jump to navigation

Harrassing Cynthia again? April 3, 2006

Posted by Delilah in : US, Washington Consensus , add a comment

Fashionable Cynthia

What’s going on here? All I know is:

  1. To some people, Black folks are invisible.
  2. When they change hairstyles or start dressing fashionable and using make-up and fancy earrings, as Cynthia obviously has, they don’t recognize them so the guy who is supposed to protect Cynthia can only pick her in a crowd as a trangressor of some sort.
  3. Why the big deal? Because this sounds like an issue of respect with her (and most Blacks in this country, let’s face it, except they don’t speak up) and she ain’t going to take it anymore.
  4. She has reason to worry given the reaction of the rightwing crowd. They’re calling her a “ghetto slut“, thus beautifully making her point.

Iraq = Bush’s Vietnam, says Ignatius March 25, 2006

Posted by Delilah in : General, Iraq, US, Washington Consensus , add a comment

WaPo’s self-appointed wiseboy, David Ignatius, is waking up.  Hurray. He’s figured out that Iraq is Bush’s Vietnam in all sorts of ways, including presidential communications, and frets that a decent communication strategy is needed to manage an orderly departure from Iraq…
Whatever - at every antiwar demonstration that I attended, there have been t-shirts reading “Iraq=Bush’s Vietname”.  Glad to see Ignatius come onboard.  Sure took him and the rest of Washington’s establishment long enough.

More hysteria at the Washington Post February 28, 2006

Posted by Delilah in : US, Books, Washington Consensus , add a comment

Anyone with any true experience of international development ie gained from working within the beasts that make it up and on the ground - rather than looking at it from some desk in Europe or North America - knows why John Perkins’ book “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” has been such a tremendous best seller. It ruthlessly unpacks the dark underbelly of international development practices that those of us with experience in the field suffered for many years and continue to suffer although, clearly, not to the extent that its victims (ie “beneficiaries” in the lingo) have.

There is no way to verify all the detailed machinations that Perkins describes in the experiences he relates in the book, but we, the development practitioners and the victims of development, know the consequences because we’ve lived them.
Now, Washington Post columnist Sebastian Mallaby may just be envious of Perkins’ success. (more…)