The church has great power and wealth. The state has great power and wealth. The people live in poverty.
Poetry – The Dark Ages
The Dark Ages
‘What were the Dark Ages, Dad?’
Dad looked thoughtful and sad.
‘A time of ignorance when things were bad.’
‘When did the Dark Ages end?’ she asked.
Dad looked at her with face aghast.
‘We don’t know how long they’ll last.’
Opher – 20.7.2019
We tend to look back at history and wonder how people could do such things, believe such things and behave so cruelly. We see them as primitive, foolish and brutal.
They are no different to us.
We live in the same ignorance and the same level of vicious depravity. We never learn.
I was looking at the butchery of the timid dolphins and porpoises in the Faroes and seeing the same vicious bloodlust and inhumanity. It’s still there unchanged. I look at ISIS, the Baptists from the Southern States, The Creationists, Boko Haram and all the others and see the same blind ignorance and belief in scriptures from barbaric times.
The Dark Ages – we’re still living them. Oh for a bit of light!
Why won’t any of the Government appear on Newsnight?
It is scandalous really. Boris Johnson and the cabinet are refusing to appear on Newsnight or any other news programme where they and their policies might be questioned.
- They do not like being scrutinised.
- They know that their policies do not stand up well with the electorate
- They do not want their real policies and attitudes revealed and talked about
- They think that be keeping silent things will quickly fade away
The Tories are getting away with murder. Their covid policies have resulted in many tens of thousands of needless deaths. Their Brexit lies have been shown to be lies. The Brexit we have got, the hardest possible, has cost the country an absolute fortune. The trade deals are not there like they assured us they would be. The hit to GDP is huge. The cost of Brexit is being hidden. The cronyism with untendered contracts is being swept under the table. The loading of institutions with Tory chums is tightening control or many institutions. The control of the BBC with threats and Tory placements is threatening any unbiased reporting. The lies about solving the care system have been shown to be lies. The privatisation of the NHS by stealth is proceeding. The cuts to the public sector are continuing. The war against those on benefits continue. Those on benefits are presented as scroungers while those evading taxes and stashing millions abroad on the Cayman Islands are praised. International laws are broken. Procedures to ensure that corruption is dealt with are blatantly ignored.
With an 80 seat majority they arrogantly think they can do what they like and are not accountable to anyone – not even parliament.
They are quite content to continue to quietly manipulate things behind the scenes and keep out of the public eye. The opposition are currently useless, the media are in their pocket, the wealthy elite are filling their coffers, they have a revolving door into a life of affluence after office.
They do not have to account for their actions. They do not want they actions or motives scrutinised. We are moving to totalitarian control.
Americans are not taught about the genocide of the indigenous people.
Nor are they taught about how the government ripped babies away from their parents to brainwash them in orphanages. Nor are they taught about the illegal torturing of people in Guantanamo. They are not taught the truth about slavery or the racist policies of segregation.
There’s a lot that isn’t taught.
Antivaxxers
Poetry – Freedom
Freedom
Freedom is solitude.
Even the breeze must follow
The contours of the hills;
The trees roots obey
The pull of gravity;
The mighty seas be thwarted
By the cliffs.
Even the planets are held
In place by laws.
Nothing is truly free
Unless utterly on its own.
And nothing is free
Of the universe.
Freedom is being at peace
With where you are.
Freedom is nothing more
Than a state of mind –
A coming to terms
With compromise.
Opher 28.7.2018
I wrote this in response to a bunch of American right-wingers on a site I contribute to. They believe they stand for freedom yet they represent the most conservative and conforming bunch of people I’ve ever encountered. They believe they are maverick and unrestricted yet they are so tribal and stereotyped that their minds are completely closed. They are unable to see any other viewpoint.
They believe tax is robbery and government should not interfere with peoples’ lives without seeing that giving a small elite of the strong and powerful power and control is merely bullying. They believe it is alright to do whatever they like without regard to law, the environment or others. I think they confuse licence with freedom.
They talk of freedom but become belligerent and abusive if you express a view different to their own. They will beat you to a pulp for being a communist, gay or Muslim. They wish to take away the rights of people to decide on contraception, abortion, religion and gender.
They believe in God, Country and the gun and despise equality and those who are different.
Their freedom is being exactly in line with everyone else.
Their freedom is everyone else’s terror and subjugation.
Perhaps they need locking up for their own (or our own) good? I think they could be free in solitary.
Poetry – Bums in the Air
Bums in the Air
Bums in the air
Indoctrination everywhere.
Allah and sweet Jesus,
Jehovah
And God above.
How absurd they look
With their array of holy book.
Spouting words
From Neolithic lords
Dressed in fancy costume –
Medieval bride
And modern groom.
Opher – 14.9.2016
Bums in the Air
People are great joiner-inners. They go with the majority. I find it quite startling to see how conservative and fundamental things have become. Back when I was a lad my Muslim friends were all westernised. They didn’t take their religion to extremes. The girls did not go around in head-scarves let alone burqas. In Islamabad University in Pakistan the students wore jeans, T-shirts and listened to the Beatles, Stones and Pink Floyd.
How things have changed.
The children are taken off to their Madrassas where they are subjected to religious indoctrination.
I see families walking down the street, in the summer heat, with the poor woman completely enclosed in heavy black robes, breathing stale air behind a mask, while her husband is cool in T-shirt and jeans.
I am a believer in freedom but I hate misogyny, indoctrination and superstition.
Spirituality is about harmony with nature and the universe. Religion is about power, indoctrination and division.
Poetry – Hardwired to Worship
Hardwired to Worship
Hardwired to worship
Subjugation is elation
Programmed to ritual
Bliss through abdication
We have the need to pray
It is a must to believe
The supernatural is quite natural
As the way to perceive
Believing gives us purpose
When faced with mystery
Genuflect without aversion
Through politics and history
God watches over you
Through plague pestilence and death
Give thanks for his bounty
As you draw your last breath
Hardwired to worship
Programmed to believe
Elation in prostration
Nature flatters to deceive
15.4.03
Our success as a species comes from our intelligence. We are programmed through our DNA to see patterns and seek solutions. It made us brilliant hunters, farmers and story tellers.
We could see the habits of our predators and prey, discern the changing of the seasons, make tools, design shelters, transport and use our imagination to create what did not exist.
We tell stories like no other creature we know. Even the whale’s songs cannot compete.
Our greatest talent is our ability to solve problems and seek out solutions. That works brilliantly in our natural habitat but comes up short when faced with things beyond our comprehension.
When faced with the sun, moon, death and purpose our imagination worked overtime but our problem solving proved limited. We invented deities and paradise.
At first it satisfied the curiosity. Now we are in thrall to our own creation and it stalks our days.
Democracy – and how to finally get some.
We live in a democracy – except we don’t.
A democracy is when the people make the decisions – we’ve seen what a mess that is with Brexit.
So we have a representative democracy. We appoint people who are wiser, more intelligent and knowledgeable than ourselves to make decisions on our behalf.
That doesn’t seem to work too well either.
The people we vote into office turn out to be stupid, ignorant and uncaring.
So why do we keep voting them in?
There are a number of reasons for that:
- The system – in order to become elected they have to have a huge, expensive propaganda machine behind them. The people who control this propaganda machine want people they can control. People who will put into place the laws and policies that favour them. Political parties are controlled by the establishment. We end up with a limited choice from the candidates the establishment put forward. Nobody else stands a chance.
- The media – the media are owned by wealthy establishment figures. Through the spin and propaganda they pour into peoples’ minds they control what the electorate think. We can see that after forty years of anti-EU propaganda and the shit-storm that was directed at Corbyn. The establishment wanted Brexit and they thought Corbyn would be a threat to their privileged position.
- The stupidity, naivety and gullibility of us, the general public. Half the population have an IQ below a hundred. Political education is extremely poor – most people do not know how the political parties were formed or what they stand for. The constant stream of lies and spin that comes at us from the media creates a suspicion of all news. We don’t know what to believe. Issues are so complex and interwoven that you have to be an expert to understand them. So we are easily manipulated.
- The tendency for sociopaths to fool people and gain power. Sociopaths, because they really do not care – indeed, might actually gain pleasure from hurting people, have a tendency to rise to powerful positions. They don’t care who they hurt. They do not agonise over decisions. They appear black and white and decisive – characteristics that people look for in a leader. Only when they are in power do we realise what mean, selfish bastards they really are.
- Power corrupts. Nice people, who were caring, become narcissistic, selfish bastards. They begin to believe that they are indeed better than everyone else and deserve all the wealth and sycophancy that goes with their position. It’s an addiction. It makes them sociopathic.
So how do we make democracy work? I’ve a few ideas:
- Educate the people so that they can understand much better what is going on.
- Control the media so that it is unbiased and fact-checked. Stop the establishment elite from owning it and using it as a propaganda tool.
- Fund election from the public purse on a very limited budget so that the establishment is not in control of it.
- Make politicians accountable so that at any point the people can vote them out, not just in elections.
I do not believe we can have a democracy while the establishment are in control of the system and the media!
Religion and indoctrination
Religion and indoctrination
I was struck by the first case of a British woman being tried for taking her young son to Iraq to join ISIS. Her claim was that she had to live under Sharia law or she would be doomed to hell.
I felt sorry for the sad indoctrinated lady. She had been brought up to believe that all who thought differently to her were doomed to be tortured in the fires of hell forever.
It is notions like this that led to the European conquests of America, Australia, South America and the rest of the world. Insane religious zealots set out to bring their faith to the ignorant savages and thus save their souls. In the process they did, incidentally, steal their lands, torture, and rape, plunder their valuables, enslave and practice genocide upon them – all in the name of religion. I am sure that all the millions of natives who suffered these depravities (even to agonised death) were eternally grateful. Their eternal souls rest in the ecstasy of heaven instead of suffering endless torment and torture while their free relatives were, due to their ignorance or wrong beliefs, endlessly damned.
It is only when we stand back and view the savagery and stupidity of these actions that we can see the foolishness of religion for what it is – pure tribalism and power unleashed. It certainly sets a lot of bells ringing in my head:
If there was a god who behaved in this psychotic manner (punishing good people by torturing them for eternity for believing in the wrong religion or no religion) then one would have to say that this god was sadistic.
The Christians, Hindus, Jews and Muslims all assert the same thing: if you do not believe in my god and follow my religion you are doomed. Some even go so far as to declare that all non-believers should be tortured and killed.
This is clearly tribal insanity of the most primitive and savage nature.
So how are these primitive beliefs perpetuated?
They come to us from the dark ages of the dawn of civilisation when laws were arbitrary, life was cheap, women were subjugated and violence an everyday occurrence. Religion provided some semblance of law and morality.
We’ve moved on. Civilisation has arrived. We have better laws and more philosophically and psychologically based morality. We do not have the same need for superstition.
Yet religion persists.
The reason is quite clear – it persists because young children are indoctrinated and the seeds are implanted deep into their psyche. Once there they are there for good. The seeds implanted into the developing minds of our children are so deeply imprinted that there can be no escape. They are damaged for good.
We see this so clearly in the likes of the Rock ‘n’ Roll rebels such as Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis with their lives alternating between the extremes of wildness and religious fervour. The child indoctrination creates those extremes of behaviour.
It is sad to witness.
Yet the State aids and abets this abuse of our children. Parents are encouraged to enter into religious ceremonies – baptisms, marriage and worship. The media put out their programmes of religious worship as if this is what we all should be doing.
Worst of all schools in Britain have, by law, to teach religion to our children with daily services of worship to some supernatural creature who supposedly sees every thought and deed. We inculcate magic and superstition into our children. It is a wonder that it does not do even more damage to those young minds.
Then the religions have their input. They hold their services and are eager to get their hands on the young. They have their pomp, pageantry and magnificent buildings to create the fairy tale – so it must be true.
All the religions have their fanaticism, promote their intolerance and hatred and terrify with their stories of everlasting agonies to come. It must be a terrifying experience for children to hear these sorts of superstitions. It would implant itself deep into the psyche.
Yet all around the world the evangelists, Jesuits, Rabbis and Imams feed their noxious poison into the minds of our babes and we allow them to do it. Just imagine if we had similar institutions set up by the fascists, communists, republicans, nationalists, democrats, socialists or tories? If political groups were vying with each other to plant their evil thoughts into those open minds?
There is no difference.
Indoctrinating children is child abuse. It is far-reaching and has a detrimental effect for life.
The religious schools should be shut, religion taken out of schools, all religious education halted with the closure of Sunday Schools and all other religious ‘education’ facilities – the worst probably being the Muslim Madrassas.
Religion should come with a health warning and be treated in the same way as alcohol and tobacco – not for distribution to minors – except that it is even more dangerous.
Going back to that poor twenty six year old mother who was so abused as a child that she believed that taking her young son to a war zone was preferable to living in a civilised country; that she had to live under sharia law in order to be saved from hell; that only Islam had the right answers and all unbelievers were kuffars; that it was better to be martyred than to live; that murdering kuffars was demanded by her god; that there was a god and he demanded she lived her life according to the medieval writings of some semi-civilised culture from the dark ages.
What a sad, abused lady.
It is time that a civilised world put a stop to this indoctrination and abuse. There is no room for child abuse of this nature and scale. It is simply horrendous.
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