ISSN 2562-9948
Tracking Caribbean responses to the candidacy of Barack Obama, and Obama’s relationship with Native Americans, and other items related to imperial hegemony.
“Obama, the cerebral son of an anthropologist”—this is how the Associated Press touted soon to be ex-president Barack Obama on his visit to Laos this week. The AP went even further, declaring Obama’s approach “soft diplomacy”. One has to wonder where all of the “soft diplomacy” was in the seven brutal wars simultaneously fought by […]
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The following is the video, and transcript, of the now famous statement by Irish parliament deputy (TD) Clare Daly of the United Left Alliance, delivered in the Irish Parliament (Oireachtas) on Wednesday, June 19, 2013. Also see Clare Daly in Twitter and Facebook: Transcript: Deputy Clare Daly: It is important to take this opportunity to bring some […]
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On Friday morning, intoned the President of the United States, “…we woke up to news of a tragedy that reminds us all of the ways we are united as one American family.” Having arisen to the announcement that one American had gunned down scores of his compatriots in a Colorado theatre, I was compelled to […]
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On 20 January 2009, this is what an instrument of American pacification stated on his entry into office: To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to […]
Read More…An appropriate addendum to the previous post, Mercenary Humanism (or how Blackwater wished to “save Darfur,” for itself). Anyone who read the following items on this blog will not be surprised by the latest Wikileaks release, in particular: In Afghanistan It’s Now All About the Little Girls; Afghanistan’s Little Girls on the Front Line, Part […]
Read More…More U.S. troops to Afghanistan? Why the war in Afghanistan cannot be won By Hugh Gusterson | 21 September 2009 [reproduced with the permission of the author] A number of commentators have remarked of late on the ominous parallels between the situation in Afghanistan today and the quagmire in Vietnam in the 1960s: “The war […]
Read More…A very incisive article by John Pilger was brought to my attention (thanks again @rodolfob): “Power, Illusion, and America’s Last Taboo,” Dissident Voice, September 2nd, 2009. It is the written version of an address by Pilger this summer in San Francisco, presented in the video above. Here are some of my favourite passages from the […]
Read More…A believer in the forms of sorcery commonly associated with Haiti should be forgiven for thinking that the souls of miscreant, anti-communal academics had been captured by the Pentagon and bottled up in military uniforms, resulting in the creation of zombies. Like the so-called living dead, the Human Terrain System keeps coming back from the […]
Read More…Vehicles captured my attention on several occasions while I was in Vancouver, with its “sky train,” compact taxis, cruise ships, yachts, and buses — most were vehicles for commerce, tourism, and leisure. During my first night I was drawn to loud music blaring several stories below from what must have been the longest stretch limousine […]
Read More…Earlier tonight (Thursday, 19 Feb. 2009) I attended a special engagement with British journalist, Robert Fisk, who writes for The Independent, followed by his talk to an auditorium packed to the maximum, with 678 people attending at Concordia University‘s Sir George Williams campus. The special engagement was hosted by Concordia’s student newspaper, The Link in […]
Read More…Mousa Abu Marzook, deputy chief of the Hamas political bureau, 22 January 2009: …to President Obama we say: the wave of hope that met your election was heavily dampened by your silence on the Gaza massacre. This was compounded by your pre-election statement siding with the Israeli settlers of Sderot. You would do well to […]
Read More…Interviewed on Democracy Now! today, January 23, 2009, Noam Chomsky observed that Obama’s statement on Gaza at the State Department on January 22 was “approximately the Bush position.” I find the use of the word, “approximately” to be a generous. In fact, Chomsky’s appraisal was plain and direct, without mincing words nor paying servile tribute […]
Read More…Among the many American “news” sources that offer barely veiled propaganda, the Associated Press is one of the most outstanding for its unfaltering repetition of the official line from Washington, and its careful nurturing of Islamophobia. With partners like Yahoo!, which almost exclusively favours AP in its listing of top news on its default front […]
Read More…Israel appears keen to halt the Gaza offensive before Barack Obama is sworn in as U.S. president on Tuesday, to avoid clouding a historic day for its main ally. Israelis mostly back the war, but much of the world wants the bloodshed to stop. –Nidal al-Mughrabi, Reuters, Saturday, 17 January, 2009: “Israel plans ceasefire, Hamas […]
Read More…In a whirlwind of war, economic crisis, deepening pain that nurtures deepening suspicions and hatreds, some managers of crisis looked for a new means of pacification. George W. Bush was far too provocative (“Bring ’em on!” — and on they came), too confrontational, too much like the stereotype of the cowboy, destined to be reviled […]
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ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY 