I have just been down town in Stirling. I was quietly minding my own business, with the dog, waiting on Anne coming out a shop. I was approached by a male, in his late thirties perhaps. I could tell he was distressed and anxious. He walked up to me and said, 'I have no money and nothing to eat. I don't even have anything to pay for electricity, nothing. Can you help me?' I gave him everything I had in my pocket, loose change. He was upset and thanked me. I was angry and I was upset. Not at him, at a succession of governments and more. I considered for a moment and followed him down the street. He was crying. I opened my wallet and gave him all my paper money, everything I had. He did not know what to say and I left him, still in a state. I do not tell this story so you will think, oh, what a nice man or even, oh, what a fool, he will spend it on drugs. You know, I do not give a fuck what he spends it on or what anyone will think of me. I do give a fuck however about successive governments, red, blue, yellow and people in power and fucking banks and all the rest of the untouchables who have cried crocodile tears whilst picking up their next bonus or hooky expenses claim or taken a ten percent rise in their wages whilst not a cent can go to anybody else 'cause we are in a recession and we have to suffer a bit. They are not fuckin' suffering. And you know what makes me even angrier, they keep lying to you, to me and we, like sheep, keep going along and voting them in, the red, the blue and or the yellow, year after year. And falling out amongst ourselves about which is the better. Are we off or heads? No nice picture today, I have nothing appropriate.
the fearn oracle
thoughts of an old scottish romantic
Sunday 3 September 2017
Monday 7 November 2016
Poppy or no Poppy
Scotland and its tartan horde will descend on Wembley next weekend. I have no doubt there will be an abundance of poppies on show, if not on the player's kit, certainly amongst the supporters of both countries.
Most, if not all of the supporters wearing poppies will no doubt bear that imitation flower on their breast every year at this time. I would also suggest that the poppy worn by them will be worn in remembrance and the wearer will have no political thoughts.
Also have no doubt however that successions of Governments have 'politicised' the poppy and somehow altered what it was all about, shame on them.
My old aunt has absolutely no political thoughts, in fact she has no time for any politician. She will wear a poppy and attend the remembrance service in her village. Her brother was seventeen years of age when he perished in 1942. She is not imbued with 'pride', no it is simply her way of remembering her brother.
The whole thing is farcical. Eufa recently fined Celtic Football Club when some of it's supporters waved Palestinian flags whilst an Israeli team played at Parkhead in a Eufa competition. Did not Eufa indulge in politics by inviting a team from a country outwith Europe to compete in a European competition? In that case it was supporters who caused the fine, however illogical and unjust.
Back to Wembley, if the Associations succumb to the Fifa ruling about the political symbolism of poppies being displayed and play innocent of said emblem. Do they then confiscate the supporters poppies. Because, based on the Celtic Football Club experience, supporters are just as guilty of bearing political symbols and getting their club, or in this case their association fined.
Lest we forget, the poppy is not only about remembrance, it is a vital plank in fund raising for a seriously worthwhile cause.
This publicity may well result in an increase of poppy sales. Good.
Most, if not all of the supporters wearing poppies will no doubt bear that imitation flower on their breast every year at this time. I would also suggest that the poppy worn by them will be worn in remembrance and the wearer will have no political thoughts.
Also have no doubt however that successions of Governments have 'politicised' the poppy and somehow altered what it was all about, shame on them.
My old aunt has absolutely no political thoughts, in fact she has no time for any politician. She will wear a poppy and attend the remembrance service in her village. Her brother was seventeen years of age when he perished in 1942. She is not imbued with 'pride', no it is simply her way of remembering her brother.
The whole thing is farcical. Eufa recently fined Celtic Football Club when some of it's supporters waved Palestinian flags whilst an Israeli team played at Parkhead in a Eufa competition. Did not Eufa indulge in politics by inviting a team from a country outwith Europe to compete in a European competition? In that case it was supporters who caused the fine, however illogical and unjust.
Back to Wembley, if the Associations succumb to the Fifa ruling about the political symbolism of poppies being displayed and play innocent of said emblem. Do they then confiscate the supporters poppies. Because, based on the Celtic Football Club experience, supporters are just as guilty of bearing political symbols and getting their club, or in this case their association fined.
Lest we forget, the poppy is not only about remembrance, it is a vital plank in fund raising for a seriously worthwhile cause.
This publicity may well result in an increase of poppy sales. Good.
Sunday Herald 6 November 2016
Don't do it America
If it was not so
serious, in terms of the influence the incumbent can and will wield
over a huge chunk of the world, it would be laughable, pantomime
like. He's behind you, oh no she isn't. No point in rehearsing their
many good points. I have failed to find any. Suffice to say, in my
opinion, neither is fit for office.
However I see the
Sunday Herald picks on Trump as the pantomime baddy and by default
that Clinton should be elected. All pantomimes have a baddy, an evil
doer of wrong. Usually a man in drag playing a woman. So is it the
woman who is evil, not the man? The plot is normally based on some
fairy tale or other, although I find it hard to equate this farce of
a Presidential election to any fairy tale, although it certainly is
grim.
The Sunday Herald
pitches it's weight behind Clinton by castigating Trump mostly.
I actually think the
Sunday Herald has got into a fankle and has fallen into the trap of
not being honest. It takes up a populist position. “Trump is a
buffoon, not a lot of our readers will disagree with that so let us
hammer him.” They have followed the internal emotionalist line.
What can we say that will make me feel good about myself and make
others feel good about me.
They show no evidence
of rational thinking or external objectivism. They do not seek to
understand the problem and properly articulate it honestly, no matter
how others perceive them.
I question their
values. Are they asking us to agree that tax evasion, misogyny and
being a sexual predator, outrageous though they are and certainly
enough to have Trump debarred, are somehow worse that mass killing,
overthrowing governments and killing children by the thousand and
bombing people out of their countries.
In her case, lies,
deception, not just in terms of electronic devices and emails. The
Clinton Foundation, based in Canada to prevent USA investigation, the
acquiring of many million dollars from all over the world, including
a whole raft of questionable donors. What are they promised in
return? The foundation headed for Haiti at the time the USA
effectively invaded that poverty stricken country. The aim of the
Foundation to bring aid to the population. Well, have a look at the
tens of thousands still in tents, living in squaller. Where is the
evidence of aid? What is clear is that many millions were collected
by the Clinton Foundation and precious little made it any where near
Haiti.
She is one of the
elite, part of a political system that has no truck with the ordinary
person. Clinton, in 2008 said she would obliterate Iran with nuclear
weapons. When Secretary of State she was involved when the USA threw
out the democratic Government of Honduras. Later when she was
involved in the destruction of Libya, in my opinion akin to a war
crime, she gloated over Gaddafi's death in the words, ' we came, we
saw, he died. ' One of her closest allies Madeleine Albright once
said on live television, about the the death of tens of thousands of
children in Iraq, ' it was worth it.' Her, Clinton's, performance
over the deaths of the US Ambassador and Embassy staff in Benghazi
shown a callous incompetance. She should have been dismissed, as
Senator Rand Paul clearly thinks and stated when he filleted her at
the subsequent hearing.
Trump, for the faults
he has and he has many, is a maverick intent on opposing the
'system'. I am no supporter of Trump either and like Clinton he
should, in my opinion get nowhere near the White House. Not that I
think he will.
No, the headline should
have read, ' Don't do it America.' However there should have been a
photograph of Clinton beside Trump.
Saturday 15 October 2016
Malcolm Allan and the MV San Delfino
Malcom Allan was born
in 1925 in Glasgow. To be precise he was born and raised in an area to the east of Glasgow
city centre called Calton, or to be even more precise, 'the' Calton.
Historically the Calton, or as it was previously known, Caltoun, had
been in the lands of the Church although it seems to have been
through many 'owners'. The lands were full of clay deposits and there
are records of early brick making although that changed and it became
a centre of weaving.
In 1787 Calton became
even more famous because of industrial strife and a conflict forever
known as the Calton Weaver's massacre. It is recorded as the first
industrial conflict in Scotland and it resulted in the killing of six
of the striking workers. Gunned down by government forces. I am sure
it was not the first incident of industrial conflict in Scotland,
however history emerges from whoever takes the trouble to write it
down and even if not quite accurate, once time passes, then it is
gospel. Where can I draw that parallel? The incident is also
commemorated in a song of the same named, Calton Weavers. While many
have sung that song, I like Hamish Imlach's version.
In the days of the
weaving the area was reasonably well off, principally because of the
wages a weaver could demand. However that situation altered
dramatically over the next one hundred years or so and in modern
times the poverty in which many Calton residents live was recognised
by the World Health Organisation. In 2006 for example a report
suggested that a child born in the Calton area of Glasgow, that
iconic Scottish city, would have a life expectancy lower than the
residents of the Gaza Strip in the middle east. A strip of land where
most residents forge an existence in a string of refugee camps and in
the main rely on aid from the United Nations to survive. That report
put the the lifespan of a Calton resident at 53.9 years.
There were other
influences. The predominantly Roman Catholic Irish immigrant
population and the sectarian tensions that emerged from that, as well
as the more recent phenomenon, the tribal gangland culture of the
city from which the Calton was not immune. A culture that gave birth
to the Calton Tongs with their war cry, Tongs Ya Bass. So Caltoun
became Calton and then 'The' Calton before morphing into an
altogether more evocative name, Tongland.
Malcolm was six years
of age when, in 1931, in a tenement in Suffolk Street, Calton,
Florence Allan, was born. She was raised into that mix of influences;
history, conflict, culture and poverty. She was one of a family of
nine children and while not from Irish Immigrant stock, one day, in a
place she would never have heard of in her Calton days and in a
different life, she would marry into Irish Immigrant stock and
through that marriage to my mother's brother she would become my
aunt.
Florence was eight
years of age when war was declared on 3 September 1939.
On the 2 September
1939, the day before war was declared, Florence, her mother Jeanie,
her sisters and two of her brothers were evacuated from their home in
the Calton. They were not alone. Children the length and breadth of
Great Britain were being evacuated from cities identified by the
Government as likely targets for enemy air attack. They were taken to
'safer' areas. Many families from Calton were loaded into coaches
that day and taken out of Glasgow to a new world. In the case of the
Allan family that new world was the village of Bonnybridge in
Stirlingshire. It was on the Forth and Clyde canal and was the centre
of many iron foundries and the Rayburn Stove. It was also on the
forefront of what had been a different and markedly more ancient
conflict, between the Roman Empire and the northern Britains as it
lay immediately adjacent to and abridging in some spots, Antonine's
wall. But that's a conflict too far.
One of her brother's
who was evacuated was Malcolm, then 14 years of age.
Her father and her
other two brothers stayed on in Suffolk Street.
The Allan family was
housed in a barber's shop, or perhaps one should refer to it as a
hairdressing salon, in a tenement in High Street, Bonnybridge. So
they in fact moved from Tongland to Tongland I suppose? The barber
and owner of the shop was Allan Gillespie. He was absent on war
duties. The family was informed they would have to move out when the
owner returned.
Their new home,
according to Florence, was good in so many ways. There was plenty
room for the family and it had so many sinks. In fact she had never
seen a house with so many sinks. All these years later her abiding
memory of the house was the abundance of sinks. It was between
McGregor's shop on one side and Marcella's chip shop on the other
side, a perfect location.
The Allan family
settled in and life moved on.
The war raged on and in
June 1940 two momentous things happened. The British Army was routed
and the majority had to be evacuated from Europe at Dunkirk. That
same month the 51st Highland Division, for strategic military and
political purposes, was sacrificed at St Valery en Caux and most were
taken prisoner. My father, a Seaforth Highlander, became a prisoner
of war. I was not born at that time.
The Allan family,
certainly Florence and her siblings, would be unaware of these goings
on and continued to create a home in their new world with all the
sinks.
In 1942 they became
more aware of the war, if even in a child's way. Florence's brother
Malcolm was now 17 years of age and had signed up into the merchant
navy. Florence has no memory of his first ship or where it had taken
him. She was aware however that on his return from that maiden voyage
her big brother Malcolm was frightened. He therefore did not go back
and after a few days, Florence cannot remember how long, two civilian
police officers called at their house and arrested Malcolm and
marched him down the hill from the house to the Toll in Bonnybridge
and round the corner to the police office. While Florence has only a
few snatched memories of that day, she clearly recalls her brother
being taken from the house and one of the police officers who took
him, Sergeant Fraser. She says she will take that memory to her
grave.
That was the last time
Florence or any of his family saw Malcolm.
Malcolm was mess room
boy on the MV San Delfino an 8,702 ton armed British tanker, en route
from Houston to Halifax with a cargo of aviation spirit when she was
torpedoed and sunk by U-boat 203 on 9th April 1942 off the
coast of North Carolina, near Cape Hatteras. Out of a crew of 49,
they lost 28, including Malcolm Allan the 17 year old mess room boy
who was on his second voyage.
He would never return
to the Calton nor the new world of Bonnybridge, nor would he see his
dad Robert, his mum Jeanie or his brothers and sisters again.
Ironically he died close to another new world, United States of
America. After the sinking a
lone, unidentified body from MV San Delfino was washed ashore at
Buxton Wood, Hatteras Island on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
That body now lies, along with a sailor from the HMT Bedfordshire,
sunk some time later in the same area, in The British Cemetery,
Hatteras Island. Annually there sacrifice is remembered at an annual
memorial service by members of the National Park Service, who
maintain the graves, the US Coast Guard and the Royal Navy.
Is the unidentified
soul from MV San Delfino that of Malcolm, my aunt's brother?
Until three years ago
Florence, my aunt and Malcolm's loving sister, had no idea where he
perished, nor of the unidentified body from his ship buried on
Hatteras Island or that there was an annual service.
Florence was
heartbroken when I told her of these things. If she had only known when she was younger and in better health perhaps she
could have visited and properly said, 'good bye Malcolm, I love you'.
'Such a long way from
Tongland', she said.
Monday 11 July 2016
Chilcot, Iraq, Blair and Bush
I
find it hard to believe Tony Blair's statement made post Chilcot. I will cite the following to
evidence my puzzlement of his position.
General
Wesley Clark (now retired) was a four star General in the USA
military. I have no idea the status of a four star General, however I
assume it is senior. I would also add, I have never met the General
and have no idea of his agenda, truthfulness, state of mind or
otherwise. I am simply recounting claims he has made on You Tube;
and
in an interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, reported in 2007.
In
both he claims that he was aware of plans contained in a Pentagon
document within two weeks of 9/11 to take out seven countries in five
years, starting with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Lybia, Somalia, Sudan
and finally Iran.
Amy
Goodman asked; 'Did you see a reply on what happened in the lead-up
to the war with Iraq – the allegations of the weapons of mass
destruction, the media leaping onto the bandwagon?'
This
is an extract of what General Clark replied,
“About
ten days after 9/11 I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary
Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to
say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work
for me. One of the Generals called me in. He said, 'sir you've got to
come in and talk to me a second.' 'We've made the decision were going
to war with Iraq.' This was on or about 20th
September. I said, ' We are going to war with Iraq. Why?' He said, '
I don't know, I guess they don't know what else to do.' I said, 'well
did they find some information connecting Saddam to Al-Qaeda?' No,
No, ' he said, 'there's nothing new that way. They just made the
decision to go to war with Iraq. I guess it's like we don't know what
to do about terrorists, but we've got a good military and we can take
down Governments. If the only tool you have is a hammer, every
problem has to look like a nail.'
A
few weeks later we were bombing in Afghanistan and I went back to see
him. I asked if we were still going to war with Iraq. He said, ' it
is worse than that and he picked up a memo that had just come from
the Secretary of Defence's office, that day. He did not show me the
document but said it described how we, USA, were going to take out
seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, then Syria,
Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan and finishing off with Iran. I asked if the
document was classified and he said it was. He did not show me it. We
met up a year or so ago and he reminded me that I was not shown the
document.”
The
Amy Goodman interview is a lot longer and can be accessed on the
internet.
US
Defence Secretary Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary Wolfawitz and Vice
President Dick Cheney were all close the President and if they were
aware of such plans, then I suggest that the President would have
been equally aware.
It
was not as if all this was not public knowledge. In the Sunday
Herald, 10 July 2016, Ron McKay has a seriously good article on
Chilcot and Blair. In that article he refers to a Dr Malcolm McIntosh
who claims to have been present at a conference in New York a few
months after the Twin Towers attacks and listened to General Wesley
Clark tell of plans to attack the seven countries referred to
earlier.
My
puzzlement begins with the mainstream media and their avoidance of
making a big deal of Clark's claims. Are they operating to an
establishment agenda? Not all I may add, but certainly some and would
include the BBC in the latter.
In
terms of Blair. If there were USA war plans in place so soon after
9/11 and President Bush knew of them and if Blair was so close to
Bush and intent of being with him all the way, how the fuck did he
not know of USA's intentions of waging war all over the middle east.
Either he did or he did not. If he was aware, then it is my opinion
he did lie to Parliament. The USA plans did not care one jot whether
or not WMD's existed, they were going to war right reason or none.
The lie was simply to beef up the myth to get us, British Parliament
and people, off his back.
On
the other hand, if he did not know of the USA's war plans and
President Bush did not let him into the secret, one has to ask, what
the fuck were his intelligence services doing? It seems General
Wesley Clark was telling all and sundry. So was Blair just a patsy
getting played along by his big friend Bush like a puppet?, A pliable
British Prime Minister who would go along with anything the USA said,
just to keep in with them?
I
think the latter is more worrying than the former.
Wednesday 6 July 2016
Clinton and Emails
The
FBI announcement this week that former Secretary of State, Hillary
Clinton will not face criminal charges related to her private email
server scandal, I would opine evidenced that the rule of law in the
United States of America has been perhaps mortally wounded.
The
announcement of the FBI admitted what most Americans already
suspected; Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server to
conduct official government business endangered the lives of the
American people.The FBI Director also made clear that Hillary Clinton
was “extremely careless” in handling our nation’s top secrets.
He also noted that “no reasonable person” would believe it to be
“appropriate or acceptable” to place emails containing said
secrets on a private server. The announcement made it clear that
Hillary Clinton lied to the American people about the classified
nature of the emails, as the FBI spokesman admitted that at least 110
emails were classified at the time they originated, not after the
fact, as the Clinton camp has repeatedly claimed.
On
top of that, he also revealed that Clinton had deleted work-related
emails from her private server before turning it over to the FBI,
again in direct contradiction of claims her campaign has made to the
contrary. As if that weren’t enough, he also confirmed the likely
possibility that Clinton’s private email server had been hacked by
foreign government intelligence services, meaning USA's nation’s
rivals were likely in possession of critical state secrets that could
potentially be used against the interests of the USA.
Lastly,
but certainly not least, he also admitted that anyone else caught in
a similar situation and circumstances would most likely be punished
to the full extent of the law.
Based
on the FBI inquiry and subsequent statement it would be reasonable to
conclude that the subject of the inquiry is a corrupt, incompetent
and untrustworthy person.
So
it seems that in the USA, although I guess not just there, laws only
apply to those on the other side of the tracks and not the
politically connected elite or perhaps if you can afford a lawyer.
It
might be reasonable to suggest that the decision to do nothing could
be seen as blow to the rule of law and provides further evidence to
support those who have absolutely no faith in the system of law and
order nor for that matter politics.
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