Sometimes the irony is too much, so vast it’s hard to describe. But I’ll try.
During the Scottish leadership debate on Thursday, the SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon made it clear that a ‘red line’ issue for her party would be the renewal of the Trident nuclear submarine fleet, which would cost up to £100 billion. A day later the Tory defence secretary Michael Fallon said “Ed Miliband stabbed his own brother in the back to become Labour leader. Now he is willing to stab the United Kingdom in the back to become prime minister”. Fallon says that the Tories, if elected, would renew the Trident nuclear missile programme, whereas Labour, dependent on the votes of SNP MPs, would not.
Where to start? Well, there’s an irony of sorts in Sturgeon’s statement, in that it appears to about methods of training and arming young men to kill other people, rather than whether training and arming young men to do such a thing isn’t morally reprehensible. People who’ve posted comments on this site in recent days have placed great store by whether we should say Jean McConville was killed or murdered. Call this training what you will, the reality is that it prepares killers.
But then we move to the accusations against Miliband. The British press and general public , it seems, feel that Fallon’s remark was insulting and personal, and that bringing the brothers’ relationship into the equation was contemptible. Maybe it was. But isn’t there something far more contemptible, far more monstrous in the exchange? Fallon is accusing Miliband of not being prepared to spend billions to ‘defend’ Britain with nuclear weapons. Miliband is anxious to show he is prepared to do so. The failure point is seen as being anything other than a solid determination to spend the money and build bigger and better weapons of mass destruction.
Back in the 1940s, two atomic bombs were dropped in Japan, killing somewhere around 250,00 civilians. Big numbers, hard to conceive of. So maybe think of the Omagh bomb going off every day of the week, every week of the month, every month of the year, for two full years. That was August 1945 in Japan. You may be sure that the present nuclear missiles are capable of wiping out a great deal more people than they were seventy years ago.
These weapons are justified on the grounds of being a deterrent – we won’t use them but having them will stop any ‘rogue states’ from using theirs. Right. So consider the situation: one such ‘rogue state’ has sent nuclear missiles towards Britain. They will results in hundreds of thousands, more likely millions of British people dying. So does the British command, faced with unavoidable destruction, press their red button before the enemy’s missiles arrive, thus ensuring that the slaughter is at least doubled?
The point that is always made about Jean McConville (but not Joan Connolly) is that she was an innocent woman cruelly done to death. If that is so, what then do we say about the eagerness to build weapons that will threaten to kill tens of thousands, maybe millions of Jean McConvilles? And which would be only part of a wider theatre of nuclear war, that very conceivably could make the earth one mass grave?
But none of that’s worrying Fallon or Miliband. The thing that’s upset them is the suggestion that Miliband might back down and not spend £100 billion to create weapons that, if used, might well eliminate mankind. Faced with that kind of thinking, morality hides its face and rushes weeping from the room.
Bowlers, brollies and bugs
Red lines and red faces are not new. Today, Radio 4 featured a programme about Peter Wright’s book , Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer (1987) and the fact that the British government spent in the region of £3 million pounds in an effort to ban the book. Personal comments made about Mr Miliband is evidence, if evidence is needed to confirm that the dirty tricks brigade is alive and well in the corridors of power.
‘Spycatcher’ features assassination plots, a plot against Harold Wilson who was accused of being a KGB agent and MI5’s role eavesdropping at various international conferences. Wright boasted of breaking into private property and planting listening devices in various parts of the ‘empire.’ Wright shone a light on the techniques of an intelligence service devoid of ethics or scruples with an eleventh commandment, thou shalt not get caught.
The need to resort to personal attacks on political opponents indicates one thing. The men in the suits have been shaken and stirred.
Does my bomb look big in this?
Don’t be nagging me ’bout Nagasaki
Focus on slagging off Provie Packie
Joan, Jean or Japan
Bias is your only man
A-bomb, a bomb, khaki and/or Iraqi.
The Mighty Perk nails it in rhyme ….
It’s funny isn’t it that the atomic bombs used in Japan were to stop the war…. dead in its tracks .A “statement mass-death”, so that lots more Americans would not be needed to continue with the killing for another few years.. Stop the war in its tracks ! That’s the ticket. You might argue that the incineration of thousands of ordinary citizens just trying to get by …saved the lives of the ones that didn’t have to go to war after this awful act.The fact that the dead were just ordinary Japanese citizens didn’t seem to matter at all.They were expendable .
It makes you wonder doesn’t it ? Killing is all right dependant on context. You can make it legal anytime you want to tweak a little political power. Harry Truman authorised the dropping of “Little Boy” on Hiroshima followed by “Fat Man ” three days later in 1945. It is what the military like to call “Shock and Awe”. Only a military mind would give nicknames to their bloody weapons … like little mascots and play a game like that with peoples’ lives. I suppose they called it justifiable killing and not murder at all…just like Thatcher did when sinking the Belgrano during her Falklands debacle . Hundreds , thousands or even millions can be killed without a bit of bother by Bible- loving Christians like Thatcher, as long as it suits their political or economic agenda.When it doesn’t suit their agenda or someone else is doing it , they’ll call it murder every time. What did she say?…murder…is murder …is murder!!!…Now we all know for sure .She said it three times.But it’s something that everyone else does ….not her!!!
where have we heard this kind of thing recently?…Remind me .
Glad you liked, Paddykool. Cuis athais dom gur reitigh an rim leat.
Don’t know if you’ve been to Nagazaki but what caught Perkie’s inner peregrinator by surprise while on a visit there was the loveliness of its location.
This is a quality it shares with Hiroshima. But of course,it is not their scenic qualities that has put both cities on the map.
And the loveliest location in Nagasaki is the Glover Garden on the slopes of Minamiyamate Hill overlooking the bay. Also known as Madame Butterfly Garden as this is where the opera is set. Two statues stand there, of Puccini and the diva Muira Tamaki who made the role of Cio-Cio-san her own..
The most celebrated melody from the opera, and possibly the melody most folk associate with Japan, is its heavenly humming chorus. Which famously has no words and which is ironic when taken in tandem with Japan’s most influential export – the karaoke.
The ’empty orchestra’ (karaoke) is all about supplying the lyrics on a video screen for folk like Perkie who are of a senior, momentous disposition. One of those who, in the sere and yellow, spend much of their waking hours humming, once they get beyond the first line and lunge into forgetfulness.
For the humming chorus from Madame Butterfly to feature on a karaoke screen would, in all probability, merit a distinguished place beside Beckett’s ‘sound of one hand clapping’.
But, then Japan is Paradox Central. The Japanese more than most people combine the butterfly and the caterpillar in their make up. What other folk stand patiently for the wee pedestrian man to turn green even though there is no moving moto car within a mile, ether side. Certainly not the Green Men of Ireland.
Polite, but pitiless too. The opposite side of the Nagazaki coin is the killing field of Nanjing in China.
Could be that the most renowned contemporary quote to feature the end product of a caterpillar is that, ironically enough, by America’s supreme poet/warrior, Muhammad Ali: ‘float like a butterfly, sting like a bee’.
If things were different the number one invitee from overseas and guest of honour for the Divo from Mayo during the Easter Centenary in 2016 would be the former caterpillar Cassius Clay who later blossomed into Muhammad Butterfly.
For he, more than most, would have identified with the poet/warriors in the GPO. They, like he, had ‘no argument with them Germans’ and he, like them, refused to don the donkey jacket.
The Divo from Mayo (despite his uncanny ability to hit the high c’s in one of his hissy fits in the House during Prime Ministerial questions) is in no way to be confused with the Diva from Mayo. That, of course, was Margaret Burke-Sheridan (aka Maggie from Mayo) who held Giacomo Puccini , e fein, spellbound during her performance as Madame Butterfly in La Scala.
Soyonara !
…and all that pour little moi….Many thanks Mighty Perk.I’ll arrange to have it carved into my funeral urn , y ‘boyo !! Oh ….sweet nothings…just hum along ….
If they’re not used then the Brits have just spent £100 Billion, think about that, ONE HUNDRED BILLION POUNDS, on submarines, etc doing….nothing? If they ARE used by the Brits then the clean up bill (that’s if humanity even exists after a nuclear fall out) would be far more than £100 billion and the amount of humans killed by the fall out would run into the tens of millions, that’s not to mention injured survivors, those people left ill (including the unborn) from radiation, environmental damage, etc.
I understand nuclear weapons are a deterrent to rogue states but I don’t see why the likes of Britain should have them? Its not as if Britain is a great world power it use to be (though the Brits still like to pretend they are). Surely Britain’s allies such as the USA and France having nuclear weapons is a deterrent enough to keep rogue states and other nations from using them? Or is this just one big 100 Billion pound vanity project on the part of the Brits? While their hospitals, schools, public services, etc are facing massive cuts and their own people are being screwed so hard into poverty they depend on food banks, the British Government wants to play and act important amongst the “Big Boys” at the next World leaders meeting? Whatever their reasons the Brits should just wise up and scrap the nuclear programme.
Wouldn’t it be brilliant if scientists put just as much effort into making technologies that HELP people/environment instead of killing them? Or just point blank refuse to let politicians/terrorists/criminals from whatever country use their knowledge and genius for ill moral purposes, like using nuclear weapons? But I guess I just have to get real, scientists are human too…..
PS: As I mentioned before I take college courses, part time, every year. Last year I did a Physics course which I thoroughly enjoyed. One big aspect of the course was Nuclear physics and I have to say it is a brilliant subject and will be reading more into it and recommend it to others. Nuclear power/radiation/etc isn’t just something associated with nuclear weapons and power plants, its used almost everywhere from hospitals to cleaning your food to measuring oil transfer in pipes. Its a great subject.
lolar’s mention of the ‘Spycatcher’ book takes me back a few years. At that time, i was working for WH Smiths over in the UK – and a particular store i worked at (one of a few, as i ‘worked my way up the ladder’), had the book stockpiled, awaiting the news as to whether we could put it on the shelves – or have to send them all back to the Distribution Centre (and then to where they, and all the other stores stocks, would be pulped, if the Case had been lost). The Store Manager, knowing my interest in such literary matters, let me take a copy home.
Thinking about it now, i remember being shocked and surprised at some of the ‘revelations’ within – but not to a point where i could fathom why there was such a fight to have it banned. Then again, it did unearth and shine a light on the murky goings-on of MI5 et al – And i do remember it was Thatcher who was leading the charge for its banning.
And as you mention, paddykool, as regards her “murder, murder, murder” quote – here was a person, who was prepared to start a war over a piece of rock thousands of miles away – that barely anyone had heard of before. Order the sinking of a Warship that was sailing away from the conflict – all in order to win an upcoming General Election, that had very strong signs of her losing. Now that really is ‘Murder’ – of the highest degree.
– Once again, i’ll urge you to read ‘Establishment’ by Owen Jones. – The revelations in there are even more jaw-dropping than in ‘Spycatcher’ – and a sign of how much he is despised in some quarters can be found if you watch any of his videos on YouTube – and see the death-threats listed underneath (one i watched recently – the first comment was as such, and when i clicked on the ‘user-icon’ of this very disgruntled ‘person’ (to say the least)..”Watch your back, it’s going to get a knife in it when you least expect it” – kind of thing – it took me to the user’s ‘page’ – full of pro-Hitler/Nazi etc videos he’d ‘saved’ or watched. The short video that Owen Jones had posted, as far as i remember, was simply about affordable housing!
As regards Fallon’s remark – i very much see the work of the Tories ‘Strategist’ at play. The Australian, Lynton Crosbie – who will use any dirty trick / smear etc over the next month – considering that they thought they’d be well ahead in the polls by this point – plus, the general public are finally beginning to ‘warm’ to Ed – and as i see it, and friends ‘back home’ tell me, are growing very distrustful of Cameron and The Tories.
PS – Speaking of the ‘Nuclear Deterrent’ – four submarines is one thing – but why does Israel ‘need’ over 100 Active Warheads? – They may well be disliked in a few quarters – but that really, really is ‘Overkill’ – made all the more worrying by the re-election of ‘Nutty-yahoo’