My First
Thoughts
I was recently asked my views on democracy,
a tricky subject that needed time and consideration to do justice. My
first thoughts are to understand where we are today.. we must first understand
how we got here... We need to look at the major political events this century..
for all the major conflicts are in fact linked if not politically...certainly by
attitudes and cultures.
It was the first world war... That prevented
action early enough to stop the Nazi up rising before it was almost too
late...
It was the actions of Army Generals in the later
parts of WW2 that cast the seeds for Korea and then later Vietnam..
The
cold war... was always a political shame.. it suited politicians.. After all
without the sacrifices of the Russian Citizen in WW2... we would have lost..
Then this world would be unrecognisable.
I will try to explain
these in detail later as I get my thoughts straight on
this.
You will be proud to be
American as I am To be British.. But I do believe both of our countries often
get it wrong... So yes I will criticise both... Not the people you understand
...But the policy makers for often they have a hidden
agenda.
It is often said that the British is the oldest
democracy system in the world and many countries have used us as a model for
their own system... To some extent this is true as were are the oldest... But
back then our democracy was not as we understand it to be
today..
To vote in those days one had to qualify.. This
usually meant you had to be rich & hence you were part of the
establishment.. Voting to maintain the establishment... A closed shop... A club
for gentlemen by name who were not by nature.. So yes democracy but very
limited
In this country (Britain) at that time, the common man was
uneducated...Down trodden by the rich who operated a feudal system... It was a
time of child labour in the deep coal mines...Child prostitution ... no
education... no medical care... In the Victorian era...life was short & grim
for the working classes..
At the time of the Slave trade with America..
Often it was the British who traded and got wealthy in this dreadful trade of
human cargo... History tells me that in the British Port of Bristol at one
particular week there were more black slaves awaiting transportation to America
than there was white populations...The British were certainly & heavily
involved in the slave trade much to our shame...
But consider another side to this...You will have
read how dreadful conditions were on those slave ships...But once they reached
their destination the Captain of this human cargo got paid for every one he
delivered alive and in reasonable health...So there was an incentive to look
after these slaves in some ways...
Not so the sailors...for at the destination they
were paid.. Therefore there was an incentive not to take care of the sailor..
every one that died meant more cash in the Captains pocket.... In these days
life was short & cheap..And it is not so long ago...After all America is but
some 240 years old
With a Feudal system operating throughout
Europe... The common man was uneducated...Poor and lived under some dreadful
conditions...Personally I see little that resembles democracy
here.
The first world war started because of a political
assignation in one of the minor European countries... The "Gentleman's" club
fell out and a major war broke out.
It lasted from 1914 to 1918 as far as the UK was
concerned... To escape poverty and the dreadful conditions in the UK many men
volunteered believing the state propaganda...After all many of these men could
not even read or write at that time.
The war was fought under the command of
aristocratic Officers who used Napoleon & Wellington as their role models...
Huge armies faced each other and slogged it out... No tactics...Just brute
force...But now it was different... For the first time in a major war Artillery
was used against infantry... Result a massive blood bath on both sides... Tis
true that 150,000 men were cut down in just 4
hours.
The battlefields were often static...
Men lived for years in dirty wet muddy trenches & died of disease.. This was
heralded as the war to end all wars... But turned into carnage on all
sides
To break long stalemates new weapons were invented... Mustard &
Phosgene gas was used extensively... Many men were horribly chemically burnt and
blinded..
During this time one corporal who had
sufficient education to write kept a diary in verse.. This man was called
Siegfried Sassoon... And his 1914 to 1918 poems have been published... This is
the only poet that I have seriously read & I strongly suggest you ask your
nearest Library to obtain a copy.. Here this simple man draws graphic
comparisons between the way the aristocratic officers behaved to how the common
man was treated... One always sticks in my mind.. In this one he describes how
one of his Senior officers thinks:-
And When This War Is
Over
And all the youth stone dead
I'll toddle safely home to
die
preferably in bed
The Tank was designed and used for the
very first time in that war.. They were called tanks because to keep them secret
they were transported from the UK in huge wooden boxes that were labelled Water
Tanks...
The name tank remains to this day...
Slow Inefficient and useless in all that mud...They had little effect except to
frighten the enemy as they had never seen the likes of this as a weapon
before.
Tanks and gas weapons breached the
soldiers will to fight and many would dessert when faced with these
weapons.. Hence they would be shot by there own side. Life was cheap and
the UK lost almost a full generation of men.. The returning men would no longer
put up with poverty back home... They now felt that they had earned a share in
the countries wealth... The Feudal system was to slowly change as a direct
result of this war
The common man got the vote....Later in
1924 or so Women got the vote... Now I recognise democracy... And it took a
major war to impose it on the UK.
Sickened by these events...This Nation
was never going to war again...Little did it know.
What followed was the catastrophic
events of the depression...The wall street Crash...All western countries now
suffered as our economies collapsed.. The working man just returned from the war
understood nothing of this as he saw an establishment conspiracy to keep him
down... So the "General Strike" of 1926 was called.
All work stopped in this country for
over a year.. Poverty and hunger were widespread.. So following the 1930s
depression.. The working man went back to work and little seemed to have
changed.
This attitude was widespread throughout Europe... And a Leader
was born (brought Forward) in Germany... The only reason this "Little Corporal"
could take power was the fact that the German Aristocracy were disgraced for
losing WW1 and the population had no faith in them any longer.
Hitler promised the German people all
that they wanted & they believed... Hitler was a master at Stage
management... The famous Nuremberg rallies provided mass hysteria.. The
population totally within his power... Later it was said that the mass hysteria
surrounding the pop group "The Beatles" was a direct copy of that used at
Nuremberg.. Not sure that this is true?
The 1936 Berlin Olympics saw
Hitler storm off in a temper as a Black American Won gold medals.. This was so
contrary to his white supremacy thinking... This man was a racist to the extreme
& later set up Baby Farms to grow his own blond haired white master
race.
Just one mans view....Just a wee
background of events leading up to WW2 and our modern democracies...Food for
thought I hope... But I am no historian and may get some dates a wee bit
wrong... So I hope you can view this as the flavour rather than cold
facts
