Category: politics

Alarmingly, one of the administration officials who spoke to the Washington Post also stated that the administration was prepared to release him because senior officials were “comfortable” with making an exception for him “because of the guy’s background, his family and where he comes from in Yemen,” thereby admitting that the perception of a prisoner’s family background is now more important than whether he is innocent or not. In order to release Odaini, the administration had to break a moratorium on repatriating any Yemeni prisoners, which was introduced by President Obama in January, in response to a wave of hysteria following the revelation that the would-be Christmas Day plane bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian, had been recruited in Yemen. Full article.

We need to transcend systems rooted in human arrogance and greed that lead us to believe that any individual is more valuable than another, that any group of people should dominate another group, or that people have a right to exploit the living world without regard for the consequences for the ecosystem. Because each of us has within us the capacity for constructive and destructive actions — for good and evil — our collective task is to shape a society that helps us act with caution and compassion. Full article.

?”Genetic damage and health in Fallujah Iraq worse than Hiroshima” – yeah, that’s what 2.4 million pounds of depleted uranium will do to u. so who is evil again? the taliban?

read full article.

?”Rapid progress with the technology has raised alarm at the United Nations. Philip Alston, its special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, warned last month of the danger that a “PlayStation mentality to killing” could quickly emerge. According to analysts, however, Israel is unlikely to turn its back on hardware that it has been at the forefront of developing — using the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and especially Gaza, as testing laboratories. Remotely controlled weapons systems are in high demand from repressive regimes and the burgeoning homeland security industries around the globe.” Full article.

“The country’s largest ethnic group is growing increasingly frustrated and angry with the government and its foreign backers. From house raids and air strikes, to problems in the classroom and civil service, they believe they are the main victims of a war deliberately targeting their very way of life.” Full article.

an invasion, occupation and war that pits a military superpower against the second poorest country of the world…

check out this photojournalistic essay by ricardo garcia on the helmand refugee camp in afghanistan here.

“Maybe the antiwar left only protests when Republican presidents are in office. Maybe it’s not about Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress, it was only about George Bush. Maybe for the antiwar left, it’s not about pacifism or soldiers’ lives or even what’s in our national interest. Maybe it’s just about Republicans.” (Mary Kate Cary)

?”Sixteen years since apartheid ended, and amid the hoopla and false hopes promoted by the 2010 soccer World Cup, millions of black South Africans still live in self-built shacks – without sanitation, adequate water supplies or electricity. In Durban, almost in the shadow of the massive multibillion-rand Moses Mabhida stadium [paradoxically named after a veteran leader of South Africa’s Communist Party], poor people are fighting for their right to live near work, schools and health facilities. A Place in the City — made in 2008 — will overturn all your assumptions about “slums” and the people who live in them. In this film, the grassroots shackdwellers’ movement, lay out their case – against forcible eviction; for decent services – with passion, eloquence, and sweet reason.”

brilliant! “A third argument, very prominent today, is that the burqa is a symbol of male domination that symbolizes the objectification of women (that they are being seen as mere objects). A Catalonian legislator recently called the burqa a “degrading prison.” The first thing we should say about this argument is that the people who make it typically don’t know much about Islam and would have a hard time saying what symbolizes what in that religion. But the more glaring flaw in the argument is that society is suffused with symbols of male supremacy that treat women as objects. Sex magazines, nude photos, tight jeans — all of these products, arguably, treat women as objects, as do so many aspects of our media culture. And what about the “degrading prison” of plastic surgery? ” Full article.

All these decades later, destiny or providence or something has delivered Mr. Feldman and Mr. Bayyari to the same acre of land at the bottom of one of Fayetteville’s many hills. There Mr. Bayyari, now a general contractor, will build the first permanent temple for the Reform Jewish congregation in Fayetteville, of which Mr. Feldman is president. And Mr. Bayyari, a Palestinian-American Muslim, is doing the job at no charge. Without his sacrifice, the congregation probably could not afford the project at all. Full article.

The international community has largely remained silent on the plight of Kashmiris. Apart from a few exceptions, the international news media has failed to report on the systematic nature of oppression in Kashmir. It is time the human rights and global justice activists express their solidarity with the struggling people of Kashmir. It is time that we collectively put pressure on the Indian government. Please read and sign here.

Remarks made by Bono, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof and President Barack Obama stating they hoped Palestinians would find their Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK) or Gandhi completely ignore Palestinian nonviolent resistance to brutal oppression. The presumption that the Palestinian struggle is mainly violent is disturbing. And the dismissal of the people who have sacrificed time, money and even their lives to fight injustice with nonviolence is callous. Full article.

if this is not a violation of privacy, i don’t know what is.

A bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate requiring all airports to use full-body scanners lacks sufficient privacy safeguards, says a prominent watchdog group. The Electronic Privacy Information Center says the bill, introduced in the Senate by Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), “contains particularly weak privacy provision[s] that ignore many of the problems with the devices already uncovered.” Full article.