Tag: Justice

Further context into this context

So here we go again. This past Friday a man named Anders Behring Breivik allegedly detonated a bomb in Norway, killing 7. And, in a separate incident, while impersonating a police officer, but carrying a firearm (which Norwegian police don’t do, according to one al Jazeera interviewee) shot and killed up to 84 additional people attending a youth camp on an island an hour or so north of the Norwegian capital of Oslo.

The details, while absolutely horrific and entirely deplorable, aren’t what I’m most interested in. Or even the hysteria that predictably ensued for most of the day Friday, not to mention part of yesterday, following these events. You know the typical rush to judgement these acts were immediately thought linked, as terrorism, with Fundamental Islam without creditable evidence. Turns out it wasn’t terrorism at all, thank God, it was just right-wing extremism — like people are supposed to be assured because this is different somehow? Which is my point.

Give me a break. Please, I’m begging you. Shut the fuck up!

Continue reading Further context into this context

Osama is dead!

Witnessing various reactions on the radio and internet today over the U.S. finally finding and killing Osama bin Laden — though when and how the U.S. knew where he was, not to mention what justification they had to go into Pakistan to get him, are well on their way to becoming the “stuff of legend” (surprizing, I know) — I can’t help but feel concerned over what comes next. Frankly, exactly how his death equals “justice” is beyond me, and is beside my point.

So instead of assigning any relevance towards an event I, not only couldn’t possibly know at this point, but probably will not understand when its implications inevitably come to fruition, I’ll simply urge everyone to read Chris Hedges Speaks on Osama bin Laden’s Death for some much needed context. In part;

So I was in the Middle East in the days after 9/11. And we had garnered the empathy of not only most of the world, but the Muslim world who were appalled at what had been done in the name of their religion. [But] [w]e responded exactly as these terrorist organizations wanted us to respond. They wanted us to speak the language of violence. […] These groups learned to speak the language we taught them. And our response was to speak in kind. The language of violence, the language of occupation — the occupation of the Middle East, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — has been the best recruiting tool al-Qaida has been handed. […] The tragedy of the Middle East is one where we proved incapable of communicating in any other language than the brute and brutal force of empire…

I think Mr. Herbivore said it quite succinctly on Twitter today, “SO glad that the US and NATO forces have no reason to be killing people in Afghanistan anymore. What a relief that’s over!”

For Christie’s sake

Just this past week I was involved in quite a personally significant conversation with a friend. In a very round about way we arrived at talking about our respective childhood’s and each of our schooling career’s — if a half-assed, uninterested effort qualifies as a “career,” then I had a glorious one! When she informed me of her experiences during high school being bullied.

In a directly related aside, also this week, I received a mailing from ZCommunications, detailing ZMagazine’s January’s 2011 issue containing Michael Bronski’s piece Glee and Queer Bullying.

It’s precisely what everyone, “Gleek’s” particularly, really should take a few moments to read and truly think about…

Continue reading For Christie’s sake

So Angry About Being So Sad

I know, I’ve been citing the likes of Democracy Now! a lot here recently, I haven’t had much time as of late to consume much of anything else, and what I’m about to draw attention to is hardly the exception. On today’s broadcast Amy spoke with a Canadian farmer, Percy Schmeiser, a Right Livelihood Award Laureate, and an individual “who has battled the biotech giant Monsanto for years.” Monsanto accused Mr. Schmeiser of illegally planting their seeds, after they blew onto his property and pollinated with his crops. And they took him to court, more than once, over it, too.

As outrageous as I, personally, think this is — a Corporation holding any individual responsible for something that is well out of the realm of anyone’s control, all while destroying 50 years of a Farmer’s life’s work, yet managing to avoid, themselves, being held responsible — it was the end piece of their talk that most caught my attention;

I think that we feel that we have to stand up for the rights of farmers around the world. All my life I’ve been in agriculture and worked for agricultural policies and laws. And we feel that a farmer should never, ever lose the rights to his seeds or plants [referencing Terminator Seeds], because if we do, we’re going to be back to a serf system, we’re going to be back to a feudal system, that our forefathers, our grandfathers, left countries in Europe many years ago to get away from. Now, in less than — or 100 years, we’ve come full circle, where the control is not by kings or lords or barons, but now it’s corporations…

It wasn’t so much the words he spoke or their meaning, Corporate Power is probably the greatest threat we face as a planet, but rather it was the context he so neatly provided his argument. I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry about being so sad.

For it is the expectation of Corporations, in a system such as ours, to continue to draw profits by any and all means necessary. The pot on which we have to draw our “sustenance” is quickly emptying. We can’t escape it. We won’t escape it…