Indifferent to Difference in Juarez

Charles Bowden is indifferent to Difference

AMY GOODMAN: Charles Bowden, how does this relate to the hundreds of women who have been murdered in Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua over the last, oh, fifteen years? We’re talking nearly 500 or more.

CHARLES BOWDEN: Well, we’re talking nearly 500 in a fifteen-year period in a city that had a million and a half. Here’s how it relates. Essentially, none of those crimes have never been solved. During that same period, 95—between 90 and 95 percent of the murders have been males. None of those crimes have been solved. Last year, of those 2,600-plus murders in Juárez, there were thirty arrests. Not solutions, just arrests. The way they figure in is, if you’re a Mexican citizen, anybody can kill you, and nothing’s going to happen to them. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a child, a man or a woman, that their justice system is broken. I can understand, because of the sort of cause célèbre quality while people are focused on the dead women, but I think we ought to focus on the dead human beings. This city kills people, and nothing happens to the killers.

Poverty, Privilege and Health Care Reform

The Empathy Problem

By ANTHONY DiMAGGIO

"As recent public opinion polls demonstrate, those who pay closer attention to the media’s reporting on the health care debate in Congress are not only more likely to be confused about the specific reforms being proposed, they’re also more likely to oppose the health care reform (see the Pew Research Center health care surveys from July 2009, September 2009, and March 2010)."

Juan Cole on Robert Gates in Afghanistan:

"Gates accused Iran of ... secretly giving aid to the Taliban. ... Gates's allegation of substantial Iranian support for the hyper-Sunni Shiite-killing Taliban is implausible on the face of it, and makes Gates look silly in regional eyes."

BDS Israel

Israel: Boycott, Divest, Sanction

By Naomi Klein

January 7, 2009

Joel Beinin on BDS:

The tactic of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) has much to recommend it as a strategy for confronting the consolidation of Israeli apartheid. Aside from its positive association with the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, it is undeniably a non-violent tactic that can be used by large numbers of people and adapted to many different situations. The Palestinian people certainly have every right to choose whatever method they decide is most effective to achieve their national rights,

It is precisely the flexibility of the BDS campaign that has aroused concern among some who have long supported Palestinian rights. The original 2005 call for BDS advocates applying these measures until Israel recognizes the Palestinian right to self- determination and complies with international law by

1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;

2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and

3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

These goals leave open the question: Is BDS directed against the occupation? Or is BDS directed against the existence of the state of Israel (because, in fact, the entire state is built on occupied and colonized lands)? Some, who either do not care about this distinction or who express their political activism in intentionally provocative ways, may actually be weakening the BDS movement. It is impossible and undemocratic to suppress any of the voices in the emerging BDS movement. Mass movements usually contain many currents of opinion (as was the case in both the anti-apartheid struggle and the US Black freedom movement), and this is entirely legitimate. The best way to ensure that BDS is seen as a reasonable and effective strategy is if those who have carefully explained their approach to BDS (Neve Gordon or John Greyson or Udi Aloni’s very carefully argued statements) emerge as the dominant force in the movement. The renowned author, John Berger, initiated a practice of specifying carefully what he did and did not mean by a cultural boycott in the letter he appended to the December 2005 statement of 94 authors, film-makers and others who advocated a cultural boycott of Israel. Naomi Klein has said that her own approach to the cultural boycott was influenced by John Berger.

One thing we should be clear about: BDS will not disrupt the momentum for a political resolution to the conflict. There is no such momentum. There is momentum for more process. The Israeli press seems to have concluded that Obama is no longer a problem and that Bibi has outsmarted him. It’s not a question of intelligence, but rather that the Obama administration is not prepared to go as far as is necessary to compel even a full settlement freeze. But, if they had threatened to withdraw aid or even announced it was a possibility, i.e. a form of BDS, more progress might have been made. Governments will only take such measures when it is clear that there is popular support for them, and the BDS campaign is one way to establish that.

From JFJFP, Jewish Peace News "What kind of BDS campaign?"

Audio: Ali Abunimah & Jeff Blankfort Challenge Noam Chomsky's opposition to boycotting Israel

Building a Different Middle East

By Joel Beinin

The Nation, Jan 2010

The mobilizations are rooted in the particular dynamics of each village and depend on the balance of local political forces, family dynamics and economic factors like the possibility of obtaining permits to work in Israel. Together they form a peasant-based social movement that is becoming increasingly conscious of its political significance and filling the void in Palestinian leadership created by the futile struggle between the Palestinian Authority, dominated by Fatah, and Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip.

Is this movement likely to contribute to a resolution of the conflict anytime soon? 'Ayid Mrar is doubtful. "I don't know when the occupation will end," he says. "Not in one or two years. Maybe in a hundred. If the Palestinian people achieve their freedom, we don't want relations of enmity with Israel. We want to build a different Middle East."

Signs of Liberal Dimensia

Frank Rich in the NYT: "Last year the president pointedly studied J.F.K.’s decision-making process on Vietnam while seeking the way forward in Afghanistan. In the end, he didn’t emulate his predecessor and escalated the war."

Don't Look Back
Just Walk Away From the Democrats

By RON JACOBS

"The left needs to organize the unorganized. The working people, the unemployed, the young, and the restless. The right wing has their core group of supporters who organize around fear of the other. The liberals have those who believe in the myth of American equality because they have no class analysis. The Left needs to organize the rest and they need to do so without the Democratic Party. It should be quite clear to almost every left-leaning American by now that the Democrats are nothing more than another wing of the party that works for Wall Street and the Pentagon. To continue to work for and elect their candidates is self-defeating. As the first year of the Obama presidency has clearly shown, not only do the Democrats support the right wing agenda, that support makes it easier for the right wing to put their candidates into power. Why? Because after promising progressive reforms and then failing to deliver, voters tend to either not vote or vote for the right wing candidates out of anger and frustration."