Whats in a name?

"not all Muslims are terrorists, all terrorists are Muslim"
Who ever first came up with that quote was either very sarcastic or a moron.Though he does lose bonus points for contradicting himself, first he clearly states that all anti US terrorist are from one religion (Islam) clearly placing blame on said religion then makes that rather infamous statement above which means either all non Muslims terrorists aren't good Muslims which is quite wrong and insulting though no more then the rest of his statement or hes just trying cover his bigotry in a rather weak figleaf.

I mean to demonstrate how wrong the above statement is Cenk gave a brief list of terrorist organisations that were not Muslim, heres a slightly longer list:

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam(Tamil Tigers): broadly Secular Nationalist though due to the Tamil's being majority Hindu it is no surprise that that is also the predominant religion within the group. Also popularised the suicide bomber, though the first confirmed case of a deliberate suicide attack was in Lebanon in the 1980's directed against US forces stationed there. The group still holds the record for number of suicide attacks.
IRA and its various off shoots: Again a broadly Irish Nationalist group with a strong Catholic Support Base in both Ireland, Scotland and North America.
Northern Irish Loyalist organisations: Again a broad grouping of British Unionists with a strong Protestant (mainly Presbyterian) base in Ireland and Scotland.
ETA: Basque separatists operating in both Spain and France(Basque country overlaps the Spanish and French borders)
Marx inspired groups: These include the West German Red Army Faction, the Italian Rosa Brigade, and the Japanese Red Army Faction sometimes called Red Fraction to avoid confusion.

That should be enough to prove the point.

Now to be fair there is a way that this severe logical fallacy can become at least technically true.You see despite having numerous books, laws and film plots on the subject no one has actually come up with a universally excepted definition of what terrorism is. For example the UN still the closest thing are world has to an international concept dictionary has passed many declarations condemning terrorism and pledges for member states to fight it both before and after 9/11 heres a list notice how very few of those links actually bother to even give a brief summary of terrorism and the more detail they give usually the less support they receive.

The reason is simple no one can agree on what terrorism is. I mean check out the comments section of that video in the top there, you'll get all kinds of nonsensical definitions more then a few that sadly back up the sentiments of the arsehole I've quoted. Though it isn't just the crackpots and bigots who are doing this. While researching the subject I came across a number of academic articles who include definitions of terrorism that enable you to include environmental groups for committing acts which I and must people would at worst deem to be vandalism by emphasising the rights of property to an absurd degree. So it isn't really that surprising to see some people have come to regard the thing as a Islamic pastime.

Then muddying the waters further we have Guerrilla movements and organised crime gangs, can they be classed as terrorists, and is the application of that label conditional on a key number of actions and features? where do we draw the line? Or to be controversial what about when state armies deliberately cause pain and suffering to a people during war time, like bombing campaigns? or drone strikes? and should the situations theses groups operate in matter? is the label still applicable when the group or the people the group claims to represent are under direct existential threat like say the situation of the Palestinians or the Tamils both of whom face either death or a lives languishing in a series of concentration camps, does desperate times and desperate measures give them some slack in this regard?

And then of course the biggest grey area of them all armed resistance against the occupiers, what is the difference between say the French Maquis and the Islamic army of Iraq? both fought against occupation with fanaticism, both regularly murdered collaborators, both could be brutal at times. Yet the two have completely different images in the world why is that?

For clarities sake the definition of terrorism that I have personally come to accept as close to the phenomena as possible is as follows "planned acts of politically motivated violence that deliberately target a civilian population or populations, with the intent to spread terror to achieve an end". But what about you? where do you think a line should drawn (if at all?)

Dracula

“I am Dracula. And I bid you welcome.”

Hello everyone, as we all know it is October,and the witching hour is drawing near. So to celebrate (even though as Celt of Irish heritage I find this commercialisation and Americanisation of an old part of my culture deeply offensive) I decided to go the extra mile by finding my old word document notes on some of the books I read a while back for horror appropriate material and then edit them a bit to make them more coherent and less embarrassing for public consumption.

I'll try and up one of these each week perhaps more, (but almost certainly less) in addition to my regular stuff so I hope you enjoy.

Dracula while not the first novel about Vampires is unquestionably the most popular and long lasting story about the Un-dead. How many 19th century novels can you say inspired both a Deaf and Gay version? The novel is set out as a series of journals from the perspective of multiple members of the band of soon to be vampire hunters with a few newspaper cuttings thrown in to flesh out the scenes. The novel starts off with Solicitor Jonathan Harkers personal travelogue on his way to Count Dracula’s estate on the Transylvania/Wallachia border. Harker is a solicitor who has been sent to the Count to help him purchase a property in London. London is a place that seems to hold the Count's imagination as his Library is full of books maps tour guides and even fashionable weekly journals from the city.

While initially mistaking the Count's odd behaviour for a mix of Eastern European etiquette and awkwardness from being alone Harker notices that there are few servants in this fortress the Count resides in. He does however quickly catch on to the strange goings on of the Count and after nearly been sucked to death (tee hee) by the Count's three beautiful concubines he is kept prisoner while the count gets some local gypsies to move his furniture and a number of boxes of dirt (plot point)
to London with him inside one of the boxes.

Then the tale starts again at Whitby where the ship Dracula boards crashes (due to him killing its crew) were it just so happens Jonathan Harkers dearly beloved fiancée Mina is staying with her friend Lucy. Dracula begins feeding on dear Lucy which thanks to her circle of admirers proves to ultimately be his undoing as one of her suitors is a Doctor who happens to have a friend and Colleague in the Netherlands called you guessed Van Helsing. After Van Helsing confirms the diagnosis of Vampire attack its not long before a team of ghoul hunters is assembled from Lucy's potential lovers, Nina and Jonathan who was able to escape from the Castle while the count was away and convalesce for a while before Mina went to collect him. They even get married at his hospital bed (aww).

The team based at the local asylum that borders one of Dracula's properties begin tracking down the Counts other properties where hes been stashing those boxes of dirt, this is important since for some reason Vampires can't cross bodies of running water, though they can fly and control the weather so how and why that works escapes me. Anyway to counter this the Count has to be connected with the soil of his birth so if they an destroy all the boxes and purify the dirt with holy water he'll be trapped though still incredibly strong and very pissed off.

Despite the counts interference by feeding on Mina a few times necessitating a few very naive blood transfusions (this was before blood types were identified but still it is a bit odd to see two Doctors with extensive Medicinal backgrounds just tap into a mans veins because his young and full of energy) they succeed or so they think, it turns out the count had one box left and uses that to escape back across Europe to his stronghold in modern day Romania. Since Van and the gang are all men of science they know that leaving a powerful Vampire to gather his strength when he has a personal vendetta against you and no moral constraints isn't best thing to leave to sort itself out give chase.

They manage to beat the Count, which is quite a feet given that he can control the weather and frequently manipulates storms in order to cut his travel time down. He can even push a boat up river this way. After killing his three concubines who were sleeping at the time they decide to ambush the Count as he and his gypsy followers come up the trail as it is almost sunset. They succeed but the Texan gets stabbed in the side by the Gypsy. Oh did I mention one of Lucy's suitors was a Texan cowboy? thats kind of important as that is all the characterisation he gets. Anyway thats the plot though I did miss out a bit I think that'll do for a synopsis.


Anyway since Dracula is the archetypal Vampire how does he hold up? well The Count himself is heavily hinted to be the actual Prince Vlad Tepes (the Impaler) of Wallachia and defender of Europe against the Turks who raised him and his brother, his rule was so brutal that many Ottoman armies who were much larger refused to fight or march on Wallachia, he practically invented psychological warfare. His subjects in addition to nicknaming him Impaler after his favourite hobby also called him Dracula (Devil in the Wallachia language). The Count has numerous abilities many of which were original to him and went on to become key tenants of the Vampire Myths. These abilities include the pretty standard bloodsucking, aversion to sunlight (though recent drinking and a hat appear to provide some protection) the ability to transform into a wolf and mist and of course a bat. His strength is reckoned to be that of twenty men, and he can control many animals though his favourite is the wolf. He also has a hypnotic link with his victims and can control their actions and read their minds, though that last part works both ways and comes back to bite him (pun intended) in the end as its through hypnotising Mina that Van Helsing is able to find out what the Count's plans are.

However he also has some severe limitations, the Count can’t stand garlic or the crucifix and theres the aforementioned sunlight aversion. The Count also cannot as previously established travel over running water unless at high tide or at its slack which only applies to rivers so for sea travel he has to spend most of his time in the dirt. The Count is also unable to change his form in the day and can only regenerate in soil specially prepared I.e. from his homeland.

Themes of the book include friction between science and faith as despite the hunters being scientists (a psychiatrist and biologist respectively) and successfully tracking the Count down through scientific and official means (trawling through the chartered housing deeds and shipping logs) much of their information in regards to fighting the Count comes from accounts of old eastern European folklore that Van Helsing has come across, then of course there the holy water and the crucifix, tough its implied that its the faith behind such symbols which is actually hurting him. The book also touches briefly and to me quite humorously and I'm fairly sure accidently on gender roles, both female characters Mina and Lucy are archetypal period women servile and sweet and leave the physical work up to the men. Of the two both are victims of Dracula’s “disease” in Lucy ‘s case fatally so, and the main contributions Mina makes to the team is make type written copies of the mens journals for the sake of posterity. Yes she effectively does the filing, and although Mina is the conduit to which Helsing and the boys ultimately track down and defeat the vile one, she is a passive recipient to Van Helsing's hypnosis and is only help to give him the opportunity because of her earlier vulnerability. Though this was the 19th century values dissonance and all that.

The Ballad of Ho Chi Minh

Sorry its been a bit quiet here still getting settled in and caught up with all the exciting things happening in the news this past few weeks. But here's a catchy Folk song by the Salford born protest singer and integral part of the folk revival of the 50's, Ewan MacColl The ballad of Ho Chi Minh is unsurprisingly a song dedicated to Revolutionary leader of the Liberation of Vietnam. penned in the 1950's Ho Chi Minh would still have been fighting the French (who eventually withdrew in 1954 following partition)hence the references to Indo-China, though the USA was generously supplying the French with arms and material at this point as part of there policy of containment with President Truman announcing an "acceleration in the furnishing of military assistance to the forces of France and the Associated States in Indochina…" And of course after partition and the total collapse of French colonial power it wasn't long before the Americans stepped in to fill the void and despite Ho Chi Minh declaring an independent Vietnam all the way back in 1945 after driving out the Japanese and there puppet state, it would not be until 1975 that Vietnam was completely liberated from foreign occupation sadly Ho Chi Minh didn't live long enough to see his dream come fully into fruition dying in 1969 after successfully liberating the North of his country.

Lyrics

Far away across the ocean,

Far beyond the sea's eastern rim,

Lives a man who is father of the Indo-Chinese people,

And his name it is Ho Chi Minh.

Refrain:

Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh.

Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh.

From VietBac to the SaiGon Delta
From the mountains and plains below
Young and old workers, peasants and the toiling tenant farmers
Fight for freedom with Uncle Ho.
Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, etc.

Now Ho Chi Minh was a deep sea sailor
He served his time out on the seven seas
Work and hardship were part of his early education
Exploitation his ABC.


Now Ho Chi Minh came home from sailing
And he looked out on his native land
Saw the want and the hunger of the Indo-Chinese people
Foreign soldiers on every hand.


Now Ho Chi Minh went to the mountains
And he trained a determined band
Heroes all, sworn to liberate the Indo-Chinese people
Drive invaders from the land.


Fourteen men became a hundred
A hundred thousand and Ho Chi Minh
Forged and tempered the army of the Indo-Chinese people
Freedom's Army of Viet Minh.


Every soldier is a farmer
Comes the evening and he grabs his hoe
Comes the morning he swings his rifle on his shoulder
This the army of Uncle Ho.


From the mountains and the jungles
From the ricelands and the Plain of Reeds
March the men and the women of the Indo-Chinese Army
Planting freedom with vict'ry seeds.


From VietBac to the SaiGon Delta
Marched the armies of Viet Minh
And the wind stirs the banners of the Indo-Chinese people
Peace and freedom and Ho Chi Minh.

Ho!

What have the Unions ever done for us?

Ton actually. This new video by the TUC is a very well put together comprehensive list of the some of their most important campaign successes and a summary of all the privileges and opportunities that I and many others have come to enjoy and depend on, all thanks to are ancestors hard work and sacrifices.



Thank you to all the working men and women throughout the decades whose dedication made it all possible.

Journey into the heart of darkness

"A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength- life itself is a will to power."

Morning all, will be moving back to continue my studies next week so I've been stuck in limbo for a bit what with much of my possessions (books, dvds etc) are in boxes so I've been spending my free time with my cousins video games. The one I've been most taken with of late is Far Cry 2 (pictured).

Its a first person Shooter that takes place in the Democratic Republic of something something, they manage to make a game that lasts dozens of hours entirely set in side a country without actually naming it. Well there are two regions called Leboa-Sako in the North and Bowa-Seko in the south, so for the sake of clarity I will refer to the North as Leboa and the Southern region as Bowa.

The main character is selected from about a dozen mercenaries sorry private security contractors from around the globe each of which is a thoroughly bleak and callous human being. For some reason despite there being a couple of female mercenaries you can't select them. Why were they worried that a female character committing all these violent acts? that can't be it the game is played from a first person perspective all you see is your fore arms and your knees and feet when performing first aid, so I really don't know why you can't choose them. I mean its not like any of the women are your potential romantic interest which I frankly found to be quite refreshing.

Anyway the main plot of the game is that the country you're deployed to is teetering on the brink of a full scale civil war, the President is dead, the government and the wealthy have fled and the power vacuum is being filled by two bitterly rival factions the United Front for Liberation and Labour (UFLL) headed by the former leader of opposition Mbantuwe and the Alliance for Popular Resistance (APR) lead by the former head of military Major Tambossa. Both groups are brutal power hungry and whose ranks are full of mercs with no concept of morality and are inly in it for the pay offs from the diamond mines and because it amuses them. Currently the only thing keeping the two sides from coming to blows is the lack of a stable supply of arms. And thats were the games main target enters the picture, The Jackal and internationally reviled arms dealer begins selling to both sides and its just a matter of time before the shooting starts.

Its not long before entering the country that your character (lets call him Jack for simplicities sake) Jack first encounters the Jackal, unfortunately due to contracting a very serious case of malaria (which will continually flare up through out the games duration so keep an eye on your malaria pill count) and so just has to sit there while Mr Jackal.... quotes Nietzsche's philosophical works at you (something of a hobby of his) in fact much of the games intellectual content is viewed from the Jackal's "humanist" ideology. In between quoting Will to power he gloats a bit by pointing out that since your mission was to prevent the Jackal from kick starting the conflict with his merchandise Jack has already failed thats right you fail before the ten minute mark is reached. Surprisingly he doesn't kill and instead leaves you clapped out on the bed in the hotel. You wake up to the sound of gunfire and screaming and is not long before your left high and dry in the middle of a war zone.

Since Jack's one and only chance to leave this country is to find and kill the Jackal and hope your benefactors will still make arrangements for your exit, crossing the border is out of the question as the African Union have sealed all the borders. However since you have absolutely no idea where he is and the unemployment office was closed down by men with Kalashnikovs Jack has no choice but to go working for the local factions which one doesn't matter once there out of jobs you just march down the street to the other side and see what they want blown up.

And speaking of those jobs unlike in other games the missions in Far Cry 2 make it absolutely clear that you and your merc "buddies" are not hero's, your every bit the villains that the Jackal, the UFLL and APR are. Your missions often involve going to whats left of the infrastructure that the innocent people of this once proud nation depend on and wrecking it because the other side have a slight advantage by possessing it. And your merc buddies will help you "subvert" the mission which usually means bringing more pain and suffering to the populace. Rather then take the easy way out and make the guys and gals who go around the world killing people they don't know for money into some sort of tragic heroes, they and Jack are depicted as the socio paths they undoubtedly would be in real life.

Hell at some points in the game a Cease fire appears to be on the table as both faction heads have had enough, but since that would put you and your colleagues out of a job and potentially have them facing war crimes tribunals or worse and so take it upon themselves to sabotage the peace process.

What made Far Cry 2 stand out for me amongst the legions of muscle-bound space marines fighting for the planet earth whilst looking for there "wives" is its horrible cynicism. Everyone and everything that appears in this game with the exception of the Journalist and blogger Reuben is shown to be horribly corrupt and well brutal. The two factions ideologies only exist as slogans on there posters and have no qualms about bringing suffering to the people they both claim to serve if it means they profit. The mercs smuggle and murder at the drop of a hat, the Jackal deliberately manipulates the conflict to prolong and expand it. NGO's peace keepers and foriegn companies don't fair much better either.

This game goes along way to disprove the notion that games are "just for kids". Anyway for further reading I recommend the PDF. playthrough Permanent Death by Ben Abraham warning will contain spoilers.

Top cat returns to the alley

You've more than likely already heard that Former Respect Mp George Galloway has got his Talksport gig back The Mother of All Talk Shows at its usual slot of 10-1am Friday though not saturday. Looks like that Facebook group really pulled through for the old Scottish teetotaller eh?

Anyway after listening to the first broadcast after an hiatus of several months does he come up to scratch? as he been rejuvenated by his holiday and now graces us listeners with renewed passion humour and insight?

Well yes and no the start of the new George series was mixed for me. The beginning was all about the Popes visit and while it did have a good interview with Peter Tatchell below.



I have to say I was pretty disappointed with George here. His argument that the Vatican is a state in the post Age of Reason world doesn't hold up. And his continued insistance it is without explaining why comes across as dogmatic.

In this contemporary world you and I live in state hood is ultimately left to the UN to decide, though that certainly doesn't stop other Nations from picking and choosing who to invite to the diplomatic club, see Kosovo, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Tibet, Kurdistan, and the whole Peoples Republic of China versus Republic of China etc. The Vatican on the other hand doesn't really fit the model of what we would know regard as a state. It was created out of a deal between the Catholic church and Mussolini's Fascist party, a deal that saw the Papal states that at its height could easily have been eligible for modern statehood as it once owned the territory of Central Italy including Rome and whose governing was placed under the direct control of the Catholic church was officially dissolved and reformed into the modern Vatican that has no government nor services nor territory not a direct and active part of the Catholic church.

At best the Vatican is another Grand Duchy or theocratic style Principality like Monaco. At worst its a large micro nation in the vein of Sea Land and does Roy Bates get a red carpet reception every time he gets tired of hanging out on that concrete bunker in the sea and goes back home to Spain? I think not.

Furthermore the UK doesn't even deal with the Pope as if he is the head of state for anything. How many Embassies are in the Vatican? zero how many does the Vatican have in the UK and the world? Zero. How many trade agreements exist? none apart from between the Vatican and Italy and they kind of have to given that the Vatican is inside there own capitol. And unlike all are other disputed territories that aspire to nationhood in the world like say Kosovo, the Vatican has absolutely no chance of becoming a state. What is the ultimate pillar that all states regardless of ideology economy and geography rest upon? the monopoly on the use of Organised force. Thats how they maintain what territory they have and how they usually expand it. To quote a man whose name escapes at the moment "how many divisions does the Pope have?" the answer is again zero unless you count those Swiss Mercs and there plentiful armouries of Axes and Halberds.Truly Italian statesmen must quake in fear at this great dagger pointing directly at the heart of there nation just waiting to be unsheathed.

He also ignored Tatchell's comment that since its the Catholic population that want him here they should foot the bill you know like they did the last time one of them showed up.

But I digress, I also found his other argument that the Pope is the head of the Catholic church therefore every Catholic should automatically bend there knee to him on every thing he says line quite insulting. As a man of Irish (among others) descent I've lost count of the times I've heard my Nan and Aunts say "If the Pope wants me to have a hundred kids he can pay for them" variations there of. Sorry George but I thought you believed everyone should practice reasonable thinking and try to reach conclusion based on that, not you know blindly following what someone else tells you. Look just because the Pope or any other Religious leader tells you something thats wrong it doesn't magically become right. When the Pope says contraceptives actually aid the spread of HIV in Africa when all the evidence says otherwise he is still wrong in saying that.

Anyway as I said this was just the first hour, and it did get better as it progressed. There were too very good and very interesting interviews with a couple of September the 11th survivors. And even the interview (below) with the conspiracy theorist was reasonable and coherent throughout.



But just one last thing though what ever happened to that "Radical Radio network" George said he was organising, the one that was and I quote just "over the rainbow" (scroll down a bit). Looks like that ain't happening. Thats a shame as George himself has pointed out he is quite a solitary figure in the right wing hang em and deport em world of Talk radio. Which seems set to increase given his reduction in air time. To me George's idea of a grouping of prominent Left wing and Progressive commentators is a missed opportunity given that he would be uniquely placed to plug the thing to a wider audience then most internet radio shows get. Oh well.

Never Forget

Its that time of year again the eleventh of September where people around the world stop and remember the great tragedy that occurred on this date. Thats right today is the anniversary of the beginning of the 1973 coup against President Allende of Chile and the coming to power of General Augusto Pinochet.

In contrast to Allende's peaceful redistributive measures, Pinochet set up a brutal regime that combined the bitter repression of political freedoms with Milton Friedmans economic theories making a mockery of the Neo-Liberal claim that free markets and free people go hand in hand. Highlights of Pinochet's rule include a 26% unemployment rate due to the massive cuts in services and the preferences for military spending. Money which was often spent of weapons used against his own people. The turning of a lovely sailing ship the Esmeralda BE-43 in to a floating torture chamber one of many including football pitches. And operation Condor which on the face of it was a regional security policy against Guerilla's, but due to the wording of the agreement also legalised the targeting of "sympathisers" of banned groups throughout Latin America, leading to the harassment imprisonment and even murder of hundreds of problem peoples for the local Junta in the 1980's.


All of this was made possible thanks to some generous contributions by the US government of Richard Nixon and the support of Henry Kissinger. The CIA operation to topple Allende was given 10 Million at day one with the promise of more if and when it proved necessary.