Chomsky: "democracy is dangerous and intolerable" and stability "means obedience to US domination"

as usual, professor chomsky 'splains it ever so much better than most...

There is a reason why there is so much concern about the democracy uprising in the Arab world than in, say, the sub-Saharan Africa. This is where the major energy resources of the world are. There is quite a good reason why the US and its allies will pull out the stops to prevent any really functioning democracy from developing in the Arab world.

[...]

The leaders of the EU and of the US happen to agree with the ruling clerics in Iran that democracy is dangerous and intolerable.

[...]

You have to remember that stability is a cold code word. Stability doesn't mean stability; it means obedience to US domination.

[...]

Support them as long as possible. When it is no longer feasible, maybe it is the army's turn to turn against them or send them out to pasture, forget about them, issue a ringing declaration about how we are on the side of the people and how we have always loved democracy and then try to restore as much of the traditional regime as possible.

[...]

[E]lite elements are in the West, in Egypt, the old regime, and Iran and elsewhere are not ready for democracy. People are ready for democracy everywhere. That is the problem elite face.

yes, our super-rich elites cannot be happy with current developments...

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Wisconsin protests go national

a compilation of news reports on states where protests are either underway or building, thanks to think progress...



us uncut has called for protests across the u.s. tomorrow, saturday, 26 february...

"I paid my taxes. Why doesn't Bank of America?" ask citizens as they plan actions at 50 branches across the country

New Nationwide Effort to Make Corporate Tax Dodgers Pay Up

Protests in more than 50 cities, including Washington, D.C., New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago

Groups of citizens in more than 50 cities will sit-in and protest at Bank of America branches on Saturday, February 26 in an effort to get corporate tax dodgers to pay their fair share. The actions are loosely affiliated with US Uncut, a new grassroots movement organized through social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook.

WHAT: Sit-in protests at Bank of America branches
WHEN: Saturday, February 26
WHERE: Bank of America branches in cities across the country - www.USuncut.org/actions
WHO: Groups of people who self-organized events using - www.USuncut.org

Anger is rising as Americans are being forced to endure brutal budget cuts at both the federal and state-level. Recent events in Wisconsin represent the need for hard-working Americans to make their voices heard and demand an end to unfair measures. US Uncut instead calls for an end to corporate tax avoidance.

"The $3 in my wallet is more than ExxonMobil, GE and Bank of America paid in taxes last year, combined," said Carl Gibson, founder of US Uncut Mississippi. "There's a direct connection between corporate tax dodging and what's happening to real people’s lives. Because of overseas tax havens and other tax loopholes, US corporations are making profits in America but barely paying taxes here. If we close those loopholes, we wouldn't have to be cutting back on firefighters, library hours and student loans."

Gibson, a 23-year-old resident of Jackson, Miss., was moved to start his chapter two weeks ago after learning about corporate America's unpaid tax bills and how a similar movement, UK Uncut, has swept across England and successfully brought tax dodgers to justice through sit-ins at stores and bank branches. "I work 3 jobs and can barely cover my $450 per-month rent," Gibson said. "But I still pay my taxes. All I'm asking is that the wealthiest corporations pay what they owe, too."

"If Bank of America alone paid their taxes, we could 'uncut' $1.7 billion in early childhood education," said Ryan Clayton, a DC-based media analyst, "Big corporations dodge up to $100 billion every year, and if they paid their taxes this year like the rest of us do, we could also stop the $100 billion in cuts to college loans." [see sources below]

"These cuts are unnecessary. The money is there." said Joanne Gifford a self-described soccer mom from Napa Valley, Calif. who will be paying a visit to her local Bank of America branch on Saturday. "We The People just have to make sure that these tax-dodging corporations pay up."

Reuters Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/08/12/us-usa-taxes-corporations-idUSN1249465620080812

For more information, please visit http://USuncut.org

For time & locations of all the actions: http://USuncut.org/actions

i wish i was there... i think this is one time i would bestir myself to make my presence felt...

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Photoblogging - Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

Victoria Falls through clouds of mist

at sunrise this past wednesday morning, i walked to victoria falls, not knowing quite what to expect but prepared to be astounded... i wasn't disappointed...

the first glimpse was of a small cataract barely visible through the vegetation... it was apparent, however, from the volume of water rushing by and the incredible roar that there was a lot more to be seen...

the sheer volume of water and the precipitous drop creates boiling clouds of mist that rush up the sides of the gorge from the bottom and then are blown about by the breezes... the clouds of mist can be seen for miles across the what is a deceptively flat, densely vegetated landscape...

everything within several hundred yards of the downstream side of the falls is bathed in a more or less perpetual light rain and viewing the falls along the path constructed at the side of the gorge can't be comfortably done without a raincoat and umbrella.. glimpses of the main falls are intermittent through the constantly shifting clouds of mist...

it's an altogether amazing place as symbolically representative of africa as any place I could imagine... the photos and the youtube clip don't begin to do justice to the intense reality of the experience...

walking back, i fell in with a tourist "policeman" named welton... we had quite a talk... he told me about his family, his three children (11, 7 and 22 months) and how he had taught himself welding and tried to operate a small welding business without success in the ever-turbulent zimbabwean economy (unemployment in zimbabwe hovers around 85%)... at one point, he motioned me to be quiet as he pointed out three elephants in the bush... i was able to snap a long-distance shot just before they caught our scent and ambled off in the opposite direction...

i am sure there are many more amazing sights and wonderful people to be encountered in this area of the world and i will be sharing them regularly here...


Victoria Falls
Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe
23 February 2011


Victoria Falls
Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe
23 February 2011


Sun through the mist
Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe
23 February 2011



Elephant in the trees
Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe
23 February 2011

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Life without our controllers

Before our white brothers came to civilize us we had no jails.
Therefore we had no criminals. You can't have criminals without a jail.
We had no locks or keys, and so we had no thieves. If a man was so poor that he had no horse, tipi or blanket, someone gave him these things.
We were too uncivilized to set much value on personal belongings.
We wanted to have things only in order to give them away.
We had no money, and therefore a man's worth couldn't be measured by it.
We valued the exchange of love, so we did not deal in fear.
We had no written law, no attorney or politicians, therefore we couldn't cheat.
We were in a really bad way before the white man came, and I don't know how we managed to get along for millenniums without the basic things which, we are told, are absolutely necessary to make a current civilized
society.

-- Lakota Sage Lame Deer (from John Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions)

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Was Raymond Davis trying to ignite a false flag war to pre-empt the collapse of the global economy...?

if true, this could be one of the final nails in the coffin of the super-rich elite domination of global affairs and the beginning of the real changes i have been fervently praying for for so very, very long...

"CIA spy" Davis was giving nuclear bomb material to Al-Qaeda, says report

Double murder-accused US official Raymond Davis has been found in possession of top-secret CIA documents, which point to him or the feared American Task Force 373 (TF373) operating in the region, providing Al-Qaeda terrorists with "nuclear fissile material" and "biological agents," according to a report.

Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) is warning that the situation on the sub-continent has turned "grave" as it appears that open warfare is about to break out between Pakistan and the United States, The European Union Times reports.

The SVR warned in its report that the apprehension of 36-year-old Davis, who shot dead two Pakistani men in Lahore last month, had fuelled this crisis.

According to the report, the combat skills exhibited by Davis, along with documentation taken from him after his arrest, prove that he is a member of US' TF373 black operations unit currently operating in the Afghan War Theatre and Pakistan's tribal areas, the paper said.

While the US insists that Davis is one of their diplomats, and the two men he killed were robbers, Pakistan says that the duo were ISI agents sent to follow him after it was discovered that he had been making contact with al Qaeda, after his cell phone was tracked to the Waziristan tribal area bordering Afghanistan, the paper said.

The most ominous point in this SVR report is "Pakistan's ISI stating that top-secret CIA documents found in Davis's possession point to his, and/or TF373, providing to al Qaeda terrorists "nuclear fissile material" and "biological agents", which they claim are to be used against the United States itself in order to ignite an all-out war in order to re-establish the West's hegemony over a Global economy that is warned is just months away from collapse," the paper added. [emphasis added]

then there's this from the asian tribune...

[H]ypocrisy in America is now so commonplace it is no longer noticed. While it enjoys torturing other peoples for American sins, it objects to human rights abuses of countries it despises such as Burma, Pakistan, Iran, Syria. In USA if a person tortures a dog he is sent to jail, but a government functionary indulging in torture against fellow beings is ignored.

[...]

America has provided licenses to kill to its soldiers and secret agents and desires Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, the three most affected countries to grant full immunity to all US nationals. Musharraf regime as well as current regime had given their consent on the quiet but now that the ruling regime is in dire straits; and the Army and ISI have adopted principled stand on national security matters, the US is finding it difficult to have its own way and is off colors.

[...]

Detained Davis has become a ticking bomb for Pakistan. His safety till completion of his trial which will take a considerable length of time has become an utmost concern for law enforcement agencies in Lahore. There are possibilities he could be swooped away by the US Special Forces already secretly positioned in Pakistan through a sting operation. RAW could play a dirty role in harming him to put Pakistan in another tight corner. Fearful of Davis divulging CIA’s clandestine operations in Pakistan, the CIA could get him bumped off. Anti-American militant groups based in Pakistan may attempt to kill him in case they feel that he is being freed without a trial.

definitely worth keeping an eye on this developing story...

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Glenn recaps the latest U.S. hypocrisy, disdain for the rule of law and reflects on "why they hate us"

glenn offers a detailed run-down on the pakistan/cia/raymond davis affair here and here, laments the u.s. veto of the u.n. security council condemnation of the continuing israeli settlements in palestine here and reflects generally on the abysmal job the u.s. does in "winning hearts and minds" in both of those posts...

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Some photos from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

at sunrise yesterday morning, i walked to the zambezi river gorge overlook... i wasn't prepared for the sheer ruggedness and vertical drop, particularly after walking through the almost flat surrounding vegetation... and, of course, the photo doesn't begin to do it justice... i didn't have time to make it all the way to the falls but i plan to do that tomorrow morning when we have a half day free before an early afternoon departure...

i didn't realize until coming here that, in order to combat the stratospheric inflation, zimbabwe shifted to the u.s. dollar as currency in 2009... that tamed things down considerably but they're still nicking folks for $30 to see the falls... ah, well... how many times am i going to get the chance to see victoria falls anyway, eh...?


African sunrise
6:45 a.m., 21 February 2011
Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe


Zambezi River Gorge
21 February 2011
Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe


Children's crocodile warning
Kingdom Hotel
21 February 2011
Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

p.s. i'm particularly fond of that last photo... ;)

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More from Wisconsin - "This is what democracy looks like"

john nichols writing in common dreams...

[T]he governor’s radical proposal went to such extremes in its anti-labor bias that it sparked a protest movement so large, so steady and so determined in its demands that it is now commonly compared with the protests that have rocked Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries.

paul krugman...

Last week, in the face of protest demonstrations against Wisconsin’s new union-busting governor, Scott Walker — demonstrations that continued through the weekend, with huge crowds on Saturday — Representative Paul Ryan made an unintentionally apt comparison: “It’s like Cairo has moved to Madison.”

It wasn’t the smartest thing for Mr. Ryan to say, since he probably didn’t mean to compare Mr. Walker, a fellow Republican, to Hosni Mubarak. Or maybe he did — after all, quite a few prominent conservatives, including Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santorum, denounced the uprising in Egypt and insist that President Obama should have helped the Mubarak regime suppress it.

In any case, however, Mr. Ryan was more right than he knew. For what’s happening in Wisconsin isn’t about the state budget, despite Mr. Walker’s pretense that he’s just trying to be fiscally responsible. It is, instead, about power. What Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin — and eventually, America — less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy. And that’s why anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators’ side.

it's an awakening, no doubt about it...

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Hello from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

i arrived yesterday and took this photo as i was leaving the airplane... it's an amazing place...! stay tuned for more pics...!

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