Showing the perfidious Scot a little bit of muscle this morning, John Healey, Defence Secretary of Great Britain, informed the Scottish politics programme that the Scottish National Party's "government" sounded a lot like student union politics. D'you know, I've often thought that myself, with their espousal of an extreme wokista agenda - a man can be a woman if he says so, Scotland must not extract any more fossil fuels because that is naughty, Scotland's fishermen cannot fish in the 240 Marine Protected Areas around Scotland, as that is equally naughty - and the policy that caused Healey's contempt today - the Scottish Government will not, as a matter of policy, allow public money to be spent on munitions production. It refused to invest £2.5 million in a specialist skills centre - a welding college to train Scottish shipbuilders, supported by Rolls-Royce. Healey said the UK will kick in the cash if the SNP continue to refuse. We Scots must be grateful that Defence is not a devolved power, now that we're at War. Healey was all over the politics programmes this weekend, in preparation for his launch of the Strategic Defence Review tomorrow. He said:
“Russia is attacking the UK daily as part of 90,000 attacks that we get that are linked to different states on our defence system in cyberspace. It’s one of the reasons that we’re acting already by putting an extra billion into creating a new cyber command and to link our Armed Forces with the digital connections that make them more effective in the future. We’re in a world that is changing now and we’ve got to respond. It is a world of growing Russian aggression, it’s those daily cyber attacks, new nuclear risks and increasing threats in other parts of the world as well. The government will build at least six new munitions factories and thousands more long-range weapons as part of the defence review."
There's going to be new houses for married squaddies, to make a career in the armed forces more palatable, new aircraft to drop nuclear bombs on our enemies (we can only launch them from submarines at present), and lots more conventional weapons. This will create lots of jobs and is A Good Thing. Despite all this gung-ho-ness, it will still not amount to the 3.9% of GDP that NATO's Mark Rutte has said would be a good idea, and nowhere near the 5% that Donald Trump requires his NATO allies to cough up, to make up for having taken the U.S. for granted all these years.
The best thing to do, in the event of a nuclear war is to get outside and enjoy the nuclear sunset. You really don't want to survive it. A conventional war is pretty bad, as the citizens of Gaza would tell you, but survivable. Is the best strategy to say - hey, lets not fall out, can we sort out a deal? Or to muscle up and "send a message to Moscow" as Healey puts it? It's all looking a bit dodgy and public opinion is being nudged war-wards.
Blessed are the War Mongers, as Christ didn't say. Or maybe He did?
The Problematic Teachings of Jesus Christ.
Lets' start with the non-unionised Labourers in the Vineyard. This teaching can be found in the Gospel of Matthew 20:1-16. A farmer needs to hire in some casual labour to work in his vineyard. He hires some lads at an agreed rate of one denarius each for the day. He drastically underestimates the number of workers he needs, so he gets back down the Job Centre no less than 4 times, at the third, sixth, ninth and eleventh hours, hiring on lads, promising to pay them "whatever is right". Comes time to pay them and he gives all of them one denarius each, which causes the workers who've been at hard, back-breaking work all day in the heat of the sun, to complain. The farmer says: "Fuck off. My vineyard, my money, my terms." No, really? And he gets away with it? No unions, you see. No contracts for casual day labourers.
Moving on to the Pigs Don't Fly story. You can read this in the Gospels of Mark 5:1–20, Matthew 8:28–34 and Luke 8:26–39. Jesus had just disembarked after a short sea journey when he was met by a troubled man, given to self-harming and not wearing clothes, whose neighbours didn't like him and kept trying to chain him up in the graveyard, but he would break free, being a strong chap. Jesus said to him: What's your name? and the bloke replied: "My name is Legion, for we are many". I told you he was troubled. Schizophrenia? Multiple Personality Disorder? The bloke begged Jesus not to send him/them away, but to send him/them into a nearby herd of 2000 pigs, grazing contentedly in the sunshine. Jesus did so, (How?) the bloke got dressed and the pigs raced to the clifftop and flung themselves over, drowning themselves. Poor pigs. Poor pig-farmer. No compensation. No criminal charges for destroying 2000 pigs, probably the pig-farmer's entire livelihood.
Then there's the Fuck the Poor story, which you can read in the Gospel of Mark 14 3-9, although there are other versions in the other gospels. All feature a woman, a jar of expensive ointment and anointing either the feet or the head of Jesus. In one story she's a prostitute, which makes things worse, in one she's Lazarus' sister, Mary, but I like this version best: this woman comes in when Jesus is having his dinner and breaks open a perfume jar and spreads it on his head, which not unnaturally upsets the blokes that Jesus surrounded himself with. "This cost more than a year's wages," they said, "it could have been sold and the money given to the poor". This does not go down well with the Boss, who says: "Leave her alone", and, with a touch of the Donald, added, "She has done a beautiful thing, a beautiful thing to Me. The poor you will always have with you. But you will not always have Me." Hello? Ego, much?
Now, the washing-up you will always have with you - I can relate to that - the damn washing-up breeds, if you take your eye off it for a moment. Don't Blink. But the Poor? Always with you? That's really negative, that is. That's a god-ordained licence to fuck the poor, which advice has been freely taken by greedy capitalist bastards (sorry, wealth creators) for 2000 years. As Edmund Sears has it in his 1849 poem It Came upon a Midnight Clear:
But with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not....
And how about hard working Martha? You can read this one in the Gospel of Luke 10: 38-42. Jesus and the usual gang dropped in at Lazarus' place, to see if he was still not dead. All these blokes turning up unexpectedly caused a great deal of work for the household, and Martha asked Jesus if he would tell her sister, Mary, who was lolly-gagging as usual, to help her, instead of just sitting there, listening to the boys' banter. Jesus refused, admonishing Martha: "Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." So, next time you ask the kids to help with the washing-up, which, as we know, is always with us, don't be surprised if they say Jesus says its ok to watch TV/go on the PlayStation/check Facebook.
In Acts of Thomas, chapters 1-3, we find Jesus instructing his followers to go into the world to spread his word. His twin brother Thomas (slow down. Who? Twin? How'd that happen? Well, that's what it says) balks a bit. "No", he says, "not India. Anywhere but India". (I really feel his pain. India!). So Jesus goes up to this merchant from Afghanistan, and says, "Need a carpenter? 'Cos I've got one here that I can sell you." The deal was struck and Thomas was sold off and left on the next ship to India. As a slave. Honest, not invent (no, but maybe someone did). And there's a bill of sale to prove it. It reads: "I, Jesus, son of the carpenter Joseph, declare that I have sold my slave to you, Abban, a merchant."
Acts of Thomas also describes the occasion when a newly wed bridegroom was surprised to catch Jesus sitting on the nuptial bed with the bride. Jesus has turned up to deliver a lecture on family planning. He told them that children are, without exception, awful: "they become either lunatics or half-withered or crippled or deaf or dumb or paralytics or idiots". Children inevitably do "unprofitable and abominable works. For they will be detected either in adultery or in murder or in theft or in unchastity, and by all these you will be afflicted. Therefore refrain from this filthy intercourse."
As the Saint Thomas Christians still thrive in the state of Kerala, tracing their origins to the evangelistic activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century, we can assume that the teachings of Jesus on sex never caught on.
So, the Problematic Teachings of Jesus Christ do not fit neatly into our increasingly secular Christianity - oh yes, we are all cultural Christians - we like the smells and bells, the music, the architecture - but the weird teachings - well, that was all well and good two thousand years ago, but really, darling...... we don't mean any of it. When I was in Siena last month, I saw the little finger of St Catherine in a glass case in her Cathedral. My travelling companion, a cradle Catholic, now as lapsed as it is possible to be, had nostalgically inhaled on entering the Duomo and said, ah, the smell of a Catholic Church, said authoritatively, its a bit of wood, mrs ishmael, cleverly carved, quite a work of art.
Looks like the vacancy created by this abdication of belief from the heart of Christianity may be filled by a more committed religious group - although, as ever, religion is politically driven. You remember the Charlie Hebdo attack? On 7 January 2015, at about 11:30 a.m. in Paris, the employees of the French satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo were targeted in a terrorist shooting attack by two French-born Algerian Muslim brothers, Saïd Kouachi and Chérif Kouachi. Armed with rifles and other weapons, they murdered 12 people and injured 11 others; motivated by rage against satire directed against their religion. They fled after the shooting, triggering a manhunt, and were killed by the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group on 9 January. The Kouachi brothers' attack was followed by several related Islamist terrorist attacks between 7 and 9 January 2015, including the Hypercacher kosher supermarket siege, in which a French-born Muslim took hostages and murdered four people (all Jews) before being killed by French commandos.
Here's mr ishmael in 2015 on matters religious and Je Suis Charlie Hebdo.
.............................................................
I don't know quite how to caricature les caricaturistes Francaise; worthless, decadent, layabout dilletantes; publishers' ink-stained rentboys, drawing dirty pictures, but not too dirty, whatever they do it's not a proper job, doesn't produce anything, doesn't serve anyone. What's the point, today, of a dead-tree press cartoonist, if it's not to become not a recreational but an occupational martyr?
I don't give a fuck about a handful of French scribblers, Christ, I'd be hard-pressed to care if the entire British press corps was put up against the wall and shot; these guys, actually, were asking for this to happen to them, they knew, everybody knew that you can't argue with those who don't care if they live or die; now that it's happened, why must we beat our breasts?
And there is a wider, more realistic view of la Belle France, in which she is not, never has been Freedom's last redoubt.France's aggressive secularism, its historical repression of religion, its own glorious head chopping past and its recent denial of religious expression through clothing and diet are hardly emblematic of a nation wedded to freedom of speech, thought and expression, of a nation which we are now urged, commanded to admire, a nation in whose hysteria we must all painfully share, lest our arses fall out, a nation with whom we must all, twittering, solidarize. I saw several of the New People interviewed, they said they'd queued all night to get a copy of Charlie Hebdo's Greatest Hits, took a bloodbath, mind, for them to even be aware of political satire but now that they had a hold of it they were all gonna soundbite the fucking thing to death, whatever it was. Solidarity, they intoned, with some idiot editor, that's what counted; values, freedom, rights; all that was missing was Gordon the Ruiner, mincing onstage and gobbing-off about his moral compass, his mad father and the right sol-you-shun for hard-working families. Christ, have we ever been so platitudinised, and by such brain-dead, Twittering imbeciles? They couldn't even spell sanctimonious, most of them, jerking about in the moveable maelstrom of a crass shitegeist. Death to the NewPeople 'swhat I say, stone them with their i-things, their latte coffees and their moisturising products. Solidarity with racist, Nazi-loving scum bags, that'll do for them, until the next thing comes along.
The recent Frog banning of the burqa and the hidjab are redolent of surrenderiste Nazi France, in which only a few bravely resisted while the many collaborated with Hitler's Godlessheathenbastards, sucking Hermann's bratwurst and rooting-out French Hebes for the death camps.
Now, it's How dare these Muslim bitches dress as they wish? We, their masters, must be able to see into their eyes, and mebbe 'ave a peep at their duskee tits, too, for aren't we Frenchmen, a-ha-ha-ha and uzzerwise we do not know if zey are planning to bomb our arses off. Ah, oui, d'accord, le freedom de speech and de thought, c'est magnifique, but not for ze niggers and les Allah-bothereurs, merde, non. Whaddayoumean, zey are as French as moi, moi, Jean-Claude de Paree? 'Ow can zey be French, when zey are fucking niggers,. eh, vous etes 'avin ze laff, n'est ce pas?
In some regions, M'sieu Frog has insisted that - in mainly Muslim schools - pork must be on the menu, for true secularism demands that religious dietary concerns have no place in public life. Aye, tolerance, freedom, rights. Cunts is what they are, these Frogs with their nasty, cowardly bullying.
There have always been racists, the French, they've always hated the Jews. The slopes in Indo-China and the wogs in Algeria gave them a good kicking, denying their supposed military superiority and despite de Gaulle skulking away the Hitler war in London - at my parents' expense - the haughty monsterqueen barred his former allies and protectors from entry to the then Common Market, hard to believe, now, really, when you think of the boys gutted on the Normandy beaches, that the French would shun the British so. Must be their concern for rights and freedoms and tolerance which excluded us from their private cosying-up to Hermann, post-war.And le premier frog, Hollande, he wasn't in office five minutes before he wanted to bomb previous colonies, massacre the natives and then suck Obama's cock all the way from Washington to Damascus; socialiste, he claimed to be, internationaliste, he claimed to be, now, having betrayed both causes he has leapt on this relatively minor contretemps murdereuse as though it was his electoral salvation.
So, mind you, has everyone else, from old HamFace, CallHimDave |
| Lessbeclear about this, if, back home, you believe in Freedom I order you to vote for me. |
to Bibi The Crook Netanyahu; |
| Vote for me or its fire and fucking brimstone, a murrain of frogs, burning bushes, all that shit |
Although, in Paris, this was the reality, 
back in BibiLand
all the gentile whore leaders had been photoshopped out of reality,maybe by Jehovah, Himself.Values, you see, solidarity.Even Andy, the other night, |
| Did I ever tell you I went to Glasgow University before helping Mr Murdoch destroy Britain? |
betrayed his true, vile self - was so outraged by a French totty calling him what he is, a white, elderly, comfortable entitlementista, living in middle class environs that I was sure the hateful old playboy was going to have a stroke, maybe next time, if it please God.  |
| Freedom of speech is all very well, Mademoiselle, but not on my show. |
And now, as if all that Je suis Charlie shit was not enough, we must endure this further abomination, first compulsory Froghood, now compulsory Judaism. If I was Jewish I'd kick their fucking teeth in, these two, resurrect Irgun and the Stern Gang, hang these two from the nearest hotel balcony.No, Eric, you're not, you're a fat, lying, worthless, thieving, opportunist old cunt, for which God, if He is, will punish you by making your arse fall out.No, you're not, Tracey, you're just a decrepit old Tory slapper, one blessed with the Everything-I-Touch - border controls, passports, immigration, extraditions, police reform - Turns-To-Shit magic of the wannabee prime minister.
This Tracey May shit, this mad, screeching old crow, vowing to eradicate something which no-one has been able to eradicate for at least two thousand years, even by the miserable standards of the Coalition of Greed, this takes some beating. She can't even manage to count the immigrants in and the emigrants out, how's she going to perform this miracle. Doesn't matter, logic, history, none of that matters, |
| Have-nagilah, have-nagilah, have-nagilah ve-nismeha |
cos Tracey, the dancing queen, is gonna stomp out anti-Semitism;even though the Jews don't want it stamped-out, it is central to their faith, their scriptures and their politics, their exceptionalism, as God's favourites, just them, mind, not us, for even though their connection, one to the other, is religious, they insist, bizarrely, that they are a race; a mad, inverse racism. A race is something that one cannot convert to. But never mind that. What's love got to do with it, one for another? Those mad fuckers'll see us all blown to Hell, Jews, Arabs and Christians; Abrahamians, what are they good for?
Burbling about Freedom, what they're interested in, all of them, those orchestrating Charlieism and Hymieism, is ever greater control, ever greater censorship, ever more intrusive and brutal, militarised policing. The NewPeople, of course, complicit in their own degradation, believe whatever they are told, as long as it's vaguely sentimental, each passing, viral banality a Beautiful Obsession.I am so often reminded by current events of George Steiner's remark that the Holocaust happened because the 'Thirties Berlin intelligentsia was too busy listening to the string quartet in the salon to hear the cry in the street; the NewPeople, shoulder-to-shouldering, are equally immune to Reality's signature notes, indifferent, in their stupidity, to the hot breath on their cheeks, of the Jihad. Serve 'em right if Ahmed, bringing it all back home, visits their local Free School or worst of all possible big bads, takes a stroll through the quadrangles of Harrow or Eton or the colleges of Cambridge.Always dreaming of another, vaguely better, more reformist world, we are told, endlessly, that there was a time, before photography, an eighteenth and nineteenth century time, of pamphleteers and broadsheeters, when cartoons made monarchs quake and politicians cower but there never was such a time, political satire has never meant anything, never achieved anything, always been done amongst and to a tiny, political chattering class, then, as now, gleefully and pointlessly fucking its own arse. And the self-acclaimed successor, the inheritor of this mythical, satirical greatness is the public schoolboys' co-operative known as Private Eye, itself so radical that it engages in some annual, Westminster Oscars-giving political celebrity dinner, its smirking editor nothing more than a wealthy, Oxbridge PBC Tory on a nice little earner, Villainy's licensed Fool, pretending to be bold, rather like this jerk |
| Apres moi, le deluge racialiste |
leading his friends and employees to a bloody, pointless death; bestowing their friends and family grief and bereavement and gifting to the PBC, skymadeupnewsandfilth, C4 News and the entire ghastly political establishment, at home and abroad an unexpected but entirely welcome New Year thoughts'n'prayers jamboree. I would rather they were all still alive, the doodlers; I'd rather that Obama shut Guantanamo, jailed the CIA torturers, that Bibi stopped expanding into Palestine and that......fuck it, it doesn't matter, what I'd rather. mr mongoose and others have described this as the time of the Islamic Reformation; we had ours, we may not deny them theirs, no matter how hard we try. JeSuising his scabby arse off, Hislop said, last week, that nothing seemed very funny, just now; welcome, FatBoy, to the real world. .................................................................................
To read more of mr ishmael's fawts n' prares, there are four splendid anthologies of his work, compiled by his friend, mr verge, the house filthster. You can buy them from Amazon or Lulu. Here's how:
Honest Not Invent, Vent Stack, Ishmael’s Blues, and the latest, Flush Test (with a nice picture of the late, much lamented, Mr Harris of Lanarkshire taking a piss on a totem pole) are available from Lulu and Amazon. If you buy from Amazon, it would be nice if you could give a review on their website.IIshmaelites wishing to buy a copy from lulu should follow these steps
please register an account first, at lulu.com. This is advisable because otherwise paypal seems to think it's ok to charge in dollars, and they then apply their own conversion rate, which might put the price up slightly for a UK buyer. Once the new account is set up, follow one of the links below (to either paperback or hardback) or type "Ishmael’s Blues" into the Lulu Bookstore search box. Click on the “show explicit content” tab, give the age verification box a date of birth such as 1 January 1960, and proceed.
Link for Hardcover : https://tinyurl.com/je7nddfr
Link for Paperback : https://tinyurl.com/3jurrzux
https://www.lulu.com/shop/ishmael-smith/flush-test/paperback/product-9yjvn7.html?q=Flush+Test&page=1&pageSize=4
At checkout, try WELCOME15 in the coupon box, which (for the moment) takes 15% off the price before postage. If this code has expired by the time you reach this point, try a google search for "Lulu.com voucher code" and see what comes up.
With the 15% voucher, PB (including delivery to a UK address) should be £16.84; HB £27.04.
