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I found the recent proposal by Congressman Obey that we impose a specific tax to pay for our wars interesting, but passed on the idea as I thought it had no chance to become law. However, it has gnawed at me for a while. Wars are events that occur on top of our usual economic demands. They require extra money, affecting our budget in ways directly and indirectly, think VA costs. Bruce Bartlett solidified my thinking a bit in his piece about the Cost of War. Key quotes……..

In recent years, Republicans have been characterized by two principal positions: They like starting wars and don’t like paying for them. George W. Bush initiated two major wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but adamantly refused to pay for either of them by cutting non-military spending or raising taxes. Indeed, at his behest, Congress actually cut taxes and established a massive new entitlement program, Medicare Part D.

Bush’s actions were unprecedented. During every previous major war in American history, presidents demanded sacrifices from rich and poor alike. As Robert Hormats explains in his 2007 book, The Price of Liberty: Paying for America’s Wars, “During most of America’s wars, parochial desires–such as tax breaks for favored groups or generous spending for influential constituencies–have been sacrificed to the greater good. The president and both parties in Congress have come together … to cut nonessential spending and increase taxes.”……….

During World War II, federal revenues roughly tripled as a share of the gross domestic product (GDP) and the number of people paying income taxes expanded tenfold, from 3% of the population in 1939 to 30% by 1943. In 1940, a family of four needed close to $80,000 of income in today’s dollars before it paid any federal income taxes at all. By the war’s end, it saw its effective tax rate rise from 1.5% to 15.1%. (Today such a family only pays a federal income tax rate of about 6%.) But taxes weren’t the only way the war was paid for. Spending on nondefense programs was cut almost in half, from 8.1% of GDP in 1940 to 4.4% in 1945.

Even during wars closer in magnitude to those in which we are presently engaged, significant sacrifices were made. In 1950 and 1951 Congress increased taxes by close to 4% of GDP to pay for the Korean War, even though the high World War II tax rates were still largely in effect. In 1968, a 10% surtax was imposed to pay for the Vietnam War, which raised revenue by about 1% of GDP. And there was conscription during both wars, which can be viewed as a kind of tax that was largely paid by the poor and middle class–young men from wealthy families largely escaped its effects through college deferments.

However, Bush and his party, which controlled Congress from 2001 to 2006, never asked for sacrifices from anyone except those in our nation’s military and their families. I think that’s because the Republicans understood, implicitly, that the American people’s support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has always been paper thin. Asking them to sacrifice through higher taxes, domestic spending cuts or reinstatement of the draft would surely have led to massive protests akin to those during the Vietnam era or to political defeat in 2004…..

Consequently, Republicans resolved to fight our wars on the cheap and with deceptive cost estimates. On the eve of war in December 2002, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director Mitch Daniels claimed that the war in Iraq could be fought at a total cost of $50 billion to $60 billion. Indeed, Bush even fired his top economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey, for saying publicly that the war might cost between $100 billion and $200 billion.

Wars are expensive. They cost us in lives lost, bodies crippled and minds ruined. They also cost lots of money. This must be part of the analysis in any war. Does the outcome justify the investment? With our volunteer military, the cost in lives places that burden on a very small segment of the population. The economic costs of our wars, on the other hand, have just been passed on to later generations. If we want to find out how much people really support these ventures, ask them to pay for them.

As part of this analysis we need to remember the opportunity costs involved. The money being spent could be used elsewhere. It could be used to pay off our debt, to provide health care. It could even not be spent at all, so that we could reduce the size of our government (need to throw a bone to the libertarians). Given our war obsessed culture and our unwillingness to pay for services received, I still don’t think this bill will pass. I now think it is a pretty good idea.

Une carte de l'Ecosse

Le gouvernement écossais doit publier son Livre blanc sur l’avenir constitutionnel de l’Ecosse. Il pourrait ouvrir la voie à un référendum sur l’indépendance.

Le Premier ministre (First Minister) Alex Salmond, qui est aussi le leader du Scottish National Parti, devrait y faire valoir que l’Ecosse doit être indépendante pour rejoindre son potentiel économique.

Le gouvernement minoritaire du SNP ne dispose cependant pas d’un soutien suffisant pour réussir à mener à bien ce projet de loi référendaire; tous les autres partis s’y opposent.

Le livre blanc sera présenté à la Saint-Andrew, patron saint de l’Ecosse, le 30 novembre. A l’instar de la France qui a entamé un débat sur l’identité française, la présentation de ce livre blanc intervient après que le gouvernement du SNP ait commencé sa «conversation nationale» sur l’avenir de l’Écosse.

Liens:

Alex Salmond, Premier ministre (First Minister)

L’avenir de l’Ecosse (Choosing Scotland’s Future: A National Conversation) site du gouvernement écossais.

Le gouvernement écossais

Saint-Andrew, patron saint de l’Ecosse

I would like to second Larison’s post today criticizing Thomas Friedman. Key quotes…..

Yes, after two decades in which U.S. foreign policy has been largely dedicated to rescuing Muslims or trying to help free them from tyranny— in Bosnia, Darfur, Kuwait, Somalia, Lebanon, Kurdistan, post-earthquake Pakistan, post-tsunami Indonesia, Iraq and Afghanistan — a narrative that says America is dedicated to keeping Muslims down is thriving. ~Thomas Friedman……

One of the most irritating things I have noticed during the last decade has been the whining from American pundits about how ungrateful the world’s Muslims have been in response to our alleged beneficence on their behalf. The grimly amusing part of this is that the whining pundits accept the assumptions of pan-Islamists, but put them to different, limited use: Muslims everywhere must feel gratitude for any assistance we have ever rendered to a Muslim population…..

U.S. foreign policy has not been “largely dedicated to rescuing Muslims or trying to help free them from tyranny.” U.S. foreign policy has worked to support the causes of certain Muslim groups, provided they had the “right” enemies (i.e., states that we already opposed or disliked), and to undermine the causes of other Muslim groups that had the “wrong” enemies. (Emphasis mine.) The same people who could not rush to the aid of Bosniaks and Albanian Muslims fast enough are perfectly content to see thousands and tens of thousands of Arabs killed by U.S. and U.S.-backed forces. The people who pretend to weep for Chechnya do not even blink at the displacement of entire provinces in Pakistan. The would-be champions of democracy in the Islamic world have happily embraced anti-jihadi dictators in Uzkbekistan and Pakistan as necessary. My point here is not that Washington was right or wrong in backing one group and opposing another, which is an argument for another day, but simply that it would not be hard for Muslims around the world to notice the far more devastating effects of U.S. and U.S.-allied hostility to certain Muslim causes more than they notice the relatively more obscure cases in which Washington backed Muslim causes.

The history of the Middle East is long and complex. Much of it is unclear and subject to much interpretation. That said, trying to make the case that the U.S. has largely been trying to help Muslims of late is difficult to support. It also ignores what went before, when the Middle East was mostly a place for our proxy wars with the USSR over oil. Once again, who trained Osama and his mujahadeen? Who paid for their weapons? Maybe we need to require a history course for those who want to serve as experts on the Middle East?

More ancient history aside, did we really go into Afghanistan to help Muslims? Not how I remember it. Iraq? We channeled money to Saddam when he was fighting Iran. Which was roughly the same time he was killing his own people also. How many people Iraq think we came to help them? How many think we did? What are the results of all this help? Thousands killed and displaced. Yes, our efforts were well intended in some of those other places. Some went beyond good intentions and actually provided help. Looking at the total picture, Larison gets it right. We act in our own interests. Sometimes Muslims have benefitted. More often, they have not.

Brisbane General Strike, 1912

Our old friend the essayist Jeff Snyder, author of the famous polemic on behalf of individual self-defense by handguns “A nation of cowards” from The Public Interest* in 1993,

*The influential former quarterly (1965-2005) founded by Irving Kristol and Daniel Bell (Nathan Glazer replaced Bell in 1973), reanimated this fall as National Affairs

and a contractarian ethicist much indebted to early republican thought, as well as such mid-to-late-19th century thinkers as Kierkegaard and the individualist anarchists, and Bertrand de Jouvenel from the mid-C20, has just posted his latest essay “Trust Busting By The People, For the People: A direct action plan for bringing down the US financial system“, at his new site Secessio Plebis:

A forum for direct action proposals to overthrow, supplant and undermine hegemonization and the political organization of society through nonviolent, cooperative social action, specifically, through withdrawal of support (moral, psychic and physical) and noncooperation.

Snyder’s links to such historic essays as “The Ethics of Dynamite” by Auberon Herbert are well worth the exploring.

Our response to an earlier draft of his essay follows.

I enjoyed the piece. Your analysis of the Federal Reserve System and fiat money, as you probably know, squares pretty well with what I read ages ago by Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard in their respective writings on money, credit and the business cycle. And your reading of  , I think, comes through in your holding the state to the sort of strict contractarianism to which we would hold private parties, and which it routinely violates at every turn. The use of facts and figures was helpful, too.

In a way, I felt echoes of what those of us who cut our teeth on the hard-money movement of the 1970s and 1980s went through during and then after the historic run-up of gold and silver prices in 1980 – the distinction between investing in gold and silver from reasons of sound-money doctrine and/or allied fears of hyperinflation down the road, versus the pitfalls of investing in it and then taking potentially big hits when the prices no longer rose, and fell. My own education on that score, happily, only lost me $67.50, as c. late 1980 I invested in several rolls of silver dimes at $202.50, only to sell a while later when the value had dropped to $135. For such reasons of prudence,  Harry Browne, in formulating his Permanent Portfolio strategies to meet the changing times, recommended gold and silver as one of only four legs of a media-diversified portfolio that also included stocks, bonds and cash/money-market instruments.

The strong “Modest Proposal” aspect of the article comes through in the admission that those enacting in their financial lives the “radical” measures proposed will at each point take the sort of hits those undertaking “faith-based” purchases of gold and silver did in fact suffer during, per my example, the Reagan years. Right now, the kind of people making such “sacrifices for the cause”, as we know, are only a tiny minority of the hard-core committed, and are heavy in the Ron Paul demo. But witnessing among the great middle of the US population the sort of developed revolutionary consciousness required is, of course, highly unlikely from purely educational efforts and the sort of “unmasking” of the state characteristic of Spooner, Rothbard, &c., whose native demo, like most such subcultures, stays at a saturation point at well under a million members. What would probably be required to capture the numbers of people not otherwise susceptible to doctrinal appeals of the sort you and I have imbibed, is the ongoing development of crises and the resulting naked exploitations preceding and succeeding them of a sort too brazen not to be grasped by John Q. For the great majority of those with a steady income, a place to live, lights and cable TV and A/C that still work, and a car to drive, revolution prompting thoroughgoing withdrawal of assets from traditional media seems far off, to say the least. The essay admits up front that the measures suggested will require people to take an asset-hitting leap of faith, and people would do that only if they felt their immediate interests were directly threatened otherwise – and to avoid that sort of material threat developing, and the consciousness by a critical mass of the need to literally pledge their lives’-savings and fortunes (sacred honor having long since departed), the powers that be seem to have a “narsenal” of PR tricks and mystifications to keep most of us in our place most of the time. Alas. Which is not to say things could not get that bad at some future point. Whether even those of us most bleakly convinced of the state’s naked perfidies in all spheres would wish things to reach such a stage is an open question. We want to free the slaves, yes – but do we want to undergo another Civil War to do it? Are there ways less gut-wrenching? I haven’t a clue. Most even of our freedom-fighters are fairly comfortable, and disinclined to take to the streets with bullhorns when the conference tables of the think-tank already have their name cards laid out next to the water-pitchers and the C-SPAN cameras. The dogmas of voting, looking to the two Satanic parties, and rallying round the flag when “security” seems besieged are so proverbial among us as to render the mass-withdrawal scenario, at the moment, a wonderful seed for a screenplay, which is nothing to sneeze at – fiction is as fruitful an avenue to dramatize ideas, even, as here, sound ones, as nonfiction.

For more of my thoughts on historical tradeoffs, the anti-”heroic” mediocrity of our day and why that might not be the worst thing in the world, see my cracker-barrel philosophy of history sketched at Dan McCarthy’s blog, tossed off before Rod Dreher surprised me in quoting from it on his own popular “Crunchy Con” blog a few days later.

It is useful, though, as a clarifying thought exercise to sketch such counterfactuals as those outlined in “Trust Busting”, as we ask ourselves if freedom of the sort we seek is likely, possible or probable given the prices we’d all have to pay to get there, and whether we’d stick with the devils we know rather than give up big $ on behalf of those we don’t:

The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of.
Thus conscience (or, comfort, inertia, Anheuser-Busch) does make cowards of us all
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.

DSL.

Brent T. White, a University of Arizona law school professor, says that it’s in the homeowners’ best financial interest to stiff their lenders and that it’s not immoral to do so.
By Kenneth R. Harney

November 29, 2009

Reporting from Washington – Go ahead. Break the chains. Stop paying on your mortgage if you owe more than the house is worth. And most important: Don’t feel guilty about it. Don’t think you’re doing something morally wrong.

That’s the incendiary core message of a new academic paper by Brent T. White, a University of Arizona law school professor, titled “Underwater and Not Walking Away: Shame, Fear and the Social Management of the Housing Crisis.”

White contends that far more of the estimated 15 million U.S. homeowners who are underwater on their mortgages should stiff their lenders and take a hike.

Doing so, he suggests, could save some of them hundreds of thousands of dollars that they “have no reasonable prospect of recouping” in the years ahead. Plus the penalties are nowhere near as painful or long-lasting as they might assume, he says.

“Homeowners should be walking away in droves,” White said. “But they aren’t. And it’s not because the financial costs of foreclosure outweigh the benefits.”

Sure, credit scores get whacked when you walk away, he acknowledges. But as long as you stay current with other creditors, “one can have a good credit rating again — meaning above 660 — within two years after a foreclosure.”

I suspect that there might be one thing that was not taken into account when figuring the perceived financial costs – how much of a pain it is to find a new place, pack up all ones stuff, move the stuff, and then unpack.

Assuming that one can afford to pay the mortgage, the abstract idea of being ‘underwater’ on the house might be less distressing than the very real physical distress of packing up and moving.

Uwe Reinhardt has an interesting post up on the problems with our health care debate. Key quotes…..

MR. GREGORY: Senator Hutchison, you said this is the beginning of rationing.

SENATOR HUTCHISON: I think it is.

MR. GREGORY: Why did you say that?

SENATOR HUTCHISON: It’s because it’s whether the insurance and the public option [in the Democrats' health reform bill] are going to pay for a woman who decides that she wants to have the mammogram before the age of 50 or more than every other year after 50. If the public option doesn’t pay for that — and the task force recommendations are what the public option is going to rely on. So this task force says all of a sudden we’re going to change the guidelines that we have had for all these years. And now the public option may not pay for those, and that means the insurance companies are going to follow. The key is that these are covered by insurance so women will not have to decide if they’re going to spend $250 to get a mammogram because they and their doctors believe it is right to do so. [Italics added.]

As a long-time champion of universal health insurance for this country — even at the risk of occasionally being labeled a socialist — I was both stunned and charmed by Senator Hutchison’s statement. She was proposing that women should not have to decide between spending $250 of their own money to get a mammogram or go without it, and that the key here is to get someone else — either public or private health insurance — to pay for it.

I cannot recall a clearer statement of unreserved support for universal and comprehensive health insurance for America and a more straightforward definition of rationing health care.

In the history of our attempts at health care reform we have a pattern. Someone with left leanings pushes for reform. This is generally well supported by the left. Indeed, there are politicians and pundits on the left who have made health care issues one of their primary causes for years. They spend time, money and political capital in attempting to change how health care is provided.

On the right, we have people who, successfully so far, oppose health care reform. This opposition is for many reasons, but cost is a primary one. Government interference is another, but most proposals are really for some continuation of the current private system, with extra monies coming from the government, in other words, it is again costs. To my knowledge, there is no one on the right who has been a long time advocate for health care reform. I can think of no red state which has passed its own health reform package. There is occasional talk of malpractice reform, but no action.

In the current round of opposition to health care reform, rationing has been the key word. Indeed, Republican legislators were told, I have the paper, to refer to rationing whenever possible as voters do not like the idea. Now, when faced with the possibility of linking costs to care, a long time position of the right, and generally a good one I might add, they claim it will be rationing. One might add that this is optional care for which there is conflicting evidence. If one wants to hold down costs, this is an area where we should concentrate.

As Rheinhardt points out, we already ration based upon the ability to pay. Why should this be any different for mammograms? For people who already have insurance? This is more true for Texas than any other state.

Unfortunately, Senator Hutchison appears to be a Lone Texas Ranger in this regard. Most of her fellow Texans do not seem to share her compassionate views.

I conclude thusly because Texans have been content all along with seeing their state registering one of the highest rates of uninsurance among the states.

About 25 percent of Texas’s population is without health insurance, compared to around 15 percent nationwide. Money, or the lack of it, must routinely stand between low-income, uninsured Texans and health care.

In her report “Health Insurance Reform: The Case for Change” released on Nov. 23, 2009, for example, the secretary of health and human services, Kathleen Sebelius, indicated that 44 percent of Texas residents had not had colorectal cancer screening ever, and 25 percent of women over 50 had not had a mammogram in the last two years. And while 83 percent of women in the United States had prenatal care in the first trimester in 2006, the comparable number in Texas was 61.6 percent.

Just think about that 61.6% number, in a pro-life state. This compares with 98% in Jamaica and 72% in India. (I am unsure of the accuracy of these specific sites so if someone has a good comprehensive listing of prenatal care rates, please link.) Concentrating on breast cancer, the issue at hand, almost 25% of the people in Texas have no health insurance, so by the Senator’s reasoning, they have been rationed out of mammograms, even for the universally agreed upon screenings over the age of 50. Texas leads the nation in uninsureds, but the national average is about 15%. That means 15% of the people are rationed out of health care, as defined by the right.

Opposing health care reform because of its costs I can understand. Opposing it on the basis of rationing leads to internal incoherence. This shows that once again, everyone wants the services for themselves, but no one wants to pay for them.

“Digui el que digui el TC, Catalunya és una nació”

13 Diciembre : Ple total a l’Auditori del Fòrum per donar el tret de sortida a dues setmanes carregades d’activitats abans de les consultes que diumenge faran més de 150 municipis de Catalunya. Unas 3 500 personas asisten al inicio de la campana en favor de las consultas soberanistas.

“Ni estatut, ni constitució espanyola. El que necessitem és la constitució de la República catalana, un nou estat independent, sobirà i democràtic. Prou de submissións”. República Catalana??? Independencia???

Video: AVUI.TV – AVUI.cat

Video: Política – Lavanguardia.es

Entre los asistentes se encontraban los periodistas Miquel Calçada ‘Mikimoto’ y Ana Morgades; el escritor Víctor Alexandre y el filósofo Josep Maria Terricabras.

“Digui el que digui el TC, Catalunya és una nació” Entrevista a Josep Antoni Duran i Lleida, president del comitè de govern d’Unió i secretari general de CiU.

El Pais Vasco y Navarera tienen su propio concierto economico, no dan un euro al estado y los nacionalistas españolistas se muerden la lengua. Solo Catalunya es el blanco de sus iras e insultos, despues que sus impuestos Madrid los reparte a su aire. Esta situcasion es insostenible !!

El Tribunal Constitucional ( T.C.) debe decir si es constitucional o no, que no lo es, y corregirlo. y después, los catalanes haremos y pensaremos cada uno lo que consideremos oportuno. Lo que no puede ser es intentar ir hacia la independencia engañando al resto de los españoles e interpretando la Constitucion como quieran los nacionalistas.

Después del 13 de Diciembre la vida va a ser diferente !

La Catalogne est sur le pied de guerre. Face à la menace de voir son nouveau statut d’autonomie tronqué par la justice espagnole, la société civile catalane est montée au créneau pour soutenir une classe politique déjà mobilisée. L’enjeu est d’importance et met dans l’embarras le gouvernement de José Luis Zapatero.

Après trois ans de délibération et d’atermoiement, le Tribunal constitutionnel doit prendre de façon imminente – la date exacte n’est pas connue – une décision cruciale sur ce texte. Celui-ci redéfinit les relations entre l’Espagne et la Catalogne, et élargit les pouvoirs de cette région prospère. Les neuf magistrats planchent sur un recours déposé par les conservateurs du Parti populaire, opposé au Statut, le statut d’autonomie. Près de quarante articles risquent d’être annulés dont celui très symbolique qui qualifie la Catalogne de «nation».

Vu de Barcelone, il n’est pas question de revenir sur le sacro-saint Statut, approuvé en 2006 par le Parlement catalan et validé par référendum populaire. La société catalane a lancé une fronde sans précédent pour avertir que toute modification serait «inacceptable» et susceptible de remettre en cause la bonne entente catalano-espagnole. Syndicats, patronat, intellectuels et même le célèbre club de foot FC Barça ont apporté leur soutien à un virulent éditorial publié dans douze journaux catalans. Véritable pavé dans la mare, l’article met en avant «la dignité de la Catalogne» : «Il y a de la préoccupation en Catalogne et il est nécessaire que toute l’Espagne le sache (…). Il y a aussi un croissant ras-le-bol de devoir supporter le regard courroucé de ceux qui continuent à percevoir l’identité catalane comme un défaut de fabrication empêchant l’Espagne d’atteindre une impossible et rêvée uniformité», peut-on lire dans le grand quotidien La Vanguardia.

Les Catalans redoutent une version édulcorée du texte originel. Les juges du Tribunal constitutionnel pourraient en effet éliminer les «droits historiques» de la région, le terme de «nation» inscrit dans le préambule et les références aux symboles (drapeau, hymne…). Autre point polémique, l’apprentissage de la langue catalane risque de cesser d’être «à caractère obligatoire» pour tout résident en Catalogne. Avec le nouveau statut, le catalan cohabite avec le castillan comme langue officielle.

Toucher à ces articles serait casus belli, ont averti la plupart des partis politiques catalans, à l’exception du Parti populaire (PP, droite), très minoritaire dans la région. Le parti Esquerra Republicana au pouvoir régional en coalition avec les socialistes catalans (PSC), a mis en garde contre une décision négative de la justice espagnole : «Nous appliquerons le texte à la lettre quelle que soit la décision des magistrats». Un député de ce parti a averti qu’un tel jugement «accoucherait d’une machine à fabriquer des souverainistes».

Ce tapage politico-médiatique tombe au pire moment pour le socialiste Zapatero, qui est déjà très affaibli par la crise. La tension risque sans doute de monter d’un cran, le 13 décembre prochain, lors du référendum sur l’indépendance de la Catalogne, organisé dans 160 municipalités. Même si ce scrutin est dépourvu de valeur juridique, il permettra de tâter le pouls du potentiel électorat nationaliste.

Visca Catalunya !

IVO

Pada Isnin 23 Nov. 2009M yang lalu, saya di Kuala Lumpur untuk satu urusan berkaitan STAY ALiVE Shop. Selesai urusan, saya mengambil kesempatan untuk ke salah satu premis kegemaran saya; Saba Islamic Media di Maju Junction Mall.

Saya disambut dengan layanan mesra dari pekerja & juga pengurusnya yang sentiasa bersedia membantu & memberi penerangan.

Bagi mereka yang berminat dengan ilmu tentang Islam, perbandingan agama, dakwah dsb. dalam pelbagai medium seperti buku, dvd, dll, Saba Islamic Media menawarkan pelbagai bahan yang bermutu & bernilai tinggi dari dalam & luar negara seperti bahan yang ditulis atau berdasarkan ceramah pendakwah Islam tersohor seperti Allahyarham Ahmad Deedat, Dr. Zakir Naik, Syeikh Khalid Yasin, Yusuf Estees, Shah Kirit, Harun Yahya dll.

Waktu saya belajar di Shah Alam dulu, saya sering juga pergi ke premis Saba di Kompleks PKNS Shah Alam, & sehingga sekarang, Saba Islamic Media terus maju dalam bidang ‘dakwah melalui perniagaannya.’ Terbaru, Saba baru membuka franchisenya di Kelantan, selain juga mempunyai cawangan di Indonesia.

Moga Saba Islamic Media terus maju menyebarkan Islam bukan saja di Malaysia, tapi juga di seluruh pelusuk dunia insyaAllah, kerana jika anda pernah pergi ke Saba, anda pasti tahu potensi sebuah kedai seperti ini terutamanya dalam memberi dakwah & penerangan tentang Islam kepada mereka yang belum Islam.

Untuk maklumat lanjut berkenaan Saba Islamic Media, anda boleh terus ke laman webnya di http://www.saba.com.my/v2/

*Link untuk Saba Islamic Media juga terdapat di bawah kategori Products etc. di kanan & kiri blog ini.

Thanks to a marketing contest , I got a chance to create this video.

Lets Salute our Nation !! !

** Coca cola (India) is not associated with this video..It was a part of our presentation during the contest & hence included in the video at the end **

I have this friend M. Not the one Ian Fleming created, but a flesh-and-blood one. Personally charming, great raconteur, fierce sense of loyalty, dedicated to work and devoted to loved ones. Has a profound dislike for desi characteristics – behaviour, conduct, habits, cleanliness, morals, past, present, future, etc.., etc.., etc.. A person one would hold in high esteem, but for this line of thought.

There are many others like this that I have known; open to ideas of every kind but profoundly resentful and plaintive when it comes to their Indianness. Easy to put it down to snobbery, but is is anything but that. They are modest about their own capabilities, appreciative of those that do well. They have very laudable goals in their lives. They are helpful, human in the broadest sense and fiercely opposed to injustice and understanding of human suffering. But……they passionately dislike what they call Indianness.

I am not sure if this is seen in other nationalities……

A Cultureless Culture

Im from a culture thats been stripped

Chained up and whipped

But in the batter of God’s blood my soul has been dipped

Cause see im made in his image

From the nile i’ve descended

The blood sweat and tears my elders have unwillingly given

Cause see pain is temporary

My folks were visionaries

Now understanding im hated because of the weight my soul carries

From the history of the past to the misery of the present

Enslaved in a rage engaged as meager peasants

You see im labeled a statistic; Yet upon another list

You ask me what i see; I tell you what exists

Homies transporting getting caught out on the spread

Homies up in hotels furnished by the feds

Counterfeit ni**as with they soul to sell

Too many real soldiers 6 ft. with stories to tell

Alot of young people of my skin tone; They fertilize the ground

 3 hundred and 60 degrees; You know it all goes round

From pushing weight upon the corner; To lifting weights upon the yard

Now we lifting dead weight; to send his ass off to God

No matter where you at; No matter where you from

Sam Cook-ed me up a story; Said a change gone come

But true happiness aint here; So where is it discoverd

In my opinion its not achieved until we dead and covered

Fin*

www.aiwal.com

Extrait :
« Les ambiguïtés [sur les mots racisme et race] ont permis à l’antiracisme de bannir de la parole, des conversations, des journaux, de tous les médias, du discours politique mais d’abord, et c’est le plus grave, de la perception même qu’on peut avoir du monde, tout ce qui relève, non seulement des races, mais des ethnies, des peuples, des cultures, des religions en tant que groupes, ou que masses d’individus, des civilisations en tant que collectivités héréditaires, des origines et même des nationalités dans la mesure où ces nationalités prétendraient être autre chose qu’une pure appartenance administrative, une convention, une création continue.

L’homme de l’antiracisme est nu devant le sort, il ne vient de nulle part, aucun passé ne le protège. Il commence à lui-même, à lui-même maintenant.

Sur une planète idéalement sans frontière, sans distinctions d’aucune sorte et sans nuances, c’est un voyageur sans bagage, un pauvre diable. À tout instant il se fonde comme il peut, en une sorte de gâtisme du commencement perpétuel, d’infantilisme institué, de puérilité (star-) académique.

L’appartenance, dès lors qu’elle n’est pas convention pure (les fameux « papiers »), est perçue et donnée seulement comme une charge, une tare, un poids mort, un encombrant fardeau dont il convient de se débarrasser au plus vite, un héritage maudit.

Ce sont des pans entiers de la connaissance, de la culture, du savoir accumulé de l’espèce, qui sont ainsi récusés, mis à bas, enterrés. Plus gravement encore, ce sont des pans entiers de l’expérience, de l’actualité bien sûr, mais plus directement de l’expérience quotidienne de vivre, de bouger, d’habiter la terre et d’habiter la ville, d’éprouver ce qui arrive quand on descend dans la rue, quand on prend l’autobus ou le métro, des pans entiers du temps, des pans entiers du regard, des pans entiers de la tactilité d’exister, dont par convention il sera convenu, sous peine des plus graves châtiments, qu’ils n’existent pas, qu’on ne les ressent pas, qu’on ne les voit pas même s’ils vous crèvent les yeux – que tout cela c’est dans votre tête, dans votre mauvaise tête.»

Deux hommes soupçonnés de fraudes estimées à 200.000 euros au préjudice de plusieurs caisses d’allocations familiales ont été mis en examen à Bordeaux et l’un d’entre eux a été écroué, a-t-on appris aujourd’hui auprès des enquêteurs et de la CAF.

Interpellés le 17 novembre à Paris et Bordeaux, les deux hommes ont été présentés le 19 devant un juge bordelais qui les a mis en examen pour escroquerie et faux et usage de faux.

Le principal mis en cause, un ressortissant algérien de 32 ans en situation irrégulière, a été écroué à Gradignan (Gironde) et son complice présumé relâché sous contrôle judiciaire.

L’enquête a débuté après une plainte de la CAF de la Gironde déposée le 17 juin.
Les investigations ont permis de découvrir une fraude aux allocations logement touchant plusieurs caisses à Paris, en Seine-Saint-Denis, dans la Vienne, la Haute-Vienne, la Dordogne, les Bouches-du-Rhône, la Moselle et la Drôme, selon le service communication de la gendarmerie d’Aquitaine.

“Le mode opératoire suppose une certaine ingéniosité”, a commenté Fidenzio Rebeschini, agent comptable à la CAF Gironde. Ce sont “des procédures de contrôle internes” à la CAF qui ont permis de dévoiler l’affaire, a ajouté M. Rebeschini.
L’enquête a également permis d’établir que le principal mis en cause aurait aussi escroqué des opérateurs de téléphonie mobile, “une société se portant caution pour les loyers” et aurait versé 7.000 euros à une Française pour contracter un mariage blanc.