22 Comments on Tuesday October 2, 2007 : Myanmar / Burma
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Hello, im having some troubles with your RSS feeds, i think you guys are missing a ; or something. Could you please check this out??
thanks
Resolved now, thanks for letting us know.
Free Burma!
International Bloggers\’ Day for Burma on the 4th of October
International bloggers are preparing an action to support the peaceful revolution in Burma. We want to set a sign for freedom and show our sympathy for these people who are fighting their cruel regime without weapons. These Bloggers are planning to refrain from posting to their blogs on October 4 and just put up one Banner then, underlined with the words „Free Burma!“.
http://www.free-bumar.org
How about a \”Wear Red\” Day? Everyone in NYC, or, at least, a large gathering of people in front of the UN or in Union Square Park, wearing red. Perhaps a noon to 1PM time period. Nothing more than that. No speakers. No banners. Just a simple sea of red. Meditative and powerful. And easily photographed and distributed and replicated around the world. Darryl
Wow.
We’ve been around and around on whether RB is journalism. As I suspect we might today.
And I wonder if the efficacy of the UN might come up?
But before all that gets started let me say: That was the best report on Myanmar I have yet seen in any medium.
Joanne, I think I figured something out. You’re a world-class news anchor. You play this gig for laughs and you’re good at it, but when you serious up you are almost peerless. Command of facts, and real feeling about them. It’s nice to see Jim Carrey doing his part for the cause but watching him read a teleprompter just made me stare at the light catches in his eyes (all three). You, on the other hand, were riveting.
And the mashup around it was terrific. THE pictures to have, effective display of stats, nicely paced. Even with the Carrey thing. And the flickr kids posting pretty color work, which I’m sure is more than that but did sound just a tad inwardly focused.
The web response to Myanmar will be a huge story. That’s RB’s turf to cover, right? Keep it up.
Myanmar has been hell on earth for 20 years. The ruling junta, when they are not at each other’s throats, is raping the nation and starving the masses. Check out the youtube vids of the general’s daughter getting married sometime. The diamonds in her hair would feed thousands of people for years.
The junta has retreated behind soldiers and walls to the point that it has grown truly unhinged, relying on astrologers for advice. We don’t know if that is why they decided recently to uproot the capital and relocate the whole state apparatus 200 miles away. Or maybe they just wanted to be that much farther away from their people, so they would feel safe. Regardless, they just up and did it one day. TRhe trucks showed up and everyone and everything went north. If that’s not madness then I don’t know what is.
Imagine for a moment the government workers, their families, all the informal contacts they had all arranged to make life bearable, and what moving the capital on a moment’s notice did to them.
And now there are monks floating down river. Bet there are some dandy mass graves too. No doubt the junta has the best bulldozers money can buy.
I too get sick of the sternly worded letters being issued by the UN, but I think you have to at least start with that.
Where from there? Let’s discuss.
Though I think we can start by agreeing it’s unlikely the US will invade. We’re kinda busy.
And besides, as Jeff Danziger pointed out recently, they don’t have any oil.
“The diamonds in her hair would feed thousands of people for years”
So would this be’ach’s shoes!
An interesting resource that we found yesterday is the site of someone named Niknayman who’s using a Twitter like service called Cbox to post updates from within Myanmar. Other people are taking his posts (in Burmese) and converting them into English here.
Although Ko Htike is getting most of the press around Burmese blogging, he’s actually based in London.)
Probably one of the most densely informative shows on Rocketboom ever. Very good work. Go send your mails to Ban Ki-moon folks. Now.
Excellent report. You did a nice job summarizing a very complex history. The current situation is not terribly complex though.
People in power with no incentive to let loose have every incentive to crush opposition. If you do nothing else, please pray for the people of Burma. They are in a desperate situation.
For some background on the country and culture, check out http://www.burmafortwayne.com
Petitions:
http://www.avaaz.org
http://www.petitiononline.com/9848/petition.html
This is a little awkward. SteveL, above, used my name which may have been a coincidence, and my URL, which could not. The thing is, he made an excellent comment. I don\’t know if I should be angry because he stole my identity, or flattered.
Formerly known as Stevel, kindof.
Pardon the intrusion. I have no idea how I used your url. I use that name on some sites, and have reverted to my alternate ID.
Hey, thank Heaven for internet cafes in places like Barcelona, Ibiza, Marseille, Nice, Milano, Venizia, Wien, and Frankfurt! They allow Eurail pass holders the world over to catch up with these amazing RocketBoom shows.
This stuff with Burma smells like a great big stinky B-M (that´s bull feces in Italian (or is it German–I\’ve lost track at this point)). A real nostril opener.
Well, Chow for now. Love you guys.
New first line of this song for Mike\’s sake:
I\’m a travelin\’ man, made a lot of mashups …
Is there something wrong with the iTunes feed? Rocketboom hasn\’t been updated since 17. September!
I have 9/24/07 thru 10/02/07
You might need to open iTunes, go to Preferences, click Podcasts & set \’Check for new episodes\’ to Every Day & \’When new episodes are available\’ set that to Download all & \’Keep\’ (whatever) click OK & then click \’Refresh\’ - Podcast Directory at bottom right in the iTunes window. Hope that helps.
Thanks for today’s report!
Excellent show, guys.
I do, however, want to toss in a bit of a dissent here to the prevailing sentiment. While I\’m certainly not opposed to anyone doing whatever they think will help to bring democracy to Burma — in fact, I wish them every success — I can\’t help but feel there is something profoundly … off kilter … in U.S. citizens\’ involvement. Because frankly, the most urgent task facing U.S. citizens is to restore democracy here in the U.S.
The radically anti-democratic, unconstitutional, and anti-American measures which our current administration have undertaken this century are all largely still in place … and are in grave danger of settling into permanence. The suspension of habeas corpus and the flouting of the Fourth Amendment and the Geneva Conventions are mortal assaults on the very concept of democracy. Those assaults have encountered some resistance in the courts, but are still largely intact. I think it will only be through public pressure that these measures will be rolled back, and those who pushed them through held accountable. (I think this recent sobering assessment by Daniel Ellsberg is relevant.)
As for the Burmese/Myanmarians, I certainly support their strivings for democracy and those who wish to help them. Ultimately, though, I think their chance for achieving a lasting democracy is very much hinged to our ability to restore it here. For if constitutional democracy perishes in the U.S., what hope does it have to survive in the rest of the world?
Everyday for the past week I have talked to people from Burma who do not know if their friends or loved ones are safe, much less alive.
I have nothing against working for our own country, but the battle in Burma is not an abstract concept. Lack of action may result in the deaths of thousands at the hands of a military government with little to fear from anyone, (except perhaps China.) Any pressure is welcome. Send a fax, sign a petition. The effort is minimal.
http://www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_burma/t.php
http://www.petitiononline.com/9848/petition.html
http://www.irrawaddy.org/
New ads are more than a little obnoxious . . .
The US, are the SLORC of the rest of the world, killing and raping people overseas.
please, also: send an email to UN, to ask:
US: out of Irak, out of latin America, let the world to leave in peace and love!
I wholeheartedly congratulate Rocketboom for such an (in general) well-researched and well-executed report. And I do share the common sentiment about the people of Burma / Myanmar, and their plight.
HAVING SAID THAT:
I’m completely appalled that Rocketboom gives us some information that is so patently false that it even contradicts the accompanying graphs!
CONCRETELY:
At 0:17, Joanne says: “Though rich in resources, the country’s been labeled the least developed fourth world country by the U.N. …”
NOT TRUE. The U.N. labeled ONE of the Fourth World (or Least Developed) Countries. Not THE least developed.
“…exhibiting the lowest indicators of socio-economic development..”
NOT TRUE. Again, those indicators are AMONG the lowest, not THE lowest.
But the most glaring imprecision comes next, (0:25):
“…with the lowest Human Development Index ratings of all countries in the world.”
Not only is that NOT TRUE. The chart that accompanies the talk shows Burma in YELLOW, that is a country with MEDIUM HDI, not even in the LOW category!
In fact, following the link in the RB page to the U.N. Human Development Reports site you can download the 2006 report, which covers among other things poverty and human development. There we see that the HDI for Myanmar for 2004 (the latest year included in the report) is 0.581. That’s well within the Medium Human Development range!
More info in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index
Don’t get me wrong: The situation in Burma is CRITICAL. But if we are caught making emotional but absolutely incorrect statements we will HURT THE CAUSE!
I know that this was a small, accidental mistake. But PLEASE verify the information that you give regarding such important matters! Let’s not get so emotional as to say things that can be proven wrong, thereby weakening our arguments! Especially when the data (the map) is right in front of our eyes!
And I’m also surprised that NONE of the comments above seem to catch this error. Shame on all of you! What a flock of Sheep!