14/POPE BENEDICT

POPE BENEDICT.

The Pope's visit is likely to be considered historically as a catastrophic failure for the Catholic Church. Until recently the Catholic Church has been considered monolithic and substantial. Pope Benedict has merely emphasised that the Catholic Church is now considered ridiculous and contemptible.

The crowds were embarrassingly small. Pope Benedict and David Cameron have tried to present Christianity as a political philosophy based on 'lets all try to be as nice to each other as we can.' Christianity certainly is not such a political philosophy.

Christianity is a malicious, war mongering system of social bullying. These people would have public tortures and public executions, if they thought that they could still get away with it. They have been at it for centuries. As it is, they can still get away with war mongering, because the suffering and deaths occur somewhere far over the horizons. And the suffering and deaths are inflicted on people often considered as social outsiders.

Christians would like to have homosexuals burned to death publicly for the good of their souls, or at least substantial numbers of them could be persuaded to go along with that sort of thing. Their coreligionists in Islamic countries go along with such things.

Christians are in a minority in this country, but a majority of people who support capital punishment are Christians. Christianity is a death cult. Organising deaths in This World. Meeting dead relatives in the Next World. And every Sunday celebrating ritual human sacrifice.

The visit of Pope Benedict has failed to change negative ideas about Christianity. In fact positive ideas about Christianity are, in an information age, ridiculously anachronistic and more or less impossible to promote.

The visit of the Pope has represented progress for secularism. Whatever the realities of the recent demonstration in London, the demonstration has been reported as having been a secularist demonstration. i have never heard of a secularist demonstration before.

And the whole visit was a clumsy presentation. For all his reputation as an enforcer, Benedict has seemed stupid and to be quite straight forward he has seemed senile. To put things at their most polite and most kind, Benedict has been badly advised.

He tried to get the political and social support of far right elements and far right ideologies. Having a cardinal say that London seems like a Third world city was crude and unrealistic. Nobody knew what the cardinal was talking about, and nobody cared what the cardinal was talking about.

Benedict and his advisers, one assumes, thought that various generalisations about the far right in Europe could be applied to social and political realities in Britain. That is simply not so. In Poland and elsewhere, religion has been used as a unifying factor for head banging nationalists. For various reasons that sort of thing does not occur in Britain.

Benedict and his advisers have demonstrated fairly clearly their contempt for British people. They have tried to apply crude and unrealistic generalisations to the British situation.

And the reputation of Benedict as a linguist seems fairly undeserved. He has failed to understand that outsiders can't simply assign various meanings to words, meanings which go against cultural norms. Benedict has failed to understand that there are substantial differences between the use of the word SORROW and the use of the word SORRY. A silly and clumsy mistake, easily understandable from an eighty five year old.

POPE BENEDICT HAS NOT PRESENTED THE CATHOLIC CHURCH WELL. NOT ONLY HAS HE MADE IT CLEAR THAT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IS LED BY A DODDERER, BUT HE HAS MADE IT CLEAR THAT THE DODDERER HAS, FOR ONE REASON OR ANOTHER, BEEN UNABLE TO APPOINT COMPETENT ADVISERS.

Tom Smith, Monday 20th September2010.

13/FEMALE CIRCUMCISION

FEMALE CIRCUMCISION.

From Der Spiegel for Monday 4th December 2006.

“Fatimas Schrei lässt einem das Blut in den Adern gefrieren. Er trifft mitten ins Herz. Die Kleine, wohl acht Jahre alt, schreit panisch, erst vor Angst, dann, weil sie den Schmerz, die sie durchfährt, nicht aushalten kann. Das Mädchen liegt auf dem Boden einer schmutzigen Hütte, irgendwo in der Wüste Äthiopiens. Sie windet sich, schreit, jammert, am Ende winselt sie nur noch. Ihr neues Kleid, grün geblumt, ist blutgetränkt.

Zwei Männer und ihre Mutter drücken das zierliche Kind zu Boden, pressen die dünnen Beinchen auseinander. Eine Alte hockt sich vor Fatima, in ihrer Hand eine glänzende Rasierklinge und eine dicke Stopfnadel mit einem weiBen Faden dran. Heute soll Fatima zur Frau werden, zu einer anständigen Frau.

Die dicke Stopfnadel dient dazu, die kleinen Schamlippen anzuheben, um sie einfacher abschneiden zu können. Dann setzt die Alte die Rasierklinge an. Zuerst die kleinen Schamlippen, dann die Klitoris. Überall Blut. Der kleine Körper baumt sich auf, ist schweiBnass. Immer wieder schüttet die Alte eine milchige Flüssigkeit über die Wunde, zur Desinfektion. Dann kommt die GroBmutter, stochert in der Wunde, verlangt, tiefer schneiden. Also wider von vorn. Fatimas Schreie gellen entsetzlich. Wenn schon die Bilder nicht auszuhalten sind, wie hält das Mädchen BloB den Schmerz aus?

Dann ist es vollbracht. Mit Dornen wird die Wunde verschlossen, bis nur noch eine winzige Öffnung übrigbleibt. Damit das winzige Loch nicht auch noch zuwächst, wird ein Strohhalm in die Öffnung gesteckt. AnschlieBend werden Fatimas Beine mit einem Seil zussamengebunden, damit die Wunde heilen kann. Wochen wird sie so in einem Bett liegen bleiben.

Mit einem Klaps auf den Po vollendet die Alte ihr barbarisches Werk. Jetzt ist Fatima eine Frau.

Täglich werden etwa 6000 Mädchen Opfer der Genitalverstummelung. Nach Schätzungen der Weltgesundheitsorganisation (WHO) sind zwischen 100 und 140 Millionen Frauen weltweit beschnitten; jedes Jahr kommen rund zwei Millionen hinzu.”

"Fatima’s screaming makes the blood run cold. It goes straight to the heart. The child just eight years old screams in panic, first from fear then because she can’t bear the pain that is inflicted on her. The girl lies on the floor of a dirty cottage somewhere in the Ethiopian desert. She writhes, screams, pleads, and finally just whimpers. Her new green, patterned dress is soaked in blood.

Two men and her mother push the pretty child to the floor, press her thin little legs apart. An old woman squats in front of Fatima, in her hand a bright razor blade and a thick darning needle, with a white thread on it. Today Fatima is to become a woman, a respectable woman.

The thick darning needle serves to raise the inner vaginal lips, so it is easier to cut them out. Then the old woman gets to work with the razor blade. First the inner vaginal lips, then the clitoris. Blood everywhere. The little child arches up, is soaked in sweat. The old woman pours a milky fluid continuously onto the wound as a disinfectant. Then comes the grandmother. She pokes around in the wound and asks for deeper cutting. Then again as before. Fatima’s shrill screams are terrible. If the images are already unbearable, how does the girl endure the pain?

Then it is over. The wound is closed with thorns, until only a tiny hole remains. So that the tiny hole does not close up as the wound heals, a straw is used to keep the hole open. Finally Fatima’s legs are tied together with cord, so that the wound can heal. She will stay lying like this in bed for weeks. The old woman ends her barbaric work with a slap on the child’s buttocks. Now Fatima is a woman.

Every day about 6000 girls become victims of genital mutilation. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) about 140 million women worldwide have been circumcised, about two million so mutilated women being added to this every year.”

IMMIGRANTS COME TO THIS COUNTRY TO GET AWAY FROM CULTURES OF BULLYING. THEY COULD BE PERSUADED TO GO BACK TO THEIR HOME COUNTRIES, ONCE THE MORE UNPLEASANT OF THEIR CULTURAL TRADITIONS ARE SHOWN TO NEUROTIC AND MALICIOUS NONSENSE. THE WAY FORWARD FOR SOCIAL PROGRESS WORLDWIDE IS TO GET RELIGIOUS NUTTERS OUT OF PUBLIC LIFE.

Tom Smith, Monday 11th December 2006.

2010 COMMENT: Most people would quite reasonably prefer not to know anything about this. However it is a current matter. Somalia, a country rotten with social bullying based on female circumcision, is currently a failed state.

The matter was publicised last Wednesday (22nd September 2010) on the BBC Radio4 programme, Woman’s Hour. Apparently there is a victim led social movement in Bristol to get the British police to take the matter more seriously.

It has been illegal since 2003 to take children abroad for ‘the procedure.’ So far there have been no successful prosecutions in Britain. FGM, female genital mutilation, as it is apparently now known, is comparably illegal in Sweden and France. In Sweden and France there have been successful prosecutions, because the authorities have not been squeamish, the word being used here accurately, the authorities have not been squeamish about inspecting possible returning victims at airports.

The physical realities of FGM are unpleasant enough, but it is the distress and bewilderment of the victims, which is the most troubling. That and the fact that it is the female relatives of the victims, who are the most insistent and enthusiastic about the procedure.

Tom smith, Monday 11th September 2006.

12/MONEY LAUNDERING

MONEY LAUNDERING.

Suppose a Property Owner owns outright a property worth £2,000,000 and he has £500,000 of dodgy money, the origins of which he does not want to make known. If he wants to incorporate the dodgy money into his personal finances, he could proceed as follows.

He could go to a Respectable Mortgage Institution and take out a mortgage for £500,000. He could then go to a Respectable Investment Institution and say that he wanted to invest £500,000. As part of measures to counter money laundering, the Property Owner would be asked where he got the money.

He would reply that the money came from a mortgage on a property wholly owned by himself. Or he might say that the money came from a mortgage on a property wholly owned by himself and his wife. Whatever. He would probably provide copies of documentation to prove what he had said. The investment would then be accepted by the Respectable Investment Institution.

The Property Owner would then go back to the Respectable Mortgage Institution and say that he had wanted the money for an investment, but that after further consideration he had decided that he did not want to make the investment. The Property Owner would tell the Respectable Mortgage Institution people that, for this reason, he wanted to cancel the mortgage. And that he wanted to pay back the mortgage money, although the transaction would cost him administration fees.

Privately the Respectable Mortgage Institution people would just think to themselves, there is a mug born every minute. Their own financial self interest would prevent them more or less subconsciously, from assuming that such a surprising transaction might require investigation. They would simply have a don't ask attitude.

Assuming that there was no investigation into what he had been up to, the Property Owner would apparently have spent a respectable £500,000 twice, of course an impossibility. He would effectively have absorbed £500,000 into his respectable personal finances.

Sorting the matter out with the tax authorities would present various problems, problems which would nevertheless be fairly easily manageable. After all, the tax authorities could apparently rely on it, that the two Respectable Financial Institutions would have checked the bona fide origins of the two sets of £500,000.

The Property Owner would then have incorporated a dodgy £500,000 into his personal finances. Doing so would have cost him two sets of administration fees, but the £500,000 would be into the tax system. All this would be a small price to pay, and an inevitable part of dealing with this sort of money as it sloshes around.

If, for the sake of argument, hypothetically speaking, the Property Owner was married to a prominent politician, he might think that his wife should share some of the apparently slight risks involved with the transactions. and of course her association with the transactions would tend to add respectability to the whole matter.

These sorts of transactions, white collar money laundering if you like, would be every bit as criminal as flying in a light aircraft to small Caribbean islands with suitcases full of used low denomination banknotes.

Tom Smith, Wednesday 15th March 2006.

2010 COMMENT: I have a lot more to say about this, based on three or four essays I have already written, and based on a bundle of newspaper articles from 2006. I can hardly believe that this matter is being allowed to drift out of the public consciousness. Talk about institutional corruption! Closing ranks and so on.

And we all know now in 2010, that there is no such thing as a 'respectable financial institution'. At least not at the moment.

11/PARLIAMENTARY ALLOWANCES

PARLIAMENTARY ALLOWANCES.

“Allowances reimburse MPs for expenditure wholly exclusively and necessarily incurred by MPs in the performance of their duties as MPs.” This is more or less a quote, as heard on BBC radio.

MPs have been described as being furious, annoyed, shocked by the injustice of it all. The shock of MPs is irrelevant. They will have to comply with the Legg demands, or resign. It could be argued, but not by me, that MPs are getting their just deserts. I would not waste my time with pointless unkindness.

And MPs are to some extent blameless. They have merely decided to come to terms with the situation as they have found it. But that is hardly an indication of political ambition, political competence, wanting to make a difference, or whatever.

Possibly for centuries MPs have organised injustices, perpetuated injustices and dreamt up new injustices. This has arguably been done to deal with problems associated with Christian perceptions of human nature. However the various injustices have encouraged and perpetuated a particularly European culture of bullying based on property, a particular culture of middle class parasitism.

The various injustices are too numerous to go into, at the moment. However I will list four to indicate the sort of thing I have in mind.

FIRSTLY, middle class parasites have been swanning around Africa, acting the Bwana White Man and subsidising phenomenally corrupt governments. And of course that sort of thing has established easy access to the natural resources needed to perpetuate Western Consumerism.

SECONDLY, middle class parasites have been encouraged to get the benefits of ever increasing house prices, based on phenomenal asset values inflation. The ever increasing house prices have amounted to little more than a pyramid selling scam, based on the misery of children, the misery of immigrants and the misery of people who have been so oppressed by social conditions that they have been unable to organise themselves financially. This requires a fair bit of explanation, but it is obvious enough that pyramid selling scams require a theoretically never ending flow of losers.

THIRDLY, middle class parasites have encouraged the promotion of never ending immigration because, although never ending immigration prevents the revaluing upwards of basic jobs, apparently the ignorant peasantry has to be made aware of the theoretical benefits of multiculturalism, or something. The situation is collective insanity.

FOURTHLY, prisons don’t work. They are universities of crime for the mentally ill. At least fifty per cent of serious crimes are committed by people, who have made conscious decisions to become institutionalised. But prisons are necessary to cattle prod the ignorant peasantry into tolerating social conditions of gross overcrowding, social conditions based on gross overpopulation.

These social conditions of gross overcrowding are clearly directly and consciously organised by middle class parasites. Lets kick start the housing market, and so on. Lets keep the economy growing. IN FACT THE ALLOWANCES CONTROVERSYCOULD BE SEEN AS A LAW AND ORDER PROBLEM.

Westminster MPs have been obsessed with establishing for themselves substantial middle class incomes, so they can distance themselves physically and socially from the ignorant peasantry. I ask the rhetorical question, why should MPs not have their London second homes on the Peckham council housing estates? Their second homes would then be only a half hours walk from Westminster.

The answer to the rhetorical question is simple obvious and very unpleasant. There prevails on the Peckham housing estates, the social conditions which are a direct consequence of the organised injustices and incompetence of Westminster MPs.

The sense of injustice and the shocked hopelessness felt by Westminster MPs at the moment because of the allowances controversy, are directly comparable to the present sullen hopelessness of most of the British electorate. NOW WESTMINSTER MPs KNOW HOW MOST OF THE BRITISH ELECTORATE FEEL.

We are living through political economic and ecological disasters and our MPs, self styled experts, are simply not addressing the problems. Indeed they seem to be organising the problems and benefiting financially from the problems.

ALL THIS, AS PRESENTED, MAY SEEM LIKE AN APPALLING NO WAY OUT SITUATION. I don’t see it that way. We need radical changes, basic changes. Not revolutionary changes.

Three Year Parliaments would be a good start. All we need for increased collective happiness is a drift in the right direction, instead of the present clear drift in the wrong direction. The phrases ‘middle class parasites’ and ‘middle class parasitism’ should become be phrases of the coming decades.

It is not a matter of weeding people out, of blaming people. If politicians won’t change, if they want to continue to promote middle class parasitism, they should be voted out of office. And political and social conditions should be changed, so that middle class parasitism becomes impossible.

What I am suggesting certainly is not socialism. It is a matter of making capitalism function well. Money as a medium of exchange. People encouraged to produce and retain wealth for themselves. Libertarianism, environmentalism and so on.

Tom Smith, Monday, 26th October 2009.

10/GETTING RID OF THE NHS

GETTING RID OF THE NHS.//

I would like to see an end to state organised healthcare and state organised old age pensions. The two basic ideas are, one if you can’t look after yourself you die and, two if you’re too old to work you’re too old to eat.//

The realities of public policies based on such ideas would be very much less harsh then might at first be supposed. In fact very much less harsh than the present arrangements for healthcare and retirement.//

Any casual observation of people in public places makes clear that many people are being kept alive in a misery of chronic bad health. Many people have peculiar shapes, look permanently tired or seem to be in the terminal stages of degenerative diseases. Ignoring living space factors, it seems that most people have a bad attitude to their own health.//

Most people seem to think that chronic bad health is inevitable. Living space factors are of course most of the problem. Most people tolerate unpleasant living space restrictions and the apparent inevitability of bad health for one basic reason. They believe the state propaganda that individuals are more or less powerless on their own, powerless even to manage their own health.//

The idea that individuals are dependent on the state for their health and indeed wealth, is one of the basic bits of nonsense that perpetuates our appalling social problems. I don’t believe in the sincerity of doctors. Doctors may become healthcare professionals as idealistic young people, but in my opinion they stay on as journeymen, as time servers. Most doctors know that they do nothing for their customers, that their customers could not do for themselves.//

The reality is that the health problems of most people are based on nothing more than lazy ignorant self abuse. They should drink less, eat less and get out more.//

Osteoporosis and related bone diseases are a good example. Bed rest usually leads to calcium seeping out of your bones and out of your system. Your weight bearing bones lose the ability to bear weight. So if you want your weight bearing bones to continue to be able to bear weight, make sure they bear weight regularly and often. Don’t cunningly redesign your body to be ideal for vegetating on sofas.//

People have to realise that if you don’t look after yourself, you die. This is the natural reality, although at the moment if you don’t look after yourself the state will try to keep you lingering on, as an apparently useful economic unit, for perhaps twenty or thirty years. Keep you lingering on, in more or less immobile misery.//

Whatever healthcare professionals may say as they try to make jobs for themselves, the practical reality is that the state is unwilling and unable to look after the good health of individuals. Nor should the state be looking after the good health of individuals. Our present healthcare system is part of the organised and neurotic management of people as cattle.//

This situation has arisen as one of the many problems, which follow on from our gross overpopulation of the planetIn nature there are no chronically sick animals. There are healthy animals, briefly sick animals and dead animals.//

WE SHOULD ALL WORK TILL WE DROP, THEN DIE.//

We should all be allowed to work for ourselves, be allowed to produce wealth for ourselves, be allowed to retain wealth for ourselves, until we drop shortly before we die. Of course this as an idea behind public policies would have to be introduced gradually. It would be pointless at the moment telling old people that they should get out more, because at the moment most old people live in areas, in which at least for part of the day there are no go areas for anybody who is sane or sober.//

And of course there are always going to be people who need looking after for most or perhaps all of their lifetimes, but there would be far fewer chronically sick people if people in general behaved in ways that conform to natural realities. At present more or less all of us spend a substantial part of our lifetimes as victims of state healthcare.//

WORK TILL YOU DROP, THEN DIE.//

Tom Smith, Monday, 18th January 2010//

9/BULLYING

BULLYING.//

Christianity is neurotic malicious and absurd nonsense. It is the institutionalising of bullying, and to some extent an attempt to lessen some of the unpleasant social effects of bullying. Although to some extent Christians try to lessen the unpleasant social effects of bullying, Christianity could be described as malicious because it involves wilful stupidity about natural realities.//

To take Christianity more seriously than is reasonable, as a natural philosophy Christianity is absurd. The natural world could simply not be ordered in such a way as to be directly useful to the very short lived social institutions of a species living through an ecological disaster.//

Christianity and the various political philosophies derived from Christianity such as Utilitarianism and Marxism, are an institutionalising of bullying, more or less because Christians suppose wrongly that bullying is inevitable.//

The idea that bullying is inevitable is based on a misunderstanding of bullying and on a misunderstanding of human nature. Bullying is really never a matter of a neurotic individual abusing or exploiting the weakness of a target individual. Bullying is a matter of the bully passing on aggression and unhappiness experienced by the bully because of his own position in a neurotic social hierarchy.//

In other words, bullying is always a matter of gang culture. A clear illustration of this is the matter of Muslim suicide bombers. Muslim suicide bombers are more afraid of fellow Muslims than they are afraid of Western Christian, state organised bullying of the Islamic World.//

The whole thing being a vast biological system can, like all biological systems, be considered in various ways.//

Christianity perpetuates bullying because Christians think that bullying is inevitable and so has to be managed in some way. This leads to Western Christian Nations trying to manage the bullying within the Islamic World by using military force. Muslims would bully each other a lot less, if they did not have to use Islam as a unifying factor against Western bullying and duplicity.//

All this may seem a bit abstract and a matter of more questions than answers. That is not so. Christianity, the perpetuation of bullying by trying to make Christian gangs the dominant gangs, is based on a misunderstanding of human nature.//

HUMAN NATURE IS NOT A CONSTANT. HUMAN NATURE VARIES ACCODING TO POPULATION DENSITY.//

The way forward for the survival of the human species is for us to dump all political philosophies base on neurotic bullying social hierarchies. This would involve dumping Christianity.//

However worthy it may be that Christians want to control bullying, the reality that Christians want to control bullying rather than end bullying means that Christianity perpetuates bullying.//

WE NEED TO DUMP POLITICAL AND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHIES, WHICH PERPETUATE BULLYING. WE NEED TO ORGANISE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS BASED ON LIVING SPACE AND ON AN UNDERSTANDING OF NATURAL REALITIES.//

This would involve a controlled collapse of world human population levels, to levels at which bullying would be anachronistic. There is so much more to all this, that it is a matter of deciding what to mention at the moment. I will just add that I don’t see a controlled collapse of world human population levels as involving any element of coercion.//

OVERPOPULATION IS BEING QUITE DELIBERATELY ORGANISED AT THE MOMENT, BY THE PEOPLE AT THE TOPS OF OUR NEUROTIC SOCIAL HIERARCHIES.//

And of course we need political and social institutions based on natural realities, for far more pressing reasons than merely the eradication of bullying.//

Tom Smith, Monday, 08th March 2010.//

8/RIGGING THE 2005 GENERAL ELECTION

RIGGING THE 2005 GENERAL ELECTION.//

From The Times for Wednesday the 5th of April 2006.//

"The Spanish government has dissolved the Marbella City Council as part of a £1.7 billion corruption investigation, involving the arrests of 23 people including the town's mayor. This was announced after an emergency cabinet meeting of the Spanish government. Maria Fernandez, the Deputy Prime Minister, said that the Spanish government would neither protect nor tolerate the corrupt. She continued, no Spanish government had ever acted in such a way before, but the measure had been necessary to defend public progress and to restore faith in civic integrity.//

Madrid acted after the Mayor of Marbella, the Deputy Mayor, town councillors, developers, lawyers, businessmen and the local Police Chief were all arrested for their alleged roles in a racket said to have been organised by Juan Antonio Roca, the Chief of Urban Planning. Police raided the Town hall and also seized property including cash, artworks, thoroughbred horses and a helicopter.//

Senor Roca faces charges of corruption and money laundering and he is one of eleven suspects being held in prison awaiting trial. He is accused of organising a gang that obtained at least £1.7 billion in cash, valuables and property as bribes for permitting thousands of illegal property developments."//

The £1.7 billion, yes billion, mentioned in the charges against the various public officials in Spain is an indication of the scale of the corruption involved. However the £1.7 billion refers only to the ten per cent share that a particular group of corrupt officials charged for facilitating various corrupt property transactions in a particular town. Making the total of the allegedly corrupt transactions in the one town £20 billion. Several other towns and the regional government are rumoured to have similarly corrupt involvements.//

The allegedly corrupt transactions were not complicated. The alleged perpetrators seemed to have thought that they would not be prosecuted because the vast amounts of money, which were apparently sloshing around, would be likely to produce a win win situation for all concerned.//

The situation in Spain is comparable to the CASH FOR HONOURS allegations in Britain, because the two situations are on a grand scale. And both groups of alleged perpetrators seem to have thought that what would be good for them as individuals would be likely to be good for people in general. The CASH FOR HONOURS allegations in Britain certainly are on a grand scale. They involve THE RIGGING OF THE 2005 GENERAL ELECTION.//

The MILLIONS allegedly involved in the British corruption would have influenced BILLIONS being moved around in the British economy, including the BILLIONS being used to finance the Iraq War and the BILLIONS being used to organise the ever increasing house prices, which are of course being maintained by CONTINUOUS IMMIGRATION.//

The authorities in Spain can rightly feel pleased with themselves that they have faced up to such large scale alleged corruption. However the situations in Spain and in Britain have a significant basic difference. In Spain it can reasonably be suggested that the alleged corruption involved clumsy fairly stupid provincials. In Britain the alleged corruption involves the ruling political elite.//

The Labour Party somehow or other attracted large donations for the purpose of keeping themselves in office. If they had been unable to attract such donations, Blair and his cronies would have been rejected by the electorate, rejected because of the dissatisfaction with Blair's Holy War in Iraq and rejected because of the vast scale of immigration into the UK. As it was, in order to ensure a Labour victory Blair had to state clearly that he himself would step down soon after a Labour victory. And even then Labour only just scraped back into office.//

They were able to do this by using the allegedly corrupt donations to present themselves as THE PARTY OF STABILITY. They were able to present opposition to the Iraq War and opposition to Immigration as somehow ignorant of large scale and long term political and economic considerations. The press played along with this because journalists, like all voters, vote for stability.//

In fact a good case can be made that the leaders of the Labour Party are fairly uninterested in political and economic considerations. They seem to be interested in little more than personal financial gain. That is however a secondary matter, secondary to the basic allegations about the corrupt procurement of party funding.//

How exactly was the allegedly corrupt procurement of party funds organised. We can be fairly sure it did not involve forms in triplicate and receipts such as, 'Further to yours of the 25th I have received with thanks the peerage for which I paid £2 million.'//

However the transactions clearly took place. If buying bread was made illegal, and one walked into a supermarket and was given a loaf of bread for ones services to the community and at the same time one donated £1 to Tony Tesco's favourite charity, it would be fairly clear that an illegal transaction had taken place. //

So where is the problem with prosecuting Tony Blair? Apparently the problem is with establishing exactly how Blair collected at his end of the transactions. The matter is simple enough. The donations were used to keep Labour in office. In office Blair allotted to himself and his cronies vast amounts of public money. The full circle of motive, opportunity, method of operation and everything else is complete, certainly complete enough to get a successful prosecution if the will is there.//

And of course the ACTS OF PARLIAMENT prohibiting corruption in public office don't just refer to financial motives. There are prohibitions against the corrupt procurement of honours and influence. Has Tony Blair maintained his influence? Have donors to the Labour Party been nominated for honours? Isn't money always a medium of exchange? What exactly has been exchanged for all the MILLIONS which have been sloshing around?//

Government corruption is not a victimless crime. Voters always vote for stability. Voters were duped into supposing that voting for Labour was a matter of voting for stability. There is overwhelming evidence that the Labour Party is not a party of stability.//

THE LABOUR PARTY IS A PARTY OF CHAOS AND CORRUPTION.//

GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION IS NOT A VICTIMLESS CRIME.//

Tom Smith, 15th November 2006.//

7/BROWN RESIGNATION

BROWN RESIGNATION.//

Gordon Brown’s present uselessness as Labour Party leader is demonstrated by his inability to make it clear that the Tories come out of the expenses controversy very much worse than Labour.//

Gordon Brown’s failures as a Prime Minister are based on his absurd assertions that ever expanding markets are sustainable politically economically and environmentally. Ever expanding markets are politically economically and environmentally unsustainable. In particular the idea of ever increasing house prices has been nothing more than a pyramid selling scam.//

If ever increasing markets in general and ever increasing house prices in particular are so absurd, how has there been no political opposition to such absurdities? The answer to that is simple. The leader of the opposition is a professional and successful property speculator. In fact DAVID CAMERON is the 1477th richest person in Britain according to the Rich List of The Sunday Times, with wealth of £38 million based on property, a matter easily checkable online.//

THE RESPECTIVE POSITIONS IN PUBLIC LIFE OF BOTH DAVID CAMERON AND GORDON BROWN ARE UNTENABLE. TORIES AND LABOUR PARTY MEMBERS SHOULD CONSIDER THE FEW MONTHS BEFORE THE GENERAL ELECTION AS A SCRAMBLE TO DUMP THEIR RESPECTIVE LEADERS AND TO START TALKING SENSE AND REALISM TO THE ELECTORATE. THEY COULD START BY DISCUSSING PUBLICLY THREE YEAR FIXED TERMED, FIXED DATED PARLIAMENTS.//

Gordon Brown personifies the idea that if enough people agree about something, it must be right. That is politically economically and environmentally absurd. This is incidentally why the Greens are making no progress. They have not got the bottle to admit that environmental considerations take priority over considerations about economic sustainability or social justice.//

Alan Greenspan gave the idea of ever expanding markets an intellectual respectability and Gordon Brown put the theory into practice as practical politics. Greenspan and Brown have primary responsibility for the present worldwide economic difficulties. The whole thing could be said to have been a pyramidally sold idea. The idea kept expanding, getting more and more adherents, until natural realities made the absurdities of the whole thing clear.//

Gordon Brown is unfit for public office now that the political economic and environmental absurdities of his ideas have become clear.//

Further to that, Gordon Brown is temperamentally unsuited to public office because he considers public office as an honour. Gordon Brown is kept in office by people who feel compassion for the possible dishonour that might be felt by Brown following his dismissal. This honour or dishonour is all froth.//

GORDON BROWN HAS TRIED HIS BEST, AND HIS BEST HAS NOT BEEN GOOD ENOUGH.//

CAMERON HAS TO GO TOO, not because of some unpleasant persecution of the rich, but because of the circumstances of his purchase of his Oxfordshire second home. He paid £400,000 cash, leaving a £200,000 mortgage. And so converted efficiently the maximum possible parliamentary allowance for himself, into personal capital.//

The allowances system was planned to make sure that people from poor backgrounds could be MPs. The allowances system was not planned to provide investment opportunities for one of the richest men in Britain. Is it reasonable to expect tax payers to fund the purchase of a twenty room mansion for one of the richest men in Britain?//

Tom Smith, Thursday, 19th November 2009.//

6/RADICALISM

RADICALISM.//

I think we should get rid of the NHS. It has been pointed out to me that no establishment politician could suggest such a thing without risking losing his or her income. The basic reason for this state of affairs is that we have a political system based on neurotic, bullying social hierarchies rather than a political system based on ideas.//

Various establishment politicians amongst them recently, David Cameron and James Purnell, say from time to time that they want to put forward radical ideas. David Cameron wants to fiddle about with the International Development budget. James Purnell wants to use one per cent of something ‘to create local banks’. It is difficult to consider this sort of thing as anything other than self interested lying.//

The human species is living through a social political and ecological disaster. We need basic changes to our attitudes and basic changes to our behaviour. So our politicians, when they are applying for top jobs, of course see the need at least to sketch in a bit of radicalism.//

HOWEVER WHAT WE NEED IS ACTUAL RADICALISM, AND NOT MISLEADING AND DECEITFUL ATTEMPTS TO SUGGEST RADICALISM.//

At the moment we have a political system based on neurotic, bullying social hierarchies. What we need is a political system based on ideas involving a clear understanding of natural realities. Changing from a political system based on social hierarchies to a political system based on an understanding of natural realities is going to require our politicians to be willing and able to understand and promote radical ideas.//

At the moment our politicians are doing little more than claiming that it is the turn of their particular group to get the chance to share out patronage, share out the public money which seems to be sloshing around.//

RADICALISM IS THE WAY FORWARD. I was not being whimsically controversial or whatever, when I suggested we should get rid of the NHS. Here are another five radical ideas.//

One. Male Circumcision should be made illegal.//

Two. Short Selling & Hedging should be made illegal.//

Three. We should have Three Year fixed dated, fixed termed Parliaments.//

Four. We should have a Maximum Wage.//

Five. We should get rid of Trial By Jury.//

I have about twenty such radical ideas. They are all based on the need to get rid of neurotic, bullying social hierarchies. I argued clearly the case for getting rid of the NHS. Believe me, I can argue clearly the case for all twenty or so of the radical ideas I have in mind. And several of the twenty or so radical ideas I have in mind are a lot more startling than any of the five or so radical ideas I have presented so far.//

RADICALISM IS THE WAY FORWARD.//

Tom Smith, Monday, 01st February 2010.//

5/PAMBAZUKA NEWS

PAMBAZUKA NEWS.//

So Alan Johnson wants a national debate about immigration. Perhaps the European disapproval of immigration should be compared to the African and Asian disapproval of emigration.//

On BBC radio the other day a Filipino migrant, during a street demonstration in Athens told a BBC reporter that the developed countries are trying to institutionalise migration as a development programme. In the heat of a street demonstration, this was somewhat ambiguous.//

The demonstrator meant that the West is not doing migrants any favours by permitting, even encouraging migration to developed countries. Most migrants would like to remain in their home countries. They want development in their home countries, and not development apparently directed towards the enrichment of countries in the West. Not development directed towards the subsidising of corrupt governments in the developing world.//

Countries in the developing world are not far behind the West in the use of information technology. So it should be no surprise to British politicians, that the chattering classes in many developing countries have organised some lively and informative websites.//

This is made clear by the many well considered and well argued articles on the PAMBAZUKA NEWS website, (http://www.pambazuka.org/). Pambazuka is the Swahili verb meaning to dawn.

The chattering classes in Africa disapprove of emigration and carbon credits. And of course the chattering classes in Africa disapprove of the subsidising of corrupt African governments by means of so called development aid. The Kenyan economist James Shikwati has been talking about this sort of thing for several years now.//

Further to this the chattering classes in many African countries have a lively and realistic attitude to environmental and ecological problems. This likewise should hardly be a surprise. A majority of African intellectuals are either themselves directly involved in rural affairs, or are only one or two generations removed from direct involvement in rural affairs. Most European intellectuals are by contrast at least four generations removed from rural affairs.//

CHECK OUT THE PAMBAZUKA NEWS WEBSITE.//

Tom Smith, Wednesday, 11th November 2009.//

4/DAVID CAMERON

DAVID CAMERON. David Cameron is clearly and certainly the worst abuser of the second home allowances scheme. He is the 1477th richest person in Britain according to the Rich List of The Sunday Times, with wealth of £38 million based on property. As would be expected from a man of such wealth, he managed his allowances claims with maximum and cynical efficiency.//

Cameron bought his base London property in 1995 for about £200,000. He became an MP in 2001 and bought a ‘property’ in his Oxfordshire constituency. He probably paid cash for the Oxfordshire ‘property’, worth at the time £650,000. But he established a £350,000 mortgage on the Oxfordshire ‘property’, which surprise surprise meant that he claimed the maximum second home allowances for about five years.//

Shortly after he was elected to the Commons, he paid off with cash a £75,000 mortgage on his London property, bought in 1995, and in 2005 he sold the London property for about £1,200,000. A profit of about £1,000,000. This at a time when tax payers were subsidising his punt on his Oxfordshire second home.//

And what about this second home? It was bought basically with cash, but with a tax payers funded mortgage. At the time of the Cameron purchase, the ‘property’ was worth about £650,000 and it is now worth about £1,000,000. A possible capital gain of about £350,000. Cameron has been gambling in the property market at the expense of tax payers.//

When there was a collapse in property prices recently, I recall Cameron saying something like, this has really caught us out. Nobody could have foreseen that asset values were unrealistic.//

AT THAT TIME DAVID CAMERON WAS BEING PAID AS LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION TO APPLY REALISM TO POLITICAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC PROCESSES. CAMERON COULD NOT APPLY REALISM TO SUCH PROCESSES, BECAUSE HE WAS ACTIVELY INVOLVED IN GAMBLING ON AN EVER EXPANDING PROPERTY PRICES BUBBLE.//

The Oxfordshire ‘property’ was described in The Daily Telegraph of May 13th 2009 as a ‘stone built cottage’. I genuinely thought that I must be getting confused. I have seen photographs of the Cameron Oxfordshire ‘property’, and it is a three storey, twenty rooms mansion set in a large well wooded garden.//

The mystery was cleared up when I noticed that The Telegraph was also describing as a cottage, Oliver Letwin’s second home, the one with the tennis court. It is absurd that people like Kitty Ussher should be driven out of public life, because of the allowances scandal. Kitty Ussher’s two homes could reasonably be described as ‘modest terraced houses’.//

When Kitty Ussher became an MP, she just dealt with the financial realities as she found them. David Cameron by contrast has efficiently and cynically managed the allowances system for his personal enrichment. The allowances system was planned to make sure that people from poor backgrounds could become MPs. The allowances system was not planned to provide investment opportunities for on of the richest men in Britain.//

Is it reasonable to expect tax payers to fund the purchase of a twenty rooms mansion for one of the richest men in Britain? The facts of the matter make it clear that David Cameron is not motivated by any abstract nonsense about ’public service’. The behaviour of David Cameron makes it clear that he thinks he has been born into a particular social class of people. A social class of people who apparently have a right to make a lot of money merely from being in public life. The Old Etonian, political waste of space is at least three centuries too late. //

CAN ANY REASONABLE PERSON SAY WHAT DAVID CAMERON STANDS FOR POLITICALLY?//

Tom Smith, Monday, 22nd February 2010.//

3/DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY

DIPLOMATIC IMMUMITY.//

I recently heard a programme on BBC Radio4 about abuses of diplomatic immunity. Reportedly some foreign diplomats in Britain have been abusing their servants in ways that contravene British employment laws.//

Martin Salter, who recently stepped down as a Reading MP, was said to have introduced a parliamentary bill to try to sort the matter out. I assume the bill was unsuccessful, and Martin Salter said on the programme that initiating changes to diplomatic immunity ‘was beyond his pay grade.’//

I don’t see the thing that way. It is just a matter of coming up with a workable idea. As I listened to the programme I thought to myself what exactly is happening here, and what should be happening. I mention this as a thought process because an idea occurred to me, which might at first seem to be little more than a facile play on words.//

WE SHOULD REPLACE DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY WITH DIPLOMATIC IMPUNITY.//

I don’t know the origins of the term diplomatic immunity. I assume that there has always been, as far as all this is concerned, some confusion between immunity and impunity. At the moment we have diplomatic immunity, immunity from prosecution. This should be replaced with diplomatic impunity. That is, exemption from punishment.//

This would make sure that, as at present, vexatious prosecutions would not be brought against diplomats more or less for politically convenient reasons.//

As I understand it, the police at the moment investigate possible criminality but once they see that a diplomat is involved the investigation is dropped, more or less because continuing would seem like a waste of public money. Changing from diplomatic immunity to diplomatic impunity would mean that the police could continue investigating and if they uncovered enough evidence they could initiate prosecutions.//

The accused diplomat could get automatic bail and automatic legal aid, if he or she did not want to pay for personally chosen legal representation. If found guilty, the diplomat could then say that he or she wanted to use his or her diplomatic impunity.//

There is a lot more to this than just a little scheme to sort out an anomaly in the legal system. Replacing diplomatic immunity with diplomatic impunity would have direct human rights implications worldwide.//It would make clear to diplomats from countries with particularly hierarchical societies, that in Britain they could not abuse their servants in ways which might seem reasonable in their home countries, but unreasonable here.//

REMEMBER, A BACKGROUND TO ALL THIS IS THAT MOST IMMIGRANTS TO BRITAIN COME HERE TO ESCAPE CULTURES OF BULLYING IN THEIR HOME COUNTRIES.//

Changing from diplomatic immunity to diplomatic impunity would of course require British legislation, and would of course require the agreement of countries sending diplomats here. Such agreement would not be difficult to get. Most embassies state clearly that they want their diplomats to keep to the laws of their host countries.//

I suppose an immunity to impunity parliamentary bill would be easy to draft as no new procedures would be involved. And, although such a bill would be likely to get government support, it would be a suitable bill to be introduced by a backbencher as a Private Members Bill.//

WE SHOULD REPLACE DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY WITH DIPLOMATIC IMPUNITY.//

Tom Smith, Thursday, 24th June 2010.//

2/POLITICAL REALISM

POLITICAL REALISM//

David Cameron is a first rate pragmatist, a third rate politician and a fifth rate strategist. He is a first rate pragmatist, because he has understood the bumbling and vacuous nature of leadership in current British politics and he has concluded that anybody who seems vaguely positive would have little trouble in getting the initiative.//

Cameron is a third rate politician, because having got the initiative he has surrounded himself with lethargic journeymen, journeymen who simply can’t rouse themselves to be anything other than career politicians, career administrators. These journeymen careerists have come up with a variety of flaky hit and miss schemes, more or less based on smaller government and less taxes.//

The Education and Health schemes are just ridiculous, little more than matters of moving the deck chairs around. Ken Clarke more or less by chance has come up with something, at least based on realism. Prisons don’t work. Fair enough. What does work then?//

Clarke and indeed the whole of the chattering classes have recently muttered their agreement about being tough on the causes of crime. We know with absolute certainty that there have been no realistic suggestions about how to be tough on the causes of crime. We know this for certain, because absolutely no prominent politicians have defined the causes of crime.//

We know that David Cameron is a fifth rate strategist, because he has based the political activities of his government on flaky schemes, and on flaky nonsense about ‘a big society’.//As a background to all this is the unwinnable nature to the Afghan War. Cameron is too wilfully stupid to understand the unwinnable nature of the Afghan War, and the pointless nature of all the present systematic bullying of Muslims and of the Islamic World.//

The Western Nations in general and the leadership of the Western Nations in particular behave as if the Western system of adversarialism has some absolute basis in natural realities, or at least some absolute basis in social realities. That is simply not so.//

Western social and political norms based on corrupt and decadent adversarialism, have no more a basis in absolute realities than have Islamic social and political norms, based on social and religious bullying. Muslims can quite reasonably ask, why should we replace our nonsense with your nonsense?//

The politicians are not to blame. It is said we get the politicians we deserve. It would be more accurate to say we get the politicians we tolerate. Just following the recent general election there was talk of four year Parliaments. Almost without protests, Cameron made it clear there would be five year Parliaments. Britain possibly being the only leading European country not to have four year Parliaments.//

This is where Cameron’s first rate pragmatism comes in. The shorter and more fleeting is his time as Prime Minister, the less lucrative would his book deal likely to be when he shuffles off. Cameron’s first rate pragmatism is directed towards his personal self enrichment and is certainly not directed towards any social or political advantages for the electorate.//

However the politicians are not to blame. The politicians we have at present merely fill the vacuum produced by the lack of realism and engagement, demonstrated by the majority of the electorate. There could well have been a popular clamour before and after the recent general election for four year Parliaments, or better still three year parliaments. And then we would have got three or four year Parliaments.//

Instead we have allowed our present journeymen politicians to continue the long tradition of politicians implying that individual voters are too stupid to understand the importance of various political details. Our present politicians continue the long tradition of talking down to the electorate.//

I am resolutely opposed to capital punishment. Capital punishment promotes and perpetuates violent fantasies. However I am in favour of a referendum on capital punishment. The campaigning during such a referendum would be an exercise in our politicians learning to talk sense to the electorate.//

It should be made clear to the electorate that the pensions age should go to seventy more or less immediately. Hard Luck on disappointed expectations.//

It should be made clear to the electorate that no family with a family income of £30,000 or more should get state benefits. The Welfare State is based on the socialist idea, from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs. Fair enough. Middle class voters should not demand moronic bribes to ensure their continued support for the Welfare State. Either they are for the Welfare State or they are not.//

In the Fifties when the consolidation of the Welfare State took place, it was a cultural amusement that ‘even the Queen gets Family Allowance’, as it then was. That was fair enough Self Congratulations at the time. Now that sort of thing is an expensive and ridiculous anachronism.//

Our basic political problems are not the tiny minded opportunism of our leading politicians, but the lack of realism of the individual voters. At least two thirds of the Westminster MPs could be described as metaphorical blank slates. They would like to do well. They would like to make substantial social and political changes.//

Voters should bring about the political conditions in which their MPs can perform well. Stop considering them as social workers. Lobby them for social and political changes. An end to the Afghan War. Now. Three year Parliaments. Now. An end to immigration. Now. A referendum on capital punishment. Now.//

OUR PRESENT POLITICIANS HAVE HAD IT EASY WITH RADICAL DISSENT BEING LED BY POLITICAL HALFWITS LIKE NICK GRIFFIN AND NIGEL FARAGE. THEY WILL NOT ALWAYS HAVE IT SO EASY.//

Tom Smith, Thursday, 22nd July 2010.//

1/THREE YEAR PARLIAMENTS

THREE YEAR PARLIAMENTS.//

From 'Modern Britain' by Richards and Hunt, published 1950. "The six Chartist demands were: a vote for all adult males, the secret ballot, annual elections, abolition of the property qualification for MPs, payment of MPs, and equal electoral districts." So now we all know what we are all talking about when we mention Chartism.//

In reality it was a matter of groups of reformers more or less taking it in turns to get their snouts in the trough. David Cameron and Nick Clegg are the current representatives of that tradition.//

The nineteenth century reformers did not want to end the gang culture, which was at the basis of their social and political problems. And David Cameron and Nick Clegg don't want to end the gang culture which is at the basis of our current social and political problems. Cameron and Clegg have made this clear by their insistence on five year parliaments.//

Following on from the reprimands to two hundred or so MPs who were caught recently with their hands in the till, there has been a popular clamour for parliamentary reform, although the chattering classes have fairly ruthlessly made sure that this popular clamour has not been allowed to crystallise around any particular demands.//

Apparently we, the modern electorate, should not worry our pretty little heads about parliamentary reform. We should apparently leave it to the experts with their PPE degrees from Oxford to sort out our little worries about institutional corruption, or something.//

It would be possible to put together a list of Modern Chartist demands, and it might be worth doing so. HOWEVER THE ONE BASIC DEMAND WOULD BE FOR THREE YEAR PARLIAMENTS. THIS WOULD IN ONE MEASURE, ONE REFORM SOLVE MANY OF THE CURRENT POLITICAL PROBLEMS.//

Three year parliaments would greatly improve accountability to the electorate. Three year parliaments would end unpopular leaders being able to linger on. Three year parliaments would end MPs masquerading as social workers to cover up their political incompetence or political inactivity. With three year parliaments, political activity would be the important factor. And equalising constituency sizes would be fairly secondary.//

I am enthusiastic about First Past The Post. Fiddling arould with Party Lists and Second Preferences is in my opinion merely a perpetuation of institutional corruption.//

Three year parliaments would also sort out the House of Lords problem. We are told that Nick Clegg 'wants to abolish the House of Lords.' Really? Well, no. According to The Times, Monday 2nd August 2010, there are "two versions of a reformed House of Lords. A fully elected Upper House which drags British democracy into the twety first century, or an unsatisfactory compromise of the type that has evolved through past centuries."//

WHAT ABOUT COMPLETE ABOLITION OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS? It is nauseating and absurd that people like John Reid, John Prescott and Peter Mandelson should be given non jobs for life, apparently for no other reason than that they have had their snouts in the trough for so long that they should be allowed to continue to have their snouts in the trough.//

What is the rationale for the continued existence of the House of Lords? A revising chamber? Checks and balances? The electorate electing three year parliaments would be an entiely adequate revising chamber. Get things right, or we will get you out and change things.//

Checks and balances? The electorate electing three year parliaments would be quite enough checks and balances. The idea that institutional dishonesty has to be countered by adversarialism, frank exchanges of views and so on, is one of the basic bits of nonsense put forward by the chattering classes as they try to justify their lazy institutional corruption, as they try to justify keeping their snouts in the trough.//

THREE YEAR PARLIAMENTS IS AN IDEA, WHICH IS NOT GOING TO GO AWAY.//