October 2009

When Small Countries Lead the Way
Posted: Saturday, October 31, 2009

¤ Democracy, East Germany and the Berlin Wall
The GDR was more democratic, in the original and substantive sense of the word, than eastern Germany was before 1949 and than the former East Germany has become since the Berlin Wall was opened in 1989. It was also more democratic than its neighbor, West Germany. While it played a role in the GDR's eventual demise, the Berlin Wall was at the time a necessary defensive measure to protect a substantively democratic society from being undermined by a hostile neighbor bent on annexing it.

¤ We Attacked the Bankers, but Took Our Eyes Off the Whole Rotten System
¤ Beware, Big Business enters the Orinoco and with it a coming Big War!

¤ Al-Qaeda Outwitted Bush and the Neocons
¤ “CIA prevented prisoner deaths to prolong torture”

¤ We Can't Reform Health Care Without Reforming Food

¤ US to pay Taliban to switch sides
¤ Elections in Afghanistan, the Second Time Around

¤ Cuban Embargo: Nothing Succeeds Like Failure

¤ Obama's Dirty War on Immigrants
¤ Why We Migrate: Stories of Mexico's Displaced Video

¤ Constitutional crisis is a myth

¤ Clinton's arm-twisting diplomacy in Pakistan
"The question that Clinton and the Obama administration would have to confront head on is whether the United States over relying on military solutions would be counterproductive and could destabilize Pakistan in the long run. Ordinary Pakistanis' increased discomfort with the use of military force in tribal areas is evident by the public and unsubtle reaction to Clinton’s remarks."

¤ Around 200,000 Pakistanis flee heavy military losses
¤ Now Pakistan
¤ Pakistan cuts deal with anti-American militants

¤ Somali pirates demand $7m to release British hostages

¤ Gaddafi highlights nuclear 'double standards'

¤ Obama joins Netanyahu in shielding Israel from war crimes charges
The United Nations Human Rights Council has endorsed a report into Israel’s 22-day assault on Gaza in December and January, accusing Israel of war crimes. Israel’s premier, Binyamin Netanyahu, predictably denounced the report as biased against Israel and unjust and insisted that he would not allow any Israeli officials to face trial for war crimes.

¤ Israeli Exceptionalism
¤ Israel's European Lobby

¤ UN calls on Israel to halt demolition of Palestinian homes
The United Nations today called on Israel to immediately halt forced evictions and demolitions of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, warning that as many as 60,000 people there may be at risk of forced evictions, demolitions and displacement.

¤ Honduran Coup Myths Dispelled
Two new reports dealing with the June 28 military coup in Honduras have demolished the arguments of the current de facto government and its foreign apologists that the coup was consistent with the Honduran constitution and that most Hondurans welcomed the illegal ouster of the country’s democratically elected president, Mel Zelaya.

¤ Obama declares swine flu a national emergency

¤ MDC-T trying to muscle Zanu-PF from power: Pres Mugabe

¤ Venezuela, Honduras, Peru, Ecuador: "Small" Oversights and "Big" Lies
It may be useful to assess the dangers of the systematically hostile attitude of the overwhelming majority of major European and North American media companies in relation to the current events taking place in Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela. This hostility is only matched by an embarrassed, complicit silence with regard to those involved in the putsch in Honduras or the repression enacted by the Peruvian army against the indigenous populations of the Amazon.

¤ When Small Countries Lead the Way
Among the conventional wisdom that we hear everyday in the business press is that developing countries should bend over backwards to create a friendly climate for foreign corporations, follow orthodox (neoliberal) macroeconomic policy advice, and strive to achieve an investment-grade sovereign credit rating so as to attract more foreign capital. Guess which country is expected to have the fastest economic growth in the Americas this year? Bolivia.

¤ Seventh ALBA Summit Prioritises the Planet and Developing Nations
¤ The Sex of Athletes: One Issue, Many Variables
¤ Mobile use is linked to brain tumours
¤ Star Fades for Blair in EU Role

¤ UN-backed panel confirms massive Afghan fraud
¤ Obama's commendable change in federal drug enforcement policy
¤ Obama Eases Policy on Medical Marijuana
¤ Climate chief Lord Stern: give up meat to save the planet

¤ Brought to You by the CIA: America's Drug Crisis
Next time you see a junkie sprawled at the curb in the downtown of your nearest city, or read about someone who died of a heroin overdose, just imagine a big yellow sign posted next to him or her saying: “Your Federal Tax Dollars at Work.”

¤ Security By Warlords
¤ Can Ignorance and Arrogance Win Hearts and Minds?

¤ What a "Jobless" Recovery Means for Young Workers

An Alternative Vision of Healthcare
Posted: Wednesday, October 21, 2009

The People Before Profit Community Healthcare Project Visit to Venezuela: An Interview with Netfa Freeman

by Gregory Elich

In June, the People Before Profit Community Healthcare Project visited Venezuela in order to assess the state of its healthcare system. The People Before Profit Community Healthcare Project models itself on the Cuban community-based approach to healthcare, and has established a project along those lines in a small neighborhood in Washington, DC. The visit was therefore directly relevant to its own project's goals. Netfa Freeman is an organizer with the organization, and he discusses here what the delegation saw in Venezuela.
Full Article : monthlyreview.org

Weapons of Mass Distraction: Again!
Posted: Monday, October 19, 2009

¤ Weapons of Mass Distraction: Again!
"If there is to be peace and a better world, real democracy needs a wake up call among the people. An aroused public has to provide a choice that reflects majority values and interests or minorities will not only continue ruling Obama, but make things much worse than they are now."

¤ War is peace. Ignorance is strength

¤ The Slippery Slope
"The political and military leadership of Israel is not composed of stupid people. Far from it. When they do things whose consequences can clearly be foreseen, one has to assume that it is these results that they want, even when they maintain the opposite. When so many of the government’s actions reinforce Hamas and weaken Abbas, isn’t that why they are doing it?"

¤ Abbas and the Goldstone Report
¤ A Suppressed Talk on the Israel/Palestine Conflict
¤ Is Canada More Pro-Israel Than the US?
¤ Deception, Spin and Lies

¤ The Consequences of a Cheaper Dollar

¤ Leftist Latin American bloc to stop using dollars in trade
The leftist Latin American ALBA trade bloc is scheduled Friday to approve measures that would replace US dollars with a new virtual currency for regional commerce, an official said here. Bolivian Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade Pablo Guzman told reporters that members of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) "will replace the dollar in commercial exchanges" between members with the Unified Regional Compensation System, or sucre.

¤ LatAm Leftists Tackle Dollar with New Currency
¤ How China is Torpedoing the U.S. Dollar…

¤ 'Iran and Russia propose oil trade without USD'
Venezuela's president has said that countries including Venezuela, Russia and Iran have proposed the US dollar should be replaced as the currency used for oil trade.

¤ Iran to completely drop dollar from foreign exchange
Iran's Trade Promotion Organization has announced a near future plan to completely exclude the US dollar from the country's foreign revenues and reserves. Iran has recently asked Japan to replace the US dollar with the yen in oil deals it has with the Islamic Republic, Mehr News quoted the organization as saying on Friday.

¤ Dollar loses reserve status to yen & euro
¤ Dollar Spasms
¤ US Dollar Collapse When China Stops Buying Debt

¤ Oil up to near $78 as weeklong rally continues
¤ California 'first failed US state'?

¤ Gunmen, bombs hit 5 sites in Pakistan, 40 killed
¤ What, Exactly, is Being Fought in Afghanistan?
¤ Million Dollar Soldiers and $400 for a Gallon of Gas

¤ Iran blames west for deadly suicide bombing

¤ FULL OF SHIT.

¤ White House v. Fox News: a War Obama Can Win
¤ The Rich Have Stolen the Economy
¤ Ignoring the Crimes Before Our Eyes

¤ Occupying Afghanistan is Making Things Worse

¤ Food Catastrophe Looming

¤ Infectious Lies
I define a bureaucrat as a person who makes decisions affecting other people, but who has no personal stake in the outcome.
Some bureaucrat has decided that squirting an active virus up a child’s nose is a vaccination. That child will be infected, and will shed the active virus for several days everywhere the child goes. This guarantees the spread of the virus. We are told that this is a good idea. That is a lie. Bureaucrats are in the habit of lying. Why not? They have job security, and they can’t lose.

¤ The Public Relations Machine for the Vaccine Complex

¤ Honduras and the battle for the Americas

¤ Obama's Bad Influence
Of all the explanations for Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, the one that rang truest came from French President Nicolas Sarkozy. "It sets the seal on America's return to the heart of all the world's peoples." In other words, this was Europe's way of saying to America, "We love you again"--sort of like those weird "renewal of vows" ceremonies that couples have after surviving a rough patch.

¤ Barack Obama, The Nobel Peace Prize and the Wrong discussion
¤ The Nobel Prize with an Asterisk
¤ Fidel Castro: A Nobel Prize for Evo Morales

¤ Escalation Unopposed

¤ Eight Years Later, We Still Don’t Get It in Afghanistan
Eight years. We’ve been in Afghanistan longer than any other war in American history. The party of the president who invaded Afghanistan has been repudiated at the polls. Yet we still haven’t altered the flawed strategy that allowed uneducated tribesmen with outdated weapons to defeat us year after year. We haven’t learned a thing.

¤ Russia's Putin warns against intimidating Iran

¤ Tentative Inspection Program Would Allow Russia to Visit U.S. Nuclear Sites

¤ Wall Street Set to Award Record Pay: Report

¤ Indigenous People Across Latin America Protest Spanish 'Genocide'
Columbus Day is celebrated as the Day of Hispanic Heritage in Latin America, but protesters marked the holiday as a reminder of the atrocities Spanish conquistadors wrought on indigenous people throughout the region.

¤ Decline of a tribe: and then there were five

¤ Oil prices near a new high for the year
¤ La Toya Jackson: Michael Wouldn’t Have Been Happy With ‘This Is It’ Film

¤ Senate Apology to Native People—A Good First Step
It's hard for a country to change its founding mythology, but the U.S. Senate has taken an important step towards accomplishing that. The Senate approved an apology to Native Americans on October 7, as an amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill. The Senate also passed an apology resolution in 2008, but it has yet to be signed into law.

Venezuela is no tyranny
Posted: Saturday, October 17, 2009

As Latin Americans witness the return of dictatorship – with Honduras suffering political executions, widespread repression and condemnation from human rights organisations about curtailing of press freedoms – it seems a strange time for the media to repeat opposition allegations that Venezuela is becoming a tyranny.

Venezuela is far from the "dictatorship which has a facade of democracy" described by General Raúl Baduel, who has been accused of corruption. What kind of tyranny oversees a 70% increase of participation in presidential elections, as Chávez has, or the government holding 13 free and fair elections in 10 years?
Full Article : guardian.co.uk

Dollar Hysteria
Posted: Monday, October 12, 2009

¤ Iran deplores language of threat, sanction

¤ Warmonger Wins Peace Prize
The Nobel Committee has awarded the 2009 Peace Prize to President Obama, the person who started a new war in Pakistan, upped the war in Afghanistan, and continues to threaten Iran with attack unless Iran does what the US government demands and relinquishes its rights as a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty.

¤ Why Does Obama Get a Prize and Bush Got Shoes?

¤ Eight Years of Big Lies on Afghanistan

¤ Massacre in Ireland, Massacre in Iraq

¤ The Nobel Prize, the Brand and the President

¤ Chavez says Obama did 'nothing' to deserve Nobel
¤ Barack Obama, The Nobel Peace Prize and the Wrong discussion
¤ A great prize, but will it help goals?

¤ Comment: absurd decision on Obama makes a mockery of the Nobel peace prize
Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent. It was clearly seen by the Norwegian Nobel committee as a way of expressing European gratitude for an end to the Bush Administration, approval for the election of America’s first black president and hope that Washington will honour its promise to re-engage with the world.

¤ Honduras and the battle for the Americas

¤ The Iranian Rift in the IAEA

¤ CIA: Israel helped expose covert Iran nuclear facility

¤ Those Tricky Iranians Are Now Threatening To Cooperate
¤ The crumbling world order

¤ British have covered up hundreds of Iraqi casualties, ex-officer says

¤ FBI tries to deport Muslim man for refusing to be an informant
¤ 4 Presidents & 4 Prime Ministers Charged With War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity & Genocide in Iraq
¤ Venezuela Reiterates Demand that U.S. Extradite Posada Carriles
¤ Dark Omens for the US in Afghanistan

¤ Are Republicans Breaking US Law in Honduras?
This is a coup that has been denounced by everyone from the Organization of American States to the United Nations, which passed a resolution calling “categorically on all states to recognise no government other than that” of the elected president, Manuel Zelaya. No state has recognized Micheletti as president.
But U.S. Republicans have.

¤ 'U.S. furious over Israeli incitement against Obama'

¤ Opposition says US aid package will enslave Pakistan
Pakistan's opposition has expressed concerns about a US aid package that would provide the country with 7.5 billion US dollars over the next five years. Last week, the US Congress approved the bill to give Pakistan 1.5 billion dollars annually in aid for the next five years.

¤ South Africa considers land seizures
¤ Afghan Taliban Say They Pose No Threat to the West
¤ Increasing use of face veil worries Egyptian government
¤ Dangerous foods list includes leafy greens, eggs, tuna

¤ LCROSS impact site picked

¤ NASA's mission to bomb the Moon
NASA will tomorrow launch a spectacular mission to bomb the Moon. Their LCROSS mission will blast off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying a missile that will blast a hole in the lunar surface at twice the speed of a bullet. The missile, a Centaur rocket, will be steered by a shepherding spacecraft that will guide it towards its target - a crater close to the Moon's south pole. Scientists expect the blast to be so powerful that a huge plume of debris will be ejected.

¤ A War of Absurdity
Every once in a while, a statistic just jumps out at you in a way that makes everything else you hear on a subject seem beside the point, if not downright absurd. That was my reaction to the recent statement of the president’s national security adviser, former Marine Gen. James Jones, concerning the size of the terrorist threat from Afghanistan

¤ Dollar Hysteria
Robert Fisk lit the fuse with his hyperventilating narrative which appears in Tuesday's UK Independent which went viral overnight spreading to every musty corner of the Internet and sending gold skyrocketing to $1,026 per oz. Now every doomsday website in cyber-world has headlined Fisk's "shocker" and the blogs are clogged with the frenzied commentary of bunker-dwelling survivalists and goldbugs who're certain that the world as we know it is about to end.

¤ Dollar Trades at Lowest Level Since August 2008 on Risk Demand
¤ Whodunit? Sneak attack on U.S. dollar
¤ Asia steps in to support dollar
¤ Dollar Reaches Breaking Point as Banks Shift Reserves

¤ Panic in Istanbul

¤ Welcome to the US Economy: Dead Man Walking
Credit is everything. Without credit expansion there's no recovery because there's no pick-up in overall demand. But credit growth is going backwards. The banks have tightened lending standards and the pool of credit-worthy applicants has vanished. Bank lending is off 14 per cent since October 2008. Private credit is presently decreasing at a 10.5 per cent annual rate. The situation is getting worse, not better.

¤ Thousands Stand in Line for Help Paying Bills in Detroit

¤ The Actual Discoverer of America Was the Chinese Admiral, Zheng He

¤ U.S. Strategy in Doubt as Abbas Loses Popular Support

¤ The American Flu Charade

Venezuela and U.K. Sign Anti-Drug Trafficking Agreement
Posted: Sunday, October 11, 2009

Mérida, October 9th 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com) -- During a two-day visit to Caracas by the vice-minister of foreign affairs of the United Kingdom, Chris Bryant, Venezuela and the U.K. strengthened their mutual commitment to combat drug trafficking and prevent drug consumption. Bryant also recognized Venezuela's increased efforts to put a halt to the illegal drug trade.
Full Article : venezuelanalysis.com

Fabricating a Case Against Iran
Posted: Sunday, October 4, 2009

¤ It's Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran Time

¤ Iran, Israel, and the Muzzled US Press
Speaking of "defiance" in the neighborhood where Iran resides and failing to mention Israel requires levels of disingenuousness and obedience to state propaganda that baffle the mind. And all this at a time when arguably the most significant news item to come our way this month was the UN Human Rights Council's damning report (Goldstone Report) on Israeli crimes in the winter assault on Gaza.

¤ US 'silent on Israeli nuclear arms'

¤ Fabricating a Case Against Iran
Does anyone remember all the lies that they were told by President Bush and the "mainstream media" about the grave threat to America from weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? These lies were repeated endlessly in the print and TV media despite the reports from the weapons inspectors, who had been sent to Iraq, that no such weapons existed.

¤ U.S. Story on Iran Nuke Facility Doesn't Add Up
The story line that dominated media coverage of the second Iranian uranium enrichment facility last week was the official assertion that U.S. intelligence had caught Iran trying to conceal a "secret" nuclear facility. But an analysis of the transcript of that briefing by senior administration officials that was the sole basis for the news stories and other evidence reveals damaging admissions, conflicts with the facts and unanswered questions that undermine its credibility.

¤ Iran says will not discuss second nuclear plant

¤ Ahmadinejad: Iran Isn't Breaking Rules
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Friday denied his government had violated International Atomic Energy Agency rules by failing to disclose a nuclear enrichment facility under construction in Iran and said the U.S. and its allies would "regret " confronting Tehran about it.

¤ Iran's not so secret, 'secret' fuel plant

¤ 'No credible evidence' of Iranian nuclear weapons, says UN inspector
The UN's chief weapons inspector, Mohamed ElBaradei, said today he had seen "no credible evidence" that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, rejecting British intelligence allegations that a weapons programme has been going on for at least four years. The claims and counter-claims came on the eve of a potentially decisive meeting in Geneva between diplomats from six world powers and an Iranian delegation about Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

¤ Top Things You Think You Know About Iran That Are Not True
Thursday is a fateful day for the world, as the US, other members of the United Nations Security Council, and Germany meet in Geneva with Iran in a bid to resolve outstanding issues. Although Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had earlier attempted to put the nuclear issue off the bargaining table, this rhetorical flourish was a mere opening gambit and nuclear issues will certainly dominate the talks. As Henry Kissinger pointed out, these talks are just beginning and there are highly unlikely to be any breakthroughs for a very long time. Diplomacy is a marathon, not a sprint.

¤ Iran's real crime: refusing to venerate the West's holy cows
"Its refusal to allow the Western powers to dictate its energy policy, through the spurious authority of the UN and the IAEA, is bad enough. The fact is it is doing so not only on grounds of its interests, but because it rejects the mythical moral foundations of that authority (the same foundations that supposedly legitimise the Zionist state) makes it not just an outlaw, but a revolutionary threat. And the fact that it is doing so in the name of Islam, with the potential to inspire up to a quarter of the world’s population, is what renders it so very dangerous."

¤ Coverup: Behind the Iran Contra Affair (1988)

¤ US Threatens to Escalate Operations Inside Pakistan
¤ US will not be allowed to bomb Quetta: Malik
¤ India raises nuclear stakes

¤ Honduras: Despite spin, US still funding coup regime
Despite recent the US State Department media show of cutting aid to the coup regime in Honduras, millions of taxpayer dollars continue to flow into the Central American country. The US government’s policy toward the de facto government that now rules Honduras can best be described as two-faced — expressing rhetorical outrage publicly while quietly continuing to prop up the putsch regime economically behind the scenes.

¤ Massive repression in Honduras - 45 day state of emergency imposed by coup regime
¤ The Sound and Fury of the Honduran Coup

¤ Colombian Paramilitary Confirms Assassination Plan Against President Chávez, Contracted by Opposition Leader Manuel Rosales

¤ Venezuela's Chavez Invites U.S. Labor Unions to ALBA, Invites Obama to "Peace Dialogue"
During a meeting with U.S. labor union leaders in New York on Wednesday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez invited the unionists to participate in the fair trade integration bloc known as the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), and he invited U.S. President Barack Obama to hold a "peace dialogue."

¤ Lazy Journalists are the Darlings of the Corporations
¤ Same Old Policy From US Immigration
¤ Meet the New Boss (Same as the Old Boss)
¤ A Truly Shocking Gitmo Story
¤ Chomsky in Mexico

¤ Another Cold War Myth
Within a few weeks many of the Western media can be expected to turn on their propaganda machines to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, November 9, 1989. All the Cold War clichés about The Free World vs. Communist Tyranny will be trotted out and the simple tale of how the wall came to be will be repeated: In 1961, the East Berlin communists built a wall to keep their oppressed citizens from escaping to West Berlin and freedom. Why? Because commies don't like people to be free, to learn the "truth". What other reason could there have been?

¤ Ridding the world of the sickness of pacifism
Picture the scene: Afghanistan, two hijacked tankers filled with highly inflammable fuel, surrounded by a crowd of Afghans eager to syphon off some for free ... What's the last thing you want to do? Right — drop bombs on the tankers. That's what a German military commander signaled an American drone airplane to do September 4. Kaboom!! At least 100 human beings incinerated. This incident has led to a lot of controversy in Germany, for Article 26 of Germany's post-war Grundgesetz (Basic Law/Constitution) states: "Acts tending to and undertaken with intent to disturb the peaceful relations between nations, especially to prepare for a war of aggression, shall be unconstitutional. They shall be made a criminal offense."

¤ Oldest "Human" Skeleton Found--Disproves "Missing Link"

¤ 2009 Statement by President Mugabe at UN
¤ Stuck Between Two Failures

¤ Spreading Hysteria About Swine Flu "Hysteria"

¤ Victory: Chicago Loses the Olympics
This is a victory for the people of Chicago. Pushing back against immense pressure from the Daley political machine, organizations like No Games Chicago went grass roots, corner to corner, and spoke out against the Olympic storm of gentrification, tax hikes, and police misconduct. Certainly one reason the U.S. got the high hat was the lingering bad taste of George W. Bush. The global community, after eight years of sneering contempt from Washington DC, isn't ready to rinse with the Obama mouthwash.

¤ Obama Will Also Lose the Afghani Olympics
The stunning rejection of Barack Obama's play for the Chicago Olympics had better teach him a good lesson about escalating in Afghanistan. Ignoring fierce grassroots resistance in Chicago itself, the Obamas flew to Copenhagen to "persuade" the International Olympic Committee to give the games to the Windy City.

¤ The creeping Vietnamization of Afghanistan

¤ Wish You Were Dead? Video

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