War is ignorance

I’ve been a pacifist all of my adult life. How could anyone not be? I will never understand. The taking of someone’s life is morally indefensible. Wars are rich mens’ games. Rich men play, and poor men, women and children die. Rich men invent tribalist and sectarian nonsense to trick poor men into fighting their battles. Patriotism is a con. It’s a fabrication. Patriots are fools. And don’t get me started on the Red Poppy Fascists! When the British Legion campaigns against war I will wear a red poppy. Not until.

War serves no purpose but to make rich men richer

War is ignorance
War is evil
War is hate
War is grotesque
War is pointless
War is stupidity
War is waste

Dead
Bodies
Vile
Vile bodies

No one wins in war

Civilians die in wars
Children die in wars
Pets die in wars
You could die in a war
Private C Read died in a war.

"War is over if you want it"

Wars can only ever end with peace
Peace, peace is the only way forward

The veneer of the red poppy fascists

Remembrance, what a perfect example of Orwellian newspeak that is!

Remembrance is to forget; to forget the sheer folly of war, and the mistakes mankind* makes over and over again. To forget the mistakes that continually lead to war. To forget the sheer folly and futility of war, of war that is death, destruction, waste, terror, tragedy and trauma. The horrors that are glossed over with pomp, costume, medals, trinkets, weapon ‘salutes’ and concentrated jingoism in a pantomime that not once emphasises how evil and pointless war is, or even considers how to end war.

All war is murder, and there is nothing heroic about murder. Who dies in wars? Why the middle, working and peasant classes of course; both civilian and service people. No surprises there. War is waged by the establishment. War is the sport of the ruling classes. The one percent never suffer; they thrive and profit from war. They are the manipulators. They control us with their relentless propaganda; it’s how the few can keep the many ‘in their place’. They use tools like patriotism and xenophobia. Patriotism is the opposite of what it is purported to be. It’s all lies. Establishment lies. Red poppies are a marker. A marker to check that we are toeing the line. Think about it, and I mean really think about it; analyse.

All war is murder; to those of you that are of a religious** disposition it is the ultimate blasphemy, and to those of us that are atheist it is totally unjust and a moral outrage!

We are all pawns in the establishment’s game.

Now then! If any of you Daily Mail types have got thus far in my blog post you’re probably fuming. You’re probably thinking that I’m being disrespectful to all of those who fought and died for my so called freedom. But I am certainly not. I have the greatest respect for them, and for those that have suffered and been maimed by war. To me all human life is sacred. As a pacifist I want to end all war; surely it is the greatest respect one can offer to those who have experienced the unimaginable horror that war must be. The disrespectful ones are the elite, the ruling classes, the ones that will today be dressed in their finery and brandishing their blood red poppies. They don’t give a shit about the likes of you, me and the rest of the hoi polloi. And they certainly don’t give a shit about those past and present members of the armed forces. To those in charge the armed forces are just cannon fodder. The UK is the 9th richest country in the world yet we still have poverty and homelessness; that shows you how much those that rule over us, the richest 1%, care about the rest of us. And, a sizeable proportion of the homeless, the drink and drug dependant, those with mental health issues and the prison population will be ex-service people. That’s how much they, the establishment, respect those that have ‘fought for their country’. Think about it! Wake up! Then remember that!

And finally, don’t forget that in the world today, war is ever present. We all need to say enough is enough. Think about all those poor people fleeing from war, the refugees that precariously take to the high seas or trek large inhospitable distances across land to escape the carnage. They will be the middle, working and peasant classes of their respective countries. They won’t be the rich. Money is a passport to go anywhere, and to flee from anywhere. If you are filthy rich you have free movement. Think about that too!

*I make no apologies for using the word mankind as it is men that control the world and it is men that wage war

**Religion – another tool that the establishment use to keep large sections of populations under control

This post builds on a previous one from a few years back. Pacifism has a constant in my adult life.

Lest we forget

It was supposed to be the war to end all wars. How wrong they were. We forget that.

Revolution

Violence achieves nothing. There are no winners in war. When I talk of revolution I can only contemplate it in terms of peaceful means. Only true revolution is non-violent.

Peaceful thoughts

I’m in Sheffield at the moment having a wee break and ‘figuring out shit’ as I believe the pseudo-groovy might say. When I arrived the other day I had a wander around to get my bearings so to speak. On my meandering of the streets I came across the Friends Meeting House. A relatively modern building, unusual as many Quaker establishments go. I thought it would be nice to go to meeting whilst I was here. So this morning I did.

It was a short meeting, half an hour, due to a business meeting afterwards, so I just stayed for the half hour. I rarely go to meeting for worship now, but that’s another story. This morning there was some ministry about the first world war and reference was made to the Quaker Peace Testimony. It inspired me to write this blog and create the graphic above.

War can never ever be justified. War is wrong, plain and simple! There is no such thing as a just war and there is nothing brave, heroic or virtuous about being prepared to take the life of another.There’s nothing honourable about war. It hosts no valour. War is murder. Murder that panders to the greed, whims and perversions of the ruling classes. War is about keeping the oppressed classes in their place. Those in charge use evil means to get the rest of us to fight their wars; they put labels like nationalism and patriotism on them or they will stir up xenophobic or religious hatred. Being different isn’t a reason to want to fight someone. If you are one of those people that feel the need to believe in a god then killing is the ultimate blasphemy. If like me you don’t subscribe to superstition then war can only reinforce one’s view that there is no god.

War can be over if we want it. But until it is over humankind can never call itself civilised.

War is murder

#peace Please RT: 

I could never contemplate killing another human being, and I would never wish for someone else to commit such a barbaric act on my behalf.

In my book anything other than pacifism is morally repugnant. To someone of a religious disposition it is the ultimate blasphemy.

Enola Gay

Today is Hiroshima Day. The day when the world, or at least a caring part of it, remembers one of the countless barbaric horrors humankind has unleashed upon itself. My pacifist beliefs have stayed with me all my adult life. It is one constant I have never doubted.

I thought I’d share this ink sketch; I drew many years ago. Feel free to use and distribute it if you feel it can help the peace cause.

two useful links about today:

http://imaginepeace.com/archives/19723

http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/resources/h/hiroshimaday.asp

War is over...

Today is the International Day of Peace:
“Each year the International Day of Peace is observed around the world on 21 September. The General Assembly has declared this as a day devoted to strengthening the ideals of peace, both within and among all nations and peoples.” – United Nations


One day humankind will be advanced enough and civilised enough to realise that war achieves absolutely nothing. The United Nations are there before most states. They recognise that war is futile and have declared this day of peace. Sadly most of the rest of the world don’t seem to be able to grasp that war benefits no one. But that is no reason not to mark this day. I’m a great believer in “from tiny acorns, mighty oaks do grow”. So publicising and marking the International Day of Peace is a positive step. War can be over if we want it. If we really want to eradicate war we can do it. All it needs, and it’s a big all, is the will to change. If people want it peace will break out. I live in hope that good will win through over the misguided.


“Sustainable Peace for a Sustainable Future” is the theme chosen for this year's observance of the International day of Peace. As the worlds resources start to diminish co-operation and sustainability are the only way forward. Anything else is effectively suicide for humankind.


There are no winners in war. War destroys. War is in no way positive. Support the International Day of Peace in any way you can, even if it is only to make someone else aware of it. Together we can eradicate war.

Bayeux

Last Saturday we returned home from a wonderful holiday in France:

After a hectic first weekend of our holiday with our friends near Compiegne we made our way down to Bayeux for a relaxing few days. We had rented a Gite right in the town.

We are not very good tourists. Most people seem to like going to places and tick as many tourist 'attraction' boxes as possible. Not us. We like our holidays to be slow and gentle.

For most visitors Bayeux is not a destination. It's just another stop on the relentless ardour that is American coach trip hell. Most visitors seem to come to the area to visit the beaches famous for the D-Day landings. Something that didn't greatly interest us. We had come to Bayeux to see the Tapestry and generally chill.

The Bayeux Tapestry is something quite remarkable even though it is embroidery rather than tapestry. Pictures don't really do it justice. It's not as tall as I expected but much longer than I had imagined. We had decided to visit late in the afternoon in an effort to avoid the crowds. Turning up at 5 o'clock certainly paid off. There were thankfully very few other visitors so we were able to peruse the tapestry at our leisure. You can gauge how busy it must get at peak times by the speed of the commentary on the electronic guide that you are given on entry. We listened and walked at a fairly rapid pace along the almost 70 metres of the tapestry. And then, the commentary dispensed with, we went back to the beginning enjoying the work at our own pace. Studying bits of interest in great detail. And a mighty fine experience it was indeed. It not only tells the story of the Battle of Hastings but events leading up to it. From a Norman perspective obviously. Pro William the Bastard nee Conqueror most certainly.

Bayeux's cathedral is quite a spectacular edifice to behold. Standing head and shoulders above the whole of Bayeux with its spiky twin towers at the entrance, a central domed tower with a spire on top all vying for attention. The medieval equivalent of the Ferrari or Lamborghini and a cudgel all rolled into one; a rich man's penis extension and a vehicle for oppression.

We had no real desire to visit any of the D-Day landing sites. That would seem to be the domain of very narrow minded people. Although we did make a couple of small exceptions. As a pacifist I am so often misunderstood by those that seek to glorify war. I will be accused by those types as being disrespectful to those that fought and died for our freedom but I am most certainly not. We stop on the coast road overlooking the site of some of the landings the skeletons of the mulberry harbours still visible after all this time. I felt sick in my stomach and I welled up inside at the thought of the death and destruction that reigned over that area on people of my grandparents' generation. Nobody should have had to of gone through such unimaginably fearsome times. War is evil. No one ever wins. War serves no purpose.

We had a lovely afternoon in Deauville a rather quirky town on the coast east of Bayeux. It's a seaside town that looks as though it could have been designed in Hollywood. Quintessentially French essence distilled into a concentrated form. Masses of timber framed buildings with towers and conical roofs.

On the way back we stopped at the Pegasus Bridge, we just felt we had to do something. I really can’t put into words how it made me feel.

Bayeux is a nice little French town to spend time in. We spent much of our holiday just wandering around and pottering there. We’re not good at the relentless schedules.

Half socks, an obstacle to world peace

I am convinced that the half sock or trainer sock is a significant obstacle to world peace. That and narrow minded oppressive violent ideologies. Oh and injustice.

White not red

I’m a pacifist and I suspect more people would be if they really thought about the true consequences of war. I would never wish to take the life of another and would never ask anyone else to kill on my behalf. I believe it to be totally, utterly and immorally wrong to wage war. Around this time of year I usually remind people that there is an alternative to the British Legion red poppy. That alternative is the white poppy.

“The White Poppy symbolises the belief that there are better ways to resolve conflicts than killing strangers.”

The white poppy is available from and promoted by the Peace Pledge Union. “The Peace Pledge Union is the oldest secular pacifist organisation in Britain. Since 1934 it has been campaigning for a warless world.”

Please order your white poppy today and wear it to promote the notion of peace.

The death of Thatcher

I always said that when Thatcher died I would celebrate by getting roaring drunk. Having witnessed the nonsense on the news about the death of Osama Bin Laden I now realise that rejoicing over anyone’s death, however evil you might perceive them to be, is barbaric and inhuman. Acts of love and peace should be celebrated and never the taking of life.

“All we are saying is give peace a chance”

If you so choose to subscribe to one of the world’s major religions then the taking of a human life is the ultimate blasphemy. There are no circumstances that I know of that allow you to usurp your god and exercise the power of life or death over another human being. For the religious person murder and war have to be an anathema. That doesn’t mean to say that only those that need religion are against war. Pacifism is about love and respect for one’s fellow citizens of this planet. That love and respect is not conditional. You don’t need a god to tell you that peace is the only sane way forward.

War never achieves peace. Peace cannot be forced upon people. Peace only happens when people want it and when they live it. Being a pacifist is not an easy option. In fact it is often a very difficult and challenging belief. Some people feel threatened by the notion which has always struck me as ironic. Pacifism is widely misunderstood. As a pacifist I could never endeavour to take or condone the taking of a fellow human being’s life. Not even if they were intent on taking mine. Peace is more than just not fighting. It is a state of mind. War never achieves. It only destroys.

Whilst governments and corporations are hell bent profiting from the manufacture and sale of arms we will continue to have wars. War is a capitalist moneymaking opportunity. To the capitalist money is more important than someone else’s life. War exists to perpetuate the retention of power and wealth in the hands of a few. That few may well change but the small numbers do not. No society can ever be civilised whilst it has an arms industry. The arms trade export misery and suffering world-wide. It has to stop! Human advancement has so often been brought about by people who are prepared to think the unthinkable, and are prepared to attempt the impossible. Peace can be the universal option if we have the courage to believe in it and do something about it. “War is over if you want it”

Get your white poppy now!

#peace

No sane person could ever support or condone war, yet as a nation we seem to have been hoodwinked into accepting the sanitised glorification of killing that it Remembrance Day. Despite the white poppy being around since 1933, first distributed by the Co-operative Women’s Guild, we still have a long way to go to change the mass attitude to war. There is no ‘glory’ in war even though that is what the British Legion would have us believe. War is murder; indiscriminate slaughter at the behest of the rich and powerful. War is a money making opportunity that culls millions of lives; human sacrifices to the profit motive. When will the madness end?

“WAR IS OVER, IF YOU WANT IT”

You can make a difference! Buy a white poppy. Support the Peace Pledge Union. Spread the message that peace matters. PLEASE do your bit to help. Together we can eradicate war.

The Promised Land

I watched a documentary about Dunkirk at the weekend. The programme was built around interviews with soldiers who were there at the time, interspersed with film footage from the time. Having thankfully never experienced it, I can’t hope to imagine what the horrors of war are really like, but the way these chaps were describing their experiences left me in no doubt just how grotesque war is. Several old soldiers said things that I’m sure will stick in my mind, but one thing in particular seemed very relevant to events now. He was describing how, nearing Dunkirk, he was injured by enemy fire. He went on to say that despite his injuries he behaved like a cornered animal; he wasn’t sure how but he scrambled and fought his way to the coast driven by the desire to survive. Desperate people will do desperate things to survive.

“One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist” is a familiar saying. As a pacifist I could never condone or excuse acts of war or terror, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to try and understand why these things happen. Why individuals or states turn to fighting rather than politics to solve their differences. One thing is for sure; the more oppressed either financially, physically or politically a group of people are, the more likely they are to react against that oppression. No matter how subservient those oppressed appear on the surface there will be elements that will see their only means of freeing themselves from the clutches of their despotic masters to be violent means. When you have nothing to lose life ceases to be sacred. Rarely do you get revolution or terrorism when the populace are relatively affluent. Shit on people and eventually they will throw some of that shit back. The higher up the Maslow scale that people are the less prone to violence they will be. How can Israel expect the people of Gaza and their legitimately elected Hamas government to reject violence when they are denied the basics?

I continue to hope that pretty soon the ‘western world’ will come to recognise and desire to do something about the plight of the Palestinians. The incidents over the last week or so have indeed been condemned in some western quarters but it is still not enough. Whilst Israel continues to have the unquestionable support of the USA it will continue with its oppression of the Palestinian people.

A perpetual frustration for me are those societies who think of themselves as civilised yet continue to support pariah states, like Israel. If the majority of these countries upped their moral game the world would become a fairer and slightly more just place. The trouble is that all countries put trade above everything else save the occasional bit of national political self-interest. Just imagine the international condemnation, general hoo-ha and sabre rattling that would have taken place had it been Iran rather than Israel acting in such an illegal manner over the Gaza blockade.

What is needed is for a power block, the EU is the obvious example, to start taking a unilaterally more ethical stance on its trade and relations with other countries. It wouldn’t even have to be an instant change. The EU could declare what it considered to be a set of minimum standards that it expected from its trading partners. If those standards were not met then sanctions could be applied to countries and their supporters who continue to operate in an unethical way. These sanctions could range from mere classification as a country with unacceptable behaviour, to higher import duties, to the banning of trade on certain commodities right through to complete embargoes. There would of course be retaliation which would really test the mettle of many governments but if the EU could show that there is an alternative way of doing things others would follow suit. None of this would be done without diplomatic initiatives running in parallel, and the EU would have to ensure that it practised what it preached, but this course of action if performed right could change the world quite significantly. Once started any action like this would then snowball. There will be critics that will prophesy world recession at such action because of tit-for-tat economic reprisals. They will have a point which is why any action would need to be explained and phase in. This is no reason not to do it. The EU could lead the way in ethical trading and in establishing a new world order. An order built on peaceful, sustainable and equitable behaviour. Fanciful?

Today’s ‘pie in the sky’ is tomorrow’s ‘normality’.

Marching misogynists

The trouble with free speech, and of course living in a democracy, is that you often have to listen to stuff you don't like. The one thing that you must always keep in mind, when faced with someone else's unpalatable viewpoint, is the strength of your own convictions, whilst trying to understand their position. I didn't like the idea of Nick Griffin being on question time, but I recognised the importance of allowing him to be on, even though I had no desire to watch it. I also don't like the idea of Muslims marching through Wootton Bassett, but not for the same reasons that the Daily Telegraph/Mail lynch mob might object. Highlighting the absurdity and futility of war is very laudable. Thousands of innocent lives are being lost and for no good reason. It is right to protest against the carnage and doing so in a place like Wootton Bassett will have maximum impact. But will it do any good?

I don't think so.

Islam4UK doesn’t seem like a very friendly organisation, unless you are some kind of mentalist, and whilst I disagree with their aims totally it’s not my main reason to object to what they propose. I object to what they are doing because they are doing it as a religious ‘collective’. To me a person’s religion is personal and not to be shoved in another person’s face. Marching in the name of humanity would be so much more preferable. These Muslims are missing two tricks here. One by identifying themselves by their religion, and in such an extreme way they guarantee to alienate a vast majority of the population, and secondly if they wish to take as much public opinion with them as possible they would be better off doing it within a secular political framework. Anti war groups are always going to be able to draw on more support and opinion than narrow overtly partisan organisation. Inclusive is always going to have more political success than divisive.

?

Room 101 won’t work forever

The recent so called attempted bombing on a US aeroplane and the subsequent comments by US political figures does make me wonder if there is any hope for our colonial cousins. The idea that they or anyone else can ‘win’ a ‘war on terror’ is laughable if it wasn’t so sad. What is wrong with these people?

You can’t win at war let alone one ‘on terror’. Violence, suppression and or alienation will do nothing to improve any situation. I don’t care much for capitalism, but if the USA want to use the ‘weapons’ they have at their disposal that are likely to be the most effective they should be utilising Coca Cola, McDonalds, Nike and Starbucks et al. As a country the USA needs to secularise, stop trying (but miserably failing) to take the moral high ground, and then start a consumer goods and services charm offensive.

If capitalism has one redeeming feature it is that it has the capacity to eradicate religion. Personally I’d like to eradicate capitalism as well, but one thing at a time. Religion is after all ‘the opiate of the people’. So first things first!

Give peace a chance

There are never any winners in war. There never has been and there never will be. So why does so much of the world continue to view it as their dispute solving solution of choice?

Political debate and majority consensus are the only way to solve disputes. War has never solved anything, think about it, a war ends and a political solution is sort. If ‘victory’ is imposed it invariably leads to further wars until what is seen as a just solution by both sides is reached. Why not bypass the painful costly bit? Do what Winston Churchill suggested “Jaw, jaw, not war, war”!

Unfortunately until western nations that purport to take the moral high ground on the world stage actually start to practice what they preach we will never have a chance to eradicate war. Those same western nations continue to put profit and vested interest before justice. If only they could invest in a bit of justice today it would no doubt save countless lives tomorrow. Unfortunately they put trade, and the arms trade in particular before peace. They do this because they believe that they are putting self interest first. This is misguided of course because their self interest would be so much better if the world was war free. They would not need large and resource heavy Defence ministries and the military that they currently support and pay.

If you want a typical example of international injustice an obvious example is Palestine. There have been so many chances to create a free Palestinian state and every time it gets close the west seems to lose its nerve. I’m not naive enough to pretend not to understand the reasons for this.

As a pacifist I cannot support war on any level. I get irritated when people talk about a ‘just’ war, or when they associate the word honour with it. I also get irritated by Remembrance Day and the British Legion. Not because I don’t think that it should take place, it is right that we should never forget, but because the abhorrence of war is lost in the medal jangling and military jingoism of the occasion. I expect Daily Mail and Sun readers would find my viewpoint disrespectful but it is they that are disrespectful. Disrespectful to the fallen, because until we can end war those that have died and those about to die will have fallen in vain.

For those of a religious disposition the injuring, maiming or taking of a human life would seem to be the ultimate blasphemy. Why do religious people tolerate and even advocate something that is so at odds with their beliefs?

“War is over, if you want it.”