Isn't Christianity mean to be non-violent? Of course not, silly me!

The Christian faith, I believe is morally bankrupt when it supports the killing of Russians in the Ukraine War and the killing of Gazans in the Gazan War.  Supports because it is so anti-Communist and anti-Muslim and very, very, very anti-evil!  And very, very hypocritical because they don't believe their own crystal clear teaching of their own Lord and Master.  Astonishing!

All so unnecessary in the case of our great friend and ally, Israel if only their people had been prepared to share the Unholy Land with the Palestinians in peaceful co-existence.  And, with being a Good Samaritan to Palestine.  And, ending the obscene reality of Israel being the Rich Man in his castle and the oppressed, controlled and coerced Gaza being the Poor Man at his gate.

Putrid was rightfully livid at the overthrow of his man in Ukraine in Feb 2014

Dear friends

I have left my Birmingham and Black Country branch of Left Unity because of their backing for our war on Russia.  I think the members are out of order for these reasons:

The men and women on all sides, of violence, war, of arms manufacturing and trading are wholly to blame for our Western-backed war in Yemen and Ukraine that is accelerating global ecocide and the slaughter of the innocents.

We could have dissolved NATO at the same time as the Warsaw Pact was dissolved in the 1990s.  It was all take and no give as we took full advantage of the Russian break up of the USSR.  We cashed in on their discomfiture and rapidly took over nearly all the former satellite states of the USSR and welcomed them with open arms into the American-led, Western fold.  This was far too good an opportunity to let slip, as we expanded eastwards.  But restraint could have been shown and membership of NATO and the EU could have been declined or, better, the invitation not made at all.

We should have been more circumspect then, as we are now over Ukraine's membership of NATO.  We are now more conscious of Russia's feelings on the matter.  But that was sadly lacking thirty years ago, twenty years and certainly ten years ago as Western firebrands overthrew a properly and fairly elected pro-Russian President in February 2014.  The straw that broke the camel's back.  These Western/American enthusiasts could not wait for the next nationwide election.  So another Western coup d'état was added to the worldwide list.

We could have taken up Putrid's offer of help in the wake of 9/11 in 2001 but, no way could we show weakness and give this Russian nationalist, our traditional enemy and wicked, nasty Communist any slight idea that we were compromising our principles and accepting his help.

So the weapons of destruction to add to our own mass destruction from burning up all the finite fossil fuels we can lay our hands on, pour into Ukraine to hasten ecocide.

Support the fight for freedom in Ukraine OR, freedom from being killed, injured, maimed or suffering from radiation sickness?

Is it really worth all the deaths, maiming, possible nuclear radiation and the flattening of towns and cities to be officially part of NATO and the EU?

The UK is out of the EU but Ukraine wants in - to spite Pariah Putrid.  Yet, our expansion eastwards right up to Russia's border, our wish to dominate as much of the world, for the best of all possible reasons, has gone on for centuries.

Centuries of exploration, of stealing resources and whole peoples for 300 years of slavery.  Colonialism on a massive scale by us Brits.  The scramble for Africa by European empires did not set a good example to Russia.

The welcoming of the former Soviet satellite states into the Western fold has been intensely provocative for Russian nationalists like Putrid who, understandably I think, wanted it stopped.  The Feb 2014 Western Revolution of Dignity was the last straw for Putrid.  Then, eight years of war with no talks, nothing being done to end it, led to the full-scale invasion of Feb 2022.  No efforts to understand, empathise or even to sympathise or, to make concessions - like no more NATO exercises in the former Soviet states; nukes to be taken out of the former USSR states; and no more former Soviet states becoming part of NATO.

Any concessions, any compromise, any restraint by our side was seen as appeasement.  We would be seen as ignominious "cheese-eating surrender monkeys."  How absolutely pathetic as we all go down with the killing of people like my family and me by the truly evil men and women of violence on both/all sides.

Mutual suicide is what it amounts to, I think, like the ecocidal consumption and growth of 250 years from the greedy, unthinking exploitation of finite fossil fuels for all their worth.  Plus, the unfortunate deadly consequence from changing, disastrously, the chemical composition of the atmosphere to change the climates of the world for the worse.

WE CALL ALL THIS FREEDOM - and it really does mean that we all end up dying.  Stupid, foolish humanity finding ourselves outlived by the dinosaurs by many millions of years!

Diane Abbott was right in what she wrote

Diane Abbott was right in what she wrote.  Of course, there are degrees of racism with the Nazi kind being the worse we have ever seen in the 20th century.  But the 300 years of European and American white racism that killed and enslaved millions of black people is skated over.  Is that not the worse crime against humanity that we humans have ever inflicted on our own species?

However, that is played down because we were the perpetrators and, even worse, our Head of State has never apologised, let alone made reparations to the victims' relatives.  By only compensating the perpetrators, the Head of State has added insult to injury in the eyes of our Commonwealth partners.  Similarly, we cannot be too critical of our great friend and ally, the Israelis because we don't want to lose their friendship when the Jewish community in the UK is easily the most important and highly valued minority community.  And, of course, their land is the home of our national faith for the last thousand years.  When our Jewish friends talk of anti-Semitism we sit up and take notice.  We jump, damn pronto.  However, it has led to Keir Starmer, I believe, to act egregiously ("extremely and conspicuously badly") against Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott.

It is high time that Starmer shows some real leadership by setting a fine example in talking and then acting about the urgency to curtail the exporting of all armaments originating in the UK that are killing our fellow human beings in Palestine, Sudan and in Ukraine.  Keep British armaments on British soil for the defence of our land, only.

Gas has no long term future

Get PV solar on as much of your roof as you can.

Next, ideally, use electricity when the sun is shining but each appliance one at a time - consecutively.

We are slowly getting more electricity from renewables, unlike depleting gas which has a shorter lifespan than renewables. Gas is also bad news because of the Ukraine War.

The West is also to blame for Ukraine War

FROM CHRIS NINEHAM of Stop the War Coalition

"Just a few months ago even leading military figures in the US were saying publicly that negotiations were necessary to end this war. Like almost all conflicts, the war in Ukraine will ultimately end in negotiations, but the current policy of escalation makes the prospect of peace talks more and more remote, prolonging the agony of the Ukrainian people.

"Despite this and repeated warnings from foreign policy experts that there can be no winners in this war and that NATO policy over the last few decades has contributed to the crisis, there is no space in the British media or politics for anti-war voices.

"It is crucial in these circumstances that everyone who is against escalation from both sides and wants to see a peaceful resolution to this terrible war takes a public stand."

For the best of all possible reasons, our side always feels it has to expand and dominate and promote its culture and democracy to Russia and China

For the best of all possible reasons, our side always feels it has to expand and dominate and promote its culture and democracy to, Russia and China, in particular!

Four regions of Ukraine annexed by Russia, this week (end Sept 2022).

All my life I considered Ukraine as being part of the USSR and had more in common with Moscow than Washington, London or Paris.  Especially, when Crimea was given to Ukraine by Kruschev in 1954, I think it was, when I was 6 years of age.

MOST UNFORTUNATE!

Our foolish crowing over winning the Cold War in 1991 when it was Gorbachev who magnanimously initiated its ending;

our failure to credit the Russian submarine commander who chose not to fire his nuclear missiles when he was being depth charged by the USAF in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis;

our failure to disband NATO when the Warsaw Pact disbanded;

our promotion to Moscow of the Chicago Boys and their right-wing, trickle down, the rich first and last, economics;

our warm embrace of the extremely wealthy Russian oligarchs to London;

yet, our failure to be generous, open and friendly with Russia after Yeltsin, when Putin came along;

our failure to welcome his offer of help after 9/11, 2001;

or to understand his strong right-wing, nationalistic and patriotic Russian feelings;

the idiocy of being unable to get into the mind of Putin in order to maintain good relations with him, when things had started out so promisingly;

the sheer stupidity of President Bush, in April 2008 in Bucharest, Romania in persuading his allies to open the door for both Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO, despite Putin's disgust ("an open-ended promise of membership one day ... Putin made his displeasure plain" - 'The World Tonight', Radio 4 on 29.11.22);

our view that conceding anything to Putin was wicked appeasement, so that our sphere of influence, our NATO and military exercises and nukes had to come right up to the Russian border;

our NATO "was founded in 1949 as a counterweight to the Soviet Union" and "any state in the alliance is effectively under US protection" but it led to the Warsaw Pact being formed in 1955 to counterbalance NATO but dissolved in 1991 after our mighty Cold War victory;

our subsequent subsuming of the former Warsaw Pact members into NATO;

our being shamelessly unapologetic (not even regretful) at our side overthrowing their fairly elected pro Russian president that initiated the disastrous war in February 2014 that ratcheted up a gear or two, eight years later - this year.

All this has contributed to the tragedy of the West siding with Ukraine and funding its war and training its troops, when it was not a member of NATO and, when we had not made it clear to Putrid that this is what we would do if he invaded Ukraine;

If I lived in one of the four regions annexed, I would not care a toss whether Zelensky or Putin ruled over me.  I would simply want my friends, my family, and myself to stay alive and earn a liveable income/pension to the natural end of my days.

The scale of the horror, the fear, the killings and destruction over where a national boundary line should be drawn on a map.  It is just not worth it, in my opinion.  But how we humans love to hate and kill one another to make a point - or a boundary line.  Our death wish to make us one of the most short-lived species in the history of the planet!!

Tim Weller    1 October 2022 (updated 30 Nov 2022)

I suppose this does, rather obviously, display my thoroughly jaundiced and agnostic and sceptical and dissident views!

from Quora

Finland and Sweden joining NATO. As a master chess player, Putin must have foreseen this long ago. Why does Putin want to force Finland and Sweden joining NATO? What he's trying to gain from it?

You put Putin on a pedestal by imagining him as a fine strategist.  It is true that Putin has long had this reputation, but the moves he has made in recent months clearly show that Putin has lost his foresight.

His worst nightmare was to see NATO on his borders. His worst nightmare was to see the West getting stronger again.

Instead of letting the moribund NATO (SELF: Hardly moribund with NATO military exercises and nukes in E Europe!) do its thing, Putin was so afraid of the democracy that was beginning to flourish in Ukraine that he decided to invade Ukraine on February 24, 2022, thinking that no one would do anything except a few words of indignation.

SELF:  The invasion started in 2014.  With 14,000 dead up to Feb 2022 since the violent overthrow by pro-Western firebrands of the pro-Russian President of Ukraine in Feb 2014, the invasion must have started then.  It was like a red rag to a bull to a nationalist and patriot like Putin.

Putin underestimated NATO, the West, and the Ukrainians while overestimating his weak and unmotivated army.

In the end, Putin is getting his worst nightmare and has locked himself into a strategy from which he cannot escape, or else he will be humiliated in front of his people and end up losing their consent. Even people who have been trained by strong propaganda and oppressed would not be able to bear to find out that Putin has started a useless war for the sake of his ego.

The end of Putin has already begun. The beginning of the end is known: February 24, 2022. The exact date of his fall is yet to be determined.

from Stop the War Coalition

This week our Vice President and founder member Jeremy Corbyn has once again come under fire for standing up for peace. He said in relation to the war in Ukraine that...

"Pouring arms in isn’t going to bring about a solution, it’s only going to prolong and exaggerate this war...This war is disastrous for the people of Ukraine, for the people of Russia, and for the safety and security of the whole world, and therefore there has to be much more effort put into peace.”

 

He's right. And we must further his call for peace and negotiation.

Russia has us over a barrel

Thanks, Bob and Bob WF, for your thoughts.

I thought what you and Mike said was brilliant and was so worth hearing.  And you both spoke so well.  It meant a really good discussion instead of everyone saying exactly the same thing and agreeing all the time - very boring!

Self-determination and self-defence for Ukraine is absolutely right.  However, that does mean fighting to the bitter end with using every violent means at your disposal and killing as many Russian invaders as you can!  However, that is not for me.  For me, killing, coercion and violence is just not on, with my Quaker leanings.

If I was a man of violence, I still would feel it was a hopeless cause when the enemy is the second most powerful Super Power in the world.  My own tactic would be the minimum collaboration with the Russian invader as I could muster, short of getting locked up for the rest of my life.  If I really couldn't stomach the Russian occupation, I would get out to some other country to live and start a new life.

I also feel that the longer the war goes on with all our American and Western weapons piling in, the longer the war will last and the more people like me will get slaughtered.  My taxes are to go on some weapons, certainly but, for the UK, only and are not to be exported or used in other countries to kill their people.

Ukrainian refugees welcomed but not the rest!

My jaundiced observation, Stuart:-

Ukrainian refugees welcomed; every other nationality frowned upon and sent packing to Rwanda. Like we banished miscreants to Australia.

I was delighted to see the Palestine national flag flying high over Bishops Castle Town Hall today! (A beautiful old town in Shropshire)

Absolutely superb 'A Point of View' from Michael Morpurgo on Radio 4 on Sunday 22 May.

Wikipedia extract re Revolution of Dignity

Protesters occupied government buildings in many regions of Ukraine. The uprising climaxed on 18–20 February, when fierce fighting in Kyiv between Maidan activists and police resulted in the deaths of almost 100 protesters and 13 police.^[64]

As a result, an agreement was signed on 21 February 2014 by Yanukovych and leaders of the parliamentary opposition that called for the creation of an interim unity government, constitutional reforms and early elections. Shortly after the agreement, Yanukovych and other government ministers fled the country.^[89] Parliament then removed Yanukovych from office^[90] and installed an interim government.^[91] The Revolution of Dignity was soon followed by the Russian annexation of Crimea and pro-Russian unrest in Eastern Ukraine.

The seeds sown in the 1990s; bearing fruit in the 2010s

Rather late in the day, Russian nationalists, like Putrid Putin woke up to how the American-led West was nibbling away at its former sphere of influence over so much of E Europe over a twenty to thirty-year period. It started with the ending of the Cold War with Russia losing out, big time to the West as former Warsaw Pact countries changed sides and joined NATO and/or the EU.  This must have been very hard for the Russian nationalists to swallow.

Russia's feelings in all this was never considered, I'm sure.  Then, our (violent - over 100 killed) Revolution of Dignity in Maidan Sq was the last straw for Putrid and, the Russian separatists in the East of Ukraine who rose up in counter-revolt.  Putrid took back Crimea in revenge.  The West never protested and I thought that was hardly surprising when our side overthrew a pro-Russian President Yanukovych who had been properly and fairly elected in 2010.

I don't think we should have let them join the two big Western clubs.  We should have said, 'Stay friends with all your neighbours, especially Russia and don't provoke them.  The West cannot possibly give you everything you want out of respect for Russian feelings.  And certainly don't poke the Big Bear.

"Unconditional surrender from Russia and, it must return Crimea", says Liz Truss

Hi Mike - our expert on foreign affairs.

Did our side overthrow the pro-Russian Ukrainian government in Feb 2014 and that led Russia to take back Crimea and start the separatists' war in Donbas that led to 14,000 killings in Ukraine up to Feb 2022?

MIKE'S REPLY:

For a short answer within my understanding, which is limited because I am not an expert on Ukrainian political and social movements, although I have a degree of knowledge of Russian and Soviet history, I can say the following.

1). Putin has his own motives for his actions in 2014 so to imply that his actions were a reaction to others only is not to attempt an understanding of the emergence of Putin as the dominant political leader in Russia after Yeltsin and the international strategies and policies that he has developed since then. Any actions he took in 2014 needs to be understood within that context. Taking that as read, his actions in 2014 were in response to the political events within the Ukraine which moved in a direction that rejected the leadership of Yanukovich and the pro-Russian policies he wanted to pursue and those within the Ukraine who favoured a pro-Russian policy. The context within Ukraine is that after the decisive vote in the independence referendum of 1991, Ukrainian political movements switched between western and Russian oriented political tendencies with external support from western states and from Russia. Both tendencies were heavily dominated by oligarchic capitalist groups dominating the economy, media and politics. 

2). The USA and the intelligence services allied to them like ours have a long reach and western states have a far greater economic power than Russia and the ability to offer incentives that Russia cannot match and although the overthrow of Yanukovich in 2014 was an internally driven political process within the Ukraine I suspect it was supported covertly by western intelligence and its agencies like the National Endowment for Democracy and overtly because of the offers from the EU states of a partnership agreement with the west. Internally Ukrainian political movements were torn after 1991 into either a western or Russian international orientation which shifted in each of the elections after 1991. I do not accept the 2014 overthrow of Yanukovich as coup directed by the western powers.

3). Political movements in the Donbas were more allied to a pro-Russian orientation and as a major industrial zone since the 19^th century it had strong ties to Russia economically which made it more understandable they were more sympathetic to Russia. Russia intervened with covert military support to political movements that wanted more autonomy for the regions and the attempt to set up separatist movements after 2014. I have read conflicting reports as to how genuine the separatist sentiment amongst the wider Donbas population was.

So in summary what I am saying is that what has happened is down to internal political and social movements within the Ukraine, these movements are not proxies for external states. External states have tried to influence these Ukrainian political movements. In my view Russia took the more aggressive response to what was happening in the Ukraine than that of western states. 

Mike

MINE:

Very many thanks for this, Mike.

I am very concerned that our side felt unable to wait for a chance to overthrow Yanukovich in a competently and fairly run election.  This was an own goal by liberal democratic forces within Ukraine.  An utter tragedy that was, possibly, not condemned by the American/UK-led West at the time.  Putrid Putin must have been absolutely furious!  Hence, the 2021 re-assurances or demands that were never forthcoming from NATO before the war's escalation in Feb 22. Our side called it appeasement if we did what Putrid wanted.  Liz Truss is demanding unconditional surrender and the return of Crimea, instead.

Is this a fair summary, Mike?

16 June 2022:

I do fear that the UK's open-arms approach to Ukrainian refugees fleeing war and our firmly closed arms to refugees from every other war-torn country, does give the game away.  It shows how we will welcome those suffering at the hands of our No 1 sworn enemy, Russia and her war (fueled by our gifts of "only 'defensive' weapons" to make it our war, too).  No way do they have to risk drowning in the Channel, only to be jetted off to Rwanda.  We are not so welcoming to those from our own initiated wars in past years, like Afghanistan and Iraq or from our present war on Yemen!

Do remember that the West's wars and Russia's wars are all good for the capitalist armament factories in America and Europe and in Russia.  All helpful for economic growth and the fat profits for the armament kings and queens.  Never unemployment or low wages for those workers.  No industrial action, ever from trade unions in the factories churning out the weapons to kill and maim.  Only strikes from the railway workers next week when one of their leaders, last decade, publicly said that they would use their muscle to get more wages for nurses!

Only one railway worker, the brave and campaigning train driver Dave Parsons, has helped and supported me in my efforts to highlight, and our attempt to stop, the sheer scale and the long decades of our self-inflicted and ongoing destruction of about one-third of our railway network for roads and buildings and private gardens.  Dave resigned from ASLEF a couple of years ago in disgust at his union.

Tim

This is grossly immoral and shocking but everyone is in denial!

Dear friends - will even one of you ever reply?  I doubt it.  Prove me wrong.  I do expect, at the very least, for the three bishops to act decisively, unitedly and bravely, please.  SPEAK OUT!  And it would be nice if Bishop David in Manchester could also respond, since he was also present in Dudley when the immorality and folly of Metro was being rolled out onto railway lines - from as long ago as 1981.

This is grossly immoral and shocking but everyone is in denial!

We have 10% inflation and a cost of living crisis from shortages and our war with Russia.  We are fueling and, some say, we started the Ukraine War in February 2014 with the violent overthrow of the properly and fairly 2010 elected, pro-Russian Ukraine President.

Yet, every West Midlands councillor and all Dudley and all W Mids MPs fully support and agree with the January 2020 press release from Andy Street that, on his re-election, £15 BILLION to 2040 would be spent on eight Metro lines over 150 miles with 380 tram stops.  This is the wondrous West Midlands Metro to replace some bus routes and train services with a "bus on rails" tram.

Therefore, right now, this means Metro's hundreds of millions of pounds are being wasted and immorally spent.  Like their intention to destroy the only public open space at Merry Hill Shopping Centre and, the nearest thing it has to a nature conservation site, partly due to my organic guerrilla gardening, with the knowledge of the owners, over the decades.  The official plan is at the foot of this email.

At Merry Hill, the 400 metres of Dudley's premier No 1 Canal embankment is due to be ruined by the Metro tram needing a massive, double-track, concrete and steel railway/tram viaduct for the trams, across the high grass and tree/shrub-covered embankment.  For over £50 million, I would guess.  Certainly, it should be going to those on state benefits as should the well over £500 million, for the Dudley Tram.

What is even more shocking is that every West Midlands transport expert and every regional politician, sincerely believe that all this is necessary to get the UK's only mothballed mainline railway completed in the middle section (56 Kms between Stourbridge to Burton on Trent) on the 120 Kms, half used, Worcester to Derby railway.  They say the tram on a total of 6.7 Kms is the catalyst to finish the full 120 Kms with freight, commuter and regional trains.  How absurd!

What is even worse, is that only one train driver and one member of Railfuture, believe that what I have written here is correct.  Everyone else believes that Metro is the best thing since sliced bread, is the silver bullet to solve all our road traffic congestion and air pollution problems and, I am lying!

It is like what Jonathan Freedland has written, in his new book, about the man who broke out of Auschwitz, so knew exactly what was going on with the Nazi's attempt to wipe out the Jews. He told the authorities but, nothing was ever done.  Not even the bombing of the railway lines to the concentration camps.  So we had six million Jews killed.  Only this one man was at all bothered!

Very many people are finding it increasingly hard to heat their homes and even to eat healthily.  Yet, the uncaring, immoral authorities want the money, NOT to go to these people but, on replacing buses and trains with a grandiose, wealth flaunting, status symbol of pure prestige - how pathetic!

Are the Christians going to continue to be part of the majority, guilty silence brigade?

Tim Weller

DISGRACEFUL BEHAVIOUR BY THOSE WHO SHOULD KNOW BETTER

DISGRACEFUL BEHAVIOUR BY THOSE WHO SHOULD KNOW BETTER

Laura Shoaf laura.shoaf@wmca.org.uk

Customer Services    customerservices@tfwm.org.uk

Customer Services at WMCA customerservices@wmca.org.uk

George Duggins george.duggins@coventry.gov.uk

Ian Brookfield    ian.brookfield@wolverhampton.gov.uk

Ian Courts    icourts@solihull.gov.uk

Ian Ward    Ian.Ward@birmingham.gov.uk

Mike Bird    cllr.mike.bird@walsall.gov.uk

Patrick Harley    Cllr.Patrick.Harley@dudleymbc.org.uk

Rajbir Singh    Rajbir_Singh@sandwell.gov.uk

Deborah Cadman    deborah.cadman@birmingham.gov.uk

Dr Helen Paterson    Helen.Paterson@walsall.gov.uk

Kevin O'Keefe (Kerry Jones)    Kevin.OKeefe@dudley.gov.uk

Kim Bromley-Derry    Kim_BromleyDerry@sandwell.gov.uk

Martin Reeves    martin.reeves@coventry.gov.uk

Nick Page    npage@solihull.gov.uk

Tim Johnson    tim.johnson@wolverhampton.gov.uk

Midlands Connect    mcstrategy@midlandsconnect.uk

Richard Parry richard.parry@canalrivertrust.org.uk

Mayor’s Office MayorsOffice@wmca.org.uk

1. BBC's Nick Robinson correctly called Partygate "Lie Gate" in 'Political Thinking' on 7 May 2022 with Jacob Rees Mogg.

2. In 1997, Dudley MBC and the Canal and River Trust oversaw the most useless and incompetent canal restoration in (not so) heavenly Halesowen - putting water in the canal might now cause the whole canal embankment to collapse!!

3. The "Revolution of Dignity" is the overthrow of the fairly elected pro-Russian President of Ukraine in 2014 to kick off the killings; now escalated to the Ukraine War.

4. Russia's "special military operation" for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

5. Centenary Square was built, demolished, and rebuilt three times in less than 20 years - in this century.  The latest version cost £16 m!

6. The free-flowing Brum inner ring road was demolished in three places to bring us all clogged-up traffic, lots of traffic lights and a greater distance to slowly drive on one-way streets!!

7. The canal at Selly Oak's Sainsbury's is safeguarded but these wealthy corporations and authorities could not finish it with water.

8. Matt's cartoon in the Telegraph with the delicious truth:

Tory banner on the side of a campaign bus: "CONSERVATIVES: Reducing crime by committing less of it."

(re the top party-goer who is the PM - Party Master - and head of government lying and law-breaking repeatedly over the shocking spate/flood of illegal Downing St parties, aka "gatherings"!)

ARTIST WANTED FOR CARTOON

My cartoon that needs the Telegraph's Matt-like skill to draw this:-

Transport officials peering down from a disused railway bridge upon a gridlocked motorway, scratching their heads & agonising about how to reduce congestion.

 

This refers to every tunnel, bridge and viaduct built over 120 Kms but 56 Kms in the middle are still without freight and passenger trains. Yet, it runs parallel or near, to traffic-choked main roads, M5 and M6!

'Ah! But you don't mention, Tim that trams must go on a total of 9 Kms', say the transport officials, as "Light rail investment provides the basis for restoring heavy rail services at the appropriate time."

However, the appropriate time has never come in 22 years.  And how eccentric and weird to think that a principal mainline railway "of national strategic significance" can only be finished with the rather vital freight and passenger trains and stations, by first putting 22 mph Metro trams and 17 tram stops on two nibble sized sections!!

 

PHOTOS to be shocked or intrigued or be laughed over:

M6 Toll banner 01.jpg

M6 Toll 03.jpg

Over half a billion pounds of "bus on rails" Metro destroys the above half-finished 120 Kms Worcester to Derby railway and these trees, all for a stranded, 'shuttle' tramline on a former mainline railway that does not even connect with the two railway sections between Worcester and Derby, at either end.  It is needed for freight trains, anyway.  So what is the point of Metro?

6 glorious white trees.jpg

Exactly where the mighty tram viaduct goes!

 

9.  Laura Shoaf’s "passive provision" only means the same standard gauge for both trams and trains to magically enable the tramline on our 120 Kms Black Country Mainline Railway being upgraded to a full mainline railway, only after well over half a billion pounds has gone on the trams first.

10.  It only took our politicians nearly 50 years to pay a £400m debt to Iran!

11.  Canal boaters on a high, 400 metre embankment at Merry Hill will have their view of the hills obliterated by a massive concrete, double-track, railway viaduct for the railway of "national strategic significance" to be turned into a piddling little shuttle tram line - to nowhere!

12. The highly prestigious, wealth-flaunting, over-indulgent Metro tramline now blocks Broad Street and Five Ways underpass, to make buses join all the traffic on gridlocked side streets rammed with parked cars!

 

FROM: timweller1@gmail.com    0791 380 4363

MY BRIEFING ON THE RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN WAR

 

MY BRIEFING ON THE RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN WAR - but only the first two paragraphs are mine.  Written on:

 

Tuesday, 10 April 2018

The West is Best - or is it the Worst?

SELF: The West backing Westernisation of Ukraine was NOT a good idea!  Not a word of protest or objection or dismay was expressed by the American led West when, in February 2014, 50 civilians were killed in Kyiv and a fairly elected, pro Russian government was overthrown and a pro Western government installed.  That worked well for the West because our man was installed, only 50 people were killed and it was quickly over within the week.

SELF:  Overthrowing the Syrian government, however, has gone horribly wrong for the West over these last seven years.  In addition, Assad was an ophthalmologist in London for a time.  Was he given a state visit to London on one occasion?  Is this man another monster of our own making?  He came from the West, it seems.  Is the West a glowing, good and righteous example to the rest of the world in any respects at all?

"​Ukraine gained independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and has since veered between seeking closer integration with Western Europe and being drawn into the orbit of Russia, which sees its interests as threatened by a Western-leaning Ukraine.​"​    BBC News​

Take Crimea for instance.  More than half of its 2 million people are Russian, and Russia still maintains a naval base there. In fact, the region was part of Russia until 1954, when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gave it to Ukraine as a present. When the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, Crimea became part of an independent Ukraine.

Pro Russian Viktor Yanukovych overthrown in February 2014; Pro Western Petro Poroshenko installed.

Why Ukraine Is Such A Big Deal For Russia   February 21, 2014 11:52 AM ET

KRISHNADEV CALAMUR

https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/02/21/280684831/why-ukraine-is-such-a-big-deal-for-russia

Gives:

Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to stem his country's decline in global influence: Moscow's leverage in places like Ukraine is one way to preserve that influence. But there are other reasons why Ukraine is of deep interest to Russia — reasons that have more to do with history, faith, economics and culture.

A Special Relationship

Matthew Rojansky, director of the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center, says the two countries "are joined at the hip": They share language; Russian media are popular in Ukraine; there are family ties; many Ukrainians work in Russia; and Russians have billions of dollars invested in Ukraine.

"Their relationship is like the U.S.-U.K. special relationship," Rojansky says.

Historically, those ties date back to before the Soviet Union — and even before the days of the Russian empire that began in the 18th century.

Many consider Ukraine to be the birthplace of the region's Orthodox Christianity. Ukraine then became part of the Russian empire, and later part of the Soviet Union, where Ukrainian men were pivotal in the Soviet defeat of the German army in World War II. (Ukraine was perhaps the most important Soviet republic after Russia).

Linguistic And Economic Ties

Linguistically, as we've told you before, most Ukrainians speak both Ukrainian and Russian. But it's the eastern and southern parts of the country where Russian speakers dominate, and where Russia still holds influence.

Take Crimea, for instance. More than half of its 2 million people are Russian, and Russia still maintains a naval base there. In fact, the region was part of Russia until 1954, when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gave it to Ukraine as a present. When the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, Crimea became part of an independent Ukraine.

Millions of Ukrainians work in Russia, and according to the EU-funded Migration Policy Centre, the Russia-Ukraine border is the second-largest migration corridor in the world. (The U.S.-Mexico border is the largest.) The center says that in 2011, more than one-third of all Ukrainian migration was to Russia.

Russian companies are one of the largest investors in Ukraine, accounting for 7 percent of total foreign investment in 2013, according to official Ukrainian statistics. And when Yanukovych walked away from the deal on closer economic and political ties with the EU, Russia said it would buy $15 billion worth of Ukrainian bonds, giving Kiev an economic lifeline. (But on Friday Moscow said it was taking a wait-and-see approach to the events unfolding across the border.)

Ukraine is also a key component of Russia's plans for a Eurasian customs union with some other former Soviet states. But as Steven Pifer, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, told NPR's Robert Siegel, "for many Ukrainians, and I even think for President Yanukovych, that's not where they want to go."

Seeds Of Discord

The crisis in Ukraine is, in many ways, a conflict about the former Soviet republic's future direction: Should it look westward toward the EU or maintain close ties with Russia?

Until recently, this wasn't an either/or question, says Stephen Sestanovich, a professor of international diplomacy at Columbia University.

"For 20-odd years, it has been possible for the Ukrainians to kind of have it both ways," Sestanovich told NPR's Siegel. "What is now the troubling issue on the agenda is the perception of a lot of people that you do have to choose, and that is producing violence across Ukraine."

There are historical reasons for some of the antipathy — especially in the western part of Ukraine that borders Poland, where the protests against Yanukovych have been the loudest. This area was once part of Poland and Austro-Hungary, and became part of Ukraine only when World War II began.

Ukraine was the victim of the 1932-33 famine induced by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Later, it was among the Soviet republics that bore the brunt of the Chernobyl disaster.

Those events undoubtedly resonated in the public memory for years: Ukraine was one of the first Soviet republics to vote for independence from the USSR. It did so overwhelmingly in 1991. The Soviet Union fell apart soon after that.

The West Backed the Wrong Man in Ukraine - Bloomberg

gives:

"Poroshenko, who had briefly served as Ukraine's foreign minister, looked worldlier than his predecessor, the deposed Viktor Yanukovych, and spoke passable English. He and his first prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, knew what the U.S. State Department and Vice President Joe Biden, who acted as the Obama administration's point man on Ukraine, wanted to hear. So, as Ukraine emerged from the revolutionary chaos of January and February 2014, the U.S., and with it the EU, backed Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk as Ukraine's next leaders. Armed with this support, not least with promises of major technical aid and International Monetary Fund loans, they won elections, posing as Westernizers who would lead Ukraine into Europe. But their agendas turned out to be more self-serving."