Guess Who Played The White House In 1970 (?)
2 hours ago
Monday, 3 October 2011
Call by UK Government's Home Secretary to scrap the Human Rights Act
Today is the start of the Conservative Party's annual conference in Manchester and the Home Secretary and Minister of State at the Equalities Office, Theresa May, hasn't wasted the chance to say something controversial and of great concern. In the BBC's article Home Secretary Theresa May wants Human Rights Act axed, she says that she wants the existing Human Rights Act 1998 (which puts the protections in the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law) scrapped and replaced with a Bill of Rights. Why?I'd personally like to see the Human Rights Act go because I think we have had some problems with it.
I see it, here in the Home Office, particularly, the sort of problems we have in being unable to deport people who perhaps are terrorist suspects.
Obviously we've seen it with some foreign criminals who are in the UK.
Trying hard to avoid the obvious conclusion that this is a blatant and shameful attempt to institutionalise and legitimise racism and xenophobia by the state, I have to ask if we're seriously expected to believe we don't already have legislation in place to permit deportation under such circumstances? And that such laws are so lax the only solution is to scrap the HRA?
I can't help but feel that the current administration's continuing swing to the extreme right of the political spectrum is epitomised by this suggestion and I do start to wonder how much the proposal is actually driven by the 'middle England' section of the population who voted for Prime Minister David Cameron and Mrs May in the first place. Certainly, it's difficult not to draw that conclusion when the tabloid newspapers read by middle Englanders - for example, the Daily Mail - routinely publish such scare stories under garish headlines like Terror suspect allowed to stay in Britain 'because deporting him would be unfair on his children' and Sex attacker we can’t deport gets £1,000 a month in handouts (... and, guess what, the father of two says it's his human right to live in Britain). Meanwhile, migrant women continue to be incarcerated in the Yarl's Wood immigration prison - and the ending of child detention has, as UK Indymedia points out, been "skillfully employed by the coalition government to avoid talking about the brutal and inhumane detention regime in general" [via].
Mr Cameron, interviewed on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show, continued this avoidance of talking about these breaches of human rights when he said he wanted to change the "chilling culture" created by the HRA.
He cited an example of a prison van being driven nearly 100 miles to be used to transport a prisoner 200 yards "when he was perfectly happy to walk".
"The Human Rights Act doesn't say that's what you have to do. It's the sort of chilling effect of people thinking 'I will be found guilty under it'."
"The government can do a huge amount to communicate to institutions and individuals let's have some commonsense, let's have some judgment, let's have that applying rather than this over-interpretation of what's there."
This is a variation on the obnoxious "political correctness gone mad" smokescreen so beloved of reactionaries everywhere as an all-purpose way of denying everyone else their fundamental human rights.
Kai Chang deconstructed that particular meme in an essay called The Greatest Cliché: The Unexamined Propaganda of "Political Correctness" (link here) - and it still holds true five years later.
Simply put, the great "PC" cliché, as commonly deployed in mainstream discourse, is cultural propaganda designed to befuddle and misdirect while defending the current power structure. All politics deal with power relations, and [...] there’s a stark asymmetry of power between the defiant megaphone-wielders who complain of being constrained by humorless hypersensitivity from below, and the under-represented people of color, women, LGBT, disabled, poor, and otherwise marginalized or dispossessed people who have no choice but to absorb the linguistic, cultural, and physical barbs of the ruling class.
Mrs May's announcement might seem to be almost cynical in its timing. As Liberty, the organisation campaigning for human rights in the UK, notes, the Bill of Rights Commission public consultation is nearing its closing date.
This consultation asks ‘do we need a UK Bill of Rights?’ - we might be missing something here, but haven’t we already got a modern day Bill of Rights in this country? Yes we have; it’s called the Human Rights Act (and to the consternation of its critics it protects everyone in our country regardless of nationality, race, sex, wealth or the preferences of the powerful).
The public consultation is open until Friday 11th November 2011 so please get writing now. Why not encourage a friend or colleague to respond and double your efforts? To get you started read our six reasons why we don't need a replacement Bill of Rights. [via]
In the words of Liberty Director Shami Chakrabarti:
Modern Conservatives should think again about human rights values that were truly Churchill's legacy.
Only a pretty 'nasty party' would promote human rights in the Middle East whilst scrapping them at home. [via]
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Image via the UK Human Rights Blog
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Cross-posted at Bird of Paradox
Sunday, 2 October 2011
Understanding Cultural Geography: Places and Traces
Jon Anderson: Understanding Cultural Geography: Places and Traces
This new and comprehensive book offers a holistic introduction to cultural geography. It integrates the broad range of theories and practices of the discipline by arguing that the essential focus of cultural geography is place. The book builds an accessible and engaging configuration of this important concept through arguing that place should be understood as an ongoing composition of traces.The book presents specific chapters outlining the history of cultural geography, before and beyond representation, as well as the methods and techniques of doing cultural geography. It investigates the places and traces of corporate capitalism, nationalism, ethnicity, youth culture and the place of the body. Throughout these chapters case study examples will be used to illustrate how these places are taken and made by particular cultures, examples include the Freedom Tower in New York City, the Berlin Wall, the Gaza Strip, Banksy graffiti, and anti-capitalist protest movements. The book discusses the role of power in cultural place-making, as well as the ethical dimensions of doing cultural geography.
Understanding Cultural Geography: Places and Traces offers a broad-based overview of cultural geography, ideal for students being introduced to the discipline through either undergraduate or postgraduate degree courses. The book outlines how the theoretical ideas, empirical foci and methodological techniques of cultural geography illuminate and make sense of the places we inhabit and contribute to. This is a timely synthesis that aims to incorporate a vast knowledge foundation and by doing so it will also prove invaluable for lecturers and academics alike.
HERE
Humanity...
The quote comes from a telegram sent on the 17th May 1967, by the Situationist’s leading the Occupations Committee of the Sorbonne, to the Communist Party of the USSR.
In full the telegram said:
SHAKE IN YOUR SHOES BUREAUCRATS STOP THE INTERNATIONAL POWER OF THE WORKERS’ COUNCILS WILL SOON WIPE YOU OUT STOP HUMANITY WILL NOT BE HAPPY UNTIL THE LAST BUREAU- CRAT IS HUNG WITH THE GUTS OF THE LAST CAPITALIST STOP LONG LIVE THE STRUGGLE OF THE KRONSTADT SAILORS AND OF THE MAKHNOVSCHINA AGAINST TROTSKY AND LENIN STOP LONG LIVE THE 1956 COUNCILIST INSURRECTION OF BUDAPEST STOP DOWN WITH THE STATE STOP
SHAKE IN YOUR SHOES BUREAUCRATS STOP THE INTERNATIONAL POWER OF THE WORKERS’ COUNCILS WILL SOON WIPE YOU OUT STOP HUMANITY WILL NOT BE HAPPY UNTIL THE LAST BUREAU- CRAT IS HUNG WITH THE GUTS OF THE LAST CAPITALIST STOP LONG LIVE THE STRUGGLE OF THE KRONSTADT SAILORS AND OF THE MAKHNOVSCHINA AGAINST TROTSKY AND LENIN STOP LONG LIVE THE 1956 COUNCILIST INSURRECTION OF BUDAPEST STOP DOWN WITH THE STATE STOP
NJPD quashing freedom of speech
Full Credit too: http://www.youtube.com/user/Charlie4Change
In response to last week's killing of Barry Deloatch at the hands of 2 New Brunswick police officers, demonstrators rallied at the site he was shot dead. One of the rally's organizers and an innocent bystander on her bicycle were arrested by an army of New Brunswick police officers in riot gear... for no good reason.
The investigating authorities still have not said why the officers killed Deloatch shortly after midnight on September 22, nor have they released the officers' names.
Video shot by Sean Monahan of New Brunswick.
Emotions ran very high Wednesday night as people poured into Ebenezer Baptist Church to discuss the recent fatal shooting of resident Barry Deloatch, and the steps needed to go forward and progress from the tragedy.
Hosted by the NAACP, several members of civic organizations, the Deloatch family and pastor Gregory L. Wallace urged everyone in attendance to work together, become active members of the community to make their voices heard, and to see the fight through to ensure that they did not lose a family member in the future.
Deloatch, 46, a resident of New Brunswick, was shot and killed by a bullet to his left side on Sept. 22 following a pursuit by two police officers on Throop Avenue.
The names of the officers have not been made public.
The Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office has said that it was determined that Deloatch was not carrying a firearm at the time, but investigations continue as to whether he was in possession of another weapon.
As of Sept. 29, the Prosecutor's Office has not released additional information as to what that weapon may have been. On a recording of police radio transmissions from the night of the shooting, an officer is heard saying that Deloatch was attempting to strike the officers with a stick.
Bruce S. Morgan, president of the New Brunswick Area NAACP, said talk and planning was just as important as taking action, in order to formulate a successful plan to ensure that this is the "Last event in town under these circumstances."
"We're here to help," he said. "We stand with this family."
(Thanx Sander!)
Occupy Wall Street protesters arrested on Brooklyn Bridge
More than 700 people were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday evening during a march by anti-Wall Street protesters who have been occupying a downtown Manhattan square for two weeks.
The group, called Occupy Wall Street, has been protesting against the finance industry and other perceived social ills by camping out in Zuccotti park in New York.
During the afternoon a long line of protesters numbering several thousand snaked through the streets towards the landmark bridge across the East River with the aim of ending at a Brooklyn park.
However, during the march across the bridge groups of protesters sat down or strayed into the road from the pedestrian pathway. They were then arrested in large numbers by officers who were part of a heavy police presence shepherding the march along its path.
At one stage 500 protesters were blocked off by police on the bridge. At least one journalist, freelancer Natasha Lennard for the New York Times, was among those arrested. "About half way across the group of people who wanted to occupy the bridge launched their action and stepped into the road. They wanted to get arrested. It was sort of the idea," said Yaier Heber, one of the marchers.
But others said the sit-down protest appeared to happen only after the protesters were deliberately blocked off by police after actually being allowed onto the roadway. "They met the police line and ended up being arrested one by one," said Damon Eris, another protester.
The march ended in chaotic scenes with police buses driving up the bridge to be filled with arrested marchers. The packed buses then drove off to central booking. Meanwhile, other marchers waited at the bottom of the bridge's Manhattan side and cheered as some released protesters, or those who had escaped being blocked off, came back down. "Let them go! Let them go!" was a frequent chant.
It was a different scene from the night before when an equally large march had ended up at the city's police headquarters. That demonstration had been against the brutal treatment meted out by some police on protesters on a march the weekend before. Video of one senior police officer spraying pepper spray on female protesters went viral on the internet and drew widespread condemnation.
But the incident did help put the Occupy Wall Street movement into American newspapers and TV shows that had hitherto paid it little attention. The group, drawn from a wide range of backgrounds, say they are inspired by social movements in Spain and the Arab spring. Last week the protesters attracted numerous celebrity visits, including actor Susan Sarandon and film-maker Michael Moore. This week they are expected to get an injection of support from local labour unions.
The movement has also started to spread in significant numbers to several other major cities. On Saturday in Los Angeles hundreds of protesters marched on the city hall with the intention of starting a similar encampment. In Boston protesters have already started camping out in Dewey square, near the city's financial district. Unlike in New York, where protesters are not allowed to create shelter in Zuccotti park, Occupy Boston has been able to set up rows of tents.
Paul Harris @'The Guardian'
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