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December 30 Is this the world we created?This Christmas, as most worry about how which presents they'd like, which party to attend, and how much food they can fit in, let's not forget what it's suppossed to be all about.
Apart from the obvious religious significance, it's a time when we're suppossed to think about those less fortunate than us. It's a time when we're suppossed to help our fellow man, to recognise our connection to all our brothers and sisters. People often use this one time of the year to feel good about themselves and make up for a year of self fullfillment and observence by throwing a token dollar into the Salvation Army bin outside Walmart. The irony obviously being lost on them.
Instead of just doing this once a year we should be remembering what we're here for 365 days out of the year. We talk about loving our neighbor at Christmas, but ignore them the rest of the year.
Life is suppossed to be about helping others daily, isn't it?
Take a good look around. Do you really think we practise what we preach?
We sit idly by and knowingly ignore the wrongs that are occurring daily.
But hey..... I'm alright Jack...... so who cares????????
This is why I thought these lyrics, sung by Freddie Mercury, are more appropriate now than ever before.
Just look at all those hungry mouths we have to feed Take a look at all the suffering we breed So many lonely faces scattered all around Searching for what they need Is this the world we created? What did we do it for? Is this the world we invaded Against the law? So it seems in the end Is this what we're all living for today? The world that we created You know that every day a helpless child is born Who needs some loving care inside a happy home Somewhere a wealthy man is sitting on his throne Waiting for life to go by Is this the world we created? We made it on our own Is this the world we devastated Right to the bone? If there's a God in the sky looking down What can he think of what we've done To the world that He created? December 12 Thank you Harold Pinter
It was upon hearing his acceptance speech and reading more about his thoughts and beliefs that I felt drawn even close to this man. There are many people with whom I share similar ideas, but not necessarily agree with them 100%. I may have slightly different views on what actions should be taken, or not feel so strongly about certain areas of their argument. But, after reading what Mr. Pinter had to say I felt that he captured everything that I am feeling right now and agreed with everything he had to say. I have been told (by some) to let people think for themselves and not to push my beliefs onto them. My response was to point out that their idea of what's been going on was based on utter lies and mis-information. Therefore when I heard what Mr. Pinter said I fully agreed. He said that "To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed." Even the most right-wing, warmongering, ignorant and racist among us must now have to admit that this whole war was based on an endless supply of lies and false information. We now all know that every justification for war that we were fed was simply never true. Iraq never possessed weapons of mass destruction. So how can we allow them to simply attack, destroy, and murder thousands of innocent civilians. The U.S. are often leading the charge when it comes to trying other people for war crimes, but why, when the U.S. have committed more atrocities and war crimes than any other country, are they not subject to the same prosecution. They continue to remove themselves from any scrutiny, or blame. Refuse to recognize international law, ignore and change what is accepted as Human Rights standards. They continue to torture, but change their interitation of what this word means. If you read their latest interpretation of "torture" it pretty much allows anything short of actual death. That is why they can continue to deny the use of torture, but are still allowed using techniques like electrocution, severe beatings and watering boarding. The U.S. continues to dictate what every other country can and can't do while ignoring the same rules they impose on others. The latest target is now Iran. They should not be allowed to develop any nuclear capabilities in order to supply their own energy sources. After all; They may develop a nuclear weapon of themselves. No! Be relient on the U.S. for your energy concerns. It's funny that they should not be permitted to do this when the United States, who now occupy 702 military installations throughout the world in 132 countries, are allowed. Not only are the U.S. allowed to possess such a weapon, but in fact possesses 8,000 active and operational nuclear warheads. Two thousand can be ready to be launched with 15 minutes warning. The facts have been well documented, but no-one seems to care. If these acts were committed by an "Arabic- Muslim" country there'd be such an outcry that the rest of the world would have joined in unity and destroyed said country. Yet somehow over the last 60 years the devastation and utter destruction by the U.S. in places such as Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala, seem to be dismissed by those in power. We are still reminded by some of Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, and Chile, but people conveniently choose to ignore these facts. Millions of people all murdered, slaughtered, maimed, and injured, all in the name of greed and power, all attributable to American foreign policy. Yet this is all in the past. We can forgive this. Yet we allow them to continue to do this year in year out, without any form of resistance. The latest victims being Afghanistan and Iraq， where an additional 100,000 plus people have been added to the list over the last 15 years.........and still counting. This does not include the misery and devastation that these people have to endure due to the destruction of their lives and infrastructure. Let’s not forget that most people in Iraq are still without clean water and electricity. This after they have been "Liberated" for nearly 3 years now. Let’s not forget that unofficially America is not at war but are presently conducting raids into Syria and Iran causing yet more death and destruction. The U.S. claim to have brought freedom and democracy to all and sundry. In fact all they've brought is death and destruction, torture and murder, cluster bombs and uranium poisoning, misery and degradation. Thank you America. They are quite happy to be prosecuting Saddam and anyone else they choose to for war crimes. And please don't kid yourself. It is America that is running the whole illegal show, not the Iraqis. How many people do you have to kill before you qualify as a mass murderer and a war criminal? No matter, this doesn't apply to the U.S. The rules don't apply to them and they don't bother counting anyway. Bush has not ratified the International Criminal Court of Justice. Therefore if any American soldier or for that matter politician finds himself in the dock Bush has warned that he will send in the marines. We're being lied to, cheated, and deliberately mis-informed about actions and motives, yet somehow continue to turn a blind eye. How much more can we allow them to get away with? Why don't the international community hold the U.S. up the the same standards that everyone else is suppossed to meet. I'd pretty much garantee that if there was a threat to the almighty buck, or the U.S. economy, they'd soon fall in line. After all it's all about money and greed. October 03 knee-jerk reactions and a useless inquiries (part 2)The police have the right to pursue every lead in their hunt for bombers, but scare mongering is not their right.
Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner understands how the media can be used , has yet to explain why he announced that the killing in the London Underground of the Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes was "directly linked" to terrorism, when he must have known the truth.
So once again we'll have another pre-determined inquiry, no doubt co-ordinated by the likes of Lord Hutton, in which no blame will be attached to the government, or squeaky clean white persons.
Remember how Hutton cleared the government of any wrongdoing while castigating Andrew Gilligan and the BBC for their involvement in the whole David Kelly affair.
As usual, once everyone has moved on we learn the gross inaquracies of these reports.
Remember that it was Lord Hutton who represented the Ministry of Defence at the inquest into the killing of civil rights marchers on 'Bloody Sunday'. Of course we were told that The Widgery Tribunal found no wrong doing on the part of the British Troops. This farce is now widely regarded as a whitewash by British Government.
The march on "Bloody Sunday" was organized to protest against internment without trial of Irishmen, predominantly Catholic, in Northern Ireland. The official army position, backed by the British Home Secretary the next day in the House of Commons, was that the Paratroopers had reacted to the threat of gunmen and nail-bombs from suspected IRA members. However, all eye-witnesses (apart from the soldiers), including marchers, local residents, and British and Irish journalists present, challenged the army's account - they maintain that soldiers fired indiscriminately into the crowd, or were aiming at fleeing people and those tending the wounded, and that the soldiers were not fired upon.
We already know that blame in these latest inquiries will be laid elsewhere. It will focus only on the all-evil terrorists who want nothing more than to "take away our freedom", or " Want to impose their beliefs upon us".
Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago has examined every act of suicide terrorism over the past 25 years. He refutes the assumption that suicide bombers are mainly driven by "an evil ideology independent of other circumstances." He said, "The facts are that since 1980, half the attacks have been secular. Few of the terrorists fit the standard stereotype... Half of them are not religious fanatics at all. In fact, over 95 per cent of suicide attacks around the world [are not about] religion, but a specific strategic purpose - to compel the United States and other western countries to abandon military commitments on the Arabian Peninsula and in countries they view as their homeland or prize greatly... The link between anger over American, British and western military [action] and al-Qaeda's ability to recruit suicide terrorists to kill us could not be tighter."
So we have been warned, .......yet again. Terrorism is the logical consquence of American and British "foreign policy" whose infinitely greater terrorism we need to recognize, and debate, as a matter of urgency. But we won't listen. When will we ever learn? We blindly follow and believe everything that the media and governments tell us, yet ignore history and the facts. It was not until evidence was brought forward about Jean Charles de Menezes that the police and officials had to admit they lied.
Jean Charles de Menezes was seen him running. LIE.....
Evidence suggests he was not running, but sitting on the train when he was grabbed and shot. A man who could have been mistaken for an Asian had jumped the ticket barrier and run. LIE...
Evidence gathered by the ITV news program shows that Charles did not jump the barrier; he passed normally through them with his ticket, and had sat down in the train when the police pounced on him.
The police had said that a heavy padded jacket on a hot summer day was suspicious because it might have suggested he was carrying explosives as he ran. LIE.....
Evidence shows also that he was wearing a light denim jacket, and not a padded jacket as the police had claimed earlier. The police then claimed that he had been "directly connected" to inquiries over the attempts to plant bombs on trains a day earlier. LIE....
The police later admitted that this was not correct. Then came the allegation that he was an illegal immigrant and that he therefore ran when he saw the police. LIE.....
It was quickly established that Charles was not an illegal immigrant. He was shot eight times, seven shots going into his head and one into his shoulder.
The killing is being investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, but either everyone will be exonerated, or another patsy/ scapegoat/ Lyndie England will be blamed. But I bet that the enquiry will forgive any wrong doing by Ian Blair.
In Canada, Federal officials finally announce that they're launching a fact-finding mission to uncover the truth about the use of Agent Orange at a New Brunswick military base in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.
While America was involved with their "conflict" in Vietnam, Canada was helping to produce Agent Orange. The government then decided to experiment and sprayed it on its own unwitting soldiers at CFB Gagetown.
As in the Vietnam Era, the government of Canada today is very much complicit with the American Empire. And whatever the fate of this country's peacekeeping myth, it seems that many more Afghanis, Haitians, and even Canadian troops will have to die for the sins of the federal government's foreign policy.
To get a better understanding of western views we need go no further than Rick Hillier, Canada's new Chief of Defence Staff. He spelled out his view of the enemy in Afghanistan, calling them "detestable murderers and scumbags...they detest our freedoms, they detest our society, they detest our liberties." (Globe and Mail, July 14 2005)
Regarding the army that he heads up, Hillier plainly outlined his vision:
"We're not the public service of Canada, we're not just another department. We are the Canadian Forces and our job is to be able to kill people."
You've got love the humane gesture presented by our leaders in bringing democracy to others and admire their silence over their role in overthrowing Haiti's elected government.
So; there we are. At least three inquiries will be held, spending Lord knows how much of the taxpayers money on inquiries whose findings are already decided before they begin.
What are the odds on any outcome other than in the government's favour? I'll take it.
Knee-jerk reactions and a useless inquiries (Part 1)A while ago I wrote about a couple of issues. One being about Knee Jerk reactions after the London bombings and another about Canada's role in this war/slaughter. They were loosely connected by the issue of media and government manipulation, misleading, and sometimes just out and out lies.
I had intended to move on to other topics, but was brought back to them by the news of a couple of inquires that are now on going. In theory inquiries are a good thing, in practise the often turn out to be nothing more than a pre ordained farce.
After the piece on The London Bombings I was criticized for telling people not to get caught up in any Knee jerk reactions, that they can read for themselves, and can make their own minds up. My problem with that is where they were getting their information from and the mis-information that they so easily believe.
So many people simply rely on the mainstream newspapers and evening news without delving a little deeper. It can often turn out that the news they were fed was in fact wrong, or ladened with inaccuracies that simply make the story more entertaining. In some cases embarrassing or unflattering reports about the west will not even make the headlines until several months later. Abu Ghraib is a prime example of this. I had been reading, from several different sources, about abuses that were being carried out in prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq for many months. I couldn't believe that no one in the west appeared concerned about reporting this behavior. I wasn't until about 8 months later, when they could no longer keep it out of the news, that western media finally started to write about it.
So far everything I've read about from alternative news sources, even if unpopular in the west, has turned out to be true. I wish I could say the same for reports issued by the U.S. and British governments and many sources of the western media.
My concern after the London bombings, among other things, was that there would be a knee-jerk reaction to the situation. I based this on past experience. This can often be the case as people are prone to believe the first thing they hear and act upon it. It's not until the facts come out later that they are proven to be wrong. See Afghanistan and Iraq.
We see now, after the fact, that the British government had blamed Pakistan for having sites, or schools that supposedly help incite hatred of the west, and that some of the Arabic people involved had supposedly attended these schools. They didn't talk about the British role in the Middle East as a possible reason for these attacks.
Lost was the reminder from Pakistan that the people involved were born or bred in Britain.
Lost on the non-Muslim British public is how non-whites/non-Christians are treated. Why are so many people disenfranchised with the U.S. and British governments?
Wasps cannot answer or appreciate this question because they have never been subjected to the appalling treatment and humiliation by these governments. Lost on the British public is what is happening in the Muslim communities in Britain.
Lost on the British public is how non-whites see the attempted cover-up of the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes. Lost on the British public are the reasons we have the ghettos of Oldham and Bradford. Lost on the British public is the injustice of Belmarsh, Guantanamo Bay, & Abu Ghraib. Blair dismisses any news of acts of a racial or religious hatred as simply being isolated incidents. Yet the Islamic Human Rights Commission received 320 complaints of racist attacks in the wake of the bombings; The Monitoring Group, a charity that provides assistance to victims of racial harassment, has received 83 emergency calls; Scotland Yard says hate crimes are up 600% from this time last year. And last year was nothing to brag about. These are the ignorant Knee-jerk reactions that I was talking about.
Because of "Knee-jerk" reactions Blair intends to impose new censorship laws that will prevent people from speaking out against the many atrocities that the U.S. and Britain are committing.
Because of "Knee-jerk" reactions Blair intends to deport more people to countries where they will likely face torture. And he will keep fighting wars in which soldiers don't know the reasons why they are there, or the names of the towns they are destroying.
Because of "Knee-jerk" reactions Muslim people all over Britain report the presence of police "video vans" cruising their streets, filming everyone. When I was a boy I was fed, through general gossip, slanted media reports, or a general atmosphere, that all Irish were thieves, gypsies, or supporters of the IRA. Today it's the Muslim's turn. We are led to believe that they are the new evil. We are led to believe that non can be trusted, all are sympathizers, and if we are to protect ourselves then tough measures are to be taken. This means that the same rights and privileges afforded and non-Muslim cannot be given to Muslims.
So when the police raided the Iqra Learning Centre and bookstore near Leeds very few made a fuss. The media reported what the police told them, that they had to confiscate as "anti-western" material. Material that included a DVD of the Respect Party MP George Galloway addressing the US Senate, an article by John Pilinger, and a photograph of a Palestinian man in Gaza attempting to shield his son from Israeli bullets before the boy was shot to death. The photograph was said to be insightful. Now, after new laws enacted by the British Government the Galloways, the Pilingers, and pretty much anyone who speaks out or writes about anything the government does not like can be arrested. How Big Brother, how archaic, and how racist is that.
We are led to believe that THEIR religion promotes the destruction of other's beliefs.
I believe that there are extremists that do this, but this is not what Islam promotes. In fact many Islamic followers are taught tolerance toward other religions such as Jews and Christians. Something that is not widely reported in the west and something that many Jews and Christians themselves can learn from.
You see, by several accounts, the Iqra Trust is a well-known charity that promotes Islam worldwide as "a peaceful religion", not a front for crazed fanatics that want our freedom.
With a pre notified media already in place the police did their thing. While the rest of Britain, sat eating their fish ‘n’ chips, watched this in the safety of the living room, the local community was subjected to this humiliating ordeal. They are the ones left scared, angry and bitter.
There was no justification for this other than another knee jerk reaction.
August 31 The London Bombings ( pt2 )
Canada's role in Iraq
The London Bombings ( pt1 )
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