Sunday 7 April 2024

FROM this week’s news ON: politics & democracy, and international affairs [Note: Content Warning - links to distressing reports on this topic. Reader discretion is advised]

Note: CONTENT WARNING - some of this content is about upsetting, disturbing or triggering events & attitudes. Seek competent help - including professional - if you need it. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that linked articles may contains names and/or images of deceased people. READER CAUTION IS RECOMMENDED! For anyone distressed by anything in this post, or for any other reason considering seeking support, resources are available in Australia here, here, and here. In other nations, you will have to do an Internet search using terms such as “mental health support - <your nation>” (which, for instance, may lead to this, this, and this, in the USA, or this, this, and this, in France [biased towards English-language - my apologies]), or perhaps try https://www.befrienders.org/. 

Note: in my “from the news” posts, quotes are shown italicised and blue, my comments are in a different shade of blue, and “good” items are shown in green. I have loosely grouped the posts where such seemed reasonable, but that is subjective (i.e., my opinion - others are free to disagree), and challenging, as some posts belong in multiple “groups”.

From thiis week’s news on politics & democracy, and international affairs (note: I may continue to add links for a few days, possibly up to a week, after these are published), and noting the conflicts, listed here, for instance, and other global issues, such as those listed here, that may not have made it into this weeks news: 

 

  • “The Most Dangerous Wars: When Local Conflicts become Geopolitics”   https://www.juancole.com/2024/03/dangerous-conflicts-geopolitics.html   “The three major wars or conflicts that are ongoing today demonstrate the volatility of the intersection between the local and the global”   The article addresses the wars in Gaza and Ukraine and tensions (which have included sporadic violence/actions that could cause injury or death) in the South China Sea - and the latter reflects the author’s interest (he “is Co-Chair of the Board of Focus on the Global South and Adjunct Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Binghamton.  He is a prominent voice pushing for the demilitarisation and denuclearisation of the South China Sea”). On the wars/conflict examined, he has some excellent points that are well worth considering (key sub-headings include “Balance of Power, Balance of Terror”, “The Right of Self Defence”, and “A Just Peace”), but he fails to consider some of the most devastating conflicts in world now, which are Sudan, the DRC, and Yemen, which have some overlap with these points, but also require consideration of other matters.    
  • “Are Sudan’s civil society activists being targeted by both warring sides?”   https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/4/1/are-sudans-civil-society-activists-being-targeted-by-both-warring-sides   “Sudan’s warring parties are using food as a weapon and targeting local activists for feeding their communities.   ...   With soup kitchens now in the crosshairs, these violations are exacerbating the food crisis in Sudan, where more than 18 million people are coping with acute levels of hunger and five million are suffering “catastrophic” hunger.”  

 


 

  • “The Ronna McDaniel Story”   https://terikanefield.com/the-ronna-mcdaniel-story/   “...   History doesn’t repeat, it rhymes. In our current media disruption, as in the late nineteenth century, sensationalism is emphasized over facts.   ...   You are being manipulated by a rage machine. Your rage is fuelling a profitable industry and driving polarization.”   Teri Kanefield is an expert on law in the USA, which is why I consider this article should be read - along with the admonishment against being manipulated by rage and the history reminder, but I have reservations based on my practical experience of achieving change for the better in society, which the author of that article lacks, on some aspects of the article. I will keep those to myself, Dear Reader, and let you make up your own mind    

 

 


 

 

My links for activism post may aid any activism you may decide to do on any/all of these. If you do, don’t get too fixated on specific instances of problems - important though they may well be: take a moment to also consider the broader issues these incidents and groups of incidents may suggest/reveal. Note: as with other mass murderers/serial killers/and the like, violent extremists and other evil people/groups crave publicity, so I refuse to give that to them - including not using their names (which is a policy adopted by good law enforcement and media for other mass murderers - as I can do as I am a secondary news source: the name(s) are in the primary sources if people wish to know them).

 

Assumptions / basis 

In writing this, I have assumed / started from the following: 

  • this blog states quite clearly that it is about political and human rights matters, including lived experience of problems, and thus I will assume readers are reasonable people who have noted the content warning in the post header;

Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:

  • there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”; 
  • I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.

 

If they are of any use of interest, the activism information links from my former news posts are available in this post. 

 

If you appreciated this post, please consider promoting it - there are some links below.

Remember: we need to be more human being rather than human doing, and all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering”.

Copyright © Kayleen White 2016-2024     NO AI   I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise  replicate any part of this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.     Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike basis   https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/  

 

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