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Showing posts with the label Class

Zizek on Mandela

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Published on Monday, December 9, 2013 by The Guardian If Nelson Mandela Really Had Won, He Wouldn't Be Seen as a Universal Hero Mandela must have died a bitter man. To honor his legacy, we should focus on the unfulfilled promises his leadership gave rise to by Slavoj Žižek     ‘It is all too simple to criticize Mandela for abandoning the socialist perspective after the end of apartheid: did he really have a choice? Was the move towards socialism a real option?’ (Photograph: Media24/Gallo Images/Getty Images) In the last two decades of his life, Nelson Mandela was celebrated as a model of how to liberate a country from the colonial yoke without succumbing to the temptation of dictatorial power and anti-capitalist posturing. In short, Mandela was not Robert Mugabe, and South Africa remained a multiparty democracy with a free press and a vibrant economy well-integrated into the global market

Addicted to Racism

Check out this article below from KUAM. It deals with meetings that the Federated States of Micronesia Association of Guam had in order to draw up some plans on how to deal with violence and crimes that are being attributed to the Micronesian community of Guam, in particular the Chuukese. They even created an education plan with alot of ideas on how to alleviate the social problems within Micronesian communities and those which spill out into the general public. I don't want to speak to the specific issue of Micronesians in Guam, as the available language and ideas makes it almost impossible to have a productive conversation. The "Micronesian problem" is what it is usually referred to as, and it is a textbook example of how a class or group of people become associated, in a way which becomes too commonsensically and too natural, with the ills of the world. Every society has problems, and every ethnic group has problems or roles in creating those problems. The problem

A Far Country

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One thing that I truly miss about graduate school is that I don't get to read as many books as I used to. At various points in graduate school I was reading several books a week. At least 3 or 4 for classes, one or two more for my own research and interests, and then usually another one or two for just fun. I was processing information constantly and my brain brimming with ideas, and so my blog posts in those days were longer and sometimes crazier, deeper, more convoluted to say the least. Since I started teaching my amount of reading as diminished. I still read for research and to prepare for classes, but the amount of reading that I do for simply fun dropped so much in 2009 and 2010. Last year I tried my best to start up reading a little bit here and there just for fun, but still failed miserably. I did read a few books here and there, and some of them really made an impact on me. A case in point is the book a far country by Daniel Mason, which was given to me as a birthday p

Conflicts of (Business) Interests

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The media on Guam seems obsessed with the conflict of interest represented by Matt Rector being both a Senator in the Legislature and the President of the Guam Federation of Teachers . I don't see anything inherently wrong with this inquiry, it is something which can be questioned and should be looked at, but I think its almost hysterical how narrow or selective the idea of "conflict of interest" is in this case, (and the way it is usually conceived of). In any community, the ideological glue that holds it together will always mark the interests of some as being a conflict or something which will taint the governance of said community, whereas a myriad of other equally or more dangerous interests will go unnoticed, or worse yet, be seen as essential or positive. So in this case, the idea that a Senator is the President of a labor union on Guam becomes the ultimate sin, whereas the fact that various businessmen on island have repeatedly obstructed legislation or passed l

Hayi i Manakhilo'?

******************************* The Exotic Candidate Is The One With Eight Houses by Bob Cesca August 13, 2008 The Huffington Post This week, for example, Cokie Roberts and Michael Crowley , along with a creepy monster squad of Republican stalkers , have been trying to peg Senator Obama's vacation in Hawaii as proof that the script is accurate. Hawaii, they say, is only for exotic elitists . Senator Obama is in Hawaii. Therefore, Senator Obama is an exotic elitist. See how that works? Never mind that this Hawaii-is-exotic-and-elitist gripe came from a not-elitist millionaire with the not-exotic name "Cokie." This Cokie phenomenon is a solid example of the script's paradoxical, fictitious awfulness. Despite similar griping from the McBush Republicans, the truth is that Senator McCain is far and away the more elitist and exotic of the two candidates. Fact. No bias here. Let's start with Hawaii and do the list. Senator McCain met and fell in love with his cur

Protect 200,000 of California's State Workers

FROM The Courage Campaign: Stop Arnold: Sign the petition to protect 200,000 state workers Tell Governor Schwarzenegger to halt the wage cuts and close the Yacht Tax loophole Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger just announced that he will sign an Executive Order on Monday slashing the wages of over 200,000 state employees to the bare minimum. Not California's minimum wage of $8 per hour. The federal minimum wage of $6.55. Six dollars and fifty-five cents an hour. Imagine trying to pay your bills on $6.55 an hour. Now imagine what will happen to thousands of vital service workers forced to live on poverty-level wages. A nauseating irony: many state employees may need to seek aid from the very state services that employ them. This is absolutely outrageous. And the only way we can stop Arnold is by raising our voices as loud as possible in protest before 9 a.m. on Monday. Please sign our petition to Governor Schwarzenegger. On Monday morning, we'll deliver thousands of your si

Why I Can't Take My Eyes Off of Barbara Ehrenreich

Mo’ña ki un taitai este na tinige’ ni’ hu past mÃ¥gi, hasso este na pidasun finayi. “Anggen manggera i riku, mismo i mamopble ni’ manmatai.” Ya kontodu an esta munhÃ¥yan hao tumaitaitai este, hassuyi este na sinangan. Hasso gui’ kada na un taitai pat hungok put i manmamatai (Iraqi yan AmerikÃ¥nu) giya Iraq. Hasso gui’ kada un taitai pat hungok put i tinilaika siha, ni’ pau fattogui Guahan put i mamta’ i militat. Hasso gui’ kada un li’e i dinestrosun i tano’-ta ya masilelebra gi i na’Ã¥n salÃ¥pe. Gi todu este, guaha noskuanus na taotao, ya guaha noskuantos na compañia, ni’ manmanma’titinas salÃ¥pe. Ya i tano’ yan i meggaiña na taotao, mannina’lalamen. Bula na botsa manmachuchuda’ put i geran Iraq. Ya guini giya Guahan, bula na kapeta pau fanpangpang put i finatton i mineggai na militat. Este na pidasun finayi impottÃ¥nte sa’ u na’hasso hit put i pinilgro i humohokka’ salÃ¥pe yan riniku. Mungga ma hongge i dinagin i mamriku, ma fa’tinas i riniku-ñiha put i masahalom-ñiha ha’, ya ni’ hayi dum