Amnesty International

[likesfish]

does it really matter?
lobbing rockets at israeli civillians is also a war crime. my rules of war is pretty rusty and far from complete.
killing civi's while trying to kill the enemy possilble a crime possibly not.
delibrately targeting civi's a crime
recklessly firing knowning theres civi's in the area a crime.

amnesty have pissed off the US goverment, soviet union, russia, iraq, iran, china, etc etc
have achieved concrete good on the planet not perfect but who is.
so they don't live up to your wadical demands when you succesfully free political prisoners give us a ring

 

[belboid]

So do Amnesty call for an end to arms sales to Britain?
I don't think so!

Look, international law is straightforward, if you are under occupation you have the right to resist - conflict is fueled by occupation not by those who resist.

you look, english is a fairly straightforward language, yet you seem to be having immense difficulty with it (or are doing so deliberately)

It calls for an end to ALL "international transfers of conventional arms that are likely to be used for serious human rights violations, and fuel conflict and poverty".

And you've still ignored all the other points pointing out where your claims were false.

As well as ignoring the question of whether there (poor, as almost everyone has agreed) position on Palestine means they should be completely written off.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

you look, english is a fairly straightforward language

Not for spelling and pronunciation it isn't.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

I can recall getting fairly annoyed when Amnesty didn't adopt any imprisoned miners during the 1984/5 strike and no doubt had I followed them closely since, there would have been any number of other omissions with which I might have found fault.

I don't think this would have justified me writing them off or deciding that they were worthless.

 

[belboid]

Not for spelling and pronunciation it isn't.

Very true. And as Udo has been a jolly good speller in this thread, I can only assume he normally has a good command of our wonderful language. And so there must be some other reason why he has so mis-interpreted what others have written.

 

[frogwoman]

I was using udo's daft robot-voiced montone logic against him - i wasn't serious!

on a side note i'm signed up to "avaaz.org" after signing their burma petition - does anyone know much about them, positive, negative etc? they were really good, i thought, in the burma campaign, but i read quite a critical article on them somewhere which was similar to some of what's been said here about amnesty...

 

[tbaldwin]

A long time friend of mine was working for amnesty for a few years recently. He told me that he thought they were preety disgraceful. He said managers treated staff really badly and they routinely wasted huge amounts of money. He said his dad had been giving amnesty money for nearly 30 years but within a few months of my friend working there and telling him what it was like from the inside he cancelled his membership.

I think they obviously do some good things, but its not such a suprise that a few parasites should have risen to the top.

 

[belboid]

how wonderfully vague, so delightfully meaningless it could almost be true...

if only they'd privatise it eh?

 

[danny la rouge]

He said managers treated staff really badly [...]

Unfortunately, that has pretty much been my experience of the voluntary sector, too.

As to froggie's q about avaaz.org: I, too, am signed up to their mailings, having signed one of their petitions aeons ago. I know bugger all about the organization, but I find the wordings of their mailings often painfully liberal, and their petitions bound around by fence-sitting and state-ist assumptions. However, I continue to sign those petitions with which I broadly agree, and let them get on with whatever it is they do.

 

[tbaldwin]

Unfortunately, that has pretty much been my experience of the voluntary sector, too.

As to froggie's q about avaaz.org: I, too, am signed up to their mailings, having signed one of their petitions aeons ago. I know bugger all about the organization, but I find the wordings of their mailings often painfully liberal, and their petitions bound around by fence-sitting and state-ist assumptions. However, I continue to sign those petitions with which I broadly agree, and let them get on with whatever it is they do.

Fair enough.
I do think its sad though how good causes can often attract the worse type of people who then end up poisoning things. Have to agree with you about the voluntary sector there are huge problems with corruption,massive wage differentials and lack of accountability.

 

[danny la rouge]

Fair enough.
I do think its sad though how good causes can often attract the worse type of people who then end up poisoning things. Have to agree with you about the voluntary sector there are huge problems with corruption,massive wage differentials and lack of accountability.

Ah, now, that's not what I said. I said management was, in my experience, poor. The accountability of registered charities has been sharpened up in recent years, as anyone who has had to answer to grant funders can testify.

 

[belboid]

shh, dont confuse baldie with 'facts'

 

[tbaldwin]

Ah, now, that's not what I said. I said management was, in my experience, poor. The accountability of registered charities has been sharpened up in recent years, as anyone who has had to answer to grant funders can testify.

In what way has it sharpened up? News to me i have to say. Still think the charity commission is a joke. I still think that management committees are by and large a joke.

 

[belboid]

if only you were as critical of private companies and their vastly greater wage differentials

 

[frogwoman]

Unfortunately, that has pretty much been my experience of the voluntary sector, too.

As to froggie's q about avaaz.org: I, too, am signed up to their mailings, having signed one of their petitions aeons ago. I know bugger all about the organization, but I find the wordings of their mailings often painfully liberal, and their petitions bound around by fence-sitting and state-ist assumptions. However, I continue to sign those petitions with which I broadly agree, and let them get on with whatever it is they do.

fair enough!

 

[danny la rouge]

In what way has it sharpened up?

I can speak for the situation in Scotland.

All Scottish charities must submit an Annual Return form, with their charity's accounts. The Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006 govern how charity accounts must be prepared. The OSCR is under a duty to review entries in the Register from time to time, as well as to remove from the Register a charity that no longer meets the charity test. These requirements form the basis for OSCR’s Rolling Review of charities. OSCR has a statutory responsibility for monitoring charities' compliance with the Act, as well as encouraging and facilitating compliance. In addition the Act allows OSCR to make inquiries into charities and other bodies.

Along with the requirements of funders, charities in Scotland must now be amongst the most scrutinized of organisations.

 

[Belushi]

Have to agree with you about the voluntary sector there are huge problems with corruption,massive wage differentials and lack of accountability.

How long did you wrk in the sector for balders? I've spent a fair few years working for different orgs across the sector and that certainly doesnt reflect my experience, in fact it reminds me much more of my experience of working in the private sector.

 

[belboid]

indeed, explicit corruption within the voluntary sector is very small, absolutely miniscule compared with the private, or even public, sectors

 

[tbaldwin]

if only you were as critical of private companies and their vastly greater wage differentials

What a stupid post even by your standards.
You think that cos im critical of corruption and huge wage differentials in the public and voluntary sector that i must be in favour of huge pay differentials and corruption in the private sector.
Not too suprisingly i am against shit in the private sector too.
Unlike you i would like to see a maximum wage in this country and want to see real steps towards closing the huge gap in wealth and power in this country.
You defend huge wage differentials in the public and voluntary sector basically cos your a hopeless liberal.

 

[crustychick]

i support Amnesty currently through my work Give As You Earn Scheme (I love this - double the dosh!) and supported them as a nipper when I ran my own Amnesty Youth Group at school.

I think they perform a really important function.

 

[belboid]

You think that cos im critical of corruption and huge wage differentials in the public and voluntary sector that i must be in favour of huge pay differentials and corruption in the private sector.

maybe one gets that impression because you never talk about such differentials (not unless you're forced to, like now). You do love to go on about failings in the public and voluntary sector tho. They are clearly a far bigger concern for you.

have you any evidence at all about significant levels of corruption in the voluntary sector? Cos, as I said, although some obviously does go on, it is miniscule compared to the public sector. Barclays tax dodging alone almost definitely involves a bigger sum of money than all the volsec corruption put together

 

[DexterTCN]

Anyone who has heard spokespeople for Amnesty on TV recently can't help but be sickened. On the News at Ten recently I saw an Amnesty spokesperson calling for an arms embargo on Israel and on the Palestinians (as if there was some equivalence between the 4th best military in the world with nuclear weapons and a people under the longest military occupation of modern times), what struck me was that the Amnesty spokesperson only used the word 'war crimes' in reference to the people of Gaza and Hezbollah.

Wouldn't have got on the news otherwise, would he?

(or she)

You do remember the reporting of that, don't you? And the subsequent refusal to show the DEC appeal? No-one was allowed to say anything....fucking Bush was still in charge.

I'm an Amnesty member. New magazine on my table.

 

[tbaldwin]

maybe one gets that impression because you never talk about such differentials (not unless you're forced to, like now). You do love to go on about failings in the public and voluntary sector tho. They are clearly a far bigger concern for you.

have you any evidence at all about significant levels of corruption in the voluntary sector? Cos, as I said, although some obviously does go on, it is miniscule compared to the public sector. Barclays tax dodging alone almost definitely involves a bigger sum of money than all the volsec corruption put together

Sorry but thats not really true is it. If you want to look at my manifesto i think it makes it preety clear where i stand on re-distribution of wealth and power.
Your right though that i do spend a lot more time on having a go at differentials in the public and voluntary sector. And i think that is something that can and should be addressed as a priority. I would like to see a maximum wage in this country and it would have to start somewhere and the most obvious place is the public and voluntary sector.

 

[belboid]

bollocks - a typical tory trick

(and you still have fuck all to back up your previous assertions about corruption, nor about just how 'massive' the relevant wage differentials in Amnesty are)

 

[tbaldwin]

bollocks - a typical tory trick

(and you still have fuck all to back up your previous assertions about corruption, nor about just how 'massive' the relevant wage differentials in Amnesty are)

A typical tory trick to argue for a maximum wage? Belboid your not well.

 

[belboid]

and STILL not even an attempt at giving any evidence.

I guess he's hoping that some will 'trickle down', like his 'smash the public sector' play plans

 

[Azrael]

I know bugger all about the organization, but I find the wordings of their mailings often painfully liberal, and their petitions bound around by fence-sitting and state-ist assumptions.

True enough.

Like other "human rights" organisations, I find Amnesty painfully vague on details. They defend "human rights", but what is the nature of these rights, and who decides what they contain? We all know the reality: the rights are dreamt up by vaguely liberal lawyers and shot through with compromises, but Amnesty treat this man-made code like a holy writ.

They're also wearily predictable in not defending the free speech of people whose views they (and I) find odious. David Irving didn't get much from Amnesty while he sat in an Austrian lock-up. Apparently his free speech clashed with "freedom from discrimination". This from an organisation that claims one right can never take away from another.

I have far more time for the ACLU.

 

[Fedayn]

I would like to see a maximum wage in this country and it would have to start somewhere and the most obvious place is the public and voluntary sector.

Really? At a time when city/private sector bonuses are through the roof you think the best place to argue for a maximum wage is in the public/voluntary sector?! Are you having a bit of a laugh to yourself?

 

[belboid]

uhh, that's not entirely accurate Azrael, they stand clearly on the basis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was written by a bunch of conservative lawyers, with a few conservative politicians thrown in. And a few liberals too.

 

[Azrael]

The Canadian John Peters Humphrey drafted the UDHR at the request of Eleanor Roosevelt. To my knowledge neither of them could be called conservative.

Also "vaguely liberal" is quite a qualifier!

Whatever the politics of those involved, "human rights" drafted by lawyers have no special moral weight. Unless you're religious, and believe in natural rights handed down by God, then "human rights" are just a matter of opinion.