Chavez Blames US and EU for Unrest in Iran

After some of the international community has spoken out against the violence in Iran (or at least pretended to) and after president Obama addressed the issue; ut should come as no surprise that self-made arch-nemesis of the US, Hugo Chavez is blaming the US and Europe for the uprising in Iran.

Now... here's a point I'd like to make to President Chavez in regards to his comments:

Just because you didn't like Bush and probably don't like Obama, it doesn't mean that you have to contradict everything that the US has said. If you'd like to accuse the US and Europe of inciting these riots please provide proof because so far certain sources say over 150 people have died and, as far as I know, they were ALL civilians.

Are you saying that the militia that is killing civilians backed by the US?
Or that the Iranian military is funded by Europe?
Or are you blaming the US and Europe because the PEOPLE WANT TO BE HEARD?
Or... are you just being contrary because it's what is expected of you?

Either way... you've managed to stay in power this long, a lot of your people genuinely admire you and some will believe everything that you say, so please, when you are going to blame the entire world for something without providing proof... please be aware that your words can have real consequences for the people living inside your borders.

A word of advice, before you decide to accuse any nation of something like this again without having proof, remember the story of the little boy who cried wolf.

Muchacho Enfermo

Visions of the Future or Ghosts of the Past?

The European Union held their elections this week, it didn't get very much press here, but it happened. In these times of global economic downturn, elections are always a good way to see exactly how the people feel about what's going on and who they think is to blame.

If the results from Europe are any indication as to how some of the world's citizens are thinking: troubling times are coming and it'll have nothing to do with money. Well not directly anyways.

93 of Europes 736, or almost 13%, who were elected are considered "others" meaning they are not attached to any of Europe's mainstream political party. Now if you were in Canada you'd think that "others" just meant Elizabeth May would get to save a few more trees, but apparently in Europe the "others" aren't just bus taking tree huggers; take a look at this:

-In England the British National Party who is known for it's racist views regarding anyone who isn't white, protestant or British got 8.38% of the vote.
-In the Netherlands the PW garnered 17% of the vote making the second most popular party, their platform: the Koran should be banned, immigration ended and Muslim believers treated as neo-Nazis.
-In Hungary 14.77% of the vote went to Jobbik, the anti-Semitic neo-Nazi party.
-In France 6.3% went to Frances equally racist Front National.
-Not to mention the fascist parties in Britain, Austria and Italy (whose exact numbers I did not find).
(And each of these parties receives around 4million Euros per year for each representative that is elected.)

Is this what the world has come to? Have we reverted back to post-1929 Europe where in Germany all of the world's problems were blamed on one race (the Jews)? Economic fear tends to bring out the worst in people, it tends to make people do extreme things, but I no matter how scared I get about money I would never vote for neo-Nazis who blame everything on the Muslims, the Jews and the gays.

I just find this vote to be very disturbing and if these elections are any indicator of things to come in Europe's national elections we might be in for some trouble by the look of things. I've always said that the beauty of democracy was that it gave everyone a voice but then you see people like this, who use their voices to spew messages of hate, who waste their precious freedom of speech to spread intolerance and fear. It's just mind-boggling.

I'll keep my fingers crossed that these feelings of disenfranchisement do not cross the Atlantic into North-America. And I hope that the people Europe remember the skeletons of thier past so that it can avoid making grave mistakes in the future.

Muchaho Enfermo

Landmark Win for the Pirate Party

The Pirate Party won a seat in the European elections. That’s right your eyes are working just fine, they actually won a seat. For those of you not familiar with the party it the Pirate Party was started in Sweden in 2006 to promote online privacy and to fight Sweden’s file-sharing laws.

This is indeed a historic victory for an independent party in Europe and certainly for web-based communities everywhere. While I applaud the effort that the Pirate Party has put into its membership and its elections I think that a 49,000 member organization such as this one could use its online presence for bigger and better things than file-sharing.

How about if they used their online influence to try and challenge people to find ways to help countries whose governments block websites or limit internet access or help find ways around government monitoring of online activities without having to use the traditional proxies. It seems to me that there are bigger issues online than file-sharing (not that I don’t appreciate the free movies) there are a million things that an online group that size could do.

I know that if I could get together an online group of 49,000 people I would try and do some good with it. Around the world people are being jailed for blogging, others are being arrested for reading certain websites and people have to connect themselves at their own risk to send email to families. File-sharing will happen; it’s been happening for years, copyright laws or no copyright laws. But freedom online and freedom of expression and thought seem like something the Pirate Party could have promoted very effectively and it might have actually made an impact on the global political scene and on the lives of thousands of netizens.

Muchacho Enfermo