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THE HANDSTAND |
MAY 2003 |
 Artists may voice radical political ideas, but journalists and commentators must pin these moths to the candle flame. Reading dozens of texts, war reports, political essays and articles at present, it is difficult to bear with the religious orientation of some of them. What is this political - religious - moral - connection that world leaders maintain and millions of this planets citizens either submit to, or disengage? Is the idea of god, realised today only in the face of fears or their resolution in violence, and no longer in the maintenance of community values?The mass of texts contain theories that connect by repetition into a knot of controversies. Alternatively, some historians, for instance Robert Lansing, in his memoirs of Woodrow Wilson and the creation of the League of Nations, reverberate with an easily assimilated or credible sense of the justice and truth of his mind, and lead into the apprehension that power politics of the last century contained, as today, the sense of oppressive histories of manipulation, lies and favour that "colour" and force the truth aside. In this particular, the author, who was an adviser on Foreign Affairs to Wilson, unites his growing powerless frustration with observation. He is not aggressive, cynical or acerbic toward individuals, but is manifestly overcome with the injustice of the ideas that England and France mature and foist on both an impatient Wilson and on the legal background to the League of Nations. Legal power structures that refute the equality of nations, and that were subsequently to dominate the structure of the United Nations. To "colour" the truth.... this implies that truth has no reality - truth is merely the fortune of surmise? Truth is thus given the sense of "the unattainable" and human actions that may be described as either evil or merely despicable, or even criminal, are all by-passed because the truths of religious principles lie beyond death. Religious truth, it is transparently obvious, is without any political value whatsoever - except as propaganda; so why may politicians be allowed hide national interests and the criminal results within religious principles? Meantime many other essays skirt the need to search for plausible causes, recounting events witnessed, never diving under the surface by questioning the mind of a political leader or the time co-ordinates of evident "deals", between nations. Why, when the public so much need to be aware of the legal boundaries that are being both tightened remorselessly or simply destroyed by the USA, and by those susceptible to what we can only describe as bribery - though modified essentially for England as the "vanity of association" - why are there so few detailed articles in the media about the principles of decisions, their contexts, and the changes in psychological pressure brought to bear on the injustice of the accepted inequality of nations? In Israel,if the Jews and the Muslims religious ideas reflect one another,as does their DNA, why must the media alude so lightly to the economic complexities that adhere to the mirrored hatred between them, that is brought about on a different plain entirely - the political. We do not read anywhere that Arabs resent the Jewish religion - the Arab and Christian churches that have been bulldozed are merely part and parcel of the political struggle that, as in early Communist years in Russia, demonstrate an atheist regime in Palestine. Only insane individuals kill in the interests of religion. Political assassinations appear to be part of the financial small change of gangland, where you buy the bully. When heads of government attend religious services should the priest not specifically address them, to shame them in the congregation for practice devoid of principle? See the Pope discerning the sybarite leer of Tony Blair(above), who has now failed to feel shamed by new revelations, in the AngloIrish Stephens report, that reveal collusion of his government with murderers and bullies of the Catholic population All these violent circumstances of power politics are like chemical crucibles which manufacture a change under the influence of heat or acid, but the congruent action is indiscernible because very few writers and journalists know either enough history or have enough interest in diverse individuals that fruitfully lead to understanding. Robert Fisk and John Pilger stand out for their studies and reports. Investigations that they undertake correctly follow the crucial leads that enable them grasp the shadows of reasons that openly or surreptitiously emerge. Few journalists are able to do this, and when trying to engage in an exchange of views or queries with either significant politicians or ordinary people, they are unable to elucidate either natural or unique messages. Fisk's interest in significant questions is always reciprocated and all too evidently stirring in the minds of those who answer him. Like a hunting animal he sniffs out the invisible prey without difficulty; and his prey is the elusive political decision that shadows the chaos of present events. Do we await the declaration of lawyers or international votes for opinion that will dismiss these shifting men, Blair and Bush, whose power must be dislocated from their governments - ....are we waiting for Godot? ..jocelyn braddell© ..A WOMAN ON THE STONES  BASTARD KILLERS AND MURDERERS The loud voice screams here too... I come with a love, mine alone, But now it can be yours. No wind or light Confers such blight As love does This burntout love of mine Cool only in the eyes Eyes that reck the blight Of this love... Nowhere the sign Nowhere divine For now man and woman Stand each alone No wind or light Confers such blight As love does After this sick battle Of tin men at war I stood screaming As love does Screaming I wrestle with the dead To search each bloody hand For youth. Come, Come here to me, man And tell me if this blight Of time and execution Shot your seed upon this earth Where blood feeds upon stone. Fuck this dead man I drag aside He's looking in my eyes As he gives me one love And no wind or light Confers such blight As this my love encrusted Encrusted on a stone Where metal erased his name. Oblivion will not come To that red signature Of one whose love was bought Of one whose love was sold Love wasted Of such tender words And of such strong paces And through this world I now and all, All who hear me out, will carry Carry this love alone As the final reason for living. 
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