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The Audacity of Oligarchical Collectivism
Posted by Van Helsing at May 13, 2011 2:38 PM
We haven't gotten much of the promised hope, but there's been plenty of audacity. After holding unemployment in the stratosphere with policies relentlessly hostile to any business that doesn't have a seat at his crony capitalist table, the Community Organizer in Chief demands that companies "step up" by hiring people just for the sake of hiring them, like the government does.
This will come as a surprise to collectivists, but employment is a side effect of a free market economy, not its purpose. Where there is freedom, a company hires people because it expects to get its money's worth out of the labor they provide.
The more the government intrudes, the more of an unreasonable commitment hiring becomes. The more Obama's ham-fisted socialist policies create a climate of fear, the fewer companies will find it sensible to take on such commitments. This is why socialist countries like France generally have unemployment rates two or three times those of America's.
Not to worry, liberals have the solution. Unemployment was never much of a problem in the Soviet Union, where two men would share the full-time job of watching a single cow graze. There was plenty of money too, because the government printed all the cash people could want.
There was nothing to buy with the money, since the economy didn't produce anything. But our progressive rulers tell us we shouldn't be such materialists anyway.
http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2011/05/the-audacity-of-1.html
Rendering public opinion irrelevant
One of the most striking aspects of our political discourse, particularly during election time, is how efficiently certain views that deviate from the elite consensus are banished from sight -- simply prohibited -- even when those views are held by the vast majority of citizens. The University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes -- the premiere organization for surveying international public opinion -- released a new survey a couple of weeks ago regarding public opinion on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, including opinion among American citizens, and this is what it found:
A new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of 18 countries finds that in 14 of them people mostly say their government should not take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Just three countries favor taking the Palestinian side (Egypt, Iran, and Turkey) and one is divided (India). No country favors taking Israel's side, including the United States, where 71 percent favor taking neither side.
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/home_page/503.php?nid=&id=&pnt=503&lb=
yet the 'change' candidate couldn't wait to run right on over to Airpac asap and to state that he, Obama, in his own words agreed with McCain .. lol
snip
I have been proud to be a part of a strong, bi-partisan consensus that has stood by Israel in the face of all threats. That is a commitment that both John McCain and I share, because support for Israel in this country goes beyond party. . . .
go read the whole thing - embedded links, of course. My point is simply that it has become so clear that it does not matter what the majority of people want or value anywhere..and NO candidate will stand up to it .. a few..well - maybe one, lol and it's not a dem or repub .. that's for sure .. they stand together..!
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/07/20/israel/
Women's History Month: The 19th Amendment
Tomorrow, women in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont go to the polls, as they have since just 1920--just 88 years ago--and the story of how they got there is a harrowing tale of fighters like Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, as well as a different kind of 50-state strategy, mass arrests, maggot infested force-feedings, rose wars, and so much more.
The final push for elective franchise for women is one of the most riveting tales in American history. As Harriot Stanton Blatch said after the Amendment was ratified:
All honor to women, the first disenfranchised class in history who unaided by any political party, won enfranchisement by its own effort alone, and achieved the victory without the shedding of a drop of human blood.
A different kind of 50 State Strategy
For the first 15 years of the 20th century, female suffragists had been working on a 50-state strategy. The idea of this strategy was to campaign for suffrage using new Western states, many of which granted women the right to vote in state elections, as examples to build a consensus, state by state, to allow women to vote. Once all fifty states allowed women to vote, surely the national government would have to concede the national vote as well. Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, as well as their allies and cohorts, thought that plan would take too long, and the only way to effectively accomplish the rest of the goals of the women's movement was to achieve full, national, and immediate suffrage rights for women.
Radicalized in England under the influence of Emmeline Pankhurst, Alice Paul returned to the United States in 1910 to join the fight for women's equality. Six years later, frustrated by American Suffragists 50-state strategy, Paul, with her friend Lucy Burns, formed the National Women's Party. There they began to employ some of the more radical tactics they had learned in England. They staged parades, mass meetings, and hunger watches, among other, sometimes even criminal, undertakings. The parades are what most people remember, and the image that made its way into the history books.
http://www.alicepaul.org/alicep2.htm#militant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmeline_Pankhurst
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Paul
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Burns
Silent Sentinels
At the same time, Paul and her allies began to heavily criticize Woodrow Wilson and the Democratic party for paying lip service to an Amendment he and they would not take up. The following year, shortly after Wilson was sworn in, Paul began to stage protests outside the White House. The participants called themselves "Silent Sentinels for Liberty" and held up signs demanding the vote for women. They protested every day, except Sunday, for more than two years, even after Wilson voiced support for the amendment.
Silent Sentinels for Liberty at the White House
That same year, the United States joined the fight in World War I. Once war was declared, public physical attacks on the Sentinels began to occur. The women refused to relent against the argument that we were at war, and should wait some more. A series of arrests ensued over the next few months, and each time women chose jail time over paying fines. Alice Paul was arrested in October of 1917, and sentenced to seven months for obstructing sidewalk traffic. She, along with many other Silent Sentinels, were sent to Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia. There Paul began the hunger strike that nearly cost her her life, but which ultimately helped give us the right to vote.
Alarmed at the state of her health, prison officials began to force feed Paul and several other Sentinels who were striking. Sometimes they used a tube to force liquid into their stomachs. Sometimes they forced maggot infested oatmeal or soup into their mouths, then held them closed. This was all while they were strapped down. My eyes well up with tears even writing about it. But what happened next makes Blatch's quote at the top of this diary partially untrue. Blood did indeed spill.
Night of Terror
On November 15, 1917, the Warden of Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered 40 of his guards on what is now known as the Night of Terror.
The women were innocent and defenseless. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and with their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of "obstructing sidewalk traffic." They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.
Why Women Vote
http://www.fwhc.org/why-women-vote.htm
The details of the Night of Terror were the last straw. Public outrage and opposition had been building as news leaked that there were hunger strikes and forced feedings, but everything boiled to a head after the Night of Terror. Everyone from ordinary folks to politicians in Washington began to talk about the women and their plight. Demands issued from many quarters that they be released, which they finally were, on November 27 and 28 of 1917, many after nearly half a year in prison.
In January of 1918, Woodrow Wilson announced his support of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, and Congress voted on it soon thereafter, failing the 2/3 majority test by two votes. American women campaigned vigorously that election year to unseat anti-suffragist incumbents, and were successful. The amendment passed the following year, 1919, by a landslide, and started to make it's way around the country to be ratified.
War of the Roses
By the summer of 1920, 35 states had ratified the 19th Amendment, and 36 were needed for it to become an official part of our founding document. It came down to Tennessee, and a War of Roses during the dog days of summer. Both pro- and anti-suffrage factions from across America made their way to Nashville to duke it out over votes in the Tennessee legislature. Members of the factions and politicians wore yellow roses to show their support for suffrage, and red roses to show their opposition to suffrage.
On August 18th, amidst a sea of red and yellow roses, the roll call for votes went out, and came back 2 votes shy. Another roll call was made, and this time, Rep. Banks Turner crossed the line to the suffrage side. One vote shy. A third, and final roll call was made, and this time, a young man by the name of Harry Burn, wearing a red rose, crossed over to the suffragists side. Pandemonium ensued.
With his "yea," Burn had delivered universal suffrage to all American women. The outraged opponents to the bill began chasing Representative Burn around the room. In order to escape the angry mob, Burn climbed out one of the third-floor windows of the Capitol. Making his way along a ledge, he was able to save himself by hiding in the Capitol attic.
When he was later questioned as to why he had voted for it, despite wearing a red rose, he explained that what people saw was the red rose on his jacket, but they didn't see that in the pocket behind it was a telegraph from his mother in East Tennessee. It read:
"Dear Son: Hurrah, and vote for suffrage! Don't keep them in doubt. I noticed some of the speeches against. They were bitter. I have been watching to see how you stood, but have not noticed anything yet. Don't forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt [Carrie Chapman Catt] put the 'rat' in ratification. Signed, ~ Your Mother." Febb Ensminger Burn.
"The young women of today--free to study, to speak, to write, to choose their occupation --should remember that every inch of this freedom was bought for them at a great price... the debt that each generation owes to the past, it must pay to the future."
~ Abigail Scott Dunaway
Alice Paul 1901
http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/3/3/225222/3769
writing in the raw: the velveteen rabbit
"What is a LEADER?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"A LEADER isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. It's realizing that every experience develops some latent force within you. You begin to understand that vision is the art of seeing the invisible so that when you want to build a wagon, you don't gather the other toys to collect wood or assign them tasks, but rather you teach them to long for ways to traverse the endless immensity of the backyard. Then you become a LEADER."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are a LEADER you don't mind being hurt. Leaders don't inflict pain. They bear pain."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. And while talent will get most of the attention, it is... a gift. Good character, by contrast, is not given to us. We have to build it piece by piece... by thought, choice, courage, and determination. Generally, by the time you are a LEADER, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.
"But these things don't matter at all, because once you are LEADER, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious ... these will be things you think about."
"I suppose you are real LEADER?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.
"The Boy's Uncle taught me that real LEADERS never, for the sake of peace and quiet, deny their own experience or convictions," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are a Real LEADER you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always. Because you know that everything can be taken from you but one thing: the last freedom... to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic happened to him. He longed to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him. It would take him time to learn how many cares disappear when you decide not to be something, but to be someone.
______________________________________________________________________________________
hoping that Margery Williams wouldn't mind my re-telling of her most excellent story (and one of my favorites), The Velveteen Rabbit. The wonderful illustration is by William Nicholson.
Further, I hope those below don't mind my fitting their quotes into this story...
1 John R. Miller
2 Jonathan Swift
3 Antoine de Saint-Exupery
4 Max DePree
5 John Luther
6 Philippians 4:8
7 Dag Hammarskjold
8 Victor Frankl
9 Coco Chanel
____________________________________________________________________________________
"Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world's ills -- against misery, against ignorance, or injustice and violence. Yet many of the world's great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant reformation, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the territory of France. It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and 32 year old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal. 'Give me a place to stand,' said Archimedes, 'and I will move the world.' These men (and women) moved the world, and so can we all."
Robert F. Kennedy
http://www.docudharma.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=2284&view=print
.. do we know yet ??? ..
Davos 08: The shifting global balance
How will the world's new axis of power - Beijing, Washington and Brussels - shape future global policy?
DAVOS, Switzerland — The outlook for the global economy this year is decidedly dour, but leading economists at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland had mixed views Wednesday about the possibility of a global recession.
Economists from Asia and the United States and government ministers from India and China said the U.S. economy was on a downward course.
“If there is a tremendous slowdown in the U.S. economy, then we must be worried about it,” said Yu Yongding, director of the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, as concern grew over market turmoil and a possible U.S. recession.
He said China's growth could help it weather any slowdown as the nation expands trade with countries outside the United States.
Stephen Roach, chairman of investment bank Morgan Stanley in Asia, said there would be ramifications for world markets should the globe's largest economy falter.
Asked by a Mexican businessman if his country would be spared if the U.S. goes into recession, Mr. Roach was blunt.
“My good friend from Mexico, you're in trouble,” Mr. Roach said. “Mexican exports to the U.S. account for 25 per cent of your GDP. Same number for Canada. How can the U.S. go into recession and Mexico be fine?”
Nouriel Roubini, chairman of New York-based Roubini Global Economics, cited the maxim that if the U.S. economy sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold, but said this time the diagnosis in the U.S. was worse.
“In this case the U.S. is going to have a protracted case of pneumonia,” he said.
The impact of the sluggish U.S. economy, and what it may portend for other nations, hung over the event, even after the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank cut its benchmark refinancing rate to 3.5 per cent from 4.25 per cent in response to the latest worldwide market downturn.
Economists also split over the role of central banks and whether institutions like the Fed were equipped to steer the global economy out of danger.
John Snow, the former U.S. Treasury secretary, said central banks have performed remarkably over the last two decades — better than any time in history, perhaps — and continue to make the necessary adjustments.
“The issue of whether central banks are capable of vigorous action, bold action, was answered yesterday,” Mr. Snow said, referring to the Fed's interest rate cuts. “They can't see the world ahead perfectly, but who can?”
But Joseph Stiglitz, the 2001 Nobel Prize winner for economics and a critic of free market champions, and billionaire philanthropist George Soros, disagreed.
“What we have now are the foreseeable consequences of bad economic management,” Mr. Stiglitz said.
Lawrence Summers, former Harvard University president and Treasury secretary under U.S. President Bill Clinton, said central banks have lost their way.
“I think it's hard to give central banks a very high grade over the last couple of years on recognition of ... bubbles and the ability to address them,” he said. “I think it's hard to give a high grade over the last 6 months when the bubbles have been bursting and (the banks) have been behind the grade.”
The Forum, now in its 38th year, will touch on other issues affecting the world including terrorism, a workable peace process in the Middle East and how technology is ushering in a new age of social networking without borders.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Afghan President Hamid Karzai were scheduled to address the opening reception later Wednesday.
Ms. Rice is also expected to meet with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and Mr. Karzai in closed-door sessions.
Her meeting with Mr. Musharraf will be the first since the assassination in December of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, an event that pushed the nuclear-armed Pakistan into near chaos.
In a nod to concern about climate change, Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is to speak. Al Gore, who shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the panel, is also participating in the five-day meeting.
A year ago, Davos attendees foresaw a strong economy. The credit crisis brought on by massive exposure to subprime mortgage securities has changed that.
“It's not about a soft landing or a hard landing,” Mr. Roubini said, but “rather how hard a landing it will be.”
“We're seeing a financial system that is under severe stress,” Mr. Roubini said. “The Fed cannot prevent this recession from occurring.”
Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the Geneva-based forum, said the meeting's “unique combination of the world's top business and political leaders, together with the heads of the world's most important NGOs, and religious, cultural and media leaders allows us to approach the problems that face the world in a systematic way and with an eye to tackling the major issues that face us all.”
The meeting itself will feature participants from 88 countries, including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Microsoft Corp. co-founder and chairman Bill Gates.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080123.wecondavos0123/BNStory/SpecialEvents2
more.. college kids are so smart ..
another one ..
Some more great college stuff .. ! ..;)
University College, Falmouth, in Britain
Munich’s Malibu
Steffen Dittrich is a short, happy guy with bad teeth and thinning red hair. On the rolling wave, he looks a bit like a madman—coarse, short beard, bulging eyes—but he has grace as well as aggression. He kicks and carves, bashes the churning water, pulls a 360, slides a bit, carves, and cuts back again. He stays up for five minutes, trimming back and forth in place—longer than any surfer that day. Then he falls, and the current carries him downstream in the Eisbach, a canal that flows through Munich’s English Garden.
also see Slideshow: Surfing in Munich
Images of the city's surf scene, narrated by the author
http://www.theatlantic.com/slideshows/munich-surfing/
The Eisbach, or “Ice Creek,” a tributary of the Isar River, starts where two underground canals in Munich meet and emerge under the 19th-century Prinzregentenstrasse bridge, next to the city’s modern-art museum. In the 1970s, civic engineers laid three rows of concrete blocks along the canal bottom to weaken the flow of water surging up from underground. The shape of the bottom— along with wooden boards wedged into the canal by local surfers—creates a fast but surfable standing wave that has become the most popular “river-surfing” spot in Europe.
“German surfing” might sound about as plausible as “Nebraskan seafood,” but the sport has been thriving here for years. The first native to surf a German swell is said to have been Uwe Drath, a lifeguard on Sylt, in 1952. Sylt has been a chic island resort since the turn of the century—a kind of North Sea Martha’s Vineyard—but in the postwar years it was still relatively undeveloped; the island’s first “surf club,” founded in the 1960s, held meetings in a converted cattle stall. Good waves break on Sylt only in the autumn, though; during high summer, the sea is generally flat. So the discovery of a year-round wave in Munich has created an enclave of borrowed California culture in the heart of Bavaria. Another canal in the city has a rideable wave as well, and is home to an annual competition that draws surfers from across the country, if not the world.
I grew up in California but live in Berlin, so it was partly homesickness, partly curiosity, that brought me to Munich for the Surf Open last July. Before the contest, I had a look at the Eisbach wave, which is faster, more dangerous, and more famous than its rival across town. I rented a comfortable but uncool Dutch-style bike and pedaled with my board to the English Garden. The river boiled up from under two stone bridge arches, and spectators lined the bridge and the banks of the canal. Willows and chestnuts hung over the water. From the bank, I could hear the thrilling rush of white water and catch whiffs of neoprene wet suits and surf wax—smells that would have reminded me of home if they hadn’t been mixed, incongruously, with cool riverine air instead of salt.
The Eisbach is about 50 feet wide, too narrow for more than one person at a time to ride the rough, waist-high wave. Surfers wait their turn in lines along each bank. In the water, they face the bridge and surf in place on the curl of the wave. It isn’t easy. When my turn came, I positioned my board on the churning crest with my feet and pushed off. But I wasn’t used to the perpetual-motion wave. Instead of building speed and running forward along a swell of moving water, as in the ocean—where I would have all the wave’s energy at my back—I had to balance and steer into a powerful oncoming current. The idea was not to move forward but to resist going backward, ideally while performing lots of fancy tricks. I was like a bird in a wind tunnel. I fell several times, nearly cracking my head on the underwater concrete and floating down to a meadow where sunbathing women giggled each time I climbed out with my board.
The first surfers in Munich started cautiously, using ropes tied to bridges or trees to help them keep their balance. This was in the 1970s, and river surfing was illegal and could bring heavy fines. Dittrich spent the summer of 1983 in the English Garden as a student surf bum, living in his VW bus. Whenever the cops came, he says, “I just let go of my rope and floated away. The canal down there splits three ways, so it was hard for them to find you.”
Surfing in the canals is still technically against the law. Many surfers have suffered dislocated shoulders or broken bones from hitting the concrete blocks. Still, the number of outlaw surfers in Munich swelled throughout the 1980s and 1990s—there are now 300 or 400—and the police eventually gave up. They even tolerate the annual competition, which began in 2001.
The Munich Surf Open is held at the Flosslände—a pair of canals beside the Isar, some five miles south of the Eisbach wave. I pedaled there on my bike too, following the wide basin of the river, which bends through the city between high, fortresslike stone banks. Munich sprang up around the Isar during the Middle Ages, when the local fords and bridges made the area an important center of commerce. The current bridges are immodest structures encrusted with statues and named after Bavarian electors and princes: Luitpoldbrücke, Maximiliansbrücke, Ludwigsbrücke. People stared as I rode past the bridges on my clunky bike, with my surfboard under one arm.
The Flosslände wave forms under an arching modern bridge at the bottleneck of a broad canal. The water flows languidly between lush trees until it reaches a narrow, sloping race of concrete under the bridge, and then it rears up—because of a sudden change in the shape of the concrete, and more jammed-in wooden boards—into a roughly two-foot-high curl. City authorities use sluices here to regulate the volume of water to a power station downstream, and the size and speed of the wave change with the strength of the flow.
On the day of the contest last summer, the wave was large—about three feet high—and fairly fast. I got there in the morning, before the competition, when non-contestants could take turns in the water. The wave wasn’t as rough as the Eisbach’s, and it was easier to surf; I kept my balance for a couple of minutes. But it was strange: the smooth, glassy, insistent green current flowed under my board like a treadmill.
Flosslände means “raft landing,” and the Bavarians used to float cargo down the canals on log rafts. These days replicas of the rafts—operated by tourist companies and carrying bratwurst grills, beer kegs, and oompah bands—drift down the canals. Every so often one plunged through the wave like a lumbering version of the log ride at Disneyland. The surfers made way, reluctantly.
The contest started under a high, hot sun. People sunbathed on towels or barbecued in a nearby meadow. Several hundred spectators—shirtless men in sunglasses, women in bikinis—looked on as the competitors, some 50 in all, took turns trying to impress a panel of judges. Points were awarded for tricks—360s, off-the-lips, little hopping aerials—as well as style. A Humvee next to the judges’ tent blasted music (reggae, the Red Hot Chili Peppers), and a TV broadcaster from Eurosport kept up a running commentary. Banners for the sporting companies Quiksilver and Völkl festooned the banks.
Europe has always had a love-hate relationship with America, and the paradox of the surf scene here is that it’s a grassroots movement of the Volk, against German officialdom, to make room for something decidedly un-German— a Polynesian sport in an American pop-culture mode. This doesn’t mean the surfers want to be American. One German surfer told me the Flosslände crowds were fine during the contest, but obnoxious during Oktoberfest, when their numbers swell with foreigners. “All these Americans and Australians stay in the campground over there,” she said, pointing beyond the bridge. “Then they see the wave and want to try it out.”
Still, for a few hours the scene looked to me like a bunch of Germans trying to pretend they were in Hawaii or California; except for the landlocked heat and the freshwater smells, the Munich Surf Open seemed no different from a small-surf competition in Malibu or Huntington Beach. But then a massive raft loaded with drunken Germans and a band playing “Volare” on French horns and accordions came splashing through the wave. Minutes later I found a young surfer on the bank with a soaked beer pretzel in one hand and a sodden hunk of schnitzel in the other.
“The good thing is that you can always get something to eat from the rafts,” he said.
I blinked. “Did you really swim out there and cop that schnitzel?”
“Of course,” he said, shrugging. And it was hard to deny that the Bavarians were onto something new.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200801/munich-surfing
Young and Muslim and not who you think I am.
By Isra Bhatty, University of Chicago
This piece was originally published in Diskord, a Campus Progress sponsored publication.
suppose I look a bit threatening to the conservative eye, which more often than not considers the uncommon as a threat to the prevailing social order. In my oversize football jerseys, eight-year-old cargo pants, and tie-dyed hijaab, I look pretty original – like a misplaced Pakistani girl whose ordinarily white shawl got lost somewhere in the sixties, whose body got stuck in the wardrobe of an impressionable white suburban teen, and whose identity is neither Pakistani nor American, but, instead, a mix of black, white, and brown. I am just some as of yet unidentified type of Muslim. But a Muslim, and a rather obvious one, nonetheless.
My parents immigrated to America in 1983, the year of my birth. Although I wasn’t born here, this is the only country I’ve called my home. That is not to say that I’ve always felt at home here, though, because I haven’t. I don’t feel at home when I’m told to be more Pakistani, and I certainly don’t feel at home when I’m told to be more American. I remember the kids who decided to call my house the day after 9/11 to cuss out my mother and tell us to go back “home.” I suppose they were implying that we’re not American enough for their nation. Perhaps they thought, as many do, that there is an inherent conflict in being both Muslim and American. I haven’t yet found one. I don’t really know how to prove “Americanness.” But I think a lot of Muslims tried to prove just that during the post-9/11 “backlash” by plastering American flags all over their property. My dad made sure to stick a flag in our yard, one on each door, and two on the car. Just in case.
In my opinion, trying to prove a cultural identity is near impossible, especially to people who already think that they know what a Muslim is supposed to look like, or dress like, or talk like. I have never tried to prove that I am American. I just assume that my American social surroundings have been responsible for forming parts of me, the parts that are seen as foreign or “Amrikan” to my fellow immigrants such as my taste for hip-hop and oversize jerseys. That’s not very Pakistani, and to some, it’s not very Muslim either. But as I see it, anyone who believes as such fails to realize that it is impossible to be raised as an un-American, or non-American, in America. I am annoyed when cultural behaviors are confused with an already misconstrued and misunderstood religion, and I’ve made some feeble attempts on various occasions to clarify the tenuous connection. By now, I’m accustomed to conservatives making statements that constantly conflate religion and culture. I’ve almost given up trying to argue with them; it is an exercise in frustration. As I’ve said, the uncommon is threatening.
Well-meaning liberals are the ones that really get to me, however, probably because I’ve set my expectations too high for them. At a women’s history conference a month ago, a speaker referred to Islam’s oppression of women. My initial reaction was one of embarrassment, but that quickly turned into agitation, and I made it a point to announce publicly the fact that she was confusing cultural and political representations of “Islam” for the religion itself. I think I also gave a word of caution about treating religion as a monolithic force, but I limited myself. I know I could’ve gone on ranting, maybe making allusions to the likes of Samuel Huntington and Edward Said and Levi-Strauss so that my educated audience wouldn’t think I was some oppressed little Muslim village girl talking out of the side of her neck. At the time, I wish I had had a Venn diagram with me to make it easier for them to distinguish what is the religion of Islam and what is the cultural or political influences of a particular region. The oh-so-oppressive face-veil: not religion. A lack of women’s rights: not religion. Economic stagnation: not religion. Political corruption: not religion. Terrorism: not religion. Sigh.
Of course, there are certain manifestations of “Islam” that are genuinely religious. My tie-dyed hijaab is religious. I have had many a liberal try to convince me of the oppressiveness of my hijaab. The way I see it, wearing the hijaab is liberating. I want people to look at me and see a woman who doesn’t conform to popular culture, who’d much rather be judged on her voice and her mind than on her body, and who prefers an outward expression of the religious legacy and commitment to justice that she holds at the center of her life. Many of those who assert the hijaab-is-oppressive argument fail to recognize that Islamic guidelines for dress are not just for women, and often confuse cultural or political “limitations” experienced by Muslim women living under certain regimes’ Islamic mandates. In the end, I place dress as secondary to more important manifestations of the freedom of expression. And hijaab has never held me back from pursuing goals that I feel are truly important.
Then there’s that issue of gender segregation in the mosque, also religious. I’ll be blunt: when I’m praying, I really don’t want to be distracted, and frankly, men can be distracting. Of course, it’s important to recognize that general prayer is not limited to a mosque setting, or even confined to a specific format. In that sense, gender segregation in prayer is not as pervasive as many assert. Furthermore, selecting a very limited illustration of a religion and then asserting that this one is representative of the whole is also playing into the cultural/religious stereotyping. Just like hijaabs differ across cultures and regions, so do the specific languages and manners of prayer. And respecting differences, cultural and otherwise, is a foremost tenet of Islam. My own cultural mutt-ness has been with me for many years now. In a way, I’ve turned to Islam as a refuge from the maddening pressure to fit into a cultural category. I’m satisfied with my singular identity as a Muslim, and I don’t care to submit to any culture. Regardless of whose name I rep on the back of my sports jersey, or the brand etched into the pocket of my pants, I guess my tie-dyed hijaab says it best: I only really rep Islam.
Illustration: Matt Bors
http://www.campusprogress.org/features/292/reppin-islam
.. everyone must have someone to look down on .. right?
Which one?
Hillary R. Bush? Or George W. Obama?
by: Edger
http://www.docudharma.com/
Preemptive Nukes for NATO
According to the Guardian five former armed forces chiefs from the US, Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands — including Gen. John Shalikashvili, a former NATO commander — have authored a manifesto insisting that a preemptive nuclear strike should be a key NATO option:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/nato/story/0,,2244782,00.html
A “first strike” nuclear option remains an “indispensable instrument” since there is “simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world.”
In other words, the West needs to be able to preemptively nuke any country it deems a threat in order to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons!? Don’t worry, however, the manifesto’s authors reassure us that nuclear fighting would be “limited in scope.”
But it gets better…. Apparently renewed emphasis on the preemptive use of nuclear weapons will also revive NATO:
“Nato is at a juncture and runs the risk of failure….”
HUH!? As ArmsControlWonk Andy Grotto asks, “How could a renewed emphasis on the preemptive use of nuclear weapons possibly promote NATO unity?! The authors apparently missed the Schultz-Perry-Kissinger-Nunn op-eds in the WSJ endorsing the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons and less reliance on them in the meantime.”
http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1774/a-new-preemptive-nuclear-posture-for-nato
http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=2252&issue_id=54
UPDATE: Chris Floyd, whose writing I admire, offers more insightful analysis here:
http://www.chris-floyd.com/Articles/Articles/The_New_New_World_Order%3A_A_First-Strike_NATO_%DCber_Alles/
What are the dangers to “the West’s values and way of life” that the war chiefs want to aim nuclear missiles at?
Well, “political fanaticism and religious fundamentalism,” for a start. (Reckon NATO will nuke the next GOP presidential debate?) The “dark side of globalization” is another; this apparently covers organized crime, terrorism and proliferation of WMD. Then there’s “climate change and energy security,” which will entail “a contest for resources and potential ‘environmental’ migration on a mass scale,” as the Guardian puts it. Another danger worth nuking over is “the weakening of the nation-state, as well as of organizations such as the UN, Nato and the EU.”
http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/01/22/preemptive-nukes-for-nato/#more-1381
Choice: 10 Reasons to Support Reproductive Justice on Roe Day
35 years after Roe v. Wade solidified American womens’ right to abortion, reproductive rights remain in limbo. And while abortion rights are crucial to women’s health and autonomy, they are hardly the end-all be-all to reproductive justice — even if the constant attacks on those rights (and on the people who provide women with them) have forced the pro-choice movement to remain on the defensive about abortion in particular.
Roe at 35 is in bad shape. But there are plenty of forward-looking, positive steps to be taken. It’s worth raising a glass to Roe today — but even more importantly, it’s time to get out and fight. Here are a few reasons why:
10. Abortion is already inaccessible and out of reach for many women.
Eighty-seven percent of U.S. counties do not have an abortion provider. Parental consent laws, 24-hour waiting periods, and other anti-choice roadblocks make abortion difficult or impossible for many women — young women and low-income women in particular. The Hyde Amendment blocks federal Medicaid money from paying for abortion, meaning that low-income women have their medical care determined by anti-choice bureaucrats instead of doctors. When women have to spend weeks trying to legally bypass parental consent laws, or when they have to take time off work, save up money for the procedure, find someone to take care of their children, figure out transportation, and drive miles and miles to the closest clinic only to be told to “go home and think about it and come back tomorrow,” the procedure gets pushed back — and later-term abortions are more difficult and more expensive. An abortion at 24 weeks (a procedure already impossible to get in most states) can cost as much as $10,000. Groups like the National Abortion Network of Abortion Funds and the Haven Coalition attempt to offset the costs of abortion and the related expenses, but their budgets and abilities are limited, particularly in contrast to the financial and political strength of the anti-choice movement. In the meantime, Roe remains an unfulfilled promise for many American women.
9. If abortion is illegal, then women and doctors will be criminals.
Anti-choicers dislike answering the sticky question of how much time in jail women who have abortions should serve. But as it stands, a lot of anti-abortion legislation is not premised on outlawing abortion, but rather attempts to establish that life begins when an egg is fertilized. Much of that legislation expresses the idea that a zygote and a fetus are people deserving a full range of legal rights. In such a “pro-life” world, women who have abortions are murderers, and doctors contract killers. Women are already going to jail for “murder” because they used drugs while pregnant; it’s hardly a stretch to argue that women could face jail time for terminating pregnancies, especially if anti-choicers really believe — as they claim — that fetuses are people invested with full rights. As it stands, about one in three American women will have an abortion at some time in her life. Those are a whole lot women to turn into criminals.
8. Anti-choicers care about controlling your sex life, not saving babies.
For all their talk about valuing babies and life, anti-choicers have demonstrated time and again that they could actually care less. They’re more interested in punishing women for sex and in maintaining a male-dominated family model. And they’re only “pro-life” up until the moment of birth — then you’re on your own. Anti-choice politicians opposed extending health care to low-income kids; they routinely vote against Head Start and early childhood education programs; they abhor welfare programs that give aid to single parents and low-income families; and they are at the forefront of opposition to state childcare aid. It’s no surprise that 100% of the worst legislators for children are “pro-life,” and many of the most “pro-life” states are the worst for children and for women. While children are hardly their first priority, anti-choicers are extremely concerned about what you do with your private parts. They are the architects of “abstinence-only” sex education that flat-out lies and misleads students in order to promote conservative values of female submission, homophobia and general ignorance. Many of them opposed a vaccine that could save thousands of women from cancer — because the vaccine prevented cervical cancer and had to be given before the onset of sexual activity, meaning that anti-sex nuts had one less tool in their slut-punishing arsenal.
7. They’re going after your birth control, too.
Pro-lifers care about lowering the abortion rate, right? Wrong. They oppose contraception, too — and though they’re quiet about it now, you can bet that it’s next on the list of things that have to go in a “pro-life” nation. In fact, none of the major pro-life organizations support contraception access, despite the fact that accessible and affordable contraception is the most effective way to decrease the abortion rate.
6. Illegal abortion kills women.
There are no two ways about this one — when abortion is illegal, women are killed and maimed. Some 80,000 women die as a result of illegal abortion every year; hundreds of thousands more are injured. Women around the world suffer when pro-life laws rule the land. And “pro-lifers” could care less. Illegal abortion is the cause of 25% of all maternal deaths in Latin America, 12% in Asia, and 13% in sub-Saharan Africa. Women’s lives, apparently, aren’t covered by that whole “pro-life” thing.
5. Legal abortion is good for women, men and families.
Post-Roe, American women have made phenomenal gains in nearly all areas of life, and American families have benefited. Women go to college at the same rates as men. We can define ourselves as something other than mothers, or as mothers and something else. Poverty has been cut in half since Roe gave women the right to control their own reproduction. Men can be nurturing too, and are expected to take part in raising their children. Families can be planned. Men have greater choices in their occupations since they aren’t required to be the sole bread-winner. More people have access to education. Women have more power to escape abusive relationships or bad jobs. Parents of both sexes spend more time with their kids than ever before. Overall, reproductive rights have been tremendously beneficial to all Americans — except for those who want women to be second-class citizens.
4. Poor women and women of color are disproportionately impacted by anti-choice policies.
When anti-choicers chip away at abortion rights, they take down the easy targets first — and since poor women and women of color have relatively little political power, they suffer the brunt of anti-choice ideology. Abortion is made much more expensive by the myriad restrictions placed on it, and low-income women bear the burden of navigating through the costs and impediments of accessing basic health care. Women of color not only face restricted abortion access, but are then blamed for “genocide.” And women in the global south face the deadly consequences of the global gag rule, which not only impacts their reproductive health care but silences them as social and political actors.
3. Choice isn’t just about not giving birth — it’s about your right to have children.
The anti-choice movement isn’t just against abortion and birth control; many anti-choicers also oppose in-vitro fertilization and other fertility treatments. They also draw convenient lines about who is fit for motherhood, bemoaning the lack of white babies up for adoption while supporting organizations and practices that strip women of color of their right to reproduce. Reproductive freedom is about the ability to determine for yourself when and if you have children; the anti-choice movement is about the exact opposite. Anti-choice governments don’t just limit abortion rights — as China’s one-child policy aptly demonstrates, they also limit the right to choose to have children.
2. Anti-choicers are also going after the rights of women around the world.
Not content to stick it to American women, anti-choicers have taken their crusade abroad with policies like the global gag rule. The United States’ policy of denying reproductive health funding to any organization that so much as mentions abortion — by petitioning their own government for reproductive rights, performing abortions with their own non-U.S. money, referring women to abortion providers, or even telling women that abortion is an option — contributes to “shockingly high death and disability rates in developing countries.” Reproductive health care clinics usually provide a variety of services, and when the U.S. cuts off funding because of abortion advocacy, they also cut off funding to pre-natal care, HIV/AIDS services, well-baby care, STD prevention, and sexual health education. The majority of births world-wide already take place outside of hospitals, and a third of women receive no pre-natal care. In places like Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia, experts estimate that up to up to 50 percent of maternal mortalities result from unsafe, illegal abortions. In sub-Saharan Africa, 920 women die for every 100,000 live births. The number for Europe, on the other hand, is 24. Contraception access, safe abortion, sexual health education and generalized health care could save many of these women. It is estimated that giving contraception alone to all the women who want it could prevent 22 million abortions, 23 million unplanned births, and 1.4 million infant deaths. Instead of increasing access to health care, anti-choice groups are at the forefront of denying it. And they have lots of blood on their hands in the name of “life.”
1. Reproductive justice is about you.
It’s about your rights and your family and your body. All of us make reproductive choices — to have kids or not, to use birth control or not, to have sex or not, to continue a pregnancy or not. Reproductive health care impacts all of our lives. In a pro-choice country, children are wanted and cared for, pregnancy is voluntary and families are healthy. Women and men have a full range of rights, and the liberty to act as individuals instead of squeezing themselves into narrow gender roles. Sex is both a pleasure and a responsibility, not a guilt-ridden exercise intended only for reproduction in the context of a male-headed heterosexual marriage. One’s character and morality are squarely centered in their heart and their head, not between their legs. Health care is available for everyone who needs it, without judgment or impediment. And lives are actually valued — even mine and even yours.
That’s what a pro-choice nation looks like. And despite the odds and the opposition, I’m maintaining hope that most Americans do value healthy families, gender equality and human rights — and that if we keep working towards those goals, it won’t take another 35 years to get there.
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2008/01/22/blogging-for-choice-10-reasons-to-support-reproductive-justice-on-roe-day/
Fascism. That's how it is, that's what we got, whether Bush and his thugs admit it or not. You can read it in the paper, read it on the wall, hear it on the wind if you're listening at all . . .
yeah - go Rusty1776 , his/her entire post says it all
http://www.docudharma.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3793
A candle of peace for Anne Frank
remember her ?
well, I read her diary - for what it is worth .
just more - good writers
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As this lethal ideology took the lives of 50 million people only three generations ago, amidst the horror of Axis fascism, global war and genocide, a young girl faithfully confided her hopes for the future and expressed her idealism in a diary. Anne Frank didn't know her words would be read by millions of people, but they have been and will be for as long as human civilization exists. The most brutal and inhuman regime ever to darken the pages of history killed her in Bergen-Belsen, but it could not silence her.
I am not the 'person' here - but - I am going
to give credit to those
who are unknown great writers of our time , who are
not yet published and , of course to those that all
ready are.
I will always be striving for more .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kczfqks1LLw
I have authored this board to feature people, just like
you and me - and other prominent writers from newspapers
throughout the world . Let me make this clear - I am not
here to defend or offend . There are tons of boards on our
beloved Ihub where we do this . This is not one of them .
Frankly, it is MY BOARD . Other thoughts or opinions
will not be welcomed .
