Author Archives: Lila

The CPJ’s Top Ten Worst Countries to Blog In

Posted on by

In 2008, the Committee to Protect Journalists CPJ found that bloggers and other online journalists were the largest professional group being jailed. Earlier, that honor went to print and broadcast journalists.

Here’s a quick summary of their evaluation of the worst countries in the world for bloggers:

1. Burma

Monitoring, regulation of cybercafes, blocking. At least two bloggers in prison.

2. Iran

Monitoring, harassment, detention, pending legislation advocating death penalty for promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy. One blogger died in jail in unclear circumstances

3. Syria

Filtering, blocking, harassment, self-censorship, monitoring, detention.

4. Cuba

Blocking, harassment. 21 bloggers jailed

5. Saudi Arabia

Widespread blocking, self-censorship

6. Vietnam

Monitoring, harassment.

7. Tunisia

Electronic surveillance including email monitoring, electronic sabotage, content filtering, IP submission, imprisonment of at least 2 journalists

8. China

Blocking, monitoring of email, filtering of searches, deletion of objectionable material. Has a vibrant bloggin culture but maintains world’s most comprehensive online censorship program.  At least 24 bloggers in prison.

9. Turkmenistan

Blocking access to opposition sites. Monitoring of email accounts.

10. Egypt

Monitoring of sites, open-ended detention, sometimes imprisonment and even torture. But only a few sites are blocked. More than 100 journalists detained (usually for short periods).

All this seems very bad compared to what we have in the US.

Or, is it? Let’s see.

  • Email monitoring Check.   And note this program, ADVISE, in the works, supposedly scrapped in 2007, but status unknown is a better description. And if that’s been thought up for the citizenry at large, bloggers should expect quite a bit more attention.
  • Censorship Depends on what you define as censorship.  Wiki demonstrably manipulates  information in subtle and not so subtle ways. Sometimes there’s outright deletion of articles for no good reason besides content censorship. Google not only censors some material overtly, it’s been accused of manipulating the visibility of material. Facebook is reported to be impossible to leave. Finally, there’s probably far more disinformation in the US than in any other country, and it’s certainly the most sophisticated.
  • Website harassment/sabotage Check
  • Controlled mainstream media Check
  • Bloggers killed None that I know of, but I can think of at least two journalists (Gary Webb is the most famous) who died in mysterious circumstances.  And dozens of foreign journalists (and some foreign-born US journalists) were killed outside the country by the US military during the coverage of the Iraq war, as I noted in this piece in 2006.
  • Professional Sabotage Widespread
  • Ruinous litigation Widespread
  • Self-censorship Widespread
  • Verbal and physical threats  Check

Note: I’m not sure why countries like Malaysia and Morocco didn’t make this list.

Could it have something to do with encouraging foreign investments there? I notice that Malaysia has recently been taken off the list of foreign tax havens (Labuan, a small island off the Malatsian coast, is well-known as an off-shore haven).  But only last year,  an antigovernment blogger was jailed on sedition charges .

As for Morocco, when I was there in 2008, I was told repeatedly not to write about anything controversial (such as, Moroccan jails or torture) because it would land me in serious trouble (i.e. jail).  In September 2008, Just a month before I was there, a blogger was sentenced to two years in prison for failure to show respect to the king. The Tangier-Tetuan region in the north of Morocco is the target of  government investment and vast amounts of foreign real estate development and speculation.  I was told by knowledgeable people that a lot of the money pouring into the luxury apartments in Tangiers was drug money….

Are Speculators to Blame for Soaring Oil Prices?

Posted on by

Mike Martin has a piece on speculation at Huffington Post today arguing that the movement of oil prices is just the result of supply and demand and that speculators are taking the rap unfairly.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

This was my comment:

Good piece.. We all speculate, to different degrees, and over different time frames. Some of us do it consciously, others do it more unconsciously.

I think it’s fair to say that speculation in certain things – food and land, for starters – has social consequences we shouldn’t brush aside. But as long as money is not being priced correctly (the interest rate is held artificially low), people have an incentive to get a better return.

The underlying problem is created by the government….

https://lilarajiva.com



Crime Rates and Propaganda

Posted on by

Here’s an odd article in The Brunei Times, June 3, 2008 that lists India as the country with the highest numbers of murders.The caption reads India records highest number of murders in world. Now, what would the average reader take that to mean? The highest murder rate…

But that’s not the case at all.  Here’s the piece, with my comments:

“INDIA has recorded the highest number of murders in the world, a latest study by a government agency shows, news reports said yesterday. Data put together by the National Crime Records Bureau, a department of the Federal Home Ministry, showed that the number of murders in India, was three times that of Pakistan and double of the United States.“

Lila: Anyone glancing at this would immediately come away with the impression that the murder RATE in India was higher than anywhere else. When we say there are more murders in Gary, Indiana, than elsewhere in the US, or when we assess a city for its safety, we look at murder or crime stats in relation to the population.

“There were more than 32,000 incidents of murder recorded in India over 2007-2008, whereas there were nearly 16,700 murders in the US and about 9,700 in Pakistan, the NDTV network reported.”

Lila: This is clearly misleading.  Raw numbers placed next to each other suggest implicitly that the crime levels are comparable. They are not, because the population size varies.

“However, the survey clarified that the rate per population of murder and other crimes in India was much less compared to other countries.”

Lila: The figures for the rates of murder are tucked inside the body of the piece, where the casual reader isn’t immediately going to spot them.  Most people read the headline, the first two paragraphs and the last paragraph.

So, what’s the last paragraph here?

“Indian crime rate has been increasing every year.”

Lila: Well, India’s population has been increasing every year too. But is that mentioned?

This piece was in the Brunei Times last year. A casual reader might assume from this that India had more murders and rapes than South Africa. It actually has twenty and thirty times fewer, despite much greater population, population density, and poverty. Even in absolute terms, the US has more than four times the number of rapes than India, and South Africa has almost double.The US population is over 300 million, which is nearly a quarter of the Indian population of over 1.1 billion. So this really means the rape rate per capita in the US is sixteen times that in India.

This is the second article I’ve seen recently, which seems to be trying to give a misleading impression of India as a very violent country – more violent than Pakistan. There is violence in India – from terrorism. And a lot of that is fomented by rebels, secessionists of various kinds, and yes, by jihadists – many of whom are trained in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

UN Human Development Index for 2008 – Country Rankings

Posted on by

The top 10 countries by “human development” according to the UN

1. Iceland
2. Norway
3. Canada
4. Australia
5. Ireland
6. Netherlands
7. Sweden
8. Japan
9. Luxembourg
10. Switzerland

Among the first 50, the United States is 15. New Zealand is 20, the United Kingdom is 21 and Germany is 23.

In the next tier, Mexico is 52, Malaysia is at 63, Brazil at 70.

Considerably below them is India at 132, somewhere between Bhutan and Laos, worse off than South Africa, but better than Cambodia.

I’m not sure these rankings should be taken too seriously, but for people trying to figure out places to study, live, work, and invest, it might be a good place to start.

Personally, I fail to see why Malaysia should be behind Mexico, which is run by drug cartels right now.
As for Canada, no country with that much snow should be in the top ten….

Memorial Day Salute

Posted on by

My Comment

I had a hard time finding a video that expressed my complicated feelings about the military, the war in Iraq, dead soldiers, dead civilians, militarism, patriotism, sacrifice and everything else that is part of Memorial Day.

There were the ‘patriotic’ videos – lots of images of the flag, with the eagle brooding above it.  Marches, squadrons in flight, tanks rolling, symbols of victory, power, dominance.  They didn’t suit. There are times to fight, but the last fifty odd years of fighting haven’t been defensive. We’ve had military adventures. We’ve had ideological battles. We’ve had covert operations. We’ve slaughtered and starved civilians, flattened cities, assassinated national leaders. What you think of these depends on your world view and your ability to stomach reality, but simple flag-waving doesn’t cut it.

Then I tried music. Maybe articulating what can’t be articulated was the problem. That didn’t work either. I tried country singers. They sounded sentimental and their nasal voices offered nothing of insight into the dark attraction of militarism. I tried Johnny Cash. But the old ragged flag didn’t do it for me.  I tried swooping renditions of Amazing Grace. Too emotional. I wanted something drier and terser.

I thought of posting pictures of the actual war in Iraq – the dead and mutilated children, the bombed out buildings. But Memorial Day is the wrong day for that. There are times when conventions are right. Memorial Day is about the service men and women. I could make it something else. But that wouldn’t be right, coming from an immigrant. So I didn’t do it. Besides, wounds are wounds and deaths are deaths. Giving a voice to the American dead is not denying a voice to the Iraqi dead.

Anyway, Memorial Day is older than the Iraq War, so I shelved that idea.

I also couldn’t bring myself to do a piece about militarism, like Mike Gogulski at Nostate. Mike’s post from last year was a savage one –  F*** the Troops. It was brave, but somehow it missed the point.  Paying attention to the pain and suffering of the troops, their sacrifice, if you will, isn’t about supporting war or militarism or any of those things. It’s a human gesture. It may be, as he writes, that they sometimes died for unworthy goals and ends. It may be they’re sometimes complicit in whatever crimes were committed. It may also be that there were among them fools, opportunists, and thugs. That too is beside the point. But what the point is I’m unable to say. I just know it intuitively.

I liked the clips of buglers playing Taps best. There was a lonesome dignity to them. But they kept stopping in the middle, so I couldn’t use them. There was also one of a military salute, with gunfire, that I liked. War is about guns and death. At least one of the two should be on a Memorial Day video I thought.

Some of the more interesting videos were by peaceniks and antiwar activists. But I didn’t want to politicize this.  Something from the Vietnam War also seemed too political. [I mean, political in terms of party politics]. Videos with mothers weeping, girls singing, crucifixes in the ground (what about the non-Christians and atheists?), all had little things about them I didn’t like. And they were about other people, not about the troops.

There was one video of an old vet reminiscing about his mates in World War II, which got close to the feeling I wanted to convey, but the commentary took a while to make its impact. And it was too understated. I wish there were more videos made by vets. I’d rather not take their own words or experiences away from them.

I had a thought after all of this. Everything has music behind it these days. We all live our lives as though an Oscar-winning soundtrack were playing behind us. We create story-lines even when there aren’t any. That’s human nature, and it may be our redemption, but it’s also a reason why we mythologize things.

In the end, I decided to just post a video of a memorial ceremony at Arlington. Some things can’t be expressed.

Over a Million Refugees in Somalia

Posted on by

In the news on Friday, May 22:

“Martin Bell, former BBC war correspondent and current UNICEF UK Ambassador for Humanitarian Emergencies, recently concluded a three-day trip to the north-east zone of Somali to report on the situation of children and women affected by conflict, drought, displacement and other hardships – and to shed light on UNICEF’s efforts to provide them with crucial services.
In Bossaso, one of the country’s busiest ports, Mr. Bell visited settlements for displaced people and saw firsthand the dire conditions in which they live. Displaced populations form a group of chronically vulnerable people here, lacking even the most basic social services and livelihood opportunities.
Bossaso hosts 27 camps where 40,000 people have sought refuge from other parts of the country. Over 1 million people in Somalia are internally displaced, mainly due to the conflict and insecurities in the central and southern regions..”

More at Relief Web.

Doctors Without Borders/Medicins Sans Frontieres reports that more than 270,000 have fled to Northern Kenya, to camps operated by the UN High Commission for Refugees, where rations have been cut by 30% and malnutrition runs at over 22%, well above the emergency threshold. That’s driving many of the refugees back to the war-zone.

My Comment

This was sent to me by a young Somali friend, who urges everyone to help in any way they can.
Now, my focus in this blog is on mass thinking, but the organization of crowds (through state propaganda, coercion, and surveillance) has as its other face, the dis-organization of crowds in times of crisis, often state-produced crisis, such as at New Orleans during Katrina, or here. Among people on the move in large groups, refugees are probably the largest group.
What is amazing to me about crowds of refugees is that they move peacefully, giving the lie to fear-mongering imagery of masses of people overwhelming civilization. That’s the sort of imagery usually conjured up by authoritarians when discussing mass migration or mass movement of any kind.

Currency Conundrum: Where Do You Hide?

Posted on by

The big currency story of last week was the dollar meltdown, taking the dear old greenback (or the wicked insignia of imperialism, take your pick) down from over 83 to under 80 on the USDX (dollar index – an index measuring the dollar’s strength against a basket of currencies). Everything strengthened against the dollar – pound, yen, loonie, aussie, kiwi, rupee, gold, silver..

And only a few weeks ago we were within striking distance of 90. When will I ever learn not to try and pick tops? My perfectionism gets in the way of money-making. I seem to want to  be a soothsayer rather than rich.

But weeping aside, we saw this same sort of slide last year, only in spades. The dollar sank almost to 70 in March 2008, a move unequaled since the USDX began. After that, it resurrected itself, near miraculously, and continued treading water for the rest of the year. I’d hoped dollar-holders would see 90 plus. But 89 was as high as we got and then went back into the upper 70s, a 12.17% drop (11/21/08). Right now, we’re roughly at -8.9% (approx 10 points down from 89.6%), with the momentum to the downside still strong.

Last week’s swan-dive has the sweaty, knuckle-whitening smell of 2008 all over it. Chuck Butler of Everbank cautions against chasing the move, but who wouldn’t be tempted to have a go? The momentum is there, the fundamentals are there, the news supports both – so says the ever insightful Kathy Lien at GFT Forex.

The next crisis will be in currencies, points out Jim Rogers, rather redundantly.

But even he confesses to being baffled over where to hide.

The big driver behind all this is a statement by Bill Gross, Pimco’s manager, that the US could see a downgrade in its credit rating.

This struck me as rather odd. Especially, seeing as how dear old Pimpco was the charity child of the Fannie and Freddie group-hug from the government.

I wonder…I cogitate…I roll my eyes….

After all, the credit rating agencies (S&P, Moody’s Fitch’s) were talking about the UK heading for a ratings downgrade, not the US. They didn’t say anything about the US. And the UK’s debt -to-GDP is worse than ours (it’s near 100% GDP). Correction June2, 2009): I should clarify that I’m referring to public debt as a ratio to Gross Domestic Product, and checking the figures, I think I got this wrong. Will repost the figures.

Who the heck is listening to these ratings racketeers anyway? Weren’t they the same folks who put gold stars on some of the stinkiest pieces of manure being sold on the market?

Hmmm. What have we here? Could it be a little PR stunt? A little one-downmanship among friends to make a bit of pocket-change all around? A little game of push-the-buck- over-the 200-day- MA-cliff?

On the other hand, forgetting my cynicism for the moment, there are lots of real reasons for this weakness, besides trial balloon-floating from Mr. Gross, the main ones being the bounce in the stock market and the relatively smaller size of the quantitative easing in the Eurozone.

Add to that a thin trading day, which exaggerates any move, and the anticipation of the long weekend…

Wrong Thinking…Wrong Eating…

Posted on by

Swine flu had one up side. It made a lot of people aware of the cruel and unsanitary conditions of factory farms for pigs.

Factory farms for chickens are not any better. Eating eggs from free-range chickens is one thing. But most of the eggs in the supermarket come from battery cages like the ones below. It’s cruel and it’s unnecessary. The mythology of growth spawned by mega corporations and governments is a mythology of numbers, in which high numbers means growth. Here’s the ground zero of these production numbers. You can see it replicated at every level. We’ve destroyed a voluntary, organic ecology – the free-market – and substituted for it a mechanical monstrosity hinged together by statutory laws with no connection to real demand or supply, but driven by subsidies, speculation, and bureaucratic aggrandizement.