As we enter the last full week of Barack Obama’s eight year tenure as President of the United States of America, dozens of political prisoners still sit in cages across the nation’s prisons, rotting away as Obama consciously chooses not to exercise the power to simply free them with the stroke of a pen. Many activists for Puerto Rican independence, Native American and African American rights, and other causes were targeted by the political police’s illegal COINTELPRO program and convicted in sham trials. Now elderly, some in poor health, they may effectively be facing death sentences unless Obama’s decides within the next two weeks to grant their appeals for clemency.
Among the most well known political prisoners are Oscar López Rivera, Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu-Jamal, who have all been locked up for at least three and a half decades. Many others including The Move 9 and The Holy Land Five have spent years or decades in jail for their political action and views. Many, like Chelsea Manning and Jeffrey Sterling, have been denied their freedom for their roles in exposing government crimes and misdeeds.
But you won’t ever hear this in the mainstream media. The corporate media hypocrisy is best demonstrated by the debate regarding political prisoners during Obama’s trip to Cuba in March 2016.
The U.S. government pretends that it always promotes human rights around the world and opposes human rights violations by other countries it considers adversaries. Hence, part of the propaganda narrative on Cuba is that it unjustly holds political prisoners as part of its campaign to repress the Cuban people – something that would never occur in the United States itself.
During a joint press conference with Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro, CNN’s Jim Acosta asked Castro why the Cuban government held political prisoners and whether he would release them. Castro responded by asking for the names of people Acosta was referring to, and said that if he was given a list, they would be free by that evening. The headlines from some of the most popular US new organizations declared that Castro “skirts question on political prisoners” and “President Obama and Cuban President Clash on Political Prisoners in Cuba.” The New York Times challenged Castro’s claim by citing Twitter responses naming Cubans purportedly imprisoned for their political beliefs and quoting a U.S. spokesman saying the U.S. had previously shared lists with the Cuban government.
The press coverage treated it as self-evident that only the Cuban government should have to defend itself against allegations of human rights abuses. That the U.S. President would not have to answer the same question was taken for granted.
But by the time the meeting between Obama and Castro took place in Cuba, all prisoners considered by Amnesty International prisoners of conscience had already been released. Meanwhile, Amnesty has directly called on Obama to free Leonard Peltier and produced multiple reports about his case.
However, no news organization questioned why an American reporter who covers the U.S. President every single day had never bothered asking Obama – before or during the press conference in Cuba – about U.S. political prisoners.
When I asked Acosta via Twitter why he was silent about U.S. political prisoners and whether he would call on Obama to free Peltier, he did not respond. In the following months, he has not responded a single time when questioned about his refusal to ask the same questions of his own President that he does of leaders of foreign (enemy) countries. It is easy to see why.
Journalists working in the American mainstream media see themselves as being on the same team as their own government, safely staying on the side of U.S. power by acting as a mouthpiece to promote the government’s own narrative and opposing those countries and leaders that the U.S. government does.
As the American press refuses to acknowledge that the U.S. has political prisoners, it is left to grassroots groups to demand justice. Recently, separate petitions calling for clemency for López and Peltier were created through the White House’s We the People web site, where citizen petitions that receive 100,000 signatures receive a response from the White House.
Both petitions exceeded the threshold and received the same dismissive response, passing the buck to the Department of Justice’s Pardon Attorney and refusing to comment on the individual cases:
“The President takes his constitutional power to grant clemency very seriously, and recommendations from the Department of Justice are carefully considered before decisions are made. The White House does not comment, however, on individual pardon applications. In accordance with this policy and the We the People Terms of Participation – which explain that the White House may sometimes choose not to respond to petitions addressing certain matters – the White House declines to comment on the specific case addressed in this petition.”
Translation: The President doesn’t actually respect citizens’ right to participate in decision making, and feels free to ignore them whenever he chooses. The We the People web site is merely a propaganda tool to give the illusion that the president is responsive to the citizens he purportedly serves.
Indeed, Obama has closed his eyes and ears and shut out the voices of millions of people who have spent his entire presidency calling on him to show basic human decency and stop the perpetration of historic injustices against López, Peltier, Abu-Jamal and the many other political prisoners.
Throughout his term, Obama has been called on by fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureates, foreign leaders, Puerto Rican politicians and others to free López Rivera. The case has become perhaps the most important political issue on the island, as well as among Puerto Ricans and allies in the diaspora.
Former President Jimmy Carter, who commuted the prison sentences of four Puerto Rican nationalists, including Lolita Lebron and Rafael Cancel Miranda, who participated in attacks on the Blair House and the U.S. House of Representatives in the early 1950s, asked Obama to free López Rivera, as he himself had done for Puerto Rican prisoners convicted of more serious charges. (Carter’s Dec. 13 letter to Obama was not reported in any American corporate media, only in the Puerto Rican press such as the island’s largest newspaper, El Nuevo Dia.)
Despite years of being ignored, the people of Puerto Rico, who are denied their right to self-determination by the U.S. government and relegated to second-class citizenship without the democratic right to representation in federal government, have been unrelenting in continuing to demand Obama grant López Rivera his freedom.
Massive rallies have been held annually in San Juan and across the island on the anniversary of López Rivera’s incarceration each May. The group 35 Mujeres por Oscar (35 Women for Oscar) holds regular gatherings, the most recent on Jan. 6 for López’s birthday.
In a demonstration in October in front of the White House, in which nearly 1,000 people – many who took buses from Philadelphia and New York City – rallied for López Rivera, Puerto Rican recording artist René Pérez (AKA Residente of the band Calle 13), summed up the view of many people that it should be the government of the United States itself that be seeking forgiveness from Oscar López and the people of Puerto Rico. His speech is worth quoting at length:
“We’re here in the United States of America, in front of the government that has enslaved us for more than 100 years. The government that in exchange for a passport took our families to its wars. The government that experimented with our people, since they came implanting its language by force. The government that performed medical experiments on our grandparents injecting them with cancerous cells. The government that experimented with anticonceptive pills on our island. We, who understand [López Rivera’s] fight, are here to tell this government – the only government in the history of humanity to fire atomic bombs – that they have in prison a hero much braver than Washington. That this hero has been imprisoned longer than Mandela. That this hero became a hero without hoping for anything in return. We, who understand the fight of Oscar López are in front of the White House to tell this government that every additional second Oscar López spends in prison converts him in a hero much bigger than any of the heroes the United States has had. We are here to tell this government that even though the history books don’t tell us the real history that includes heroes like Oscar López, we will take charge of telling it. We, who understand the fight of Oscar López, are here to tell this government that we will never ask forgiveness for defending our right to be free. So we don’t ask them to forgive Oscar, but that they recognize the true history of the world, that they recognize the history of Puerto Rico, and maybe some day, after they free Oscar, we will forgive them.”
Obama has chosen to ignore the massive injustice committed against political prisoners in American gulags, likely because he refuses to acknowledge that the system he leads can – and often does – seek to silence and intimidate people into submission, using the legal system as a weapon to destroy the lives of those whose resistance of government power most threatens its perpetuation of the status quo. As Pérez said, perhaps someday people will forgive him.
January 9, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | Human rights, Obama, United States |
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Trump’s tweets and comments are having a good effect already. An ex-CIA director warns Trump’s Comments Will Lead to ‘Wave’ of Resignations.
Former CIA acting director Michael Morell said President-elect Donald Trump’s rhetoric will undermine the agency by causing a “wave of resignations” and affecting its ability to work with foreign intelligence services.
“First, expect a wave of resignations. Attrition at the C.I.A., which has been remarkably low since Sept. 11, 2001, will skyrocket,” Morell wrote in a New York Times op-ed published Friday.
CIA Worse Than Useless
The CIA is worse than useless. They did not foresee the fall of the Berlin wall, any number of assassinations, Benghazi, 911, or anything else meaningful.
Worse yet, the CIA spied on allies, helped overthrow democratically elected governments in Iran and Ukraine (with disastrous consequences). The CIA was directly involved in the kidnapping and torture of US citizens, frequently not even getting the right person.
CIA Torture
- Guardian : Senate torture report to be kept from public for 12 years after Obama decision
- RT: 10 most shocking facts we found in CIA torture report
- Wikipedia: Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture
From the the first link above.
Barack Obama has agreed to preserve the Senate’s landmark investigation into the CIA’s use of torture after 9/11, but his decision ensures that the document remains out of public view for at least 12 years and probably longer.
The full Senate torture report, which documented brutality by the CIA against at least 119 detained terrorism suspects, will be held out of public view at Obama’s presidential library.
I also strongly encourage you to read ‘A constitutional crisis’: the CIA turns on the Senate
Liars, Torturers, Murderers
The best possible news would be resignation of the entire CIA.
January 8, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | CIA, Human rights, United States |
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SALFIT – Israeli forces raided the town of Kifl Haris in the Salfit district of the central occupied West Bank overnight Saturday to provide protection for Israeli settlers visiting a site believed to be a Jewish shrine.
Eyewitness Yousif Yaqoub told Ma’an that he counted about 30 Israeli military vehicles storming the center of the town to escort the settlers, with Israeli soldiers firing stun grenades.
Israeli forces then set up military checkpoints at the entrances to Kifl Haris and imposed curfew, according to Yaqoub.
An Israeli army spokesperson told Ma’an that overnight, “Israeli forces escorted Jewish pilgrims to the tomb of Joshua,” saying that the visit took place “without incident.”
A visit by settlers to the site earlier this month that was not carried out in coordination with the Israeli army sparked clashes with locals youth, prompting Israeli army forces to raid Kifl Haris, when a number of Israeli settlers were reportedly detained and interrogated over “violating Israeli military orders that bans Israelis from entering Palestinian districts.”
Residents of Kifl Haris have been living a continuous tension due to Israeli settlers’ raids to allegedly visit Jewish religious sites.
A number of tombs exist in Kifl Haris, which Palestinians in the area believe to be the graves of Muslim prophet Dhul-Kifl, the Sufi saint Dhul-Nun, and another shrine built by 12-century Sultan Saladin.
However, some Jews believe the tombs belong to the biblical figures Joshua, Caleb, and Nun.
Like many other Palestinian towns across the West Bank with religiously significant sites, Kifl Haris, situated on the main road connecting the illegal Ariel settlement to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, commonly experiences incursions by Israeli settlers accompanied by armed escorts.
Settlers who visit the tombs to pray often actively disrupt Palestinian residents and damage property.
Meanwhile, Palestinians are restricted from visiting holy sites in Israel without hard-to-obtain permits from Israeli authorities.
January 8, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | Human rights, Israel, Israeli settlement, Palestine, West Bank, Zionism |
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Imperialist demagogues, as well as religious fanatics, are known to live in their grotesque realities. They erect huge sand castles, invent mascots, and bombard the public relentlessly with self-promoting messages.
Those who refuse to listen and believe, those who dare to doubt and resist, are sidelined, starved to death, humiliated or simply liquidated.
Western religions and European/North American brutal colonialist practices are intertwined culturally. Hand in hand, for centuries, they have been destroying our Planet, from corner to corner, on all continents and even on the high seas.
All conquests, all genocides, all plunders have been eternally rationalized, painstakingly justified. Grand bogus concepts of charity, of ‘altruism’ have been erected. Subjugated nations have always been ruined in the name of some higher principles, in order to save them from themselves. For centuries, the West has portrayed itself as a sacrificial lamb, as a hand chosen by some divine power, as the greatest civilization that is continuously and altruistically liberating the world.
In the West, scribblers and ‘scholars’ have been paid to soften every barbarity committed by the rulers, soldiers and even common citizens.
The cults of formal learning, of facts and information have been erected. Holed in innumerable officially recognized institutions, the scholars, certified demagogues, researchers and media people have been ‘studying’ each other, recycling and quoting each other, filling millions of books with essentially the same narrative.
‘New’ and ‘revolutionary’ academic discoveries mostly lead to the same old conclusions, to stale intellectual and moral passivity, cowardice and spinelessness.
Endless libraries have been filled with useless volumes, first arriving in print, then later in electronic form. Tens of millions of young and not too young men and women are busy wasting their lives, chasing diplomas, those colorful pieces of paper with the seal of approval, certifying people as fit to serve the Empire and the victorious civilization.
At some point, all major philosophical and existential topics ceased to be discussed, in official academia, in mainstream media, in the film houses, libraries and best selling books.
No one paid any attention. The world simply ‘moved forward’.
The ‘issues’ did not disappear. Genocides are still administered by the West in order to plunder the world, the world of the ‘un-people’.
Western colonialism was never really stopped or defeated.
Great ideologies based on humanism were successfully smeared, even erased from the sub-consciousness of the people. Gutless masses, but especially cowardly intellectuals, got convinced that it would be the best ‘not to take stances’, and not to wear ‘old labels’ and gather under ‘old flags’. Passivity combined with the extreme selfishness eventually mutated into collaboration with the regime.
The environment has been getting ruined, progressively and irreversibly.
The press, mass media, gained mastery in saying nothing, addressing nothing, criticizing nothing related to the plunder of the world, and to the suppression of new and truly revolutionary ideas.
Enormous hordes of teachers, lawyers, scientists, and bureaucrats got converted into fundamental idiots, but armed with their licenses, bar exams, patents, contracts and other ‘feel-good’ sheets of colorful papers.
Tens of millions of lawyers failed to form even one single powerful international organization fighting for justice, against the terror of the Empire.
This make-believe world has by now managed to expel Reality and become ‘real’ itself in the minds and brains of billions of men, women and children.
True Reality went underground. She had to become a fugitive, a refugee, paperless and disrespected, belonging nowhere.
She is roaming our Planet, searching for scattered allies, for those few human beings who are still not fully indoctrinated, or fully sold.
Whenever she is caught, she is beaten, stripped naked, and humiliated. A piece of paper saying ‘A Lie’ is hanged around her neck.
Those who are still standing tall, defending great ideals, fateful to the ‘old labels’, are being ridiculed. Old flags, under which millions used to march forward, often victoriously, are now being dirtied, defecated on.
Whatever contradicts the Empire is gradually labeled as Fake News.
In the West, no one seems to be noticing. There are no mass demonstrations, no clashes with police, as laws and regulations are being changed and entire Constitutions violated.
It is because an overwhelming majority is actually collaborating with the regime.
It is because it is suddenly so frightening, or at least impractical, to think outside the box.
It is because there are very few examples of intellectual courage left in this world.
Fake News, fake history, fake emotions, and fake ideals… Everything that is not supporting the official narrative is slowly but seemingly irreversibly becoming ‘fake’.
The only way forward, and the only way for our humanity to survive, would be for at least one group of extremely bright people to fully break from that straightjacket put on the world by the Empire, to reject official perceptions and ‘knowledge’, and to completely cast off all major tools of analyses of Christian and Western supremacy ideologies which are still functioning as the main ‘intellectual’ pillars of the Empire and its collaborators in the colonies.
One’s thought, in order to be original and revolutionary, would have to be almost completely cleansed, even isolated, from the official propaganda of the Empire, from its movies and music, from its schools on all levels, from its professionally manipulative narratives.
Diplomas and licenses supplied by the indoctrination institutions should be used as a toilet paper for extremely severe cases of intellectual food poisoning, and flushed immediately, together with all that toxic shit that consists of so called ‘facts’ and ‘news’.
*
While the ‘Real News’ package is being disseminated all over the world by the Imperial propaganda machine, hundreds of millions of ‘un-people’ are continuing to die annually, aimlessly.
Many are actually vanishing while still fully believing in every word of what they had been fed by the news channels and newspapers. Would they be told the truth (now also known in the West as ‘Fake News’), they’d most likely refuse to die, even opting to fight for their survival.
Fight against whom, against the Empire? That would be unacceptable. Therefore, alternative sources of information must be immediately suppressed – exactly what the Nobel Peace Prize laureate President Obama has been aiming at during the last months of this year, before stepping down from his throne.
The Empire is in panic, because resistance in the form of alternative thoughts and concepts is now coming from various parts of the world, especially from those places not yet infested with the English-language (as well as French or German) standardized storyline. It comes from such places as China’s Academy of Social Sciences, from several Russian institutions and many fiction and non-fiction writers, as well as from numerous new and not so new media outlets in Latin America.
It is now easy to imagine that the Empire might soon introduce some fascist institution like a “Department of Truth”. Its employees could start demanding that each essay and book is ‘well researched’, insisting on ‘facts’.
Writing and philosophy could be reduced to the level of present-day academia: only recycled thoughts would be acceptable. It would not be enough to say that last week it was raining four days a week. A suitable alternative would be: “Last week it was raining four times a week, according to Professor Sigmund Brown.” Or even better: “Both Professors Brown and Green agreed that last week it was raining four times a week”. Then, footnotes would have to be supplied, as well as other information.
Otherwise – it could be defined as Fake News.
The Fake News clause could be invoked if someone wrote, for instance “the true and the most brutal terrorist in modern history is the West.” Or “Several hundreds of millions of people were slaughtered by European empires, and then by the US Empire, in the last several centuries. This holocaust took place in Africa, Asia, what is now known as Latin America, in the Middle East and Oceania, basically everywhere. No alternative system including those of the Soviet Union or China ever came close to the barbarity committed by the West.”
Anyone spreading such blasphemy, such sacrilege, could be caught, charged, tried, punished, and ‘neutralized’.
Just imagine, someone writing this: “All basic narratives on which Western propaganda is based, are either false, or at least have been heavily twisted and manipulated. This includes all storylines related to the Soviet Union, China, colonialism and the anti-colonialist struggle, Cambodia, Cuba, and even Rwanda. The list is long. Ignorance of the Western public is almost complete.”
How could this not be identified as ‘Fake News’? No Professor Blue would utter such judgment, and no Professor Pink would confirm it. You can spend your time digging your snout into millions of books in official libraries, but only a handful of them would mention it.
Therefore, it is all fake, all fabricated. It does not exist, and should be forbidden, censored.
You can of course hear all this in Havana, Caracas, Beijing, Moscow or Johannesburg. In Beijing, in a normal big state-run bookstore there is much greater variety of political opinion than on the entire island of Manhattan. Even many common folks in non-Western places know things and pronounce them freely. However, ‘unapproved’ people cannot be trusted, can they? Especially when it concerns such explosive pieces of material! Also, foreigners speaking their strange twisted tongues cannot be trusted.
Actually, nothing and nobody can be trusted!
Fake News is everywhere, creeping, ambushing us behind each corner. If the Empire is not vigilant, Western supremacy may one day collapse. Which would be against God’s will… Oh, sorry, that was a slip! The correct way to put it: It would be against all reason, against all logic and all facts.
President Obama cares, he understands.
And now we will be defended with even greater fervor: now comes Donald Trump!
Andre Vltchek is philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He’s a creator of Vltchek’s World in Word and Images, a writer of revolutionary novel Aurora and several other books.
January 6, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | France, Human rights, UK, United States |
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Israeli navy ships attacked, several Palestinian fishing boats in the Sudaniyya Sea, northwest of Gaza city, on Thursday morning, causing one boat to capsize while a fisherman went missing in the aftermath of the assault.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said the fisherman, identified as Mohammad Ahmad al-Hassi, went missing after the navy sank his boat, and that Palestinian search and rescue teams are trying to locate him.
The ministry added that the navy fired live rounds at the boats, then flooded them with high-pressure water cannons.
One of the fishers said several navy ships attacked the Palestinian boats less than four nautical miles from the Gaza shore, causing excessive damage to several boats, including the boat that sank.
The attack is part of repeated Israeli violations against the fishers on Palestinian territorial waters, in the besieged and impoverished coastal region, and have led to many abductions of fishers, and scores of casualties, including several fatalities.
January 5, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | Gaza, Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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“We’re an empire now,” Karl Rove nefariously asserted in 2004, “and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
Rove might have said that 12 years ago, but the words hauntingly describe our situation in 2016 — Oxford Dictionaries, incidentally, named “post-truth” the international word of the year — with facts seemingly relative, truth debatable, and a falsely-premised war on fake news, Orwell must be rolling in his grave.
In fact, given these telling circumstances, perhaps Oxford Dictionaries didn’t go far enough — this year epitomizes a new era of post-coherence. Rove and his ilk — the dynasties Bush and Clinton, reigning powers for nearly 30 years — must chuckle behind closed doors as Americans quarrel savagely over the authenticity of falsehoods and facts, alike.
With ostensibly everything now up in the air, the U.S. power apparatus has inarguably ‘created a new reality’ — one in which doubt has been so instilled as to obstruct and thwart the dissemination of accurate, factual information.
This purposeful manipulation of perception, in other words, does exactly what Rove and the aptly-termed “history’s actors” intend — it keeps the rest of us confused — and bitterly arguing over what’s actually going on.
Online communication facilitated this madness exponentially — it’s doubtful such disorientation would have occurred decades ago, when social media didn’t have critical influence.
Of course, this tumult and turbulence isn’t manufactured without reason — it allows the surreptitious and sometimes flagrant distribution of propaganda favorable to the American political establishment to circulate largely unhindered.
But those aspects of post-coherence unintentionally also gave rise to a furious backlash — the Internet might facilitate confusion and propaganda, but it is, after all, a global library of information — and wary independent and alternative media outlets immediately tear apart false information published by collusive corporate media presstitutes.
With all of this in mind, the following are just a smattering of many outrageous examples of how the Fake News narrative brought us post-truth, intentionally shaping the events of 2016 — and promises to continue the inanity far into the future.
Perhaps the most laughable Fake News came to us courtesy of CNN’s Chris Cuomo, who warned the planet amid ongoing publication by Wikileaks of documents deleterious to the credibility of the Democratic establishment to “remember, it’s illegal to possess these stolen documents. It’s different for the media. So everything you learn about this, you’re learning from us.”
Cuomo’s conspicuous ploy to limit the spread of the actual documents — and win CNN additional reader- and viewership — constituted a reckless foray into censorship of information.
Of course, CNN didn’t proclaim the leaked emails verboten for nothing — the outlet bears the snarky moniker, Clinton News Network, as its parent company, Time Warner, donated over $400,000 to Hillary Clinton’s campaign — and was exposed by alternative media countless times for cutting off reporters who dared criticize its darling candidate or report on revealed corruption.
Further, CNN’s pernicious claim came as the documents revealed the outlet and others colluding with the Clinton campaign to report news portraying Democrats in a favorable manner — of course, those who took Cuomo’s warning to heart and relied solely on the Clinton News Network would never know that pertinent detail.
Other mainstream media outlets who coordinated with the Clinton camp struggled to accurately report the contents of the Wikileaks documents — when they bothered covering the revelations. Corporate propaganda’s spin machine seemed to be on overdrive for the duration of the election cycle — and has reached the level of absurdity following Donald Trump’s win.
Because, according to corporate media — who ignored the depth of corruption exposed by Wikileaks — the election of Trump was so anomalous, there had to be an explanation beyond the fact the American people didn’t find Hillary qualified for the job.
Enter The Russians.
Taking cues from the era of McCarthyism and leading the new Red Scare with a bullhorn is the once-illustrious Washington Post, who first posited, without any evidence sans statements from unnamed CIA officials, that the Intelligence Community had reached a consensus — Russian hackers had interfered in the election to install Trump.
Famously in lockstep, the New York Times quickly parroted the same assertion as if it were steel truth — neither outlet, however, bothered consulting officials from the 16 other agencies comprising the U.S. Intelligence Community.
In actuality, no such consensus had been reached — not even inside the CIA. Shortly after the Post’s shameful scare piece was published, the FBI came forward to denounce the Russian hacking theory as “fuzzy” and “ambiguous” — showing the lack of cohesion amongst intelligence officials, as well as the rush to shirk blame for the lost election.
Wikileaks, itself — the one organization with insider information — has vociferously and repeatedly denied their source hacked anything, is not Russian, and that the documents were leaked by an insider.
Nonetheless, news of the report went viral and furthered current administration’s agenda to both paint Russia as a villain and Trump as having somehow stolen the election.
Indeed, the utterly unproven Russian Hackers theory provided the impetus for President Obama to an embarrassing diplomatic meltdown this week, announcing the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats, sanctions, and the shuttering of two compounds owned by Russia.
While that move could have easily brought the two superpower nations yet closer to military conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin allowed cooler heads to prevail, went against the fury of other officials, and announced there would be no diplomatic tit-for-tat — no United States diplomats would be expelled from Russia.
Incidentally, the mainstream press jumped the gun again, publishing the statements of Russian officials claiming the country would be mirroring moves by the U.S. — before Putin announced Russia would not be stooping to such diplomatic pettiness. … continue
January 4, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | Human rights, United States |
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Let there be no mistake: this is by no means a criticism of human rights as an ideal to work for. The complete title should be “Open letter to those who invoke human rights selectively in order to justify the Western Powers’ policy of intervention in the internal affairs of other countries.”
Indeed, the only issue to be discussed about Syria is not the situation on the ground (which may be complicated), but the legitimacy of the interventionist policies of the U.S. and its “allies”, Europeans, Turkey, and the Gulf states in that country.
For decades, the principle on which international law is based, that is, equal sovereignty of States implying non-intervention of one State in the internal affairs of another, has been systematically violated, to the point of being practically forgotten, by champions of the “right of humanitarian intervention”. Recently, a number of such advocates of humanitarian intervention, self-identified as stalwart leftists, have joined the chorus of the Washington war party in reproaching the Obama administration for failure to intervene more in the military efforts to overthrow the government of Syria. In short, they are blaming the Obama administration for not having sufficiently violated international law.
Indeed, just about everything that the United States is doing everywhere in the world violates the principle of non-intervention: not only “preventive” invasions, but also influencing or buying elections, arming rebels, or unilateral sanctions and embargoes aimed at changing the target country’s policies.
Those who consider themselves on the left should take note of the historic basis of those principles. First, the lesson drawn from the Second World War. The origin of that war was Germany’s use of minorities in Czechoslovakia and Poland, extended later during the invasion of the Soviet Union. The war finally had catastrophic consequences for the very minorities that were used by the Germans.
Partly for that reason, the victors who wrote the United Nations Charter outlawed the policy of intervention, in order to spare humanity the “scourge of war”.
Next, principle of non-intervention was strengthened by the wave of decolonizations in the following decades. The last thing the newly decolonized countries wanted was intervention from the old colonial powers. The countries of the South have been virtually unanimous in condemning intervention. In February 2003, shortly before the invasion of Iraq, the Non-Aligned Countries’ summit meeting in Kuala Lumpur adopted a resolution stating that:
The Heads of State or Government reaffirmed the Movement’s commitment to enhance international co-operation to resolve international problems of a humanitarian character in full compliance with the Charter of the United Nations, and, in this regard, they reiterated the rejection by the Non-Aligned Movement of the so-called “right” of humanitarian intervention, which has no basis either in the Charter of the United Nations or in international law.[1]
It is obvious that such “interventions” are only possible on the part of strong States against weak States. It can only be a case of might makes right.
However, even all strong states are not equal among each other. Let’s imagine for a moment that the right of intervention is accepted as a new principle of international law. What would happen if Russia tried to overthrow the government of Saudi Arabia because of “human rights violations” in that country? Or if China were sending troops into Israel in order to “protect the Palestinians”? One would quickly arrive at a new World War. To understand the “unacceptable” character of interventionist policies, it is enough to think of the American Establishment’s shrieks of alarms following the alleged Russian hacking of certain emails made public by Wikileaks. Note that the reality of this hacking remains to be proven (see here) and that, even if it were true, it would only mean that the hacking enabled the American public to become aware of some maneuvers by its leaders, which is a peccadillo compared to American interventions in Latin America, the Middle East or Indochina.
The consequences of US interventionist policies are multiple and catastrophic. On the one hand, you have the millions of deaths due to American wars (the following study arrives at a total of 1.3 million victims, counting only the “war on terror“).
Moreover it would be a mistake to imagine that the victims of interventions will not react to the threat of intervention by building alliances and trying to defend themselves by increasing internal repression. When the United States was attacked on September 11, 2001, Washington introduced unprecedented security and surveillance measures and, far worse, invaded two countries. How can one imagine that Syria, Iran, Cuba, Russia or China will not take repressive measures to protect themselves from foreign subversion?
Thereby one enters into a logic of unending wars. Indeed, after having themselves intervened in Ukraine and Syria, the Western powers then entered into conflict with Russia and China because of the measures that those countries took in response to those interventions. Far from being a source of peace, the Security Council of the United Nations becomes the scene to express endless acrimony.
In the case of Syria, if, as it now seems, the insurrection ends up being defeated, the Western policy of intervention by arming the rebellion will be shown only to have prolonged the suffering of the population of this unfortunate land. The “human rights defenders” who defended this interventionist policy bear a heavy responsibility in that tragedy.
Although defense of human rights is a liberal concept and liberalism is in principle opposed to fanaticism, today’s “human rights defenders” often display fanaticism. We are warned against a perfectly imaginary Russian influence in Europe (compare the U.S. commercial, cultural, intellectual, diplomatic influence in Europe to that of Russia) and we are told not to consult the “Kremlin medias”. But in any war, and support to the Syrian insurrection is a war, the first casualty is truth. Any truly liberal mind would consult the « propaganda » of the other side, not to take it on faith, but in order to counterbalance and evaluate the propaganda to which his own side is constantly subjected.
Leaving aside “Russian propaganda”, such “human rights defenders” seem unable to pay attention to the following study: “Possible Implications of Faulty US Technical Intelligence in the Damascus Nerve Agent Attack of August 21, 2013.” This study, done by a former UN arms inspector Richard Lloyd and a Professor of Science, Technology and National Security at MIT, Theodore A. Postol, concludes that the gas attack near Damascus in August 2013 that almost resulted in all-out war against Syria, could not be due to the Syrian government. It is difficult to imagine that experts in such positions would deliberately lie in order to “support Assad” or that they are incompetent concerning relatively elementary questions of physics.
The “human rights defenders” also question whether it is still possible to talk with Putin “after Aleppo”. But the U.S. “war on terror”, including the invasion of Iraq, with its hundreds of thousands of deaths, has never prevented anyone from talking to the Americans. Actually, after that 2003 war that France disapproved, France became more integrated into NATO and followed the U.S. more faithfully than ever.
Besides, the European “human rights defenders” are in a particularly absurd situation. Consider, for instance, the alleged use of chemical weapons in 2013 by the Syrian government. There was wide agreement in France over the need to intervene militarily in Syria. But, without American intervention, such a purely French one turned out to be impossible. The European “human rights defenders” are reduced to beg the Americans: “Make war, not love!” But the Americans suffer from “war fatigue” and have just elected a president opposed in principle to wars of regime change. The only possibility for the European “human rights defenders” is to have their own peoples accept massive military spending in order to create a relationship of force that would make the interventionist policies possible. Good luck!
Finally, one must distinguish, among the “human rights defenders” the Noble Souls and the Beautiful Souls.
The Noble Souls warn their “friends” against the idea of “supporting” the butcher, the criminal, the murderer of his own people, Bashar al Assad. But this misses entirely the point of the anti-interventionist attitude.
States can support other States by giving them weapons and money. But individuals, or social movements, like an antiwar movement, cannot do that. So, it makes no sense to say, when individuals express criticism of interventionist policies in our society, necessarily in a marginal way, that they “support” this or that regime or leader, unless one considers that all those who do not want Russia to intervene in Saudi Arabia or China in Palestine support the Saudi regime or Israeli colonization.
Anti-imperialists support another foreign policy, for their own governments, which is an entirely different matter.
In every war, there is massive propaganda in favor of those wars. Since present wars are justified in the name of human rights, it is obvious that the war propaganda will concentrate on “violations of human rights” in the countries targeted by interventionists.
Therefore, all those who are opposed to the interventionist policies have to provide full information to counter that propaganda, for example, the study mentioned above concerning the use of poison gas in 2013, or the testimonies about Aleppo that contradict the dominant discourse (for example a former UK Ambassador to Syria). It is quite remarkable that some leftists, who are very critical of their mainstream media when it comes to domestic policies, swallow almost entirely the Western “narrative” when it comes to Russia or Syria. But if the media distort reality in our own countries, why wouldn’t they do the same when it comes to foreign countries, where things are harder to verify?
This critique of war propaganda has nothing to do with “support” for a given regime, in the sense that such a regime would be desirable in a world freed of interventionist policies.
The Noble Souls want to “save Aleppo”, “are ashamed of the inaction of the international community” and want to “do something”. Yes, but do what? The only practical suggestion that was made (before the recent events) was to create a “no fly zone” that would prevent the Russian air force from helping the Syrian army. But that would be one more violation of international law, since Russia was invited to Syria by the legal and internationally recognized government of that country, in order to combat terrorism. The situation of Russia in Syria is not, from a legal point of view, very different from the one of France when it was invited by the government of Mali to come fight the Islamists in that country (who, by the way, were in Mali because of the French-backed intervention in Libya). Moreover, intervening militarily in Syria would imply either a war with Russia or a Russian surrender without fighting. Who wants to bet on the latter possibility?
To illustrate the hypocrisy of the Noble Souls, compare the situation in Syria and in Yemen. In Yemen, Saudi Arabia is committing numerous massacres, in total violation of international law. If you are indignant because nothing is done about Syria, why don’t you do something yourselves about Yemen? Moreover, there is a big difference between the two situations. In the case of Syria, a military intervention might lead to war with Russia. In the case of Yemen, on the other hand, it would probably be enough, in order to put pressure on Saudi Arabia, to stop delivering weapons to that country. Of course, the Noble Souls know perfectly well that they are unable to stop such deliveries. But, then, what is the point of being indignant about Syria?
The Beautiful Souls, on the other hand, are against all wars, all violence. They “condemn” Assad and Putin of course, but also Obama, the European Union, NATO, everybody! They denounce, they light candles and turn out lights. They “testify”, because “remaining silent” means “being complicit”.
But what they do not realize is that, on the ground, in Syria, nobody, whether the government or the rebels, know that they exist and, if they knew, they couldn’t care less about their indignation, condemnations and lighting up of candles.
This does not mean that the Noble Souls and the Beautiful Souls do not have any effect. They have one, but here it is: to stand in the way of any alternative foreign policy in their own country, which would be based on diplomacy and respect for the United Nations Charter. Yet, only such a policy would favor peace in the world, balance and equality between Nations and, eventually, advance the cause of human rights. But the demonization by the “human rights defenders” of Assad and Putin, as well as of anybody willing to talk to them, renders such an alternative politically almost impossible.
For the “human rights defenders” political realism and the consequences of their actions have no importance: what matters to them is to show that they belong to the “camp of Virtue”. You imagine yourselves as being free, while following at each step the indications of the dominant media as to what should be the object of your indignation.
If I had the slightest illusion concerning the lucidity that you may have about the consequences of your actions, I would call them criminal, because of the harm that you do to Europe and to the rest of the world. But since I harbor no such illusion, I will limit myself to call you hypocrites.
Notes
[1] Final document of the Thirteenth Conference of Heads of State and of Governments of the Movement of Non-aligned Countries, Kuala Lumpur, February 24-25, 2003, Article 354. (Available on http://www.bernama.com/events/newnam2003/indexspeech.shtml?declare).
JEAN BRICMONT teaches physics at the University of Louvain in Belgium. He is author of Humanitarian Imperialism. He can be reached at Jean.Bricmont@uclouvain.be
January 4, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | France, Human rights, Obama, Syria, United States |
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Is a school lesson plan widely used across Canada aimed at fighting racism like its promoters say or is it also a clever cover for defending Jewish/white supremacy in the Middle East?
A recent 12-page Canadian Jewish News insert about Elizabeth and Tony Comper raises the issue. According to the supplement, in 2005 the Bank of Montreal head and his wife Elizabeth started Fighting Anti-Semitism Together (FAST), a coalition of non-Jewish business leaders and prominent individuals. FAST sponsored a lesson plan for Grades 6 to 8 called “Choose Your Voice: Antisemitism in Canada”. Over 2.4 million students in 19,000 schools have been through the FAST program. A year ago FAST added Voices into Action, an anti-racism lesson for Canadian high schoolers that devotes a third of its plan to the Nazi Holocaust in Europe.
Unfortunately, FAST does not appear to be an example of business leaders struggling for social justice. Rather, it’s part of what Norman Finkelstein dubbed the “Holocaust Industry”, which exploits historical Jewish suffering to deflect criticism of Israeli expansionism.
In its “What We Stand For” FAST calls on Canadians “to speak out against all forms of bigotry, racism and hatred”, yet the Compers’ were honoured guests at a 2009 Jewish National Fund fundraiser in Toronto. Owner of 13 per cent of Israel’s land, the JNF discriminates against Palestinian–Arab citizens who make up a fifth of Israel’s population. (What would we think of anti-racist activists who attend KKK meetings?)
In a 2006 article titled “BMO head slams one-sided Israel critics” the Canadian Jewish News reported on FAST’s Quebec launch: “Singling out Israel for blame in the Middle East conflict, even by those of good faith, is fanning anti-Semitism, Bank of Montreal president Tony Comper says. It may not be the intent, but the effect of condemning Israel alone is providing justification for hatred of Jews in Canada and internationally, Comper warned more than 400 business executives. … In underscoring the serious threat of anti-Semitism worldwide, Comper suggested that ‘a second Holocaust’ is possible if Iran acquires nuclear arms and attacks Israel.” In his speech Comper cited CUPE Ontario and the Toronto Conference of the United Church of Canada’s support for boycotting Israel as spurring anti-Semitism.
FAST supporters include a who’s who of the corporate elite: President TD Bank, Ed Clark; CEO of CN, Hunter Harrison; CEO of Manulife Financial, Dominic D’Allessandro; CEO of Bombardier, Laurent Beaudoin; president of Power Corporation, André Desmarais; President RBC Financial, Gordon M. Nixon and many others.
According to the Canadian Jewish News supplement, the Toronto couple also sponsored the Elizabeth and Tony Comper Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Antisemitism and Racism at the University of Haifa in Israel. The Center operates an online Ambassadors Program, which reports the paper, “gives students intellectual material and technical skills to combat online the global boycott, divestment and sanctions anti-Israel movement.”
The supplement was partly sponsored by Larry and Judy Tanenbaum. Larry was one of a half-dozen rich right-wing donors that scrapped the hundred-year-old Canadian Jewish Congress in 2011 and replaced it with the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. As the name change suggests, this move represented a shift towards ever greater lobbying in favour of Israeli nationalism.
The Compers provided over $500 000 to the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto. Established in 2008, Larry and Ken Tanenbaum gave the U of T five million dollars and helped raise more than ten million more for the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies.
Andrea and Charles Bronfman gave over $500 000 to the Anne Tanenbaum Centre, which has close ties with the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Chair in Israeli Studies. In 1997 the Bronfman family provided $1.5 million to create an Andrea and Charles Bronfman Chair in Israeli Studies at the U of T. “Fifty years after its rebirth, the miracle of modern Israel is of broad interest,” said Charles Bronfman at the launch.
The long-standing Zionist family put up $1 million to establish a Jewish Studies program at Concordia two years later. An orchestrator of opposition to Palestinian solidarity activism at the Montreal university through the 2000s, Concordia Jewish studies professor Norma Joseph was also “instrumental” in setting up the Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies. In 2011 multi billionaire David Azrieli gave Concordia $5 million to establish the first minor in Israel Studies at a Canadian university. After attending an Association for Israel Studies’ conference organized by the Azrieli Institute, prominent anti-Palestinian activist Gerald Steinberg described the Institute as part of a “counterattack” against pro-Palestinian activism at Concordia.
The Israeli nationalist tilt of McGill’s Jewish studies is actually inscribed in a major funding agreement. In 2012 the estate of Simon and Ethel Flegg contributed $1 million to McGill’s Jewish Studies department partly for an “education initiative in conjunction with McGill Hillel.” But, Hillel refuses to associate with Jews (or others) who “delegitimize, demonize, or apply a double standard to Israel; support boycott of, divestment from, or sanctions against the state of Israel.”
The individuals driving Jewish studies and anti-Semitism lessons in Canada overwhelmingly back Jewish/white supremacy in the Middle East and encourage the most aggressive ongoing European settler colonialism.
Unfortunately, support for anti-Palestinian racism, along with colonialism and western imperialism, makes one question their “anti-racism” credentials.
Yves Engler is the author of Canada in Africa: 300 years of aid and exploitation.
January 3, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | Canada, Concordia University, Human rights, Israel, Israeli settlement, Jerusalem, Palestine, West Bank, Zionism |
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Margaret Thatcher wanted to eradicate cocaine in Peru with moths, according to newly-released documents, which also reveal the then-British government’s top-secret strategy in combating acid house parties and soccer hooligans.
Her peer in the Labour Party, Lord Victor Rothschild, suggested in 1989 that to tackle drug production in Peru, “One might think of aerial sprays, with or without the connivance of the government concerned; and various other methods of introduction, covert as well as overt.”
The moth, Eloria noyesi, is known for its exclusive diet of the coca plant. “While virtually everyone agrees that those who take cocaine or crack, in the various ways available, should be punished, everyone, I think, agrees that it is the ‘drug baron’ who must be mercilessly ‘put down,’” Rothschild also added.
Thatcher found the “most intriguing idea” to be “characteristically brilliant” and an “ingenious solution,” she responded in a letter released Friday by the National Archives in Kew.
However, the plan was never executed because it lacked cooperation from the Peruvian government.
Other declassified documents describe plans to allow law enforcement to attack anti-nuclear “demonstrators or terrorists” and “as a last resort, open fire to prevent a perceived threat of sabotage not only to nuclear warheads but also to the submarine.”
Multiple documents also detail moves against soccer hooligans with the aim of “excluding troublemakers from football grounds,” who represent “a serious blemish on our society” that are “destroying the game as family entertainment.”
Another signature fight from Thatcher revealed in the documents is her war on Acid House parties, the 1980s’ underground equivalent of raves. Private correspondence claims her uncle was “very disturbed” by the parties and that police had a “feeling of collective anger and helplessness” when they were unable to shutdown the raves.
January 1, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Environmentalism | Human rights, Latin America, United States |
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On December 30, 1996, 20 years ago today, less than two months after Bill Clinton was returned to the White House and California voters passed Proposition 215, CNN broadcast a press conference at which Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey, flanked by Attorney General Janet Reno and Health & Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, reiterated the Clinton Administration’s opposition to the medical use of marijuana. Alan Leshner of the National Institute of Drug Abuse was there, too.
The key visual element was a large chart on an easel to the speakers’ right. The heading read “Dr. Tod Mikuriya’s, (215 Medical Advisor) Medical Uses of Marijuana:” (sic content and punctuation). Twenty-six conditions were listed in two columns of 13. One of the conditions was misspelled — “Migranes.” Another, “Writer’s Cramp,” simply does not appear in the extensive list of conditions Mikuriya had advised Cannabis Buyers Clubs to be tracking.
(Fake news is hardly news at all.)
The day after the press conference, med student Mark Tanaka and I drove up the hairpin curves to interview Dr. Mikuriya at his house in the Berkeley Hills. Flashback 20 years to an account in the Anderson Valley Advertiser of Mikuriya’s response:
Mikuriya, a 63-year-old psychiatrist, calls the McCaffrey chart “a crude dirty trick —the kind of disinformation the U.S. military put out during the Vietnam War. Only in this case the ‘enemy’ is the people of California.”
As Shalala gazed Vannalike at the chart and nodded agreement, McCaffrey told the media, “This isn’t medicine, this is a Cheech and Chong show.” The drug czar warned that the use of marijuana violated federal law and would lead to reprisals, including the loss of prescription-writing privileges for any doctor who recommended it to patients. Reno said that prosecutors would focus on doctors who were “egregious” in recommending marijuana.
Mikuriya felt directly threatened. In a New Year’s Day interview at his home in the rain-drenched Berkeley hills, he analyzed the set-up. “As doctors become more fearful, I’ll obviously get more and more patients who are using cannabis or are considering it. Will that make it seem that there’s something ‘egregious’ about my practice?”
Tod Mikuriya, MD, is a graduate of Reed College and the Temple University School of Medicine. He practices psychiatry in Oakland. (His office is in the grand old Claremont Hotel.) He has been studying the effects of marijuana since 1966, when he directed the first-ever National Institute of Mental Health research project on the forbidden herb. He is considered a leading authority on the pre-prohibition medical literature. In recent years Mikuriya has served as medical advisor to Cannabis Buyers Clubs in San Francisco, Oakland, Santa Cruz and Marin County, and has interviewed several hundred members.
After Proposition 215 won at the polls in November, Mikuriya prepared what he calls “a protocol for buyers clubs,” asking staffers to collect data on efficacy and dosage from as many members as possible. The Oakland club and several others immediately adopted Mikuriya’s protocol. It lists 62 conditions which Mikuriya figures people may now be treating with marijuana. “If the data from these people is not properly compiled,” Mikuriya warns, “a historic opportunity will have been lost.”
Mikuriya says he sent a copy of his proposed buyers club protocol to McCaffrey in mid-November, hoping that the Clinton Administration would view the election results as a sign to rethink its prohibitive approach to medical marijuana use. “What’s saddest and most ominous,” Mikuriya said, “is that the Director of the Drug Control Office and the Attorney General are not willing to challenge this new law on the basis of what it says. They could have chosen a condition that they consider to be in some gray area—say, insomnia, or colitis—and questioned the appropriateness of marijuana as a treatment. But instead they chose to make up some ludicrous falsehoods. I suppose I should take it as a sign that they understand the weakness of their position.”
Mikuriya has retained Gordon Brownell, a St. Helena attorney who likens his client’s situation to the plight of Richard Jewell after the FBI revealed that he was suspected of planting a bomb at a park near the Olympics last summer. “In that case the government had a defense of sorts,” Brownell observes, “in that Jewell actually was a suspect, and the Atlanta Journal found out and printed it. But in this case we have a chart created at the White House for the apparent purpose of misleading the public and shaming a physician.”
Where It Came From
The chart was prepared for McCaffrey by an aide in the Office of Drug Control Policy named David Des Roches. No jokes, please, he’s heard them all. Des Roches his source was a version of Mikuriya’s “Marijuana Medical Handbook,” available on the Internet. The 10-page document includes “every use in recorded history of marijuana for medical purposes,” Des Roches said in a Jan. 3 phone interview with your correspondent
Des Roches defends the identification of Mikuriya as “215 Medical Advisor” because, as advisor to the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club, Mikuriya has had a working relationship with Dennis Peron, the initiative’s primary organizer. “Back here in Washington,” Des Roches explained, “we see Prop 215 and the Cannabis Buyers Club as one and the same, the link being Mr. Peron.”
Des Roches is a West Point graduate who spent nine years as an Army officer before taking early retirement. His title in the Drug Czar’s office is “Special Assistant for Strategy;” his informal role is “the Internet specialist.” Des Roches says he culled conditions from Mikuriya’s “Handbook” with an eye towards “showing how ludicrous some of them were.” Of the reference to “writer’s cramp,” Des Roches adds “I had to show that one to General McCaffrey because nobody believed it.”
Des Roches’s chart transforms the voice and tense in which Mikuriya’s “Handbook” was drafted. For example, Des Roches’s entry “Recalling ‘forgotten memories’” is shortened from Mikuriya’s “John Stuart Mill suggested using cannabis for the recall of forgotten memories.”
Des Roches’s “Corn Removal” derives from Mikuriya’s “Concentrated cannabis resin is topical anesthetic. Applied directly to a nerve, the electrical impulses are inhibited. It was mentioned as used on dental cares for treatment of pain. Prior to removal from the market it was combined with salicyclic acid, a proteotic agent, and collodion to keep it in place for callus removal on feet.”
Upon learning the origins of McCaffrey’s chart, Mikuriya said, “There was nothing in that document to suggest that I was recommending marijuana as a treatment for any given condition. The effect, and probably the intent, was to hold me up to ridicule before the whole country. The whole world.” Mikuriya has drafted a letter to McCaffrey demanding an apology. “I want my name cleared at a press conference as widely covered as the original press conference,” Mikuriya asserts. “And I want to hear an apology from Director McCaffrey himself.”
Attorney Brownell commented, “When Pierre Salinger said it was friendly fire that brought down TWA flight 800, the federal government and all the pundits reminded everyone that the Internet was a notorious source of misinformation. Now they take something off the Internet, change it, and use it to humiliate a physician who has actually spent years studying the literature and collecting data on this subject. It’s outrageous.”
San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan expressed extreme disappointment over the Clinton Administration’s strategy. “It’s as if Dan Lungren had designed their response,” Hallinan said Jan. 4. “Apparently they want to make buyers clubs illegal, period.” On Monday, Jan. 13 Hallinan plans to announce protocols developed by the city Health Department under which buyers clubs can operate legally in this city “in the interests of harm reduction.”
Dennis Peron’s line on the McCaffrey press conference: “Good publicity for Cheech and Chong. On Jan. 8 the founder and maitre ‘d of the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club returns to Superior Court to argue that the passage of Proposition 215 changes the law under which his Market Street establishment was ordered closed back in early August, and that he should be allowed to reopen forthwith. Judge David Garcia will have read the briefs from each side and will rule from the bench after hearing some more from Peron’s attorney, J. David Nick, and a lawyer from Attorney General Lungren’s staff. Ever the optimist, Peron has announced plans to begin registering members Jan. 15, and to reopen the club under a new name, “The Phoenix,” on Jan. 20.
PS December 30, 2016: In a classic example of liberal “triangulation,” Clinton’s DOJ filed civil suit to close down six Bay Area dispensaries, including Dennis Peron’s San Francisco Cannabis Buyers’ Club and Jeff Jones’s Oakland Club. If only Clinton had said “The people of California have sent the government a message, they want to allow the medical use of marijuana. We’ll be watching closely to see what impact this new approach might have on public health and safety…’ the Democrats would not have lost the White House in 2000 —or 2016. But they were and are in thrall to Big PHARMA.
Fred Gardner is the managing editor of O’Shaughnessy’s. He can be reached at fred@plebesite.com
December 31, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | Human rights, United States |
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An Argentine court slapped a new sentence against jailed Indigenous leader Milagro Sala Thursday, just a day after she was handed down a three-year suspended prison sentence for being guilty of “aggravated damages” linked to a protest she led against the conservative government in her home province in Jujuy.
The Jujuy court issued Sala the maximum fine of 3,870 Argentina pesos — nearly half the monthly minimum wage of 8,060 pesos — and prohibited her from participating in any civic and political organizations for three years, the same term as her suspended prison sentence.
Sala was charged with a misdemeanor of “occupying public space, disorderly conduct and the obstruction of vehicle and pedestrian traffic.” The court also ordered the Tupac Amaru organization that Sala leads to shut down its location in Jujuy.
Sala, who has been dubbed the first political prisoner of President Mauricio Macri’s administration, was jailed last January after leading a 52-day sit-in against Jujuy governor and Macri ally Gerardo Morales.
She was initially detained on accusations of inciting mob violence with the occupation — a protest that was reportedly carried out in a peaceful manner — but was soon hit with a barrage of other charges of alleged corruption and illicit enrichment that kept her behind bars for months as investigations continued.
The new three year prohibition of Sala’s participation in social and political organizations extends until the end of Morales’ term as the governor of Jujuy.
After being jailed for nearly a year, on Wednesday a court handed her three years probation with a suspended prison sentence.
Sala is the leader and founder of Tupac Amaru, a 70,000 member-strong organization inspired by the ideals of South American Indigenous liberator Tupac Amaru, revolutionary leader Che Guevara, and former Argentine First Lady Eva Peron, that works with Indigenous and poor communities on a number of political issues.
She is also a lawmaker with the parliament of the sub-regional South American trade bloc Mercosur, known as Parlasur, though her detention has blocked her from being able to fulfill her parliamentary duties.
The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has slammed Sala’s arrest as arbitrary, calling for her immediate release. President Macri ignored the ruling.
Social movements have also rallied behind Milagro Sala, demanding her release as well as freedom for other political prisoners.
December 31, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Argentina, Human rights, Latin America |
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