DENVER, COLORADO- Indigenous activists paused only one day before assembling a second IDLE NO MORE gathering to perform a round dance at the Canadian Consulate in Denver today, to deliver a letter urging the Canadian government and the British Crown (the Queen!) to meet with Chief Theresa Spence and end her hunger strike over recent legislation which gutted First Nation treaty protections. After a rally of dance, song and orations, a delegation sought to enter the consulate but was denied. After filling the downstairs lobby, being told picture-taking was not allowed, and the building's security crew receiving a squad of reinforcements from DPD, the activist were finally sent a representative to accept the letter without comment.
Tag: Colonialism
Precendent for US covert intervention in Syria, is less Libya than Cambodia
OCCUPIED COLORADO SPRINGS- While antiwar traditionalists remain stymied about Syria, let's recognize that the US-EU intervention has already begun. Stop the escalating covert destruction of Syria. Bring our Special Forces boys home now.
Smell test shows KONY 2012 viral vid tests positive for military grade virus
Was mainstream media endorsing a viral Youtube video your first clue that the Invisible Children campaign bears the suspicious signs of US war-making propaganda?! What "Save Darfur" was to Sudan, the CIA-spelled backward [Africa's] Invisible Children operation is to Uganda. With its Libyan protector out of the way, Africa and its resources have never been more accessible, so now AFRICOM's cross-hairs are on regional insurgent defenders. Apparently Joseph Kony is today's poster villain, and those pitching a US intervention in Central Africa want to convince the public the engagement would have an exit strategy not to exceed 2012. Flowers and candy. What are we holding against Joseph Kony, indoctrinating child soldiers? What are American recruiters doing in our middle schools but trolling for our Invisible Children who, undereducated, undernourished and unprotected from predatory militarist propaganda, succumb to the economic or criminal justice draft?
Piñon Canyon slowly being conquered by Imperialists
It's not just apparent, it's Elephant-in-the-parlor obvious that the Pentagon assumes they own not only every square centimeter of Foreign lands conquered by their Legion of Doom Imperial Stormtroopers. Every square centimeter in America too. Ed has put together a short collection of videos pointing up the planned assault on Americans by American Military, something that wasn't available a century and a half ago when the Imperial Storm Troopers wore blue uniforms with yellow stripes on the legs and rode horses as they murdered Americans to take the land. The first I'm posting, actually the middle of the series, he takes the "fightin' words" the TeaBag racist scum use. Points out that the Tea Potty really doesn't defend the rights and freedoms of Individual Citizens, rather, they defend the Privileges of Corporate "citizens". If the ranches in Piñon Canyon were owned by Halliburton, maybe? And The prequel to the one above this. And And the last of the series, in its proper order. Why haven't the Tea-Bags, ever so ready to protest the "unconstitutional confiscation" of the sole privilege of providing Health Care from the Private Sector, meaning: No Medicaid, No Medicare, No CHAMPUS, No CHAMPVA... NOTHING but "If you're poor and can't afford health care, then F.O.A.D." similarly protested the confiscation of private land by the Biggest part of the "Big Government" they so vehemently denounce, the Military and Police State apparati? Some of the whiners bitch, piss and moan if you use "obscene" words, by their definition, to describe what they do to us, so the first part of that acronym,"F.O.A.D." the word "fuck" has to be unwritten, and you have to guess that from the rest of it, "Off And Die". See, they can do it to us, royally and consistently, but we're not allowed to use the word "fuck" to describe them fucking us like that. We're also not allowed, you know, to point out the vast similarities between their party and the Nazi and Fascist parties, but, hey, Momma always said, Nazi Brownshirt Stormtrooper is as Fascist Blackshirt Stormtrooper does". If they ever get off their High-pocritical Horse about being called names that adequately describe their actions and policies, that would be a step toward regaining any respect they once enjoyed.
How come Pottery Barn rules don’t apply to Haiti?
When Tony posted nearly three years ago (!) about how shocking conditions in Haiti had become, it was a magnet for people saying the starving kids pictures (from Medicins sans frontiers, internationally respected medical aid agency, just not so much here in America) were recycled pictures from Ethiopia 3, 2 and one decade ago. Then when that was refuted, and before they raised that Stupid Response again, the people of Haiti were blamed for their own misfortunes. As though their LEADERS had actually been empowered by popular vote instead of installed, against the expressed will of the People, by and for the profit of American Corporate Hegemony. Alternating with French Hegemony until the AmeriCorp bought out the French. We broke it, we supposedly bought it, right? That's the one of the irRationale for staying in Iraq and Afghanistan. (rationale is both plural and single, I checked, you didn't, kiss off) Of course, it's not the American Corporations who are Paying the bills "we" ran up by breaking all the pottery, although they seem to be getting quite a lot of public funding to manipulate the Public Army and the Public intelligence community and the public "rebuilding" campaign, which mostly consists of taking very expensive videos and photographs of Other People moving the shards around. Much the same way they're paid to watch and take pictures while other people bury the Dead "shards" in Haiti. Through public funding for their private "efforts". Some have seen fit to criticize my frequent use of Capitalization and italics and bold type and ComBinatiOns Of tHem but some people need a little help finding juicy nuggets amidst the kibble. Both are Nourishing Mind Food but the juicy bits are more fun. Sometimes. Some of the people have difficulty seeing, which is a condition with which I can easily relate. Others are just kind of inured to reading and hearing Bullshit from the likes of Glenn Beck and need a little help finding emphasis in NORMAL thoughts. It's not that Glenn Beck is mentally defective, it's what he's paid to say, in the Corporate anticipation of the Audience being mentally defective. In a way, though, the situation in Ethiopia and Haiti is the same case, revisited. "Conservative" (their own code word for Racist Right Wing Extremists) Pundits insist that black people are incapable of governing themselves so it's up to the Great White Father in Washington to guide and assist and let's face it, outright Rule Over the poor little darkie savages. But Ethiopia has for several occasions been the richest nation on earth and in cumulative time they managed to do it for longer than the Americas have actually experienced European Rule. Intermittently because the times Ethiopia has been devastatingly poor have been periods of colonial rule. Like the Romans exacting tribute from them, and in the past couple of centuries European and European-American Corporate Rule turning Their nation into Our plantation. Same with Haiti. When the U.S. went to war with Hawaii and deposed their "tyrannical"
Real Manly Macho Robust Christian Men
According to the Tennessee Fire-non-Fighter who watched his neighbors' house burn to the ground, with the fire crew standing around to make sure fire didn't spread to their own properties, called his actions "Robust, Masculine Christianity" a new-old method of trying to justify ones evil deeds by re-translating the Bible to edit out any forms of compassion, sharing, care for ones neighbors, family, people they'd never met... So here are a few other things that define Real Manly Macho Robust Christian Men, A Real Manly Macho Robust Christian Man lets his neighbors house burn down. A Real Manly Macho Robust Christian Man cares so much about his Nation that he won't send anything more than a "prayer guide" card to surviving victims of flood, tornado, earthquake, rampaging murderers, outlining how Christ demands that nobody help ones neighbor, and detailing how to Toughen Up and just get over it. Rush Limbaugh, (m)Ann Coulter, etc, did that for everybody from the widows of VietNam Agent Orange victims, 9/11 firemen and anybody from New Orleans who wasn't rich enough to escape the Katrina Flood. A Real Manly Macho Robust Christian Man doesn't care if his children, parents, or even himself contract e-coli or Salmonella from contaminated unregulated foodstuff, he shrugs and says, "Oh, well, MOST people who die from e-coli or salmonella had other health problems (like, being very old, very young, pregnant, just had a baby... you know, Not Robust Macho Men) so it doesn't matter. A Real Manly Macho Robust Christian Man especially doesn't care when it's somebody else's kids, and especially if he owns stock in the corporations that sold the poison food. He merely does as Boxer did in the book "Animal Farm", after he worked himself almost to death, and the Pigs sold his still breathing body for dog food, according to Master Propagandist Glenn "Squealer" Beck, his last words were "I Will Work Harder for my corporate whore-lords even though it's going to kill me and my family" A Real Manly Macho Robust Christian Man refuses to believe that anybody ever becomes rich by inheriting stolen money or by stealing that money for themselves, it's always bread that the wealthy earned by the sweat of their (servants') brow. And their newly "discovered" proper translation of the Bible by people who don't speak any more Aramaic or Classic Hebrew than he does and they told him that it's true. Sean Hannity said it, he believes it, that settles it. A Real Manly Macho Robust Christian Man believes that Richard Cheney and George Bush, being elected by a minority of the voters, were thus appointed and anointed by God, Himself, to have the rule over all the land, and all foreign lands as well, "Love God and Obey the King" and if somebody points out that America doesn't actually HAVE a king, he will shout down that Upstart Rebellious Peasant and call the police on him if he doesn't shut up. A Real Manly Macho Robust Christian Man believes that the previous rule doesn't
Looking for a parallel colonial failure? French Algeria and US Israel
Not "US-Israel" as in an alliance, but U.S. Israel, protectorate. L'audace of the savage Arabs to assassinate the white settlers one by one, or by means of uncivilized cafe bombs, defying France's brutal measures to wall the terrorists off and impoverish them.
Israeli yacht club sends Anti-Freedom Flotilla to protest Gaza relief convoy
PICTURES! -Some very expensive yachts sailed from Herziliya Yacht Club in a feint of indignation that an international social justice effort was showing favoritism toward Palestinians. No Gaza yacht club could be reached for a response. Commodore Guy Bechor, an outspoken Zionist, led the ostentatious flotilla in protest of the humanitarian aid convoy attempting to break the siege of Gaza, which he belittled as "rusty tin cans." The banners for their private regatta? TURKEY=IRAN? and FREE GILAD, an interesting conceit. 1.5 million Gazans are being blockaded to coerce the release of one Israeli POW. That's a ratio similar to the disproportionate casualties of the 2008 Gaza "War." While soldier Gilad Shalit is considered a hostage of Hamas, he was an IDF soldier captured by the resistance. Israel holds 8,000 Palestinians in detention, not counting all the residents of Gaza. The Gaza Massacre, like the ongoing siege itself, is recognized as an illegal act of collective punishment. A fact apparently lost on the Yerziliya skippers. Likewise the disconnect they display in presuming to insult the Turkish leader by associating him with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Though the yacht flotilla raised fears of creating an embarrassing confrontation with the humanitarian fleet, in reality it was a single day affair. The Israeli counter protesters were informed that the entire coast of Gaza has been cordoned by the Israeli navy. The pretext it will use to try to arrest the Freedom Flotilla blockade runners. Bechor's website G-planet celebrates all the press they received, I don't see the harm in giving them more. These pictures speak a thousand words, almost as many days as Gaza has been under illegal siege. See more pictures at Bechor's Facebook album. The irony of the singular concern for Gilad Shalit might have caused Bechor to think twice about the message. All photos of yachts featuring the banners about Shalit have been curiously scrubbed, but they remain on some Turkish news sites. Bechor list dozens of Turkish media outlets which covered his anti-relief regatta, demonstrating a strategy of aiming to undercut Turkish public support for what it predominantly its humanitarian effort. While several of the outlets might be Hasbara properties echoing Israel PR, most of the articles about the Israeli counter-protest make as much fun of it as we. For the record, here is the port at Gaza, absent of yachts. The relief convoy will even have to improvise docks for unloading their supplies.
Mondovino: globalization and terroir, Robert Parker versus your good taste
For those with a curiosity for how wine terroir is holding up against the onslaught of wine factory farming, the 10-hour miniseries version of MONDOVINO is finally available on DVD. For viewers curious about viniculture globalization under Californian colonial domination, the original feature length documentary delivers, with a long finish. Any time critics accuse a film of being one sided, you know it's about class war. I had my first lesson in vineyard terroir when my college-aged aunt visited my family in Alsace and spent a season picking grapes. She informed us to our horreur that everything gets stomped in that barrel, bugs and all. I didn't drink wine then, so what did I care, but it was easy to decide that such was the artistry that probably made French wines great. But as I said, Mondovino was about much more than wine, and now I'll get to the point. We may lament the new commercialization of wine, but historically the occupation has always had its strictly-business types. Vintners were rarely agriculturalists who subsisted, they were wine lovers subsidized. We can wince at the Napa Valley nouveau gauche, but even Bordeaux's great chateaus, and especially all the Premiers Crus, are owned and have been owned by businessmen money lenders, going back centuries. The modernization and standardization which is destroying contemporary wines is simply the evolution of production control. At last, technology and the ascent of a gilded age have brought vintners to believe they've bested nature. It's true if you don't care about wine, if you're content to bottle a soft drink as opposed to allowing wine the breathing space to develop personality. Basically this documentary demonstrates that these gentlemen hobbyists, now plaintively bourgeois about profit, welcome the new global fascism. Old World Fascists Of course it is no stretch to imagine that the Mondovino filmmakers are going to ask, how did your father or grandfather like Fascism under the Nazis? They point the question at an Italian family who date their wealth back 900 years as bankers. Any European documentary delving into family histories will always ask particularly about the war years. In America it's what did you do during the war Daddy? In Europe it's about weathering the occupation. Most working class French want to tell you what they did in the Resistance. Rich people you don't ask because of course they were collaborateurs. Mondovino's subjects are the perpetually wealthy, who don't even register the affront. Of course their families thrived under Fascism, quelle betise to imagine it would be otherwise. How curious it is we are surprised they embrace it so again. Such moments are the highlights of Mondovino, rich folk posing in elaborate foyers, plaintively matter of fact about Fascism. One opulent reception room in Florence is packed with ancient paintings, among them a painting of the very room full of paintings, you imagine if you peered closely enough you would see the infinity of mirrors scheme, a Baroque era black velvet number. The Grande Dame mentions that Prince Charles inquired about
Simon Wiesenthal Center makes best case against Israel colonial legitimacy
Give Israel credit for answering their critics head on, but that is the Zionist hubris. Simon Wiesenthal is propagating the latest Hasbara crib sheet to counter the ten most threatening lies about Israel. We couldn't have summarized the arguments better ourselves. One man's "lies" are his victim's desperate appeals to confound systemic myopic denial. Here it is in their own nutshell: Israel was created by European guilt over the Nazi Holocaust. Why should Palestinians pay the price? ... Had Israel withdrawn to its June 1967 borders, peace would have come long ago. ... Israel is the main stumbling block to achieving a two-state solution. ... Nuclear Israel, not Iran, is the greatest threat to peace and stability. ... Israel is an apartheid state deserving of international boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns. ... Plans to build 1,600 more homes in East Jerusalem prove Israel is "Judaizing" the Holy City. ... Israeli policies endanger U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. ... Israeli policies are the cause of worldwide anti-Semitism. ... Israel, not Hamas, is responsible for the “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza. ... Goldstone was right when he charged that Israel was guilty of war crimes against civilians. ... The only hope for peace is a single, binational state eliminating the Jewish State of Israel. Even dissembled, the case weighs hard against Zionist mendacity. OK, a tad capricious To Wiesenthal's credit, the arguments are loaded with a laudable reserve of disingenuity: 5,500 MORE HOMES have been zoned for East Jerusalem, not 1,600, (and yes, Jerusalem's mayor has set quotas, a Jewish to non-Jewish target ratio to counter a higher Arab birthrate). Israeli policies are the cause of [PROLIFERATION] of worldwide anti-Semitism, The Gaza "humanitarian catastrophe" soft-pedals the critics' real accusation: MASSACRE. Imagine referring to the Holocaust as befalling its victims with the ambivalence of a tsunami. JUDGE Goldstone isn't the only accuser who's documented the criminality the world witnessed WITH ITS OWN EYES. Apartheid legitimizers blink Further demonstrating the disintegrating global support for a Jewish haven-state, the Simon Wiesenthal Center has all but dropped its cover as Holocaust-remembrance-sledgehammer to directly shore up the supposed public grant of legitimacy to Zionist colonialism. Trying to turn the argument on Israel's "de-ligitimizers" couldn't be more out of touch. While the US fights in expanding but downward spirals against the entropy of Pax Americana, Western public support for empire-building erodes for even the pretext of "globalization." White Man's Burden has smartened to Carbon Debt, missionary zeal evolved to indigenous and environmental protectionism. Religious crusades haven't held water for centuries, but what an Auld Testament to Zionism's xenophobic tenacity to posit the Jewish People as "chosen" to revive God-manifested destiny. What part of "Apartheid is for Neanderthals" do Palestine's neo- Afrikaners fail to understand? Even an 18th Century South African settler categorization gives the mid-twentieth century European transplants in Zion too much credit for pretended genealogical roots in the Middle East. Only State Solution Not very well concealed in Wiesenthal's framing of the "Top Ten Lies" is a specious conceit formed by straw arguments three and ten, which presume
An Idea whose time has come…
Seriously, since the NeoCons still insist that we have Hegemony over the entire known Universe, a religious belief that we are so much better than the rest of the world that we owe it to them to run their countries for them... then why not grant each person in each Conque errr... "Liberated" country full United States Citizenship? My soon-to-be brother in law is Tongan by birth, he very seldom goes TO Tonga and was raised in Hawaii from the time he was about a year old. Homeland Security cleared him soon after 9/11, he had a job at DFW loading meals onto flights for AA. One time some Fearful Freak Redneck got all nine-eleven nine-eleven nine-eleven stupid about a Large Dark-skinned fellow being on the plane with his Obviously Non-Racist Arse. Stupid fears, held by stupid people. So he was going to marry my sister last week. Cool, eh? But I.C.E. has to have the last word on everything, he didn't have his ORIGINAL Birth Certificate, so the Frightened Ones wouldn't let them get their marriage license until he proves (apparently with something more than the huge file that the Frightened Feds keep on every "foreign national", even and especially those who grew up here) that he is who he says he is. I mean, come the hell on, they've got hair samples (do you think for a moment that a Racist and Fascist Totalitarian Police State wouldn't have that? think not? Welcome to the REAL world, check your delusions at the door upon entrance) fingerprints, biometrics, iris scans, etc etc etc... as well as a dossier of his entire life history, but he can't get his ID card updated without proving who he is without his Original Birth Certificate. One of Miss Johnnies sons was born on Guam, but they didn't make it to the Air Force Base hospital so he wasn't on U.S. soil. Even though the U.S. Military runs Guam any way they see fit, but only in the Proper Neo-Colonialist Manner, they only beat the Wogs three times a week. How Very Civilized of them. So he's a citizen, both his parents including his dad who died from Agent Orange in service to the USAF, were citizens, but there's still that Birth Certificate bullshit. My other sister, Audrey, same way, born at home off base in London... Citizen, but not "native". And, has trouble getting her Drivers License renewed because of that Original Birth Certificate. Which is purest bullshit, just like the manufactured FAKE scandal about President Obama's Birth Certificate. Guam and Tonga were added to the "not really conquered vassal possessions even though we treat them as such" list through the Wondrous agency of World War 2. And kept in such bondage by the U.S. Military "needing" the bases in THEIR countries in order to maintain our delusion of Masters over sea and land. "We goddamn OWN the world, so we NEED those bases to keep the Peasant Natives from thinking they own their own countries!" Audrey was born
Give this lackey a new directive
BagnewsNotes has juxtaposed two photos of African colonialism. One taken more than a century ago shows a white bwana being ferried by two porters, the second is the recent image at left. The difference is that today's servants are trusted with weapons because they have to double as security, the continent being more dangerous now than when it was darkest Africa. According to photographer Paolo Woods, the colonial industrialist beneath the umbrella, stands before a 544 villa development in Nigeria, built on the Lekki Peninsula to suit Chevron Oil. For this go-round of postcards from the outlands, could anti-imperialist venture capitalists raise funds to give these Nigerian servants more than pieces of silver? The-world-is-watching age of the internet could offer these henchmen several times more their pay to gun down the light-skinned slave masters point-blank, instead of defending them against Nigeria's oppressed victims.
Cuba declines OAS offer of Trojan Horse
Over US objections, the Organization of American States (OAS, OEA) voted to invite Cuba back into the fold, from which it had been expelled in 1962 for hanging with Communists. Cuba's reply? No thanks! Although Cuba's acceptance by fellow nations was hailed a victory, Fidel Castro wrote: "It is naive to think that the good intentions of one president justifies the existence of a body that... supported... neoliberalism, drug trafficking, military bases and economic crises." In an essay published the day before Cuba's official repudiation of the offer to recommit to the OAS, Fidel Castro recalled a lesson from the siege of Troy. Castro was reported widely as having called the OAS a "U.S. Trojan horse." In reality, Castro blamed the OAS for having "opened the gates" to the Trojan horse of US post-colonial despotism. The Trojan horse RAFAEL Correa, president of Ecuador, currently visiting Honduras, stated the day before the OAS meeting: "I believe that the OAS has lost its raison d’être, maybe it never had a raison d’être." The news, circulated by ANSA, adds that Correa, "prophesized ‘the demise’ of that organization given the many errors it has committed." He affirmed "that the countries of the American continent, given their geographic conditions, cannot all be put ‘in the same basket.’ And for that reason Ecuador proposed some months back the creation of the Organization of Latin American States. "’It is not possible for the region’s problems to be discussed in Washington; let us construct something of our own, without countries alien to our culture, our values, and obviously including countries that were inexplicably separated from the inter-American system, and I am referring to the concrete case of Cuba… that was a tremendous shame and demonstrates the double standards that exist in international relations.’" On his arrival in Honduras, both President Zelaya and Correa stated that "The OAS must be reformed and reincorporate Cuba; if not, it will have to disappear." Another cable from the DPA news agency affirms: "Cuba’s reintegration in the Organization of American States (OAS) has moved from being an issue per se of the organization’s General Assembly in Honduran San Pedro Sula, to once again being turned into an excuse for a struggle of interests that goes much further than the limits of the Caribbean island and could (once again) call hemispheric relations into question. "The president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, made that very clear on describing the hemispheric meeting that begins this Tuesday in Honduras in quasi military terms. "It will be," he said, an ‘interesting battle’ in which if it is demonstrated that the OAS ‘continues being a ministry of the colonies’ that is not transformed in order ‘to subordinate itself to the will of the governments comprising it,’ it will be necessary to propose ‘leaving’ the organization and creating an alternative." "’Latin American countries are making Cuba the litmus test for the quality of the Obama administration's approach to Latin America," Julia E. Sweig, a Cuba scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations, told The Washington Post on the
Anti-Zionism 4D: Defining Demonization Double Standards and Delegitimization
The word "nutritious" defines a food quality that provides sustenance. I've no doubt as skepticism grows about the likely poisonous aspects of refined sugar and High Fructose Corn Syrup, the corporate sugar-water purveyors will append "satiates your subliminal impulses" to the meaning of nutritious. Who safeguards our dictionaries from authoritarians who profit from reweaving the fabric of knowledge we consider inviolate? We expect facts to change, but it is unsettling to be robbed of the words which we count on to measure the change. Did you think "anti-Semitic" meant prejudice against the Jews? It does, except the Zionists behind sustaining Israel want it to indemnify their unpopular endeavor too. Anti-Semitism now means opposing Israel, although the stigma implied is of course still "Jew Hater." But the appropriation is unseemly. Crusading Evangelicals could tell you, if you oppose their bloody incursions into the lands of Islam, then you must be anti-Christian. But are you? It would seem only fair that the victims of anti-Semitism should be entitled to define what oppresses them, but that's not who's wrapping themselves in its protection. Zionists (both Jewish and Christian) claim that an overwhelming percentage of World Jewry supports sustaining the US-Israel occupation of Palestine. Is it true? I wager that the far greater proportion of both Jews and non-Jews repudiate military aggression, occupation, ethnic cleansing and religious oppression. But if it were true, claims of suffering historical persecution are not grounds to be given license to persecute others. Anti-Semitism describes real, tradition-rooted anti-Jewish sentiment. To expand its meaning disrespects the very tangible prejudice which Jews still face. Opposition to sustaining Israel is actually Anti-Zionism, which is neither for nor against Judaism. Anti-Zionism denounces another long-held prejudice: White European Man's assertion that the Holy Land belongs to him. Anti-Zionism is the opposition to sustaining an illegally invaded, illegally occupied, racist administration of Palestine in the name of "Zionism." Anti-Zionism calls for "the destruction of Israel," meaning the dissolution of the Western colonial theocracy imposed on the indigenous population of the Middle East. To oppose the sustaining of Israel is a call to exterminate Israeli apartheid. Anti-Zionism is no resurrection of the Final Solution. It means leave people be. White settlers should not assume to usurp the lands and water rights of the native Palestinians. Zionism defender Nathan Sharansky has constructed a definition of anti-Semitism with an expanded breadth, he calls them the three Ds: Demonization, Double Standards and Delegitimization. It's this 3D definition with which Zionists are branding UCSB professor William Robinson, himself a Jew, as an anti-Semite. Professor Robinson circulated an email among his sociology students, comparing Israel's actions in Gaza to methods used by the Nazis, now US-Israeli lobby groups are calling for UCSB to censure him. Sharansky's three Ds are easily refuted because he offers no more than circular argument. Ipso Facto my eye. I reprint Sharansky's explanation below, but first an abridgment: Demonization: "...having [the Jewish state's] actions blown out of all sensible proportion ... can only be considered anti-Semitic." Double Standards: "It
White European genocide by poverty, war, and disease
The US and Europe supported Portuguese colonialism in South Africa and White South African Apartheid for centuries. Today they support genocide in the region of Southern Africa, even as they pretend to want to 'help'. This is where the epicenter of HIV infection is allowed to continue to rage as it is coming close to infecting 30% of the population in some of the countries found there. What has The West done beyond starting off the process of disease, poverty, and warfare in this region that has now lead to this crisis? 'The overwhelming majority of people with HIV, some 95% of the global total, live in the developing world.' Yes, but that statement actually tells us so very little since it is principally South Africa and the countries surrounding South Africa that Apartheid infected with this disease in epidemic proportions. What we are seeing there is the equivalent of the Plague Years of Medieval Europe having been implanted by White European Apartheid States during their reign, with American and Europe now standing by with their thumbs up their asses. That is GENOCIDE.
From Iraq to Afghanistan to Palestine, Occupation is a Crime!
A.N.S.W.E.R. has 7 Reasons to March on DC. We can borrow them! - The war in Afghanistan is expanding and widening. - 350,000 U.S. troops and US-paid contractors still occupy Iraq. - Israel’s Siege of Gaza remains in place, with backing of Washington. - Obama's Justice Department is continuing the policy of renditions. - Air strikes on Pakistan are killing an increasingly number of civilians. - The real Pentagon war budget is over $1.3 trillion annually. - More than 20 million people are now unemployed and under-employed. 7 Reasons You Should March on the Pentagon on March 21, 2009 1 The war in Afghanistan is expanding and widening. President Obama announced last week that another 17,000 troops are on their way to Afghanistan. Only 18 percent of Afghanis support this escalation and only 34 percent of the people of the United States approve of the added troops despite the president’s popularity, according to the Washington Post/ABC poll announced on February 17, 2009. This is a colonial war. The president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, was not involved in the decision to add more occupying troops into his country. Rather, he was “informed of the deployments in a telephone call with Obama” on February 17, according to the Washington Post (February 18, 2009). 2 About 350,000 U.S. troops and U.S.-paid private contractors (mercenaries) still occupy Iraq. The Iraqi people want the occupation to end. Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is insisting that only two of the 14 combat brigades in Iraq exit in 2009. The war and occupation of Iraq costs $430 million each day. If the U.S. government were to end the military occupation, any and all future Iraqi governments would return to a position of political independence from the economic and political dictates of the United States. Iraq’s anti-colonial legacy has created a political reality that prohibits the country from becoming like Kuwait or Saudi Arabia--an out-and-out dependency on U.S. imperialism. That is the real reason that the U.S. government fears a complete disengagement from Iraq and an end to its military occupation. 3 Israel’s Siege of Gaza remains in place, with the full backing of Washington. The U.S. government has continued to fund Israel’s war and blockade against the people of Gaza. The Pentagon provided the funding, and technical and logistical support for the establishment of the Israeli war machine, including its massive cluster and white phosphorous bomb arsenal, and the country’s large cache of nuclear bombs. 4 The new Justice Department has announced that it will continue the policy of renditions, meaning the CIA and Pentagon will capture and kidnap individuals anywhere in the world and transfer them to other countries. “The Obama administration appears to have determined that the rendition program was one component of the Bush administration's war on terrorism that it could not afford to discard.” (LA Times, Feb. 1, 2009) 5 The new administration has stepped up the air strikes that are killing an increasingly large number of Pakistani civilians. Unmanned drone bombing attacks violate Pakistani sovereignty and are creating
Costa Rica a prototypical Western Democracy
PUERTO JIMINEZ, CR- Touring Costa Rica has been interesting. Considering the turmoil of Central America, it may be a shining example of a functional Capitalist Democracy. It´s got a healthy middle class and a relatively contented populace. Can it offer a lesson to its strife torn neighbors? Sure. Get rid of the Indios. Citizens of the "Rich Coast" pride themselves on being light skinned, owing to a Spanish heritage of course. They´re the descendants of settlers, mixed some with labor imports from the Caribbean. But the indigenous people are gone. Which makes for scarce land redistribution demands. When Columbus first came to Costa Rica, there were 400,000 inhabitants. When they saw that the Spaniards were enslaving whoever they conquered, the tribes hid in the mountains. As a result, Costa wasn´t properly subjugated like elsewhere. The Spanish didn´t want land that didn´t come with ready slave labor. But hiding didn´t save the indians. As the Spanish settled the land, the original population dwindled, to 10%, then 2% within 200 years. They are, as Randy Newman sang it: "Gone, real gone." There is an inspiring history to Costa Rica´s present relatively egalitarian government, and I´m going to write more about some of their laudable leaders. But I have to argue that CR smacks of US artifice. And lo, even as I cringe at the camo themed souvenir caps that remind me of the Contras, it turns out Oliver North operated his Contra army and drug smuggling operation out of an airfield in northern Costa Rica. There´s a surfing destination near there called Ollie´s Point, named after the would be filibuster himself. Those apolitical surfer fucks. (It is hard to surpress disdain for the hard-recreating American asses despoiling CR toilet paper. I cannot bear their vibes of inutile indifference.) So the Costa Ricans are less Central Americans than good old Americans. And that never meant Native American.
Obama delivers Bush 3rd inaugural address
What did Barack Obama say at this morning's inauguration that Bush hasn't said in shorter mouthfuls? Obama brought up the Goddamn War On Terror, without labeling it "so-called," and aimed at the usual suspect evildoers. And he's embraced Neoliberal Globalization like it's cod liver oil. Not only that, apparently America is unrepentant. Also, bring it on. "Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. ... "We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you." On the subject of our economy, Obama wants to sidestep the rampant corruption and lay the blame on the American people's resistance to globalization: "Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age." Then he wants to pick fights with the Third World which dares criticize the legacy of colonialism and ongoing oppression of globalism. Pitting their meager voices against the resources of world banking: To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. Elaborating on what help the West offers: To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; Can that be anything other than a plug for big agra, and the international privatization of water? But mostly Barack Obama's theme was Kennedy's and Bush's, ask not what your country can do for you, yada yada. How dare he? Millions of us contribute our efforts, our dollars, which they are still soliciting, to put Obama in office, and he has the nerve, in his inaugural address to call upon the American people for sacrifice. It's up to them, us, to bring change. He's got a paycheck now, his friends and colleagues have jobs, it's time for them to snap to. They've been sent to Washington, not to tell us they're going to be stymied, that they've got to compromise with the corporate right, but to say Yes We Can. And they better Goddamn do it. There is no consensus to reach on health care, or the environment, or war. Compromise with immorality is like cheating a little, or stealing a little. What I wanted to hear from Obama, is "yes I can, yes I will, thank you America, now I'm going to deliver for you."
Israel-USA use Hamas as shields to kill Palestinian children
Here we go again with that typical Pentagon argument that the official enemy of the minute is supposedly hiding behind civilians. Israel shells near UN school, killing at least 30 This is what Israeli propagandists have to say about that... 'The Israeli army said its soldiers came under fire from militants hiding in the school and responded. It accused Gaza's Hamas rulers of "cynically" using civilians as human shields.' What a threadbare argument for killing civilians with heavy fire, and the US government uses this excuse all the time for its Murder Incorporated policies around the globe. How many times has the Pentagon dropped bombs on schools, mosques, and wedding parties, and then denied it or used the above excuse? More times than I can count. Israel-USA are a group of terrorists and most all of the citizens of both countries are apologists for their government's continual use of terrorism on civilian populations. That is what colonialism, 'neo' or not always leads to. We need to open our voices, increase our public visibility in our opposition to the latest US terrorism underway via a US government client state. We need to wake up and realize that we are not governed by a democracy, but rather by a corporate dictatorship that has become, Murder Incorporated. We live under the rule of State Terrorists. Barack Obama is merely a new gargoyle that heads this regime.
Putin once again to the US and Europe- ‘Fuck you, you are not going to turn Russia into a Third World rape victim!’
Russia-Ukraine gas talks collapse --like when the US tried to pull off its little con game using Georgia to bomb South Ossetia. Vladimir Putin has responded to the US and its Klan of Western European allies, that Russia will not be dragged further into the Third World by capitalist imperialism. That's what it's all about, too, as both the former Chinese and Russian 'socialist' bureaucrats were promised full partnerships in the imperialist capitalist world if only they would tag along quietly behind the US and its world allies. Instead, the Pentagon has been trying to push both countries backwards and not forwards. The USA government has been having its own way for the last three decades doing it, too. Colonialism 101 is something that the former 'Marxist-Leninist buffoons running China and the Soviet Union back then never learned for themselves, let alone taught to others in their pantomime of playing 'Great Helmsmen' cartoon roles for the world public. Both Russia and China drifted away from internationalism and solidarity with the oppressed of the poorer and exploited Third World masses of destitute laborers, and instead began to ape assholes like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in their politics. They wanted their places on the big table alongside their capitalist associates of Great Britain and the US, Germany, France, and Japan. The dummies were conned, and Putin is quite aware of that by now. Further, he understands Peak Oil is a reality, as well as Peak Gas. In his words, 'Cheap Energy' is over for you guys, and now we're not just going to sit by and let you pillage everything from our country, Russia. Sadly, our own US 'leaders', from Obama to Clinton to Bush to all of the schmucks up there are nothing but criminal robbers and murderers, and world war is soon in the cards if the common folk don't begin to wise up in the US and Britain, Germany, France, and Japan quite soon. Not to mention the utter ecological destruction of our planet in the cards for all of us quite soon, too, if we continue to fail to act. That picture is of the university in Gaza being bombed by the US... Oh, I meant Israel. Sorry.... Happy New Year.
Zebulon Pike was an Illegal Alien (In the No Hater Zone)
posted this on Craigslist... Date: 2008-05-25, 1:31AM MDT Just to remind people, since the Old Colorado City Territory Days celebration of colonialism and Imperialism is going on... Young Lieutenant Pike, and his merry crew of saboteurs, spies and setup crew for the eventual Yanqui invasion, came to Colorado when it was SPANISH territory. Not that the Spanish had actually asked permission when they took over, but hey, according to the "Well, Illegal Immigration is against the Law, so the Immigrants are Felons" argument should apply equally, yes? Pike and his crew encountered troops (the Spanish version of I.C.E., Da Fuzz, cops, whatever, but they had at least paper title to be here, and Pike didn't) and did what any Honest, True, Red Blooded American Officer and Gentleman would do... he lied his ass off. Said he was lost. Never mind the surveying equipments, wagonload of freshly drawn and annotated MAPS, and Native guides who knew damned well which invading force was occupying the Springs at the time. Heavens no, it's not like a Mapping Expedition (into a foreign country no less) could possibly know where in Hell they're located. I wrote this just to remind all you sissy ass, titty baby fearful wannabe terrorists who have been crying and bitching and snivelling about somebody actually having a darker complexion or speaking with an accent, or in a different language, actually sharing YOUR personal universe, of which, no doubt, you racist Hate Freaks own every cubic inch... To remind you that your own titty-baby whining arguments can be used against you as well. If you want to live in America, learn the damn language... in this area the languages are Cheyenne, Blackfoot, Lakota, Uintah and Athapascan (Apache and Navajo), and those are just the largest language groups. You freaks who want to impose "English ONLY" are also insisting that we of the Native Persuasion not be allowed to speak OUR languages, and even in our own homes. Your leaders actually do say exactly that. Because (so they claim) speaking in a non-English "foreign" language like Cherokee would "hold the children back when they go to school and later when they join the Slave Labor Forces" I should clarify that, Cherokee isn't actually a language, it's a dialect of Muskogeean. Those of you who cry and snivel the longest and most fervently about "wetbacks" not speaking English well, (I've noticed) don't bother to learn to actually read and write or even speak English FLUENTLY yourselves... and it's the only language you ever learned. I realize that you sissies will spend hours of your time debating a phantom issue, you're very good at that game. I'm personally not going to even read your insignificant ignorant replies to this post. You'll be screaming (figuratively speaking), Ranting, insulting, calling me a LiberalIntellectualCommiePinkoNiggerLovingFagJewBoy or whatever, and either challenging me to a fist fight (I would win) or threatening to kill me and my entire family. I'm used to such childish threats and tantrums. Get over it. Location: In
Israeli army evicting Palestinian orphans
This news just in from the Christian Peacemaker Teams in Hebron: "Thursday 10/4 -Update: This morning Israeli Military soldiers came to the girls orphanage, took some inventory of supplies, and announced that the girls have to be out of the orphanage by Sunday. There is no decision given yet by the Israeli High Court whether the orphanages and schools have to be closed. We will keep you posted. -Mary Anne" PRESS RELEASE - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Art Arbour, JoAnne Lingle Hebron Orphanages Press Conference 8 April 2008 HEBRON The Popular Committee for Supporting the Orphanages hosted a press conference, on Monday, April 7th, at the Hebron Girls Orphanage with approximately 70 attending, including independent media, internationals, and clergy. The Israeli Military has given orders to shut down the orphanages and schools run by the Islamic Charitable Society by 7 April. The lawyer representing the Islamic Charitable Societies spoke of the invaluable work of serving 2,500 children, 240 of them orphans, aiding an additional 4,000 students and 5,000 needy families, running a dairy and 2 bakeries, a warehouse and 4 small store fronts which serve the schools and orphanages of the Hebron area. The warehouse, bakeries and the storefronts were raided on 6 March 2008. The Israeli Military confiscated food, clothing, school supplies, refrigerators and 2 buses worth $300,000. The lawyer also spoke of how the monies donated to support the orphanages and schools are accounted for and audited by certified public accountants and monitored by the Palestinian Authority. The books are open to audit by the Israeli Government as well. Twenty percent of the monies donated come from the Hebron local community. The other eighty percent come from Europe and the US and Middle East countries. The Islamic Charitable Society is highly respected by locals, NGO's, and other reputable organizations such as Catholic Charities. During the conference Rabbi Arik Ascherman, of Rabbis for Human Rights, spoke to the press conference by speaker phone, saying that under Jewish law there must be evidence brought before the court and that there must be witnesses to that evidence. Even in the name of security, this closure is not warranted, as the Islamic Charitable Society has threatened no human life. Members of CPT and other internationals slept at the orphanages to accompany, and to document any possible incursion by the Israeli Military; however by midnight of 7 April, the attorney for the Israeli Military had asked for an extension of time to prepare and submit to the court a full justification for the closures of the schools and orphanages.
How to win the war in Iraq
How to win in Iraq depends on your objectives. With respect to oil and profiteering, US interests could not be better served. If we want to eradicate the Iraqi population, follow the Israel model in Palestine, or Westward expansion versus the Native Americans. Genocide.
The United Nations starves the poor in Haiti
What a pathetic spectacle, the great supposed defender of all humanity, all nations, and respecter of human rights everywhere... the United Nations... has its military now defending the national palace of a US installed group of thugs in Haiti. Yes, defending these thugs against the Haitian people who are demanding food and freedom from starvation. This is what US control over the United Nations Security Council has led to. See Hungry mob attacks Haiti palace Still, most all US liberals seem to continue to hold some sort of religious belief that the United Nations is some sort of Great and Good Daddy. Liberals have to be some of the most backward, uneducated, and misled types around. Don' they get it? The United Nations is the grand leader of colonialism these days. Surprised? Well why on earth? That's what destroyed the League of Nations, and it is destroying the US run United Nations, too. Get these sorry ass United Nations troops out of Haiti, get them out of Afghanistan, and get them out of Iraq and all the other myriad places the US government leads them into occupying. The United Nations today is no solution to the problems the world faces, but is instead part of the overall problem. This is a 'world' governmental body that needs to be dissolved NOW, and not reconstructed in any way even remotely close to the way the current UN is structured at this time. The UN is not now democracy in action, but imperialism, totalitarianism, and the rule of the rich over the poor in power. Liberals get over it! You should be calling for getting the United Nations out of countries, dissolving it, and never ever supporting the damn organization. Wake up and see the new situation today, because you sure aren't battling the old John Birch Society back in the '50s and '60s any more! The United Nations simply is not a human rights organization in the least, and the Catholic Church would be easier to 'reform' than the UN. Stop being so stupid by defending this organization.
CENTCOM is central command of what?
As the invasion of Iraq progressed, I remember constant references to CENTCOM. Journalists would receive their briefings from CentCom, a tent in Kuwait by all appearances. I thought CentCom represented central military communications there, a safe spot behind our lines where generals could command artillery, logistics, etc. Learning about the newly formed AFRICOM and the established EUROCOM, each beachhead assertions of US superpower control over world regions, I have to revisit US CENTRAL COMMAND for what it is, and its terribly telling dominion. Central? By the emblem I see you don't mean the time zone. You are not talking about defense of the American Midwest. Do you really mean to refer to the Middle East, including its extended oil producing nations, as the center of your realms to command? I'd sooner concede to American ethnocentrism than to Judeo-Christian pre-occupation with Jerusalem, sooner than hold Mecca in the center cross-hairs of our bomb sights. I'm happy to report there are currently no eager takers for Bush's announced AFRICOM, command central for our extraction-industry ambitions on that continent. After Bin Laden's loudly felt complaint about the US unholy presence in Saudi Arabia, CENTCOM facilities had to be moved further from Mecca, to the crony dictator states of Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and the UAE. The US Central Command assets include many military bases and undisclosed "weapon pre-positioning sites," six of which have been revealed to be located in Israel.