Obama, Guantánamo, and US Hypocrisy
Take-home message: Gitmo is a symptom. Barack Obama is a symptom. Obama promising to close Gitmo is like placing a band-aid over a cancerous tumor.
Archive for ‘January, 2009’
Hungry to Organize for Democracy
Ethiopian-born Washington D.C. community activist Abdulaziz Kamus has survived political persecution, civil war, genocide and life in a new country to make the American dream happen for him. Now he is using his strength and influence to call for the rights of refugees worldwide to be enforced, so that they may have the same opportunity.
Why An Asshole is Always in Charge
John Thain is the guy that looks like a Clark Kent doll you saw grinning from page one of your paper Friday morning. Thain was just fired by Bank of America because the square-jawed executive demanded a $30 million bonus after losing $5 billion in just three months at the bank’s Merrill Lynch unit.
The Order to Destroy has been Given
My mobile phone vibrates. The UN through OCHA writes that three more houses are being demolished today, more people are about to become homeless.
Dam Nation
“Every morning when I awake, I ask myself whether I should write or blow up a dam,” Derrick Jensen writes. “I’ve written books and done activism, but it is neither a lack of words nor activism that is killing salmon here in the Northwest. It’s the dams. Anyone who knows anything about salmon knows the dams must go. Anyone who knows anything about politics knows the dams will stay.”
Did Benazir Die for Democracy?
South Asians are sentimental people. Over the centuries, their romanticism about revered historical and religious icons has shaped their political psyche of nurturing personality cults. To this add their ignorance about political realities due to pervasive illiteracy and you will know the reason behind the meteoric rise to power of charismatic leaders in recent history.
Who will save Israel from itself?
The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is entering its third week. Israel says it has managed to destroy most of the Hamas targets, an ‘achievement’ that came with a price tag of more than 1,000 human lives. Countless other people have sustained minor or serious injuries and thousands of other civilians are without any food, water or shelter.
Struggling with the Khmer Language
Khmer, the official language of Cambodia, is a Mon Khmer language, which has roots in Sanskrit and Pali, two very ancient Indian languages. Said another way, it was completely different than any language I had ever studied.
Planet of Lost Souls
If we were to look upon all living things as part—along with ourselves—of one collective soul, it becomes impossible to live in denial about war, global poverty and disease, oppression, the destruction of our eco-system, etc.
Activating Your Foreign Language
Now that I am a teacher, I understand what the nuns were saying back in grade school. They were saying, “Children learn by listening, not by speaking.” But I couldn’t hear them, because I was too busy talking.
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