Laboured

Am I stupid? That was rhetorical, don't answer; I've heard that the Labour Party is looking to be harder on aid for the out of work than the Conservative Party; this is so cruelly simplified in that they are looking for votes for the people in work who are disgusted at seeing rents paid for, new cars bought etc. for their neighbours who are taking home more than themselves at the end of the week/month. The members of the government that will now be capping benefits are multi-millionaires! To resolve the question of a country in debt is not easy, but one thing is sure, it's not the multimillionaires of the Conservative Party who will be suffering in the near future or ever. Shame on the Labour Party that they want to turn the screw on their own as a vote getter to use seemingly simple righteous or moral arguments, which are nothing of the sort, to turn neighbour against neighbour up in the working mens' clubs using petty jealousies that will cost them in the end. The Labour Party was created by the 'Unions' to help the 'working class'. If the English are not careful they will be governed forever by a class out of control whilst the Scots & Welsh will be waving them goodbye. P.S. It isn't right that certain types are taking advantage of a state given generosity, but divide & rule by Eton types is not the answer, and the Labour Party should know better.

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité; Who are They Kidding?

Just food for thought, as are most of my offerings: A Welshman is equal to an Englishman so long as he leads an Anglicized life; a Basque is equal to a Castillan so long as he lives the Castillan version of Spanish life; a Kurd is equal to an Ottoman Turk so long as he accepts his subservience; I used to read C.D. comic books during the 60s, they were always showing how the 'Red Indians' (Native Americans), could participate in the 'American' way of life once they dropped their 1000s of years history and joined the 'human race'; and Bretons are welcome to become French so long as they change their crazy ideas. Equality is there for us all at at a price that is so cheap to pay that it is easily acceptable. Market forces work in wondrous ways and we are all susceptible. We open our eyes to blindness and are happy not to see! To expand on this: some Bretons don't like the idea of speaking French all the time, some do; some Welsh don't like that once they leave the house they are forced into speaking a foreign language, it doesn't bother the majority who close their eyes to the fact that they've been so subsumed that they don't even see it as a foreign language anymore and who fight against their own heritage without an inkling that we are able to speak more than one tongue "the dragon has two tongues", the only trouble with that is that it gives an idea of not choice but conflict, when in reality we can accept multiple cultures and more than one language. English was a threat to Welsh for centuries so how the hell that Welsh people think that the Welsh language is a threat to English in Wales beggars belief especially that mono-lingualism is a state propaganda thing of the past. I was on my way out of my pub but had to come to comment that when one's hero decries a whole history & cultural heritage, when hardly anyone speaks the language anymore, one doesn't have to look to the 'Red Indians' (native Americans), one can look closer to home, when Aneurin Bevan stated 70 years ago "there are no Welsh problems, only problems, then we can see that the the monk on the borders of the Severn 1600 years ago on hearing a foreign Germanic language approaching had every reason to be worried. Romans; Germans; Vikings; Danes; Normans; Angevins; when your own man tells you that there are no Welsh problems only problems then you are assimilated worse than any tribes, but the worse thing is, not that you don't know it but that you are proud of it!!! The French subdue all their minorities, even to the extent that they refuse to ratify the charter of human rights concerning minority languages. I have Flemish French friends who have to take their children to Belgium to be educated. It just seems that things don't seem to be right in Wales. After centuries of oppression of the natural culture/language of the country. I am being told that Monmouthshire wasn't Welsh, when Welsh was spoken as far as the Clyde in Scotland it's a totally ridiculous argument, I'm just for fairplay for all, and I think that we can do our bit to raise our culture, even though perhaps most people still won't know that we had the greatest romantic poets of the middle ages. I think that we have a duty to ourselves. The problem is the lack of acknowledgement that it is WE OURSELVES who are being hurt. Of course if through any reason that 'we' do not accept that is 'we' who are being harmed then that is the end of the matter and 4000 thousand years of history goes down the drain. Some of you may be right in asking what right do I have having moved out 34 years ago to criticize you who are living there, especially as I was a Saturday night pub drinker, night club dancer & occasional fighter without many ideas on Welsh culture, but then I began reasoning; how was it that I was an English speaker in an area that had never known that language. I began a mobile Welsh library, a mobile Welsh disco, I set up my own Welsh language classes, got involved in local politics, and even became a trades union activist. Socialism & patriotism with a 'Welsh' (thousands of years earlier than England, with our own egalitarian laws) and not 'English' aspect. My hero and yours Aneurin Bevan turned his back on his country - Cymru (Wales) and I was with him until I realized that yours, his, and my country was being underdone for 'the greater good'. For circumstances beyond my control!! I now have 3 grandchildren in a 'foreign' country, but there again I live in Brittany where more people understand 'Cymraeg' than in Ebbw Vale. We have a greater problem than over there insomuch as the French government does not allow for its minority cultures. Paradoxically if I had my way I would take away the red shirts (all the sports) and then how Welsh would you be? If you think we've got it bad in Cymru (Wales), which is not to say we haven't, although some people are trying to turn things on their head in their blind & bigoted rejection of their own language; I'm drinking a glass of beer now with a Breton, younger than I am, brought up with his grandparents knowing one language, Breton, only to be caned in school for his ignorance, then to be caned again for writing with his left hand!!! This was the late 1950s when Cymraeg was beginning to be taught again. France has one people with one language! 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity'; They can't kid us anymore!!!