Friday, 21 October 2011

Gaddafi Killed

“Libyans rejoiced as news of his death spread. Car horns blared in Tripoli and in the eastern city of Benghazi, where the rebellion against Colonel Qaddafi began in February, as residents poured into the streets to celebrate.
“Fighters from Misurata, the port city that suffered enormously at the hands of Colonel Qaddafi’s forces during the uprising, were in possession of Colonel Qaddafi’s body and had taken it to a morgue in their hometown, foreign press photographers in Surt said. There were unconfirmed reports that they intended to display it in Misurata’s central square.
“Mr. Jibril said he had no details on how Colonel Qaddafi had been killed, asserting that “we’ll give you the final details when they are ready.” But Mr. Jibril said he was confident that the cause of death was not from an airstrike by warplanes of NATO — one of several rumors flying as news of Colonel Qaddafi’s death was first reported.”
@The New York Times

(Un)occupy Albuquerque Connects Corporate Greed to Fight for Native Land

The 99 percent movement that’s swept the country has reached Albuquerque, New Mexico. But organizers there have decided to alter the “Occupy” name out of respect for area’s indigenous communities, which have been forcibly occupied by the United States for centuries. Instead, organizers are calling their protests “(Un)occupy Albuquerque” to connect corporate greed with the ongoing fight for indigenous land rights.
A sit-in participant in Albuquerque calling himself evergreen2 wrote a story on the DailyKos.com explaining how the term “Occupy” is not problematic terminology for indigenous communities.
“For many indigenous people, the term ‘Occupy’ is deeply problematic. For New Mexico’s indigenous people, ‘Occupy’ means five-hundred years of forced occupation of their lands, resources, cultures, power, and voices by the imperial powers of both Spain and the United States. A big chunk of the 99 percent has been served pretty well by that arrangement. A smaller chunk hasn’t.”
On the DailyKos.com, evergreen2 writes about how they came to the decision:

Sunday afternoon, OccupyBurque spent a long, long time debating whether or not to change its name. Interestingly enough, the issue was not introduced by an indigenous New Mexican. Rather it was introduced by an international person, who said that the term “Occupy” was problematic for indigenous people of other countries who had also been “Occupied” by imperial powers.
Then a number of indigenous people of New Mexico spoke. They spoke with passion of how stung and hurt they were every time they hear the word “Occupy.” They spoke of how other indigenous people around the country also object to this term. They said over and over and over again that they want the term changed to “Decolonize.” New Mexico’s indigenous people want New Mexico and Albuquerque to be “Decolonized” and not “Occupied.” For them, their lands and people have already been Occupied, and thus what they want is for it all to be Decolonized.

As the American Independent notes:

According to the U.S. Census, 4.8 percent of Bernalillo County and 9.4 percent of New Mexicans identify as American Indian. Most likely that underestimates the proportion of New Mexicans with some connection to the Native American community: 3.7 percent of New Mexicans are of more than one race, and 47.9 percent of the state’s population is Hispanic, and both of those categories are likely to contain many people who are of at least some Native American descent.

Jorge Rivas @'Colorlines'

Thursday, 20 October 2011

Let's end the myths of Britain's imperial past

Congrats Sunny!

sunny_hundal sunny hundal

WTF! I won blogger of the year. That was totally unexpected #iecommentawards

Australian investors tell NewsCorp - governance must improve

Thirteen Observations made by Lemony Snicket while watching Occupy Wall Street from a Discreet Distance

1. If you work hard, and become successful, it does not necessarily mean you are successful because you worked hard, just as if you are tall with long hair it doesn’t mean you would be a midget if you were bald.
2. “Fortune” is a word for having a lot of money and for having a lot of luck, but that does not mean the word has two definitions.
3. Money is like a child—rarely unaccompanied. When it disappears, look to those who were supposed to be keeping an eye on it while you were at the grocery store. You might also look for someone who has a lot of extra children sitting around, with long, suspicious explanations for how they got there.
4. People who say money doesn’t matter are like people who say cake doesn’t matter—it’s probably because they’ve already had a few slices.
5. There may not be a reason to share your cake. It is, after all, yours. You probably baked it yourself, in an oven of your own construction with ingredients you harvested yourself. It may be possible to keep your entire cake while explaining to any nearby hungry people just how reasonable you are.
6. Nobody wants to fall into a safety net, because it means the structure in which they’ve been living is in a state of collapse and they have no choice but to tumble downwards. However, it beats the alternative.
7. Someone feeling wronged is like someone feeling thirsty. Don’t tell them they aren’t. Sit with them and have a drink.
8. Don’t ask yourself if something is fair. Ask someone else—a stranger in the street, for example.
9. People gathering in the streets feeling wronged tend to be loud, as it is difficult to make oneself heard on the other side of an impressive edifice.
10. It is not always the job of people shouting outside impressive buildings to solve problems. It is often the job of the people inside, who have paper, pens, desks, and an impressive view.
11. Historically, a story about people inside impressive buildings ignoring or even taunting people standing outside shouting at them turns out to be a story with an unhappy ending.
12. If you have a large crowd shouting outside your building, there might not be room for a safety net if you’re the one tumbling down when it collapses.
13. 99 percent is a very large percentage. For instance, easily 99 percent of people want a roof over their heads, food on their tables, and the occasional slice of cake for dessert. Surely an arrangement can be made with that niggling 1 percent who disagree.
@'Occupy Writers'

Famous Writers Including Salman Rushdie And Neil Gaiman Sign On To Support Occupy Wall Street

We The People Have Found Our Voice (Occupy Wall Street)

Y_U_NOOO Y U NO

FOX NEWS, Y U NO HAVE NEWS ABOUT FOXES?

William S. Burroughs: Guns & Painting

Reluctant godfather of punk, transgressive Beat generation champ and NYC stalwart, William S. Burroughs (1914-1997) always extended his literary practice into avant-garde territories — the cut-up novels and films, the dreammachine, the prose itself. He spent his later years in Kansas, in his backyard, shooting the shit out of spray paint cans with his shot gun onto blank canvases. The bursting, holed pieces were displayed in Chicago and New York in the late ’80s and early ’90s
Via

U.N. Torture Chief: Ban Solitary Confinement for Teens, Mentally Disabled

Transcript

#OccupyMelbourne (Livestream)

Inspector Bernie Jackson of the Melbourne East police station this afternoon met with Occupy Melbourne protestors today to discuss a potential eviction scenario.
Jackson stressed that Victoria Police does not have the authority on its own to prosecute the eviction, and instead will wait for Melbourne City Council’s instructions on how to proceed.
Inspector Jackson said that once an eviction notice had been served, a “reasonable time” would be given for protestors to voluntarily vacate City Square. “Reasonable time will be given in hours, as in a number of hours,” said Jackson. He qualified: “it’s not going to be in the middle of the night.”
Inspector Jackson further discussed Victoria Police’s likely course of action should an eviction order be issued. When the police arrive on site, protestors will be again asked to leave voluntarily. Anyone who refuses to leave will be forcibly removed from City Square by police officers.
Inspector Jackson told the crowd that he was satisfied with the current state of relations between police and the Occupy Melbourne protestors.
Inspector Jackson’s statement will be discussed at the nightly General Assembly, to be held at 6pm this evening on the north side of City Square.
Jackson was challenged by a number of vocal members of the crowd, including Indigenous activist Robbie Thorpe.
Mr Thorpe asked Jackson: “If the by-laws [relating to the Summary Offences Act’s powers for eviction] relate to the Aboriginal people and if so, how?”
Inspector Jackson responded that the police force was required to follow the directions of the Melbourne City Council with regard to the eviction of protestors.
Mr Thorpe later told Occupy Melbourne’s media liaison team that any eviction notice served on the protestors is likely to be immediately challenged in the courts.
Via