“War destroys people,” Khamad Jan concluded, after giving us a tour of the developing potato crisp production factory. Again, he stared at the ground as he thought about what he would say. “It destroys our livelihood. It damages our minds.”
“All the players in this war have their own purposes for being here,” he added, after a long pause. “There is absolutely no benefit to the people here from the wars that are being fought.” Full article.
The principal reason the Williams firing resonated so much and provoked so much fury is that it threatens the preservation of one of the most important American mythologies: that Muslims are a Serious Threat to America and Americans. Above all else, this fear-generating “nexus” is what must be protected at all costs. And it is this fear-sustaining, anti-Muslim slander that NPR’s firing of Williams threatened to delegitimize. That is why NPR’s firing of Williams must be attacked with such force: because it is an important step toward stigmatizing anti-Muslim animus in the same way that other forms of bigotry are now off-limits, and that is what cannot happen, because anti-Muslim animus is too important to too many factions to allow it to be delegitimized. Full article.
Comment from Jack Bradigan Spula:
I think Williams has made a lucrative career by playing various sides against each other – and quite deftly till now. He got in trouble last year with comments he made on Fox (in response to Bill O’Reilly, at al.) about Michelle Obama’s supposedly projecting a “Stokely-Carmichael-in-a-designer-dress thing” (we can only wish!). Most of his observations are boring rather than offensive. My impression, which gelled during his 2001 Rochester appearance, is that he’s a narcissistic blabberer, only slightly less hard to stomach than O’Reilly and company. I’m glad he’s now off NPR… But that doesn’t mean I think NPR (or public broadcasting overall) is worth a rat’s ass, either. The NewsHour, The Nightly Business Report, the 1370 Connection, practically anything other than This American Life (which mostly hews to soft topics but occasionally presents some really good stuff): all this “public programming,” which really is the product of private corporate interests above all, is boring, lifeless, supportive of the status quo and noticeably elementary in content. I’m sticking with Pacifica, Amy Goodman, et al., from whom you can depend on real journalism, and with whom you’ll never have to endure the foolishness of a Juan Williams.
Juan, you probably remember in 1986 when the Washington Post Magazine ran a Richard Cohen column defending jewelry store owners who wouldn’t buzz in young black men. It caused such a big controversy that the New Republic ran a bunch of responses to it, including one by you. You might find it interesting to go back and read what you wrote then — for instance, “Racism is a lazy man’s substitute for using good judgment … Common sense becomes racism when skin color becomes a formula for figuring out who is a danger to me.” (Michael Moore) Full article.
It is the biggest leak of military secrets in history. Al Jazeera has details of nearly 400,000 classified US documents. They are the secret Iraq files, leaked to whistleblower website WikiLeaks. For the past ten weeks Al Jazeera has had complete access to those files. As part of our forthcoming coverage, we reveal how the US military gave a secret order not to investigate torture by Iraqi authorities discovered by American troops. Full report.
excellent article by philip weiss.
seriously messed up. “In 2005, the wealthiest 20% of the world accounted for 76.6% of total private consumption.” full article.
from my dear friend john, a connoisseur of pakistani sufi music.
“Today, was the record worst day of my life, some kids at school stole some of my stuff that I got from people I really cared about, and that really pushed me over the top, next to being shoved into a wall, and my ribs being broken.” More here.
obama trying hard to appease racists at home: “The White House team which visited India last month ruled out Obama wearing the traditional scarf on his head. Indian officials were informally told that Obama wearing a headscarf to visit the Golden Temple may convey an image of him appearing to be a Muslim. This is one misinterpretation Obama’s advisors did not want at any cost, given the political sensitivities over this issue in the US.” Full article.
excellent three part lecture by dr wasfi on the war in iraq and its continuing horror.
October 20, 2010 Writers and Books held a panel discussion Antiwar Activism Then and Now. The event was in conjunction with author Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carry. The panelists were Jack Bradigan-Spula, a 1969 graduate of Eastman Music School who served in the US Marine Corps after losing his student deferment. Since then he has been an activist and journalist in the peace, human rights and environmental movements. Spula currently is a professor at RIT. Steve Huff, the second panelist is also a professor at RIT as well as a poet and educational director at Writers and Books. Mara Ahmed, the third panelist is a documentary film maker originally from Lahore, Pakistan. Her film The Muslims I Know aired on public TV last year. Ahmed is now a US citizen and lives in Pittsford. The fourth panelist, Brian Lenzo, is one of the founding members of Rochester Against War. Lenzo also accompanied the July, 2009 Viva Palestina tour as a journalist. His writing can be found at the blog The Sitch (www.thesitch.com) and also in the International Socialist Organization’s publication, Socialist Worker. More here.
Education, not incarceration: there are more African Americans under correctional control today, in prison or jail, on probation or parole, than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began, which is an interesting way to link your work today around the issue of prisons—the US has more prisoners than anywhere in the world… Watch more here.
Professor Francis A. Boyle of the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign, U.S.A. has filed a Complaint with the Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague against U.S. citizens George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Condoleezza Rice, and Alberto Gonzales (the “Accused”) for their criminal policy and practice of “extraordinary rendition” perpetrated upon about 100 human beings. This term is really their euphemism for the enforced disappearance of persons and their consequent torture. This criminal policy and practice by the Accused constitute Crimes against Humanity in violation of the Rome Statute establishing the ICC. The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute. Nevertheless the Accused have ordered and been responsible for the commission of ICC statutory crimes within the respective territories of many ICC member states, including several in Europe. Consequently, the ICC has jurisdiction to prosecute the Accused for their ICC statutory crimes. More here.
On October 18, 2010, when former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke about her childhood and new book at the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, she was confronted by five Bay Area activists who performed a citizens arrest for war crimes, lying the US into the invasion of Iraq and the murders of 5,000+ US soldiers and over 1 million Iraqi people. Disruptions occur throughout this 7.5 minute clip. Demand accountability.
is this for real??? soup > halal > ISNA > hamas > evil? full article here.
