Thinking

Absolutely mindless

I think Lord Acton was wrong: power doesn’t corrupt. It lobotomises. Consider Michel Platini, for example. Gifted footballer, intelligent analyst of the game, articulate opponent of Lennart Johansson when campaigning to be UEFA President, complete moron as soon as he’s…
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Fortress Europe

From United Against Racism comes this list of 8,855 refugees who have died throughout Fortress Europe since 1993. The amount of drowning, suicide, murder and starvation on this list is overwhelming. Yet the only time the newspapers write about these…
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Financing Terrorism

This is a bit old, but I wanted to make note of it so I can find it again later. From Narco News: Chiquita admits making payments to Colombian death squads. Oh, and also this from ABC News: US has…
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Great news!

I write letters for Amnesty International. I have done (on and off) for many years, usually without any expectation of achieving anything. Every now and then, however, I get some good news. Today, for example, I received a letter saying…
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Classless Confusion

The Nation has an analysis of globalisation in its upcoming issue that is almost very good. I say “almost” because although he makes some excellent points, the author William Greider creates all kinds of confusion by studiously avoiding any mention…
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Suing the poor

As if botching a water project in one of the world’s poorest countries weren’t bad enough, UK company Biwater is now taking the Tanzanian government to court for cancelling its contract. Here are a few things that make me want…
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Venezuela is (debt) free

Venezuela has now paid off the last cent of its debt to the IMF and World Bank, according to this article in Monthly Review Zine. Of course, Chavez got lucky with oil prices going through the roof in the last…
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