What is an observer state, anyway? A quick lesson on the statehood bid | The Electronic Intifada

What is an observer state, anyway? A quick lesson on the statehood bid | The Electronic Intifada

Rights groups launch petition to thank Stevie Wonder for canceling Israel army benefit gig

Rights groups launch petition to thank Stevie Wonder for canceling Israel army benefit gig
Palestinian rights activists have welcomed a decision by Stevie Wonder to cancel a scheduled 6 December performance at a Los Angeles fundraiser for Friends of the IDF (FIDF), an organization that raises money for the Israeli army.

Iraq Bloodbath: 54 Killed, 237 Wounded in Attacks against Shi’ite Pilgrims and Security Forces -- Antiwar.com

Iraq Bloodbath: 54 Killed, 237 Wounded in Attacks against Shi’ite Pilgrims and Security Forces -- Antiwar.com
Smells like the Salafi or Wahabi extremist to me. check the link above. 

You Think You're Getting Social Security But You're Not, Says Multimillionaire Banker

You Think You're Getting Social Security But You're Not, Says Multimillionaire Banker
It's maddening, isn't it, when someone who obviously knows exactly what needs to be done insists on being so coy about it? Luckily, Blankfein did offer some specifics on one of those things that we think we're going to get, and aren't:

And you can go back and you can look at the history of these things, and Social Security wasn't devised to be a system that supported you for a 30-year retirement after a 25-year career. So there will be certain things that the retirement age has to be changed, maybe some of the benefits have to be affected, maybe some of the inflation adjustments have to be revised.

Huh. So Blankfein–who was paid $16 million last year, and owns $210 million worth of his company's stock–thinks that people can retire on Social Security after working for 25 years? As Gene Lyons pointed out, that would mean that people are getting their first paychecks when they're 42–or, assuming they're willing to take the severe benefit cuts that come with early retirement, at 37. Or possibly he mistakenly believes Social Security allows you to retire at 41.
He also thinks people typically live to be 92 or 97, depending. In real life, of course, most people start working as early as 16, so they reach retirement age after 51 years of labor, when they have a life expectancy of 17 years–or 14 years if they're an African-American man.

Black Friday: American Wage Slaves Fight Over Chinese Slave Goods

Black Friday: American Wage Slaves Fight Over Chinese Slave Goods
November 26, 2012 "Information Clearing House" - How does it make you feel when you see people fight like animals – over something like a new iPhone5 or Samsung Galaxy mobile phone?

You can tell the health of the tree by the quality of its fruits. America, as is evidenced by this week’s annual materialistic ritual known as ‘Black Friday’, has produced this particularly rotten fruit, consistently. It’s getting way too predictable for our liking.

Fire Kills 112 Workers Making Clothes for US Brands

Fire Kills 112 Workers Making Clothes for US Brands
November 26, 2012 "ABC" -- The 100-plus workers who died in a fire late Saturday at a high-rise garment factory in Bangladesh were working overtime making clothes for major American retailers, including Wal-Mart, according to workers' rights groups. 

From under the bombs: our catastrophe and our hope in Gaza | The Electronic Intifada

From under the bombs: our catastrophe and our hope in Gaza | The Electronic Intifada
Since the beginning of Israel’s “Operation Pillar of Defence,” the number of Palestinians killed or injured has risen dramatically. How harsh, I feel, to use the word “number” since we are not actually mere numbers, but very tragic, heartbreaking and harrowing stories.

My aunt lives in al-Bureij refugee camp in the center of the Gaza Strip, not far away from where I live in Deir al-Balah. Her house was bombed many times during Israel’s 2008-09 attacks on Gaza and is still a very possible target for the Israeli air strikes.

The actual target is her brother-in-law who now has taken Ahmad Jabari’s place as a new commander in Hamas’s military wing. For the sake of their target, Israeli F-16s couldn’t care less when they kill children, women or the elderly or to destroy a five-story building even if they know that “the wanted man” doesn’t stay with his wife and children in this home.

We heard a very loud explosion in al-Bureij and swiftly we called my aunt who was barely able to speak to check on her safety. The blast was in her neighbour’s house and the victim this time is a one-year-old baby Eyad Abu Khusa. Though she has refused to leave her house since the start of this ongoing assault, she, along with her two sons, came today to stay with us after the repeated bombardment of al-Bureij.
No shelter is safe

Another aunt left her house in Rafah and brought her two daughters saying “she doesn’t wish to die away from her parents and brothers.” Both aunts, along with us, thought that our area might be a “safer one.” But what is a “safer place” when everyone is a possible target? When the whole strip is a bare land to the Israeli reconnaissance aircrafts?

Ironically, my aunts were welcomed by the most piercing blast we ever heard and we all witnessed the black smoke very close to us, the same moment we were speaking about the “safer place”. We knew later that it was the warplane Hamas declared it had downed. No shelter in Gaza is safe. I realize it is our instinctive human nature that we tend to grab a hold of our loved ones, keep them near and hold them tight such times. This, as it happens, is what might give us a sense of safety — we think.

Since the morning, the killing of Tamer al-Hemry, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad member, a vast rage and anger at Israel has been stoked in Deir al-Balah. Though Tamer, 25-years-old, was involved in armed resistance, he was not involved in militant tasks or firing rockets when he was assassinated.

The Israeli jet located him by calling him on his cell-phone, which he answered, and hit him before he could escape death. Al-Hemry was a neighbor and relative and his funeral was held right in front of my front door.

Whenever someone has been martyred, we can hear everywhere unfaltering calls from mosques emboldening people and encouraging them to keep their patience, steadfastness and resistance high. That dreary day, since the first hours of the day, a very close mosque has been asking people to come and pray over the martyr. Hundreds of townsmen did so, accompanied by photographers and buses bringing people from other places.

Radio-frequency amplifiers were transmitting religious and revolutionary songs all over the street. Though the number of mourners was really prodigious, people were conscious that Israel might, at any moment, bomb the funeral, as it in point of fact did on the first day of the offensive.

People have learned not to trust the occupier’s forces. There has been a general sentiment not to gather in large numbers. For Israel has repeated its vicious tactic of bombing a place, waiting five minutes, as people will gather to help and carry the victims — then it will hit the same place again to score more deaths. What a continuous process Israel is applying to dehumanize the people of Gaza.
Election bill

We have been asking ourselves why we always have to pay the bill of the Israeli elections. Honestly, we didn’t expect that this latest onslaught would keep escalating. Our catastrophe is shown to the world allowing it to happen again.

As I am writing these lines, the house is shaking from a huge explosion nearby. Looking from the window, darkness is all over the place as there is a blackout. I am using the UPS backup power supply, which not all people here have and even this device doesn’t last for long.

Now the UPS battery died and I have no net connection so I have to wait till I have electricity to resume writing this. The streets are completely deserted. Over the previous days, we have been forcefully listening to either explosions or ambulance sirens from the land or the relentless piercing sound of the drones, which are filling — literally filling — the sky of Gaza. Most of the time both sounds go together.

Tonight there is very heavy artillery shelling with the sound of drones rising higher. Have you ever imagined living with this noise day and night? It doesn’t stop. The whole situation is heartbreaking as Israel pounds the Gaza Strip from air and sea.

A deep tragic sense of déjà vu is conveyed by the events unfolding in Gaza and the Israeli escalation of violence directed at the defenseless population of Gaza. Our memory recalls the moment on 4 January 2009 when Israeli soldiers invaded the Zaytoun area south of Gaza City.
Another outrageous massacre

Twenty-one family members were killed and 19 injured in the shelling of just one house belonging to the Samouni family. Nine of the dead were children and the youngest was a baby of just six months. This evening, an Israel F-16 jet bombed the home of al-Dalou family and committed another outrageous massacre, wiping out a whole family. Twelve members of the same family were killed, including five children and three women, marking this Sunday as the deadliest day of the current attacks on the Gaza Strip.

People in Gaza usually listen to local radio and TV stations especially in these circumstances. From the beginning of the attacks, Israel has hacked many local radio stations, along with the leaflets Israeli forces drop over Gaza, to transmit and circulate trepidation among the people.

Lately even media centers have been targeted as Israeli aircraft fired missiles at al-Shawa Hosary residential building, where most media broadcasting channels were located, and destroyed the local Hamas station al-Aqsa TV, as part of its psychological warfare. Since the inception of this war, we have been receiving calls from Israel to help in giving information about the resistance “terrorists.” In the last two days, we have got more threatening calls telling us to leave our houses because they’ll bomb it, but they don’t. Their aim is to spread panic and to terrorize people.
Attack on my family

At 7am on 19 November, two people from my extended family and a neighbor were hit by an Israeli missile. All three (Tamer, Amin and Rashid) were martyred at once.

It was Amin’s birthday.

Charred, shrunken and torn into pieces, piled up upon one another as they were covered by their white coffin shrouds. The three weren’t going to fire rockets on Israel, they weren’t going to kill Israeli children or women or even soldiers. They hadn’t got weapons, they were not “terrorists.”

I knew two of my relatives Tamer and Amin personally and am certain that they had never been involved in armed resistance. The three were farmers who grew tomatoes on their land — this was their work. Their van was open and the Israeli jet, with its high technology, could easily recognize the tomatoes in the back.

It hit them with a missile that not only killed them, but terribly deformed their figures. Nothing happened to the tomatoes because they were not the target.

Through their high level of technology and an expertise in killing, the computerized missile wasn’t dropped vertically as you might imagine, but from the side direction to penetrate the front door and kill the three sitting beside each other. It is only the front part of the van, which is completely destroyed, but the back part is intact.

Tamer and Amin were cousins who were 32 and 40 years old respectively. Tamer had two sons and one daughter; Amin had two daughters. All children are less than eight years old. We went to Tamer and Amin’s house where hundreds of people gathered — relatives and otherwise, old and young, men and women.

Their mother was bawling, their wives fainted many times; their aunts were running after their funeral and their children were standing shocked with no expressions on their faces as if they were in denial or as if they couldn’t fathom what was going on as the tragic loss of their father was something beyond their comprehension.

Tamer’s father is, until now, in the hospital. One daughter asked her mother, “Please Mom please call Dad to come soon.” Another daughter kept holding her grandmother who ran, along with men, to the cemetery saying that she has to keep looking at him until the last moment. When they returned, the daughter asked her grandma, “when will dad return Teta?”

Trying to calm the child down, her grandma said, “don’t get afraid Habibti [sweetheart] he will come tomorrow.” Shockingly and surprisingly, the six-year-old girl replied: “have dead people ever returned?”

Men brought the martyrs’ bodies to their homes, but they were completely covered. Martyrs’ faces are only covered when completely damaged. We couldn’t see Tamir and Amin’s faces. My brother said that Rashid’s head is shattered into two, but there was only one part to bury.

Now it is 6pm. While people are sitting in the funeral tent, an Israeli missile was dropped near the tent. People fearfully rushed away, but we don’t know if it will explode later.

Thanks to the blood of the children of Gaza in the 2008-09 massacre, of which we used to think as the Sharpeville and Guernica of Palestine, boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) gained momentum worldwide.

Now this massacre is over and we are still alive. But we Gazans survive only to remember our anguish. To ensure that the blood of our martyrs was not spilled in vain, we are sending a clear message to the world to intensify the calls for a meaningful ethical international campaign of BDS to isolate apartheid Israel until it abides by international law and ends its racist policies.

After Gaza 2012, BDS needs to become more effective so that it can take us closer to achieving our just rights.

Ayah Abubasheer holds a master’s degree in global politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Her first degree was in English language and literature. She is a member of the Gaza-based organizing committee for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

23 Bahraini health workers sentenced to prison

23 Bahraini health workers sentenced to prison
(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - On Wednesday, a court in the Persian Gulf kingdom sentenced the medics to three months in jail for treating Bahraini protesters and taking part in demonstrations.

The medics are among the 95 health workers who were arrested between February and March 2011.

Prosecutor Abdulrahman al-Sayyed said the medics have "committed crimes and violations, breaching the law and norms."

How I Stopped Hating Thanksgiving : Information Clearing House - ICH

       How I Stopped Hating Thanksgiving          : Information Clearing House -  ICH
November 15, 2009 "DV" -- I have stopped hating Thanksgiving and learned to be afraid of the holiday.

Over the past few years a growing number of white people have joined the longstanding indigenous people’s critique of the holocaust denial that is at the heart of the Thanksgiving holiday. In two recent essays, I have examined the disturbing nature of a holiday rooted in a celebration of the European conquest of the Americas, which means the celebration of the Europeans’ genocidal campaign against Indigenous people that is central to the creation of the United States.

Many similar pieces have been published in predominantly white left/progressive media, while indigenous people continue to mark the holiday as a “National Day of Mourning.”

In recent years I have refused to participate in Thanksgiving Day meals, even with friends and family who share this critical analysis and reject the national mythology around manifest destiny. In bowing out of those gatherings, I would often tell folks that I hated Thanksgiving. I realize now that “hate” is the wrong word to describe my emotional reaction to the holiday. I am afraid of Thanksgiving. More accurately, I am afraid of what Thanksgiving tells us about both the dominant culture and much of the alleged counterculture.

Here’s what I think it tells us: As a society, the United States is intellectually dishonest, politically irresponsible, and morally bankrupt. This is a society in which even progressive people routinely allow national and family traditions to trump fundamental human decency. It’s a society in which, in the privileged sectors, getting along and not causing trouble are often valued above honesty and accountability. Though it’s painful to consider, it’s possible that such a society is beyond redemption. Such a consideration becomes frightening when we recognize that all this goes on in the most affluent and militarily powerful country in the history of the world, but a country that is falling apart — an empire in decline.

Thanksgiving should teach us all to be afraid.

Although it’s well known to anyone who wants to know, let me summarize the argument against Thanksgiving: European invaders exterminated nearly the entire indigenous population to create the United States. Without that holocaust, the United States as we know it would not exist. The United States celebrates a Thanksgiving Day holiday dominated not by atonement for that horrendous crime against humanity but by a falsified account of the “encounter” between Europeans and American Indians. When confronted with this, most people in the United States (outside of indigenous communities) ignore the history or attack those who make the argument. This is intellectually dishonest, politically irresponsible, and morally bankrupt.

In left/radical circles, even though that basic critique is widely accepted, a relatively small number of people argue that we should renounce the holiday and refuse to celebrate it in any fashion. Most leftists who celebrate Thanksgiving claim that they can individually redefine the holiday in a politically progressive fashion in private, which is an illusory dodge: We don’t define holidays individually or privately — the idea of a holiday is rooted in its collective, shared meaning. When the dominant culture defines a holiday in a certain fashion, one can’t pretend to redefine it in private. To pretend we can do that also is intellectually dishonest, politically irresponsible, and morally bankrupt.

I press these points with no sense of moral superiority. For many years I didn’t give these questions a thought, and for some years after that I sat sullenly at Thanksgiving dinners, unwilling to raise my voice. For the past few years I’ve spent the day alone, which was less stressful for me personally (and, probably, less stressful for people around me) but had no political effect. This year I’ve avoided the issue by accepting a speaking invitation in Canada, taking myself out of the country on that day. But that feels like a cheap resolution, again with no political effect in the United States.

The next step for me is to seek creative ways to use the tension around this holiday for political purposes, to highlight the white-supremacist and predatory nature of the dominant culture, then and now. Is it possible to find a way to bring people together in public to contest the values of the dominant culture? How can those of us who want to reject that dominant culture meet our intellectual, political, and moral obligations? How can we act righteously without slipping into self-righteousness? What strategies create the most expansive space possible for honest engagement with others?

Along with allies in Austin, I’ve struggled with the question of how to create an alternative public event that could contribute to a more honest accounting of the American holocausts in the past (not only the indigenous genocide, but African slavery) and present (the murderous U.S. assault on the developing world, especially in the past six decades, in places such as Vietnam and Iraq).

Some have suggested an educational event, bringing in speakers to talk about those holocausts. Others have suggested a gathering focused on atonement. Should the event be more political or more spiritual? Perhaps some combination of methods and goals is possible.

However we decide to proceed, we can’t ignore the ugly ideological realities of the holiday. My fear of those realities is appropriate but facing reality need not leave us paralyzed by fear; instead it can help us understand the contours of the multiple crises — economic and ecological, political and cultural — that we face. The challenge is to channel our fear into action. I hope that next year I will find a way to take another step toward a more meaningful honoring of our intellectual, political, and moral obligations.

As we approach Thanksgiving Day, I’m eager to hear about the successful strategies of others. For such advice, I would be thankful.

Robert Jensen is a professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin and author of Citizens of Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity and Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity (South End Press, 2007). His latest book is All My Bones Shake: Seeking a Progressive Path to the Prophetic Voice, published by Soft Skull Press. He can be reached at: rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.

See also - A Map of Destruction: How Europeans Stole Native Land: A shocking look at the theft of Native American Land.

Fracking America

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The Revolving Door from the Pentagon to the Private Sector

The Revolving Door from the Pentagon to the Private Sector
What do Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman have in common? Each of these corporations is one of the top five largest defense contractors in the nation. In 2011 alone, the Department of Defense committed to spending nearly $100 billion with just these five companies. To put that in perspective, that is about the same amount spent on the entire federal education budget for 2011.

Obama: Evil: Plain and Simple

Obama: Evil: Plain and Simple
November 18, 2012 -- In a recent Real News piece, senior editor Paul Jay objected to talk of lesser evilism: “… I think this whole terminology lesser evil, it’s a terrible mistake to use such terminology. The problem is it’s turning this whole thing into some kind of moral debate, and neither Romney nor Obama are evil. They are the products of a social-economic system. They represent different sections of the elite…”1

I still think Real News is the best progressivist video fare available, and Jay is one of the best news anchors, but Jay’s assertion still leaves me astounded. That his assertion is unfounded is fully refuted by Obama holding the US hand over Israel to prevent it from UN censure.

Evenhandedness is out the window on this slaughter as well. According to the Obama administration, Hamas is to blame.2

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney had this to say: “Well, we strongly condemn the barrage of rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, and we regret the death and injury of innocent Israeli and Palestinian civilians caused by the ensuing violence. There is no justification for the violence that Hamas and other terrorist organizations are employing against the people of Israel. We call on those responsible to stop these cowardly acts immediately in order to allow the situation to deescalate.”

“… Hamas claims to have the best interest of the Palestinian people at heart, yet it continues to engage in violence that is counterproductive to the Palestinian cause. Attacking Israel on a near daily basis does nothing to help Palestinians in Gaza or to move the Palestinian people any close to achieving self-determination.”3

It appears, at least, that Obama administration officials are reading from the same script. AP reports US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice had mouthed nearly identical words to the UN Security Council prior to the utterances by Carney at his press gaggle.4

What exactly is Israel’s 24/7 siege on Gaza, if not violence that is counterproductive to peace between Israel and Gaza? Do Carney, Rice, and Obama insist that if the Gazans sit on their hands that the siege will be lifted?

The following video (purportedly from the Israeli assault on Gaza) depicts, what is undeniably, evil.






Obama is not a lesser evilist; he is the man who enables evil. If this does not — in Paul Jay’s mind — call for a moral debate, then one wonders what does call for such a debate. The ongoing, repeated carnage and slaughter in Gaza (Syria, Bahrain, Afghanistan …) underscores the utter futility of pandering to lesser evilism. If one votes for a degree of evil, then one should not be surprised when evil results.

Progressivism demands that social justice activists repudiate evil. Consequently, insofar as media plays along within the parameters set by the socio-economic system and its evil, how progressivist can it legitimately claim to be?

Notes

See Kim Petersen, “No Such Thing as Lesser Evilism?” Dissident Voice, 6 November 2012.

Of course there was never any doubt which side the Harper government would back. On 14 November 2012, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird issued the following statement:

We fundamentally believe that Israel has the right to defend itself and its citizens from terrorist threats.
Far too often, the Jewish people find themselves on the front lines in the struggle against terrorism, the great struggle of our generation. Just last weekend, more than 100 rockets rained down on civilians in southern Israel from positions in the Gaza Strip.
Canada condemns the terrorist group Hamas and stands with Israel as it deals with regional threats to peace and security.

See also Bruce Campion-Smith, “Prime Minister Stephen Harper backs Israel in Gaza conflict,” Toronto Star, 16 November 2012.

Office of the Press Secretary, Press Gaggle by Press Secretary Jay Carney en route New York, NY, 11/15/2012,” The White House, 15 November 2012.



“Hamas claims to have the best interest of the Palestinian people at heart, yet it continues to engage in violence that does nothing but set back the Palestinian cause. Attacking Israel on a near daily basis does nothing to help Palestinians in Gaza not to move the Palestinian people any closer to achieving self-determination and independence,” Rice said. See Peter James Spielmann, “Palestinians ask Security Council to stop Israel,” boston.com, 14 November 2012.

Kim Petersen is co-editor of Dissident Voice. He can be reached at: kim@dissidentvoice.org

This article was originally posted at Dissident Voice

Israel Kills Family Of 9 In Gaza:

Israel Kills Family Of 9 In Gaza:
November 18, 2012 "Al Jazeera" --- Al Jazeera's Nadim Baba, reporting from Gaza, has said that the search continues for survivors of an Israeli air strike that killed nine members of the same family in Gaza.

Israeli Firepower Threatens to Overwhelm Palestinians by Thalif Deen -- Antiwar.com

Israeli Firepower Threatens to Overwhelm Palestinians by Thalif Deen -- Antiwar.com
When the late Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), was engaged in a heavily one-sided battle against a robustly-armed Israel in 2000, he admitted the Palestinians were completely outgunned by the Israelis.

Israel Bombing Residential Areas, Civilian Infrastructure in Gaza « Antiwar.com Blog

Israel Bombing Residential Areas, Civilian Infrastructure in Gaza « Antiwar.com Blog
Via Electronic Intifada, Israeli attacks on Gaza “have caused serious damage to civilian infrastructure including homes, schools, sports facilities and a hospital in many parts of Gaza City,” according to the the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights:

Israeli forces have launched dozens of airstrikes on Gaza City, targeting governmental and civilian facilities and other objects mostly located in densely-populated areas. The targets have included the building of the Council of Ministers in the west of the City, which was completely destroyed and a number of nearby houses damaged; the building of the police command in the center of the City, which was completely destroyed and a number of nearby housesdamaged; the building of the Civil Department of the Ministry of Interior in the south of the City, which was attacked for the second time, causing damage to al-Quds Hospital and a number of public and UNRWA school; and Palestine Stadium in al-Remal neighborhood in the center of the City, which was extensively damaged.

Also, this video of the al-Zaytoun quarter, a residential area in Gaza, being bombed by what is reportedly “a bomb or missile dropped by a US-supplied Israeli F-16 jet.”

A Palace Revolution

A Palace Revolution
November 15, 2012 "Antiwar" -- The political class is aghast at the spectacle of one after another of their holy icons falling: first it was David Petraeus, outed by a lone FBI agent in Tampa who took the discovery of his affair with Paula Broadwell to the House Republican leadership and effectively dynamited the CIA chieftain’s career. Now it’s Gen. John Allen, commander of US forces in Afghanistan: the discovery of his “thousands of pages of emails” to Jill Kelley — a 37-year-old looker whose complaints of email “harassment” garnered the full attention of the FBI and led to the downfall of Petraeus — has him in the dock.

Israel Ranked World’s Most Militarized Nation by Jim Lobe -- Antiwar.com

Israel Ranked World’s Most Militarized Nation by Jim Lobe -- Antiwar.com
Israel tops the list of the world’s most militarized nations, according to the latest Global Militarisation Index released Tuesday by the Bonn International Centre for Conversion (BICC).

At number 34, Israel’s main regional rival, Iran, is far behind. Indeed, every other Near Eastern country, with the exceptions of Yemen (37) and Qatar (43), is more heavily militarized than the Islamic Republic, according to the Index, whose research is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Singapore ranks second, followed by Syria, Russia, Jordan, and Cyprus, according to the Index, which is based on a number of weighted variables, such as the comparison of a country’s military budget with its gross domestic product (GDP), and the percentage of the GDP it spends on health care.

Six of the top 10 states, including Israel (1), Syria (4), Jordan (5), Kuwait (7), Bahrain (9), and Saudi Arabia (10) are located in the Middle East, while yet another of Iran’s neighbours, Azerbaijan, made its first entry into the militarized elite at number 8.

Ron Paul: 'Our Constitution Has Failed' - Yahoo! News

Ron Paul: 'Our Constitution Has Failed' - Yahoo! News
Throughout his speech, Paul questioned not only the fundamental health of America's social compact, but specifics like fiat money, the power of the Federal Reserve, the PATRIOT Act, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act modifications, undeclared war, the illegalization of medical marijuana, mandatory sentencing requirements for drug crimes, the illegalization of hemp, TSA searches, federal debt and borrowing, the White House's authority to assassinate those it declares terrorists, the legalization of detaining U.S. citizens for national-security purposes, the political power of AIPAC, and the regulation of light bulbs and toilets in people's homes.

Glenn Greenwald : The Surveillance State : FBI's abuse of the surveillance state is the real scandal needing investigation

Glenn Greenwald : The Surveillance State : FBI's abuse of the surveillance state is the real scandal needing investigation
The Surveillance State
FBI's abuse of the surveillance state is the real scandal needing investigation

That the stars of America's national security establishment are being devoured by out-of-control surveillance is a form of sweet justice

By Glenn Greenwald

November 13, 2012 "The Guardian" -- The Petraeus scandal is receiving intense media scrutiny obviously due to its salacious aspects, leaving one, as always, to fantasize about what a stellar press corps we would have if they devoted a tiny fraction of this energy to dissecting non-sex political scandals (this unintentionally amusing New York Times headline from this morning - "Concern Grows Over Top Military Officers' Ethics" - illustrates that point: with all the crimes committed by the US military over the last decade and long before, it's only adultery that causes "concern" over their "ethics"). Nonetheless, several of the emerging revelations are genuinely valuable, particularly those involving the conduct of the FBI and the reach of the US surveillance state.

As is now widely reported, the FBI investigation began when Jill Kelley - a Tampa socialite friendly with Petraeus (and apparently very friendly with Gen. John Allen, the four-star U.S. commander of the war in Afghanistan) - received a half-dozen or so anonymous emails that she found vaguely threatening. She then informed a friend of hers who was an FBI agent, and a major FBI investigation was then launched that set out to determine the identity of the anonymous emailer.

That is the first disturbing fact: it appears that the FBI not only devoted substantial resources, but also engaged in highly invasive surveillance, for no reason other than to do a personal favor for a friend of one of its agents, to find out who was very mildly harassing her by email. The emails Kelley received were, as the Daily Beast reports, quite banal and clearly not an event that warranted an FBI investigation:

Historic UC Irvine divestment vote deals stinging defeat to Zionist bullying on campus | The Electronic Intifada

Historic UC Irvine divestment vote deals stinging defeat to Zionist bullying on campus | The Electronic Intifada
Just over a year since an Orange County jury, in a politically-motivated prosecution, convicted the “Irvine 11” students for disrupting a lecture by Israeli Ambassdor Michael Oren, the Associated Students of UC Irvine voted unanimously tonight to call for divestment from companies that profit from Israeli occupation.

Israel "more inhuman" than apartheid South Africa, ANC conference told | The Electronic Intifada

Israel "more inhuman" than apartheid South Africa, ANC conference told | The Electronic Intifada
In October, the African National Congress celebrated the legacy of its one-time leader Oliver Tambo, who helped set up a successful international anti-apartheid movement. Palestine was a hot topic at several events honoring Tambo, nine years after his death.

One such event was held at Wits University in Johannesburg. Ebrahim Ebrahim, the ANC’s head of international relations, told participants that Oliver Tambo “would travel the world engaging with students, unions, churches and other formations convincing them to divest and end their support for apartheid South Africa.”

Ebrahim added: “However, the international anti-apartheid movement and sanctions campaign was also shouldered, taken on and defended by thousands of ordinary citizens from numerous countries around the world. Today, there is a similar international civil society solidarity campaign in support of the Palestinians against Israeli policies and practices of occupation and aggression. The ANC fully supports this international movement to pressure Israel to engage with the Palestinian people to reach a just solution” (“Celebrating Oliver R Tambo: messages of support from the African National Congress,” BDS South Africa, 26 October 2012).

Ribbon Mosholi, the ANC’s international relations manager, had experienced Israeli aggression in 2010, when she led a South African delegation to the West Bank. The delegation was attacked with tear gas and sound bombs, and shoved around by Israeli police in Ramallah (“South African delegation to Palestine attacked by Israeli police,” Congress of South African Trade Unions, 10 December 2010).
“We must respond”

In her speech, Mosholi reminded a packed hall that “the Palestinians face a far more violent and inhuman situation. Palestinians have asked for our solidarity and we must respond.” She referred to the call made in 2005 by numerous Palestinian organizations for a global campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

Referring to the core message of the BDS movement, she said the aim is toward: “Ending the occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the apartheid wall; recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194: these are not unreasonable demands.”
PLO support

Mbuyiseni Ndlozi from BDS South Africa at the international solidarity conference in Pretoria.
(BDS South Africa)

The main tribute to Tambo involved the staging of an international solidarity conference in Pretoria. Its final declaration condemned the continued occupation of Palestinian territories by the Israeli government and called for a Palestinian state comprising the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital. The participants called on the UN Security Council to show leadership in halting the expansion of Israeli settlements and the harassment of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. The conference also expressed its full support for the BDS campaign (“Tshwane Declaration,” African National Congress, 28 October 2012 [PDF]).

The conference was supported by the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party, with a number of representatives from the Palestine Liberation Organization in attendance.

Significantly, the PLO went a step further than its official policy of advocating a boycott of goods produced on Israeli settlements. Hashem Dajani, a PLO representative, strongly supported the wider BDS call.

Asked about his thoughts about the progress of BDS activism, Ebrahim Ebrahim told The Electronic Intifada that “as the government of South Africa we have not advocated officially for a boycott of Israeli goods or sanctions against Israel. However, we have discouraged high profile visits to Israel unless it involves the peace process. And our government proposed that goods from settlements should be labeled correctly.

“BDS is a very powerful instrument in the hands of solidarity groups. We think this should come from civil society. It is like the anti-apartheid movement, governments had to take action as a consequence of their pressure.”

Ebrahim suggested that trade unions can refuse to handle goods going to or coming from Israel, while civil society can pressure shops and supermarkets that sell Israeli products. Students at universities and churches have a role to play, he continued, mentioning recent divestment initiatives by US churches from companies benefiting from the Israeli occupation.

“There should also be a move of activism for sanctions against Israel. Economic, academic and cultural sanctions are important. One of the biggest successes [in our anti-apartheid struggle] was the sports boycott; and South Africa was kicked out of the the rugby federation,” he added.

“Once civil society gets active it will be easier for governments to respond. They can say that our constituency demands it [action] from us. BDS will definitely make a difference in the fight for liberation of the Palestinians.”

Adri Nieuwhof is a consultant and human rights advocate based in Switzerland.

The Lull Before the Social Storm : Information Clearing House: ICH

    The Lull Before the Social Storm   :   Information Clearing House: ICH
We're now in a lull before a vast, revolutionary storm. The U.S. is sinking faster and faster in all the ways vital to the future of our society, from the The Great Global Economic-Financial Crisis which the U.S. produced with insane Big Bank speculations and corruption to educational decline and bureaucratic strangulation to losing imperials wars around the world to political deadlock. I'm sure any intelligent American who is honest with himself can quickly write down a long list of the crucial ways in which the U.S. is declining now. Maybe half of Americans are too ignorant about the world or lack the intelligence to see all of this Big Picture of Crisis and Decline. They are confused and mad and despairing and see no way out, but assume the Republicrat System will go on and on and are trying merely to fit in and keep or get a job with a livable wage for them and their families. Even some knowledgeable and intelligent people see what is happening but see no exit and despair and simply withdraw and hide from it all, implicitly or explicitly assuming The System will just keep getting worse and worse and never end.

Noam Chomsky: To humiliate and degrade Impressions of Gaza

Noam Chomsky: To humiliate and degrade Impressions of Gaza
November 07, 2012 "Information Clearing House" - Even a single night in jail is enough to give a taste of what it means to be under the total control of some external force. And it hardly takes more than a day in Gaza to begin to appreciate what it must be like to try to survive in the world’s largest open-air prison, where a million and a half people, in the most densely populated area of the world, are constantly subject to random and often savage terror and arbitrary punishment, with no purpose other than to humiliate and degrade, and with the further goal of ensuring that Palestinian hopes for a decent future will be crushed and that the overwhelming global support for a diplomatic settlement that will grant these rights will be nullified.

New film on Nazi links to Zionism sidesteps the toughest questions

New film on Nazi links to Zionism sidesteps the toughest questions
This trip was no mere tourist holiday but instead a mission, led by the Tuchlers, for enabling von Mildenstein to write convincing articles for Der Angriff in support of Jewish emigration to Palestine. Although never specified or discussed in The Flat, the Nazi government had in fact been approached about this matter by the Zionist Federation of Germany, of which Kurt Tuchler was an active member, and which argued — in eerie similarity to Nazi racialist views — that Jews, understood as a people separate and apart, were unsuited to reside anywhere but in a country of their own (Lenni Brenner, Zionism in the Age of the Dictators, 1983, chapter 5).

Israel is responsible for "price tag" attacks, not just a few settler extremists | The Electronic Intifada

Israel is responsible for "price tag" attacks, not just a few settler extremists | The Electronic Intifada
The small Palestinian village of Burqa near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank was once again targeted by Israeli settlers this Saturday — the latest so-called “price tag” attack committed by settlers to avenge outpost demolitions by the Israeli government.

The village has been repeatedly attacked by such “price tag” militants. Last year, two cars went up in flames, and three months later the mosque in Burqa was burned, with the words “Mitzpe Yitzhar” (an outpost near Nablus) and “War” painted on its charred walls.

On Saturday, several cars were damaged and graffiti references to a Migron outpost left on the crime scene. Israeli police say they are “canvassing the area.”

Despite the widespread coverage of “price tag” violence, mainstream media outlets habitually neglect the pivotal role of the Israeli government in breeding these attacks. There is a particular tendency by outlets such as the BBC, Agence France Presse and The Financial Times to limit Israeli government responsibility for “price tag” attacks to inadequate police investigations of settler crimes. This, however, only paints half the picture.

For years, the Israeli government has provided structural financial support to its most radical settler communities. This includes funds for the construction of outposts, which even the Israeli high court has confirmed as illegal under Israeli law.

The scheduled demolition of some of these outposts triggered waves of “price tag” setter attacks that the government of Benjamin Netanyahu has chosen not to prosecute. Instead, it has opted to “retroactively” legalize outposts that face demolition and build new settlements for outpost inhabitants when an outpost demolition remains inevitable.

Through these policies, the state is giving perpetrators of “price tag” violence exactly what they want: more legalized outposts, more land and the establishment of entirely new settlements. The government does not simply allow acts of “price tag” violence to happen, but it rewards them too.

There’s nothing new in Mahmoud Abbas’ and the PLO’s renunciation of Palestinian refugee rights

There’s nothing new in Mahmoud Abbas’ and the PLO’s renunciation of Palestinian refugee rights
Israeli- and US-backed Palestinian Authority leader and nominal PLO chairman Mahmoud Abbas caused renewed consternation among Palestinians last week with his renunciation, on Israeli television, of the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the homes from which they were ethnically cleansed by invading Zionist gangs during and after 1948, and his redefinition of Palestine to include only the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Joseph Stiglitz: “Romney’s Plan is Based on Magic”

 Joseph Stiglitz: “Romney’s Plan is Based on Magic”
What’s at stake in this election for the U.S. economy?

Quite a lot. First, there’s what we call the macro-economy. The budget cuts that Romney/Ryan propose will certainly slow growth. If the European downturn continues that could tip us into a recession. The cuts certainly won’t provide the kind of stimulus that Obama’s jobs bill, for instance, pushes. Romney’s plan is based on magic: Just because he gets elected, the economy is supposed to take off. There is no evidence that anything like that would happen. Quite the contrary — I think the opposite would happen. The business community would see the cutbacks coming and that would itself cause a slowdown in the economy.

So that’s the macroeconomy. Secondly, the Romney/Ryan budget promises to spend more on the military while cutting taxes and cutting the deficit, and that means only one thing. If you look at the arithmetic, it means less investment in infrastructure, R&D, education … it just can’t add up any other way. And that means we’ll be growing more slowly in the future.

The irony is that these two things — lower growth now and lower growth in the future — means that our debt-to-GDP ratio won’t improve, it will get worse. So even if you were foolish enough to think that the debt-to-GDP ratio is the main determinant of future prosperity — which it’s not — the Romney agenda will fail.

And although I don’t like what’s called “presidential economics,” where you look solely at what happens under a particular presidential regime, the fact is that Romney has many of the same economic advisers that Bush did. Those economic advisers essentially doubled the debt in eight years. And that was in a period of relatively high growth. Why would we think that wouldn’t happen again? I don’t see any reason for that. Particularly when the global environment is more adverse.

And then the third part has to do with what kind of society we will be. If Romney wins, we will become a more divided society, a more unfair society. And that in turn will bring greater inequality, and will also undermine our growth.

Thousands of Ethiopian migrants kidnapped, tortured, raped in Yemen-report - AlertNet

Thousands of Ethiopian migrants kidnapped, tortured, raped in Yemen-report - AlertNet
By Katy Migiro

NAIROBI (AlertNet) – Migrants travelling from the Horn of Africa to Yemen in search of a better life are regularly kidnapped, tortured and raped, according to a new report by the Regional Mixed Migration Secretariat (RMMS).

At least 230,000 migrants have undertaken this hazardous, often lethal, journey over the last six years and the rate of migration is increasing dramatically. In the first eight months of 2012, over 70,000 African migrants entered Yemen, three quarters of whom were Ethiopian.

Kidnapping has become increasingly common in Yemen, with the majority of respondents who arrived in the last 18 months saying they were held for ransom after disembarking from smugglers boats, said the report from RMMS, working to help migrants in the Horn of Africa and across the Gulf of Aden.

“If money [was] sent from our friends or relatives, we would be released and be free. If not, they would beat us to death,” one Ethiopian migrant told the researchers who interviewed some 130 individuals and groups in Yemen in May and June 2012. “Our group was 35 at first, but three of our friends died due to the beating.”

On average, migrants and their relatives pay the criminal gangs $100 to $300 to secure their release and prevent further torture, the report said.

GOUGING OUT EYES

Common forms of torture by kidnappers include gouging out eyes, pulling out teeth, hammering nails through hands and feet, severe beatings causing multiple fractures, and dripping melted plastic or stubbing out cigarettes on to skin, the report said.

A 15-year-old Ethiopian boy who arrived by boat on the Yemeni coast in February 2012 told researchers: “They tied a rope round my legs and hung me upside down and beat me almost to death for three days.”

“I was made to watch an Ethiopian woman being raped and an Ethiopian baby about one-year-old being killed.”

A 16-year-old girl said she was gang raped for six months before escaping.

Women are often separated from men and it is unclear what happens to them.

“They set fire to a plastic water bottle and they put it on my hand,” one Ethiopian man captured by gangsters on arrival in Yemen told researchers.

“After that, they take my wife and I don’t know where she is now.”

Based on interviews with Yemenis and Ethiopian migrants, the report speculates that such women “may be sold to Saudi Arabia families as virtual ‘slave’ domestic workers while others are used in clandestine sexual exploitation networks.”

“Trafficking of women appears to be a very serious reality for Ethiopian new arrivals… Few women who arrive on the shore are seen again.”

SUFFOCATION

The migrants leave Ethiopia hoping to find work in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. The most destitute walk for weeks to reach the coast, with little access to food, water or shelter. Others are smuggled in container trucks, packed to the point of suffocation.

They pay smugglers to take them by boat from Djibouti and Somalia to war-torn Yemen, which offers a gateway better paid jobs in the Arabian Peninsula. Yemen’s borders are poorly patrolled due to ongoing conflict in the country.

On the sea crossing, smugglers often beat the migrants, rape women and throw people overboard if they are sick or the boat is overloaded.

Those who make it ashore and escape the kidnappers often end up working in Yemen, trying to raise money for the next leg of their journey. The men generally work on farms producing the narcotic stimulant qat, while women earn money as cleaners and, less often, sex workers.

Reports from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) say that some 12,000 predominantly Ethiopian migrants, many in a desperate state, were sleeping rough in the streets of Haradh, a northern Yemeni city bordering Saudi Arabia. The charity has paid for over 9,000 stranded migrants to return home over the last two years.

RMMS believes that the situation is set to worsen.

“Unless the rule of law is applied and the apparent culture of impunity ends, there seems little to stop the increase of criminality against migrants,” the report concludes.

Economic migrants fall largely outside the protection of refugee law and have little access to humanitarian aid.

Good morning, President Abbas | The Electronic Intifada

Good morning, President Abbas | The Electronic Intifada
“I visited Safad before once. But I want to see Safad. It’s my right to see it, but not to live there. Palestine now for me is ‘67 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. This is now and forever…this is Palestine for me. I am a refugee, but I am living in Ramallah. I believe the West Bank and Gaza is Palestine and the other parts are Israel.” - Mahmoud Abbas

The next time someone tells me any particular word I choose is too strong or harsh to describe Abbas, I am considering printing the transcript of this interview and slapping said person with it.

Israel Admits Assassinating Palestinian Leader in 1988 -- News from Antiwar.com

Israel Admits Assassinating Palestinian Leader in 1988 -- News from Antiwar.com

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Israel has officially admitted after more than two decades of secrecy that it ordered the Israeli spy agency Mossad to carry out the assassination of Palestinian leader Khalil Ibrahim Wazir.