Category Archives: Politics

History Politics

Powerful words

October 26, 2008 – 11:58 pm

Spent part of this evening watching “War & Exile”, a joint performance by a number of local arts groups in St Pancras Old Church, with donations going to the Stop The War campaign.

Some powerful words I wrote down:
* “Unspeakable grief is only a politician away.”
* “Karl Marx puked in his grave” (an interesting variation on the old spinning)
* “taught to die with their black caps askew”
* ” he has to run without his shirt”, from a translation of a Somali poem by Abdullahi Botan, who I gather lives locally.

And much enjoyed a reading from Deborah Moggach, about a housemaid watching the village horses being taken off to war (must look up some of hers).

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Politics

Greens make the big time in the Antipodes

October 26, 2008 – 5:37 pm

This is possibly the first time I’ve seen an attractive neologism – “greenslide”. Okay it is only talking about the Australian Capital Territory, which is practically a local council, even if it governs the national capital, but it still reflects the broader strength of the Greens across Australia.

And nationally in Australia, it would seem the Greens are getting decent mileage out of their balance of power in the Senate (where they now have five seats, and consequently “party” status – with the resources that goes with it).

And as this piece suggestions, the political ground is moving quickly:

Definitions of radicalism can change quickly, of course. As Brown’s office reminded journalists last week, it was only five years ago that George Bush, triumphant after the invasion of Iraq, addressed a joint sitting of Parliament. The Speaker tried to eject Brown after he said: “Mr Bush, this is Australia. Respect our nation. Return our Australians from Guantanamo Bay. Respect the laws of the world and the world will respect you.”
Close to blasphemous then but who would reasonably disagree with such sentiment today?

Across the Tasman, reports from New Zealand are suggesting that the strength of the Greens might keep Labour’s Helen Clark in power (and she’s generally of the “old Labour” school, so not at all a bad thing.)

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History Politics

Weekend reading

October 26, 2008 – 12:26 pm

Frightening statistic of the day: consumer spending is 70% of the US economy.

‘Just as rising markets had created a “wealth effect” , declines have a “poverty effect”, making people reluctant to spend. This may affect the economy negatively by $250bn to $300bn over a one- to two-year period.’ That would be more than 2 per cent of America’s $13 trillion GDP.

(And then of course there’s the fact that consumption has to fall dramatically for environmental reasons…)

But if you want to cheer yourself up, an archaeological cutey: a 4,000-year-old gold dagger has been found in a museum drawer.

The gold pins, thought to come from Ireland, were fashioned by craftsmen in Brittany, France, and inlaid in an intricate herringbone pattern into the handle of the ceremonial dagger, which had an eight inch bronze blade.

(A distinctly European time for Britain.)

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Politics

A brutal country

October 25, 2008 – 7:41 pm

* A celebrated death penalty case: the planned execution of Troy Davis, a case that has received considerable international attention, and which clearly appears to be a miscarriage of justice, has just been stayed for the third time, each time just before a scheduled execution. As the second link there asked, must this not be called torture?

* An inside view of the life of fast food delivery men in New York. If they’re robbed, their employers make them pay the money back – and that’s only the start of the abuses. Seems the fair trade movement needs to start working at home.

* And finally a less dramatic, but sad, account from small town America – environmental degradation and the lack of government support means a sympathetic grocery store owner is the only thing that stands between many people and hunger.

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Feminism

The good news (atheism) and the bad (abortion)

October 22, 2008 – 11:31 pm

You should now be seeing “atheist buses” all over the UK after a modest campaign to counteract religious propaganda paid off (at times of writing) seven times as well as the instigator expected.

For decades I belonged in the traditional atheist camp “as long as they don’t bother me, they can believe and do what they like”, but in recent years have come around to the view that if religion is just allowed to bumble along, it does an enormous amount of harm to society, so we all have a duty to challenge it. Particularly when the government is acting (through schools, support for charities etc) as a prosthelitiser at every turn.

The bad news unfortunately reflects a victory in Northern Ireland for some of the UK’s worst religious bigots (who just happen to have backed the government on Gordon Brown’s favourite, but now-abandoned, 42 days detention proposal).

The government’s “banner-leading feminist” (huh), Harriet Harman, has blocked discussion of amendments to modernise abortion laws, and most essentially, to give women in Northern Ireland the same access to abortion as women in the rest of the UK. Now it looks like they will retain that status indefinitely. (Although I can’t help wondering if it wouldn’t be possible to do something under human rights law.)

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Feminism Politics

Fragile good news from Congo

October 19, 2008 – 10:07 pm

The New York Times reports on campaigns against rape, led often by the victims.

European aid agencies are spending tens of millions of dollars building new courthouses and prisons across eastern Congo, in part to punish rapists. Mobile courts are holding rape trials in villages deep in the forest that have not seen a black-robed magistrate since the Belgians ruled the country decades ago.
The American Bar Association opened a legal clinic in January specifically to help rape victims bring their cases to court. So far the work has resulted in eight convictions. Here in Bukavu, one of the biggest cities in the country, a special unit of Congolese police officers has filed 103 rape cases since the beginning of this year, more than any year in recent memory.

And the Virunga National Park has a lively new website – and it needs links for that vital Google juice.

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