The wonderings, ponderings and other 'ings' of me. Lifestyle, review, news and opinion posts. Chic with a hint of sarcasm... hopefully!

Saturday 11 December 2010

Students and Leaks

Right so I rarely venture into the world of politics, the closest I’ve ever come in the past is wondering ‘so why can’t that little Tibetan monk bloke go home?’ and ‘I thought China was meant to be a lovely place to visit but some of you think it has a dictatorial leadership that censors the media and rules its people with an iron fist?, well okay then’. But a couple of stories have worked their way into my world this week.

BIG FAT DISCLAIMER: The following opinions are based on somewhat limited information and are just my impressions of what’s happening. They consist of not all that well thought out thoughts and conclusions I have come that may well be flawed. It isn’t a call to agree with me, I can think of at least one of you who will be in utter disagreement with me anyway so no getting your knickers all in a twist about them all hmm’kay?

The Wikileaks Stuff
As I understand it, this website is releasing sensitive USA and UK government materials which has led to MasterCard and Visa withdrawing their services, which in turn has led to hackers that support Wikileaks taking down 3D secure (that extra screen you have to fill in after you try to buy your Christmas presents on the net) supposedly showing that ‘we the people are not pleased’ so far so devious, take down the man and all that.

The leaks I’m not overly concerned with though I can’t help but think masses of people knowing the ins and outs of every issue the government deal with is only going to cause more fear of terrorists not less. I mean isn’t there a possibility that if everyone knows every time there’s a threat, all those that seek to terrorize our way of life need to do is declare their intentions, we’ll all find out about the threat, get scared and act out of fear accordingly rather than getting on with our lives. It reminds me of what Zed says to Jay in Men in Black when explaining what’ll happen if it’s common knowledge that there are aliens on the planet, ‘A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals’… couldn’t similar rules apply here?

But what about the people working for the internet companies and small businesses dealing with the fall out? After all, MasterCard and Visa won’t be down forever, sure they’ll be disgruntled for a day or so and maybe not be so arrogant as to think they are untouchable, but all that’s really happening is a lot of employees are having to work their arses off sorting out the mess the hackers have created. Seriously, if they want to upset the bigwigs shouldn’t they target those individuals not piss off the people they say they’re representing?

The Student Stuff
The protests this week were all about the price to be a student being hiked up, tripled no less and yeah that really does suck. I didn’t go to University (though I am sure this is no surprise from the myriad of grammatical errors that probably litter these entries) and I am well aware that in all likelihood one of the reasons I am as comfortable as I am now, is because my husband did.

The protests themselves are fine and fair enough, but firstly, it seems to me that a lot of the blame is being laid at the feet of the Lib Dems which is like complaining about a schools policies and seeking to sack the Deputy rather than the Head. Secondly, if just one of those protesters are over 18 and didn’t vote Lib Dem or worse didn’t vote in the general election at all then they really should think before complaining about the situation we are all in.

But mostly my problem is all the violence, is that really necessary? Didn’t Gandhi beat the entire British Empire with peaceful protests? Basically what I’m saying is can’t we all just get along? It is Christmas for fuck sake!




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