FEMA and the $85 Million Worth Of Supplies Meant For Katrina Victims June 11, 2008
Posted by insomnihack in news, politics, US Politics, world politics.Tags: charity, FEMA, Hurricane Katrina, news, us news
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NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) — FEMA gave away about $85 million in household goods meant for Hurricane Katrina victims, a CNN investigation has found.
Some of the blunders that have been allowed to happen by FEMA are hard to credit but this one really takes the biscuit. Their press officer, James MacIntyre, went as far as dismissing it as ‘not news’. How must people affected by Katrina and FEMA’s already controversial handling of their situation be feeling to hear about this? The giving away of things that they need? Talk about kicking someone when they are down.
I suppose it is good news that the items at least went towards other people that needed it but it did not get to those it was intended for and those people are still in need. I am sure it would not have been that hard to check through their register of charities in the area of those affected to see whether the need was still there, and even it was difficult it is their job. This is an organisation that is supposed to be able to manage complex logistics and help people to rebuild their lives — compared to that this seems to be a fairly simple problem to solve. Perhaps it is time for a shake up in FEMA.
Zimbabwe June 10, 2008
Posted by insomnihack in africa, politics, world politics, zimbabwe.Tags: africa, junta, mugabe, politics, zimbabwe
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Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai says Zimbabwe “is effectively being run by a military junta”.
He said 66 opposition supporters had been killed in political violence since March’s disputed presidential elections and 200 more were unaccounted for. (BBC NEWS)
Would the situation be allowed to continue in Zimbabwe if the country provided something that was considered vital to the western world? If they had oil or a powerful lobby in one of the countries that usually step up to the plate to defend these countries would the murders and the political travesty that is going on there be tolerated? It really does seem as if no one really cares how many Zimbabweans get executed.
This isn’t even a case of Kitty Genovese syndrome — people aren’t holding back because they expect someone else to step in and help, they just seriously don’t care. If there were terrorists being trained there you can guarantee that something would be done about them. But there are no terrorists, at least none threatening the West — they have terrorists though –they call themselves politicians.
What will it take for people to start investing in African countries? Not just Zimbabwe, but others? Firstly they must have some commodity — the world does not run like a country that has a social welfare program, at least it doesn’t seem so in this case. Only if you have something to give us in exchange for saving your lives — only then will we move to stop you from being killed. There is something wrong in this attitude; something seriously wrong.
I understand that these countries have sovereign rights and those must be respected but when we wish to disregard those considerations we do so first and then dream up justifications afterwards. There is also a growing attitude that if the end results are good then it doesn’t matter why we did something — if human rights improve then even killing someone can be excused; even those of a liberal bent seem to sway. Why then is Mugabe allowed to carry on as he has? There isn’t only one conclusion that one can be reached, which is what I was tempted to say — that no one cares, because obviously there is concern. But there must be some reckoning going on and it is obviously not worth anyone’s while to step in.
Zimbabwe are not in the nuclear arms race, they are only killing their own people, there are no commodities we can get cheap from them if we install a puppet government. What’s the point? I don’t think saying to a politician that those are human lives at risk is enough anymore. You have to think how it would play out on home soil — can you explain away why we are shipping soldiers home in bodybags and we don’t have anything to show for it? Just wouldn’t go over well.
The Future Of Any Political Figure Is To Become A Cartoon June 10, 2008
Posted by insomnihack in politics, satire.Tags: cartoons, che guevara, culture, maggie thatcher, political figures, satire, Thích Quảng Đức
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Whether you are an establishment figure who the right love or are considered to be a radical that the left can associate with you are doomed to end up as either a cartoon version of yourself or a poster child. I suppose one advantage to being a vilified politician is that generally the amplification of your monstrousness into a caricature does not divorce you from the politics which are considered integral to your hideousness, your inhumanity. This is because the whole point of your conversion is to skewer not only you – sometimes not even you primarily – but to skewer the politics you represent.
Think of the Nixon that inhabits the prose of Hunter s Thompson or Maggie Thatcher in Spitting Image — people generally know something of the politics that they represented ad it is forthis reason that thy are hated.
If however you are a counterculture icon and stand a chance of becoming trendy it seemingly doesn’t take very long at all for you to be stripped of your political clout. You can be reduced down to purely image and the translation of said image into a stand in for anything vaguely revolutionary soon gets co-opted by those who only wanted it for its trendiness — I am of course thinking of Che Guevara primarily but I know there are others. Thích Quảng Đức The monk who set light to himself is now best known for being on the cover of a Rage Against The Machine album, and though that band was political and probably encouraged a lot of its listeners to become enlightened there are probably an equal number of people who do not know the reality of the image and just think it is cool.
How many people bother to follow through and actually find out what Che’s politics were? Is it important? Does matter that the image floats through the universal mind cut free of its original meaning? If it turns a few people onto the ideas that these figures espoused then perhaps it is a good thing. If seeing om right wing politicians satirised and outed as the monsters they are capable of being isn’t that a good thing?
Maybe — you have to get the message across where you can, and even if it doesn’t get across in an unmuddied form at least it got there; at least it touched a base.
Soldier In Iraq Email Scam June 10, 2008
Posted by insomnihack in politics, US Politics, world politics.Tags: emails, iraq, scam, soldiers
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I think this has to be one of the most cynical scams that I have come across thus far. Usually it is someone from a bank in Burkhina Fhaso who has money to launder — usually from some dead oriental businessman who they can apparently link with me for the purposes of transferring his estate (it’s kind of amazing the number of planes that are apparently dropping out of the sky above this region of africa).
Anyway, so today I get an email purporting to be from a soldier stationed in Iraq who needs to get money out of the country. Not only does the idea sound ridiculous and far-fetched but it is in very bad taste. Not that I am saying that dead oriental businessmen aren’t in bad taste but … ah, you get what I’m saying.
I have relatives and friends who have served in the middle east as part of the peace-keeping force out there and though I had problems with politicians and the reasons they gave for sending people out there I have always had the utmost respect for the brave men who volunteer to go out there. This kind of shit does make me angry — they have to think people are angry and I suppose if one person out of a hundred actually falls for this idiotic con then it is worth their while. I hope their inbox gets flooded with angry emails telling them to have some respect.
Spanish Lorry Drivers Protesting June 9, 2008
Posted by insomnihack in politics, world politics.Tags: Europeans, Fuel Prices, International Politics, Spain, Truck Drivers
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Tens of thousands of Spanish lorry drivers have begun an indefinite strike over the soaring price of diesel, which has risen by 20% this year.
Originally On BBC News
It is something that has always impressed me: how the Europeans seem able to mobilise a demonstration at the drop of a hat and one that usually brings a fair proportion of their country, if not grinding to a halt, then at least to a pause for long enough that they think about what the issue in hand is. It never really struck me that the British were very good at that kind of thing — meaning tackling things with strikes that they can actually do something about.
We move on the bigger issues, sure, but we let some of the smaller things slide, not realising that this helps erode our way of life. Maybe that is an unfair thing to say. There have been the odd comparable strikes. Maybe our society just works differently and we think there are different ways to go about this sort of thing. Are we a society that writes letters before it writes slogans? I mean, I am not advocating us becoming radicalised in the way that those societies are where they threaten to stone people and burn effigies, but a bit more oomph wouldn’t go astray. Considered political debate, informed political debate, are they going away? Are we pushing towards tackling abstracts more than we do specifics? Perhaps the specifics are harder to beat because the results can be qualified more, and if the goals are loose then the results being equally loose allows for a slacker definition of victory?
A lot of Brits have a problem with Europe but I think there are maybe a few things we could learn from them. Hmm.
Restir June 9, 2008
Posted by insomnihack in politics.Tags: after an absence, blurb, politics, update
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I haven’t been here in a while and I am kind of disapointed in myself for that. It is not that I have become less politicised in the intervening months — to admit that would be like admitting to having lost my ears and eyes and mind. I have recently started reading No Logo by Naomi Klein, something I have been meaning to do for an age, and have found that my interest in both sociology, the shape culture is taking, and the way political theories feed into that is perhaps becoming more acute than it once was. A lot of politics has taken on a strange Orwellian tint with proposed methods of control shifting ever closer to the models presented in the grim futures that science fiction was always trying to make us believe were just around the corner. Perhaps that whole thing of, if it can be imagined then it can come to be is more of a truism than it ever was.
The thoughts are put out there and hang in the ether for long enough it is sure to snag in some innovative scientist’s mind just as a point of curiosity. How long before curiosity bears fruit? Who can tell these days? The thing is when these ideas are leaked into the public domain by the science community as tentative theory you know that they have been thinking about it for a while — there have been papers written and there have been debates had. A theory doesn’t just pop out for public consumption as some unchewed thought because who can afford to risk their professional reputation on something like that? Not many.
The future is already here, and while some of the future children may only be in a larval state they are here nonetheless. If the sources of light are here then you know the concomitant sources of shadow are here too. Often these two apparent polarities are there in the same body — our future messiahs, like our life-changing technologies, are going to be public private partnerships between the science community and the military industrial complex. There are going to be blurred lines between the methods of control and technologies that become like elective surgery and it has always been that way.
I think part of the problem with trying to be political in the future is that these things that one sector sees as being bad are going to be seen as beneficial things for others (and this is going to occur in an almost consumer driven way) and they are going to be things that don’t just change the political landscape but the physical landscape too. The species is going to diverge along different evolutionary paths so politics will take on a whole different bent. Ah, perhaps I’m just talking bollocks, but I look at the landscape of today and it is interesting to see where all the different things are driving us — politics, industry and art.
Sudan Protest November 30, 2007
Posted by insomnihack in islam, politics, sudan, world politics.Tags: execution, islam, mohammed, sudan, teddy bear
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KHARTOUM, Sudan (CNN) — Hundreds of angry protesters, some waving ceremonial swords from trucks equipped with loud speakers, gathered Friday outside the presidential palace to denounce a teacher whose class named a teddy bear “Mohammed” — some calling for her execution.
An undated amateur photo of Gillian Gibbons, who has been found guilty of insulting religion.
The protesters, which witnesses said numbered close to 1,000, swore to fight in the name of their prophet.
Gillian Gibbons, 54, was given 15 days in jail late Thursday after she was convicted of insulting religion. She was cleared of charges of inciting hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs, her lawyer, Ali Ajeb, said.
Ajeb said they planned to appeal the sentence, which begins from the date she was detained, Nov. 25. Including Friday, she has 10 more days in jail.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said he was “extremely disappointed” that the charges were not dismissed.
Meanwhile senior British lawmakers were en route to Khartoum to try to secure Gibbons’ early release.
The two members of the House of Lords were set to arrive in Khartoum about 5 a.m. Saturday (9 p.m. Friday ET), Time magazine reporter Sam Dealey told CNN, citing British and Sudanese sources.
They will meet with government ministers and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, he said.
Sources close to the British government and the Republican Palace in Sudan say it is expected that a deal will be reached, and Gibbons will be released, Dealey said. Visas for the two, he said, were granted “in record time … by Sudanese standards.”
Friday’s demonstrations began as worshippers spilled out of mosques in the capital after Friday prayers. They marched to the palace, which is on the same street as Unity High School, where Gibbons taught grade school students. Those who named the bear were 7 years old.
A heavy police presence was maintained outside the school, but no demonstrators were there.
Armed with swords and sticks, the protesters shouted: “By soul, by blood, I will fight for the Prophet Mohammad. Western journalists who attempted to talk to the protesters were ushered away by men in plain clothes. Gibbons is being held in a women’s prison in the Omdurman district of Khartoum, and she will be deported at the end of her prison term, British consular officials told CNN.
British Embassy staff said they were giving the teacher — from the northern British city of Liverpool — full consular assistance.
In leaflets distributed earlier this week by Muslim groups, the protesters promised a “popular release of anger” at Friday’s protests.
The leaflets condemned Gibbons as an “infidel” and accused her of “the pollution of children’s mentality” by her actions.
Omer Mohammed Ahmed Siddig, the Sudanese ambassador to Britain, was summoned for a second time to meet with the British foreign secretary late Thursday after the court’s ruling.
Miliband also spoke to the Sudanese acting foreign minister for 15 minutes on the telephone during the meeting, the British Foreign Office said.
“Our priority now is to ensure Ms. Gibbons’ welfare and we will continue to provide consular assistance to her,” Miliband said in a statement.
The Foreign Office said there would be further talks with the Sudanese government Friday.
Gibbons was arrested Sunday after she asked her class to name the stuffed animal as part of a school project, the Foreign Office said. She had faced charges under Article 125 of Sudan’s constitution, the law relating to insulting religion and inciting hatred.
She could have received a sentence of 40 lashes, a fine or jail term of up to a year, according to the Foreign Office.
British newspapers condemned Gibbons’ conviction, with the Daily Telegraph calling for the recall of the British ambassador from Khartoum and sanctions against the heads of the Sudanese government.
In an editorial, the tabloid newspaper, The Sun, said Gibbons’ jailing was a “grotesque insult to Islam” and called Gibbons “an innocent abroad.”
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Now playing: R.E.M. – Losing My Religion
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Surprise November 29, 2007
Posted by insomnihack in politics, US Politics, world politics.Tags: danger, opinions, politics
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I think that it surprises the people who represent the status quo when people from certain backgrounds, namely poor ones, actually demonstrate an interest in, and an understanding of, politics. The tag conspiracy theory is liberally applied to anything that comes from a source outside of the news and the dismantling of someone’s reputation is effected with swift and brutal precision.
It is the government that has politicised a lot of people who might have remained apathetic if the long arm of the legislators hadn’t started dabbling in their lives. The war on terrorism had to create terrorists to fight against — had to pin the tail on the donkey; and that is what a lot of legislation in all walks of life seems intent on doing: criminalising large swathes of the populace for possessing something as dangerous as an opinion. If everything is criminal and no one is innocent then those in authority have carte blanche to do exactly what they want.
Simple bar politics could be something that gets you locked up. An interest in the direction your life takes could make you a radical, when all your are is a concerned citizen.
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Now playing: The Fall – Music Scene
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How Safe Is It To Be Political? November 29, 2007
Posted by insomnihack in politics, US Politics.Tags: opinion, political, safe
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The climate has changed and the way in which words and actions are perceived has changed. You may be saying one thing and the people in authority may be hearing something else. You do not think of yourself as a bad person — you love your family and there are certain changes in the way the world works that concern you. The internet democratised publishing, came close to a Marxist model of production than ever before, but how safe are you using it?
Every toolbar you download, every link you click on, everything you write leaves trails in cyberspace. These are things that people are watching — trouble-spotters trying to stem a groundswell of opinion or the spread of the wrong kind of information. Should you be scared? Probably. Should it make you stop doing what you have always done? That’s a moral call and a hard one to make, because very few people live a life where if something happened to them it wouldn’t impact upon others. The ghost of McCarthy stalks the corridors and wearing the wrong colour is like being a Crip in a Blood neighbourhood.
Forging New Chains November 27, 2007
Posted by insomnihack in politics, US Politics.Tags: america, politics, USA
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H.R. 1955: Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007
A new bill is being put through that will further consolidate the grip on freedom that was first demonstrated when the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act were passed. Something to be scared of or something that will grant further protection for US Citizens. You decide! McCarthy would be proud.
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Now playing: The Dead Kennedys – Jesus was a Terrorist
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