Some times you need to repeat things apparently.
For example, our e-mail is thethirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com.
Ruth had an insane e-mail last week.
A man wrote her from an account with one name, signed another and was griping about a post she wrote that noted his bad writing.
He's a bad writer.
A smart writer would have said what post of Ruth's it was. A really smart writer would have provided a link to their own writing to get an extra link.
Because Ruth has no problem printing e-mails at her site. Even ones that insult her don't bother her.
She won't repost racist e-mails, for example.
The man accused her of a number of things but the point to clarify is about comments.
We are one site of a community of sites. The others are:
The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.
The Common Ills was the first site and it allowed comments at the start. Community member Keesha objected to comments. As an African-American woman in 2004, she knew what really went down at 'left' (Democratic) sites.
You were welcome to comment.
As long as you didn't object to, for example, the Gore campaign shutting up Rev. Jesse Jackson who wanted to speak in Florida about the recount issues. Or object to racial comments by Democrats.
In other words, as long as you comment as an African-American who never brings up race, you were welcome at sites like The Daily Kos.
But if you didn't follow that rule, you learned, as Keesha did, that you were the subject of a dog pile.
You learned that as Betty did, as Cedric did . . .
Keesha didn't want to be harassed.
C.I. was new to blogs and was hearing about this for the first time. She e-mailed Keesha back that, should that happen at The Common Ills, comments would immediately be closed.
Two DLC-ers (right-wing Democrats) began haunting the comments and quickly attacked Keesha. That day, comments were forever closed. (In those days, FYI, if you allowed comments at a Blogger/Blogspot site, you could delete them after they went up but there was no procedure that kept them in limbo until you approved them, they just went right up.)
The Common Ills spawned all the other community sites. Cedric actually started his site on Blogdrive. It was the first community site to allow comments.
That was not by intent. Cedric thought he had turned off comments and then, when he learned he hadn't, he felt he'd argue back with the ones who were idiots and/or racists.
That accident set a standard.
Marcia, Stan and Ann would follow suit. When Cedric switched to Blogger/Blogspot, he also allowed comments.
They are African-American and they wanted to take on the nonsense.
They have done so.
Betty and Ty are also Black. This site is Ty's site (and Jim, Dona, Jess, Ava and C.I.'s). Ty and Betty agreed with Keesha's opinion. But Marcia, Stan and Ann started their sites after Barack Obama became the wet dream of many Democrats. Now they're suddenly (supposedly) interested in racial issues. Supposedly, because they didn't just attack African-Americans who didn't follow the script back in the day, they also refused to link to Black bloggers. They'd have a token and consider that enough -- and the token, a man, usually knew the unspoken rules and not to raise the issue of race unless you were attacking Republicans.
Betty's also an expert on the threatening e-mails, the "I hate what you wrote, I will kill you, I will rape you," etc. Those don't happen as much as they used to the women in this community. We don't think that's due to any awareness increasing. Women are still attacked and threatened for what they write. But the women in this community are strong women, they're known for being strong women, they were among the first to write about what women face online.
For example, this is a site that values community writing, group writing.
And we cover TV (because Jim insisted upon it).
The first weekly editions of this site featured group writing on TV. But the e-mails would single out a point or a turn of phrase or a joke and it was always what Ava and C.I. had written. Not what one of them wrote, what they wrote together.
The first edition was Jim in a rush to get things done and thrilled with his own ideas, familiar with Jess and Ty's ideas (because they were roommates), impressed with Dona's ideas because he had a crush on Dona (they're now married), willing to listen to anything from C.I. because Jim had gone to her speech to cover it for the campus paper and begged her to help him and his friends start a website. And Ava? Jim was steam rolling over Dona's roommate Ava because he really didn't know her very well. Her suggestions were different and not part of the group think and were taking things in a different direction when Jim was trying to barrel forward.
The first edition, Ava and C.I. bonded immediately because C.I., who was sitting next to Ava, thought Ava was offering incredible suggestions and noticed that no one was listening to her. (Jess was listening to her.) C.I. not only argued for Ava's suggestions, she also would add to them. The two had a natural flow.
They had similar reference point and agreed on everything -- including that TV wasn't a topic that the site needed to cover. They agreed on that, but they were wrong because TV coverage is always the most read article any week.
So we were reading the e-mails those first few weeks. And we agreed completely. So much so that by the second edition, we were letting Ava and C.I. run with the TV piece and we tried to keep up. Then we realized that we were actually holding them back. So we asked them to write the TV pieces. They agreed but refused a "written by Ava and C.I. credit." The site was group writing, they argued, and they didn't want credit.
But the minute it was just Ava and C.I. writing, the TV pieces reached a new level of popularity. And our family was complimenting us on them -- not just readers. And we would explain, "Thank you, but Ava and C.I. wrote that piece." And with e-mails coming in praising us for those TV pieces, we felt like frauds. At which point, we openly credited Ava and C.I.
The immediate response?
Threatening e-mails.
They'd joked and hit hard and more.
And no one threatened when they thought men and women were writing.
The minute it was known that two women were writing the TV pieces, threatening e-mails arrived over and over. It went on probably for a little less than two years.
Ava and C.I. were not going to be intimidated (and that's when they began avoiding reading the e-mails and instead just getting a report on them from Ty) and that became obvious and, over time, the threats stopped.
Rebecca had to deal with a cyber-stalker, to offer another example. A creepy man who became obsessed with her, began insisting that he was perfect for her and began e-mailing C.I. threatening e-mails when Rebecca wouldn't respond to him. (C.I., Rebecca and Elaine are all friends from college.) It was a scary time for Rebecca as he was attempting to get information on her and track her down.
The comment policy is pretty much set now.
For this site, to be honest, we don't have to patrol comments. It's enough to do our writing and to read the e-mails. Interesting e-mails will be noted here. We use them for roundtables, for example, and for response pieces or commentary.
There's another site that has comments. The Wordpress backup site for The Common Ills (which Rebecca and Cedric now also use as their backup site).
But the comments don't go up automatically. There is a filter in place. They have to be approved before they can go up. Wordpress is supposed to have an auto notification process. But most of the time, there's no e-mail going out. So every three months, C.I., Rebecca or Cedric will go through to see if there are any comments awaiting moderation?
They have allowed critical comments to go up, positive comments to go up, off topic comments to go up.
They're not okaying racist or sexist comments. They're especially not approving men who want to explain feminism to C.I. or Rebecca.
This is part of a comment a blogger left -- one of a series of comments -- that never got out of moderation:
i am a pacifist , a socialist. i simply reported THE FACTS after 25 years of intense study of historical modern feminism , and a year volunteering and living in a woman’s shelter.
name me by name one woman from 1792 to the end of the 1950′s that supported abortion who was a major player in shaping feminism . just one . if you cant name any that what does that say about how you have been educated ?
The blogger, who is still around, has a site like Common Dreams, but on Wordpress, by which we mean he reposts entire articles.
He wrote an attack on feminism article which also attacked pro-choice. He's anti-abortion.
And when he was called out for his idiotic remarks, he took to making more idiotic remarks.
It's really not the responsibility of anyone who writes something to 'prove' anything other than what they wrote. He didn't like what C.I. wrote so he decided -- Mr. Big Stuff -- that he'd give her a test -- one he 'knew' she'd fail. And this would humiliate her.
That was Rebecca's objection. She told C.I. about it and C.I. laughed and said the man was an idiot.
His belief is that, from the 18th century, feminists did not support abortion because they weren't fighting for it, there was no literature on it!!!!
Well feminists of the late 19th century were really concerned with respectability due to the various causes they were fighting for and a discussion of sex issues probably wouldn't have been deemed 'respectable.' So birth control, for example would be avoided.
As for abortion, why would it need advocates in the 18th century?
Does he not the history? In the early months of the pregnancy, it was legal -- both in England and in the US.
In the 1820s, anti-abortion laws begin to appear and, in the 1860s, it's pretty much outlawed in the US.
1792 to 1860 is a rather long period for the male blogger to be unaware of.
Roughly a hundred years later, it would become legal in 20 states and then, in 1973, it became legal via Roe v. Wade (last week at Ms. magazine's blog, Anita Little noted the 41st anniversary of that decision).
Anais Nin supported abortion -- and had one.
But he doesn't like Anais Nin.
He also doesn't understand feminism which is a movement and not a key individual.
He'd reject Nin because he doesn't like her and he never read or heard of her talking about abortion. The notion that Anais Nin -- like many women of that period -- might share with other women but not make something public (something that was then illegal) does not compute for him.
Written statement?
How about feminist Vicki Baum's Nanking Road? In the tradition of Uncle Tom's Cabin, this novel -- also known as Hotel Shanghai and Shanghai -- addresses abortion. Baum was one of the first best selling writers of the modern era who penned multiple best sellers. She was Austrian, so Pig Blogger might dismiss her. However, her 1929 Menschen im Hotel was made into the film Grand Hotel (starring Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Lionel Barrymore, John Barrymore and Wallace Beery) and she came to the US to write the screenplay for the 1932 film and stayed. She became an American citizen in 1938. She was in America when she began writing Nanking Road..
We could note several other feminists who worked abortion into their novels (Kay Boyle's My Next Bride, for example). In the 1930s in England, women's groups began calling for legalization of abortion.
On every level feminism has used for communication -- every level available prior to 1950, you can find feminists supporting abortion rights.
We know history.
Pig Blogger does not.
To demonstrate that, look at how much we had to write.
Approving that dishonest comment either means it's allowed to stand -- and will therefore be seen by some as 'truth' -- or that you've got to make time to compose a response.
It's just not worth it. Plates are full on this end.
So the false comment didn't go up because it was false.
This is mainly ancient history to long time readers but we started in January 2005 and, from time to time, we may need to review things as new readers are added.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
US House Rep Grayson on raising the minimum wage
US House Rep Alan Grayson is a member of the US Congress running for re-election. His re-election campaign issued the following:
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The Square is immersed in the Egyptian Revolution (Judith Orr, SW)
Repost from Great Britain's Socialist Worker:
The makers of The Square say they wanted to it be an “immersive experience”. That is exactly what they have delivered.
Through the sometimes dizzyingly jerky lenses of handheld cameras Egyptian American director Jehane Noujaim takes us from the earliest moments of the Egyptian Revolution to the summer of last year.
From the familiar aerial shots of the vast teeming crowds in Tahrir she goes on to concentrate on six individuals. These include actor and filmmaker Khalid Abdalla, activist Aida El Kashef, Muslim Brotherhood member Magdy Ashour and Ahmed Hassan from the working class district of Shobra.
It’s a reminder that every one of the millions will have their own story of lives uprooted and thrown into the tumult of struggle.
We see them under tarpaulin in the Tahrir camp, in life and death running street battles with the security forces and arguing about what to do next.
The scenes from field hospitals set up after deadly confrontations show how high the stakes are. Some of the most powerful footage is of the army massacre of Christian Copts demonstrating outside the Maspero state TV station.
The face of 19 year old Mina Daniel, one of those killed and a well known revolutionary from Tahrir, is now an iconic image in the revolution.
Thousands came to his funeral. But it’s the heartbreak on the face of his elderly father that haunts you, overwhelmed by grief while acknowledging all those who come to offer their condolences.
The Square’s strength is that is shows revolution as a complicated, sometimes confusing and always fluid process. Although this may be slightly bewildering for someone not familiar with events in Egypt, as there is no narrative or voiceover.
But letting the footage speak for itself is one of the most powerful aspects of the film.
Bitter debates erupt. We see people learn about the role of the army or the Brotherhood and who their real allies are as it happens without the benefit of hindsight.
Magdy is torn apart when his revolutionary friends challenge him about the presidency of Brotherhood supporter Mohamed Mursi. “You are against torture but now you are torturing,” they say.
Their dreams of creating a new Egypt are constantly thwarted
The Square is not a definitive historical account—as the name suggests it only looks at one aspect of the revolution. There is no account of workers’ struggles for instance, or events elsewhere in Egypt.
But I defy anyone to watch this without being moved and inspired by its record of the mass of ordinary people finding their power.
One revolutionary explains the transformation from life under Hosni Mubarak when, “I was scared to dream the wrong dreams”.
Today the revolution faces dark days once again under military rule. The struggle continues and this makes watching this powerful documentary all the more poignant.
xxxxx
Inspirational documentary The Square is immersed in the Egyptian Revolution
Judith Orr looks at Jehane Noujaim’s inspiring new documentary The Square about the individuals caught up in Egypt’s turbulent revolution
Ahmed Hassan in Jehane Noujaim’s new documentary The Square
The makers of The Square say they wanted to it be an “immersive experience”. That is exactly what they have delivered.
Through the sometimes dizzyingly jerky lenses of handheld cameras Egyptian American director Jehane Noujaim takes us from the earliest moments of the Egyptian Revolution to the summer of last year.
From the familiar aerial shots of the vast teeming crowds in Tahrir she goes on to concentrate on six individuals. These include actor and filmmaker Khalid Abdalla, activist Aida El Kashef, Muslim Brotherhood member Magdy Ashour and Ahmed Hassan from the working class district of Shobra.
It’s a reminder that every one of the millions will have their own story of lives uprooted and thrown into the tumult of struggle.
We see them under tarpaulin in the Tahrir camp, in life and death running street battles with the security forces and arguing about what to do next.
The scenes from field hospitals set up after deadly confrontations show how high the stakes are. Some of the most powerful footage is of the army massacre of Christian Copts demonstrating outside the Maspero state TV station.
The face of 19 year old Mina Daniel, one of those killed and a well known revolutionary from Tahrir, is now an iconic image in the revolution.
Thousands came to his funeral. But it’s the heartbreak on the face of his elderly father that haunts you, overwhelmed by grief while acknowledging all those who come to offer their condolences.
The Square’s strength is that is shows revolution as a complicated, sometimes confusing and always fluid process. Although this may be slightly bewildering for someone not familiar with events in Egypt, as there is no narrative or voiceover.
But letting the footage speak for itself is one of the most powerful aspects of the film.
Bitter debates erupt. We see people learn about the role of the army or the Brotherhood and who their real allies are as it happens without the benefit of hindsight.
Magdy is torn apart when his revolutionary friends challenge him about the presidency of Brotherhood supporter Mohamed Mursi. “You are against torture but now you are torturing,” they say.
Their dreams of creating a new Egypt are constantly thwarted
The Square is not a definitive historical account—as the name suggests it only looks at one aspect of the revolution. There is no account of workers’ struggles for instance, or events elsewhere in Egypt.
But I defy anyone to watch this without being moved and inspired by its record of the mass of ordinary people finding their power.
One revolutionary explains the transformation from life under Hosni Mubarak when, “I was scared to dream the wrong dreams”.
Today the revolution faces dark days once again under military rule. The struggle continues and this makes watching this powerful documentary all the more poignant.
The Square will be available on Netflix from Friday 17 January
xxxxx
Wyden Statement on PCLOB Report on Bulk Collection
The following was issued by Senator Ron Wyden's office last week:
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) issued the following statement regarding the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board’s report on bulk collection. Wyden is a senior member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
“The privacy board’s findings closely mirror many of the criticisms made by surveillance reform advocates. The bulk collection program was built on a murky legal foundation that raises many constitutional questions and has been proven to be an ineffective tool for collecting unique intelligence information. Moreover, as the board wrote in its report, a program where the government collects the telephone records of millions of law-abiding Americans “fundamentally shifts the balance of power between the state and its citizens.” The board goes on to say that with the government’s “powers of compulsion and criminal prosecution,” collection of data on its own citizens “poses unique threats to privacy,” and is expected to have a “chilling effect on the free exercise of speech and association.”
The board’s recommendations extend to reforms to the FISA court and the kind of increased transparency that is necessary for a democratic government to function. The reforms to the court do not go as far toward a true and independent civil liberties advocate as many pro-reformer would like. However, they would extend privacy protections beyond the legality of any particular program, into the kind of systemic protections of privacy that should have been available in the first place. The board made several arguments against the legality of the bulk collection program under Section 215 all of which deserve significant consideration. The board came to the same conclusion as myself and many other pro-reformers that surveillance precedent set by previous Supreme Court rulings – namely Smith v. Maryland – do not “fully answer whether the Section 215 telephone records is constitutionally sound” and do not reflect the effects of significant technological advances in telecommunications since that time.
There have now been two in-depth studies of these programs by unimpeachable government entities that have come to the same conclusion: the bulk collection program should be effectively ended. As the President announced last week, the Administration and the Congress will decide the fate of this problematic program in the coming weeks and it is my belief that reports such as those from the PCLOB and the President’s Review Group should play a major role in any reform effort.”
Wyden Statement on PCLOB Report on Bulk Collection
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) issued the following statement regarding the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board’s report on bulk collection. Wyden is a senior member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
“The privacy board’s findings closely mirror many of the criticisms made by surveillance reform advocates. The bulk collection program was built on a murky legal foundation that raises many constitutional questions and has been proven to be an ineffective tool for collecting unique intelligence information. Moreover, as the board wrote in its report, a program where the government collects the telephone records of millions of law-abiding Americans “fundamentally shifts the balance of power between the state and its citizens.” The board goes on to say that with the government’s “powers of compulsion and criminal prosecution,” collection of data on its own citizens “poses unique threats to privacy,” and is expected to have a “chilling effect on the free exercise of speech and association.”
The board’s recommendations extend to reforms to the FISA court and the kind of increased transparency that is necessary for a democratic government to function. The reforms to the court do not go as far toward a true and independent civil liberties advocate as many pro-reformer would like. However, they would extend privacy protections beyond the legality of any particular program, into the kind of systemic protections of privacy that should have been available in the first place. The board made several arguments against the legality of the bulk collection program under Section 215 all of which deserve significant consideration. The board came to the same conclusion as myself and many other pro-reformers that surveillance precedent set by previous Supreme Court rulings – namely Smith v. Maryland – do not “fully answer whether the Section 215 telephone records is constitutionally sound” and do not reflect the effects of significant technological advances in telecommunications since that time.
There have now been two in-depth studies of these programs by unimpeachable government entities that have come to the same conclusion: the bulk collection program should be effectively ended. As the President announced last week, the Administration and the Congress will decide the fate of this problematic program in the coming weeks and it is my belief that reports such as those from the PCLOB and the President’s Review Group should play a major role in any reform effort.”
The low-wage spark (Workers World)
Repost from Workers World:
The struggle to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 an hour, which is being embraced not only by many unions but by a wide range of popular and community-based organizations, is a struggle to reverse the decades-long trend in the United States to impoverish the working class. This is especially so where the fight for a minimum wage is combined with the fight to organize workers into unions.
xxxx
The low-wage spark
By Editor on January 25, 2014
The struggle to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 an hour, which is being embraced not only by many unions but by a wide range of popular and community-based organizations, is a struggle to reverse the decades-long trend in the United States to impoverish the working class. This is especially so where the fight for a minimum wage is combined with the fight to organize workers into unions.
Adjusted for inflation,
the minimum wage reached its all-time high in the late 1960s, when it
was equal to almost $9 an hour in today’s money, according to the Pew
Research Center. Some claim it should be closer to $11 an hour.
Why the 1960s? Not
coincidentally, that was a period of heightened struggle on many fronts,
in which progressive movements could bring tens and even hundreds of
thousands of people into the streets to demand civil rights; liberation
for Chicano, Native and Black people; an end to the war in Vietnam;
women’s liberation; freedom for Puerto Rico; gay rights and many more.
Interestingly, unions at that time were generally not in the forefront
of struggle, with a few bright exceptions: those organizing hospital
workers and farm workers.
These movements often
met vicious repression, but they had many victories. Legal segregation
was ended; the U.S. was driven out of Southeast Asia; more jobs opened
up for people of color and women; abortion was made legal. But the
ruling class, the owners of the military-industrial-banking complex,
remained in the saddle. They had bent a little in order not to break.
One of their concessions was to raise the minimum wage.
Today’s movement is
grounded in the broad, multinational working class, especially its
poorest sectors, a majority of whom are women, who may be targets of
racism and anti-immigrant bias as well. With widespread, long-term
unemployment caused by the unsolvable crisis of capitalist
overproduction, workers of all ages are facing an uncertain future. Many
live under extremely painful circumstances. For older workers, the loss
of a job can be followed by loss of their homes, unemployment
insurance, pensions and even the ability to look for work. For younger
workers, it can mean being saddled with debt when the only jobs open pay
the barest minimum, or below.
In the same period that
the minimum wage has shriveled to far below even the barest subsistence
level for a family, the profits of the rich have soared to almost
unimaginable heights. This is the fuel for a new and mighty upsurge.
With resistance
growing, and new organizations like the people’s and workers’ assemblies
on the move, 2014 looks to be a year of great promise.
xxxx
Highlights
This piece is written by Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix, Kat of Kat's Korner, Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man, Mike of Mikey Likes It!, Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz, Ruth of Ruth's Report, Marcia of SICKOFITRADLZ, Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends, Ann of Ann's Mega Dub, Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts and Wally of The Daily Jot. Unless otherwise noted, we picked all highlights.
"Dracula," "Iraq, TV and beverages," "Revenge: Is Victoria lying to Patrick?," "community and nbc's bad ratings" "Elementary and Ed Snowden," "Arrow," "community - lava and other nonsense," "community sucks and is about to suck a lot harder," "MSNBC's propaganda," "Revolution (the episode where nothing happens)," "revenge (the bad?)," "2 Broke Girls and Iraq," "revenge (the good)," "Illegal spying and Dracula," and "The Mindy Project's winter finale" -- Mike, Elaine, Betty, Rebecca, Stan, Trina, Marcia and Ann cover TV.
"Iraq: Trainers and contractors," "Nouri al-Maliki is committing War Crimes," "Nouri spits on the hands of the US," "Salinger and Iraq," "UK War Crimes (and US and Australia should be added to the docket)" and "Iraq, the internet and music"-- Ann, Betty, Marcia, Trina and Kat cover Iraq.
"I bored by I, Frankenstein," "The racism of the Golden Globes" and "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit" -- Stan goes to the movies.
"Sing Me the Songs That Say I Love You: A Concert f...," "Justin Bieber," "Love couldn't keep them together," "Carly Simon's Playing Possum" and "Tori Amos" -- Kat and Elaine cover music.
"FactCheck.org's truth problem" -- Ruth calls Liar! Liar!
"Vegetarian Split Pea Soup in the Kitchen." -- Trina serves up and easy recipe.
"NSA whistle-blower Ed Snowden," "Ed Snowden""Ed Snowden""Barack attacks Ed Snowden""Illegal spying and the tools of imperialism" -- Ann, Trina and Mike cover the whistle-blower and the illegal spying.
"Priorities" -- Isaiah dips into the archives.
"It gets ugly" and "THIS JUST IN! THE CRAZY RUNS FREE!" -- White woman screams "racism!" at . . . African-American male.
"Responding to Ralph Beeson or Charles or whomever" -- Ruth responds to an e-mail.
"Dear Joan: We're Going To Scare You To Death" -- Elaine on the fear factor.
"Dear Joan: We're Going To Scare You To Death" -- Elaine on the fear factor.
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Truest statement of the week
Promised reforms are likely to remain meaningless as long as criminals continue to serve in the administration. The director of national intelligence, in particular, has already been caught lying to Congress and must be removed from his post for the American people to have any trust in the execution of any changes to the NSA's dragnet spying activities.
-- Shahid Buttar, Bill Of Rights Defense Committee Executive Director, from "Today's speech by the president: A missed opportunity" (BORDC).
-- Shahid Buttar, Bill Of Rights Defense Committee Executive Director, from "Today's speech by the president: A missed opportunity" (BORDC).
Truest statement of the week II
What
Maliki chooses to ignore and what Ban Ki-moon has singled out is
precisely what the protest movement has been demanding all along:
looking at the root causes of the problems. In Iraq's case, they are
sectarianism, corruption, lack of basic services, violations of human
rights, increasing unemployment and organized gangs and militias
flourishing under a kleptocratic government.
The Maliki government has been harvesting over $100bn a year for some time now, from the nation's oil wealth. That amounts to about $20,000 a year per average Iraqi household of 7 people, except that Iraqis are left deprived of basic commodities. The wealth is squandered or stolen, a situation illustrated by Transparency International as: "Massive embezzlement, procurement scams, money laundering, oil smuggling and widespread bureaucratic bribery have led the country to the bottom of international corruption rankings, fuelled political violence and hampered effective state building and service delivery."
-- Haifa Zangana, "The real forces behind the violence in Iraq" (MWC News).
The Maliki government has been harvesting over $100bn a year for some time now, from the nation's oil wealth. That amounts to about $20,000 a year per average Iraqi household of 7 people, except that Iraqis are left deprived of basic commodities. The wealth is squandered or stolen, a situation illustrated by Transparency International as: "Massive embezzlement, procurement scams, money laundering, oil smuggling and widespread bureaucratic bribery have led the country to the bottom of international corruption rankings, fuelled political violence and hampered effective state building and service delivery."
-- Haifa Zangana, "The real forces behind the violence in Iraq" (MWC News).
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