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Student Merna foils Israeli bid to wreck family’s education hopes
Stuart Littlewood
Photo: "Merna in Azzeh Camp where she lives. The bright smile hides
a steely determination."
Bethlehem University has been closed a dozen times by Israeli storm-troopers and shelled by their tanks, but it remains one of those magical places in the Holy Land where you always feels good 'vibes'.
Meeting the students is a continual source of inspiration, as so many apply themselves to their studies with cheerful determination in spite of difficult family circumstances and almost insurmountable obstacles put in their way by the Occupation. So I enjoy the newsletters the Brothers regularly send me.
Their latest includes the heart-rending story of a young girl, Merna, an honors student in her final year majoring in English. For most people studying for a degree is tough enough, but this youngster also has to battle against armed intruders who invade her home and have systematically destroyed her family life.
THE WEB OF PRECARIOUSNESS “Chi non lavora, non fa l’amore”
Gaither Stewart
Precariousness looms like a black cloud over the continent of Europe. The fragility of human life and of the life style generations of westerners are accustomed to today rages like a modern plague. Precariousness is a contagious disease. It leaps from worker to worker, from class to class. No wonder that life in our times has never seemed more temporary. Permanence belongs to another age.
(Rome) A popular Italian evergreen from the 1970s depicts a contemporary conundrum for many Europeans: “Chi non lavora, non fa l’amore” go the lyrics. The woman tells her man, “If you don’t work, there will be no love-making in this house. If you strike and don’t bring home pay, I will strike too. No love-making here!” The worker goes back to his job and strikers beat him up and call him a scab. No sex if he strikes, beatings if he works. He is truly the superfluous and precarious man. His only hope is that the capitalist boss relents and grants the pay increases the union demands and lets love into his house again. But that, he must realize, is highly unlikely.
READING LENIN IN MODERN ROME
Gaither Stewart
A little bit of Leninism for breakfast gives you the strength of a hundred camels in the courtyard.
(My adaptation of a Paul Bowles’ Arab adage)
And then this, straight out of the horse’s mouth:
“It is more pleasant and useful to go through the experience of the revolution than to write about it.” (Vladimir Lenin)
(Rome) Leftists like to cite Lenin. To quote Marx is to delve into the theory of Socialism/Communism. But Lenin is another cup of tea. You get into Lenin and you’re already in revolution. When you read Lenin’s The State and Revolution, which contains the core of Leninist thought, you are no longer in the world of socio-economic theory. This powerful text offers insights into Leninist policies and elaborated Lenin’s interpretation of Marxism, above all the class conflict, but also the crushing of the bourgeois state and the establishment and role of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Procuring Academics for Empire: The Pentagon Minerva Research Initiative
James Petras
The Pentagon’s military strategists have recognized that they have suffered political losses, with strategic consequences in their recent military invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. US military support for the Israeli invasions of Lebanon and Gaza, the US-sponsored Ethiopian occupation of Somali, the coup attempts in Venezuela (2002) and Bolivia (2008), have also failed to defeat popular incumbent regimes. Worse still, civilian, family, community and national networks have reinforced the anti-colonial movements providing essential logistical support, intelligence, recruits and legitimacy.
How close is the United States of America to becoming a failed state?
Economies around the world are unravelling, and governments are failing.
Since 2005 the United States think-tank, the Fund for Peace and the magazine Foreign Policy, have been publishing an annual index called the Failed States Index.
“The index's ranks are based on twelve indicators of state vulnerability - four social, two economic and six political. The indicators are not designed to forecast when states may experience violence or collapse. Instead, they are meant to measure a state's vulnerability to collapse or conflict. All countries in the red, orange, or yellow categories display some features that make parts of their societies and institutions vulnerable to failure. Some in the yellow zone may be failing at a faster rate than those in the more dangerous orange or red zones, and therefore could experience violence sooner. Conversely, some in the red zone, though critical, may exhibit some positive signs of recovery or be deteriorating slowly, giving them time to adopt mitigating strategies.”
Predicting the Past
ddjango
Twenty years ago, as a management developer, I taught a form of employment interviewing called "behavioral questioning". In this method, the interviewer does not ask, "What would you do under "X" circumstances?", but would say, "Think of an instance in which "X" happened and tell me how you handled it." The theory supporting that technique is simple: the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.
Within this framework, however, often the best candidate will respond by describing a situation that s/he handled badly, then will relate what s/he learned and how s/he would handle it differently or did handle it differently in similar circumstances. Applied to the 2008 campaign circus, as well as to its aftermath, we might be looking at different scenarios entirely.
One of John McPain's main stump riffs was that Obama didn't have the experience to be an effective president. He was right on with that one (too bad he didn't make the same point about his sidekick). If asked a question like, "Tell us about a time when you faced a serious financial crisis and what did you do", he wouldn't have experienced such a thing, so he couldn't tell us. He would have, as would any good politician, answered a question that wasn't asked. In fact, with little experience solving critical problems, he had to be the beauty queen and could offer only "Hope" and "Change" and a history of living through some hard times with a lot of support from his mother.
Pro-Zionism: Defending the Indefensible
Stephen Lendman
This article responds to a March 15 Los Angeles Times Judea Pearl one headlined: "Is anti-Zionism hate?" Pearl teaches computer science at UCLA, is the father of slain journalist Daniel Pearl, and president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation. It was "formed....to continue Danny's mission and to address the root causes of this tragedy in the spirit" of the man it represents, including "uncompromised objectivity and integrity....and respect for people of all cultures...."
Some of its honorary board member belie this purpose:
-- former president Bill Clinton, an unindicted war criminal and backer of neoliberal plunder;
-- Elie Wiesel, a shameless self-promoter, "Holocaust" exploiter, and apologist for the most outrageous Israeli crimes;
-- Jordan's Queen Noor, wife of King Abdullah II, who, like his father Hussein, rules with dictatorial police state powers; and
It was Never about Democracy
Mamoon Alabbasi
The people of the Middle East could learn more about modern democracy from the anti-war camp, and not from former president Bush and his 'coalition of the willing', the very anti-Christ of democracy, writes Mamoon Alabbasi.
- "Those dirty A-rabs don't deserve democracy. We give them freedom and they kill our troops. We should nuke them all in their shit-hole."
-"Bring our troops home. What are they doing dying in some far away land trying to bring democracy to people who don't want it?"
Philippine Extra-Judicial Killings Continue, Obama's Response In Question
Brian McAfee
Rebelyn Pitao
On March 23rd, Sabina Ariola, the leader of "Citizens for Excellence, Progress, Peace towards the Country's Great Future," was gunned down. She is the 992nd civilian to be killed in the ongoing spree of extra-judicial killings that have been occurring since 2001, when Gloria Macapagal Arroyo assumed the presidency. Another particularly despicable killing that occurred in March was that of Rebelyn Pitao, a 20 year old teacher in Davao, southern Philippines. She was tortured, raped, strangled and stabbed according to Alan Davis of the Philippine Human Rights Recording Project.
The apparent reason was "guilt" by association as her father is Leoncio Pitao, a leader in the local New Peoples Army contingent in Mindanao. All of these murders demand justice, but the Rebelyn Pitao case screams it. At the same time, Kaeapatan, the Philippines leading human rights organization, reports that politically motivated killings are up during the first three months of this year. Two in January, seven in February and seven more in March have occurred.
No, we're not on a road to Communism
Mary Shaw
I was talking with an old friend recently, a self-described "conservative, but not a Republican". Eventually, of course, politics and current events found their way into the conversation. This included the economic crisis and government bailouts. And my friend shared his two cents' worth on the subject.
"It's not just the banks," my friend explained. "The Democrats think all businesses are evil, and they'll try to take them all over."
That assertion is, of course, ridiculous. The Democrats do not think all business are evil. And the Democrats don't want the government to take over all businesses. We just see this current recession as an example of the problems that can result from unregulated business run amok.
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