RANT: American Foreign Policy Fails - Yet Again

The ineptitude of the Yanks in foreign policy never ceases to amaze me.

How did the US become a superpower?

Yet again, the stupid, shortsighted politicking of the United States has resulted in the totally wrong horse being backed. Nowhere have they been more stupid in recent years than the Middle East. That's what you get for being the backroom henchmen for that other warped, amoral regime in Tel Aviv, America.

See the eagle at the centre of the Egyptian flag? That's actually the chicken coming home to roost for both the United States and the Mubarak regime.

Do you get my point?

RAVE: Egypt & the 'Tunisian Effect'

I knew it was going to happen. It was inevitable after the stupendous events in Tunisia over the last few weeks. The Jasmine Revolution, the 'Tunisian effect' as it has become known had to become a contagion. Another oppressed, depressed Arab country had to have its own uprising.

Others have had their own popular uprisings this past week - Yemen, Algeria, Jordan - but none on the scale and magnitude of this behemoth of the Arab world.

I knew it was going to be Egypt.



After all...

• The repression of the Tunisian people is the quintessential 'picnic in the park' compared to the repression that the Egyptian people have suffered for decades now.
• Hosni Mubarak is the dictator of all dictators in the Arab world. His secret police are not reviled as being amongst the most horrific torturers in the world for nothing.
• Few other countries in the world, let alone the highly volatile Middle East, are as much in the pocket of the United States' warped and surreal foreign policy as Egypt is - and has been for decades now.
• Egypt has one of the highest youth and overall unemployment rates in the Middle East - and that means millions of disaffected and hungry people.
• Egypt has supposedly had 'high growth rates' in recent years, yet the rich get even more stinking rich and the vast swathe of poor stay the same or even get poorer. Sound familiar of late?

An oppressed people, widespread allegations of state torture, rising unemployment, rising food costs, rising fuel costs, the gulf between rich and poor getting even wider - and yet the Mubarak regime is somehow 'caught by surprise'?

Who the hell are these leaders to be so out of touch with the needs, aspirations and frustrations of so many of their citizens?!

Mubarak is a dictator, and a brutal one at that. His time has come. The man must get the hell out. Just like Ben Ali of Tunisia, he must be run out of the country.

The people of Egypt must not give up. They owe it to themselves. They owe it to every repressed person in Yemen, Algeria, Syria, Libya - the list is endless. In fact, they owe it to every one of us.

Do you get my point?

RAVE: La Revolution Jasmine Continue...

Tunisia continues to astound. Rather, the people on the streets of Tunis continue to astound.

The Jasmine Revolution continues unabated. Now the police, national guard and fire brigade have joined the protesters in the streets to show their solidarity with the people of Tunisia.

The people, now joined by the said former 'guardians' of the ousted regime, continue to show their disapproval and even anger at any members of the old party, Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD), still remaining in the new government of national unity. They want the RCD crowd out - all out.

And they're absolutely right to want them ALL out. To get rid of rubbish, one doesn't leave any of it behind in one's home. Tunisia cannot hope to start anew if there is still so much public anger against the entire former political party which held power so ruthlessly.

But we must all remain hopeful for the future of Tunisia, not to mention possibly other countries in the region too. Already there is talk of the 'Tunisia effect', which Dr. Larbi Sadiki, Senior Lecturer of Middle East Politics at the UK's University of Exeter, describes in Aljazeera as an 'effect' in which, "All Arabs feel emboldened and inspired by the overthrow of Ben Ali Baba's dictatorship. Tunisia now leads the way and others are closely watching. The Tunisia effect must be a democratic effect."

This is no doubt fast becoming one of the most astounding popular revolts in recent modern history.

People power to the hilt.

Do you get my point?

RAVE: Circus Animals Thank Bolivia...and China

I remember being taken by my father to the Boswell Wilkie Circus here in Johannesburg as a young boy in the late 1970s (my mother refused to go along - she's always loathed circuses and zoos). I was excited by the big top, the lights, the music - I was a boy of nine and it was the CIRCUS!

GASP! How that boyish joy changed as the 'show' unfolded...

My excitement soon turned to a pit in my stomach that got larger and larger as the show wore on. I couldn't stand cheering and being 'entertained' by large, beautiful wild animals like elephants, lions and tigers, animals that I knew were meant to be free and in the wild, not tamed and belittled in front of people, turning tricks like poodles. They looked so unhappy, so out of it. I hated it. I knew it was wrong. And I vowed at that age to never again visit the circus. I never have.

The continued use of animals in circuses around the world is a source of SHAME for humanity.

If people were asked which country they believed would be the first in the world to ban all animals being used in circuses, I doubt very much that Bolivia would feature in many people's responses.

But so it is - Bolivia has become the first country in the world to ban all use of animals in circuses or for any means of entertainment.

If, as Mahatma Gandhi once said, the true mark of a society's spiritual enlightenment is how it treats its animals, then Bolivia has just become a far more enlightened nation.

But it gets better...

I was sent a link today (see it at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8266563/China-bans-animal-circuses.html) in which the Chinese governments has now also banned animals in circuses and, furthermore, has warned the nation's zoos that they too will now be under greater scrutiny as to how they treat their animals.

China?!

Yes, the China that built the ecological catastrophe that is the Three Gorges Dam, the China that is now the world's largest carbon emitter and contributor to global warming, the China that is hardly the darling of many environmental causes. Yes, that China.

And all power to them.

Bolivia and China setting the benchmark for how animals ought to be banned from being used in circuses - who would have thought?

Countries like the United States, France, Germany, Russia, United Kingdom, Sweden, Australia and South Africa lagging behind Bolivia and China on the issue of circus animals...hmmmmm...

I will take these types of blessings from wherever they may come. I'm quite sure the animals feel the same way.

Do you get my point?
 

RAVE: Rise, Internet, O' Powerful One

This was a week when, perhaps more than ever before, it really became crystal clear to me JUST how powerful the Internet has become in the world.



The 'power of the Internet' is stating the obvious, of course. It's a cliche. And I've known it for a long time too, no doubt. But I refer not to the 'power' that is social networking horrors like Facebook (blecchh) or the 'power' that is being inundated with endless, often mindless e-mails on a daily basis. Not even to the more benevolent power that is being able to do research and learn new things on the Internet like never before. No, not at all.

Rather, I refer to the power of an Internet that allows real change, on the global, the national and the personal levels - and more so than ever before:

* Wikileaks: Global repercussions, no doubt about it. Whistleblowing is as old as politics, and it was what made newspapers once exciting, but nothing on the scale that Wikileaks was able to unleash in 2010. And continues to do so in 2011. Hurrah!

* Tunisia: National repercussions, possibly even regional. Tunisia has been oppressed for over twenty years. And it all exploded in a matter of weeks, even days - the old dictator fled to that oasis for all despots, Saudi Arabia, a national government of unity had to be convened, free elections will be held in less than two months - and the old party has literally been disbanded. All due to people power - with online networking as the catalyst. And the rest of the Maghreb and Middle East elites looks on nervously - very nervously.

* A Brooklyn baby: A woman has her baby girl stolen from a Brooklyn hospital in 1987. A full twenty-three years later, the stolen baby girl, now a grown woman, searches online for clues as to why her 'mother' cannot provide her with a birth certificate. The woman is suspicious and turns to the place where she feels she might get answers - the Internet. She searches and comes across a website with a picture of a baby girl missing since 1987 - a baby girl that looks exactly like her when she was a baby. She contacts the authorities, gets a blood test and, like that, is identified as the stolen baby and finally reunited with her real mother.

For all its faults, for all its inevitable abilities to be a platform for the bad, the ugly and the downright horrible, the Internet is still a life-changing, unbelievably powerful tool that, when used right, is simply exceptional.

It is the technological advance of our time, the great leap forward. Akin in the modern era to electricity and the telephone and television.

May it continue to be a conduit for positive, life-altering change - at every level, great and small.

Do you get my point?

RAVE: South Sudan Has Spoken

South Sudan has spoken. Through an historic vote that international observers have declared free and fair, the much-maligned and long-oppressed people of southern Sudan have voted to secede from Sudan.

May their new flag soon fly outside the headquarters of the United Nations and African Union - and everywhere else for that matter.



For too many years the black African, Christian southern Sudanese were the poor, unrepresented subjects to the notoriously racist regime of the Arabic, Muslim northern part of Sudan. This is not a pro-Christian, anti-Muslim assessment or diatribe. It was the status quo, the reality in Sudan.

It could've been atheist Marxist-Leninists Caucasians oppressing nihilist Buddhist Asians for all I cared - oppression is oppression.

In recent years, the region of Darfur became internationally synonymous in recent years with the very worst of refugee camps and the displacement of millions of people. NGOs and famous actors tried to raise awareness about the crisis in Darfur, whilst most nations either voiced their opposition to the regime in Khartoum or turned their eyes the other way.

China, in its inimitable and self-serving ethos of 'don't-mix-politics-and-human-rights-with-business-(especially-if-there's-oil-involved)', continued its dealings with the henchmen of Khartoum, further raising the ire of NGOs and Darfur activists. As if China gave a damn.

At least now the people of South Sudan can look forward and build a nation for themselves. This vote went exactly as expected and showed, yet again, how the will of a people will, e-v-e-n-t-u-a-l-l-y, win out.

Talk about a HUGE middle finger to oppression.

May the people of Palestine (and Kurdistan and a host of other oppressed peoples around the world) be inspired by what has finally occurred in South Sudan.

Do you get my point?

RAVE: Vive La Tunisie Libre

 

The amazing events of the last few weeks in Tunisia continue to unravel. It's simply amazing to watch as it unfolds on satellite television.

I really am in awe of what the Tunisian people have been able to achieve during this time.

History is unfolding right before our eyes.

I applaud the Tunisian people for their continued demonstrations in the streets against the vile oppression that was the Ben Ali regime.

I am in awe of the Tunisian people's unrelenting passion for change and for being a voice.

I applaud them even further for their continued insistence that the entire former ruling party be overhauled and not allowed in the new unity government. Too right.  

I watch in glee, knowing full well that other oppressive regimes in the Arab world must be shaking in their jackboots - whatever they might say in public to the contrary.

I love that this has been a revolution led by the middle-class in a country known for its well-educated and cosmopolitan people.

Now I can only continue to hope that the Tunisian people will get the democracy and the more free, open society for which they have fought so hard these past few weeks.

As I've said before, they deserve nothing less.

Vive the Jasmine Revolution!

RAVE: Go, Ricky, Go!

Watching highlights last night of this year's Golden Globes was akin to watching paint dry. It was the usual parade of predictable winners, ridiculous nominees, crappy speeches and much self-loving and self-congratulating. What a bore.

Thank goodness, then, for Ricky Gervais.

The man was lambasted (mostly by industry papers and 'pundits', let it be said) for what was an incredibly scathing role as host for the show. He literally took no prisoners as star after star after Hollywood institution (which is where most of them belong, by the way) were felled in his cutting, utterly relentless, utterly British manner.

The majority of 'ordinary' folk in the blogosphere loved him, though. That's telling...

Charlie Sheen got swiped for his predilections involving whores and hell-raising (justified). Robert Downey Jnr., an actor I've always admired but who gets more and more annoyingly smug and self-satisfied with each passing year, got shot down with barbs about his stays at the Betty Ford Clinic and LA County Jail (take that, Mr-Smug-Trying-To-Be-The-New-Jack-Nicholson). Fair game, dude. Even Downey Jnr's riposte, seemingly 'elegant' and 'witty' and no doubt appreciated by the bunch of besieged assembled stars, was just plain American ho-hum.

Ricky's sly and oh-so-pointed aside at the closeted gays of Hollywood's Scientology cult left the audience stunned - and me howling in approval.

It was fabulous.

The Golden Globes make me feel icky and uninvited  - like a voyeur, one has to watch all the Hollywood insiders sat elbow to elbow, winking here and waving there, all being total 'luvvies' with each other, and it's all such an inside joke and lovefest. It feels positively incestuous at times.

For the boring, pompous circus that it is, Ricky Gervais was ebullient, a most apt and ironic ringmaster.

His parting words at the end of the borefest were priceless and his very best:

"I want to thank God for making me an atheist. Good night everybody!" 

Amen to that!

RAVE: Chinese Citizens Castigate Canada!

First I rave about Portugal today, then Tunisia, and now...China...

China?!! A country of which I am so often so critical, especially with regard to its usually poor record on animal rights and environmental issues? That China? Yes, that China.

And it gets better.

Below is an open letter in full that my mom forwarded to me - she was completely over the moon at the prospect of Chinese citizens showing their enlightenment on an animal rights issue!

The letter is from concerned Chinese citizens to the Fisheries Minister of...wait for it...Canada!

Yes, that Canada - once a nation with a (relatively) proud environmental record, and now fast becoming the World's Environmental Hypocrite of note.


Chinese citizens catigating Canada for trying to import seal products into China...

China showing up Canada for the latter's abominable animal rights abuses regarding the annual (and totally sickening) harp seal slaughter...

China sticking it to Canada on animal rights...

You gotta love it...

****************************************************************************

2011年1月12日 北京

An Open Letter to Gail Shea, Canada’s Fisheries Minister

Minister Shea:We are animal loving citizens from across China. We are in the millions in number and are growing by day. Care for the weak, love of life, and striving for the harmony between humans and nature are the unstopped trend of the contemporary time. Living in this era, we feel proud to follow this trend. Yet, your arrival in China and the Canadian delegation you are leading, the second of its kind since last year, for promoting Canadian seal product sale in China, are nothing but an act hindering China’s progress in modernization and civilization. “Do not give others what you yourself do not want” is an ancient Chinese saying. Known to all, Canadian seal products are made out of the blood and flesh of the seal pups and out of the blood and tears of the mother seals. The cruelty of seal products has been condemned by the majority of Canadians and others in Europe and the Americas. How can you peddle this shameful product to China? You have come to China two years in a row to promote the morally repulsive products.

Do you, Minister Shea, realize what kind of wrongs you are committing?

First of all, going out of your way to promote Canadian seal products to Chinese consumers is indicative of your position supporting the racist and cultural imperialistic bias towards the Chinese people held by the sealing industry. The perceptions that “Chinese eat everything” and that Chinese care nothing about animal suffering show how outdated the Canadian sealing industry’s view of the Chinese people is, a view that is reminiscent of the prejudice against non-Western people and non-Western culture held by the West when it was brutalizing the non-Western world in the old days. China has a legacy of compassion for all living creatures. Progress in animal protection in the contemporary era has also been recognized. Based on what can the Canadian sealing industry claim that the Chinese nation is indifferent to animal suffering? Minister Shea, what makes you the advocate of seal product sale in China, products that are hugely controversial and morally indefensible?

Second, the view that Chinese consumers will embrace products of animal cruelty indicates Canada’s complete out-of-touch with reality in China. The world is watching every new development in China in order to be on the same page with China’s breathtaking transformation. Refusing to face reality in China is a sign of arrogance on the part of the Canadian government. Since China initiated its economic reform program, the public environmental protection awareness has been rising. More and more consumers are consuming with a view to protect environment and the ecosystem. The Canadian government and sealing industry, by attempting to dump the seal products on the Chinese markets, show little respect to the Chinese consumers.

Third, by promoting seal products in China, Shea is destroying the good image Canada has long enjoyed in China. Canada is one of the first Western nations that extended diplomatic recognition to the People’s Republic of China. Dr. Norman Beethune, a Canadian surgeon who worked in China during the Second World War, was a hero to the Chinese people. Mark Roswell, a Canadian student-turned comedian, is a celebrity in China. Both gentlemen have helped shorten the distance between China and Canada. Canadian sealing industry is undoing in China what Dr. Beethune and Mr. Roswell have accomplished. You only need to access China’s biggest online portal (http://news.qq.com/photon/tpyk/haibao.htm) and read the more than 16,000 readers’ comments to realize how Canada’s image has been tarnished because of Canadian brutality against baby seals.

Fourth, to China, Canadian seal products are like the opium dumped on China by Great Britain in the early 19th century. Both seal products and opium serve to encourage irresponsible consumer behaviors. Worse still, they can poison young consumers. Opium sold to China did great damage to the bodies of the Chinese consumers. Seal products, a symbol of violence to the weak and of indifference to brutality, can distort the souls and destroy the spirit of the Chinese consumers. As a developed Western democracy, Canada should help China’s progress in civilization. It has NO right to sabotage it by dumping morally objectionable products in China.

Finally, descriptions of seal products sold in the Greater China Region are full of exaggerations and misleading information. What is the scientific basis of the claimed power of the seal oil products? Some seal oil products are made specifically for infants. What are the possible side-effects or consequences if the product is accidentally taken orally by the infant? What is the residue level of harmful elements in the seal oil product, a level that is harmful to health? Canada should be ready all time to take responsibilities for any health consequences incurred by Canadian seal products.Minister Shea and Canadian government, promoting seal products to China is terribly unwise, short-sighted and unworthy. Seal products brutalize defenseless seal pups, sabotage China’s modernization (in moral development), poison and harm Chinese consumers, and tarnish Canadian international image. Dumping the unwanted seal products harms China without even benefiting Canada.

Does Canada want to repeat the mistake of opium dumping Great Britain?

Animal loving citizens of China

*******************************************************************
 
Priceless letter, brilliantly written and ironic to the hilt...just the dig at the British empire and its outrageous 19th-century opium campaign to destabilize China is worth the read.
 
China may continue to have an appalling record in some areas of animal rights and environmental justice, no doubt - but this letter as an example of changes within Chinese society can only bode well for the future enlightenment about animals and the environment in that country.
 
It's frankly what Canada deserves...
 
And all power to the rising number of Chinese animal-loving citizens who don't wish their country to be synonymous any more with being notorious for horrific animal abuse.
 
Do you get my point?

RAVE: Power to the People of Tunisia!

Yes, indeed - Power to the people of Tunisia!

I can only marvel at the extraordinary events that have taken place in Tunisia in just the last few days.

I marvel at:

- How demonstrations by the people forced a previously invincible dictatorial president to flee - a man who had been in corrupt and iron-clad power for 23 years

- How the people of Tunisia made that which was unthinkable just a few months ago reality - very stark reality - and all within a matter of weeks, even days

- How YET AGAIN the power of the Internet to serve as conduit for much-needed change and for good has been proven

- How a decidedly undemocratic and oppressed nation has been decidedly turned upside down

- How a relatively small nation of the Maghreb is going to make every other oppressive regime in the entire region scared - VERY scared - and that's only a good thing 

- How people who are sick of oppression and rising fuel and food costs really can bring down an entire government

- How revolutions really do occur on empty stomachs and with angry minds

- How I on the southern tip of the African continent can be so moved and energized by the actions of citizens on the northern tip of this continent

Goodbye, Ben Ali, you bastard...good riddance to bad rubbish, no doubt.

Now I can only hope that the Tunisian people will get the free and fair elections and open, unoppressive government that they deserve after what they have achieved.

And they no doubt deserve that...

Do you get my point?

RAVE: Whew for Portugal...

It came close, so very close...but at least Portugal was able to raise enough money on the sovereign bond markets to steer clear of having to take an EU/ IMF 'bail-out'...

That is, at least for now...

Who knows how much longer Portugal will be able to resist the incredible pressures no doubt being placed upon it by the Twin Vultures, the EU and IMF, to agree to take that toxic potion that is a 'bail-out'...

The vultures that are the EU and IMF is so aptly illustrated in this poster for an Irish anti-bail-out demo last year...

'Bail-out'...what an innocuous-sounding, even glowing spin on such a heinous, crippling form of financial terrorism for EU countries, all orchestrated out of Washington D.C., with the full acquiescence of Brussels (make that Berlin and Paris)...

Still, for now, Portugal has resisted... VIVA PORTUGAL WITHOUT EU/IMF ENSLAVEMENT!!!

Y ahora...Espana?

Do you get my point?

RANT: Leave Portugal Alone, Merkozy!

The year has barely started and already an EU member state is under enormous pressure from the Twin Towers of Financial Terror (aka the EU and IMF) to accept a bail-out due to 'sovereign debt' issues...

Last year it was Greece and Ireland that were forced to whore out their economies to EU-IMF bailouts (aka How-To-Impoverish-Your-Country-And-Enslave-Your-Citizens-And-Make-It-Look-So-Inevitable) - in the past few days it's Portugal that is coming under huge strain.

It's that bloody Eurotrash couple at it again - Merkel and Sarkozy, or as I like to dub them, 'Merkozy'.

Portugal's Prime Minister Jose Socrates has been making repeated and urgent assertions that Portugal does NOT require the bail-out and does not wish to take on such a loan. Hmmm, where have I heard that type of talk before?

What's that? Yet another European Prime Minister desperately declaring their country's ability to avoid a bail-out on the eve of being forced to take one. Sound familiar? Ireland, anyone?

What the hell is Portugal, a beautiful and small country with a proud history, doing in the illogical and inequitable monstrosity that is the Euro?  A club that was only meant for the likes of Germany and France - the richer, hypocritical lands of Merkozy.

Even Belgium can't afford being in the Eurozone...how ironic is that?

I can only hope that Portugal will somehow be able to avoid this festering trap that is an EU/IMF loan - but, alas, I very much doubt it.

The country can ill afford having further slashing of its social services and pensions - it's madness.

Get your Franco-German hands off Portugal, Merkozy!

Do you get my point?

RANT: Queensland Under Water

One of my biggest wishes for 2011 was that there be less environmental disasters. After the BP Gulf of Mexico spill, red toxic tide in Hungary and a host of other ecological disasters in 2011, it was foremost in my mind for this new year. Not very likely, I knew, given the relentless progression of climate change, deforestation and biodiversity and species loss, but I had to hope.

So much for that hope in 2011...

The year has barely commenced and already a huge swathe of northeastern Australia had been inundated with rains and subsequent floods that were described to be of 'biblical proportions'.

And today reports were that now the largest city in the state of Queensland and Australia's third-largest city, Brisbane, is also being flooded. And that's a very sizable city.

People have died, the rains don't seem to stop and there are already predictions that the repercussions on the world economy due to shut mines will be enormous.

If it's not floods, it's huge forest fires or mudslides or devastating droughts - Australia can't seem to catch a break with its weather in the past few years.

It has nothing to do with luck or the lack thereof, of course.

There can be very little doubt - Australia is Ground Zero for climate change these days.

Queensland has suffered terrible floods before, it is true, but the multitude of environmental disasters that have hit Australia in the last few years, as well as similar trends in other parts of the world, are providing ample evidence that climate change is already here.

And, worse still, some analysts are now stating that climate change is occurring at an even quicker rate than previously projected.

And yet the climate change naysayers continue their flat Earth bias against all the evidence...

As if the kangaroo in the picture deserved this...?

Do you get my point?

2011: Looking Forward

Here is a mix of things that I look forward to in 2011 (in no particular order):

* More of Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert weaving their magic against the financial terrorists on the Keiser Report and all over the alternative media

* Wikileaks going from strength to strength

* Julian Assange left in peace to do what we all need him to do

* The alternative media going from strength to strength

* A 'two-tier', more corporatist Internet being stopped in its tracks

* The Euro possibly collapsing - or at least countries like Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Belgium going back to their former currencies - hurrah to the drachma, escudo, punt and Belgian franc!

* The slowdown or even demise of the too-powerful and destructive Germany-France axis in the EU (Merkel and Sarkozy should get a room and leave Europe in peace)

* The cringe-worthy 'Tea Party' crowd in Washington D. C. being shown up for the showboating, embarrassing rightwing nut jobs that we all know they are

* Sarah Palin having less power and shutting that big, worthless poodle mouth of hers

* Michael Schumacher winning races again in Formula 1 and proving why he's the best ever - go Michael!

* Less environmental disasters, wherever and however possible

* More medical breakthroughs, especially in stem cell research

* Less conspicuous consumption, less greed - the planet can't take it (I can't take it)

* More sanity in business, finance and the global financial markets

* Less religious fanaticism of all stripes - religious lunacy remains one of the biggest cancers in the world

* More social and political unrest and upheaval in China - it needs it, we need it

* Less stupidity, bad grammar and bad manners, thank you very much!