Unspeak

I've read the book and I read the blog.

This is essential for all literate human beings to do, in my opinion, brilliant stuff.

http://unspeak.net/

Rhys Jones

OK, so we've got some more hype over a killing. Now it is a very sad death and no one can possibly argue otherwise but the hype is incredible.

I have to say though that in many ways I go along with it because it serves a purpose. It serves to show the whole city united in horror and disgust at the murder and to possibly shame some key youths into squealing. It appears to be working and I expect it to die down now.

The whole problem with youth violence and other lower level crime is that the media have to report significant incidents but it is not reflective of the situation. What I mean is that it can't be denied that plenty of crime is committed by youths but it simply isn't anarchy UK either. Crime is falling but crime is still "bad" and should be combated and this tension beign mishandled by the media makes for a distortion of the wider truth.

Nasty crimes and accidents always come about in the school holidays but the obvious signs that adolescents can get their hands on guns is a worrying development. I'm sure the police are working on getting to grips with this supply but in a more intelligence driven method, not so much in the public glare. Too much hype will make getting guns trendy, the next must have after some make of trainer or other. They should try to calm fears and suggest only scumbags use guns. Make it unglamorous.

Gonzales has buggered off at last. But, as with Rove, the timing seems a little too convenient and will only serve to reduce the damage further Senate probing can cause. The impeachment of Bush is long overdue and he has been protected solely because the US is in two wars it can't get out of. If this were a peace-time president and all the non-Iraq scandals had happened, he'd have been out on his ear within 4 years. But Iraq did happen and that is the biggest of all reasons for an impeachment, ironically. If Iraq had been over by now, again impeachment would be more than just a dream.

I saw Barack Obama on the Daily show recently and the difference between him and Bush is like the difference between Cartman and Stephen Fry. America needs someone like him to bring some semblance of sanity and real humanity to the White House. I think Americans are sick to the back teeth with dogma and rhetoric and want someone who will shake sense into the Beltway and the Executive.

He seems to be essentially a more bearable Clinton with all the charisma of a Kennedy but less of the ultra-elite-wanting-to-run-the-show about him. All other candidates in the far-too-long campaign are either far too hot, blunt and thuggish or so cold and/or calculated they make Thatcher seem homely. We appear to have a wily but ultimately passable prime minister in office here and if we can just get Obama in power over there we would have a fairly decent pairing on our hands. I just think that having Obama as president would be too good to be true and therefore, something will stop it. It will either be more GOP corruption messing with the election or something else.

The GOP candidates range from the annoying - Guiliani - to the most cynical politician on this side of the universe - Romney. Not one of them have learnt from Bush's utterly miserable presidency. Not one. In fact, several of the front-runners seem to think that acting like Bush on steroids is the way to go! What are they on??!

Rove

Ah, can you feel the sun on your face even when indoors? Can you hear the sound of children laughing whilst on a subway train? Well that's probably because Karl Rove has finally quit.

 

Rove sets just about everyone's teeth on edge not because he is a Spin Doctor, not because he looks a bit like a Hitler toady, not even because he has been perceived to be the brains and, some say, ventriloquist for Bush but because he has done virtually nothing else his entire life but run (dirty) campaigns for Republicans. What I mean is he has, since he just left short pants, been playing Machiavelli behind the scenes of local and national politics. He has never been a politician but he has backed up and, indeed, crushed them consistently for his entire working life. What sort of person does that? And that's why he gets such an instinctively negative reaction from virtually everyone.

 

We think of him as a sort of bullied nerd getting is own back in a nerdy way. As a nerd who uses the swaggering jocks, like Bush, who probably used to goose him and trip him up in corridors to "beat up" other jocks that use words the middle classes automatically grimace at such as "social justice" and "pro-choice". He seems like a self-satisfied proxy-bully, if you will.

 

His conduct in political battles has been bruising and gloves-off his whole career and yet the god damn American public (or, at least enough of them) bought it all and voted for his man. The sheer breath-taking success of his strategies to shape debates and even vocabulary to his aims using the, let's face it, not-exactly-resistant media truly is a modern wonder.

 

A couple of examples:

 

"Tax relief": - Rove got Bush talking about "Relieving the tax burden" and coining the term "tax relief". Why? Because that meant journalists could ask Democrats, "Are you against tax relief?" Now who would say "no" to that and want to win elections? By painting taxes as fundamentally evil without caveat and then describing tax cuts for the rich as tax relief, it makes it sound like the solution to a problem. Everyone got suckered into it. Very clever.

 

"The surge":- This little piece of spin has worked internationally even if journalists choose to precede the word surge with "so-called" as if to excuse them for peddling it. The increase, basically escalation, of troop numbers is open-ended and the extension of the presence of these troops is being continually pushed by the White House so how is this a "surge"? The use of the word "surge" suggests a temporary increase, a short-term spike. This is simply not the case with this tactic. Troop numbers are simply being increased to nearly invasion levels and doing their best to strangle the insurgent-fostered civil war. They're just send more men in. It's not a surge as there's simply no date set for these numbers to lower. Would another increase in numbers be termed another "surge"?

 

So he's been effective and for that he gets objective kudos but then, so might the architects of the holocaust for so efficiently building such a monstrously efficient genocidal infrastructure. The purpose and motives of their "inspiration" is far too wrong for us to contemplate really praising the git. Merely getting Bush elected (speech marks should be added to that word for the 2000 election, of course) should be enough for him to be damned to Hades.

 

August

Got a spare twenty minutes so my pronouncements here won't have links but nothing I'll say here can't be discovered yourself.

 

We have a new prime minister and Karl Rove is departing. We see the White House maintaining the line that the US has gotta stay there and be more aggressive, if anything. We also see Bush employ Vietnam in his argument to continue in Iraq and, in the process, make several false statements about the East Asian debacle. I notice only a lone reporter on MSNBC actually came up with the truth on that.

 

I've also just watched John Pilger's latest film about principally South America and how it serves as the most illuminating example of America's imperial tendencies. Although far from neutral - the tea and cakes interview with Chavez was a little desperately unchallenging - it nevertheless had a very strong case.

 

It can be found to view on Information Clearing House so have a watch. In it, you will see a former CIA agent expounding the overarching policy the US has to decide when and where it will overthrow governments, democratic or otherwise, as it sees fit. There is no moral imperative here, just self interest or "national security". You'll also see the true story of the coup that attempted to topple Chavez of Venezuela and how the White House and American media perpetuated the lies the fascists who were involved had concocted.

 

Chavez is, without doubt, a bit of a tosser. He is, however, a classic Latin American politician "of the people". Larger than life, bombastic, fiery and passionate. He is a true leader and he takes risks. When he came to power, a constitution was written and articles of it are written on food packets to drive home that the people are the government. In a country as lopsided but as wealthy as Venezuela, the only way to have enough change in a short enough time so that equality can be reached is to use some form of socialist model.

 

I'm not a socialist but when you've had decades of capitalists, fascists and corrupt officials taking the piss, you need to swing the other way for a time before you settle down. I strongly suspect that had Cuba not been stamped on and ostracised by American when Castro turned up that by now Cuba would more closely resemble Portugal. Instead, to keep the country together, authoritarianism was unavoidable. 

 

Well, my 20 minutes is up. I hope to write a bit more later. 

YouTube - What George W. Bush Really Did At Emma E. Booker

YouTube - What George W. Bush Really Did At Emma E. Booker:

The good old MSM

I've been grateful for the last week or so that I have access to non-UK news channels. If I hadn't I would have been largely snoozing my non-work hours away. Why? Because of this extremely tiresome missing girl story that is dominating the news networks.

 

I'm entirely empathetic towards the family affected but I'm being asked to care exponentially more about this particular missing child than any other. This I think is offensive.

 

It seems to me entirely arbitrary that her story has been picked up so heavily. Each news organisation has flown out some top names to cover this thing just because she's a cute little 3 year old. It's not like they have the excuse that it's a slow news period.

 

The end of the football season is looming, Blair has announced his resignation and Brown has walked on stage finally, the Iraq war is still in stalemate whilst Afghanistan gets scarcely a mention. In the days since Maddy's disappearence, dozens of Iraqis have died and several other kids have gone missing unreported.

 

The fact is I believe that something like 1000 kids (it might be people but either way...) go missing every year in Britain and one woman a week is killed by her partner. So what the hell makes this story any more worthwhile telling? There is no answer other than "because it caught on".

 

Live feeds of church services, reporters spending minutes on air reading cards on some street or other, interviews with anyone who shares blood with the kid, jingoistic criticism (learnt from Fox News, I shouldn't wonder) of the Portuguese police and all whilst a kid has not been found. It's a week long rolling report on essentially nothing happening and it bores me mental.

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | US Iraq troops 'condone torture'

BBC NEWS World Middle East US Iraq troops 'condone torture'

Another wonderful achievement by George W Bush. Mission accomplished, mate.

The time has long since passed that I have had to proselytise in my own words, simply giving you links to facts and reality basically show you the state of things for what they are. *sigh*

The Blog | Tom Tomorrow: What They Said | The Huffington Post

How the American right-wing talked bollocks on Iraq from beginning to... well, there hasn't been an end. Click on image to view full page.
The Blog Tom Tomorrow: What They Said The Huffington Post

Sweet Bill Maher clip

Fantastic Bill Maher Op Ed clip on Bush

Thanks to CrooksandLiars.com.