The world's military policeman

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Make no mistake about it, the United States of America, a country knee-deep in debt, has set itself up as military policeman to the world without the consent of many of the countries it purports to police. In its pursuit of global corporate imperialism its military ambitions rely on ‘lily pad’ bases strategically dotted around the planet posing a threat to everyone everywhere.  In an excellently argued article by David Vine the limitations of this ‘lily pad’ mentality are spelled out. As with all imperialists their empires are bound eventually to crumble but in the meantime it causes a lot of death, scarring, stress and terror. Not many people know of the dead and wounded young US soldiers being transported from Africa, where they receive their wounds, to Germany where they are treated. Some things do not get on the news.

The article mentions a new naval base that is being built on the beautiful Jeju island off the Korean shoreline. The residents of Jeju Island do not want this base there. Neither do South or North Koreans. Does that stop the United States? No prizes for answers.

The cream of world cycling

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Bradley Wiggins, with the aid of team Sky, rode over the cobbled stones of Paris to win the Tour de France for the first time for a British cyclist. Chris Froome took second place. World champion, Mark Cavendish, won the sprint on the last stage and was launched into his final assault by Bradley Wiggins. With the Olympics starting on Friday it was a magnificent effort from a team with gold-dust in their eyes.

When I was a boy I grew up in the village of Harworth, North Nottinghamshire on the West Riding border with Yorkshire. Tommy Simpson was a local hero and lived just down the road from Sandy Mount, where we lived. Every night he would cycle up our road and do a 30 plus mile tour of what is now South Yorkshire. It took him about an hour. We, my brother Charles, Bill Brett and myself, would from time to time cycle to Tickhill Spital cross-roads where the road to Tickhill is straight and long. We would wait until we saw Tommy Simpson coming in the distance and see how far up the Bawtry Road incline we could get before he came zooming past to swiftly disappear round the corner. Top cyclists have something that separates them from those who use their bikes for leisure purposes.

I remember Tommy Simpson bringing the bronze medal he won at the Melbourne Olympics to show Bircotes scout cubs in 1956. He was a popular local figure and Britain’s top cyclist at the time. Talking to Tommy Godwin in the eighties at his bike shop in Selly Oak I learnt of a race that Godwin had watched in which Tommy Simpson and a German cyclist were battling it out well clear of the rest of the field. As Simpson went past he shouted “Get ‘em in Tommy. I’ve got this guy beaten.” And he did win the race. Tommy Simpson was the highest British achiever before Bradley Wiggins.

Always knowing my limitations, that I would never be a top cyclist, it did not stop me from getting on a bike. It is still one of the most pleasant ways to travel, especially when the weather is good. In late December 1999/2000 I cycled the North and South Islands of New Zealand linking up on the Wellington/Picton ferry with a German cyclist, Thomas Hugenschmidt, with whom I stay in touch. So I let the millennium in 12 hours before my fellow countrymen and women. Later in 2000 from August to early December I cycled from Birmingham to the Azerbaijan border but a severe stomach bug curtailed my journey any further. I was heading to Samarkand. I got a bus back from Tbilisi to the Turkish border, then another to Istanbul. When I recovered I took my bike on a Niki Lauda plane to Madrid and after contacting and staying with an old friend cycled from Madrid to central France, finishing at a village called Ambert. I had been following a trail of hand-made paper and decided to terminate my journey at the Richard de bas paper mill, where they still have a set of old stampers. Stampers preceded the Hollander machines for making pulp-stock.

Hopefully, with the success of British riders today, more people will take up this healthy pastime. You do not have to be a top cyclist to enjoy the ride.

The Big Society – Cameron’s love of charity

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Atlantic Bridge was a Conservative charity which it seems was laundering money to fund a neo-con Zionist reorganisation of the world order. The Charity Commission closed it down for purporting to be a charity when in reality it was a political organisation and, as we all know now, its money was being used in expenses for the despicable, non-vetted, self-promoting, defence buffoon Adam Werritty, an issue over which the Minister of Defence, Liam Fox, was forced to resign.

With Margaret Thatcher as its honorary president all the leading lights of the Tory party, William Hague, Liam Fox, George Osborne, Michael Gove and Chris Grayling have served on the charity’s board. Cameron himself managed to keep his nose clean but it will be noted that Lord Astor of Hever was on the board and met Werritty at a defence meeting in the Middle East in December 2010. Lord Astor just happens to be Cameron’s father-in-law. It would be surprising, even remiss of him, if Cameron did not know what was going on.

Considering these defence issues brings into the spotlight the circular flow of big money. Charitable donations are made to the Tory party by people, like Tony Buckingham, in exchange for favours in the newly-conquered oilfields of the Middle East. Taking care to protect this circular flow there is nothing in writing to confirm how it works. The super-rich Buckingham, who claims to be a former-mercenary, with his company Heritage Oil, has oil-interests in Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Kurdistan and elsewhere. He describes himself as a former mercenary, but to my mind he is still the aggressive mercenary he was but now having private armies to defend oil interests stolen from the legitimate owners before we (NATO countries) waged war on Islamic regimes.

Goodbye to the canal system

Further demonstrating his love of charities and charitable works this morning Cameron announced that canal waterways of England and Wales were to be handed over to the charitable sector in line with what he calls his Big Society. What the Big Society really amounts to is working for nothing. Over the next 15 years the canals will only get a third from government funding of what has been spent on them previously, and the rest will be paid for by charitable donations and maintenance by dedicated canal enthusiasts, who might start off enthusiastically but when they realise it is just them the enthusiasm will wane. This scheme, like the hot or cold pasty tax, is doomed to failure. The eighteenth century pioneers of our beautiful canal network will be turning in their graves.

Puffballs on the hill

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On Wednesday 4^th July I drove up to Menwith Hill telecommunications’ interception site near Harrogate. It was to take part in a demonstration in favour of Independence from America. The site and what it does is masked in secrecy. What it is known it can do is intercept millions of telephones, emails and other electronic communications at any given time. There is reliable information to show that it also directs communications and provides support for the drones that kill and maim innocents in various parts of the world (usually the Muslim and oil-rich world) ever since Labour defence minister, Des Brown, granted permission without parliamentary debate, to upgrade the listening station to a missile control station. There has never been a debate in parliament for the existence of this US base since it was set up and rented out in the early 1950s to spy on the Russians.

The listening/missile control station shares the grounds on which it stands, a beautiful National Park of Yorkshire, with an RAF station. One breakthrough of this year’s Independence from America saw Squadron Leader Patrick Curry, the RAF Liaison Officer to NSA/USAF at Menwith Hill presented with an Independence from America charter drawn up by CAAB (Campaign for the Abolition of American Bases). I briefly got to speak to Patrick Curry, a genial man who had a friendly air about him as he met protestors, but then that is one of the functions of a liaison officer in any profession. When I mentioned that like most other people in this country I object to my electronic communications being intercepted by my own country, let alone the United States, he seemed to think there was more chance of the Murdochs tapping my phone than anyone at Menwith Hill. This flies in the face of everything that is known about the interception station.

Squadron Leader Patrick Curry is presented with the Independence from America charter

Everybody in this beloved country of mine should be concerned about this monstrosity, with its giant puffballs marring the countryside, with its capacity to gather information about individuals, including royalty and politicians, as well as an intent to cause untold misery abroad. Not far from the station stand a number of wind-turbines. I am not opposed to alternative technology. Driving home we spotted a significant police presence by the wind-turbines. These are the only wind turbines guarded by police that I have ever seen but the reason the police were there was to keep a low profile for the demonstration. However it occurs to me that one purpose for the windfarm's close proximity to the base is to provide electricity in the event of a national grid malfunction.

I have special reason to want to see Menwith Hill base closed. When I was a callow apprentice one of my tutors at Blackburn Technical College was Bob Cryer, then teaching General Studies, who later became M.P. for Keighley. He was the only M.P. to my knowledge to raise questions in the House of Commons as to why we have an American Base gathering information on British citizens. His death in a car accident took place while he was raising questions about the existence of the US base. This makes me highly suspicious, and more so recently, with false flag information emerging about 9/11.