News Comments 2002

17 December 2002

SHASHI DHOLAKIA

JEWEL OF INDIA

A WELL DESERVED AWARD

Former Mayor of Wellingborough and one of its leading citizens, Councillor Shashi Dholakia, 54, has been awarded one of India's highest honours for his work over many years promoting Indian culture.

A somewhat retiring man, Shashi has been behind almost every achievement of the local Hindu community during the last few decades, especially the Wellingborough District Hindu Association and its fine community centre in Highfields Road. For many years he has been a school governor, currently of Wrenn School.

Shashi has played an active role in various local groups, including the Race Equality Council, the Victoria Centre, Wellingborough Citizens Advice Bureau and the Wellingborough Volunteer Bureau.

On leaving college in 1976 he joined Northamptonshire County Council's trading standards team, where he is now senior officer enforcing consumer and fair trading law and dealing with breaches of legislation. Shashi has become the scourge of local businesses which try to get away with trading unfairly, but he could be just as mean on the cricket pitch, where he played for the local team for 30 years and once took 10 wickets in a match.

In 1990 Cllr Dholakia became the first Asian to be elected to the Wellingborough Borough Council and was the town's first Asian Mayor in 1996/97. During that year he raised a record £12,000 for mayoral charities and persuaded the mayors of Wellingborough's twin towns in France and Germany to sign anti-racism declarations.

In a region where the county council has spent the past year trying to smother Black groups with the filth of racism, Shashi Dholakia shines as a jewel in a pigsty. His work has not only benefited Asian townsfolk but all its citizens, for which he is held in the highest regard by all races.

The "Jewel of India" award, which will be presented to him by the President of India, Dr Abdul Kalam, recognises the achievements of Indian citizens who reside outside the country, which in Shashi's case are many.

KB 17/12/2002

9 December 2002

ARROGANT JOURNALISTS
TRASH CELEBRITY GIRLS

CHERIE AND CHARLOTTE UNDER ATTACK WHILE NORTHANTS LOCAL PRESS COVER UP FOR RACISTS

Cherie Blair and Charlotte Church are two very successful women, but they are easy targets for the chauvinist charlatans who own and control the British press.

The recent attacks on Cherie Blair, wife of UK prime minister Tony Blair, and on Charlotte Church, the 16 year old songbird from Wales, are impertinent intrusions into their privacy whether allegations are true or not. Both ladies have been accused by journalists of lying to the press, which is apparently seen as a heinous crime even though no profession is so mendaciously corrupt as journalism.

Cherie Blair demonstrates how a woman can be a feminist while still remaining essentially feminine. She excites both jealousy and admiration amongst those close to her husband, mostly male, by her ability to act as a leading human rights lawyer who is quite prepared to represent clients who are taking a legal stand against the government, while also acting as a part-time judge, and fulfilling her duties as the wife of the prime minister as well as successfully being a mother to a growing family.

It is in the last capacity that she has come under criticism by ensuring that her eldest son will enjoy comfortable accommodation while at university in Bristol . Mrs Blair expressed her gratitude to the man who helped her to obtain what she wanted by calling him a 'star', but he has turned out to be an Australian con-man who has served a number of prison terms for fraud. There was no illegality in his dealings with Mrs Blair or on her behalf, but the press saw the opportunity to sell more papers by making a big story out of nothing,. regardless of who might get hurt in the process.

If the Iraqis admit to possessing weapons of mass destruction, they will be attacked but, if they say they have none, they must be lying, which will justify war.

The former convict has served his time and has every right to conduct business without harassment so long as he does not repeat his offences, but that is not good enough for the arrogant rogues in the media who will twist anything especially the truth in search of a fast buck.

Ironically the British press in searching every crevice to find some barbs to throw at Cherie Blair are, however, following the same discredited path as her husband and cowboy president Bush in their pursuit of Saddam Hussein. They are not concerned with what the Iraqis say in their own defence. If they admit to possessing weapons of mass destruction, they will be attacked but, if they say they have none, they must be lying, which will justify war.

Day after day the creepy writers, who arrogantly think they have the right to undermine legitimately elected governments while acknowledging no responsibility to the truth or the public, search every sentence of documents officially released or treacherously leaked to them. Suddenly, they spew an alcoholic 'Whoopeee!" over their keyboards as they spot the fact that the flats were paid for through the Blairs' blind trust. These trusts are required to distance ministers from their investments and are run by trustees who neither consult with nor report to the minister concerned on the investments made on his or her behalf. This means of avoiding sleaze was necessary so that ministers would not be able to use insider knowledge to take advantage of likely changes in share prices as had frequently happened in the past, particularly when the Tories were in power.

Social capitalist prime minister Blair may have recently stepped out of the closet as he espouses more and more Tory policies, but he is keen not to be tarred with their corrupt brush. So he checked with the Cabinet Secretary that there would be nothing wrong in using his and Cherie's money tied up in their blind trust to buy the flats in Bristol for their son. He was assured that this would be in order, so the purchase went ahead. His politics may be despicably devious, deceitful and discriminatory against ordinary working people, but his financial integrity is above criticism.

Charlotte Church is a teenager who admits to being as confused as any other as she learns how to come to terms with maturing from a child into a woman. Tremendous demands are made on her time as she tries to fulfill her worldwide singing engagements while still pursuing her education. Like any teenager she wants to choose her own boyfriends, wear the latest fashion and follow her pop idols. The press do not approve of her current boyfriend so, instead of allowing the puppy love to develop or end naturally, they continually attack him with innuendo. They put out stories about Charlotte having arguments with her mother and sacking her as her manager, which the child denies, but they carry on with their nasty reports. What business is it of theirs anyway? They are putting tremendous pressure on the young singer who should be allowed to enjoy the fruits of her hard work and success without their cruel behaviour.

Journalists have no right to demand that celebrities or unknowns should tell them the truth, and what Cherie Blair and Charlotte Church should tell the poison pen pushers is that, whenever their privacy is being invaded, they will put out stories both true and false, they will leak real and invented documents, and the press can spend as much time as they like pursuing whatever leads that take their fancy. Their readers will never be sure whether the latest scandal in their daily rag is true or a case of a dumb journalist being led up the garden path.

PRESS FAIL TO EXPOSE RACISM IN NORTHAMPTONSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL
In a demonstration of their failure to expose the evil of racism within local government, the local press in Northamptonshire are refusing to publish the truth about the attacks made by the New Labour county council on Black groups within the county.

For almost a year, led by former solicitor Cllr James Ashton, the council has pursued a policy of attrition against the Wellingborough African Caribbean Association (WACA) after cutting funding to four other Black groups in the county. This was being done while grants were being confirmed for the white serving Victoria Centre and the Hindu Association. This is one of the clearest cases of prima facie racial discrimination by any public authority seen in recent times, yet the local press, while publishing allegations of missing money, £60,000, then £72,000 and most recently more than £118,000, the other side of the story is not mentioned. The Northampton Evening News in particular has been supplied with the facts on many occasions but, as has always been the case in the Anglo-Saxon world, white newspapers protect their own kith and kin and join in the attacks on Black people and organisations, frequently exaggerating or distorting the facts.

Recently the Northampton Evening Telegraph reported on a county council meeting which was considering a highly erroneous report on WACA which suggested that £118,000 was 'missing'. This was the most recent salvo in the racist war being conducted by certain officers and councillors at the county council against WACA. Months ago they had secretly taken their so called 'evidence' to the police, while telling WACA directors that there was no suggestion of anything illegal, but the fraud squad threw them out. The 'evidence' did not stand up to scrutiny. In spite of that the committee chairman, Cllr Brian Brinley, pressing the racist trigger again, said "We should recommend this case to the monitoring officer to see whether it should be referred to the Crown Prosecution Service". The CPS response should be to prosecute racist councillors and officers for wasting police time.

Former WACA Director of Finance, David Roussel-Milner, immediately wrote a letter to the Evening Telegraph for publication, in which he laid out the facts of the case. The newspaper has not published the letter nor used any of the information it contained, nor has the editor of the paper had the courtesy to reply to Mr Roussel-Milner. Sadly, although the Commission for Racial Equality and the New Labour Party have been informed of all the details, neither has seen fit to conduct any enquiry into these cases of racism. It is yet to be seen whether the Press Council will follow them in covering up the evils of racism so evident in Northamptonshire where recent official reports confirm that a Black person in the county is five times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police than their white counterparts..

What Black people in Northamptonshire find particularly galling is the published fact that the county council is unable to account for £8,500,000 due to their incompetence. How dare such racist morons accuse decent law abiding Black people of financial impropriety?

Kwesi Bacchra 9.12.2002

To read the full text of David Roussel-Milner's letter to the Evening Telegraph dated 28th November 2002, Click Here.

22 November 2002

TONY BLAIR STEPS OUT
OF THE CLOSET

With a Thatcherite rasp Tony Blair has thrown down the gauntlet to striking firefighters dictating that "no more than 4%" would be paid without irrevocable changes in working practices having been made. If all these were implemented, he would then agree to 11% more over two years, but he did not say whether his government would honour such a promise if the changes to be imposed did not achieve the cash savings that are forecast to be made. However, there are already reports which indicate that, rather than saving money in the short term, abolishing overtime restrictions, for example, would actually cost more.

Abolishing overtime restrictions would actually cost more!

Dr Richard Simpson, Labour's deputy justice minister in Scotland, expressed the intensity of Blair's real feelings when he called the strikers "fascists and bastards". Is that any way for a politician in the party founded by the working class to speak of his comrades?

Social capitalist prime minister Blair, the son of a Conservative Party local councilor, has finally stepped out of his anti-socialist closet and demonstrated the truth that he has been a sleeper within the Labour Party. He was carefully placed there so that it might be purged of all Socialist policies. We have already seen the scrapping since he became party leader of long held principles, as well as the reversal of a number of democratic decisions of Labour Party conferences since Blair was made prime minister.

Trashed principles include Clause Four of the Labour Party constitution that laid down that the people should control the means of production, transportation and money exchange. With Clause Four gone, the way was opened to reinforce the Tory Party’s, IMF backed, programme of privatisation with the prison service, the National Health Service, education, utilities and transport systems all being victims of Blair's capitalist onslaught.

In particular it had been Labour policy to renationalise the railway system, but only Railtrack has been taken back under state control. And that was only done because the free enterprise company had succeeded at nothing except to pay out millions of pounds to its greedy top executives.

But Blair cannot be accused of being a traitor. He has been spectacularly loyal to his roots and his class, and he has succeeded in persuading his avaricious colleagues to support his perfidious mission.

What a queer bunch they are in Blair's cabinet!

Would it be right to accuse Gordon Brown, now Chancellor of the Exchequer, of treachery? He had agreed not to stand against his close friend when Blair was elected to the leadership of the party, and he no doubt knew what Blair's mission was. Having grown up under the influence of Scottish Calvinism, Brown's right wing attitudes should surprise no-one. It has been the influence of Calvin's bigoted teachings which have informed some of the world's most right wing regimes. Calvinism was used as the basis for apartheid policies in South Africa while, of course, Christian fundamentalism in the deep south of the US draws much from it, and it is these attitudes which sustained segregation, gun-law, the KKK*, 'manifest destiny' and the arrogant idea that WASPs** have the right to oppress and murder anybody or any nation which does not agree with them.

As for the rest, what a queer bunch they are in Blair's cabinet! While deputy premier, John Prescott, the seaman's trade union leader, was hinting on one TV channel that it might be possible for the 16% deal agreed between the Firefighters and their local authority employers to be financed by central government, Gordon Brown was stating on another channel that it could not be allowed as it would be inflationary. Prescott was clearly being torn by his old trade union loyalties, but in the end he showed himself a traitor to those who put him where he now is.

Home Secretary David Blunkett has demonstrated by his penchant for right-wing politics and his racist comments that he is a traitor to socialism. Barbara Beckett must be wondering why she does not have the courage to speak out against policies she always opposed while in opposition. Meanwhile Clare Short at least has made her unease clear particularly if wannabe dictator Blair takes Britain into a war against Iraq on the coattails of the usurper Bush.

Blair awarded himself and his cabinet 40% increase but refuses the same to Firefighters

As for the remainder, while some have been seduced by the anti-socialist rhetoric of their 'glorious leader', none have the courage to face up to what is being done to the country in their name.

The blatant hypocrisy of Blair's position is exposed by the fact that earlier in the year he awarded himself and his parliamentary colleagues a 40% increase but refuses the same for the Firefighters. His justification was that their salaries had fallen behind in recent years, but he will not permit any such argument to be put forward by public service workers.

The Fire Service attends 55% more incidents now than a decade ago with a slightly smaller workforce, and these incidents require a much broader range of skills and training to be dealt with professionally. Firefighters have therefore already made a substantial, but as yet under-rewarded, contribution to the modernisation of the service they take great pride in providing. A proper reward for this would be £30,000 pa which happens to amount to a 40% increase.

Reject the Traditionalists Elect the Radicals

To argue that the lesser 16% increase cannot be afforded by the taxpayer is dishonest as it would only cost a few hundred million, which is a fraction of the cost of the war against Iraq that Blair is determined to wage as a partner of his imperial overlord. To suggest that such a settlement would be inflationary is the capitalist Traditionalist's standard response. What is needed are radical policies which will reverse the world-wide recession brought about by orthodox economics enforced by the US controlled International Monetary Fund and World Bank. These have dictated that the aim should be nil inflation while allowing 'the Market' to determine the course of commerce within a capitalist empire. Any country not chanting the nil inflation mantra will be severely punished by the USNA, whose 'manifest destiny' and 'white man's burden' it is.

But why trust a 'market' which takes no account of the needs of the majority of the world's people? It is like sailing a medieval galleon on the wide, stormy ocean without a rudder where it will be driven by uncontrollable currents and battered by tempests. If you or your goods are washed overboard, that will be just too bad, but the rich will ensure they have the equipment to ensure their survival while profiting from your losses and misery.

The Fire Fighters' Claim

Our claim is for £30,000 per annum, pay equality for Emergency Control Staff and for part time Firefighters and for a modernised pay formula to ensure that fair pay is maintained in the Fire Service.
A fully qualified Firefighter is paid around £100 per week LESS than average male earnings.
They earn £21,500 after 5 years; £22,300 after 15 years.
The Fire Service attends 55% more incidents than a decade ago with a slightly smaller workforce, and these incidents require a much broader range of skills and training to be dealt with professionally. FBU members have therefore already made a substantial, but as yet under-rewarded contribution to the modernisation of the Service they take great pride in providing.

Capitalism is failing all except the few who control the capital. Commerce is deeply in the rut of recession as the fear of what the future may hold persuades the consumer to stop spending and wait until a time of greater certainty arrives. In Britain, which like the United States has benefited more than most from the financial services revolution, hyperinflation in the housing market is soaking up all the spare income of mostly young people who rush blindly to get on the home ownership train. It is yet to be seen whether many of them will be forced into bankruptcy should the bubble burst and interest rates rise. Meanwhile many more are in danger of being cast into the negative equity quagmire which sucked so many under during the last sudden downturn in house values just a decade ago.

With manufacturers, merchants and high street stores making ever less profits, stock values have fallen and yields have diminished even further. Interest rates, which should either be free to find their own level or manipulated solely to control foreign exchange rates or in the interests of the people, have been forced down to levels where depositors are finding that their income has evaporated. As a result endowment policies cannot achieve the results promised to pay off mortgages on maturity and pension funds can no longer provide for those workers who have spent their lives contributing to what they believed would be a comfortable retirement free of financial worries.

Radical policies to control the money supply and permit inflation at 5%

Only radical policies can take control of the ship of state and replace its lost rudder so that it can sail out of the storm. The control of the money supply through credit regulation targeted according to the needs of various areas of the economy and different parts of the country must be the tiller.

According to basic economic principles, when too much money is chasing too few goods inflation occurs. It can be reduced by increasing the amount of goods available or by reducing the amount of money available. It is believed that, if interest rates are increased, this will cause less money to be borrowed so restricting the money supply. But this is a hit or miss method which, even if it works, takes a long time to have any real effect.

As far as the average consumer is concerned, percentage rates do not figure greatly in their consideration of whether to buy what they want. When they buy on credit, they are interested in the amount they can repay repay each month, which is why so many get themselves into deep debt. Because there are not enough houses available to satisfy the demand and banks and building societies are able to offer massive amounts at low rates of interest, there has been an explosion in house prices in the last couple of years.

A rise in mortgage interest rates will have a rapid impact on house prices, but worse still it may have a devastating impact on a large number of existing house purchasers. However, the fact that consumers purchasing by credit card may be paying as much as 20% pa proves that this has little influence on their spending. What damages business is the employment of interest rates to control inflation, as this increases the costs of production and distribution, which is itself inflationary.

The overheated housing market can be cooled by controlling the proportion of mortgage to be allowed within particular house price ranges. Inflation in consumer goods can be brought under control by using executive orders to regulate the amount to be repaid each month and/or the deposit to be paid at time of purchase.

Moderate rates of inflation at around 5% must be allowed

Moderate rates of inflation at around five per cent must be allowed and the wages of public service employees should be adjusted to match the increases in the private sectors. These have pushed teachers, nurses, police, soldiers and fire fighters into poverty. Such workers are not going to be storing away millions as have the greedy corporate barons who have ensured that only top level executives are paid seven and eight figure incomes that would make a film star blush. Truly they are the pirates on the financial high seas, hunting down the rudderless vessels the rest of us are supposed to be happy to endure.

With an army of public servants having money to spend out of wage increases which recognise the value of their work to the community, and the housing market being selectively regulated by credit control, there will be a regeneration of of the economy. The value of sterling will fall from its overpriced levels making it easier to export but allowing prices of imported goods to rise so that home produced manufactures will be able to compete. And with that fall, Britain will be able to join the Euro currency area bringing it strength and stability.

Meanwhile other radical policies requiring banks and other businesses to engage in acceptable social activities as a condition of being permitted to trade in our country will result in beneficial operations such as bank branches in rural areas. Further the investment made by workers by their labour in companies for which they work should be recognised by an appropriate representation on Boards of Directors and a substantial share of the profits. This will result in the shareholder's interest not being allowed to dominate decision making and stop the wholesale transfer of jobs overseas.

Socialism has always been a radical philosophy which has sought to ensure fairness in mankind's dealings with each other, but it must now modernise so that it can offer a real alternative to the failing capitalist system we see collapsing around us. We have had enough of the usurpers who have taken control of our Labour Party in Britain. Now we need men and women with the courage to bring about the downfall of the Tory sleeper, Tony Blair, and his 'New Labour' clique. Let us do it peacefully now before the disaster of world recession drives us into a catastrophe as horrendous as the European Tribal War of 1939-45.

KB 22.11.02

LA LUTA CONTINUA

12 November 2002

WHAT AN INSULT!

PAY THE FIREFIGHTERS WHAT THEY'RE WORTH

48 Hour Strike from Wednesday

The report by Sir Roger Bain and its proposals for 11% increase over two years have been rejected by Fire Brigades Union leader, Andy Gilchrist as "derisory and insulting".

John Ransford speaking for the local authority employers called the Bain recommendation "fair and reasonable" adding "we will not yield to unrealistic union wage demands". In arguing for changes in firefighters' practices and working hours, he insisted that every pay increase must be earned by improvements in working procedures. What he ignored was the fact that over the last 25 years the firefighting profession has changed so much that they are now recognised as skilled workers in the same way as police officers. The £30,000 pa basic wage demanded is equivalent to the pay of police etc. and the 40% increase therefor has been earned already by changes in working practices.

Union leader Gilchrist accused the government of having "successfully provoked a national strike" and it is clear that Sir George Bain has been leaned on by the treasury. Social Capitalist Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, had made it clear to the employers and Bain that he would not fund any part of an increase that was above 4%, which is the kind of level that will be available for priority public workers such as the nurses. Only the professions such as lawyers and medical consultants can expect increases in excess of 20% -- and of course members of parliament!

The government's interference will now result in a 48 hour strike of firefighters from 6pm on Wednesday with a series of 8 day strikes to follow until the government and employers are prepared to accept that they must pay what the firefighters are worth. Perhaps the anti-socialist Tony Blair and Gordon Brown would be happy also to be paid 30% below their value.

We need inflation-busting public pay increases
The foolish orthodoxy of most economists in using controls of interest rates to keep inflation down to recession-causing low levels of inflation is resulting in financial chaos throughout the world. The Japanese are digging themselves ever deeper into their slough of despond while pension funds are in disarray because of low interest rates. Meanwhile British manufacturing job losses in the last three months of the year are expected to be 33,000 making a total of 140,000 for the whole year.

If global depression is to be avoided, Inflation needs to be allowed to rise gently to about 5% which will lead to a fall in the Sterling exchange rates needed for Britain to join the Euro. Interest rates must be allowed to float freely with inflation being controlled by regulating the money supply particularly by credit control methods. Changes in these can be strategically targeted and they will take effect far more rapidly. Consumers control their spending by looking at their monthly repayments rather than interest rates and the total cost of their purchases. Quarter point changes in interest rates have no effect on consumers even when they are passed on by lenders, which they frequently are not, and rarely with immediate effect.

Capitalism is failing the people as every pensioner knows, particularly in the former Soviet Union. In due course honest businessmen will also realise the truth while the speculators will make money whichever direction the market is taking, except when their activities are restricted by credit controls.

KB 12.11.2002

5 November 2002

COUNCIL DEMONSTRATES RACISM
WHILE SYCOPHANTS SUCK UP TO QUEEN

'GYPSIES ARE SWAMPING LOCAL POPULATION'
While some English councils follow the lead of the overtly racist Northamptonshire County Council in deliberate acts of racism, others demonstrate how institutional racism works. One such is the Mid-Bedfordshire Council which has been trying its best to satisfy its local English complainants by evicting twenty-eight Romany families from their own land at Woodside Caravan Park at Hatch near Sandy.

Local villagers had expressed their fear of being "swamped by the Gypsies". 'Swamping' is a word frequently used by racists to describe their fear of being overcome by people of minority ethnic groups. It was used by Margaret Thatcher, Tory prime minister in the 1980s, who, like Elizabeth I four hundred years ago, worried about the number of coloured' people in the country. It was also the word used by David Blunkett, the current New Labour Home Secretary, about the number of refugees and asylum seekers using government facilities. Most of these might be described as Caucasian but, as Blunkett is blind, skin colour would hardly be a factor for him.

£300,000 INVESTMENT WILL BE LOST
Romany families and other travelers are hounded round the country in England because there are insufficient camping sites to accommodate them, and they are continuously being moved on without too much concern for the detrimental effect on children's education. It is not so common for a band of Romas to be able to put together sufficient money to buy the land on which they want to park their caravans. In the case of Woodside Caravan Park, it was bought by the families themselves and they have invested £300,000 in it and were planning to build a Romany Community Centre. Nevertheless, this has not persuaded the Council to look at their own by-laws and practices, as their answer to charges of racism is that they are only applying planning regulations. However, enforcing laws which discriminate against minority ethnic groups is institutional racism, and the answer is to change the laws, not to deprive these people of using their own land in accordance with their culture.

Frequently people who imprison themselves in stone boxes complain that Gypsies are unacceptable as neighbours because they are accused of being thieves and dirty. Further it is not uncommon to for Romas to be made to feel very unwelcome in shops and pubs, where even notices stating "No Travelers" can be found, in spite of the fact that such notices are illegal. However, one of the main complaints of villagers against Woodside Caravan Park Romanies is that some of them are "born-again Christians". Once again English people are demonstrating their traditional intolerance towards anyone who is different.

SYCOPHANTS SLIP AND SLIDE DOWN THEIR TONGUES
Meanwhile, following the acquittal of royal butler, Paul Burrell, the sycophants are down on their knees with drooling tongues. The BBC quickly fell in with the spin-doctors in Buckingham Palace by talking about "the Queen's intervention" which had saved Burrell from a long prison sentence. Even Burrell himself, who it seems would rather have gone to jail than say anything embarrassing about the Windsors in his own defence, said "The Queen has come through for me".

The long suffering public have once again been inflicted with the sycophantic diarrhea that too often is strewn on the airwaves by former Tory Arts Minister and now Lord, Norman St.Jean Stevas. For this driveling life peer, who describes himself as a 'constitutional expert', the royal parasites can do no wrong. The Queen for him has always been an extraordinarily intelligent woman with more political experience than any of her prime ministers, but now he protests that, as she is a septuagenarian, she cannot be expected to remember so much about a conversation with a former servant of hers a few years ago, Also, as she is not a lawyer and, although "a highly intelligent woman", Lord Norman in his sickly accent claims she would not have appreciated the significance of what Burrell had told her. What a slimy crawler this worm is who, by bathing in the glory of his 'betters' like all his kind, feels himself to be superior to everyone else.

Another great sycophant, the social capitalist prime minister Tony Blair, tells us the "the Queen behaved properly throughout" and that he does not believe her exemption from the law requiring the rest of us to attend court when ordered should not be changed. Born into a Tory family and educated at private schools, this wannabe EuroPresident will not allow any criticism of his royal mistress nor of the principles of privilege for, in spite of his much vaunted commitment to "education, education, education", state schools are not good enough for his own children. Not having any right to an hereditary peerage, Blair has been happy to get rid of most these gentlemen from the House of Lords because he does not want anyone above himself. Meanwhile, more than any premier before him he exercises the royal prerogative like a monarch by divine right. This allows him to rule as a dictator including declaring war on countries which represent no threat to his own without reference to the people's elected representatives. No wonder he wants no change to the monarch's privileges.

This Guy Fawkes Day the effigies we burn should not be those of that rebel against the crown 400 years ago. They should be of StJean Stevas, Blair and the Windsor family, all of whom believe they are entitled to continue to screw the public for as much as they can.

KB 5.11.2002

1 November 2002

Paul Burrell Trial Collapses
Diana's Butler NOT GUILTY!

At 11.30 am on 1st November it was announced that the prosecution had told the Court at the Old Bailey in London that the case against Paul Burrell was no longer viable. The former Butler to Diana, Princess of Wales, was then formally found not guilty of all charges against him.

Was the Queen Plain Stupid or Malevolently Designing?
It was said that the case against Burrell was dependent on the premise that he had told no-one that he was taking a large quantity of Diana's personal belongings, clothing and letters for safe keeping. But it seems that he had told Diana's mother-in-law, the Queen what he was doing, but she kept quiet about it. Either she was too stupid to realise the importance of this to Burrell's defence or she was prepared to keep quiet while watching him sent to jail for seven years for crimes she knew he did not commit.

Was Charlie's Conscience the Real Reason?
A week ago she told her husband Philip, a German who claims to be a Greek prince, and her son Charles, Diana's adulterous ex-husband about the conversation. It is claimed that Charlie-boy had a pang of conscience, of which his mother was evidently incapable, and told the police. However it has taken a whole week for the persecution of Burrell and his family to be brought to an end, while the millions of pounds being spent on the investigation and trial of the case continued to be wasted. But was that the real reason for this inconsiderate family's unusual flash of goodness?

After all their ancestors have spent centuries building their immense wealth and power by theft, murder and framing other noble ponces, frequently getting them executed. Another more likely reason was that they couldn't allow any more family secrets about their nasty habits to be revealed in Court, and evidence for this possibility perhaps lies in the fact that earlier this week the prosecution had applied to the Court for certain 'sensitive' evidence to be suppressed 'in the public interest', although this is contrary to the people's right to know. They could hardly allow the Queen to be cross-examined by the defence lawyers for a mere family servant, never mind the fact that Diana had treated him as a confidant and called him her 'Rock', and this would in any case not be permitted as the the Chief Royal Parasite cannot be called to Court as a witness. Even a BBC reporter said on TV that he found the official reason for ending the trial "difficult to accept" because there had been long reports in all the newspapers of the trial which the Windsors had been following closely.

The Petulant Princess, and....
Burrell had been accused of stealing more than 300 items belonging mainly to his late mistress following her strange death in a curious motor crash in Paris, which also resulted in the death of her lover and probable fiancé, Dodi Al Fayed. He was the son of the Egyptian owner of Harrods, the top people's store in London, and as an Arab and therefor Black he would have been unacceptable as Diana's husband. The mother of the petulant princess, who had proved herself capable of taking the arrogant Windsor family for a £15 million ride paid to her by the Queen, had told the Court that she had not spoken to Diana for four months before her death following an argument about her boyfriends. All this followed a marriage of convenience to the heir to the English throne in which she was treated as a breeding baby mother by her husband while he continued to consort with his mistress, divorcee Camilla Parker-Bowles, with whom he now cohabits.

....the Royal Parasites
The royal parasites, who feed off the British public, ignored Diana's protests so she hit back by sleeping around and eventually spilling the beans on TV. The nastiest persecutors of the royal nympho were the two elder Mrs Windsors, otherwise known as the Queen and the late Queen Mother, who have both managed to convince their gullible subjects that they are worth the millions of pounds they screw out of them every year. No doubt the sycophantic royal celebrity followers will mislead themselves into claiming that their Queen is wonderful. The deluded Burrell himself was reported to have said that he was pleased the Queen had "come through" for him. Meanwhile, within a couple of hours the palace spin doctors were putting out the story that it was the Queen's intervention which had saved Burrell from a prison sentence as if she had come to his rescue. If that were true, why did she let him suffer for so long?

KB 12.30 pm 1.11.02

23 October 2002

PAY FIREFIGHTERS WHAT THEY'RE WORTH
WE NEED THE INFLATION!

When company executives pay themselves outrageous salaries in six figures plus bonuses of millions of pounds, their argument that they must be paid the market value is accepted by the UK's anti-socialist government. The remuneration cannot possibly be based on value of work done because bonuses are paid even when they fail to achieve targets or the employing company loses money.

Why then is the same market value argument not accepted when ordinary workers demand the same treatment? Even were pay to be based on the value of work done, the firefighters' demand for what is said to amount to a 40% increase would be justified. But the percentage increase is quite immaterial because frirefighters are currently being grossly underpaid by about 30%. Meanwhile we have been asking these brave men and women to tax themselves so that we could save less than 20p per week each, which is what a reasonable increase would cost us as citizens .

A fully qualified Fire Fighter after four years training earns £21,531 with the starting pay at under £17,000 for a 42 hour week. An Emergency Fire control operator earns £19,827 with the minimum starting pay at £14,163. Fire Fighters have 11% of their wages deducted for their pension scheme for when they retire at a maximum age of 55 or 60 for officers. They also work more hours per week than normal so their hourly pay is in fact lower, and so is their take home pay. As a result of these pay levels and the massive increases in house prices, many firefighters can no longer afford to live in the areas of the country where they work.

As public service workers firefighters are entitled to be considered on the same terms as the police, whose lives are not at the same level of risk in their work. Similarly nurses, ambulance people, prison officers and soldiers etc. should all be assessed in the same way. Arguments from our social capitalist government that wages of this order cannot be paid because they would be inflationary are not only untrue but irrelevant, particularly at a time when inflation is so very little above zero.

When in 1979 the incoming conservative capitalist Thatcher regime were faced with an increase of 25% for the public sector, which had been agreed by the outgoing Labour administration, they did not pretend that it could not be afforded, they accepted the award and paid it. The impact of that on inflation, which was already rising, was minimal, especially in the light of the Tories hyper-inflation, resulting from the more than doubling of Value Added Tax which was one of their ' first acts.

Believe it or not, WE NEED SOME INFLATION
Current rates of inflation at around 2% and resultant low levels of interest rates are having a devastating effect on economies all over the world. Moreover, the economic orthodoxy that we must learn to live with such low levels because they are good for us is proving to be deeply flawed. This can be clearly seen from collapsing share prices, rising bankruptcies and the general recessionary malaise which is repressing all of us.

Moreover, the use of interest rates to control inflation is a blunt, inaccurate instrument which is proving largely ineffective. It is no less correct that interest rates should be subject to market forces than a host of other variables. When the average high street buyer purchases anything with a credit card or a loan, the interest rate being charged bears no relationship to the current Bank of England rate. Outrageously exploitive finance companies such as Paragon Finance can charge as much as 30% interest per annum, as of course do store cards, while credit card companies generally charge around 20%. The Bank of England may alter its official interest rates by a quarter per cent at a time, but these finance companies usually take no notice and hold their unnecessarily high rates which do not put off their borrowers, particularly the poor who often have no other choice.

It is well known that the high street shopper buying on credit is concerned about whether they can afford the repayments each month, not with interest rates and how many months they will have to pay. So a tiny change in interest rates by the Bank of England is meaningless to them. It has been generally believed that mortgage payers are influenced by these small rate changes, but what is happening at present is that the very low level of interest rates are encouraging them to borrow up to the limit of their income. Should interest rates increase by only two or three per cent, as they might, this will place these house buyers in real danger financially.

Low interest and inflation rates also lead to other problems. The difficulties being experienced with occupational pensions arise largely out of the immense difficulty the pension funds have in earning a reasonable income on their investments. The government's main indicator of inflation, the Retail Price Index, is composed of a variety of products and services for which the inflation rates may range from 15% increases to 15% falls in prices when the RPI is less than 4%, and it is therefore only a rather meaningless, mean average.

Current low inflation rates, which include so many items at negative inflation, threaten deep recession in all the world's major economies. In countries like Argentina and Brazil, which have tried hard to follow IMF restrictions on them, particularly in respect of public expenditure, the combination of low interest rates and World Trade Organisation rules, which are intended to favour the leading industrial economies, especially the United States, have led to actual collapse in one and extreme difficulties in the other. This is hardly surprising as the IMF, World Bank and WTO were all set up to ensure that transglobal corporations of the 'free' world were in a position to control the markets to their own benefit, and to hell with the people.

LOW INFLATION LEADS TO RECESSION
Low interest rates in Britain have encouraged an overpriced currency so that producers have difficulty selling their exports, as well as the importation of cheap goods to compete unfairly with UK manufactures and problems for the farming industry in obtaining effectively fair rates of subsidy from the EU. Changes in fiscal policy would go a long way to solving all these problems, and it is no use arguing that inflation produces unreal increases in income because expenses go up too. The markets are all totally unreal, being dependent on sentiment, while changes particularly in stock prices are usually far, far greater than would reflect actual asset values or changes in prospects of companies. The secret, hidden agenda is in how the economy is controlled.

In a truly free market economy interest rates would be free to find their own level. Interest Rates should never be used to try to control inflation, a task at which they do not succeed. If interest rates are used to regulate anything, it should be the currency alone. Inflation can only be controlled by regulating the money supply. This is because inflation is related to money supply and occurs when there is too much money chasing too few goods. Increase the amount of goods for sale or restrict the amount of money available and prices will stop rising or be reduced. But, when manufacturers are trying to increase the amount of goods available to bring down inflation, they are forced to pay the bankers' higher rates of interest, and these increase the costs of the goods and as a result are inflationary.

To control the money supply the most effective way is to introduce regulations governing the proportion of the purchase price which may be paid through a mortgage and to fix the amounts which have to be paid on credit cards or by loan finance. Mortgage regulations could require deposits of say 15% or 20% when house prices are rising too fast and such regulatory orders could be placed at almost a moment's notice, thus having an immediate impact. Indeed even the threat of such a prescription would have a rapid effect on house prices.

At present credit card companies are able to decide how much or how little should be paid off the monthly balance. Because shoppers would respond far more quickly to changes in the monthly cost of their purchases, were the Bank of England to dictate that from the following month minimum repayments would have to be say 10% or 15% of new purchases, this would affect immediately any individual's credit spending. Similar means of regulating hire purchase were used to great effect in the middle of last century to control credit except that changes were not made frequently enough as a means to guide inflation. Further, computerisation at that time was not sufficiently advanced to be able to handle such means of control.

Nobody wants to return to the mad days of Tory hyperinflation, but it would be possible for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to require the Bank of England to use these means of credit control to maintain inflation at say between 5% and 7%. This would have the effect of making people feel they had the opportunity to improve their living standards while earning reasonable amounts on their savings and while building decent pension funds. With such low levels of inflation there is no impetus to encourage expenditure, which is necessary to get the economy moving. The public are less interested in the amount they might earn on their bank deposit accounts than might be expected, but they are devastated by the failure of pension funds to earn enough to provide provide a sufficient income on their retirement.

LET'S INCREASE INFLATION - NOW!
If the Government were to change its policies to encourage moderate inflation, people would no longer feel that saving their money in building societies was worthless, or worry that stock investments were unlikely to bring decent returns while recessionary effects were putting companies at risk. They would see their houses steadily increasing in value even though this would be more apparent than real. Endowment policies would return to providing a reasonable chance of producing sufficient funds at maturity, and workers would have the prospect of getting small increases in income each year. At the same time, steadily adjusting the means of regulation each month would reassure the people that price increases in the shops would be kept at affordable levels and not allowed to rise at unaffordable rates.

So, come on Gordon Brown, tell the IMF this country will no longer follow policies imposed on the United Kingdom for the benefit of the capitalist ideology of the United States and its rapacious transglobal billionaires. Persuade your colleagues in the European Community and within Group 8 to follow your lead while having the courage to carve yourself a place in history. Pay the firefighters and their public service colleagues what they deserve. This will cause far less inflation than you might imagine while increasing the money flow, and it would result in all the benefits described above while getting us out of the disastrous deflationary spiral which daily raises shades of 1929 and the ruinous depression which followed..

But you won't do this because you too are a social capitalist working on behalf of transglobal corporations and you do not have the courage to take such an independent line. It is clear that you are no more a man interested in the well being of the people than your anti- socialist leader or his turncoat deputy. Where, oh where, did all your socialist principles go?

KB 23.10.02

18 October 2002

BLAIR DEMANDS IRA DISBAND

Social Capitalist prime minister Tony Blair, while calling for the IRA to disband, says that for Sinn Fein "the fork in the road has finally come". The irony of the double standards he displays seems lost on the wannabe Euro president.

While supporting the cowboy usurper in the White House in his ambition for a high noon shoot out to achieve regime change in Iraq, Blair calls on Irish republicans to abandon force as a means to achieve regime change in Northern Ireland. Moreover, Blair and his treacherous cronies are now seeking to extend England's weaponry to include star wars, all the better to enable them to attack countries they don't like while ensuring that there can be no retaliation or resistance.

The anti-socialist Blair states, "No other country has used chemical weapons against its neighbours". As professing Christians Blair and Bush no doubt follow Christ's teachings in answer to the question "who is thy neighbour?" For a global power it is even more the case that every country in the world must be its neighbour, particularly those adjacent to those where it maintains military bases. Vietnam was most certainly by these definitions the neighbour of the United States, yet it used chemical and biological weapons wiping out the lives of millions of Vietnamese, both Viet Cong who were fighting for their country's freedom as well as non-combatant civilians.

The Vietnam War was of course fought to prevent regime change, that of a vicious right-wing regime set up and maintained by France following the hand back to that country of its former colony by Britain. In spite of their own experience of the immense cruelty of the Japanese, the brave British soldiers had employed defeated Japanese prisoners to impose the status quo until the French could return to reestablish their empire using IMF funds. The French depended substantially on its Foreign Legion troops, of which there were up to 40,000 during the French Indo China War (1946-54), and so many were former German Nazi soldiers that a limit of 25% Germans had to be enforced.

Condemnation of the use of chemical weapons cannot be restricted to military action; it must also include commercial aggression against foreign states for the sake of profit. Such a case was the gas escape at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, which resulted in the deaths of many thousands of people and which continues to painfully debilitate the lives of hundreds of thousands more. The commercial terrorist CEO has been charged with serious crimes but he has enjoyed the protection of the US authorities who have failed to extradite him to India to stand trial.

Tony Blair continues, "Nor has any killed 5,000 of its own civilians ....". African Americans would strongly disagree with that statement. The USNA has a long history right up to the present day of attacking its Latin American neighbours usually to establish regimes which will favour Yankee companies over their own. They have supported terrorist groups such as the Contras against the democratically elected Sandanista government in Nicaragua while even today training and backing terrorists to assassinate Fidel Castro in Cuba.

One responsible, thinking British MP has written, "I do believe that in the modern world the international community can have the right to intervene in the affairs of otherwise sovereign states to protect world peace or prevent massive breaches of fundamental human rights and humanitarian disasters. Moreover, I do not believe that just because some countries already have weapons of mass destruction, the international community should never take action to prevent their proliferation. Indeed, if the fact that some nations already possess such weapons causes me real concern, the idea of Saddam developing them again when he used them before fills me with real despair."

It is difficult to disagree with that sentiment, but who are the 'international community' to which he refers. He surely cannot be referring to the two Anglo-Saxon states which have said they will take action alone if the United Nations do not. International law can only work if all nations including present and former world powers agree to be subject to the decisions of the only acceptable international community, the United Nations. The United States has repeatedly argued that it ought not to be bound by such an organisation but should behave as any Napoleon or Hitler would have done in the past. Nazi Germany did of course withdraw from the League of Nations before it embarked on its war of world domination.

It is foolish to expect the undefeated IRA to disband while British troops remain in occupation of part of Ireland and, were they to do so on terms unacceptable to a substantial dissident proportion of their members, these would rapidly reform as they did following the establishment of the Irish Free State, and extreme violence would return to the streets of Britain again. Tony Blair should learn the lessons of history instead of glorying in the achievements of the English empire which has been discredited and so hated by the majority of its former colonies.

KB 18.10.02

17 October 2002
BBC INSULTS IRISH VOTERS

She is an extremely intelligent, very attractive lady but the BBC's Zeinab Bedawi, anchor person on Westminster Live, this afternoon (17.10.02) insulted not only Irish voters but the European public in general. She suggested that they do not have the intellectual capacity to appreciate the details of European legislation and in particular the Nice Treaty.

For the second time voters in the Republic of Ireland are going to the polls to decide a question on which they have already democratically declared their will by voting 'No' to the Nice Treaty. Amongst other things, this treaty legalises the expansion of the European Union to include ten Slavic states in Eastern Europe plus Cyprus and Malta. It would also remove Ireland's cherished neutrality.

Leaders of EU member states were unhappy that the Irish voter, who alone had had the opportunity to go against their political leaders' wishes, decided that the Irish must have lost their good sense by rejecting what they had worked out to be the means to extend their power by increasing their empire. They could not accept that what the people have decided in the normal democratic way should stand.

This episode graphically reveals how important it is that the only consideration within the EU at the present time should be how to extend decision making to the people and the means to reduce the domination of the faceless bureaucrats in Brussels, as well as the power of the political elite who want to retain it in their hands. But the refusal of the Irish last year to approve the Nice Treaty shows how awkward democracy can be, so to extend it would not be a policy these ambitious men could accept.

A 'Yes' vote at present would be crucial because there are signs that, following the collapse of the Dutch government, latent opposition to EU expansion and a desire for more European democracy in that country would force the incoming government in the Hague to reconsider its position in this regard. Any such move could result in ordinary people throughout the Union making their will known, including their opposition to the social capitalist policy of privatisation, which is proving world-wide to be of benefit only to the wealthier classes but devastating to the mass of the people.

While in time there may be grounds for selective expansion of the EU, there must first be an expansion of democracy.

KB 17.10.02

13 October 2002
'IRA SPIED ON BUSH'
David Trimble

On the BBC's Frost Programme (13.10.02) Northern Ireland's First Minister, David Trimble, accused the IRA of operating a spying operation into the activities of his party, other Unionists, the English government within Ulster, Tony Blair and even George W. Bush. He was so outraged by the IRA's intelligence gathering exercise that he called it "Watergate to the power of 10" and demanded that Sinn Fein should be thrown out of the power-sharing authority in Belfast.

On the other hand Trimble does not complain about the spying activities of the English overlords which have been going on continuously since the signing of the Good Friday agreement. England's MI5 and MI6 were of course set up almost 100 years ago specifically to deal with the 'Irish problem' and there agents together with the SAS have been guilty of some of the worst atrocities committed against Irish citizens, both soldiers of the IRA and non-combatants.

What has happened of course is that David Trimble has capitulated to the rejectionist loyalists to the English crown. These are politicians like the extremist religious bigot, Ian Paisley, who still lives by the slogan, 'No Surrender'. This hypocrite, whose un-Christlike behaviour renders him undeserving of the honorable title 'Reverend' following his ordination by his own father in 1946, likes to be called Dr Paisley, although the doctorate is hardly of any value having been given him by a southern state (USNA) so-called university whose degrees receive no accreditation by respectable academic authorities.

Ulster protestants descend from the Scottish immigrants forced on the Irish population to drive the native Irish off their land and to act as a fifth column prepared to support English imperial designs. Their fundamentalist attitudes are every bit as dangerous as those of their Dixieland opposite numbers whose arrogant and stubborn insistence that they alone are right has scuppered all attempts by moderate Yankee politicians to seek a solution to the Israeli crisis. (One word to describe the relationship between these religious fanatics on the two sides of the Atlantic is 'homotype', but their homophobic stance would likely make such people fear that they were being accused of sodomy; such is their lack of education that also renders them easy prey to megalomaniacs like Paisley),

It is fundamentalists the world over across the centuries who have brought so much misery to the peoples of the world, whether they be such as Afrikaner 'Christians' who constructed the apartheid creed, the Jesuit Catholics who justified the genocide of native Americans, the Taliban extremists who use religion to rationalise their oppression of women, Jews who search ancient scriptures to justify their theft of Palestinian land and murder of Arab children or Hindus who excuse their violence towards all who disagree with them and destroy ancient Moslem sacred sites to make a place for their 'god'. No wonder so many people reject the gods of these criminals which they have created in their corrupt images.

What do the religious fanatics in Northern Ireland want? To return to the kind of terror exhibited today on the romantic Indonesian island of Bali where Osmar bin Laden's misguided followers have murdered almost 200 people? Thank goodness the IRA has the good sense to use its undoubted capacity to investigate the truth behind the activities of wannabe world emperors, because it needs to be revealed so that Bush's excuses for carrying out reprisals will be exposed.

KB 13.10.2002

12 October 2002
EU Expansion spells Germanic/Slavic Domination
Smaller states will be marginalized

BY KWESI BACCHRA

It cannot be denied that, as one of the smaller EU states, the Irish Republic has seen many benefits from its membership. From being one of Europe’s poorer countries still suffering from the hangover of English colonial oppression, Ireland has experienced improvements in its agriculture that have established the republic as a sound economy. Moreover, culturally Ireland has been able to take a greater lead within the Union than before out of all proportion to its size, while its love of freedom and its tradition of democracy have influenced the thinking of other EU states.

Now the mantle of protecting the independence, traditions and cultures of European minorities has fallen to the Irish people, as for the second time they cast their votes in the referendum to accept or reject the Nice Treaty. It is an onerous responsibility as it will be the last time ever that any people within the European Union will be able to call a stop to potential losses of freedoms or to prevent domination of Europe by a single or joint ethnic grouping. Certainly, the Republic’s honourable tradition of neutrality will be lost.

Rather than go through a process of expanding the EU by admitting eight eastern European states plus Malta and Cyprus, it is time to examine the workings of the EU. These have evolved out of all proportion to the original concept of European unity following the tribal wars which so often in the previous millennium brought ruination to the continent as monarchs, religious leaders and dictators fought to build nation states and then empires. They cared not how soaked the soil of Europe became with the blood of their people so long as they could achieve power and wealth for themselves. Now by political chicanery the leaders of the largest states seek to create an imperial reich, for the domination of which each will vie against the others.

The eight east European applicant states with populations totaling some 75 million have one feature in common, they all have a Slavic background and thus belong to the Germanic ethnic group. Although the present ethnic composition of the European Union is not quite in balance, the smaller states have been able to overcome any really adverse effect of this by strategically using their votes and vetoes to prevent total domination by either the Germanic or Latin group. The make-up of the EU is presently nine Germanic countries with populations totaling some 195 millions against four Latin countries with 165 million people. In addition there is Greece with ten and half million and the single Celtic country of Ireland with three and half million citizens; although the Celtic grouping could be quadrupled were the Celtic nations within the UK, France and Spain to be represented directly within a regionally based Confederation of Europe

60% EU ETHNICALLY GERMANIC
With the admission of the ten proposed member states and the loss of powers of veto, any pretence at ethnic balance will be completely lost. Within a few years the proportions will be 17 Germanic states with 270 million people against 7 Latin/Mediterranean states with less than 200 million population and Ireland out on its own as the sole Celtic member. But this is not the whole depth of the potential problem: waiting in the wings are another twelve applicants with populations totaling 190 million. Of these only Albania and Turkey are not Germanic and nine out of the other ten are Slavic so that it is clear that there will be pressures from present applicant Slavic members to admit them all on terms which will not include those which currently aim at ensuring the continued economic strength and political liberalism as the EU now represents.

Such a massive predominance of Slavic states in alliance with other Germanic countries including England would result in Latin, Mediterranean and Celtic countries being forced into a subservience similar to that of Scotland or Wales within the United Kingdom. Moreover, when it suits them, the Slavic states may call upon the support of the one whose membership could never be allowed, Russia. The internecine arguments which could develop within the Union would reach dangerous proportions especially as Slavic states from the Balkans to the Baltic have shown in recent years a tendency to turn to violence and civil war to achieve their perverse ends.

The prime aim of the union of states within Europe was to avoid the savage wars that had so frequently happened over previous centuries. Yet current plans for expansion seem designed to ferment the hidden bellicose volcanoes which exist beneath the European continent, but the personal ambitions of leading politicians are blinding them to any such possibility. Each of them will seek to be the effective presidential overlord of the whole of Europe, an ambition last demonstrated by the Adolf Hitler.

One of the issues which needs to be discussed urgently before any expansion of the European Union takes place is whether membership should be based on regions rather than on nation states. The evolution of nation states is an horrific story of war, murder, devastation and oppression as spiritual as well as temporal princes have viciously fought each other to gain pre-eminence. Within or outside the EU, nation states deserve to be broken up so that the stronger ethnic groups will no longer be able to oppress the smaller and will no longer be able to bring ruination and misery to all as they have done particularly in the last couple of centuries. Most of the remaining struggles for self determination, as for example by the Basques, the Corsicans or on the island of Ireland, would be capable of solution the moment sovereignty within France, Spain, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom were to be handed over to regional governments so that populations would not exceed 15 million citizens each.

With representation within the European Union being held by such regional members only, and with subsidiarity responsibility being the rule for regional governments, true democracy could be possible as the people would never be too far from their government as is presently the case in states with populations of over 30 million. Thus applications from Poland (38 million) and Turkey (63 million) could not be considered at all as only their regions would be able to apply individually. This would be particularly important for the Kurds who find themselves in an oppressive state beneath the jackbooted heel of Ankara every bit as vicious as that experienced by Ireland under the English crown.

SLAVIC RACISM
Moreover, most Slavic states have an appalling record of racism and anti-Semitism which must be eliminated before any of them are admitted to the EU. This was disgustingly demonstrated on October 12th when Slovakian fans in Bratislava yelled racist abuse against the England football stars, Emile Heskey and Ashley Cole. Their behaviour was worse than that of the crowd at the Berlin Olympics in 1938 who, in the presence of Adolf Hitler, displayed the nasty side of their nature against the African American athlete, Jesse Owens. Any state which displays such endemic racism must be treated as a pariah and certainly not be admitted to the EU.

The other important consideration to be settled before expansion of the EU is the inequality of financial development between existing and applicant members. The economy of the European Union is not yet sufficiently strong to take on the burden of supporting countries whose economic development is primitive in comparison. West Germans have had the experience of their economy being driven into decline ever since East Germany was admitted into the Bundesrepublic. It remains as the root cause for the financial quagmire within which Germany still finds itself being suffocated, and it stands as a warning of what could happen to the European Union were eastern European states to be admitted too early on terms too favourable to them as are presently proposed.

Thus the preservation of the freedoms of all the citizens of Europe lies within the hands of the Irish voter as each places his or her cross against the ‘no’ or ‘yes’ on the referendum form.

KB 12.10.02

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2 October 2002
US and UK MAY DEFY UN
WILL IGNORE INSPECTORS DEAL

The authority of the United Nations will be thrown into doubt if the US and UK decide to attack Iraq now that Sadam Hussein has agreed to obey existing Security Council resolutions and allow the UN inspectors in to search for weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

This has scuppered the plans of rambo cowboy president Bush to send in his troops to effect regime change in Iraq whether the Iraqi people want it or not. Now that the United States of North America is the only super power, the Yanks think they can throw their weight around all over the world as they have done for nearly 200 years in south and central America. Democracy and human rights have never figured in their commercial intentions because the Yanks find these to be an inhibition to their ability to exploit the labour of working people.

It has been the policy of every US president to ensure this freedom to exploit which has been enjoyed by Yankee corporations throughout the Americas, making the US the richest country in the world by far. This has resulted in vicious right wing regimes which have oppressed their citizens in the most brutal fashion usually with weapons supplied by the US government or with death squads led by police and soldiers trained in the US. Whenever Washington has felt it necessary, it has either clandestinely backed coups d'etat or sent in its marines to overthrow left wing governments which have dared to declare their intention to nationalise or dispossess Yankee corporations.

Of course the one country where the US has failed has been Cuba, which has demonstrated the sort of courage needed by leaders in Europe and the majority world to tell Bush and his henchmen that their attempts to exert imperial power over them will be resisted by any means necessary.

Bush's poodle Tony Blair, social capitalist premier of the UK, has of course treacherously declared his intention to back the usurper in the White House in whatever he may do, legal or illegal. This is despite the clear wishes of the people of Britain as well as those of his own party.

The Blair cabinet is actually a minority government because a majority of MPs and certainly his party members oppose his pro-capitalist policies of privatisation of hospitals and schools as well as being overwhelmingly against military action against Iraq without United Nations authority. But British MPs are pretty spineless and afraid to stand up to Blair and his cronies in case they don't get the government jobs they are seeking. Most of them know they have it within their power to remove him as the party leader but there is not one with the guts to call for a change in leadership.

However, Bush had better watch out, there has been a tradition of assassinating US presidents. The only pity is that killing the president has never resulted in the establishment of a government in Washington which not only believes in truly democratic principles for itself but for all peoples globally under the sole authority of the United Nations. That is the only type of globalisation which is acceptable.

KB 2.10.02

29 September 2002
US DEPLOYS NUCLEAR WEAPONS
AGAINST IRAQ

The United States of North America has deployed the B61.11 nuclear armament on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The purpose is clear, to threaten Saddam Hussein and to have this tactical nuclear weaponry ready to use against Iraq in any coming conflict. Serious questions arise from this move:
(1) Which is the more dangerous rogue state, Iraq or USNA?
(2) Which country has used nuclear weapons in the past in order to achieve a military objective? Remember Hiroshima!
(3) Of which country is it known for certain that it has nuclear weapons and the means to use them? The task of UN inspectors would be to find out whether Iraq has a nuclear capability or has stockpiled nuclear bombs.
(4) Which country is the more likely to use nuclear weapons? The US has considered using nuclear weapons in Vietnam in addition to the chemical and biological weapons it used there.
(5) Will Bush's poodle Tony Blair order British troops to fight alongside Yanks now that he knows of the likelihood of Bush ordering the use of nuclear weapons?
(6) Will Tony Blair, the UK social capitalist PM, deploy the British nuclear arsenal against Iraq?
(7) Will British Labour MPs have the guts to dump Tony Blair pre-emptively to avoid the UK committing war crimes?

KB 29.9.02

24 September 2002

A DUBIOUS DOSSIER

On 24th September the UK parliament was recalled from its summer recess to debate the intelligence (but hardly intelligent) dossier on Iraq's nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry drawn up by Britain's secret services at the urgent request of social capitalist prime minister Tony Blair.

The dossier contained little that was new and was mainly a rehash of the propaganda put out over recent months by cowboy president George W Bush and his poodle, Tony Blair.

The purpose of the debate was for Tony, not grinning quite so widely today, to try to convince a large number of his errant backbenchers that it was right and just for England to bravely shoulder its traditional responsibility to decide how countries far away should be governed especially if they are not white. As the Anglo-Saxons on both sides of the Atlantic are in agreement (as they always will be so long as Tony's long yellow tongue lolls in the bush ready to lick), the royal prerogative waving wannabe capitalist dictator of Great Britain croons in delight the tune written for him by the USurper Bush. This stumbling cowboy, who still falls up stairs almost as often as he did when he was a drunk before he became a born-again Christian, only has to whisper in Tony's ear for his poodle to show his loyalty.

So by divine right the Anglo-Saxons on both sides of the Atlantic will determine the new world order as is their manifest destiny. The trouble with these AS racists, who believe they are superior to all of the rest of mankind, is that they do not understand that their attitudes are racist in the extreme. Sad to say a number of Uncle Tom, self seeking, Black politicians like Condoleeza Rice in the US and Paul Boateng in the UK like to see themselves as honorary Anglo-Saxons and spout the racist mantras almost more stridently than their bacra-massas. I hope the coconuts enjoy the rich sunshine!

KB 24/9/02

23 September 2002

WAY OF LIFE IN DANGER
Countryside marchers invade London

It was a fine autumn Sunday when 400,000 lords of the manor, country squires, yeomen and peasants packed their sandwiches and, with the supporting strains of the BBC's soap opera 'The Archers' ringing out over the airwaves, they piled into coaches, cars and trains for the capital city to demonstrate under the banner 'Liberty & Livelihood'.

Strident claims on liberty and protecting traditions and way of life is a familiar syndrome of those who believe in such rights for themselves while denying them to others they consider lesser mortals. Remember the rebel leader in Southern Rhodesia who led his traitors under slogans that promised the continuance of the white man's standards for a thousand years. Those standards of course included the obtaining by murder and theft of 85% of the best agricultural land in Zimbabwe, land they now refuse to give back without substantial compensation to be paid if possible by the African grandsons of the victims of their terrorist ancestors.

The traditions the countrymen demand embrace the right to hunt with hounds foxes and other animals, including the north American mink, but the absence of Black people amongst the demonstrators perhaps exposes another tradition they are keen to preserve. In spite of the fact that a high proportion of Black people who came to Britain from the Caribbean, Africa and South Asia, were from farming communities, it is rare to see a Black face in rural areas. Many have had to satisfy their love of growing food by taking some of the most successful allotments to be found in towns and cities.

In an article in the Independent (www.independent.co.uk) on 23rd September, award winning journalist, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, discussed this facet of English institutional racism in her usual trenchant style. It is a pity however that she panders to the racism endemic within the conservative element of her own community by continuously employing the deplorably divisive phrase 'black and Asian' rather than the proud designation 'Black'. She would do well to read the story of the origins of this obnoxious phrase published on this website as the first installment of the book 'by any other....'

KB 23.9.02

18 September 2002

9.11 Remembrance - OTT

The world has been swamped with a nauseous excess of sycophantic celebration of the atrocities committed on 11^th September 2002, when the twin symbols of capitalism the skyscrapers, known as the World Trade Centre in New York, were hit by two airliners under the control of fanatical Islamic fundamentalists resulting in the deaths of 2,801 people. Soon after another plane took the lives of a few hundred more as it was crashed into the emblem of US military power, the Pentagon in Washington DC, while a fourth plane was brought down in a Pennsylvania field by some extraordinarily brave passengers who tried to recover it from the hijackers.

This was a tragedy committed by arrogant men in the name of Allah who presumed that they had the right to take the lives of thousands in order to promote a detestable form of Islam, which the greatest sportsman of the 20^th century, Muhammad Ali, could not recognise as the religion which he loves. His Islam is a religion of peace and love, he said. Many of the lives lost were of innocent people, but by no means all. Staff at the Pentagon were soldiers in or out of uniform which in any war could be described as legitimate targets, while the crusaders of capitalism killed in New York were just as much combatants fighting for their creed as the militant missionaries of yesteryear who tried to force Christianity of uncertain veracity down the throats of hesitant ‘pagan savages’.

That any of the millions whose human rights are suppressed by the United States of North America should hit back so spectacularly was to say the least newsworthy, and it was natural, in the political and commercial capitals of that evil empire, that their grief and anger should be demonstrated. But for the governments of the world to join in with such dribbling adulation is sick. However, it would be a mistake for Bush or his poodle Blair to view this as genuine support for their war against terrorism; it is just an exhibition of the spinelessness of so many politicians. For the most deeply dyed terrorist rogue state, backed by the most cruel empire of modern times, to claim that it is the champion of freedom is recognised everywhere in the non-AngloSaxon world as utter hypocrisy.

However, remembering what an earlier wanna-be world dictator said, perhaps these invertebrate national leaders can be excused, although not forgiven for their lack of courage. Six days before this writer’s birth Adolf Hitler received Dr Kurt von Schusnigg, the Christian Socialist Chancellor of Austria, at Berchtesgaden on 12^th February 1938. Throughout the previous year Hitler’s Nazi thugs had been trying to bring about a change of regime in Austria by a campaign of terror. Now Hitler told his guest, "I have an historic mission, and this mission I will fulfil because Providence has destined me to do so ….who is not with me will be crushed … I have chosen the most difficult road … I am carried along by the love of my people …" a Four weeks later Austria ceased to exist as an independent state. Starting with his friend, Tony Blair, who might claim to be a Christian Socialist, how many national leaders have been subjected to a similar haranguing from George W. Bush, who has it within his power to succeed where Hitler failed? Tony Blair’s whole demeanour, affability and gentile politeness is reminiscent of von Schusnigg, while Bush’s staccato speeches are increasingly taking on the belligerence of Hitler. Also like Hitler, Bush is now beginning to attack the godfathers of capitalism.

The Jewish Holocaust.
Whether what the Yanks call 9.11, although most of the rest of the world would designate it 11.9, will be celebrated globally every year is yet to be seen. Another much more serious atrocity has become part of the calendar of countries ruled by ethnic Europeans to assuage their feelings of guilt over the centuries about their discrimination against Jews and their appalling treatment of them. In the case of the United States the memorial to the millions of people who died in the Holocaust exposes a schizophrenic trait because Jews there are still discriminated against, while Christian fundamentalists obstinately support the occupation and theft of Palestinian territory by a Jewish apartheid state. What is not celebrated by them is the twentieth anniversary of the massacres at the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps when almost 1,000 Palestinian men, women and children died at the hands of Lebanese Christian criminals under orders from Arial Sharon, currently just the latest prime minister of Israel who has a record of terrorist activity.

Genocide of First Americans and Slaves from Africa
There are many significant atrocities which deserve memorialising far more than the outrageous but courageous attack on the Icons of Yankee capitalism a year ago. The genocidal murder of many millions of Native Americans in order to dispossess them of their lands, by an immigrant nation which sought freedom for themselves by enslavement and murder of others, has no day designated to remember one of the worst crimes ever perpetrated by so-called civilized men. Nor is there any monument to the millions of African slaves who were forced to donate their lives to the creation of the immense wealth now enjoyed mainly by whites as well as the making of military power used to oppress the majority world including the lands from which those slaves were stolen.

Africans enslaved by England
Meanwhile the ‘mother country’, England, also refuses to acknowledge that the immense wealth so slanderously squandered on European tribal wars was generated by slavery and fuelled by the blood of Africa while ruining the economies and infrastructures of that great continent. Suggestions that the spare plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square should be devoted permanently to the memory of up to 100 million Africans, whose lives were wrenched from them by deportation of themselves or families across the Atlantic Ocean, by a significant sculpture have been rejected by the authorities. Meanwhile the leaders of the racist New Labour Party refuse even to apologise for their evil deeds over half a millennium while demanding that the Japanese say sorry, though not requesting adequate compensation, for the ill-treatment of British prisoners of war in the Pacific War of 1940/45.