Comfortably foreign: the liberty that insults

I shall like to open with words written by Americans themselves:

‘Those who die are justified by wearing the badge of your chosen whites’

From “Killing In The Name” by Rage Against the Machine

‘We fought your wars with all our hearts,
You sent us back in body parts,
You took our wills with the truth you stole,
We offer prayers for your long lost soul.
The remainder is,
An unjustifiable, egotistical, power struggle,
At the expense of the American Dream,
Of the American dream, of the American Dream, of the American Dream’

From “American Dream Denial (A.D.D.)” by System of a Down

This will, most likely, be the last post I do on the New World for a while yet, and I meant to do it yesterday but…I didn’t. So here it is now.

Well some of you will be aware of what it was yesterday. You’ll also be aware about how I’d been writing posts in the days preceding it. Now for my opinion of the day itself.

Calling that day ‘ “Independence day”’ is more than just a joke, it’s an out and out insult to other nations. It’s made out to be a big fight for freedom but when I scratch the surface just a little I realise how that is a big lie. Rather a bunch of lies. I shall address each on in turn:

Lie 1: The British taxes were too high and they killed those that rebelled

First let me get started on the reasons behind this ‘ “War of Independence”’ (my, there are not enough quotation marks in the world to show my sarcasm here): the official reason is high taxes. I looked (briefly) into this. Yes, the colonies didn’t want to pay taxes on a type of sugar called molasses. Yes, that’s right one typing of sodding sugar! Suddenly despite speaking the same language, following the same faith and sharing huge amounts of culture suddenly didn’t matter. As I’ve been told repeatedly ‘distance makes us different’, something which I find absolutely ridiculous. Second, there was a…killing of people. The word massacre should not even be used and I will explain that shortly. For now let me just say that when I was reading up on this total non-event the British were fingered for killing 5 people during a protest, one of which was found alive a day later and another was shot hundreds of miles away. Oooh, the tyranny!

Lie 2: The British government were infringing on the colonist’s liberties

IT WAS QUITE THE OPPOSITE!

The real reason for ‘ “Independence”’ is far far more straightforward. By 1776 the British were making leaps and bounds towards the abolition of slavery and were looking to right some of the wrongs they’d done to native tribes by giving them land and space. The Europeans (MAINLY BRITISH, ACCEPT IT!) didn’t like this and so they wanted to be free from this. Not to mention how the Pilgrims came over because they hated the freedom of religion that was being touted back in Old Blighty. Yay freedom!

Lie 3: The rebels defeated a major military force at the height of its power

I’ve read that there were battles, yes. But several things have to be remembered: firstly the government in London sent a small army rather than a main force because they didn’t care so much about the outcome. Then there was a mad king to deal with. But for my money I’d say the Brits didn’t care that much about losing there because they’d ‘civilised’ the land already, killed off the savages (for the most part) and introduced noble Europeans with their fine Christianity to the land. Compare that to the Sepoy Revolution in India in 1857 where, in 3 days a major British force marched from Burma to central India through sandstorms to protect this vital asset of the Empire. Hence my reservations.

Lie 4: A new nation of justice and liberty for all was created

Biggest lie of all. I’ve mentioned slavery already but here’s some figues for you. In the UK slavery was abolished in 1808. It wasn’t until 1865 that the US followed suit. In the 1812 war, possibly the stupidest war ever fought, the native tribes of the north sided with the British against the Americans. For FREEDOM! The outcome of the war? Well, The Brits and Americans began to trade with one another (so soon after ‘ “Independence”’) and the Americans decided to wipe out the native tribes in the south. Nice one, guys.

I don’t find this day offensive as a Brit. And many Brits don’t care, and will even celebrate it alongside their American friends. It’s as an Indian that my offence comes. It took one and a half centuries of bloodshed for the British to end their tyranny, which treated all Indians as lowly slaves and has left huge amounts of psychological damage on the psyche of the nation to this day. And that was for financial reasons too! The people who fought for independence of that nation were truly brave and risked their lives. In comparison the Americans had to do nothing. It’s all pathetic, it’s all a joke. And don’t get me started on how many nations have had their civil liberties taken away in the name of ‘democracy’ by the US. Hawaii is most possibly the finest example of that. In more recent years the war on terror has been dished out by both for financial gain.

Meaning Britain and America are now the same. In the most disgusting kind of way.

Free Hawaii.

Regards,

The Vedic Underdog

My freedom hurts me (or, the terrible price we pay for free speech)

I haven’t written on here in ages not so much because of laziness (though no doubt that has been a factor) but because I’ve been battling health issues. I still am, but I’m powering through because my restless mind keeps coming with mental vomit that I need to release.

OK, that may sound disgusting but that said there are many things that have disgusted me in recent times and so I shall try and vocalise them clearly. But that got your attention didn’t?

Don’t lie!

Now on to what this post is really about. The diamond jubilee occurred about 2 weeks ago in this country, sprouting mixed feelings. The traditional nationalists have been all over it and then there have been those that have a good old dollop of British cynicism about the whole thing. The monarchist - republicanist debate has been going on for a long time and I shan’t go into it here beyond saying that I find both sides have valid arguments. But there is one façade amongst the republicans that does not sit well with me.

It all started a few days before the actual jubilee bank holiday was upon us and someone decided to post up a meme. The meme had a picture of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh laughing, over which someone had ‘wittingly’ written ‘Haha, you’re poor.’ I found it a little stupid and offensive.

Not so much because they were mocking the royals (more on that later) but because of their insinuation; that the people who made it and those that share it ARE poor, and that they’re living it up and we have nothing. I’m not buying that! You’re sitting at a comfy desk sending it via your laptop or smartphone, you have plenty of food and free medical care. Yes, things are tight but news flash: YOU’RE NOT POOR! YOU’RE NOT EVEN CLOSE TO BEING POOR! And you can argue about how the upper 1% controls everything and death to capitalism blah blah blah (though when explained coherently I don’t have a problem) but when you’re a bit jealous that they have a big estate but you aren’t going hungry every night I find it hard to believe you. How about trying to help the actual poor rather than taking a pop at people that you’ll never meet and have very little influence on your daily lives??

Next time you’re trying to make a ‘social point’ on facebook or anything else (which for the most part seems like trying to earn brownie points or a badge of honour in front of your friends, looking like you actually give a damn about someone else just by sharing a stupidly made picture on a social network), how about going for something a bit more hard hitting, or at the very least with a little more fact behind it? I find it all rather ridiculous.

Now on to something similar: mocking the royals. This increased a lot in the weeks and days leading up to the jubilee, with Brits and people pretending to be ‘liberal’, ‘revolutionist’ and ‘hip’ getting involved. One friend even posted up an infamous Sex Pistols song. I don’t need to tell you which one. Some of it had a point about how they control land and questioning how much political power the royals actually have, and I have no problem with that.

Sadly not all of it actually had a point. Some of it was rather like the example I discussed above, poking fun at something without actually thinking for a second about its monumental stupidity. From people who are older than me and in most cases should know better before you play the ‘idiots on the web’ card. When you’re making fun of their accents, appearance and what they should and shouldn’t do you’ve gone too far. At some stage you’re just mocking an innocent family or innocent individuals with their flaws as much as the next person. I’m reminded now of a particular joke the comedian Frankie Boyle did that was lauded by ‘liberals’ (and I dispute that tag enormously) as being satirical, hard hitting and modern. IT WAS NONE OF THESE THINGS! It was nothing more than a comedian pretending to have the balls to talk about anything basically trying to get a laugh out of the ageing process. Give yourselves a pat on the back if you thought it was satire. You couldn’t have been further from the truth.

For those of you saying he was exercising his freedom of speech, you’re right he was. But guess what so am I by criticising it. If you don’t like it, go somewhere else. At least I gave reasons!

I just find that people take shots at the royals because, in the words of correspondent Jenny Bond, they’re such an easy target who will never fight back or say anything in retaliation. Congratulations, you’re all big hard hitting satirists, picking on such a soft scapegoat!

It is far too easy to look cool by mocking the Queen, and I for one am tired of it.

In short, if you have something valid to say about whether the royal family should stay or not, I’m ready to listen. If you’re just going to make fun of them, go away. You’re worse than useless because it means absolutely nothing. Now go get something to eat from your fridge and think about how ‘poor’ you really are.

Regards,

The Vedic Underdog

The Burden of the Pious (Or, when kiddie fiddling is more acceptable than God)

Picture caption: Unlike the US flag, it's not possible to show the Union flag upside down, a sign that the country is in distress. Does that mean we're constantly at peace or constantly in turmoil? Daft philosophical thought maybe but the underlying point is not.

So finally I post something up. I forgot about this for a while but got back into it recently when I saw a friend of mine’s blog and it really inspired me. So I’m giving it a shot now.

This entry is in regards to an incident that happened yesterday (check the date to be sure when this was) at a pub that has an open mic night that I often play guitar at. Now the organiser and some of the regulars there have been telling me for some time that I need to improve my singing voice, and they’ve been discreet enough to tell me in a corner or something and emphasised that I should not be discouraged by the constructive critisicism so much that I should stop.

Undeterred I practiced and went back on successive weeks peddling my songs featuring not so conventional lyrics. One night I go on and I dedicate a song to the organiser of the night, who happens to belong to the Sikh religion. I dedicated it to him because he was a very good MC and cos he’d understand the lyrics. The song itself deals with the apathy of Dharmics and how they use Kaliyug to pardon their inaction. It went down well with the crowd but that was down to the tune of the song, not because anyone understood the words. The organiser asked me to send him the lyrics so that he could have a good read through them after I’d sung it. Anyways I came back the week after to play my regular slot which went down OK I suppose. I was told that I was getting better with my singing but still there were a couple of things that I needed to work on. Fair enough I thought, and with that I sat down and watched the rest of the acts, some bands, a solo bassist and two comedians. One of the two comedians came on and spoke of the gory implications of debauchery (i.e. the digestive problems that are the repercussions of a night out) and then went on to make humour out of paedophiles and people who murder children. It look as though I was in a small minority in not finding this funny. The night went on and some other acts came and played. All of a sudden the organiser calls me over to have a chat.

First he talks about my singing voice and again like in the past I took it on my chin as you have to in this game. But what came next was a tad disappointing. ‘I’ve read your lyrics’, he said. ‘But I want to ask you what you’re all about, why are you doing music.’ To this I replied (and why should I lie?) that I wanted inform people of Hindu themes, a subject which is close to my heart. There was a frigid pause for a moment. I wondered what was going through his mind. Now the conversation that went on from this point was quite long as he wanted to reiterate certain points and try not to offend me. But here’s the short of it. He told me that he had had artists before come in with religious themes and that it only ever attracted hate and trouble. Heck, he’d even been in fights over it. ‘So if you want to do this kind of thing I’m afraid this is where you have to go’, he said, pointing to the exit. I have to say I was taken aback but I could see his point. Alas even in this day and age of “free speech” religion offends. I do not have even the slightest hint of anger towards him, he was trying to save me from a lot of potential tribulations that my “controversial” lyrics could cause. The offence came from that fact that someone can spout big piles of hate can make fatuous comments about peoples tragedies (and more gravely their children's tragedies) in between tiresome anecdotes about the hedonism and promiscuity that the West promotes as ‘the way’ to live in the name of humour but I can’t recite beautiful stories from the mythology of an ancient people because of its association with ‘faith’ (again another western and to an extent Abrahamic word peddled to put everything into a nice neat box).

It makes me wonder just how “free” free speech is. After all that is one of the reasons I love this country but if this is the attitude of society then we are in serious trouble. There are some really bizarre values floating around in a society that a lot of people think is ‘advanced’. Eva Green said it well once when she said there was a massive skew in American society if they think it’s entirely appropriate for a 15 year old (or whatever the age limit is, I’m not so sure of film classifications in the US) to watch a baby being murdered but not be allowed to see a woman expose her breasts. This ‘censoring’ is another example. It smacks of double standards and delusions of people thinking they can say what they wish when they really can’t. We need to take a good long hard look at ourselves and what we really stand for, liberty and equality, or greed and alternative bigotry? Yeah this feels almost like indie censorship.

I remember once talking to one of my friends that came from a country where there appears to be thought police and all those other nasties you read about in 1984. He’d lived a considerable amount of time in this nation, and was well read on the other ‘developed’ countries. Do you know what he had to say about our ‘great’ nations? ‘Freedom is an illusion’, he said. A cold cold shiver went down my spine when he said that but regardless of the way my body reacted, I couldn’t disagree with him. This happened a long time ago before the incident I describe by the way.

So: does this indie bigotry expose the pseudo-freedom we have? Perhaps, I’ll let you think about that.

Regards,

The Vedic Underdog