Monday, April 14, 2008

500 time for a UN Charter on Public Debate

In the past couple of years, since the development of the 'Information Super Highway' the 'World Wide Web' 'Blogging' 'MySpace' 'Youtube' and the English language, a new superpower arose that proved great inconvenience to the entrenched elites. Noam Chomsky calls it the 'Second Super Power' and I certainly hope some dick doesn't label it 'Superpower 2.0' as they explain it to the computer illeterate and behind the times audiance of Oprah.
Furthermore with the discrediting generally of mainstream media by marching enthusiastically towards Vietnam, Operation Just Cause, Gulf War I, Bosnia, and Gulf War II (which is shame on you (me) since it was the identical bullshit that Gulf War I was (IDENTICAL)) this second superpower is really annoying for population control, because it seems the population is controlling itself.
And as a blogger now with 500 posts, and surely less posts that are just a youtube clip with some depreciatory comment like you find on Harvards blog I should be pleased to be a part of it. I should be basking in a smuggy glow that somehow my misinformed, grammatical nightmare rants are making the world a safer place, happy just to be a part of something bigger than myself.
But let me tell you a story about me, my makeup more than my history. It goes way back to when Bryce and I were chubby rosey cheeked children running around with camera's for ABCs shortlived youth spinoff series 'Race Around the Corner' it goes back further than that because we hadn't been given our camera's yet.
We had super happy days on the bus commuting from our all expenses paid school dorm accomodation to the ABC studio where our 'training' took place, and forever the day I first noticed that quiet voice that was Ben impersonating Bryce seems always fresh in my mind, almost as fresh as when Bryce, not realising he was being impersonated started unknowingly impersonating himself to be in on the 'I hate Julia she's such a bitch catchphrase' anyway, zaney as all good ABC 'yoof' programming should be; I announced a 'Pick on Tom day' (yes back before the superflous h had become naturalised into my name) and it was all going well, I had to sit alone by myself as other 'Racers' told me to shut up.
Except for Kim, my first girlfriend in the same sense that Mugabe is democratically elected, who had the surprisingly keen insight that I actually felt more comfortable under attack and dealt with it better than people being nice to me.
And that's the end of storytime, the point is, I would much rather listen to what is wrong with me, than tolerate 5 seconds of praise or admiration, even from children impressed by that thing where you look like you have one long double ended detatched finger (which isn't as petophillic as that sounded). I would rather hear the kids say 'You know tohm, it would be more impressive if you interlocked your fingers with your back toward us so we can't see it is a mere illusion' from a 5 year old than 'Wow thats magic!'
I love criticism, it makes me hard to like in a lot of circumstances, like Clevinger in Catch-22 girls that go to plays with me have to wait until intermission to find out whether they are seeing a bad play, and then find out immediately from me.
Bryce now just plain asks for my analysis straight up whenever I go see one of his shows (though maybe I just don't know what you are supposed to talk to the director about when you go see their show, kiss their hand and make Oscar Wilde Witticisms or something, I don't understand theatre people).
But naturally being set to critic always rubs people the wrong way, particularly when they are proud of something, and people are entitled to their opinion, self esteem and dignity and all that shit. But I do have a few rules I wan't recognised in international law, that I see as infuriatingly unethical, stupid and detrimental tactics. I will list them and these are the meat of my 500th post.

1. Not being able to disprove something does not have the same status as being able to prove something.

This is used for religious argument mainly, in that believers actually believe they are being rational and empirical and clever by asserting that you can't disprove the existence of an omnipotent creater entity. And so all sorts of 'debates' and 'talking circles' and 'events' are set up and attended under the false pretense that people who believe in entities for which their is not a shred of evidence apart from the popularity of the belief itself somehow enjoy the same standing as someone who can prove that say... 'the planets revolve around the sun in elliptical orbits' for example.
And of course this would mean that I might have to admit that my power to kill people with my thoughts that I vowed never to use using my magical unbreakable vow that I only use on things I will never break a vow for may just be a creation of my imagination, should the UN ratify that argumentitively not being able to disprove something is not the same status as being able to prove something.
Otherwise think of all the people that should go to Jail or even the chamber because they were unable to disprove that they didn't kill somebody else.

2. Hypocrisy does not deprive someone of the right to complain.

The US has an appalling human rights record in South America that peaked under the Reagan Administration, there are reports and historical facts to verify them, unlike say the existence of WMD's in Iraq. So if China has a questionable human rights record in Tibet or elsewhere, that doesn't mean that on account of hypocrisy America should not criticise. I also don't suggest that the US gets away with human rights abuses either. As a lover of criticism and debate, I would much rather see the two sides, three sides, eight sides or 120 sides point the finger at eachother and introduce these issues into public debate, than both respectfully ignoring them.
This I think is possibly the most benifitial of my proposed UN Charter, it annoys me most with to be honest the Zionest lobby, as one of the three groups of people it is most annoying to try to rationally debate with, the Zionest lobby whether it formally or informally exists or doesn't exist, is nevertheless annoying in its insistence that public debate, criticism and media coverage are somehow some complex legal game governernd by precedent and process.
An example is an accusation of bias, that is say when an extremely unlucky journalist manages to get some photage of say an Isreali tank bulldozing a Palestinian settlement in occupied territory, and because they fail to also capture photage of a Palestinian tank bulldozing an Isreali settler's property, the coverage is biased and therefore in the public interest should not be shown at all.
Or that Australia shouldn't criticise Japanese Whaling on account of being one of the most enthusiastic nations for demolishing old growth forests in order to protect some unskilled taswegian labor. I would rather have both parties criticised, then just one party criticised preferentially, because criticising none at all is a sure fire way for things to only get worse.

3. A unilateral ban on the 'You are either with us, or against them' tactic.

This is the Nuclear, the Chemical, the Child soldier, the rape as a weapon of debate tactic all wrapped up into one. It is by far the most insidious and the most counterproductive, and sadly one of the most effective.
Being employed currently by the CCP in the PRC to beautiful effect with the baffling phenomena of 'pro-china' protestors. This one is sadly personal for me too, as my beloved Andy sent me a whole bunch of 'facts' about Tibet, that probably are factual, truth is I don't care because (and the pro-tibet protestors are partly to blame here) the facts of Tibet aren't what it is all about.
It is about the right to protest, freedom of expression and largely while the protestors may say 'Stop Chinese Human Rights Abuses' or 'China is the enemy' they don't actually mean China, just like the more popular target of protests and demonstrations 'America' doesn't mean the two continents, nor does it even mean the country, but usually the administration that is most often responsible for whatever is going on that is pissing people off.
But here is where the tactic is really insidious, if the Beijing Olympics is a success, you can bet the CCP will say to the Chinese population 'The World loves and admires the CCP, aren't we great? aren't you glad to have us?' which is largely I think what the protestors of varying levels of hypocrisy and stupidity are trying to counter, and again trying to get as close in frame to the torch as possible is probably the only way protestors can assure it is as difficult as possible for the CCP not to edit them out of reality, so that is the 'You are with us' part, the thing though is that since it isn't running smoothely, the CCP can get up and say 'The World out there hates you! it doesn't want China to succeed, it hates you because you are Chinese' hence hencely, if it is good it is praise for the CCP, if it is bad it is an attack on the very Chinese people themselves.
An insidious little trap 'You are either with us, or against them' incidently this tactic also comes from catch-22 and was far more successfully, time and time again applied to US foreign policy, people who approve of it usually are approving of the specific administration (us) (Iraq - the Bush administration and his 'determined leadership' and his 'vision') or alternatively are 'anti-american' suddenly they hate all of america and their way of life (the french).
This is also popular way of transforming a mere Zion-sceptic into an Anti-semite. To not be an Anti-semite you have to enthusiastically support everything Isreal does, hence I have had to accept sadly that I am an Anti-semite merely because I am sceptical about the occupied territories.

4. People who claim sensitivity, should only be entitled to be called 'pussies' or 'morons'

On a camp for a certain economics group I support, a kid who was a kid of some missionaries called me up for making light of Jesus, and I apologised on the grounds that I recognised that Jesus meant a lot to him and not much to me at all.
I similarly have backed down on criticising Isreal in the past (yet have never backed down on paying out Islam curiously enough) and most recently had Andy again point out that the Tibet protests were sensitive for him on account of being Chinese.
But fuck them, fuck them all. I mean I don't have anything against them personally, and I do love Andy, but just because someone is sensitive doesn't entitle them to have me ignore and shut up or worse politely agree with them because they get emotional whereas I just want to argue.
For example, Andy feels personally attacked when people talk about boycotting the games over Tibetan Human rights abuses (for the record, I think Tibet is but one of the smaller reasons to boycott the games, it just happens that through savy marketing they have managed to get a majority share of attention from all the issues, the best reason is probably the environment which could kill us all) but what if they/I am right, as per charter proposal 3, I have already established that Andy's feelings of being personally attacked are not real, but what if he and others like him go to 'pro-China' protests and in 3 weeks time evidence surfaces that there are horrific human rights abuses being carried out by the CCP against indigenous Tibetan people. Surely this is worse than Tibet protestors being wrong about an absense of human rights abuses which sadly for logical reasons (see Charter 1) the Chinese government won't allow anyone to disprove.
Or say Jesus is your bet friend, and I happen to dislike the way some people use Jesus to convince people that believe some wrathful/loving God takes offense at them using condoms in a country where aids is widespread. Fuck you, I'm going to criticise some of the darker points of how your 'best friend' is used to influence the world.
Again, Saddam Hussein in Gulf War 1 claimed his invasion of Kuwait was provoked by Kuwait waging an economic war by siphoning oil out of disputably Iraqi oil fields, economic theft which could reasonably justify war since 'Operation Just Cause' was a US invasion of Panama on the grounds they could potentially threaten American Interests (Noam Chomsky's research not mine) meaning Saddam had more right to invade Kuwait in 1990 than the US did to invade Panama in the same year.
He also asked the UK and US to leave the matter to be resolved by 'Arab States' which was similar to the US asking the world to butt out of Western Hemisphere issues or Russia asking the world to butt out of the Chechen rebel issues.
The fact is that debate is better served all around by as few people as possible recognising 'sensitivities' adn instead handling these issues like adults instead of children. The children are the sensitive ones that need a 'G' rated life to pretend bad things never happen.

And that's my UN charter that I want to see ratified, so I can punch anyone in th mouth that tries to (for summaries sake):

1. Claim that an inability to disprove that something doesn't exist is the same status as proving something does exist.
2. Hypocrisy does not deprive someone of the right to complain.
3. It is either 'you are with us or against us' or 'You are with them or against them' and NOT 'You are either with us or against them'
4. You can't claim sensitivity to avoid unpleasent topics.

No comments: