RAVE: Workers of the World, Ignite!

Today is May Day or Workers' Day around the world, and millions of people in cities worldwide are marching and demonstrating and showing their solidarity for their fellow workers.

Workers of the World Unite! is a refrain over a century old.




I cannot remember a time in my lifetime in which the gap between those who control capital and have power and the rest of us has been so huge, so gaping - it is not a gap, it is a veritable chasm that makes the Grand Canyon look like a crack in the pavement.

Let us review the state of the world on this May the 1st:

• many countries in the world continue to wallow in the mulch that is the 'recession'
• Spain has a record 25% unemployed - and those are official figures
• Greece is on the brink
• Romania is on the brink
• Italy is close to the brink
• Portugal edges to the brink
• Belgium has never looked more shaky
• There are student riots in Montreal
• There are student riots in Madrid
• Students today in many countries could have debt well into middle age

Pundits speak of how we are in the midst of a 'Third World War', except this time the weapon of choice is debt. And it's being used against all of us.

Never before in human history have there been so many billionaires on Earth, even taking population and economic growth into consideration.

Executive pay in the financial sector in cities like London and New York reportedly went up by up to 50% in the last year - and those are no doubt conservative estimates.

And then one wonders why these bastards haven't had their swanky offices invaded and been hauled into the streets, tarred and feathered.

Let's hear a new refrain, shall we:

Workers of the World, Ignite!

When it comes to fatcat corporate bastards and their politician lackeys it should be a case of...

Burn, Baby, Burn.

Do you get my point?

RANT: The Almighty BP Shareholder

We have BP to thank for this in the Gulf of Mexico:

And BP feels justified in paying out $10-billion in dividends to its shareholders!!!

This is corporate arrogance at its very, VERY WORST...

Heaven forbid that shareholders don't get their payouts. I say to hell with bloody shareholders if this is the type of company they choose to invest in...

Shame on you BP!

Shame on BP shareholders!

Do you get my point?

SITE OF THE DAY: WikiLeaks

It was inevitable for to me to make Wikileaks the site for today. My last post on this blog was on a huge scandal that erupted yesterday regarding American soldiers firing on to Iraqi civilians from their Apache helicopter back in July 2007 . The massive news story was broken due to the sheer tenacity and bravado of just one site:

WikiLeaks.

I've often heard of this site, but for whatever (stupid) reason have never really taken the time to have a look at what WikiLeaks had to offer (at http://www.wikileaks.com/). That is to my discredit. After hearing about the breaking news on the 2007 massacre of Iraqi civilians by airborne American soldiers, I just had to take a look at the site that had been so instrumental in breaking the story.

Their lead expose on the 2007 Iraq massacre from the air is brilliantly entitled "Collateral Murder".

It's quite a site. It is just one leak after another on some of the biggest news stories and scandals of the last few months. They include leaked documents regarding different aspects of the recent Icelandic financial and banking crisis, as well as a stunning expose by a well-known anti-secrecy online site that was forcibly shut down after exposing a secret manual being used by police and intelligence services regarding user online activities (read: snooping of what people do online), a manual put together by none other than the corporate giant...Microsoft. I'd never even heard of this until I took the time to look at this site today.

There's even an investigation as to what lengths the US Intelligence Service had tried hard to shut down WikiLeaks itself. And that's just on their home page!

Talk about indefatigable journalism - you know, the kind that was once the mainstay of the serious printed media, but which is now long dead due to the corporate takeover of world-renowned newspapers over the past 20 years.

But it's quite shocking to me to read that this invaluable site nearly shut down entirely towards the end of last year owing to a lack of funds. You can see it on the site - it looks so pared down, owing to the site's inability last year to save all its articles and links. The site looks clearly very scaled down - but, thankfully, not out.

And there are quite a few mirror sites that allow one to access some of the older articles and leaks that are currently not available on the official site. One such mirror site is mirror.wikileaks.info - thank goodness for the ongoing spirit of open source and keeping dissent and the truth alive at all costs in the online community.

The good news is that they have raised over 300 000 US dollars to date, which is keeping them afloat - at least for now. They still need to raise more funds. Which is why I too must try to ensure that this site gets as much financial support as possible, even if I do so primarily by spreading the word about what this site does (and means) to other people and potential financial supporters I might know.

It is the least one can do to ensure that a group of people who are trying so hard and so valiantly to do the type of investigative, expose journalism  that is so desperately needed in the world today. As we are fed more and more disgusting corporate hogwash masquerading as news by much of the world's media, so the importance of fact-finding online sites like WikiLeaks, warts and all, must keep growing. Otherwize we will be all the poorer for it.

If knowledge is power, then a site like WikiLeaks is our means to ensure and to harness that power.

Ignorance is not always bliss.

RAVE: Killer Campaign

The campaign by Greenpeace against Nestle is one of the best examples of agitprop use of video online that I have seen in recent weeks. See it above. And I think it deserves a rave on my blog of its own.

The Greenpeace campaign is directed against Nestle using certain suppliers of palm oil who are doing so by decimating forests in southeast Asia. As ever, animals are in peril of losing their habitat and, as such, dying out. The primate under most threat in this forest loss due to palm oil production is the orang-utan. This primate, one of the closest to us in genetic terms, is the featured species (read: star) of this clip.

Nestle is at it again. It seems that the multinational corporation has been unable to dodge the activist bullets on an almost ongoing basis since the early 1990s. The PR scars of the baby milk formula scandal of the 1990s still runs deep for the giant. And now this.

The play on the very well-known Kit Kat logo with the word 'Killer' is also very, very clever.

Greenpeace has been relentless in its online campaign for this issue. And I'm all for it. Especially as we enter Easter weekend, a time when many of us stuff our faces full of chocolate.

Multinationals need to be made (constantly) aware that their often unethical actions and their gigantic footprints all over world will be under the spotlight in a never ending, unwavering and even annoying manner by activist groups such as Greenpeace. You had it coming to you, Nestle. Want to be a good 'corporate citizen'? Well, live it and be it, baby.

The very fact that multinationals have such gargantuan power, influence and economic clout in just about every country on the planet is reason enough for each and every one of us to be vigilant, vigilant, vigilant.

My hat goes off to Greenpeace on this one. Job well done, folks. Keep it up. Each and every one of us, concerned citizens of the world, need to be made aware of all these corporate crimes. In a way, these NGOs are our eyes, our ears and our rapporteurs.

Above all else, they are also our conscience.