AFP reports (is it really a French agency? It so faithfully reflects US propaganda...) :
"The United States on Wednesday accused Iran of increasingly behaving like a "police state" after Iranian security forces clashed anew with protesters."
Of course, in the US police never 'clash' with protesters, do they?
24 December 2009
13 December 2009
BBB - Big Brother Britain (Part 1984)
Not content with the continued erosion of civil liberties in Britain, the police now want to control nursery children in case they have become radical extremists, according to the Telegraph. I presume they think the 4 year olds will strap on a suicide bomb and blow up those fair-haired English 'angels'.
"In the West Midlands on officer with the counter terrorism unit wrote to community groups warning: "I do hope that you will tell me about persons of whatever age, you think may have been radicalised or be vulnerable to radicalisation ... Evidence suggests that radicalisation can take place from the age of four."..."He said the indicators were they [children] might draw pictures of bombs and say things like 'all Christians are bad' or that they believed in an Islamic state. It seems nursery teachers in the West Midlands are being asked to look out for radicalisation."
George Orwell is being proved more prophetic every day.
"In the West Midlands on officer with the counter terrorism unit wrote to community groups warning: "I do hope that you will tell me about persons of whatever age, you think may have been radicalised or be vulnerable to radicalisation ... Evidence suggests that radicalisation can take place from the age of four."..."He said the indicators were they [children] might draw pictures of bombs and say things like 'all Christians are bad' or that they believed in an Islamic state. It seems nursery teachers in the West Midlands are being asked to look out for radicalisation."
George Orwell is being proved more prophetic every day.
09 December 2009
Honduran elections exposed
"Honduran coup regime's claims about 60% turnout at free and fair elections is revealed as fraud. Also implicated in the video are the wide array of media outlets and governments that have unquestioningly accepted the electoral data of a regime that overthrew the last elected president."
01 December 2009
Chris Hedges: Addicted to Nonsense
Another fine commentary from Chris Hedges:
"Will Tiger Woods finally talk to the police? Who will replace Oprah? (Not that Oprah can ever be replaced, of course.) And will Michaele and Tareq Salahi, the couple who crashed President Barack Obama’s first state dinner, command the hundreds of thousands of dollars they want for an exclusive television interview? Can Levi Johnston, father of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s grandson, get his wish to be a contestant on “Dancing With the Stars”?
The chatter that passes for news, the gossip that is peddled by the windbags on the airwaves, the noise that drowns out rational discourse, and the timidity and cowardice of what is left of the newspaper industry reflect our flight into collective insanity. We stand on the cusp of one of the most seismic and disturbing dislocations in human history, one that is radically reconfiguring our economy as it is the environment, and our obsessions revolve around the trivial and the absurd.
What really matters in our lives—the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the steady deterioration of the dollar, the mounting foreclosures, the climbing unemployment, the melting of the polar ice caps and the awful reality that once the billions in stimulus money run out next year we will be bereft and broke—doesn’t fit into the cheerful happy talk that we mainline into our brains. We are enraptured by the revels of a dying civilization. Once reality shatters the airy edifice, we will scream and yell like petulant children to be rescued, saved and restored to comfort and complacency. There will be no shortage of demagogues, including buffoons like Sarah Palin, who will oblige. We will either wake up to face our stark new limitations, to retreat from imperial projects and discover a new simplicity, as well as a new humility, or we will stumble blindly toward catastrophe and neofeudalism." continues at link.
New IDF unit to fight enemies on Facebook, Twitter
So yet another propaganda offensive by the nazis Israeli armed forces. What these schmucks don't seem to realise is that there are so many "hostile entities on the Web" not because we have all been brainwashed by superior anti-Israeli propagandists, but because of the continuous genocide and ethnic cleansing they are carrying out in a cowadly, sneaky attempt to steal settle someone else's land.
"The Israel Defense Forces Spokesman's Office is to begin drafting computer experts with an eye toward establishing an Internet and new media department unit, Army Spokesman Brig. Gen. Avi Benayahu said Monday.
Speaking at the Eilat Journalists Conference, Benayahu said the new department would focus on the Internet's social media networks mainly to reach an international audience directly rather than through the regular media.
The new unit, as well as an initiative by the Information and Diaspora Ministry to train people to represent Israel independently on the Internet and in other arenas, were presented Monday at the conference during a panel discussion on Israeli public relations abroad.
Responding to criticism of Israel's ability to face hostile entities on the Web, Benayahu said the new program would be able to deal with the problem. He said that from each group drafted to the Army Spokesman's Office, between eight to 10 young people who are experts in Web 2.0 - YouTube, Facebook and Twitter - to be identified before induction, would be assigned to the new department. The new recruits would be put to work in the new media unit after undergoing a general Army Spokesman's Unit training course."
That course presumably will be called "How to lie like a professional politician"
This comment caught my eye "The IDF hopes to show other sides of the army less familiar to the world, such as women's service."
Women's service eh? Presumably we'll hear more about the crisis centre "to combat sexual harassment in the army". I mean just look what heppened to that poor woman soldier who had the misfortune to enter the former Justice Ministers office.
They might even consider opening the crisis centre to include staff of the President's office too. I remember the NYT headline from nearly 3 years ago: "Israel to Indict President on Sex Charges" - "The attorney general of Israel plans to indict President Moshe Katsav on charges of rape and other sexual offenses, the Justice Ministry announced Tuesday, in what would be the most serious criminal case involving a senior Israeli official" which ultimately led to "Israel's president resigns over sex crimes".
"The Israel Defense Forces Spokesman's Office is to begin drafting computer experts with an eye toward establishing an Internet and new media department unit, Army Spokesman Brig. Gen. Avi Benayahu said Monday.
Speaking at the Eilat Journalists Conference, Benayahu said the new department would focus on the Internet's social media networks mainly to reach an international audience directly rather than through the regular media.
The new unit, as well as an initiative by the Information and Diaspora Ministry to train people to represent Israel independently on the Internet and in other arenas, were presented Monday at the conference during a panel discussion on Israeli public relations abroad.
Responding to criticism of Israel's ability to face hostile entities on the Web, Benayahu said the new program would be able to deal with the problem. He said that from each group drafted to the Army Spokesman's Office, between eight to 10 young people who are experts in Web 2.0 - YouTube, Facebook and Twitter - to be identified before induction, would be assigned to the new department. The new recruits would be put to work in the new media unit after undergoing a general Army Spokesman's Unit training course."
That course presumably will be called "How to lie like a professional politician"
This comment caught my eye "The IDF hopes to show other sides of the army less familiar to the world, such as women's service."
Women's service eh? Presumably we'll hear more about the crisis centre "to combat sexual harassment in the army". I mean just look what heppened to that poor woman soldier who had the misfortune to enter the former Justice Ministers office.
They might even consider opening the crisis centre to include staff of the President's office too. I remember the NYT headline from nearly 3 years ago: "Israel to Indict President on Sex Charges" - "The attorney general of Israel plans to indict President Moshe Katsav on charges of rape and other sexual offenses, the Justice Ministry announced Tuesday, in what would be the most serious criminal case involving a senior Israeli official" which ultimately led to "Israel's president resigns over sex crimes".
30 November 2009
The Sham Elections in Honduras or Honduras: Elections as coup laundering
Over at the Center for International Policy's website 'Plan Colombia & Beyond', was a pretty good piece "3 reasons not to recognize the Honduran elections":
The reasons cited are:
"1. The people who carried out the June 28 coup will have gotten exactly what they wanted...The message will be that “crime does pay...Elites throughout the region who are unhappy with elected leaders (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Paraguay come to mind, but there are several others) will view the U.S. government recognition of tomorrow’s elections as a capitulation. They will know that if they pull off a coup of their own, the United States’ opposition will be brittle and quickly reversed upon the slightest pretext.
(DS: All this from a country that is waging several wars at the same time to supposedly 'restore democracy'! This same country invaded Haiti with an operation called 'Uphold Democracy' which was "a response to the overthrow and expulsion of the duly elected government of Haiti by a military coup.")
2. The conditions for a fair vote were not in place. Determining the legitimacy of elections requires more than just observing what happens on election day. In the months before the voting, were some parties or candidates unable to assemble, organize and campaign peacefully? Did they have difficulty gaining fair access to the media? Were supporters of some candidates or political tendencies subject to official repression? Here are links to several eyewitness reports indicating that the answer to these questions is “yes.” Honduras’s 2009 election campaign took place in a climate of fear in which media outlets were shuttered, candidates were put at unfair disadvantages, political activists were intimidated, and examples of military repression were frequent.
3. Recognizing the elections will put the United States at odds with most of the hemisphere."
Plan Colombia and Beyond then links to another interesting article in FP of all places by George Vickers of the Open Society Institute: "The Sham Elections in Honduras", which lays the basis for their 3 reasons.
These followed an article by Bill Van Auken at the WSWS "Washington endorses gunpoint election in Honduras"
Also worth checking out the Real News report "Honduras: Elections as coup laundering":
The fact is that now everybody in Latin America hates the U.S. again over this: "They really thought he was different," said Julia Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations, referring to Latin America's view of Mr. Obama, adding, "But those hopes were dashed over the course of the summer."
Its also extremely interesting that this disgusting episode (yes, yet another in a long line of US crimes) shows that money makes policy not Obama: CIP again " Back in September, the Obama administration’s State Department declared that the U.S. government could not recognize the elections’ result under those circumstances.(after a coup ejected President Manuel Zelaya and a military-backed interim government took over in Tegucigalpa)"
Now after pressure fromcorruptors lobbyists with loads of dosh, that is all water under the bridge.
The British and US press as usual are giving full credence to the golpistas' claims of a high turnout, as are some of the more gullible bloggers. There are others however, who report that there were problems with the computers just as they were tallying the votes. Hmm. We also read that "President Zelaya did a quick calculation and figured out that if the coup electoral authorities are telling the truth, i.e. that 1.7 million votes had been counted and this corresponded to 61.3 percent of the total voters, then a 100% turnout would have corresponded to 2.8 million voters, 600,000 more than were registered."
The reasons cited are:
"1. The people who carried out the June 28 coup will have gotten exactly what they wanted...The message will be that “crime does pay...Elites throughout the region who are unhappy with elected leaders (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Paraguay come to mind, but there are several others) will view the U.S. government recognition of tomorrow’s elections as a capitulation. They will know that if they pull off a coup of their own, the United States’ opposition will be brittle and quickly reversed upon the slightest pretext.
(DS: All this from a country that is waging several wars at the same time to supposedly 'restore democracy'! This same country invaded Haiti with an operation called 'Uphold Democracy' which was "a response to the overthrow and expulsion of the duly elected government of Haiti by a military coup.")
2. The conditions for a fair vote were not in place. Determining the legitimacy of elections requires more than just observing what happens on election day. In the months before the voting, were some parties or candidates unable to assemble, organize and campaign peacefully? Did they have difficulty gaining fair access to the media? Were supporters of some candidates or political tendencies subject to official repression? Here are links to several eyewitness reports indicating that the answer to these questions is “yes.” Honduras’s 2009 election campaign took place in a climate of fear in which media outlets were shuttered, candidates were put at unfair disadvantages, political activists were intimidated, and examples of military repression were frequent.
3. Recognizing the elections will put the United States at odds with most of the hemisphere."
Plan Colombia and Beyond then links to another interesting article in FP of all places by George Vickers of the Open Society Institute: "The Sham Elections in Honduras", which lays the basis for their 3 reasons.
These followed an article by Bill Van Auken at the WSWS "Washington endorses gunpoint election in Honduras"
Also worth checking out the Real News report "Honduras: Elections as coup laundering":
The fact is that now everybody in Latin America hates the U.S. again over this: "They really thought he was different," said Julia Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations, referring to Latin America's view of Mr. Obama, adding, "But those hopes were dashed over the course of the summer."
Its also extremely interesting that this disgusting episode (yes, yet another in a long line of US crimes) shows that money makes policy not Obama: CIP again " Back in September, the Obama administration’s State Department declared that the U.S. government could not recognize the elections’ result under those circumstances.(after a coup ejected President Manuel Zelaya and a military-backed interim government took over in Tegucigalpa)"
Now after pressure from
The British and US press as usual are giving full credence to the golpistas' claims of a high turnout, as are some of the more gullible bloggers. There are others however, who report that there were problems with the computers just as they were tallying the votes. Hmm. We also read that "President Zelaya did a quick calculation and figured out that if the coup electoral authorities are telling the truth, i.e. that 1.7 million votes had been counted and this corresponded to 61.3 percent of the total voters, then a 100% turnout would have corresponded to 2.8 million voters, 600,000 more than were registered."
29 November 2009
Where stands Tony Blair’s case for war now?
There were six linked issues facing the PM - and he had to be sure of each one in turn before he could legally and legitimately commit to military action. Brian Brady investigates:
Chilcot inquiry graphic -
17 November 2009
The Media As Enablers of Government Lies
"Why do politicians so easily get away with telling lies?"
James Bovard explains:
"...because the news media are more interested in bonding with politicians than in exposing them"
read on...
The Media As Enablers of Government Lies
James Bovard explains:
"...because the news media are more interested in bonding with politicians than in exposing them"
read on...
The Media As Enablers of Government Lies
04 November 2009
Chomsky on BBC's Hardtalk
29 October 2009
Chris Hedges: Empire of Illusion - The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle
About Chris Hedges:
"Chris Hedges, whose column is published on Truthdig.org every Monday, spent two decades as a foreign reporter covering wars in Latin America, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. He served for eight years as the Middle East bureau chief of The New York Times, where he shared the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism, for coverage of terrorism. Hedges also received the 2002 Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism.
In 2009 the Los Angeles Press Club honored the original columns that Hedges writes for Truthdig by naming the author the Online Journalist of the Year and granting him the Best Online Column award for his Truthdig essay “Party to Murder,” about the December 2008-January 2009 Israeli assault on Gaza.
Hedges is a senior fellow at The Nation Institute and the Anschutz Distinguished Fellow at Princeton University. He has written nine books, including “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle” (2009), “I Don’t Believe in Atheists” (2008) and the best-selling “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America” (2008). His book “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning” (2003) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.Hedges, who holds a B.A. in English literature from Colgate University and a master of divinity degree from Harvard Divinity School, is fluent in Arabic and also speaks French, Spanish, Greek and Latin."
Blogger Wilton Vought on whose site (Essential Dissent) the videos are posted, writes:
"This video should be required viewing for all progressives who continue to vote for the lesser fascist. Can we just get over this already? Can we get real? Can we come to a true understanding of the situation? Can we stop believing that the oligarchy is going to play Santa Claus, hand us a great big present in the form of a savior politician, and voluntarily relinquish its immense power and privilege? Has your little lesser fascist voting game taken you where you want to go? It is said that the essence of insanity is to perform the same action repeatedly and expect a different result. Can you admit that your actions meet this definition? It's time to build an alternative. Will you be part of the problem or part of the solution?"
Part One:
Part Two:
Part Three:
Also check out Wilton Vought's article "The Evil of Two Lessers" written last year before Obama became President.
"A few points to consider:
1. Anyone who succeeds in becoming the presumptive Presidential nominee of either corporate party does so only with the blessing of the corporate interests who run those parties. The main goal of these power brokers is to constantly increase their wealth and power, and their only source of dissatisfaction with the status quo is that they don't yet own and control everything and everyone. Expecting a front man for such interests to be a catalyst for substantive progressive change is akin to believing in Santa Claus. Fine for the kids, but it's time to grow up.
2. Obama's mantra of "Change" is deliberately misleading. It is a blank slate upon which he hopes you will write the message you want to see. Yes, we all want change, but what type of change? He won't tell you this because it's an empty promise, therefore the vacuous slogan. This slogan is an admission by Obama's corporate handlers that they know many of us are disgusted with the state of the nation, but instead of spelling out in detail just how they will institute progressive change (for example, ending the corporate resource grab in Iraq), they offer us a blank slate candidate who will continue on the same deadly trajectory. Can you admit to yourself that you already knew this?
3. One of Obama's main foreign policy advisers is Zbigniew Brzezinski, a very dangerous zealot for the Empire. You can Google him to find out more, and then ask yourself if this is the kind of person you want whispering into the ear of the President, and further if you should vote for a man who would listen to the likes of Mr. Brzezinski." continues at link. Read it!
"Chris Hedges, whose column is published on Truthdig.org every Monday, spent two decades as a foreign reporter covering wars in Latin America, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. He served for eight years as the Middle East bureau chief of The New York Times, where he shared the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism, for coverage of terrorism. Hedges also received the 2002 Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism.
In 2009 the Los Angeles Press Club honored the original columns that Hedges writes for Truthdig by naming the author the Online Journalist of the Year and granting him the Best Online Column award for his Truthdig essay “Party to Murder,” about the December 2008-January 2009 Israeli assault on Gaza.
Hedges is a senior fellow at The Nation Institute and the Anschutz Distinguished Fellow at Princeton University. He has written nine books, including “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle” (2009), “I Don’t Believe in Atheists” (2008) and the best-selling “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America” (2008). His book “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning” (2003) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.Hedges, who holds a B.A. in English literature from Colgate University and a master of divinity degree from Harvard Divinity School, is fluent in Arabic and also speaks French, Spanish, Greek and Latin."
Blogger Wilton Vought on whose site (Essential Dissent) the videos are posted, writes:
"This video should be required viewing for all progressives who continue to vote for the lesser fascist. Can we just get over this already? Can we get real? Can we come to a true understanding of the situation? Can we stop believing that the oligarchy is going to play Santa Claus, hand us a great big present in the form of a savior politician, and voluntarily relinquish its immense power and privilege? Has your little lesser fascist voting game taken you where you want to go? It is said that the essence of insanity is to perform the same action repeatedly and expect a different result. Can you admit that your actions meet this definition? It's time to build an alternative. Will you be part of the problem or part of the solution?"
Part One:
Part Two:
Part Three:
Also check out Wilton Vought's article "The Evil of Two Lessers" written last year before Obama became President.
"A few points to consider:
1. Anyone who succeeds in becoming the presumptive Presidential nominee of either corporate party does so only with the blessing of the corporate interests who run those parties. The main goal of these power brokers is to constantly increase their wealth and power, and their only source of dissatisfaction with the status quo is that they don't yet own and control everything and everyone. Expecting a front man for such interests to be a catalyst for substantive progressive change is akin to believing in Santa Claus. Fine for the kids, but it's time to grow up.
2. Obama's mantra of "Change" is deliberately misleading. It is a blank slate upon which he hopes you will write the message you want to see. Yes, we all want change, but what type of change? He won't tell you this because it's an empty promise, therefore the vacuous slogan. This slogan is an admission by Obama's corporate handlers that they know many of us are disgusted with the state of the nation, but instead of spelling out in detail just how they will institute progressive change (for example, ending the corporate resource grab in Iraq), they offer us a blank slate candidate who will continue on the same deadly trajectory. Can you admit to yourself that you already knew this?
3. One of Obama's main foreign policy advisers is Zbigniew Brzezinski, a very dangerous zealot for the Empire. You can Google him to find out more, and then ask yourself if this is the kind of person you want whispering into the ear of the President, and further if you should vote for a man who would listen to the likes of Mr. Brzezinski." continues at link. Read it!
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