Art or life?

The stuff in museums might start off as ground-breaking, earth-moving, red-blooded, usable objects. It works hard. With the occasional day off. It suffers injuries and gets patched up. People coach it and cheer it on. They complain when it’s not there and miss it when it’s gone.

One day, it’s work is done. It goes into quiet retirement and if lucky, gets to rest behind a glass cage at the museum. Some museum visitors peer into the glass cage and see it as the milestones of our history. Others simply see a beautiful abstract object. A piece of art from a vibrant industrial culture…

 

 

Examples of political common sense and emphasis running in opposite directions…

Major union strike activity in the UK before Jeremy Corbyn’s leftist Labour party has a chance to be elected in 2020 will probably frustrate UK voters to vote Tory in protest. Do the unions backing Mr Corbyn realise this?

Personally, I don’t think any political party genuinely enjoys invoking austerity measures on the voters. Most politicians aren’t ogres. Governments everywhere tend to enforce austerity measures for a very important reason. Because something serious has gone wrong with the economy. Households living beyond their household means eventually have to face the facts. So why should they expect their government to not lead by example on this?

Many children hate their parents for cutting off their privileges. But equally, don’t respect them when they’re inconsistent, refuse to set boundaries, or lack the courage to follow through on what they say. But that’s because they’re children. If adults were more rational, they’d probably have nothing but contempt for politicians (on all sides) who try to bribe them, just so the politician can win power in the short term. Instead of the Tory’s highlighting this, they’re focussing off austerity and onto ISIS bombing and the forthcoming EU in/out referendum.

A UK Labour party with self-awareness, courage and integrity would formally split into two distinct parties – a centre party and a leftist party. The leftist party could form a useful working coalition with the Socialist Unity Party, retain labour-union backing, reject Trident and UK membership of the EU. The centre party could form a useful coalition with the Liberal Democrats and embrace EU membership. Instead we have UK Labour Party identity drift.

Meanwhile, the Scottish National Party must be worried that are the leftist SMP voters (traditional Scottish Labour voters) who rejected Labour at the last general election, who will now shun SMP for the new leftist Labour party (that also wants to cancel Trident, end Tory austerity and wants independence, albeit from the EU). With the market value of North Sea oil continuing to drift downwards thanks to Middle East over-production, a viable independent Scotland is fading by the day. So what are the SMP doing? Trying to arrange a second independence referendum! Go figure.

Syrian & Iraqi migrants/refugees

  

What more could the UK do to take on Syrian & Iraqi migrants/refugees? In WW2, lots of Polish and French able-bodied men in uniform operated from Britain against the Nazi threat to their homeland.

Perhaps it’s time for the EU to train brave Syrian refugees to take the fight back to those people brutalising Syria & Iraqi homelands? The EU could supply the weapons, training and military transport back to Syria.The Syrian refugees could inflict some damage on the ground to those causing their fellow citizens so much pain.

One thing it would do, is make ISIS leaders realise that the faster they drive civilians out of Syrian, the faster angry and determined military opposition forces come back to create some significant payback.