It is a measure of the inter-connected character of our globalized world that the security of New York may be tied to events in distant, rugged and mysterious South Waziristan, Pakistan– a remote area even most Pakistanis know little about. And, US security may depend more on school-building and improving lives in South Waziristan than […]
I want My Country back from Big Oil
I want my country back. I want back the country of Teddy Roosevelt, who cared about our natural environment. I want back the country of Harry Truman, who wasn’t afraid to give em hell. I don’t want an administration that authorizes offshore drilling to make political deals with the most despicable forces in American society. […]
Can “Proximity Talks” Avert Boycotts of Apartheid Israel?
President Obama threatened that he would take over the Israel-Palestine peace process himself, along with European allies, and recognize a Palestinian state, if Israeli-Palestinian negotiations had not begun by September 1. Despite the howls of outrage from the far right Israeli government and its American acolytes, the threat seems to have worked. The Israelis have […]
Veiling ban in Belgium: It is all about the State
The bill proposing a ban on the niqab or the kind of Muslim veil that covers the entire face, passed by the lower house of the Belgian parliament, is not really about religion, crime or even immigration. It is about the primacy of state interests over individual preference. James Scott in his Seeing like a […]
Chaudhry: Dis(re)membering \pä-ki-ˈstän\
This is a guest essay by Kiren Aziz Chaudhry, University of California, Berkeley, one of our country’s foremost academic specialists in comparative politics.: “…for this uncanny is in reality nothing new or foreign, but something familiar and old-established in the mind that has been estranged only by the process of repression.”– Sigmund Freud. On assuming […]
Massive Offshore Windfarms to Power Green Germany
Note to environmentalists: German utility corporations are building gigantic wind farms offshore that are expected to provide a quarter of Germany’s energy in coming decades. One plant, on an island, came online this week. “Wind and solar energy, biomass and water power today cover more than 16 percent of German electricity requirements.” Germany has 21,000 […]
NATO Troops Kill MP Relative; Anti-American Demonstrations Nangarhar Demand US Withdrawal
NATO forces raided the home in Nangarhar of Afghan parliamentarian Safia Siddiqi Wednesday night, in the course of which they killed her brother-in-law. In response, crowds in Nangarhar blocked a major thoroughfare in protest. The Dari Persian press says that crowds came out to demonstrate all over Nangarhar Province, chanting anti-American slogans and demanding that […]
Tehran Police Chief Cracks down on Women with Sun Tans
The Telegraph reports that the police chief of the Iranian capital, Tehran, Brig Hossein Sajediniya, has called for a crackdown on fashionable women as part of his campaign against the reformists of the Green Movement. He is quoted as saying, “The public expects us to act firmly and swiftly if we see any social misbehaviour […]
The Horrible Gulf Oil Spill Reality versus the Energy Tomorrow Pantsuit
Let us contrast reality to the fantasy that Big Oil projects for us on our television screens. I have long despised the character of the lady in pantsuits, played by Brooke Alexander, who assures us, in the Energy Tomorrow ads, that we really, really need Big Oil’s products. Yeah, like we need a hole in […]
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