All posts by Alan Storkey

Alan Storkey has stood in two elections as a Christian candidate, was Chair of the Movement for Christian Democracy, has written "Jesus and Politics" and has helped shape recent Christian political thought.
We Can Disarm the World

ENDING THE WESTERN-RUSSIAN STAND OFF FOR EVER

Russia and the Ukraine.

It is sad that we not only do not understand our enemies, but also that we cannot, because we are so self-righteous and indoctrinated. Russia has been wronged badly and deliberately and we do not even understand what is wrong. Putin is a dangerous and at times wicked leader, but that does not mean he cannot be right.


The Russian Complaint.

Putin/Russia repeatedly say their concern is that Ukraine should not join NATO thus forming an aggressive boundary to Russia. We could, with a little thought set out below, understand that concern and actually see that the new NATO is deliberately creating this aggressive boundary. We could even end this silly confrontation.

When the USSR/Russia agreed to the unification of Germany around 1990 Gorbachev was promised by the United States and the West that there should be no aggressive forces east of the former West German border. It was clear why. History matters deeply, especially when it is this history.

The Perfidious West.

In WW1 German troops ripped through Russia, Russia lost the War, suffered horror and was only rescued by the final defeat. Except then Churchill as Minister for War fought his own vendetta against Communism, trying in his words to “murder the baby (Communism) in the cradle.” It was a long War and no-one could be trusted. Stalin saw Hitler coming and prepared for War again. It came in the great onslaught in the East when the USSR carried WW2 and beat Hitler. The USSR won WW2 especially at Leningrad and Stalingrad. As Churchill well knew the USSR saved Britain from invasion and carried most of the War while we deliberately slowly opened a second front. After all, if the Nazis and the USSR were fighting one another, why should we crash in on the act? By carrying the backbone of the War, with western logistics help, the USSR lost 25 million people. The US and UK lost half a million each. They thus suffered perhaps fifty times more than we did, and we never even think of thanking them for Winning The War. Indeed, in mass film, political, cultural propaganda, we insist that We (the US or UK) Won the War. That untruth the Russians know to be a lie. We blank the truth.

The understanding that emerged in the USSR under Stalin was that twice in World Wars Russia was invaded from the West with a total destructive invasion. It must never happen again, and consequently the USSR needed a buffer between them and German and Western aggression.

Worse than that, at the end of the War Churchill (and the US hawks) were gung ho for attacking the USSR, our ally, pushing around papers proposing it. The USSR had fought this heroic War against Hitler and were also an exhausted, devastated country. Stalin learned of the proposed attacks through his spies and saw the West was not to be trusted an inch. Later there were plans to nuke Moscow and the USSR.

We blithely ignore the fact that at the end of the War in the United States after Roosevelt’s death, when some ex-Nazi sympathizers were close to power in the US – the Dulles brothers and Forrestal – they together with Churchill and Truman in the “Iron Curtain” speech of the 5th March, 1946 declared strong military confrontation against Soviet Communism. Stalin was devasted. It was a mere six months after the end of the War – the USSR had lost 25 million, and as many injured, it had been a faithful ally fighting Japan in the East. It had just faced a cruel Russian winter with urban and factory destruction, shortages, famine and housing crises across most of its territory to defeat the Nazis. The snow had hardly melted. Yet Churchill persuaded the US President to resume his (Churchill’s) military confrontation with the desperate USSR to open the Cold War. Churchill, ousted by the British electorate, could resume his control of history. A Red Scare and the McCarthyite era made Communism into the new enemy. The USSR, who had been at the centre of winning the War, were treated like rubbish, ignored by Marshall Aid, while Germany received much help.

Our Cold War.

The Cold War lasted nearly half a century. Historians are clear it was led by the United States and allowed the expansion of the US military usually on the basis of lies about USSR military strength and a domino scare theory of Communism which was untrue in Korea, Vietnam and elsewhere. We hide the fact that the precursor to the Cuba crisis was the US lining up missiles on the USSR border, an issue which Kennedy insisted remained undeclared, or that the US regularly opposed disarmament moves. The Cold War show was mainly run by the US (and UK) military until the USSR collapsed under its own militarisation. The biggest propaganda bombardment in history was used to insist that the USSR (and China) were always wrong.

When the USSR collapsed, the world breathed a sigh of relief that the Cold War was over, with its vast costs, danger of nuclear war and worlds-wide polarisation. Gorbachev and Yeltsin offered an entirely friendly relationship with the West. They agreed to the reunification of Germany, which, given the history, was a massive concession, provided eastern Europe was not militarised, and the reunification took place. Germany, especially under Merkel’s leadership, has been no problem to Russia. But NATO has.

NATO’s push to recreate the Cold War.

In 1990 NATO, whose raison d’etre had been military opposition to the USSR, was out of a job. It had only a friend to fight. The so-called ideological confrontation between “Freedom” and “Communism” was over, because Russia was Capitalist now. It should have been wound up. We have to understand what a vast structure NATO was of command centres, logistics centres, communication, weapons systems and enough of these people decided to recreate themselves. Its budgets and organisations were cut but the highly paid staff there were not going to do themselves out of business, so they set out to recreate the Cold War. It took about twenty years. They recruited into NATO Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia and actively sought to include Turkey as well. Now anyone, however thick, who looks at a map will see that if a big “defence” organisation incorporates all of these territories surrounding Russia in a large ring, it is aiming at Russia.

There was, and is, one exception. Ukraine is still a buffer state, and now NATO aided by the US and UK Governments insists that “of course” the Ukraine should join NATO. This will allow advanced Western weaponry to be placed once again on Russia borders in case anything happens. It is, we hear, a right in a free democracy. It is of course, aside Turkey, the full encirclement military strategy of NATO which guarantees the confrontation on which they depend. And gradually it has been successful. Putin, reared in the Cold War, has become more remilitarised, autocratic and plays their game. He has his problems, but given the long perfidious military history of the West and its history of starting wars, his fears are genuine, as rockets on your borders emphasize. The failure to observe the 1990 understanding, spearheaded by NATO, has recreated a Cold War and Russia is worried about Ukraine and NATO. Boris, to keep the show on the road, sends a massive annoying flotilla of warships round the Black Sea.

The Stupid Superpowers.

Thus, this whole confrontation is an artifice to keep NATO people in their jobs, support the arms industries of the West and Russia, and keep people scared into military subservience. It is on any assessment a stupid way to conduct international relationships. Wise people, who saw through what is happening, could cleanse the world of this evil. Or it can grow to threaten the planet again. It’s our choice. As Jesus pithily said, “Those who take the sword will perish by the sword.” We should deeply heed his words.

We Can Disarm the World

WE CAN DISARM THE WORLD EXHIBITION. 7. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

The Second Iraq War occurred after a long series of errors and failures in the Middle East driven by the aim of making it a big market for western weapons. It had oil wealth, and in the 1960s and 1970s the US and UK especially began pushing arms sales. The US had already sold lots of arms to Iran under the Shah and the aim was to keep some control over the oil supplies from the region.

We Can Disarm the World

WE CAN DISARM THE WORLD EXHIBITION. 3. WW2 HIROSHIMA

The Second World War was worst than the first. It was six years. World War One was the War of trenches. World war Two was the War of bombs. Its devastation ate up ten years of world GDP. 60 million or so died. The atrocities in the Holocaust and in the fighting were beyond facing. The evil which emanated from Hitler and the Nazis made it into the narrative of good and evil of the modern era. The Nazis were evil and we were good, or at least the US and UK were good and the USSR was Communist. We won the War defending Democracy and Freedom and saved the World. The lesson is to always defend against the likes of Hitler so that the War does not happen again.

Except this version of history is not true. First the USSR mainly won the War. It lost 25 million in the fighting. The US and the UK lost half a million each. The USSR faced the lion’s share of the fighting and the battles of Leningrad and Stalingrad broke the Nazi regime. Second, before the War the Nazis had widespread support from other Fascist groups and sympathizers in Europe, the US and elsewhere. US loans funded the Nazi militarisation

General, We Can Disarm the World

WE CAN DISARM THE WORLD EXHIBITION. 2. TOLSTOY WRITING RESURRECTION

The Peace Movements throughout the 19th century were strong and critical. They understood that weapons created conflict and were pushed by capitalists wanting profits from wars. The Napoleonic Wars had been horrific, but then in the 1830s and 1840s industrial iron and steel weapons got underway. The age of horses and swords was coming to an end, as the Charge of the Light Brigade showed. Tolstoy was, of course, the great chronicler of the Crimean War. War and Peace, often seen as the world’s greatest novel, is set in it. But Tolstoy also wrote directly of it. The correspondent’s direct reporting of war is devastating. He opens up the vanity of soldiering against the reality of what happened – men lying around dying. He described a soldier facing cannon who looked down at his leg, and suddenly it was not, taken off by a cannon ball. The failure of the Crimean War was written on all sides. Florence Nightingale tended the sick, often dying of gangrene and injuries, a basic fight against inhumanity. Into the Valley of Death. War was unheroic.

Tolstoy personally was converted to Christ. He understood Christ’s teaching and turned his life around. He quit elite Moscow society where he was the lauded, and went to live with the peasants. He became a pacifist, realising what the others were saying. He lampooned the military arrogance of the Kaiser. He rejected the world’s greatest novels – War and Peace and Anna Karenina – as belonging to immaturity, and he saw in depth Christ’s message of peace. “Those who take the sword perish by the sword.” There is this vast, self-defeating system. Murder is the most serious crime, but we teach our soldiers mass murder and say it is their highest calling. The Tsar is under pressure to call the 1899 Hague Peace Conference. Tolstoy, the follower of Christ, backs the Doukobors, a pacifist group which when called up into the Tsar’s army had a party and made a bonfire of their rifles. They were imprisoned in Siberia, but Tolstoy fought for their freedom and that they were right. Eventually, old and with TB, he wrote perhaps his greatest novel, Resurrection, and the royalties went to help the Doukobors migrate to Canada. This painting is of Tolstoy writing Resurrection. He held militarism to deep account in “How should We then Live?” and other writings and was part of 19th century pacifism. This was not just a withdrawal from fighting, but saw the whole system as a waste, immoral, destructive, impractical and a false religion of power. We have partly lost that clear, obvious conclusion, because the militarists have scared us. Tolstoy is for all of us, before World War One made the point even more obvious.

We Can Disarm the World

WE CAN DISARM THE WORLD EXHIBITION. 1 NOT HOME FOR CHRISTMAS

Those who go to War promise success. They pretend the War will work. They hype up soldiers, require patriotism, demonize enemies and talk up their weapons. The arms people have been working at this for decades. Buy weapons. They will solve your problems, give you an empire, make you great. But then it comes to this. World War One was a certain kind of hell, killing, injuring, deranging tens of millions. This painting shows a little bit of it.

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.

We Can Disarm the World

THIS FULL REMEMBRANCE DAY.

This Remembrance Day we will once again be invited to live inside the Battle of Britain and be grateful for the armed forces that defended us against invasion, as though that was the typical form of British militarism. We will be expected to forget that the Battle of Britain in 1940, and the Spanish Armada in 1588 were the only times we have been threatened – twice in 950 years. It is time to take fuller stock of our long national military stance.

The background is not good. We see ourselves as defensive, but historically we have been the opposite. In the modern era we have invaded more than 80% of the countries of the world with cannon and machine gun to impose our will on them. The British Empire militarily conquered a quarter of the world land area, and over 400 million people were bent to our will by the gun. The British Empire involved mass slavery, the opium trade and vast economic exploitation, but we were genuinely convinced that we were the goodies. Actually, our aggressive militarism and cruelty has been widespread and prolonged; we attacked others and dominated them into submission.

We also started and pushed the industrial arms trade more than any other state, introduced the Concentration Camp and mowed down natives with the Maxim gun. By 1914 British arms companies, along with others, had stoked four arms races that produced the Great War, running scares and media campaigns, especially against the Hun. After the War we continued to back our international arms trade against disarmament. In 1932 the Tory Cabinet deliberately stalled the Great Geneva Disarmament Conference and the proposals of President Hoover to cut all arms by a third and eliminate the most aggressive weapons; backing it would have prevented Hitler coming to power. Then in the late 1930s the same Tory Nazi sympathisers, the Appeasers, allowed him to accrue military power and start WW2. British Fascism helped bring about WW2.

Since then, the UK, linked to the dominant US, has promoted the Cold War, opposed nuclear disarmament and sold weapons around the world including to many oppressive military dictatorships. Frequently our State stokes international antagonisms, ramps up fear deliberately and chooses military escalation. Nor is it over. We have just occupied Afghanistan for twenty years leaving it in a desperate state when we finally lost the war, but trying to blame the Taliban for its disarray. We currently parade an aircraft carrier fleet around and around the China Sea in a show of military bluster.

The great ritual of Remembrance at this time of year, while focussing on honouring the beloved members of the armed forces who have died and been injured, is really aimed at obliterating all questions around our militarism. We bully, create enemies, are aggressively nationalist, undertake wars, have shady allies, scaremonger, fail to support the UN and sell weapons to psychopaths, yet, it is implied, we are merely protecting the homeland. We focus down on our national losses, trying to ignore the 200 million who have died around the world in war in the last hundred years, the higher number who have been injured, and the billion or more who have been traumatized by war. We are supposed to blank the fifteen years of total world national income wasted by war in the twentieth century. But this time we will not be fobbed off, but face the biggest failure on the planet.

We are asked to give unconditional support to Our armed forces and Our militarism in these inarticulate acts of remembrance, but even that is distorted. In 1918 much of the world was convinced that the Great War should be the War to end all Wars through disarmament, but we are asked to forswear disarmament as the obvious way of ending militarism to keep the arms companies in business. But militarism has killed 200 million and growing. It always fails and produces another war, because arms companies need wars and for much of the last two hundred years they have been inside government and steering policy towards one war after another, as they are now in the UK. They have led us astray into bereavement and destruction. Soldiers coming home from war say, “Never again” or are already dead; now we listen to them, listen to all the dead, injured and traumatized in depth. The lesson of every war is not who is in the wrong, though we have been in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and Yemen this century, but that war and its weapons fail us all. The US Superpower and the UK poodle have dominated the world since 1945 but only to expand fear, arms sales and dubious wars. They have refused multilateral disarmament, especially after 1990 when they had the power to lead it.  Patriotism is not enough; it is self-focussed. The world and its peace need our attention.

We will also remember that world disarmament is crucial to address global warming. Militarism generates 5-10% of all CO2 through armaments, wars, bombs and destruction. That must be cut out to save the planet. The military are keeping their heads down at COP26 pretending this vast waste does not exist. But it does, and is actually the easiest to eliminate, the lowest hanging fruit. We will be asked blinkered to glorify our troops and our militarism at the Cenotaph, a whitewash state ritual, but we can do multilateral military disarmament.

Indeed, given that the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was passed with 122 states in favour and 1 against, is now in force (and we are, with the US, disobeying it), World Multilateral Disarmament would almost certainly be accepted by an overwhelming majority of states, especially with US/UK backing. We only need to see that worldwide disarmament in five years is urgently required and practical for the planet. We will honour the dead in the only honest way through full world disarmament all the way to peace. World disarmament is far easier than the opposite in every way.

This year we will examine ourselves more deeply. It was wrong to attack Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003; we have devastated much of the middle east. We have worked on both Russia and China to assume the role of enemy that US/UK militarism requires if it is to be profitable and dominant. We play a big part in generating world tensions. More deeply, US/UK superpower policies have spread militarism and undermined democracy, leaving hundreds of millions of people with poor and corrupt governments. But we will repent and see it all.

This year we will remember them, we will remember all of them – all those who have died and suffered around the world. We will look at our enemies with honesty and recognize that often they have been wronged by us. We will recognize, as all good historians do, that mainly the USSR won WW2, not Britain or the USA; the 25 million who died in the USSR in their great battles against Hitler were fifty times more than the casualties of the UK or the US. We will repent what the arms we have sold have done and are doing. We will address the plight of those who are dying now through our wars. We will know that military elites and politicians do not die in wars, but ask others to, and hold them to account. We will face the devastation war has been on the earth and our fixation on making weapons and know it must end.

This year we will understand how Jesus words, “Those who take the sword perish by the sword” speak across the earth that militarism is the greatest failed experiment in human history. And we will weep and turn to the easy task of disarmament, for it is actually far easier to mutually disarm than to arm, unless you put the military in charge. Lancashire and Yorkshire worked it out half a millenium ago. Disarmed peace ends failed states, refugees, military dictators, wars, deaths, destruction and vast clouds of CO2 and honest people can do it. It is good for us that nation speaks peace unto nation. This Remembrance Day will address the task for which it was really set up – to disarm and end all wars, to bring about the healing of the nations. We need learn war no more, and we can agree to be ruled by, not the Lion or the gun, but the Lamb.

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..