On This Day In 1884....

Lest We Forget: On this day in 1884, 13 European nations shamelessly gathered in Berlin to parcel out the African continent like famished school children (on a school trip) haphazardly dividing up a pizza. Great Britain was represented by Sir Edward Malet (Ambassador to the German Empire). The US, the emerging but reluctant superpower, had a delegate - the explorer Henry Morton Stanley.

In utter disregard and with not a single iota of conscience or concern for the culture or the families of the continent, the map was redrawn and lands claimed. What followed was the systematic scramble and undoing of Africa. Resistance was met with the brutal force of gunpowder. The Herero Massacre was the first genocide of the 20th century: tens of thousands of men, women and children were shot, starved, and tortured to death by German troops as they put down “rebellious” tribes in what is now Namibia. Tens of thousands of defenceless women and children were forced into the Kalahari desert, their wells poisoned and food supplies cut.

In Uganda, the first election fraud (in favour of Apollo Milton Obote) was masterminded by London. The British governor then, Sir Fredrick Crawford, an honest man to a fault, resigned because he was unwilling to be party to this gerrymandering. This has since become the template for regime survival. Congo and many other African nations have never recovered from this trauma that was orchestrated at Bismarck's official residence on that bleak weekend.

 

The United Colours Of Capitalism

Click to enlarge and get clearer view,
to discover which company you want
to make you the offer that you should refuse
this  seasonal bargain day    

 

The Logic Of Philanthropy

We often hear talk by the wealthy
that defends the present inequality
as 'a more efficient means
of spreading wealth that any other', 
and well we might wonder
how the logic it is based on arose.

It starts with a wealth creation
that runs well ahead of the ability
of any tax system to tax such wealth,
until eventually the powers that be
try to be more prescient
about the nations finances.

Then they find the wealth creators
propose that they are best people
to advise the writing of the rules
of the wealth they say they created
(always their wealth was made
by exploiting human resources,
and materials, they controlled
but denied all responsibility for).

The more the wealthy write the rules
that regulate the taxation of wealth
the more they exempt themselves
in the name of philanthropy.

They divide the poor into the worthy
-those who pay tax enough to support others,
and the unworthy-those who earn so little
that they cannot be taxed.

By definition the rich are always worthy,
their wealth is what tells them how fit they are
for always ruling over the lives of others.

Apocalypse When......

Human beings have written apocalyptic myths
from the later period of The Old Testament
to far into the times of The Roman Empire.

And always these writings get refreshed
by modern readers who replace the targets
the myths were once aimed at, now forgotten,
for people who are alive as they write
-people who the writers think worthy
of renewed and damning accusations.

But there surely come a point
where even fears are prone to doubt;
the old fears no longer have the energy
to sustain themselves as part of human life.

What happens when what was once
'a deep reading' of an apocalyptic text
integral to belief for one generation
loses all it's cogency for the next?

Does the text become
just a play thing,
an entertaining surface read?
How long can the fear
of end of the world
survive human indifference?  

Reason For Belief?

In something/anything that is well beyond
The State, most of what constitutes 'religion',
and all the state's leaders along with the flags,
which they use to distract everyone
from all the deals that they like to keep unknown.   

 

A Non-Conformist Writes About Diet And Choice

Meat substitutes are now being sold
by many western food manufacturers
who, whilst controlled by greenwash,
are keen to hold on to their markets.

This time their efforts are serious;
the 'meat' now grows in petri dishes
or rather their large scale equivalent,
after which it is textured and flavoured
until the consumer can't tell the difference
with what it is meant to be compared to.

with white meats the indistinctness
might well be correct; factory chickens
lead lives that are so absurdly short
and horrible that anyone seeing them
would say it was the animal farming
equivalent of the Nazi death camps.

The less the suffering the better it is,
but that still leaves the greenwash problem;
whatever we are told about the virtue
of what we eat we still have to be
propagandised into submission
to make sure that we eat it.

Thinking for ourselves
what to eat is too risky
to be allowed.

The Pain We Don't Need

Sex is where tragedy
turns most easily to farce,
which is why sexual abstinence
is partly abstaining from tragedy.

Such abstinence is less about morality,
though the reasons given for the choice
will always be presented in that framework,
and more about erring on the side of caution,
the better to abstain from unnecessary pain.