David Spero

When President Obama made his first post-election visit to San Francisco, two groups of protesters met him in Union Square. About 500 activists (the “Left”) carried signs, sang songs and chanted for an end to the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, for environmental action and Medicare for all.

Sharing space with us were about 250 “tea-baggers” (the “Right”) carrying anti-Obama signs. Their main issues were lower taxes and opposition to “government intervention” in health care.

Despite sharp disagreement on health care and the “stimulus”, we agreed on much. Everyone I spoke to was against the wars (although they “supported the troops”) and against the corporate bailouts, and for civil liberties. Why must we see each other as opponents rather than potential allies? In a society run by corporate elites who trample the values of both progressives and traditional conservatives, couldn’t we align Left and Right against the national security state and bankster capitalism?

Scott Horton thinks we can and should. Horton is host of Antiwar Radio, a show heard on KAOS Radio in Austin, Texas and streaming on Antiwar.com. “The left-right political spectrum is the name of our dilemma,” he says. “To end the wars and restore our Bill of Rights we have to find common grounds, not get distracted and tear each other’s eyes out over less important cultural and economic differences.”

It seems clear the left-right divide is serving the rulers. In response to the question, “Where is all the protest,” a Common Dreams reader posted: “There are plenty of folks objecting. They are simply being dismissed by the left as “mobs” and “Nazi’s”, with the right dismissing the others as communists, socialists and liberals.”

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Alan Hart

On the first anniversary of the beginning of Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip – in my view it was a demonstration of Israeli state terrorism at its most naked – it’s not enough to say that the governments of the Western powers (and others) are complicit in Israel’s on-going collective punishment of 1.5 million Palestinians, 53% of whom are children.

What is actually happening in the blockaded Gaza Strip, and less obviously on the occupied West Bank, is the continuation by stealth of Zionism’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine. My friend Professor Ilan Pappe, Israel’s leading “revisionist” (meaning honest) historian and author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, would and has put it another way. What we are witnessing is, in his words, “genocide in slow motion.” And that, really, is what the governments of the Western powers (and others) are complicit in.

The question that provokes in my mind is: Why, really, are the major powers (and others) allowing it to happen?

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ddjango

He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave. - Sir William Drummond

When Jeanette asked me to continue our on-going conversation about spirituality, religion, and atheism here, the post began to just write itself. What's here, however, is not what I planned to say . . .

I've spent much of the last ten days with a fellow blogger friend setting up and now maintaining an internetwork on Facebook, Twitter, and our blogs of Palestinian/Gazan activists, making sue their news and cries for help reach the world in realtime.

I am no fan of Hamas. Let me be clear about that. Neither do I send any kisses to Fatah, Hizbollah, or the Israeli state and its operatives (IDF, Mossad, etc). But when I get up each morning after a sleep that did not stem my exhaustion, I go back to watch videos I had posted the night before. And everytime, I am shaken to the core . . .

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Even Tømte

Sentral-Asia er blant Statoils nye satsningsområder, her fra Aserbajdsjan.
Foto:Leif Berge/Statoil

Utenlandske oljeselskaper kan bli tvunget til å velge mellom korrupsjon eller ikke å få kontraktene de ønsker. Vestlige oljeselskapers investeringer i Sentralasia kan gi økt legitimitet til autoritære ledere, mener oljeprofessor Alex Danilovich.

Statoil har trappet opp engasjementet i Sentralasia. Selskapet har lenge operert i Aserbadjan, og leter nå etter nye forretningsmuligheter i Kasakhstan og Turkmenistan på den andre siden av det Kaspiske hav. De veldige olje- og gassreservene har gjort denne regionen til et åsted for et komplisert maktspill mellom regionale og internasjonale stormakter. Samtidig må oljeselskaper som opererer i området forholde seg til utbredt korrupsjon og ledere med mange flekker på det demokratiske rullebladet.

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