Up!  Please Stand Up!

I deliberately delayed writing this article by one week. I wanted to be as sure as I can be factually & not just instincts. With the whole UK election circus, I kept reading & listening & watching to understand the jigsaw puzzle with more clarity. How did the great British Public end up with David Cameron & Nick Clegg? Time & again, Gordon Brown's paddy paws appear to be thick in the pie!

So for me he is no longer frumpy looking Gordon Brown, but more like Flash Gordon. Capable of stuff that the rest of us do not see readily. Here is a list of stuff for you to ponder on:

• Why & how come Labour did not seem to have a marketing budget for this critical election? The likely answer is that Flash Gordon probably recommended against it or better still did not authorise it, as leader of the Labour party. It was obvious that Labour will have a hard battle & at best would only achieve a coalition & not a majority. Save money for later. Whilst the Conservatives were spending Lord Ashcroft's hard earned cash (??) on posters s & every means of marketing media possible.
• The Labour campaign for safe seats was almost non existent. But the marginal seats with the Conservatives took the main priority. This was reflected accurately when safe Labour seats in Northern England had vote swings of 8-12% to Conservative or Liberal Democrats. But not in the midlands & London, when things were a little more contested. The overall National Swing ended up at about 5% toward the Conservatives.
• So when Flash Gordon was pronounced as the loser prior to the election he came out as the actual winner. Because he effectively fought a tactical campaign to ensure, as much as anyone could, that the Conservatives do not get a big overall majority. The winner, however, David Cameron, has come out as the loser. He now has to sit down with Nick Clegg & listen to what he has to say about immigration, taxation, security & such. Let's face it, Tottenham Hotspurs Football Club will never have a congenial & civil cup of tea with Arsenal Football club. They do not remotely see the world with the same eye. The other real real real loser is Nick Clegg. To end up with less than you had after so much chat is pathetic. You can think of Nick Clegg as the Estate Agent who is on commission. If Labour had more seats then they be over that side. But Labour didn't so they went to the other side. A bunch of swinging monkeys. All good politically principled positions, I am sure we all agree! NOT!!
• The day after the election Flash Gordon makes a statement that "in the interest of the country" he is "staying in government until Liberal Democrats have had the opportunity of having discussions with both Labour & Conservatives to form a stable & strong government". Fair enough we all thought.
• The main premise here was that the whole concept of Labour & Liberal Democrat option was a total non starter. It would still have been short of a majority. Certainly would have been immoral, undemocratic & wrong, if Labour was still in charge with Liberal Democrats & a bunch of independent parties up & down the land.
• So, lovely Flash Gordon encourages the two kids to go & play with each other some more, whilst he is pretending to have the week end off in his constituency in deep Scotland. Fishing with the family presumably. He wanted them to go past that certain point of no return & yet give as many mixed signals as anyone could in such a short space of time.
• Then as everyone is talking, discussing & arguing, 4 days after the election results, he makes a statement that he will be resigning as leader of Labour party in September & implying that he may leave the political scene all together.
• This made it even more difficult for the Liberal Democrats to back track & more tempting for the Conservatives to bargain for more. He flogged Nick Clegg to David Cameron. Officially!! Phew! Could not write it for a movie script.
• But Flash Gordon was not quite done yet. As the other side are in White Hall, still arguing & discussing, he comes out of the blue, making yet another statement "I have informed her majesty that I will be handing in my resignation as Prime Minister". Not a word about a stable strong government of 4 days earlier.
• Having flogged Nick to David he has now flogged the job itself to David. Poor David. Well, David wanted to be Prime Minister. Now he had the opportunity to do just that. All David Cameron was left with is to accept the handover & the call from Her Majesty with pleasure. All this was going on in middle of meeting between all the heavy weights of Conservatives & Liberal Democrats. Unreal!
• So why would flash Gordon not fight as hard as he could have for the outright win. Because the result would have been the same or similar. Every form of media was against him. Not just the tabloids, but the "respectable papers" too. Television & radio as well as every website with a few more hits than mine!! The concentration was not on content & policy. But on his lack of smiles & a serious face. We were convinced of this terrible urge and "need for change" for the sake of "change". Like the urge you get for new shoes. The bottom line is that we seem to prefer an X-Factor or Britain's Got Talent type of face than Gordon's. Some one who would look good on the cover of Heat or OK magazine.
• The other main reason, probably the more important one, is that Flash Gordon knows a thing or two about UK & world economy. This is a matter of record & confirmed by the World Bank & International Monetary Fund. I believe that some nasty economic stuff is still due or heading our way & who wants to be in charge of disaster. It is far better for Labour to be in opposition & let the Conservatives take the heat.
• We have to remember a very important thing here. The economic melt down was not the fault of Flash Gordon by any stretch. This is a global situation caused partly by bankers & more broadly the way we do things in the Western capitalist economies. We all remember that whilst the basic deregulatory measures for banks were coming in to effect there was hardly any vote of opposition from the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats. The other stigma attached whilst Flash Gordon was in the hot seat, as the chancellor, was the illegal Iraq war. This was solely due to the Americans suckering us into going in with them a few weeks after Tony Blair announced that we are shoulder to shoulder with the Americans. They were desperately trying to get the Germans & French to vote at the UN for a resolution. But the US military had already advised the invasion time window to be in April. Not enough time for resolutions. Not too dissimilar to the way Flash Gordon suckered the Conservatives with Nick Clegg! Bush bagged Tony!!
• The beauty of all this is that every single Conservative & Liberal Democrat knows how Flash Gordon stitched them up. They know they will not last for long. They both know that on any given day, a bunch of their people would either resign or call for their resignation. So we are in for some big internal cat fights yet.
• The other important thing is that the new government will not even get the opportunity of doing much. Parliament is going for summer break. So no real action taking place until after the part conferences. More rhetoric & not much policy implementation until god knows when.
• It is at this precise point that the electorate would simply look, think & say, well we gave you a chance to work this & you failed miserably again. The only choice at that point is Labour. The last man laughing will be Flash Gordon, as a back bencher if he still continues. I can not for a moment imagine that anyone will consider Conservative or Liberal Democrats in the next election, if this coalition is not at least 80% successful. I think there are more chances of winning the lottery than these guys effectively working together. But we can all remain wishful for a while.

Personally, the correct thing would have been for David Cameron to retain & stick to his Conservative values, by not pretending & to form a minority government, which he was entitled to from the moment the results were announced. Do his level best to keep all sides happy, independent of back room deals & keep things above board. Then make same, similar or possibly less compromises that he has already made, with out being in bed with Nick Clegg. That would have foiled the bulk of Flash Gordon's calculations considerably.

So from Flash Gordon's perspective instead of having the normal one Muppet as your counter part when defeated and in opposition. He managed to get two Muppets for the price of one! This was true brinksmanship on an unprecedented scale. Even Tony Blair did not manage this.

As for us mere mortals, well we have to brace ourselves & hope that not much can be implemented. One thing the two Muppets have managed well in their two weeks in office has been more rhetoric & non sense about nothing. Still no real policy announced or implemented or planned. Instead of getting on with the job, they sound like they are still campaigning. When in desperation keep on screaming. Who knows, Flash Gordon may send in his deputies to come and save your back side.

K. Savage
May 2010

SEEING STRAIGHT

Possible next prime  minister of the UK.	Your local Estate Agent  Chappie.

Sometimes it is not so easy to see straight. Things are not what they appear to be. Waters are some how quite murky & the air ever so smokey.

The British general election in May is a classic case of "not so obvious", a little woah & a little bit waah!! But is it really as complicated as we are led to believe? I don’t think you need to dig very deep to see things as they should be, straight.

Of course the job of Prime Minster, even if it is for one term, is definitely a big income earner for the rest of their lives. So, from the money side it is very easy to see why they all want the job so bad. It doesn’t pay much whilst on the job, but 20 times more when you quit the job. You can cross check this with Margaret Thatcher & Tony Blair. Become the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom & you are connected for the rest of your life to the rest of the world.

My big issue right now is David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party & the favourite to win this election up to last week & thankfully diminishing as we get closer to polling day. So I think it is only right to scrutinise a hand full of the "policies".

• David Cameron is an Eton College lad who later went to Oxford. His whole back ground reeks of Tory pomposity. His dad a stock Broker & an Estate Agent with everyone else in the family on the same or similar social levels. He is who he is, a toff, just like the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, BoJo. Spoilt silver spooned brats. He is unlikely to understand what an average person has to do to earn their living. He has, from his childhood, been in a privileged class.
• One of his campaigners is Mr Jamshed Khan, who is due for a court appearance for vote rigging. Brush that under the carpet.
• David Cameron’s main fund raiser, Lord Ashcroft, has a non domicile tax status, whilst making huge contributions to his party. It is not so easy to distance yourself from heavy donations. But that is also getting brushed under the carpet.
• David Cameron’s party had the biggest collection of cheats & thieves over the expenses scandal. With the most members of Parliament going before courts for fraud. Brush this under the rug too.
• David Cameron blatantly steals other notable politician’s catch phrases with out understanding the content. Time for Change: Obama or ": don’t ask what your country can do for you...": J F Kennedy. Basically to make him self sound bigger & more important that he actually is.
• David Cameron has carefully studied Tony Blair since 1997. Check the ice cream eating publicity footage, or the open collar shirt with no jacket whilst on the road. We are talking words, postures, dress, accent & more. Admittedly he has a better looking Missus. But to me he still looks like a very cagey Estate Agent. Tells you anything you want to hear to get the deal.
• David Cameron names drops big business as supporters of his policies. Because big business like Marks & Spencer’s, Sainsbury’s or Next, don’t want to pay tax. He is their guy, at the moment. Since when has big corporate business given a monkeys about right or wrong? They have obligations to their board of directors & their shareholders. Not me & you.
• David Cameron hired the same guys that helped President Obama during his campaign for US Presidential elections. If you are so right, then why the need for the Crème De La Menthe of Public Relations gurus? Spin away, my Selecta!
• David Cameron goes out of his way to mislead, twist & spin and a classic case is a poster of Gordon Brown, brandishing a rare smile, with the caption : ": I released 80000 criminals, Vote for me to do it again":. Not quite, the government is not responsible for releases, bail & probations. We have the judiciary & the parole board for that. It is incredibly misleading to suggest early release of prisoners to one person. But the poster is eye catching.
• David Cameron is telling us that we can form & run our own schools. Reason, because he is preparing to shut a load of them down to pay for the tax cuts benefiting the very rich. Same for hospitals. David Cameron does not seem to understand that certain things can not be done by private citizens. All sorts of conflicts will kick in. Stupid suggestion altogether.
• David Cameron also suggested that we can elect our Police Chiefs. No. Let us not elect our Police Chiefs, because we may then have to elect our judges, head teachers & Doctors. I mean let’s face it; we can not even get ourselves back from France because of a volcano in Iceland. Another piece of ill thought through non sense pitched as policy.
• David Cameron is passionately anti European because of his back ground. When you get your education at Eton, you are taught to think Great Britannia of the past & not the United Kingdom of now. Without Europe we are not just isolated but definitely bust. Bankrupt and out of Business. We are trading with these guys in the billions each & every day.
• David Cameron hates the Lisbon Treaty & yet will not hold a referendum on it if elected, which is what he said not long ago. It is worth noting that it is because of the Lisbon Treaty that we got to even know about the expenses scandal.
• Give him the National Health Service & he will finish the job that Margaret Thatcher did not have time to finish off. Along with the Royal Mail, of course. Sell it cheap to old Eton mates in the City. Just like the utilities, gas, electricity and telecommunications.
• David Cameron wants to have a cap on immigration but can not say what the cap should be. It just sounds good to say cap it. I guess. So when a highly qualified surgeon or a famous footballer is trying to come in, I suppose they can not, if we have hit the cap!! Non sense again.
• David Cameron goes on & on about the budget deficit. Yet conveniently forgets about how it came about. Global Banking Collapse, starting in America. His mates with the big pay cheques for effectively betting on other bets. That is the main reason why are in this stew. The government had to bail out a bunch of greedy bankers. One question we all have to ask is what David Cameron would have done. I would suggest that he would have allowed them to collapse, blame their downfall on market forces & then allow the very same people to buy the bankrupt banks for nothing. Whilst people would have lost their savings, pensions, salaries & god knows what else. That is what happens when a private company, such as a bank goes bust, it takes everything down with it.
• David Cameron is reluctant to reform the hereditary titles for The House of Lords; again, it is an old boy Eton institution that gets to veto government legislation by a host of unelected individuals.
• David Cameron also has issues with inheritance taxes. Given his back ground I can certainly understand why. Tax the poor and middle classes & leave the rich to get richer. Which incidentally is the tiny tiny minority.

The bottom line is that David Cameron is an exceptionally well presented, heavily spinned, highly groomed well trained salesman. David Cameron has almost no policy to offer, other than idle chat & spin. On the policies that may have potential he lacks credibility as well as content. But he looks better than the current bloke.

Speaking of the other bloke, Gordon Brown, this is the guy that single handedly saved the British economy from going in to depression, by supporting the banks, an unpalatable option as it still is. The very same bloke that removed the government from setting the Base rate for the Bank of England, 12 years ago. Something nobody, particularly the media, mentions much at the moment, paying lowest mortgage rates ever for the last 2 years. Gordon Brown protected & supported the National Health Service as well as reducing the waiting time. But the main problem with Gordon Brown is his face. He looks serious, moody & does not smile too much. I suppose you become that way when you are in the serious business of government. The other problem is his inability to connect to the world of media & spin. The one thing that sticks with the government is the War in Iraq which we had no mandate on. Not in Afghanistan, but Iraq. Even in this case with Tony Blair as the prime minister and Gordon Brown as Chancellor, they were literally hog tied by the Americans. We had to go and stand shoulder to shoulder with our American Allies. All I know are the people I know around me. Big & small businesses. From Public Companies & to the market trader chap. They all seem to have done OK over the past 12 years. I also remember the Thatcher period. This was when all lost their houses & businesses.

As for Mr Nick Clegg, another Public School boy, who in Freudian terminology suffers from narcissism of small differences when it comes to David Cameron. They are both too close, therefore, they will not get along, even though they do. Like the English & the Scottish. Nick Clegg & David Cameron have near identical backgrounds. With one difference, Nick really does not know what he is talking about. But they both seem to have no problems with changing their minds on a weekly basis. The only thing his party and policies are really clear about is to get proportional representation so they get more seats in future. More seats equal more power & more power equals more money. They also want the country to be with out any defences, by getting rid of nuclear arms altogether. Novel idea, I suppose. Nick Clegg goes on about the two parties being in charge for the past 65 years, a bit too much. Duh? It is because the Liberal Party constantly comes up with crazy, day dreaming policies that do not convince anyone. So we end up with the other two. Nothing complex about that one.

So if change is for the sake of a new face then you got to give it to Cameron. But if it is real and tangible change then we got to go with Moody Brown. Ideally I would have preferred better choices. But between the three of them I think the only sensible one that can be half trusted is the Moody one himself. Reminds me so much of this Head Master I had at School.

K. Savage
April 2010

PPI

Think Tank That is You & I.  - Banksy.

Or to us regular folk Public Perception Index. This is an index where institutions, commercial & political, use to gauge the "feel" before doing stuff.

So if the index is high, you go for it. If it is low, it will be a no-go. The beauty of it is that it works flawlessly. Once the premise has been identified. The sale pitch begins & something that may not have been reality or even of significance starts becoming fact. PPI starts rising. Yeee-Peee!! It relies on the simple fact that people, in general, only read the headline; hardly ever get past the first paragraph. We are an instinctively territorial & lazy species. I mean when was the last time anyone read a handbook for a single appliance to see how the damn thing works.

This whole thing started way back in the very early days of News & Media last century. They had people going around photographing & recording their behaviour at bus stops, supermarkets etc. Of course all done manually. No Databases as we know today. Paper mountains were created. Miles of footage recorded and for who, one may ask? For the establishment, me & you. This establishment is not the government, the Royalty, the media, the military or the civil service. It is the sum total of all. The fully converted, true believers. It is pretty much all of us because we love this. Don't we? Our shit rocks, right?

The best thing about PPI is the get-out clause when it goes wrong and messed up decisions are made. Expect these type of answers:

a) We made the correct decision at the time based on what we had at the time.
b) With the benefit of hindsight we would, of course, have done things differently & so on.
c) The past mistakes were the result of a small misguided minority and are not the views of this Public Company/Government

Basically, PPI is there to mislead and can have devastating repercussions on us as a species. The most grotesque PPI in my opinion was prior to the start of the Second World War. Jews & all non-whites were somehow perceived to be the cause of all the problems facing Central Europe and its bankrupt economies. The argument was so convincing that a lunatic like Hitler managed to get elected over this; the German Nation followed him blindly and we all know the end result. What was not admitted or demonstrated is the real reason why Central European economies were bankrupt. That would have led to a catastrophic re-examination of the whole. No one was up for that. So we got to kill one another, murder millions of people in the name of an incredible falsehood. Effectively PPI is a subtle manipulation of the public mind. Convincing the populous about something they would not necessarily go along with.

There are a whole bunch of these going on right now. Let’s look at Islam as another example. This is an Abrahamic religion. Which fully acknowledges & respects other Abrahamic faiths such as Judaism & Christianity. But a high PPI dictates that the public needs an enemy. It must live in fear. This way our guys get to spend billions on arms and a disgusting stockpile of weapons. The current perception being that Muslims across the world have developed a problem and want to constantly blow themselves up to kill others. Sure enough an obscene & insane act. But again it fails to try and examine why someone would want to do that. Is it possible that this tiny minority uses the opportunity to justify their murderous acts because there are an awful lot of Western armies in an awful lot of Muslim Nations, which is then fed through as proof that the West wants to kill Muslims and destroy their religion; therefore, we must fight back? This is what I call a double PPI. Two sides being misled simultaneously. Both enjoying very high PPI but opposing ones. The net result, in the case of Middle East would be, dead Muslim & Jewish kids. Personally, I can not tell the difference when I look at either one. Kids are kids.

The commercial aspect of PPI is best demonstrated in the property market. You create an illusion. A perceived demand. Trickery at its best. Bullshit & lies in reality.

So a house that was worth £200,000.00 last year is now valued at £320,000.00 this year by the same Agent. Gordon Brown called it "the ingenuity of the market". I prefer calling it legalised theft. We all end up worshipping the market forces and not once a single one of us tries to question or challenge the market. We will cough up. Pay the price as dictated by the Agent in the cheap suit, albeit with a nice accent. Because we know, that next year our £320,000.00 is going to be £420,000.00. No questions asked.

Then things start crumbling and bits begin to fall off. The insane mortgages become "Structured Investment Vehicles" and the more obvious dodgy deals become "Collateral Debt Obligation Funds". "Quantitative Easing" becomes the new trendy catch phrase. You bundle them all together and lend some more. Remember, the house was only £200,000.00 two years previous. But we must continue. Not question. But continue.

In this scenario I do not necessarily blame the establishment. I think we are all largely to blame. The establishment is telling us what we want to hear. They are feeding us so we feed them. A semi-parasitic-come-symbiotic relationship. We need to have fear. We must have enemies. It was the Jewish people 60 years ago, the fear then became the big bad Russian Red Commie bastards up to 20 years ago. The current fear is Palestinians & Muslims and more specifically an idiot who they tell us is living in a mountain, Osama what ever his name is. With fear in the background you are slowly becoming a believer. The justification for what ever is taking place grows. Standards and morality reduced. Unjustified Anti-terror laws and infringements of personal liberty are given away to compensate for the gain of perceived security & not-real security. Human right abuses become the flavour of the day by the same societies who owe their success to individual human liberties. You & I then become a kidnapping target when travelling abroad. We are forced to pay more & more for whatever it is that we have, such as a house or a pint of beer. Marks & Spencer’s starts giving it all extra-large and Eco-Friendly by not giving you a bag to put your damn shopping in, whilst their plastic packaging from one of their packs of Cumberland sausages can give you over 50 high density bags. Meanwhile Lady GaGa is number one pretending to be doing music!

Essentially, Public Perception is the most deadly force. It changes governments, spells success or disaster for commercial entities retention or loss of your house, and of course, it can ultimately be responsible for death of thousands. All we have to do is to read & understand the full picture before our fears of the unknown are identified & exploited for other agendas.

K. Savage
March 2010

TO BUST OR NOT TO BUST?

Adam Smith 1723-1790  A very clever Scotsman &  Daddio of modern capitalism.

 As I was going through the archives I came across a few articles I did way back & thought what if I did a little research to see how we compare to what I was complaining about, 2,3 or 4 years ago. Again and again. So I do hope you stay with me for this short article. The idea being to simply consider & entertain an alternative & fresh outlook.

 Basically, it is not exactly a bed of roses for any one of us. It has actually got from worrying to bad to terrible to near impossible. Cataclysmic disaster would be a good way of visualising our economic situation. I will deliberately avoid bringing the United States into this to alleviate possible depression and or digression. I will also not mention the details of US guarantees for Israeli loans. Which, in itself is another first in human economic history. One sovereign nation is covering the economic activity of another, even though they are neck deep in it themselves. The blind leading the deaf, dumb & blind. So I will keep this particular debate firmly in good old Europa!

 The gross domestic product (GDP) or gross domestic income (GDI) is a basic measure of a country's overall economic performance. It is the market value of all final goods and services made within the borders of a country in a year. It is often positively correlated with the standard of living. GDP is like one of the nation's main thermometers, economically speaking. When it is high we are doing good & when it drops you start noticing certain things, like repossessions, unemployment & inflation.

 The target figure, as set by European law, Maastricht Treaty of 1992 & 1993, stipulated that any EU member states budget deficit can not be higher than 3% of its GDP. Huh! Check this the current average for EU member states are running a 6.4% deficit on their average GDP. This is set to increase to 6.9% next year & more the following year still. The saddest part is that the average member state has a debt of 78.2% of GDP rising to 84.0% in 2010 & 88.2% in 2011. In simple terms, if you were to go to anyone & even attempt this scenario as an economic proposition they will laugh or possibly slap you for being stupid. As it is clearly an unviable proposition. You can not be 80% in debt, and rising, and expect to continue. Basic rules of capitalism, market forces, supply & demand, will automatically apply & dictate that you must stop operating in such a fashion. No one will lend you. You have a weak product. You are busted!!

 Our beloved governments, however, do not seem to play according to the rules either. First they are all running at more than double the deficit rate they all agreed over 15 years ago. Secondly, they are borrowing more to service the debt against the nation's income & assets. The same assets are constantly being reviewed for privatisation. So 80% of the nation's work & output is allocated to pay its debts for that year alone. They sell us this messed up scenario on a daily dose of misinformation, spin & public relation on a collective basis. In any such situation any small business owner will tell you that it is time for a restructure, a revision, and a re-think. Or just throw in the towel. Call it quits. Abandon ship. Say good bye.

 It is at this point that my thoughts kick in. Why not revise our current modern capitalist model. I do realize that one is not permitted to utter the word socialism. A little bit like when you can not say Black in front of an African American/Jamaican, as you will be a racist, or the word Jew in the presence of a Jewish person, as you will be anti-Semitic. In this instance you will immediately be branded a red-communist-bastard. The ex Soviet Union will be there to remind us all of the total failures of any such thinking or deviations. The fear the unknown scheme goes in to full swing. We must fear the Iraqis, Iranians, Afghans, Chinese, Russians & any one else that we can muster to ensure that issues remain unresolved & go undebated. This is it. All we got is our free democratic system & we must at all costs protect it. Perhaps that is all we got to sell right now. The ideal of a free democratic society is our ultimate product. So I try & protect it. Can I get a prosecution out of hundreds of MP's cheating their expenses? Naah! Can me & you have a real say about when we send our boys to kill & get killed on our behalf? Naah. Can the government not bail out greedy bankers & let them go bust as per clear definitions of our free democratic system? Naaah. In the UK £800,000,000,000 (800 billion) of borrowed money is tied to the banking system's failures. Quantitative easing is the new sexy word. But instead they rewarded themselves in the millions for their miserable failure knowing that they will be bailed out. Market forces are not applying here. We got institutions that have higher turnovers than some small countries. But in the name of the market, which I suppose is greater than all; we allow them to roam unregulated. They mess up. We pick up the bill. So what happened to the market? The straight answer is that the market is only applicable to me & you. Not the banks or government. They can operate as entirely dysfunctional & insolvent entities whilst giving the rest of us a lecture on the rules of the system. Let's look at a number of corporate beasts here. Telecommunication, but a hand full of suppliers. Commercial property in central London, less than half a dozen landlords control who is present or not present in the West End. Financial systems has about a dozen banks controlling the finances of the whole populous. Aviation & airlines the same thing.. Petro-chemicals & refineries, same thing again. The list & examples are endless & they all have one thing in common. They are terrified of competition. Me & you are the ones that have to compete. We compete for our services, products & labour. But these chaps would go to extreme lengths to avoid competition because they know there are no regulations once they control the bulk of the market. I am not for a moment suggesting that big companies are bad. Not at all. I am simply suggesting that if a commercial entity gets beyond a certain threshold then surely there must exist safety valves in case they go wrong without putting the failure back on the citizens lap. Since we never benefited from their fortunes in the previous years. We must decide which it is that we want. Capitalism & free markets or some from of socialism. Not a mish mash of the two as they are firmly in opposite corners. What if the government had not intervened? Well, you would have lost life savings, mortgages cancelled, and salaries due to be paid frozen & general financial mayhem, if you were a RBS, Lloyds or Northern Rock customer. What would be the public reaction if they lost all their lives savings. Simple: thousands would be on the streets probably with sticks in their hands to beat them out of office for not regulating these giant institutions & asking for their money. We could not have that now, or could we? Ever so Un-British!!

 I am suggesting that time is nearly up & revision of our current economic model is urgently needed. But to do so, we must be open minded & objective. Facing the truth is normally the most painful & yet the most fruitful. So check this. As of less than a day ago, China, (you know the little communist guys we slag off for making bad quality & inferior things who also eat funny things & pollute this whole planet), reported a fourth quarter growth in its GDP of 10%. Not deficit. But real growth. This is in tune with the near exponential growth since 1995. Yet, through some form of superiority complex we refer to nations like China, as developing, wanna be like us. I think they are better developed at this precise moment in history. Not because they are making money by the lorry load, but due to the fact that the China Man sat down & revised their Communist/Maoist economic model & merged & developed their very own & unique model. Some form of controlled & regulated Socio-capitalism. I can not come up with a sexy word for this. But I am sure it will come up soon enough. So why it is that China & India are booming? Again, it goes back to the basic definitions of capitalism. In order for the capitalist model to work effectively it must manufacture & produce commodities to supply a demanding market. They are busy making stuff. That is all. They make it competitively, & sell it at a profit & produce a surplus capital which results in growth. Why are they competitive? This is even a simpler answer. Their economy is not driven by the monopoly of a handful of landlords & banks controlling the bulk of the property & financial markets with no competition & regulation. Britain was the first modern industrial nation in the world & was famously referred to as the workshop of the world, because it was making things the rest of the world wanted. This is exactly what we have stopped doing. Because, we seem to prefer land and bank monopolies to control our governments & future destiny.

K Savage
November 2009

CHILDREN OF ABRAHAM

Palestinian children

 I deliberately have not done much writing in this section of the website, because some geek referred to it as my blog. What the fuck is blog? That's geeks for you. I certainly don't see it as a blog thing. Or whatever they call these things.

But right now, I feel as outraged as when my town was being blown up in July 2007 as I was trying to get to work. Again it involves bombs. Except they are bigger bombs & a lot more of them & in a different part of the world. The Gaza Strip, specifically. Very recently they got 170 million dollars worth of it.

13 days ago the State of Israel took it upon itself to start the most devastating aerial, sea & land attack on the Gaza strip This unilateral action was sanctioned by the Israeli Cabinet & which currently enjoys 80% support of the population of Israel. This is not the first time, as we all know. In fact since 1948 there has been over 101 United Nation Resolutions on the issue of Palestine & Israel. Over 60 of these resolutions have condemned, recommended, demanded & even politely asked for The State Israel to remove its Citizens from Occupied territories & allow Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland & or compensate them. Not one has been complied with. Somehow they are the chosen ones & they do not need to comply with any rule of law or morality. Their mandate is also from upstairs, just like Hammas' & Hezbollah's. The argument being, which on the surface is perfectly valid, how would you like it if a neighbouring country constantly fired missiles at you?? Well I would be pissed off. But more importantly, I would want to know why they are doing it. Here are a few possible reasons why they keep chuking rockets over the border in to Israel;

• a) The whole of Gaza strip has been openly recognised as an Urban Concentration Camp for many years by every agency working within it.
• b) The inhabitants have no freedom & right of movement in or out.
• c) Their elected representatives, Hammas, have been tagged as Terrorists from day one, even though they were voted in. So the majority of Palestinians in Gaza are terrorists.
• d) the disputed territories & illegal settlements are still outstanding.
• e) Implementation of historical UN resolutions still outstanding.
• f) Palestinian Refugees are not permitted to return to their homelands after being displaced in the numerous wars.

I would suggest that your average Palestinian is really really pissed off. They are hated. Hungry, dispossessed & forgotten. They have been dehumanised to a point of no return. They have little else to loose. It has been going on since the Balfour Treaty in 1917. So they fire off their stupid homemade rockets. In the past 8 years 18 Israelis, I stress 18 too many, have lost lives to these attacks. In the past 13 days 700 Gazans have been killed. 220 have been children. 90 of them women. On the first 2 days of the conflict our prime minister, Gordon Brown, called for """""Calm""""". The current US president stated that "Israel must do what it has to do to protect herself.” The President elect Barak Obama, "Yes we Can't", has said nothing. The EU president said that "Israel has the right to Self Defence & therefore correct to act in this way". Essentially we are now all party to one of the most tragic massacres in recent years. Simply by association. We vote for these super beings. The one thing we hear over & over again is that the responsibility is with the "Hammas Terrorists". They make us drop bombs on kids by being in an intensely over populated area. "YOU MADE ME DO IT."

The Philosophy/ideology or what ever we want to call this madness is that of a bully, a murder or a rapist. They never take responsibility for what they have just done to some one. It is always the other sides fault. It is the prefect mindset. You effectively get off the hook if you say what you have done is a direct result & reaction to the other side. Bosh! Job done & let's kill a few more kids. Has any one noticed the smirk on their military spokeswoman, or foreign minister? No shame. No regrets. Nothing. How do they sleep at nights? I wonder!

There are 2 schools of thought on this, one that says, oh well, it is all politics, complex, both sides are right, etc, etc, etc... The other thread is that it is simply not acceptable to target civilians & children. This is the bit that Geneva Convention covered. It is the same bit that puts Saddam Hussein, Milosevic, Himler, Goring, et al on trial. The funny thing with war crime trials is that it is always done a few years after the event. Any of the lovely chaps above would not have dreamt of being at the stand giving evidence to justify their actions. But they did. In the case of Israel, I believe that over a period of years there will be war crime action brought against them, because what is being committed is criminal in its entirety. We must remember that the press were not allowed in the area, until last night, under Israeli army supervision. We must also note that Hammas does not have a Department of Spin & PR & if they do, it is quite rubbish. In my view, in order to end up with an entity called Hammas, Hezbollah, or whatever, you must have some one behaving like the government of Israel. In other words, they create these monsters by their outrages systematic acts of violence towards a people. In this case, Palestinians. The sheer frustration, angst, disappointment & anger will result in your extremist being the elected body. The hero of the day. If you recall Margaret Thatcher called nelson Mandela a terrorist, Jerry Adams & Martin McGuinness were also locked up as terrorists, & better still the Jews in central Europe were branded as terrorists by the Third Reich. I will draw a historical parallel here. Hitler was elected into power. Hitler enjoyed incredible mass support for his policies from the German people. Hitler played the blame game incredibly well. The world stood by & watched. The world decided not to say anything. And humanity chose to ignore everything. The end result was 6 million Jews being killed in Europe. Then to bring that madness to an end, they had to Kill 100,000 Japanese to end the nightmare. Europe ended up with Hitler because Europe was bust. They needed a solution. They needed an escape goat. European Jews became the target. The rest of our beloved humanity abandoned them. Just as we have abandoned the Palestinians. Rule of international law & human decency were binned without a blink. Fascism was sold as nationalism & patriotism. Resistance as terrorism.

As a result of this Jewish people, bear a deep scar. They are a traumatised people. They can not forgive or forget. This historical mass murder endured by the Jewish people had to result in a new State that will jump & bite at the drop of hat. The State of Israel, which has ended up short changing the very people it has to represent. It is so bad, so paranoid & so inward that even if you utter a word of criticism towards the State of Israel, you are readily accused of being anti-Semitic. It is ironic that the same United Nation mandate that enables European Jews to settle in Palestine, ie. a right to remain to their homeland, is entirely ignored by the Government of Israel when it comes to allowing displaced Palestinians return to their lands from Jordan, Gaza, Syria & Egypt. But Israel is not alone in this psychology of the trauma. See the way the IRA behaved Vs the Brits. The Black majority behave in South Africa towards one another. Setting people on fire for relatively minor crime!! Or the knee-cappings in Northern Ireland. The practices are varied as per locality but the approach seems to be the same. Inhuman, overt & incredibly violent. Because they do not wish to even consider another moment of going back to what was before. Dehumanisation results in more of the same. At a singular level, if you look at rapists or serial murderers you can track back disturbing childhood stories. The tortured seeks to torture. It is the sick nature of our being, apparently.

The solution in here is a simple one. If we genuinely want peace & tranquillity, then we can not have events such as Gaza, South Lebanon & so on to take place. If we do, we will end up with extremists & idiotic fanatics such as Hammas & Hezbollah & previous & current Israeli prime ministers. If only there were such things as mass therapy/counselling. They say pictures can tell a big story. Children are children. Take a look & see if you see any difference in any shape or form what so ever. I see none & that is why I am pissed off. We have simply not learnt nor progressed. Shame on the lot of us who continue to sit on the fence. Today it is the Palestinian children. Yesterday the Jewish ones & god knows who's kid is next.

Polish (1940), Palestinian (2009), Austrian (1941) children

K. Savage
8th January 2009