Updated: The True Genesis of Amnesty International...it's not what you might think!

The True Genesis of Amnesty International

Read the above article by Claudio Veliz in Quadrant Magazine: Australia's independent review of literature and ideas. Veliz was involved with the organization from its founding. Just for starters, Amnesty International came into being much earlier than its official founding date of 1960. And if you have ever suspected that Amnesty International is anything but politically neutral, despite its stated policy of representing "prisoners of conscience" from both the left and the right, you will learn exactly how and why your suspicions are correct.

According to Veliz:

The Cold War experience would also have confirmed Münzenberg’s conviction that waged urbi et orbi, such campaigns would be ignored inside a communist world undisturbed by a free press and public opinion, but would undermine the moral status of policies advanced by the United States and its allies.

More about this blog: No story in real life ever comes to a tidy end. Stories continue to unfold, and unlike other media, this blog makes a point of following up on them. Each time you revisit this blog, you may find more links and discussion, and sometimes rolling updates, on developing stories.

So here's an update, as of June 19, 2007:

The hidden leftist agenda of AI again comes to light in this recent article, Vatican Calls for Catholics to Stop Supporting Amnesty Int'l. One need not be a Catholic to regard AI's recent activities as a grotesque betrayal of the organization's stated aims:

Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace at the Vatican, called on Catholics to stop supporting the group.

“If in fact Amnesty International persists in this course of action, individuals and Catholic organizations must withdraw their support, because, in deciding to promote abortion rights, AI has betrayed its mission,” the National Catholic Register quoted him as saying.

Stein hoist to LittleGreenFootballs and
Gop3.com: The Triumvirate!

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Stumble It!

Why Conservatives Need to Geek-Up (Part 1)

If you are not a liberal when you’re 25 you have no heart, and if you’re not a conservative when you’re 45, you have no brain.

This saying, sometimes credited to Winston Churchill, seems to hold a bit of universal truth, as does the notion that the young people of a generation affect change, while the older folks lend stability. This certainly seems to be the case when it comes to politics online in the 21st century (allowing, of course, for exceptions such as the Young Republicans clubs and the die-hard hippies).

Web 2.0 technology affects our lives online in the form of blogs, online citizen journalism sites (social news), wiki’s, folksonomies, social networking sites, collaborative bookmarking sites, podcasts, aggregators (e.g. RSS), semantic web, collaborative software, and other online scenarios in which users create and share content such as graphics, news, information, technology, creative writing, software, photos, and videos. The original World Wide Web gave us the opportunity to share information by posting what we had to say, and by reading what others had to say. Web 2.0 takes that concept to the next level, by giving users the opportunity to collectively influence what information is available and how the information is distributed.

Today’s twenty-somethings grew up online, and generally seem to be more intuitively tech-savvy and more comfortable with online collaboration than those of us that are older (“older,” in this case meaning anyone over 35!). It is no wonder, then, that there is a noticeable liberal/progressive majority in the politics discussions of any of the social networking sites, which extensively utilize the newest technologies and the art of collaboration.

Largely due to Web 2.0 technology as well as increasingly interactive search engines, there is a growing body of knowledge online that is taking on a life of its own, and it is very influential. Features such as Google PageRank assure that the majority view of any issue is likely to be the first available information on any given topic. Anyone interested in the accuracy of the information that is being disseminated online, needs to have a voice in this increasingly important global discussion.

As conservatives, we need to understand and utilize Web 2.0 technology if we want this body of knowledge to even partially reflect our values, attitudes, respect for history, and vision for the future.

(Go to Part 2 of 3)
(Go to Part 3 of 3)

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Why Conservatives Need to Geek-Up (Part 3)

(Go to Part 1 of 3)
(Go to Part 2 of 3)

(This Third Installment is by Jenn Sierra and TXPoet, with research assistance from 1389.)

This is the third and final installment of this series explaining why Conservatives need to become more active in the Web 2.0 environment. Part One discussed the generational gap, generally between liberals and conservatives online, while Part Two discussed the how this gap is creating an imbalance of information readily available online through a typical search engine query. We will finish this series by highlighting a few of the major figures supporting Web 2.0 financially, showing how their political leaning is further compounding the imbalance in the information war.

Online social networkers are familiar with Digg.com, the current top social bookmarking site, which has enjoyed unprecedented success in social networking, through its use of bookmarking and syndication, with over 15 million visitors per month.

Where does a site like Digg get funding? Who are its investors? Primary Greylock Partners and the Omidyar Network. The Greylock Partner team is an international investor in primarily technology and medicine, with a special interest in Israel. The Omidyar Network “has invested in a variety of areas, including microfinance, participatory media, open innovation, open source and transparency in government.”
In addition to investing financially, the Omidyar Network is on mission: “Ultimately, we hope that people everywhere will constructively engage with each other to pursue what they care about most, resulting in a global society that is continually advancing social progress.”

If the name Omidyar rings a bell, it’s because Pierre Omidyar is the founder of e-Bay, a philanthropist who is #43 on Forbes’ list of billionaires, and a benefactor of a microfinance fund at Tufts University.Omidyar’s COO is Iqbal Paroo, a Shia Imami Nizari Ismaili, whose interests involve complex healthcare and higher education. He has a long history of involvement with the Aga Khan Foundation (1977-2000), and “From 1977-1980, he served the Aga Khan Foundation as both director of commissioning for the initial phase of the Aga Khan University in Karachi, Pakistan,” which has “teaching and research programmes in Pakistan, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Afghanistan and the United Kingdom,” the university is billed as “an agent of change” and “an important force for pluralism.”

Omidyar and Paroo are champions for the left’s most sacred causes, and now their organization is one of the primary investors in the largest, most influential social-networking site on the web.

Where is the conservative counterpart?

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Female genital mutilation as a modern European fad

According to this Breitbart article from AFP, more and more physically normal women are demanding plastic surgery to "improve" the appearance of their vulvas. This "designer vagina" surgery (or, rather, butchery) involves cutting away healthy sensitive tissue, with the end result being a vulva resembling that of a prepubescent girl.

1389 declines to speculate on the depth of the mental, emotional, and spiritual sickness that could motivate supposedly modern, civilized people to begin toying with the savage custom of female genital mutilation.

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Off-topic tech note for fellow mobile web enthusiasts: 1389's laptop was down, so this entire blog post was entered via a bare-bones Sanyo SCP-7000 cell phone. This is not the easiest way to go, but it will work. However, the memory limitations of the cellphone itself are a problem, in that this limits the size of the file that can be loaded back into the cellphone for editing with the Blogger editor.

It's new, it's by William A. Whittle, and it's worth reading now

If you aren't familiar with William A. Whittle and the Eject!Eject!Eject! website, you're missing one of the best writers on current trends from an historical perspective. His understanding of the issues of war and defense is spot on.

You Are Not Alone, Part 1 and Part 2 is a long article, but so thought-provoking, and, dare I say, inspiring, that it is worth dropping whatever else you are doing to take the time to read it now.

Read it, think about it for awhile, and read some of the other articles on Whittle's site. He has an intriguing, and I believe correct, comprehension of the real purpose behind, and need for, those efforts and struggles that so often seem lonely and futile.

Comments are open, both here and on Whittle's site.

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Iran to filter "immoral" mobile messages

Apparently, as in Saudi Arabia, too many frustrated Iranians have been using cellphone instant messaging to circumvent the restrictions on communications regarding sexuality, and on contact between the sexes.

See this story from Reuters.com.

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