http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/dspolitic/Frame.htm – link no longer valid
One of many political cartoons penned by Dr Seus.
I posted this back in the days before Dr Seuss got ‘cancelled’. So here’s some context to show how political and progressive he was in his day:
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/01/dr-seuss-protest-icon/515031/
http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/cm050713/debtext/50713-03.htm
Prime Ministers Questions July 13th 2005
Michael Howard: “I am sure that I speak for the whole House when I join the Prime Minister in expressing our sympathy to those who have suffered such terrible losses, and in the congratulations that he has offered to the police and the security services on the outstanding work that they have carried out following last week’s tragic events.
What we now know is appalling to contemplate. It will take us a long time to come to terms with the fact that these atrocities appear to have been committed by those who were born and brought up in our midst. Does the Prime Minister agree that those responsible for last week’s carnage were not acting in the name of Islam but were perverting its teachings? Will he join me and the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) in condemning the attacks that have taken place on mosques?
Is it not the case that anyone who reaches for a stone to throw at the window of a mosque and anyone who nurtures resentment against our Muslim community is the enemy of us all, because they would be acting in the way the terrorists want us to act, thus helping them to achieve their objective of dividing us one from another? “
Update 2021 : failed in both countries thank goodness, but the Papers, Please! The Identity Project website is still going which is good as these issues remain relevant.
I’m horrified that the USA could be getting compulsory ID cards too. The perpetrators of 9/11 all had valid ID’s .
When I was younger I used to travel to Europe and I hated the way the gendarmes would demand ‘Papiers, papiers!’ to intimidate and hassle foreigners. In a manner only one step removed from the Geheime Staatspolizei.
It’s incredible that the present US Administration wants to make the USA resemble France.
Incidentally, these old stumbleupon pages are often in the interesting links category which you may like to check out
From the site:
What’s Wrong With Showing ID?
What does an ID, any ID, do for security? The honest answer is ‘not much’. If anything, relying on ID for security purposes actually makes things worse: a false sense of security fosters complacency.
Showing ID only affects honest people. If you’re dishonest, you can obtain false documents or steal the identity of an honest person.
If a 19 year-old college student can get a fake ID to drink, why couldn’t a bad person get one, too? And no matter how sophisticated the security embedded into the ID, wouldn’t a well-financed terrorist be able to falsify that, too? The answer to both questions is obviously ‘yes’.
http://www.680news.com/news/international/article.jsp?content=w051785A
Update: Link expired so here’s the actual footage:
‘Gorgeous’ George Galloway is a man with whom I do not see eye to eye. He is basically a communist, and I do not like communism.
However, I do respect him personally. He defeated the Daily Telegraph in a libel case, defeated Tony Blair by overturning a huge Labour majority and convinced the voters of Bethnal Green that he should represent them in Parliament.
So he went to the US Senate and turned the tables on his accusers. They had, he said, committed a ‘schoolboy error’ in stating that he had personally received money out of the Iraqi ‘oil for food programme’. I watched him live on BBC TV yesterday for a full 20 minutes. It was a barnstorming performance and despite what you may hear from other media sources he wiped the floor with Senator Coleman who looked stunned and could only think of a rebuttal after he had had time to consider it.
George, I REALLY disagree with your views on most things but like your party’s name you have my respect.
That UK election round up in full.
If I have forgotten to slag-off your political party, please accept my apologies, I promise I will get round to it eventually.
Update:
Labour won
2005 Election Manifesto Summary: Plaid Cymru
Everything is the fault of the English.
2005 Election Manifesto Summary: SNP
Everything is the fault of the English, but on a positive note they do want to impeach Tony Blair.
Never! Ulster says ‘No!’ etc.
2005 Election Manifesto Summary: Sinn Féin
We want to play in a different parliament.
http://www.respectcoalition.org/
Communists.
Update: Ceased operations August 18, 2016
http://www.bnp.org.uk/
General Election 2005:
Fascists a la Mosley.
Update: That link still works but I don’t like the idea of linking to them. Copy and paste into a browser if you must.
http://www.veritasparty.co.uk/
Upminster, eight stops beyond Barking.
Update:
No longer registered as a party – shame
2005 Election Manifesto Summary: The Labour Party
Higher taxes, big government, less civil liberties
2005 UK General Election
Summary: Much higher taxes, even bigger government, giving the right to vote to paedophiles in jail.
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGACT500012005
During 2004 six names were added to the list of US prisoners sentenced to death and later released on grounds of innocence, bringing to 118 the number of such cases since 1973.
Update: Visit amnesty.org for more info on this
http://www.sundayherald.com/48034
From the page:
“In my judgement, said Tony Blair at Prime Minister’s questions last week, considerations of national security have to come before civil liberties, no matter how important those civil liberties are.”
It’s official: protection of the state is now more important than the freedom of the individual.”
Update: I don’t really do politics anymore, there’s much more important things to do
http://www.usni.org/Seminars/AnnualMeeting/04/annualmeeting04LehmanQA-2.htm
No longer available but the quotation stands on its own…
From the page:
“Finally, there are places in the world, not very far from you, that are very friendly with you, that have accepted terrorism as the norm for 30 or 40 years. And yet, I have been to bars in Boston where I have seen collections for more aid with “Would you like to put a dollar in here to kill a British soldier?” And as far as I can see, the response of your organization has been to accept that. Even as powerful as you are, you are going to need friends in the future. You’ve needed friends in the past. And the best friends that you have, in this country, are the United Kingdom. I’d just ask you to remember that.”
Whenever I hear Americans go on about the ‘War on terror’ I remember this and I remember those who died at the hands of the IRA.
https://www.howardwfrench.com/reportage
The web site of Howard W French who is a senior writer for the New York Times. Plenty of quality journalism, with an oriental slant (French lives in Shanghai with his wife & 2 kids) mxed with the usual personal web site stuff.
Update: He also has a weekly column at World Politics Review
Thumbs down for the Guardians idiotic email campaign to influence the recent US election. The Guardian has been referred to as a ‘watermelon’ – green on the outside, red in the middle and lacking in substance. Read the Telegraph instead.
