One Referendum, Two New Nations

Across the globe, southern Sudanese are celebrating their imminent independence from the rule of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and his predecessors in Khartoum. These northern rulers spent much of the past half-century engaged in a brutal effort to Arabize and Islamize the southern people. International attention is now focused on helping the chronically underdeveloped region of southern Sudan manage the transition to statehood. But what is missing from the conversation is recognition that the looming partition of Sudan creates not just one new nation, but two.

nationaljournal:

Is there a correlation between periods of angry or intense political divisions in American history and political violence, particularly killings? A number of historians think so.

Knowing Coves: Rejecting the Language of the Leviathan

zuky:

[ Originally posted on my old blog on July 13, 2009 and cross-posted at Feministe, reposted now in the context of the Tea Party era and the resurfacing of “the immigration debate” and the DREAM Act Congressional showdown. ]

The ugly history of enforcement rhetoric in modern US politics…

Norman Solomon: WikiLeaks: Demystifying “Diplomacy”

Compared to the kind of secret cables that WikiLeaks has just shared with the world, everyday public statements from government officials are exercises in make-believe.

In a democracy, people have a right to know what their government is actually doing. In a pseudo-democracy, a bunch of fairy tales from high places will do the trick.

abbyjean:

The granddaughter of a slave, Ms. Spencer, 102, was born before the fight for women’s suffrage and a civil rights movement that would pave the way for the black president she voted for. Ms. Spencer witnessed a turbulent century, but she lived a quiet life: performing domestic work for a few loyal families for 78 years before retiring at age 90. Ms. Spencer outlived not only friends and family, but also her savings. She receives $923 a month in Social Security benefits but does not qualify for food stamps or Medicaid, forcing her to live frugally. When her clothes began to fray, Mr. McCarron turned to the Neediest Cases Fund, which granted Ms. Spencer $325. She bought a red dress, shoes and underwear. (via At 102, Outliving Family, and Savings - Neediest Cases - NYTimes.com)

10 Buy-It-Now Buttons Meg Whitman Could Have Clicked Instead

abbyjean:

Meg Whitman says she has no regrets about investing a record-breaking $141.5 million of her own cash to run for Governor of California. Throw in the $25 million in donations and Whitman’s campaign spent nearly $170 million on her gubernatorial bid—far more than any other political candidate this election cycle.

Stop to think about that number. What does $170 million dollars get you?

10.   850 round trip tickets to space on Virgin Galactic.

9.   6,956 Toyota Prii (or Priuses). Or 160 Ferraris, or 9 F-16 fighter jets, or…

8.   Send California’s 2.2 million unemployed workers an extra $70 check for the holidays.

7.   An estimated 3,914 California public school teachers’ first-year salaries. Or California’s estimated 30,000 teachers could get a $5,333.00 bonus this year.

6.   The National Endowment for the Arts 2010 budget: $161.4 million. So she could have doubled the budget for the largest annual funder of the arts in the country.

5.   Or could have paid for the top three most expensive Senate races in the country: Connecticut, California and Nevada. (And that’s still only $131 million when you add it up.)

4.   9,500 people living with HIV in the U.S. could get their meds paid for one full year.

3.   She could have provided full scholarships for almost 40,000 students to attend Cal State Universities for one year. Or prevented future tuition hikes for a few years.

2.   Her money would have bought 5,517 full undergrad scholarships to UC Berkley or UCLA including university fees, room and board, health insurance, travel expenses, etc.

1.   Or would have helped keep domestic violence shelters in California open for the next 10 years.

the money also could have provided permanent supportive housing for 10,625 homeless people, maintained child care for 43,828 families who are scheduled to lose it due to budget cuts, more than paid for educationally-related mental health services for california K-12 students, paid for 6 months of diapers for 472,222 infants, funded the entire food stamp grant of 87,180 california households for 6 months, or any number of things that would have met the needs of californian’s more effectively and meaningfully than running her crap campaign ads for so long.

One of the great racist myths in this country is the death or non-existent Black family; saying it comes from slavery. There is not a more misleading myth. The demise of the Black family began in the 1970’s when Black males began to be systematically shut out of the labor market.

Mike Davis via Bastards of the Party