Sunday, February 24, 2019
May the Good Lord Bless You Muchly, Daryl (Davis): A True Peacemaker In Our Troubled Times...who someone by the name of Martin Luther King would be proud of...
Jesus Himself said it all, and succinctly:
*Blessed [Truly Happy] are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons [children] of God.
And so I dedicate this (for now, necessarily brief as) blogpost to a black American rhythm and blues musician named Daryl Davis, of whom I only just heard awhile ago - all of two hours, in fact...
...who apparently has been working one-on-one with individual Ku Klux Klan members over recent years (and even decades?)...with eminent success evidently...
...reportedly based upon an honest dialogue and showing due (if completely undeserved!) respect for them on that (individual) basis...and thus far seeing 200 former Klansmen leave the organization....
Please all of you Black Lives Matter folk - justifiably angry, even incensed and all the rest, over the needless, senseless - and moreover malicious and murderous - killings of your black compatriots throughout the length and breadth of America...and moreover the systemic and systemically-sanctioned slaughter - in cold-blooded savagery - of the same, by the so-called, supposed 'enforcers of law and order' in the land...
Yes, you've more than sufficient reason and 'excuse' to feel absolutely 'ropable' thereabouts, no-one can conceivably deny...
But please don't criticize and even condemn - if only by faint praise and thinly-veiled criticism - the efforts of one genuinely heroic individual...who being black himself is ever clearly taking his very own life in his hands...
...for the rescuing of even one Klansman is a mini-miracle and a testament to supernatural assistance - whether (explicitly) recognised and acknowledged by Davis himself, I've frankly no idea and don't even really care...
For as Daryl Davis himself says, there aren't lots of different races, there's really only one race on Earth, the human race...
...and as the ole song goes, 'it only takes a spark to get a fire going, and then all those around can warm up in its glowing...'
Sure, legislation - and all the rest - as Martin Luther King himself realized and oftentimes affirmed, is necessary in the civil rights movement...however long it ultimately lasts...
...but hey, let's each light a candle rather than simply curse the darkness...
for in the long run - as is obviously the case with Mr Davis already - it'll achieve a whole lot more.
*Blessed [Truly Happy] are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons [children] of God.
And so I dedicate this (for now, necessarily brief as) blogpost to a black American rhythm and blues musician named Daryl Davis, of whom I only just heard awhile ago - all of two hours, in fact...
...who apparently has been working one-on-one with individual Ku Klux Klan members over recent years (and even decades?)...with eminent success evidently...
...reportedly based upon an honest dialogue and showing due (if completely undeserved!) respect for them on that (individual) basis...and thus far seeing 200 former Klansmen leave the organization....
Please all of you Black Lives Matter folk - justifiably angry, even incensed and all the rest, over the needless, senseless - and moreover malicious and murderous - killings of your black compatriots throughout the length and breadth of America...and moreover the systemic and systemically-sanctioned slaughter - in cold-blooded savagery - of the same, by the so-called, supposed 'enforcers of law and order' in the land...
Yes, you've more than sufficient reason and 'excuse' to feel absolutely 'ropable' thereabouts, no-one can conceivably deny...
But please don't criticize and even condemn - if only by faint praise and thinly-veiled criticism - the efforts of one genuinely heroic individual...who being black himself is ever clearly taking his very own life in his hands...
...for the rescuing of even one Klansman is a mini-miracle and a testament to supernatural assistance - whether (explicitly) recognised and acknowledged by Davis himself, I've frankly no idea and don't even really care...
For as Daryl Davis himself says, there aren't lots of different races, there's really only one race on Earth, the human race...
...and as the ole song goes, 'it only takes a spark to get a fire going, and then all those around can warm up in its glowing...'
Sure, legislation - and all the rest - as Martin Luther King himself realized and oftentimes affirmed, is necessary in the civil rights movement...however long it ultimately lasts...
...but hey, let's each light a candle rather than simply curse the darkness...
for in the long run - as is obviously the case with Mr Davis already - it'll achieve a whole lot more.
Friday, February 22, 2019
Three Momentous 'Anniversaries' (or 'near-ones') Impacting Over-Muchly Upon Our Increasingly Fraught Day and Age
Again, these'll seem entirely unrelated...but may I respectfully suggest that
*Tomorrow's 46th anniversary of 'Roe Vs Wade' commemorates arguably the defining issue of the Western 'Culture Wars', and thus and so I understand that American Christians (in particular) intend to mark tomorrow by a day of prayer and fasting...
*The 40th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution likewise signposts the beginning of the Islamic Renaissance in our era...with all that that momentous development has had on the world ever since... and that does not even include the increasing and increasingly worrisome possibility, nay probability, of an all-out (at least regional) - yes, nuclear - war (between Israel and Iran) in the Middle East...
And as the 9 p.m. RNZ National News Bulletin has now once again confirmed,
*the similarly periodically waxing and waning and waxing and waning and waxing tensions between those two southern Asian nuclear powers, India and Pakistan, have ratcheted up yet again...after being effectively quelled (to a large extent) over recent days...following a renewed flare-up in the immediate aftermath of the bombing/blowing up of 40 or so Indian military folk in the border region of Kashmir just a few weeks back...
And so, folks, I suggest a day of prayer and fasting would not go amiss for any of us in the forseeable...
*Tomorrow's 46th anniversary of 'Roe Vs Wade' commemorates arguably the defining issue of the Western 'Culture Wars', and thus and so I understand that American Christians (in particular) intend to mark tomorrow by a day of prayer and fasting...
*The 40th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution likewise signposts the beginning of the Islamic Renaissance in our era...with all that that momentous development has had on the world ever since... and that does not even include the increasing and increasingly worrisome possibility, nay probability, of an all-out (at least regional) - yes, nuclear - war (between Israel and Iran) in the Middle East...
And as the 9 p.m. RNZ National News Bulletin has now once again confirmed,
*the similarly periodically waxing and waning and waxing and waning and waxing tensions between those two southern Asian nuclear powers, India and Pakistan, have ratcheted up yet again...after being effectively quelled (to a large extent) over recent days...following a renewed flare-up in the immediate aftermath of the bombing/blowing up of 40 or so Indian military folk in the border region of Kashmir just a few weeks back...
And so, folks, I suggest a day of prayer and fasting would not go amiss for any of us in the forseeable...
Fait Accompli: The Complete Coup of the Post-Modernist Double-Standard
From all accounts it would appear that inconsistency, even bare-faced contradiction is undeniably the hallmark of our post-modernist age... Yes, indeed. But guess what, folks? -"...what is highly esteemed among [humankind] is an abomination in the sight of God." Yes, 'times may change', as they say, but the great Creator God doesn't...His unchanging character being the very essence of the integrity of His being...
Applying the foregoing to the political whims and fancies, fads and fashions of modern Western political life, this blogpost will be a tying together of such a disparate 'duo' as the New Zealand National Party's backbench Invercargill M.P. Sarah Dowie on the one hand, and Scotland's former longserving First Minister Alex Salmond on the other...and (as of yesterday) throwing in National's North Shore M.P. Maggie Barry for good measure...
Which might well seem as sensible a proposition as throwing various refrigerated odds 'n sods into a pan, applying some heat and expecting a culinary miracle to eventually transpire...-like seriously, folks... Something akin/similar to the Israelite patriarch Moses' brother Aaron's ingenious attempt to explicate his fateful compromise and deflect responsibility, and so extricate himself from the resultant blame - and much worse - by claiming the people broke off their ornamental gold, handed it to him, then "I cast it into the fire, and this [golden] calf came out"!
As we'd say in kiwi-ville: "Yeah, right (Aaron)!" In other words a highly unlikely thing - any way you choose to put it. But to return to our topic, and presenting last things first...
Espying Maggie Barry yesterday aft upon parliamentary TV, for some reason I all of a sudden recalled the public revelation November last - whilst engaged in a regular housesitting job - of her psychological bullying of parliamentary staffers working in her office...and lo and behold, probably not an hour on, while listening to the 4 p.m. news bulletin on Newstalk ZB that very saga was - for the first time in almost three months - 'recalled', in respect of some investigation by parliamentary auditors or the like...
Which I mention, in this blogpost's context, as to me anyway it well illustrates - as I reflected upon recalling it yesterday, for the first time since then - how women who do bad stuff (in NZ, anyway) seem to get away scot-free...invariably get slapped over the wrist with ye proverbial wet bus ticket... and then the entire matter is relegated to the dust-bins of forgetfulness...
To Be Continued...due to unforeseen - and frankly quite unforeseeable! - interruption, as per usual.
(Very sorry, folks...but it looks as though I'm gonna finally have to move...if I'm ever to get proper time for this (and my other) blogsite...it's getting that problematic...I kid ya's not...
Applying the foregoing to the political whims and fancies, fads and fashions of modern Western political life, this blogpost will be a tying together of such a disparate 'duo' as the New Zealand National Party's backbench Invercargill M.P. Sarah Dowie on the one hand, and Scotland's former longserving First Minister Alex Salmond on the other...and (as of yesterday) throwing in National's North Shore M.P. Maggie Barry for good measure...
Which might well seem as sensible a proposition as throwing various refrigerated odds 'n sods into a pan, applying some heat and expecting a culinary miracle to eventually transpire...-like seriously, folks... Something akin/similar to the Israelite patriarch Moses' brother Aaron's ingenious attempt to explicate his fateful compromise and deflect responsibility, and so extricate himself from the resultant blame - and much worse - by claiming the people broke off their ornamental gold, handed it to him, then "I cast it into the fire, and this [golden] calf came out"!
As we'd say in kiwi-ville: "Yeah, right (Aaron)!" In other words a highly unlikely thing - any way you choose to put it. But to return to our topic, and presenting last things first...
Espying Maggie Barry yesterday aft upon parliamentary TV, for some reason I all of a sudden recalled the public revelation November last - whilst engaged in a regular housesitting job - of her psychological bullying of parliamentary staffers working in her office...and lo and behold, probably not an hour on, while listening to the 4 p.m. news bulletin on Newstalk ZB that very saga was - for the first time in almost three months - 'recalled', in respect of some investigation by parliamentary auditors or the like...
Which I mention, in this blogpost's context, as to me anyway it well illustrates - as I reflected upon recalling it yesterday, for the first time since then - how women who do bad stuff (in NZ, anyway) seem to get away scot-free...invariably get slapped over the wrist with ye proverbial wet bus ticket... and then the entire matter is relegated to the dust-bins of forgetfulness...
To Be Continued...due to unforeseen - and frankly quite unforeseeable! - interruption, as per usual.
(Very sorry, folks...but it looks as though I'm gonna finally have to move...if I'm ever to get proper time for this (and my other) blogsite...it's getting that problematic...I kid ya's not...
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Bernie Sanders, (back) cometh the moment, (back) cometh the man: Who Else is so eminently qualified to fill the World's Most Important Political Position?
Except perhaps President Obama's Veep, Joe Biden...who is still (expected, anyhow) to announce (his candidacy for United States President)...or perhaps he could serve as (Sanders') VP once again...
It's somewhat odd to return on this my 303th blogpost (on davidedwinisms) to the Sanders name...also cited in one of my very earliest (back in mid-2012) vis-a-vis that man *with the golden recipe, Colonel Sanders himself...
...and these days we even have the spectre of Sarah Huckabee Sanders as President Trump's ever-versatile Press Secretary (I believe is the formal/official title she holds)...
But apparently Bernie Sanders has declared in this his 77th year of life, so I felt this a fitting time.
Nevertheless, despite this unequivocal as endorsement, and despite retaining my dual (kiwi-U S) citizenship thus enabling me to **cast a vote in that ***most important of all elections, my staunch, biblical stance upon ****two ever-contentious issues - abortion and same-sex marriage - would ultimately prevent my conscientiously casting a vote in his direction...for as a *****commandment-upholding Christ-follower, that must ever take precedence over any personal political preference...something that I would respectfully suggest distinguishes me from ye average ******'cultural Christian' of today...
But as the one person - by dint of his Jewish heritage - able to help bring an end to that most intractable of all global conflicts, i.e. the Israeli-Palestinian conflict...he's the best choice by far: to help, as I say - under divine sovereignty alone, no doubt - to bring an ultimate end to this most insoluble of political dilemmas...
Approaching the subject as a Jew, yet from a non-pro-Israeli stance, perhaps he could succeed where all others have thus far failed...and surely that's at least worth a try...don't ya think - no, truly?
*Though not a meat-eater for well nigh a third of a century now, in my youth I simply loved the smell and taste thereof - however endlessly maligned by the hordes of food snobs out there - but even more, the childhood (early-to-mid seventies) TV ad thereabouts was - and still is - on a level all its own.
**However, even if Senator Sanders were selected as Democratic Nominee in 2020, an unfortunately rather diminishing likelihood from all accounts (for all number of reasons), my own 'state home' would be the last place I lived in the US (in the early-to-mid-nineties), i.e. my Mum's home state of Minnesota...and if Sanders proved unable to win there, he'd lose in the biggest landslide of all time.
***As they all are (alleged to be), admittedly.
****Though there are doubtless many, if not innumerable, others...such as euthanasia (just for starters).
*****Of the (true, biblical) Sabbath-keeping variety, that is - i.e. as per the fourth commandment of the Decalogue. Not just my own say-so, either, as theologians of all major Christian denominations are on record (over the decades, even centuries) as affirming as much...even the Roman Catholic Church, which ultimately *******claims authority for having made this change in the Ten Commandments
******See my 66th blogpost upon my other blogpost, http://nuffsaid:consideryourself-frombothsidesnow.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/).
*******Not that any merely earthly entity has such authority, you understand...which no doubt explains why the little horn power so vividly and graphically depicted and elaborated upon in the great beasts' prophecy of Daniel 7 asserts that this great religio-political power (only) 'thinks to change times and laws'...including incidentally the second as well...oh, and the tenth too...
Postscript: After completing this, a 'brainwave' idea came to me: that Bernie Sanders - jettisoning the previous 'burn' guff, though as a 'fellow bern-namer', I do see the value thereof - he should embrace this slogan for Campaign 2020: Embracing a 20/20 Vision of a Better World.
Though better still - than any of such political tinkering and fiddling at the edges - why doesn't he do/make a truly bipartisan thing/gesture and select, as his Vice-Presidential Nominee, a Republican of proven calibre and integrity...and political vision...such as Kentucky Senator Rand Paul...
...something that true political gentleman/potential statesman of yesteryear, Democratic Senator George McGovern, evidently considered also...in that instance choosing the (then) longtime maverick Washington (State) Senator (whose name I've temporarily forgotten!) as his own running mate...
It's somewhat odd to return on this my 303th blogpost (on davidedwinisms) to the Sanders name...also cited in one of my very earliest (back in mid-2012) vis-a-vis that man *with the golden recipe, Colonel Sanders himself...
...and these days we even have the spectre of Sarah Huckabee Sanders as President Trump's ever-versatile Press Secretary (I believe is the formal/official title she holds)...
But apparently Bernie Sanders has declared in this his 77th year of life, so I felt this a fitting time.
Nevertheless, despite this unequivocal as endorsement, and despite retaining my dual (kiwi-U S) citizenship thus enabling me to **cast a vote in that ***most important of all elections, my staunch, biblical stance upon ****two ever-contentious issues - abortion and same-sex marriage - would ultimately prevent my conscientiously casting a vote in his direction...for as a *****commandment-upholding Christ-follower, that must ever take precedence over any personal political preference...something that I would respectfully suggest distinguishes me from ye average ******'cultural Christian' of today...
But as the one person - by dint of his Jewish heritage - able to help bring an end to that most intractable of all global conflicts, i.e. the Israeli-Palestinian conflict...he's the best choice by far: to help, as I say - under divine sovereignty alone, no doubt - to bring an ultimate end to this most insoluble of political dilemmas...
Approaching the subject as a Jew, yet from a non-pro-Israeli stance, perhaps he could succeed where all others have thus far failed...and surely that's at least worth a try...don't ya think - no, truly?
*Though not a meat-eater for well nigh a third of a century now, in my youth I simply loved the smell and taste thereof - however endlessly maligned by the hordes of food snobs out there - but even more, the childhood (early-to-mid seventies) TV ad thereabouts was - and still is - on a level all its own.
**However, even if Senator Sanders were selected as Democratic Nominee in 2020, an unfortunately rather diminishing likelihood from all accounts (for all number of reasons), my own 'state home' would be the last place I lived in the US (in the early-to-mid-nineties), i.e. my Mum's home state of Minnesota...and if Sanders proved unable to win there, he'd lose in the biggest landslide of all time.
***As they all are (alleged to be), admittedly.
****Though there are doubtless many, if not innumerable, others...such as euthanasia (just for starters).
*****Of the (true, biblical) Sabbath-keeping variety, that is - i.e. as per the fourth commandment of the Decalogue. Not just my own say-so, either, as theologians of all major Christian denominations are on record (over the decades, even centuries) as affirming as much...even the Roman Catholic Church, which ultimately *******claims authority for having made this change in the Ten Commandments
******See my 66th blogpost upon my other blogpost, http://nuffsaid:consideryourself-frombothsidesnow.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/).
*******Not that any merely earthly entity has such authority, you understand...which no doubt explains why the little horn power so vividly and graphically depicted and elaborated upon in the great beasts' prophecy of Daniel 7 asserts that this great religio-political power (only) 'thinks to change times and laws'...including incidentally the second as well...oh, and the tenth too...
Postscript: After completing this, a 'brainwave' idea came to me: that Bernie Sanders - jettisoning the previous 'burn' guff, though as a 'fellow bern-namer', I do see the value thereof - he should embrace this slogan for Campaign 2020: Embracing a 20/20 Vision of a Better World.
Though better still - than any of such political tinkering and fiddling at the edges - why doesn't he do/make a truly bipartisan thing/gesture and select, as his Vice-Presidential Nominee, a Republican of proven calibre and integrity...and political vision...such as Kentucky Senator Rand Paul...
...something that true political gentleman/potential statesman of yesteryear, Democratic Senator George McGovern, evidently considered also...in that instance choosing the (then) longtime maverick Washington (State) Senator (whose name I've temporarily forgotten!) as his own running mate...
So What is a Self-Respecting Nation to do? Vis-a-vis the 'Peoples' Republic of China: Come Cringingly Under the Dragon's Beguiling, Hypnotic Spell...or Stand Free in Our God-Given Liberty? It's a No-Brainer, Folks
There's been a plethora of commentary and speculation of late upon New Zealand's increasingly 'fraught' relationship with China - the Peoples' Republic thereof, that is, as Taiwan, last I heard, still maintains itself as the 'Democratic Republic of China' (if I've got things right), or at least effectively so...however snubbed and otherwise ignored by other nations ever seeking to cozy up to the Smiling Oriental Dragon...
Without any further ado, let's cut to the chase: yes, economist Mike Riddell is spot-on vis-a-vis China ...especially as to the barely-veiled current attempts of a craven, cowardly and increasingly cringeworthy NZ National Party to cozy on up to 'em...in an unhealthy, codependent, sycophantic fashion to boot...a line (too feeble-minded to be credited as 'reasoning') that the so-called 'peoples' radio', RNZ National, has itself tended to take up and espouse/promote (up to recent days at least)...
Indeed, Canterbury University's own Anne-Marie Brady - herself secretly subjected to surreptitious search and seizure (in the sacred precincts of her own home) awhile ago - is a perfect test case of just how dangerous a thing it really is to *snuggle up to the Chinese Dragon...a proposition indeed that makes **Bilbo Baggins' unenviable quest into Smaug the Dragon of the Lonely Mountain's deep, dark hideaway almost look a veritable piece of cake by comparison...
Yes, it's all about genuinely cherishing and honouring our own well-founded values and longstanding traditions, and thus maintaining self-respect...and standing alongside all good folk everywhere for that rather old-fashioned but still valuable concept of ****'human rights' and freedom...
*No, she didn't so snuggle up to the PRC, but NZ already well and truly having done so under H Clark & Co back in 2008...and said process having been put into overdrive under the Key (and English) administrations...I'm merely making the (arguably self-evident) point that the closer one's relationship becomes with Beijing, the more fraught things are likely to get, and indeed have verily become...for the smaller ***'partner', in this case lil ole God's Own...
**As recounted so superbly in that masterpiece of classical epic literature, JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit.
***Of course truly a partner only in name.
****Something former U S President Jimmy Carter was so mercilessly parodied over...as the 'Otago Daily Times *****documented a few years back in what was a very revealing backgrounder to his presidency. Carter - quite justifiably in my view, anyhow - felt (immensely) proud - however much his Republican presidential opponent, the then former two-term Governor of California, Ronald Reagan (and American media generally) depicted/characterized him as effectively being the United States' 'Wimp-in-Chief' - that under his presidential tenure not one person lost ******'their' life.
*****In its well-reputed 'World Focus' Monday supplement, sadly now given ordinary, everyday status within the ODT's general pages.
******Yes, more precisely 'his/her', but 'their' seems to have now passed into everyday vocab. As to the far more substantive point, Carter was presumably including not only the fact that America's overseas-stationed defence/defensive (though more often these days, offence/offensive) forces were not involved then in the taking of any lives, military or civilian - clearly no American-related wars were being fought - but also that nobody was put to death on federal 'death row' under his tenure... - a feat surely worth noting and for which - however completely ignored by the 'informing' media -one can surely excuse him for having been justifiably more than a little proud...
Without any further ado, let's cut to the chase: yes, economist Mike Riddell is spot-on vis-a-vis China ...especially as to the barely-veiled current attempts of a craven, cowardly and increasingly cringeworthy NZ National Party to cozy on up to 'em...in an unhealthy, codependent, sycophantic fashion to boot...a line (too feeble-minded to be credited as 'reasoning') that the so-called 'peoples' radio', RNZ National, has itself tended to take up and espouse/promote (up to recent days at least)...
Indeed, Canterbury University's own Anne-Marie Brady - herself secretly subjected to surreptitious search and seizure (in the sacred precincts of her own home) awhile ago - is a perfect test case of just how dangerous a thing it really is to *snuggle up to the Chinese Dragon...a proposition indeed that makes **Bilbo Baggins' unenviable quest into Smaug the Dragon of the Lonely Mountain's deep, dark hideaway almost look a veritable piece of cake by comparison...
Yes, it's all about genuinely cherishing and honouring our own well-founded values and longstanding traditions, and thus maintaining self-respect...and standing alongside all good folk everywhere for that rather old-fashioned but still valuable concept of ****'human rights' and freedom...
*No, she didn't so snuggle up to the PRC, but NZ already well and truly having done so under H Clark & Co back in 2008...and said process having been put into overdrive under the Key (and English) administrations...I'm merely making the (arguably self-evident) point that the closer one's relationship becomes with Beijing, the more fraught things are likely to get, and indeed have verily become...for the smaller ***'partner', in this case lil ole God's Own...
**As recounted so superbly in that masterpiece of classical epic literature, JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit.
***Of course truly a partner only in name.
****Something former U S President Jimmy Carter was so mercilessly parodied over...as the 'Otago Daily Times *****documented a few years back in what was a very revealing backgrounder to his presidency. Carter - quite justifiably in my view, anyhow - felt (immensely) proud - however much his Republican presidential opponent, the then former two-term Governor of California, Ronald Reagan (and American media generally) depicted/characterized him as effectively being the United States' 'Wimp-in-Chief' - that under his presidential tenure not one person lost ******'their' life.
*****In its well-reputed 'World Focus' Monday supplement, sadly now given ordinary, everyday status within the ODT's general pages.
******Yes, more precisely 'his/her', but 'their' seems to have now passed into everyday vocab. As to the far more substantive point, Carter was presumably including not only the fact that America's overseas-stationed defence/defensive (though more often these days, offence/offensive) forces were not involved then in the taking of any lives, military or civilian - clearly no American-related wars were being fought - but also that nobody was put to death on federal 'death row' under his tenure... - a feat surely worth noting and for which - however completely ignored by the 'informing' media -one can surely excuse him for having been justifiably more than a little proud...
Monday, February 18, 2019
Sissii Internationale's Shamima Begum - and Shameless Hangers-On (including Oft-Lauded Former Three-Term NZ PM & UN's #3) - Simply Beggar/s Belief...
So what else is new...or even remotely surprising...in this left means right, up means down, backwards means forwards, and inside means outside, supposedly super-enlightened generation of ours? Pretty much nothing at all, evidently...
Yes, welcome back to the (soon) conclusion of the second decade of the 21st Century...a time in which the *inherent contradictions in the reality of the day could hardly be better enunciated than by that prescient translator and interpreter of the future, George Orwell, in his ever-relevant Nineteen Eighty-Four.
*Orwell [Eric Arthur Blair] wrote many memorable texts, including the equally-riveting Animal Farm. 1984 gives us the unforgettable equations of
War Is Peace...Freedom is Slavery...Ignorance is Strength
whereas Animal Farm brought us the inimitable
Two Legs Bad...Four Legs Good...
& All Animals are Equal, but some animals are more equal than others
among other self-contradictory 'truisms'...
But before I get well and truly waylaid and completely off the track, the point I'm trying - in however belaboured a fashion - to make, is simply this: the mere fact that anyone - in her or his right mind, that is - somehow or other really, truly believes that the likes of this Sissii recruit has some sort of an inherent, human right - in this case to return to the United Kingdom...despite evidencing no remorse whatsoever over the evil deeds of her fellow-travellers...is quite frankly unfathomable...
...were it not so very typical of the mindset of some these days...who, as the **Good Book has stated oh so aptly, 'put evil for good and good for evil', 'who call darkness light and light darkness'...
And how about expediting her return asap and putting her on trial for high treason...because, quite frankly, her gender, relative youth and parental status should have nothing whatsoever to do with it...
-she's patently guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours by complicity and association...and deserves the sort of 'mercy' that she and her associates were ever only so very willing to dispense to others...
Yes, the All-Merciful One - Yahweh, praise His great and glorious Name - is ever willing to forgive...the truly and genuinely repentant...yet as Israel's best ever king, David, eventually learnt (to his everlasting sorrow), sin always carries consequences and can not always be completely 'offset' in the here and now...though God ever retains the sovereign right and privilege of forgiveness...and can pardon the blackest, most heinous sins imaginable...
...yes, even those of Sissii Internationale and its ***motley crew of ragtag hangers-on...
...thank God (and God alone)...
**As indeed I blogposted about - and with such a title as well, I recall - in the not so distant past...
***But I don't describe them thus to in any way seek to downplay or excuse the deliberate, wilful 'malice of aforethought' engaged in by all those who've ever signed up with SI and/or relocated to help further their malicious designs...no way, Jose!
Footnote (following today's (February 19th) RNZ National Panel discussion):
Apparently some folk are allegedly "surprised at the [patent] lack of sympathy [for SB] among the British"...! Really? For this completely unrepentant individual who has not only steadfastly refused to condemn what her Sissii International associates got up to, but has even apparently claimed - and who can deny the validity of her assertion, having evidently been someone somewhat 'in the know' (despite an abundance of oh so convenient protestations to the contrary now it suits her self-serving purposes) - that "the Manchester bombing/s was/were retaliation for [British involvement in] Syria".
Yes, as the oft-cited (varsity professor and NZ military analyst) Al Gillespie himself then stated, such people as SB were, much like the hard core of SS troops who remained in Berlin right up to the bitter end (of WW11 and Adolf Hitler & Co), "[among] the hardest of the hardest". And so surely far less deserving of such sympathy and mercy than all others (involved), wouldn't any reasonable person agree?
And - when pointedly asked by the longtime and well-respected correspondent Quentin Somerville (both upon BBC World Radio's regular weekday/s OS programme this morning and a little later as replayed and/or relayed by RNZ National's Morning Report after 7.30 a.m. (NZ time) this morning) - "whether - as a poster child for [S/I] - you are/were sorry [re] the people killed by [S/I]?", SB matter-of-factly replied:
"Yeah, I am sorry for all the families in the UK who've lost people as a result of [S/I activities]...
[But] I think I did no wrong" - having apparently not been personally involved in the actual fighting/beheadings...
So SB was "unable to make her own decisions"? Sorry, she carefully planned and meticulously carried out her involvement with this death-cult, moving to the very centre of their global activities... marrying an [S/I] dude and thus becoming a child bride and then having kids to this fellow...
...and then having the temerity and gall to plead for mercy and understanding as if she didn't know what she was signing up for...
No, she was self-confessedly well able to make her own decisions and did just that...and is thus and so judged and condemned by her own words...
But much worse - in a way - are those who buy into her craven attempt to gain public sympathy now that, as I say, it suits her own self-serving purposes...and such folk are a perfect example and illustration of the complete double-standards such folk are ever willing to employ vis-a-vis respective male and female abusers and/or victims of stuff...
Yes, former kiwi P.M. and recent #3 (Aid and Development Head) at the UN, Helen Clark, is correct insofar as she cites international law which allows for such folk being repatriated (if that's the term) back to their country of origin (post-conflicts)...while expressing concern at SB's lack of remorse...but to this ****trooper such people have *****utterly forsaken any reasonable claim to earthly habitation or abode...- and should have to take the consequences of their malicious purposes and activities...
...though I do take on board Professor Gillespie's citing of "genuine concerns by Kurdish fighters" in the area for those fellow S/I folk in Syria who will now apparently be "scattered to [ye proverbial] winds"...for if any people group deserve our sympathies and practical (as well as prayerful) assistance at this time, it's Kurds in northern Syria and Iraq (and southern Turkey) and Iran.
After all, who else in the region has been consistently making such a valiant stand for the right?
****Ever in a non-military capacity, you understand...though I was pleasantly surprised, when standing as an independent for the NZ Parliament back in the 2008 General Election (which, incidentally, saw the ultimate demise of Ms Clark's political fortunes in God's Own), to receive 2 of the 100 or 200 special votes from military serving overseas...and that despite my ever staunch stand as a committed lifelong pacifist, though upon the campaign trail I did accept that, much as every last Swiss is trained (and duty-bound) to do, if NZ Inc was ever invaded we would have the sovereign right (and indeed responsibility) to defend our precious, treasured homeland from enemy invasion.
Perhaps such hardy military folk admired my frank honesty, but much more likely, sad to say, it was the very fortuitous placement of my particular surname at the very start of the queue - and the lack of any political party name next to it - that gave some the needed incentive to tick my box...
*****Which seeming severity should not however apply to her innocent wee child, who should be sent back home asap and brought up by grandparents (etc) (if they exist) in the United Kingdom...
Yes, welcome back to the (soon) conclusion of the second decade of the 21st Century...a time in which the *inherent contradictions in the reality of the day could hardly be better enunciated than by that prescient translator and interpreter of the future, George Orwell, in his ever-relevant Nineteen Eighty-Four.
*Orwell [Eric Arthur Blair] wrote many memorable texts, including the equally-riveting Animal Farm. 1984 gives us the unforgettable equations of
War Is Peace...Freedom is Slavery...Ignorance is Strength
whereas Animal Farm brought us the inimitable
Two Legs Bad...Four Legs Good...
& All Animals are Equal, but some animals are more equal than others
among other self-contradictory 'truisms'...
But before I get well and truly waylaid and completely off the track, the point I'm trying - in however belaboured a fashion - to make, is simply this: the mere fact that anyone - in her or his right mind, that is - somehow or other really, truly believes that the likes of this Sissii recruit has some sort of an inherent, human right - in this case to return to the United Kingdom...despite evidencing no remorse whatsoever over the evil deeds of her fellow-travellers...is quite frankly unfathomable...
...were it not so very typical of the mindset of some these days...who, as the **Good Book has stated oh so aptly, 'put evil for good and good for evil', 'who call darkness light and light darkness'...
And how about expediting her return asap and putting her on trial for high treason...because, quite frankly, her gender, relative youth and parental status should have nothing whatsoever to do with it...
-she's patently guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours by complicity and association...and deserves the sort of 'mercy' that she and her associates were ever only so very willing to dispense to others...
Yes, the All-Merciful One - Yahweh, praise His great and glorious Name - is ever willing to forgive...the truly and genuinely repentant...yet as Israel's best ever king, David, eventually learnt (to his everlasting sorrow), sin always carries consequences and can not always be completely 'offset' in the here and now...though God ever retains the sovereign right and privilege of forgiveness...and can pardon the blackest, most heinous sins imaginable...
...yes, even those of Sissii Internationale and its ***motley crew of ragtag hangers-on...
...thank God (and God alone)...
**As indeed I blogposted about - and with such a title as well, I recall - in the not so distant past...
***But I don't describe them thus to in any way seek to downplay or excuse the deliberate, wilful 'malice of aforethought' engaged in by all those who've ever signed up with SI and/or relocated to help further their malicious designs...no way, Jose!
Footnote (following today's (February 19th) RNZ National Panel discussion):
Apparently some folk are allegedly "surprised at the [patent] lack of sympathy [for SB] among the British"...! Really? For this completely unrepentant individual who has not only steadfastly refused to condemn what her Sissii International associates got up to, but has even apparently claimed - and who can deny the validity of her assertion, having evidently been someone somewhat 'in the know' (despite an abundance of oh so convenient protestations to the contrary now it suits her self-serving purposes) - that "the Manchester bombing/s was/were retaliation for [British involvement in] Syria".
Yes, as the oft-cited (varsity professor and NZ military analyst) Al Gillespie himself then stated, such people as SB were, much like the hard core of SS troops who remained in Berlin right up to the bitter end (of WW11 and Adolf Hitler & Co), "[among] the hardest of the hardest". And so surely far less deserving of such sympathy and mercy than all others (involved), wouldn't any reasonable person agree?
And - when pointedly asked by the longtime and well-respected correspondent Quentin Somerville (both upon BBC World Radio's regular weekday/s OS programme this morning and a little later as replayed and/or relayed by RNZ National's Morning Report after 7.30 a.m. (NZ time) this morning) - "whether - as a poster child for [S/I] - you are/were sorry [re] the people killed by [S/I]?", SB matter-of-factly replied:
"Yeah, I am sorry for all the families in the UK who've lost people as a result of [S/I activities]...
[But] I think I did no wrong" - having apparently not been personally involved in the actual fighting/beheadings...
So SB was "unable to make her own decisions"? Sorry, she carefully planned and meticulously carried out her involvement with this death-cult, moving to the very centre of their global activities... marrying an [S/I] dude and thus becoming a child bride and then having kids to this fellow...
...and then having the temerity and gall to plead for mercy and understanding as if she didn't know what she was signing up for...
No, she was self-confessedly well able to make her own decisions and did just that...and is thus and so judged and condemned by her own words...
But much worse - in a way - are those who buy into her craven attempt to gain public sympathy now that, as I say, it suits her own self-serving purposes...and such folk are a perfect example and illustration of the complete double-standards such folk are ever willing to employ vis-a-vis respective male and female abusers and/or victims of stuff...
Yes, former kiwi P.M. and recent #3 (Aid and Development Head) at the UN, Helen Clark, is correct insofar as she cites international law which allows for such folk being repatriated (if that's the term) back to their country of origin (post-conflicts)...while expressing concern at SB's lack of remorse...but to this ****trooper such people have *****utterly forsaken any reasonable claim to earthly habitation or abode...- and should have to take the consequences of their malicious purposes and activities...
...though I do take on board Professor Gillespie's citing of "genuine concerns by Kurdish fighters" in the area for those fellow S/I folk in Syria who will now apparently be "scattered to [ye proverbial] winds"...for if any people group deserve our sympathies and practical (as well as prayerful) assistance at this time, it's Kurds in northern Syria and Iraq (and southern Turkey) and Iran.
After all, who else in the region has been consistently making such a valiant stand for the right?
****Ever in a non-military capacity, you understand...though I was pleasantly surprised, when standing as an independent for the NZ Parliament back in the 2008 General Election (which, incidentally, saw the ultimate demise of Ms Clark's political fortunes in God's Own), to receive 2 of the 100 or 200 special votes from military serving overseas...and that despite my ever staunch stand as a committed lifelong pacifist, though upon the campaign trail I did accept that, much as every last Swiss is trained (and duty-bound) to do, if NZ Inc was ever invaded we would have the sovereign right (and indeed responsibility) to defend our precious, treasured homeland from enemy invasion.
Perhaps such hardy military folk admired my frank honesty, but much more likely, sad to say, it was the very fortuitous placement of my particular surname at the very start of the queue - and the lack of any political party name next to it - that gave some the needed incentive to tick my box...
*****Which seeming severity should not however apply to her innocent wee child, who should be sent back home asap and brought up by grandparents (etc) (if they exist) in the United Kingdom...
Sunday, February 10, 2019
"a strange god...he shall acknowledge and increase with glory" (Daniel 11:39) [Blogpost # 300]
An Unusual Introduction to Arguably One of my Most Important Blogposts Yet
For this, my (personally) epochal 300th blogpost upon my second(ary), originally subsidiary blogsite ...I've been, understandably enough, majorly conflicted...so many important and weighty matters not only weighing heavily upon my spirit, but literally predominating upon the airwaves...and in the blogosphere and throughout cyberspace...
So although my - eventually (and with extreme difficulty) - chosen topic today/tonight is not the only one I've considered...indeed, only as the day's progressed and morning's become afternoon and that in turn's given way to evening have I even come to consider this particular topic...nevertheless, of the rich menu upon offer (generally of recent times) it seems to me to be the most deserving, even demanding, of imminent attention and consideration...
So, for those, like myself, increasingly exercised of late about such diverse concerns as
*an outrightly, openly - make no bones about it, in your face, "this is business as normal" (in the Trumpian, post-truth era) - one-sided, highly partisan and even arguably ideological reportage of all matters Trump-related...c/o ye average, Western media outlet and 'journalist'...
*the peculiarly quick and bizarrely farfetched regressive 'development' of historical revisionism and outright expunction of objective, historically-documented realities, or, more precisely, the obsessive desire of so many these days to carefully airbrush things they don't happen to like or approve of...in order to make such palatable for their exquisitely, finely-nuanced grab-bag of personal sensibilities - all things needing proper vetting for the consumption of the **'up-and-coming' 'snowflake' generation...
*the absolute double-standards employed for alleged male vis-a-vis female offenders (in serious, especially sexually-related criminal investigations) - again, in ye 'enlightened West', it must be conceded...
*the control freak mentality of those seeking to engineer, define and/or predetermine the outcome of the long-contentious abortion debate (again, in Western nations), essentially by redefining the meaning/s of words and using them, not so much to enlighten and inform, but so as to bludgeon their usually quite conscientious opponents into some kind of mindless, cringing and fearful, however reluctant submission...
*the simple yet ever profound truisms epitomized and perfectly illustrated in and by my all-time favourite television film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory - the original version, that is...
...please bear with me if you so can, and wait just a little longer...I hope - and sincerely believe - you won't be disappointed, whether you happen to - ultimately - disagree with my assumptions, evaluations, interpretations, and conclusions or otherwise...
But this blogpost - as with a still being completed blogpost (significantly #66) upon my initial and originally major blogsite - will bear upon the just-below-the-radar but almost-constantly-observed and well-documented actions and pronouncements, times and travels of a certain well-known personage/media star/religious personality, even celebrity upon the global stage...
...and moreover the biblically significant, even rather earth-shattering - as in historically momentous - implications of his unconventional, unorthodox - even heterodox - approach to his own highly unique position/role in global affairs and upon the world scene...
My essential reason for choosing this particular subject being that - living as we unquestionably do in an era of great change and conflict, of portentous and problematic events, and of (the resultant and quite understandable) confusion and downright perplexity in all quarters...
...it's time to cut through some of the culturally-embellished and embroidered distractions and sideshows and non-issues - if only for a mo(ment) - and focus/zero in upon some matters which, however much they are (zealously) ignored and neglected and otherwise overlooked by selfsame media...
...impact regularly upon both our present, temporal lives and potentially our ultimate, eternal future...
**As regular viewers of my blogsites would well know, the unfair and malicious aspersion thus cast upon the humble and beautiful flake of snow is something that I personally find rather hard to stomach...(and thus and so, if you've a more suitable alternative, please let me know, I'm all ears!)
Part Two: Just What are we Dealing With Here?
I'm glad - yea, overjoyed - you asked. Where do - can - I start? Well, how about with this: what, prithee, means - or more precisely portends - the curious title I've selected for this my 300th blogpost upon http://davidedwinisms.blogspot.co.nz/(or .com/)?
Just this...to wit, the unusual decision of the leader of (what I believe/understand to be) the world's (numerically) largest religious group/body - i.e. the Roman Catholic Church's papal head, Pope Francis - to make an unprecedented visit to the Saudi Peninsula, and the United Arab Emirates in particular...
...whereupon he co-signed (alongside Sheik el-Tayeb) an equally unprecedented document - known as Nostra Aetate (I believe) - on behalf of his 1.2 billion parishioners...
a document which arguably effectively yields or surrenders the gauntlet in the ages-old religious feud/rivalry/tension between Catholicism (and Christendom-at-large for that matter) and Islam(ism).
And hence has not only astonished and appalled, incensed and outraged conservative Catholic traditionalists, but moreover (has) led only yesterday/the day before to the decision of a former prefect of the modern-day incarnation/manifestation/face and embodiment of the medieval RCC Inquisition - German cardinal Gerhard Mueller of the Congregation of the Doctrine of/for the Faith - to speak out - in a manifesto of complaint - the likes of which the Roman Catholic Church has possibly not seen since that fateful, historic moment a half-millennium previous upon which a lowly priest named Martin Luther nailed his 99 Theses to the door of his local, the Wittenberg Church.
So let's quickly backtrack here, in view of the fact that - in the estimation of many, no doubt - such religious controversies are invariably the result of nitpicking pedantry and splitting hairs over *essentially irrelevant doctrinal abstractions and trivia...though few there would be - at least over preceding centuries, post-Reformation - who would dare to so characterize the split in the One Church that then dominated the known world (and had done so for over a millennium prior).
*Which vividly reminds me of one of my varsity lecturers here in my home town of Dunedin, New Zealand - Political Scientist William (Bill) Harris (who specialized in Mideast Politics) - who (back in 2003, 2004 or thereabouts) seemed utterly flabbergasted, but more significantly completely bemused - as indeed was this punter under his esteemed tutelage hearing thereabouts!) that during the early centuries anno Domine the Christian Church was racked and torn with division and rancour vis-a-vis such a doctrinal 'irrelevance' - to the general populace - as the doctrine of the trinity...
Essentially fiddling while the city of Rome burned to the ground - undoubtedly the sort of charge that many would still level at the many factions of today's Christian Church...
To Be Continued...
For this, my (personally) epochal 300th blogpost upon my second(ary), originally subsidiary blogsite ...I've been, understandably enough, majorly conflicted...so many important and weighty matters not only weighing heavily upon my spirit, but literally predominating upon the airwaves...and in the blogosphere and throughout cyberspace...
So although my - eventually (and with extreme difficulty) - chosen topic today/tonight is not the only one I've considered...indeed, only as the day's progressed and morning's become afternoon and that in turn's given way to evening have I even come to consider this particular topic...nevertheless, of the rich menu upon offer (generally of recent times) it seems to me to be the most deserving, even demanding, of imminent attention and consideration...
So, for those, like myself, increasingly exercised of late about such diverse concerns as
*an outrightly, openly - make no bones about it, in your face, "this is business as normal" (in the Trumpian, post-truth era) - one-sided, highly partisan and even arguably ideological reportage of all matters Trump-related...c/o ye average, Western media outlet and 'journalist'...
*the peculiarly quick and bizarrely farfetched regressive 'development' of historical revisionism and outright expunction of objective, historically-documented realities, or, more precisely, the obsessive desire of so many these days to carefully airbrush things they don't happen to like or approve of...in order to make such palatable for their exquisitely, finely-nuanced grab-bag of personal sensibilities - all things needing proper vetting for the consumption of the **'up-and-coming' 'snowflake' generation...
*the absolute double-standards employed for alleged male vis-a-vis female offenders (in serious, especially sexually-related criminal investigations) - again, in ye 'enlightened West', it must be conceded...
*the control freak mentality of those seeking to engineer, define and/or predetermine the outcome of the long-contentious abortion debate (again, in Western nations), essentially by redefining the meaning/s of words and using them, not so much to enlighten and inform, but so as to bludgeon their usually quite conscientious opponents into some kind of mindless, cringing and fearful, however reluctant submission...
*the simple yet ever profound truisms epitomized and perfectly illustrated in and by my all-time favourite television film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory - the original version, that is...
...please bear with me if you so can, and wait just a little longer...I hope - and sincerely believe - you won't be disappointed, whether you happen to - ultimately - disagree with my assumptions, evaluations, interpretations, and conclusions or otherwise...
But this blogpost - as with a still being completed blogpost (significantly #66) upon my initial and originally major blogsite - will bear upon the just-below-the-radar but almost-constantly-observed and well-documented actions and pronouncements, times and travels of a certain well-known personage/media star/religious personality, even celebrity upon the global stage...
...and moreover the biblically significant, even rather earth-shattering - as in historically momentous - implications of his unconventional, unorthodox - even heterodox - approach to his own highly unique position/role in global affairs and upon the world scene...
My essential reason for choosing this particular subject being that - living as we unquestionably do in an era of great change and conflict, of portentous and problematic events, and of (the resultant and quite understandable) confusion and downright perplexity in all quarters...
...it's time to cut through some of the culturally-embellished and embroidered distractions and sideshows and non-issues - if only for a mo(ment) - and focus/zero in upon some matters which, however much they are (zealously) ignored and neglected and otherwise overlooked by selfsame media...
...impact regularly upon both our present, temporal lives and potentially our ultimate, eternal future...
**As regular viewers of my blogsites would well know, the unfair and malicious aspersion thus cast upon the humble and beautiful flake of snow is something that I personally find rather hard to stomach...(and thus and so, if you've a more suitable alternative, please let me know, I'm all ears!)
Part Two: Just What are we Dealing With Here?
I'm glad - yea, overjoyed - you asked. Where do - can - I start? Well, how about with this: what, prithee, means - or more precisely portends - the curious title I've selected for this my 300th blogpost upon http://davidedwinisms.blogspot.co.nz/(or .com/)?
Just this...to wit, the unusual decision of the leader of (what I believe/understand to be) the world's (numerically) largest religious group/body - i.e. the Roman Catholic Church's papal head, Pope Francis - to make an unprecedented visit to the Saudi Peninsula, and the United Arab Emirates in particular...
...whereupon he co-signed (alongside Sheik el-Tayeb) an equally unprecedented document - known as Nostra Aetate (I believe) - on behalf of his 1.2 billion parishioners...
a document which arguably effectively yields or surrenders the gauntlet in the ages-old religious feud/rivalry/tension between Catholicism (and Christendom-at-large for that matter) and Islam(ism).
And hence has not only astonished and appalled, incensed and outraged conservative Catholic traditionalists, but moreover (has) led only yesterday/the day before to the decision of a former prefect of the modern-day incarnation/manifestation/face and embodiment of the medieval RCC Inquisition - German cardinal Gerhard Mueller of the Congregation of the Doctrine of/for the Faith - to speak out - in a manifesto of complaint - the likes of which the Roman Catholic Church has possibly not seen since that fateful, historic moment a half-millennium previous upon which a lowly priest named Martin Luther nailed his 99 Theses to the door of his local, the Wittenberg Church.
So let's quickly backtrack here, in view of the fact that - in the estimation of many, no doubt - such religious controversies are invariably the result of nitpicking pedantry and splitting hairs over *essentially irrelevant doctrinal abstractions and trivia...though few there would be - at least over preceding centuries, post-Reformation - who would dare to so characterize the split in the One Church that then dominated the known world (and had done so for over a millennium prior).
*Which vividly reminds me of one of my varsity lecturers here in my home town of Dunedin, New Zealand - Political Scientist William (Bill) Harris (who specialized in Mideast Politics) - who (back in 2003, 2004 or thereabouts) seemed utterly flabbergasted, but more significantly completely bemused - as indeed was this punter under his esteemed tutelage hearing thereabouts!) that during the early centuries anno Domine the Christian Church was racked and torn with division and rancour vis-a-vis such a doctrinal 'irrelevance' - to the general populace - as the doctrine of the trinity...
Essentially fiddling while the city of Rome burned to the ground - undoubtedly the sort of charge that many would still level at the many factions of today's Christian Church...
To Be Continued...
Sunday, February 3, 2019
The Agony of Africa: A Continent in Continual Crisis
This blogpost was (in the main) prepared some thirteen days ago...
Though strident - including even street - protests seem to have become the norm of late, from New Zealand's halcyonic shores through to the post-revolutionary barricades/bulwarks/bastions of France - and we won't even 'go to' the U S of A, where protest for the mere, sheer sake of protest seems to have become the norm in the Trumpian era, whether directed at Trump, his past behaviour, megalomaniacal personality and/or policies per se or just expressing the pent up faux outrage that seems to be consuming so many of the younger generation there especially...
Better media, such as *the BBC in particular, has - aside from the ongoing brouhaha over Brexit - kept an observant eye upon Africa at large...where such protests have also spread of late (or perhaps just continued is a more apt descriptor)...
...to wit good ole Zimbabwe - and Sudan (alongside South Sudan). As with Tunisia - Libya - Egypt awhile ago - esp. in the much-vaunted Arab Spring - people are quite simply 'fed up'...to the rafters; they've - long since - had enough, (subconsciously even) realized/decided 'enough is enough'... . Much as the dude upon that classic 1970s' film 'Network' succinctly put it: "We're not gonna take it anymore!" No indeed.
And though **Zimbabweans are well used to chronic food shortages and rampant, off-the-wall inflation - quite aside from the ongoing political repression and 'low-level' persecution of regime opponents - as, for that matter, are their continental compatriots in such war-ravaged and drought-stricken lands as Sudan (and South Sudan)...
...the special 'security' measures adopted by authorities in these countries have gone from plain bad to damn awful of late...and need, asap, to be called out and condemned in not only no uncertain terms, but with way more than the usual (United Nations) ***sanctions often imposed; no, let these global do-gooders for once put some actual muscle and meaning behind their oh so high-falutin' language...
But lest I be regarded as myself adopting too flippant and light-hearted an approach here, of using weak-kneed and limp-wristed vocab in championing these much-oppressed and neglected peoples ...I'm frankly deeply ashamed by the conspicuous silence, apparent condoning, even arguable complicity shown by gutless nations like my own of late vis-a-vis the serious and sickening developments in these nations since the news broke of merciless security force-imposed beatings and torture, rapes and even murders of innocent civilians by such insecure, **** 'insane' regimes...
*Yes, let's credit them for keeping us duly and thoroughly informed of the fact that the humanitarian crises in Sudan, South Sudan and Zimbabwe have now been ratcheted up even further - pretty well to the nth degree and beyond...
**To be perfectly blunt, Zimbabwe 'under the croc(odile)' Managua is really just as opponents long predicted. His recent hall of mirrors and game of farce - dressed up as a genuine overseas "We're now open for business again!" invitation to a longtime-sceptical international community - is simply yet another act of hypocrisy played upon the global stage for all the world to see (and turn the other way, effectively giving he and his administration the green light to "Go ahead! - We're not paying proper attention, and couldn't frankly care less, anyway...do whatever you want...")...
...while underneath are - no, not 'The Everlasting Arms' of a merciful, Creator God (in this case), but the rotting carcass-filled whited sepulchres, carefully hidden from public view, of a thoroughly rotten regime...- one, as a caller to BBC's OS Conversations segment (22/1) stated, was actually starting to make (former, longtime President Robert) Mugabe's own administration look better by contrast.
The fella phoning in - adopting the pseudonym 'Jonathan' for security - mentioned that Zimbabweans were finding the security measures imposed under Managua "far worse" than those under Mugabe. The dear folk of Matabeleland slaughtered so unmercilessly three-and-a-half some decades ago under Managua's ruthless fist would hardly be all that surprised...the blessing of hindsight now revealing that Joshua Nkomo's own opposition movement would've doubtless been a much better and safer bet for the nation following their hard-won independence...
***Not that sanctions per se are necessarily lame and ineffectual - cf the likes of South Africa and Iraq - indeed they've often done substantial, including unintended and euphemistically-termed 'collateral', damage and injury to comparatively innocent populations...but they're hardly equivalent to military might (which I'd rarely recommend), and seeing that there is such a thing as United Nations peacekeepers, hey, let's get 'em to work for their keep, don't ya reckon?
****Insane as in utterly awful and outrageous, inexplicable and evil -not as in criminally un-liable.
Postscript: Additional Reflections, Ruminations and Re-balancings
Yet, surprisingly enough, not all is going to hell in ye proverbial handbasket in the great 'ole and venerable continent of Africa... .
While - to round out the picture before visiting some more positive places and perspectives, generally wholly bypassed by a trouble and crises-obsessed Western media - an inventory of African 'trouble spots' would hardly be complete without also including the likes of one-time Ebola-infested Sierra Leone, terrorist-stricken Somalia and, at times, even the - otherwise 'progressive and 'upwardly mobile' - Kenya and Nigeria, the (geographically quite sizeable) Islamist Bloc across the vast Saharan swathes of North Africa - incorporating such nations as Chad, Niger, Mali and Mauritania - and the trouble-plagued Central and Southern African (geographically and strategically, anyway) 'powerhouses' of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Africa...plus tiny little Burundi...
(18-some individual countries so far cited, though Tunisia, Mauritania and Kenya are debatable)...
all those places notwithstanding, why do we seldom if ever hear mention made of such success stories (of recent decades) as Ghana and Tanzania...and how about 'famine-infested' Ethiopia, and even the civil war-wracked scene of blood-curdling genocide, little ole (Central African-situated) Rwanda...just for starters, you understand...
And yes, you're not asking me, but I'll proffer a fairly well-informed opinion of an interested and (I'd maintain) quite fastidious observer - of both the African continent over my lifetime, and the mainstream Western media in particular...
...as to why such significant but ever-bypassed nation-states are invariably neglected and ignored...
Hey, it occurred to me long ago that the reason we Westerners hear so little about various nations worldwide -whether throughout Africa, South America and the Caribbean in particular...
...is that, "surprise, surprise", little if anything really bad, ghastly and just plain awful seems to be happening therein...
Yep, that's pretty well 'the long and the short of it', coz if it don't bleed, it just won't and don't lead... End of story! So sorry to burst your long-maintained bubble (of polyanna-erish naivete, folks).
Part Three (to come): Some further details (both negative and positive) upon some of these other 'bit players' on the African scene...at least for the benefit of our 'well-informed' Western populaces...
Though strident - including even street - protests seem to have become the norm of late, from New Zealand's halcyonic shores through to the post-revolutionary barricades/bulwarks/bastions of France - and we won't even 'go to' the U S of A, where protest for the mere, sheer sake of protest seems to have become the norm in the Trumpian era, whether directed at Trump, his past behaviour, megalomaniacal personality and/or policies per se or just expressing the pent up faux outrage that seems to be consuming so many of the younger generation there especially...
Better media, such as *the BBC in particular, has - aside from the ongoing brouhaha over Brexit - kept an observant eye upon Africa at large...where such protests have also spread of late (or perhaps just continued is a more apt descriptor)...
...to wit good ole Zimbabwe - and Sudan (alongside South Sudan). As with Tunisia - Libya - Egypt awhile ago - esp. in the much-vaunted Arab Spring - people are quite simply 'fed up'...to the rafters; they've - long since - had enough, (subconsciously even) realized/decided 'enough is enough'... . Much as the dude upon that classic 1970s' film 'Network' succinctly put it: "We're not gonna take it anymore!" No indeed.
And though **Zimbabweans are well used to chronic food shortages and rampant, off-the-wall inflation - quite aside from the ongoing political repression and 'low-level' persecution of regime opponents - as, for that matter, are their continental compatriots in such war-ravaged and drought-stricken lands as Sudan (and South Sudan)...
...the special 'security' measures adopted by authorities in these countries have gone from plain bad to damn awful of late...and need, asap, to be called out and condemned in not only no uncertain terms, but with way more than the usual (United Nations) ***sanctions often imposed; no, let these global do-gooders for once put some actual muscle and meaning behind their oh so high-falutin' language...
But lest I be regarded as myself adopting too flippant and light-hearted an approach here, of using weak-kneed and limp-wristed vocab in championing these much-oppressed and neglected peoples ...I'm frankly deeply ashamed by the conspicuous silence, apparent condoning, even arguable complicity shown by gutless nations like my own of late vis-a-vis the serious and sickening developments in these nations since the news broke of merciless security force-imposed beatings and torture, rapes and even murders of innocent civilians by such insecure, **** 'insane' regimes...
*Yes, let's credit them for keeping us duly and thoroughly informed of the fact that the humanitarian crises in Sudan, South Sudan and Zimbabwe have now been ratcheted up even further - pretty well to the nth degree and beyond...
**To be perfectly blunt, Zimbabwe 'under the croc(odile)' Managua is really just as opponents long predicted. His recent hall of mirrors and game of farce - dressed up as a genuine overseas "We're now open for business again!" invitation to a longtime-sceptical international community - is simply yet another act of hypocrisy played upon the global stage for all the world to see (and turn the other way, effectively giving he and his administration the green light to "Go ahead! - We're not paying proper attention, and couldn't frankly care less, anyway...do whatever you want...")...
...while underneath are - no, not 'The Everlasting Arms' of a merciful, Creator God (in this case), but the rotting carcass-filled whited sepulchres, carefully hidden from public view, of a thoroughly rotten regime...- one, as a caller to BBC's OS Conversations segment (22/1) stated, was actually starting to make (former, longtime President Robert) Mugabe's own administration look better by contrast.
The fella phoning in - adopting the pseudonym 'Jonathan' for security - mentioned that Zimbabweans were finding the security measures imposed under Managua "far worse" than those under Mugabe. The dear folk of Matabeleland slaughtered so unmercilessly three-and-a-half some decades ago under Managua's ruthless fist would hardly be all that surprised...the blessing of hindsight now revealing that Joshua Nkomo's own opposition movement would've doubtless been a much better and safer bet for the nation following their hard-won independence...
***Not that sanctions per se are necessarily lame and ineffectual - cf the likes of South Africa and Iraq - indeed they've often done substantial, including unintended and euphemistically-termed 'collateral', damage and injury to comparatively innocent populations...but they're hardly equivalent to military might (which I'd rarely recommend), and seeing that there is such a thing as United Nations peacekeepers, hey, let's get 'em to work for their keep, don't ya reckon?
****Insane as in utterly awful and outrageous, inexplicable and evil -not as in criminally un-liable.
Postscript: Additional Reflections, Ruminations and Re-balancings
Yet, surprisingly enough, not all is going to hell in ye proverbial handbasket in the great 'ole and venerable continent of Africa... .
While - to round out the picture before visiting some more positive places and perspectives, generally wholly bypassed by a trouble and crises-obsessed Western media - an inventory of African 'trouble spots' would hardly be complete without also including the likes of one-time Ebola-infested Sierra Leone, terrorist-stricken Somalia and, at times, even the - otherwise 'progressive and 'upwardly mobile' - Kenya and Nigeria, the (geographically quite sizeable) Islamist Bloc across the vast Saharan swathes of North Africa - incorporating such nations as Chad, Niger, Mali and Mauritania - and the trouble-plagued Central and Southern African (geographically and strategically, anyway) 'powerhouses' of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Africa...plus tiny little Burundi...
(18-some individual countries so far cited, though Tunisia, Mauritania and Kenya are debatable)...
all those places notwithstanding, why do we seldom if ever hear mention made of such success stories (of recent decades) as Ghana and Tanzania...and how about 'famine-infested' Ethiopia, and even the civil war-wracked scene of blood-curdling genocide, little ole (Central African-situated) Rwanda...just for starters, you understand...
And yes, you're not asking me, but I'll proffer a fairly well-informed opinion of an interested and (I'd maintain) quite fastidious observer - of both the African continent over my lifetime, and the mainstream Western media in particular...
...as to why such significant but ever-bypassed nation-states are invariably neglected and ignored...
Hey, it occurred to me long ago that the reason we Westerners hear so little about various nations worldwide -whether throughout Africa, South America and the Caribbean in particular...
...is that, "surprise, surprise", little if anything really bad, ghastly and just plain awful seems to be happening therein...
Yep, that's pretty well 'the long and the short of it', coz if it don't bleed, it just won't and don't lead... End of story! So sorry to burst your long-maintained bubble (of polyanna-erish naivete, folks).
Part Three (to come): Some further details (both negative and positive) upon some of these other 'bit players' on the African scene...at least for the benefit of our 'well-informed' Western populaces...
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