RANT OR RAVE? Julian Assange Granted Asylum

I should have been happy, overjoyed in fact (!!!), about the news yesterday that Julian Assange had been granted political asylum by Ecuador. So this should be a rave. Yet even with that news I am niggled by fear and apprehension - apprehension borne of how ugly this entire affair got this week and how it could yet get a lot uglier. Hence my need to also rant about this.



So, let me deconstruct the affair as I see it as succinctly as possible:

The Victim: Julian Assange. There are two camps in the world today - those who believe Julian Assange is being persecuted on the one side, and those who believe he is a 'terrorist' and a 'threat' to American hegemony (read: imperialism) on the other side. There is no room for grey - it's that black and white.

The Heroes: Ecuador. I admittedly had my doubts that the Ecuadorian government would capitulate to Western (read: American) pressure. Many had those doubts and fears. Even his mother must have had her fears an doubts. But they came through for Julian, in unapologetic, crystal clear and frankly stunning terms. This small South American country did what very few countries would dare to do. All power to Ecuador for what they have done this week. Simon Bolivar would be proud.

The Enemy/ Bitch Whore of the Arch Enemy: The United Kingdom. When it's foreign affairs crowd even dares to suggest that the UK would see fit to rip right through centuries of diplomacy and international customary law and storm the Ecuadorian embassy to seize Assange, then it is a country that has lost all sense of the rule of law and its own sense of self. It's democracy and legal system is a sham. All so it can do the bidding of its Imperial Master. The UK should be ashamed of itself.

The Passive-Aggressive Bitch Whore: Sweden. This Scandinavian country, always so smug in its own sense of level-minded, content democracy, is at the very epicentre of this entire crisis. All it had to do was reassure Ecuador that Assange would not be extradited to the United States once handed over to Sweden by the UK. This Sweden refused to do, which spoke volumes - and the Ecuadoreans rightly saw this as overwhelming evidence of the political persecution of Assange. Game over. Sweden is a sham democracy doing the shabby bidding of the biggest bully of them all. It too should be thoroughly ashamed of itself.

The Arch Enemy: The United States. Need one say more?

And that's what this entire debacle boils down to: a man who did nothing more than publish the truth about the shocking shenanigans of world powers is being persecuted by three of what were once the most respected democracies on Earth.

And that is why, whilst I can rave about Julian Assange being granted his asylum, I can only rant at all the other malevolent ingredients in this putrid mix.

And I am sincerely, genuinely, horribly worried at how the entire Julian Assange affair may yet unravel. And expose the true, sickening nature of the world in which we live.

Do you get my point?

RANT: A Shameful Anniversary - Guantanamo

This past week was the 10th anniversary of the 'detention centre' at Guantanamo Bay being operational as a key part of the United States' (futile, often heinous and too often illegal) 'war on terror.'



'Gitmo', as it has become known, is now synonymous with illegal capture, kidnap and rendition, indefinite detention without legal representation, formal charges or a trial, 'shock' techniques of torture, and too many other travesties of justice and human rights to list.



In years to come Guantanamo Bay will be known as the touchstone issue that the United States military-corporatist complex used to push the envelope of what was acceptable, even in times of war. It will be studied as that gentle push that was needed to plunge our collective psyche over the abyss into wars without end and the end of any true democracy.

Its legacy is many, many decades in the making.

Guantanamo Bay is an assault on the Geneva Conventions regarding war and the treatment of prisoners of war (even though many of the kidnapped inmates at Gitmo don't even classify as official prisoners of war according to Geneva).

It is an assault on American democracy and, more importantly, an assault on all humanity.

Shame on the United States for this shameful anniversary.

CLOSE GITMO NOW!

Do you get my point?

It Says It All...China Trumps America

I just wrote a rather biting post about the irony of a crippled America ravaged by its very own neoconservative, 'free' market dogma. I think I proved my point...

And then I came across this brilliant cartoon that so blithely illustrates just how much the US of A has allowed itself to be screwed most royally by that Empire-in-the-Making, the People's Republic of China...



It really does say it all...

RAVE: Chopsticks Made in America!

I came across such an interesting little article a few days ago. Simply: it detailed 10 products still made in the United States of America. The link: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/10-American-Industries-Still-minyanville-2666915551.html



For a country in such interminable industrial and manufacturing decline, not to mention teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, it was a very sobering read.

A once great nation built on an economy that made things, all types of things, and was damn proud of that too - well, how very little it has to show for itself today. The list of '10 Products Made in America' is depressing - socks, sparklers, compact discs, ironing boards and pencils - yip, American industry has much to be proud of.

Well, I have to admit - I actually found myself laughing. Laughing quite loudly in that knowing, Machiavellian way of someone proven right, if I may say so myself.

Oh, America! You, the country that foisted the dogma of 'free trade' and globalization and cheap labour upon the rest of us like some cheap, tacky religion, are now yourself living proof of why what you preached was so pathetic, so hollow, so self-serving and, ultimately, your own economic harakiri.

My personal favourite? The fact that the biggest maker of chopsticks in the world today is...yip, an American company! It's biggest market? China, of course. 

The irony is so rich, it's almost unreal...

You had it coming to you, America, I'm sorry to say. And what a pity that is.

Do you get my point?

RANT: Unemployed Need Not Apply

More than a month has passed since my last post. The month of August has passed in a flash, with more than enough news and tidbits to pique my interest and (for the most part) scandalize or upset me no end...

My inertia can only be put down to a hibernation borne by a particularly long and often quite cold winter (well, at least by southern African standards)...

That, and being a lazy bastard with my writing.

Some news stuck with me, however. A headline discussed on RT and the Keiser Report earlier this month still continues to play on my mind and irk me like few headlines have done this year. It's a byline that has reportedly become quite common in job postings in the recession-ravaged USA and shows to what putrid lows casino capitalism has sunk:

Unemployed Need Not Apply

Uh huh. And how exactly are people who are unemployed supposed to ever get their lives back on track if their current reality is a de facto disqualification from even applying for a job?!

Unbelievable. Incredulous, angered...and even a little stunned is how I felt knowing that this is how bad an economic downturn can get. And how capitalism (or what's left of it today) can 'justify' its actions.

The various machinations of just how bad, how VERY BAD this little paradigm shift in corporate oxymoronic thinking really is boggled my mind then. And continue to boggle my mind all these weeks later.

Do you get my point?

RANT: The 'Income Gap' is the Bloody Grand Canyon

Today I came across some of the most eye-opening charts and stats that I have in a long time. Courtesy of the website Mother Jones, which continues to be one of the very best progressive news reporting sites online, it outlines just how HUGE the income gap has become in the United States.



The data is from the very best and most reliable sources - and it is scary in offering proof positive that the adage 'the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer' is real - very real.

The link to this brilliant article, entitled "It's the Inequality, Stupid" is at http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph

I just had to include some of them here in my blog. Again, all courtesy of Mother Jones.

The first shows just how much of the national US income 'pie' the very richest, i.e. the top 1% richest, gobble up:



Thereby proving that:


How Wall Street and corporate CEOs continue to get richer and (filthy) richer:




And explaining just why the US Congress is so damn cosy with Wall Street:



And perhaps most shockingly of all, if that's at all possible:



And Americans continue to be completely oblivious to just how MASSIVE the income gap is in their own country:



It's beyond shocking. It's outrageous, and makes me so angry. I've always known about the huge income gap in the United States, but it's still quite something to see it so graphically. It's the old classic - one knows something, but it's until one sees it with one's eyes, that the full extent thereof becomes so horribly real.

And these inequalities are probably as bad if not even worse in the majority of countries around the world. Countries like Brazil, Indonesia, India, the Philippines, and a host of other countries, including in the developed world (the UK, anyone?), immediately come to mind.

As well as South Africa, of course. Trust me, this is one country with a ruling kleptocracy that rivals the very best kleptocracies parading behind the guise of a 'free, democratic capitalist state' in the world.

This is not an American thing. It's a global thing. And it affects most of us, the 'other' 90%...

It's an indictment of our time, an indictment on what raw casino capitalism has become. When will its time be up?

Do you get my point?

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?