The curse of Mother Theresa

2010 marked 100 years since the birth of Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu; Mother Theresa. She is a Catholic heroine, beatified by the Catholic Church in 2003 at St Peters in Rome by Pope John Paul II, and given a Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. She is known the World over for her aiding the impoverished people of India, and in particular, Calcutta. She is often idolised, considered a wonderful, caring, selfless human being.

I could not disagree more with that perception.

There are a great deal of those beatified who are certainly worthy of such high admiration. Anne-Marie Javouhey is perhaps one of my favourites. She founded Institute of Saint Joseph of Cluny at Cabillon in the early 19th Century, dedicating her life educating the poor and slave populations across the World. She was an emancipator, far before my most revered emancipator, Charles Sumner was even born. Javouhey worked tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of the poor and the ill. For this, she deserves all the admiration that the Catholic Church bestowed upon her.

There are also a great deal of those beatified, who do not deserve it, and should be absolutely condemned. Isidore of Seville is a Saint, made so by Saint Clement VIII. Isidore once wrote an essay calling for the Christians to take Jewish children away from their parents by force, and educate them in the Christian way. A wonderful study by Bat-sheva Albert called “Isidore of Seville: His attitude toward Judaism and his impact on Early Medieval Cannon Law” shows that Isidore was concerned with writing instructions for the clergy to adhere to, and those instructions were unusually marred with vicious language aimed directly at Judaism, and perpetuated the persecution and suspicion of Jews during the Medieval period. We could claim that Isidore lived in the 6th Century and that we’re typically viewing and condemning him through 21st Century vision. The problem is, Isidore’s views on taking children away from their parents simply for being Jewish, were radical even for the 6th Century. Because the rational conscience of humanity is often at odds with the irrational immorality hell of organised religion.

Unfortunately, Mother Theresa is not even close to being as admirable in any way, in comparison to Javouhey, and actually closer in terms of the destruction to human life, to Isidore of Seville.

Her order, the “missionaries of charity” did more to inflict suffering, pain and poverty on people needlessly, than the actual causes of that suffering and pain and poverty itself. She believed that poverty was a virtue to brought one closer to God. The more a person suffers, whether they ask for that suffering or not, the closer they are to God according to the warped fantasy of Mother Theresa, recently beatified. Primitive equipment was used to treat wounds. No pain killers were used at all. Unsterilised needles equipment was used. People died far sooner than they would have had Mother Theresa actually bothered to recommend actual medical treatment for the poor that she was apparently “helping”.

Her use of fairy tales to promote suffering and pain should be viewed with the contempt it deserves. She believed suffering was good, abortion was wrong, and birth control was evil. In a country like India, villifying birth control is reckless at best. According to a freelance writer, Judith Hayes, Mother Theresa once told a cancer patient in her care that she did not need pain killers, because:

“You are suffering like Christ on the cross, So Jesus must be kissing you.”

How else would someone come to such a positively dangerous position that does nothing but cause unnecessary pain and suffering, if not for belief. Why would a sane human being refuse pain killers to a dying lady in pain, other than a belief in a God. And what a poor argument for an all loving God that would be.

Mother Theresa sat on a fortune. Banks accounts all over the World, filled with millions upon millions in donations. People were led to believe that they were giving money to alleviate suffering. Instead, the millions of dollars sat unused, like a bottle of water and loaf of bread hanging over the mouths of the starving, being held just out of reach by an insane Nun who wallowed in her feet being kissed by impoverished “Calcutteans”.

Calcutta itself, the capital of West Bengal, is home to far more people than it can sustain. Almost 6 million live in Calcutta and the streets are paved with the homeless. 6 million people, in 71 square miles, is ridiculous. That being said, it has cultural heritage that far surpasses anything else in India. Mother Theresa tried to persuade people against the use of condoms. In a city vastly overpopulated, she was attempting to ban condoms, and persuading people that abortion was a great evil; even for victims of incest and rape. Millions of people were being put at risk, because Mother Theresa and the Catholic Church indulged in an irrational campaign against the use of contraception.

In New York, a homeless and poor shelter was going to be installed in the Bronx. The plans included two storied building. The City Planning Commission insisted that for the disabled, their must be an elevator. The Nuns applied for a waiver of the Disabled Access Laws, on grounds of nothing else but “religious belief”. Mother Theresa and the Nuns refused to allow an elevator to be installed because their religious beliefs forbade them from using “modern conveniences”. When the Commission refused them the waiver, Mother Theresa and her Nuns threw their toys out of the pram and abandoned the project. They would rather let people suffer, than install an elevator.

Susan Shields, an ex-member of the Missionaries on Charity tells her story, about what she witnessed when she was a Sister in the organisation run by Mother Theresa:

When Mother spoke publicly, she never asked for money, but she did encourage people to make sacrifices for the poor, to “give until it hurts.” Many people did – and they gave it to her. We received touching letters from people, sometimes apparently poor themselves, who were making sacrifices to send us a little money for the starving people in Africa, the flood victims in Bangladesh, or the poor children in India. Most of the money sat in our bank accounts.

The flood of donations was considered to be a sign of God’s approval of Mother Teresa’s congregation. We were told by our superiors that we received more gifts than other religious congregations because God was pleased with Mother, and because the Missionaries of Charity were the sisters who were faithful to the true spirit of religious life.

Most of the sisters had no idea how much money the congregation was amassing. After all, we were taught not to collect anything. One summer the sisters living on the outskirts of Rome were given more crates of tomatoes than they could distribute. None of their neighbors wanted them because the crop had been so prolific that year. The sisters decided to can the tomatoes rather than let them spoil, but when Mother found out what they had done she was very displeased. Storing things showed lack of trust in Divine Providence.

Mother Theresa once claimed that doing good for the sake of altruistic reasons, is wrong. She claimed:

There is alwayst he danger that we may become only social workers or just do the work for the sake of the work. … It is a danger; if we forget to whom we are doing it. Our works are only an expression of our love for Christ. Our hearts need to be full of love for him, and since we have to express that love in action, naturally then the poorest of the poor are the means of expressing our love for God.

She was essentially saying that the only moral course a person must take in regard to charity, is to extol the virtues of poverty, let the sick and dying suffer, abandon painkillers, and ban birth control, all because it will take us closer to “Jesus”. It is virtually impossible to reason with someone who is so shockingly unreasonable, it borders on psychopathic.

When Mary Loudon, a volunteer in Calcutta asked one of the Nuns responsible for patient “care” why she was not sterilizing the needles, the nun replied:

There is no point.

And continued to wash the needle under a cold tap.
Loudon then tells a story about a fifteen year old boy who went from having a simple kidney problem, and by the time she was writing this, he was dying. The Nuns had refused to give him antibiotics and would not allow him to be taken to the local hospital. He needed operating on and was just being left to die, whilst the delusional Nuns of the order of Mother Theresa prayed for him. The Nuns argued that if they did it for one, they’d have to do it for all of them. Not withstanding the fact that they were running a shack with unsterilized equipment, they also were sitting on millions of dollars; enough to build a top class hospital. The decision not to use that money to help people, was entirely down to religious belief.

Religion is a cancer.

People in the care of Mother Theresa, were given no painkillers, treated with dirty implements, given no specialist care, no professional diagnosis, and more often than not, died because of easily curable injuries and disease. They were indoctrinated to believe that if they doubted Mother Theresa, they were doubting God, and would be punished in the afterlife. They died, for the sake of a multi millionaire religious fundamentalist.

Bricks and mortar

This is Samantha Cameron, the wife of David Cameron:

This is a section of 300,000+ people:

The public are very similar to Sam Cameron, in that they’re being fucked by David too.

This is a gimp:

A gimp is traditionally expected to keep quiet and do as he’s told. He has a master. He must take all the abuse, he mustn’t have an opinion, and he must be kept on a short lead in case he disobeys.

This is Nick Clegg:

Nick Clegg has a master, does what he’s told, has had his opinion beaten out of him, and now just obeys. Right now, you are drawing a comparison in your minds between Nick Clegg……… and a gimp.

I went to the TUC rally in London on Saturday, accompanied by close to half a million people. This is what I saw:

Support from all over the place.

My favourite banner quote all day.

My thoughts exactly:

The march across the Thames.

£250 for bacon? Bloody Aussie’s. First they give us Fosters, and now overpriced bacon.

The reason this amazing human being looks so bright, is because he jumped in front of my shot at the very last second. He makes this picture so brilliant.

I am fully aware that this guy holds a bit of a resemblance to me. This is worrying.

The spirit of Che!

Damn right.

Possibly a little bit extreme. Unless we’re now referring to the Foreign Secretary, as “The Hague” in which case, I fully support this.

Lots of families!

The Met officer looks pretty guilty to me. He must really fucking hate Starbucks. He is probably one of those annoying people who insist on talking to you about their favourite coffee.

Carnival type of atmospheres at marchers are fantastic. This man has moves!

The aftermath at Trafalgar.

The Business Secretary, Lib Dem Vince Cable today said he was listening to the Unions, but would not budge on the Coalition’s plans for austerity.
In 2010, before the election, Cable said this:

“We have deep, long term problems….. a financial aristocracy which regards tax paying as something for little people not themselves.”

“People are desperate to see the back of this Labour government. But they don’t want the same old Tories. And make no mistake they are exactly the same.”

Today on BBC Radio, speaking about the top rate of tax, Cable said this:

“It moved up to 50p in an emergency because we had to have a sense of solidarity that everybody was bearing some of the pain, and the chancellor said in the budget that we’re going to have to move away from that. I agree with him. The Liberal Democrats agree with him.

- Essentially what he is saying is there doesn’t need to be a ‘sense of solidarity that everybody is bearing some of the pain any more’ because whilst the disabled, the elderly, and the most vulnerable lose all sorts of care, Cable is allowing the richest few to pay less tax. What an obscene man he has become. I wonder if the Vince Cable of 2010 who warned of the “same old Tories” would appreciate the Vince Cable of 2011 becoming one of the same old Tories. It is the biggest ideological attack in many many years. It is not the “only way”.

The issue from Tory MPs and those who seem to have very short memories, and an apparent lack of attention to detail, now seems to be that no one is setting out an alternative, to deep austerity. As if Neoliberalism is the only possible way. The problem with that is…
1) Labour set out an alternative before the election.
2) Pre May 2010 Lib Dems had an alternative.
3) Reforming the clear imbalance between cuts and taxes is an alternative. Tax more, do not cut Corporation tax, raise it. Impose a stricter set of regulations on banks and impose a far far higher levy. Robin hood tax. Close all tax avoidance loopholes. Ensure that Companies such as Diageo agree to pay back all of what they owe over a set period. Do not abolish tax on offshore profits bought back to the UK. DO NOT abolish the 50p tax rate, as Vince Cable announced would be abolished as early as 2013. Stop promoting the idea that we are like Greece. We aren’t, in any way like Greece, nor were we heading that way. That’s an alternative. It is a wholly left wing alternative, but an alternative nevertheless. Keynes set out an alternative. Stiglitz set out an alternative. Roubini, McCulley, Romer, Krugman, Pettifor, Pissarides, Kalecki, Blinder, and many many other economic and political theorists have many different alternatives than deep austerity. Thereisabetterway.org sets out alternatives. To ask ordinary people to sacrifice their jobs and their livelihoods, for the sake of a mass of tax cuts, is not the only way. To claim no one could possibly come up with an alternative, is massively ignorant.

Violent action is provoked by violent economic policies.
There is an alternative.

The Tory banking Legacy

‎”Last Friday I visited Rawlins community college in my constituency and spoke to a very bright group of economics students. We discussed the fact that Governments cannot spend money they do not have. The students understood that; why does my right hon. Friend think the Opposition do not”

- screamed Nicky Morgan, Conservative MP for Loughborough in the House of Commons today asking the Prime Minister a deep and probing question (as you can see) about the financial situation. Another wonderfully planted question that was met with the usual hysterical “yeeaaah” jeers from the Tory back benches, the same joyful jeers they gave when George Osborne announced 500,000 extra jobs losses last year.

I cannot stand planted, pointless, useless, deceptive and simplistic questions on PMQs, they undermine the entire political landscape, they make it weak and simply theatre with half truths and just plain bullshit. It should be treated with the contempt that it treats the public with.

I emailed Morgan to ask her about that. I said:

Hi Nicky,
Today in Parliament you stood up and asked quite clearly a planted question along the lines of “Why does no one understand that Right Winged economics is the only way to run a Country” (clearly ignoring the horrific legacy the IMF imposes whenever it feels the need) and how all the economics students you spoke to at Rawlins agreed.

She opened her reply with:

Thank you for your e-mail which I have read and you have got your many points across. And thank you for insulting my intelligence – I am quite able to prepare my own questions. Do you assume I am not able to do so because I am a woman or a Conservative or both?

There is so much wrong with that opening, I struggle to know where to begin. It is not me who is insulting her intelligence. Firstly, she is insulting the intelligence of the entire electorate who have to put up with the pantomime that she perpetuates with such childish questions, every week. And if I were her, I would rather people believed the question was planted because the question: “The students understood that; why does my right hon. Friend think the Opposition do not” is not suitable for the very short time the PM gets to answer questions during what is supposed to be an adult debate over a subject that is going to cause people misery for years to come, to ask such pointless questions. It is insulting to all of us. It isn’t a fucking game. To the people who will struggle to put food on their families tables, standing out in the dole queue week after week, who can’t afford Christmas next year, disabled people who will lose their support and have no idea how they will cope now; it isn’t a fucking game. It is people’s lives. Real lives. Nicky Morgan is treating peoples lives like a game. She should be ashamed.

To suggest it was “insulting her intelligence” that I didn’t believe she devised the simple question herself is also illogical. I think she is far more intelligent than that, and was given that question. If she truly believes it took an intelligent mind to practically say “Does the Prime Minister agree that he’s a God?“, and believe that is a suitable question to ask, then she is definitely an idiot and her intelligence should certainly be called into question at the next election.

Secondly, suggesting sexism? Really? Is that even worth commenting on? How did such a pathetic person get elected? When you have to invoke sexism or racism or anything of that calibre in a debate that has absolutely none of the characteristics of a sexist or racist argument, you are drastically clutching at straws. If I’d have said “Thank you for your time, oh by the way I have some ironing that needs doing“, I could understand.

What a woefully simplistic idiot she (and Tories in general) really is. This is a woman who came to our University and told us all that businessmen make the best MPs, so it is unsurprising that her view is so intensely, well, wrong.

Firstly, I hope Nicky Morgan practices what she preaches, and doesn’t have a mortgage, an overdraft, or any other outstanding debt. Because to spend money she doesn’t have, would be a little bit hypocritical of her.

Secondly, One wonders what Nicky Morgan thinks was likely to happen when her Party deregulated the banking industry in the 1980s, and when William Hague in 2001 told reporters he would promote people to his Shadow Cabinet on the basis of their commitment to banking deregulation. Did she think that would encourage responsible banking? If she did, she is massively naive, if she didn’t then she is just massively hypocritical.

Firstly, it is essential to note that the value of money doesn’t exist. It is an illusion. It is not backed by gold or silver or anything. It is just an idea; the collective idea of a population. Other than it being an idea, it is just paper and metal. You could use anything as money that is not backed by gold or silver. If we all believed each hair on our heads was worth the same as a pound coin, then we’d use the hair on our heads. There is no reason why not. We invented this concept of money, assigning mystical value backed by nothing important, and now that money controls our lives. Money is simply a medium of exchange now, like any other. Fish was used as money on the East coast of Colonial America once. The idea of money is good, because it is flexible in size and it is always in demand. The idea of money is bad, because for it be portable, its value must be high for a small amount. For that, you need a source that is in scarce supply with a high price (gold). Paper money attached to nothing, is worthless. In fact, gold has all the qualities one would require for a medium of exchange. It is durable, it is scarce, it is portable, it is divisible, far more so than any other commodity.

Banks in the UK can back the money with worthless IOUs. This is known as fractional-reserve banking. What it means is a bank only has to hold a relatively small amount of money in its reserves, the rest it can lend out.
So for example:
Person A deposits £1000.
The bank keeps 10% as reserves.
So the bank keeps £100.
The bank lends out £900.
The bank can lend that £900 as an IOU promissory note to more than one borrower (for the purpose of this example, we’ll say it can lend to three different borrowers).
Over time, each of those borrowers pays back the £900.
So the bank gets the £900 back, and an extra £1800, in new money.
The bank can then take that £2700 it now has, and keep 10%, and lend the rest out.
So the bank has made a fortune, yet only actually has £900 in reserves.
Banks issue many IOUs based on the single deposit.
So if we all marched to Lloyds TSB and demanded our money from our accounts at the same time, the bank would not have it.
In essence, the bank is lending money it doesn’t have, on a grand scale.

The free market advocate of the 19th Century, Condy Raguet noted that credit expansion in the Financial sector will always result in depression. He advocated strong regulations on the banking sector, which he had deemed to be a bit of a beast in need of taming.

Morgan, in her email, said:

I’m afraid I totally disagree with your remarks. In particular you refer to the deregulation of the financial sector and easy credit – which happened during the 13 years Blair and Brown were in power.

- No it didn’t. It was perpetuated under Blair and Brown, but it definitely didn’t begin under Blair and Brown. Another vast manipulation of the truth; something Conservatives are becoming quite the professionals at. The 1986 Building Societies act and the Financial Services Act for example, were definitely key de-regulatory acts, brought into being, under Thatcher. The influx of credit card users and the housing market boom that followed, in the early 1990s through to 2007 (and looks set to continue) was both Tory and Labour’s fault. The entire economy, since at least the 1980s has been based on debt and debt alone. Debt, by definition, is money we do not have.

Nicky Morgan should be fighting tirelessly to stop the fraudulent nature of the banking industry, opposing the deregulation that her own party introduced, and insisting that tuition fees be abolished (debt, money we don’t have), mortgages be abolished (debt, money we don’t have) and in fact every other form of debt, if she truly cares about not spending money we don’t have.

The Libyan intervention

I am not sure what I think of the intervention in Libya. I am not taking the dogmatic view that this is just another example of US led aggression in an oil rich land, for immoral business opportunities. It certainly was the case with Iraq, I don’t believe it is the case with Libya.

There are two positions to take. Firstly, the idealist position that Nation States that posses a Capitalist economy of sorts, will always resort to war in resource rich Nations. And that the UK and US have long been quite the supporter of Ghaddafi over the years. That we don’t care too much about what is morally right, and it’s all for oil; The cynical (and my usual) position on US intervention. It is a little odd that we have suddenly decided he’s a menace. Lord Giddens, former Blair aid met Ghaddafi in 2006 and wrote of him:

He cuts an impressive figure, has a calm and articulate manner…… makes many intelligent and perceptive points.

But that is irrelevant. We should focus on now, because to focus on the abstract, on ideas, and on the past, is to ignore the fact that people are dying. If the no fly zone enables a victory for the rebels, then I really don’t care what the motives of President Obama or David Cameron are (although I don’t believe they have sat around their cabinet tables conspiring to get their hands on oil, anyway). Sometimes, US aggression is quite obviously imperialistic by nature, but I would hazard a guess that the citizens of Benghazi do not believe this to be a show of American imperialism. To prevent a civil war and perhaps genocide, I would be taking the same course of action as the UK is now taking.

To this end, I support the U.N Resolution 1973.

We should not forget that similar situations are taking place across the Middle East, and largely ignored. Bahrain’s King has cracked down on Shi’ite protesters and insanely claimed he foiled a plot that was 30 years in the making, against his regime. What it is difficult to note, is whether the protests in Bahrain are simply sectarian in nature or democratic uprisings like those in Egypt and Libya.

At least twenty protesters were killed in Manama, the capital of Bahrain, and another 100 are missing. Opposition leaders have been arrested. Teargas was used to disperse the pro-democracy demonstrators, and the Foreign office in the UK has stopped all chartered flights out of Bahrain. The White House simply said it was “deeply troubled” by the crackdown, adding:

“We reiterate our call for a peaceful and broadly inclusive political dialogue aimed at bringing about a purely ‘made-in-Bahrain’ solution and implementation of the kind of meaningful and credible reforms that will meet the aspirations of all Bahraini people.”

I am pretty sure President Obama is doing everything he can to stay out of the affairs any other Middle Eastern Nation, hence the “made-in-Bahrain solution”, but there is a time when it has gone too far. Libya has gone beyond that point.

It is also very different to Iraq. The pretext/lie for the invasion of Iraq and the occupation of Iraq, was self defence. Sadam apparently had weapons of mass destruction that could be launched against allied nations within 45 minutes. By contrast, Libya is a conflict involving a man marching his armies to cities in his own country, to kill his own people. It is the equivalent of David Cameron marching the army toward Manchester with a view to wipe the Northerners out because they don’t particularly like Tories. It is a very different situation to Iraq.

Whilst it is not like Iraq, I would suggest that Western justification for becoming involved in such a crises like Libya, stems from the pressure to act and the responsibility to protect, following the ignorance of the international community surrounding Rwanda. 800,000 people were killed during the Rwandan genocide and the U.N did nothing. Pro-peace Hutus and Tutsis virtually wiped out, tortured and murdered, sanctioned by top level officials in the Rwandan government. Even as UN peacekeepers and hundreds of children were trapped, scared and crying, in Dom Bosco Technical School, the UN did nothing. The US refused to label what was about to happen, as genocide. Everyone in the Dom Bosco Technical School school was massacred by Hutu militants. The UN and the international community were useless. The Rwandan genocide is a skeleton in the UN’s closet. The very existence of the UN is to prevent such atrocities. We can argue US interventionism all day long, and probably come to some sort of consensus (if by “we” I exclude hard core right winged Americans) that American imperialism is a very real evil. But this, like Rwanda, is not about American imperialism.

Following Rwanda, the African Union argued that the international community, including the UN, had an obligation to intervene in situations where Governments were abusing their own citizens. In 2005, the World Summit Outcome Document included this African Union suggestion within it. It states:

139. The international community, through the United Nations, also has the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in accordance with Chapters VI and VIII of the Charter, to help protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. In this context, we are prepared to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security Council, in accordance with the Charter, including Chapter VII, on a case-by-case basis and in cooperation with relevant regional organizations as appropriate, should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities manifestly fail to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. We stress the need for the General Assembly to continue consideration of the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and its implications, bearing in mind the principles of the Charter and international law. We also intend to commit ourselves, as necessary and appropriate, to helping States build capacity to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and to assisting those which are under stress before crises and conflicts break out.

This was cemented in U.N Resolution 1674 of 2006.
The conflict in Libya, I believe warrants international action rather than mere condemnation and sanctions. The UN should have acted in a similar capacity toward Rwanda, it didn’t. Libya cannot be allowed to become another Rwanda.

There is an argument made that suggests the U.N Resolution 1674 infringes upon National sovereignty. I would argue this is simply wrong. If the government of a Nation is either allowing, struggling to cope with, or direction “genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity” then it is no longer acting responsibly for the protection of its people. At that stage, it is right for the international community to step in.

I am however, skeptical of the apparent aborted RAF Tornado mission due to civilians in the area. The MoD spokesman told the press that he “assumed you’d like to know…” before reeling off how wonderful the RAF are for aborting a mission that could have resulted in civilian deaths in Libya. Why tell us? I am a little bit skeptical because the RAF made a conscious decision to inform the media that they’d aborted a mission. The media. The megaphone of the elites, shouting out to a docile population. The killings in Iraq of innocent civilians do not get reported in the mainstream media, nor by field reporters in war torn locations. For those stories, we have to wait for a Pilger documentary. So, if you’re not going to tell us about the people you have killed, why would you tell us about the people you haven’t killed? Are we supposed to thank you for not killing innocent people? You’re not supposed to kill innocent people anyway!

Despite my skepticism on the RAF’s handling of the aborted mission in Libya, I still support the no fly zone. I support the U.N Resolution.

The wording of the resolution, could not be clearer:

4. Authorises member states that have notified the secretary-general, acting nationally or through regional organizations or arrangements, and acting in co-operation with the secretary-general, to take all necessary measures, notwithstanding paragraph 9 of resolution 1970 (2011), to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi, while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory, and requests the member states concerned to inform the secretary-general immediately of the measures they take pursuant to the authorization conferred by this paragraph which shall be immediately reported to the Security Council;

- It appears this is an attempt to prevent the no fly zone being viewed as another Iraq. It demands all necessary measures to protect civilians and bans any sort of occupation. It is an attempt to reassure the Arab World that this isn’t just a matter of Western aggression.

5. Recognises the important role of the League of Arab States in matters relating to the maintenance of international peace and security in the region, and bearing in mind Chapter VIII of the Charter of the United Nations, requests the member states of the League of Arab States to co-operate with other member states in the implementation of paragraph 4;

- Bringing the Arab league into the fold is a much needed aspect of this resolution. As Ghaddafi appeals to the Muslim World to try to convince them that this is some sort of Christian crusade, he will be vastly isolated if the Arab league are part of the force against him. On the matter of religion, it has been key to war efforts, throughout the centuries, for wealthy leaders of the war to appeal to their people using the bond of religious belief. Nowadays, Western nations use National pride in the way religion was used in the past. “He died for his country”. It is gross manipulation.

South Africa voiced their support for the resolution:

As a matter of principle; we have supported the Resolution with the necessary caveats to preserve the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Libya; and rejecting any foreign occupation or unilateral military intervention under the pretext of protection of civilians. It is our hope that this Resolution will be implemented in full respect for both its letter and spirit.

We are confident that this is consistent with the African Union Peace and Security Council decision to “respect the unity and territorial integrity of Libya as well as its rejection of any foreign military intervention; whatever its form”.

South Africa will continue to work through this Council, the AU and other multilateral as well as bilateral platforms to contribute towards a speedy resolution of the Libyan crisis in a manner consistent with the aspirations of the people of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

Nawaf Salam, Lebanon’s ambassador to the United Nations said that the African Union, along with the support of Lebanon had approached the security council, to act quickly on the growing crises in Libya, and that Lebanon fully supports the action. Another critical ally in the Middle East.

Ghaddafi, under the resolution, was required to guarantee humanitarian aid get through to Benghazi and other parts of Libya. He was also required to call a ceasefire. He failed on both counts.
On Saturday, Ghaddafi’s tanks were advancing on Benghazi, breaking the terms of 1973, and resulting in the deaths of a dozen Libyans. It is also not known what has happened to many of the opposition in towns in Libya that were captured by rebels and then recaptured by government forces.

The Arab league really needs to be as involved as possible. Qatar appears to be about to help by sending jets to police the no-fly zone. The support of the Arab league and nations like Qatar will prove critical in winning support inside Libya. International cross-culture support is vital.

President Obama cannot win. He is involved in Iraq and Afghanistan. To get involved in another conflict in an Arab land, ahead of his re-election campaign next year could prove disastrous, but maybe not as disastrous as allowing a dictator long supported by the U.S to continue killing many innocent people, simply asking for democracy.

The end game in Libya is a worrying concept. Libya is not a beacon for democracy. Who will take over if Ghaddafi is overthrown? It isn’t going to be a representative democracy pop up out of nowhere. Their political landscape is far different from our own. And what if we end with two states splitting off from Libya, one surrounding Benghazi and one surrounding Tripoli? That would be a nightmare for foreign policy.

What remains to be seen, is when aggression against Ghaddafi’s forces will stop. Are we there to simply give the rebels half a chance against a crazed dictator who we have helped arm over the past few decades? If the rebels are able to defeat the governmental forces and create a new democratically lead government in Libya, then I cannot see how the U.N Resolution could be deplored. However, the potential for disaster always looms, especially in the shadow of Iraq and Afghanistan. With the backing of the Arab League, the perception of Western aggression should not come to anything, as long as this conflict is not prolonged and is not deadly in terms of civilian casualties.

If the conflict is swift, and the rebels are equipped to overthrow a tyrannical regime, and install a democracy, it will be a massive foreign policy success for David Cameron, especially given that he pushed for this no fly zone way before it was actually being discussed, and the U.S actually argued against not too long ago. The worry is that a no fly zone under the guise of “protecting citizens” turns into a full blow military conflict on the ground and a mass of civilian deaths. It is a huge gamble, but as it stands today, I fully support that gamble.

The mouth of a river in spring

When I was six, before life became work, and taxes, and benefit cheats, and women, and racism, and war, and men in suits, and bin collections, and Churchill car insurance, and bank charges for unplanned overdrafts, and Company mission statements with their empty phrases, and burnt out cars, and call centres, and fights to prove you’re masculine, and cars, and alcohol and other games that adults play, I got so angry at my mother one day that I ran away. It was a big decision. I packed my rucksack with crayons and a yoghurt, and ran away.

I braced myself for the harsh conditions I expected I would face as I set out on my trek.

Before I continue, I thought I should explain the state of mind I was almost always in, as a child. And nothing explains that state of mind better than a picture of me apparently pretending to be a surfboard.

If that isn’t enough, here is a picture I drew a couple of years later. I think this should convince you of my state of mind. And also, convince Tate Britain that I have been overlooked far too often for the Turner Prize.

Anyway, I had ran away from home.

I lived for the next ten minutes in a bush at the bottom of the garden, before making my way back across the hostile environment of the 20 or so feet to the house, to get back home because it was a bit cold, and I liked Saved by the Bell. I was under the impression that my mother must be going mad with worry, and the police might now be in the house, and that it’d teach her for not buying me the football magazine that I wanted.

Whilst I was in the bush, I decided that the ladybird that was on the leaf next to me, was called Daisy and that she was playing hide and seek with another lady bird and that I had to tell the other lady bird that I hadn’t seen daisy, if the other lady bird were to ask. The other lady bird never appeared. I guessed this was because Daisy had chosen a fucking amazing hiding place. She was on one leaf out of the hundreds of thousands of leaves that were enjoying the great British springtime. The leaf she was perched on was facing downwards. I decided that the leaf must be helping Daisy out but I couldn’t decide whether this was cheating or not.

I vividly remember wishing Daisy luck with the rest of the game, and that if I were her, i wouldn’t hide in the shed, because I once put all my action men figures in there and they are now covered in spider webs from the World’s biggest spiders. I used to think the dad spider (which was obviously bigger than my house) would eat me if I tried to rescue my action men. One day a few months later, I hatched a profound plan to rescue the action men (and wrestling figures), by creeping into the shed, with a beanie hat on, and my face covered by my hands, and making what I had decided were “spider noises” to trick the dad spider. It worked. The dad spider must have fell for my tricks. I felt so fucking clever. The action men and wrestling figures are now gathering dust in my loft, because my room is too full of work on the “qualitative methodology in research journalism“. So, when I remember all my little imaginative games (which I believed were real at the time), in those ten minutes in that bush when I was six, I had an imagination that I now envy twenty years later.

“We are like roses that have never bothered to
bloom when we should have bloomed and
it is as if
the sun has become disgusted with
waiting “

It is like a door that is slowly closing, to a room full of imagination. Every year that passes, the door creaks ever so more toward being fully closed, as your mind is taken up with things that do not make us happy, or achieve anything of any worth. I try to peek inside that door, when I am taking photos, or writing in my notebook, but it still requires much thought and consideration to enjoy. When I was six years old, it took no effort to believe that a ladybird on the leaf next to me, was enjoying the sun, with a game with her ladybird friends.

Imagination is limited to dreams now. When I was a child I had no need for dreams at night. My imagination in real life was adequate. Some days, I was a professional footballer who was only six years old, but had become the most successful goal scorer in history. The commentators would say “He’s incredible. The greatest that ever lived“. Other days I was a professional boxer. The World Heavyweight Championship was my pillow. I would put it on my stomach and use my mum’s dressing gown tie to tie it around my waist.The commentators, quite coincidentally would say “He’s incredible. The greatest that ever lived“. I was the greatest that ever lived at a lot of things by the time I was seven. I could sleep easily at night without having to dream, knowing my World Heavyweight Championship would still be there in the morning. Now, I dream every night. I remember every second of every dream. I interpret it as a desire to imagine. My mind simply telling me “Okay forget everything about your boring day, here is what matters……” followed by a dream about a theme park being built in my street over night and no one knowing who did it or where it came from (a genuine dream I had not too long ago).

When I see a ladybird now, I don’t even acknowledge it. I don’t count its spots. I don’t even give it a name and a back story. I am too busy thinking about the NHS reforms.

How sad.

I want my imagination to explain why I prefer the mouth of a river in spring, to the grey lifeless buildings filled with the grey lifeless people with their grey lifeless language, that frequent them, even though those lifeless buildings are where the money and the apparent “dignity” lies and why those grey lifeless people in the grey lifeless buildings with their grey lifeless language, don’t congregate every evening, to forget their colourless lives, at the mouth of a river in spring.

The grand of Duke of… underage sex brothels.

I don’t like dentists.
They exist only to hurt my face. I went to the dentist yesterday for two fillings. Today, my face feels eerily reminiscent of when I used to go to boxing and was furiously punched in the face by the kid with the hardest punch.

Instead of saying “Just two simple fillings today then”, in purposely misleading language to disguise the hell you’re about to face, like a cannibal saying “I’m having a man over for dinner”, he should have just said “Okay Jamie, I’m seriously about to make it feel like i’ve just raped your face. Then I might stamp on it. Just for fun. Oh and I have a fit assistant stood next to me, so you wont say no, because it’ll make you look like a wimp if you do. Is that okay? Good!”

He then makes me wear the most ridiculous looking shades in the World and puts a baby-like napkin around my neck. He then sticks a suction machine in my mouth. Any shred of dignity I had left is slowly wished away when he suddenly invites three female students to come and watch. He then decides that with me looking cool in my shades, a napkin to stop any drool, and a suction thing in my face, that now’s the time for small talk. So I have a numb face, a suction thing, the threat of dribbling everywhere, and three female students staring into my face. The only possible way it could have been less dignified, is if I shat myself at that moment.

Despite the horror at losing all dignity, I comforted myself by insisting that even if I were to shit myself, whilst being watched by students, and having my face raped by a crazy man in a white uniform, I would still be far more dignified than Prince Andrew. And that comforted me.

It emerged last week, that our marvelous Prince is good friends with a convicted Paedophile – Jeffrey Epstein, and has spent many fun filled weekends at Epstein’s mansion over in the U.S. A lady who used to help run Epstein’s mansion, admitted that lots of underage girls were seen topless and sometimes naked, in Epstein’s company, but insisted:

‘He was a very kind man and, while I don’t approve of things he’s been accused of, I liked him very much,’

One of those friendly paedophiles. I wouldn’t be happy if the Duke of Golf was making friends with the nasty type of paedophile. Anyway, Epstein was accused by over 40 girls between 13 and 17, of sexually abusing them, after they were recruited by other young girls to massage him. He served just 13 months in jail. He struck a plea bargain deal with US prosecutors, meaning he admitted minor charges, and so was unable to be tried for the more serious of crimes.

FBI agents found a list of names on his computer, and when asked if these men had also abused young girls, he pleaded the fifth amendment, suggesting that if he told the truth, it would be incriminating. The list includes famous people, and politicians.

One girl who was willing to testify against Epstein, named Jane Doe 102, now revealed as Virginia Roberts, now married and living in Australia, noted that she was just 15 years old when she had been:

sexually exploited by Epstein’s adult male peers including royalty

Roberts says that Epstein flew her to meet the Prince in 2001, and Andrew asked how old she was. She said she was 17, and Epstein’s girlfriend (Ghislaine Maxwell – daughter of late media owner Robert Maxwell) said:

“He’ll soon have to trade her in”

They all laughed, including the Prince.
Here is the Prince with Virginia Roberts, when she was 17 years old.

The FBI contacted Roberts years later to say that they found evidence that Epstein had been secretly filming her when she was in the bathroom, on the toilet.
This man is good friends with our Prince! Doesn’t it make you proud?

This comes almost a year after Wikileaks published files from a US Diplomatic cable showing that the US Ambassador was shocked at how rude and arrogant the Duke was. Referring to anti-corruption investigations, the Duke said:

“those fucking journalists … who poke their noses everywhere”

It seems he is unhappy that as a man who was born into privilege and given the job as UK trade envoy, simply to give him something productive to do, he should be above the law when it comes to corruption when involved in a massive Al-Yamamah arms deal between Britain and Saudi Arabia. He is also close friends with Gaddafi’s son – Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi and it is suggested the Duke may have played a part in the release of Abdelbaset Al Megrahi. Clearly he believes he should be allowed to partake in corrupt practices, and then relax at an underage sex brothel. We should leave him alone! The poor hereditary millionaire.

But it’s okay! Because his ex-wife must be able to provide some level of dignity back into a family of undignified over-privileged massive twats, right?
Wrong.
In 2009, Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, was caught offering access to her husband, Prince Andrew, by Mazher Mahmood of the News of the World posing as an Indian businessman, for £50,000. She is now a bankrupt alcoholic and her husband is friends with a paedophile.

My undignified experience at the dentist, is nothing compared to Prince Andrews escapades.

Prince Andrew, like Charlie Sheen, is currently winning.

Corporatocracy as Democracy.

In 2010 the U.S Supreme Court over turned limitations to Corporations financing political broadcasts in the U.S. They argued that to limit financing from Corporations would be an attack on their first Amendment rights. They didn’t however set how why they have defined Corporations as some kind of living organism that has political rights in the first place. It is a worrying precedent. It means all of a sudden that Corporations are like people. Only richer and more powerful, with very different interests. People tend to vote for safe jobs, better healthcare, safe products, and a decent level of funding for education. Corporations want weak labour laws, low Corporate taxes, and regulations (safe products?) as minimal as possible.

A lifeless, soulless, dead entity like a Corporation, having the rights assigned to people, is an awful step in the wrong direction. Should a Corporation like ITT have rights, in the US? ITT owned 25% of Focke-Wulf, the manufacturer of the Luftewaffe Nazi aircraft that was used to shoot down American airplanes during the war. It then won $27,000,000 in compensation after the Allied’s bombed the Focke-Wulf factory during the war. ITT also made radar and radio equipment used by the Nazis. ITT were funding the killing of Allied troops. ITT also helped to fund Pinochet’s control over Chile. One of the most evil dictators in the World. Colonel Sosthenes Behn, the head of ITT during the war, was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery for his service to the Country.

Exxon, whose named used to be Standard Oil of New Jersey, are responsible for shipping oil to the Nazis, even after Pearl Harbour. They also contributed, through a bunch of subsidiary companies, to Himmler’s personal fund. They now have the same rights as US citizens.

Profit before people.

The 2010 ruling means that climate change takes a back seat because it isn’t in the interest of oil companies. That the 1% of scientists who dispute man made climate change will be the only ones who are listened to. American Petroleum Institute, whose members include Exxon, have began to finance mainly Republican candidates this year. Martin Durbin, API’s executive vice president for government affairs quite openly said:

“At the end of the day, our mission is trying to influence the policy debate.”

Koch Industries Inc, gave $1.79mn to candidates. 90% of those candidates were Republicans. This of course comes as President Obama proposed ending subsidies for Gas and Electric companies by 2012. Apparently those companies aren’t happy that their Welfare cheque is about to be scrapped. A Welfare cheque that adds up to over $45bn. Their Republican bitches will of course defend them. But no universal healthcare! Healthy citizens = bad. Rich oil companies = great.

Republicans in the US House of Reps voted to cut off all funding to the UN Climate Change panel, the IPCC, because according to Blaine Luetkemeyer, a Missouri Republican:

“The IPCC is an entity that is fraught with waste and fraud, and engaged in dubious science, which is the last thing hard-working American taxpayers should be paying for”

The idea that it is “dubious science” is laughable. And the phrase “hard working Americans” is an empty one. Those same hard working Americans, I doubt want to see their money going to a mass of Corporate tax cuts either. Blaine Luetkemeyer’s claim of “dubious” apparently isn’t without irony, given that in 2004 he introduced a bill, based on Biblical principles, to the Missouri State Legislature, to define marriage as between a man and a woman. All for personal “freedom” as long as he gets to define what “freedom” means.

One the “dubious science” claim surrounding Climate Change, it always seems to come from Republicans. So I wondered why that could be? And then I found this. It shows Oil company contributions for 2010, and which Party – Republican or Democrat – those funds went primarily to. I think it’s pretty conclusive.

Roy Blunt, the United States Senator, from Missouri and whose campaign funds came mainly from big oil ($293,400 altogether) opposes cap and trade and supports drilling for oil on US coastlines. The League of Conservation Voters, who work to turn environmental issues into national priorities said that Blunt is:

“In his twelve years in office, Rep. Roy Blunt has taken good care of Big Oil by maintaining their costly tax breaks while continually voting against opportunities to create clean energy jobs, reduce pollution and improve fuel economy for Missourians,”

One wonders who runs the World? What a wretched democracy we all seem so proud of. I’m not proud of our democracy.

America is not the only country who laughably refer to their Corporatocracy as a Democracy. Britain is just as bad. Our Tory Government is funded heavily by the financial sector and very wealthy individuals. It is then unsurprising that the Coalition announced massive tax cuts, at the same time as massive spending cuts. They declared victory over the banks by the announcement of Project Merlin, designed to get banks lending more and cutting down on big bonuses. The Government are gleeful that they achieved something spectacular! That they finally tamed the out of control financial sector! JOY! ……… except they didn’t. The agreement to lend more and pay less in bonuses, is only for this year. Apparently there is no money left to pay for the care of disabled people, or to keep arts centres open. But there is money, for a 83% tax payer owned bank to offer its CEO a £4.5mn bonus in shares, on top of his 3.2mn bonus for 2010. There is enough money to give one man, a bonus (on top of his salary) of £7.7mn. We are still an economy controlled by the Financial sector. It is not Capitalism.

The Municipal Governing Body of Greater London is the City of London Corporation. It’s main control is over the City of London financial district. Their are residents there, but their vote is not very important, given that the majority of the votes for that region, are given to Corporations. They are called “non-residential voters”. Corporate voters. A Corporation may appoint a number of people to cast votes on its behalf based on how many employees it has. The employees don’t get a say, the CEO gets the vote. Those who are appointed voters can vote twice. Once for their Corporation and once for their own vote. Residents of the area can only vote once. It is one big Corporatocracy. The Republicans over in the States would be proud. They’d some how manage to refer to it as “freedom” and “giving power back to people“.

Corporate regulation is essential. Corporations have one legal requirement: profit. Humans, i’d argue are motivated not just by profit, but also by compassion, loyalty, doing the right thing, the advancement of the species and survival. Corporations, by law, must ignore all that stuff if it conflicts with their ability to make profit, and that is a dangerous thing.

Today we learnt that the Tory Government’s next line of attack against its much hated public sector (which, again, remember did no wrong, and caused no problems itself) is the attack on public sector pensions, because they are unfair in relation to private sector pensions. Well, instead of forcing equal misery across the public sector to match that of the private sector, why don’t you make the private sector pay up more?

Damn right i’m a Marxist, especially in this climate of horrendous shock right winged economics.

Let’s stop referring to Corporatocracy as Democratic.
Let’s stop referring to Corporatocracy as freedom.
Let’s stop blaming government for failings, when Government is pretty much owned by the Corporate World.

The point is, Corporations do not deserve rights. They are not people. Government is supposed to work for the people, not for the very wealthy, and at the moment there is no government in the Western World that is not wholly run for the benefit of the very wealthy.

That is not democracy.

If we believe absurdities, we commit atrocities…

You are perhaps going to have to forgive me for writing a blog that is all over the place, this is a subject that I have tried to grapple with for the past few days, almost non-stop, and so this blog is almost just a bunch of thoughts splashed on a page. It may not make sense.

On Thursday night I went to along to a debate between the Muslim International Public Speaker and Researcher Hamza Tortzis and Atheist Philosopher and editor of the Philosophy magazine “Think“, and senior lecturer at Heythrop College in the University of London Dr Stephan Law.

Allow me to set the scene.
95% of people in the room – Muslim.
5% – Atheist.

Stephan Law was useless. Absolutely useless. He provided no substantial argument and it was as if he hadn’t taken this entire thing seriously at all. He allowed Tortzis the opportunity to run rings around him, to the delight of 95% of the audience, who I think now worship Tortzis as a hero of monotheism. As an Atheist myself, I can happily say that Tortzis won, easily.

I was getting very irritated Law, because he wasn’t dealing with the often weak arguments raised by Tortzis. So after the debate I got a few minutes to try to debate with Tortzis myself. Unfortunately he had to leave and so I didn’t get the chance. But he very kindly left me his email address, so that we could carry on the debate via email.

One of his points that I took issue with, was the subject of objective morality. It is widely used by the religious community. Tortzis claimed that one can only have a sense of objective morality through God. I find that claim to be ludicrous. It is ludicrous because if it were the case, the practice of suicide bombing and child genital mutilation would not be wholly owned subsidiaries of the religious community. If that is objective morality, keep it.

I emailed this:

Firstly I wanted to debate a couple of points you made.
You suggested that we Atheists can have no moral basis, simply because we don’t have a belief in a God. You somehow linked a lack of belief, to a lack of basis for morality, to….. Hitler. As if Scientific rationalism (which i’d even agree, can be flawed) lead to Hitler and the holocaust. You mentioned Hitler and the holocaust in relation to a lack of basis for morality several times. The Pope actually made very similar remarks when he was in England.
Firstly, Hitler was Roman Catholic. He certainly wasn’t Atheist.
Hitler in 1922, said this:
“My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. .. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison.”
Hitler in 1933, said this:
“Today they say that Christianity is in danger, that the Catholic faith is threatened. My reply to them is: for the time being, Christians and not international atheists are now standing at Germany’s fore. I am not merely talking about Christianity; I confess that I will never ally myself with the parties which aim to destroy Christianity.”
Hitler, also in 1933, said this:
“We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.”
Hitler in 1934, said this:
“National Socialism neither opposes the Church nor is it anti-religious, but on the contrary, it stands on the ground of a real Christianity.”

To even have suggested Atheism can lead to the rise of people like Hitler, is a gross manipulation of the historical fact, which shows quite clearly that Hitler’s motives came far more from a belief in organised religion, than it ever did from some sort of Christopher Hitchens style Atheism. It is simply wrong of you to have suggested that, it cannot be presented in any other way. I was massively disappointed that Dr Law did not pick up on this.

Another reason why it is wrong to have suggested that it is Atheists who have no basis for morality, is that it would appear you chose to ignore the absolute atrocities committed throughout the history of religion, in the name of religion. Atheists did not imprison Galileo. Atheists did not torture people of other faiths. Atheists did not start a war, killing innocent people, over a piece of land in the middle of the desert. Atheism did not behead, torture, rape, encourage our “brothers” to kill in the name of our religion like the Catholic Church did in the 16th Century, or like Protestant England did around 1534 onwards. Atheism is not responsible for the idea that it is perfectly acceptable for a grown man to suck the blood out of the mutilated penis of a baby boy, like the Jewish Mohel is employed to do. It wasn’t Atheists who called for Salmon Rushdie to be beheaded, simply because he wrote a book. It wasn’t Atheists who burnt down a Danish embassy, simply because a cartoon “offended” them. It wasn’t Atheists who moved to the Colonies of the United States and began the biggest mass genocide up until that point, in history. It isn’t Atheists who shoot abortion doctors in America. It isn’t Atheists who go to Uganda and profess that condoms actually cause AIDs. It isn’t Atheists who torture and kill people in Africa simply for being in love with someone of the same sex, because their vicious dogmatic hatred tells them that is acceptable. It isn’t Atheists who blocked the entrance and constantly picketed and threatened staff at a cancer unity, and made that cancer unit in England give it’s donation back to the writers of Jerry Springer the Opera because they considered it “blasphemy”, thereby depriving that cancer unit of key equipment. Religions claims on morality are bordering on laughable, given the history of it. Where is the morality in that? Those people aren’t Atheists. They are religious, and they genuinely believe what they are doing is right by their God. Christianity even has ten commandments, in which most of them are just rules on how to not make God jealous, rather than something like “do not molest children”. You chose to ignore all of this, and by doing so, presenting just one simplistic version of what morality is, you managed to make a bunch of people who clearly could not think for themselves, sat in front of me, say constantly “great point!! Atheism is fucking nonsense”. And again, for our Atheist debater to have not picked up on any of this, was incredibly frustrating. What you essentially did, was ignore the immorality of religion over the years (which is so vast, I don’t even know where to start) and point to the holocaust, as evidence for where a lack of moral basis can lead, and even that was flawed because as seen, Hitler was Roman Catholic. So that entire five minutes of your argument was just invented history.

On to the subject of Atheist morality itself, you suggested we have no basis for morality. I would argue that my basis for my sense of morality comes from the progress society has made to get to the point we are at now. It is all a process of Natural selection. My basis for morality is the history of morality. We have acquired such “codes” if you will, to survive. The same can be said for religious evolution. Have you noticed that people who have so-called “Conversions” almost always convert to a religion that is predominant in their culture anyway? I never see a person in Leicester suddenly decide they need to convert to Taoism. It is rare to find a person in Leicester suddenly, out of nowhere, decide they had a religious experience in which they saw an elephant with a blue face and several arms, it will almost always, in the West, be a conversion to Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. There will be the odd one or two discrepancies, but if research were undertaken on this, I’m fairly certain we’d find that “conversions” are very much influenced by cultural values already quite strong in whichever area one grew up. This, i’d suggest, is because religion updates with the rest of society. If we were to abide by the Biblical or Quranic “ethics” of 1500 years ago, I cannot imagine we’d all be too happy.

You argued that Atheist morality cannot have objection meaning. Well, nor can religious. Religious people will always argue that their book can be interpreted in many ways, so by definition, it is subjective. An Islamic fundamentalist will no doubt read the Quran far differently to how you do. Does that mean he is wrong? Why is he wrong? He is interpreting the Quran in his own way. He is getting out of the Quran, how his mind interprets it. So on the one hand an Islamic scholar may completely deplore Islamic fundamentalism, and on the other an Islamic scholar elsewhere may condone it. Subjective morality based on apparently objective values. If Christians were to interpret the Bible in the way that early Christians did, then the institute of marriage now would be between a man/rapist/child molester and his virgin woman, another woman, another woman, a few more women, a hostage, a rape victim, and the female children of parents who have just been slaughtered. But never a homosexual, because that is apparently where they draw the line, quite amusingly.
So religion itself can be very subjective, because it rules are ambiguous and in many cases, very out-dated (as of my interpretation, i’d guess you might interpret it differently – proving my point).

To his credit, he emailed back almost immediately with:

Hi Jamie
Thank you for your email
I will read thoroughly and respond appropriately
But one thing you need to understand, I never claimed Atheists have no moral foundation or are immoral, not once did I say this.
What I said was that in absence of God you do not have a conceptual anchor that transcends human subjectivity. In other words there is no foundation for objective morality.
With regards to the Nazi Germany point, I never claimed that Hitler was an atheist! My point was that if we take social pressure as a foundation for objective morality then we cannot fully condemn such atrocities which were the result of social pressure.
You really need to listen to what I am saying, and not skew what I say via your previous experiences with religious people etc.
I will respond in more detail. But in the mean time please read “Ethics” by J L Mackie (who was a leading atheist philosopher) and you will see that according to the atheistic perspective there are no objective morals. They are just relative.
Warmest Regards
Hamza

I never said I thought he’d told me that Atheists are immoral.
The line:
“My point was that if we take social pressure as a foundation for objective morality then we cannot fully condemn such atrocities which were the result of social pressure.”
…. is a again misleading, because if we take Religion as a foundation for objective morality, we cannot fully condemn such atrocities that are committed by people who genuinely believe what they are doing glorifies God.

Also, the line:
“a conceptual anchor that transcends human subjectivity”
is very unnerving, because a concept, by definition, is surely man made? And so a concept cannot transcend human subjectivity. A conceptual anchor is just another way of saying a theory. A concept cannot be an anchor because it is not, by definition, truth. Surely a conceptual anchor could also be a political theory…….. like Fascism? To its adherents, it transcends human subjectivity.

The greatest adversaries of morality, are those within the religious community, who sincerely believe that the acts of great cruelty and evil that they commit, are permitted and encouraged by their God and that they will be receiving a reward in an afterlife for committing such acts.

If your book of “objective morality” can permit such acts, or be interpreted to apparently condone such acts, then I do not want your objective morality; it’s fucking horrific. I never once claimed, nor do most Atheists, that we base our moral foundation on social pressure. I certainly don’t. I base it on the one rule that outshines every other when it comes to morality: Treat others as you would be happy to be treated yourself.

Are we honestly saying that for hundreds of thousands of years, the evolving man raped and murdered his way across the World, and then, in the middle of the Desert, 1500 years ago, God suddenly said “okay this needs to stop”. How ridiculous.

Surely an objective truth is objective to the person making the moral statement, unless he is lying. So if there is only subjective morality and I say “It is moral to slaughter millions of Jewish people“, that is objective to me, in the same way as a Muslim suicide bomber would argue that it is morally right to fly a plan into a building.

The reliance on a God for the basis of objective morality, is subjective also because one cannot prove, or come anywhere close to proving the existence of God, and so one cannot prove, or come close to proving the existence of objective morality. I have just as much evidence to say that my God is a man with three heads and talks to me when I am asleep, and has told me that it is morally acceptable to kill all men with ginger hair. If we are to take the Theist argument, then that is my new basis for objective morality. You can be as absurd as you wish, and claim that that particular absurdity provides you with a foundation of objective morality, without offering any proof into the existence of the very thing that apparently gave you the morals in the first place.

Moral objectivism is contradictory, because it updates itself when new evidence is presented to the contrary. So it is subjective by nature. Maybe moral conservatism is a better term. If we are the follow the “objective morality” of the Old Testament, we must surely be arguing the case for slavery? Have the moral objectivists succumbed to so-called “social pressure”? Was the “objective morality” of the Old Testament simply “objective morality” within the context of the time period, in which case, it isn’t objective.

Suicide bombing is almost monopolised by religion. Shooting abortion doctors is definitely monopolised by religion. Chopping the foreskin off of a baby is definitely monopolised by religion (it is also a crap argument for design, if you have to cut off the foreskin of a babies penis, had God messed up when he created foreskin?). Marrying off children to older men is definitely monopolised by religion (and the Catholic Church is REALLY trying hard to make paedophilia a monopoly held by religion). “Objective morality” sent by “God” necessarily makes otherwise good people do awful things they would not normally do. Where would anyone get the idea that it is okay to mutilate a child’s genitalia, without their “conceptual anchor” saying so? Is that really what we’re calling a morally superior system?

How are we to judge whether what organised religion tells us is an objectional basis for morality, is moral in itself? How can you say for certain that it isn’t the work of Satan trying to mislead us? How am I to judge the morality of your Holy Book? Where does the objective foundation for my judging your Holy book come from?
It remains, that even if you conclude that objective morality can only come from God (which I absolutely don’t accept), there is no way to know that that basis, is moral in itself, for that you require belief.

Tortzis continued:

Whatever basis you select or decide for our sense of morality it will always render morals subjective, unless its God.

Take evolution and social pressure for instance. They both change and therefore make morals relative to biological or social changes.

Why must moral facts, come from a God? We can, as Atheists, say rationally that causality plays a role in our morality. We can say that by a given action, this will happen, we can deduce a moral judgement. David Kelley in “Logical structure for objectivism” (which I’ve just picked up at the library, for this very reason) states:

” Material needs such as needs for health and food: these values contribute directly to survival.
Spiritual needs such as needs for conceptual knowledge, self-esteem, education and art: these values are spiritual in the sense that they primarily pertain to consciousness, and contribute to survival by helping Reason to function properly.
Social needs such as needs for trade, communication, friendship and love: these values are social in that they occur only through interaction with others. Logically, their status as values is due to the fact that they contribute to the fulfillment of spiritual and material needs.
Political needs such as needs for freedom and objective law, which are needs concerning the organization of society. These provide the context for fulfilling our material, spiritual and social needs”

It is a similar point to what Maslow was getting at. Objective morality, they argue, is based on causality. Like religion though, the basis of that morality is quite clear, whilst the implementation may differ from person to person. My need for love being that with a member of the opposite sex, will be different to my gay friends, but the need for love itself, is objective. This doesn’t then lead us to say that that particular objective structure, could lead to the rise of Hitler or people like Hitler. Because you must introduce context to the action, because context is reality. Killing a snake as it about to bite us and killing someone on the street are two entirely separate things. The state of ourselves, the state of the thing being killed, the action needed to perform the killing, all lead to different results. One way, we are saving ourselves, the other way, we are a criminal who just murdered someone. The Bible states “Thou shalt not kill”. There is no context to that, we just must never kill. So, actually that is not objective, because it isn’t based on reality, because it doesn’t take into account context, and context is always necessary to make moral judgements. Dogmatic subjectivism cannot give moral answers. As we see every day with the way religious people use their religion to carry out horrific acts.

Thomas Paine noted this, two centuries ago:

“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistant that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.”

Are we to claim that those cruel and tortuous executions, that unrelenting vindictiveness is objectively moral?

So, i’d go one further and suggest that kinship is also a factor. In fact, i’d suggest objective morality is a very deep mental process that cannot be summed up with just “God”. It is a process of learning. It is kinship and the recognition of others right to life as we recognise it in ourselves. It is knowledge, education, health, freedom, friendship and love, and causation, leading to what it is that will make us happy without hurting those around us; treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself. If we hadn’t developed this system of “codes”, we would not be here now, we would have been one of 99% of natures victims. If I bring God into the equation, I may treat others as I wish to be treated…. unless they’re Gay, or a non-believer, then I should unquestioningly presume they are going to hell, but just after I have sold my slave.

We have evolved to have certain characteristics; love, aggression, hate, friendship, compassion, anger. We note which ones give a positive response from others, and so that becomes a part of our moral decision making process.

Besides, I think I have found a moral in the Bible, that I actually like:

So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But Thomas them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
John 20:25

I interpret this very subjective passage, to mean that one should question everything, until you see what is being fed to you as truth, demonstrated for you. I like that moral. I will stick to that moral, because that moral leads me to logically conclude that the god of the Bible, does not exist.

If we are to accept that the foundations of objective morality come from God, then why worry about anything that He has created? Humans existing and living in parts of the World that are largely uninhabitable? The fact that we have natural disasters that aren’t in anyway the fault of humanity? It’s all part of God’s plan. Why care? Do we have to care for the sake of reward in an afterlife, or fear of punishment? Is that moral? If my boss is saying to me “you either come to work, or you stay at home, but if you stay at home I will sack you”….. then morality suddenly has a context factor introduced, which renders it almost immoral; i.e – I am going to work, because if I don’t, I will be punished.

The morality of the Quran and the Bible seem to be “I, God, made you sick, with a sickness that I created, and now I have given you the chance to be well, but if you don’t get well, I will have you tortured for eternity”. If I were to enact that kind of regime on Earth, I would surely be labelled immoral by many different people, including the religious.

I find it simply absurd, that apologists of organised religion can have the nerve to claim they have a foundation for objective morality, when people within their own faith cannot even agree on its rules. It is a contradiction beyond anything I think I’ve ever stumbled across.
The mere idea of objective morality is just as troublesome, if not more so, than moral relativism.
Perhaps we should call religious “objective morality“….. “non-thinking morality” or “blind acquiescence morality“.

There are actually no amoral primate social groups anywhere in the World. Even Baboons have codes of conduct. The biologist Edward Wilson describes instances where chimps jump into water to save drowning mates. He suggests this is a primitive version of morality.

Michael Shermer, the American scientist has noted that certain traits are noticeable in great apes:

attachment and bonding, cooperation and mutual aid, sympathy and empathy, direct and indirect reciprocity, altruism and reciprocal altruism, conflict resolution and peacemaking, deception and deception detection, community concern and caring about what others think about you, and awareness of and response to the social rules of the group.

This suggests a rather primitive form of moral codes, to aid the survival and progress of a social group.

I would argue that morality is innate, it has evolved along with humanity over millions of years. It is an essence of solidarity and survival. For a good person to commit a great evil, is far more often committed because the person believes they have permission from a God to commit such an evil. Evil people will always do evil things, good people will only do evil things for their “conceptual anchor” be it a political concept or a religious concept. A suicide bomber who blows himself up outside of a hotel or a school, is not necessarily born with the belief that killing innocent people including children is a moral act. Their interpretation of their faith is what guides them to commit atrocities, so how fucking dare the religious apologists try to suggest that they have the monopoly on objective morality, because for too long all it has achieved is the casting of a vicious and violent and hateful shameful shadow over humanity.

I would also go one step further and claim that religion came about as a product of morality, not the other way around. Fear of punishment was a great way to get humanity to obey certain rules of conduct, very similar to how Hitler used the abstract “conceptual anchor” of Nationalism.

Is it true that without a divine dictator, everyone would do exactly as we wished? We would all be murdering our way through life? No. Of course not.

“If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities” — Voltaire

Racism in America: Lincoln

The election of Barack Obama in 2008 brought with it the utopic notion that racism in the United States of America was over. I certainly do not the doubt the momentous appointment of an African American man to the office of President of a country that was built on racial genocide and slavery. A country that less than a century ago, during the life time of my grandparents, did not allow a white child to attend the same school as a black child simply on the basis of race. The elevation of a black man to the highest office in American politics is symbolically another step on the road to tackling the evils of racism.

This blog isn’t meant as an analysis of Obama. He is essentially part of an establishment that favours financial institutions, oil companies and private health insurers above the lives of the less wealthy, and panders to the apparently widespread American belief that the very wealthy deserve massive tax cuts at the behest of the most vulnerable. He is no different in that respect regardless of his skin colour.

I wanted instead to focus on the beliefs of America’s 16th President, Abraham Lincoln, and his complex and often contradictory approach to slavery. Like Jefferson before him, it is almost impossible to figure out where Lincoln stood on the issue, and conflicting books are widespread. Lincoln’s party politics and his true beliefs seem to be confused much of the time, and yet history tends to stick entirely to his party politics regardless of the motives. I wanted to explore those motives more in depth.

Yesterday I went along to see an hour long lecture by Professor Richard Carwardin, the President of Corpus Christi College Oxford and winner of the Lincoln Prize for his book “Lincoln: A life of purpose and power“, a favourite of George W.Bush. Obviously there is a very limited and narrow version of Lincoln’s life one can present in just an hour, but Carwardin alluded to Lincoln as a great emancipator, as if he had been way a head of his time and the progressive champion for the freedom of black slaves, willing to fight a war for its eradication.
I would argue differently.

Lincoln wasn’t happy with the fact that slavery had become an issue by the time he took office. Lincoln told the esteemed journalist Henry Villard;

“I will be damned if I don’t feel almost sorry for being elected when the niggers is the first thing I have to attend to.”

Lincoln was not prepared to go to war for the abolition of slavery in itself. He had agreed to back an amendment to the Constitution, penned by the Representative from Ohio, Thomas Corwin, that would have made it Unconstitutional for Congress to amend rules or abolish slavery. Lincoln backed it.
The Corwin amendment read:

No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State

In his inaugural address, Lincoln referenced the proposed amendment, stating:

“Holding such a provision to now be implied Constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.”

Interestingly, the amendment passed Congress by the two-thirds majority needed, but was never fully ratified in the State legislatures, and is still up for ratification, as it was never thrown out. If it had been fully ratified, one must wonder just how different the U.S would look today. The fact remains though that up until the outbreak of Civil War, Abraham Lincoln supported a Constitutional Amendment rendering it impossible to abolish the institution of slavery.

The worry from the Republican Party of the Lincoln years, was not so much the moral implications of ethical dilemma of the owning of slave labour, but the economic problems it creates. They worried that slave labour merely worked to undermine wages of the poor white working classes, and just created a new dominant class known as “Slave Power”. They worried that the Slave owning classes in the South were just violent and expansionist people with a goal of Empire. This paranoia wasn’t without merit, but it was borne out of the relatively new Nation’s deep suspicion of Empire and too much power. Lincoln charged that the Southern Democrats and slave owning classes were out to take over Cuba and the war on Mexico seemed to confirm those suspicions. The Civil War Confederate cry of “States rights!!” was simply the right for the very wealthy land owners in the South to keep and abuse people with darker skin, and the right to centralise power within very few hands. Only the free States were fighting for States rights.

Lincoln’s famous signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. It is doubtful whether the proclamation actually freed any slaves whatsoever. Depending on your source, it was either the greatest achievement of the short Presidency of Lincoln, or it was useless. No one really knows. One thing is for sure, Lincoln signed the proclamation as a further attack on the South (rightfully so). In September 1862, he demanded they return to the Union or he would free their slaves. Not “and i’ll free your slave“. It’s an ultimatum. If you rejoin the USA, you get to keep your slaves… if you don’t, we’re freeing them. He is more concerned here with preserving the Union – an abstract concept – than ending slavery. The Proclamation not only didn’t free slaves in the Confederacy, it didn’t free slaves in the slave holding States in the Union – Kentucky and Maryland.

The Proclamation looked good for Lincoln, as it put real pressure on the Confederacy. France and Britain were very anti-slavery, and he needed support and recognition of the legitimacy of the USA in a war that at the time, no one knew which way it might go. With the support of France and Britain, and so legitimacy, it helped Lincolns case. It was similar in a way, to how old European powers gained legitimacy. When Henry Tudor took the Kingship away from Richard III, he was a nobody on the European stage and England was at civil war, much like America. Tudor needed an air of legitimacy, so he married Elizabeth of York; she happened to be the niece of Richard, and daughter of King Edward IV. This was the legitimacy Henry required, and won. He rather secured himself, by marrying his son – Arthur – off to the daughter – Catherine of Aragon – of the most powerful family in Europe; the King and Queen of Spain. The marriages and alliances were all about protecting himself, and securing his throne, not about love nor about the wellbeing of his Kingdom. Lincoln signed the Emancipation declaration, to protect his Throne by winning the support of the English and the French. Up until the Proclamation was signed, it seemed Britain was on the side of the Confederacy, having been involved in the provision of the British made warships the CSS Alabama and the CSS Florida.

Lincoln knew the Proclamation, which freed black slaves in Confederate States that fell to the Union forces, would compel black slaves and freed slaves to help the Union armies. He stressed in a letter to his friend James C. Conkling:

“I thought that whatever negroes can be got to do as soldiers, leaves just so much less for white soldiers to do, in saving the Union.”

The freedom of the slaves with the passing of the 13th Amendment was a tiny ripple in the water. Saying to a group of people who have had no access to education, to family ties, to survival, to anything other than a system that treated them as less than human for so long, that they are now “free”, is worthless. It is not freedom. It would take another 100 years before the real reforms were introduced. Lincoln was not a head of his time. The abolitionists were calling for equality, not just the ending of slavery. Economically, black Americans would be held down for more than a century in place of White privilege. Lincoln may have given them freedom, but he certainly did not give them anything anywhere near equality, and he knew it.

Even the banning of slavery expanding into new territories was a rather obscure policy that was not designed for the sake of the wellbeing of black Americans, rather it was an attempt to keep black people from being shipped to America full stop. It was a white supremacist policy that today would be deplored as vicious and racist. Lincoln, when talking about the banning of slavery expanding to new territories stated that he did not want the United States:

…….to become an asylum for slavery and niggers

The expansion into the West was an opportunity to spread the white race for Lincoln, who had no desire to see black people live there, stating in 1858 in Illinois, that:

in favor of our new territories being in such a condition that white men may find a home … as an outlet for free white people everywhere, the world over.

Lincoln was therefore using race as an unnecessary social divide. Race had only really became an issue, during the late 1700s and early 1800s. Up until then, nobody really cared what race you were. White slaves existed in the Colonies way before black slaves. The worry was that they would join hands and rise up, so race was used to divide them. Tell a poor white slave that he is more important in God’s eyes than a poor black slave, and suddenly there is no chance they will rise up together and overthrow the economic powers that hold them both down.

In 1853, Lincoln backed the Illinois State law that banned freed black people from moving to Illinois. They weren’t so free afterall. Lincoln it seems, was obsessed with the division of black and white, and even Mexicans, whom he referred to, out of the blue, for no reason, as:

“most decidedly a race of mongrels. I understand that there is not more than one person there out of eight who is pure white.”

He was a power obsessed, white supremacist.

The great emancipators in the Congress and the abolitionist leaders who pressured and pressured for Lincoln to keep to his line on abolition. Thaddeus Stevens, in the House of Representatives, and Chairman of the Ways and Means committee was a committed Abolitionist. This man was ahead of his time. He helped runaway slaves escape to Canada. He protected the rights of Jewish and Chinese Americans and he defended the rights of Native Americans. Stevens was a hero of the Civil War era and should be remembered as such, far above Lincoln. But one man stood out as great, even beyond that of Thaddeus Stevens, and that man was Charles Sumner, the Senator from Massachusetts.

Charles Sumner absolutely hated the institution of slavery. As did his father before him. He argued that freeing the slaves would achieve nothing, unless it was accompanied by a raft of legislation promoting equal rights both politically and economically. This was 100 years before equal rights began to take shape. He is responsible for one of my favourite quotes from history, that I tend to live by when shaping my political thoughts:

“The Utopias of one age have been the realities of the next.”

Sumner argued in a court case, that segregation was an abomination. The year was 1848. The case was Roberts VS Boston. It lead to the ban on segregation on the basis of race in all public schools in Massachusetts. It was over 100 years before the rest of the country would catch up.

Sumner’s extraordinary career taught me that it is okay to think radically, even if the rest of your contemporaries think that you are an idealist living in a dream land. The contemporary Senators did not like Sumner for his radical ideas on racial integration and equality, one Senator suggested that Sumner was unimportant and should be ignored:

“The ravings of a maniac may sometimes be dangerous, but the barking of a puppy never did any harm.”

It is a myth that Lincoln was a great emancipator and forward thinker and it is a great injustice that men like Charles Sumner go unrecognised and ignored by history.
Sumner’s face should be on Mount Rushmore. Not Lincoln’s.

Anyway, as Sumner argued, The Proclamation was meaningless, the 13th Amendment was the result of much pressure put on the administration. Lincoln himself once remarked quite tellingly:

“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.”

He stresses exactly why he felt compelled to free the slaves. It was not on grounds of compassion or freedom or respect for the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal, far from it, he did it for the sake of his own power:

“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.”

Abraham Lincoln was not a great emancipator. Nor was he one of the great forward thinking abolitionists of the time. He was a racist and a white supremacist who put his own position and power above that of the rights of a group of people who had different coloured skin. It is quite extraordinary that history teaches us that President Lincoln was one of the great Presidents who ended the horrific institution of slavery. The reality is far more ambiguous. It is much like the celebrating of Columbus day as a great day in American history, when in fact it simply marked the beginnings of a mass genocide. History should be taught with equal weight to both interpretations, if the subject is as ambiguous as that of President Lincoln and the question of slavery.