Been Busy

I've been busy, so no ramblings for a while. But looking at the news I still get quite confused. Like, in politics, is anything actually happening? We are, apparently in a major financial crisis currently (certainly if someone has a quality job they need doing, I'm up for it! My 'busyness' isn't that fulfilling), yet there doesn't seem anything concrete or dynamic coming out of government at present.

Labour seem less able to come up with competing ideas than the Lib Dems (coalition partners though they be), who are relentlessly suggesting ways to accelerate disaster in a variety of areas. It is clear each party, without regard to national emergency or well being, are instead searching for some magic formula, perhaps one that has worked before to win an election.

Not anything of substance, or a policy they actually intend to follow up, just some story, or 'narrative' that wins votes. A bit J K Rowling, with 1984 potential.

The same confusion reigns with education. Firstly, kids and teachers were wailing about exams being marked in a way that required the child to have done well. It did seem strange at first, but then we found it was only English exams and that some had benefited by some work getting soft marks back in December. So a tiny issue.

Then we hear that Gove wants to introduce formal, more difficult exams with no coursework and the teachers (unions) are up in arms. And what is the complaint? Er, that it comes from a Tory government it seems and that's it. Otherwise the objection is to educating children properly, or teachers to do their job properly, or just raising standards.

I appreciate these are all things that were safe under the union's pet, Labour, where teachers were excluded from criticism, exams were relentlessly made easier so teachers could crow about 'achievement' without actually doing anything and overall standards dropped like a stone. At no point then or now, you should notice, do the teachers unions mention the children.

They want to meddle in the formation of education policy and delivery and yet are only an organisation to represent the working conditions of their members. While they refuse to stick to their remit they should be ignored as a noisy rabble of no substance.

In the East, we continue to lose soldiers in Afghanistan, not just to violent murderers posing as religious people, but also Afghan forces. And yet we still haven't heard why we went there or what we are there to achieve. But Blair continues to accrue wealth apparently, from despots and tyrants around the world, immune to the consequences of his misrule, the financial chaos or the deaths attributable to him.

The 'convenient' Catholic might find that the man with no morals has no soul. If he does in fact have an ounce of belief in his body, then he will be more than aware that the master that awaits him has brimstone aplenty.

Dealing With The Culture-less

Two US officers were shot dead inside the interior ministry in Kabul, by a coward. He was motivated it seems by the burning of old Koran's by US forces, which has led to wild rantings on the streets by mobs outraged by the action.The fact that it is of no consequence whatsoever hasn't and couldn't occur to these people because they are and there is no way round this, stupid.

They are stupid because they refuse to develop a culture of their own. The nearest thing they have is tribal loyalty and a tradition of killing people. The reaction is as if some old lady has died and the house clearance people have destroyed anything they didn't want, but would have been precious to the old lady. It isn't to them though and that is the point.

Afghans deliberately seek to take offence at imagined sleights because their leaders know how supine will be the idiotic response of Western governments. Burning someone's holy book in front of them in a malicious fashion is a terrible deed. Burning a Koran (or Bible) as part of a clearing up operation is irrelevant. If it isn't your religion, it just doesn't mean anything to you. I am sure that Muslims would not care about burning Bibles and that can be understood.

This action against such a non-event is proof positive that we are wrong about Afghanistan. The problem wasn't that Al Queda were there, it was that Al Queda will always be there, because culturally the people are backward and unable to connect with other cultures. They don't have to be like Westerners, they just have to have systems and processes based on logic and rationality. They are still some way off that.

The reaction of the British is to withdraw civilian advisers from ministries in Kabul. How about we do the same for our troops, who regularly face such danger? Our forces are facing, not an implacable enemy but an unfathomable one. These Afghan hordes are cowardly in the extreme, siding with whichever force is closest and betraying any one showing weakness, such as a compassionate Western soldier.

Pull our troops out; they are pointless in assisting the Afghan people (though helping the powerful and corrupt no end) and are being killed and maimed for no reason. None at all. The Renaissance is some hundreds of years off from such culture-less lands.