Towards a global perspective . . .

Ted Wilcox, a fellow activist in Rochester, sent me an email from a friend, in the UK I think, with some references to materials on Palestine.  Of them film, To Shoot an Elephant, is extremely powerful.  The original link took me to a version of the film without subtitles, but the one linked to here has subtitles available in several languages, including English.  The film, recorded on site during the first couple of weeks of Cast Lead, is a little long and has some seriously disturbing scenes.     However, those of us who feel compelled to stand and witness the disaster the Western imperialist powers and Israel are visiting on the rest of the world in the name of civilization and anti-terrorism should watch it.

There is a sequence in the film, introduced as ‘The Hamdan Family’.   Something seemed familiar, but I didn’t get it Read the rest of this entry »

Following both US mainstream coverage of the relief efforts in Haiti and  coverage through international and independent outlets is a confusing experience.  All agree that the US, in command of relief efforts in Haiti, has taken charge of the Port Au Prince airport, put several thousand, has put as many as ten thousand troops on the ground to secure the disaster area before allowing any aid to enter,  and placed a air carrier off shore days before the the hospital ship arrived.   It is clear that every day help is delayed, thousands of people buried in the rubble die, thousands with injuries die of infections and blood loss, thousands of babies and elderly and weak are at risk due to lack of water and food.

The mainstream press is reporting significant security measures to address serious security concerns.    There are concerns that the people will riot, that aid workers will be assaulted, that victims of the quake will be subject to violence from other victims.    Read the rest of this entry »

We are currently just about to sell big packages of high tech arms to Egypt, Jordan, UAE and Saudi Arabia .  Ha’aretz, says that the Israeli government is not happy about it.   We’re only supposed to sell these countries second class weapons, but now we’re giving them F15s and Hellfire missiles.  We’ve been protecting Israel through the years, by giving them an edge in the local weapons race.  And make no mistake, they are still getting the most assistance and the best of the best, subs capable of carrying nuclear warheads, missile defense shields and more.  Not only is Israel a seemingly familiar ally in a very foreign, often hostile world, but they are really good customers.  You sell them the weapons, and you know they will use them, probably on a target you approve of.  Even so, capitalism is prone to prostitution.  It’s the way of the world

Israel might well be concerned about the sale of these weapons to Egypt, recipient of the second largest amount of US aid,  because Mubarek is old and his son is not popular.   Who will control those weapons when he’s gone?  Read the rest of this entry »

I flip on Democracy Now! There are some bodies strewn among piles of rubble and people running around, people sitting in the rubble in shock.  I think, “Gaza?”  No.  It’s Haiti.  That’s right the people are black.  Or are they?  I used to work with a Haitian Manager.  JC was rather gruff, but very direct . . . and generally reasonable.  He was well educated, well dressed, and spoke with a French accent.  We had an international crew in those days, and I didn’t think of him as a ‘black’ man.  He was ‘Haitian’.   I worked with another Haitian a few years later.  He was a engineer, and I didn’t know him well, but I remember one day we stood in front of our cubes, laughing and ducking as a bird that had somehow entered the recycled warehouse where we worked, swooped one way and soaring the other, first diving and then wheeling high above our heads.

So today I am watching the Haitian bodies being removed from the rubble, the men purposefully digging, big eyed children looking on,  people sitting in the ruins of their lives in despair. Read the rest of this entry »

When I say that we, the U.S., should be talking to Iran and criticizing the recent human rights violations by the somewhat embattled government, I don’t mean that the US, or the West in general, should support the opposition directly.  When we support the opposition, we hurt them.  On the one hand, our support undermines their credibility; on the other, they don’t need us.   This is their fight.  As I said in my previous post, most of us aren’t even clear on what their goal is.   When we call the government on their brutal tactics and violations of human rights since the election, we are undermining the credibility of the government.  Iran has consistently pleaded their alignment with international law.  Read the rest of this entry »

The New York Times ran a front page article a week ago with the headline “Iran Shielding Its Nuclear Efforts in Underground Tunnels“, and accompanied by a bizarre PR photo of Iranian President Ahmadinejad accompanied by other men in suits, in a [highway] tunnel wearing hard-hats.     The picture looks like an ad for a Broadway play and the article reads like the storyboard for a political thriller.    The article not only presents currently disputed ‘facts’ and without a shred of evidence, it turns the one underground facility about which we were notified [by the Iranian Government], which so far has not been furnished with contents,  into a vast underground labyrinth full with a busily humming nuclear weapons program.   But, as if that isn’t good enough, the article goes into the past and raises all sorts of long ago debunked [by the IAEA and an NIE reported in late 2007] allegations about Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program 2003 and 2004.

Unfortunately, they are not alone.  Gareth Porter’s latest piece on IPS,  New Revelations Tear Holes in Nuclear Trigger Story, is the result of a detailed examination of evidence presented in a London Times article from mid December that claimed to have a leaked copy of an original document proving that Iran is working on a nuclear trigger mechanism.  Read the rest of this entry »

The Copenhagen Climate Conference was a depressing affair.   I fear there will never be a political solution for this problem until there is a profitable corporate angle.  I don’t mean ‘Cap and Trade’.  That’s a political, regulatory solution.  I mean a technology that works and someone who has the creativity and drive to run with it.  Something truly innovative unlike ‘clean coal’, a resurgence of nuclear power or ethanol, all of which are variations on the current technologies which must be phased out, not altered.

This morning, Deutche Welle featured an upbeat report on solar penetration in Germany.  Read the rest of this entry »