http://selvesandothers.org/ en SPIP - www.spip.net http://www.selvesandothers.org/article16490.html 2008-06-30T14:10:00Z text/html en Muhammed Asadi <p>The US elite never settled after WW2 to the idea of converting their booming war-time, war-footing economy into a peace-time economy. For them war was the ultimate rescuer of their capitalist system from its eminent intrinsic doom (as they saw it) to socialism and communism, whose props they were forced to incorporate after the New Deal that rescued their system from the Great Depression (which killed capitalism long before the demise of the Soviet Union's "communism"). As a result of this, these elite even after the war ended planned and sought to retain the same war-time economic structure by inventing (or manufacturing) new World Wars and then advertisement-selling them to their own public as well as the world by propaganda and using their peons around the globe (the dictators they supported) to change the global agenda to convert this fiction into a fact by virtue of created circumstance that once created take on a dynamic of their own. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.asadi.org/" rel="directory">M. Asadi</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article16476.html 2008-06-30T14:05:00Z text/html en Muhammed Asadi <p>The most important issue facing the country today is the restoration of the judges.</p> <p>The ‘Judicial Crisis' before Musharraf's November ‘07 emergency was manufactured by the Pakistan Army/US in order to get Musharraf (who had fallen out of favor with the people and with the Americans) out of his uniform, staying in which he would have damaged the military and hence US interests in the region. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.asadi.org/" rel="directory">M. Asadi</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article16425.html 2008-04-17T12:23:00Z text/html en Muhammed Asadi <p>The United States mainstream media is a major tool in the hands of the power elite; it constructs images of reality that are subsequently widely believed in by the masses, images whose definitions ensure that inequality will continue without revolt or redress. A mythology, garbed in master symbols that contour perceptions of available life-chances regardless of objective fact: it determines relationships between races, ethnicities and nationalities; it makes people chase dreams that most can never attain. So powerful are its effects (as are often revealed by polls after major events, about which most people's only source of information is this media or people exposed to it), that realities of people's own lives, the objective facts that confront them on a daily basis, become subordinate to its contrived images. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.asadi.org/" rel="directory">M. Asadi</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article16399.html 2008-02-29T22:00:00Z text/html en Muhammed Asadi <p>For people who are saying that these elections are a “landmark in Pakistan's history”, let me remind them that they are repeating in different words what Musharraf had been saying all along in his "dictatorship as the best defense of democracy" rhetoric, that followed last year's declaration of emergency. In other words, those who are celebrating these elections and their results are trying to justify all the undemocratic maneuvering by the military and its dictator (Musharraf) that described the immediate context of these elections (part of which was the assassination of Benazir Bhutto) and thereby absolving the dictator of all wrong doing by saying it was “worth it” for democracy. Both these "winners", the PML-N and the PPP will fit into the ‘hierarchy of power' prescribed for politicians by their superiors (the commanders of the Pakistan Army in our case), and if they try moving out of line they will be brought straight back in or sent home packing. Was it not the same "democratic-alliance" before the elections that vowed to boycott these elections, given their dictatorial context and then did a total turnaround to get power, rushing to outdo each other in legitimizing the same structure that is anti-democracy to the core? (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.asadi.org/" rel="directory">M. Asadi</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article16271.html 2007-09-29T08:56:00Z text/html en Muhammed Asadi <p>The entire Iran crisis is a manufactured one, manufactured by the US elite, in a geographic area in which they have a long tradition of not only supporting dictators, suppressing the people's voices and aspiration but also the barbarism of the kind we see in Iraq- using all lies in the book, to kill over 1.2 million people, and maim and displace millions more. That said let us review the US/Mullah relationship in Iran:</p> <p>Now, when the Mullahs in Iran have been used by the Americans, strengthened by the Americans both against the democratic government of Mossadeq, as well as against the Shah when he became too powerful for comfort of the US elite (and Israel) and then for the wholesale wipe out of the left's leadership in Iran, what should we expect with this posturing now, but a veiled dual fulfillment of motive? That the US was helping the Shah's Iran develop just this kind of nuclear power so that it would free the domestic use of oil for export is a historical fact, that every country has the right not only to develop nuclear technology for its power-use but given that a few belligerent and historically unreliable and trigger happy states have nuclear weapons, Iran has every right to have one as well. That Iran was moving leftwards before the nuclear issue was given undue dominance by the US elite which halted this leftward move and drove power right back to the Mullahs is also a fact. That this drive towards the Mullahs has helped them and has helped the foreign policy agenda of the war mongers among the US elite is a fact as well. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.asadi.org/" rel="directory">M. Asadi</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article16117.html 2007-07-24T19:39:00Z text/html en Muhammed Asadi <p>Secularization of social thought, of worldview is an indicator of what has been described as “modernization”, a Gesellschaft, when the collective conscience and individual conscience are not in harmony. This is in contrast to a Gemeinschaft, or a community-type social system where both collective conscience and individual conscience are perfect matches for each other and as a result tradition and dogma rules. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.asadi.org/" rel="directory">M. Asadi</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article16103.html 2007-06-19T05:06:00Z text/html en Muhammed Asadi <p>An urban area has certain characteristic features that shape the structure and determine the success or failure of a social movement. Whereas a city provides a “critical mass” for mobilization of people and resources, the heterogeneity of a city fractures collective identity so consensus on broad issues is difficult to achieve and maintain, success is therefore limited (even though greater resources are available). (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.asadi.org/" rel="directory">M. Asadi</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article16094.html 2007-06-12T12:55:00Z text/html en Muhammed Asadi <p>Regarding Al Jazeera:</p> <p>1) Bin Laden finds it very convenient to supply them with videos, he has their "express" address to beam stuff directly in from Afghanistan/Pakistan, things that become fodder for the American media, to legitimize the policies of the U.S. elite, or to mask with convenient timing, political problems in the U.S.</p> <p>2) Location of Al-Jazeera; its location in Qatar, a US military satellite state whose rulers are totally subservient to the U.S elite, and</p> <p>3) How it has managed to build legitimacy among the Arabs in standard CIA modus operandi (for example, when they try to topple previously supported government by emphasizing genuine grievances; in the case of Al-Jazeera, grievances that Arabs might have with the US and Israel), reeks of being another one of the CIA's many media concerns. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.asadi.org/" rel="directory">M. Asadi</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article16013.html 2007-05-10T20:50:00Z text/html en Muhammed Asadi <p>Recently in a discussion with students (MA) in a Social Development course, I got a chance to inform them that this so called (i.e. contrived) "fuel/energy shortage" is quite good for the profits of the major oil companies, whose elite formulate US energy policy, and thus are very happy by the current state of affairs even though they scare all by shortage as a "cover" for their crimes. They create this artificial shortage:</p> <p>(...)</p> - <a href="http://www.asadi.org/" rel="directory">M. Asadi</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article15976.html 2007-04-26T06:45:00Z text/html en Muhammed Asadi <p>Media coverage of the massacre at Virginia Tech, by the U.S. mainstream media (CNN, FOX etc.), that is being broadcast throughout the globe these days, brings to our attention the use of the construct of “worthy” and “unworthy” victims by this media. Cultural technicians of the present, force upon the world an idea of hierarchy of value (of human life) based on the victim's degrees of separation from the U.S. power elite. The range runs from ‘completely worthless' (reserved for enemies and those they consider ‘inferior' races) to ‘worthy' based on congruence with the policies and ‘social type' of the U.S elite. Closeness to the image of the U.S power elite and being in tune with their agenda determines the level of mourning and sorrow granted to victims of events, both within the U.S, and around the world. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.asadi.org/" rel="directory">M. Asadi</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article15928.html 2007-03-28T13:59:00Z text/html en Muhammed Asadi <p>The report under was recently submitted by me to the Chair of the Department of Sociology at a public university in Pakistan. I was asked to suggest ways in which the department might improve in 3 areas:</p> <p><i>1. Teaching Methodology</i><br /></p> <p><i>2. Research & Thesis activity of students</i><br /></p> <p><i>3. Activities in the public arena</i></p> <p>These recommendations, which are based mostly on my personal experience at US universities, both as student and lecturer, and considering reports on the state of education in “Third World” countries as well as the so-called ‘democratic schools' of mass education in the US (where students are standardized to fill the capitalist marketplace as technicians), should be taken as a ‘work-in-progress'. As more teaching experience is gained in Pakistan, new problems based on such experiential data might become apparent, which might require altering various recommendations and inventing new ones. The process of self-correction and falsification is fundamental to all scientific systems of analysis, and therefore none of these recommendations should be taken as ‘set in stone'.</p> <p>The department of sociology, more so than other departments at the University, due to the focus of its subject matter can make a difference in affecting lives of the people on the socio-structural level. It is up to the faculty to ensure that this position of prominence of our field in such a hierarchy of relevance (among the fields) is communicated to the University administration as well as the student body. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.asadi.org/" rel="directory">M. Asadi</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article15618.html 2007-01-23T18:17:00Z text/html en Muhammed Asadi <p>The late Edward Said while critiquing Huntington's “Clash of Civilizations” thesis, states that this thesis is a fictional gimmick, something like the “War of the Worlds”. For those of you who are not aware of what the “War of the Worlds” was, it was a fictional account of how a group of aliens planned to attack earth and destroy humanity. It was first broadcast as a radio play and when the broadcast took place, the radio listeners were misled into believing that an actual “War of the Worlds” was taking place. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.asadi.org/" rel="directory">M. Asadi</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article14954.html 2006-08-08T17:08:00Z text/html en Muhammed Asadi <p>The UN resolutions, aimed at “ending” the conflict in Lebanon (after all calls for a ceasefire were rejected by the US) is a simple case of the US using everything at its disposal, force and institutional domination, to get what it wants in that region. The provocation for war, as pretext, came from Israel in Lebanon and not the Hizballah as the mainstream media is deceptively presenting. Israel was expecting that response from them after it subcontracted to assassinate Hizballah members (June 18th, 2006 reported by Reuters) and later flew planes over the Syrian presidential palace, expecting a Hizballah response (June 29, 2006, reported by AFP). After seeing the Israeli belligerence in Gaza, the Hizballah took the bait. They merely reacted to those provocations based upon their "Pavlovian" response. By that I mean that their collective memory of dealing with Israel successfully in the past is based on just such reactions and Israel knowing that well, was waiting for them to act, and when they did, it acted in an amnesiac fashion forgetting the context it had laid for the abduction of the two soldiers, and presented that as a fresh unprovoked occurrence to the world. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.asadi.org/" rel="directory">M. Asadi</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article14867.html 2006-07-20T23:36:58Z text/html en Muhammed Asadi <p>Media ‘experts' tugging the official US line of supporting Israel at all costs often talk about Israeli fears of terrorists at their borders. They deliberately want to cloud facts by detaching them from their roots and historical context and now they present the abduction of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah as the cause of this new invasion of Lebanon. Now, when half a million Lebanese have been displaced, hundreds of civilians killed and injured, the economy and infrastructure that affects the lives of almost 2 million destroyed, which will cause misery to millions in the coming decade, they want us to focus instead on "Israeli fears", generated by the abduction of 2 soldiers when over 10,000 Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners have been languishing in Israeli jails for decades. And undercover of this invented “fear” and right of "self-defense", the US won't even call for a cease-fire, thereby giving Israel an open license to kill, maim and destroy at will. [Let us also not forget that Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, practically destroying the country and still occupies Shebaa farms that belong to Lebanon]. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.asadi.org/" rel="directory">M. Asadi</a> http://www.selvesandothers.org/article14696.html 2006-06-19T21:53:00Z text/html en Muhammed Asadi <p>Arguments by media pundits regarding the ‘war on terror' and how the U.S. can ‘win' it, assume that the U.S. is fighting a genuine war in which it seeks victory and ultimately peace. This assumption is based on a flawed assessment of the causes of war and its relationship to the U.S. political economy. The faulty premise, almost always involves an equation in which war is considered an abnormality (something undesirable) and peace, the normal (or desirable) state of affairs. In the past, war was a means to an end, be it self-defense or protection (just) or ruthless conquest, political or economic (unjust). The military, as an institution was subservient to the political economy. That hierarchy of institutions does not exist anymore. War now has become a ‘fact' of life, that people have accepted as a normal state of affairs, and other institutions have adjusted to accommodate this new reality. Victory or no victory, post World War 2, the U.S. has never settled for peace; when one conflict ended, it has started another. (...)</p> - <a href="http://www.asadi.org/" rel="directory">M. Asadi</a>