THE TROUBLE WITH COURAGE

There comes a time when one must decipher the difference between admitting that however much effort is invested in an endeavour, the outcome is unlikely to be successful and the adage that winners never quit.  And here is the rub, both can be perceived as foolish.  Who wants to be taken for the fool?  Why would anyone beat a dead horse?  But there it is...the unlikeliest heroes emerge from the muck and blood of the battlefield to raise the flag of victory and transform the dynamic of many lives...for the better...and better the fool than the dead...the dead of spirit...the dead of intellect...the dead of compassion and inspiration...

I see the end and the end is....

MORE ON ADAM CURTIS AND LOVING MACHINES

Having just viewed the second instalment of Adam Curtis's wonderful film All Watched Over By Loving Machines...I am more convinced than ever that this man's research and viewpoint bears attention.  Much of what he illustrates and discusses has been central to my life and times not to mention uppermost in my mind.  I always wondered why people's instinctive behaviour consistently contradicted best advice and that the very effort of following best advice usually negated the intention of the advice in the first place.  I am of the view that the instinctive behaviour of the species is best suited to its survival.  If we had been controlled and careful regarding the environment we'd all be living like the Amish.  It is our instinct to consume, to assert our dominance over others, to pollute, to destroy, to question, to build, to believe, to celebrate and to die while others live on.

Best
Gray

Adam Curtis Genius Film Maker and Social Commentator

I saw Watched Over by Loving Machines the other night and I cannot get it out of my mind.  I am over sixty.  I worked for more than twenty five years in the Financial Services industry in the City of London and before that I was a journalist.  I am not stupid or naive and I read and watch financial and geopolitical news incessantly.  Adam Curtis demonstrated to me that I am however, ignorant.  His ability to tie together difficult to connect events is astounding and though I am yet to be convinced his proposition is correct, he has set me on a path of inquiry that is all at once entertaining, educational and enlightening.  I am grateful to this extraordinary man.

COME NOW COME CLEAN...IT'S ASSASSINATION AND REGIME CHANGE...

This is a hard time.  So many world issues, so many domestic troubles.  So much confusion, so little clarity.  I try explaining, even to myself, how the establishment of a no fly zone over Libya isn't colonial patronage or regime change.  I thought we understood how to handle issues of emerging democracy differently.  How will Chavez in Venezuela explain America's 112 Tomahawk missiles on Tripoli as a peacekeeping action?  How is this protecting Libyian civilians? What, there is no chance 112 missiles will hit a civilian?  Oh I see, the only civilians we have to protect are the anti Gadaffi civilians.  Pro Gadaffis don't count.

This action is regime change and attempted assassination both specifically forbidden by U.S. law.  He will say don't believe America and many who have no reason to love America will believe him.  Nobody believes that France and the U.K. are anything but American stooges complying with Washington in order to make up for past slights.  Opposition to the invasion of Iraq and the premature withdrawal from Basra as being two to the most obvious.    How can we be engaged in military adventures all over the Arab world and be surprised that much of the world sees Nato as an instrument of American imperial aspirations.  I'm confused.

Gray Dourman
www.magichelix.com

KINGS WHO NEEDS THEM


The idea that we need a figurehead, a monarchy, however benign and well meaning is outdated.  People do not need to be told what to do.  They know. However unpredictable the outcome of their actions may be, humanity belongs to all of us and all of us have a part to play in its destiny.  The overwhelming desire to take to the streets is not some anomaly in human behaviour.  It is the legitimate and instinctive wisdom of individual members of the species to influence the direction and destiny of the human story.  Where once kings were made, now they can be unmade.  What does it tell the world that Britain, a modern democratic state, still bows to a monarch.  Before very long, Britain will be the backward country, overtaken by history and the compulsion of ordinary people to have a voice in how they live and what they think.


Gray Dourman
www.magichelix.com   

WE ARE WHO WE ARE...

This is an old picture of Port William in Wigtownshire, a little seaside village, in the South West corner of Scotland, near Newton Stewart, near Wigtown, where Christianity is thought to have landed in Britain from Ireland, near where they drowned the Covenentor martyr, Margaret Wilson. If you arrived there this afternoon you would find it little changed. It has internet access and the cars are up to date, but everything else, has remained about the same throughout the three hundred years the generations of my family have walked along the walked along the seawall and pulled their coats around their chests to protect themselves against the fierce, cold winds that blow across Luce Bay.

Why?

When somewhere or someone discovers their essential nature and likes it, they see little need to change. Change is usually forced on us from without rather than within. Some of that change helps us to grow and prosper. Some of it destroys the past we know and understand.

Let us not therefore decry meddling...we are all in this together...the world belongs to all of us.

Speak up for the democratic movement. Speak up for the people of the streets no matter where in the world those streets run.

Speak up.

Gray Dourman

www.magichelix.com

THE MESOPOTAMIAN MARSHES ...A CALL IN THE WILD

The project underway to reclaim the Mesopotamian Marshes in southern Iraq must be among the most important expressions of human optimism in history. These glorious wetlands destroyed by Saddam in the craziness of the 90s spurred on by the war on his own people and Iran are certainly deserving of our attention and care. They are an essential refuge for birds, fish, amphibians and people. They are a precious world resource. in time these wetlands will be among the greatest natural attractions for ecotourism in existence, a treasure for all of us and an incentive for stability among the Iraqis who are due for a break.

I implore you to join Nature Iraq

http://www.natureiraq.org/site/en/node/26