Showing posts with label peace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label peace. Show all posts

Strategy for confronting the UK War Makers in Parliament and elsewhere.


the facts of the matter


pro-war candidate undermines peace candidate with same Party

Back in 2007, Make Wars History ran a grass roots campaign to hold Blair and the Labour Party leadership, the Conservatives and others who enabled the invasion of Iraq, to account, by trying to get MPs on board with launching war crimes investigations.


The Labour Party rejected this appeal, apart from John mcDonnell and a few others...


The Labour voters rejected this approach because they wanted to 'keep the Tories out.'


If we in England had held Blair to account, if we had mobilised to send him to The Hague, which was possible under the International Criminal Court Act of 2001, we would have been the first Western nation to hold our own War Criminals to account and it is very likely that would have prevented the wars that flowed ever since.


Now here we are again.


A Labour Party leadership supporting a genocidal assault upon Palestinians, a Tory Party fully committed to supporting Israel no matter what crimes Israel commits.


An election looming, and nobody standing to hold our war criminals to account.


And every one of us are funding the British States war crimes. 


We got some serious thinking and activism to get on with.


As regards Climate Disruption, what chance is there for global co-operation which is required to meet that challenge as long as we refuse to hold our war criminals to account?


Vote for peace makers, remove all war makers from our legislatures, local, nationally and internationally. Vote for peace makers. Vote for Peace Policy. Do not vote for Parties and Loyalty. We can do this, collectively.


We cannot stop the genocidal war against the Palestinian people and we will be forced to watch it's completion in utter impotent horror and fury.


Our pain is as nothing compared to what the Palestinians are enduring. Our pain is as nothing compared to what the Iraqis, Afghanis, Libyans, Syrians are still enduring. 


We MUST adopt a long term strategic stance as tax payers to hold our war criminals to account, to cease future engagement in warfare, to build a legislature that commits to peace and justice and there is no single Party that can or will ever do that - not within an adversarial democratic set up of two party states.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.

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Letter to my MP on the failure of UK Parliament to uphold International Humanitarian Law and the interests of Peace.


The facts laid out in a meme.


The Undemining of Peace, by a pro-War activist Lawyer (the persecutor of Julian Assange)



To Gareth Thomas, MP


Following the clearly adversarial approach of Labour and Conservatives this Wednesday last, in the UK Parliament in Westminster, London, an approach that disabled the SNP Opposition Day Motion calling for an 'immediate ceasefire in Gaza', and the 'ending of the collective punishment of the Palestinian people by the Israeli State', a reasonable motion by all standards, and then replaced it with a watered down, conditional motion that sought to avoid a 'rebellion' within the Labour Party back benches, a move that does not serve the interests of Peace, but instead protects the interests of Israeli Military State, and Keir Starmer’s clearly undemocratic leadership of the Labour Party, I write to you to, respectfully, to demand that the Labour Co-operative MPs who are genuinely active in seeking Peace  and Justice step away from the Labour Party.


The same Labour Party that has repeatedly refused to hold Tony Blair et al to account for their War crimes, even when we had the evidence before us.


The country re-elected him in 2005. The country failed in it’s basic duty of care.


Since then both Labour and Conservatives  have launched or supported a series of amoral Wars in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere and have ordered Military action beyond our borders, in contravention of the Laws of War.


This means, in real terms, that the Parties and Parliament are de facto War Criminal Entities that remain unindicted.


This failure has led directly to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, in that Russia used false claims similar to the way Blair et al have done, with the real politick understanding that in practice International Law does not apply to the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council.


The obvious hypocrisy of the different stances the UK Government has taken in relation to that War and all the other wars mentioned above is now clear, and presents a constant threat to world peace and co-operation.  


It is worth noting that in a world that permits and enables warfare, the co-operation required to meet the challenges of Climate Disruption is not possible.


You must understand, as a member of a co-operative, that mutual aid is an essential component of developing healthy policy and that the adversarial dynamics of the current Govt. vs Opposition run counter to the meaning of healthy governance.


With that in mind, I am calling on you to uphold Humanitarian Law and International Law and the Laws prohibiting War.


Jeremy Corbyn in 2015 indicated that he would, if he gained the position of Prime Minister, order that War Crimes Investigations be initiated.


That was the primary (unspoken) reason for the Establishments vicious slanderous attack upon him, and upon the pro-peace policies he supported. 


That was driving emotional reaction behind the internal Blairite Campaign within Labour to undermine his leadership.


That Campaign succeeded, because Labour MPs and Members refused to stand up for International Law. 


Blair walks free, on a healthy state pension. He is amassing a large fortune as a direct result of all of this.


That failure is unacceptable, intolerable and utterly repugnant.


Please confirm that you will move to uphold International Law, distance yourself and your Party from these abject War criminals and stand with the peaceful people of Earth in your role as a politician, as a community leader and as an official whose wages we pay.


I advise you that my future, your future and all our children’s futures would be better served were you to align with the Green Party and all other genuine progressives and work to hold the war criminals to account, be they British, Russian, Syrian, Ukrainian or Israeli, or any other.


Failure to respond positively to this request will place you in a position that history will deem adverse the the interests of the people, and of peace.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.

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Letter to all elected members of Irish Dail and Seanad regarding South Africa's application the the ICJ

Who the hell votes against a ceasefire in a Genocide?


Mike Pence, former US Vice President, signing artillery shells in Southern Israel last week.




Dear representative,

The South African Government has made an application to the International Court of Justice, which rules on serious criminal offences between States, to initiate an indictment of the State of Israel for its current violent assault upon the people of Gaza, and the West Bank. They are asking that the courts rule on the situation, to charge it as an act of Genocide, to demand that all states party to the Genocide Convention take action to prevent this genocide from continuing, as International Law requires.

Ireland has ratified the Genocide Convention, as has South Africa and Israel, and most States around the world that form up the United Nations General Assembly.

It follows then, that the Irish Government, as a member of the UN, and in recognition of the long oppression of Irish people carried out by the English State and our in depth understanding of the history and adverse impacts of colonial conquest and genocidal actions designed to destroy the culture of the Irish, our language, our customs, culture, land tenure and polity by the English State, and later the British Empire, should support this application to the International Courts of Justice.

Can you please confirm that you will be taking the appropriate action to require the Irish State to uphold the Convention on Genocide, and other International Laws of War and the Humanitarian Law and join the South African application, to support it in full, without reservation?

Kindest regards

Corneilius Crowley (Irish Citizen)


----


I think that Offensive Militarism is psychopathy institutionalised. It MUST be dismantled. 


----

Here follows a brief interview with International Human Rights Lawyer Francis Boyle, who has taken and won a number of adjudications at the International Court Of Justice, regarding  Herzogovinia/Bosnia and Yugoslavia.




Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.

https://patreon.com/corneilius - donations gratefully received

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War Porn, Entertainment and the demand that we take sides in these atrocious wars.

There's so much more video from this latest warmongering nastiness perpetrated by Russia, Ukraine, USUK and the EU, than ever before. On line entertainment.

Let me make it clear from the onset that I know that Putin and his staff are War Criminals. As are Blair, Bush, Cameron, May and Johnson. Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen are all War Crime scenes. All horrific, disgusting War Crimes. Ukriane's war against Donbas is no exception. The UN has recorded many war crimes in that war too.

I stand for Peace, not War. I say that no War is justifiable. Not in the 21st Century.  We do not build Peace through warfare. Putin and Blair, and all others who have prosecuted wars since the 1991 invasion of Iraq deserve to be brought to the Hague to face War Crimes tribunals.

USA poses as a global police man, Where is the global Peace man?

Corbyn could have stood as such, but was brought down by the low betrayal of the Labour Party hierarchy and the Oligarchy media, and voters myopia.


source : Die Welt

Western Europeans , Americans freshly and others are gorging on a diet of freshly filmed war porn, not least because it is closer to home and involves Caucasians on both sides, with 'our' side egging Ukraine on. The media pose this particular war as an existential threat to all of us - they neglect to say the same for USUK wars.

And the truth is all these wars pose a threat to all of us, in that they make it impossible to generate the global co-operation required to meet the challenges of Climate Change. And it is true too that for the unfortunate, traumatised Ukrainian civilians, Climate Change is a distal threat by comparison.

Interest piqued.

The mask of Civilisation has slipped, yet again. This one matters because it is closer to home.  The Sun and others publish videos of strikes on Russian military daily, more or less glorifying those murderous events, celebrating the death of those inside and the maiming of those nearby. 

"All lives matter!" they crowed in opposition to the Black Lives Matter Movement. Except those of Yemeni, Iraqi, Afghani and Congolese children.

Imagine similar videos from the wars in Yemen, Palestine, Gaza, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, with such a tone.

Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran!

NATO strikes good, Libyan strikes bad! They are all bad. There is no such thing as 'good' warfare. Both Russian and USUK Media celebrate their respective murders of workers - yes, all soldiers are workers too.

What is war? War is workers trained and equipped to murder other workers, commanded by Oligarchs waving Flags, so that Oligarchs can continue to extract wealth from workers - be they the Military Industrial Complex or shareholders of those companies.

“War porn,” n. Videos, images, and narratives featuring graphic violence, often brought back from combat zones, viewed voyeuristically or for emotional gratification. Such media are often presented and circulated without context, though they may be used as evidence of war crimes.

Videos of military strikes on either side are legion. The whoops, cries and chants of "Glory!" that celebrate violence, murder, destruction. The cool sound tracks of EDM, with thumping bass and crescendos timed to the explosion. The cool 'Babes in Uniform', ugly anti-feminism posing as feminism, applies make up, thrusting hips, the swaggering strides, the coy smiles of pride.

And yes,  it is understandable that the men and women directly involved in warfare will celebrate their 'victories'.  We know the dehumanising effect of war is immediate and ubiquitous. War crimes committed by enraged combatants are an old, old story - no army in combat is free of such incidents. 

The media do us all a disservice to pretend that the Rules of War (a criminal enterprise) matter much in the heat of battle, or indeed during the aftermath of a firefight, when revenge draws back it's bloody boot to kick the vanquished. Every war. 

Every war. Same old, same old.

The red mist, the blood lust, the hatred and the revenge are all harnessed by the War Mongers - they know this drives the battle on the ground, in hand to hand combat, in street by street urban warfare, in the rage and anger of civilians caught in the crossfire which demands an eye for any eye, and more and they demand that we accept that their side of any war is 'justified', that that tank full of workers deserved to be destroyed, it's occupants immolated. "We will stop this war by waging more effective total war than the other side" they say.

"Pick a side!" they say. "Neutrality is abject cowardice" they claim. "You are either with us, or against us!" Bush spoke, the world trembled. And the peace activists are called all manner of names, painted as naive at best, weak, cowardly and stupid at worst.

The peace activists are among the bravest among us. They call out the Militarism for what it is, in spite of the tide of Militarism's proponents.

Putin's ludicrous claims to be liberating Southern Ukraine are as risible and false as the USUK and NATO claims justifying war in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and Kosovo. 

Viewers of War Porn are encouraged to see these as acts of 'good violence'. Video commentary by citizens at a safe distance to war, praising one side or the other abound. Name calling, dehumanisation and angry, lurid calls for more violence percolate all our media platforms. Orcs and Towel Heads. Taighs and Gooks. The Romans called the Celts Barbarians. The Christian conquerors called the indigenous Savage Heathens. So it goes.

Peace?

Peace activists are almost entirely silenced by the ubiquity of  this barrage of celebratory violence to be found on video on demand, by the braying of sabre rattling politicians up to their eyes in grift, ands by the mind numbing cowardice of what purports to be The Free Press.

It is like the ring of a fist fight, with the audience baying for more blood, screaming for their champion - indeed this is how many people seem to get their thrills, making their bets on the outcome, lusting for victory and profit and the gambling  monsters happily rake in the cash.  The Press are the ring side commentators, cheering on their chosen heroes, extoling their fighting skills and resilience.

Fight Club

The first rule in Fight Club is never mention that Fight Club is stupid, inhumane and wasteful.

The first rule in War Club is never mention that War Club is stupid, inhumane and wasteful.

Where will one find footage of good people marching in protest, decrying all war, proposing negotiated solutions, demanding that power be shared as a socio-political measure of equity to be exercised for the interests of the health and welfare of everyone involved and beyond?

There are many, and the Oligarchy Press mute their voices.

One can spend hours watching short videos of this militarised violence, on most platforms, produced as propaganda, disseminating a celebratory attitude to the murder of workers -  yes, it is true : all infantry and mechanised soldiers are workers, trained to murder other workers, commanded by Oligarchs waving Flags, so that Oligarchs can continue to extract wealth from workers. That is what war has always been. Conquest, Booty, Loot, Dominance.

Oligarchs rake in profits as munitions are expended and more and more people are murdered, maimed, traumatised and displaced. That said wars are often followed by a building boom. Nice work, if you can get it.

We have all been long fed a diet of movie 'entertainment' extolling good vs bad violence, cleverly designed to get the viewer to identify with the hero. The murderer who gets the girl. The intimacy of sex in the midst of a war. The singular  Hero who saves a family, a village, a city, the World. From unrestrained violence to unrestrained sex, with all the best camera angles, the groans of death and climax juxtaposed, with tears and sighs and superb make up. 

So emotionally  moving. Sentimental and so touching, such wonderful acting. Awe, shucks, ooh, ahhh. Bullshit.

All the makeup to mask the ugliness of industrialised violence. Realism, they claim. It's not - it is war porn. It targets unresolved rages and wounds, dark emotions within populations, kindled for profit.

Weapons systems and munitions are the ultimate profit stream consumer item, with a very short life span, and an increasing demand for more, more, more munitions. They are all paid for in taxes of one form or another. More wealth extracted.

All wars end in negotiations. Corbyn has made the point, suggesting there's wisdom in take steps to skip the war fighting, and go straight to negotiations. He has a point. 

The UN has called many times for negotiated ceasefires, not only in regard to this most recent war upon Ukraine. 

In 2020 and 2021 the UN called for global ceasefires to make work on dealing with the Pandemic easier. 

USUK rejected those calls. Their wars in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere must continue. The governments involved in warfare throughout history have frequently rejected such calls, and have continued to pursue their aims through industrialised violence, at the expense of hundreds, if not thousands of millions of lives.

A history steeped in gore.

Today in Germany, on a US Military base, a meeting of 40 countries assembled to draw up plans for the defence of Ukraine. We all know of the arms sent to Syria, Yemen and Libya by the USUK and EU, Qatar, Saudi, Israel and others - a flow of the tools of extremist violence that has ruined those countries and destroyed the civilians peace and health and welfare for decades to come.

To my mind no single war exists as a stand alone event - these wars are connected by competing interests, an active culture of militarism, conquest, victory that denies the reality of the meaning of such slaughter. 

Refugees crossing the English channel in small, dangerous dinghies are the enemy, Ukrainian women folk and their children are exploited by Government and by people offering them sanctuary in their homes, as long as they can pay their way, bolstered by a promise of £350 a month promised by this odious misGovernment.

Meanwhile the citizens in the war zones suffer unmentionable abuses. Those citizens are entirely innocent. 

When will the onlooking worker-citizens so fortunately at a distance to these horrific wars among Earths States and the Oligarchies that dominate them reject militarism in their hearts and minds and, more importantly, at the ballot boxes and push hard to elect peacemakers to replace the war makers?

It cannot happen too soon.

Kindest regards


Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.

https://patreon.com/corneilius - donations gratefully received

https://www.reverbnation.com/corneilius - .mp3 songs

https://www.soundcloud.com/coreluminous - .wav Songs

https://www.corneilius.net - Archive

#folkmusic
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Now is the most important time to talk seriously about achieving Peace.

We adults have a first duty of care to all our children, even before our countries.

Not just our own children, but to all children, everywhere.

There are 6.5 million children under the age of 15 living in Ukraine, 15% of the population. In Iraq 2003-2006 1/3rd of all violent deaths were of children under the age of 15.

We adults, every last one of us, no exception, have a first duty of care to all the children, all of them, everywhere. This is a collective, species level responsibility.

I think that any adult who fails to see this is perhaps a little immature. There, I've said it. Do you get me? There's a significant sector of the adult world that is failing all our children. The War Makers and Wealth Extractors and their operatives.


Now is even more important a time to talk about what it will take to achieve peace, rather than escalating a war. 

Which is what the Ukrainian and the Russian Governments, the EU and the News Media all appear to be doing right now. Talking up escalation. Send in more weapons, send in more fighters. No-fly zones and Nuclear Options. War, war, war! More war! Viaggro?

Insanity Reigns.

I am really, really upset. I am angry, sad, disgusted and pissed off, I detest the war makers. I know the Laws that prohibit war, I familiarised myself with them after the invasion of Iraq, in 2003, and the Russian invasion is clearly a War Crime, and therefore Russia must be opposed, no question. Russia has no case. It's a dreadful thing, that the Russians continue to advance into Ukraine. I do not know what can be do to impede that advance, and of course Ukraine has the right to defend herself, under the same legal domain that prohibits wars of aggression.

What appals me is that there are no serious level headed discussions on how to achieve Peace outside Ukraine. The talk of more war seems to me to be adding fuel to the fire. 

No discussions on calling for Peace can be heard on on our News Channels, I do not hear them in our Legislatures, nor are there prayers for Peace in our Churches and Temples, or if there are such discussions and prayers then I am not aware of them.

If there are such calls, they are not getting the air time they deserve, they are not being heard on an equal footing, for 'balance'.

I know they should be happening, I wish to contribute to them. That is why I write this blog and perform my music. I want a world living without warfare, living in peace and living in a humane mutually nurturant dynamic.

However, this past week I mostly hear breathless, excited discussions about how to win wars, be it civilians with Molotov Cocktails, the numbers and types of weapons to be supplied to defend Ukraine, or the sanctions necessary to cripple the Russian aggressors economy, or the aspirations of budding foreign fighters rushing to the so called International Brigade.

What about the children?

I understand those discussions about more war, self defence, defending a smaller country, defending democracy - I get it all. And whilst I support the sanctions, of course, I know that probably the majority of Russian civilians do not support the war, and that sanctions may well have an adverse impact upon their welfare, as the sanctions are aimed at those people, to nudge them to do something about their ruling class, and so I try to keep that in mind too. 

When the warmakers reduce the thing to leaders, Assad, Putin, Blair, Mao, Stalin it obscures the reality of ordinary people trapped by circumstance of birth.

Ordinary people, on all sides, always pay the price. Dresden and Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Fallujah, Homs, Allepo, Gaza.

How can we avoid or prevent that dynamic?

For that reason I oppose escalating the war, I do not want to see thousands upon thousands of civilians murdered in war, I do not want to see cities and towns destroyed and left empty save for fighters and soldiers, tanks and artillery and rotting corpses.

We adults have a first duty of care to all our children, even before our countries.

An Irishman recites a poem 'The Box' by Abercrombie Lascalles, an English Poet.  Stop for a moment, and listen to this and feel the need for peace. Then read on.


My perspective, where my heart lives.


Even as war is underway, it is more important than ever to look to how we can achieve peace. Nobody 'wins' in war, some people survive, that's all that really happens, especially when we have a culture where warfare is accepted as a tool of foreign policy of 'great powers', and is also a business model.

Scilla Esleworthy is someone who understands this need, having worked in conflict zones for many decades, helping to de-escalate conflict, helping people to find routes towards achievable peace. This is a Ted Talk that Scilla presented that is absolutely on point and entirely pertinent right now. 


The propaganda for more war.

During WWI, before conscription, English women were groomed to hand out White Feathers to those who openly objected to fighting in the Oligarchs war. Those objectors were the among the most honest, courageous citizens of all. Also the most sensible. Refugees who flee before the bombs destroy their homes and villages are being wise, and often it is those who can afford to flee who do. The poor tend to wait until they have no other choice. Another layer of inequity, one that is rarely discussed.

True civilian courage

The most brave thing I have seen yet is villagers out in front of a Russian Military Convoy, blocking the road, talking to the troops, urging them to turn around, to go home.



That right there is true humane courage, a community united and at peace even in the face of an immense threat, and that is part of the start, on the ground, of working for peace, human to human. I hope they are successful, and that the convoy turns around, and leaves. I wish Levenskyy had the same grit and determination. He appears to be urging a fight without making the effort to sue for peace. Did he speak to the children of Ukraine, and is he speaking for them?

Workers on strike?

The Russian soldiers ought to go on strike, knowing their leaders have forced them into committing a war crime, and their legal duty is to resist that, to object and refuse to follow the order to commit that crime. They should be given that option.

The refusal of our political class to discuss how to achieve Peace, especially at a time of war, is venal avarice and cowardice. The apparent rejection by our news media to float a serious discussion on how to achieve Peace is cowardice. 


Because they are not willing to challenge the Military Industrial Complex, the war profiteering Oligarchy, and they are not willing to confront the Fossil Fuel Industry and they are not willing to blow open the world of Epstein and sex trafficking for the Powerful. Cowards.

Obviously, the Russian invasion is a War Crime.

Invasion is An act of Aggression, which is the supreme war crime, in that it contains all other war crimes. All war crimes flow from that act of aggression.

There are a number of laws prohibiting war fare, international treaties and national legislation. The existence of these Laws is not routinely a matter of concern in out Schools and news media.

Applying the Law, equitably to achieve and sustain Peace.

Putting Putin, Blair, Bush, Cameron, Assad, the Saudi King, the Myanmar Leaders and all War Profiteers and others in the dock at The Hague is the only way to prevent further war mongering. We must hold those who initiate and prosecute war to account.

We must understand that even those defending their country will inevitably commit war crimes.  Indeed, in this instance War Crimes have been committed in and around the Donbas region for the past 8 years by Ukrainians on both 'sides' of that war, as well as by Russian forces.

Are we, the working people, seriously for Peace, or are we for allowing more War?

We are all of us in this together and everything is connected. That is the nature of living on a finite planet, sharing a common biosphere.

Watching young English men react to the dominant News narrative, and seeing videos of breathless packing and viral tiktoks of their journeys to rush off to fight for Ukraine, without the skills or training, when Ukraine has a standing army of 240k, trained reserves of 220k, the 4th largest weapons export industry in Europe, and I see the impact of propaganda on all sides.  

Those boys will be getting in the way of Ukrainians trying to defend their country in war fare, and they will be undermining those in Ukraine who are seeking to stop the war making, because it's quite clear they want to go to war.

No Peace. Just more grooming.

Russian invasion IS a War Crime - no question.

Ukraine has the right of self defence under current international Law - no question.

Hypocrisy undermines Peace.

That right, of self defence, is not afforded equally to everyone, is it?

Libya, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Vietnam, Korea, Congo, All Egalitarian Cultures.

That hypocrisy is part of the problem, and the hypocrisy blocks progress towards peace everywhere.

Toxic Bully Cult

The competing industrialised militarised powers dynamic is an anti-worker, anti-family, anti-children, anti-social anti-egalitarian bully cult. 

The entire competing militarised industrialised powers dynamic is cruelty and psychopathy institutionalised, and it is workers taxes that fund war, and it is workers who die fighting and it is workers and their families who are obliterated as 'collateral damage'. 

It is cowardice, avarice, stupidity and myopia that enrols people, pundits and writers in our News Media services, social online platforms and in our legislatures into supporting warfare - it is not bravery, it is not honour, it is most certainly not humane decency. 

The weak dare not confront the Bully Culture. 

It is too frightening a proposition for them, it is more comfortable to go along with the Bully Cult, take the war mongers silver, keep one's head down or take the war mongers gold and promote the war mongers vile propaganda.



Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.

https://patreon.com/corneilius - donations gratefully received

https://www.reverbnation.com/corneilius - .mp3 songs

https://www.soundcloud.com/coreluminous - .wav Songs

https://www.corneilius.net - Archive

#folkmusic
#singersongwriter
#blogger
#music

Christmas Climate Carol : Gently, Firmly, Change, every day - Vaccine Equity Now!

"If there exists a medicine that we know is tool to prevent severe disease, chronic disease, economic and social harm, then it exists to be made available to every human, every person alive. That is the profit of a truly good medicine. Indeed, that is the best measure of any concept of Health Care provision,

Likewise if we knew that chronic stress can undermine efficacy of the best medicine and practice available, then we'd want to stop the chronic stressor from causing the distress.

Abolish Poverty.

Save Live.

It's not so much to ask, is it?
~
Christmess Climate Song of Hope
~
Gently, Humanely, Linking Climate Change, Shopping, Wealth Distribution, Vaccine Equity and grass-roots Humane Political Interest for a Cleaner, Nurturant Healthy future for all our Children, everywhere, where justice is the presence of equity in all spheres of life. Imagine. Then build. Love.
~
~

I really do appreciate the sharing, the kindness, the warmth of family and friendly connections, the holiday break and the genuine human sharing that Christmas represents on a person to person level. 

This song is not about attacking any of that, rather it is about, for me at least, deepening the kindness, expanding the care, nurturing each other and our children's futures. It's a hymn. 

I imagine a more nurturant culture. I dream of this, and I undertake small daily actions to make that dream a social and material reality.
~

A Christmess Climate Carol.
~
It's getting close to Christmas

 Christ! what a mess this world is in:

where will it end, where will I begin?

The ads for gifts are everywhere, 

and still the World will not share the Wealth - (or The Vaccines)

oh Christ! what a mess this world is in.

~
Our climate's changing, people die

just so we can drive smoothly by.

The lights go on, hip hip hooray!

Goodwill to all on Christmas day.

Oh Christ what a mess this world is in.
~

Where will it end, where will I begin?

It will only end when I begin.

it will only end when you begin,

it will only end when we begin

the change, the change...
~

......Imagine there's no countries -

it isn't hard to do,

nothing to kill or die for...
~

Imagine there's no poverty,

no pollution too..
~

It's getting close to Christmas,

and the best give we could give

would be the commitment

so that all could live -

living in dignity! living in dignity!
~

It will only end when I begin,

it will only end when you begin,

it will only end when we begin,

the change, the change...
~
we are all in this together
~
~
old MP3 version - listen and/or download from Reverbnation

~
What is the Carbon FootPrint of UK Luxury Shopping?
~
Even as we ordinary folk do small things to help, we need to vote in and support Governments and legislators that eschew corrupt influences from the major extractive industries and their down stream production and sale of luxury consumer goods, as a Wealth Extraction Economy, and turn instead towards design and practices similar to Cradle to Cradle, by mimicking  biological principles of nothing is waste, everything can be returned to the designed, production, consumption and disposal systems,  and learn how to stop generating toxic outputs and externalised costs to be supported by legislation and regulation, for all our sakes.

"It is common sense, you you put it like that, yes."
~



Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.

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#folkmusic
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Because We Can, We Must

Because We Can We Must


The only way for the English people, the adults in the country, to start to repair the damage of the past 20 years (and more) of war mongering by the English Establishment, the Ruling Class who direct these wars, is to indict Blair and to indict all those who prosecuted the War of Aggression against Iraq.

The lies about WMD and the grooming promise of Democracy vs the solemn oath that British Combat Troops make, which was exploited at their expense.

“How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power? Here lies the whole art of Conservative politics in the 20th century.” Aneurin Bevan

We need to be ruthlessly politically ethical and honest about all that flowed from that.

Ordinary people, people like you and I, and especially the low income workers, who  make most of the real wealth in this world, through daily toil: every hour of our lives is equally precious. And yet the largest proportion of the wealth we generate is extracted and accumulated and used as a tool to dominate us. The poor are a permanent externalised cost of that extraction process. I think of that as a fundamental and abominable insult to the very gift of life itself.

And yes, I know. I know. That's not going to happen any time soon. The Establishment will oppose and resist that, of course they will. Criminals do not voluntarily walk into the dock. That does not change the facts - the resolution of the problem remains the same. Indict our own war criminals if we want to encourage world peace. Lead by example.

If we want Peace, then we must at least prevent war. Chucking a few war criminals into jail would be a good move in that direction. 'Just saying!' 

Look at him: he is guilty, he is culpable and responsible for so much avoidable harm and he knows it. We all know it. He's not the only one. They all need to be held to account, and we all need to understand how we let this happen, collectively. How do we become so politically weak that we cannot impede our government when they are about to commit the worst possible crimes a state can commit? What does this say about the health of our polity?

"Sitting in the dock at The Hague"?

Some day, it must happen.

Peace is more than the absence of war.

How better to help the people of Afghanistan than to indict Blair, to own up to the awful crime that the English State perpetrated upon the Afghani people and to make appropriate reparations to the Afghani people for the damage our political class have inflicted upon them? 

It is also, given the days we are living in, absolutely critical to understand that there is no way to generate the international co-operation necessary to meet the challenges of Climate, Environment, Racism, Misogyny and Poverty without confronting war making and bringing it to an end. That means we must account for the harms caused and make it very, very clear that we will prevent further abuses of that nature into the future. It means we must demonstrate the ability to wage justice as a co-operative action.

This task will not be taken up by the Ruling Class who see war as a political utility and a cash cow - it must be us, you and I, and our neighbours, our brothers and sisters across the Earth.

Peace is more than the absence of war

It must be us, the people who are always caught in the crossfire, who always pay the price who extract the price of accountability from the abusers.

It must be us, the people working together as a humane polity, who unite in solidarity for our children, for their children and for all their futures as much as we would do it for our own present. 

It must be us who take the democratic legislatures and our judiciaries back from the oligarchy and it must be us who set those institutions and the various arms of the State to serve our people's needs  - to build peace, to establish stability, to start the repair of the damage done and to alter our systems of production and consumption systems so that they facilitate the prevention of further harm, be it preventing war or adapting to climate change, cleaning up pollution, repairing degraded environments, enriching our soils, cleaning our rivers, abolishing poverty and destitution and caring for all our vulnerable people as their needs dictate.

Peace is more than the absence of war

The prevailing profit system is built on deceit and externalised costs. WMD lies, and the costs born by the civilians whose cities, towns and villages have been made into combat zones. They did not invite the war, it came to them, unbidden. They paid the price. The cost in horrific deaths, disgusting maimings, devastating displacement, mass trauma and deep psychological distress is beyond all measure - the externalised costs associated with the profits of war supply logistic industrial production and consumption.

The War Against Terror shovelled vast wealth into the hands of a minority, who dominate our polities, and who continue to accrue wealth and power at our expense.  Obviously they do not want us to hold them to account.

Peace is more than the absence of war

Enough already!

We all understand the grasp the oligarchy and the powerful have on the news media, on the current economic settings, on our democracies, our institutions and our public spaces.  They mean business, and their business is mean, the inhumane desire to grasp power and exclude us from sharing it to improve all our lives. At times their ubiquity, size and aggressive resistance to healthy change suggests a fatalistic appraisal - they are too big to challenge, they have been around for too long, we cannot change them. All of this is true. 

We cannot change them. They will not volunteer to change. We can, however, disempower them. That we certainly can do when we work together, and they know this - that is why they devote so much energy to division within our grass roots population.  The future is always unfinished. Fatalism about the future is an error of judgement, and a logical fallacy.

And that is precisely why we must work ahead, and work together, from an evidence base. We must take up the work of confronting this situation in spite of their degree of control and influence, we must press ahead without their co-operation. 

I think that to do that we must better understand the dark arts of political grooming, economic sabotage, political corruption and manipulation as they present at every level, from the personal to the institutional. 

Neoliberals, bullies, authoritarians and dictatorships rely upon fatalism and logical fallacy narratives as psychological weapons that dissuade an oppressed  and exhausted yet potentially active population from taking the necessary steps to build social and political solidarity. 

Peace is more than the absence of war

We must erase that fatalism with the awareness that our unfinished futures are indeed opportunities, that we can change the situation by our collective efforts precisely because the future is unfinished.  Nothing is set in stone, other than stone itself and even stone is weathered to become sand and soil.

The power of the oligarchy, their normalisation of war, their ubiquitous wealth and their interference in our democracies are not inevitable, immutable, immovable. That power is not carved from the rock. That power is not mountains high nor is it oceans deep. That power is human artifice. That power is temporary. That power is not eternal. The power structures do not define the human species and they do not illustrate the human condition, even though they do mark out this cult that claims to be a culture.

Peace is more than the absence of war

We can set them aside. We must. That is our vocation as humane beings, as parents to the next  generation, this is our true vocation as neighbours, as friends and family and as a species. To craft a peaceful civilisation worthy of the gift of life.

The future for all our children is way, way, way bigger than the ruling class and the old, sordid bully cult.

It is for the citizens of each and every state to do this work within their own polities, as the first step.

Clean our houses, put them in order. We started to discuss this within England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, with diligence, hope and seriousness back in 2006, within The Power Inquiry.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/power_inquiry_3310jsp/

"After eighteen months of investigation, the final report of The Power Inquiry is a devastating critique of the state of formal democracy in Britain. Many of us actively support campaigns such as Greenpeace or the Countryside Alliance. And millions more take part in charity or community work. But political parties and elections have been a growing turn-off for years.

The cause is not apathy. The problem is that we don't feel we have real influence over the decisions made in our name. The need for a solution is urgent. And that solution is radical. Nothing less than a major programme of reform to give power back to the people of Britain..."

Because we can, we must....

Kindest regards

Corneilius

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

Peace is more than the Absence of War - Songs from 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2018

First off this 7 minute video by Joe Glenton on the realities of war is essential viewing. I'd go as far as saying watch this video, then there's no need to read my polemic or listen to my songs about war.

~
I still cannot get my head and heart around the idea that USUK and other NATO armies have Christian chaplains and other religious pastoral officers embedded in their ranks. For me critical thinking is grounded in empathy. But that is one dynamic my empathy cannot reach. A spirituality that blesses organised violence makes no sense to me. Other than it presents the psychology of dominator cults as rather cruel, callous and manipulative. The concept of God as an absolute hierarch is a mirror image, a projection of the bully culture. 

So  yeah, I can understand that and I can also really feel for everyone affected and afflicted by the horrific Twin Towers violent mass murder terror horror.  I really do. Utter horror, an atrocity beyond belief. Deliberate cruelty.


I was never one to say "America got blowback, got a bit of what it dished out, fair enough!" That's just the most venal, unthinking, heartless and debased way of framing that event. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. 

I know a little about trauma, and how it afflicts one after the events, how it can linger and contaminate one's life ever after. For some the impact is worse than for others, because we are all different. Comparisons are less than useful unless they are attended to with great empathy.

I can kind of imagine the pain, terror, grief, hatred, confusion, despair, loss, of anyone in the many situations that  morning, in offices, stairwells, clambering for safety, having to walk over dead bodies, fleeing for safety without really knowing what was going on...  by thinking of all the times I felt terror, trauma, fear of death, horror, disgust and grief and multiply all that, and make it head spinningly fast, turn my world upside down so I don't know what hit me until it's well over and the dust has settled feeling, the first quietness, that stillness when the grief really strikes.

I can kind of  imagine being on the streets seeing this happening, not knowing, making decisions to flee, or be rooted to the spot, to experience terror and horror and fear and outrage as a witness a mile away, two miles way, 100, 10,000 miles way, as it was then broadcast as a happening event.

Luck, accident of birth
 
I realise I am a very lucky human being to have been born where I was away from all that - it is a matter of luck and luck alone to be have been born in London, Paris, Rome, Moscow, Bejing, New York, or Baghdad, Gaza, Hanoi, Seoul, or born in Algeria, Libya, Yemen, Myanmar, or to find oneself as an indigenous peasant in South America being attacked by militarised police waging war against drugs, or to be civilian in any one of any number of wars, or a bystander or a target in any number of mass shootings, or caught up in riots and crackdowns. 

I have missed so much trouble by luck more than by effort on my part. A little humility goes a long way towards a more realistic view of our culture.

I have my story, it's a minor tragedy in comparison. You have yours. Mine seems big to me, impacts me daily, and yet I see that it is only that big because I am close to my own trauma, and obviously it seems so impactful.

So many people are made to suffer through no fault of their own, by this dominator cult we call 'civilisation' - hierarchies of wealth, power and violence.

Propaganda, lies and The War Against Terror.


"Everybody’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s a really easy way; stop  participating in it." Noam Chomsky

So when the propaganda vomits over the air waves and the light tubes this weekend, as they deny the War Crimes of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and so many others  from Vietnam to Troy, from Agincourt to Trafalgar, from Pearl Harbour to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, from Gaza to Aleppo, from Sudan to Mali, I resist by reminding myself that war is the result of the behaviour of the leading bullies of the bully cult, Such behaviour is not an innate or inherent part of being human, it is a dirty, ugly, sick, depraved way of dominating for the sake of dominating..

I reject all fatalism about war's inevitability.

I have written anti-war, pro-peace, love songs for a nurturant culture for all of my working musicial life, and will continue to do so until I pass on or the wars stop - it's more likely the former, than the latter, yet my hope springs from the unfinished nature of life itself.

War is not inevitable. Dominator Cult is not inevitable.

Two score songs and more.

I have a reverbnation account that allows me to present MP3 files of my songs, for listening and for downloading, all for free and there's more than 50 there. The first six are arranged as my proPeace songs written in response/reaction to 9/11.

Below are descriptions of each song, why I wrote it, what the context was for each. Folk music is story telling.

Play them at least once this weekend, for me, for you, for your friends, for your children and for all their friends. Play them for the Afghani women and children, play them for the Yemeni people, the Libyans, The Iraqis, the New Yorkers, the people of Idlib, the people in Nablus and Hebron, play them the desperate people, the families with small children, trekking across strange lands, to get into in small dangerous boats to cross wide choppy waters just to find degrees of safety from wars our governments and oligarchy and businesses export for profit.

Play them to make sounds that are pro-peace, that are less anti-war than they are for peace.

I will be doing a  few live stream shows this weekend, from my Facebook Page and I will record them and put them up on youtube.

The theme will be this : Peace is more than the absence of war. Why can't we have Governments that avoid avoidable harms to human beings, to our shared environment, to the species that live with us? Is peace too much to ask for? 


1. TOWERS:  September 2001


This song was written the week after the awful 9/11 terror attacks in USA. This recording was taken at a Virtually Acoustic Club night, in Angel, London, first week in October, with additional layers added later on that month. I had been writing letters, sending emails and even spoke on LBC Radio phone in to John Gaunt, all to articulate my desire for honesty, healing, maturity and to urge the US and UK refrain from further violence, warning that it would only make matters worse globally.

I understood the pain, the trauma, the anger - on all sides. 

This song was my way of bringing that compassion to life in a song. It's not that I was 'right'. I was and remains that warfare is an abomination, is an irrational, reckless chaotic way to do foreign policy. Hierarchies of violence are toxic.


2.  WE ARE GOING TO WAR : November 2002


A youtuber account known as Edensounds, a purveyor of fine music, of selected tunes and mixes, well known in certain communities associated with electronic music dance events in London, (a stalwart of the DJ craft long before the acronym EDM was ever coined), made a video of the song, listing English/British Combat Deployments since 1900, noting that there was only 1 year where British troops did not engage in combat, in the 110 years between 1900 and 2010 when he made the video. 

Professional violence at the behest of the English parliamentarians has a long tradition, indeed. Ever since the New Model Army, and before. None of it is honourable. The two world wars erupted because the prevailing culture was a culture of violent Empire. Every war since then has emerged from the same dynamic. In that context no-one fights for ordinary people's freedoms - wars are fought to preserve violent hierarchies. That is why they fight.


This song was written in November 2002, while I was living in an art collective squat in North West London, Kensal Rise.   


What was this new war for? Was the outcome assured? Had we not already seen failure of War policy in Afghanistan? The Helmandi had not forgotten. Blair blatantly did not take heed of history.


3.  WAR TAX : December 2003


This song was written in late 2003, and produced in 2004, in response to the battle of Fallujah that March, This track was the first I produced in my first real home of my own, in London, after 6 years of homelessness after my flat was destroyed in a fire in 1997.

The tax bill to pay for war means all that cash and effort is not being directed into nurturing healthy communities, abolishing poverty, making life better for ordinary people.

Witnessing the appalling invasion of Iraq, in which it was already clear that it had brought, at great expense, chaos, blood, gore and horror to the people of Iraq and vast profits to Corporate America, I was really furious, and also terribly sad. I also safe in a new rented social housing home of my own after a long time of homelessness,  and I was imagining the unfortunate, innocent people of Iraq, so many displaced, surviving in camps, homeless due to the violence of USUK.

How lucky am I to live here, and not there, I would tell myself every morning, as I ate breakfast and took in the news.

4. DARK DESERT HIGHWAY. September 2003

A rewrite of Hotel California inspired, if that's the right word, by the images of US Military convoys on darkened desert roads heading towards Baghdad.
 

5. DEPLETED URANIUM BABIES May 2001

Inspired by Brian Haw's protest outside the Houses of Parliament in London. There were an inordinate or excessive degree of birth deformities post Gulf War I, across areas of Iraq exposed to aerial bombing with DU munitions.

Depleted Uranium munitions have been in use since the 1990s, in Iraq, The Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq II, Libya, Syria and elsewhere by US and NATO forces.. Arguments rage about the health impacts to troops and civilian populations exposed to DU. Typically exposure occurs within a war, where there exist multiple potential contaminants and stressors and not enough research has been diligently pursued to give definitive answers. The precautionary principle ought at the very least led to an examination of toxic effects before such munitions were ever deployed. No such examination was undertaken.



6. THUNDER RUN July 2003

Written after I read reports about an armoured 'charge' of US Military Battle group into Baghdad, The Thunder Run, which apparently involved competition between battlefield commanders for the glory of being the first to 'conquer' Baghdad. As the column was travelling through urban areas, they shot the shit out anything that moved or appeared in front, to the sides.... thousands of innocent civilians and their homes were raked with live rounds..

Then a year later it was being discusse in heroic, glowing terms as a suitable subject for a Hollywood movie.


7. ALL WAR IS CHILD ABUSE December 2018

My response to the odious  'celebrations' of the 'Victory' claimed by British Empire in November 1918. Nobody wins in war, apart from the war supplies industries. I wrote this song that summer, and blogged it in November 2019, with a more detailed piece exploring all the ways in which warfare is related to child abuse, from training young boys to become killers, to towns and cities destroyed, from comics and propaganda to toy soldiers and war movies.

I understood long, long ago that vast quantities of money that could have been used for social benefit was being wasted, and grifted into the bank accounts of already obscenely rich oligarchs.
 


We had known that environmental degradation, air pollution, climate change and poverty were becoming immense problems that really needed to be addressed. But no. 

"We are going to war, so PAY your taxes to guarantee our borrowings for this war!"


Afghanistan 2021 - USUK end the 20 year war, but deny it's harms.

In truth, nobody ever wins war. Everyone exposed to it loses, apart from the weapons suppliers and other material production logistics essential to the prosecution of any war.

Now, in August 2021, as the disastrous, pointless USUK and NATO war in Afghanistan is supposedly coming to an end and we witness yet again the reckless nature of the Governments involved. As it happens White Christian English Europeans have been importing war into Afghanistan for close on 200 years.

Given the most recent utter folly exposed in the awful, bungled, stupefyingly callous mismanagement of the 'withdrawal' of USUK/NATO Military forces (even as they still hold the threat of air warfare over the incoming Taliban as a future 'bargaining chip)' it should be blatantly obvious that the entire premise of imposing Democracy at the point of a gun is just a banal evil.  

Biden, Trump, Obama, Bush, Johnson, May, Cameron, Brown and Blair and their Cabinets are all War Mongering Hierarchs to the core. Watching the English Parliament discuss Afghanistan last week was sickening. Repeated claims that the mission was honourable defy all notions of honesty. These people are utter hypocrites. They do not represent ordinary, decent people and their dishonesty is repugnant, makes a mockery of the very idea of a healthy and honest democracy.

Refusing to acknowledge that their war mongering allows evil behaviour to prevail, collecting a wage from the tax payers. 

Clive Lewis

Here's an honest interview with MP Clive Lewis, who was in the Territorials, a Reserve of the British Army, and who is a combat veteran of Afghanistan, where he did one three month tour of duty.

One three month tour of duty, among men who had to do, who were ordered to do many, many more. I feel for the terrible burden those troops have to bear, to know they were placed where they had to kill or be killed, to endure loss, pain, woundings and grief and rage, and it turns out to have been a failure, because it was wholly illegitimate, even as they fought in good faith.

He speaks openly and honestly, informed by that experience and a wider understanding of the issues evolved since then. The theme was Afghanistan and his exclusion from being asked to speak in the House of Commons.





Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.

https://patreon.com/corneilius

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