Tuesday 28 March 2017

Of bullies, the Universal Soldier and an old Sufi proverb



A Lie Can Travel Halfway Around the World While the Truth Is Putting On Its Shoes
 I have seen in my life a legion of right wing Tory clones. My prep school was dominated by them in unending numbers, their outlook that of Polonius, their dictum limited, uncaring and yet sad, partial and uninformed. I thought of the soldier I once did therapy with who told me that his military training had knocked all that emotional stuff out of him. IDS reminded me of that soldier.
I thought of  the  howling bullies telling Jeremy Corbyn to get a decent suit, Camerons attack on Corbyn nearly a tear ago. do up your top button and sing the national anthem. His shadow had arisen at that point, he was tired, his party was split, He had been betrayed by Boris and Michael Howard and out came his public school bully persona, his inner Flashman. His shadow had arisen at that point, he was tired, his party was split, he had been betrayed by Boris and Michael Howard and out came his public school bully persona, his inner Flashman. He was wounded and lashed out. Our shadows appear at this time at the balance of light and dark, hidden and clear, obscure and opaque but brutal, violent and frightening..
There is an old Sufi proverb it goes like this. Three Sufi's were walking alone through a city they came across a friend desperately searching below a street lamp. “What have you lost brother”? they asked . “I have lost my key in the darkness” he replied . “Then why do you not look in the darkness” they replied . He said “ Because I am afraid to look into the darkness” This is the moment that our politics stand at we are balanced between the dark and light, between the approach of care, collectivity and mutual support and a savage individualism in which the vulnerable go to the wall. This is where stand at this Vernal Equinox. The hard faces leer out of the darkness and the gentler, kinder ones are mocked as their backs are pushed against the wall Now with May all around me i see people all around suffering from cuts in benefit, as the jaws of austerity bites. Fake news fllods everywhere and even the tragedy of Wednesday is discussed ..what do we see but glorification of war, the soldier and of the arms trade. In the final manalysis the definition of a nation state is the accepted and sole user of violence. All wars are about who owns this monopoly of violence. It was the basis of the struggle in Italy between the state and the mafis, between the IRA, UDF and the British state . It is the basis of the Middle Easdttoday but the cause is both the arms trade and the Universal Soldier

A.nd he's fighting for Democracy,
He's fighting for the Reds,
He says it's for the peace of all.
He's the one who must decide,
Who's to live and who's to die,
And he never sees the writing on the wall.

But without him,
How would Hitler have condemned them at Dachau?
Without him Caesar would have stood alone,
He's the one who gives his body
As a weapon of the war,
And without him all this killing can't go on.

He's the Universal Soldier and he really is to blame,
His orders come from far away no more,
They come from here and there and you and me,
And brothers can't you see,
This is not the way we put the end to war.

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