Women For Peace

[Rog]

There's no real point in trying to change Rog's mind about anything.  He prefers to accept reputations, stereotypes and legends rather than seriously examine any facts.  He appears to believe that the Isle of Man is sinking into a morass of iniquity, that the Conservative Party is the natural party of government, that 'market forces are the answer to every problem (see his latest diatribe on the 'drugs in schools' thread), and that gender has a direct relevance to ability in every subject.

Whilst some of us may be guilty of making sexist, racist etc remarks in searching for a cheap laugh, the vast majority of us do not believe the stereotypes that they imply.  The trouble with Rog is that he genuinely appears to believe in them.

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I do. It's based on experience and observation.

[Speckled Frost]

Why the cheap misogynistic jibes Rog, I'd expect better from you.

 

They are detracting from otherwise reasonable arguments.

 

There really aren't many viable alternatives to nuclear.

 

Renewable energy is unpredictable and could damage the environment in other ways while we all know about fossil fuels.

 

And Rog does have a valid argument on the importance of the deterrent effect nuclar capability has on world peace.

 

There is a certain hypocrisy mind when telling other countries they shouldn't be allowed it while we crack on with our programme.

[Dave the Cardboard Box]

There are exceptions.  Lady Thacher was a joint first with Churchill as the best PM the UK has ever had.

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I may be wrong (a rare event) but I am pretty sure that ATTLEE won that particular poll.

 

 

Welfare state and all that etc....

 

Edit - found a link

 

http://hnn.us/roundup/comments/8925.html

 

Mmmm, Mrs. Thatcher? - can't see her even in the top three....

[monkey_magic]

It's based on experience and observation.

 

Doesn't say much for the women you've experienced.

[Rog]

Why the cheap misogynistic jibes Rog, I'd expect better from you.

 

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To be honest because I'm having a 'mother in law moment' as much as anything.

[WilDDog]

Yet another sexist comment.

[Rog]

Yet another sexist comment. 

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Trust me, in the case of THAT woman 'sex' in the form of gender identity, appearance, manner, or character is not a factor.

 

And in any case. The sexes are NOT equal, each has innate different strengths.

[Darth Vader]

I agree with Rog that the sexes have their own strengths.

 

Where I disagree with Rog and we both agree to differ as members in here is his views on Thatcher.

 

That woman in my view was and still is ultimate evil. Her politics are based on greed and while she did a good job when in power of curbing trade union megalomanical philosphy she nevertheless supported the import of coal from South America mined by children in slavery while shutting the british Coal mines down.

 

Remember her public support of Pinochet. A complete arsehole!

 

She supported the Democratic Union of Mineworkers who were opposed to that idiot communist Scargill but then crapped on them from a great height.

 

She shut down hospitals under Norman Fowler her Health Minister and people died.

 

She created a yuppie greed society where capitalism went mad and the poor and the sick sufferred.

 

Thatcher did to the Tory party what Scargill did to the unions. Self destruction.

 

And Blair is trying to clean the entire mess up but sadly he has become a puppet of VW Bush and is making a complete balls of it.

 

Britain is now shafted. Thank God I live on the IOM but the way we are going we are following them down the same road to chase knighthoods.

[ButterflyMaiden]

I have never had a problem with people expressing a different opinion to my own.

 

However, it is always difficult to accommodate reactionist positions ..they are not based on logic or reasonable belief. For example, Totalitarian regimes have sometimes posited dissidents as mentally deranged and held them in detention / mental hospitals.

 

Rog isnt quite so extreme .. he has only posited the women at aldermaston as stupid ( a wicked libel) ..but the sentiments are of the same school..

Anyhow, why let reason get in the way of a good old knee jerk reaction ..saves thinking doesnt it Rog ? (talking about thinking ..where on earth did you get the idea that Churchill and Thatcher were such wonderful Prime Ministers ?? oh my! what a thought)

 

For the record he is also confusing sex with gender but that is another argument altogether.

 

In the meantime the aldermaston women's peace campaign is still working hard to ensure the UK government acts in an ethical manner ... taking account of the treaties it is party to ...

and the campaign celebrates its 20th anniversary next month. Please feel free to make a small donation.

[ButterflyMaiden]

Where I disagree with Rog and we both agree to differ as members in here is his views on Thatcher.

 

Apologies Vader ...I hadnt read your post

 

There is little doubt your analysis is essentially correct.

 

Thatcher mounted a two pronged attack on British society.

 

First she set out to destroy the political consensus which provided a safety net for British citizens.

 

This consensus was broadly based on the Beveridge report and although the mainstream political parties had differing interpretations the consensus was never really challenged until Thatcher and other right wing extremists gained control of the Tory party. The rhetoric she employed in pursuit of this policy was uniquely extreme in British political history .. at least in the context of mainstream politics.

For example she famously denied the existence of society (rhetoric not policy)

 

Secondly, her macro economic policy favoured financial capital over industrial capital. This resulted in shocking levels of unemployment and, acting in tandem with her policies on the welfare state (above),resulted in the appearance of a large economic underclass in the industrial cities of the North.

 

All this left the UK in a poor state and, as you correctly observe, left the Tory party divided (to the credit of its members)

[Rog]

In the meantime the aldermaston women's peace campaign is still working hard to ensure the UK government acts in an ethical manner ... taking account of the treaties it is party to ...

and the campaign celebrates its 20th anniversary next month. Please feel free to make a small donation.

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Don't confuse stupidity with a lack of intelligence. These women may be very bright in their field but as regards having god judgement – they most certainly do not. They are now at least for the most part ideologically motivated with a flawed ideology.

 

Also don’t let sympathy get in the way of reality. The CND and its offshoots played on the feelings that any sane person has at the prospect of nuclear warfare or warfare of any sort for that matter and was extensively funded by the USSR who cynically used it as one of the many weapons of the Cold War. Manny good and decent people were used by the USSR as pawns.

 

We NEED nuclear weapons and we NEED people who would, when push comes to shove, be willing to use them in conflict because ‘sure as eggs is eggs’ the ‘other side’ either have such weapons now or dam soon will have.

 

And the propaganda weapon was not just used against atomic weapons. Much of the fear of the generation of electricity from atomic power is also founded on the propaganda that demonised the technology – and that propaganda was fed and maintained by unions, especially the Miners union who in tern were receiving financial and other aid from the USSR at the time.

 

The prospect of low cost clean electricity generation with the resultant hit on the coal industry was something that the immensely powerful Miners union supported by the Electricity workers union and the Rail unions – a triad of greed and political brutality again with a desire to bring about a communist GB – simply would not permit to happen. The demonisation of Nuclear power formed a powerful tool in that fight. Today thank goodness the prospect of Socialism is receding, but the legacy lives on in the public fear of nuclear power industry. That is costing us all very dear indeed in the UK.

 

As regards Margaret Thatcher – although from what I have seen of her as a person – as much as one can from TV and other News media – I do not like her she was just what the UK needed at the time.

 

When NuLabour are eventually seen for what they are as the economy implodes under the massive debt burden the UK now carries, as it surely will, who even comes to repair the damage will have an even worse job to do than Mrs Thatcher did. I dread to think of what GB will have to endure then. Previously at least we had North Sea oil. Next time --- zilch.

[Lonan3]

 

In the meantime the aldermaston women's peace campaign is still working hard to ensure the UK government acts in an ethical manner ... taking account of the treaties it is party to ...

and the campaign celebrates its 20th anniversary next month. Please feel free to make a small donation.

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Don't confuse stupidity with a lack of intelligence. These women may be very bright in their field but as regards having god judgement – they most certainly do not. They are now at least for the most part ideologically motivated with a flawed ideology.

 

Also don’t let sympathy get in the way of reality. The CND and its offshoots played on the feelings that any sane person has at the prospect of nuclear warfare or warfare of any sort for that matter and was extensively funded by the USSR who cynically used it as one of the many weapons of the Cold War. Manny good and decent people were used by the USSR as pawns.

 

We NEED nuclear weapons and we NEED people who would, when push comes to shove, be willing to use them in conflict because ‘sure as eggs is eggs’ the ‘other side’ either have such weapons now or dam soon will have.

 

And the propaganda weapon was not just used against atomic weapons. Much of the fear of the generation of electricity from atomic power is also founded on the propaganda that demonised the technology – and that propaganda was fed and maintained by unions, especially the Miners union who in tern were receiving financial and other aid from the USSR at the time.

 

 

 

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There wasn't any real need to 'demonise' the technology. Incidents such as the fire at Windscale (later re-named 'Sellafield' to make it more acceptable) on the 7th October 1957 did that without any help from anyone.

"During the event, radioactive gases (primarily iodine and noble gases [krypton and xenon]) had been released. Meteorological conditions had varied throughout the event. Subsequent investigation showed that about 20,000 Curies of Iodine 131 had been released from the 405 foot stack.

And this was covered up by the powers that be for many years!

 

"...but as regards having god judgement..."

 

Yes, I sometimes think you believe that you have!

[Rog]

There wasn't any real need to 'demonise' the technology.  Incidents such as the fire at Windscale (later re-named 'Sellafield' to make it more acceptable) on the 7th October 1957 did that without any help from anyone.

"During the event, radioactive gases (primarily iodine and noble gases [krypton and xenon]) had been released. Meteorological conditions had varied throughout the event. Subsequent investigation showed that about 20,000 Curies of Iodine 131 had been released from the 405 foot stack.

And this was covered up by the powers that be for many years!

 

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The incident (I remember it well) resulted from a process that came from the use of an inherently hazardous ‘pile’ using carbon as the moderator that was in any case associated not with the processing, reprocessing, of fuel rods and nothing at all to do with the raising of hot gasses to drive electricity generators and everything to do with the manufacture of Plutonium for the UK atomic weapons program.

[Rog]

The THORP plant is a special case and there is a very good argument that it should never have been built where it was though the mechanical failure that released the acidic radioactive material .shows that the safety critical aspects of the design worked well.

 

What’s more it is certain sure that even if the primary containment vessel that caught the spillage had also failed there are more than just one more back-up systems in place.

 

But let’s not forget that the amount of radioactive material released up the flue from a cola burning fire station as a result of naturally occurring radioisotopes in the coal is substantially more over its working life than anything released as a result of operating a nuclear power station including the reprocessing of its fuel.

 

Quote

 

“Coal can contain radioactive material in it; after all, coal is a

rock, and it contains lots of minerals in addition to the carbonaceous

plant material that provides the energy. Some of these minerals may

contain naturally-occurring radioactive elements (uranium, thorium). When

coal is burned, ashes go out the stack; most of these are removed by

electrostatic precipitators, but not all. This is how a coal-fired plant

can release radioactivity.

 

-- snip --.

Not much of a nuclear plant's waste is released into the atmosphere, so the

radioactive emissions from a coal plant easily surpass it.”

 

End Quote.

 

 

Source ---

 

Richard Barrans Jr., Ph.D.

Chemical Separations Group

Chemistry Division CHM/200

Argonne National Laboratory

9700 South Cass Avenue

Argonne, IL 60439

richb@anl.gov