Oxford Bloggers » Politics

Jul201027

When anyone with a brain can work the truth out…

The ’90,000 item Wikileak dossier’ has got some sections of the internet huffing and puffing like a highly excited bunch of huffing and puffing things.

There are flaps of outrage and indignation from the US and UK governments which, when subjected to logical analysis, are shown to be incomprehensible and meaningless.

William Gibbs, the US President’s press secretary said (and I quote), ‘these documents [being in the public domain] pose a real and potential threat to national security’.

My response to William Gibbs is twofold.

Firstly, can you please learn to speak English? Because, William, until you do, everyone on this planet is going to ignore you from this point forward.

Let me explain.

Something can either be a real threat, or something can be a potential threat, but something can not be a real *and* a potential threat.

And secondly, William, you obviously haven’t noticed yet, so it falls to me to point out to you, that the situation in Afghanistan is an *international* one.

You are in no position to put American national security before the international security of *all of the states* who are caught up in the conflict. No legal position at all!

The truth must out, it is that simple. No matter how unpalatable to our political servants (and let’s just remember for a moment that the people in The White House and Downing Street are working *for us*) the truth is, it must be our default position.

That there are high-level elements in the Pakistan government who are actively backing and physically supporting al-Qaida is blindingly obvious to anyone with a functional brain.

But the US Government doesn’t want to be *saying* that publicly because:

it would cause a PR shitstorm in the US heartlands amongst the voters whenever a new raft of coffins are repatriated
it would upset elements of the Pakistan government
it would (rightly) cause distrust amongst the forces on the ground
it would make many people in many countries ask what the fuck is going on, and question the wisdom of our elected politicians

To underline my point I bring forward Frank Askin, Professor of Law at Rutgers School of Law, Newark (USA, not the original Newark).

Professor Askin says (and again I quote): ‘Transparency should be the government’s default approach to national security’.

The lack of transparency in this conflict is staggering. Under the sacred banner of ‘national security’ (which I have already demonstrated is a meaningless concept in this war), things are being unsaid, truths remain unspoken and massacres of innocents are being unreported.

All of these things are wrong.

What is the difference between 20 civilians being killed by the Americans, or 20 civilians being killed by the Pakistan-backed al-Qaida?

There is no difference.

Except in the former, the story is suppressed, whilst in the latter every single war reporter and every available photographer and film crew are ferried in to the area to record, in great detail, the once-human corpses, the blown-up cars, the dead livestock and the bullet-marked houses.

And come on, the only people who hadn’t figured out that the UK and US special forces have been operating under ‘locate and kill’ orders for the last couple of years, are sections of the UK and US public.

Does William Gibbs really think that members of al-Qaida have not worked these things out for themselves?

Of course they have.

I have downloaded my copy of the dossier and although I haven’t read it in detail yet, I have scanned most of it, and I have to say that all of the information I have seen so far would be known to the enemy!

All of it.

Yet the data has been withheld from the UK and US public.

The logical conclusion is that the governments of the UK and US see the public of the UK and US as the threat.

We are the enemy.

But perhaps we are not ‘the enemy’ within the context of this conflict in Afghanistan; just ‘the enemy of our elected representatives’ – by virtue of our power at the ballot box?

I’ll leave you with just one example of how the truth is being suppressed, and when it leaks out, corrupted.

When US intelligence analyst, Bradley Manning, leaked a video that proved that US Apache helicopters fired on and killed two Reuters cameramen in Baghdad – information that, until that point, the US government had suppressed – who was charged with criminal offences?

Was it:

Bradley Manning for leaking the video, or
The Apache helicopter crews for murdering innocent civilians?

Ah, I can see from your wry smiles that you know the answer. The casualty is, once again, the truth.

Jul201006

Ben Werdmuller

0

Blowing up markets

Banning sublets

Last week, the State of New York passed a bill that bans short-term rentals: specifically, no homeowner or renter may sublet their home for less than a month. The target is sites like AirBNB, an up and coming website that allows travelers to eschew pricey hotels – and their accompanying hotel room occupancy tax – in favor of private homes.

If the governor chooses to pass the legislation (as opposed to veto it), AirBNB will effectively be outlawed, and with it, a grassroots marketplace economy for short-term accommodation. New York State will have cemented hotels and bed & breakfasts as gatekeepers to the city for travelers who can’t stay with friends or relatives.

To me, this is an interesting reaction: it shows, once again, that established gatekeepers are terrified of the Internet. We’re used to that by now in the context of media content – we already know that newspapers, publishers, record companies and movie distributors aren’t as important as they were – but this is a scarcity-driven marketplace. It used to be that finding a safe, clean room in a strange city was a hard problem, so we turned to hotels as a trusted source. Running a hotel is in itself an expensive, tough business, and as a result there were a limited number in any given city, and the price went up according to demand. Although the hotel business is a ruthless game, it’s always been hotels competing with other hotels.

Now, though, we can visit websites like AirBNB and Couchsurfing, where private citizens can offer their homes to travelers, and the site will let us know who we can trust based on other peoples’ experiences. The marketplace has been blown wide open, and it turns out that a lot of us would rather go for a cheaper, friendlier option. I wouldn’t put money on New York blotting out short sublets for long.

Power to the people

We’re going to be seeing a lot more of this, in all kinds of market sectors. We’re already seeing ridesharing sites become popular, for example, blowing up the market previously owned by taxicabs and making it available to anyone who happens to be driving somewhere. Effectively this formalizes hitchhiking, making it both safer and more efficient.

It all comes down to one simple rule: People want to be free.

The Internet is opinionated: as a medium, it inherently works to empower people and eliminate hierarchies in society. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the most popular Internet companies hail from California; their philosophies are direct descendents of the civil rights activism that took place there in the sixties and seventies. In many cases, it’s even the same people. (Or – and here I put up my hand as the son of Berkeley “radicals” – their children.)

Gatekeepers – companies, structures or processes that act as exclusive barriers or filters – are not long for this world. Where gatekeepers exist, they do so because the alternative was inconvenient at the time when the gatekeeper became established – not because they’re inherently better than an empowered population. Those organizations, companies, and even governments, need to look at themselves very carefully and figure out what needs to be changed, before those things are changed for them.

Most Commented Posts

Jun201002

Brennig

0

So, NATO…

… is an international military alliance?

Check.

NATO is based on a collective defence system, whereby NATO member states agree to the mutual defence of any member state in response to an attack by any external party?

Check.

A civilian vessel of a NATO state was attacked, in international waters, by a foreign military force?

Check.

So NATO is even now formulating plans to bomb the shit out of this aggressor under the mutual defence clause?

Erm, no.

Because the aggressor is Israel.

If, however, the aggressor had been Iran or North Korea, the cruise missiles would be winging their way to those states right now.

But not Israel.

Because they can do what they want.

That’s a Just system, isn’t it?

May201020

Dungeekin

0

Union Warns of Strike Action over Coalition Government

Bloggers: Cameron coalition “far too sensible.”

A prominent journalist union has announced that it is to ballot its members on strike action, in protest at the decisions and actions of the new Conservative & Liberal Democrat Coalition Government.

The Association of Raggers, Satirists, Entertainers and Scribblers are unhappy that the coalition Government, which came into power last Tuesday, has so far not done anything stupid enough to ridicule.

ARSES spokesman Dun Geekin said, “I know we’ve been spoiled by Labour’s cretinous decision-making over the last thirteen years, but this sensibility is, quite frankly, literally beyond a joke. It’s one thing having a honeymoon period, but normally in this sort of timescale we could expect Labour to have announced at least three ill-considered and unfunded crackpot schemes for us to take the piss out of.

“We thought there would be enough clowns in the new Government to be going on with – I mean, even Bozo the Cable’s got a Cabinet post – but this lot is being far too sensible. All we’ve got right now is the Labour leadership contest, and it’s getting ever more difficult to lampoon a political party that’s a parody of itself and is thinking of appointing a banana-wielding village idiot as a Leader.”

ARSES is calling on the Government to appoint a temporary Chief Idiot to the Cabinet, whose responsibility it would be to propound, and subsequently defend, stupid policies which bloggers could then deride. However, the spokesman insisted, “this role would only be needed until the Government was fully constituted and established. By that point we would expect them to have returned to the normal levels of idiocy we expect from our Leadership.”

Rumours that former PM Gordon ‘Colostomy’ Brown may make a shock return to the Cabinet to fill the post demanded by ARSES remain unconfirmed. However, Labour MP Ed Balls has indicated that he would be interested in standing for the position, stating that his history of promoting absolute arrant bollocks makes him ideal for the Chief Idiot place.

Mr Geekin said that the results of a ballot on strike action would be expected shortly, once Bloggers could be persuaded to stop their usual intercenine ad-hominem battles and actually vote. However, he warned, “this is a serious matter. If our demands are not met, we will be forced to stop castigating Government actions and instead make stuff up. And we don’t want to do that, because the mainstream media already do.”

May201020

Dungeekin

0

EXCLUSIVE: Jacqui Smith – Life After Politics

The former Home Secretary, hard at work in her new career.

Former Home Secretary Jacqui Beria has spoken movingly to The Diary of her struggle to adapt to life after politics following her defeat in the General Election on 6 May.

“I’m out of a job, like lots of people in this country at the moment – not that that’s anything to do with me at all, honest”, she told The Diary in a frank first interview since losing her Redditch seat to the Conservative candidate Karen Lumley.

The former Home Secretary, who lost her seat following the expenses scandal when it became clear that she’d claimed everything from porn to bathplugs on expenses, added, “it’s a real struggle, and it makes me comprehend what the people of the UK are going through. All I have to survive on is my resettlement payment, my Ministerial pension and the vast amounts of money I saved over the years by getting the Proles to pay for everything.

“It’s put stress on my marriage too. Poor Richard has been reduced to wanking over second-grade free porn sites now, instead of first-class taxpayer-funded filth. It’s hardly fair, when I did so much for this country.”

Ms Smith refused to rule out a return to politics at some time in the future, but said that she currently has no plans to remain in the political scene, instead choosing a career where she can use her ’skills and experience to best effect’.

The former Home Secretary said, “I’m considering my options, and with my history and record have a number of choices. There are negotiations ongoing for me to take on the role of Civil Liberties Minister in North Korea, and of course I’m waiting for my application to be considered to be a CCTV operator for Redditch Council.”

However, sources close to Ms Smith have said that her most likely next role, given her looks and abilities, is truffle-hunting for a Normandy farmer.

May201018

Brennig

0

Well der

There’s a story in today’s BBC News Online that says that some of our most senior civil servants were so upset at spending decisions that were being taken, in the last few months of our previous administration, that they (the senior civil servants) asked for written instructions, to cover themselves.

Whether this story is true or not – and I’m not going to even crank up that discussion – the really interesting point to fall out of the woodwork is the rebuttal.

The most senior money-manager in the last administration, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Allistair Darling, said that the new administration was ‘playing the oldest trick in the book’ by ‘blaming the predecessor for the state of the economy’.

Yes?

And?

Who else, I wonder, does Mr Darling feel should be blamed?

Just asking.

But if you can come up with a suitable answer to that question, could you let me know?

Source.

May201017

Dungeekin

0

Betting Opens for ‘Creepy-Crawly Racing’

One of the competing Millipedes shows its competitive diet.

The UK Labour Party are to run a series of creepy-crawly races in Britain for the first time in 16 years, according to Millbank sources.

Creepy-crawly racing has not been seen in the UK since 1994, when a louse beat a dung-beetle and a horsefly in a one-sided contest. Races between loathsome creatures were subsequently banned, as it seemed the outcome tended to lead to damage to the country.

However, with the retirement of former champion gastropod Gordon Brown, Labour are to run a one-off Hurdles event later this year and have recently opened their entry lists.

The first runners for the 2010 Hopeless Case Steeplechase include two millipedes, both from the same stable though with different training approaches.

Betting pundit John McCririck said, “we’ve seen a lot of interest from the punters on the millipede entries. At the moment the smart money is on the older of the two – its recent diet of bananas should give it the legs in the long run. But don’t underestimate the other one either, it’s historically had plenty of energy and is a good outsider at a Burlington for a dark-horse win. Even though it’s a millipede, not a horse. Obviously.”

Other entrants are yet to declare, but there is some interest from the bookmakers on a female Black Widow, and an outside chance of a possible late-entrant leech, bred from a long-running stable of successful parasites.

However, there are still questions over the expected entry of Ed Balls to the race. While not technically a member of the animal kingdom, Balls is expected to enter the Hopeless Case Steeplechase on a technicality, in that he’s a spineless invertebrate that most people would like the chance to squash.

May201017

Dungeekin

0

Chancellor Orders Urgent Fiscal Review

Chancellor George Osborne ponders the profit margins in selling David Laws to medical science.

Chancellor George Osborne has ordered an immediate financial review, ahead of the new Coalition Government’s first emergency Budget on 22 June.

In a memorandum sent to all Government departments, the Chancellor has urged ‘a long hard look’ to determine precisely what cuts will need to be made, and just how completely skint the country is, amidst fears that the previous Government were employing the little-known ecomonic theory of ‘fantasy accounting’ to report and calculate the UK’s economy.

In the memo, exclusively obtained by The Diary, Mr Osborne says, “we must do all we can to find any money that might be left. Check all drawers and filing cabinets, and pull out the cushions from sofas in Departmental break-out areas. Don’t forget to check under the floor-mats of Ministerial cars. There’s GOT to be some cash, somewhere. Except in the Treasury, of course.”

Rumours that all former Ministers are to be recalled to their offices, held upside down and shaken until change falls from their pockets remain unconfirmed.

The Chancellor is also to introduce a new Office of Budget Regeneration, which will be tasked with actually getting hold of what little cash is left in the UK and using it to pay down the National Debt. While full plans for cost-cutting have not yet been published, initial suggestions include the sale of all Ministerial vehicles to webuyanycar.com, and the creation of a ‘Budget Cleanup Team’ who will wash windscreens at Westminster traffic lights for spare change from drivers.

Following reports in The Times that the outgoing Labour Government pursued a ’scorched earth’ policy leaving billions of previously hidden debts, making the UK’s fiscal situation even worse than previously believed, the new OBR is also to research a new ’stocks based’ approach to Budget regeneration, whereby former Labour Ministers will be placed in pillories around the country and members of the public invited to throw eggs and rotten fruit at the profligate scumbags. Conservative estimates put the revenue from this potential stream at close to £10bn – a figure that could well be doubled if the bankrupted Electorate were permitted to throw half-bricks instead.

May201012

Dungeekin

0

Cameron/Clegg Coalition Promises ‘New Way Forward’

Prime Minister David Cameron and his new Deputy, Nick Clegg, have shown a united front as they gave a first joint press conference promising a new way forward in British politics.

Walking through the Rose Garden of 10 Downing St. together, Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg held hands and gazed adoringly into each others eyes as they announced their new shared Cabinet, which includes 5 senior Liberal Democrat MPs in high office.

Mr Cameron said, “this is the dawning of a new age of politics. When I first became Leader of the Conservative Party, I said I wanted an end to ‘Punch-and-Judy’ politics. With a new start and a new approach, I believe we can now be more like Richard and Judy. The Election result gives us a chance finally to put an end to adversarial politics – this Hung Parliament has, and will, become the Hug Parliament. If I can hug a hoodie, I can certainly give Cleggie a cuddle.

“For too long, the Conservatives have laboured under the sobriquet of the ‘nasty party’, and this simply isn’t true. The Conservatives are nice. The Conservatives are lovely, fuzzy and snuggly, and we wuv evewybody, especially the wuvvely Wib Dems”, he added, fondly squeezing Mr Clegg’s cheek.

His sentiments were echoed by Mr Clegg, who ended their joint conference to the world’s media with a coquettish peck on Mr Cameron’s cheek.

Mr Cameron and his new ~~wife~~ Deputy have also announced that key Government roles are to be renamed to reflect the sentiments and objectives of the new coalition. Many Ministerial posts in the new ‘Hug Parliament’ are yet to be announced, however the key roles have been filled by a mix of members of both parties:

Kenneth Clark (Con) – Minister for Being Lovely to Criminals;
Andrew Lansley (Con) – Minister for Kissing It Better;
Vince Cable (LD) – Minister for Buttering Up Businesses;
Danny Alexander (LD) – Minister for Placating Porridge Wogs*;
Patrick McLoughlin – Chief of Politely Asking MP’s to Vote;
George Osborne (Con) – Minister for Spending Money Really Carefully;
William Hague (Con) – Minister for Friendships with Foreigners;
Teresa May (Con) – Obergruppenfuhrer.

Further appointments are expected to be made in the next few days, however Messrs Cameron and Clegg insisted that any and all appointments would be made in line with their new, shared political vision.

Both men refused to comment on media speculation that the Government are to appoint two Tellytubbies and a Care Bear to senior posts.

* The title of the new post, formerly Scottish Secretary, is subject to revision pending the outcome of local focus groups.**

** Once the local focus group has sobered up.***

*** Which will be sometime in 2018.