Give Peace a Chance

The problem with war is that it is such an attractive concept to those primal instincts to go kill, destroy and plunder and given the penchant that mankind has for frequently tearing itself to shreds it is unfortunately a regular practice to resort to.
So.
The job of the Anti War movement is to somehow undercut such an activity with something just as attractive to primal instincts, distinctly anti-competitive and of course something that can be recoursed to with greater frequency than gunning each other down.
I give you.
www.masturbateforpeace.com.

A rallying cry to all the men of the world, submit yourself to a higher concept, stop tanking and start wanking, it builds your biceps and what can go wrong other than a nasty eye injury if you don’t take enough care.

And for all you ladies out there, don’t feel you may be left out, masturbation is not a solely masculine activity, join the anti-war effort today.

Make love (to yourself) not War!

The world behind our ignorance

Amnesty International has released it’s report on the use of the Death Penalty across the globe during the year 2007. It estimates that official executions claimed the lives of 1252 individuals with the largest amount of executions taking place in the People’s Republic of China. The official count in China stands at least 470 but there is strong evidence that there have been executions carried out in secret and China jealously guards the true figure. The worst offenders after China were Iran (317), Saudi Arabia (143) and Pakistan (135).
Saudi Arabia, whose Monarch was invited for tea with the Prime Minister and the Queen, has been responsible for the execution of people younger than 18 years of age, a gross violation of International Law. It is joined in this dubious distinction by Iran and Yemen.
Some of the people who were executed were convicted on charges that don’t even have the pretence of justification

“Ja’Far Kiani, father of two, was stoned to death for adultery in Iran in July.

A 75 year-old North Korean factory manager was shot by firing squad in October for failing to declare his family background, investing his own money in the factory, appointing his children as its managers and making international phone calls.

“Mustafa Ibrahim, an Egyptian national, was beheaded in Saudi Arabia in November for the practice of sorcery.”
(Amnesty International)

The use of the death penalty is unjustified in any circumstance but it becomes even less defensible when individuals are losing their lives on the most spurious of charges, and it stands that whilst the UK may have done away with it’s ‘bloody code’ there are plenty of states around the world that refuse to do so.
The guise of moral crusader has never been credibly worn by the United States and it continues to undermine it’s own justifications for figureheading (at least ostensibly) the spread of ‘western, liberal democratic’ values by appearing as the 5th worst offender in the Death Penalty rankings.
So here we go again and undoubtedly people get bored of reading my repeated complaints that the UK government does not stand for the principle of Human Rights unless it happens to have some ulterior motive for doing so. I’m not going to apologise and I’m not going to stop repeating myself on this matter because like it or not it is of the utmost importance, that anyone can determine that the injustices propogated by a cynical administration can be ‘boring’ is frankly beyond me.
As the death toll of British troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan continues to rise, this country has slowly come round to the alleged benefits of military intervention in two states who had previously been ruled by tyrannical regimes in which human life was cheap and human rights an alien concept. We seem to be happy about turning a blind eye to the continued abuses within these states that take place with the full consent of the Coalition supported authorities; last week in Iraq, 28 people were executed after hastily convened and unfair trials, hundreds of people have been executed since the reintroduction of Capital Punishment by the Iraqi Authorities in 2004. It’s reasons for being reintroduced? To curb violence within the country and act as a deterrent, I think it would be fair to say that it has failed miserably.
In Afghanistan, the treatment of women continues to be as near to atrocious as it was under the rule of the Taleban with women being denied equal access to education and justice as well as suffering as a result of the prevailing cultural attitudes and societal codes, according to the the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) 165 women committed suicide in 2007 in order to escape abusive situations. As the figures might suggest they are still provided with little to no recourse by the Afghan authorities, indeed women have been imprisoned for transgressing societal codes which maintain their basis in the middle ages.
However the prevailing mood in the West appears to be that we brought democracy and freedom to these countries and we’re all tiring of the old arguments that these were political dirty wars sold to the public in the name of furthering Human Rights. It happened and, yes there was some nastiness involved but it’ll all come out in the wash eventually and at least the administrations are ‘our bastards’ not someone elses.
Yet this government refuses to condemn the actions of states that trample Human Rights with merry abandon, China, Saudi Arabia being the most notable examples, it evades it’s own lack of logic and provides an incoherent front in which clearly Human Rights are not an absolute but something to be weighed against practicality and efficiency and dealt out when the conditions may or may not be right. They can also be retracted or ignored altogether so whilst the UN votes 104 to 54 to end the use of the death penalty, Western backed administrations continue to use it whenever they feel like it.
It is not just the major and high profile cases in which states execute their citizens but in the widespread lack of Human Rights and the repeated violations against the Articles across the globe. Too many to list but the treatment of individuals and groups in countries across the world is abhorrant and yet largely ignored by Western governments unless there geopolitical interest and an excuse is needed.
The aggressive overtures of the USA toward Iran are frequently backed up with criticism of Tehran’s Human Rights record, which is particularly atrocious, but when it comes to Saudi Arabia, or China, when it comes to the use of the Death penalty in Iraq or the degrading treatment of women in Afghanistan the US remains strangely quiet. Commitment to principle is not a matter of only making it an issue when it is expedient to refer to it, it is something that remains a central directive and catalyst of change. To only make an issue of a principle in order to apply as much garnish to a turd so that people might eat it, is not principled but oppurtunism masquerading as a moral mission.
For more information on struggle for Human Rights across the globe take a look at the Amnesty International website
Sign up, get involved, make a difference and don’t let the Government and it’s affiliated cynics drown you in apathetic acceptance, it is within the power of society to make this world a better place to live and that is a principle worth upholding.

The unparticular

I thought perhaps I should, for the benefit of those who may happen upon this sad waste of webspace and consider it’s endless uselessness that I might refer to that touchy subject of mental illness, Yes it’s an unfortunate fact that some of us so happen to suffer from it, but the few points I’d like to make may be of interest.
Matthew Good was recently awarded the Mental Health Voices award by the Canadian Mental Health association and, in my experience, never has such an award been granted to more of a rewarding individual. Over the past couple of years Matt Good has been a leading light for the thousands of people who suffer from Bipolar Disorder across the globe and he deserves every credit for his heartfelt and honest account of his experience with such a condition. The issue remains that those people who happen to suffer from such a form of mental illness usually feel that such a condition or an affliction (as some people term it) feel a degree of shame or of embarrassment about being Bipolar. The very term Bipolar is a bit of a new one because most people are more used to the term Manic Depressive and it is only this new age of political correctness that has come up with a whole new way of describing people who suffer from the condition. From my own personal experience I have felt very much that being termed a Manic Depressive is something that can  write you off, something that can put you into a bracket and never let you out again.
The issue with mental illness, and if I can bring my own subjective view into this, is that everyone has their quirks and oddities, everyone is different in their own sometimes uncertain way, we have names for some conditions and we don’t have names for others, what we constitute as mental health is a particularly groundless issue.
For me, depression and Bipolar Disorder have become names for states of mind that were always there and if I am perfectly honest, having a term put to them has helped me in no uncertain fashion to know that what is causing my mental perceptions is chemical and nothing more has been a serious help to me, I might not be fully convinced but the fall back remains ‘this is chemical and nothing more’ and in certain circumstances it is more helpful than I can describe
Matthew Good stated on his blog that

“To be honest with you, I feel entirely unworthy of the award being that all I did was tell my own story. There are literally thousands of volunteers, professionals, and advocates that deserve recognition for their work on a daily basis, making receiving such an honour entirely humbling next to their tireless dedication.”

Whilst certainly I agree with him that there are individuals who expend so much effort into helping others I have to disagree with him as regards his stance that he does not feel worthy. To provide a clear public profile, to be honest, to have maintained himself through such trouble and to have provided so many people with an example to be proud of and to take heart from deserves every recognition he has received.
If that sounds like some form of hero worship then…

 deal with it
 

In a boy’s dream

This particular time I think I’ve grown up, it is in the lack of school uniform and the setting of a bar that I feel we may have just about managed to move onto the next stage of this interminably dull process of misapproriating ideas until the mental structure they constitute has been diluted enough so as to be harmless not just to the host but to those that mingle round.
Perhaps though we’ve bottled it all up because this time things are decidedly aggressive and for once I don’t bother pulling out any high minded ideals and instead put all my energy into returning like with like. Instead of attempting to douse the flames I’m all ready to throw this gasoline onto the crackling beginnings of the destruction of this very room and all who dwell within it, this time I’m angry and I’d like everyone to know it, like some planet that considers itself the center of an uncentered universe, they will be pulled into this gravitational deathtrap and obliterated.
You crash into me, subtley all now lost as crude imagery overrides, I like it that way because tonight lacks all nuances of finely tuned sentences written several times crossed out repeatedly, formulated to have the maximum impact for the minimum effort and yet only interpretable by those who wrote them. Additionally I forget my line anyhow and launch into an ill thought out diatribe, improvised less by a rational mind and more from a desire to articulate no matter how badly exactly what it is that I feel.
Not that when we talk of feeling we know what we mean, I get the idea now that everything we talk about as non-corresponding concepts of love and hate and fear and hope are based on so many chemicals forming a messy and boring equation within the confines of our paper thin skulls.
This dream leaves me lying on the floor, leaves me wishing I could feel empty, leaves me a million miles from where I want to be, which is unquantifiable anyhow because I don’t know where that is.
You are her, you are you, you are probably something of myself and it is so peculiar that somebody who can be so heavily spread throughout my myopic little world can be so absent from it at the same time.

The return of Mr Popular

It’s everybodies favourite Chancellor again. Alistair Darling today resisted calls for a U-turn on his abolishment of the 10p tax bracket. Denying that he has managed to increase the tax burden for 5.4 million people he nonetheless succeeded in tangling himself up in knots in his interview for BBC News, Dichotomously arguing that he wants to encourage people who work hard to continue working whilst their tax bill is effectively doubled by a laughably naive budget.
His financial ineptitude was described by Andrew Marr as “An appalling slow motion car crash” which I think is a little bit of an understatement. This is an incredibly unpopular move which in my view is going to deal the final knock out blow to Labour’s re-election chances, not that they need a final knock out blow because they look set to lose on points anyhow.
If you want to see a man wriggle like a worm on a hook then feel free to watch his interview on the Andrew Marr show but watch out for the appalling and rather unpleasant analogy of the sub-prime mortgage fiasco being likened to a stomach bug (there is something we don’t need to follow to a logical conclusion) and the sheer comic value of Mr Darling stating that ‘we can win the next election’.

Heartening, the resolve of the many and the power of the few

I wanted to write a post about the protests that have taken place around the world as the olympic torch has been carried from nation to nation in a badly judged public relations exercise by the Chinese Administration.
When I got plane to return to the UK I saw the scenes that greeted the Olympic relay in London and I’ve got to say I have not seen such good news for a long time.
The attempts to put out the torch, to disrupt the ceremony, to embarass China and the UK government were in my view perfectly justified, well measured and eminently honourable acts of civil disobedience and I’d like to congratulate everyone who took part.
The fact that people were willing to get out and make their feelings perfectly clear was exceptionally heartening given that the situation in Tibet and the Human Rights abuses of the Chinese administration is a cause that deserves the full attention of all nations which claim to support the doctrine of universal human rights.
Of course the major disappointment was the conduct of our government and the conduct of our Prime Minister as well as the atrocious decision by UK security services to allow the torch to be escorted on UK streets by the so called ‘guardians of the flame’ who turned out to be nothing more than a bunch of Chinese Security Service thugs who had no place whatsoever taking jurisdiction in matters of security on UK streets. However if ever we need the proof that this administration has no time for matters of principle in the face of economic pragmatism then we have plenty in just this one situation.
But such a situation highlights the worrying nature of allowing economic issues to dictate foreign policy and to over ride not just priniciple but clear popular opposition to UK involvement in a given set of events.
It stands that taking the brakes off an economy and allowing a free market to run riot does not necessarily mean that the ‘right’ decisions are going to made and I think this is a mistake made by free marketeers in that whilst economics is a major factor in many aspects of human behaviour it is not the be all and the end all of mankind and to view the world as being so simple as to be able to function on all fronts with minimal interference in global markets is what you might call considerably niave.
So where I am going with this and what has free market policy got to do with Tibet and blue tracksuited thugs running through London? (mind you, that happens regardless of whether the Olympic relay is on or not)
The reason that the government and indeed most of the Western world will weather the storm of popular opposition to the Beijing Olympics is because financially it doesn’t make sense to boycott Chinese goods or break off political, economic deals over something so silly as the rights of a few monks in some backwater country commitment to financial prudence takes place over commitment to the Idealism of Human Rights.
Question is, would it be any different with a more restricted economy? Well I like to think yes it would, a more democratically controlled economy would be far more subject to the wills and wishes of the populace, not only would this mean that the protesters across the West would have an even greater recourse against the Chinese it would mean that they probably would not have got themselves all caught up in trade deals in the first place. it would appear that people really do care about the situation that many people end up in, and they really do wish to effect change but when they are utterly powerless in the face of a vast, powerful economic system that maintains a highly top down control structure and a commitment to stockholders over all else there is very little that they can do, yes we could try a total boycott of all goods that the Chinese are involved in but we cannot tell the government to back out of previously agreed trade deals because they ignore us. The reason they ignore us is because they are busy trying to keep business lobbyists happy. Additionally a boycott of Chinese Goods would be inefficient seeing as due to global labour markets and increased free trading 4% of total UK imports are from the Peoples Republic and I’m willing to bet that there is lot more that is not recorded as a direct import that nonetheless has some Chinese involvement. We’re getting stuck and the more we allow it to happen the more stuck we’re going to get.
As for the original involvement in Chinese trading affairs you ask the question that if so many people find the Chinese regime abhorrant and so many people wish to put boycotts in place and have as little to do with it as possible then why on earth is the UK so comfortable in bed with Beijing? I can only conclude that decisions are being made by other people who are more interested in profit margins than anything else. The peculiar dichotomy in Conservative idealogy being that whilst we’re all free to do what we want within reason and get on with our lives we still have to bow to the incredible power of the free market which in effect entrusts major policy and lifestyle decisions to boardrooms and that instead of being able to call an immediate vote and effect immediate change you have to undergo the rather doubtful process of ‘voting with your feet’ (or wallet more appropriately) which is highly reliant on your ability to do so which in turn is highly reliant on the financial circumstances you find yourself in.
Politically it is important to look at what the main parties are saying and whilst I’m well aware that the Liberal Democrats are saying the right thing because they can say just about anything and get away with it they are nonetheless saying the right thing and just for that they deserve a mention. Clearly any political party can be trusted as far as I can throw an adult elephant but involvement means an ability to have a say in what is done by a party.
So asides from an incomplete rant about the evils of the free market I’m still rather pleased at the level of opposition met by the Olympic relay team, I hope the feeling stays and I hope the feeling grows, the freedom to express oneself is an eminently glorious thing and when it exercised for the good of others it becomes something quite individualy honourable.

I’m back now…different yet again

My trip to Greece was one of those experiences which becomes a nostalgic memory even as you live the very moment that you know years later you will still want to be present in. I don’t believe I can do my time justice with the barely adequete command of the English language but I’d like to say how unbelievably fantastic it was to go to the places I did, with the people I went with.
Highlights of the trip would have to include my ‘Lornarian Oration’ at Epidauros in which I spoke to the crowds of milling tourists as well as my classmates about the wonders of Lorna’s teamaking abilities, The Jellyworm Iliad (soon to appear on Youtube) Me and Rob’s 10 minute Bottom sketch which attracted the attention of a multitude of tourists and earned us a round of applause that I can still hear when it is quiet enough and lastly the experience I had in the Agora, the comfortable feeling of being just another person in a huge procession of individuals to walk the face of this earth, subject to the same desires, the same dreams, no peculiarity but yet another man with another life to lead.
I will of course get some pictures up, I have some wonderful shots of the Acropolis, Delphi, Epidauros, Acro-Corinth and Mycenae.
The whole experience has brought with it new ideas and new views on particular circumstances but the overall feeling is one of a new sense of confidence, perhaps gained through my thespian activities or elsewhere. With it comes a sense of being more comfortable with my emotive personality, I’m glad to be me, glad to have the range and depth of feeling that I do even it sometimes it is deabilitating and damaging such feelings make you feel so alive.
I have been on a bit of a News blackout and so am doing my best to catch up with events as well as press ahead with my revision and face up to the challenge of being a columnist for the Portsmouth Youth Magazine so if I’m quiet for a while, I’ve got my reasons.

Additionally…

The events in Zimbabwe have been of utmost interest, not only as thousands upon thousands of people attempt to shake off the death grip of Robert Mugabe against all the odds but as the UK government focuses attention away from the uprising in Tibet and brings it to bear upon its old colony. On Monday Gordon Brown said that the ‘eyes of the world’ were on Zimbabwe and it’s election, presumably the eyes of the world should be on Zimbabwe because it is slightly less embarrassing to the Labour government for people to watch that than to be made any more aware of the repression taking place in Tibet.
No surprise there then, but watch out for the telling statements in Parliament today. Commons leader Harriet Harman, standing in for Gordon Brown at prime minister’s questions, said MPs felt “concern and solidarity for the people of Zimbabwe and that they should have their democratic election respected and recognised”.
So MP’s feel concern and solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe, who are doing their best to take their country back from an individual who has mismanaged it for years. Strange that these same MP’s should not feel the same concern and solidarity for those Tibetans who are doing their best to take their country back from a nation who has occupied it, repressed it’s culture and isolated it’s people from political representation since 1951.
Ah but I’ve done it again, gone all principled and stuck my head up in the clouds, Ms Harman quickly explained the situation for us all by adding that that the UK was Zimbabwe’s biggest donor and would be “ready to step up that support”.
So it comes down to money then eventually. That concern and solidarity would only seem to stem from the fact that the MP’s want to make sure that the money is going to make a good return on it’s investment. Something that Robert Mugabe’s stewardship of the country, with it’s astronomical interest rates and subsequent poverty stricken billionaires, simply has not done. 

Turning our blind eyes

Amnesty International has released a report which claims that Human Rights in China have not been furthered by the oncoming Olympic Games but have actually worsened as dissidents and activists face severe repression in an attempt by the Chinese Authorities to present a united and harmonious front for their games.
The organisation has called for the IOC and World Leaders to speak out against the abuses as well as the handling of protests within Tibet.
And where are our leaders in all of this? Doing their absolute best to ignore the issue entirely. In this weeks PMQ’s the subject of the Beijing Olympics was not even voiced let alone discussed but I’d like to raise the question myself ‘How can the Prime Minister and this Government seriously justify their current appeasement of the Human Rights situation in China?” additionally “How does this Government imagine supporting the Chinese Administration through the Olympics makes them look as regards the issue of Human Rights?”
It seems to me to be nothing more than a quid pro quo in the run up for the 2012 Olympics in London and a committment to nothing more than financial prudence rather than principle.
This is the same government that repeatedly attempts to justify its decision to send soldiers into Iraq because of the Human Rights abuses committed by the regime of Saddam Hussein (or was it because of those weapons of mass devastruction?) and yet shrinks from the slightly lesser task of condemning the Chinese over their repeated and documented repression of their own citizens.
It is, I think, clear where this government stands on this issue and it is no principled stance but one that originates from a pragmatic and coldly logical position and so in the light of the failure of our representatives to do anything about the situation it falls down to the individuals involved to try making the difference themselves.
I mean by that that we here in this country should boycott the Olympic games ourselves and by that I mean refusing to buy any related merchandise, affiliated products, sponser products and to boycott coverage of the event even to the extent of not buying newspapers that decide to report coverage of the sporting events (so…all of them I guess) Athletes who are involved in the games should withdraw voluntarily, to be honest an Olympic medal that was stained with the blood of Tibetan exiles would not be what I would want to seek to attain were I gifted enough to be an athlete.
Those Athletes who do decide to go should use the platform granted to them to criticise China’s record of Human Rights and to highlight the injustices that are taking place there.
Whilst our government does seem to be playing some kind of mass game of see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil it is not a waste of time in writing to individual MP’s and requesting that they speak on behalf of a national boycott, click here to find your MP and send them an email.
The Olympic games are an international celebration of human physical and mental endeavour, they are concentrated on what people can do when they put their minds and bodies to a task that seems unachievable to most, they are about the testing of endurance and highlight the ability of the spirit to overcome the physical.
In light of such concepts I feel that citizens of a liberal democracy can make the small sacrifice of boycotting the Olympics in order to put a pointed message across to China that we will not accept that it has a right to savage the rights and freedoms of its citizens, that is has no right at all to occupy and repress Tibet and that it cannot expect us to fall for it’s pathetic attempts to present itself as a victim of false propaganda.

PMQ’S.

One of the main benefits of being single is being able to spend so much time watching the Parliament Channel and get away with it (another victory for the vow there…see what I did?) and I’ve always enjoyed Prime Ministers Questions the most.
As a spectacle of democracy in action its impressive but as a lively theatre in which careers are made or broken it reminds me of stories about the Roman Senate.
If there is any one good thing to say about democracy, and in my humble opinion there is quite a wide choice of good things to say about democracy, I would choose the ability to debate matters and argue them through, even at the very top level as being the defining characteristic of a liberal democracy.
Anyhow, I have included a link to the weekly BBC podcast site that provides analysis, excerpts and additionaly material centered around mid-week Prime Ministers Questions so that anyone who is interested can take a look at what is going on.

If I’ve anything to say about the current performances in Parliament then it would have to be about the repeated clashes between Gordon Brown and David Cameron.
Its impossible to deny that Mr Cameron is a smooth operator, quick witted and well prepared but I find myself agreeing with the Prime Minister that the Tory leader is all style and no substance. It remains an awkward fact for the Tories that whilst their leader snaps at the heels of the Prime Minister, he does so with very little solid policy to back him up.
However I digress click here to get your fill of politicians for the day or find the link in under ‘places to go’.