If I point out something that is true to you and you choose to ignore it,
then the responsibilty for the consequences for you of ignoring the truth I point out
is yours not mine.
I have no power all I can do is point out what I see is the obvious truth.
I point it out again and again.
If you chose to ignore it, then the responsibility is yours not mine.
It should not matter who I am or how I say it or when I say it.
If it's true it's true.
I often wish some things were not true, but if they are true they are true.
It's not my fault if they're true.
---------
I firmly believe that either something is the case or it is not the case.
---------
The current political obssession with benefit "reform" is truly sickening.
What they really seem to want to do is bring back the workhouse.
What if there is no work to do because of mechanisation?
We've got it all the wrong way round. The work ethic is from the late Middle Ages.
The whole thrust of technology is to save labour. Why don't we share the work?
Production should be for needs not profit.
Besides all this basic needs are a right. End of story.
No one mentions the welfare that the rich are on in the form of subsidies.
A basic income is the only fair and logical solution.
More benefits, not less.
Jobs are also social institutions, not just economic ones.
Once you've got the cushy job that involves not a great deal, that almost anyone at all could do, then you get the big wage packet. Hardly fair.
There are millions of people with well paid jobs who just did a degree and then got the cushy easy office job with the big wage packet.
The world of work is full of holes and it's the world of work that we should be scrutinising just as much as benefits and the so-called "benefits culture."
What about rich people who don't work/work little or take early retirement to go on cruises? Why don't we moan about the "idle rich culture"?
------
If you are rich, no matter how you made your money - winning the lottery, inventing ring-tones for mobiles - then you are allowed to do what you like and this is approved of by society.
If you are poor and survive on benefits opprobrium is heaped upon you and
you are persecuted until you find paid work.
Perhaps because your existence points to the insanity of the whole system.....
This is the acme of injustice.
EXEMPLAR HUMANAE VITAE - SPECIMEN OF A HUMAN LIFE. I am not really a sofa. But I try to be a filosofa. This is the parent blog of my other blogs which all began here, and which in totality constitute the views of an urban peasant living in London. Including some thoughts on politics, psychology, religion, employment and education. And a little humour. I am a rationalist, a humanist and an atheist and I write from a green/socialist/libertarian perspective.
28 February 2008
26 February 2008
The Roman Catholic clergy's message is immoral
Excellent article by George Monbiot in The Guardian today (which can be found at http://www.monbiot.com/ along with all his very perceptive articles).
This article is about the Catholic clergy's immoral message to the world.
They are pro-death not pro-life!
Made me more confident in what I say here in this think tank.
This article is about the Catholic clergy's immoral message to the world.
They are pro-death not pro-life!
Made me more confident in what I say here in this think tank.
25 February 2008
No 3rd Runway at Heathrow!
The only people in favour of a Third Runway at Heathrow seem to be the CBI.
Why should they have such power?
A Third Runway is not necessary.
Why should they have such power?
A Third Runway is not necessary.
20 February 2008
Poetic License
I am now officially a poet. An unacknowledged legislator.
I was issued my poetic license by Dagenham Library
after they were impressed by something I wrote above the urinals.
My Issue No is: 2,087,573.
I was issued my poetic license by Dagenham Library
after they were impressed by something I wrote above the urinals.
My Issue No is: 2,087,573.
19 February 2008
The Psychiatrist as Negotiator
The psychiatrist is your negotiator with the world.
And his message from the world to you, a message that he is paid lavishly to give you, is that
you are wrong and the world is right.
Being seen by a psychiatrist is equivalent to being accused of a crime and being put in a hospital is a punishment not a treatment.
Your punishment for not accepting the world is imprisonment.
Only when all compulsion is removed from psychiatry will violence in the mental health system end.
Psychiatry is a crime against humanity and mental illness does not exist.
http://www.szasz.com/manifesto.html
I am listening to a psychiatrist now on The Moral Maze saying that suicide is never rational and everyone who commits suicide has a "mental disorder".
A load of bollocks of course.
He said that they need "treatment" - he means punishment.
I have never regarded what psychiatrists do as "treatment" and it is not treatment.
That they would respond well to treatment - imprisonment and poisoning and persecution. That's the "treatment" you usually get.
Suicide is a civil right!
I am not opposed to people trying to help people.
That's precisely why I am opposed to psychiatry in its present form.
"He who does not accept and respect those who want to reject life does not truly accept and respect life itself."
Thomas Szasz.
------
I know in my case that for the first year that I saw a psychiatrist I was simply arguing with him about my behaviour. I admit that my behaviour may have been wrong in some way.
The poor deluded man was bound by the untenable tenets of his redundant profession to see me as in some way "ill."
But still what we were engaging in was nothing more than negotiation.
If I had committed an offence it should have been a matter for the law.
The truth is that I had committed no crime other than break convention and spoken the truth.
A consequence of simply not conforming was that I was taken to a shrink who through no fault of his own has to see me as in some way "ill" and consequently has to poison and imprison and commit the other crimes that are part of his profession, rather than actually helping to solve the problems that I was having in my life.
-------
I was taken to see a psychiatrist because I could not relate to the people I encountered at university. I was unhappy at university, and found it hard there.
Not fitting it at university had made me unhappy.
These were the reasons I was taken.
I had dropped out of university and hadn't done any work there and didn't like the university or the people, and didn't really care if I did not return. This was anathema to my father who took me to see a psychiatrist. I had misbehaved.
I was depressed because of what life had shown to me. It was not biological.
And his message from the world to you, a message that he is paid lavishly to give you, is that
you are wrong and the world is right.
Being seen by a psychiatrist is equivalent to being accused of a crime and being put in a hospital is a punishment not a treatment.
Your punishment for not accepting the world is imprisonment.
Only when all compulsion is removed from psychiatry will violence in the mental health system end.
Psychiatry is a crime against humanity and mental illness does not exist.
http://www.szasz.com/manifesto.html
I am listening to a psychiatrist now on The Moral Maze saying that suicide is never rational and everyone who commits suicide has a "mental disorder".
A load of bollocks of course.
He said that they need "treatment" - he means punishment.
I have never regarded what psychiatrists do as "treatment" and it is not treatment.
That they would respond well to treatment - imprisonment and poisoning and persecution. That's the "treatment" you usually get.
Suicide is a civil right!
I am not opposed to people trying to help people.
That's precisely why I am opposed to psychiatry in its present form.
"He who does not accept and respect those who want to reject life does not truly accept and respect life itself."
Thomas Szasz.
------
I know in my case that for the first year that I saw a psychiatrist I was simply arguing with him about my behaviour. I admit that my behaviour may have been wrong in some way.
The poor deluded man was bound by the untenable tenets of his redundant profession to see me as in some way "ill."
But still what we were engaging in was nothing more than negotiation.
If I had committed an offence it should have been a matter for the law.
The truth is that I had committed no crime other than break convention and spoken the truth.
A consequence of simply not conforming was that I was taken to a shrink who through no fault of his own has to see me as in some way "ill" and consequently has to poison and imprison and commit the other crimes that are part of his profession, rather than actually helping to solve the problems that I was having in my life.
-------
I was taken to see a psychiatrist because I could not relate to the people I encountered at university. I was unhappy at university, and found it hard there.
Not fitting it at university had made me unhappy.
These were the reasons I was taken.
I had dropped out of university and hadn't done any work there and didn't like the university or the people, and didn't really care if I did not return. This was anathema to my father who took me to see a psychiatrist. I had misbehaved.
I was depressed because of what life had shown to me. It was not biological.
12 February 2008
"Common Sense" by Tony Benn
A good approach to Europe and to the problems of the English "constitution"
is to be found in Tony Benn's book "Common Sense".
----
There is a good site about Tony Benn here: www.bennites.com
----
"Ask the powerful five questions
1. What power have you got?
2. Where did you get it from?
3. In whose interest do you exercise it?
4. To whom are you accountable?
5. How can we get rid of you?
Only democracy gives us that right. That is why no-one in power likes democracy - and that is why every generation must struggle to win it and keep it. Including you and me - here and now."
Tony Benn.
is to be found in Tony Benn's book "Common Sense".
----
There is a good site about Tony Benn here: www.bennites.com
----
"Ask the powerful five questions
1. What power have you got?
2. Where did you get it from?
3. In whose interest do you exercise it?
4. To whom are you accountable?
5. How can we get rid of you?
Only democracy gives us that right. That is why no-one in power likes democracy - and that is why every generation must struggle to win it and keep it. Including you and me - here and now."
Tony Benn.
Entrepreneurs?
ENTREPRENEURS?... YEAH... YOU KNOW... LIKE HITLER, MUSSOLINI, STALIN....
------
Entrepreneurs have power. Power that they achieved by no less fair means than any dictator.
------
Production should be for use and benefit not for profit....
------
------
Entrepreneurs have power. Power that they achieved by no less fair means than any dictator.
------
Production should be for use and benefit not for profit....
------
9 February 2008
HOMO SUM: NIHIL HUMANUM A ME ALIENUM PUTO
HOMO SUM: NIHIL HUMANUM A ME ALIENUM PUTO.
Terrence.
I am a human being and consider that nothing human is alien to me.
Terrence.
I am a human being and consider that nothing human is alien to me.
7 February 2008
If I am right
If I am right I am right.
It shouldn't matter
a) how I say it.
b) when I say it.
c) whether you like me or not.
d) what I have done.
e) who I am.
I ask no credit for what I say.
It shouldn't matter
a) how I say it.
b) when I say it.
c) whether you like me or not.
d) what I have done.
e) who I am.
I ask no credit for what I say.
5 February 2008
So they want a war criminal to be President of Europe
They want Blair to be President of Europe?
So they want a war criminal to be President of Europe!
If the EU was truly democratic, and it is not democratic at the present time,
it would be the choice of the people of Europe who became its president.
So they want a war criminal to be President of Europe!
If the EU was truly democratic, and it is not democratic at the present time,
it would be the choice of the people of Europe who became its president.
4 February 2008
University Challenge England V. Scotland
Uni Challenge England v. Scotland on right now.
If Scotland win I'm going to do a pitch invasion. Just for tradition's sake.
If Scotland win I'm going to do a pitch invasion. Just for tradition's sake.
Wilde about War?
"As long as war is looked upon as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked on as vulgar, it will cease to be popular."
Oscar Wilde.
----------
What else does this apply to?......
:O
Oscar Wilde.
----------
What else does this apply to?......
:O
3 February 2008
Einstein on war
"This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of the herd nature, the military system, which I abhor. That a man can take pleasure in marching in formation to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only been given his big brain by mistake; a backbone was all he needed. This plague-spot of civilisation ought to be abolished with all possible speed.
Heroism by order, senseless violence, and all the pestilent nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism — how I hate them! War seems to me a mean, contemptible thing: I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business."
Albert Einstein.
Heroism by order, senseless violence, and all the pestilent nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism — how I hate them! War seems to me a mean, contemptible thing: I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business."
Albert Einstein.
I have always supported the Green Party
I have always supported the Green Party if I have to support a party.
I have supported the Green Party since at least 1989.
At least I am consistent.
I have supported the Green Party since at least 1989.
At least I am consistent.
"Eat Grass Not Cows!"
EAT GRASS, NOT COWS!
I was thinking of finally going totally vegetarian to help save the planet. But I regard a fully vegatarian diet as bad for the health.
Vegetarianism and veganism are only justifiable on environmental grounds, not so-called "animal rights" grounds. Animals have no rights in the same way that humans do have rights.
Eating less meat is good for the environment because it uses much less crops and planetary resources to make vegetarian produce than meat produce, but vegetarianism and veganism are probably bad for human health, I believe.
MEAT IS NOT IN ANY WAY AT ALL MURDER. AND CANNOT BE.
Meat - of all varieties - is I sincerely believe - probably an ESSENTIAL part of the HUMAN diet.
"Heifer whines could be human cries" is an OFFENSIVELY RIDICULOUS lyric.
As is "MEAT IS MURDER". Simply a lie. A falsehood.
Meat is NOT murder.
And it is not of great important for humans or the planet that humans not eat meat.
I was thinking of finally going totally vegetarian to help save the planet. But I regard a fully vegatarian diet as bad for the health.
Vegetarianism and veganism are only justifiable on environmental grounds, not so-called "animal rights" grounds. Animals have no rights in the same way that humans do have rights.
Eating less meat is good for the environment because it uses much less crops and planetary resources to make vegetarian produce than meat produce, but vegetarianism and veganism are probably bad for human health, I believe.
MEAT IS NOT IN ANY WAY AT ALL MURDER. AND CANNOT BE.
Meat - of all varieties - is I sincerely believe - probably an ESSENTIAL part of the HUMAN diet.
"Heifer whines could be human cries" is an OFFENSIVELY RIDICULOUS lyric.
As is "MEAT IS MURDER". Simply a lie. A falsehood.
Meat is NOT murder.
And it is not of great important for humans or the planet that humans not eat meat.
2 February 2008
Basic Income
There won't be enough jobs to go around anyway. Believe me.
A basic income is inevitable.
There are going to have to be a few million people who make the ultimate sacrifice and be allowed to be free and do what they actually want to do like paint all day or redecorate or whatever. Because there won't be enough jobs.
A basic income is inevitable and the only sane solution.
------------------------------
"The world owes no one a living!
You have to get out there and make money!"
At what cost to the planet?
Can't we share what we have?
.......
A basic income is inevitable.
There are going to have to be a few million people who make the ultimate sacrifice and be allowed to be free and do what they actually want to do like paint all day or redecorate or whatever. Because there won't be enough jobs.
A basic income is inevitable and the only sane solution.
------------------------------
"The world owes no one a living!
You have to get out there and make money!"
At what cost to the planet?
Can't we share what we have?
.......
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