Black Lives Matter, but Black Politics may matter more

The founding principles of the US were based on Classical Liberalism: The idea that all individuals should be allowed equal status under the law, with equal rights, rather than rights based upon membership of a caste, which is what used to happen. From this came the impetus to abolish slavery and give everyone the vote, etc. It was a long fight, but it was in line with the founding philosophies of the nation.

Liberalism had the same fight in Europe, where it was a much more alien concept.

Classical Liberalism wanted to abolish the feudal boundaries of antiquity and treat every citizen as an individual with inalienable rights. For this reason, George Washington was against the creation of political parties, as he felt it would divide people again into tribes (he was concerned that it would weaken American politics and leave it open to manipulation from outside powers like Britain or the Pope). He didn't get his wish, and now parties are common in democratic polities all around the world.

A lot has happened since then, and I think it's safe to say that the US is no longer a Liberal State (not to be confused with the label of 'liberal' for anyone who is left-wing). Sectarianism has been rising for decades. Everyone is urged to be part of a group, community or identity. Everything is about attacking the 'other side'. Politics becomes more polarized, with a 'You're either with us or against us' vibe. Neutral ground is disappearing, and even to be neutral is seen as an offence (hence a new slogan, 'Silence is Violence', which effectively is the same as the with-us-or-against-us stance). Conversation between the different sides becomes harder, and straight-out conflict easier. Multiculturalism becomes Balkanization, and all talk is fighting talk.

Liberalism is dead. Sectarianism has won. Into this melting pot we have the plight of the black American. If Liberalism is dead, then so is the assimilation that the civil rights movement fought for. Blacks are urged everywhere now to consider themselves Black first, American second. But there's a problem with that. Blacks remain a minority. They can't secede to run their own affairs. There are no Reservations for them to plant their flags in, no Israel to create and emigrate to. If nobody is interested in everybody just getting along, then there is nowhere for them to turn. The current movements that purport to act in their interest (populated mostly by whites) will fail them. The Black Lives Matter movement remains obsessed with the idea of a neo-Marxist solution, but Marxism is as dead as Liberalism. The White Guilt movement offers only platitudes and hand-wringing. This is a therapeutic solution, not a political one, and is only designed to make a person feel better about themselves. The Democrats offer vague messages of support and empathy to blacks (when they say 'Persons of Color', they're only thinking of one color really) in order to win their votes, but black people continue to suffer the most in Democrat strongholds and cities. They receive very little in return for their vote with regards to security or wealth. Transplanted from Africa all those years ago, they remain a Lost People (like the Jews of Europe, who lived among Europeans but always felt separate). The hope of becoming fully integrated and accepted, voiced in the 50s and 60s, now crumbles before the face of the new Sectarianism, which pursues agendas that aren't always in their favor, either culturally or personally.

So what do we make of this mess? Does America just wait for things to calm down again, returning to the original mission of the civil rights movement? It doesn't look like things are moving in that direction. Past hopes and dreams are as dead as the past itself. These are not pleasant thoughts (to put it mildly), and there's no way to sweeten the pill, but Robert Johnson's solution below may be the only way forward: a party or caucus that focuses on the desires of its constituents and uses smart power to leverage concessions from mayors, governors and the major parties. Ending the feeling of humiliation and powerlessness (and of being used) among black people and giving them a voice that they own (and Obama didn't count) may balance out the conflicting desires in this sectarian battlescape. It will be resisted, of course, because, and let us be frank about this, it marks the end of the American Dream, and it will have to be admitted that the American Dream already died. That's going to be painful at a national level, and probably will never happen without a significant collapse. But it remains better than the current anti-racism education push. Changing the world through education (enlightenment) is a classic Liberal priority, but it's been about as successful as the Catholic Church's drive to stop young men masturbating and sinning. Against realpolitik, wishful thinking never stood a chance. Hard choices may be all that is left.

BET founder Robert Johnson suggests black Americans should form their own party

Ideology 101

Nationalism: Everything is the fault of Foreigners.

Feminism: Everything is the fault of Men.

Anarchism: Everything is the fault of the Government.

Socialism: Everything is the fault of the Rich.

Capitalism: Everything is the fault of the Lazy.

Liberalism: Everything is the fault of the Heartless.

Conservatism: Everything is the fault of the New.

Environmentalism: Everything is the fault of the People.


Because... like all good fiction, Ideology needs a Villain.

The One Percent

The Rich getting richer and the Poor getting poorer, and it's about time the rich were made to pay - that's the usual refrain. But here's a fact for you: much is made of the 1% who own most of the wealth, and most of you reading this will imagine that you are one of the 99% who are being cheated. The truth, however, is that if you take the 1% stat and apply it GLOBALLY, (as it was meant to be), then anybody earning over £25,000 a year becomes one of the global elite. That's nurses, bus drivers, factory workers, etc. The fact is, compared to most of the world, most of us in Britain (and the rest of the West) are rich. See those migrants dying as they try to cross the mediterranean? That's how desperate they are to live the life you live. Now imagine that most of the world's poor had the political power to have your money redistributed to them, taken straight from your salary. Imagine that they were no longer happy with your charity offerings and public gestures. Imagine if they had the power to force you to hand over your house, your caravan, your clothes from Next and H&N, your Ford Mondeo and your football season ticket. How would it feel? Well, that's what this poster is promoting, if you think about it. It's great fun to bash the greed of the rich - but wait till it's your turn.

Anti-austerity

The Anti-Austerity movements are little more than nostalgic attempts to hang on to a past that has begun to wane.

The Truth About Immigration

It's election season in the UK, and the issue of immigration has crept reluctantly into the debates. It's not an issue that politicians like to discuss much, and there's a reason why. Here are some truths about immigration that many involved in the debate would rather you didn't know or think about. They are simple truths.

Small scale immigration is easy for a society to assimilate, and causes no problems. Large scale immigration causes problems for every society that experiences it.

When people complain about immigration, they are not complaining about immigration per se, but about large scale immigration.

The contemporary obsession with racism means that immigration is often treated as a moral issue, rather than an economic one. This is how it is taught in schools today: It's cool to be okay with immigration, and racist not to be okay with it, because the Nazis were racist and they're evil, and it's not cool to be evil.

Immigration before World War II was statistically insignificant. It rose significantly in the 50s and 60s. Immigration in the late 90s and after 2000 is two to three times higher than it was in the 50s and 60s. Immigration in the past twenty years is higher than at any time in UK history.

Population growth in the UK recently is entirely due to immigration. Without large scale immigration, the UK population would have shrunk.

In the southeast of England, schools are overcrowded, and councils have introduced arbitrary rules to cope with parental demand. In the rest of England, rural councils are closing small schools because there are not enough children to fill the necessary places.

The majority of recent immigrants live in the southeast of England.

Overcrowding in the southeast of England puts pressure on housing, raising the prices. It puts pressure on the NHS, increasing waiting times. It puts pressure on any infrastructure that has not been improved in time to cope with it.

The southeast of England is the economic powerhouse of the country. Whatever happens there affects the rest of the country. This is why house prices remain high, even after the 2007 credit crunch.

Indigenous UK born white people are not having enough babies to sustain their numbers. UK born black and Asian people whose parents arrived in the 60's are not having as many babies as their parents did.

The elderly population is growing, with more old people in the UK than ever before.

The majority of immigrants are young. The ones that stay will grow old some day.

Large scale immigration into cities creates enclaves of foreign born nationals who do not assimilate into UK society. They bring their home cultures with them instead.

Multicultural societies are not harmonious. The boundaries between the sub-cultures are a constant source of tension. When times are hard, these tensions easily become violent.

Austria used to be a multicultural empire. When it collapsed after World War I, it disintegrated into numerous nationalist and fascist states.

Yugoslavia used to be a multicultural country. When it collapsed, it disintegrated into numerous nationalist and fascist states.

Liberal society encourages immigration. Immigrant enclaves are socially conservative, and often suspicious of, if not hostile to, liberal norms.

Large scale immigration changes the nature of societies.

Most immigrants arrive as poorly paid manual workers and live in the poorest areas. They increase the number of poor people in a city, and compete with them for jobs, housing, school places and health care.

Liberal values are middle class values. Most immigrants do not live in middle class areas, nor take middle class jobs in sufficient numbers to drive down wages. This is why the middle classes are not threatened by the thought of immigration.

Most inner city teachers do not live in the same areas as their inner city pupils.

A nation's prosperity is entirely dependent on its population. A large, dense population is necessary for a thriving economy, even in the internet age.

An industrialised nation needs enough young people coming into the system to remain productive.

Elderly people in a society are a cost that is paid for by the work of the young.

The costs to the NHS of an aging society are huge. The costs to the country, with regard to pensions is huge. These costs are larger than at any time in UK history.

The indigenous population in the UK is growing older and is not having enough babies.

Among the middle classes, babies are seen as a lifestyle choice. Nobody sees them as vital to the nation's integrity. Nobody thinks like that anymore.

Mass immigration is a Capitalist phenomenon. Capitalism is about the liberal breaking down of boundaries. Money can now travel freely around the world, investing in whatever country it likes. Jobs can now travel freely around the world, with companies moving their offices and factories to where the wage level is cheaper. Now, with immigration, cheap workers can cross boundaries too.

Corporations love mass immigration, for the same reasons that they love other aspects of capitalism. Cheaper workers and lowered wages mean less cost and more profit. For managers of companies, it's simply a matter of economics.

The NHS needs immigrant nurses and doctors to cope with the aging, sicker society it serves.

Without a big influx of immigrant dentists in the last decade, NHS dentistry would have collapsed.

The UK has been in decline since the end of World War I. The two world wars bankrupted the country and destroyed its empire. The post-war influx of immigrants helped stave off a chronic shortage of workers for a while, but it could not prevent the economy from going into free fall during the seventies. Prosperity arrived in the eighties only because of the massive inflow of East Asian credit into the Western economies. It was a temporary solution.

In the nineties, the UK economy was still weak. Its industry was gone, its population continued to age, and its costs continued to rise. As did its debt, because it could only borrow its way out of trouble. This was unsustainable.

From the late nineties onwards, UK governments have quietly opened the door to mass immigration like never before, as a way of saving the economy.

Every nation in Europe suffers from an aging population. Only Germany has a strong industrial base. The rest are struggling to balance their books. Some seem stuck in permanent recession. Greece is bankrupt.

The only reason the UK seems to be doing so well economically compared to the rest of Europe is not because of the strength of its Pound, or its brilliant approach to business and innovation. These are fictions. The only reason it is doing so well is because of the number of young immigrants keeping our economy afloat and churning.

Immigrants travel the length of Europe to get to the UK. They pass through perfectly civilised nations to get to us. Clearly there is something about the UK they like.

It is illegal, under EU law, to discriminate against immigrants. Many EU countries, however, manage to circumvent these laws, placing administrative barriers to immigrants entering their health care systems, housing or welfare schemes. The UK is attractive to immigrants because these barriers are reduced or non-existent.

The UK is an island. Its borders are easily sealed, if the government really wanted that. Instead, our government quietly encourages that border's infiltration. They publicly posture against the issue of asylum seekers (a tiny number compared to other immigrants) to appease public unease, and pretend to be concerned about the UK working class's concerns.

But the truth is, if mass immigration were to be stopped now, then in less than a generation we would become like Greece. In other words, we would be in serious economic trouble.

Immigration is eroding and splintering UK society. It is also the only thing holding it up.

Behind the scenes, the UK economy has been in decline for a long time, and mass immigration is just one of the sticking plasters being used to hold it together.

Like all sticking plasters, it's a temporary solution that won't last.

Humanism

Humanism is just Christianity without the paganism.

"Yes we can!"

Link: Syriza Dumps Marx For Blair


The Blairite revolution is an increasingly common phenomenon in politics today. It involves secretly dumping the old affiliations of left and right whilst pretending to be an inclusive movement 'for the people'. Ideology is dead, and what is important now is to be seen to be young, fresh and populist. Politics is replaced by PR. Liberal pieties and collectivist slogans are waved as crowd pleasing flags, while behind the stage curtain, neo-liberalism is pursued with ever greater vengeance in order to desperately grab as much money as possible from the shrinking western economies. Obama represents the same trend in the US: a handsome, charismatic speaker who appeals to young student activists still in thrall to radical left-wing 60's ideals who then, once elected, does the opposite of what the idealists wanted. Syriza is another such party - a party that is actually just a small clique of PR men with no real political conviction. They have just returned from negotiations with the EU bankers with little to show for their apparent effort. They were filmed looking defiant and rebellious prior to this, yet they were also commited to staying in the Euro, and commited to the same European integration dream. As a result, their bargaining position was weak. They could have threatened to turn towards Russia and China for the money they needed, but instead they accepted US demands to maintain sanctions against Russia, and they begged the EU for more money. Everyone thought they would herald a revolution in European politics, changing the western capitalist landscape for ever, but the truth is they never wanted to leave that landscape at all. All they wanted was a bit more spare change. In Spain, the new political party of Podemos (We Can), which is also seen as fresh and revolutionary, will likely turn out to be the same - pretty boys with winning smiles, consultant-designed slogans and faded Karl Marx T-shirts underneath their smooth new suits. Politics is dead, and ideology is just a cloak to hide the fact that we have had no new ideas since the 19th Century. PRolitics is now the name of the game, funded by the same wealthy backers that these people pretend to despise.

Sensitivity and Gender War

Men are less sensitive than women. Indeed, it is a common criticism that men are not sensitive enough, as if this were some sort of personal choice - but it's not. It's just that nature made men this way.

Not all men are insensitive, just as not all women are sensitive. Whatever the rule, there are always exceptions. There is, then, a minority group of sensitive men.

Here's where the irony begins. Women have long complained about men, and feminism has clothed these complaints with political rhetoric (equality, justice, etc), as if these moans emanated from a higher ideological plane.

The targets of these complaints are those insensitive men whose insensitivity rubs women up the wrong way. But, of course, these men are insensitive, so the complaints about their insensitivity don't actually register with them. They don't feel the pinpricks to their conscience, because this is the whole point to insensitivity. It's an armour that shrugs off the stones and arrows of life. It's a thick skin.

Sensitive men, on the other hand, hear those complaints and take them to heart. Because they have thinner skin. And they either feel guilty and become feminists themselves, nurturing the force that attacks them, or they take umbrage and counterattack the feminists.

This turns into a comedy. The thin skinned men lash out at feminists. The feminists see this as proof of rampant male misogyny and demonstrate their outrage. The thin skinned men they are attacking are in fact the very men that feminists would allegedly like men to be - sensitive. But it's that very sensitivity that now makes them feminism's greatest enemy.

Thick skinned men, on the other hand, shrug and move on, unable to see what the fuss is about. They don't understand why women need to be so thin skinned about things, and they don't see thin skinned men as real men - because they appear to be as petulant and thin skinned as women. So they leave the stage, while feminists and thin skinned men - natural allies - fight to the death.

Thin skinned men who hear feminist attacks on men assume that they themselves are the targets. Again, that is a feature of sensitivity.

Thin skinned women (the majority of women) hear the counterattacks on feminists and, because they are sensitive, assume they themselves are the targets. They may not have a single clue about the ideological aspects of feminism. They may not label themselves as feminists. But when they see one woman attacked they assume all women are under attack. Thus do women band together in outrage when one of their number is slighted.

Men do not band together in the same way, simply because the majority of them do not really feel threatened, and don't feel the need to make common cause with those who do.

This is why men don't appear to be able to defend themselves against feminism. Those that do are quickly outnumbered and, because they are sensitive, emotionally wounded. Thicker skinned men don't see that there's anything to defend against.

The ideology of feminism is a lie. Quite simply, there is no coherent ideology. All it is is a mass of sensitivities disguised as reason.

The ideology of feminism has been described in generational phases. There is first wave feminism, second wave, third wave, fourth wave, etc. This just shows that there is no ideology. Each generation of women, from mother to daughter, reinterprets feminism to suit themselves with little regard to what went before.

Liberalism is based on the writings of notable philosophers like Kant and Mills. Marxism goes back to the writings of Marx. Feminism has no touchstone, other than what women feel at any given time. Feminism is made up as it goes along. Women cherry-pick the bits of feminism they want and spit out the rest. Women feel that this is their right.

Women feel that everything is their right. Their greater innate sensitivity defines their need. They will vociferously feed and defend that need just as they would feed and defend their offspring. This is not a personal choice. Nature made women this way.

Sensitivity is not distributed equally among the sexes. It never will be. It is neither a gift nor a burden. It is no more a virtue than a womb or testosterone. It's just a biological fact.

The gender war is a comedy of errors and misunderstandings. It will never end.

Bigotry

We often see bigotry when it's naked and on view, but the truth is, most bigotry is hidden. People will sometimes admit to a bias, but they will never admit to a bigotry, even though the two are related.

Bigotry is often paraded behind a mask. The mask lends respectability, and is therefore a lie.

In the middle ages, that mask was Christianity. Christianity itself was not the lie, just the way it was sometimes used. People wearing the mask of Christianity thus exercised their bigotry of Jewish bankers, poor people with their pagan revelling and foreign people with darker skin.

In the twentieth century, that mask was Science. Science itself was not the lie, just the way it was sometimes used. The targets thus were Jewish bankers and their inheritable cunning, poor people and their overt willingness to breed (sterilisation recommended) and dark skinned people with their scientifically proven inferior skull dimensions.

After World War II, all the above was debunked, yet somehow continued.

For instance, contemporary anti-capitalist protesters target bankers (the 1%, many Jewish and grasping), the poor (the dumb masses who are just consumerist slaves) and white skinned people (because white skinned people are naturally superior and should just lay off the dark skinned people, who are too stupid to help themselves). The mask in this case is Social Justice, and it can be used to hide any number of vengeful thoughts.

Social Justice is a virtuous cause, but then so was Christianity and Science.

Whenever you witness a self-righteous attack, whether from the Left, the Right, the Religious or the Secular, you can be sure that there is a form of bigotry behind it.

Some people think that the world is over-populated because the poor are eating too much and breeding too much (Environmentalists, Birth Control Advocates).

Some people think Muslims are violent terrorists and will always kill non-Muslims - because they hate them - and other Muslims - because they don't know any better (Islamaphobes, Evangelists, Secularists).

Some people think that urban cosmopolitans are superior, that rural religious people are inbred, over-bred and mentally deficient, and that the presence of scientifically created technologies like Twitter and Facebook will ensure that cosmopolitan values remain dominant, especially if adopted by brown skinned foreigners protesting their obviously inept and incompetent brown skinned governments (Smug People Generally).

Some people think that women are stupid and don't know how to run the world.

Some people think that men are stupid and don't know how to run the world.

Some people think that naked bigotry is ugly and that the donning of the right mask (and the right mask, as opposed to the wrong mask, is dictated by the fashions of the day) can make that which is ugly, virtuous and beautiful instead.

But the truth is, it remains bigotry. And all masks are just fashion accessories.

See behind the mask if you can.

Individualism vs Community Responsibility

"The truth is, for most of human history, women have been devising ways to pull men away from individualism and into family and community. This is an absolute priority for women when children come along – men are needed to protect and provide. The reality is men can get along pretty well on their own, and that is as true now as it ever was."

Laura Perrins



Perhaps it is no surprise that prominent men during the Enlightenment advocated personal liberty and turned it into an attractive philosophy. It is natural, though perhaps ironic, that women came to demand liberty too, further freeing men from the constraints and responsibility of family-centred culture. Women demanded the freedom to have sex whenever they wanted without the social tutting, and demanded the right to raise children alone without the social shame. This too has suited men who get to have it both ways and who no longer feel the social pressure to 'settle down' and 'do the right thing'. The State has taken over the position of providing for women now, but that is so impersonal and disatisfying that women are perhaps beginning to feel the loss.

Women get to do well out of classical liberalism and feminism - provided they live like men.

Markets follow - they do not lead.

"First, we believed in the theology of development, only to see development founder on corruption and the incapacity of weak state structures to develop honest government and equitable programmes for growth.

"Then we told ourselves globalisation itself - capitalism's sheer voracious dynamism - would bring prosperity and order in its wake. But markets alone cannot create order: markets require order if they are to function efficiently, and the only reliable provider of order - law, procedure, safety and security - is the state.

"A globalised economy cannot function without this structure of authority and coercive power, and where it breaks down markets break down, and crime, chaos and terror take root in the rotten, unpoliced interstices.

"Prophets of the benefits of global market integration have been foolish enough to envisage a future world that does away with the need for the state. But large corporations will not patrol the street corners. They will not provide the schools, roads and hospitals that distinguish society from the jungle. Only states can provide these goods."

Michael Ignatieff
Empire Lite (2003)

Holy Roman EU

The European Union has been steadily expanding eastwards since the Berlin Wall came down. It has recently incorporated Bulgaria and Romania, and has been lapping up against Ukraine's borders for some time. It was the EU's attempt to suck the Ukraine into its orbit that has caused the civil strife now taking place there.

What is with the EU's need to expand? Is it the need to acquire Eastern Europe's resources?

Uh, what resources?

Perhaps it is the economic potential of these partners.

Yeah, right. Bulgaria and Romania are basket cases, as is the Ukraine, and they only thing they've provided so far is cheap labour immigrants and extra votes for far-right parties in France, Holland, etc.

Viewed on the map, it looks like empire building. But it's an empire without an army - remove the US from NATO and what is left is not impressive. Or even united. But Europe's military has played no part in the EU's expansion. The only other empire that expanded like this was the Holy Roman Empire.

The Holy Roman Empire was created by the Catholic church in Rome, virtually picking up from where the collapsed Roman empire left off, hence the name. It was essentially a cabal of popes and cardinals in Rome calling on European leaders to act on its behalf, rather like the EU bureaucracy in Brussels. And like the EU, it had no army of its own. Yet it controlled much of eastern Europe and later, via the Habsburgs, much of the world (as it was known then).

Quite why the EU wishes to emulate the Holy Roman Empire (whose remnants only disappeared with Austria's defeat in WW1) is not really clear, any more than why the popes felt the need to copy the Roman emperors. But the parallels between the EU and the empire of the popes are striking. Including, curiously enough, religion.

On paper, the EU is about trade, right? Which is to say, its all about business and the bottom line: profit. That makes sense. So why is the EU hoovering up all these poor eastern European states (and retaining poor southern European states) which will cost the EU a lot but contribute little? And why did the EU keep turning down Turkey for EU membership, even when it was being labelled as a rising player in the world markets?

Because eastern Europe is Christian and Turkey is Muslim.

That answer may not make sense in these modern, secular times, but it is essentially what we have. The EU rebuffed Turkey several times, yet has sent its envoys to court the Ukraine and encourage the toppling of its elected anti-EU government, even though Ukraine has a declining population, few resources and economy that makes Greece look solvent, with a debt to match. Without Russian assistance, the country will be bankrupt in months.

But still the EU considers it worth provoking Russia for.

The popes and the Habsburgs over-reached, draining their resources on expansion, wars and maintenance of territory. It fell into decline in the face of its rivals in England and Holland, was torn apart by protestant challenges and eventually faded from history.

One wonders what will become of the EU and its cardinals in Brussels. It already faces growing demands for autonomy within its provinces, its prosperity depends almost entirely on the German economy and it is unable to project itself militarily to protect its interests unless it aligns itself with the US. It depends on Russia for its energy and on African and Asian immigration to prop up its aging population.

The popes used to pray. EU bureaucrats might also want to pray, but they need to be careful of what they pray for.

Rubber Band Feminism

The home was always the woman's domain - her nest, her secret garden, her spiritual base. Feminism set out to change that. It called upon women to step out into the world and contest men for its dominance. It asked them to see beyond the kitchen sink and to expand their horizons.

That was then. What does feminism call for now? For men to come back and help them with the housework.

Stretch a rubber band and it always returns.

The Paradox

21st Century Feminism:

"I want equal treatment, I want deference and I want special protection. What do you mean that's contradictory? Why can't I have it all?"

Moral Codes

"Moral codes are always obstructive, relative, and man-made. Yet they have been of enormous profit to civilization. They are civilization. Without them, we are invaded by the chaotic barbarism of sex, nature's tyranny, turning day into night and love into obsession and lust."

Camille Paglia
Sexual Personae

High, Middle and Low Classes

“The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have an aim – for it is an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily lives – is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal. Thus throughout history a struggle which is the same in its main outlines recurs over and over again. For long periods the High seem to be securely in power, but sooner or later there always comes a moment when they lose either their belief in themselves or their capacity to govern efficiently, or both. They are then overthrown by the Middle, who enlist the Low on their side by pretending to them that they are fighting for liberty and justice. As soon as they have reached their objective, the Middle thrust the Low back into their old position of servitude, and themselves become the High. Presently a new Middle group splits off from one of the other groups, or from both of them, and the struggle begins over again. Of the three groups, only the Low are never even temporarily successful in achieving their aims. It would be an exaggeration to say that throughout history there has been no progress of a material kind. Even today, in a period of decline, the average human being is physically better off than he was a few centuries ago. But no advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimetre nearer. From the point of view of the Low, no historic change has ever meant much more than a change in the name of their masters.”

George Orwell.

Best Actor

And the Oscar for Best Actor 2014 goes to... US Secretary of State John Kerry, who said, "You just don't invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests."

You couldn't make it up, really.

Libya, Syria... and now Ukraine

Western hypocrisy has gone into overdrive. And the media are in lockstep with their governments. We've had a 'humanitarian' intervention into Libya that toppled a government (still illegal under international law, by the way, without a specific UN resolution) and left a country in chaos, then we had a cheering of Egyptian 'activists' while the Western paid military toppled another government (elected, this time) and massacred civilians without a single sanction being imposed by the US or Europe (and with US politicians talking about the military 'restoring democracy'). We had Syria being stirred into civil war by outside hands, but again described as a 'people's uprising', with the West immediately recognising the opposition as the legitimate government (shortly before they fragmented). And now we have the Ukraine, with EU and US dignitaries repeatedly visiting the demonstrators in Kiev and offering encouragement and support (can you imagine Russia and China coming to New York or London to encourage the Occupy protesters? No, me neither), referring to them as the 'people of Ukraine' (never mind the East Ukrainians), with the Western media gushing over their demands (to topple an elected president) while failing utterly to mention the far right groups within the protester camps, and with everyone in the West referring to the parliament that formed afterwards under the occupation of the protesters as 'the interim government'. When the Ukrainian president was in power, the media here quoted the protesters. Now that the president has been ousted and the Eastern Ukrainians are starting to protest, the media here now quote 'the interim government'.

The bias is so obvious, I don't know how any news reader can keep a straight face on the TV anymore.

But the other thing to mention here is the sheer incompetence of Western meddling (I can't dignify it by calling it diplomacy). Libya is reeling (as is Iraq, that other 'successful intervention'), Egypt is a military state and Syria is so bad that even the liberal and neo-con interventionists hesitated to demand more intervention.

The West has been encouraging the separation of Ukraine from Russia (like they did with Georgia, and look how that turned out), and now they are surprised that Russia has mobilised to support ethnic Russians in Ukraine and the strategically vital zone of the Crimea.

Western commentators are currently bleating about Russia crossing red lines, threatening stability in the Ukraine, and threatening the Ukraine itself.

The US backed Georgia not so long ago and hinted that they might lend it NATO support. Russia struck across its border, and US promises never materialised. Now the EU is promising Ukraine entry into its market and the US (via the IMF) is promising loans. Meanwhile the Russian army has mobilised on the border and 'armed men' have seized control of airports in the Crimea. What do you think will come of the West's promises now? Hmmm?

Western hubris, arrogance and sheer stupidity have pushed Russia into a corner and forced it to act. Russia was never going to abandon either its ethnic population in Ukraine nor it's vital Black Sea base in the Crimea. The Ukrainian economy was in meltdown, and the EU was never going to give it the money it needed to avoid crashing, and neither will the US. What an earth were these people hoping to gain from this? The US have warned Russia against military action, but there are no NATO forces nearby that can make that threat credible. They can't threaten Russia with sanctions, because it's too big, supplies Europe with most of its gas and oil, and is a UN security council member.

Both halves of Ukraine are going to come to blows, and Russia will not let its side fall. If the tension is not resolved in the next couple of days, then the only way to prevent civil war on a Syrian scale will be to partition the country, with Russia getting Crimea and the industrial east, and Europe (and NATO) getting the EU-friendly west. And this partition would have to be done pretty quickly.

And what is the West going to do with its side of the Ukraine (apart from complain about Ukraine immigrants flooding into the EU as cheap labour)? Does it even really want it?

They said the world changed after 9/11. It did. The leaders of the US and the EU, both on the left and the right, got a whole lot more stupid, infinitely more arrogant and a whole lot more hypocritical. And they also forgot all the most basic rules of diplomacy.

Diplomacy is about the art of the possible, not the fulfilment of ideological fantasies.

You know, if you stripped away all the ideology, all the rhetoric, and just concentrated on the actions, you'd think the West was already at war with Russia - or rather, that the Cold War never ended. Because they're not treating it as another sovereign nation in a global forum - they're treating it as an enemy that must be outwitted, outmanoeuvred and defeated. They think that Russia must step down and surrender its interests or be considered an irrational enemy, regardless of its case. And all this while both NATO and the EU blatantly expands towards Russia's borders.

And after Russia, China is next.

What are our leaders (and the idiot media commentators who cheer them on and deliberately misreport on their behalf) thinking?

Weren't two world wars enough?

Getting hot in the Middle East

Some interesting news recently: France has agreed to supply the Lebanese army with weapons, and Saudi Arabia has agreed to pay for it.

On the surface, this looks like just another arms deal in a world of arms deals. One commenter went so far as to suggest that this was an anti-semitic plot against Israel, but frankly, that's unlikely.

Make no mistake; this deal will have been done with Israel's tacit agreement.

The target of this deal is not Israel, but Hezbollah.

Hezbollah, supplied and supported by Syria and Iran, is a major force in Lebanon. An unofficial but very heavily armed and organised political and military force, it's proven too strong for Israel to unseat without getting stuck in an occupation quagmire, and the Lebanese army is too weak (deliberately kept weak by Hezbollah's involvement in the political process) to assert its authority over the entire country.

But the wind has been blowing against Hezbollah lately, with Iran feeling the squeeze of sanctions and strike threats, and Syria, its most immediate ally, now reeling in a Western-initiated, Saudi financed civil war. The fact that Hezbollah felt the need to intervene on the battlefield on Assad's behalf is a measure of how worried they are, and of how high the stakes are.

And, at this moment of turmoil and weakness, Saudi Arabia just happens, for no apparent reason, to open its generous cheque book to the Lebanese Army.

The implications are obvious - Saudi Arabia is looking to provoke a civil war, this time in Lebanon itself, with the aim of crushing or weakening Hezbollah.


Turning up the heat

In the war for geopolitical influence in the greater Middle East, and in the conflict between Sunni and Shia, Saudi Arabia is winning. And it is doing so without the deployment of a single Saudi soldier.

Well, if you don't count the ones they sent to Bahrain to stamp on the embers of the so-called 'Arab Spring' there.

But with the retreat of, first, the USSR, then the US, from the region, Saudi Arabia is emerging as a colossus.

It was involved, along with Qatar, in the removal of Gaddafi and his meddlesome, pro-African revolution, anti-oil dollar ways. He's gone now, and Libya is in turmoil, but no matter. It is no longer a threat to Saudi Arabia, and it can stay in turmoil for all the Saudis care - it's one less oil producer to compete with.

The Saudis were also involved, this time snubbing Qatar, in bringing down President Morsi in Egypt and returning the country to military rule. The grinding down of the Muslim Brotherhood (Saudi Arabia's most hated enemy) that is currently going on will be much to Saudi Arabia's liking.

Saudi Arabia, of course, has been instrumental in keeping the Syrian civil war going, doing all it can to knock out Iran's last ally in the Middle East. And it has been making sure that the Saudi backed militias prevail over the ones backed by the US, EU and Qatar. The Syrian Opposition is a mess of competing loyalties, and while it appears to be losing against Assad's forces on the ground, it nonetheless continues to keep the country in an unstable state. If Assad is busy handling problems on his doorstep, then he will have less time to meddle with Saudi Arabia's plans in the rest of the Middle East.

And so we come to the next domino: Lebanon. You see, the real war in the entire Middle East is between (Shia) Iran and (Sunni) Saudi Arabia. And Iran is having its tentacles in the Gaza Strip, Syria and Lebanon slowly snipped off. Turmoil in Lebanon will look terrible in the Western media, but for the Saudis it will be a welcome message to Iran: Look at what is happening to all your friends.


Try the Falafel

So how do other countries feel about this? Well, Israel is happy, as it has been quietly allied with Saudi Arabia ever since the Saudis requested (and paid for) their help a couple of decades ago to solve a problem in the Yemen. With the British no longer willing to fight in Aden or the Arabian Peninsula, the Saudis needed other soldiers to fight their wars. Pakistani mercenaries are useful, and America's willingness to stamp on Saddam Hussein proved very useful, but nothing is as useful as Israel's vociferous anti-Iran stance and its willingness to ignore international law to enforce its interests. So Saudi Arabia can use Israel's help, and it can provide a useful service in return.

It can make sure Egypt honours its peace deal with Israel and maintains its side of the Gaza blockade (which Morsi's government had gone soft on). It can keep Syria, Israel's old enemy, destabilised and no threat to anybody anymore.

And it can kick the legs out from under Hezbollah and leave them too busy fighting for their own survival to bother Israel any more.

So Israel is happy.


Non?

Then there is France. Now what France is up to in all this is something of a mystery to me. Just lately France has gone interventionist mad, with robust insertions into Libya, Mali and the Central African Republic. When you consider that they were once mocked as being Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys for not getting involved in the Invasion of Iraq, you can see that this is quite a change for the truculant Gallic nation that prefers to say 'Non'. And having just lost their triple-A rating on the world finance markets, you'd think the French would be more cautious about getting into expensive interventions.

Then again, that may be why it is happy to boost its defence industry with Saudi money. And who wouldn't? And France remains a staunch ally of Israel anyway, in spite of the EU's weak finger wagging over the Palestinian issue.


You're either with us and against us?

And how does the US feel about this? Well, that's a difficult one too, as the US has long since ceased to pursue a rational foreign policy, mixing as it does its geopolitical interests with its humanitarian interests - feeling sorry for downtrodden people while supporting Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Since its disastrous venture into Iraq, where it was forced to leave empty handed, the US has declared its intention to pivot towards the Far East (and antagonise China instead). It committed aircraft to Libya but declined to do so in Syria, even as the CIA trained anti-Assad militias in Jordon and unleashed them across the border in a major offensive (which failed). And while backing Israel and the Sunnis in the west, and maintaining its hostility against Shia Iran in the east, it offers drones and missiles to the Iranian backed Iraqi government in the centre.

What is the US trying to achieve? Quite honestly, I don't know. It could be a plan so cunning that mere mortals like myself cannot understand it. Or it could just be foreign policy incompetance on a grand scale.

Either way, it looks a million miles away from what Saudi Arabia is doing.

So keep an eye on Lebanon. If those arms get delivered, and if the conflict next door is unresolved, it could blow up.

Why do men fight?

In an age where masculinity appears outmoded - where masculinity is in fact mocked and derided, the issue of why men fight becomes a vexing question.

And there have been many answers to that one question - or perhaps questions raised by that one question.

Is it that men are inferior to women? Surely if they were not so egotistical or vain, if they were more able to empathise and cooperate, then they would see there was no need to fight? The pen is mightier than the sword, good deeds are better than bad, we are one species and only have one planet to live on. If men could learn to share, then they would no longer need to destroy.

Or perhaps it is masculinity, that cult that is supposed to direct us and tell us what to do? Perhaps it is simply a mistaken cult, one that can be shaped to be different? For is not masculinity just an idea? And cannot ideas be changed?

Maybe it's the system? The capitalism that pits one against the other, that competes for resources, that demands a loser for every winner? Perhaps it is civilization itself - that monstrous entity that corrupts us, that consumes us and uses us as fuel to maintain itself?

Or perhaps it is God who makes us do this, because He made us in his own image? Or even the Devil, who hates what God made and therefore whispers temptations into our ears and leads us to our doom?

But consider this. We have a common ancestor with chimpanzees. We share 98% of our genes with chimpanzees. We don't really know much about that common ancestor, but genetically we do know that the chimpanzee is our closest relative. A brother. And chimpanzees fight too. Viciously and frequently.

Ah, but that is different, you say. Men fight for causes, for honour, for flags, for pay, for the motherland, for family. Or for stupidity, and the lies of other men. Take your pick.

But at the point of fighting, at the point when a man engages his opponent, whether in a bar or a battlefield, does any of that other stuff really matter? At the point of death, at the point of driving home the blade, charging the blood soaked horse or crashing the burning plane into the enemy's ship, are any of those causes really thought about? Pondered over? Repeated to one self?

Or, at the point of naked aggression, is there something else? Something we dare not speak of? Something that those who do not fight will never understand? Or would prefer to not understand?

Now ask the question: Why do chimpanzees fight?

When you can answer that question - truly properly answer that question - then we can answer the question of why men fight, and therefore dispense with all that philosophical, theological or ideological nonsense that we currently fill our heads with.