Author: mara.ahmed

Into the humanitarian vacuum have stepped everyday citizens, especially peasant organizations in areas now flooded with thousands of survivors. They are acting in a long national tradition of solidarity. Full article.

washington times, feb 22, 2010:

Mr. Gage, who is a member of the American Institute of Architects, managed to persuade more than 1,000 of his peers to sign a new petition requesting a formal inquiry.
“The official Federal Emergency Management [Agency] and National Institute of Standards and Technology reports provide insufficient, contradictory and fraudulent accounts of the circumstances of the towers’ destruction. We are therefore calling for a grand jury investigation of NIST officials,” Mr. Gage adds. Full article.

john yoo = war criminal.

The day we go into year eight in the illegal occupation of Iraq that Yoo and Jay Bybee provided “legal” justification for, this “legalizer” of torture and other war crimes will be speaking at a law school, our law school, in our town. Full article.

watch the full documentary online here – my comments below:

altho the state of public education in pakistan is worrisome, calling it a “ticking time bomb” creates the kind of rhetorical bias and fear-based cultural knee-jerk reaction which have made any sensible dialogue between east and west impossible. how concerned are we for these kids who sit in the dirt and study useless books? is our concern focused mainly on a couple of paragraphs which talk about western colonial and post colonial exploitation in vague enough terms that we can interpret them as generic hatemongering? or are we truly concerned for the future of these kids – for their ability to get jobs, support their families, and eke out a decent existence.

public education has always been problematic in pakistan. what strikes u first and foremost, is its duality. public schools in well to do neighborhoods are nothing like those presented in the film. granted there are fewer good neighborhoods and more urban slums/villages in pakistan but that is such an important component of how public education could work and does work for some pakistanis that it is irresponsible not to even mention such schools. i finished high school in the public education system in islamabad and even tho i was less than impressed with the quality of the curriculum and the whole idea of learning by rote, my experience of public education was completely different from fatima’s and the same can be said for millions of other pakistanis.

i do agree with the man who blamed a lot of what is happening on the government where officials are busy lining their own pockets with money and totally indifferent to the plight of the poor. education is no different than any other public service – the same duality will be apparent if u look at healthcare or housing. it’s less about trying to brainwash the next generation, it’s more about the lack of investment in people who do not matter to the government or the elite of pakistan.

it’s a bit like the u.s. really except more pronounced. public education is not equal for all americans, neither is healthcare or housing. if u live in a good school district where u can afford to buy a house and pay hefty taxes, your kids will have a very different education than if u live in the projects. do kids who live in urban slums get the same opportunities as those who grow up in great neck or manhasset? do they see the world in quite the same way? the situation is much more dire in pakistan of course (it’s a developing country whereas the u.s. is the world’s only superpower) but it’s the same idea – poor public programs and services in a country where the rights of some matter more than the rights of others.

i think it’s time for us to get off our high horse and open up our minds to possibilities – within our own country and within other countries as well. fear is not going to get us far but a concern for humanity both at home and abroad might actually change things.

The nephew of Sigmund Freud, Edward Bernays started his business life as a publicist. While still in his twenties, he was part of the propaganda effort that drove the United States into in World War I. He personally advised several US presidents starting with Woodrow Wilson and counseled numerous corporations and business associations. Hitler’s propaganda chief and Nazi henchman Joseph Goebbels was a reader and fan of Bernay’s writing in particular Bernay’s book “Crystalizing Public Opinion.” In this short excerpt from Curtis’s film we see one example of Bernays at work. Complete 4 part series here.

“Forgive an outsider and staunch atheist like myself who, on reading the recent French press comments relating to Ilhem Moussaid the hijab-wearing NPA candidate in Avignon, gets the impression that something is rotten in French political culture. Let’s take the debate at face-value. A young Muslim woman joins the NPA [New Anti-Capitalist Party]. She obviously agrees with its program that defends abortion, contraception, etc, i.e. a woman’s right to choose. She is then told that despite this she does not have the right to choose what she wears on her head. It’s astonishing.” Full article.