British Empire, British Commonwealth, Commonwealth and now... what?

There has been a progression, from the heights of Queen Victoria's Empire to the British Empire followed by the British Commonwealth and later on by the Commonwealth. An article published by the Daily Telegraph blames successive British governments - both Labour and Conservative - for blatantly ignoring the Commonwealth. One must ask if the process does not work both ways and for very good reasons.

Since the days of the pro-independence movements, there was an organized rejection of anything British to the point that even the word British was thrown out and the loose organization became known as Commonwealth incorporating countries that had never been under British rule.

Since the formation of the Common Market, followed by the European Community and now the European Union, British politicians were more interested in promoting greater and stronger links with European countries, rather than trying to maintain links with countries with which - apart from long gone colonial links - Britain has little in common.

It must be said that there are three kinds of Commonwealth countries: some have strong cultural and ethnic links with Britain, others were part of a colonial past and others never had practically anything in common since they were not even British colonies.

We, collectively, should forget about any kind of Romanticism and look at the practicalities to decide what needs to be done about what we usually call Commonwealth. The past is long gone and now we need to focus on present realities on a case by case basis.

There have been fundamental economic, political and ideological changes. Strong cooperation based on good bilateral relations could be a much better way of moving forward, instead of being permanently anchored in the past.

We went from the British Empire to the British Commonwealth, from the British Commonwealth to the Commonwealth. Perhaps now is the time to forget about the Commonwealth. We must look at each individual country and decide what kind of links we would like to have if any at all. 

Taxes are taxes even when they might be called something else

You might call them tax, Income Tax, VAT, NI, TV License, Stamp Duty, Green Taxes, Airport Duties, Inheritance Tax (that I called Corpse Tax) or whatever else that you want to call them. In essence, it is about money taken away from your pockets for whatever reason. In some cases, paying the said taxes is justified and in some other cases you know that you are dealing with an ideological tax to fill up the pockets of elites that serve no public purpose.

Corpse Tax is one of the most unfair, if not the most unfair tax ever. You work and you pay every conceivable tax after taxes have already been deducted from your salary. You buy yourself a home or a car with monies that have already been taxes and you are taxed even more. At the end of the road, whatever is left as inheritance is taxed all over, once again, with a 40% tax.

You work, you pay your taxes, and one day you decide to fly and.... you are taxed again and the excuse is that government needs to tax you to save the Planet. Such rubbish explanation is given as an excuse to take more and more money to maintain a bureaucratic system that is destroying the Planet and ruining the economy in the process by making people feel a lot more miserable that they would otherwise feel. Green Taxes are the greatest lie ever told.

An ideological tax called TV License is the number one reason to end up in Court and thousands of cases are being dragged through the Legal System for weeks or even months on end. The TV License costs about £150 which is the equivalent to a one-hour fee charged by a barrister. So, you can imagine the amount of money and time been wasted prosecuting people who don't pay or cannot pay the TV License. If you still wanted to finance a bias and corrupt organization with public monies, you could do with an item on the National Budget taken directly from the National Purse.

If we abolish TV License, the costs of running such services would be shared by the Nation as a whole instead of having a system that penalizes individuals who end up paying for themselves and for everybody else.

When you build a house, the mortar, the bricks, the steel bars, et cetera, et cetera, have already been taxed. So why should you pay an additional tax called Stamp Duty? Yeap.... you guess right.... Stamp Duty is yet another invention to make homes more expensive. Tax, tax and more taxes depress the economy and create unemployment. So we should keep taxes for things that are absolutely essential and reduce or eliminate all together bureaucratic and ideological taxes.


 

Tommy Robinson: Fifth Columnist?

Tommy Robinson: Fifth Columnist?

Whenever there has been an interest to defuse what the ruling classes call 'a political time bomb', new organizations and 'leaders' have appeared out of nowhere when infiltration of political organizations was not giving the expected results.

When the British National Party was becoming 'too successful', the mass media decided to 'fuel up alternative operators' as a way to divert attention and cook reports about 'Divided Nationalists'.

Since 2001, the British National Party had been denouncing the actions of Asian gangs (most Muslims of Pakistani ancestry) and being attacked by the BBC that accused the leader of the British National Party of racism because he was trying to raise the alarm against pedophiles and murderers.

So the mass media raised the profile of the so-called English Democrats many of whom had left the British National Party and had a past in the National Front. This was short-lived and proved extremely unsuccessful.

Later on, the mass media suggested that the English Defense League was going to become the alternative to the British National Party, even though it was merely a campaign organization with no political ambitions and no political infra-structure. I spoke laterally about the subject in several articles (Die Frage ist: Wollen sie eine Politische Partei, eine Politische Bewegung oder eine Soziale Bewegung?) and indicated that the statements made by the mass media were absolutely nonsensical.

Tommy Robinson's defection proved that EDL had been simply another effort to divide Nationalists that had gone terribly wrong when the elites realized that they could not control it and Tommy Robinson said it himself in front of television cameras calling his former supporters 'dangerous extremists'.

Combat 18 (or C-18), infiltration by both the Police and parapolitical operators, the creation of ghost political parties and phantom political organizations, the use of so called moles like the wife of a celebrated anti-Fascist campaigner and member of the Communist Party that went to bed with practically every member of the National Front in a effort to destroy the National Front have been tools to fight against the genuine defenders of British National Interests.

We have accumulated evidence of people that pretended to be genuine Nationalists and were actually informers passing distorted information to organizations like Hope Not Hate, Searchlight, Stop the Nazi BNP and others including the BBC. The said informs strived to be sensationalist and when there was no genuine information to be provided they fabricated information to please their paymasters.

As a test and in order to prove wrongdoing, we gave them hooks and they swallowed them without even noticing that we were giving them something that would definitely prove that they were not genuine Nationalists.

Tommy Robinson has been the Establishment best creation. They created the perfect image (non-Anti-Semite, Non-Racist and genuinely concerned about the British people or so they said). But somewhere along the way, things went wrong. Emboldened by what was then a seal of approval, more and more people started to operate under the umbrella of EDL and this included gangs, former National Front members, and all kinds of individuals that flocked into the EDL and people that Tommy Robinson could not possibly control.

The mood about the EDL changed and suddenly the mass media portrayed EDL as a bunch of violent thugs with Extreme Right credentials that needed to be stopped and Tommy Robinson ended up in jail. Jail was a bit what a cocoon is for the caterpillar before it turns into a butterfly.

Like in a real life version of Clockwork Orange, Tommy Robinson comes out of prison as the reformed guy, the prodigal son that saw the errors of his ways. Suddenly, he becomes the darling of the BBC and Jeremy Paxman conducts a Newsnight programme with Tommy Robinson talking as a reformed man that has seen the light and documentaries are made showing Tommy Robinson standing together with pseudo representatives of Muslim Communities.

The King left the battlefield leaving behind the corpses of those who believed in him and a bunch of disoriented survivors desperately trying to pick up the pieces and running for their lives. Soonafter, the jokers of the mass media wrote articles stating 'The Leader of EDL left EDL. Is this the end of Nationalism in Britain?'

Unfortunately, for the corrupt and unprincipled mass media, the EDL was nothing more than yet another trick to divide Nationalism that is very much very alive and kicking. The Leader of the British National Party launched an appeal inviting all genuine EDL members that were stabbed in the back by Tommy Robinson to join the British National Party because the British National Party is very much the true force in British Nationalism.

The books that I haven't read and the discovery of a whole new Universe hidden behind things we see as chores

Continuing with the thread of 'you cannot be bored', I would like to tell you about what I felt - or what I usually feel - after visiting one of my favourite big bookstores in Central London. As always I prepare myself for the experience that is without fail mind-boggling.

I enter the building and start wondering around going through different sections and spending some time dipping my eyes into a whole array of worlds - new and old - and getting in touch with the things that I would like to know.

Such visits last about 3 hours and at the end, I leave with mixed emotions - the frustration of not being able to grasp all the knowledge that is readily available and the satisfaction of having spent a glorious and exciting time opening my mind and allowing myself to taste the pleasures of an intellectual voyage.

More than once I have found myself talking to my children and telling them that being an adult means that you are aware of all the things that you don't know and of the fact that you wouldn't have enough time to investigate, to enjoy, to get involved, to taste, to research and get a real feel of what the world is really about.

I reckon those of the younger generations that get into trouble are basically intellectually deprived, unable to experience and get involved in more constructive endeavours. I feel that the so-called Pop Culture has castrated them from an intellectual point of view. At my age, my sense of curiosity is stronger than ever before. I feel more intellectually thirsty than ever before. I cannot possibly be bored.

My sense of experimentation also includes the use of new machines, new gadgets, new tools and this includes ordinary chores like repairing, cleaning, installing, painting, et cetera. If what you need is instant gratification, I do recommend cleaning the grout and the tiles of your bathroom or to spend the day vacuum cleaning. If you focus on the tasks in hand there are some intellectual lessons that you could learn learning to do things in a different way. Thus, washing the dishes or cleaning up the kitchen is no longer a set of chores. It is a learning process, a cleansing experience, a way of becoming more disciplined and more grounded.

To sum up, there are many lessons to be learned, many activities that you could enjoy and you will find intellectuality where you least expect to find it. A change of attitude opens the gates that lead into a completely new universe.

I was fascinated watching a scene of a movie called Karate Kid. The old master is training a boy that wants to become a Karate fighter. The master asks him to polish some cars using his hands that move around clockwise and then anti-clockwise. The boy does not see the link between the humble act of polishing a car and basic Karate moves. Life works in mysterious ways and things that are apparently unrelated can be part of a chain.

BBC could lose the Licence Fee. Mmmm.... yes. Maybe...

In 2016, the BBC's Royal Charter will be up for renewal and a senior Conservative MP has indicated that 'unless the corporation undertake dramatic changes after a series of scandals and accusations of bias' the BBC could be stripped of its exclusive right to £3.6 billion.

Grant Shapps, Conservative Party Chairman, made a statement as concerns grow about BBC bias and mismanagement, while criticizing what is very much at the core of BBC's problems directly linked to its culture of secrecy and cover-ups.

To pretend that the BBC is going to stop being biased when it is actually ruled by left-wing biased operators linked to the Labour Party and its associated media including The Guardian is frankly naïve.

It has been reported that a BBC spokesman said that 'Mr Shapps is right that transparency is key to the future of the BBC. So is its freedom from political pressure'. What the BBC spokesman did not mention is that the BBC is no longer, and has not been for a very long time, an impartial public broadcasting organization.

Get rid of the X Factor Mentality and the Class War

We cannot afford to be disengaged from the business of politics but at the same time we need to recognize that whatever the business of politics our own destiny depends of what we as individuals are willing to do for ourselves.

Conspiracy theories and all the talk about conspiracy theories do not change the fundamental fact that our successes or our failures are the direct consequence of what we, as individuals, are willing to do to change our so called bad luck into good luck. The mix is about 10 per cent of genius and 90 per cent of effort and for all of us - without exception - a day is 24 hours.

We blame the weather, a Zionist Conspiracy, those of the Left, those of the Centre and those of the Right for whatever happens in our lives without accepting that much of what happens in our lives is linked to what we do and what we don't do.

From an early age, I learnt to recognize the fallacies of Socialism that blames those who have for the misfortunes of those who have not. I look at the behavior of the have and have not and I remember the words of Benjamin Franklin who said: "Laziness travels so slowly that Poverty soon overtakes him."

I am not a friend of alcohol and I sincerely despise tobacco and other kinds of addictions including comfort eating. Whenever we feel that the world is coming to an end, we should remember the words of Rudyard Kipling, keeping ourselves grounded and using every minute available to do something to improve our human condition: 

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Karl Marx: Proletariat Dictatorship

When Karl Marx used the words Proletariat Dictatorship, he certainly knew what he was talking about. Unfortunately, the world has been witnessing for more that a century what Karl Marx meant: decades of oppression, abuses of human rights and murder on an industrial scale  across several continents.

When we face on the streets members of Stop the Nazi BNP, Hope Not Hate, UAF, UNITE and others waving red flags with Hammer and Sickle, we should be very much aware of what they mean: a call to oppression and repression that has nothing to do with freedom and social justice.

Pogroms and Archipelago Gulags, extrajudicial executions, abolition of private property and political and religious persecution implemented in the name of Socialism, one of the most corrupting and murderous set of doctrines the world has even seen.

David Cameron pledges to cut green taxes next year despite Lib Dem objections

We have countries like China consuming vast amounts of fossil fuels and we are subjected to politically correct taxes that make the British economy uncompetitive and force people who can hardly afford to pay for electricity and gas suffer to the point of having to choose between heating and eating.

We cannot go on like this and David Cameron knows it. International oil and gas prices cannot be controlled by Socialism. They go up and down depending on market conditions and we need to have an economy that is as flexible as possible to be able not just to survive but thrive.

Who benefits from the said taxes? Not Britain, for certain. People in Britain have had to cope with higher gas prices, higher electricity prices, higher transport fares because - and make no mistake - the cost of travelling is ridiculously high because of the bloody Green Taxes. Green Taxes make the food we eat more expensive and millions of families across the country know about it when we need the Red Cross to start collecting money to help those who cannot even afford to eat because of Green Taxes that are just an idiotic gimmick.

Only by investing in research and development will we be able to find alternative sources of energy. The Socialist idiots always want to cut corners and pretend that by forcing taxation upon people who can ill afford to have a decent living standard they will solve the planet's problems.

Who are the most affected by Green Taxes? The so called Working Class. The Working Class has to suffer because the so called Green Taxes come straight from their food budget.

Get rid of Green Taxes and allow the economy to recover so that we can have more jobs and less people living on the edge.

Family home or Hotel?

We have been bombarded with reports about residential properties that are being used as hotels to house immigrants and illegal immigrants that are competing with British workers and taking away space that should be used by British families.

There are regulations regarding rental agreements and commercial properties used as hotels that are being flouted and irregularities must be remedied. All occupants of residential properties should be registered as entitled to occupy the said property. If it is found that a residential property is being used as a hotel the owner of the said property should be held accountable for tax purposes.

The owners of properties that are supposed to be family homes and are being used for commercial purposes without being registered as commercial enterprises are violating regulations and evading taxation and they should be dealt with by the authorities.

Snowy Cameron will switch off the central heating this winter

David Cameron offered advice to long suffering Britons for them to save money on gas and electricity. 'Change providers', he told them. Well, the difference between gas and electricity suppliers is minimal and therefore there are no savings to be made.

When this wasn't enough, he stated that we should use less gas and less electricity and wear warm clothing instead. I assume that with such brilliant advice undertakers across Britain stand to make a lot of money given the number of people that will perish having to choose between food and heating.

I don't imagine that our growing elderly population will have the energy to go out and play outside making snowballs.

NHS: Despite its failures it is by far the best option we have got

We have all been bombarded with horror stories about failures of the National Health Service, but we also know that we are dealing with exceptions. The National Health Service is by far the best option we have got. Despite your personal and financial circumstances, you can be assured that at least we have a safety net made up by people who will do their utmost to keep you and your family alive.

The issue regarding the American budget was centered on the implementation of healthcare initiatives in the USA. I criticize President Obama for having been the continuation of George Bush in terms of Foreign Affairs but I do support the principle that every British citizen - and likewise every American citizen - is entitled to affordable healthcare.

I strongly believe that healthcare is an issue of National Security. Health and Prosperity go hand in hand. When monies are scarce, we must make the best use of every resource that we have got. If we want a healthy and prosperous Nation, healthcare is not something we can possible do without.

Royal Mail: the nightmare continues despite privatisation

Chancellor George Osborne

Royal Mail has just been privatized and privatization was announced as the magical solution that would put an end to Royal Mail's troubles. We have just read that there is a planned industrial action before the end of the year.

Did people think that Royal Mail's problems were going to disappear merely by selling it? So now they have sold it and now any problems are going to be dealt with by a private board of directors.

If they don't manage to put Royal Mail back on track and if the value of shares in the open market suddenly collapses, Royal Mail will be effectively lost forever in a jungle of smaller private companies and might end up following Woolworths into non existence.

In some areas, the whole idea of privatization is a complete shambles. The railways example is one of the most wasteful uses of public monies. They knew from the start that railway companies could not survive without public monies and for decades they have been maintained with an enormous amount of public subsidies while so called shareholders are literally milking the British exchequer and imposing ever higher travelling fares.

The government announced that it was going to cap yearly fare increases but this little consolation when you think about the amount of money British taxpayers are giving to private shareholders, money that is taken away from other public services.

I will not get involved in the debate of public versus private. What I want to say is that every case must be judged on its merits. The privatization of Royal Mail increasingly looks not as a real solution but as a way of putting a problem on somebody else's shoulders.

USA/UK Streamlining or Full Employment

Lowering prices by increasing unemployment? The Western World is suffering the Made in China Syndrome that came after the Streamlining Syndrome. Streamlining meant doing more with less people. Made in China means doing nothing and therefore you don't need people. The direct consequence is business closures and longer queues of out of work individuals. This means less economic activity in the long run and higher taxation and more borrowing to maintain those who, whatever the financial situation, still need to eat.

How much more can the debt ceiling be risen? Is periodically increasing the amount of money owed going to become the normal thing to do? Imagine if we all were all allowed to accumulate debts without ever being able to repay what we owe. Wouldn't that be nice? We could ask the Banks to deliver free money to everybody without a care in the world. Well, this is what President Obama is asking Congress to do. 'Keep giving me money that can never be repaid. Keep getting into debt.' Obama's Presidency is going end but the American people are going to have to live with the consequences of financial mismanagement.

I criticize President Obama not because of his race or because of the doubts about his place of birth. I criticize President Obama because he has not delivered and because he continues creating more and more public debt. America is not better off. America is worse off because of the policies of his administration and because of the policies and practices of the entire American Establishment and this includes both Republicans and Democrats. 'Cheap is Expensive.' Made in China is expensive because it is measured as the number of jobs that we do not have.

If we are going to have debts, we should at least reduce cheap imports and employ more people.

English Education: Reality knocks. Worst in the Developed World?

"English school leavers lagging behind entire Developed World", reads the headline and this is something that Conservatives, Labour and Lib Dems are very much responsible for.

The more you read, it gets worse. Almost 25 per cent, one of every four adults, have literacy skills expected of a 10-year old or worse, in what is considered to be a far higher failure rate than the International Average.

Political correctness has destroyed British Education replacing it with fake standards, fake league tables and fake success.

Britain is the country in which people aged between 16 and 24 'display basic skills that are worse than the skills of those nearing retirement age.

Force-fed cultural enrichment rubble, generation after generation has been downgraded and transformed into the X-Factor/Bingo society, failure combined with the illusion of quick fame and enrichment without any major effort with adults that are only able to understand simple texts and are unable to deal with anything else apart from basic arithmetic.

Paxman/Robinson: Making strenuous effort to maintain a straight face

The dialogue between Jeremy Paxman and Tommy Robinson must have forced the veteran broadcaster to make a strenuous effort to maintain a straight face. For four years or so Tommy Robinson has been seen as the leader of something that the mass media have generously defined as 'campaign'.

Talking to an Austrian journalist, I explicitly defined the problem by saying: Die Frage ist: Politische Partei, Politische Bewegung oder Soziale Bewegung? (The question is: Political Party, Political Movement or Social Movement)

Tommy Robinson's political lack of acumen is shown very clearly every step of the way. Tommy Robinson's strength was in the end its own weakness because he could not possibly control a very chaotic arrangement of different groups that operated in an ad hoc basis without any formal organization or party political structure and without a membership structure.

Several times during the interview, Jeremy Paxman asked Tommy Robinson if he had changed his mind and had left behind what he campaigned for for several years. Tommy Robinson stated that he had left behind EDL because he wanted real dialogue to combat extremism.

The real strength of EDL was built on its notoriety created by rallies, demonstrations and sometimes violent confrontations. Take away the street element and it would have nothing left because it was not organized as a political party.

Without a political structure and without the strength provided by its notoriety, Tommy Robinson would become a non-entity and nothing more than a talking head.

Islam: If you know that they are dangerous, kick them out

Sir Andrew Parker, Head of MI5, said that  'several thousand Islamist extremists live in the United Kingdom, want to attack the country and see British people as a legitimate target.

During a speech at the Royal United Services Institute in London, the Head of MI5 said that 'our task is getting harder. The threats are more diverse and diffuse and that the threats are directly linked to Muslims living in the United Kingdom. 

In the speech to the Royal United Services Institute in London, Mr Parker said: “Our task is getting harder. The threats are more diverse and diffuse and Among those are Britons, numbering in the low hundreds sources say, who have travelled to Syria, which is now a hotbed of extremism and terror groups, and since returned home.

Since 2011, a total of 330 people have been convicted of terrorism-related offences in Britain. Mr Parker justified the failings of MI5 by saying that there was a difference between knowing of someone and knowing everything about them.

We know that when somebody is a terrorist, his or her entire family is a potential danger. The so-called White Widow suspected of being involved in a recent murderous attack in Kenya got her nickname because she was the wife of one of the plotters of the bombings carried out in July 2005 in London.

Therefore, if you one of them is a terrorist we have very good reasons to believe that their families are involved in terrorism and should be treated as a terrorist threat.

Robinson leaves English Defense League. What next for EDL?

Robinson has left the English Defense League. The departure of the leadership of EDL leads to the question: What next for EDL?

The English Defense League grew up around the personality cult of Tommy Robinson and the mass media tried to make the best of it by creating a bundle of myths that did not last too long.

Firstly, the mass media said that the English Democrats were going to replace the British National Party. Then, when that did not work, they chose Tommy Robinson and the EDL as the avant-garde and the forerunners in the eclipse of the British National Party.

When that didn't work, they chose to talk about the United Kingdom Independence Party UKIP and its leader Nigel Farage saying that UKIP was going to replace other so called minority parties and even challenge the Conservatives for first place in the political game within Conservatism.

Suddenly, all those above mentioned (British National Party, English Democrats, EDL and UKIP) were categorized as Far Right and accused of crimes none of them had committed. Although I suspect, that for the British mass media anybody who challenges the Establishment is forcefully categorized as Far Right or Extremist.

Having said that, the statement made by Tony Robinson to justify his resignation as Leader of the English Defense League mentions that Tony Robinson leaves EDL because EDL has become 'too extreme.' Something does not fit it. The EDL was led by Tommy Robinson. In fact, everything revolved around the personality of Tommy Robinson. Now the leader himself says that his followers are 'too extreme' and look for cooperation with so called 'Moderate Muslims who are trying to counter Extremism within Muslim Communities'.

I met Tommy Robinson during a debate about Islam organized by Vox Africa and either Tommy Robinson has had a change of heart regarding Islam or there is something else going on in the background that we are not aware of.

How many millions were killed by Communism and Socialism?

On Saturday, October 5th, 2013, we were confronted in Croydon by a group of 'Stop the Nazi BNP' waiving the Soviet red flag with Hammer and Sickle shouting that they were against oppression. So, let's ask them the fundamental question: How many millions have been killed by Communism and Socialism?

Robin Shepherd ask a fundamental question and here is the article that we have reproduced.

Why isn't the Black Book of Communism on the curriculum of every school in Europe? Because it isn't exhaustive enough? Because its authors lack credibility? Because there is still more to be understood and researched on the matter?

At more than 850 pages of carefully sifted evidence by a group of top-level scholars from a variety of countries and disciplines, the Black Book is as solid a piece of scholarship as any other you'll find being taught in our schools.

Is it definitive? How could it be? Communist regimes went to great lengths to conceal their crimes, and one of the most oppressive of all, North Korea, still exists to this day. What the book does is use the best available evidence to give a sense of the scale of what we are dealing with.
In introducing the Black Book, lead author Stephane Courtois, Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Paris, offers the following rough breakdown of the numbers of people that communism killed:

USSR -- 20 million
China -- 65 million
Vietnam -- 1 million
North Korea -- 2 million
Cambodia -- 2 million
Eastern Europe -- 1 million
Latin America -- 150,000
Africa -- 1.7 million
Afghanistan -- 1.5 million
Communist movements, parties not in power -- 10,000

In total, this is not far short of 100 million deaths at the hands of a single ideology. Nothing like this has ever happened before. (As an aside, my personal view is that the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews was the greatest single crime of the modern era, while communism was the greatest criminal system.)

To be sure, these numbers are approximations. Courtois gives a figure of 20 million for the Soviet Union. Alexander Yakovlev, formerly the chairman of Russia's Presidential Commission for the
Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression, estimates the numbers executed or done to death in prisons and camps for purely political reasons at 20-25 million.

But, in his book A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia, he reminds us not to forget the 5.5 million victims of famine in the Civil War and the 5 million in the artificial famine of the 1930s. Other respected authorities offer even higher numbers.

What should be clear from the Soviet Union and beyond is the staggering scale of what we are being asked to internalize.

Apologists have adopted a number of strategies -- beyond outright denial which lasted for decades. One of the most popular and enduring is that we should not spend much time on the crimes of communism because Western countries have also committed crimes, most particularly when they had their empires.

To say that this is disingenuous is an understatement. Even if it were true that Western countries had committed similar crimes -- which it most certainly isn't -- why would that be an obstacle to discussing the crimes of communism? Jack the Ripper isn't any the less of a killer because Ted Bundy was too.

But more importantly, Western imperialism was no more oppressive, and in many ways it was a good deal less oppressive, than any of the other imperialisms throughout history. The British Empire was the first ever to abolish slavery, for example. In any case, imperialism isn't a blueprint for societal governance. It isn't in the same category as ideologies such as communism, fascism, Nazism or even liberal-democratic capitalism anyway.
This is all easy to pin down, which brings us back to the question posed at the beginning of this piece: Why isn't the Black Book of Communism on the curriculum of every school in Europe?

The answer is not all that difficult to get to. The reason why the crimes of communism are given so little societal prominence is that very large sections of Western political society were supporters of or apologists for the Leftist ideology that gave rise to those crimes.
To talk openly about the history of communism is to talk openly about the history of the Left. And even among those who were not communists themselves, vast swathes inside the Leftist tradition stayed far too close to the communists for comfort.

It's their very dirty big secret, and although they can't do much these days about tracts such as the Black Book of Communism lying on the dusty top shelves of our public libraries, they'll be damned if they're going to start handing them out to children in the classrooms.

Of course, I am using the school curriculum issue as a proxy for a wider reluctance fully to come to terms with one of history's darkest chapters. The angry reaction of the British Left this week to the Daily Mail's discussion of Labour leader Ed Miliband's Marxist father suggests that that reluctance is as deeply embedded as ever.
Robin Shepherd is the owner/publisher of The Commentator Follow him on Twitter @RobinShepherd1

Press Release - Florian Phillipot, French National Front

Press Release - Florian Philippot, Vice-President of the National Front of France

Something good could come out of the American shutdown: the suspension of negotiations of the USA/EU Free Trade Agreement that would allow the French government to free France from such deadly agreement.

Putting our industry, our agriculture and our services at the mercy of an ultra-liberal excesses, such agreement only benefits American interests.

French Workers and French pensioners would be the first victims of such an agreement.

Today, negotiations have been suspended because of circumstances in the USA. Tomorrow, they should be definitively stopped by political will. This is about French national interest.

Intelligent protectionism against unfair competition must be pursued to allow to revive French manufacturing.

If the government and the UMP continue to blindly support such agreement, they will be guilty of treason against fundamental interests of our country.

Communiqué de Presse de Florian Philippot, Vice-Président du Front National

Du shutdown américain peut sortir un bien : la suspension des négociations sur l’accord de libre-échange UE/Etats-Unis qui en résulte doit être l’occasion pour le gouvernement français de se ressaisir et de dégager la France de ce funeste accord.
Livrant notre industrie, notre agriculture et nos services à la sauvagerie ultralibérale de l’ouverture totale des frontières, cet accord répond à des impératifs purement américains.
Les travailleurs et retraités français en seraient les premières victimes.
Aujourd’hui les négociations sont suspendues par la force des choses, demain elles doivent être définitivement stoppées par la volonté politique. Il en va de notre intérêt national.
Un protectionnisme intelligent face à la concurrence déloyale doit au contraire être recherché, pour permettre la réindustrialisation de notre pays.
Si le gouvernement et l’UMP continuent de soutenir aveuglément ce projet, ils se rendront coupables d’une trahison des intérêts fondamentaux de notre pays.

Uncontrolled Immigration affects everybody regardless of race

The mass media, including the BBC, have desperately tried to make immigration a racial issue when in fact flood immigration damages the prospects of all British citizens regardless of race or of any other discriminatory criteria.

We talk about unemployment. We talk about health, education and transport. We talk about housing and the prospects of families acquiring a housing unit or having access to housing. Every single issue is linked to immigration because a country is above all the people who live in the country. So responsible management of immigration is directly linked to every single resource available for those who are already living in the country.

It is our duty to talk about what is going on in Britain and it is our duty to raise the issues that need to be raised and we do so within the legal framework of a Democratic society with Universal laws that apply to everybody regardless of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, political beliefs or any other consideration.

One of the fundamentals regarding Opposition to the European Union is that Britain as a member country of the European Union cannot control its own borders.

America is bankrupt and Obama knows it

America has been bombed quite a few times in recent years and not by Islamic Terrorism but by accounting terrorism. If you thought Enron and other private companies were the exception, think again. Federal Government has been attacked from the inside by accounting terrorists that have run a country on permanently increasing public debt.

Constant blaming by both Republicans and Democrats is not a solution for America's dire financial problems. There is always money to go to war but suddenly there is no money for projects that could help rebuild America and reverse its ongoing decline. So President Obama will blame those who are opposed to the constant cycle of printing money and increasing debt.

Those who oppose the cycle of ever increasing debt will blame President Obama but all is not what it seems. Under both Republican and Democratic Administrations, Federal Government have ignored the fact that debts have to be paid and have continued to spend as if there was no Tomorrow.

For decades, American Administrations have preached to other governments the kind of financial probity that America itself has failed to adhere to. The Number-One World Power is nothing more than a Gambler and Shopaholic Nation that owes money to practically everybody and then we periodically get into conflicts when the so-called Debt Ceiling needs to be raised to continue accumulating debt.