Jeremy Scahill vs. Liberal Imperialist Rhetoric

Jeremy Scahill, acclaimed for his history of Blackwater, argues against liberal defense of Libyan interventions:

Bandido is pretty phenomenal

As the child of someone who emerged out of this subculture, I'm surprised I never heard this band growing up.

Black Elk, Can't Stop Listening to This Track

Honduras: Continuing Unrest, Naked Statements

I really appreciated a recent article from the associated press that revealed the current Honduran president's sense of ownership over the current government of the country, responding to widespread protests and strikes lead by students, teachers, and healthcare workers.

He claims:

"They are trying to destabilize my government," Lobo said at a news conference. "All of this is part of an ideological strategy to provoke difficulties, especially now that there is the possibility of returning to the OAS at the next general assembly in June."

This reveals again the clientelist nature of politics in Honduras with its electoral power-sharing between liberal and conservatives and the way in which the changing of the guard always results in the reinforcement of the oligarchy's control of the nation.

Comments by the opposition support this analysis:

A coalition of Zelaya supporters called the National Front of Popular Resistance has called for a general strike Wednesday, threatening to escalate the conflict in the polarized and impoverished Central American country.

"Porfirio Lobo is once again revealing the fascist character of his government, which is trying to destroy popular organization and the gains of the people to impose an economic system that only benefits the oligarchy and multilateral companies," the front said in a statement.

No Halt to Deportations of Students

In the face of the failure of the DREAM act in December of last year deportations of Latino young folk/students continue. President Obama in a recent town hall meeting appeared unwilling to cease deportation and grant students under threat of deportation with  Temporary Protected Status.

From the Latin American Herald Tribune:

“With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order, that’s just not the case,” the president said.

“There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system that for me to simply through executive order ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as president,” Obama said.

He also rejected the idea of granting TPS to undocumented students.

[...]

But the main message Obama wanted to send to Hispanic students, who make up 22 percent of all students in the country, was that their community “will be a key for our future success” and that the country needs everyone to finish their high school education and be able to go to college.

Only about half of Hispanic students manage to finish high school in the normal amount of time, and very few go on to university for further study. Just 13 percent of those who do obtain a bachelor’s degree and only about 4 percent receive a postgraduate diploma, according to the Education Department.

What is astounding in this article, to me, is the way in which this issue actually reveals a deeper racial division at the level of education and access to opportunity. America can no longer supply the dream of upward mobility to Latinos (undocumented or otherwise, it would appear) rather membership in a flexible, contingent rainbow underclass.

Twitter Didn't Produce The Uprisings in the Middle East or in Northern Africa

Modernization theory is wrong, here's why.

From Al Jazeera:

To listen to the hype about social networking websites and the Egyptian revolution, one would think it was Silicon Valley and not the Egyptian people who overthrew Mubarak.

Via its technologies, the West imagines itself to have been the real agent in the uprising. Since the internet developed out of a US Defense Department research project, it could be said the Pentagon did it, along with Egyptian youth imitating wired hipsters from London and Los Angeles.

[...]

But neither version is particularly useful for organising resistance to the local dictatorship. In any case, the internet was turned off at decisive moments in the Egyptian uprising, and it was ordinary Egyptians, mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, who toppled the regime, not the hybrid youth of the global professional classes.

Globalisation is also coming to awareness of the situations of other peoples, such as those similarly oppressed by local and faraway powers. Of particular interest are those moments when these peoples rise up, when they devise forms of revolt and struggle. Defeats provide lessons, and victories give hope. These revolutions need not be on satellite TV to effect their instruction. Revolutionaries in France and Haiti in the 1790s received news of one another''''s activities by the regular packet ship that plied between Jamaica and London.

Sailors, slaves, and workers circulating in the Atlantic between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries shared and improved upon their repertoires of revolt and resistance, bringing the good news to ports from Rio to Boston, Bristol to Havana.

Steven Seagal Barrels into a Suspected Cockfighting Depot with a Tank!

From Colorlines:

Seagal, who has unfettered access to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office for his A&E television show, “Steven Seagal Lawman”, showed up in a Phoenix’s West Valley neighborhood to break up a suspected cockfighting operation.

Phoenix’s KPHO reported that SWAT vans and sirens came blazing down the block on March 9, and shocked neighbors with their wild antics.

From KPHO:

Neighbor Debra Ross was so worried she called 911 and went outside where a nearby home had its windows blown out, was crawling with dozens of SWAT members in full gear, armored vehicles and a bomb robot.

“When the tank came in and pushed the wall over and you see what’s in there, and all it is, is a bunch of chickens,” Ross said.

[...]

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, no stranger to publicity stunts, said that day that Seagal is “working with us on law enforcement activity and he’s a member of my posse.”

Arpaio’s since had to defend his use of force, if not Seagal’s presence in town.

“We had good intel that this guy could be armed,” Arpaio told KTVK. “[The heavy equipment] was needed for officer protection.”

Locals are unconvinced. Arizona is facing an unprecedented deficit, and Phoenix has had to lay off actual police officers to deal with its budget shortfall.