What I’m asking here is whether can you
think of anyone like that A fine man or woman who’s long been in the news.
Okay, maybe someone from the world of politics, entertainment or sport. Maybe from the world of work, or industry
and finance? Some philanthropist or other? In fact anyone! Anyone at all who
hasn’t got some dirty secret stuffed away in their shoe that some journalist
might dig up and expose to all the world for being a plain dirty rat underneath
all their do-gooding. Okay then, so can you think of any public figure who you
could turn round and say was truly virtuous and decent?
Well I’m still waiting! What, no-one! Not
even some politician somewhere who’s not crawling up his Party leader’s backside
or believes somewhere in his head that he’s in it because he really thinks he
can make
a real difference. Well come on… come out here and name someone and
give us all a laugh.
Well the public may know a few. People like
Labour MP John Mann, who’s done some fine and honorable things in his time and
there may be others elsewhere but truth is, these solitary figures are nowhere
near any of the levers of power and neither are they’re allowed anywhere near them
by their party hierarchy. Can’t have any of that sort of stuff!
I mean people doing really important things for the masses or those who are
needy! Making the lives of millions of people so much better. I mean
what kind of place do you think this is mate, a charity? Okay, so forget about
99.99% percent of politicians anywhere in the world. They’re just professional
liars or worse. People who started out with honorable intentions then sold out
on everything they believed in mainly because they bought into some story
whispered in their ear… if you really want to make a difference and
change things my friend then you’ve got to compromise and work with the guys at
the top… And so they do and next thing you know they’ve sold out on
their principles, done the dirty on millions and retired to a nice little farm
in the country.
One of the worst case stories in this
regard and such examples are endless is that of Cyril Ramaphosa, leader of the
South African Mineworkers Union who early on in his career fought for his
workers then after apartheid ended was given a directorship in one of the big
mining houses and became Deputy President of the ANC so when the South African
police shot and killed dozens of striking mineworkers a few years ago he was
there helping them along on behalf of the company!
No, decent public figures are like hens
teeth the world over but they can still be found. I’d like to nominate two for
my category of THE GOOD… One is the President of Uruguay Jose Mujica known
generally to the people of that country as Pepe and commonly acknowledged as the poorest President in the world. He
lives on a small ramshackle farm that belongs to his wife off a dirt road
outside the capital Montevideo where they grow flowers together. Laundry is
strung on a line outside their small house, their water comes from a well full
of weeds in the yard and there are only two policeman on guard. As is well known he gives away 90% of
his monthly salary of around £7,500 to charity and refuses to live in any kind of state palace. Now can you
imagine ANY politician in Europe or America doing this, let alone any party leader?
I mean, can you imagine any Labour leader living in a council house and working
an allotment let alone any Tory?
My second nomination for a single public
figure who’s done a great and good thing is the American Edward Snowden, now
forced to live permanently in Russia. The thing he’s done for the people of the
world, for everyone no matter who they are, is to let them know that they’re
all being spied on one way or another by the intelligence agencies of the
United States and Britain. That it’s not just a matter of governments spying on
each other world-wide or their military doing the same. I mean the usual thing
with the Americans spying on the Russians and vice-versa. No, this goes much
wider than politicians or the military or industrial and commercial secrets.
What I’m talking about here is EVERYONE being spied on. Just about all
of us! Now that’s something new altogether.
Edward Snowden, who used to work for
various American government and commercial spying agencies has revealed to
everyone across the globe whether political leaders, corporate figureheads or
just you and me that they’re all being spied on! And I’m not talking about any
justification here like doing it for national security purposes or the
prevention of terrorism, things that are indeed undoubtedly justified. No, what
Snowden’s revealed is a total blanket invasion of personal privacy along with
its methods, targets and perpetrators operating within national state security
services. What he’s exposed is a huge world-wide dark web of secret intrusion
into the personal lives of people across the whole planet. People who might
have thought they were simply of no interest to anyone are uncannily on record as being
persons of potential interest. And here we’re talking of databases of billions
of people.
For his action in exposing these facts Edward
Snowden earned the condemnation of the entire British and American political
and civilian administration. So why was that? Why didn’t this narrow band of
British and American secret society want us to know that they had the ability
to check all of us out on a regular basis? Was it simply a lack of faith or
trust in everyone all over the planet?
So now you know and such knowledge can’t be
undone. That is the power of Edward Snowden’s revelation and the reason why the
American Justice Department is so deadly keen to get their hands on him and dispense
their own kind of justice somewhere in secret to someone who’s revealed a great
truth. And if they are so incensed by his deed which they of course regard as a
betrayal it’s because he’s revealed
their fundamental and deep lack of trust for those elected politicians who
allow it to happen. Who are supposed to serve the people’s interest, not their
own.
The rarity of individual GOOD aside, the
real Good in our society are the hundreds of thousands of people who work for
the NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE whether as doctors, nurses or ambulance drivers,
cooking and cleaning staff, porters or anyone else who does a caring day’s
work. All of these together make up a collective force of THE GOOD. They are
the people who one way or another help to make the health of people in our
society better and improve their wellbeing. And there is the wonder of it all
really. These people who do this good
thing do it for little reward and are badly treated by those who could if they
wanted reward them far better. I refer to the elected Members of Parliament
many of whom cheat the public in falsifying their expenses claims. These
politicians who treat THE GOOD so badly with a one percent or less annual pay
rise are themselves famous for fraudulently claiming expenses from the public
purse.
Who then are these people who habitually
treat this slim strata of THE GOOD in our society so badly? Who claim there is no
additional Government money to give them when they hand the banks billions of
pounds for shoring up their finances and ensuring that their already wealthy investment
jockeys receive great sums of public money as a reward for doing nothing. Why
are such people and institutions so rewarded when THE GOOD in our society are
told that there’s absolutely no money for them? Who then are they who are
preferred and rewarded? Are they the good and decent people in our society who
help save lives and help make us well, or are they part of what may best be
described as THE UGLY?
So far I have gone some way towards
establishing and identifying THE GOOD. This done I now turn my attention to THE
BAD. Who are those we can say are the really bad people in life? Please, I’m
not just talking about your nightmare
neighbor from hell and goodness only knows, everyone seems to have one
living next to them these days especially if you’re from Essex. I mean if it’s
not his pit bull poodle pissing on your flowers after sneaking in under a fence
it’s their cat having a shit on your hand crafted cabbages. But then I’m not
talking about handfuls of minor nasties here and there. The kind of underclass beauties
you see on the Jeremy Kyle show or the jerk-offs who screw a living out of
politics or working in finance which simply put means lying to and cheating the
general public. No, I’m not talking about the little league BADDIES like the
Government that hacks into your savings and gives you a shit pension or the
criminals from East Europe and the Baltic States who do likewise to your
banking details and credit cards.
NO, I’M TALKING EVIL HERE. THE SERIOUSLY
BAD!
That said, come take a trip with me to
Mexico! Ah Mexico! Sounds all romantic doesn’t it? Well Mexico is now governed
by something that used to be like an old socialist party. Believed in fairness
and justice for the poor. That kind of thing. Now it’s all different. The old
party’s still there and a President rules, but to help him do it Governors are
elected for all Mexico’s various states and in each of the States there are
towns and cities which have elected Mayors and local politicians round them.
And in all these little towns and cities there’s a local police chief with all
his friends round him too and once upon a time everything was happy and easy.
You slept in the afternoon then got drunk and made romance in the evening.
Alas, the oil and mineral rich economy that could have created prosperity for
everyone never really got going.
So what you have instead is a country
sandwiched between Colombia to the south, the drug producing epicenter of the
planet and the United States of America, its main consumer market, to the
north. In time the States of Northern Mexico became key in the drugs transit
trade. First the drugs cartel gangsters bought the politicians, from Governors
down to Mayors with the huge profits from the trade. The politicians then
bought the police and other law enforcement agencies. In short the drugs cartel
gangsters placed the control of the drugs transit trade ultimately in the hands
of the politicians and the police. Now forget about these gangsters shooting
and killing each other all over the place in what are described as turf wars. These killers are of no loss
to anyone. Recently however things have changed.
Hundreds of thousands of people all over Mexico,
revolted by what the gangsters are doing have begun fighting back. And so too
have the gangster friendly police and politicians! Leading the fight against
the vile drugs trade that has destroyed the lives of so many of their fellow
Mexicans are Mexico’s students. A few months back a large party of them, 45 in
all, travelled to Iguala, a town in the northern state of Guerrero to join a major
anti-drugs demonstration. Prior to their arrival the Governor had been alerted
and notified the town Mayor that they were coming to demonstrate. Such an event
was likely to cause a bit of a problem
so the politicians decided to act. The Mayor contacted the Chief of Police who
got together with his best officers and sensibly decided how to deal with the
problem. Why not let their friends handle it? Why not indeed? When the students
arrived the police rounded them up in their cars and took them away for
safekeeping. To places where their friendly gangsters were waiting. After that the
45 students disappeared.
Days and weeks passed and none were heard
from again. Families, parents and Universities began making enquiries until
suddenly things became serious. Mexico’s President, politicians and lawmakers
began getting involved! The Governor of the State was asked questions, then the
town Mayor, then the Chief of Police. They in turn all disappeared after which the
Federal Police were called in and large numbers of gangsters arrested. Some
talked. All 45 students handed over to the gangsters by the police were
murdered. Many choked to death, many just shot. All of them buried in dirt
graves by the road. Meanwhile the Mayor and the Police Chief along with their
wives are still hiding out. Enough said. That’s what I call THE
BAD.
One other example of the seriously BAD has emerged
from Latvia in the last week. Latvia’s one of the Baltic States many of whose
citizens collaborated with the Nazis in perpetrating atrocities against
civilians in the Second World War. Indeed, what astonished the Germans when
they arrived was that so many Latvians, along with Lithuanians, volunteered to
perpetrate and participate in these atrocities without having to be asked!
Indeed in major towns and cities of these countries local police squads were
busily occupied rounding up Jews or anyone else the Germans wanted to murder
and interestingly enough, in Latvia today, former Latvian members of the Nazi
SS receive a wartime pension from the Government for such services.
The really nasty news however has to do
with a play now being performed in the capital Riga glamorizing the life of
Herberts Cukurs a Latvian aviator and member of the notorious Arajs Kommando
unit responsible for the mass murder of tens of thousands of Latvian Jews. He’d
been actively present at the clearing of the Riga Jewish Ghetto and personally
committed many atrocities there. He’d also assisted in the burning of a
synagogue on Stabu Street, Riga, dragging many Jews out of neighboring houses
and locking them inside the building before shooting them with his revolver
after they’d broken windows trying to escape the smoke. Added to this is his
active presence at the death pits of Rumbula with other members of the Arajs police
Kommando where close to eleven thousand Jews were murdered.
After the War this fiend walked into
Germany disguised as a soldier then escaped to Brazil via France. Soon he had a
successful business career going, never trying to hide his identity. In 1965 he
was lured to the Uruguay by the Israeli Mossad and assassinated in Montevideo in February 1965. Since his timely death
various attempts have been made in Latvia to rehabilitate this mass murderer as
a national hero. The play now on glamorizing his life is one further Neo-Nazi
effort which the current Latvian Government justify in the name of free speech.
In contradistinction to those whose
activities justify them being called THE
GOOD,
people like this and the murdering drug gangsters of Mexico justify
being labelled plain BAD along with those who seek to
glamorize their evil. They are all, to my mind, THE BAD…
THE UGLY however are
another story and for some reason my thoughts keep drifting to the perpetually
grinning or scowling face of Ed Miliband. There’s something unnatural about it.
About the grins anyway. It’s like they’re contrived. Desperately over the top. A
mad Miliband grin that always appears in times of adversity. Something
purposeful, as if to say, no there’s nothing wrong at all mate. Everything
in the garden is lovely, except you know that it’s not and it’s
something put on because someone’s been gunning for him. In short he’s putting
it on. Showing that absolutely nothing is getting to him! Trouble is it just
isn’t working and everyone can that it’s plain artificial. In its own way plain
UGLY,
a bit like Gordon Brown trying to smile!
Well that’s really something! What, Gordon
Brown jovial? A Merry Man? Please, pull the other one! The very idea is absurd.
Something that doesn’t come natural. Something he just doesn’t mean. In fact he
doesn’t really like you at all. Doesn’t like having to justify himself to a plain
little shit like you. That’s not a spontaneous warmth in his face, more like an
underlying distaste.
The smiles of both men are forced. Neither are
naturally at ease with themselves and Gordon Brown in particular is clearly ill
at ease with himself in public. It’s a very noticeable existential clash and a
really bad birthmark for any public figure, especially a politician. Despite
this, the man has done pretty well for himself and if the public have noticed
it they haven’t reacted. Not even when his deeply flawed economic policies
caused such catastrophic collapse in most people’s fortunes as well as that of
the nation!
Gordon Brown’s ugliness is that he’s never
thought his political actions were wrong. Perhaps he simply doesn’t have the
mechanism to be self-critical. He’s undoubtedly responsible for causing a great
economic catastrophe that’s inflicted such damage to the lives of so many
people yet he simply won’t acknowledge the fact. Ed Miliband’s ugliness is
possibly more serious. Though from a Jewish background, his Judaism has been a
real problem for him, particularly with regard to his relationship to Israel.
To an extent this has been conditioned by his fiendishly pro-Palestinian mother,
a notorious enemy of the Jewish State. Dave Miliband, Ed’s older brother
revealed her influence when as British Foreign Secretary, he showed his
hostility by imposing export embargoes on certain trade areas between the two
countries. Ed on the other hand, as current leader of the Labour Party has recently
linked it to supporting the creation of a Palestinian State. What this effectively
means is supporting a Palestinian leadership committed to terrorist acts and
atrocities against Jewish men, women and children, not only in Israel but everywhere
else. This is particularly true of the Fundamentalist Islamic movement Hamas
which does not recognised Israel and has vowed to destroy it. These terrorists
who politically control Gaza and recently rejoiced in the murder of a three
month old Israeli child seek to form the leadership of Ed’s desired Palestinian
State.
By committing the Labour Party to support
for a Palestinian State run by Islamic terrorists and achieved through
terrorist means is the worst kind of ugliness imaginable. These terrorists are
not only completely hostile to socialism they are totally intolerant religious
fundamentalists, yet Ed Miliband has committed the Labour Party to supporting
these people against the existence of the democratic Jewish State. For my part
I can think of few things more Ugly than this.
Equally depressing however is that this
gormless individual, seemingly bereft of any political outlook or wisdom, is
fast running his Party into the ground by his total lack of leadership on most
of the important economic and political issues of the day. He has consistently
refused to acknowledge the fact that the current great economic crisis the country
finds itself in was directly caused by the policies of the previous Labour
Government in which he served and therefore bears responsibility for them. He
furthermore refuses to commit himself when and if elected to office in 2015, to
radically improving the lives of the neediest people in our society, the
working people and poor. He refuses to lay down any policy to tackle
uncontrolled immigration and unreservedly supports Britain’s continuing
membership of the EU. Perhaps this is why the vast majority of people in the
United Kingdom have no confidence in his political leadership. He’s barely a
social democrat let alone a socialist. In fact, truth to tell, he simply
doesn’t seem to be anything at all.
There are just two things about this UGLY
personage that stand out in memory. Firstly his ludicrous grin. Secondly, that
in the best tradition of Labour Party leaders all the way back to the beginning
he doesn’t talk about the working people or poor. The very people that the
Labour Party are supposed to represent. What he does talk about however, in best
tradition of Labour leaders is the country, or the nation. In this he’s exactly
the same as the Tories. How very patriotic of you Ed! To so many British people
now, along with Nick Clegg, you represent THE UGLY face of British political
life. Not Nigel Farage but you!
Nick Clegg is indeed dreadful. You Ed
Miliband ARE THE UGLY. You don’t even make a good political pistolero. Your
ugliness lies in your simple plain awfulness.
THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY!
MAYBE IT ALL DEPENDS ON WHERE YOU’RE COMING FROM… AND
WHO YOU’RE GUNNING FOR…
OR MAYBE WHO YOU’RE GUNNING FOR DEPENDS ON WHERE
YOU’RE COMING FROM!
OR MAYBE IT’S NONE OF THESE THINGS. MAYBE IT’S
PERSONAL.
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