When I headed yesterday's post with the words "very strange" I didn't explain why.
I was referring to the fact that, although the troll continually tagged my comments elsewhere with some offensive remarks, he seemed to steer clear of my blog.
Any comment I made on the Angry Arab's Comment Section was likely to be followed by a personal attack on me. When the troll was warned about this he began to make racist remarks about the 'English'. Eventually was was banned, not for his attacks on me but for his lies, calumnies and extremist remarks; also, for generally pissing people off.
Then, much, much later, he shows up here.

He left two comments, using two different names, both on subjects aired some time ago.
The first was on Arthur J. Miller's piece about Robert Bales' massacre of Afghan civilians, and the historical context. This elicited the comment that Afghans hated the English and believed that the English supported the Taliban. No mention of the original subject.
The other comment was attached to a post about Palestine. This accused the English of trying to engineer a war between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and suggested (no kidding) that the English should go in and start their own war. There can't be enough concurrent wars for this self-styled follower of M.K.Gandhi. One is tempted to suspect a link to the US arms industry.
However, I've stopped speculating on the possibility that this dangerous fool is being manipulated by some organisation bent on creating conflict worldwide. Whether wittingly or unwittingly this individual is an agent of chaos, conflict, and ethnic, racial and confessional hatred.
He is poison personified.

Very strange!

Today these pages were visited by a troll who calls himself nana, or onan, or some such. His real name is Lal Bhujjakar, and like his namesake he is "an ignoramus who pretends to possess more sense than his neighbours".I meant to post his ravings here but deleted them before I'd copied them. People really need to read this stuff at least once to learn how dangerous an idiot can be.
He leaves his deposits all over the internet. Some people end up banning him, others tolerate him, presumably on the grounds that his idiocy is entertaining. Reaction to this fool is unusual in one way, in that even bloggers and posters who would be in complete agreement with him politically pour abuse upon his every comment. Presumably they fear that his outrageous lies undermine any credibility they might have managed to accrue.
One of his idiocies is that he lays the blame for all the world's problems at the door of the "English", by which he means the British. He believes that there is an English government, an English army, and even (still!) an English empire. We "English" are to blame for the trouble in Israel/Palestine, in Afghanistan, where we are hated, but, strangely, the Americans are loved.
I should have mentioned the the troll lives in the USA, is probably a US citizen, and, having a brown skin, has to out-American every WASP, to prove he deserves to belong.The troll, being a servile type, loves a bully. He reveres out-of-control capitalist robber barons. He worships the war criminals of the Israeli military, and all American warmongers are the cat's whiskers to Lal B.Any criticism of capitalist excesses brings forth a pile of statistics that he has clearly made up, but which are supposed to prove that capitalism is a boon to all. When challenged to identify the source of his figures he falls silent. Unless, that is, his challenger happens to be European. Then he falls back on racist abuse.
The troll claims to love the Palestinians, but in fact he hates them.He hates all Muslims, but claims to love some Muslims, Afghans in particular. He makes no bones about his hatred of Pakistanis and Iranians, but that's the line his masters in Washington feed him.
Taken all round he is a rootless nonentity who will kiss the feet of any bully, and vilify anyone who resists the bullies. His proclaimed love of the Palestinian people, is merely a device that (he believes) allows him to criticise all supporters of Palestinian independence and opponents of Israeli ethnic cleansing. "I love the Palestinians" he avers, "and Israel knows best what is good for them."
He is low, treacherous,lying scum, stupid enough to think I will help him to spread his poison.

I am now the unwilling possessor of a new upgraded blog. I am getting sick of these bastards messing me about, and am seriously considering transferring the lot over to wordpress. A couple of weeks ago I got a message as I logged in that I'd better hand over my mobile phone number or I might not be able to access my blog in the near future. Who says I own a mobile phone? Another time I went to delete a link to a blog I thought was no longer operative and was asked for all kinds of personal information before I would be permitted to perform this simple task. They can kiss my left buttock. I'm going to find an alternative to this parcel of snoops, data farmers and busybodies. If I lose all previous postings, tough. I don't suppose there's anything recorded here that hasn't been written by someone else at some time or other, and in better prose. The search is on.

28th March 1812: West Riding manufacturers turn their Mills into fortresses following warnings

NEW TO ME (No.16)

Mazy - "Sone Aluko opened the scoring after a mazy, 10th-minute run into the box" (BBC Sport). I looked it up, the word exists. It means something like "confusing, perplexing", though I suspect that a slightly different meaning; Young Sone was trying to find a way through the maze of the defence.

Another word I've just picked up, slang this time - jam roll, 'a Pole'. This is rhyming slang, and, as its a straightforward rhyme on the accepted name, it strikes me as inoffensive. Other terms, e.g., ship's rigger, tiddly-wink, are rhymes on offensive terms, and can only be taken as offensive in themselves.

I read a couple of verses of this song on FW Viola Wilkins' facebook wall, and had to chase it up. Iris Dement was just a name to me. I thought she was in a punk band and her surname was a shortened version of demented.
There is a video on youtube of Ms. Dement singing the song, but it's not a good one, and the crowd does a lot of yawping and gaping, which annoys - "whooping like out-of-work cowboys", as an old mate used to put it.

LIVING IN THE WASTELAND OF THE FREE

We got preachers dealing in politics and diamond mines
And their speech is growing increasingly unkind
They say they are Christ's disciples
But they don't look like Jesus to me
And it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We got politicians running races on corporate cash
Now don't tell me they don't turn around and kiss them peoples' ass
You may call me old-fashioned
But that don't fit my picture of a true democracy
And it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We got CEO's making two hundred times the workers' pay
But they'll fight like hell against raising the minimum wage
And If you don't like it, mister, they'll ship your job
To some third-world country 'cross the sea
And it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

Living in the wasteland of the free
Where the poor have now become the enemy
Let's blame our troubles on the weak ones
Sounds like some kind of Hitler remedy
Living in the wasteland of the free

We got little kids with guns fighting inner city wars
So what do we do, we put these little kids behind prison doors
And we call ourselves the advanced civilization
That sounds like crap to me
And it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We got high-school kids running 'round in Calvin Klein and Guess
Who cannot pass a sixth-grade reading test
But if you ask them, they can tell you
The name of every crotch on MTV
And it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We kill for oil, then we throw a party when we win
Some guy refuses to fight, and we call that the sin
But he's standing up for what he believes in
And that seems pretty damned American to me
And it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

Living in the wasteland of the free
Where the poor have now become the enemy
Let's blame our troubles on the weak ones
Sounds like some kind of Hitler remedy
Living in the wasteland of the free

While we sit gloating in our greatness
Justice is sinking to the bottom of the sea
Living in the wasteland of the free
Living in the wasteland of the free
Living in the wasteland of the free

"We don't care if we win, lose or draw ..." (old song)

Among the winners in Smirks Osborne's true-blue budget, one George Osborne PC. That's if he pays income tax, which is in doubt. Cameron too is better off, by £3,000 on his declared income ("Aides were said to be 'deeply concerned'by how Mr. Cameron's tax affairs will look to the public"). Mrs. Cameron is thought to be better off by c.£2,500. "Berkeley" Hunt, president of the Conservative Friends of Rupert Murdoch, is also a winner.
Let's cut to the chase - a cabinet containing 22 millionaires, any of them bothering to pay income tax is a few thou up.
To quote the catchphrase of one spewsome Tory bitch, "SURPRISE, SURPRISE!"

Now for a quote from Polly Toynbee in today's Guardian; "Labour says of 400 people earning £10m, only 16% pay any tax at all."

ASSIGNATION
(Maurice Rutherford)

It's not, dear Death, that I'm afraid to meet
you yet, but rather that I'd like to be
prepared, you know, leave nothing incomplete,
have time to dot my 'i's, to cross each 't'
and tidy up my final manuscript -
(the sneaking thought occurs that I might then
make late amendments, even have it ripped
to shreds, have time to write it all again).
It's not that I'm afraid of you at all,
no, just that all the deaths I've known have left
so much unsaid, unchronicled, the small
important things; and guilt in those bereft.
I do not ask you to defer my day
but Death, do send me first your e.t.a.

My big problem with "shaking a double-six" as older workmates used to call it, is lacking life insurance. My missus and sons will be left with a bill for the obsequies. Some legacy!
Anyway it's the hospital for me in the morning. If all goes well I'll be released back into the wild after three days. Otherwise, anybody's guess. Last time I was having my innards sorted out it didn't go too well - complications. So I'm not looking forward to this lot. Anyone who says what doesn't kill you leaves you stronger is full of shit (verbum sap.)

Maurice Rutherford is a local poet, knocking on, so illness, death, and reflections on soldiering in World War II, feature in his work. But there's a lot more, including the kind of local references dear to my heart. Here's a couple of lines about his childhood, hearing the place names that stirred his curiosity -

... I heard the names of magic places
beyond the garden gate - Bowlalley Lane, Springhead
Little Switzerland, Land of Green Ginger, Wincolmlee.

(later, same poem)

... White City, Swanland, Rotenhering Staithe,
Sammy's Point and Argyle Street Bridge, Gloucester Street.

SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE? 16 dead in Afghanistan murdered by a lone U.S. solider. The talking heads of the ruling class cry crocodile tears in proclaiming that this was just an isolated case, and not a reflection on what America is. Nor were the other murders by a few “bad apples” in Afghanistan and Iraq? Nor is the rise of family murders by soldiers? Nor is the American culture of violence seen throughout the U.S.? So how about the fact the the U.S. military has killed more innocent people in Afghanistan and Iraq than those the U.S. went to war against because they were murdering tyrants? How about the Moro Crater Massacre (Philippines), No Gun Ri Massacre (South Korea), My Lai Massacre (Vietnam), to name just a few Massacres of the innocent in U.S. wars? How about the genocide of the Native people in the land of America? The Washitam Massacre, the Bear River Massacre, the Sand Creek Massacre, the Wounded Knee Massacre, the Pine Ridge Reign of Terror, to name a few? Or the shooting down of working people, the Ludlow Massacre, the Lattimer Massacre, the Memorial Day Massacre, to name a few? How about the kidnapping of Black people for slavery, how many dead in that crime? How about the long list of lynchings of Black people, Native people, Chicano people, labor activists, remember Frank Little and Wesley Everest? Or the murder of Asian people throughout the west? Or the gunning down of students, the Orangeburg Massacre, the Jackson State Massacre, and the Kent State Massacre? Or the near endless list of cop killings of innocent people, remember John T. Williams, Bobby Hutton, Fred Hampton, and Joe Stuntz Killsright to name a few? How many innocent people have died by those trained at U.S. run School of Assassins? Are they all just isolated cases?

FW Arthur J. Miller, Tacoma IWW, Washington, USA

For Patrick's Day, some opinions of the Irish. One or two probably tell us more about the author than the subject. I posted similar quotations about the Scots one New Year's Eve and intended to do the same for the Irish, until I noticed that too many were about the Irish interest in genealogy, a product of the clan system. English officials, desiring the destruction of the Gaelic order and the adoption of feudal relationships, continually complained about, or sneered at, this custom. I've cut down on the genealogically oriented moaning, and boosted the vituperation level.

Scotus est, piper in naso.
Could have been of the Scots or the Irish, as I opined before. "No sooner a word than a blow", as the saying goes.

All the Irishe almoste, boste them selves to bee gentlemen ... for yf he can deryve him self from the heade of a septe, as most of them can ... then he holdeth him self a gentleman.
(Edmund Spenser, 1596?)

The people in general are great admirers of their pedigrees, and have got their genealogy so exactly learnt that though it would be two hours work for them to repeat the names only from whence they are lineally descended, yet, will they not omit one word in half a dozen several repetitions.
(Richard Head, "The Western Wonder", 1674)

... the Irish are all gentlemen, tho beggars and vagabonds, if they be of a name that has ever a gentleman of it.
(John Dunton, "The Dublin Scuffle", 1699)

Sometimes I addressed myself to certain Hibernian strangers who asked no better; and you should have seen us argue! ... We might have been taken for madmen rather than for philosophers. (Alain-René LeSage, "Gil Blas of Santillana" published serially 1715-1735))
The Irish exiled in mainland Europe were by repute as disputatious as the Scots. The notes to my English translation of LeSage's novel refer to an observation by his contemporary, Montesquieu, the the Irish have " ... a talent for argument that is to be reckoned with."

The Irish are not in a conspiracy to cheat the world by false representation of the merits of their countrymen. No, sir, the Irish are a fair people; they never speak well of one another. (Samuel Johnson, 1775)
Another gobshite.

He is a foreigner, he is Irish; republicanism does not penetrate such skulls.
(Dictionary of National Biography, first edition)
The reason given by the French convention commissaries for rejecting General Charles Kilmaine for a command-in-chief, though they described him as "brave, active and dashing".
Wrong!

The uncivilised Irishman ... abides in his squalor and unreason,in his falsity, and drunken violence, as the ready made nucleus of degradation and disorder.
(Thomas Carlyle, 1839)
Carlyle really was an old shit.

Torpid and degraded pariahs
(W.E.H.Lecky, C.1892)
The Irish peasantry, historically.

The great Gaels of Ireland
Are men that God made mad'
For all their wars are merry
And all their songs are sad.
(G.K.Chesterton, The ballad of the White Horse" 19??)
Poetic licnce, nobody's wars are merry.

Charming, soft-voiced, quarrelsome, priest-ridden, feckless and happily devoid of the slightest integrity in our stodgy English sense of the word.
(Noel Coward, 1960)
"The times they are a-changing."

A suggestion worthy of consideration -
"Calling anyone (without real cause) an anti semite should be labeled a 'hate crime'."
The comment follows this article. The writer is American, as is his spelling.

Last week, the BBC published an article by Defence Correspondent Jonathan Marcus under the title, ‘How Israel might strike at Iran’ (Subsequently altered to, 'How Iran might respond to Israeli attack').
Like a tourist guide, the piece listed Israeli aircraft under the banner ‘Getting There – Aircraft, Details, Task’ and identified ‘Potential targets’...

Returning to the BBC analysis, the ‘Task’ for each Israeli weapon system was described. However, when it came to Iranian defences, instead of ‘Task’, Marcus used the word ‘Threat’, thus presenting the imagined conflict from an Israeli perspective. Of course the Iranians might well perceive Israeli ‘Tasks’ as ‘Threats’. The media monitoring website News Unspun noted the biased language, complaints followed, and the BBC changed ‘Threat’ to ‘Efficacy’.
(Medialens, March 6, 2012)

TOLERABLE SAVAGERY
Western governments never expressed sympathy for the Syrian people: as victims of the Assad regime and as victims of Israeli occupation and brutality. Yet, Western governments were quick to call for arming the Syrian people only months after the uprising began.
The Palestinians, however, have never been treated with such permissiveness. No matter how much massive violence is inflicted on them, and no matter how many massacres they suffer, Western governments insist that the Palestinian people (and any other people living under Israeli occupation) have no right to resort to arms to liberate their lands and to “protect their civilians.” The last phrase is now the convenient Orwellian expression that allows NATO to bomb civilians in the name of protecting civilians. Protecting civilians is the new UN mandate for a select few (formerly colonialist) countries to rule over and determine the destiny of some countries that are not in the US camp. Saudi, Bahraini, and Jordanian civilians don’t enter into this formula, of course.
(via AACS)

RAMALLAH, March 12, 2012 (PIC)-- Palestinian captive Hana’ al-Shalabi who has been on hunger strike over the past 26 days is suffering a serious deterioration to her health according Physicians for Human Rights.

"The Labour leader had been set to give a speech to healthcare workers and union members in Hull on Saturday lunchtime, however he called off the appearance a day earlier.
"However, he was seen in the crowd at the football match at the KC Stadium, pictured with Hull City chairman Assem Allam".

Millionaire businessman 1, healthcare workers 0.
New Labourites never die, they only hide their true colours.

HANA SHALABI: A BRAVE ACT OF PALESTINIAN NONVIOLENCE

( by FW Flo, 10 Mar 2012)
IWW Cleaners and Allied Trades, London - Dear friends, compañeros, on the 5th March 2012, after a long and high profile campaign, the IWW secured yet another victory for our cleaner members employed at Exchange Tower who will now be paid the London Living Wage of £8.30 per hour.
For ten years many members have been earning poverty wages on the minimum wage. The arrival of the IWW immediately set about changing this situation launching a campaign for the London Living Wage, this saw widespread publicity, a motion in Parliament, our members stood firm in the face of the intimidation of the management company Cashmens who also managed Heron Tower.
On March 8th IWW in Frankfurt and industrial unionists in Warsaw and Tokyo were planning solidarity demonstrations at the offices of the MGPA owners of Exchange Tower.
However, the employers have finally conceded to the overwhelming and just demands of the workers.
Some of the traditional unions at Canary Wharf have abandoned the cleaners - full-time officials declared 'you need to keep your head down in a recession'. The IWW has continued to fight, organising the unorganised, the abandoned and the betrayed.
At Reuters nearby IWW is engaged in another campaign for the London Living Wage and for the removal of a gang of a feral managers intimidating cleaners. The gains at Exchange Tower send a clear message that solidarity wins justice in the workplace!

Thank you to all our members and supporters!
An Injury to One is an Injury to ALL! Solidarity Forever!

Europe is not for sale
This was the audience that greeted the German Finance Minister at his blame game lecture in Florence.
(via AACS)

feminism ain't about women
that's not who it is for
It's about a shift in consciousness
that will bring an end to war
so listen up you fathers
listen up you sons
and tell me which side are you on now
which side are you on?

A verse from Ms Ani DiFranco's latest offering, in recognition of International Women's Day.

From the same song -

lord knows the free market
is anything but free
it costs dearly to the planet
and the likes of you and me

I don't need no money lenders
suckin on my tit!
a little socialism
don't scare me one bit!

(lifted from Andy Funnell's blog on Unionbook)

"Following a report yesterday in The Observer the Labour MP John McDonnell has called for a parliamentary investigation into claims that police and the UK security services assisted in the compilation of an illegal blacklist of trade unionists and safety campaigners, who were denied work and have endured long term unemployment due to the blacklist operated by the Consulting Association."

Does anyone know how often 'President' Obama has to address AIPAC? It seems to me he has to renew his Israel First credentials every month. Maybe he gets a handout every time he grovels to the assembled moneybags.
I note that he's also made obeisance to the real President of the US, Netanyahu. How often does he have to lick those jackboots?

OH DEAR! Cameron's allies are getting out of hand. Let's just call them, bad apples, Dave, and get on with pumping the oil.

"They're not Salafists, they're very naughty boys." (Dave "Python" Cameron)

"All the arguments that are invoked by Western commentators in favor of arming the Syrian opposition can--nay should--be applied to the case of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation. I can't wait for the next Western person to lecture to Palestinians about the virtues of non-violence." (Angry Arab)

Speaking of hypocrisy, I note that our Prime Minister (who other national leaders seem to regard as something of a joke) has had harsh words to say to the Syrian government over its violent and repressive treatment of protestors. On the sickening events taking place in the former Libya he remains silent. If he cares at all I suppose the behaviour of his protegés is something he'd rather not acknowledge.