Kamonpan writes:

Tsunami’s Double Victims: A Tidal Wave of Discrimination

One of the most striking contradictions in the response to the tsunami’s aftermath on the Andaman coast — the periphery of a periphery — is the treatment of the Burmese migrant workers in Thailand. Hundreds died, an estimated 2,500 are among the missing. Yet these losses have gone unreported in the official government count in Thailand. The many injured and homeless survivors are being excluded from relief aid, treated like human trash. The Thai Action Committee for Democracy in Burma has called for special centers to be set up to help these discriminated victims of the Great Wave’s fury. [1]

A Glossary of the Right-Wing Sectors in U.S. Foreign Policy

Tom Barry, Interhemispheric Resource Center

[Militant] Anticommunists: Until the collapse of the Soviet bloc, militant anticommunism served to unify right-wing sectors around a foreign policy that stressed military budget increases, rationalized U.S. support for dictatorial regimes, and supported armed intervention. Unlike cold war liberals, who also identified themselves as anticommunists, the militant anticommunists of the right believed that the battle against communism needed to be fought at home as well as abroad, and they advocated aggressive rollback strategies rather than merely containment and deterrence. Militant anticommunism no longer functions as the backbone of the right’s approach to international affairs, although anticommunist convictions still shape the foreign policy agendas of many right-wing ideologues regarding U.S. relations with China, Cuba, and North Korea. This political agenda of crushing all forms of communist governance has created fissures within the right, dividing the proponents of free trade from those who resist establishing normal business relations with countries ruled by Communist parties.

nolympics writes:

"Cut Nur and Kausar Before the Tsunami"
David Martinez

I remember the first time I laid eyes on her. She stood in the doorway of her stately house as we trudged up the muddy street hauling backpacks and cameras, dripping with sweat. It was December of 2002 and the air in Banda Aceh felt like mulled soup. As we collapsed on the couch, Cut Nur and her daughters brought us water and tea and welcomed us to stay in their home.

She was tall, with a wide smile and purple dress. Her home was always bustling with activity, and the narrow courtyard was often filled with people and vehicles. Many of them worked at the hotel she owned, the Raja Wali, a sprawling building fronted with a leering plaster statue of an eagle located a few blocks away.

She welcomed anyone who sympathized with the cause of the Acehnese. After all, Cut Nur had been involved in the independence struggle for years.

Rory McGuire writes:

"NAFTA Is Not The Answer"

Rory McGuire

The outsourcing of jobs is one of the most dangerous policies in United States economic history. Recently, jobs in the high-tech, manufacturing, and agricultural sectors have increasingly been shifted overseas; unfortunately, the United States cannot compete with these lower wages elsewhere in the world.

The ramifications of job outsourcing are clear — as wages in the United States must be lowered to compete, more people find themselves impoverished, there is less hope of climbing the economic and social ladder, and the nation suffers as a whole. The tax base of the nation is reduced, and wide-ranging effects spread to local schools, hospitals, emergency response, and other crucial departments in the form of inadequate funding. Many of these problems can be linked to the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, on January 1, 1994.