Category Archives: racism

In Four Loops, Marathon Conveys Palestinian Constraints – NYTimes.com

BETHLEHEM, West Bank — The runners looped four times through this city, following a route that took them from the Church of the Nativity, traditionally considered Christ’s birthplace, down Bethlehem’s main avenue and alongside Israel’s looming separation barrier, scrawled with graffiti and blackened from hurled projectiles.

The Palestine Marathon, held last week, is a hemmed-in affair, much like the city where it is run. “In Bethlehem, there’s not a continuous 42 kilometers,” huffed Marwa Younis, 32, as she ran. “You have to run back and forth.”

But that is exactly why the organizers of the Right to Movement: Palestine Marathon chose to stage it here. What better way to draw attention to the constraints Palestinians say they face in their daily lives?

Continue reading the main story

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“We want to send a message that we don’t have the right to movement — we are occupied and have the apartheid wall,” said an organizer, Diala Isid, referring to Israel’s 26-foot-high separation barrier, which surrounds the city on three sides. “So we thought, ‘Let’s make an international marathon.’ ”

via In Four Loops, Marathon Conveys Palestinian Constraints – NYTimes.com.

After Praising Moronic Indiana Law, Jeb Bush Comes To SF To Fundraise: SFist

Bush already made a tone-deaf comment this week, hoping perhaps for some airplay on Fox News, praising Pence for doing “the right thing,” and saying that “once the facts are established, people aren’t going to see this as discriminatory at all.”

Oh… just leave.

via After Praising Moronic Indiana Law, Jeb Bush Comes To SF To Fundraise: SFist.

{Haters in} House Judiciary Committee Signs Off on Comprehensive Mass Deportation Plan : Immigration Impact

Almost no one seems to think that deporting 11 million people is a viable strategy. Policy makers from President Obama to Texas Governor Rick Perry have recognized this. A group estimated the costs as $400 to $600 billion, let alone the human costs. As Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) said yesterday, “The country has considered and rejected mass deportation or self-deportation… So how can it make any more sense to imprison all of those people?”

At some point, Congress will have to deal with the realities that we can’t and shouldn’t deport 11 million people, and that criminalizing undocumented immigrants will not make us safer. Hopefully that time will come sooner rather than later.

via House Judiciary Committee Signs Off on Comprehensive Mass Deportation Plan : Immigration Impact.

US Neo-Cons – no war against Iran, how about Brazil? Not! You have spilled enough blood for your profits! Brazil: hundreds of thousands of protesters call for Rouseff impeachment | World news | The Guardian

“Brazil does not want and will not be a new Venezuela,” read one. “Nation + Liberty = PT (Workers Party) Out!” declared another.

There was a range of voices. While one flag extolled “Peace and Love”, a sizeable contingent of the crowd expressed support for a return to the military dictatorship that ran the country between 1964 and 1985

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“Army, Navy and Air Force. Please save us once again of (sic) communism” read one banner in English. Among those holding it was computer graphic designer Marlon Aymes who said military force was the only way to unseat the Workers Party.

“They are in power for 16 years. That is like a dictatorship,” he said. “In 1964 the military of Brazil took a stand against a president who was close to the Kremlin. Today, the PT is in a group that wants a Bolivarian socialist model across Latin America. Common people are protesting and calling for impeachment, but congress is too corrupt to approve that so we need military intervention.”

via Brazil: hundreds of thousands of protesters call for Rouseff impeachment | World news | The Guardian.

Tea party may be on verge of becoming a 3rd party | News , World | THE DAILY STAR

Republican Rep. Tim Huelskamp, one of Boehner’s strongest critics, said a fierce struggle between establishment Republicans and “grassroots conservatives” is brewing. “The war is on,” he said.

And that likely will show itself in continued infighting within party ranks and between the House and the Senate over pending issues like passing a budget, increasing the nation’s borrowing authority and passing a new use of force agreement for Obama in the battle against ISIS militants.

Robin Lauermann, a political scientist at Messiah College, thinks the “war” Huelskamp speaks of will eventually lead to an open split between tea party Republicans and their more mainstream party colleagues. “I think it continues until you have the fatal error, the fatal decision that does not get made that creates a catastrophe, or the fatal decision that does get made,” Lauermann said.

That could well happen over Obama’s health care program, she said. The U.S. Supreme Court is preparing to rule later this year on the constitutionality of a part of the law. If the court rules against the government, Obamacare could be gutted. While the program isn’t widely popular in the United States, a sufficient number of people have begun to see the benefit and could turn against Republicans. That may force the mainstream to kick out the tea party so that mainstream Republicans can begin to find acceptable replacement legislation.

via Tea party may be on verge of becoming a 3rd party | News , World | THE DAILY STAR.

Opinion: Manipulate and Mislead – How GMOs are Infiltrating Africa | Inter Press Service

About 80 percent of Africa’s food is produced by smallholders, who seldom farm on more than five hectares of land and usually on much less.  The majority of these farmers are women, who have scant access to finance or secure land tenure.

That they still manage to provide the lion’s share of the continents’ food, usually without formal seed, chemicals, mechanisation, irrigation or subsidies, is testament to their resilience and innovation.

African farmers have a lot to lose from the introduction of GMOs – the rich diversity of African agriculture, its robust resilience and the social cohesion engendered through cultures of sharing and collective effort could be replaced by a handful of monotonous commodity crops owned by foreign masters.

via Opinion: Manipulate and Mislead – How GMOs are Infiltrating Africa | Inter Press Service.

Wannabe Il Duce II – Italy anti-immigrant Northern League rallies against Renzi | Reuters

As well as immigrants and the EU, his attacks have also been directed against Italy’s business establishment, ranging from the head of Fiat Chrysler, Sergio Marchionne to employers lobby group Confindustria and business daily Il Sole 24 Ore.

“Italy isn’t Marchionne and it isn’t Renzi. Italy is millions of tradesmen and small businessmen,” he said.

via Italy anti-immigrant Northern League rallies against Renzi | Reuters.

Marina Cantacuzino: Let’s leave ‘evil’ out of the Anders Breivik case – Commentators – Voices – The Independent

Any of us who attempt to understand evil may be accused, as indeed Gitta Sereny was, of forgiving evil. However, the struggle is not with forgiving but with empathising while maintaining moral integrity. Stephen Cherry, in his fascinating book Healing Agony (Re-Imagining Forgiveness), gets to the heart of the matter when he concludes: “In order to empathise with the cruel and heartless you have to imagine being cruel and heartless yourself.” To realise that evil isn’t so different from us can be a terrifying place to visit. However, since identification and empathy are also given to the victims, therein lies the restorative process.

via Marina Cantacuzino: Let’s leave ‘evil’ out of the Anders Breivik case – Commentators – Voices – The Independent.