Opposing War - Marina Ovsyannikova - what she needs us all to do. War, Climate Change, Poverty, Racism and Misogyny are soluble problems.

Opposing War - Marina Ovsyannikova - what she needs us all to do. 
A problem that is well understood is half way towards being solved. A problem that is incorrectly understood is insoluble.

This is evident with regards war, climate change, Racism and Misogyny. 

War, Climate Change, Poverty, Racism and Misogyny are soluble problems.

Some people who ought to know better are paid to pretend they do not know what the problem is. Sometimes one of these people has an epiphany, and they take a public stand.
Why is one Russian TV producer braver than anyone within the entirety of the BBC during the last 70 years?
What is that?
What do we do with our 'freedom'?
What ought we be doing with our 'freedom'?

Russia state television employee Marina Ovsyannikova, who ran on to the set of a live Main News Bulletin on Russian State TV Channel during a live broadcast shouting: ‘Stop the war. No to war’, presenting a large white banner to Russia's News audience, also made a pre-recorded video statement.

She's quite explicit. The War is a War Crime. She acknowledged culpability for enabling propaganda since 2014. Truly speaking truth to power and taking a serious personal risk. Unlike BBC workers in 2003. Or ever since.

Without a well organised political movement we remain a people reduced to begging, to repetitive protest, we walk about as supplicants, pleading with these monsters, gaining risible concessions from faux-politicians, corporate placemen in hock to the Wealth Extraction Class, whose fundamental policy will be to maintain their political, economic and cultural dominance at our expense.

This was intolerable in 2003. It is no less intolerable in 2022.

We need to become a sigifincant movement that could call and sustain a general strike so effective that hospitals, social services, energy and water and other essentials would run, and everything else, including civilians supplying the military, would stop. Full stop. No mortgage payments, no rent payments, no one in the office. A people united in solidarity, not under a flag, a crown or any other symbol of a State. Humane Solidarity. Mutual Aid.
A motivated, humane political movement 

A well organised political movement would include some of these characteristics
A: 100% evidence, peer reviewed, measured, accurate best state of knowledge based
B: Be oriented to gaining a majority of seats in democratic assemblies of every level, from Parish to Cabinet.
C:  Demand a situation where ordinary folk, us the workers, the tax payers engage politically and exercise our duty to deliberate seriously upon issues, examine and weigh the evidence, and understanding the core needs of the whole population, co-operating with expert support, write policies to resolve problems. Peoples policies that nurture the people and maintain all Human Rights, and protect the populations health. Every legitimate business can surely operate under that metric?
Such a movement is required to draft the legislation we need including
D:  legislation to eliminate the practice of 'Externalised Costs', 
E: legislation to extract reparations for harms caused by toxic industrial practices, 
F: legislation to abolish structural poverty and and cease all institutional/nation state war making at the same time. Sharing resources, Saving lives. Convert the military assets to healthy function - for a start, we certainly need a global, regional and local environmental remediation and resilience building corps.
G: legislation to take democratic control of education, information sharing, and importantly public news media so that honesty and transparency become the practiced ethics, in the real.
H: We must push for all of this - assuming  the power and responsibility of ordinary people, workers and students, working in solidarity as a collective legislature.

J: We can do so knowing that solutions to most  known problems - war, pollution, poverty, racism, misogyny - are already available, and that the will to do this will not emerge from the Ruling Class, the Wealth Extraction Class who currently dominate democratic power structures.
I:  If we do not push for all of this, then we will always be begging, pleading, making risible concessions to the Wealth Extraction Culture.
There is only us.
And some suggested strategic action: 
We ought to be thinking about what is needed to sustain building an eclectic  electorate, non-aligned, well informed, well supported and willing to vote for policy, not party, not personality, not personal self-interest nor ideology, evidence based policy to stop further harm, and deepen supportive resilience.
Make the success of that process of harm reduction and restoration, the 'reason d'etre' for the Economy. Revision profit as the totality outcome for all of us, locally, regionally and globally.
Active guerrilla education   
If there are 500,000 people in England up for that, who have the knowledge, and are willing to learn how to canvass people, build more bridges of understanding and empathy, in order to foster humane practical solidarity rather allow the negativity, division the Oligarchs are inciting among us to continue to undermine our communities - then perhaps we can find ways to reach the other 39 million adults, and build the bridges of understanding.
We must remove all private funding from political parties, and elections. We must ensure those who rock up for duty to serve the people are honest, transparent and paid by us - then we call the tune. 
We must never accept any contender who takes money from private donors.

Donor Kebabs - Reassuringly Expensive

To start, to get the ball rolling never, ever vote for anyone, at any level of elected office, from Parish Council to The Prime Minister and the Cabinet who has accepted large private donations - 
When parties and people who put themselves forward to work on our behalf, are truly funded by us: the workers, the students, the carers, the cleaners, the gardeners, the labourers, the tradesmen, the shop keepers, the shop assistants, the office workers, the drivers then we call the tune.
That is real democracy.

People power, legislative power that protects citizens and brings balance and equity to governance.
Here's a suggested metric for healthy governance into the 21st Century.
https://dwylcorneilius.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-metric-for-governance-uk-election-2017.html




Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

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Vlad. The Invader. Putin in the ICCS? Such sorrow for the Ukrainian people, all lovely decent folk, innocent and now being victimised by bullies.

Putin in the ICCs!?

There's more room at the Inn. 'Ternational Criminal Court, Vlad.

There's no doubt on this, the Military Invasion by Russia into Ukraine is a criminal venture. It is the Crime of Aggression, the supreme War Crime. It is known as the supreme war crime, in that it generates the basis of all the subsequent criminal events associated with that act of aggression. The entire command structure prosecuting this war are war criminals. Putin is not the only one.
What must we citizens do? How do we support Russian citizens who, understanding this, wish to stop this war from within Russia and indict Mr. Putin and his colleagues? 

Russia state television employee Marina Ovsyannikova, who ran on to the set of a live broadcast shouting: ‘Stop the war. No to war’, which millions of Russians will have seen. Such incredible courage in the work place. No one in the BBC, ITV, C4, CNN, FOX NEWS, etc has ever dared to do such a thing.

But to do it in Russia? This video is the recorded statement of Marina to her fellow Russians and to the world.


Some polish workers are blockading freight routes from Poland into Belarus and Russia.

A an article circulating on line :  Polish Protest Blocks traffic into Belarus and Russia.

Polish demonstrators have blocked the path of lorries with Russian and Belarusian number plates trying to cross into Belarus, according to a report by broadcaster TVN24.

The action led to a traffic jam stretching 10km at the Koroszczyn border crossing.

Many of the protesters waved Ukrainian flags, indicating their support for that country which came under Russian attack on February 24.

Some of the attacking troops started the assault from Belarusian territory.

The truckers caught in the action protested that the war had nothing to do with them.

Meanwhile, on the way out, opposite direction, and under extreme duress, a flow of refugees:



Refugees, seeking refuge from extreme violence:  people driving away, fleeing in buses, walking on their feet, carrying whatever they had time to grab, frightened, in shock, sad, grieving, exhausted, and holding it together, with courage and grace and strength and kindness, and so much pain, such vast harm, unbelievable and real.

It's so sad, such sorrow, for any individual being put through all of this, and in this situation, today, multiplied by tens of millions. So many people, 40 million, so profoundly harmed.

Entire families, streets, villages, towns, farms in shattered, shocked, grief stricken, angered, outraged, in pain, confused, bereft, made penniless by a useless war, broken and still, even still holding it together, caring for children and elders.

War is a beast, most decent humans are beauty and they ought never meet. Ever. Better they be strangers, than acquaintances. But this culture makes frequent such associations. 
Invasion is a horrible act.
Putin, and the entire government co-operating to prosecute this war are War Criminals, no question. 
There is a chain of command, there is a bureaucracy, a wide network of individuals and agencies all doing their bit to make it work. They have names, titles, official responsibilities, areas of culpable liability-all answerable to the people they harm, and to their own, of course.
Ordinary citizens unjustly trapped by accident of birth in the line of a military advance, totally innocent, people who would never dream of causing harm to anyone, ordinary citizens…harmed by leaders, lies and a hierarchy ugly enough to do this to ordinary people.
It’s disgusting, and Mr. Putin and the Russian state must be held accountable as War Criminals, before the Ukrainians, the people they have harmed so gruesome, as they trampled over such tender communities as people ever lived, and laid waste the life of a people.

For any readers looking to learn more about the Laws prohibiting War, here's a blog piece I wrote in 2008. 


And a song to go with this:

To the tune of 'Sitting on the dock of the bay"

Sitting in the dock at The Hague,Putin should be siting there in dread,Watching the judges walk in.Watching them walk back out again.He sent the orders from Moscow,

That’s when he should have stopped,

His order was evil and sour,

Cruelty at pace, unlocked

Sitting in the dock at The Hague,Putin should be siting there in shame,Hearing the judgement clear,

Looking at his cell wall for years.

Which would be getting off *Lightly, we'd say

Getting off *Lightly, his lucky day

Getting off *Lightly, judged clear

Clearly guilty of War Crimes.

Sitting in the dock at The Hague,They should be siting there in chains,Hearing the judgement clear,Looking at clean cell wall,

For their remaining years.

*To be allowed to live at all is 'getting off lightly'.

By comparison to the harm caused. 

There is no punishment that meets that criminality.
Incarceration is part of prevention. A warning that civilian populations will incarcerate any political leaders who initiate war, who commit war crimes.

People must hold warlords to account. There is no alternative resolution to this problem.




Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.

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Letter : When will we workers cease our support for militarism? Wars are workers pointing guns at each other, as commanded by oligarchies.

It is clear that the vast majority of us 'ordinary' people, the workers, who live all across this Earth are decent, loving and vulnerable people, who have no interest in war, no desire to wage war, no sense of other ordinary people as a lethal enemy. This is not the case when it comes to States.

It's clear the war visited upon Ukraine by Russia is the Crime of Aggression, the supreme War Crime, and that Russia has no case whatsoever for this invasion. The Russian Military action is an abomination, it is disgusting, a horrific act of unrelenting cruelty and evil.

Indeed, there are no legal justifications for any invasion of any kind cross internationally agreed borders. All such invasions are War Crimes, barring a military action mandated by unanimous vote of the United Nations - and to date, no such mandate has ever been granted.

It is also clear that this horror is one more war in a series of similar wars. The ideal of peace in the 21st Century is fading, fast. It faded in 2002 with the invasion of Afghanistan, and then in 2003 the invasion of Iraq. In Ukraine, in the East, and in the West, as the country polarised along lines of irrational belief, it faded in 2014, and has been fading ever since. 

It is clear that the situation in Ukraine is beyond horrific, that it is, as I have already written,  an abomination. The death and destruction being visited upon Ukrainian civil infrastructure and the upon civilian population, and indeed upon their military is grim, a living hell for those that survive, those that manage to flee.

It is clear that all assistance must be extended by States and people to help prevent more violence and harm.

Why then is the EU not hosting the talks between Russia and Ukraine? The two sides talking on their own, without EU or UN oversight and support for a negotiated ceasefire at the very minimum, to protect the civilian populations is akin to a domestic abuse situation, where the neighbours and police, the social services and the families relatives leave it the warring couple to 'work our their differences' without any support, while the couple harm their children.

Why is the EU/NATO states supplying weapons to Ukraine? Why are they and the media glorifying and enabling the transit of men who want to fight? Why are European Jihadi's now totally acceptable? 

Do people not understand that war on either side is a criminal enterprise, and makes criminals of all who participate, as hatred drives engagement after the first fire fight and loss of comrades?

Refugees

And so we see a two way flow, in and out of war.  It is always the middle class who flee in cars, the poor are left to run out of harms way on their legs, carrying as much as they can. Their homes become battle staging grounds.

We see people running away from violence and a minority running towards the violence. The former are sensible, the latter lack all common sense, and are intent on escalation that will increase the flow of the former.

Refugees need help and they need peace to be able to return.

It is especially urgent is to provide all possible means of support and care for all who have fled, are fleeing and will flee the violence.  Further more, all efforts must be focused on enabling their earliest possible safe return to their homes, farms, villages, towns and cities with fullest possible support from the global community to repair, rebuild and reclaim peace in their homeland. The refugees have left under duress, and most will want to return, to pick up as best they can, and get on with their lives as communities. For that to happen the world's political focus must be upon ending the militarised violence on all sides.

The talk in certain news media of using sanctions to bring down Putin's regime does not mention that the companion to that is the destruction of Ukraine by protected violence, fuelled by flows of money and weapons and fighters into Ukraine. The ethics of competing powers are an unflushed toilet of disgrace, manipulation, greed and cruelty.

Peace talks, a ceasefire, not more War.

As Jeremy Corbyn has said "All wars end in peace talks. Why not skip the war, and go straight to the peace talks?" Those talks must be hosted by external parties dedicated to peace, to a situation that restores healthy governance to the people and states involved. 

It is clear to me that this war cannot be understood correctly as an isolated event, rather it must be seen as yet another lethal horrific war within a culture of war making. It is clear to me that we are living within a culture that accepts war making as a normal part of state activity. 

The Bully Cult.

Betty Williams, A northern Irish Peace Worker.
Out of 195 states, only a few eschew military capability.  

Andorra, Aruba, Cayman Islands, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Curacao, Dominica. Falkland Islands, Faroe Islands, French Polynesia, Greenland, Grenada, Iceland, Kiribati, Kosovo, Lichtenstein, Macau (China S.A.R.), Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Federated States of Micronesia, Monaco, Montserrat, Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue, Palau, Panama, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Sint Maarten, Solomon Islands, Svalbard (unincorporated region of Norway), Tuvalu, Vanuatu.
Thirty Six. Thirty six countries that have decided not to waste resources on developing and maintaining a military capability.

It's heart breaking to live in 2022, the 21st Century, and to be witness to all these wars, year after year.

Each war has seen more video, more images, more live video feeds as mobile phones, the internet and live streaming services have expanded. We now have drone views of warfare within hours of the 'action'. Fight Club has gone digital.

What is it to be refugee?

The refugees are not members of the bully cult, they are it's victims. People, families, communities and entire nations victimised by the bully cult.

I cannot imagine what it must feel like to live through the actual realities of war on one's doorstep. Running from one's home, knowing all the neighbours who had cars left days ago. Fleeing at the last minute, possibly seeing neighbours or family members killed or maimed, and not being able to help them. Carrying what one can, carrying small children, assisting elderly relatives. The sudden loss of all of one's home comforts and memories, under extreme duress.

Leaving so much behind, with no certainty as to one's future. This is not a voluntary migration. The USUK language of migrants, illegal immigrants, illegal aliens has been used to deny the reality of refugees from wars the bully cult has had a hand in feeding.

We've seen images of farms, villages, towns and cities emptied of living, working and thriving populations, destroyed by street by street warfare, ghoulish ghettos of grey concrete.

It's too much to bear.
The sluggish response of UK and USA to the need of Ukrainian Refugees is ignoble. The hypocritical reporting of violent resistance to a state being attacked by another state that is revealed by the change in tone in news media approach to different wars.

The Palestinians must not engage violence, the Afghani, Yemeni or Syrians must not engage violence to defend their State, and the Ukrainians must, and are righteous in adopt a violent resistance!

The breathless, jingoist media led war cries of more weapons, more war, death to the invader, glory to the State, we fight for freedom! etc ignores the fact that in spite of the legal and moral right of self defence, we tend to ignore the immense human cost of self defence by violence. 

Our democratic leaderships reduce the chances for cessation of violence by cheering on a violent resistance from the side-lines, and promising weapons and money to continue that violent resistance. I get the basic sentiment, and I fear it will not bring relief, it will not hasten peace talks.

In Western culture, entertainment and general knowledge, violent resistance to invaders is romanticised, peaceful resistance is equated to 'capitulation' and it's proponents (conscientious objectors) are often dehumanised or caricatured (unpatriotic, yellow, Freedom Fries not French Fries!) and this has a profound political impact in that it obscures the realities of warfare. People who do not correctly undeestand what war is are more readily convinced on its merits.

Histories of Resistance.

It has to be said that, at first, the Iraqi people in 2003 avoided a violent insurgency. They waited for the USUK and 'coalition of the willing' to make good their promises about bringing democracy to Iraq, Iraqi's hoped for improvement and fulfilment of promises ,made, announced to the world by Blair and Bush. 

When these promises failed to manifest, Iraqi civil society protested, peaceably, robustly to no avail, and were banned from protest, and then violently suppressed when they persisted. And so by early 2004, elements of Iraqi society started to escalate violent resistance, leading to the US counter-insurgency operations that together, between 2004 and 2006, caused more many more violent deaths, maimings and destruction than occurred during the invasion itself in 2003.

Iraq suffered greatly, and suffers still today, 19 years later. Here's a report from last year.

"Arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings of demonstrators by Iraqi security forces in late 2019 and into 2020 led to government resignations and the nomination of a new prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, in May 2020. Despite an initial seeming willingness to address some of Iraq’s most serious human rights challenges, al-Kadhimi’s government failed to end abuses against protesters.
Iraq’s criminal justice system was riddled with the widespread use of torture and forced confessions and, despite serious due process violations, authorities carried out numerous judicial executions."

Source : Human Rights Watch Report 2021

War, Pestilence, Poverty and Climate.

That all of this is ongoing  and Ukraine is overflowing on our news feeds right now, whilst wars in Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Libya, Palestine, Kashmir, Afghanistan, Iraq, Kurdistan, Myanmar, and other wars are being prosecuted and fed with weapons, bodies and money, even as COVID continues to wreak havoc on billions of people, and as the very real concerns of Climate Change remain to be faced up to speaks to an urgent need for honesty, unrelenting honesty across all our countries political, cultural and economic domains.

This video presents a short review of the most recent report of the IPCC.

"Can we survive the coming decades? Given the state of global affairs today, that's probably a question many people are asking themselves right now. The IPCC has just published their answer, at least from a climate point of view. And they pull no punches. We're almost out of time, they say, and we need immediate global geopolitical cooperation to succeed. Oh dear!"

Oh dear, indeed. I made a video back in 2005, entitled T(ypo)Error suggesting the the most critical issue facing us was Global Warring, in that unless we cease war as a tool of foreign policy of the great powers, we will never be capable of the global co-operation necessary to meet the challenges of Climate Change.

I was not wrong then, I am not wrong now. We have work to do, our children's lives depend upon us doing this work, with all due diligence and as much energy and creativity as we can muster. The Militarists are screwing us all. 

Honestly...

So I wrote this letter, and sent it out to various news media in Ireland and the UK. I do not expect this one to be published, I may write a more muted version, to see if that might be published. I do feel I am swimming against the flow of the current Western news narratives, barely treading water.

------
Dear Editor
When will we, the ordinary people who work, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, relatives and neighbours who pay taxes and who vote, and generally live decently and peaceably, finally vote to put an end to the practice of our States employing poor working class boys and girls, training them to point guns at other States poor working class boys and girls, to shoot to kill, to efficiently direct artillery fire upon 'enemy' taking cover in homes, offices and factory's of fled civilian populations?
When will we say "Enough, already!  No more war?"
When will the working class of Earth unite across borders, languages, faiths and flags and vote for a polity of collaboration and mutual aid instead of repeatedly voting for this atrocity generating competing militarised industrialised profiteering hegemony seeking  powers psychopathy?
There is no way that we will be in a position to handle climate change and it's attendant problems in ways to minimise harms to our peoples to a bare minimum until we rid ourselves of the military industrial psychosis, and that's blatantly obvious.
My heart is torn by each and every war, by every bomb and bullet and every purchase order for more weapons.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.

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All the militarists are culpable for all the war : Enough, already! Among them there are no good guys.

All the militarists are culpable for all the war : Enough, already!

Among them there are no good guys.

We adults, every last one of us, no exception, have a first duty of care to all the children, to all of them, everywhere, in every condition. This duty of care is more important than any flag, than who rules or who governs and ought to the central foundation of good governance.

This is a collective, species level responsibility.

It is blatantly clear to me that all the militarists are culpable for all the war that has unfolded and is unfolding right in front of us. It is clear to me that taking sides within the militarists domain is foolish, and only feeds the fires of violence which consumes children, their parents, their communities, turning their lives and lands and work to ash.

Cameron, touting himself as 'tough enough', took £10 million Greensill Fraud cash.

He said he would push that button, make that decision. So too did Theresa May, as a first strike option. Putin threatens to use Nuclear Weapons.

Jeremy Corbyn rejected that option out of hand.

Corbyn had, and always has had, and always will have our children's best interests in mind. Corbyn is not a militarist.

The others never have, and never will.

Militarists hate all our children. They must do.

Russia is invading Ukraine,  Saudi Arabia is bombing Yemen, USA is bombing Somalia, USA embargos Cuba, USA and UK wage war in a number of places, the global weapons industry is worth trillions of dollars. Millions of people are fleeing and have fled their homes, their warm beds, their gardens, their shops and businesses.

They feed off our taxes, robbing us of what we need. Austerity, indeed!

The White Feathers.

There are people who have accused me of being a Putin propagandist, an Assad apologist, and a supporter of The Taliban, because I oppose US and UK Militarism.

There are people who have accused me of being a coward because I say enrolling civilians in organised violence aka 'resistance' does not improve matters and will not make them more free. Have they looked at any city where street by street warfare has taken place? Can they say that destruction brought freedom or peace?

It was women in Northern Ireland who brought peace and more freedom from oppression, not men with guns. In the midst of violence. Even as it was happening all around them. Men with guns make everything worse, every time.

So those who are egging on the heroics of Ukrainian men, they are all causing more violence, not less.

They are operating on belief and hubris, they are not in touch with reality at all, and they dare not call out the militarism for what it is - cruelty institutionalised for profit and power. 

Neutral Ireland?

Even in my own home country, neutral Ireland, the political leadership is talking of increasing their military budget, investing in jet fights and modern war ships! 
These feckers are idiots. Morons! What possible use of more military in Ireland is going to improve life for Irish people! How will more Military expenditure help with climate change adaptation, dealing with pollution, poverty, the housing crisis or any other serious human social or environmental problem we face?
Every Minister of Defence that enables taxes to be spent on military training, hardware and facilities is culpable.

Every Government that does not have an active and effective Ministry of Peace which operates as a Ministry of Prevention of Violence, Conflict Resolution and de-Escalation is failing in it's duty of care.
The competing militarised powers system is culpable, fully, for every war that ever occurs.
The competing militarised powers system is a choice, there is nothing innate, inevitable about it. It is entirely avoidable.

The competing militarised powers system is psychopathy institutionalised.

We adults have a first duty of care to all our children, even before our countries.
Not just our own children, but to all children, everywhere.
There are 6.5 million children under the age of 15 living in Ukraine, 15% of the population. In Iraq 2003-2006 1/3rd of all violent deaths were of children under the age of 15.
We adults, every last one of us, no exception, have a first duty of care to all the children, all of them, everywhere. This is a collective, species level responsibility.
I think that any adult who fails to see this is in my view, psychologically dysfunctional, and biologically immature. I think this bully cult does everything it possibly can to ensure most of us are biologically immature, at a level that poses a threat to us as a species.

There, I've said it.

Do you get me?

There's a significant sector of the adult world that is failing all our children. The War Makers and Wealth Extractors and their operatives are the most powerful among that significant cohort of the human population. Their choices impact the lives of billions of people, out of all proportion to their value, or worth.

A cooperating industrialised peoples system has always been possible.
Clean industry has always been possible. It's a matter of choice that it remains toxic.
Abolishing poverty has always been possible. It's a matter of choice that poverty persists, a choice made by the Wealth Extractor class.
Ending Racism and Misogyny has always been possible. It's a matter of choice that our schools, news media and entertainment industry fail to explain the historical origins of both of these corrosive bigotries.
The existence of all of these to the degree we see before us is a matter of choice.
The choice made by those who hold the most power is the most important choice of all as the power disparity built into hierarchy systems  means that the choice of a few people has immense impact on the lives of tens, hundreds and thousands of millions of people.
Bullies in power can bully millions of people. Putin, Bush, Cameron, Johnson. Our bullies are good bullies.
This is a bully cult.
This has to be the first call in discussing Ukraine, Yemen, COVID, Climate Change, Pollution, Poverty.
Name the situation as it really is.
Call it out.

"There is no point talking about the problem, unless you talk about the solution." Betty Williams - Betty Williams was a Northern Irish Peace Activist whose work helped bring the violence there to an end. Violence is not a solution, it is always a reactionary stance. Revenge is not a solution.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.

https://patreon.com/corneilius - donations gratefully received

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Now is the most important time to talk seriously about achieving Peace.

We adults have a first duty of care to all our children, even before our countries.

Not just our own children, but to all children, everywhere.

There are 6.5 million children under the age of 15 living in Ukraine, 15% of the population. In Iraq 2003-2006 1/3rd of all violent deaths were of children under the age of 15.

We adults, every last one of us, no exception, have a first duty of care to all the children, all of them, everywhere. This is a collective, species level responsibility.

I think that any adult who fails to see this is perhaps a little immature. There, I've said it. Do you get me? There's a significant sector of the adult world that is failing all our children. The War Makers and Wealth Extractors and their operatives.

Now is even more important a time to talk about what it will take to achieve peace, rather than escalating a war. 

Which is what the Ukrainian and the Russian Governments, the EU and the News Media all appear to be doing right now. Talking up escalation. Send in more weapons, send in more fighters. No-fly zones and Nuclear Options. War, war, war! More war! Viaggro?
Insanity Reigns.
I am really, really upset. I am angry, sad, disgusted and pissed off, I detest the war makers. I know the Laws that prohibit war, I familiarised myself with them after the invasion of Iraq, in 2003, and the Russian invasion is clearly a War Crime, and therefore Russia must be opposed, no question. Russia has no case. It's a dreadful thing, that the Russians continue to advance into Ukraine. I do not know what can be do to impede that advance, and of course Ukraine has the right to defend herself, under the same legal domain that prohibits wars of aggression.

What appals me is that there are no serious level headed discussions on how to achieve Peace outside Ukraine. The talk of more war seems to me to be adding fuel to the fire. 

No discussions on calling for Peace can be heard on on our News Channels, I do not hear them in our Legislatures, nor are there prayers for Peace in our Churches and Temples, or if there are such discussions and prayers then I am not aware of them.

If there are such calls, they are not getting the air time they deserve, they are not being heard on an equal footing, for 'balance'.

I know they should be happening, I wish to contribute to them. That is why I write this blog and perform my music. I want a world living without warfare, living in peace and living in a humane mutually nurturant dynamic.

However, this past week I mostly hear breathless, excited discussions about how to win wars, be it civilians with Molotov Cocktails, the numbers and types of weapons to be supplied to defend Ukraine, or the sanctions necessary to cripple the Russian aggressors economy, or the aspirations of budding foreign fighters rushing to the so called International Brigade.

What about the children?

I understand those discussions about more war, self defence, defending a smaller country, defending democracy - I get it all. And whilst I support the sanctions, of course, I know that probably the majority of Russian civilians do not support the war, and that sanctions may well have an adverse impact upon their welfare, as the sanctions are aimed at those people, to nudge them to do something about their ruling class, and so I try to keep that in mind too. 

When the warmakers reduce the thing to leaders, Assad, Putin, Blair, Mao, Stalin it obscures the reality of ordinary people trapped by circumstance of birth.

Ordinary people, on all sides, always pay the price. Dresden and Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Fallujah, Homs, Allepo, Gaza.

How can we avoid or prevent that dynamic?

For that reason I oppose escalating the war, I do not want to see thousands upon thousands of civilians murdered in war, I do not want to see cities and towns destroyed and left empty save for fighters and soldiers, tanks and artillery and rotting corpses.

We adults have a first duty of care to all our children, even before our countries.

An Irishman recites a poem 'The Box' by Abercrombie Lascalles, an English Poet.  Stop for a moment, and listen to this and feel the need for peace. Then read on.

My perspective, where my heart lives.

Even as war is underway, it is more important than ever to look to how we can achieve peace. Nobody 'wins' in war, some people survive, that's all that really happens, especially when we have a culture where warfare is accepted as a tool of foreign policy of 'great powers', and is also a business model.

Scilla Esleworthy is someone who understands this need, having worked in conflict zones for many decades, helping to de-escalate conflict, helping people to find routes towards achievable peace. This is a Ted Talk that Scilla presented that is absolutely on point and entirely pertinent right now. 


The propaganda for more war.

During WWI, before conscription, English women were groomed to hand out White Feathers to those who openly objected to fighting in the Oligarchs war. Those objectors were the among the most honest, courageous citizens of all. Also the most sensible. Refugees who flee before the bombs destroy their homes and villages are being wise, and often it is those who can afford to flee who do. The poor tend to wait until they have no other choice. Another layer of inequity, one that is rarely discussed.

True civilian courage
The most brave thing I have seen yet is villagers out in front of a Russian Military Convoy, blocking the road, talking to the troops, urging them to turn around, to go home.

Chernihiv region, citizens are blocking the roads with their own bodies, they have stopped a Russian advance.#RussiaUkraineWar#Ukraine#StopWarInUkraine
#Kyiv pic.twitter.com/CUgB13labg

— PrayForUkraine.live | Donate Now In Crypto (@PrayforukraineC) March 1, 2022

That right there is true humane courage, a community united and at peace even in the face of an immense threat, and that is part of the start, on the ground, of working for peace, human to human. I hope they are successful, and that the convoy turns around, and leaves. I wish Levenskyy had the same grit and determination. He appears to be urging a fight without making the effort to sue for peace. Did he speak to the children of Ukraine, and is he speaking for them?

Workers on strike?

The Russian soldiers ought to go on strike, knowing their leaders have forced them into committing a war crime, and their legal duty is to resist that, to object and refuse to follow the order to commit that crime. They should be given that option.
The refusal of our political class to discuss how to achieve Peace, especially at a time of war, is venal avarice and cowardice. The apparent rejection by our news media to float a serious discussion on how to achieve Peace is cowardice. 

Because they are not willing to challenge the Military Industrial Complex, the war profiteering Oligarchy, and they are not willing to confront the Fossil Fuel Industry and they are not willing to blow open the world of Epstein and sex trafficking for the Powerful. Cowards.

Obviously, the Russian invasion is a War Crime.

Invasion is An act of Aggression, which is the supreme war crime, in that it contains all other war crimes. All war crimes flow from that act of aggression.

There are a number of laws prohibiting war fare, international treaties and national legislation. The existence of these Laws is not routinely a matter of concern in out Schools and news media.

Applying the Law, equitably to achieve and sustain Peace.
Putting Putin, Blair, Bush, Cameron, Assad, the Saudi King, the Myanmar Leaders and all War Profiteers and others in the dock at The Hague is the only way to prevent further war mongering. We must hold those who initiate and prosecute war to account.

We must understand that even those defending their country will inevitably commit war crimes.  Indeed, in this instance War Crimes have been committed in and around the Donbas region for the past 8 years by Ukrainians on both 'sides' of that war, as well as by Russian forces.
Are we, the working people, seriously for Peace, or are we for allowing more War?
We are all of us in this together and everything is connected. That is the nature of living on a finite planet, sharing a common biosphere.
Watching young English men react to the dominant News narrative, and seeing videos of breathless packing and viral tiktoks of their journeys to rush off to fight for Ukraine, without the skills or training, when Ukraine has a standing army of 240k, trained reserves of 220k, the 4th largest weapons export industry in Europe, and I see the impact of propaganda on all sides.  
Those boys will be getting in the way of Ukrainians trying to defend their country in war fare, and they will be undermining those in Ukraine who are seeking to stop the war making, because it's quite clear they want to go to war.
No Peace. Just more grooming.
Russian invasion IS a War Crime - no question.
Ukraine has the right of self defence under current international Law - no question.

Hypocrisy undermines Peace.
That right, of self defence, is not afforded equally to everyone, is it?
Libya, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Vietnam, Korea, Congo, All Egalitarian Cultures.

That hypocrisy is part of the problem, and the hypocrisy blocks progress towards peace everywhere.

Toxic Bully Cult
The competing industrialised militarised powers dynamic is an anti-worker, anti-family, anti-children, anti-social anti-egalitarian bully cult. 

The entire competing militarised industrialised powers dynamic is cruelty and psychopathy institutionalised, and it is workers taxes that fund war, and it is workers who die fighting and it is workers and their families who are obliterated as 'collateral damage'. 
It is cowardice, avarice, stupidity and myopia that enrols people, pundits and writers in our News Media services, social online platforms and in our legislatures into supporting warfare - it is not bravery, it is not honour, it is most certainly not humane decency. 
The weak dare not confront the Bully Culture. 
It is too frightening a proposition for them, it is more comfortable to go along with the Bully Cult, take the war mongers silver, keep one's head down or take the war mongers gold and promote the war mongers vile propaganda.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

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You Probably did not f&^k it up! Do not be deterred, become an unf&*ker!

What if millions Ukrainians had flower power, on camera, on tiktok,  youtube,  facebook, live streaming, 24/7..

Would it be more effective than Molotov Cocktails?

Who had the first nukes? The Yankee Oligarchy.

HMS Vigilant - Trident Delivery System - Submissive Great Britain

Who used them on civilians? The Yankee Oligarchy.
Was that a demonstration? yes.
Of what? Yankee Oligarchy Militarised power and brutality, and their willingness to flex it.

The shadow of her former self : Hiroshima
Aimed at whom? The World. "We're the new bosses. Nice country you've got there, be a shame if anything were to happen to it!"
Which Allies in WWII were declared enemies within 6 months of Japan's surrender? China and USSR, Dirty communists!
Who needed a deterrent? China and USSR? Dirty, dirty communists!
So much for deterrents.
It is the one who picks up a weapon after the other has brandished it first who picks up a deterrent.
Who spread the nukes the most?
Africa and South America have no nukes.
The Arab world has no nukes.
Persians have no nukes.
Nukes and White Supremacy are a thing.
The entire industrialised militarised competing powers dynamic is psychopathy institutionalised and there are no good guys in that game.

None. JFK was not a good guy,
And only when the vast majority of us decent loving, hard working family loving folk - the 99% - understand and acknowledge the salient fact that militarism is psychopathy institutionalised, that it is run as a business model, and that it places us all at risk, all the time it persists will there be the beginnings of a real peace.

Just look at the wat the wars of Ukraine, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea have afflicted us ordinary people - and ask is it now time that we decide to unite in solidarity to dismantle this toxic, lethal war lord system, via legislatures we fund, which we must occupy through effective political and economic engagement where we pursue the demands of a peace robust enough to support our adaptation for climate change, environmental repair, the cleaning up of pollution and the abolition of poverty,  and all other problems that are coming our way.
We have 50 years.
We have a lot of work to do.
A lot of us will not see the completion, but that ought not stop us from getting on with it.
Fatalism will not move our work forwards.
Taking on the Bully Cult is profoundly challenging:

It is really scary for anyone to look hard at Putin, Biden, Murdoch, Johnson et al and see them as they really are, without blinkers. That's pretty scary on a number of levels. They have weapons and a budget.

We have :

- the horror (full realisation)- the grief (loss of innocence)- the fear (personally at risk)- the impact of knowing meaning one must take action (response ability)- loneliness (because we are so atomised culturally)- the rage (why me?)- the despair (this is hopeless)

,,, and our willingness to go through all of that, and work with a determination and organisation that matches and exceeds that of the bullies.

Because it is really, really badly fucked up and will need that level of organised commitment.



Do you want to be an unfucker?

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.

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Fight Club? Militarism is a pox upon the Earth.

Mairead Corrigan did more for freedom from oppression in 25 years than the IRA did in it's entire history.

Taking on the Bully Cult is profoundly challenging:

it’s really scary for anyone to look and see what is there, without blinkers, on a number of levels:

- the horror (full realisation)

- the grief (loss of innocence)

- the fear (personally at risk)

- the impact of knowing means one must take action (response ability)

- loneliness (because we are so atomised culturally)

- the selfish rage (why me?)

- the despair (this is hopeless)

Russian military action in Ukraine is a war crime. Blatantly. Set aside the history, the many dynamics that lead up to this shituation.  The Act of Aggression is the supreme war crime, in that it includes all other possible crimes of war, for they are derived from that one act.

At the same time, as I sit here, in total safety, in London watching news reports of Western Media as reporters breathlessly, excitedly chatting shit, broadcasting 'live' from the scene, not from the battle field itself, but at a safe distance, viewing those reports gives me the chills. 

‘Glory to Ukraine’: Civilians take up weapons in the battle for Kyiv screams the Daily Telegraph in England
Guns handed out from the back of rubbish lorries as grassroots resistance to the war started by Russia's Vladimir Putin begins.

18,000 rifles and magazines, for a city of 2,962,180 souls.

How long will those magazines last, how many of those men and women will survive their first encounter with a professional army trained in city fighting? Who thought this a good idea?

It's not glory, it is gore.

Russian forces should not be in Ukraine, they are illegal, amoral and wrong on every level. No question. 

Reporters from a wide range of international News Services, wearing helmets and flak jackets, talking to Ukrainians, sticking microphones into their faces, asking them if they will pick up weapons and fight gives me the chills.

When the war arrives to that city, those reporters will quickly leave. When the long fight, the attrition continues, they will be long gone.

Reading that Ukrainian border guards are stopping all fighting age men from leaving, pulling them out of cars and groups fleeing west, towards Europe, as refugees and thinking what of their partners, their children, their grandparents, their freedom, their human rights? I think they have every right to flee, to not get involved in violence they did nothing to instigate, other than be born there. I am appalled. 

Ukraine and Russia both have large contingents of conscripts already. That is a most fundamental breach of Human Rights. Israel has a similar mandatory service policy. Conscription is inhumane, and a pox upon the people.

A question?

I ask myself - would this breathless reporting and questioning, this encouragement of citizens to take up arms in news reports have been happening in Afghanistan, in 2002, or in Iraq, 2003, or in Yemen, 2011, or in  Libya, 2019 or in Syria, 2012 where sovereign states were being attacked by foreign militia, foreign mechanised military and foreign air forces? Would the worlds media have been so excitedly egging those citizens on?

Imagine a BBC reporter asking an Iraqi citizen in March 2003 - "Hamed, habibi, will you and your sons be taking up weapons to defend your country?"
And what is the result of untrained citizens taking up weapons?
How much more bloodshed is caused?
Who pours money and weapons and logistics into wars to extend them?

Who profiteers?
We are going to war, pay your taxes!

Since 1900, there has only been a single year without a British operational military casualty. This is a chronology of Britain's military interventions since 1945. Know your enemy. They may be closer than you think.
Source material: http://www.britains-smallwars.com

Who loses, and what do they lose?
Nobody wins a war, people survive, mostly due to luck.

And what is life like for the survivors?
And why is militarism still a thing in the 21st Century?
And is it so amongst ordinary citizens who really ought to know better partly because war movies are carefully presented as entertaining, beguiling lies that glorify 'good' violence, that mix extreme violence with sex and love and patriotism, and manipulative emotional hook lines, but leave out the stench of death, the smells of piss, shit, puke, blood, decaying gore, gunpowder and old burned out buildings?

My first rule of 'Fight Club' is everyone in Fight Club is stupid - that's why they don't want to talk about it, honestly. They do like to brag about it, amongst themselves.

Militarism is a pox, a blight, an inhumane machine, a  gross psychopathy institutionalised. Funded by our taxes. The very origin of income tax was to fund a war.
What do we all lose, in every war?
What have we ever gained?
Russia is not Putin, and Putin is not working on his own. Neither is England Blair, and Blair was not working on his own. Neither is Assad Syria, nor was he working on his own. America is not George Bush and Dick Cheny, and they were not working on their own.
From the safety of these islands, the British Empire wrought war, harm and vengeance across this beautiful Earth in pursuit of Wealth Extraction.
Are we not sick of this?
I am. I am appalled. 
Russian warfare against Ukraine must be stopped. 
All warfare must be stopped.
Otherwise it's going to continue. 

And of course there's the ever present threat of Nuclear War. 

Ira Helfand, MD is co-President of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize. As co-Founder and Past President of Physicians for Social Responsibility, IPPNW’s US affiliate, he knows terrible truths about nuclear war. 

Ira uncovers the threat to human survival posed by nuclear weapons and what we can do to eliminate this threat. Dangers of nuclear war exist as an existential threat to humanity. There's circa 15,000 Nuclear Nuclear War Heads owned by nine States.





Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.

https://patreon.com/corneilius - donations gratefully received

https://www.reverbnation.com/corneilius - .mp3 songs

https://www.soundcloud.com/coreluminous - .wav Songs

https://www.corneilius.net - Archive

#folkmusic
#singersongwriter
#blogger
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