Iran or Israel, how are they equals?

I fully agree with the sentiments of Not PC on the simply brilliant speech by Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

The video is here (in 4 parts)

However, the text is here.

He refutes the ridiculous Holocaust denial claims of the dictator buffoon Ahmadinejad, he describes the Islamic fundamentalism of Iran correctly as follows:

"Though it is comprised of different offshoots, the adherents of this unforgiving creed seek to return humanity to medieval times.

Wherever they can, they impose a backward regimented society where women, minorities, gays or anyone not deemed to be a true believer is brutally subjugated. The struggle against this fanaticism does not pit faith against faith nor civilization against civilization.

It pits civilization against barbarism, the 21st century against the 9th century, those who sanctify life against those who glorify death."

He points out the wonder of human achievement, the application of free minds to the world:

"The allure of freedom, the power of technology, the reach of communications should surely win the day. Ultimately, the past cannot triumph over the future. And the future offers all nations magnificent bounties of hope. The pace of progress is growing exponentially.

It took us centuries to get from the printing press to the telephone, decades to get from the telephone to the personal computer, and only a few years to get from the personal computer to the internet.

What seemed impossible a few years ago is already outdated, and we can scarcely fathom the changes that are yet to come. We will crack the genetic code. We will cure the incurable. We will lengthen our lives. We will find a cheap alternative to fossil fuels and clean up the planet."

He describes how Israel withdrew, unilaterally from Gaza, in the hope it would bring the advancement of peace but:

"In 2005, hoping to advance peace, Israel unilaterally withdrew from every inch of Gaza. It dismantled 21 settlements and uprooted over 8,000 Israelis. We didn't get peace. Instead we got an Iranian backed terror base fifty miles from Tel Aviv. Life in Israeli towns and cities next to Gaza became a nightmare. You see, the Hamas rocket attacks not only continued, they increased tenfold. Again, the UN was silent."

Meanwhile, far too many think Iran can't be pursuing nuclear weapons, or if it is, it is "ok", because Israel has them. Israel has had them for some years, but hasn't threatened to ever use them, except in retaliation for use against Israel. Iran's recent military coup and election rigging is "ok", because after all, it has to be better than the USA, what with George Bush invading Iraq (another "legitimate" state perhaps) and Afghanistan. The very same cover their eyes when told of the execution of political prisoners in Iran, the second highest execution rate in the world after China, and ignore the execution of homosexuals or minors for sex crimes - being consensual sex. The very same people ignore the persecution of those who want to choose to reject Islam, and ignore the systematic oppression of free press and media.

The same who claim to give a damn about freedom of speech, about womens' rights, supporting gay and lesbian rights, but are happy to let Iranians live with none of the above.

It reminds me of the wilful blindness of the old left who wanted to "listen" to the men who rewarded snipers who shot desperate East Germans trying to cross the Berlin Wall, or "understand" what Nicolae Ceausescu's new way for Romania, without Soviet troops, or recognise the advantages that the Soviet Union brought for education, employment and in housing. The same lickspittles and sycophants who regard Western claims of militarism and human rights abuses with disdain, so denying the victims of dictatorial regimes the legitimacy of their experiences.

In which case I say this.

If you think Iran has a legitimate government with rights, then why do you not endorse a similar government for your own country? If it is good enough for Iranians to get political candidates chosen for them by a theocratic council, to have election results gerrymandered by the incumbent, for political protests to be put down by a state security agency that arrests and imprisons, for newspapers, radio and TV to be fully state controlled to prevent messages "unwelcome" to the regime being distributed, and for bloggers and others online to be persecuted and arrested for criticising the regime, then why not for YOUR country?

If you think it's ok for a theocratic dictatorship to acquire nuclear weapons, then presumably you embrace widespread nuclear proliferation.

If you think it's ok for a theocratic dictatorship to call for Israel to be erased from the map, then presumably you think so too. So go on, explain how you'd propose that be achieved? Explain how little bloodshed that would entail and how that would promote freedom, human rights and secularism in the Middle East? How would it be compatible with your opposition to the invasion of Iraq?

Pity Guinea

Guinea doesn't make the news typically. However, it is quite simply an example of a country where the state is little more than an organised gang of thieves, using its monopoly on legitimised violence, to enrich itself and to pillage and oppress the citizens.

A military coup late last year, following the death of Lansana Conte (himself President since 1984 following a military coup, and then several highly questionable elections) meant it is today a military led regime, that has pledged elections within 2 years. The coup leader and effective head of state, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara has railed against corruption in the meantime.

However, as protestors filled the streets of the capital, Conakry, angry at Camara's announcement he wishes to stand in elections next year, the BBC reports soldiers have opened fire and massacred them. Reports range from 87 to 187 killed. Apparently soldiers have simply been let loose, and without control have assaulted people in the street and in their homes, with reports of looting and rape of women. Captain Camara has condemned the attacks, but claimed it was difficult to control the soldiers.

However, the Guinean army has a record of suppressing protests, having done so in 2007 with a general strike, and crackdown on the media. Guinea itself having suffered from insurgency of rebels from Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Guinea has 25% of the world's known deposits of bauxite, but with ample potential for other minerals and agriculture. Yet it is beset with decades of mismanagement, corruption and dictatorship. It is, for most, just another poster child of the failure of African leaders to provide the conditions for economic and social stability and growth, operating more as a kleptocracy than a government that defends the rights of its citizens and their property.

Meanwhile, a country with per capita GDP of only US$1002 per annum (PPP) has a 15,000 strong army destroying wealth and pillaging from the citizenry. Given Papua New Guinea has more than double that GDP per capita, as does Cambodia, it tells you just what a sorry state Guinea is in.

Gordon Brown promises bigger government

Gordon Brown has made his last speech as Labour Party leader at a Labour Party conference. In a call to arms, to fight the next election, he declared a host of new policies, policies which reflect how little he has learnt, and how dependent the Labour Party is on making people dependent on the state. He has said Labour should never stop in its goal to win the next election

He has announced:
- Electoral reform. Presumably, like the left in New Zealand in the early 1990s, he sees the future in coalitions with the Liberal Democrats, Greens or even Welsh and Scottish nationalists. For any politician facing certain defeat, calling for electoral reform is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
- A Nationalised Elderly Care Service: More government for the elderly, including “free” care in the home, which someone will be forced to pay for;
- Free child care for the poor, “paid for” by abolishing tax relief for middle income taxpayers. Given parents can’t let friends or neighbours provide it, it’s no surprise;
- Teenage single mothers to be put into government run homes to be taught how to be parents. Because it’s too difficult to teach them not to become parents or not to pay them to become parents?
- National ID cards wont be compulsory, which begs the question, why bother?
- “Create” 10,000 “Green jobs” by taxing those already with jobs and those who create jobs;
- Remove hereditary peers from the House of Lords (about the only thing I can seriously agree with);
- Expand the scope of Post Offices in banking;
- Raise tax “at the very top”, because nothing satisfies the left like punishing the successful to try to pay for its own profligacy;
- Tougher on crime, although he fails to admit the chronic under spending on prisons and the meagre sentences for violent offences, whilst the state focuses on hysteria over every adult being a potential pedophile;
- Promises on allowing weekend and evening GP visits, without addressing the chronic waste and production line standards of socialised free GP visits.

He claimed the Conservatives were wrong about the recession, yet fails to accept his own litany of mistakes from selling gold reserves to running perpetual deficits. He is proud of rescuing Northern Rock, when small to medium depositors were already protected from all bank failings by a deposit insurance scheme. Northern Rock could have been allowed to fail, and a strong message of restraint and risk management would have been taken by other banks. The wise could have taken over the weak, and future generations wouldn’t be paying the cost. Inflated asset prices (like property) would have been allowed to properly deflate, but Gordon Brown would have had to face thousands of mortgagees who stupidly borrowed too much to ride this speculative bubble. Instead, housing prices remain excessive. There was more worshipping of the NHS “which we love”, instead of noticing that for the vast increase in spending, there has been a 10% drop of productivity.

The unions are happy, which tells enough about how much he has swung Labour back to the left, back to more government, more taking from the productive middle income earners to give to the dependent and create more dependency.

So new Labour is old Labour, more government, no accountability for 12 years of deficits, wasteful spending and setting up the monetary and fiscal policies that saw the creation of the speculative bubble. A bubble that Brown hasn’t allowed to burst in the face of those who pursued it.

Gordon Brown thinks he knows best how to spend half of the money earned by taxpayers, and has been borrowing almost every year he has been in government, so that future generations can pay for the profligacy of the present. Millions of Britons live in ghettos of underclass, where many live in fear of petty crime and antisocial behaviour, unwilling to confront knife touting youths, whilst the state focuses on stopping people taking each others’ kids to sports events or babysitting them. Labour’s culture of dependency, of government solutions and strategies for everything, has been an abject failure.

Can there be hope that the other lot will be substantively better?

Hey others abuse kids too

Oh really, as true as it may be, you do have to wonder at the wisdom of Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva, reported as saying that child abuse is common in other churches too. He claims 1.5-5% of clergy are involved in child abuse, which even if conservative is disgraceful.

However, there is no penance in being a party to covering up crimes to finger point "them too".

Of course, protestant churches and preachers of other religions abuse children too. Who has ever denied this? This also gets exposed and continues to be a cause of concern, but this reminds of the Albanian communist politician who on Australian TV said "every country has political prisoners" to excuse the then Stalinist state's repression of dissent.

Until the Vatican demands that all those who have committed atrocities towards children stand up and give themselves up to the authorities, and excommunicates the guilty, it can hardly start pointing fingers at others. Its own house absolutely reeks.

Nanny State Beer

No. Really!

The Daily Telegraph reports "A brewer criticised for making what it claimed is Britain's strongest beer has unveiled an ale with a 1.1 per cent alcohol content, which it has called Nanny State."

Sales Director of Brewdog said "the new beer had such a low-alcohol content that the Government did not class it as a beer and it was not subject to beer duty.

There is more on the Brewdog blog. Including how Alcohol Focus Scotland doesn't think it is funny because it"proves that once again this company is failing to acknowledge the seriousness of the alcohol problem facing Scotland". Joyless little Nanny State worshippers who don't understand people don't like being told what to do.

Of course the test will be in the tasting, time to compare Nanny State to Tokyo (the highest alcohol content beer) methinks. By the way Tokyo includes hops from New Zealand.