The Humility of a Grieving Mother and the Indifference of Politicians.

The mother in question lost her son, Stephen, in Nigeria. He was working as a Quantity Surveyor when he was kidnapped by members of Boko Haram. Unfortunately Stephen was murdered. The perpetrators were jailed. Stephens’s mother was asked whether she objected to her son’s murderers being released in exchange for the young girls recently kidnapped in Nigeria. She did not. She was then asked whether she hated her son’s murderers. Her response was admirable. She said, and I paraphrase, that her son would not want her to judge the people concerned and he would want her to try and understand the lives of her son’s murderers and how they got to where they are. I applaud Stephens’s mother for her humility, her grace and her humanity. She puts the majority of politicians,with their relentless and self serving scaremongering tactics, to shame. It made me proud to think that someone who had suffered such a devastating loss could still hold such a considered and rational view, when so many people in Britain are happy to lie back and be spoon fed reactionary, self serving bull crap by politicians and the media alike, instead of getting off their fat arses and attempting to rationalise and understand the lives of others, themselves.

I am not condoning the actions of Boko Haram. Kidnapping and forcibly converting young girls to another religion is evil and wrong, as is going into villages and raping, murdering and stealing. The perpetrators should receive severe punishment. But neither do I condone the government troops of a country, going into towns and villages, under the veil of ‘fighting terrorism’ and ethnically cleansing minorities or followers of a different religion, or political opponents, and butchering and killing the civilian population. I do  not condone murder, rape, kidnapping and forced conversion and I do not condone government agents committing atrocities upon an innocent civilian population either.

 It is expedient and far to convenient for people who choose to live in a fog of ignorance and wilfully ignore the fact that politicians across the world invariably act in a self serving and mendacious manner and, happily aided by camp followers and the media, will implement ideological policies, adopt stances or instigate the cleansing of opponents. All of which have far ranging effects both nationally and internationally.

 A prime current example of politicians acting in the interests of self concern is the incompetence of the Nigerian government, who’s only apparent response so far to releasing the kidnapped girls is for the wife of Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan, to try and grab some of the international limelight by ordering the mother of one of the kidnapped girls to be arrested, because she had the temerity to criticise the government’s pathetic response. If these young girls had been the daughters of Nigerian military chiefs or the Nigerian elite, the response would have been very different, but unfortunately they are daughters of families that live in a poor and remote area of Nigeria, so are considered unimportant and of little consequence. If it wasn't for the outrage of the international community these young girls would probably soon be forgotten. Even now, because of the delayed response, most of the girls will probably have been dispersed throughout the continent. The logistics of keeping almost 300 young women fed and watered would be challenging for most people, let alone a ragtag band of Islamic militants.

 Another contemporary example of politicians indifference to ordinary people is the cold-hearted and disgraceful response to the Turkish mining disaster by Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who, instead of having a compassionate and sympathetic attitude to people who have lost loved ones, decided to adopt the ‘ I’m not bothered that your sons, husbands, fathers or brothers are dead, I’m more concerned about my election ambitions and maintaining my lucrative power-base, than I am about almost 300 miners experiencing violent and agonising deaths in an unsafe mine, you are all worthless and expendable to me so why don’t you just shut up and go away’. An attitude vividly portrayed by the picture ( see below) of one of Erdogan’s aides kicking, ‘three or four times’, a mourner ,while the mourner was being held down by two specials forces operatives, a picture that was probably secretly cheered by thousands of politicians across the world. Also, allegedly, there are also pictures of Erdogan attacking a protester, although these have not yet been published internationally. It’s easy to be brave when you have several heavily armed Special Forces operatives standing beside you.

 Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan's aide,Yusuf Yerkel, demonstrates what politicians really think of the people they are supposedly elected to serve.

There is hardly a moment in history where the innocent have not had to endure hardship, injury or death, whether it be the first world war, the war in Iraq, millions experiencing famine and poverty or a disabled person being evicted from their home in "21st century Britain, because of an ideological ‘bedroom tax’ being imposed by the current British government, that cannot be traced back to mendacious, greedy and corrupt politicians.

A pox on all their houses.

Tax Avoiding ‘Celebs’.

It is heart warming to see ‘celebs’bravely avoiding their moral duty to pay the tax they owe. After all, instead of being fortunate enough to be born in a free democratic country that gave them a safe, clean environment to grow up in as well as opportunity, free education, free health care, roads, street lighting, clean water , The Beatles, free vaccinations, free emergency services, chocolate biscuits......... I could go on; they could have been born in a fly blown mud hut and died in infancy. So thanks for not adopting an ‘I’m alright Jack now I’m rich’attitude. It’s much appreciated.

There is an irony in the fate of one of the miscreants who has been caught avoiding tax. Tory voting Gary Barlow, (Sorry P****, but we must speak truth to the evil that man doeth), the song writing genius of Take That, known in some circles as the ‘Mancunian John Lennon’J, has been prominent with the charity Children In Need. Yet if Tory voting Gary Barlow paid his taxes, there would be a lot less children in need . How ironic is that?

However, I would like to put to bed a rumour that is currently circulating. There is no truth, that on this year’s Children In Need Day they will be announcing the amounts raised in multiples of how much Tory voting Gary Barlow avoided in tax.

i.e. “ the current total raised so far is” ( drum roll.....................) “43% of what Tory voting Gary Barlow avoided in taxes” Woo! Woo! Woo!

That definitely will not be happening. So stop spreading it about, it’s hurtful. ‘Celebs’ have feelings as well, you know. Ask anyone from the Hacked Off campaign. 

Things that are still happening

• ·         Gamekeepers are still illegally poisoning raptors with impunity, on behalf of the landowning barons.
• ·         The unemployment figures are still being fiddled by the Coalition government.
• ·         Mark Carney, The Governor of the Bank of England, is still playing the role of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne’s placeman, by not increasing, for electioneering purposes, interest rates.
• ·         The United Kingdom Independence party is still riddled with racists and its leader, Nigel Farage, is still a privately educated ex-stockbroker living in the Home Counties.
• ·         Animals are still having their throats slit and being left to die an agonising death because of someone’s irrational belief system.
• ·         Free marketeers are still bullsh**ting us that poverty will be erased by ‘the trickledown theory’.
• ·         Whenever there is a spell of warm weather I am still being visually assaulted by men wandering around bare-chested. Please! I beseech you. Have some dignity.
• ·         Tony Abbot is still Prime Minister of Australia, which is the political equivalent of given a three year old child a loaded gun and letting him play in the communal area of an old people’s home. Neither scenarios are gonna end well.
• And finally,

• ·         The Syrian civil war is still being fought, and thousands of displaced refugees are still trying to eke out an existence in the Jordanian desert, although you wouldn't think so, considering the lack of coverage it is receiving in the media.

Man’s Inhumanity.

Two examples of the greed, avarice and inhumanity of man:

Example one:

A football stadium costing millions of dollars is built in Sao Paulo, Brazil, for the forthcoming world cup. The stadium is surrounded by slums and squatter camps where thousands of men, women and children are trying to scrape a living on a dollar a day.

Example two:

A lorry carrying chickens, crashes in England. The lorry is transporting not 100 live chickens, not 1000 live chickens, not even 3000 live chickens but 6800 live chickens. Can you imagine the conditions those creatures were experiencing, rammed into the back of a lorry, as they experienced their last few hours alive before being hung upside down by their feet, carried along a conveyor line, electrocuted, and then drowned.

Never does a day go by when I am not ashamed by the actions of my species.

What would you do?

What would you do if a family of Farages' moved in next door to you?

Schools Out! Again!

I see MP's ( Members of Parliament) are on holiday again. Yet another holiday starts today, only 19 days off this time though.They must be exhausted. After all it has been almost two weeks since their 18 day Easter break ended.

How do they cope.

"The irony of life is that none of us will get out of it alive."