Monthly Archives: May 2014

Prince Charles promotes a history lesson

A passing remark by Prince Charles during his visit to Canada had disproportionately provoked a vigorous response from Russia. President Putin sees the crisis in the Ukraine as a threat from fascist forces but finds himself the butt of Charles’ comment comparing him with Hitler. The history lesson that ensued is personal pointing out not only the British royal family’s history of links with Hitler but the German origins of his family and his own links with the Nazi past. I doubt whether it will go onto the National Curriculum as things stand.

In the year commemorating the centenary of the beginning of World War 1 no one promoting the sacrifices of so many wants reminding of its architects, which of course includes Charles’ own great grandfather, George V:

“Charles’ great grandfather George V was one of the three ‘great’ architects of World War One, the so-called ‘Cousins’ War’, four years of mindless slaughter that began exactly a century ago. With two more Saxe-Coburg Gotha cousins, George’s hapless subjects slugged it out in trench warfare with Germany’s Wilhelm II and Russia’s Nicholas II’s unfortunates leaving, by 1918, a total of some ten million dead for no discernible purpose.”

The writer continues reminding us that Charles’ family name changed at this time from Saxe-Coburg Gotha to Windsor in order to distance himself from any German link because of widespread public hostility…

“When in 1917 ill-mannered soldiers began pointing out that German Gotha bombers from another branch of the King’s family business were killing them, George V blithely announced that his surname was changing from ‘Saxe-Coburg Gotha’ to the more English-sounding ‘Windsor’.”

A history of the monarchy and the obsession with secrecy, maintenance of an elite and advancement of capitalism add discomfort to Charles inheritance, but a personal attack on his continuing expenditure on ensuring a positive PR against even higher costs of keeping the lid on anything else doesn’t help the monarchist cause. Not a bit. Thus at Highgrove Diana is a taboo subject. She, it is explained, tried to protect her sons from the unreality of their life as royals. While she is mentioned in books large sums are paid to ensure they are not seen here when they claim that the “arrangement of an accident” was something desired by the Windsors themselves.

Corporate Greed Protected

As MacDonald workers demonstrate peacefully for a fair wage in Illinois they come under attack by the very forces supposed to protect them in exercising their rights. Governments choose to protect Corporations and their ever growing demands for profit rather than the people on who they depend on delivering their services. Wages and conditions of service are sacrificed to this end.

Monsanto had become a name symbolising the predatory nature of the corporate beast and today people across the globe are taking them on. Governments respond not by supporting the people, those who elected them democratically through the ballot box, but by drafting increasingly draconian laws to protect their paymasters. Thus curbs on the Internet and freedom of speech are being proposed.

Diverting our attention. Instead of targeting foreigners aim at corporate interest

Another mining disaster with huge loss of life in Turkey concentrates the mind (or should concentrate the mind) on maintaining safety standards. As we well know from long and bitter experience it is likely to be the first thing that goes when private hands take over our industries and services. The low pay and shocking conditions described by Dickens is back with a vengeance. Instead of railing at the corporate interest that recreates and maintains servitude politicians of all major parties are paralysed with fear that the corporate lobbyists will withdraw the largesse and favours they like to bestow on the political elite. Don’t blame them, blame the foreigner as responsible for the countries ills. UKIP and the right thrive on it and the others trip over themselves to outdo thmm to create a climate of racism and xenophobia.

The history of opposition to the current power group all but vanishes as the corporate media represents its own and other corporate interest exclusively. However stories emerge that give a different picture. Seumas Milne reminds us of the emerging information correcting common views of the miners’ actions which shows not only the importance of the struggle but the lengths taken to close down any debate through misinformation and downright lies. In most cases it is just ignored as programmes like the BBC’s supposedly impartial question time goes out of its way to ignore the likes of Bob Crow and Arthur Scargill, but goes out of its way to drag in Nigel Farrage. It seems to justify this by selecting those who demonstrate the larger political interest, not stopping to think that it has been instrumental in creating the celebrity status of the so-called “fruit cake”.

It is not only the right that opposes European dictat from Brussels but lack of media oxygen does not allow the message of the left to be heard. It is to do with class, unions and targetting corporate interest as the problem creating crisis after crisis. Far from solving the problem it is recreated in ever more alarming form with ever increasing debt bubbles. Those with the control of huge financial resources look after themselves and their friends, including politicians of all the major parties using resources of the state (ie our money paid in taxes nationally and locally) to implement their disastrous projects. People don’t matter as greed overtakes need and the most vulnerable are discarded without a thought.

Gaza Diary. From Mohammad Arafat

Mohammad wrote: “My weekly article A Picture of Life in Living in Gaza has many different pictures and scenes. It has tragic sad pictures and happy ones. No one can doubt that many Shakespearean tragedies happen in Gaza. Torturing is still torturing, killing is still killing, besieging is still besieging and bombing is still bombing, but that cannot prevent us from speaking about the beauty of Gaza. Away from talking about political speech and the traps of it and the bad things that it results, I want to mention and to speak about the beautiful side of the young Gaza, so I made a debate with my heart leaving my mind a side. We began to look at and to flip all the pictures of this city, the sad and the happy, and the good and the bad until we found a beautiful picture that portrays the beautiful simple life and the atmosphere of this Holy city. We finally agreed to write about that picture to show the fabulous sweet side of Gaza. We chose that picture which can let readers fly and swim in the core of imagination that they will never get bored of. Gaza is a city located 19 miles north of Egypt. It’s considered as the only way that links Asia with Africa. Many ancient traders talk about the profits of this city and the importance of its place. It has a long golden shore with a beautiful glittering sea called the Mediterranean Sea. This sea has an old seaport called (Mina’ Ghaza). Many tourists and visitors come to this city to enjoy its fabulous beautiful places like the Al-Emary Al-kabeer Mosque in Sheja’eia lane, barqouq castle in Khanyounis, Al-Basha castle museum in the middle of Gaza and especially the seaport in the west of Gaza. The simple life of Gazan people is accepted although there are many wars and clashes can interrupt their life and their children’s. They live as others as nothing threat them because they know their fate so they have no fear. When Gazans wake up every day at dawn after hearing the caller of the Al-Fajr prayer and having ablution, they go to the mosque asking God to pour from his mercy on them and their families and to give them the appropriate livelihood they wish. The atmosphere at dawn freshens prayers’ spirits and minds. The fresh breeze expels the sad atmosphere in Gaza lanes and replaces it with a happy one. Purity of prayers lightens the dark street that the power abandoned. In the morning and after an hour from dawn, the white pure Gazan moon disappears saying good bye to the orange young sun after shaking his hands and hugging him. The sun lightens the dark silent innocent homes and shelters of poors asking them to begin their lively day. It appears and welcomes the energetic proud workers that go to their work and the hopeful little pupils that go to their schools to begin a lovely day of working and studying. The sun lightens the nests of the cute tiny birds pulling them to fly out their nests and to begin a concert full of twitting and chirping and to start a trip full of happiness and vital work. Children of those birds wake up after a long journey of sleeping and dreaming of the breakfast ,that they will have, under their mothers’ smooth light bodies. The mothers fly under the fading sun of the morning after awaking their children looking for some worms and grains for the breakfast on the brown fertilized lands and among the old long trees of olive, orange, and lemon. They look for their targeted food among the Gazan farmers who wipe the sweat from their heads by their tired hands and among the rusty axes that the farmers use for plowing the lands. After filling their stomachs with live worms and fresh seeds, the mothers go back to their nests safely hopefully that the food is enough for their entire families. In the afternoon and when the trees have no shades, the fading sun turns into firing ball that warms the pure glancing Mediterranean Sea water forcing the swarms of fish to wake up and to travel happily towards the golden wet beach of Gaza for the fishers to fish. The fishers begin their fishing by the name of God so he offers them the flaring fish that they and their families dream of. Before the sun gets exhausted and tired and before he prepares his luggage to travel, he watches the workers who go back to their homes finding their children waiting for their hugs and kisses. He then waves his hands to them saying ,see you tomorrow. In the twilight, the sky turns into red and the sun becomes so tired so he disappears asking the moon to appear dancing under the sparkles of the stars and lighting the dark homes and lanes in the clear night in order to let the innocent Gazans sleep and dream as they want and as they wish. This is a simple life of Gaza Done by: Mohammad Arafat 8th of may 2014”