Confessions of Martyn Shrewsbury for April and May 2017

The Confessions of Martyn Shrewsbury

Only those people who can really touch bottom can be human.
Therefore Meister Eckhart says that one should not repent too much of one’s sins because it might keep one away from grace.
One is only confronted with the spiritual experience when one is absolutely human. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 394

The ghosts of 1931 are rising. The image of a vast Tory majority is formed as polls in Wales suggest that the Tories will win a majority of seats in Wales. The local government elections suggest in Wales that the Tories are up. 13%. What is happening? The Brexit agenda has allowed vast sections of the electorate to be made into Tories. The means of transformation has been UKIP .It took them in and using immigration and racial prejudice as the potion of change. In its death throes UKIP turns to ban the burka and in Wales uses a campaign against the Welsh language to continue the process. In its death throes it is most dangerous . Nuttal is desperate his pledges becomes more extreme and intolerant. It's poison is more toxic than ever. Before it dies and it's remnants chooses between the Tories or a new reborn BNP it will convince the working class voters who voted for Brexit of the 'wisdom' of the market, the privatisation of the health service, and the shrinking of the state. The epitaph of the kippers will be. ." The midwife of 20 years of Tory rule" How many f**king times did i tell you ..You stupid idiots...how many times?....I told you so ad nauseum.....Over and over

"Well my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play “

The strangest thing I have noticed is how poor we are at understanding individual Psychology. Many but not all can not see how they are really frightened little children wanting to be liked, how each vote they gain, or approval they experience some how makes them feel whole. The right fails to understand the collective and often becomes harsh, uncaring and arrogant. Then there are those who lost a faith and found a faith. I mean those who raised in Catholicism all their life seek an alternative faith but never quite get there.

But enough of that ...in 2005 I stepped down as leader of the Wales Green party. I was burnt out, a frantic election cycle , the battering of the anti wind farm brigade, and a gentleman from a former Intelligence background and now Green Activist spreading rumours and seeking to discredit me. The Welsh party was much smaller it probably had only 300 members. We had contested 10 seats in the general election, contested over 35 seats in the Swansea Council elections of 2004 and built a solid party in Swansea of over 150 members. Within a couple of years the same naval figure had managed to shrink the party dramatically, and in the general, election that followed he managed to gain the lowest Green Vote in Swansea West ever recorded. 

I ceased political activity and developed a company training counsellors. That fell apart and left with large debts, a declining economy, and the growing realisation of my fundamental unhappiness  I sort to bury my head in the sand. I spent and spent, the funds dried up and finally I had an affair. This crisis occurred long after my role as a Green politician...yet if you read a certain account of my bankruptcy case you would imagine it had occurred at the same time.

I even saw one person post about me being “ a self confessed adulterer” how simplistic it sounds, how different it actually was. The implications and result of my bankruptcy have been repeatedly resurrected by anyone who wishes to dismiss any argument that I have raised. All I did was to keep on paying my bills that I needed to pay to maintain everyday life The large institutions, the credit card companies missed out and I was labelled a fraudster.I am almost tempted to create a Psychological Syndrome. I will call it the Shrewsbury projection. Its a process by which all that is wrong , all that is hated, all that is missing in someones life is absorbed into the motivations and meanings of anothers life. Julia Kristeva called it abjection.. It can be described as “There looms, within abjection, one of those violent, dark revolts of being, directed against a threat that seems to emanate from an exorbitant outside or inside, ejected beyond the scope of the possible, the tolerable, the thinkable. It lies there, quite close, but it cannot be assimilated. It beseeches, worries, and fascinates desires, which, nevertheless, does not let itself be seduced. Apprehensive, desire turns aside; sickened, it rejects. A certainty protects it from the shameful—a certainty of which it is proud holds on to it. But simultaneously, just the same, that impetus, that spasm, that leap is drawn toward an elsewhere as tempting as it is condemned. Unflaggingly, like an inescapable boomerang, a vortex of summons and repulsion places the one haunted by it literally beside himself “ Victor Hugo described it as

No Beast is there without glimmer of infinity, No eye so vile nor abject that brushes not Against lightning from on high, now tender, now fierce. Victor Hugo, "La Legende des siecles

What is indeed surprising is how so many people who seek to transform society, who try to understand why people do the wrong things at the wrong time find it impossible to resist beating their opponents with perceived insight into their psyche. To believe in rehabilitation but not for those they disagree with. Thead hominem argument is used with the precision of a Cruise missile. Please search the net you will find plenty of arguments using this cluster bombing approach, 

I tried a short period in Plaid Cymru . I was told that they were a Green party and yet while I found some excellent Ecosocialists there , I also heard things that made my self recoil, I heard defence of the badger cull, the expansion of aviation, the support for Nuclear power and the narrow hypocrisy of the Chapel mentality. I  left very quickly for much of the time within Plaid I had been urged to condemn the Greens, to issue a press release but I never felt happy to do that. I saw in my mind the faces of those who had supported me, campaigned with me and built the Green Party, people like John Matthews, Miranda LaVey, Owen Clerk amongst others. There is only one Green party, there are many pallid copies but the Green analysis is the only one that is valid, that thinks beyond the short term..

I returned to the Green Party in Autumn 2013. I was determined to be an ordinary member but once more I began to be involved. I became the agent in Neath for the General election of 2015 and was the agent in the Uplands by election in November 2014.

I have survived these years of turmoil because of two events. At my lowest moment when I least expected it I found someone who has been with me ever since and so I have never been cynical of love. 

The other reasons are three figures of Philosophy, Nietzche Heidegger and Sartre . One day the day I was declared bankrupt I watched three documentaries about them. You can find them above this paragraph.

As we near the local elections of May  2017 and the general election of 2017. I reflect how fortunate I feel to be observing and commenting from the sides. A recent controversy in which I exposed a candidate in Neath Council elections has caused some debate. As a Philosopher  I am quite aware of both Mill`s Utilitarian approach and of Kant`s theory of intention. I would always expose a candidate who could publish on his timeline a picture of three piglets in Santa Claus costume wishing Muslims  " A Happy Christmas2 and arguing that those who voted Remain should be shot. I have been called anti -British, unpatriotic and a Commie. I will always expose the racist, the bigot and the jingoist simplicity of the Right. I would do the same over and over again.

I loath those who defend the racist and the bigot  there are many of them out there. These are the same people who defend such behavior because of their own prejudice and lack of understanding. You too will be exposed in your time and however you disguise your prejudice I sbow it for what it truly is.

 I am however very glad that I cannot join my fellow Greens in any of those roles. I am delighted in fact but my faith, trust and support is there for you all. I hope for a Corbyn victory on June 8th and at least three Green Mps in the House of Commons. I will be taking part in another struggle, a guerilla struggle agaisnt the bigots and the racists. This will be a battle fought on social media and other ways as well. As Oscar Wilde observed "Every Saint has a past, every sinner a future and Nietzsche commented that our morality is  simply our wounds. How true they both are..........

Has this been a confession?, an explanation? a justification?  an apolgy? I dont know but I will conclude with Dylan`s quote form the Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest. and the words of Mark Twain 

“It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”

― Mark Twain

Well, the moral of the story
The moral of this song
Is simply that one should never be
Where one does not belong
So when you see your neighbor carryin' somethin'
Help him with his load
And don't go mistaking Paradise
For that home across the road

Operation Tân...what happens in Wales when a vast Tory majority occurs...looking back to 1980

.

Operation Tân (Welsh pronunciation: [ˈtɑːn], "fire") was the name of a series of police raids in Wales between 1 October 1979 and 30 September 1980. The aim of the operation was to identify "Welsh extremists" responsible for burning second homes with English owners.

It has been criticised as a more generalised trawl of left and nationalist milieux within Wales

For more details see Political policing in Wales" John Davies, Lord Gifford, and Tony Richards. (1984, Cardiff: Welsh Campaign for Civil and Political Liberties

Over the palm sunday weekend 1980 the police and special branch carried out 'operation fire' which saw police forces across wales raid the homes of dozens of people and make scores of arrests (frequently illegally).

The Welsh Socialist Republican movement had been formed in january 1980. They published a journal called 'socialism for the welsh people'. The  WSRM had 12 acive branches in Wales and produced a weekly paper y faner goch (the red flag) and a monthly magazine 'the welsh republic'. As well as organising among working class people across wales welsh republicans established fraternal links with republicans in ireland and organised a protest in wales to support the irish republican hunger strikers (welsh police attacked the protest and broke it up). 

Developments like this in wales clearly caused great alarm in the upper echelons of the British state - they had their hands full with events in northern ireland at the time - and it seems clear the emerging welsh republican movement was singled out for special treatment by the thatcher government and the British intelligence services. The palm sunday raids in 1980 hadnt succeeded in destroying the welsh republican movement so what became known as the 'conspiracy trial' took place in 1982.  

In 1980 and 1981 a number of small explosive devices had been planted at places strongly identified with the british state in wales - army recruiting offices, tory party offices etc and in late 1981 there was an explosion at the welsh office in cardiff (no people were injured in any of these explosions). Different groups claimed responsibility for these devices - one was called the 'workers army of the welsh republic' and another 'the sons of glyndwr'.  

In the following months a number of members of the welsh republican movement were arrested and detained on suspicion of causing explosions. One of the defendants (Dafydd Ladd) admitted the charges but others pleaded not guilty and went on trial early in september 1982 with the trial ending two months later. All except one of the defendants was found not guilty of all charges, and none of them was found guilty of carrying out the explosions. The jury accepted the defence case that there was a police conspiracy against the defendants and believed the defendants when they said evidence had been planted, confessions altered and manufactured and had been extracted under 'duress' ie they were beaten and abused by interrogators. 

The trial cost over 500,000 pounds - millions in todays money and while the convictions it resulted in were neglegible at the end of this period the nascent republican movement in wales had been shattered and has never seriously re-emerged - maybe that will change with the affects of brexit on wales and a landslide tory government at westminster? Knowing what we now know about the activities of the british state in ireland did the 'WAWR' and 'sons of glyndwr' really exist or were these the actions of intelligence operatives or agent provacateurs

https://ylolfa.wordpress.com/2016/11/25/operation-tan/

• Mae rhywun yn gwybod (Somebody Knows) by Alwyn Gruffydd
• To Dream of Freedom by Roy Clews, 3rd edition, Publisher: Y Lolfa, 2004. Concentrates on MAC and the Free Wales Army in the 1960s. Includes interviews by participants.
• Freedom Fighters: Wales's Forgotten War 1963–1993, John Humphries (2008). Looks at FWA, MAC and Meibion Glyndwr with many interviews and historical facts.

June 2020 the nightmare threatens

It's June 2020. There is a crisis sweeping the UK. A hard Brexit has occured. A hard border in Northern Ireland has see the return of the Troubles. When the victorious Tories reimposed direct rule after the general election of June 2017 new marches and riots occured along the Givenchy and the Falls roads in July . Scotland voted in September 2018 yet the May government refused to recognise it. With ten Tory Scottish MPs she felt strong enough to play a waiting game to delay the Scottish declaration of independence made on the anniversary of Bannockburn.

In Wales and Scotland the re-emergence of Republican Socialists had led to raids on political activist after the style of operation tan of 1980. Labour's better than anticipated election result had led to the emergence of a new Labour leader and negotiations were under way for a Green Left political movement. The Conservatives had steadily lost by elections between 2018 and 2020. Their response was an authoritarian state and discussion was taking place on the reduction and return of powers to Westminster. A new BNP was stirring it had had a massive influx when 30% of former UKIP members had joined it.

Direct action was taking place as environmental campaigners occupied the research facilities that was examining the new GMO infused meat that Trump's America had insisted on as one of the terms for a UK and USA trade deal. A massive demonstration in London and similar demonstrations throughout the UK had led to riots and tear gas. The savaging of the welfare state and the privatisation of the NHS largely made by America multinationals was in full force.

A moderate grouping of Blairite Labour MPs led by Stephen Kinnock were in negotiations with Norman Lamb of the Liberal Democrats. Lamb had been elected after the hapless Tim Farron had crashed and burned in June 2017. In Wales the emergence of a Welsh Ecosocialst movement was taking direct action against Nuclear power . Similar direct action was taking place against Trident bases .May cut corporation tax to American levels and applied to join NAFTA.

..Molly Scott Cato MP for Britol West addressed a vast crowd in the centre of Bristol. " There is no future but the Green future, the planet is being poisoned , the corporations are taking over our country and our rights are being taken as this paranoid, authoritarian government destroys our liberties, individual identities and our concerns. Long ago Marx said the choice was Socialism or Barbarism. The choice now is between Ecosocialism or corporate fascism" ...a nightmare future perhaps? You have six weeks to prevent it..

Friday political reflections.....on the hypnotists and being strong and stable.....

I remember the character the hypnotist from Little Britain .I hear Tory ministers and Theresa May saying over and "Strong and stable" over and over again. Politics has become the domain of the hypnotist. When Paul Nuttal compares himself to Gandhi and begins to intone "immigration, immigration* or "ban the burka " you see it more clearly. The Brexit argument is the hypnotists magic word that accesses the simple response to vote Tory . What do you do when democracy fails? What do you do when simple answers are easier to sell than complex ones? What do you do in a political system where the education system is designed to create a docile workforce. Long ago Bernays realised that consumerism is the key means of control. As long as we are unaware of collective realities , of unseen truths , of the nature of inequalities, and fail to see our own blind spots and prejudices we are prone to be controlled by the hypnotists of the right. Repeat after me ...strong and stable....strong and stable.. 

We see pictures of Theresa May surrounded by soldiers. Two terror plots are foiled on the same day. Soldier us released from prison his sentence changed from murder to manslaughter. Theresa will stand up to the Europeans .She is getting our country back ...and the media subliminally shine the words string and stable ....over and over again. As Graham Mallaghan pointed out a nation of sheep will be ruled by Wolves....and to be taken in is to become a collaborator with tyranny..

Polls from Scotland show the SNP vote falling . The Conservatives are up to 28% and Labour to 18% . I am beginning to sense an odd phenomena. In Wales Brexit voters are going straight to the Conservatives.....I wonder if a Unionist mechanism is working on the same way? In Northern Ireland the struggle between SF and the DUP continued and I wonder if the mechanism will function in an inverted way leading to remainers voting for Irish reunification ..let us see?

Hope and hate sue Nigel farage for libel

In December, Nigel Farage falsely accused HOPE not hate of pursuing "violent and undemocratic means" live on LBC.

His remarks attributed violence to our organisation and linked the husband of murdered MP Jo Cox to extremism. They threaten to undermine our reputation and the vital work we do in communities across Britain to bridge cultural and religious divides and tackle extremism.

I'm writing to let you know that on Friday, we filed a libel claim in the High Court of Justice.

Nigel Farage knows that smears and lies take hold if repeated enough times. We're pursuing this in the courts to say no more to his – and others right-wing politicians' – fake news.

It's time to take a stand against all those who deliberately whip up anti-immigrant sentiment and hostility to Muslims through their lies and smears.

We need to raise £100,000 to begin our legal fight – please support us:

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Let's strike a blow against liars who bully and shout down those who peacefully disagree with them.

On behalf of everyone at HOPE not hate, thank you for standing with us.

Best,

Nick

Let's sink UKIP (and the far right) There are 1277 candidates from populist and far right parties standing in the county council, local, and mayoral elections taking place on 4th May: let's make sure they don't win. You can find a list of UKIP and far right candidates and where they are standing on our website. You will need to scroll down to see the lists by region. They are down, lets put them out Our brand new #let's call time on UKIP' leaflet is arriving next week, just in time for our weekend of action. So get orders your in quick, and we will get them dispatched to you. You can order your leaflets here Alternatively, there are plenty of our 'something fishy' leaflet (and indeed, our standard: HOPE trumps Hate, Migration and 'Love like Jo' leaflets) No elections in your area? Even if there is not a election taking place in your area there is still plenty to do. We still have plenty of leaflets pushing our messages: 'HOPE trumps hate' and 'Love like Jo' and of course our leaflets calling for a sensible conversation about immigration. You can order them here Send in your reports (and ideas) We love reading the reports of what you have been up to, and we love seeing your pictures, so please do send in updates and reports to dawn@hopenothate.org.uk. And please do send in your ideas as well, we are always looking for a new angle that means we can get our message across more effectively. And Finally,  Let's not forget that on 17 June we will be part of the 'Great Get Together, with plans to organise opportunities for people across the country to come together. HOPE not hate's key objective is to ensure that wherever we are, we bring people together who may not necessarily believe that we have 'more in common than that which divides us'. With less than 10 weeks to the day, now would be a great time to call a local planning meeting. Let us know what your plans are and whether you need a speaker to help get you started. Jo Cox, RIP Many thanks to all our supporters

The road to the gas chambers.......begins with one step

Thursday morning I will be teaching Philosophy in in iust over 90 minutes. I reflect on the election campaign so far and the stories I have heard. One candidate in told me about her experience in a hustings yesterday. The UKIP candidate she told me related every issue there is to immigration and migrants. Further stories I hear UKIP turns up to nothing that has a soul in in it..They are not there at hustings on carers, disability ,renewables, climate change or anything that is complex,not certain or philosophical. They have closed minds, they are the true essence of Emerson`s comment "certainty is the hobgoblin of the closed mind. I have only ever seen one UKIP member at any Philosophy class I have been to or given.......makes you think does it not?

Stuart Hall`s Authoritarian populism ...UKIP and the Font Nationale

The Sun on the sinking of theBelgrano in May 1982.

Authoritarian populism was a term coined by the cultural theorist Stuart Hall to describe Thatcherism. He argued that Thatcherism was a popular reaction to the British post-war settlement, mobilized along right-wing lines and aiming to strengthen the State.

Criticism

A good deal of evidence from opinion polls suggests, as demonstrated notably in the work of Ivor Crewe,[1] that Mrs. Thatcher had little success in winning over the population. Indeed, polls suggest that opposition to Thatcherism grew as time went on.

Bob Jessop et al. argue, along similar lines, that "Thatcherism must be seen less as a monolithic monstrosity and more as an alliance of disparate forces around a self-contradictory programme."[2]

“

Thatcherism involves a passive revolution rather than mass mobilization - let alone a fascist mass mobilization. Where are the Thatcherite 'new model' unions, the Tebbit Labour Front, the Thatcherite Youth, the women's movement, Thatcherite sports leagues, rambling clubs, etc., which might consolidate and fix a mobilized working class?[3]

”

Further readingEdit

• Stuart Hall, 'The Great Moving Right Show', Marxism Today, January 1979.

• Stuart Hall, Chas Critcher, Tony Jefferson, John Clarke and Brian Roberts, Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State, and Law and Order, London and Basingstoke: Macmillan (1978).

• Bob Jessop, Kevin Bonnett, Simon Bromley and Tom Ling, 'Authoritarian Populism, 'Two Nations' and Thatcherism', New Left Review, I/147, Sept.-Oct. 1984.

• Stuart Hall, 'Authoritarian Populism: A Reply to Bob Jessop et al', New Left Review, I/151, May-June 1985.

• Bob Jessop, Kevin Bonnett, Simon Bromley and Tom Ling, 'Thatcherism and the Politics of Hegemony: A Reply to Stuart Hall', New Left Review, I/153, Sept.-Oct. 1985.

NotesEdit

1. ↑ See 'Has the Electorate become Thatcherite?' in Robert Skidelsky (ed.), Thatcherism, London: Chatto and Windus (1988), and 'Values: The Crusade that Failed' in Dennis Kavanagh and Anthony Seldon (eds.), The Thatcher Effect: A Decade of Change, Oxford: Oxford University Press (1989).

2. ↑ Bob Jessop, Kevin Bonnett, Simon Bromley and Tom Ling, 'Authoritarian Populism, 'Two Nations' and Thatcherism' in id., Thatcherism: A Tale of Two Nations, Cambridge: Polity (1988), p. 74.

3. ↑ ibid., p.45

The article below is up to date research on the rise of Ukip. The authors comapre it to the front nationale in France

Populism, the ‘people’ and the illusion of democracy – The Front National and UKIP in a comparative context

Aurelien Mondon

The 2014 European elections confirmed the prominence in the media of what is commonly called the far right. While parties such as the Front National and UKIP were successful in the elections, their performance has since been exaggerated and they have benefited from a disproportionate coverage. Aiding their apparently ‘irresistible rise’, their normalisation was greatly facilitated by their description as ‘populist’ parties. However, while this term ‘populism’ has been almost universally accepted in the media, it remains a hotly debated concept on the academic circuit, and its careless use could in fact prove counterproductive in the assessment of the current state of democracy in Europe. Instead of focusing on the reasons behind the rise of these parties, similarities and differences already widely covered in the literature, this article hypothesises that a skewed and disproportionate coverage of the European elections in particular, and the ‘rise’ of ‘right-wing populism’ in general, have prevented a thorough democratic discussion from taking place and impeded the possibility of other political alternatives.

To be is to be perceived...Berkeley’s Philosophy..the Imp of Perversity......

Berkeley’s Philosophy..the Imp of Perversity

 There is often a gap between the popular perception of a philosopher’s teaching and his own conception of his teaching. But the gap in Berkeley’s case is particularly wide.

On the one hand, there is his own professed plan to justify common sense and combat skepticism. He reiterates this intention in the first of his three dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. The latter, who represents Berkeley’s position, gets Hylas to agree that the opinion must be true that “upon examination shall appear most agreeable to common sense, and remote from scepticism.” Hylas agrees. Berkeley elsewhere claims to agree with “the Mob” that what he sees and feels and smells is real. He attacks skeptics, who divide sense impressions from the real thing, and thus make it impossible for us to ever be sure we know that we have experienced the thing itself. 

On the other hand, a large part of his philosophical output is an attack on the philosophical concept of matter. Berkeley insists that nothing exists “outside mind” and his fundamental thesis is summarized as “esse is percipi” (to be is to be perceived). This was understood by many to be not common-sensical but nonsensical.

What is he really up to?

Berkeley He states in the preface to the Principles of Human Knowledge that his aim is to answer those tainted with skepticism and who want a demonstration of the existence and immateriality of God. His aim is to make a philosophically compelling a case against materialism, and it will help us to see a couple of the errors that Berkeley thinks are produced by materialism. These are not the arguments he uses to justify his position or attack materialism. Although they anticipate the detailed arguments, they display Berkeley’s deeper motives. He is a God-intoxicated philosopher, wanting to formulate an ontology in which God plays the leading role. He sees his battle with materialists is atheological battle.

Regarding skepticism: Berkeley believes that the distinction betwen the intelligble existence of objects and their “real” and independent existence is the root of skepticism. If the real thing is something “behind” the sensible appearance of things, and if all we are able to perceive and experience is the sensible appearance, then we can never get to the “thing in itself.” We can never know whether our experience of the world is really experience of the world. Perhaps it’s just the experience of our minds. This skepticism arises if we believe we are always behind the “veil of perception.” Berkeley solves the problem by removing the “thing in itself” from his account of the world, and making the veil of perception reality itself. He thinks he has arrived at a non-skeptical system.

Just as important are the religious and theological consequences of materialism, but Berkeley's complaints are not obvious ones. Obviously, if someone is a materialist in the sense that he believes that there is nothing but material reality, then God is excluded. But God can be excluded from consideration, shoved to the edges of reality, in more subtle ways. 

The notion of material substance, he thinks, encourages atheism, and removing it from philosophy will undermine atheism. Doubt about creation has arisen because man cannot conceive of matter being produced from nothing, and so philosophers have posited an eternal and uncreated matter alongside God. But if there is no matter, there is no philosophical problem in the creation of matter. The issue simply evaporates, since we don’t have to puzzle how a spirit can produce matter, or how matter can be created from nothing.

This becomes clearer in subsequent arguments. Man complains that he cannot see God. On Berkeley’s terms, all we have to do is open our eyes to see God. All the sensations we have come from Him, all perceptions are product of the divine spirit. Thus, though we do not see God directly and immediately, everything we do see is an effect of God, or, as he puts it elsewhere, a sign or mark. “God’s visible language.”

For Berkeley, then, God is the most evident thing in the world, the most verifiable, the existence for which there is the most evidence. We miss this because we are too nattentive and stupid to see God when “such clear manifestations” are everywhere.

“Nature” is introduced by heathen philosophers who do not have proper notion of Providence. They don’t believe in a God who is ever active in the details of creation, and therefore attribute the effects they see to something distinct from God called nature. Scripture, however, talks about the effects as being produced by God. Men have an “aversion from believing that God concerns himself so nearly in our affairs.” Christians should have no such aversion.

In the Third Dialogue, he claims that the question between Berkeley and materialists is not the existence of something without the mind of this or that person, but whether anything has anabsolute, we might say “autonomous” existence, apart from the mind of God. This B strenuously denies. Esse is percipi is a theological statement.

In short, for Berkeley, materialism is an effort to remove God further and further from the world, to explain the world more and more without reference to Him, to suggest that, even if God did not exist and rule the world, the world would exist and continue pretty well on its own. This is appalling to his religious convictions, and he thinks he has a set of arguments that shows this to be philosophical nonsense. He wants to demonstrate the utter dependence of the world on God. Materialism, as he sees it, replaces God as the ground of all things with some immanent principle of order, with inert and senseless matter.

Philosophically, the crucial biblical text for Berkeley is “in Him we live and move and have our being.” He wants to take this as absolutely literal: Nothing has independent existence, nothing exists “absolutely,” i.e., apart from God’s perception of it. Berkeley's opposition to matter is only the negative side of his affirmation of the Pauline conviction that “in Him we live and move and have our being.”

As clear as the Neath Christmas Lights...the campaign against Welsh Education

I do not  have a lot of time for Jac o` the Norths blog. However sometimes his research is most illuminating. take foe exampke this lengthy piece. I quote "A few days ago I got an anonymous message telling me about someone, or a group, seeking to raise money to ‘Save English Language Education in Wales’. Here’s the link to the relevant CrowdJustice site. I doubt if those behind this are susceptible to embarrassment, but just in case, and it’s been taken down, here’s what it said (click to enlarge):

click to enlarge

There are so many misleading statements and downright lies in that ‘appeal’ that it’s difficult to know where to start. The opening sentence sets the tone with the ludicrous claim that what’s happening in Llangennech is the prelude to removing English medium schools “across Wales”.

At first reading, the fourth paragraph seems to elaborate on the first, but with the qualification of “potentially”, which serves to undermine it altogether. Potentially means ‘possibly’, or ‘maybe’, or ‘who the fuck knows’. For example, potentially I’m the lost heir of the Hapsburgs. The Monster Raving Loony Party is potentially the next government of the UK. Elvis Presley is potentially alive and running a nice little B&B in Penmaenmawr.

Paragraph five: where’s the evidence that, “The majority from within Llangennech village wish to keep their Dual Stream system school, offering both Welsh and English streams . . .” Has there been a vote on it?

Paragraph six: there are a number of English medium schools within reasonable travelling distance. As for the alleged ‘move to England’ remark, it might have been said, by an individual, but this issue is about a decision taken by Carmarthenshire County Council, what individuals have said, on either side, is of less relevance.

Summary: What “apparent flaws, breaches”? And, again, where is the evidence for “overwhelming opposition”?

“Learning through the Medium of Welsh must be through choice and encouragement not by compulsion.” At last! I’ve found something I agree with, so why not remind those Labour-controlled local authorities that do their damnedest to avoid meeting the demand for Welsh language education?

The people behind this campaign claim to be defenders of democracy; yet they are opposing a decision taken by the democratic representatives of the county and they have no grounds whatever for arguing that they represent the will of the majority in Llangennech . . . apart from a biased on-line poll that attracted most of its support from outside the area.

♦

There is a sick yet dangerous mind behind this fund-raising escapade that is premised on a palpable lie, namely, that there is a plan to “eradicate all English Medium schools”. Whoever is saying this is lying, and they know they’re lying. Consequently, this is a case of money being raised under false pretences. Which is of course a criminal offence.

Inevitably, this campaign is being promoted on social media, particularly the Families website, of which I was blissfully ignorant before this cropped up. From what I can make out this is an open website, with local pages, where people post news about their area, or ‘Ah!’ photos of their kids. Riveting stuff.

Save English Medium Education in Wales is being pushed on various local pages, both in Wales and England. Here’s the Carmarthenshire page. As you work down, you’ll read “Watkins and Gunn partner Michael Imperato”.Watkins and Gunn are the solicitors handling this fund-raiser.

It appears that Watkins and Gunn’s headquarters are in Pontypool with branches in Newport and Cardiff. Although Imperato is described as a partner he is not listed as a director on the Companies House website entry for Watkins and Gunn. The company specialises in personal injury and medical negligence; in other words – they’re ambulance chasers.

Though we do find John Michael Imperato listed as a director of the Bevan Foundation, the Labour ‘think tank’. Imperato has also stood as a Labour candidate; in the Llanishen ward of Cardiff in 2008, the Pentwyn ward in 2012, and more recently, he considered going for the Aberavon Westminster nomination, but was talked out of it, allowing Stephen Kinnock to sneak home.

In fact, the word I’m getting from the now smoke-free rooms is that Imperato was ‘persuaded’ not to throw his hat into the ring by a trade union that may have had ‘dirt’ on him. This same trade union is also said to be ill-disposed towards Lee Waters, Imperato’s mate and AM for Llanelli.

John Michael Imperato

Now, I don’t want anyone to think I’m taking a cheap shot here because of his Italian name, but there is something to be said for comparing ‘Welsh’ Labour to the Mafia. Both have contempt for ‘outsiders’, backstabbing is the norm, both are in business for themselves and their members, with the Mob having its rackets and ‘Welsh’ Labour its Third Sector.

You may recall that in News Round-up 24.03.2017 I wrote of a Labour councillor in Plaid Cymru-controlled Gwynedd, Siôn Wyn Jones, and reported that a project of his had been favoured by the local funding agency, Mantell Gwynedd, which is – in the words of my informant – a “Labour closed shop”. I was told the same applies to the Citizens Advice Bureau in Bangor. So it’s no surprise to see that Imperato was once a director of the – now defunct – Cardiff Citizens Advice Bureau.

Which makes me wonder what chance I – someone who has over the years been mildly critical of the Labour Party – would have of getting fair treatment from what appears to be an offshoot of the Labour Party?

UPDATE 10:10pm: Since finishing this piece I have learnt that Mr Imperato has represented parents on the ‘other side’ of the language debate. Ceredigion in 2004, and Newport in 2014. I am happy to put the record straight.

Though in both those cases he was on firmer legal ground, which meant that he, or whoever instructed him, didn’t need to resort to hyperbole, exaggeration and downright lies, as in the Llangennech case.

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The Llangennech dispute has inevitably attracted the bigots and oddballs, and they don’t come more bigoted or oddbally than Jacques Protic, a man who blames the Welsh language for his beer going flat. To judge by thisTwitter reply he might even have been in the area recently. This obsessive’s blog is one sad but revealing anti-Welsh tirade after another. It paints the picture of a troubled soul.

Inevitably, Protic supports the Save English Medium Education in Wales fund-raiser, here’s a tweet (below) from a few days ago that suggests what’s happening in Llangennech is the fault of the ‘Welsh’ Government and is but a staging-post on the road to a “Welsh Speaking Republic”.

Protic has elsewhere claimed to be a Labour Party member, but believes that both Rhodri Morgan and Carwyn Jones are ‘closet nationalists’, for no better reason than both speak Welsh! As I say, this man is troubled.

Support of a slightly more credible nature came from the Trinity Mirror Group’s Welsh mouthpiece WalesOnline, where someone called Christie Bannon gave an uncritical plug to the flagging campaign and even provided a link to the CrowdJustice page. Though somebody slipped up by using the photo of the bigots lined up with Neil – “do the honourable thing” – Hamilton and his wife-minder.

those with strong stomachs may click to enlarge

Why do ugly people always manage to find each other? Is there magnetism at work?

P.S. The WalesOnline story has finally been updated, at four minutes past three on April 11th. Instead of wondering who pulled the plug on this exercise in misrepresentation, or why, the reporter, Christie Bannon, does no more than say that it’s been taken down before repeating almost verbatim what it said and what is now no longer available on the CrowdJustice website.

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The bias we’ve seen in Trinity Mirror’s coverage of the Llangennech dispute has been blatant from the start. Why anyone still buys this company’s Welsh rags is a mystery. Maybe we should be thankful that sales are falling, though I’m a little sad to see the Evening Post – not so long ago the largest circulation Welsh daily – heading for the knackers’ yard as people in the Swansea area realise that ‘their’ ‘paper is now written in Cardiff.

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Anyone who’s been following this story will know that there are disturbing connections between the anti-Welsh campaigners and the extreme right, the BritNats so intolerant of all other identities. To these people we Welsh, and our language, are ‘alien’, even in Wales, and must be stamped out. Everything must be English.

This attitude is not restricted to the Welsh language, it extends to anything that differentiates Wales from England, other than sporting events and other trivia. It’s what I’ve referred to more than once as ‘the package’. Those who are hostile to the Welsh language will usually be opposed to devolution and so on. Essentially, these people are English nationalists. Of course it’s dressed up as Britishness and, amusingly, opposition to ‘narrow nationalism’. But ‘British’ means little today, and once Scotland is independent and Ireland reunited it will mean nothing but Englandandwales.

Few have stirred more assiduously than Gary Robert Jones, who tweets as @poumista, a name taken fromPOUM, a Trotskyite party during the Spanish Civil War period. Jones is a community councillor and hopes for promotion to county hall next month, for he seeks election in the Llangennech ward.

An odd fish, Jones; sometimes he seems to be one of the more rational inmates of the asylum and then he puts out a tweet like this (below). Gifted to the world on the day – March 18 – when Wales played France at rugby in Paris. He appears to be wearing a poilu helmet from WWII, and the caption would suggest he’s supporting France!

Get your head around that. Here’s a Labour candidate in a Llanelli ward, two months away from an election, who appears to be supporting Wales’ opponents in a rugby international! In the Llanelli I know, that’s a lynching offence. But then, as I keep saying, we are dealing here with very strange people.

Moving up a level we come to the local Assembly Member, Lee Waters. Although Waters is the AM for Llanelli he and his family live 55 miles away on Barry Island. Yet for last year”s Assembly elections he gave a Llanelli address – possibly his mother’s – on his nomination paper and sneaked in by less than 400 votes. Would he have been elected if the Turks had known he didn’t live among them? I doubt it.

And now we have John Michael Imperato, failed Labour candidate; Jacques Protic, who dismisses Welsh as a“tribal language”; and a cast of similar individuals who have serious problems with the truth. In a word: they’re unable to recognise it or produce it.

Finally, with the campaign looking unlikely to meet its fund-raising target the Labour-supporting Trinity Mirror Group, using its Welsh titles and WalesOnline gives a priceless plug and a link to the site for potential donors. Curiously, although the piece asks for comments, it’s not publishing any. I know because I submitted a comment yesterday, and I can’t believe that no one has commented.

This affair has ‘Welsh’ Labour running through it like ‘Pwllheli’ through a stick of rock. The party locally has been behind the anti-Welsh campaign in Llangennech from the outset, conveniently forgetting that the county council was run by a Labour-Independent coalition when the decision on Llangennech school was taken in 2015.

No matter what pious statements Carwyn Jones or Alun Davies might make about wanting to help the Welsh language, lower down the food chain unscrupulous individuals see political capital – against Plaid Cymru – in being hysterically anti-Welsh.

And as these people make up the bulk of ‘Welsh’ Labour we can now label the party anti-Welsh. So stop-pussy-footing around with these bastards, dreaming of coalitions and talking of a ‘progressive consensus’, and fight them with their own weapons. They may be cunning and devious, but they ain’t too smart. They must be destroyed as the SNP has destroyed their corrupt, lying cousins.

I suspect this case will rumble on, so I may return to it at some point. For the full background of the squalid Llangennech saga, and its dramatis personae, I can recommend no better source than the excellent Cneifiwr.

As I finish this post I note that the CrowdJustice site has raised £1,400 of the £7,500 target with 26 days to go. Though what this deception has to do with justice I do not know,"

Jac has his suspicions and I have mine. Of course to be a fund raiser for such a campaign against  Welsh Language Education. We are all aware of the Llanelli connection and I ask the simple question ...Who would have the experience of a Crowd Funding campaign like this? I dont j=know but perhaps it  is as clear as the Neath Christmasl Lights. I leave the rest to you

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