Working for the bankers, not the people

German ex-chancellor Gerhard Schröder has just announced that he will be acting as a consultant for the Rothschild banking emporium. Schröder was the socialist (SPD) leader who turned Germany from a welfare state into a British-style market economy. Standing on a socialist ticket he managed to dismantle German's social security system in a way the conservatives (CDU) could never have done, to a degree where an old lady would be forced to sell her own home before she would be entitled to help from the state. The Schröder years were bad for the German people, but good for high finance, and it seems he is now being rewarded for his loyal service.

Banks don't want the state to exist in order to serve the people. They want taxes to be collected in order to pay the interest for the money the state borrows from them. The European push for privatisation and selling off the nation's family silver started in Britain under Thatcher and has since been exported to many countries. Thatcher's uncaring image and lack of popularity after the poll tax riots made her paymasters realise that this agenda was much better served by people with pretended socialist credentials. In Britain, too, the Labour party destroyed the unions and the welfare state much more successfully than the Tories could ever have done.

Tony Blair might not be able to hold onto his premiership long enough to beat Thatcher in years, but he needn't worry about his immediate future after stepping down as prime minister. If all fails, there is probably another Rothschild vacancy somewhere.

Beneath the varnish of civilisation

The recent manslaughter verdict at Preston Crown Court against a gang master employing illegal Chinese immigrants, 21 of whom drowned at Morcambe Bay in February 2005 whilst cockle picking, has highlighted again the suffering and hardship people go through in order to try and make a better life for themselves in the West. The same holds true for the boat people who drowned off the shores of Australia or the refugees freezing to death on Eurostar trains during the last leg of their journey from France and England . Prior to their departure they will usually have paid large sums of money to organised crime syndicates in their home countries who promise to get them to their destination of choice, money which they will not be able to recover even after years of hard labour.

Sadly, they all fell for the glossy advertising which presents the countries of the first and second world as having streets paved with gold and perpetuates the Hollywood rags to riches myth. By the time they discover the truth it is far too late for regrets and a life of near-slavery begins. Western governments and media have been very successful in presenting their own countries as the pinnacle of civilisation and everywhere else as unsafe and backwards. Below this thin veneer of self-glorification lies quite a different reality.

A cursory look at any of the free local newspapers distributed to households in most British towns tells the story eloquently. Here is a headline selection from my local advertiser, covering the week's events for an average sized English town: "School wins legal battle" – "Schools hit as staff go out on strike" – "Appeal set to be lodged over murder convictions" – "Hunt for attacker" – "Drunks in court hit back at allegations" "Youngsters get frank advice on drugs" – "Newspaper's call ends ordeal for family" (this relates to a family who've been living in a council house behind boarded up windows for over half a year) - "Woman robbed on the redway" - "Woman dead in bathroom".

Of course, there is some good news, too: A dog who can twist his tongue, a promise of broadband connectivity for the town, some dancers who had a great time at a newly opened club, announcement of an extension to the consultation exercise about building expansion and reports that Royal Mail will open a new sorting office. All in all, however, it does not sound like the place you would want to go to, and this is one of the newer and more affluent towns in the country and a lot tidier than, for example, the capital, London.

Of course, one could argue that newspapers sell copy by sensationalising and that their headlines do not adequately reflect reality. This is a fair point except that they could not report events if they didn't happen. No matter how sensational the headline is phrased, a murder is a murder, youngsters wouldn't need drug advice if there wasn't an addiction problem, and school staff wouldn't go on strike if they were happy with their working conditions. Maybe a translated summary of local headlines for the most popular destinations made available for free at the British embassies around the world would put a sudden end to immigration. But then tourists might be tempted away to Africa and Asia instead, and we can't allow this to happen. Besides, without turning a blind eye to illegal immigration, the artificially sustained British economy would soon collapse.

Pay the piper, call the tune

The recent discussion about loans to political parties in the UK misses an important point. The key issue is not whether donations and loans should have been declared or whether it amounts to political sleaze that some large donors or lender were able to buy themselves a seat in the House of Lords. The central lesson is that democracy is a corruptible form of government where money buys policy. It explains why the policies of the major parties don't differ essentially when it comes to protecting the interests of big money.

There is another important truth: Western governments and the political parties running them have bankrupted themselves and are entirely dependent on loan financing. All our public institutions are in debt and debt servicing is a continuous drain on the resources of our people. Taxes will rise and services will be cut. The alternative, a thorough reform of the debt financing system at the heart of the problem will not be contemplated by any party in power because of their own dependency on the loan sharks.

Nor is the question being asked where a lender obtains so much money from that it exceeds the totality of the social product of all the industrialised nations. How can individuals or institutions be so much richer than governments representing their people that the latter must borrow from the former? The answer is a simple confidence trick called fractional reserve banking: The lenders lend what they have not got, but want real value in return. By allowing private banks to lend a multiple of their asset base and then charge interest for it, our governments have sold us out to them and enslaved us to keep paying the interest on this fictitious money. By borrowing money from banks who create it into existence, instead of issuing the same money themselves free of the burden of interest, our democratically elected governments are covering up the largest fraud ever committed in history which makes the currently suggested improprieties look distinguishably pale.

The required remedy, therefore, is not another law on the statute book which defines how party donations and loans should be declared, but a complete overhaul of our financial system which has given banks far too much power for far too long. Of course, in this struggle between the banks and the people the bankers won't go without a fight, and there are no prizes for guessing on whose side the leading political parties are on.

The English Disease

It's been a cold and miserable start to the year. A severe strain of flu made the rounds in England and for those who caught it bird flu sounded like some distant fantasy. This epidemic had people sign off sick for at least a week or two, and some of the more vulnerable, like children, had to be hospitalised. Hardly recovered from this onslaught of misery, a gastric flu hit the British population, and the many already dreaming of emigrating to Spain to spend their pension there wished they had already gone. England was definitely not the place to be.

However, there is no such thing as an English flu. Clever masters of manipulation, the English have made sure that anything bad is blamed on foreigners. There is the Russian flu, the Hong Kong flu, the Asian flu, the Shanghai flu, the Taiwan flu, but the Yorkshire flu or the Devon flu are nowhere to be seen. The only people blaming an illness on the English are the Germans, they call Rickets, caused by a lack of sunlight, the English Disease. The term has also been used by some for BSE, since it was first found in British beef, but generally, as far as the English are concerned, disease is a foreign invention.

This reminds me of a flight back into London from Khartoum many years ago, where all the passengers were subjected to being sprayed with some kind of insecticide upon arrival at Heathrow. The message was clear: Africa harbours disease whereas Europe is healthy. Passengers who would fly from Khartoum to London via Frankfurt would not have to undergo the ordeal, although they had not got off the plane and nobody sprayed the plane in Frankfurt. But Frankfurt is part of civilisation, so you couldn't do this to people who had got on board there. Maybe the viruses and bacilli obtained temporary visas on their short stay in Germany.

Of course, travelling has become a lot easier not only for people, but also for diseases. They get around pretty fast. But there is no doubt in my mind that they have a particular fondness for the British Isles where they tend to linger for quite some time.

1001 inventions

Some recognition at last: A brilliant exhibition has been put together under the name "1001 inventions" and is being showcased at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester before being continued at other venues. The unique content of the exhibition has been planned to generate awareness and appreciation of the scientific discoveries Muslims have made over a time-span of 1000 years. The lasting legacy of Muslim inventiveness and scholarship still serves as a beacon to inspire and motivate young people around the world. The 1001 Inventions project strongly emphasises how Muslims, working harmoniously alongside people of different faiths and races across Europe, Asia and Africa, were able to contribute extensively in many fields including science and medicine.

We all know that coffee came to us from the Arabs along with algebra and geometry, but who knew that Abbas ibn Firnas invented a flying machine which kept him in the air for ten minutes a thousand years before the Wright Brothers? A replica of the invention is being exhibited together with numerous other most surprising civilisational achievements from when Muslims were leading the world. A selection of favourites can be found in an article in today's Independent.

The exhibition puts the lie to those who claim that Islam never gave the world anything when all their own achievements are built on the foundations laid for them by Muslims. It also demonstrates that those who keep warning us of the threat posed by "the other" have got it wrong since the exchange between different cultures can only be fruitful for humanity.

Jerusalem: The English Zionist's Dream

William Blake's words "Till we have built Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land" have always been a feature of Labour party conferences, and with exception of a brief "Things can only get better" in 1997 New Labour has not abandoned this imperialist anthem. The hymn was written at the end of the period which saw the re-admission of Jews from Amsterdam, there stronghold until then, into England, where they changed the course of its history by establishing themselves as a banking dynasty. Their friend Cromwell engineered civil war in Britain and pushed for the execution of the monarch Charles I. When his Dutch grandson William of Orange was finally made King as a result of the "Glorious Revolution" where the Tories and the Whigs (the forerunners of the Labour party) united to subvert the state, their victory was complete and the imperial oppression of Ireland and Scotland began in earnest. The hymn was part of the spin of the time, selling the new ideas to the people who naturally took their time in adjusting to the new political realities.

Soon after Nathan from the Rothschild family (the name was adopted by the family as the German word for the Red Shield that adorned the family crest in Germany to display the communist revolutionary credentials of East European Jews) ventured into England and consolidated the dynasty's hold over British imperial finances with fortunes made in the war against Napoleon as well as the American Civil war, which they entered to stop Lincoln from standing up to the new international bankers (or locusts as they are now called in Germany) by issuing his Greenback dollars. Not long after Benjamin Disraeli became the first Jewish prime minister of Britain. Yet another century later, after the devastation of the First World War, Britain became instrumental in laying the foundation for the State of Israel with the Balfour declaration.

This history is important so as not to loose perspective. More recent history may give the impression that the Rothschilds left it to the Rockefellers to champion the cause of Zion through the UN they sponsored and through their strong influence upon the American government on account of their banking and oil interests. The Neocon agenda which brought as the Afghan and Iraq wars, together with the clamp-down on liberalism and Guantanamo Bay, lifted the lid on years of subversion and brought out into the open even for those refusing to see how close American and Israeli interests were tied together. In the face of the American cowboys riding rough shot all over the world, whilst adjusting their tough image through politically correct cinematic propaganda a la Brokeback Mountain, it is easy to assume that the British Empire has taken a back seat since it lost all its colonies. Yet, although the British industry has been bankrupted quite a while ago, the City of London still sits at the helm of international money manipulations.

It seems that as America is loosing its credibility and muscle, Britain is re-entering the fold. Just like Tories and Labour joined ranks at home, the British and the Americans (the administrations, not the people) stood shoulder to shoulder. There are questions whether Britain is really the junior partner in this enterprise. The British know the art of understatement and subterfuge. We do things differently over here. When we take people's rights away, we do so in order to protect them. We have our own anomaly of detainees being held without charge or trial, and Belmarsh prison has just been heavily criticised for the way it treats them, but it has never gained the same kind of notoriety as Guantanamo. Our leading political parties and our government are run by the same Zionist neocons, but they do not wear their allegiance openly. The shoot-to-kill policy, taught by the Israelis, which ended Brazilian Menezes' life early on the London underground, is quietly being made the rule without much discussion. It's not the policy that's wrong, says the Association of Chief Police Officers, it's just some technical aspects of its implementation. Nobody queries how this policy came into being without having ever been put to scrutiny. In Britain, they like to do things quietly and behind closed doors.

In the department of Jewish Foreign Secretary Jack Straw Daniel Bethlehem, QC, erstwhile an advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, has just been appointed as Chief Legal Advisor. He justified the Jenin massacre and the apartheid wall. He will have no qualms about recommending another illegal enterprise like the Iraq war, maybe British support for a unilateral Israeli strike against Iran, and the government's crusade against all things Muslim is likely to continue. With Prescott's wild house building adventure England may soon no longer be green and pleasant, but Jerusalem continues to dominate its political agenda.