Fascism




Kitaj - The Rise of Fascism 1975

 

Populism, Fascism, Racism
Setting the record straight.

INTRODUCTION

The most common debate-grenade slung against anyone, who believes our society is squeaking in the hinges and creaking in the floor boards, is to append the label “Fascist” upon them.
But what does "Fascist" actually mean?
It is clear that most people using it don’t understand. It is an easy way of throwing a bucket of verbal paint with the colour “Hitler brown” or “Mussolini black” in the face of their opponents, but it should be understood that this label often is thrown from the open doors of a glass house!

Bigotry, violence, the use of force instead of debate to press the point and a severe level of intolerance are probably the characteristics appended by most people to the word “fascism”. The roots of the origin are therefore firmly planted in Franco’s Spain, Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany.

Racist is a more direct word – but in fact it is also a tough word to define.
In many ways the classification of humanity into races smells of the 1930s. We forget that the pseudo-science of the 20th Century, which was used to such a detrimental effect by the Nazis, has been all but abandoned, and the reverberations linger on.
Considering that we share 99% of our DNA with Chimpanzees, does that mean that Chimps are a different race?
Or are Mormons a different race from Catholics?
If not, why is it that a Christian, who expresses misgivings about Muslims, is being branded a racist?
And who says that Islam is a religion at all, when the mainstay seems to be a “culture”, a strictly regulated set of rules of how to live your life according to firm laws with prescribed punishment for deviation, and with a superstitious overbuilding? One without the other – so far at least – doesn’t seem possible.

In short, modern debate has been invaded by residual emotions from the mid 20th Century, used without thought and in the same way as one would say “you are stupid or dumb”, implicitly relying on a reference to historic times still well remembered by most.
Arguments based on “value” (dumb, stupid, imbecile – or fascist, populist or racist) usually come from the armoury of the chattering classes, who are so steeped in political correctness, that they are blind to facts and proper debate techniques.

DEFINITION
As a lot of people use the word Fascist, let’s try to nail the jelly to the wall and find out what it means.

Fascism."Frustratingly, I can't give a simple definition," says Kevin Passmore, reader in history at Cardiff University and author of Fascism: A Very Short Introduction. "It depends on definitions."
Well, there you go.
Perhaps “White Superiority”?
Or Racism?
Although this would match e.g. the tenet of Ku-Klux-Klan and probably the implicit meaning for many people, it is still too simplistic and woolly. No one has yet called Taliban for “Fascists”, let alone Stalin’s Communists – but wasn’t their society representing the ultimate in fascism?
In a liberal democracy the basic political unit is the individual. The corporatist model emphasises co-operation over competition. This was the case in Mussolini’s Italy – but who would ever understand or think about this model today, when using the word “Fascism”? They rather anticipate the concepts of authoritarianism, nationalism, militarism and racial supremacy.
As someone commented on the Internet: “Right wing is seen as reactionary, yet people who stand up for democracy, sovereignty and the sanctity of the UK parliament are seen as reactionary [i.e. fascists], while people who champion the unelected supremacy of the EU are seen as progressive”. This is interesting, as the “we know all; our laws count; if you rebel, you must be eliminated; don’t work against us” are implicit Hitler/Mussolini-fascist tenets – but has anyone yet tried to call the EU supporters fascists?

There are 2 modern historians, who in particular have tried to define the volatile word “fascism” (my expression: Nailing the jelly to the wall): Umberto Eco and Emilio Gentile.
For the sake of enlightenment, I have quoted their definitions here:

Umberto Eco: (originally 14 points, delimited to these 10)
• "The Cult of Tradition", combining cultural syncretism with a rejection of modernism.
• "The Cult of Action for Action's Sake", which dictates that action is of value in itself, and should be taken without intellectual reflection. This, says Eco, is connected with anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, and often manifests in attacks on modern culture and science.
• "Disagreement Is Treason" - fascism devalues intellectual discourse and critical reasoning as barriers to action.
• "Fear of Difference", which fascism seeks to exploit and exacerbate, often in the form of racism or an appeal against foreigners and immigrants.
• "Appeal to a Frustrated Middle Class", fearing economic pressure from the demands and aspirations of lower social groups.
• "Obsession with a Plot" and the hyping-up of an enemy threat. This often involves an appeal to xenophobia or the identification of an internal security threat. He cites Pat Robertson's book The New World Order as a prominent example of a plot obsession.
• "Pacifism Is Trafficking with the Enemy" because "Life is Permanent Warfare" - there must always be an enemy to fight.
• "Contempt for the Weak" - although a fascist society is elitist, everybody in the society is educated to become a hero.
• "Selective Populism" - the People have a common will, which is not delegated but interpreted by a leader. This may involve doubt being cast upon a democratic institution, because "it no longer represents the Voice of the People".
• "Newspeak" - fascism employs and promotes an impoverished vocabulary in order to limit critical reasoning.

Emilio Gentile:1. a mass movement with multiclass membership in which prevail, among the leaders and the militants, the middle sectors, in large part new to political activity, organized as a party militia, that bases its identity not on social hierarchy or class origin but on a sense of comradeship, believes itself invested with a mission of national regeneration, considers itself in a state of war against political adversaries and aims at conquering a monopoly of political power by using terror, parliamentary politics, and deals with leading groups, to create a new regime that destroys parliamentary democracy;
2. an 'anti-ideological' and pragmatic ideology that proclaims itself antimaterialist, anti-individualist, antiliberal, antidemocratic, anti-Marxist, is populist and anticapitalist in tendency, expresses itself aesthetically more than theoretically by means of a new political style and by myths, rites, and symbols as a lay religion designed to acculturate, socialize, and integrate the faith of the masses with the goal of creating a 'new man';
3. a culture founded on mystical thought and the tragic and activist sense of life conceived of as the manifestation of the will to power, on the myth of youth as artificer of history, and on the exaltation of the militarization of politics as the model of life and collective activity;
4. a totalitarian conception of the primacy of politics, conceived of as an integrating experience to carry out the fusion of the individual and the masses in the organic and mystical unity of the nation as an ethnic and moral community, adopting measures of discrimination and persecution against those considered to be outside this community either as enemies of the regime or members of races considered to be inferior or otherwise dangerous for the integrity of the nation;
5. a civil ethic founded on total dedication to the national community, on discipline, virility, comradeship, and the warrior spirit;
6. a single state party that has the task of providing for the armed defense of the regime, selecting its directing cadres, and organizing the masses within the state in a process of permanent mobilization of emotion and faith;
7. a police apparatus that prevents, controls, and represses dissidence and opposition, even by using organized terror;
8. a political system organized by hierarchy of functions named from the top and crowned by the figure of the 'leader,' invested with a sacred charisma, who commands, directs, and coordinates the activities of the party and the regime;
9. corporative organization of the economy that suppresses trade union liberty, broadens the sphere of state intervention, and seeks to achieve, by principles of technocracy and solidarity, the collaboration of the 'productive sectors' under control of the regime, to achieve its goals of power, yet preserving private property and class divisions;
10. a foreign policy inspired by the myth of national power and greatness, with the goal of imperialist expansion
Personally I like Franklin D. Roosevelt’s statement, as it is clear and uncluttered:
“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.”

Whichever definition you’d prefer, I think it is important NOT to use the word if you have no idea what it actually means and therefore fall back on a pejorative.
If you do, you expose yourself, not the object of your scorn and you could just as well use the F*** or C*** words.

APPLICATION
Now try to apply the definitions on a) Anti Fascist Action (AFA), the violent organisation that exists in Scandinavia, Holland and the UK (here called UAF) and who inevitably turns up at all meetings involving demonstrations for free speech, well armed with cricket bats and dressed in balaclavas and hoods; b) Islam and Sharia law; c) BNP; and d) UKIP.

a), b), c) are in my opinion round pegs in round fascist holes, considering their tendency to violence, narrow cultural views and laws, superiority claims and severe punishment for deviation.

No such thing can be said about UKIP.
It hardly needs explanation, but here goes:
UKIP
- Does not claim racial superiority.
- Has no more supreme leader than any other party or CEO of a company.
- Promotes free speech and individual ambition.
- Has no “punishment” programme for people who think differently.
- Does not promote a Britain that’s better than everyone else, only a Britain that should be given the chance to compete using its inherent advantages, options and abilities, without being unduly constrained by anyone else.
- Refuses to accept uncontrolled influx of people who take but don’t give i.e. if you contribute, you’re welcome.
- Believes in action and decision making where the action is felt, i.e. not laws and decisions being taken out of touch with, and far afield from, the people concerned.
- promotes healthy competition and the individual’s right to self determination
- Supports same sex partnership
- Openly welcomes thinking people with no regard to creed, colour, religion or race
- Stands for minimal state interference

It is clear that the very moment you start a political party, you also set up a set of values that characterise the party.
This goes for Labour, who are now anything but the Labour Party of the 1950s, or the Tories, whose values are as unclear as the wobbling Lib. Dem.s, who don’t seem to know who they are at all.
It was inevitable, that a reaction to the failure of the old parties had to come.
Other European parties, like the Danish People’s Party (DF), have therefore arisen and gone through the same change of finding out who they are.
Common to their present success are the facts that the old parties have failed, lied, cheated and disappointed, but also that UKIP (and DF) have found their legs and begun to stand firm, while listening to what people want. Remember Blair: “We can’t leave important decisions to people, as they don’t understand”!!

The massive and corrupt colossus called the EU has changed our world, while creating a political and organisational monstrosity, that has proven not to work: centralised government, remoteness, decisions removed from action, common economy amongst wildly different cultures and abilities, complete lack of democracy and unelected commissioners.
The access to a money mountain (ca. £9000 mill p.a. – unaudited) and the objective of eliminating the national state have led to a situation that may break the back of several countries while making the EU cronies, NGOs, consultants, individuals, firms and other organisations immensely rich.
Those benefitting from this situation – and they are many – will resist change with all means at their disposal, and then some.

It is, therefore not strange, that UKIP and other EU-sceptics are being hung out to dry, are being called fascists and prevented from acquiring power, as they threaten to kill the goose that lays golden eggs!

In a world of massive demographic, religious and (possibly) climatic change it is evident, that we need to rethink who we are, how we live and consequently find the most appropriate systems to create a future for our children while optimising the use of scarce resources, mainly energy and water.
Someone has to stop the madness and say the emperor forgot to dress.

As we live with interaction on a global scale, we do have global responsibilities.
How far we take these responsibilities is the 64K question.
We could open our borders like Denmark and Sweden do at present and be swamped, but at a point in time we will discover that this is self destructive, eliminating our ability to implement any policy at all.
Closing our borders is just as bad.

The balance must be found, where the traditional parties, LibDemLabCon, have failed and lost all control.

So some of the questions that come to mind are:
Is it fascist to claim, that we need to understand what we are doing and implement a system of housekeeping that gives us a good life, at the same time as we continue to afford helping the needy as good world citizens?
The climate appears to be changing, but is it fascist to shout “Stop” to the ridiculous and hazardous move towards energy sources that are proven to be expensive and useless?
Is it fascist to call Ed Davey, the LibDem Energy Secretary, the most dangerous man in the UK today, as he will kill off our competitiveness, based on useless green investments while ignoring Fracking and Thorium opportunities?
Is it fascist to protest against a system that pays the developing world to pollute more and faster, while asphyxiating our own industry?
Is it fascist to ask a minority of citizens to adhere to, and respect, our way of life, while resisting minority cultural and religious rule?
Is it fascist to demand the law of the land to be managed in the land - and not in some foreign place?
Is it fascist to say “no” to parallel societies and multiple laws of the land, while being reasonably open and hospitable to immigrants?
Is it fascist to claim the right to free speech without being threatened with imprisonment?
Is it fascist to demand better local control with our utilities, all of which are now owned by non-UK companies, and demand reasonably priced el, gas and water for the WHOLE of the population, rather than paying foreign shareholders? (A UK MW costs £95 - a French MW costs Euro 45 - beat that!)
Is it fascist to demand that no old person dies of hypothermia in the winter - and that no child goes hungry to school - and perhaps balance the cost against sending money to countries that have big armies, send rockets to Mars and have nuclear capabilities?
Is it fascist to prioritise the needs and welfare of victims of crime over the "human rights" of foreign perpetrators and be able unconditionally to return them to their country of origin?

The list could go on.

In short: is it fascist to try and preserve the values of a country, that actually defeated fascism in WW2?

STASI EU: Eur. Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation

Ve have vays to make you - - - -

A group of former heads of state and government leaders, i.e. the former presidents of the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Albania, Latvia, and Cyprus, and former prime ministers of Spain and Sweden, under the leadership of former Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski and Moshe Kantor, President of the European Jewish Congress, have called on the European Union to establish national surveillance units to monitor citizens of all 27 EU member states suspected of “intolerance”.

The European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation (ECTR), a “tolerance watchdog”, called for the establishment of government surveillance bodies to directly monitor the “intolerant” behaviour of identified citizens and groups.

The ECTR presented it as part of the EU’s work towards a new “Equal Treatment Directive” (ETD), published under the title, “Proposal for a Council Directive on implementing the principle for equal treatment between persons irrespective of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation”.

Have they gone absolutely mad?
This is STASI reinvented!

Haven’t they learnt that the 20th Century produced some of the worst experiences in human history, based on total state control?

Have they forgotten East Germany, Romania under Ceausescu, the massive control of people in Czekoslovakia, Hungary and other East European communist states?
Or – almost a banal and repetitive reference - Nazism?

Luckily EDW, the European Dignity Watch, a civil rights watchdog group based in Brussels, has warned that this directive “aims to impose governmental control over the social and economic behaviour of citizens in the widest possible sense.”

In a scathing critique, the group says that the ECTR Framework’s basic principles are flawed and that it “interferes in an unprecedented manner with citizens’ freedom and rights” and “distorts the concepts of ‘justice’ and ‘equality’.”

In the UK the Public Order Act was recently amended through the removal of Section 5. “The right to insult” was reinstated, underpinning the right to speak up against stupidity and bigotry, as long as the criticism was directed at groups and not against individuals.

The ECTR now tries to reverse this sensible and progressive step, stuffing a wet sock down everyone’s throat and banning the option of expressing an opinion about anything anywhere at any time.
This could lead to the possibility that charges are brought on an unclear basis or even without legal grounds. It would be a significant step backward, and would certainly be a dark day for European democracy.

The effect would be that we couldn’t speak up against e.g. Genital Mutilation, hanging of gays, stoning for adultery and honour killings, as it would hurt someone’s “culture” and feelings.

Frankly – EU has gone even more mad than I have thought for some time.

Better off out!!!!

Happy Danes - What makes a people Happy?

What actually makes a people happy?

Columbia University’s Earth Institute has recently publicised their “Happiness Report” concerning the happiest people in the world. The Danish professor, Christian Bjørnskov from the University of Aarhus (Denmark), has subsequently summed up the perhaps surprisingly simple causes for general happiness in a nation.

Denmark has again landed at the top of the world.

If you believe in the ordinary leftist explanation, that happiness in a population comes from the re-distribution of material wealth, like taxing the rich and giving to the poor, you’re apparently off- track. Research does not support this notion.

Material wealth is perhaps an underlying fact, but as the aphorism goes: “If I have to be sick, I prefer to be a rich sick, rather than a poor sick!”

Three specific condition appear to be really significant; Trust, self determination and political freedom and stability.

In Denmark 70% of people indicate, that they implicitly trust other people. The international average is a miserable 27%.

94% of people asked thought they could change their lives if they wished to do so, indicating a high level of personal freedom. Again the international average trails at a mere 65%.

According to the professor, it is a major mistake to believe in the political big brother games, that have as an objective to create happy people through a manifesto of intervention, usually found in the blocks to the left.
It is more important to create the framework that supports the two first conditions. This can best be done through a stable political system, that ensures the individual’s ability to choose the life he or she wants – with an ability to change if the choice didn’t work out.

In short: Reasonably well off people in a stable and hands-off political society with strong norms of trust are the most happy.

In a way this is not a surprise to me.
In my career as a Management Consultant I always emphasised, that lots of research indicated ‘Trust’ in the Leaders of a company to be a necessary condition for success.

Surely, ‘Trust’ is not there by default – it has to be generated, earned.
This goes for politicians too!
But once there, it is incredible what a company – and a country – can achieve.

This lesson leads to some serious questions.

How come that muslim countries around the world experience mass emigration, violence and internal unrest? If the underlying conditions for happiness are general (self- determination, stable political hands-off regimes and trust) then that answers the question. An environment, where everything in life is dictated, where deviation is severely punished and half the population (women) are subservient to, and dependent on, the other half, does not seem to promote happiness.

And even more so: How about the attempts of the EU massively to grab power over people’s lives, issuing decrees, standards, directives and laws from a central ivory tower while eliminating the people of the member nations’ right to determine their own destinies?

The research of Columbia University’s Earth Institute seems to have proven beyond doubt that the EU, in particular the Spinelli Group, is on the way to create chaos and unhappiness.

Think about that when you vote next time, e.g. 2014 and 2015 in the UK and Denmark.

There’s still time to get it right.

Better off out – UKIP.

PS – UK is nr. 22 - - - - -

EU, the Spinelli Group and a Federal disaster suggestion

A Fundamental (F)Law

The Spinelli Group of the EU has just given birth to their proposed European Constitution, a revised Lisbon Treaty, of the future.
It is dire reading.

On the surface it looks thorough and with due consideration to the obvious – and admitted – flaws of the present system. They even admit to the mess the rest of us have been able to see for a long time.
But when you dive into the details it is nothing less than a horror story!

First of all: Who are these guys?

The Spinelli Group was formed in 2010 with the purpose of actively promoting European federalism and ultimately pushing the already existing attempts to eliminate the national state.

Well known members are Jacques Delors, Mario Monti, Joschka Fischer, Guy Verhofstadt, Daniel Cohn Bendit, Andrew Duff and Isabelle Durant and 100 more – all names that I am sure history will judge NOT as post-war peace makers, but as people who destroyed the uniqueness, competitiveness and strength of loosely united countries, that should have learnt from past wars and mistakes and realised that cooperation under diversity was a strength to cherish.

But here's news for you, guys: Centralisation doesn’t work!

We now have a monster of un-democracy, bribery of everything from states, companies and charities to NGOs and individual Consultants. Unbelievable waste of astronomically large funds is a daily occurrence and self-service and sufficiency is a standard that makes the officers of the EU monstrosity and their supporters rich beyond reason.
EU has become an organisation that mixes itself in a dangerous and uncontrolled way into the world’s politics, disregarding member states’ laws and sending money to terrorist organisations like Hamas while consistently blaming Israel for everything.

The failure of the Euro proves beyond doubt, that the founders had no idea about economics while pushing a political dreamscape down peoples’ throat. Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland are the external proof of this statement. Internally the costs to maintain the illusion continue to rise while everyone involved stuff their own pockets to the cost of taxpayers in the 28 participating states, in the UK £55 mill/day – except Greece, where no one pays tax.

Baroness Ashton, the EU “Foreign Secretary” maintains a budget of 500 mill Euro/year – for what? What is there to show for it?
And how about the 900 Bill Euro/year that floats around the Brussels labyrinth without proper accounting and audit?

So the Spinelli Group of MEPs has ostensibly set out to remedy some of the negative issues in the EU construction, at the same time as they are making an attempt to bring the derailed train back on the federal track through a new draft treaty of the European Union, published by Bertelsmann Stiftung.

A Fundamental Law of the European Union, as it is called, is offered as a major contribution to the debate on the future of Europe.
So far so good – but then one reads on - - - - -

The group admits that there is an economic crisis – well, none of the founding fathers had any idea about economics, so what to expect?

They also admit that there’s insufficient governance to deliver the EU objectives – let alone leadership. (Is that one in the eye for Baroso, Schultz and this guy, whom Nigel Farage calls a “wet cloth” – whazz’is name? Oh, Van Rompuy! Yes, again: who’s he?)

The Spinelli Group admits that the public opinion is hostile (how about asking why?) and they believe this is a barrier for the (stupid) national states to ignore their (stupid) citizens, as they refrain from explaining the golden future of joining a centralised colossus while releasing them from any form of autonomy.
EU knows best.

Wasn’t that the approach of Lenin and Stalin?
If just people understood that the government knew best and people only needed to be better informed in order to grasp the centralised happiness?

Perhaps that’s why the EU has assigned 35 mill Euro to the information campaign before the next EU Parliamentary election?

Read this again, please, and let it sink in!

Let’s see what the Spinelli Group has to say!

“The European Union needs to assert itself. The European challenges can only be met in a European way.”

How about asserting itself through doing ‘a good job’? As a minimum with an agreed ROI, to common benefit, with an audited budget, with less waste and corruption – etc.

And what on earth is a European Way?

The Greek way? The German, French, Irish, Swedish way – or a mish-mash average? Or, as I suspect, the way decided unilaterally by the Spinelli Group. Or by Van Rompuy?

This seems to me to be a further departure from democracy – and this, in my opinion, is exactly what it is about: Total centralisation.

I think we have just seen what that means during 70 years central governance in the Soviet Union.

It didn’t work.

Again, history shows it: Centralisation in general just doesn’t work.

The following pearl is equally bland:

“People grumble about the EU’s democratic deficit, when what it really suffers from is a deficit of government”.Who says we want this government at all?

The Commissioners, the Council and most of the EU Parliament seem to have no idea what is going on beyond the tip of their noses, committing hubris about own importance and looking only at what they want and do themselves, not being concerned about what a growing majority of citizens say. Look at the election participation as a measure: it has gone from 62% in 1979 to 43% in 2009. The election in 2014 may become a tell tale, although a higher turnout is possible, if people understand that enough is enough: we don’t want this any more – and the ballot box is the way, both the European one and the National one (while we have it!!)

But the nightmare really begins, when we read the Headline Proposals.

Here is a selection of the 25 that are mentioned:

Headline Proposals:

2. The Constitutions of the EU states must respect EU values.

What this really says is, that the national states’ values and constitutions shall become null and void as the centralised EU Federation develops its own constitution and laws.

3. The [EU] Comission becomes the EU Government answerable to the legislation of the [EU]Council and the [EU]Parliament.It cannot be said more clearly: The National state, its parliaments and legislators will become obsolete and be eliminated. Point 4 following, as an attempt to express the harsh reality in a milder form, does say: Limited right of legislative initiative – but it takes only the removal of one word, limited, or to re-define it, to explode the meaning of this point.

10. Widen the Jurisdiction of the Court of Justice.This is an entry to all laws becoming generated and determined by the EU Federal State and not the National State.

12. Ending rigid unanimity for future treaty change and entry into force.In other words: whatever the electorate votes, the EU will decide the outcome. We saw that in Holland, France, and Ireland when they voted no the Lisbon treaty. The message was: vote again and now vote yes. Or the threat to impeach Vaclav Havel, if he didn’t sign up.

13. Ending opt-outs in justice and home affairs.Several countries have special arrangements, e.g. Denmark. This must stop, according to the Spinelli Group – everyone must live under the same hat and the EU will take responsibility for all home affairs laws. (I read this 4-5 times, shook my head and thought: Have they become mad? Home affairs directed from Brussels?)

15. EU tax revenue to fund EU spending.So now there must be a special tax, payable by all member state citizens, to the EU circus? Who will audit? Who will budget? How will it be distributed? (Greece/Ireland vs Germany?)

19. New powers for the European Parliament in Economic and employment policies.How much new power? This is the gateway to complete national secession of decision making. Unbelievable.

The Spinelli Group does admit, that “national policies have been coordinated by a bossy European Council in an ever tighter technocratic manner (sure - see how EU installed technocratic managers in Greece and Italy over the head of the populations!) leading to over-centralisation and lack of democratic legitimacy”.But hold on – isn’t that exactly what they are now proposing to do in an even more concentrated, centralised and disempowering fashion?

I believe it is time to stand up and say NO, NO and again NO.

In England there only seems to be one way: Vote UKIP.

The Tories are too weak, indecisive and waffling – and Cameron is unlikely to form a majority government next time. His promise of a Yes-No referendum is therefore void.

Labour has shown their incompetence and inability through 13 years of mismanagement by first the war criminal Blair and later the bully Brown, bankrupting the country (forget about the present leadership!)

The Lib Dems are a joke.

Denmark may still have a chance if they vote for Dansk Folkeparti (the People’s Party) getting rid of the social democratic disaster.

Sweden seems lost in political correctness and an immigration quota that will take them from 9 to 40 mill people in 30 years, going from one of the richest to one of the poorest countries in Europe – and a muslim one to boot.

Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein are safe as non-paying, all enjoying associates and the Faroe Islands may go the same way.

This surely must be the model for England and Denmark. That way the UK can begin to trade itself back to prosperity, forgetting about EU demands, tariffs and ridiculous remote legislation.

The next 2 years will be very exciting: elections in 2014 to the EU Parliament, secession elections in Scotland and country elections in 2015 in the UK and Denmark.

Remember: If we fail to put things right now, it will be too late.

See the Spinelli proposal on

http://www.spinelligroup.eu/article/fundamental-law-european-union

Jyske Lov - the law of the Jutes, 1241

English and Danish Text
We are closing in on the anniversary of Magna Carta, this magnificent document that in 1215 produced one of the most important pillars of our modern society's freedom: The Law of the Land.
It was not the kings will, not some squire's idiosyncrasies, but a law, under which we are all equal, that would help form the society we have today.

About the same time, at the start of the 13th Century, the customs and habits of Denmark were assembled in the complex called "Jyske Lov", which was valid for Jutland, Funen and the duchies Schleswig and Holstein.

One must not underestimate the level of communication amongst the states in the middle ages and I am convinced, that the Magna Carta effect would not have gone unnoticed by the Danish king at the time, Valdemar the Victorious (Sejr). What I find truly amazing though is, that when Jyske Lov was put in print in March 1241, it already represented a civilised society - civilised in our 21st Century meaning.
It is even more amazing, that the content has remained by and large valid, albeit with many clarifications and additions, to our times - and that at least in 2 instances references to Jyske Lov have been crucial in court cases in Schleswig in the 20th Century (concerning heritage and land ownership).
This is a better performance than by Magna Carta, where only the statement "The Law of the Land" has present validity.

Magna Carta didn't come out of the blue either.
Like with Jyske Lov the content represented customs, habits or long standing desires, but common to both laws is one crucial matter:
It was the law of the land that mattered and - at least in principle! - that everyone was equal under the law.

Jyske Lov has an introduction, making it distinct from most other law complexes as it describes the essence of the law.
I found that it has so much in common with the essence of Magna Carta, that it was worth highlighting this introduction, in particular as our laws and freedoms are coming under severe threat these years.
A medieval complex called Sharia, which is as far removed from Magna Carta and Jyske Lov as possible has already become a de facto law in many areas of England and Scandinavia and an increasing portion of the UK law system has now been transported to the European Court, giving a completely new meaning to the concept "The Law of the Land". These are good examples of the potential break up and elimination of our free society.

There is one important difference between Magna Carta and Jyske Lov: Magna Carta was dictated by and made for the Barons in order to curb the King's power; Jyske Lov was made for the People!
Does that make Jyske Lov even more advanced than Magna Carta in "civilisation terms"?
I think so!
I have therefore tried to translate the rather wrinkled old Danish language in Jyske Lov into an understandable, but correspondingly "olde English"(and left the Danish translation from Wikipedia at the bottom) for anyone who has an interest to see.
It ought to be everyone!

LAW OF THE JUTES, March 1241

Through law the country must be built. But if anyone would settle for his own and let others enjoy the same right, one did not need any law. No law is as good to follow as the truth, but if you are in doubt about what is the truth, then the law must show the truth.

Were there no law in the country, then he who has opportunity would also acquire most. Therefore, the law must concern everyone, that the righteous and peaceful and innocent can enjoy their peace, and he, who has evil acts in mind can become fearful of the law.

The law must be honest and fair and bearable, after the country's custom, appropriate and useful and clear, so that all may know and understand what the law says. The law should not be done or written to provide any man special favours, but look after the best interests of the people, who live in the country. The law which the king gives and the country adopts, can not be changed or repealed without the will of the country, unless he obviously acts against God.

It is the king’s and the country's officials’ office to monitor judgments and do right and save those who are forced by violence, such as widows and defenseless, children, pilgrims and foreigners and the poor, who are all those most often subject to violence - and not let bad people, who will not improve, live in the country. As he punishes and kills such evil people, he acts as God's servant and the custodian of the country. For as the Holy Church is controlled by the pope and bishop, so every country must be controlled and guarded by the king and his officials. It is the duty of everyone who lives in his country to obey him and be obedient and submissive, and in return he must give them peace. All [secular] chieftains must know, that with the power that God gave them in this world, he also transferred to them the duty to defend his holy church against all claims.

But if they become forgetful or biased and do not fulfill their duty as guardians of the law, then they shall be held accountable on the day of judgement, if the church's freedom and the country's peace have suffered due to their failure.

Be aware, anyone who sees this book, that King Valdemar the second, son of Valdemar, who was Saint Canute's son, as he had been king in thirty-nine winters, and thousand and two hundred and forty years have gone after our Lord was born, wrote this book and gave this law in the month of March, which here is written in Danish, together with the consent of his sons , who were present, King Erik, Duke Abel and squires Christoffer and Uffe, the then Archbishop of Lund, and Bishop Niels Rodkilde, Bishop Iver in Fyn, Bishop Peter in Aarhus, Bishop Gunner in Ribe, Bishop Gunner of Viborg, Bishop Stephen in Vensyssel and Bishop Stephen in Hedeby and also with the consent of all the best men who are in his kingdom.
March 1241.

Original text in half modern transcription:

Med lov skal land bygges, men ville enhver nøjes med sit eget og lade andre nyde samme ret, da behøvede man ikke nogen lov. Men ingen lov er jævngod at følge som sandheden, men hvor man er i tvivl om, hvad der er sandhed, der skal loven vise sandheden.
Var der ikke lov i landet, da havde den mest, som kunne tilegne sig mest. Derfor skal loven gøres efter alles tarv, at retsindige og fredsommelige og sagesløse kan nyde deres fred, og uretfærdige og onde kan ræddes for det, der er skrevet i loven, og derfor ikke tør fuldbyrde den ondskab, som de har i sinde. Det er også rigtigt, dersom nogen ikke af frygt for Gud og kærlighed til retten kan lokkes til det gode, at frygten for øvrigheden og landets straffelov da kan hindre dem i at gøre ilde og straffe dem, hvis de gør det.
Loven skal være ærlig og retfærdig, tålelig, efter landets sædvane, passende og nyttig og tydelig, så at alle kan vide og forstå, hvad loven siger. Loven skal ikke gøres eller skrives til nogen mands særlige fordel, men efter alle deres tarv, som bor i landet. Heller ikke skal nogen mand dømme mod den lov, som kongen giver, og landet vedtager; men efter den lov skal landet dømmes og styres. Den lov, som kongen giver, og landet vedtager, den kan han heller ikke ændre eller ophæve uden landets vilje, medmindre han åbenbart handler mod Gud.
Det er kongens og landets høvdingers embede at overvåge domme og gøre ret og frelse dem, der tvinges med vold, såsom enker og værgeløse, børn, pilgrimme og udlændinge og fattige - dem overgår der tiest vold - og ikke lade slette mennesker, der ikke vil forbedre sig, leve i sit land; thi idet han straffer og dræber ugerningsmænd, da er han Guds tjener og landets vogter. Thi ligesom den hellige kirke styres af pave og biskop, således skal hvert land styres og værges af kongen eller hans embedsmænd. Derfor er også alle, der bor i hans land, skyldige at være ham hørige og lydige og underdanige, og til gengæld er han skyldig at give dem alle fred. Det skal alle verdslige høvdinger også vide, at med den magt, Gud gav dem i hænde i denne verden, overdrog han dem også at værge sin hellige kirke mod alle krav. Men bliver de glemsomme eller partiske og ikke værger, som ret er, da skal de på Dommens dag stå til ansvar, hvis kirkens frihed og landets fred mindskes ved deres skyld i deres tid.
Vide skal alle, der ser denne bog, at kong Valdemar, den anden søn af Valdemar, der var Sankt Knuds søn, da han havde været konge i ni og tredive vintre, og der var gået tusind og to hundrede og fyrretyve vintre, efter at Vor Herre var født, i den næstfølgende marts måned lod skrive denne bog og gav denne lov, som her står skrevet på dansk, i Vordingborg med samtykke af sine sønner, der var til stede, kong Erik, hertug Abel og junker Christoffer og Uffe, der da var ærkebiskop i Lund, og biskop Niels i Rodkilde, biskop Iver i Fyn, biskop Peder i Århus, biskop Gunner i Ribe, biskop Gunner i Viborg, biskop Jens i Vensyssel og biskop Jens i Hedeby og desuden med samtykke af alle de bedste mænd, der er i hans rige.

European Court, EU and Human Rights

The European Commission for Human Rights, the brain child of David Maxwell Fyfe, one of the prosecutors at the Nuernberg trials after WWII, has just passed its 60th anniversary on 3 Sept. 2013.

Maxwell Fyfe, who apparently was a bit of a hard-liner, had obviously been strongly influenced and touched by the accounts of the misery imposed upon human kind by dictatorial regimes in the 1930s and ’40s. He felt, that for a civilized world to develop in a global fashion, the excesses he had experienced should never be allowed to develop again. KZ-camps and persecution of people with different thoughts due to creed, religion and race should be a thing of the past.
Modern, international co-existence in a civilized society could only develop in an orderly manner, if some sort of protective, international legislation were implemented.

In 1959 the European Court of Human Rights was therefore established, seated in Strasbourg.

The judges are chosen amongst the 47 contracting countries in order to make it a truly international court. The details can easily be found on various articles via Google and Wikipedia.

I find it more than interesting, however, to observe how this court has developed.
The court’s decisions have not always been popular and in the last few years a strange tendency has developed.
Granted, the question of what constitutes “Human Rights” doesn’t seem to have a clear answer; someone’s right on one side may be someone else’s injustice on the other, but whilst the initial idea is very laudable, it may also be argued, that the power of the Court increasingly seems to infringe upon the law-profile of each of the member states.
Additionally, the larger signatories (e.g. UK, France, Germany, Russia) will have to abide by judgements made by e.g. Malta, San Marino, Andorra and Liechtenstein, whose composite populations could hardly fill a suburb of Moscow.

The questions, therefore, are: who sets the norms and values? To whom is the Court responsible? Who reins it in?

These questions have become more and more accentuated, as judgements increasingly become contradictory to the feelings of right and wrong of many people.

In the UK Abu Quatada, a person who was deemed dangerous due to his terrorist activities and who had entered England illegally, cost the state millions of Pounds, paid by the tax payers, as it proved impossible to extradite him back to his country of origin, Jordan, “due to his human rights”. The fear was that he would be tortured.
But what about his proven terrorist threats and activities? Who would protect the “Human Rights” of his potential victims.

There are many cases like Abu Quatada’s and it seems, that every time a proven criminal or suspected terrorist is threatened by extradition, the Court prevents their removal from a peaceful society with the less and less acceptable excuse: “due to their human rights”.

So what have we actually nurtured in Strasbourg in the years since 1959?

It seems to me, that the European Court has developed quite its own little fiefdom with its own rules, values and interpretations.
It has become a court, who without hesitation protects paedophiles, terrorists, illegal immigrants and ordinary criminals with reference to their ”Human Rights”, but ignores potential victims and in the process of this inequality also ignores the individual state’s rights to administer its established laws.

It has become a Court, who prevents the extradition of people, who are proven to be dangerous for the society in which they live, even when they are staying illegally. Again due to “their Human Rights” and without reference to the negative effects on society.

It is a Court that increasingly has implemented its own rules and values, while shunning the laws of the participating member states.

In fact, it has developed exactly along the same lines as the European Union, whose metamorphosis over the last 30 years has created a self-propagating monster with a deliberate lack of respect for the national states that make up its body.

In both cases a conscious lack of democracy and a focus on own goals and ideas, far from the original concept, flourish, while the participating national entities let it happen without much protest, letting the option of making their own decisions disappear in an empty space.
I find this dangerous, wrong and totally contrary to the ideas and values that have created our modern, West European welfare states.

It is a good example of the “Syndrome of the Boiling Frog”.
Drop a frog in very hot water – and it jumps out.
But drop it in cold water while heating it slowly and it will not discover what is going on before it is too late.
Such is the classic reaction to change – also amongst human beings.

I suggest it is high time to reconsider the operation of both the European Court of Human Rights and the European Union. Both are on a path to become colossuses on clay feet, but it would suit us better to reorganise them in an orderly fashion, than to let them collapse in an uncontrolled way – which they otherwise will.

2500 Years East-West conflict. Salamis, Marathon and Thermopylae reviewed

We forget that the East-West conflict is over 2500 years old.
In fact, the three most important battles in history are in my opinion Marathon, Thermopylae and Salamis, where the Greek armies secured the civilisation of today – and here is why.

The overarching issue in this conflict was not the usual “I want more power, land, gold, trade routes, etc.”
The real and not so obvious issue was the firm belief amongst the Persian kings (Darius and his son Xerxes) that their power and their right to extend it were given to them by their super-god Ahuru Mazda. Therefore they had a divine right to imperial expansion that could not even be brought into dispute.

This assumption was in stark contrast to the Greek stance, that the state with its inherent culture and social structure was the result of an intelligent process, human logic and our ability freely to process information.

Surely, the Greek gods were involved, but merely as observing stakeholders and with their built-in human weaknesses as creators of intrigues and conflicts, but certainly not as designers.

Without the Greek victories the emerging, but still frail and undeveloped idea about democracy, would have been buried with Solon and Themistocles. Socrates, the father of observation, analysis, explanation and logical deduction, would not have had a chance to develop his ideas and the basis for our scientific methodology would never have seen the light of day. The Persian master-culture would unhindered have swallowed the rest of Europe. There would have been no Romans, no renaissance, no Beethoven and no Goethe.

Centuries of spiritual and religious darkness would have swept across Europe as the Greek barrier to slavery under the expanding Persian empire, with its suppression of the individual and total demand of submission to the king and his god, was swept away.

It may of course be argued, that the arrival of a later comparable desert religion, which is as totalitarian as the Persian one, might never have happened. It would already have been there and the need for its creation as an underpinning device for divine expansion and dominance would therefore be redundant.

It is awesome how many of the state- and culture forming processes that took place in the years between 500BC and 480BC can be found mirrored in today’s globalised world.

The political parties in the “West” are still embroiled in strife and contention despite the EU artifice – just as the Greek city states 2500 years ago. Some of the small cities amongst the 700 in Peloponnese and Attica tried their come-uppance much like small West European countries try their influencing manoeuvres against the 4 big countries today, ultimately leaving it to Athens and Sparta to sort everything out – comparable to Germany, France and Britain in the EU. The Greek culture, religion and gods were then, as today, a hodgepodge of beliefs, although some sort of a unified culture and a strong human, or secular, element can be identified in both cases. But today, as then, we are up against the ultimate in totalitarian demands for submission of the individual and abandonment of the secular state as we know it.

Most of the Greek city states either sat on their hands or the fence, or had already made the decision that resistance was in vain; rather give in to the barbarians than be subdued by Athens or Sparta.
Although some sort of unity was achieved at the Hellenion conference in Corinth, it was left to Sparta and Athens to sort things out. For most others a continued existence with the head buried in the sand, a continued parochial life awaiting the inevitable fate, seemed to be the only way forward, as the reflections of the sun in the spear heads of the Persian army began to show. Perhaps a life in the shade of the almighty king Xerxes, who in 480BC ruled over the largest empire the world had ever seen, wasn’t too bad after all?
Treat him well, i.e. with respect, and he would treat you well?

Today we are facing a paradigm shift in both religious and state terms.

Externally, an antiquated, obsolete desert religion requires us to drop our Socratic wisdom and individual taking responsibility for our lives and actions, submitting to yet another Ahuru Mazda with the threat of death if resisting to abandon our humanity and hard won freedoms.

Internally, a European super state has emerged, the EU, marketing eternal happiness and no wars while making us pay dearly for the bag of empty promises, reforms and relief from responsibility, that an unelected elite is pressing down over our heads.
In the economic and cultural turmoil that has arisen as a consequence of our greed and lack of learning from history, political parties are reviving dead donkeys like collectivism, Leninism and oligarch driven societies. University College of London students, for example, have posters all over the place calling for a re-emergence of Marxism 2013.
Are they mad?
Perhaps not - just ignorant in the best case - stupid in the worst.
20% of the Danish population support a party that wants to disband the police force, all military and the parliament, replacing it with "people councils".
Are they mad?
Perhaps not - just ignorant in the best case - stupid in the worst.
Sweden wants to open the borders, raising the population from 8mill to 40mill through non-western immigration before 2040.
Are they mad?
Perhaps not - just ignorant in the best case - stupid in the worst.

And You haven't seen the worst yet!!

Socrates wanted people to learn, to understand, at least to realise when they didn’t know, so they could seek new learning. So he was executed, allegedly depraving the youth.

How far have we really come in the 2500 years since the battle of Salamis and the experience from Marathon - a question we have to ask after the 2013 Boston Marathon?
How many people today actually know what Marathon represents?
One only needs to consider modern school systems that do what they can to eliminate national cultures and history while teaching the kids to play; the blinkered approach of creationism; and too many ultra-orthodox schools that prevent anything outside their own belief sphere to enter the brains of the young.

But worst of all: it is becoming a crime to protest this state of affairs.

We accept this as the blessing of a multi-cultural world, closing our eyes for the fact that it actually represents a misunderstood respect for stupidity and ignorance, while we excuse it by calling it the hall marks of “other people’s culture”.

Where are the Athens and the Sparta of 2013, who can save us?

Socrates' sentencing - and what this can teach us today

On the reasons for the sentencing of Socrates

Jorgen Faxholm April 1962, April 2013

One day at school in April 1962, at the tender age of 18 and just before I finished gymnasium and became a student, our Classical Studies teacher announced, that he was very busy and therefore unable to take the class that day. The initial sentiment of freedom was abruptly interrupted, as he proceeded to define a written task which had to be finished and delivered within the hour. He spent 5 minutes outlining what he expected – and then disappeared.

I recently found my written proposal, written with both speed and content in mind. I can hardly recognise my own handwriting, but I do remember the day very well now 51 years later.

Here it follows, in my own translation from Danish – followed by a comment at the end

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In the year 399 BC three gentlemen by the name of Meletos, Anytos and Lykon filed a complaint against a certain Socrates at the court of the “Basileios” (the king).
Thus started one of the most famous court cases in history.

The reasons for accusing Socrates were mainly as follows:

The Peloponnese war had been raging between 431 and 404, ending with a defeat for Athens. Sparta, being the victor, had reduced the influence of Athens from being a major power to becoming just another small city-state with a reduced army and a destroyed navy.

As the Spartans withdrew their occupation troops, the Athenian democrats overturned the reigning oligarchs and initiated the reconstruction of Athens.

Everyone was now querying the reason for the defeat and at the time it was widely rumoured that it was because of the lethargy of the youth.

The blame was allocated fair and square at the people called “the Sophists”. As many people had become irritated and angry with Socrates’ ways, they found an opportune reason to get rid of him through accusing him of being a “Sophist”.

In this way they conveniently combined two accusations: accusing Socrates of subversive activities, causing the war to be lost and as a person, who was destroying the respect for the state through his sophistic activities.
In short, there is both a political and a philosophical background to his court case.

The Sophists spread their learning through eloquence and charged money for their teaching. It is in this context interesting that several sciences can trace their origin and development to the activities of the Athenian Sophists, e.g. in Mathematics and Geography.

However, the general attitude was that the Sophists undermined the fundamentals of common sense, as they said: every case can be viewed from two sides. The truth is inherent in a person’s conviction and it is impossible to have a wrong opinion; if one realises that one’s stance is wrong, then – of course – one wouldn’t have it any longer!

Consequently even a discussion on the fairness of the laws was possible – in other words: anything goes. Not exactly a solid basis for society.
This quibbling meant that it was possible to turn a weak case into a strong one and vice versa through an eloquent presentation. A clever Sophist could for example turn a creditor into a debtor. It is quite easy to see that a society built on such a premise would soon end up in turmoil. Aristophanes used such arguments in his play “the Clouds”, while thoroughly thrashing the Sophists in general and Socrates in particular.

An added consequence of the sophistic eloquence was the perceived break down of the respect for the Gods, an accusation that added to the serious situation in which Socrates had been landed.

Now, let’s us have a look at why people were so angry with Socrates.

The main object of Socrates’ philosophy was to achieve the perfection of the soul, the “aretē”.

Socrates did not sympathise with the nature-philosophers, who dominated in the period of 600-450. He totally agreed with the logical approach and methods of the Sophists. This is clearly demonstrated in his defence speech and in the dialogue with Kriton.

Socrates was a local Athenian and he took a special delight in getting people to contradict themselves, while his youthful followers listened and laughed. In this way he instigated doubt about the confidence of the culture of the educated classes amongst his audience.

During these word-duels he used Sophistic logic, techniques and eloquence, the result of which was that people took him for being a Sophist.
Unfortunately very few people were able to see Socrates’ deeper objective, namely achieving “Eudaimonia”, true happiness, which could only be reached through one being released from all external surrounding forces. An understandable, but sad inability of the people at the time.

I mentioned the “aretē” of the soul above.
The definition of this concept is “the correct content of courage, fairness, moderation and humility” that constitutes the required elements for success in life.
According to Socrates this could be learned.

Unfortunately no written words from Socrates’ hand have been preserved for the future, but his many small street presentations were intended to prepare the youth, his audience, to see the light, thus providing them with the key to create their own soul’s “aretē”.
In this way he managed to ridicule politicians, orators, poets and others while ordinary people listened.

No wonder he created enemies faster than friends.

One of his proofs concerned a demonstration that he was wiser than everyone else. This clearly provoked and irritated many people.
As an example Xenophon gave this description of Socrates: “a petit-bourgeois, a self serving and irritating old man, who sticks his nose in other peoples’ matters and tells them something they already know”.
2200 years later even Kierkegaard offered the opinion that he understood very well why Socrates had been executed.
Somehow these opinions don’t rhyme well with the fact that Socrates and his learning has had an enormous impact on the thought processes and philosophy of the present.

The accusations against Socrates were presented at the Court of the Heliasts.
There were 501 judges, making a 50-50 result  impossible, but it is honestly a little beyond me, how such a large group would ever be able to reach a concluding judgement.

Meletos, one of the accusers, was the first one to speak.
Next Sokrates defended himself.
Subsequently the Court passed its judgement.

After this both the prosecutor and the accused would speak and indicate the extent of the punishment, provided a guilty sentence had been pronounced.
The judges were forced to accept one of these, a principle that forced both parties to select a reasonable punishment.

In this case Meletos suggested the death sentence, while Socrates, quite undisturbed and to demonstrate his innocence, suggested, that the city should entertain him with a dinner at the Prytaneion (the town hall) just as for the victors from large sports games.
Socrates was quite convinced that this was well deserved, as he considered himself to be “the town conscience”, like a social horsefly.
There is no doubt that this suggestion irritated the judges and moved their attitude closer to that of Meletos.

Socrates then modified his suggestion to a fine of 1 Mine, but his friends now came to his support, proposing a fine of 30 Mines.
It didn’t help.

Socrates was subsequently sentenced to be executed. After the court case he spoke to the Heliasts, predicting that they would deeply regret what they had just done.

Socrates was basically accused of 3 things: that

1) he was a Nature-Philosopher

2) he was a Sophist and

3) he was depraving the youth

In addition he was accused of not believing in the Gods but in demons. The reason for this was probably that Socrates constantly referred to his “daimon”, which is what the rest of us would call our inner voice or conscience.

Meletos said that Socrates has been known to define the moon as a lump of soil and the sun to be a rock, i.e. not being Gods!

In response, Socrates told Meletos off, accusing him of comparing Socrates with Anaxagoras, the Nature-Philosopher. Socrates continued, saying that this kind of learning could be bought for 1 Drachme, essentially not being worth considering. He proceeded with proving that the accusations were contradictory, using sophist eloquence and showing that he actually did believe in the Gods while also believing in “daimons”, as the demons are the children of the Gods.

On the account of being a Sophist, Socrates’ logic fails slightly, when he compares the Sophists with shepherds, but a stronger argument is that he can prove his poverty, i.e. that he never charged for his teachings like other Sophists.

The reason that Socrates was sentenced now seems rather clear: it was his conduct, rather than a proven guilt according to Meletos’ accusations.
Who wants to be publicly told off – exactly what Socrates so eloquently was able to do?

In addition he no doubt irritated the Court, in particular during the sentencing.
The Court had known about Socrates and his activities, not just for a couple of years, but for the last 15-20 years and Socrates’ admiration of the Spartan Constitution was also very well documented. After the Peloponnese war this was hardly to Socrates’ advantage.

Finally Socrates was still friendly with Kritias, the leader of the Oligarchs, after 404 BC, and with Alkibiades.

Consequently, in the mind of his accusers he had built up an image as a traitor – despite a very successful past as a Hoplite during the war.

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A stern comment 51 years later:

What was it that Socrates taught us then and that so profoundly has impacted our society and civilisation?

- Socrates used intellect and logic, rather than blind ‘belief’
- He was a master in the art of questioning. Why? How? – the basis for all science.
- He emphasised the importance of doubt, without which all research would be vain.
- He believed in justice and fairness, without which society would succumb into anarchy or tyranny.
- He was ruthless with people, who exhibited false confidence.

Importantly he also believed that knowledge was a virtue, he was devoted and pietous, politically aware and prudent – but these characteristics were imbedded in a person of a strong temperament and tendency to conceit with an uninhibited delight in mocking others.

Above all, Socrates didn’t pull his punches, but he also knew the strength of his arguments. He was a hard adversary in any discussion, staying clear of belief-arguments and value-statements.

We are deeply indebted to Socrates for creating the underpinning values of our Western society – and more than that: he was a defender of what we would call free speech.

However, being under attack from the politically correct, we are in danger of losing the right and the willingness to express ourselves today.
Very few people find the courage to defend this important basis for civilisation.

The EU is pushing for the abolition of the national state, national values and culture.

A medieval desert culture, which cannot be criticised for fear of political incorrectness, racism and hate speech, is slowly taking over our Socratic values.
Socrates would have been appalled.

Foreign nationals who commit violent crimes cannot be returned to their country of origin for fear of violating their “human rights”, meaning they can continue their criminal behaviour with impunity, eliminating the human rights of their victims.

Authors, writers, artists and intellectuals, who speak up in true Socratic spirit, are condemned to a life in protected anonymity for fear of their lives. One only needs to remember Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Lars Hedegaard, Kurt Westergaard, Lars Vilks and the murdered Dutch film maker Theo Van Gogh.

So, is there hope?
Perhaps.

Under celebrity pressure (Rowan Atkinson) and lots of signatures the English Parliament has just, exceptionally, verified “our right to insult”, lighting a small candle in the darkness, but the creeping attack of a medieval desert culture continues to pull us in the other direction.

Everything Socrates stood for is under attack and unfortunately ignorance, materialism, indifference and "the General Human Condition" are taking over – until it perhaps is too late!

But there is another thing that relates directly to the parochial side of Socrates’ sentencing: his social horsefly tendency.
Very few people dare speak up against the society in which they live for fear of social ostracism.
Socrates did and we need people with such courage lest we become a mass of intellectual molasses without values.

In St Peter’s Square, Hammersmith/ London, the residents’ association called SPRA is a true image of the Heliast Court: impervious to criticism, aloof, self centred and responding to criticism with bullying – mainly as hemlock juice is prohibited.

Whistle blowers will always lose, even when they win.
Socrates taught us this as well.

.

British Airways - How to abandon responsibility - and regain a little

Coming from Copenhagen 3 March on a late BA flight, it shocked me that a modern airline - the World's favourite, you know! - could be so inept in resolving a fairly simple problem, with so little communication as was the case.
Certain events were clearly beyond BA's responsibility, e.g. that police helicopters over a runway caused Heathrow to close down briefly - but the way it was mishandled by the crew of our circling plane and by BAA was shocking.

It started with an hour's delay in Copenhagen, which was announced as just 20 min on the screens. 2035 instead of 2015. As usual "due to the late incoming plane" - the rubbish reason always given.
When we finally boarded, an apparent engineering defect with the flaps took a further 25 min to correct - not a pleasant thought, but you put your trust in the fact that the BA crew wouldn't like to take risks either.

20 miles from LHR around 22.30 our A320 started to circle. After several circles we were told that there was a police helicopter incident over the runway and we couldn't land.
More seriously, though, the captain was unable to continue the waiting position, as the plane had too little fuel (SIC!) - what? Too little fuel?
The Captain was unable to give us more information at this point, as he had to concentrate on the fuel problem and where to take us.
So we were redirected to Stansted.

Here we were not allowed to disembark neither in full nor partly (because of security). Fair enough.
But Stansted was unfamiliar with the flap issue, which now - together with all the other security procedures - had to be repeated.
Result: we started towards LHR over an hour later at 0000 - arriving at 0020.
The matter was made worse, as the Cabin Crew limited themselves to issue apologies and refrain from providing proper information.

Landing 3 hours late at T5 - the flagship terminal of British Airways - I found a closed underground.
If you have ever been there at night, you can imagine the panic - stuck at T5 at 0035 is not pleasant, I can assure you.
It's dead, closed, abandoned!

It appeared later that the LHR police helicopter incident had lasted appx 15 min. - but why was it that
passengers using mobiles were able to get more info from family and waiting friends than we received from the staff in the plane?

We had been promised help with onward transport if we needed it from T5 (who wouldn't need this?)
But to my amazement there was no one there to help and nothing had been arranged.
It was apparently all hot air to keep us quiet.

We were also promised help from the Ground Staff.
But no Ground Staff was available at all.
NONE.
T5 had essential closed down at 0000 with only maintenance staff (cleaners) and booked cab drivers waiting.

QUESTIONS:

Why was the A320 plane so short of fuel, that we couldn't circle 20 minutes (like so often at LHR)?
If we had been tanked up, we would have been in time, as a bit of circling in a parking position would have resolved the time-issue.

Why did the Cabin Crew not organise the promised transport - mostly taxis? They just ran away from all responsibility.

Why did the Cabin Crew not contact BAA, who could have liaised with the Taxi Management at T5?
The result was a totally empty taxi rank, something BAA should have foreseen.
Unbelievable.

Where was the BA Ground Staff? (Probably home in bed).

Why did BAA ignore the consequences of closing down Heathrow for 15 min.? There must have been several planes going through this diversion.

Why should it take an hour waiting for a taxi in a 100 people queue.

Is this a world class airport ?

How could a world class airline (!) abandon its passengers so blatantly when this incident happened?

Has BA no procedures in place for such a small matter?
I dread thinking about a big incident.

It cost me £65 for a night taxi from the taxi rank to go to Hammersmith - a mere 12 miles - arriving home  at appx 0200. There were still around 50-100 people in queue by then. The Taxi driver was angry as well, saying that NO ONE had informed him, neither the Taxi Management nor BAA.

BA actually promised to compensate £50 of the £65.
But why £50?
Because their Customer Agent maintained that I was lying about the £65, which were the metered costs in a black cab ride at 0135 at night!!
It beggars belief that The World's Favourite Airline finds it useful to add rudeness and stingyness to incompetence - but of course: it might just be a one off and a training problem..
That's what I think, as someone intervened, apologised - and paid the remaining £15.
There's hope and BA gets another chance.

Have Paris' bistrots and brasseries lost it?

I remember when you could go into almost any street Brasserie, Cafe, Bar or Bistrot in Paris and get a 'Biftek au frites', pay a reasonable amount and walk out saying: "They know how to do this, these French. Delicious".
We tried to find the old atmosphere at a recent 1-day trip to Paris, made possible by the only 2 ½ hour Eurostar door to door journey at £60 for a return ticket.
It was a mixed experience.
A confused and dirty Gare du Nord, a long queue at the single ATM in the arrivals hall followed by an even longer queue to obtain the obligatory carnet for the underground, was not a good start. It didn’t help that the EU-blessing of free travel for everyone seems to have filled Paris with hordes of begging Romanian gypsies, not to mention beggars on every street corner.

If this is Van Rompuy’s, Baroso’s and Schultz’s EU anno 2013, we don’t need it.

At previous visits we have begun the day with a simple petit dejeuner: cafe au lait, a baguette with jam and the breathing in of the atmosphere. We shouldn’t have done it this time.
A disinterested waiter did everything he could to tell these “Anglais” that they were not welcome. He managed to ignore us, forgetting to deliver jam and butter, ignoring the need for cutlery and plates and serving the cafe au lait as if it were a badly produced cappucino.
Apparently they charge 15% for service as standard on the bills in France these days! But not only that – the prices are roughly 50% above corresponding meals in the UK, even with a falling Euro.

My wife's omelette was the only star of the show. Clearly some French chefs have retained a little self respect - but there certainly were no extras for the waiter (which is what they seem to expect on top of their 15%).

So if you happen to pass Brasserie Sarah Bernhard around Tour St Jacques, don’t feel tempted to enter.

Later we had a more elaborate dinner, trying to convince ourselves that one bad experience shouldn’t be allowed to taint French cuisine and hospitality.

At the square next to the Metro Maubert-Mutualite there is a string of typical French shops selling wine, charcuterie, cheese and fish. It is like a little market and a very attractive one at that. Next to the shops, on the corner, there’s a fairly simple small Bistrot. We have been there before some years ago and had pleasant memories of our visit.

To make a long story short, if the food there is representative of what they can produce these days in France, at an exorbitant price, I can promise you that France will not last much longer as a leading EU-country. Perhaps it is too late anyway, as apparently the Muslims in Marseille and Avignon are having some success scaring charcuterie (pork!), wine merchants and lingerie sellers away. France without wine and sausages?
Mon Dieu!

Nevertheless, Paris has a “Je ne sais quoi” and we enjoyed our 8 hours cruising Paris on foot, walking ourselves an inch shorter – even while some of the time we had to accept a light drizzle.

My personal enjoyment could of course be because of my memories from many trips to the city of cities – or Mother of all cities in today’s parlance - but we agreed it would ‘vaut le voyage’ to return.

Perhaps bringing our own sandwiches this time - - - -

Change, Society and the Credit Crunch

I recently fell into the 1992 film with Mel Gibson, Forever Young. The film is about a guy, who is deep-frozen in 1939, waking up 50 years later as a couple of kids pilfer with the power supply to his long forgotten cryogenic coffin. In real life there are many people who pay for this delusionary “treatment” in the hope that future medical research can cure them from whatever fatal illness they carry in their body.

The major fallacy in this hope is not even the fact that their cells explode and are destroyed by the freezing process. The real rub is: will there be stability and continuity in society for even the foreseeable future – let alone the required 50, 100 or 200 years ahead? Or will the object of their efforts drown in war, broken energy supplies or something else?

I think I can say with 100% security:They have wasted their money.

This brought me to think about where else we make this mistake: that life will just go on and on and that the changes we experience will be manageable and arrive piece-meal, giving us plenty of time to adjust. In other words, how many years will pass between major societal discontinuity points?
West European people being up to 67 years old have lived through the longest period of stability ever experienced by anyone. Until recently this part of the world has had a voice with a lot of weight, i.e. “we write the history”, as we were the winners of WWII.

But even within the W. European borders there has been massive change, in some cases for the better, in other cases containing the seeds of massive disasters – we just forget. Spain and Portugal shook off their dictators. We (almost) got rid of 3 rather terrible ideologies: Fascism, Nazism and Communism.
Unfortunately we imported a fourth, a desert culture that preaches as much hate to people of a different belief as the old monsters. The European Union was established, as it grew out of the Coal and Steel Union, an attempt to establish free trade coalitions and the idea that the EU could create long term peace in a historically war torn Europe. (I shall deal with that fallacy at a later time). The technologies developed during WWII have been refined into peace technologies, applied in medicine, physics, electronics, communication and general infrastructure. This has created rich and prospering societies that seem to have become immune to the danger signals.

European overseas colonies became autonomous in the 1940s-70s, leading to mass immigration into Europe. Poverty and wars elsewhere send more people on a migration path, changing populations and religious demography beyond recognition. The effect is dramatic, as the original populations are forced to rethink or even abandon (change) their 1000 year old cultures while trying to accommodate the incoming hordes.

Two major political parties in Sweden, a country of ca. 9mill inhabitants, are now suggesting a complete opening of the borders, expecting a population growth through immigration to 40mill. They are obviously totally blind for the fact that Sweden has moved from being one of the richest states in Europe to a level, where social costs has eroded this position dramatically and immigrant criminality is rampant.
Then imagine free growth from 9mill. to 40mill. - uncontrolled!
The European Union has become a federal state, where laws are made centrally, while the national state concept actively is being discouraged. Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland are basically bankrupt, only kept afloat by the other EU members, the ECB and the IMF. As this happens without a well structured plan to bring their economies back on track, it can only get worse.

At the borders of Western Europe change becomes more violent: in Yugoslavia KZ-camps and ethnic cleansing as bad as seen in Nazi Germany could be experienced during the war of the 1990s, when new countries were established. East Germany (DDR) collapsed in 1989 as did the Berlin wall resulting in a united Germany, which again has become a European economic superpower. The Warsaw pact countries switched side to NATO and many joined the EU. In 1991 Ukraine became an autonomous country for the first time since Volodymir and Jaroslav in the 11th and 12th Century and immediately collapsed economically, even twice, within 5 years. For the populations of these countries such changes have been massive both culturally and economically, as national assets and personal fortunes came, went or changed hand.
And now the world has become global.

The clerical regime in Iran and the continued attempt by the Arabs to throw Israel into the Mediterranean must range top on the danger list, when we look at potential time bombs under world peace. Next time around it will not be as easy for Israel to repel an Arabic attack. The danger of a nuclear war has moved several paces closer.

But how do we assess the jihadist Islamisation of the world and the fact that one of the world’s richest countries, Qatar, has embarked on a major shopping spree for European brands? With increased economic influence it will be much easier for them to support the accelerating implementation of Islam. It already happens. Secular dictatorships in North Africa and Syria are now being replaced by Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood with Sunni/Shia infights and persecution of Christians as a result. Yet, we still look at Islam as a religion. It is not. It is a culture, a thoroughly different lifestyle that clashes violently with classic Western European values. It is very sad to see how easily we denounced these values, including the right to thinking, believing and speaking freely, just to accommodate a culture that so far is in the minority.

Or what will be the consequence of the march of the Chinese world-wide as they take over Old Europe’s manufacturing role and access to raw materials?

There are many more examples of dramatic change and the trouble is, that we look at it as step-change and not as discontinuity jumps. It is the “Boiling Frog Syndrome” again. We are caught asleep and our traditional piece-meal reactions to change only make things worse, as we let it happen as if life will go on as before.
It won’t.

Have we learnt anything from all this and from the past?
Public amnesia is rife, so quite frankly, I doubt it.

Does change (=improvement) mean that we are now able to do things better, more efficiently?

Not if you look at the UK’s National Health Service, which is a shambles, or the Falklands. We would not be able to defend these islands against an aggressor today, 30 years after we threw the Argentineans out.

More pertinently, are we in better control of our finances today? Have we learnt from disasters within living memory?
Definitely not.

Labour brought the UK to its knees economically through 13 years resource squandering, so that we now owe close to 10 times the value of our economy and the public debt stands at £1.5 Trillion – whatever that means!! The Conservatives are not improving anything despite firm claims. In fact borrowing is going up.

In the 1970s inflation was close to 30%. We seemed to get this under control and we have tried to alleviate the indebtedness and cost of loans for our businesses by holding the interest rate at 0.5% at the Bank of England. Our loans from the ECB and the IMF are just manageable – if we stay at an AAA credit rating.
The problem is that it has been too cheap to borrow money – and we did.

But what now if the interest rate goes up?

If I remember correctly, England was bankrupt after WWII and in the 70s under Callaghan, who had to ask the IMF to bail us out. Loans were charged at 18% interest, property was repossessed and the mood in the country was very pessimistic.
It happened again in 1987, when interest rates went from 9% to 15% and back to 12% in a day, showing that we really understood what was going on. Or?

And now a new financial crisis has played havoc with us for almost 5 years.
It happens again and again, but this time it is dangerous and hard to get out.

The government now guarantees everyone that their bank deposits up to £80,000 are safe. Not much of a consolation if you have a couple of million in the bank and it crashes. Could that happen?
Yes it could.
Do I have to guess that assets/ investments are leaving the country?

Remember Northern Rock in 2008 with queues outside the bank of people who wanted to withdraw their money. How could the Government guarantee your money, if the state’s debt is of dinosaurian proportions and interest rates went up?
Exactly – they couldn’t.

Since the credit crunch began, our economy has balanced on a knife’s edge and it is getting sharper and sharper. In my opinion there is a 99% chance that it will get worse. David Cameron is lying through his teeth, when he says that everything has improved and that the debt has been brought down by 25%. Eh? While increasing borrowing?

If Greece and Spain collapse, the shockwaves will be immense.
The question is then: what will the government do?

If the past is anything to go by – and I am not an economist – I think the state will take over and control every penny you own, try to withdraw, your pension payment, your investments and some foreign financiers will be called in to save the shreds.
Qatar? At what cost?

So, is there no way out?

There always is – and one way is a total collapse of the economy, as the past has shown us (Germany in the 1920s, USA in the 1930s), followed by rebuilding. This is probably the least preferable and most painful method.
But we can minimise the pain for a while – and perhaps long term, if we are willing to wait 25 years – which we may have to!
Stop our membership of the European Union circus!

This would be a sound alternative.

It will save us £55mill a day and take us out of the ridiculous tariff system the EU imposes on its members. A renewed free trade with e.g. the Commonwealth would be an immediate boon. Since Britain joined the EU, Commonwealth trade has become a trickle. This is an obvious place to start.

It would also bring law-making and administration back where it belongs and we would be free to design our own saving plank. Norway, Switzerland and Lichtenstein have shown that you may have all the benefits of the European Economic Community with economic growth at the same time as having the freedom of self-determination. It would give us the option to define our own way back to prosperity without disadvantages.

I think Britain’s exit from the EU will happen! Over 60% of the UK population is against the EU as a federal state, which is committed to the elimination of the national state, while running a gravy train for a select few and increasing its own power. EMPs receive Euro 12,000/month. It costs £600Bill/year to keep it running and the trade benefit - according to EU's own accounts - hover around "120Bill. If that doesn't say it all.
A plebiscite within the next 2 years is an absolute must, before things become totally uncontrollable.
As a result, the EU will break up - and not even the dirty trick with repeating the plebiscite to change the result, like in Holland and Ireland about the Lisbon Treaty, will help.

It is interesting to see how all the big-wigs with their snout in the jam-jar are now warning the UK: don't leave the EU. EMP and Commissioners, as they will lose millions when this dinosaur breaks up; the USA, because the 'special' friendship provides the Americans with a lot of inside knowledge and access; and all the misinformed, because they think the UK will lose access to a market of 500 mill. customers. Rubbish. Did Norway and Switzerland lose access? NO!!!!
The UK will become rich again.

Baroso, Schulz and van Rompuy will have to seek proper work and all the organisations that receive big handouts, keeping them in-line, as well as the money grabbing, un-elected commissioners, may have to find more productive ways to generate an income.

This would be a very desirable side effect of a collapsed EU.
Because collapse it will.

And then you will know what societal change is!!
.