Posts Tagged ‘WWII’

You. Must. Vote.

Posted: October 18, 2012 in Political musings, Popular Culture et al
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Stewart Yolland

Thomas Stewart Yolland, died 1957, 1939-1945 Star, Africa Star, Pacific Star, Italy Star, 1939-45 King George medal. Vote for Yolland if you can’t think of any other reasons.

A message to all Americans. OK, I don’t care whether you vote for Obama or Romney or one of the 1% candidates (Whoa! He’s lying right there, fact check him, quick!) but I do care that you vote.

You see, Democracy is dead simple. Use it, or lose it.

This little video makes the point SO well. I really hope all Americans view it, and show their 18 year old kids and their 90 year old grandparents, and their neighbours. It’s too late to register to vote if you haven’t already (I believe, I think I have that right, all the way from Oz) but if you are registered then this little video charmingly and intelligently explains why you MUST vote.

You. Must. Vote.

Quite apart from the fact that my Dad spent six years on destroyers in WWII to defend our right to a free vote, and it killed him. So if you can’t think of any better reasons to vote, vote for my Dad’s sacrifice. And for all the others who sacrificed, and still do.

Please.

You believed in what you did.
And I believe in what you did.
But all we are left with are the yellow photographs.
They get more yellow with the years. Time eats them alive.
They rust, like life. Until all that is left is a shell,
ready to crumble at the lightest touch and disappear.
We never had the days at the football.
We never had Christmas.
We never had a shared pint.
We never had a quiet laugh in the garden at dawn.
You had the waves, and the torpedos, and the fear,
and the cigarettes, and the fear.
And I got the yellow photographs.
That’s the way of it.

The EU – Better Than No Europe At All?

Posted: August 16, 2011 in Political musings
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An old friend of mine from the UK emails me with a rant against the idiocies of the European Union. Unusually, I find myself agreeing with much of what he writes, and sympathising with his rage at paying extra taxes to support Greek taxi drivers who, well, er … don’t.

Civilian casualties in WWII

Since 1939, civilian dead have outnumbered combatant dead in conflicts by more than 10-to-one

As a liberal of some forty years conviction, friends will not be in the least surprised to discover that I am “pro” European integration. However, I have always been a sceptical pro-European, because I don’t think the pro-Europe cause is helped by blinding ourselves to the EU’s obvious failings.

The bureacracy IS bloated, expensive, top heavy, and petty. The compliance regime IS ludicrous. The Euro DOES distort markets – I mean, after all, it’s supposed to.

However, I am old enough to remember the effects of World War Two. My Dad, having served for six years, died of too much stress, two many fags and two many drinks at 47. He was a cheerful man, but broken. And he got off lightly.

For many of us, European Union is the best (and most successful) solution to the eternal problem of too many competing powers crammed into a very small space.

The murderous collapse in the former Yugoslavia revealed the result of NOT enforcing political union. And the United States is built on the same principle, even though they fought a nasty civil war to bed it down.

That’s why political union has always been a goal of mine, and it inevitably leads to some sort of economic union, messy, unwieldly and occasionally downright chaotic as it is. In my opinion, the pro-Europe lobby has for far too long been afraid of admitting it is wholeheartedly in favour of political integration – gutless lack of leadership – and the core of the argument has got lost in the mists of time because of it.

Well, I stand with my head proudly above the parapet, knowing that most Brits would gladly shoot it off right now. A disfunctional European Union is a better option that a disfunctional Europe. Just ask my Dad.