A collection of the comments/posts I’ve done to various places. the newest is at the top.

- http://www.juancole.com/2012/02/israeli-pm-netanyahu-attacks-gen-dempsey-as-servant-of-iran.html

Saw it coming! As soon as I heard Dempsey saying so (The Real News interview with Max Blumenthal), I expected an assault on him.
I wondered if he was selected to take the hit. The Obama admin is trying to drop hints on both sides (as IIRC Gareth Porter was suggesting): Panetta says one thing one day, pleasing Israel; then another the next, p-ssing them off — ditto with the rest of the lot. So I wondered if Dempsey pulled the short straw for dropping this Israel-angering cue.

Update 22 Feb. 2012: I’m sure somebody in that room said, “They wouldn’t pick on a baby-faced war hero, would they? … Would they?” And then Panetta said, “I’m not gonna go out there again; they’re gonna call me a flip-flopper!”

- http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/workingmansdeath/2012/01/2012110115337919810.html
Working Man’s Death
Lions
In a crowded Nigerian slaughterhouse blood, fire and smoke are normal working conditions.

Outstanding work by the filmmaker.
Even at 22 minutes, you get a sense of the people involved.

- http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/01/201211410322359657.html
Siobhan Courtney
Margaret Thatcher back in the headlines in Britain
“The Iron Lady” missed many of Thatcher’s flaws and political failures, and inaccurately portrayed her as a feminist

Yet another dogmatic simpleton eulogized by the establishment’s media–just like Reagan, and just about anyone Regnery touches.

- http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestoryamericas/2012/01/201211311112785532.html
Haiti: The republic of NGOs?
As rebuilding work continues two years after the quake, we ask where billions of dollars in international aid ended up.
Inside Story Americas

The Haitians have been “marginalized in their own salvation”. Well put, Mr Kim Ives.
Also see Sebastian Walker’s “Haiti: After the Quake”, on this very site.
And compare with Indonesia, after the tsunami. Similar complaints were raised there, at the time.

- http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2012/01/2012177373944793.html
The News Corp. hacking saga
As the phone hacking investigation that ripped through UK politics and media moves to the US, what next for Murdoch?
Listening Post

Most of the first half is the clip-show I was afraid it was going to be, but the Michael Wolff interview of the second half makes this mandatory viewing. Highly informative.

- http://www.if.org.uk/archives/1526/the-future-funding-of-higher-education-another-intergenerational-mugging

Many good points raised here. But I must say that we must no longer allow ourselves to be led astray by the promise of higher education. The relationship between a degree and income has ended; what remains is between a degree and debt!
The fact is that the economy has been systemically gutted of jobs income! Debt repayment is irrelevant–unless if the discussion is solely focused on indentured slavery.

- http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/01/20121274447237703.html
A new crisis in the Sahel
Algerian forces cross into Mali as the possibility of another Tuareg rebellion looms over the region.
Jeremy Keenan

A very informative article, though I expect that the book will clarify some of the numerous details. Also, it is rare to see some of the back-end of the Libyan war being covered; I had not seen the above in any other article.
Thanks.

- http://www.if.org.uk/archives/1476/blocked-and-in-debt-the-cry-of-youth

The fundamentals to what you are seeing are:
- jobs are automated and/or overseas. So there is little income;
- speculation, and a financialized economy, mean that prices can go up for the very few who can afford them, and debt vultures feed on everyone else;
- the media earn money by running ads, so they tell you that everything is fine; keep consuming!
- politicians need money to run, so they legislate for the rich.

The specifics can manifest themselves as follows: the public vote for Thatcher and Thatcherite policies; industry gets gutted for short-term profit; money-manipulators enrich themselves w/o producing anything; housing becomes an investment, instead of shelter; uni. education becomes useful as only a debt ruse.

The seeds for what you are seeing were sown in the early 1980s. The s–t is now irrevocably hitting the fan!

- http://www.if.org.uk/archives/1410/baby-boomers-the-cats-with-the-cream

Debt scam, education scam, and property scam. Even older people have fallen prey to these. But the usual disregard for youths, and systemic exclusion from electoral power, aggrevate things for the precarity generation.
I’d like to recommend that they wait to invest in the sure-to-boom funeral-parlour business, but that’ll give us another decade or two to fill before the yuppie generation checks out. In the mean time, the young have no vested interest in the system, and every reason to rip it apart.

- http://rt.com/programs/documentary/iron-crows-documentary-park/
Iron crows
Directed by Bong-Nam Park
Produced by Frontline News Service – CreativEast

An absolutely fascinating documentary. They spent enough time to get to know the workers and their stories. I was aware of the fact that they had been provided access by the company, but, clearly, the lives depicted were genuine.
A fresh, and very revealing, look into the human beings involved in the ship-breaking industry in Bangladesh.

- http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/faultlines/2011/12/2011122512243829505.html
Fault Lines
Robot wars

At around the 10th minute, look at the faces of the Pakistanis staring at the coffins. You think something will be knocking on US’s door, sometime?
Also,
- “2025″ is a joke. It will happen far faster eg within the coming decade.
- as-intelligent is not the criterion; rather, product-readiness  will be determined by a CEO/manager as follows: is it good enough for making profit? Can it be sold to an eager customer who feels threatened?
- To the robotics ethicist who feels that robots’ behaviour can be better-bounded: Can you engineer guilt, conscience, compassion? If you can get a robotics ethicist to believe that robots can do this, you can certainly get a businessman to ship out the product.

Science and industry do these things because society funds them. You voted  for Bush, then this is what you get. You vote for Nader, then engineers will find themselves working on ecological solutions, and research will be applied to these products.
Companies go where the money is. If, after 9/11, you voted for fear, then this is what engineers will be hired for. You reap what you sow.

Also, the documentary does not address the recent news that fully-autonomous robots are already planned ie without any man in the loop. They are to make kill-decisions by themselves.
Time for International Committee for Robot Arms Control.

- http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestoryus2012/2011/12/2011122412455072601.html
Inside Story: US 2012
Theocracy versus democracy
How important a role will religion play in next year’s US election?
Inside Story Americas

Frank Schaeffer said it best, echoing Rachel Maddow that this has nothing to do with religion. It is just goading simpletons into voting against their own economic interests.

- http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/12/2011121813252570437.html
Fighting one per cent wars
An American fact is the 99 per cent are far too remote from the wars of choice and those who fight them, argues author.
William J. Astore

Very well-written.
The article’s perspective is interesting: the long-term impact of the isolation of the vast majority of the public from the soldiers fighting in their name. One may infer that this force may be used against the populace itself–even more overtly than has been the case with the militarization of the police. While I tend to see that as unlikely, I had not foreseen the depths to which US sunk, post-9/11. So it cannot be ruled out!
Note two potentially weak points in the argument: unemployed youths do join the army; AFAIK there is significant turn-over in the ranks, so it is not the same set that get increasingly isolated.

- http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/12/2011121873043304695.html
Obama’s failed human rights moment
More than 10 years after 9/11, US politicians are expanding the ‘War on Terror’ instead of scaling it back.
Jonathan Hafetz

Given orange jumpsuits, hoodies and recent US laws, the Iranian revolutionaries could have gotten away with locking up the US embassy staff.

- http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/slaverya21stcenturyevil/2011/10/20111010152040468529.html
Child slaves
There are at least 8.4 million child slaves in the world today, many of them held as forced labour.
Slavery: A 21st Century Evil
Rageh Omaar

The down side of human adaptability is that, sometimes, we adapt to things we should not. The normalisation of your own relatives’ servitude is unimaginable, unless if you’ve been raised into it!
I remember how child prostitution had become normal in Moldovia, after the collapse of the USSR. Horror can become banal, given the proper context.

 

-  http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/12/20111214131927872947.html
The question of representation
It is time that public subsidies to the media are made subject to meaningful public oversight and control.
Dan Hind

True dat!
Underlying all this, though, is media ownership and concentration issues. Ownership is key; if you don’t address that, you can even find a low-income Japanese-American who will argue for internment! Given sufficient pay, you can find anyone you want to mouth off your ideologies.

- http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/12/201112131036777164.html
Is it time to Occupy the Grammys?
The recent cuts in Grammy Award music categories display an audacious cultural insensitivity.
Danny Schechter

Danny,
occupy something worthwhile! No offence, but nobody of the Occupy/precarity generation gives a toss about the Grammy’s!

- http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/20111128105712109215.html
Kuala Lumpur tribunal: Bush and Blair guilty
A war crimes tribunal in Malaysia offers a devastating critique of international criminal law institutions today.
Richard Falk

The book idea is great (it forms a focal point, and an object to point to), though you’d need a better brand than the PPT or KLWCT! And then life will have to be breathed into it via social media. Once that is done, you have prepared the grounds for the media to be forced to pay attention to it–though there is always a luck factor involved.

- http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/11/20111127427465129.html
DR Congo’s displaced see vote as route home
For the internally displaced living in DRC’s camps, voting in Monday’s election is a first step towards returning home.
Azad Essa

Where does the funding come from for the various fighters/thugs? I’ve read about some, but most of this complex web is often not talked about.
As for the Congolese IDP, they _have to_ hope for the election; desparate people do!

- http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/20111124161727939373.html
Congo’s flawed but necessary election
The UN and EU’s decision not to send election monitors to DRC may place the country’s third poll since 1960 in jeopardy.
Tendai Marima

(Media) coverage is a product; no one knows the method to its success, though everyone has an opinion _after the fact_!
The great Stephen Lewis, too, has been trying to draw the world’s attention to the tragedy of AIDS in Africa.