Bush’s day of shame

I just received this from the Greens

Bush’s day of shame

Today’s onslaught on an impoverished country by the world’s biggest military superpower is a black day for humanity, Green Foreign Affairs spokesperson Keith Locke said today.

‘This is an unjust, illegal and immoral act of aggression,’ said Mr Locke. ‘There is no basis under international law for the invasion of Iraq and there is no UN mandate that grants any shred of legitimacy to this action.

‘The norms that govern international affairs have been fatally breached today and the authority that the United Nations has worked so hard to develop over the last 50 years has suffered a grievous setback.

‘Our thoughts are with the innocent men, women and children of Iraq. Having suffered a decade of unfair sanctions they are now bearing the brunt of a massive assault on their cities and towns.

‘We must continue to do everything to stop this war. Our government should move to call the UN General Assembly into urgent session, as it can do under the provisions of Resolution 377.

‘Green MPs will be participating in protest actions which will take place across the country,’ Keith Locke said. ‘I will be at the emergency protest to take place at Wellington’s Cenotaph at 5pm tonight.

‘We must challenge this unilateral use of brute force in international relations. It is such an affront to humanity, when there was so clearly another way of dealing with the Iraq crisis. The inspections were making progress and the United Nations engaged.

‘Unfortunately, the ramifications of this invasion will reverberate through the region and through the world for some time come.’

ENDS

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Greens in NZ have had a very strong and clear position on this war all the way through. I hope they can maintain it as Labour has such trouble, constantly wavering on the edge. Worse than that actually having a ship in the Gulf and probably counted as one of the unamed of the 35 countries the Americans keep mentioning, because we support them trhrough having their military bases in this country. Get them out of here!

Support Our Boys in Uniform, by Harry Browne

Support Our Boys in Uniform, by Harry Browne

If you really think the country should unite now, it should be united against the idea of attacking a virtually defenseless nation on the unverified say-so of a known liar.
To “come together” to support insanity is not patriotic, it is not reason, it is not moral. It simply makes you as guilty as the people perpetrating this war.
If you really want to support our boys over there, do the honorable thing:
Demand that they be brought home now.

Parliament Backs Blair on Action Against Baghdad

Parliament (washingtonpost.com)This item concludes with the words llegal, immoral and illogical” — all those! I feel sad and angry as I hear reports of support for this war. Polls in the US 66% in favour.

I feel angry when i hear people against the war wanting a swift victory… now is the time for something else… the beginning of people uniting against dictators, Bush #1 on the list.

Back to Iraq 2.0

Back to Iraq 2.0

I promised I wouldn’t make predictions about the start of the war, so perhaps I can make one about the end of it. When it’s over and the dust has settled, the United States will stand supreme in the world, powerful but hated, its boot on the throat of Iraq. The international frameworks built over the last 50 years, including the United Nations, will lie in ruins or will be about to collapse. Resentful young men, hearts full of fear, hate and Allah will find refuge and a raison d’etre as explosive martyrs. The world will be less safe — for everyone. And thousands of people — soldiers, civilians, innocent or not — will be dead. And for no good reason at all.

Christopher Allbritton is a independent journalist t blog-busking (I made up that word!) his way to the war. Independents are needed as there is censorship from the front by the other media. Let’s see how he goes.

Daredevil

There is a great little – http://home.netvigator.com/%7Ekwongkf/4070pg01.htm – paper that proposes that the Net is not like other media which conform to McLuhan’s insight that media are an extension of the human senses. Rather the Internet is an extension of all other media. Just as our senses are re-shaped by the development of the ordinary media so media is re-shaped by the Net. Amputate is a word that McLuhan uses. Media amputates our senses the corollary is that the Net amputates media.

All this came beautifully to mind while listening to Frank Miller talk on public radio via the Net of course, about Daredevil, the comic he reinvented and which is now a movie and which no doubt I could download with Kazaa months before it arrives here in NZ.

There is a new development happening I think where artists, directors, producers etc. are not just cashing in on the new environment but using it creatively. Adaptation (the movie) explores this to some extent. AI had a Net event? Imagine a “happening” that was as much a book as a film as a web phenomena, not one adapting to the other, but an integrated whole.

Listen!

I could not get audblog to work from our NZ phone but made a quick mp3: very simple to do! I can hear it easily in my quicktime plugin, but I imagine other devices cwould work. You could also download it and play it in winamp.

listen

Will put something new here from time to time.