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A Bush In Sheep's Clothing
By ALI ABUNIMAH
Obama's speech shows little real change. In most regards his analysis maintains flawed American policies
Once you strip away the mujamalat – the courtesies exchanged between guest and host – the substance of President Obama's speech in Cairo indicates there is likely to be little real change in US policy. It is not necessary to divine Obama's intentions – he may be utterly sincere and I believe he is. It is his analysis and prescriptions that in most regards maintain flawed American policies intact.
Though he pledged to "speak the truth as best I can", there was much the president left out. He spoke of tension between "America and Islam" – the former a concrete specific place, the latter a vague construct subsuming peoples, practices, histories and countries more varied than similar.
Forget 'Negotiations', Obama, The Situation Cries Out For Law and Justice
Stuart Littlewood
Whenever western leaders lecture us about a solution to the Israel-Palestine problem, they rely on those comfortable, woolly words "negotiation" and “peace process”… it’s a convenient crutch.
Kick away the crutch and they’d finally have to grasp the nettle of justice, something they have always avoided.
Justice is underpinned by law, but the operation of law in the Holy Land is conspicuously absent. The Arabs, I believe, want plain, simple justice. Why is this such a problem to a western alliance that claims to itself sweeping moral authority?
President Obama, speaking the other day in a BBC interview, said he believed the US was "going to be able to get serious negotiations back on track" between Israel and the Palestinians. Asked about Israel's defiance of his call for a halt to illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, Obama urged patience, saying it was early in the conversation. "Diplomacy is always a matter of a long hard slog. It's never a matter of quick results."
Credit crunch: time to treat employees like trash
Roland Michel Tremblay
Credit crunch time, once again the old management rules are back. Not only employers and employment agencies are ready to exploit you to death, but don’t expect respect and niceties, we’re all trash for the next few years if not decades. Let’s just hope that one day we can still be recycled into something that looks remotely like human beings, preferably before we end up doing something insane.
You don’t like it here? Here is the door. A thousand desperate unemployed people would kill for your job. Experience? Knowledge? Aptitudes? Attitude? What do they matter in a period of recession? You can now expect a minimum salary and to be treated like a dog would not even be treated like. There is no such thing as having a life outside work anymore, I’m not sure there ever was.
Muslims want actions, not words, from Obama
By Khalid Amayreh in Occupied East Jerusalem
I sincerely believe that the vast majority of Muslims, including this writer, profoundly appreciate President Obama’s decision to address the Muslim world from Cairo. The American leader will speak from Cairo University, one of the most prestigious academic institutions in the Arab world.
The symbolism surrounding Obama’s long-heralded speech is important. Words of good will, especially if they are sincere, can have an instantaneous positive effect on people’s sentiments. And I am completely certain that Muslims will meet good-will with good-will.
How the Catholic Church survives social progress
Mary Shaw
I was just starting out as a student at a small-town Catholic elementary school in the mid-1960s when the Second Vatican Council (also known as Vatican II) brought the Catholic Church into the 20th century. The Council's most notable changes for me at the time were that the use of vernacular language was now permitted in the Mass and that the laity became more involved in the Church's ministry. At around the same time, the nuns who taught in my school were given new, more modern habits to wear, which exposed their ankles and their hairlines -- much more progressive than the burka-like garb that they had to wear previously.
All of this was very exciting and appealing to us young folks. But, unfortunately, that is where the progress stopped.
'Almost a perfect mix'
Eric Walberg
Obama’s choice for the Supreme Court is another American dream story, as told by Anayat Durrani and Eric Walberg
Federal Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor is on the path to become the first Latina and third woman to serve on the High Court. If confirmed by the Senate, she would join Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the only other woman on the court.
The 54-year-old daughter of Puerto Rican immigrants grew up in a public housing project in the South Bronx and lost her father at the age of nine. But this and her medical condition as a Type 1 diabetic did not stop Sotomayor from graduating from both Princeton and Yale.
Remembering Father Gerry
by Stephen Lendman
The Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti's (IJDH) Brian Concannon knew him well, and posted this on IJDH's web site on his passing:
"Reverend Gerard Jean-Juste (1947 - 2009), a tireless advocate for justice for Haitians in Haiti and the US, passed away today, May 27, 2009. Fr. Gerry's passing is a great loss to all of us at IJDH and BAI (Bureau des Avocats Internationaux in Haiti)."
In an on-air interview, Concannon added:
"So every time there's been a dictatorship in Haiti in the last 20 years he was one of the top people out there resisting it. He was also a leader in the United States where we've got a problem of treating Haitian immigrants discriminatorily. He not only achieved results including ending all three of those dictatorships, but what's probably (most) important was how he achieved (them) - because he was a steadfast proponent of nonviolent tactics including sit-ins, demonstrations, popular education, those kinds of things. He was very effectively able to channel the Haitian people's desire for justice into concrete activities."
Heresy of the First Order: We are the 'Third Chimpanzees'
Essay by Jason Miller
“On this dot, tiny lumps of impure carbon and water, of complicated structure, with somewhat unusual physical and chemical properties, crawl about for a few years, until they are dissolved again into the elements of which they are compounded.”
–Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) from “Dreams and Facts”
Russell’s nihilistic characterization of Homo sapiens injects some much-needed perspective into a world in which our species of intellectually evolved primates suffers a collective delusion of grandeur. In “Dreams and Facts,” Russell further savages our God-complex with the powerfully humbling reminder that our solar system is but “an infinitesimal speck” and the Earth a mere “microscopic dot.” He does apply some soothing salve to our wounded egos with the observation that, “No man can achieve the greatness of which he is capable until he has allowed himself to see his own littleness,” but his decimation of our grossly-overinflated sense of importance remains intact.
Trigger Points for Civil Unrest
from Aurelia Masterson
Introduction ? This article is mostly for the USA but will have relevance for other countries. We are going to look at civil unrest and what can trigger it.
Definition of Civil Unrest ? This is not a revolution or violent overthrow of the government. It is a breakdown of law and order. The symptoms of civil unrest follow: crowds gathering and engaging in violence such as starting fires, throwing rocks, destroying vehicles, attacking cars with motorists inside, marching outside of government buildings and acting in a disorderly and destructive fashion, crowds throwing rocks and other projectiles. Civil unrest is more than just unhappy people. It is when these unhappy people demonstrate their unhappiness with violence and destruction of property so as to send a signal to the government that they had better meet their wishes and fast. Civil unrest is not revolutionary behavior. Revolutionary behavior generally focuses sharply on specific targets; it is not random violence or destruction of property. Revolutionary behavior has a lot of let?s call it propaganda for lack of a better word. This is where the revolutionary forces tend to publish material and make speeches to support their political position and win over converts.
WATERBOARDING TIP OF THE ICEBERG - RE-OPEN 9-11 INVESTIGATION
Allen L Roland
Part TWO of Bill Moyer's harrowing PBS documentary TORTURING DEMOCRACY establishes that waterboarding was just the tip of the iceberg of the severe interrogation techniques implemented and condoned by the White House and Justice Department. I feel it is also quite possible they were covering up their own 9/11 activities and involvement :
The reason George W Bush could say "The United States does not Torture " with a straight face is that under the enhanced interrogation techniques approved by George W Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld ~ Any method that does not kill or result in the loss of a limb is not defined as torture. In other words, if the " Detainee dies, your doing it wrong."
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