Understanding the Crisis – Markets, the State and Hypocrisy
February 22nd, 2009 § Leave a Comment
In this interview, Noam Chomsky offers his views on the current global economic crisis, exploding many of the myths, double standards and hypocricies of mainstream media commentary.
SAMEER DOSSANI: In any first year economics class, we are taught that markets have their ups and downs, so the current recession is perhaps nothing out of the ordinary. But this particular downturn is interesting for two reasons: First, market deregulation in the 1980s and 1990s made the boom periods artificially high, so the bust period will be deeper than it would otherwise. Secondly, despite an economy that’s boomed since 1980, the majority of working class U.S. residents have seen their incomes stagnate — while the rich have done well most of the country hasn’t moved forward at all. Given the situation, my guess is that economic planners are likely to go back to some form of Keynesianism, perhaps not unlike the Bretton Woods system that was in place from 1948-1971. What are your thoughts?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well I basically agree with your picture. In my view, the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system in the early 1970s is probably the major international event since 1945, much more significant in its implications than the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Victory for student movement: Strathclyde University to end complicity with Gaza conflict
February 21st, 2009 § 5 Comments
Photo by Zuraeda Ibrahim
A vibrant and wonderful student movement has flowered a the Strathclyde University which has scored two major victories for peace and justice within this month. We at PULSE salute all the students, in particular Strathclyde Stop the War, Action Palestine, and the Strathclyde University Muslim Students Association (SUMSA) for their indispensable work. In today’s excellent guest editorial, Kim Bizzarri, who has himself lead from the front, reports on these successes and the prospects for future.
GLASGOW, February 21 – Students at Strathclyde University won the vote on Thursday to cut the university’s ties with arms manufacturer BAe Systems which supplied components used by the Israeli military in the recent massacre of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
Students win majority support in historic AGM
The vote, which took place in relation to a motion submitted by a group of students to their Union’s General Meeting (AGM) – the student’s highest decision-making body – won with an overwhelming majority of the over 200 students who queued in the union’s corridors and stairs to participate in the event. Such a high student attendance had been unprecedented in any previous AGM, most of which failed in the past 10 years to even reach quorum.
Despite attempts by the Union’s administration to dilute the substance of the motion and have it voted upon by the conservative Student Representative Council (SRC) – who had already rejected a similar popular motion two years earlier given the uncomfortable position it placed the University vis-à-vis its corporate funders – the fervent group of passionate students were successful in galvanising sufficient support amongst their fellows to turn the motion into student policy.
Within weeks of occupying the McCance Building – heart of the University’s administration – the original 60 students involved in the occupation have already gained the support of a sizable number of their fellow students.
Saving Swat
February 21st, 2009 § Leave a Comment
The analysis of the recent ceasefire in Swat has drawn the ire of the desktop Napoleons in Islamabad and Karachi. The Western press has taken an equally blinkered view, liberal and conservative alike. Even otherwise sober analysts such as the Observer’s Jason Burke have joined the chorus. On the other hand, Rahimullah Yusufzai, the most informed and astute analyst of the region’s politics, sees ‘signs that inspire hope‘.
Maulana Sufi Mohammad has once again been tasked to perform a familiar role. He is trying to persuade militants in Swat to drop their guns and go home. His argument is that the government had accepted his demand for enforcement of Shariah, or Islamic law, and there was now no point in continuing the armed struggle that has turned Pakistan’s most beautiful and greenest valley into a battlefield.
The task before him is difficult and the environment in which he is operating is dangerous. But the elderly cleric is made of sterner stuff and even risks to his life won’t turn him away from doing what he believes is the right thing to do. Back in 1994, he did something similar by persuading the armed fighters belonging to his organisation, Tanzim-e-Nifaz Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), to stop fighting the state. A military helicopter flew him to all those places in Swat, Shangla, Dir, Kohistan and other districts where his black-turbaned followers had blockaded roads and set up hilltop positions to fight the troops from the paramilitary Frontier Corps and personnel of the other law-enforcement agencies. Accompanied by Major General Fazal Ghafoor, the-then inspector general of the Frontier Corps, and some other civil and military officials, he would disembark from the chopper, make a rousing speech to his startled fighters and urge them to return to their villages. On occasions, he would even reprimand them for taking up arms against their Muslim brothers in the FC. He would argue that the use of force for achieving the worthy cause of Shariah was wrong.
Israeli Apartheid Week (2009).
February 21st, 2009 § 1 Comment
Excellent short animation announcing Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW). (thanks Jasmin)
Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) is an annual international series of events held in cities and campuses across the globe. The aim of IAW is to educate people about the nature of Israel as an apartheid system and to build Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns as part of a growing global BDS movement.
Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) is taking place in more than 40 cities across the globe (the number of cities is growing daily). This year, IAW happens in the wake of Israel’s barbaric assault on the people of Gaza. Lectures, films, and actions will make the point that these latest massacres further confirm the true nature of Israeli Apartheid. IAW 2009 will continue to build and strengthen the growing Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement at a global level.
In Lyons we (dis)Trust
February 21st, 2009 § Leave a Comment
The BBC’s fall from grace continues unimpeded. John Hilley of Glasgow Palestine Human Rights Campaign on the latest in this sordid saga.
And so, all too predictably, the BBC Trust has backed Director General Mark Thompson’s decision not to air the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) Appeal for Gaza.
Over 40,000 complaints, 200 appeals and a wave of public disgust over Thompson’s ruling seems of little importance to Trust Chairman Sir Michael Lyons. His letter to BBC staff informing them of the decision was also one of patronising indifference to the widespread concerns expressed inside the organisation.
In response, a petition with nearly 400 BBC staff signatures was handed in to the Director General – with a copy to the Trust’s office – condemning Thompson’s decision.
Dance of Death
February 21st, 2009 § Leave a Comment
A still from Waltz with Bashir
The Israeli film Waltz with Bashir is an artistic triumph; it is slated to win an Oscar. But politically, it is often very dubious; perhaps the reason why the Israeli government has chosen to back it. Here are two commentaries that highlight these shortcomings.
First, the inimitable Gideon Levy who writes that the ‘“antiwar” film Waltz with Bashir is nothing but charade‘.
Everyone now has his fingers crossed for Ari Folman and all the creative artists behind “Waltz with Bashir” to win the Oscar on Sunday. A first Israeli Oscar? Why not?
However, it must also be noted that the film is infuriating, disturbing, outrageous and deceptive. It deserves an Oscar for the illustrations and animation – but a badge of shame for its message. It was not by accident that when he won the Golden Globe, Folman didn’t even mention the war in Gaza, which was raging as he accepted the prestigious award. The images coming out of Gaza that day looked remarkably like those in Folman’s film. But he was silent. So before we sing Folman’s praises, which will of course be praise for us all, we would do well to remember that this is not an antiwar film, nor even a critical work about Israel as militarist and occupier. It is an act of fraud and deceit, intended to allow us to pat ourselves on the back, to tell us and the world how lovely we are.
Savage Mules: Author Dennis Perrin Talks About The War-Mongering Of The Democratic Party
February 21st, 2009 § Leave a Comment
Here’s another interview I conducted for Huffington Post’s Off the Bus. Dennis Perrin is a great writer and comedian and wrote a fantastic short read this summer on the Democratic Party in the U.S. Hope you enjoy. – Christian Avard
Crossposted at Off the Bus.
Is the Democratic Party really a party of peace? Not according to satirist Dennis Perrin. In his latest book, Savage Mules: The Democrats and Endless War, he writes that the Democratic party has long been a party of war. Perrin, a former joke writer for Bill Maher, offers curt revelations about Democratic Party idols such as Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton. He shatters the myths associated with past Democratic Presidents, their stubborn attachment to war, and a party unable to stand up for the ideals they claim to stand for. He ends the book with a humorous account of last year’s Netroots Nation conference and the idea that politics will change for the better, if we only elect more Democrats. OffTheBus caught up with Perrin to discuss his new book, his perceptions of the Democratic Party, and alternatives to bringing about social change.
EU Paying for Gaza Blockade
February 21st, 2009 § Leave a Comment
David Cronin of IPS describes the EU’s complicity in Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza.
European Union aid has been given to an Israeli oil company which has reduced the supply of fuel to Gaza as part of an economic blockade internationally recognised as illegal, Brussels officials have admitted.
Almost 97 million euros (124 million dollars) in funds managed by the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, were handed over directly to the firm Dor Alon between February 2008 and January this year. Under orders from the Israeli authorities, Dor Alon has been rationing the amount of industrial diesel brought into Gaza in order to deprive its 1.5 million inhabitants of electricity. Power cuts have been a regular occurrence in Gaza because of Israeli actions undertaken since the militant party Hamas won an unexpected victory in Palestinian legislative elections during 2006.
Disgrace
February 20th, 2009 § 1 Comment
J.M. Coetzee’s award-winning novel Disgrace offered a disturbing insight into the soul of modern South Africa. The screen version does not disappoint and features an outstanding performance from John Malkovich as the disgraced professor whose personal life reflects the turmoil of a country in transition. Dismissed from his university, David Lurie (Malkovich) decides to visit his daughter at a remote farm in the eastern Cape that she shares with a trusted black worker. When they are savagely attacked by three black youths, David is finally confronted by the realities of a South Africa where the old rules no longer apply.
I have been looking forward to this for some time. Coetzee is one of my favourite writers; Diary of a Bad Year, Youth, Master of Petersburg and Waiting for the Barbarians are phenomenal works of fiction. But I have mixed feelings about Disgrace (which, incidentally, was chosen as the best English novel of the past 25 years by top writers and critics). Here is what I wrote in a Facebook review:
