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Written by: Kamran Mofid

Published: 16 October 2020

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Lest We Forget

"In days long gone, in those halcyon days, the entire nation would sit down with bottles of stout and plates of dripping to watch a programme in which an enthusiastically cigarette-smoking Bertrand Russell, or someone of similar super-intelligence, sat motionless in a chair and discussed for hours the finer points of philosophy in incredible detail with an equally un-televisual man.”…Where have all the thinkers gone?

Photo:IMDb

‘Bertrand Russell, the great British philosopher and social critic, appeared on the BBC programme ‘Face-to-Face’ in 1959 and was asked a closing question: ‘What would you tell a generation living 1,000 years from now about the life you’ve lived and the lessons you’ve learned’. His answer is short, but pithy. 

I should like to say two things, one intellectual and one moral:

The intellectual thing I should want to say to them is this: When you are studying any matter or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only what are the facts and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted either by what you wish to believe or by what you think would have beneficial social effects if it were believed, but look only and solely at what are the facts. That is the intellectual thing that I should wish to say.

The moral thing I should wish to say to them is very simple. I should say: Love is wise, hatred is foolish. In this world, which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other. We have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don’t like. We can only live together in that way, and if we are to live together and not die together we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet.’- Excerpts from Open Culture

See also: Three Passions of Bertrand Russell (and a Collection of Free Texts)

Bertrand Russell - Message To Future Generations - YouTube--Watch the Video HERE

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See a selection of related articles from the GCGI Archives

The symphony of life is all about love and loving, inspiring peace, justice, fairness and the hope for a better life.

All my life I have had the choice of love or hate. I chose love.

When I chose hate, I suffered pain and anguish.

When I chose love, I flourished and found peace and contentment.

Love: Life’s Greatest Gift'

Bertrand Russell's 10 lessons for a creative, happy life 

Why Love, Trust, Respect and Gratitude Trumps Economics 

Today is World Kindness Day: Embracing Kindness to Defeat the Political Economy of Hatred

The man who taught me about war and peace, hatred and love, despair and hope

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Written by: Kamran Mofid

Published: 16 October 2020

Hits: 1833

Brexit: The Path to Tyranny and the loss of Moral and Spiritual Compass 

Photo: CBC

Lord Neuberger: ‘Once you deprive people of the right to go to court to challenge the government,

you are in a dictatorship, you are in a tyranny.’

Photo: The New European

Lord David Edmond Neuberger (pictured above) was the former president of

the supreme court of the United Kingdom.  

‘The government’s Brexit strategy is in danger of driving the UK down a “very slippery slope” towards “dictatorship” or “tyranny”, according to a former president of the supreme court.*

Addressing an online meeting of lawyers, Lord Neuberger on Wednesday evening condemned the internal market bill, which enables the government to breach international law and exempts some of its powers from legal challenge.

“Once you deprive people of the right to go to court to challenge the government, you are in a dictatorship, you are in a tyranny,” Neuberger told the webinar. “The right of litigants to go to court to protect their rights and ensure that the government complies with its legal obligation is fundamental to any system … You could be going down a very slippery slope.”

His comments came as the Scottish parliament at Holyrood voted by 90 votes to 28 against granting legislative consent to the Westminster bill. The Scottish National party, Labour, Green and Liberal Democrat MSPs united to oppose the legislation; only Conservative MSPs supported it.

The vote will not prevent Boris Johnson’s government at Westminster from pushing through the internal market bill, but the Scottish constitution secretary, Mike Russell, said the Scottish parliament had “explicitly” and comprehensively rejected it.

The hastily assembled online panel opposing the bill, organised by the International Bar Association, included Lord Neuberger, the former home secretary and Conservative party leader Michael Howard, the former attorney general Dominic Grieve QC, the SNP justice spokesperson Joanna Cherry QC, Helena Kennedy QC and Jessica Simor QC.

All hoped the internal market bill would be defeated in parliament – overturned and fatally delayed by the House of Lords – rather than being challenged in the courts.

Cherry said she feared it would end up in the courts and the Scottish government might itself have to initiate legal proceedings against the Westminster government.

Neuberger warned that any hearing would “put the judges in a position where they are on a collision course with the government or are seen to be craven … [But] you have to sort out problems in court, if you don’t you have a civil war.”

Lord Howard told the online rally, which attracted more than a thousand participants, that he was “opposed to the clauses in the bill which breach international law”.

“I’m opposed because I think governments ought to keep their word and uphold treaties,” he said. “I hope this bill is defeated in parliament not in the courts.”

Grieve said not only did the bill breach international law, it contained an “ouster clause which goes to the heart of parliamentary democracy”, preventing the government being challenged over its actions. Rather than Brexit being “an assertion of sovereignty,” Grieve added, “it constitutes its undermining”.

*The above report by Owen Bowcott was first published in The Guardian on 7 October 2020

Brexit strategy risks UK 'dictatorship', says ex-president of supreme court: Watch the Video

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The Anglican church has publicly challenged the government’s

willingness to break international law over Brexit

Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, is among the signatories to a letter stressing the

importance of the Good Friday agreement. Photo: The Guardian

'The UK’s archbishops chastised the government over Brexit. In a rare move, Britain’s five Anglican church leaders publicly warned of the “moral, as well as political and legal, consequences” of the government’s willingness to break international law by passing a bill that would override parts of the existing UK-EU withdrawal agreement.'-- UK archbishops urge ministers not to breach international law over Brexit

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UK needs judges to limit government power, says Lord Kerr

Photo: Pinterest

Longest-serving supreme court justice says healthy democracy requires checks on ministers

‘The last thing the country needs is a government in which ministers exercise “unbridled power”, the UK’s longest serving supreme court justice has said.

In a forthright defence of the courts system, Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore, who stood down at the end of last month, said judicial checks on the government were part of a healthy democracy…’- Continue to read

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'Patriotism' is the last refuge of a scandalous government

'The kind of war talk that helped get Brexit done is now proving useful

in managing No 10’s calamitous Covid strategy.'

‘A party that governs in the national interest does not hand out large untendered contracts to

the private sector, or barricade itself against the north of the country.’-Photo: The Guardian 

‘Consider this rule of thumb: the more that “patriotism” is invoked by a country’s political elites, the less healthy its political culture will be. From McCarthyism in the US to the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the imperative to love one’s country has often been used as a pretext for persecution and submission. And in post-Brexit pandemic Britain, we have developed our own grammar of patriotic intimidation.

The Conservative government is well positioned to play this game. It is already high on the fumes of Brexit, which carried the Tories to a majority that would allow them to vanquish Europe, take back control and get the job done. The Vote Leave veterans in No 10 are already aware of how well the language of treachery and sabotage can turn a section of the public against its own judiciary and even elected representatives. The kind of war talk that helped secure Brexit is now proving useful in managing the government’s calamitous Covid strategy…’- Continue to read

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'A HARD RAIN'

Driven and Fueled by the Lies of the Past-

‘Johnson, Gove and Cummings Drive Britain Towards Elective Dictatorship.’

The Posh Boys Destroying this Green and Pleasant Land

A poster in Kentish Town, north London, mocks Michael Gove, Dominic Cummings

and Boris Johnson. Photo: Tolga Akmen, via The Guardian

‘Britain is changing from a parliamentary democracy towards an elective dictatorship faster than people realise after Boris Johnson’s election victory.

The announcement that Sir Mark Sedwill, the Cabinet Secretary and National Security Advisor, has quit is the most high profile indicator of a revolution that will be sweeping through Whitehall, Parliament and the courts over the next four years if Johnson, Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings get their way.

Sir Mark will have to be replaced, under Civil Service Commission rules, by another permanent or former permanent secretary – but the new National Security Advisor, David Frost, is currently leading the Brexit negotiations with the EU and is a committed Brexiter and darling of the Vote Leave movement.

Last week, the Prime Minister’s controversial chief advisor Cummings was reported to have warned that a “hard rain” would soon fall on the Civil Service.

What has not been noticed is that the vast majority of new Whitehall appointments are now going to business and data experts – part of Cummings’ revolution to bring in ‘disruptors’ and, in his words, “weirdos and misfits” into the heart of Whitehall.

The search for a new permanent secretary for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) already involves a New York recruitment agency, Russell Reynolds, which states on its website: “The organisations that don’t disrupt themselves are the ones that will be disrupted...”-Continue to read

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So, They Got Their Brexit Done!

The Disintegration of this Disunited Kingdom- Canon Dr Paul Oestreicher 

THIS ENGLISH BREXIT- Canon Dr Paul Oestreicher 

Britain today and the Bankruptcy of Ideas, Vision and Values-less Education

How a dangerous belief in British exceptionalism led the UK to ruin

British exceptionalism has reached the end of the road

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After Boris Johnson’s COVID-19 recovery and discharge from hospital, I wrote him a public letter, pleading with him to change his ways and become A Man For The Common Good. As it happened, it was, nothing, but a wishful thinking on my part! He proved to me that, yes, indeed, leopards can never change their spots!

Dear prime minister now with your future actions you can prove, once and for all, that, yes, indeed, leopards can change their spots, and a man like you, can change his character and innate nature. 

Boris for the Common Good! How miraculous that can be! God must have saved you for something good!

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...and thus, he went on and gave us our long-awaited ‘Independence Day’, freeing us from tyranny, dictatorship, and colonisation!

The ‘Independence Day’, Not Long to Go!