Will Hungary be the next nation to exit the dysfunctional European Union? The question isn’t at all as far-fetched as it might seem. On October 2, voters in Hungary will participate in a nationwide referendum to vote whether they agree to the forced settlement of migrants in Hungary by the EU or not. It’s a major issue in Hungary, a land of proud and staunchly independent-minded people who have endured 150 years of Ottoman rule; wars with Habsburg Austria until the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 created a peaceful coexistence under the dual Monarchy of Austria–Hungary. After that, Hungarians were subject to the Soviet Union since 1945, initially under the dreaded Mátyás Rákosi, until it became the first Warsaw Pact communist country to declare a constitutional republic in October, 1989 and open its borders to Austria, setting in motion the domino fall of East Germany and then of the entire Warsaw Pact and, ultimately, the Soviet Union. Like every nation, they have a very special history.
It might well be said that Hungarians, always an ethnic melting-pot population whose parliament enacted the first laws of ethnic and minority rights in the world in 1849, are not a passive people when they sense something is wrong in the way they are being treated. So it is today regarding the Brussels proposal that Hungary and other EU member states must accept a Brussels-determined number of political war refugees from the Middle East and pay for all their costs whether they want them or not. Countries that refuse to take their quota would face severe financial penalties. In 2015 some 400,000 refugees arrived in Hungary in 2015 before a four-meter high razor wire fence was erected on the border with Serbia.
About half, or 200,000, attempted to gain asylum in Hungary, and after government procedures, only 264 refugees were granted political asylum. Since the erection of the fence the inflow via the so-called Balkan Route has all but stopped. The Austrian government has also decided to cooperate with the Orban government in jointly patrolling their common border.
Hungary is joined in opposing the Brussels mandatory refugee quota proposal by the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland–the so-called Visegrad Four group. So far only Hungary has decided on a national referendum on the issue. Polls show well over 66% opposed to the mandatory quotas, including Orban, who has urged a No vote.
Hungary’s outspoken Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, the only prime minister since 1989 to serve a full term and be re-elected, is very popular among Hungarians for speaking his mind against what he feels are wrong policies coming out of Brussels. Many Hungarians see him as a modern David pitted against the far larger Goliath, the faceless, unelected EU Commission.
On October 2 Hungarians will vote on a single question in a special national referendum: “Do you want the European Union to prescribe the mandatory settlement of non-Hungarian citizens in Hungary even without the consent of Parliament?”
Orban: ‘terror risk…’
On the war refugee issue Orban minces no words: “Hungary does not need a single migrant for the economy to work, or the population to sustain itself, or for the country to have a future,” he said in a recent interview. On the contrary, he stated, “Every single migrant poses a public security and terror risk. This is why there is no need for a common European migration policy.” Whoever needs migrants can take them, but don’t force them on us, we don’t need them.” As far as Hungary is concerned, he stated in an interview with RT, “migration is not a solution but a problem… We don’t need it and won’t swallow it.” The Hungarian government insists that the right to decide refugee issues should be reserved exclusively for national governments.
Hungary and three other central European states that constitute the Visegrad Four group, which includes Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland, have been opposing the mandatory quotas the EU wants to impose on each member state. Last December Hungary filed a lawsuit with the European Court of Justice to thwart the EU’s attempt to redistribute incoming arrivals across the European Union. A decision could take years. The referendum is intended to give a broad popular mandate against Brussels’ forced quota attempts.
First step to EU Exit?
Clear to all from Brussels to Berlin to Budapest is that Hungarians will vote an overwhelming No to refugee forced quotas. At that point the real question will be whether Hungarians hold a second referendum, as the British did recently, to vote on leaving the EU or not when it becomes clear that Brussels will ignore the Hungarian vote with their usual deafening silence. The idea of a Hungarian EU exit is not unthinkable at all at this point now that Britain has become “first out the door,” establishing the precedent exit is possible.
The Orban government to date has moved with a certain directed caution to test the limits of EU rules. Far from a “right-wing tyrant” as Brussels bureaucrats and politically-correct mainstream EU media have portrayed him, the Oxford-educated Orban is a highly-sophisticated, apparently not corrupt (a real novelty in today’s politics if true) genuine democrat who always turns to his voters on key policy decisions to be sure he has them with him, something anathema to the unelected Brussels oligarchy.
Viktor Orban’s views on the current refugee crisis, which media deliberately misnames the far more benign-sounding mass migration situation of the EU, he outlined in detail in his February 28 annual State of the Union address to the nation, midway into his third term as (elected) Prime Minister.
Referring to the country’s recent experience extricating itself from the destructive decades of communist rule, now as an EU member state since 2004, Orban notes, “we are concerned as to how we should protect our national interests within the European Union.” This sounds reasonable enough unless one realizes that the aim of the EU as an institution is precisely the opposite–to ultimately destroy any and all national interests in favor of a top-down Brussels-centered autocracy of the unelected.
Real accomplishments
As so much about the true Hungary and Orban’s actual accomplishments is either ignored or distorted by mainstream non-Hungarian media, it’s first useful to note some of what Viktor Orban has accomplished in the first term from 1998-2002 when his Fidesz Party won in a coalition with the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) and the Independent Smallholders, Agrarian Workers and Civic Party (FKGP) and in his sole majority government since 2010. After 8 years out of office, Orban’s Fidesz Party won an overwhelming popular mandate of 53% of the vote and two-thirds of Parliament seats in 2010 and re-election in 2014 to the present.
As Orban notes in his February address to the nation, “within three years we had consolidated the budget, stabilized the economy, avoided bankruptcy, curbed inflation and reduced unemployment – the latter not marginally, but from 11.5% to 6.2%. We sent the IMF packing, repaid our loan ahead of schedule, and this year we shall also repay the last blessed penny of our debt to the European Union. All in all, in 2014 we rounded off this period of stabilization with economic growth of 3.7%, and opened a new chapter.”
In addition, under Orban’s term, the government managed “in five years to reduce personal income tax from 35% to 15%, and in five years we have left 1,300 billion forints in the pockets of families. We have reduced household utility bills by 25%, and in five years the minimum wage in Hungary has increased by 50%. We have achieved this together: the state and the market; the Government and the business sector; employers and employees; Hungarian micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises and the local subsidiaries of global conglomerates… Compared with 2010, we have allocated forty per cent more funding to health care. We have halved waiting lists. We have allocated more than five hundred billion – more than five hundred billion forints – to the development of our hospitals.”
That is the background of Hungary’s present economy under Orban’s term and the background to understand why the population supports his call for a no to mandatory refugee quotas. Now his remarks on the refugee crisis are relevant.
‘name of this danger is mass migration…’
Orban continues, “I would now like to explain why I have said all this. In summary, it is because all of this is now in danger. The financial stability we have worked so hard for is in danger… Our nationally-oriented foreign policy – which has been built with such painstaking attention to detail – is in danger. Restored public order and public security free of terrorist threats are in danger. And our national culture… is also in danger.”
He gets precise: “The name of this danger is mass migration… The year 2015 brought to an end an age in which, believing that it was under Europe’s control, we took the protection and safety of our continent for granted. One year ago, on this same occasion, we were already warning that a new age of mass migration had begun. We were mocked mercilessly, and insulted by friends, allies and rivals alike… The reality is that those coming here have no intention whatsoever of adopting our way of life, because they see their own as more valuable… And why, indeed, would they give it up? The reality is that they will not provide the supply of labor needed by the factories of Western Europe. Facts show that, across entire generations, the unemployment rate is much higher – sometimes several times higher –among those born outside Europe. The reality is that the European nations have been unable to integrate even the masses who arrived from Asia and Africa gradually, over a number of decades. How could they succeed in doing so now, so rapidly and for such large numbers?”
All those statements can be argued. But here is the core point on which Orban bases his strategy of Referendum, and the ultimate reason he will next be forced after October 2 to begin preparing a ‘Huexit’ from the EU for Hungary:
“… it is hardly the migrants whom we should be so angry with. The majority of them are also victims: victims of their countries’ collapsing governments, victims of bad international decisions, victims of people smugglers. They are doing what they see as being in their own interests. The problem is that we Europeans are not doing that which would be in our own interests. There is no better word for what Brussels is doing than “absurd”. It is like a ship’s captain heading for collision who, instead of wanting to take avoiding action, is more interested in deciding which lifeboats should be non-smoking. It is as if, instead of repairing the leaking hull, we are arguing about how much water should flood into which cabins…”
Orban then continues:
“It is a big enough problem that Brussels is not capable of organizing the defense of Europe, but it is an even bigger problem that it lacks the intent to do so. In Budapest, Warsaw, Prague and Bratislava it is difficult for us to understand how we have reached a point at which it is even possible that those wanting to come here from other continents and other cultures can be let in without controls. It is difficult to understand the weakening of our civilization’s natural and fundamental instinct for the defense of ourselves, our families, our homes and our land… This is Europe. Europe is Hellas, not Persia; it is Rome, not Carthage; it is Christianity, not a caliphate. When we say this we are not claiming that we are better, but that we are different. To point to the existence of an independent European civilization does not mean that it is better or worse; it only means that “we are like this, and you are like that.”
This move by Hungary, its Prime Minister and its population is no superficial political ploy to bargain for a better deal from Brussels as David Cameron intended with his Brexit fiasco (seen from Cameron’s view). It’s a fundamental drawing of a line in the sand of the entire European Union between countries who believe in a dissolved national sovereignty in favor of a supranational Brussels-based United Europe, and those countries who fiercely intend in the wake of this refugee crisis and all its ramifications, to demand essential national sovereign rights.
Brussels, and clearly Merkel’s Berlin, will oppose Hungary tooth-and-nail to defend their supranational concept. They will do that with the backing of George Soros and his European Council on Foreign Relations think tank. Not surprising, Viktor Orban has repeatedly openly opposed Hungarian-born billionaire speculator George Soros and his NGOs for trying to destabilize Hungary. Soros money also funded the document known as the Merkel Plan, which is the direct opposition to Orban’s defense of national sovereignty over the admission of refugees.
At this point the unfortunate experiment known as the European Union is flying apart in every direction. Hungary may well be forced to rethink its EU identity after October 2 if not well before as events are going, and that will ineluctably feed the forces of dissolution in the EU, perhaps a not at all bad consequence.
August 17, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | European Union, Human rights, Hungary, Viktor Orban |
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© assila_france / Instagram
The French women’s rights minister has defended the ‘burqini’ bans introduced in three French towns, saying the swimwear is “hostile to diversity.” She has previously been criticized for comparing veil-wearing Muslims to “American negroes” who supported slavery.
“The burqini is not some new line of swimwear, it is the beach version of the burqa and it has the same logic: hide women’s bodies in order to control them better,” French Minister for Women’s Rights Laurence Rossignol told French Le Parisien newspaper.
She added that burqinis represent a “deeply archaic vision of the place of women in society and, thus, the relationship between men and women.”
“There is an idea that women are … immoral and should hide their body… A hundred years passed, but [according to burqini inventors] a woman who reveals her ankles or hair is not a woman of virtue.”
According to Rossignol, the burqini topic sparked tensions because of its political dimension.
“It is not just the business of those women who wear it, because it is the symbol of a political project that is hostile to diversity and women’s emancipation,” she said.
Burqinis have recently been a hot topic in France after several towns banned the controversial swimwear worn by some Muslim women.
The first city to ban burqinis was Cannes, with Mayor David Lisnard ruling that: “Access to beaches and for swimming is banned to anyone who does not have [bathing apparel] that respects good customs and secularism.”
His moved was followed by the mayor of another French Riviera town, Villeneuve-Loubet. This time the Muslim swimwear was banned for “hygiene reasons,” according to the town’s mayor, Lionnel Luca.
A village on the French island of Corsica became the third place in France to ban burqinis after the female Muslim swimwear reportedly caused a violent brawl between locals and migrants of North African origin there.
Earlier in August, the Pennes-Mirabeau commune near Marseille canceled a controversial pool party that had been planned by a Muslim group. The organizers, the Smile 13 group, which describes itself on Facebook as a sports and social event group for women and children, said they had received death threats, with one person even claiming they received bullets in the mail.
© assila_france / Instagram
RT | August 16, 2016
The Corsican village of Sisco is the third French locality to announce a burkini ban on beaches, in the name of “gender equality,” but Muslim women who oppose such “misogynistic” measures are targeting “western feminists” for a lack of public support.
Following bans by the French Riviera towns of Cannes and Villeneuve-Loubet citing “hygienic reasons” and linking it to terrorism, Sisco’s mayor enacted the restriction after a major brawl this past weekend in his village over the controversial swimsuit.
The debate has gripped France with Islamophobes, socialists, and feminists, among others, seemingly placed on the same side on the issue.
“Since when did wearing a burkini, in most cases a loose fitting nylon version of a wetsuit, become an act of allegiance to terrorist movements?” Huda Jawad of the Independent asked.
“Do Marks & Spencer or House of Fraser know that their attempt to raise profits and exploit a gap in the over-saturated clothing market is selling and promoting allegiance to ISIS?” she added, referring to recent clothing brands selling the swimwear.
“These daily micro, and at times macro, aggressions indicate the extent to which misogynistic Islamophobia has become normalized in Western discourse and public debate,” Jawad noted. “What hurts the most is the silence of fellow mainstream and ‘western’ feminists whose voices would have a significant impact on how these issues are framed and articulated.”
In an interview with Le Parisien, Socialist Party Minister for Family, Children and Women’s Rights Laurence Rossignol, defended the ban and said the burkini’s purpose is “to hide women’s bodies in order to better control them.”
The same minister in April compared Muslim women who choose to wear the veil to “American negroes” who supported slavery.
While many white, Western feminists defend the rights of women to be free for what they wear or do to their bodies, there has been silence concerning Muslim women who are often marginalized.
On August 9, a ‘Burkini Day’ for women at a waterpark beside Marseilles was called off after organizers received death threats.
There were no protests from white feminists, nor did they don the burkini in solidarity with Muslim women who choose to wear the outfit. … Full article
August 16, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Islamophobia | France, Human rights |
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New Zealand’s security agency, using US National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance programs, mistook pro-democracy activists for conspirators plotting a coup in Fiji, media reported.
An investigation carried out by Television New Zealand together with The Intercept media outlet revealed on Sunday that New Zealand’s Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) used NSA-based surveillance system in the summer of 2012 to intercept the internet communications of a group of local campaigners for democracy in Fiji who were suspected of conspiring to overthrow of the government.
According to the media outlet, GCSB’s surveillance of citizens of New Zealand was not authorized at the time.
Although communications collected by the GCSB lacked evidence to prove the plot, New Zealand’s Security Intelligence Service together with their counterparts from neighboring Australia were prompted to raid the homes of the suspects and their families to probe into the plot amid “national security concerns.”
Since 2013, former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden has been leaking documents that have exposed numerous global surveillance programs, many of them run by the NSA and the Five Eyes surveillance alliance, which includes the intelligence agencies of New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada.
August 15, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Deception | Five Eyes, Human rights, New Zealand, NSA, United States |
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The Henry Jackson Society is a neoconservative London-based think tank set up in the wake of the July 2005 London bombings. Earlier this year it contributed towards the expenses for former Justice Secretary Michael Gove and his family to attend pro-Israel events in the United States. On a trip to receive an award from the right-wing online magazine The Algemeiner, parliamentary records show that Gove, his wife and two children, as well as a member of staff, received thousands of pounds worth of flights, taxi journeys, accommodation and dinners.
The Algemeiner itself paid £124 for Gove and his entourage to travel in taxis, £2,525 on flights and a dinner costing £856. There was also a huge reception at which Michael Gove, Bernard Henri-Levy and Rupert Murdoch were the speakers. The Henry Jackson Society then topped up the contribution by paying for accommodation, amounting to £2,764 for the week’s lodgings. The Lisa and Michael Leffel Foundation, which is famed for its association with a number of pro-Israel causes as well as support for Israel soldiers’ charities, also took Gove and his political adviser out for a separate meal costing £185. The pair were wined and dined for a third time by Alisa Swidler, also a small-time Tory donor, at a cost of over £200.
Gove, who has made a flushed retreat to the backbenches following a bungled attempt to become prime minister in the wake of Brexit, and then being fired as Justice Minister by the new Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May, has long been a celebrity amongst Algemeiner staff. In 2013, they opined that his views were “more favourable to Israel than those of any other mainstream British politician, current or past.” He has won awards from their editorial board consistently for championing the cause of Israel in London and, particularly of late, trying to delegitimise the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The Henry Jackson Society’s world view has become well-established in Westminster, although the group is small and not well-regarded by many Tory MPs; its pro-Israel stance is well known.
Since Israel’s 2006 war in Lebanon, when the Conservatives were still in opposition in Westminster, the then planning minister Michael Gove allied with George Osborne in convincing the formerly ambivalent David Cameron that British support for Israel must be redoubled, despite the ruling Likud Party’s ties with far-right parties. Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague sparked a bitter rift between neoconservative figures like Gove and more sombre realists. “In some instances, such as attacks on the Lebanese army or on parts of the civil infrastructure, Israeli actions have been disproportionate,” Hague wrote, “and our Foreign Office should not be afraid to say so; our position in international affairs may often be linked to that of the United States but it does not have to be identical to it.”
According to one friend, this incensed Gove, who was on the cusp of publishing his first book as a Member of Parliament; he called it “Celsius 7/7” (his right-wing echo of Michael Moore’s film “Fahrenheit 9/11”), which called for a strengthening of ties with Israel. The mood at the Henry Jackson Society was equally angry. When the Israeli air force began pounding military and civilian targets in southern Lebanon, a crowd of two hundred HJS supporters at the launch event of its inaugural collection of neoconservative essays (“The British Moment”) rather coarsely “cheered to the rafters”, according to one person who was there. “I hope this book will ensure that the case for foreign policy with a conscience, grows in strength,” Gove wrote in his dedication for the tome.
The Spectator also insinuated that Hague’s reaction to the 2006 Lebanon war may have had an immediate financial impact, veering towards the kind of anti-Semitic tropes of which Gove has been such a fierce critic. A Tory donor was reported as saying that Hague’s position was “the latest in a long line of rebuttals for people like us, and the things we believe in.” Fraser Nelson at the Spectator (now editor of the magazine) judged that “of the £12 million the party normally raises each year (£25 million in an election year)… about a tenth comes from donors who are Jewish or have Jewish associations.” Apparently, he spoke with three donors who were planning to withhold funds from the Tories, prompted by a threatening letter by major donor Lord Stanley Kalms, who responded to Hague’s comments thus: “William Hague’s usual good sense has deserted him. Criticising Israel for being disproportionate without serious consideration of the alternatives merely mouths the buzzwords of the ignorant armchair critic. Think again, William, for whom you speak. How do you deal with the Hezbollah leader Nasrallah, who is committed to Israel’s total destruction (not a single Jew to remain alive in Israel) and who rains thousands of rockets on Israel, keeping the population in shelters, devastating industry, kidnapping and killing Israeli soldiers within Israeli territory?”
As the 2010 elections drew closer — after which the Conservatives took office as the major party in a coalition — the debate between Gove and his party opponents over whether Israel should be supported or rebuffed raged on. One former associate wrote that he remained “a purist neo-con, believing that the best way of tackling the rise of radical Islam is to oppose totalitarian regimes and back democracy in the Middle East, with Israel as its beacon.” Meanwhile, Hague — who would serve as Foreign Secretary, a role coveted deeply by Gove — took the realpolitik view that Syria should be courted as an ally, if only Damascus could be convinced to cut ties with Iran. Despite the withdrawal of donations from apparently pro-Israel donors, Cameron persisted and at one stage called Gaza a “prison camp” while insisting that the Israelis allow in more humanitarian aid.
Gove and Osborne eventually convinced Cameron to change tack; in fact, by the time of the 2015 General Election, Cameron’s persecution of the BDS movement and insouciance to credibly-alleged Israeli war crimes was earning him praise from the American right, Tel Aviv and the Israeli media. “Is David Cameron the most pro-Israeli [British] PM ever?” asked a Haaretz headline shortly before the polls opened.
The Henry Jackson Society is thought by many to be the stately home of British Neoconservatism, and as staunchly pro-American as it is pro-Israel. Gove and Robert Halfon, at that time Chairman of Conservative Friends of Israel, were, according to a co-founder of the think tank, “The only two active trustees at the start,” playing a role in securing early-stage funding. A core part of its activity has been around promoting pro-Israel views in the halls of Westminster and in the media; its Associate Director Douglas Murray is a regular broadcaster in defence of Israel during its recurrent military offensives against the Gaza strip.
The international patrons of HJS include American neoconservative figures like the journalists Robert Kagan and William Kristol (son of Irving Kristol, “godfather” of the neoconservatives, and Gertrude Himmelfarb, his wife, and also a prominent neoconservative), as well as the politically-minded American businessman Richard Perle. With a career spent drifting through mid-level Washington politics, Perle acted as a special adviser to the think tank’s namesake, the US Democrat Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson, the “patron saint” of the neocon movement for his hawkish stance during the Cold War; the right-wing Perle would later play a key part in convincing George W. Bush to invade Iraq.
The Henry Jackson Society’s efforts to promote Israel since 2005, as well as those of politicians like Michael Gove and George Osborne, and supportive journalists, have not been entirely successful. While Cameron has expressed support for Israel’s “right of self-defence” and thus condoned high Palestinian casualties in Gaza, and dampened his calls for humanitarian assistance to Palestine, the pro-Israel lobby has been unable to slow the rising BDS movement, failed to stop a non-binding Parliamentary vote to recognise the state of Palestine, and failed to stop the Iran nuclear deal. With figures like Gove and Osborne now relegated to the backbenches, the lobby is in crisis as it tries to find new allies with the ear of the prime minister. Trips to America may be a good way to pass the time, but at the moment they may well be a waste of money with scant return for the lobbyists.
August 15, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, UK |
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A British parliamentary committee has criticized UK police for training Bahraini forces who are accused of ruthlessly suppressing public protests and dissent.
Under a confidential agreement in 2015 obtained by the Observer, the UK’s College of Policing agreed to train forces of Bahrain’s Interior Ministry.
The deal, however, does not mention human rights issues.
The UK parliament’s home affairs select committee has slammed the college’s agreements with regimes that have poor human rights records. The committee also blasted UK’s Foreign Office for refusing to disclose such contracts.
The committee said “opaque” agreements with foreign governments, which have been criticized for human rights abuses, “threaten the integrity of the very brand of British policing that the college is trying to promote”.
A law firm representing a tortured Bahraini activist has written a letter to the Foreign Office, saying the agreement with Bahrain raises concerns about the UK’s commitment to protecting human rights.
“We know the college provides a wide range of training programmes domestically that are of potential concern, such as the use of communications data obtained by telecoms operators, the use of interception material, surveillance and undercover policing, and the scope of its courses to overseas customers is not limited in any accountable way,” said Daniel Carey, of DPG Law.
He also argued that the college must have acquired the parliament’s approval for its profit-making activities. “The College of Policing is doing something unusual for government in selling services overseas.”
Anti-regime protesters have staged numerous demonstrations in Bahrain on an almost daily basis since February 14, 2011, calling on the Al Khalifah regime to relinquish power.
Troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — themselves repressive Arab regimes — were deployed to the country in March that year to assist the Manama government in its crackdown on peaceful and pro-democracy rallies.
Scores of people have been killed and hundreds of others injured or arrested in Manama’s crackdown on the anti-regime activists.
August 14, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception | Bahrain, College of Policing, Human rights, UK |
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Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada, is showing consistency in her subservience to the Israel-First-hidden-hand of government. At a recent Green Party convention, Ms. May voted against the majority of delegates who approved a motion offering the party’s support for Boycotts, Sanctions and Divestment movement. The BDS campaign is being mounted worldwide in response to the anti-Palestinian apartheid policies of Israel.
I say congratulations to the Green Party membership! I share the position of the majority who voted for the Green Party to support BDS. This vote demonstrates that Elizabeth May does not speak for the majority of the Green Party membership and therefore she should resign.
With her vote against BDS, Elizabeth May has demonstrated where her loyalties lie. Ms. May also demonstrated those loyalties in her recent reaction to my “Sorry Mom, I was wrong about the holocaust” video. Ms. May did the federal state’s bidding in her media hit job on me. She issued a press release condemning me without any recognition of my years of dedicated work for the Green Party of Canada. My contributions included several runs for elected office as a Green Party candidate federally and provincially.
Ms. May misrepresented the facts about the 2015 election, saying they denied my candidacy when in fact I had already formally separated myself from the GPC. Ms. May also distorted reality by declaring that the GPC would terminate my membership at the earliest opportunity, when in fact I had rescinded my membership a year earlier. I had resigned on matters of principle, based in part on Ms. May’s untenable position on 9/11. An excerpt from my letter of resignation is published here.
Elizabeth May has shown her true colours. “The hastily adopted [BDS] policy could draw accusations of anti-Semitism” she said. Voltaire described this type of behaviour best: “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize”.
My understanding of the roots of the Green Party is that we stood for peace, and that we agreed we would not align our political organization with the genocidal war agenda of the biggest bullies on the planet. Elizabeth May has betrayed the vision of the Green Party founders by showing where she stands on Canada-Israeli relations.
Monika Schaefer is a violin teacher living in Jasper Alberta in Japer National Park. She has been very active as a political activist in the peace movement, the environmental movement, the 9/11 truth movement and now in the movement for Open Debate on the Holocaust.
August 14, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | Canada, Elizabeth May, Green Party of Canada, Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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We know what automatic license plate readers are good for: collecting massive amounts (billions of records) of plate/location data housed by private companies and accessed by law enforcement for indefinite periods of time. What we don’t know is how effective ALPRs are at fighting/investigating crime.
George Joseph at Citylab has done some digging into the effectiveness of license plate readers and hasn’t found much that justifies the expense, much less the constant compilation of plate info.
Last month, the Bay Area’s UASI released ALPR data from the Central Marin Police Authority showing that only .02% of the nearly 4 million license plates tracked over October of 2015 through April of this year resulted in matches to any police “hot list” databases. The data indicate that zero “known or suspected terrorists” have been tracked using ALPRs, and that only a handful of other matches related to other hot-list criteria.
Why the mention of “terrorists?” Well, like most other high-tech law enforcement gear, the funding and deployment of these tools relies heavily on a narrative that never pans out: the never ending War on Terror. UASI stands for “Urban Areas Security Initiative” — a DHS grant program meant to better equip law enforcement for handling terrorism/terrorists. To secure grants to pay for ALPRs, Stingrays, 1033 program supplies, etc., all law enforcement has to do is insert “because terrorism” somewhere in the requisition form. Existential angst — and every government agency’s natural desire to stay well-funded — takes care of the rest.
But in reality, ALPRs aren’t catching terrorists. They’re not even catching dangerous criminals. Use of ALPRs has increased dramatically over the past decade, but there’s not much to show for it other than millions upon millions of “non-hit” snapshots. Instead of bringing down terrorists, drug traffickers, auto theft rings, and kidnappers, ALPRs are being used to troll low-income neighborhoods. (Oakland, CA: Picture/data by Dave Maass, Jeremy Gillula, and EFF.)
Law enforcement officials continue to claim ALPRs are being used to target “major criminal activities.” Maybe so, but there’s been a troubling push by municipalities and private companies to turn plate readers into roaming revenue generators.
As the Electronic Frontier Foundation found, several municipalities in Texas… have sparked controversy for allowing police to team up with private-sector companies to work like mobile debt collectors.
In places like Guadalupe County, the City of Orange, and the City of Kyle, Vigilant, a for-profit technology firm, gives police free license-plate readers and creates its own “hot list” for police, using police records on individuals with outstanding court fines. In exchange, police with license-plate readers identify drivers with outstanding fines during their patrols, offering them a trip to jail or the option to pay the original court fee (plus a 25 percent markup, all of which goes to Vigilant).
This budget/profit-driven approach leads directly to ALPRs spending a disproportionate amount of time roaming low-income neighborhoods where unpaid fines and fees are often more prevalent. What’s touted as a high-tech solution to serious criminal activity is being used to collect on unpaid parking tickets and unregistered vehicles. DHS anti-terrorism dollars are being converted into city budget enhancers. The “hot lists” used to direct law enforcement activity are routing officers away from dangerous criminal activity and turning them into glorified meter maids and revenue agents. Who needs to worry about terrorists when low-level scofflaws with unpaid parking tickets are more likely to generate income on the spot?
This is what’s being done with millions of records controlled by private companies and governed by a patchwork collection of inadequate minimization and data destruction policies. Rather than make cities safer, they’re only serving to make cities slightly richer. And in doing so, ALPRs are making policing — especially the sort that actually serves the community — a dusty relic of a bygone era.
August 13, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties | ALPRs, Human rights, United States |
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I have long been a critic of military tribunals as constitutionally dubious and practically ineffectual institutions. The tribunals at Guantanamo Bay have resulted in few actual trials and undermined the standing of the United States as a nation committed to the rule of law. The principle rationale cited by former officials in defense of Gitmo has been that it would not be used to try citizens. Now in a deeply disturbing interview, GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has stated that he might try citizens at Gitmo — maintaining a shadow court system for stripping citizens of basic rights of due process just a few miles off the United States shore.
As an attorney who has long practiced in the national security field (including terrorism cases), the tribunal system has never made a great deal of sense to me. Federal courts have long tried terrorists and the government has a high success rate in such cases. The creation of a faux court system only gives our enemies a rallying cry and fuels those who to call us hypocrites.
Those concerns are magnified by Trump’s dismissal of any distinction between citizens and non-citizens in the use of such tribunals. In an interview with the Miami Herald on Thursday, Trump was asked if he would use the tribunals against U.S. citizens. Trump responded: “Well, I know that they want to try them in our regular court systems, and I don’t like that at all. I don’t like that at all. I would say they could be tried there, that would be fine.”
That may be fine in Trump’s view but it would also be unconstitutional. Presidents are not allowed to create alternative court systems for denying citizens of core rights at their discretion. Such a Caesar-like role runs against the very grain of the American constitutional system. The statement by Trump reflects a disconcerting lack of faith in our court system and a fundamental misunderstanding of the limits placed upon presidents in our constitutional system.
August 12, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties | Donald Trump, Guantánamo Bay, Human rights, United States |
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The maternal mortality rate across most of the US increased by 27 percent from 2000 to 2014, new study finds, adding that the rate is actually higher than official estimates because states do not uniformly report pregnancy status on death certificates.
The last calculation of the US maternal mortality rate occurred in 2007, when it was 12.7 deaths per 100,000 live births. According to researchers responsible for the study published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, that figure is too low because the estimate was made without accurate data. At the time, not all US states had adopted a “pregnancy question” on their standard death certificates, which became an accepted addition to forms in 2003.
Maternal mortality is defined as the “death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management.”
Outside of California and Texas – which were not included because their trends were “markedly different” from other states and would have skewed the results – the actual maternal mortality rate in the US in 2007 was 21.3 deaths per 100,000 live births, the researchers found, a 68 percent increase from the official reported average.
Based on their research, the team said the 2014 rate in 48 states and the District of Columbia has gone up to 23.8 deaths per 100,000 live births.
“It is an international embarrassment that the United States, since 2007, has not been able to provide a national maternal mortality rate to international data repositories,” the researchers wrote. “This inability reflects the chronic underfunding over the past two decades of state and national vital statistics systems. Indeed, it was primarily a lack of funds that led to delays (of more than a decade in many states) in the adoption of the 2003 revised birth and death certificates.”
The research team used a “correction factor” to analyze incomplete or unrevised maternal mortality data to adjust for the lack of uniform reporting of pregnancy status on death certificates. The adjusted figures were then used to calculate the maternal morality rates for US states, except for California and Texas. The Golden State showed a significant decline in maternal mortality rate from 2003 to 2014, while the rate in the Lone Star State doubled in 2011-2012.
While international maternal mortality rates were trending down, the US has gone in the opposite direction, researchers pointed out. They noted the World Health Organization has said that 157 of 183 nations have reported decreases in their rates since 2000. The current estimated rate in the US, however, is comparable to Iran and Ukraine, and is second-to-last only to Mexico among the so-called industrialized nations.
“The current maternal mortality rate places the United States far behind other industrialized nations,”said study co-author Eugene Declercq, professor of community health sciences at Boston University School of Public Health. “There is a need to redouble efforts to prevent maternal deaths and improve maternity care for the four million US women giving birth each year.”
The study — Recent Increases in the US Maternal Mortality Rate: Disentangling Trends From Measurement Issues — was published online in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, and was conducted by researchers with the Boston University School of Public Health, the Maryland Population Research Center at the University of Maryland, and the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative at Stanford University Medical School.
Read more:
US ‘worst place to be a mother’ among developed nations – report
August 11, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Phony Scarcity, Progressive Hypocrite | Human rights, United States |
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Settler Harassment
Ealier today we visited Abdullah Braigheith, a 54 year old farmer, who with his family are facing the risk of getting their agricultural water tank demolished, any day from now. This is their livelihood, without the water for crops they will lose their income. Abdullah and his brother already had to cut down on their production this year; they went from planting 30 dunums* last year to only 5 dunums this year. This leaves the family facing severe economic problems, and the father can’t pay for his kids’ education in university. They are now fearing losing around 3000 dunums of their land, because the settlers want to connect the settlements Gush Etzion and Beit AlBarakeh to make one settlement. Even though they are surrounded by settlements from all sides, they will not leave their land. This is not only due to the fact that they will lose their income, but the land is also their pride and identity.
Thirty five of the family’s apricot trees were cut down by the settlers. The family filed a complaint to the Israeli police, who did nothing to help. Afterwards, the settlers took revenge by setting three of their tractors on fire.
The family went to the Israeli military, who told them to file a complaint. Abdullah asked the military for a video of what happened, since there are military cameras all over the area. The soldiers refused to let them even see the video, because of ”security reasons”. The purpose of the cameras is not to protect people like Abdullah and his family, but instead the settlers who attack them and their property.
The family were not able a file a complaint since the soldiers did not allow them to see evidence that would make such an action possible. According to Abdullah Braigheith, using Israeli military courts to get justice is futile because the courts are set up to protect the victimizers, not the people who are wronged.
“It’s their own court, we can do nothing about it,” Abdullah said.
Water Shortage
About one year ago, four water tanks were built in Beit Ummar, a project to develop Palestinian water resources and agricultural lands in the West Bank. It was built with funding from the European Union, USAID, UAWC and other NGOs without permission from the Israeli authorities, because they knew that they most likely would not get a permit to built them if they did. Usually they would not receive demolition orders, but they all did, and the farmers, including Abdullah Braigheith, have all been going in and out of court since. This meaning that they are now not only dealing with a huge water shortage and harassment from settlers, but are now also using huge amounts of money in court. The fact that even projects like this, funded by the European Union and other NGOs, are under demolition orders, shows how impossible it is for the people living in Beit Ummar and the rest of the West Bank to receive help.
Since the Oslo Accords in 1995, Beit Ummar was put in the category which covers 60 % of the West Bank, called Area C, which is completely under Israeli civil military control. In these areas, Israeli settlers have higher privileges which are at the expense of the Palestinian population here. This is clear when you look at the fields in Beit Ummar, where Palestinian farmers are either not able to actually use most of their land, or their plants are dying because of the shortage of water.
Close by, you see the settlers’ fields which are green. The difference is very clear.
Palestinian domestic consumption is on average 70 litres per person per day, with Israeli domestic consumption being on average 300 litres per capita per day. A gross inequality exists, however, between Palestinian communities and illegal Israeli settlements*.
*B’tselem, The Gap in Water Consumption Between Palestinians and Israelis, (2007). Available from: http://www.btselem.org/english/Water/Consumption_Gap.asp.
The difficult situation of Beit Ummar, from Abdullah’s point of view
Abdullah standing at the water tank which is in the risk of getting demolished
Abdullah looking at one of the many dr
August 10, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, West Bank, Zionism |
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BETHLEHEM – Israeli police have closed their investigation into the death of Palestinian Minister Ziad Abu Ein — who died in 2014 after being beaten by Israeli forces — concluding that he had died of natural causes, Israeli news outlet Arutz Sheva reported on Wednesday.
According to Arutz Sheva, an autopsy by the police department of internal investigations concluded that Abu Ein, 55, died of a heart attack on Dec. 10, 2014, after an Israeli border police officer beat him in the chest with his helmet and the butt of his rifle during a march to plant olive trees in the village of Turmusayya in the Ramallah district of the occupied West Bank.
Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din, which represents Abu Ein’s family in the case, expressed its outrage at the police’s decision to close the case without ever interrogating the border policeman suspected of killing Abu Ein or asking him to testify.
“Most cases of Israeli violence against Palestinians are closed. But we expected that at least a proper investigation would take place,” Yesh Din spokesman Gilad Grossman told Ma’an on Wednesday. “This shows Israeli armed forces’ impunity when committing violence against Palestinian civilians.”
“They closed the case without talking to the border police officer,” Grossman added, despite the fact that “a number of soldiers who were there during the incident said that the border police officer was acting violently even before the altercation” with Abu Ein.
The internal investigations department reportedly justified the decision not to interrogate the policeman.
“Since policemen are authorized to use force and it is expected of them in many cases to use it, Internal Investigations will not summon a policeman for investigation if there is not a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed,” Arutz Sheva quoted the department as saying.
Grossman said that Abu Ein’s family had already filed an appeal to the Israeli Ministry of Justice.
“Our opinion is that internal affairs must investigate the acts of the border policeman during the altercation, even if his actions were not the direct cause of Abu Ein’s death,” he said. “At least, they need to investigate whether his actions were within the proper limits of police action.”
Abu Ein had worked with the Palestinian Authority monitoring Israeli settlements and the separation wall, and was a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council. Abu Ein had also previously served as Palestinian deputy minister of prisoners’ affairs.
The Palestinian Ministry of Civil Affairs said a day after Abu Ein’s death that an autopsy carried out by a Palestinian forensics team revealed he had died after a powerful blow to the diaphragm and heavy use of tear gas, adding that he had also suffered from bruising on his neck, and several of his front teeth had been knocked out by a blow to his face.
At the time, Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Secretary-General Saeb Erekat said that the case was “a clear example of how the culture of impunity granted to Israel by the international community permits it to continue committing crimes against the Palestinian people.”
The Israeli police’s decision to close its investigation in the case comes days after Israeli newspaper Haaretz published a report revealing that nearly all investigations opened over the killings of Palestinians at the hands of Israeli police in the past ten months were closed “without the unit investigating and questioning the officers.”
August 10, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, West Bank, Ziad Abu Ein, Zionism |
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In a much-awaited step toward uncovering the historical truth of the U.S.-backed Dirty War in Argentina in the 1970’s and 80’s, the United States has delivered over 1,000 pages of classified documents to the South American country. But critics argue that there are major gaps in the files, including the exclusion of CIA documents, that keep in the dark important details of the extent of human rights violations and the U.S. role in such abuses.
The Argentine government delivered the newly-declassified documents to journalists and human rights organizations on Monday after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry presented the files to President Mauricio Macri during a state visit last week.
The 1,078 pages from 14 U.S. government agencies and departments are the first in a series of public releases over the next 18 months of declassified documents related to Argentina’s last military dictatorship, including Argentine Country Files, White House staff files, correspondence cables, and other archives, according to a statement from the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
The files include grisly descriptions of torture, rape, assassinations, and forced disappearances carried out by the military regime under General Jorge Rafael Videla, installed after the 1976 coup against left-wing President Isabel Peron.
The documents also detail Henry Kissinger’s applause of the Argentine dictatorship and its counterinsurgency strategy, including during a visit to General Videla during the 1978 World Cup. National Security staffer Robert Pastor wrote in 1978 that Kissinger’s “praise for the Argentine government in its campaign against terrorism was the music the Argentine government was longing to hear.”
Argentina’s so-called anti-terrorism policy was in reality a brutal crackdown on political dissidents, human rights defenders, academics, church leaders, students, and other opponents of the right-wing regime. It was also part of the regional U.S.-backed Operation Condor, a state terror operation that carried out assassinations and disappearances in support of South America’s right-wing dictatorships. In Argentina, up to 30,000 people were forcibly disappeared during the Dirty War.
The documents also detail how then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter raised concern over the human rights situation in Argentina, including in a letter to General Videla rather gently urging him to make progress with respect to human rights. At the time, Kissinger reportedly demonstrates a “desire to speak out against the Carter Administration’s human rights policy to Latin America,” according to a memo by National Security’s Pastor.
The further confirmation of Kissinger’s atrocious legacy in Latin America comes as U.S. presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton courts an endorsement from Kissinger, widely condemned as a war criminal by human rights groups.
However, despite the revealing details, the batch of documents is also lacking in key archives, the Argentine publication El Destape pointed out. The package does not include files from the CIA or the Defense Intelligence Agency, which specializes in military intelligence.
What’s more, although the documents were expected to cover the period of 1977 to 1982, the latest documents are dated 1981, which means that cables related to the 1982 Malvinas War between Argentina and Britain and the U.S. role in the conflict are not included.
The Macri administration hailed the release of the documents as the result of a “new foreign policy” that has steered the country to rekindle ties with the United States after former Presidents Nestor Kirchner and Cristina Fernandez championed anti-imperialist politics for 12 years. But the self-congratulatory government narrative ignores the fact that Argentine human rights organizations have demanded for years that the archives be released in a fight for historical truth that first bore fruit in 2002 with the release of over 4,500 U.S. documents.
Furthermore, Macri has come under fire for undermining investigations into dictatorship-era crimes after his sweeping austerity campaign scrapped departments charged with gathering historical evidence in certain public institutions. The Argentine president has also been criticized over his indirect ties to the military regime, which proved to hugely benefit his family business, the Macri Society, also known as Socma.
U.S. President Obama described the move as a response to the U.S. “responsibility to confront the past with honesty and transparency.” Obama announced plans to release documents related to the Dirty War during a visit with Macri in Argentina in March, which coincided with the 40th anniversary of the 1976 military coup.
Obama’s visit was widely criticized by human rights activists over the insensitivity of the timing. Although he announced plans for the United States to “do its part” with respect to uncovering historical truth about the dictatorship period, he did not apologize for the United States’ involvement in human rights abuses and widespread forced disappearance.
August 10, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | Argentina, Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, Henry Kissinger, Human rights, Latin America, Malvinas, Obama, United States |
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