Posted on Monday, 1 February, 2010 By yours truly | TOOLS:Talk or Share
Tony Blair takes a photo of himself in front of the human rights travesty he helped create.
Tony sends George a text from Iraq: “LO George. jst writiN U frm Iraq whr wer dstroiN evrtng n cite 4 oil, cash & contRL. thx putting me n yor posse.”
A while ago a mobile phone video emerged showing some Kurdish village where this horde was stoning a girl to death because she married the wrong guy. It sparked international outrage as it should have. This photo reminds of of that for some reason.
Posted on Sunday, 31 January, 2010 By yours truly | TOOLS:Talk or Share
“Our real enemies are not those living in a distant land whose names or policies we don’t understand; The real enemy is a system that wages war when it’s profitable, the CEOs who lay us off our jobs when it’s profitable, the Insurance Companies who deny us Health care when it’s profitable, the Banks who take away our homes when it’s profitable. Our enemies are not several hundred thousands away. They are right here in front of us.” — Mike Prysner
This guy should have been invited to speak at the Iraq Inquiry opposite Tony Blair. Thanks IVAW.
Posted on Thursday, 28 January, 2010 By yours truly | TOOLS:Talk or Share
War Made Easy “reaches into the Orwellian memory hole to expose a 50-year pattern of government deception and media spin that has dragged the United States into one war after another from Vietnam to Iraq. Narrated by actor and activist Sean Penn, the film exhumes remarkable archival footage of official distortion and exaggeration from LBJ to George W. Bush, revealing in stunning detail how the American news media have uncritically disseminated the pro-war messages of successive presidential administrations.”
It featuresa great use archive footage and use of media clips to weave together half a century of constant propaganda to show that U.S. military activity for the last 50 years has had little to do with defence.
Posted on Thursday, 28 January, 2010 By yours truly | TOOLS:Talk or Share
Howard Zinn, 1922-2010. A great thinker, activist, contrarian and an eloquent spokesman for the right to dissent. His plea for people to simply pay attention and participate in what happens around them will echo for generations to ocme, and perhaps even be acted on at some future date.
“I’m worried that students will take their obedient place in society and look to become successful cogs in the wheel – let the wheel spin them around as it wants without taking a look at what they’re doing. I’m concerned that students not become passive acceptors of the official doctrine that’s handed down to them from the White House, the media, textbooks, teachers and preachers.” – Howard Zinn
Posted on Wednesday, 1 July, 2009 By yours truly | TOOLS:Talk or Share
The Guardian is compiling a database of missing Iranians, those who have been either abducted or killed by the government. It’s a remarkable graphic display of what people who protest their governments can face and also another example of The Guardian’s great use of flash as an actual educational tool.
This format could be used for a number of other campaigns focusing on the disappeared or massacred.
Hundreds, probably thousands, have been arrested in Iran since the presidential election on 12 June. Human rights and campaign groups such as Human Rights Watch, the Campaign for Human Rights in Iran and Reporters Without Borders have been collecting and publishing the names of those dead or detained.
We have brought those lists, and reports from trusted media sources, into a database that we are asking readers and those elsewhere on the internet to contribute too.
• Can you do something with this data? Flickr: Please post your visualisations and mash-ups on the Flickr group or email it to datastore@guardian.co.uk
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.”