blessed britain

The clock sounds five. Then follows the catastrophe, brutal, horrible, implacable. A deluge of steel and fire descended on Royan; a wave of 350 planes lets go 800 tons of bombs on the town. Some seconds later, the survivors are calling for aid to the wounded. Cries, death rattles... A woman appeals for help, her head appears alone, her body crushed under an enormous beam.
A whole family is imprisoned in a cave, the water mounts. The rescuers lift their heads - this humming, yet, it is another wave of planes. This achieves the complete destruction of Royan and its inhabitants. Royan has gone down with the civilised world, by the error, the bestiality, the folly of man.

A Royan citizen, quoted in Howard Zinn's 'The Bombing of Royan' (in On War) According to Zinn, about 2,000 people died that night under British bombs.

mad world

We cannot have an expansive monetary policy, not because we voted for a restrictive policy, but because the European Central Bank makes the rules, even for member states outside the euro-zone.
We cannot write to ask a government minister or our MEP to propose a particular change in European law unless there happens to be a relevant proposal before the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament, because only the unelected European Commission has the right to propose new legislation.
We cannot refuse to have genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in our country because an EU directive says that, except under extremely limited conditions, we have to have them.
And we cannot elect a government on the basis of manifesto commitments to defend public ownership, propose democratising changes in the way European laws are made or keep GMOs out of our farms and food shops, unless that government proposes to withdraw from the EU.

— Steve McGiffen

The End of Democracy

an eyes-closed attitude

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Submitted by antarchi on November 11, 2007 - 00:09.

The temptation is to think that it will be enough to show people the crimes and terrible injustices that are being done around the world, and they will be so appalled that they will try to act to put a stop to them. The temptation is to think that they will be particularly keen to act, particularly active even, when the crimes are being carried out with their support - conscious or unconscious, active or passive.

But it is not enough. Most people (in the comfy west) don't want their comfy lives disrupting. Most people don't have time or space to have their lives disrupted, particularly not for people who are miles away, a different colour, and whom they will never need to see. Disruption is particularly unappealing if it needs to happen from the roots and if it takes away the comforts we have become accustomed to, the comforts that make our lives tolerable, and the comforts that we have won at the expense of those whose lives are now intolerable.

So - rather than be troubled night and day by thoughts that we contribute to the misery of other people round the world, we close our eyes. We have to close our eyes, because the troubled thoughts would overpower us otherwise, would make our comfy lives intolerable. So the choice becomes a comfy life which is intolerable; a less comfy life - which we would find it hard to tolerate; or else an eyes-closed attitude.

But if you have your eyes closed, you have to close your eyes to the fact that they are closed, or else the troubled thoughts come back to view. An eyes-closed attitude needs to be undertaken with an eyes closed attitude. We mustn't know that we are only managing to continue living comfy lives by shutting out the troubled thoughts that might destroy them.

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blessed britain

mad world

an eyes-closed attitude