11 May 2008

What will get YOU angry about governments?

What is enough to piss you off at the utter ineptness of government? Look at Burma now and you can see hundreds of thousands facing death because of it.
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Let's summarise what has happened. A devastating cyclone has already killed some 23,000 and rendered over a million homeless, what has been the primary reaction of governments?
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- Burmese military dictatorship underplays the event, refuses to grant visas for international aid workers to enter en masse, asks for aid to be given to it to distribute;
- Burmese state monopoly TV portrays the army as the great giver of help and assistance to the people;
- Hundreds of thousands remain without aid, whilst aircraft from countries as diverse as the US and Qatar are refused entry, and Burmese embassies go on two public holidays so no visas get granted;
- The French Foreign Minister suggests a UN Security Council resolution forcing aid entry into Burma, the authoritarian kleptocracy of Russia and the authoritarian one party People's Republic of China reject it as an infringement on sovereignty;
- The Guardian reports the main news on Myanmar TV is promoting the referendum for a new constitution "State TV broadcast a video showing two women singing a pop-style song with the lyrics: "Let's go vote … with sincere thoughts for happy days"." Sickening.
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That's right, governments are more precious about sovereignty than people dying. Of course you already knew that, history is filled with countless examples of governments murdering or engaging in culpable manslaughter of their citizens, but still many "respect" them.
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Now, of course, the UK is being totally limpwristed about it, with the BBC reporting that UK International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander (another one of Gordon Brown's Scottish Labour mafia) saying flying aid into Burma without permission would be "incendiary".
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Oh I am sorry, I didn't realise that the British government was so concerned about hurting the feelings of a barbaric military dictatorship rather than saving people who are being ignored by the regime.
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So here is an idea. NATO convene and announces that it is sending in a mission to deliver aid to the ignored parts of Burma, it will provide armed cover and any Burmese military that threaten or get in their way will be dealth with. The USA is already there, France is keen, this was a former British colony, get some fucking balls and do something. People are dying and you're letting a pitiful little tinpot dictatorship decide the shots. Quite simply, ignore China and Russia, the former is trying to be helpful, but fundamentally is letting aid flow to the regime to distribute and the latter is just a criminal state run by bullies.
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Meanwhile, if you need a reminder of what evil looks like, BBC TV has shown scenes of Burmese citizens being marched by soldiers to vote in the constitutional referendum which will secure the rule of these thugs. Yes, the army is bullying people suffering under the cyclone to vote.

Below is Aj Jazeera's coverage of what Myanmar TV is telling its population. Liars through and through. The West is somehow scared of pushing these bastards around. Still think governments are competent?



UPDATE: Oh and CNN now reports that the junta is using aid as an enticement to vote in its filthy referendum.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

From Francis Paretto (HT Crusader Rabbit)- just about says it all.

"Regular readers of Eternity Road will be aware that government doesn't get a lot of slack from your Curmudgeon. This is as it must be; no entity with hands that bloody, that prone to robbery with violence, that untrustworthy in its statements deserves any decent man's indulgence. If government is a necessity, a proposition open to serious question, it must be treated like a large, aggressive guard dog: kept on the shortest and strongest of leashes, and whipped back into its kennel whenever it trespasses its bounds by so much as an inch."

Anonymous said...

OOps -I hit the wrong key - above posted by me.