John Pilger: Obama is as reactionary and violent as George W. Bush, and in some ways he is worse

john pilger is right up there with chris hedges in his unvarnished critique of the crap that is piled on our heads daily by our handlers...

The width of a cigarette paper separates the Democratic and Republican parties on economic and foreign policies. Both represent the super rich and the impoverishment of a nation from which trillions of tax dollars have been transferred to a permanent war industry and banks that are little more than criminal enterprises. Obama is as reactionary and violent as George W. Bush, and in some ways he is worse. His personal speciality is the use of Hellfire missile-armed drones against defenceless people. Under cover of a partial withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, he has sent US special forces to 120 countries where death squads are trained. He has revived the old cold war on two fronts: against China in Asia and with a "shield" of missiles aimed at Russia. The first black president has presided over the incarceration and surveillance of greater numbers of  black people than were enslaved in 1850. He has prosecuted more whistleblowers - truth-tellers - than any of his predecessors.  His vice-president, Joe Biden, a zealous warmonger, has called WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange a "hi-tech terrorist".  Biden has also converted to the cause of gay marriage.

One of America's true heroes is the gay soldier Bradley Manning, the whistleblower alleged to have provided WikiLeaks with the epic evidence of American carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was the Obama administration that smeared his homosexuality as weird, and it was Obama himself who declared a man convicted of no crime to be guilty.

[...]

The truth is that what matters to those who aspire to control our lives is not skin pigment or gender, or whether or not we are gay, but the class we serve. The goals are to ensure that we look inward on ourselves, not outward to others and never comprehend the sheer scale of undemocratic power, and to that we collaborate in isolating those who resist. This attrition of criminalising, brutalising and banning protest can too easily turn western democracies into states of fear.

[...]

That is why the people of Greece ought to be our inspiration. By their own painful experience they know their freedom can only be regained by standing up to the German Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and their own quislings in Athens. People across Latin America have achieved this: the indignados of Bolivia who saw off the water privateers and the Argentinians who told the IMF what to do with their debt. The courage of disobedience was their weapon. Remember Bradley Manning.

greece is offering us a model and a template for what we should be opting for in the way of resistance to the inexorable takeover by our super-rich elites... i am reasonably sure spain will be next up...

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McCain will continue to reward narco-fascist regimes that side with the U.S.

and attempt to interfere with the internal affairs of states that insist on charting their own course independent of the u.s...

"If I am elected president (…) We will work to prevent Venezuela and Bolivia from taking the same road to failure Castro has paved for Cuba, and we will broaden and strengthen ties with key states like Brazil, Peru, and Chile," McCain said.

Likewise, McCain criticized Obama for opposing to a free trade agreement with Colombia.

"Colombia is a beacon of hope in a region where the Castro brothers, [Venezuelan President] Hugo Chávez, and others are actively seeking to thwart economic progress and democracy," McCain added.

what do brazil, chile, colombia, and peru have in common...? that's right... they all have significant energy and mineral resources and are willing to cooperate with the u.s. its own terms... what does colombia have that makes it a "beacon of hope"...? it lets the u.s. military play an unfettered hand within its borders, to say nothing of the billions of dollars the u.s. spends arming the colombian military lining the pockets of its wealthy elites...

what do bolivia, cuba, and venezuela have in common...? bolivia and venezuela have significant energy and mineral resources and are led by populist governments intent on having the final say about how their resources are used... all three insist on charting an independent course, free of controlling u.s. influence...

to the money and power-crazed criminals that preside over my country, governments of, by, and for the people are acceptable only if those governments fully align themselves with u.s. "interests"... if a country is governed by super-rich, narco-fascists AND is fully aligned with u.s. "interests," hey...! that's ok... after all, it's u.s. "interests" that really matter...

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Batten down the hatches, Ma, there's COMMIES on the doorstep...!

together with



against



i notice that almost all the propaganda talking points i called attention to yesterday about the potential brouhaha in latin america have been recycled in today's "news" stories, so i'll only bother to post this little, clearly propagandistic EXPANSION of the circle of evildoers that surround arch-fiend, hugo chávez...

Colombia takes more heat from Latin America left

Latin America's leftist leaders heaped more criticism on Colombia, leaving it increasingly isolated on Thursday in a crisis that has threatened political stability in the Andes.

Colombia, the United States' closest ally in South America, set off a major diplomatic crisis on Saturday when its army crossed into Ecuador to kill Colombian Marxist guerrillas just across the border.

OPEC oil exporters and leftist allies Venezuela and Ecuador reacted by cutting off diplomatic relations, moving troops to their borders with Colombia and lambasting Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who receives billions of dollars in military aid from the United States.

ain't it interesting...? up until this little kerfuffle, latin american leaders (with the exception of chávez of course) were being called "center-left" or "populist"... suddenly, with the possibility of war stirring the quivering, testosterone-engorged male organs of the neocons and the captains of the industrial war machine, they turn into full-blown "LEFTISTS"... katie, bar the door...! get the children to a safe place, ma...! THERE'S A STORM A'COMIN'...!

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Bolivia withdraws from SOA/WHINSEC

WHINSEC

i guess i'm surprised it didn't happen sooner...

In a letter to the Commandant of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, U.S. Army Col. Gilberto Perez, Bolivian President Evo Morales formally announced yesterday that he will not send Bolivian military officers to attend training programs at the institute formerly known as the U.S. Army School of the Americas.

The announcement came as confirmation of a previous statement made by President Morales in October of last year when he announced that he would discontinue sending troops to the institute based on its historical ties to oppressive military regimes in Latin America. Bolivia has now officially become the fifth country after Costa Rica, Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela to announce a withdrawal from the Fort Benning institution due to its negative image amongst Latin Americans.

The SOA/WHINSEC is a U.S. tax-payer funded military training facility for Latin American security personnel located at Ft. Benning, Georgia. It was originally founded in 1946 in the Panama Canal zone and relocated to Fort Benning in 1984. The institution was catapulted into the headlines in 1996 when the Pentagon released training manuals used at the school that advocated torture, extortion and execution.

operation condor is certainly one of the darkest chapters in u.s.-latin american history...

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Evo Morales: from $300M to $2B a year revenue increase

Evo Morales

fantastic...! i've been rooting for evo from the start... may he continue to move in the light...

We Need Partners, Not Masters

Bolivian President Evo Morales visited Italy this week to receive a special award for his government's commitment to social and health issues. He has made these issues a "political priority."

The award was presented by the Pio Manzù Centre, a research organisation based in Rimini in northeast Italy that studies economic, scientific and social policies.

Besides meetings with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano and foreign affairs minister Massimo D'Alema, Morales met members of the 30,000 Bolivian community in Rome, and members of Italian social movements.

Morales told Rome's Bolivians that before he was elected President in December 2005, Bolivia received 300 million dollars a year in tax revenues from the oil industry. Following nationalisation of energy reserves, Bolivia now receives 2 billion dollars annually.

The increased revenues are being used for education and healthcare, and for creation of a microcredit programme, Morales says.

"To increase revenues there is no need to create additional taxes," he told Claudia Diez de Medina from IPS, "but simply to make better use of our natural resources." For this, he said, "we need partners, not masters."

damn right...! now, if he can lead the country away from a dependence on carbon-based energy and toward cheap, sustainable energy resources, he will have pulled off a true miracle...



President Evo Morales dancing the cueca "Viva mi patria, Bolivia"
with a Cochabambinean "cholita" during his meeting with the Bolivian
community in Rome at the Protomoteca room in Campidoglio,
on 28 October 2007.
Credit: Claudia Diez de Medina, IPS.

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VVI (Viru Viru International Airport) in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, shut down by protesters

the wealthy elites that control the eastern agricultural lowland of bolivia continue to work to disrupt evo morales' government...

Thousands of protesters stormed Bolivia's busiest airport on Friday as rightist opposition groups fought the government of President Evo Morales for control of the country's main air hub.

At least 7,000 protesters shouting "This is ours" occupied airport hallways and waved flags on the runway. The government withdrew troops that had occupied the airport since Thursday, after airlines complained of corrupt practices.

The airport in the country's wealthy eastern region was shut down for part of Friday due to the protests but restarted operations in the afternoon, local media reported.

The military occupied the airport on government orders after several airlines, including American Airlines and Brazil's Gol, suspended flights complaining airport officials demanded cash payments for landing rights.

Government officials say the levies were illegal, but Santa Cruz civic leaders argue that sending the army was out of proportion with the problem.

"An act of corruption does not justify sending the army," protest leader Branco Marinkovic said.

Anti-riot police dispersed protesters with tear gas when they tried to storm the airport on Thursday, but on Friday troops withdrew from the scene.

The dispute is the latest between Morales' leftist government and the right-wing opposition in the Santa Cruz province, the country's agricultural heartland.

nobody ever said morales would have it easy... it's clear that those with the money and the power are not going to go quietly into that good night...

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Evo Morales: "I think that indigenous people are the moral reserve of humanity"

The Real Reason People Fear Evo Morales

It's not just that President Evo Morales is indigenous, but that he refuses to sell out the rights of indigenous people.

[...]

They fear him not only because he is indigenous, not only because he is a leftist in the presidential palace with a massive base of support across the entire insurgent continent; they fear him because his public and private persona, his gentle charisma and ethical approach forces them -- and us -- to look at the long history of violence and hate buried in our individual and collective subconscious, our top-down notions of political -- and personal -- modernity. He forces us all to look at the inner Conquistador -- and the inner Indio.

We are ill-prepared to deal with someone who can say without blinking, "I think that indigenous people are the moral reserve of humanity."

as one who lives part time in argentina, has a warm spot in my heart for all of latin america and particularly for native peoples, and knows only too well the poverty and exploitation bolivia has endured, i have nothing but admiration and good will for evo morales and wish him and his country only the best...

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Fighting water privatization in the U.S. - look south

H₂O

is arguably the single most important component of all living organisms... but, if there's a way to make a buck, the already super-rich holders of the world's capital resources will find a way to do it...

All across the United States, municipal water systems are being bought up by multinational corporations, turning one of our last remaining public commons and our most vital resource into a commodity.

The road to privatization is being paved by our own government. The Bush administration is actively working to loosen the hold that cities and towns have over public water, enabling corporations to own the very thing we depend on for survival.

The effects of the federal government's actions are being felt all the way down to Conference of Mayors, which has become a "feeding frenzy" for corporations looking to make sure that nothing is left in the public's hands, including clean, affordable water.

[...]

"The administration has backed language in legislation to reauthorize existing federal water funding assistance programs that would require cities to consider water privatization before they could receive federal funding," reports Public Citizen. "And in lockstep with private industry's goals, the EPA is increasingly playing down the role of federal financial assistance while actively encouraging communities to pay for system upgrades by raising rates to consumers -- exactly the strategy the industry hopes will drive cash-strapped and embattled local politicians to opt for the false promise of privatization." [The U.S. Conference of Mayors Urban Water Council

it isn't just "all across the united states..." it's happening worldwide, and, interestingly, today seems to be the day to look south for guidance...

the global scenario...

Today 460 million people around the world are dependent on private water corporations for their daily supply - compared to 51 million in 1990 - because of the privatization polices promoted by the World Bank and IMF.

argentina...

Aguas Argentinas is a case study of the rush to privatize water services in the last decade by European and U.S.-based companies, backed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.

The deal made between Argentina's water authority and a consortium that includes the Suez group from France, the largest private water company in the world, and Spain's Aguas de Barcelona, in May 1993, established a new private entity, named Aguas Argentinas, with the help of the World Bank which also bought a small stake in the consortium. According to a study by Dr. Malpartida's Ecology and Environment Foundation, the new company was "the biggest transfer of a water service and watershed into private control in the world" encompassing a region with over 10 million inhabitants.

As a result, according to Daniel Azpiazu, a researcher at the Latin American Faculty for Social Sciences, residential water rates increased 88.2% between May 1993 and January 2002 although there was "no relationship between this rate and the consumer price index (inflation rate), which was 7.3% for the same period."

Azpiazu says this provided the company with net profits of 20%, which he says is far higher than is "acceptable or normal" for the water industry in other countries: "In the United States, for example, water companies earned between 6-12.5% profits in 1991. In the United Kingdom a reasonable rate of profit for the sector is between 6-7%. In France, 6% is considered a very reasonable return on investment."

Yet this rate increase did not translate into higher quality or quantity of service. In 1997, the company was found to have failed to honor 45% of its contract commitments for improvement and expansion of services, resulting in massive pollution.

argentina's response...

President Néstor Kirchner rescinded the contract in March [2006], and announced the creation of a new state company, Aguas y Saneamiento Argentinos (Argentine Water and Sanitation).

bolivians took to the streets...

On January 10 [2005] the citizens of El Alto [Bolivia] took to the streets en masse to demand that their water system, privatized in 1997 under World Bank pressure, be returned to public hands. Three days later Bolivia's president issued a decree canceling the water concession, led by the French water giant Suez, and an arm of the World Bank itself. The El Alto water revolt follows, by five years exactly, the now famous revolt against water privatization in Cochabamba, in which a company controlled by the Bechtel Corporation was ousted from the country.

uruguayans took action as well...

Voters in Uruguay, for instance, approved a constitutional reform in 2004, declaring water resources a public good and prohibiting the privatisation of water and sewage services.

so, who's the biggest dog in the water-for-profit game...?

suez [pdf]...

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Speaking of Uruguay...! They want Kissinger in connection with Operation Condor...!

i'd no sooner put up the last post than i ran across this...

An attorney for a victim of Uruguay's 1973-1985 dictatorship has asked his government to request the extradition of former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger over his alleged role in the notorious Operation Condor.

Condor was a secret plan hatched by South American dictators in the 1970s to eliminate leftist political opponents in the region. Details of the plan have emerged over the past years in documents and court testimony.

operation condor was the group behind many of the ugly, murderous dictatorships that have plagued latin america in the last 30-40 years, including argentina, bolivia, brazil, chile, paraguay, and uruguay...

Operation Condor ... was a campaign of state terrorism and intelligence operations implemented by right-wing dictatorships that dominated the Southern Cone in Latin America from the 1950s to 1980s, heavily relying on numerous assassinations. The systematic counter-terrorism aimed both to deter democratic influence and ideas disseminated in the region and to control active or potential opposition movements against these governments. This organized counter-terrorism caused an unknown number of deaths, due to the covering up of the different governments involved. According to the "terror archives" discovered in Paraguay in 1992, 50,000 persons were murdered, 30,000 "disappeared" (desaparecidos) and 400,000 incarcerated.[1][2]. There have recently been some attempts of prosecutions against those responsible for this repression, to varied degrees.

[...]

The operation was jointly conducted by the intelligence and security services of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay in the mid-1970s.

Operation Condor, which took place in the context of the Cold War, was given at least tacit approval by the United States which feared a Marxist revolution in the region. The targets were officially leftist guerrillas, but in fact included all kinds of political opponents, including their families and others, as reported by the Valech Commission. The "Dirty War" in Argentina for example, which resulted in 30,000 victims, targeted mostly trade-unionists. Chilean MIR members, activists of the Catholic left-wing Peronist group the Montoneros, members of the Argentine MTO (the "All for the Country Movement") or Uruguayan Tupamaros were among those targeted.

It appears that Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State in the Nixon and Ford administrations, was closely involved diplomatically with the Southern Cone governments at the time and well-aware of the Condor plan.

henry is a cold-blooded bastard and richly deserves to face the music for his long years of getting away scot-free... maybe, just maybe, we're going to see some accountability... it'd be nice of the u.s. would get on the bandwagon as well... too much going on in the u.s. with the current crop of home-grown evildoers, i guess...

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What will it take for the WaPo to stop cheerleading for Bush?

i sure as hell don't know...

from today's wapo op-ed...

• [W]e'd caution once again against writing his administration off entirely.

• Mr. Bush can adjust course when forced.

• Nor has the administration taken to its bunker and stopped trying.

• [T]he administration seems to be shaping a policy that combines pressure with diplomacy in a way that at least has potential.

• Mr. Bush understands the needed elements...

• [T]the domestic and international success of immigration reform could be a tonic -- maybe even a legacy.

i'll grant you... any other president in history would probably have resigned by now, but is the fact that this one hasn't a mark of principle and dogged determination, or an unwillingness or outright inability to see just how badly he's screwed the pooch...?

bush is leaving d.c. for brazil this evening for a 5-nation latin american tour... he will be arriving in uruguay when a massive "anti-imperialist" rally will be held right across the river here in buenos aires, with presidents hugo chávez of venezuela, nestor kirchner of argentina, and evo morales of bolivia in attendance... will bush understand that HE is one of the principal reasons why that rally will be so huge...? no, of course not...

bush granted an interview at the white house the other day with reporters from all five countries he will be visiting... in his comments, which i read in the argentine paper clarin this morning, he mentioned "social justice" five times... i have been following bush for 6+ years and that is the FIRST time i can recall him EVER mentioning "social justice..." you can bet that the good citizens of latin america don't recall him ever saying it either... does he really think he's fooling anybody...?



Preparations at Estadio Ferro in Buenos Aires for the anti-Bush, anti-imperialist rally tomorrow night

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