likified

ok i think either there are a few more of yesterdays cables then yesterday, or perhaps i was utterly fascinated by one or two (i was actually rather interested in some).

the note taking system didnt' work, i don't take notes(yet). i think of them sometimes.
4-12-2010 was an interesting day there because so many of the docs confirmed positions taken.

for example i started out with the document on chinas press freedom. the one about coverage of the partycongress specifically. perhaps without notes it is actually better btw. less of a danger to any kinds of sources. (not only theirs or the chinese)

but thats like scaremongering. these people managed to function very often on high levels for many years. the usual autocrat regime will definitily keep an eye on whatever contacts of their keypersonal. "do they talk with an ambassador" and next.. about what have they been talking.

even if i don't trust usian reports and perhaps 'would-be' reports, they show very well that the usual official meeting gets registered and reported. i am somewhat convinced it is hardly feasible to be a regular contact of say the consulate in beijng and have noone noticing.

it may also be in causal relation that relatively many of their contacts are relatively senior. outside a less precise insight in chinas prioritys usual people don't have so many excuses to meet.

the document about reporting of the congress didnt manage to make a very credible impression. to much of the 'press freedom rhetorics'. that besides, i would guess the content about the partycongress coverage is somewhat correct. if i am not mistaken aljazeera wrote on the same line about the event. (it was a bit boring and supported to little the public discussion)

that might not mean much ofcourse, except that aljazeera has many very professional journalists that do have a professional interresse in coverage.

in so far that part of the information is also an open door. it confirms for anybody to read it that has been interested in the event what i assume several papers wrote.

generally i think what all our papers write about such an event is screened. allthough perhaps not allways. i also wondered if the subjects didnt raise the attention of more chinese then doc . suggested. at some point the chinese informer himself seems to be relating exactly the kind of stuf usia wants to hear, and i must say the doument made a quite insincere impression on me.

it's a bit hard to guess if perhaps at top level they are also confirming their own biases here.
yet the document is revealing.

it's so full of supposed western pressfreedom that it strongly suggests wikileaks shouldn't be any problem at all.

next i read some about google in china, 1 percent of the links gets censored, now i would hate to know 1 percent of my links to be censored, besides probably way more actually are , that is.

of what remains to have 1 political percent censored would never be a help ofcourse. it depends then what is actually being censored in china except pornography.

stuff like chen a minh square is. ok surprising, and crazy i admit. but stuf about violent incidents through the police here gets routinely censored to the extent hardly anyone has an idea what kind of things go on and can go on. the very subjects of a demonstration, or arrests, let alone an activist campaign are routinely smeared and misinformed about, and very lousily documented through the somewhat more official and financially strong media.

so besides ofcourse killing people and driving over them with tanks is an extreme case even in a nation with a billion people, a similar or very similar incident might well be censored. theres no webpages about the heroism of the french urban resistance recently, and if there are any they are surely not easy to find or government sponsored.

don't want to say it is the same, but its damn similar. take for example haiti. if i understood the papers well there will be a change of power (however relative in some of the possible outcomes.)

i hope there will, the past ten (20 maybe even by now) years it has been painfully obvious haitians don't trust the governemnt they have. and want another, and that the capitalist proprietary class is kept in charge over the "silly black people".

(if you dont vote quietly you will all get cholera, is the central slogan of every recent government- public interaction in haiti. note that sth like that would show up in diplomatical correspondence, and that thus far stuff like that remains remarkably absent and out of view. allthough not in the wider application , of projected morality and problems).

thats intimidation and probably worse. blackmail. noone wants their children to get cholera, not even if you are in a hopeless position in a camp after centurys of oppression. it might rather make more of an impression. you know afterall what they have been doing to your people for century's.

the good news is that since today (would wikileaks have made a deal..) international organisations support a some transition of power. theres bad news there as well, one of the 2 other candidates is thoroughly rooted in the current political climate, and my guess is their cards are on her now. then you get a sweeter toned voice with the same political content.. but the other candidate is apparently young and alternative, and usually they will play it in a way as to make people belief the next representative of the (an) establishment is an alternative.

simply put, if they get her in that position, and looks like they plan that, in another 5 or 10 years somewhere a heap of documents might turn up that show her as a trustee informer.

ofcourse i am not sure about it, but it is with oppositions in suspect systems a lot and it is with elections that bring for the outside corporate world unwanted change , a lot.

to this and also cote 'divoire i still have the following to say. i am basically against people staying in charge of ill understood things like political entity's. even if they don't intend to , the longer they stay the more they settle, and perhaps even worse, the more this settling takes a materialist direction. it is more so when the nation is less informed. ie. poorer and less educated.

that is because in such societys more rather simple routes to power are open. not uncommonly there is some great reference for authority, and even when people are not corrupt they are very much used to bargain for their needs and wishes with material means. its easier to be corrupt in a poor nation.

as a result i have a great distrust for any kind of establishments in poor nations.

personally i think about ivory coast it is good when gbagbo leaves. he is there for some time now, and my impression is the phase of constructivity for him is over, and the phase of entrenchment
has already arrived. he will not only entrench his own position, but might be entrenching whole social layers. that would go to christians and as a result society would actually be polarising.

however if he remains the support of the army, my impression is there is nothing the ic ("international community") will do. they want to 'sit around one table' with him, to write contracts etc. still, would he win the next 'elections'.

hes not even a nice man to sit around tables with him i understand. its more about the contracts then the table.

but it's also safety , if some kind of rebels with a remotely islamic background fight a dictators army we know who's side they will choose, and who will still be safe in ivory coast then.

must note to this that in so far i know he isnt among the very meanest of potentats, and in how far he tried to make ivory coast a better place is also a question unanswered for now.

however it is obvious he hasnt been able to breach the division. it is also obvious neither the international climate nor the circumstance of having a split muslim christian population to africa itself, are very conductive to that.

last but not least it is obvious doing so in westafrica is not necessarilly easy.

on a sidenote elderly woman and children, (few and thus mostly rich ones btw), are allowed to flee even if so far things are somewhat calm. it doesnt mean much except there is still some freedom of movement. ask palestineans about what freedom of movement menas, or iraki, it's not nothing. it's not a typical muslim thing either if i am fair.

in a cultural way, but also literrally muslim society is predictably more restrictive even then a re-restricting european society not uncommonly.

it stands for the social immobillity also, physical mobility promotes and facilitates social mobility.
you have to look at it with some courage, then it is even worse, people staying all their lives in one village, one region, are socially immobilised and easily can be used as an obstacle for social advances. (being old fashioned and narrowminded they tend to vote way more conservative then their interests lay, for example.)

that is nothing muslim of trikont, it's essential in maintaining status quo everywhere in europe and all over the united states exactly and not coincedentually so.

ok. ill do the next bit, that got me so wary i quit all the reading for a while,
dadis cammara.

you remember the guy from guinee? the guy that made the increasingly less impressive media appearances? ofcourse there have been some exceptions. although guinee is not a great mess after he left, wich should be surprising in the light of the many complaints and reproaches.

if you read their reports that is certainly surprising. btw the question arrives why do these reports that are essentially medical make such a job out of portraying him (negatively).

no matter what contempt he met in morocco he was still welcome in burkina faso, it suits everyone, and that in turn suits burkino faso that is in the hands of some coup takers that killed the hero of the people for more then 10 years now.

note, gbagbo has them as an allie.


camara himself is a sad case, with part two of the report missing, and him receiving an old bullet in his head in the betweens, the conclusions that can be drawn is pervert pleasures are common to the projected readers of these documents, and that sth. is the matter with the whole case.

allthough i feel pitty for him, perhaps undeserved, it is not completely clear to me what is his condition. not suit to rule.. so much is made painfully obvious.

meanwhile back in connary the people still shiver from fear for him. and voices to bring him back magnify their fears enough that renewing the nations dealing has so far proven illusive.
i again wonder if that is so much a bug as really a feature.

however if he really set up militia "everywhere" things would be a bit scary.

you can perhaps guess why it made me stop reading. a very distastefull story and full of insecuritys i can hardly expect to be reported on by 'diplomatic cables' (released to army personal).

ok.. on with the reading, i am glad new things arrived. in between all that aljazeera published some detail i haven't yet read and will btw not be specifically looking for allthough i will be interested if it happens to be between my picks) about... aljazeera.

rotfl. you know, i publish there a little, and certainly love to be critical about them. however the accusation (that for Qatari political interests they be a willing tool and would even shut down for a year) seems either farfetched or strongly exagerated.

aljazeera is somewhat of a political tool, (like all media) and very often on the exact lines of usian propaganda, pressfreedom, but also in choices and picks. only if the public opinion is aware of the discrepancy you can be very sure aljazeera will also be critical, they don't usually steer in the nato's soups.(1)

in one case i noticed their reporting was strongly influenced by arab prejudice. sth about oceania it was. but i reacted to it and an example as extreme i havent again seen. in a few cases individual reporters , contributors, bloggers, whatever, do the same, but they are far and between.

topics that are in the news get a decent and impartial coverage compared to other newsoutlets.
(allthough you could interprete the sympathy with the underdog as partial in a statistical way,
there should be no surprise that opinions of for example muslims and indigenious people are better represented then elsewhere.)

besides that if there is one agenda they are serving it is the nato's. if nato decides to waste every article with a few standard agiprop phrases (like everything about northkorea endlessly repeating about the boat sunk without questionmarks) al jazeera loyally joins in.

i guess ppl will say : you see!? but there are just to many examples of endless repetition of known "facts", to leave that credible. another one is every article about haiti mentioning that a some official said "otherways everyone will have cholera". alltho that one did not go unnoticed either, it is mentioned everytime and not critisized explicitly.

i see no practical possibillity they would stop broadcast for a year. well maybe that was 12 years ago or so. when they didnt have this much of a regular and broad service.

but what was long ago, and when things were different then now, should not be the light we put things in.


1) it is indeed on the positive side about qatar, although even there renewing. in the least in cases, maybe over the whole. and to be honest, qatar (and bahrein, dubai, uae) are somehow part of the nato soup.