www.boomtownbingo.com\/celeb-bingo-review\/<\/a> to learn from the pros. Don’t be embarrassed about your lack of knowledge in gambling, don’t act if you don’t know what you are doing. In London at the time, no one gave the Prussians (north Germans) a chance in hell. In fact the Germans were 6 to 4 against, which meant that you had to put \u00a34 on the Germans winning in order to win \u00a36. Very good odds in a genuine two horse race. Better than 50-50. The fact that the Germans were in Paris in six weeks exposed Ladbrokes to some losses which were wholey attributable to their historical and emotional take on events. Their research had been almost entirely emotional. Research by bookmakers isn\u2019t often so lax. When it comes to losing your entire shirt, daily, on various wagers, experience will soon teach you to be invariably on the right side of it. Those who make a book.. are in it for a living..! The rest of us wager on.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/span><\/p>\nSo, when it finally came time for me to put my pocket where my emotions are, and place a bet on John Kerry for the Presidency, I went in search of the best odds. What I found a couple of days ago was that among the bookkeeping fraternity, there was no one who thought that Kerry would win. The best odds that I could find on Bush were 8\/15, which means that you had to risk a loss of \u00a315 for the joy of winning \u00a38, (for a Bush win). Which means, roughly, that there was no money going down on Kerry. Which means two things, 1, most of the money bet so far has been for Bush, and 2, that most the votes were virtually all cast before the debates. With very little room for the kind of margin of error it would take to give Kerry a victory.. .. Races don\u2019t always go to form, but in a two horse race the form book has been gone over with a fine toothcomb, and the bookies have left their emotions in the paddock.<\/span><\/p>\nIt\u2019s not that I think that there\u2019s a huge difference in the quantifiable attributes of the two men themselves. Kerry\u2019s more articulate, more statesman-like, more in command of knowledge and wherewithal, but Bush epitomises the \u2018good ol\u2019 boy\u2019 image that a lot of Americans will identify with rather than some worthy officer\/gentleman from New England. For a whole swathe down the middle of the country, Kerry might as well be from old England. They\u2019d rather vote for the goon next door. They\u2019d rather vote for one of their own. roy…! ..don\u2019t go there…<\/span><\/p>\nAnd it\u2019s no good me getting personal with the Americans because I disagree with what\u2019s growing in their guts. I can say lots of things that mean infinite sense to me, like, IF YOU WANT TO HAVE A HOPE OF HEALING THE WOUNDED WORLD IN THE SHORT TERM, THEN GEORGE BUSH IS NOT THE PERSON YOU SHOULD VOTE FOR; or, voting for John Kerry is almost definitely going to be of more help to the world in the short term, or, a vote for John Kerry is a vote for the rest of the world, or, a vote for John Kerry gives the rest of the world a small say in the next few years, or, the terrorists are hoping for a Bush victory so that service will continue to be the same, or, a vote against Bush is a vote against \u2018terror\u2019.. because the Americans are beyond contact. They\u2019re out there.. on their own. The people in a country as isolated as The USA aren\u2019t suddenly going to recognise the rest of the world for what it is or could be. End of story.<\/span><\/p>\nThe free thinkers in the rest of the world are hoping that the Americans are going to make the right choice. This isn\u2019t to say that everyone on the right in American politics is mindless, just that they percieve that they\u2019ve got too much to lose by voting against Bush. Why would you want to give up a leader who has riled the rest of the world, put them all in their place, wherever that is. Why on earth would you want to give up the power? The power of being the only \u2018super power\u2019. You wouldn\u2019t. Unless you had some small inkling of the fact that the world is bleeding.. to death. And needs the USA to come clean, in many, many ways.<\/span><\/p>\nBut what do you do, if you\u2019re sat on top of the heap? … You continue to sit. No one else is powerful enough to tell you to do anything else. Yet. The fact that Blair is a palpable poodle is now completely lost in the archives of oblivion. The thought isn\u2019t even worthy. The man who gave \u2018coalition\u2019 approval to kill thousands illegally now sits quivering in his own do-do. Even his sell-by date has been lost in pre-history.<\/span><\/p>\nWill the Americans get a real glimpse of the actual world before the next four years tip us all further into catastrophe? They\u2019re too isolated.. and they\u2019re too small. World events are overtaking them. Bill and Hillary are caught in a trap. Will she be too old in eight years time to go for it herself? What Hilary knows, and what she\u2019s going to be running for the presidency with are two different things. What she knows is that the world needs a strong democratic leader who isn\u2019t a born-again laughing stock, but is she going to give Kerry a boost at the expense of her best chance in 2008. And does Bill want to be seen as either ill, or to be supporting someone who might eventually end up rivalling him or his dynasty historically? I don\u2019t suppose he\u2019s got that much option. In the end, he came out looking thinner and did his bit. Wowed everyone except the women who think he\u2019s a rapist, and went back into his basket. But 2008\/2012 is all la-la land.. the stuff of punters.. and hardly the point….<\/span><\/p>\nThe point is that the world as we know it is now in trouble. It\u2019s no different than the trouble we\u2019ve seen all our lives, but it\u2019s now set in.. for good. There aren\u2019t going to be any more light intervals with Bill, or jingoistic affluent pomp with Ronnie. All the dosh has been spent, on trash, and on the wealth and dalliance of the few, rather than on the hopes of the many. Instead of spreading the real example, and sustaining a future for humanity with real social democracy, we have a crowd of superstitious apes passing their superstitions on to a very gullible world that drinks all the make-belief it can get and lives vicariously on the edge of not being able to pass anything but poverty to its children. Since when did the humans rely entirely on providence? Which is where they\u2019re at now. We\u2019re screaming for god to appear, in every silly thoughtless move we make. Every time someone comes onto the field of play and crosses him\/herself, we see a selfish god taking hold of our emotions. Every time someone slips a bead from one finger to the next, it\u2019s rarely to pray for humanity. It\u2019s to pray for themselves, or their family, or the result.<\/span><\/p>\nThis is going to be the last essay of its kind on my part. I can no longer write things like this. There\u2019s hardly a point any more. No one gives a toss. On the one hand, I\u2019ve wanted to fantasize about the best in humanity, all my life, but on the other, it\u2019s too depressing to be swimming against such an overwhelmingly savage tide. We all carry our own crosses so to speak, but the time has come to dump some baggage I\u2019ve been carrying around for years. I often get mails to the effect.. \u2018why don\u2019t you just concentrate on the music instead of all that political rubbish.. it\u2019s the music we wanna hear\u2019. And so do I. Human politics have driven me for a lifetime; because I\u2019ve developed opinions and lived through a lot of crap, and I guess that they\u2019ll continue to drive me; but there\u2019s a point at which it fails to be able to ring any of the same bells it used to. It\u2019s now a field full of pathetic tossers….<\/span><\/p>\nDo we for one moment think that Abu Al Zaqarwi would exist without his correspondent Bush? Not for a moment. He would be some murderous criminal in the back streets of Jordan. There was a necessity for him. An exigency existed. Rivals throw eachother up. Tit For tat has been going on ever since the first rattle was thrown out of the first manger, eliciting the noticable primeaval reaction. By the time Pavlov came around to studying the behaviour of dogs it was long past evident that we all behaved in the same way. Formulating it scientifically was just a question of dotting \u2018i\u2019s and crossing \u2018t\u2019s that had been understood half a million years before \u2018thou shalt not bear false witness\u2019 was committed to parchment. Long time sickness.<\/span><\/p>\nSo how are we going to hang on in there? In the middle of the lie? …………In hope… can be the only answer…. What?? Can it be that all those who propound \u2018hope\u2019 as their premiere ethic have been right all along? That \u2018hope\u2019 is the only valid dynamic left to humanity. That science is out the window? That rationalisation and logic are as dispensible as mice in pharmacology? This means that everything that I\u2019ve lived for, in all my years on the visit to this planet have meant absolutely nothing? But of course. But of course. God will happen. SHE will descend. There will be huge amounts of suffering where people once chose to elect. Election will be no more. It was but a figment of Arcadia. A lost golden age where men and women had time. And whiled it away in utopian splendour. Where hayricks were painted, instead of walls. Where imagination was visited by lambs of god, rather than sheep in formaldahide, where celuloid art was populated by lovers rather than executioners.<\/span><\/p>\nPeople have said that it\u2019s the end before. The saddest thing about that is that it always is. There will be new starts, in more frantic Arcadias. Until death do us part. From our dalliance. Our egotism, our arrogance, our disingenuity and finally, our wit.<\/span><\/p>\nThere is much to love about the humans, and the Americans are humans. There is much to love about the Americans. There is much to loathe about us all. Each to her own. Are the things we love about America more questionable than the things we love about ourselves? I don\u2019t think so. As examples, I loved jazz and blues as a young man, and I love baseball as an older man. I can do without the seventh inning stretch to the strains of \u2018God Bless America\u2019 sung by Donna Summer, but it isn\u2019t any different in basic character than \u2018Land Of My Fathers\u2019 sung at Cardiff Arms Park by a choir of fifty thousand. Although I\u2019m far more moved by the Welsh anthem, I realise that I\u2019m within understanding distance of it, whereas I\u2019m just a few thousand miles too far away to really be got in the gut by \u2018God Bless America\u2019. In essence, they\u2019re the same thing. The universality of the host.<\/span><\/p>\n(Of course, coming from islands where poetic song has long been a medium of social communication; and trying to compare it with the raw and almost unconscious emotions of a new nation composed of hundreds of different tribes and races in a bizarre mixing pot.. is going to favour the \u2018old\u2019 islands. The \u2018establishment\u2019. And it\u2019s as evident as the game progresses as well. There isn\u2019t the recourse to inventive songs to sing \u2018at\u2019 the opposition. For a few reasons. The opposition are gathered in front of media, hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of miles away. And how d\u2019you teach an ethnic Swede, a Turk, An Italian, A Greek, a Jew or a Wasp to gather together and sing in their thousands when they\u2019ve just not got there yet?)<\/span><\/p>\nToday I heard that 70% of forty important nations, including most of Europe, and nations like South Africa and Nigeria, nearly all the middle east, India and Australia, Brazil and Argentina, Japan and even The Philipines, now that their troops have left Iraq, all favour a Kerry victory. The only countries in the world who support Bush are Russia and Israel. Plus, the Chinese press have been told to give both sides equal favour!!<\/span><\/p>\nThe BBC programme \u2018Question Time\u2019 was broadcast from Miami in Florida on Thurday 28th October. It was all very predictable. The first question was put to the panel by a young man who asked who the terorrists would like to see as president. Obviously the answer is Bush, because they want to continue to have America isolated from the rest of the world. That\u2019s their oxygen. None of the panelists dared confront the question properly. The democrat panelist, Sydney Blumenthal, ex-Clinton aide, was too scared of saying that the terrorists wanted Bush to win because he was unwilling give the Republican camp any credit, or that amount of energy. The Republican panelist, David Frum, ex-Bush speechwriter, was unwilling to say that it would be George Bush because he didn\u2019t want to associate Bush with anything terrorist. So he waffled and said that the terrorists would have more to fear from Kerry. Michael More cracked a joke, Richard Littlejohn was out of his depth, and Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, chair of the Miami-Dade Electoral Reform Coalition, neatly sat on the fence, unable to give a personal opinion because of her responsibility as non-partisan chairperson.<\/span><\/p>\nSo the question, which is a very good one, remained unanswered because of the usual vested interests and ineptitudes. The remaining terrorists are absolutely gagging for a Bush re-election. In that atmosphere, they can continue to do their worst. That can continue to denigrate the legitimacy of the US government, and therefore of corrupt democracy worldwide. They can continue to isolate the US from Europe. They can continue to drive imaginary wedges between different european states and the rest of the world. Between Britain and France; between France and Germany and the US. They can continue to render the UN ineffective. Civil liberties can be eroded to a point where they are on a par with The Inquisition. A Bush victory is likely to suit the French heirarchy even though most of the population are anti-Bush, because they can hold out for another 4 years. They don\u2019t have to negotiate. All they do is maintain the status quo. Maintain their interests.<\/span><\/p>\nBush hasn\u2019t got the marbles or the personality to be able to communicate with Chirac. And France still has a lot of the answers in this one. Kerry will have a much better chance to bind the will of the \u2018free\u2019 world together into some kind of cohesive voice able to take on the questions that \u2018terror\u2019, as an alternative to rational arbitration, can pose. \u2018Terror\u2019, as we have now come to know it, is the child of fundamentalist religion, the notion that \u2018we are right and you will obey\u2019. It\u2019s the rebirth of The Inquisition. Perhaps it sees itself as the only viable answer to globalised industrial materialism, but it wouldn\u2019t ever be an answer for me. As an idea.. as a lifestyle.. as a way of life.. and as a potential form of government, it\u2019s a complete anathema to me. I passionately hate all of it, and in this my passion has no bounds. I would willingly die in an instant if I could bring that kind of thought process down.<\/span><\/p>\nAnd so I\u2019m passionately against George Bush becoming leader of the \u2018free world\u2019 for another four years. If he retains the presidency, we are guaranteed another four years of power to the fundamentalists, and of useless blood spilt in the streets of the world. All those who want blood to continue to flow will vote for Bush. Those who don\u2019t will vote against him. It\u2019s as simple as that.<\/span><\/p>\nWHAM BAM!! Enter Osama, yet again… OO! Shivers down the spine for the vast majority of middle class everywhere… or maybe not. But somewhere almost hidden in the small print he says that all \u2018The West\u2019 have to fear is interference in Arab affairs. “Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or al Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands and each state which does not harm our security will remain safe.” So right at the eleventh hour, with a tape released at 4pm New York time, Friday evening; right at the time of the closing bell at the end of the trading week, with only one trading day left before the election, but with most of four whole days to dwell on it, the wild card enters the fray. What does he mean? Well, on the face of it, what he\u2019s saying is that all those states who continue to meddle in the middle east will be considered as legitimate targets for terrorist attacks.<\/span><\/p>\nWithin minutes, the American media flaps around like a headless chicken, both sides trying to weigh up who this outburst favours the most. It\u2019ll probably favour Bush because the Americans are likely to go against any advice offered by the bearded wonder. Both sides disagree on the fact that it favours the other. The Israelis duck. The boys on the street in Fallujah search for messages. Everyone searches their underpants for traces of beard. The state of alert goes to purple with luminous green spots. The odds on Bush at Paddy Power shorten. Nothing else really changes. We all wonder who Osama wants his tape to favour. Cases can be made for both sides. Is it the very old double bluff? From the cave on the moon? Unlikely. The chicken crosses it\u2019s legs and orders a pint of Budweisser. Most of us quickly come to the conclusion that Osama doesn\u2019t give a shit who wins.. that in the best Irish tradition, he\u2019s a chancer. That he\u2019s just trying to slip a dead skunk into the tumble drier. That the Chrisler Building is safe for at least the next four days. The chicken drops in at the liquor store for a couple of bottles of fomented rats piss and retires to sitting on pregnant chards for the weekend…<\/span><\/p>\nAnd so it is. In a few days time it\u2019ll be done and dusted, and the million ensuant law suits won\u2019t make that much difference. In fact nothing will make that much difference anyway because whoever is president will have to contend with Congress, a body of men and women who have a Republican majority, and are extremely unlikely to let a Democrat president move beyond the confines of his kennel…. except to go abroad.. and spread a better word.. a different \u2018foreign\u2019 policy.. a quest without a turd. Perchance…<\/span><\/p>\nSo what are the odds? Again? On either…. What? Shortening? Bollocks, I\u2019ve missed my chance… Go for it! Throw your dosh away!! No.. not this time.. I\u2019ll give it to someone in the street instead. Bollocks to it all.<\/span><\/p>\nMind how you go.<\/span><\/p>\nCopyright 2004 Roy Harper<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Forty years ago, if you loved black music, you were a \u2018liberal\u2019. A far far out long gone liberal who would probably die in hell. Just how far the liberal world has dragged the fascist civil monster towards reason can be measured by what\u2019s happened since. And yet how much liberals are still detested. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5144,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.royharper.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.royharper.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.royharper.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.royharper.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.royharper.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=113"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.royharper.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":770,"href":"https:\/\/www.royharper.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions\/770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.royharper.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.royharper.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.royharper.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}