MATTHEWGOODONLINE

The world is, rather understandably, disconcerted by the inaction of Burma’s military junta with regards to their response to the devastation caused by Cyclone Nargis. As many of you are aware, the regime has been hindering international aid efforts, causing the humanitarian crisis to worsen. As it stands now, some 78,000 to 100,000 people have been killed and a further 60,000 are thought to be missing.

While shocking to the layman, the Burmese regime has some cause for trepidation. We are, after all, talking about a military dictatorship that has imprisoned the country’s democratically elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, on and off since 1989. The very same regime was also responsible for using lethal force against non-violent protestors last year, among a variety of other transgressions during their tenure.

No matter how many people have to suffer in the wake of the disaster, the retention of control is, to the regime, of the utmost importance. While they might be megalomaniacal, they’re not so far gone as to not realize that organizations, such as USAID, have been used in similar situations to provide foreign powers with covert footholds. Thus, their number one fear is very probably the consequences of allowing foreign agencies and their employees access to not just those suffering, but the people themselves. In doing so, such a connection could lead to the infusion of anti-government sentiment that is backed by foreign interests. And while I hate to admit it, foreign aid agencies that are federally funded have been used repeatedly in the past to do just that.

The bottom line here is that politics, power, and agenda have no place when it comes to a disaster of this magnitude and such immense loss and endangerment of human life. Not when the number one threat to those trapped in the affected area is a lack of clean drinking water.

While brutal at the best of times, the Burmese junta is by no means completely daft. They are well aware of the dangers of allowing foreign aid agencies unrestricted access and movement. Because with them comes conditions, the sort that they are not willing to meet. And while, on the surface, such matters are viewed as simply exercises in good will on the part of major world powers, conditions are always present when their assistance is accepted.

Lost, as always, in the political haze, are the tens of thousands of people that are now facing the onset of disease and starvation. In the end, international politics will hammer the death nails into their coffins, not a lack of global, public compassion. Ultimately, through their inability to accept foreign assistance, the Burmese regime could very well find itself guilty of crimes against humanity. Their inaction could also very well lead to renewed efforts by members of the National League For Democracy and Burma’s Buddhist monks to challenge their authority. Given that that movement is steeped in the tenets of non-violent non-cooperation, perhaps, after some time, they will finally secure a free and independent Burma without the assistance of the likes of the CIA, MI6, and others who would use this terrible disaster to plant seeds of their own.

We are all human. When one of us suffers, we all suffer. When one of us is faced with disparity we must all take responsibility for allowing it to happen. Governments are simply ‘things’, they are not, nor have they ever been, the masters of human compassion or at all accurate moral compasses. What is transpiring right now in Burma in the wake of Cyclone Nargis is a human matter, and therefore governments, nor politics, have no business usurping such fundamental truths.

The numbers regarding both the disasters in Burma and China have been, unfortunately, updated. In Burma, some 78,000 people are now reported dead with a further 56,000 missing. The United Nations is estimating that the death toll is above 100,000. The number one threat to those survivors in the area of the country that was hit remains access to clean water.

In China, just over 22,000 people are being reported dead with an estimated 5 million people left homeless. The death toll is expected to reach 50,000 or more.

It’s eight o’clock in the morning. I have no idea what I am doing up, other than the fact that I went to bed pretty early. I watched The Other Boleyn Girl last night after rehearsal and prior to passing out. Why is it that no one can portray the Tudors with any historical accuracy?

Recent Catastrophes

Matters in China are looking grimmer by the day, as are conditions in Burma. One searches for words to put such catastrophes into context, but there are few. The best that I can offer is to suggest donating to the following relief efforts:

Oxfam
The Red Cross

Oxfam
The Red Cross

News Of Note

Congratulations are due the Supreme Court Of California who ruled yesterday that the State law banning same sex marriage is unconstitutional.

According to a recent report, the United States has detained some 2,500 children in Afghanistan, Iraq, and at the US facility at Guantanamo Bay since 2002. While that number has decreased, there are still some 500 juveniles being detained in Iraq, 10 at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, and of the 8 youths detained at Guantanamo, only two remain that were under 18 years of age when they first arrived. Of course, such detentions fly in the face of International Law as it pertains to Child Soldiers and juveniles, but there really is not point in arguing that fact being that the tenets of International Law only apply to those situations that the Bush Administration considers to be in their interest.

Speaking of juveniles, it seems that the United States is violating an international protocol forbidding the recruitment of youths under the age of 18 for service in the military. In the report entitled Soldiers Of Misfortune, it was found that the military is also disproportionately targeting poor and minority public school students. This, of course, should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone. It’s conveniently always the “dregs of American society” that seem to be “compelled” to defend the “American way of life” while middle and upper class white kids sit at home watching them die on television. The sad reality of modern American wars is that if you want to see one brought to an abrupt end, have rich white kids come home in metal boxes.

The “N” Word

President Bush, who recently claimed that he gave up golf because he thought it sent the wrong message to those that have lost loved ones in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, addressed the Israeli Parliament yesterday claiming that negotiating with militant organizations and radical governments was no different than the appeasement of the Nazi’s…

“Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” Mr. Bush said. “We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.” We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, Mr. Bush, the United States did nothing. It did not declare war on Germany, nor would it until Germany declared war on the United States on December 11th, 1941, four days after the attack on Pearl Habour. It would not act when France and the low countries were invaded and occupied, nor would it act when British cities were being decimated by German bombers.

For almost three years, while members of my family were in uniform, and their comrades were being stranded on French beaches having the crap kicked out of them only to be evacuated by civilian pleasure craft, the people of the United States wanted nothing to do with what was transpiring in Europe. By the time the “appeasement”, that you so casually referred to yesterday, had taken its toll, and Western Europe and parts of Africa were in German hands, the American public was still overwhelmingly against US involvement. Let’s also not forget that while Germany was being “appeased” by governments that had seen an entire generation devastated by war not two decades prior, major US financial institutions and corporations were doing business with the Reich, and would make millions in the process while those that would eventually fight along side American troops were being killed.

The reason, Mr. Bush, that you evoked the word “Nazi” yesterday was solely because you were in Israel, which is rather ironic being that an American company, that being IBM, sold the very machinery to the Nazi’s that they would later use to calculate the number of Jews, and others, eliminated during the Holocaust. Even more, that your own grandfather was the director of the Union Banking Corporation, with a convenient single share to his name, the assets of which were seized in 1942 under the Trading With The Enemy Act.

Like it or not, an American President addressing the Israeli Parliament is little more than a corporate president addressing shareholders.

I’ve been busy with rehearsals and exhausted afterwards, so haven’t been able to update the site at all. In fact, I haven’t even checked my email since Friday. Anyway, a few things…

Welcome to the new Canada. Today, in Halifax, the Prime Minister announced the Canada First Defense Policy, which is a major shift in Canadian military spending and commitment to global military affairs. It is, without question, extremely alarming.

Listening to the Prime Minister talk this morning I was deeply troubled at his alignment of economic growth with the bolstering of the defense industry – that it will benefit all Canadians, providing jobs. Of course, we wouldn’t dare nationalize the oil sector, but the government can promote the growth of the defense industry by spreading military contracts throughout the country. The Prime Minister also stated that export possibilities would also be providing economic opportunities – meaning that we’re going to start cashing in on arming others to help bolster our economy through the development of the defense sector.

When I have time to sit down with a draft of the policy I will comment further and in more detail.

Also of note this morning is the devastating earthquake that has struck China’s Sichuan province. An estimated 8,500 people are dead, though that number will most likely increase.

I’ll do my best to return to updating the site on a more routine basis in the days ahead.

The Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 took the lives of some 225,000 people in 11 different countries. As it stands now, the death toll in Burma is still being held at roughly 22,000, but given that much of the southern portion of the Irrawaddy delta remains underwater, it is estimated that the death toll could rise as high as 100,000 – just under one half of that of the 2004 tsunami in a single country.

Burma’s hard-line political leadership could also make matters worse by refusing foreign aid workers access to parts of the country. There is also the danger that international relief could be diverted by the ruling regime and not used for its intended purpose. In truth, the very same thing happened in numerous countries after the 2004 tsunami, with governments using the disaster to usurp the rights of citizens that once inhabited lucrative ocean front areas and securing them for the future development of resorts.

A statement issued by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will hopefully be the rallying call of the day…

“Forget politics. Forget the military dictatorship. Let’s just get aid and assistance through.”

New reports out of Burma have placed deaths caused by the cyclone that recently hit the country at upwards of 10,000 people, far greater than figures initially released. Some 24 million people live in the five regions of the country that were hit. There have also been reports that that 80% of Laputta has been completely destroyed.

If this doesn’t make you throw up in your mouth, nothing will. It is utterly fucking sick.

A piece by Chomsky from February of this year entitled The Most Wanted List that’s definitely worth a look.

Bill Fletcher Jr. weighs in on the recent demonizing of former President Jimmy Carter in a piece entitled Get Carter!: The Attack on Jimmy Carter’s Middle East Peace Efforts by Bush & Olmert.

Intrigue is afoot in Bolivia where the resource rich region of Santa Cruz has recently voted in an unofficial referendum for more autonomous rights. Those that opposed the vote boycotted it, leaving supporters of the region’s elite in the majority. Bolivian President Evo Moralez has claimed the vote illegal. Of course, all of this comes down to wealth, as is always the case when it comes to Latin American societies. Those that have it want to ensure that they retain their control over those industries that afford it, those that don’t want a greater distribution of national wealth. Being that Bolivia is the poorest nation in Latin America, the latter might have a point.

The quote of the day comes from Chomsky’s “The Most Wanted List”, which is linked above…

On to the subject of net neutrality.

The reality is that we live in a day and age in which websites such as this, and millions besides, are one of the last true bastions of independent published thought and opinion. Over the last decade they have become a serious threat to controlled media. Let’s make sure it remains that way.

I have yet to post anything about the massive cyclone that has taken the lives of over 1,700 people in Bangladesh. Authorities in the country believe that, as rescue efforts continue, the death toll could climb. If you’re interested in helping, check out Oxfam Canada.

More On The Dziekanski Death

After last month’s fatal Tasering of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski, the RCMP has said that it plans to review its Taser policy, though RCMP Commissioner William Elliott has already defended the use of the device and said that it is a vital tool in the RCMP’s arsenal. That comes as no surprise, nor is it why I’ve broached the subject again.

While there are currently four separate investigations underway into what happened that day - the B.C. coroner, the RCMP, the public complaints commissioner for the RCMP, and the Vancouver Airport Authority – a public inquiry into the matter is not expected to begin until at least the spring or next summer.

One thing about Dziekanski should be cleared up. He did not suffer from a mental illness, as has been speculated. He had simply been stuck inside the airport’s international arrivals area for some 10 hours and, unable to communicate, had most likely simply become “confused and agitated while waiting for his mother”.

The Serbian State Mental Institution Holocaust

The International Herald Tribune recently ran a piece about a report issued by Mental Disability Rights International on the state of Serbia’s mental institutions. The details are so horrific that it’s almost impossible to fathom…

“A 21-year-old man with Down syndrome tied to a metal crib for 11 years. Children, naked from the waist down, left to eat and defecate in their beds. A 7-year-old girl with fluid in her brain left untreated “because she will die anyway.”

These are some of alleged abuses in Serbian state mental institutions and orphanages described in a report to be released Wednesday by Mental Disability Rights International, a Washington-based group that spent four years investigating the conditions and the treatment of some of the nearly 17,200 children and adults with disabilities in institutions in Serbia.

In the report, which is expected to be read closely by European Union officials who are assessing Serbia’s readiness to join the 27-member bloc, researchers concluded that “filthy conditions, contagious diseases, lack of medical care and rehabilitation and a failure to provide oversight renders placement in a Serbian institution life-threatening.”

The institutions investigated include the Institution for Children and Youth Kolevka in Subotica; the Institute for Mentally Ill People in Curug; the Kulina Institution for Children and Youth; the Special Institute for Children and Youth in Stamnica; and psychiatric hospitals in Vrsac and Kovin, east of Belgrade.

Eric Rosenthal, executive director of the rights group, said the use of physical restraints on children for years at a time was the most extreme he had seen in 14 years as a disability rights advocate. He said there were no enforceable laws in Serbia regulating the use of such restraints. “This is the most horrifying abuse I have seen on powerless children, who are tied to beds and unable to move,” he said. “This constitutes a clear case of torture.”

Words escape me.

An earthquake measuring 8.0 on the Richter Scale has devastated parts of Peru and, thus far, killed some 430+ people. According to the BBC, the Mayor of Pico has claimed that 70% of his city has been destroyed, and that 200 people are buried in the rubble of a church. Imperial has also reported devastating damage, with some 80% of the adobe houses believed to have collapsed.

Aftershocks registered as strong at 6.3, and a state of national emergency has been declared by President Alan Garcia, who expects the death toll to climb as daylight breaks and rescue efforts are launched in earnest.

I am often interested in the response that many nations have with regards to the safety of other human beings when it does not involve military action. Case in point – currently some 28 million people in India, Bangladesh, and Nepal have been affected by severe flooding causing a humanitarian crisis that could quickly escalate because of stagnant water and the spread of disease. According to the World Health Organization, “the scale of the disaster has dwarfed relief efforts”.

It seems to me that we live in a day and age in which the invasions of nations are more seriously contemplated and sold as ‘humanitarian’ in nature than the desire to ensure that millions are protected from disease and can regain some semblance of their lives after losing everything - and not because of the actions of a tyrant or a radical group, but from something as simple as rain.

New Orleans remains a brutal example of the sort of nonchalance that is afforded those that have endured deadly occurrences compared to the seriousness that is daily applied to the disastrous entanglements in foreign wars. While many in the region affected by Hurricane Katrina are being refused coverage by insurance companies, some still forced to live in trailers fraught with problems, the war machine turns unabated. In fact, the United States is in the midst of solidifying foreign arms agreements that total some $50 billion dollars, and yet the legacy of Katrina remains prevalent for all to see.

What actually constitutes a compassionate society? Robert Kennedy once referred to the United States as a selfless nation. Of course, mere minutes after making that remark, he was gunned down in a hotel kitchen. But the question remains – if our sense of humanity extends only so far as our own national security concerns, then what right do we have to claim ourselves anything but selfish? While we view ourselves as just, and are easily convinced because of that outlook that the use of force to help ensure the supposed safety of others is, in fact, humane, then what of acting selflessly when the need for force is not required? What if, rather than bombs, all that is required is clean drinking water and that the deliverance of it does not come with some sort of underlying, beneficial future arrangement?

In truth, our sense of selflessness and compassion exists in a vacuum. It is belayed by entirely selfish concerns, rendering it pointless in many ways. True, there are examples that it indeed exists, but to what realistic extent is it employed when it is required, and in how timely a fashion?

In the case of Canada, why has the federal government not looked into deploying DART with regards to the situation in South Asia? According to the National Defense website, DART’s operational criteria is as follows…

responds rapidly, in conjunction with national and regional governments and non-governmental agencies, to stabilize the primary effects of an emergency or disaster;

provides purified drinking water and medical aid to help prevent the rapid onset of secondary effects of a disaster; and

gains time for the deployment of national and international humanitarian aid to facilitate long-term recovery in a disaster-stricken community.

All three are perfectly applicable to the disaster in South Asia and what it might very well cause in the days and weeks ahead. True, taxpayer money would ultimately be used to pay for its deployment, but therein lies the reality of the world in which we live. Are we citizens of it as a whole, or merely insular inhabitants of portions of it when such disasters strike? If we can justify our involvement in combat operations in Afghanistan, and the use of taxes to pay for it, then the inability of Canadians to support the use of DART with regards to what is unfolding in South Asia points to something very dark and very real – that when it comes to what we perceive as our own security, that it is entirely justifiable to act under the pretense of selflessness, and yet it is just as justifiable to hesitate when that is not the case.

I hope, in this instance, that will not be the reality. Because the truth of the matter is – it rains most places.