Monday, July 11, 2005

Sharon and Hamas Unite Against Islamo-Fascism!

...in other news, Earth was invaded by an extra terrestrial force earlier today. The marauding aliens entered our atmosphere at 9 Am GMT.

Seriously, Hamas have condemned the attacks, saying "targeting civilians while they are working and travelling is denounced." Surely this represents the first time the Israeli state have been on the same page with Hamas. You could see it as an encouraging sign that humility is breaking out in the "Israel-Palestine" conflict (which is a "conflict" in the same way the Nazi invasion and occupation of the Sudetenland was), or you could see it as a sign of just how meaningless the "outrage" of world leaders is.

Harry's Place have posted a useful poll of British opinion after the bombings. It shows that 60 percent of Britons are "not satisfied" with Balir and 72 percent agree with Galloway that our role in the mass slaughter in Iraq fuelled the attack.

Of course, HP has a diffirent spin on it. They see it as proof that the British people are uniting with New Labour, the Neo-Cons and the decent left in their crusade against Islamo-Fascists - which, if you're unsure, means anyone with a beard who doesn't like McDonalds and bikinis...and Israel.

Sunday, July 10, 2005

Interesting news

The BBC is reporting that the governemnt is drawing up some plans for a withdrawl from Iraq. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4668661.stm

Could this be the start of the the retreat, tails planted firmly between legs? Let's hope so.

Friday, July 08, 2005

The Predictable becomes the actual...

This could obviously be said of the terrorist attacks themselves but it seems like the media and establishment parties also had "properly prepared" for an event like this. Blair's response has been typically worthless and hypocritcal, as has that of the other G8 leaders - apparently Bush opposes the death of civilians, surely a great comfort to the grieving Iraqi widow/mother. It always amuses me at times like this just how much emphasis the media places on the hackneyed "outrage" of the ruling classes. Did anyone really expect Jacques Chirac to say, "at last zee roast beef got taken down, how you say, a peg or twoo"? If you took the BBC's coverage seriously, the fact that the G8 leaders opposed Al Qaeda would be agreat revelation. No, the "condemnations" and indeed the sympathy with the victims should be seen for what it is, a charade. Blair and Bush mourn when it is politically expedient to do so. The deaths of un-people in Fallujah has, as Chomsky mught put it, no status with our rulers.

As a socialist and a humanitarian, I mourn the loss of all innocent life - trite I know, but nevertheless true. However, unlike the complicit media and the mendacious elites, civilians deaths are not on a graded scale of grief-value. The Iraqi child starved by sanctions; the New York firemen; the Afghani farmer, the Iraqi girl in Bagdhad; the the Palestinian grandmother assassinated by the IDF, they all have status.

The question should not be who cares most about the dead, who is more outraged than whom, the question should be, who consistently opposes "mass murder"? Is it Blair? No. Is it Bush? No. Is it Hitchens, Aaronovitch and the morons over at Harry's Place? No. Is it, god forbid, Rupert Murdoch and the Sun? I think not.

Thursday, July 07, 2005

Roosting

37 are dead and some 700 are injured. The UK has, almost inevitably, experienced "blowback" from our latest imperial adventures. The terrorist attacks are not an attack on our "values", nor are they some apolitical acts of random violence. For the perpetrators, and for us, they have meaning and if we wish to stop further atrocities we need to decipher those meanings and address them. Now, of course, the objective of the politicians and the media will be to disguise the real motivations behind these attacks. We will hear endless accounts of the terrorists hatred of our "way of life" and "values". In this narrative, an attack on London would be just as likely as an attack on Paris or Berlin. In this narrative, the fact that the 3 major post 9/11 attacks have been on Australia (most victims in Bali were Australian) Spain and Britain - 3 of the main backers of the mass slaughter in Iraq - is just a "coincedince", or is merely aimed at "dividing" the "west". Already, we have had heard endless platitudes about Londoners "standing together", which is merely disguised nationalism masquerading as solidarity. You'll hear this, "whatever their diffirences, Londoners will not be cowed by terrorism". It's "us" against the terrorists. Forget our own government's crimes against the population of Iraq and elsewhere, that's not important. Oh, and by the way, who could possibly now be against ID cards?

If we really do want to stop terrorism, "resolve" and bombing people will not suffice. Unconditional support for Israel cannot continue; we must remove our hated presence in the Middle east in its entirety; we must stop promoting dictatorship and poverty in all parts of the world. Or, if we wish, we can continue with the disastorous "war on terror" and live to count the bodies and speak the worthless "sorrow" another day.

The choice is ours, the victims of war and terror, they, with their armour plated cars and police escorts, are not fit to take up the challenge.

Sunday, July 03, 2005

Yes, yes it was horrible.

OK, it was all horrible - horribly predictable and predictably horrible, horrible. I am, of course, speaking of Live 8. There were many lowlights but I'll just highlight a few.

First, Bono, Bono, Bono. Now, against my better instincts, U2 are a band I don't mind, they can quite competently write a little jangly stadium rock song - fine. But, Bono, if there is a more self-serving, sanctimonious and wearisome rock tsar (sic) than him out there, I'd like to meet him, and beat them to a bloody pulp. He "did this face" when on stage with the dilapidated McCartney that made me want to chew my own arm off. Bono and McCartney, where was their "moral outrage" at the onset of the mass slaughter in Iraq? Perhaps they misplaced it while dragging their guilt ridden behinds around assorted African villages, "entertaining" the bemused, but grateful, village folk. Or it may still be lodged somewhere in the orifice of Bush, who, were are told by the man with the sun glasses, has "done" more for Africa than any other Yanqui master. This may well be true, Bush may have "done" more - but more what? More pillaging? More structural re-adjustment? More arms sales to crackpot dictators?

So, Bono comes on and sings a few crowd pleasers, repeats a few platitudes about "making history" and then pisses off. McCartney looks weary - a burnt out old hippy who, although once a member of a fine rock band, is now as relevant as telegrams.

The crowd look slightly bemused during the whole affair. They listen to a few pop stars play their music, interlaced with teeth-grinding "pleas" to the G8 leaders, and all the while they are told to remember what they are "here for". You see, that's that the problem with the whole MPH, Live 8 "thing". It's a completely manufactured movement. Full of manufactured celebs and their manufactured guilt, cow-towing with manufactured politicians. Of course there is genuine "sentiment" out there in the country but so what? There bloody should be! We (or our governments) are the cause of that continent's misery.

Coldplay are like U2 and Martin is like Bono - though not nearly as annoying. At least Martin came out against the War (although this was just an exercise in pointing out the bloody obvious.)

My next lowlight was Geldof and a little Ethiopian girl he saved. Saint Bob, dressed all in white, like a Thatcherite charity mongering angel, explains that this little girl "wouldn't be here today without Live Aid [him]". The little girl looks up at Bob gratefully, her eyes bright and thankful. He looks at her and thinks "this is what it was all for", his heart swells, the audience applauds. An absolutely stomach churning disgrace but a nice little microcosm of the whole day. Her, the helpless African; him, the philanthropic Westerner; us, the passive observers; THEM, the saviours in waiting.

It all ends with a rousing version of Hey Jude - all in unison one last time to make poverty history. Bill Gates was there as well you know - though sadly no attempts were made at irony. Geldof called it a "great day". The audience left, their "consciousness raised", their minds at ease that Saint Bob and the leaders will make it all go away. The BBC packed away their belongings, there was "no violence" in Edinburgh, thankfully. Brown and Blair loved it, 20 died in a suicide bombing in Iraq. Elton John spent 20 grand on flowers - 30,000 children died in Africa, poor souls.

Friday, July 01, 2005

Good News!

The local council and the pigs had been desperate to stop us going anywhere near Gleneagles Hotel while our dear leaders were carving up the planet, but finally they have relented http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4639643.stm

SSP MSP Frances Curran called it "a famous victory for democracy", and while I wouldn't go that far, it does indeed show that you have to fight for thr right!

See you there (I'll be the handsome boy looking distinctly apathetic!)

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