The dangers of traveling while Muslim

I have written repeatedly about the fact that it is when you are entering the US that you have the least rights and that the Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which operates as part of the Orwellian-sounding Department of Homeland Security, abuses people with impunity by detaining them for long periods of time, harassing them, keeping them under harsh conditions, taking their property, humiliating and degrading them, and renditioning them to other countries to be tortured, all without giving them any reasons. Other countries also abuse their border powers, as what happened to David Miranda at Heathrow airport shows. [Read more…]

Can you guess who said this?

Can you guess who said the following?

The concept of success leads me to consider so-called meritocracies and their implications. We have been taught that meritocratic institutions and societies are fair. Putting aside the reality that no system, including our own, is really entirely meritocratic, meritocracies may be fairer and more efficient than some alternatives. But fair in an absolute sense? Think about it. A meritocracy is a system in which the people who are the luckiest in their health and genetic endowment; luckiest in terms of family support, encouragement, and, probably, income; luckiest in their educational and career opportunities; and luckiest in so many other ways difficult to enumerate–these are the folks who reap the largest rewards. The only way for even a putative meritocracy to hope to pass ethical muster, to be considered fair, is if those who are the luckiest in all of those respects also have the greatest responsibility to work hard, to contribute to the betterment of the world, and to share their luck with others. As the Gospel of Luke says (and I am sure my rabbi will forgive me for quoting the New Testament in a good cause): “From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.” [My emphasis-MS]

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Forgive me for indulging in some schadenfreude

Almost from the moment that Sarah Palin was selected by John McCain as his running mate in 2008 and I saw how the crazies in the party seized upon her as one of them, I warned that this was a turning point for the Republican party and that McCain would bear the responsibility for creating a monster that would threaten to devour the party. As I wrote back in September 3, 2008:

I think that this decision is going to haunt McCain. His and her ardent supporters are trying to put on a good face and saying that this move is a ‘game changer’. I think they are right but not in a good way for him. It risks changing a narrow race into a blowout victory for Obama.

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The absurd debate over a potential Obama-Rouhani meeting

It looks like the possible meeting between president Obama and Iranian president Rouhani on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meetings will not happen after all, apparently because it was “too complicated” for the Iranians.

But despite that setback, Stephen M. Walt makes the obvious point, that talking to foreign leaders whom one disagrees with should not be seen as so momentous. [Read more…]

Taking stock of the Snowden revelations

Ever since the Edward Snowden NSA revelations exploded on the scene on June 6, we have been treated to one blockbuster story after another about how the US and UK governments in particular have been spying on practically the entire world and brazenly lying on a grand scale. As far as I know, even though a host of media outlets (The Guardian, Washington Post, Der Spiegel, TV Globo, New York Times, ProPublica) are co-operating in the publication of the 300 and more stories so far, only Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, and Laura Poitras are in possession of the entire dossier and they are being very deliberate in what they release and how. [Read more…]

That word you keep using? It does not mean what you think it means

As a result of the revelations by Edward Snowden of abuse by the NSA, president Obama promised an ‘independent’ review of the agencies activities, a promise that was immediately belied by the fact that he said the panel would work under the supervision of James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, who still has his job despite getting caught blatantly lying under oath. [Read more…]

One big bank finally admits wrongdoing

I have railed before at how the big banks have been able to escape serious consequences for their acts that threw the global economy into turmoil and caused hardships for so many. While they have had fines levied against them, the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission, the agencies entrusted with maintaining accountability, were satisfied to simply levy fines on the banks without threatening the senior executives with jail time, which would be the best way to deter future malfeasance. The fines themselves, even though large by normal standards, were usually just a few days’ profits for the banks that they could absorb as the cost of doing business. [Read more…]

The unfolding tragedy in the horn of Africa

The ghastly events unfolding in a shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya unfortunately did not come as a complete surprise to me. Ever since I completed reading Jeremy Scahill’s book Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield (2013), where he traces to evolution of the global war on terror, I felt that it was only a matter of time before some atrocity occurred either in that country or Ethiopia or both. [Read more…]

Cutting food aid to the hungry

The House of Representatives voted late last week to cut the budget for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (popularly referred to ‘food stamps’) by $40 billion over ten years. The vote was close (217-210) and the bill now goes to the senate. The Des Moines Register has come out with a scathing editorial against the cutting of SNAP benefits, comparing the meager allowance with how lavishly the state’s members of Congress spend on their own food on trips at taxpayer expense. [Read more…]