"Bushfire" MJB 2015

The Dictionary of Polly Waffle :(( help for befuddled voters in the endless US elections. :)) - Merry Christmas !

Accepted custom and practice: Some money-waster on which I wish to keep wasting money.

Accountability: There is none.

Addressing the issues: Something that somebody else does.

Anticipated investment: What we've got our fingers crossed for.

Anti-war movement: Minority group of wimps to whom you've given money.

At this point in time: I haven't got a good answer but I thought the words might impress.

Bigots: People who don't agree with minority groups of any sort whether you've given then money

or not.

Clearly: Something that is totally unclear.

Compassion: Spending public money to buy votes.

Insensitivity: The public objecting to their money being spent to buy votes.

Demonstration: People who vote for you wanting something.

Mob violence: People who don't vote for you wanting possibly less.

Deployment: Moving people somewhere else that you should have fired.

Downsizing: Firing people.

Economic stimulation: Taking more money from the poor and transferring it to the rich.

Entitlement: Achiever's money being given to non-achievers.

Equal opportunity: Offering an advantage who you think might vote for you.

Fistful of dollars: Any minuscule profit made by the private sector.

Government innovation: Something old your opponents suggested about which you hope they

might have forgotten.

I'm glad you've asked that question: I think you're a low bastard for asking such a good question.

I'm tackling the issue: I've given it to somebody else.

Informed source: Works for the same faction in the same political party as you do.

It's not the money it's the principle: It's the money!

I've been reliably informed: I overheard it.

Knowledgeable observer: You.

Self styled politician: Phony.

Guru: See self styled politician.

Troubled times: We made the trouble.

Unidentified source: You

Man-in-the-street reaction: Something about which the man in the street has not the vaguest idea.

Moderate unionists: Mythical beings who terrify you.

Parliamentary allowance: Monies taken from the taxpayer by a politician and then given to

another politician.

Political biography: Lies about politicians you don't like.

Political autobiography:Lies about yourself.

Political history: Lies about everybody.

Private greed: Non-government individuals making money whilst enjoying them selves.

Public service: Government individuals trying to find a way of stopping non-government

individuals making money whilst enjoying themselves.

Resourced social policies: Non-governmental, non-earning people – paid for.

Ringing endorsement: One other person agreed with me.

Seek a greater commitment from the community: Ask for more money.

Special interest group: A minority to whom you want to give money.

Special interest lobby: A minority to whom you don't want to give money.

A proud people: A minority to whom you are going to give money, whether they want it or not.

Simplistic: An absolutely correct statement to which you have no answer.

To the best of my knowledge: I really have no idea.

We're making a significant difference: Some economic indicator moved 1 point of 1%.

Antarctic Research Icebreaker " Aurora Australis " - MJB 2015

"Rain upon the Rock" - MJB 2015

" Southerly Buster" - MJB 2015

A thought provoking Article on Standardisation of People

Are ALL Men Really Created Equal? By Bill Bonner 

We are sitting at a restaurant next to Waterford harbour.

This is where thousands of desperate emigrants assembled for the trip to America.

But during the famine in Ireland and the Highland Clearances in Scotland, passage across the Atlantic was as likely to be a ticket to a watery grave as to a better life.

Death rates were as high as 30% — earning the vessels the name ‘coffin ships.’

If the emigrants made it to the US or Canada, their prospects improved. Their children or grandchildren might grow up to be president. Or, like your editor, at least get a chance to visit Waterford again.

Phony stimulus

Back in the US, nonfarm payrolls increased by 211,000 in November…adding to the 271,000 jobs created in October.

Word on The Street is that Fed chair Janet Yellen will stick to her plan to begin normalising interest rates later this month.

Meanwhile, from Europe came news that Mario ‘Whatever It Takes’ Draghi also disappointed investors yesterday. The president of the European Central Bank’s latest stimulus package was less stimulating that investors had hoped for.

It was as though a child had expected a new bike for Christmas. And then, looking under the tree on Christmas morning, all he finds is a sweater and a book. The poor boy is in a funk for the rest of the day.

The Dow sold off 252 points — or about 1.5%.

That’s the trouble with these phony stimulus measures. You’ve got to keep stimulating…or the spoiled kids get in a bad mood.

But let’s change the subject…

Bill Bonner Letter subscribers will recall from their November issue how Yuval Harari, a professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, describes the idea that all men are created equal as a ‘myth.’

It is the kind of shared narrative — not based on any objective reality — that holds a modern society together.

Today, we dig into the archives for more on the subject…

Size matters

‘It is largely a matter of scale…In fact, it could all be reduced to a matter of scale,’ said a visitor yesterday.

We were talking about the way things work…and why there is such a big difference between the way people are able to function reasonably well in small groups and the way they seem to blow themselves up in large ones.

‘Yes,’ our friend went on, ‘once you get beyond what is usually known as the “human scale,” things lose all their meaning.’

It is a question that has puzzled us for years: How is it that a reasonably intelligent man can perfectly well drive through traffic without killing himself, but ask the same man his thoughts on global warming, the War on Poverty, or public education…and what you get is such preposterous nonsense you can barely believe your own ears?

We have mentioned many times that there is a world of difference between a New England town meeting and the US Federal Government. The size of the New England town meeting is one that the human brain is prepared to deal with.

At the town meeting, a man can know which of the people he is dealing with is a moron and which is a self-interested hustler.

But when it comes to national politics, the same man is totally ill-equipped for the job — like a mechanic who shows up with a pair of pruning shears…or a veterinarian with a wrench in his hand.

He is ignorant of the facts…innocent of the procedures…and completely helpless in front of the controls. He can’t tell the connivers from the honest bumblers. He has lost the points of reference that are meaningful to him.

What can the poor fellow do but resort to myths, lies, and such oversimplifications as take your breath away?

‘If we don’t fight the Commies in Vietnam,’ he said in 1965, ‘we’ll have to fight them in California!’

‘If you want a better educated population, you have to spend more on public education,’ he said in 1975.

‘If we don’t stand up to the Evil Empire, it will take over the world,’ he said in 1985.

‘If you invest in a balanced portfolio of stocks, you will always make money over the long run,’ he said in 1995.

What can he do?

He replaces local knowledge and experience with empty slogans. He replaces the detailed evidence before his own eyes with broad categorical generalisations. Precise figures and intricate calculations give way to statistics and averages.

Jingoisms, myths, and scams

The world he sees on TV becomes his world, too — a world where the local details are washed out and replaced by caricatures and national averages.

It gives rise to a whole new understanding of things. Standards are set not according to local custom or individual experience but according to the great wash of national broadcasting in which particularities are bleached out…local colours faded and real knowledge is lost in the spin cycle.

Instead of speaking his local dialect, he is soon speaking the lingua franca of the nightly news. Instead of wearing the clothes he likes, he is dressed to suit The Gap or Brooks Brothers. Instead of his own thoughts, his mind is full of jingoisms, myths, and scams.

As the scale of his world increases, local nuance and particularities lose their appeal.

The man begins to see himself and his world in new terms. It no longer matters whether his house is comfortable and attractive on his terms; now it has to be acceptable in national terms.

He comes to realize that many people are lodged in ‘substandard’ housing. And the standard is hardly one that the man can set for himself. Instead, it is a standard set by people with no detailed knowledge whatsoever.

It is a standard based on averages…generalities…and incentives of which he is completely unaware.

How many square feet per person? How much heating? How much air-conditioning? How do these standards suit the National Builders’ Association and the Steamfitters Union?

Then, to make sure that all houses meet their standards, rules are imposed — building codes…zoning rules…materials standards.

The owner can no longer ask himself: Is this house safe enough for me? Now, the question is: Does this house meet modern safety standards?

By today’s standards even the Sun King, Louis XIV, probably lived in substandard housing.

A standardised world

Education, too, takes on a new look...

It is not enough to learn things; the busybodies are incapable of organising real, individual learning. What they can organise is ‘Education.’

Educators can’t be bothered with individual students as they actually are, nor even with local curricula. Everyone has to learn the same thing. And they have to learn it the same way.

The world may be infinitely complex. But in the national educational program, the details have to be knocked off — like the fine, detailed trim work of an old house — so that all that is left is measurable, standardised, quantified, and allocated by bureaucrats who may have never met a single student in their entire lives.

And the formula for improvement is always the same: Are educational standards falling short? Spend more money!

Who cares if anyone is actually learning? The critical thing is that all students get the same claptrap pounded into their poor heads so that they leave the machinery with the same prejudices and illusions. The same myths. The same narrative.

The woodchopper from New Hampshire or the cabbage grower from California soon discovers that not only does he live in a ‘substandard’ hovel and that he is ‘uneducated,’ but also that he is ‘poor’ to boot.

Poverty is always a relative measure, but relative to what?

A man may be perfectly happy with his lot in life. He may have no running water, no central heat, and no money. Imagine him tending his garden, feeding his chickens, and fixing his tattered roof. Out in the woods, he may even have set up a still for refining the fruits of the earth into even more pleasurable distillates.

In fact, by all measures that matter to him, he could have a rich, comfortable, and enjoyable life. But as the scale of comparison grows, the details that make his life so agreeable disappear in a flush of statistics.

He finds that he is below the ‘poverty line.’ He discovers that he is ‘disadvantaged’ and ‘underprivileged.’ He may even be delighted to realize that he has a ‘right’ to ‘decent housing.’

Maybe he will qualify for food stamps.

The idea of being ‘poor’ may never have occurred to him before. He may live in a part of the world where everyone is about as poor as he is…and all perfectly happy in their poverty.

But now that the spell is on him, it sits like a curse. Poverty seems like something he has to escape…something he has to get out of…something that someone had better do something about!

His new scaled-up consciousness has turned him into a malcontent. The poor man — previously happy in his naïve particulars — is now miserable in his role as a poverty-stricken hick.

Twisted opinions

The worst thing about it: TV and popular opinion twist him toward thinking that it is the public view of himself — not his own private view — that really matters.

In a matter of months, he has forgotten how content he really is.

The public spectacle has turned him into a chump.

He sees himself on TV as an unfortunate hillbilly. The national newspapers say he needs help. They even make fun of the way he talks. And now the revenuers are in the woods looking for his still!

All over the world, local customs, styles, manners, accents are disappearing. As the scale increases, with the expansion of the globalised market economy, people are being homogenised, levelled.

Their food, their music, their clothes — all are mixed together, standardised…and like mixing remnants of paint cans — you end up with grey.

Regional variations hang on only in vestigial, folkloric form.

Whether you go to New Orleans, Nashville, or Vienna, you will hear about the same music, find the same fashions in the same shops, and be able to eat the same McDonald’s hamburger. An investor in Mumbai speaks the same language as one in New York.

But it is the particularities of investments that make the difference between investment failure and investment success. These are the very things the world financial media cannot be bothered with…the kind of precise, detailed, particular, local knowledge that you really need for investment success.

Instead, what the investor gets is the equivalent of a public school education: He knows nothing much… and thinks he knows everything.

And since all investors know pretty much the same thing — which is to say, they all share the same illusions and take them for wisdom — the markets tend to reflect the popular fashions as if they were the season’s latest blue jeans.

The death of privacy

The same phenomenon plays itself out in a nation’s foreign policy, too.

A man knows perfectly well that he needs to be able to defend himself. Around the hills of New Hampshire, he may judge the risk of attack so slim that he goes unarmed. But walking through the back alleys of Manchester he may wish he were packing heat.

As the scale increases, he is unable to judge the risk.

Give him a little TV news…and he is ready to go to war with people he has never met, in places he has never been, for reasons he will never understand.

Here again, the scale of the thing makes a mug of the man. He cannot know the facts, the people, or even the theory. He doesn’t know what he’s buying. But he’s ready to pay with his life.

Even in matters as personal as health, a man soon finds himself the victim of scale.

The state of his health scarcely matters; what matters are statistics. He is overwhelmed by the slogans and prejudices of the national media.

Does he weigh too much? Does he get enough exercise? Does he eat enough seafood? Should he have a check-up every year; what do the statistics say? What do the papers tell him?

The large-scale chatter doesn’t even stop at the bedroom door. He may have enjoyed a perfectly satisfactory sex life. But now he is confronted with comparisons…averages…the statistical expectations of the national press.

Is he doing it often enough? Is he doing it well enough?

Before, these matters were personal and private. He used to set his own standards. But now, there is no such thing as a private matter. There is scarcely anything that is so private, so personal, so detailed, so local, and so important that it does not yield to large-scale standardisation.

No longer does he know what really matters except by reference to the public spectacle, from how frequently people make love to what kind of misgovernment they have in Iraq.

We are now all the same, all the time.

We live in the same houses. We eat the same food. And we suffer the very same illusions as everyone else.

If we are unhappy, it is because the TV says we should be.

Only now we are all equal…

Bill Bonner,For The Daily Reckoning, Australia

"Day's End" - MJB 2015

" Yellow River " MJB 2015

'The Road Home'. Acrylic 12x16" MJB 2015

World War I - The Gallipoli Campaign - Truth is the First Casualty.

Painting by M.J.Bull 2013

Gallipoli: The Untold Story – ‘The first casualty of war is truth’

(An article presented by David Jones for New Dawn Magazine, April 2015 and published online.)

By GERRY DOCHERTY & JIM MACGREGOR

The truth about Gallipoli has, unlike its victims, been buried deep. Historians like Peter Hart who describe it as “an idiocy generated by muddled thinking”¹ are justified in their anger, but not their conclusions. The campaign was conceived in London as a grotesque, Machiavellian strategy to fool the Russians into believing that Britain was attempting to capture Constantinople for them. The paradox of its failure lay in its success. Gallipoli was purposefully designed to fail.
A secret cabal of immensely rich and powerful men – the Secret Elite – was formed in England in 1891 with the explicit aim of expanding the British Empire across the entire globe. They planned a European war to destroy Germany as an economic, industrial and imperial competitor and, to that end, drew France then Russia into an alliance termed the Entente Cordiale. Their massive land armies were needed to crush Germany. France would be rewarded with Alsace and Lorraine, while Russia was conned into believing she would get Constantinople.² Thereafter, seizing the Ottoman capital became a “widespread obsession, bordering on panic” in St Petersburg.³
Had Britain encouraged the friendship of Turkey in 1914, the disaster of Gallipoli would never have happened.⁴ The Turks generally disliked the Germans and their growing influence,⁵ and made three separate attempts to ally with Britain. They were rebuffed on each occasion.⁶ They also pleaded in vain with the French to accept them as an ally,⁷ and protect them against their old enemy, Russia.⁸ Poor fools. The French and British alliance with Russia was at the expense of the Turks, not an alliance with the Turks to save them from Russia. Britain and France planned to carve up the oil rich Ottoman Empire. To that end, the Turks had to be pushed into the German camp and defeated.
In July 1914 the majority of the Turkish cabinet was still well disposed towards Britain,⁹ but their faith was shattered by the seizure of two battleships being built for them in England. As an essay in provocation it was breathtaking.¹⁰ “If Britain wanted deliberately to incense the Turks and drive them into the Kaiser’s arms she could not have chosen more effective means.”¹¹ Winston Churchill (a loyal servant of the Secret Elite) seized the dreadnoughts because they were “vital to Britain’s naval predominance.”¹² The truth ran much deeper.
Back in February, Russia laid plans for her Black Sea fleet to take Constantinople by landing 127,500 troops and heavy artillery from Odessa. Arrival of the dreadnoughts from England would destroy this plan.¹³ Russia’s Foreign Minister Sazonov issued a thinly veiled warning to London on 30 July: “It is a matter of the highest degree of importance that… these ships must be retained in England.”¹⁴ Fearful that Russia would renege on her commitment to war should the ships be released, the Secret Elite withheld them. It kept Russia on board and helped drive Turkey into the German camp (they signed a treaty on 2 August), but it created a major problem. How to prevent the Russian Black Sea fleet from seizing Constantinople? Two German warships provided the answer. On 4 August, while off the coast of Algeria, the battle cruiser Goeben and attendant light cruiser Breslau received orders to head for Constantinople.
Vastly outnumbered (73 to 2) by French and British warships, the escape of the German cruisers to Constantinople, 1,200 miles away, is described as a “fiasco of tragic errors” by “fumbling” British Admirals.¹⁵ The British Admiralty supposedly had no idea where they were heading, but the reality was very different. On 3 August, Kaiser Wilhelm telegraphed King Constantine to say that both warships would be proceeding to Constantinople. This information was transmitted to London,¹⁶ and to the British naval mission in Athens.¹⁷ Naval Intelligence in London had intercepted and decrypted the actual encoded message from Berlin to Goeben: “Alliance concluded with Turkey. Goeben and Breslau proceed to Constantinople.” The Admiralty knew,¹⁸ but relayed information to the Mediterranean fleet that “was either useless or inaccurate.”¹⁹ Goeben and Breslau were allowed to escape in order to neutralise the Russian Black Sea fleet. Foreign Secretary Sazonov was outraged that the Royal Navy had failed to prevent it.²⁰
The Ottoman Ambassador in Berlin summed it up perfectly: “Considering the displeasure and complications which a Russian attack on Constantinople would produce in England, the British navy having enabled the German ships to take cover in the Sea of Marmora, has, with the Machiavellianism characteristic of the Foreign Office, foiled any possibility of action by the Russian Black Sea Fleet.”²¹ Safe arrival of the Goeben rendered a Russian amphibious operation well-nigh impossible,²² and the British Ambassador at Constantinople admitted that their presence served British interests, since “they protected the straits against Russia.”²³
On 9 September Admiral Arthur Limpus, head of the British naval mission in Turkey, was recalled. Turkey, although still neutral, closed and mined the Dardanelles. In late October Goeben and Breslau bombarded Sevastopol and other Black Sea ports. Infuriated, Tsar Nicholas insisted on war with Turkey and the seizure of Constantinople for Russia. British and French fears that he would make peace with Germany if Constantinople was denied him gave the Tsar overwhelming diplomatic leverage, and it was agreed that Turkey must now be brought into the war.²⁴

War Declared & the Secret Elites Initiate Gallipoli Campaign

On 2 November Russia declared war on Turkey. Britain and France followed suit three days later. “November 1914 brought a kind of holy war fever to the Russian Foreign Ministry.”²⁵ With over one million Russian casualties for no gain, anti-war protests and revolution stalked the streets of Petrograd. In London, fear of Russia signing a peace treaty with Germany loomed large. How was Russia to be kept in the war with the promise of Constantinople, without actually allowing it? The solution, an attack on Gallipoli, was fraught with pitfalls. The Tsar had to be tricked into believing Britain was generously responding in his hour of need by mounting an all-out effort to take Constantinople for Russia.
The Gallipoli campaign supposedly arose from an urgent call for help from the Russian commander-in-chief Grand Duke Nikolay Nikolaevich on 31 December. Would Britain create a diversion to relieve pressure on Russian troops fighting in the Caucasus?²⁶ This widely held view is wrong. The suggestion came not from Nikolaevich, but from the British military attaché at Petrograd, Sir John Hanbury-Williams. Intimately linked to the Secret Elite and their leader Lord Alfred Milner,²⁷ Hanbury-Williams was frequently in close contact with Nikolaevich. He expressed anxiety about Russia’s domestic morale, but never even mentioned the Dardanelles. It was Hanbury-Williams who planted the idea of a British demonstration against the Ottoman Empire.²⁸ Next day this was presented to the British War Council and magically transformed into a desperate plea for help from Russia.
Having already decided their strategy to keep the Russians out of Constantinople, the Secret Elite now cleverly made it appear that the idea came from Russia. It was all pre-planned, “long before any kind of military imperative in the Ottoman theatre was apparent.”²⁹ The Secretary of the Committee for Imperial Defence, Maurice Hankey, proposed a solution that met all requirements, and it is no coincidence that Hankey was himself a member of the Secret Elite.³⁰ The Gallipoli campaign would be mounted as a sop to the Russians, but set up to fail.
Days later the military dynamic changed. The Turkish 3^rd Army was decimated in the Caucasus and, irrespective of whose suggestion it had been, there was no need whatsoever for any British intervention to help Russia. Nonetheless, on 20 January Britain informed Russia that she would undertake not just a demonstration, but a complete operation to penetrate the Dardanelles and Gallipoli. The Russians desperately wanted to take part, but were told to concentrate all efforts against Germany on the Eastern Front. The Secret Elite moved into top gear. An objective that required long months of careful preparation was rushed ahead at breakneck speed with disregard for the basic prerequisites for success.
Churchill assumed command and chose men for their ineptitude rather than ability. He turned to Vice-Admiral Sackville Carden, recently appointed commander of the Mediterranean Squadron after years in a desk-bound job, as superintendent of the Malta dockyards. Slow and ineffective,³¹ Carden was tasked with drawing up a plan for a naval attack on the Dardanelles, and relaying it to Churchill within days for presentation to a War Council meeting.³² On 15 January Carden was informed that his plan had been accepted³³ and that he would be in command. What had happened? The ‘plan’, rapidly cobbled together on the back of an envelope by a second rate officer, was to be used as the blueprint for the Gallipoli campaign. The reluctant Carden was given no option other than to get on with it,³⁴ and was effectively set up to take the blame when it failed. For fail it must.
Rear-Admiral Arthur Limpus, an eminently more experienced and knowledgeable man who had spent years in Turkey advising on all naval matters, including the defence of the Dardanelles, was overlooked.³⁵ Here was the man “who knew the Turks and the Dardanelles intimately,”³⁶ yet Churchill shunned him because “the Turks might be offended” and it would be “unfair and unduly provocative” to place in command a man with an inside knowledge of the Turkish fleet.³⁷ Limpus “knew all their secrets,”³⁸ and more about the Dardanelles and the Turkish navy than any other naval officer, yet we are asked to believe that he wasn’t given command because it was considered ungentlemanly – “not quite cricket.”³⁹ Limpus had been sent to the Malta dockyards to sit at Carden’s old desk. Outrageous stupidity or cold calculation?
Limpus was opposed to Churchill’s plan,⁴⁰ stressing that the first stage must be an amphibious landing, not a naval attack.⁴¹ He was not alone in his opposition. In 1906, naval chiefs considered a naval assault too risky.⁴² Any attack on Gallipoli would “have to be undertaken by a joint naval and military expedition,”⁴³ and Churchill himself stated in 1911 that it was “no longer possible to force the Dardanelles.”⁴⁴ Rear-Admiral Carden was ignorant of the fact that any chance of success at Gallipoli was absolutely dependent on a combined naval and military operation. Without long, detailed joint planning, and a sufficient number of troops, it was impossible. Lord Kitchener, the British Secretary of State for War, refused to make troops available and Carden was ordered to proceed with a naval attack.
The Russians were turning the screw. Pressure for immediate action influenced the War Council’s decision.⁴⁵ On 14 February, Sazonov stated that the time for moderation had passed. Tsar Nicholas agreed, informing the French ambassador that his people were making terrible sacrifices in the war without reward. Constantinople must be incorporated into his empire.⁴⁶ Sazonov implied to the British ambassador that he would resign, and be replaced by Sergei Witte, a pro-German sympathiser who would immediately seal a treaty with Germany.⁴⁷ All warnings against a purely naval attack were ignored. The navy’s objective was to “bombard and take the Gallipoli peninsula with Constantinople as the objective.”⁴⁸ After the disastrous failure the Dardanelles Commission asked, “How can a fleet take a peninsula? And how could it have Constantinople as its objective? If this meant… that the Fleet should capture and occupy the city, then it was absurd.”⁴⁹ It was all absurd.
Naval bombardment of the outer forts of the Dardanelles began on 19 February and ran for six days. It caused some damage but destroyed all hope of surprise and merely led the Turks to strengthen their defences.⁵⁰ The main naval attack took place on 18 March. On the previous day Vice-Admiral De Robek had to take charge when Carden suffered a nervous breakdown. It was no surprise. He was never fitted for the task and felt completely undermined by the Admiralty’s refusal to provide custom-built minesweepers. They were utterly essential but he was given only North Sea trawlers that could barely make headway against the strong 5-6 knot current. Eight powerful destroyers, which could have been fitted with sweeps, remained idle that fateful day while the officers sat playing cards,⁵¹ and only two out of a total of 387 mines were cleared.⁵² A fleet of 16 British and French battleships bombarded the coast, but were unable to penetrate the minefield and six battleships were sunk or disabled by mines. The Bouvet sank within two minutes with over 600 men trapped inside. It was the disaster predicted as far back as 1906.

A Campaign That Could Never Succeed

Orchestrated chaos shrouded a campaign that could never succeed. Kitchener meantime had changed his mind and agreed to make troops available for a combined attack, but the naval assault had gone ahead before their arrival. Maurice Hankey, acting more as strategic adviser to the War Council than its Secretary,⁵³ stated, “combined operations require more careful preparation than any other class of military enterprise. All through our history such attacks have failed when the preparations have been inadequate.”⁵⁴ He listed ten points to be met if a joint attack was to succeed. Was he saying, “it will fail as long as we do not take the following measures”? According to the War Council minutes, Hankey’s plan was not even discussed.⁵⁵ In the event, every point he made was studiously ignored.
Military leadership, like naval, was barely functional. General Sir Ian Hamilton, a man in the twilight of his career who “knew little of the Dardanelles, the Turkish army or of modern warfare,” was chosen to command.⁵⁶ Scared of Kitchener, and hamstrung by his long-subservience,⁵⁷ he noted in his diary, “It is like going up to a tiger and asking for a small slice of venison.” During the Boer War he had witnessed Kitchener respond to an officer’s appeal for reinforcements by taking half his troops away.⁵⁸ The genial Hamilton, like poor Carden, was a scapegoat made to order.
Summoned by Kitchener on 12 March, Hamilton was brusquely informed, “We are sending a military force to support the fleet now at the Dardanelles and you are to have command.” Hamilton was stunned, later admitting, “My knowledge of the Dardanelles was nil, of the Turk nil, of the strength of my own forces next to nil.” When asked if a squadron of modern aircraft with experienced pilots and observers could be made available, Kitchener testily replied, “Not one.” 150,000 men was the minimum required strength for the task, but Kitchener insisted that “half that number” would do handsomely.⁵⁹ No attempt was made to co-ordinate intelligence about the defences at Gallipoli, not even at strategic level.⁶⁰ Hamilton was given a cursory briefing, two small tourist guidebooks and old, inaccurate maps.⁶¹ Detailed reports from Admiral Limpus and Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Cunnliffe-Owen, another officer with considerable knowledge of Gallipoli, were kept from him.⁶² Hamilton set off within 48 hours, together with some inexperienced members of staff who did not even know “how to put on their uniforms.”⁶³ So much for detailed preparation.
The chaos continued. There was no discussion, no plan, no naval/military coordination. Indeed, it was a worse situation than preceded the naval operation.⁶⁴ Gallipoli was to be invaded with a mixed force of 80,000 men from Britain, France and the Empire. Raw Anzac troops and unseasoned French recruits were to be thrown into battle for the first time. Marshall Joffre, the French commander-in-chief, was profoundly opposed to the whole operation and initially refused to provide troops. Political expediency forced his hand.⁶⁵ A French army Colonel who had spent years in Constantinople also opposed the attack, but like everyone else with intimate knowledge of the area, its topography and defences, he was dismissed.⁶⁶ Lieutenant-Colonel Cunnliffe-Owen, the British military attaché at Constantinople in 1914, who had personally conducted a detailed survey of Gallipoli, was likewise deliberately overlooked. In London when staff were being scratched together for Hamilton’s team, Cunnliffe-Owen was passed over. His detailed reports on the peninsula were never shown to General Hamilton.⁶⁷
Kitchener agreed to the deployment of 18,000 men from the British army’s 29^th Division. Its commander, Shaw, had served with distinction at Mons and was considered a highly competent and “impressively professional soldier.” Two days before leaving for Gallipoli, when continuity was all-important, Shaw was inexplicably replaced by Major-General Hunter-Weston. He immediately rejected his allocated ship because it lacked first class accommodation, and was transferred to the luxury liner Andania.⁶⁸ Major-General Shaw suffered the same fate as Admiral Limpus. A competent, knowledgeable man was rejected in favour of Hunter-Weston, a laughing-stock in the British Army,⁶⁹ spectacularly incompetent, and “one of the most brutal commanders of the First World War.”⁷⁰ Ask yourself, what was going on?
Hamilton arrived to find his army scattered in confusion over much of the Mediterranean. Some battalion commanders couldn’t trace their companies. Ships came from Britain with such poorly written orders that captains did not know their destination.⁷¹ On their arrival at Mudros, the ships were found to be loaded in a shambolic fashion, and had to be taken 700 miles to Egypt to be unloaded and repacked.⁷² Such was the lack of preparation that even the simplest questions could not be answered. “Was there drinking water on Gallipoli? What roads existed? Were troops to fight in trenches or the open? What sort of weapons were required? What was the depth of water off the beaches? What sort of boats were needed to get the men, the guns and stores ashore? What casualties were to be expected? How were they to be got off to the hospital ships? It was simply a case of taking whatever came to hand and hoping for the best.”⁷³

An “Amateurish, Do-It-Yourself Cock-Up”

You couldn’t make it up. There was a shortage of guns, ammunition, aircraft and, above all, troops. Hamilton’s requests for additional supplies and reinforcements were either ignored or refused.⁷⁴ Gallipoli veteran Charles Watkins described the campaign as an “amateurish, do-it-yourself cock-up.”⁷⁵ It was designed to be exactly that. The quality of preparation and leadership guaranteed it. General Ian Hamilton was the Secret Elite’s Patsy-in-Chief, unwittingly abetted by the incompetent Admiral Carden. These were the men chosen to fail.
The Gallipoli landings went ahead on 25 April 1915 with the terrible slaughter and wounding of many incredibly brave young men, dispensable pawns on Imperial Britain’s chessboard. Despite the fleet now having some thirty powerful destroyers equipped to sweep the mines, and many officers totally confident that the fleet could now get through, no further attempt was made to force the Dardanelles. The navy would play no further part other than ferrying the men ashore, taking off the wounded, and providing a safe haven off-shore for the likes of Hunter-Weston. Successful mine sweeping had always been the key to a successful naval assault, and with the new minesweepers and a clear run through to the Straits, the fleet could have greatly assisted the army with controlled bombardments of Turk positions from within the channel. It would, of course, also have been able to cripple Goeben and Breslau. For the above stated reasons, that would not be allowed to happen.
For years knowledgeable men had insisted that a well planned and resourced combined naval and military attack was the only type of operation that might succeed, but never at any point in the entire Gallipoli campaign was a joint assault carried out. The elites in London ordered the shambolic attack by the navy when they knew it was bound to fail, and now ordered an equally shambolic attack by the army in the full knowledge that it too could never succeed.
Gallipoli was a lie within the lie that was the First World War. The campaign ended in military defeat, but geo-strategic victory for the British Empire. By late 1915, with Russian forces pushed back on the eastern front and any likelihood of their intervention in Constantinople gone, the British government began planning withdrawal from the corpse strewn peninsula. The last Allied troops were taken off on 9 January 1916, leaving behind 62,266 of their comrades. The majority of the dead on both sides have no known graves. Many of the 11,410 Australians and New Zealanders who died⁷⁶ suffered unspeakable deaths, deliberately sacrificed on the altar of British imperialism.

A Myth Obscures the terrible Truth

Over the last century, in both Britain and Australia, Gallipoli has been turned into a heroic-romantic myth,⁷⁷ a myth promoted by court historians and pliant journalists in order to hide the stark truth. It was a ruse, a sop to the Russians to keep them in the war in the belief that allied forces would capture Constantinople on their behalf. Put into the hands of incompetent generals and admirals, starved of troops, determined leadership, ill-equipped, ill-advised and certain to fail, the attack on Gallipoli as an integral part of the imperial strategy was a stunning success.
We are aware of at least one renowned Gallipoli historian and writer in Australia who agrees with our thesis. Like us, he proposes that “it was the intention of the British and French governments of 1915 to ensure that the Dardanelles and the Gallipoli campaign would not succeed” and was “conceived as a ruse to keep the Russians in the war…” He believes that while the proposition has circumstantial evidence to support it, there is “little or no documentary evidence.”⁷⁸ He is very unlikely to find it. As revealed in our book Hidden History: The Secret Origins of the First World War, masses of crucial documents relating to the First World War were shredded or burned, or have been kept hidden away to this very day in a high security establishment at Hanslope Park in England. The individuals responsible for the war, responsible for Gallipoli, were many things, but they weren’t so stupid as to leave incriminating evidence lying around. Historians in Australia and New Zealand must stop protecting their comfortable careers and start acknowledging the terrible truth about Gallipoli. Peddling mythology as truth is an insult to the memory of those brave young men.
Just as in Britain, the Government of Australia seeks to be the guardian of public memory, choreographing commemoration into celebration,⁷⁹ ritually condemning war while the rhetoric gestures in the opposite direction.⁸⁰ The War Memorial in Sydney’s Hyde Park proudly exhorts, “Let Silent Contemplation Be Your Offering,” yet the deafening prattle of political expediency mocks the valiant dead with empty words and lies. Don’t be fooled. Those young men died for the imperial dreams of wealthy manipulators, not for ‘freedom’ or ‘civilisation’. They died deceived, expendable, and in the eyes of the power-brokers, the detritus of strategic necessity. Remember that.
To read exclusive extracts from their book Hidden History: The Secret Origins of the First World War, including their latest research on Gallipoli, please visit the authors’ blog at firstworldwarhiddenhistory.wordpress.com. Hidden History is available from all good bookstores and online retailers.
The authors contributed the article “The Secret Origins of the First World War” to New Dawn Special Issue Vol 9 No 1.

The Collective Ego

How hard can it be to live with yourself ? One of the ways in which the ego attempts to escape the unsatisfactoriness of personal selfhood is to enlarge and strengthen its sense of self by identifying with a group -  a nation, political party, corporation, institution, sect, club, gang, football team.
[An excerpt from a work by Eckhart Tolle]

  In some cases the personal ego seems to dissolve completely as someone dedicates his or her life to working selflessly for the greater good of the collective without demanding personal rewards, recognition or aggrandizement. What a relief to be freed from the dreadful burden of personal self. The members of the collective feel happy and fulfilled, no matter how hard they work, how many sacrifices they make. They appear to have gone beyond ego. The question is: have they truly become free, or has the ego simply shifted from the personal to the collective?
  A collective ego manifests the same characteristics as the personal ego, such as the need for conflict and enemies, the need for more, the need to be right against others who are wrong and so on. Sooner or later the collective will come into conflict with other collectives, because it unconsciously seeks conflict and it needs opposition to define its boundary and thus its identity. Its members will then experience the suffering that inevitably comes in the wake of any ego-motivated action. At that point they may wake up and realize that their collective has a strong element of insanity.
  It can be painful at first to suddenly wake up and realize that the collective you had identified with and worked for is actually insane. Some people at this point become cynical or bitter and henceforth deny all values, all worth. This means that they quickly adopted another belief system when the previous one was recognized as illusory and therefore collapsed. They didn't face the death of their ego but ran away and reincarnated a new one.
  A collective ego is usually more unconscious than the individuals that make up that ego. For example, crowds (which are temporary collective ego entities) are capable of committing atrocities that the individual away from the crowd would not be. Nations not infrequently engage in behaviour that would be immediately recognizable as psychopathic in an individual.
  As the new consciousness emerges, some people will feel called upon to form groups which reflect the enlightened consciousness. These groups will not be collective egos. The individuals who make up these groups will have no need to define their identity through them. They no longer look to any form to define who they are. Even if the members who make up those groups are nor entirely free of ego yet, there will be enough awareness in them to recognize the ego in themselves or in others as soon as it appears. However, constant alertness is required since the ego will try to take over and reassert itself in any way it can. Dissolving the human ego by bringing it into the light of awareness - this will be one of the main purposes of these groups, whether they be enlightened businesses, charitable organizations, schools, or communities of people living together. Enlightened collectives will fulfill an important function in the arising of the new consciousness. Just as egoic collectives pull you into unconsciousness and suffering, the enlightened collective can be a vortex for consciousness that will accelerate the planetary shift.

Global Economics - Art, Science or just Fraud ?

An excerpt from American economist Jim Rickard's newsletter. Not a pretty scenario, but one of which all should be aware.

The Truth: The US Dollar Will Not Be Overthrown in October

Jim Rickards, Strategist, Strategic Intelligence

Blogs, newsletters, and inboxes are cluttered with dire warnings about an event coming in October 2015.
This event will supposedly overthrow the US dollar as the global reserve currency and spark a meltdown of the international financial system.
Nothing of the kind is about to happen. Important and significant dealings are happening behind the scenes in the international monetary system. Global elites are meeting in Washington, Beijing, and Lima, Peru.
They are making decisions that will impact global capital markets in the years to come. There is a plan underway to solve the global debt problem by stealing your money through inflation. But elites do not operate on the ‘big bang’ theory.
They do not announce radical changes overnight. They prefer to make small moves, year after year, through boring technical changes that few notice or understand.
The elites have a plan to take your money. Yet they prefer a slow orderly approach, as opposed to a rapid disorderly approach. Here is a step-by-step walkthrough of what is really happening.
The October scare tactics should not frighten you. However, you should be concerned about this long term elite plan to destroy your wealth.
The centrepiece of the elite plan to wipe out debt and destroy wealth is the world money issued by the International Monetary Fund, the IMF.
This world money is called the special drawing right, or SDR. The SDR is actually not that complicated. The US Federal Reserve can print dollars, the European Central Bank (ECB) can print euros and the IMF can print SDRs — it’s that simple.
The main difference is that we can keep dollars or euros in our bank accounts or wallets, but SDRs are for countries only. The IMF adds them to national reserves.
Countries can swap SDRs for dollars, euros, yen or other major currencies using a secret trading facility inside the IMF in Washington. So the inflationary potential of printing trillions of SDRs is the same as printing trillions of dollars or euros once the recipients make the swap.
The main difference between SDRs and dollars or euros is that no one is accountable. When the IMF floods the world with SDRs, you won’t be able to blame the Fed or ECB. Few people will have any idea what’s happening.
They’ll just find out the hard way that inflation has wiped out their savings.
That’s the background for SDRs. But there’s a chronology of coming events. As events unfold, you’ll be able to see them in the proper sequence and perspective. Two of these events have already occurred.
Here’s the calendar:

• 17 September 2015 — The Fed’s Open Markets Committee announces policy changes in interest rates
• September 2015— President Xi of China visits the White House
• 9 October 2015 — IMF annual meeting in Lima, Peru
• November 2015 (exact date TBA) — IMF Executive Board discusses ‘new’ SDR
• 30 September 2016 — New SDR goes into effect

As expected, the Fed didn’t raise rates at the September meeting.
The visit from President Xi was important. Chinese official want the yuan to be included in the SDR basket.
By itself, including the yuan in the SDR basket will not disrupt the international monetary system and will not overthrow the dollar as the leading global reserve currency. But it is an important sign of respect and does represent enhanced prestige, which China desperately wants.
The US has veto power over the IMF’s decision to include the yuan in the SDR. The US has used its clout to put China on its best behaviour before the IMF makes the decision. This means China has to put an end to its currency war with the US and peg the yuan to the dollar.
However what you will notice from the calendar of above, is how closely IMF events relate to it.
That’s reflects the fact that the IMF is closely coordinating its efforts with central banks and heads of state. In the past, the US Treasury was the primary agency involved with the exchange value of the US dollar.
The Fed focussed on the economy but did not involve itself with the dollar in international markets. That has changed.
When I met Ben Bernanke in Korea recently, he told me he was heavily involved in discussions with the IMF in 2009 and 2010 on a variety of issues including IMF voting rights, issuance of SDRs, US funding of the IMF and an increased voice for China.
This four-way interaction of the White House, Fed, Treasury and IMF is now well entrenched.

Another year of deflationary forces

The possibility of including the yuan in the SDR will certainly come up in the hallways and private dinners in Lima.
But it is not on the official agenda and will not be decided in October.
How do we know? The IMF told us!
Gerry Rice is the official spokesman for the IMF.
Here’s a direct quote from Rice’s press briefing on 23 July 2015, in which he discussed China and the SDR:

‘The SDR process — that’s shorthand for the Chinese request from the government of China — that the Chinese currency…would be included in our SDR basket of currencies… the SDR review is going along well…we’re expecting the formal board discussion of this issue toward the end of this year probably in November, but toward the end of the year.’

That’s straight from the horse’s mouth — no need to guess or speculate. In other words, there is no global monetary reset coming in October regardless of what you may have read elsewhere
Even the November 2015 ‘discussion’ is not decisive. On 4 August 2015, the IMF extended the final action to update the SDR basket to 30 September 2016.
That delays any action with respect to China by another year.
More importantly, it means another year of yuan-dollar finesse and another year of deflationary forces if the Fed keeps talking tough, forcing China to go along in order to gain admission to the SDR.
Including the yuan in the SDR next year will be a highly important symbolic step, but it will have no immediate impact on the international monetary system.
The yuan is not even close to replacing the US dollar as a global reserve currency. There are not enough yuan denominated sovereign bonds for investors to park their reserves, and there is no well developed yuan bond market to provide liquidity.
China has been buying a lot of gold, but it has printed more money than the Fed the last six years and has nowhere near enough gold to launch a new gold-backed currency.
The most important thing for you to understand is that China does not want to rock the boat — they want to join the club. This means the IMF’s special club of SDR members.
The future world reserve currency is not the US dollar or the yuan. It’s the SDR.
The impact of a September 2016 decision to include the yuan in the SDR will resemble China’s recent updating of its gold reserve position. It happened, but it was not the big deal many expected it to be.

That’s just how the global elites like things — slow and steady. There is a plan to steal your money with inflation, but it consists of many small steps, not a few big ones.
Adding the yuan in the SDR basket in late 2016 is an important step, but it is not a game changer.
Including the yuan in the SDR will take another year.
Making the SDR the new global reserve currency will take a few more years and a lot more SDR printing.
Regards,
Jim Rickards

" Cobb & Co " MJB 2015

De Havilland DH 82 "Tiger Moth" MJB 2015

Supermarine Spitfire. MJB 2015

The " Tom Thumb " MJB 2015

" HMS Endeavour " MJB 2015

Gawd the American political election system is boring to the rest of the world. :(

Post something else !!

" Venice 1820 " MJB 2015

Art - a Brief 'How to...' for those who like to try their hand at Painting.

It took years for me - without the benefit of experience - to figure this stuff out for myself. Perhaps this may be of help to others who fancy giving painting a go. (Warning: It is addictive :)

Basics for a Painting

Michael Bull – June 2010

The four factors which most affect the end quality of a painting are:

1. Colour – colours in a work can be complimentary to each other or not. Where possible use complimentary colours. Examples are blue/orange, violet/yellow, green/red. White is the brightest colour in a painting and is often used as highlight on other colours.

2. Contrast – contrast is the combination of dark and light in a picture. There can be no light in a painting without the contrasting dark area. Always plan for a dark area to bring up light in another area. Contrast is the most important of these four factors.

3. Texture – texture is the combination of rough and smooth, shiny and dull etc. These are a different form of contrast and can often be used to enhance.

4. Drama – drama is a concept which is also related to contrast, and in a landscape might be considered the 'wow' factor, or it may relate to the subject in a painting containing animals or people. It enhances the focus of the painting and is the emotional part of a work.

The Canvas – divide the canvas into thirds horizontally and thirds vertically. The top horizontal area would normally be background (or sky), the centre the mid-ground, and the lower the foreground. The vertical divisions are a guide to maintaining a balance of the subject matter and avoid crowding one side or the other. The focus of the picture is normally within the centre square, but avoid putting the focus exactly in the centre of the centre square.

Colour Mixing – If you add white to a colour it becomes a tint of that colour. If you add black it becomes a shade of that colour. The primary colours from which all others can be mixed are white, black, red, yellow and blue. For example, red+blue = purple, blue+yellow = green, red+yellow = orange, red+green = brown, white+black = grey. All of these can then have many different tints or shades.

Where to Start – You need to paint a picture in your mind before you brush a stroke. This may take days, while the painting itself may only take hours. Be aware that the painting rarely turns out exactly as you had in your mind. Photographs are useful to refer to for detail which you may forget, such as the colour and shape of hills or vegetation or people or animals. Photos normally do not have that 'wow' factor you need in a painting and once you have used the photo for details, put it aside and concentrate on what is right for the painting. Simplicity in a painting is often very effective in enhancing the end result if the four factors are present.

After you have planned your painting often it is appropriate to put in a basic colour backwash to which you later add more layers or details. For example, a blue where the sky is to be to which you may later add cloud, red/ brown/orange/yellow for earth, green for grass or forest areas etc. When the backwash has dried then start on your detail. Some people find it helpful to add the dark areas first and work through to the detail and main subject. Painting from the distant to the close saves having to repaint areas or getting overlaps wrong. When detail has been added, use an appropriate colour for shadow (often a shade of the colour where the shadow falls) then finally add the highlights to the subject ( it may be a dab of white on the top of the hair or clothes for example) to bring up the light in the picture.

Expect a lot of failures when you start painting, you need them to learn as you go. Look to see if all the above four factors are present. Chances are that they are not all there in a failure. Every painting you do, success or failure, will teach you something. If you are lucky enough to find a constructive critic it will help accelerate your learning process. If you never start you'll never know.

Which Paint Type? – Oils, acrylics and water colour all require different approaches. Oils take a long time to dry and need a turps solvent. Messy. Acrylics look like oils when dry, dry quickly, have water as solvent, and are relatively inexpensive. They are probably the best for beginners. Water colours are normally used with paper rather than canvas, and therefore require framing. You choose.

 Here are some examples to help understand the above from my own work:

A classic example of the power of Contrast in this painting called "the Grounding".

 It also contains the Drama, which relates to the Contrast but the danger present in the scene is the Drama. Obviously there are different textures throughout, but no Colour beyond light and dark. It works well without Colour.

This one, called "On a Wing and a Prayer" - the birth of QANTAS - uses Colour as its main impact, but the other qualities are also present. The Contrast of light and dark on the aeroplane highlights it, while the red of the earth contrasts with it also. A very simple but effective painting.

This one below is called "The Careening" and combines all 4 factors discussed above - Contrast, Colour, Texture and Drama.

" The Grounding " MJB 2015

" The Careening " MJB 2015

QANTAS Terminal, c.1930. Daly Waters N.T.

" Serenity " MJB 2015

" No Survivors " MJB 2015

Inspiration from the incomparable J.M.W. Turner.

"The Squall" MJB 2015

" The Barnstormer" MJB 2015