To understand why headlines insist that all migrant women who sell sex are “trafficked,” we need to go back to the popular idea that the proper place of sex is at home, between “committed” lovers and family.

When only this kind of relationship is imagined to be equitable and valid, it becomes easier to think that women from other cultures are poor, backward, vulnerable objects passively waiting for exploitation by rapacious men.

With these notions, from the point of view of the comfortably sheltered, no one would opt to sell sex and migrants must be forced to do it.

What can we know about the actual sex involved in this moral conflict? We know all “sex acts” are not the same in the context of loving relationships, and they are not all the same just because money is exchanged for them.   more »

McSame as Bush: The war in Iraq,

responding to the global threat of what

McCain calls "transcendent radical Islamic extremism,"

making the Bush tax cuts permanent,

opposing universal health care or appointing

ultra-conservatives to the Supreme Court

   more »

Keywords: bush, war, mccain, conservative, republican, economy, rightwing

What else can Israel do to stop the rockets, its supporters ask.

The answer could not be more obvious: end the illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories and negotiate a just settlement for the Palestinian refugees, ethnically cleansed 60 years ago - who, with their families, make up the majority of Gaza's 1.5 million people.

All the Palestinian factions, including Hamas, accept that as the basis for a permanent settlement or indefinite end of armed conflict.

In the meantime, agree a truce, exchange prisoners and lift the blockade. Israelis increasingly seem to get it - but the grim reality appears to be that a lot more blood is going to have to flow before it's accepted in Washington.   more »

The mass media is one of the principal sources of wealth and power for U.S. capital as it extends its communication networks throughout the world. An increasing percentage of the richest North Americans derive their wealth from the mass media.

Today almost one out of five of the richest North Americans derive their wealth from the mass media. Cultural capitalism has displaced manufacturing as a source of wealth and influence in the U.S.

The mass media have become an integral part of the U.S. system of global political and social control, as well as a major source of super profits.

American cultural imperialism has two major goals, one economic and the other political: to capture markets for its cultural commodities and to establish hegemony by shaping popular consciousness.   more »

Obama has taken an extremely immoral stand on the Palestinian-Israeli issue by, among other positions, actually applauding Israel's siege and starvation of 1.5 million innocent Gazans.

And by mourning Israel's losses to Palestinian rocket fire (12 people in seven years) without bothering even to mention the approximately 2,600 Gazans killed by Israeli rocket fire, airstrikes, and assassinations in those same seven years.

He made one reference last year to Palestinian suffering, was immediately dumped on by Jewish leaders, and has since said nothing honest about the occupation -- not even expressing support for the two-state solution.

This is so distasteful that it ought to be totally unacceptable to anyone who works for peace in the Middle East, not just in Palestine-Israel but also in the broader region.   more »