Supremacism, Social Darwinism

Dutch Islamophobe Geert Wilders reaffirms Norway killer’s goals but rejects methods

By Ali Abunimah – The Electronic Intifada – 07/26/2011

Dutch politician, and leading European Islamophobe Geert Wilders says Anders Breivik, who perpetrated the massacre of dozens of people in Norway is actually inspired by Al Qaeda.

And, while rejecting the massacre of innocents in Norway, Wilders affirms his support for the “anti-Islamization” to which the killer was committed.

Wilders says the Norway massacre must not be allowed to discredit the broader anti-Muslim campaign in Europe, which the “Freedom Party” Wilders leads has spearheaded.

The Dutch politician, whose party supports his country’s ruling coalition in parliament, has been in the spotlight as a result of the attack. The perpetrator of the Norway massacre, Anders Breivik cited Wilders’ anti-Muslim views extensively and approvingly in his manifesto explaining that he carried out the massacre to spark a “civil war” to rid Europe of Muslims.

In a Dutch-language statement on the website of the Freedom Party (known by its Dutch initials PVV), Wilders wrote:

The brutal murders a few days ago of dozens of innocent Norwegian citizens has deeply shocked the PVV. We mourn and stand with the Norwegian people who have have been struck with this enormous blow.

Wilders forcefully rejected any responsibility that his hate-filled anti-Muslim propaganda could have inspired the killer and instead sought to cast the blame back on Muslims, writing:

The manifesto of the perpetrator makes clear that this is a madman. He wants to work with Al Qaeda (which he cherishes great admiration for)…

He then goes on to state that Breivik’s act must not be allowed to discredit his anti-Muslim campaign:

Neither the PVV nor I are responsible for a lone idiot who twisted and violently abused freedom-loving anti-Islamization ideals, no matter how much some people would like that. We are democrats at heart. The PVV has never, ever called for violence and will never do. We believe in the power of the ballot box and the wisdom of the voter. Not bombs and guns. We fight for a democratic and nonviolent means against the further Islamisation of society and will continue to do so. The preservation of our freedom and security is our only goal.

It seems impossible to imagine a politician in any European democracy speaking openly of “freedom-loving anti-Semitic ideals” or “freedom-loving anti-Jewish ideals” yet Wilders’ words indicate just how acceptable this kind of sentiment has become when directed at Muslims.

And, despite his affirmations that he doesn’t support violence, Wilders has been the leading European supporter of violent Israeli settlers, bent on expelling Palestinians from the occupied West Bank by any means necessary. Last year Wilders spoke at a conference of Israeli settler leaders who advocate following Israel’s violent colonization of Palestinian land in violation of international law with formal annexation of the territory.

Along with becoming an iconic figure for European and American Islamophobes, Wilders has been a leading force in the Dutch government’s shift to embrace Israel’s extreme right-wing government.

July 26, 2011 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Islamophobia, Supremacism, Social Darwinism | Leave a comment

Rahm Emanuel: Chicago’s War Criminal/Anti-Labor Mayor

By Stephen Lendman | July 19, 2011

Except for Harold Washington’s 1983 – 1987 tenure until his untimely death, Chicago never had populist mayors, notably under father Richard J. (April 20, 1955 – December 20, 1976) and son Richard M. Daley (April 24, 1989 – May 16, 2011).

However, after two months in office, Emanuel looks likely to be Chicago’s worst, based on policy initiatives he supports.

As White House chief of staff, he was criminally part of Obama’s war cabinet. As Chicago’s mayor, he’s waging it against labor.

Candidate Emanuel, in fact, promised draconian anti-worker cuts “in attacking our budget deficit, (so) there must be no sacred cows…. Chicago will have to make tough choices, (forcing) more than $500 million in efficiencies” on the backs of working Chicagoans already struggling to get by when they need help, not greater sacrifices they can’t afford.

No matter, slash and burn now is policy, including layoffs, wage freezes, and benefit cuts, notably targeting healthcare and pensions. Then in June, Emanuel rescinded a contractual 4% raise owed 30,000 teachers, indicating the same policy would follow for other Chicago Public Schools (CPS) employees as part of his war on public education and Chicago workers.

In late June, it continued with 1,000 teachers fired, besides 4,000 since 2009, school closures, larger class sizes, and other draconian measures. Reassigned teachers retain salaries and benefits for one year as “interim” substitute staff. If not kept after 10 months, they’re “honorabl(y) terminated.”

In other words, fired, no matter their qualifications, tenure, or student needs. In fact, many other teachers were sacked without temporary pay or benefits, according to union officials, who have little to boast about after endorsing Illinois Senate Bill 7 (SB 7).

Its provisions include using standardized tests to fire teachers, regardless of seniority, tenure, qualifications, or how students respond to effective classroom practices, what rote memory tests can’t measure. It also lets school districts increase hours per day, and add extra school weeks, with no additional compensation. In addition, teacher strikes are prohibited until after four months of negotiations plus a special arbitration panel’s ruling.

Even then, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) must give 10 days notice backed by 75% of its members to approve a walkout. In other words, SB 7 empowers state and city authorities over their right to demand equity or walk out.

At the same time, CPS executives got salary increases up to 30% over their predecessors. Emanuel’s new CPS head, Jean-Claude Brizard, earns $250,000 plus a 15% incentive package. Earlier as Rochester, New York public schools superintendent, 95% of teachers deplored his policies in office.

Moreover, he’s named in two federal lawsuits regarding improper handling of budget cuts and school closures. Earlier, he attended the notorious Superintendents’ Academy of the Broad Center for the Management of School Systems, founded by corporate predator Eli Broad to train administrators on restructuring and privatizing public education at the expense of educating kids.

Nonetheless, Emanuel wants him to replicate what he did in Rochester. Elizabeth Swanson is his deputy chief of staff, formerly (billionaire Penny) Pritzker Traubert Family Foundation executive director.

It advocates merit pay, school privatizations, and other regressive policies supported by Arne Duncan, former CPS head. He’s now Obama’s Education Secretary, appointed to wreck public education nationwide through his Race to the Top scheme, linking federal funding to compliance with retrograde federal standards. They mandate:

— open-ended conversion of public schools to charter or for-profit ones;

— running them by marketplace rules;

— requiring state laws conform with federal ones;

— linking teacher pay to student achievement as determined by standardized tests that measure rote memory, not real learning or preparation for higher education;

— destroying unions and teacher benefits;

— empowering bureaucrats over parents to decide what’s best for their children;

— creating a two-tiered, class and income-based system, favoring affluent communities over poor ones, denying poor kids real education and a chance for a better future; and

— destroying public education by creating another business profit profit center.

Emanuel plans more of it for Chicago, including weakening collective bargaining and teachers’ right to strike, the same core issues Wisconsin state workers tried and so far failed to save, perhaps heading for the chopping block in Chicago.

In fact, Emanuel explained:

“As we (prohibit strikes by) police and firefighters, I would have it for teachers because they provide an essential service.”

Of course, so do all public and private workers, entitled to rights like everyone, including to bargain collectively and strike if treated inequitably.

Since taking office, however, Emanuel waged war on Chicago workers, implementing austerity like Obama’s doing nationally at a time massive stimulus is needed.

Sworn in on May 16, his 25-minute address mimicked Obama, calling for “shar(ing) the necessary sacrifices fairly and justly.” In other words, make working Chicagoans sacrifice so corporate interests and city elites share, the same cancer metastasizing across America, destroying an earlier time long gone.

Saying “Chicago is ready for change,” he omitted hard truths he began implementing on the backs of struggling working households. They need help, not greater hardships with lots more coming to close a $700 million budget gap and resolve $14.6 billion in underfunded pension liabilities perhaps by expunging them and cheating retirees.

While campaigning, in fact, he told city unions he planned pension cuts for all city employees, privatizations of many city services, selling Chicago incrementally to corporate favorites, and restructuring of revenue, finance, fleet management, and general service systems.

Prioritized is:

— downsizing government;

— slashing the city’s $6.15 billion budget;

— cutting management payrolls by 10% by merging departments;

— laying off city workers;

— privatizing city services, including public education more intensively;

— ending past social reforms;

— deregulation;

— encouraging private investment through tax breaks;

— getting tougher on crime by reassigning 1,000 police to city streets, including hundreds to poor neighborhoods to harass Blacks and Latinos;

— improving Chicago’s business climate in collaboration with complicit unions, betraying their rank and file for a seat at the table plus high salaries, excellent benefits, and generous perks.

On July 15, Emanuel announced laying off 625 city workers. Affected are custodians, water department call center operators, and transportation department seasonal workers.

He also announced new privatizations. In addition, cost-cutting work rules are being discussed with union bosses, including unpaid days off, paid holidays reduced from 12 to nine, and new hoisting engineer wage differentials, based on machines they operate.

Other work rules he wants implemented include:

— paying workers time-and-a-half for overtime instead of double;

— paying regular, not extra wages for prep time;

— a standard 40-hour week for all city employees, replacing 35 hours for some;

— regardless of union affiliation, workers doing the same job will get no wage differential;

— salaried employees will get the same number of sick days and holidays as hourly ones;

— rate differences for driving different vehicles or operating various non-vehicular equipment will be eliminated;

— workers alone on a truck paid no more than as part of a crew; and

— union apprenticeship cost saving programs will be enhanced.

Moreover, city workers no longer will provide airport and library custodial services. Private companies will replace them at greater cost.

In addition, seasonal transportation department workforces will be cut 75%. As a result, 61 fewer blocks of curb and gutter improvements will be made, as well as 76 fewer sidewalk blocks repaired.

Henceforth, a professional benefits management company, not public staff, will handle city benefit services at greater cost to the city and taxpayers.

Chicago’s water bill call center will also be privatized, again at greater cost.

Overall, hundreds of city workers will be sacked to allegedly save millions of dollars. In fact, costs will be increased, not cut, making Chicagoans pay for privatized services public workers can do as well cheaper.

According to American Federation of State, County and Municipal (AFSCME) Council 31 executive director Henry Bayer:

“Mayor Emanuel’s announced intention to lay off 625 employees will diminish the availability and quality of city services on which Chicago residents depend. It will also” increase already high city unemployment.

“We are surprised and disappointed at (his) scattershot approach to the city’s budget shortfall. We are particularly disappointed that most of his bullets are aimed at frontline employees who do the real work of city government.”

“Contrary to (his) claim, neither he nor his representatives have ever made any attempt to meet with our union to negotiate changes to work rules….If the mayor were serious about (instituting positive changes), he would have taken the appropriate measures to engage in such discussions.” Not doing so shows “blaming union work rules for (Chicago’s) massive deficit is mere public relations gimmickry.”

“In that spirit, we call on the Mayor to rescind his layoff threat and work collaboratively to reduce costs while protecting city services and jobs.”

In fact, AFSCME, CTU, and other city union bosses collaborate with city management, furthering their own interests over rank-and-file members they pretend to represent. As a result, Bayer’s statement rings hollow, common practice to make workers think he’s on their side when, in fact, he and other union heads fall short.

In Chicago, Illinois and across America, government and corrupted union bosses collaborate against workers, agreeing on wage freezes, benefit cuts, and layoffs, making already dire conditions worse.

As a result, harder than ever hard times deepen to assure corporate favorites and wealthy elites benefit at the expense of troubled working households being scammed.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com

July 21, 2011 Posted by aletho | Supremacism, Social Darwinism | Leave a comment

Denying Palestinian Children Education

By Stephen Lendman | July 20, 2011

In July 2011, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) issued a new report titled, “Education Denied: Israel’s Systematic Violation of Palestinian Children’s Right to Education,” even though it’s a fundamental human right.

It involves progressively developing children as individuals and responsible citizens. It’s key in helping them “raise their standard of living, and (be able to further their) economic, social and cultural development and growth of society.”

PCHR’s report addresses Israeli policies that affect primary education achievement for all Palestinians by 2015.

International law recognizes the right to education for everyone, including Article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) stating:

“The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to education….(It) shall enable all persons to participate effectively in a free society, promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations and all racial, ethnic or religious groups,” as well as advance activities for peace.

Fourth Geneva’s Article 50 states:

“The Occupying Power shall, with the cooperation of the national and local authorities, facilitate the proper working of all institutions devoted to the education of children.”

The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) calls it an indispensable human right, essential to include the following features:

— Availability in proper, well-functioning, educational institutions;

— Accessibility to everyone without discrimination or unaffordability;

— Acceptability in terms of substance and quality; and

— Adaptability to reflect the needs of changing societies.

“The best interests of (students) must always be the primary consideration.”

Various other core international law provisions affirm that “basic learning needs of all children….be satisfied.” Primary responsibility falls on State Parties, obligated to respect, protect, and fulfill “positive measures to enable and assist individuals and communities to enjoy the right to education.”

As an occupying power, Israel is obligated by law to provide and encourage proper education for everyone. Nonetheless, it systematically denies Palestinian children the right to primary (and secondary) education. Its quality and accessibility are hampered by:

— military operations;

— physical safety issues;

— home demolitions and forced displacements;

— school overcrowding;

— too few facilities;

— many in disrepair;

— lack of teaching materials; and

— deteriorating children’s mental health, living in a violent environment.

In addition, basic rights for all besieged Gazans are denied or severely restricted, including for school children to be properly educated. Earlier from 2000 – 2004, Israeli attacks destroyed 73 educational institutions. During Cast Lead, public and private schools were deliberately targeted, damaged or destroyed.

Afterwards, Israel banned construction materials to prevent rebuilding, a policy still largely in force. As a result, “82 per cent of (damaged) Gaza schools (haven’t) been repaired due to the lack of reconstruction materials.” As a result, quality and accessibility of education to all students have been severely compromised.

Frequent Israeli incursions also jeopardize children’s safety. Moreover, they and schools are “consistently targeted by Israeli forces….Instances of killing and wounding of children at school have been recorded,” as well as educational facilities closed following military attacks.

In fact, schools in Gaza’s “buffer zone” near Israel face frequent sniper and other attacks, targeting Palestinians (including children) in so-called restricted areas. In 2010, five children were killed, another 44 wounded. As of April 2011, three children were killed, another 10 injured.

As a result, trauma, anxiety, and lack of concentration affect student performance, worried more about safety than learning. Isolation, an electricity crisis, unsafe water, and lack of basic necessities exacerbate conditions further.

East Jerusalem also faces a chronic classroom shortage at all levels. As a result, a February 8, 2010 memo from Deputy Attorney General Yehudit Karp to Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein said Israel’s failure to fulfill its legal obligations causes “disastrous consequences for the education system in East Jerusalem.”

Overall, around 5,300 students aren’t enrolled in any educational institution. Israel has done nothing to alleviate the problem or reduce the high dropout rate, “notably in the post-elementary educational cycle.”

West Bank performance also is unsatisfactory. In 2009, PA Ministry of Education and Higher Education standardized tests showed:

— only 43% of fourth-graders passed math;

— 66.7% passed Arabic; and

— 45.8% passed science.

PCHR noted that today’s tragic situation is easily reversed and preventable. Only the international community’s failure to hold Israel accountable prevents it. “This is not acceptable….Palestinian children’s fundamental right to education (must be) ensured, and their future(s) protected.”

A Final Comment

A new B’Tselem report titled, “No Minor Matter: Violation of the Rights of Palestinian Minors by Israel on Suspicion of Stone-Throwing” discusses another issue affecting hundreds of persecuted children.

From 2005 through 2010, “at least 835 Palestinian minors were arrested and tried in military courts – not for vandalism, arson, robbery, rape or murder, for alleged stone-throwing. Thirty-four were aged 12 – 13, 255 aged 14 – 15, and 546 aged 16 -17.

All except one were convicted. Due process and judicial fairness are nonstarters. Children are illegally treated like adults in violation of international law, including:

Article 37(b) of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) stating:

“The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child…shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time.”

However, Israeli military orders systematically violate international law provisions, norms and standards, operating extrajudicially with regard to arrests, interrogations, detentions, treatment, family member visitation rights, and legal representation, even for minors aged 10 or younger.

Even though Israel established a West Bank Military Youth Court in November 2009, serious violations of children’s rights continue.

B’Tselem interviewed 50 minors for its report, obtaining information from their arrest to release. Numerous rights violations were revealed, including:

— soldiers arrested 30 minors at home in the middle of the night;

— parents weren’t allowed to accompany them or know details of their detention;

— three were interrogated the same night; 19 the next morning; three that afternoon; and two five days later;

— only three got enough sleep prior to questioning; five said soldiers woke them if they dozed off;

— 19 said they were threatened and treated violently;

— 23 were denied basic functions, including going to the bathroom, eating and drinking;

— most children arrested were detained without bail until proceedings against them concluded; as a result, most (like adults) accept a plea bargain, pleading guilty to lesser charges (whether or not culpable for any) for shorter sentences; otherwise, they could be kept in jails or prison for long periods pre-trial, exacting a terrible toll;

— military courts impose incarceration in lieu of alternative punishments, in violation of international law.

In fact, 93% of minors convicted of stone-throwing were imprisoned for a few days to 20 months. Nineteen were 13 or younger even though Israeli law prohibits incarceration of children under age 14. Their only relief was shorter sentences when, in fact, stone-throwing, at most, is a misdemeanor, warranting nothing more than a reprimand, regardless of age.

Israel, however, convicted them lawlessly for being Muslims in a Jewish state. Most were denied family visitations, telephone privileges, and availability of educational services other than a few subjects inadequately, denying their ability to learn and be promoted.

Few Israeli officials involved in security and judicial procedures called for reforming brazen practices, infringing the rights of minors, even though Israel is obligated under international law to do so.

In fact, Principle 1 of the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child states:

“Every child, without exception whatsoever, shall be entitled to (fundamental human and civil) rights, without distinction or discrimination on account of race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status, whether of himself or of his (or her) family.”

Israel, however, spurns all international laws, norms and standards, doing what it damn pleases extrajudicially because world leaders don’t hold it accountable. As a result, Palestinians chafe grievously under the yoke of its repression.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com

July 21, 2011 Posted by aletho | Illegal Occupation, Supremacism, Social Darwinism | Leave a comment

Ron Paul condemns U.S. regime change promotion in Belarus or in “any other sovereign nation”

Statement on H.R. 515, the Belarus Democracy Reauthorization Act of 2011

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the “Belarus Democracy Act” reauthorization. This title of this bill would have amused George Orwell, as it is in fact a US regime-change bill. Where does the United States Congress derive the moral or legal authority to determine which political parties or organizations in Belarus — or anywhere else — are to be US-funded and which are to be destabilized? How can anyone argue that US support for regime-change in Belarus is somehow “promoting democracy”? We pick the parties who are to be supported and funded and somehow this is supposed to reflect the will of the Belarusian people? How would Americans feel if the tables were turned and a powerful foreign country demanded that only a political party it selected and funded could legitimately reflect the will of the American people?

I would like to know how many millions of taxpayer dollars the US government has wasted trying to overthrow the government in Belarus. I would like to know how much money has been squandered by US government-funded front organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy, the International Republican Institute, Freedom House, and others meddling like the old Soviet Union in the internal politics of a country that has neither threatened nor attacked the United States. It the arrogance of our foreign policy establishment that leads to this kind of schizophrenic legislation, where we demand that the rest of the world bend to the will of US foreign policy and we call it “democracy.” We wonder why we are no longer loved and admired overseas.

Finally, I strongly object to the sanctions that this legislation imposes on Belarus. We must keep in mind that sanctions and blockades of foreign countries are considered acts of war. Do we need to continue war-like actions against yet another country? Can we afford it?

I wish to emphasize that I take this position not because I am in support of the regime in Belarus, or anywhere else. I take this position because it is dangerous folly to be the nation that arrogates to itself the right to determine the leadership of the rest of the world. As we teeter closer to bankruptcy, it should be more obvious that we need to change our foreign policy to one of constructive engagement rather than hostile interventionism. And though it scarcely should need to be said, I must remind my colleagues today that we are the U.S. House of Representatives, and not some sort of world congress. We have no constitutional authority to intervene in the wholly domestic affairs of Belarus or any other sovereign nation.

Tip of the hat to The Passionate Attachment

July 7, 2011 Posted by aletho | Supremacism, Social Darwinism | Leave a comment

10 Really Stupid Things The Mainstream Media Has Said About The Bilderberg Group In 2011

The American Dream | June 11, 2011

This weekend, dozens upon dozens of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world will be gathering behind closed doors at a luxury hotel in Switzerland. All of the participants are sworn to secrecy and swarms of heavily armed security guards are making sure that nobody unauthorized gets in. Decisions will be made at this meeting which will fundamentally change our future. The CEO of Amazon.com will be there, as will the head of Google, one of the co-founders of Facebook and one of the top executives from Microsoft. The president of the EU will be in attendance, along with the president of the World Bank, the president of the European Central Bank, the head of the World Trade Organization and the top commander of NATO. Henry Kissinger and David Rockefeller will be there. Royalty from all over Europe will be attending as well. Past attendees have included several U.S. presidents, Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, Prince Charles, current British Prime Minister David Cameron, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Hillary Clinton, Bill Gates and current Texas governor Rick Perry. You would think that these meetings would be something that the mainstream media would want to cover. But unfortunately, the mainstream media mostly ignores the Bilderberg Group meetings, and if they do cover them they just crack a bunch of jokes about “conspiracy theories” and they do their best to play down the importance of the meetings.

Under normal circumstances, a gathering of top executives from Google, Facebook and Microsoft would have the media salivating. So would a gathering of some of the most important international politicians on the globe.

So why doesn’t the mainstream media want to talk about the Bilderberg Group?

From June 9th to June 12th, over a hundred of the most powerful people on the planet will meet in utter secrecy and will discuss the future of the world.

All of the participants have been sworn not to reveal what is discussed.

Yet this doesn’t interest the mainstream media at all?

Every year since 1954, the Bilderberg Group has been holding these meetings. For years, even the existence of this group was denied. On U.S. talk shows anyone that dared to suggest that the Bilderberg Group existed was mocked as a “conspiracy theorist”.

Well, in recent years the alternative news has brought so much attention to the Bilderberg Group that everyone finally admits that, yes, the Bilderberg Group really does exist.

But now the mainstream media does everything they can to downplay the importance of the organization.

They suggest that anyone that believes that there is anything wrong with dozens of the most powerful people on the planet meeting in utter secrecy to discuss the future course of world events is “crazy”.

If the Bilderberg Group is so unimportant, then why would people like Bill Clinton, Prince Charles, David Cameron, Tony Blair, Henry Kissinger, Bill Gates, Angela Merkel, Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner, Rick Perry, David Rockefeller, Herman van Rompuy, Jean-Claude Trichet, Jeff Bezos, Chris R. Hughes, Eric Schmidt, Craig J. Mundie, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Richard Perle, Paul Volcker, Lawrence Summers, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden take the time to attend?

A full list of the “official attendees” of the Bilderberg Group in 2011 can be found here.

However, the truth is that the “unofficial attendees” are often even more interesting.

But the mainstream media acts like all of this is no big deal.

If they do decide to talk about the Bilderberg Group, they tend to crack jokes and make fun of “conspiracy theorists”.

The following are 10 really stupid things that the mainstream media has said about the Bilderberg Group in 2011….

#1 CNBC: The 120 participants attend in a private capacity and, officially, they do not forge agreements over global economic policy.

#2 BBC News: The gnashing of teeth over Bilderberg is ridiculous, says Times columnist David Aaronovitch. “It’s really an occasional supper club for the rich and powerful,” he argues.

#3 Time Magazine: A vestige of the Cold War, the only drawback of the meeting could be that the Chinese and the Russians are still missing.

#4 Forbes: Admittedly, it’s fascinating that some secret society, like the Wizard of Oz, choreographs events on a global stage. Puppet masters of the public’s fate. Conspiracy theories punctuate the otherwise mundane din of modern life, but riveting as it all appears, I’m not buying it. Would they? Absolutely. Could they? Implausible.

#5 Fox News: But the secretive nature of the meetings, that first began in 1954, has sparked countless conspiracy theories by those who believe the group is trying to form a new world order of sorts.

#6 CNBC: Its secrecy only serves to add fuel to the innumerate conspiracy theories that circulate around the event, with Internet message boards often channelling Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown and putting the “club” in the same bracket as the Freemasons and “Illuminati.”

#7 BBC News: Secret cabals extend beyond the Bilderberg Group. The Illuminati, which derives from a 16th Century Bavarian secret society, is alleged to be an all powerful secret society, including US presidents, that has controlled major world events. The Freemasons – famous for their peculiar handshakes – is a secret fraternity society that has become more open in recent years after extensive criticism.

#8 The Baltimore Sun: I suppose the Bilderberg Group, which was founded in 1954 at the Hotel Bilderberg in Holland, can supply us with a few thrills while we wait for Dan Brown to knock out another book. But a hotel in St. Moritz — especially one that features Teddy’s World for kids — doesn’t seem like the place to plot world domination. Shouldn’t they be meeting in a secret underground lair?

#9 NBC Affiliate KETK: If you believe Mafia hitmen hired by Castro killed JFK, or President Clinton was involved in murder, or George W. Bush planned 9-11…then this story is for you. That’s because the real Masters of the Universe are gathered in St. Moritz to decide your future. It’s called the Bilderberg conference, and it means more to European reporters than anyone here.

#10 BBC News: Some people are more susceptible than others to believing in wacky cabals, says Prof Chris French, of Goldsmith College’s psychology department. “It’s people who tend to be alienated by the mainstream, who feel powerless. They have a need to have a sense of control.”

Look, the truth is that dozens of the most powerful people on the planet are not meeting in utter secrecy just to play poker and smoke cigars.

They are having very real discussions that will have a very real influence on the direction of world events.

If that doesn’t fit in with how you prefer to view the world, that is too bad. The ultra-elite are going to keep on doing what they are doing whether you acknowledge them or not.

In fact, they would very much prefer for most people to keep on ignoring them because that makes it so much easier for them to achieve their goals.

Sadly, most Americans will completely ignore the Bilderberg Group in 2011 because the mainstream media is telling them that it is not an important event.

June 11, 2011 Posted by aletho | Deception, Supremacism, Social Darwinism, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

BBC hides royal wedding coverage costs

Press TV – June 7, 2011

The BBC has used a “controversial exemption” in Britain’s regulations to avoid revealing the astronomical costs of the royal wedding coverage and the number of complaints it received on the day.

British anti-monarchy campaign group Republic hit out at the broadcaster for resorting to the exception in the Freedom of Information Act saying it is going to appeal to the Information Commissioner’s Office to lift the exemption.

“The BBC has been widely criticised for misjudging the level of interest in the royal wedding and was predicted to receive an unprecedented number of complaints about its non-stop, wall-to-wall coverage,” Republic said on its website.

The group said the BBC allocated “vast sums of resources” to the royal wedding while “other areas of the corporation’s output had fallen victim to funding cuts”.

“Over a thousand staff were reportedly sent to cover the wedding, more than five times the number of commercial rival Sky,” Republic said.

The Freedom of Information Act allows the BBC to withhold information that is related to “journalism, art or literature” but the state broadcaster’s insistence on keeping the royal wedding costs secret has raised concerns that it has gone out of its way to accredit a monarchy many people do not bother about.

“The only conclusion we can draw is that the BBC has something very embarrassing to hide. There is a very significant public interest in knowing how licence fee-payers’ money is spent, particularly when it comes to highly controversial issues such as the monarchy,” Republic’s campaign manager Graham Smith said.

Smith also said the broadcaster’s royal wedding coverage is under question as its attitude toward the event has reportedly angered many of the people who pay license fees to keep the corporation running.

“An exemption introduced to protect the independence of the BBC was not intended to shield the corporation from legitimate scrutiny. The BBC must be seen to be impartial and must be seen to be making appropriate decisions based on viewer feedback. If tens of millions of pounds of licence fee payers’ money was spent on the wedding, if thousands of viewers lodged complaints about the BBC’s coverage, clearly the licence fee payer has the right to know,” he said.

Smith went on to attack the BBC for turning into the public relations apparatus for the monarchy.

“Throughout its royal wedding coverage the BBC let itself be co-opted into the Palace PR machine. It’s time for the BBC to come clean, admit its mistake and move toward more objective and proportionate coverage of royal events,” he added.

This comes as Republic had earlier warned in another article on its website that the BBC did not present an impartial picture of the event to the public.

“While we accept that the royal wedding is a news story that the BBC, and other broadcasters, need to report, we believe the degree, style and substance of the BBC’s coverage is biased in favour of the monarchy,” the campaign group said.

June 7, 2011 Posted by aletho | Supremacism, Social Darwinism | Leave a comment

The Killing Continues as US Doubles Down on Failed Trade Policies

Colombia and Guatemala

By DAN KOVALIK | CounterPunch | June 7, 2011

A number of notable events took place in the past week which underscore the U.S.’s continued failed policies in Latin America. And of course, these notable events were almost totally ignored by the mainstream of the U.S. press.

First, Joel Hernandez Godoy, the Finance Secretary of the SITRABI union in Guatemela, was murdered by two gunmen on motorcycle. Mr. Hernandez is the second SITRABI unionist killed this year in Guatemala. SITRABI represents Del Monte banana workers, and, along with the AFL-CIO, is a party to a pending labor complaint against Guatemala filed under the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). This labor complaint involves serious claims of labor abuses in Guatemala — now the second most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists after Colombia which has held the number one spot for years. Among the labor abuses charged in this CAFTA complaint is the murder of another SITRABI leader, Marco Tulio Ramirez.

Guatemala had promised, as a condition of CAFTA, to deal with the problem of anti-union violence within its borders and had even brought the union murder rate down to zero for the two consecutive years leading to CAFTA approval. However, as USLEAP has noted, once CAFTA was passed, the rate skyrocketed again, with 9 unionists killed in 2008 and 16 unionists killed in 2009.

This should be a lesson to those hoping for Colombia to ensure protection for unionists once the Free Trade Agreement with that country is passed.

Meanwhile, in Colombia, at least a dozen unionists have been killed in that country so far this year, with two union teachers killed within recent days, including one in the city of Cali. Another unionist, Carlos Arturo Castro, an engineer, was also killed in Cali on May 23. Mr. Castro was with the union SINTRAEMCALI, a union of public sector workers in the city of Cali. A couple of weeks before Mr. Castro was killed, a lawyer for SINTRAEMCALI, Hernan Dario, was himself shot five times in the city of Cali. Sadly, Mr. Dario passed away in the hospital from these wounds on June 2.

While the Colombian Embassy in Washington, desperate for the Colombia FTA, is attempting to write off the three (3) labor-related killings in Cali as somehow unrelated and as the product of random or even drug-related violence, it is well-known that unions in Cali, and the SINTRAEMCALI union in particular, have been a special target of intensive military/paramilitary harassment and threats for years. Most famously, SINTRAEMCALI has been the target of a harassment and assassination program known as “Operation Dragon” — a joint military/paramilitary operation which targeted 150 social, political and labor leaders, including the SINTRAEMCALI union.

One of the masterminds of this operation was Lieutenant Colonel Julian Villate Leal who was trained at the School of the Americas in Columbus, Georgia. As the Associated Press (AP) reported in an April 2007 article entitled, “Alleged Assassin Worked at U.S. Embassy in Colombia,” when the “Operation Dragon” plot was uncovered, Mr. Villate came under criminal investigation, and, needing a place to hideout, found refuge as an employee at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota where he worked until receiving employment, upon a positive reference by the U.S. Embassy, at the Drummond Coal Company. See also, Washington Post (April 30, 2007). I was told by a reliable source in the Colombian DAS (the analogue of the U.S. FBI) that “Operation Dragon,” was never called off, and that those on the hit list are still targets of the Colombian security forces. The recent assassinations may be proof of this.

Further, Amnesty International has just released a report concluding that, despite the stated good intentions of Colombian President Manuel Santos – who, as Defense Minister of Colombia oversaw Colombia’s “false positive” program pursuant to which the Colombian military murdered over 3,000 civilians and then passed them off as guerillas to guarantee further aid from the U.S. — paramilitary groups are on the rise in Colombia and are continuing to receive aid and support from the U.S.-backed Colombian military. Meanwhile, according to the well-respected human rights group CINEP, extra-judicial killings by the U.S.-backed Colombian military skyrocketed in 2010, with an almost 70% increase in the number of victims of such killings. CINEP has also concluded that there have been 38,000 “forced disappearances” in the past three years, and that such disappearances have only accelerated under the current administration of President Juan Manual Santos.

In short, Colombia remains a death squad state – with the full support of the U.S. — a “Genocidal Democracy,” in the words of renowned Colombian human rights advocate Father Javier Giraldo. That Colombia is nonetheless the closest ally of the U.S. in the Hemisphere, however, should not be surprising as the U.S. has never seen a death squad government in this Hemisphere that it hasn’t liked or sponsored. Indeed, the violence happening in Guatemala today is a continuation of the violence that the U.S. unleashed decades ago when, at the urging of United Fruit (now Chiquita), it overthrew the democratic government of President Arbenz and installed a military dictatorship which proceeded to kill around 200,000 civilians in the succeeding years.

Against this background, Secretary of State Clinton announced this past week that she is certain that the Colombia FTA will be introduced by the Obama Administration in the very near future. Bill Clinton’s own confession before the Senate last year that such free “trade policies have failed everywhere they have been tried,” should ring in Secretary Clinton’s ears and in the ears of President Obama. And, recent events in Guatemala prove how such policies have been a failure in guaranteeing labor and human rights. Still, the Administration seems doomed by its own ideological dedication to free trade and free market principles to push through another bad trade deal with Colombia – a deal which will ratify Colombia’s continued gross violations of human and labor rights.

Dan Kovalik is a labor and human rights lawyer living in Pittsburgh.

June 7, 2011 Posted by aletho | Subjugation - Torture, Supremacism, Social Darwinism, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

The Housemaid, Her Union and Strauss-Kahn

By DEAN BAKER | CounterPunch | May 25, 2011

One very important fact has been largely absent from the coverage of the sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and leading candidate to be the next president of France. The hotel housekeeper who he allegedly assaulted was represented by a union.

The reason that this is an important part of the story is that it is likely that Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s victim likely would not have felt confident enough to pursue the issue with either her supervisors or law enforcement, if she had not been protected by a union contract. The vast majority of hotel workers in the United States, like most workers in the private sector, do not enjoy this protection.

This matters because under the law in the United States, an employer can fire a worker at any time for almost any reason. It is illegal for an employer to fire a worker for reporting a sexual assault. If any worker can prove that this is the reason they were fired, they would get their job back and probably back pay. (The penalties tend to be trivial, so the back pay is unfortunately not a joke.)

However, it is completely legal for an employer to fire a worker who reports a sexual assault for having been late to work last Tuesday or any other transgression. Since employers know the law, they don’t ever say that they are firing a worker for reporting a sexual assault. They might fire workers who report sexual assaults for other on-the-job failings, real or invented.

In this way the United States stands out from most other wealthy countries. For example, all the countries of Western Europe afford workers some measure of employment protection, where employers must give a reason for firing workers. Workers can contest their dismissal if they think the reason is not valid, unlike the United States where there is no recourse.

Imagine the situation of Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s victim had she not been protected by a union contract. She is a young immigrant mother who needs this job to support her family. It seems that she did not know Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s identity at the time she reported the assault, but she undoubtedly understood that the person staying in the $3,000 a night suite was a wealthy and important person.

In these circumstances, how likely would it be that she would make an issue of a sexual assault to her supervisors? Housekeepers are generally among the lowest paid workers at hotels, often earning little more than the minimum wage. It is a high turnover job, meaning that any individual housekeeper is likely to be viewed as easily replaceable by the management.

If this housekeeper did not enjoy the protection of a union contract, is it likely that she would have counted on her supervisors taking her side against an important guest at the hotel? Would she be prepared to risk her job to pursue the case?

We can never know how this particular woman would have responded; fortunately she did have the protection of the union. However, it is likely that many similar assaults go unreported because the victims do not feel they can risk their jobs to pursue the case. They have to simply accept an attack like this as part of the job.

There is a special irony to this situation given Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s position. The IMF, along with other pillars of the economic establishment, has long pushed for reducing the rights of workers at their workplace. Specifically, they have pushed countries around the world to adopt measures that would weaken the power of unions.

They have also urged the Western European countries to eliminate or weaken the laws that prevent employers from firing workers at will. These laws, along with unions, are seen as labor market rigidities that prevent labor markets from operating efficiently.

In the dream world of the economists’ textbook policies, all employers would have the ability to fire employees at will. There would be no protective legislation and no unions to get in the way.

In that economist’s dream world, Mr. Strauss-Kahn and any other powerful individual would be fairly certain that they could sexually assault hotel workers with impunity. Maybe the IMF will adopt a new policy of putting up its top male managers in non-union hotels.

Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy and False Profits: Recoverying From the Bubble Economy.

This article originally appeared in The Guardian.

May 25, 2011 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Supremacism, Social Darwinism, War Crimes | Leave a comment

Why the West Is Attacking Gaddafi

Michael S. Rozeff | LewRockwell.com | May 11, 2011

The reason for the Western powers support of the opposition to Gaddafi shows up in high relief in Gaddafi’s extraordinary U.N. speech of Sept. 23, 2009.

In this speech, Gaddafi stood up against the West. He openly and pointedly criticized the U.N.’s structure. He told many uncomfortable truths. He raised many uncomfortable questions. He proposed global political changes that reduce the powers of the big countries and raised the powers of smaller countries, African countries, and Islamic countries.

Ironically, this war against him again shows the truth in some of his harshest criticisms of the U.N.’s behavior and political structure. But this time not because of his supporting what the West calls terrorism, but for his striving to change the world’s balance of powers. The West turned against Gaddafi because of this challenge.

As it turns out, Gaddafi’s critique of the Security Council and the U.N. was precisely on target, although he surely didn’t expect that he would be the one to provide another example so quickly. His distrust of the U.S. and its allies also proved to be warranted.

The West cannot put up with a leader who says:

“It should not be called the Security Council. It should be called the ‘Terror Council’.

“The American presidents used to say to us, they shall terrorize us….And we shall lead the world, and we shall punish anyone whether they like it or not. We shall punish anyone who will be against us.

“Then we come to the Suez Canal war in 1956. The file should be opened. Why three countries who have permanent seats in the Security Councils enjoyed the right, the veto of the Security Council’s attack, a member state in this General Assembly?

“A country that is Egypt in this case, that was a sovereign state, was attacked and the army was destroyed. And thousands of Egyptian people were killed, and towns, villages were destroyed.

“How could such a thing happen during the era of the United Nations? And how can we guarantee that such a thing will not be repeated unless we redeem the past?

“And this is a very dangerous thing. The Suez Canal war, the Korean War, we should open the files.

“And then we come to the Vietnam War. Three million victims of the Vietnam War. During 11 days, bombs were used more than the bombs used during the whole war. And during the Second World War, all the shells and the bombs that were used, or bombed during the four years of the war, the bombs that were used in the 12 days were more than.

“This was a fierce war. And this war took place after the establishment of the United Nations. And we decided that there would be no wars.

“This is the future of the mankind, and we cannot keep quiet. How can we be how can we be safe? How can we feel accomplished? How can we feel complacent, I mean. This is the future of the world and this is the General Assembly of the world, and we have to make sure that such wars will not be repeated in the future.

“Then Panama was attacked, even though it was an independent state, a member state of the General Assembly, of the United Nations. And 4,000 peoples were killed, and the president of this country was taken as a prisoner and was taken put in prison.

“And Noriega should be released, and we should open the file. And how we give the right to a country that is a member state of the United Nations to go and wage a war against a country and take the president of such a country and take him as a criminal and put him in prison? Who would accept that?

“This may be repeated. And we should not be quiet, and we should make investigations, and we should each one of us may face the same destiny. Each member state of us may face the same, especially if this aggression is made by a member state that is has a member seat in the Security Council and supposed to look and maintain the world peace security.

“Then we have the Grenada war. This country was attacked, was invaded even though it was a member state, by 7,000 – 5,000 warships and using 7,000 troops. It is the smallest country in the world.

“And after the establishment of the Security Council, after the establishment of the United Nations, and the (inaudible). And the president of this country, Maurice Bishop, was assassinated. How this can be done with impunity? This is a tragedy.

“And then how can we guarantee that the United Nations is good or not, that the Security Council is good enough? Can we be safe and happy about our future or not? Can we trust the Security Council or not? Can we trust the United Nations or not?

“Then we have to check and investigate the bombing of Somalia.

“Somalia was a member state of the United Nations. It is an independent country. And (inaudible).

“Why? Who allowed that? Who gave the green light for such a country to attack to be attacked?

“Then the Yugoslav war. No country that is peaceful country like Yugoslavia, that was built that was built step by step, piece by piece, after it was destroyed by Hitler. We destroy it as if we are doing the same job like Hitler.

“Hitler after the death of Tito and he built this country step by step and brick by brick, and then we come and dismember it for imperialist personal interests. How can we be satisfied? How can we be happy? If a peaceful country like Yugoslavia faced this tragedy, the General Assembly should make investigations and the General Assembly should decide who should be tried for the (inaudible).

“Then we come to the Iraqi war, the mother of all evils. The United Nations also should investigate.

“The General Assembly presided by (inaudible) should be investigated by the General Assembly, the invasion of Iraq itself. This was in violation of the United Nations charter without any justifications made by several countries who have member seats in the Security Council.

“Iraq is an independent country, member in this General Assembly. How this country is attacked and how this country how we have already read in the general in the in the charter that the United Nations should have interfered and stopped.”

Important elements of the mainstream press did Americans their usual disservice by ineptly, ignorantly, and superficially dismissing Gaddafi’s speech as ranting, halting, rambling, and off the cuff. They played up the length of it, comparing it with Castro’s speech. They preferred to report on his attire in detail rather than to provide details of his criticisms of U.S.-led wars in Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan.

The best way to understand why the West is putting down Gaddafi is to read his speech in its entirety. Discard that which is frivolous or speculation or personal. Retain that which is serious. Be patient with the inadequacies of the translation.

There is a video with accompanying translation of his entire speech. There is also a reasonably good transcript of that translation that is available.

May 11, 2011 Posted by aletho | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Supremacism, Social Darwinism, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Why Is Gaddafi Being Demonized?

By Anonymous African Woman* / Dissident Voice / April 21st, 2011

It was [Mouammar] Gaddafi’s Libya that offered all of Africa its first revolution in modern times – connecting the entire continent by telephone, television, radio broadcasting and several other technological applications such as telemedicine and distance teaching. And thanks to the WMAX radio bridge, a low cost connection was made available across the continent, including in rural areas.

It began in 1992, when 45 African nations established RASCOM (Regional African Satellite Communication Organization) so that Africa would have its own satellite and slash communication costs in the continent. This was a time when phone calls to and from Africa were the most expensive in the world because of the annual US$500 million fee pocketed by Europe for the use of its satellites like Intelsat for phone conversations, including those within the same country.

An African satellite only cost a onetime payment of US$400 million and the continent no longer had to pay a US$500 million annual lease. Which banker wouldn’t finance such a project? But the problem remained – how can slaves, seeking to free themselves from their master’s exploitation ask the master’s help to achieve that freedom? Not surprisingly, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the USA, Europe only made vague promises for 14 years. Gaddafi put an end to these futile pleas to the western ‘benefactors’ with their exorbitant interest rates. The Libyan guide put US$300 million on the table; the African Development Bank added US$50 million more and the West African Development Bank a further US$27 million – and that’s how Africa got its first communications satellite on 26 December 2007.

China and Russia followed suit and shared their technology and helped launch satellites for South Africa, Nigeria, Angola, Algeria and a second African satellite was launched in July 2010. The first totally indigenously built satellite and manufactured on African soil, in Algeria, is set for 2020. This satellite is aimed at competing with the best in the world, but at ten times less the cost, a real challenge.

This is how a symbolic gesture of a mere US$300 million changed the life of an entire continent. Gaddafi’s Libya cost the West, not just depriving it of US$500 million per year but the billions of dollars in debt and interest that the initial loan would generate for years to come and in an exponential manner, thereby helping maintain an occult system in order to plunder the continent.

African Monetary Fund, African Central Bank, African Investment Bank

The US$30 billion frozen by Mr Obama belongs to the Libyan Central Bank and had been earmarked as the Libyan contribution to three key projects which would add the finishing touches to the African federation – the African Investment Bank in Syrte, Libya, the establishment in 2011 of the African Monetary Fund to be based in Yaounde with a US$42 billion capital fund and the Abuja-based African Central Bank in Nigeria which when it starts printing African money will ring the death knell for the CFA franc through which Paris has been able to maintain its hold on some African countries for the last fifty years. It is easy to understand the French wrath against Gaddafi.

The African Monetary Fund is expected to totally supplant the African activities of the International Monetary Fund which, with only US$25 billion, was able to bring an entire continent to its knees and make it swallow questionable privatisation like forcing African countries to move from public to private monopolies. No surprise then that on 16-17 December 2010, the Africans unanimously rejected attempts by Western countries to join the African Monetary Fund, saying it was open only to African nations.

It is increasingly obvious that after Libya, the western coalition will go after Algeria, because apart from its huge energy resources, the country has cash reserves of around €150 billion. This is what lures the countries that are bombing Libya and they all have one thing in common – they are practically bankrupt. The USA alone, has a staggering debt of $US14,000 billion, France, Great Britain and Italy each have a US$2,000 billion public deficit compared to less than US$400 billion in public debt for 46 African countries combined.

Inciting spurious wars in Africa in the hope that this will revitalise their economies which are sinking ever more into the doldrums will ultimately hasten the western decline which actually began in 1884 during the notorious Berlin Conference. As the American economist Adam Smith predicted in 1865 when he publicly backed Abraham Lincoln for the abolition of slavery, ‘the economy of any country which relies on the slavery of blacks is destined to descend into hell the day those countries awaken’.

Regional Unity as an Obstacle to the Creation of a United States of Africa

To destabilise and destroy the African union which was veering dangerously (for the West) towards a United States of Africa under the guiding hand of Gaddafi, the European Union first tried, unsuccessfully, to create the Union for the Mediterranean (UPM). North Africa somehow had to be cut off from the rest of Africa, using the old tired racist clichés of the 18th and 19th centuries ,which claimed that Africans of Arab origin were more evolved and civilised than the rest of the continent. This failed because Gaddafi refused to buy into it. He soon understood what game was being played when only a handful of African countries were invited to join the Mediterranean grouping without informing the African Union but inviting all 27 members of the European Union.

Without the driving force behind the African Federation, the UPM failed even before it began, still-born with Sarkozy as president and Mubarak as vice president. The French foreign minister, Alain Juppe is now attempting to re-launch the idea, banking no doubt on the fall of Gaddafi.

What African leaders fail to understand is that as long as the European Union continues to finance the African Union, the status quo will remain, because of no real independence. This is why the European Union has encouraged and financed regional groupings in Africa.

It is obvious that the West African Economic Community (ECOWAS), which has an embassy in Brussels and depends for the bulk of its funding on the European Union, is a vociferous opponent to the African federation. That’s why Lincoln fought in the US war of secession because the moment a group of countries come together in a regional political organisation, it weakens the main group. That is what Europe wanted and the Africans have never understood the game plan, creating a plethora of regional groupings, COMESA, UDEAC, SADC, and the Great Maghreb which never saw the light of day thanks to Gaddafi who understood what was happening.

Gaddafi, the African Who Cleansed the Continent from the Humiliation of Apartheid

For most Africans, Gaddafi is a generous man, a humanist, known for his unselfish support for the struggle against the racist regime in South Africa. If he had been an egotist, he wouldn’t have risked the wrath of the West to help the ANC both militarily and financially in the fight against apartheid. This was why Mandela, soon after his release from 27 years in jail, decided to break the UN embargo and travel to Libya on 23 October 1997. For five long years, no plane could touch down in Libya because of the embargo. One needed to take a plane to the Tunisian city of Jerba and continue by road for five hours to reach Ben Gardane, cross the border and continue on a desert road for three hours before reaching Tripoli. The other solution was to go through Malta, and take a night ferry on ill-maintained boats to the Libyan coast. A hellish journey for a whole people, simply to punish one man.

Mandela didn’t mince his words when the former US president Bill Clinton said the visit was an ‘unwelcome’ one – ‘No country can claim to be the policeman of the world and no state can dictate to another what it should do’. He added – ‘Those that yesterday were friends of our enemies have the gall today to tell me not to visit my brother Gaddafi, they are advising us to be ungrateful and forget our friends of the past.’

Indeed, the West still considered the South African racists to be their brothers who needed to be protected. That’s why the members of the ANC, including Nelson Mandela, were considered to be dangerous terrorists. It was only on 2 July 2008, that the US Congress finally voted a law to remove the name of Nelson Mandela and his ANC comrades from their black list, not because they realised how stupid that list was but because they wanted to mark Mandela’s 90th birthday. If the West was truly sorry for its past support for Mandela’s enemies and really sincere when they name streets and places after him, how can they continue to wage war against someone who helped Mandela and his people to be victorious, Gaddafi?

Are Those Who Want to Export Democracy Themselves Democrats?

And what if Gaddafi’s Libya were more democratic than the USA, France, Britain and other countries waging war to export democracy to Libya? On 19 March 2003, President George Bush began bombing Iraq under the pretext of bringing democracy. On 19 March 2011, exactly eight years later to the day, it was the French president’s turn to rain down bombs over Libya, once again claiming it was to bring democracy. Nobel peace prize-winner and US President Obama says unleashing cruise missiles from submarines is to oust the dictator and introduce democracy.

The question that anyone with even minimum intelligence cannot help asking is the following: Are countries like France, England, the USA, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Poland who defend their right to bomb Libya on the strength of their self proclaimed democratic status really democratic? If yes, are they more democratic than Gaddafi’s Libya? The answer in fact is a resounding NO, for the plain and simple reason that democracy doesn’t exist. This isn’t a personal opinion, but a quote from someone whose native town Geneva, hosts the bulk of UN institutions. The quote is from Jean Jacques Rousseau, born in Geneva in 1712 and who writes in chapter four of the third book of the famous Social Contract that ‘there never was a true democracy and there never will be.’

Rousseau sets out the following four conditions for a country to be labelled a democracy and according to these Gaddafi’s Libya is far more democratic than the USA, France and the others claiming to export democracy:

1. The State: The bigger a country, the less democratic it can be. According to Rousseau, the state has to be extremely small so that people can come together and know each other. Before asking people to vote, one must ensure that everybody knows everyone else, otherwise voting will be an act without any democratic basis, a simulacrum of democracy to elect a dictator.

The Libyan state is based on a system of tribal allegiances, which by definition group people together in small entities. The democratic spirit is much more present in a tribe, a village than in a big country, simply because people know each other, share a common life rhythm which involves a kind of self-regulation or even self-censorship in that the reactions and counter reactions of other members impacts on the group.

From this perspective, it would appear that Libya fits Rousseau’s conditions better than the USA, France and Great Britain, all highly urbanised societies where most neighbours don’t even say hello to each other and therefore don’t know each other even if they have lived side by side for twenty years. These countries leapfrogged into the next stage – ‘the vote’ – which has been cleverly sanctified to obfuscate the fact that voting on the future of the country is useless if the voter doesn’t know the other citizens. This has been pushed to ridiculous limits with voting rights being given to people living abroad. Communicating with and amongst each other is a precondition for any democratic debate before an election.

2. Simplicity in customs and behavioural patterns are also essential if one is to avoid spending the bulk of the time debating legal and judicial procedures in order to deal with the multitude of conflicts of interest inevitable in a large and complex society. Western countries define themselves as civilised nations with a more complex social structure whereas Libya is described as a primitive country with a simple set of customs. This aspect too indicates that Libya responds better to Rousseau’s democratic criteria than all those trying to give lessons in democracy. Conflicts in complex societies are most often won by those with more power, which is why the rich manage to avoid prison because they can afford to hire top lawyers and instead arrange for state repression to be directed against someone one who stole a banana in a supermarket rather than a financial criminal who ruined a bank. In the city of New York for example where 75 per cent of the population is white, 80 per cent of management posts are occupied by whites who make up only 20 per cent of incarcerated people.

3. Equality in status and wealth: A look at the Forbes 2010 list shows who the richest people in each of the countries currently bombing Libya are and the difference between them and those who earn the lowest salaries in those nations; a similar exercise on Libya will reveal that in terms of wealth distribution, Libya has much more to teach than those fighting it now, and not the contrary. So here too, using Rousseau’s criteria, Libya is more democratic than the nations pompously pretending to bring democracy. In the USA, 5 per cent of the population owns 60 per cent of the national wealth, making it the most unequal and unbalanced society in the world.

4. No luxuries: according to Rousseau there can’t be any luxury if there is to be democracy. Luxury, he says, makes wealth a necessity which then becomes a virtue in itself, it, and not the welfare of the people becomes the goal to be reached at all cost, ‘Luxury corrupts both the rich and the poor, the one through possession and the other through envy; it makes the nation soft and prey to vanity; it distances people from the State and enslaves them, making them a slave to opinion.’

Is there more luxury in France than in Libya? The reports on employees committing suicide because of stressful working conditions even in public or semi-public companies, all in the name of maximising profit for a minority and keeping them in luxury, happen in the West, not in Libya.

The American sociologist C. Wright Mills wrote in 1956 that American democracy was a ‘dictatorship of the elite’. According to Mills, the USA is not a democracy because it is money that talks during elections and not the people. The results of each election are the expression of the voice of money and not the voice of the people. After Bush senior and Bush junior, they are already talking about a younger Bush for the 2012 Republican primaries. Moreover, as Max Weber pointed out, since political power is dependent on the bureaucracy, the US has 43 million bureaucrats and military personnel who effectively rule the country but without being elected and are not accountable to the people for their actions. One person (a rich one) is elected, but the real power lies with the caste of the wealthy who then get nominated to be ambassadors, generals, etc.

How many people in these self-proclaimed democracies know that Peru’s constitution prohibits an outgoing president from seeking a second consecutive mandate? How many know that in Guatemala, not only can an outgoing president not seek re-election to the same post, no one from that person’s family can aspire to the top job either? Or that Rwanda is the only country in the world that has 56 per cent female parliamentarians? How many people know that in the 2007 CIA index, four of the world’s best-governed countries are African? That the top prize goes to Equatorial Guinea whose public debt represents only 1.14 per cent of GDP?

Rousseau maintains that civil wars, revolts and rebellions are the ingredients of the beginning of democracy. Because democracy is not an end, but a permanent process of the reaffirmation of the natural rights of human beings which in countries all over the world (without exception) are trampled upon by a handful of men and women who have hijacked the power of the people to perpetuate their supremacy. There are here and there groups of people who have usurped the term ‘democracy’ – instead of it being an ideal towards which one strives it has become a label to be appropriated or a slogan which is used by people who can shout louder than others. If a country is calm, like France or the USA, that is to say without any rebellions, it only means, from Rousseau’s perspective, that the dictatorial system is sufficiently repressive to pre-empt any revolt.

It wouldn’t be a bad thing if the Libyans revolted. What is bad is to affirm that people stoically accept a system that represses them all over the world without reacting. And Rousseau concludes: ‘Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium – translation – If gods were people, they would govern themselves democratically. Such a perfect government is not applicable to human beings.’ To claim that one is killing Libyans for their own good is a hoax.

What Lessons for Africa?

After 500 years of a profoundly unequal relationship with the West, it is clear that we don’t have the same criteria of what is good and bad. We have deeply divergent interests. How can one not deplore the ‘yes’ votes from three sub-Saharan countries (Nigeria, South Africa and Gabon) for resolution 1973 that inaugurated the latest form of colonisation baptised ‘the protection of peoples’, which legitimises the racist theories that have informed Europeans since the 18th century and according to which North Africa has nothing to do with sub-Saharan Africa, that North Africa is more evolved, cultivated and civilised than the rest of Africa?

It is as if Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Algeria were not part of Africa, Even the United Nations seems to ignore the role of the African Union in the affairs of member states. The aim is to isolate sub Saharan African countries to better isolate and control them. Indeed, Algeria (US$16 billion) and Libya (US$10 billion ) together contribute 62 per cent of the US$42 billion which constitute the capital of the African Monetary Fund (AMF). The biggest and most populous country in sub Saharan Africa, Nigeria, followed by South Africa are far behind with only 3 billion dollars each.

It is disconcerting to say the least that for the first time in the history of the United Nations, war has been declared against a people without having explored the slightest possibility of a peaceful solution to the crisis. Does Africa really belong anymore to this organisation? Nigeria and South Africa are prepared to vote ‘Yes’ to everything the West asks because they naively believe the vague promises of a permanent seat at the Security Council with similar veto rights. They both forget that France has no power to offer anything. If it did, Mitterand would have long done the needful for Helmut Kohl’s Germany.

A reform of the United Nations is not on the agenda. The only way to make a point is to use the Chinese method – all 50 African nations should quit the United Nations and only return if their longstanding demand is finally met, a seat for the entire African federation or nothing. This non-violent method is the only weapon of justice available to the poor and weak that we are. We should simply quit the United Nations because this organisation, by its very structure and hierarchy, is at the service of the most powerful.

We should leave the United Nations to register our rejection of a worldview based on the annihilation of those who are weaker. They are free to continue as before but at least we will not be party to it and say we agree when we were never asked for our opinion. And even when we expressed our point of view, like we did on Saturday 19 March in Nouakchott, when we opposed the military action, our opinion was simply ignored and the bombs started falling on the African people.

Today’s events are reminiscent of what happened with China in the past. Today, one recognises the Ouattara government, the rebel government in Libya, like one did at the end of the Second World War with China. The so-called international community chose Taiwan to be the sole representative of the Chinese people instead of Mao’s China. It took 26 years when on 25 October 1971, for the UN to pass resolution 2758 which all Africans should read to put an end to human folly. China was admitted and on its terms – it refused to be a member if it didn’t have a veto right. When the demand was met and the resolution tabled, it still took a year for the Chinese foreign minister to respond in writing to the UN Secretary General on 29 September 1972, a letter which didn’t say yes or thank you but spelt out guarantees required for China’s dignity to be respected.

What does Africa hope to achieve from the United Nations without playing hard ball? We saw how in Cote d’Ivoire a UN bureaucrat considers himself to be above the constitution of the country. We entered this organisation by agreeing to be slaves and to believe that we will be invited to dine at the same table and eat from plates we ourselves washed is not just credulous, it is stupid.

When the African Union endorsed Ouattara’s victory and glossed over contrary reports from its own electoral observers simply to please our former masters, how can we expect to be respected? When South African president Zuma declares that Ouattara hasn’t won the elections and then says the exact opposite during a trip to Paris, one is entitled to question the credibility of these leaders who claim to represent and speak on behalf of a billion Africans.

Africa’s strength and real freedom will only come if it can take properly thought out actions and assume the consequences. Dignity and respect come with a price tag. Are we prepared to pay it? Otherwise, our place is in the kitchen and in the toilets in order to make others comfortable.

* Anonymous African Woman is from East Africa. She is not Libyan.

April 21, 2011 Posted by aletho | Economics, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Supremacism, Social Darwinism | Leave a comment

BILLIONAIRES, REPUBLICANS, ON “WARPATH” TO PAUPERIZE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS

By Sherwood Ross | April 21, 2011

America’s well-to-do are waging war on America’s “shrinking middle class,” Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Independent, says.

“The nation’s billionaires are on the war path. They want more, more, more,” and “their greed has no end and they are apparently unconcerned for the future of this country if it gets in the way of their accumulation of wealth and power.”

Sanders says that, “Right now, the top one percent controls more than 23 percent of all income earned in America,” which is more wealth than “the bottom 50 percent” put together. What’s more, he notes, “In the last 25 years, we have seen 80 percent of all new income going to the top 1 percent.” This comment is supported by data showing that productivity gains created by U.S. workers over the past several decades have not resulted in increased pay for them but have instead gone into profits. Salaries have stagnated.

“All of the progressive legislation that started with FDR is on the chopping block,” Sanders declared. “Despite the fact that Social Security today has a $2.6 trillion dollar surplus, they are targeting Social Security. They are targeting Medicare. In Arizona, people on Medicaid who need transplants are no longer able to get them—-(and) that is a real death panel.”

The Vermont senator’s charges about the Social Security surplus are backed up by the Social Security Administration itself. SSA says from 1937, when the first pay outs were made, through 2009, Social Security spent a total of $11.3-trillion. In the same period, though, it received $13.8 trillion.

Over the years, nearly 454 million Social Security cards have been issued and, presumably, as many people have been beneficiaries of the system. And between five and six million new cards are being issued every year. That’s a lot of help for a lot of people.

Sanders says that since the Citizens United Supreme Court decision “what we are beginning to see in elections is unbelievable. Billionaires are going to flood states with all kinds of negative, dishonest ads in an effort to defeat people defending the middle class.” He added that the Republicans’ “have been pretty honest” about their goal “to bring this country back to where we were in the 1920s.”

Not only are the well-to-do out to demolish the progressive legislation enacted as America struggled out of the Depression of the 1930s but well-to-do individuals and corporations are skirting the tax laws enacted to make them pay their fair share of taxes on their income.

“Right now,” Sanders says, “we are losing about $100 billion every year because corporate America and the very wealthy are stashing their money in tax havens like the Cayman Islands and Bermuda.” He continued, “In 2009 ExxonMobil made $19 billion in profits and not only did the company not pay anything in taxes, it got a $106 million refund from the IRS.”

In an article he wrote for May-June’s Utne Reader, Sanders continued, “We should be aware that since 1997, we have almost tripled funding for the military” and if the nation is serious about reducing the deficit, the Pentagon budget is among the “things we need to look at.”

Sanders called for Americans “to put pressure on a handful of Republicans—-to tell them, ‘Go into your hearts, talk to your constituents and tell me if it is appropriate to hold hostage the future of this country for an agenda that benefits only the very rich.’”

Sanders concluded that if we don’t act, “if they roll over us now—there is no stopping them. It is time we organize.” Maybe seniors will consider organizing into groups with the word “Voters” and “Defenders” of Social Security in their title. Seniors vote in large numbers and the names of their organizations could send Republicans a message.

April 21, 2011 Posted by aletho | Economics, Supremacism, Social Darwinism | Leave a comment

Some Itamar settlers espouse extremist views; father says daughter and grandchildren “received the privilege of being sacrifical lambs”

By Alison Weir | Israel-Palestine: The Missing Headlines | April 17, 2011

Following the brutal murder of five family members in the illegal Israeli settlement of Itamar, some settlers are espousing extremist views, including calls for ethnic cleansing.

In an interview reported by Israel National News, the father of the family killed in Itamar, Rabbi Yehuda Ben Yishai, said that his daughter and her family “received the privilege of being the sacrificial lambs and to sanctify the name of heaven.” Yishai called for a greater strengthening of “Jewish identity and pride.”

The New York Jewish Week reports that some Itamar residents have been calling for the expulsion of all Palestinians from the West Bank, quoting David Schneerson, who lives next to the house of the murdered family:

“As long as there is one Arab here, it’s not enough… Kahane is the closest to correct in all of the politics in areas,” he said, referring to Rabbi Meir Kahane, who advocated the transfer of West Bank Palestinians. “No one wants Arabs here in the state.”

Jewish Week reports that Schneerson, 30, is a Chabad Lubavitch emissary and says that Israeli military officers told David Schneerson that the murderer cased his home.

According to the report, “Schneerson believes that a picture of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, saved the lives of his family and five children.” The story quotes Schneerson: “Our door was open. We are sure that he saw the rebbe and fled.”

The Rebbe, as Rabbi Schneerson is known, is highly revered by thousands of followers in Israel and the U.S.; some believed him to be the messiah.

Schneerson taught an extreme form of Jewish supremacism, stating that Jews constitute a separate, superior species, writing that “the body of a Jewish person is of a totally different quality from the body of [members] of all nations of the world…A non-Jew’s entire reality is only vanity” and that “The entire creation [of a non-Jew] exists only for the sake of the Jews.”

Schneerson was recently honored by a proclamation by President Obama, following a tradition begun by Congress in 1978.

April 17, 2011 Posted by aletho | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Supremacism, Social Darwinism | Leave a comment

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By Alan Mosley | The Libertarian Institute | April 22, 2026

Palantir CEO Alex Karp’s book, The Technological Republic, is a clarion call for Silicon Valley to abandon its consumer trinkets and rush headlong into the arms of the military-industrial complex. According to Karp, America’s future depends on wielding hard power through technology—arming soldiers, AI-weaponry, and mass surveillance systems—rather than on the “soft” influence demonstrated by free markets and liberty-first principles. The book claims that “the survival of the American experiment depends on the technological revitalization of the military-industrial complex” and urges the country’s engineering talent to focus on national defense. Karp and his co-author, Nicholas Zamiska, argue that tech bros should “grow up” and start killing America’s enemies before they kill us. … continue

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