Many on the left have eagerly pounced on the issued by Amnesty International released earlier in the week. Certain extracts have become particular favourites: “Washington has become ‘a leading purveyor and practitioner’ of torture and ill-treatment and that senior officials should face prosecution by other governments for violations of the Geneva Conventions and the U.N.
Convention Against Torture.” Predictably, overblown rhetoric such as this has reinforced the contempt and worst suppositions of those opposed to the Bush administration and their feckless misadventures in the Middle East.
Not to excuse the behavior of the BushCo in any way, but in all fairness, it’s actually pretty small beer, as they say in Blighty.
(Yes, I know that sounds rather callous, but things need to be put in perspective.) There seems to be a curiously amoral equivalency at work here that attempts to put the U.S.
on a par with countries like Haiti and North Korea. Clearly, that is just completely preposterous nonsense. For example, here are a just a few gems from the Amnesty report pertaining to other countries:
Uzbekistan:
Evidence reportedly obtained under torture was routinely admitted in court and there was no presumption of innocence.
Death sentences and secret executions continued on a large scale…
Yemen:
Hundreds of people were killed, including many who may have been killed unlawfully, during armed clashes between security forces and political opponents… The punishment of flogging continued to be imposed by courts and carried out.
Burundi:
Serious human rights abuses by all parties were reported, including unlawful killings, torture including rape and other sexual violence, abductions and unlawful detentions. Some 4,788 people remained in detention without trial.
Well, that’s just a casual sampling. Go for yourself and see how nasty, disgustingly horrible and completely depraved we as human beings can be. In fact, there are almost 150 countries covered in the Amnesty report, including the most reprehensible of totalitarian regimes (more than a few of whom are ostensibly U.
S. “allies” it should be noted). Yet the brunt of the editorial scourge — in the passages most widely cited in news reports — is reserved for America, not just for its rightly condemned mistreatment of suspected terrorists, including the abhorrent torture that was inflicted on detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, but for generically and systematically “thumbing its nose at the rule of law and human rights.
” Such alleged disdain for the rule of law and the preeminence of human rights has, Amnesty contends, provided a green light for tyrants around the world, who need only to cloak their abuse of power within the rubric of the war on terror. What utter piffle. Yeah, as if dictators ever needed the thumbs-up from Washington to oppress their own populations.
Give me a break.
Amnesty International may be loath to validate what they quite tellingly refer to as the “so-called war on terrorism” (and yes, they do make a point of putting that expression in quotation marks whenever it is referred to) but there’s no such restraint in its rhetorical assaults on the U.S.
Guantanamo Bay, as an example, “has become the gulag of our times.” Oh, really? The American military base in Cuba may indeed be a rotten, shitty place where mostly Muslim detainees have been ill-treated and humiliated.
But a gulag? As in the Soviet forced labour camps, which some 20 million miserable souls passed through during the Stalinist era, their existence not even acknowledged, their fate largely unknown?
Wholeheartedly accepting the Amnesty report in the skewed, biased form in which it was presented and simply cherry-picking those aspects that reflect poorly on the questionable practices of the Bush administration, seems to me like foolishly courting the sort of “America-bashing” slur that liberals are so frequently tarred with by Coulter, Limbaugh, Hannity and their ilk.
The sort of relativist exculpation of global tyranny expressed in the report makes it that much easier for right-wing blowhards to dismiss claims about the fundamental immorality of the War in Iraq and its bloody consequences by wrapping themselves in the flag under the disingenuous pretense of rallying behind the troops.
Update:
Speaking of Gitmo, James Wolcott on his modest proposal that the facility be converted into a bird sanctuary. As he says, “This would prove to be a popular goodwill gesture in the region and provide a popular resort for migrating avians.
The cost and upkeep would be far less taxing than the maintenance price of keeping suspected terrorists in orange jumpsuits behind barbed wire indefinitely.” Now there’s an idea I think we can all get behind!
Some fun with Photoshop® from Billmon’s ever-delightful and provocative .
“Scenes We'd Like to See” the post is headed. Indeed we would fully concur with that sentiment. Be sure to check out the original larger version of the pic.
Perhaps this surreally imagined scenario helps explain the Bush administration’s largely uncontested declaration several years ago that it would ignore decisions and orders issued by the International Criminal Court — an action that effectively neutralized Bill Clinton’s signature to the treaty creating the court.
Click of the various induhviduals taking up residence in the dock if — oh, how one only wishes — there was a tad more justice in the world.
For whatever harebrained reason, over the past weekend I decided to briefly venture into the hostile territory of .
A somewhat, um, interesting experience, but not one I’m likely to repeat any time soon. The initial topic of “discussion” that interested me concerned the impending fall of the Liberal government. But oddly enough, my entré into the fray wasn’t even on that point — it resulted simply from taking issue with someone who unequivocally contended that socialism had utterly failed around the planet.
When I pointed out there were a number of examples to the contrary, this elicited a furious broadside from the usual bunch of shrieking brownshirts, knuckleheads and Etch-A-Sketch wingnuts.
Subsequent remarks about what I believe to be the cynical maneuvering and posturing of both the Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois of late (while at the same time admitting the rottenness and corruption of the Liberals, I might add) invited another salvo of overheated rhetoric and pounding abuse. Capping off the engagement the following day was a “discussion” concerning Newsweek’s bungled reporting about the supposed flushing of the Qu’ran that I suggested was an unfortunate, but not altogether surprising, outcome of the extreme secrecy surrounding the internment of prisoners at Gitmo and other extra-judicial facilities used to detain and interrogate suspected “terrorists” without government oversight, public scrutiny or accountability.
No reasonable answer to this point of view was provided of course — simply the usual knee-jerk denials and outrage maintaining that no such thing could conceivably have taken place (notwithstanding the litany of well-documented abuses, torture and humiliation based on religious taboos that are known to have taken place) and a hostile condemnation of anyone having the termerity to defend the story that was reported by Newsweek. When this eventually devolved into a completely futile argument about toilet physics, I finally cut anchor and called it quits. Charming little circle-jerk they have going on below decks over there at CQ.
Uh, oh, here’s some trouble for evangelical literalists. It seems that Satan has been deceiving us for the past 2,000 years and the Number of the Beast isn’t actually “666” but the far less menacing “616” (The area code for Michigan by the way… get out your foil hats conspiracists!) This conclusion was apparently derived from previously undecipherable manuscripts dating back to the 3rd Century, including the Book of Revelation.
Parker explains that “early Christians would use numbers to hide the identity of people who they were attacking.” In his opinion, “616” refers to the Roman Emperor Caligula.
How “Representative” is the CA? Okay, sometimes we just can’t leave things alone. A few days ago whilst ruminating on the STV issue, I made a cursory speculation wondering about the supposedly “representative” nature of the Citizens’ Assembly that I found potentially troubling and fundamentally absurd.
Well, it seems that Dr. Vernon Neis (Emeritus Prof. of Civil Engineering, U.
of S.) had attempted to weigh in on this very issue with the Kelowna Daily Courier (who, for some strange reason, refused to publish his missive). Dr.
Neis was good enough to write me about this, so I’m more than happy to provide space here to air his opinion in full:
“In letters, Daily Courier, April 28, Ms. Barbara Greeniaus, Director, Referendum Information Office, Victoria attempts to put the record straight with respect to the selection process for members of the Citizens’ Assembly. She states that no one could volunteer to be on the Assembly and letters were sent to people chosen by a random draw of 15,800 names from the provincial voters’ list.
What Ms. Greeniaus fails to mention is: the initial mailing was to 15,800 but response was not good enough so 2nd and 3rd mailings were needed until 23,034 people were contacted. Of this group, only 1715 people voluntarily responded to the initial letters and of these only 1441 were invited to attend a selection meeting.
Of this reduced total, only 964 actually attended a selection meeting and 50 of these people withdrew.
The remaining 914 people were the base set from which a random draw was made to choose the members of the Citizens’ Assembly. In summary: 23,034 people were contacted, and eventually 914 volunteered to become CA members from which 158 were randomly selected.
A “luck-of-the-draw” from 914 volunteers (i.e. roughly 4% of the original group contacted) is not a random selection of B.
C. citizens.
The 21,319 people who did NOT respond probably represent the citizens of B.
C. Ms. Greeniaus stated: “no one could volunteer to be on the Assembly” but perhaps she meant to say: “only those who DID volunteer had a chance to be on the Assembly.
”
My particular objections to the fallacious notion that the Citizens’ Assembly is at all “representative” are somewhat different in nature (and considerably more inflammatory, I might add), but Dr. Neis presents a well reasoned argument by the numbers to debunk this silly trope.
B.C. Election — Last Before the Post Okay, some final remarks about next week’ s provincial election and then we’ll move on to other matters.
For anyone interested in staying on top of things in this regard, check out (“a fiesty one online!”). It's shamelessly liberal in its bias, but bless their hearts, that's why we love them!
A refreshing antidote to the local Global media dog-trainer.
Before the recent leaders’ debate (which, I have to confess, I slept through) I’d predicted — plus or minus 3 — Liberals: 51, NDP: 28, Greens/Other: 0. From what I’ve read about it since then, it seems that Carole James acquitted herself quite respectably and helped to shape people’s opinion in a favourable way.
Campbell was his usual robotic self and Carr nipped away at the heels of both of them. Unfortunately there was no magic “Gordon Wilson” moment to galvanize swing voters, so I’m leaving my initial prediction unchanged.
As for my local constituency of Esquimalt-Metchosin, under our quaint FPTP system, the race is basically between Tom Woods (Liberal) and Maurine Karagianis (NDP).
The rest are total no-hopers, but just for the fun of it, lets meet the creatures: Tom Woods, the B.C. Liberal candidate is a complete dimwit who glibly spouts the party’s talking points and contends that that his foremost strength is that he’s a “great communicator.
” (I’m always wary of people who feel the need to make this claim about themselves — I mean, gee, shouldn’t this be something that’s self-evident? And in Tom’s case, it’s not. Maybe he can schmooze — perhaps that’s what he really meant to say, but notwithstanding his being a “great communicator,” we’re left guessing on this one.
) Graeme Rodger the DRBC candidate is a blithering, pompous windbag who bears a frightening resemblance to . I heard him rattle on for ten minutes last night and can’t recall a single thing he said. Jane Sterk the Green Party candidate (re-cycled from the last federal go-round) is a well-intentioned but tediously dull über-leftie who idealistically believes “we can have it all” (really, she said that).
Full disclosure: I actually voted for Sterk in the last federal election, but for strategic reasons — to ensure they got matching funds from the feds. Without doubt the best alternative here is the NDP’s Maurine Karagianis, a pragmatic municipal councilor who has a noteworthy record of civic accomplishments and is thoroughly cogent about local issues (although she may have to get her head out of Esquimalt and look more broadly at specific areas of concern to the Western Communities).
Oh, and as for STV, it’s going to fail.
For all the shortcomings of the FPTP system, it has served us well enough as can be expected of a democracy; moreover, people are familiar and comfortable with it. There hasn’t been a reasonable, sufficiently funded debate on the issue of electoral reform, nor has there been a compelling argument presented by the YES-STV side to convince those who may still be undecided. I’d predict that STV will attract about 40% of those who bother to vote on the issue.
In any case, the result will be well below the threshold required to put it into effect.
STV-B.
C. — The Politics of Dubious Advantage
STV is rife with inherent problems — not the least of which are that it’s slow, cumbersome and utterly confusing to the electorate. Oh sure, it’s easy if you’re selecting prospective hamster names or ice cream flavours, but when it comes to who is going to represent your local concerns in the legislature, it presumes you’ll make an informed choice between several different candidates in any given riding by preference.This of course assumes one’s “preference” regarding the matter is based on an educated opinion — otherwise, what is the point of the exercise? But that would be sadly mistaken assumption. For example, does anyone really know what the Democratic Reform Party of B.
C. stands for? I’ll go make a fresh pot of coffee whist you venture a guess (or go and Google the answer).
Yes, STV certainly does give minority/fringe parties a proportional foothold in the democratic/legislative process, but is this really the correct way to approach the problem? After all, the Green Party in Europe earned its present legitimacy the “old fashioned way” (as John Houseman would have said) by developing a strong grassroots infrastructure and eventually taking seats in First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) systems based solely on winning over a majority of the electorate with its compelling policies and persuasive leadership.
STV-B.C. – How it Works Pro-STV advocates claim the proposed new system is really quite simple and dismiss criticisms about its supposed complexity as being grossly exagerrated.
They cite examples such as teachers utilizing it to have their elementary-school pupils name their class hamster, or in another
to rank the preferred names of new ice cream flavours (Double Double Chocolate, Mint Chocolate Chip, and Vanilla were chosen, beating out crappy flavours like Peanut Butter Chocolate and Vanilla Cheesecake.) Of course the comparisons are totally specious, given they’re based on completely superficial preferences and or simplistic visceral reactions to the choices on offer, although I suppose they do somewhat advance the idea that the mechanics of STV are not totally beyond the comprehension of the average voter. But you be the judge... for those willing to be slowly bored to death, the complete details are spelled out in the
of the Citizens' Assembly.
For now, here’s a quick primer on how it works. First of all, existing ridings will be combined to make larger ones. Rather than picking one candidate, you list your preferences — 1, 2, 3, and so on.
Your ballot thereby helps several candidates get elected. If your first choice gets more votes than they need to win, then part of your vote (the “surplus”) goes to your second choice. The candidates with fewest votes are gradually eliminated one by one.
If however your first choice is eliminated then your entire vote goes to your second choice. If your second choice has already won or been eliminated, then your vote goes to your third, fourth, or fifth choice. If you run out of choices (for example, because you didn’t list all the candidates) then the unused portion of your ballot is set aside.
And then there’s the unfortunately named “droop factor” or “Droop Proportionality Criterion” (DPC) as it’s also referred to, which can be defined with mathematical precision: “If, for some whole numbers K and L satisfying 0 < K < = L, more than K Droop quotas of voters put the same L candidates (not necessarily in the same order) as the top L candidates in their preference listings, then at least K of those L candidates should be elected.” There you go..
. See — it’s not complicated at all.
The basic argument is that when the banks give you a loan they simply create the money by punching a few numbers into their computers and then charge you outrageous interest rates and take away your collateral if you can’t pay them back. This lawsuit argues that this “digitally created money” does not legally exist and these transactions constitute counterfeiting and money laundering since this phantom money cannot be traced nor accounted for. “There is no law in Canada that could remotely suggest that the defendant financial institutions have the legal right to create money out of nothing,” states the lawsuit.
Interesting proposition, no? Doubtless it will be tossed out on its ear, but still… the rationale behind it is rather thought provoking. Perhaps the underlying argument is similar to the one Republicans frequently invoke when they claim that that the special Treasury Bonds in the SS Trust Fund are “worthless IOUs.
” As Pink Floyd said, “Money, it’s a gas.” (But then, seeing as we’ve already demonstrated Bush’s inability to distinguish between gaseous, liquid and solid states of matter, the confusion is understandable one supposes.)
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