John Pilger: Gaza flotilla is one of most important direct actions of our lifetime

Free Gaza Freedom Flotilla flagship leaves Ireland for Gaza
Still waiting for aerial photos of MV Rachel Corrie leaving Ireland for the Mediterranean. Feel like you’re missing out? This quote from Journalist-superstar John Pilger won’t help: “The Freedom Flotilla is one of the most important direct actions of my lifetime. With its desperately-needed supplies and range of people from all over the world, representing sheer human decency, it sends a message of disgust to Gaza’s oppressor and, above all, reaches out unreservedly to the people of Gaza.” –John Pilger, 8 May 2010

Besides releasing the photo above, the latest update from the Rachel Corrie came at GMT 14:23 today, reported by @FreeGazaOrg:

Leaving the coast of Ireland on her way around the bottom of England. All is well, weather is excellent

The Israeli press is beating the war drum against the convoy’s arrival, lampooning the would-be Gaza rescuers as International Peace Schlamazels.

On the seas, the Ma’an News Agency echos reports of preparations Israel is undertaking to battle the relief convoy:

“About half of the Israeli naval forces will participate in an operation that was approved by the cabinet. [Israeli] Defense Minister Ehud Barak will supervise the operation,” an Israeli official told the Arabic-language satellite TV station Al-Hurra.

An Israeli security source told Ma’an that authorities will prevent the arrival of the boats “at any price.”

This lead Freedom Flotilla followers on Twitter to strategize that if the Free Gaza blockage runners could double their numbers, the Israeli navy would be forced to deploy ITS FULL FORCE to maintain the siege. A marginal increase in the convoy size would thus prove a bigger flotilla than Israel could repel!

Naval Siege of GazaMeanwhile Israeli border patrol gunships continue to strafe Palestinian fishing boats.

UPDATE: Noam Chomsky, just denied entry into the West Bank, sends best wishes to the Freedom Flotilla:

“I have been deeply impressed with the courageous and honorable efforts to break through the savage and criminal siege of Gaza, utterly lacking in credible pretext, designed to crush any hope of meaningful Palestinian independence. My best wishes for your success in this critically important undertaking, which I hope will also help to awaken the consciousness of the world.” — Noam Chomsky, 10 May 2010

Daily KOS says: you support, we decide

DAILY KOS - you support, we presideFuck Markos Moulitsas and the Miniature Lipizzaner he rode in on. KOS calls for deposing Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich because he won’t hang with the corporatist Dems on the health insurance mandate reform/bailout. The Daily KOS plays centrist whip, but this pronouncement is beyond tinpottiness. Hopefully Markos will be shown what a Public Option can mean on a blog.

What did KOS think of Kucinich forcing the majority party to take ownership of the American murder spree in Afghanistan?! (Here’s the list of those who rejected both party lines, Republicans are in bold: Baldwin, Campbell, Capuano, Chu, Clarke, Clay, Cleaver, Crowley, Davis (IL), DeFazio, Doyle, Duncan, Edwards (MD), Ellison, Farr, Filner, Frank (MA), Grayson, Grijalva, Gutierrez, Hastings (FL), Jackson (IL), Jackson Lee (TX), Johnson (IL), Johnson (E. B.), Jones, Kagen, Kucinich, Larson (CT), Lee (CA), Lewis (GA), Maffei, Maloney, Markey (MA), McDermott, McGovern, Michaud (Maine), Miller (George), Nadler (NY), Napolitano, Neal (MA), Obey, Olver, Paul, Payne, Pingree (Maine), Polis (CO), Quigley, Rangel, Richardson, Sánchez (Linda T.), Sanchez (Loretta), Schakowsky, Serrano, Speier, Stark, Stupak, Tierney, Towns, Tsongas, Velázquez, Waters, Watson, Welch, Woolsey)

I have my own qualms about Kucinich, he keeps the real Left sucked into concentric electoral circles. Activated voters who should be pushing for a third party are corralled by Kucinich types to hold their breath for the so-called party of the people to represent real people. I’d like to see Kucinich leave the Dems, and I’d like to see the Democrats fool enough to boot him of their own accord. They can’t quit Lieberman but they’d dump on Kucinich. What transparency we’d see then.

Hearing that call coming from the internet however, from the closest thing Americans have for representatives, our democratically followed Twitter sages, won’t do. When dumping Kucinich pretends to poll from the internet, we need to hoist those asses on their monetized petards.

Viva Palestina standoff with riot police

viva palestina riot police egypt
CONTACT YOUR MEDIA OUTLETS TO COVER THE BREAKING NEWS!
Following reports that Egyptian authorities want the convoy to proceed under cover of night, Viva Palestina’s Juana Jaafar reports Egyptian authorities have brought police in riot gear and a water canon — “Shit la the jangguts nak tunjuk hero pulak. Bangang ah!” Zubwe Hatia, Joti Brar, Peter Jones, P. O’Neill, and Abu’Safiyyah tweet from the convoy. Ahmed Fadel from Gaza. Or check Twitter VP3 list.

FROM JOTI: 20:20 GMT
“Full-on battles between convoy boys and Egyptian riot cops. Tear gas, water cannons, rocks throwing.”

If the confrontation worsens, look for updates from reporters on the scene: Lina Attalah and Jano Charbel, relaying through Hossam el-Hamalawy and Cleopatra in Cairo.

From whence shines that Bat Signal?

iran bat signalIt’s a droll cartoon, calling Twitter to the rescue. But I believe MARSDEN got the metropolis wrong. It’s Paris, London or Amsterdam, and French and English diplomats are in an Iranian court today because Tehran suspects the Green Revolutionists are being stirred up from points international.

The telecommunications companies could clear this up, if they weren’t themselves eager to reform Iran’s economy to favor capitalism unfettered by Islamic morality.

The US antiwar community in particular is split on whether to play along with the charade. Secular freedoms are good, but are there real verifiable indications that Iran’s populace wants them? On the one side, the Campaign for Peace and Democracy is cracking the whip to keep the usual pacifists in line. They’ve issued talking points to refute criticisms that the CPD effort in Pax Americana disguised.

Here are their straw questions:

1. Was the June 12, 2009 election fair?

2. Isn’t it true that the Guardian Council is indirectly elected by the Iranian people?

3. Was there fraud, and was it on a scale to alter the outcome?

4. Didn’t a poll conducted by U.S.-based organizations conclude that Ahmadinejad won the election?

5. Didn’t Ahmadinejad get lots of votes from conservative religious Iranians among the rural population and the urban poor? Might not these votes have been enough to overwhelm his opponents?

6. Hasn’t the U.S. (and Israel) been interfering in Iran and promoting regime change, including by means of supporting all sorts of “pro-democracy” groups?

7. Has the Western media been biased against the Iranian government?

8. Is Mousavi a leftist? A neoliberal? What is the relation between Mousavi and the demonstrators in the streets?

9. Is Ahmadinejad good for world anti-imperialism?

10. Is Ahmadinejad more progressive than his opponents in terms of social and economic policy? Is he a champion of the Iranian poor?

11. What do we want the U.S. government to do about the current situation in Iran?

12. What should we do about the current situation in Iran?

13. Is it right to advocate a different form of government in Iran?

The response to question one is amusing:

1. Was the June 12, 2009 election fair?

Even if every vote was counted fairly, this was not a fair election. 475 people wished to run for president, but the un-elected Guardian Council, which vets all candidates for supposed conformity to Islamic principles, rejected all but 4.

Free elections also require free press, free expression, and freedom to organize, all of which have been severely curtailed.”

Now, can they say the exact same thing about US elections? But they haven’t, nor have the CPD addressed Peace and Democracy issues anywhere but Iran.

Taking the admittedly lonely side is the Monthly Review, where academic Edward Herman can easily parry the CPD’s rationalizations.

Didn’t it used to be illegal to spend government monies to propagandize the American public? Someone wants a war with Iran, and their using do-gooder grass-roots to sell it.

Who killed Neda Agha-Soltan?

neda soltaniThe video footage is shocking. An attractive young woman watching the demonstrations in Tehran is struck by a sniper’s bullet and dies before several video cameras. The tragedy is projected unto Facebook and Youtube, with advocates hoping it will galvanize (American) public support for the brave reform movement in Iran. News accounts blame “Basij snipers” on the rooftops. Other protesters have been killed in confrontations with Iranian riot police, without the benefit of video witnesses, much like two million Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis et al. Poor 27-year-old bystander Neda Soltani stood at the quite improbable convergence of bullet and camera –correction– cameras. I don’t have to suggest the scene was staged; whether or not the triggerman was an American is immaterial.

Think about just the improbability of your seeing this video. When was the last time the mainstream press has circulated a snuff film? The average person is embarrassed to watch a person die. It’s exploitive. Even when America was fixated on beheaded hostages, our television gatekeepers refused to broadcast the footage. Many horrific war killing moments have found their way unto Youtube, which antiwar activists could only hope would find wider distribution, if only to bring home the inhumanity of our soldiers’ deeds. It never happens.

The western press is running with this story because it demonizes the apparently naked inhumanity of Islam. Muslims stone women, hang gays, look: the bastards shoot their own people arbitrarily. Curiously our media doesn’t make hay with the hapless victims of US snipers.

neda salehi agha soltanThe Neda Soltani snuff footage hit internet shores prepackaged with a smiling mug, and a name that translated means “the voice.” Could a casting director have picked a better title character to represent Iran’s repressed? The western press is even poised to outdo the Muslims in indignant piety, already lauding Neda as a martyr, whom we are informed should launch a thousand Shiite funeral processions. Western pundits compare Neda to the first Shiite martyr, the grandson of Mohammed himself.

Of course, also showing excessive Islamic sensitivity, western reporters readily dismiss the vanishing of Neda’s body, to the Muslim tradition of hasty burials. For the record, in case you missed it, Neda dies onscreen from an apparent gunshot. We do not see the bullet strike, nor now can anyone habeas corpus.

If the scenario was acted entirely, given the success with which the girl’s face is being made into an icon, young Neda’s life is probably as utterly expendable now as already depicted. You think you’re mourning Neda now, imagine her fate if this is a hoax.

OR the gunman could just as well have been a US black-op hit-man who had his eye on the videographers approaching innocent Neda. The US military has long admitted that special forces are already operating in Iran. If the Iranian forces are shooting civilian protesters, what’s the harm of helping them out where there’s a camera ready?

When we’re not meant to see it, the soldiers shoot the cameramen too.

It could be the work of Moussavi henchmen, who are our henchmen.

The Green Revolution, or TwitterTM Revolution, rebranded a “Social Media Revolution,” is a fabrication of the US pro-democracy agents working to destabilize Iran. They are hard at work in Cuba, in Venezuela, in Bolivia, and everywhere regimes threaten US globalization by enslavement. Remember the Orange Revolution? Any movement that is color-coded is the work of organizers reading US how-to manuals or attending OTPOR training seminars.

Where are the international voices decrying election fraud in Iran? No one other than the US and its stooges is asserting that populist leader Ahmadinejad did not win by a landslide. Only Iran’s urban middle class has taken to the streets of Tehran. And to protest what? Their minority standing in Iran?

The reformists in Iran are protesting democracy, not the failure of democracy. They are protesting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s hard line against irreligious western economic and colonial policies which traditionally benefit the secular urban elite. “Pro-Democracy” is neoliberal for pro-capitalist plunder.

See: Shah’s Son Backs Iranian Protesters.

Like the “dissidents” of Cuba, the Green greenback-seekers are marching on the CIA’s dime, and being meted the fate of foreign provocateurs. I have no doubt the majority are idealists and are well-intended, but like the Kurds who rose against Saddam Hussein, the US has set them up for slaughter, the sooner to motivate western support for military aggression against their evil regime.

Our media pundits point out that the protest banners are written in English, a sign that the Iranians are desperate to appeal to American viewers. They dismiss Iranian accusations of the demonstrations being US-backed as pure paranoia, and ignore the most simple explanation behind the English slogans, and the websites and networks amplifying the message to English speakers: these materials are being crafted by USAID advisers. This is a propaganda campaign aimed at Western ears, to call for regime change in Iran.

Neda’s Theme is tried and true: Jessica Lynch, Roxana Saberi, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, Neda Salehi Agha Soltan. Onward Christian Soldiers.

Neda Agha Soltan iranian martyr victim of US sniperThe American public won’t believe another fiction about Kuwaiti babies dumped from incubators, or of Belgian children impaled on the bayonets of the evil Hun. So Madison Avenue has upped the amperage. Today’s television armchair adjudicators have to see innocent young women snuffed on film before our eyes. Provided to us by a press too otherwise prurient to show us the mass of death we deal everyday.

The Iranians in the streets, and poor pretty Neda, are being sacrificed by heartless US strategists. I doubt even an errant Iranian bullet can match the American military for cruelty.

Those Mexican Swine

Paula Dean spokeswomanThey’re blaming the Mexicans, or pigs, but the wrong pigs. Pork industry spokespeople are trying to take the focus off the large factory hog farms operated by Smithfield Foods in the vicinity of La Gloria, MX, where the outbreak started. Smithfield is the largest supplier of US pork.

BTW You can track H1N1 Swine Flu developments via Veratect on Twitter. Keep in mind Veratect is a government intelligence corporation.

“According to state agents of the Mexican social security institute, the vector of this outbreak are the clouds of flies that come out of the hog barns, and the waste lagoons into which the Mexican-US company spews tons of excrement” -La Jornada, Mexico City.

Swine Flu is no communicable via the consumption of pork. In fact, according to Smithfield, no hogs have been diagnosed with the disease. Although we have only their word on that. The hogs may be asymptomatic. But the pork industry, and I’m guessing the major players, primarily Smithfield, are too big to fail, and are doing what they can to have broadcasters and public officials come up with another name for Swine Flu.

But I’m not sure we shouldn’t be scrutinizing the swine from the vicinity of a Swine Flu outbreak. It’s not the Poor Hapless Mexican Flu for example. Does Smithfield think its swine do not stink?

You can’t get Swine Flu by eating pork, but you can chose not to consume the products which keep the industrial “confined animal feeding operations” (CAFOs) in business. In this particular case, Smithfield Foods subsidiary Granjas Carroll in Veracuz, Mexico. Smithfield is “the leading processor and marketer of fresh pork and packaged meats in the United States, as well as the largest producer of hogs,” and has issued a formal denial of any Swine Flu link to its facilities.

If you are inclined to pass, for now, on Smithfield pork products, the domestic brands are John Morrell & Co., Armour-Eckrich Meats (Armour, Eckrich, LunchMakers, Healthy Ones, Margherita, Mayrose, Schickhaus, Corando), Curly’s Foods, Patrick Cudahy (Riojano/El Nino), Farmland Foods, Cook’s Ham, North Side Foods Corp., Stefano Foods, and Smithfield RMH Foods.

Less easy to see are Smithfield’s supply lines to restaurants. Smithfield provides the ham products to McDonalds and Subway.

The Big-Agra corporations involved are The Smithfield Packing Company, Cumberland Gap Provision Co., and Smithfield Specialty Foods Group, represented by porcine spokeswoman Paula Dean.

Maybe Ms. Dean wants to take her Porky Pig empathy embodiment act a step further, to lead a sun-less existence of a factory farm inmate.