Vote About It

[Archives]: Yankour Global, birthplace of the 2012 student movement

6/17/2011
In a recent interview on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, multi-millionaire Henry Kissinger answered, "America is still number one," when asked if the United States was slowly sinking into a global number two position behind China.

The question, of course, is irrelevant. The answer is one that could come in many different forms, from a number of different perspectives. After Kissinger's answer, I began thinking about what even puts the U.S. in the conversation.
The idea that the United States is the greatest country in the world (or even just a great country at this point) is one that comes with many misconceptions. It's also an opinion that you won't find in many developed country in the world besides the United States. What gets discussed in media, and dare I say appears in the public conscience, about what makes this land great is inaccurately associated with concepts such as market dominance, military power and even personal freedom. For all the talk from tea-partiers and Fox News pundits about American values, it appears the most essential value in this country's establishment and rise to power is the one most easily forgotten. This value I speak of is Democracy.

Historically speaking, the establishment of America as a global powerhouse comes from the lack of damage to domestic infrastructure and economic turnaround after two world wars in the first half of the twentieth century. What built our country, however, giving its potential for national greatness is the concept of democracy. This fundamental pillar in the structure of our government is one that allows us as a people to hand pick the leaders that make our laws and decide our policies.



In the midst of an economic collapse, in times of war, even on the brink of a nuclear holocaust we would still have the value of democracy and the right to choose those who lead us as a people. Universal healthcare does not take away democracy, neither do gay rights, nor does a peaceful foreign policy to all nations. Even full scale socialism is an economic system which in no way effects how leaders of a given society are chosen, despite what may be relayed on television.

The truth is that any potential flaw or malfunction in our system is subject to the criticism and ultimate judgement from we the people. This being said, any critique, complaint, indifference or suggestion for the system only shows merit when coming from a registered and participating voter. It is a true gift, democracy, and one that all over the world people dream about and in some cases die for. It is a blatant slap in the face, and not to mention shows a lack of ethical integrity, to criticize a system of operations without taking the initiative to utilize and participate in the opportunity it presents. The words of an unregistered yet eligible voter on american affairs & policy are unfounded and worthless. In this country, each citizen of legal age is given a voice, but this voice only exists if the individual registers and utilizes it.

Registering to vote is an important action that should not be put off until a presidential election. This suspends an individual's voice from being utilized on any sort of vote including mid-term elections (every two years) and local millage and proposals. It isn't as lengthy as every four years that the registered voter is allowed to exercise their democratic right. Registering itself is an easy process which is most often done in less than a few minutes at the nearest S.O.S. office. It's entirely inexpensive (free), harmless, and usually involves nothing but taking out your I.D. while the clerk enters all your information.

I would suggest to anyone out there who has ever had an opinion on or actually lived in the United States to register to vote soon. You never know when you could be called on to exercise the democratic privilege of voting. It's a nice feeling to know you have a voice, a warm and relaxing comfort to know that if you don't like things the way they are that you have a right and an opportunity to use that opinion on the things you deem most important.

Jared Secor, Grand Rapids, MI

A Letter to The Democratic Party

[ARCHIVES]: Yankour Global, birthplace of the 2012 student movement

9/27/11

Dear Democratic Party,

As a fellow progressive liberal, it pains me to say that you have disappointingly failed the American people.  You have allowed right-wing conservatives to mislead the American people on numerous issues, rewrite history, and misconstrue the constitution into some falsely warped ideal that supports racism, classism, and fascism. You’ve allowed lesser informed Americans to believe that observable, peer-reviewed science is debatable. As a result, science and education programs, which are the pinnacles of our nation’s success and innovation, have received numerous budget cuts. Despite all of the evidence, say, for man-made global climate change which is easily accessible at the home pages of such credible institutions as NASA and the EPA, many conservatives use pseudo-science or, worse, faulty religious principles to combat the tedious findings of our nation’s top scientists. I’ve had many arguments with former friends of mine (who were conservative) that literally REJECTED the evidence by NASA yet could not find any credible source to oppose this evidence. They even go as far as to use science (when they actually decide to do so for once) to point out our earth’s continuous heating and cooling over the course of its lifetime and falsely assert this as their evidence that global warming is not man-made. The saddest part about it is that some conservatives will go so far as to even acknowledge that there is climate change, but they won’t accept evidence that it is man-made, and despite this, they refuse to do anything about it anyway.

Let’s say, for instance, the MIB (for sake of argument) operated a covert operation wherein they created a sizable comet in space, which they somehow lost control of, putting it on a collision course with Earth at dramatic speed. Let’s say NASA satellites uncovered this. Conservatives would argue that there is no such comet, and even if there was, not only is it “impossible” to prove that it’s man-made, but we shouldn’t do anything about it at all. Are you kidding me?! A comet IS HEADING RIGHT FOR US!!! Things like this are what make America the laughing stock of the world. Our nation lags behind even some developing nations in most academic areas, but we are FAR superior, of course, when it comes to wasting money on unnecessary wars and wasting money on our poor healthcare system.

Speaking of wars, the war on drugs has got to be the worst federal policy ever established in our country! It has been shown to not work, recognized even by a multitude of countries internationally including entities such as the UN! Even worse, marijuana has been shown time and time again that it is a very powerful medicine that alleviates numerous symptoms, yet marijuana is still considered to be a Schedule 1 drug (meaning that it has no medical benefit and causes the most harm out of all drugs). How can something that has been scientifically verified to be a very helpful medicine also be considered a Schedule 1 drug ? The least you could do is fund more research to be done to determine once and for all whether it really is a helpful substance or not. However, millions upon millions of non-violent, mostly law-abiding Americans have been incarcerated, having their lives ruined, mostly due to simple possession charges! Your continual support of the prison-industrial complex is ruining our nation and wasting billions of taxpayer dollars annually on a war that CANNOT be won! Our founding fathers OWNED HEMP FARMS for crying out loud! And speaking of hemp, hemp has been shown to be one of the strongest, efficient, and plentiful fibers in the world, yet it is outlawed because of its affiliation with marijuana. This is just plain foolish! We have a global warming crisis coupled with mass deforestation and desertification, and you want to continue to disallow a fiber which can actually help curb these things? Senseless!

Furthermore, you’ve allowed the deregulation of banks in 1999 during Clinton’s Administration by erasing the Glass-Steagall Act, and by doing so, you are responsible for the housing/banking collapse and the subsequent Great Recession. In addition, you have allowed banks that were “too big to fail” to become even BIGGER, and the Dodd-Frank bill is not strong enough to keep banks regulated to ensure that they are not continuing their practices of screwing over hardworking taxpayers. You have allowed a continually increasing wage gap between the rich and the rest of America, which sees the rich gaining massive profits and tax breaks whilst the rest of America, many of which (such as myself) who have lost their jobs and have a hard time finding work, see less profits as inflation, war, and greed continue to drive down the value of the dollar and keep people out of work. Speaking of the rich, for some reason you won’t strongly target the rich to pay their fair share despite strong evidence that the top 1% holds 60% of the nation’s wealth and that the more money they’re allowed to keep, the more money they will save.  It has been shown that even a small 4% increase in taxes on the richest Americans can bring in $700 BILLION over the next 10 years!  Yet, you allow the right to continuously mislead the American people into choosing against this because of the repeatedly debunked conservative belief that the rich will stimulate the economy and create jobs when they are taxed less.

Click to learn more about this historic law, The Banking Act of 1933 and its importance.

The unemployment rate has stayed at a constant rate of 9%, while unemployment for African-Americans (such as myself) is nearly double that at 17%. College graduates (as I am as well) are finding less and less employment opportunities post-college, causing us to return home, and those lucky enough to find something usually can only find minimum wage jobs to pay for the thousands of dollars of debt accumulated in the hopes that they wouldn’t have to take these kinds of jobs in the first place.  I live in a house full of people who have not completed post-secondary education, yet I, the one with a college education am the least financially stable. I find it sickening that all throughout childhood and adolescence, we’re all taught that an education is the key to success, yet we live in a land where we’re actually punished for having an education! Either we have too much education or not enough experience, which is circular logic that permeates every place of employment. For instance, I had finally found a minimum-wage, entry-level position in 2009 at Walgreens after a friend who worked there put in a good word for me. My college education had no effect on my being accepted there, as none of my co-workers had college education. Our store manager, only a few years older than I, landed his high position merely because his father works in the corporate offices of Walgreens. This goes to show that once you have friends in high places (or in this case, family), it’s not difficult to carve out a comfortable niche for oneself, but for those who don’t, it’s not an uphill battle, it’s more like a mountain climb with no support attachments (in fact, I would say that the debt from school is more like a weight pulling us down, working against us in our climb).

The roots of all of our problems are political corruption and bipartisanship. It is no secret that politicians are given lovely contributions from many well-known corporations to push whatever agenda helps corporations attain ever increasing short term profits, whether it be to deregulate an industry, cut taxes, block reforms, etc. Citizens United didn’t help matters either. This is where the problem of bipartisanship comes into play. Instead of making sound, helpful and progressive decisions which will unquestionably benefit our country, you allow jackasses to cloud national discourse with misconstrued facts, pseudo-science, and religious beliefs, leading to many of the unhelpful policies which have been enacted. You can’t negotiate with crazy people or ignorant people! That’s crazy! That’s like arguing with a child! And you wonder why people like Ron Paul have such cult followings…

Is this REALLY the guy who will save America? Click for 10 Reasons why this may not be the case!

I say all of that to say this. YOU CAN HELP FIX THIS!!!! For starters, STOP SUCCOMBING TO REPUBLICAN DEMANDS!!! Sure, the republicans are well funded and are pretty well organized. However, YOU CAN BE TOO!!! There are countless liberal grassroots organizations, like MoveOn.org, Left Action, Democracy for America, Union of Concerned Scientists, Sierra Club, Wealth for the Common Good, Human Rights Watch, NORML, and The WE Campaign (to say the least), all pushing for the solutions for our social, economic, environmental and legislative needs. Get them excited and get them on your side! There are so many liberal mouthpieces, online, on television and in print. Help them help you! The more people can understand about what’s going on in our society and how everything generally works, there is no question that they would be more willing to support you! We shouldn’t have to “Occupy Wall Street” and things of that nature because it is YOUR job to discipline Wall Street when they let down the country! YOU promised to make these changes for the American people, and now is NOT the time to back down!

In addition, stop succumbing to the corporate elites! You have lost touch with the American people, most notably the minorities and the youth, because of your consistent pandering to those entities which care only for their own welfare, but YOU CAN CHANGE THIS!!!! Push for saving those social programs to help Americans resist poverty and enjoy useful, long-term employment! Push for continued funding and support for education! Our nation has made great leaps and bounds in technology, engineering, and the like because of our high value of education. We have unfortunately lost our place at the top as the best and the brightest in math and science, and we are letting other developing countries innovate at higher rates than we. We can reclaim the title with renewed support! Push for strong reforms and regulations in the financial, legislative and environmental sectors to prevent mishaps like the Gulf Oil Spill and the ’08 Financial Collapse!  A stronger tax code will help close the loopholes that allow corporations to avoid paying the taxes required of them by law. Push for higher taxes on the wealthy! This doesn’t have to be permanent, but in times like these, we can’t afford not to! Push for the end of the Drug War! It’s a huge waste of money that has only hindered social progress. Push for cutting funding from the military! Not to say that we don’t need strong defense, but most of our funding is supporting unnecessary wars, flawed foreign policies and excessive equipment. We can be more efficient (and more moral) than that! Push for environmental sustainability! The global science community is almost entirely unanimous in their findings concerning the occurrence of global climate change. With all of the discoveries and advances made by our nation’s greatest scientists such as those at NASA and the UN, coupled with the seemingly exponential increase in extreme weather conditions causing massive damage to nations around the world, it would be foolish to deny the work of these scientists and to sit and do nothing! Push for the separation of church and state! Our nation was founded on the freedom of religion, and everyone has a right to believe, even proselytize whatever they want; however, religion is to be kept separate from public policy, especially when it is blatantly exclusionary, separatist, anti-science and just plain harmful for our country!

The list goes on and on. There are so many things that we as Americans need BADLY, and we can only do so much in a civil fashion to obtain the things we need to make our society better. Trust me, I know that it won’t be easy at all, but we didn’t come all this way just to give up now!  We must stand together as a society. Remember, democrats, that you aren’t all just politicians. You are Americans as well. Many of you, like us, come from humble beginnings and weren’t afforded the benefits and luxuries that you do now. Understand that many of us are struggling more than ever just to make a decent living, and we could sure use your help! Please, I’m begging you, stand with us as we try to make America the greatest country on earth again.

Sincerely,

The Ultimate R.A.G.E.
Chicago, IL

Love Affair: US Media & Iran

The mainstream media has a rather sordid love affair with Iran; President Ahmedinejad in particular has often been portrayed as a destitute, despondent tyrant and the actual leader (for the most part held the title of 'president' for all practical purposes) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's influence over Iran's foreign and domestic policies have been largely overshadowed. But is it enough to warrant frequent walk-outs and threats against yet another sovereign country, with an elected head and cabinet? It is a shame when controversial, albeit sometimes plausible and debatable precedents are waylaid in political shrapnel as merely the rants of someone who is jealous of 'America's freedoms'.

Anyone who uses that phrase suffers from a deluded disconnect from what Arabs actually dislike for several reasons.

Most people don't know what it means and use it to describe an inane sense of irrelevant quasi-liberty, usually too vague to separate it from the responsible freedom that the world should ideally be working towards. If freedom is protecting one's economic and security interests by satisfying the moneyed few, while trundling on the moneyless many, then we might as well throw in the towel and start adjusting to living in a Gattaca-esque manufactured society, or something closer to Aldous Huxley's A Brave New World. Noam Chomsky often cites the first mention of the 'campaign of hatred against the US among the Arab world', which so disappointed the Eisenhower Administration. The air of staunch resistance and possible retribution did not faze the administration; in all reality it was a wonder as to why it had not surfaced sooner. The fact was, and remains so, that Arabs do not hate American freedoms, in fact they enjoy many freedoms that do not come out of a false sense of security. What they do hate is US foreign policy, which is why the Eisenhower administration was perplexed by the lack of retaliation and also why they dismissed the issue as expected, not just plausible.

Oman has many outdoor cafes and quite a few at stunning locations. On a particularly nice morning I met a friend for breakfast at one of these quaint places, and sitting right next to us was a table of Omani women. This would have been strictly 'haraam' (taboo) if we let mainstream media dictate what we are to believe about the middle east, but it's true (although the exception to the rule is Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait, to an extent, where even wives are not allowed at the same table as the husband and his friends. This also explains why Arab meals are large and often communal - it's not just religious, but also a cultural adaptation around rigid laws that separate the sexes; big table for the wife and her friends and an even bigger one for the men). In fact, some of these women even came over, excused themselves and were candidly showing us - two guys; not related; expatriates, nonetheless - some of the pictures they had snapped. Yes, they were wearing abayahs (traditional Arab cloak), but there is a myth surrounding that, which I will now distil and attempt to debunk. Abayahs and burkas are not entirely mandatory. More conservative families will require their women to wear them, just like Amish women or more conservative Jewish women, or even more traditional and orthodox Christians (to put it into perspective). Religion as an institution has imposed all sorts of 'morality' based instructions on people, and this would count as one of them. But it's not oppressive. In more progressive Muslim nations like Oman, women actually choose to wear abayahs because, well, in all honesty the men, who should be considered oppressed, won't bat an eyelid if there's a chance to give someone a good once-over.

For the longest time seeing a woman's ankles or shoulders would be enough to set off certain gonadic chemical reactions. Pornography is strictly prohibited and distribution as such has become a cultural taboo for even expatriates. Plus it gets frustratingly hot - desert temperatures are not particularly what one would refer to as 'balmy'. Although this may seem in jest, it is quite true, and as a guy, I do feel sorry for them at times. It also explains the brazen ogling (not staring, ogling) when any woman walks by wearing anything revealing. It's quite obvious now, that women, in response to this behaviour, tend to want to cover up even more, thus keeping the cycle going. So there you have it, women don't have to wear abayahs if they want to visit Oman (or most Arab nations), but ogling is not punishable by any laws.

So it's certainly not the lack of free porn that the Arabs hate the US for. Is it the democracy? Most Arab nations have councils and municipalities in each major governing city. They often form the panel of advisors to the ruling family. In fact, in Oman, H M Sultan Qaboos bin Said is not considered a 'president', as much as the representative of the ruling family. His successor will mostly be decided by a council, and in the event that they do not reach a consensus, they will revert to the predetermined selection of the Sultan.

Most movements labelled under the Arab Spring uprisings have been against oppressive leaders, who, with US aid and support, have managed to besiege their own nations with economic and social turmoil. The case is true for Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Bahrain and even Libya. Oman had its set of protests too, but were dealt with peacefully and reforms were almost immediate. Of course, their campaigns were not for the ousting of the Sultan, but for reforms in wages to match the rise in global food and commodity prices, and jobs for educated Omanis. In fact, there was even a march in the capital in support of the Sultan's leadership, which has transformed the nation in just 40 years.

So it's not the democracy either, could it be education? Health? Most Arab nations offer free public education to its citizens, which includes University, and most also offer the finest in healthcare for free. This is more than what the US has to boast - granted the US has a much higher population, but with the largest GDP and trillions of dollars in wasteful spending, it's not unimaginable that the US could offer at least one of the two to its citizens. It still remains the only developed nation without universal health care and has the highest infant mortality rate and worst post-natal health statistics among other equally developed nations too.

So what exactly warrants a walkout by several members of the UN when the president of Iran walks to the pulpit? He obviously posits a considerably threatening demeanour for a relatively diminutive man, who bashes the holocaust as a blatant lie and repeatedly calls for investigations into the attacks on 9/11. He brazenly supports Palestine and calls to attention the crimes of Israel and the US against the Arab world, which go largely unheeded. In a world where people are ready to point the finger and support rebel forces with weapons, artillery and NATO air support at a whim, without congressional or UN procedures, we're also quick to sideline anyone who doesn't choose to blindly follow.

It must be said that the holocaust denial incites visceral guttural criticism, and being a head of state does not authorize being able to say anything that comes to mind. But it is an unjustly biased world where King Hamad Bin Eisa Al Khalifa of Bahrain, after brutally curbing protestors and allowing Saudi forces to enter the country (to protect the royal family) and open fire on civilians as a manner of crowd control, is allowed to give a speech that is 'hailed' by the UN, while Ahmadinejad triggers a walkout before even completing his opening address. In fact, the Bahraini ruler should have been promptly and sternly reprimanded along with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia for the atrocities that happened, and continue to happen in an effort to curb protests for reforms in Bahrain. What separates Bahrain from Libya is very little, except, of course, the moneyed Muslims willing to play into the pockets of US foreign policy, while ignoring the progress of the nation to its detriment. Libya, as a result, got a full scale military invasion, bolstered by the CIA for being insubordinate. Bahrain did not get a peep because they were tasked with sorting out their own internal turmoil what with the fact that it plays host to one of the US's largest offshore fleets - military action would prove fiscally and geo-politically debauching to the special relationship.

Yemen, in the meantime, sees dozens of protesters killed in violent attacks by forces loyal to president Saleh, but they offer nothing of value, and until Iran is dealt with, Syria would be a giant hurdle for the US. Libya's vast amounts of light crude - more expensive and cleaner than regular crude - proved fiscally pivotal in the decision to aid the rebels, although the African Union refused to accept a rebel government, even urging for a peaceful settlement - suggestions that are yet to be heeded to.

The more that is written, the more the UN looks farcical and tawdry. They veto progress and a potentially peaceful settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and celebrate a woman opening the session - Dilma Rousseff, president of Brazil - which is actually a depressing testament to the gender-bias that has dictated policy for far too long. The UN is like the shady mechanic that assures you that an oil check is a standard procedure, but guts your whole engine for spare cash, replaces parts with knockoffs, and when nothing works anymore, blames it on your car being an import. There are so many current events that fit that analogy; it's up to you to mull them over and join the dots. it's cripplingly tragic, and poignantly ironic that FIFA has more member nations than the UN. A gentleman's game, played by hooligans is more approachable than a world organisation that is meant to unite nations.

by Rohit, Muscat, Oman (Arabia)

The Arab Spring from Oman

[ARCHIVES]: Yankour Global, birthplace of the 2012 student movement


6/17/2011
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
- George Santayana

Social inequality, staggering income disparity, military expansion, a powerful religious right, horrendous working conditions for labourers, unprecedented expansion of trade to colonies, trampling of civil liberties and human rights in the pursuit of a Laissez-Faire economy and a despotic rule. Scenes of despotism and utter chaos that seemed possible in renditions of visionary dystopias have jarred our consciousness to a rude awakening. These are our times, but they are not uncommon to the annals of history. This was 18th century France, a time when the light bulb was not even a pipe dream waiting to become the symbol of an idea. A time when that 96% of the populace realised that they were France, and not the monarchy who told them to eat cake when there was no bread to feed their starving families. A time when they stood shoulder to shoulder - merchants, doctors, lawyers, teachers, farmers and peasants - and declared with one pragmatic voice that liberty, equality and fraternity would form the construct for the Déclaration des droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen - the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen - the realisation and culmination of a retaliation to the many decades of oppression and indignity. The French revolution encapsulated the sovereignty of the people and became the canvas for the modern society to paint secularism and  civil equality.

Things have gotten a lot more expensive, the stakes are much higher and most of the social pariahs that plagued the civilized world of that age have been abolished. Yet, the challenges for the lower class still abound in the anachronistic cruelty of history repeating itself. The United States is rife with social inequality, stemming from structurally fundamental socio-economic deprivation and segregation that has got itself etched unabashedly into the psyche of the American people through bills like SB1070. The greed of the wealthy has looted the working-class to fill their coffers creating an obscene income disparity, with the top one-tenth of a percent of the population controlling ninety-five percent of the wealth, while twenty percent of the population gripes for food stamps for basic sustenance and a growing number of people are without health care and afraid of going bankrupt from trying to pay their way through a pneumonia infection, despite working two jobs to make ends meet, being nickeled and dimed along the way, as Barbara Ehrenreich poignantly put it.

England in the meantime is witnessing massive protests to the marginalisation of the public worker through severe austerity cuts, programs that helped older generations to emerge battered and bruised from the war that ravaged both their lives and economies, but secure in their futures. Futures set up by transforming the convection of power from the wallet to the ballot and through public service measures like the NHS. These futures are ever-dwindling for the working class today; futures deprived to engorge private corporations and financial institutions, reducing the masses to a paucity of general services. Corporations like Vodafone that evade accountability to their dues through legal manoeuvring, or companies like Arcadia Group that circumvent taxes through more cunning means, are the ones that not only elude paying their share, but manage to get government funding that would otherwise be invested in the well-being and prosperity of the nation. The same holds true for countries like Spain and Portugal that are seeing massive levels of unemployment coupled with cuts in spending, while giving huge breaks to corporations and their financial backers. However, the most stunning facet to the protests in the UK by UKUncut - an organisation embodying a lack of pandering to the menagerie of red herring issues and dealing with the core flaws of tax evasion by corporations and their direct links to austerity cuts - is the drowning out the cacophony of ludicrousness and offering tangible, doable solutions.

The religious right is another powerful and serpentine institution influencing everything from foreign policy to domestic health care, with ostentatious science, creationism and archaic religious ideologies; corrupting the very fabric of secularism and social justice, all the while ignoring that their greatest teacher was a communist and social justice advocate.They wave the banner of conservative Christianity, leading their lemmings to believe that they are engaged in a cosmic battle for good against the radical Islamists, flailing their red herring message for anyone to take heed. History has a lot to teach us, if we only took the time to learn we would realise that the British played out a similar strategy to overcome the growing instability to their rule in India.

Thanks to the efforts of revolutionaries like Gandhi, they rallied - rather poorly - nonetheless in unity to overthrow their oppressors. Remnants of that divide-and-conquer strategy still plagues much of the sub-continent today, egged on by vapid ideologies and social pariahs like caste and abject poverty, the latter coaxed on through the rapid urbanisation of much of the land, moving away from a previously well established, now rather down-trodden, agrarian populace.

Military expansion was key to keeping French assets in check and protecting the supply lines of resources that in turn allowed that expansion, as was the case with all the colonising European nations at the time. The same is true in the 21st century. It is no longer a matter of just public opinion, but fact, that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were about resources and their control, and not spreading democracy. We are more than a decade into these wars and have yet to see a functioning democracy that serves the people of those countries. Instead, we see private military contractors, plans for setting up permanent military bases and protecting those ever so crucial supply lines as growing agendas, while ignoring the egregious and mammoth losses in human life and the psychological condition of the soldiers deployed to those regions, some even resorting to forming ‘kill teams’ to exterminate civilians as if they were vermin.  Meanwhile there is a massive proliferation of small arms that kill more innocent civilians than soldiers and the only insurgents are the occupying troops. Troops and bases set up to keep despotic, brutally subjugating, nihilistic regimes in place. The flashy lifestyles of the rich and famous published on the front pages of newspapers and tabloids serve as the juicy carrot at the end of the stick, enslaving the general populace to work jobs they hate in order to buy things they don’t need, while the stick, which is stern reprimand for not keeping your head down and being invisible is job loss that could devastate the bread-winner trying to feed their family. The precarious condition of the labour supply is something we have allowed to happen just as people of the Roman empire did, before they went from being the people of Rome to ‘Rome is the mob’ - Control the mob and you control the empire.

Income stagflation is another factor that has contributed to an increasingly disparaged work force. Workers’ conditions have become deplorable, so deplorable that they have to be shipped outside to countries that allow those conditions. Taiwan, Bangladesh, Honduras, and many more have become industrial cattle sheds of labour, where corporations have more rights than the people who live there. Heinous atrocities that resulted in the labour movements of the late 18th and early-mid 19th centuries, that fought for better and safer working conditions; rights fought for and won, are now being stripped away systematically by those with the power to lobby and influence lawmakers. Politicians armed with visceral speeches and corporate funding are staggeringly disconnected from the flailing populace, ever increasing their margins and deflating the commoners they were elected to serve. Corporations are extirpating ways of life for entire generations of communities in countries like Mexico by introducing genetically engineered, highly resistant corn seeds with suicide genes, forcing farmers to abandon their farms and move to the cities to look for better opportunities.

This fuels the market for new, cheap labour that can be easily exploited to the benefit of other corporations. The same has happened to much of Central/South America, made worse by treaties such as NAFTA and CAFTA that serve no purpose other than to enrich the already subsidized and tax-dodging corporations like Monsanto. (many of those abandoned farmlands are used to grow crops like opium to fuel the pharmaceutical industry). Cheap labour is apparently not cheap enough as incarceration rates in the US have risen to staggering levels through measures set up by the Department of Homeland Security, the unpatriotic Patriot Act, detention of undocumented immigrants and the war on drugs, to name a few. The latter two have ballooned the now thriving prison industrial complex to a patently obvious slave trading racket: A multi-billion dollar industry orchestrated by heavyweights like the Corrections Corporation of America, the Management and Training Corporation and the GEO Group, owning more than 200 facilities across the US, profiteering like a hotel by increasing the inflow of inmates through vigorous lobbying for legislature like SB1070 and capitalising on their adverse effects. It is the slave trade of our time. (According to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics the incarceration rates in the US are close to Soviet Union levels before WWII - close to 800 people per 100,000. A high percentage of those being Hispanic or African-American, and a majority of them for non-violent crimes; in fact, rather ironically, there are more African-Americans in prison now than there were slaves in colonial times).

These are the very voices that now resound across the globe - workers, teachers, doctors, intellectuals - fighting for those rights that they won not so long ago. Voices of protests against injustice and a system that is so depraved that human life has less value than a bomb. Protests that are brutally quelled and disbanded by military and police forces loyal to the governments they serve. (In fact, during the French revolution, the nobles and clergy called on the military to quell the growing unrest amongst the assembled people. They refused to fire upon their own, which really does shed some light into why a country like the U.A.E is spending millions of dollars in hiring former Blackwater Worldwide CEO, Erik Prince, to train an army of eight hundred foreign nationals as mercenaries to be used for crowd control in the event of a protest against human and labour rights). Protests in countries like Egypt and Tunisia to gain rights that were suppressed for decades, and protests in Madison, WI to keep the rights they had fought for and won, but are now being dismantled. Protests in countries like Bahrain, Yemen and Libya, against corrupt and self-absorbed governments, and protests all across the EU against corrupt financial institutions that are being rewarded for plunging their countries into deep recessions. The voices of the common people being heard through echoes of chaos and fear-mongering that has kept them, far too long, silenced and incapacitated to mobilise against the tyranny that is social engineering for profit.

This is not merely a call to arms, but a recognition of the paradigm shift in the worth of a human being. We live in a manufactured system where we are but chattel and money equates to power. Without power we are forced to be constrained to a life of servitude, ted the notion that all we can do is follow orders and hope for the best. Our humanity has been made destitute as we have been misled to conclude that the pursuit of happiness is congruent with a pursuit of wealth. We have borne witness to our travails and now we want to do something about them so we can invest in our futures. Too long have we been trundled upon, allowed to feed on the scraps, chasing our carrots on sticks as our world is exploited beyond repair by those with power to manufacture our consent. The illusion of choice and a free-market are mere vagaries of a system designed specifically to immobilise free thinking and social reform. But the choice exists only if one has the power to choose, and if you are shackled in debt you cannot choose. This delusion, coupled with a policy of indoctrination infiltrating the deepest levels of the education system, that teaches us the same cycle of wealth equals happiness, is radically detrimental to us understanding the core flaws in the system that needs, desperately, to be dismantled.

The shift stems from the vicissitude of representation to change the system to fit the needs of the common people, to representation to manage people, effecting change to accommodate the system. The moneyed interests are revoking our power to vote because it takes power from them and transfers it to those who have no vested stock holder interest. The voices we hear today - solidarity against a system so corrupt that it destroys the very fabric of society that it is meant to serve - across the globe are voices of indignation and resoluteness. 2011 is our march for freedom; freedom from corporate tyranny, social strife, inequality, injustice and detriment. It is our collective initiative to better the world we live in. It is our revolution for a new ‘declaration of the rights of man and the citizen’, illuminating the dark corners of powers attempting to frame a subservient society, exposing their festering cores and rewriting our futures. It is not a cosmic battle, it is not a battle of guns or bombs. It is a revolution for humanity, and it is about bloody time. Viva la revolucion!

by Rohit Nair, Muscat, Oman (Arabia)

The Right Choice. The Right Time.

[ARCHIVES]: Yankour Global, birthplace of the 2012 student movement

6/22/2011
"The goal that we seek is achievable, and can be expressed simply: no safe-haven from which al Qaeda or its affiliates can launch attacks against our homeland, or our allies. We will not try to make Afghanistan a perfect place. We will not police its streets or patrol its mountains indefinitely. That is the responsibility of the Afghan government, which must step up its ability to protect its people; and move from an economy shaped by war to one that can sustain a lasting peace. What we can do, and will do, is build a partnership with the Afghan people that endures – one that ensures that we will be able to continue targeting terrorists and supporting a sovereign Afghan government."

- President Barack Obama, 6/22/2011 (on withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan)

This snippet of President Barack Obama's speech announcing an Afghanistan troop withdrawal properly declared ALL that the United States should do in Afghanistan after a decade of fighting.

No one is going to create a multicultural Jeffersonian democracy in Afghanistan. Afghanistan barely meets the definition of a country. Sure, there's a government in Kabul, but it doesn't command much loyalty from the people. There's an army and a police force, but many members of both agencies can be rented if not bought outright.It has borders, but we've seen that it's hard to tell where Afghanistan begins and Pakistan ends.
The United States should have learned from Vietnam that a country cannot fight in perpetuity to give a people something that it does not want. The United States cannot rebuild a country that was never actually built up in the first place.

Our nation went to war in Afghanistan to prevent another September 11th. The most recent estimates of Al-Qaeda strength in Afghanistan put their number at no more than 500.  The U.S. force is hundreds of times that size. CBS News has reported that simply returning the surge troops home will save the U.S. $30 billion. The idea of spending over $100 billion annually to combat at most 500 terrorists is an idea Americans should not and will not tolerate indefinitely. Many may say "it only took 20 terrorists to kill 3,000 Americans on 9-11". To that I'd say "it only took 3 to kill 168 and wound 450 on 4-19 (Oklahoma City)". At some point a cost-benefit analysis has to be done. President Obama has done that. He has made the right call.

At the Democratic National Convention that launched Barack Obama's national political career, President Bill Clinton said "we live in an interdependent world in which we cannot possibly kill, jail, or occupy all our potential adversaries. So we have to both fight terror and build a world with more partners and fewer terrorists."

An open-ended war of the kind Senator John McCain seems to want is not practical. The U.S. military has done what it can realistically be expected to accomplish. It is time for the Afghan government to stand up and fight for the people it claims to represent. The United States ought to be a partner in helping their government protect its people. It should not, however, do the job of protecting the Afghan people forever.

By Ricky Secor, Sanford, North Carolina

Calvin College Calls for Halt on Evolution

From: http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2011/08/calvin_college_adam_and_eve_co.html

The existence of Adam and Eve, and the departure of a Calvin College professor who discussed the matter, are back in the national news spotlight.

John Schneider, a longtime Calvin College theology professor until recently, has said there was no historical Adam and Eve. (His September 2010 discussion of the matter is available here.) "Evolution makes it pretty clear that in nature, and in the moral experience of human beings, there never was any such paradise to be lost," Schneider said in an interview with NPR, broadcast today.

"So Christians, I think, have a challenge, have a job on their hands to reformulate some of their tradition about human beginnings."

His departure is also being debated by Chronicle of Higher Education blogger Mike Ruse, who headlines his piece as "The Shame of Calvin College." Ruse says Schneider took "early retirement" after he "got into hot water with the president of Calvin College, who thinks that Schneider has been violating the terms of his employment."

The college's acting provost said Tuesday that Schneider chose to retire this year so his studies would not "cause harm or distraction" to the college

The Wars We Don't Fight

We all fight war.

The current standard American behavior when it comes to transportation significantly damages the national aggregate behavior when it comes to government spending and national security. The current widespread self-reliance and over extended need for gasoline for personal vehicles logically explains our former macro-economic need for ill-advised and sloppily lead military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Libya.

            Terrorists didn’t do this. Foreign terrorists just fought back (evil, yes; unjust, of course.) The terrorists however did not do this; we do this. Cadillac Escalades do this. Two-seaters do this. By refusing to take the bus; we do this.

            If individual behavior in the United States called for a higher demand on education, networking, new technologies and ways of globally communicating, we would no longer have the need to fight these occupational brute force wars of the 20^th century.

President Barack Obama and American automakers (as well as congress) need to be reminded consistently that continuing these out of date wars of the past will cause us to lose the anti-wars of the future. These wars are being fought on the internet, in space, and in non-hierarchical global commerce. Both in Asia & Europe these anti-wars are being fought and won. Information and innovation becomes the battlefield for the wars of the future.

            Why are these the wars we don’t fight?

By Jay Thomas, Tupper Lake, MI