So much for the much touted "success" of the war in Iraq! - and the withdrawal of allied troops from the country A report just out says that the security situation in the war-ravaged country is worse than 12 months ago.
"Iraq is a less safe place than it was one year ago as security deteriorates, an American watchdog warned on Saturday, just months ahead of a US withdrawal from the country.
The assessment by Stuart Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, contrasts markedly from the more optimistic view often voiced by senior US army officers who argue Iraqis can maintain internal security.
Bowen said efforts by the US embassy to train Iraq's fledgling police force would be "challenging."
While the military has been in charge of developing Iraq's policemen, that responsibility is being transferred to the US State Department.
"Iraq remains an extraordinarily dangerous place to work," Bowen said in the report published on Saturday. "It is less safe, in my judgment, than 12 months ago."
He added the transition of responsibility for reconstruction from the US military to the embassy was occurring "against the backdrop of a security situation in Iraq that continues to deteriorate."
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Extreme language leads to extreme action
Radio identity, columnist and commentator Mike Carlton, writing in The Sydney Morning Herald, makes more than valid points how hate mongers create a hostile environment leads to extreme actions such as those in Oslo last week.
"The gunfire in Norway had barely died away before the usual right-wing media pontiffs were rushing to shout that your Islamic terrorists were up to their evil worst again.
When it became quickly apparent that Anders Behring Breivik was a blue-eyed Norseman and, indeed, a professed Christian, the story changed. The killer was now a lone madman. Shocking business, of course, but perhaps understandable. Glenn Beck, the large lump of talking whale blubber who broadcasts on Rupert Murdoch's American Fox News channel, explained to his audience that the gathering on Utoya Island sounded "a little like the Hitler Youth".
"Who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing," he babbled.
That apart, there was consensus among the rightists that Breivik had nothing to do with them; a self-serving delusion, if ever there was.
The man might well be insane, as his lawyer claims, but he was not stupid. Nor ignorant. His 1500-page diatribe, grandly titled "A European Declaration of Independence'', written in literate English and emailed to right-wing hate groups around the world, appears to have been a closely argued thesis demanding the extermination of Islam, multiculturalism and Marxism. It was studded with quotations from heroes of the political right including - astoundingly - our very own John Howard, Peter Costello, Cardinal George Pell and the Sydney Marxist-turned-High Tory academic, Keith Windschuttle. Breivik had done his reading.
His words and actions were a seamless, linear progression of right-wing rage and loathing. At one end, you start with the anger and paranoia fomented by rightist politicians, demagogues and commentators for their own cynical political ends, the bigotry and racism that is daily grist to the talkback radio mill."
"The gunfire in Norway had barely died away before the usual right-wing media pontiffs were rushing to shout that your Islamic terrorists were up to their evil worst again.
When it became quickly apparent that Anders Behring Breivik was a blue-eyed Norseman and, indeed, a professed Christian, the story changed. The killer was now a lone madman. Shocking business, of course, but perhaps understandable. Glenn Beck, the large lump of talking whale blubber who broadcasts on Rupert Murdoch's American Fox News channel, explained to his audience that the gathering on Utoya Island sounded "a little like the Hitler Youth".
"Who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing," he babbled.
That apart, there was consensus among the rightists that Breivik had nothing to do with them; a self-serving delusion, if ever there was.
The man might well be insane, as his lawyer claims, but he was not stupid. Nor ignorant. His 1500-page diatribe, grandly titled "A European Declaration of Independence'', written in literate English and emailed to right-wing hate groups around the world, appears to have been a closely argued thesis demanding the extermination of Islam, multiculturalism and Marxism. It was studded with quotations from heroes of the political right including - astoundingly - our very own John Howard, Peter Costello, Cardinal George Pell and the Sydney Marxist-turned-High Tory academic, Keith Windschuttle. Breivik had done his reading.
His words and actions were a seamless, linear progression of right-wing rage and loathing. At one end, you start with the anger and paranoia fomented by rightist politicians, demagogues and commentators for their own cynical political ends, the bigotry and racism that is daily grist to the talkback radio mill."
Obama Administration's "unconscionable" conduct
Not only has Obama to contend with the current debt crisis plus issues such as Afghanistan and Iraq , etc. etc. but the conduct of his Administration in relation to whistleblowers was dealt harsh criticism - "unconscionable" was the word used - by a judge. So much for another of Obama's pledges pre his election of dealing fairly with whilstleblowers. And this from a lawyer and one-time law lecturer!
"The Obama administration's unprecedented war on whistleblowers suffered two serious and well-deserved defeats. The first occurred in the prosecution of NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake, who was accused of multiple acts of espionage, only for the DOJ to drop virtually all of the charges right before the trial was to begin and enter into a plea agreement for one minor misdemeanor. Today, The Washington Post -- under the headline "Judge blasts prosecution of alleged NSA leaker" -- reports that the federal judge presiding over the case "harshly criticized U.S. prosecutors’ treatment of a former spy agency official accused of leaking classified material."
As the transcript of Drake's sentencing hearing published by Secrecy News reflects, Judge Richard Bennett of the U.S. District Court for Maryland was infuriated by two aspects of the DOJ's conduct: (1) after the Bush DOJ executed a search warrant of Drake's home in 2007, the Obama DOJ -- 2 1/2 years later -- finally indicted him, meaning he had to live with that cloud of criminal uncertainty over his head for that outrageously lengthy period of time; and (2) despite dropping all of the serious charges right before the trial was about to begin, the DOJ demanded that Drake be forced to pay a $50,000 fine as "a deterrent" (on top of the tens of thousands of dollars he spent in legal fees until he had no money left and had to use public defenders, as well as the fact that he was five years away from earning a federal pension when he was fired and ended up working at an Apple Computer store to support his family); to justify the requested fine, the prosecutor cited a $10,000 whistleblowing prize Drake was awarded earlier this year.
As for the first issue, the court condemned what it called the "extraordinary position taken by the government, probably unprecedented in this courthouse" of dropping the whole case on the eve of trial after "an extraordinary period of delay." Judge Bennett added: "I find that unconscionable. Unconscionable. It is at the very root of what this country was founded on against general warrants of the British." As for the second issue, the court reviewed the difficult circumstances of Drake's childhood (he was raised in poverty and sent himself to school with risky military service), his complete lack of any prior criminal record, and -- most of all -- the multiple ways in which the failed prosecution destroyed his life ("the financial devastation wrought upon this defendant"), and flatly refused to impose any fine at all, explaining: "I'm not going to add to that in any way."
What is most notable about this hearing is that the prosecutor candidly described not only his reasons for wanting a substantial fine imposed on Drake, but (without his saying so) also the motive for the Obama DOJ's broader war on whistleblowers: namely, an attempt to send a "message" of intimidation to future would-be whistleblowers."
"The Obama administration's unprecedented war on whistleblowers suffered two serious and well-deserved defeats. The first occurred in the prosecution of NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake, who was accused of multiple acts of espionage, only for the DOJ to drop virtually all of the charges right before the trial was to begin and enter into a plea agreement for one minor misdemeanor. Today, The Washington Post -- under the headline "Judge blasts prosecution of alleged NSA leaker" -- reports that the federal judge presiding over the case "harshly criticized U.S. prosecutors’ treatment of a former spy agency official accused of leaking classified material."
As the transcript of Drake's sentencing hearing published by Secrecy News reflects, Judge Richard Bennett of the U.S. District Court for Maryland was infuriated by two aspects of the DOJ's conduct: (1) after the Bush DOJ executed a search warrant of Drake's home in 2007, the Obama DOJ -- 2 1/2 years later -- finally indicted him, meaning he had to live with that cloud of criminal uncertainty over his head for that outrageously lengthy period of time; and (2) despite dropping all of the serious charges right before the trial was about to begin, the DOJ demanded that Drake be forced to pay a $50,000 fine as "a deterrent" (on top of the tens of thousands of dollars he spent in legal fees until he had no money left and had to use public defenders, as well as the fact that he was five years away from earning a federal pension when he was fired and ended up working at an Apple Computer store to support his family); to justify the requested fine, the prosecutor cited a $10,000 whistleblowing prize Drake was awarded earlier this year.
As for the first issue, the court condemned what it called the "extraordinary position taken by the government, probably unprecedented in this courthouse" of dropping the whole case on the eve of trial after "an extraordinary period of delay." Judge Bennett added: "I find that unconscionable. Unconscionable. It is at the very root of what this country was founded on against general warrants of the British." As for the second issue, the court reviewed the difficult circumstances of Drake's childhood (he was raised in poverty and sent himself to school with risky military service), his complete lack of any prior criminal record, and -- most of all -- the multiple ways in which the failed prosecution destroyed his life ("the financial devastation wrought upon this defendant"), and flatly refused to impose any fine at all, explaining: "I'm not going to add to that in any way."
What is most notable about this hearing is that the prosecutor candidly described not only his reasons for wanting a substantial fine imposed on Drake, but (without his saying so) also the motive for the Obama DOJ's broader war on whistleblowers: namely, an attempt to send a "message" of intimidation to future would-be whistleblowers."
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Our oceans are in dire straights......and so are all of us
A sobering report on the state of our oceans should give us all pause for thought.
"The world's oceans are faced with an unprecedented loss of species comparable to the great mass extinctions of prehistory, a major report suggests today. The seas are degenerating far faster than anyone has predicted, the report says, because of the cumulative impact of a number of severe individual stresses, ranging from climate warming and sea-water acidification, to widespread chemical pollution and gross overfishing.
The coming together of these factors is now threatening the marine environment with a catastrophe "unprecedented in human history", according to the report, from a panel of leading marine scientists brought together in Oxford earlier this year by the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The stark suggestion made by the panel is that the potential extinction of species, from large fish at one end of the scale to tiny corals at the other, is directly comparable to the five great mass extinctions in the geological record, during each of which much of the world's life died out. They range from the Ordovician-Silurian "event" of 450 million years ago, to the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction of 65 million years ago, which is believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs. The worst of them, the event at the end of the Permian period, 251 million years ago, is thought to have eliminated 70 per cent of species on land and 96 per cent of all species in the sea."
"The world's oceans are faced with an unprecedented loss of species comparable to the great mass extinctions of prehistory, a major report suggests today. The seas are degenerating far faster than anyone has predicted, the report says, because of the cumulative impact of a number of severe individual stresses, ranging from climate warming and sea-water acidification, to widespread chemical pollution and gross overfishing.
The coming together of these factors is now threatening the marine environment with a catastrophe "unprecedented in human history", according to the report, from a panel of leading marine scientists brought together in Oxford earlier this year by the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The stark suggestion made by the panel is that the potential extinction of species, from large fish at one end of the scale to tiny corals at the other, is directly comparable to the five great mass extinctions in the geological record, during each of which much of the world's life died out. They range from the Ordovician-Silurian "event" of 450 million years ago, to the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction of 65 million years ago, which is believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs. The worst of them, the event at the end of the Permian period, 251 million years ago, is thought to have eliminated 70 per cent of species on land and 96 per cent of all species in the sea."
French threat to securalism
The tragedy in Oslo has ignited discussion about securalism, anti-Muslim attitudes and multiculturism across Europe. France 24 reports on a development in France which raises the critical issue of securalism in that country:
"On Tuesday, France's highest administrative court handed down a final ruling on five cases involving the public use of funds for religious purposes. Religious scholars say the place of Islam in French society is at stake.
In June 2007 an administrative court in western France blocked 380,000 euros the city of Le Mans wanted to use to set up a Halal slaughterhouse. The court ruled that the space was meant for religious practices and, according to France’s 1905 law on the separation of church and state, it could not be built with taxpayer money. Outraged, the city of Le Mans appealed the ruling to France’s highest administrative court, the Council of State, arguing that the slaughterhouse served local obligations to ensure public health and hygiene.
On Tuesday, the Council handed down a final ruling on the Le Mans slaughterhouse and four other cases. Each one involved the use of public funds for religious purposes, and was seen as a challenge to France’s strict secularism. But every decision turned out favourable to religious groups. The slaughterhouse project is back on track.
The rulings, which also considered disputes over the installation of an access elevator for a Catholic basilica, the restoration of a church organ and the use of public spaces for two different mosque projects, have gone mostly unnoticed. Even if some in France were quick to sound alarm bells."
"On Tuesday, France's highest administrative court handed down a final ruling on five cases involving the public use of funds for religious purposes. Religious scholars say the place of Islam in French society is at stake.
In June 2007 an administrative court in western France blocked 380,000 euros the city of Le Mans wanted to use to set up a Halal slaughterhouse. The court ruled that the space was meant for religious practices and, according to France’s 1905 law on the separation of church and state, it could not be built with taxpayer money. Outraged, the city of Le Mans appealed the ruling to France’s highest administrative court, the Council of State, arguing that the slaughterhouse served local obligations to ensure public health and hygiene.
On Tuesday, the Council handed down a final ruling on the Le Mans slaughterhouse and four other cases. Each one involved the use of public funds for religious purposes, and was seen as a challenge to France’s strict secularism. But every decision turned out favourable to religious groups. The slaughterhouse project is back on track.
The rulings, which also considered disputes over the installation of an access elevator for a Catholic basilica, the restoration of a church organ and the use of public spaces for two different mosque projects, have gone mostly unnoticed. Even if some in France were quick to sound alarm bells."
No beacon to the world here
Watching the shenanigans and goings-on in Washington from afar leaves one with one conclusion only. Forget about the politics of it all - which one can't! - but all of the politicians fit well into the category of dumb and dumber.
Stephen Walt, writing in "A self-inflicted wound: The budget battle and America's reputation" on his blog on FP, reflects on the situation....
"Remember the 1990s? Back in those days, the U.S. was recognized as the world's sole superpower. Our economy was booming, we ended the decade with a budget surplus, and there was a widespread sense around the world that the United States really had its act together. True, we had some pretty bitter partisan politics, misguided polices like "dual containment" were helping pave the way for 9/11, and corrupt financiers were busy sowing the seeds for the 2007 meltdown, but most of the world had the impression -- rightly or wrongly -- that the United States knew what it was doing. People like Tom Friedman extolled America's virtues in books like The Lexus and the Olive Tree, arguing that the rest of the world would have to embrace "DOS.Capitalism 6.0" (in other words, our system), or fall by the wayside. Overall, a powerful aura of competence enhanced U.S. influence and magnified our "hard power."
Fast forward to right now. We are on the brink of a major self-inflicted wound, driven solely by the deep dysfunction that now seems baked into our political system. Why should Pakistanis, Afghanis, Europeans, Chinese, Thais, Mexicans, Venezuelans, or anybody else take our advice on how to govern, when they watch the sorry set of ignorant clowns who are holding the rest of us hostage? If the worst case happens and the United States ends up defaulting, the economic costs will be significant enough. But it is also likely to do considerable damage to America's reputation for being a reasonably well-governed society, and it will accelerate the tendency for people around the world to look elsewhere for guidance. And while all this time and attention has been wasted on the debt ceiling, other problems are festering and will be there to bite us later.
I wonder if all those "patriots" in the Tea Party and the GOP ever thought about that. And if they did, would they even care?"
Stephen Walt, writing in "A self-inflicted wound: The budget battle and America's reputation" on his blog on FP, reflects on the situation....
"Remember the 1990s? Back in those days, the U.S. was recognized as the world's sole superpower. Our economy was booming, we ended the decade with a budget surplus, and there was a widespread sense around the world that the United States really had its act together. True, we had some pretty bitter partisan politics, misguided polices like "dual containment" were helping pave the way for 9/11, and corrupt financiers were busy sowing the seeds for the 2007 meltdown, but most of the world had the impression -- rightly or wrongly -- that the United States knew what it was doing. People like Tom Friedman extolled America's virtues in books like The Lexus and the Olive Tree, arguing that the rest of the world would have to embrace "DOS.Capitalism 6.0" (in other words, our system), or fall by the wayside. Overall, a powerful aura of competence enhanced U.S. influence and magnified our "hard power."
Fast forward to right now. We are on the brink of a major self-inflicted wound, driven solely by the deep dysfunction that now seems baked into our political system. Why should Pakistanis, Afghanis, Europeans, Chinese, Thais, Mexicans, Venezuelans, or anybody else take our advice on how to govern, when they watch the sorry set of ignorant clowns who are holding the rest of us hostage? If the worst case happens and the United States ends up defaulting, the economic costs will be significant enough. But it is also likely to do considerable damage to America's reputation for being a reasonably well-governed society, and it will accelerate the tendency for people around the world to look elsewhere for guidance. And while all this time and attention has been wasted on the debt ceiling, other problems are festering and will be there to bite us later.
I wonder if all those "patriots" in the Tea Party and the GOP ever thought about that. And if they did, would they even care?"
Anti-Muslim feelings evident on both sides of the Atlantic
"Breivik is no loner. His violence was brewed in a specific European environment that shares characteristics with the specific American environment of Loughner: relative economic decline, a jobless recovery, middle-class anxiety and high levels of immigration serving as the backdrop for racist Islamophobia and use of the spurious specter of a “Muslim takeover” as a wedge political issue to channel frustrations rightward."
****
"Breivik has many ideological fellow travelers on both sides of the Atlantic. Theirs is the poison in which he refined his murderous resentment. The enablers include Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, who compared the Koran to “Mein Kampf” on his way to 15.5 percent of the vote in the 2010 election; the surging Marine Le Pen in France, who uses Nazi analogies as she pours scorn on devout Muslims; far-rightist parties in Sweden and Denmark and Britain equating every problem with Muslim immigration; Republicans like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Representative Peter King, who have found it politically opportune to target “creeping Shariah in the United States” at a time when the middle name of the president is Hussein; U.S. church pastors using their bully pulpits week after week to say America is a Christian nation under imminent threat from Islam."
Roger Cohen in commentating in an op-ed piece in the IHT on those horrid killings in Oslo and how anti-Muslim attitudes are evident on both sides of the Atlantic.
****
"Breivik has many ideological fellow travelers on both sides of the Atlantic. Theirs is the poison in which he refined his murderous resentment. The enablers include Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, who compared the Koran to “Mein Kampf” on his way to 15.5 percent of the vote in the 2010 election; the surging Marine Le Pen in France, who uses Nazi analogies as she pours scorn on devout Muslims; far-rightist parties in Sweden and Denmark and Britain equating every problem with Muslim immigration; Republicans like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Representative Peter King, who have found it politically opportune to target “creeping Shariah in the United States” at a time when the middle name of the president is Hussein; U.S. church pastors using their bully pulpits week after week to say America is a Christian nation under imminent threat from Islam."
Roger Cohen in commentating in an op-ed piece in the IHT on those horrid killings in Oslo and how anti-Muslim attitudes are evident on both sides of the Atlantic.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Up close and cuddly with Rupert and his minions
As yet another scandal erupts involving the now defunct News of the World (see here), The Independent reveals how close and cuddly British cabinet ministers were with those in the Murdoch camp. Too close and the information shared / provided hardly the sort of thing politicians ought to be sharing with anyone, let alone the likes of the Murdoch press.
"The extraordinary access that Cabinet ministers granted Rupert Murdoch and his children was revealed for the first time yesterday, with more than two dozen private meetings between the family and senior members of the Government in the 15 months since David Cameron entered Downing Street.
In total, Cabinet ministers have had private meetings with Murdoch executives more than 60 times and, if social events such as receptions at party conferences are included, the figure is at least 107.
On two occasions, James Murdoch and former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks were given confidential defence briefings on Afghanistan and Britain's strategic defence review by the Defence Secretary, Liam Fox. A further briefing was held with Ms Brooks, Rupert Murdoch and the Sunday Times editor John Witherow.
The Chancellor, George Osborne, has had 16 separate meetings since May 2010 with News International editors and executives, including two with the Murdochs within just a month of taking office. He also invited Elisabeth Murdoch as a guest to his 40th birthday party last month.
The Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, dined with Rupert Murdoch within days of the Government coming to power and, after being given quasi-judicial oversight for the Murdochs' £8bn attempted takeover of BSkyB, had two meetings with James Murdoch in which they discussed the takeover. Mr Hunt said last night that these were legitimate as part of the bid process.
But the minister who sees Rupert Murdoch the most frequently is the Education Secretary, Michael Gove, a former News International employee. Mr Gove has seen the mogul for breakfast, lunch or dinner on six occasions since last May. Overall, Mr Gove has had 12 meetings with Murdoch executives since becoming a minister."
Thursday, July 28, 2011
A visit to the beach is criminal?
The state of play in Israel's occupation of the West Bank is demonstrated in this piece "Where Politics Are Complex, Simple Joys at the Beach" in The New York Times. The piece only serves to highlight, not for the first time, how outrageous the occupation continues to be apart from a flagrant breach of international law.
"Skittish at first, then wide-eyed with delight, the women and girls entered the sea, smiling, splashing and then joining hands, getting knocked over by the waves, throwing back their heads and ultimately laughing with joy.
Most have never seen the sea before.
The women were Palestinians from the southern part of the West Bank, which is landlocked, and Israel does not allow them in. They risked criminal prosecution, along with the dozen Israeli women who took them to the beach. And that, in fact, was part of the point: to protest what they and their hosts consider unjust laws.
In the grinding rut of Israeli-Palestinian relations — no negotiations, mutual recriminations, growing distance and dehumanization — the illicit trip was a rare event that joined the simplest of pleasures with the most complex of politics. It showed why coexistence here is hard, but also why there are, on both sides, people who refuse to give up on it.
“What we are doing here will not change the situation,” said Hanna Rubinstein, who traveled to Tel Aviv from Haifa to take part. “But it is one more activity to oppose the occupation. One day in the future, people will ask, like they did of the Germans: ‘Did you know?’ And I will be able to say, ‘I knew. And I acted.’ ”
Such visits began a year ago as the idea of one Israeli, and have blossomed into a small, determined movement of civil disobedience."
"Skittish at first, then wide-eyed with delight, the women and girls entered the sea, smiling, splashing and then joining hands, getting knocked over by the waves, throwing back their heads and ultimately laughing with joy.
Most have never seen the sea before.
The women were Palestinians from the southern part of the West Bank, which is landlocked, and Israel does not allow them in. They risked criminal prosecution, along with the dozen Israeli women who took them to the beach. And that, in fact, was part of the point: to protest what they and their hosts consider unjust laws.
In the grinding rut of Israeli-Palestinian relations — no negotiations, mutual recriminations, growing distance and dehumanization — the illicit trip was a rare event that joined the simplest of pleasures with the most complex of politics. It showed why coexistence here is hard, but also why there are, on both sides, people who refuse to give up on it.
“What we are doing here will not change the situation,” said Hanna Rubinstein, who traveled to Tel Aviv from Haifa to take part. “But it is one more activity to oppose the occupation. One day in the future, people will ask, like they did of the Germans: ‘Did you know?’ And I will be able to say, ‘I knew. And I acted.’ ”
Such visits began a year ago as the idea of one Israeli, and have blossomed into a small, determined movement of civil disobedience."
Blair: From chameleon to misguided ex-pollie on a gravy train
Tony Blair never had much to offer - certainly not insight into anything let alone a capacity to understand what is going on in the world. And, of course, there has been Blair's gravy train since leaving office as the British PM.
Blair has just landed in Australia to speak there:
"It is against this backdrop that former British prime minister Tony Blair is this week visiting these shores, and for $1000 a ticket (recently slashed to $495 in Brisbane and Perth) you can receive his lessons in leadership and "values-based" foreign policy."
There is only one problem. Any analysis of Blair shows him up as the chameleon who always was and with nothing to really offer by way of an appraisal of anything. An op-ed piece "Blair's credibility crushed by the wheels of his gravy train" in The Age provides a background.
Blair has just landed in Australia to speak there:
"It is against this backdrop that former British prime minister Tony Blair is this week visiting these shores, and for $1000 a ticket (recently slashed to $495 in Brisbane and Perth) you can receive his lessons in leadership and "values-based" foreign policy."
There is only one problem. Any analysis of Blair shows him up as the chameleon who always was and with nothing to really offer by way of an appraisal of anything. An op-ed piece "Blair's credibility crushed by the wheels of his gravy train" in The Age provides a background.
Poll shows troubles brewing in Egypt
Things are not looking too good in Egypt as elections loom there. The ramifications of what is happening and looming could have profound effects on the region and Egypt's alliances with the West.
"With two months remaining until early parliamentary elections, a new Newsweek/Daily Beast poll shows clearly and unambiguously that the political climate in Egypt is moving in a new direction that is inimical to American and allied interests—notwithstanding the billions of dollars in aid that the United States continues to provide.
The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest Islamist group, is poised to win the largest share of the vote in parliamentary elections; the man who appears to have a clear shot at the presidency, Amr Moussa, has made his name criticizing Israel; and a large majority of respondents favor amending or revoking the cornerstone of regional stability, the Camp David Accords."
"With two months remaining until early parliamentary elections, a new Newsweek/Daily Beast poll shows clearly and unambiguously that the political climate in Egypt is moving in a new direction that is inimical to American and allied interests—notwithstanding the billions of dollars in aid that the United States continues to provide.
The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest Islamist group, is poised to win the largest share of the vote in parliamentary elections; the man who appears to have a clear shot at the presidency, Amr Moussa, has made his name criticizing Israel; and a large majority of respondents favor amending or revoking the cornerstone of regional stability, the Camp David Accords."
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
12 ways in which Rupert Murdoch has had a detrimental effect on the media
If the Murdochs thought their appearance before a UK Parliamentary Committe last week would see the turmoil surrounding the Murdoch media empire behind them, they have been mistaken. Apart from the whole affair being an ongoing, unfolding "story", the analysis of News Limited and others in the Murdoch stable continues unabated.
From WhoWhatWhy:
"Rupert Murdoch has had a profound influence on the state of journalism today. It’s a kind of tribute, in some sense, that the general coverage of his current troubles has reflected the detrimental effect of his influence over the years. Right now, the media, by and large, are focusing on tawdry “police blotter” acts of the very sort that have historically informed Murdoch’s own tabloid sensibility, while the bigger picture gets short shrift.
To be sure, the activities and actions of Murdoch’s that dominate the public conversation at the moment are deeply troubling, leaving aside their alleged criminality. Still, what is really pernicious about Murdoch is not his subordinates’ reported hacking of phones, payments of hush money, etc., or the possibility that Murdoch may have known about, tolerated, enabled, or even encouraged such acts.
It is, instead, the very essence of the man and his empire, and their long-term impact on our world and our lives. (For a detailed look at his practices, see for example this, this and this.)
Here are twelve “take-away” points that are being obscured in the daily rush of revelations, and the related specialized coverage (his wife’s wardrobe and demeanor, the effect on his company’s stock price, etc.)."
Continue reading here.
From WhoWhatWhy:
"Rupert Murdoch has had a profound influence on the state of journalism today. It’s a kind of tribute, in some sense, that the general coverage of his current troubles has reflected the detrimental effect of his influence over the years. Right now, the media, by and large, are focusing on tawdry “police blotter” acts of the very sort that have historically informed Murdoch’s own tabloid sensibility, while the bigger picture gets short shrift.
To be sure, the activities and actions of Murdoch’s that dominate the public conversation at the moment are deeply troubling, leaving aside their alleged criminality. Still, what is really pernicious about Murdoch is not his subordinates’ reported hacking of phones, payments of hush money, etc., or the possibility that Murdoch may have known about, tolerated, enabled, or even encouraged such acts.
It is, instead, the very essence of the man and his empire, and their long-term impact on our world and our lives. (For a detailed look at his practices, see for example this, this and this.)
Here are twelve “take-away” points that are being obscured in the daily rush of revelations, and the related specialized coverage (his wife’s wardrobe and demeanor, the effect on his company’s stock price, etc.)."
Continue reading here.
A lesson in diplomacy
An op-ed piece in Haaretz which ought to be read by each Israeli cabinet minister:
"On Monday, Barak Ravid revealed to readers of this newspaper that the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem was considering punishing the Palestinians for their declaration of statehood by scrapping the Oslo Accords.
This "threat" is akin to a fellow saying he'll cut off his own nose to spite someone else's face. If the Oslo Accords did not exist, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would have had to invent them.
The document, and in particular the section that confiscates 60 percent of the Palestinians' land in the West Bank (Area C ) and grants Israeli settlers exclusive access to it, should be placed in a safe by the right-wing and guarded by an elite army unit. And this is why this childish "threat," which has been hovering in the air ever since Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman first waved it at European Union Foreign Minister Catherine Ashton a month ago, is not making much of an impression on Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen ); the Palestinian president continues to gather international support for the UN vote expected to take place in September.
Netanyahu's advisors, who came up with the "threat," could learn a thing or two about diplomacy and the media from Abbas' staff. The last and most interesting lesson deals with neutralizing the land mine of recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, which Netanyahu has placed at the Palestinians' feet."
"On Monday, Barak Ravid revealed to readers of this newspaper that the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem was considering punishing the Palestinians for their declaration of statehood by scrapping the Oslo Accords.
This "threat" is akin to a fellow saying he'll cut off his own nose to spite someone else's face. If the Oslo Accords did not exist, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would have had to invent them.
The document, and in particular the section that confiscates 60 percent of the Palestinians' land in the West Bank (Area C ) and grants Israeli settlers exclusive access to it, should be placed in a safe by the right-wing and guarded by an elite army unit. And this is why this childish "threat," which has been hovering in the air ever since Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman first waved it at European Union Foreign Minister Catherine Ashton a month ago, is not making much of an impression on Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen ); the Palestinian president continues to gather international support for the UN vote expected to take place in September.
Netanyahu's advisors, who came up with the "threat," could learn a thing or two about diplomacy and the media from Abbas' staff. The last and most interesting lesson deals with neutralizing the land mine of recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, which Netanyahu has placed at the Palestinians' feet."
Whichever way you look at it, it is a disaster
The present spectacle of Democrats and Republicans playing chicken in relation to the US debt issue, is hardly edifying. Boys at play with ramifications for Americans, and the world at large, if these dilettantes don't fix the problem up.
Robert Reich, former Labour Secretary in the Clinton Administration and now a professor of public policy writes about the woes in Washington:
"We now live in parallel universes.
One universe is the one in which most Americans live. In it, almost 15 million people are unemployed, wages are declining (adjusted for inflation), and home values are still falling. The unsurprising result is consumers aren’t buying — which is causing employers to slow down their hiring and in many cases lay off more of their workers. In this universe, we’re locked in a vicious economic cycle that’s getting worse.
The other universe is the one in which Washington politicians live. They are now engaged in a bitter partisan battle over how, and by how much, to reduce the federal budget deficit in order to buy enough votes to lift the debt ceiling.
The two universes have nothing whatever to do with one another — except for one thing. If consumers can’t and won’t buy, and employers won’t hire without customers, the spender of last resort must be government. We’ve understood this since government spending on World War II catapulted America out of the Great Depression — reversing the most vicious of vicious cycles. We’ve understood it in every economic downturn since then.
Until now.
The only way out of the vicious economic cycle is for government to adopt an expansionary fiscal policy — spending more in the short term in order to make up for the shortfall in consumer demand. This would create jobs, which will put money in peoples’ pockets, which they’d then spend, thereby persuading employers to do more hiring. The consequential job growth will also help reduce the long-term ratio of debt to GDP. It’s a win-win.
This is not rocket science. And it’s not difficult for government to do this — through a new WPA or Civilian Conservation Corps, an infrastructure bank, tax incentives for employers to hire, a two-year payroll tax holiday on the first $20K of income, and partial unemployment benefits for those who have lost part-time jobs.
Yet the parallel universe called Washington is moving in exactly the opposite direction. Republicans are proposing to cut the budget deficit this year and next, which will result in more job losses. And Democrats, from the President on down, seem unable or unwilling to present a bold jobs plan to reverse the vicious cycle of unemployment. Instead, they’re busily playing “I can cut the deficit more than you” — trying to hold their Democratic base by calling for $1 of tax increases (mostly on the wealthy) for every $3 of spending cuts.
All of this is making the vicious economic cycle worse — and creating a vicious political cycle to accompany it."
Robert Reich, former Labour Secretary in the Clinton Administration and now a professor of public policy writes about the woes in Washington:
"We now live in parallel universes.
One universe is the one in which most Americans live. In it, almost 15 million people are unemployed, wages are declining (adjusted for inflation), and home values are still falling. The unsurprising result is consumers aren’t buying — which is causing employers to slow down their hiring and in many cases lay off more of their workers. In this universe, we’re locked in a vicious economic cycle that’s getting worse.
The other universe is the one in which Washington politicians live. They are now engaged in a bitter partisan battle over how, and by how much, to reduce the federal budget deficit in order to buy enough votes to lift the debt ceiling.
The two universes have nothing whatever to do with one another — except for one thing. If consumers can’t and won’t buy, and employers won’t hire without customers, the spender of last resort must be government. We’ve understood this since government spending on World War II catapulted America out of the Great Depression — reversing the most vicious of vicious cycles. We’ve understood it in every economic downturn since then.
Until now.
The only way out of the vicious economic cycle is for government to adopt an expansionary fiscal policy — spending more in the short term in order to make up for the shortfall in consumer demand. This would create jobs, which will put money in peoples’ pockets, which they’d then spend, thereby persuading employers to do more hiring. The consequential job growth will also help reduce the long-term ratio of debt to GDP. It’s a win-win.
This is not rocket science. And it’s not difficult for government to do this — through a new WPA or Civilian Conservation Corps, an infrastructure bank, tax incentives for employers to hire, a two-year payroll tax holiday on the first $20K of income, and partial unemployment benefits for those who have lost part-time jobs.
Yet the parallel universe called Washington is moving in exactly the opposite direction. Republicans are proposing to cut the budget deficit this year and next, which will result in more job losses. And Democrats, from the President on down, seem unable or unwilling to present a bold jobs plan to reverse the vicious cycle of unemployment. Instead, they’re busily playing “I can cut the deficit more than you” — trying to hold their Democratic base by calling for $1 of tax increases (mostly on the wealthy) for every $3 of spending cuts.
All of this is making the vicious economic cycle worse — and creating a vicious political cycle to accompany it."
Monday, July 25, 2011
Afghan judges accuse USA of war crimes
The West traditionally paints a picture of "them" (ie the bad guys) and "us" (the good guys). When Western forces are accused of some sort of war crime or offence in a foreign country, it is almost invariably portrayed as an isolated incident or the odd "bad apple" in the military who caused the problem - and a simple "sorry" delivered up . Sometimes, monetary compensation might be forthcoming.
truthout has a piece on the views of 6 Afghan judges - all women and who are versed in international law and have visited the United States - who accuse the Americans of war crimes. It makes for sobering reading and reading the "voices" from the other side.
"I recently sat down for 90 minutes to speak with six Afghan judges, all of them women, and an English-Dari interpreter, a man. They spoke to me as individuals. They aren't preparing any investigations or indictments. The relevance of their being judges is that they know the law. They've studied international law, and they were visiting the United States to learn about our legal and political systems. They believe the United States is guilty of war crimes.
I was the one who raised the subject. I pointed to Italian convictions of CIA agents for kidnapping, Spanish investigations of U.S. officials for torture, etc., and asked what these judges' views were on international law violations, universal jurisdiction, and what appear to be clear crimes committed by the United States in Afghanistan.
The first judge to reply spoke of the horrors of the Taliban, and of the initial gratitude for the U.S. overthrow of the Taliban 10 years ago. But, she said, the mission changed to one of fighting terrorism, and through that "we lost all of our civil rights." She described U.S. troops kicking in doors of houses at night with women and girls asleep in their beds. She described disappearances and accounts of torture. What the United States and NATO are doing, seizing people, locking them up, disappearing them, and torturing them is clearly illegal and against international law, she said. According to international treaties, she went on, when one country occupies another, the host country does not lose its sovereignty, and yet all decisions are now being made by the occupying country without any say by the Afghan government.
A second judge spoke up. "Your Constitution speaks of freedom and a people's government," she said, "but the United States is running secret prisons, torturing, disappearing people, and locking people up for years with no due process." The behavior of the United States, she said, violates everything that she and her colleagues were being taught the United States stands for. "It may seem trivial," she continued, "but it effects our daily lives." If a member of the international occupying forces gets into a hit and run with their car, and you go to the base to complain, you are threatened. They have total immunity from any rule of law, she explained."
Continue reading here.
truthout has a piece on the views of 6 Afghan judges - all women and who are versed in international law and have visited the United States - who accuse the Americans of war crimes. It makes for sobering reading and reading the "voices" from the other side.
"I recently sat down for 90 minutes to speak with six Afghan judges, all of them women, and an English-Dari interpreter, a man. They spoke to me as individuals. They aren't preparing any investigations or indictments. The relevance of their being judges is that they know the law. They've studied international law, and they were visiting the United States to learn about our legal and political systems. They believe the United States is guilty of war crimes.
I was the one who raised the subject. I pointed to Italian convictions of CIA agents for kidnapping, Spanish investigations of U.S. officials for torture, etc., and asked what these judges' views were on international law violations, universal jurisdiction, and what appear to be clear crimes committed by the United States in Afghanistan.
The first judge to reply spoke of the horrors of the Taliban, and of the initial gratitude for the U.S. overthrow of the Taliban 10 years ago. But, she said, the mission changed to one of fighting terrorism, and through that "we lost all of our civil rights." She described U.S. troops kicking in doors of houses at night with women and girls asleep in their beds. She described disappearances and accounts of torture. What the United States and NATO are doing, seizing people, locking them up, disappearing them, and torturing them is clearly illegal and against international law, she said. According to international treaties, she went on, when one country occupies another, the host country does not lose its sovereignty, and yet all decisions are now being made by the occupying country without any say by the Afghan government.
A second judge spoke up. "Your Constitution speaks of freedom and a people's government," she said, "but the United States is running secret prisons, torturing, disappearing people, and locking people up for years with no due process." The behavior of the United States, she said, violates everything that she and her colleagues were being taught the United States stands for. "It may seem trivial," she continued, "but it effects our daily lives." If a member of the international occupying forces gets into a hit and run with their car, and you go to the base to complain, you are threatened. They have total immunity from any rule of law, she explained."
Continue reading here.
What? The NY Times actually critcised Israel?
Uri Avnery writes from Israel on CounterPunch:
"It is because of this that a few lines, which appeared this week in the New York Times, caused near panic in Jerusalem.
The NYT is, perhaps, the most “pro-Israel” paper in the whole world, including Israel itself. Anti-Semites call it the Jew York Times. Many of its editorial writers are ardent Zionists. A news story critical of Israeli policies has almost no chance of appearing there. No mention of the Israeli peace movement. No mention of the dozens of demonstrations in Israel against Lebanon War II and the Cast Lead operation. Self-censorship is supreme.
But this week, the NYT published a blistering editorial criticizing Israel. The reason: the “Boycott Law”, passed by the right-wing Knesset majority, which forbids Israelis to call for a boycott of the settlements. The editorial practically repeats what I said in last week’s article: that the law is blatantly anti-democratic and violates basic human rights. The more so, since it comes on top of a whole series of anti-democratic laws that were enacted in the last few months. Israel is in danger of losing its title as the “Only Democracy in the Middle East”.
Suddenly, all the red lights in Jerusalem started to blink furiously. Help! We are going to lose our only political asset in the world, the pillar of our strength, the basis of our national security, the rock of our existence.
* * *
The result was immediate. On Wednesday, the right-wing clique that now controls the Knesset, under the leadership of Avigdor Lieberman, brought to final vote a resolution that would appoint two Committees of Inquiry into the financial resources of human-rights NGOs. Not all NGOs, only “leftist” ones. This was another item on the long list of McCarthyist measures, many of which have already been adopted and many more of which are waiting for their turn.
The day before, Binyamin Netanyahu appeared specially in the Knesset to assure his followers that he fully approved, and indeed had sponsored, the Boycott Law. But after the NYT editorial, when the Commission of Inquiry resolution came up, Netanyahu and almost all his cabinet ministers voted against it. The religious factions disappeared from the Knesset. The resolution was voted down by a 2 to 1 majority.
But one ominous fact emerged: Apart from Netanyahu and his captive ministers, all the Likud members present voted for the resolution. This included all the young leaders of the party – the coming generation of Likud bosses.
If the Likud remains in power – this group of ultra-rightists – will be the government of Israel within ten years. And to hell with the New York Times.
The NYT is, perhaps, the most “pro-Israel” paper in the whole world, including Israel itself. Anti-Semites call it the Jew York Times. Many of its editorial writers are ardent Zionists. A news story critical of Israeli policies has almost no chance of appearing there. No mention of the Israeli peace movement. No mention of the dozens of demonstrations in Israel against Lebanon War II and the Cast Lead operation. Self-censorship is supreme.
But this week, the NYT published a blistering editorial criticizing Israel. The reason: the “Boycott Law”, passed by the right-wing Knesset majority, which forbids Israelis to call for a boycott of the settlements. The editorial practically repeats what I said in last week’s article: that the law is blatantly anti-democratic and violates basic human rights. The more so, since it comes on top of a whole series of anti-democratic laws that were enacted in the last few months. Israel is in danger of losing its title as the “Only Democracy in the Middle East”.
Suddenly, all the red lights in Jerusalem started to blink furiously. Help! We are going to lose our only political asset in the world, the pillar of our strength, the basis of our national security, the rock of our existence.
* * *
The result was immediate. On Wednesday, the right-wing clique that now controls the Knesset, under the leadership of Avigdor Lieberman, brought to final vote a resolution that would appoint two Committees of Inquiry into the financial resources of human-rights NGOs. Not all NGOs, only “leftist” ones. This was another item on the long list of McCarthyist measures, many of which have already been adopted and many more of which are waiting for their turn.
The day before, Binyamin Netanyahu appeared specially in the Knesset to assure his followers that he fully approved, and indeed had sponsored, the Boycott Law. But after the NYT editorial, when the Commission of Inquiry resolution came up, Netanyahu and almost all his cabinet ministers voted against it. The religious factions disappeared from the Knesset. The resolution was voted down by a 2 to 1 majority.
But one ominous fact emerged: Apart from Netanyahu and his captive ministers, all the Likud members present voted for the resolution. This included all the young leaders of the party – the coming generation of Likud bosses.
If the Likud remains in power – this group of ultra-rightists – will be the government of Israel within ten years. And to hell with the New York Times.
Murdoch's "crew" still just don't get it
Wendy Bacon is a professor of journalism at the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism at the University of Technology, Sydney.
From reading Bacon's excellent op-ed piece in The Sydney Morning Herald, it seems that News Limited, despite all that has been happening in the Murdoch "world" simply still doesn't get it.
"On Thursday, with News Corporation awash in allegations of criminality and failed corporate governance, I sent an email to John Hartigan, the chief executive of its Australian arm, News Limited.
Hartigan was in damage control. He had hastened to reassure local audiences that illegal practices such as phone hacking were not used in Australia and, in order to make sure of this, that he would carry out an independent internal audit of editorial spending.
But that missed a vital point. While no one was suggesting that phone hacking was occurring in our far-from-competitive media scene, News is a vertically and horizontally global media company.
This means that even if you were not a News of the World reader, if you bought News Ltd papers here, you could still read News of the World ''scoops'' about, say, the sexual activities of Jude Law, who is now suing The Sun and News of the World for hacking his phone.
News Ltd papers in Australia had continued to draw on News of the World stories even after the phone hacking scandal became a serious issue.
This was just one issue I had in mind when I emailed Hartigan some questions. They included: Do you consider that bias by newspapers in cities where only one company owns a newspaper could ever be an issue? How do you monitor whether fair means of reporting the news are being applied across the company? What auditing or monitoring mechanisms do you apply? Are there occasions when you do take up matters of bias with editors? Do you think that it would be a good idea if the Australian Press Council became an independent body with funding from both media and other sources, including government?
I received this reply:
''Your bias against our organisation over many years and the errors and omissions in your recent New Matilda piece renders your right to answers from me completely redundant. It is deeply troubling to me and to all of our editors that someone like you has any role in teaching young journalists in Australia.''
Hartigan did not elaborate on my errors or omissions. Nor, to my knowledge, has he pointed these out to online magazine New Matilda (which has a policy of publishing corrections).
But it seems an extraordinary and evasive response from a media organisation which daily seeks answers and information from people big and small, powerful and powerless, in the name of the public's ''right to know''. Some might also say that it illustrates a bullying mindset that has grown in a too-powerful media organisation that owns more than 70 per cent of this country's newspapers."
From reading Bacon's excellent op-ed piece in The Sydney Morning Herald, it seems that News Limited, despite all that has been happening in the Murdoch "world" simply still doesn't get it.
"On Thursday, with News Corporation awash in allegations of criminality and failed corporate governance, I sent an email to John Hartigan, the chief executive of its Australian arm, News Limited.
Hartigan was in damage control. He had hastened to reassure local audiences that illegal practices such as phone hacking were not used in Australia and, in order to make sure of this, that he would carry out an independent internal audit of editorial spending.
But that missed a vital point. While no one was suggesting that phone hacking was occurring in our far-from-competitive media scene, News is a vertically and horizontally global media company.
This means that even if you were not a News of the World reader, if you bought News Ltd papers here, you could still read News of the World ''scoops'' about, say, the sexual activities of Jude Law, who is now suing The Sun and News of the World for hacking his phone.
News Ltd papers in Australia had continued to draw on News of the World stories even after the phone hacking scandal became a serious issue.
This was just one issue I had in mind when I emailed Hartigan some questions. They included: Do you consider that bias by newspapers in cities where only one company owns a newspaper could ever be an issue? How do you monitor whether fair means of reporting the news are being applied across the company? What auditing or monitoring mechanisms do you apply? Are there occasions when you do take up matters of bias with editors? Do you think that it would be a good idea if the Australian Press Council became an independent body with funding from both media and other sources, including government?
I received this reply:
''Your bias against our organisation over many years and the errors and omissions in your recent New Matilda piece renders your right to answers from me completely redundant. It is deeply troubling to me and to all of our editors that someone like you has any role in teaching young journalists in Australia.''
Hartigan did not elaborate on my errors or omissions. Nor, to my knowledge, has he pointed these out to online magazine New Matilda (which has a policy of publishing corrections).
But it seems an extraordinary and evasive response from a media organisation which daily seeks answers and information from people big and small, powerful and powerless, in the name of the public's ''right to know''. Some might also say that it illustrates a bullying mindset that has grown in a too-powerful media organisation that owns more than 70 per cent of this country's newspapers."
Saturday, July 23, 2011
An Aussie perspective on Rupert the ex Aussie
Mike Carlton is a journalist, broadcaster and commentator.
Writing his weekly column in the Sydney Morning Herald he reflects on Rupert Murdoch, once one of Ozs' citizens before she shipped off the US to take up citizenship there.
"The disappointing thing about the Murdoch horror crisis is that there's no sex. Or not yet, anyway. The closest we've come to even the faintest whiff of traditional British raunch is a slumber party, for heaven's sake, thrown by Gordon Brown's wife at Chequers in 2008. Wendi Deng, Elisabeth Murdoch and the Wicked Witch of Wapping, the flame-haired Rebekah Brooks, were invited to ''bring their pyjamas'' and sleep over.
How feeble. Fans of scandal in the British establishment will think longingly of the fabulous Profumo Affair of the swinging '60s, when these things were done properly. John Profumo, a Tory secretary of state for war, was accused of bonking the delicious Christine Keeler, a party chick who'd been having a simultaneous affair with a naval attaché´ at the Soviet embassy.
The Cold War was at its height. Profumo lied to the House of Commons, denying all. But the scandal exploded, a lurid thriller of espionage and high-society sleaze. There were tales of naked romps in the swimming pool at Cliveden, the huge country pile of the third Viscount Astor, where dinner parties were served by a male waiter clad only in a mask and a pink ribbon on his penis - a figure variously and hilariously rumoured, but never proved, to have been either a royal duke or Duncan Sandys, a senior cabinet minister and a son-in-law of Winston Churchill.
And it got better. Astor - heir to a newspaper fortune - was himself accused of shagging a topless dancer, Mandy Rice-Davies. His furious denials prompted Mandy's memorable remark in court: ''he would, wouldn't he'', later widely misquoted as ''he would say that, wouldn't he''. Profumo quit in disgrace and the Tory government of Harold Macmillan fell soon afterwards.
Sadly, the Murdoch affair pales against all that excitement. Press barons are not what they used to be. Once, like Lord Byron, they were mad, bad and dangerous to know. Alfred Harmsworth, the first Viscount Northcliffe and the inventor of tabloid journalism, developed megalomania of Napoleonic proportions and towards the end of his life in 1922 had to be physically restrained from entering his own premises.
Robert Maxwell, an emigre known as ''the bouncing Czech'', who was both proprietor of the Daily Mirror and a Mossad spy, fell/was pushed/jumped off his yacht in 1991 after looting hundreds of millions from his company's pension funds. Haughty Canadian Conrad Black of London's Daily Telegraph, ludicrously ''ennobled'' as Baron Black of Crossharbour, also embezzled millions so that he and his disgusting wife might frolic like pre-revolutionary Bourbons.
To his great credit, Rupert Murdoch never grabbed the peerage he could so easily have had. But it was warming to see he has not entirely flung the mad, bad and dangerous tradition to the winds. As is the custom when the Great and the Good are brought to account, his ever so 'umble appearance before the House of Commons on Tuesday was studded with: I don't know, can't recall, was never told about that, do not have direct knowledge, this is the first I've heard, people we trusted, not responsible for this, blah blah. Likewise James, the flint-eyed younger son and, until now, heir apparent.
But then they would say that, wouldn't they. The pie-chucker came as welcome relief."
Writing his weekly column in the Sydney Morning Herald he reflects on Rupert Murdoch, once one of Ozs' citizens before she shipped off the US to take up citizenship there.
"The disappointing thing about the Murdoch horror crisis is that there's no sex. Or not yet, anyway. The closest we've come to even the faintest whiff of traditional British raunch is a slumber party, for heaven's sake, thrown by Gordon Brown's wife at Chequers in 2008. Wendi Deng, Elisabeth Murdoch and the Wicked Witch of Wapping, the flame-haired Rebekah Brooks, were invited to ''bring their pyjamas'' and sleep over.
How feeble. Fans of scandal in the British establishment will think longingly of the fabulous Profumo Affair of the swinging '60s, when these things were done properly. John Profumo, a Tory secretary of state for war, was accused of bonking the delicious Christine Keeler, a party chick who'd been having a simultaneous affair with a naval attaché´ at the Soviet embassy.
The Cold War was at its height. Profumo lied to the House of Commons, denying all. But the scandal exploded, a lurid thriller of espionage and high-society sleaze. There were tales of naked romps in the swimming pool at Cliveden, the huge country pile of the third Viscount Astor, where dinner parties were served by a male waiter clad only in a mask and a pink ribbon on his penis - a figure variously and hilariously rumoured, but never proved, to have been either a royal duke or Duncan Sandys, a senior cabinet minister and a son-in-law of Winston Churchill.
And it got better. Astor - heir to a newspaper fortune - was himself accused of shagging a topless dancer, Mandy Rice-Davies. His furious denials prompted Mandy's memorable remark in court: ''he would, wouldn't he'', later widely misquoted as ''he would say that, wouldn't he''. Profumo quit in disgrace and the Tory government of Harold Macmillan fell soon afterwards.
Sadly, the Murdoch affair pales against all that excitement. Press barons are not what they used to be. Once, like Lord Byron, they were mad, bad and dangerous to know. Alfred Harmsworth, the first Viscount Northcliffe and the inventor of tabloid journalism, developed megalomania of Napoleonic proportions and towards the end of his life in 1922 had to be physically restrained from entering his own premises.
Robert Maxwell, an emigre known as ''the bouncing Czech'', who was both proprietor of the Daily Mirror and a Mossad spy, fell/was pushed/jumped off his yacht in 1991 after looting hundreds of millions from his company's pension funds. Haughty Canadian Conrad Black of London's Daily Telegraph, ludicrously ''ennobled'' as Baron Black of Crossharbour, also embezzled millions so that he and his disgusting wife might frolic like pre-revolutionary Bourbons.
To his great credit, Rupert Murdoch never grabbed the peerage he could so easily have had. But it was warming to see he has not entirely flung the mad, bad and dangerous tradition to the winds. As is the custom when the Great and the Good are brought to account, his ever so 'umble appearance before the House of Commons on Tuesday was studded with: I don't know, can't recall, was never told about that, do not have direct knowledge, this is the first I've heard, people we trusted, not responsible for this, blah blah. Likewise James, the flint-eyed younger son and, until now, heir apparent.
But then they would say that, wouldn't they. The pie-chucker came as welcome relief."
The Nation reveals CIA's secret sites in Somalia
Veteran journalist Jeremy Scahill, writing in The Nation, again triumphs in revealing something the CIA would rather none of us knew about - it's secret sites in Somalia.
"Nestled in a back corner of Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International Airport is a sprawling walled compound run by the Central Intelligence Agency. Set on the coast of the Indian Ocean, the facility looks like a small gated community, with more than a dozen buildings behind large protective walls and secured by guard towers at each of its four corners. Adjacent to the compound are eight large metal hangars, and the CIA has its own aircraft at the airport. The site, which airport officials and Somali intelligence sources say was completed four months ago, is guarded by Somali soldiers, but the Americans control access. At the facility, the CIA runs a counterterrorism training program for Somali intelligence agents and operatives aimed at building an indigenous strike force capable of snatch operations and targeted “combat” operations against members of Al Shabab, an Islamic militant group with close ties to Al Qaeda.
As part of its expanding counterterrorism program in Somalia, the CIA also uses a secret prison buried in the basement of Somalia’s National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters, where prisoners suspected of being Shabab members or of having links to the group are held. Some of the prisoners have been snatched off the streets of Kenya and rendered by plane to Mogadishu. While the underground prison is officially run by the Somali NSA, US intelligence personnel pay the salaries of intelligence agents and also directly interrogate prisoners. The existence of both facilities and the CIA role was uncovered by The Nation during an extensive on-the-ground investigation in Mogadishu. Among the sources who provided information for this story are senior Somali intelligence officials; senior members of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG); former prisoners held at the underground prison; and several well-connected Somali analysts and militia leaders, some of whom have worked with US agents, including those from the CIA. A US official, who confirmed the existence of both sites, told The Nation, “It makes complete sense to have a strong counterterrorism partnership” with the Somali government.
The CIA presence in Mogadishu is part of Washington’s intensifying counterterrorism focus on Somalia, which includes targeted strikes by US Special Operations forces, drone attacks and expanded surveillance operations. The US agents “are here full time,” a senior Somali intelligence official told me. At times, he said, there are as many as thirty of them in Mogadishu, but he stressed that those working with the Somali NSA do not conduct operations; rather, they advise and train Somali agents. “In this environment, it’s very tricky. They want to help us, but the situation is not allowing them to do [it] however they want. They are not in control of the politics, they are not in control of the security,” he adds. “They are not controlling the environment like Afghanistan and Iraq. In Somalia, the situation is fluid, the situation is changing, personalities changing.”
"Nestled in a back corner of Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International Airport is a sprawling walled compound run by the Central Intelligence Agency. Set on the coast of the Indian Ocean, the facility looks like a small gated community, with more than a dozen buildings behind large protective walls and secured by guard towers at each of its four corners. Adjacent to the compound are eight large metal hangars, and the CIA has its own aircraft at the airport. The site, which airport officials and Somali intelligence sources say was completed four months ago, is guarded by Somali soldiers, but the Americans control access. At the facility, the CIA runs a counterterrorism training program for Somali intelligence agents and operatives aimed at building an indigenous strike force capable of snatch operations and targeted “combat” operations against members of Al Shabab, an Islamic militant group with close ties to Al Qaeda.
As part of its expanding counterterrorism program in Somalia, the CIA also uses a secret prison buried in the basement of Somalia’s National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters, where prisoners suspected of being Shabab members or of having links to the group are held. Some of the prisoners have been snatched off the streets of Kenya and rendered by plane to Mogadishu. While the underground prison is officially run by the Somali NSA, US intelligence personnel pay the salaries of intelligence agents and also directly interrogate prisoners. The existence of both facilities and the CIA role was uncovered by The Nation during an extensive on-the-ground investigation in Mogadishu. Among the sources who provided information for this story are senior Somali intelligence officials; senior members of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG); former prisoners held at the underground prison; and several well-connected Somali analysts and militia leaders, some of whom have worked with US agents, including those from the CIA. A US official, who confirmed the existence of both sites, told The Nation, “It makes complete sense to have a strong counterterrorism partnership” with the Somali government.
The CIA presence in Mogadishu is part of Washington’s intensifying counterterrorism focus on Somalia, which includes targeted strikes by US Special Operations forces, drone attacks and expanded surveillance operations. The US agents “are here full time,” a senior Somali intelligence official told me. At times, he said, there are as many as thirty of them in Mogadishu, but he stressed that those working with the Somali NSA do not conduct operations; rather, they advise and train Somali agents. “In this environment, it’s very tricky. They want to help us, but the situation is not allowing them to do [it] however they want. They are not in control of the politics, they are not in control of the security,” he adds. “They are not controlling the environment like Afghanistan and Iraq. In Somalia, the situation is fluid, the situation is changing, personalities changing.”
The wider picture to the Murdoch scandal: Killing off the craft of journalism
Each day sees a new revelation about the shenanigans of the Murdoch media group, especially its newspapers. Lost in all the reporting about who did what, etc. etc. is the issue of what the Murdoch newspapers have "done" to the one-time craft of journalism.
"With guilty pleasure, the mainstream media have been serving us a virtual buffet of reasons to despise Rupert Murdoch's evil media empire. Amid this fetid mess, however, it shouldn't be forgotten that beneath every media mogul, however rotten, is an enterprise of real people—a culture of workers who represent the embattled and tragic state of journalism today.
The ethical breaches at issue clearly reflect top-to-bottom corruption. Yet more importantly, the underlying criminality lies in a vulgar laissez faire corporate culture in which honesty and critical thought are dismissed as an impediment to commercial success.
The alleged hacking and bribery are just extreme symptoms of an ailment metastasizing throughout the media. Listen to the former employees who talked to Reuters about News Corp's inner sanctum, directly linking the cutthroat newsroom climate with the wholesale abandonment of ethics:
A fifth former News International employee who worked with News Of the World journalists at this time said its reporters were under "unbelievable, phenomenal pressure," treated harshly by bosses who would shout abuse in their faces and keep a running total of their bylines. Journalists were driven by a terror of failing. If they didn't regularly get stories, they feared, they would be fired. That meant they competed ruthlessly with each other....
Reporters say they lived in constant fear of byline counts which weeded out those who had filed the fewest stories. "They were always seeking to get rid of people because it was a burn-out job. Their ideal situation was you work your nuts off for six months and they let you work there another six months," said the general news reporter.
"Every minute you spent there you felt that your employer hated you.”
Even more disturbing is the acknowledgment that “Eavesdropping on voicemail or obtaining call logs was initially a money-saving measure” to get the scoop fast and cheap. That is, pressure to maximize profits contributed directly to the corruption of reporting practices."
"With guilty pleasure, the mainstream media have been serving us a virtual buffet of reasons to despise Rupert Murdoch's evil media empire. Amid this fetid mess, however, it shouldn't be forgotten that beneath every media mogul, however rotten, is an enterprise of real people—a culture of workers who represent the embattled and tragic state of journalism today.
The ethical breaches at issue clearly reflect top-to-bottom corruption. Yet more importantly, the underlying criminality lies in a vulgar laissez faire corporate culture in which honesty and critical thought are dismissed as an impediment to commercial success.
The alleged hacking and bribery are just extreme symptoms of an ailment metastasizing throughout the media. Listen to the former employees who talked to Reuters about News Corp's inner sanctum, directly linking the cutthroat newsroom climate with the wholesale abandonment of ethics:
A fifth former News International employee who worked with News Of the World journalists at this time said its reporters were under "unbelievable, phenomenal pressure," treated harshly by bosses who would shout abuse in their faces and keep a running total of their bylines. Journalists were driven by a terror of failing. If they didn't regularly get stories, they feared, they would be fired. That meant they competed ruthlessly with each other....
Reporters say they lived in constant fear of byline counts which weeded out those who had filed the fewest stories. "They were always seeking to get rid of people because it was a burn-out job. Their ideal situation was you work your nuts off for six months and they let you work there another six months," said the general news reporter.
"Every minute you spent there you felt that your employer hated you.”
Even more disturbing is the acknowledgment that “Eavesdropping on voicemail or obtaining call logs was initially a money-saving measure” to get the scoop fast and cheap. That is, pressure to maximize profits contributed directly to the corruption of reporting practices."
Friday, July 22, 2011
Decency and humanity dictate we all do something
If this a civilised world in which we all live, we cannot stand by and see the massive scale of starvation unfolding in the Horn of Africa without doing something positive to alleviate the suffering of millions of people.
"The United Nations is to convene an emergency meeting to discuss the response to Horn of Africa drought, which it says has already killed tens of thousands of people. Famine was declared in two regions of Somalia on Wednesday – the first time this has occurred since 1992 – with 3.7 million people needing urgent humanitarian assistance.
A further 8 million people require food in neighbouring countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia. The UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation said the meeting at its Rome headquarters on Monday would be attended by its 191 member countries, as well as NGOs, other UN organisations and the regional development bank. France, the current president of the G20 group of leading economies, called the meeting.
Topping the agenda will be discussions on how to deliver aid safely and effectively into Somalia. While the drought has been severe across the Horn, with some areas receiving the lowest rainfall for 60 years, Somalia has been worst affected because of conflict, lack of governance and the security risks facing aid groups. Having had no effective government since the overthrow of Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, the country is gripped by an Islamist insurgency led by the hardline Al-Shabab militia. The group, which controls much of southern Somalia, lifted a ban earlier this month on international humanitarian groups, including the World Food Programme (WFP), but aid organisations are seeking guarantees the food will not be diverted and aid workers will be safe."
Those Murdochs sure know how to "do" poor taste and sleaze
Shake your head in wonderment at this....
"If you thought the outrage over the phone-hacking scandal was starting to die down, The Times of London, one of Rupert Murdoch's own papers, may have brought it straight back into the spotlight.
An editorial cartoon published Thursday morning in the paper with the title "Priorities" shows starving people in Somalia saying "We've had a bellyful of phone-hacking ... " It's causing quite a firestorm on Twitter. You can access the newspaper's site here, but you won't be able to get past the pay wall without a subscription.
The paper has not yet returned calls for comment.
The Guardian's Deputy Editor Katharine Viner (@KathViner) tweeted a link to a photo of the cartoon this morning and asked what people thought of it. And boy, did she get a response. From regular citizens in the U.S. and UK, to politicians, media specialists and PR folks, the responses are rolling in at a mile a minute.
The responses generally fall in one of two directions: utter disgust or the notion that while the cartoon makes a point, having it come from a Murdoch-owned newspaper makes it just straight ridiculous. For some, it's being seen as an attempt to try to get readers to move away from the story and focus on something else."
If it weren't so serious it would be downright comical
One does have to wonder sometimes - about diplomacy, so-called, and how Governments spend (correction- squander) tax-payer's money.
Over to Tom Englehardt, at TomDispatch,who explains what Uncle Sam has been up to of late. And this by a country spending big yet up to its eye-balls in debt and across the country cutting back on essential services. It borders on the comical, if it weren't so serious.
"In the method, there is madness; in the comedy, nightmare; in the tragedy, farce.
And despite everything, there’s still good news when it comes to what Americans can accomplish in the face of the impossible! No, not a debt-ceiling deal in Washington. So much better than that.
According to Thom Shanker of the New York Times, the U.S. military has gathered biometric data -- “digital scans of eyes, photographs of the face, and fingerprints” -- on 2.2 million Iraqis and 1.5 million Afghans, with an emphasis on men of an age to become insurgents, and has saved all of it in the Automated Biometric Information System, a vast computerized database. Imagine: we’re talking about one of every 14 Iraqis and one of every 20 Afghans. Who says America’s a can’t-do nation?
The Pentagon is pouring an estimated $3.5 billion into its biometric programs (2007 through 2015). And though it’s been a couple of rough weeks when it comes to money in Washington, at least no one can claim that taxpayer dollars have been ill-spent on this project. Give the Pentagon just another five to 10 years in Iraq and Afghanistan and the biometric endeavor of a lifetime should be complete. Then Washington will be able to identify any Iraqi or Afghan on the planet by eye-scan alone.
Be proud, America!
And consider that feat a bright spot of American accomplishment (and not the only one either) in a couple of weeks of can’t-do news from the Greater Middle East. After all, despite those biometric scans, an assassin managed to gun down Our Man in Kandahar (OMK), Ahmed Wali Karzai, the Afghan president’s half-brother, in his own residence. He was the warlord the U.S. military buddied up with as U.S. troops were surging south in 2009 and who helped bring American-style “progress” to the Taliban heartland.
Of course, before he was OMK and our great ally in southern Afghanistan, he was OEK (Our Enemy in Kandahar), the down-and-dirty, election-fixing, drug-running evil dude whom one American military official more or less threatened to take out. (“The only way to clean up Chicago is to get rid of Capone” was the way that Major General Michael Flynn, the top U.S. military intelligence officer in the country, put it at the time.) And before he was OEK, he was CMK (the CIA’s Man in Kandahar), right up there on the Agency’s payroll; and even before that, speaking of Chicago, he was a restaurateur in that city who... but I’m losing track of my point, as Americans have a knack for doing in Afghanistan."
Over to Tom Englehardt, at TomDispatch,who explains what Uncle Sam has been up to of late. And this by a country spending big yet up to its eye-balls in debt and across the country cutting back on essential services. It borders on the comical, if it weren't so serious.
"In the method, there is madness; in the comedy, nightmare; in the tragedy, farce.
And despite everything, there’s still good news when it comes to what Americans can accomplish in the face of the impossible! No, not a debt-ceiling deal in Washington. So much better than that.
According to Thom Shanker of the New York Times, the U.S. military has gathered biometric data -- “digital scans of eyes, photographs of the face, and fingerprints” -- on 2.2 million Iraqis and 1.5 million Afghans, with an emphasis on men of an age to become insurgents, and has saved all of it in the Automated Biometric Information System, a vast computerized database. Imagine: we’re talking about one of every 14 Iraqis and one of every 20 Afghans. Who says America’s a can’t-do nation?
The Pentagon is pouring an estimated $3.5 billion into its biometric programs (2007 through 2015). And though it’s been a couple of rough weeks when it comes to money in Washington, at least no one can claim that taxpayer dollars have been ill-spent on this project. Give the Pentagon just another five to 10 years in Iraq and Afghanistan and the biometric endeavor of a lifetime should be complete. Then Washington will be able to identify any Iraqi or Afghan on the planet by eye-scan alone.
Be proud, America!
And consider that feat a bright spot of American accomplishment (and not the only one either) in a couple of weeks of can’t-do news from the Greater Middle East. After all, despite those biometric scans, an assassin managed to gun down Our Man in Kandahar (OMK), Ahmed Wali Karzai, the Afghan president’s half-brother, in his own residence. He was the warlord the U.S. military buddied up with as U.S. troops were surging south in 2009 and who helped bring American-style “progress” to the Taliban heartland.
Of course, before he was OMK and our great ally in southern Afghanistan, he was OEK (Our Enemy in Kandahar), the down-and-dirty, election-fixing, drug-running evil dude whom one American military official more or less threatened to take out. (“The only way to clean up Chicago is to get rid of Capone” was the way that Major General Michael Flynn, the top U.S. military intelligence officer in the country, put it at the time.) And before he was OEK, he was CMK (the CIA’s Man in Kandahar), right up there on the Agency’s payroll; and even before that, speaking of Chicago, he was a restaurateur in that city who... but I’m losing track of my point, as Americans have a knack for doing in Afghanistan."
Thursday, July 21, 2011
A wake up call from no-lesser-a-person than a President
"I forgive if you have never heard of my country.
At just 8 square miles, about a third of the size of Manhattan, and located in the southern Pacific Ocean, Nauru appears as merely a pinpoint on most maps — if it is not missing entirely in a vast expanse of blue.
But make no mistake; we are a sovereign nation, with our own language, customs and history dating back 3,000 years. Nauru is worth a quick Internet search, I assure you, for not only will you discover a fascinating country that is often overlooked, you will find an indispensible cautionary tale about life in a place with hard ecological limits.
Phosphate mining, first by foreign companies and later our own, cleared the lush tropical rainforest that once covered our island’s interior, scarring the land and leaving only a thin strip of coastline for us to live on. The legacy of exploitation left us with few economic alternatives and one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, and led previous governments to make unwise investments that ultimately squandered our country’s savings.
I am not looking for sympathy, but rather warning you what can happen when a country runs out of options. The world is headed down a similar path with the relentless burning of coal and oil, which is altering the planet’s climate, melting ice caps, making oceans more acidic and edging us ever closer to a day when no one will be able to take clean water, fertile soil or abundant food for granted.
Climate change also threatens the very existence of many countries in the Pacific, where the sea level is projected to rise three feet or more by the end of the century. Already, Nauru’s coast, the only habitable area, is steadily eroding, and communities in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands have been forced to flee their homes to escape record tides. The low-lying nations of Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Marshall Islands may vanish entirely within our grandchildren’s lifetimes."
So begins a soberimg piece "On Nauru, A Sinking Feeling" in the IHT by the President of the Pacific island of Nauru. The lessons to be learned by all of us are loud and clear.
At just 8 square miles, about a third of the size of Manhattan, and located in the southern Pacific Ocean, Nauru appears as merely a pinpoint on most maps — if it is not missing entirely in a vast expanse of blue.
But make no mistake; we are a sovereign nation, with our own language, customs and history dating back 3,000 years. Nauru is worth a quick Internet search, I assure you, for not only will you discover a fascinating country that is often overlooked, you will find an indispensible cautionary tale about life in a place with hard ecological limits.
Phosphate mining, first by foreign companies and later our own, cleared the lush tropical rainforest that once covered our island’s interior, scarring the land and leaving only a thin strip of coastline for us to live on. The legacy of exploitation left us with few economic alternatives and one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, and led previous governments to make unwise investments that ultimately squandered our country’s savings.
I am not looking for sympathy, but rather warning you what can happen when a country runs out of options. The world is headed down a similar path with the relentless burning of coal and oil, which is altering the planet’s climate, melting ice caps, making oceans more acidic and edging us ever closer to a day when no one will be able to take clean water, fertile soil or abundant food for granted.
Climate change also threatens the very existence of many countries in the Pacific, where the sea level is projected to rise three feet or more by the end of the century. Already, Nauru’s coast, the only habitable area, is steadily eroding, and communities in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands have been forced to flee their homes to escape record tides. The low-lying nations of Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Marshall Islands may vanish entirely within our grandchildren’s lifetimes."
So begins a soberimg piece "On Nauru, A Sinking Feeling" in the IHT by the President of the Pacific island of Nauru. The lessons to be learned by all of us are loud and clear.
The war in Iraq: Pushing it out of our memories
A piece "1 Million Dead in Iraq? 6 Reasons the Media Hide the True Human Toll of War -- And Why We Let Them"
in AlterNet raises an important question. Why is the Iraq War, and all its consequences, being pushed into the background of people's memories.
"As the U.S. war in Iraq winds down, we are entering a familiar phase, the season of forgetting—forgetting the harsh realities of the war. Mostly we forget the victims of the war, the Iraqi civilians whose lives and society have been devastated by eight years of armed conflict. The act of forgetting is a social and political act, abetted by the American news media. Throughout the war, but especially now, the minimal news we get from Iraq consistently devalues the death toll of Iraqi civilians.
Why? A number of reasons are at work in this persistent evasion of reality. But forgetting has consequences, especially as it braces the obstinate right-wing narrative of “victory” in the Iraq war. If we forget, we learn nothing.
I’ve puzzled over this habit of reaching for the lowest possible estimates of the number of Iraqis who died unnecessarily since March 2003. The habit is now deeply entrenched. Over a period of about two weeks in May, I encountered in major news media three separate references to the number of people who had died in the Iraq war. Anderson Cooper, on his CNN show, Steven Lee Myers in the New York Times Magazine and Brian MacQuarrie in the Boston Globe all pegged the number in the tens of thousands, sometimes adding “at least.” But the number that sticks is this “tens of thousands.”
in AlterNet raises an important question. Why is the Iraq War, and all its consequences, being pushed into the background of people's memories.
"As the U.S. war in Iraq winds down, we are entering a familiar phase, the season of forgetting—forgetting the harsh realities of the war. Mostly we forget the victims of the war, the Iraqi civilians whose lives and society have been devastated by eight years of armed conflict. The act of forgetting is a social and political act, abetted by the American news media. Throughout the war, but especially now, the minimal news we get from Iraq consistently devalues the death toll of Iraqi civilians.
Why? A number of reasons are at work in this persistent evasion of reality. But forgetting has consequences, especially as it braces the obstinate right-wing narrative of “victory” in the Iraq war. If we forget, we learn nothing.
I’ve puzzled over this habit of reaching for the lowest possible estimates of the number of Iraqis who died unnecessarily since March 2003. The habit is now deeply entrenched. Over a period of about two weeks in May, I encountered in major news media three separate references to the number of people who had died in the Iraq war. Anderson Cooper, on his CNN show, Steven Lee Myers in the New York Times Magazine and Brian MacQuarrie in the Boston Globe all pegged the number in the tens of thousands, sometimes adding “at least.” But the number that sticks is this “tens of thousands.”
Whatever democracy there was knocked for a six
Who said that Israel was a true democracy? - in fact, the only one in the Middle East. Seems not though.
"It was a Palestinian legislator who made the most telling comment to the Israeli parliament last week as it passed the boycott law, which outlaws calls to boycott Israel or its settlements in the occupied territories. Ahmed Tibi asked: “What is a peace activist or Palestinian allowed to do to oppose the occupation? Is there anything you agree to?”
The boycott law is the latest in a series of ever-more draconian laws being introduced by the far right. The legislation’s goal is to intimidate those Israeli citizens, Jews and Palestinians, who have yet to bow down before the majority-rule mob.
Look out in the coming days and weeks for a bill to block the work of Israeli human rights organizations trying to protect Palestinians in the occupied West Bank from abuses by the Israeli army and settlers; and a draft law investing a parliamentary committee, headed by the far right, with the power to veto appointments to the high court. The court is the only, and already enfeebled, bulwark against the right’s absolute ascendancy.
The boycott law, backed by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, marks a watershed in this legislative assault in two respects.
First, it knocks out the keystone of any democratic system: the right to free speech. The new law makes it illegal for Israelis and Palestinians to advocate a nonviolent political program — boycott — to counter the ever-growing power of the half a million Jewish settlers living on stolen Palestinian land.
As the Israeli commentator Gideon Levy observed, the floodgates are now open: “Tomorrow it will be forbidden to call for an end to the occupation [or for] brotherhood between Jews and Arabs.”
Equally of concern is that the law creates a new type of civil, rather than criminal, offense. The state will not be initiating prosecutions. Instead, the job of enforcing the boycott law is being outsourced to the settlers and their lawyers. Anyone backing a boycott can be sued for compensation by the settlers themselves, who — again uniquely — need not prove they suffered actual harm.
Under this law, opponents of the occupation will not even be dignified with jail sentences and the chance to become prisoners of conscience. Rather, they will be quietly bankrupted in private actions, their assets seized either to cover legal costs or as punitive damages."
"It was a Palestinian legislator who made the most telling comment to the Israeli parliament last week as it passed the boycott law, which outlaws calls to boycott Israel or its settlements in the occupied territories. Ahmed Tibi asked: “What is a peace activist or Palestinian allowed to do to oppose the occupation? Is there anything you agree to?”
The boycott law is the latest in a series of ever-more draconian laws being introduced by the far right. The legislation’s goal is to intimidate those Israeli citizens, Jews and Palestinians, who have yet to bow down before the majority-rule mob.
Look out in the coming days and weeks for a bill to block the work of Israeli human rights organizations trying to protect Palestinians in the occupied West Bank from abuses by the Israeli army and settlers; and a draft law investing a parliamentary committee, headed by the far right, with the power to veto appointments to the high court. The court is the only, and already enfeebled, bulwark against the right’s absolute ascendancy.
The boycott law, backed by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, marks a watershed in this legislative assault in two respects.
First, it knocks out the keystone of any democratic system: the right to free speech. The new law makes it illegal for Israelis and Palestinians to advocate a nonviolent political program — boycott — to counter the ever-growing power of the half a million Jewish settlers living on stolen Palestinian land.
As the Israeli commentator Gideon Levy observed, the floodgates are now open: “Tomorrow it will be forbidden to call for an end to the occupation [or for] brotherhood between Jews and Arabs.”
Equally of concern is that the law creates a new type of civil, rather than criminal, offense. The state will not be initiating prosecutions. Instead, the job of enforcing the boycott law is being outsourced to the settlers and their lawyers. Anyone backing a boycott can be sued for compensation by the settlers themselves, who — again uniquely — need not prove they suffered actual harm.
Under this law, opponents of the occupation will not even be dignified with jail sentences and the chance to become prisoners of conscience. Rather, they will be quietly bankrupted in private actions, their assets seized either to cover legal costs or as punitive damages."
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Italy the latest economic basket-case?
In a piece in Spiegel OnLine, the Italian PM, with all his warts and all - including the latest case against him - is exposed as having let the country drift into economic chaos.
"Il Cavaliere -- a sinner caught in the act. Not just the Milan court, but all of Italy must once again confront the buffooneries of its aging prime minister -- and this at a time when the country is in economic difficulties serious enough to threaten its very survival, and when the future of Project Europe depends in part on whether the third-largest economic power in the euro zone is being run decently and with sound judgment.
But the world, as has recently become apparent, thinks that it is not . Berlusconi's Italy is debt-ridden, shouldering a burden worth €1.85 trillion, more than twice as much as Greece, Ireland and Portugal combined. In the next 12 months alone, €300 billion of that debt will have to be refinanced -- more than the €250 billion in the euro-zone bailout fund. Last week, confidence in the country seemed to disappear from one day to the next."
"Il Cavaliere -- a sinner caught in the act. Not just the Milan court, but all of Italy must once again confront the buffooneries of its aging prime minister -- and this at a time when the country is in economic difficulties serious enough to threaten its very survival, and when the future of Project Europe depends in part on whether the third-largest economic power in the euro zone is being run decently and with sound judgment.
But the world, as has recently become apparent, thinks that it is not . Berlusconi's Italy is debt-ridden, shouldering a burden worth €1.85 trillion, more than twice as much as Greece, Ireland and Portugal combined. In the next 12 months alone, €300 billion of that debt will have to be refinanced -- more than the €250 billion in the euro-zone bailout fund. Last week, confidence in the country seemed to disappear from one day to the next."
Neocons fume about that pesky Gazan flotilla
If the subject-matter weren't so very serious one would have to laugh, out loud, at the reaction of neocons like Alan Dershowitz, at the attempt by peace activists to sail a number of boats into Gaza - thereby highlighting the plight of 1.5 Gazans.
"My co-passengers and I of the U.S. Boat to Gaza have now gone from “High-Seas Hippies,” according to the right-wing Washington Times, to participants in a flotilla full of “fools, knaves, hypocrites, bigots, and supporters of terrorism,” says Alan Dershowitz in his usual measured prose.
Poor Alan, he seems upset at our audacity not only to hope for humane treatment of the 1.6 million Gazans, who currently live under a cruel blockade, but to force the issue. To stop our boat before it could leave Greek waters, Israel’s Likud government gave itself a self-inflicted black eye and again brought the oppression of Gazans to worldwide attention.
This time, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government did not even have to kill people to add to Israel’s growing “delegitimization” before the civilized world. Facing growing international condemnation, Netanyahu and his allies have reason to worry.
In recognition of our modest accomplishments, we U.S. boaters have now made it onto Dershowitz’s “Dishonor Roll!” At first reading of his intended insults, my laughter was uncontrollable. I’ve been called a lot of things before, but I cannot remember being labeled a “knave.”
Anyone know what a knave is? Does it have something to do with what Damon Runyon used to call “the Harvards,” among whom Dershowitz has long toiled as a law professor?
Dershowitz also lashes out at the American Jews onboard, including 86-year-old Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, with the shopworn epithet for Jews who dare to criticize Israel’s government as “self-hating.”
I suppose if I had criticized some of the ugly extremism in Ireland a few decades back, I would be a “self-hating Irishman.”
But the bottom line is this: Dershowitz’s Likud friends and their neocon chums in the Obama administration realize they have suffered a stinging – and unnecessary – PR defeat. They could easily have let our peaceful boat carrying passengers, media and letters of goodwill reach the isolated people of Gaza.
What we boaters appear to have accomplished is to provoke the mighty diplomats of Israel and the United States into a full-court press that brought renewed attention to the plight of the Gazans."
"My co-passengers and I of the U.S. Boat to Gaza have now gone from “High-Seas Hippies,” according to the right-wing Washington Times, to participants in a flotilla full of “fools, knaves, hypocrites, bigots, and supporters of terrorism,” says Alan Dershowitz in his usual measured prose.
Poor Alan, he seems upset at our audacity not only to hope for humane treatment of the 1.6 million Gazans, who currently live under a cruel blockade, but to force the issue. To stop our boat before it could leave Greek waters, Israel’s Likud government gave itself a self-inflicted black eye and again brought the oppression of Gazans to worldwide attention.
This time, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government did not even have to kill people to add to Israel’s growing “delegitimization” before the civilized world. Facing growing international condemnation, Netanyahu and his allies have reason to worry.
In recognition of our modest accomplishments, we U.S. boaters have now made it onto Dershowitz’s “Dishonor Roll!” At first reading of his intended insults, my laughter was uncontrollable. I’ve been called a lot of things before, but I cannot remember being labeled a “knave.”
Anyone know what a knave is? Does it have something to do with what Damon Runyon used to call “the Harvards,” among whom Dershowitz has long toiled as a law professor?
Dershowitz also lashes out at the American Jews onboard, including 86-year-old Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, with the shopworn epithet for Jews who dare to criticize Israel’s government as “self-hating.”
I suppose if I had criticized some of the ugly extremism in Ireland a few decades back, I would be a “self-hating Irishman.”
But the bottom line is this: Dershowitz’s Likud friends and their neocon chums in the Obama administration realize they have suffered a stinging – and unnecessary – PR defeat. They could easily have let our peaceful boat carrying passengers, media and letters of goodwill reach the isolated people of Gaza.
What we boaters appear to have accomplished is to provoke the mighty diplomats of Israel and the United States into a full-court press that brought renewed attention to the plight of the Gazans."
10 Questions for Rupert Murdoch.....which Brit MP's won't ask
Stop the War Coalition has framed 10 questions which ought, properly, be directed to Rupert Murdoch when he appears at Westminster this morning.....but are unlikely to be asked.
"What was it about the relationship with Murdoch that made Tony Blair feel it was appropriate to take a phone call from a newspaper proprietor just hours prior to the most momentous decision a prime minister can make: ordering the country's armed forces to war?"
Read the 10 questions here - such as the first one:
"In 2002-3 all of your 127 newspapers around the world, with a combined circulation of 40 million a week, supported the Iraq war. We now know you were often in direct contact with the then prime minister Tony Blair, who you said at the time was "extraordinarily courageous and strong" and who had "shown great guts" in planning the war on Iraq. How much coordination was there between Downing Street and News International on the media presentation of what was widely regarded as an illegal war?"
"What was it about the relationship with Murdoch that made Tony Blair feel it was appropriate to take a phone call from a newspaper proprietor just hours prior to the most momentous decision a prime minister can make: ordering the country's armed forces to war?"
Read the 10 questions here - such as the first one:
"In 2002-3 all of your 127 newspapers around the world, with a combined circulation of 40 million a week, supported the Iraq war. We now know you were often in direct contact with the then prime minister Tony Blair, who you said at the time was "extraordinarily courageous and strong" and who had "shown great guts" in planning the war on Iraq. How much coordination was there between Downing Street and News International on the media presentation of what was widely regarded as an illegal war?"
2 movies: Harry Potter and Sarah Palin
One might have thought that in the light of all the Murdoch bru-hah-hah in the UK - and possibly in the USA - that Fox News would now be a tad circumspect in how it reports things. Don't believe it!
CommonDreams reports:
"In this weekend's movie news, the new Harry Potter film made a record $168.55 million. Sarah Palin's film made close to $75,000. Nonetheless, Fox News' headline on the subject crowed, "Palin Film Opens Strong, Theaters Packed." Weird huh?"
CommonDreams reports:
"In this weekend's movie news, the new Harry Potter film made a record $168.55 million. Sarah Palin's film made close to $75,000. Nonetheless, Fox News' headline on the subject crowed, "Palin Film Opens Strong, Theaters Packed." Weird huh?"
Monday, July 18, 2011
Too many of us on this planet?
"In 1997 Salman Rushdie wrote to the six billionth world citizen, due to be born that year: “It has proved impossible, in many parts of the world, to prevent the human race’s numbers from swelling alarmingly. Blame the overcrowded planet at least partly on the misguidedness of the race’s spiritual guides. In your own lifetime, you may well witness the arrival of the nine billionth world citizen. (If too many people are being born as a result, in part, of religious strictures against birth control, then too many people are also dying because [of] religious culture.)” In 2011, or early 2012 at the latest, we are expecting the arrival of the 7 billionth world citizen. He or she has a 70 percent chance of being born into a disadvantaged family in a poor country. Should we be preparing a welcome or an apology?'
So concludes a piece "Too Much Life on Earth" in the IHT [originally in Le Monde Diplomatique] by George Minois, a historian and the author, most recently, of “Weight of numbers: the historical obsession with overpopulation.”
So concludes a piece "Too Much Life on Earth" in the IHT [originally in Le Monde Diplomatique] by George Minois, a historian and the author, most recently, of “Weight of numbers: the historical obsession with overpopulation.”
The workplace has changed. Deal with it!
Thomas Friedman, op-ed conrtributor to The New York Times and commentator and author isn't someone MPS very much ever agrees with. His notions on some things, especially foreign affairs, are often off-beam. That said, in one his lastest columns Friedman identifies how the workplace has changed, forever, and we had all better get used to it. What Friedman raises is to be it bluntly, rather scary.
"Indeed, what is most striking when you talk to employers today is how many of them have used the pressure of the recession to become even more productive by deploying more automation technologies, software, outsourcing, robotics — anything they can use to make better products with reduced head count and health care and pension liabilities. That is not going to change. And while many of them are hiring, they are increasingly picky. They are all looking for the same kind of people — people who not only have the critical thinking skills to do the value-adding jobs that technology can’t, but also people who can invent, adapt and reinvent their jobs every day, in a market that changes faster than ever.
Today’s college grads need to be aware that the rising trend in Silicon Valley is to evaluate employees every quarter, not annually. Because the merger of globalization and the I.T. revolution means new products are being phased in and out so fast that companies cannot afford to wait until the end of the year to figure out whether a team leader is doing a good job.
Whatever you may be thinking when you apply for a job today, you can be sure the employer is asking this: Can this person add value every hour, every day — more than a worker in India, a robot or a computer? Can he or she help my company adapt by not only doing the job today but also reinventing the job for tomorrow? And can he or she adapt with all the change, so my company can adapt and export more into the fastest-growing global markets? In today’s hyperconnected world, more and more companies cannot and will not hire people who don’t fulfill those criteria."
"Indeed, what is most striking when you talk to employers today is how many of them have used the pressure of the recession to become even more productive by deploying more automation technologies, software, outsourcing, robotics — anything they can use to make better products with reduced head count and health care and pension liabilities. That is not going to change. And while many of them are hiring, they are increasingly picky. They are all looking for the same kind of people — people who not only have the critical thinking skills to do the value-adding jobs that technology can’t, but also people who can invent, adapt and reinvent their jobs every day, in a market that changes faster than ever.
Today’s college grads need to be aware that the rising trend in Silicon Valley is to evaluate employees every quarter, not annually. Because the merger of globalization and the I.T. revolution means new products are being phased in and out so fast that companies cannot afford to wait until the end of the year to figure out whether a team leader is doing a good job.
Whatever you may be thinking when you apply for a job today, you can be sure the employer is asking this: Can this person add value every hour, every day — more than a worker in India, a robot or a computer? Can he or she help my company adapt by not only doing the job today but also reinventing the job for tomorrow? And can he or she adapt with all the change, so my company can adapt and export more into the fastest-growing global markets? In today’s hyperconnected world, more and more companies cannot and will not hire people who don’t fulfill those criteria."
Israel girding itself for an attack on Iran in September?
Let us all hope that this report in The Jerusalem Post turns out not to be correct - that Israel is planning an attack on Iran this coming September.
"Israel will probably attack Iran in September, a former CIA officer who spent 21 years in the Middle East, including in Lebanon and Syria, has told a Los Angeles radio show.
While Robert Baer didn’t reveal the sources behind his prediction, he referred to former Mossad chief Meir Dagan’s warnings of an Israeli attack on Iran as “no bluff.”
Baer told the KPFK Radio on Tuesday recent comments made by Dagan that an Israeli attack on Iran could lead to a regional war, “tell us with near certainty that [Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu is planning an attack, and in as much as I can guess when it’s going to be, it’s probably going to be in September, before a [UN General Assembly] vote on the Palestinian state.”
Netanyahu is “also hoping to draw the United States into the conflict – and in fact, there’s a warning order inside the Pentagon to prepare for conflict with Iran,” Baer said.
The retired senior CIA officer predicted that Israel would attack the Natanz nuclear facility, as well as “a couple of others to degrade their capabilities.”
“The Iranians will strike back where they can, and that will be in Basra and in Baghdad,” where the US has a reduced troop presence, Baer said.
“We’ve started to look at Iran’s targets in Iraq and across the border,” he said.
Baer, however, said a regional war was unlikely.
“What we’re facing here is an escalation, not a planned all-out war,” he said.
There was no response from the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem."
"Israel will probably attack Iran in September, a former CIA officer who spent 21 years in the Middle East, including in Lebanon and Syria, has told a Los Angeles radio show.
While Robert Baer didn’t reveal the sources behind his prediction, he referred to former Mossad chief Meir Dagan’s warnings of an Israeli attack on Iran as “no bluff.”
Baer told the KPFK Radio on Tuesday recent comments made by Dagan that an Israeli attack on Iran could lead to a regional war, “tell us with near certainty that [Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu is planning an attack, and in as much as I can guess when it’s going to be, it’s probably going to be in September, before a [UN General Assembly] vote on the Palestinian state.”
Netanyahu is “also hoping to draw the United States into the conflict – and in fact, there’s a warning order inside the Pentagon to prepare for conflict with Iran,” Baer said.
The retired senior CIA officer predicted that Israel would attack the Natanz nuclear facility, as well as “a couple of others to degrade their capabilities.”
“The Iranians will strike back where they can, and that will be in Basra and in Baghdad,” where the US has a reduced troop presence, Baer said.
“We’ve started to look at Iran’s targets in Iraq and across the border,” he said.
Baer, however, said a regional war was unlikely.
“What we’re facing here is an escalation, not a planned all-out war,” he said.
There was no response from the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem."
Sunday, July 17, 2011
What Rupert really thinks and feels - without the spin doctors
The Indpendent, rightly, puts into context what Rupert really thinks and feels about the enveloping scandal surrounding his newspaper world. Forget about the more recent alleged hand-wringing, full page apologies in newspapers, etc. etc. That's the spin doctors at work.
"It was the oddest of comments. In his first significant remarks since the News of the World scandal broke, Rupert Murdoch had this to say: "The damage to the company is nothing that will not be recovered. We have a reputation of great good works in this country. I think he [James] acted as fast as he could, the moment he could. When I hear something going wrong, I insist on it being put right." He added that News Corporation, the giant US media group which owns News International in the UK, had handled the crisis "extremely well in every possible way", making only "minor mistakes".
Then, when asked by the interviewer on his own newspaper The Wall Street Journal, whether he had been upset by all the negative publicity, Murdoch replied: "Just getting annoyed. I'll get over it. I'm tired."
Tired? How could the greatest media tycoon of all time, the Australian newspaper man who came to Britain in the 1960s to buy the News of the World, going on to snap up some of the country's most treasured newspapers, and build a $40bn (£25bn) TV and cable network in the United States, give in to such a prosaic condition at such a crucial time? Or is it true, as the Telegraph's former owner Lord Black said last week, that while Murdoch is quite an agreeable chap, he has no loyalty to anyone, has betrayed all his friends and political leaders and cares only about his company? It certainly seemed so as the 80-year-old then made no attempt to apologise for hacking the phones of vulnerable families, making payments to police officers or closing the UK's biggest selling newspaper. If it was an attempt to fight back, it was pathetic. One thing is sure – he didn't have any spin-doctors telling him what to say then."
"It was the oddest of comments. In his first significant remarks since the News of the World scandal broke, Rupert Murdoch had this to say: "The damage to the company is nothing that will not be recovered. We have a reputation of great good works in this country. I think he [James] acted as fast as he could, the moment he could. When I hear something going wrong, I insist on it being put right." He added that News Corporation, the giant US media group which owns News International in the UK, had handled the crisis "extremely well in every possible way", making only "minor mistakes".
Then, when asked by the interviewer on his own newspaper The Wall Street Journal, whether he had been upset by all the negative publicity, Murdoch replied: "Just getting annoyed. I'll get over it. I'm tired."
Tired? How could the greatest media tycoon of all time, the Australian newspaper man who came to Britain in the 1960s to buy the News of the World, going on to snap up some of the country's most treasured newspapers, and build a $40bn (£25bn) TV and cable network in the United States, give in to such a prosaic condition at such a crucial time? Or is it true, as the Telegraph's former owner Lord Black said last week, that while Murdoch is quite an agreeable chap, he has no loyalty to anyone, has betrayed all his friends and political leaders and cares only about his company? It certainly seemed so as the 80-year-old then made no attempt to apologise for hacking the phones of vulnerable families, making payments to police officers or closing the UK's biggest selling newspaper. If it was an attempt to fight back, it was pathetic. One thing is sure – he didn't have any spin-doctors telling him what to say then."
Yes, what did happen to Obama the one-time presidential aspirant?
Paul Krugman, in his latest op-ed piece in The New York Times starts with a pertinent question:
"What have they done with President Obama? What happened to the inspirational figure his supporters thought they elected? Who is this bland, timid guy who doesn’t seem to stand for anything in particular?"
Krugman goes on to detail proposals being considered in Washington to staunch America's debt crisis which would have a widespread effect, some devastating, in the USA.
"More broadly, Mr. Obama is conspicuously failing to mount any kind of challenge to the philosophy now dominating Washington discussion — a philosophy that says the poor must accept big cuts in Medicaid and food stamps; the middle class must accept big cuts in Medicare (actually a dismantling of the whole program); and corporations and the rich must accept big cuts in the taxes they have to pay. Shared sacrifice!
I’m not exaggerating. The House budget proposal that was unveiled last week — and was praised as “bold” and “serious” by all of Washington’s Very Serious People — includes savage cuts in Medicaid and other programs that help the neediest, which would among other things deprive 34 million Americans of health insurance. It includes a plan to privatize and defund Medicare that would leave many if not most seniors unable to afford health care. And it includes a plan to sharply cut taxes on corporations and to bring the tax rate on high earners down to its lowest level since 1931."
"What have they done with President Obama? What happened to the inspirational figure his supporters thought they elected? Who is this bland, timid guy who doesn’t seem to stand for anything in particular?"
Krugman goes on to detail proposals being considered in Washington to staunch America's debt crisis which would have a widespread effect, some devastating, in the USA.
"More broadly, Mr. Obama is conspicuously failing to mount any kind of challenge to the philosophy now dominating Washington discussion — a philosophy that says the poor must accept big cuts in Medicaid and food stamps; the middle class must accept big cuts in Medicare (actually a dismantling of the whole program); and corporations and the rich must accept big cuts in the taxes they have to pay. Shared sacrifice!
I’m not exaggerating. The House budget proposal that was unveiled last week — and was praised as “bold” and “serious” by all of Washington’s Very Serious People — includes savage cuts in Medicaid and other programs that help the neediest, which would among other things deprive 34 million Americans of health insurance. It includes a plan to privatize and defund Medicare that would leave many if not most seniors unable to afford health care. And it includes a plan to sharply cut taxes on corporations and to bring the tax rate on high earners down to its lowest level since 1931."
Rupert Murdoch: "Blood on his Hands"
In a piece "Murdoch has Blood on his Hands" on War is a Crime, David Swanson asserts that Rupert Murdoch's crimes go beyond all the scandal involving hacking and illegal activity now being so vividly revealed on a daily basis. Murdoch, from behind a desk, has been a rabid supporter of war....and he reminds us of what veteran journalist John Nichols has written in The Nation:
"When the war in Iraq began, the three international leaders who were most ardently committed to the project were US President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Australian Prime Minister John Howard. On paper, they seemed like three very different political players: Bush was a bumbling and inexperienced son of a former president who mixed unwarranted bravado with born-again moralizing to hold together an increasingly conservative Republican Party; Blair was the urbane “modernizer” who had transformed a once proudly socialist party into the centrist “New Labour” project; Howard was the veteran political fixer who came up through the ranks of a coalition that mingled traditional conservatives and swashbuckling corporatists.
But they had one thing in common. They were all favorites of Rupert Murdoch and his sprawling media empire, which began in Australia, extended to the “mother country” of Britain and finally conquered the United States. Murdoch’s media outlets had helped all three secure electoral victories. And the Murduch empire gave the Bush-Blair-Howard troika courage and coverage as preparations were made for the Iraq invasion. Murdoch-owned media outlets in the United States, Britain and Australia enthusiastically cheered on the rush to war and the news that it was a “Mission Accomplished.”
"When the war in Iraq began, the three international leaders who were most ardently committed to the project were US President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Australian Prime Minister John Howard. On paper, they seemed like three very different political players: Bush was a bumbling and inexperienced son of a former president who mixed unwarranted bravado with born-again moralizing to hold together an increasingly conservative Republican Party; Blair was the urbane “modernizer” who had transformed a once proudly socialist party into the centrist “New Labour” project; Howard was the veteran political fixer who came up through the ranks of a coalition that mingled traditional conservatives and swashbuckling corporatists.
But they had one thing in common. They were all favorites of Rupert Murdoch and his sprawling media empire, which began in Australia, extended to the “mother country” of Britain and finally conquered the United States. Murdoch’s media outlets had helped all three secure electoral victories. And the Murduch empire gave the Bush-Blair-Howard troika courage and coverage as preparations were made for the Iraq invasion. Murdoch-owned media outlets in the United States, Britain and Australia enthusiastically cheered on the rush to war and the news that it was a “Mission Accomplished.”
East Africa: Worst famine in decades
East Africa's worsening famine is one of the largest humanitarian crises in decades. Tens of thousands of Somali refugees are flooding camps in Ethiopia and Kenya - at a rate of more than 3,000 new arrivals per day - in search of food after several seasons without rain killed livestock and destroyed crops in Somalia.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
You might wanna know about and meet ALEC
As the Obama Administration struggles with Congress in relation America's budgetary problems - that is, massive debt and an economy which is poor, if not in bad shape - The Nation reveals details of ALEC. Never heard of them? Most people haven't either unless an insider. Americans ought to fear this third force hiding behind money and promoting ideals and philosophies inimical to the general welfare of Americans.
"Founded in 1973 by Paul Weyrich and other conservative activists frustrated by recent electoral setbacks, ALEC is a critical arm of the right-wing network of policy shops that, with infusions of corporate cash, has evolved to shape American politics. Inspired by Milton Friedman’s call for conservatives to “develop alternatives to existing policies [and] keep them alive and available,” ALEC’s model legislation reflects long-term goals: downsizing government, removing regulations on corporations and making it harder to hold the economically and politically powerful to account. Corporate donors retain veto power over the language, which is developed by the secretive task forces. The task forces cover issues from education to health policy. ALEC’s priorities for the 2011 session included bills to privatize education, break unions, deregulate major industries, pass voter ID laws and more. In states across the country they succeeded, with stacks of new laws signed by GOP governors like Ohio’s John Kasich and Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, both ALEC alums.
The details of ALEC’s model bills have been available only to the group’s 2,000 legislative and 300 corporate members. But thanks to a leak to Aliya Rahman, an Ohio-based activist who helped organize protests at ALEC’s Spring Task Force meeting in Cincinnati, The Nation has obtained more than 800 documents representing decades of model legislation. Teaming up with the Center for Media and Democracy, The Nation asked policy experts to analyze this never-before-seen archive.
The articles that follow are the first products of that examination. They provide an inside view of the priorities of ALEC’s corporate board and billionaire benefactors (including Tea Party funders Charles and David Koch). “Dozens of corporations are investing millions of dollars a year to write business-friendly legislation that is being made into law in statehouses coast to coast, with no regard for the public interest,” says Bob Edgar of Common Cause. “This is proof positive of the depth and scope of the corporate reach into our democratic processes.” The full archive of ALEC documents is available at a new website, alecexposed.org, thanks to the Center for Media and Democracy, which has provided powerful tools for progressives to turn this knowledge into power. The data tell us that the time has come to refocus on the battle to loosen the grip of corporate America and renew democracy in the states."
"Founded in 1973 by Paul Weyrich and other conservative activists frustrated by recent electoral setbacks, ALEC is a critical arm of the right-wing network of policy shops that, with infusions of corporate cash, has evolved to shape American politics. Inspired by Milton Friedman’s call for conservatives to “develop alternatives to existing policies [and] keep them alive and available,” ALEC’s model legislation reflects long-term goals: downsizing government, removing regulations on corporations and making it harder to hold the economically and politically powerful to account. Corporate donors retain veto power over the language, which is developed by the secretive task forces. The task forces cover issues from education to health policy. ALEC’s priorities for the 2011 session included bills to privatize education, break unions, deregulate major industries, pass voter ID laws and more. In states across the country they succeeded, with stacks of new laws signed by GOP governors like Ohio’s John Kasich and Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, both ALEC alums.
The details of ALEC’s model bills have been available only to the group’s 2,000 legislative and 300 corporate members. But thanks to a leak to Aliya Rahman, an Ohio-based activist who helped organize protests at ALEC’s Spring Task Force meeting in Cincinnati, The Nation has obtained more than 800 documents representing decades of model legislation. Teaming up with the Center for Media and Democracy, The Nation asked policy experts to analyze this never-before-seen archive.
The articles that follow are the first products of that examination. They provide an inside view of the priorities of ALEC’s corporate board and billionaire benefactors (including Tea Party funders Charles and David Koch). “Dozens of corporations are investing millions of dollars a year to write business-friendly legislation that is being made into law in statehouses coast to coast, with no regard for the public interest,” says Bob Edgar of Common Cause. “This is proof positive of the depth and scope of the corporate reach into our democratic processes.” The full archive of ALEC documents is available at a new website, alecexposed.org, thanks to the Center for Media and Democracy, which has provided powerful tools for progressives to turn this knowledge into power. The data tell us that the time has come to refocus on the battle to loosen the grip of corporate America and renew democracy in the states."
A simple message from an Orthodox Jew
The message from an orthodox Jew in Israel, Jerry Haber, is clear and simple....
"For some time I have had a dream about a community, a coalition, a big tent that includes within it all those constituencies who cry out to end the occupation now. Yes, I know, there already is a US Campaign to End the Occupation, and they do good work. Read about them here. But I am thinking of something else
I am thinking of people of all colors, races, creeds, ethnicities, sexual orientation – and of varying, even opposing ideologies. Under this tent are committed anti-Zionists who believe that a Jewish ethnic state is a bad thing; others who don’t think that Jews have right to national self-determination in Palestine; Palestinians who would, if they could, liberate all of Palestine from Zionist hegemony, and liberal Zionists, who believe that Israel, for all its flaws, offers promise to the Jewish people, the world, and, yes, even to the Palestinians. What unites these constituencies is the conviction that the occupation and subjugation of one people by another over three generations is morally intolerable and can go on no longer. And that now is the time to link arms, despite our profound and irreconcilable differences, and act to end the occupation.
But what does “ending the occupation” mean? It doesn’t mean merely a withdrawal of the Israeli Defense Forces from the West Bank. It doesn’t even mean the creation of a Palestinian state. It means simply this: that Palestinians can live freely and with dignity, that they are not under the control of anybody else, that they are free at last. And that this freedom extends not only to the Palestinians living still within Palestine but wherever they may be, in the camps, in the Arab emirates, in Jordan, in Detroit. It also means that Israelis, Jews and Palestinians, can also live a life of freedom and dignity, enslaved neither to fear, nor to feelings of ethnic entitlement.
****
The only liberal Zionists who can oppose the move, in my opinion, are the ones who are more Zionist than liberal, and indeed, their self-perceived “liberalism” is nothing more than a delusion.
It’s time for liberal Zionists to get off the fence and start heading towards the tent with the one-staters and the BDSer’s – without, necessarily, accepting those ideologies. This move will come first, in Palestine/Israel, and then throughout the world."
"For some time I have had a dream about a community, a coalition, a big tent that includes within it all those constituencies who cry out to end the occupation now. Yes, I know, there already is a US Campaign to End the Occupation, and they do good work. Read about them here. But I am thinking of something else
I am thinking of people of all colors, races, creeds, ethnicities, sexual orientation – and of varying, even opposing ideologies. Under this tent are committed anti-Zionists who believe that a Jewish ethnic state is a bad thing; others who don’t think that Jews have right to national self-determination in Palestine; Palestinians who would, if they could, liberate all of Palestine from Zionist hegemony, and liberal Zionists, who believe that Israel, for all its flaws, offers promise to the Jewish people, the world, and, yes, even to the Palestinians. What unites these constituencies is the conviction that the occupation and subjugation of one people by another over three generations is morally intolerable and can go on no longer. And that now is the time to link arms, despite our profound and irreconcilable differences, and act to end the occupation.
But what does “ending the occupation” mean? It doesn’t mean merely a withdrawal of the Israeli Defense Forces from the West Bank. It doesn’t even mean the creation of a Palestinian state. It means simply this: that Palestinians can live freely and with dignity, that they are not under the control of anybody else, that they are free at last. And that this freedom extends not only to the Palestinians living still within Palestine but wherever they may be, in the camps, in the Arab emirates, in Jordan, in Detroit. It also means that Israelis, Jews and Palestinians, can also live a life of freedom and dignity, enslaved neither to fear, nor to feelings of ethnic entitlement.
****
The only liberal Zionists who can oppose the move, in my opinion, are the ones who are more Zionist than liberal, and indeed, their self-perceived “liberalism” is nothing more than a delusion.
It’s time for liberal Zionists to get off the fence and start heading towards the tent with the one-staters and the BDSer’s – without, necessarily, accepting those ideologies. This move will come first, in Palestine/Israel, and then throughout the world."
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