From Russia with Confusion: Political Round-Up

After mentioning Russia with Cuba in the blog this week, I thought I’d round up some recent political thinking and events. I would have shown sympathy to the ‘Windrush’ victims a few years ago, but have received too much negativity, even when trying to be friendly and accommodating during the greenygrey years, although I have met many who were good. Now, I just feeling like writing the flip side of the coin is the ‘Homes Children’: vulnerable British white children who were sent around the ‘Empire/Commonwealth’ at the same time that immigrants were being enticed to Blighty! Moreover, the same kinds of children have been similarly abused over the last thirty years on our ‘sceptred isle’!!

‘Killing Own People’ Hypocrisy

Readers may ask what that’s got to do with Russia, and I only remembered half way through that paragraph. During the recent Syrian ‘chemical attack’ that resulted in Western bombing, Assad was described as being beyond evil for killing his own people; the same as Putin for the Salisbury one. As Peter Hitchens and some military experts argued, there didn’t seem to be any proof or rationale for Assad having launched the attack, as his forces were in the ascendency at the time. The Salisbury trail also seems to have gone cold, and certainly doesn’t seem as clear as ‘serial love cheat’ Boris Johnson claimed straight afterwards.

I also thought it was hypocritical for the ‘establishment’ to criticise Assad for killing own people after numerous cases of the ‘establishment’ doing just that with British people: from World War One, through the Homes Children to the recent grooming scandals, with some victims or their families having died. Soldiers are left homeless after serving the country, while the ‘establishment’ welcomes I.S. volunteers back and many such people seem to enjoy comfortable lives at the taxpayers expense.

I feel sorry for Stephen Lawrence and his family, but what about a memorial day for the victims of grooming too, such as Lucy Lowe. She was killed along with her family, but has hardly dented the national conscience, despite being even younger than Lawrence, and a whole family being attacked.

Cold War and Traitors

While I was an ideological supporter of socialism during the 1980s and 1990s, along with most working-class union members, as I wrote last week, even Russia has left communism behind now.

That means I’m freed from having any leanings toward them. Putin declaring his dislike for ‘traitors’ also makes me think I shouldn’t be a ‘traitor’ to ‘my country’. However, I still want to criticise my country, taking part in its democracy.

While I criticise ‘my country’ for seeming to ally with Islamists fighting Assad in Syria, Russia doesn’t seem to be any more virtuous, allying with Shia extremists in the self-proclaimed Islamist State of Iran. What would Marx and Lenin make of it!?

SAS Provide ‘Ideological Escape Route’?

The war against terror and I.S., defending ourselves while freeing victims such as the Yazidi women provided a world conflict I could really support. Now a return to a ‘Cold War’, seemingly divided on different sides of the Islamic Sunni-Shia civil war, doesn’t have the same inspiration. Hopefully things will get better, with Korea great news this week.

When I’ve watched documentaries about the SAS I feel that they are the closest to how I’d like to see Blighty’s image, but I also have some reservations when hearing them talk of operations against ‘communist rebels’, some of whom I probably thought had the moral high ground against a tyrannical power elite leadership.

Of course, it wasn’t the soldiers’ fault. When they sign up for the ‘country’ they have to fight where they are ordered. The Russian special forces and those from other countries are certainly no different.

The Left are Just as Biased

While I feel sorry for any innocent Rohingya victims, their conflict reminds me of the one in Kosovo I studied for my PhD thesis. In both cases the Muslim minority migrants started the conflict, and then portrayed themselves as the victims after the majority government reacted. If the Aleppo ‘chemical attack’ was a set-up, as many of the ‘victims’ claimed in a Russian news conference, saying some people just shouted it was a chemical attack and poured water over them, then it’s another case of Islamists trying to use their own people for their propaganda technique of ‘victimhood’; mixed with the strong superiority type such as I.S. torture and execution videos.

It’s ironic that some of the ‘left’ who tried to silence me for writing my views, such as the above about Kosovo, now seem to be on that side of the fence as Corbynistas; maybe they realise now what I was arguing! They probably supported the ‘underdog Italian Islamist’ against me in the department, but now she’s presenting papers at NATO conferences!!

As for me, I’m proud to be a stale pale male like Peter Hitchens… and Andrew Neil… who I usually agree with, but didn’t like his attack on poor Peter!

Mirror Poem Reflections 21-25

Over thirty reflections from 242 Mirror Poems and Reflections are on the Writing and Poetry blog now, so following on from reflections 1-5, reflections 6-10,  reflections 11-15 and reflections 16-20 here’s reflections 21-25.

I originally repeated Reflection 22 in 24, and have now edited it. Sorry about that!

Reflection 21

Reflection 21 mirrored Between Times of Fantasy. Maybe it was thinking of some time in the future like now when it was written. Here’s Reflection 21:

Sometimes I have written poems about my unknown future with inspiration from the forgotten past.
Then, a few years later I read it again.
The time when I wrote the poem, which is now of course the past, is then relived by the future mind that was written about.

Reflection 22

Reflection 22 mirrored Multitasking Melody:

Been walking
around the mountain
looking for a clear path
enjoying the view
now it’s getting late
time’s running out
fog’s forming
need to make a decision
or just keep rambling
to the end.

Reflection 23

Reflection 23 mirrored Not Love, Gnat Empathy:

Is it worth contesting people’s religious, political and cultural beliefs and views? While you may save them, you could also destroy them.
Somebody who might be saved in one way from a life of slavery and ignorance may in other ways die from freedom and knowledge.
And if you show them the possibility that life has no meaning, without providing anything else, are you not like a doctor taking heroin away from an addict without providing any methadone.
And for yourself, maybe you’ll ruin your career or life trying to do what you think is good, and do very little to change anything: or even make things worse by giving those you consider wrong more ammunition and an enemy to deflect attention and legitimise their cause.

Reflection 24

Reflection 24 mirrored Contented Living, Contents of Dreaming:

Keep honey cooking in the kitchen
memories on the mantelpiece
old flames in the fire.

Reflection 25

Reflection 25 mirrored Inner Strength, Mental Health:

The poem was written after the UK riots of 2011. Although I sometimes dislike modern society and yearn for a more natural one, the scenes of mass destruction against homes, businesses and landmarks looked all wrong.
Whatever the pressures and problems (if it wasn’t just greed and power), there are always places to escape if desired, rather than trying to create space in somewhere densely inhabited.
Many people feel they’re not their real selves within modern society; which is literally a construction. Most think they become their real selves outside the work environment, when they spend time with their family, play sports, or escape into the countryside.
I often wonder whether this is something inspired by life in modern society; a natural desire of your life in the here and now; or is it something imprinted in your genes stretching back to our ancestors in prehistory.

Michael McCarthy was also quoted from an article about St. Kilda published in the Independent newspaper on August 9th, 2012: ‘…I think the longing for nature in its pristine state is much older. Remember, we have been computer operators for a single generation, and workers in offices for about three; but we were farmers for 400 generations, and before that we were hunter-gatherers for perhaps 20,000.’

Mirror Poem Book Reflections 6-10

Ten reflections from 242 Mirror Poems and Reflections are up on the Writing and Poetry blog now, so here’s reflections 6-10 after 1-5 were posted here previously:

The book’s available from Amazon for under £3 and under $6, and lots of other currencies for the equivalent prices; and Smashwords and other ebook readers for much less.

Reflection 6 mirrored See Below Sea:

Although inspired by nature, the iceberg of this poem is a metaphor for the human psyche.

As it is only an iceberg’s tip visible above the surface, most people only have a little of their personality, experiences and thoughts on show in society at any one time.

Reflection 7 mirrored
 I Am What You See
But You Are Not Me
Six Billion + of You
Myself – Only a Few

As travel is supposed to change people, it changes words and sentences too. What is meant by the communicator is often changed through relay: whether it is a spoken conversation amongst friends, or a person making a public statement.

Reflection 8  was a double reflection of Orbital Perceptions:

The doors of perception
should not be an obsession.
They will open in time
without such a steep climb.

There is little smaller and more insignificant in space than our planet.
There are few things on our planet that last less time than a single life.
There is little more significant to us than our lifetime in our place in space.

Reflection 9 mirrored Quality Words are like
Koala(ity) on a Eucalyptus Tree at Sunset.

Is there time to think
before talking
in modern society,
where everything is instant,
silence is belligerent
and noise is magnificent.

Politicians still try to do it,
play for time
get answers to mind
see the interview through
hide the reality
reveal nothing on telly.

Reflection 10 mirrored Driving Through The Desert

In the void between life and death
that’s where I like to be.
Flying in space beyond sight
of reality and mortality.
But the flight is finite,
and the return can be rocky.

Mirror Poem Reflections 1-5 from Poetry Collection

Over on Marc Latham’s central Greenygrey site Writing and Poetry blog he’s been serialising the reflections of mirror poems contained in the 242 Mirror Poems and Reflections collection.

Mirror Poem Collection

The Folding Mirror poems have been posted on this site. I thought I’d post the reflections five at a time here, with the first five below, along with links to the poems they reflected.

The book’s available from Amazon for under £3 and under $6, and lots of other currencies for the equivalent prices; and Smashwords and other ebook readers for much less.

There are links at the end of the post. Here’s the first five reflections:

Reflection 1

The first reflection mirrored a poem that reflected on the similarities between space and mind in the latest technological imaging called: SAGAS: Solipsistic Astronaut Gravitates Agnostic Space

It’s only a small one, trying to be philosophical, and many of the other reflections are much longer. Here it is:

What I am incapable of understanding has no meaning,
What I understand has no interest.

The second reflection mirrored Hopes Rise With The Sun

Reflection 2 

Concorde on takeoff (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Narcissism and Ego

I wanted to be famous for being famous, but too late now…?
A little bit of ego allows me to do this, rather than making me do it.

Has my writing and public profile fuelled narcissism, or given it an outlet?

Finding out that you aren’t the centre of other people’s world is a relief, but also a disappointment in some ways, as you wonder why not.

Titanik (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Addressing narcissism should help overcome a depression fuelled by feelings of failure: you can’t change the world, and nature of humanity, so don’t expect too much.

Concorde boomed the sky
but clouds still quietly fly.
Trains carry tons of freight
but the land doesn’t have to wait.
Titanic caused a commotion
but didn’t change the ocean.

Reflection 3 reflected Hazy Horizon Optical Illusion

Reflection 3 

Between the freedom of travel
and the solitude of home
is a fantasy world
called society.

Reflection 4 mirrored Adrift in Unnavigable Oceans: Sodium Chloride

Reflection 4

The well-behaved British working class used to be known as ‘salt of the earth’ when they were compliant up to the 1950s, but not so much anymore.

Were things that different in history? I don’t know.
And have they changed that much? Well, elite corruption has been exposed more since the 1950s, making the workers less likely to trust and revere the upper classes; Thatcher decimated the working-class industries in the 1980s, destroying communities; and New Labour betrayed their traditional voters by squeezing them out of the workplace between high-earning elites and foreign workers willing to work for less.
So things have probably changed, but I don’t know how much, or if it is the main reason for there apparently being less ‘salt of the earth’.

Reflection 5 mirrored Night is a Part of Day

Reflection 5

I have welcomed the sunrise
and dreaded it.
On mountains in the dark
the first glimmers of light
are a welcome sight.
On all-nighters when young
the first realisation of light
signalled beginning of end.
They were the same darkness and light
of the same day, which is basically just
the way our planet tilts towards the sun,
but I was in different situations, feeling
different things, on different sides of Earth.

Rolf Harris Another Example of Power-Crazed Alpha-Males

Rolf Harris was depicted as the devil of the kangaroo community in Werewolf of Oz: Fantasy Travel by Google Maps. Yesterday he was convicted of crimes against children. Harris’s depiction in Werewolf of Oz was not a prophecy, or even an educated guess, it was just because one of his most famous songs was Tie Me Kangaroo Down, and the fact that he was the most goody two-shoes Australian known in Britain.

Growing Up In 1970s Britain

Growing up in 1970s Britain you used to hear that child homes were ‘bad places’, but there was nothing about celebrities, so it has been a surprise and disappointment to see ‘nice’ people like Jimmy Savile, Stuart Hall and Rolf Harris convicted of child crimes, although it is good that they have.

Moreover, when the abuse in child homes was finally being exposed there were child-grooming gangs waiting outside, with men preying on the children by pretending to give them the love they’d lacked during their neglected childhood.

Living in ‘Multicultural’ Britain

Those gangs took advantage of New Labour’s ‘multicultural’ mantra that meant social alienation for those who dared to criticise the negative aspects of these new and rising cultures in British society.

Acting as New Labour’s biggest supporter in this was the BBC and liberal media. The same media outlets that had been covering up or neglecting to challenge their ‘celebrities’.

The Nigerian girls kidnapping showed the ‘norms’ of some of those cultures.

Studying in the ICS

I wanted to research and write about what was going on in Britain at that time.

I was stopped by the ICS’s man at the BBC, who was having a relationship with his student/secretary at the time. They had been to a conference together in Hawaii, and later married.

I was just finishing my thesis, and afterwards complained to the university about bullying and grooming in the ICS.

They said I was too late to complain about that, as there was a time limit, which was six months I think. They didn’t ask anything more about it.

I guess they wanted to protect their ‘stars’.

Celebrities Not a Surprise

So the behaviour of the exposed celebrities doesn’t seem such a surprise. A norm in academia and the workplace, and it seems in the media, is for those with power to expect some perks from their position.

For some of the powerful, this usually means grooming lower staff members, while persecuting any rivals or those who don’t adhere to their advances.

Britain has been cleaning its act up over the last decade. I hope it continues, and that future generations don’t relapse into a culture or cultures of cruelty, denial and self-induced ignorance.

Although it makes Britain look bad now, hopefully it’ll make it look better in the future. Most cultures and societies in the world are still years behind in such matters.

Poetry Reflection on Modern Society and Political Speech

Hi, it’s William Wolfsworth, poetry correspondent at the Greenygrey, inspired by legendary Romantic poet William Wordsworth. There’s no new poems to import and report from the fmpoetry world this week I’m afraid, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have time for reflection.

Modern Politics and Society Poetry Reflection 

Reflection 9 reflected the Folding Mirror poem Quality Words are like
Koala(ity) on a Eucalyptus Tree at Sunset.

The reflection comments on the changes in modern technology that has created a 24-hours news and media world; and a desire for instant information in society.

Politicians have had to adapt to this change, and this has perhaps caused a lowering in political dialogue, as politicians seek to avoid saying something that could be considered negative, and try to talk in soundbites created to achieve good instant media headlines.

Is there time to think
before talking
in modern society,
where everything is instant,
silence is belligerent
and noise is magnificent.

Politicians still try to do it,
play for time
get answers to mind
see the interview through
hide the reality
reveal nothing on telly.

X Factor Auditions Return Psycho Sico Poem

Simon Wolfell’s sacking from the Greenygrey after his human parallel Simon Cowell did the dirty on cool Carmen Elektra and his friend, the husband of Laura Silverman, who then had Sico’s child, probably led to the failure of the American Factor. But now Sico’s back in the U.K., and he’s got Cheryl Tweedy back in tow, after apparently sacking her in the U.S.A.

Psycho Sico X Factor Poem 

English: Map showing the location of the Chukchi Sea. Modified map based on map :commons:Image:Chukchi Sea map.png created by NormanEinstein, May 31, 2006. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hi, it’s William Wolfsworth, poetry correspondent at the Greenygrey inspired by legendary Romantic poet William Wolfsworth.

Another amazing coincidence in the virtual world we live in, is that Cheryl Tweedy used to be called Cheryl Cole (C2), and the Greenygrey this week flew out to the Chukchi Sea (C2 or 3, unsure about counting Sea!).

The poem was also influenced by three days of smoggy pollution in the U.K. that registered 10 out of 10: referencing a quote from Apocalypse Now, which was about napalm rather than pollution.

We didn’t expect anything like that so soon when we warned about Boris Johnson and George Osborne‘s visions for Britain’s future! Here’s the untitled ranty ramble poem that unfortunately isn’t very romantic!:

Feeling alienated
unable to fit in
try psychopathy
it worked for me.
Greed is good
animals are just food
love the smell
of pollution in the morning.
Nature doesn’t matter
Simon’s back on X Factor
a great role model
for society’s Sico babble!

Good luck to all the X Factor contestants, and everybody involved apart from Cowell!

Happy International Women’s Day

Women are half of humanity.

Reflection 3
Between the freedom of travel
and the solitude of home
is a fantasy world
called society.

Blog Inspired by Award

Thanks to the very inspiring dearkitty1.wordpress.com blog for nominating this blog for a Very Inspiring Blogger Award.

Poem about Civilisation’s Cultural Clouds

Marc Latham’s latest Folding Mirror poem started off as one about holding a poetic mirror up to society and it being decoded down in personality, but it evolved into something quite different… but along the same lines. Here’s the poem:

Mirror Message _G204361 (Photo credit: isdky – Brian Barnett)

Bath Time Talk Back

scrawling mirror message
on misty condensation
clouding civilised society
revealing clear glass

truth laid bare, more hot air

keeping tap running
reservoir won’t wash
indelible stains clean
shower overflow floods

IMG_1105.JPG (Photo credit: tantek)

Marc Latham’s central site is the Greenygrey (http://www.greenygrey.co.uk), and he has several books available on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/author/marclatham).