Is there really just one race?

We often hear it said that there is only one race: the human race.  Other people assert that there are many races.  Which is correct?

First, it is reasonable to point out that people who maintain that there is only one race are almost always hypocrites.  With very few exceptions if any, they are the same people who support a multiracial society in which people of all races are expected to mix together harmoniously.  Quite how this is possible if there is only one race is never explained.

Second, no word in the English language is confined to just one meaning.  Therefore just because a word has one accepted definition does not justify us in regarding other definitions as spurious.

The meaning of any word can be deduced from the context in which it is used.  Therefore when we talk about the human race, then we are presumably talking about the human species.  When we talk about races, we are talking about different ethnic groups.  These groups are founded upon shared ancestry and on shared racial characteristics.

On the one hand, I am inclined to argue that both of these definitions are equally valid; but then it occurs to me that the people who talk about the human race never seem to talk about the canine race or the feline race.  Until they do, I will feel justified in concluding that their talk of the human race is foolish.  There are many races, and I for one am proud to be a member of the white race.

Related previous posts include:
The church of England, race, and paedophiles

This item on Western Spring is also of interest.

The murder of Jeremy Corbyn

As I write, Jeremy Corbyn has recently been announced as the new leader of the Labour Party.  His victory was decisive.

Many people have argued that he is unfit to lead Britain, but consider some facts.  Many MPs on both sides of the house have lined their pockets at the public expense to a quite shameful extent, whereas Jeremy Corbyn has practised more restraint than most.

Also, Prime Minister David Cameron - like Tony Blair and Gordon Brown before him - is obsessed with Britain taking part in illegal foreign wars, regardless of the cost in human life and in taxpayers' money.  By contrast, Jeremy Corbyn has for many years been fairly steadfast in his opposition to foreign wars.  If Britain were to stay out of illegal wars, then it could save us many billions of pounds, and yet I don't see the Conservative front bench urging restraint in this particular area.

Criticism of Jeremy Corbyn often revolves around his welcoming attitude to asylum seekers, but it is fair to point out that the Conservative Party also supports open door immigration.  Also, the huge levels of migration currently being experienced in Europe have a lot to do with the illegal wars which Jeremy Corbyn professes to oppose, and also to the free movement rules of the European Union.  It is worth noting that Jeremy Corbyn claims that he voted no to Britain's membership of what has become the European Union in the referendum of 1975.

And so to the question of murder.  Recent opinion polls show the Conservatives ahead of Labour by a margin which is not huge, but nevertheless impressive for a party in government.  At the moment therefore it does not appear likely that Jeremy Corbyn will be our next Prime Minister.

Nevertheless, public opinion can shift, and support for Labour may increase in the next few years.  However I cannot see Jeremy Corbyn becoming Prime Minister, as I feel confident that he would be murdered if he ever looked set to lead his party to victory in a general election.

Not content with being opposed to war, he has also hinted at the possibility of Tony Blair being prosecuted as a war criminal.  Tony Blair has many rich friends, and I can easily envisage one of them hiring an assassin to dispose of Jeremy Corbyn rather than let him become Prime Minister.  Also, David Cameron must be worried that he too might be prosecuted as a war criminal under a government led by Jeremy Corbyn, and it would be very easy for him to arrange for the security services to have him murdered.

To make matters clear, I do not support the Labour Party.  Nevertheless I do not condone the murder of politicians by people who want their evil friends to avoid justice for their crimes.

Update: at least two former leaders of the Labour Party have died while serving as Leader of the Opposition.  Hugh Gaitskell died in January 1963 aged 56, and John Smith died in May 1994 aged aged 55.

It has often been suggested that Gaitskell was murdered, possibly by agents of the Soviet Union who wanted someone else to lead the Labour Party.  I am not aware that anyone has ever claimed that John Smith was murdered.

A triple murder in Syria

The front pages of the national press today are dominated by the murder of three Muslim men in Syria.  They were killed by a missile fired from a drone which was remotely guided by RAF personnel in England.

I have no problem in saying that these killings were an act of murder.  David Cameron has described the killings as an act of self-defence, but this does not make sense. These men were in Syria, and were not in a position to attack the United Kingdom - or are we to believe that they too had access to missile-laden drones?

While the Prime Minister maintains that the killings were lawful, he currently refuses to publish the exact legal advice which he received, and it is reported that the relatives of the murdered men - two of whom were British nationals - can now be expected to seek legal remedies against the British government.

It is true that Article 51 of the United Nations Charter permits acts of self defence, but that I hope I am correct in assuming that this refers to situations where one country is clearly attacked by another.  I find it curious however that no one ever uses Article 51 to argue for the British government sinking any Spanish military vessel which dares to enter British waters off Gibraltar.

It is however fair to point out that the United Nations is an unelected body, which is not the same as saying that its dictates should be ignored.

I have previously written extensively about the murder of Lee Rigby.  Two Muslim men killed a British soldier on the streets of London, and were then shot - although not fatally - by police marksmen.  They were then arrested and put on trial, were conviced of murder, and were sent to prison.

By contrast, the Muslim men who were killed by the RAF drone had not been convicted of any crime.  They were sentenced to death without any trial.

I have yet to hear anyone explain the difference between Muslim men killing a British soldier in London and British soldiers killing Muslims in far-off countries.

If the killing of these three men was legal, then logically it must also be legal for the British government to kill anyone anywhere at any time - including you right now.

Related previous posts include:
Hear the words of a killer - and learn
Woolwich: more bad press coverage

Was there ever a black holocaust?

The Black Holocaust Museum was founded in 1988 in the city of Milwaukee, in the American state of Wisconsin.  Financial difficulties forced it to close in 2008, but it has since been relaunched as a website.

The late James Cameron - who founded the museum - was sometimes told by sceptics that there never was a black holocaust.  It is nevertheless true that around five thousand black people were murdered in the USA in lynchings by white people, and Cameron knew this only too well as he survived a lynching in the city of Marion in 1930.  He is widely reported to have been the only survivor of a lynching in the USA.

The holocaust was not confined to lynchings, however.  Huge numbers of Africans - the museum estimates at least ten million - were taken as slaves to North America.  Many of them died in the horrendous conditions of the slave ships, and many more died as the result of being forced to work long hours on plantations.

In short, yes there was a black holocaust.

Nevertheless, I feel obliged to point out certain facts.  First, the victims of lynchings were not always morally innocent.  James Cameron for example took part in an attack on a white boy and his girlfriend, in which the white boy was fatally injured.  Cameron's two accomplices were hanged by a lynch mob before they could be brought to trial, and Cameron was spared the same fate only because his involvement in the attack was limited.

I have no problem with the fact that Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith were hanged for the murder of Claude Deeter, except that they should have been given a fair trial first.

The treatment of black slaves in North America was cruel, but in many cases the perpetrators were Jews or free blacks.  Slave takers were usually black, and slave traders and slave ship captains were often Jews.  In the USA, Jewish families and free black families were more likely to own slaves than white gentile families.  Nevertheless I cannot find any mention of these facts on the museum website.  If anyone else can, please leave a comment.

It is also fair to point out that it was not only slaves who were worked to death prior to the abolition of slavery, and neither was it only black people.  White people in Britain and elsewhere often had to work hard for very long hours, and often in unsanitary conditions.  Life expectancy was low, and those who did live a long time often had to watch their children die of preventable diseases.

There was indeed a black holocaust, but by the same logic there was also a white holocaust - but one which as yet has no museum.

Related previous posts include:
Racism at the movies
The Jews are afraid, but what about the rest of us?
A very British holocaust 

The denial of Stalin's holocaust

Patriots are often labelled in the national press as holocaust deniers, meaning that they do not believe that Hitler's National Socialist regime murdered six million Jews in the period from 1942 to 1945. It is implied that anyone who objects to their country being changed for the worse by open door immigration is a denier, and also that denial is necessarily wrong.

I know from my own experience that many people in the patriotic community do indeed recognise that Hitler's holocaust of the Jews never took place, but maybe that is because they have at least a modicum of regard for logic and for the truth.  The implication that holocaust deniers are necessarily bad people, however, is one that I has yet to be adequately explained.

If I've got it right, there are seventeen countries in the world where it is illegal to question the German holocaust, with imprisonment being among the forms of punishment for violation.  Examples of prosecutions arising from these laws include the case of the French politician who was fined over one million francs for saying that the holocaust was a mere detail in the history of World War II - which does not sound to me like denial.  Another example is the case of the German historian who was prosecuted and fined for questioning the whereabouts of a door.

These prosecutions strike me as cruel and oppressive, but not at all surprising in countries run by communists or their fellow travellers.

The British servicemen who fought to overthrow Hitler were on the same side as Stalin, and were in effect fighting to keep Stalin in power.  It is widely held that Stalin was responsible for the deaths of millions of people - mostly in Ukraine - in the early 1930s.  This event is known as the holodomor, and took the form of an enforced starvation.

I have recently come across an essay on the internet which argues that the holodomor never happened.  My reaction was to read it.  I could have declined to read it, on the grounds that the author was clearly a wicked person, but I am not a communist.

The essay writer argued among other things that a photograph of starving children which has been used as evidence of the holodomor is in fact nothing of the sort.  He maintains that the photograph was taken not during the holodomor, but rather during a period of natural famine in the 1920s.

I have a question.  How many natural famines have taken place in western Europe in the past hundred years?  Does anyone know?

It is true that there have been times in the past hundred years when large numbers of people in western Europe have been hungry, but so far as I am aware these tended to be the consequence of periods of war or of particularly poor government.

I remember when the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s.  People from Ukraine were able to visit relatives in Britain, and there were incidents reported of Ukrainians bursting into tears in supermarkets because there was so much food on the shelves.  Their homeland is a fertile country, but under communist rule food was always in short supply.

Hunger and starvation have long been weapons favoured by communists, and it is no surprise that there are many people relying on food banks in both Britain and Greece.

Related previous posts include:
The holocaust continues ...
The Jews are afraid, but what about the rest of us?
The politics of The Hunger Games

What is tax avoidance?

Tax avoidance refers to any legal method of reducing your tax bill.  It is not the same as tax evasion, which is illegal.  The legality of tax avoidance is founded in a legal ruling which strictly speaking applies only in Scotland.

The ruling of Lord Clyde in the case of Ayrshire Pullman Motor Services v Inland Revenue [1929] included the following quote:

No man in the country is under the smallest obligation, moral or other, so to arrange his legal relations to his business or property as to enable the Inland Revenue to put the largest possible shovel in his stores. The Inland Revenue is not slow, and quite rightly, to take every advantage which is open to it under the Taxing Statutes for the purposes of depleting the taxpayer's pocket. And the taxpayer is in like manner entitled to be astute to prevent, so far as he honestly can, the depletion of his means by the Inland Revenue.

This ruling is known as Lord Clyde's shovel.

We often hear people assert that tax avoidance is immoral, but the law - as enshrined in Lord Clyde's ruling - clearly states otherwise.  Also, morality is largely subjective, and one man's immoral may well be another man's perfectly acceptable.

It is fair to point out however that there have been numerous examples of tax avoidance being practised by people who have condemned it in other people, which could be seen as hypocritical.

There have also been numerous cases over the years of tax avoidance being practised by celebrities who publicly support high levels of public spending.  I feel entitled to wonder why anyone would call for higher public spending when they themselves are unwilling to contribute what might be seen as their fair share. 

It is also reasonable to ask why tax avoidance measures even exist.  There are three forms of tax avoidance.  The first kind is those which the government deliberately creates, and the Individual Savings Account (ISA for short) is an example of the this.

The second kind of avoidance is the kind which arises by accident, when the government makes a mistake when writing its tax laws.  The tax avoidance which was practised by the Ayrshire Pullman Motor Services company in 1929 was presumably an example of this.

The third kind involves foreign tax havens - which the British government can do little about.

The ISA exists presumably as a way of encouraging ordinary people to save money.  It is of no use to people who cannot afford to save, but at the same time it is also of little use to the super-rich.

By contrast, other forms of tax avoidance tend to favour the rich.  Rich people can afford to employ the services of accountants who can maybe detect loopholes in tax legislation.  They also have access to offshore tax havens.

As a final point, it is currently being reported that the government is planning to award a peerage to a company director who has previously engaged in tax avoidance on a large scale.  I merely observe the fact.

The politics of The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games is the title of a 2008 novel by Suzanne Collins, and also the name of the 2012 film adaptation starring Jennifer Lawrence. Both the novel and the film have been commercially successful, but both have also proved contentious.

Both are set in a country called Panem, which is the Latin word for bread.  It is often used in the phrase panem et circenses, which translates into English as bread and circuses.  The phrase reflects a belief in ancient times that the common people would be easy to control provided that they had bread to eat and circuses for entertainment.

Panem is a dictatorial republic ruled from the affluent futuristic city of Capitol, whose citizens commonly dress in flamboyant outfits.  The remainder of the country is divided into twelve districts, where people live in enforced poverty.  There are gradations of prosperity, however, with some districts better off than others.

Although Panem might seem very different from the United Kingdom, we too have people living in opulence while other people queue for food banks.  Our governments are elected, but the British people make such poor voting choices that I sometimes think we might not be much worse off if we were unable to vote.

The hunger games are an annual event which combine entertainment with fear.  Each of the twelve districts provides two contestants, known as tributes, to take part in a fight to the death in a large outdoor arena.  The tributes are aged from twelve up to eighteen, and each district provides a male and female tribute.

Districts are expected to choose tributes by a process of random selection, although it is acceptable to choose a volunteer if there is one.  It is illegal for any youngsters to prepare for tribute status.  Nevertheless in the more prosperous districts some youngsters train in secret and in some cases volunteer for tribute status.

As a result, some districts submit tributes who are not only trained in the use of weapons, but who display clear homicidal tendencies.  These tributes are known as careers.  Once in the arena they happily murder other tributes.  In the film, both tributes from Districts 1 and 2 are careers, and in the novel so is the female tribute from District 4.  It appears normal for most of the tributes either to kill only in self defence or not to kill at all.

It appears that the citizens of Capitol enjoy the barbarity of the games in much the same way that many people in Spain enjoy bull fights.  It appears also that the inhabitants of the districts are expected to view the games as sign of their inferiority, but the fact that at least some districts provide tributes who are eager to take part suggests that at least some of them derive pleasure from the games.

Aside from the careers, just one girl in the film volunteers as a tribute, becoming the first ever volunteer tribute from District 12.  She is not however a willing volunteer, as she volunteers only after her younger sister is chosen by lottery.  Self-sacrifice has long been viewed as a noble characteristic.

The reader might think that Britain today does not have anything resembling either bull fights or the hunger games, but Britain happily sends troops into illegal foreign wars in which British service personnel are often killed - along with large numbers of foreign nationals, many of whom are not in any way combatant.  In no way are we morally superior to the fictitious organisers of the hunger games.

People who take part in wars are either volunteers or conscripts, but even conscripts are volunteers of a sort.  They have the option of refusing to be conscripted.  At times the alternative might be imprisonment or social exclusion, but surely these things are in most cases preferable to the brutality of war.

I have previously written about a British army veteran called Douglas Mitchell who according to his daughter was given to bad behaviour.  I am now aware of the case of another British forces veteran called William Woods whose daughter recalls him as cold and distant.  I repeat what I said in that earlier post: 

... the British POWs who allegedly suffered terrible abuse at the hands of their Japanese captors were all volunteers.

Men who served in the Second World War were in some cases veterans of the Great War.  Many would have been the sons or grandsons of people who fought in that war, and they would presumably have had some awareness of the grim reality of that war.  For those men then to take part voluntarily in another war is surely akin to volunteering to take part in the hunger games - except that I'm not sure if any British serviceman has ever volunteered for belligerent activity as a substitute for a 12yo girl.

The death of another 12yo girl in the hunger games triggers a spate of riots in her home district.  While I do not condone riots in this country, I cannot help but wonder why the British people do not protest at the deaths of children in foreign lands as a result of British military action.

Related previous posts include:
Cadets debate the war
Hunger in Greece, hunger in the UK