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polly7
polly7's Journal
polly7's Journal
February 9, 2015
It was posted on their website on 23 July 2014, just six days after, but they removed it without explanation. Why?
Why did the BBC remove this so quickly?
It was posted on their website on 23 July 2014, just six days after, but they removed it without explanation. Why?
February 9, 2015
Full article: http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/02/scoundrels-and-gangsters-at-un-silencing-the-syrian-narrative/
Scoundrels and Gangsters at UN Silencing the Syrian Narrative
by Eva Bartlett / February 7th, 2015
“Welcome to the United Nations. It’s your world,” reads the UN logo. Apparently, however, there are limitations as to just how “welcome” some of its representatives are.Syria’s Ambassador to the UN, Dr. Bashar al-Ja’afari, was sworn in as Permanent Special Representative in 2006.
Yet, in spite of his thirty plus years as a diplomat, his being highly-educated and multi-lingual, and the fact that he is the UN’s official Representative of the state of Syria, the United Nations has little interest in hearing what he has to say. Not only do they lack interest, since the Western-NATO-Israeli-Gulf war on Syria began in early 2011, they actively work to silence him or distort his words.
Yet, in spite of his thirty plus years as a diplomat, his being highly-educated and multi-lingual, and the fact that he is the UN’s official Representative of the state of Syria, the United Nations has little interest in hearing what he has to say. Not only do they lack interest, since the Western-NATO-Israeli-Gulf war on Syria began in early 2011, they actively work to silence him or distort his words.
Ambassador al-Ja’afari is one of the only — if not the only — ambassadors to the UN to repeatedly over the years have his microphone and/or video feed cut when he speaks. Correspondent Nizar Abboud has been an invaluable source of footage of the Syrian Ambassador’s speeches otherwise unavailable thanks to cut UN feeds. Abboud says the cuts are not due to “technical problems,” but instead often done “by senior officials at the United Nations.” Of one such incident, Abboud said: “The journalists were furious about it, they wanted to hear what the Ambassador was saying and suddenly he went off air.”
Witnesses not meant to be heard
Thanks to independent footage, the meeting was still recorded. Panelists spoke of the massive turnout to vote, first for two full days in Lebanon, and then in Syria. They noted the turnouts in important cities like Homs (the media-dubbed so-called “capital of the revolution”), and the enthusiasm of voters who faced threats of mortar and missile attacks by Western-backed armed groups. They spoke of the average Syrians they had met during the elections and the ardent support for both the President and the Syrian army.
The UN is consistently determined to silence the Syrian narrative. In January, 2014, at the Geneva II conference on Syria in Montreux, Switzerland, Foreign Affairs Minister Walid Muallem was himself cut off by none other than the Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon.
Thanks to independent footage, the meeting was still recorded. Panelists spoke of the massive turnout to vote, first for two full days in Lebanon, and then in Syria. They noted the turnouts in important cities like Homs (the media-dubbed so-called “capital of the revolution”), and the enthusiasm of voters who faced threats of mortar and missile attacks by Western-backed armed groups. They spoke of the average Syrians they had met during the elections and the ardent support for both the President and the Syrian army.
The UN is consistently determined to silence the Syrian narrative. In January, 2014, at the Geneva II conference on Syria in Montreux, Switzerland, Foreign Affairs Minister Walid Muallem was himself cut off by none other than the Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon.
Full article: http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/02/scoundrels-and-gangsters-at-un-silencing-the-syrian-narrative/
February 9, 2015
Full article: https://zcomm.org/zcommentary/we-have-no-money-so-central-banks-give-more-money-to-banks/
We have no money so central banks give more money to banks
By Pete Dolack
Source: Systemic Disorder
February 8, 2015
It’s unanimous! The European Central Bank confirms that the only possible solution to falling wages and depressed spending is to throw more money at the banks and inflate another stock-market bubble.
The ECB thus joins the world’s other most important central banks in the hope that “quantitative easing” — a form of “trickle-down” economics — will somehow work despite having never achieved anything other than the inflation of asset bubbles, a benefit primarily to the one percent. Then again, perhaps that might explain it.
The ECB thus joins the world’s other most important central banks in the hope that “quantitative easing” — a form of “trickle-down” economics — will somehow work despite having never achieved anything other than the inflation of asset bubbles, a benefit primarily to the one percent. Then again, perhaps that might explain it.
Instead, what is planned is more austerity — that is, more punishment. The other component of the European Central Bank’s January 22 announcement is that favorite term, “structural adjustment.” A euphemism used by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund when ordering an end to job security and social safety nets as a condition for granting loans to developing countries, this is now being applied to the global North. Near the end of his remarks announcing the quantitative easing, ECB President Draghi said:
Labor “reforms” are necessary to “improve the business environment.” In plain language, that means more austerity in an effort to boost corporate profits. In the question-and-answer session after the announcement, President Draghi gave revealing answers to two different questions: “For investment you need confidence, and for confidence you need structural reforms” and “it would be a big mistake if countries were to consider that the presence of this programme might be an incentive to fiscal expansion. … This programme should increase the lending capacity of the banks.”
“n order to increase investment activity, boost job creation and raise productivity growth, other policy areas need to contribute decisively. In particular, the determined implementation of product and labour market reforms as well as actions to improve the business environment for firms needs to gain momentum in several countries. It is crucial that structural reforms be implemented swiftly, credibly and effectively as this will not only increase the future sustainable growth of the euro area, but will also raise expectations of higher incomes and encourage firms to increase investment today and bring forward the economic recovery.”
Labor “reforms” are necessary to “improve the business environment.” In plain language, that means more austerity in an effort to boost corporate profits. In the question-and-answer session after the announcement, President Draghi gave revealing answers to two different questions: “For investment you need confidence, and for confidence you need structural reforms” and “it would be a big mistake if countries were to consider that the presence of this programme might be an incentive to fiscal expansion. … This programme should increase the lending capacity of the banks.”
Full article: https://zcomm.org/zcommentary/we-have-no-money-so-central-banks-give-more-money-to-banks/
February 7, 2015
Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/fallujah-the-hidden-massacre/
Military and War75 Comments
This war can not have witnesses. It can not have witnesses because it is based on lies. The Americans have permitted only embedded journalists to go to Fallujah. Despite that, for example the image of the marine that shoots the wounded and unarmed warrior inside the Fallujah Mosque has gone out. And exactly because this image has gone out, we do not know how, and because it has circulated all over the world, the NBC journalist that has recorded it has been immediately expelled from the embedded body. Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre is a documentary film by Sigfrido Ranucci and Maurizio Torrealta which first aired on Italy’s RAI state television network on November 8, 2005.
The film documents the use of weapons that the documentary asserts are chemical weapons, particularly the use of incendiary bombs, and alleges indiscriminate use of violence against civilians and children by military forces of the United States of America in the city of Fallujah in Iraq during the Fallujah Offensive of November 2004.
Watch the full documentary now (Warning: Very Graphic)
http://www.democracynow.org/2005/11/17/pentagon_reverses_position_and_admits_u
Pentagon Reverses Position and Admits U.S. Troops Used White Phosphorus Against Iraqis in Fallujah
Robert Fisk: The Children of Fallujah - Sayef's story
Special Report day one: The phosphorus shells that devastated this city were fired in 2004. But are the victims of America's dirty war still being born?
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-children-of-fallujah--sayefs-story-7675977.html
For little Sayef, there will be no Arab Spring. He lies, just 14 months old, on a small red blanket cushioned by a cheap mattress on the floor, occasionally crying, his head twice the size it should be, blind and paralysed. Sayeffedin Abdulaziz Mohamed – his full name – has a kind face in his outsized head and they say he smiles when other children visit and when Iraqi families and neighbours come into the room.
But he will never know the history of the world around him, never enjoy the freedoms of a new Middle East. He can move only his hands and take only bottled milk because he cannot swallow. He is already almost too heavy for his father to carry. He lives in a prison whose doors will remain forever closed.
It's as difficult to write this kind of report as it is to understand the courage of his family. Many of the Fallujah families whose children have been born with what doctors call "congenital birth anomalies" prefer to keep their doors closed to strangers, regarding their children as a mark of personal shame rather than possible proof that something terrible took place here after the two great American battles against insurgents in the city in 2004, and another conflict in 2007.
After at first denying the use of phosphorous shells during the second battle of Fallujah, US forces later admitted that they had fired the munitions against buildings in the city. Independent reports have spoken of a birth-defect rate in Fallujah far higher than other areas of Iraq, let alone other Arab countries. No one, of course, can produce cast-iron evidence that American munitions have caused the tragedy of Fallujah's children.
Fallujah: A history
The first battle of Fallujah, in April 2004, was a month-long siege, during which US forces failed to take the city, said to be an insurgent stronghold. The second battle, in November, flattened the city. Controversy raged over claims US troops had deployed white phosphorus shells. A 2010 study said increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in Fallujah exceeded those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Tomorrow: The doctors fighting to improve the lives of Fallujah's suffering children
Robert Fisk: The Children of Fallujah - families fight back
Special Report day three: Abandoned and afraid, the parents of Iraq's suffering children wait in vain for help
ROBERT FISK FALLUJAH FRIDAY 27 APRIL 2012
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-children-of-fallujah--families-fight-back-7682416.html
Back story: The evidence was clear, but no one cared – except you
You're kidding, right?
Take your safe search off and type it into google images. There are plenty there to see, gruesome and horrible images but yes, burnt alive with WP. Trapped and unable to leave.
http://www.democracynow.org/2005/11/8/u_s_broadcast_exclusive_fallujah_the
Democracy Now! airs an exclusive excerpt of "Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre," featuring interviews with U.S. soldiers, Iraqi doctors and international journalists on the U.S. attack on Fallujah. Produced by Italian state broadcaster RAI TV, the documentary charges U.S. warplanes illegally dropped white phosphorus incendiary bombs on civilian populations, burning the skin off Iraqi victims. One U.S. soldier charges this amounts to the U.S. using chemical weapons against the Iraqi people. [includes rush transcript]
Excerpt:
JEFF ENGLEHART: The gases from the warhead of the white phosphorus will disperse in a cloud. And when it makes contact with skin, then it’s absolutely irreversible damage, burning of flesh to the bone. It doesn’t necessarily burn clothes, but it will burn the skin underneath clothes. And this is why protective masks do not help, because it will burn right through the mask, the rubber of the mask. It will manage to get inside your face. If you breathe it, it will blister your throat and your lungs until you suffocate, and then it will burn you from the inside. It basically reacts to skin, oxygen and water. The only way to stop the burning is with wet mud. But at that point, it’s just impossible to stop.
REPORTER: Have you seen the effects of these weapons?
JEFF ENGLEHART: Yes. Burned. Burned bodies. I mean, it burned children, and it burned women. White phosphorus kills indiscriminately. It’s a cloud that will within, in most cases, 150 meters of impact will disperse, and it will burn every human being or animal.
more ....
REPORTER: Have you seen the effects of these weapons?
JEFF ENGLEHART: Yes. Burned. Burned bodies. I mean, it burned children, and it burned women. White phosphorus kills indiscriminately. It’s a cloud that will within, in most cases, 150 meters of impact will disperse, and it will burn every human being or animal.
Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/fallujah-the-hidden-massacre/
Military and War75 Comments
This war can not have witnesses. It can not have witnesses because it is based on lies. The Americans have permitted only embedded journalists to go to Fallujah. Despite that, for example the image of the marine that shoots the wounded and unarmed warrior inside the Fallujah Mosque has gone out. And exactly because this image has gone out, we do not know how, and because it has circulated all over the world, the NBC journalist that has recorded it has been immediately expelled from the embedded body. Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre is a documentary film by Sigfrido Ranucci and Maurizio Torrealta which first aired on Italy’s RAI state television network on November 8, 2005.
The film documents the use of weapons that the documentary asserts are chemical weapons, particularly the use of incendiary bombs, and alleges indiscriminate use of violence against civilians and children by military forces of the United States of America in the city of Fallujah in Iraq during the Fallujah Offensive of November 2004.
Watch the full documentary now (Warning: Very Graphic)
http://www.democracynow.org/2005/11/17/pentagon_reverses_position_and_admits_u
Pentagon Reverses Position and Admits U.S. Troops Used White Phosphorus Against Iraqis in Fallujah
Robert Fisk: The Children of Fallujah - Sayef's story
Special Report day one: The phosphorus shells that devastated this city were fired in 2004. But are the victims of America's dirty war still being born?
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-children-of-fallujah--sayefs-story-7675977.html
For little Sayef, there will be no Arab Spring. He lies, just 14 months old, on a small red blanket cushioned by a cheap mattress on the floor, occasionally crying, his head twice the size it should be, blind and paralysed. Sayeffedin Abdulaziz Mohamed – his full name – has a kind face in his outsized head and they say he smiles when other children visit and when Iraqi families and neighbours come into the room.
But he will never know the history of the world around him, never enjoy the freedoms of a new Middle East. He can move only his hands and take only bottled milk because he cannot swallow. He is already almost too heavy for his father to carry. He lives in a prison whose doors will remain forever closed.
It's as difficult to write this kind of report as it is to understand the courage of his family. Many of the Fallujah families whose children have been born with what doctors call "congenital birth anomalies" prefer to keep their doors closed to strangers, regarding their children as a mark of personal shame rather than possible proof that something terrible took place here after the two great American battles against insurgents in the city in 2004, and another conflict in 2007.
After at first denying the use of phosphorous shells during the second battle of Fallujah, US forces later admitted that they had fired the munitions against buildings in the city. Independent reports have spoken of a birth-defect rate in Fallujah far higher than other areas of Iraq, let alone other Arab countries. No one, of course, can produce cast-iron evidence that American munitions have caused the tragedy of Fallujah's children.
Fallujah: A history
The first battle of Fallujah, in April 2004, was a month-long siege, during which US forces failed to take the city, said to be an insurgent stronghold. The second battle, in November, flattened the city. Controversy raged over claims US troops had deployed white phosphorus shells. A 2010 study said increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in Fallujah exceeded those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Tomorrow: The doctors fighting to improve the lives of Fallujah's suffering children
Robert Fisk: The Children of Fallujah - families fight back
Special Report day three: Abandoned and afraid, the parents of Iraq's suffering children wait in vain for help
ROBERT FISK FALLUJAH FRIDAY 27 APRIL 2012
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-children-of-fallujah--families-fight-back-7682416.html
Back story: The evidence was clear, but no one cared – except you
It's the same old story. Know nothing. See nothing. Say nothing. When children died in a plague of cancers in southern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War, the Americans and the Brits didn't want to know about it. Nor, of course, did Saddam Hussein. If children had been poisoned by our depleted uranium munitions, then Saddam would lose face, wouldn't he? Independent readers contributed $250,000 for medicines for the children we met in Iraq who were suffering from cancers and leukaemia after that war.
Margaret Hassan of Care – later murdered by unknown killers months after her kidnapping, following the "liberation" of Iraq – helped us distribute the medicines from our readers across the country. No thanks from Saddam, of course. And all the children died. And not a word from our masters, armaments manufacturers and jolly generals.
It's the same again in Fallujah today. The doctors talk of a massive increase in child birth deformities. The Americans used phosphorous munitions – possibly also depleted uranium (DU) – in the 2004 battles of Fallujah. Everyone in Fallujah knows about these deformities. Reporters have seen these children and reported on them. But it's know nothing, see nothing, say nothing. Neither the Iraqi government nor the US government nor the British will utter a squeak about Fallujah. Even when I found in the Balkans a 12-year-old Serb girl with internal bleeding, constant vomiting and nails that repeatedly fell out of her hands and feet – she had handled the shrapnel of depleted uranium munitions after a Nato air strike near Sarajevo in 1995 – Nato refused to respond to my offer to take a military doctor to see her.
Already, I had discovered that up to 300 Serb men, women and children who had lived close to the Nato target in the Sarajevo suburb of Hadjici, had died of cancers and leukaemias over the five years that followed the bombing. As for southern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War, the less said, the better.
Margaret Hassan of Care – later murdered by unknown killers months after her kidnapping, following the "liberation" of Iraq – helped us distribute the medicines from our readers across the country. No thanks from Saddam, of course. And all the children died. And not a word from our masters, armaments manufacturers and jolly generals.
It's the same again in Fallujah today. The doctors talk of a massive increase in child birth deformities. The Americans used phosphorous munitions – possibly also depleted uranium (DU) – in the 2004 battles of Fallujah. Everyone in Fallujah knows about these deformities. Reporters have seen these children and reported on them. But it's know nothing, see nothing, say nothing. Neither the Iraqi government nor the US government nor the British will utter a squeak about Fallujah. Even when I found in the Balkans a 12-year-old Serb girl with internal bleeding, constant vomiting and nails that repeatedly fell out of her hands and feet – she had handled the shrapnel of depleted uranium munitions after a Nato air strike near Sarajevo in 1995 – Nato refused to respond to my offer to take a military doctor to see her.
Already, I had discovered that up to 300 Serb men, women and children who had lived close to the Nato target in the Sarajevo suburb of Hadjici, had died of cancers and leukaemias over the five years that followed the bombing. As for southern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War, the less said, the better.
February 7, 2015
Top UN Official Says 'Global War on Terror' Is Laying Waste to Human Rights
Published on
Friday, February 06, 2015
byInter Press Service
Battling terrorism shouldn’t justify torture or mass surveillance, says Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein
byThalif Deen, IPS News
?itok=yP_EmYtO
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein. (Credit: UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré)
The United Nations, which is the legal guardian of scores of human rights treaties banning torture, unlawful imprisonment, degrading treatment of prisoners of war and enforced disappearances, is troubled that an increasing number of countries are justifying violations of U.N. conventions on grounds of fighting terrorism in conflict zones.
Taking an implicit passing shot at big powers, the outspoken U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein of Jordan puts it more bluntly: “This logic is abundant around the world today: I torture because a war justifies it. I spy on my citizens because terrorism, repulsive as it is, requires it.
“The space for dissent in many countries is collapsing under the weight of either poorly-thought out, or indeed exploitative, counter-terrorism strategies. " —Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein
“I don’t want new immigrants, or I discriminate against minorities, because our communal identity or my way of life is being threatened as never before. I kill others, because others will kill me – and so it goes, on and on.”
Speaking Thursday at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., Zeid said the world needs “profound and inspiring leadership” driven by a concern for human rights and fundamental freedoms of all people.
Full article: http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/02/04/folly-us-war-terror-looms-jordan-and-isis-exchange-executions
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/02/04/folly-us-war-terror-looms-jordan-and-isis-exchange-executions
"What killed Kassasbeh was not Islam. What killed him are the new dynamics of globalisation and transnational violence that have consumed the Middle East and the Islamic world, unleashed by the 2003 Iraq war and the 2011 Syrian civil war." —Asst. Prof. Ibrahim al-Marashi
February 7, 2015
Full article: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/02/06/re-colonization-africa
The Re-Colonization of Africa
Published on
Friday, February 06, 2015
by Common Dreams
byJim Goodman
?itok=RIbaQsWk
As global agribusiness interests look to expand their profits with the financial backing of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), various “charitable” foundations and the political backing of the more "developed" countries of the world (the G-8), Africa is the obvious target to be saved and developed. Corporations profit, Western governments gain control. (Photo: NewsAfrican)
Most of the world's food is grown by small scale farmers. While it is called "traditional" agriculture, it is never static and farmers constantly adapt. This traditional agriculture relies on a varied and changing mix of crops, a polyculture, which provides a balanced diet, is affordable for local farmers and can accommodate changing local conditions.
The Green Revolution relied on increasing acreages of monocultures, mostly cereal grains, which also increased the use of herbicides, insecticides and fertilizers as well as new varieties of high yielding crops. Inputs that small farmers, those who fed the people, were never meant to afford.
It was an unsustainable system that called for too many inputs, too much machinery and too much energy. Credit was an essential part of the Green Revolution—creating debts that could never be repaid. And it did nothing to empower women, who grow a considerable portion of the world's food. It gave them no access to education, no power, and made it more difficult for them to maintain the rights to their land. Most importantly, the Green Revolution did not end hunger.
The Green Revolution never met expectations in Africa. This was for many reasons, including: civil wars, corrupt governments, governments that often could not work together, inaccessibility of water for irrigation, very diverse soil types, a lack of infrastructure and the sheer breadth of the continent. Perhaps Africa was lucky, while the Green Revolution was put forth as a solution to feed the hungry, it was also focused on permanently allowing Western governments to dominate politics and national economies—a new brand of colonialism.
Full article: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/02/06/re-colonization-africa
February 7, 2015
Full article: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/02/07/global-capitalisms-terrifying-new-math
Global Capitalism's Terrifying New Math
Published on
Saturday, February 07, 2015
by Waging Nonviolence
byKate Aronoff
?itok=0Znj_Nl9
A zombie protest at Occupy Wall Street in New York. (Flickr/ Timothy Krause)
McKinsey, one of the world’s preeminent business consultants, released a sobering new report this week detailing that, worldwide, total debt has risen by 40.1 percent — or $57 billion — since the financial crisis of 2008. “Debt,” here, can mean many things: debt to other countries and international institutions, as in Greece and Italy, which were bailed out by the troika; it also means debt to financial institutions, or household and personal debt of the kind those of us paying off mortgages, medical debt or student loans here in the states know all too well. It all means bad news for the economy.
As “Renegade Economist” Ross Ashcroft explains for the Guardian, Kingston University economist Steve Keen, who predicted the financial crisis back before the bubble burst in 2008, has created a metric to understand when a global financial system needs some, for lack of a better word, updating. He’s written that when private debt reaches 150 percent of a country’s GDP, that that country should take some serious measures to get its financial house in order. Replicated on a global scale, a critical mass of countries all clocking in above the 150 number spells a highly fragile economic landscape. In the UK, private debt currently stands at 350 percent of GDP. In Japan? 400 percent. China? 217 percent. In the United States, that figure stands at a reasonable if-still-ominous 233 percent of GDP. Overall, private debt now stands at the greatest levels in human history.
Between debt and our slowly roasting planet, we’ll be lucky to walk away from the next 25 years with just one crisis. There is a common denominator behind our debt and what else is ailing us: [link:capitalism|capitalism]. The point here isn’t to fear monger about the next financial crisis or speculate on how bad it’s going to be. The zombies are here, and it’s clear that they’re not doing the vast majority of people much good. Great zombie movies don’t focus on the lead-up to the apocalypse. They’re also not about analyzing the diverse array of structural and political factors that put them there. The question everyone wants to know is, “How do you beat the zombies?”
While the economic challenge posed by capitalism’s own zombie apocalypse is obvious, it’s also, maybe even primarily, a political challenge. In the absence of significant popular pressure, global elites (politicians, bankers, etc.) are likely to respond to the coming financial crisis like they did the last one: the wrong way. Rather than putting money into the “real economy,” where we live, spend, love and work, politicians in 2008 chose to prop up the bankers and speculators who got us into the mess in the first place. Consequently, the only industry that’s grown significantly since 2008 is the financial sector. In other words, they bailed out the wrong people and are likely to do so again and again. Given our current political landscape, they’re also more likely to ground us further into a vicious cycle of austerity and “backdoor privatization,” as Ashcroft calls it. That is, cutting spending and public services to save money, starving out vital public services and paving the way for private industry to buy up our now husk-like social safety net, post offices, public transit systems, schools, etc. As the private market drives down wages and busts unions, people’s ability to buy the houses, cars and expensive educations they’re being marketed decreases, leading those same people to take on even more personal debt and landing us all back at square one: more debt, more crisis.
Full article: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/02/07/global-capitalisms-terrifying-new-math
February 6, 2015
Polish tanks enter Těšín, Czechoslovakia, on October 11, 1938
More: http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/02/what-is-lost-in-poles-memories/
What is Lost in Poles’ Memories
by Vadim Trukhachev / February 6th, 2015
A few days ago Polish President Bronisław Komorowski proposed a Victory Day parade on May 8 in Westerplatte – a section of Gdansk where World War II began on September 1, 1939. He was supported by Poland’s foreign minister, Grzegorz Schetyna, speaking on Radio RMF. Responding to the host’s question as to whether the Polish proposal was an attempt to undercut the celebrations in Moscow, Schetyna was frank:
His statement came shortly after the scandal resulting from his claims that the concentration camp at Auschwitz was liberated by the Ukrainians. President Komorowski had to smooth those words, while other Polish officials have brought their apologies to the Russians.
We could see even more fallout from this latest Polish initiative. The strategy to fabricate the history of WWII by presenting Nazi Germany and Soviet Union as equal “aggressors” was launched years ago. Varied distortions and demonization of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement is the cornerstone of this strategy. But the attempts to portray Poland as an innocent victim of World War II, as well as the place where the biggest events of those years were the case, do not hold up any serious argumentation.
It’s natural to commemorate the end of the war at the site where it began… Why are we so accustomed to the idea that Moscow is where we should honor the end of the Second World War, instead of London or Berlin?”
His statement came shortly after the scandal resulting from his claims that the concentration camp at Auschwitz was liberated by the Ukrainians. President Komorowski had to smooth those words, while other Polish officials have brought their apologies to the Russians.
We could see even more fallout from this latest Polish initiative. The strategy to fabricate the history of WWII by presenting Nazi Germany and Soviet Union as equal “aggressors” was launched years ago. Varied distortions and demonization of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement is the cornerstone of this strategy. But the attempts to portray Poland as an innocent victim of World War II, as well as the place where the biggest events of those years were the case, do not hold up any serious argumentation.
Polish tanks enter Těšín, Czechoslovakia, on October 11, 1938
More: http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/02/what-is-lost-in-poles-memories/
February 6, 2015
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/panic-about-panic/
Panic about Panic
By Immanuel Wallerstein
Source: Toward Freedom
February 6, 2015
Visiting Russia, which I recently did, is a strange experience for someone coming from the Global North. As we know, most Russians have an entirely different reading of recent world history from most persons in the Global North. In addition, however, they are concerned about things other than what visitors expect them to be concerned about.
The one common assumption that transcends these differences is the fact that the occurrence of a sharp drop in world oil and gas prices combined with the embargo imposed by some countries on Russia has created an economic squeeze on Russian state expenditures and individual consumption.
In Russia today almost everyone across the political spectrum believes that the West, and the United States in particular, has conspired with some others – principally Saudi Arabia and Israel – to “punish” Russia for its actions and alleged misdeeds in pursuing what Russians regard as the legitimate defense of their national interests. The debate centers primarily on Ukraine, but includes as well to a lesser degree Syria and Iran. The conspiracy theory is probably a bit exaggerated, since the United States started developing its shale oil (a major factor in today’s world oversupply) already in 1973 as a response to the OPEC price rise.
Yet, one doesn’t hear much discussion of these foreign policy issues in Russia. This is probably because there is not too much dissent inside Russia concerning Russia’s official foreign policy positions, not even from persons or groups very critical of President Putin on other matters. What one hears discussed instead is how best to handle the acute budgetary shortfall that the Russian state is facing
The one common assumption that transcends these differences is the fact that the occurrence of a sharp drop in world oil and gas prices combined with the embargo imposed by some countries on Russia has created an economic squeeze on Russian state expenditures and individual consumption.
In Russia today almost everyone across the political spectrum believes that the West, and the United States in particular, has conspired with some others – principally Saudi Arabia and Israel – to “punish” Russia for its actions and alleged misdeeds in pursuing what Russians regard as the legitimate defense of their national interests. The debate centers primarily on Ukraine, but includes as well to a lesser degree Syria and Iran. The conspiracy theory is probably a bit exaggerated, since the United States started developing its shale oil (a major factor in today’s world oversupply) already in 1973 as a response to the OPEC price rise.
Yet, one doesn’t hear much discussion of these foreign policy issues in Russia. This is probably because there is not too much dissent inside Russia concerning Russia’s official foreign policy positions, not even from persons or groups very critical of President Putin on other matters. What one hears discussed instead is how best to handle the acute budgetary shortfall that the Russian state is facing
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/panic-about-panic/
February 5, 2015
Full article: http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/02/conundrum-syriza-democracy-and-the-death-of-a-saudi-tyrant-2/
Conundrum – Syriza, Democracy And The Death Of A Saudi Tyrant
by Media Lens / February 5th, 2015
It’s always a tricky moment for the corporate media when a foreign leader dies. The content and tone need to be appropriate, moulded to whether that leader fell into line with Western policies or not. Thus, when Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez died in 2013, conventional coverage strongly suggested he had been a dangerous, quasi-dictatorial, loony lefty. For instance, the Guardian‘s Rory Carroll, the paper’s lead reporter on Venezuela from 2006-2012, appeared to let slip his own personal view on Chavez when he wrote:
By contrast, the sociologist and independent Venezuela expert Gregory Wilpert praised Chavez’s ‘tremendous legacy’ and ‘many achievements’. These included nationalising large parts of the private oil industry to pay for new social programs to tackle inequality, much-needed land reform, and improved education and public housing.
When the genuinely dangerous, neocon ideologue and Cold War fanatic Ronald Reagan died, his appalling legacy - not least his blood-soaked support for brutal regimes in Latin America – was burnished to a high sheen, presenting the former US president as a stalwart defender of Western ‘values’. For the Guardian‘s editors: ......
To the millions who detested him as a thug and charlatan, it will be occasion to bid, vocally or discreetly, good riddance.
By contrast, the sociologist and independent Venezuela expert Gregory Wilpert praised Chavez’s ‘tremendous legacy’ and ‘many achievements’. These included nationalising large parts of the private oil industry to pay for new social programs to tackle inequality, much-needed land reform, and improved education and public housing.
When the genuinely dangerous, neocon ideologue and Cold War fanatic Ronald Reagan died, his appalling legacy - not least his blood-soaked support for brutal regimes in Latin America – was burnished to a high sheen, presenting the former US president as a stalwart defender of Western ‘values’. For the Guardian‘s editors: ......
King Abdullah spared BBC blushes by not dying on the very day that the UK’s state broadcaster was celebrating ‘transparency and democracy’. Imagine the conundrum in juggling all of that with coverage of a strongly Western-aligned tyrant. A close call indeed. As Neil Clark said on Twitter:
Reds Under The Bed!
Further difficulties for ostensibly democracy-loving corporate media soon followed with the stunning victory of Syriza, the ‘radical’ party of the left, in the Greek general election. Repetition of ‘radical left’, and significant mentions of Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras as a ‘former Communist’, set the required tone. Namely, watch out – Red Scare!
No need to pen long pieces on western elite’s double standards on “democracy” & “extremism”.Just read their glowing tributes 2 #KingAbdullah
Reds Under The Bed!
Further difficulties for ostensibly democracy-loving corporate media soon followed with the stunning victory of Syriza, the ‘radical’ party of the left, in the Greek general election. Repetition of ‘radical left’, and significant mentions of Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras as a ‘former Communist’, set the required tone. Namely, watch out – Red Scare!
As ever, such a rational view of the real threats to democracy from powerful elites was missing from ‘BBC Democracy Day’ and its coverage by the rest of the ‘mainstream’ media. The fact that a brutal, Western-allied Saudi tyrant died around the same time only highlighted the corporate media’s central role in propping up undemocratic systems of power, class and privilege.
Full article: http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/02/conundrum-syriza-democracy-and-the-death-of-a-saudi-tyrant-2/
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