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Politics and the Kitchen Sink

Browsing Posts in Asia

Ayatollah Fu Manchu

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Over on Lobe Log, Ali Gharib responds to some New York Times article that dutifully pushes war on Iran, and groups all Shias as systemic liars that can’t be trusted. Here is the comment I posted: Hmm! A rather sedate response to what is essentially an image of a glaring, turbaned, hook-nosed darky about to [...]

Soon after (the US) 9/11, it occured to me that it was very likely that Africans would adopt the tactics of Al Qaeda. Whatever else one may say about the latter, they clearly had a dramatic impact! With only nineteen people, they changed the direction of the titan that is the American superpower. While it [...]

Chris Hayes is god! Here he is, in a stellar handling of the Mike Daisey Apple-Steve-Jobs-Foxconn-workers-NPR controversy: It is why ‘The AGony and the Ecstacy of Steve Jobs’ was so powerful: because it forced us to recognize there are actual human beings with private lives and hopes and dreams and feelings and ailments and families [...]

Originally, this piece was written with a bit of the undermining sense of humour that often helps a comedian cope. But the content has outgrown it! Never the less, I have left things as they were. I don’t watch mainstream news, except as entertainment–and, on that count, they have been failing miserably, lately! All that [...]

You know the theory of the expanding universe? (Einstein’s, was it?) I stumbled onto an argument about whether Pakistan is in the Middle East or not. (Likely on the Real News, between two commenters.) Western Civilization’s contemporary Dark Continent, “the Middle East”, seems always to expand, and include any troubled areas over there, thereabouts, where [...]

Israelistan

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Eddie Walsh tackles some US politicians’ effort at starting a new country, Baluchistan. Here’s my comment: 1. This is “A Clean Break”, by other means. 2. Asia is a contiguous landmass, with people intermingling for as long as there’ve been humans. You can try to politically sub-divide it, but, in any given area, the supposed [...]

Since I first started commenting on drones, in November, and started the first draft of this post, in early February 2012, the number of articles on drones have increased. So, like many other drafts, it languished on the side. Let’s see if I can get it started, somehow! Pakistan is the silent Iraq. It happens [...]

Vietnam: American Holocaust

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“…if the wind blew the tree, they chopped down the tree. If the cow moved, the cow got shot…And the chicken, duck, pig–anything alive was murdered.” Quoted in the documentary. The documentary “Vietnam – American Holocaust” is from Linux Beach Production, produced by Clay Claiborne. It is a great documentary, with contemporary relevance, which raises [...]

The documentary “Bhopali”, directed by Van Maximilian Carlson, now being shown on RT, covers some of the events since the tragedy of Bhopal. Union Carbide has, so far, gotten away with the birth defects, the diseases, the negligence, the disregard for the locals’ lives, and the remaining and increasing ground pollution. IIRC even the Indian [...]

“When you close your eyes, you see unheard pain.” And untold horror. Loss that tears into me, and leaves me empty. The unbearable pain that does not kill. There are creatures which live on our eyelids, and demons which live beneath; every night, they crawl out. We go on, with a full view of each [...]