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[7] From: "ccwd ccwd ccwd" <ccwd1@rediffmail.com> Date: Tue Feb 21, 2006 Subject: Re: [indiathinkersnet] INSAF National Political Convention (March 1-2, Jaipur) Dear willfread, It is my confirmation taht,we will participate in Jaipur meeting and political convention. Tahnking u yours sincerely Mahendra Parida CCWD On Mon, 20 Feb 2006 willy wrote : > INSAF National Political Convention (March 1-2, Jaipur) > INSAF is a national forum of over 550 groups engaged in resisting globalisation, combating communalism and defending democracy. INSAF is organizing its National Political Convention on "Right to life in the era of globalisation" in JAIPUR during March 1-2, 2006. ---------- [7] From: Regi P George <george_regi@yahoo.com> Date: Tue Feb 21, 2006 Subject: Plight of America's migrant day workers Plight of America's migrant day workers Gary Younge Migrant workers do the jobs that Americans will not do, but they are vulnerable to bigots and big business. HALF PAST SEVEN on Tuesday morning and on the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Lefferts Boulevard in Queens, New York, around 20 Sikh men stamp the cold out of their feet. Brickworkers, builders, and unskilled labourers all wait at the intersection for a car to stop and offer work. But the snow on the ground is an ill omen. Construction work is scarce when the weather is this bad. So they wait. "On a bad week you can get nothing," explains Victor Singh, who left his village near Amritsar five years ago and has not had a full-time job since. "Winter time is always slow. In the summer you can sometimes work four days a week." If nothing comes by 9 a.m., he says, he'll go home and come back the next day ??” every day until his luck changes. These scenes are replayed throughout the United States every day. Scattered vignettes of supply and demand woven together with intense vulnerability that illustrate the human imperfections in a so-called perfect market. A recent report from the University of California suggests that every morning 117,600 day labourers are hired this way. Half are employed by homeowners looking for gardening and domestic work. Slightly more than 40 per cent are employed by contractors in construction and landscaping. Nationwide almost two-thirds are Hispanic and just over a quarter are from Central America. Migrant labourers are crucial to the U.S. economy. Yet xenophobia among a militant minority of the public allied with opportunism among a majority of the politicians has conspired to demonise them. To his credit and his base's chagrin, President Bush has not stooped to racism on this issue, suggesting instead that once illegal immigrants have paid their fines and back-taxes they should be allowed to stay for a fixed period of time. Under this proposed "guest worker" programme, they would then have to return home. The aim, he says is to "match willing foreign workers with willing American employers to fill jobs that Americans will not do." The proposals have split two key pillars of the Republican base: bigots and big business. But beyond those narrow, powerful constituencies there are deeper concerns grounded in neither prejudice nor profit. "It is not men who immigrate but machine minders, sweepers, diggers, cement mixers, cleaners, drillers etc," wrote John Berger in Seventh Man, in 1975. "This is the significance of temporary migration. To re-become a man (husband, father, citizen, patriot) a migrant has to return home. The home he left because it held no future for him." No long-term solution to this problem exists without addressing the global inequalities exacerbated by U.S. trade policies. So long as some people's pocket change can feed other people's families for a week, labour will seek and deserve all the freedom of movement that capital has been granted. In the meantime, the more pernicious effects can be mitigated. A strict enforcement of existing labour laws would punish callous employers. Some American towns and cities have set up official day labour sites, making the process more orderly and safe. Some unions have begun to organise migrant workers to ensure that they do not breed resentment by undercutting wages. This is not America's problem alone. But until it is addressed, the desperate will roam the globe, moving from one marginal experience to another, seeking sustenance and sensing alienation. Day labourers are not new to the U.S. For decades black women would stand at corners in northern cities waiting to be hired for domestic work and it has been a constant element of the immigrant experience. But recently their presence has sparked ugly antagonism. The nature of day labour work also makes them more vulnerable to being exploited. The Southern Poverty Law Centre has filed two collective action lawsuits in New Orleans on behalf of several thousand workers who say they have not been paid or were underpaid. As John Berger wrote: "The gold fell from very high in the sky. And so when it hit the earth it went down very, very, deep." - Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ---- [8] From: Regi P George <george_regi@yahoo.com> Date: Tue Feb 21, 2006 Subject: Foes united against a maestro's movie Foes united against a maestro's movie Hasan Suroor Steven Spielberg's film Munich has angered both Israelis and Palestinians IT IS rare for Israelis and Palestinians to find a common cause even if they come to it from opposite perspectives, but the unimaginable has happened ??” and it is all over a film! Steven Spielberg's Munich, "inspired" by the 1972 Munich "massacre" of Israeli athletes, has angered both camps ??” each claiming the film presents a distorted version of its side of the story. The controversy, first sparked by extremist reactions even before Spielberg started filming, has now been joined by mainstream critics and academics. The fury is more palpable in pro-Israeli circles, especially in America, and suddenly Spielberg has become a hate figure in many of the same quarters that had hailed him for Schindler's List. And it is not difficult to see why. That was about Jews as victims, while Munich is about a Jewish state that is seen as aggressive and vengeful. And the Palestinians are upset because they say the film wrongly depicts their campaign against Israel as terror. Munich, based on journalist George Jonas's book Vengeance, is a powerful cinematic reconstruction (part factual, part fiction) of the aftermath of the bloody events of 1972 when a group of Palestinian militants attacked the Olympic village in Munich and killed two members of the Israeli team. Another nine, who were taken hostages, died in a botched rescue operation. To understand the passions aroused by the film, which focusses mainly on Israel's controversial and violent response to the killings, it is important to remember that the Munich murders provoked the same sort of emotive reaction in Israel as 9/11 did in America. It was also a hugely significant moment for Palestinians in their campaign against the illegal Israeli occupation of their territories. They believed that such high-profile attacks would make the international community sit up and take note of their plight. The issues raised by the Munich events still remain unresolved, and with both sides seeing themselves as victims of the "other," their reaction to Spielberg's attempt to explore the darker aspects of their respective tactics is not surprising. The film's message that the endless cycle of violence and counter-violence does not help the cause of either communities has prompted the more prickly Israelis and Palestinians to accuse Spielberg of "moral equivalence" and poor judgment. The film concentrates on what has since come to be known as Israeli's worst kept secret: a plot by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, to hunt down the 11 Palestinian militants who allegedly planned the Munich attack. Although the plot was backed by the Israeli army and the government, the state did not want to be seen to be associated with an illegal campaign of murder. So, a hit squad was assembled to do the job and millions of dollars were placed at its disposal ??” the brief: do anything, spend as much money as you need, travel wherever you like but get them at any cost. If discovered, the plot was to be dismissed as the work of independent nationalist Israelis. Certainly, "no medals" were to be given to the team members at the end of the day. How they go about eliminating one "target" after another in different parts of the world makes gripping viewing as we see glimpses of the dangerous realm of intelligence and counter-intelligence where nobody is anybody's friend and the only currency that talks is money. Eventually, most of the "targets" are eliminated but in the process three members of the murder squad too are killed in a series of botched operations. In the end, the leader of the team himself starts to question the ethics of the whole enterprise and ends up making powerful enemies in Mossad. Munich has so infuriated Time magazine's Israel correspondent Aaron Klein that he is reported to be planning a book to "correct" the film's version of the events. More specifically, he has disputed the claim in the film ??” and the book on which it is based ??” that the plot to kill the Black September leaders was an act of vengeance. According to him, it was a "strategic response" to break up a "terrorist" network. One critic has accused Spielberg of "Hollywoodising" history and turning the tragedy of the murdered athletes into a "profit-making product." He says it is difficult to say where facts end and fiction begins. Internet chat-rooms are buzzing with attacks on the film, mainly from Jewish community. Spielberg is said to be "fed up" with the criticism, which, he says, is misplaced. Insisting that Munich is unbiased, he said: "The Jewish community have grown very angry at me for allowing the Palestinians simply to have dialogue. Munich never once attacks Israel, and barely criticises Israel's policy of counter-violence against violence. It simply asks a plethora of questions. For that we were accused of the sin of moral equivocation, which, of course, we didn't intend ??” and we're not guilty of." Coming out of the film, one was ever more convinced of the power of cinema and the need for nations to be constantly reminded of the darker bits of their history. --------------------- |
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