by B. R. GOWANI

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard was rushed out of a restaurant which had been surrounded by a crowd of angry protesters. She lost one of her shoes in the tussle. PHOTO/Daily Mail

Aboriginal Indigenous Australians
who had been living there for over 40,000 years
lost their land and many of their people
when their land was invaded by the whites
and the first European colony was established in 1788

the rest of the story is similar
to other indigenous people, the world over
they constantly encounter racism
and have to fight for their rights

so it was a rare sight
to see fear in the eyes of a white leader
when faced with angry protesters

Premier Gillard wasn’t attacked or hurt
but in the ensuing hassle
she stumbled and lost her right shoe

big deal
Aborigines lost their entire land

yet they have invited Gillard
to come and take back her shoe

can Gillard offer them equal citizenship
if not their entire land?

B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com

by B. R. GOWANI

IMAGE/Haaretz
The owner and editor of the Atlanta Jewish Times, Andrew Adler, in a January 13 op-ed piece suggested three solutions to save Israel: Eliminate President Barack Obama or attack Iran or attack Lebanon’s Shia Muslim group Hezbollah and Israel occupied Gaza’s Hamas.

Adler’s imagined scenario of 2017 has three catastrophes waiting for Israel: Thousands of Israelis will get killed in a 15,000 missiles and rockets attack by Hamas and Hezbollah; Iran will be capable of launching nukes; and the United States will be useless for Israel due to the US defense spending cuts and its policy of solving the Palestinian/Israeli issue through diplomacy.

This screwed up pro-Israeli is the victim of a disease one may call ISS, that is, imagined scenario syndrome–or better still, Israeli security syndrome. To save “thousands” of Israelis from an imagined attack, expected after five years, he wants to kill hundreds of thousands, of Palestinians, Iranians, and Lebanese, and Obama right now

Who knows what happens in five years. At least, Obama, even if he’s reelected in November 2012, will be out by January 2017. But Adler doesn’t want to wait till then; hence he wants the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad to eliminate Obama. This will then bring in Vice President Joe Biden as the CEO. Even though Obama has not done anything which could be construed as enabling the Palestinians to achieve their dream of an independent homeland, for Adler, Biden is a correct replacement. The probable reason could be that Biden would not only carry out Israel’s orders but has also a good stamina to suffer Israeli leadership’s insults.

Adler has since apologized and has called himself an “idiot” who put his “pen in my mouth.”

B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com

by B. R. GOWANI

trillions of cells in body Newt
not one of them is racism mute
“food-stamp president” is Obama
uttered the white king of drama
the white “father” is his hero
tho Jackson was ethically a zero
to save janitors’ pay, this jerk
wants school children to work
a member of the millionaire club
for the poor, he just has a snub
2 ounces of marijuana you bring
and he’ll clip off your life wing
giving vote to this racist shit
gives him a discrimination writ

B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com

by B. R. GOWANI

President Barack Obama’s unbelievable speech
was a good escapist cinema for these depressing times
which for a while transported you to a fantasy world

the US Armed Forces “exceed all expectations”
look what they’ve achieved in foreign countries
they have never failed to screw up those nations

we, the US ruling class lack that harmony
that’s why we have flunked in our endeavor
to absolutely f— up non-ruling classes

elsewhere, too much praise for the armed forces
can be dangerous, but not so in the US
here, they get all the goodies without coups

like pundits, mullahs, and pastors
never suggest a solution to the present mess
but always show the masses paradise or the “future”

Carter tried that US becomes energy independent
and energy comes from the world’s “unstable parts”
where instability has been caused by our actions

so why can’t we curtail our oil consumption
when “our security and prosperity” depends on others
it’s the DOD, stupid, the world’s biggest consumer of oil

“consumers finally have a watchdog in Richard Cordray”
who’ll keep an eye on banks and financial institutions
not affecting ongoing contribution flow from financiers

he paid tribute to late Steve Jobs of Apple
whose wife Laurene Powell Jobs was present there
notably absent: condition of the overseas workers condition

$1.3 trillion of US companies profit is sitting offshore
including Apple’s, that CEOs want to legitimize here
however, conditionally to escape all tax obligations

they may just succeed

B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com

by FRANCESCA FLORENTINI

If 2011 was any indicator, 2012 will be a year of further popular resistance to government austerity and a finance sector spun out of control. Whether it’s the occupy movements in the U.S. that have spread to the U.K., the indignados of Spain, or the general strikes in Greece and Italy, the people of the world when faced with economic crisis and tired fixit schemes are saying in near unison: Now it’s our turn.

Though refreshingly new, these movements have a South American predecessor: Argentina 2001, when popular protest put an end to destructive neoliberal policies and forever changed the political terrain of the country.

Ten years later, with the country’s unparalleled economic growth since 2003 and President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s landslide re-election victory, it is easy to forget just how the country climbed out of those difficult days. Though many attribute former President Néstor Kirchner with creating a new economic model that reigned in a private sector run wild, it was the people whose unyielding protests during the 1990s and through the turn of the century would ultimately bring about change.

As historian Ezequiel Adamovsky writes in Le Monde Diplomatique, “It was the constant threat of looting, targeting of politicians, of rebellion, of occupations, of roadblocks, and those assemblies that disciplined both management and local and international financial sectors, opening an unimagined space for politics.”

This unimagined space included the unemployed, labor unions, and the middle classes alike, who took to the streets in the final months of 2001, uniting under the slogan “Que se vayan todos” (They all must go). It was a powerful indicator that the entire political system was broken, and that not just the president and the economic minister, but all of Congress had abandoned and sold out its people. In less than two weeks the country saw the popular ousting of five presidents. For a people who not long before had lived under a military dictatorship in which any inkling of social protest could cost one their life, it was a moment of political reconstitution and reclamation of popular power.   

From a vacuum of political power and severe economic necessity, grew new political formations outside of traditional party politics. Hundreds of neighborhood assemblies came together to meet peoples’ most basic needs and create a space for local dialogue. Bartering clubs (with their own forms of currency) experimented in alternative economics, and workers of bankrupt businesses began to occupy and run enterprises on their own.

But ten years on, with fewer street protests and U.S. trademarks like Starbucks and Subway encroaching on the capital, what remains of this anti-neoliberal angst? How have the political formations whose “horizontal” nature inspired not just Argentina but the entire world, faded into the background of political landscape? Which projects have survived? Though the country may be far from the chaos of economic collapse, is the economic model the Kirchner governments have so exalted crisis-proof?

Long time coming: 1990s and the Piquetero movement.

Years of neoliberal policies had taken their toll on the Argentine people. Unemployment reached 17 percent in 1996 and infant mortality rate from 1995-97 was 20.4 (20.4 of 1000 infants would die before their first birthday). At the same time, the country had no social safety net or unemployment centers to help the poor subsist and find work. As sociologist Maristella Svampa details, “there were no policies to compensate the effects of labor ‘flexibilization’ measures or massive firings that accompanied the privatization of state enterprises, not to mention these companies’ adjustment to a new open­market context.”

Z Communications for more

by MARGARET KIMBERLEY

The recently revealed video of American marines urinating on dead Afghans identified as Taliban fighters has sparked much debate, but unfortunately little of it has any value. The usual suspects make the expected comments. Liberals wring their hands and declare that they are shocked, shocked to see such terrible behavior committed by their troops. The right wing shrug their shoulders and either dismiss the behavior’s importance altogether or express outright support.

The Obama administration tries to have it both ways by simultaneously expressing outrage and promising punishment of the offenders but also declaring that the continued occupation of Afghanistan is a necessity. It is meaningless for the secretaries of State and Defense to express outrage and promise to punish the offenders when they are in charge of the inherently murderous occupation.

The desecration of enemy bodies is a clear and unambiguous violation not only of the Geneva Conventions but of the moral principles most Americans claim to believe. It is also not at all shocking and not the first example of terror inflicted upon Afghanistan.

Early in 2011 a marine “kill team,” complete with photos of human trophies, became known to the public. The team killed civilians in premeditated attacks, luring people to check points and then throwing grenades at them. The photos created momentary outrage but the inertia of a political and social system dedicated to committing atrocities meant that any vocal opposition inevitably subsided.

“It is meaningless for the secretaries of State and Defense to express outrage and promise to punish the offenders when they are in charge of the inherently murderous occupation.”

Black Agenda Report for more

GAWKER

Andrew Adler, the owner and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times, a weekly newspaper serving Atlanta’s Jewish community, devoted his January 13, 2012 column to the thorny problem of the U.S. and Israel’s diverging views on the threat posed by Iran. Basically Israel has three options, he wrote: Strike Hezbollah and Hamas, strike Iran, or “order a hit” on Barack Obama. Either way, problem solved!

Here’s how Adler laid out “option three” in his list of scenarios facing Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu (the column, which was forwarded to us by a tipster, isn’t online, but you can read a copy here):

Three, give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place, and forcefully dictate that the United States’ policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies.

Yes, you read “three” correctly. Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel’s existence. Think about it. If I have thought of this Tom Clancy-type scenario, don’t you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel’s most inner circles?

Another way of putting “three” in perspective goes something like this: How far would you go to save a nation comprised of seven million lives…Jews, Christians and Arabs alike?

You have got to believe, like I do, that all options are on the table.

It’s hard to tell whether or not Adler is just some crank. But the Atlanta Jewish Times, which he purchased in 2009, appears to be a real community newspaper. It was founded in 1925 and, according to Wikipedia, claims a circulation of 3,500 and staff of five. To judge from its web site, it’s a going concern.

A nervous Adler told me over the phone that he wasn’t advocating Obama’s assassination by Mossad agents. “Of course not,” he said.

But do you think Israel should consider it an option? “No.”

But do you believe that Israel is in fact considering the option in its most inner circles? “No. Actually, no. I was hoping to make clear that it’s unspeakable—god forbid this would ever happen. I take it you’re quoting me?”

Yes. “Oh, boy.”

When I asked Adler why, if he didn’t advocate assassination and didn’t believe Israel was actually considering it, he wrote a column saying he believed that the option was “on the table,” he asked for a minute to compose himself and call me back. He did a few moments later, and said, “I wrote it to see what kind of reaction I was going to get from readers.”

And what was the reaction? “We’ve gotten a lot of calls and emails.”

Gawker for more

by SHUDDHABRATA SENGUPTA

So, this is how the borders of the Republic of India are also defended. With sticks, ropes and bluetooth enabled mobile phones. Eight soldiers of the Border Security Force, hold down a young Bangladeshi man accused of cattle smuggling. He is stripped naked, hogtied and then thrashed. He screams in agony and humiliation. The soldiers act as if they are out on a picnic. They discuss whether or not to give him some tea. Where to hurt him, on which body parts. How big a stick to use on him. Someone says “cut his ear off”. They stroll casually around him as he is humiliated. They laugh. He cries, as people usually do in these circumstances, and seems to call for his mother. Someone, probably one of the soldiers, records it all on video, on the 9th of December, 2010, somewhere along the Indo-Bangladesh border in Murshidabad, West Bengal

I am not embedding the video, which is as of now, still available on Youtube and circulating through Facebook Forwards because I feel the images it contains are a little too disturbing to upload on a blog like Kafila. However, all you have to do to see it is to type ‘INDIA: Violence by the BSF at Murshidabad” in the Youtube search bar. Viewer discretion is strongly advised.

If you do access the footage online I urge you to remember that this video was taken with the express intention of humiliating the man who is shown being beaten. It is my request that readers of Kafila, and anyone else who comes across this text (and I can do nothing other than request here) refrain from doing anything that might add to the Bangladeshi man’s humiliation while they watch the footage, if they choose to open the link.

The soundtrack you hear is chilling. One of the BSF men, perhaps the man who is filming, (because his voice sounds like it is closest to the recording device), says, “don’t give him tea in our utensils, and wash it out, if he uses it. The sisterfucker, eats cows, the motherfucker”.

One of the other soldiers, he is one of those doing the actual thrashing, asks the person filming to make sure that he has him on camera as he humiliates their captive. He and another soldier pose, like hunters with a trophy. One of them plants one well-shod foot on the prone, naked man. The soldier who asks to be photographed, makes another request to the man doing the filming. He wants it ‘bluetoothed’ to him. And so it goes on. And on. The recording lasts five minutes.

It is alleged that the man was tortured because he refused to pay the soliders at the BSF picket a bribe. If this is true then it becomes especially interesting to observe that the torturer-in-chief, who is so piously offended at beef-eating that he wants anything that touches the offender’s body to be ‘cleansed’ after contact is so eager to take a bribe that he has no moral compunction in unleashing (as punishment) a little bit of non-consensual recreational (for him and his mates) sadism on the side when he is refused one. Is this the kind of sophisticated and nuanced moral sense that prevails amongst responsible members of our security forces stationed at the border?

Kafila for more

(Thanks to Robin Khundkar)

by JOHN MATSON

COMETARY CATACLYSM: Imagery from the Solar Dynamics Observatory documents the demise of a comet plunging toward the sun. The comet streaked in from the right of the image. IMAGE/© Science/AAAS

As dramatic exits go, it’s on par with Major T. J. “King” Kong riding a falling nuclear bomb like a rodeo bull at the end of Dr. Strangelove. A NASA spacecraft has documented a comet’s demise as it plunged toward the sun at 600 kilometers per second, broke apart and vaporized inside the solar atmosphere.

The comet, known as C/2011 N3 (SOHO), met its fiery fate on July 6. The object’s official name designates that it was discovered in early July 2011 by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft. Many comets meet a similar end, but astronomers and solar physicists have never been able to track a comet’s trajectory all the way into the depths of the solar corona, the outermost layer of the sun’s atmosphere.

Scientific American for more