Dialogue with Terry Boardman

It is not good to be in two minds about something, even if that something is Gaddafy.

When one is in this condition, one should leave it to others to decide what to do, or not do.

W.

I've just checked out Terry Boardman's website and seen a You-Tube speech of his about 2012, the first fifteen minutes of what looks like quite a lengthy lecture. I think I am possibly more of an activist than Terry, though by no means anywhere near as learned.

I would like to invite Terry on board an initiative. Elana (and her New Zealand friends campaigning against cell phones) were invited yesterday.

Comments certainly invited from Terry Boardman.

Outline of initative

This is the first posting in a discussion started with Bob Rigg in New Zealand and which will hopefully contribute to our finding a way out of the present political impasse of three different groups: the anti-nuclear movement, the anti-geoengineering "conspiracy theorists", and the European federalists.

The proposed focus of the discussion would be the report presented to the European Parliament in 1999 "on the environment, security and foreign policy" (A4-0005/99)
www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?language=EN&pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+REPORT+A4-1999-0005+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN

This report is of potential relevance to the three abovementioned groups, to the anti-nuclear movement because its subject is largely nuclear disarmament, to the anti-geoengineering group because it touches on a key theme for them: HAARP; to the European federalists because the way the report was handled by the European Commission highlights the problem of the European Union's lack of sovereignty.

The proposal put forward for discussion (as a working proposal) is organization of an international conference, possibly in Brussels, along similar lines to the conference on geoengineering organized in May 2010 by the Belfort Group in Ghent.

To start discussion I have included some recent postings from the anti-nuclear forum abolition-caucus. Some of the people receiving this e-mail will have been participants in the original 1999 discussions in the European Parliament around the A4-0005/99 report.

Your comments are invited. They will have to forwarded to me, because the e-mail addresses are all bcc.

Best wishes,

Wayne Hall
Aigina, Greece

--- In abolition-caucus@yahoogroups.com, Bob Rigg <bobrigg@...> wrote:
>
> Dear Wayne,
>
> I made a heartfelt contribution to a debate which you have been
actively
> involved in, partly because it does confront us all with the following
> questions:
>
> Have we collectively been making the best possible use of our limited
> resources of staff, money, and time in the struggle towards nuclear
> disarmament? If not, what can we do differently?
>

***I have made a concrete suggestion. The nuclear disarmament movement
can regain some of its lost political base by proposing a joint
initiative with the numerically large present-day constituency of
so-called "conspiracy theorists", ideally around something that involves
elements of both side's agendas, such as A4-0005/99 "On the environment,
security and foreign policy"***

> Are some of the key assumptions on which our work has been based in
need of
> review?

***I have suggested that the anti-nuclear movement should have been
doing as a whole what some of us were trying to do anyway, in 1991,
i.e. help Yeltsin get rid of the Russian nuclear arsenal, as he
evidently wanted to do, because he proposed 95% unilateral abolition. I
favour an inquiry into the extent to which the Russian government in
fact today is in independent control of the Russian nuclear arsenal and
the extent to which the Russian nuclear arsenal is something more than a
second American nuclear arsenal. Moreover, we should stop helping the
US government to hype up the threat of nuclear terrorism. We should
start working together with writers such as Robin Frost and John Mueller
who show the ways in which nuclear terrorism is NOT a threat. However,
neither of these perspectives have such high priority for me as a return
to the eighties project of European Nuclear Disarmament***

>
> Do we need to consider a possible new strategy or strategies for our
> interaction with governments?

***We should try to reactivate ourselves by helping the European
federalist movement to reactivate itself. Once again that can be done
through focus on A4-0005-99 and a critique of the European Commission's
response to it, which amounted to an abnegation of sovereignty. ***

>
> Do we need to prioritise work that will get our message across to a
broad
> international public?

> > Do we need to review the nature of our our participation in key
multilateral
> disarmament meetings organised by governments, especially the NPT
revcons?

***I have never participated in such meetings and my attitude is that
the nuclear disarmament of the United States is a problem for Americans
to solve. Others should just leave them to it, because to try to become
involved merely gives ammunition to those who jump at every opportunity
to make demagogic politics about threats to American sovereignty.
American nuclear weapons should be like American gun laws, a problem for
Americans.***

>
> Do we need, amongst other things, to meet before international
meetings with
> governments, such as the upcoming one in Paris this year, to try to
hammer
> out a common strategy, common priorities, and so on? This NGO position
paper
> could be shared with governments at the beginning of the meeting, and
could
> help us to avoid being played off against one another at the meeting,
> something which governments excel at.

***I have never seen us being played off against one another so I have
no attitude on this. ***

>
> It would, it seems to me, also be good if we could get together during
such
> meetings to prepare shared responses to emerging issues. These shared
> responses could then be announced in the meeting by a spokesperson. In
this
> way we would show governments that we are united on certain key
issues, with
> a clear definition of the positions that we want them to adopt if they
want
> to engage with us in a meaningful way.
>
> This is all brainstorming stuff, but I think that we need more of it.
And
> such brainstorming will in the end only lead somewhere if we all get
> together in the same space to work our way through to a hopefully
common
> position. We must somehow transcend the anomie of cyberspace. Maybe
the days
> before the Paris meeting would provide an opportunity for this? If not
> Paris, then somewhere else, but fairly soon.

***I am not part of these discussions and I don't want to be involved in
such discussions of the anti-nuclear movement. I want to be involved in
discussions that can link the anti-nuclear movement to the movements in
which I am more actively involved. My only attempts at negotiating with
government at this moment centre on trying to secure implementation of
the moratorium on geoengineering passed last October in Nagoya. ***

>
> I did not say that I want to initiate a new activist phase. These are
your
> words. All that I want is to contribute to ensuring that the split in
our
> ranks over our disarmament priorities and strategies is openly
addressed.

***Is this split really "in our ranks"?? The last anti-nuclear
conference I participated in was the one at Saintes in France organized
by ACDN. But ACDN went to New York and participated in the discussions
around the NPT. I am not aware of any differences in perspective
between what Jean Marie Matagne said there and what other delegates
said. ***

We
> can not afford to bury our heads in the sand and to continue as
through it
> does not exist. This split is not new. The time has perhaps come for
us all
> to try to address and resolve this, with the aim of making us more
united
> and our work more effective. The festering frustration that permeates
some
> of what you write is not good for you, and is also counterproductive
for the
> disarmament movement.
>

***Well, as I said, what I want is European Nuclear Disarmament. That
is what I signed up for when I joined END. I did not have the money to
go to the meeting where END was dissolved after the INF agreement, and I
still don't know what the arguments were that could justify such
dissolution. And like Mikael Book I want to see END's project of a
nuclear-free Europe achieved, and Spinelli's vision realized of a
federal Europe that would be a force for peace. ***

> My hope is that we can all get together to discuss and agree on a new
more
> effective way forward for our work. We are already divided enough as
it is.
> We should initiate real dialogue that will help to bridge existing
splits
> and differences, that will make us stronger and our work more
effective. The
> last thing that we need is a new breakaway splinter group.

***If the vision of a nuclear-free Europe can be agreed upon as an
objective to be achieved by the existing anti-nuclear movement without
the establishment of breakaway splinter groups, so much the better. ***

>
> I must now stand on a high wobbly ladder to clean the salt-stains off
my
> windows, to give me a clear view right out across Wellington harbour.
>
> Greetings
>
> Bob
>
>
>
> _____
>
> From: abolition-caucus@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:abolition-caucus@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of halva
> Sent: Tuesday, 22 February 2011 6:01 p.m.
> To: abolition-caucus@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [abolition-caucus] Re: A Few Thoughts about avoiding the
Abyss -
> Making History Possible
>
>
>
>
> It seems clear enough that there are two alternative conceptions
involved
> here and two competing strategies, at least for people in Europe and
anyone
> else who wants to make Europe the focus of anti-nuclear struggle.
>
> I agree with the "so eighties" remark that John says people have made
to
> him, but my proposal is for "a return to the eighties" also, of a
different
> kind.
>
> It would be good to hear from Bob Rigg which of the two he would like
to
> prioritize in the new activist phase from Wellington that he says he
plans
> to initiate, and why he will prefer this strategy.
>
> --- In abolition-caucus@yahoogroups.com
> <mailto:abolition-caucus%40yahoogroups.com> , John Hallam Nuclear
> Flashpoints foesyd4@ wrote:
>
> > In fact we have been 'soft pedalling' the dangers to the human
> > species for far too long and its high time that we stopped doing so
> > and prioritised them. Over the years I have had feedback after
> > feedback urging me to go slow on the dangers of nuclear weapons to
> > the human species because that kind of talk is 'so eighties'.
> >
>
--- In abolition-caucus@yahoogroups.com, Mitsuo Okamoto <okamoto@...> wrote:
>
> Hello! I am Mitsuo Okamoto of Hiroshima City!
>
> Let's concentrate on consciousness-raising of the American citizens.
> After all, Americans invented nuclear weapons and dropped them on
> Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing tens of thousands of civilians.
> Moreover, it is Americans who invented so-called "nuclear power
> plant", a dangerous monster as proven by horendous nuclear disaster
> at Chernobyle in Ukrain.
>
> We must abolish not only nuclear weapons but also nuclear power
> plants before they abolish us! Let us determine our mind and work
> for that until they will disappear from on earth!
>
> Mitsuo Okamoto, Ph.D., Hiroshima City, Japan
Posted by: "halva" halva1@otenet.gr halva_gr
Tue Feb 22, 2011 11:14 pm (PST)


Full agreement with the second paragraph.

As for the first paragraph, the only way that Japanese people could "raise the consciousness of American citizens" would be by immediately abolishing all commemoration ceremonies of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings and ceasing all discussion of nuclear questions with Americans, except Americans who accept this new policy.

The Nagasaki and Hiroshima commemoration ceremonies are an appeasement ritual and a way of diverting attention from the salient fact, i.e. that the bombings were utilized as a means of forcing the Japanese emperor to abolish his country's constitution, exceed his powers and dictatorially surrender. These yearly repetitions of the surrender ritual merely confirm the way that the Japanese have transferred allegiance from the emperor to American nuclear bombs.

The contradictions entailed in the Japanese surrender at the end of the Second World War are just one variant on a general pattern, for American global power is exercised through the imposition of such contradictions.

Gorbachev at Reykjavik was offered the deal of total abolition of the American and Soviet nuclear arsenals if he would agree to the American Star Wars scheme for shooting down the Soviet missiles whose abolition was being negotiated and which therefore, if agreement were reached, would not exist. The architect of this mind-destroying proposal was Edward Teller.

The "end of the Cold War" did not put Teller out of business. Russian nuclear weapons (and the alleged potential for "nuclear terrorism" from theft of allegedly poorly-managed Soviet nuclear materials) retained their propaganda potential. And in 1997 Teller proposed a geoengineering (or "solar radiation management") scheme that involved permanent filling of the entire atmosphere of the earth with light-reflecting (and toxic) aerosols to reduce levels of incoming sunlight and in this way "solve" the problem of global warming, whose existence Teller at the same time disputed, (in this way helping to form a robust "climate change sceptic" lobby):

www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-digest/article/6791

The pattern of cheap trickery is always the same.

The Japanese are in a privileged position to subvert it. Just stop commemorating the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings. Do not engage in anti-nuclear discussions with Americans (or others) unless they accept this change of policy on your part. If you have to work with Japanese nationalists to generate the necessary political support to bring about such a change in policy, then do so.

It is in the power of the Japanese government to decide on such a change, i.e. assert its sovereignty, and surely in the power of Japanese citizens to oblige it to if you, like the rest of us, can break from the reflexes that you have become accustomed to, and start thinking.


Wayne


2011/2/25 Terry Boardman

Elana,
As I see it, there is far more to the developing Middle East situation than what the BBC for example and the rest of the MSM media here in Britain


(snip)

Hello Wayne,

Thanks for your openness and invitation, but it seems to me that we two are clearly not yet quite sure where the other is coming from. That's OK; human relationships usually take time. I would have a problem basing anything on that report you indicate, which I have seen at the link you posted, because I don't recognise the legitimacy of the "sovereignty" or even relevance of the EU at all. For me, the EU is a complete delusion. It's not an illusion, because in some formal way it does actually exist, and people do things in its name. But it's a delusion in the same sense that the Third Reich and the USSR and the Napoleonic Empire were delusions. Phantasmagorical crimes, we might say, spiritually and ethically 'illegitimate' acts against the evolution of humanity. Historical study of the origins of the EU reveals it to be a project designed not with the interests of the peoples of Europe in mind and certainly not by them. The EU is a train we have unfortunately been sheep herded onto by our sheep herders, the would-be oligarchs of the West, when we were mostly asleep, a train whose communication cord we need to pull so as to stop the train before it hits the buffers down the track in one almighty train wreck, and having stopped the train, we can then all get off. It is a project out of sync with the needs of the times and is fundamentally anti-democratic. Nor is there any point in trying to make it democratic by the creation of farcical organisations such as the European Parliament for non-existent citizenries and by technological pseudo-democratic fixes such as computer-based direct democracy, online petitions etc.

So, if I were to "make a proposal", it would be to hold conferences and events to the end of convincing the peoples of Europe of the above situation. The way forward for Europe is neither back to the old nation states of the 1920s nor forward to the steadily emerging United States of Federal Europe that is due to be combined in some kind of transatlantic Tweedledee-Tweedledumbness with a North American Union within the next 20 years or so that can take on the challenge of China. That is what they have lined up for us.

This 'neither....nor' is what, for example, I was alluding to by my admittedly somewhat vague comment about a 'third mind' between the other two. The way forward for Europe can only be *healthily* based on an acceptance of what Europe is in its essence, which is a threefold spiritual, political and economic culture that during the course of its history has intuitively in its best cultural manifestations sensed and indicated the balance needed for the human condition. It's not an accident that most European flags are tricolours, after all. Europe must be dominated neither by ONE pattern (the Roman Imperial/Napoleonic Imperial/EU standardised model) nor by tribal, mutally antagonistic nation states; neither ONE political ego nor nearly 30 viciously competing egos. It is a lie when representatives of the EU say they are not seeking to create a one-pattern Europe; those who say that are the ones who are either devious liars or else who are not in on the ultimate plan of the project. The European train is heading for a totalitarian destination and always has been; it is a monolithic entity directed by, and in the best interests of, self-appointed oligarchs and 'aristocrats' (in the Platonic sense: the so-called 'best' people). Think of the abomination of the EU flag - the ONE circle of identical stars and the ONE colour of blue freemasonry. "One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them..." Think of the masonry on all the Euro notes. These symbols show where we are heading and who's stoking the engine's boiler. The peoples of Europe ought not to cooperate with this mechanical beast; they need to wake up to its real nature and the delusions of the so-called founders of this 'Europe' (Coudenhove-Kalergi, Salter, Monnet, Spinelli, Schumann, Spaak and the rest).

So when I wrote that the third mind will be "the one to go with" I meant, among other things, this third, Middle Way - an associative confederation of Europe - one that would promote free and open intercourse in the spiritual and cultural spheres of the European lands but which would strictly respect the political traditions, laws and rights of the many European peoples; a Europe which would maintain a balance between freedom for the individual to operate economically across the Continent while denying to transnational corporations and other such economic entities the right to impose their will on local and national conditions. Such a Europe would have no common military, police force, judiciary, Supreme Court, Parliament, Commission, Presidency, single currency, Central Bank or any such oligarchically imposed paraphernalia - all of which in any case are based on the models of the era of the nation state.

In my view, the peoples of Europe will have to come to see how the aims and methods of these Eurocratic elitists (Monnet et al) were associated with, and ultimately steered by, those of the Anglo-American elite reaching back *at least* a century. Above all, they need to see through to the basis upon which the worldview of that elite and of the Roman Church stands, namely, rank materialism. They need to understand how this materialism, this intellectual cancer poisoned first the spiritual and religious culture of Europe in the Middle Ages and then, from the 17th century onwards, spread through the whole intellectual and scientific culture, even the arts. Then and only then will they understand what the debates about nuclear power, chemtrails, geoengineering, the Co2 global warming scam, "the war on terror", HAARP etc are really about. All these things are only symptoms of the underlying sickness - our fear of death and our ignorance of what comes after death and before this life. Just as, if our sleep life is unhealthy then our waking life will also be unhealthy, so, if we are to take a holistic lifestyle seriously, we shall need to integrate an understanding of the existence before and after this physical existence into our understanding of human existence as a whole. Even in the decadent European Middle Ages, there was still a remnant of this holistic worldview, but since the 17th century it has disappeared, swept aside by rampant materialism and philosophical meaninglessness. Many Greens and New Agers profess to be committed to holism, organic this and holistic that, but like the Protestants of the Reformation era, they often simply substitute another form of materialism for (the materialism of) the worldview they say they are opposing. The dogmatism of the Protestants ended up being almost as bad as the dogmatism of the Catholics, and we are already beginning to see how the dogmatism of the Greens can be as strident as that of the Blues (egocentric capitalists) and the Reds (Leftists of various denominations): "To save Gaia, Mother Earth, a radical cull of the human population will be necessary!!!" and other such delusions.

I sense that on the whole, this reply may not satisy you, Wayne, but I thought it best to try and clarify my views a bit, especially on the European issue. I am someone who cares deeply about the past, present and future of Europe. I know of the terrible errors committed in the years after the First World War by those elitists ignorant of Europe's past and present. By that I refer as much to the delusional idealists such as Woodrow Wilson and Lord Robert Cecil as to the unreconstructed chauvinists like Clemenceau and Poincare. I see similar errors being committed today by similar delusional 'idealists' seeking to put into operation a long-running, long-term plan. On the other hand, I know of one man especially, Rudolf Steiner, who saw through to the reality of what Europe needed in that desperate crisis of 1918-1919, and put forward profound and incisive ideas for addressing it. He was completely ignored, and as a result, Europe got what it got in 1929-45 and since.

Best wishes,
Terry