≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE ASKS: DID THE QUEEN MAKE A BAD CHOICE IN GIVING HER SON THE DUKE OF YORK SUCH A PROMINENT APPEARANCE AT HIS FATHER’S MEMORIAL SERVICE.
(Two-minute read)
I suppose we could look at it in many ways.
I don’t have an issue with him mourning someone in his family, he was the Duke of Edinburgh’s son.
So, you know, really, he is just as entitled to be there as his siblings.
However it’s one thing to accept that he should attend his father’s memorial service, it’s quite another thing to then give him quite a prominent role.
It reopens yet again the whole can of worms about a man that has just settled for millions out of court for sex trafficking. Striped of all royal duties.
Whatever you think the Queen being assisted by her shamed son Andrew is a bit rich to swallow.
He could have sat in the congregation with others, with his relatives, but it was actively decided that he would have this role of supporting her.
Despite paying millions out of court earlier this month to settle a civil sexual assault case she has chosen, in essence, to remind people that he hasn’t admitted any wrongdoing, he’s not guilty of anything, he’s innocent.
While it is a complicated situation on a very personal level for the Queen as his mother she’s very clearly stating that he has a role on family occasions, trying to rehabilitate his image, even at the expense of her own.
That’s what makes it uncomfortable.
If one step back from it and see how it is seen around the world, I don’t yet know what that judgment will be.
All human comments are appreciated. Al like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
Severe sanctions on Russia with the rectitude of the Pandemic are now creating a deep recession, resulting in an economic downfall that will be felt by people around the world.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict has so far driven energy higher but the knock-on effects are yet to be seen.
If Vladimir Putin retaliates to wester sanctions by cutting off Russian supplies of Oil /Gas the result will not be just a recession but civil unrest.
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Of course, one would be a fool to predict what happens in a war.
Beyond the military cost and the Human costs, this war is rapidly
turning into a quagmire not just for Russians but for all of us.
It will not just be pushing millions into poverty and threatening
a deep recession as it evolves into a proxy war with which to
attack Russia and through it China.
We have seen nothing yet.
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When it comes to inflation the war’s international economic effect is starting to show in the numbers.
If the cost of energy and food is pushed up by dwindling supplies caused by the Russian-Ukraine conflict we will see inflation go well beyond 10%.
Both countries, Russia or Ukraine, were once dubbed “the breadbasket of Europe”, exporting about a quarter of the world’s wheat and half of its sunflower products, like seeds and oil.
For example, in the UK there are about 2.2 million homeowners with mortgages linked to the Bank of England’s base rate would see repayments go up, putting further pressure on household budgets that are already being squeezed by the cost of living.
Russian stocks crashed by as much as 45% in the wake of the Ukraine invasion with trading subsequently suspended, with banks and oil companies among the worst affected. It also led to steep falls on stock markets elsewhere around the world: in Europe, the UK’s FTSE 100 index has fallen over 6% since Russia crossed into Ukraine while Germany’s Dax index is nearly 10% lower.
Everyday goods – which may seem far removed from the conflict – but Russia is a leading commodities exporter.
Russia is one of the world’s largest suppliers of metals used in everything from aluminum cans to copper wires, to car components, such as nickel, which is used in lithium-ion batteries, and palladium, which is used in catalytic converters.
What we lack is a government with vision, courage, a sense of urgency, and basic competence coupled with an understanding that the world has changed.
With truth has been rejected by most of the
world’s population well before the shooting wars
started. It is difficult to discern what the
planned end state of this war is.
However, as we all know the truth is the first casualty of wars so it’s a good time to start really learning how to watch what is going on.
Here are some raw facts.
Partitioning a state causes all sorts of problems. This is how Ukraine and Northern Ireland were created in the first place – people meddling with the borders of territories.
Russia would need 800,000 troops — almost equal to its entire active-duty military — to control Ukraine long-term in the face of the armed opposition.
The slow advance of Russian troops in Ukraine shows that NATO’s fearmongering about some huge Siberian tiger force is fake; Putin commands only a paper tiger. Ukraine doesn’t need a NATO and neither do bigger states like Germany, France, Italy, or the UK.
The Russian army still has far superior firepower to the Ukrainian army. This superiority means that, despite some localized Ukrainian counter-offensives, it retains the initiative.
Faced with the hostility of the Ukrainian population united by this invasion, the Russian army will have difficulty maintaining control of the conquered territories. A protracted guerrilla war would ensue.
In a nutshell, the confrontations would continue for many more long months, even years.
Russia will not just let what’s left of Ukraine go its merry way to become another problem in a decade or so.
Something will be formed and the Russians will mostly go home but NATO will not give up on stirring the pot. They may even fold what is left into NATO and then it will really be game on.
So, we have a new war to watch.
For some, it is just a weird kind of entertainment. For others, it is a good way to refine our thinking skills and our understanding of the world. We learn how to work through misinformation and build a clear picture of what is really going on.
Where is this going to stop?
There is always a need for political courage to create space for peace and leave room for a political settlement. It takes two hands to clap.’ whatever the circumstances.
Ukraine is now engaged in a direct conflict with Russia. As a result, the model must be Ukrainian. In the event of an agreement based on these principles, the Kremlin would undoubtedly struggle to present as a “victory” a situation that, in fact, would be more “locked-in” than the one that existed before the invasion began.
Part of the problem is that Ukraine was not a neutral country when Russia first invaded it. The country formally abandoned its neutral status in late 2014.
Neutrality is not a neutral concept but a complex political one, with major implications for countries’ international and domestic policies and development.
Relations between the EU and Nato the West, especially those countries that have acted in supplying weapons to Ukraine or implementing sanctions, are very unlikely to return to the state they were in before this conflict but Ukraine is just not the wake-up call to nations that new order is emerging.
So the real question, as civilians continue to be killed throughout Ukraine and negotiators try to hammer out a compromise, is this:
What arrangement would preserve actual independence for Ukraine, while still being acceptable to the Kremlin?
The war going on in Ukraine right now is about using Ukraine as a buffer to all the problems of sovereignty in a world that is going to see more conflict as Climate change forces people to move.
How best to respond to a Russian invasion that threatens fundamental principles of sovereignty and respect for international borders that had, in theory at least, served as the foundation of European peace and security since the end of the Second World War.
Putin declared at the end of his Feb. 23 address :
“Whoever tries to interfere with us, and even more so to create threats to our country, to our people, should know that Russia’s response will be immediate and will lead you to such consequences as you have never experienced in your history. We are ready for any development of events. All necessary decisions in this regard have been made. I hope that I will be heard.”
While stopping short of threatening the use of nuclear weapons, Putin’s comments left no doubt that any intervention by NATO as an organization, or individual NATO members, in Ukraine would result in war with Russia.
NATO is playing a risky game, however, by continuing to supply lethal weapons to Ukraine that originate from and are shipped through NATO members’ territory.
While the threat of NATO overreach in providing air support to the Ukrainian government exists, the greatest potential for a NATO-Russian clash in Ukraine rests in the ongoing flow of refugees from Ukraine into neighboring territories.
If Russia begins its long-anticipated assault on Kyiv or otherwise engages in activities that dramatically alter the situation in the rest of Ukraine, it is anticipated that millions more Ukrainians will be seeking refugee status, creating the real potential for one of the greatest humanitarian emergencies since the end of the Second World War.
If the war in Ukraine continues unabated at a level equaling or exceeding its current scope and scale, it is not a stretch of the imagination to think that there will be a refugee-induced crisis that will require some form of humanitarian intervention.
Perhaps it is time for NATO and EU diplomats to act in a proactive fashion, reaching out to their Russian counterparts in an effort to anticipate both the problem and the solution, in a manner that does not create the conditions for inadvertent military conflict.
What is going on in Ukraine is tragic.
Ukraine has always been between a rock and a hard place with its history of being torn between East and West will not be easy to overcome.
However, the most positive outlook for a unified and prosperous Ukraine involves moving beyond this false and outdated dichotomy.
No nation of any standing will accept the presence of inimical ..interests surrounding its geographical borders.
There is a solution to the crisis in Ukraine, however — although it would require the West to think about the country in a fundamentally new way.
Is it time European nations and the USA gave serious thought to the need for the objectives of NATO?
I’m not sure NATO was ever solely a defensive force; it was equally a tool for US domination of Europe.
We are left with the Question.
Why do wars occur and recur, especially in cases when the decisions involved are made by careful and rational actors?
There are many answers to this question.
For my part, they arise from an agency problem either on the part of the current ruler or the leader of the attack. There must exist incentives for conflict and some barriers to the ability to reach an enforceable bargain.
To fully understand decisions to go to war, such decisions cannot be divorced from the broader endogenous armament environment in which they reside.,
A peace agreement only becomes attainable after the balance of power has shifted so that it becomes in both sides’ interest to agree to peace.
This can take a long time.
All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
Mutual understanding is the most important value anyone can have today, right after our need for food, shelter, and health but when it comes to a worldview our understanding appears to be a widening misunderstanding of where we are going.
We witnessed what the Covid pandemic did and what the current wars are doing. Understandable to some extent on one hand, but on the other, completely ununderstandable.
Why?
We have yet to understand that the world we live in is no longer available for making a short-term profit for the few to the detriment of the many and the planet.
Society now exists in an arc of tension towards that which is not, or is not yet.,
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It’s so difficult to agree on what understanding is it is almost impossible to mitigate the confusion – by embracing the fact that not only is “understanding” borderline indescribable, but it is also impermanent because understanding is evasive, constantly changing, and as dynamic as our own imaginations.
The challenge is to develop a way of thinking that builds critically upon the initial negative standpoint, a way of understanding that negates the untruth of the world.
Millions of war refugees are loses themselves for the sake of others. In doing so become enslaved and miserable to the most capricious of all gods. WAR?
If hope is not grounded firmly in that same bitterness of history, it becomes just a one-dimensional and silly expression of optimism.
We can’t get there with science/technology and wars alone.
It is going to take more the purposes of God.,
In a world full of suffering beyond comprehension/understanding I don’t think any of us can fully understand anything and are not meant to.
However, understanding is the only melting pot of wisdom, a gateway to:
Knowledge: The collective information and facts acquired through education or experience. Knowledge is awareness.
To gain knowledge, one has to spend time and effort to know things by reading, listening, seeing, experiencing, studying, and getting familiar with certain things. Without interest or passion, one can hardly acquire knowledge.
Wisdom: The quality of having good judgment based on knowledge.
To gain wisdom, one has to have knowledge first, and then use conviction to make a good judgment out of that knowledge.
Understanding: The ability to understand one’s knowledge and choices. It is the realization of your decision. It is knowledge and wisdom put into action.is the ability to understand one’s knowledge and choices. It is the realization of your decision. It is knowledge and wisdom put into action. If knowledge is power and wisdom is your choice to use that power, understanding is the execution of your choice to use that power. We develop understanding when we practice what we preach.
To gain understanding, one has to have both knowledge and wisdom first, and then put them into action.
Insight: The capacity to gain an accurate and deep understanding of one’s knowledge and choices.
To gain insight, one has to have all of the above: knowledge, wisdom, and understanding.
Do they all mean the same thing?
Obviously not but they all need each other.
So is there such a thing, such as a worldview.?
A worldview or world-view is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the whole of the individual’s or society’s knowledge and point of view. A worldview can include natural philosophy; fundamental, existential, and normative postulates; or themes, values, emotions, and ethics.
Simply it is the principle of treating others no differently than you would like to be treated yourself.
There is no such thing as a view from nowhere: We are not data crunching reason machines, but experience the world through the lens of our past, our communities, and our deep values.
Why is it important to understand worldview?
Understanding our own and others’ worldviews can help build empathy, self–awareness, and understanding in our increasingly diverse societies.
Why?
Because there is no such thing as a neutral perspective on society or a neutral education.
Young people need to learn to interrogate the default secular assumptions of society as much as the assumptions of religious traditions, and a worldview approach would encourage this.
The worldview should not be seen as a focus on the content to be taught but as a way of framing how that content is introduced to the students.
Greater knowledge of religions would still be a key aim of the subject; as it is important for those of us with a Christian worldview to fight for the hearts and minds of people in order to build a society of equality.
It should be one of the most compelling and socially meaningful segments of the school day, helping pupils grow as citizens equipped for the world as it is now – this requires a shift from the current “world religions” information-based paradigm to a focus on worldviews, which means a more nuanced study of the lived experiences of people of different religions and beliefs.
Unfortunately the above is only words. We simply cannot oversee all the variables and possible outcomes of events but the human brain is more productive when it is given time to learn what distracting information it can disregard. Even with this shift from curriculum, instruction, and teacher actions, and toward data, assessment, and learning, there remains uncomfortable murkiness.
Currently, because life emerged from non-life and more complex life forms evolved from less complex one’s reality and humankind’s true values are formed by an impenetrable mess of Human beliefs.
These beliefs are Theism. Pantheism.Christianity. Spiritism. Buddhism. Postmodernism. Atheism. Humanism. Judaism. Islam. Naturalism. Agnosticism. Existentialism. Marxism. Polytheism. Hinduism. Taoism. New Age Consciousness. Animism. Thousands of Religions.
Nothing in this post has changed the horrors of the society in which we live. How many children have died needlessly since I started to write it? How many have since you began to read it?
Theism – is the most widely accepted worldview in the United States, with approximately 67% of Americans identifying as Christians, 2% as Jewish, and 1% as Muslim. Even so, few Americans have consciously developed a specific worldview, and many of them embrace various aspects of pantheism, naturalism, humanism, and postmodernism.
Pantheism – is the dominant worldview throughout Asia, and polytheism is prevalent in areas of the world that are predominantly tribal. Many aspects of pantheism and polytheism overlap, so the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably.
Only the spiritual dimension exists. All else is an illusion. In spiritual reality, Brahman is eternal, impersonal, and unknowable. It is possible to say that everything is a part of God, or that God is in everything and everyone. Humankind is one with ultimate reality. Thus man is spiritual, eternal, and impersonal. Man’s belief that he is an individual is an illusion.
Christianity – An infinite, personal God exists. He created a finite, material world. Reality is both material and spiritual. The universe as we know it had a beginning and will have an end. Humankind is the unique creation of God. People were created “in the image of God,” which means that we are personal, eternal, spiritual, and biological. The truth about God is known through revelation. The truth about the material world is gained via revelation and the five senses in conjunction with rational thought. Moral values are the objective expression of a supernatural and absolute moral being and therefore remain constant over time.
Spiritism – The world is populated by spirit beings who govern what goes on. Gods and demons are the real reason behind “natural” events. Material things are real but have spirits associated with them and, therefore, can be interpreted spiritually. Humankind is a creation of the gods like the rest of the creatures on earth. Tribes or races often have a special relationship with some gods who protect them and can punish them. The truth about the natural world is discovered through the shaman figure who has visions telling him what the gods and demons are doing and how they feel. Moral values take the form of taboos, which are things that irritate or anger various spirits. Taboos are different from the idea of “good and evil” because it is just as important to avoid irritating evil spirits as it is good ones.
Buddhism – Truth is an experience of unity with “the oneness” of the universe. Truth is beyond all rational description. Rational thought as it is understood in the West cannot show us reality. Ultimate reality is impersonal, so pantheistic thinkers believe that there is no real distinction between good and evil. “Unenlightened” behavior is that which fails to understand essential unity.
Postmodernism – Reality must be interpreted through our language and cultural “paradigm.” Therefore, the reality is “socially constructed.” Humans are nodes in a cultural reality—they are a product of their social setting. The idea that people are autonomous and free is a myth. Truths are mental constructs meaningful to individuals within a particular cultural paradigm. They do not apply to other paradigms. Truth is relative to one’s culture. Values are part of our social paradigms as well. Tolerance, freedom of expression, inclusion, and refusal to claim to have the answers are the only universal values.
Atheism – The material universe is all that exists. Reality is “one- dimensional.” There is no such thing as a soul or a spirit. Everything can be explained on the basis of natural law. Humankind is the chance product of a biological process of evolution. Man is entirely material. The human species will one day pass out of existence. Truth is usually understood as scientific proof. Only that which can be observed with the five senses is accepted as real or true. No objective values or morals exist. Morals are individual preferences or socially useful behaviors. Even social morals are subject to evolution and change.
Humanism – emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively, and relies on rationalism and evidence over the transcendent or supernatural. Humankind is part of nature and has emerged as the result of a continuous evolutionary process. His total personality bears the imprint of the social and cultural society surrounding him. The truth may be found through science (critical thinking and empiricism) and philosophy. Values are derived and steadily improved from a philosophy of utilitarianism, ethical naturalism, or evolutionary ethics.
The problem with all of them is that when confronted with the armed struggle they accept from the beginning of a war that it is necessary to adopt the methods of the enemy in order to defeat the enemy:
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Even now, many people realize that there is something seriously wrong with the present system (wars, poverty, pollution, inequality, etc.) However, it is the awareness and understanding of an alternative to this which is missing.
Capitalists in their present form had no economic interest in maintaining those, who worked for them. The vast majority are forced by their circumstances, to become economic slaves to the rich minority.
Employment is accurately described as being exploitation since the value of what the workers produce in the form of goods and services is much greater than the value of the wages/salaries which they receive. (Considering that the richest 10% of the world population earns 52% of the global income, while the poorest 50% of the population earns just 8%.) The surplus-value is pocketed by the capitalist class and is a very important source of the wealth of the ruling class.
The notion of cohesive communities and societies, and their role alongside globalization, privatization, and financialization in restoring trust in capitalism. But if the current system is so bad, what are the alternatives? Is there a way to reach an acceptable standard of living for all people without depleting natural resources and degrading habitat?
Within the confines of the capitalist system, it’s necessary to completely change the economic system.
Many ideas of alternative economic models have popped up over the years, which questions the constant need for growth that capitalism has embedded in the economic system.
Instead of focusing on profits and consumption, the emphasis is on social and environmental well-being as ways to attain a good life for people. We need to rethink the way we organize our economy and undergo a transformation in our way of life.
Societies need to use fewer natural resources and have different lifestyles than today.
Production and consumption need to be reduced so we have a society that supports each other and only takes what we need.
I’m probably not the only one feeling like this is too idealistic, but at the same time, I think some form of sufficiency thinking is necessary to get back in line with the resources that are available on planet Earth.
A common sense of solidarity among all humans seems a bit naïve in light of both history and current events. But with the plight, our economic system is pushing us and our environment to Wars and to Extension of the very environment that we are all relying on.
Alternatives are desperately needed.
Why?
Because continuous growth would lead to a stagnant, not reducing, ecological footprint.
Basically, a shift in not only people’s behavior but also their values can only be achieved by the introduction of a universal basic income.
People should learn to live with less and appreciate the value of “conviviality” and non-economic values.
This is no easy feat and has of course invited skepticism from others.
However to grasp the core or essence of the state of the world to date there has been no decoupling on the global scale, and both emissions and GDP are still growing.
We have to lower carbon emissions much faster than we are likely to be able to change the economic system. Even with a world governed by technology the interconnected global nature of the abundant world is coming to an end.
There are so many moving parts in learning what should be a relatively simple relationship between us and the earth perhaps the most powerful thing that you can do to combat the slippery notion of understanding is to use your buying power to Understand and know are interchangeable.
Not to settle for just paraphrasing understanding and a worldview in overly-simple words and phrases like “they get it” or “proficiency.
Really understand, ‘internalize knowledge in a world view of I’m all right Jack are not founded on religious beliefs, political ideologies, and greed.
The Earth belongs to all of us.
If you want it to remain so now is the time to play an important role in the evolution of a more intelligent world and inspire a shift in the way we see the planet.
It is not possible to calculate the value of life.
“If we can get people to go beyond the aesthetics,” says Astronaut Grant, “and contemplate exactly what it is they’re seeing – and consider what that means for our planet.
All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
In the daily hubbub of current “crises” facing humanity, we forget about the many generations we hope are yet to come.
Why?
Here are my reasons.
Because humans are bad at doing anything about problems that have not occurred yet.
We have extinction happening at alarmingly fast rates combined with short-term political ambitions packed with statistics and updates on the challenges we face.
With no universal legal constitution for the earth, as global citizens, we must come together on every Social media platform to demand change and put us and the earth before profit.
Because we now live in a world of threats and disasters that could end history.
Human activity such as the development of weapons of mass destruction has been steadily shaping the future of our planet with a sense of powerlessness and fatalism about it. Right now the risk of somebody deliberately releasing something devastating is low but as technology gets more powerful in the future nastier pathogens become easier to design.
Because there is “youth disillusionment” around the world as capitalism has turned everything needed for life into a product. Certain global issues cannot be solved by on-the-ground, grassroots-style projects.
Because In a world full of risk – geopolitical upheaval, cyber attacks, climate change, and natural disasters the only thing left to avoid wars is Sport which is now, unfortunately, being used for political interference.
Because it is a mistake to think that nuclear war is impossible. In fact, it might not be improbable but it’s not the explosion that will be a disaster its the nuclear winter that would follow.
Because while people are enjoying the highest standards of living in human history, the interconnected global challenges we face are pushing institutions, communities, and individuals to their limits.
Because the knock-on effects of the coronavirus crisis, threaten to scale back years of progress on reducing global poverty and inequality and further damage social cohesion and global cooperation.
Because the democratic world is being hijacked by technology in the form of the internet with profit-seeking algorithms and social media pluralism.
We do not have a good grip on just how dangerous different forms of superintelligence would be, or what mitigation strategies would actually work. It is very hard to reason about future technology we do not yet have, or intelligence greater than ourselves. (Of the risks on this list, this is the one most likely to either be massive or just a mirage.)
Because of the, I’m alright Jack inequality. Global poverty has not been eradicated.
Billions are at risk of missing out on the digital leap forward, as growing disparities challenge the social fabric. Even more worrying is that in trying to explain things to artificial intelligence we run into profound practical and philosophical problems.
Should such a jump occur there would be a large difference in potential power between the smart system (or the people telling it what to do) and the rest of the world. This has clear potential for disaster if the goals are badly set.
Human values are diffuse, complex things that we are not good at expressing, and even if we could do that we might not understand all the implications of what we wish for. If consciousness or intelligence are lost, it might mean that value itself becomes absent from the universe.
Because we are living toward incredible times where the only constant will be changed.
Because the Ukrainian war could be the last human war.
There are plenty of more low-hanging fruits on the destructive technology tree.
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Even just reading the above list seems overwhelming; imagine being a head of state trying to implement it in your sprawling national bureaucracy.
Of course, the U.N. can’t compel any country to do any of these things. So the goals won’t matter unless individual national governments take them seriously.
Of course, there are some risks we cannot do anything at all about, such as gamma-ray bursts that result from the explosions of galaxies. But if we learn we can do something, the priorities change. For instance, with sanitation, vaccines, and antibiotics, pestilence went from an act of God to bad public health.
The most unsettling possibility is that there is something out there that is very deadly, and we have no clue about it.
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It comes as no surprise with the outbreak of war in Ukraine that the environmental risks that once weighed heavily on the minds are now on the back burner.
While the state of our planet is petrified by Putin’s threat to use Nuclear weapons the use of cyberattacks to target critical infrastructure and strategic industrial sectors raises fears that, in a worst-case scenario, attackers could trigger a breakdown in the systems that keep societies functioning.
Nanotechnology like biotechnology, increasing power also increases the potential for abuses that are hard to defend against.
Technology is no longer the major limiting factor. We are.
If we want to be around in a million years we need to correct that.
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In the meantime, we’re heading towards a world of perfect knowledge with blockchain commerce and digital transfers of value and assets disappearing into cyberspace.
With a trillion sensors gathering data existing healthcare institutions will be crushed because Biometric sensing (wearables) and AI will make each of us the CEOs of our own health.
The screen as we know it — on your phone, your computer, and your TV — will disappear and be replaced by eyewear.
So where are we? Where do you even start?
Even though we live in the 21st Century, it’s unbelievable how much prejudice we all have. There’s racism, homophobia, nationalism. There are still classes in our society, even though not as clear as centuries ago. And people still judge other people based on… Well, absolutely everything, which, when you think about it, is… nothing!
To take any resolution to the problem off the page and into practice there has to be unlimited finance.
This can only be achieved by increasing everyone’s stake in the goals ( see the previous post on creating a World Aid Fund) If we do not put in place a mechanism for social and environmental change, generation after generation will pay the price for our idleness.
Our insatiable appetite for industrial growth only fuels our dependency on ever-dwindling resources – without replenishment or reprise and to devastating effect.
Empowerment is what the world needs. We have the potential to save and improve the quality of millions of lives by providing the people of the world an opportunity to invest in a green bond, ( See previous Post on Green bonds)
The more I think about it, the more I realize that the progress of society is defined much more from the decisions and the actions of the majority, than the breakthroughs of any one man.
We don’t all have to like each other, we don’t all have to understand each other, but we do have to respect each other.
Respect is never earned by a Dictator. It is either enforced/bought as Dictatorship is a place where public opinion can’t even be expressed privately.
All human comments are appreciated. All like click sad abuse chucked in the bin.
In today’s world, it is impossible to find a phenomenon that harms people more than war.
By now in our history, we all know that any war is to blame for people being killed.
It is not only military deaths but every living individual so you might be well asking why do we now have another war breaking out in Ukraine?
We all know that there are so many reasons for starting these wars that no appeal and no desire for peace will ever be heard if the authorities want so. Sometimes it simply is inevitable.
(This post is not to justify the out brake, rather try and understand why it is occurring in the first place.)
It’s not just that Putin has become a “farce with fangs.” in reclaiming Crimea. More than 90 percent of the population of Crimea voted to return the territory to Russia.
The conflict in Ukraine started with the refusal of ex-president Viktor Yanukovich to sign the agreement of Ukraine’s association with the European Union. Thousands of people, shocked by his decision, went to the streets to show their willingness to become part of Europe and live a happier and wealthier life.
Most of us have no knowledge about Ukraine and it’s not possible to explain its history in this post.
However, most of us are still not quite sure what Ukraine was or is.
“Ukraine was a little bit like Ireland used to be within the United Kingdom” It was a subordinate part of a greater whole, of a greater empire.
“During the revolution that ushered in the Soviet Union, Ukraine fought for independence. It lost, and in 1922 was subsumed inside the communist state.
This was followed by Stalin creating “The Holodomor an artificial famine,” to crush its people its language and culture. Just like the Irish Potato Famine known as the Great Hunger, which began in 1845 that saw millions of Irish either starve to death or immigrate. Stalin between 1932 and 1933, starved some four million Ukrainians to death.
The significance of the Potato Famine (or, in the Irish language, An Gorta Mor) in Irish history, and its contribution to the Irish diaspora of the 19th and 20th centuries, is beyond doubt still to this day.
“The attempt to eliminate Ukrainian-ness and the sense of it, of a separate identity and the sense of nationhood, has really been a Russian policy since the 19th century, but its sense of nationhood was growing stronger.
And now this disaster has befallen them and this feeling that they may be dragged back into some horrific Stalin-era or Czarist-era nightmare must be tormenting a lot of them.
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Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States has ringed Russia with military bases, nuclear warplanes, and missiles as part of its Nato Enlargement Project. NATO has, in effect, militarily occupied eastern Europe.
In fact in the former Soviet Caucasus, Nato’s expansion is the biggest military build-up since the Second World War.
Imagine the response if these acts of provocation, or intimidation, were carried out on America’s borders.
“It’s a nice and convenient myth that liberals are peacemakers and conservatives the warmongers.”
The once hopeful concept of “Russian reform” now means regression, even destruction. In Orwellian fashion, this has been inverted in the west to the “Russian threat”.
The Nuremberg prosecutor Robert Jackson called “the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole”
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As a consequence, we have witnessed Iraq dismembered with between 97,461 and 106,348 civilian deaths up to July 2010.
(The US has lost 4,487 service personnel. Half a million Iraqi infants under the age of five make up the Iraq deaths.)
Syria flattened. A decade of war in Syria has left more than 350,200 people dead.
Yemen. Almost a quarter of a million people have died in Yemen’s war.
Afghanistan, so far the war killed 176,000 people in Afghanistan; some 2,460 US military personnel and 51000 Taliban.
Israel/Palestine. At least 10,316 Palestinians and 1,287 Israelis.
Myanmar. The Rohingya genocide.
“Behind each recorded death is a human being, born free and equal, in dignity and rights”.
Some sources say that the Soviet Union had over 20,000,000 casualties, in world war Two.
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” Perhaps the imperialism of the liberal way may be more dangerous because of its open-ended nature: its conviction that it represents a superior form of life.”
It is “so widely accepted as to be virtually unchallengeable”.
In the modern era, the employment of ethnic differences in western power and propaganda systems is now seen as essential.
Today’s grand illusion is of an information age when, in truth, we live in a media age in which incessant corporate propaganda is insidious, contagious, effective, and liberal is creating a world of inequalities.
No Shelley speaks for the poor, no Blake for utopian dreams, no Byron damns the corruption of the ruling class, no Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin reveal the moral disaster of capitalism. William Morris, Oscar Wilde, HG Wells, George Bernard Shaw have no equivalents today.
“Austerity” is the imposition of extreme capitalism on the poor and the gift of socialism for the rich: an ingenious system under which the majority service the debts of the few.
It’s no wonder we have wars.
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Putin has been posing as Russia’s defender against an allegedly aggressive West and redeemer of ethnic Russians and brother Slavs everywhere since he came to power.
A heroic Ukrainian defense that actually repels Russian forces remains militarily unlikely, but a Ukrainian victory would make all the above propaganda untenable.
He could not survive the defeat politically and knows it.
Therefore he won’t allow this scenario to happen.
Instead of withdrawing, he’ll follow one of three other paths.
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He could escalate the attack dramatically — but still with only conventional weapons. Basically, that means bombing Ukraine into submission. The loss of civilian and military lives would be horrendous, but Putin wouldn’t care. He would incorporate a seething and resentful Ukraine — either as a nominally independent puppet state or a subdivision of Greater Russia — and maybe add Belarus for good measure.
His empire would become a permanent pariah in the international community.
The world would have a new Iron Curtain.
Putin will therefore at least consider another — literally nuclear — option.
It’s the one he’s already hinted at.
Claiming that NATO and the EU are cornering him by supporting Ukraine with weapons and other wherewithal, he could launch one or more “limited” nuclear strikes with so-called tactical (here meaning low-yield) warheads.
Ukraine, like Japan in 1945, would have no choice but to surrender.
So what can be hope for?
A homegrown Russian revolution would be by far the best outcome.
The new regime in Moscow could blame the attack on Putin alone, which happens to be true. It could therefore withdraw without looking weak. The international community could welcome Russia back with open arms. The world, including Russia, would become a better place.
China could flex its economic mussel.
At the United Nations this week, 141 countries voted to deplore Putin’s aggression. China could have joined the four rogues (Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea, and Syria) who voted with Russia against the resolution.
Instead, along with 34 other countries, it merely abstained.
As for ‘steroids.’ They are synthetic hormones, similar to testosterone, which have anabolic (bodybuilding) effects due to the fact they stimulate the growth of skeletal muscle. They also have androgenic (male) effects which enhance typical male characteristics. When you see a male bodybuilder, many will have been using steroids to create this appearance.
PERHAPS THIS IS WHY PUTIN HAS LOST THE PLOT.
In the long term, anabolic steroids affect the central nervous system of the human brain, directly on neurotransmitter systems.
After all, the best way to deal with a cornered rat is usually to let it escape before it does more harm.
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≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE SAYS. WITH THE OUTBRAKE OF WAR IN THE UKRAIN THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR THE REST OF US IN THE WORLD TO CLOSE OUR EYES AND GO ASLEEP.
The war will have many far-reaching consequences, most of which we can’t predict yet. It is not mature enough to cause a major market crash which is an unfortunate possibility.
Apart from weapon manufacturing companies like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin — who are openly telling their investors that tensions between the countries are good for business, there will be what I call Scap other companies making profiteering where the sun does not shine.
So we need a list of these companies TO EXPOSE them and BOYCOTT them.
For now, the sanctions imposed on Russia are not targeting energy. But that can change if the conflict evolves further. ( IT HAS JUST BEEN ANNOUNCED AS I WRITE THIS POST THAT THE USA/EUROPEAN UNION/AND BRITAIN ARE TO STOP PURCHASING RUSSIAN OIL AND GAS.)
RUSSIAN CRUDE IS HEAVY OIL. AS SUCH IT CAN NOT TO REPLACED WITH OIL FROM OTHER SOURCES AS MOST REFINERIES IN EUROPE ARE SET UP TO HANDLE HEAVY OIL TO PRODUCE PETROL.
Of about five million barrels of crude oil Russia exports each day, more than half of that goes to Europe. Russian gas accounts for about 40% of the EU’s natural gas imports.
In the meantime the other wars – Afghanistan – Ethiopia – Yemen – Syria – South Sudan – Israel/Palestine – Equality vs Equity – Covid – all but ignored.
There are 10 official wars and 8 active military conflicts recognized by the United States. Everyone requires the same level of sanctions which are now to be applied to Russia.
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We already have an ever-growing list of companies taking action against Russia with “Collateral Damage” to all of us so the opportunity to hike prices by blaming the war is yet to be seen.
Large corporations will no doubt capitalize on anti-war sentiments, the same is doubly true for oil companies, banks, and energy.
Doesn’t it make you feel good knowing that these multi-billion dollar corporations will be able to cash in on the death of thousands of innocent Ukrainians?
The fact that advertisers have to use the values of our movement to sell us products reflects just how strong our anti-war struggle has become.
This gobbledegook is the kind of thing that corporations pay tens of thousands of pounds for.
So let’s start with THE EDF.
French nuclear stations are the backbone of the European power system, and the outages have contributed to higher power prices across the continent along with the wider gas supply crisis.
Here is an 85% state-owned company that has had a monopoly for years on energy squandering billions in the public funds now increasing the price of electricity by 54% coming in April amid a cost of living crisis as inflation and food costs rise.
EDF Energy was compelled to help out as a swathe of energy suppliers collapsed in the U.K., getting paid 168 million pounds to take on more than 200,000 domestic customers from failed providers. In total, the company added more than 650,000 residential accounts last year.
It was fined £6m by Ofgem for sending “misleading signals” to the National Grid about how much electricity its power plants could generate. The energy regulator found that for more than two years, EDF frequently inflated the minimum amount of power that it said its West Burton B generator plant could supply.
While EDF normally generates the bulk of its electricity from its network of 56 nuclear reactors across France, many are near the end of their 40-year lifespans and around a dozen have been shut or will be soon to carry out safety inspections over corrosion risk.
Much of the £20bn construction cost of the new EDF nuclear plant Hinkley Point C nuclear plant in southwest England in 2026, will be funded by the addition of £1 a month to consumer bills applied through a mechanism currently making its way through parliament.
This is what is to come. EDF the energy price cap on certain deals is rising by 54% a year. The price cap is not an absolute limit on your bills.
The sheer scale of these energy bill increases will cause real concern and fear for families and households.
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“Successive governments have welcomed the oligarchs and their money with open arms, providing them with a means of recycling illicit finance through the London ‘laundromat’, and connections at the highest levels with access to UK companies and political figures.
For example
Lubov Chernukhin is a Russian banker and married to Putin’s former finance minister. She has spent a fortune buying time with politicians, including £160,000 to play tennis with David Cameron and Boris Johnson. She paid £135,000 for “a night out with Theresa May”. The most recent donations—last quarter—to the Tory party include £80,000 from Chernukhin.
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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is casting a pall over neighboring countries, with war jitters spurring panic-buying of gasoline, cash shortages, energy price hicks, etc.
After reading about the greed and hypocrisy of all these corporations I bet I know what you are thinking. You are going to reject all this consumerism and get yourself a Stop the War Coalition T-shirt. Am I right?
If so, is it a case of subliminal advertising? Or is it the power of one of the largest political movements this country has ever seen? You decide.
Today, Russia provides 10% of the world’s oil. Do you want to make that oil worthless?
Show Putin, you don’t need it. That’s what accelerating the transition to a clean energy future will do.
All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
I feel guilty writing this open letter for a variety of reasons.
Like many non-Russians, my knowledge of Russian history is tainted by Doctor Zhivago a novel that was immensely popular in the West, the book was banned in the Soviet Union for decades.
Russia in 1957, had evil soul-less monsters, (who have never read Tolstoy or Pushkin), they play chess, they drink vodka, they had spies and counter-spies to match the West.
We all know now that Russia is the home of Stalin, one of the most murderous totalitarian leaders in history, and it may be true that there may have been upwards of 40,000 SMERSH anti-spy agents killing people both within and without the former Soviet Union, consistent with Stalin’s scorched earth approach to governing resistance, but make no mistake about it you MR PUTIN now you every opportunity to surpass him.
It’s no wonder with total and reckless and disregard for your own people’s safety, (you being so ‘tarnished with years of treachery and ruthlessness and fear that it has led to the amazing stupidity of your supposed mastermind invasion of Ukraine.
To destroy what was once a part of Russia just because of its expectations of joining Nato or the European Union is driven by an absolute unquestionable hatred for the communists or a more subtle British private school disdain for the people of the continent.
It is a sacrilege to destroy people’s lives whether they are Ukrainian or Russian born.
If you don’t come to your senses there isn’t going to be any self-reflection of post-modern hand wringing before Russia starts disintegrating in your hands.
It’s time to recognize that we humans are all the same.
In the end, my dear Russian people your supposedly ice-cold leader displays by falling for every lure of Russia’s past history is not-worthy of any glory.
Killing Ukrians will not embarrass all Americans and English intelligence or lure Europe into a “killing bottle.
Go home and Live and Let Die.
All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
UKRAINE AT THE MOMENT IS A CONVENTIONAL BATTLEFIELD CONFLICT AND WE MUST HOPE THAT IT REMAINS SO.
There’s a lot of talk and coverage by the media about the rationality of actions when discussing nuclear deterrence. They are throwing the word nuclear around without any real understanding of what they are advocating in an all-out nuclear war.
It would extend well beyond the warring nations, change the climate, jeopardize billions of people in a nuclear winter.
Even a modest nuclear exchange let’s say a few hundred warheads would produce huge quantities of ozone-consuming chemicals creating an ice age.
As everything would lie in ruin there would be no governmental structures that could function in such a postwar climate.
There is no such thing as a limited nuclear war as a realistic possibility.
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Irresponsible media is the last thing anyone needs at the moment.
Unfortunately, it can’t resist, (somewhat understandable) turning the Para Olympics into a political platform, one of the last world forms representing world Peace.
Let us understand that advocating the use of a non-strategic nuclear weapon whether it is Nato or Russia, threatens humanity’s very existence. (A Soviet SS-18 missile has eight 1- megaton warheads.) They make up a tiny fraction of strategic nuclear weapons in the Russian arsenal.
HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI FALLOUT IS ONE WEAPON EFFECT WITH WHICH WE HAVE EXPERIENCED AND IT WAS ONLY AN ATOMIC BOMB.
IF NATO WERE TO LAUNCH LOW-YIELD TACTICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS TO SIGNAL RUSSIA THAT IT HAS CROSSED A LINE IN AN ATTEMPT TO DE-ESCALATE THE SITUATION – THE CONSEQUENCES ARE UNIMAGINABLE.
Radioactive fallout is unique to nuclear weapons.
There is a near-universal agreement on the need to avoid a nuclear war.
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Could the war-shocked survivors meet the challenge?
This question is so big that it’s best left unanswered since only an all-out nuclear war could decide it definitively.
It might bring an abrupt end to the war, it will for certain bring an abrupt end to all life.
Therefore it is the duty of all media platforms to avoid speculation but to promote untarnished awareness of just what is a stake.
All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
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