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Meditations on an inscrutable nation
By Gaither Stewart
Mexico City's main square, the Zócalo, was at one time the heart of the
Aztec empire's own capital, Tenochtitlán. A huge Mexican flag presides
over the plaza’s many activities, including political rallies.
I.
THE FIFTEEN MONTHS I SPENT IN MEXICO deepened and consolidated a fundamental transformation long underway in me. The Italian writer Ignazio Silone was right: I had to step backwards from what I once was and where I was before in order to see myself and the world. Or maybe it was simply the altitude of Mesoamerica … and the winds … and also new inclinations toward unrestraint. Or maybe what happened to me in Mexico was simply because it is not necessary to live south of the border very long in order to begin to see American imperialism at work, contributing to the existing economic disparity between north and south. It is a mystery why things are the way they are. Still, it became clear that powerful evil forces combine to compel millions of Mexicans to sneak into the United States and live a dog’s life just to eat. Though it is true that because of the missing social idea America’s poor are poorer than Europe’s poor, Mexico’s poor are still worse off. Their poverty makes them seem to grovel for sustenance. Most certainly Mexicans don’t work on the skyscrapers of Dallas and New York City and wash dishes in cafeterias in Atlanta and in Charlotte and pick fruit in California because they are enamored with Yankee life. They prefer Mexico. They are north of the formidable Rio Grande border with its growing wall for the simple reason that though man does not live by bread alone, he must eat. For anyone with eyes to see it is clear that something is startlingly and tragically out of whack in North America.
Happy New Year Palestine, Happy new year humanity!
Salim Nazzal
When Mahmoud Darwish, Palestine great poet was asked in one of the most difficult period in Palestine history, what Palestinians can do now, his immediate answer was to grow up hope. For more than 70 years, Palestinians move from war to war, from occupation to occupation, from exile to exile, from siege to siege yet they continue to hope. Hope and resistance are interacted, one resists because one hopes, and because one hopes one resists.
I asked a Palestinian who lost almost all his family by Israeli air raid how he manages life alone, he said hope. I asked Palestinian lost his arms due to Israeli raids and insisted to go one in life, I won’t let Israel murder our hopes, he said.
Hope jumps even in the most difficult times to whisper to the oppressed to stand firm. During the occupation of Lebanon in the 1980s, I saw a proud young Palestinian woman walking opposite Israeli soldiers bearing in her neck a cross and the Palestinian map, she told me she wants to convey a message of challenge and hope, the crusification of Palestine is a temporary thing, and Palestine will rise again.
RUDOLPH'S TRUE STORY
Allen L Roland
The story of Rudolph, the red nosed reindeer, was conceived during the great depression as a gift of love from a social misfit, Bob May, to his daughter as a Christmas present to give her hope. That person's brother-in-law was Johnny Marx who later made a song adaptation of the story and the rest is history:
It is stories like this that reinforce my feeling that all works of love are quite often embraced by a world that wants to be touched, versus entertained, and that the blessings of that gift are eventually returned in abundance.
Here is something to read to your kids tonight ~ or in my case ~ your grandchildren.
A man named Bob May, depressed and brokenhearted, stared out his drafty apartment window into the chilling December night. His 4-year-old daughter Barbara sat on his lap quietly sobbing.
Bobs wife, Evelyn, was dying of cancer.
HEMOS VISTO EL AUMENTO DEL MILITARISMO BAJO OBAMA Y EL FIN DE LA ILUSIÓN OBAMA
Petras: HEMOS VISTO EL AUMENTO DEL MILITARISMO BAJO OBAMA Y EL FIN DE LA ILUSIÓN OBAMA QUE PARA MUCHA GENTE LIBERAL PROGRESISTA, CENTRO IZQUIERDA, MUJIQUISTAS, TENÍAN MUCHA ILUSIÓN SOBRE LO QUE SIGNIFICABA LA ELECCIÓN DE OBAMA
Comentarios para CX36 Radio Centenario de Uruguay, del sociólogo norteamericano, Prof. James Petras desde Estados Unidos. Lunes 28 de diciembre de 2009. “El más grande peligro es esta postura militarista de Estados Unidos. Ese es el gran peligro para todo el continente. La profundidad y amplitud de esta política es una amenaza a corto plazo, no es cosa de pensar en los años venideros” www.radio36.com.uy
The Beginning of the End–Running Out of Food Next Year
If you read any economic, financial, or political analysis for 2010 that doesn’t mention the food shortage looming next year, throw it in the trash, as it is worthless. There is overwhelming, undeniable evidence that the world will run out of food next year. When this happens, the resulting triple digit food inflation will lead panicking central banks around the world to dump their foreign reserves to appreciate their currencies and lower the cost of food imports, causing the collapse of the dollar, the treasury market, derivative markets, and the global financial system. The US will experience economic disintegration.
The 2010 Food Crisis Means Financial Armageddon
Over the last two years, the world has faced a series of unprecedented financial crises: the collapse of the housing market, the freezing of the credit markets, the failure of Wall Street brokerage firms (Bear Stearns/Lehman Brothers), the failure of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the failure of AIG, Iceland’s economic collapse, the bankruptcy of the major auto manufacturers (General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler), etc… In the face of all these challenges, the demise of the dollar, derivative markets, and the modern international system of credit has been repeatedly forecasted and feared. However, all these doomsday scenarios have so far been proved false, and, despite tremendous chaos and losses, the global financial system has held together.
Arresting Peaceful Protesters in Occupied Palestine
by Stephen Lendman
For decades, Israel has met peaceful Palestinian protesters disruptively with violence, arrests and at times unprovoked killings. It's no surprise that targeting them and their leaders is now common practice in cities and villages like Jayyous and Bil'in.
On August 3, 200 Israeli soldiers raided five Bel'in homes at 3AM arresting eight Palestinians, including Mohammad Khatib, a leader of the Bel'in Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements. It's part of Israel's repressive routine - late night arrests and imprisonment without charges for indefinite periods. Khatib faces trial, but was released on August 17 on condition he report to a police station with a monitor each Friday until 5PM for its duration. He told supporters:
The New York Crimes: All The Lies That Fit to Print
Nima Shirazi Wide Asleep in America
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
"The age of military attacks is over, now we've reached the time for dialogue and understanding. Weapons and threats are a thing of the past...even for mentally challenged people."
- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, 11/23/2009
The American political, academic, and media establishment has long been beating the drums of war with Iran and, as the author of New York Times' latest OpEd encouraging the US bombing of that country, University of Texas professor Alan J. Kuperman has now emerged as the Keith Moon of sensational jingoism and, considering his concept of reality, morality, and legality, is probably twice as crazy.
Mr. Kuperman, in a piece published on December 23rd and titled "There’s Only One Way to Stop Iran", stridently advocates for an immediate, unilateral, unprovoked and devastating aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities. He writes,
The Good out of the Misery in Gaza: Love in Action and Global Conscience
eileen fleming
December 27, 2009 marked the first anniversary of the beginning of 'Operation Cast Lead,’ Israel’s 22-day assault on Hamas and all the captive innocents in Gaza.
Israel’s assault on Gaza killed 1,400 people and a third were children.
Israel’s war on Gaza injured over 5,300 and destroyed over 10,000 buildings and 4,000 homes.
“Operation Cast Lead” rendered nearly 72,000 innocent civilians homeless and most all of them still endure in tents or in the ruins of what had been their homes.
Gaza One Year Later
Stephen Lendman
A December 2009 report prepared by Oxfam International, Amnesty International UK, United Civilians for Peace, Christian Aid, and a dozen other international NGOs (called NGOs below) titled, "Failing Gaza: No rebuilding, no recovery, no more excuses" is hard-hitting and to the point.
It says a year after Operation Cast Lead, extensive damage hasn't been repaired and thousands "are being prevented from rebuilding their shattered society." It's not from a lack of commitment or enough resources with over $4 billion in pledged aid. It's because Israel blocks goods and equipment from entering Gaza. The world community and Arab world do nothing to stop them, so much of the Strip still lies in ruins.
Following Hamas' January 2006 electoral victory, all outside aid was cut off. Sanctions and an economic embargo were imposed, and the democratically elected government was falsely designated a terrorist organization and isolated. Stepped up repression followed as well as regular IFD attacks, killings, targeted assassinations, property destruction, and more. Gazans have been imprisoned ever since.
The Occupied West Bank Latroun Villages
by Stephen Lendman
On June 6, 1967, when Israeli forces invaded Gaza and the West Bank, on the second day of the so-called Six-Day War (June 5 - 10, 1967), they entered three Palestinian villages in the Latroun salient - Imwas, Yalo and Beit Nouba, forcibly expelling the residents, numbering over 10,000 at the time. By the next day, most were gone while Israel began razing village lands and erasing their memory in an area well-known for its water resources and fertility, located northwest of Jerusalem along the Green Line. One soldier at the time explained that they:
"were told to take up positions around the approaches to the villages in order to prevent those villagers - who had heard the Israeli assurances over the radio that they could return to their homes in peace - from returning to their homes. The order was - shoot over their heads and tell them there is no access to the village," even though Fourth Geneva's Article 49 states:
"Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive." Doing so is a "grave breach," and those responsible are criminally liable.
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