Saturday, 11 May 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 the war in West Asia, 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 (please note: this is a cut down and/or  version of what I used to do): 

 

the war in West Asia (note: I object to the colonial term “Middle East”), in imperialistic Israel, Gaza, and adjoining nations: 

Note: my usual preamble to these posts can be found on the post at https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2024/04/from-this-weeks-news-on-war-in-west_24.html. I will omit the full version of that from now on for the sake of brevity, but the main points are:   (i) I do not give violent extremists/other mass murderers the oxygen of publicity, nor the satisfaction of using the t word;   (ii) _____ have for many years been identified as genocidal;   (iii) I consider a safe place for Jewish people must exist because of the world's collective failures on antisemitism - everywhere, not only Germany of the 1930s/40s, but the Arab nations’ proposal for a single nation with Arab and Jewish provinces should have been given more consideration, IMO;   (iv) now, Israel's existence can ONLY be morally justified as part of a two state solution where Palestine becomes a modern, functional, prosperous sovereign nation-state;   (v) I note   https://theconversation.com/when-is-criticism-of-israel-antisemitic-a-scholar-of-modern-jewish-history-explains-220995   on when criticism of Israel becomes antisemitic;   (vi) Israel’s conduct since the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the collapse of the Oslo Accords has been both devastating to its victims and damaging of its standing, and its conduct now risks an even more self-damaging Pyrrhic “victory”;   (vii) note that the ICJ has issued preliminary directions, but not made a formal finding regarding genocide.



  • “Israel Bans Al Jazeera Journalists, Network, Joining Syria and Iran as Repressive Regime”   https://www.juancole.com/2024/05/jazeera-journalists-repressive.html   “Since Israeli news channels do not show the effects of the government’s total war on Gaza civilians, the Qatar-based channel had been one of the few sources of comprehensive coverage of the Gaza campaign for those Israelis who know English or Arabic”   I am aware of suggestions that this has been done to pressure Qatar into pressuring _____ to accept Israel’s proposed ceasefire, but it possible that it is for both that and censorship/suppression of dissent   


  • “UN General Assembly presses Security Council to give ‘favourable consideration’ to full Palestinian membership”   https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/05/1149596      “Australia votes ‘yes’ at United Nations as Palestinian push for full membership gathers momentum”   https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-11/australia-votes-yes-at-un-for-more-palestinian-rights/103833838   “... a resolution passed through the organisation's General Assembly recognising it was qualified to join   ...   The vote doesn’t grant the Palestinians full membership, but they have been given extra “rights and privileges””   Full membership is likely to be blocked by US veto in the Security Council (again)     


on peace/ceasefires:


  • “UN pledges to stand with Gazans amid reports _____ has accepted ceasefire deal”   https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/05/1149366   It is unclear whether the proposed ceasefire has actually been accepted - media reports are either outright conflicting, or suggest there are shades of grey(nuance) in this  


on human rights and human suffering (on both sides) aspects:



on military aspects:



regionally:

 

  • “How Iran Seeks to Exploit the Gaza War in Syria’s Volatile East”   https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/east-mediterranean-mena/syria/how-iran-seeks-exploit-gaza-war-syrias   “Armed groups aligned with Tehran have launched attacks aimed at compelling the U.S. to withdraw troops from Syria – and from Iraq. A ceasefire in Gaza is the best way to calm tensions, but Washington and its local partner can take ameliorative steps in the meantime.   ...   The USA should apply pressure on its partner to address the grievances of the local Arab population ... It may need to mediate ... as it did in September 2023   ...   should also give serious consideration to the area’s future, and do some contingency planning. ... US politics remain unpredictable.”      

 


internationally:

 



 

global:  

 

  • “Witchcraft under Capitalism Cottagecore, Witchcore, and the Classism of Ethical Consumerism”   https://youtu.be/ort0f2YRwjY?si=aat7Il5xfGS4CDKT   This is another utterly brilliant video from a consistently brilliant channel. The scope and depth of nuance is indicated by this selection from the chapter headings:   A Brief History of Capitalism;   PR, Marketing and Influencers (including the evil Bernays);   Form and Function: Beauty and Dopamine;   Fast Fashion and Cottagecore Classism;   and   Neurodivergence Fails Consumerism.   I am NOT, by any stretch of the imagination, what used to be termed “with it” or “in” (in fact, my three high school friends and I used to joke we were so far “out” we were past the Kuiper Belt [astronomy joke - sorry (not!)] ), so I wasn't aware of terms like “Cottagecore” and “Witchcore”, but the consumerism and desire to be what we used to term - in high school - “the same as everyone else” is, sadly, still recognisable - along with the various forms of prejudice. At high school, I did my best to fight against that using the language and terms of Buddhism (along the lines of “true happiness” not coming from superficial, glitzy things) and a sense of human rights that was very constrained by a lack of vocabulary (e.g., describing a racist teacher's behaviour as wrong and unfair, because they were the only words I could think of). This sort of video is exactly what is needed to empower the fight for decency in the modern era, when neoliberal capitalist patriarchy has become so skilled at duping so many people. Please watch it, and support the channel - and those who collaborated in the making of this video      

 

 


 

Australia: 



  • “The Economy Is A Mess And Other Obvious Things ...”   https://theaimn.com/the-economy-is-a-mess-and-other-obvious-things/   “... No, it’s far better to make some outrageous prediction even if you’re wrong because – and here’s the really interesting bit – it doesn’t seem to matter that you’re wrong because the same program will probably interview you again next month and completely ignore that you told them a completely different story and accept the idea that you would have been right if it weren’t for the simple fact that you weren’t.”   


  • “The Australian public service is letting Indigenous people down. How do we fix it?”   https://theconversation.com/the-australian-public-service-is-letting-indigenous-people-down-how-do-we-fix-it-227662   “Government structures and processes are built around accountability. This means purposes must be defined, money assigned and acquitted according to law, and performance measured against agreed criteria. Everything must be quantifiable. If the only goal is to protect taxpayers’ dollars, it works well enough.   But the status quo has limitations when it comes to dealing with complex problems.   Indigenous issues differ from place to place, and almost always have multiple causes.   ...   large changes in administrative arrangements, even if well-intentioned, take years to bed down on the bureaucratic side.   Having Indigenous people design and deliver the programs that affect them will take time to become standard practice.”       “UN alarmed at number of Indigenous kids in care system”   https://nit.com.au/06-05-2024/11219/un-alarmed-at-number-of-indigenous-kids-in-care-system      


 


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 - and I can do as I am a secondary news source [the name(s) are often 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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