March 2011

University of Virginia Plan Would Import Asian Workers, Pay Them Less Than a Dollar Per Hour

The University of Virginia is reviewing a proposal to import hundreds of Asian workers for various campus services, pay them less than a dollar per hour, and possibly deny them egress from their campus housing outside of work hours.

This is according to a report of which I have obtained a copy and which has been verified by three independent sources. The report was apparently inspired by a recent conference held at the university that sounds fictional but was actually about fiction. As recounted, read more

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Our Billion Dollar Turd Sandwich

So President Obama has been quoted calling his war in Libya a turd sandwich, while Juan Cole calls it philanthropy, and Ed Schultz praises it as vengeance against this month’s Adolph Hitler. The last time we bombed this particular Hitler we took out his daughter, among other people.

How is Schultz’s spitting mad hatred as war justification squared with Cole’s humanitarian generosity? The answer is easy. They prefer different condiments on their turd sandwiches. Which is why wars read more

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Peace Activists Headed to Afghanistan

Voices for Creative Nonviolence
www.vcnv.org

Peace Activist from Charlottesville Headed to Afghanistan

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA. – From April 1st to 10th David Swanson of Charlottesville, Va., will join a group of international peace activists meeting with ordinary and prominent Afghans in Kabul, Afghanistan.

The trip has been organized by Chicago-based Voices for Creative Nonviolence ( http://vcnv.org ) and among the groups participants will read more

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On Visiting an Unwinnable War

I’ll be visiting my nation’s longest war next week in Afghanistan, thanks to a wonderful organization called Voices for Creative Nonviolence which seeks to build friendship and understanding between countries. I’ll be meeting with ordinary and prominent Afghans and reporting on what they think of their country’s future — often a more complex view than will fit into a television sound byte.

In preparation, I’ve been trying to ascertain what Americans think read more

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Prediction: 20 Years of War in Libya

Johan Galtung, sometimes called the father of peace studies, predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union and the refusal of Egyptian soldiers to attack civilians. His prediction of the collapse of the US empire in 2020 appears to be on schedule. So, it was noteworthy when he predicted on Tuesday at the University of Virginia that the war in Libya would last 20 years. If, however, NATO and the opposition were to kill Gadaffi, he said, the fighting could go on for more than 20 years.

This prediction read more

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Obama on Libya: What Would MLK Say?

President Obama on Monday said he would “never hesitate” to use the U.S. military “unilaterally” to defend “interests” and “values,” including “maintaining the flow of commerce.” Fear of exactly that led the founders of this republic to give Congress the exclusive power to declare war. James Madison did not believe any single individual could be trusted with such power:

“The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the read more

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