Flags disgust me. Why do we as a species continually insist on displaying these symbols of nationalistic pride as though we were still uncivilized tribes hellbent on raping, pillaging, and slaughtering the bods living over the next hill, or sand-dune, for no other reason than, well – ‘it seemed a good idea at the time?’
I saw the image above on the BBC website today and realised just how sickening it truly is. It’s Britain’s prime minister, Theresa May, signing the letter that will instigate the U.K.’s departure from the European Union. The large (and obviously carefully placed) Union Jack draped by the ornate fireplace is symbolic of nothing more than a nation withdrawing into itself, a return to the days of yesteryear when it was still possible to brainwash young men into being slaughtered by the thousands on some far-off battlefield, for no reason other than that of nationalistic pride.
Nowhere is this vile symbolism more grossly portrayed than in the United States. I remember arriving on its shores back in September 2002, just one year after the attacks known as 9/11, to be horrified by the nation-wide outburst of nationalism visible on almost every building, vehicle, ‘T’-shirt and baseball cap. The national flag was displayed everywhere it could possibly be placed, like some great, symbolic, upraised finger gesture, and not just to the perpetrators of those attacks but to all the rest of the world.
“The Flag” is what America’s about. Little kids in grade (infant/junior) school are taught ‘allegiance to the flag’. Immigrants wishing to become citizens must swear allegiance to the flag:
“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
Despite nearly fifteen years in the U.S., I never had the desire to become an American citizen. I couldn’t, anyway. I would have choked on the oath of allegiance. I’ve never pledged allegiance to any one nation, and I never will. I was born British, but now I’m ashamed of that country and what it’s becoming.
I remember seeing all those symbols of nationalism on arriving in America, and thinking how terribly ‘un-British’ it all seemed. The only time Union flags were displayed in any number in the U.K. was at a coronation, or royal funeral perhaps. Now, since Brexit, flags are on display again; nationalistic fervour stirred up via a piece of coloured cloth on a stick.
Governments rattle on about ‘globalization’. On the one hand, they tell us how wonderful it is while waving their nationalistic symbols with the other. What they mean is globalization is great if you hold all the aces, especially militarily. It’s not so much fun if you’re the underdog forced to do the bidding of a superpower. “Liberty and justice for all” doesn’t mean much when the hated symbols of an invader, and its lackeys, are planted on your doorstep.
There’s a programme on British television called, “Room 101.” Three pseudo-celebs are asked to pick a particular something from everyday life that they intensely dislike. The three things are debated and one of them will end up in “Room 101,” a mythical vault in the BBC from which things never return.
I’m never likely to be asked to appear on “Room 101,” but if I were the first thing I’d choose to be consigned to that vault would be “Flags and nationalistic symbols.” I truly believe it’s time we got rid of them and learned to live together in this world.
Though I don’t doubt there are many who would disagree.
Theresa May has finally announced she will trigger Article 50 on March 29th, to officially inform the European Parliament that the U.K. wishes to commence negotiations to leave the European Union.
It would appear this woman has no regard whatever for the consequences. Already European healthcare workers – nurses and doctors – are leaving the NHS and the UK in droves. They have no wish, as many say, “to remain where they’re not wanted.” Once happy to have made a permanent home in Britain, they now feel Britain no longer makes them welcome. You can hardly blame them.
A recent Channel 4 ‘Dispatches’ documentary revealed that applications from European nurses to work in Britain have dropped by 92% since Brexit. With many preparing to leave the country the future for the National Health Service looks bleak. This last winter has seen a serious crisis in the service and, given the worsening staff shortages, next winter could prove disastrous.
As the Head Nurse at one hospital responded, when asked how they would cope if the situation continues to deteriorate:
“We will have to radically change the way we deliver healthcare in this country. It won’t be possible for us to run services the way they currently are. We just won’t have the doctors and nurses to be able to do that.”
Mrs May says they’ll fill the shortfall by recruiting British nurses and doctors. Those charged with training new recruits state categorically that it’s impossible.
A Guardian report from October 2016 stated:
[On October 4th 2016] The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, announced to the Conservative party conference that the NHS needed to become “self-sufficient in doctors” by 2025. It needed to end its reliance on foreign doctors, and it would do this by training an extra 1,500 medical students a year.
This was news to everyone, not least those working in the NHS, or heading up our medical schools or the British Medical Association, because apart from anything else, the numbers simply don’t stack up. “It’s completely unrealistic,” Deborah Gill, the head of UCL medical school, tells me. “It’s a drop in the ocean. An extra 1,500 students is going to make no difference whatsoever.” [1]
Hunt wouldn’t know 1,500 is a drop in the ocean, would he? He only the government’s Health Minister.
At present, student nurses receive a 4,500 UK pounds bursary to support them while training. From September this year, that will stop and be replaced by a student loan. The result has been a decrease in applications for nurse training of 23%.
It would seem that Mrs May is stating one thing while doing another. Perhaps that shouldn’t come as any surprise. Maybe she’s already hellbent on ‘radically changing the way healthcare is delivered in the U.K.’. Once free from the constraints of the E.U. in two years time – at which point the NHS is likely to be in even greater crisis than now – she can throw open the doors of British hospitals to the hedge funds, insurance companies, and corporate healthcare moguls in the United States, for them to walk in and take possession.
Of course, it’ll all be about “doing the best for the benefit of the British people,” and, “The NHS in its present form just can’t continue.” There’ll be promises of, “better healthcare for all,” “a better service with shorter waiting times, well-trained staff, more doctors and new modern hospitals,” all owned and run by the multi-billionaire conglomerates already in control across the Atlantic. There will, of course, be the promises that, “…it won’t cost you a penny more than you’re paying now.”
If you believe that, you’re even more stupid than the 52% of British electorate who believed that leaving the E.U. would deliver 350 million pounds a week into the pocket of the National Health Service.
These pages have been somewhat barren of late – and, no, it’s not because Theresa May has come for me – nor Donald Trump, for that matter, – despite the titles of my preceding two posts. Much as I derive great satisfaction and pleasure from writing here, sometimes life has to take priority and the time for composition, limited. Spring has arrived, the garden is alive with the blooms of daffodils, primulas, and forget-me-nots. Sadly, the weeds always manage to have the upper hand and winter storms have done their share of damage in urgent need of repair.
Not that the crises threatening the world have gone unnoticed. The man masquerading as a U.S. president continues to behave like a rampant dictator, hurling abuse and false accusations at his predecessor willy-nilly, as though above any law. Indeed, given the lack of anything more than a luke-warm rebuke from Republican senators for his accusation that President Obama tapped his phone, it would seem likely that he is.
Five days ago the U.K. media splashed a story all over their front pages of an interview by the now political nobody, Nigel Farage.
In it Farage stated that he and Donald Trump were probably the two most vilified people in the West:
As the BBC reported:
British politician Nigel Farage, who helped steer the UK towards the exit door of the European Union, says that he and Donald Trump have one thing in common.
“We’re probably the two most vilified people in the West.”
He adds that their bond was formed over the “shed-loads of abuse” they have each received. [1]
One really must question why anyone would derive such obvious satisfaction from that unsavoury fact? Surely, to be vilified is not how most people would wish to be treated? Farage appears to consider it an honour to be linked in that way with the most despised and disrespected national leader in the Western world. It says little for the British media that Farage’s words are considered worthy of headline treatment. The BBC should know better. There was a time it would have.
Yesterday, the wanton and rather disgusting leader of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan , accused the Dutch of carrying out the massacre of 8,000 men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995:
Turkey’s war of words with the Netherlands has worsened after the Turkish president accused the Dutch of carrying out a massacre of Muslim men at Srebrenica, Bosnia, in 1995.
Bosnian Serb forces were in fact behind the massacre but Dutch UN peacekeepers failed to protect the victims.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the failure, still a raw nerve in the Netherlands, revealed Dutch “morality” was “broken”.
The Dutch prime minister called the remarks a “vile falsification”. [2]
Mark Rutte, Holland’s prime minister, was right to call them a “vile falsification.”. It was this man….
…Ratko Mladic, who was responsible for that dreadful crime. The small Dutch peace-keeping contingent were hopelessly outgunned and outnumbered. They were only lightly armed against tanks and heavy weapons. Repeated calls for air support went unheeded. Responsibility for this situation rests squarely on NATO’s shoulders, with a portion back in Washington on the desk of then president, Bill Clinton.
Clinton dithered and dallied over the Balkans. NATO was flying aircraft over the war-zone ostensibly to maintain a no-fly-zone, but all the war action was on the ground. In his book, “America’s War For The Greater Middle East,” Andrew Bacevich writes:
Although authorized to use air strikes to protect peacekeepers…NATO rarely acted on this authority. Between June 1993 and August 1995 [NATO] aircraft actually released ordnance on a grand total of only ten occasions…The NATO air campaign had become an exercise in military masturbation – a display of ostensibly superior power that served chiefly to reveal Western impotence.” [3]
Both UN and NATO authorities had to agree before a single aircraft could attack a target. Little wonder then the Dutch peacekeepers called out in vain for air support. Following the Srebrenica massacre, Clinton and the NATO allies finally decided to take action.**
Erdogan is a mad, power-crazed, politician dreaming of dictatorship. Perhaps now the European Union will finally deny Turkey any further possibility of joining the E.U., at least as long as Erdogan holds the reins of power in that country.
On the subject of reigns of power, Theresa May has finally bullied, cajoled, and threatened politicians to pass the bill allowing her to trigger Article 50, totally disregarding two attempts by the Upper House to amend it. She could scarcely disguise her glee as she spoke today in Parliament. At least some parts of that speech contained downright lies. She stated there had been full consultations on ‘Brexit’ with all other U.K. parties, including (she emphasised) the Scottish National Party, the governing party in Scotland.
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s First Minister, has categorically denied any ‘full consultation’ on the subject. Indeed, she has gone out of her way to state the opposite:
“The UK government has not moved even an inch in pursuit of compromise and agreement. Our efforts at compromise have instead been met with a brick wall of intransigence,” the first minister said, claiming that any pretence of a partnership of equal nations was all but dead. [4]
Yesterday, in a speech to the Scottish Cabinet Sturgeon called for a second referendum on Scottish independence, given the huge vote by Scots to remain in the European Union.
Theresa May & Nicola Sturgeon
Theresa May, in return, told the U.K. Parliament that now was not the time for Nicola Sturgeon to “play at politics or create uncertainty,” which is somewhat surprising, coming as it does from one who has done nothing but play politics and create uncertainty since the day she entered 10 Downing Street.
To quote George Monbiot in today’s Guardian:
In her speech to the Scottish Conservatives’ spring conference, Theresa May observed that “one of the driving forces behind the union’s creation was the remorseless logic that greater economic strength and security come from being united”. She was talking about the UK, but the same remorseless logic applies to the EU. In this case, however, she believes that our strength and security will be enhanced by leaving. “Politics is not a game, and government is not a platform from which to pursue constitutional obsessions,” she stormed – to which you can only assent.
A Conservative member of the Scottish parliament, Jamie Greene, complains that a new referendum “would force people to vote blind on the biggest political decision a country could face. That is utterly irresponsible.” This reminds me of something, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. [5]
If Monbiot had only one virtue it would be his ability to expose the hypocrisy of politicians intent on pulling the wool over the eyes of its electorate.
It may be spring outside; the crocuses may be blooming, the birds nest building, the bees buzzing industriously. But in the world of politics there’s still a stark chill in the air, dark clouds loom on the horizon, and not one ray of sunshine pierces the darkness to raise the spirits and instill a grain of hope.
