Keeping Quiet

 

Keeping Quiet

I’ve been quiet lately, busy in other ways but watching and listening what’s happening in the world and not happy with what I see and hear. For a start, I wonder where logic and critical thinking have gone. Alarmingly, in some places they appear to have been banned! During my years of writing, I have warned, and I’m not happy that I have been on the right track all along, but it’s good to see that others are seeing the light… and there is an awakening.

An urban myth I grew up with told me left-handed people have enhanced logic and critical thinking, which makes me puff my chest out because I’m left-handed, but sadly there is no empirical evidence to suggest it is so. Pursuing the idea, I compared my mate, who is left-handed too, and his brother who have two years’ experience separating them. I found their opinions and world-view are like chalk and cheese, which is fair enough, it is often the way with siblings. My mate, like me, followed a hands-on practical way life while his brother followed the university way of life ending in boardrooms, so I came to the conclusion that breeding doesn’t have as much influence as the people we associate with. The brother worked under a well-known politician who he credited with great intelligence, but from my mate’s and my point of view, she had those political-idealistic, even radical ideas, that the we rejected totally. Those radical views rubbed off to his brother, and because he had an influential government position, he exercised his authority in that way. The question is, does idealism fit well into the real world?

There’s a problem with idealism and Donald Trump is onto it when he wants to ‘drain the swamp’. But that’s not as easy as it sounds; basically, public or civil servants aren’t supposed to demonstrate their idealism (which equates to Marxism these days) or political feelings, they are supposed to be loyal to the democratically elected government of the day, but given the will, the bureaucrats are able to bring down a government; and that’s what we see happening before our eyes, and why government policy becomes blocked. Starting in schools, added to in universities, and then the public sector, police and judiciary… and of course, the media, a weird liberal ideology has crept in which leaves Joe public, the taxpayer behind and wondering. It takes a brave politician to pull them into line because a media-led smear campaign is difficult to counter… after all, politians need voter support for re-election and the media easily influence the mailable.  

 There’s a list of things creeping in to upset the status quo of western values.  One of them is the idea that carbon dioxide has the huge influence on the climate that it’s purported to have. Having relied on good weather information for all of my life, it’s plain there’s no logic the carbon narrative.  The mouthpiece of the climate narrative is the media, an impractical lot… after Al Gore’s fraudulent movie, I began to check on the claims of ‘unprecedented’ weather events and a simple look at Papers Past told me nothing is unprecedented, and then some worthy scientists began to debunk the whole climate narrative, which confirmed my thoughts. I was there at the start of carbon credit accounting of forests, which has been used to reducing farming for food, an act of environmental vandalism. The most potent of the greenhouse gases is water vapour, yet it isn’t mentioned because it can’t be attributed to anyone’s activities, whereas carbon dioxide can be measured and therefore can be taxed… and governments are always looking for ways to increase tax revenue. It all adds up.

When the United Nations was formed, its mandate was to prevent wars and to provide aid to developing nations… it hasn’t done very well. But they have grown like a puffball on a dewy night; they are a bunch of unelected bureaucrats, and when anyone remains in one authoritive position for a long time, their power intoxicates them. As an organisation they have evolved into a club of the like-minded, and have a memorandum of understanding with that other strange outfit, the World Economic Forum. Both have a goal of redistributing wealth from the west to poorer nations and a global government under the auspices of Agenda 30. Good luck with the global government, but of course it is possible by taking draconian, Marxist-type measures, some of which are taking shape as we speak. Taking down western economies is proven to be easy as demonstrated during the compliance during covid nineteen; simply by flooding the economies with people on welfare, can also bring down whole economies. Everything ties in, stirring up a resentment of colonisation has been profitable… but take the litmus test of life expectancy in my country; the first peoples’ life expectancy in 1840 when a treaty was signed was thirty-four years, and now it is seventy-two. And of course, there are the trappings on colonisation, which are conveniently overlooked. Nevertheless, western governments continue to sign up to United Nations agreements with wild abandon, and have developed a sense of self-loathing, which is unwarranted.

Three words have been weaponised against the west; racism, empathy, and tolerance. Racism is something that thrives in all cultures, admitted or not, there has always been suspicion of people who aren’t quite the same; it has always been an evolutionary survival mechanism with no shame. A fool is a fool; ethnicity doesn’t come into it… and it is correct to call out the fool. Point the finger of racism and three point back to the accuser. There have always been world leaders who have no empathy or tolerance for other cultures, such intolerance spreads to their countryfolk… empathy and tolerance are a pretence until someone turns up at your door wanting them.  The word colonisation has also become a weapon, but who among the colonised is prepared to totally forego the trappings of colonisation? The term is being used to diminish pride in western cultures for nothing more than a transfer wealth. The other quick way of bringing a country to its knees is diversity in employment superseding meritocracy… Darwin’s law is as accurate as it ever was.

Sometime during the fifties, I asked my father why the, very rich Rajas of India didn’t alleviate poverty by spreading their wealth. He told me that if the Rajas gave all their wealth to the poor, everyone would be poor and nothing would get done. Even then I found that to be sobering; and nowadays the ‘nothing would get done’ is even more sobering. At the time I asked the question, India had severe food insecurity, yet today, it exports food… this was achieved without the Rajas giving up their wealth, although the Rajas are no more, their families are. Education, investment in infrastructure, technology, and industry have been the drivers. This shows why diluting of the wealth of the west would be counterproductive.

Common sense is a lesser category than logic or critical thinking, yet even common sense hasn’t been applied to the net zero carbon policies proffered by the United Nations and the World Economic Forum. It is an obvious way to bring nations to their knees. Compromising the electric grid and food production is only the start; why politicians bow to the United Nations’ wishes is another story, but they are doing it with gusto. One of the warnings about climate change was that climate refugees would flood the west because of lost territory due to risings sea levels… well the sea levels haven’t risen but the so-called refugees still flood the west. You see it was in their mind all the time, plainly it’s orchestrated again to bring down Europe. Let’s highlight Britian. Brexit was a dangerous phenomenon to the European Union, if Britian was successful after Brexit, other nations may opt to pull out; therefore, Britain had to fail… oh yes, politics is a dirty game. The so-called refugees are in such numbers that in many cities they dominate the indigenous people and want to take political power. The politicians, plead empathy and tolerance from the British population, but empathy and tolerance isn’t being reciprocated.

There’s the pressing issue of the conflict in the Middle East, which is as much a propaganda war as a war of bloodshed… and Israel isn’t winning the propaganda one. Wars are bloody, shocking encounters and we hear calls for a ceasefire… but what will that achieve? Horrific as they are, wars have to be won…  bull elephants fight for dominance, most usually one doesn’t die, but one knows he has lost and will walk away and not return… unless he grows in strength. The loser of a war has to know they have lost but sometimes, like Germany, they will try again. There have been widespread… no, not protests, but demonstrations of solidarity for the Palestinian cause, and such shows aren’t illegal unless the participants misbehave, but have no doubt, they are meant to intimidate. But there’s a couple of points of history worth noting. Post-World War Two when the European Jews wanted to settle in their homeland, the called it Palestine, which is an area of land, not a country. Wouldn’t this make them Palestinians? Then there was the war with the Arabs, when the Arabs lost, they called it Nakba, a catastrophe because Israel had won.  Later, Israel pulled out of the Gaza strip, including their dead, and left it to the Arabs, who promptly voted for Hamas to govern them. There have been many offers, but the Arabs aren’t interested in a two-state solution, they want Israel to disappear as in ‘from the river to the sea’, which is why they promised to carry out October seven atrocities over and over again!

The Palestinian supporters are accusing Israel of genocide, starvation and a number of other atrocities, but taking up arms, instigating war, despite the so-called conventions of war; the result is war. And war isn’t tiddlywinks! If the Palestinian supporters were genuinely concerned about babies, starvation or other atrocities, for years, they would have been protesting about other conflicts around the world where similar atrocities are happening daily. The Palestinian Arabs are driven by ideology, the righting of Nakba, the elimination of Jews, which amounts to carrying out the very same atrocities upon Israel as the supporters are accusing Israel committing.  When the mob gathers, logic and critical thinking are the casualties after truth. The October seven attack on Israel, the killing, kidnapping, raping, baby burning and body mutilation can’t be called war, it was something so barbaric, there’s no name for it… which is why Hamas don’t deserve support for their cause.

As a people, the Jews have survived despite their persecution over millennia; doubtless because of their religion and what it means to them. The western civilization sprung up in Britain based on principles taken from the Hebrew bible, and those principles became accepted because they were workable, which is why they slowly spread. Today we see those western/Judean values under attack, and whether or not the western civilization survives, depends largely on the people and what happens from here.

    

Ramifications

 

 

Ramifications

When I first applied for my firearms licence, it related only to the firearm I owned, identified by its number, and I needed a reason to own one. This was law for all firearms except shotguns… I have no idea why shotguns were exempt but it may relate to the protection of farmers and their responsibility to controlling rabbits on their land. If I wanted to borrow a firearm from another person, or loan my firearm to someone else, a permit was required from the police which identified the firearm and the people involved. There was good control of firearms, but of course, the government noticed that the management costs were high for a relatively small sector of the population, so they changed the law. The outcome was, a reason to own a firearm was not registered nor was the firearm number and a licence meant a person could own any number and type of firearm. This contributed to, though was not the cause of the gunman shooting members of two mosques, which in turned led to the government changing the law to something just as unworkable.

We have more access to more news than ever before, and it comes to us more quickly than before, and it is less balanced than ever before. When I was young, to actually see the news, we had to go to the movies, whose Pathe and RKO newsreels were always a month or so behind. The first current war news we witnessed was the Vietnam war on television, and although I was less cynical back then, I didn’t think what we saw was slanted then… but it was. While there are a number of conflicts going on round the world as I write, our media focuses on two, the two that are arguably most important to our nation. Consequently, we generally see the impacts of those conflicts on our allies, meaning we see the damage happening to Ukraine and far less of the damage to Russia… unless something happens out of the ordinary. But with the Gaza conflict our news bulletins take more video and press releases from Hamas, than they do from Israel… and I ask myself why would that be?

There’s news right now is about riots in the US, where the government is cracking down on illegal migrants, which makes me ponder two questions; why are local people (so-called) siding with illegal entrants against law enforcement of the land and how do we differentiate between genuine refugees and young men who have an agenda? There’s another question: what is the difference between an asylum seeker and a refugee… in this country, I’ve seen both categories returning to their home country for extended periods, even returning with wives and doing business with their home country. Is it not basic human tradition for the refugees to be women and children seeking shelter and safety while their menfolk… or at least the younger menfolk, sort out whatever is that their families are running away from, with the aim that sometime the women and children are able to return home?  Most western countries, particularly Great Britian and Europe and the United States are being swamped by illegal migrants, most of who seem to be young men and of them, that very question could be asked. In Britian’s case, being islands, they should have the ability to keep illegals out, but the government seems unwilling to… raising the question, why not? What are the ramifications of local citizenry having to step aside for illegal migrants?

Perhaps Northern Ireland’s Ballymena gives a clue. The citizens have accepted various ethnicities as legal migrants for years, so racial discrimination is not an issue, but when they see busloads of illegal migrants coming into their territory, they became concerned. The British government then, to house the migrants, offers landlords high rents, that the locals have no hope of affording, thereby making them homeless. Pleas to the government have fallen on deaf ears but the Irish have grit. The spark occurred when a girl had been interfered with by, can we say, allegedly, by a couple of illegal migrants, which went to court requiring interpreters. This resulting in a migrant’s house being burnt and when the police arrived, riots ensued… but were they riots or is it a fight for Irish identity?

During my working life, I used to plant seeds… literally and figuratively; I have always educated, and in doing so told anyone who would listen that I was planting seeds in their heads about the benefits of caring for the environment by the planting of trees and shrubs. I told them that in the fulness of time, the seeds might germinate and their interest might be stimulated into action. I have seen the results, even a small percent, is enough for me. I have been fortunate enough have stood on this Earth for a long time, and have been associated with older people I thought of as wise, and I kept my ears and eyes open. During the 1960’s, young men, youths, wanting show they were ‘radical’, wrote away to be sent a free copy of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book. No, I wasn’t a radical and I never read one, but I did hold the book and flicked through the pages, which were a compilation of Mao’s thoughts. I wondered at the time, and do so today; how many seeds Chairman Moa planted into impressionable brains around the world.?

I can’t say if the Little Red Book influenced it, but also during the 1960’s I noticed a brewing criticism of capitalism, especially among academics, and I remember the discussions we had in the workplace about it. As country folk, we were no-nonsense people who agreed that although capitalism had its faults, the alternative was far worse, mainly because we equated capitalism with democracy. The rich people of our time were sheep farmers because wool and meat prices were high, allowing our local farmers to buy new tractors and cars thus stimulating the economy… we recognised that when the farmers were doing well, the rest of us were doing well too. The other realisation was that everyone can’t be the boss, nor in fact be farmers.

During the sixty’s and seventies three of us in the office had many and varied debates during our breaks… we were diverse politically. I remember the three of us laughing about the foolishness of a couple of academics, professors I believe, from the United States who documented that the way to bring down capitalism was swamp the economy with people on welfare. We were perplexed about the need to bring down capitalism, which probably introduced my first distrust of academics. But the idea seemed implausible that there could be large numbers on welfare because at the time, it was true, our prime minister, Keith Holyoake, knew the names of all the people in the country who were on the dole… because the rich farmers improved the economy, so unemployment was rare. Those professors promoted the rhetoric, that bringing down capitalism would ‘make the world a better place’… where have we heard that before? Anyway, we laughed because under capitalism we were doing fine. But those guys had sown the seeds, and at that time, we didn’t realise that some people dressed in good clothes, were actually in disguise. We are witnessing the ramafications.

As far back as the late 1980’s, the logic of carbon dioxide being the main influencer of climate and weather escaped me and the closer I looked, the more it became obvious that it was ruse to change societal behaviour and our way of life. People from the United Nations saying things like capitalism was a major contributor to the climate emergency, which is why we have to break it down; or climate policy is not environmental policy, it is economic policy; or countries will have to give up sovereignty to effectively combat climate change further convinced me. Behind the rhetoric was to ‘make the world a better place’, and all the while, they were sowing weed-seeds of climate fear.

Sometime in 1992, around the time of the Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro the United Nation’s Agenda 21 was formulated, and because I kept hearing a commentator lambasting it, I looked into it myself. Good intentions perhaps, but it was obvious it needed something to prod the populus to go along with it; the fear of a climate catastrophe seemed to be that prod. But Agenda 21 wasn’t quite going to eventuate so in 2015, Agenda 30 was proposed. Both look good on paper, but looking more deeply there’s a wealth transfer involved, and of course, it’s ‘to make the world a better place’. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the World Economic Forum was bringing together young world leaders, also to ‘make the world a better place’… you know, ‘you will own nothing and be happy’. A pact of cooperations was signed between the United Nation and the World Economic Forum and among their goals is globalisation and no borders. They are both on the same page.

To them, Great Britian’s Brexit was a backward step as far as the no borders was concerned, but there has been a cosying up of late, helped by the Ukraine war. The covid experience here in New Zealand showed that people dressed up as good, set about instituting the most draconian measures of population control in the world, and the propaganda had the population complying and even now the players haven’t faced scrutiny for their abuse of our basic rights. We were being led by a scholar of the World Economic Forum, and the United Nations noticed… so now their World Health Organisation wants full control to manage the world response to any further pandemics… of course to ‘make the world a better place’.

Part of the fear created about a changing climate was that western nations would be overrun by refugees; but the climate hasn’t changed in an alarming way, nor have sea levels risen more than a smidgin, nevertheless we see refugees rushing into the west… not into other areas of the world, and for good reason. They tend to be better off west. If it is reasonable to expect men to stay behind in their own country to sort out any problems, and if they don’t, how else can their country ever be liveable? The western morals, ethics, empathy and human rights, don’t exist where the illegal migrants come from and as we’ve seen in Britian and elsewhere, advantage is being taken of those qualities among the indigenous people.

Fifty years ago, an old mentor told me, ‘There’s only one certainty in life… change.’ And sure enough, change is occurring before our eyes, so the question is, ‘What are the ramifications?’

 

 

 

 

What th'

  

 

  

 

 

 

What th’

 When I opened my newspaper this morning, there was a tiny insect crawling across a picture of an explosion in Ukraine, so I readied my index finger to squish it. But I didn’t. This was the second such insect that had crossed my newspaper within the last few days, and yes, I did squish the first one. This time I had second thoughts… these little fellas probably wandered into the paper as it was lying outside on the path and were probably surprised by the light when I opened it. They were tiny flies; they could run fast and fly as quickly, but they were small… about four times the size of one of the full stops on this print, yet vibrant life was packed into them. Although I couldn’t see them, this little fellow has sensory organs, a mouth of sorts, it defecated, so must have had internal organs, it had legs and wings. Actually, the tiny insect is one of those miracles of nature we don’t think about. I let it go with some care.

 I then read the article about the explosion in Ukraine. In a way, I had some power over that tiny insect just as Putin has with the people of Ukraine, although his power has dire consequences for the people and the country. If his reasons for the war are fathomable, I’m not privy to them, but they seem to be flimsy excuses rather than an honest justification… if there was justification, solutions are more possible. Does death and destruction, and the acceptance of his own people’s casualties justify Russia’s need for whatever it is Putin thinks they need? The killing and displacement of the people is tragic, and the wanton destruction of infrastructure and homes is a separate crime. According, to international law, the aggressor in any conflict is responsible for the rebuilding once peace comes, they are also responsible for the protection of civilians. Good on the lawmakers… and Russia did face up the its responsibility after their insurgence into Afghanistan. In the past, international aid has also come forth… but where does the money come from? The thing is while the welfare of people is of paramount importance, people can’t survive without bricks and mortar and the necessities of life.

 The other conflict reported on in the newspaper was the Gaza situation. I’m not sure media informs us with balance on this issue, and this report mentioned the word ‘genocide’. When strong words like that are used, it is often used as an inflationary tool to embarrass the supporters of one side. Israel hadn’t been an aggressor and is responding to an attack… and from a humanitarian point of view could be argued that the response is too strong, but if Hamas hadn’t attacked that day, there would be no killing and no infrastructure damage. Is Hamas’ excuse for the attack a legitimate protest? No, attacking civilians is a criminal act, and their dogma of ‘wiping Israel off the face of the Earth’ is at least dangerous rhetoric. The end result is civilians being killed, and infrastructure being demolished for which most feel great sorrow. There is long history in and area, that is important to each side, but there is a glaring elephant in the room that needs addressing. For the past thirty years or more, the people of Gaza have not been able to sustain themselves making them reliant on aid, and donations from various countries. If the current conflict had never happened, the aid would have continued… so how long do their leadership expect such aid to continue? Accepting continual aid creates an unhealthy dependency, yet they have no way of changing the situation. In the unlikely event of Israel suddenly disappearing, would the returning Gazan population be able to support themselves after decades of not having to use any expertise, especially in food production or working collectively?

 At least the media reported about President Trump blindsiding President Ramaphosa of South Africa about the treatment of white farmers in his country, but the media didn’t show the video which justified Trump’s assertion. * There some context to this – I wrote about it some time ago, but here’s the guts. Ain 1995, a young Israeli man came to Tanzania with an American who was working with me. At the immigration counter, he was arrested and held in prison until his release was won, but his passport was stamped ‘undesirable alien’. This happened because of a throwback to when the Israeli government cooperated with the apartheid government of South Africa. The present South African government recently complained to the International Court of Justice about Israel’s treatment of the Gazan people, which was arguably a revenge act rather than humanitarian. Trump was made aware of this. *  Ramaphosa had taken along a couple of white golfers, which he hoped might elicit some United States cooperation, if not funding, but when asked by Ramaphosa, one of the golfers confirmed that white farmers were indeed being targeted with violence. The media seemed not to take as fact that Trump had taken in white farmer refugees from South Africa, who were fleeing from the violence there, echoing similar events in Zimbabwe. Behind this is the United Nation’s declaration on indigenous rights… as toothpaste that can’t be put back in its tube. Despite Nelson Mandella trying to establish a free, multiracial democratic state in South Africa, the present administration has passed a law where land can be taken without compensation, and the video Trump showed was a stadium-full of people shouting, ‘Kill the farmers, kill the Boer.’ I saw a group of South African people being interviewed about the future of South Africa and three people stood out to me. A young man believes that all land should be returned to the people with tribal chiefs in charge. There was a white farmer who told of the challenges of farming, the expertise required and the need for access to finance. A young woman who farms a small holding agreed that the farming economy and food security are based on the expertise of white farmers. She thought all Soth Africans should be able to work side by side to feed the nation. It is apparent that cool heads are certainly needed. Back in 1900, the African population in South Africa was around four million, and the white settlers had already been there for a hundred years. Now there are sixty-three million Africans and many of them want the land back… the irony being the rapid increase in the populations is partly due to the food production carried out by the white farmers. But the land the people want, is the land already under cultivation by white farmers. In 1900 if all of the people wanted to farm land, they would have had small subsistence holdings, which would have been gradually been divided among the family until they become too small for sustainability. As happened in Zimbabwe, there is a large population to feed and traditional farming methods no longer suffice. The South African white farmers have reduced in number markedly over the last few decades, mainly because farming is a difficult business to be in… some have been forcibly removed, so there is the safety consideration as well. The young woman is wise… the poverty among the poorer people will not be solved by the return of land, except in a few instances. They’ve never had land, so have no farming expertise and don’t understand the responsibility of ensuring the nation doesn’t go hungry. Only by working together with the white Africana farmers will they be able to feed the nation… if violence continues, widespread chaos will be the inevitable result.

 This little snippet is timely but wasn’t in the newspaper; I still receive news from my Tanzanian friends, news which the mainstream media is unlikely cover. Tanzania has been progressing well, quietly minding its own business. I’m told that the European Union, pulled on its big-boy boots to threaten the withholding of funds if Tanzania didn’t lift its ban on homosexuality. Tanzania has many religions and the parliamentarians pray before each session; they believe that according to all the religions I parliament, legalising homosexuality would be blasphemy, so they have said so. Kiwi lingo probably says it best, ‘If that’s the basis of your funding, (respectfully) you can stick your funding where the sun doesn’t shine!’ The folk I know over there support their government’s point of view on this issue.

 My old Tanzanian mate Loti used to say that politics is a dirty game, and from what I’ve seen in my eighty-odd years is that there’s nothing new under the sun, just different players and occasions. There have always been tyrants who think that killing people will somehow change things for the better… but they never do. People become involved in politics because they are deluded enough to think they can make a difference, but they are hamstrung by a system where the unnamed drive the main engine. Children cry, but outrage is always brief.