Category Archives: General

General

THE WORLD’S BEST POLICY -COSTS NOTHING

Disarm the world by agreement and close down one of the biggest contributors to global warming.

ONE HUNDRED ARGUMENTS FOR WORLD DISARMAMENT.

1. Weapon based wars have killed two hundred million people in the 20th century.

2. Military encounters have produced more than 200m serious lifetime injuries.

3. Arms destroy normal trust in international and domestic relationships.

4. Military and War CO2 generation is intense – probably 5-10% of total world CO2.

4. WW1 was caused by the escalation of arms, not territory or any other factor.

5. Western military colonialism taught that arms rule around the world at horrific cost.

6. Soldiers on one side shoot soldiers on the other, and vice versa. It is a silly policy.

7. Arms companies sell to anyone, largely irrespective of the dangers.

8. Arms companies need wars. Their business depends on it, and they get them.

9. Wars have caused trauma, PTSD, on a vast scale – more than a billion in a hundred years.

10. Those traumatized also cause their own hate and destruction. Hitler was one of them.

11. Weapons have escalated in destruction through technologies of increasing horror.

12. Gas was an horrific death in WW1. We have disarmed the world of gas weapons.

13. We recruit soldiers who might die. The elite running wars usually survive.

14. We ennoble soldiers’ deaths through patriotism, but their killing was a waste.

15. Since 1900 about 5% of total world GDP has gone to the military. It produces no good.

16. Since 1900 c 5% of world GDP has been used repairing war destruction. A vast waste.

17. Militarism has skewed science and technology in largely useless directions.

18. Arms companies lied about Dreadnoughts to help start WW1. They frequently lie.

19. Arms companies bribed Japan’s military away from Democracy and towards Fascism.

20. Military colonialism undermined real free trade among the nations.

21. Britain taught natives militarism. Afghan tribesmen got 140,000 rifles before 1914.

22. Early arms firms – Krupp, Zaharoff – went direct to rulers and by-passed democracy.

23. Always arms firms promote fear, creating false antagonisms – the “Hun invasion”.

24. Rulers who trust arms distance from democracy and accountability.

25. Arms cost lots and Armies loot wealth the loser pays. Two wrongs.

26. Militarists promise to win wars. Always all sides lose wars; the promise fails.

27. Wars tend to be long. You are never home before Christmas.

28. Wars provoke retaliation. One side starts them, but they can last a century.

29. 1870, 1914 and 1939 are linked in German-French history. Trust broken, continues.

30. Arms are normally backed by the ideology, “We are Right”, when we are not.

31. Jesus’ emphasis on not fearing others is proved right. Weapons are fear not love.

32. In War families, marriages, parenting, childhood, education, joy and love perish.

33. In War communities, property, common wealth, infrastructure, history are destroyed.

34. In War children die before their parents. The Young are killed, injured, hurt, absent.

35. War destroys public health – 50-100m died in 1918-20 of Spanish flu. People are weak.

36. Arms companies really want wars. They are bonanza time for them.

37. Armies are always external, against others, and internal, against domestic opposition.

38. Arms involve the belief that if you kill them, the problem goes away. It does not.

39. Arms inflate the egos of rulers and nations towards, “My will be done.”

40. Disarmament, fair and trustworthy, is easy. The militarists aim to make it hard.

41. Military leaders justify conquering and killing by being infallible.

42. Militarism always rubbishes those they attack. It is inherently self-righteous.

43. Arms not used, build up and precipitates towards war. Arms always tend to War.

44. The World Disarmament Conference at Geneva in 1932 addressed armed conflict.

45. Accepting the Hoover Proposals for disarmament would have stopped Hitler.

46. They were strangled behind the scenes by the militarists and British Cabinet.

47. Since they became known as the Merchants of Death (1934) arms firms hide.

48. Arms firms bribe to sell their wares – everywhere most of the time. Arms are oversold.

49. Mussolini was backed by the arms firm, Ansaldo. Arms made Il Duce.

50. Hitler was backed by the steel/arms firm, Thyssen. Arms made the Fuhrer.

51. Hitler’s central vision was to fight. The Nazi/Fascist vision is fighting.

52. Fascism was a problem in France, the US, Britain and everywhere – pushing arms.

53. Appeasement involved British elite backing Hitler and the arms faction even in 1938.

54. WW2 was caused by militarists and the push for arms sales, not by failing to arm.

55. Often arms are sold on borrowed money. The US lent Hitler vast amounts to buy arms.

56. War debts often cripple economies for decades – Germany in 1918, Britain in 1945.

57. Wars generate active hate – murders, the Holocaust and other genocides.

58. A reasonable estimate is that WW2 cost the world a total ten years of economic activity.

59. Weapons have become mass killers – machine guns, shells, bombs, fire-bombing.

60. We love weapons and hang on to them to retain the power to kill in false belief.

61. Nuclear weapons – a “race” with Germany, a quick defeat of Japan, a US possession.

62. The UK and US deserted the USSR, who lost 50X more people and did most fighting.

63. At the end of wars, arms companies face a slump. So they engineer a new enemy.

64. Espionage around militarism has become a useless world industry wasting billions.

65. The Red Scares and McCarthyite accusations demonised the new enemy.

66. In 1945 the Fascists and Nazis went underground

67. Offence as defence is dangerous. Really you plan to attack.

68. The West is hypocritical. It will not fight one another, but sells arms for others to fight.

69. The USSR was not behind the Korean War. It was a national spat seen as a red threat.

70. The Vietnam War was a mistake, fought to fund the arms companies and Monsanto.

71. In war the truth suffers on all sides. Propaganda becomes normal and enemies evil.

72. In wars mistakes always happen – bombing, equipment, mass deaths

73. Disarmament cost nothing; it takes out the useless tools of aggression.

74. Military and nuclear costs explain most or all of states’ national debt.

75. Proportionate disarmament on all sides puts none at risk with decreasing threats.

76. The peace dividend moves all those resources from war and destruction to good uses.

77. We live in an integrated trading world. Th idea of international rivalries is daft.

78. The strongest powers fear the most, because they have departed justice.

79. Mutual Assured Destruction was MAD in the 80s, but we still renew nuclear weapons.

80. The arms industry got rid of Carter in 1980 and damages politicians it does not like.

81. 1% of nuclear weapons would destroy the earth’s stability, but we still produce more.

82. Arms for oil has made the middle east a war zone.

83. The US through the CIA has taught the world terrorism through “covert actions”.

84. We are now arming space – another futile escalation of militarism.

85. The arms industry destroys, yet we are backing it towards bigger destruction. Lunacy.

86. The new US/China/Russia “superpower” confrontation is silly and pointless.

87. The militarists control the media; so the truth about militarism is always suppressed.

88. Superpowers become rotten at the heart – leaders who want to be rich, exploit, kill.

89. Disarmament kindles friendship, co-operation, appreciation and understanding.

90. We must disarm the world if global warming is to be addressed – saves 5% CO2 min.

91. Disarming saves some 10% of world GDP – arms, war cost, economic relationships.

92. Disarm the world and military dictators and domestic tyranny will melt away.

93. Disarm the world and the United Nations will be real.

94. Jesus pointed out that we make peace. We must actively disarm the world.

95. Disarming the world will prevent nuclear superpower war.

96. Disarming the world will end refugees, failed states and lift up the poor and weak.

97. Disarming the world opens up peace for all beyond our understanding

98. Disarming the world allows truth to rule over force.

99. Disarming the world brings about the healing of the nations.

100. Disarming the world unlocks the door to loving one another.

General

Establishments

Christians might do well to do some sociology. After all the Bible is full of it. One basic concept is “establishments”. They are people with privileges and patterns of control who maintain their positions in a range of ways. So, for example, we are used to the Queen being surrounded by soldiers, dressed posh so that we like them, but soldiers have partly kept the monarchy in place since William the Conqueror, except when Oliver Cromwell took over, and he was military too. But establishments are held in place by many factors. They can be impressive though buildings like the Palace of Versailles, or dress, or music, or statues or capital cities or fame. Indeed, the Tower of Babel and Ziggurats were probably the first establishments – the central group of people who will make a name for themselves. They normally, backed by military compulsion, establish themselves through law, property ownership, slavery and control of labour. The Norman conquest did the Doomsday Book to establish Norman property rights and people were serfs to part control their labour. Most societies through most of history have been establishments; in China the literati have been basic to its civilisation. So all of us should try to understand them.

Establishments are so normal that they shape culture, the way we see things, through most of history. In ancient Greece the slaves were eclipsed by Plato and Aristotle in the formation of ideas, and since then scholars, poets, playwrights, jesters, philosophers and religions have gathered round the political establishment, mainly the monarch. The Pharoahs, the Roman Emperors, the Doges in Venice, the Spanish, Indian, Chinese and British Courts carried the culture of the day. Shakespeare traded in establishment cultures – Caesar, Hamlet, the Merchant of Venice, the English Kings, Macbeth, Lear and the black Othello. So cultural formation, what is often called civilisation, is establishment culture, what the big people think. And the big people have time to think, because they have other people working for them, paying taxes and being servants. In the18th century the aristocracy had libraries in their stately homes and employed tame philosophers to think for them. We call it the Enlightenment. Most people in the arts rely on establishment patrons to fund their painting and they have often produced boring large sycophantic works which we move quickly past in the Louvre, Vienna, the National Gallery or stately homes. In all of this vast establishment culture lurks the question, “Does the Establishment possess the truth?” Normally, the Establishment answers quickly, “Of course, we do.”

And then there is establishment and religion. You have already thought of “the established church”. But that is not a big enough place to start. Often the gods have been the establishment. The Pharoahs, Dagon, the Caesars were gods, state gods. Athena in the Parthenon was the Athenian state. If the god, the centre of all existence, was the state, then it ruled, it was to be obeyed unquestioningly. We easily forget that in 1945 the Emperor of Japan had this status still, even when Japan had been defeated. So religion has been owned by the establishment throughout most or all human history, fused with the state and it has told us how to do religion with many bizarre outcomes. We have had gods of war, gods who keep the masses in fear. Many religious buildings, temples, are there to impress, to keep this great show on the road. Obviously, we have scarcely touched this great subject, but we must press on.

For establishments are self-important. They involve some people seeing themselves as special and looking down on others. The others may be slaves, serfs, workers, servants, the masses, ordinary people, hoi polloi (the many), the proletariat and so on who will supply the work and goods to keep the established elite in the comfort to which they are accustomed. Taxation is a part of this – taxation which then pays a servant class. The control of wages is similar. We now realise that the whole business of slavery and empire was part of an extension of this pattern around the globe. The Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, British, Belgian, French, Italian, Russian and German Empires involved constructing a vast pattern of domination around every continent to serve the elites of Europe and enrich them.

So this concept is quite close to the centre of human history, except it is not quite. It occurs in the Bible, but it is, so to speak, knocked off its pedestal and now we must consider how. Pharoah is establishment and the Children of Israel are slaves. But Pharoah is defeated and the Children of Israel are freed to live before God. They receive the Ten Commandments and are called to live by the law. Moses is the servant of God, and is sanctioned when he fails. The military is not important. The religious system is limited to a portable ark of the covenant and life is defined for all people as living in lawful equality. The distribution of land is roughly equal and slavery is forbidden except at the edges. Of course, this is a primitive society, but what we tend not to notice is that the nation-state of Israel is anti-establishment. God chooses the normally humble ruler, not the establishment. It is a minor nation. It wrongly chooses the route of wanting a king like the other nations and God’s prophets emerge as a continual critical commentary on the rulers and political establishment. When Solomon establishes religion in the Temple and accumulates chariots and horses and Rehoboam moves to slavery, Israel breaks up, and the later prophets are a continual commentary against establishment and its falsehoods.

Come the Gospels and Jesus thoroughly deconstructs the whole system of establishment. He will bring down the mighty from their thrones. The ruler is the servant. His yoke is easy. He ignores the self-important. The first will be last and the last will be first. God’s pay is equal. He is the friend of the outcast. Yet he is the ruler, the King of the Jews, the Son of Man, the Messiah, the actual ruler who will not even be defeated by the cross, that tool of Roman intimidation.  He is the ruler who has nowhere to lay his head, and the one who rejects control even when his betrayer is sitting with him. But this is not merely a reaction against establishment, but the business of all of us living the whole of life openly and truly before God and Jesus parables us into what that is like. The Good Samaritan is healthcare for all. We do not trust the sword. We forgive and mend relationships. We love our neighbours and learn that meek living is good news. The disciples, the learners are ordinary people, and, Jesys insists, the rulers must be slaves. Of course we are still trying to see what this great calling to humankind means, but it certainly means the overturning and withering away of establishments.

And the Church is compromised. Catholic and Protestant churches have long done deals with the established state. The churches trim their messages to supporting the State. God will give us the victory in War. The Archbishop crowns the sovereign. In return the church is established. In the Elizabethan era you could be fined sixpence for not going to church. Many churchpeople think, live, pray and vote in terms of the establishment. In the Trump era some American Christians tried to achieve a special US version of a subchristian establishment. But perhaps now things must be different. We cannot short cut on God’s way. The planet is being destroyed by the Western establishment, especially the capitalist one. We ordinary Christians have the task of unthinking all our habitual orientations towards the establishments we live in. For establishments just carry on. But the teaching of Christ, whom we follow as students, does not carry on. There may be two dozen establishments from which we must escape and new relationships which must be forged, if God is to be with us. Of course, God is with us, if we are humble and open, but we must seek to find, and destruction is stalking the planet. Substantially, it is destruction caused by establishments, and the meek, the non-establishment people, will inherit the earth. It is a vast unviolent revolution, bigger than all of us, to be done by following Jesus. Responding to what the Creator may be asking of us to conserve this exquisite earth requires establishments to reform or crumble. These levels of thinking involve exiting the status quo and Jesus insists on saying, “But I say unto you…”  

General

Boris Johnson’s Holiday on Mustique; What really happened?

After Christmas 2019 Boris Johnson and his partner had a holiday on the island of Mustique between the 26th December and 5th January. It was in a villa named Indigo which has three bedrooms, three staff and a reflecting courtyard pool which can be rented around the New Year for $20,000 plus 21% in taxes and a discretionary 5% staff tip and other costs. For ten days the costs must have been about £30,000. The peripheral costs Johnson paid, but where did the money for the accommodation come from? It was a gift, but after reviews from the Parliamentary Commissioner and the Committee for Standards, it still seems opaque. This note may uncover the answer.

GIFTS FOR JOHNSON AND THE CONTEXT FOR THIS TRIP.

Johnson stood as leader of the Conservative Party earlier in 2019 and received something like £700,000 in donations from people and firms interested in supporting his leadership bid. We do not know how much was spent in his leadership campaign or why people came up with this money. He is used to receiving political gifts. The General Election, the Brexit General Election, was held on 12th December, and two weeks after being elected Prime Minister, he and his girlfriend, Carrie Symonds, were in Mustique for ten days. It is the period after choosing a cabinet and before Coronavirus became public policy, recently highlighted by Dominic Cummings.

THE CONTROVERSY – YES HE DID, NO HE DIDN’T AND YES HE DID

The donation in relation to the Mustique trip was declared to the Register of MP’s interests, as is required. A gift in kind of £15000 was declared, given by David Ross, CEO of Carphone Warehouse, on the 24th January, 2020. On 13th February, 2020 a Mail Online article said that a spokesman for David Ross said that he had facilitated the trip, “but had paid no monies whatsoever”. This is odd. We may take it that a spokesman, talking to the Daily Mail on David Ross’s behalf, had ascertained the truth of the event from Mr Ross five weeks after the holiday had taken place. Mr Ross, it seems, at this stage, had paid “no monies whatsoever”. The statement seems slightly irritated by the fact that Mr Ross was being used, but that may be fanciful. This bald statement conflicted with Boris Johnson’s entry in the Register of Interests that his visit was paid by David Ross and the trip became controversial and unclear.  

After a long inquiry involving many letters another story emerged. Mr Johnson had “sought and was offered” use of a villa on Mustique owned by Mr Ross, a Conservative party supporter and friend of Mr Johnson. However, Mr Ross’ villa was unavailable for the dates of Mr Johnson’s holiday so instead another villa was found for the prime minister. Who paid for it? The eventual story was that Ross paid for it by paying in kind a rental payment to the Mustique Company who handled all the rents for these elite holiday homes on the island. He indirectly gave them income from his villa when they rented it out.   

GUILTY AND THEN INNOCENT.

Kathryn Stone, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Parliamentary Interests concluded that the Prime Minister had breached the code because he did not “make sufficient inquiries” to establish who was providing his accommodation, but the House of Commons Committee on Standards came to a different conclusion. “We conclude that Mr Ross was the donor of Mr Johnson’s holiday accommodation through an informal arrangement with the Mustique Company, whereby the Mustique Company paid the Richardsons for Mr Johnson’s stay and Mr Ross would provide his villa to the Mustique Company for free in recompense. We therefore find that Mr Johnson’s Register entry is accurate and complete, and we find no breach by Mr Johnson of paragraph 14 of the Code.”

STITCHED TOGETHER.

The Final story seems stitched together to put Boris Johnson on the right side of the requirements of the Declaration of Interests, but is it true? Obviously earlier the “informal arrangement” Ross had with the Mustique company was so informal Ross did not recall it. Perhaps the arrangement occurred later to dig Boris out of the hole he had dug himself. But who did pay, until Ross carried the can? It is irritating not to know and the Committee on Standards Report looks to skate over the Ross volte face. Fortunately, we have a clue.

Mr Ross provided a response on 20 July 2020 and stated:

“Mr Johnson mentioned to me in a conversation at some stage before Christmas 2019 that he may be looking for somewhere to stay for a forthcoming holiday which would need to be private and which could also take account of his security needs. I offered to try and help him. I then checked with the Mustique Company who manage a property that I own on the island but was told that my house had been let. They said they would find something by way of an alternative. Mr Johnson’s name was not mentioned or used. I referred to him as Mr Jones. Subsequently they contacted me to say that they had a very late cancellation for another property which was therefore available at short notice and at no cost to Mr Jones. Details of the stay were then confirmed directly between the Mustique Company and Mr Johnson’s office.”[i]

It is probably mainly true, but if you have not seen the problem read it again. It may be that Mr Ross was leaned on, and may even have had this text written for him by a public servant getting Boris out of the hole. There are unculpable lies, and this might nearly be one of them. In fact, you can see, Mr Ross’s heart was not really in this statement. It is a half lie. First, the obvious problem. When the Mustique Company Executive got in touch with Mr Johnson’s office they would realise they were not dealing with Mr Jones, the milkman from Merthyr Tydfil, but with Mr Johnson, the newly elected UK Prime Minister posted all around the world in the News for weeks. “Hello, this is Number Ten speaking.” The details of the stay were then worked out in December 2019 and the visit went ahead.

THE MUSTIQUE COMPANY.

Mustique is an elite island populated by luxury holiday homes and run by the Company. It has about eighty villas on land owned by shareholders of the island who are the rich around the world. The Company is also the “Government” running all the aspects of the island’s life including booking holidays. It is well run and well-resourced villas cost about $20-30,000 a week, plus other expenses. The holiday income of the island will be circa fifty times eighty times twenty thousand dollars or about $20 million much of which pays the services provided by hospitality workers in the villas minus commission to the owners of villas like Mr Ross. Mustique is famous for Princess Margaret and Roddy Llewellyn who stayed there and generated a lot of publicity. The Queen, Prince William, Mick Jagger and David Bowie have been there and some $100m has been invested in the island. Money is no object.

Mustique is politically part of St Vincent and the Grenadines. The Queen is its Head of State and it has a democratic government and a Governor General. Because Mustique is privately owned it does not receive a lot of orders from the Grenadines or her Majesty, but it is mindful of the links.

The Managing Director of the Mustique Company is Roger Prichard who seems to run this island well and easily, and we now return to the phone call from, or to, “Mr Jones” who turns out to be the Rt. Hon Boris Johnson, Head of Her Majesty’s newly elected Government. It asks if Boris can have a holiday there after Christmas and Mr Ross’s villa is already booked. Roger Prichard soon hears that Boris wants a holiday and says, “Of Course” and finds him the villa and pushes the question of payment into the long grass. Can he do less for the Leader of her Majesty’s Government, his own Head of State? Neither he nor Boris think of the Register of Members’ Interests and the holiday takes place. The Mustique Company has, de facto, paid for Boris and Carrie’s holiday.

THE COVER UP.

Then the cover up begins. We could guess it was like this. For Boris it is two mistakes. First, he puts David Ross down as the donor without checking with him first, and the latter is obviously disgruntled. Second, receiving a favour from an overseas government, even one so small as Mustique, is against Parliamentary principles, for there may be payback in all kinds of ways. The Mustique Company will co-operate. The Managing Director is able to claim that the laws of Mustique prevent him disclosing who paid Mrs Richardson the holiday rent and then David Ross is prevailed on to declare that he made the gift in kind under the threat that otherwise the Tory Government he backed could collapse under contempt of Parliament.

The lie about “Mr Jones” was a lie about a lie. Boris was not Mr Jones. But it was included in David Ross’s statement, which I suspect was not mainly his own, to throw attention away from a link between Boris Johnson and the Mustique Company. It initially succeeded because the Commons Committee was asleep, but, as Jesus said, “There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed.” “Mr Johnson’s office” was obviously Mr Johnson’s office in December before the holiday was arranged and took place with the Mustique Company.  Of course, this conclusion is supposition, but many know whether it is true or not. It has been quickly buried, but it is still there.

[i] https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/6631/documents/71459/default/ p18

General

The Painting, We must Disarm the World.

The conclusion of this painting is not subtle, but the content is complex and needs some explaining. Good paintings speak for themselves, but this is not a good painting.

The two peaks on the left represent the two World Wars, vast heaps of carnage, military hardware and waste, which still dominate at a distance the world landscape. They are volcanoes spewing forth a vast lava flow of crosses/ deaths which continue down to the present in the foreground, for, broadly history moves through from background to the present foreground with some exceptions. The volcanoes also reference the Armenian massacre, the “Arbeit Macht Frei” arch lie of the Holocaust, the Korean War and the gun conclusion that threatening gives peace.

The graves are presided over by examine-my-armpit Hitler, the Militarist. I know, by study, that Hitler was enabled by US, French and even some British arms and money to militarize in the middle late 30s. Even worse, the British appeasers opposed the 1932 Geneva Disarmament Conference. If we had supported the Hoover Plan for disarmament Hitler would not have come to power. They then, of course, gave him the large Czech Skoda arms complex which completed his armaments for European aggression. If your eyes move across to the arms trader, the Merchant of Death, his arm mirrors Hitler. They are doing the same salute to the process of death and destruction.

This uncovers the basic lie of the 20/21 century. We are all taught that arms protect us against Hitlers. The truth is that Hitler was armed by arms traders. They sell weapons telling everybody buy weapons and you will be safe from militarists. But militarists buy weapons. This is the lie from 1945 until now. The Arms traders and Hitler are on the same side – the militarists. So, in the picture they both slope arms to death. We in the West have taught Japan, China, the USSR, the Arab States and dozens of countries around the world to buy, make and use arms. We have militarised the world under the cover of preventing another Hitler. We have danced to the tune of the Merchants of Death. They are in the centre of the picture with their real motive uncamouflaged, helping the flow of the river of blood, Money drives the arms industry, not defence. Since Krupp they want profits and make missiles, bombers, guns and the stuff of killing and destruction and run the show. Trump, Xi, Putin and Boris appear on the shield, because they are militarist pawns, sold out to weapons, fear and power as control..

As the eye moves to the right, there are two atomic clouds, another achievement of militarism. Warplanes fly about including an F35 with its price tag, and then central foreground is the Goldsboro accident nuclear bomb. In January 1961 a B52 bomber crashed releasing two nuclear bombs less than 200 miles from Washington. This one fell, partly cushioned by its parachute. Three of the four detonation devices were fired and the explosion message went to the core where the fourth safety device held. It was the warning, God’s warning, for those who had ears to hear. Eisenhower was warned and spoke of the dangers of the dominant Military-Industrial Complex in his final Presidential speech. He was heard, but the show went on.

Then comes the key to the picture. Jesus’ words were, “Those who take the sword, perish by the sword” or here “Use the sword? It gets you”. They do not just apply to Napoleon, the Kaiser, Hitler, Japan, Alexander the Great, but also the West. The irony of the CIA training and arming Al Qaida to bomb the twin towers and the Pentagon seems lost on most Americans, or of arming Saddam and then going to war with him twice. Here in the panting the Pentagon and the Twin Towers go up in smoke, as they did from Al Qaida trained by the CIA. Arms are self-destructive the world over. In case thickies have not worked it, bottom right the full costs of militarism through history are stated – perhaps $1,000,000,000,000,000 including deaths, injuries, destruction, arms, pollution, energy costs, the useless work of fighting, nuclear weapons and more, a vast waste to humankind which we continue to expand, while the cost of peace is zero, or nearly so. We can opt for the money-saving option. There are good things to do woth trillionds of dollars. In the painting PTSD is on the ground, centre foreground, another large ignored burden on humanity for centuries. So, Militarism is the biggest failed experiment in history as it says across the bombsited middle distance. On the frame the conclusion: “The utter futility of militarism” is written, on the understanding that any sane person, free from the myth that weapons keep us safe, and the fear which keeps the military system in place, has to conclude that this is irrefutably true. Militarism is a human curse, the biggest curse on the planet. Why is the painting so repetitive of the failure of militarism? Because the counter-message brainwashes the world.

Just in case the doubter still exists, the picture throws in George W Bush aboard the Aircraft Carrier in 2003 announcing that he had won the Eyraq War with the famous phrase, “Mission Accomplished” emblazoned on the banner and in his speech. Even now the US and UK are finally withdrawing from Iraq twenty years later having lost the war, undermined the UN, spawned a vast system of terrorist responses and destroyed much of the country and made it ungovernable. The cost of the War, estimated at the time to cost $100bn, turns out on Stiglitz’s estimate at $3tn. The cost to Iraq of this illegal war must be many trillions more. Well done, George Doubleya, Tony Blair and Rumsfeld.

But “Mission Accomplished” serves two masters. On the horizon, furthest away, stand three empty crosses. This is centrally a Christian painting. The cross is often sentimentalised, but it is the symbol of Roman Militarism’s power to string anybody up who challenges their military dominance. Jesus gave us all the kit to end militarism. He disarmed the cross. We are to eliminate the fear of those who threaten to kill the body and only fear God. He breaks the fear of militarism. We are to sort quarrels early and by going the second mile. We are to love enemies and that means understanding why they are enemies and crossing all the aggressions of militarism. We routinely love old enemies because they are not, whether in Yorkshire and Lancashire, Jews and Gentiles and through holidaying with them. We can love enemies without the hostility industry of the Militarists. To be forgiven, we must forgive. Jesus shows love to the Roman centurion, and even to Pilate, whom he understands and sympathizes with, though Pilate will weakly agree to string Jesus up. The empty cross is Mission Accomplished, the threat of militarism defeated by the resurrection and the gentle Lamb on the throne of political rule, giving us democracy, the servant ruler and the healing of the nations. Jesus leaves his peace with us and tells us to get on with doing it. “Blessed are the peace makers.” Of course they are, because peace blesses us all. We all want to live in peace, but we back the losing horse militarism. How bloody silly we are in the full sense of the words. The bloody crosses in the picture come right through to the present as they do in the news now. There is the way of Jesus, utterly practical. The futility of militarism is laid bare and we are to make peace, as Jesus tells us.

Let us not give in to this preposterous idea that peace works! Militarism must be defended! How can Christ say that commitment to weapons causes war, even for those who arm? How stupid! Weapons are always used in war, but the idea that investing in and having weapons leads to war is preposterous. Weapons stop war, don’t they Jesus? Weapons are the solution and you say they are the problem. We have had guns for peace, Dreadnoughts for peace, tanks for peace, machine guns for peace, fighters, bombers, cannon, nuclear bombs, nuclear missiles, aircraft carriers and of course, the Peacekeeper missile, and if we just try a little harder with weapons peace will arrive.  So don’t be so cynical, Jesus. But the painting has given up. Weapons cause wars. It is full of the disjointed mess of weapons and war. It is an ugly painting. The point is to see through this disaster and quit. World Disarmament, everybody getting rid of weapons, easier than competitive armament, might result in weapons not being used.

Through study, over twenty years, I have seen that disarmament is easier than militarism. Yes, read that again. But it is obvious. Military costs fall around the world. There is no destruction. Governments do good, not arm to destroy. The economy makes useful things. Wars end. Economic co-operation increases. Tens of millions of refugees go home. Cities are rebuilt. It nearly succeeded in 1932 with a strong Christian input, but was defeated, but what a different, relaxed world it would have been without Hitler, WW2 and the Cold War. Disarmament is relatively simple. It needs as clear set of rules for everybody which can be implemented openly and with world-wide accountability. And there is one more requirement. The militarists must not be put in charge, or be in charge, because they will try to mess it up. Turkeys do not vote for Christmas or put the oven on. The Merchants of Death must be outed from control.

You will be uneasy with this painting. That is because we have all been battered into believing that peace and disarmament is idealistic and arming is realistic. It is exactly the opposite. Peace and disarmament work and everyone loses wars and arms races. We can see that within countries. There is the idealistic hope in the US that if everybody is armed they are all safe but already more than a million have died through guns this century in the US. Other countries with few domestic arms have very few deaths from guns. Weapons do not produce peace because they are designed to kill. Forget the propaganda. Disarmament and peace work and militarism is idealistic and has let us down time after time. this is practical sense and not an ideal.

About ten years ago it became clear to me that the business of disarming the world (provided the military are not in charge as in the 30s and 60s) is not difficult to do.  There is a strong process that can do it. Arms companies cease arms production completely and are subsidized at a falling level to move over to other kinds of production, much of which they could do very well. Then the basic rule is that all militaries are cut 20% a year for five years until it is all gone, supervised and policed by other countries. Open inspection and sophisticated surveillance guarentees no-one can cheat.  Terrorists can sell back arms or face UN armed policing intervention to close them down. Some 60 million people in the armed forces can do a range of good jobs for which many are already trained. International law can take over. It is the way peaceful domestic political life operates around much of the earth; when there are almost no arms, you just need a few police. The peace bonus is enormous. It is good practical world politics. We are just taught that it is not possible by the big military machines, but they are wrong. They cannot let the truth that we can disarm the world out, because it sinks them. It is suppressed every which way – scares, new weapons, rows, constructing enemies, shows of strength, demonising states. But we can disarm the world and it will be relatively easy. The painting affirms that we can disarm the world.

But that is old. Now, We Must Disarm the World. There is the global warming challenge, and world disarmament cuts total world CO2 generation by nearly 10% fast; it helps save the planet. But also the military system and NATO are even now setting up a new, ever more dangerous, Cold War – the US and China, the US and Russia, with the UK, France, Israel and other dancing in the wings – the militaries and arms producers in all of them are setting up their business for the next few decades – arming space, renewing nuclear weapons, cyber-war, aircraft carriers like mobile airfields, drones, anti this and anti that. We will be into a big US-China military stand-off for decades unless we address it now. We Must Disarm the World, or we face world antagonistic collapse in militarised failure as the planet burns.  

And that brings us to the final lap in the painting, the foreground. Should militarism and its chaos be the whole picture? Certainly not, and already something different is growing. Covid has taught us again to care for life. The climate deniers have become lunatics and the big corporations slowing our need to go green are in retreat. We need to green the planet, not fight, and the foreground which will take over. There are three areas of growth – good old fashioned God-given beauty, as in our garden flowers – the rose, then ears of wheat to feed us. “Give us this day our daily bread” for all, and not the few, and finally, the oak shoot. Christ grew up before God like a tender plant, like a root out of dry ground, straight and tall. He was despised and rejected, but he has brought us peace and by his wounds we are healed. Nor will we train for war any more. We need again to grow before God straight, following Christ. We are the shoots that God has planted. The weapons of war will become the tools of agriculture. We, the people of God, can let the peace of Christ rest wherever. Good practical peace that does weapons and aggression away. These shoots will do away with war.

But, who will do it? There is the Mike Butterworth question: “How can little i do anything in the face of the world’s vast superpowers and military systems of armament?” The answer is the little people, us, and numbers. Large numbers of people have power. Fragmented groups do not. When millions own and stand for disarmament, it can happen. It nearly did in 1932.  God has two billion Christians around the world and it is about time they understood that they can work together and should work together to do what God asks. For a century churchpeople have been cowed into being loyal to the military, nationalist state and deserting the Christian doctrine of peace. They shake hands and peck cheeks in church as though that were the sum of the biblical teaching. Bishops bless battleships and we have services for the continuous at sea nuclear deterrent, without questioning whether it has deterred anything anywhere. We are timid. Like a mighty army rooted is the Church of God. Two billion agreed about disarmament and making peace are unstoppable. Five million in China and the US, a million in the UK, Germany, Russia and the rest will follow. The Church merely has to learn to put two billion votes in the public square. With the web it’s not even difficult. People sign up, together with other people of peace. In military language it is called mobilisation, or people power. The Church has never, although nearly in 1932, acted together world-wide. This is the time. Quit introversion and act. When we make peace by faith – petitions, votes, movements, shaping up the United Nations – for nation shall speak peace unto nation in God’s good world – then the world will change. Christians divided by nationalisms, fears, wary lest they be seen as unpatriotic, see the way of God’s peace and the futility of militarism and act, nailing their vote for peace on the world’s stage and challenging the weak militarists. For militarists producing nothing but destruction are really very weak, like children bashing up toys. We see all that Christ has been teaching them and change the world. This painting is an attempt to be a key opening the door to disarmament and peace. We are to be oaks of good living, by faith seek to move the mountains of wars and arms accumulation. It involves understanding this vast waste and vast failure, killing millions, gobbling up trillions and helping the planet to burn. But God can extend peace to us and even in the next ten years if we get busy..   

EasterPoliticsBook, General

THE CROSS AND POWER.

The cross is precious to Christians, the centre of our salvation, the place of God’s forgiveness and grace to us, the place where human sin does its worst and loses, the measure of God’s love and the divesting of all human righteous. Of course, it is the Christ on the cross who is so, not the thing we may put round our neck. Sometimes, the thing is sentimentalized.


Especially this year commentators have noted how than cross was unmentionable, the nastiest instrument compelling Roman dominance. If you do not conform to our control, well, even this… My friends have noticed for a while that I am a bit preoccupied with military issues, but I am persuaded that this is a big part of the Gospel, the Christian Good News. Killing, murder, war, domination litter all of human history. The stuff goes all through the Bible and the twentieth century. Killing with weapons is understood as power. We talk of “superpowers”. This is power as control – empires, wars, threats, domination. Still most people understand power this way. Brits have it in our blood. Send us victorious. Actually we have it in other people’s blood in China, India, the Antipodes, Africa, North America and Europe. Even now the world believes it runs on this kind of power. But this is not the power of God.


We know from Christ that God’s power is gentle, patient, serving and for all. That should not surprise us, for the God of the Big Bang has got down to hawthorn blossom and DNA and useful photons for us, the intricate glorious providence of the creation that we in our pride are trashing. The power that creates, forms, transforms and forgives is of Christ, and the power that destroys is of Rome, Napoleon, the British empire, the Third Reich, the US and USSR Superpowers. In part the Cross is Christ triumphing over this power to kill, even disarming it. And, really, the power to destroy is no power.


The Gospel, the Good News, taken around the world on the whole without guns, works. Make love not war allows peaceful communities. No guns means peace. Don’t fear, says Jesus, and eliminates the need for nuclear weapons and, as we call them conventional weapons, to kill. Loving enemies works in Lancashire and Yorkshire. Christ has done the work in the long journey to the Cross, in taking on the miserable powers of control and violence, even to death on a cross. The Lamb is on the Throne. His sword is just words from his mouth. Fear God and you will then have nothing else to fear. Blessed are the peacemakers; it works. Still the world has not heeded his warning – “those who take the sword, will perish by the sword” – though every century proves it, including the 21st. Peace is the only practical way to live, and war is vastly idealistic. “You will be home for Christmas” they said in 1914. “Mission accomplished” said George Doubleya.

God’s way works. Yet, we Christians have been intimidated into fear. There was fear of the Hun, of “godless Communism”, of “appeasement”, Cold War fear, all worked up by the militarists and arms companies. We have not wanted to be traitors to British, or American, Nationalism. We have bought into might is right, or at least Our might is right and deserted the Gospel. We have a service for “our” Continuous at Sea Nuclear Deterrent, as though it has actually done anything rather than be a self-important sewer for billions. We fit in with the State; it is our Anglican duty. We have deserted the Gospel of the healing of the nations. We have ignored the basic biblical sense of swords into ploughshares which could solve most of the planet’s problems. We do “peace in your heart” or a kiss in the isle rather than God’s peace for humankind. We Christians are in an unholy huddle.


“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” speaks our non-comprehension, how we are taken in by the militarists’ fear mongering. But now we do know. “My peace I leave with you” says Christ. “GO in peace… ” Two billion Christians around the world, understanding the way of the cross, can do this thing. We can, quite easily, disarm the world. Faith can move this mountain.

From War to Peace, General

OUR PART IN DESTROYING YEMEN

In the 1980s Margaret Thatcher stepped in to do an arms deal with Saudi Arabia. The opportunity occurred because the US during Carter’s Presidency tried to cut pushing arms around the world. Thatcher concluded the Al Yamamah agreement with the Saudis. It was an odd agreement involving both the Government and BAe Systems, our dominant arms company.  Probably Mark Thatcher was able to take a cut of a million or two in his Mum’s deal, but we do not know because the Committee investigating it kept its findings secret.

All treaties are supposed to be open on the Ponsonby Principle that the UK should have no hidden treaties, but this treaty/agreement remained hidden. From the beginning it  included corruption – giving the Saudi Royal Family billions which was then hidden in the payments made to BAe. During the Blair Government the Guardian and others uncovered the scale of the corruption. It was reported as involving peacock blue limousines, hiring hotels around the world for holidays, gold plated dinner services (the silver ones were turned down), and, if I remember rightly, a Boeing 747 to bring the Royal Family’s shopping home from California. But it was criminal, because bribery had became illegal, and the Serious Fraud Office  began a criminal prosecution. The prosecution did not happen because the Attorney General who is supposed to uphold the rule of law capitulated under pressure, and Blair decreed that prosecuting BAe was not in the national interest and Parliament spinelessly accepted the law should be waived for some.

So BAe supplied Saudi Arabia with Typhoon bombers, bombs and a vast range of other military equipment, year after year, helping, now along with the US, to make it the dominant military power in the Middle East. Here, you need to understand the underlying strategy of selling arms in the Middle East. It began especially with the Iraq-Iran conflict. Iran fell out with the US, mainly because the US controlled the Shah, the CIA ran the Shah’s secret service in Iran and Iranian oil interests. Oh, and the US and Britain had ousted the Iranian Prime Minister and plonked the Shah back in charge to ran Iran to suit the West. Iran was Shi’ite and Saddam was Sunni and the West sold more and more arms to Sunnis in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and realised that arming this conflict was the best way of making money out of the Middle East. The US had no scruples in helping Saddam carry out gas attacks against the Iranians, and then when Saddam started to use his weapons, there were two lucrative wars for the military-industrial complex getting rid of Saddam, and hopefully maintaining control of oil as well. One in 2003 was illegal, against the United Nations, based on a lie and against an already disarmed Saddam. It succeeded in destroying much of Iraq, and Syria has now followed the same way. So the US and Britain have weaponised the Sunni-Shi’ite differences and made them acute in Iraq, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and now in Yemen. They fight and we make money from weapons. We say, “Oh Dear”, but rub our hands at the billions we make through the arms trade.

The Yemen conflict follows this pattern. The differences between the original Government and the Houti rebels was the normal one of a minority suffering some inferior treatment and needing better resourcing. It was a Yemeni matter and required wisdom and a bit of generosity of spirit. But Saudi Arabia entered the conflict, as you do when you have a lot of weapons. They began bombing the Houtis with our bombers and our bombs. The BAe Chairman was unable to deny that BAe workers were actually loading the bombs in the bombers. They have some 6,000 staff working for the Saudis out there. So, year after year we have been supplying the kit to flatten villages and towns in Yemen. The catastrophic war has left 4 million refugees and a further 16 million close to famine and death. It is an horrific humanitarian crisis. Biden stopped US support for the Saudis as soon as he was in office, but Tory Governments have resolutely refused to end the military support.

Even now the Tory Government has refused to close down the supply of weapons and is rubbing its hands because the sales of expensive kit and bombs goes on and on. Capitalism and greed comes before a humanitarian response. We have cut our aid to Yemen by as much as a half, and Patel trying to cut any possibilities of refugees making it here. Obviously, Saudi involvement is neither principled, nor helpful, but our Government does not care as long as we sell weapons and BAe makes a profit. This is our callous Government. We, the US, UK and the UN could insist on a cease-fire in a month, fund care to desperate people and restore peace, if we acted with resolution. But the Johnson Government is so tied to militarism and arms profits it cannot think of anything else. So what are you going to do about it?

General, We Can Disarm the World

THE NEW WORLD ORDER – THE FALL OF THE US.


The United Nations’ Rebuke to the US for its sanctions policy against Venezuela and the wicked consequences of it continues the UN movement from vasseldom to the US to independence from it. The Treaty Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons will not go away. When the US has fallen, the unity of the Nations becomes a possibility.


For the history is rewritten. The US bullying of China, Cuba, central America, the USSR and much of Africa is now on the table. The wickedness of the Vietnam War and the Iraq War and other aggressions are obvious. The dominant role of the US in the Cold War is suddenly seen. When the Cold war ended, it carried on War in the Middle East and elsewhere. The self-proclaimed peacekeeper was the problem.


Internally, its racism is on the table a lifetime after Paul Robeson. Its corporate bullying is also clear. Its self-indulgent, CO2 generating lifestyle is terminally flawed. Now it is a “failing” power with a long historic trade deficit, locked in patterns of self-indulgence and incapable in its Trump manifestation of political principle, thought or justice. It needs, like the Prodigal Son, to come to its senses.


We face the insufferable nature of “superpowers”, wrapped in their own self adulation, the same insufferinability we see in Boris, that tinny echo of the imperialist Churchill, the yapping cur at the feet of the superpower. The US is now accountable. Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world like a colossus – “narrow” because that is the way the Superpower thinks – “our UN”. But now the world is no longer underlings. It sees the militarism of Caesar, this stream of wrongs, this wicked activity to stay top dog, this industry of enemy creation, this use of the rest of the world. The US is off its pedestal.


This is said by a deep friend of the US and has no rancour. It will not be sidelined as oppositional thinking. It just happens to be true. God brings down the proud and unlovely whomsoever they are, gently with repentance, but with a bump without it.


If the Emperor has to eat grass so be it, but it were better humble itself with a few big apologies to Venezuela, Cuba, Iraq, Vietnam, the USSR, China and a few other countries, so that we have the big world reset and the United Nations can discover they really are friends, because as Jesus said, we can love our enemies, actually quite easily.

General

THE BIPOLAR WEST

Perhaps the West is post-democratic. Its voters no longer articulate where they stand ideologically and why. Elections are no longer debates. Rather leaders are promoted and sold, and other brands are rubbished, and voters respond by either liking or disliking. Most western people live in the mass and social media – radio, TV, tabloids, Facebook, Twitter and the like. The time commitment is vast – say five plus hours a waking day. The characteristic responses are two. One is to like or dislike, a subjective act in which thinking is subordinated to an emoted response. It “affirms” the individual, but kills thoughtful debate. The second is passivity. The show will go on, and we, the masses, are the audience. All the world’s a theatre, and nearly all the men and women sit and look.

The others are running the show. Who are they? They are the rich. They do not want things to change, because their markets run the world and much of their money is untaxed. Banking, mass media, property, weapons, oil, computing, the web, big food, clothes, domestic, media will carry on. Especially since the time of Reagan, they chose the populist leaders who will be reliable – bailout bankers, keep share/property prices high, allow trade domination – and they got them. They have millions of middle-class supporters, looking at the Daily Mail. They are populist, like Ronnie, or more recently Trump and Boris, the political performers. They promised the poor, but gave to the rich. Donald was for the white underdog, but cut taxes massively for the rich. But the controlling network is far bigger, world-wide, and it includes China, Russia, India. Brazil and all the big world economic players. Money, now including new currencies, holds them together. Policy doesn’t change things, until there is big money in it. Other policies are side-lined and hit the wall. The redistribution of wealth and income is suppressed out of existence. Threats, like Corbyn in the UK or Bernie Sanders in the US, are liquidated. And so they rule, giving the masses their predetermined choices and entertaining them to death.

There are three slow trains coming. The first is global warming. The world’s rich are profligate with energy. They have suppressed acknowledging the crisis for three decades and now it will hit, sometimes rich and poor, but usually poor, and it will cost impoverishing the world with famine, fire, flooding and weather destruction. Then, the big world industry of militarism will produce its induced tensions and war, eating up resources, destroying, threatening and tribalizing, so that we continue to become the fighting planet. even producing the big war. Finally, world population, the young poor against the old rich, the press of resources, tribulations, the gradual exposure of the vast capitalist conspiracy will lead to irreconcilable confrontations. Trump’s people did not understand what they did, but they did it. Islamic terrorism has been created by the West, and will fuel great Middle East conflicts. Failed states, with rich rulers bedding money in the West, will tyrannize and fall all over the planet. How it will turn out is everybody’s business, and we do not know. But, very roughly, this sketches the scale of the problem and the failure. To acknowledge this is so, and that we can face our sins, is the first step.  

General

MIGHT IS NOT RIGHT – THE CHOICE IS CLEAR.

Is it good for the world if the United States and China are armed to the teeth with dangerous weapons? The answer is clear. No. It is costly, threatening and destructive; sooner or later millions will be murdered through it. We could ask who started it? Actually, the US did. We could ask who is more democratic? Actually, militarism undermines democracy everywhere. We could ask, Who will win? But that is playing death. Really, this would be bad for the world and everybody loses, everybody except the arms manufacturers in the US and China, who make money but lose their souls planning killing.

Who decides what happens? Everybody or the merchants of death and the silly rulers trapped inside their militarism? We, together, have to stop it. Superpower disarmament must happen. The later we leave it, the more difficult it will be. You know we need to disarm the superpowers, all powers, and world peace is better. So, do it. It will take two to four billion of us and is simpler than competitive arming. The organisation to do it – right up to the United Nations – will emerge. We can disarm the world in about five years if you decide.

General, We Can Disarm the World

MIGHT IS NOT RIGHT 3 – JESUS TURNS IT DOWN.

The painting was messed up by a couple of failures which I’ll try to sort one day, but it signals up John 6 15 and the importance of politics throughout the Gospels. It shows the 5000 plus crowd gathering.

Why was it so big? A Football size crowd. The Passover was near. Jewish liberation time from Egypt. John the Baptist had just been murdered by Herod Antipas. Jesus fed them and had them eating out of his hands. They were looking for the Prophet who would liberate and v 15 “Jesus knowing that they intended to make him king by force, withdrew to the mountain by himself.” It was an attempted popular uprising against Antipas. Many of those there probably had their hand weapons ready, looking to Jesus.

Jesus turned it down, refused to undertake the military insurrection and dissipated it. No-one was killed. It involved a complex movement around Galilee and to the North. After that many disciples deserted him. He was not the national uprising Zealot deliverer.

Of course the peaceful Son of God turned this down, not to be apolitical, but to be the Son of Man, the true King of the Jews, the Messiah, the Prince of Peace and the King of Kings. This is the peaceable kingdom. Go, live in it.