by matttbastard
bfp (who, due to technical issues at her pad, is once again guesting @ elle’s place) takes a look at race, feminism and how some have framed the complicated (and at times contentious) familial relationship between Alice and Rebecca Walker.
Go.
by matttbastard
Antiseptic language is sometimes necessary in journalism and law to make objective evaluations. But it also can suppress moral and emotional responses to suffering and serve as a sedative in managing public opinion. Riveting stories of torture dungeons don’t rate much in the media in comparison to domestic violence between white Americans. For instance, clear evidence that Sunni children were being murdered by the Shi’a captors, persuasive to a top US military investigator, made it into the Salt Lake Tribune, but not much further. The US Judge Advocate happened to be from Utah, making it a local story.
Counterinsurgency often is framed as winning hearts and minds, not as crushing the alleged insurgents to protect the civilian population. In South Vietnam, that led to “strategic hamlets” and the Phoenix program. In Central America, it was death squads who killed priests, nuns and thousands of civilians. In both cases, American and world opinion was shocked.
In the case of Iraq, there is silence in the West.
h/t Nell in comments @ ObWi
by matttbastard
Today looks to be a busy one in the meatworld, so here’s are some recommended reads to keep you distracted until I can find some time to throw up something substantial:
James Carroll, What the pirates say, Boston Globe
Javier Marias, Déjà Vu All Over Again, The New Republic
Marie Cocco, Where Are the Female Arnold Schwarzeneggers?, WaPo Writers Group
Azadeh Dastyari, The detained refugees Obama will not free, The Age
Robert Weissman, The 10 Worst Corporations of 2008, Multinational Monitor
Charles P. Pierce, Torn Up, Boston Globe Magazine
James Surowiecki, The Perils of Efficiency, The New Yorker
Tamura Lomax, William R. Jones Revisited: Is God a Racist Misogynist?, Religion Dispatches
Michelle Goldberg, Proposition 8, The Mormon Coming Out Party, Religion Dispatches
John Harwood, Change Is Landing in Old Hands, New York Times
Gary Younge, Americans have never felt so excited, and yet so depressed, The Guardian
Elaine Scarry, Presidential Crimes, The Boston Review
Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers
bastard.logic 