mandag den 30. maj 2011
søndag den 29. maj 2011
Quote of the day: Robert O. Paxton on Fascism
Fascism, according to Paxton, is "A form of political behaviour marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion."
Robert O. Paxton: "The Anatomy of Fascism" 2004.
lørdag den 28. maj 2011
Round table "Meaning of Maghreb?" - Zizek, Habashi, Amin, Harvey, Bauman, 18th May 2011
"The meaning of Maghreb?" Round Table discussion featuring Slavoj Žižek, Mamdouh Habashi, Samir Amin, David Harvey, Zygmunt Bauman. Pt. 1 of 8.
Saudi troops sent to crush Bahrain protests 'had British training'
The Guardian 28 May 2011:
"...In response to questions made under the Freedom of Information Act, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed that British personnel regularly run courses for the national guard in "weapons, fieldcraft and general military skills training, as well as incident handling, bomb disposal, search, public order and sniper training". The courses are organised through the British Military Mission to the Saudi Arabian National Guard, an obscure unit that consists of 11 British army personnel under the command of a brigadier...."
The Telegraph May 25. 2011:
"...The Ministry of Defence has now admitted that members of the Saudi Arabian National Guard sent into Bahrain may have received military training from the British Armed Forces in Saudi Arabia.
The revelation is likely to renew allegations that the Coalition is sending mixed messages on democracy in the Middle East.
Despite British criticism of the Bahrainis' actions, David Cameron last week welcomed the Crown Prince of Bahrain to Downing Street, drawing criticism from human rights groups.
Britain keeps a large and secretive military training team in Saudi Arabia. British military personnel advise and teach the kingdom's forces in areas including crowd control
In a written parliamentary answer, Nick Harvey, the Armed Forces Minister, said the Government could not rule out the possibility that British-trained Saudis took part in the Bahraini operation.
He said: "The Ministry of Defence has extensive and wide-ranging bilateral engagement with Saudi Arabia in support of the Government's wider foreign policy goals. The Ministry of Defence's engagement with Saudi Arabia includes training provided to the Saudi Arabian National Guard, delivered through the British mission."
"It is possible that some members of the Saudi Arabian National Guard which were deployed in Bahrain may have undertaken some training provided by the British military mission." ..."
Sæt dem på gaden!
VKO-regimet, med Dansk Folkeparti i spidsen, ønsker nu at straffe kontantshjælpsmodtagere hårdt for udeblivelse fra de såkaldte “aktiveringstilbud.” Hvis man udebliver i blot en enkelt dag, uden at kunne begrunde det fyldestgørende, vil man fremover blive frataget halvdelen af sin kontanthjælp i et halvt år, hvilket svarer til at chefen konfiskerer en fjerdedel af ens årsløn hvis man tager en pjækkedag fra jobbet.
Begrundelsen fra Dansk Folkepartis Peter Skaarup er at ”det vil have en opdragende effekt” og Skaarup siger uddybende at ”vi er nødt til at skærpe sanktionerne for flere tusinde ledige på kontanthjælp og starthjælp afslår hvert år tilbud uden grund”. Beskæftigelsesminister Inger Støjberg mener også det er en god idé for som hun formulerer det:
”Som systemet er i dag kan kontanthjælpsmodtagere shoppe ind og ud af aktivering. Hvis der er noget, man ikke vil deltage i, mister man kun ydelsen i de f.eks. tre dage, man vælger at blive væk. Det gør det svært at skabe sammenhængende forløb, der kan bringe de ledige tilbage i job.”
Beskæftigelsesministeren antager altså at de mange aktiveringstilbud kan bringe de ledige tilbage i job, men desværre har det i de fleste tilfælde ikke ret meget at gøre med virkeligheden, idet antallet af ledige jobs blot udgør en ganske lille procentdel ift. antallet af ledige og det er derfor ikke unormalt at mange hundrede arbejdsløse søger den samme stilling, som eksempelvis tankpasser eller kassedame.
Det der kaldes et ”aktiveringstilbud” er i virkeligheden en eufemisme for tvangsaktivering for i modsætning til et tilbud, kan man ikke sige nej til at blive aktiveret. Denne tvangsaktivering kan indeholde alt ligefra kostvejledning over gymnastikundervisning til kognitiv gruppeterapi og bliver også ”tilbudt” til folk som ikke er hverken overvægtige, i dårlig form eller har ondt i psyken. At dømme ud fra disse aktiveringsforløb handler arbejdsløshedsproblemet altså åbenbart mere om, at folk ikke spiser rigtigt, ikke løber lange nok ture og ikke går rundt og har det godt nok med sig selv, end det handler om finanskrisen, eller om, at der ikke er kommet ret mange arbejdspladser ud af, at man har givet skattelettelser til de rige, selvom dette ellers iflg. teorien ville få en ”trickle-down effect,” hvilket kort sagt vil sige, at giver man de rige flere penge mellem hænderne, så kommer det i teorien os alle sammen til gode.
En anden kendt variant indenfor tvangsaktivering er jobsøgningskurser hvor ledige bruger mange timer dagligt på at lære at skrive en ansøgning, for hvis man ikke kan finde sig et arbejde hænger det åbenbart mere sammen med, at man ikke er god nok til at sælge sig selv, end det handler om, at der simpelthen ikke er ret meget arbejde at få. Er man ikke blandt de heldige der er kommet ud på arbejdsmarkedet når kurset er slut, ja så bliver man selvfølgelig bare nødt til at tage kurset en gang til, for ens fortsatte ledighed må jo så åbenbart hænge sammen med, at man ikke har hørt godt nok efter på kurset.
Skulle man i blot en enkelt dag udeblive fra et af disse stærkt fornedrende, perspektivløse og stupide tvangsaktiveringsforløb er man iflg, mange borgerlige nok bare en forpulet nasserøv der i virkeligheden slet ikke ønsker at komme i arbejde. Det er derfor fuldstændig på sin plads, at udeblivelse nu skal straffes med en så voldsom indkomstforringelse, at det i praksis betyder, at de sandsynligvis mange bistandsmodtagere som dette kommer til at ramme, må vælge mellem enten at have tag over hovedet eller mad på bordet, for en indkomst på under 6000 kroner før skat rækker næppe for ret mange til begge dele.
Det er vanskeligt at være decideret chokeret over dette nye tiltag, for har man fulgt den politiske udvikling gennem de sidste mange år kommer det næppe som et chok, at man på den borgerlige fløj gladeligt svinger pisken og ydmyger ledige der i forvejen lever på trange kår, men jeg er alligevel lidt overrasket over graden af afsky for de ledige og den forstyrrende afstumpethed der ligger til grund for dette nye straftiltag. Man kan da håbe på at regningen falder ved det næste valg, for selv Dansk Folkepartis vælgere må da efterhånden kunne se, at al snakken fra DFs side om, at man kæmper den lille mands sag, ikke har ret meget med den førte politik og virkeligheden at gøre.
torsdag den 26. maj 2011
onsdag den 25. maj 2011
tirsdag den 24. maj 2011
mandag den 23. maj 2011
søndag den 22. maj 2011
New Advances in Renewable Energy Technologies.
Splitting water to create renewable energy simpler than first thought?
(PhysOrg.com) -- An international team, of scientists, led by a team at Monash University has found the key to the hydrogen economy could come from a very simple mineral, commonly seen as a black stain on rocks.
New solar product captures up to 95 percent of light energy.
(PhysOrg.com) -- Efficiency is a problem with today's solar panels; they only collect about 20 percent of available light. Now, a University of Missouri engineer has developed a flexible solar sheet that captures more than 90 percent of available light, and he plans to make prototypes available to consumers within the next five years.
New omni-directional wind turbine can capture wind energy on building rooftops.
(PhysOrg.com) -- Katru Eco-Energy, headed by founder and inventor, Varan Sureshan, has developed a new kind of wind turbine meant to capture the winds that fly in all directions atop big buildings, and unlike conventional devices, the IMPLUX, as it’s called, can capture wind from any direction as it stands; meaning without having to be repositioned or pointed. The IMPLUX achieves this feat by means of horizontal turbine blades that sit atop a vertical axis and are turned by wind that is pushed up through what Sureshan calls a "fluid dynamic gate."
Chomsky: "There is Much More to Say."
Noam Chomsky expands upon his earlier comments regarding the assasination of Osama Bin Laden in Abottabad, Pakistan. Here is an excerpt:
"...It might be instructive to ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush's compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic (after proper burial rites, of course). Uncontroversially, he is not a “suspect” but the “decider” who gave the orders to invade Iraq -- that is, to commit the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: in Iraq, the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country and the national heritage, and the murderous sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region. Equally uncontroversially, these crimes vastly exceed anything attributed to bin Laden.
To say that all of this is uncontroversial, as it is, is not to imply that it is not denied. The existence of flat earthers does not change the fact that, uncontroversially, the earth is not flat. Similarly, it is uncontroversial that Stalin and Hitler were responsible for horrendous crimes, though loyalists deny it. All of this should, again, be too obvious for comment, and would be, except in an atmosphere of hysteria so extreme that it blocks rational thought.
Similarly, it is uncontroversial that Bush and associates did commit the “supreme international crime,” the crime of aggression, at least if we take the Nuremberg Tribunal seriously. The crime of aggression was defined clearly enough by Justice Robert Jackson, Chief of Counsel for the United States at Nuremberg, reiterated in an authoritative General Assembly resolution. An “aggressor,” Jackson proposed to the Tribunal in his opening statement, is a state that is the first to commit such actions as “Invasion of its armed forces, with or without a declaration of war, of the territory of another State….” No one, even the most extreme supporter of the aggression, denies that Bush and associates did just that.
We might also do well to recall Jackson’s eloquent words at Nuremberg on the principle of universality: “If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.” And elsewhere: “We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well.”...."
Read the rest here.
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