by Alan Hart / November 20th, 2009 ()
I’m quite strongly inclined to the view that the answer is “No”, but the question is still worth asking. It was triggered in my mind by a phrase in the introduction to the lead story of the BBC’s World Service (Radio) news bulletins late on 17 November and early the following morning. The story was the Obama’s administration’s “dismay” at Israel’s decision to approve 900 new homes in occupied Arab East Jerusalem “in defiance of world opinion“. The words emphasized were those of a BBC scriptwriter, not a spokesman for the Obama administration.
They reflected the fact that many if not …
Part 4
by Ron Ridenour / November 19th, 2009 ()
The Geneva Declaration on Terrorism, passed May 29, 1987 by the UN general assembly, points out that the main perpetrators of terrorism are governments striving to keep down parts of their populations or other peoples. In this document, at that time, the main culprits are the United States, Israel, South Africa and the many dictatorships in Latin America at that time.
State terrorism manifests itself in: 1) police state practices against its own people to dominate through fear by surveillance, disruption of group meetings, control of the news media, beatings, torture, false and mass arrests, false charges and rumors, show …
by Dr. Elias Akleh / November 19th, 2009 ()
On November 2nd many western leaders gathered at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, to celebrate the downing of the notorious Berlin Wall. These hypocrite leaders; German Chancellor Merkel, French President Sarkozy, Russian President Medvedev, British Prime Minister Brown, US Secretary of State Clinton, and US President Obama, praised those who tore down the wall, emphasized the need to “overcome the walls of our time,” “keep fighting for freedom … so people get to live their dreams,” and emphasized that “all men are created equal … have the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness,” yet none of them …
Obama's Nuclear Hypocrisy
by James Corbett / November 19th, 2009 ()
When the Nobel Prize committee announced their choice for this year’s Peace Prize winner, they stressed that a key factor in awarding Obama the prize had been the commitment to a nuclear-free world he had outlined in speeches such as the one he delivered in Prague earlier this year. “The committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons,” said the committee chairman when announcing that Obama had won the prize.
Assuming that the committee truly believed that the Obama presidency would signal a meaningful change in American nuclear policy, they …
by James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer / November 19th, 2009 ()
An analysis of the dynamics of capitalist development over the last two decades has been overshadowed by an all too prevalent “globalization” discourse. It appears that much of the Left has bought into this discourse, tacitly accepting globalization as an irresistible fact and that in many ways it is progressive, needing only for the corporate agenda to be derailed and an abandonment of neoliberalism. This is certainly the case in Latin America where the Left has focused its concern almost exclusively on the bankruptcy of “neoliberalism”, with reference to the agenda pursued and package of policy reforms implemented by virtually …
Part 3
by Ron Ridenour / November 18th, 2009 ()
“At independence, in 1948, the new political elite, in its rush for power, cultivated ethnic support in a society whose real imperative should have been the eradication of poverty. Language became the spark,” journalist-documentary filmmaker John Pilger recently wrote.
The Tamil people in Sri Lanka had expectations that they would achieve equal rights and power with the Sinhalese once independence was won from the British colonialists. As the independence movement was winning over colonialization there was no talk of any Tamil separatism.
Even before the defeat of the …
by Martha Rosenberg / November 18th, 2009 ()
“When he bolted her the first time, she didn’t die. She just stood there looking stunned as blood trickled from her forehead. She then got her bearings and tried to turn and run.”
“The gas cart was filled to the brim with pigs today, a total of 39, including 9 large pigs that were at weaning age. They were left in the cart all day to trample each other, before being gassed all at once.”
Read the diary and watch the video of undercover investigator Mike who worked at the Country View/Hatfield Quality Meats hog farm last spring …
by Stephen Lendman / November 18th, 2009 ()
During his 2008 campaign, Barack Obama promised to “Support the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet.”
Perhaps not given a worse record than his fiercest critics feared, worse than George Bush, across the board on both domestic and foreign policies, including:
– failing to deliver promised change;
– being the standard bearer for the corrupted political/business elite;
– governing like a crime boss in league with Wall Street;
– disdaining democratic rights, freedoms, and the rule of law;
– betraying working Americans;
– proposing social services cuts instead of increasing them when they’re most needed;
– denying budget-strapped states …
by Gareth Porter / November 18th, 2009 ()
WASHINGTON (IPS) — The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) published new evidence Monday that Iran had been building “contingency centres” in the event of a U.S. bombing attack as early as 2002, years before it began building the second enrichment facility at Qom.
But the latest report on Iran’s nuclear programme by the agency appeared to reject Iran’s account of how and when it had decided to build the Qom enrichment plant and implied that it believed Iran was hiding the construction of other facilities.
The report provides new evidence that the Qom enrichment facility was constructed on one of many sites …
by Mike Whitney / November 18th, 2009 ()
Barack Obama is on his way to becoming a one-term president. According to Politico:
President Barack Obama plans to announce in next year’s State of the Union address that he wants to focus extensively on cutting the federal deficit in 2010 – and will downplay other new domestic spending beyond jobs programs, according to top aides involved in the planning.
The president’s plan, which the officials said was under discussion before this month’s Democratic election setbacks, represents both a practical and a political calculation by this White House.
Er, now who exactly is telling Obama that raising taxes …
