By Rowan Wolf of Uncommon Thought Journal and CJO’s Avenger 212.
Pakistan remains in a state of emergency. The emergency declared by Musharraf on November 3, 2007 in response to terrorism - purportedly. However it seems more like a full out effort to retain power.
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By: Rowan Wolf
The current protests in Burma are attributed to a 500% increase in fuel prices which crippled an already struggling population’s ability to survive (BBC). The people of Burma have been descending into deeper and deeper poverty over the last decade. According to Jonathan Head, author of the BBC article, the people of Burma spend an average of 70% of their income on food. The dramatic increase in fuel prices on August 15, 2007 was too much to bear.
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By Rowan Wolf
Many people have been saying that the invasion (and occupation) of Iraq is about oil. I believe that there is more than oil involved, but certainly oil was a driving motivator. Now we can add Alan Greenspan to the list of those who reinforce that claim. Greenspan writes in his new book The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World:
‘I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.’
By: Rowan Wolf of Uncommon Thought Journal and Cyrano’s Journal Online
They stand in icy water; in crowded conditions; wet to the skin for 18 hour shifts. They work for one of the largest food processors in the world. They are paid below legal wage, and not paid overtime. Now, 167 of them sit in ICE custody after a raid on the North Portland (Oregon) plant at which they were employed. Some had ICE agents show up at their homes and take them into custody.
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“So why are we waging war on the poor and oppressed?”
By Jason Miller
“I will not tire of declaring that if we really want an effective end to violence we must remove the violence that lies at the root of all violence: structural violence, social injustice, exclusion of citizens from the management of the country, repression. All this is what constitutes the primal cause, from which the rest flows naturally.”
—Archbishop Oscar Romero (1917-1980)
Contrary to the perpetual barrage of bovine fecal matter spewed forth by our beloved corporate media whores, terrorism is not an imminent threat to the continued existence of moral, peaceful human beings. Certainly there are groups and individuals who kill innocents in pursuit of demented agendas. However, by and large, those labeled “terrorists” by the Bush administration and their unofficial mouth-pieces at Fox News and similar outlets are people who are simply using “asymmetrical warfare” to resist the ongoing oppression, exploitation and subjugation of an imperialist aggressor.
By Rowan Wolf of Uncommon Thought Journal
Remember the March 2007 raid of Michael Bianco Inc. in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Over 300 Immigration and Customs agents raided the factory and detained 361 undocumented workers. (According to Ali Noorani in a March 9, 2007 article in Boston.com - “US Immigration System at its Worst” - there were 500 homeland security personnel involved in the raid.) The workers were detained and separated from their families - some from young children and infants.
2007-03-15 | Give the author Feedback | Digg This!
Legal Training, Legal Mind
When I was in law school, professors always extolled the virtues of “thinking like a lawyer.” What they meant by that, in the abstract, was that one could argue either side of an issue. As part of a mere academic exercise, designed to prepare one to operate in an adversarial system, supposedly we need people who know the rules of evidence, law, and so forth, who can act as advocates for others without this special (esoteric) legal knowledge. But in a practical and real world sense, the idea of “thinking like a lawyer” is usually about dogma and unthinking – sheer obedience.
A brilliant legal mind is not one of rigor – instead it is one fully trained in double-think. A Double-think is not just some fantasy of Orwell, but a process that occurs everyday within the Kafka-like world of American courts. Like any alter boy who can tell you that God changed his mind about eating meat on Fridays, or the command that priests be celibate, or a Mormon who knows that God has seen the light so NOW those children of Cain (you know, they have that dark skin so they can be more easily identified as children of the first murderer), may enter the temple in Salt Lake – but they still cannot head the church, a good law student, and consequently the best federal judges, tolerate and ignore contradictions that do not serve the master (either the professor, the President or Congress).
Joys and Ills of Dogma
An Open Letter to Ehud Olmert
By T.D. “Daddy” Rice
2/18/07
Ehud Olmert
Office of the Prime Minister
3 Kaplan St.
Hakiyra, Jerusalem 91919
Dear Ehud,
My hearty congratulations to you and your fellow Zionists! You sure know how to contain those infernal camel jockeys infesting your Holy Land. A man can’t help but admire your fierce determination to keep that pack of maggots from maturing into a full blown infestation of flies.
But I have to tell you that despite my reverence for you and your cause, I have concluded that you folks are going about this the wrong way. You’ve infuriated most of the Arab and Islamic world, the UN is constantly assailing you, and untold numbers of liberal (excuse my language) pussies are calling for my great nation to stop funding your good work. By persistently applying those ruthless, heavy-handed tactics to rein in your inferiors, you’re borrowing trouble faster than our spend-happy government can increase its debts with China and Japan. You are in some deep fecal matter, my friend.
by Jason Miller
Pelted by a perpetual hail of electrons fired through a cathode ray tube, the pixels on my PC monitor feed me a generous intellectual bounty of words and images emanating from virtually infinite points dotting the globe. Enabling me to interface with the Internet at will, my computer serves as my window to the world and as a portal through which I can unleash my writings upon the unsuspecting.
Earlier this week as I peered into cyberspace through my ostensibly one-way aperture, I happened upon a picture that my imperialist indoctrination had conditioned me to reflexively dismiss or ignore. However, I’ve grown increasingly resistant to the “charms” of the pathological delusions of American superiority, invulnerability, impunity, and entitlement to decadence. Something about this particular assemblage of glowing pixels left me flailing in a raging river of emotion. As I negotiated the tempestuous feelings surging within me, I made the conscious decision to forgo the American Way of dismissal and distraction. Instead, I connected and contemplated.
Of Incorrigible Transgressors, Tacit Complicity, and Lady Justice’s Conspicuous Absence
By
Jason Miller
“The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.”
—
Henry Kissinger, New York Times, October 28, 1973
Baghdad’s kangaroo court has issued a verdict that virtually guarantees that Saddam Hussein will launch his journey into the hereafter from the platform of a gallows. Convicted of “revenge killings of 148 people, deportation of 400, and razing of orchards,” (1), and still facing a charge of genocide that resulted in the deaths of 180,000 Kurds, Hussein is undoubtedly a malevolent individual.
Yet to ensure public furor against Hussein (and to distract the hoi polloi from focusing upon those guilty of similar crimes), the corporate media have conveniently jettisoned several important aspects of history down the Memory Hole:
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