Not now not ever in my name!

The death of Lee Rigby is the most horrific disturbing thing to have happened on the streets of Britain since the Yorkshire Ripper walked them when I was a young man.

It is right that his killers go to jail for effectively life. It is right that they are kept away from our society. I do not believe that they should have the opportunity to commit such heinous crimes again.

However I also do not believe that they should, as the far right demand, be put to death.

Even more worrying was the call of the mother of Andrew Young for the killer of her son to be put to death for a single punch that caused the 40 year old Aspergers sufferer to fall to the ground and crack his skull.

Now this may not make me popular but I would like people to take some time to reflect. Here is a piece I wrote on the Death Penalty a while ago.

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I stand by these thoughts today as I did then even though I am deeply saddened by both of these deaths and sympathise with the families of those who have been lost.

Yet the argument still remains. You do not stop murder by threat of execution. It would not have prevented Lee Rigby's death nor would it have prevented Dunblane or Lockerbie or 9/11 or 7/7. We have to seek the root of these issues that would make one person wish to commit such crimes. That root is in the way our society works and that society is becoming more dichotomous and disintegrated as every day passes.

We have to prevent the radicalisation of young men and women at source. We all have a responsibility in the death of anyone who is killed unlawfully as we spend much of our time just accepting I'm alright Jack. Our world is more insular and self serving now than it has ever been. This relates to those at the highest level of our society and the lowest too.

Power, money, religion are all opiates of the people. We are hooked on looking after number one and have forgotten basic humanity. We are no better than Piggy in Lord of the Flies.

I beg of you, in the name of that is good in our world, look to the future with positive eyes, look to the future with a view to making our world better. Do not seek revenge for revenge's sake but take what we have learned and use that as a powerful tool to change the future for the better. Do not become radicalised and look to your neighbour as being your brother or sister. Seek peace in your heart and peace for humankind. Look after your neighbour do not persecute them for they are different. Help them to be better, to be kinder, to have more love. 

Herr Govebbels strikes again

Now some of my readers may feel uncomfortable about my constant attacks on Michael Gove especially as I liken him to the Nazi Party's minister for propaganda Josef Goebbels however I am deeply serious about my concerns.

 

 

Propaganda is of course controlled information and Mr Gove has by no means the monopoly on that yet this commentator believes that the ideas being forced through in education today are closely aligned with the ideology of dictatorship.

 

 

Plato believed that you should educate people to their level and not beyond for only the elite should be in control of our future. Marx believed the opposite but as Orwell reminds us on a regular basis absolute power corrupts absolutely, so Chairman Mao and his little red book used education for the same ends. Ultimately though both systems relied on the absolute power of those at the top controlling those at the bottom and that power was consolidated in education. Not true education which relies on freedom of thought and expression but indoctrination. There should be absolute discipline with menial or quite major punishment being used to force obedience to the learning. 

 

My critics will say that Gove is about freedom of choice but is he? He wants to create an elite system where only those who have the right background will get the right education. Education is a right not a privilege, not something that can be bought.

 

Now what makes this worse is that there are plans underway to increase the school day to 10 hours. Now I regularly work those sort of lengths of day but you can not keep it up for long and a child of 4? Please who does he think he is. And doesn't the working time directive mean that this would put a child at school for 50 hours a week? Is this the indoctrination of slavery? Not only that but these poor 4 year olds will be forced to be tested on their functional skills. I have worked all my life in education in one form another and quite frankly testing like this is not only going to psychologically scar the child it is going to prove absolutely nothing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So your smiling face looks down upon us happy in the knowledge that you are about to destroy generations of young people by sending them down a route that was basically found to be flawed in so many ways. Yet like Herr Goebbels before you Mr Gove you are not interested in the children which you claim to be you are merely interested in furthering your own political aims.

 

 

Well I am Winston Smith and I will not listen to your nonsense as Big Brother is a fantasy and will stay one because I am not a number nor are my students. We are not to be ranked by rote but we will be judged by our achievements in the world around us. How we help people, how we teach people and most of all how we give people the strength to think for themselves. This is 2014 not 1984 and I will continue to fight for the power of education.