Don't be a retard

New York City is about to ban artificial trans fats. Santa Monica is about to ban smoking in public outdoor areas. Proponents of the measures claim that health is the most important thing and that the government must look out for our health and prevent us from harming each other and ourselves.

Health is indeed important – no one would argue with that. However, so is personal responsibility. And so are manners and consideration for others.

If you want to avoid trans fats, don’t go to McDonald’s or KFC or other fast food places known to use trans fats. This should not be a problem in New York City, where there are so many other options. If you want to eat fast food, for whatever unfathomable reason, let the companies know that you would prefer a healthier alternative to trans fats, if you actually care, and let them make their own decisions based on the preferences of their customers.

If I have said it once, I have said it a hundred times – don’t ask the government to make decisions for you or to protect you – take personal responsibility for your own actions and your own choices and look after yourself.

Worse are the implications of the smoking thing. Even here in Prague, smoking is banned in certain outdoor places. For example, it is prohibited to smoke at a tram stop. I see the logic in the ban - tram stops can be crowded, and if the weather is bad there might be a lot of people trying to fit under a shelter. But why on earth do people need to be told what to do? I, for one, would never light a cigarette at a crowded tram stop, the same way I wouldn’t light a cigarette in a queue. Why? Good old-fashioned manners, being considerate of those around me.

When the government tells people what to do, people forget their sense of responsibility or never develop one. A person who is used to being told what he can or cannot do, and where and when, will not think for himself. He will not reason why he can smoke in this park but not at that tram stop. And he will automatically light up in the park just because he can, and he will do so without looking round to assess if he is in an appropriate place.

Being told what to do stops people from thinking. It damages an individual’s ability to reason and make informed and responsible decisions. It interferes with the development of consideration for others and good manners. When we are treated like helpless and stupid children, we are in danger of becoming helpless and stupid children. I can speak only for myself, but I prefer being treated as a rational adult and I insist on making my own decisions.

Movie Review: Death of a President

I watched Death of a President this morning. It was a good made-for-tv movie. It is in the style of a documentary, very much like Gabriel Range’s earlier made-for-tv movie, The Day Britain Stopped.

The story is predictable. Bush speaks to a friendly audience in Chicago, there are angry protesters outside, Bush leaves the hotel, someone shoots him, he gets taken to hospital and dies. The nation is shocked, and Cheney is sworn in as the 44^th president. There are arrests, an investigation, and a suspect is charged and goes to trial.

There are interesting aspects to the film. One, of course, is the special effects. The appearance is that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney acted in the film. But more than that, what is interesting and provoking is the comment on the social and political Zeitgeist in The New Amerika.

The police have trouble controlling the protestors and use excess force, like in real life in Portland in 2003. One of the investigators later being interviewed admits to, while at the same time denying, racial profiling of suspects. The investigators admit to watching the movements and monitoring the communications of known protestors, whom they refer to as violent anarchists. And, most frighteningly, the US Patriot Act III is hurriedly passed in the days after the assassination.

The Miami Herald says that the movie “has nothing new or interesting to say”. The Boston Herald calls the film “a lame duck”. Fox News’ John Gibson attacks Gabriel Range and the premise of the film here. It’s an interview, Range is there to defend himself, and does so effectively.

My original premise before seeing the film was that it’s a movie – nothing for anyone to get their knickers in a twist about. I stand by that. Not only is Death of a President just a fictional story, it is also obviously a made-for-tv production and really does not deserve all of the hoopla that has surrounded its release.

But having said that, you should go and see it because it’s an interesting film. If you see it tomorrow at the Arclight Theater in LA at 5.10 pm, Gabriel Range will be there for an after-screening discussion. If you are in Prague and want to see the film, let me know – I have it on video.

Call to Bloggers

Amnesty International today put out a Call to Bloggers to write about the importance of freedom of speech on the internet and to draw attention to the plight of internet users who have been arrested for what they have written.

The inaugural meeting of the Internet Governance Forum is being held in Athens from Monday. The IGF is a United Nations project. Amnesty International will participate in the forum to ensure that the issue of human rights stays on the agenda.

Here are a few examples of what can happen when people who are not protected by a bill of rights dare to speak their minds.

In Iran, Kianoosh Sanjari was arrested earlier this month while he was reporting on clashes between security forces and the supporters of a Shi'a cleric. No one has heard from him or about him since.

In China, journalist Shi Tao was sentenced to 10 years in prison for “illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities.” What he had actually done was email information to a US website about a Chinese government directive which dictated to journalists how to report on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Shi Tao had used a Yahoo! account and Yahoo! co-operated in his prosecution by providing information to the Chinese government.

In Tunisia, Mohammed Abbou is spending 3 ½ years in prison for criticising his government in online articles.

In Vietnam, Truong Quoc Huy has been arrested twice for participating in chatrooms, the first time, at least, on a human rights website. His whereabouts since his second arrest in August 2006 are unknown and no charges have been announced.

And in The New Amerika...

Steinbeck on the American view of government

In the summer of 1947, John Steinbeck and Robert Capa, a renowned war photojournalist, spent 40 days touring the Soviet Union. The aim of their travels was to observe and record the everyday lives of ordinary Russians; the product was A Russian Journal, published in 1948.

Steinbeck and Capa spent the first few days of their trip in Moscow waiting to find out which section of the Soviet government would sponsor them, what kind of clearance they would get, where they would be allowed to go, and all that sort of totalitarian bureaucratic nonsense. At one point, the two men were in a meeting with a Mr Karaganov at VOKS, the Soviet organisation for cultural relations with foreign countries. Steinbeck and Capa liked Karaganov “very much”, and the three of them spoke together in a clear and straightforward manner. Karaganov asked Steinbeck and Capa for their views on several matters, and this is what they had to say about people and governments:

“It seems to us that one of the deepest divisions between the Russians and the Americans or British, is in their feeling toward their governments. The Russians are taught, and trained, and encouraged to believe that their government is good, that every part of it is good, and that their job is to carry it forward, to back it up in all ways. On the other hand, the deep emotional feeling among Americans and British is that all government is somehow dangerous, that there should be as little government as possible, that any increase in the power of government is bad, and that existing government must be watched constantly, watched and criticized to keep it sharp and on its toes. And later, on the farms, when we sat at table with farming men, and they asked how our government operated, we would try to explain that such was our fear of power invested in one man, or in one group of men, that our government was made up of a series of checks and balances, designed to keep power from falling into any one person’s hands. We tried to explain that the people who made our government, and those who continue it, are so in fear of power that they would willingly cut off a good leader rather than permit a precedent of leadership. I do not think we were thoroughly understood in this, since the training of the people of the Soviet Union is that the leader is good and the leadership is good.”

Consider that that was 1947 and we are now nearly 60 years later. How far we have come! In The Old Amerika we didn’t trust our government, we watched our elected representatives at every turn and we made sure they didn’t overstep their bounds. But in The New Amerika, we can trust our government just like we were taught and we don’t have to keep an eye on our representatives (who may or may not have been elected). The government watches us instead, and we don’t even need any checks and balances anymore. The training of the people of The New Amerika is that the leader is good and the leadership is good. Hallelujah!


* Thanks to Radost Mike who quite literally sold me the book.

Coming soon to a theater near you...

Katrina, are you paying attention?

Death of a President will be out this Friday, the 27th of October in cinemas all over The New Amerika. I didn’t see a listing for that day for Austin, but it has to get there eventually. See http://www.deathofapresident.com/.

I will be picking up my copy of the film tomorrow. It aired on UK Channel 4 last Thursday night and friends recorded it for me.

And remember, kids, it’s only a movie.

Freedom of the Press 2006

At this time last year, I posted about the Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2005. The 2006 Index was released today.

The headline of this year’s report lists the worst countries, which are North Korea, Turkmenistan and Eritrea, and the sub-headline reads, “France, the United States and Japan slip further”. As far as The New Amerika goes, that is exactly what I had expected. This year’s report notes just how far The New Amerika has fallen in the five years that the Index has existed. In the 2002 Index, The Amerika was in 17th place. Last year, The Amerika was in 44th place. And this year, The New Amerika has come in at 53rd.

From the report:

Relations between the media and the Bush administration sharply deteriorated after the president used the pretext of “national security” to regard as suspicious any journalist who questioned his “war on terrorism.” The zeal of federal courts which, unlike those in 33 US states, refuse to recognise the media’s right not to reveal its sources, even threatens journalists whose investigations have no connection at all with terrorism.

Freelance journalist and blogger Josh Wolf was imprisoned when he refused to hand over his video archives. Sudanese cameraman Sami al-Haj, who works for the pan-Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera, has been held without trial since June 2002 at the US military base at Guantanamo, and Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein has been held by US authorities in Iraq since April this year.

Sometimes I am just so proud to be an American.

I am more proud (and less sarcastically so) that the Czech Republic has moved up from last year’s already high 9th place to this year’s 5th place.

To illustrate a bit more, and to represent the interests of some of my more faithful readers, here is how some of the other countries did.

1. Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Netherlands

5. Czech Republic

8. Slovakia – tied with Switzerland

16. Canadia – tied with Austria and Bolivia

19. New Zealand – tied with Bosnia-Herzegovina, Denmark and Trinidad and Tobago

27. UK – tied with Lithuania

35. Australia – tied with Bulgaria, France and Mali

50. Israel

53. The New Amerika – tied with Botswana, Croatia and Tonga

58. Poland (worst in the EU) – tied with Fiji, Hong Kong and Romania

134. Palestinian Authority

155. Vietnam

168. North Korea (the worst overall)

For details of the questionnaire and complete results, as well as the results of earlier years, go to Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2006.

And before signing off on this post, I would like to express my gratitude to the journalists that really do risk their freedom or their lives to ensure that we get information that is sufficient and real.

Reporters sans frontières

Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Überpresident

George Fourgis, my teacher for 8th grade American history, was the best history teacher I had during all of my secondary school years. His classes were lively, he told a lot of stories, and I learned a lot of history from him. But there are two particular points that Mr Fourgis made over and over that I have never forgotten.

On our very first day of class in September 1978, Mr Fourgis asked us who we thought were the United States of America’s two best friends. Hands went up – we were a bright group, after all. We named countries – the UK, Canada, France, whatever, and we were all wrong. No one got it. Mr Fourgis loved that because he could then deliver the information to us in his favourite dramatic style:

“The best friends the United States of America has ever had, the best friends we will ever have, are the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.”

Mr Fourgis knew he was giving us a completely new idea to churn around in our heads – he loved that too.

The second thing that Mr Fourgis emphasised throughout that 8th grade year was the importance of the separation of powers in our government and the system of checks and balances.

That is why I thought of Mr Fourgis last night when I was watching Keith Olbermann and listening to his guest, law professor Jonathan Turley, describing Bush as the first “über-president”. I thought of Mr Fourgis because we no longer have an effective system of checks and balances, and powers are no longer separated. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 has destroyed our Constitution.

I was lucky to have a teacher like Mr Fourgis, a teacher who was able to give a bunch of young kids some understanding of American history. And not only an understanding of what had happened 200 years before, but also an understanding of why and how it had happened, and why it was important then and why it is still important now.

It makes me wonder how so many of our senators and representatives can be ignorant of why our government was set up the way it was. And I know they are ignorant – there is no other explanation for how they could have voted to dismantle the system that was so carefully constructed to protect our rights and liberties.

The framers of the Constitution foresaw that we might one day have an unscrupulous president. As Jonathan Turley stated, “In fact, Madison said that he created a system essentially to be run by devils, where they could not do harm, because we didn’t rely on their good motivations.”

However it seems that the framers unfortunately did not foresee that we might have two houses of Congress that would be so collectively stupid that they would willingly choose to transform our system of government into a dictatorship.

Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government.
-- James Madison

"See you at Gitmo"

Keith Olbermann is my hero again and again.

Keith Olbermann, thank you for saying all of the things that need to be said in such a public context and with such courage of conviction.

As for the kool-aid drinkers in The New Amerika – just keep believing what you are told:

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

Heddy

José Van Gool: Two Friends

I have always considered that we can never know exactly what effect we have on other people. I mean whether or not we have influenced them at all, whether consciously or not, and whether positively or negatively.

I had a friend in Ústí nad Labem whom we called Heddy. I guess Heddy was 18 when she arrived for her gap year adventure of teaching English in Czechoslovakia. Heddy was beautiful – she had amazing black hair and looked like Snow White in Doc Martens and a nose ring. And she was smart and confident and funny. Heddy hung out with the big kids and she fit right in with us – drinking, smoking, generally misbehaving, and having an awesome time. And 5 months after she had arrived, Heddy went home to England.

We stayed in touch for a long time. Heddy visited me in Prague several times and I visited her once in Bristol. I’m not sure when we last saw each other. We talked a few times when I was living in England, but in spite of saying we would visit each other, we just never did. That was lame. And then Heddy moved to Oz and there may or may not have been a few emails and then there was nothing.

Until today. I got an email from Heddy with apologies and directions to Heddy’s blog. And Heddy directed me to a specific post where she had written about the 5 people whom she considers her role models. They were in chronological order and underneath “My Mum” and “My Teacher”, there was “My Friend” - and it was me. Wow. Gobsmacked. What an amazing way for an old friend to reassure you that she has not forgotten you.

“My Friend - I was really lucky when I took a gap year between school & university and I spent 5 months teaching English in Czechoslovakia. I met a really cool group of people & grew up about 5 years in 5 months!! Max is about 10 years older than me & had already experienced a heap of stuff. Again, she is so strong & independent & we talked about everything! How important it is to have friends who help you grow & not try & put you down!”

Thank you, Heddy.

Just another day in The Shire

For a second, I thought I was looking at The Onion, a satirical publication, rather than at The Huffington Post, normally a fairly intelligent and ruminative journal of news and opinions.

The top headline read “CHENEY: SITUATION IN IRAQ GOING ‘REMARKABLY WELL’…”

I almost laughed out loud. Those words immediately made me think of Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf (aka Comical Ali), the Iraqi Minister for Information during the American invasion. That’s right – the man that in April 2003 persisted in his claims that American troops were about to surrender to the Iraqis when in actuality they had already occupied most of Baghdad. The man that had by that time developed a cult following because he was perceived as being absurdly funny, but completely harmless.

A bit further down on the page was “Santorum Compares Iraq War to Lord of the Rings”, with a photo of Senator Rick Santorum next to a photo of Golum. From the salon.com story:

“In an interview with the editorial board of the Bucks County Courier Times, embattled Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum has equated the war in Iraq with J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. According to the paper, Santorum said that the United States has avoided terrorist attacks at home over the past five years because the ‘Eye of Mordor’ has been focused on Iraq instead.

“‘As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else,’ Santorum said. ‘It's being drawn to Iraq and it's not being drawn to the U.S. You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don't want the Eye to come back here to the United States.’”

What the fuck?! That analogy doesn’t even work. Unless Mount Doom is supposed to represent Washington, DC and the fascists in charge of the country are actually orcs.

But these are the fantasists that are running The New Amerika. Things are going to get a lot worse.