Message from the cave

Here we go again. It’s becoming repetitive and very déjà-vu.

The United Cavemen, aka Al-Qaeda, have sent out another video message to the world. Who cares anymore about their ramblings? It is getting boring, nonsensical, nearly farcical. But anyway if it keeps them happy and keeps the spirit in the cave going, so be it.

In the latest Cavemen Video Services’ production Osama’s offspring predict the downfall of Barack Obama. The Muslim world will take him down, they claim. Well of course in the solid tradition of freedom of speech they have the right to utter whatever they want to utter. I rather believe that Obama’s stumble will be orchestrated by the frustrated, panicking, bunker-mentalist right-wingers in the US and their money wasting lobbies, than by the Muslim brotherhood. But anyway, opinions are opinions and there are trillions of them.

The 106-minute video message from the cavemen is entitled “The West and the Dark Tunnel”. Nearly sounds like a cheap remake of the Star Wars series. Or a videogame spinoff of a 2nd class Hollywood sci-fi thriller with diseases, aliens and unsolved mysteries. Harry Potter meets District 9.

I think Al-Qaeda is nervous that Obama has much more popularity in the Muslim and Arab worlds than warmonger Bush Jr. Remember the cavemen wanted Bush-clone John McCain to win the US presidential race last year. For them this would have been easier to get support and membership to fight the Sarah Palin brigade than it is now to challenge the Obama camp. But Al-Qaeda lost their plot. Sorry boys. The Democrats took the White House. And on top of that a black man. And on top of that the black man came to Cairo and held a speech reaching out to the Arabs. That’s like taking the carpet from under the feet of the cavemen. They must have cold feet now.
One of the bearded men in the video says that “Unfortunately for the Democrats, and judging by their first seven-and-a-half months at the helm of the sinking American ship, the prognosis doesn't look good." Cavemen’s political poetry. At least we know the cave residents are keeping an eye on the news developments across the world. An informed caveman is a better one!

From Al-Qaeda and Obama to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and the UN is really just an ant step away.

So the annual bash at the United Nations in New York is happening this week. Presidents, Prime Ministers, dictators, left-wingers and right-wingers, idealists and pragmatists, dreamers and realists, Kings and old-style royal fools,... they all gather in the Big Apple for champagne, caviar, 5th Avenue shopping and some useless speeches. A circus of disgrace and waste. Waste of money, time and air. The ultimate blah-blah-blah summit of summits. And they do that every year. It’s the merry-go-round-and-round of cynicism.

We had Libyan leader Ghadaffi (I have seen many different spellings of his name in fact) going off the rails. We had the Iranian nuke freak attacking the usual enemies. We had mad Bob from Zimbabwe blaming the whole world except himself for the downfall of a beautiful nation. We had British PM Brown focusing hard on Iran’s nuke dreams to avoid too much focus on his growing dislike back on the streets of Britain. We heard very few political leaders speaking out against the coup in Honduras. Wondering why. Not sexy enough?

And then we had Israeli Prime Minister, warmonger and spin doctor deluxe Benjamin Netanyahu. He cleverly used the hype over Iran’s nuke plans to spin as much possible about his ‘evil’ neighbour to avoid to say too much about the death peace initiative between himself and the Palestinians. He certainly did not commit a half millimetre of sense by announcing, not even hinting, a freeze of Jewish settlement constructions. The big thorn in too many eyes and hearts. Obama and many around the world had hoped at least some gesture from Netanyahu. But nothing came. Nothing. The bunker mentality remains. Armed to the teeth and hearts filled with hate.

Netanyahu criticised the UN for not speaking out against Palestinian, especially Hamas, violence. He demanded UN resolutions against Hamas. It’s pretty evil spin coming from an Israeli PM. Since many years Israel has rejected calls and resolutions from the UN Security Council. But now he wants the UN to issue a resolution on Hamas. Get real. Stop the half-truths and the pack the crap. If you want UN action now, why not as a starter go back to Resolution 242 from 1967? A demand to withdraw from occupied territories. Those territories Israel still occupies today.

And how ridiculous is it to demand UN action now when you just rejected a UN investigative report by South African top judge Goldstone into the war on Gaza from earlier this year. Goldstone by the way who has serious credentials and comes from Jewish decent. It’s spin of the disgusting kind.

Announce a freeze of settlements and then demand that Hamas recognises the State of Israel. That would be a positive, bold move. Leaders lead. Good leaders lead good. Have the guts to break the mould and give peace a chance. Give hope a chance. Too many words and deeds from too many, especially right-wing, Israeli governments are a real disgrace to the victims of the Holocaust. Their ashes should be the fertile ground for an honest Jewish State, not for an oppressive one. And yes get solid military structures in place to defend yourself against mad denialists like Iran. But don’t cage the Palestinians into a camp and starve them to misery. Their prison-like conditions will only built hate and anger.

Oh and the UN bash had another show-element. The gathering voted unanimously for a nuke-free world. Can we all stand up and clap our hands now please. What a load of rubbish. Nice headlines and perfect champagne popping moment, but so detached from reality and so derailed by spin that it’s close to vomit. Let’s have a nuke-free worlds says Russia, the US, the UK, Israel, Iran, India, Pakistan, China, France,... It’s comedy central at the UN.

Let’s stay in NY for a bit.

CNN’s Christiane Amanpour interviewed mad Bob from Zimbabwe. You would kind of look forward to such an interview because mad Bob doesn’t give many interviews and you have the perception that Amanpour would do a hard-hitting job. Wrong. It was polished crap. Amanpour even got some of her basic facts wrong! And she didn’t go deep enough. It looked so much she was fishing for that 15 second headlining soundbite instead of having a solid discussion with the dictator. Really disappointing.

Anyway. The world is still spinning around. Human behaviour remains a tricky minefield of lost hope, disillusion and tons of spin. And champagne of course.

Throw out. NY’s Maximum Penalty hit the underground punkrock scene in 1989 with a bang. Hard-hitting with melodic rhythms and a unique vocal sound. Then after some years they disappeared. Well they are back. And with another bang. Their new album “Life & Times” is about to be released and is as solid as a rock. I’ve been privileged to have heard it already. 15 Tunes of solid punkrock with still that unique melodic voice of Jim Williams (a Muslim by the way). Nice to have them back.

C-Ya

collateral – as September 2009 is facing its showdown