Nourishing Obscurity

Good to see Obnoxio in there.  Actually, they forgot one tag team.

Talking today about the last two weeks of less than pristine health, with the dental work gone wrong added to the mix and a few other little matters, I mentioned the heart tightness and opined that hopefully it was just stress related and not something in the plumbing brought on by adipose tissue atrophying the organ. My mate reminded me that stress kills too.

Well, it does but I’m happy to say I have an SSRM [secret stress reduction mechanism] which works a treat.  It’s going to cost me my life somewhere along the line but hey, we all have to go sometime, right?  About an hour ago, I had another of those periodical body blows whenever I deal with anyone official, it was predictable and the upshot of it is that I’d say I’ll be out of blogging by about June/July.

Not to worry.  I’ve lost everything before and I’ll do it again.  Our current situation in the UK is a nice backdrop against which to play out this melodrama.

Checking round the blogs, which I haven’t done properly for two weeks now, there was one blogger’s post which showed me that my own worries were miniscule by comparison:

When does the pain become a dull ache and you stop the constant bleeding through your eyes, your heart, your skin? How does your mind know every year that this is the month, the week, and the day when your heart was ripped out of your chest?  Who is the arbiter of how long we grieve? How much we grieve? For whom we grieve?

I’d like to say to that person that you need to grieve for as long as it takes and ignore anyone who wants to arrange it for you.  There’s a second fellow blogger I’m quite worried about just now.  She’s been down for some time and I can feel her stress from here.  I need to do more to help out in that direction and stop this self-indulgent bxxxsxxx I’m going on with.

I admire people, especially some of the men I know who have these rhinocerous hides and react to horrific things with gruff resignation: “Well, them’s the breaks,”  or: “Worse things happen at sea.”  As this same person who wrote the above quote said, it’s all relative, isn’t it?

Vesper Lynd asked James Bond, “How can you be so cold?” to which he replied, “Well, I wouldn’t be very good at my job if I wasn’t, would I?”

I’d love to be cold like that, to not care, to be indifferent to loss.  Bloggers like that have big followings because nothing gets them down and they always have it all together, all the answers at hand.  Good luck to them – it’s a good way to run a family and stay on top of things.  I’d also like to be an idiot and not suspect Brown and Cameron of lying through their teeth or to believe Jack Straw when he says there is no dark secret to the Venables anomaly.  Trouble is, cynicism doesn’t let us believe that.

I’d love to not need the arms of a woman, especially when I got home just now but there’s an inexorable logic to life, isn’t there?  No woman’s going to take the risk on an impecunious drifter with red flags hoisted and bells and whistles going off left, right and centre.  Hey, that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

In the end, I don’t give a flying xxxx about any of that.  Today I had a nice chat with a few people and there’s a yummy piece of salmon going into the oven in a few minutes.  So, on balance, this day was 60/40 – acceptable odds in anyone’s book.

Not sure how you manage it yourself but the sort of thing today with officialdom I call a 24 hour hit, i.e. I’ll be over it by this time tomorrow.  Dental things take a week.  Blows from a woman, on the other hand, usually take upwards of three months – I’ve not worked out how to counter a woman yet, maybe you can give me some tips.  As the quotation provider above said, it’s all relative.

Have a nice evening.

In the past few days, in my lucid moments, I’ve been looking at this and that and one topic which was most interesting, for two distinct reasons, was Jehanne la Pucelle, otherwise known as Jeanne d’Arc or Joan Darc or Joan of Arc.

The first aspect will be a post tomorrow morning, if I can.  The second is how history repeats itself.  Already that’s been touched on in the current global push, of which the EU is the latest aspect.

Just to repeat – it’s not the concept itself of a special trading relationship and relatively easy visiting rights which is at issue – it’s the people in charge of it because they are the same people who were in charge in WW2 and it is showing in the very structure they’ve now set up.

No, what I was looking at was how Jehanne represented “the resistance” in the country of Charles VII, how he failed to appreciate her efforts until she was publicly murdered on a pretext and how that pretext would be oh so familiar today and the gruesome nature of the retribution really makes one wonder.

In later years, the highest crimes saw a woman burned and a man hung, drawn and quartered – even Anne Boleyn was hanging between those two extremes for some time.

Why?

Why the most gruesome penalties for what was, after all, another murder but was labelled Treason or speaking about it which was called Sedition?  Why not just hang the person who bumped off a ruler?

Part of that is that it must be an effective deterrent, a public deterrent to anyone to try it?  And what’s so wrong about bumping off a ruler?  Our rulers right now deserve every bit of it and either this or next year will probably get theirs.

The answer is simple and in four parts:

#  the attempt at self-preservation of the individual ruler

#  the preservation of the bloodline

#  the preservation of the whole gameplan and all its agents

#  the sure knowledge that if the people ever got to find out how they were being swindled and sold down the drain, kept in penury and culled in pointless wars whilst the ruling elite enjoyed their pheasant and fine wine, there’d be some headhunting going on.

Jehanne was not officially recognized by the church she gave her life for until 1909!  Why not?  Even Napoleon cited her and every French leader has invoked her along the way.  So why no official recognition?

Simple – she was both a dissident and that more heinous crime – a true believer.  Everything from her childhood onwards pointed to the world having a remarkable sort of Mother Mary on its hands.

The resistance in WW2

With attention shifted to the French resistance through the ages, some sentences I read hit me like a smackeroo blurby right between the eyes – firstly, over the death of Andree Peel, aged 105, heroine of the resistance.

A former hairdresser from Brittany, Mrs Peel began her involvement with the resistance modestly, by handing out underground newspapers.  Later she tracked troop movements and went on to head an under-section of the movement.

Her network allowed Allied pilots to escape German captivity, hiding them and – where possible – smuggling them away from France in submarines and on small boats.  Dr Liam Fox, Conservative MP for Woodspring, said:

“Mrs Peel was an iconic figure who showed phenomenal courage in the most difficult circumstances.  “Her selfless bravery saved many lives and she stands as a monument to the triumph of the human spirit, which will set an example for many generations to come.”

Now isn’t that interesting?  A member of the [next] government praises a dissident subversive and lauds her.  Well of course – she’s far enough away from our own situation to be able to praise fulsomely.

I’d like to see if the Bruges Group or Hannan/Carswell or the Albion Alliance get such fulsome praise from the powers at the helm, for equally digging in and refusing to accept the rule of a foreign potentate [Rumpy Pumpy] in this land.

No, it’s more likely to go along the lines indicated in this very good article on the WW2 French resistance.  For a start, the beginnings were quite humble and while the active were caught between collaboration and resistance, most people simply wanted it all to go away.  They had families and their own self-preservation to think about, so they kept their heads down and didn’t want to know.

Other reasons have also been given :

# a feeling of resignation after the defeat of June – H.R. Kedward claims that `the arguments of common sense and practicality … buttressed inaction.  Few people saw any way in which the French could continue a war which had been so comprehensively lost’ (Kedward: 1985 p.47);

# the division of France into six separate zones, and the difficulty of moving and communicating between them;

# the massive Germany military presence in the North and, in the Unoccupied zone, the presence of a legitimate government;

# the belief, held by many, that Pétain was playing un double jeu, stringing the Nazis along whilst secretly planning his revenge.

Let’s look at that again – the presence of a legitimate government.

In legalistic terms, the EU is legitimate – our head of government signed the country over to them and in world affairs, what the head of government does is what the country does.  How many of you have spoken of America’s presence in Afghanistan or Britain’s presence somewhere?  Just what do you mean by those terms “American” or “British”?

As the constitutional peasant said in the Python sketch, “Well, I didn’t vote for you.”

And those words again:

the arguments of common sense and practicality … buttressed inaction

LPUK leadership?

Oh, do grow up, James.  And I am still anti-EU—as I have been for at least the last twenty years—but it is because of that stance that I do not want a referendum now … This is called practical politics.

Practical politics – buttressed inaction – practical politics – buttressed  ……  let’s leave that and move on.

the belief, held by many, that Pétain was playing un double jeu, stringing the Nazis along whilst secretly planning his revenge

The belief, held by many that the Five Yearists, the leaderships of the Tories and LPUK, are playing un double jeu, stringing the EU along whilst secretly planning their revenge.  Time will tell, won’t it and meanwhile the final control by the EU takes place in 2010/11, with the leaders doing or saying nothing.

From these small beginnings, here and there, sporadically:

… one witnesses the emergence of small, spontaneous and individual acts of resistance. Turning one’s back on a German victory parade or giving incorrect directions were minor but significant acts of resistance to the occupying power.

Pundits started writing:

Jean Texier produced a clandestine tract called Conseils à l’occupé (`advice to the occupied’) which included 33 ways ways of expressing personal resistance.

We, of course, have the internet for now, until it is taken over. Gradually, in reaction to the utter demoralized lethargy of the people [cf. the UK today]:

Small, individual acts of resistance gradually became larger, more organized and more militarily significant as the war dragged on. More importantly, hitherto separate resistance groups began to learn of one another’s existence and began to link up.

The types of activities these early organized resistance movements were engaged in fell into three categories:

# the production of propaganda or, rather, counter- propaganda (leaflets, pamphlets, newspapers, defacing `official’ propaganda etc.);

# intelligence/information gathering for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in London – some movements were known as les réseaux Buckmaster, after Colonel Buckmaster, the British head of the SOE, or, later in the war, for la France Libre, the Free French in London;

# escape networks, les filières d’évasion, facilitating the escape of Allied servicemen, resisters and, later in the war, Jews.

The second presupposed that there was a large, powerful, friendly force out there who would assist if they could. In our case, no one will lift a finger to help us against the EU, not outside the country, not inside because the people in charge in the U.S. and anywhere else are already under the control of the global socialist.

Certain groups stuck their necks out, admired from a distance by the people or at least any people who got to hear of them:

They wrote resistance tracts and magazines (e.g. Résistance) and set up links with the British. The publications were important in developing the network and disseminating information to other networks and to more and more French people.

The arrest and deaths of key members of the group in March and April 1941 led to its demise but not before they had passed on to the British information that was to prove useful in their attack on the German naval base in Saint Nazaire in March 1942.

At least the British existed to get information out to but in our case, today, it is the British who are the traitors – our Vichy leadership, that is. It’s a Vichy sympathiser in charge in Westminster today, not a de Gaulle.

And did you note the words, “The arrest and deaths of key members of the group in March and April?” Obviously, we’re not far enough down the path yet for that to occur – that’s more likely around 2012/13 but I suspect we’ll be shut down long before then.

Another divergence from the historical record was “de Gaulle’s famous radio speech to the French, broadcast from London on the 18th June 1940″.

Very true. Where is anyone of that calibre making such a speech somewhere in the world today? Where does any world leader decry the takeover of the UK by the forces of darkness? Have you heard one speech?

Not even the people recognize that there is a war on at all. Leonard Cohen touched on this in his song:

There is a war between the ones who say there is a war and the ones who say there isn’t. You cannot stand what I’ve become, you much prefer the gentleman I was before; I was so easy to defeat, I was so easy to control, I didn’t even know there was a war.

Legitimacy

One of the challenges de Gaulle and the other Français de Londres faced was how to assert their legitimacy over the nascent and growing resistance movements in France and how to unify them behind a shared purpose led, of course, by de Gaulle.

This was a difficult task given the fragmented nature of the resistance movements in France and the suspicion, particularly strong amongst movements dominated by Communists, Socialists and Left-leaning Republicans, of de Gaulle’s political intentions.

Sovereignty, legitimacy – this is the whole question. And all those leftists in our society – would they accept the leadership of Dan Hannan or Nigel Farage? There are many of us who want a change but we want it on our own political terms so we can’t even agree on that.

After the author of the article I’m quoting from mentioned groups who were directly working for the Free French, based in London and supported by the government, something we do not have the luxury of as the traitors in London are in the ascendancy, he went on to write:

Many of these groups were working directly for either the Free French (la France libre) based in London or for the SOE and were therefore part of a much larger struggle to wage war against the Nazi domination of Europe.

“Part of a much larger struggle”  Y-e-e-e-s-s.  Not unlike the Witanagemot saying the Resistance, of which Albion Alliance is a part, is not fighting for England because we’re fighting on a much broader front.

As you can see from the number of different movements in operation throughout France, the resistance was far from unified. This was recognised by de Gaulle who sought to unify the diverse movements by ensuring their adherence to his own France Libre movement.

De Gaulle – Dan Hannan? Nigel Farage?

As we have discussed in earlier lectures (Vichy 1940-42 and Vichy 1942-44), as Hitler embarked upon a `total war’, repression increased and living standards dropped, thus spurring many hitherto indifferent French men and women into action.

Ah – once the hip pocket is hit, resistance will begin.  Hence the Euro millions pouring into the regions at the very same time the UK billions go to the EU.

The sociological characteristics of resisters varied enormously according to the nature of the resistance movement or network to which they belonged:

# sex – most active resisters were men, young men, although there are a number of significant exceptions (e.g. Lucie Aubrac in Lyon). Women played a key subsidiary role in supporting the resistance although this contribution is frequently overlooked.

# urban – although resistance in the countryside becomes central later on in the war, early resistance movements grew out of large towns and cities with their complex economies (e.g. printing presses) and social networks (e.g. trade unions).

# race/ethnicity – France’s immigrant population formed a significant percentage of the resistance, and were far more numerous proportionately than the native French population.

This latter is probably a key difference from our Resistance and the immigrant population might even see us as the enemy or at the very least, not supporting their goals.

Sometimes, immigrants formed their own autonomous resistance groups with their own political – i.e. anti-fascist – agenda.

It’s a point we might well have to look at. Many immigrants to this country are, to borrow a quote from Maugham: “More English than the English,” and would hardly like to see themselves back in an impecunious state in a totalitarian regime.

Key factors

Those identified as subversives, insurgents, seditionists and the like by the usurpers and traitors in high places will be amongst the first mopped up. Why do you think the petitions to Number 10 were encouraged?

“Come on in to my parlour,” said the spider to the fly.

Hannan, Carswell and Farage will be blocked and marginalized – be serious, will the multi-billion euro power which represents the people who caused WW2 meekly sit back and let these three overturn decades of hard work and subversion in all walks of life?

And as long as they are allowed to continue and groups such as the Albion Alliance are allowed to continue, people might just wonder why – it’s a good tactic in itself to allow the rabbits to keep chattering or perhaps they see us as elderly Anglican clergymen muttering in the corner to ourselves.

Either way, we will be ignored by our own people, to be forgotten when the PTB shut us down and it will be the second wave who get off their butts when the true horror of the EU comes upon them, brave freedom fighters who will then stand up and be counted.

Always remember though that this second wave could have stood up now and prevented the horror from ever occurring.  All it takes is for every person to vote only for a PPC who supports the putting of a vote to the people.  Very easy to find out in your own local constituency.

Will you find out?

Will you vote accordingly?

These are in no particular order:

Hatshepsut is generally regarded by Egyptologists as one of the most successful female pharaohs, reigning longer than any other woman of an indigenous Egyptian dynasty.

As Hatshepsut reestablished the trade networks that had been disrupted during the Hyksos occupation of Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period, thereby building a wealth of the Eighteenth Dynasty that has become so famous since the discovery of the burial of one of her descendants, Tutankhamun, began to be analysed.

Hatshepsut was one of the most prolific builders in ancient Egypt, commissioning hundreds of construction projects throughout both Upper and Lower Egypt, that were grander and more numerous than those of any of her Middle Kingdom predecessors.

Much of upper and lower Egypt is due to her.

Nurse Edith Cavell Born on 4 December 1865 in Norfolk, Cavell entered the nursing profession while aged 20, moving to Belgium in 1907.

With the war in 1914 and the subsequent German occupation of Belgium, Cavell joined the Red Cross and began caring for wounded soldiers of all nationalities.

Cavell was arrested on 5 August 1915 by local German authorities and charged with having personally aided in the escape of some 200 such soldiers.  sentenced to death by firing squad.

The sentence was carried out on 12 October 1915 and Cavell’s case received significant sympathetic worldwide press coverage, most notably in Britain and the then-neutral U.S.

It was more a case of what she came to symbolize that caught the public imagination and made her a household word.

Aung San Suu Kyi was born in 1945 in Yangon, Myanmar. In July 1989, Aung was put under house arrest by the military government for appearing at and creating mass gatherings about democracy.

The problem was that mass gathering were illegal in Myanmar. While still under house arrest, in May 1990, 80% of the seats in Parliament were elected to the NDL. However, the government refused to allow the seats to be taken.

On July 10, 1995, Aung was released from house arrest, yet she refused to leave the country because if she left, she could never return again.

She was subsequently rearrested and has proved a thorn in the side, not only of her country’s enemies but the enemies of freedom and democracy all over the world.

Catherine of Siena dedicated her life to helping the ill and the poor, where she took care of them in hospitals or homes.

She wrote letters to men and women in authority, especially begging for peace between the republics and principalities of Italy and for the return of the papacy from Avignon to Rome.

She carried on a long correspondence with Pope Gregory XI, also asked him to reform the clergy and the administration of the Papal States. Incredibly, the Pope, inspired by her wisdom, did return the Papal administration to Rome.

Catherine’s letters are considered one of the great works of early Tuscan literature.

That a woman of that time was so bold and dedicated herself so selflessly to the general good of people makes her quite rightly a saint.

Jeannette la Pucelle was tried and executed for heresy when she was only 19 years old. The judgment was declared invalid by the Pope and she was declared innocent and a martyr 24 years later.

She gained prominence when she overcame the dismissive attitude of veteran commanders and lifted the siege in only nine days. Several more swift victories led to Charles VII’s coronation at Reims and settled the disputed succession to the throne.

She remained astute to the end of her life and rehabilitation trial testimony frequently marvels at her astuteness. Her subtle replies under interrogation even forced the court to stop holding public sessions.

One of the greats of world history, irrespective of sex, she symbolizes someone who will stand up, knowing something is wrong, even at the price of one’s own life.  A very great woman.

Anti-heroes

Sadly, some names have popped up on “great women” lists who should not be there.  Many of these have been quite destructive in their actions and one or two are plain sadists.  For example, boadicea should never be on a “greats” list – she cut off women’s breasts and sewed them to their mouths plus other atrocities.  Killing was her thing.  Similarly, Gloria Steinem was on some lists but of course, her movement has wrought great misery on the true progress of women in the latter part of the C20th.  Catherine the Great was a monster too, as was Lucrezia Borgia.  The women who should be celebrated are the constructive ones.

Where will you take her this evening?

A bit of empowerment:

Wiki:

Started as a Socialist political event, the holiday blended in the culture of many countries, primarily Eastern Europe, Russia, and the former Soviet block.

In many regions, the day lost its political flavour, and became simply an occasion for men to express their love for women in a way somewhat similar to a mixture of Mother’s Day and St Valentine’s Day.

In other regions, however, the original political and human rights theme designated by the United Nations runs strong, and political and social awareness of the struggles of women worldwide are brought out and examined in a hopeful manner.

Far be it for us to celebrate anything smacking of destructive feminism or socialism but still …  let’s remember the oppressed women of the world, as in the photo above.   For men, it’s a difficult thing to know how to react to women in general since their cause was long ago hijacked and turned into a political football by western governments and PC organizations.  The result, of course, was to get most men’s backs up and this has created two camps, so to speak.  Anti-men jokes abound on the web and anti-women jokes as well.  Pornography is rampant at all ages, the vast majority young female.

Respect and affection

This blog believes that individual women should be accorded respect and affection as a default position and to me, the sign of a man is that he can forgive a woman’s foibles and still love her and take care of her whatever she actually does or says against men.  If she does none of those things, then that’s a bonus.

This blog further pines for the days when women acted as women and even as ladies, where a man could show gallantry and chivalry without the slightest hint of demeaning or patronizing her and where she was his primary focus and object of affection.  A world without women would be horrendous but a world without women being feminine is even worse.

Change through individuals only

No amount of government legislation is going to improve women’s lot at grassroots, street level, as has been shown – it has to come from inside the individuals in their relations with one another. A good start would be for every man on the planet to be able to count a particular woman as his best friend – then we might get somewhere.

Small note

YHC is not feeling 100% today so this might well be the one and only post today.  See how things go.

No, the Democrats didn’t get to me, the dreaded lurgy did.

In a Russian university room, I asked a group of girls which country they were from.  Some said Tatarstan and some said Russia.  To those who said Tatarstan, I asked why they were then speaking in Russian.  To a group of students in Melbourne, I asked which country they were from, Victoria or Australia.  I asked a Californian which country he was from and he had to think for one moment.

Which nation are you from?

What follows is primarily drawn, in great slabs, from D. Andrews, English researcher, with some of my own reading thrown in.  The attempt is to summarize Andrews and to present it at a more blog-acceptable length.

Perhaps one of the finest explanations for why the nation is important came from Herbert Hoover who said:

“We must realise the vitality of the great spiritual force which we call nationalism. The fuzzy-minded intellectuals have sought to brand nationalism as a sin against mankind. They seem to think that infamy is attached to the word ‘nationalist’. But that force cannot be obscured by denunciation of it as greed or selfishness – as it sometimes is. The spirit of nationalism springs from the deepest of human emotions. It rises from the yearning of men to be free of foreign domination, to govern themselves. It springs from a thousand rills of race, of history, of sacrifice and pride in national achievement.”[1]

Ezra Taft Benson, Secretary of Agriculture under Eisenhower, conveyed the attitude a nation should consider regarding its own national sovereignty:

“There is one and only one legitimate goal of…foreign policy. It is a narrow goal, a nationalistic goal: the preservation of our national independence.”[2]

Habeas Corpus and Corpus Juris

When one considers the most fundamental advances in preserving the rights of western man and woman, what springs to mind? Magna Carta [1215] of course and the succession of acts following that, the principle of Parliament [de Montfort and others], the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution and the principle of Habeas Corpus.

The latter is quite fundamental and together with the Judaeo-Christian traditions plus liberal arts schooling [liberal not as used pejoratively in the United States today but in a higher, earlier form before it was hijacked and debased], the whole series of concepts are what we value today in lesser and lesser numbers. It is the reason the Black Raven cannot call at your door at midnight [the Soviet cars which arrived at midnight to take citizens away forever].

It is the reason we are not the murderous regimes of Iran or North Korea of Burma. It is a set of traditions which underpin the very fabric of our families which, combined with individuals on this plot of earth we occupy, forms what we call our nation.

Habeas Corpus and Corpus Juris [Common Law and Civil Law] are two opposites.

They cannot be reconciled.

J. Reuben Clark, one of the foremost U.S. Constitutional lawyers and statesmen of the Twentieth Century, Under Secretary of State during President Calvin Coolidge’s presidency, and author of the masterful Memorandum on the Monroe Doctrine, had this to say about these opposing philosophies of government:

“During the centuries, these two systems have had an almost deadly rivalry for the control of society, the Civil Law, and its fundamental concepts, being the instrument through which ambitious men of genius and selfishness have set up and maintained despotisms; the Common Law, with its basic principles, being the instrument through which men of equal genius, but with love of mankind burning in their souls, have established and preserved liberty and free institutions.”[3]

The idea for a single European state did not end with the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire around the turn of the Nineteenth Century. Many individuals set out plans or notions for a united Europe including Leon Trotsky who wrote in 1917:

“The Federated Republic of Europe – the United States of Europe – that is what must be. National autonomy no longer suffices. Economic evolution demands the abolition of national frontiers…Only a Federated Republic of Europe can give peace to the world.”[15]

Many European, especially Italian, socialists and communists were taken with the idea of European federalism. This was spear-headed by communist writer and political activist, Altiero Spinelli, who was the chief writer behind the Manifesto for a Free and United Europe written not long after the start of the Second World War – and after the War that paper became the basic document of the European Federalist Movement.

Spinelli was a powerful shaper of what today has become the EU, being the major force most recently (until his death in 1984) of the move to make the EU a state in and of itself to which Mrs. Thatcher, then Prime Minister of Britain, said “No! No! No!”. Spinelli was able to push forward his centralist ideas by promoting “subsidiarity” which turned out to be a meaningless concept and deception.

Subsidiarity breaks up nations into regions, in  federation with a central authority merely the coordinating committee which handles that which cannot be handled locally.  The menace in the EU usage of the term is shown when set against the usage of the concept by Dan Hannan and Douglas Carswell.  The latter envisage more localized autonomy, e.g. in policing but the EU concept is that these local regions are subject to “directives” from CCHQ.

This is in no way a new concept and it has been condemned by many.  Winston Churchill wrote, in 1920:

“From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, to those of Trotsky, Bela Kun, Rosa Luxembourg, and Emma Goldman, this world wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence and impossible equality, has been steadily growing.

It played a definitely recognizable role in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the nineteenth century, and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads, and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire.”

Rodney Atkinson and Norris McWhirter, went as far as to write:

“To say that the European Union was based on the Nazi version of Europe or that there are parallels would be an understatement. The entire ‘European’ enterprise since the founding of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 (and given an enormous boost by the Maastricht Treaty on European Union) is an exact replica of the Nazi’s ideas for Europe…”[4]

However, it should be noted that the idea of a single Europe pre-dates Hitler’s Nazism,[5] though this is not to say that the same hidden interests[6] were not supportive of both Nazism and the European movement, perhaps supporting the former to facilitate the latter. But it was Monnet, at least visibly, who was to found and develop the structural beginnings of the EU and to be accredited as “the Father of Europe”.

Waking up and smelling the coffee

There are two contending schools of thought on history. The first, and by far the most popular, is “The Accidental View of History” which holds that history is largely a series of unrelated events or events which are related only by accident or simple cause and effect.

Thus we have readers and pundits all over the sphere and through society who have been conditoned, a la Pavlov’s dog, to respond “conspiracy theory” or to patronisingly but in a kindly way, shake the head: “James, James, this sort of thing is right up your street, isn’t it?”

My response to that is a question: “What do you think of the Charter of Fundamental Rights (Article 52), which allows the EU to limit rights “where necessary” in the “general interest” of the EU.  Is that a “theory” or is it a fact?  Further, which statements of fact within this article do you contend are false? Which conclusions based on those facts do you contend are false?”

The answer of course is: “James, James, you always believe so passionately in your own personal viewpoints.”

My answer to that is: “How are any of the views expressed on this page exclusively my own personal viewpoint or belief, particularly in the light of the bulk of the article coming from other sources?”

J. Andrew:

The second school of thought is “The Conspiratorial View of History” which holds that superintending forces have directed many of the important events of history.[7]

Is there any evidence for this? Churchill seemed to think so [quote above].  And what do you say to these:

President Woodrow Wilson, in “The New Freedom” [1913] wrote: “Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the U.S., in the field of commerce and manufacturing, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something.

They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”

That was an opinion, not specifically a fact, in the same way that two doctors give their opinions. If you were lying on the operating table, you’d hope those opinions were at least learned and from someone on the inside.

Or Moses Mordecai Marx Levy who wrote in 1848:

“We must war against all prevailing ideas of religion, of the state, of country, of patriotism. The idea of God is the keynote of a perverted civilization. It must be destroyed.”

Or the masonic doyen, Albert Pike who issued instructions to the 23 Supreme Councils of the world on July 14, 1889

“To you, Sovereign Grand Instructors General, we say this, that you may repeat it to the Brethren of the 32nd, 31st and 30th degrees: The Masonic religion should be, by all of us initiates of the high degrees, maintained in the purity of the Luciferian doctrine.”

Uncomfortable, yes and one which will have you clicking out of this article? But I ask you again; ‘Show me evidence that he did not write that or that he was in no way a doyen of the Masonic Lodge.”

Or Cecil Rhodes, supposedly a great British patriot who on Feb. 5, 1891 merged his group from Oxford with a similar group from Cambridge headed by social reformer William Stead. Rhodes and Stead became members of the inner “Circle of Initiates” of a secret society they now found. There is also an outer circle known as the “Association of Helpers.”

You can do your own research on them and what they actually believed in, in terms of world progress. I’ll drop one hint. – Lord Alfred Milner, between 1909 and 1913, organized the “Association of Helpers” into various Round Table Groups in the British dependencies and the United States. Google Round Table Groups and see what you come up with.

Or in 1921, Colonel House reorganized the American branch of the Institute of International Affairs into the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). House had Wilson’s ear throughout the war and was also closely connected with Warburg and Kuhn Loeb – google them.

The CFR has always considered itself just a thinktank. As a thinktank, it does pretty well if it can organize a meeting of Canadian PM Martin, Mexican President Fox and American President Bush, on March 23rd, 2005, at which the NAAC document is discussed. Pretty powerful “thinktank”. What were the provisions?

# single economic zone,
# single area of free movements of people,
# single education system,
# single defense and security system,
# single social benefits system

This CFR, on December 15, 1922, in its magazine “Foreign Affairs,” had author Philip Kerr stating:

“Obviously there is going to be no peace or prosperity for mankind as long as the earth remains divided into 50 or 60 independent states, until some kind of international system is created. The real problem today is that of world government.”

And in case that was an aberration, a one-off due to the CFR’s liberal policy on who can write what in its publication, there is this:

On October 28, 1939, in an address by John Foster Dulles [later U.S. Secretary of State], he proposed that America lead the transition to a new order of less independent, semi-sovereign states bound together by a league or federal union.

Was he CFR?

One more from my sources:

1953 – Rowan Gaither, President of the Ford Foundation, tells a Congressional commission investigating tax-exempt foundations: “We at the executive level here were active in either the OSS [forerunner of the CIA], the State Department, or the European Economic Administration.

During those times, and without exception, we operated under directives issued by the White House. We are continuing to be guided by just such directives, the substance of which were to the effect that we should make every effort to so alter life in the United States as to make possible a comfortable merger with the Soviet Union.”

All right, all right, let’s not call it conspiracy. Let’s call it thinktank recommendations adopted by legislatures and executives in America and in Europe.

To return to J. Andrew:

Is there evidence to suggest that there are actually “powers behind the scenes” which have supported and financed the organizations and individuals that have promoted the move toward modern European union?

One small example at random:

In September 2000, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, EU reporter for The Telegraph, wrote a story reporting on recently declassified US government documents showing “that the US intelligence community ran a campaign in the Fifties and Sixties to build momentum for a united Europe. It funded and directed the European federalist movement.” [8]

The point of all this

The point is that this whole argument is not specifically about opposing a confederation of nations of Europe but of opposing the people who are at the helm of the organization.  These are the people referred to by Churchill above and by Wilson and by the other writers.  What is so evil about them?

Well, here are some examples, going back to Common Law again:

Under Common Law depriving people of their property can only be justified as a punishment for a criminal offence wherein the offender has been found guilty of seeking to illegally deprive, or actually depriving, another of his property, life (person) or liberty. The right to own and control property precedes and is superior to government.

Under the EU system of law, it is not this way. From the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union we read that:

“no one may be deprived of his or her possessions, except in the public interest…”

And the Charter of Fundamental Rights (Article 52) allows the EU to limit rights “where necessary” in the “general interest” of the EU. It is the European Court that will decide what is both “necessary” and what exactly constitutes the “general interest”.

The general interest

Critical issue, “the general interest”. Who defines it?    Look, for example, at the provisions of the RIP Act.  Section 22 says:

It is necessary on grounds falling within this subsection to obtain communications data if it is necessary-

(a) in the interests of national security;
(b) for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime or of preventing disorder;
(c) in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom;
(d) in the interests of public safety;
(e) for the purpose of protecting public health;
(f) for the purpose of assessing or collecting any tax, duty, levy or other imposition, contribution or charge payable to a government department;
(g) for the purpose, in an emergency, of preventing death or injury or any damage to a person’s physical or mental health, or of mitigating any injury or damage to a person’s physical or mental health; or
(h) for any purpose (not falling within paragraphs (a) to (g)) which is specified for the purposes of this subsection by an order made by the Secretary of State.

The discretion for determining what is in the national interest or the interests of the nation, for their protection and well-being, is vested in the government.

But who exactly is the government?

If you accept that, at least in part, the European Union has powers within the UK and is increasing them even as we speak, with a raft of over 1000 new laws about to be unleashed, then it would be as well to examine the body and see how democratically it considers the views of the populations within its sphere of influence:

Treaty of Rome, 1957.  This treaty’s purpose was…

“to lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe…the constant improvement of the living and working conditions of the people, the reduction of differences in wealth between regions…”

That is to say, it espoused both socialism and the concept of an ever-increasing union among the nations of Europe. In fact this document was actually a constitution disguised as a treaty because, unlike a treaty, it did not leave the several parties’ national sovereignties intact.

Common Market, 1973 – Section 2 of the European Communities Act (the enabling legislation to enter into the Common Market) set down the principle that British Law would always from then on be subordinate to European Law; that, when the two conflicted, it would be the European and not the British Law that would prevail.

Single European Act, 1986 – this provided the means by which Britain entered the Single Market of 1992. It eroded Britain’s already-diminished decision-making powers by extending QMV (Qualified Majority Voting) to more areas.

Maastricht Treaty, 1992 – This was the treaty that established the idea of European citizenship and the Euro currency. It also surrendered the Queen’s power in Parliament to an unelected body in Europe.

Amsterdam Treaty, 1998 – the European Union gained a “legal personality” giving it such powers as the ability to sign treaties that bind all its member states; it also gave greater scope to the European Court of Justice, and the Council of Ministers was given powers to punish any member state that persistently breached the treaty.

The Schengen Agreement, 1990 – signatories gave up their right to police their own borders. Borders are an integral part of liberty, both nationally and locally.

Treaty of Nice, 2000 – Further centralised Europe. Britain here gave up its veto in thirty more areas of policy setting.

That therefore is the body whom we never voted into power, except via the Referendum of 1975 and what people voted for was in a form greatly at odds with what it has now become, particularly in the light of the Lisbon Treaty.

The European Court of Justice has ruled that it may lawfully suppress political criticism of its institutions and leading figures; that dissent can be restricted to “protect the rights of others” and punish those who “damaged the institution’s image and reputation”.[9]

The Advocate-General of the ECJ gave a legal opinion (ref. case C-274/99) that criticism of the EU was akin to blasphemy. Punishing someone for allegedly criticising the EU, whether such allegations were proven or not, were (said he) not an infringement of free speech.[10]

Another example of the EU’s attitude toward freedom of speech is their Weights and Measures (Metrication Amendments) Regulations 2001 which will make it a criminal offence to even so much as mention imperial measurements at work or in any official capacity.[11]

The EU is also creating “new crimes” whereby it can make illegal expressions it deems to be “xenophobic” or “racist”. Terms it will define of course.

The Right to be Left Alone

The right to be left alone, emanating from if not synonymous with the right to liberty, is one of the most crucial freedoms in a free society. Again, the EU has little respect for this right and the privacy of its citizens.

“The European constitution…shall have primacy over the law of the Member States.” (Article 10.1, proposed EU Constitution)

Romano Prodi, President of the EU Commission, in an address to members of the European Parliament said:

“Europe must assume responsibility for peace and development in the world…With a single voice we can wield real influence. Only united can we put our own humanist stamp on globalisation and infuse it with Europe’s social values…I am convinced that we need a constitution to mark the birth of Europe as a political entity…[The Union] is not an alliance between States or a federation. It is an advanced supranational democracy that needs to be strengthened.”  [12]

The treachery of the UK politicians

The Prime Minister, Edward Heath, in the House of Commons on 25th February, 1970, in the build up to EEC entrance, said:

“There will not be a blueprint for a federal Europe.”

Pretty unequivocal, eh?

Yet in 1991 he was asked: “the single currency; a United States of Europe; was that in your mind when you took Britain in?”. Edward Heath replied:

“Of course, yes.” [13]

And in a White Paper published in July 1971 concerning Britain’s entrance into the supposedly for-trade-only Common Market:

“There is no question of any erosion of essential national sovereignty…There are some in this country who fear that in going into Europe, we shall in some way sacrifice independence and sovereignty. These fears I need hardly say are completely unjustified.”

Time has shown this to be false. What is more, documents released later showed this statement to have been an outright lie.[14]

Have Ministers been deceiving the British public? As early as 1962 Ministers were formally instructed regarding Common-Market membership:

“Ministers should in public speeches avoid accepting specific commitments or giving explanations of the Government’s general commitments which might prove embarrassing when the final terms (of membership) become known in detail.”[15]

And what about those who want to reform the EU from within? It is simply not possible. The way the EU is structured, our increasing minority status, and a host of other factors spelled out in this essay, stop this from being in any way achievable. The Hansard Society has said:

“Any attempts by any government to try to amend Community legislation to its own wishes are doomed to failure…Parliament has little, if any, input upon the process of European law-making…” [16]

The mantra now espoused by the leaders of the Tories, Labour, the LibDems and LPUK, is that to give the people a say in their own affairs at a time when the noose is tightening and the EU, whose bona fides you can judge for yourself in the above, is asserting control at a rate not seen earlier – the mantra states that we must make no move to give people a voice but trust the leaders [as we trusted Heath] to act in our interests.

The justification they trot out for denying our right to a say is that we would probably lose a referendum at this time, [when the minimum vote – in polls - to get out shows 53% and the maximum so far 83%]. Hardly a lost vote, one would have thought.

They all wish to deny us a vote and other organizations within the former UK are, at the same time, trying to convince people that the EU is a relatively minor matter or that it is “important but not the only matter”.

When a woman in a hut in a forest is alone with her children and a wolf comes to the door, she says: “The wolf is an issue, yes but there are other matters, such as sweeping the floor to be taken care of.”

When Germany is about to launch an air assault against Britain, the leaders say, “There are other important matters such as a percentage increase in the trading figures.”

Yes?

Try this article.

Notes to the above

1 As quoted by Eugene W. Castle in Billions, Blunders and Baloney, p. 259 (as referenced by Ezra Taft Benson in his address, United States Foreign Policy given at the Farm Bureau Banquet in Preston, Idaho, June 21st 1968 – see “Suggestions for Further Study” below).

2 Ezra Taft Benson, United States Foreign Policy given at the Farm Bureau Banquet in Preston, Idaho, June 21st 1968 (see “Suggestions for Further Study” below).

3 Stand Fast By Our Constitution, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, pp. 139.

4 # For more information on the authors’ views on the subject of Nazi origins of the EU see their work Treason at Maastricht, page 123 and also chapter 18. (see “Suggestions for Further Study” below)

5 # See The Great Deception: The Secret History of the European Union by Christopher Booker and Richard North, p. 18-30, Chapter 2, “The Nazi Cul-de-Sac: 1933-1945″ (see “Suggestions for Further Study” below). See also the on-line article, The Fascist Inheritance in the European and Blair Projects by Edward Spalton. (see “Suggestions for Further Study” below).

6 # It seems well documented that certain figures and interests involved with building up the Nazis also financed and supported the movement to build a united Europe. The connection between these conspiring parties and the EU is addressed elsewhere in this essay. For their connections to Nazism readers may wish to study Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler by Antony C. Sutton; the text of this book is freely available on-line at http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/wall_street/.

7 # For an introduction to the conspiratorial view of history the author recommends A. Ralph Epperson’s The Unseen Hand published by Publius Press. Once you’ve read this you will never view history the same way again. Available for purchase from Amazon UK at http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0961413506/.

8 Mr. Evans-Pritchard wrote:

“Washington’s main tool for shaping the European agenda was the American Committee for a United Europe [ACUE], created in 1948. The chairman was [William] Donovan [head of the American wartime "Office of Strategic Services", which was later to become the CIA], ostensibly a private lawyer by then. The vice-chairman was Allen Dulles, the CIA director in the Fifties. The board included Walter Bedell Smith, the CIA’s first director, and a roster of ex-OSS figures and officials who moved in and out of the CIA. The documents show that ACUE financed the European Movement, the most important federalist organisation in the post-war years. In 1958, for example, it provided 53.5 per cent of the movement’s funds.

The European Youth Campaign, an arm of the European Movement, was wholly funded and controlled by Washington…”

See Global Tyranny…Bloc by Bloc by William F. Jasper, “The New American” magazine, Vol. 17, No. 8, April 9th, 2001. Available on YouTube at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TenIjbnqO0&feature=channel.

9 # See “Watch What You Say” by John Hilliker, Philadelphia Trumpeter, July 2001, available on-line at: http://www.olusa.com/politics/free-speech-dying.htm.

10 # “Now It’s Blasphemy to Mock Europe” by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in The Spectator, 18th November, 2000. This article can be read for free on-line but you will need to subscribe first: http://www.spectator.co.uk.

11 # S.I. 2001, No. 85. The exact areas where this infringement of free speech occurs is in public health, public safety, administration and trade. Read the House of Lords debate of March 20th, 2001 at http://www.bwmaonline.com/Political%20-%20Motion%20on%20March%2020th.htm

12 Shaping Tomorrow’s EU, Brussels, 4 April 2002.

13 # Question Time, BBC, speaking to Peter Sissons, 1st November 1991. Heath also said: “There is no danger of a single currency.” (EEC membership information leaflet, 1975).

14 # These quotations on Europe, and many others (all referenced and checked) have been compiled on-line at: http://www.liebreich.com/LDC/HTML/Europe/00-Intro.html.

15 # Minutes of the Cabinet Meeting of 23rd October 1962 (released under 30 Year Rule, 1st January 1993).

16 # The 1996 Inter-Governmental Conference: The Agenda, Democracy and Efficiency and the Role of National Parliaments, House of Commons Select Committee on European Law, 1996.

As one usually does when dental work goes slightly wrong, one looks up old Iain Dale posts and here was a good one – Iain’s poll of the greatest political traitors.

Let’s broaden it beyond the UK though [this blog has American, Canadian and Russian readers too, one from France and one from Australia].  Take a traitor at random, say Vlasov.  His army was captured by the Germans and in an extraordinary move, he joined the Germans in the attack on Moscow.  His explanation was that Stalin was decimating the country [which he was] and this was the only way he could see of ridding the nation of this monster.  The nation didn’t see it that way and he was executed [Vlasov, that is].

Or take Daniel Ellsberg, whom Kissinger called: “A fanatical drug-crazed sexual pervert, the most dangerous man in America, who has to be stopped at all costs.” Good coming from Kissinger, that one. What was his crime?  He blew the whistle on the Vietnam War.

Or Philby who famously said, “To betray, one must first belong. I never belonged.”

Coming back to the UK, there were many names mentioned in Iain’s poll but one which consistently came through, together with Blair, Brown and Cameron [yes, even back then] was Heath.  The argument centred round whether he was a traitor for misrepresenting, to the British people, the sovereignty aspect of the European Community, that sovereignty aspect quite clearly expressed in Amsterdam.  In a similar way, Clarke is consistent in trying to get his country under the EU yoke.  Cameron, on the other hand, is a turncoat, pretending to be Eurosceptic but in fact turned out to be an EU shill.

Now, some say Heath was not a traitor because the EC was always his policy, he campaigned on it and was elected on it. Others say yes he was because he sold a policy that he knew was false and that the country would lose its sovereignty.

Now, what about Blair? You could argue he’s not a traitor. After all, he lied about the 1993 Bilderberg Meeting which made him one of the globalists’ boys and he has been loyal to the globalists ever since, selling his country out and taking us into a ruinous war, not for the interests of the UK but on the say-so of his masters. So, like Philby, he is loyal to those he serves, in much the same way that Grima Wormtongue said, “I’ve only ever served one master.” Enemy? yes. Traitor? Debatable.

Obama, the non-President with the non-birth certificate – is he a traitor? Well, in terms of crippling the U.S. and selling it out – yes. In terms of his global socialist masters – no, he’s a good lad according to them.

In the end, the question of treason is always going to be: ‘To whom?”

Just can’t get a decent vid of her – this is appalling camerawork but worth the effort for the voices:

Edith Piaf, Shirley Bassey, Ella Fitzgerald, Joan Baez, Dame Kiri, Sarah Brightman [snuck her in last evening] – there just wasn’t room with only four clips. So many wonderful female singers.

There’s a danger of jumping in too soon without all the facts.  While it is equally as bad to hold off until it’s no longer news, a political blogger stands or falls by his factual accuracy; witness the way I get jumped on here when I make an error.

It’s one thing to be told: ‘You’re wrong,” when the accuser has nothing but his assertion to back him up or to say: ‘Well, I’ve never read that,’ hardly a debunking, one would have thought.  It’s entirely another to state that an MOD facility is in one place and used for this when in fact it is in another place and used for that.

There’s an EPP story which has appeared but some of us are currently waiting on some hard data before we go with it; ditto with the Bulger/Venables, possible Straw cover-up.  I see he’s agreed to meet the family personally and truth is, we haven’t a break on this one yet, just an awful lot of assertion and “well there must be something wrong”.  Unfortunately, there are people who would leap onto that and tear it apart at this stage so better to hold fire and see what comes in.

In the sentence below, add further clauses to give the statement some appearance of verisimilitude:

The recent appointment by Mr Barroso of a close ally to the post of EU representative to Washington was widely viewed as undermining Lady Ashton’s authority, and angered many foreign ministers who would have expected to be consulted …

One possible answer:

… in the same way David Milliband, as the UK’s foreign minister, might also have expected to have been consulted by the unelected usurper Ashton, just as the people of the UK had a right to have been directly consulted, by Mr. Milliband himself, on vital matters pertaining to the defence of the realm .

Canada is finally going plastic.  Australia has had plastic notes for years and I used to invite groups at uni in Russia to tear up my bank notes I brought along or at least try to crumple them.  They couldn’t – when released, the note just sprang back into shape again.

I’d prefer to see us back in a barter economy where commodities rule but failing that, coin at its face value and a long last – government backed promissory notes in plastic, backed by a range of designated commodities.

You all saw the story and most likely shook the head.  Why can’t people get it right?  Why can’t they strike a balance?

Ordering the family to cover up the remarkably good, zaftig rendition of Venus simply meant the sculpture looked, as the artist said, “more objectified and sexualised” than before, something Alison is always going on about.

Discretion and common sense, two words which have flown from most dealings in the public arena, have been exemplified yet again. As one commenter wrote:

You know Comcast cable plays soft porn in the early morning just when kids are getting ready for school. MTV and regular channels play commercials with people in bed talking about the “lubricants” they use and there’s always a commercial or two about Vigra and other male enhancements and these people complain about a snow statue?

… and another added:

I try not to date women with no arms and no head.

Leaving aside the gross PCishness which really does offend me,  it’s such a pity they couldn’t have perhaps run some form of liquid plastic over it to set and preserve it.  Then it might have appeared in a local gallery.

The most happy marriage I can picture would be the union of a deaf man to a blind woman.

[Coleridge]

Think our Sarah quite likes him:

MadPiper has now joined that august set who have commented 100 times and this badge of honour on the left is for his exclusive use, should he feel the need for a bookmark or something to hang on the wall of the loo.  Hold on, he’s American – on the wall of the bathroom, I mean.

Anyway, well done sir, for seeing fit to comment 100 times on my ravings.

Iceland is a nice microcosm, particularly since it dabbled in the globalists’ playground and learnt how to be nationally self-destructive.  It’s no different to us but where we can’t see the forest for the trees,  in Iceland, it is staring everyone in the face:

Iceland has all but given up on agreeing a new deal with the UK and the Netherlands to repay more than 3.8bn euros ($5.2bn; £3.4bn) of debt.  It had hoped to avoid a referendum on the issue by agreeing a repayment plan before the weekend, but the vote is likely to go ahead on Saturday.

Opinion polls suggest Icelandic voters will reject a plan agreed last year.  A no vote could jeopardise billions of dollars of loans from the International Monetary Fund and other countries.

“The referendum is going to go ahead,” said Iceland’s Finance Minister Steingrimur Sigfusson.  “We have been trying to resolve the matter in another fashion but time has run out.”  However, he did say that the referendum could, technically, be cancelled at any point up to Friday night.

In there is a perfect example of the scenario – politicians pandering to the people in order to get elected as populists and then, in power, they join “the club” which sees the larger global picture, they commit their people to generations of penury and use referenda only if they can get a guaranteed result to reinforce their policies.

In Iceland, unlike in the UK, the people demand their say – after all, they have the oldest parliamentary tradition in the world – and they’re not fooled by the official explanations.  They actually do something about their conditions and engage in the process to achieve that.

Yes, they wanted to get on board with western consumerism – the whitegoods and really fine things were dangled in front of their eyes and like greedy children, they all said, “I want them, I want them, Nanny.”  They had no concept that, in real terms, you have whatever is the result of what you produce and thus the credit bandwagon rolled into Reykjavik.

Now the whole thing has imploded, they are saying, “No, I’m not paying back my debts.  They weren’t my debts, they were laid on us by the politicians.”  And what are the pollies terrified of?  Yep, that the IMF will not give them the bailout money.

The IMF – benefactors of the global economy.  By the way – did you notice the way the Bruderheist today has told Greece they should sell off their islands?  That’s beautiful – fund impossible schemes, the schemes implode and then they’re told to give away their sovereignty in perpetuity.

And the funniest joke of all is that no one seems to see how it was done, as in a magician’s trick.  There is something evil in the way the professional global usurers [the Venetians] lure naive people, like holding candy in front of a baby but without explaining the dangers and then, when it all implodes, they strip the people of their birthright.  It was done by Esau, it was exemplified in the semi-fictional Shylock, it’s still being done today.

The movie buff might tell you that the reason silents seemed so jerky in their action was because they were shot at 16 fps and modern machines have been standardized at 24 fps.  Actually, the truth is a bit different and you can get an inkling of this from this 1923 article by one Victor Milner ASC who was debunking another supposed expert who had said:

[By Mr. Richardson] There is, and in the very nature of things can be, no such thing as a ’standard camera speed.’ This is for the reason that light intensity varies enormously, and especially when out on ‘location,’ with an expensive company and an enormous overhead expense, the cameraman will, under adverse light conditions, use as large a lens opening as is practicable and slow down as much as he can, in order to obtain sufficient exposure. Conversely, when the light is strong the tendency is to speed up. This is something which will in all human probability be entirely overcome.”

Milner retorted:

The average camera speed is two turns per second, or one foot of film per second. There are approximately 16 images per foot, and the above speed is used invariably, and projection should be at this speed except in scenes where the tempo of the action requires speeding up of the objects, as, for example, in a fight scene. “Average” speed in this case would be too slow.

In comedy various speeds are used from normal to stop motion, in order to obtain desired effects. Of course if a projectionist speeds up to 100, where the scene was shot at 60, in order to get through with the show, no human eye will be able to stand the strain of watching objects moving at that speed. It will ruin every effort made by the producer, director and staff to put their best efforts before the public.

From that, he was was not disputing the variable speed itself [although he recommends it be kept at "approximately" 16 fps] but rather Richardson’s assertion that the light was the reason.  The bottom line though, for our elucidation today, was that films were handcranked, there were occasions when it would be sped up or slowed down for effect.

Even worse:

The Essanay Film Company of Chicago tried to beat wily exhibitors by printing the running time of the films on the posters. The exhibitors retaliated by pasting a strip of paper over the line. Some unscrupulous theatre managers could get through a full reel in six minutes! Ten minutes was acknowledged to be ‘more usual’. Yet, even today, on standard 24 fps sound projectors, 1,000 feet takes eleven minutes …

It’s fascinating reading these stories about the issues which dominated in those early days of commercial movie theatres:

‘There is no hard and fast rule that can be laid down governing speed,’ said Moving Picture World (9 May 1908, p. 413). ‘It may, however, be said that 70 feet per minute is about as fast as a film should be run under any circumstances, with 45 as the limit the other way. Slower than 40 feet would not be safe. In general, the film should be run at the speed that will produce a minimum of flicker, combined with the lifelike, natural motion of the figures…

It is as likely as not that the speed should be changed several times in different portions of the same film. With most standard machines, one turn of the crank runs off exactly one foot of film, so that normal speed is about 66 turns of the crank per minute, and by counting turns you know just how fast you are running.’

So it was by no means the case that the film and therefore the action in it ran at the speed intended by the one who shot it.  Indeed, within the one film it could vary considerably.  D.W. Griffith’s instructions for Home Sweet Home (1914) recommended:

16 minutes for the first reel (16.6 fps), 14-15 minutes for the second (17.8-19 fps), and 13-14 for each of the other reels (19-20.5 fps). ‘The last reel, however, should be run slowly from the beginning of the allegorical part to the end’ ( Moving Picture World, 20 June 1914 p. 652). ‘The projectionist,’ said Griffith, ‘in a large measure is compelled to redirect the photoplay.’

The comic effect

As most of you know and as Wiki says:

The visual quality of silent movies — especially those produced during the 1920s — was often extremely high. However, there is a widely held misconception that these films were primitive and barely watchable by modern standards.

This misconception is due to technical errors (such as films being played back at wrong speed) and due to the deteriorated condition of many silent films (many silent films exist only in second or even third generation copies which were often copied from already damaged and neglected film stock).

Forget the talkies says:

There were 3 eras of silent film, leading to a major misconception about quality. The first era was the flickers, which lasted from 1900-1915. These were one reel (10 mins or so) films that had simple plots and began very crudely but evolved with the years especially thanks to D.W. Griffith. During this time actors were thought disposable and plot as an afterthought. 1915-1923 ushered in the feature (which had existed for a few years but was really brought into its own by Birth of a Nation) which began more experimenting and longer but still slightly clunky films (mind you they were inventing this new medium at that time!).

By 1923 films began to become more refined and until the majority of silent films ended in 1928 these were some of the finest films ever made. It would take talkies several decades to reach the same greatness as these films. These films are much like watching a modern film, there is no talking but they are so refined they are easy to enjoy.

And so the quest goes on for good prints of the original nitrates, a forlorn task.