The media’s repeated scapegoating of the Muslim population and its continual ‘clash of civilisations’ narrative must be challenged. It is time we recognise and fight against the distorted depictions of Muslims we see every day in the media. When a Muslim murders a white man it is denounced as terrorism and considered worthy of rolling news coverage but when a Muslim is killed in a racist attack, like the one on 75 year-old Mohammed Saleem in Birmingham earlier this month, it is treated as a one-off murder and largely ignored. These blatant double standards are not acceptable."
US President Barack Obama has defended his administration’s use of drones as legal, effective, and just.
“We are at war with an organization that right now would kill as many Americans as they could if we did not stop them first. So this is a just war,” Obama said in a major policy speech…
2 weeks ago, a Pakistani man was brutally attacked with a knife as he walked home from his local mosque. No media coverage. A few days ago, an English man was brutally attacked with a knife as he walked the streets of London. David Cameron + media declare it a terrorist attack. Both are gruesome, unjustified acts of violence fueled by ethnic/racial/religious sentiment. When we let one go unknown, and the other equated with the “war on terror”…we do humanity a disservice. There is no “us vs. them”. It is simply us. Humans. Never, ever, lose sense of your humanism.
Very important note every Western European and American needs to comprehend: It isn’t Islam that fuels terrorism, it isn’t the words of the prophet Muhammad that incite violence. It is actually very logical. The rise in terrorism amongst followers of Islam is a mere proponent of the exploitation and murder of innocent civilians across the middle East. May your little brother never find himself in the crossfire of a drone attack whilst trying to learn simple division. May your mothers and fathers never have to mourn their children. May you live in peace, sleep in peace, and live normal lives in the pursuit of happiness, without the fear of retribution or death. Wake up and stop this perpetual flow of hate + ignorance now.
Ronald Reagan visited the concentration camp Bergen-Belsin, and then shortly after went to Bitburg to place a wreath on the graves of Nazi SS. After he came back to America there was obvious outrage and he said, “They [SS troops] were victims, just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps.” What a great guy comparing Holocaust victims to the men who massacred them.
Two fascists have been arrested for attacking mosques in south-east England as the backlash against the murder of a British soldier in Woolwich begins.
In Gillingham, Kent, a fascist ran into the local mosque and started smashing windows and bookcases. Meanwhile in Braintree, Essex, it is alleged that another fascist attacked the Islamic place of worship with a knife and explosive device.
Both the fascists have now been arrested by police.
In Gillingham, one witness told Kent Online they saw a fascist enter the mosque and start smashing glass, specifically targeting cabinets containing copies of the Qu’ran.
Officers established a protective line outside the mosque to prevent further attacks.
Meanwhile, in Essex, police have released a statement confirming that officers arrested a 43-year-old fascist in Braintree, on suspicion of carrying an offensive weapon and attempted arson.
The secretary of the mosque told Channel 4 News that the fascist burst in with two knives and tried to attack the congregation, and shouted “where is your allah now?”
Witnesses also claim the attacker threw an explosive device, believed to be a grenade or gas canister. A text [above] allegedly sent by a member of the Braintree congregation has appeared on twitter, although it has yet to be verified.
The fascist, who was arrested at 7.15pm, remains in custody.
The attacks came as a congregation of Fascist EDL members clashed with police in Woolwich in protest at the earlier murder.
As reported at the scene by IBTimes UK reporter Dominic Gover, Up to 150 Fascist English Defence League supporters clashed with police in running battles outside Woolwich Arsenal Docklands Light Railway station.
The far-right supporters had gathered in response to a call by Fascist EDL leader Tommy Robinson who had called for “feet on the street” in response to the killing.
Over half of Russians believe Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev was the best head of state in the past century, followed by Bolshevik Revolution mastermind Vladimir Lenin and dictator Joseph Stalin, a poll by Levada Center has revealed.
rebloggable by request
Does that mean people will start to realize that Venezuela isn’t what the Western media tells them?
we can only hope
@ 08:27pm
tagged as
■ Venezuela
■ Venezuela labor law
■ Venezuela labour law
■ Hugo Chavez
■ maduro
Seeing the amount of notes on a popular post about Venezuela’s new labour law really makes me quite happy. I’ve been posting about Venezuela on here for quite a while and to see so many people care about this and reblog is really great.
Question: Which country alone in the Middle East has nuclear weapons?
Answer: Israel,
Question: Which country in the Middle East has just recently used a weapon of mass destruction, a one-ton smart bomb, dropping it in the center of a highly populated area killing civilians including children?
Answer: Israel.
Question: What country in the Middle East was cited by Amnesty International for demolishing more than 4000 innocent Palestinian homes as a means of ethnic cleansing?
Answer: Israel.
Question: What country on Planet Earth has the second most powerful lobby in the United States , according to a recent Fortune magazine survey of Washington insiders?
Answer: Israel.
Question: Which country in the Middle East receives U.S. weapons for free and then sells the technology to the Republic of China even at the objections of the U.S.?
Answer: Israel.
Question: Which country in the Middle East regularly violates the Geneva Convention by imposing collective punishment on entire towns, villages, and camps, for the acts of a few, and even goes as far as demolishing entire villages while people are still in their homes?
Answer: Israel.
Question: Which country in the Middle East routinely kills young Palestinian children for no reason other than throwing stones at armored vehicles, bulldozers, or tanks?
Answer: Israel.
Question: Which country in the Middle East refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and bars international inspections?
Answer: Israel.
Question: Which country in the Middle East seized the sovereign territory of other nations by military force and continues to occupy it in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions?
Answer: Israel.
Question: Which country in the Middle East routinely violates the international borders of another sovereign state with warplanes and artillery and naval gunfire?
Answer: Israel.
Question: What American ally in the Middle East has for years sent assassins into other countries to kill its political enemies (a practice sometimes called exporting terrorism)?
Answer: Israel.
Question: In which country in the Middle East have high-ranking military officers admitted publicly that unarmed prisoners of war were executed?
Answer: Israel.
Question: What country in the Middle East refuses to prosecute its soldiers who have acknowledged executing prisoners of war?
Answer: Israel.
Question: What country in the Middle East created millions of refugees and refuses to allow them to return to their homes, farms and businesses?
Answer: Israel.
Question: What country in the Middle East refuses to pay compensation to people whose land, bank accounts and businesses it confiscated?
Answer: Israel.
Question: In what country in the Middle East was a high-ranking United Nations diplomat assassinated?
Answer: Israel.
Question: In what country in the Middle East did the man who ordered the assassination of a high-ranking U.N. diplomat become prime minister?
Answer: Israel.
Question: What country in the Middle East blew up an American diplomatic facility in Egypt and attacked a U.S. ship, the USS Liberty, in international waters, killing 34 and wounding 171 American sailors?
Answer: Israel.
Question: What country in the Middle East employed a spy, Jonathan Pollard, to steal classified documents from USA and then gave some of them to the Soviet Union?
Answer: Israel.
Question: What country at first denied any official connection to Pollard, then voted to make him a citizen and has continuously demanded that the American president grant Pollard a full pardon?
Answer: Israel.
Question: What Middle East country allows American Jewish murderers to flee to its country to escape punishment in the United States and refuses to extradite them once in their custody?
Answer: Israel.
Question: What Middle East country preaches against hate yet builds a shrine and a memorial for a murderer who killed 29 Palestinians while they prayed in their Mosque?
Answer: Israel.
Question: Which country in the Middle East deliberately targeted a civilian U.N. Refugee Camp in Qana , Lebanon and killed 103 innocent men, women, and especially children?
Answer: Israel.
Question: Which country in the Middle East is in defiance of 69 United Nations Security Council resolutions and has been protected from 29 more by U.S. vetoes?
Answer: Israel.
Question: Which country in the Middle East receives more than one-third of all U.S. aid to the world yet is the 16th richest country in the world?
Answer: Israel.
Question: Which country in the Middle East had its Prime Minister announce to his staff not to worry about what the United States says because “We control America ?”
Answer: Israel.
Question: Which country in the Middle East signed the Oslo Accords promising to halt any new Jewish Settlement construction, but instead, has built more than 270 new settlements since the signing?
Answer: Israel.
Question: Which country in the Middle East has assassinated more than 100 political officials of its opponent in the last 2 years while killing hundreds of civilians in the process, including dozens of children?
Answer: Israel.
Described by the Venezuelan government as the “most advanced labour law in the world”, the Lottt reduces the working week from 44 hours to 40, and requires that employers provide two consecutive days a week off.
When the law came into effect on Tuesday, labour minister Maria Iglesias stated that the new working hours are part of the process towards a “just distribution of wealth”.
The following day, Carabobo state labour affairs committee president Jose Joaquin Vargas hailed the law as an important part of the transition from “capitalism to socialism”, while last week vice president of the National Federation of Public Sector Workers Franklin Rondon described it as “historic”.
"Here is some news that the conservative critics of Venezuela’s leftist government will not publicize. The Chavistas announced that a new labour law, part of which will grant recognition to non-salaried work traditionally done by women, will come into effect this week. Full-time mothers will now be able to collect a pension.
(Photo: marcossalgado.info/flickr)
While there are a number of criticisms to be made of the Venezuelan government, the genius of the Bolivarian process is that it combines numerous forms of struggle against inequality. The most obvious lies in its commitment to economic redistribution, and measured by the Gini co-efficient, Venezuela has the lowest rate of inequality in Latin America. An equally significant form of struggle against inequality, however, lies in its pursuit of gender equity.One of the major theoretical criticisms of the economic redistribution model in more general terms, often advanced by post-modern and post-developmental theorists, has been from the vantage point of questions of identity. Theorists like the anthropologist Arturo Escobar have noted that economic growth does not necessarily transform status relations such as those oriented around gender, race, ethnicity, or sexuality; therefore some have contended that attempts at social change should place primacy, or at least equal emphasis, on the politics of difference. The question of difference: how can everyone in society be able to intervene with equal capacity when there is such significant variation in the recognition that we allot to diverse identities in society? Critics of traditional development have argued that the emphasis on economic redistribution, by either advocates of the market or the state, has ignored the crucial role that identity and diversity play in society. Economic re-allocation does not end the identity hierarchies that place women at a lower rung of the status ladder than men throughout Latin America.
The political philosopher Nancy Fraser has contended that advocates of cultural diversity implicitly start with the proposition that our identity is developed in interaction with others. Our self-esteem is constructed in relation to receiving acknowledgement from others and providing recognition to them; if a group is regularly presented with negative images of themselves, their self-esteem suffers. Non-recognition produces psychological injury: one’s self-perception becomes distorted. Therefore in order for groups to achieve full recognition from others, civil society actors maintain that there is a need to establish a system in which all actors can be full partners in social life. Feminists, both inside and outside the Bolivarian process, have advocated for social policies that encourage equal participation in all social institutions.
The Venezuelan government has made many progressive gains, with the most prominent example being the explicitly anti-sexist 1999 Constitution. This set of principles was the result of co-operation amongst members of the constitutional assembly’s Committee on Family and Women, the National Women’s Council and women’s civil society organizations. The constitutional assembly’s committee consulted women from every type of political campaign: legal rights, international agencies, academics, labour unions and small business leaders. The Constitution guaranteed women’s right to work, to health services, to social security and pensions. Most innovatively it recognized the monetary value of housework by, in principle, supporting housewives’ right to pensions. This week that principle has become a reality. Progressives around the world looking for ways to advance gender rights still have much to learn from Venezuela’s continuing social revolution.
