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Live
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3
February 2004
Quote
of the day
I noticed that
244 devout Muslims were killed in a stampede while on Hadj. [...]
One thing is
for sure: the CIA probably caused it. We know they sent secret messages
to all the Texans on the Hadj, so that none of them were killed. We
know this because no Texans were among the dead, and because a grad
student in Brazil told us so.
- Al
Maviva
link
Read this
Damian
Penny on
the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza:
There is no strategic
reason why Israel should be building settlements in Gaza, and considering
the resources put into maintaining them, I think Israel is doing the
right thing. But if the Israelis think this will somehow turn international
public opinion in their favor, they're sadly mistaken. Pulling out of
Lebanon didn't help them - to Arabs (and the likes of Robert Fisk) the
"legacy of Israeli occupation" is responsible for all of Lebanon's
problems, and pay no attention to a civil war which raged for 7 years
before the IDF showed up. Or the current Syrian occupation. Or the fact
that southern Lebanon has been turned into a de facto Hazbollah statelet.
Israel could
pull out of Gaza, and nothing will change. They can retreat to the 1967
borders altogether, and nothing will change. The Arabs want Israel destroyed,
period - and most of the world really couldn't care less.
Indeed.
link
Scrote
Our favourite
animated cadaver is reporting from the World Commie Forum in India.
Maybe the six
week break between these entries was as much of a relief to you as it
was to me. How sick I was in December at the sound of my impotent fury.
 He
reports on the exciting events:
For five days
100,000 delegates from all over the world crammed into vast, dusty exhibition
grounds on the outskirts of Bombay, united in the dream that Another
World is Possible.
Oh thank God these
guys are on the case. I was getting so sick of modernity.
It was a non
stop festival of singing, dancing and street theatre, with no Big Brother
or revolutionary elite, no corporate sponsors, no imposed vision. In
the thick of the crowds for several days I didn’t witness a single
act of drunkenness or bad behaviour, (apart from two dreadlocked media
reps), not even when delegates turned back the delivery trucks from
Coca Cola.
Sweet jesus, I'd hate
to get stuck in an elevator with this lot. You'd spend two hours discussing
Lima Beans.
It was a riot
of free speech and feisty debate.
Hey, sounds like Australia
or something.
There was even
a revolution against the revolutionaries, instigated by an aggrieved
phalanx of the disabled: “Look us in the eyes”raed the banners.
"raed"?
Most of all,
this was a solution-seeking celebration of ideas, of grass roots aspirations,
and a living, breathing demonstration of the massive, multi-cultural
yearning to turn the future into a friend, instead of a concentration
camp.
Except you're not
protesting against countries
which actually have concentration camps.
This hasty report
cannot do justice to the array of provocations lurking within the hundreds
of seminar tents, many of which could be regarded as “weak signals”
of oncoming issues of significance. Water, water everywhere, so much
of it privatised, re-branded and being pushed upmarket by multinationals,
who shut off the “blue gold” when payment is late.
Richard prefers people
to die of thirst. It's authentic.
The sovereignty
of citizens over natural resources, food, plants, DNA and even the building
blocks of matter is slipping away.
What the....
Oh, and you must read
his next paragraph, which I'll not paste here. It's about poison
skin creams being sold by the Pentagon.
You just can't make
this shit up.
Richard's finale is
the usual we're-going-to-die gloomism:
Deep down I realise
the forum will not change the world in a flash, that the gap between
rich and poor is widening.....
Never mind that there
are less poor, and many of them are getting wealthier.
....that sooner
or later we are all stuck behind the sink with a mortgage, watching
friends being carted off to chemotherapy....
Neville is horrified
by home ownership and modern medicine. Does this man have even the slightest
shred of sanity left?
....sighing as
comrades are cajoled by a cynical media into fussing over the contours
of Nicole Kidman’s lips, or is it her hips, turning our backs on
our past, settling for the shopping religion, reeling from gadget envy
…. no longer bemused by the wrinkled ex dope dealer’s offers
of bulk Viagra & Prozac , no longer amazed by promotions of IBIZA
HIPPIE CHIC the new perfume by ESCADA “ happy, wild, crazy, energetic,
excessive, trendy”. And meaningless. We’ve lost the Balearic
isles, we’ve lost Byron Bay. Can Brave New World be far behind?
Not if the World
Social Forum can help it.
So, they're going
to: stop the spread of drinkable water in the third world, prevent people
from wearing sun cream, ban home ownership and cancer treatments. Not
quite sure what the point of this is, but you can bet the explanation
contains the words America, NeoCons, Israel, McDonalds
and vegetables.
Richard Neville -
humanitarian.
link
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