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Despite criticism and complaints, MIT won't cut ties to Saudi Arabia
MIT won't sever its financial and research ties to Saudi Arabian government groups over the brutal killing of a journalist, despite the urging of many faculty and students, and complaints by some of the university's female researchers that they face more restrictions than their male colleagues when working in the Saudi kingdom.
On Wednesday, MIT president, L. Rafael Reif, denounced the behavior of the Saudi regime for violating human rights but rejected calls to unilaterally pull out of engagements in the Middle Eastern country.
MIT needs to provide faculty autonomy to decide whether they want to remain on the current projects and can't abandon those in Saudi Arabia, including alumni, who are trying to modernize the kingdom, Reif said.
"MIT utterly condemns such brutal human rights violations, discrimination and suppression of dissent, including the murder of Jamal Khashoggi," Reif said in a message to the MIT community. "Nevertheless, I hope we can respond to present circumstances in a way that does not suddenly reject, abandon, or isolate worthy Saudi people who share our principles and are doing good work."
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday February 07 2019, @03:21PM (6 children)
Torture... Child execution... Racist and gender discrimination in the justice system and economic sectors... Should they buy a ship and teach from there? The Saudis are just targeting different minority groups using different methods. Some of those methods are more barbaric. But then you have the US keeping single digits percentages of its population behind bars for slave labor based on the skin of their color and political affiliation.
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(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 07 2019, @04:53PM (3 children)
Your last sentence is complete bullshit and mars the rest of your unrelated comment.
The VAST, VAST majority of people in prison are there because they legitimately committed a crime and deserve to be there. Don't let the tiny number of wrongful convictions mislead you about the truth for the overwhelming a majority of prisoners.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 07 2019, @07:07PM
So people deserve to be in prison for possession of drugs, for example?
Taking into account the plea bargaining system, and the fact that prosecutors almost never care how many innocents they convict as long as they get their promotions, we can't even be sure of the exact number of people who didn't commit a crime at all who are in prison.
Your faith in the system is foolish and unsurprising, authoritarian.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 07 2019, @08:19PM
what a stupid motherfucker. having a plant in your pocket is a crime? well fuck you and your slave state.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday February 07 2019, @08:31PM
No they're not: https://www.innocenceproject.org/dna-exonerations-in-the-united-states/ [innocenceproject.org]
And as the other anon said, if you just google "drug war nixon blacks" this will explain the underlying issue: http://www.aei.org/publication/the-shocking-and-sickening-story-behind-nixons-war-on-drugs-that-targeted-blacks-and-anti-war-activists/ [aei.org]
And when you add up the fact almost no one bothered covering this [wikipedia.org] you start realizing the US choice of allies befits its moral character much like how people make friends whether it's Britain, Saudi Arabia or Israel.
And btw, this is coming from a guy who happens to support Israel and the US in most cases since I acknowledge the other side of the equation is Russia and China and they're just more of the same.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 07 2019, @08:22PM (1 child)
economic sectors? you mean private businesses? none of the state's business who i hire or associate with. fuck your "good authoritarianism".
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday February 07 2019, @09:04PM
The US employs a form of affirmative action / reverse discrimination that been shown to harm to the lower-income classes it claims to aid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action_in_the_United_States#Class_inequality [wikipedia.org]
And since those classes are largely populated by racial minorities... Yes. Everyone who takes part in the economy is complicit to systematic racial discrimination. Only reason I left out the public sector is because the police's hiring are restricted to mid-low classes from the get go so affirmative action works there. Of course, that's like complimenting the inquisition for their fair wages policy... Not so much a drop in the bucket as it's the spark that set the fire.
Good authoritarianism? I'm laying out the kind of arguments that justify a "lets chop down the 1% heads" type of bloody revolution here... Only reason I'm against such an act is because Trump has managed to galvanize everyone against this status quo to such a degree I honestly believe the next administration will have enough of a moral mandate to correct most of this. And, as mentioned in the other post, the Chinese and Russians are even worse.
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