The omnipotence of Al Qaeda and meaninglessness of "Terrorism"
Labels: Al Qaeda, Glenn Greenwald, Muslims, terrorism
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posted by profmarcus at
7/23/2011
Washington’s priorities and those of its presstitutes could not be clearer. President Obama, like George W. Bush before him, both parties in Congress, the print and TV media, and National Public Radio have made it clear that war is a far more important priority than health care and old age pensions for Americans.
The American people and their wants and needs are not represented in Washington. Washington serves powerful interest groups, such as the military/security complex, Wall Street and the banksters, agribusiness, the oil companies, the insurance companies, pharmaceuticals, and the mining and timber industries. Washington endows these interests with excess profits by committing war crimes and terrorizing foreign populations with bombs, drones, and invasions, by deregulating the financial sector and bailing it out of its greed-driven mistakes after it has stolen Americans’ pensions, homes, and jobs, by refusing to protect the land, air, water, oceans and wildlife from polluters and despoilers, and by constructing a health care system with the highest costs and highest profits in the world.
[...]
This is economic destruction. It always occurs when an oligarchy seizes control of a government. The short-run profits of the powerful are maximized at the expense of the viability of the economy.
Labels: Barack Obama, common good, corporate military industrial government complex, deficit, elected puppets, elites, endless war, oligarchy, Paul Craig Roberts, super-rich
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
7/23/2011
Norway suffered dual attacks on Friday when powerful explosions shook the government center here and, shortly after, a gunman stalked youths at an island summer camp for young members of the governing Labor Party. The police arrested a Norwegian in connection with both attacks, which killed at least 87 people and stunned this ordinarily placid nation.
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The state television broadcaster, citing the police, said seven people had been killed and at least 15 wounded in the explosions, which they said appeared to be an act of domestic terrorism.
[...]
After the shooting the police seized a 32-year-old Norwegian man on the island, according to the police and Justice Minister Knut Storberget. He was later identified as Anders Behring Breivik and was characterized by officials as a right-wing extremist.
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Mr. Breivik had registered a farm-related business in Rena, in eastern Norway, which authorities said allowed him to order a large quantity of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, an ingredient that can be used to make explosives. Authorities were investigating whether the chemical may have been used in the bombing.
The attacks bewildered a nation better known for its active diplomacy and peacekeeping missions than as a target for extremists.
[I]t is simply a fact that Norway has sent its military to two foreign countries [Afghanistan and Libya] where it is attacking people, dropping bombs, and killing civilians.
[...]
The point is that it's completely unsurprising that a nation at war -- whether Norway or the U.S. -- is going to be targeted with violent attacks. That's what "being at war" means, and it's usually what it provokes. And the way this fact is suppressed ("a coordinated assault on the ordinarily peaceful Scandinavian nation" = the post-9/11 why do they hate us?) highlights how we view violence as something only those Others commit, but not we.
[...]
Ever since news of the attacks emerged this morning (U.S. time), the interest in them has been intense, as has media coverage of them and the disgust expressed toward them.
[...]
Still, I can't help noticing, and being quite bothered by, the vast difference in reaction to the violence visited on Western nations such as Norway and the violence visited by Western nations (particularly our own) on non-Western nations. The violence and indiscriminate death brought today to Oslo is routinely and constantly imposed by the U.S. and its closest allies in a large and growing list of Muslim nations. On a weekly basis -- literally -- the U.S. and its Western allies explode homes, mangle children, extinguish the lives of innocent people, disrupt communities, kill community and government leaders, and bring violence and terror to large numbers of people -- those are just facts. And yet a tiny, tiny fraction of attention, interest and anger is generated by such violence as compared to that generated by the violence in Oslo today. What explains that mammoth discrepancy in interest, discussion, and media coverage?
Still, I can't help noticing, and being quite bothered by, the vast difference in reaction to the violence visited on Western nations such as Norway and the violence visited by Western nations (particularly our own) on non-Western nations. The violence and indiscriminate death brought today to Oslo is routinely and constantly imposed by the U.S. and its closest allies in a large and growing list of Muslim nations. On a weekly basis -- literally -- the U.S. and its Western allies explode homes, mangle children, extinguish the lives of innocent people, disrupt communities, kill community and government leaders, and bring violence and terror to large numbers of people -- those are just facts. And yet a tiny, tiny fraction of attention, interest and anger is generated by such violence as compared to that generated by the violence in Oslo today. What explains that mammoth discrepancy in interest, discussion, and media coverage?
Whatever accounts for it, the impact is to minimize and suppress the consequences of our own violence while focusing almost exclusively on the violence of others. The solution is not to dismiss or justify acts such as the Oslo bombing. It's to realize that our own country and those in alliance with it -- unintentionally or otherwise -- replicate the horror that took place in Oslo in countless places around the world with great regularity, and that requires at least as much attention and discussion as the Oslo attacks are sure to receive.
Labels: Afghanistan, domestic terrorism, Glenn Greenwald, Libya, military drones, news media, Norway, NYT, Oslo, terrorism
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
7/22/2011
Sedgwick, Maine has done what no other town in the United States has done. The town unanimously passed an ordinance giving its citizens the right “to produce, process, sell, purchase, and consume local foods of their choosing.”
This is WITHOUT government regulation.
This includes raw milk, locally slaughtered meats, and just about anything else you can imagine. It means that farmer and patron agree to enter into private agreements with one another, and settle any disputes that arise personally and civilly.
It is the way things used to be done before Americans sacrificed their freedoms to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other federal agencies that now tell the public what they can and cannot eat.
Food sovereignty ordinances are what must be in place to enable an explosion of local food production.
This video explains the main principles. The term was coined in 1996 by members of Via Campesina, a coalition of over 148 organizations, advocating family-farm-based sustainable agriculture.
"Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to define their own food and agriculture; to protect and regulate domestic agricultural production and trade in order to achieve sustainable development objectives; to determine the extent to which they want to be self reliant; to restrict the dumping of products in their markets; and to provide local fisheries-based communities the priority in managing the use of and the rights to aquatic resources. Food sovereignty does not negate trade, but rather, it promotes the formulation of trade policies and practices that serve the rights of peoples to safe, healthy and ecologically sustainable production."
-"Statement on Peoples' Food Sovereignty" by Via Campesina, et al.
The Principles include:
1. Food: A Basic Human Right. Everyone must have access to safe, nutritious and culturally appropriate food in sufficient quantity and quality to sustain a healthy life with full human dignity. Each nation should declare that access to food is a constitutional right and guarantee the development of the primary sector to ensure the concrete realization of this fundamental right.
2. Agrarian Reform. A genuine agrarian reform is necessary which gives landless and farming people -- especially women -- ownership and control of the land they work and returns territories to indigenous peoples. The right to land must be free of discrimination on the basis of gender, religion, race, social class or ideology; the land belongs to those who work it.
3. Protecting Natural Resources. Food Sovereignty entails the sustainable care and use of natural resources, especially land, water, and seeds and livestock breeds. The people who work the land must have the right to practice sustainable management of natural resources and to conserve biodiversity free of restrictive intellectual property rights. This can only be done from a sound economic basis with security of tenure, healthy soils and reduced use of agro-chemicals.
4. Reorganizing Food Trade. Food is first and foremost a source of nutrition and only secondarily an item of trade. National agricultural policies must prioritize production for domestic consumption and food self-sufficiency. Food imports must not displace local production nor depress prices.
5. Ending the Globalization of Hunger. Food Sovereignty is undermined by multilateral institutions and by speculative capital. The growing control of multinational corporations over agricultural policies has been facilitated by the economic policies of multilateral organizations such as the WTO, World Bank and the IMF. Regulation and taxation of speculative capital and a strictly enforced Code of Conduct for TNCs is therefore needed.
6. Social Peace. Everyone has the right to be free from violence. Food must not be used as a weapon. Increasing levels of poverty and marginalization in the countryside, along with the growing oppression of ethnic minorities and indigenous populations, aggravate situations of injustice and hopelessness. The ongoing displacement, forced urbanization, oppression and increasing incidence of racism of smallholder farmers cannot be tolerated.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
7. Democratic control. Smallholder farmers must have direct input into formulating agricultural policies at all levels. The United Nations and related organizations will have to undergo a process of democratization to enable this to become a reality. Everyone has the right to honest, accurate information and open and democratic decision-making. These rights form the basis of good governance, accountability and equal participation in economic, political and social life, free from all forms of discrimination. Rural women, in particular, must be granted direct and active decision-making on food and rural issues.
Labels: democratic control, food security, food sovereignty
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
7/22/2011
Barack Obama is gutting the core principles of the Democratic party
[...]
[I]t is now beyond dispute that President Obama not only favours, but is the leading force in Washington pushing for, serious benefit cuts to both social security and Medicare.This week, even as GOP leaders offered schemes to raise the debt ceiling with no cuts, the White House expressed support for the Senate's so-called "gang of six" plan that includes substantial cuts in those programmes.
The same Democratic president who supported the transfer of $700bn to bail out Wall Street banks, who earlier this year signed an extension of Bush's massive tax cuts for the wealthy, and who has escalated America's bankruptcy-inducing posture of Endless War, is now trying to reduce the debt by cutting benefits for America's most vulnerable – at the exact time that economic insecurity and income inequality are at all-time highs.
Where is the "epic shitstorm" from the left which Black predicted? With a few exceptions – the liberal blog FiredogLake has assembled 50,000 Obama supporters vowing to withhold re-election support if he follows through, and a few other groups have begun organising as well – it's nowhere to be found.
Therein lies one of the most enduring attributes of Obama's legacy: in many crucial areas, he has done more to subvert and weaken the left's political agenda than a GOP president could have dreamed of achieving. So potent, so overarching, are tribal loyalties in American politics that partisans will support, or at least tolerate, any and all policies their party's leader endorses – even if those policies are ones they long claimed to loathe.
This dynamic has repeatedly emerged in numerous contexts. Obama has continued Bush/Cheney terrorism policies – once viciously denounced by Democrats – of indefinite detention, renditions, secret prisons by proxy, and sweeping secrecy doctrines.
He has gone further than his predecessor by waging an unprecedented war on whistleblowers, seizing the power to assassinate U.S. citizens without due process far from any battlefield, massively escalating drone attacks in multiple nations, and asserting the authority to unilaterally prosecute a war (in Libya) even in defiance of a Congressional vote against authorising the war.
And now he is devoting all of his presidential power to cutting the entitlement programmes that have been the defining hallmark of the Democratic party since Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. The silence from progressive partisans is deafening – and depressing, though sadly predictable.
The nature of American politics is that once a policy is removed from the partisan wars – once it is adopted by the leadership of both parties – it is removed from mainstream debate and fortified as bipartisan consensus. That is why false claims in the run-up to the Iraq war, endorsed by both parties, received so little mainstream journalistic scrutiny. And it's why the former Bush lawyer and right-wing ideologue Jack Goldsmith – back in May 2009 – celebrated in The New Republic the fact that Obama was doing more to strengthen Bush/Cheney terrorism policies than his former bosses could have ever achieved: by embracing the very terrorism approach he once denounced, Obama was converting it from rightwing radicalism into into the official dogma of both parties, and forcing his supporters to defend what were, until 2009, the symbols of rightwing evil.
Identically, Obama is now on the verge of injecting what until recently was the politically toxic and unattainable dream of Wall Street and the American right – attacks on the nation's social safety net – into the heart and soul of the Democratic party's platform. Those progressives who are guided more by party loyalty than actual belief will seamlessly transform from virulent opponents of such cuts into their primary defenders.
And thus will Obama succeed – yet again – in gutting not only core Democratic policies, but also the identity and power of the American Left.
Labels: bailout, Barack Obama, bipartisanship, Democrats, George Bush, Glenn Greenwald, Guardian, Republicans, Social Security, terrorism, two-party system, Wall Street
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
7/21/2011
"The Plan": One Year. Three Phases. A World of Change.
This Plan will commence on the 15th of June, 2011 and continue for approximately one year, in the course of three separate phases.
Phase One begins now.
In this time, you are encouraged to educate yourselves on the injustices in this world.
Seek out iterations of freedom and human rights.
Become familiar with the corruption within your system.
Discover the enemy of true freedom.
Discover the oppressors.
The most important step of Phase One is to spread this message by sharing this video and those that preceded it.
Make your own films or videos, artwork, music, literature - resonate the voice of freedom and justice through your own creativity and bring others to this movement.
[Graphic: If the government shuts down the Internet, shut down your government].
Street artists: You have the ability to bring millions with your art and message, in your own populated centers. Your canvas is there.
My friends, begin your work. Write the tales of injustice and oppression in your blogs. Tell your friends how we can break free from this system of enslavement.
Depict the images of freedom and truth, through your art and film.
Spread the message of The Plan with your graffiti.
Share this message with the world and bring them to stand amongst us, as we rise up from the ashes of the downtrodden and unprivileged.
Tell the elite we are here and we are coming for them.
Spread the message through blogs, social networking and video diaries.
Remember, words often have two meanings, in the enunciation of the truth.
Let the truth be heard. Educate yourselves in ways of becoming more self-sufficient.
Learn and acquire the tools to free yourself from the system.
Invest more heavily in precious metals, rather than stocks, paper fiat currencies, or other products of the financial establishment.
Discover your green thumb and appreciate your ability to grow your own produce.
The sky is the limit and the only barrier is your own reliance on a system that thrives on your dependence.
Hackers within Anonymous: Begin selecting low-priority targets that have violated freedoms, both in the online realm and in the offline realm, as well.
[Graphic: Initiate low-priority cyber offensive/defensive]
Stand with our friends, taking their stance in the world and ensure that they are supported, by any means necessary.
As always, remain vigilant.
We all must all learn to "Walk the walk," if you will.
We can all tell tales of grandeur and extravagance. It is time we start becoming our own legends.
It is time we all start bettering ourselves, first, so that we may focus on the greater challenge at hand with intelligence and confidence.
As of this 15th day of June 2011, we are pleased to bring to you the beginnings of a web platform, for us all to meet and converse; to share ideas and recommendations over the course of the next year and the Three Phases, that will be unfolding:
whatistheplan.forumotion.com
If you feel as we feel and have found something inside you, pushing you toward acting upon The Plan, go there and become an active member.
Educate yourself and share your thoughts and ideas with others, so that you may help others on this same journey.
Continue to spread this video by all possible venues and ensure we are all doing our part to bring the same opportunity to all that we can.
Together, we can make a difference. Together, we can accomplish something real.
Phase Two will be initiated in approximately 5 months (November 2011).
Continue your efforts and the focus of Phase Two will be presented when that time comes.
We expect there will be large numbers of people participating in The Plan, by that point. We will prevail.
So, if you see nothing; If the crimes of these governments remain unknown to you, then we would suggest that you allow this year to pass unmarked.
But if you see what we see and if you feel what we feel and if you would seek what we seek, then you, too are Anonymous.
Stand by us this year, as we execute "The Plan" and together, we shall give them a year that shall never, ever be forgotten.
We are Anonymous, united as one, divided by zero.
Phase One initiated. The resistance is here:
www.whatistheplan.forumotion.com
Sign up and become an active member today.
Share this message and "The Plan" with everyone you can.
Labels: "The Plan", Anonymous, First Amendment, hacks, LulzSec, nonviolent protest, Sam Seder
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
7/20/2011
Labels: Barack Obama, civilian casualties, collateral damage, Libya, Mark Fiore, Pakistan, predator drones, Yemen
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
7/20/2011
How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule
How is it that our nation is awash in money, but too broke to provide jobs and services?
[...]
In the 1970’s Wall Street interests began pushing a deregulation agenda that led to a transfer of financial power from Main Street to Wall Street. Wall Street’s mega-banks lost interest in real investment and developed a new business model. They now specialize in charging excessive fees and usurious interest rates, providing leverage to speculators, speculating for their own accounts, luring the unwary into mortgages they cannot afford, bundling junk mortgages to sell them as triple-A securities, betting against the clients to whom they sell the overrated securities, extracting subsidies and bailouts from government, laundering money from drug and arms traders, and offshoring their profits to avoid taxes.The consequences include the erosion of the middle class, an extreme concentration of wealth and power, a costly financial collapse, persistent high unemployment, housing foreclosures, collapsing environmental systems, the hollowing out of U.S. industrial, technological, and research capacity, huge public and international trade deficits, and the corruption of our political institutions.
Wall Street profited at every step and declared its experiment with deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy a great success. It now argues for extending the same measures even further.
How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule spells out details of a six-part policy agenda to rebuild a sensible system of community-based and accountable financial services institutions.
- Break up the mega-banks and implement tax and regulatory policies that favor community financial institutions, with a preference for those organized as cooperatives or as for-profits owned by nonprofit foundations.
- Establish state-owned partnership banks in each of the 50 states, patterned after the Bank of North Dakota. These would serve as depositories for state financial assets to use in partnership with community financial institutions to fund local farms and businesses.
- Restructure the Federal Reserve to function under strict standards of transparency and public scrutiny, with General Accounting Office audits and Congressional oversight.
- Direct all new money created by the Federal Reserve to a Federal Recovery and Reconstruction Bank rather than the current practice of directing it as a subsidy to Wall Street banks. The FRRB would have a mandate to fund essential green infrastructure projects as designated by Congress.
- Rewrite international trade and investment rules to support national ownership, economic self-reliance, and economic self-determination.
- Implement appropriate regulatory and fiscal measures to secure the integrity of financial markets and the money/banking system.
Labels: banksters, common good, cooperatives, Diego Garcia, elected puppets, elites, Federal Reserve System, middle class, offshoring, super-rich, Wall Street
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
7/20/2011
The Inevitable Collapse of Legitimacy Under Secret Law: WikiLeaks Hacks
[...]
We’re so quaint, those of us who believe in rule of law!
[...]
[T]hey have apparently chosen to persist in applying their secret laws, such that they can violate the First Amendment of the Constitution, even while prosecuting others for crimes the government has presumably committed itself.
And that, my friends, is how secret law kills democracy and the rule of law.
Labels: Anonymous, First Amendment, hacks, Marcy Wheeler, rule of law, Secret Government, U.S. Constitution, Wikileaks
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
7/20/2011
Greece is tightening its belt -- and the number of people living in poverty is surging as a result. Thousands line up in front of food banks and resort to rifling through rubbish bins. The country's financial crisis is rapidly turning into a social one -- while wealthy tax evaders manage to get off scot-free.
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In 2010, the number of jobless in Greece rose by 230,000, to reach 14.8 percent. Given Greece's weak social safety net, unemployment is more or less tantamount to social bankruptcy. For example, unemployment benefits are only available for a year at a monthly rate of less than €500. After that, the state offers practically no assistance. Officials estimate that only about 280,000 of the 800,000 peoplhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gife without jobs are still eligible to claim unemployment benefits. This has resulted in a dramatic rise in the number of homeless people -- by up to 25 percent in Athens alone.
According to official data, unemployment is expected to climb to between 17 percent and 18 percent by the end of 2011, but the true figure could be as high as 23 percent. "That would be 1.2 million jobless people," Robolis says [professor of economics and social policy at Athens' Panteion University and director of the Labor Institute of the General Confederation of Greek Workers]. The last time Greece saw something like this was in 1961, when the introduction of modern farming technology put thousands of agricultural laborers out of work.
Labels: bailout, Disaster Capitalism, elites, Euro Zone, Greece, pillage, plunder, super-rich
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
7/19/2011
Sean Hoare, the former News of the World show business reporter who was the first named journalist to allege that Andy Coulson was aware of phone hacking by his staff, has been found dead .
Hoare, who worked on the Sun and the News of the World with Coulson before being dismissed for drink and drugs problems, was said to have been found at his Watford home.
Hertfordshire police would not confirm his identity, but said in a statement: "At 10.40am today [Monday 18 July] police were called to Langley Road, Watford, following the concerns for the welfare of a man who lives at an address on the street. Upon police and ambulance arrival at a property, the body of a man was found. The man was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after.
"The death is currently being treated as unexplained but not thought to be suspicious. Police investigations into this incident are ongoing."
There was an unexplained delay in the arrival of forensics officers at the scene.
Labels: Andy Coulson, News Corp, News of the World, phone hacking, Rupert Murdoch, Sean Hoare
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
7/19/2011
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