Author: Nicholas Alexander

Writer poet, programmer business, human being.

The Fiendish and Evil destruction of democratic process

On By Nicholas AlexanderIn Brexit, New articles, PoliticsLeave a comment

The Government minister for Brexit has asked for a rule change to democratic process such that Parliament can’t amend the deal that Theresa May has cobbled together, but could reject it (and thus enforce a no deal condition). 

This is another significant day that the Government tries to destroy our democratic framework and remove scrutiny for its imbalanced approach.  Of course Parliament can change the process if it is a choice between damaging our economic and political clout in the world and complete dismal failure.

There is another choice.  Put the final decision parliament can come up with and compare it with the status quo.  Only then will a proper referendum without any propaganda establish any democratic legitimacy for this shallow attempt to highjack process and destroy the ability of the Parliament to correct the course of a government that is dead set on ruining the lives of millions.

They are so riveted to their negotiating strategy which is unfortunate as they have little skill in creating a negotiable position.  The Government has failed to notice that theirs is the act of democratic destruction that will take decades or even wars to amend?

No, full power to Parliament to review, amend or reject the terms the Government propose to exit the EU or do not exit the EU.  No deal is not an option and should not be considered.  

We run a trade deficit with the EU because we import more because they make things our society depends upon, like healthy vegetables and very well made cars.  We export more to the rest of the world because of our weapon sales to Saudi Arabia (now that we have sold our chip making powerhouse, we protect our weapons industry?  Is that the plan?  Our exports are mainly services, will that be affected by leaving the EU?

The End of Empire

On By Nicholas AlexanderIn New articlesLeave a comment

It seems inevitable that a once too proud empire would shed its client states like old skin. The UK is the rump of a spent empire that is trying to protect its old-money rather than using it to make new wealth. What it is not noticing is that its fear of the other will continue to extend to whatever it at its event horizon or boundary of its awareness. It seems that Brexit is designed to continue this process of self-destruction.

The reason it has to be like this is the drives inherent in the conservation of wealth and domination.  The lesson of literature is that leaders with too much power corrupt into wraiths frail and afraid as the anyone that they are.  The media writes “how history will remember” a world leader as a future judgement, the last word, the dying insult.  Which side of history will a leader end up on?  Will it be to have their likeness carved into a mountain, or to be forgotten or reviled?

Not that history matters.  Except if we can learn from it.  And if the riches of the powerful may fuel corruption, the ravages of poverty do not grant inherent grace.  The person at the centre of a myth is not necessary the main protagonist but the one with the best story.  

Brazil – the film by Terry Gilliam should have been the salutary lesson. As a fiefdom of the great consumer America, we will become their administration, their slaves in civic obscurity as they enforce a red tape emporium of wonder upon our hapless souls.

Big mistake, Mrs May.  Big mistake.  

The EU is more liberal than the States. Exporting our souls may make us the cheapest source of quality labour to an overheating economy, but there are other things to consider.

We would have been wise to allow more generations of integration with our brilliant neighbours, instead we do not know the thousand year headache of administrative compliance that awaits us!

Or, we could do the wise thing, and let the people decide their fate.  

Continued Brexit – the EU accept whatever deal the Government can agree on with a 100% risk of the firestorm that would be hard Brexit if the EU will not agree to it.

or

Continued EU Membership: Cancel the Article 50 letter and agree to remain in the EU being at the top table in actively demanding new rules to benefit all, so that while people’s rights are more universally respected an emphasis on building the wealth of each region by shared efficiencies of the whole commercial effort.  

12 years to avert catastrophe

On By Nicholas AlexanderIn Climate Change, Environment, Global Warming, New articlesLeave a comment 
The IPCC has said that the planning to limit global temperatures rises to below 2C by 2100 is not now a goal that will be achieved, instead advising we must stop warming before it exceeds 1.5C by 2030.  

That is twelve years of accelerating and increasing decline in stability before we are well and truly cooked.  

Blame this directly on Donald Trump and his apocalyptic economics.  This time he can not just bankrupt the enterprise as the economy adjusts to unsustainable tax cuts with an infrastructure that no longer looks after its people.

World in shock

On By Nicholas AlexanderIn America, New articlesLeave a comment

An unsubtle change overtook the world recently.  The president of the USA lost any sign of trust his electorate and the rest of the world had, which was already thin.  

There appears to be a peculiar silence.  The incredulity that followed Trump’s declared love for a dictator who starves his people, the position he has taken on climate instability and the environment, his behaviour regarding the investigation of foreign meddling in their democratic institutions, these were all accepted by his country.  

There is a sense that the swearing in of person who has no real respect for the truth and the way Trump bullied the witnesses who testified before the senate, under oath, and supported his SCOTUS nominee who was lying obviously with a thin investigation worthy of a banana republic.  

The world is in shock that this man should fool everyone for far too much of the time and is now removing any vestige of fair play in American Democracy.  

The world realises that the uncertain future he creates is not in anyone’s interest.  The world has realised what is happening to America.  

China’s economy

On By Nicholas AlexanderIn China, New articlesLeave a comment

It occurred to me that China’s economic growth success followed after several things.  One of those is population control.

Economics is the driver of human destruction of nature. There has to be a better way to protect our environment. Green capitalism? If we can do it for energy by the provision of free alternatives, we can reduce the human footprint only if we can change our economic model.

China’s attempt at population control preceded its unusually strong run of economic growth.  Conventional “wisdom” is that huge populations are the engine of economic growth.  This is the logic of slavery and feudalism.  The logic of Capitalism follows: the pressure of population growth provides the engine that demands economic growth.  And when we have too much wealth, Socialism can follow.  According to Marx.

Another idea is that population decline could provide an energy which results in more wealth for sharing with everybody.  The domination of a single species eventually would make life impossible as resources are burned out.

China’s single child policy and lurch into capitalism has altered its destiny from one of extreme poverty and environmental destruction to it having a conscience that the world is under threat and rapidly becoming an economic threat to American domination.

America is failing to look after its environment and Trump has accelerated this process.  American economics seem to be doing well as people go back to work in polluting industries, shoot their guns and eat themselves to death.

There must be a better way – and economic motivators such as tariffs and sanctions are not going to stop the progress toward mass extinction.

A proposed answer is Green Capitalism.  Instead of a culture that creates too many children, how about one that cares for its children.  People who contribute to society that do not have children still may need full lives, perhaps they can help fund families that have too many children.  Tax religions that encourage population growth as a recruitment tactic.

If we take a very different approach to ecology, perhaps we can reverse the direction.  If we do not, our grandchildren will inherit a hell on Earth.  And we are to blame.

Brexit is just the beginning

On By Nicholas AlexanderIn New articlesLeave a comment

The Government, led by a woman who really can not dance, is making sure that Brexit goes ahead, come what may.  Why?

It is not good for the EU, it is bound to break the United part of the UK.  

Meantime, Trump lies to his power-base.  He belittles women and there they are in the audience applauding him.  He could be saying anything and they would support him, in fact, the more outrageous he is, the more they applaud.

And it is the same in the ranks of the Conservative party.  Theresa May throws scraps to the power hungry and they lap it up while plotting to take power.  Her razor thin grasp of power perversely protects her grip.  But her deal with the DUP threatens to undo it, so watch out for more compromised positioning that can only mean a united Ireland in the EU.  And the DUP are beginning to realise this is the result of May’s terrible negotiations.

What the UK really faces is becoming a branch of Trump-land.  After Brexit, the UK will have to replace the international trade agreements of the EU with the rest of the world, with their own.  This will logically cause a recession as businesses relocate to the EU.  Japan has already said that they see the UK as their gateway to Europe.  No more.  Notwithstanding the fact that the UK has proven itself an unreliable business partner, it has demonstrated how awful they are at negotiating.

Brexit is the start of something far worse.  It will enable the Tories to indulge themselves in their awful, rotten and detrimental “solutions” like their treatment of the Windrush generation, the Grenfell tower calamity, the hostile environment policy May invented, the weak and ridiculous environmental policies of culling badgers and increasing the price of plastic bags instead of removing plastic (there is far more in food packaging than bags). 

This is nothing short of a Right Wing revolution.  People, it is time to rise up!

Russian Spy poisonings

On By Nicholas AlexanderIn Russia, terrorism, UKLeave a comment

It is hard to trust the word of either government.

Britain has a government that pursues an extreme agenda saying it is the “will of the people” when that is clearly untrue. The accusation against Russia, in this case, does appear logical but the photos of two men is hardly enough evidence to take Putin to the Hague or for reparations. It could feasibly be a “false flag” incident.

Putin’s statement that they are civilians is not very well supported by the two men’s story, which sounds rather silly, especially their statement that men would not carry women’s perfume on a plane without arousing suspicion. Who else would target enemies of the Russian state?

The UK has already spent millions on this. Due process is expensive. Russia has lost far more due to sanctions.

You got to ask, who benefits? Who are enemies of both states?

See also: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/13/skripals-russia-putin-salisbury-poisoning-suspects-interview

Problems with Russia

On By Nicholas AlexanderIn New articles, Russia, WorldLeave a comment

Which problem is it? 

If the Russian government is absolutely innocent in the Novichok poisoning even if nobody believes them, it implies their criminal community must own some dreadful weapons.  Seems horribly possible.

Or, Putin is lying.  Also horribly possible.  Or even a coup could be forming.  Good lordy.

The world needs to step-up in the recovery of illegal stocks of chemical weapons that Russia obviously is or has been a source of, from Governments and criminals before they end up in the hands of insane terrorists.

It is a reminder that there is a reason for political stability.  Reagan may have broken the USSR, but a new form of Empire may now rebuild around a stronger Russia.  If the Government can build trust where America may be failing to do so.  These poisonings are very damaging to Putin, the need to exterminate a spy only appeared to have value as punishment, but who knows?  

Now that Britain seems determined to deconstruct their best defense from Russia.  The EU with Britain is stronger as a reason for the growth of what we understand as “democracy” (if only we could live up to it ourselves!).

Britain leaving the EU could mean Russia taking back some Eastern European allegiances because the power balance shift will create a vacuum and Russia could evolve into a very competent democracy overnight.  Volatility has consequences.

British Human Rights Abuses

On By Nicholas AlexanderIn America, Brexit, UK, UK PoliticsLeave a comment

The UK government has not done enough to prevent another Grenfell style disaster.  They appear to leave this in the not as important as Brexit basket, and unfortunately for the citizens of this once proud country can expect the same kind of disregard for Human Rights in all (in)actions by this horribly ineffective Government.  They have demonstrated how they have no concern for the citizens they rule over, except where it comes to removing human rights by not only departure from the executive functions of the EU (the British contribution is a UKiP majority in the EU Government – in other words, intellectual pollution, a spoiler, a non-contribution) but to leave the economically stabilising single market and the good sense of trading within the rules of the Customs Union so we can become subject to American demands.  This America that does not want a world to prosper to any degree if it means that 350 million people can not lord it over the rest of the planet.  

Guardian article
The commission said it was concerned that the consultation omits any reference to the government’s duty to protect lives under article 2 of the European convention on human rights and schedule 1 to the Human Rights Act 1998. “This paramount duty requires the state to take appropriate steps within its power to effectively protect the lives of individuals and groups in situations where there is a known real risk to life, or where the authorities ought to have known that,” the commision said in its response to the consultation, shared with the Observer. The response continues: “Unfortunately, over a year after the catastrophic loss of more than 70 residents’ lives, many of the very systemic failings that led to the Grenfell Tower fire still exist now, giving rise, in our view, to an ongoing violation of article 2 ECHR/HRA by the state.”

Lack of infrastructure

On By Nicholas AlexanderIn Dangers, DemocracyLeave a comment

Locking children in cages and separation of young children from their families is inhuman behaviour. And now, abrupt about-turns by Donald Trump does not signify that the President of the US would seriously contemplate discussing ideas and or listen to objections before enforcing sweeping Executive Orders that appear to be rapidly pushing the USA towards a police-state apparatus not dissimilar to a South American dictatorship. The internment of children and tearing apart of families is not just symbolic of evil, but an utterly inhumane form of torture as “a deterrent”.

What this reveals about Trump’s illogical diplomacy and flagrant snake-oil economics is a concern as it has created a lack of infrastructure. Trump thinks he knows everything but if he thought that this atrocity was acceptable behaviour toward refugees and immigrants he damages his case about making America great again as it makes America seem to be sadly introspective and confusing to the global order.

The fact remains that the creation of masses of debt by liberating the financial system has its ups and downs. Specifically, the scale of these reverberations increase, so this period of Western debt will result in a reflection where the West is in surplus. It seems inevitable, but if the West forever remained in debt, it would suffer in the future for the largess of the day.

That is the problem, America is being run by a person who is impatient and controlling and who appears to excerpt influence at every level of detail rather than having a machine that he trusts to implement his objectives. Trump even postponed a picnic for Congress in recognition of the seriousness of the result of his numerous directives being carried out.