This week the most recently proclaimed ‘world’s tallest building’ officially opened with some fanfare in Dubai. This symbol of hubris stands in the center of the financial city-state that was officially bankrupted by the most recent economic crisis. But that is only an ironic aside compared to much less known story of how this monument to capital was built. (props to Eddie Laing who gathered this post:first dealing with economics, then with raw human misery.)

Dubai Opens a Tower to Beat All

By LANDON THOMAS Jr.
January 5, 2010, New York Times

…The glittering celebration may have been an attempt by Dubai’s ruler, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, to shift the focus from Dubai’s current economic troubles to a future filled with more promise.

All the same, the tower’s success by no means signals a recovery in Dubai’s beaten-down real estate market, where prices have collapsed by as much as 50 percent and many developers are having trouble finding occupants for their buildings.

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It is often reported (in this site and elsewhere) that the revolutioanry forces have called for a bandh. This word is often translated as “general strike” — meaning that there is a workstoppage of business as usual, and that it is essentially political, and not confined to one workplace or industry.

Here is a video of groups of young revolutionaries enforcing a bandh — going to various shopkeepers and calling on them to shut down for the day (i.e. honor the strike and not scab).

There has been a lengthy and interesting discussion of strikes, the right to strike and revolution on Revleft.com

Defining the word Bandh: Read the rest of this entry »

(Thanks to Danke2000 in the Spark Discussion)

“Zinn’s big book is quite unworthy of… fame and influence. A People’s History is bad history, albeit gilded with virtuous intentions. Zinn reduces the past to a Manichean fable and makes no serious attempt to address the biggest question a leftist can ask about U.S. history: why have most Americans accepted the legitimacy of the capitalist republic in which they live?”

A discussion has emerged here on Kasama over Howard Zinn’s book A Peoples History of the United States– a very popular, even beloved debunking of standard myths about the U.S.(first published in 1980).

No one questions Zinn’s lifetime of commitment and courage — from his early days in SNCC to his tireless opposition to U.S. wars. But there is a separate question of summing up his history-as-history (and his politics-as-politics) — as part of deepening our own theoretical understanding of how to understand the world.

Sometimes the criticisms focus on the radicalism of the work. Left historian Eric Foner wrote in an early review “A People’s History reflects a deeply pessimistic vision of the American experience,” in a way that Foner found fragmented and tendentious.

The following is one of the critiques made of Zinn’s methodology. Georgetown University historian Michael Kazin, himself a veteran of SDS and 60s activism, characterizes A Peoples History as simplistic — populated by elite villains and oppressed people, without understanding the more complex motives of the times.

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There has been some discussion about how to interpret Howard Zinn’s take on American history and politics — and the work of the recent “People Speak” documentary. Radical Eyes noted that, because this was cropping up in the Avatar threads, perhaps it deserved its own space for discussion. Here is that space.

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Radical Eyes kicked this off:

To follow-up on Mike’s recent note about the actuality of and potential for ideological cracks and fissures to emerge within the Hollywood creative community: see the recent History Channel documentary THE PEOPLE SPEAK, based on excerpts from Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States. Here we see a whole bunch of Hollywood “liberals” (or are they… radicals?) speaking up, literally…and on the History Channel of all places! Matt Damon, Morgan Freeman, David Straitharn (sp?), Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder, Bob Dylan, and many others were involved in this one…This new documentary no doubt deserves a discussion thread of its own.

Boris wrote:

“Just wanted to second Radical-Eyes’s point on discussing the recent documentary on the History channel by Zinn and Arnove.

But, I’m not so sure it was an ideological crack.

From the inclusion of the Declaration of Independence to the absence of red politics (whether of the 20s-30s or the long 60s) to the particular voices included (and those not included), I think this documentary showed that the dominant ideologies are actually very much in place.”

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This video explores what modern computer technology means for the development and expression of human behavior, positing an increased expression of individuality while at the same time a strengthening of community values and democracy. There’s a great deal more and it’s hard to encapsulate, so I’ll let the video speak for itself.

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