Yet Another Mass Killing

by Glenn N.  Holliman

Comments have been tumbling in this morning reflecting on the horrid killings by one person in Orlando, Florida.  Fifty are dead and over fifty wounded by an assult rifle and pistol.  The victims were gay and lesbian, and shooter an Islamic American, born in New York and living in Florida.  Below is a serious, thought proking piece from David, an Englishman in the Midlands of his gentler country. - GNH


"Dear Glenn: 

Your gunophilic nation has been and gone and done it again!

I've just listened to a bizarre, but only too predictable interview on BBC Radio 4, in which one of your politicians said that the Florida mass shooting was 'not about guns', but terrorism. 

She went on to say that, not only because of your 'Constitution', but because of his job, Omar Mateen was entitled to carry guns. His job, to which she refers, was that of a private security guard: the principal weapon which he used was a 'AR 15' semi-automatic assault rifle, and there are, it seems, 3.3 million such weapons owned, legitimately in your country. 

Here, in the UK, deemed by your government, to be unsafe for visits by US citizens, because of the threat of terrorism in Europe, we cannot imagine why a 'private security guard' (not normally regarded as highly trained in or skilled at anything) should be licensed to carry any sort of firearm, much less a semi-automatic assault rifle. 

We are even reluctant to allow our police officers to bear arms, and when we do so, it is only members of highly-trained specialist firearms units who are so licensed. 

By all means arm the military, in time of war, but to arm the whole population all the time, is simple madness.

So, Omar Mateen was motivated by his distorted view of his God and his religion, (to get evil men to do good is fairly easy: to get good men to do evil needs religion) but what about the 372 perpetrators of last year's mass shootings, in which 475 people were killed and 1,870 wounded? 

Terrorism? - I should say so, but only in the literal sense of the word - it's the very fact that the man walking toward you in any street in the United States, may be carrying a firearm, which should inspire terror in anyone endowed with common sense. Whatever one's motivation for a violent act, if one does not own, and would find it really hard to obtain, a firearm, through, say, the criminal black-market, the worst that one could do spontaneously, would be to stab, slash, or beat. Unrestricted access to assault rifles raises to a whole new level, the opportunity for serious mass violence.

The motivation is irrelevant. It may be simple hatred (of gay people, of surgeons practising abortions, of fellow-students, of people of other, or no religious belief, of immigrants, of .....  you name it); or having had a 'poor home background'; or belonging to a neglected minority group; or being mentally ill; or having a 'bad hair day'. 

However, if you don't have an assault rifle and haven't thought far enough ahead to build a bomb, you're not going to kill or maim 100 or more people. Obvious, no?

Yours in despair
David"

From a librarian in a southern USA state comes the following:

"Hey, it's another great day for the 2nd Amendment!!  So glad that the Republican Party will do whatever it takes to defend my right to buy and carry military grade weapons in public areas!   Let's not focus on the fact that toddlers who stumble upon handguns kill more Americans a year than terrorists.  (While we spend how many billions fighting terrorism?!).   So great that people can bring loaded guns into a public Library, but I have to ask them to leave if they talk on their cell phones!  Thanks NRA!!"


Terry Field also has written from strike torn France.  He emoted about the coming British vote, probably to leave the European Union, and then closed with the following:

"The horror in Orlando is ISIS inspired, albeit by a psychologically damaged person. That - I imagine - will not matter. It will almost certainly propel Mr Trump into the White Cottage.  What do you think Glenn? These are dark times, are they not?"

And so, stepping outside of my role as a recorder, I venture an opinion, not all my feelings certainly, but a response to Terry's 'dark days'.

"Dark times?  In an era of instant communication, something dark is brought to our attention that happens every day on this globe of 7 billion souls, a percentage of them tortured and willing to cut short the lives of fellow humans.  We are a spinning bit of sand in the solar system in a massive galaxy in a 13.7 billion year old universe.

Something Shakespearean grabs me from time to time, about strutting on stage and then like a candle, winking out and leaving scarce a footprint behind.

Sigh...and now the right wing in America will grab a new dose of fear and run with it.  Never mind the madness since the 2nd Bush administration of allowing these awful weapons to be sold to civilians.  Let  people have their guns for shooting ranges, a hobby I understand, but leave them locked up there.  As our laws are now written, we cannot keep them out of the hands of insane killers, just impossible.

Well, as to Britain, it looks like a close vote...many of the same forces of migration and increased integration of laws of commerce and justice seemingly 'threaten' the nations of Western Civilization.  Certainly that fear of a 'federal' government in some far away place is an issue in Yorkshire as well as York, Pennsylvania.  Part of this is a human's desire for freedom; part of fear of the 'other' that seeks to control elements of one's being.

So I mow my lawn, sweep debris from my cluttered barn and some days try not to study the news too closely.  This too shall recede into the fog of time.  But in the meantime families mourn, and an increase of fear and unease is the substance of our days."- GNH

From Down Under....

Dear Glenn

I have a new and radical idea to reduce global emissions which are threatening mankind’s future because we are such clever little bunnies at reproducing and have massively overpopulated our poor little globe.

We arm every man, woman, and most importantly every child with an automatic weapon.

Simple.

Cynical Steph

From a thoughtful cousin, retired United Methodist Minister in Alabama who states even Alabama does not allow guns in libraries as does Virginia. This piece was emailed to Charles by another pastor.

Brian is the Senior Minister at the Trinity United Methodist Church which is
just down the street from where we live. He is a young man, 43,
extremely bright and a gifted preacher. I think you will appreciate his
message. Charles F.  (I agree Charles, well worth reading. GNH)


"Spent the day after church yesterday in the car with the family, driving
south through Florida, listening to coverage of the Orlando shooting.  I am
probably too quick to post thoughts on here, so it may have been a blessing
to all that I couldn't juggle Facebook and the steering wheel at the same
time.

I am ever so grateful for the diversity of my friends on Facebook, as
frustrating as it can be during an election cycle.  Whenever something
polarizing occurs (we seem to be on a 20 minute cycle these days), my feed
becomes a very big tent, with one stake just to the right of the right-hand
side of the folks who feel Fox News is too liberal, and the other side
touches down in the Noam Chomsky Vegans for a Better Bernie Book Club (the
venerable NCVBBBC).  As a pastor, I've found that just about everybody
assumes that I agree with them.

These divisions are important, of course, but as others have said much
better than I can, in the forward-before-you-think world of social media,
our energies fuel our opposition to one another, rather than meaningfuldialogue.  We have more words, and more access to each other, yet we've used
these tools to effectively shut each other out.  I'm more convinced than
ever that the problem is not just that these point-and-shoot binary
conflicts don't capture the complexity of the issues, but that years of
engaging one another like this has made us dumber.  This is how we think
now.

There are so many levels to what happened in the wee hours of the morning in
Orlando.  There is the troubling connection to religion, both to the
misguided faith of the shooter, as well as the religiously motivated
discrimination against LGBTQ children of God by Christians.  Christians are
never given the luxury of thinking one life is less valuable than another.

There is the pain carried by the Latino community, not just for this
unfathomable tragedy, but that the country built by immigrants does not know
how to talk about immigration without descending into fear of the other.
There is the gun debate that goes nowhere, with well-intentioned folks on
both sides of the aisle, quibbling with one another, while the bad guys
continue to buy AR-15s easier than they could renew their driver's licenses.

There is the terror spread by a handful of evil people, whose best victory
is not measured by lives taken or bombs detonated, but by the suspicion
they've sown in us, the growing mistrust we have of the world and each
other, even though you are still more likely to be killed by an asteroid or
a ladder than a terrorist.

But underneath all these layers, there are 50 people--49 victims and a
shooter--whose lives have been cut short.  There are families with aching
holes that cannot be filled by prayer or sympathy or news coverage or even
time.  

For my part in this big tent of disagreement, I think the very least
we can do to honor them is to decide how we will understand their unwilling
sacrifice.  If they have died only to feed our fear, our mistrust, our
systematic ignorance of one another, then let us go ahead and hand the keysof the world to the bad guys.  But I've got to think that people in this day
and age with the courage to be openly gay, and to gather with friends to
dance and sing and enjoy one another's company, would not want their lives
to feed that kind of fire.

Evil will not be defeated by a quiet news day, because the truth is, even
when it does not rise to the level of our awareness, senseless violence is a
constant in this broken world.  If we want the world to be better, we must
rise up in these moments and decide Who we serve.

Whenever we stand for one another, because we realize that these arbitrary
differences are not what finally define us, evil loses.  Whenever we choose
to engage those on the other side rather than lobbing another Facebook
grenade, evil loses.  Whenever we decide that this hour is ours, that no one
better is coming to fix the world, evil loses.

According to my own narrow worldview (that has its own minefield of
limitations), the last word will be "Amen."  Until then, there will be
suffering and senselessness and sacrifice, but that is no excuse to step
aside and let the darkness have its way.  We live now, we speak now, we act
now, because we know what the last page of the story looks like.

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with all the saints.  And let the
saints on this side of that veil unite our fragile voices to tell evil that,no matter how hard it tries, it will lose.  And we are taking back the hour
we've been given.

Amen, and amen.

Mr. Field Responds to Brexit Arguments

David Lott's good friend responds negatively to the "Leave" Argument.....

The consequences for Britain, and for Europe, if Britain leaves the EU by Terence Field

The referendum is bringing swings in the polls, initially for Remain, more recently towards Brexit.

In the first weeks, most major economic institutes, together with the IMF, the British Treasury, the OECD and others all suggested that Brexit would result in a significant reduction in the economic condition of the country, the details differing dependent upon which institute reported, as they each have different concerns. It is fair to say that there have been few, if any, economists and economic institutes who have suggested other than a degradation of Britain's condition consequent upon Brexit.

The Brexit scheme damned all these observations as being ‘scaremongering’, and it is true that they have been successful in ensuring that Brits in general do not take these warnings as being of weight.

Recently, the Brexit team has focused like laser light on the matter of migration into the UK. They suggest Brexit can ensure greatly reduced ‘net’ migration into the UK.

In addition, they have pointed repeatedly to the effect EU migration has had on ‘depressing ‘ the labour rates of the low skilled, low paid.

This seems to have real traction in Britain at present.

The polls are closer; some show Brexit ahead, some show Brexit behind. I looked at the ‘poll of polls’ data today, and it showed 46% to remain, 43 % to Brexit, 12% undecided. Clearly the undecided’s have reduced, and they have by a majority moved into the Brexit ‘camp’.

The outcome is uncertain. David Lott has written well on the subject, and, as I said before, some excellent people are in the Brexit camp, but I consider that they are mistaken.

These are the reasons why. But before give my reasons, I would like to record my dismay at the poor quality of information, argument, honest, and clear motives that have rise arisen from this process.

I am no populist; I like representative government, and I deplore direct participatory processes. As do many. The reasons I take this view are a note all of its own; maybe I will write on this later.

Anyway, here are my arguments, some repeated, some not, for Remain in the EU.

For ease, I put them in simple bullet-point order, in no particular sequence of significance:

1   I reject the assertion that Britain has lost its sovereignty (note this is hardly discussed in the referendum, ‘control’ is the word used, and that is NOT the same thing). Britain shares – pools authority with all 27 countries. The common event is common deliberation, common decision-making and common acceptance of compromise.  

It is messy, unsexy, and is often accepted by national ministers who actively participate and agree collectively, and then each minister returns to denounce the process as being ‘ganged up on’. This has not happened, but the politicians cannot admit to that; they risk their re-election otherwise.

The process gives nobody everything they want. That is as it should be.

I LIKE THIS FINE COMING TOGETHER TO SERVE COMMON OUTCOMES. IT IS CIVILISATION, NOT CONFRONTATION BEFORE THE BARBARISM OF CONFLICT.

2  Migration. Recently there have been almost equal numbers entering Britain from origins within and without the EU. From within the EU many are free-transiting workers looking for, and finding work – the ubiquitous Polish Barrista in a city centre.

Another group – a large group  - is the corporate executive coming to either a European head office or similar, and often in the City of London, or in such as EADS or Airbus. These people come as part of the employers visa request. The same happens in the other direction.

Another large group will be academics, writers and technical authors from all over Europe acting in response to the progressive integration of design and manufacturing processes across the EU. Such movements happen between all member states.

A distorting element has been the low incomes earned in the post-communist  states and the magnet of the western states. The UK is a big draw, and attracts the clever, the mobile, the multilingual; in short they are not stupid people. And they out compete the bottom group of the indigenous labour market. A KEY BREXIT ARGUMENT HAS BEEN THE DESIRE TO PROTECT THE LEAST EDUCATED, LEAST-SKILLED, LEAST POTENTIALLY PRODUCTIVE of the BRITISH WORKFORCE.

The British Isles in the 1500s when the population may have been 3 million; today - 65 million.

There are lots of these people, so from an electoral viewpoint this is potentially successful. It seems to me a worthless argument. As I have discussed above and do not propose to repeat.

Of the rest, huge numbers come from the Indian subcontinent, and come as family migrants. That will not change by the introduction of a points system, unless Britain wishes to comprehensively repudiate international law and agreements the UK is a signatory to. To suggest it can be stopped is untrue.

The ARGUMENT ABOUT TERRORISM FROM THE EU IS SO FLAWED AS TO BE LAUGHABLE AND IT IS SIMPY AND PLAINLY UNTRUE. AS I HAVE DISCUSSED ABOVE, AND AGAIN DO NOT PROPOSE TO REPEAT.

MIGRATION FOLLOWS ECONOMIC ACTIVITY AND EASY LABOUR LAWS. If Britain seriously anticipates growing then it cannot avoid sucking in skilled Labour. To suggest it can is a fantasy, as every worthwhile economist perfectly well knows – but this is being sold as untrue to the unintelligent and uneducated, who exist in very large numbers.

A ‘Points system’ is proposed.

There are vast numbers of highly skilled, highly people in a world bursting with people, who could meet the needs of any ‘points’ system. The only way to avoid a mass migration of such people would be to also include a capping system.

That has NOT been discussed, or suggested. Because it would be opposed by employers and other interested groups across the country.

Certainly a stop to migration could be achieved, but the social consequences to existing families, to employers, to the

lubrication of the economy would be more than severe. And the Brexiters of intelligence know this perfectly well; they play it because it is popular with the poor, the marginal, the lower income workers.

The parish church in Long Hanford, not far from the burial plot of Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Oxfordshire.  Woodstock and Oxford are close by. - GNH

I SUPPORT FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT IN EUROPE, WITH SOCIAL PAYMENT CONTROLS. I REJOICE IN A DISMANTLING OF THE BARS THE STATES ERECTED OVER 200 YEARS OF BLOODY WARS. BRAVO FOR FREEDOM.

3    Brexit argues that Britain will ‘control its affairs’  after leaving.

My observations:

A   IT does, voluntarily solve matters collectively.

B   It acts independently on many matters and subsidiarity is real.

Not enough, I agree, but that is a nuance argument.

C   The real matters are technical and environmental, and there, group agreement is vital and continuing. Boring for the population to think about, but a core part of running companies, countries and relationships.

D   As for environmentalists, it is Europe that has made some effort (utterly inadequate, but some effort) to reduce the horror of the coming change to the climates of the world.

In every such sphere, massive forces need to come together, battle out the arguments, and either come to sane agreements, where we will benefit, or fail to do so, where we will not.

Either way, large scale co-ordinated function is the future here.

IN SHORT I HAVE HEARD NOTHING FROM BREXITERS CONCERNING REAL ISSUES THEY WILL BE FREE TO CHANGE POLICY ON AS A RESULT OF BREXIT WHAT ARE THAY???????????

  

4   Brexiters claim there is a democratic deficit in Europe, opacity, corrupt practices, deliberate political action against Britain’s interests.

It is ALL true, and worse.

BUT LEAVING WILL NOT CHANGE THAT AND WILL ALLOW IT TO GET WORSE AS WE WILL HAVE LEFT THE BEAR PIT.

Nobody believes the countries of Europe are reasonable, particularly ‘democratic’, or well disposed to Britain.

IF YOU WANT TO SEE THEIR REAL MALICE, THEN LEAVE!!!!!!

STAY IN ANDFIGHT TO CHANGE AND CONTROL THEIR WORST EXCESSES.

5   Brexiters  claim the utilities and services – housing, schools, health system, etc, cannot cope.

I agree, there is a crisis in the means to live well in Britain, but it stems from CATASTROPHICALLY BAD LOCAL AND NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. I am not trying to win popularity here, just tell it ‘as it is’.

Britain builds almost no houses, and has not done so for quite some decades. It land use policies are absurd, its planning mores are ridiculous. Its attitude to how to meet Georgian –era population densities – which it MUST meet, are little short of infantile and absurd.

The United Kingdom still has many thatched cottages, such as this one in Sherington, Buckinghamshire.- GNH

The British NHS is, simply, a failed model that does NOT work. Nothing to do with the EU – rather a direct result of absurd, lying, self-serving, mostly Labour politicians. Interestingly, EU member states on the continent have MUCH superior healthcare systems.  As Mr Lott well knows.

Solution. Replicate the best the continent offers. And stop running a soviet-style queuing system. It is a crime.

OF ALL THE ABSURD LIES COMING FROM THIS REFERENDUM IS THE ABSURD CLAIM THE NHS IS THREATENED BY THE EU!

A nonsense beyond ludicrous, designed to appeal to the truly unintelligent and unaware.  Disgraceful nonsense at so many levels.

IN SHORT THE FAILURES RESULT NOT FROM THE EU BUT FROM DREADFUL GOVERNMENTAL MALADMINISTRATION AND AN EQUALLY BAD CIVIL SERVICE.

6 The economic risks of brexit.

This is all me, so feel free to comment.  PIMOC, the worlds largest bond trader and adviser, has said the UK bond market rests on a bed of ‘nitro glycerin’. NOBODY has referred to the issue for the UK of a debt pile that will soon approach 1.8  trillion sterling.  Everything rests on confidence for the progress, over the next third of a century or more, since low inflation will require that sort of timescale to reduce the debt to a manageable level. 

Right now the UK capitalises the interest burden!!!! If the nation exercises Brexit, it will be reconsidered in base relief as an independent, unsupported nation, alone, with a 5% of GDP trade deficit, massive personal debt levels, the above identified immense state debt issuance, for the first time in 200 years no real net overseas income earning assets, and a de-industrialised, deskilled labour-force, flogging ‘services’ and really very little else. In short, an exceedingly narrow specialised economic base, vast debt, massive failure to close its trade imbalance.

I read people say Britain has a ‘strong economy’ and can ‘go it alone.

Well, let those people experience the day after Brexit, when the bond markets load a significant risk and reassessment premium on UK bonds. Combine that with the trade disruption from a continent who will act to buy ‘locally’ and exclude Britain (and if you think that will not happen then you must be extremely naïve) together with a collapsing currency with NO compensating export increase as we have nothing to sell at a lower, higher or the same currency level (and if you do not believe that look at the performance over the last thirty years).

I think the Greek , Portuguese and Italian experiences could be our lives within months of leaving. With LITTLE OR NO possibility of recovery.

Britain is NOT strong and dynamic. I wish to God that it were; I bitterly regret the incompetence that has stripped it of wealth, potential and vital output. But that is DONE.      

Once the wealth of England was based on sheep - food and clothing.  Now the largest portion of the GDP comes from financial services; mainly from The City in London. - GNH

I am not tying to sell palatable lies to get you to leave – or to stay. As many others, very transparently, are. But leave will  breach the confidence dam that holds the hell of collapse at bay. That is not stated by the institutes since doing so would make it a self –fulfilling prophesy.

That is it.

The dreadful referendum must run its course. David Lott is a ‘cavalier’; sunny and optimistic. I am a ‘roundhead’; dour and NOT optimistic. I am 67. I have rarely had cause to revise my views upwards to meet the reality.

The West is experiencing impoverishment, and inequality, because of globalisation and Mr Malthus. This spawns fascism and communism in Britain and Europe, anti-Semitism, Trump and this damned referendum.

Finally, I remember Britain before accession to the EEC. It was dirt poor, nasty, polluted, and DESPERATE TO JOIN!!!! 

Think bloody hard before you throw the structures that we wished to create for over 60 years down the toilet. - Terence Field, a British citizen who gardens in Normandy

Comments?

A Brexit Leader Responds

David Lott, retired RAF and airline pilot and one of the founders of the United Kingdom Independent Party, provides us a snapshot view of his take on the coming critical referendum on June 23rd.  Citizens of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland will be casting ballots on whether the United Kingdom shall remain under the umbrella of the European Union. The fate of David Cameron's government and, perhaps the fate of Scotland remaining in the United Kingdom, ride on the outside of this difficult decision on the part of the British peoples.

Those of us reading this outside of Europe need to be paying attention. Ultimately the future of European Federation including the Euro are factors that should concern the world.- GNH

David Lott writes: 

At last we seem to be creeping ahead in the campaign to leave the EU. Two things have happened that have put the Remain camp on the defensive.

Firstly real policies are emerging for a post Brexit scenario. This has always been a difficulty for us Leavers to get across because we fight as representatives of the people but have little in the way of elected politicians and so have a manifesto that is not given the time of day by the media.

Depending on one's view, the sun is either rising or setting over the English Channel. This view from David's lush garden.

Thanks, however, to the deep divisions in the Conservative Party, a core of senior ministers in the Cameron Government have produced a post Brexit Manifesto, and it has solid credibility primarily as one of these Ministers will almost certainly become Prime Minister in the event of a Brexit vote.

At last we can put meat upon the Brexit bones in the fields of economics, trade and immigration, security and indeed sovereignty, all of which are at the centre of the debate. What is gratifying for me and my colleagues in the UK Independence Party, who have put much thought into this over the years, is that our solutions are being enthusiastically trumpeted by Ministers in Cameron’s cabinet that are campaigning to leave.

This change has started to shift the polls in our favour already.  As the public start to see our vision of freedom from the EU straight jacket, it becomes exciting and thrilling to contemplate. That our escape will spark a new dynamism I have no doubt and more citizens are beginning to see the picture.

The second major change is that talking about the question of security and immigration has become acceptable and the prohibition of moderate sensible views by the use of political correctness has disappeared.

We really do have genuine fears about the capacity of our health, education and housing capability, in the face of unlimited EU immigration, to cope. The safety of women in the nation when Europol tells us there are 5000 Jihadis already in Europe and still more and more coming as the EU’s, Angela Merkel inspired, open invitation to one and all pour in at the rate of thousands a day.

But Jihadis are not the only problem as we have a terrible record in the UK of the grooming of under-age girls by Pakistani immigrants on a truly industrial scale. Add to that, 30,000 cases of Female Genital Mutilation in London alone. 

On the continent Germany had the terrible abuse of women at the Cologne New Year celebrations, dreadful attacks and rape of boys and women in Austria and women even dyeing their hair to avoid molestation in Sweden.

Women are becoming fearful and this too has started to sink in as women put their families first throughout the land.

It is becoming tense as we approach the finishing line and the passion and conviction of those of us who wish to be free and independent, just as you in the US, drive us forward. It is very tight but we are starting to open up a lead. We can win and are beginning to really believe it! - David Lott, a citizen of the U.K. sojourning in France  

Comments?

France Unravels 2016

by Glenn N. Holliman

The news this morning from France speaks of transportation strikes and labor conflicts in the streets of Paris.  President Hollande and his party are trying to reduce the strait jacket of government restrictions on business - particularity the ability of management to dismiss under productive employees and remove burdensome regulations on commerce. Terry Fields, an Englishman of lucid and strong opinions, offers this take on the disturbing state of French society and European politics in this year of 2016. He concludes his article with a bit of tongue in cheek humor.- GNH

What is France becoming?

by Terry Field, an Englishman in Normandy

We all see the paroxysm of social disorder and violent strife overtaking France. This little note tries to suggest where France goes from here – and why.

The attempted preservation of a sealed and isolated economic condition, not affected by the pressures of the global economy, are more significant for French self-awareness than is understood overseas. France has constructed a patrician, top-down, protective society replete with a social religion of mutuality of obligation and ‘fairness’ that dominates all thought .

Economics is prostituted as a distorted servant of political, and through that, cultural delusion.

The French idea of the Euro was part of the French insane asylum of creating a ‘counterweight’ to the American ‘hyperpuisance’.

The reality now is a little different. France is as shattered an integrated economy as is Britain. Both societies harbour a delusion of authority and potential at variance with the ‘facts on the ground’.

The newly powerful, unified and untrammeled German power controls Europe. Just as the British predicted before 1914 disturbed the pond.

Germany extends its power and control as the United States wanes in the Atlantic and moves to the Pacific.

Russia is faced across its whole western boundary by a German authority, dressed as NATO, even though the American guarantor now, in the strongest political language from the present and conceivable future administrations, removes itself from its unequivocal acceptance of the fifth clause.

Strange that the ground to air missiles are placed in Poland and Romania, but if I were this particular Bundeschanzelerin, I would be content, doubly so since Mr Putin states – Poland and Romania are in his ‘cross-hairs’. After all, that is what my buffer states are there for!

No guesses for who encouraged the Ukranians (now slav-haters to a man in their ‘west’) to ‘employ’ Mr Rassmussen as an ‘adviser’.

SO with Germany in the ascendant, and once again confronting the Slav enemy in the East, how will France behave?

Just like the dying days of the USSR, its elite says that the prime function is to promote and protect ‘French Culture’, no matter the state of the economy.

All that is just blather.

Terry, left, with dining mates on the Queen Victoria January 2016 sharing views on desert and the human condition.

As the French economy collapses under the weight of its own contradictions, there are two possible immediate outcomes – 

The next election will see a rational reforming government – a sort of Madame Thatcher ‘light’, or, in similar manner to the British were they to choose Brexit, the selection of a right wing, but in their case also racist government that repudiates the European Union and attempts to build an autarkic state. That is precisely what its leader has said the French want – to be ‘protected’ from the world.

The former choice would cause the Euro to collapse under the strain of reform, industrial decline, agricultural decimation and the slow replacement by anew free-enterprise unprotected economy, that latter choice a collapse of the Euro as the European program of required fiscal and social integration to complete the construction of a controllable new monetary system is fully and rapidly abandoned. 

Either way, France is going to become something new.  And war with Russia in the East is now a possibility.

I am preparing for future events by applying a program of laying land-mines around the perimeter of my estates, and developing a program of remotely controlled machine gun nests at strategic locations.

I suggest visitors advertise their intention to visit in advance of the event! - Terry Field in France

Comments welcome as always....

From Down Under, Steph observes....

Picture below of Stephanie explaining how to speak Australian to Canadian Ron Marshall in 2014

Great to hear your balanced calming mediator’s voice again.

I must admit David Lott’s views re. Brexit are winning the argument with me, but I’m aware I’m an outsider from Downunder. However, some UK friends wrote this to me the other day: ‘We are going to vote 'Leave' and take our chances on the outcome.  We managed on our own before the Common Market vote in 1975 and we can sure do it again.  We learn that the EU are awaiting the outcome of our vote before putting up the amount every country  has to contribute.  They wouldn't do it before - they're not stupid.  Unfortunately most youngsters (those under 35) are predicted to vote to remain as they know nothing else but most of us oldies will vote to leave’

Also, from an Aussie POV, there’s a big split in the population when it comes to control of our borders and how to do it. Many people, who in my opinion are short-sighted but well-meaning and claim to be so much more compassionate than hard hearteds like myself, insist that Australia should virtually open its doors to boat people. The Liberal Government is saying ‘no. anyone who comes here by boat will NEVER be allowed to settle in Oz. They will have opportunities to settle in other Asian countries, or to return to their countries’. Now, even the Labour opposition leader has agreed that this is the best big picture policy, to avoid all the drownings we were witnessing but also to spread the word and to stop the flood of migrants which, as in Europe, would be never-ending and which would eventually ruin this country.  Trouble is, many of the Labour team believe that we are being inhumane, and so there is great division within the Party itself, even though the boats have stopped, and now we have to wait for those (900 mostly young men) in the offshore detention centres in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, give up hopes of entering Oz and choose where they wish to be repatriated.

Keeping control of who enters each country is vital. Recently we’ve had instances of Muslim immigrants refusing to obey our laws and stand up when a judge or magistrate enters the court room, and recent outraged letters to the paper reflect that the mainstream Australians are fed up with certain immigrants who have gladly taken all that we have to offer, all the freedoms and the tolerance and the services, and are now laughing in our faces. Somehow we must ensure that those coming here have respect for our laws, our democracy, and our women etc etc.

That’s a roundabout way of saying that I do sympathise with those Pommies desperate to leave the EU so that once more they may have some control over their country before it is too late.

From a College Chum of Yester-Year in Tennessee....I Join you wholeheartedly regarding your "thesis" about listening!


From a Distinguished Barrister in Pennsylvania....

You must admit these are interesting times.....this is certainly not a Tweedledee--Tweedledum election as many elections have been in the past when the presidential candidates for the two major parties would race to the "middle" to get the moderate, independent votes.  Unfortunately, there is not much left to the "middle."  Now what we have is one candidate saying the other candidate is completely unqualified to be President and the opposing candidate saying that the other candidate should be in jail.  Let's assume that the winner gets 55% of the vote and the loser gets 45%.    How will the 45% ever accept the winner as legitimate after being told that the winner is completely unqualified to be President or that the winner is a criminal and should be in jail?   Good luck to the winner in trying to govern with the halo of illegitimacy hanging overhead. So sad.....how to govern afterJanuary 20, 2017?  Maybe the loser will be the lucky one.

Brexit - David Lott Responds

by Glenn N. Holliman

David Lott has written with lucid candor and anxiety in this blog before.  He is a great patriot of his nation and a founding member of the United Kingdom Independent Party. His father lost an eye in the 1940 Battle of Britain as a fighter pilot against Hitler's Nazis. David, a retired airline pilot, served many years himself with the Royal Air Force during the Cold War.  

The referendum in the U.K. will be held on June 23, 2016 to decide if the country will remain in the European Union.  Some argue Europe will become more unsafe with an exit by the U.K. and that the E.U. could disintegrate.   These are David's observations on the history of the Middle East and on going threats to France and the U.K. - GNH

Well done Glenn; you seem to be stirring up a hornet's nest!  

Right, David's garden in Normandy, France, a paradise of flowers. 

Since I last wrote the polls are now moving in the direction of Brexit and this after Obama's highly publicised 'decisive' intervention and all the data published by various learned bodies warning of dire consequences for the British people and the world as a whole if the UK were to leave the EU. These bodies are the same that advised us to join the Euro with similar warnings of gloom and doom if we were not to do so.

It seems, just as in the US, that the ordinary people, who form the backbone of society, have finally have had enough of PR, propaganda, smoke and mirrors or whatever you wish to call it and now see with 20:20 vision that the emperor has no clothes.

On the question of the British nation and its peoples'  security can I expand a little because it will set the scene for the truly gigantic upheaval of vast numbers in the Middle East and Africa. There are two issues here and they are closely connected: immigration and national security.

Since the mid 1950s when the US intervened on the side of Egypt during the Suez crisis with the UK and France, the owners of the canal, on the other side, foreign policy has been hopelessly mismanaged. The Shah was forced upon Iran with disastrous consequences that led to the rise of fanatical Islamic mullahs. Intervention after intervention based upon false premises stirred the pot to boiling point. President George Bush Senior got it right when he stopped at Iraq's borders. He is the only one so far who has. Please understand that I am not criticising just the US as Britain and France have also got it spectacularly wrong.

The people of the Middle East and the Sahara are a fiercely tribal group. Life in these arid areas is harsh and has been for thousands of years. Each tribe jealously guarded its meagre assets as they were essential to its survival be it a waterhole or a wadi that once a year rains would provide fodder for man and beast. These conditions fashioned their character. Life was cruel so they became cruel and regularly raided their neighbours for food and womenfolk. The one thing that knit them in any sort of togetherness was Islam. Then along came great wealth in the form of oil.  Lawrence of Arabia's used Islam and the King of Saudi Arabia as the direct descendent of the Prophet, to knit his marauding force together against the Ottoman Empire.

The Mullahs of Iran, despots of Iraq, Libya and Syria as well as the Royal Families of the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait rule ruthlessly using Islam as the glue. The US, France, UK and other NATO countries decided to 'help' change that situation selectively.

I would argue that the ousting of the Iraqi and Libyan leaders smashed the autocratic balance of power and plunged the whole region into chaos. Removing Assad will add to that. Britain has much blood upon its hands in Libya and more recently Yemen. There to condone Saudi Arabia's illegal attack upon the Houthis causing mass casualties and starvation whilst our arms industry prospered.

What a mess. We even support Turkey who have taken IS produced oil, paid for it with weapons and food to sustain IS in its efforts to wipe out the Kurds in Iraq and Syria. This is the same Turkey with whom Mrs Merkel does business.

We have brought this situation about and our politicians are trapped within the web created by their misbegotten deeds and have to defend their actions by encouraging the biblical mass of displaced millions of people to cross the Mediterranean and Aegean seas where thousands drown. Within them top security agencies report there are 5000 Jihadis. We in the EU are in very serious danger indeed.

Mr Trump said Germany has been ruined by mass migration already. It may be true and by the end of this summer we shall know if Italy has suffered the same fate along with Greece. 

Austria is sealing off its country and Hungary the same. In Sweden a mass crime wave is expected this summer. In Germany dreadful sexual violence has happened with much of it hidden from view by the police. In France and Belgium terrorists have been hard at work. Today in Belgium every citizen is being issued with an Iodine pack in case of a dirty nuclear attack.

We in Britain can defend our culture and our people if we act in time and to do so we simply have to leave the EU in order to protect ourselves. This question of safety transcends any other consideration.

We are an Island and it can be done but only if we have the will.

We do have a responsibility to the benighted refugees, not the migrants, as we along with you in the States are responsible for the current frightening crisis.  No, it has not been caused by the desertification of the Middle East but by the appalling mismanagement of foreign policy.

Huge pressure should now be placed upon the rich states of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and the other Gulf States to take in refugees. A massive fund will be required with those states committing the lion's share share but also ourselves, the US and EU countries as well in order to provide camps and food and ultimately rebuild the ruined countries. But first it will be necessary to annihilate IS wherever it raises its head.

Below, sharing lunch and French wine in Bayeux, France. Left to right, Barbara Holliman, Terry Field and David Lott.

Leaving the EU is just a beginning. Our future will depend upon what our politicians do with our new found freedom and that battle will only begin once we vote to leave on 23rd June.

One last word - Have investors thought of what the EU Tobin Tax (See the 5 Presidents Report) will do to income from investments when it is implemented shortly in order to provide income to fund EU integration. London outside the EU will attract an enormous amount to business from Frankfurt along with the New York and Hong Kong stock exchanges thanks to the EU imposition of this tax?  Just a thought. - David Lott   

Comments?

David Lott emailed the following disturbing note on 19 May 2016 - It has long been the right of every freeborn British person to grumble about our leaders and rulers, our managers and others 'in authority over us'. We call it "freedom of speech". On May 6th the EU removed that right, not that many would know it from the silence in much of the media (source:Daily Telegraph). The European Court of Justice ruled that the right to complain about, or otherwise point out, the failings or wrongdoings of the EU Commission is illegal and gave the Commission the right to legally punish "individuals who damage the institution's image and reputation". Interestingly, from an historic viewpoint, almost the same words were used in the Enabling Act of 1933 which allowed the German government to "abolish civil liberties" including rights of free speech which were not restored in that country until 1945. Don't take my word for it; the complete transcript of the Act in both German and English is available on line. Yet another reason to vote Leave on June 23rd  From Terry Field -  Glenn, David, This is another depressing reality of the hook the British worm squirms on. I do not see that Britain will be more free if it leaves, I wish I did. The condition of modern Britain is itself much closer than National `socialist Germany in very many aspects than that of a free country full of truly free individuals. Obviously the EU is an antidemocratic, German controlled, pan-Frankish horror. I still consider that leaving will make it more dangerous, more toxic, more threatening - I think. This is a new dark age. David is hopeful. I am not. That is the difference between us.