The masterpiece that didn't change the world

In April 1937, when General Franco was struggling to overthrow the elected Government of Spain, he sought help from Hitler. The enemies of fascism deserved a dose of shock and awe. The Luftwaffe obliged by flattening the pesky city of Guernica, raining its bombs on homes, farms and schools; machine gunning families at the crowded outdoor markets. The world was appalled. More than a million Parisians thronged the city in protest. An enraged Picasso created the mighty canvas that many consider to be the greatest artwork of the 20th Century - Guernica. It serves to commemorate the first massive, cold blooded attack against a non military target in modern warfare; an act of savagery since surpassed and repeated many times over. The bombing of Guernica lasted three and a half hours; the bombing of Falluja has been going on for six and a half weeks, still counting. Troops were reportedly ordered to shoot all males of fighting age seen on the streets, armed or unarmed, (though many women and children copped it as well).

The assault on Guernica aroused the conscience of the world and gave us an immortal icon. The assault on Falluja revealed the complicity of the mass media and its embedded cheerleaders, as well as the deadened souls of the celebrity-sodden shopaholic cowards who are its major consumers. Falluja also gave us George Bush as Time’s “Man of the Year” (for “sticking to his guns”). But he is so much more than that, don’t you think?

Not convinced? Go here: www. fallujapictures.blogspot.com

Congratulations to Feng Qian, 22, who made history at a Beijing opera house last weekend, when she won the title of Ms Artificial Beauty. Finalists had suffered procedures to nose, ears, breasts, eyelids, the upper and lower jaw, as well as much softening of skin and removal of body hair. Will this surface sculpturing change the inner human? Probably, by boosting confidence. Self improvement by any means necessary is 21st Century religion. Future beauty pageants are likely to feature Ms Genetically Enhanced, Ms Cyborg, Ms Nanotech.

While the human body rapidly evolves, the moral stature of Western leadership continues to shrink.

WHY?

The lust for power, the re-birth of belief in nutty Old Testament prophecies, the creeping shadow of fear, including the fear that our lifestyle requires adjustment.

WHAT ARE THE SIGNS OF THIS MORAL DECLINE?
The reversal of human rights, the rewarding of public figures who behave in bad faith, the culture of lying at the highest levels of leadership.

Look again at the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Almost half of its 30 famous Articles are now more honoured in their breach than in their implementation. Not just in Uzbekistan and Pakistan, but in Washington, Westminster and Canberra.

Article 5: No one shall be subject to torture or to cruel or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 7: All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law.

Article 9: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Other Articles promote rights that are fast fading: judgement by “independent and impartial” tribunals, the presumption of innocence, the right of a public hearing, the right to seek asylum, to change nationality, to freely exchange information, regardless of frontiers, to enjoy privacy, the reasonable limitation of working hours, and the right to a standard of living adequate for health and well being ……

The three men who champion the trashing of freedoms say they are expanding freedoms with bombs, torture and lying. Tony Blair compares himself to Winston Churchill. John Winston Howard now poses in the style of Churchill and boasts he has enhanced Australia’s “confidence”. By which he means our COMPLIANCE with the world bully, our COMPLICITY in the murder of a 100,000 Iraqis, our CRUELTY to refugees. Still, Christmas is coming. A time of photo ops for politicians at Carols by Candlelight trying to look holy, a time to hit the Iraqi town of Hyt, west of Baghdad, with warplanes. According to www.english.aljazeera.net ,shops, homes and buses have been destroyed, as well as the civilians within.

Happy Chritmas.
www.richardneville.com

Comments

[Darp Hau]

He most certainly is. Most adjectives that I use to describe him begin with 'F'.

[________]

oh look! Fart Now's a Dick fan!! i bet U both like to chow down on each other's manberries dont ya. be careful of the old poofta Neville, hes been around for years. you have herpes forever.its like luggage. ps. neville, U R A cockstroking two-fisted wanking dickhead.

[Evil Pundit]

See Richard, you get much better results when you use Photoshop instead of lipstick for the fake blood.

Soon you'll be ready to enter the Nineties.

[Rick]

The use of US air power to coerce and brutalise uncooperative populations is really without historical precedent. Yet it continues with very little challenge in any quarter, whether it be the UN or the media. I find it astonishing that this vicious behaviour has become normalised to so many people, a reality that makes it very difficult to see how the US Air-Force can be reined in.

Richard, I once visited the blog of the megalomaniacal Tim Blair. After reading a bizzare rant about how the media is biased against the US and is pro-Arab I decided to enter into the debate. For contradicting the party line I was banned from commenting again. Very Stalinist ey?

It's a technique you could use to make this blog workable. Don't ban the dissenters, just the trolls who seem to be quite dedicated to wrecking your work. After all they aren't actually contributing to the discussion, just hurling abuse, invective and sabotaging the whole damn page. You must be doing something right to enrage such obvious fools.

[Link]

The chance to be copy pasted a zillion times is too great to resist.

Eee Pee, why do you bother?

Happy full moon on Sunday, Richard, against the odds - well done. As a futurist what do you reckon it holds? I'm beginning to wish that China would wake up - militarily, to give the good ole US a run for their money. I don't see anybody else being able or wanting too. Maybe its a case of enough give George enough rope? Man-person of the Year can it get any more bizarre?

[Gibbo]

Yes Richard, as a "futurist", what do you think 2005 has in store for us? I'd love to hear it. I have been asking here for weeks for a list of your "successful futurism". So far, nothing!
You have as much credibility as Nostradamus.
Anyway, I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt as it's Christmas. Tell us all great oracle, what does the future hold. be specific though because I'm going to hold you to it!
My bet is you don't have either the guts or the common decency to reply. You don't seem to cope well with two way communications systems such as a blog. You know, one where people might want to offer their opinion as opposed to having yours shoved down their throat.
I wish you you and your lurkers well for the new year. You are our best hope for keeping this country out of the clutches of communism. Keep up the whacky posts. They remind sane people of what the left is really like. Thanks.

[Gibbo]

Darp, what are you doing here with the tinfoil hat brigade? Don't tell me an intelligent man such as yourself subscribes to Richards' hand wringing nonsense. I was starting to think that there was hope for you, but now that I know your a Crazy Dick fan, the respectometer has dropped significantly. Please restore my faith, tell me you're here for a laugh like the rest of us?

[Noam Chompsky]

Merry Christmas Richard you old brainless Godless CUNT. Have a blessed day!!

[Simon]

And a happy Chritmas to you too Richard you silly old prick.

[Evil Pundit]

Eee Pee, why do you bother?

Because it's there.

I just can't resist net.kooks.

[Rick]

Evil pundit you certainly are game mocking the websites of others, considering that yours is so screamingly dull and uninteresting.

I think net.kooks would be an umbrella big enough to shelter you. Stay out of the rain brother.

[Evil Pundit]

Now, now, Rickypoo, I don't go around mocking just any old website.

It has to be a really silly site made by someone who is trying to be serious, but fails because he or she is an abject loon.

There are standards that have to be met in these things.

[Rick]

I still don't see you escaping the umbrella E.P. As has been said, "Look to the mote in thine own eye" or more to the point, "Look to the sad lonely git in the mirror you politically ignorant dim-wit".

[Evil Pundit]

Yes, I'm sure it's been said to you. But your sad lonely politically ignorant dimwittery in no way mitigates Richard Neville's wild-eyed kookiness. And both are amusing in their own way.

[shane]

And on the seventh day the Lord (the true Lord God not the fag boyloving muslim one) pronounced Dick Neville's blog to be D.O.A... may it rust in pieces.

[Shane]

Hi Richard, I've been a fan of your futurist site for some time now, can you give me your thoughts on the twenty four thousand people killed in the tidal waves in South East Asia, ie do you think that the C.I.A used their Tesla long wave-length technology to create the tidal waves to divert attention from the failed USA quagmire in Iraq? thanks. Shane.

[Shane]

Oops, I forget to add that I saw some chemtrails today.They were in a criss-cross pattern. Good thing on I'm on Bechtel's payroll, they keep me safe. Google 'Bechtel'.

[Rachele]

Man is this ever depressing.

People go on slining shit at each other and turn a blind eye to people slinging bombs at iraqis...

I think that plato graphic you ha up a while back was most fitting.

I never did get on to getting those Ozes, anymore on the site in the future???

[Rach]

thats 'slinging' and 'had' for all those fuss pots out there, you know who you are

[Rick]

Shane,you use what is commonly known as the straw-man argument to attack your opponents. The straw-man argument is when you falsely assign a set of opinions to your target in order to then defeat those arguments and appear to score points.

Why don't you deal with the actual arguments being put forward here,that the rulers of Britain and the USA are brutal warmongers with no respect for human rights or international law.

Until you realise that the straw-man technique is one of the weakest forms of argumentation you will continue to score no points and remain an absolute time waster.

[Gibbo]

Fair enough Rick. Then where are the posts from Richard on the brutality and lack of respect for human rights from countries such as North Korea, Cuba, Sudan, Zimbabwe, China, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria etc, etc.
This is what gets people steamed up about Richard and his brethren. They single out the US, Britain and Aus as being barbaric. They get all hysterical about Fallujah, but Zimbabwe doesn't rate a mention.
They bleat that "it's all about oil" yet, when the U.N. is exposed as stealing billions from Iraqi oil, silence. Not a word.
It is simply the double standards that apply here and in other lefty sites. They promote socialism and communism as being some kind of peaceful alternative to evil capitalism yet it is a system that killed nearly three times more people in the 20th century, than all wars combined.
Richard, when you get all "hand wringing" about Fallujah yet ignore far bigger atrocities, you expose yourself for what you are. A bigot.

[Rachele]

Anyone see those 'survivors' coming in at the airport from Indonesia? Bitching and whining about the government not doing enough to bring them home soon... the poor things had to sleep in a 3 star hotel and pick up their duty free bags a few hours late! Oh the injustice of it all.... I'm not pro current government, don’t get me wrong, but it makes me sick to see all these people without a scratch on them, complaining about their near death experience, while they drag 5 or 6 bags of luggage behind them, and look into the camera behind their Gucci sunglasses.

Perhaps they have forgotten that some 60,000 people just died. But then again, they weren’t Australians were they?....

Sigh!

[Michael Sutcliffe]

For once Rachele I have to agree with you. I particularly liked the couple that were complaining there were no buses sent to pick them up?! (because other countries were doing that for their nationals................it's just so unfair!) Even though they were unhurt and still came home on their scheduled flight the next day. Poor dears.

[Gibbo]

Well said Rachele. Credit where credit is due.

[Rick]

Gibbo, the reason that the focus is on the crimes of the US, UK and Aus governments are that they are either our governments or our allies and so should be within our power to influence. Surely it makes sense to focus where the most impact can be had?

If your only defence for Fallujah is that Mugabe is worse, then you have no defense. And to be frank, I doubt that Mugabe has the capability to equal the destruction seen in Fallujah. Are you anti-atrocity or just anti those atroctites commited by official enemies?

You list a range of assorted dictatorships who are certainly all open to criticism. Who was refused entrance to the Australian Parliament when the Chinese Premier was here in 2004? Bob Brown, of course, not the democratic hero John Howard.

And with your reference to Iraq I assume you mean Saddaam Hussein and not Iyaad Illawi (sp?). In which case it was right-wingers such as Rumsfeld and Cheney who aided and abbeted Hussein during the early part of his reign and in particular his war against Iran. Can't you see the monumental hypocrisy in suddenly claiming that war as justification for invasion? For god's sake those men were collaborators and should be held accountable TOO!

Which particular 'nations' at the UN stole the oil?

And as for the bigotry around here, lets not forget Shane's description of the "fag boyloving muslim [God]".