Jeremy and the mad people

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Abe Lee Birham is a man who is obviously capable of detached judgement about himself: “I know personally that I have blood on my hands. All of us who made them have blood on our hands”. The ‘them’ he refers to is the bullets he and his co-workers make in a factory in Winchester, Mississippi.

Birham probably doesn’t know it, but there is a direct link between his self-judgement and the British House of Commons. Because today, Britain’s MPs will vote on whether to renew the Trident nuclear submarine programme. There is some dispute over how much this programme will cost but most would accept that it starts at around £30 billion and goes up from there.

However, the cost is not the issue. It is what is being created. Abe Lee Birham feels uneasy because he knows that some of the bullets he makes are used in murders. Were he one of the workers involved in the Trident nuclear programme, he would know – or should know – that these weapons, if used, are certain to be used in the killing of innocent people. Not individuals, not thousands of people, but hundreds of thousands of people.

And yet, in the twisted logic of some people, there are things that trump the horrors of these weapons. Opponents of Jeremy Corbyn within the Labour Party argue loudly that the Trident nuclear programme must be maintained because thousands of jobs depend on it. They probably do; but shouldn’t those workers be feeling the guilt of Abe Lee Birham multiplied by hundreds of thousands? As for those who say that Jeremy Corbyn is unfit to be British Prime Minister because he would not push the nuclear button, let’s try rephrasing that. Jeremy Corbyn is unfit to be British Prime Minister because he will not authorize the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.

What kind of crazy world do we live in when pundits condemn the person who refuses to be complicit in mass murder on a vast scale and laud the man or woman who says “I’ll kill them!”?

They say people get the government they deserve. Today in the House of Commons they’ve got a group of people who will vote for mass slaughter – and justify themselves for so doing on the grounds that nuclear weapons-creation provides employment and Britain would be left defenceless without it.

Let me leave you with a cartoon that appeared in The New Yorker about forty years ago. It shows a glum-looking caveman, with his wife and family, crouched beneath a massive flat rock which is held in place by a thick stick. The cavemen has a piece of rope tied round the stick and he’s saying to a Stone-Age reporter: “If anybody tries to come in here, I pull the rope”.

Today in the House of Commons, Jeremy Corbyn will vote against Trident and display yet again that he is one of the small number of sane people in the debating chamber.

19 Responses to Jeremy and the mad people

  1. James hunter July 18, 2016 at 9:16 am #

    Sad story jude

    • Jude Collins July 18, 2016 at 10:19 am #

      Sad and mad and bad, Jim…

  2. Antaine de Brún July 18, 2016 at 9:18 am #

    According to an Oxfam report, the US, China, Japan, Germany, France and the UK, which together make up 56.6% of global GDP, between them host 2.1 million refugees: 8.9% of the world’s total.

    In contrast, approximately 12 million refugees live in Jordan, Turkey, Palestine, Pakistan, Lebanon and South Africa, despite the fact these places make up less than 2% of the world’s economy.

    Global trends indicate that more than 65 million people have left homes due to violence, war and human rights violations. Most of these (40.8 million) are displaced within their own country, with 21.3 million as refugees and 3.2 million awaiting asylum decisions in industrialised countries.

    Mr Corbyn’s war on austerity will not kill or maim anyone. Will a nuclear deterrent make the world a safer place for anyone?

  3. Perkin Warbeck July 18, 2016 at 9:21 am #

    How do the Yoons (including DUP, UUP, SDLP etc), Esteemed Blogmeister, plan to vote re the Trident? If in favour, perhaps a little historical reminder might well go amiss.

    Forget ye not the first sub aka Fenian Ram

    A Leprechaun-speaker and former Christian B
    Invented the boat designed for under the sea
    So, dear breds, be strident,
    At loggerheads with Trident
    Though Holland by name, claimed Orange was pee.

  4. fiosrach July 18, 2016 at 9:42 am #

    How come England feels under such threat that they need these weapons of mass destruction while most other countries don’t? Are they afraid of their past? Do they still think they are a world power? Do they feel they would be letting their American war mongering friends down? This is an imperialist blunt instrument, equivalent to their gunboats of yesteryear and if their was a referendum on Trident which way would it go? Would England strike back if England was attacked or would they rise to the plight of little catholic Belgium (or the likes) being attacked?

  5. truthrevisionist July 18, 2016 at 10:23 am #

    Blair slaughters millions – so they make him Middle East Peace Envoy.

    Obama starts more wars than any other President – so they give him The Nobel Peace Prize.

    Cameron f**ks a Dead Pigs’ head – so they make him Prime Minister.

    Merkel wrecks Europe with immigration, – so they give her The Charlemagne Prize.

    Netanyahu butchers 2500 Palestinian innocents while his ‘Chosen People’ sit with beer on a mountain top cheering – so they give him the Irving Kristol ‘Academia’ Award.

    Elie Wiesel, the holocaust fraud, liar and hypocrite, tells us:

    ‘Every Jew somewhere should set aside a zone of hate, – healthy virile hate, -for what the German, personifies and for what persists in the German’.

    So they give him the Nobel Peace Prize.

    The people walk upon their heads
    The sea is made of sand
    The children go to school by night
    In Topsy Turvey Land.
    ( H.E. Wilkinson )

  6. Ryan July 18, 2016 at 10:57 am #

    I think Abe Lee Birham is being a little too self critical. The reality is nations need bullets to defend themselves. They also need Tanks, Artillery, Aircraft, etc because believe it or not and this may come as a shock but the World isn’t a safe place. There’s nations/groups in the world that want to do other’s harm. The lunatic in Nice the other night mowing down men, women and children in a Lorry is proof of that. Other lunatics like George W Bush and his invasion of Iraq is another example too. Do you think Chinese workers, who are making bullets by the trillions, are having a self critical episode like Abe Lee Birham is? I doubt it.

    Some would argue that the presence of Nuclear weapons is what has stopped World War 3 or another major conflict comparable to WW2 from breaking out. I don’t fully see the logic of that argument really. I suppose they mean it in a sense that countries like China (and the USA) would definitely rather avoid a War rather than turn each other’s countries into nuclear deserts. I suppose they see Nuclear weapons as a way of threatening other nations without actually using them. I’ll let other’s make up their own minds on that argument.

    Nuclear weapons has only ever been used once, on Japan in 1945. Everyone has their opinion on whether that was the right thing to do or not. But one thing I agree 100% on and that is what US President Harry Truman said after he gave the go ahead to launch the attack on Japan: “Just thank God that these weapons are in our hands and not our enemies”.

    Lets think of it this way. If Japan had nuclear weapons in 1945 and the Allies didn’t, do you think Japan would have hesitated for a second in using them against the USA, UK and the other Allies? Do you think the Japanese military would have given thought to civilian causalities? Well judging by how they treated millions of Chinese and Korean civilians I doubt it very much. Do you think the Japanese public would have did even half the amount of complaining Western people have done due to the use of these weapons? Despite the fact these “wonder weapons” (As Adolf Hitler called them) maybe saved the West and saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers thanks to these weapons making the Japanese surrender. The Soviet Union was also cowed by the attack on Japan, for Stalin (as usual) seen an opportunity to launch his own invasion of Japan and hence bring it under Communist rule. It was the nuclear attack that made him think twice.

    We in the West often make the mistake in thinking that everybody is the same. That the country/tradition that a person comes from is irrelevant and that we’re all alike, we all think the same, we all want to get along and hold hands and sing John Lennon’s “Imagine”. That’s obviously nonsense. This may be hard to take but there’s people in this World that don’t care about the suffering of other’s. I don’t believe for a second that the Japanese people would have cared if their government launched a nuclear attack on the USA or any other state. Most Asian peoples do not think like Western people, especially in times of War. Was there outrage in Japan when it was revealed the Japanese Army kidnapped and raped millions of Chinese/Korean women and used them as sex slaves during WW2? Was there outrage at the beheadings of Allied/Chinese POW’s? Was there outrage at the numerous massacres of Chinese civilians by the Japanese Armies? No, the Japanese Government to this day still deny such events even happened, never mind apologize for it……

    No one likes War but it happens and if we don’t play the game then we’ll be the losers and we’d deserve to be.

    • truthrevisionist July 18, 2016 at 11:33 am #

      We have become so mesmerised by the ‘garbage’ illusion of peace and multiculturalism-

      That we pay our taxes to bring people here who hate us, and who want to kill us.

      Now that’s madness.

      • Jude Collins July 18, 2016 at 12:29 pm #

        And what about the people here who hate us and (in some cases) want to kill us? Your vision of jihadists set to slaughter us is just a wee bit paranoid, tr…

        • truthrevisionist July 18, 2016 at 1:17 pm #

          Seems to me Jude that your analysis lends even more credence, to my objections to the importation of more hatred.

          ‘Your vision of jihadists set to slaughter us is just a wee bit paranoid, tr’

          Tell that to the families of the ‘mangled bodies’ on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice last Thursday night.

          Or the French citizens who ‘jeered’ and ‘booed’ their elected leaders there today.

          Or the English citizens who will be next to feel the pain.

          Your middle class ‘armchair academia’ detachment from reality, is truly mind-boggling at times Jude – with great respect mate.

          • Jude Collins July 18, 2016 at 2:15 pm #

            Mmmm – I like your idea of respect, tr… Because I don’t share your thinking doesn’t mean I’m middle-class armchair academia – whatever that is. I’m assuming you’re sitting down when you type? Of course there are people in the West who’ve been attacked and killed. But I think (i) my chances (and yours) of not being attacked are a lot higher here than if we lived in the Yemen, Syria, Iraq; (ii) What do the Western powers expect will happen, if they bomb and exploit these countries? The retaliation may be indiscriminate and appalling, but it’s hardly surprising.

          • truthrevisionist July 18, 2016 at 4:38 pm #

            Let me structure it for you then Jude.

            Each time you place your X for SF on a ballot paper in the bankster controlled West, you become a participant in these ‘Democracy’ wars that ‘bomb and exploit these countries’ in your words.

            The same SF who use a ‘Killary’ Clinton fund raising dinner, as a backdrop for a hush meeting with Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein – the criminal CEO, chief financier of your ‘Western powers’ wars.
            And it matters not if SF say they disagree with his objectives.
            They are by ‘association and involvement’,- part and parcel of the whole rotten core of lies. Because he and his mates ‘own’ all of SFs’ and all the others’ decisions.
            Stormont, Dail, Westminster, Bundestag, Assemblee Nationale, Whitehouse etc.
            All the same bundle of crap !

            Get it yet?

            Now your vote, – no matter which ‘gangster’ murderer outfit, it eventually endorses, taints your innocence and pacifism. A bit like your ‘bullet ‘ analogy above.

            So your vote was as potent as the bullet. Or the F16. Or the white phosphorus bombs.

            You are entangled by your ignorance.

            But we are where we are.

            So do we continue on, with the planned agenda of mass immigration from Sub- Saharan Africa, from which we can only extrapolate, – will cause the cultural genocide of white christian Europe, the crash of public services and the dilution of the value of labour?

            Do we continue to pay taxes and vote for this psychotic self- immolation of our nation states, through a misguided altruism which is bankrupting ALL Euro economies.

            Or do we say, as the people of Europe are about to say – ‘Non’ !

            Watch and see as Europe disintegrates to fix itself.

          • Jude Collins July 19, 2016 at 10:04 am #

            No I am not implicated in the same way as the man who pulls the trigger, tr. I should have thought that patently obvious. If you go down that road of association-of-any-sort, then I assume you don’t have a mobile phone, or any product made in China, or the Far East – all of these places exploit child labour, in some instances to the edge of slavery. Could I respectfully give you a tip, tr? If you’re interested in persuading others to your point of view, don’t adopt a ‘you-are-a-sheep-I-am-very-intelligent’ tone. Because it works the opposite way, I promise you.

          • truthrevisionist July 19, 2016 at 1:06 pm #

            Jude,

            I can assure you that I am NOT very intelligent.

            I have NO interest in persuading others to my point of view. – AT ALL.

            I don’t care – because I’m at ease with the truth.
            My ‘comments’ are just ‘comments’ – nothing more.

            I present FACTS and correlate them with history. Show me I’m wrong.

            I was once deluded – as most people are now, by a pre-programmed deceitful university education and seduced by trash materialism, peer pressure, junk history and the perverseness of ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ in a financially rewarding and ‘respectful’ career.

            But I realised almost everything was a lie.

            Put your pre-conditioned prejudices aside and try to free your mind from the pollution of your indoctrinated ‘parochial’ outlook.

            Truth is a much more spiritual event.

            As Twain observed ‘It is easier to lie to someone than to convince them that they have been lied to.’

            But I am grateful for your advice which I will endeavour to ignore. – Respectfully.

  7. billy July 18, 2016 at 12:38 pm #

    you have to insure your car just in case,same as nukes are there just in case.corbyn and his ilk dont live in the real world,they want fishing and hunting banned,the grand national banned,dog racing banned,they probably teach their kids meat comes from tescos.

    • Jude Collins July 18, 2016 at 2:16 pm #

      Would you be in favour of arming all citizens, then, billy? Just in case…

      • billy July 18, 2016 at 3:36 pm #

        no..we shouldnt need to have citizens do the dirty work when they already have the tools at hand to make an example.

  8. donal kennedy July 18, 2016 at 9:14 pm #

    Any country that could make Boris Johnson Foreign Secretary needs nuclear weapons.

  9. paddykool July 19, 2016 at 8:02 am #

    It’s fantasyland to build weapons of mass -destruction just in case there’s the off-chance that someone else will build them too. That is exactly what gun-law is. Everyone running around with a gun in their pocket with a paranoid look in their eyes .It’s bound to happen somewhere along the line that some poor nutjob will get a notion into his head to kill someone for some slight, real or imagined . Nuclear weapons should not be encouraged by anyone, ourselves included . They are the ultimate sanction and nobody comes back from their use.The world dies.You might argue that they are the dreams of madmen and should not be encouraged .We should have the strength to say no to them and try to encourage their global abandonment .Better to have none at all than to have more and bigger ,in some mad arms race that cost billions and can never really be used anyway.What would be the point of living in the ruins of the earth ? Even a madman might see the logic of that .Why not spend all that money on education , housing , hospitals …a cure for cancer or dementia? ….any damn thing but a bloody big pop-gun that can’t ever be used built and sustained by our hard-earned cash.
    The biggest threat facing anyone in the world who wants a good life to raise their loving family ….is not some nuclear threat , but the death-cult that is modern terrorism. You don’t even need a gun , a bomb or any kind of weapon to terrorise and kill your fellow man .All you need is a mind full of delusion, hatred, foolishness, criminal intent and a desire to die rather than to live ……..and a large stolen lorry as happened in Nice last week. It doesn’t cost much to go out and kill a lot of people.You don’t even need a gun. Anything can be used as a weapon but you wouldn’t want to encourage every citizen to carry one. that’s why there is so much confusion in America with guns at the moment. The right to bear arms has been taken out of context there and has allowed modern weaponry to be used for casual slaughter.
    In Westminster yesterday, it was all brought down to sullen, grasping ,greedy economics when Ian Paisley of the DUP casually joked that if Scotland didn’t want to build nuclear weapons anymore that we, in the northern part of Ireland, would be happy enough to oblige …We’ll I , personally wouldn’t be happy enough to oblige beginning building nuclear bombs in my backyard , so he’s not speaking for me . I’d rather the money was spent on the here and now and not on some mad paranoid dream. How many is he speaking for?