Coca has been, ancestrally, a sacred leaf. We, the indigenous, have had a profound respect toward it... a respect that includes that we don't "pisar" it (the verb "pisar" means to treat the leaves with a chemical substance, one of the first steps in the production of cocaine). In general, we only use it to acullicar: We chew it during times of war, during ritual ceremonies to salute Mother Earth (the Pachamama) or Father Sun or other Aymara divinities, like the hills. Thus, as an indigenous nation, we have never prostituted Mama Coca or done anything artificial to it because it is a mother. It is the occidentals who have prostituted it. It is they who made it into a drug. This doesn't mean that we don't understand the issue. We know that this plague threatens all of humanity and, from that perspective, we believe that those who have prostituted the coca have to be punished. - former Bolivian guerrilla leader and presidential candidate Felipe Quispe 2002 via Rigorous Intuition (link)
Paradoxically, it seems that the innocent pay for the crime of being nothing, of being without destiny, of having been dispossessed of their name by an equally anonymous system whose purest incarnation they have become. They are the end products of the social, of a now globalized abstract sociality. It is in this sense, in the sense that they are precisely anybody, that they are the predestined victims of terrorism.--Jean Baudrillard. In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities. Pgs. 71-72
Long before September 11, large numbers of Americans held negative views of Arabs and immigrants. One ABC News poll conducted in 1991 found majorities of Americans who saw Arabs as "terrorists" (59 percent), "violent" (58 percent) and "religious fanatics" (56 percent). And a Gallup poll conducted two years later found that two-thirds of Americans believed that there were "too many" Arab immigrants in the United States [26]. A Newsweek poll conducted in September 2001 revealed that 32 percent of Americans think Arabs should be put under special surveillance similar to the treatment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
26. Jeffrey M. Jones, "Americans Felt Uneasy Toward Arabs Even Before September 11, Majority Supports Increased Security Measures Even for Arabs Who Are United States Citizens," Gallup News Service, Sept. 28, 2001. found at: http://www.gallup.com/poll/Releases/Pr010928.asp [url has moved: http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=4939&pg=1] A review of polling data collected over the past decade shows that the
American public has generally held somewhat negative views of Arabs,
even before the recent terrorist attacks. Several polls conducted since
the terrorist attacks show that many Americans report having become
less positive toward Arabs and about half to 60% are willing to support
increased security measures aimed specifically at Arabs in the United
States.
Daniel Levitas. The Terrorist Next Door: The Militia Movement and the Radical Right. Pg. 341
Managua, Nicaragua. 1978.
He might think of leaving work,
But no, he wouldn't like a shirk.
He'd much prefer to stay
And get his honest days pay.
He's got a life of work ahead,
There's no rest for the dead. --Crass, Systematic Death (1981)
Powell recounted that he had an opportunity to sit in a
meeting with Gorbachev and his staff where the premier was outlining
his plans. During his talk Gorbachev explained out that he was
effectively ending the Cold War, at which point he stopped, looked at
General Powell and said, "You will have to go find a new enemy."
Think
of the position Powell was in. For 28 years, his mission and his career
were crystal clear: Protect America from the "bad guys." Now all of a sudden, he didn't know exactly who the bad guys were..
And all Iraqi military and civilian personnel should listen carefully to
this warning: In any conflict, your fate will depend on your actions. Do not
destroy oil wells, a source of wealth that belongs to the Iraqi people. Do not
obey any command to use weapons of mass destruction against anyone, including
the Iraqi people. War crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be
punished, and it will be no defense to say,"I was just following orders."--Geroge W. Bush, March 17, 2003.full text
Obedience and devotion are required but conviction and agreement despised, since
the latter imply at least the possibility of a last remnant of
spontaneous thought and action. Eichmann, who evinced no spontaneity,
spoke in his defense of "the obedience of corpses" (Kadavergehorsam).
The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under; international law:
a. Crimes against peace: i..
Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a
war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances; ii.. Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
b. War crimes: Violations
of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to,
murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave-labor or for any other
purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or
illtreatment of prisoners of war, of persons on the seas, killing of
hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of
cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military
necessity.
c. Crimes against humanity: Murder,
extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts done
against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial
or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are
carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against
peace or any war crime.
Principle VII
Complicity in the commission of a
crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set
forth in Principles VI is a crime under international law.
"As a community moves toward despotism, respect is restricted to fewer people. A community is low on the respect scale, if common courtesy is withheld to large groups of people on account of their political attitudes."