Archive | August, 2009

A short while ago I dealt with the United States’ plans to impose the absolute superiority of its air force as an instrument of domination on the rest of the world. I mentioned the project that by 2020 they would have more than a thousand latest generation bombers and F-22 and F-35 fighter planes in their fleet of 2500 military aircrafts. In twenty more years, every single one of their war planes will be robot-operated.

[Edited to add: See recommended movie link at bottom of post]

Tariq Ramadan just got purged from not only his position as “integration advisor” to the city of Rotterdam but also his visiting professorship at Erasmus University. — Ed. An Open Letter to My Detractors in the Netherlands Tuesday 18 August 2009 Once again I have come under attack in the Netherlands.  Last May and June, […]

On Saturday, August 15, hundreds of people converged on a U.S. Senator’s Town Hall meeting in Rutland, Vermont, with healthcare reform on their minds.  Despite the fact that Rutland had seen a 200-person-strong “Tea Party” rally less than two months before, and that various right-wing radio stations has been ceaselessly promoting the event for weeks, […]

The Green Mountain state used to be a good place for retired union guys to get away from it all in August.  Now, thanks to “Obamacare” — with its threats to the elderly everywhere — that’s not the case this year. I was sitting on the porch of Richmond’s On The Rise bakery last Thursday, […]

  On 2 August 2009, after cordoning off part of the Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in east Jerusalem, Israeli police evicted two Palestinian families (more than 50 people) from their homes; Jewish settlers immediately moved into the emptied houses.  Although Israeli police cited a ruling by the country’s supreme court, the evicted Arab families […]

Here in America pistols are brandished by upbeat protestors swaggering to the downbeat hustle of what are called “town hall meetings” Their pieces swivel cowboy-style on pink stubby fingers like a blur of chrome hubcaps at a Nascar dragstrip Here, at these “town hall meetings” where the Grand Ole Opry meets the Beltway grim men […]

  Lisa Keller. Triumph of Order: Democracy and Public Space in New York and London.  New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.  xvii + 338 pp.  Illustrations.  $45.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-231-14672-2; (cloth), ISBN 978-0-231-51847-5. How do a city’s parks, squares, and boulevards enable democracy, and how does the local state negotiate the sometimes fine line between free […]

Most Iranian politicians, no matter what faction they belong to, place an inordinate amount of faith in the concept of privatization.  Whatever woes the Iranian economy may suffer from, privatization seems to be the solution.  All four candidates in the June election spoke about the need for privatization of state-owned enterprises, with little difference in […]

Document of the First ALBA Political Council Meeting, Quito, Ecuador, 9 August 2009 1. We reiterate the terms of the ALBA Extraordinary Presidential Council Proclamation, of June 29, 2009, issued in Managua, Nicaragua, in which the Heads of State demand the safe, immediate, and unconditional return, to his constitutional functions, of the legitimate and constitutional […]

President Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s landmark decision to nominate three women for cabinet posts in his second administration bodes well for his post-election promise to usher in a “new era” in Iran. The choice of three females for top ministerial positions will be interpreted by critics as a ploy by Ahmadinejad to compensate for any perceived legitimacy […]

  Since the coup of 28 June 2009, the world has been focusing on Honduras.  We have already seen images from a country that did not have a history of social movements — at least till now.  So, who are these young people?  Who are the people organizing these marches?  By chance, I was able […]

Doris “Dobby” Brin Walker, the first woman president of the National Lawyers Guild, died on August 13 at the age of 90.  Doris was a brilliant lawyer and a tenacious defender of human rights.  The only woman in her University of California Berkeley law school class, Doris defied the odds throughout her life, achieving significant […]

  Shahram Akbarzadeh, Benjamin MacQueen, eds.  Islam and Human Rights in Practice: Perspectives across the Ummah.  London: Routledge, 2008.  x + 176 pp.  $140.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-415-44959-5. Islam and Human Rights in Practice: Perspectives across the Ummah addresses a vexing theoretical issue: can contemporary human rights practically inform normative and political structures in the Muslim […]

Come on, you too, once and for all,
Join the band of lovers and see what happens!
Come on, you too, once and for all,
Join the band of lovers and see what happens!

  For many years, various American governments have called on Israel to stop the expansion of settlements, but Israel has consistently ignored this demand.  The Obama administration has been the most vocal administration so far in articulation of this demand.  Yet unfortunately a number of American individuals and institutions have provided large quantities of material […]

Et la guerre est à peine commencée… “The sleep of our era is not a good sleep that provides rest.  It’s an anxious sleep that leaves you feeling even more worn out, desiring only to go back to sleep again, to escape this irritating reality a little longer.  There is a narcosis that begs for […]

Our trip to New Orleans gave us the opportunity to visit a unique American city and to speak to survivors of one of the country’s worst natural disasters, Hurricane Katrina. We heard some great stories of hope from Muslim New Orleanians who provided food and water to those, like Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a Syrian-American, who heroically saved people using their personal boats. But it was also from Zeitoun that we heard a different kind of Hurricane Katrina story that left me aghast and ashamed.

The Great Recession is allowing some widely held beliefs about the U.S. economy — which were the source of much evangelism over the last few decades — to run up against a reality check.  This is to be expected, since the United States has been the epicenter of the storm of policy blunders that caused […]

  This is not the first time that I stand trial for my beliefs.  But it is the first time that they will probably be able to stop me. I always knew that many people silently supported me, and that if I ever got into trouble they would stand behind me.  This moment has come. […]

Thank you for all that you have done so far to increase U.S. pressure on the coup regime in Honduras.   While the Obama administration’s previous round of targeted sanctions demonstrated great promise in helping to reverse the coup, the administration has since appeared to back down from its position of active support for the […]