virginia in historical context:
"The worst in U.S. history." Really? It is certainly the worst shooting on a college campus in modern U.S. history. But if we think it is the worst shooting rampage in U.S. history, then we are a singularly uneducated nation.
(...) "I can't take one more of these headlines," said Joan Redfern, a member of the Lakota Sioux tribe who lives in Hollister. We met at First Street Coffee to talk while we scanned Internet stories. "Haven't any of these people ever heard of the Massacre at Sand Creek in Colorado, where Methodist minister Col. Chivington massacred between 200 and 400 Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians, most of them women, children, and elderly men?" Chivington specifically ordered the killing of children, and when he was asked why, he said, "Kill and scalp all, big and little; nits make lice."
(...) At Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota, the U.S. 7th Cavalry attacked 350 unarmed Lakota Sioux on December 29, 1890. While engaged in a spiritual practice known as the "Ghost Dance," approximately 90 warriors and 200 women and children were killed. Although the attack was officially reported as an "unjustifiable massacre" by Field Commander General Nelson A. Miles, 23 soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor for the slaughter. The unarmed Lakota men fought back with bare hands. The elderly men and women stood and sang their death songs while falling under the hail of bullets. Soldiers stripped the bodies of the dead Lakota, keeping their ceremonial religious clothing as souvenirs.
(...) To say the Virginia shooting is the worst in all of U.S. history is to pour salt on old wounds-it means erasing and forgetting all of our ancestors who were killed in the past," Redfern said. "The use of hyperbole and lack of historical perspective seems all too ubiquitous in much of the current mainstream media," Redfern said. "My intention is not to downplay the horror of what has happened this week in any way. But we have a 500-year history of mass shootings on American soil, and let's not forget it."
(...) Most of all, may we never forget all those innocent civilian men, women, and children who lost their lives simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, just as the students happened to be this week in Virginia. May we always remember the precious humanity of these students, but may we also never forget the humanity of those who lost their lives simply for being born people Native to this country.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
lebanon and reconstruction (jamail):
Starting from within hours of the ceasefire, about a million people who had fled southern Lebanon began to return, many to wrecked homes. One of the towns almost completely destroyed was Bint Jbail, less than 5km from the Lebanese-Israeli border.
(...) "We support the opposition to the government because we want our rights and we want justice and support in rebuilding from the war," he said. "At least the head of the government should come see what happened to his own country."
(...) Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora never visited southern Lebanon to see what happened during the war. "Instead he went on holiday to Jordan. Is it possible for a prime minister not to know or care about his own country?"
(...) "They can bomb us one day and we'll rebuild the next because we are not afraid of them," he said. "But the rebuilding is on our own, with the help of Qatar and Hezbollah and Iran, but not from our own impotent government."
(...) Amnesty International stated after the war ended that many of the attacks on Lebanon's civilian infrastructure were collective punishment, and not the "collateral damage" that Israel claimed. United Nations Development Programme spokesman Jean Fabre had estimated in August 2006 that economic losses to Lebanon from the month-long war amounted to "at least 15 billion dollars." According to the Lebanese government, more than 1,100 civilians were killed during the war. Also, 43 Israeli civilians died from rockets fired by Hezbollah.
(...) The fighting is over but tension continues to hang over the region. A Lebanese soldier at a border post who asked not to be named told IPS that Israeli warplanes have been flying into Lebanese airspace nearly every week in violation of the UN-brokered ceasefire agreement. "We see the drones (unmanned espionage aircraft) nearly every single day," the Lebanese soldier added. This IPS correspondent too observed an Israeli warplane overhead in southern Lebanon, and at least one military drone.
Starting from within hours of the ceasefire, about a million people who had fled southern Lebanon began to return, many to wrecked homes. One of the towns almost completely destroyed was Bint Jbail, less than 5km from the Lebanese-Israeli border.
(...) "We support the opposition to the government because we want our rights and we want justice and support in rebuilding from the war," he said. "At least the head of the government should come see what happened to his own country."
(...) Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora never visited southern Lebanon to see what happened during the war. "Instead he went on holiday to Jordan. Is it possible for a prime minister not to know or care about his own country?"
(...) "They can bomb us one day and we'll rebuild the next because we are not afraid of them," he said. "But the rebuilding is on our own, with the help of Qatar and Hezbollah and Iran, but not from our own impotent government."
(...) Amnesty International stated after the war ended that many of the attacks on Lebanon's civilian infrastructure were collective punishment, and not the "collateral damage" that Israel claimed. United Nations Development Programme spokesman Jean Fabre had estimated in August 2006 that economic losses to Lebanon from the month-long war amounted to "at least 15 billion dollars." According to the Lebanese government, more than 1,100 civilians were killed during the war. Also, 43 Israeli civilians died from rockets fired by Hezbollah.
(...) The fighting is over but tension continues to hang over the region. A Lebanese soldier at a border post who asked not to be named told IPS that Israeli warplanes have been flying into Lebanese airspace nearly every week in violation of the UN-brokered ceasefire agreement. "We see the drones (unmanned espionage aircraft) nearly every single day," the Lebanese soldier added. This IPS correspondent too observed an Israeli warplane overhead in southern Lebanon, and at least one military drone.
1968:
Meanwhile in France, a revolutionary insurrection was erupting. What began as a demonstration against curfew rules in university dormitories in Nanterres spread across France, igniting universities and the streets of Paris. By the middle of May the workers of France had joined in and President DeGaulle was considering launching a military attack against the French people-something which had not occurred in France since the days of the Commune in 1870. Students spent their days holding open organizing meetings in the commons areas of their schools and spent the nights fighting the police. Workers throughout France took over their factories and ran them with workers' councils. Workers in one Renault plant in the hinterlands locked their managers in their office and ran the plant themselves. Their goal was to show how needless management really is. Then, just as they did at Columbia, the powers regrouped. The workers' political parties-the Communists and the Socialists-reneged on their support of the strike in favor of immediate pay raises and some changes in working conditions. In addition, the Socialists ended up with a substantial share of political power. Although the more conservative Gaullists and their allies did lose some ground and although it could be argued that the balance of power shifted in France after May 1968, one would be hard put to prove that now.
(...) When everything is branded it becomes considerably more difficult to separate one's existence from that reality. Heck, at the January 27th protest against the war in Iraq there were people holding signs opposed to the war that were distributed by Working Assets communications company and included their corporate logo.
Meanwhile in France, a revolutionary insurrection was erupting. What began as a demonstration against curfew rules in university dormitories in Nanterres spread across France, igniting universities and the streets of Paris. By the middle of May the workers of France had joined in and President DeGaulle was considering launching a military attack against the French people-something which had not occurred in France since the days of the Commune in 1870. Students spent their days holding open organizing meetings in the commons areas of their schools and spent the nights fighting the police. Workers throughout France took over their factories and ran them with workers' councils. Workers in one Renault plant in the hinterlands locked their managers in their office and ran the plant themselves. Their goal was to show how needless management really is. Then, just as they did at Columbia, the powers regrouped. The workers' political parties-the Communists and the Socialists-reneged on their support of the strike in favor of immediate pay raises and some changes in working conditions. In addition, the Socialists ended up with a substantial share of political power. Although the more conservative Gaullists and their allies did lose some ground and although it could be argued that the balance of power shifted in France after May 1968, one would be hard put to prove that now.
(...) When everything is branded it becomes considerably more difficult to separate one's existence from that reality. Heck, at the January 27th protest against the war in Iraq there were people holding signs opposed to the war that were distributed by Working Assets communications company and included their corporate logo.
urban planning in vancouver:
The relatively small downtown of Vancouver has a highly fragmented geography, one in which a person can pass with an extraordinary abruptness from the spectacles of privileged lifestyles into pockets of severe poverty. Urban planning policy has allowed gentrification to accelerate in recent years, displacing low-income housing residents and disrupting well-established communities. For these residents, the words "urban revitalization" carry dangerous connotations, as they refer to a process by which new by-laws and re-zoning decisions effectively drive them out. One such community is the Aboriginal people living in the impoverished Downtown Eastside, who continue to be exposed to institutional racism as their needs are overlooked and rights are diminished in a variety of unspoken yet pervasive ways.
(...) Activist groups, representing Aboriginal people as well as other marginalized communities, have continued to advocate against the Olympics since Vancouver was selected as host in 2003. They criticize the Canadian government for channeling massive amounts of money into this event while failing to alleviate homelessness and other social problems, as expressed in the slogan "homes not games." Also, the Olympic project has shamelessly appropriated Aboriginal cultural and land-based property. For example, the official logo of the 2010 Winter Olympics is a stylized inukshuk, a traditional stone sculpture of the Inuit people, and construction of Olympics infrastructure is currently taking place on Aboriginal land.
The relatively small downtown of Vancouver has a highly fragmented geography, one in which a person can pass with an extraordinary abruptness from the spectacles of privileged lifestyles into pockets of severe poverty. Urban planning policy has allowed gentrification to accelerate in recent years, displacing low-income housing residents and disrupting well-established communities. For these residents, the words "urban revitalization" carry dangerous connotations, as they refer to a process by which new by-laws and re-zoning decisions effectively drive them out. One such community is the Aboriginal people living in the impoverished Downtown Eastside, who continue to be exposed to institutional racism as their needs are overlooked and rights are diminished in a variety of unspoken yet pervasive ways.
(...) Activist groups, representing Aboriginal people as well as other marginalized communities, have continued to advocate against the Olympics since Vancouver was selected as host in 2003. They criticize the Canadian government for channeling massive amounts of money into this event while failing to alleviate homelessness and other social problems, as expressed in the slogan "homes not games." Also, the Olympic project has shamelessly appropriated Aboriginal cultural and land-based property. For example, the official logo of the 2010 Winter Olympics is a stylized inukshuk, a traditional stone sculpture of the Inuit people, and construction of Olympics infrastructure is currently taking place on Aboriginal land.
the track record of the world bank:
The World Bank is thus seen in much of the world as a neo-colonial institution, and all its preaching about "governance" seems little more than a way for the Bank to cover for the failure of its own economic policy prescriptions. The Bank has little to show for its tens of billions of dollars of development lending. The vast majority of the countries that have followed its policies have suffered a sharp slowdown in economic growth over the last 25 years, and a resulting decline in progress on social indicators such as life expectancy and infant and child mortality.
(...) [corruption as cause?] While corruption is bad and "good governance" is by definition good, failed economic policies - the abandonment of development strategies, anti-growth monetary and fiscal policies, indiscriminate opening to trade and investment flows, the pressuring of governments to prioritize the needs of foreign corporations - are much more likely causes of this long-term economic development failure. After all, countries like South Korea managed to achieve some of the most rapid and successful economic growth and development in world history without cleaning up corruption. South Korea went from a per capita income level of Ghana in 1960 to that of Europe today, while two of its presidents during this successful development trajectory went to jail for corruption involving hundreds of millions of dollars. And the United States didn't exactly have good governance while the robber barons held sway during the latter part of the nineteenth century, when we were the fastest-growing developing country in the world.
The World Bank is thus seen in much of the world as a neo-colonial institution, and all its preaching about "governance" seems little more than a way for the Bank to cover for the failure of its own economic policy prescriptions. The Bank has little to show for its tens of billions of dollars of development lending. The vast majority of the countries that have followed its policies have suffered a sharp slowdown in economic growth over the last 25 years, and a resulting decline in progress on social indicators such as life expectancy and infant and child mortality.
(...) [corruption as cause?] While corruption is bad and "good governance" is by definition good, failed economic policies - the abandonment of development strategies, anti-growth monetary and fiscal policies, indiscriminate opening to trade and investment flows, the pressuring of governments to prioritize the needs of foreign corporations - are much more likely causes of this long-term economic development failure. After all, countries like South Korea managed to achieve some of the most rapid and successful economic growth and development in world history without cleaning up corruption. South Korea went from a per capita income level of Ghana in 1960 to that of Europe today, while two of its presidents during this successful development trajectory went to jail for corruption involving hundreds of millions of dollars. And the United States didn't exactly have good governance while the robber barons held sway during the latter part of the nineteenth century, when we were the fastest-growing developing country in the world.
on growth bringing poverty (parenti):
There is a “mystery” we must explain: How is it that as corporate investments and foreign aid and international loans to poor countries have increased dramatically throughout the world over the last half century, so has poverty? The number of people living in poverty is growing at a faster rate than the world’s population. What do we make of this?
(...) Over the last half century, U.S. industries and banks (and other western corporations) have invested heavily in those poorer regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America known as the “Third World.” The transnationals are attracted by the rich natural resources, the high return that comes from low-paid labor, and the nearly complete absence of taxes, environmental regulations, worker benefits, and occupational safety costs.
(...) The transnationals push out local businesses in the Third World and preempt their markets. American agribusiness cartels, heavily subsidized by U.S. taxpayers, dump surplus products in other countries at below cost and undersell local farmers. As Christopher Cook describes it in his Diet for a Dead Planet, they expropriate the best land in these countries for cash-crop exports, usually monoculture crops requiring large amounts of pesticides, leaving less and less acreage for the hundreds of varieties of organically grown foods that feed the local populations.
(...) By displacing local populations from their lands and robbing them of their self-sufficiency, corporations create overcrowded labor markets of desperate people who are forced into shanty towns to toil for poverty wages (when they can get work), often in violation of the countries’ own minimum wage laws.
(...) The United States is one of the few countries that has refused to sign an international convention for the abolition of child labor and forced labor. This position stems from the child labor practices of U.S. corporations throughout the Third World and within the United States itself, where children as young as 12 suffer high rates of injuries and fatalities, and are often paid less than the minimum wage.
(...) The savings that big business reaps from cheap labor abroad are not passed on in lower prices to their customers elsewhere. Corporations do not outsource to far-off regions so that U.S. consumers can save money. They outsource in order to increase their margin of profit. In 1990, shoes made by Indonesian children working twelve-hour days for 13 cents an hour, cost only $2.60 but still sold for $100 or more in the United States.
(...) U.S. foreign aid usually works hand in hand with transnational investment. It subsidizes construction of the infrastructure needed by corporations in the Third World: ports, highways, and refineries.
(...) The aid given to Third World governments comes with strings attached. It often must be spent on U.S. products, and the recipient nation is required to give investment preferences to U.S. companies, shifting consumption away from home produced commodities and foods in favor of imported ones, creating more dependency, hunger, and debt.
(...) So it is that throughout the Third World, real wages have declined, and national debts have soared to the point where debt payments absorb almost all of the poorer countries’ export earnings---which creates further impoverishment as it leaves the debtor country even less able to provide the things its population needs.
(...) Why has poverty deepened while foreign aid and loans and investments have grown? Answer: Loans, investments, and most forms of aid are designed not to fight poverty but to augment the wealth of transnational investors at the expense of local populations.
(...) Isn’t it time that liberal critics stop thinking that the people who own so much of the world---and want to own it all---are “incompetent” or “misguided” or “failing to see the unintended consequences of their policies”? You are not being very smart when you think your enemies are not as smart as you. They know where their interests lie, and so should we.
There is a “mystery” we must explain: How is it that as corporate investments and foreign aid and international loans to poor countries have increased dramatically throughout the world over the last half century, so has poverty? The number of people living in poverty is growing at a faster rate than the world’s population. What do we make of this?
(...) Over the last half century, U.S. industries and banks (and other western corporations) have invested heavily in those poorer regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America known as the “Third World.” The transnationals are attracted by the rich natural resources, the high return that comes from low-paid labor, and the nearly complete absence of taxes, environmental regulations, worker benefits, and occupational safety costs.
(...) The transnationals push out local businesses in the Third World and preempt their markets. American agribusiness cartels, heavily subsidized by U.S. taxpayers, dump surplus products in other countries at below cost and undersell local farmers. As Christopher Cook describes it in his Diet for a Dead Planet, they expropriate the best land in these countries for cash-crop exports, usually monoculture crops requiring large amounts of pesticides, leaving less and less acreage for the hundreds of varieties of organically grown foods that feed the local populations.
(...) By displacing local populations from their lands and robbing them of their self-sufficiency, corporations create overcrowded labor markets of desperate people who are forced into shanty towns to toil for poverty wages (when they can get work), often in violation of the countries’ own minimum wage laws.
(...) The United States is one of the few countries that has refused to sign an international convention for the abolition of child labor and forced labor. This position stems from the child labor practices of U.S. corporations throughout the Third World and within the United States itself, where children as young as 12 suffer high rates of injuries and fatalities, and are often paid less than the minimum wage.
(...) The savings that big business reaps from cheap labor abroad are not passed on in lower prices to their customers elsewhere. Corporations do not outsource to far-off regions so that U.S. consumers can save money. They outsource in order to increase their margin of profit. In 1990, shoes made by Indonesian children working twelve-hour days for 13 cents an hour, cost only $2.60 but still sold for $100 or more in the United States.
(...) U.S. foreign aid usually works hand in hand with transnational investment. It subsidizes construction of the infrastructure needed by corporations in the Third World: ports, highways, and refineries.
(...) The aid given to Third World governments comes with strings attached. It often must be spent on U.S. products, and the recipient nation is required to give investment preferences to U.S. companies, shifting consumption away from home produced commodities and foods in favor of imported ones, creating more dependency, hunger, and debt.
(...) So it is that throughout the Third World, real wages have declined, and national debts have soared to the point where debt payments absorb almost all of the poorer countries’ export earnings---which creates further impoverishment as it leaves the debtor country even less able to provide the things its population needs.
(...) Why has poverty deepened while foreign aid and loans and investments have grown? Answer: Loans, investments, and most forms of aid are designed not to fight poverty but to augment the wealth of transnational investors at the expense of local populations.
(...) Isn’t it time that liberal critics stop thinking that the people who own so much of the world---and want to own it all---are “incompetent” or “misguided” or “failing to see the unintended consequences of their policies”? You are not being very smart when you think your enemies are not as smart as you. They know where their interests lie, and so should we.
deconstructing giuliani and ´terror´:
In a discussion with journalist David Ignatius in February 2006, Nassrallah categorically set his group apart from al-Qaeda and its action that he considers is fanning Sunni-Shiite tensions in Iraq and increasingly in Lebanon. "I believe the most dangerous thing we confront is the so-called Zarqawi phenomenon," he said. "This is a creed of killing without any responsibility -- to kill women, children, to attack mosques, churches, schools, restaurants."
(...) Interestingly the antipathy is not based on religion, but rather on al Qaeda terrorism which Hezbollah rejects. The fact is that the Iraq war debacle has led to a "surge" (that Bush/ McCain word again!) of al Qaeda fighters here in Lebanon. They are threats to Hezbollah as well as to the American University of Beirut and the American Embassy. Al Qaeds's numbers and influence are growing and, based on interviews by Americans with some al Qaeda leaders, they have major plans here. If al Qaeda to be contained it will likely be Hezbollah who does it. We Americans should engage with Hezbollah not defame it.
(...) where is Rudi's evidence to support his New Hampshire campaign claim that "going back to the 90's there were all those Americans killed by the PLO and Hezbollah and Hamas"? ... Rudy, if you actually misspoke about the '90s', rather than seeking to mislead your audience, and actually meant to say the 1980's, maybe thinking of the April 17, 1983 bombing of the American embassy or the October 1984 bombing of the marine barracks show us the proof? At the time of these events the PLO had left Beirut, Hamas would not exist for nearly a decade, and Hezbollah was a long way from being fully organized. Moreover, Hezbollah and has never been contradicted in its consistent denials of involvement. Again, where is the proof Rudy? Was Rudy thinking about the kidnapping of US hostages? Hezbollah's position on the Western hostages is unchanged; "We are neither directly nor indirectly responsible for the taking of the hostages' Nassrallah as repeatedly stated.
In a discussion with journalist David Ignatius in February 2006, Nassrallah categorically set his group apart from al-Qaeda and its action that he considers is fanning Sunni-Shiite tensions in Iraq and increasingly in Lebanon. "I believe the most dangerous thing we confront is the so-called Zarqawi phenomenon," he said. "This is a creed of killing without any responsibility -- to kill women, children, to attack mosques, churches, schools, restaurants."
(...) Interestingly the antipathy is not based on religion, but rather on al Qaeda terrorism which Hezbollah rejects. The fact is that the Iraq war debacle has led to a "surge" (that Bush/ McCain word again!) of al Qaeda fighters here in Lebanon. They are threats to Hezbollah as well as to the American University of Beirut and the American Embassy. Al Qaeds's numbers and influence are growing and, based on interviews by Americans with some al Qaeda leaders, they have major plans here. If al Qaeda to be contained it will likely be Hezbollah who does it. We Americans should engage with Hezbollah not defame it.
(...) where is Rudi's evidence to support his New Hampshire campaign claim that "going back to the 90's there were all those Americans killed by the PLO and Hezbollah and Hamas"? ... Rudy, if you actually misspoke about the '90s', rather than seeking to mislead your audience, and actually meant to say the 1980's, maybe thinking of the April 17, 1983 bombing of the American embassy or the October 1984 bombing of the marine barracks show us the proof? At the time of these events the PLO had left Beirut, Hamas would not exist for nearly a decade, and Hezbollah was a long way from being fully organized. Moreover, Hezbollah and has never been contradicted in its consistent denials of involvement. Again, where is the proof Rudy? Was Rudy thinking about the kidnapping of US hostages? Hezbollah's position on the Western hostages is unchanged; "We are neither directly nor indirectly responsible for the taking of the hostages' Nassrallah as repeatedly stated.
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