One of my abiding philosophies to try and value all people
because I believe all of us are valuable is some way. I don't like to feel
disdain for others, however sometimes I feel inevitably forced into that
position because of their behaviour. Such an incident took place last weekend
when I was on a train. It's been a while since I travelled by train and I
always take the coach to go and see Ustane these days, and so I hadn't realized
how much I actually dislike travelling by train, despite the advantages of the
railway in terms of speed and comfort etc. My dislike of railway travel is for
several reasons. One of those reasons is that coach travel seems to attract
nicer people. This could be because on a coach alcoholic drink is forbidden,
whereas on board a train you are positively encouraged to pour money over the
buffet counter to consume their overpriced cans of lager and cider.
It was early evening and I was sitting in the crowded
carriage of a train between
Birmingham
and
Oxford. A few yards away from
me on the opposite side of the aisle was a group of four young men sitting
round a table. They were drinking heavily and had been for some times judging
by the row of empty Stella
Artois
cans lined up between them, and also by their conduct. They were talking loudly
and using a lot of foul language. Then the subject came up of the
Falkland
Islands. These islands off the coast of
South America
are British territory despite being on the other side of the world from
Britain,
yet the neighbouring country of
Argentina
claims them too and famously invaded and occupied the islands in 1982 until
they were deposed by the British armed forces; this became known as the
Falklands War. These men were obviously very much opposed to the Argentine
claim on the islands, very opposed indeed. They became aggressive and animated
as they discussed the subject. Their epithets included violent diatribes against
the very attractive but somewhat untrustworthy president of
Argentina,
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristina_Fern%C3%A1ndez_de_Kirchner.
One of the men expressed a desire to rape and mutilate her. Ironically I agree
with them that
Argentina
has no right to take over the
Falkland Islands against
the wishes of the people living there; people who unanimously want to remain
British. In fact the BBC sent a film crew to the
Islands
to interview any of the residents who supported the Argentine claim and they couldn't
find a single person. What bothers me about the entire issue is that I can
sense a silent undercurrent going on so clearly. We've been told that Margaret
Thatcher used military force in 1982 to oust the Argentine occupation of the
Falklands for reasons of patriotism and humanity; the Argentines were illegally
occupying British territory and Thatcher cared for the people who lived there
and their rights to self-determination. I am definitely not the only person in
the world who feels deeply cynical about that professed motive; since when has
the Government cared about the wishes and rights of ordinary people before? Also
the
Islands' wool industry and turnip farms hardly
justify the conflict either. Here's the brilliant Nick Kollerstrom being
interviewed about the subject:
http://www.richplanet.net/starship_main.php?ref=94&part=1.
The sea around the
Falklands was prospected for oil
shortly before the 1982 war and was found to be rich in deposits. This was
confirmed once more with new strikes in 2010, coincidentally at the time
Kirchner began upping the ante about the Argentine claim again. This was a
prediction that I made which came true. There's no way Thatcher would have gone
to the trouble of liberating those islands if it hadn't been for this fact; and
would she have had to anyway, because would Argentina have bothered to invade
them in the first place, see:
http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/falklands-war-ii.html?
However there may be even more to the story than that; as David Griffin has
recently discovered, there may well be extraterrestrial intervention involved.
Here is a frightening but fascinating video about the role UFO's and aliens might
have been playing in the
Falklands sovereignty dispute:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCJSKhtTtC0. Might there also be a connection to what I learnt from "Jack", see:
http://hpanwo.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/jack-of-antarctic.html.
I doubt very much if the four men on the train had ever
considered these elements to the Falklands Conflict. To be honest, judging by
the intellectual level of their conversation, I'd be surprised if any of them
could point to the
Falkland Islands on a map. They had
formed strong views on the issue, but these views were not born out of calm and
thoughtful analysis, but instead out of a very blunt and primitive emotional complex.
All they knew was that their country was at war against another for some reason
and this engendered a very base and primeval rage from the lowest and simplest
parts of their brains. It's sobering to read pro-war media propaganda with this
in mind because the authors of such propaganda are so obviously aware of this,
and they deliberately design their publications to appeal to that level of our
mentality; here's a very famous example from the 1982 Falklands War:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Sun_(Gotcha).png.
What disturbed me most about this experience was the reaction from the other passengers
on the train. As I said, the cabin was crowded and the sadistic and obscene
rants of these four thugs must have been audible to everybody in it, but they
didn't seem disturbed by them. This was a strange and sinister observation; I'm
sure that normally somebody would have challenged them and told them to shut
up. Was it because the four louts were discussing the
Falklands
that the people around them didn't react? Had they too been psychologically conditioned
to feel respect for military jingoism, even if their own conditioning wasn't as
obvious?
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