Let’s Send the Spice Girls to Guantanamo Bay!
We’re all told about how important your democratic right is. Rock the Vote and all of that. But of course we all know how it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference (most of the time) if you didn’t show up. But then, if we all thought like that, no-one would vote, so I guess you kinda need to do your bit. Still, the main problem with voting is that the choices are so crap. Candidate A versus Candidate B. Bo. Ring.
Now, If there was a checkbox that said “Let them all go f*&k themselves” or I “My Mum for Chief Whip” or “Mick Wallace for Taoiseach”, now that’d make for proper democratic rights. Better still, if you could fill in whatever you wanted in the answerbox, that’d be deadly. But “democracy” doesn’t work like that. We’re stuck with choosing between Tweedledumb and Tweedledouble-crosser.
But we must remember that democracy is happening every day in every choice we make. In what we buy, in what TV we watch, and in what papers we read. So we should look for democracy wherever we can. And we find it in the most unusual of places.
And I just found a slice of democracy I really like! And you know what the beauty is? You can fill in your own answerbox!
The Spice Girls are running a competition to choose a city where they will play a special gig. Anyone can vote for their city, and the city with the most votes will win a gig by them.
So where better than Guantanamo Bay?! We have been given the power (and it’s Girl Power!) to get some much needed entertainment to those detained indefinitely under questionable circumstances and conditions in Guantanamo!
The United States of America is holding about 500 so-called “unlawful enemy combatants” in Guantanamo Bay detainment camp. These people, for the most part, have never been charged with a crime. Most of them were captured by bounty hunters in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the period following 911, when the US government were offering rewards and were looking for scalps. Some of them may be terrorists, but many of them are most likely innocent. Apart from the fact that you are innocent until proven guilty, right? Not in Guantanamo. It is likely that many of these people have also been tortured.
Getting Guantanamo to the top of the Spice Girls poll might seem like a silly thing to aim for, but I think it could be a very useful way of generating publicity. Guantanamo often occupies column inches in the broadsheets. But imagine if it took a few inches off the latest “Brad & Angelina go shopping” story or Kerry Katona’s “My Breakup Hell”, er, hell? It’s be doing us all a favour, and it might become sexy to campaign against Guantanamo. Hell, the orange jumpsuit might become the latest fashion item!
Seriously though, I thought about ways of using this opportunity, and though there are some awful things going on all over the world, I thought Guantanamo was the most suitable focus for the idea.
So, if you agree, you need to do two things:
Firstly, tell all your mates. You can send them to this page for information.
Secondly, cast your vote by following these instructions:
Go to the Spice girls web site (http://www.thespicegirls.com).
Click the link “Vote for the girls to play in YOUR SPICE CITY!!!”
Under Country, choose Cuba.
Under City, type Guantanamo Bay.
Click VOTE.
Leave the Name and Address fields blank
Type an email address in the email field, preferably a real one, though if you’d prefer not to, at least enter anything AT anything DOT anything.
Leave the Mobile field blank.
Your democratic duty is done. You’ve just told them what you want, what you really, really, want!