Garry Potter And The Same Old Nonsense, David Backhim [the mitten read aloud txt] 📗

bought a big villa in the Bahamas ”. The arms race is along similar lines in that at a world summit, one head of state claims that his country has 150 nuclear warheads, only for the other one to state “ well, my country has 300 nuclear warheads”. Perhaps defence spending is not intended for the preservation of national security but is purely for vanity motives.

UNCLE SAM
Try reciting the ‘hallowed’ names of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George ‘Dubya’ Bush without smiling or breaking out in laughter. It’s hard, isn’t it? I guess that ultimately the American people get the President that they so richly deserve….. and to think that they regard themselves as a super-power! I don’t quite know if it is funny or just plain frightening.

CHILDREN IN NEED
When I pay my taxes and National Insurance contributions, I am donating to children in need – in theory. In reality however, the government chooses to divert my generous funds to armaments to slaughter other countries’ children in need. If I had a pound for every time the government wasted taxpayers’ money, I could take an early retirement. The tragedy is that if our taxes were not squandered, but invested in healthcare, education, and eradicating poverty, there would be no need for celebrities and lesser egos humiliating themselves each November for children in need.

CRIME DOES PAY
Isn’t it appalling to find hard-working people living on top of each other in high rise blocks and/or in streets of unremarkable terraced houses while fat cats and other criminals live in the detached houses of suburbia. Let me dispel any illusions. For every ten grand houses on the edge of town, you will find at least one occupant who doesn’t make an honest living. Nobody ever got rich from working 9 to 5, Monday to Friday. However, let’s not pick on the poor, defenceless drug dealers and other entrepreneurs in their Chelsea tractors and Spanish villas. The biggest crooks in our society are the Premiership footballers, golfers, snooker players, tennis stars, pop stars, and so-called television entertainers who earn ( what a ridiculous word) obscene amounts of money. That we all allow the massive disparity in wages between the haves and the have nots to persist is the biggest crime of all. To add insult to injury, celebrities are afforded greater legal protection, via the best solicitors and barristers that money can buy, in contrast to us lesser mortals. Only in America , after all, can a ‘star’ get away with murder or even child abuse. Not only does crime pay, but it reaps handsome dividends.

LOSING MY RELIGION
I grew up a Protestant. Like most people in this wonderful world, my religious affiliation was inherited at birth, and not the result of an informed choice from all the available ‘brands’. I no longer consider myself a Protestant. My ‘road to Damascus’ moment was when so-called Protestants in Northern Ireland gunned down a young Roman Catholic postman a few years ago for no other apparent reason than he was a fenian who dared to date a Protestant, and thus ‘contaminate’ her. The shame of him. Worse still were the so-called Protestants who blocked youngsters en route to primary school, not to mention those lovely Christians who picketed the Roman Catholic church at Harryville, Ballymena. What a lot of people do not realize is that the word ‘protestant’ derives from the fact that in the 1520s, some early followers of the theology of Martin Luther made a declaration in which they proclaimed or ‘protested’ their faith. The trouble is that ever since, they have been protesting against everybody else’s faith. Surely the Protestant loyalists of Northern Ireland are not the modern representatives of Martin Luther, let alone the ambassadors of Jesus Christ.
I have also become increasingly disenchanted with the loyal orders, so-called. I admit that I have got a kick out of parading along the middle of the road behind various bands, and if they are honest, other ‘Christian’ loyalists ought to admit the same. Parading however is just an ego exercise in which thousands of n’er-do-wells feel like they are king for a day, swapping their blue collar jobs for their Sunday best, as they wave at all their family and friends. Let’s face it, the word ‘parading’ basically means showing off, or in the case of Ulster loyalists, it is a thinly disguised show of strength to their neighbours. A Glaswegian once told me that an orange parade in his city was just an outing for Glasgow ’s underclass. These ‘Christian’ loyalists seem to think that Protestantism is a badge of pride in which former glorious battles are celebrated. However, the sectarian murders in Ulster , not to mention the numerous killings in Europe since the sixteenth century would suggest that there is much shame attached with Protestantism. Protestants were just as responsible as Roman Catholics for the various outbreaks of anti-semitism in Europe over the last few centuries.
Where the biblical precedent is for loyalist parades, I have never located in frequent searches. There is nothing in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ to resemble the practice of triumphalist parades. The nearest the Lord came to ‘parading’ was riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, followed shortly after by exiting the city with a cross. Why on God’s earth do so-called Christians have to march behind drums en route to worship at God’s house? It is pseudo-militaristic nonsense, which distorts Christianity. It is as if too many people are consumed by one particular Christian hymn, which states “ onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war”. Just to prove how ‘Christian’ the loyalists of Ulster really are will be their predictably hostile, ‘Christian’ response to my Lundy-like treachery.
What is even more baffling is the reluctance of Unionist politicians to share power with former terrorists. Forgiveness is at the epicentre of Christianity. Did Jesus Christ not forgive his executioners whilst he languished on the cross? Only forgiven people (by God) can forgive. Those ‘Christians’ who cannot or will not forgive their erstwhile enemies are clearly not forgiven (or saved) people, as they frequently seem to suggest. Some people’s Christian outlook is a distinctively selective one. Loyalists should take a leaf out of the book of Gordon Wilson (whose daughter was tragically killed in the Enniskillen war memorial bomb in November 1987). Gordon Wilson can forgive the murderers of his Mary, which makes him a thousand times more worthy follower of Jesus Christ than the Ulster Protestants who don’t forgive.
Of all the loyal orders, the Royal Black Preceptory is the least controversial one. For the sake of simplicity, it is basically a cross between the Orange Order and the freemasons, with perhaps a stronger emphasis on biblical scriptures than the Orange Order or the Apprentice Boys of Derry. However, the Black Institution requires its’ ‘Sir Knights’ ( a ludicrous form of address) to complete eleven degrees which contain 37 Old Testament references and a paltry eleven New Testament references. Therefore, with 75% of degree work based on the Old Testament, the Royal Black Preceptory seems to focus more on Judaism than on Christianity. Consequently, God is severely mis-represented by this pick-n-mix approach to his Word. Most alarming of all, only three of the 48 biblical references are drawn from the four New Testament gospels. This is scarcely compelling evidence of an organisation focusing on their Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Yet, central to the Christian faith is the realisation that no-one comes to the Father except through the Son. It seems to me that Ulster loyalists like to fuse and even confuse worship of God with adoration of the Queen, yet God reminds us that he refuses to tolerate any ‘competitors’ or idols, while it would be important for the loyal orders to remember that Jesus Christ is the king of kings. Every other monarch, be it Elizabeth II, William III or whoever is a pale imitation. It is my humble opinion therefore that the loyal orders and ‘Christian’, God-fearing loyalists of Ulster are skating on extremely thin ice!

LOYALIST BAND PARADES
Speaking as something of an authority on the contentious subject of loyalist parades in Northern Ireland , it is first necessary to divide parades into three different categories. Firstly, there are the major annual commemoration parades, such as the 12th of July for the Orange Order, the Relief of Derry parade for the Apprentice Boys of Derry and the Last Saturday in August demonstrations for the Royal Black Institution. Secondly, there are church parades, usually organised by the afore-mentioned groups, and finally there are band parades, which don’t involve men (and women) in regalia carrying banners behind a band. The controversial Drumcree ‘march’, or non-march as the case may be, is actually a church parade, no more, no less. The trouble with the Irish Republican constituency, who may have aspirations of undermining or at least challenging Orange culture which tends to suffocate the life out of normality each tension-strewn summer, is that the opponents of loyalism, or those with major misgivings about parades, have been focussing their antipathy on the first two categories which are sacred to the so-called loyal orders. This approach is erroneous because it has enabled the so-called loyal orders to suggest that their routes to church worship, albeit via marching,are being threatened. If the Republican anti-loyalists had a greater modicum of sense, they would concentrate their energies on loyalist band parades.
As a witness of numerous Friday night/Saturday night band parades, I must state that these spectacles could not be further removed from Christianity, the Reformation, Protestantism, or even patriotism and loyalty to one’s country. These band parades, without exception, are an unseemly display which are a far cry from Trooping The Colour or a Remembrance Day parade. Totally devoid of dignity, loyalist band parades are merely a playground for bands with paramilitary associations, led at the front by their flag party of fifteen or sixteen-year-old, gum-chewing sluts. The bandsmen are frequently ne’er-do-wells who swap their boiler suits and betting slips for some grand-looking band uniform which boosts their self-worth for a few drunken hours. They play tunes which celebrate loyalist terrorism and glorify paramilitary heroes, all belted out by a thunderous drumbeat from a semi-intoxicated drummer who wants to let the neighbourhood know that his lads are currently marching down the middle of the road, cheered on by their WKD drinking teenage hangers-on, dragging down the colours of Glasgow Rangers Football Club, which they wear. It is continuing support and public fear of these unedifying spectacles which keeps Ulster loyalism in the gutter, regrettably.