Pardon the title of the post today. I'm in shock a little bit. The Royal Bank of Canada branch that is just a few blocks away from work was fire-bombed last night. Right here, in Ottawa, in one of the most affluent neighbourhoods of Ottawa. I walked passed it this morning on my way to work... then stopped and stared... then had a bizarre flash-back to metro Manilla during the civil unrest there and felt slightly nauseous.
Fire-bombed. An anarchist group has claimed responsibility and even went so far as to video it and post the video on the internet. You pack of bloody idiots.
Let me make something perfectly clear to you. Destroying stuff isn't going to make people sympathetic to your cause. And way to prove exactly the opposite of what you are setting out to prove. Isn't the whole idea of anarchy that people do not need governments to govern them... that they are perfectly capable of governing themselves.... that utter chaos will not ensue without government there to stop it?
Congratulations you bunch of morons. You've just proven that people cannot behave themselves if left to their own devices, that you, at least, are not capable of governing yourselves in a civilised manner, and that chaos is precisely what's going to happen if you are let off your leashes. Stupid, bloody, idiotic, half wits. Well done.
People are bloody idiots, honestly.
So, now that I've gotten that out of my system, I have some writing news:
This made for a pleasant change. Last week I had sent off my titular short story for the anthology I am working on. I received the feedback from both of my volunteer editors (both of whom are owed many, many pints for their time and efforts), and both were very positive.
g had this to say:
Storyline was strong. Characters were interesting and I cared about them. Description of setting was vivid. I really enjoyed this piece!
And Lord N. wrote this:
I thought [it] was really very good and you have a natural talent which you must pursue irrespective of how many set backs you get. [Bunch of suggestions for changes] You obviously have a fertive imagination and overall I was extremely impressed.
I am happy now.
There are some Ziggs.com searches that need to be cleared from my inbox this morning. So, hello to:
Visitor Location: Milan, Italy
Date: May 12, 2010
Time: 11:40 AM EST
Visitor Location: Fürth, Germany
Date: May 13, 2010
Time: 6:57 PM EST
(though, I reckon this one was looking for the other Sonia as the search term used was 'sonia carriere free ones')
Visitor Location: N/A
Date: May 14, 2010
Time: 4:22 PM EST
Visitor Location: Silvalde, Portugal
Date: May 17, 2010
Time: 11:17 AM EST
Visitor Location: N/A
Date: May 17, 2010
Time: 8:32 PM EST
Visitor Location: Oakland, CA
Date: May 18, 2010
Time: 5:21 AM EST
Visitor Location: Frederikshavn, Denmark
Date: May 18, 2010
Time: 5:36 PM EST
Right, that's it from me. Happy Wednesday everyone!
4 comments:
The problem is that the difference between terrorism and freedom fighting tends to be just historical perspective.
Anyone who blows something up in the name of something else, invariably seems to feel that they are somehow right, and the targets are part of the problem.
There are countless examples of disenfranchised people feeling that somehow the system is letting them down, and taking it out on banks, or anything else they feel is representative of "the man". Fast food joints, it appears, tend to be a firm favourite of firebombers.
In general this tends to lead to no major social change, and except in the thankfully rare cases when people were injured, the targets simply get fixed up. Society does not change by burning down banks, but society *does* change when people start to show their frustrations by doing so repeatedly.
In the UK, we've had many decades of problems with various factions wanting independence for Northern Ireland. The problem is, a lot of the people who live there don't actually want it. But the people who do, have guns and bombs. They've mostly aired their frustrations by blowing themselves and the local police and army up, but occasionally have launched campaigns on the main land.
The British approach is simply to carry on. If you let "terrorists" change your way of life, then you've let them win. Of course, this ignores the fact that by letting them win, you might also stay alive, but in general these campaigns have been so small scale, the destruction has been minimal.
The end result for them? Most of the paramilitary groups have disarmed, and are now actively political, having been given a limited amount of self-determination. They've effectively been given the ability to resolve this themselves, which means no-one else is now a target.
But without the guns, would that have happened? Does peaceful protest ever achieve anything?
Roll forward to 9/11, and our own, localised 7/7 bombings.
End result? Our Government spending billions of tax pounds on a national ID scheme which patently cannot work (as the 9/11 hijackers and the 7/7 bombers all travelled under their own names, so an ID card wouldn't have stopped them), and we've ended up with more CCTV cameras per person than any other nation on Earth.
Now, of those two examples, which changed society most? Active, long term campaigns? No. One off events, where the people involved all died? Yes.
You and I can see how changing society by blowing stuff up isn't going to bring any sort of change that people actually want, but that cannot remove the sense of frustration people have.
Telling someone to stop protesting, regardless of how violently they do so, cannot stop their need to speak out. If anything, it'll simply add fuel, if you pardon the expression, to the fire.
The problem with freedom of speech, is sometimes we hear stuff we don't wish to, perhaps?
I do not have a problem with freedom of speech. I feel that anyone is welcome to believe anything they want, provided that they NEVER use that belief as an excuse to harm others, or themselves.
Acts of violence are senseless and serve no purpose. There are non-violent protests that can be done that are extremely effective.
Boycotts, for example (proved extremely effective when companies started charging the same price for few services/items. One company was boycotted by women the world over, and it immediately changed ways).
Getting people to join your cause from the ground up. Grass-roots stuff. That works. I've seen it work.
Blowing stuff up because you're a bored pyromaniac with a group of hangers on is not the way to go.
Certainly, act if you believe in your cause, but act in a civilised manner, not like a trained ape with a couple of sticks that go boom.
There is of course a certain irony in the observation of how the American government, supported by both my and your governments are introducing the middle east to "democracy".
We really cannot complain about how violence doesn't work, when it's the only language we allow our elected representatives to use abroad...
Oh yes we can. And if we complain loud enough with our votes, we can tell the government that too!
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