Miss Khan’s killer snake-charmer beats, or ‘What’s a Girl To Do?’
A Chronicle of the Current Revolution
Harper Needs To GO
The opening of the United Nations General Assembly took place today and a whole lot of important politicking went on, seeing some real significant developments for global politics. For once it appears that the developments were positive: Russia seems to have softened its opposition to sanctioning Iran, making it hopeful that the UN will actually be able to crack Iran hard enough to stop the Iranian nuclear program; Obama send a strong message to Israel, saying that it must stop its settlement programmes in Gaza and the West Bank (these settlements are illegal according to international law); Obama also secured support from Russia and China for a Security Council resolution to curb nuclear proliferation; finally, Obama called on the UN and the world to cooperate more fully in dealing with the world’s problems, suggesting that America no longer wanted to ‘go it alone’ as it was wont to do before (triple victory for Obama in many ways; well done). Oh, there was also a widespread walkout of delegates when Ahmadinejad addressed the General Assembly, a protest over his (needless to say/complete understatement following:) controversial stance on Israel, the Holocaust, nuclear proliferation &c. All in all, a huge day for global politics, with developments taking place that have reasserted the presence and authority of the UN in the world and will ultimately shape world politics in the immediate and distant future.
Yet where was Canada in all this? What part did Canada have to play in this huge event in global politics on the big opening day of the GA? More specifically, where the fuck was Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper during the big day on the international stage?
He was speaking at a Tim Horton’s somewhere in Ontario. Speaking about a recession that has been flogged to death by the media and politicians, talking about an economic crisis that Canada has actually done better than most in as a result of our rather severely regulated banking system. Harper was being absolutely bloody useless. He was in the wrong place, talking about the wrong thing, doing nothing at all, doing the wrong thing for Canada. I’m absolutely furious about this. I simply can’t believe that on a day of this importance in global politics and the future of the world that Harper was not at the UN taking part in the important political issues and engaging Canada in the international community. Even the freaking Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi was at the UN today and had a go at the entire General Assembly about the UN not doing enough to stop wars in the world. Yes, even Gadhafi was there in New York and was excited enough to bring his special tent, but Canada’s ’leader’ spent the day in the middle of nowhere at a Tim Horton’s sipping a double double and eating a honey cruller.
Harper can’t be gone soon enough. I don’t necessarily want another federal election right away, but I am fed up with Harper and his Conservative government and with Canada being left behind and forgotten by the world. We need a change and a new direction for our country, and if it will take a new government to bring those about we had best get a new government now. Canada can’t afford to lose any more time.
Nina Simone: the piano would fail before her voice ever gave out.
Frustrating the OED
I made the OED angry!
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Blank search is not permitted. You must enter a search term.
If you want to piss the Oxford English Dictionary off, let it know that sometimes we don’t use words, that sometimes we are silent. Maybe also tell it that a lot of people use its words incorrectly without knowing.
‘Someone in my dictionary is up to no good’. -Animal Collective
“We heard a gunshot. Neda was standing a metre away from me… I saw blood gushing out of her chest”.
Despite a doctor’s attempts to stop the bleeding she died in less than a minute.
Let’s talk about Iran. It’s the single most relevant public protest the country has seen in decades, ever since the 1979 revolution. Here’s the current situation, as reported in the New York Times: ‘an influential cleric suggested that leaders of the demonstrations could be executed, and the council responsible for validating the election repeated its declaration that there were no major irregularities’ in the election results. Come on. International analysts have determined that there were significant irregularites in the election results, and have identified that in certain Iranian cities there was more than 100% electorate turnout in key Iranian cities. Ahmadinejad received almost 100% support in the home cities of opposition leaders, something inconceivable given the historic propensity of citizens to vote for candidates that are from their own city.
The ruling regime, under the current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is behaving as if the civil unrest of the last week or so is finished and meaningless. Yet a true groundswell of active opposition occurred that seriously questioned the election results, and it is troubling to see it achieve no immediate result as of yet.
How many times in recent months have we seen citizen protest completely disregarded by governments around the world? It has to be asked whether we are seeing a trend in the modern world towards authoritarian governments masquerading as authentic democracies. This trend is nothing new. However, the frustrating thing is that citizens are no longer accepting ‘soft despotism’ (as Charles Taylor terms it) but action and protest is having difficulty dislodging or overthrowing soft despotic governments. Quietly hard regimes (if I may coin that term) are ‘sticking to their guns’ and quelling protest, maintaining their supposed legitimacy, and it is important for all global citizens who possess a political conciousness to question how it is possible to change the current state of world affairs and the political system of their respective countries if governments are in fact illegitimate and fail to represent the views of the populace.
If you doubt the Iranian government is sticking to its guns at all cost, I’m going to post a video of an Iranian women shot dead by the Basij (volunteer militia wing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards) right after this commentary. She stepped out of her taxi for fifteen minutes to get some fresh air and caught a bullet in the chest.
In the West we soldier on in ‘freedom’. In England the MP expenses scandal has ruined public belief in the legitimacy of Parliament; commentators say if such a scandal had occurred in France people would have rioted in the streets. All protest over the expenses scandal has been safely canalised through the media in England. How much civil discontent is safely canalised - rerouted through channels that expend significant social anger uselessly rather than effectively - in the West, allowing suspect governments to stay in power? Too much, it is my belief, and current events are proving. When government fails us, ceases to represent the views of the majority, or proves itself illegitimate it is our responsibility as citizens to protest and see a new government into power.
Yet Iran rioted, and saw the riot repressed. Opposition leaders, namely Mir Hussein Moussavi have fought tenaciously, but it is a huge blow to the belief that citizens can hold government accountable if the Iranian protests achieve no significant turnover in power. What is the solution, then, if direct action protests prove ineffective in global politics and the other option is the governmentally controlled status quo? The answer to that question is the reason I am writing right now. I am caught in a dialectical struggle between largely ineffective normal political methods and potentially ineffective active, alternative direct solutions. Clawing for an impossibility perhaps, but there has to be a solution, and that is why I am watching the Iranian protests so closely. They stand to show us the proper way forward for political change. I suggest you watch the outcome of the protests in Iran too, and think carefully on the best methods for securing serious political change.
When you discover the means to get good politics done, make it happen. Share the answer with the rest of us. I promise to share it with you if I get there first, and God knows I will be running to that goal as fast and determined as I can. I hope you will do the same. Read the news, think, and get the world right, now.
Watching the wire. Reading the news. Thinking about how to change it all.
Greeting Certain People
‘Hello’ = ‘Hell O’ viz. ‘Hell - O!’ Life was hell until I saw you just now. Your sudden presence is a heavenly surprise. I was a damned soul torch; now I shiver in the cool of heaven after two decades and four of burning.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
I am in a band now, called ‘Revolutionary Discipline’, playing drums and doing percussion! Here’s a demo track we recorded in practice, our version of the old folk tune ‘Wayfaring Stranger’. I bruised my thighs trying to provide audible percussion for the recording without proper drums (the practice room was booked). Music love.
