Rantings of a disbeliever...

Thanks to the wonderful browse function on this blogsite I was able to find a number of Christian bloggers. As I continued browsing over their numerous posts exalting God for his purported greatness and Jesus for dying for us and yadiyada, I couldn't help feeling slightly sickened by this complete delirium which most seem to get into when they join these new age Christian cults. Photos of people who smile dreamily and whose eyes have that slight glaze over them as if they were on crack, stare back at you, on a backdrop of misty eyed adulation and prose for their spiritual leader and master. I have many a time tried to challenge them on their beliefs and the fundamental flaws in their ideology, yet have failed each time since I was either talking to morons or people who refused to see the truth for fear that their whole world would crumble and they might actually have to face up to a few cold realities.

I'm not an Atheist, since I subscribe to no belief, nor do I have the arrogance to know whether or not a God exists, because it's clearly obvious that we don't know and we should not assume he/she/it does. It's not a case of God not existing, it's more one of me making an educated assertion in assuming that he doesn't unless I'm proven wrong, there is a fundamental difference between the two, which I don't feel I have to explain, unless you want me to start talking about Unicorns and how we can't disprove their existence either.



When you confront them about their beliefs, they say they have proof in that they have felt God, and "spoken" to him. When I hear this I desperately try and suppress laughter as I can't think of anything more self involved and deluded then someone saying that God who created this whole vast universe would contact them and give them relationship advise or comfort them over their recent woes, by sending them a message in their cornflakes.
If you look at the world through a prism, you can see a harmony within everything as everything fits together, it's the same with Marxism, Socialism or any other ideology, religion reduces the world to suits it's ends.
It reminds me of the grossly overrated film the Dreamers, when a young man is talking to an old poet, yet the young man is not listening to the rather dull bleatings of the poet, as he is playing with a tin lighter. Once the Poet realises that the boy is not listening he asks him why he is playing with this lighter, the boy responds that the lighter fits in many places, the side fits on the pattern in the table cloth, the top fits on some pattern on the floor, fitting in various other places such as the poet's nose and ears, and so on and so forth... then the boy looks up and says "If you look closely enough, at the shapes which surround us and the way everything seems to fit together, it's almost as if there is some cosmic harmony". Well he seems to overlook the unfortunate fact that if you look at the world through one object (in this case a tin lighter) you are bound to find some kind of Cosmic binding force.
So should someone receive a "sign" from God, it is often the case that they are in fact overlooking the most likely cause of this supposed sign which is the random nature of life. If you choose to interpret events in the light of God then of course things fall into place, as ideology is reductionist, which means it's more a case of "believing is seeing", as opposed to "seeing is believing", which makes religion sound like some horror film about Ghosts in an Orphanage. You can project meaning onto anything, trust me I know I study politics.


As for feeling god and hearing him, well I suggest padded rooms and medication, because that's not God that's schizophrenia. But more seriously we should not overlook the psychosomatic effects of our mindset which can make us do and feel a huge number of things. I remember one night, I went on an evening stroll with a friend through the Streets of London, we were deep in conversation about spirits and ghosts, stories and dreams, good and evil, we were chasing the shadows of the night looking for excitement and inspiration. When we neared Hyde Park, I was persuaded that I could see shadows floating towards us, my friend saw them too, and we ran for our lives. We didn't see Ghosts, or malevolent spirits we saw what we wanted to see, projecting our mindset and our needs onto the outside world, seeing what we wanted to see.



The thing which strikes me most however is the odd link with the Bible. How is something which in the light of modern day science and technology has to be taken with a ton of salt, Gospel truth? Now don't get me wrong, the Bible is an important moral text, but it is clearly nothing more. Since Adam and Eve is largely disproved doesn't this show that the Bible is wrong, and why can't these people apprehend that? Some talk about the predictions of the creation of Israel being mentioned in the book, hence it is Gospel Truth, PRAISE THE LORD FOR THIS IS TRULY THE WORD OF GOD! But hang on, does that mean that Nostradamus was God? or the messenger of God? I mean he did get a few things right, no? Plus he does have a great big beard. Also bear in mind where do the Dinosaurs fit in all this?
My main point is, if you believe in intelligent design, you cannot accept the Bible as Gospel truth but only as a moralistic text. If however you do believe in the Bible then clearly you don't come from a large enough Gene Pool or you're an idiot. If you look at it in the light of the big bang, and presume God was the one who created it, I don't see the link between the physics of the Big Bang/Universe, and the assumption that God, not only created this big bang, but is also the one mentioned in the Bible. As if you do accept modern science (which anyone with half a brain should) then you are clearly making two leaps of Faith, one that God exists and two that the one in the Bible is the one true god (even though the Bible is wrong in many areas).

I will save further musings for another post. But I have to say one more thing which really grates me with these people is they think you are going to hell, for things such as homosexuality, or sex before marriage, or even anger and hatred, or for not fellating their Leader our Saviour Jesus Christ, which coming from a bunch of people who have such flawed reasoning, adds a rather unfortunate morose tinge to their rather funny and innocent freak show. This may make me seem intolerant, but I only am in the face of intolerance and ignorance.

God Speed.

Die Stille (3)

J’ai poignardé ta paume,
Un prix élevé pour m’avoir montré
La douceur de tes mains et donc ton âme,
Comme ton sang, tes larmes n’arrêtent pas de couler,

Eros est tout à fait bidon,
L’abîme des faibles et des connards,
Une cacophonie de gouts et de sons,
Pour empêcher un supposé destin vide, gris et cafard.

Ne te perd pas dans cette chaleur d’or,
Il y a une dissonance avec notre réel intérêt,
Ne te jettes pas dans mes bras et cache ton corps,
Mais je m’en rassure et je vous préviens ca ne durera pas l’été.

Die Stille (2)

Pour qu’on l’annonce a tout les humains
De Grands Statuts et d’ovations,
Le peuple hurle à la perte de la chaleur entre ses reins,
À la fraicheur de sa copulation.

Je vois les ruelles peuplées de pauvres
Affamés, drogués, ensorcelés,
Des Cœurs couverts de merde et de morve
Et vous vous oubliez ces damnées !

Les portes s’ouvriront et bientôt d’un marais rougeâtre,
Pas d’une politique sinistre, gauche et ternie,
Mais d’une faim et d’une soif si pleinement âpres,
La Schizophrénie des rues sera établit.

A Chameleon, a car salesman and a bleach blond fop take over CCHQ... what happens?

"La rupture, ce sont souvent des réformes transgressives en symboles mais marginales sur la substance."


Many have heralded the recent Tory fortunes as the signs of a New Conservative Era, signs that New Labour has run out of steam and that the Cameron brand is a viable alternative to the current administration, brimming with new ideas and hope. I must admit that when the local election results were announced a few weeks ago, I was gripped by an intense panic, for the first time since I have been politically active it well and truly seemed that New Labour was dead in the water and that Cameron was effectively going to be the next prime minister, the Tories were on the road back to Downing Street. But now that the dust has settled, that New Labour have been rattled and the smirks on the Tory front benches have grown wider, my panic was lessened, replaced however by a growing sense of disgust, at once at the misfortunes of Labour and the complete hypocrisy of the Conservative Party.

Watching the Conservative Party today one would think they have entered the realm of Narnia, surely we're looking at the wrong party. I couldn't help thinking as I watched David Cameron address the Prime Minister in the Commons that I was watching some kind of freak show, as the Leader of the opposition criticized the Prime Minister for his removal of the 10p tax band and his abandonment of the poor. What made me sick however was at once his complete inconsistency with what he had voted for the previous year and his complete incapacity to promise it's reinstatement should he help his party return to power in 2010, despite his rebirth as a man with a social conscience, sticking up for the little guy. It was as if I was on the mother of all come downs and someone had stuck U2 on, I had to stop watching as my stomach nor my nerves could take it.

What people seem to forget is that the negative effect the removal of the 10p tax rate has upon lower incomes is in the process of being corrected, which is by the by a lot more then any Conservative administration would do. For god's sake they were against it's creation in 1999, as they were against the minimum wage and various forms of tax credits for the poor. How dare they launch such an attack on Labour when in fact they honestly could not give a toss about lower income earners. The worst affront was the seeming incapacity to back up this outcry, with any meaningful policies or proposals: this was cheap point scoring by a most sinister PR man.

Now this doesn't mean Labour are absolved for their mistake. The mistake which they tried to cover up and backtrack on, was a clear sign of a party which has lost touch with it's purpose and is falling behind on the promises it made in 1997, 2001 and 2005. Labour has accomplished much in the last 11 years, it has made an outstanding effort to reduce poverty in this country, increase equal opportunity and in the process has managed to combine this with modern and mostly effective supply side policies. But Brown is low on ideas and originality, his time has come I feel, but I'll save this for a later post. The Conservatives, who despite giving us a new way of approaching State intervention and monetary policy, fed the illusion of freedom to us for 18 years on the twin opiums of greed and nationalism, while plundering our social services and making sure that one child in three was born in poverty: I don't think any of us should forget that on polling day in May 2010, when we cast our votes.

Cameron may be charming, with his weak chin and his "call me dave" airs, while his eminence grise, Osborne, may be professional and brutally intelligent. But this Notting Hill brigade which rides bicycles and tries to reduce it's carbon footprint, while hugging hoodies at the same time, is but a complete pretence upheld by a most brutal and dogmatically monetarist party, who view their so called "natural role" as the leaders of this country, as some kind of celestial providence.

Cameron has done nothing to modernise his party into the centre ground. They seem to have little to show for their apparent adherence to the third way, their policy output beyond giving a couple of tax cuts to the rich and opposing Government proposals, not for the general good, but to score a few points, is a vain attempt to cover up their complete and utter policy vacuum. What surprises me most is the general public's complete lack of awareness as to this. Cameron has simply painted over the cracks of the party and benefited hugely from the popular fallout of Labour since the botched election plans last autumn.

His party is still hugely anti-Europe, it can barely hide it's elitist leanings behind the rather weak attempts to defend the 10p tax band, nor can they say they have any proposals to modernise the NHS and better our education system, beyond the tediously overused phrases of "waste management" and "rationalisation", which can only be interpreted as tax cuts and neglect (the effects of which I don't feel I need to remind anybody of) since they have proposed ABSOLUTELY nothing and Labour with it's audits and managerial emphasis on public services is doing it's best to rationalise anyway.


Alan Duncan MP and Tory front bencher, said to Labour Health minister Alan Johnson last Thursday that Labour "are just as bad as us". This clearly shows where the part is at, so to speak. Benefiting hugely from public disaffection with Brown and effectively being considered a protest vote last month, as opposed to an aspirational one, Cameron and his Etonian chums may grin and smirk, but we should all hope and pray that this rather farcical and frankly offensive freak show which is the Conservative "Manifesto" will be revealed for what it is sooner rather then later, and these absurd and mostly redundant Labour/Conservative comparisons dropped. Before these buffoons and PR men enter Downing Street and realise they have nothing to offer but silly smiles and comic appearances on topical game shows, and we all suffer as a result.

Who's left?

"Quand les hommes ne peuvent plus changer les choses, ils changent les mots."
Jean Jaurès

A year on from their loss to Sarkozy and 6 years from their loss to Le Pen, the PS has not been able to go beyond it's largely uncomfortable and disjointed Gauche Plurielle, the left cause isn't stuck in 1968 it's stuck in 1982. The Socialist in the Socialist Party became redundant the moment Mitterant admitted the failure of his Statist economic policy in 1981, since then it has been relying on it's own dwindling electoral base and the imposing personality of it's leader, that and a divided RPR. Ever since the end of the Mitterand years, the left seems unable to move on and challenge it's principles, and it's electoral success (if any) has more to do with the failures of it's opponents (Sarkozy and Chirac) then the actual popularity of their policies and their visions.

That's not to say that Jospin or Royal were not appealing to the French Electorate, but the dissatisfaction with the Party was evident in 1995 and 2002, with the trickling away of votes to the extremes, as was it's redundancy in 2007, considering the Campaign wasn't really a movement for change, more one against change with a pretty smile. If one were to look at the actual election pledges and promises of the Socialist Manifestos of 2002 and 2007 they are largely the same, though one was called "le droit d'inventaire" and the other "Le Pacte Presidentiel" they only differed really in presentation and wording. Though the latter did stress the importance of knowing La Marseillaise and Flag Waving, one does wonder whether the party is stuck in some odd time warp.

The party has been promptly deserted by two of it's most promising and in my opinion Presidential Members: Bernard Kouchner and Dominique Strauss Kahn. The former, joining the Fillon Government upon it's election and subsequently being excluded from the Party, and the latter, being so embarrassed by the state of the Party and tired of it's seeming unwillingness (though clear need) for a social democratic revolution, has gone and joined the ranks of the IMF.

Other leading Socialists such as Francois Hollande and Martine Aubry have disappeared into the wilderness, not that they have much to offer anyway in terms of novelty and fresh thinking. So what are we left with? What's left? (I will stop with the bad puns soon, I promise) Well the factions seem to have risen and polarised since the fallout of last year's election which resulted in the lynching of failed candidate Royal by a party shamelessly unable to admit collective defeat.

The first we can identify, is the one which has always existed, the branch epitomised by Laurent Fabius, as former Prime Minister in the 80s, he's no spring chicken and neither are his ideas which are pretty much your standard socialist agenda. He represents the old administration of the Mitterand years and what some would qualify the comfort zone of the Party.Bertrand Delanoë (the recently re-elected Mayor of Paris) and Segolene Royal are sparring on similar territory, both trying to bring the Party more to the centre, both claiming to represent the third way for the Party. Their approach differs more in tactic then actual ideology, as Segolene Royal intends to forge an alliance with the centre party Modem, while Delanoë prefers to foster change within the party itself.

While to some this might seem like the burgeoning of a direction for the party, the dust has yet to be stirred, as they all may talk of change or renewed outreach, but their words mean little since no new ideas are coming to the fore and the debate within the party is very stale. After all talk of change has been going on since 1995 by roughly the same people.

The recent blues of the Sarkozy administration has given the Party a boost in support which has once again delayed the perceived need for change, and encouraged that dreadful spirit of nostalgia for their Golden Age and their subsequent apathy. The leaders of the Party are all too busy with their own self promotion to bother trying to unify the party, while other party elders are scared to interfere for fear that the party will tear itself to pieces and split.

Hollande needs to be more open to debate and start trying to reforge the identity of the party instead of idly watching the Punch and Judy show which is the forefront of Socialist politics today. They also need to start challenging the Government, that is to say not only defining themselves as opposition but as credible opposition. With the death of the centre which has been incorporated into the UMP (UDF) or failed miserably (Modem) and the current dissatisfaction with Sarkozy gives the party an opportunity to fill in the gap and set the tone of the political debate.

Reforming the Secu to become income assessed, or the liberalisation of Universities, the end of weapons manufacturing and selling to Third World Countries, an end to the witch hunt for the Sans Papiers, a specialisation of Secondary education or the rationalisation of medical reimbursements... there are so many notions and values inherent to the left which can be translated into the modern post industrial consensus.Though I'm mainly basing myself on some of DSK's ideas, there is hope for the resurgence of a more effective and pragmatic left in France which doesn't need to become the burnt out husk New Labour is today, but at the moment very little.

It's not a good time to be a Socialist in France.

Failed Leader of a Divided Kingdom:

Amid wide speculation as to whether Brown will win the next elections in 2010, I think the more interesting question is whether he’ll make them. Not because of some backbencher rebellion, embarrassing commons defeat or the possible announcement of leadership ambitions by John Denham or David Miliband, but because of the end of the British Union which has existed since 1707. Wendy Alexander, head of Scottish Labour, has made a U-Turn which would even make Harriet Harman blush. She has announced after months of deriding the idea and arguing against it, that she wants a referendum on Scottish independence. This is likely to happen in 2010 that is to say at the next General Election. The MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath may find himself unable to stand for the leadership of this Country, since it would simply cease to exist. Now, not only does he need to guarantee that his party will let him stand again, after the dire electoral performance last week and the humiliating loss of London to a buffoon, but he also needs to keep the country together.



Gordon Brown has known about the resurgence of Scottish Nationalism and the threat it represents to his leadership for a long time. This is why he can often be heard mumbling something about Britishness and his British Patriotism, not to mention the creation of a Britain Day. While most chuckle gently at this rather misplaced and slightly American form of Flag waving, Gordon Brown’s career and future as Prime Minister depend on it.However as with most of Brown’s vision and ambitions for the Country, it has not translated into a reality and the UK has never been so fragmented and divided.



That’s not to say that Alex Salmond is standing on some Hill, armed with sword and shield announcing the Freedom of his people, as a fatter and uglier version of Mel Gibson. However the ascension of a minority nationalist government in Edinburgh ,regardless of then Chancellor of the Exchequer and soon to be Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in may 2007, was a clear sign that Scots were not satisfied with the efforts of devolution under Blair and Brown. The loss of support Labour suffered in the 2007 elections was also down to the War in Iraq and Trident. The grip the Labour Party has upon Edinburgh and Scottish politics has been on the wane since its peak in 1998 after the Scotland Act. Membership to the party in Scotland has just about halved since Blair took office. It also has a weak position in Parliament due to it’s relegation to 2nd place, behind the resurgent SNP and is suffering from the collapse of it’s coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Brown’s grip upon Scotland has further weakened.

This was twinned with a rise in nationalism mostly because of a sense of economic independence due to the recent hike in oil revenue and the recent prosperity of the Economy. Add to this a Scottish Government, though a minority one, intent on defending Scottish interests and expanding it’s jurisdiction over certain matters: the Nationalist agenda has never been so alive.


The most interesting rift however is within the usually well whipped (forgive the expression) Labour Party. Wendy Alexander went against the direct orders of Gordon Brown in announcing a Party U-Turn on the idea of a referendum. Her intention was to deflect attention from the recent funding scandals within the party and finally put the issue of independence to rest, while at the same time distancing herself from the increasingly and depressingly unpopular Brown, which might give Scottish Labour a boost.



A seemingly more cooperative Unionist Labour could assuage the mounting support for independence. Recent polls suggest that support for independence is rising but still on slightly lower then opposition to it, which means Labour can still counter this trend. Brown’s plans for the creation of a regional Senate (similar to the Bundesrat) in the place of the House of Lords, introduces an element of Federalism which could satisfy a number of Nationalists. This on a backdrop of greater constitutional protection as European Integration intensifies and ideas for a bill of Rights become more concrete, both of which will naturally boost Scottish independence from the National Executive. Gordon Brown should also devolve more power in fiscal and welfare regulation to Edinburgh. These possible reforms could keep the prospect of a united kingdom and Gordon Brown’s Leadership alive.

The implications for Brown are great, that is to say that a lot is riding on the next election, and that the Labour Party might not want to risk going into it with Brown as leader considering his rather spectacular loss of support and the possibility of Scottish independence. His baggage might be too much for some within the Party to stomach. Blood is most likely to be spilt should Brown continue to fumble around and make a complete hash of his premiership (which seems quite likely). This of course is being played up by Cameron who now unfortunately speaks for most of England, and benefits from this peculiar phenomenon by protesting about the redistribution of wealth between England and Scotland and the right Scottish MPs have to vote on English matters (the West Lothian Question). The Conservative Party is not really interested in the preservation of the Union as it would be a decisive blow to Labour should Scotland secede from the UK and, thus increasing their grip on Westminster(since they are absent in Scotland)

Personally I think he and Harman should be given the boot (he has become far too much of a liability now) and John Denham step up to the challenge. Unfortunately not many miracles happen in British politics and we are likely to see a long, drawn out and painful end to Brown’s career as we all stand back in shock at how wrong we were about him. If he doesn't act now, his legacy is going to be an divided nation, a crushed Labour Party and another 20 years of Tory government.