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Disturbing Trends
political comment in our turning world
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Wednesday, October 02, 2002
It is not all that suprising that the US should not continue to maintain its level of threat. Conversly, it is suprising that the US should want to invade Iraq. It was a surprise that the US should be motivated to invade Afganistan. In twenty years, will Vietnam recover its civilization any better than Afganistan? Who knows. It may all be America by then. If that is not the intention of agression, then what is the point of the US spending 100 billion on an invasion which will go on costing far into the next two adminstrations.
3:37 AM
Tuesday, September 10, 2002
This link much hit this day shows what the Iraqi threat consists of. The Left seems to have responded to the Bush battlecry that Inspections are The Answer. But what is the question? If Bush had asked for Inspectors, the Left would be demanding aid. That is the way of politics.
That Iraq has WMD is one thing, but let us just remind ourselves that many other countries already are in possession of WMD. Iraq does not really qualify in the same league as, for example, France, who's advanced nuclear capability puts it beyond the reach of an invader. (Being part of EU may also work for the French).
One generation of war children were convinced that the A-Bomb was the solution to war.
The trouble is that it is not. It is too effective so nobody dares use it, unless the enemy is helpless to respond. Remember the Gulf war? America killed 80,000 hapless Iraqi soldiers while losing just a few of their own to their own bullets. Iraq ineffecively lobbed a few scud missiles but it was little compared to the drubbing they have received ever since. I ask you, who is more likely to use a nuclear warhead? Iraq, Pakistan or America? The international reaction to the scuds was highly disproportionate to the actual threat they posed. It was the nature of the threat.
Iraq may pose an enormous threat to America in that losing Saddam as a bad guy may impede Saudi relations. Yes they should have finished the job, they already knew he was terrifying and evil. To go after Saddam now with military gusto and bravado may run out of steam before America can justify what it would have to spend to assimilate Iraq into its jurisdiction.
It already has its moderate Government in Kabul, with all the stability of a hairdo with wings.
Jimmy Carter
4:32 PM
Biotech Story
If Osama and his den of thieves were to "win" our world would grind to a halt.
That, not being at all likely, gives us new nightmares which are starting to sound more alarming like the spate of truly silly spider films that seek to reprogram our thinking about these sweet, well intentioned creatures. If, by some wild chance mixed with good old science were to generate arachnids large enough to fight tanks, I ask you, were will all that gloop come from?
And...Gasp! What if our children's thinking could in fact be programmed to contain only those objects we have approved. Would we evolve a carefully sanitised and ordered world suddenly overtaken by some more evolved brat that can think outside of the collective.
Oh Gosh! The possibilities of progress under a ruthless and irresistable campaign of eternal obedience. The disturbing thing is the power base or financial centrifuge itself adopting the principles that held it in shadow. It is how organisms improve. Because the security forces were overwhelmed by clear thinking about vulnerability, it follows that these security forces adopt more focused and direct responses. Evolution works.
Then again, I thought twice before featuring a hacker page of replacement personalities for those Sony Dog things people keep as "pets". Somethings are just not worth having. How do you know it isn't part of some electronic conspiracy and may receive a new instruction from its community any second to change.
Ominous.
10:01 AM
Sunday, September 08, 2002
Noam Chomsky
Although the pure poetry of the writing of the great linguist would be happier to live under Chaos Matters , it is more predictably found here.
This article was published in The Guardian .
This is the British newspaper that said 100 planes when mr bush meant 25 planes. Why can't they get it right?
8:31 PM
Each day we wake a few minutes earlier, in order to pull back the atomic clock or at least enjoy the dawn while it still exists.
The Disaster Calendar may be a better metaphor, with just a few safe-ish days not stroked in red marker. Disturbing. One day has perhaps an asteroid the size a small mountain brushing our atmosphere within the next million or two years, or an unmanagable plague tearing humanity after shreads evolve past biological threats escaping from a future genetic nightmare laboratory.
We are here. The age of not knowing where things come from. When war is called excercises which just happen to kill a few of the probable enemy combatant personae friendly fire kills "our boys" painting an inaccurate picture of absolute sacrifice when in fact its risk minisation that let the Bin Laden mob escape.
It is only a matter of time. So hold on, and enjoy your part of the ride, its all downhill from here.
It is like Mr Bush believes in the end of the world as predicted in Armageddon. But like most big egos he has written himself into the starring roles, "with the Big Guy".
If America uses all the oil, it will make more money, and since the world is just a creation of God, His Divinity can simply make us saved ones a new playground.
Scarey way to think. Certain dinosaurs were perhaps thinking how good it was to be able to eat as much Blue Lupin Spine as they could get their jaws around, they were so in love with it. Until they ate it out of existence, and they followed suit.
1:05 PM
Saturday, September 07, 2002
Every so often the blogger should take you to one side and whisper in your ear: this is the way things are done around here. This is one of those entries.
Blogging is perhaps an art and gives us all a chance to rave, and a few of us are serious readers, if not writers, trying to create a record of our times.
Some of us are military sorts, some are dreamers some are jelly-spined liberals and some of us are ordinary people, astonished at the lengths others go to maintain a balance of power between the people guests of this fragile glass world.
It is fairly easy to see the direction of this glob but writing liberal stodge every day is not my aim. But to express dismay, to release my feelings of anaethema to war so that when the time comes, I can still write rationally about it.
I am encouraged, a little fiction set loose from the log jam. And the latest poetry appears in Chaos Matters, regularly.
The last couple seem to be developing.
It must be spring (on the Southern Hemishphere).
2:17 PM
Friday, September 06, 2002
From NZ Herald
"You have a low-grade headache about the war on Iraq, but the real pain in your stomach is the economy," said Jon Brorson, director of equities at Northern Trust Co.
and from another article in the
NZ Herald we can see what The rest of the World wants America to think about may cause headaches not always stomachable.
Weapons inspectors with an armed guard, 50,000 troups is not an invasion, is it. I am sure Saddam is expecting 50,000 troups to accompany weapons inspectors.
Then we can all be truly scared that perhaps that guy that made Independence Day now is trying to scare us with many large ariachnids. Roland Emmerich. Good film maker, not so good story teller. Now I feel this is true blogging, the self-referencial dribble stuff slash news commentary that entertains about 500 people quietly chuckling or quickly closing yet annother rave about da war!
I had been avoiding, but tonight, well tonight is the night to cross over to my poetry blog Chaos Matters where I may attempt to write about Mullholland Drive. Or something along those lines.
It is sometimes a bit more disturbing that the silly real world and the extra dumb war which seems to have started without anyone actually taking responsibility for it - see The Guardian . So the UK and USA are dropping bombs on Iraq not all that far from the capital city. Why has war not been declared? Is that why Tony is off to spend the weekend with George and all this talk of history in the making, pictures of GW against Mr Rushmore and Churchillian expressions the new gait of Blairs visage.
I wonder if war needs to be declared in this case. Why should anyone care? We all seem to have a strange little voice telling us how inevitable it is becoming and that there is little to differentiate Hitler from Saddam Hussein. We lived with Stalin and Mao who killed far more, but America must have a guilt complex far deeper than anyone had imagined for them to go after Saddam, unless of course they are on the money, and then, well - tally ho boys, good luck out there, all that. But until the world sees the evidence the lurking voice in the back of everyone's head will turn around and say "no, this isn't right no more..."
Maybe GW Bush has the moral authority because his father created Saddam, and bin Ladin. Well, they didn't really, but they have never disputed it, and their actions certainly bolstered and helped each into power. The rest was of course up to their own devious or brilliant deeds.
That's enough for one night. I hope the war is over, tomorrow.
6:59 AM
Wednesday, September 04, 2002
NZ Herald
Native rights
Our wonderful PM teetering after a sure fire election nightmare, has become the lone voice to speak out against injustices to the farmers of Zimbabwe.
That Mugabe attempts to protect his homeland rights for "his people" by acts of violence or force against the rule of law is the naked actions of dictatorship, and need we point out his policies are racist?
Indeed, but is he right to pick on the English heritage of some of his citizenry or did that method of human selection get kind of outlawed when the Nazis were exterminated and the forces of evil totally cleaned off the pate of this shiney planet?
In the same way that terrorism is not wiped out by causing it, you can not correct the wrongs of a past generation by victimising their inheritors. If there is a case to answer it of course is imperative that Mugabe respect human rights and allow due process to apply to any evictions through established legal criteria.
Helen Clark may be from a less than significant country but she is just as significant a politician as Powell, who was pretty much the factor that allowed Bush to take office. That and Florida. But Powell has been sidelined from the start, his seemingly moderate views is Bush's Good Cop and Rumsfeld is just one of many bad cops that justifies.
To hear him decry the illegal deeds of the dictator Mugabe must have been truly galling to those who share some of his racial characteristics but none of his inner workings.
Powell may not seem all that significant in the American Government equation as his speech seems to indicate, but his position in American history is already well established.
2:42 PM
Friday, August 30, 2002
Rail weight
Auckland, New Zealand has one of the worst rail systems in the world. Or is it a fortunate thiing for this car happy city with one slender artery over its harbour connecting the two largest sectors of local industry.
The queues of industrial trucks in the central city are a great concern as are the majority of buses being empty and a self styled self made millionaire Mayor John Banks who annouced yesterday that 200 homes are to become a superhighway, spending the cities $1B reserve on a road to allow much more industrial convergence in the "center", i.e. the single harbour bridge link.
The sorry state of public transport here was briefly subjected to a mad fling by successive previous Mayors - in the form of an underground railway to the central shopping zone.
In overdeveloped countries like the UK and USA the rail networks are in need of expensive maintenance. Maybe that we have not got that infrastructure will have economic and ecological consequences for Auckland, bugger the environment though - I predict that air pollution in central Auckland will get steadily worse over the next fifteen years as more and more traffic condenses and the air, already foul for a clean city, will be sour and acidic.
10:02 AM
Tuesday, August 27, 2002
USA Slave Reparations
Naked Writing
kuro5hin
We focus upon the facinating criteria of liability by unpremedidated association.
What was being suggested just before Sept 11th kind of interrupted the discussion seemed to be an economic reparation for lost wages due to slaves as they were forcefully hired.
This has been achieved by political means in Aotearoa (New Zealand), Maori lands previously traded for blankets and guns have been returned by the Crown (ie the Government being a representative of the Commonwealth Queen) to the indigenous people.
It is also true that the US Slaves had no wage agreement. There were however stolen from their own progress in their own land and its historical development.
It is also true that slavery existed in Africa long before America started plundering Africa for manpower.
Therefore, would it not actually make more sense that since these people were forcably removed from one country by another, that it is America, as a nation, that has the debt to Africa.
To repay Africa would require the US Governemnt to pay hundreds of billions of dollars.
So the logic to wipe third world debt as a corrective paradigm to the supreme arrogance of America's empire building may resurface as a solution.
Sept 11, part III will however outsell this show at the box office.
6:14 PM
Monday, August 26, 2002
Real Imagined Enemies
ABC News
"What we must not do is in the face of a mortal threat is to give in to wishful thinking or willful blindness. We will not simply look away, hope for the best and leave the matter for some future administration to resolve."
Yes. Mr Cheney. The only mortal threat I see here is the one you are making rattling your sabre. The world will not be able to look away if you start invading countries without proper cause, and in this case that has not been established. Establish your proper cause and convince the world then you will be heroes, otherwise you will be treated with deserved scepticism.
One can not technically be blind to information that nobody can see.
Of course one hopes against hope that things may one day get better in Iraq.
Everyone agrees that ousting Saddam may be a good idea, but can America afford to pick up the pieces or have any will whatsoever after the man is dead.
Or will future generations have other problems to contend with if you go in there with guns blazing. Can even your president's popularity extended over a potential for hundreds of thousands of casualties?
Get the threat into perspective. Try not to spill American blood for no reason. Saddam will die one day regardless. Get Iraq back into the UN for godness sake.
7:01 PM
We care, do we?
The Independent
John Turner, the head of the American delegation, stressed his country's opposition to the whole idea of timetables. "I think it's important that we realise that those targets are no more than lofty aspirations, which sit somewhere in the rafters of the UN or somewhere else," he said.
Have the Americans devised a new method of managing change events other than the seeming logic of (a) set real target which bring about real change and (b) commit resources and effort to achieving those targets and not waste resources doing something else.
It would seem that is not the American Way. It would seem that continued mass extinction of anything not American (now seen an UnAmerican) and the assimilation of the greedy into the American machine may be the alternative America is offering.
Is it frighteningly that simple?
10:11 AM
Saturday, August 24, 2002
This Plague of Tragic Proportions
Nearly the entire adult population of some villages was infected almost simultaneously in the 1990's as poor farmers flocked en masse to blood collection stations whose unsterile practices introduced hefty doses of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, directly into their veins. Now, the victims ? including many married couples ? are falling ill and dying almost in unison.
When you stop to consider how a social system could unwittingly but effectively wipe out its poorer population, inherent social arrogance ensured AIDS made a giant footprints of death via economic slavery and blood trade - it brings Western fears about smallpox and anthrax into perspective.
It is tragic to consider how a million infected human beings and enforced social denial of the possibility of AIDS infection running rife has given the infection a real chance of causing human extinction.
The West shudders under the threats of anthrax and smallpox, while AIDS erases a sizeable portion of the population of China, India, Africa and the Third World by 2100.
If you really think about this with a cool head, it makes Pres Bush's avoidance of the Earth Summit appear more than just ill-informed, it seems almost complicit with an understanding that the world population may actually be lower by the end of this century than it is now.
2:24 PM
Pornography in the Office?
Separately released statistics state that 70 percent of Internet pornography traffic occurs during the 9-5 workday.
If that is true, then you would simply encounter it in the office everyday as 70% is the majority. But it adds whole new dimensions to letters signed "Yours faithfully".
Research from IDC claims that 30-40 percent of all Internet surfing is non-work related, and Nielsen/NetRatings states that 60 percent of online purchases are made during business work hours.
It would seem that the working human is evolving into one that may not always follow instructions. Feed them more money and all will be well. And encourage on-line shopping at work, its the new economy, stupid, and it saves your staff valuable time getting to know their partners at home. Then the incidence of shagged but happy workers will increase, and the first statistic would start to drop.
1:27 PM
Wednesday, August 21, 2002
Why Bush won't go
I guess that this explains a lot.
9:54 PM
Ok back to the world, with the Earth Summit being presented with a dystopian future , we are encouraged to grow more it seems in a related article.
"If we are going to conquer poverty we have to have growth, and at a serious rate," said Nick Stern, the bank's chief economist. "If that is sustained over the next 50 years and environmental issues are not addressed, growth will be derailed."
What is the point of there being more and more people if it just makes it more difficult to sustain life? How do we address "environmental issues" is growth is our religion, will not its necessities be served? What if our economic system itself placed a different set of demands upon our values and growth was very moderate. Then we could achieve sustainability without trying to squeeze more out of a world which is not giving it to us without enormous costs.
At what point will we have gone too far?
9:22 PM
Tuesday, August 20, 2002
I am fondly disturbed by my propensity to open far too many windows when I am uploading a website and everything gradually bleeds into existence, and then my stupid laptop crashes, probably overheating. My efforts to put on an external fan work effectively, but I don't want to buy a soldering iron.
Has anybody thought of conductive blue tack yet?
6:10 PM
Monday, August 19, 2002
Blog is behaving badly. Tut tut. What next...
7:44 PM
The Guardian
Abu Nidal found dead - or shouldn't they say, Abu Nidal assasinated? But, if he commited suicide, once can hardly doubt the logic. He was horrid. How could he be a happy man, having to live with himself committing acts of genocide?
We all have to die sometime...
Perhaps the CIA has studied the methods of the Quaeda mob and realized to assasinate someone it is better to go do it oneself rather than trying to create another Saddam to do it by proxy? Or has Mossad infiltrated Iraq?
Goodness. It is some relief to note the passing of this terror leader as a suicide. An assasination could have been executed by just about anybody, including Saddam or the CIA. It would be more interesting to know what happened, really.
What comes next? Has the war actually started?
7:19 PM
Guardian Article
Right Wing think tanks are a necessary balance to Left Wing think tanks, but the trouble with the American political system is that one side seems to want to shut the other down, when the Republicans go into power, they post all the right Judges on the Supreme Court - it is their way of evolving a better and more efficient way of governing the massive resource that is America.
The trouble is though that they are using the world's resources out of proportion to the benefit, except medium term economic. When the entire machinery turns round and is constantly indoctrinating the "democratic" population, it is incumbent upon the guardians of democracy to go back to inner and outer space exploration as a priority, rather than seeking to burn the oil candle blackening the atmosphere. Haven't the weather anomolies of the past 10 years affected America as well as now deluging Europe?
Freedom to think outside of the extreme bounds of American politics is something these opinioned types seem to lack.
America starts to fail the test of a true democracy.
7:02 PM
Guardian article
If Mr Bush decides to threaten Iraq with military intervention, well, they are hardly going to want weapons inspections just before a war. They are hardly going to want their enemy (and Mr Bush does seem to fill those boots so readily) to know how they may defend their country. If, for example, Canada was suddenly planning to invade America, Mr Bush would hardly let the Mounties in to count America's arsenal, now would he. Military secrets are secret to scare off potential opponents.
Of course one could doubt that Bush actually will go through with it, but I suspect that a justification for action will arise as soon as there are enough troups handy to Saudi Arabia - perhaps Bush has a hidden agenda.
But it seems he is on slipperly ground.
6:52 AM
Is Mr Bush being a racist? He has defined certain countries as an "axis of evil". Plus of course, Saddam. Why is Iraq not part of the 'axis', then? Is Saddam the only evil one there?
6:05 AM
Sunday, August 18, 2002
Planet in Peril
The Earth Summit is examining issues to stop the growth of humanity destroying the possibility that are future generations will be welcome here, on earth.
And I am worried that the new look for this blog may be consuming too many colours when nearly half the world's population do not have access to fresh clean water.
The removal of the world's forests has to stop. Already we are experiencing climatic change, and this is bound to continue over the next 100 years. But if the need for growth just continues unabated, we may only experience 50 or so more years inhabiting this earth.
The need for faster agriculture (by genetically modifying plants) will possibly result in more food, but what breeds faster and eats more than a pair of mice? How about ten pairs of mice? Or a thousand?
What are we doing?
4:08 PM
Just seen "Cats and Dogs" in which humans are totally stunned to discover that cats and dogs have a secret society each and TALK! Of course the film makers resort to tricks such as CGI graphics and puppetry to do the Mr Ed thing on their mouths and terribly meaningful expressions.
But it gives a disturbing dimension to the idea that a dog may be your best friend. Until you discover how the clever little fiend is watching your keystrokes and now knows your bank account number and ...
See also: ApeSpeak article on Naked Writing
3:57 PM
While we were reading the Herald, we found this delight.
Riders on the Storm
We are disturbed by the every increasing reliance upon surveys of confidence as an economic marker which is purely political. Economics trends may be caused by the way people feel, but when you tell your population that they feel good all the time, but their productivity stinks, well isn't that a bit like newspeak?
2:34 PM
We list the NZ Herald as it is possibly the first newspaper in the world to cover international news stories - first thing in the morning as the sun rises over the long white cloud.
Since the Internet started to provide the grass roots with some power the giant multi national companies have been losing business to its own public, serving themselves.
It used to be the cost of a CD pressing plant that protected the music industry. Then Napster got bought out. But now the copy cats. Listen4ever.com, a China located Napster type site has escaped the legal net that stopped Napster.
So the big music companies are now suing the big Internet companies. We have giant media companies suing giant providers of bandwidth. It is strange to see AOL Time Warner suing AT&T, but there we go.
When the men in dogs tooth jackets have finished exploiting artists, and decimated the internet infrasture in their war against efficient delivery of their product, who then will they go for?
My flatmate most likely, who copies so many CDs whilst singing loudly in the shower, that the entire building is broadcast the latest hits by Kylie and nearly all the INXS library.
We have secretly asked the entire building to not tell the music companies since the power of his voice may be found, in law, to be broadcasting.
We are profoundly disturbed so shall consult a lawyer to ensure they do not start trying to control his vocal chords with a writ.
2:30 PM
Friday, August 16, 2002
Disturbing Trends broke, so I started another disturbing trends blog and this is the first entry and now I feel that is a disturbing development.
Just so you know the second oldest entry is the broken one you will find in the first edition of Disturbing - preserved for your delights here . But on with the war.
It broke blogger. I thought it best to preserve the bug without changing it too much, so DTnews is born, the child of Disturbing Trends. It will be renamed Disturbing Trends when the new graphics are ready...
12:16 PM
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