The Arab Revolt, Unitarian Stalinism, MBA and Dunedin, RPG Review

[tcpip]

The Arab world, in case anyone hasn't noticed, is in a revolution. Tunisia revolted over unemployment, food inflation and freedom of speech and information. Robert Fisk correctly predicted that this would spread to other countries. Now prominent in Egypt, Mubarak is almost certain to fall (the non-intervention of the armed forces is extremely notable). Yemen, Syria and Sudan, after the independence referendum, is well on the agenda. Following more work by Wikileaks, the Palestinian leadership has been shown to be untrustworthy and corrupt (and this surprises who, exactly?).

On more local political issues Sunday I had the task of taking the service for a address at the Unitarian Church on the 'successes' of Stalin's Soviet Union. I decided against politeness and quoted from Steven Fritchman, Robert Conquest and Max Shachtman for opening, reading and closing words (Shachtman's words have a great resonance in my opinion). It is ridiculous and embarrassing that at a Church that claims to support human freedom, democracy and equality that there is support among some of the congregation for murderous quasi-fascist regimes such as that run by Stalin, and worse still try to find excuses and justifications for the events that occurred. There are no justifications. The Stalinist regime butchered nearly the entire leadership of the October revolution. They let millions of people in the Ukraine starve to death; by any metric related to freedom, democracy and the welfare of ordinary people Stalin's rule was in fact worse that than that experienced under the Tsar!

In my personal life there is light at the end of the tunnel with the difficult parts of my last post; I have submitted an appeal for my assignment grade for my course on Managing Innovation; the exam is next Monday. In the meantime I have received the assignment grade for Organisational Best Practise - 77% - which is much closer to my average. The exam for that is Tuesday. Even better news is that an extension of settlement for our house in Dunedin has been approved and Members Equity Bank have decided to offer us the requisite monies. So within the next two weeks our place in Dunedin will be in our legal possession.

RPG Review Issue 10 is incredibly late; over a month now. I am just putting the final touches on it, and it should be ready by the weekend. It's getting close for the next issue to be released! I really should organise myself better in regards to this 'zine, however as a huge volunteer task I tend to put it off. Besides there's real gaming to actually do - last Sunday tested out the latest edition of Paranoia, which has a simple system some nice new roleplaying features, and a total railroad for an introductory scenario. Finally I have just submitted a review of Shadowrun, that weird combination of fantasy and cyberpunk, to rpg.net; should be published next week.

Comments

Re the Gaming Section

[ferret-otaku.livejournal.com]

The first time I played Shadowrun, most of the technology and society was fictional.

Recently: nerve cells grown onto a silicon chip, a "synthetic muscle" has been created, phones are complete comms. centres, electronic books are not uncommon, printed boarding passes are almost history.

All we need now is the goblinisation and the creation of UCAS!

Re: Re the Gaming Section

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Hehe.... I would have been happier with Shadowrun if it had paid just a little more attention to local cultural myths as the expression of the metahumans and transmorgified natural critters. Instead they seemed to take too much from a European perspective and somehow managed to take the magic away as well. It felt too much like D&D plus Cyberpunk rather an independent RPG in its own right which combined mythology plus near future.

A good GM could make it work of course, but the material in the rulebook was often more or a problem than assistance.

Re: Re the Gaming Section

[cheshirenoir.livejournal.com]

Agree with you on every point here.

Whenever anyone asked to do ShadowRun I threatened them with a combination of GURPS Cyberpunk, ICE CYberspace and Brian Froud's Faeries.

Re: Re the Gaming Section

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I wonder if it is possible to justify the quantity in of European-inspired metahumans as a result of a "genetic psychic projection" from those of colonial descent. It certainly doesn't excuse their rather weak presentation in a D&D-style of the dwarves, elves etc but at least it could explain why metahuman elves are in Maylands.

Your idea of using Brian Froud's faeries would indeed be a great stylistic improvement..

[laura-seabrook.livejournal.com]

Does that mean there "might" be more chance of "democracy" in those places?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Yes, with the shudder quotes you've provided. One of the problems that parts of the region faces is that many of the more secular forces are among the most corrupt and dictatorial whereas many of those who are more democratic are less religiously tolerant.

It is a classic problem of tyranny of the majority and the need for democratic rights to be tied with civil rights.

[castleclear.livejournal.com]

Compounding the problem (imo) is that the forces of oppression, be they a single tryant-dictator or a corporate oligarchy, practice Divide and Conquer, hence the phenomena of Sarah Palin and Fox News in the U.S. to cite rather obvious examples. Having just met quite by chance in a local grocery store a young man of Egyptian-British heritage I'm informed practicing Muslims are still protecting Coptic Christian churches from Islamic extremists in Egypt, and reports yesterday from DemocracyNow.org included some encouraging reports of even religious factions uniting in common cause.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Yes, the protection of the Christian Coptics by local Muslims was something that was promised and carried through.

I wonder how much media coverage that received...

[castleclear.livejournal.com]

DemocracyNow.org, PBS.org, BBC World Report, and a few other news sources (e.g. AlterNet News) are about the only news sources I look at with much frequency, though sometimes YahooNews (Associated Press) or items copied by friend from media such as The Washington Post or New York Times catches my eye and interest. I don't bother much any more with news reports by the agencies owned and operated by the multi-corporate giants, except to see what the mainstream is being fed and have noted increasingly, as have others, for at least a decade the declining quality of Journalism in the United States as compared to what it was in my boyhood and youth. *wave of hello from across the pond on our shared planet*

[bar-barra.livejournal.com]

Brilliant, brilliant news! There was a similar event on Xmas Day a little while back in Yogya, Indonesia. Again with no mainstream press coverage at all.

*Go Team!*

[castleclear.livejournal.com]

So nice to see you here. :-) If you happened to read either my postings at IUUJ or CastleClear then you know my feelings about the unfolding events in Egypt and what I hope they indicate for all peoples living on our shared planet.

[bar-barra.livejournal.com]

The Geriatric Freeloaders Party are tottering on their thrones. Intriguing to see the Arabs flexing their muscles at long last. It has always been an article of faith world-wide that Arabs are useless, hopeless losers incapable of doing anything for themselves. And yet they share the same DNA as us, and maybe they share the same hopes. I think they might. Both the Serial Killers' Federation and the Kleptocratic Priesthood are hoping to ride to power on democratic coat-tails, but they don't look either of them optimistic.

I wouldn't be in their shoes. And whoever takes over the Arab world, the GFP will not be missed. Now all we need is for the House of S*** to crumble to dust and we're (possibly) laughing.