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Defending Dispatches
Last week Channel 4 aired the excellent documentary Inside Britain’s Israel Lobby in which Peter Oborne investigated the distorting influence of Zionist interests on British politics. Predictably, the attacks were not long in coming and they took the usual vituperative form. Prominently, th...
Yesterday at 12:46pm · Share it
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To A Christian Zionist
Update: I wrote this in 2006. If I wrote it today I would do it a little differently. Specifically, I would discuss the pernicious role of the Scofield Bible in perverting protestantism in America. I would discuss the meeting point of Christian Zionism, orientalism and racism in Western cultures....
Yesterday at 9:45am · Share it
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The Lost Art of Reportage
Robert Fisk and Martin Bell in conversation with Ann Leslie at The Independent Woodstock literary festival.Event description:Was there a golden age for international correspondents? Are current affairs now largely brought to us in dumbed down soundbites? Who now sets the framework for coverage of...
Sat at 6:44pm · Share it
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Which Messengers get Shot?
British journalist Robert Fisk resists romanticized descriptions of his profession.  A journalist’s job, he notes, is to “monitor power and the centres of power.”  Fisk has risked his life many times while reporting in war zones but admits that the “trauma” that war ...
Sat at 3:42pm · Share it
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Struggles Against Commodification of the Mind
The free play of the mind has been managerialised. Holding our way of life to account has yielded to accountancy. The logic of the commodity has now penetrated into the sphere of human needs and nurture, breeding pathological symptoms there. In universities, as in transnational corporations, a la...
November 19 at 9:46pm · Share it
Cherie MacDonald
Cherie MacDonald
Right on students (and Terry Eagleton)! Just try suggesting at the TDSB that education should be more than job training and they will look at you as a freak of nature, old and out-of-touch and even elitist for supposiing that anyone but the elite should know about literature, history, philosophy, or critical thinking. ("That's not what these kids need! They need a job!") I attended a PD session where the purpose was to direct us to use less fiction in English class. As one teacher said, "When was the last time your boss asked you for a book report on a novel?" Laughter and general agreement all round. Asshole! You don't read great literature to please the boss! There ARE other reasons.

Do you realize that a kid can earn half their diploma in "co-op ed" which can mean working at Shoppers' or McDonald's developing "employment skills"? This relieves the youth of the burden of academic work, enables the school to receive full funding for that student while not being bothered by him in the classroom, and helps the government claim higher graduation rates. Everyone's happy all round. The only people who questioned the benefits of this when I worked in co-op ed. last year were a group of janitors in the TDSB where I placed a student helper. The janitors said they would not accept that sort of "education" for their own children. However, we teachers and administrators know better, don't we?

Also right on for supporting faculty struggles for better working conditions. Students who oppose teachers' strikes and unions are cutting their own throats. They'll want those better conditions themselves once they graduate.... Read More

As for the critique of "bureaucratic centralization", don't even get me started on the TDSB!
Sat at 4:51am
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Norman Finkelstein to TV host: ‘Listen to yourself. You’re spouting Israeli propaganda’
I first watched this interview a few days ago (thanks Dean) but refrained from posting. Although Norman Finkelstein responds well, zionist tv host Adam Holm’s ho-hum hasbara (recognition, self-defense) exceeded the zio-bs quota for the day, and featuring war-criminal Danny Ayalon’s li...
November 19 at 9:46pm · Share it
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Imagining Radical Change with David Harvey & Alexander Cockburn
Event description:David Harvey, author of A Brief History of Neoliberalism, and Alexander Cockburn, author of End Times: The Death of the Fourth Estate, don’t think small when it comes to change. They aren’t afraid to think about significant, even radical changes to the social order we’ve grown s...
November 19 at 6:44pm · Share it
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Cry Out by Fares Khouri
Reposted from Occupation Magazine 15/11/09.Cry Out– Fares KhouriCry out in Arabic, Ahmed, and contaminate their earsStand at Habima square, and cry out to your friend, who’s on Hertzel street, to bring you the shovelDisturb all those sitting in Rothschild boulevard with their coddled ...
November 19 at 6:43am · Share it
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Addicted to occupation
I think that Israel needs an adult who will save it from its own addiction to the occupation. … I think that this balance of power, this really twisted relationship between the United States and Israel, which is unprecedented—there’s no country in the world that reacts like Israel vis...
November 17 at 9:46pm · Share it
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P U L S E http://pulsemedia.org/2009/11/18/what-would-checkpoints-in-the-uk-look-like/

What would checkpoints in the UK look like? « P U L S E
Source: pulsemedia.org
‘No way through’ is an imaginative thought experiment that illustrates the daily experience of Palestinians in the israeli-occupied territories (in this case, the West Bank) as transposed into ...
November 17 at 9:34pm
P U L S E

P U L S E http://pulsemedia.org/2009/11/18/addicted-to-occupation/

Addicted to occupation « P U L S E
Source: pulsemedia.org
I think that Israel needs an adult who will save it from its own addiction to the occupation. … I think that this balance of power, this really twisted relationship between the United States and ...
November 17 at 9:34pm
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The Buycott Campaign
Do you support Israel? Are you fed up with calls to boycott Israeli goods and services? Want to do something about it? NOW YOU CAN. Sign up for BUYCOTT ALERTS today.We’ll alert you when a boycott initiative needs to be countered, and we’ll let you know the results of every BUYCOTT act...
November 17 at 3:44pm · Share it
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Inside Britain’s Israel Lobby: full episode
As flagged earlier, here is the full 48 minute episode Inside Britain’s Israel Lobby from Channel Four’s Dispatches program.
November 17 at 3:45am · Share it
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Bagram gets a makeover for the Press
A few days ago a group of journalists were allowed to go on a restricted access tour of Bagram Theater Internment Facility, which is located north of Kabul in Afghanistan.  Commonly referred to as just “Bagram,” the recently renovated prison (60 million US tax dollars were used to build an additi...
November 17 at 12:45am · Share it
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Avi Shlaim and Shlomo Sand in conversation with Jacqueline Rose
Avi Shlaim and Shlomo Sand in conversation with Jacqueline Rose at the Frontline Club (via PIWP).Event description:Few modern conflicts are as attached to history as that of Israel and Palestine. Avi Shlaim, professor of international relations at Oxford will be in conversation with Shlomo Sand, ...
November 16 at 6:43pm · Share it
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Britain’s Israel Lobby
Back in 2005 when I set out to write a profile of the Labour Friends of Israel for Spinwatch, the powerful pro-Isarel lobbying group, I couldn’t find a single in depth study. Nearly five years later, little seems to have changed. All of this cannot be blamed on corporate media collusion; th...
November 16 at 3:45am · Share it
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Canada, CSIS and the Future
When I was in High School my female guidance counsellor (also my Physical Education teacher) asked my class to write out a paragraph describing what we wanted to do in the future career wise.  My answer, which was rushed and obviously forced, prompted her to ask me to stay for a moment after the ...
November 16 at 3:45am · Share it
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What are western church leaders doing to protect the Holy Land?
Stuart Littlewood, in conversation with Angie Tibbs, has some interesting words to say about the incredibly tenacious and courageous clergy, both Christian and Muslim, in the face of the brutal israeli occupation of occupied Palestine, including Bethlehem and Nazareth. Stuart met with several pri...
November 16 at 12:45am · Share it
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On PTSD, Fort Hood, Afghanistan, Iraq and Empire – Dahr Jamail
An excellent and wide-ranging interview with Dahr Jamail on US foreign policy, interviewed by Cindy Piester. (The only quibble would be that claim that the occupation of Iraq is all about oil and the absence of the mention of the israel Lobby as a critical factor in the invasion.) Run-time 58 min...
November 15 at 9:45pm · Share it
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George Galloway at the War Crimes Conference
The inimitable George Galloway addresses the War Crimes Conference in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia on 28th October 2009. In three parts. Part One Part Two Part Three
November 15 at 9:45pm · Share it
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Strikes Back at Empire
Afghan insurgents deploy Fourth Generation Warfare tactics, of which propaganda is a key component. (via ABC News)
November 15 at 12:46pm · Share it
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Obama’s war in Afghanistan
Fault Lines brings together a panel of guests and a studio audience to discuss Obama’s war in Afghanistan. Hosted by Avi Lewis. Excellent interventions from Jeremy Scahill and Matthew Hoh.
November 15 at 6:44am · Share it
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A Ghazal from Ghalib
translated by M. Shahid Alamنقش فریادی ہے کس کی شوخیِ تحریر کاکاغذی ہے پیرہن ہر پیکرِ تصویر کاWhere is the Artist whose art they protest? Everyprop, every player, dreads his part in the play. Hard, it is hard, digging through granite nights.It takes a thousand sparks to break into day. The heat i...
November 14 at 6:43am · Share it
Amjad Doumani
Amjad Doumani
Learned about Ghalib from your post. Thank you.

from Wikipedia:
Before Ghalib, the ghazal was primarily an expression of anguished love; but Ghalib expressed philosophy, the travails and mysteries of life and wrote ghazals on many other subjects, vastly expanding the scope of the Ghazal. This, together with his many masterpieces, will forever remain his paramount contribution to Urdu Poetry and Literature.
November 15 at 5:12pm
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Anna Baltzer: Life in Occupied Palestine
A clear and accessible introduction to the fundamentals of the conflict. Anna Baltzer’s presentation is in three parts and and sponsored by United for Peace and Justice in Palestine at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.  Courtesy of Essential Dissent, hat tip to the excellent Australians for P...
November 13 at 12:44pm · Share it
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George Ciccariello-Maher on Venezuela
I actually lived in Caracas for 3 months a couple years ago, and have on my screen in front of me (literally) a 25,000 word (coruscatingly intelligent) essay on rural mobilization in Bolivarian Venezuela. The video above is George Ciccariello-Maher, the English-language social historian of Boliva...
November 12 at 9:45pm · Share it
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Kathy Kelly on the cost of war abroad and at home
The wonderful Kathy Kelly gives an excellent, compelling presentation on the costs, monstrosities and sorrows of war at the First Presbyterian Church in Binghamton, NY.  She importantly provides the view on the ground from the perspective of Pakistani, Afghani and Palestinian villagers at the rec...
November 12 at 6:44pm · Share it
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Hope? – Obama, Abbas, Abunimah and Morrisons
The hope invested by many in Barack Obama has dissolved. Dare I sing ‘I told you so’? I do. The audacious hope of Obamamania was always faith-based, founded on the believer’s premise that the handsome candidate didn’t mean what he actually said, that we should read his words esoterically, as code...
November 12 at 3:45pm · Share it
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LIVE FROM HONDURAS: Hondurans ‘travel like crazy’ in support of coup government
A Time magazine article of 24 October entitled “Honduran Tourism: Selling Against a Coup” explains that the post-coup decrease in foreign visitors to Honduras has led the de facto regime of Roberto Micheletti to promote internal tourism:Working with resorts and hotels on Roatán Island, a popular ...
November 12 at 9:44am · Share it
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Dahr Jamail: Honoring The Vets Who Go Unnoticed
Crossposted at Air America Radio.Dahr Jamail is an award-winning independent journalist whose work has appeared on National Public Radio, in The Guardian (UK), The Nation, The Progressive, and more. In his latest book, The Will to Resist: Soliders who refuse to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, Jama...
November 11 at 3:44pm · Share it
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Supporting the Cultural Boycott from Within
The israeli group, BOYCOTT! Supporting the Palestinian BDS call from within, have circulated a call to action, asking Israeli citizens to contact officials at the University of Trondheim, and express their support for a decision in favor of an institutional boycott against Israeli universities. T...
November 11 at 6:44am · Share it
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Refugees and Zionist propaganda
Agence France Press (AFP) reported the following today: A draft law stipulating that any Middle East peace treaty must mention compensation for Jews forced to leave Arab states has passed a preliminary reading in the Israeli parliament, a spokesman said on Wednesday. The draft bill, present...
November 11 at 6:44am · Share it