Shouting at the Devil : I Loath Thee!

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by  Jason Miller  

“America touts itself as the land of the free, but the number one freedom that you and I have is the freedom to enter into a subservient role in the workplace. Once you exercise this freedom you’ve lost all control over what you do, what is produced, and how it is produced. And in the end, the product doesn’t belong to you. The only way you can avoid bosses and jobs is if you don’t care about making a living. Which leads to the second freedom: the freedom to starve.”

-Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine

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Capitalism, capitalism. How do I loath thee? Let me count the ways….

1. Few would argue with the conclusion that greed, selfishness, ruthlessness, and egocentrism are qualities that all of us humans possess, to varying degrees of course. Equally compelling is the argument that nearly all of us are capable of acting with kindness, compassion, justice, honesty, generosity, and empathy. Yet despite the sweeping epidemic of unnecessary suffering caused by torrential waves of avarice, self-centeredness, and brutality, our filthy moneyed elite, their well-compensated sycophants, and countless millions of deeply inculcated members of the working class defend the sacred cow of capitalism with the zeal of the Siccari. What a brilliant way to conduct human affairs and organize ourselves socioeconomically! Not only do we embrace the inevitability of our human frailties; we willfully and perpetually embrace a system that ensures that the worst elements of the human psyche will predominate AND which amply rewards those who act the most reprehensibly. Read more



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A Quiet Revolution

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By Francis Fukuyama

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Latin America, it is safe to say, gets no respect in Washington. Mention the region at a meeting of foreign policy cognoscenti who are not Latin America specialists, and eyes immediately glaze over. There may be a quick discussion of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, but attention will swiftly return to the Middle East, Russia, or China. Back in 1971, Richard Nixon advised the young Donald Rumsfeld, “Latin America doesn’t matter. . . . People don’t give one damn about Latin America now.” Rumsfeld took Nixon’s advice on where to focus his career, and the rest is history.

Coverage of Latin America in the mainstream media is little better. It merits attention primarily when it causes trouble for the United States. Thus more ink has been spilled on Chávez over the past few years than on the entire rest of the region combined. The only associations that many in the United States have with Latin America are problems such as drugs, gangs, and illegal immigration.

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Intelligentsia in Pakistan and the world

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By Prof Khwaja Masud - Dawn - 20-10-07

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‘WHICH side of the barricade are you on’ This was the question posed to the intelligentsia by Maxim Gorky, during the mid-thirties of the last century, when fascism was on the rampage in Europe. This query is as relevant today as it was 70 years ago in as much as the threats facing humanity due to conflicts, ecological disasters, mass illiteracy, poverty, disease and an ever-deepening economic crisis are the breeding grounds for fascism.

Each one of us, especially those whose duty is to do intellectual work, must stand up and be counted. There can be no spectators in the titanic struggle that goes on between the forces of democracy, social justice, enlightenment and tolerance on the one hand and the forces of fanaticism, dogmatism and exploitation on the other.

The war on the ‘intelligentsia’ is Russian in origin - the intelligentsia being a class of intellectuals possessing culture and political initiative. According to Isaiah Berlin, ‘The phenomena of intelligentsia with its historical and literary revolutionary consequences is the largest single Russian contribution to social change in the world.’ During the 19th century, the members of the Russian intelligentsia thought of themselves as united by something more than mere interest in ideas. They considered themselves as being a dedicated order, devoted to the spreading of a specific attitude to life. Read more



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Return of Benazir Bhutto : The Kleptocrat in an Hermes Headscarf

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by Jemima Khan*

*Ms. Jemima Khan is the daughter of the late UK billionaire Sir James Goldsmith and the ex-wife of Pakistani cricketer turned politician Imran Khan. She is also an ambassador to UNICEF.

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She’s back. Hurrah! She’s a woman. She’s brave. She’s a moderate. She speaks good English. She’s Oxford-educated, no less. And she’s not bad looking either.

I admit I’m biased.

I don’t like Benazir Bhutto.

She called me names during her election campaign in 1996 and it left a bitter taste.

Petty personal grievances aside, I still find jubilant reports of her return to Pakistan depressing.

Let’s be clear about this before she’s turned into a martyr.

This is no Aung San Suu Kyi, despite her repeated insistence that she’s “fighting for democracy”, or even more incredibly, “fighting for Pakistan’s poor”.

This is the woman who was twice dismissed on corruption charges. Read more



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Pakistan, my fatherland, I weep for thee

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On the worst carnage in Pakistan’s history in which close to eight hundred innocent people were killed and maimed

By Anwaar Hussain

Today I weep for this blood-smeared mournful land that you have become, marooned in the blazing desert, torn and tormented, plundered and ravaged, disfigured by the scars of myriad wounds, tears dropping from your dolorous, longing eyes. Today I weep for thee.

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Today I weep.

Today my grief is a sea—a fathomless, boundless sea. In this dark expanse drifts my soul…aimless, doleful and in mortal pain. Today I weep, unreservedly, unashamedly and in gushing torrents for Pakistan my fatherland. Today I weep for thee.

Today I weep with grief for Pakistan of flowering fields and blooming orchards, that wondrous land of jasmines and daffodils in freshest blossom, of tall snow capped mountains with rose fragrant valleys. I weep at your slow death at the hands of boisterous evil. I weep at your bloodied countenance and contorted face. Today I weep.

Today I weep for the demons of extremism that are stalking your splendid fields and farms. I weep for none can see that these monsters come clothed as messiahs bearing gifts steeped in poison. Nurtured on a diet of hate, these are now out of control. Rejuvenating in each bloodbath, they are consuming innocent humans at will. And while these demons have taken our nation on a guided tour of hell, the good men continue to wallow in their deafening silence. Today I weep. Read more



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Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski from Le Nouvel Observateur Jan. 15-21, 1998*

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Here is the plain truth of the matter, from the horse’s mouth

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Q: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs [”From the Shadows”], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention. Read more



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Unearthing the past, endangering the future

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On the recent Turko-American rift on the Armenian genocide.

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Turkey votes to invade northern Iraq; Congress considers the Armenian genocide. The two are dangerously connected

Standing before a blurred photograph of a ditch full of emaciated corpses, an elderly woman begins to cry. “The Turks are butchers,” hisses another. These women are among thousands of diaspora Armenians who travel from all corners of the globe to pay tribute to their dead at the genocide memorial in Yerevan. “Our objective is not to attack this or that country,” explains a grim-faced guide. “It is to ensure recognition of the first genocide of the 20th century, that of 1.5m Armenians by the Turks.”

For decades, Armenians round the world have lobbied for explicit official recognition of their point of view. Over the years, Armenian groups in America (where perhaps 400,000 people have Armenian ancestry) have persuaded 40 out of 50 states to recognise the genocide. They seemed poised to snatch their biggest trophy yet when the Foreign Affairs Committee of America’s Democrat-controlled House of Representatives passed a bill on October 10th stating that “the Armenian genocide was conceived and carried out by the Ottoman empire from 1915 to 1923.” But this was overshadowed, on October 17th, by another, related, vote: the Turkish parliament’s decision to allow the government to clobber guerrillas of the homegrown Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in their haven in northern Iraq.

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Putka versus Dubya : Who is going to kill us more?

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By Anwaar Hussainbush-putin-2.jpg

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was born on October 7, 1952 in St Petersburg, then known as Leningrad. His father Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin, was a factory foreman and his mother, Maria Ivanovna Putina. He was raised as an only child; his two brothers died young, one shortly after birth, the other of diphtheria during World War II. In his youth he was often called Putka.

On the world stage, Putka’s arch rival is the 43rd President of the United States of America, George Walker Bush. He was born two days after the national holiday of the Fourth of July, 1946 in New Haven, Connecticut where his father was attending Yale College in the Class of 1949. His mother was the former Barbara Pierce, whom his father had married on January 6, 1945. George was their first born. He likes to call himself Dubya (W).

Of late, Putka has been hopping mad with Dubya. Dubya has been riding rough shod in his backyard for some time now with Putka merely watching. Dubya’s latest push to expand NATO to Russia’s borders and his plans to deploy missile defense systems in the former Soviet bloc, however, seems to have finally drawn Putka’s ire. Dubya’s administration’s sporadic criticism of Putka’s rising dictatorship has not helped the matters either. Read more



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Christians be aware!

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By Marcus Salek

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I am not a Theologian, but I grew up attending Congregational Churches in America and most of my adult live, before I moved back to Europe. American Christian Fundamentalism does NOT appear to resemble the teaching of Jesus Christ. Far from it, it looks more like a mixture of the Zionist Racism and “Jesus Magic” —- that is, turning Christ into some magic cult figure whose sole purpose is to make you feel good.

If Christ would be alive today, he would not be advocating Armageddon or hate for your fellow man, or that we should Nuke Iran to protect Israel. He was known as the Prince of Peace. I doubt if 300 years ago, people were going up and down the streets warning us the end of the world is coming. It’s really an American thing that really got going when Pastors started preaching from the Schofield [NIV] Bible with Biblical interpretations written in the notes . Ask yourself. Why would God create this magnificent place called Earth full of life if he just wanted to destroy it all, including the Animals, and all living beings? Read more



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The Mother of all Pretexts

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By Uri Avnery

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WHEN I hear mention of the “Clash of Civilizations” I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

To laugh, because it is such a silly notion.

To cry, because it is liable to cause untold disasters.

To cry even more, because our leaders are exploiting this slogan as a pretext for sabotaging any possibility of an Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation. It is just one more in a long line of pretexts.

WHY WAS the Zionist movement in need of excuses to justify the way it treated the Palestinian people?

At its birth, it was an idealistic movement. It laid great weight on its moral basis. Not just in order to convince the world, but above all in order to set its own conscience at rest.

From early childhood we learned about the pioneers, many of them sons and daughters of well-to-do and well-educated families, who left behind a comfortable life in Europe in order to start a new life in a far-away and - by the standards of the time - primitive country. Here, in a savage climate they were not used to, often hungry and sick, they performed bone-breaking physical labor under a brutal sun. Read more



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Anwaar’s articles appear simultaneously here at Truth Spring and at Soul Vibes in The Pakistan Tribune.


US loses its status as economic world power
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