Means to an End?

02/04/2023 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

There are two kinds of people alive today; the manipulators and the manipulated.

It is important to realise how we are manipulated and recognise it when we see it. In this essay only one method will be considered because it is easy to see.

There is an old saying; ‘the end justifies the means’. This encapsulates a very real problem, but the fact that the expression is so well known and easy to understand has in a way, bled the life blood from it. But if it was not still full of meaning, there would not be so many examples of it.

For instance; a world leader wishes to invade a neighbouring state. There are various reasons which might be; historical, to obtain economic gain, to bring freedom to enslaved inhabitants, to eliminate a threat of war, to change a bad government for a good one etc.

All or just some of these reasons are used to persuade a population of a moral need. Then comes the twist. In order to achieve the aim, means are used which are far more destructive than the supposed problem being eliminated.

President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is an obvious example but let us look nearer to home, to that bastion of fairness and reasonableness, the United Kingdom.

Politicians promise to solve problems. In this case they promised to ‘take back control of our borders’ in the 2016 referendum on Brexit. A minority right wing party, UKIP, perceived ‘immigration’ as being ‘out of control’ and having a detrimental effect on the standard of living. This despite the economic rule that immigration is beneficial to a country and the history of United States of America being a prime example.

But ordinary people do not have degrees in economics and the far right politicians are well known to pick a ‘scape goat’ cause for a problem; the Nazi policies towards minorities in 1930’s Germany being a prime example.

All nations have problems with land borders. They are hard to control. But an island nation should have an advantage and so it should be with the UK. Given this ‘false problem’ of immigration, how can the government ‘take back control of it’s borders’?

A degree of problem solving skill is needed, a faculty that is not unfortunately taught in schools and universities, including it appears, Eton; one of the most expensive private (fee paying) schools in the UK.

It was thought that if the UK could stop people wanting to come to the UK from their own failing countries, a solution would be to stop their country from failing. This megalomaniac assumption suggest that a minor world power is able to solve problems in other countries.

Unfortunately, two thirds of the countries from which people flee to the UK are not in the European Union; countries like Afghanistan.

So voting to ‘take back control of our borders’ would largely, not be solved by leaving the European Union. La di dah.

In the case of Afghanistan, large amounts of money and human life had already been lost in trying to prop up an Afghan government and Army. History shows that complex tribal nations are almost impossible for successful intervention by third party states, and so it was in Afghanistan. The Americans decided to pull out their support, the Afghan government and Army collapsed and the power vacuum was taken over by the Taliban.

So it is obvious that removing the need to flee from a country is not in the power of any one nation or even a United Nations.

The rules of asylum state that this must be done in the first safe country entered. This however is absurd as a single country cannot reasonably take all the refugees from a neighbouring country, once a certain number has been reached. Italy is a good example where refugees from Tunisia arrive in boats in such numbers that the government cannot cope.

The European Union must take some of the blame for not taking an overview of it’s member states and allocating refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants in proportion to their ability to do so. Germany has taken a disproportionately large number compared to other EU nations, while Italy is begging for help. The problem perhaps was instrumental in the election of a right wing government there.

But let us return to the UK. Having voted to lose all influence over European Union policy by leaving, it weakened it’s influence in the countries through which immigrants pass. France is a prime example and now has to be given money by the UK to carry out border controls on the north coast of France, most of which will be ineffective as the majority of traffickers operate from the UK.

The problem is never clearly defined, as ‘immigrants’ have varied motives. The economic migrants used to help with harvesting seasonal crops in the UK and those have largely ceased to do this; crops have rotted in the fields as a result. Young Albanians work in the UK illegally and return with amounts of money that it would take decades for them to earn in Albania.

Genuine asylum seekers are not given safe routes by the UK government, excepting Ukrainians and Afghans for whom there is a system on line to get a visa.

Instead of extending this humane approach to all asylum seekers, who make up 80% of ‘illegal immigrants’, the UK government have put forward another idea.

This ‘means to an end’ is intended to be so harsh that it will dissuade those seeking asylum, many of whom are forced to arrive in unsuitable small boats on UK beaches. The government’s idea is to treat them all as having entered the country ‘illegally’ and to send them to a third country; Rwanda.

In doing so the government of the UK are choosing to ignore the human rights of the asylum seekers and ignore the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights, of which the UK is still a member (even though many who voted for Brexit did not realise this political independence of the ECHR).

Ironic that the UK had done much to promote Human Rights within the European Parliament when it had influence to do so.

Instead their ‘solution’ to immigration by asylum seekers is to class them as criminals for entering the UK illegally, and sending them to Rwanda.

Here, clearly, the end is being used to justify the means for if anyone should question why this policy is being followed the reply by government politicians such as the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is words to the effect, ‘would you rather they drown?’

By concentrating the emotional decision on the horror of women and children drowning in a cold sea, the appeal to the faculties of their opponents is not rational but emotional.

The rational ‘problem solving’ has been skipped over and a ‘solution’ being tried that mostly works politically. Is it not rather being seen to act on an election promise in readiness general election next year?

What will happen to immigrants once they arrive in Rwanda is hardly advertised. No doubt the Rwandans have been given money as other advantages to their nation are doubtful. At worst the money supply will stop in a few years after a change of government and the Rwandans will get their machetes out again.

Thus it can be seen that horror and inhumanity is being ‘justified’ as being the only solution to ‘saving people from drowning in boats in the English Channel’.

The tail is most certainly wagging the dog and this is how our own thoughts can be manipulated to think what is happening is ‘okay’. Bad things are ‘justified’ as ‘an evil to stop a worse evil’. In reality, it’s an evil instead of a humane solution.

Should we not be instructing the problem solvers in ‘problem solving’? The books of Edward de Bono have been used by business leaders to teach this skill and the reader is recommended to study them if a life in politics is being considered.

Matter Over Mind

28/02/202328/02/2023 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

When is a weather balloon not a weather balloon?

We live in a physical reality. From birth we engage with this moving and static universe and learn how it works; how to manipulate it and survive.

Then someone comes along who does ‘magic’. Perhaps it was at a children’s party when you first encountered a conjurer who made objects appear and disappear. Rows of coloured flags explode from her hat and little red balls pop out of her mouth.

Suddenly, rules that govern physicality are turned upside down, so like innocent children, we just laugh.

Later on in life, we understand that magicians are illusionists. They have studied the techniques of deception and taught themselves how to use them. Here are some;

Speed; prestidigitation, dexterity e.g. playing card tricks.

Misdirection; directing the audience so that they assume the contrary e.g. which ball the cup is in. Focusing the audience on one thing whilst doing another unnoticed, such as stage ‘banter’ and ‘slight of hand’.

Concealment; classic ‘smoke and mirrors’ such as using a curtain to hide a deceit.

Props; devices which appear to be not what they are; they have hidden doors, mirrors and compartments that reveal previously hidden objects.

Psychology; hypnotism, mentalism e.g. reading unconscious signalling in facial expressions to determine personal facts.

This list is not exhaustive but the main point is, magicians do not use obvious cheating. They know that they can be accused of using ‘stooges’ to perform pre-rehearsed actions. To counter this challenge, magicians use methods such as throwing a Frisbee randomly into the audience to choose who to invite to take part in the trick. Illusionists may be tricksters, but they will need to leave the audience without any explanation of what they have just observed, or lose credulity and reputation.

Very recently an ‘air balloon’ was shot down over North America by the USA. The official story was that this balloon carried instruments used by China to spy on America. Questions were naturally asked as to how this and many other such balloons were not monitored or even known to exist, by those in charge of defending the nation. After some ‘re-calibration’ of America’s air space, surveillance and monitoring equipment, three new objects were found. Most significantly these were never ‘rationalised’ as balloons. One was described as ‘hexagonal’ and an ‘unidentified object with no obvious means of propulsion’ and the others of different shapes, equally unidentifiable. After several days, during which wreckage was recovered, it was announced that these three objects were in fact ‘weather balloons’. Do you get the feeling that matter is being described to make you form an opinion that the government want you to have?

The initials U.F.O were avoided quite deliberately for understandable reasons. Further obfuscation (misdirection) has been created because UFO’s are now called Unidentified Aerial Phenomena or UAP’s and there is an equivalent Unidentified Submersible Phenomena or USP’s. For those in the know, and as described by Dr. Steven Greer on You Tube for decades, there are clandestined (‘black ops’) projects outside of the military and government control which have built anti-gravity craft using alien reverse engineering obtained in the 1950’s. The other three UAP’s in question, were almost certainly examples of anti-gravity, human engineering. The cover-up to their undeniable discovery (prompted but not connected to the ‘weather balloon’ incident) is what the counter intelligence community term ‘stage craft’. This is a simile from our familiar family entertainment shows where illusionists make things appear and disappear at will.

This series of events is worthy of particular attention as they provide a clear example of how public perception can be manipulated to whatever the non-democratic departments of governments desire.

The illusionist techniques employed in such ‘minor’ incidents can of course be scaled up to gain public approval of serious government policy. Within the military known as ‘psychological operations’, there are ‘false flag operations’ where an innocent third party, such as a ‘hostile state’ is blamed using fabricated evidence.

For instance, the ‘Gulf of Tomkin’ incident was probably the tipping point that committed the USA to war in Vietnam in 1964. North Vietnamese motor torpedo boats are meant to have engaged American ships in the Gulf of Tomkin whereas there are other claims that these were not NVA’s craft but American. A more mainstream explanation to the illusion is that there was a ‘communication error’ by the Americans which stands out as being vague at best and unforgiveable at worst. In all cases, unforgiveable.

That is not the only war needlessly started. In 2003 the USA and an allied co-coalition, invaded Iraq on the grounds that there were ‘weapons of mass destruction’ in Iraq. This despite the fact that UN observers had been searching for such weapons for months and found nothing. The war was justified as being intended to;

“disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people”. (source Wikipedia.com)

History or ‘hind sight’ now enables most people to see than none of these three objectives were justified or effective. There were no WMD’s. Hussein did not support Al Quaida and the Iraqi people did not necessarily find foreign invasion a better option to living under a cruel but stable dictator. Iraq was destroyed, leaving little working infrastructure and services, and the regional and tribal ‘commanders’ were left to fight each other in the power vacuum…so called ‘freedom’.

Similar examples of ‘illusion’ by politicians, industrialists, pharmaceuticals and clandestined world actors, are to be found almost everyday in current news reports.

My overall point is that a scientist is not a person who understands things, but one who questions things. In the material ‘reality’ that most people believe is ‘all and everything’, everyone needs to be scientifically sceptical about how world events are reported. The techniques of the illusionist are frequently applied in a manner that appears to be without motive. Discovering the motive is the final and most hard to find piece of the puzzle.

This subject is extremely complex and the ‘stage craft’ of the actors confirms we are watching an act, but this is not a kid’s party. Most people chuckle and sit back in their seats, rather than refuse to leave until what has really been going on, is explained. There is after all, always an explanation, it’s just that, with the serious problems of today, we get the feeling that we are never intended to find out what it is.

All of this may be rather bleak. However, mankind was never sent here to change the world, just to learn to be a better human being. Perhaps we have to look at this problem from a completely different perspective and that is to consider why there even is matter at all. Perhaps the knowledge that matter is interchangeable with energy casts some understanding. If mind / Universal Mind was seeking to know itself it could not do this in a vacuum. It has to create a very dense version of energy, which is what we call matter. In this material universe we are able to perceive how energy works because the two are the interchangable; it’s just that matter goes slowly enough for us to interact with it intelligently.

Those lessons, which the material Universe with all it’s entanglements and complexity, are directly transferable to the energetic or spiritual universes and when applied, give the greatest understanding of this highest spiritual truths.

You want to know what is spiritual?

Don’t approach spirituality.

To know what is spiritual,

Figure out what is physical.

Master Shi Heng Li Shaolin Monk

What Seems to be the Problem?

01/01/2023 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

Many media outlets provide harrowing examples of problems in the National Health Service in the UK today, so here are my ideas for attempting to solve them.

Firstly, I would determine what the government strategy for the National Health Service is. Cynics would say that based on the previous ten years, the aim of government has been to make the NHS fail. To define ‘failure’ quasi-scientifically, the first step is to introduce targets so that hospitals can fail to meet them. But logically, if targets were removed then failure would also. Successes would be highlighted instead, so staff are allowed to feel valued rather than judged negatively. Keeping staff moral high has numerous beneficial effects for the whole system including the patients.

However, if the government wants private hospitals for all, as in the USA, then that should be their stated aim and the public allowed to vote on that idea, either in a general election manifesto or two third majority referendum.

If the government want the NHS to protect the health of UK citizens then these are my ideas;

Engage in preventative health as keenly as reactive health. This is difficult since ill people are more vocal than those who have no problems. However, if hospitals and doctors surgeries were paid when people were well, rather than for health interventions, then they would be incentivised to prevent illness. One example of this would be to include diet and nutrition and exercise regimes more fully in a medical doctor’s training.
Presently resources are wasted on treating patients with imaginary and or minor ailments. The high street pharmacies are presently under-used as places for diagnosis and intervention of such complaints. Pharmacists are highly trained and if allowed to view patients records on line, would relived doctors from such complaints. Also, patients can be empowered to self help through information online to a far greater extent than has already been achieved. This is not to promote Doctor Google but to provide interactive consultation with a health consultant rather than an algorithm.
Presently local doctor’s surgeries are often understaffed and GP’s overworked. One of the effects of this is for patients to be diverted to the Accident and Emergency Department at the local hospital. The first remedy I suggest is to change the name of this department to simply ‘Emergency Department’. People with minor cuts and bruises from ‘accidents’ are not ’emergencies’ and again could be treated in a local pharmacy ‘treatment room’ when the GP is not available.
Training more doctors and health workers of all kinds is so basic that it should hardly need mentioning but sadly, it has been been neglected by politicians who did not write this intention into their manifestos.
Presently A and E Departments are often unable to cope with demand in peak periods such as during winter flu season. This is partly due to ‘bed blocking’ where vital hospital beds are occupied by patients who are well but have no safe place to be discharged to. The other reason is a lack of staff as already mentioned. In response to the problem of ambulances queuing for long periods when they are needed to respond to emergencies, one hospital has set up a dedicated room for patients to wait for treatment. There are paramedics in the room who take over monitoring and keeping waiting patients comfortable and safe with the same equipment that is available in the back of an ambulance. The effect is to reduce ambulance waiting times at hospitals.
The pay and conditions for health workers has been allowed to decline over the last ten years or so. The present strike by health workers is as a result of this as much as the general decline in their effectiveness to treat patients. During the recent ‘pandemic’ there was an ‘unlimited budget’ to ‘protect the NHS’. Getting back the money which was subject to fraud during this time would be a good start to begin to protect the NHS by paying living wages to health workers. The presence of food banks for staff in hospitals is unforgivable, as they are in high streets and goes back to staying healthy with a good diet, let alone suffering malnutrition. Planning for the next pandemic is also imperative.
Most public services have become burdened with the demand for recording information on computers. Doctors, nurses, police, fire personnel, social workers, teachers and many others have a general feeling that they spend to much time recording information on computers rather than dealing with people. These services all functioned before the invention of computers and they would benefit from a study into how to reduce the time spent recording information today by asking the question, why? One probable reason would be as a tool to supervise staff by managers and at it’s worse to be able to prove negligence and or malpractice by staff in a court of law. I would suggest that whilst public liability and duty of care is a vital ethical stance, the large financial pay outs is inappropriate. Private services have a contractual responsibility as money changes hands but in public service the ethics are different. You would like to think that most NHS patients merely wish to point out negligence so that mistakes ‘do not happen again’. If there has been a life altering error for a NHS patient then the same services will intervene at no cost to the patient for any extra home care. For instance patients might be offered insurance policies before operations with an element of risk and be asked to sign a document that they will not sue if something goes wrong with the operations due to this risk. People will take out insurance to go on holiday so this is not so absurd as it may seem. The effect will enable staff to operate under less stress about mistakes and as a consequence be more competent.

picture credit: BBC

This list is not exhaustive nor are all the ideas practical or good ones as the writer is not an expert in these matters, just an observer. But when there is an obvious problem, then problem solving must surely be attempted head on. Usually, rather than expensive professional ‘management consultants’ the best people to ask for problem definition possible solutions are the staff on the wards.

Managers often overlook the vital details that only staff will necessarily know about and be able relate to why things are not working.

There is also a case for different services and specialities within those services to share information about patients. A very simplified on line system as easy to use as a Facebook account could be used to function in a way the social media presently shares information to the benefit of those who need to know.

Thus mental health workers, pharmacists, care workers, mental health teams, police, social workers, teachers and many others, would be part of an overarching system of protection and service provision for each citizen. The more old fashioned ‘silo system’ of public service provision has begun to be dismantled but needs to speed up and widen.

Public expectation also needs serious consideration and the present promise of a ‘blank cheque’ for treatment and compensation when mistakes are made, needs comparing to the original aims and promises in the Beveridge Report of 1942 entitled ‘Social Insurance and Allied Services.’ The lesson is not to promise what cannot be delivered and if it can’t, explain why before, not after, being elected.

The World Spinning out of Control

14/12/202225/12/2022 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

To everything there is an overview and to help understand the drama being played out in Ukraine at the moment, read on;

Tomas Schuman is an Soviet-era secret service agent and has spilled the beans on how the Soviet era strategy to undermine the West. He now describes the Soviet techniques of international subversion openly on You Tube.

He says there are four stages, extended over several decades.

Stage 1: Demoralisation

This takes at least one generation, maybe 15 to 20 years. During this time various completely fake replacements take over established religion, education, law and order and social life in general.

These institutions are replaced with un-elected ‘influencers’ such as the media, secret societies, wealthy individuals and clandestine branches of government.

Labour relations are undermined by taking away the power of trade unions.

Stage 2: Destabilisation

This process is aimed at institutions. ‘Sleepers’ who have been installed in societies institutions such as local government, law, military, industry and commerce and educational hubs, are activated. They move into positions of authority through the perceived lack of law and order e.g. military coup, ‘fake’ election results, single issue protest groups lobbying government and on the streets (Black Lives Matter)(‘statue toppling’)(‘defund the police’). At the same time various antagonistic single issue parties move into power vacuums created by the effects of stage 1. (the Brexit Party in the UK).

Stage 3: Crisis

This process starts when social functions cease to work such as the effects on the free movements of goods and people within the UK and the EU. This includes the issues around the Good Friday Agreement and possibly leading to nationalist politics breaking up the United Kingdom. Poverty and homelessness (e.g. California) forces large numbers of people to seek food aid and other handouts to simply exist. Fake information is fed at an industrial scale to social media sites at carefully selected times e.g. elections and referendums. This and weak government, leads to discontent which can spiral out of control leading to the call for more authoritarian rule and a ‘strong man’ ruler such as seen in the United States when Trump was elected. The result is civil war or invasion of another country e.g. Afghanistan, Lebanon, Syria and now Ukraine.

Stage 4: Normalisation

As a pretence of solving the problems (real and fake) of the first three stages,

it is now possible to justify extreme action to ‘normalise’ society and bring ‘peace’. The tanks move in to a desired country, however ‘normal’ the citizens feel, with the aim of physically taking over the seat of government (e.g. the protesters at the Washington rally who disputed the election results or now Ukraine). Once the leaders of the former government have fled or been jailed, a new ‘puppet’ government can be installed with the aim of ‘restoring law and order’ which of course comes at the price of loss of democratic freedom and human rights.

The USSR may have imploded in on itself but the ‘vision’ of it’s leaders is still deeply ingrained in it’s institutions and leaders. Mr. Putin was after all a KGB officer and would have expertise in and taken part in the above process. Transfer these four stages to ‘predator’ and ‘predated’ countries in Asia (Myanmar now in military rule) Africa (Somalia) the Far East (North Korea) the Middle East (Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Israel) in addition to Europe and the Americas and elements of this Soviet-era method of insurrection ‘government toppling’ are alarmingly aparrent.

Vladimir the Impaler – picture credit National Geographic

All of the above was my blog written and published at the begining of 2022. Events have moved on and the symptons of this subversion process of natural law and order, remain and gather momentum.

Storms are not catastrophes except when they happen simultaneously and then they are called ‘perfect storms’. On they Oceans they appear as ‘rogue waves’ which can sweep over huge ocean going liners such as the Queen Elizabeth II at great risk to passengers and crew of capsize and sinking.

To sustain this metaphor 2022 has witnessed the sad loss of the real Queen Elizabeth through natural causes and with her passing the end of an era. Her reign included the Second World War of which she was one of the last veterans. In my view that experience raised the social ownership of responsibility, in Britain and around the world. Out of harm usually comes a realisation of the need for change and significantly a socialist prime minister in the UK succeded the Tory Winston Churchill. People realised the need for good housing, food and education and in particular the provision of health care for all.

What has happened today is the disappearance of a generation who cherished those social values as being of primary importance to a peaceful and good life for all, not just the rich and privileged. The stabilising influence of high ethical standards was sanctified in the creation of the European Commission in which what were called ‘human rights’ were enshrined not just in religious values but in law. Many who voted for Brexit are surprised and disappointed that the European Union (also created with an eye on peaceful coexistence in Europe) is a seperate organisation to the EC. They now wish to send asylum seekers (80% who are genuine) back home or to a third world country against their wishes and chances of even staying alive.

Should we be surprised that this division amongst left and right in many European countries and the weakening of the ‘centre ground’ has played right into the hands of the ghosts of the USSR – Vladimir Putin.

Was Brexit not only partly engineered by the Russia and her allies, but a green light to start a war in Europe?

Your enemy will always tell you where you are weak.

The rise of autocratic countries as being now a majority of governments in the world, should make us more than worried. When we watch the government clamp downs on free speech and the right to protest in China, Russia and Iran, are we watching European countries in the next decade?

In my view we should be extremely concerned. In summary we can identifiy two storms; the subversion of democracy by Russia and various rogue states such as Iran and North Korea, combined with weakened social values in divided democratic countries such as the UK and the USA.

Into this gathering tsunami is added a third wave which travels around the world largely unseen. It is generated by those who have huge political power through extreme wealth and social privilege. They work in the background by buying media organisations, pharmaceutical companies, industrial conglomerates and arms and municians amongst other diverse service and product providers. No one votes for them and their influence is being swelled by the rising tide enabled by new technology and biological sciences.

But wait! There are at least three storms producing this hurricane, now made even more worrying by the no longer deniable catastrophe of, climate change.

At the risk of having mixed my metaphors it is apparent now to most observers that the ‘minor details’ produced by this storm of all storms such as inflation, migration, poverty, hunger, war, homelessness are not only problems in themselves but indicate a far larger and uncontrolled pattern towards global catastrophe and harm to each and every individual alive today.

The old saying ‘there is no smoke without fire’ has never been more true. The challenge today is to find the fire and put it out. And when that is done, look around and see what is left and work out if those who stepped forward to ‘save us’ were our friends or our enemies.

Darkness Visible

13/10/202215/10/2022 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / 1 Comment

It is a curious fact that the experience of each human generation differs considerably from the world that their parents and grand parents experienced. Every twenty five years or so new science and technologies, new social norms, new artistic expression, new language, new opportunities…new everything, replace the old lamps with new.

*The Evil Magician’s Deal* in the story of Aladdin

Perhaps you know this from your own life experience? Then consider how extraordinary the changes must have been if you multiply a generation by a hundred. You will then be in 500BCE. We know roughly what people around the world were doing at this time but can we hope to understand how they experienced the world? When we think about this and contemplate the art, literature and stories, architecture and engineering, religious expression, military campaigns, and famous leaders, we realise that we really have no idea of what was in their minds. Why should we even expect to understand them?

When we consider the Ancient Egyptians of this time for instance, we know something about the everyday lives of the ordinary people and the aristocratic priests and pharaohs, but their religious and spiritual expressions baffle us.

We can imagine that consciousness of the time was intimately connected with the religious rituals intended to thank and gain the co-operation of the Pantheon of gods. The process produced visible and tangible effects that today we would describe as magical. The really big magic is described as a miracle; performed by saints and prophets.

What miraculous power was contained in the Arc of the Covenant did, for instance; a power that made Moses steal it from the Egyptians? Did he need the Arc to perform miracles such as winning battles against all odds?

For this reason we might describe the Egyptian religion as being a ‘magical science’, in the same way perhaps that owners of mobile phones today interface with magic, for they do not understand how their devices work, only how to use them.

Various religions have always spun into and out of existence all over the world expressing experiences and ideas about the physical and energetic universes that we cannot even imagine today. They shared certain ethics, at least approximately, about treating others as you would like to be treated…but there were darker powers at work. The floors in many Cathedrals andMasonic Halls are black and white squares, in case we need reminding.

At some point in the last few millennium, spiritual disciplines were taken over by the ‘dark side’. The mystery schools of Rome and Greece selected initiates to keep the hidden abilities and powers out of the experience of the general populous, but inevitably this knowledge has leaked to those whose intentions are not honourable.

The Catholic religion persecuted the Jews and Muslims in Spain who said they had converted to Christianity. The Spanish Inquisitions used interrogation and torture to find out if their conversions were sincere. The reader can reflect on other examples of religions who have used evil means to satisfy perverted desires, such as religious wars and the treatment of indigenous peoples by missionaries.

One might ask; what has replaced the desire to worship a benign supreme being?

I would argue that science and scientific method has become the new world religion. The scientist who perhaps started this transition was the great mathematician and physicist, Sir Isaac Newton.

He modestly described himself as having the advantage of ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ while others call him ‘the last of the magicians’. Certainly his best scientific work was done before he reached the age of thirty and in his later years he devoted himself to the pseudo-science of Alchemy and interpreting ancient Biblical texts. He never attempted to replace religious truth with scientific truth as they were the same.

But despite this, Newton became the tipping point that has propelled later generations ( including ourselves ) into a more mechanical interpretation of the universe. This we might reflect, is also why we cannot understand our ancestors who lived in a more ‘energetic’ world. Materialism became the new religion and it’s high priests today are scientists and inventors such as Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. All the miraculous journeys of the mystics to the planets and stars in ancient times are being re-enacted with hydrogen powered rockets and space craft.

*Space X Rocket picture credit; Actual News Magazine*

But over the centuries this new religion has performed the same split as previous religions. There is ‘good science’ and ‘bad science’; in other words, science has also a branch whose effects are malign. For example, when Albert Einstein realised how his theories contributed to the production of the first Atomic bomb, he is reported to have exclaimed, ‘I wish I had been a plumber.’ Scientists and politicians could have confined the knowledge of the power of the atom to secrecy; just as they did the ideas of ‘free electricity’ described in Nicola Tesla’s technologies, the electric car, the hydrogen engine and the tyre that does not wear out.

Instead the genii was out of the bottle and it will never be able to put back into it. This decision was attempted to be justified as ‘saving thousands of lives by ending the second world war more quickly’. How taking the lives of non-combatant civilians in their tens of thousands and not considering it a war crime is something for history to decide.

If those politicians had considered how the Atom bomb would mould the following centuries and the lives of their children and grand children, they might have anticipated loose canons like Kim Jun Ill in North Korea and the Iranians, gaining the geopolitical power that such weapons bestow.

Just as in Star Wars, the main players have been tempted to use their spiritual powers in malign ways. Right wing politicians of today use the promise of being ‘scientific’ to deceive voters. The use of ‘scientists’ to advise governments in the recent pandemic is an example of this. Most fields of science have a spectrum of members with differing opinions. It is too simple for governments to choose scientists whose ideas support the politician’s agendas.

Another simple example might be when a president of the United States is voted out, he challenges the counting of the votes. Hardly a clever argument since counting is taught in primary school, but such is the force of the personality of Donald Trump, that even after being proven wrong by the various courts and organisations with expertises in the presidential voting process, he still maintains the election was ‘rigged’.

Scientific method has always included the presentation of evidence to support and prove a hypothesis. Those in power today (or who advise the powerful) who have gone over to the dark side, reveal themselves by not presenting proof of what they say.

During the pandemic, advice from ‘experts’ was presented which has since been disproved. Even You Tube now no longer bans references to the high risk group being solely the over 60’s and that vaccinated individuals are as likely to transmit the virus as the non-vaccinated. This would have made a huge difference to how societies reacted to the pandemic as this was known using published scientific statistics from Israel in April 2020.

False science can be summed up as ‘irrational’. Politicians who make irrational statements have a unique advantage over the rational minded; they are very hard to predict and even harder to debate with. They will confuse people so much that reasonable conversation is impossible.

In conjunction with ‘bad ideas’ is the use of dominating personalities to challenge benign ideas and processes. Force does not mean physical violence necessarily, but in the infamous storming of the Capitol Building in Washington, we see that it is a weapon that the high priests of dark science and their followers are willing to use.

This fateful combination of the irrational and force, was fatefully used by many historical figures such as Adolf Hitler and present day leaders such as Vladimir Putin.

It is naïve of opponents to dismiss their irrationality as mental illness, deceit or stupidity. A leader might have all of these characteristics which combined with aggression can overcome the most assertive opponents. Hitler’s own generals were exasperated by his unsound strategic decisions and overpowering personality.

So what are we to do? Should we look on and do nothing?

John Stuart Mill in 1867 in an address to St Andrew’s College said;

“Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.”

In my view inaction is not an option against present day threats. An example of inaction might be the attitude of the Europeans to Russia’s invasion of Georgia and now Ukraine. If we doubt this then there are warnings from the past that we might heed.

*The Georgian Five Day War*
*picture credit; fpri*

In 1961 Dwight Eisenhower made the following warning to democracies in his farewell speech from the Whitehouse;

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist.”

Perhaps today we could add ‘media’ and ‘pharmaceutical companies’ to the list of those seeking to acquire ‘unwarranted influence’.

The president who succeeded him was John F. Kennedy who warned of the dangers posed to world peace;

“Our goal is not the victory of might but the vindication of right…not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom, here in this hemisphere, and, we hope, around the world. God willing, that goal will be achieved.” –“Radio and Television Report to the American People on the Soviet Arms Build-up in Cuba (485),” October 22, 1962, Public Papers of the Presidents: John F. Kennedy, 1962.

Kennedy was a Catholic and appealed to the Pope to intervene in the Cuban Missile crisis; what you might call a ‘spritual intervention’.

As already explained, from the mystery schools of ancient Greece and Rome to the various secret societies of the present day, techniques in spiritual growth and personal power were taught. The original purpose was, of course, to be one with the Divinity which included a type of magic.

These techniques were based on the use of mind and energy and are the product of strict spiritual discipline. This should not be confused with religion, which is a pale copy for people who do not have the interest, time, stamina, spiritual calling, perseverance, courage or many other special qualities unique to the holy and saintlike beings of our past and present. The spiritual path is followed by a tiny fraction of one percent of the world’s population because it is uniquely demanding. It is the equivalent of the special forces in military organisations and The Knights Templar exemplified how these two areas of human experience have much in common.

Today one might believe the modern Freemason’s are the inheritors of this most secret and powerful knowledge. The face they turn to society is as solely as givers of charity to the needy but one does not have to research too deeply to find that there are other directions that they extend their power.

As in Star Wars, the ‘dark side’ usurps even the most holy, benign and righteous so that power moves from helping the poor and weak to helping the rich and strong. The right wing governments of today reflect this perversion. The predictions of past American presidents are confirmed as we see industry, pharmaceuticals, media, military, governments and oligarchs; support the elites at the expense of truth and freedom for the general population.

The power they use are on the surface is from ‘scientists’ and ‘economists’ but their real power is derived from what one might term ‘super nature’. The Nazi regime in the 1930’s in Germany were greedy to attain supernatural powers. Herman Goering was determined to find the ‘Holy Grail’ as described by Otto Wern and devoted much time and resources to acquiring knowledge on how to make a ‘superhuman’ race, the Aryans. Himmler included witch dances into SS ceremonies seen here in Poland in 1939.

*Nazis Secretly Used Witcraft Intending to Extend the Reich*

picture credit; Historynet

What we observe today in various governments around the world, is predicated and dictated by a group of leaders who influence and dictate under the general and historical term ‘illuminati’.

To finish on a lighter note, or perhaps more spine tingling, watch very carefully the magicians of today who demonstrate magic for entertainment. They maintain that they are mere illusionists and certainly most of them are. But ask yourself the question, when you see a magician put their hand through glass or lift impossible weights; how much of this is illusion and how much perverted spiritual powers? Then project these thoughts into every part of human society in the twentieth century.

picture credit; poppytv.sg

Are we watching science or magic? Are we walking in the light or the dark?

As an appendix to this essay a poem by the author…

The Devil’s Armchair

It sat there

-the Devil’s armchair

on the stage like any other armchair

awaiting his highnesses’ appearance.

An audience sat

expecting a spectacular

with just a dose

of uncontrollable HORROR.

Instead, a god-like, quiet man, appeared

and settled in a position of comfort

in the armchair – smiling –

ready for questions.

Each person in that audience

then ‘set to’, convinced of this and that,

and found the responses

totally calming and reassuring.

What Do You Need?

01/09/202201/09/2022 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

Mahatma Ghandi said;

“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.“

It’s not usual for the writer to look into the future. But at this moment in history, there is no need to be psychic to see where the world is heading and the consequences.

We live at a moment in time when change in the standard of living of the ‘developed countries’ is inevitable. The change will be what some would call a ‘reduction’ in this standard; meaning things will not be a cheap and plentiful as they have been in the past. For the rest of humanity the change will be having things that have not been available in the past, what will be an ‘increase’ in their standard of living to include all the essentials.

These are the essentials to life;

Shelter

Food and water

Health and reproduction

Education

Work

What will bring about this change is an increasing scarcity of these five necessities in both the ‘developed’ and ‘undeveloped’ countries, so that sharing of resources will be the only humane political direction.

The previous trend of ‘civilisation’ has been for certain countries to grow richer whilst others get poorer. The ‘master and slave’ Empires of history and the present day, are examples of this.

New technology, and primarily the ability to communicate on a global scale, is an essential part of ‘leveling down’ and ‘leveling up’, the uneven distribution of dwindling resources.

Technology, such as birth control and free health facilities has been changing the global demographic for many decades. As a consequence, families have been having fewer children because infant mortality has drastically reduced.

Smaller families has meant a reducing population in many parts of the world, such as China and parts of Europe.

The process of industrialisation was always founded on a false assumption; that more and more stuff can be made from limited resources. Whether those resources are fossil fuel sourced energy, raw materials, places to store noxious waste products, dwindling natural resources such as rare earth elements and the traditional metal ores.

All of these things and more, have become cheaper and more available but their limited availability and other factors means that the industrial train is about to hit the buffers.

Perhaps sharing more and making more with less and eliminating pollution would have held off this inevitable moment for longer but the global system of human development is too fragile and too complex.

The effect of industrialisation on nature has been ignored for convenience and perhaps not a little arrogance, but nature ultimately strikes back. What is wrapped up in the term ‘climate change’ is the tip of a rapidly melting ice berg of global human catastrophe.

Nature has a plentiful and powerful armory with which to fight back. Viruses, extreme weather, planetary warming, desertification leading to wars over scarce resources are and will put great demands on the human population to re-organise.

If humans had any self respect, they would respect this powerful process and become co-operative with nature. It has to, because the option to carry on as before is no longer available; unless wars, mass starvation, migration and pandemic diseases are ‘risks worth taking’.

There are some religious communities such as the Amish in States in the in the United States of America and Canada, who will not directly face fundamental changes to their way of life. Hundreds of years ago they decided for religious reasons that their ‘standard of living’ had reached a level that is sufficient for their needs. The number of Amish people has risen from 100,000 in 1989 to 251,000 and is predicted to increase. Respecting the boundaries of nature is a lesson many have learned, thus avoiding the hard process before being forced to.

An Amish Homestead picture credit Stuff.co.nz

Similarly, there are remote tribes in ‘undeveloped parts of the world who live in harmony with natural places and have done for millennium undisturbed. They have nothing to fear from nature, only their fellow humans.

Industrialised societies have taken far more than their fair share of nature’s bounty. The city dwellers who make up fifty per cent of these societies live on the promise of unlimited food from farms. Unfortunately soil needs constant replenishment when using factory farming methods and fertiliser is becoming increasingly expensive, to a point where growing crops is no longer profitable. City dwellers have become so cut off from nature that they might as well be living on the moon; totally unable to sustain themselves except by trade using ‘money’- a substance you cannot eat.

The dwindling of world resources and the consequences for national economies will require counter intuitive management. People who have more, will have less and people who have less will have more.

Food will no longer be shipped all over the world to satisfy the demand for non-seasonal, exotic, non-local, high protein, artificial fertiliser enhance ingredients.

Wine and olive oil, will not be for sale in shops in countries where wine and olive oil is not produced. Such luxury is only a recent expectation. Nations used to have their own diets and dishes based on local seasonal food. Northern countries drank mainly beer made from local grain crops and southern countries drank wine made from local grapes. Choice in food and drink will become more than halved and people will be grateful for what is available.

Politicians will have an almost impossible task of balancing the overwhelming and impending need for ‘developed’ populations to significantly reduce their ‘standard of living’.

Nobody votes to lose their holiday home/s, luxury car, cheap flights, energy wasteful house and bulging refrigerators. You might think this and you could be right, but when citizens understand the hardship that is the alternative, they will.

And if this sounds depressing then all is not necessarily gloomy, because humans have a unique skill at adaptation, both physically and mentally. Some of the poorest people on earth are also the happiest. Travelers who visit the homes of remote communities that are living off the land (whether forest, steppe or desert), find they are welcomed with dignity and honour and the food in the house is shared equally with them. This food may taste better than any they have had before because it is resourced locally, prepared traditionally and presented with love.

No factory on earth has ever made a product with love so should we be surprise that people who have ‘high standards of living’ often live loveless lives?

Here is that list again;

Shelter; simple, warm, light, organic houses and public buildings and gardens.

Food and water; locally sourced and stored, lovingly prepared and shared.

Health and reproduction; Enough health professionals for populations in order to prevent disease, educate and encourage healthy lifestyles, treated body with the mind and mind with the body, practice traditional medicine and techniques less based on chemicals. Because communities will support the elderly young people will manage the size of families using contraception.

Education; a holistic, approach to giving young people the skills and characters that promote informed and respectful relationships and communities.

Work; local activities that produce goods and services in ways that respect nature and the environment. Labour will not to use more energy and materials than nature can supply and live in a way that gives responsibility to all and shared rewards.

There are many micro-communities already living in this way according to their own religions and traditions. If you are fortunate enough to live near one my advice is sell everything and join them as have done many and joined Amish and similar communities.

You might be happier than at anytime in your life and if you are not happier, well you at least will be the same person you are now.

As so often happens, Hollywood is ahead of the curve and perhaps forcing, as well as, predicting change. There have been many ‘post apocalypse’ films in the last few decades. The apocalypse will only come if it is allowed to. As in most things, the trick is to be pro-active (ahead of the wave) rather than wait for it to swallow us whole.

picture credit; Climate Emergency Institute

Let Me In – part two

30/06/202228/06/2022 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

Most European countries have at least one land border with another country. But the UK is an island and this proved a great strategic advantage for the British, stopping intending visitors like Napoleon and Hitler. The English Channel is now one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world so you might think that crossing it without being noticed and at least avoided, would be difficult.

This makes you wonder how seriously the borders of the UK are watched when rubber boats arrive who could be invaders from a hostile country. Dorset Police went out and bought three boats, which doubled the patrol capacity for the whole of the UK. Interestingly the Royal Navy have become involved…but only recently.

This essay is not principally about the UK. The plight of those wishing to enter it, is merely intended as an example of similar situations all over the world, such as Cubans wishing to enter the USA.

With climate change, scarcity of food, water and raw materials, wars, disease, corruption, rogue governments and other factors, the world needs to apply a united strategy to those affected. The mass movements of populations needs to be handled co-operatively and competently.

So let us re-focus the problem in the English Channel and consider how a strategy can be formulated and implemented rather than narrowed to a single issue.

Firstly there needs to be a ‘triage’ of emigrants who turn up at the in French sea ports and coastal towns. They will either be in the ‘criminal’ group (5) or one of the other groups listed in Let Me In – part one, and it is of primary importance to identify them in the interests of all countries.

They may well be pretending to be seeking asylum in the UK and will have worked carefully on a fictitious cover story. If and when known criminals are identified by security services, it is imperative that they are dealt with. Those who are known to be linked to crime, war crimes, terrorism, extremism etc. may already have international warrants for their detention enabling their immediate extradition to other countries. In doing harder, what governments should already be doing, there is no longer a temptation or excuse to treat the greater majority of genuine migrants, as criminals.

The ‘people trafficking gangs’ and their leaders clearly, also need to identified and put on trial. Good police work should be capable of locating and monitoring them by using surveillance and sting operations to infiltrate their organisations and make arrests. If this has ever happened it has not hit the headlines. Do more resources need to be aimed towards identification of the gang leaders? They may be linked to other organised crime such as drugs, sex trafficking, terrorism and the rest. This is just bread and butter policing and yet it does no appear, at least, to happen.

The sale of the boats and safety equipment which takes place in the Calais markets and Marine supply shops, could be licensed and stricly monitored by CCTV, forcing traffickers to transport this equipment from elsewhere. This will not stop them, but it will increase the risk of being caught in possession of it and having to spin improbable yarns to police.

Security services have teams scanning the dark web for extremists, terrorists and their associated criminal networks. Little is made public about this work; no doubt for good reason, but there needs to be some publicity if only to reassure the public on both sides of the channel that there is a raft of measures operating to close what is happening down. Why is it so difficult?

Post Brexit, the French north coast became a border of the European Union. As such it will have been given substantially greater security measures than the internal borders within the EU. If 440 people leave the coast in one day and there are 20 people on each boat, then that is 22 boats! The English Channel crossings are made in broad daylight from busy coasts. Do the general public, commercial and leisure users of ports and marine facilities report suspicious activity? Is there a Coastguard hotline to report such craft? If you ask Google this question the answer is yes; 1-888-373-7888, but it’s in the United States of America.

If we consider new technologies then it has become practical and effective to search for and monitor suspicious activity using drones. These will provide real time intelligence and enable land and sea based patrols to investigate in a timely manner. They can also be used to verify reports from the general public before allocating resources. Drones could be used on both sides of the English Channel. It is likely that members of the public with an interest in using drones, could work alongside coastguard officers; reducing costs and releasing officers for duties that require their legal powers and skills. (There will also be a spill over benefit help catch smugglers and other illegal activity.)

Crossing the Dover Strait from Calais depending on, wind and tides, speed of vessel etc. is going to take at least three to four hours. Crossing the shipping lanes is fraught with danger as all sailors know. This means that it is important to intercept emigrant boats before leaving the relative safety of the inshore waters. Maritime law requires interception of a such a vessel to be taken directly to the nearest safe place. If emigrant boats are allowed to stray too far towards the centre of the Channel this can become an issue between UK and French authorities. Should boats be turned around as they approach the other side of the channel (as the USA Coastguard does to Cuban refugees) or should a border be enforced in the centre of the Channel? Is this idea remotely practical in any case when emigrants dangle their children over the water as a threat to intercepting authorities or simply just jump into the water. At one point the Home Secretary Priti Patel wanted boats physically turned around, not appreciating or perhaps caring, how dangerous confrontations at sea are.

Newspaper articles and even presidents of countries will try to persuade the public that all or most emigrants are all criminals but statistically, the majority will fall into one of the other four groups already described.

Many will probably be without documentation often through no fault of their own. This issue could be solved by the often suggested policy of ‘creating safe routes’ and simply issuing temporary documentation. These can include biometric identification as is reasonably required by the UK government. (Scanning finger prints is part of process of identification of the known or wanted criminals and will already have been done. It takes a few minutes, not months, to do for each person.) The Prime Minister has lauded the idea of ‘safe routes’ in debate, but in reality the only safe routes the UK has set up are for Ukranian Nationals and a restricted number of Afghans.

My principle point, as I have almost certainly missed out many details and parts of a more general strategy simply because I am just writing this as a lay observer, is that controlling the mass movements of undocumented people is a complex issue. Enormous co-operation between nations is required, the sort of relationships that the European Union was partly set up to achieve.

There is an ‘elephant in the room’ however and they is why the UK is a honey pot to emigrants. Why do individuals and families wish to come to the UK so very badly they will risk their savings and their lives to get there? Perhaps the answer includes the facts that English is a lingua franca for many, it has given out UK passports following it’s Empire days (e.g. Hong Kong), it has a free health service based solely on residency and has a generous welfare system into which there is no immediate requirement to pay, in contrast to most other European countries.

picture credit: AA Milne and Walt Disney

The UK public might be proud of these humane and welcoming promises but it is cruel to dangle the carrot without letting go of it just as the donkey has finally completed the journey and this is precisely the strategy of the present government in most cases. In my view this is a slippery slope to the UK losing it’s reputation for fairmindedness.

This essay has been long and covered at lot of ground. This has been deliberate and well done if you have reached this far! My aim has to be to outline only the broad spectrum of issues around the mass movement of people around the globe, using the UK as a sorry example of ineptitude.

Governments ignore complexity at their peril. It is always tempting for policticians who often are vastly under qualified for the roles they attempt to do and say as little as possible. This is all very well for the ordinary person who knows they have no idea about international polictics, but leaders are expected to be better than this. The detail is most often where policies go wrong and ignoring detail is much the same as devil worship, for does he not love the same?

Let Me In – part one

16/06/2022 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

Governments have to identify goals which are desired by their supporters and decide the means by which these goals can be achieved.

This simple statement makes sense, until the details and the means are examined in depth. Specifically, the means may not either be effective, or worse, they bring about unintended consequences which may cause harm.

An example of this is happening in the United Kingdom right now over the issue of immigration.

Voters in the Brexit referendum of 2014 had many concerns and one was a perception (stoked up by the media over inadequate public services and poor town planning rather than economists) that immigration into the UK was a problem. Brexit was posited as a means to ‘take control of our borders’. Unfortunately the ‘problem’ was incorrectly perceived in my view and I will explain why.

Economist promote immigration as it promotes growth and prosperity. The Tory governments of the last decades have known this and Home Secretaries such as Teresa May, did little to control immigration. Why would you when you need foreign workers? But after Brexit voted against the free movement of people within the European Union, unemployment in the UK now stands at 1.3 million.

*picture credit; I Volunteer International*

The present argument by the Johnson government, is that the ‘problem of immigration’ is the number of people who die on inadequate boats whilst trying to cross the English Channel. This emotive argument correctly demonises the illegal traffickers but fails to approach the problem from a strategic perspective. If they used safe boats would that be okay? Is this a sea worthyness of boats problem?

The absurdly narrow focus on what the problem is and how to solve it, only satisfies voters who are content with a simplistic problem / solution statement. To gain a full grasp of the problem, I shall outline as best I can, the breadth of the issue of mass movements of people into the UK and how improved ‘control’ of the borders of the UK could be achieved.

Firstly, there are five types of emigrants;

Those escaping hardship in their own countries through famine, war, climate change through no fault of their own.
Skilled and unskilled economic emigrants who are seeking work and higher remuneration.
Political emigrants who are escaping persecution by their own government because of their political views and acts and seek political asylum.
Emigrants who are seeking to be re-united with their families; a group that includes children travelling alone.
Those outside of the law in any country involved in subversive and or illegal activities, either in the interests of their own government or for criminal motives.

For each of these groups, there has to be a specific solution to their desire to emigrate to another country to live and work. But before I examine these, there is one further beneficial general approach.

The conditions in countries which people are seeking to leave own a large part of the problem. You might expect diplomats from countries likely to become unwilling hosts to emigrants to spend a large part of their time and resources in working on this problem with other governments. I personally suggest this should include processing asylum claims in local embassies (excepting when appropriate, political emigrants) and issuing temporary visas on ’emergency passports’ to enable safe travel using conventional means. Buying a 50 euro airline ticket instead of paying people traffickers, is no financial burden on the UK government and puts illegality out of business. It is certainly less than chartering an aircraft for 500,000 pounds to take the unwilling to Rwanda, but who am I to point this out?

But let us assume that all the targeted aid and supportive diplomatic steps have been taken and people are still desperate to leave their own countries. What interventions are available and appropriate for each of the five types identified above?

Group 1. Escaping hardship;

In the short to medium term, build refugee camps.
Identify suitable locations for these and provide appropriate support.
Have international protocols and means in place to be ready for the next global catastrophe, through non-political global organisations that are trusted by those seeking help.

Group 2. Economic migrants;

Maintain physical border controls so that border crossings can be managed and legal crossings enabled.
Put in place means to screen those with and without documents to confirm identity, purpose, ability for self support and seek work opportunities or evidence offers of employment.

Group 3. Political emigrants;

These should be identified by host countries only, as they will not wish to be intercepted by the countries they leave.
They may be oblidged to cross borders by illegal means in order to remain safe.

This group is likely to be used by group 5 (criminals) so particularly high security measures and screening methods will have to be used by potential hosting countries.

Group 4. Seeking family re-union;

Set rules for family members to be able re-unite after non-self imposed trauma legally and permanently.
Have facilities and protocols in place to process unaccompanied children.

This group would benefit from being able to apply for a visa and /or residency before leaving their own country.

Group 5. Criminals; This is the group that makes it necessary to have strict controls on all the rest.

They need to be identified at the earliest opportunity and dealt with according to international law and extradition agreements, much of which may need revue and extending in scope to fit the present movement towards a ‘global community’ rather than nationalist self interest.

You can appreciate that these principles apply to most emigration and immigration, and examples abound in today’s current affairs. To keep this essay focused I shall use just the example of immigration into the UK and the policy that the government believes will stop people crossing the English Channel in unsuitable craft.

My first point is a fault in the government’s argument. They state that the aim is to stop people drowning in the English Channel. Clearly no person is going to be against this. However their method is to deter people getting into unsafe boats and how strong a deterrent this is going to be, is unproven. The counter argument suggests the policy is ineffective and costly, at which point government ministers will accuse those against the policy of being ‘in favour of allowing people to drown in the English Channel’.

Unfortunately this extremely poor level of debate and problem solving has been carried over from the Brexit referendum in 2014. The focus of the ‘benefits’ of Brexit was on immigration, stating a desire to reduce numbers entering the UK. Not surprisingly, by being no longer a part of Europe the interests of the Mayor of Calais became no longer aligned with the UK. The solution for the French to the problems around refugee camps in Calais, was to do as little as possible to stop migrants leaving for the UK. For this reason they expressed no interest in accepting UK money for extra police and border controls on French territory. Such measures are popular with voters but are again ineffective. Emigrants who have already made long journeys are expert at avoiding detection. Effective ‘strong borders’, require measures in place similar to those between North and South Korea and it is unreasonable for Calais to accept machine gun posts, razor wire and mine fields along it’s beaches.

*picture credit; All That is Interesting*

So after the UK government has stopped accusing France of being ‘uncooperative’ rather than understanding the points about motive and means just made, the brutal ‘one size fits all’, send-emigrants-to-Rwanda solution is put in place. The British public – who have traditionally been internationally respected for being fair minded – are expected to accept that denying the human rights of desperate men, women and children will deter others from entering the UK illegally.

On the first day that this policy started the plane carrying eight emigrants, was grounded by the European Court of Human Rights and 440 people crossed the English Channel successfully in the other direction. Even after a year of this policy in operation – is it really likely that there will be fewer people crossing the English Channel in boats and if so how many fewer? Is denying human rights as a deterrent really acceptable?

In my view the government’s problem solving ability would hardly be accepted in a school debating society.

to be continued

Democracy by Numbers

08/04/2022 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

There is a system of ‘painting by numbers’ for novice painters which gives great looking results using very basic skills. A picture created by a professional is divided into sections of say, seven different hues and tones. Each is given a number between one and seven and all the novice painter has to do is fill in each section of the canvas with the appropriate colour or hue.

The majority of the world is now governed by autocratic leaders. In the previous decades of the twentieth century this was not the case but recently the tipping point was passed and autocrats now ‘rule the world’ – or do they?

You see, what I am doing here is making an error of thinking committed by ‘democratic thinkers’, whereby there there are only two possibilities – most or least. What is the ‘most’ or majority, becomes the ‘status quo’ for the oversimplified reason that ‘most people want it’.

It’s a beguiling argument because it simplifies everything into one overgeneralisation, hitting contradictory nuances and unintended consequences right between the eyes with a knock out punch.

At our peril. Because in my view we should always go one layer deeper into what a ‘majority’ is and what effects it will have on the government of a country.

To go back to a basic definition of democracy;

Control of an organization or group by the majority of its members.

So let’s see how self styled Western democracies fit this definition.

The first glaring contradiction is the rise of the super rich, super powerful entrepreneurs like Bill Gates, Elon Musk and others.

These and their lesser known ilk, now constitute one percent of the population of the world and yet, influence most of it and control at least 25% of it, directly or indirectly. Elon Musk created an electronic car when most American motor manufacturers, except Ford, were going out of business. You could also question; how comfortably does a software engineer sit in the theatre of mass vaccination?

Democracy in this 1% of world leaders, (which is what they are by any definition) does not exist. No one voted for any of them or the technologies that they pushed to the top of the mountain.

So there we have brush No.1. Paint in all the areas with the number one on your painting.

The next significant number is No. 50. This is the magic ‘tipping point’ in any democracy that defines the majority. Once you have this number of voters and ‘a few more’ then you control everything.

Or should they? Well, if we are thinking about ‘free elections’ in western democracies then these never really happen for the simple reason that a large number of people prefer not to vote. In some countries, this problem is countered by making it illegal not to vote…but this makes most liberally minded people uncomfortable… as does the idea of someone under a certain age voting. What right does a sixteen year old have to have an opinion on a country’s energy policy, a policy that is likely to affect them for the rest of their lives unlike an eighty year old who can vote but probably doesn’t have that long left to live.

Then there is the management nuance created by a 51% to 49% result. Imagine you survive a plane crash into the Pacific Ocean. You are bobbing up and down in a life raft with 8 passengers who look to you, the only member of crew to survive. They discount you as their leader as you are just a ‘trolley dolly’. Four of them argue that we should all start paddling. Four say we should stay put, so they all look to you for the casting vote. You know that whichever option you support there is going to be trouble. If everyone starts paddling there will be four who will not be putting their back into the effort. Worse still, they will begin to moan about what a waste of effort it is and how the rescuers will now not find you. The effect on moral is catastrophic. The same will happen if you follow the option to stay put and there is no sign of rescue.

If you think this is an unlikely scenario then just look at ‘Brexit’ and how the 48% to 52% vote (by those who bothered to get out of bed that morning because they thought Brexiteers would never win) has and is, panning out.

The third number on our palette is No.100. This is the colour for the 100% majority in favour. The rule in this version of democracy is that unless everyone agrees, nothing will get done. For this reason autocrats favouring the mere appearance of democracy whilst carry on as a despot, imprison the opposition (or worse) and create voters who are too frightened to vote against another ten years of tyranny.

Anyone who has lived in a family will know how this works and the misery it causes. Dad decides we are all going to the seaside, whilst Mum objects because she has an old friend to meet and Kitty wants to go on a school museum trip and Jazz wants to play in the local soccer team finals. Dad overalls and the family go to the seaside and all have a miserable time. The next day, they all go off in their individual directions and all is well.

Rarely do countries have the same interests and ideals in common which is why it is difficult for the European Union gain consensus in the 27 member countries. The only way is to ‘water down’ the proposal to such an extent that it causes no offence to anyone, but of course such vague proposals then become open to misinterpretation or biased interpretation from then on.

Most blatantly the United Nations Security Council gives the right to ‘veto’ any proposal to all of it’s seven member countries. This means that if one of them is committing war crimes somewhere outside it’s own country, it can veto any criticism and carry on.

So far I have placed three colours on the palette; 1% of unelected powerful people, 51% majority who upset the rest and the 100% who want their own way.

It would be reasonable to ask at this point ‘what does work?’, for democracy is meant to be the foundation stone of modern western civilisation.

Well, the only variation of the rules of democracy that does work in my view, is the requirement for a ‘super majority’. In this system it is recognised that the 51/49 split is unfair and becomes unworkable.

A super majority is therefore anything over a 60/40 or 66/34 split.

It’s subtle to understand at first but comes closer to what might be called ‘common sense’ management. If there are four in the family car heading off to the seaside, at least three are happy to be there and soon the fourth finds that perhaps it wasn’t such a bad idea after all or at least, it’s a fair deal.

If the super rich entrepreneurs and Oligarchs were compelled to pay 99% taxes, their power to influence would be taken away and their wealth fed into the poorest people in societies, creating the greatest benefit for most. Most of the super rich might well find that living off 1% of their wealth actually made them happier human beings or at least, that it was a fair deal. After all, Robin Hood was far more popular than the Sheriff of Nottingham.

If Russia is committing war crimes then the Security Council of the United Nations should have to power to act to investigate the allegations and call a cease fire or put in UN troops until the heat of battle dies down, and common sense prevails. Five to Two in favour is a reasonable super majority; get over it Russia and (abstaining) China.

To return to the ‘painting by numbers’ analogy, we can see that one coat of one hue paint is simple, but creates no work of art. Once the notion of ‘government by the people’ is broken down to examine the question ‘how’, several hues of interpretation present themselves. We must be bold because in calling everything ‘democratic’ we are committing the sin of over-simplifying.

Yes, they are all democratic but the devil is in the ‘how’ you create your democracy. You will need nuanced thinking to make things work whether on the small family scale or at a national level. The more colours in your painting the more it’s going to be a master piece and less like an amateur filling in spaces.

How to Rule the World

04/03/202204/03/2022 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

To everything there is an overview and to help understand the drama being played out in Ukraine at the moment, read on.

Tomas Schuman is an Soviet-era agent and has spilled the beans on the Soviet strategy to undermine the West.

He says there are four stages, extended over several decades;

Stage 1: Demoralisation

This takes at least one generation, maybe 15 to 20 years. During this time various completely fake replacements take over established religion, education, law and order and social life in general.

These institutions are replaced with un-elected ‘influencers’ such as the media, secret societies, wealthy individuals and clandestine branches of government.

Labour relations are undermined by taking away the power of trade unions.

Stage 2: Destabilisation

Stage 3: Crisis

Stage 4: Normalisation

As a pretence of solving the problems (real and fake) of the first three stages,

The USSR may have imploded in on itself but the ‘vision’ of it’s leaders is still deeply ingrained in it’s institutions and leaders. Mr Putin was after all a KGB officer and would have expertise in and taken part in the above process. Transfer these four stages to ‘predator’ and ‘predated’ countries in Asia (Myanmar now in military rule) Africa (Somalia)the Far East (North Korea) the Middle East (Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Israel) in addition to Europe and the Americas and elements of this Soviet-era method of insurrection ‘government toppling’ are alarmingly aparrent.

Matters Blog

Original thoughts on a variety of subjects that matter to me

Politics

Means to an End?

Matter Over Mind

What Seems to be the Problem?

The World Spinning out of Control

Darkness Visible

What Do You Need?

Let Me In – part two

Let Me In – part one

Democracy by Numbers

How to Rule the World