A New President

Barack Hussein Obama, is now the 44th President of the United States of America having been sworn in to the office this afternoon - 20th January 2009.

There is a feeling of elation around the world that there is a black man as President of the USA. After years of struggle, the black people of America can finally see an end to the struggles lasting many years. A proud moment for any nation and people supporting the idea of freedom for its citizens.

There can be only a few moments like this in any lifetime:

"Where were you when President John Kennedy was killed?"






"Where were you when Martin Luther King Jnr was killed?"



"Where were you when Princess Diana was killed?"







For many, this is a dream come true and instead of the above many can proudly say :

"Where were you when Barack Obama was made the 1st black President?"

This is not the end of an American dream, there are many hurdles to climb and paths to run before each and every American can say "We are truly an integrated country."

Israel Moves Out

After total world condemnation the Jews leave the Gaza Strip after metaphorically raping and pillaging that small strip of land, borders of barbed wire, very little water and supplies, many dead or wounded, basically saying that if you live in that area you are on the side of Hamas and you are 'fair game'.

But how can these poor people leave? They cannot, unless they have a foreign passport!

Many of these people are Palestinians, and many are refugees from Israel that have been herded into this small strip of land surrounded by barbed wire. A large proportion have been born in this area and know no other state in life. They have been starved of their freedom since birth.

I can understand the principal of the Jewish state - 'We will not be killed again" but, in principal, are they doing what has been done to them, not with standing the mass crematoria used for mass murder as the Nazis did, the Jews have a different weapon - one of the most powerful armies in the Middle East - they will bomb, use tanks, shoot people out of existence. They don't need the gas chambers, but they have and run a concentration camp named the Gaza Strip.

The dropping of bombs and morter shells onto UN run establishments - schools, food supplies etc is a war crime and must not go unpunished.

The Troops move in

A week or so on and now the troops move in. More Palestinian children and elderly killed or injured. The Israelis are fed up with rockets being fired out of Gaza and into Israel, killing and injuring its own citizens, and want to stop the rockets, but is it proportionate. They say that after months of these rockets being fired at their citizens it is time to stop them once and for all.

The Hamas 'rebels' are firing their rockets from crowded streets and buildings, near to hospitals, schools and mosques making sure that there is maximum casualties to their own people when the Jews bomb them.

They are all Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, but there are different factions, the main two being Hamas and Fatah, both rivals to 'democracy' of Gaza. All Arabs, Palestinians, Egyptians, Syrians, Iranians, Iraqis, etc side with each other against the West and Israel, but they are all fighting for their own power.

Civil war certainly has a place in the collective Arabia, just to jog memories look at the factions in Iraq, Sunni and Shiite and the not so recent bombings in Egypt.

On to America

There can be only one reason why George Bush has put the blame squarely on the shoulders of Hamas, as in the past the American Jews rule American money and are the backers of the American Democracy.

But what will Obama do? Will he come out in favour of the Palestinians as he has shown to be in favour of the downtrodden lower classes in America?

Blame!

Can the whole affair be blamed on the Palestinians?

For years now the Israelis have kept the Palestinians caged behind concrete walls, having to account for their every move around a land which was once, before 1948, their own when Britain helped the Jewish Nation, return to their biblical, God given land flowing with milk, honey and Arabs.

The Gaza Strip

Most of the peoples in the Gaza Strip are refugees from the lands that Israel have taken during their 60 years of 'occupation'. These desperately poor people have lived in this strip of land some 4 - 7 miles wide and 27 miles long, (6-12 by 41 kms long an area of some 139 sq miles - 360 sq kms) for a life-time. Large proportions of peoples have been uprooted by the Jewish settlers and forcibly moved to the Gaza Strip.


They are not allowed to move freely around the countryside or on the adjoining beaches to the sea in the Jewish fear that they may get arms, food and medicines which are generally in short supply, let alone during this recent conflict.

Their existence is determined by cement block walls and barbed wire fences, very similar to the concentration camps during WW11, and Israeli Check Points to make it hard for anyone to work outside the barricades.

The World of the Arab.

One thing is certain. Israel will have to be very careful that they don't spread this incursion in to the Gaza Strip and risk an all out war, with Iran on one side and the Syrians on the other.

We must not forget the recent Iranian issues with their nuclear debacle with America and the West.

Happy New Year 2009

Once again after the pomp and circumstance and the glorification of ringing in the New Year at 1 millionth of a second past midnight, and chorus's of Auld Lang Syne have been sung until the early hours of 2009, we still have the continual fighting in Afghanistan and around the world.
If it can be remembered, the First World War was heralded as the WAR TO END ALL WARS, we then had the Second World War which ended around 1945, the Arab/Israeli War 1948, the Malayan Conflict from 1948 until 1960 when Malaya wanted independence from the British, the Korean War 1950. 1959 started the Vietnam War, Laos & Cambodian War and the Massacre of the Pol Pot regime on its own people in lasting until 1975.
The Yom Kippur war in 1973, the Suez Canal with Egypt, 1956. There are so many I cannot remember them all until the war with Britain and Argentina in the South Atlantic and when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, then we move back, if we can by not forgetting all other wars and conflicts in between, and still going, to Iraq and back to Afghanistan again.
What a way to treat the world!!
All the successive governments vying for their little piece of history and the world. Not really, although they purport to say they do, caring about the little man, woman and child stuck in the middle of it all.
In Israel and Gaza today, one can see the senseless firing of rockets by Hamas from the Gaza Strip, from the middle of their cities packed with families who, no doubt, wish to have a peaceful existence, but have very little chance as the Israeli bombers go overhead and drop their bombs on Hamas targets.
The Hamas wish to get Israel off the Arab lands which were forcebly taken by war in 1948, with the help of the British Government, and Israel sending their bombers and eventually troops into Gaza to rout the Hamas. The circle continues round and around.
Shocked Israelis have announced that the Hamas rockets have now been felt 48 kilometers inside Israel near to Beersheba, shocking residence there.
At the funeral for the 20 people who died in an earlier Israeli attack, senior Hamas figure, Fathi Hammad said "We will not rest until we destroy the Zionist entity". Reported the BBC News.
So ring in the New Year and, no-doubt, the governments around the world will keep the Old.
Peoples around the world should never forget the words of the old Scottish song 'Should auld acquaintance be forgot' otherwise we shall all be biting the dust.

New SpringWidget

Get this widget!

Big Brother IS Watching You

From the Mail On-Line 28th December 2008

News today of schools bugging classrooms for pupils as young as four is revealed today and is further evidence that today's society is in the grips of the CCTV style, Big Brother 1984 syndrome.

The system, comprising of a video and microphone, can be used while lessons are taking place and can provide courtroom evidence of disruptive pupils, bullying and anything else that schools want to use it for.

Is this legal surveillance? The data protection watchdog, the Information Commissioner has warned that surveillance may be illegal and has demanded to know why schools are using this kind of sophisticated equipment to watch children. 'Proper justification is being sought from schools as to why this equipment is being used'.

Whether this is state sponsored bugging or just some over zealous, misplaced, money-minded sales-person selling the equipment to schools under the banner of security, it is the continuance of this very long wedge - spying on citizens of the UK.

It is only a step away from new buildings being built and installed, or retro fitted, with discrete surveillance equipment to spy on us.

If this equipment was being used in areas of 'high security' at entrance gates and doorways, this would be a different story, but in the classroom and 'private areas, hearing and seeing what anyone is saying is totally unacceptable and an intrusion to civil liberties.

Big Brother is certainly here, but how far will labours ex-communist politicians allow this to go? (Once a communist always a communist, the saying goes!!)

New SpringWidget

Get this widget!