Ashton Boatman

Over the last few years I've been at odds with many of my really nice friends on the left of politics. When the Labour party elected a left wing leader they thought they had it made. They thought it was inevitable that such a good, decent, honest man would become our prime minister and everything would be wonderful after that. I'm reminded of a story M, my wife, tells. When she lived in Washington DC Jesse Jackson was trying to be president. All her black friends and colleagues thought he was bound to be selected and win as all the people they knew supported him. They were oblivious of the fact that if he was running against a pet rabbit in most of America the rabbit would win.

It was a similar situation for JC. Those who opposed him in his party, quite unreasonably I thought, were clearly seen as running dog capitalist revisionists. Following the new leader became something of a cult

and criticising his leadership and/or policies laid one out for vicious attacks, as I saw when one of my friends dared to suggest in a Facebook discussion that the Blair government did some good things (they did, but they were overshadowed by increasingly right wing policies and an illegal war).

JC is a very nice man, with a level of simplicity and naivete that makes him completely unsuitable to lead a party, let alone a country.

Back in the 1930s the Labour Party was led by another very nice man, George Lansbury. While Hitler was re-arming Germany he pushed for disarmament in Britain. He thought that the fascist threat could be alleviated by having nice chats with Hitler and Mussolini. One of my great heroes in history is Gandhi, but he thought that Hitler could be stopped by passive resistance. The problem with really nice people is that they cannot understand the mindset of a psychopath.

Negotiating with a Hitler or a Putin is like negotiating with an intelligent crocodile about its dietary requirements, when you are on the menu. They have no concept of compassion, no understanding of integrity.

I have often stated that I am far to the left of most people even on the left of the Labour Party. If I were dictator I would, for example, abolish private property. Aye, but there's the rub, dictator. I'm also a democrat. Trying to establish a utopia by dictat inevitably leads to the creation of a dystopia. Trying to establish the mildest form of socialism when most of the media outlets are owned by right wing billionaires is always going to be an uphill struggle and can only be achieved by a united team of very clever, media savvy politicians who are able to avoid own goals and can convincingly wash off the inevitable smears that they will be subjected to. Unfortunately, I don't see this at the moment. The best that we can hope for is a break from the corrupt, incompetent, cruel  and extreme bunch of media savvy buffoons who currently run the country.

The internet, combined with quite reasonable mistrust of the "MSM" has led to the growth of online news channels. Nowadays anyone with a laptop and a smartphone can become a 'citizen journalist' basically pushing their own prejudices. This leads, alongside social media, to people living their lives in an echo chamber where their views and the facts that support them are never challenged.

Facts are something that need discussing. When I were a lad the divide between fact and opinion was fairly clear. Nowadays, through the power of the internet many people believe some absolutely batshit crazy things as facts. The world is ruled by a cabal of satanic paedophilic cannabalistic reptilian Jews is one alleged fact that has gained traction across the political spectrum in recent times. Versions of this are believed with a religious zeal. Challenging it is like challenging the belief that Jesus died and rose again or that there is no God but Allah and Mohammed is His prophet, depending on your religious background. When alleged facts are challenged the fact checkers are attacked.

All this nonsense has spawned nothing but confusion in many people's minds. Many good people don't know if they're left wing or right wing, or they're left wing but support right wing causes, like the recent truckers "Freedom" convoy in Canada. M once had a very tense conversation with a Labour supporting friend who was recommending that she watch a film by Nazi apologist David Irving.

I 'believe' in a conspiracy. It's my theory. There seems to be increasing evidence of it. Wealthy far right Americans have collaborated with the FSB (successor to the KGB) to undermine western democratic politics ( I know, they're not perfect and I've long been a critic of the system) by using 'useful fools' on the internet, combined with paid creators of crazy stories and bots to multiply the effects. They've used clever algorythms to target their messages, fine tuned for each person. They've also been funding and otherwise assisting extreme nationalists, like the French National Front and the Brexit campaign. In fact, they've been helping anyone whose objective is to sow division and disorder.

Whatever could be the objective of all this? Well, it's not about freedom or taking back control. It's about libertarianism, which sounds good but it actually means that the strong rule and the weak are crushed. It's every man for himself. It's about overthrowing any semblance of democracy or rule of law.

Our global conspirators (who are not actual lizards but do tend to lack some of the characteristics of higher mammals) even managed to get their puppet into the United States presidency.

Interestingly, Mr Trump initially got off on the wrong foot with the current crisis in Ukraine. He praised his old pal Vlad (the impaler?) and attacked Ukraine for being full of "left wing Nazis" (!!!!????). When he saw the huge global surge of support for the brave Ukrainian people he changed tack and started criticising the past weakness of Democrat administrations (a rare point of agreement between me and him) in dealing with his old friend and financier in the Kremlin.

Sadly, the left of the Labour party also got it wrong. https://politics.co.uk/news-in-brief/shadow-defence-secretary-says-some-labour-mps-fell-for-some-of-putins-propaganda/

The orthodox left has always had a soft spot for Russia. Of course, the revolution in 1917 gave great hope of establishing global socialism. Gradually, many people started to understand that the USSR had morphed into something that more resembled National Socialism than the workers paradise that the propaganda portrayed. It's interesting that in Russia the second world war in known as the Great Patriotic War, not the Great anti Fascist War. Nevertheless, many retained their affection for the country, even after the collapse of the soviet empire and the increasing repression of the Putin regime.

It's interesting how in recent times references to Ukraine and the Orange Revolution have brought suggestions from certain people that it's full of fascists. If loving the land of your birth makes you a fascist, then I'm a fascist, but I see no sign of serious fascism in modern Ukrainian politics. Certainly, Volodomir Zelensky seems far from fascistic. Indeed, as a Jew he is unlikely to support Nazi racial ideology (which also saw Slavs as an inferior race). Certainly there are fascists in Ukraine, just as there are here, in France, in Greece, and in the USA (supporting Trump). Strangely, I recently learned that there is a fascist brigade in the Ukrainian army. At first I thought maybe I was wrong, perhaps Ukraine is fascist. When I looked into it (actually M did) I found that it was a pretty small group and for years they'd been deployed against the Putin supported breakaway regions. It seems to me that was a smart move. If you have a bunch of potentially troublesome ultra nationalists prepared to die for the country you can either let them cause trouble at home or send them off to fight where they've a good chance of getting killed.

I hate war. On a planet in imminent danger of boiling us because of our profligate exhalations of CO2 it's the last thing we need. However, I'm not a complete pacifist. There are powerful people in the world who only understand power and will crush anyone who eschews it. It's a sad thing that we have to keep spending money (and lots and lots of carbon) on constantly updating weapons. To stand still is to be overtaken and to be overtaken makes you prey for the world's carnivores. I didn't agree with a lot of the wars that our country has been involved in over my lifetime but it's with a heavy heart that I say I support the armed resistance of the Ukrainian people and hope the supply of modern weapons goes smoothly. Sadly, giving Putin a bloody nose, a phrase used by some of my friends, means lots of grief for parents, siblings, partners and friends of unwitting Russian conscripts who never expected to be sent to kill their friends in Ukraine.

I do hope the scales are falling from the eyes of some of my conspiracy minded friends. Have you ever been had?

Over the past few weeks we've had to cancel or postpone trip after trip on "Hazel" for various reasons, mostly weather related but health problems of guests have figured too. Today I thought at last we had it right. The weather was nice and we had guests on board for an overnight trip. It was a bit windy but nothing like we have experienced lately. Everything was readt so me and Aaron started to back the pair, breasted, into the basin ready to swing round and head off up the Peak Forest canal. All of a sudden the engine stalled. I restarted it but, as soon as I engaged reverse gear it stalled again. I had a look inside  the gearbox to discover that it was jammed in forward gear. The gear change mechanism was working correctly but the forward gear clutch simply wouldn't disengage, so, when you put it into reverse it's trying to go forward and backwards at the same time. This means I'm going to have to take the gearbox out and get it professionally looked at. How long this will take and what it will cost I know not.

Our guests seemed to have a nice afternoon chatting and exchanging life experiences. One is staying tonight and another has asked if she can come and stay on board with her dog sometime, which, of course, she can.

Here's a couple of photos of me and Aaron reversing the boats just before it all went wrong. Photographer Cheryl Louise Dinsdale.

I wrote most of this in 2017 but didn't publish it as it was unfinished and I'd got stuck on a tangent about military strategy. It's horribly relevant to 2022.

They say that if you don't learn from history then you're bound to repeat it. Sadly, historical knowledge seems to be a bit lacking nowadays and things that have been happening are ringing loud historical bells for me. In particular, anti democratic leaders with apparently narcissistic or psychopathic personalities are taking power around the world. The last time a similar phenomenon occurred was in the 1930s. Much of the politics of the post World war II era has been about avoiding the errors of the thirties. All that is now being discarded by people who think they know better.

Narcissists have a fatal flaw. They believe themselves to be perfect, so they can only stand to have around them people who reflect back their own glory. Dissenters, even helpful ones, are banished to outer darkness. This leads them to make huge mistakes as no-one dares to put their ideas to the test of argument.

Let's go back a bit further than the 1930s, to the end of the great war as it was then known. Germans were left with a sense of humiliation. They had good reason to be puzzled as in 1918, the final year of the war, German forces had made a huge advance into France. They had also gained Ukraine, ceded to them by the revolutionary government in Russia, who they had helped in order to close down the Eastern front. They felt like they was robbed, and looked around for scapegoats. The bells ringing here are about America post Vietnam, puzzled and humiliated at being defeated by a small impoverished country.

The peace settlement after the first world war was a disaster, setting up conflicts that haunt us to this day. America played little part in the conferences as they had gone into a period of isolationism.

Ukraine got its independence, and pretty soon was having a war with Poland over their borders. Russia, looking for opportunities to regain its lost empire (ring any bells) saw the opportunity and attacked, taking back Ukraine into it's Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Poland managed to fight off Russian aggression, for the time being.

Back to the peace settlement. Italians felt humiliated by the peace. They fought against Germany in the war and, as victors, expected considerable territorial gains, which they did not get. In 1928 they elected Narcissistic bully boy Mussolini to power. He later assuaged the sense of humiliation by invading Ethiopia (talk about picking on somebody your own size!)

Off to America now. The stock market kept going up and up, underpinned by non existent money borrowed several times over.(ring any bells?) When reality hit home there was the Wall St crash, which knocked the world into a decade long recession, made worse by most countries adopting a protectionist stance to keep out imports (the bells the bells). America was pretty much isolationist, though they gave limited help to China when attacked by Japan.

An interesting piece of technological racism occurs here. When american advisors to the chinese reported back to America that the advanced Japanese aircraft were far superior to the Chinese biplanes they weren't believed. It wasn't thought that the Japs could make so much technological progress. This idea persisted until both Britain and America found out the hard way (or, at least, their pilots did) when they later fielded inferior aircraft against the Japanese Zeros. Britain made a huge mistake in sending slow lumbering Brewster Buffaloes to defend their eastern empire. When they did acknowledge that Zeros were formidable fighters it was assumed that they had been designed by Germans. This belief that non europeans can only copy, not invent, still persists today, particularly with regard to China.

In the 1930s it was not uncool to be a fascist sympathiser. Democracy was widely seen as being messy, troublesome, inefficient. Racism was also fine. Henry Ford was an anti semite and helped to fund the nazis. King Edward VIII (Duke of Windsor after his abdication) was a great Hitler fan. Charles Lindbergh, first man to fly the Atlantic, was rampantly anti semitic. Fascism was widely seen as the new, efficient, strong way forward, each country led by a strong man who would make the trains run on time and crush wasteful opposition. Any country that continued to mess about with freedom and democracy would of course perish because it was too weak to survive.

The opposition to this was of course Communism, equally totalitarian but with a dream of an egalitarian utopia once the struggle was completed. Communists around the world made the mistake of seeing the USSR as a leader in the march towards this Utopia, rather than the oppressive nationalism manipulated by a malignant narcissist that it actually was. It's incredible how blind people can be to what they don't want to see.

Talking of malignant narcissist, lets move to the king of them all, Hitler. Our Adolf never actually got a majority in the German parliament, or a majority of the votes. There was a fire in the Reichstag, blamed on a Dutch communist but widely suspected as being done by Nazis, that provided an excuse to arrest loads of opposition politicians (something similar seems to be currently happening in Turkey in the aftermath of the coup attempt). With the opposition weakened he took absolute power and abolished democracy. Things went well for a while with the revival of the economy through infrastructure spending etc and lots of prestige projects to keep people happy.

Nazi Germany and "Communist" Russia signed a non aggression pact. It had secret clauses regarding the future dividing up of Poland. A note on narcissists and agreements. A narcissist has no honour, so they do not feel themselves bound by any agreement, however solemnly sworn. Once the agreement is inconvenient to them they will find an excuse to revoke it. The Russian promise to respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine in return for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons springs to mind.

Narcissists tend to be a bit paranoid, so they see threats and disloyalty all around them. Stalin was like this, and many good people were sent to Siberia in his purges. This included many of his best military people, but that was OK because there was this non aggression pact.

Back in Britain the Labour party was led by a very nice chap called George Lansbury. Here's a bit from the Wikipedia page about him :-  

After his return to parliament in 1922, Lansbury was denied office in the brief Labour government of 1924, although he served as First Commissioner of Works in the Labour government of 1929–31. After the political and economic crisis of August 1931 Lansbury did not follow his leader, Ramsay MacDonald, into the National Government, but stayed with the Labour Party. As the most senior of the small contingent of Labour MPs that survived the 1931 general election, Lansbury became the party's leader. His pacifism and his opposition to rearmament in the face of rising European fascism put him at odds with his party, and when his position was rejected at the 1935 party conference he resigned the leadership. He spent his final years travelling through the United States and Europe in the cause of peace and disarmament

Ring any bells? A very nice man who thought that Hitler and Mussolini could be reasoned with. The Labour party was down to about 50 seats.

Back to Adolf. He did very well and had a knack of getting huge numbers of people to believe the most crazy things (bells?). The start of the second world war was a miscalculation on his part. He actually believed that Britain and France were too weak (being still democratic) to honour their commitments to defend Poland. He did not believe he had the strength to fend off an attack from the West, lucky for him that Britain and France did not believe they had the strength to attack, hence the period of "phony war".

The problem with narcissists is that they think they know everything and reject advice from experts when it clashes with their "knowledge". They think they're smarter than everybody else. This leads them to make huge mistakes, and their power combined with vindictiveness make others reluctant to challenge them.

The first big military mistake that I know of was when the British army was retreating towards Dunkirk. Hitler personally ordered his panzer divisions to rest, thus giving the British an opportunity to get most of their troops out. Had the panzers been let off the leash then the 'Dunkirk miracle' could have been a very different story.

The next was the Battle of Britain. The idea was to break the RAF so as to have control of the air ready for an invasion. This was working. The Luftwaffe had a lot more planes and they were steadily wearing down the British defences when a load of bombs, intended for destroying an airfield, were accidentally dropped on London. Churchill ordered a retaliatory raid on Berlin, which so incensed Hitler that he ordered the Luftwaffe to concentrate on hitting British cities. Bad luck for my relatives living in Coventry, but it was just the respite the RAF needed. A cooler headed commander would have stuck to plan A, invaded and subdued Britain, then used her remaining resources to strengthen his long term plan of overwhelming Russia.

Addendum, February 2022- We now have a new and terrifying force in the world, Libertarianism. Under libertarianism there are basically no rules. Everyone is free to do as they wish. So, what's different from Anarchism? Well, libertarianism is a sort of capitalist version of anarchism. Under most versions of anarchism (and there are as many versions as there are anarchists) there is no ownership, and therefore no-one is able to amass wealth and use it as power. The libertarian wants the state to be swept away and have a situation of every person for themselves. Libertarianism is the new fascism. The old fascism of goose steps and jackboots is, I hope, dead. Under the new fascism the strongest man will rule with no civil structures to hinder him.

What's scary is that many Jeremy Corbyn supporters have been seduced by this idea, which is the antithesis of socialism, the idea that a better world can be achieved by collective action, collective ownership of resources and living by collectively agreed rules. Yes, rules are irksome, especially if we're in a minority that disagrees with the rules, but having a democratically elected government deciding and enforcing the rules that we live by is far better than any other system yet invented.

I'm disappointed! I was promised something that would

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
Crack nature's moulds, an germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!

What's actually happening is that it's a bit breezy and it's raining on and off. A sort of normal 
winter day in Ashton really.I actually postponed a trip because of the weather warnings.

 This, it seems, is Storm Eunice. She was supposed to be far worse 
than Storm Dudley. I was at the Knowl St boatyard with Cheryl Dinsdale when Dudley struck on 
Thursday. He at least got us soaked and blew things about a bit. When I got back to Portland Basin 
I found that "Lilith"s cloths had blown off. Nessie has since put them back on. 

I haven't taken any photos for a while, so, here's a nice picture of
"Lilith" on a sunny day. Photo by Jay Jengba.

        

          

                    

          
        

          
          

            
          
        

Tomorrow we have wellbeing guests arriving for a trip up the Peak Forest canal to Marple aqueduct. We'll stay there overnight then come back on Monday. Me and Aaron have spent most of the day cleaning and sorting her out after her use as a film location. We took her over the Tame aqueduct to charge her batteries at the workshop of Dixon & Smith (Motor Engineers) in Dukinfield. She goes there by people power, on this occasion me and Aaron. The reason they built canals was that they enabled huge loads to be moved for very little energy expenditure. "Hazel" weighs about 20 tons but she's no problem for us to move.

Aaron keeps warm and dry in his new dayglo ski suit.

After "Queen"s latest submarine adventure Nessie has got back to work concreting the bottom. This has involved a lot of shifting around of stuff inside. Some of it was rubbish and is being got rid of. Some of it is firewood and has gone to Stalybridge for cutting. Other stuff is useful or saleable. Once she's sorted out and reliably floating we can make good use of the space inside. It's all part of the WCBS getting sorted out after several years of drifting. We need more volunteers though, particularly people who are organisers rather than those who need to be organised.

Nessie emerges with bags of gunge out of the bilge.

I'm not sure what's wrong with me. For the last few weeks I've been finding it really hard to get my act together to do anything. That's not the normal me. Usually I love being active. I seem to have a problem with my brain, getting confused and forgetful. Nothing new in that really but it's got very bad. Anyway, enough moaning!

Yesterday I did something useful. I planted a couple of trees.

This one is a Hazel. It will grow up to produce lots of nuts. I doubt if many will be eaten by people as the squirrels usually get there first, The squirrels do their bit in dispersing the nuts so that more Hazels will grow.

On Monday, I was working at the Heritage Boatyard in Stalybridge. Dave and Kim were there working on our new small trailer, built around remnants of a trailer donated on a recycling trip a couple of years ago.

On Friday I collected some redundant advertising panels donated by Tameside Council. These had been round the market area while it was being revamped, a process that was delayed by the collapse of Carillion and then by the pandemic. They're made of tough plastic sandwiched between thin layers of aluminium. They'll be very useful for re-roofing "Southam" and are an environmental positive by being re-used rather than sent to landfill and then new materials having to be ripped from the Earth.

I tried to unload them and get them stacked on "Southam"s roof on my own, but discomfort from my catheter suggested I'd better stop. I later discovered that I'd taped it a bit too tightly to my leg, so certain movements were pulling it.

On Saturday morning Nessie and Aaron helped me to stack the panels. Aaron then helped to shift some bags of engineered wood flooring that have been donated. I'm not sure what we'll do with these but I'm fairly sure they'll come in useful.

"Queen", the oldest surviving wooden motor narrow boat  afloat (sometimes) is being unhelpful. She's up and down like a yoyo. She went down about a week ago and Nessie raised her again yesterday. I checked her at about 7pm and, though she was leaking, it was well within the capacity of the pumps.

In the evening I took part in a very positive committee meeting. We have a really good committee now. The biggest problem is that they're all so busy with their day jobs. We could do with some retired people joining (preferably ones without too many grandchildren, boats or camper vans so that they have some spare time)

Anyway!  I confidently reported to the meeting that "Queen" was afloat, only to find this morning that she'd gone down in the night. This time 3 pumps were still running strongly despite their batteries being under water. Obviously there's been a big influx somewhere. Mind you, I thought that before when she went down.

I wonder if we have a quantum leak, ie, one that doesn't leak when you're looking for it but pours in when you're not.

Nessie is not happy, especially as his car engine has blown up so he has to walk everywhere.

Here's a picture of "Queen"s bow when she was afloat yesterday. Isn't it a lovely shape!