Posts Tagged ‘world’

What the Hell is Going on in #Venezuela?

Posted: March 14, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
3/13/2014

The situation in the Ukraine has been getting a lot of press, and justifiably so. A potential hot war involving Russia has implications as far reaching as it gets in the political and violence realm. While the situation in the Ukraine has been deteriorating since December, another situation involving civil unrest and government instability has been brewing in Venezuela. In February, the unrest boiled over.

Political unrest in Venezuela has been going on for some time. The unrest that has been boiling over in the streets of Caracus has been brewing for over a decade while now Hugo Chàvez was still alive. Chàvez’s successor, current President Nicholàs Madura won a very close, very disputed election in the spring of last year. He came into office during an economic depression in which food, milk, and other essentials such as toilet paper are in short supply across the entire country.

The situation has boiled over in the last several months. According to Al Jazeera a female student claimed was sexually assaulted, causing a wave of protests to begin. Why? Rape is bad, but protests of sexual assault don’t usually lead to violent protests that put a government on the brink of collapse. According to The New Republic, the university had been asking the government for better security for over a year to combat rampant crime in the area.

In the eyes of the majority of the people of Venezuela, the government is unable to provide them with food, water, shelter, employment, or safety. The sexual assault at ULA’s Táchira in San Cristóbal sent the boiling water frothing over the edge.

February 4th is when the protests started. February 13th is when they turned violent. How? Why? By whom? Has been disputed in so many conflicting reports I honestly can’t say. From what I’ve gathered by the data I’ve read, it would seem that the protesters pushed a little too hard, and the police/military used deadly force to push back. The human condition always wins out no matter how civil we think we are.

Since the protests turned violent a month ago 50 people have died. Madura has ordered all US diplomats out of the country claiming the US is involved in a conspiracy against his Socialist Party along with the far right party members of Venezuela. The leader of the protest movement Leopoldo Lopez turned himself into police. The charges against him have been reduced from terrorism to arson but President Madura continues to call the college aged protestors terrorists. Bashir Al-Assad of Syria says the same thing of the protesting civilians of his country where his military has killed 100,000 civilians in the past three years.

In Venezuela; the economic depression continues, the political unrest continues, the protests continue, the violence continues. There is no end in sight, there are no simple answers. Surprised? Well, welcome to Post 2008 1st World Earth.

#NSA #Whistleblower Journalists Get Their Due

Posted: February 17, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
2/17/2014

Journalism made front page news today across the world as opposed to celebrity gossip and the weather. The three reporters/journalists whom Edward Snowden leaked the NSA documents to received a prestigious award today. Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill, and Laura Poitras who met with Snowden in Hong Kong in June of 2013 will all receive the George Polk Award in Journalism.

As an aspiring journalist, it is great to see great reporters get their due. They will receive this award in the heart of Manhattan, the media and financial capital of America. These three are role models for me. Greenwald is as much of a living hero for me as is possible. I hope to meet and work with them all in the future.

Being awarded and rewarded for their work rather than shunned or arrested as some in the US and UK government would like shows that what these journalists did in blowing the lid off the NSA mass surveillance program was the right thing to do. Barack Obama has been forced to take action due to the public uproar that has followed Snowden’s whistleblowing. There are measures to cut off water supply to NSA operation centers in Utah and Maryland.  The tide has shifted, much like same-sex marriage, and marijuana legalization, a cultural shift has occurred. We are witnessing history being made before our very eyes every day in America. There is a 1960s feel to the cultural upheaval going on.

I hope to cover and contribute to it beyond just this blog in the future. I thank Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill, and Laura Poitras for their fearlessness, patriotism, and journalistic integrity in taking the shadow government of the United States and United Kingdom head on. Exposing their shadow to the sanitizing light of public transparency. I am grateful to them. Keep up the good work, and take a deep breath in the knowledge you are fulfilling your purpose on this planet. You have all earned it.

No Simple Solutions in #Syria

Posted: February 17, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
2/16/2014

Peace talks were held in Switzerland to try and bring an end to the conflict in Syria that has claimed the lives of 130,000 people and counting since March of 2011. The talks that took place in Geneva, reached an impasse when representatives of Bashar Al-Assad refused to entertain the idea, let alone negotiate, the concept of a transition to a new regime/government.

The victory was in the fact that peace talks took place at all. Even if they were a facade, with a body count like the one in Syria, anything that could possibly trigger a placebo effect to end the violence is welcomed at this point. With 6.5 million people turned into refugees by the conflict, any signs of light will do, even if it’s a cheap florescent.

I find the situation in Syria fascinating and disturbing. I have been following the story via The Guardian website since the body count three digits. The reason I care about the situation, read, and write about it is that it just amazes me that a conflict like this can exist in the world I live in. So many dead women, children, and civilians; executed by gunfire, bombs, and chemical weapon attacks. The first Gulf War was started for far less, not to mention the second one, and the US involvement in Libya.

I don’t think I’m better than people who don’t follow the Syria story. I don’t think people that don’t pay attention to Syria are bad people or ignorant. Syria is so far away. They don’t have nuclear weapons and we don’t trade with them, so why should we care? That’s not a sarcastic or rhetorical question. It’s something about the numbers of people.  Six figures dead, seven figures worth turned into refugees. That just…..grabs me…

So I’m going to keep reading about Syria and blogging about it. Because I care. Because I think other people should at least be aware of what is happening there. What does the fact that this is allowed to happen mean about we as humans? I don’t know, I’m not asking sarcastically like I have a superior answer or opinion. That is a question I keep coming back to. In the same world of hotel suites underwater, nightclubs carved out of ice, iPhones, and the Super Bowl a government has been killing hundreds of thousands of its civilians and turning millions more into refugees.

Something about Syria makes me stop and think. I hope it makes you think too.

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