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Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

300 down – how many to go?

In Comment, Multifarious, News, Politics on June 21, 2010 at 8:42 pm

Britain lost its 300th soldier in the utterly pointless Afghan conflict yesterday.

eight-and-a-half-years, 300 lives lost, 300 families destroyed, billions of pounds spent and for what exactly?

Now there’s talk about 30,000 more troops and even our Prime Minister admitting more lives will be lost.

Can anyone explain to me why we are still there? Anyone? What exactly are they trying to do?

The Macho posturing after 9/11 has dragged on and on and the so-called crusade to eliminate al-Qaida has utterly failed and led to a Vietnam-style drawn out pointless waste of time, resources, and most importantly lives.

The worst thing is can anyone see the end of it? There’s talk of a slow withdrawal, but they’ve been there for more than eight years, how long is it going to take to leave?

You can’t just pack up and go home.

It’s all very depressing and must be a million times worse for the poor old soldiers who give their all for the country and live in terror of rocket propelled grenades.

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Who Knows Who? Channel 4 join the tinfoil hat brigade in search for Illuminati

In Comment, Politics, Web on December 2, 2009 at 8:03 pm

Secret societies, the Illuminati, the Masons; hidden cabals of the rich and powerful have long been an obsession of cranks, weirdoes and conspiracy theorists, but recently the veil is being tugged back and the discreet relationships between those occupying high positions in society – both elected and unelected – is being dragged into the public eye like never before. A rash of exposés featuring government ministers and shady Russian business types, often taking place on yachts in exotic locations, have granted a glimpse into a world the likes of which us mere mortals can only dream of.

Channel 4 have latched onto the general zeitgeist of disillusionment with our leaders and have created a new website that explores some the network of relationships between these powerful, yet secretive, individuals and our politicians called ‘Who Knows Who?’. The website forms part of a larger idea that taps into the latest Internet buzzword: crowdsourcing. This hideous portmanteau (since when was an Internet-related portmanteau anything else but hideous?) means that a crowd of people on the Internet come together to achieve a common goal set by a 3rd party. The Guardian put this to very good use during this summer’s expenses furore, putting around 30,000 volunteer editors, recruited from the ranks of Guardian readers, to task sifting through the hundreds of thousands of pages of MPs’ expense claims, in order to find such gems as duck houses and cable TV pornography.

This time, Channel 4 are asking their viewers to contribute any information that they might have about the relationships between politicians, businessmen and women, media figures and religious types, and any other members of the great and the good.

The site is built using Flash, a rich media web technology, which most people will have installed on their browsers, so it has a potentially very large audience. The interface is very snazzy; each figure features in the centre of a large web of links which you can click around, find out how deep the rabbit hole goes (to drop briefly into conspiracy-speak).

I think this site is a very interesting and bold idea that combines contemporary relevance with an exciting and fresh approach to engaging with a new audience. It’s certainly very different from a lot of Channel 4′s recent youth-oriented websites. It’s also fascinating to see the popularity of websites like 38degrees, TheyWorkForYou and UnlockDemocracy, whose aim it is to help us keep tabs on our elected rulers. The Internet as a tool to empower grassroots activism appears to be really coming of age.

Great stuff – I think I am going to tape an X to my window tonight to see what happens!

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Protests play into BNP’s greasy hands

In News, Politics on October 28, 2009 at 7:22 pm

I watched Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time with interest.

While I thought he was set up a bit, he didn’t do himself any favours with his unfounded, unsupported, pig ignorant responses to questions.

That said, I wonder if someone had sent someone out to gee up the audience beforehand as there was understandably some serious rage directed at him.

One thought I had was is that It’s almost as if someone had designed Nick Griffin as leader of a hugely unpopular right wing party.

His greasy hair, red face and that weird eye, combined with his repulsive views made him very easy to hate – and hate the audience did.

But one thing I thought was glossed over was the fact people turned out to protest against him appearing.

Sorry, the guy’s a loon and thoroughly dislikable, but he’s the leader of a political party, and one that holds European seats no less, he’s got to have his say.

Set him up, gang up on him, whatever, but you can’t not let him speak.

the 500 odd (and they are very odd) people who turned up to protest are essentially protesting against free speech and thus, democracy.

These are the very same people, of course, who would be out on the streets if censorship was ever introduced in this country, which it won’t be.

It’s nonsense, there are places to protest, but this was not the right place.

And shame on the politicians saying the same thing, that he shouldn’t have been allowed on the progamme, are they that scared of the BNP?

The BNP will NOT get into power, they will continue to have a scattering of members getting ignored on local councils and that is that.

Let Griffin have his say, realise he’s talking utter garbage, and make an informed decision.

Censorship is a popular policy of extreme dictators and has no place in a democracy.

Griffin is perfectly capable of making himself look ridiculous, we don’t need to drive him underground, the more publicity he gets, the more people will realise what he stands for and how wrong that is.

and the politicians, as they no doubt start working out how they can pay back their fiddled expenses, should look closely at themselves as to why anyone takes any notice of Griffin and his apes at all.

Mind over muscle gets the point across

In Politics on August 14, 2009 at 10:44 am

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1206455/Two-Tories-join-Duncans-expenses-whine-Cameron-puts-millionaire-MP-probation-rations-blunder.html

 

Hands up. Who remembers John Prescott chinning the man with a mullet who threw an egg at him?

Answer: Everyone.

Now, who remembers WHY the bloke chucked an egg at him? No-one.

A quick internet search reveals it was a Welshman not happy about plans to close the town of Rhyl’s post sorting office.

A big deal for the people of Rhyl granted, but not a great piece of policital activism.

In fact, I think Prescott got a lot more kudos for doing what most people would have done and swinging for him than the man, Craig Evans, and his magnificent hairstyle, did for trying to save the post office.

The point is that acts of thuggery, even for political reasons, are still acts of thuggery.

A story on the Daily Mail website alerted (see link above) alerted me to the work of Heydon Prowse, a former child star turned political activist.

After reading the idiotic comments of various Tories about how poor they are , have a look at the section about Prowse.

Prowse, 28, is a political activist who runs the Don’t Panic website http://www.dontpaniconline.com/who managed to get into Tony Blair’s garden to place a message saying “In memory of the hundreds and thousands that died as a result of Tony Blair’s “War on Terror” and those tortured with his implicit approval” on a bench in the the then Prime Minister’s garden.

Bold and effective, don’t you think? No-one hurt, a minor trespassing law broken and one hell of an effective message.

Other stunts include going to Barbara Follet’s home to clean her windows for her after she claimed it in her expenses and digging a pound sign in the aformentioned Mr Duncan’s lawn after his £4,000 claim for gardening.

Again, no-one hurt, except for the bruising of egos, and a great way of getting the point across.

It’s much cleverer than throwing eggs at people or chucking paint over someone’s car, both are criminal acts and require the brain power of a tree frog to think up.

He’ll be rightly lambasted if he goes too far, but his work at the moment highlighting the shady dealings of those in power is a far better way of going about things than Mr Mullett and co.

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