The More Things Change...Part 2

Really, NY Post? Do we have to go through this again???

One of the first No Spoon posts dealt with the rather racist ever-classy New York Post cartoon of two white cops shooting a chimpanzee to death over the stimulus bill...the connection being the chimpanzee story in Connecticut at that time, and of course, a black American president being depicted as a chimp. No racism there. None. Have a look at the post here. Well, guess what? The Post is at it again, this time with a cartoon (cartoons again???) covering the controversy surrounding the New York Police Department (NYPD) spying on Muslim across the Northeast. Really funny stuff. And by funny, I mean the xenophobes who draw, write, and connect with this stuff are laughing, while the rest of us are saying...wtf is wrong with you?

The 9/11 Decade - A Leadership Gap

We've just recently seen the 10 year anniversary of 9/11. There have been countless articles and pieces of analysis in the media about the topic, but I wanted to touch on an issue that I think many have neglected: the lack of political and civic leadership in framing 9/11 as a tragedy to connect Americans with others across the globe, which I'd argue has resulted in mostly a lost decade. Instead, 9/11 became an event to separate America from others. This helped enable hyper-nationalism and increased American exceptionalism, both very unusual given the nature of the event. Many leaders, particularly political ones, played this up. A consequence has been that Americans are, today, more likely to distance themselves from various out-groups, both outside of, and in, America (the Islamophobia industry is one of the downstream effects of this).

Podcast Episode 6: The Death of Osama bin Laden

On this episode of the There is No Spoon show, Fatima Ashraf questions Fouad Pervez, Junaid Ahmad, and Reggie Miller about their thoughts on the death of Osama Bin Laden. Fouad is an International Relations doctoral student at Georgetown University and a writer for Foreign Policy in Focus. His latest article, "Pepsi, Pot, Porn...and Politics" looks at the bizzarre discovery of those items on bin Laden's compound, and why they really illustrate the importance of politics over culture in al-Qaeda's modus operandi. Junaid is a faculty member at the Lahore University of Management Sciences and specializes in law and policy. He recently wrote an article, "Pakistan-U.S. relations in the post-Osama era" that examines the heightening tensions between the two countries after the raid. Junaid and Fouad have co-authored several pieces on U.S. foreign policy in South Asia, including this relevant and prescient article, "The US War on Pakistan." Reggie Miller is a non-profit management professional with significant insight into America's post-9/11 culture.

While many in the country celebrated his death, the No Spoon team ponders why it was okay for Americans to celebrate now and be upset at the thought of celebrations abroad on 9/11. They also discusses the serious issues surrounding Bin Laden's death including extra-judicial assassination, the state of affairs in Pakistan, and why Osama drinking Pepsi shouldn't have been a big deal.

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