Truly, our freedoms are at stake.  While notionally an idea to prevent copyright theft, it’s real purpose opens the floodgates for any undemocratic organisation to walk over our freedoms (such as they are) for which our forefathers slugged their guts out.  Read this, then either;

• walk away (wondering in a few years why you’re not allowed to do anything)
• or do something about it!

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ESA Notes Sheet ESA 40 04/09

That it was.  I first threatened and then did leave the Labour Party over it.  Right at the time they were trying to bring in Identity Cards and lock uncharged people away for 90 days, reduced to 42 days (yes really, they were – It’s like a bad dream) they also added some “rules” for state benefit claimants.  These are well explained at the top of Ron’s blog entry:

A police state for benefit claimants? « Ron’s Rants….

Ron writes;

It’s been brought to my attention that page 16 of the ESA Notes Sheet ESA40 04/09 contains this gem:- You must also tell us if you or your partner (among much else):- My parentheses and italics. go away from home, even if it is for a day

Ron (for it is he!)

And indeed it is so!  The document can be downloaded in full here on the DirectGov website.  A screenshot I’ve taken, highlighted the important bits and shown it here.  n.b. Ron is disabled, in several ways, not least by having the fat burned from the soles of his feet with a lightning strike!

Why Is This Important?

A.    Well actually, it contravenes everything that Britain and other freedom-loving peoples have fought for regarding the right not just to life, but to a decent life, free of oppression, free to move and enjoy living just for its own sake, the UK having signed up for all of this in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

It’s part of the United Nations Charter, adopted in 1948 and part of International Law since 1976.

Image via Wikipedia

Here are the bits in which the highlighted line in the screenshot above breaks the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

• Article 2: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status – BROKEN.  Ron’s status is different from others in that he is disabled.  And, by limiting his freedom of movement as described, this breaks
• Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. BROKEN.  Ron’s freedom of movement is not the same as those not on benefit.
• Article 5: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.  BROKEN.  It is degrading to have to inform faceless bureaucrats of one’s location on a daily basis.
• Article 12: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. BROKEN AGAIN.  It is degrading to have to inform faceless bureaucrats of one’s location on a daily basis.
• Article 27: Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.  BROKEN:  Ron cannot participate freely.  Neither can his partner (if he has one).  He must inform the government of his movements which then prevents his free enjoyment that life in a free society provides.
• Article 30: Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.  BROKEN.  The UK state has removed Ron’s rights as defined and make law in the articles above.

What Else is Bonkers About This?

You may have noticed I highlighted another line.  For the lazy, this is how it reads, and when you’ve read it, then realise how bad these draconian rules really are:

You must also tell us if you or your partner, DIE!!!

Laughable bureaucracy, eh?

Finale

Of course, I can see why the state may want to do all of this – the powers-that-be have been making a big play in rustling up public opinion against “scroungers”.  But what Labour started, the Tories, as I predicted, have taken all of this up with a vengeance.  True, it’s fine to have paid work and/or a vocation that enervates oneself.  It’s part of the human condition to feel wanted and valued among one’s fellows.  But it’s all wrong to penalise the weakest in society and those that need the most support, by infringing and removing their basic human right of free movement to enjoy the society we’ve created.

Q. How to solve the conundrum?

A.  I don’t know and I don’t care actually, because I’m not in government and don’t have the power to change.

Those that are, you know, the elected or non-elected ones who decide that they’re better than us, they’re the ones who must, should and can change the rules, because they’re the ones that set them up in the first place!

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Why?

All my sites go off-line tomorrow in what-is-to-be-hoped a world-wide protest against the proposed SOPA & PIPA acts in the USA.

SOPA? Briefly.

Under intense lobbying from the entertainment industry behemoths, the law, far from protecting copyright holders like myself, will actually make it a simple process for any person or organisation with enough ‘clout’ to close down whole websites or force them to change content without any call to the process of law which has been bloodily built up over centuries in our Western world.

This means that those with ‘clout’ can censor – anyone – for anything – on their own whim.

This is draconian.  This is bad.  Very bad.  Essentially, it’s the beginning of end of what little civilisation we have and the start of a dark dictatorial era which can only end badly.

Internet Content

The internet started and spread because content is king.  If SOPA goes ahead, content will be at the behest of and regulated by vast faceless pan-global entities.

• You will see what they want you to see.
• You will read what they want you to read.
• You will think what they want you to think.

My websites are just a pimple in the sea of internet content.  But many others are also closing for the day.  The 18th of January 2012 is the day the internet self-censors.  Many large websites are closing too.  It shows us what the future could become.

• For all you yanks reading this, follow the links to find out how you can help.
• For the rest of us, because the USA has traditionally and historically been a bastion of freedom, pray hard – because what the USA does affects us all.

Stop the SOPA Bill

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Sausages

Laws are like sausages — it is best not to see them being made.  Perhaps I should re-phrase this as:

The Rules of Law and International Diplomacy are like sausages — it is best not to see them being made

It’s a strange world out there.  Two recent political events have brought two previously unlinked ideas to my mind.  The events are:

• the Wikileaks exposures of Diplomatic communications between US embassies – the US Embassy Cables.
• the use of mercenary forces to suppress local populations in Bahrain and then Libya – see The Bahraini Authorities Recruit of Mercenaries from Makran Town, Pakistan and Bahrain: a different wind of change and Tuaregs ‘join Gaddafi’s mercenaries’

Wikileaks disclosures

Innocents Killed In Iraq by US gunship

For the Wikileaks disclosures, I see them as a highly embarrassing thing for those involved, but an empowering thing for us mere mortals who are divorced from the diplomatic process.  Normally, all the guts of the process are hidden.

In the case of the cover-up of the turkey shoot of unarmed civilians by US helicopter crews, it is something of which we should all be aware, no matter how discomforting for us.

In truth, we need better leaders in the West, people of real morals and guts so that we do not have to see the guts of innocents sprayed on the streets ever again to realise how crap the current bunch are.

Mercenary Forces

Mercenary forces I see as a fact of current and historical life, the old colonial powers especially – indeed, the UK has its own dirty hand in this.  For nigh-on 200 years the UK has even had its own full-time mercenaries, the Gurkhas, typically used in near-suicidal conflict situations.  Also, currently, from the standpoint of an Afghan tribesman, the British Army in Afghanistan could be seen as little more than mercenaries in the employ of a puppet king, Hamid Karzai.  For the tribesman, little has changed – there’s money about but he sees none of it whosoever is in charge.

Diplomacy

Sausage Making

In the meantime, we have diplomacy.  For the West, this is a world of essentially astute well educated  folk, usually adept in law not technology, that seek to make deals with not-so-nice folk for our own country’s benefit.

Because these deals are done at the guttural level, like sausage-making, it’s an unpleasant process to stumble upon – which is exactly what we’ve seen with the Wikileaks Diplomatic Cable exposures.  Naturally we are aghast that such things go on in our name.  For me, it seems to be a wholly unpleasant process in our current world and something I’d wish to eliminate.

Earth in an oil drop

Taking the current crisis in Libya;  for the previous three years the Blair/Brown Labour Government has made overtures with Libya, sold arms and even SAS training, but all with the aim of ensuring Libya kept it’s hands off the nuclear button.  Seems good-ish.  Laudable aims, jaw-jaw nor war-war and all that.

This process, now revealed, is ugly – but no more so than our current Prime Minister Cameron sucking up to some Gulf Arabs who, like Libya, run a similar kind of oligarchic, autocratic, nepotistic state, full of outlandish greed and luxury with no voice for the inhabitants!  Seems pretty bad.  ………   It is bad.  Really bad.  It’s the same process as before, and we only do it because we need their oil.   Forget about Grand Prix cars and World Cup Football – it’s all about the O. I. L.  – OIL.

So What to Do?

Use Oil?  Sell Bullets.

Most of the recent interventions of the West’s (let’s call them wars should we – after all, thousands have died?), have been into countries that maintain a nice, steady flow of oil to us rich, lazy, westerners.  We think nothing of flying the globe or motoring to the shop for a cheap item that has most probably already crossed the globe once on its way from China, so yes, it’s important we can do this, right?…

On the other hand, our presence in places like Sudan, Rwanda or Congo has been notable by our absence.  Millions have brutally died.  (a.k.a. we don’t care as you’ve no oil.)

Meanwhile our presence in places like Nigeria or Bhopal, India has been notable for our poisoning of the local inhabitants without a trace of remorse or compensation by those involved.

Not Use Oil?  Don’t Sell Bullets.

• 

  A Planned Self Sufficient Korean City

  Consider our own little part of the world.  It’s a place that many people in the world aspire to live because we are essentially free and most material things in our lives can be satisfied.

• Consider how bright and technologically advanced we consider ourselves to be.

Now consider a world where we eliminated our dependency on chicken dictatorships – a world where we used our technological prowess to eliminate the consumption of oil and our addiction to the making and selling of arms, mostly to these self-same oil rich oligarchies. It’d be a world where we, the citizenry,  didn’t have to look on aghast as all our tax money was spent on bribing simple crooks to talk to us nicely.

Surely, like Egypt & Tunisia, those sort of oligarchies would collapse if we stopped buying their oil and stopped selling them our finest weaponry?

And if they didn’t, so what? There’d be no need for us as a nation to be thrown into hypocritical situations and taking ghastly actions for which we’d later be thoroughly ashamed.  Those areas of the world could take their own destinies into their own hands.

Green Shoot Of Peace

And Diplomacy? For us, we should see more not less of the words and processes done in our name.  We are not children and sooner or later, if the diplomats have fucked it up, we’re going to find out anyway, much as we did after WW1, WW2 and anywhere else our sons and brothers get killed in someone else’s war.

• We need a proper, ethical, foreign policy.
• We need diplomats of guile and courage, just like now,  to promote it.
• And really, we really, really, need to be self-sufficient for all our needs and not rely on corrupt tin-pot states that have not left the Middle Ages in outlook.  This single thing is the most important thing for us and the peaceful futures of our immediate descendants.
• We need a bit of courage to do this – to wean ourselves off this drug-like dependency on crooks of no substance who happen to sit on stuff we just happen to need, now.  Lets use our technological nous and make the current now a thing of the past – like stone axes and bronze swords, historical curiosities.
• Mercenaries have courage – after all, if caught they’re usually the first one’s strung up.  See Dead Mercenary Taken to Tripoli Morgue, Libia Protests 2011.   But if the mercenaries have a proper home – what then?  There’d just be the few psychos like there’s always been, because you know, most people, even young hotheads, don’t want to wind up in an early grave.

Remember;

Courage is Contagious.

Get the t-shirt!

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Back in 2009, Trafigura nearly put the blockers on free speech and the reporting of parliament.  Twitter claimed to be part of this unlocking process…  whatever.  It was all to block the publication of the Minton Report.  A long BBC Newsnight video report was also blocked with the article mysteriously vanishing from the BBC website.

But Now?

Now the BBC article is found here, along with the banned video!  The video is below in two parts.  It was uploaded after its removal from the BBC website.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocwLgilzmV8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySImPiktYWg

In the second part video, Trafigura boss Erich de Turckheim fatuously states that nothing untoward happened with the poisoning vessel, the Probo Koala whereas last year the company was fined (only sadly…) €1m for the very same poisoning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySImPiktYWg

Trafigura also state that the emails are selective and biaised.  Well I’ve read them and they totally back up the BBC story.  Here they are.

Alastair Mullis – his view of damages.

In this video, Mullis, a professor of law, states that because the BBC paid damages to Trafigura over their story, this implied guilt.  It took Wikileaks‘ Julian Assange to point out thje fallacy in this argument. See video below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGshmyKhcX4

Trafigura’s View of Damages

Back in 2009, the BBC here told the Trafigura story which also includes a link to a statement from Trafigura here.  This Trafigura statement shows their view on the money that they had already paid to the Ivory Coast, prior to their EU fine.  It’s point 13:

The settlement involved no admission of liability. Trafigura believed that the settlement was the best way for the people of Abidjan, the Ivorian government and Trafigura to move forward.

The People’s View on Trafigura and Damages

W.T.F.?

The thousands of people affected by this corporate profiteering nonsense are of course left with bog-all except sores, child defects and an everlasting hatred for all things western.

This site has an even more enlightened view from the west about Trafigura.  Quoting the final piece:

The Trafigura case, like the financial crisis, suggests that in business there are people ruthless enough to shut their eyes to almost anything if they think they can make money.

Business without regulation is scarcely distinguishable from organised crime.

Regulation without strict enforcement is an open invitation to mess with people’s lives.

Tedious directives, state power and bureaucratic snooping – the interference that everyone professes to hate – are all that stand between civilisation and corporate hell.

Well said.  Jesse Willms take note!

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The appearance of “our” police is becoming more and more like some hellish dystopian vision of oppression from all the best science fiction of the last century.

Compare and contrast the two shots below; one from the finale of the BBC series Blakes Seven, the other from the Whitehall kettle during the recent student protest against fees increases.

Blakes Seven Federation Troopers

Student Protest

Blakes Seven Overall Plot Examined

Now check out the script description from the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) entry for Blakes Seven and you will realise how far along the route to totalitarian oppression we have really come since the futuristic script was written….

In the third century of the second calendar, a corrupt galactic federation, with Earth at its center, drugs its billions of citizens into placid submission. A rebel named Roj Blake, who once tried to organize a resistance group to overthrow this regime, was caught and divested of his memories.

But Blake’s revolutionary spirit is revived when he witnesses a mass slaughter by police that is covered up by the federation officials. He escapes exile on board a prison spaceship and, together with a lovable band of outlaws, takes over a vacant alien space cruiser of awesome drive capability. Naming their new ship as “The Liberator”, Blake and his group travel the Milky Way to seek any opportunity to undermine the evil federation.  (the emphasis is mine, SP)

Thank Goodness for Wikileaks!

Of course, this is exactly why Wikileaks is so necessary nowadays.  But just because it has become so wearily tiresome to see the endless evidence of corruption, torture and nepotism done in our name, does not mean we should not see and know about it!

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MIRROR

TERMINATED

Genuine Wikileaks Mirror © Foetus Products 1980 – 2010

http://wikileaks.foetusproducts.com/ pulled by Site5

This is a follow up to my post here.

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These images will take you to the current IP addresses of Wikileaks. It follows on from my earlier help to the organisation here when a bunch of Swiss bankers mysteriously managed to influence “independent” judicial decisions in America.

The fact that I even have to do this is an abomination on the face of our so-called freedoms.

Governments: Unfit for purpose.

The Wikileaks “Cablegate” revelations have ensured that the vested interests of non-elected mad Arabs (UAE, Saudis) insisting that the US should bomb an elected group of mad Arabs (Iran) are plain for all to see.

They’ve also have ensured that a whole raft of dirty tricks are now afoot. Coincidentally (not), as soon as Wikileaks released all the”Cablegate” stuff into a full download, the US Gov could then see what was coming and the dirty tricks have become even deadlier, nastier, and even less freedom-loving. It obviously proves that worse revelations are to come.

The Obamas/Clinton democrats are now joined in unison with the US republicans bellowing for instant executions without trial, Israelis, Arabs, Chinese and a host of other countries in an amazingly eclectic unholy alliance that proves that the whole diplomatic world is a very unhealthy cabal of back-scratching plebian egoists with the safety and reputation of their own peoples far below that of the maintenance of their own expanding clique of free-loading arse-lickers.

The fact that they can get the tiny oligarchy of the DNS servers to pull the website index globally on whistle-blowers says it all about internet freedom and even the Internet’s resilience to nuclear attack (yes – its first purpose was to ensure that all nukes got released and that there would be some vestige of command and control, when invented by DARPA).

The fact that normal journalism is now so economically cow-towed that they are for the most part meekishly submissive to the authoritarian demands of various states and multi-national corporations, also says it all.

The fact that sexual allegations against Wikileaks founder coincided with the start of the leak about helicopter gunships mowing down unarmed civilians in broad daylight and have since been expanded to continue with the recent shut-down of the site following an unprecedented DDoS website attack says it all.

The fact that Wikileaks has upset all sides of all governments says it all and reveals them all to be unfit for purpose.

It makes me wonder if my father should’ve bothered turning up at D-Day or Okinawa. What was he fighting for, or against?

Buddhism, Ikeda, Mandela and Education

Today (coincidentally!), Daisaku Ikeda in his Daily Encouragement address to the world, said;

Monday, December 6th, 2010

—- DAILY ENCOURAGEMENT —-

“It has been more than 20 years since I first had the privilege of meeting with Nelson Mandela, the lionlike champion of human rights. Recently, former President Mandela, who had just turned 92, sent me an inscribed copy of his latest book. …I wish to share these words…as an expression of my deepest respect: ‘To the youth of today I also have a wish to make: ‘Be the script writers of your destiny and feature yourselves as the stars that show the way towards a brighter future–for our country, our continent and the world.’ ‘Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world.‘”

What we see with the attacks upon Wikileaks, is an attack on freedom as it attacks the open knowledge base with which people need to be informed and thus educated. Without knowledge we are nothing.

We are like the women of Afghanistan, shackled by their surroundings of a male hierarchy and ignorant of everything except that which they’re told – except in our case, it’s our elected representatives who choose to hide the truth from us. And in the USA, with over 850,000 people now holding “top secret” status, (which is 1.5 times the population of Washington), we see that the weight of state machinery now devoted to hiding the truth, is immense.

What must be remembered, is that in nearly every single prominent Wikileak, the government has been found out to be doing bad things in our name. It’s nothing to do with national security as they claim, and everything to do with protecting those with comfy state jobs and a falsely clean reputation, no matter what they do.

Further Reading:

• WikiLeaks Exposes Rumsfeld’s Lies
• WikiLeaks: Internet backlash follows US pressure against whistleblowing site
• Opposing government and corporate censorship of the web
• WikiLeaks.ch goes down as EveryDNS pulls the plug again
• Mass-mirroring Wikileaks – unfortunately I cannot do this on this site until I find out how!
• WikiLeaks Now Has Hundreds of Mirrors
• https://twitter.com/wikileaks
• The Shameful Attacks on Julian Assange
• Swiss registry under pressure over WikiLeaks.ch
• WikiLeaks and the sham of “public diplomacy”

This is a copy of the main page entry.

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A. Simple.

All people in the public sector (i.e. in the service of the government) to have a salary of no more than the prime minister…

Gravy Train

Preamble

David Cameron is paid £142,500 by us, the taxpayer.  Tonight’s Panorama programme on the BBC reveals that thousands are paid more than the PM, notionally the most senior servant of the land.

Helpfully, the website includes a link to a 7 meg csv  spreadsheet of all salaries over £100k.  These were all obtained by public information requests, then collated.

My calculations from this spreadsheet reveal this information:

9187 = no. of persons with salary over the prime minister’s!

£1,552,802,065.00 = actual pay bill for the 9187 last year.

£1,309,147,500.00 = potential pay bill with the 9187 on the PM’s salary

£243,654,565.00 = potential money saved

In light of the current pressure on all public sector workers and following the scythe-like manner in which all union-negotiated contracts are being reneged upon by the government, I think they should be even-handed about this and put a salary ceiling of Cameron’s pay immediately on all civil servants, no matter how they are classed.  If the money comes from the taxpayer, they are servants of the state.  Period.

Then cut the existing salaries to that of the prime minister’s.

Q. Why should any public sector employee earn more than the prime minister?

Consequences

Of course, when the old excuse is rolled out about ensuring we get the best people for the job in the open market place, we now have a quick riposte!

If it’s alright for the highest position in the land, it should be alright for anyone, don’t you think?

I see some of the 9187 moving on and looking elsewhere.  But really – can the private sector swallow up that many state elite to give them the lifestyle that they’ve been used to?

Let’s give it a try and see, eh?  Let’s see how many move on and how many are willing to work for the prime minister’s salary?

Average Earnings 1990-2009

In fact, I predict a consequence that top private sector pay will be driven down by the standard economics of supply and demand.  Too many elite applying for too few places means employers can pick and choose much as they do now.  Except it’ll be cheaper for them and thus profits will rise…

In fact, it can be argued that high public sector rewards for the elite is actually driving elite private sector pay upwards in the same way….?

Yes?  I mean, can the private sector swallow up 9187 managerial posts?

Where would the BBC governor general go?

Where would the armed forces chiefs of staff go?

etc etc.  Think about it.

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(This posting originally released on 16 Dec 2007.  Reposted and edited because of the subject’s death.)

Claire and Tereska

This is a BBC News article on the women of the French Resistance who worked with De Gaulle in London and then went to Paris with him for the Liberation.

Tereska and Claire visit de Gaulle's headquarters in London

Claire is one of our local SGI Buddhist group and she has told me many stories of those times. Recently she was musing on what she would have done and what would have happened to her if they she’d been asked to join SOE (like some were) and be dropped in France (because of her good French etc).

She also mentioned about a sniper’s bullet aimed at De Gaulle that just missed him (and her) while he walked down the Champs Elysée but hit a young man from their London party who had had a premonition that he’d die if he went back to France with them.

I must ask her if it’d be okay to write more of this down for her (and us). She’s eighty odd, you know.

Claire Chicoteau

Postscript Added 28/6/2010

Claire died this week, peacefully, with her family around her, in France.  Bravo for her big, big,  life.  Too late to ask any more questions….

Information on her wartime exploits can be found here:

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7142424.stm
• http://genrehistoire.revues.org/index373.html#bodyftn29
• http://jcdurbant.wordpress.com/2006/03/27/comme-des-barbares-attention-une-face-cachee-peut-en-cacher-une-autre-d-day-for-french-revisionists/

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The other day, I posted about Northern Ireland and the US, comparing and contrasting the loss of life.  I ended by saying,

Why is America like this?

Why do they put up with such shit?

Well now, in some  news that in all probability no-one in the U.K. will know about at all, part of Philadelphia has had enough of the shit and been declared a State of Emergency by the mayor.  It’s a part of the big city called Chester where 11 people have been shot this month alone!  (Chester is about as big as Bridgwater here in the UK to put it in context). The full story is here and here’s the news report.

Quoting directly from the article,

Chester, Pa. – June 19, 2010 (WPVI) — In response to the ongoing deadly violence, the city of Chester is declaring a State of Emergency.

At a press conference Saturday afternoon, Mayor Wendell Butler declared he had enough and it is time to take action.

“We need law enforcement to step up, to vigorously go after any violator; our number one priority is to get guns off the street then drugs and try to make our neighborhoods as safe as we possibly can,” Butler said.

The State of Emergency took effect 9:00 p.m. Saturday.

From 9:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. each day in the five areas of the city, no person without a legitimate reason is allowed in any public street or place, no assembling of three or more people is allowed without a permit, and all vacation and personal days by members of the Chester Police Department have been cancelled immediately.

The State of Emergency is set to last five days.

Mayor Butler says he is going to City Council to ask for an extra 30 days.

Even in this tough economic time, he says money is no object.

“I’m not worried about money, if I have to break the bank, I’ll break the bank,” Butler said, “The residents and visitors to my town are just vitally important to me, you can’t put a dollar amount on that.”

The State of Emergency is being issued following another homicide that took place overnight.

One commenter on the story says,

WHY are the 5 sections of the city declared an State of Emergency, what about the areas in buck men villages: meadow lane, keystone road, pine lane, clover lane, 900 to the 1200 blocks, and highland ave. this is a war zone for violent’s and killings. I saw a man dead on a side walk with his brains all over. Does this sound normal to live like this? No but this is how people in buck men village live. If you pull up to your home and sit in car for a few minutes to say goodbye to your friend, you have guns put to your w…

..before he hit the 500 word limit.

But you get the gist of how bad it is, and how lucky we are in the UK not to have to put up with such continuous absolute shite in our lives.

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The Saville Report, probably the longest and certainly the most expensive enquiry in the UK ever, is now out.  The ramifications are continuing, despite the Prime Minister trying to draw a line under everything.  See Bloody Sunday report published

History

On that day in 1972, 13 folks were killed, and overall, in what are called “The Troubles”, over 3,500 people were killed in Northern Ireland in the 30 years between 1968 and 1998.  (see ref.)  This is about 130 a year, or about 11 a month. ( Also, during the 30 years, >47,000 were injured!)

Bloody Philadelphia

But let’s stick with the dead for now.

I’ve been following the local 6ABC News in Philadelphia for a bit.  It’s not happy reading.  Most of the news headlines are murder related.

For Instance

Last year there was a ‘random’ shooting at a funeral.  Afterwards, Taaqi Brown was caught and charged with killing Aaron Kearney, although apparently he was after one of Kearney’s friends, ( – so that makes it alright, then?)

These are black guys, and drugs and guns come into the story a lot.  See storyline links below:

• http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=6807239
• http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/take_action&id=6797834
• http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=7499300
• http://www.timesherald.com/articles/2009/05/09/obituaries/…txt (victim obituary)

Disturbing Philadelphia

Recently, Taaqi had been let out of custody accidentally, which is pretty bad for the law enforcement agencies.  He later turned himself in.  What is horrifically disturbing though, is the interactive map from the Philadelphia Police Department.

http://citymaps.phila.gov/CrimeMap/map….from=5%2f17%2f2010&to=6%2f16%2f2010

Click on it and you’ll see all the homicides in the city for the past one month.  This is only one month, not a year or a decade….

27 people killed!

Most of these are from gunshot.  Mostly, people have been murdered outside in the street.  These are the cold statistics.

But remember, Northern Ireland, for the whole of The Troubles, averaged out at 11 murders per month…..  This is just one month in Philadelphia!

Murderous, Troubled, Philadelphia

It means ol’ Philly is 3 times as bad as Northern Ireland.

What can they do?

Has it always been like this?

Do they want it to change?

Q. So which makes the best holiday destination?  N. Ireland or Philadelphia?

Q. Are they very similar?

Well, both Philadelphia and N.I. have similar populations of between 1.5 and 2 million souls.   But there, I’m afraid the similarity ends.

My own internal image I have of Northern Ireland is of it’s troubled times, but in all likelihood I could walk the streets yet not feel very “brotherly” towards the place because I’d be haunted by it’s past.  But I’d most likely be “safe”.

My image of Philadelphia is of the home of Benjamin Franklin and the Liberty Bell.  It means “The City of Brotherly Love” from it’s Greek meaning. I also have a vision of a  ‘tough’ place because of Will Smith’s signature tune from the Fresh Price of Bel Air.

But my new image is that it’s not somewhere that’s safe to walk the streets, or even drive.  27 murders a month is nearly one a day.

Northern Ireland was never, ever, as bad as Philadelphia now.

War On ??

The continuing “War on Terror” looks to be a misguided distraction from these figures.  The true war should be being fought on the streets of cities like Philadelphia and in the minds of it’s inhabitants.

Because, you see, what happens is that if these same “poor kids” involved in a society like this, decide that the only way out of their mess of a life, is to join the Army in it’s war on terror, then their poor grasp of right and wrong leads to the continuing atrocities that we see in Iraq, Afghanistan etc.  Things like the gunship turkey shoot below where American heroes heroically shoot unarmed civilians on the ground from afar… (We only know of this because of the great Wikileaks.  As usual, the government tried to cover it up.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0

This action and the continuing slaughter on America’s own streets by Americans is inexcusable.

Why is America like this?

Why do they put up with such shit?

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Lying sick in bed this morning listening to a Radio 5 phone-in about the “state” of our Accident & Emergency (A&E) healthcare system here in the UK, I was struck by the failure of the radio show’s producers to engender the expected flurry of tales of woe and poor service.

Happy and Immaculate Professionalism

Far from the engineered curses that the show had hoped to produce – instead, a host of people took the time to phone in and praise the excellent service, waiting times, courtesy and professionalism that they had witnessed, sometimes under conditions of the utmost duress (e.g. during the accident black-spot due to falls on the winter ice).

Proposed Cutbacks

We are now all primed for cutbacks in services in the UK to pay for the banks’ greed.  However, all parties promise to protect the NHS’s frontline services.

The UK spends less on healthcare per capita than the USA.  This is not in doubt.  In fact, the USA spends more per person than any other country.

But now, consider this news article from Philadelphia in Pennsylvania.  See how front-line healthcare staff are treated in the USA and consider the service you are likely to receive from such a system?

Link: Temple hospital, striking workers reach accord

Obama’s Broken Temple Problem

Philadelphia Nurses Strike

The nurses at the Temple Hospital in Philadelphia have been on strike since March 31st.  This much is clear.

However, in contrast to the UK (and most of Europe), all the staff appear to be on fixed term contracts which had expired last September.  In the UK, if you are good enough and pass all the tests, you get a job and keep your job (unless you need to move or progress in your career, say), to serve your local community.  As new techniques arrive, you pass more tests etc.  You build up your skills as part of a team.

In the USA, they appear to sack all staff from nurses downwards when their contracts are up, then replace all the staff with temporary staff!  This means that,

Most healthcare USA Workers are temporary…

The trouble is that all the right-wing forces at work there seem to believe that this is a good system and actually mock our NHS with comments like, “have you seen their teeth?”.  This is Obama’s problem with his efforts at healthcare reform.  The real truth is shielded from those in work and with private healthcare insurance, and they are a vociferous lot!

Healthcare?

The real truth is a warning:   Do Not Fall Sick Near Temple Hospital…. After all, what sort of care could one expect from a hospital staffed like that?  No matter how personally caring the staff are, there is no communication, no camraderie, no continuity, no honour.

In the dog eat dog world of America, it’s the last man standing who wins;  but what’s the point of being in a club of one?

Patriotic Battle

In fact, I have to question the sanity of anyone who would fight to defend a country (or it’s overseas interests) that treats it’s own citizens in pain with contempt and it’s caring profession with worthless indifference.

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The Deeper I Go, The More Knowledge I Know

Quite simply, there can be no true democracy unless the citizens of a country realize that they are sovereign, that they are the main protagonists, and then with wisdom and a strong sense of responsibility take action based on that realization.

Democracy cannot be successful in its mission unless the people rouse themselves to become more informed and involved, unless they unite, unless they establish an unshakable force for justice and keep a strict eye on the activities of the powerful.

Daisaku Ikeda, for Tuesday, April 13, 2010

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Indian police officers look down from a bridge at the wreckage of a bus after an accident in Sawai Madhopur district, nearly 185 kilometres west of Jaipur, India, Monday, March 15, 2010. (AP / Rajasthan Patrika)

The above headline is awful enough for the people involved, but in reality, it’s subject, a road crash, is common enough in my own country, the UK.

What is really bad is how the BBC is reporting this.  They should know better but essentially, they’ve reported verbatim the same “superiority complex” story being bandied about the globe in a “mass denigration” of India, (see here and here for instance), originally sourced from AP and which includes the objectionable phrase,

Road accidents claim hundreds of Indian lives every year. Most are blamed on bad driving or poor roads and vehicles.

There are two things wrong with this:

ONE:  The statistics are incorrect and they imply that somehow India is much worse than anywhere else.

TWO: The causes of accidents are reported as if they are specific to India, e.g. bad driving, vehicles, roads.  This is obviously wrong – my personal experience and the accounts of countless others tell me so….

Statistics

People are killed on the roads in far greater numbers than “hundreds” as the BBC and everyone else is saying.  Not only that, India’s figures are in the thousands, not hundreds, the same as every other country on the planet!…

You see,  ~4,000 are killed in the UK and ten times that, ~40,000 are killed in the USA!    Every year.

In the USA it’s so bad now that the main cause of death for people aged from 5 to 27 is on the road! (source)

Bad Driving? Bad Writing? Bad Editing?

So is it okay to compare bald figures?  What are they?

Of course, the statistics for India are hard to come by.  But this website for 1998 gives road deaths figures for India, North America and Europe as:

• India:               217k
• N. America:     49k
• Europe:             66k

From Wikipedia, these are the (2008) figures for population of the three areas:

• India:               1,150M
• N. America:     528M
• Europe:             830M

So from these figures, road traffic deaths per 100,000 persons are:

• India:               18.8
• N. America:     9.3
• Europe:             8.0

So India is about twice as bad as the two major OECD areas in the world, for road deaths as a percentage of population size….  Not that we can all sit easy in our Western smugness….  there are still 10 people dying every day in the UK, on the road.

(I know the above calculations are back-of-fag-packet stuff and the data doesn’t line up correctly, date-wise.  As I said, Indian data is hard to come by. This document makes plain that the OECD median is 7.8 for 2007, which is close to my calculations, and my calculation uses figures from the same year for each geographical zone down a given metric.)

USA Paradox?

But what about the distance travelled?  Surely Americans drive more and thus crash more compared to their fellow Europeans which will lower their rates?

This document again makes plain that the above supposition is false!  When allowance is made for distance travelled, the USA fares only slightly worse than the UK for deaths per 100 million vehicle kilometres; 0.8 compared to 0.6

But this “slightly worse”, in percentage terms, is about the same as the whole variation across all OECD countries, N. America and Europe as seen above.  This means, that Americans DO drive farther, but they still crash at their same higher rate compared to Europeans.

Conclusion

Where does this leave India?  As I said, the data is hard to come by.  But that’s not the point, is it?

The point is that the reporting of this bridge crash is being done in a mocking, superior way, and we have nothing at all to be smug about in the arena of road deaths.

NOTHING.

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