ishime

Part 1 :
DO NOT FORGET ACTA, PEOPLE

Inspired by a conversation with sakoni some times ago.
I hate this part, because I feel like I'm a tyrant and forcing people to share my political views and all, but DAMN IT F-LIST, none of you ever mentioned that stuff.

ACTA. IT'S NOT OVER PEOPLE. YOU CAN STILL DO SOMETHING!

For all the reasons to be worried about ACTA, see my previous post or simply go check la Quadrature du Net, they have all sorts of informations available on ACTA.

Anyway. The EU is trying to vote this shit. (At least some people in the EU parliament want this shit voted. For more details, go check La Quadrature du Net's website, they update their DATA on the vote on ACTA.)
There's a boycott going this March - following it is a tiny wee bit frustrating for me, but hey, I shoved it to your faces, so the least I can do now is following it. It's not that hard, anyway.
I just found Stop ACTA, the website that hosts the anti-ACTA movement for English speaking people and the world in general. It has links toward two petitions - go check the site and go sign them! It's easy, it's fast, and it's SOMETHING!
For the fellow froggies, the French campaign against ACTA is hosted by la Quadrature du Net, who already fought against HADOPI. IT HAS A FRENCH SITE AND AN ENGLISH ONE, so everyone can read it. They have detailed info on the EU ACTA vote, and also flyers against ACTA, in many languages. Go there check the information, and sign their petition too! They also have suggestions if you wanna do more!

If you like your Internet as it is and are worried about ACTA, please consider spending at least five minutes defending it.





Part 2:
Elections and stuff

So we froggies will soon elect our next president. It's kinda hard to forget, since the news are harassing us about it.

Now, I'm a bad, baaad citizen, because I don't follow the news very closely. Most of my informations come from the Internet, where none of my French f-list speak about politics, or France Culture's news, which my mom puts on while she eats.
So I was wondering. Is it just me / France Culture's news, or are the media covering this electoral campaign in a really fucking inappropriate way? I mean, sure the news constantly mention the candidates and their meetings, but so far, I've heard a lot about how much whose meetings cost,  whether they were successful or not, who's ahead in the polls and the fucking goddamn Halal debate, but nothing about the candidates' programs. 
And I'm used to hearing people blame the candidates for this, but honestly I feel more angry at my radio right now. None of they told me was exactly useless, but it sure as hell should come AFTER they told us about the candidates' programs damnit!
I was inclined to think radio in general and national radios like France Culture would be more serious, so I'd like to know if the TV news and other radios are doing the same? F-list?

Another thing.
My dad was given a little booklet about François Hollande (the Socialist Party's candidate) 's program. And waow. WAOW. I'm gonna be a good little parrot and repeat my dad's criticism of it, because damn this is painful to read.
1. As usual, there's no global vision or ideal. The "program" is not a plan or values to build a society upon, it's just a series of particular measures.
2. As a result, it is long. Painfully long, and boring, and apparently nobody told him that it might be a good idea to have a summary to present to people, so that he doesn't bore them to death before he has a chance to convince them. *facepalm*
3. The measures are phrased vaguely, in terms that hold no legal meaning. Given that the program is a (long, long, looong) series of particular measures, one would expect it to be precise and give concrete information on how it would be applied. It's not.
4. Every single sentence starts with "I". It's all me me me me ("moi je moi je", as we say in French), and it gets really annoying really fast. First because in French, saying I want this I want that is really not classy. Second, because in this case, no, the president does not make the law all by himself. He does it with the parliament and other institutions. Seriously, Mr Hollande, we want a candidate, not a fucking diva!

This election shows great promises of becoming a pain in the ass.
It would have been difficult enough to chose between tactical vote and opinion vote - and who would be my opinion vote - without our PS candidate being a fucking joke.
Wasn't 2002 enough of a wake-up slap to their face? When will these idiots learn to be serious with their candidature, for fuck's sake?!

So I've had an MSN conversation with koklico about ACTA, and it sounds like ACTA is confusing for a lot of people, not just me. Also, and this pisses me off, most people on the internet only know that ACTA is bad for the internet, when ACTA is much worse.

I am no expert. I still have to go through the horrible chore of reading the text of ACTA. However, from what I know about patents and the way they are used in France, none of the accusations thrown at ACTA sound surprising or impossible. Hopefully ACTA won't be enough to make us all bow before the corporations owning rights over anything and everything, but it will no doubt contribute to a disgusting system.

If someone on my f-list is more informed than me, has anything to teach me about this, please step in and do so. This is a confusing mess, and I'm having a hard time finding sources that justify their accusations.





And here are the few things I felt the need to communicate.

( 1) ACTA ISN'T JUST ABOUT THE INTERNET, PEOPLE. )

( 2) There is still time left to oppose ACTA. )

( 3) Aaaand then there is Black March. )

("You'll see how pretty life is", quote from French film "La journée de la jupe").

My dad has a customer who lived in America for years and is a big supporter of Indian rights, so when he saw Lakota Woman and another book about the Indian condition in the US on dad's stand, the guy started to talk about current Indian issues and...

HOLY SHIT CANADA. o.oU

Basically, this site is about a huge scandal over the residential schools.
I already knew about the schools' existence, the children being forcedly taken there and physically and sometimes sexually abused, and the last school closing in 1996. (Studied the Indians in Canadian civilization for a semester). But this site points toward something much, much worse.
This describes a genocide, people. And it seems rather well documented and believable. (I'm no Canadian though, so maybe I'm a bit gullible?)

EDIT OF DOOM
pwassonne brought to my attention that this website is confusing as fuck, and it's actually hard to find the documents and all, so I'm gonna give more precise links.

As I said before, the documentary movie "Unrepentant" sums up the whole affair pretty well. You can watch it embedded on the main site's page (in the "video" box), here or here.
It's rather emotional, but they show a few documents and witnesses, which is the most interesting part. And, well, Kennet's story might also be of interest, though it might be a side-track.

For those courageous enough to read the whole dissertation, it's here.

Since I haven't had the time to read it yet, I searched for the sources mentionned by Kennet in the documentary and in his dissertation. 
This is a list of official testimonies (there are 12 testimonies, presented as a sample among 158).
This is a list of - I think they look like legal stuff? - statements given to Kennet.
This is a list of Canadian Government legislation.
This is a list of archives from the Canadian Department of Indian Affairs.
And this is a list of historical documents regarding the mortality rates in residential schools.

This seems pretty well supported to me, but I know how passionnate I am and how gullible it can make me, so I'm interested in people's opinion on this, I guess.
Opinions based on having read on watched the documents, preferably. Otherwise I'm afraid it won't make me bulge.