We must, please practise democracy ourselves - on 8 Nov!

Jules, Richard, Chris, Bob

We must please practise democracy ourselves - on 8 Nov!

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Our meeting is 8 Nov; their forum on transport is 21 Nov.  Therefore, as the first item on the 8th can we please have a discussion and vote on whether what I am proposing is acceptable to you four key players and, to the others who attend on the 8th?

TfWM/WMCA must be lambasted for lack of democracy over Feb 2020, £15 billion Metro extensions without discussion, debate, vote.  NOT ONCE SINCE 1981 when the Metro development started!!

I am proposing for the officers on the 21st to respond to this:

1.   The immediate scrapping of High Scam 2 (not in their remit, I know but we were successful in scrapping the eastern arm), Metro extensions and Sprint extensions.  Tens of billions of pounds are being spent to 2040 on 150 miles of Metro expansion, alone!

2.   POSITIVE: The carrot of Fare-Free Public Transport extended from my old crocks age group to everyone else.

3.   HELPFUL: The stick of the Clean Air Zone made stricter; as well as road pricing to penalise the car commuters who don't need their motors for their job but who thoughtlessly clog up the road space for essential business users.

4.   CONSTRUCTIVE: My two year Hagley Road experiment, as here:​

 24 month experiment on Hagley Road

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These basic, vital proposals are in the light of multiple crises: climate, energy, cost of living, inflation, resource shortages, population, spending way beyond what the planet can possibly deliver.  My proposals/suggestions are for pure humanitarian reasons - above all else!

The completion of the well over half a billion pounds (and similar weight in ruinous GHG emissions!), WBHE (the tragic, immoral Dudley Tram) is being fast tracked by the new foolish Truss government, would you believe!  I want it stopped at Level Street to save, at Merry Hill, housing land, public open space canal embankment, a nature site that includes my guerrilla garden and, trees, shrubs.​

 6 glorious white trees.jpg

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Tim Weller

People before Profit and Perversity

People before Profit and Perversity

Democracy did bring us climate-wrecking, concreting of nature, HS2. 

Not a single vote brings us HS2's little sister, Metro "bus on rails" trams that make climate problems worse and gives us a worse journey - even for motorists!

Anything the top officers want goes and the politicians rubber-stamp it.

We must expose wrongdoing at WMCA.

3 matters have still not been admitted, re Metro.

These people, at 16 Summer Lane, have no regard for us who have to suffer the consequences. 

Write, phone, text to Transport for W Midlands: customerservices@tfwm.org.uk

To councillors and MPs at: writetothem.com

Let's tell 'em what is wrong and what is essential, instead - electric buses directly on roads and FREE for every passenger, not just me and the rest of the grey, balding brigade!

timweller1@gmail.com for more information or, for your point of view - please! 

Reply to allReplyForward

Regional government by decree not democracy is totally unacceptable

Please remember that, in your position, you can ask for commuter and regional trains on the double tracks that don't get Metro or the VLR test track - nearly 50 Kms for passenger/freight trains to relieve chronic congestion on M5/M6 and main roads.

On page 30, here, W Midlands Rail Executive in Oct 2018, were wanting passenger trains and two stations between Stourbridge Junction and the Canal Street tram stop on the tram line/railway line.​  Look for the green line on the map with two stations marked.  You'll need to enlarge it.

 Stourbridge-Brierley Hill Railway plan.pdf

​​In that case, they might just as well put the trains all the way through to Dudley, Walsall, Lichfield and Derby!.  Plus nine stations all for less than £200 million on 56 Kms, instead of half a billion for trams on 10.7 Kms!

Please remember that in the most outstanding democracy in the world, a world-beating democracy in fact, there has not been a single debate, let alone a vote in any of the seven council chambers in the West Midlands about spending Metro millions and, it taking over perfectly good railway lines to give us a multi-modal, multi-mixed up mainline railway.  Hopeless!  Not one debate or vote since Metro started in 1981.  This is no better than China - in the news this evening.

I would like you to join me in asking about the complete absence of following the most basic democratic requirement of a properly conducted debate and vote before going ahead with spending £15 BILLION to 2040, to replace some bus routes and railway lines with mainly Metro trams.  Edinburgh City Council debated and voted first, I think in 2018 and, certainly, in 2019 before going ahead with their new tram extension to Leith and Newhaven.  The vote went 36 to 26, if I remember correctly.  The Edinburgh Council Conservative Group were opposed and voted against on the grounds of cost and because the inquiry into the shenanigans and failures over the first tram line was not complete.

Scotland seems to have higher standards and does things correctly as regards elected members being properly informed over the full implications of big decisions.  Our councillors, in all seven authorities, need to be fully informed of both the pros and cons of reinstating a £15 BILLION tram network.  A network, the first of which they saw fit to completely obliterate in the 1950s and, since the 1980s, are reinstating on the railway network and roads!  Instead of restoring our railways, first.

Coercion, force, violence is ...

... hardwired, I believe into Britain and the West; into Church and State; into both society and the individual psyche.  Therefore, we have had for every single year for, at least the last one hundred years, the killing of foreigners and, in their own lands, too; and by us good, decent, heroic Brits, too!

The 20th century saw more killings by the West of our fellow human beings than in all the previous years of humanity added together.  What sheer aggression, violence and pure evil in us upright and so, oh so democratic and freedom loving peoples!

The ever so Great Britain had the greatest empire the world had ever seen in 1914.  Kitchener had led the more recent colonial wars.  Therefore, it was the normal done thing to go to war.  It was the obvious thing to do when an upstart European country was wanting to rival the Great Empire of Britain and to acquire some nations for itself.  33,000 enlisted on one day alone in September 1914 and over one million men had volunteered by Christmas.  "They volunteered out of a sense of patriotic duty", Jeremy Paxman said on 'Britain's Great War'.  "It was a massive rush to arms", before it was all over by Christmas.

The European Union came out of centuries of European nations fighting wars with each other and around the globe; wars ordered and taxed by their representatives of God on earth - the divinely appointed and approved royal monarchs.  The grand climax of the West's World War in two parts, finally shook the war mongering Europeans into economic and some political union to have, at last, permanent peace with each other, at least.

The least you and I can do is to give to the British Red Cross and the Disasters Emergency Committee.  And, of course, avoid employment in armaments and the armed forces.

Revenge is so sweet for us all, especially for Jews, Christians and Muslims.

Friday, 20 December 2013

Revenge is so sweet for us all, especially for Jews, Christians and Muslims.

Am I as evil and as much beyond the pale as Anjem Choudary, in writing the following?

It is very hard for only one side to be expected to show no revenge, esp when there has been twelve years of killings, violence and aggression against that one side.  Yet this was what John Humphrys was expecting of  Anjem Choudary, the founder of Al-Muhajiroun, whom he repeatedly demanded should condemn the killing of Lee Rigby.  For centuries, both Muslims and Christians have never been noted for condemning acts of violence.  Rather, they have been at the centre of promoting aggression, killing, murder and violence.  All the children of Abraham - Jews, Christians and Muslims are still at it.  And the Christian nations and their individual adherents have been the worst.  Last century was a particularly heinous and horrendous example.

This morning’s interview was similar to so many conducted by BBC journalists of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.  I think it was the case that in all those interviews, not once did Adams or McGuinness condemn even one individual on their side for his violence that Humphrys and co were insisting that they should.  They themselves, like Anjem Choudary, were careful to take no part in violence but eventually, Adams and McGuinness argued the case for ballot, never bullet.  Consequently, it was they and not the men of violence who eventually won the day with their major contribution to the Good Friday peace agreement of 1998 that brought a huge lessening of the violence in N Ireland.

It is unreasonably for us to expect Choudary to condemn violence when our side never does, either (except for the violence of our enemies and other nations like Russia).  In fact, we are the worse offenders in doing domination, aggression and violence!  Doing it is far worse.  And of that, we are particularly adept!  To condemn violence and then to carry on doing it, is particularly reprehensible and hypocritical.

It could, in fact, be seen that the two Michaels were fulfilling the very words of Scripture, the very words of Christ, no less - “those who take the sword will die by the sword.”  They killed a killer and then wanted the police to kill them in fair return.  “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”, as one Michael said on camera to explain why he did it - and, quoting Holy Scripture.  This time, the police failed to kill their man.

We had one man of violence killing another man of violence in a war that our side brought to Muslim lands and a third man of violence is expected to condemn someone on his side who killed.  Only a man of non-violence, as I am, can honourably condemn the Woolwich killing without being accused of being a hypocrite.

We have to be very careful not to excuse our own killing because we are on the side of right, of good, on the side of God and on the side of law.  We act as though al Qaeada, the Taliban and al Shabab are most definitely not and killing them is fair game.  Our side are the heroes, the Muslim fighters are evil and must be wiped off the face of the map.  No wonder, the very occasional, maverick Muslim gets so angry at his brethren being killed that he gets his own back on their killers - like Lee Rigby.  And, with the international nature of British society, we rub shoulders with Muslims every day of the week who many not like what is being done in their name.  Hence, Lee Rigby was an easy target.

John Humphrys and Lord Carlisle were particularly aghast/offended at Choudary being opposed to democracy.  How on earth can any reasonable, sensible, sane person be against democracy?  Yet, I am no longer voting for any of the war parties for I see that as being unethical and encouraging them in their aggressive foreign policy around the globe.  Does that make me as equally reprehensible as Choudary is to them?  I have to trot along to the polling station and put an ‘X’ against, ‘Re-open nominations’ or ‘None of above’ or ‘Abstain’.

We must always remember our dead and never ...

... those they killed for democracy, freedom and prosperity.

For me, the wearing of the red poppy is a mark that the wearer supports the shedding of innocent blood in far off lands AND by our military, too.  All this is done to maintain OUR freedom, our wealth and democracy.  Done to maintain the defence of the realm; the defence of OUR  realm!  Instead, give the poor beggars who are denied our democracy and decency, better housing, warmth and clothing - NOT drone attacks and the provocative presence of foreign soldiers!

Remembrance should be about reflecting on the continuing popularity for war to get our way around the world.  Why are we such a leading exponent of violence on other nations' soils?  Only those who themselves get killed in the process are honoured as having made the ultimate sacrifice, as having truly served their nation and been the real heroes.  What about the rest of us who advocate non-violence and abiding by international law and UN resolutions?

We only honour those who died fighting for our country, not those who died at our hands defending their country from us, their invaders and occupiers.

The poppy to mark all the blood we have shed.

The poppy is a symbol of how precious war is to us.

The poppy is the mark of how the wearer does as he is told and gladly supports the shedding of blood when their unrighteous government tells them to do so.

Western Priorities

For the West, democracy, corruption, sexual sins, family values are all considered more important than OUR violence, aggression and occupation of countries that, in the process, we turn into enemies.

Dealing with poverty, ill health ignorance and malnutrition just do not figure when compared with bringing Western values and beliefs and Western patterns of consumption to failed and failing nations - like Afghanistan!

Bomb Baghdad with bikes not bombs; kill Kabul with kindness - caring not killings!

Who are the real failed or rogue or terrorist nations round here? Who are the real axis of evil nations?

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!

Angelic Brits with our democracy, our success, our peaceful ways!

"90 years after some women in Britain gained the vote - why are there still so few women in Parliament? Westminster lags behind Rwanda, Pakistan and even Afghanistan on that - so what can be done to give women a bigger say in the mother of Parliaments? Debating the issue are the Conservative MP Theresa May and the veteran Labour MP, Gwyneth Dunwoody."

(from the Radio 4 website trailing 'The World this Weekend' on Sunday 10 Feb '08)

And, we reckon that these nations have got a hell of a lot to learn from us, in the West! And, we still cheekily refer to our Parliament as the mother of Parliaments! And, we reckon we are a cut above the rest! And, we behave as though our civilisation, our Christianity and our culture needs exporting to the benighted nations of the world who don't know how to do things properly, like our American/W European nations do!

Afghanistan is definitely a failed nation, we think; while our nation is a successful nation, of course! Invasion, occupation and war must put this failed nation right. Why don't they appreciate us and thank us? We can't help a few men, women and children getting killed by our brave boys in the process. Funny, how we are always on the side of the angels and the others, like the ungrateful Muslim extremist who are fighting the hated occupiers of their countries - us - are on the side of the devils!

I see all this as plain, white, supremacy. Arrogance and intolerance, too. But, then, some see tolerating evil - like the nations in our self-chosen axis of evil - as evil!

Angelic Brits with our democracy, our success, our peaceful ways. The other side is oh, so uncivilised, so full of terrorists and extremists!