Balance

Holistic medicine and Nature are examples of systems that try to achieve a balance, with each element supporting the welfare of the whole.
That catastrophes can occur within these systems is as inevitable as gradual change.  Both are part of the same process, defying prediction, but following a geometric curve as they move as they move along the x axis to disaster.
Whether it was a giant meteorite or a huge volcanic eruption, the Age of the Dinosaurs came to an end.  All Empires come to an end.  This essay is not a disaster movie; it merely looks at some of the particular problems that the world is facing and then tries to draw some conclusions.
Earth is suffering from Global warming.  Weather and climate patterns are changing, with an ever-increasing chance of extreme weather.  The world's population is growing and the resources of food and water are becoming progressively more scarce.  Inequalities in wealth and living standards are becoming more pronounced.  Biological species are dying out at an alarming rate.  Local, tribal, religious, National and International tensions show no sign of diminishing, with the G7 countries supplying warring areas with armaments in an effort maybe to "protect themselves from the spread of Terrorism" or perhaps to look after their own vital interests with a particular bias towards oil.
This is the picture.  Overlaying this is a universal desire for growth, with the seductive message that growth will improve everyone's living standards.  Clearly, growth and living standards cannot continue for ever.  The Earth is finite and further growth can only hasten the onset of the next catastrophe.
No-one can say which system will collapse first, but at the moment they are all creaking.  We don't know how much time we have before the Age of Capitalism goes the way of its predecessors, but unless the world can start to move back towards balance by making positive adjustments, the current model will become untenable.
We can't opt out and so we have to take action to avoid leaving our children a mess of potage.

Willie Giles 13.05.13

Who is Benefitting?

We have entered a New Year and by general consensus, things are going to get a lot tougher.  It is fairly clear that we are at the beginning of a long phase of pruning the Benefits System:  even at the start of this phase, many people are not able to buy food for their families.

Today, Parliament votes on a 1% Cap on the Benefits System;  more people will be put into an impossible position.

These people will be presented with 3 options: steal, take food hand-outs from charities or insist on the Government alleviating the hunger of the people.

A lot of people fought for Universal Suffrage for many years.  We currently have a Health Service that is the envy of the world.  Both events were all-inclusive.  This inclusivity, is now being tested with Income Caps on Child-benefit to counteract the Cap on the Benefit System.  Where should the Capping stop?  What can be done to help those who are the target of the on-going cuts in the Benefits System?

In the same way that we can view our Aristocracy in 2 ways; they have huge inherited wealth-bad:  their estates preserve the countryside-good, we can view our Food Distribution system in 2 ways.  That it has ruined our town centres and village life and is a hugely wasteful system, are undeniable, but the inherent wastage in the system could be changed to the benefit of our citizens.

With the approval of David Cameron and others, local supermarkets are already delivering stock, just about to reach its sell-by date, to Food banks like the Trussell Trust, for distribution to the poor and needy.  We have seen with the 2012 Olympics what is possible.  The Government should act now to ensure that the Supermarkets and Fast Food chains are required to release food that would otherwise go to fill landfill sites, to the poor who could starve without it.

I propose.
1.  Supermarkets and Fast Food sites should be given tax-breaks for eliminating waste and not skipping food and filling landfill sites.
2.  Supermarkets should set aside areas in their shops for people  to collect food on a voucher system and to make deliveries direct to those who can't travel.
3.  There should be a fast track system for helping those who have insufficient benefits or who have had their benefits suspended for any of a number of reasons.

Whilst many people are wary of accepting charity, they would be happier to accept food that was their right. In this way we could take a huge step to move back towards inclusivity.  Willie Giles 08/01/13

Austerity and Fairness

Homo-duplex depicts man as having the two characteristics of individuality and group membership.  This latter characteristic of man as an element of society is distinct from the "State" which is ostensibly there to serve its members, but which appears to exist to retain power.

History is littered with examples of bad leaders , from "Divine" kings to tyrants and is also covered with examples of rebellion by the people against unfair dictation by the state.  It was Madison in the eighteenth century who said that "all power is vested in and consequently derived from the people" and Gandhi who said two hundred years later that "the moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave, his fetters fall.  He frees himself and shows the way to others.  Freedom and slavery are mental states."

In Europe today, we see separate states with a common currency.  To a greater or lesser degree all these countries have borrowed too much with massive capital expenditure on assets that are proving to be worthless, too much expenditure on individuals working for the state and an inability or actual connivance in the collection of taxation from the wealthy minority.  These are the three simple elements of Europe's problem, which are compounded by worldwide lack of growth which is a necessary condition for the continuation of the Global Economy.

Right now the State is seen by the people as solely blaming them for this state of affairsand asking, nay telling them to tighten their belts.  The people are saying "where is the fairness in this treatment?  Why are the rich not paying their fair share?  Why are the banks, who made these devastating investments being protected?

They are not receiving an answer, they have been stripped of dignity and hope and they are steadily making their feelings more coherent as the State distances itself from its citizens.

And hat will be the result?  I don't have a crystal ball but once more to Madison.  "A majority of the community have an indubitable, inalienable and indefeasible right to reform, alter or abolish the government.

Willie Giles 29/09/12w

Cleansing the stables of Augeias

Cleansing the stables of Augeias

Alexis Tsiprat is a new kid on the block, articulating the pain and frustration of millions of Greeks as they are forced by the Graeae to take pay and job cuts and  become unable to support their families.  He stands for growth and a renegotiation of the Austerity measures granted by Germany, France and the IMF.  He wants to give hope back to the people of Greece and Europe.  Whilst his task will take longer than one day, Tsiprat’s ideas are already being absorbed by many of the old Eurozone leaders and actively supported by the new French president, Hollande.

Austerity could only have worked if Europe and the World experienced growth.  The combination of cuts and quantitative easing has not worked and the dash to preserve a Banking triple A rating is a failure of the recent past.  Without growth, the bad debts at the banks cannot be hidden.  Europe is now effectively bankrupt, with the Banks having taken all the money that they don’t deserve and which instead should have gone to the people.  Now the people cannot repay it from their empty money boxes.

So can there be growth in time to save the European dream?  No, I think not.  The people have had enough and are seeking an end to the presumption that money rules and that they have no worth.

Eurystheus coveted his exalted position.  He wanted to humiliate Heracles.  King Augeias smugly believed that his way was right and that the stables could not be cleaned in one day (that there was no Economic alternative)

Tsiprat is a latter day Heracles.  He has diverted the rivers and cleansed the political system in Greece.  It is likely that he will suffer the same fate as Heracles.  Eurystheus didn’t count this as a labour and Augeias wouldn’t accept that Heracles could achieve the unachievable.  The political order will absorb and claim this change and then spit out the minnows who have challenged their pre-eminence.

W.Giles 28/05/12

The Weapons Inspector

Aircraft Carriers from the USA enter the straits of Hommuz.


What I want to be, will be
If I say its true
then believe me.
Within my scaffolded building
there is only one place
to turn the screw.


William Hague talks of real and potent threats.


Seek and you will find, find
a chimera breathing fire
then believe me
the tower cannot stay standing
if threats are allowed
to remain alive.


Centrifuges are being installed


My Arsenal belongs to me
I'll use it wisely
so believe me
others don't understand restraint
or the urgent need
to stay on top.


Obama says all options are open.


Of course no weapons were found then
I just went to war
unauthorised
the weapons inspector tried to
stop the carnage but I
Over-ruled him.


It is better to support than humiliate.


Of course no weapons will be found now
but still I'll go to war
unauthorised
because they cannot be allowed
to have the weapons
that I covet.


Do you support a nuclear-free Middle East including the disarmament of Israel's weapons?


And when the bombing is done and
people crawl out of their
dead dusty hell
they will smile grimly, united
in the wish to make
what they never really wanted.

Thermopylae Revisited

The Persian King Xerxes may well have been re-incarnated as Angela Merkel, but there is one significant difference.  The three hundred Spartans who fought for freedom against the almost endless power of the Persians have been replaced by three hundred Greek M.P's who take the view that the austerity measures imposed by the germans must be followed.  The people of Greece want Freedom while the three hundred want to be a small, austere economic sprat belonging to a prescriptive Europe headed by Germany.

Sooner rather than later though I think Thermopylae will be revisited as the people of Greece insist on freedom.  The tide is turning and the economic appointees of Merkel and Sarkozy should realise that the people don't want them.  From the bottom upwards there is pressure to change and when Francois Hollande becomes the next president of France there will be pressure downwards and another nail in the coffin of austerity and the euro.

The Graeae

2011 saw the start of European rule by men and women who wear grey suits.  Kings have come and gone; democracies have come and gone; dictatorships have come and gone; the men in grey suits have come.  In only a short time we will see the interests of China, USA and Russia expressed as blocs within parts of an old union that has been confined to history.

As the markets have made their judgements on the excessive level of borrowing of many countries, elected leaders have been replaced by nominees of the European Institutions, whose mission is to reduce borrowings and to impose severe austerity measures on the people of Europe.  There are many men in grey suits, but like the ancient Greek myths, there are only three Graeae; Merkel(with apologies to her sex), Sarkozy and Monti.  These are the three swan-necked leaders of the three biggest European countries and like the Graeae, they share one eye and one tooth.

What is becoming increasingly apparent is that the eye they are passing around is blind and the tooth that they all suck is decayed.  They have no coherent plan to save Europe or the Euro and I forsee Europe as a feeding trough for the rest of the world.

The USA has always had a love affair with oil and that will become its ultimate tragedy.  Before this happens, they will make an alliance with the UK and Scandinavia in an effort to keep North Sea and Arctic oil flowing to the Americas.

Russia is a land of large open spaces and they want more.  They also want the expertise of the Northern Europeans to expand and harness new technologies.  They will seek an alliance with Germany, France and Poland.

China recognises that they are the natural successors for the next Empire.  They want as much of the world's resources as they can buy with their huge wealth.  I see them seeking these in southern Europe and the Iberian peninsular with a view to taking control of the Mediteranean.

Asimov would prescribe this as scientific fact, but there is one alternative; we find another Hermes who will make the Graeae's eye the gift of wisdom and perception that was its true destiny.