Distortion of Birth Story of Buddha

Distortion of Birth Story of Buddha

My mother wanted to go to Lumbini and I somehow raised the money. However, she did not utter a word after the return having seen the naked Niganatayan. I was expecting her to ask me for a return journey but she did not. Of course, she visited all the "ata mastana" or 8 religiously important places in in Ceylon.

 

I have revised my opinion having listened to Jayarathna Pathiraarchchci.

Born in Teldeniya now under water due to Polgolla dam. 

Attained enlightenment in Dambulla.

Parnibbhana in Anuradhapura.

Relevance of Mihintale is probably related to the Ravana Story. The "cock and bull story" of Vijaya and Mahinda Thera was also planted by Indians where colossal Ravana remnants and caves remained and the Indian owned them by default.

Yes, we have to revisit out history as stated by Jayarathna Pathiraarchchci.

This is stated in the "Gatha" my mother used to recite.

Now I do not believe in Pali at all since Pali a creation by Indians Buddhagosha and Mahanama.

"Yannam padaya Nadiya Puline Che Theire (Teldeniya)

Yan Sathcha Buddha Girike Sumana Che Lagge (Sripada)

Yannattha Yonaka Pure ( Makkama in Puttalam now under water) Munisocha Padan

Than (Three) Pada Lannchana Mahan Sirasa Namami"

 

Lies, damn lies and pseudo-statistics

Lies, damn lies and pseudo-statistics

Big Picture

Unlike in the West we cannot use statistics to analyze politics in Ceylon.

 

A 3% shift is enough to make a landslide in the West.

 

JVP/NPP rise was the biggest aberration to our politics, that is why I call it the "Flash In The Pan" and I did not believe that they will sink  to the bootom within 7 months..

 

Simple logic

Lies and promises that cannot be fulfilled.

Lies, damn lies and pseudo-statistics.

If Kumar David would have been alive he would made an accurate analysis. Unfortunately, he is gone and he had ample historical material.

 

I am no replacement at all.

Historical Base Lines in Ceylon

30% pseudo left

30% pseudo right 

40% uncommitted or floating vote.

My Wish

20% real left

20% real right

 

60% silent masses, that is when the system change is possible. 

 

In other words majority overtakes the politicians of the day.

 

This was slowly happening in Ceylon but these NPP guys ruined it.  Politically, nationality and internationally they are immature and cannot take the mantle.

 

In other words they are kindergarten type.

 

Sorry for me being blunt and that is the reality.

So in another two years (time to sink in the current aberrant reality), we get another chance to revisit or recharge our politics.

 

Dump the old radical views.

 

People friendly not party friendly evolution should happen not automatically but by careful education.

Champika Ranawake has a role within the parliament or outside of it. 

Ravi Kumudesh has a place in educating the  misguided masses.

 

Average citizen in my opinion is still stupid but nobody can openly say that which is a political suicide if a politician does it.

Citizen always think he or she is very smart once in 5 years.

 

That is the tragedy.

 

End result was a party which has done irreparable damage to our economy coming to power when economy has hit the rock bottom.

"Dayiwopagatha Karmaya Pala Deema".

"Munta Dharmaya Therrenne Nane".

That is why I say we should have elections every 3 years as in General Management.

1. One year to learn.

2. One year to act on the job.

3. Third year either to quit or plan to reenter or taste the rotten egg.

I can make these valid comments since, I am fully retired doctor who is not even living in Ceylon.

 

During my time I did my part withing available resources.

Hope a rising political star is born within the next decade.

 

Ousting Sirimavo

Ousting Sirimavo

I was practical man was instrumental in getting rid of Sirima, N.M. and Peter Keinaman out of politics. It started when I was an Intern and it matured within 6 years to oust Sirima.

 

Ist Episode

Worked to Rule Campaign 

I was invincible in my work place and I did not behave like a rotten egg, generally speaking, which Labour Union guys are. 

I get activated after 9 P.M. when everybody is retiring to bed.

Work to rule campaign was initiated through messages through our telephone system.

 

Plot is hatched over night, without breaking the law of the country and patients were very well looked after by a skeleton staff.

This is not agonist the poor patients but the rotten government.

 

2nd Episode in UK

When I entered UK, 60% of the Doctors were from overseas. The majority were from Ceylon. We did not have a Union and I closely followed the Labour Union activity in Yorkshire and formed a primitive "Overseas Doctors Association" and got our U.M.T raised within six months.

Then there was a long drawn out action to get 1 in 3 rota.

I never got a 1 in 3 rota for 8 years and by that time I made a firm decision to return home due to many reasons.

British doctors were lazy and never did one in two rota at out time.

 

3nd Episode

Ousting Mahinda Rajapaksa

Plan was well executed and guys like Dulles Alahapperuma did not know from where we operated.

We even had a skeleton International Staff.

That is when he forgot the country and look after only the family and family members.

I do not mind party members left riding up beating the family.

Do not allow the son to rise up.

Let him remain at 10%.

He is a liability worse than Sajith. 

Already an Indian stooge. 

 

4th Episode

In New Zealand

I was getting the salary for three and that actually was very reason for my downfall. 

They could not sack me but reorganized the structure. I stuck to my contract but the one who offered me the job lost his post without compensation.

New Zealand doctors were the laziest and under Labour Law they never worked beyond 40-44 hours but I did over 82 (almost double) on one week.

I threatened to take legal action unless they keep the contract, I signed with them. 

Only think they could do was not to renew the contract.

Two weeks later I was back in Ceylon and of course, I did not want my wife to lose her job in Ceylon. 

She had taken only two years unpaid leave and she returned 8 weeks earlier in good time. If one loses a job in Ceylon it is very difficult to regain or recover.

 

That is the reality.

5. JRJ

I was lucky to be out of this country, for decade when he was in power.

I signed his last blood report and said I am signing a dead man's report and left Navaloka and when I reached Ragama by train, I saw the white flags coming up. I did not pay a visit to him and his final few days were supposed to be pathetic.

I was in Ceylon on holiday when his "Kalagedi Selllama" was on display.

Ever since, I hate this mechanism called referendum.

The distortion and ruin he brought to our simple one past the post system cannot be redeemed.

One crime of my life was voting for him once before leaving Ceylon. 

Of course I was instrumental in getting Sirimavo out.

It was not a "For Vote" but a " Protest vote".

I voluntarily removed my name from the "Voter Register" for over 20 years and renewed it only to get the passport to leave Ceylon for good.

The above piece is to show I had an active service in Ceylon and Abroad.

 

How I became anti-Indian

How I became anti-Indian

I must now tell you how I became anti-Indian.

It developed over 35 years.

It ran parallel with my antipathy towards JVP and now NPP.

Now I am convinced India was involved in undermining Ceylon from 1971-73 to 1988/89. 

India used DJVP. 

 

I have direct evidence.

In 1971 to 1973 I thought North Korea was involved but my gut feeling is  India through an unknown proxy ignited, the 1971 insurrection.

 

Indians were involved from Indira Gandhi's time but after blasting off of  PM Rajiv Gandhi, it died down for a little while but it has emerged with vigour through Modi and Anura.

The pathetic part of this SAGA is JVP carder and their followers did not realize they were being used by Indian operatives.

These Niragamikayo do not see anything wrong when guys and girls in other religions bring cultural elements from foreign countries and plant them here and destroy our own Temple Based Culture.

Temple is an antithesis to them.

Why?

There is a big plot.

India and CIA are on this plot.

Tamils are also hoodwinked. 

America and CIA are using a certain section of Tamils in their strategic plan.

In other words cheating "Ordinary Tamils".

There are two important things even Kariyage does not highlight about JVP.

1. Number one is depriving the Youth of their Youth and to stand on their own feet without a "bizarre party" propping them up.

As Champika says it is these timid guys in the first year who are propped up as student leaders but none over time become national leaders.

2. The second is the destruction of public property with callous disregard.

My Political Analysis

My Political Analysis 

Evaluation of Election Results

I have left out several guys who were instrumental in bringing a significant change in our politics.

This is how Niragamikayo treat Buddhist monk in Prison. There is a Real Danger for Pnanasara Himi in Prison.

As far as I gather this Himi has not been imprisoned under murder charges but he is treated like a serial killer or somebody like Jack the Ripper.

He is being kept with serial killers.

 

This is how the criminal law is practiced in Ceylon.

 

What is the response of our Cardinal? 

He must be happy Now.

Chintana Dharmadhsa "Nohoth Padadaya" is working for Ranil "Nohoth CIA Agent".

 

"Mun Okkhoma Dhesha Drohiyo".

 

Ali Rajah (LTTE Vestige but currently Active) Subhashwaran, financing "Rani" film to belittle our "Rana Wiruwan" or our brave soldiers.

Anura has taken the lead bait and he will be demolished on his own accord.

 

"Anne Modayo Dan Mokada Karranne?"

"Anurawa Hakkhe Thiyala Chappa Karala Danawa Mun Tika".

That is the master plan.

Aiyeh Minihagen Ganna Deyak Nathi Hindha Minihava Billy Denna Hadhanne.

 

Anne Pavve Meyahh!

1. Dharshana Hapangoda in his inimitable way introduce guys to the global audience.

He is unique. 

When nobody dared he antagonized Rajapaksas.

That was the beginning.

I think he had a tough time under them.

Having said that he gave a fair chance to all political views including that actor guy, Kamal Addharaarachchi.

2. Champika Ranawake 

He is the duplicate CIA agent only second to Ranil.

A dangerous guy. 

Intelligent and educated guy with the knowledge about Katubeddha student activities. 

He should study Peradeniya University students' activities like Kumar David.

3. Ravi Kumudesh

Ravi is a new found talent with a political brain. 

 

According to Chapa Bandara Ravi was a LTTE operative in the past. 

 

He is a Tamil guy with good Sinhala education. 

He is supposed to be currently financed by Ali Rajah Subhashwaran who is the LTTE Banker (Black Money) in UK. 

 

Ranjan Ramanayake was once financed by him and Ranjan has disappeared from the main stream.  

He was used and dumped and he (Ranjan) is a bit of a political idiot.

4. Chapa Bandara

Chapa is a different kettle of fish with  a vast resource pool.

I admire his upright standing with Buddhist Culture.

There is nothing in Ceylon without Buddhist Culture.

 

We must protect it from Ranil and CIA.

5. Sepala Amarasinghe

Sepala is like quicksand in politics. He switches his political stance instantaneously. His only ploy is to make money when the sun shines. He cannot be trusted in politics bit like Ratana Thera.

 

Sepala does not have to bring his own views in politics but he has to bring guys slanted with his line of thinking.

Just like Dharshana Hapangoda, basically voice either for or against the government.

 

Dharshana Hapangoda directly and indirectly helped Anura and the Clan. 

This Anura Clan is the sinking ship.

A major disaster impending.

My advice for Champika 

He should have a go at the next Presidential Election.

He has only one GO and no more.

He may be guy who can take NPP/JVP head on. 

He worked with their cadre in Katubedda

 

Weera Wansa may not be able to do it with his long alliance with Rajapaksas. 

He (WW) has to emerge from the deep pit he is already in.

 

"Bauddhaya is his Galaweema" not Karl Marx.

Regarding Champika, the biggest disadvantage is money.

 

Save whatever, You have but Start filling the till from Well Wishers.

That money should be used for Kandy, Galle and Anuradhapura. 

 

Whatever he has done is enough for Colombo.

1. He should get some help from Chandrika on the ground that he won't antagonize her son. That alliance will cover the Attanahalla and Nittambuwa. 

As it is Chandrika needs some help. 

 

That guy Wijedasa is a crook and he has no guts to stand up against NPP/JVP but he trying to scoop what is left of PA.

 

Maithree guy is a liability to any party he associate with. 

 

SLFP is the classic example of political failure and there are about 6 Stake Holders to SLFP.

2. He may need Ravi Kumudesh.

Looking at Hiruni, Ravi is an excellent political animal.

 

He can breakdown the NPP/JVP trade unions without much a do.

3. Champika needs Harsha De Silva without upsetting Sajith.

 

Unity of the opposition is vital with one problem, Namal and the Rump of SLPP. He should be stopped at 10% and no more. 

No Rajakapsa family guy should be allowed to rise up for another 10 years.

4. Must not antagonize India.

5. He should have a good alliance with Muslims. 

Unlike Tamils they cannot be trusted.

6. Tamils are a big problem.

They are spread all over. the globe

Their business arm in Ceylon is broken up by the Muslim businesses.

Tamils know only one language.

That is money, especially dollars.

Nobody can find a single old time L.T.T.E. guy in Canada. 

 

They are all now not first but second generation Canadian politicians.

 

This is why Donald Trump is behind the back (Canada) of these illegal guys not only Sheiks but other Terrorist Rumps from various regions of the world. 

They slowly slip into America from Canada.

 

Allirajah Subhashwaran is a good example.

Like Emil Saundranayagm of the past, he spins black money to white and white to black, with one spin of the wheel.

Tamils are very much divided but have become an International Conglomerate.  

They do not have a base but a Intricate Network. 

 

I am told that they have got India wrapped around their fingers.  

 

Nobody can unite them but money is their global link. 

The Kovils and Gold are their lifeline.

 

Even, in Ceylon Tamils control the gold exchange not Muslims.

 

My batch mates are a good example how the unity of Tamils are expressed in Global Scale. They are all over the globe.

 

Their game is to fight among themselves.

 

They have petty fights everyday and their weapon is the cellphone, mostly Apple devices. Some of the petty fights are  related to Caste or Kovils.

 

The current dilemma is whether to go to Ganges or Kovil in South India.

 

For Ceylonese Tamils, there is a big difference between an Indian Kovil and a Jaffna Kovil. A Kovil in Kandy has no significance and Kataragama Kovil has lost all its glory..

 

My current understanding of a Kovil is a Private Bank. 

I have no working idea,  how much of a cut each Deva gets in each Kovil but it is much less than what the Pusari gets, I am told.

One thing is sure.

 

Tamils are very intelligent and that itself may be a big problem.

They do not like being cheated like the way Anura has done.

 

They do not mind "do not care attitude" but if you cheat one, that one will remember it for life. 

 

They never intend to cheat YOU.

 

Treat them business like and their bona fide language is money, dollars to be precise.

Coming to Politics and Champika

 

Probable Breakdown of Vote in the near future.

To begin with NPP/JVP (animal) does not need any intervention, at all.

Naturally, it will destroy itself. 

It follows the basic animal nature that destroy within.

Just mark my word.

1. SJB    20%

2. NPP   20%

3. SLPP  10%

Tricky 50% Left and JVP got only 42% with lot of money and almost perfect campaign.

 

My advice;

 

Champika has to start long before JVP starts crumbling. 

 

If Champika waits until the real fractures appear in NPP/JVP other parties will step in before him to gobble. 

 

He has to eat into its base NOW not later.

His YouTube work should be the harbinger.

Anura is in panic mode already and gather those moments to wrestle its superficial structure including media guys and girls.

Do not let the vote base slip and go to SJB or SLPP.

Both of them have to revamp their camps.

 

No space should be allowed right at this moment.

Better be early than late.

 

Ranil may be having a plan of his own. 

 

I guess his window is only 2 years.

 

Sajith failed twice mainly due to Ranil's backstabbing.

Destroy Ranil and let Sajith consolidate.

 

SLPP revival depends on Weera Wansa and Wiraya. 

SLPP people need time. They would not come to streets until they are fed up again.

With Unity in the opposition YOU can make it.

I say, if Dudley Senanayake is Reborn, somewhere in Ceylon, he should rise up NOW.

1. NPP

4.5 millions

43.6%

3926 seats 

2. SJB

2.25 mullions

21.69%

1767 seats

3. SLPP

0.94

9.1%

741 seats

4. UNP

0.488

4.69%

Seats 381

5. PA

0.388

3.72%

Seats 300

SB

0.294

2.83%

Seats 226

Rest

25% mostly in the North.

377 seats

Summary 

Presidential Election

5.7 millions

42%

General Election

68 millions

61%

Provincial Council Elections 

2.3 millions less totaling about 2.1 millions

43.6% 

 

One (1%) per cent increase which is statistically not significant.
 

With a massive campaign they could not muster 3% that Australian Labour party achieved.

 

Calculation based on 40% of 5.6 millions is roughly 2.2 millions.

 

There actual base is 3% and rest 37% has come from the "Floating Vote" or usually in Ceylon, it is the "Protest Vote" against the party in power.

 

The "Protest Vote" has not come, yet.

 

In fact, this protest vote guys prudently kept away from voting instead of voting for the opposition.

What it means is that they are ready to give some limited space for these bone heads but stupid guys a chance.

 

This is for YouTube guys. 

"Uddachcha Kamai" "Ola Mottala Kamai Ekatu Unama" "Wenne Mokkada Machan"

 

"Jangiye Chu Unawane, Ne"

That is my closing beat to JVP/NPP supporters especially these "YouTube Guys".

Unlike Indian voters in Ceylon the voters are less emotional but mature.

 

They do not want upset the Apple Cart.

 

My guess-estimate is NPP/JVP will destroy themselves.

 

We just have to observe them patiently.

 

Their behaviour or "Thuga Damima" in public especially in the parliament is not going to work but destroy themselves.

Verdict 

Talk Only Show 

NATO 

No Action Talk Only Show

When the next round of election comes it will dip to 10% to 15% not enough to become even a powerful opposition just like SJB.

I am hopefully waiting for the emergence of TRULY Progressive Alliance (not a single party) of politically astute gathering from the SILENT Majority.

 

Sitting on the bench is not the way but Participatory Democracy is essential.

 

It is high time that this process becomes a realty since we are heading for the abyss.

Country before the party should be the slogan.

 

In any case NPP/JVP is just the " Flash on the Frying Pan".

Sorry for me being pessimistic.

I saw this in broad day light.

How Mahinda Rajapaksa squandered the golden opportunity by being self centered and working for his family and the goons.

I have long term experience with these guys from 1971 to 1989.

 

I have been always against their arrogant, impulsive and destructive politics. 

 

They lack the natural and intuitive politics which is the need of the moment.

Me leaving the country (like many others) having done my part without "pomp and pagan" in my twilight years is the living testimony to how puerile our politics have been.

But my hats off to guys like Harsha De Silva who sacrifice his talent to politics in spite of so many odds. 

He sticking in the opposition itself needs lot of grit. 

 

I think Sajith should had over the baton to him and organize the party from grass root level not allowing the "Sutra Pincha" to eat into his base.

 

Ranil is another guy who is a political pest (should be in the political dustbin in India) who should be violently evicted from our body politics.

He is a Greedy Guy.

This one must say to his face to destroy him politically not physically.

 

I abhor physical violence which  was "his trade mark" and known to be utilized at Batalanda.

Do not have any dealing with him.

He is using Anura to undermine Sajith.

 

If Sajith take a side step and take a welcome break and let others take the the baton ousting Anura is a "cake walk" in due course.

 

Break their back in two years.

 

Waiting for five years is Stupid.

 

I was one who stood up against JVP/DJVP when it was the necessity in 1971 and 1989.

 

These guys would ruin our economy and that is what Indians are wishing and waiting for.

 

Every minute in politics matters.

 

SLPP is waiting in the Wing and their Think Tanks are on overdrive and hard at work. Do not give them a fighting chance to be second but let them be in third place with 10% which is realistic.

 

About Ranil;

 

"Panuwek Wage Ahaka Danna Oene Minihek"

 

I hope Harsh De Silva will not fall into his Traps and "his ill  gotten money".

 

Not money but "Wisdom and Vision" is the need of the day. 

He is even worse than to S.B.D. in political back stabbing.

"Devio Sakki" is politically invigorating and inspiring to the carder. 

 

Do not revisit the phrase but find new themes.

"Palu Gedara Walan  Bidinno = JVP Eka".

 

What it means is only seeing others faults but not something in one's own eye.

 

We have enough phrases in our vocabulary which I have forgotten in old age.

Equally I despise guys like Wijedasa Rajapaksa who were wheeler dealers and S.B.Dissanayake the "back stabbing guys".

Very soon, Dilip Jayaweera and Dammka Perera will add to the failing list.

I have already shown that NPP/ JVP is the only party in power who started losing its popularity within six months, mainly due to the credible gap between it's promises and its performance capacity.

Furthermore, it has lost its base vote value to around 40% from 44% in the local elections, a 4% drop which is politically significant.

SJB had kept it's voter base at around 25%.

SLPP is maintaining it's base of 7.5% a drop of 2.5% from its 10% base.

However, is PA/SLFP is just ahead of UNP and keeping at 5% level. 

 

It did not contest last time round and I am unable to see any of its trends except  

Attanagalla and Gamphaha which is losing its grip to J.V.P. 

 

JVP gulped part of its voter base and unless it opposes this trend of JVP it will become and extinct political species

Then the SB which came in with a view of establishing as a new and modern parry, in spite of throwing money at will it could not keep it's 10% presidential election total, simply because it is not presenting an alternative policy that can revive this country. 

It is more of the same  JRJ "consumerism politics" or "open economy" without a workable program, nonetheless, a theory ad nauseam. 

It looks like it is eating into UNP base of 5%.

 

The biggest loser is UNP which is now hovering around 2.5% well below SLPP.

 

I wish to propose these two elements (Ranil/Dilip) including Dhammika Perera who financed politics from KUNU Deals from UK (hospital refuse from the West imported to Ceylon and India)

 

The bottom line is rhetoric of NPP/JVP is fast losing  credibility in the political sphere and their ability govern and pull the country together. They are good at counter arguments but not governing the country as a sovereign state. 

 

In other words timidity towards India and trying to reach far away country like Vietnam.

 

No brainier from the start.

Hiring a plane from Vietnam from its resources abroad is the culmination of their "bone or pigheadedness" whatever their explanation in defense.

 

If Sajith did such a thing these YouTube guys would have a field day.

However, they are able to keep near 50% popularity in villages and suburbs that is why their nickname "Gamme Ranil" in "Jangi Aragalaya".

In my analysis NPP is just "Flash in the Pan" political movement which will settle down at somewhere around 10% level just like SJB in the long run which is a significant improvement from 3% carder level politics (which is 2% outside the statistically significant 5% outliers).

In any case, their recent shift from rhetoric and carder level politics to populism of the far right will not be good for their own survival but would be the gradual deterioration into "we also ran or we also governed in Ceylon" .

 

That would be the recorded in that way in political history. 

I am trying to be "Kumar David" a veteran Marxist Political Analyst.

 

He passed away, recently in California just like Nalin De Silva in America (?where I do not know).

 

In their own analysis and expressions they raised the bar high enough even their carder itself cannot rise up to when the occasion demands. 

 

That is the reality of local or grass root level politics.

Their exuberance (Thota Langa and Maligawa Episodes) and artificial self confidence that they can solve any problem in Ceylon are to their own ruin.

I am happy people have quickly understood their own predicament and how politics works and they will automatically lower their expectations and get on with their normal day to day life.

The System Change is eluding them by design.

It is a sad predicament.

 

Without money in the coffers and no way to improve productivity we will gradually fall into the abyss.

 

I would quit politics, right now but my Anti-Indian stance will be the end point.

In the final analysis, JVP's bone headedness and having to learn while on the driving wheel would be a disaster for the entire country.

 

I think they never expected this type of victory and thankfully the general public has realized their premature aspirations would evaporate into thin air and have stamped a reasonable brake on their military type of administration.

If they realize that running a state is different from running a party that would be the beginning.

It does not look like they are ready to learn and unfortunately that is their style and common sense does not prevail in their machinery.

 

I hope I am proven wrong.

 

It was a big distraction to my academic work and Linux promotion to 10% of the PC User Base.  

 

Yes, I am fast approaching that target.  

 

Reborn OS or Reborn ARCH Linux is my current interest.

 

In India Linux use is less than 5% simply because Indian cannot make money on Linux with "War on Muslims" looking eminent.

 

Only British United India and it will fracture again in no time.

The Decline of Labour Principles

The Decline of Labour Principles

Before I forget I have to jot down three names.

Not in order of preference or priorities.

Mind you I was a Labour sympathizer, then.

Not any longer.
 

Now no politics by conviction.
 

No religious affiliation not even academic conviction having not-registered as a medical practitioner in Ceylon for over 25 years.
 

George Galloway-Current

Only labour remnant and labout activist left in United Kingdom.

I am not sure he is not in the parliament but is a council member,

He has Talk Show named. MOAT.

Mother Of All Talks

I like his accent and vocabulary (which I cannot pick sometimes)  which in not Cockney, Hackney but Yorkshire or Northern.
 

1. Arthur Scargill was a coal miner who became the Labour Union Leader.

He was personally persecuted by Mrs.Thather whom I disliked very much.

He disappeared from the scene with the money and came back to fight legal battles both within and outside the Labour Party.

He lives in recluse now rarely appearing in public.

2. Ken Livingstone was a labour union leader who became the Mayor of London.

He started as a Council Member of Greater London and became the Mayor of London when that institution was formed.

3. Tony Benn was a labour activist and an excellent orator who imparted some religious favour to his convictions.

4. In this category Neil Kinnock was almost a total failure and lost 4 times to conservatives and remained as an amiable opposition leader to the liking of the conservatives.

5. Tony Blair who remained as a PM for 10 years tried to modernize the party and his "look like conservative party" has ruined it to the core.

6. Jerome Corbyn who inherited this legacy could not reform it to the current needs of the middle class and shifted towards the left and immigrants instead of the British Base.
Less I talk of current Mayor of London, Khan is better for British Labour enthusiasts. He is hanging on doing nothing of substance but he would be ousted by a real Labour guy (like what Ken Livingstone did decades ago).

7. Keir Starmer is the ideal choice for the labour party to come out of the wood and lead a possible victory within a short time. 

 

I have to revise my opinion below and he is a War Monger (against Labour Policies) and supporting War in Ukraine. 

He is the biggest failure but hanging on to the post. 

He is an American stooge now.
He was smart.
He was intelligent.
He is not eloquent now (unlike the oratory of the past without tangible actions).

He has the first hand experience in prosecution and should expose (no need to prosecute and an average intelligent British citizen would do that for him when the time is right)  the current wheeler dealer goons around the Conservative Party.

In fact, Conservative party members are already doing that for him.

Why waste energy but activate the young grass root level enthusiasts.

He has to extract the intent, purpose and  how the corruption insinuate even at health institutions dealing with Coronavirus.

Be patient but onslaught should be targeted and the conservative are corrupt to the core by nature unlike real labour activists.

I do not like the word socialists.

People are not equal but different at all levels but bringing them together with a common bond (every life young or old deserves dignity) is what an astute politician should do.

He should shun the paedophiliacs and sexually disoriented guys hiding behind the political garbs.

One caveat here in this country (CEYLON) people appoint the most corrupt to the highest office and the parliament and they scratch their backs within 24 of declaration of the poll count.

There are lot of Asians including Ceylonese who have come to UK with their trademarks of "absolute corruption is the only way forward".

That will be the path (absolute corruption) for UK, if Conservatives remain any longer.

Do not take this as a wishful political thinking but a common sense approach to any human endeavour including mitigating the pandemic and it's effect on an average guy.

They have no money in their hands and living on "hand to mouth existence'.

I saw this in 1970s in Ceylon and history repeats itself with only a little difference, democracy is shutdown totally and a dictatorship has come to stay with the blessing of corrupt Sangha, for 5 years at least.

He is not answerable even to the Almighty.

People are STUPID after all, all the time!

The Legacy of Tony Benn

 The Legacy of Tony Benn

Tony Benn was one of my favourite Labour MPs when I was working in UK.

Please do not confuse with Tony Blair (Once a UK PM) who ruined the Labour Party.  Tony Blair lied to the parliament with the aid of president Bush and instrumental in destroying Iraq (biological weapons and weapons of mass destruction campaign-origin of "FAKED NEWS").

Reproduction
Tony Benn on the Legacy of Slavery

By 

Tony Benn

In 2007, Tony Benn – who was an MP for Bristol for 20 years – gave a speech discussing the legacy of slavery, the fight which brought it down and the ideal of common humanity which powers progressive struggles.

I have copied only a part of his speech, relevant to religion and democracy.

Right at this moment in Ceylon, the democracy is at peril due to Buddhist monks supporting a Military Dictator.

Now the other thing that interests me very much is the role of religion in all this, and I know the question ‘am I my brother’s keeper?’ has been raised. On the Internet, from which, I get a lot of very useful information, I got the other day a summary of what all the religions of the world say. Judaism says ‘what is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow men’, that is the entire law, all the rest is commentary. Then Christianity, ‘all things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do even so to them.’ For Mohammad it was ‘no one of you is a believer until he desires to his brother what he desires for himself’. And the same with Brahmans, the same with Buddhists, the same with the Confucians, and that’s also what’s on every trade union banner, ‘an injury to one is an injury to all’.
So you can see it all coming together as a recognition that you cannot build a society on other than on a moral basis. And that I find very interesting because nowadays, you see, religion is being used as a way of dividing us, you only have to look at what’s said now about Islam and the use of God. Bush said God told him to go to Iraq, I didn’t know God worked in the White House, but apparently he did. Then they say Moses went up Mount Siani and got Palestine allocated to the Jews, I didn’t know God was an estate agent. But the way in which you use religion to justify your power is a tremendously important question.
If you now look at it in a cultural sense, all the religions apart from people who control them, all the religions are part of our culture. I was brought up as a Christian and when I go to church I like the churches, I like seeing bishops in funny outfits. I sing hymns like ‘onward Christian soldiers marching as to war with the cross of Jesus going on before’.
Now if anyone sang ‘onward Muslim soldiers going as to war with Mohammad’s banner going,’ they’d all be locked up at once by John Reid. So you have to recognise that there is, in every religion, a culture. There’s nothing whatsoever in the culture of religion to divide one from another. The people I’m nervous of are the people who use religion to get control of us, and that is the difference.
I mentioned that I was bought up as a Christian, my mother taught me that the story in the Bible was the story of the conflict between the kings who had power and the prophets who preached righteousness, and she taught me to support the prophets against the kings. It’s got me into a lot of trouble in my life but it explained so much. Because it’s one thing to be told love your neighbours as yourself. It’s another thing to be told by a bishop, ‘if you don’t do what I tell you, you will rot in hell’ […]
When I look back is in every period of history, two flames have always been burning in the human heart, the flame of anger against injustice and the flame of hope that you can build a better world and those two flames are really material by which we make progress. To understand that is very important, because if you don’t have some aspiration then you find yourself in a position, which I think about most of the time now – and that is how the human race is going to cope with its problems.
We live in a very remarkable period, quite unlike any other in history, when the human race has the capacity to destroy itself, and you can kill one man with a spear, a few more with a bayonet, one or two with a machine gun or a plane, but with chemical, nuclear and biological weapons it is possible to destroy the human race, that has never, ever been true before.
But it’s also the first generation in history which has the technology and the know-how and the money to solve the problems of the human race. And that’s where you really come right into the contemporary political scene, because a fraction of the cost of the war now would see that everyone in Africa with AIDs would have free drugs. A fraction of the cost of the war would see everyone in America has a health service, would protect New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina. That is the choice.
So the question then you have to ask yourself is, well how do you change the situation? Because there are only three interesting questions in politics, what’s going on? Which is not always easy to find out. Why is it going on? Which is harder to find out. The third question is, what are you going to do about it? And if you look at the way in which it all developed, it developed really with the greatest revolution of all, far more revolutionary than the French or Russian or American revolution, it was the revolution of democracy and reason.
I mention it is because throughout the 19th century a huge change in power occurred, in the olden days all the power was in the hands of the rich. If you were rich you didn’t need a school, you hired tutors, you didn’t have a mortgage from a local authority for your castle because you owned it, you didn’t have to bother about anything else, if you were ill you hired a doctor, when you were old you were okay, you were never unemployed because you never did any work anyway, and that was the basis of society. What happened during the 19th century explains everything, I think, including the national independence movements.
When people had the vote power was transferred from the people with money to the people who didn’t have money. In 1837, when the Birmingham Corporation became law the people of Birmingham, or some of them anyway, had the vote, how did they use the vote? They used to the vote to buy with their vote what they couldn’t afford personally: municipal hospitals, municipal schools, municipal fire brigade, municipal museums, municipal art gallery and what democracy did was to transfer power from the market place to the polling station, from the wallet to the ballot.
What then happened was the whole prospect changed, that’s how the welfare state came about, of course, in the end, the idea of a National Health Service, the idea of state education, the idea, even, of a fire brigade. In the olden days there was no fire brigade, you insured your own house with an insurance company. So if your neighbour’s house burned down they didn’t bother to put that out because he wasn’t insured and that would obviously threaten your house and this idea of welfare, which is looked down upon in mockery, is on the basis that actually the interest of all of us are in common.
If you meet a diseased person your health is threatened, if you work with an uneducated person your work is threatened and so the recognition of the common interests we have in survival and prosperity was a product of democracy, and nobody really likes democracy very much, nobody in power likes democracy very much. I mean, Hitler didn’t like it, Stalin didn’t like it, the Pope doesn’t allow the clergy to elect the Pope, it’s all done by shares of cardinals whom he appoints. I can’t say I find all that much enthusiasm for democracy even in a capitalist society of where the market is everything, because the thing about having a market society is that you don’t have citizens, you only have consumers. Now to be a consumer you have to have some money, I mean homeless people in the streets of London need homes more than anybody else but as they can’t afford them they’re not consumers, and the language used to belittle collective activity is very noticeable.
Now when I look again at the future I think of what’s called ‘cultural diversity.’ When I was born it was terribly boring – they were all white, they had fish and chips, they watched cricket, a little bit of ballroom dancing. Now we’ve got such a fantastic cultural diversity in Britain. Two of my granddaughters are at a primary school in London with 77 nationalities in the school and a refugee centre in the school, so when I go and talk at the school it’s like addressing a meeting of the General Assembly [of the United Nations]. My granddaughters have got Russian friends, American friends, Malaysian friends, West Indian, for them that’s normal, that is the world we live in. It’s complete generational change because I think younger people understand it, very often much better than older people who were brought up in a different tradition.
That’s really what we have to try and, which is why I think the Internet is very valuable because you get access to things which you wouldn’t necessarily find described in The Sun or The Mail. The information you get allows you to reach a judgment of your own which is independent and probably puts you in the category of the prophets against the king. So I warn you don’t use the Internet too loosely or you’ll be in trouble yourself.
I mentioned the trade unions and apartheid. I spoke in Trafalgar Square in 1964 in support of a very well known terrorist and I got denounced in the tabloids. I didn’t meet him for a bit, next time I met him he had a Nobel Peace Prize and was President of South Africa. Well, look at the suffragettes who were locked up for just wanting votes for women.
The way I think progress occurs, you see, is this: to begin with is you’ve got a sensible idea like abolishing slavery or votes for women or trade unions or ending apartheid, and they ignore you. Then if you go on you’re stark staring bonkers, I’ve had a touch of that myself, then if you go on after that you’re dangerous. Then there’s a pause and then you can’t find anyone at the top who doesn’t claim to have thought of it in the first place – and that is how progress is made.
It’s made by movements, by people who understand the world, who feel a sense of commonality with other people and say, ‘why don’t we get together and do it ourselves?’ In order for that to succeed you need to have encouragement and I think encouragement is the most important quality in political leadership, because they do try, all the time, to put you down […]
I went to the Labour conference 18 months ago and the Prime Minister made a speech which I listened to and I got up to go to the loo and I collapsed. I was taken to the Brighton hospital and given a pacemaker. I had a letter from the Prime Minister saying ‘hope my speech didn’t cause it’ and I was too polite to reply.
The interesting thing was this, when I left I discovered that was the worst hospital in Britain under the league tables. Well what if you’re the nurse or a sister or a doctor or porter, what do you make of it if you’re told you work in the worst hospital in Britain?
People want encouragement and that’s what they don’t always want to give you, but if we encourage each other, my God there’s nothing you cannot do. And so that’s how the slave trade really ended, people got together and saw the truth and realised that we’re brothers and sisters and we made an advance.
But one final warning, every generation has to do it for themselves again, there is no railway station called justice that if you catch the right train you get there, every generation has to fight for their rights because rights are taken away. They concede what they have to, and then when the pressure is off, they try and recapture the territory they’ve lost.
So it’s an ongoing struggle. I’m 82 now, and it’s wonderful, if I’d known what fun it was to be 80 I’d have done it years ago, because you have a bit of experience and you don’t want anything. And when I speak, as I do tonight to you, I say you can relax, I am not asking you to vote for me and there’s a great sigh of relief and people saying, “well, if he doesn’t want anything we may as well listen to him.”
So that is really the function of the old, I think it’s to encourage people and to understand. So thank you for asking me here […]

This transcript originally appeared on the blog of Socialist Unity.

About the Author

Tony Benn was a Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP) for forty seven years, serving as Party Chairman, Postmaster General, Minister of Technology, Secretary of State for Industry and Energy. He ran unsuccessfully for the party deputy leadership and leadership in the 1980s and was President of the Stop the War Coalition until his death in 2014.

Rationalist Movement in Decline

Rationalist Movement in Decline

A short essay in honour of Carlo Fonseka

September 14, 2019, 8:34 pm

by Kumar David

The high point of modern rationalism as a theory and as a movement, internationally and in the domestic scene, was the 1960s. From the 1980s its appeal as an NGO dimmed in both arenas. The modern icon of worldwide rationalism was the brilliant Bertrand Russell; its guru in Ceylon, Abraham Kovoor (1898-1978). The torch of leadership of the Rationalist Society passed from Kovoor to Carlo sometime before Kovoor’s death if memory serves me right. As a student and young university don in the 1960s and 1970s I was an enthusiast but not a member of RS; exhaustively wrapped into the then LSSP as I was. Many close university pals though, Chris Ratnayake, MWW Dharmawardhana and Madusoothanan were card-carrying rationalists.

Kovoor was an irrepressible ghost-buster and a god-buster. Following in the steps of legions of famed Indian ghost-busters, many of them Malayalis like Kovoor, he spared no effort touring the country exposing hoaxes, debunking fakes and kattadiyas and waging relentless war on superstition. His services to enlightenment were immense. His god-busting was less well known but no less important. He once related how he chased Sai Baba all over India in an attempt to corner him into an "interview" where, under controlled and supervised conditions, he would expose Baba’s "miracles" as no more than conjuring tricks. Baba fled from city to city but never granted Kovoor a meeting.

Carlo rose to fame when he exposed fire-walking as a sham. He proved it by training himself his recruits with fairly thick soles, to move quickly across hot embers, letting feet linger momentarily. It was a great success; the press was there and the exhibition buried the myth of fire-walking as of religious significance; (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2gAvTp_rakand). Carlo and volunteers enjoyed a bottle of arrack and indulged in a pork feed before the fire-walk, but gentleman that he was, my plea that they loudly utter sacrilegious profanities to conclusively drive home the point fell on deaf ears.

Before taking up my theme today, the vicissitudes of Rationalism at home and abroad, I need to say that Carlo’s main life-time contribution was not to rationalism but to medical education, a topic not within the scope of this essay. Carlo has a splendid little booklet of essays "Essays of a Lifetime" which I reviewed for the Sunday Island, I can’t remember when, and Ratnajeevan Hoole reviewed in Colombo Telegraph on 28 Feb 2017. https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/essays-of-a-lifetime-by-professor-carlo-fonseka/

But I must copy this from Hoole: "Science now, however, is so specialized with small incremental advances that there are few polymaths today. Carlo Fonseka (MBBS (First Class), University of Ceylon; Ph D, University of Edinburgh; Emeritus Professor of Physiology at the University of Ceylon) is an exception – engaging in medicine, management of public bodies, theology, music, left-wing politics and many other things, and bringing these to the public through op-ed pieces, and radio and television talk shows".

The recognition of reason and rational thought as the foundation of knowledge is very old. It was there among Greek philosophers and implicit in Confucius and the early Indian materialists. It is the bedrock of the Buddha’s way of thinking. However, rationalism, empiricism and atheism as these terms are understood today begin with the Enlightenment and René Descartes (1596-1650) dubbed the first of the modern rationalists. Not far behind were Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, (1646-1716). At the peak of the Enlightenment, Voltaire (1694-1778) and Dennis Diderot (1713-1784) championed the primacy of reason.

However, an epistemological gap emerged between the rationalists and the empiricists. The former regraded reason, logic and mathematics as essentially true without proof or need of empirical evidence as they were intrinsically free of contradiction. Descartes and Leibnitz championed this view. The empiricists (Diderot, Spinoza and the scientific community of the next generation) held that empirical validation and physical evidence were necessary to authenticate truth. Cutting across this divide was the atheism that fused together nearly all these great rationalists and empiricists. Voltaire is the best remembered of this breed. John Locke (1632-1704) was a queer bird who advocated religious tolerance but demanded suppression of atheism because it would "undermine social order".

The Ceylon Rationalist Society was mostly home to scientists (Kovoor was a botanist) from whom the distinction between rationalism and empiricism simply drew a shoulder shrug. Secondly, the possibility of being a rationalist and religious was a largely absent issue as they were nearly all at least agnostics. Atheism is not a necessary part of the rationalist tool-kit since one can hold that god moves in mysterious ways that do not affect the physical laws of the universe. The one unconditional demand of ghost-busting rationalists would be that superstition in all its forms be banished.

Rationalism, because of its hostility to entrenched views, did not stand far from political philosophies that rejected the class system imbedded in capitalism. Most rationalists were socialists and quite a few were Marxists. Carlo lived and died a Samasamajist and he was very close to and a great admirer of NM; I believe he was to an extent NM’s personal physician. Russel, of course, was a fierce anti-imperialist and a staunch social-democrat. But historically there has been a gap between Marxism and Rationalism and at times I have felt this tension in Carlo. Russel is the prime example. I find it incomprehensible that such a great mind could so badly misunderstand Marx (see chapter on Marx in History of Western Philosophy) on the role of the subjective factor in history. It’s absurd to say this, but it is as if he had not even read Marx’s great historical pamphlets (18th Brumaire, Civil War in France, Class Struggle in France); but the puzzle remains. This is a mistake that Carlo did not make, but sometimes I felt that he did show diffidence regarding the fullness of Marx’s (and Darwin’s) dialectic which encompasses nothing less than the totality of the scientific method prior to the arrival of quantum uncertainty. (But that was not Carlo’s uncertainty, to make a bad pun).

The importance of the Rationalist Society declined from the late 1980s. Carlo was drawn into issues surrounding the practice and ethics of the practice of medicine, governance of the profession and medical education where he shone as a renowned teacher, deep humanist and respected opinion maker. (Some of my friends say his stand on private medical education was wrong). With ever more of Carlos attention focussed elsewhere, the Rationalist Society lost prominence.

But there is more to it than that; the importance of rationalism itself as a cutting-edge tool in social transformation in Lanka and in the world over declined for bigger reasons. The post-war world changed in the 1980s; liberalism, social-democracy and faith in fairness gave way to the hardness of neo-conservative thought and the heartlessness of neo-liberal economics. Thatcher busted unions and buried the welfare state, Regan and Volker induced the 1981 recession and ended it in America. A new more brutal capitalism replaced the soft welfare state. The beginning was the coup in Chile and slaughter of thousands. This erosion of the economic universe was accompanied by US belligerence in the Middle East leading to a flood of refugees. The arrival of tens of thousands on European shores inevitably transformed the narrative. Learned-societies drew less enthusiasm from undergraduates who were a large part of the rationalist clientele in India and Lanka. A harsher narrative of race and bigotry took its place; rational folk had more pressing and more perilous battles to fight.

Carlo’s copybook was distinguished, offhand I can’t recall the name of any other Lankan scientist-activist who has risen to such versatile eminence. It is a pity then that he blotched the last page of this illustrious copybook in his twilight years by tagging behind Mahinda Rajapaksa, going so far as to endorse 18A and the removal of term-limits on the Executive Presidency. Nevertheless, the good that Caro has done will shine beyond this single failure.