Michael Portillo's TV's programme on the 1962 Cuban crisis

30 November 2018

Dear Michael

You mentioned American aggression in depth charging the Russian submarines that could easily have sunk one of them.  Does this not make the USA more culpable, especially when you omitted to mention the American Jupiter missiles on the border with the USSR, in Turkey that could have given the 'enemy' the idea of doing the same by making use of Cuba?  Or, am I misinformed?

With my ongoing campaign to get the UK's last, half finished and easily reinstated mainline railway of 120 Kms, I add this:

"It would help if we put a stop to the 60 years old idiocy of destroying and wasting our railway network in the West Midlands.  Over 100 Kms gone for good and 106 Kms still used only for freight or mothballed. For 100 years, all 200 Kms were used for freight and passenger trains.  Totally unnecessary greenhouse gases are being added from people in the Black Country and Brum using cars when they could be using commuter and regional trains.  There are now moves to get 20 Kms back into use but that still leaves 86 Kms wasted. Of the 86 Kms left, trams on a total of 6.7 Kms will destroy any hope of getting the 56 Kms finished with trains from Derby to Devon via Dudley and Burton to Bristol via Brierley Hill.  And the only feasible site for a rebuilt Dudley Castle Hill railway station is being destroyed with buildings. And they are not station buildings!

THIS AUTUMN’S IDIOCY

£1.5 billion for tram routes and Sprint diesel buses to replace buses on those routes and to stop for ever commuter and regional trains from returning.  More money than sense. I think the sensible thing to do is to use all of that money to give fareless buses for all and not just the few; to replace diesel buses with electric; and, bring in 100% bus lanes and traffic light priority for buses.  The purpose is to free up road space for drivers who really do need their vehicles for their jobs. I’m the true friend of the motorist.

Best wishes and thanks for the great programmes.

Tim

The Wild, White, Western Powers!

The West's world wars, after centuries of the European countries dominating everyone else, was the (not so grand) climax of centuries of warfare by and between these Christian, white, European nations.  The 2nd World War was the zenith, the high point (actually, of course, nadir or low point) of centuries of discrimination, persecution and hatred of the Jews, not by Muslims but by the Christian, white, European nations.

Questions for author and speaker, Kevin who was much taken by our victory in the battle of El Alamein as what prevented the Nazis from invading occupying what was then Palestine:-
From Christ's temptations, how would you conclude was His teaching on dominating other countries? From the Sermon on the Mount, how would you conclude was His teaching on warfare?

For President George Bush Jnr, the prophet Mohammed's teaching was "good and peaceful". What a pity that the President's actions, for all the many years after the 7 October 2001 when he launched his War of Terrorism, was the exact opposite of being "good and peaceful".

The exact opposite of "good and peaceful" was the hallmark of the first half of the 20th century and the second half was not much better - thanks to a string of American Presidents and European Prime Ministers, voted in by us!  A century of bloodshed and of white inspired conflicts.  It saw our wars (directly armed or in direct engagement), continuing on (almost immediately from 1945) in SE Asia and the Middle East.  It also very nearly saw a nuclear exchange between the two white, super powers over missiles both had installed - first, the Americans in Turkey on the Russian's doorstep and then, the Russians followed in Cuba on America's doorstep.

Brits: more American than European

David Reynold's 'Empire of Liberty' looking back over 1,000 years of history on the N American continent was fascinating for someone like me who is more horrified than delighted by the behaviour of our American kith and kin. I say kith and kin because we Brits colonised what is now the USA to escape religious persecution by other religious people in England. Spain, Portugal and France also colonised the continent but our military prevailed. Our ancestors in England and Europe, said Reynolds, brought God, guns and germs to the native American Indians, especially germs!

Empire of Liberty is both a contradiction in terms but also accurately summarises American history over the last 500 years, I think. Liberty for the white man; empire that enslaved millions of black people; and, empire that incorporates us and imperialism over the poor world or, the black (non white) nations in the world.

The native Indians had survived for thousands of years before the white man appeared on the scene and upset their apple cart - well and truly! Their civilisation was impressive and was sustainable, unlike our own that is built on the flawed foundations of black sand - oil, coal and gas. That means we are eating tomorrow's seed corn and, therefore, contain the seeds of our own destruction, as our resources exhaust and life support systems collapse from our behaviours that are so alien to how we should be living as part of nature and part of the earth and Earth. We belong to the earth and the Earth, rather than the Earth belonging to us!

I think, we Brits are hopeless Europeans because of these traditional links with the new country. They speak the same language, they built their new country on England's example but with great improvements and, there is much more inter-marriage with them than with our European neighbours.

Hopeless Europeans because we have fought countless wars with them over more than 1,000 years that, finally, culminated with the Great War and its sequel in 1939. The European empires around the world and their religious persecution and wars are also a feature of European and British history.

Whereas, our good friends the Americans have bailed us out twice in the World War in two halves and then bailed us out again with their enormous loan that we only finally paid off a couple of years ago! We, in our turn, for 64 years have been their staunchest allies in our joint wars against godless Communism from Korea to Cuba, today and military occupation of Arab lands to this day - Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran (to the overthrow of our stooge, the Shah), Afghanistan and Pakistan (our drones killing people in the borderlands). The Americans even supported us in the Falklands War after initially disapproving of Mrs T's bellicosity and intent to take back the islands.

As with the Middle East, our own green and pleasant land has been slowly disappearing under concrete runways, motorways, and American military bases for nuclear and conventional missiles and bombs. Our island is still America's largest aircraft carrier. We are, unofficially, the 51st state of the USA! We are the only nation that has a special relationship with them.

No wonder, so many Brits want independence from Europe and continuing dependance on hyper power, America!

The religious and political right is invariably wrong, hypocritical and inflamatory!

Our right wing governments and electorates love to assume that we are going to be attacked at any time. We love to have enemies, too. Both help to justify our armaments, our aggression and our attacks. Tough, hard, bellicose stances by our leaders always attract the love of the electorate and their votes. Our most outstanding post-war prime ministers have been our great war leaders, Churchill, Thatcher and Blair. Eden is discredited. His right wing Conservative Party Cabinet who, with France and Israel attacked Egypt, failed to get the agreement and support of the USA and so lost the war.

For 63 years, the right in the US/UK/Israel first invented and used, and then maintained the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. The right wing democracies soon made the Bomb too destructive to be of any practical use. Yet, even so, our side came the nearest to using them in 1962 after our side provocatively put Jupiter missiles in Turkey near the border with the Soviet Union - our number one enemy. The political and religious right wingers worked hard to persuade Kennedy to use nuclear weapons - for a second occasion being the first to use them. A more right wing, Republican president, might not have resisted their demands to nuke the evil, Communist Russians.

Our side has always been the most bellicose in word and deed in attacking countries with Communist rulers or, governments with militant, Islamic tendencies that refuse to behave like we do in the world. Well, when you have all earthly power, of course might is right and you have a duty under God to make other nations as blessed and democratic and as Christian as yours!

Our side has tried hard to make more user friendly battlefield nuclear weapons that could be of practical use in our wars around the world. We have always made the running in finding new ways to spend our one-off wealth on ever more sophisticated and wonderful conventional and nuclear weapon systems, eg Polaris to make us independent of the US, Cruise missiles, star wars, renewing Trident - and all when the US is our best and closest buddy; and, the only country with whom we have a special relationship.

We don't believe in balance - only imbalance in favour of the US, UK, Israel! The other side gets it in the neck from our invasions, attacks and occupations if the other side, our enemy, try and correct the imbalance to make for less aggression by our side. Our behaviour around the world in attacking countries without nuclear weapons, sends the powerful signal to them that they must have the Bomb to prevent them from being attacked - and attacked by us; us who are always right and righteous and well intentioned and always know what is best for everyone else!

Our right wing electorates in the world's super-power bloc, love hard, tough, warring leaders to throw their weight about and to command the love and respect of the electorate. Democracy means war, aggression and war crimes - even from 1945 - by the great, outstanding and upstanding democracies! Right is wrong - for both our right wing political leaders and the right wing Christians who are right in there, whispering encouragements in their ears.

Might is right for the right, who are always right and blessed of the Lord. They are the righteous of the Lord, after all!