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180 Degrees

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Just as a follow up to Operation Gladio for anyone who read it, I have just finished 180° by Feargus O'Connor Greenwood - Unlearn All The Lies You've Been Taught to Believe. It covers a lot of what I have covered in the blog but there is additional information in it worth reading in relation to banking, 9/11, CIA, Freemasons, Rothschilds etc. I've never really covered 9/11 on the blog but don't believe for a minute that a few Arabs with boxcutters pulled that off. Anyway, another one for the critical thinkers out there.  Sadly, the author is dead as he is someone I would have loved to have had a conversation with, although, I don't know when he died or what he died from.

Has anyone else noticed the reduction in internet traffic recently? Although, a million households have cancelled their internet in the last year, apparently, due to the cost of living crisis, but maybe they just got sick of the bullshit and decided not to pay to be tormented any more. The only reason I haven't cancelled mine is that the telly is so crap that I mostly watch Netflix these days. I think 99.99 per cent of it is now controlled by government and is propaganda, maybe it always was. I just did a quick search and got one page of returns, most of which were Amazon. I remember when the internet started and you put in a search and got millions of hits from across the world. 

I also came off Facebook and went back on Twitter a while ago and, on Saturday, I had a quick look as the weather was dry, and I wanted to get out into the garden to do some work. I rechecked it four hours later and it was the same stuff. I remember when I first went on Twitter and the page was updating constantly. I'm not sure about Musk, or how honest he is, but there is still quite a bit of censorship on it and, with the appointment of Linda Yaccarino as CEO, ex-employee of the WEF and mainstream media, I'm not sure it is the 'free and open' platform it claims to be, or will be in the future. 

And, on the subject of truth, it is beyond irony that the BBC has now launched a new programme, Verify, which is, according to them - transparency in action – fact-checking, verifying video, countering disinformation, analysing data and explaining complex stories in the pursuit of truth. This is our promise to consumers - we understand that their trust must be earned and we will show them how we are doing that each and every day. 

Copy that down and save it somewhere as you may need it for your defence in court in the future when they come looking for the license fee. This is like putting the fox in charge of the hen house, or a male rapist into a women’s prison – oops! You couldn't make it up, unless, of course, you work for the BBC, the Guardian, the IPCC, SAGE, the WEF, the FBI etc, etc...

They used to say believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see, with Ai, I would update that to believe nothing you hear or see on screen, and question everything. The world has never appeared more absurd than it is at present, I'm sure war with Eastasia is about to kick off any day now!


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Travel Bans

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Edited by Aideen Devine, Saturday, 13 Feb 2021, 18:20

Well, what a coincidence! A few days after the Brazilian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ernesto Araujo says that they will not be implementing the Great Reset, they are banned from travelling to the UK, and no doubt the rest of the corrupt regimes around the world will follow suit.

And, what another coincidence! A travel ban on Portugal as well, just days after their courts rule PCR tests 'unreliable' and quarantines 'unlawful'! But I bet you didn't see any of this on the BBC, what you would see on the BBC site in relation to Brazil are 3 stories. The first one is 'Growing Concern over the Brazilian variant', Bolsonara is holding out against the globalists but they keep pumping out the fear with more than a little help from their media puppets!  

The second is titled Young, Black and more Likely to Die (from police violence), so I expect Black Lives Matter will be making an appearance in downtown Brasilia any day now, as soon as the CIA /Mossad gets them organised. 

And finally, Brazil hospitals 'lack oxygen' for virus patients. And their healthcare system is on the point of collapse too, apparently, but it's just another day in the propaganda war to keep us in fear.  

On the Great Reset, I was wondering how they were going to take everything we have, well, the Irish Times recently ran a story on how 7/10 Irish people live in homes that are too large for their needs. There is talk of a property tax being brought in and not just in Ireland. This is the start of the media 'talk up', which is what they do with everything that is coming, they lay the seeds of it through the media and then ramp it up. Granny, who we have all been staying at home to save, will soon be the media and government scapegoat keeping the young homeless, and in accommodation unsuited to their needs. That is of course, if she is still alive after receiving the vaccine, 23 dead in Norway after getting it, hmmmmm?  But, of course, it will all be small part of the price we have to pay for the debts' engineered by the 'covid crisis', all those lost freedoms, jobs and businesses. 

The NHS will go the same way, the government haven't said who will be paying for all the NHS 'covid' stuff yet, and if it has to come from the health Trust's budgets, then the next step will be that we cannot afford the 'free' healthcare anymore; we will all have to buy health insurance and our care will be handed over to the corporate friends of the government. Goodbye property, goodbye granny, goodbye NHS. 

 And if you are still sitting at home thinking, 'once we get to March, things will end and we will get our lives back', well, I am sorry to tell you, you are never getting your life back. EVER! 

As Klaus Schwab says in Covid 19: The Great Reset - (available to buy on Amazon, I know it nearly killed me to have to pay for it but I needed to get a copy to show people, and prove that it is not a 'conspiracy' theory) the world as we knew in the early months of 2020 is no more...radical changes of such consequence are coming that pundits have referred to a 'before coronavirus, BC and 'after coronavirus' AC...they will shape a new normal radically different from the one we will progressively be leaving behind'. Goodbye life, goodbye freedom! Hello totalitarian control, hello 1984!

 But if you are not happy with this outlook and are sick of the whole fraudulent, fear-mongering 'crisis', then the first step against it is to take off the damned mask and stop being complicit in your own enslavement. 

On a positive note, the Italians are standing up and are going to be reopening their businesses this week in defiance of the government, well done Italy - Viva I'Italiano!

Links to all below.

https://thoughtcrimeradio.net/2021/01/brazil-says-no-to-great-reset-totalitarian-social-control-is-not-the-remedy-for-any-crisis/

https://off-guardian.org/2020/11/20/portuguese-court-rules-pcr-tests-unreliable-quarantines-unlawful/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-55670318

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-55670786

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-55673006

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202101/1212915.shtml?fbclid=IwAR0k3DOJA6QMnnSIEJf-wzNoK9mQdmWx3chIRs8qaop-VFSmE06rWuGqGcA

https://www.amazon.co.uk/COVID-19-Great-Reset-Klaus-Schwab/dp/2940631123/ref=sr_1_1?crid=N64JWWGBXPL5&dchild=1&keywords=klaus+schwab+covid19+the+great+reset&qid=1610716123&sprefix=klaus%2Caps%2C266&sr=8-1

 


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Virus, wot virus? 1

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Edited by Aideen Devine, Wednesday, 29 Apr 2020, 08:09

I managed to post 25 times over Lent, which I’m fairly pleased about but because there was so much going on politically, there was plenty to write about. The coronavirus hysteria is still ongoing, but hopefully it will be ending soon and we can get back to living.  This isn’t going to be a very long article but it was hours and hours of research in the making and worth it in the end, I hope.

As part of my research into the covid virus, here is the most interesting fact I have found, there is actually no such thing as a covid 19 virus.  Yes, you read that right, the ‘virus’ as such, hasn’t even been isolated yet and the test they are using to confirm its ‘presence’ is called the RT-PCR test and was designed to detect and measure RNA. It works by identifying genetic material (DNA/RNA) in the lungs which is often present when someone has other compromising illnesses.  So, anyone with any kind of lung condition would most probably test ‘positive’. The test was invented by Kary Mullis, an American Biochemist and he said it should ‘not be used to diagnose infectious diseases’.

The other thing is that, what they are calling ‘covid 19’, has all the same features as Exosomes which occur naturally in the body and as you can see from the table below, are a perfect match!

esome table

What Exosomes do is, ‘they communicate information to target cells, depending on the types of cells they came from, and are of special interest in the field of medicine for their ability to stimulate immune responses’.

So, there’s a bit more information on ‘covid’ and I have certainly expanded my knowledge of viruses in the last few weeks. So, what is really going on? Well, what I think is happening is that there is a SARS type flu going around this year, which certain vested interests have latched onto as a way of experimenting on, and testing, the population, especially, in light of EVENT 201. I think we are the lab rats in the experiment and the powers behind it all, are having a real big laugh at our expense over the hysteria they have created.  This may all be useful information for them for the future, as now they have seen how we have reacted in the ‘panicdemic’ and know how easy it was to put the entire population under lockdown, no facts or real information necessary, just let the media loose with their hysterical over-reaction and the crowd will follow. 

However, on a positive note, the voices of dissent are rising and I think there are going to be a lot of questions asked about this when the ‘panic’ has died down, and someone in authority really needs to start taking the media to task over their behaviour. Quite frankly, the BBC and many others have been nothing short of an absolute disgrace in how they have handled this. Not only that, but with people being ordered to stay home, they have done absolutely nothing to calm people’s fears or even give them something decent to watch. 

On another note, there are a lot of theories flying around on 5G but as yet there are no formal studies to confirm or refute these hypotheses and on the little I did find on it, there was no correlation between 5G and where the virus was. However, I did come across information on the possible long term effects of radiation from Wifi and smartphones but it’s a topic for another day, as the sun is shining and I’m back to work tomorrow, so I’ll be out in the garden and making the most of it today!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roDGPZMev7s

*https://www.britannica.com/science/exosome

 


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Rights + Responsibility = Truth?

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Edited by Aideen Devine, Wednesday, 17 Feb 2021, 10:59

Everyone today, is very clued up on their human rights, they demand that life live up to their expectations and when it doesn't, they start shouting about 'violations' of their 'human rights' and can quote verbatim from the section, sub-section, paragraph and line of the Human Rights Act.

We’ve come a long way from the days of Thomas Paine and Mary Wollstonecraft when ‘rights’ were nothing more than a middle-class aspiration, and while there is much that I agree with in their writings, overall, I don't actually believe in human rights. I don't believe that there are natural rights or God given rights, as a matter of fact, I don't believe we have the right to anything. The only rights we have are those we have awarded ourselves and when we award ourselves rights then, we are morally obligated to award those same rights to everyone, equally. We consider the Human Rights Act a sign of our evolution into a more civilised society and a demonstration of our moral and intellectual superiority. And like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, the more we get, the more we want.  

We are quick to demand our rights, however, we are not as vocal when it comes to our responsibilities and are often quite happy to run away from or ignore them. The concentration on rights without the same consideration of responsibility leads to a skewed perspective and causes an imbalance within society.

Within the Human Rights Act, we have the Right to Life, the Right to Respect for Private and Family Life and the Right to Freedom of Religion and Belief but no responsibility to provide a counter-balance to them.

I do not believe in a ‘right to life’, life is not a right, it is a gift which we are very lucky to have, so alongside a 'Right to Life', I would put a responsibility - the responsibility to take care of and respect that life.

Alongside the Right to Respect for Private and Family Life - I would add the responsibility to ensure that a private and family life does not compel any member of that family to share in your belief system, if they choose not to, and also, that your behaviour as a family does not impact negatively on the community outside your family.

On the Right to Freedom of Religion and Belief - I would add the responsibility to ensure you do not force or impose your religion or beliefs on anyone else. Religion should be a private matter between the individual and whatever God they believe in.

Why do we believe that we have more rights than any other living organism on this planet? The demand for rights comes from the belief that we are 'special', more special than everything else on earth because we sit at the top of the food chain. This idea originally came from the book of Genesis, where God gave man dominion over the earth (which of course was written by man and has more than a bit of self-serving bias in it) and was adopted by religious institutions. From that, we were led to believe that the universe was created for us and we were, literally, the centre of that universe with everything revolving around us. 

In the psychological development of a human being, this is known as the egocentric stage, or egocentrism, and was first identified by the psychologist, Jean Piaget. This stage of development, usually occurs between the ages of 4 - 7, although, it can persist into adulthood for some (believe me; I deal with them all the time!).  It is characterised by a lack of awareness of different points of view - something which was very evident in the Brexit debate and which you can see any day in Parliament (and is actually the modus operandi in Stormont!!). It is a stage of development where a child/person is self-absorbed and still has to learn that things are not always from their point of view or perspective. When it persists into adulthood, it can be identified in people through their 'egocentric shortcomings' which include:

'The False-Consensus Effect - where people overestimate the extent to which their preferences are shared by others; (as evidenced by the ‘remain’ side in Brexit)

The Curse-of-Knowledge Effect - where experts in a particular domain fail to take into account the level of knowledge of laypeople with whom they are communicating; (or egosplaining, as I call it)

The Illusion of Transparency - where people exaggerate the degree to which their internal emotional states (such as anxiety during public speaking) are evident to others; 

The Spotlight Effect - where people overestimate the degree to, which aspects of their appearance and actions are noticed by others.' 

Or, in other words, it's all me, me, me, me, ME!!!

The universe is approximately 14 billion years old, earth is approximately 4.5 billion, man or a man-like creature is estimated to have been around from somewhere between 2 - 7 million years and your life, if you are lucky, will average 70 years. The life of a human being, in proportion to the life of the universe, is nothing more than the blink of an eye. You are a dust mote sitting on a quite beautiful rock which revolves around a glowing hot rock, in a universe whose size is beyond our knowledge and comprehension and, of which, we know very little. We don't even really know the basics - we know that there is a gravitational force in the universe but we have no idea what it is, or how it works, all we know is how it behaves.

Our tendency to egocentrism, often means that we lose our perspective on life and our place in the world. Our egos delude us into overestimating our importance and our knowledge and it can be a shock to the system to confront this reality and realise that, at the end of the day, we still don’t really know that much, we really don't matter very much either and if we disappeared tomorrow, the world will still keep turning and life will still go on.

Within the 'climate' hysteria that has gripped most of the mainstream media; the delusions of the ego are predominant.  Like Brexit, no real debate is allowed and the stream of propaganda continues, as those who are still in their egocentric phase refuse to consider any opinion but theirs, or consider that they could be deceived. 

I can understand and sympathise, if people only get their information from the mainstream media and believe that they are being told the truth.  There is a generation who were brought up to believe in the integrity of institutions like the BBC and NASA, to name but a few, and find it hard to comprehend that they are being lied to on such a grand scale, and believe me that scale is huge. I mean, I believed in it too until someone pointed out the truth to me, and it isn’t nice to have to admit that you were taken for a fool. I was a real ‘greenie’ and was quite happy to pay £3 for a light bulb, I used to pay 60p for. But, that’s life, it wasn’t the first time I’ve been fooled but it will most certainly be the last, I hope!

A few months ago, I tried to debate with a couple of people I know on 'climate change', both have quite large egos and one of them was flying to the US to protest with Extinction Rebellion (ironic or what?). But they completely refused to even consider any alternative viewpoint or read any of the literature I recommended. They chose wilful ignorance over scientific truth because it fed into their egos. 

Coincidentally, I took my mother to mass on Sunday and one of the readings was from Genesis, it was the passage where Adam and Eve are tempted by the serpent into eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which is one of my favourite  passages from the Bible because there is so much you can take from it and is probably one of the earliest writings on humans and consciousness.  So, I spent most of mass reading and re-reading this passage. There were several interesting things I took from it. One of the things I noticed about it was that, in this passage, God lied. Now, in all the years of being taught religion at school, no one ever pointed that out or questioned it.  The serpent asks Eve if God has told them not to eat from any of the trees, and Eve tells him yes, that God has said 'you must not eat it....under pain of death'. This is the lie which the serpent reveals. He tells her she won't die and that if she eats from it, her 'eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil'. So, with consciousness, we become the god of our own lives, we have the knowledge of good and evil and can then make a choice. 

The lack of curiosity and desire for truth and knowledge from the ‘climate change believers’, because it is about ‘belief’ and not scientific truth, shows that some of us prefer to live in ignorance, which is doubly disappointing in an age when so much knowledge is, literally, at our fingertips. Carl Sagan once remarked, 'knowledge is preferable to ignorance, better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable' and was a great advocate for scientific truth over superstition and myth.

I wonder what he would say now or how he would fare in the present day when science is being destroyed by lies and propaganda; when even the Nobel Institute has lost their integrity and real scientists are dismissed and silenced, in favour of an uneducated teenager, who is being cruelly set-up by her parents and paymasters. Would he too be side-lined and silenced?  Where lies the responsibility for truth now, is it with us to demand it as a right?

In searching for truth, I can only be grateful for the internet, for providing a gateway to truth and a different perspective. I dread to think how we would fare without it at the present time and the only advice I can leave you with are the words of another advocate for scientific truth, Benjamin Franklin:

"Believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see"

By the way, if you still believe you are the centre of the universe, or even if you don’t, because Carl Sagan is always worth listening to, follow the link and enjoy –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIANk7zQ05w)

https://www.britannica.com/science/egocentrism


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Good News/ Bad News

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Edited by Aideen Devine, Thursday, 1 Sep 2022, 12:51

It's been a good news/bad news sort of a week. Good news, in that Boris won the election with a sizeable majority so now we can finally get on with Brexit and leaving the EU. I never thought I would be glad to see a Tory Government elected but like many working class, Boris was the only choice to finally settle the debate and I would like to say a huge thank you to the people of England who turned out to vote and make it happen. I feel, for the first time in a very long time, hopeful and optimistic about the future of the country and I think the UK will thrive from here on and that we have a lot to look forward to.

The sheep here turned out to vote for the tribes, as usual. However, there were a few upsets. Sinn Fein lost Foyle to the SDLP and the DUP's, Nigel Dodd’s lost his seat too.  Unfortunately, it was to Sinn Fein so that was a bit of a double-edged sword!  

With the EU out of the way, the buck will now stop in Westminster (at least, it will once we are out) and our politicians will now (hopefully!) be more accountable for their policies and actions.  At least, it will be easier to hold them to account.

Other good news on the election front, was the non-election of Jo Swinson who got a lesson in reality - self-righteous pontificating isn't really much of a policy and a bit of advice for Jo, just because The Guardian say it, doesn't make it true. Now, Jo will have to get a real job and work for a living. Welcome to the real world!

Labour too, got a hard lesson in reality. They deserted the working-classes and now the working-classes have deserted them, at least, temporarily. Although, I was sorry to see Dennis Skinner lose his seat. 

Labour hasn't been a working-class party for years, like the politics of Northern Ireland, their view of the world is out of date and so are most of their policies. What we have also seen, is that reality trumps ideology and we are now moving towards a post-ideological world.  The extremes of right and left ideology no longer work when faced with the practical reality of life. Labour needs to restructure and start living in the real world and not in some 'socialist' Utopian ideal that exists only in the minds of those who have only ever lived comfortable, middle-class lives. Especially, when in recent years, they pontificate and insult their voting heartlands with their self-righteous grand-standing and try to ignore the voice of that majority.

On the bad news front, we lost Dr David Bellamy, the naturalist and critic of the 'climate change' fraud. His opposition to that fraud saw him side-lined by the media and many of the environmental groups he was involved with. I hope the day is coming soon when the lies of the mainstream media are finally exposed on this and with the EU out of the way, that will, I hope, be the end to their funding of the propaganda and distortions of the truth.

And if anyone is still in doubt about 'climate change', answer this one simple question (even Jo Swinson could work this one out!) 

Who is more likely to tell you the truth about the effects of Co2 on the climate of this planet?

A - An American politician, Al Gore?

B - An unqualified and uneducated, 16 year old with a learning disability, Greta Thunberg?

C - A naturalist and environmentalist with a Phd in Botany and over 40 years of campaigning on the environment, Dr David Bellamy?

On the news/news front, since you cannot trust the BBC or any of the mainstream services, I would recommend Sky News Australia.  A completely different beast from Sky News UK which, I would never allow in the door but a great channel with some great commentators. You can find it on Youtube.

So, roll on 2020, and the US election.  This will probably return a massive vote for Trump since the US is also enduring the same self-righteous grandstanding that we have endured from the Neo-Liberal Fascist's in our midst but from the Democratic Party in their propaganda war of lies as they try to cover up Biden's dirty deals in Ukraine.  Watch this space...

 


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Boris Bungles Again!

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So, Boris (allegedly) squeezed the thigh of journalist Charlotte Edwardes 20 years ago. I mean this kind of sexual harassment is just not on and I for one am appalled.  Thank God, we have moved on as a society and the casual sexual harassment that went on in the past is rapidly being exposed for the horror that it was for all victims of thigh-squeezing.

And I must confess to a certain 'mea-culpa' too.  I remember now the almost weekly sexual harassment of Terry Wogan on his BBC talk show, Wogan. Week after week, woman after woman used to come in and squeeze his leg, I actually think the odd man may have done it too!  And to my eternal shame, I remember, I used to laugh along, I thought it was a joke too! My God, how could I have been so naive?? 

Little did I realise how distressing all this must have been for Terry, and although he seemed to take it as a joke and laugh along too, maybe underneath it all he was in torment. Did he go back to his dressing room after each assault and cry at the impossible position he had been put in, the humiliation of having to endure being sexually assaulted right on screen every week for the whole country to see?  Did his bosses make him play along, was there pressure from the top to just sit there and take it??!  I think we need to be told, nay, DEMAND to be told!  

What kind of culture existed in the BBC at the time, when an innocent man could have been subjected to such appalling behaviour for the entertainment of millions and with no regard for his 'personal space'.  The term 'Housewife's Favourite' now takes on a much more insidious tone!  Was Terry Wogan used by the BBC to provide sexual gratification for frustrated housewives and women everywhere? Was there a darker side to the easy banter and playful innuendoes he used to so casually drop into his broadcasts? Maybe they were secretly a cry for help from a man without friends, a 'victim' of his own 'success', whether he wanted it or not?

Terry Wogan is unfortunately, no longer with us, did the years of sexual harassment add to his stress and have a bearing on the cancer that killed him? Who knows?  But at the very least, to honour his memory, I think we need a public enquiry and those women should be publicly named and shamed for the blatant harassment of a kindly gentleman just trying to make a living!  The horror of it all!



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Neo-Liberal Fascism part 2

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Edited by Aideen Devine, Friday, 20 Oct 2023, 09:46

I don’t know about you but I feel as if I have just come through 3 weeks of ‘shock and awe’ on ‘climate change’. Between the media, Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion, we have been bombarded with ‘climate change’ propaganda. And no harm to Greta, she is supposed to be a clever girl but maybe she should start looking at the real scientific facts and not just the misinformation pumped out by the IPCC.

It was also quite nauseating to watch all the neo-liberals fawning over her. They even trotted out Ed Miliband for the all-star, and old has-been, meet Greta Thunberg Show. I wonder if the neo-liberals are planning a comeback or maybe a coup to oust Jeremy Corbyn. However, I’m also beginning to wonder if Jeremy has already crossed over to the dark side of the neo-liberal, politically correct and all-inclusive fascist movement?  One of the biggest disappointments recently was watching him jump on the Greta bandwagon by declaring a ‘climate emergency’. That should make for an interesting conversation, the next time he speaks to his brother Piers! 

Greta also stated after her speech to the EU that she was going to travel home by only using ‘green’ transport.  A noble idea with absolutely no meaning in reality, unless she planned to walk home barefoot across fields which is the only real way to travel ‘green’. Because every car, bus, train, boat and pair of shoes has been made in a factory somewhere using oil and products derived from oil because there is no human process anywhere on earth that doesn’t impact on the environment in some way. Unless you live in a house made from mud that you built yourself, grow and eat only your own vegetables using organic methods, spin your own cloth from your own crops and make your clothing by hand with a needle carved from wood and never fly, drive or travel, use a phone or any modern appliance, then you cannot be truly ‘green’. What is wrong here, is that we lack perspective and proportion but mostly, it is because we are narcissistic about who we are and what we can do. We, white folk here in the west, think we know it all about everything. We know how to fix the planet, we’re going to save the world, just like we knew how to bring all those indigenous and primitive tribes to civilisation. Because our way, is the best way, simply because it’s our way and anyone who thinks differently is stupid, misguided and ignorant. Gawd, bless us, one an’ all!

Meanwhile, in a boardroom or Bilderburg meeting somewhere far from us plebs and guarded by the forces of the state, while we’re all being distracted and arguing away about ‘climate change’ and Brexit and any other item they can use to keep us divided, other darker and more sinister forces are at work. In case you hadn’t noticed, there is a nice little build-up of tensions going on in the gulf as the US and the Saudi’s sabre-rattle towards Iran and the anti-Russian rhetoric is starting to build up online again too. Is there a war looming while we’ve all been looking the other way?

Going back to Brexit, I have to say, it was great to see the Tories getting trashed in the council elections.  Roll on the Euros! The Shinners got a bit of a drubbing here too and lost 4 seats on our council. It was heartening to see a move away from the old 1690/1916 parties and a swing towards independents and Alliance. I’m sure the murder of Lyra McKee had some influence on this. Not that it makes much difference to the politicos, they’re still trying to get the Assembly up and running again and still churning out the same old rhetoric.  ‘It’s not us, it’s them! Ya, boo sucks!’

Another interesting thing that happened a few weeks ago, it was actually the week before Extinction Rebellion started their protests in London, but wasn’t mentioned anywhere on the BBC, was the protest in London by 22,000 bikers and veterans in support of Soldier F. In case, you don’t know, Soldier F is being prosecuted over the Bloody Sunday shootings. A travesty if ever there was one. I don’t live very far from Derry but there are many there who disagree with this prosecution. This soldier has been scapegoated and hung out to dry by the powers that be. There are several reasons why this should not go ahead. For a start, soldiers act under orders so if there are going to be any prosecutions, it should be whoever gave the order. Secondly, under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, all the Republican and Loyalist prisoners were freed. If they did not have to serve out their terms, then no one should be brought before the Courts for any of these past issues and events. The Attorney General John Larkin suggested a while ago that there should be no prosecutions for anything prior to the GFA and that we should draw a line under the past. Of course, he was met with howls of protest from most of the politicians and only Basil McCrea of NI21 supported the idea. Come to think about it, I haven’t heard of NI21 since! 


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Marriage again!

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Edited by Aideen Devine, Wednesday, 7 Dec 2022, 11:05

Well, our feminist is on the rant again I see. You don’t want to take her too seriously, she gets a bit carried away at times. However, she does make you think about some of the issues around marriage. There are so many ways of looking at it and I was going to take a different angle on this but I was watching the news the other night and they reported a story about Fr. Brian D’Arcy being censured by the Vatican for expressing some views in support of marriage for priests, or against celibacy, if you prefer to look at it that way.  Fr Brian is well-known in Ireland and writes a column in a newspaper, the Sunday World, and he sometimes does a stint in the ‘spiritual’ section, on the Chris Evans Breakfast Show on Radio 2. 

As someone who was brought up Catholic, I’d like to throw out a few ideas around the issue, and would be interested in what other people think. I have been watching the BBC 2 series, Divine Women, and have found it interesting how the early Christian Church operated, compared with all the patriarchal rules and regulations that have been imposed upon it since. 

So consider this, within the Catholic Church, when a man or woman wants to become a priest or a nun, they have to go through years of study to prepare themselves before they are allowed to make that lifetime commitment and, in effect, when they do, they become married to God. Now, on the other hand, any gombeen with a notion to, can give 3-6 months notice, do a pre-marriage course or not ( I don’t think they are compulsory) and then get married. 

Within the Catholic Church, there is no divorce and there is certainly no re-marrying in the Church if you have been divorced. Now just for arguments sake, lets concentrate on the nun’s perspective on this. A nun wears a wedding ring and is considered a bride of Christ. She can leave the Church, which many have done, and she can then get married in Church. Why is that allowed? She is able to divorce herself from God and re-marry in Church, even though she went through all those years of training in preparation for her marriage to God or taking Holy Orders, as it is called.   

But an ordinary woman or man cannot do the same, even though they may have had little or no preparation at all before marriage. Is there a double standard operating here?  Is marriage to God, not as important as marriage to another human being? Holy orders and marriage are considered sacraments in the eyes of the Church, how is it possible within the law of the Church to be able to marry God, then leave him/her or it, and then marry a person in the Church?

And there’s another thing, if any of you have watched the Big Fat Gypsy Wedding series on Channel 4, I wonder if you think like me that there is something immoral about allowing sixteen year olds to marry. What does anyone know about anything at sixteen, not to mention the realities and responsibilities of a marital relationship?

What is marriage supposed to be about?  What is it’s purpose?  We were taught at school, a Convent Grammar, that the purpose of marriage is to have children. So, if you can’t have children are you entitled to get an annulment? Or if you know beforehand that you can’t have children, should you be denied the right to marry? 

I’m just asking these questions because I’ve actually come to believe that there is something unnatural about the whole situation or maybe it’s more about the whole approach to marriage.

I’ve been on this whole spiritual journey for many years now (I may have mentioned it in one or two other posts) and the more I look at these things the less sense they seem to make. Among my friends, there has recently been a plethora (great word that by the way, I remember it from The Three Amigos, if I recall correctly!)  a plethora of relationship break-ups, and all the break ups were instigated by the females, funnily enough. Some of the couples were married, some not, but all involved children. 

A few months back there was a great story in the Observer newspaper about a woman who was approaching her forties, she wasn’t in a relationship but wanted to be a mother. If you know the story you can skip ahead but if you don’t, read on, because it’s really interesting. What she did was, she advertised for a man who wanted to be a father because she wanted the child to have parents who were both interested in being parents. She wasn’t having much luck, as most of the men she interviewed shared different ideas about parenting. Then a friend recommended a gay man who they knew also wanted to be a father. They got together, had shared ideas about parenting and so they decided to go ahead and have the child. And this is where it gets really interesting…he fell in love with her, even though he had lived his whole life as a gay man and had never had a romantic relationship with a woman. They are now very happily married and the child is about two years old. 

Isn’t that a fascinating story??

So maybe the conversation we should be having before marriage is not what colour the bridesmaids should wear, or who to invite, but how to bring up the children? Because the pre-nuptial agreement, which is very popular among the rich to protect their assets, is something that could be brought in and extended to cover not just the monetary assets but every aspect of the marital relationship from childcare to housework and, in case there is a breakdown, living arrangements, finances, and contact arrangements for the children. People think about their monetary assets but give no consideration at all to what will surely be their greatest asset, their children!!

We jump into these situations assuming everything will work itself out in time and the real issues are seldom addressed before the wedding, then it’s too late afterwards and when I look around me, I honestly don’t see very many genuinely happy marriages. That is not to say that marriage can’t work and there aren’t good marriages out there but I don’t believe the preparation is anywhere near adequate for the task ahead and I really believe that parenting is something that should be taught in schools.

I also think that no girl should be allowed to marry under the age of twenty-five, and I would make that twenty-nine for a man. I know people have got married at younger ages and stayed together but I really believe that it needs much more thought and preparation than it is currently given and, I think with a few changes, we might have better marriages and fewer divorces.

 

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