New World Order...right?

Fellow comrades,



Wahington Post had an article today about the new World Court, the International Criminal Court, which is now in full operation. Reading the headline, I thought to myself what a field day the conspiracy theorists must be having. I've been reading plenty of conspiracy theory materials about the impending New World Order. Besides the long and winding articles on dodgy websites, I've read a couple of well-published books including Pat Robertsons's aptly titled "New World Order" and A. Ralph Epperson's magnum opus "The Unseen Hand". The latter's title, I might add, is a brilliant take on Adam Smith's theory of the "Invisible Hand". According to the authors, the purpose of such an Order is the creation of a global dictatorship that prohibits any form of individual freedom. Frankly, I'm far from convinced that such a conspiracy exist. From their writings, it is clear that this is just another case of Americans, and most if not all of the conspiracy theorists are Americans, subscribing to the "American exceptionalism" idea. The so-called "agents" of the New World Order movement have all been American or are of particular concern only to America (e.g. the Rockefellers, Patriot Act, the Freemasons, Skull and Bones, gun control, et cetera). Granted, the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and the United Nations have been blamed as well, but mostly on the premise that all of those organisations are under the control of the American government. The evidences produced by these conspiracy theorists, albeit coming from reputable sources, have all been either overblown or simply circumstantial. The best example of how misguided they are in evaluating historical facts and figures is in their predictions of the Soviet Union, particularly circa 1970s-1980s. Among them are the unification of the United States and the Soviet Union, the creation of a United States of Europe that unifies Europes's political economic and social systems (very different from the European Union we see today) and the Soviet Union's unification with China followed by the fall of all Asian countries under Communist rule. All these were predicted to happen before 1990. This just goes to show that the case is still strong on the side of the "Accidental View of History" and predicting human and social behaviour is an otiose practice.

Today is the 50th anniversary of Holland-Malaysia diplomatic ties. I was suprised at Holland's Ambassador to Malaysia Lody Embrechts's notion that Malaysia's "good business relations" with Malaysia can be traced as far back as 100 years ago. Hmmm... did he forget about the Dutch East India Company which had an outpost in Malacca in the 17th Century? Or is it because he didn't want to mention the Company's methods of maintaining its monopoly over certain industries in the region which included, and I quote from the Wikipedia article, "violent suppression of the native population, not stopping short of extortion and mass murder"? Lest we forget? Or should we just let bygones be bygones? You decide.


Godspeed,
Fadli


If there ever was in the history of humanity an enemy who was truly universal, an enemy whose acts and moves trouble the entire world, threaten the entire world, attack the entire world in any way or another, that real and really universal enemy is precisely Yankee imperialism. - Fidel Castro

Latent Lebanon

Fellow comrades,

Malaysia has sent 257 of its troops to Lebanon as part of the UNIFIL contingent. Overall, 365 personnel have been sent. I would've been fine with it had they been sent last year, say sometime before the massive flood in Johor. However, now that the flood has hit and keeps on hitting us hard, I wonder if it's right to use our military resources to solve another country's problems. I know that some of our soldiers are already helping out flood victims, but would having more of them help out hurt? Lebanon seems to be fine nowadays, worrying more about labour strikes and kids failing at school rather than an imminent attack by Israel. I understand that they're still facing some problems, but I think our own problems need more attention. Of course, we've declared that we were able to send 1000 troops to Lebanon before, but that was way before the floods. So, international extolment for our contribution to global peace and security; or national praise for our soldiers rolling-up their sleeves and helping flood victims? Quandary, no?

On a much lighter note, The Simpsons Movie's plot has been revealed. Interesting, indeed.

Best Wishes,
Fadli

Homer: Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try. - Homer J. Simpson

Have you heard the one about the national newspaper that sued the bloggers?

Fellow comrades,



That's right. Bloggers Jeff Ooi and Ahirudin Attan were both sued by the Malaysian daily newspaper New Straits Times. A news-site's take on the news was rather interesting, particularly its headline. I have been an avid reader of their blogs. They have a knack for exposing unfavourable, yet rarely heard, news about the government. Their articles are always fresh and honest. It is very worrying that this has happened, as the internet is the only independent medium to obtain information. Bloggers, particularly Malaysians, will fear for their income everytime they hit the "publish" button, which may result in less people willing to speak up. Independent Malaysian news-sites, such as Malaysia Today, Malaysiakini and others, have improved greatly since they began to prop up in the late-90s (when the Anwar Ibrahim scandal burned the bellies of Malaysians to obtain alternative news). They have turned themselves from poorly-designed, hosted-by-geocities sites to well-maintained ones. Even my uni subscribes to Malaysiakini. Back to the libel suit. The Wall Street Journal's and Barron magazine's online articles have been sued before. The WSJ case, which was heard in the U.K., was thrown out since only five people have read it. However, the judges in the Barron case, which was heard in Australia, allowed for it to be sued, albeit the article was only read by nine people. The results of the Malaysian case will be very, very interesting indeed.


Godspeed,
Fadli


Of what use is freedom of speech to those who fear to offend? - Roger Ebert

Ba(ra)ck again...

Fellow comrades,

Well, haven't blogged for a while. Had some problem signing in a few weeks ago and decided to give up. But, thought I'd drop by and write something. Since, obviously, I'm having no problem signing in, I may just write much more frequently in the coming days. The news item that caught my eye was Barack Obama's decision to launch a "presidential exploratory committee" for the 2008 Presidential campaign which is another way of saying "I'm doing this just in case I decide to back off later so that it won't hurt my career as badly as launching a full-fledged campaign AND I'm able to start my campaign early, albeit partly-fledged, without suffering from burnout BUT, should I decide to run anyway, I'll have plenty of money raised already". This, after months of avoiding the issue and giving few hints as to whether he would run. An article by Charles Krauthammer about Senator Obama written in October 2006 was particularly interesting. It explained how the Senator would "win by losing", should he run for the Presidency in 2008. Only God, and Senator Obama, would know whether the article had any influence on his decision.

I, however, have just recently discovered the virtues of Chuck Hagel. Basically, he's a Republican, Vitenam-vet, experienced businessman and Senator from Nebraska. In recent years, he has quite publicly distanced himself from the Bush administration. What's more interesting is the Israel lobby's "effort to marginalize Chuck Hagel for saying fairminded things about Israel/Palestine ". Interesting, no?

That's all for now, folks.

Godspeed,
Fadli

"When I was a small boy growing up in Kansas, a friend of mine and I went fishing and as we sat there in the warmth of a summer afternoon on a riverbank we talked about what we wanted to do when we grew up. I told him that I wanted to be a real major-league baseball player, a genuine professional like Honus Wagner. My friend said that he'd like to be President of the United States. Neither of us got our wish." - Dwight D. Eisenhower