“My hands were clenched in fists of rage
No angel born in Hell
Could break that Satan spell
And as the flames climbed high into the night
To light the sacrificial rite
I saw Satan laughing with delight”
Don McLean,
“American Pie”
I’ve just watched Charles Mountbatten-Windsor deliver his Christmas message. What world does he live in? The disconnect between his piety and reality is beyond belief.
Either he has no understanding of what is happening in his country and beyond, or he is choosing to overlook it. Ignorance or hypocrisy?
He spoke of Mary and Joseph, wise men, and shepherds travelling to Bethlehem. Obviously this wasn’t at Christmas 2025, because the genocidal government of Israel, one that His government wholeheartedly supports (Note the UK government is deemed to be the King’s government) has made it impossible for Palestinians to travel – someone posted on X that they would have had to pass through 13 military checkpoints, and get past a 6 metre high concrete wall. And before anyone leaps up and down, Jesus was born in Palestine and by that definition was a Palestinian.
He spoke of Jesus coming to spend his life amongst the poor, says he who Iives in absolute luxury, never having to worry about where to live or how to buy the next meal. He completely sidesteps the fact that His government, be it Labour now, or Conservative in the past (and likely Reform in the future) has made many decisions that have impacted heavily on the poor, infirm, and elderly. Tax increases for them, but not for the rich. Hypocrite. Working with the poor? Try leading by example.
He spoke of fostering peace, again completely sidestepping that His government is actively supporting the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and is doing its best to interfere with the peace talks the USA and Russia are painfully working through.
The disconnect was beyond belief and just goes to show the irrelevance of the monarchy to Britain, the Commonwealth, and the world. Sure he can live in his world of make believe, going to Rome to pray with the Pope (Henry Vlll be damned) and pretend that these and other rituals will make a difference to our lives, but the reality is different.
The more he and the other Royals, and religious leaders such as the Pope play these games of make believe, the more the rest of the world will see them for what they are.
Hypocrites.
No justice no peace.
The Epstein Files are cutting a savage swathe right across the global ruling elite, the death of Virginia Giuffre
The Panama Papers, the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, the impunity of the global elite, everyone sees it, everyone feels it.
The King’s Christmas message was of peace and love, not of justice.
No justice no peace. Not for them, not for us.
Hypocrisy of hypocricies all is hypocrisy. So crass has Capitalism become that it no longer bothers to veil its true nature. Wonton self interest, populism, plunder and piracy are the orders of the day, and now genocide has become commonplace. Soothed by the Capitalist media to swallow the political propaganda that disguises it all, we really are a rotten excuse for a species which, if we don’t stand up, will deserve what it brings us.
Want to know where Netanyahu got the idea in his head that he could commit genocide in Gaza and get away with it?
8 Days in SYRIA in 2025 (as a female traveler)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbniY2ZvzYc
45,875 views Dec 27, 2025 SYRIA
Aleppo: Syria’s largest city suffered massive destruction mostly from Russian air strikes.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/12/01/russia/syria-war-crimes-month-bombing-aleppo
Homs: Known as the capital of the revolution, reduced to ruins by government artillery and air strikes.
https://theconversation.com/domicide-a-view-from-homs-in-syria-on-what-the-deliberate-destruction-of-homes-does-to-those-displaced-by-conflict-podcast-216374
Damascus Suburbs): Eastern Ghouta (including Douma, Arbin, Harasta, and Jobar) were reduced to ruins under combined government artillery and air strikes.
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/eastern-ghouta-syria-reduced-to-ruins-by-assad-regime/1066263
Don’t support fascism, it really shouldn’t have to be said.
So Benjamin Netanyahu is merely following the example set by the Assad regime? And if that regime had never existed Israel would be living in peace with its neighbours?
No, Pat, the Arab states do have a case to answer, but they are not responsible for the atrocities committed by the State of Israel.
ssshhhh Geoff ,,,,,, you’re making Pat look like some kind of stupid insincear tool .
Israels present war crimes and Genocide started before 1948 and 80 odd years of Zionist impunity have brought us to the present day.
https://solidarity.net.au/highlights/sabra-and-shatila-40-years-on-israels-brutal-war-crime/
“The massacre at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon was one of Israel’s most shocking war crimes against the Palestinians, writes Ella Haber
On 16 September 1982, four months after Israel invaded Lebanon, the far-right Lebanese Phalange militia stormed the two densely populated refugee camps in Beirut. Israeli soldiers were ordered to allow them into the camps and to seal the exits so no one could escape.”………”For 38 hours, a barbaric massacre unfolded, claiming the lives of 3000 to 3500 mostly Palestinian civilians—men, women, children, and the elderly, along with some Lebanese civilians seeking refuge from Israel’s shelling of South Lebanon.”
As for Syria ,,,, Israel and Pat won….. Bibi should send him a medal ,,,,, or at least give him $7000
What ‘hell cannons ? says Pat ,,,, name one civilian killed by them would be his follow up .
one being used in Aleppo .https://www.1999.co.jp/itbig53/10534686b3.jpg
and another https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2Fu8ZkqJunKJwJygsfv6CFIoM2v_sYo9HUOBRSFraMTlM.jpg%3Fwidth%3D640%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D9e72fc7cffeb71eca1214b1b7e1ff0e79d0748f0
“Children of West Aleppo targeted, murdered and injured by today’s horrific rain of hell cannon mortars from terrorist factions in East Aleppo, armed and equipped by the US, UK, Turkey, Gulf States and Israel.
The majority of those killed and injured are Syrian Christians of Armenian origin:
The martyrs of today from the bombing of the neighbourhoods of Midan and Vilat:
1. Baya Arman Hindoyan
2. Zila Shabagshorian
3. Miray Hindoyan (These are the 3 in the photo)
4. Hasmik Kerakosian
5. Peri Shekliyan
6. An anonymous lady martyr heavily wounded:
7. Karnik Karabidian slightly wounded
8. Betty Lakhoyan Hindoyan
9. Mofsis Hindoyan
10. Nazar Zarminian
11. Mary Karabidian
12. Zovik Kabikian
A good doco Empire Unmasked Redux 911 Israeli and Saudi roles https://www.ryandawson.org/p/empire-unmasked-redux-a1c
and more Israeli crimes https://www.ryandawson.org/p/israel-killed-their-own
It appears 2026 will be another year of War …. Trump Says PARDON Netanyahu
https://youtu.be/NjbeJOJpF0I
””””””””””””””””””””””””””
p.s next year I willl be changing my user name and will be posting as ‘sheep-dog’ 🙂
“….next year I willl be changing my user name and will be posting as ‘sheep-dog’ “ B Awakesky
I wonder why.
Too gutless to use your real name?
Not prepared to put your name to all the pro-Assad pro-Putin propaganda you spew out?
Just another anonymous blood thirsty pro-imperialist troll?
Let me guess:
You have to change your pseudonym because you need to distance yourself from the huge pile of garbage attached to your old pseudonym.
Geoff Fischer December 31, 2025 At 6:23 am
“…..And if that regime [Assad’s] had never existed Israel would be living in peace with its neighbours?”
A childish straw man argument, Assad fascism and Zionism have co-existed side by side for decades. One does not follow the other, what they did do is learn from each other.
Netanyahu has followed to the letter, Assad’s obliteration of cities, disapearance of thousands, murder of tens of thousands, bombing of hospitals and schools, all things that Assad did openly while the world turned a blind eye.
Assad’s genocidal example assured Netanyahu that he could openly speed up Israel’s ongoing decades old slow genocide and the world would also look away.
From Radio Free Syria:
The Far Right Globally Idolized Assad — Now the World Needs to Learn from the Syrians Who Overthrew Him
By Ruth Riegler
January 4, 2025
……This is not fringe philosophy. It is the ideological spine of the modern far right — and it explains why Syria mattered so much, with Dugin mourning Assad’s downfall and Syria’s freedom as a “tragic event” in Russia’s ‘civilisational war’.
It should be noted that the far right did not mainstream these narratives alone.
Assad’s chemical weapons denial — and the broader demonisation of Syrians resisting dictatorship — was amplified by a range of nominally left-wing or “anti-imperialist” figures and outlets. While motivations differed, the effect was the same: Kremlin and Assad regime propaganda gained legitimacy by appearing simultaneously on far-right and supposedly progressive platforms.
This red–brown convergence was decisive. It taught audiences that:
mass atrocities committed against Muslims can always be justified;
refugees are potential invaders rather than victims,
and authoritarian violence is acceptable if framed as resistance to Western power.
Syria became the test case for a politics in which truth was optional, dehumanisation routine, and dictatorship rebranded as realism.
Some white supremacists — including Duke, Griffin and Collett — cynically invoked Palestinian freedom as a fig leaf for antisemitism, aligning themselves with Assad and Putin as imagined resistance icons, while preferring not to mention Putin’s close alliance with Netanyahu and their partnership on Syria….
……There is a final, uncomfortable irony. Western politicians and commentators who claim to oppose the far right still rarely consult the only people who’ve actually defeated a fascist dictatorship in recent history. Against Assad, Putin, Iran, Hezbollah, ISIS, and a global disinformation machine, Syrians organised, documented crimes, endured mass slaughter — and ultimately overthrew a murderous hereditary police state.
Yet even now, few in the West are willing to name Assad’s regime for what it was: fascist — carceral, ethno-sectarian, beloved of neo-nazis globally, and built on systematic dehumanisation and state terror.
That this victory is so widely unacknowledged is unlikely to be accidental. The same racialised assumptions that drive Assad’s far-right admirers — the refusal to see Syrians and Arabs as anything other than terrorists, collateral damage, or a threat to be controlled through brute force and repression — also deny them agency, including the capacity to overthrow a fascist dictatorship. That erasure mirrors the very logic that underpins the far right’s admiration for Assad.
Western leaders and media keep asking how fascism returned, even while ignoring the people who already defeated it — Syrians, who experienced it up close and warned the world early, but who are disregarded and treated at best with condescension or disdain.
God save the Queen, and the fascist regime
From Google AI:
December 17, 2002 Queen Elizabeth II greets Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his wife, Asma, at Buckingham Palace. This meeting occurred during Assad’s three-day official visit to the UK, which also included talks with Prime Minister Tony Blair. It was the first visit by a Syrian leader to the UK.
The visit was part of diplomatic efforts to engage with Syria, taking place years before the Syrian civil war and Assad’s later international isolation.
Along with the Queen, Bashar and Asma al-Assad met with Prince, now King, Charles.
A signed photograph from Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, dated 2002, was discovered in one of Assad’s palaces in 2024
At this time of year people do not want to hear bad news even if it is reality.
The King is the ideal person to give an uplifting speech as he is not a politician with an age to grind . He is the good prince from our children’s books riding in to save the day.
Happy holidays
But he is not riding in he is hiding out
You might think that people don’t want bad news like they are about to climb over an electric fence, the stove they are about to lean on is hot, the glass of water is polluted etc but it is not kindness to with old vital information from them.
Not a politician? Examples of his trying to influence legislation and Parliament are legion. There are binders full of his letters somewhere.
I doubt that King Charles has much influence over the politicians.
The worry is the influence that they have over him and the royal family in general, using them to provide (im)moral support to wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine, to lend respectability to US President Donald Trump, to endorse neo-liberal capitalism and generally to make all such highly political causes appear to be “non-political” because they have been adopted by the supposedly non-political Head of State.
Then there is the very real danger that when the politicians decide to install a blatantly fascist regime Charles will do their bidding – as he always has.
You have a point Trev – in a nasty little world brought about by UK politicians and so-called democracy, royalty have limited controls. I think King Charles has always tried to do his best to fulfil the modern royal role and I like his arty side, he is a capable watercolour exponent. (I have a copy of the children’s book he wrote in 1980 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Man_of_Lochnagar)
https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/tradition/a38958376/prince-charless-watercolor-painting-exhibition/
Blame the media – if we say something often enough it shows it has become a popular target for attention, affection/disaffection, the go-to scapegoat perhaps, but the problem is deeper.
It is the fault of our education, that we have not been taught how to think. We don’t understand the miraculous human spirit with its huge spectrum of emotions that drive us. good and bad. Using our minds is not the first issue for education; at school last century it seemed that passing exams then sport and team work was the ranking. Giving us a democracy and a vote on who will run the country and arrange laws has been of no great value as we have not understood the issues and the broad requirements. Covid 19 exampled this. We need understanding of the practical points and have power beyond applying to the ombudsman or the governor general. Observed, we seem pretty helpless and hapless, concreted in ‘unbridled’ capitalism.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2025/12/27/our-society-is-deeply-indoctrinated-in-capitalism/
We thought that was the right way to go and looked to the USA for leadership,. But still the ‘civilised’ educated countries cannot handle the strong elements of desire for goods, resources, for clever machinery etc. And money is worn like an ermine cloak; the class system could work all right if all would look to the good in all others, and all do something practical to aid the workings of the country. But making money from gambling on stock exchanges and exciting share value with promises of profits or plunder has grown to be an overwhelming obsession.
Religion becomes a pawn in the hands of some rulers. Going back to Roman times.
https://historum.com/t/when-did-the-church-begin-burning-non-believers-and-heretics-at-the-stake-where-did-they-get-it-from-the-bible-or-earlier-paganism.194824/#post-3653780
The Church and nobility treated people differing in belief badly in France in1200s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albigensian_Crusade (Cathars)
The Cathars originated from an anti-materialist reform movement within the Bogomil churches of the Balkans calling for what they saw as a return to the Christian message of perfection, poverty and preaching, combined with a rejection of the physical. The reforms were a reaction against the often perceived scandalous and dissolute lifestyles of the Catholic clergy…
Then contracted the task to locals who had their own drives. Religion has a spotty record for helping us know our own nobility and restraint from evil excess.
Attitudes and social forces can make it hard for religion to lead people to a more balanced and fair society with spiritual values, such as lies on social media and the net. Example of false information stirring up concerns, passions; (if you haven’t seen actual evidence before.) https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/map-shows-all-alleged-crimes-against-churches-france-not-just-fires-2024-07-25/
One post on X was viewed more than 250,000 times, opens new tab and it was also widely shared on Facebook, opens new tab….
What now to reverse this? Or is it too late but we can still have a better society, if we educate about truth and truthiness and matters that are not material etc?? And study philosophy, different viewpoints, and how religion can be an anchor for good, or a hard bunch of precepts.
Imagine if we were to become a republic under president David Seymour or Winston or the impotent Luxon .Soon to be a banana rebublic I would think .
There’s plenty of other politicians you could have named as presidents to be under that would lead us to becoming a banana republic…
I absolutely agree, Allan, but you fail to mention that Charles is also King and Sovereign of the Realm of New Zealand and that New Zealand governments are “His Majesty’s Government of New Zealand”.
I suspect that on account of his upbringing Charles has no conscious understanding of the fact that he is an intrinsic part of a system of evil, but there can be no doubt that his New Zealand government knows full well the nature of the Satanic pact into which it has entered with the British Crown.
The people of Aotearoa must fully separate themselves from the British monarchy in order to assert their mana motuhake as a people of integrity. Tangata motu who adhere to the tikanga of rangatiratanga cannot give allegiance to King Charles, participate in his New Zealand government, or serve his colonialist regime in any way. Something for us all to think about in the year to come.
I think Maori would be at the front of the queue to complain if the government of the day tried to leave Britain’s fold
You might think that Trevor, but you might be wrong.
Some Maori, like Winston Peters for example, have embraced colonialism but it does not necessarily follow that they would resist with vigour a popular movement to restore mana motuhake and rangatiratanga.
Others retain a nominal loyalty to the Crown purely on account of the Treaty relationship, which was between Maori and the Crown and the status of which might be uncertain in any move to establish a republic by “the government of the day”. However those others could be expected to consent to the deposition of the monarch if rights equivalent to Treaty rights were entrenched in the new constitution.
All in all, very few Maori would oppose the restoration of rangatiratanga in Aotearoa, and with it the end of the British claim to sovereignty.
Complete disrespect for King Charles on display which comes as no surprise, indeed is expected.
Ah, but his Aston Martin runs on surplus British wine.
My late parents who were from the UK and I would watch the Queen’s message at Christmas.
Whilst my parents had no liking for the British Royal family and probably because deep down we are Socialist when all things considered we still respected Queen Elizabeth. After all she was born in the same year as my late mother. We called our grandmother Ma’am and that is how she signed her letters. To this day I still refer to my late mother as Ma’am. It is the English way I suppose.
Andrew was born in the same year as me. In the 80s I thought he was rather handsome and wished the best for him. When he married Sarah I thought that looked like a fantastic marriage. Unfortunately history and to date has proven otherwise.
But then we need to reflect that we silly enough have over many decades and perhaps hundreds of years have Misguidedly held reverence upon a Spoilt, Elitist lot called the British Royal Family who have ruled over others whilst not having to Go Without anything eg meals, accommodation, comfort etc.
Whilst during WW2 many in the UK had to live with Rationing the British Royal family still lived in comfort. Even after the War Rationing was still in effect.
So I did not bother with listening to whom I call King Charles the Turd Speech. He will never give concern about those in the UK living in Poverty and will never consider those elsewhere living in conditions where every time they move somewhere they could be shot and killed by an Aggressor in Gaza. Will he ever consider the children murdered by the IDF of such small ages? I doubt it very much.
I would someday like to see NZ become independent from the UK. The days of Mother England needs to end and my late parents had the same feelings. But at the same time I do not want to see a President David Seymour because that would take NZ into a Dictatorship though that seems to be the pathway Trump’s America is heading.
Take care everyone and be kind to others. Let 2026 be a year of New Beginnings and a Better World. Though I will not hold my breath.
I concur. Read that the old Queen Mother once said she felt better knowing she could look the East End in the eye after Buckingham Palace was bombed during WW2.
That made me laugh although I would never had said so to my parents and they weren’t even English. They still respected the RF.
How many other palaces and castles could the Queen Mother go and live in while Buckingham Palace was being repaired, no doubt given priority too? Ordinary people didn’t have that luxury. Once their houses were wrecked they were homeless.
They seemed to think it was sweet of her to be sharing their difficulties with a smile. I thought she was a spoilt silly woman who didn’t have a clue.
Just like beauty queens make calls for world peace, real kings and queens deliver homilies full of anodyn words calling for peace and love and forgiveness.
But one word you will never hear them use or call for, ‘justice’.
King Charles latest Christmas message was no different.
When you see the parade of mass murderers, dictators, war criminals, human rights abusers and fascists the royal family have feted over the decades you can understand why.
1973, Mobutu Sese Seko
1978, Nicolae Ceausescu
1994, Robert Mugabe
2002, Bashar al-Assad
2003, Vladimir Putin
2003, George W. Bush
2007, King Abdullah
2015, Xi Jinping
2019, Donald Trump
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/01/uk/uk-controversial-visits-trump-intl#:~:text=Bashar%20al%2DAssad,a%20possible%20war%20in%20Iraq.
Like you Mr O’Dea with a proud record of family history supporting the ordinary person, King Charles has also a proud history supporting the UK. He cannot order things to be done but he can speak to the Commons and try to exert some diplomatic pressure.. And of course he should be meeting with leaders of other countries, he has to front up and eyeball these people on behalf of the country. That list shows what a scungey bunch there are at times. You might pity him for having to do such a loathsome job instead of running him down.
And for those who resent that he has palaces to live in and not just a council house, and rides round in good cars and coaches, and wasn’t in love with Diana who appears to have been in love with herself (if that is one of the things you hold against him), well get a life. Be happy that he is as he is – you start to sound like 13th century peasants;* he is a better leader and someone to look up to, than Trump among others, and look at the population of the USA who couldn’t find a better leader!
* The People of 1381
When Adam delved and Eve span / Who was then the gentleman?
Those who know their English medieval history might recognise this couplet by the priest John Ball, a central figure in the Peasants’ Revolt.
The revolt was one of the largest popular uprisings in medieval Europe and rocked the country from Essex to Yorkshire in the summer of 1381. The Universities of Reading, Southampton, Oxford and Glasgow worked on a research project – The People of 1381 – aiming to produce the most comprehensive interpretation of the Peasants’ Revolt to date, …https://poetrysociety.org.uk/projects/archive-projects/the-people-of-1381/
prefer Aorangi as our head of state tbh. monarchy is irrelevant.
He is doing his job, his family’s job, which must be loathsome and irksome at times. For Christmas, he has to say something.
He’s well rewarded and at least he, as an individual, has grown and improved his part of his inheritance, as Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall. He didn’t waste those resources funding pointless wars as some of his ancestors did.
He can’t help it if some of his relatives are poor specimens (his grandmother was one) and with Andrew, he seems to have at last seized the opportunity to slim down the monarchy. Much more to do and I think as king, William will continue that work. His younger children will be expected to earn their own livings. Other royal families have done it, they can too.
Probably the general feeling about leaders is that it’s not the best people who rise to the top. Suggesting, one needs to be a ruthless crook to do so. Or with some of the wives, propelled forward by ruthless fathers and brothers wanting influence, or in Diana’s case – grandmothers.
The odd leader is a pleasant surprise, but on the whole what we have now, are shocking.
Have people been so disadvantaged by a bit of democracy and a little more wealth since WW2, that they think these present leaders will be better. Sad thought, eh?
I’m a peasant. Proudly so and have more to think about than trying to rise above my station. I’m grateful that lack of ambition doesn’t trouble me.
This is reply to Greywarbler.
You are right completely Joy. Bur one thing, this is the way we looked at things in the 20th century. We are in the first quarter of the 21st and things have changed so much that we must assess matters differently, look for what advantage there is in older things. Look for finding positives, as there are so many apparent now, but looking closer many turning out to be negatives. So analytical, practical, kind-inclined is the only way for the good humans to carry on when finding a good community of friends and compatriots. Ideals of how some should be are up for scrutiny, we rarely can match those and be ’rounded’ people. The mind is important now, while we still have one used for thinking and pondering. We need to look for how we can have a good society and get on with it not fight about fine details and we need less ‘shoulds’ – change down to a few.
King Charles is better than any alternatives. I am not impressed by those who have risen from the commons. Look at the list Pat O’Dea put up, ugh most of them. Trump, Musk and frankly anyone very rich. They have closed off a glass door to the world in their mind. Not only is it shut, they don’t want to see through it to the outside if not on order.
my name is nobody December 29, 2025 At 11:27 pm
prefer Aorangi as our head of state tbh. monarchy is irrelevant.
Some might say that should be Aoraki.
In the past, sporadically I watched bits of the queen’s Christmas messages. Her horrible anus was a memorable one. Mostly I was just curious when she would first say the word duty. Has Tampax Rex used it in any of his messages?
Here’s a couple of poms talking about royalty etc. (Part 1 is more like two poms talking about football in the old days)
“In Part 2 of our conversation with David Icke, we go deeper into the ideas that challenge perception, authority, and the nature of reality itself. Building on the first episode, this installment explores the bigger picture behind global systems, consciousness, and the forces shaping human behavior—both seen and unseen.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UOgt1bA8J4
You seer seem to be fixated and confused on plebeian matters. There’s a song from a musical about that- What Do The Simple Folk Do. The Muppet Show sort of explain with Zero Mostel and compatriots.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqEXe12kr8E&list=RDnqEXe12kr8E&start_radio=1
The same time the US was conducting airstrikes on Caracas His Royal airforce was carrying out airstrikes near the historic town of Palmyra in Syria. The British claimed that they were targeting Isis.
Damascus has strongly condemned the joint UK and French airstrikes labelling them a flagrant violation of Syria’s sovereignty.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer claimed Britain had no prior knowledge of the US airstrikes on Venezuela at the same time.