False flags?

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"Interesting. Gosh." Catherine Ashton and the alleged "false flag" attack on Ukraine.

I said something about this almost a year ago and - "gosh" - the video of the above telcon I embedded has has the associated Youtube account terminated - "interesting".

Well. the issue has come up again on Washington's blog - at the same time that a similar theory is circulating about this week's murder of Boris Nemtsov.

And who is this talking?

"If the United States has its way they’ll be having a war in Europe between the Europeans and the Russians... countries that are buying gold are preparing for war. That has always been one of the signs of coming war... I think that this preparation of buying gold indicates clearly that there is going to be a big disagreement, eventually, between the Russians and the Chinese, and that disagreement might signify a war. And nobody wants to have the enemy’s currency as your currency and your reserves when you’re in a war. You want something that is independent of your enemy, right? And that can only be gold. So this purchase of gold by Russia and China, and other countries, indicates that there is growing doubts about the universality of the dollar. And the universal appreciation of the dollar as currency is now in doubt. That’s why their countries are buying gold, because they see that the dollar is too unstable and it’s not a firm enough basis in case of a crisis. Their countries want to have something on which they can rely on their own resources and that means they must have their reserves of gold."

Why, it's billionaire Hugo Salinas Price.

"Byee!" Dontcha just love her? We're in safe hands, I'm sure.


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Peace, potatoes and cocoa

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This is another chapter from my aunt's memoirs where she describes how family and neighbours celebrated peace in the back streets of Derby in 1919 when she was eleven years old.

June 1919

Although hostilities ceased in November 1918, peace celebrations weren’t held until the following June.

Our street being a cul-de-sac, the family next door living in the very last house, we were able to build our bonfire actually on the road. The neighbours living opposite were all delighted and we rummaged around for anything burnable to help the conflagration. Everyone rallied round as they had done during the war. One old lady every time the maroon sounded, had run up and down the street knocking on every front door, calling through the black letter box,

‘Are you up? Isn’t it awful?’

With that kind of spirit we did pretty well and when the enormous bonfire had been built, children and adults sat and stood round until my dad put a match to one side and another fellow lit the other side. Soon there were Catherine wheels spinning on walls and rockets soaring into the air. The boys loved (and I hated) crackers and jumping jacks which darted and exploded.

On the other side of the big brick wall at the end of the street was the railway line. Now and again a train went chuffing by but we were so used to them we hardly noticed. I’ve wondered since if any passengers saw our bonfire, or at least the sparks flying into the air as the men pushed the glowing embers together.

When the bonfire sagged into a heap of red-hot ash, potatoes were dropped in and mothers went into their houses, reappearing with jugs of cocoa for their families. Jugs of beer had been fetched for the men from the outdoor beer licence.

There was much talk and merriment. My dad picked the cooked potatoes out of the embers with a pair of long fire tongs. No potato tastes as good as one roasted in a bonfire. We children were all dropping to sleep as the fire sank and were taken off to bed, leaving the men still talking.

What a night to remember. Little did we think that in twenty years time the peace we were celebrating would once more be shattered by the dogs of war. But that’s another story.

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The War that Ended Peace

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I recently finished Margaret MacMillan's World War I history book The War that Ended Peace as recommended by David over at duffandnonsense. It covers the people and events leading up to the war rather than the war itself. 

I bought the Kindle version so the maps aren't as useful as they would be in a traditional book, but unless your geography is even worse than mine it should not cause too many problems.

I'm not a great history buff but the book is an excellent read. Very well written, it takes the reader through the myriad causes of the Great War. No doubt people from my generation all have some familiarity with the main events, but MacMillan's book brings them together in an extremely readable way.

I'll finish with this quote from the blurb which neatly sums it up, although if you read the book you may have some reservations about the word intelligent.

The story of how intelligent, well-meaning leaders guided their nations into catastrophe. Immersed in intrigue, enlivened by fascinating stories, and made compelling by the author's own insights, this is one of the finest books I have read on the causes of World War I (Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State)

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A blogger protests against the world's corruption and injustice

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Le Blob Vert

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I see Lord Prescott is off to the the Paris climate jolly in December. From the BBC we hear -

John Prescott is returning to front-line politics as an unpaid adviser to Ed Miliband with responsibility for climate change.

The former deputy PM will focus on trying to help a future Labour government seek agreement at climate change talks due to take place in Paris in December, Labour sources say.

Mr Miliband said in a tweet that Lord Prescott "knows how to knock heads together".

Surely an odd choice - sending a known buffoon on a mission to save the planet. Maybe he barged his way to the front of a long queue using his well-developed political elbows to snatch the plum before anyone else spotted it.

Or maybe not. 

Did Viet Cong soldiers get PTSD?

It seems some did, but not so often as among American soldiers:

I had wondered whether the disparity might be down to differences in culture, but it seems it has more to do with factors affecting morale. The authors of this study contrast US servicemen's experience of war with that of the Vietnamese:

"The situation of the Vietnamese veterans was totally different. The Vietnamese had justified reasons for engagement in the war, could discern the adversary,were able to feel relatively safe, and had the strong support of their country, and the local population. The Vietnamese veterans fought for their lives, for their families, relatives and country. They were founders of the guerilla war therefore they knew actively what they were doing, how it should have been done, or where and when they did it. They knew who were their comrades or adversaries. They did not have the passive or uncertain feelings characteristic of many American soldiers. The hit-and-run tactics, the fluidity, and the mobility of the Vietnamese soldiers generally made the American soldiers confused in locating them, and this, in turn, helped them minimize their casualties. Additionally, the Vietnamese soldiers got strong support from the Vietnamese population. As a result, they had greater feelings of safety than did the American soldiers."

Another hypothesised factor was how American Vietnam vets were treated when they returned home:

"The lack of social support for American veterans probably contributed to the development of PTSD symptoms. The Vietnam-America war was a politically unpopular one, and many American veterans were ostracized on their return home. This was in contrast to the experiences of veterans coming home from previous wars such as World War II who were given a hero’s welcome. [...] Society had subjected American soldiers to catastrophic combat victimization, and, when they returned, society avoided the victims, then blamed them for what they had done in Vietnam."

More here:

http://www.ffrd.org/AO/CGFED/12PTSD.pdf


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