Edward Said, "Thoughts About America"

Counterpunch

I don't know a single Arab or Muslim American who does not now feel that he or she belongs to the enemy camp, and that being in the United States at this moment provides us with an especially unpleasant experience of alienation and widespread, quite specifically targeted hostility. For despite the occasional official statements saying that Islam and Muslims and Arabs are not enemies of the United States, everything else about the current situation argues the exact opposite.

Hundreds of young Arab and Muslim men have been picked up for questioning and, in far too many cases, detained by the police or the FBI. Anyone with an Arab or Muslim name is usually made to stand aside for special attention during airport security checks. There have been many reported instances of discriminatory behaviour against Arabs, so that speaking Arabic or even reading an Arabic document in public is likely to draw unwelcome attention. And of course, the media have run far too many "experts" and "commentators" on terrorism, Islam, and the Arabs whose endlessly repetitious and reductive line is so hostile and so misrepresents our history, society and culture that the media itself has become little more than an arm of the war on terrorism in Afghanistan and elsewhere, as now seems to be the case with the projected attack to "end" Iraq.

Full story continues at: said america

"No Compromise with Capitalism"

Floyce White, March 1, 2002

You are facing north. East is to your right? True.
You turn to face south. East is to your right?
False. Any idea, such as "east is to your right," is
only temporarily and conditionally true.

A woman is facing north. East is to her right?
Maybe. She could be standing at the South Pole, where
north is in every direction of travel. Every rule has
exceptions.

www.wildcat-www.de/en/zirkular/61/z61e_mou.htm writes

For two generations French workers have been used to the
transfer of economic activities - mainly industrial factories -
from the main towns (especially from Paris industrial suburbs)
towards the country. For a time it was a very profitable for
companies: the mechanisation of agriculture "liberated" quite a
lot of farm workers (in 1945 more than 30% of the population
was living from agriculture and not even 10% 20 years later -
5% today). Wages were lower (then legally) up to 30% less
than in Paris; small towns, local administrations and the state
gave copious incentives. These companies could speculate
with the freed urban land and they could also engage a new
manpower easier to exploit for a while; even if the conditions of
work and wages were not that good, they often were better than
the farm work, for these country people not used to industrial
work; even more important, these workers and their families
could stay close to their birth-place. These economic transfers
did not raise resistance because in the main towns deserted by
industries it was then easy to find another job, the
unemployment rate being very low.

A Marxist Critique of Bakunin

Louis Proyect

With the advent of "anti-globalization" protests, a very old movement seems to be picking up steam once again. This seems to have something to do with fashion.