lørdag den 26. marts 2011

Dokumentar: Gasland.

GASLAND from WorldReport on Vimeo.

Ilan Pape: Reframing the Israel/Palestine conflict.

Reframing the Israel/Palestine conflict: an interview with Ilan Pappe from Frank Barat on Vimeo.

Noam Chomsky answers questions from famous intellectuals.

Noam Chomsky answers questions from Ken Loach, Paul Laverty, Alice Walker, Chris Hedges, John Berger and Amira Hass from Frank Barat on Vimeo.

Dagens Citat: Derrick Jensen.



“In a finite world, every resource expended for one purpose is unavailable for any other purpose. If you eat a salmon, I cannot eat salmon. If one eats or otherwise kills all of the salmon, no one will ever eat salmon again. The same principle works in economics. Every dollar spent building a B-2 bomber is unavailable to pay for immunization and food that a child needs to survive. Every human-hour used is unavailable to rehabilitate damaged streams, to create music or poetry, to play with children, or to teach people to read. Every gigawatt of electricity consumed is unavailable to run hospitals or schools [..] Since no one in her right mind wishes to kill people by dropping bombs on them, the best any of us can sanely hope for is that every resource used in construction of these bombers will be wasted. The alternative is that the bombers will be used for their designated purpose, which is to destroy. What cultural rootstock would put its resources into yielding such fruits as this? What cultural consciousness would engender such choices?”

Derrick Jensen, The Culture of Make Believe, p. 365.

torsdag den 24. marts 2011

Michael Hardt On 'Common Wealth' (1 of 10)

The Military-Industrial Complex Revisited

Dagens Citat: Hardt & Negri.


“The great modern works of political science all provide tools for transformation or overthrowing the ruling powers and liberating us from repression. Even Machiavelli's The Prince, which some read as a guidebook for nefarious rulers, is in fact a democratic pamphlet that puts the understanding of violence and the cunning of power in the service of republican intelligence. Today, however, the majority of political scientists are merely technicians working to resolve the quantitative problems of maintaining order, and the rest wander the corridors from their universities to the courts of power, attempting to get the ear of the sovereign and whisper advice. The paradigmatic figure of the political scientist has become the Geheimrat, the secret adviser of the sovereign.”

- Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri, Multitude p. 33.

Michelle Alexander: US Prisons, The New Jim Crow

Dokumentar: The Trials Of Henry Kissinger

Glenn Greenwald, Presentation, 8 March 2011

Dagens Citat: Howard Zinn


“[Civil disobedience] is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that numbers of people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience … Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem.”

- Howard Zinn.

onsdag den 23. marts 2011

Afghanistan: Den sikkerhedspolitiske begrundelse.


Den primære officielle begrundelse for de danske troppers tilstedeværelse i Afghanistan, har kontinuerligt været, at vi befinder os i landet for at sikre, at der ikke igen sker terrorangreb på vestlige mål og interesser.

I sin nytårstale 2009 benyttede Anders Fogh Rasmussen således lejligheden til at forsvare Afghanistan-krigen med den sikkerhedspolitiske begrundelse:

“Vi lever i en ny verden. En verden, hvor terrorister kan slå til hvor som helst - også i Danmark. En verden, hvor forsvaret af vores sikkerhed starter fjernt fra dansk jord. Afghanistan må ikke igen blive et fristed for terrorister. Derfor er vi i Afghanistan. Det handler om sikkerhed. Og det handler om, at vi danskere tager medansvar i verden. Vi ønsker frihed, fred og sikkerhed. Så må vi også selv yde et bidrag”.

Den sikkerhedspolitiske begrundelse er imidlertid tvivlsom idet Al-Qaeda ikke længere har nogen nævneværdig tilstedeværelse i landet, mens organisationen til gengæld menes at være aktiv i en række andre lande, som Danmark (eller den internationale koalition) ikke er militært engageret i. Der er ikke meget der tyder på at de lokale krigsførende parter i Afghanistan har andet end lokale interesser, hvorfor de forskellige oprørsbevægelser altså ikke truer den danske befolknings sikkerhed!

Selvom Al Qaeda fortsat havde en markant tilstedeværelse i landet, eller skulle få det igen på et senere tidspunkt, er det særdeles tvivlsomt hvorvidt en nedkæmpning af organisationen på afghansk territorium ville forvolde en større grad af sikkerhed, da hverken terrorangrebene i London eller Madrid havde nogen beviselig forbindelse til Afghanistan. Sikkerhedsargumentet bør endvidere mødes med skepsis da planlægningen af et terrorangreb ikke kræver nogen konkret tilstedeværelse i et givent land. Terrorangreb, som dem vi så i London, Madrid og Mumbai, kræver ikke store træningslejre men beror derimod på relativt små sammensværgelser, som kan planlægge angrebene uden fysisk kontakt, så længe de har adgang til internettet. Endvidere har Al Qaeda iflg. officielle udmeldinger etableret sig i en række lande, herunder Yemen, Afghanistan-krigen vil altså ikke eliminere terrortruslen fra Al Qaeda og organisationens sympatisører, uanset dens udfald.