1967 Top 40 8th June # 36 Manfred Mann
18 minutes ago
Monday, 3 October 2011
Jake Tapper vs. Jay Carney on President Killing U.S. Citizens
Really, stop what you are doing and just watch this. It’s short. Even though you know what the ultimate position is, try to forget that for a minute and listen with fresh ears. This is simply astounding.
Via
ADR- Solitary Pursuits
Aaron David Ross: Brooklyn Resident, multimedia artist, and one half of Giallo-crusaders Gatekeeper (Merok) is here as ADR for this first full-presentation from Public Information.
Solitary Pursuits: an 8 track mini LP, a burning head-trip into electronic swamplands packed with science-fiction sonics.
Korg portraits in deep Melancholia. Slo-Mo Drexciyan swoon. Analog Echoes of the Arabesque, in heartbreaking miniature. 21C-Frippertronics. Sun-burst boogie splashes. Library Music Rushes.
Solitary Pursuits: an 8 track mini LP, a burning head-trip into electronic swamplands packed with science-fiction sonics.
Korg portraits in deep Melancholia. Slo-Mo Drexciyan swoon. Analog Echoes of the Arabesque, in heartbreaking miniature. 21C-Frippertronics. Sun-burst boogie splashes. Library Music Rushes.
The Haqqani network and Pakistan
If I hear about the ‘Haqqani network’ and their collusion with Pakistan one more time I will be very, very upset. That interestingly is exactly what the members of the All-Parties Conference (APC) convened by Prime Minister (PM) Gilani did; they were all very upset, very, very upset and even some might say a little irate. And in their combined opinion the Haqqanis, whoever they might be, have nothing to do with the Pakistan army’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) and even if they did it was at best a very ‘innocent’ relationship based on occasional roast lamb and chicken pulao parties and some entirely harmless social chitchat. Whenever it comes to the goings on in Afghanistan, all the ‘players’ have different points of view. First is of the US and its allies, including the Afghan government, and that be can summarised as ‘Pakistan bad, ISI bad, Taliban bad, Haqqanis very bad’ and they are all trying their best to make life difficult for the US and President Karzai. After 10 years in Afghanistan, the US has reached the point of exhaustion and wants to get most of its fighting men out as soon as possible. The problem for the US is that it does not want to leave a situation behind where the Taliban take over Kabul and much of Afghanistan soon after the US combat forces withdraw from Afghanistan.
Then there is the point of view of the Pakistanis or at least of the Pakistani ‘establishment’. For those who still wonder who exactly is the ‘establishment’, a look at the APC participants will give them the answer. The beards, the pirs, the Makhdooms, the epaulets and sashes, the Chaudhries, the Maliks, the Mians and the Syeds, the tribal sardars or their representatives and the occasional ‘ordinary’ MQM types were all there. The bureaucrats might not have participated directly but were the ‘event managers’ who prepared the guest list, decided upon the agenda and were responsible for what came out of the meeting. What came out was basically that the US has overstayed its welcome in Afghanistan by almost 10 years, and ‘thank you very much for the money you gave us’ but now please leave and let us do our ‘thing’. However, after a decent interval please do restore your financial aid.
What do the Taliban want? Well, first they would like to kill as many of the foreign ‘infidels’ as possible. While killing all these infidels they would also like to see the US and NATO forces leave as soon as possible so that they can re-establish their emirate in Afghanistan and continue the holy work they were doing when they were so rudely interrupted by the US infidels 10 years ago. Once back in power, they will kill many more infidels of the Muslim sort, and destroy all remnants of ‘modernisation’ once again.
As far as the truth is concerned, truth is always the first casualty of war. So now we have multiple truths pushed by the different participants in this ‘theatre’ of war. But there are some truths that apply to us the ordinary people in Pakistan but for most of us ‘strategic depth’ is a meaningless concept. For us, the real truths that matter are about load shedding, the deteriorating law and order situation, terrorism, galloping food price inflation, the dengue epidemic in Lahore, target killings in Karachi, corruption and a rapidly disappearing sense of hope in our future as a country. Yes, these are our truths and the Haqqani network is definitely one of them...
Then there is the point of view of the Pakistanis or at least of the Pakistani ‘establishment’. For those who still wonder who exactly is the ‘establishment’, a look at the APC participants will give them the answer. The beards, the pirs, the Makhdooms, the epaulets and sashes, the Chaudhries, the Maliks, the Mians and the Syeds, the tribal sardars or their representatives and the occasional ‘ordinary’ MQM types were all there. The bureaucrats might not have participated directly but were the ‘event managers’ who prepared the guest list, decided upon the agenda and were responsible for what came out of the meeting. What came out was basically that the US has overstayed its welcome in Afghanistan by almost 10 years, and ‘thank you very much for the money you gave us’ but now please leave and let us do our ‘thing’. However, after a decent interval please do restore your financial aid.
What do the Taliban want? Well, first they would like to kill as many of the foreign ‘infidels’ as possible. While killing all these infidels they would also like to see the US and NATO forces leave as soon as possible so that they can re-establish their emirate in Afghanistan and continue the holy work they were doing when they were so rudely interrupted by the US infidels 10 years ago. Once back in power, they will kill many more infidels of the Muslim sort, and destroy all remnants of ‘modernisation’ once again.
As far as the truth is concerned, truth is always the first casualty of war. So now we have multiple truths pushed by the different participants in this ‘theatre’ of war. But there are some truths that apply to us the ordinary people in Pakistan but for most of us ‘strategic depth’ is a meaningless concept. For us, the real truths that matter are about load shedding, the deteriorating law and order situation, terrorism, galloping food price inflation, the dengue epidemic in Lahore, target killings in Karachi, corruption and a rapidly disappearing sense of hope in our future as a country. Yes, these are our truths and the Haqqani network is definitely one of them...
Continue reading
Dr Syed Mansoor Hussain @'Pakistan Daily Times'
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
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