Illusions and delusions

In an earlier post I was singing the praises of the NHS, while passing comment on the opposition to Obama's proposed health reforms. Now we have an article in the 'Guardian' which highlights the real extent of that opposition. "The industry and interest groups have spent $380m (£238m) in recent months influencing healthcare legislation through lobbying, advertising and in direct political contributions to members of Congress. The largest contribution, totalling close to $1.5m, has gone to the chairman of the senate committee drafting the new law."

Well, at one level the evidence would seem to suggest that the White House is already pulling back from the most significant reforms in order to ensure that the entire bill is not scuppered. Of course, at another level, the evidence also suggests that capitalism just doesn't work.

Here we have big money ensuring that big money stays big by ensuring that money finds its way into a select group of politicians pockets in one form or another. Further proof that capitalism works in the interest of capital and not in the interests of the people. The people in what is still one of the richest countries on earth will still suffer under a health system that is probably the worst in the developed world; 18,000 people are expected to die this year alone because of lack of health care. Of course, another thing we see is that even when the "hype" man pretends to offer hope, a scratching of the surface soon reveals the "hype".

The hope was always hype and we should have no illusions about those "powers that be". Indeed, and it would appear that the motley crew that makes up Big Pharma has long had the hype fellow in their pockets. Of course, with Big Oil we have a similar scenario and with General Stanley McChrystal's report revealing that 500,000 American troops will be required in Afghanistan, we really should be starting to give up our illusions and delusions regarding this fellow, all the more so because our quite wrong perceptions of what this man can actually do and our quite inappropriate belief in his ability to fulfill those misplaced perceptions, makes him actually more dangerous than the half wit who preceded him.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-andrews/classified-mcchrystal-rep_b_298528.html

Sending a signal

There is the story doing the rounds of British lawyers trying to get a warrant for the arrest of Israeli defence minister, Ehud Barak, for war crimes in Gaza. That would establish a lovely precendent and it might turn out that it is sufficient to be just a mass murderer, rather than having to be a mass murderer and someone who America doesn't like, to get yourself hauled before the law.

What it would certainly do is it would make a number unsavoury characters such as Henry Kissenger, George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Tony Blair, Ehud Olmert, Rumsfeld, Bibi etc etc etc, extremely wary when it comes to planning their next trip. Moreover, it really would send out a signal to all and sundry that we are living in a fair and just world. That is what it would do but, of course, it is destined to remain hypothetical and we are destined to see those who do not agree with "Uncle Sam" being made accountable for their crimes, either real or perceived, while Washington's own and Washington's friends continue to ensure that, for some at least, crime really does pay.

"Joe Soap" and "Otto Normalverbraucher"

Found the cartoon at the 'Stop the War Coalition' website and it really does highlight the gobblydegook inbalanced way in which the situation in the Middle East is reported by the mainstream media and in the kingdom of the blind "Joe Soap" and "Otto Normalverbraucher" are walking around actually believing that Israel was forced to fight a war in Gaza last Winter.

Of course, there was in fact no war and the UN's head of humanitarian affairs, John Holmes, probably got the facts more or less right only two days after the end of the Israeli massacre when he said, "So the latest figures for casualties are: Palestinian deaths -- 1,314 of whom 412 were children and a hundred were women, and then injured 5,300 -- 1,855 of whom were children and 795 were women." The Israeli casualities were not much more than the nine UN staff and contracted workers who were killed.

Indeed, the crimes against humanity by the Zionist state were so blatant that the man who led the UN investigation into war crimes in Gaza, Richard Goldstone, a Jew and self-described supporter of Israel, had no choice but to accuse the Zionist state of crimes against humanity. This is a man who is quoted as saying, "I've been involved with Israel since I can remember. My mother was very active in the women's Zionist movement." A man whose daughter has lived in Israel.

And how did the criminals respond? Well, there was the usual "chutzpah" and drivel, and in Zionistan there were those who pulled the "self hating Jew" card out of their Zionist bag od tricks when it came to condemning Goldstone and there are many who will be cheering the "brave" Israeli Air Force when they set out to drop their bombs on Iran but when they start to sow what they reap, they really won't understand the world anymore and we will have them venting their spleens on the "anti-semites", the "terrorists", the Islamofascists", on the "self hating Jews" and, indeed, on all and sundry. However, they might just find nobody listening to them because even in the kingdom of the blind people might just think, "but wait a minute, didn't they attack Iran first". Yes, while I have no great faith in Joe Soap" and "Otto Normalverbraucher" it might just be that even for them there comes a time when process of cottoning on begins although in saying that, maybe I am stretching my little scenario too far.

A word on the German elections

This lunchtime I arrived back in Munich after a good flight home. Merkel has her "black-yellow" coalition after a general election today that has seen the Social Democrats drop to a historic low of 23% and off they go into the oppostion with the Greens and the Left.

One might hope that there might be a drift away from the mono-political culture that dominates those western "democracies" where the parties increasingly serve the interests of the same interest groups. We might hope that the SPD will drift towards the Greens and the Left and we could dream that a real alternative will materialise during the next four years; four years which will, of course, see a continued assault on the welfare state, four years which will see the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. We might hope that a real alternative might begin to take shape in the oppostion.

Unfortunately, the "Soziale Marktwirtschaft" will be in tatters when the next election comes around and a system that is largely dictated by a global financial world order which was set up at Bretton Woods in 1944 and serves the needs of Washington and its capitalist sychophants, will hold sway over all and sundry when it comes to kicking out the black-yellow coalition in four year time.

However, that is only part of the problem and those of us who think that an "Annäherung" in the opposition will lead to a deeper red and a real alternative might be a trifle myopic. If there are lessons to be learned in history there is one which indicates that when the left becomes "Salonfähig" it does not become a deeper red but rather a type of pink that is generally acceptable to all and sundry in the bourgeoise/big business mono-political culture. Still, we have got to have a dream, therefore let us dream of a SPD that rediscovers itself as a socialist party and a left which contradicts the tried and tested adage of power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absoltuely. After all, "die Hoffnung stirbt zuletzt.

The full shilling

Now a man, like Gaddafi, who prefers a tent to a suite of rooms in the local sheraton when he visits heads of state might rightly be accused of not being the full shilling and, indeed, he is not. However, even people who are at best ten pence can produce some sense as we saw with Ahmadinejad when he argued that the holocaust was used as a pretext by the Zionists and the West to create the Jewish state and, one might add that the memory of its victims are being degraded by that state.

Similary, we have an article in 'Al Jazerra' where Colonel "ten pence" Gaddafi says that a two state solution in Palestine is not a solution and certainly on listening to Bibi's drivel early this week, where Palestinian "state" would be, at best, a slightly goldened cage, Gaddafi would seem to have a case. Oh and did anyone catch the comparison between 'Hamas' and the nazi death machine made by Bibi in his "great" speech?

No we should not hand the great issues of the day over to the "ten pence" people. In fact, it is that sense that the "ten pence" people make at times that beguiles us into turning a blind eye to what they are really about and what do we have today? Well, we have Mr "ten and a half pence" Obama replacing Mr "three pence" Bush and there we all are licking it up, the drivel, drivel and more drivel as Washington has decided that it had to up the ante and that was always going to need a bit more than a Mr "ten pence" McCain. Still it be nice, if somewhere down the road, we were really to get the full shilling, wouldn't it?

Escapism

The last opportunity to travel in Ethiopia took me to the crater lake west of Addis at Wenchi. On beginning the journey there was already a sort of a deja vu with a couple of days ago when the Goha hotel in Gondar decided to save money and not to put their generator on when there was one of the regular electricity cuts that plagues Ethiopia. Now $50 a night for a room is not a fortune but it is a lot of money in this part of the world and we were at least expecting electricity throughout our stay in the hotel. The same thriftiness was to confront us again this morning when instead of the expected four wheel drive to take us on our travels we were confronted with a mini bus.

Initially I wasn't too bothered and I only expected to be travelling along asphalt roads. However, the unpleasant surprise was the two hour or so bumpy ride into Wenchi and the two or so very bumpy ride back out. It would appear that one of the problems in Ethiopia is a short term thinking that seems to just want to satisfy the short term aim of money into the pocket without thinking about longer term aims. All very sad in a country that really could be doing with some planning.

The trip, nevertheless, was extremely interesting and there was me confronted with a part of the population that belongs to the majority here in Ethiopia; those who do not need to worry about electricity cuts because they have no electricity. It was a useful reality check and a confrontation of the world as it is for the majority. More importantly though the natural beauty of the lake area offered a welcome escapism from the madness that grips this crazy planet.

Back to Addis and Al Jazerra, BBC World and CNN all inform me that "Uncle Sam" is setting himself up to go for the Iranian jugular and although Washington has long since known of "another" nuclear facility in Iran and although Iran told the IAEA a few days ago about the plant, that plant now provides further evidence that Teheran is just not playing ball with Washington and I am left wondering if there is any connection between this news and Bibi's speech yesterday.

For a time though today Bibi and the hype man were put into a healthy perspective and down at the lake I was offered that type of escapism from the hypocricy and hype that we would do well to grab with both hands. The picture above might give you some indication of what I am talking about.

Return to Addis

Returned to Addis today after a couple of days in Bahair Dar and Gondor. Ethiopia is a country where it is all too obvious that you can be sitting next to the hungry child, the cripple, the struggling mother without really participating in their worlds. You can be just as much a non-participating spectator in Kaldi's cafe in Bole as you might be in front of your big flat screened digital television in Munich, Paris or London.
The picture shows Kaldi's cafe in Bole

The farce continues

At a recently televised forum in Venezuala Naom Chomsky said that "the growing disappointment with the Obama administration in the U.S. was predictable because the corporate media marketed Obama's presidential candidacy on the slogan of "Change We Can Believe In" but omitted concrete proposals for effective changes, and the Obama administration has since shown an incapacity to institute such changes."

Of course, "incapacity" is not quite the right word here as it almost suggests that there was an intention to institute changes in the first place and the evidence would seem to suggest that John Pilger's appraisal of Obama back in January 2008 when he wrote, "Barack Obama is a glossy Uncle Tom who would bomb Pakistan," is more apprioprate as our hype fellow is, indeed, setting about the business of bombing Pakistan.

However, the farce continues and if we were forced to cringe at the hype man's hypocritical speech to the UN, wasn't Bibi the icing on the cake? There he was digging deep into his bag of tricks; we had the holocaust card and a direct link to Iran, we had the disgusting drivel about some sort of self defence mission in Gaza when we all know that men, women and children were indiscriminately massacred and because we all know it, we had Bibi condemning the UN for pointing it out, and we had, of course, the zany Zionist interpretation of history and a vision of a possible Palestinian "state", which would closely resemblence the autonomy granted to Geronimo and the Apaches after they had surrendered to the US government. Still, Bibi never pretended to be a black man, did he?

More hype and hypocrisy

A pleasant surprise on arriving back in Addis after my short trip to Bahir Dar and Gondor and lo and behold, I can access my blog. Not only that after a couple of days without internet or satellite television I now find myself with a good wireless connection and BBC World in the background keeping me up to date with the daily drivel.

The hype fellow has enlisted the help of the UN to have his little go at Iran and North Korea and wouldn't be nice to see a more independent UN not only demanding that Tehran and Pyongyang to scrap their weapon's programmes but also insisting that the hypocrites start to scrap theirs. Of course, we have the absurd promise that the United States and Russia will cut down on their ridiculous arsenals, a fraction of which they can only use before all life ceases on the planet.

The point is that nobody should seriously be considering using any of those weapons aand that all an "Iran bomb" or "North Korean bomb" would do is upset their own regional balances. Meaning, of course, that the Zionist bully boys in particular will no longer be able to be quite the bully boy that they are at the moment.

Certainly, a world without nuclear weapons is what we all want. However, we should not be fooled by our hype man. This is not about creating a world without nuclear weapons, this is about making sure that they remain exclusive to those who already have them and although this might indeed mean that the world will be slightly safer, it does not detract from the abomindable drivel that Washington continues to spout. For my part, I would be content with a tentative beginning and a move away from the hype and hypocrisy and let us start not by sending the inspectors over to America but to Israel and its facility in Dimona.

Bibi, bubbles and begging boys

Back to the secure server and the 'Electronic Intifada' tells me that the "real issue" with the Sheba Farms "is water". No surprises there and our Zionist "friends" won't be happy until they get back up to the Litani. Meanwhile, 'Haaretz' informs me that "Bibi" has said "that there will not be a complete freeze on settlement building and that building in Jerusalem will proceed as usual." The rest of the world doesn't seem to give a "monkey's" but then down here in Addis the planet's collective myopia, on almost all things, is obviously par for the course.

Blog is still blocked but "boo-hoo" and if I thought I had problems! Almost all is available in Addis but, of course, not for all; the burger for a bundle of birr was biten down in Bole but it was a bit of a bane being confronted by little boys sort of boisterously begging for just a little bit of what the burger cost. However, first world bubbles abound and it is in one bubble or another that I am invariably to be found and as the job approaches its end there is the holiday in the north of the country and the ultimate trip back home to look forward to and, with the International Crisis Group reporting that "unless the Ethiopian government creates more political space for opposition parties to organize and campaign in preparation for the summer, 2010 elections, there is increasing likelihood of a repeat of the 2005 post-election violence", the return should not be delayed for too long.

A Happy Ethiopian New Year

The said below slow secure server allows me to avail myself of that type of sureptitious surfing that is not available to all and sundry here. There is no real news from Ethiopia and that will, as stated in the post on the 28th of August, have to wait until I return to Europe.

Addis is awaiting the Ethiopian new year and we have a long weekend break before finishing off next wednesday and at sometime close to next friday or saturday, I will take myself off for a ten day tour of the country, hoping that the said sojourn will round off what has, personally, been a fairly positive experience.

News to follow 2

Back to the secure server and a short post to remind my readers that news will follow. The first entries will begin when I return from Ethiopia after the 27th of September.