Ian Bunn | Political & Popular Culture Arts

Jeremy Scahill the 38 year old American National Security Correspondent for The Nation magazine and author of the international bestseller Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, has published an article in The Nation titled ‘Inside America’s Dirty Wars’. Scahill states “…Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, the oldest son of Anwar al-Awlaki, was born in Denver. Like his father, he spent the first seven years of his life in the United States, attending American schools. After he moved to Yemen with his family, his grandparents—Anwar’s mother and father—played a major role in his upbringing, particularly after Anwar went underground. Anwar “always thought that it is best for Abdulrahman to be with me,” Anwar’s father, Nasser al-Awlaki, told me. Anwar believed that his wife and children “should not be involved at all in his problems.” …Abdulrahman was not his father; he loved hip-hop music and Facebook and hanging out with his friends. They would take pictures of themselves posing as rappers, and when the Yemeni revolution began, Abdulrahman wanted to be a part of it. As massive protests shook Yemen, he would spend hours hanging out in Change Square with the young, nonviolent revolutionaries, sharing his vision for the future and, at times, just goofing off with friends. …As Abdulrahman mourned [his father’s assassination], the boy’s family members in Shabwah tried to comfort him and encouraged him to get out with his cousins …and joined a group of friends outdoors to barbecue. There were a few other people doing the same nearby. It was about 9 pm when the drones pierced the night sky. Moments later, Abdulrahman was dead. So, too, were several other teenage members of his family, including Abdulrahman’s 17-year-old cousin Ahmed. …The Obama administration would fight passionately to keep answers secret, invoking the “state secrets” privilege repeatedly …The consensus that has emerged from various anonymous officials commenting on Abdulrahman’s killing was that it was a mistake.”

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Lee Fang the American investigative reporter and blogger has published an article in The Nation Magazine titled ‘Does the NRA Represent Gun Manufacturers or Gun Owners?’ Fang states “Over the last four years, Congress and the Obama administration have only enacted laws that have deregulated gun use in America. It’s no secret why. As pundits love to note, the gun lobby is incredibly influential. But as we consider the potential for reform … one of the first questions we should ask this time is: who does the gun lobby really represent? The National Rifle Association portrays itself as an organization that represents “4 million members” who simply love the Second Amendment. The truth is much more murky. In reality, the NRA is composed of half a dozen legal entities; some designed to run undisclosed attack ads in political campaigns, others to lobby and collect tens of millions in undisclosed, tax-deductible sums. …Despite the grassroots façade, there is much evidence to suggest that corporations that profit from unregulated gun use are propping up the NRA’s activities, much like how the tobacco lobby secretly funded “Smokers Rights’” fronts and libertarian anti-tax groups, or how polluters currently finance much of the climate change skepticism movement. …The Violence Policy Center has estimated that since 2005, gun manufacturers have contributed up to $38.9 million to the NRA. Those numbers, however, are based on publicly listed “sponsorship” levels on NRA fundraising pamphlets. The real figures could be much bigger. Like Crossroads GPS or Americans for Prosperity, or the Sierra Club for that matter, the NRA does not disclose any donor information even though it spends millions on federal elections. And like other industry fronts, the NRA is quick to conceal its pro–gun industry policy positions as ideological commitments.”

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Julia Ramírez Blanco the 26 year old Spanish Art historian and critic has published an article in The Nation Magazine titled ‘How Young Madrid Rejects Austerity: The What and Why of 25S’. Blanco states “Young people in Spain grew up in a country where most citizens had access to all levels of education, where the welfare state provided healthcare, and where access to university permitted dreams of a decent future. Now all this has suddenly disappeared in the name of austerity, which the government has unilaterally proclaimed the only option. None of the measures being implemented appeared in campaign platforms of the governing conservative party Partido Popular, now 10 months into its tenure in office. With university fees rising, general social budgets disappearing and the youth unemployment rate over 50 percent, it is no wonder that many young people feel cheated. The protest encampments of the indignados sprouted all over Spain in May 2011, and since then demonstrations have cropped up regularly in objection to specific measures—cuts to education, cuts to healthcare, cuts to mining subsidies. But on September 25 of this year, the indignation took the form of a clear and confrontational questioning of the entire governing system. The goal of the action was to “highlight the distance between governors and citizens, and to demand the reopening of the constitutional process.” …Spanish youth, who grew up in a good educational system and enjoyed many social rights, has been jolted. They are too awake, now, to simply sit back and accept their popularly-anointed status as a generation “without a future.””

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Jeanne Theoharis an American an associate professor of political science, along with Saskia Sassen has published an article on The Nation titled ‘A Human Rights Court Gives Torture the Green Light’. The article states “…the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) bowed to pressure from the US and British governments and turned a blind eye to the torturous conditions at the federal Supermax prison, ADX (short for Administrative Maximum), in Florence, Colorado, where prisoners languish in long-term solitary confinement. Dealing a blow to human rights on both sides of the Atlantic, the court rejected an appeal by five terror suspects held in Britain to block their extradition to the United States. …The most restrictive prison in the federal system, ADX was built to keep every prisoner in solitary confinement and designed to limit all communication among prisoners. Cells are the size of a small bathroom with thick concrete walls and steel doors. A prisoner must eat, sleep, shower, read, pray and use the toilet in the cell. For one hour a day, prisoners may exercise in an outdoor cage too small to run in or in a windowless indoor cell, empty except for a pull-up bar. The outdoor “recreation” cages are known as “dog runs” because they resemble kennels. The only “contact” ADX prisoners have with other inmates is shouting to each other through toilets, vents or the outdoor cages. They receive food through a slot and eat every meal alone within arm’s length of their toilet. Psychiatric care at ADX often consists of shouting to prisoners through their doors to inquire if they’re “OK.””

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Kevin Gosztola the American undergraduate writer and filmmaker has posed the question: Why Did Ecuador Grant Asylum to Julian Assange? in an article he published in The Nation magazine. In the article he states “…in the face of rumors that British authorities were considering storming the Ecuadorean embassy in London to arrest Julian Assange, Ecuador’s Foreign Minister, Ricardo Patiño, announced that his country will grant the WikiLeaks founder diplomatic asylum. He declared that his government endorsed the “fears” expressed by Assange that he could face political persecution if sent to Sweden, and that such asylum would protect him from the possibility of being extradited to the United States. …Patiño read from a list of points detailing the foundation for the asylum request by Assange, who he described as “an award-winning communications professional” known “internationally for his struggle for freedom of expression, press freedom and human rights in general.” He cited “strong evidence” that Assange faced possible “retaliation by the country or countries that produced the information,” revealed by Cablegate, noting that such retaliation “may endanger [his] safety, integrity, and even his life.” He said that “given an extradition to the United States of America, Mr. Assange would not have a fair trial, could be tried by special courts or military” and could be the victim of “cruel and degrading” treatment. …if the Swedish government is genuinely concerned over the women who brought forth the allegations against him, it is troubling to see its government continue to refuse to send someone to question Assange in London. It is this refusal that ultimately helped convince Ecuador to grant asylum.”

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Nina Rosenwald the American Chairperson of the Board of the Middle East Media and Research Institute and Vice President of the Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs has been profiled by Max Blumenthal in an article published on The Nation titled ‘The Sugar Mama of Anti-Muslim Hate’. In the article Blumenthal states ” An heiress to the Sears Roebuck fortune, Rosenwald spreads her millions through the William Rosenwald Family Fund, a nonprofit foundation named for her father, a famed Jewish philanthropist who created the United Jewish Appeal in 1939. His daughter’s focus is more explicitly political. According to a report by the Center for American Progress titled “Fear Inc.,” Rosenwald and her sister Elizabeth Varet, who also directs the family foundation, have donated more than $2.8 million since 2000 to “organizations that fan the flames of Islamophobia.” Besides funding a Who’s Who of anti-Muslim outfits, Rosenwald has served on the board of AIPAC, the central arm of America’s Israel lobby, and holds leadership roles in a host of mainstream pro-Israel organizations. As groups like AIPAC lead the charge for a US military strike on the Islamic Republic of Iran, threatening to turn apocalyptic visions of civilizational warfare into catastrophic reality, Rosenwald’s wealth has fueled a rapidly emerging alliance between the pro-Israel mainstream and the Islamophobic fringe. …Who is this benefactor of Islamophobia? According to those familiar with Rosenwald, she is anything but a sophisticated Machiavellian operator—“a babe in the woods,” as one of her longtime acquaintances described her to me.”

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Moustafa Bayoumi the Swiss-American award-winning writer and associate professor has published an article in The Nation titled ‘Something’s gone terribly wrong’. In the article Bayoumi states “Every group has its loonies. And yet the idea that American Muslim communities are foul nests of hatred, where dark-skinned men plot Arabic violence while combing one another’s beards, persists. In fact, it’s worse than that. In the past few years, another narrative about American Muslims has come along, which sows a different kind of paranoia. While the old story revolves around security, portraying American Muslims as potential terrorists or terrorist sympathizers, the new narrative operates more along the axis of culture. Simple acts of religious or cultural expression and the straightforward activities of Muslim daily life have become suspicious. …What happens when ordinary life becomes grounds for suspicion without a hint of wrongdoing; when law enforcement premises its work on spying on the quotidian and policing the unremarkable; and when the everyday affairs of American Muslim life can so easily be transformed into nefarious intent? Something has gone terribly wrong for American Muslims when, more than a decade after the terrorist attacks of September 11, anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States continues to grow. …There is a real danger that the same tools that enable today’s Islamophobia will continue to migrate and expand with little or no public outcry. …mission creep is as good a reason as any to pay attention to Islamophobia today – because when the ordinary affairs of the United States include such actions, the stakes are nothing less than extraordinary.”

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Disorder is the new order; disequilibrium rules (May 26th 2012)

Carne Ross the 45 year old British director of a diplomatic advisory group ‘Independent Diplomat’, founded after he resigned from the British Foreign Office having giving then-secret evidence to a British inquiry into the Iraq invasion. Ross has published an article in The Nation titled ‘Occupy Wall Street and a New Politics for a Disorderly World’. In the article Ross states “The global financial crisis has provoked a profound and necessary questioning of the prevailing political and economic orthodoxy. So pervasive is this disillusionment with the current order that it is hard to find anyone prepared to defend it. Disorder is the new order; disequilibrium rules, and old assumptions no longer hold. …The defenders of the status quo claim that only their methods can maintain order. They are, in fact, achieving the opposite. The politics proposed here, and already evident in Occupy and elsewhere, can foment a deeper order, where people are connected to one another, reweaving our tattered social fabric, where work is fulfilling and responsible, and where everyone in society is given their proper voice and their interests are accounted for. Our current political and economic forms have made avowal of these ideals seem archaic, almost absurd. How ridiculous to wish for such virtues! We cannot let such cynicism triumph. A new way is possible, but it has to be enacted, not asked for.”

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99 percent for the 100 percent (May 9th 2012)

Anthony Kapel “Van” Jones the 43 year old USA lawyer environmental and civil rights advocate, and president co-founder of Rebuild the Dream, a platform for bottom-up, people-powered innovations to help fix the US economy. Jones has published an article on The Nation titled ‘The 99 Percent for the 1 Percent’. Jones states “The “99 percent versus the 1 percent” argument falls short in a lot of ways. The vast majority of Americans do not oppose their fellow Americans, simply because they are rich. To the contrary: more than perhaps any other people on this Earth, Americans admire success. What we detest is greed. We like economic winners; we hate economic cheaters. We cheer economic innovation; we despise financial manipulation. Like most people, I don’t hate rich people who buy yachts. (The workers who build those yachts are happy.) We don’t mind when wealthy Americans buy expensive toys; we do mind when they try to buy governors and Congresspeople. …We need everyone in our country to be involved in healing our economy and fixing our democracy. …A movement of the 99 percent for the 100 percent—powered by a deep love of working people and laying claim the best of our nation’s values—could yet transform our nation.”

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Could be taken for a nineteenth-century Russian novelist (April 28th 2012)

Gregory Shvedov the 35 year old Russian Human Rights activist and journalist renowned for his efforts in promoting human rights in Russia has been profiled by Katrina vanden Heuvel in an article for The Nation, where she states, “With his full red beard and pale complexion, Gregory Shvedov could be taken for a nineteenth-century Russian novelist. Yet Shvedov is an editor fiercely committed to independent journalism at a time when international media monitors rank Russia as among the world’s most dangerous countries for reporters. …Shvedov founded Caucasian Knot (Kavkazkii Uzel), which since its launch in 2001 has become the leading independent source of news, in Russian and English, about the Caucasus. The site has some fifty local correspondents working in twenty locations in the conflict-ridden region—a patchwork quilt of Russian and independent republics including Chechnya, Dagestan and Azerbaijan. Since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, this vast and complex region has been ravaged by civil war, occupation, violence, torture, kidnappings, terrorism, corruption, rising unemployment and growing Islamic radicalism. After September 11, 2001, by aligning himself with President George W. Bush’s “global war on terror,” President Vladimir Putin was able to largely silence international criticism of Russia’s actions in the Chechen war.”

Inspired by Katrina vanden Heuvel http://ow.ly/anGY7 image source wpfd2011 http://ow.ly/anHpt

What this chatter about loopholes is about (April 25th 2012)

Allison Margaret Kilkenny the 28 year old USA social critic has published an article on The Nation speaking to the ‘Spring Awakening’ resurgence of the Occupy Wall Street movement and Tax Day protesters taking to the streets in New York City. In the article, Kilkenny states ”It’s time for the big banks and corporations to pay their share of taxes like the rest of us do. …the major corporations and 1 percenters pay little to nothing in taxes. Though the right’s favorite talking point is that America has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world at 35 percent, this doesn’t take into account corporations’ tax-evading practices. The S&P is home to 115 companies that receive more in credits than they pay out. It is this unbalanced system—where extremely wealthy individuals and corporations reap the rewards of rigging the US political system and tax code, while poor people are forced to sacrifice their already meager means… Meanwhile, it seems as though the financial elite simply don’t understand what this chatter about loopholes and tax-dodging is all about.”

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We've been sold out by five justices (March 16th)

Ari Berman the US investigative journalist for The Nation institute and magazine has published an article on Aljazeera referencing the 2012 US presidential election as “the year of the big donor, when a candidate is only as good as the amount of money in his Super PAC.” The “2012 presidential election have become almost exclusively defined by the one per cent. Or, to be more precise, the .000063 per cent. Those are the 196 individual donors who have provided nearly 80 per cent of the money raised by Super PACs… “This really is the selling of America,” claims former presidential candidate and Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean. “We’ve been sold out by five justices thanks to the Citizens United decision.” In truth, our democracy was sold to the highest bidder long ago, but in the 2012 election the explosion of Super PACs has shifted the public’s focus to the staggering inequality in our political system, just as the Occupy movement shined a light on the gross inequity of the economy. The two, of course, go hand in hand.”

Inspired by Ari Berman http://ow.ly/9vaLm image source Businessinsider http://ow.ly/9vbnQ