Afternoon music
On this day a year ago
My view of Liz Truss, published a year ago when she was Foreign Secretary, amuses me, looking back now, months after she was —disastrously— “Prime Minister” for a few weeks.
From the newspapers
“Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has reportedly been told by a senior US general that the British army is no longer considered a top-level fighting force.
Decades of cuts are said to have led to a decline in war-fighting capability, which needs to be reversed faster than planned in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
‘Bottom line… it’s an entire service unable to protect the UK and our allies for a decade,’ one defence source said.”
[Daily Mail/Sky News]
- “The army would run out of ammunition ‘in a few days’ if needed to fight.
- The UK couldn’t defend its skies against the level of missile strikes Ukraine is enduring.
- It would take at least five years for the army to be ready with a war-fighting division of 25,000 to 30,000 troops, supported by tanks, artillery and helicopters.
- Around 30% of UK forces on high readiness are reservists, unable to mobilise within NATO timelines.
- Most army vehicles, including tanks, were built 30 to 60 years ago with replacements not due for years.”
[Daily Mail]
“Defend” from what? “Defend” from whom? The historical and/or traditional enemies of the UK —France, Germany, Spain, Denmark— are now not enemies and unlikely to replay that role.
Forget “allies“, if by that is meant any states, in Eastern Europe etc, “allies” by reason only of belonging to NATO. They are not really “allies” at all.
The only System-suggested “enemy” on the horizon is Russia, anyway. The old Soviet Union was a genuine threat, to the UK, to the whole of Western Europe. The new Russia cannot even (yet) defeat the forces of Ukraine, let alone mount an attack on NATO territory, which would involve fighting the armies and airforces of the Baltic states, Poland, Germany, and France, among others, long before Russian forces got to within any close distance to the UK.
Apart from that, the whole Soviet ideology was (overall) aggressive and expansionist (they claimed not, and that they were mainly or entirely defensive). It might be more accurate to say that the Soviet political protocol was defensive, but that their military protocols were mainly geared to the swiftly offensive.
Whatever the truth of that, the fact is that the Russia of 2023 has no wish to take over Western Europe, and no Marxist-Leninist ideology to underpin any such wish. The whole idea is ludicrous.
Russia may want to take over Eastern Ukraine, possibly even the whole of Ukraine, together (maybe) with a few other bits and pieces such as the “state” of Moldova, but no more. It neither wants to go further nor is even capable of going further. Realpolitik.
Meanwhile, while NWO/ZOG political drones such as Ben Wallace fulminate against Russia, and feed arms and money to the Jew dictator Zelensky in Kiev, Britain is falling to pieces internally, in every way, and thousands of non-white migrant-invaders are landing on our beaches weekly, even daily, with no opposition from our Army, Navy, or Air Force, nor even from the completely useless “Border Force”.
Au contraire, they, and non-governmental agencies such as the RNLI, are actually ferrying the invaders to our ports.
There is another aspect: the quality of both officers and men (and now women too, who comprise 10%-15% of the UK armed forces).
Incidentally, the Daily Mail also reports that “Earlier today, it was reported Ukraine needs new weapons and faster deliveries to confront a ‘very tough’ situation of constant attacks by Russian forces in the eastern Donetsk region.“
The fact is that, despite huge losses on the Russian side, the forces of the Kiev regime have suffered equally-huge losses in absolute terms, which means that they have suffered even greater losses in proportionate terms.
There is hope for us all, it seems…(though, in the end, we all go the same way…).
Well, look at that— Andrew Windsor sporting 7 or 8 medals. Not bad for having spent a mere 3 weeks, as a near-spectator at that, in the Falklands, over 40 years ago.
HMRC
When I myself had serious problems with HMRC, a decade or so ago, which problems stemmed in part from as long ago as the early 1990s, I found the HMRC to be a stunningly-incompetent, shambolic, almost insanely-run organization, to an extent that I quite frankly found hard to believe. “Kafka-esque” would be an accurate description.
Some HMRC employees were also very unpleasant. I think that many were sacked about a year later. I had a great deal of trouble from that “organization”, but in the end they just gave up, and told me that the matter was being treated as closed. No reason was given. They just went away, to put it politely.
Strange. I have often found in life that, when I am confronted with a serious problem, am threatened, and look as if I shall be unable to defend myself, I am then saved by some force or grace that often seems to pass all understanding. Organizations are defeated or give up, evil people are restrained, or become bankrupt or, indeed, die, in fact.
Divine protection?
Tweets seen
Mirabile dictu! I find myself in agreement, for once, with radio loudmouth Julia Hartley-Brewer.
Keir Starmer. Jews’ puppet. Israel puppet. WEF puppet. International finance-capital puppet.
Madness, but an apparently co-ordinated madness.
Poland seems to have forgotten its history— states that provoke wars often end up as the battlefields.
At least some parts of Central Europe may avoid direct attack…
“Lobsang Rampa”
Happened to see the blog article below by one Kristine de Abreu, which is about the “Tibetan monk” known as “Lobsang Rampa” (actually, an English plumber from either Plympton, Devon, or Swanage in Dorset): https://explorersweb.com/lobsang-rampa/.
Amusing and interesting, though I already knew most of the basic facts, and had known them since the late 1970s.
Around 1978, I had several “Lobsang Rampa” books in paperback, and I knew at least one other person who also owned a number of copies. In fact, even the first book by “Lobsang Rampa”, out of twenty, sold hundreds of thousands of copies, and many of his works went through numerous printings.
I reproduce the concluding part of the blog article:
“Lobsang Rampa tapped into manās desire to escape the ordinary. Writer David Michie makes a fair point when addressing the topic on his blog, davidmichie.com: āI suspect he made them up, cobbling together his own version of what heād like Tibetan Buddhism to sayā¦There werenāt too many real lamas around to contradict him.ā
That era provided fertile ground for Rampa. The cultural scene was changing rapidly, and people were open to accepting alternative beliefs. The East was still an exotic mystery. Once his story caught the public imagination, there were few sources to contradict his claims.
Front cover art for the book The Third Eye written by Lobsang Rampa. Photo: Secker & Warburg, 1956 (publisher)
Although Lobsang Rampa had fraudulent motives, his works encouraged an interest in Tibetan culture and Buddhism. They also brought much-needed attention to the Tibet Independence Movement. Even the Dalai Lama, who opposed his works and discredited his story, conceded to him this one point. Rampa became an unlikely poster boy for the Tibetan cause, and his books still have a cult following.“
We today are rather accustomed to fraud and fakery, from the small-scale “Jack Monroe” and Julia Grace Patterson type of “grifting”, through the large-scale theft, fraud and background of “Robert Maxwell” and the like, and right up to the sort of fraud and fakery which is on a vast scale, such as much of the “holocaust” farrago (particularly the “gas chambers” tall tales), much of the incredible and recent “Covid” nonsense (the facemask nonsense being only part of that), and deliberate political scams such as “Iraqi missiles could hit London in 15 minutes” and “Russia wants to invade Western Europe” (and so we must, it is proclaimed, “stand with Ukraine to save democracy” etc…).
Not to mention “Black Lives Matter”, and much of the “climate change” stuff.
The cartoon below pokes fun at some recent excrescences:
Still, as the Dalai Lama has apparently pointed out in respect of Lobsang Rampa, even a book or other cultural item that is largely untrue can have at least some positive results, certainly some large-scale results either way. Look at the history of the Mormons. A basically fake religion which, however, created Salt Lake City and various other things of value, such as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
Come to that, what about the Turin Shroud? The Roman Catholic Church does not endorse it as “true” (as the shroud used to cover the body of Jesus Christ), but endorses it only as “an aid to faith”.
In fact, much of what most people think of as “History” (with a capital “H”) is not 100% or (in some cases) even 50% accurate. Examples include the two revolutions in the Russia of 1917, the story of British Empire (in the past thought of as almost-immaculate, but now often —and even less accurately— judged by many silly people to be a long-term disgrace). Then there is the story of National Socialism, Hitler, and the Second World War, but we cannot even start to consider that here.
Life is a great deal more complicated than many prefer to believe.
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobsang_Rampa.
Idaho
Happened to see this: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/far-right-idaho_n_628277e2e4b0c84db7282bd6.
Interesting. The blog post is from May 2022. I have no idea whether there has been more progress since then.
The so-called “far right” activists of Idaho have, by chance or wit, implemented the primary dictum of Clausewitz, “to create first a secure base“. That is in essence what I have been suggesting should happen in the UK, possibly in the South West of England, leaving aside some ideological and/or cultural divergences or differences.
I have posted the (very critical, and very onesided) Huff Post piece in order to stimulate thought and ideas.
More tweets
Ha ha! Can you believe that Catharine Feore is (or says she is) a working journalist?!
People in glass houses…
There is no “problem” with homeschooling, especially when you see the BS being “taught” in many if not all UK schools (and, I apprehend, American ones too). Oh…and in the UK, homeschooling is perfectly lawful: see https://www.gov.uk/home-education.
Late tweets
Late music
Ian Robert Millard 