Del.icio.us links for September 13th through September 18th:
- So has anyone really been ‘Islamified’ against their will? – There’s something touchingly innocent about the argument put forward by many people that the BNP should be allowed space in the mainstream media as this will “expose their ignorant ideas”. Because history doesn’t necessarily prove this to be the case. I don’t suppose that, in 1941, many people thought: “You see, this is all working to plan. Now he’s invaded Russia everyone will see just what an idiot this Hitler really is.”
Tags: farright fascism bnp politics britain marksteel funny - Moral law vs legal law: Smash EDO arms campaigners explain their stance – The campaign to close the EDO weapons components factory in Brighton has never been far from controversy. The past five and a half years have seen violent confrontations between protesters and police, court battles with the company and large-scale demonstrations through the city’s streets. BEN PARSONS asked two of Smash EDO s original supporters what lies behind its attitudes towards the police, the law and the defence industry that have characterised their campaign The Smash EDO campaign acknowledges no leaders and its supporters cover their faces with scarves in public – yet its actions have continually grabbed and held the attention of the people of Brighton and Hove.
Tags: protest activism directaction antiwar antimilitarism smashedo brighton UK politics law - “The continent proceeds towards savagery…” – Not to be divisive or anything, but I think it is important to at least notice that the ideological (I hesitate to say ‘intellectual’) motifs that the far right are currently utilising have been prepared over the last eight years by pro-war apologia.
Tags: farright imperialism liberalism fascism waronterror islamophobia europe middleeast rhetoric - UN Gaza report accuses Israel and Hamas of war crimes – “Israel’s offensive against Gaza last January was “a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorise a civilian population”, for which some Israelis should face “individual criminal responsibility”, a UN investigation has found.” Amongst the great “no shit” moments of history?
Tags: Israel palestine gaza warcrimes stateterror unitednations - Brown fudge – “Brown’s attempt to square the circle of shoring up core support in the labour movement while moving toward cuts, privatization and asset sales, is to say that “frontline services” will be left unharmed. Even if this was good enough, even if cuts of any sort didn’t clash with the commitment to support employment, this claim is disingenous.” Analysis of Brown’s recent speech to the TUC.
Tags: britain politics publicspending gordonbrown electoralpolitics neoliberalism - Lost youth: turning young girls into sex symbols – Toddlers in tube tops and naked teen pin-ups no longer seem to shock us. How the sexual image of young girls is being manipulated
Tags: sexuality youth children society culture childhood women feminism - Theeeyy’ree GREEAAT! – Ever get all huffy at someone you know, or perhaps even a television character who thinks that rules don’t apply to the great? And this is why you get huffy: because some of the the rules really don’t apply to the great. And if you find yourself running up against some standard operating procedures or folkways or social mores or gentleman’s agreement or clearly stated submission guidelines and such over and over well that just means that you’re not great.
Tags: writing writers publishing life rules - Object Graveyards: The Afterlife of Everyday Things – The world is rife with ‘stuff’, and the simple fact is we’re producing new homes, vehicles, gadgets, gizmos and other designs faster than we can get rid of the old ones. Tires, airplanes, bicycles and cell phones don’t just magically disappear once they outlive their usefulness. Sometimes they’re gathered together and turn into recycled urban trash art, photographed as trash or stripped down and recycled, and sometimes they’re just left to sit and rot for decades on end. Much like abandoned buildings and cities, these places can haunt the collective memory. Here’s a look at the afterlife of everyday objects, piled into staggering mounds that resemble nothing more than cemeteries for stuff.
Tags: waste recycling environment humanity history - Maori legend of man-eating bird is true – A Maori legend about a giant, man-eating bird has been confirmed by scientists. Te Hokioi was a huge black-and-white predator with a red crest and yellow-green tinged wingtips, in an account given to Sir George Gray, an early governor of New Zealand. It was said to be named after its cry and to have “raced the hawk to the heavens”. Scientists now think the stories handed down by word of mouth and depicted in rock drawings refer to Haast’s eagle, a raptor that became extinct just 500 years ago, shows their study in The Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
Tags: history paleontology myth legend monsters birds predators