Feb 1 2021
We are trying to draw a connection here about the colonial logics of racial hierarchy, where you have Palestinians building their own prisons, but you also have a racial hierarchy between Palestinians and Israelis, which have been referred by Amnesty International and others as an apartheid state. Then you also have the Indian government, which is a post-colonial, independent, “democratic” government that is using this kind of logic. This colonial racial division of labor to reproduce its own version of colonial racial division of labor in which you have this segregation of the terms of work and a racialization of the ways that certain kinds of workers are allowed access to remunerative work in the global labor marketplace.
We wrap up the week with geographer Michelle Buckley and media scholar Paula Chakravartty co-wrote the Boston Review article, "Labor and the Bibi-Modi 'Bromance': The Israel-India worker deal resembles British indenture." "The Moment of Truth" with Jeff Dorchen follows the interview.
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Keri Leigh Merritt
Apr 16
The US South's Elites Have Kept the Region Poor and Underdeveloped / Keri Leigh Merritt
Alec Karakatsanis
Apr 15
Accenture Is Taking Over Police Reform in LA County / Alec Karakatsanis & Hamid Khan
Steven Gonzalez Monserrate
Apr 4
The Cloud is Material and Impacts the Environment / Steven Gonzalez Monserrate
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Jan 14 2021
Posted by Alexander Jerri
Welcome the Moment of Truth, the thirst that is the drink.
In the summer of 2005, a team of 4 US Navy SEALs dropped into Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush, on a mission to capture a supposedly high-level Taliban leader. Only one SEAL survived. He was later played by Mark Wahlberg, a former white rapper and underwear model, in the movie, Lone Survivor .
In the book on which the movie was based, Marky and his fellow pinnipeds were ambushed by between 35 and 50 Taliban. Reconnaissance experts and those with access to intelligence on Taliban activity in the area that day say it couldn’t have been more than 8 or 10, and probably fewer. The man they were hunting, contrary to the contention of Marky Mark’s real-life counterpart, was no big-shot pal of Osama Bin Laden. He was the leader of a small Taliban- adjacent militia who had no link to US casualties.
And so, this very expensive mission that cost the lives of 3 of Marky’s comrades, along with a Special Operations Chinook helicopter and the lives of sixteen elite soldiers inside it who’d come to aid the original SEAL team, was a mission based on lies. Nineteen super-soldiers were killed while performing an operation amounting to a totally bullshit job, and the helicopter was shot down. The little militia that could have but didn’t, recovered three M4 Carbines with grenade launchers, a field laptop whose undamaged hard drive contained locations of possible targets, gear for night vision, and a sniper scope, which gave the US military a chance to order replacements, including a new tandem rotor heavy-lift military vehicle from Boeing Defense, Space & Security.
A side note: April 20 of last year, in the quarter following the start of the pandemic lockdown, the defense side of Boeing did better financially than its civilian side. The last time this happened was in 2008, after the world economy collapsed, proving that if you’re looking for a recession- proof investment, the mass murder industry is where it’s at.
But back to the summer of 2005: Marky was crawling, injured, to an uncertain survival down a cliff-face, when he was found by a Pashtun villager named Muhammad Gulab Khan. Gulab Khan then acted according to the code of hospitality called the Pashtunwali. The entire population of Afghanistan, whether Pashtun or not, follows the Pashtunwali code. When the US government demanded the Taliban turn over Osama Bin Laden to... read more
Jan 14 2021