Filed under: Asia
29 November 2008
Bangkok International Airport has now been closed by fascist thugs from the anti-government “People’s Alliance for Democracy” (PAD). The PAD are demanding that the elected government resigns. This is despite the fact that the government has the backing of the majority of the Thai population and even the majority of Bangkok citizens. This backing has been proven by repeated elections. The PAD want a dictatorship to replace democracy because they deem that the majority of the Thai electorate are too ignorant to deserve the Continue reading
Filed under: South America
Photos of police repression in Asuncion, Nov 5
12 November 2008
Despite brutal police violence, on November 6, campesinos celebrated the victorious ending of a three day long mass mobilization. Some five thousands campesinos from all over Paraguay gathered in the capital city of Asuncion to celebrate what constitutes a first victory for the campesino and landless movement in Paraguay.
The crowd’s chants of “el pueblo unido jamás será vencido” [the people united will never be defeated] and “reforma agraria: urgente y necesaria” [agrarian Reform: urgent and necessary] urged recently elected President Fernando Lugo to represent the campesino movement and also denounced the vestiges of corrupt and conservative structure of the Stroessner dictatorship that continues to prevent true and democratic change in Paraguay.
What happened in this small country in South America is an enormous success to be highlighted in the midst of a global economic, energy and food crisis. In a small country that rarely makes it to the headlines in the international media, last week Paraguayans lived the beginning of a promising historic victory after campesinos mobilized for three consecutive days to demand Continue reading
Filed under: Middle East
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Hakan Ozoglu. Kurdish Notables and the Ottoman State: Evolving Identities, Competing Loyalties, and Shifting Boundaries. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004. xv + 186 pp. $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-7914-5993-5.
Identifying Kurdish nationalism as “one of the most explosive and critical predicaments in the Middle East,” the author notes that “the subject regrettably remains poorly studied” (p. 1). The book was, therefore, conceived as “an ambitious attempt to free the study of Kurdish nationalism from its current marginal position and Continue reading
Filed under: North America
November 28, 2008
While there is little question that the United States – with its burgeoning police state, its infamous title as the world leader in jailing its own citizens, and its history of foreign and domestic “torture factories” [1] – has moved into lockdown (and lockout) mode both at home and abroad, it is a mistake to assume that the Bush administration is solely responsible for transforming the United States to the degree that it has now become unrecognizable to itself as a democratic nation. Such claims risk reducing the serious social ills now plaguing the United States to the reactionary policies of Continue reading
Filed under: North America
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25 November 2008
The Election
The word that immediately rolled off of every tongue after the presidential election was “historic.” And rightly so. A Black family in the White House is truly a momentous event.
There were some surprises. One was that the election was not over after the Democratic convention. By usual indicators, the opposition party should have had a landslide victory during a severe economic crisis, after eight years of disastrous policies on all fronts including the worst record on job growth of any post-war president and a rare decline in median wealth, an incumbent so unpopular that his own party had to disavow him, and a dramatic collapse in US standing in world opinion. The Democrats did win, barely. If the financial crisis had been slightly delayed, they might not have.
A good question is why the margin of victory for the opposition party was so small, given the circumstances. One possibility is that neither party reflected public opinion at a time when 80% think the country is going in the wrong direction and that the government is run by “a few big interests looking out for themselves,” not for the people, and a stunning 94% object that government does not attend to public opinion. As many studies show, both parties are well to the right of the population on many major issues, domestic and Continue reading
Filed under: Middle East
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06 October 2008
Fathiya Barghouti, the mayor of Qarawat Bani Zeid, north of Ramallah in the West Bank, has to lie every time she submits the draft budget to the ministry for local government – under the law, it cannot be approved if it shows a deficit. She is not the only one: not a single local council has managed to avoid a chronic deficit, especially since 2006, when the international boycott of the Hamas government began and the impact of the Israeli siege hit more severely than ever. “They promised us they would change the law and make it correspond to reality,” says Barghouti. “But they can’t, because the Legislative Council [parliament] isn’t functioning.”
Palestinian politics has bigger problems than these. Neither of the two governments is constitutionally legal: one has been dissolved, but continues to govern; the other is provisional, and should have organised elections a long time ago. But parliament is not completely paralysed: its Gaza half, made up mainly Continue reading
Filed under: Middle East
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18 November 2008
Let’s not be dragged into calculating how many tons of rice, flour and cooking oil there are in the Gaza Strip 10 days after Israel once again hermetically sealed all the crossings into the enclave. Let’s not count the number of children who wait for a nutritious meal at UN Relief and Works Agency schools, and the number of families to whose doorstep Hamas delivers boxes filled with grocery staples. Continue reading
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TORONTO RALLY IN SUPPORT OF ALGONQUINS OF BARRIERE LAKE
FRIDAY 21 November 2008
12 NOON
20 QUEEN STREET WEST (QUEEN AND YONGE)
QUEBEC OFFICE IN TORONTO
On Wednesday, 17 November, the Algonquins of Barriere Lake setup four blockades on Highway 117. The governments of Quebec and Canada refused to negotiate, sending in Riot Police to attack the peaceful protestors. This time, they targeted the organizers. The community spokesperson and Acting Chief were arrested along with Continue reading
Quebec RIOT POLICE use tear gas, pepper spray, and brute force to disrupt a peaceful Algonquin blockade of highway 117 in Northern Quebec - 6 October 2008.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
*Barriere Lake Algonquins peacefully blockade highway 117 in Northern Quebec a second time: despite fears of more police violence, community wants Quebec and Canada to respect agreements and Canada to end interference in leadership selection*
Kitiganik/Rapid Lake, Algonquin Territory / – This morning at 7:30am, Barriere Lake community members of all ages and their supporters once again peacefully blockaded highway 117 outside their reserve, demanding that Quebec and Canada send in negotiators rather than resort to police violence. During the Algonquin’s first blockade on October 6th, 2008, Quebec police used tear gas and “pain compliance” techniques against a peaceful crowd that included Elders, youth, and children, arrested nine people, and hospitalized a Customary Councillor after hitting him in the chest with a tear-gas canister, drawing criticism from international human rights groups, the Chiefs of Ontario, and the Christian Peacemakers Team. [http://blip.tv/file/1391794 ]
The Algonquins promise to maintain the blockade until Canada and Quebec commit in writing to honour their Continue reading
Filed under: North America
1925 KKK parade in Washington D.C.; Over 400,000 members in attendance
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10 November 2008
Will Obama prove, at the helm of government, that his threats of war against Iran and Pakistan were only words, broadcast to seduce difficult ears during the election campaign?
I hope. And I hope he will not fall, even for a moment, for the temptation to repeat the exploits of George W. Bush. After all, Obama had the dignity to vote against the Iraq war, while the Democratic and Republican parties were applauding the announcement of this carnage.
In his campaign, the word most often repeated in his speeches was leadership. In his administration, will he continue to believe that his country has been chosen to save the world, a toxic idea that he shares with almost all his colleagues? Will he insist on the United States’ global leadership and its messianic mission to take command?
I hope the current crisis, which is shaking the imperial foundations, will serve at least to give the new administration a bath of realism and humility.
Will Obama accept that racism is normal when it is used against the countries that his country invades? Isn’t it racism to count the deaths of invaders in Iraq, one by one, and arrogantly ignore the many dead among the invaded population? Isn’t this world racist, where there are first-, second-, and third-class citizens, and the first-. second-, and third-class dead?
Obama’s victory was universally hailed as a battle won against racism. I hope he will assume, in his acts of government, this great responsibility.
Will the Obama government confirm, once again, that the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are two names of the same party?
I hope the desire for change, which these elections have Continue reading
RACISM & NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS | NEWS/COMMENTARY 