All-star team to testify before CRTC to save the open Internet
Submitted by Steve Anderson on Tue, 07/07/2009 - 11:46.
Press Release: For Immediate Release July 7, 2009
On Thursday July 9, SaveOurNet.ca coalition members along with network experts will be appearing before the CRTC at the “traffic management” hearing in Gatineau, Quebec to make the case for Net Neutrality. SaveOurNet.ca is also highlighting how people and organizations are using the Internet to bring the hearing to people across the country.
SaveOurNet.ca will make its public interest presentation along with Internet experts Dr. David Reed of MIT, Dr. Andrew Odlyzko of the Minnesota Internet Traffic Studies (MINTS) project, and Bill St. Arnaud, Chief Research Officer for CANARIE Inc., Canada’s Advanced Internet Development Organization. Dr. Reed and Dr. Odlyzko who will be flying to join Bill St. Arnaud, David Fewer, Acting Director at CIPPIC, and Steve Anderson, National Coordinator of SaveOurNet.ca and Campaign for Democratic Media.
Earlier this year, a formal submission was presented to the CRTC traffic management hearing on behalf of the broad based SaveOurNet.ca coalition and all Canadians. The submission included testimony from network engineers illustrating that Internet Service Providers have no technical need to unilaterally limit access to online services and content.
Over the past six months, the CRTC has received well over 11,000 comments calling for the regulator to preserve the open Internet. The decisions made by the CRTC will signal Canada's digital path and have serious implications for privacy, innovation, security, consumer choice and creativity.
SaveOurNet.ca is encouraging people to follow the hearing at http://www.SaveOurNet.ca/hearing where there will be daily updates and postings about the ongoings of the hearing. People can also get involved via live twitter posts from CIPPIC, along with Michael Geist, and SaveOurNet.ca who will also be making twitter and blogposts about the hearing.
Key links for the hearing:
http://www.SaveOurNet.ca/hearing
http://twitter.com/cippic
http://www.michaelgeist.ca
For more information contact:
Steve Anderson
Co-founder
SaveOurNet.ca and CDM
(604) 837-5730
steve@democraticmedia.ca
http://saveournet.ca
David A. Fewer
Acting Director
CIPPIC
The Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic
Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa
(613)562-5800 ext. 2558
www.cippic.ca
About SaveOurNet.ca: SaveOurNet.ca is a coalition of citizens, businesses, and public interest groups fighting to protect our Internet's level playing field.
About CIPPIC: CIPPIC is the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, Canada’s only technology law clinic. CIPPIC was established in 2003 at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law, Common Law Section. CIPPIC’s mandate is to advocate for balance in policy and law-making on issues arising out of new technologies.
About CDM: CDM is a network of public interest organizations and people pushing for media democracy in Canada.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Monday, July 06, 2009
The Raids on the Resistances Bookstore
The Raids on the Resistances Bookstore
Zionist Fanatics Practice Serial Vandalism in Paris
By DIANA JOHNSTONE
Paris.
Thousands of books drenched in cooking oil – that is the latest exploit of the Zionist fanatics who regularly attack property and people in Paris and get away with it.
In the early afternoon of Friday, July 3, five men, mostly masked, stormed into the “Resistances” bookstore located in a quiet residential neighborhood of the 17th arrondissement in northwest Paris. To the startled women working in the shop, as well as two customers, they announcing that they were from the Jewish Defense League and began ripping books off shelves and tables, dousing them heavily with cooking oil, and then smashing four computers before leaving rapidly in a waiting vehicle.
The bookstore is owned and operated by Olivia Zemor and Nicolas Shashahani, who are also the leaders of the very active militant group CAPJPO-EuroPalestine (CAPJPO stands for Coordination des Appels pour une Paix Juste au Proche Orient). In addition to a wide collection of books on the Middle East and other subjects, including fiction, the bookstore has a reading room and a lending library, gives courses in English and Arabic, and possesses a modest but well-attended auditorium where authors are invited to speak.
Two and a half years ago, on December 7, 2006, a similar attack squad threw teargas grenades into the bookstore as a crowd was gathering to listen to the late Israeli author Tanya Reinhart and her companion, the Israeli poet Aharon Shabtai. On that occasion, Shashahani had to be treated for effects from the teargas but material damage was slight. This time, the entire shop is a shambles, with countless ruined books, and damage runs to tens of thousands of euros, according to Shashahani.
But, he stresses, this is only one in “hundreds of violent actions” carried out by the French version of the banned US Jewish Defense League in recent years. There is no reason to expect them to stop so long as they can count on indulgence on the part of French authorities and the silence of the mainstream media. The vandalism on the Resistances bookstore was reported by the French news agency AFP, but the dispatch was apparently carried only by the small tabloid Le Parisien and not by the major newspapers, much less by television. Usually, almost the only people who are informed about such events are in the politically active circles targeted for intimidation.
The general public remains ignorant of these aggressions, while it is regularly informed by television of even relatively minor acts of anti-Semitism – some of them imaginary (as the famous case a few years ago of the young woman who totally invented a story of being the victim of an “anti-Semitic assault” by blacks in the suburban commuter train in order to get attention from her family, and got the attention of everyone in France all the way up to the President of the Republic). Real “anti-Semitic acts” occur, but most are no more organized than school-yard insults. However, the publicity they receive serves to keep alive the notion that the very existence of Jews is under perpetual threat – the basic alibi used by the Jewish Defense League. The false claim that “the French government does nothing to protect Jews” is used as a pretext for aggressive “self-defense”.
As disciples of Meir Kahane, the JDL not only favors purifying an enlarged Eretz Israel of Arabs, but wants to bring the fight against Arabs and “Islamofascism” to France itself. Debate is not their style. After training in Israeli martial arts, they carry on their fight by physical means, attacking Arabs, Muslims and defenders of the Palestinian cause. The JDL is an informal group of a few hundred members, rather than a registered organization with a headquarters. The French police, adept at infiltrating every sort of political group, certainly must know who and where they are, but they seem never to be disturbed after one of their raids. Moreover, unless the aggressors identify themselves, victims cannot be sure whether they are being attacked by the LDJ or by Betar, an older Zionist youth organization founded back in 1929 by Vladimir Jabotinsky and close to Likud. Both use similar methods, and probably overlap, although the LDJ, as the more radical of the two, is said to be draining members from Betar.
In the rare cases when Zionist fanatics are actually arrested and put on trial, they are usually treated with uncommon indulgence. In December 2003, a group of pro-Palestinian students were violently attacked by the usual suspects. A Palestinian student suffered grave eye injuries. Faced with lackadaisical police, the students carried out their own investigation, leading to the conviction on September 16, 2004 of one Anthony Attal. He was given a suspended sentence of ten months.
LDJ or Betar members also have the advantage of a “sanctuary” – Israel. On October 25, 2006, a 68-year-old pro-Palestinian radical militant, Ginette Hess Skandrani, was attacked in her own home by three unknown men who beat her savagely, explaining only “you know why”. Hospitalized, her head wounds required several stitches. Last February 4, her aggressors were finally convicted and sentenced, but:
-- one of them, Ruben Colleu, was sentenced to two years in prison, of which 18 months were suspended – but he had already fled to Israel.
-- the second, Stevel Elie, was sentenced to three years in prison – but the French court had already given him permission to go to Israel “to do his military service” in Tsahal.
-- Only the third, Mike Sfez, was still around. Like Colleu, 18 months of his two year sentence were suspended, and the remaining six months could be transformed into social work.
Only recently, large squads of presumed LDJ thugs have attacked theater-goers outside a benefit for children of Gaza and attacked persons of Arab appearance on their way to a meeting of diverse groups scheduled to discuss the “Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions” movement.
The LDJ has its apologists in the police. On June 5, 2006, the head of the small right-wing Christian union “Action Police CFTC”, Michel Thooris, praised the LDJ and Betar for “performing a public service mission by defending people and property”. He was not publicly reprimanded by his big boss, the minister of the Interior at that time, Nicolas Sarkozy.
The double standards of Sarkozy’s tough “law and order” policy are all too obvious. His ostentatious policy switch from a certain traditional French balance in the Middle East to strong support for Israel is only likely to encourage the LDJ in its feeling of impunity. This spring, a commercially successful author, Paul-Eric Blanrue, was unable to publish his book on “Sarkozy, Israel and the Jews” in France, and was obliged to find a publisher in Belgium. Still worse, the usual French distributor of his Belgian publisher refused to distribute the book in France. His press conference in Paris was unattended by any journalist and his book, which carefully documents Sarkozy’s policy of wooing Jewish support in France by aligning with Israel and attacking the “riffraff” in the suburbs, has been ignored by French reviewers.
Even though the market is saturated, there is always room in the media, however, for laments that France’s secular tradition is threatened by the “communitarianism” of… Muslims. The ideological and violent provocations of fanatic Zionists are rarely singled out as the main cause of this disturbing trend. Of course, France’s many militant intellectual Zionists do not resort to the methods of the LDJ and Betar. But the theme of Jewish victimhood, which is constantly present in schools, in cinema, in political discourse and in the media, provides a congenial atmosphere for the pathological violence of the Jewish militias in France, and for the indulgence with which they are treated.
The situation is scarcely improved by the extreme fragmentation of the Palestine solidarity movement in France – which can be seen as just one aspect of the endemic sectarianism of the French left. The various victims of LDJ or Betar violence – such as CAPJPO, Ginette Skandrani, the comedian Dieudonné, etc., etc. – are often not on speaking terms with each other, so that even if they all profess solidarity with Palestine, there is very little or no solidarity between them.
However, one may hope that the July 3 attack on the Resistances bookstore may arouse a broader protest than other recent attacks, quite simply because of the strong connotations of destroying books. A protest demonstration has been called for the evening of Wednesday, July 8, to demand that the government finally ban the JDL, just as it has already been banned in the United States and Israel. This will be an opportunity to show solidarity in resistance to the most active form of fascism in France today.
Diana Johnstone is author of Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions (Monthly Review Press). She can be reached at diana.josto@yahoo.fr
Zionist Fanatics Practice Serial Vandalism in Paris
By DIANA JOHNSTONE
Paris.
Thousands of books drenched in cooking oil – that is the latest exploit of the Zionist fanatics who regularly attack property and people in Paris and get away with it.
In the early afternoon of Friday, July 3, five men, mostly masked, stormed into the “Resistances” bookstore located in a quiet residential neighborhood of the 17th arrondissement in northwest Paris. To the startled women working in the shop, as well as two customers, they announcing that they were from the Jewish Defense League and began ripping books off shelves and tables, dousing them heavily with cooking oil, and then smashing four computers before leaving rapidly in a waiting vehicle.
The bookstore is owned and operated by Olivia Zemor and Nicolas Shashahani, who are also the leaders of the very active militant group CAPJPO-EuroPalestine (CAPJPO stands for Coordination des Appels pour une Paix Juste au Proche Orient). In addition to a wide collection of books on the Middle East and other subjects, including fiction, the bookstore has a reading room and a lending library, gives courses in English and Arabic, and possesses a modest but well-attended auditorium where authors are invited to speak.
Two and a half years ago, on December 7, 2006, a similar attack squad threw teargas grenades into the bookstore as a crowd was gathering to listen to the late Israeli author Tanya Reinhart and her companion, the Israeli poet Aharon Shabtai. On that occasion, Shashahani had to be treated for effects from the teargas but material damage was slight. This time, the entire shop is a shambles, with countless ruined books, and damage runs to tens of thousands of euros, according to Shashahani.
But, he stresses, this is only one in “hundreds of violent actions” carried out by the French version of the banned US Jewish Defense League in recent years. There is no reason to expect them to stop so long as they can count on indulgence on the part of French authorities and the silence of the mainstream media. The vandalism on the Resistances bookstore was reported by the French news agency AFP, but the dispatch was apparently carried only by the small tabloid Le Parisien and not by the major newspapers, much less by television. Usually, almost the only people who are informed about such events are in the politically active circles targeted for intimidation.
The general public remains ignorant of these aggressions, while it is regularly informed by television of even relatively minor acts of anti-Semitism – some of them imaginary (as the famous case a few years ago of the young woman who totally invented a story of being the victim of an “anti-Semitic assault” by blacks in the suburban commuter train in order to get attention from her family, and got the attention of everyone in France all the way up to the President of the Republic). Real “anti-Semitic acts” occur, but most are no more organized than school-yard insults. However, the publicity they receive serves to keep alive the notion that the very existence of Jews is under perpetual threat – the basic alibi used by the Jewish Defense League. The false claim that “the French government does nothing to protect Jews” is used as a pretext for aggressive “self-defense”.
As disciples of Meir Kahane, the JDL not only favors purifying an enlarged Eretz Israel of Arabs, but wants to bring the fight against Arabs and “Islamofascism” to France itself. Debate is not their style. After training in Israeli martial arts, they carry on their fight by physical means, attacking Arabs, Muslims and defenders of the Palestinian cause. The JDL is an informal group of a few hundred members, rather than a registered organization with a headquarters. The French police, adept at infiltrating every sort of political group, certainly must know who and where they are, but they seem never to be disturbed after one of their raids. Moreover, unless the aggressors identify themselves, victims cannot be sure whether they are being attacked by the LDJ or by Betar, an older Zionist youth organization founded back in 1929 by Vladimir Jabotinsky and close to Likud. Both use similar methods, and probably overlap, although the LDJ, as the more radical of the two, is said to be draining members from Betar.
In the rare cases when Zionist fanatics are actually arrested and put on trial, they are usually treated with uncommon indulgence. In December 2003, a group of pro-Palestinian students were violently attacked by the usual suspects. A Palestinian student suffered grave eye injuries. Faced with lackadaisical police, the students carried out their own investigation, leading to the conviction on September 16, 2004 of one Anthony Attal. He was given a suspended sentence of ten months.
LDJ or Betar members also have the advantage of a “sanctuary” – Israel. On October 25, 2006, a 68-year-old pro-Palestinian radical militant, Ginette Hess Skandrani, was attacked in her own home by three unknown men who beat her savagely, explaining only “you know why”. Hospitalized, her head wounds required several stitches. Last February 4, her aggressors were finally convicted and sentenced, but:
-- one of them, Ruben Colleu, was sentenced to two years in prison, of which 18 months were suspended – but he had already fled to Israel.
-- the second, Stevel Elie, was sentenced to three years in prison – but the French court had already given him permission to go to Israel “to do his military service” in Tsahal.
-- Only the third, Mike Sfez, was still around. Like Colleu, 18 months of his two year sentence were suspended, and the remaining six months could be transformed into social work.
Only recently, large squads of presumed LDJ thugs have attacked theater-goers outside a benefit for children of Gaza and attacked persons of Arab appearance on their way to a meeting of diverse groups scheduled to discuss the “Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions” movement.
The LDJ has its apologists in the police. On June 5, 2006, the head of the small right-wing Christian union “Action Police CFTC”, Michel Thooris, praised the LDJ and Betar for “performing a public service mission by defending people and property”. He was not publicly reprimanded by his big boss, the minister of the Interior at that time, Nicolas Sarkozy.
The double standards of Sarkozy’s tough “law and order” policy are all too obvious. His ostentatious policy switch from a certain traditional French balance in the Middle East to strong support for Israel is only likely to encourage the LDJ in its feeling of impunity. This spring, a commercially successful author, Paul-Eric Blanrue, was unable to publish his book on “Sarkozy, Israel and the Jews” in France, and was obliged to find a publisher in Belgium. Still worse, the usual French distributor of his Belgian publisher refused to distribute the book in France. His press conference in Paris was unattended by any journalist and his book, which carefully documents Sarkozy’s policy of wooing Jewish support in France by aligning with Israel and attacking the “riffraff” in the suburbs, has been ignored by French reviewers.
Even though the market is saturated, there is always room in the media, however, for laments that France’s secular tradition is threatened by the “communitarianism” of… Muslims. The ideological and violent provocations of fanatic Zionists are rarely singled out as the main cause of this disturbing trend. Of course, France’s many militant intellectual Zionists do not resort to the methods of the LDJ and Betar. But the theme of Jewish victimhood, which is constantly present in schools, in cinema, in political discourse and in the media, provides a congenial atmosphere for the pathological violence of the Jewish militias in France, and for the indulgence with which they are treated.
The situation is scarcely improved by the extreme fragmentation of the Palestine solidarity movement in France – which can be seen as just one aspect of the endemic sectarianism of the French left. The various victims of LDJ or Betar violence – such as CAPJPO, Ginette Skandrani, the comedian Dieudonné, etc., etc. – are often not on speaking terms with each other, so that even if they all profess solidarity with Palestine, there is very little or no solidarity between them.
However, one may hope that the July 3 attack on the Resistances bookstore may arouse a broader protest than other recent attacks, quite simply because of the strong connotations of destroying books. A protest demonstration has been called for the evening of Wednesday, July 8, to demand that the government finally ban the JDL, just as it has already been banned in the United States and Israel. This will be an opportunity to show solidarity in resistance to the most active form of fascism in France today.
Diana Johnstone is author of Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions (Monthly Review Press). She can be reached at diana.josto@yahoo.fr
Emergency action in solidarity with Honduras
Emergency action in solidarity with Honduras -- no to the coup d'etat!
Monday, July 6, 5 p.m. at the Vancouver Art Gallery (Robson and Hornby), with live reports from Honduras!
On Sunday, well over 100,000 supporters of the democratically-elected President Zelaya gathered to await his return to Honduras. The leaders of the illegal military junta in Honduras refused to allow Zelaya's plane to land, blocking the runways with military vehicles. The coup regime also escalated its repression against the overwhelming presence of support for democracy on the streets of the capital, Tegucigalpa. This included firing on unarmed protesters. So far there are reports of three killed, including one child, and at least 30 wounded.
This coup d'etat must not stand. We urge you to phone U.S. and Canadian government officials -- who have been equivocal at best in their criticisms of the coup -- to pressure for the restoration of democracy and the legitimate government of Honduras. Please make every effort to join the emergency mobilization Monday.
Golpistas, ¡No Pasarán! ... ¡El pueblo hondureños resiste!
***
Statement in Solidarity with the People of Honduras, by Vancouver based Latin American and allied Organizations
We express our collective outrage and condemn the coup d'état that has taken place in Honduras by leaders of the right wing military junta-that have been trained as mercenaries and dictators in the School of the Americas.
We express our deepest sentiments of solidarity with the people of Honduras, who have taken to the streets to demand their democratically elected president José Manuel Zelaya be allowed to return and finish his term in office. Taking the lead from the people of Honduras, who are defending their democratic rights and the depending of their democratic process, we demand the following from the international community and the Canadian government:
-That they refuse to recognize the de-facto government of Roberto Michelletti or any other government of a similar character.
-That coup leaders recognize President Zelaya as the constitutional president of Honduras and accept his return. If this
does not occur, Canada must withdraw its ambassador, following the example set by Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua.
-The immediate lifting of the State of Emergency and the end to all acts of repression again the Honduran people. Canada should demand the liberty of all the democratic leaders that have been detained illegally.
-That Canadian companies active in Honduras, like Gildan Activewear, Goldcorp Inc, Breakwater Resources, and Yamana Gold halt all operations in Honduras until the democratically elected president returns to his post.
- That Canada immediately halt all Free Trade Agreement negotiations with the Central America Four (Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador)
Endorsed by La Surda Latin American Collective, Canada-Bolivia Solidarity committee, Café Rebelde Collective, Coalition against Intervention in Latin America, Hands off Venezuela, Code Pink, Vancouver Socialist Forum, stopwar.ca
***
Emergency Actions for the return of democracy to Honduras!
From July 5-7, pressure politicians to demand the safe return of President Manuel Zelaya to Honduras.
Flood their email, faxes and voicemail!!!!
Contact Information:
Minister of Foreign Affairs: Lawrence Cannon
Tel: (613) 992-5516
Fax: (613) 992-6802
Email: Cannon.L@parl.gc.ca
Honduran Embassy in Canada
Montreal
Phone:
+1-514-937-2194
Fax:
+1-514-937-2194
Email:
cghonm@total.net
State Department: 202-647-4000 or 1-800-877-8339
White House: Comments: 202-456-1111
For Updates and Information on Honduras check out:
http://hondurassolidarity.wordpress.com/
http://www.rightsaction.org/
http://counterpunch.org/maher07032009.htm
http://www.zmag.org/znet
http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=8015&lg=en
http://www.soaw.org/
Monday, July 6, 5 p.m. at the Vancouver Art Gallery (Robson and Hornby), with live reports from Honduras!
On Sunday, well over 100,000 supporters of the democratically-elected President Zelaya gathered to await his return to Honduras. The leaders of the illegal military junta in Honduras refused to allow Zelaya's plane to land, blocking the runways with military vehicles. The coup regime also escalated its repression against the overwhelming presence of support for democracy on the streets of the capital, Tegucigalpa. This included firing on unarmed protesters. So far there are reports of three killed, including one child, and at least 30 wounded.
This coup d'etat must not stand. We urge you to phone U.S. and Canadian government officials -- who have been equivocal at best in their criticisms of the coup -- to pressure for the restoration of democracy and the legitimate government of Honduras. Please make every effort to join the emergency mobilization Monday.
Golpistas, ¡No Pasarán! ... ¡El pueblo hondureños resiste!
***
Statement in Solidarity with the People of Honduras, by Vancouver based Latin American and allied Organizations
We express our collective outrage and condemn the coup d'état that has taken place in Honduras by leaders of the right wing military junta-that have been trained as mercenaries and dictators in the School of the Americas.
We express our deepest sentiments of solidarity with the people of Honduras, who have taken to the streets to demand their democratically elected president José Manuel Zelaya be allowed to return and finish his term in office. Taking the lead from the people of Honduras, who are defending their democratic rights and the depending of their democratic process, we demand the following from the international community and the Canadian government:
-That they refuse to recognize the de-facto government of Roberto Michelletti or any other government of a similar character.
-That coup leaders recognize President Zelaya as the constitutional president of Honduras and accept his return. If this
does not occur, Canada must withdraw its ambassador, following the example set by Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua.
-The immediate lifting of the State of Emergency and the end to all acts of repression again the Honduran people. Canada should demand the liberty of all the democratic leaders that have been detained illegally.
-That Canadian companies active in Honduras, like Gildan Activewear, Goldcorp Inc, Breakwater Resources, and Yamana Gold halt all operations in Honduras until the democratically elected president returns to his post.
- That Canada immediately halt all Free Trade Agreement negotiations with the Central America Four (Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador)
Endorsed by La Surda Latin American Collective, Canada-Bolivia Solidarity committee, Café Rebelde Collective, Coalition against Intervention in Latin America, Hands off Venezuela, Code Pink, Vancouver Socialist Forum, stopwar.ca
***
Emergency Actions for the return of democracy to Honduras!
From July 5-7, pressure politicians to demand the safe return of President Manuel Zelaya to Honduras.
Flood their email, faxes and voicemail!!!!
Contact Information:
Minister of Foreign Affairs: Lawrence Cannon
Tel: (613) 992-5516
Fax: (613) 992-6802
Email: Cannon.L@parl.gc.ca
Honduran Embassy in Canada
Montreal
Phone:
+1-514-937-2194
Fax:
+1-514-937-2194
Email:
cghonm@total.net
State Department: 202-647-4000 or 1-800-877-8339
White House: Comments: 202-456-1111
For Updates and Information on Honduras check out:
http://hondurassolidarity.wordpress.com/
http://www.rightsaction.org/
http://counterpunch.org/maher07032009.htm
http://www.zmag.org/znet
http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=8015&lg=en
http://www.soaw.org/
Not Just Our 21 Kidnapped Passengers
Its Not Just Our 21 Kidnapped Passengers
by Free Gaza
The kidnapping of 21 international human rights workers attempting to deliver needed aid to a besieged people is an outrage, but it is hardly an isolated one.
Since its founding in 1948 the State of Israel has regularly kidnapped and tortured Palestinians, throwing them into forgotten prisons where they can languish for years. Today, over 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners without benefit of due process, some never even charged - men, women, and children endure torture and isolation in Israeli jails, outdoor prison camps, and secret black sites. They come from all walks of life: doctors, journalists, parliamentarians, workers, resistance fighters, homemakers, students and others. They are our sisters and brothers.
From the first night, the Free Gaza 21 have been busy trying to get news out of the prison about the illegality of Israel's actions in relation to themselves and the other inmates inside Ramle Prison who have no voice.
Posted July 06, 2009
by Free Gaza
The kidnapping of 21 international human rights workers attempting to deliver needed aid to a besieged people is an outrage, but it is hardly an isolated one.
Since its founding in 1948 the State of Israel has regularly kidnapped and tortured Palestinians, throwing them into forgotten prisons where they can languish for years. Today, over 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners without benefit of due process, some never even charged - men, women, and children endure torture and isolation in Israeli jails, outdoor prison camps, and secret black sites. They come from all walks of life: doctors, journalists, parliamentarians, workers, resistance fighters, homemakers, students and others. They are our sisters and brothers.
From the first night, the Free Gaza 21 have been busy trying to get news out of the prison about the illegality of Israel's actions in relation to themselves and the other inmates inside Ramle Prison who have no voice.
Posted July 06, 2009
Saturday, July 04, 2009
The Pig and the Stone
Goldman Sachs vs. Rolling Stone: A Wall Street Smackdown
by Stephen Gandel
Goldman Sachs is a giant pig. A giant pig that blows bubbles through a wand shaped like a dollar sign. A giant pig that laughs at us when we invest in worthless dotcom stocks. A giant pig that happily watches us get carried away and burned by rising home prices. A giant pig that smiles widely when we have to fill our tanks with $4-a-gallon gas. Quite simply, the investment bank that is revered on Wall Street could just be a bunch of crooks, and greedy ones at that.
That's the view of Goldman Sachs delivered by an article in the current issue of Rolling Stone. The rock mag's The Great American Bubble Machine by Matt Taibbi says that the investment bank is responsible for creating, and in many cases popping, every great bubble of nearly the past 100 years in order to profit from them at our expense — and the article uses plenty of illustrations of pigs to drive home what it
thinks of Goldman. Taibbi calls the U.S. a "gangster state, running on gangster economics." He says we have an economy where "some of us have to play by the rules, while others get a note from the principal excusing them from homework 'til the end of time." And by "others" and "gangsters," Taibbi means the bankers of Goldman Sachs. See 25 people to blame for the financial crisis.
It's great stuff. And it's the kind of stuff you want to read at a time when we are still smarting from the one-two combo of the housing bubble and the credit crunch. Unless, of course, you are Goldman Sachs (or one of its hopeful shareholders).
The firm is notoriously press-shy, and doesn't usually respond to articles. But it is firing back at Taibbi, the son of veteran NBC television reporter Mike Taibbi. A Goldman spokesperson told one reporter, "Taibbi's article is a compilation of just about every conspiracy theory ever dreamed up about Goldman Sachs, but what real
substance is there to support the theories?"
And Goldman is not alone in criticizing the article. Heidi Moore, a former reporter at the Wall Street Journal who used to cover Goldman and other investment banks for the paper, wrote in response to another journalist's question about the piece, "For the record, I don't think any article that contains the line 'vampire squid sucking the face of humanity' [Taibbi's opening description of Goldman] is real journalism."
Moore is right that the rock mag's piece contains a bit of exaggerating and a whole lot of hyperbole. But to call it not real journalism or lacking substance is wrong. There are plenty of facts to back up the case that Goldman generates large profits by taking advantage of others. Goldman is the only Wall Street firm so far to have paid to settle charges — $60 million to the state of Massachusetts — for creating the rotten mortgage bonds that were at the heart of the recent financial crisis. And get this: contained in Goldman's client form is this disclaimer, "You acknowledge that we may monitor your use of the Services for our own purposes (and not for your benefit)." The firm seems to be announcing out loud that it plans to trade against its clients.
Goldman responds that this type of language is common on Wall Street. And that is the problem, and the problem with Rolling Stone's article as well. Goldman has done plenty wrong, but not much alone. Goldman may have assisted in the dotcom and housing bubbles, but it is wrong to say that it was the single blower. The only thing Goldman is solely at fault for is being a bit better at playing the game than its peers.
Also, while many of the advantages Goldman gets are unfair, is it really Goldman's fault? Is it Goldman's fault that it was able to make billions of dollars with the taxpayers' dollars it was forced to take as part of the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program? Is it Goldman's fault that government officials from both parties regularly pick its employees or former employees to fill key regulatory positions? Goldman may benefit, but is the firm really to blame?
"The [[ITALIC {Rolling Stone}]] article makes a very compelling case against Goldman Sachs, but I think the problems it identifies are pervasive in financial firms and corporate America in general," says Nell Minow, who is the co-founder of the Corporate Library, a research firm that tracks corporate-governance issues. "We need to launch substantive financial reform rather than weighing the faults of one
firm versus another." Minow's point is this: spend too much time on Goldman and you miss the fact of how broadly the financial system and the regulations that are supposed to keep profiteers in check failed us.
And she's right.
Honduras and the Two Obama's
GOb-smacked
by ALEXANDER COCKBURN
There’s no continent where the pwogwessive “left” (I have to set this exhausted noun on the crutches of gloomy quotemarks) in the United States has entertained higher hopes of Obamian change from traditional U.S. thuggery than Latin America. This was a big constituency for Obama to allure last year. Radicals here in their senior decades have been rooting for Cuba ever since they cheered Fidel’s triumphant entry into Havana in 1959. Twenty-five years later in the late 70s and mid-80s the hottest issue for young people on the left in the US was the brutal and ultimately successful efforts of the US government in the Carter and Reagan years to crush revolutions in El Salvador and Nicaragua. To this day the “Hands off Central America” movement of those years remains by far the most determined mobilization of the US left in the post Vietnam era.
Now, after six months, the desire among many of these pwogs to believe that in the White House resides Gob (Good Obama) rather than Jaaap (Just Another Awful American President) is pitiful to behold. What, in Latin America, do they have to hang their hat on, regarding Gob’s actual performance? He’s maintaining the embargo on Cuba, pushing for the “free trade pacts” that have laid waste Latin American for a generation. He fondly embraces the vicious Uribe regime in Colombia.
The zig-zagging response of the Obama administration to last Sunday’s coup in Honduras has now put these hopes to to the test of reality yet again, and already the progressives are successfully persuading themselves that either it’s “unclear” what Obama’s complicity amounted to, or even that he opposed it from the getgo. To believe this nonsense requires powerful doses of self-deception about the nature of this presidency.
The coup itself was an entirely traditional enterprise. Honduras is a wretchedly poor place – the third poorest in the hemisphere, where about 70 per cent of the population live in grinding poverty. President Zelaya, ousted last weekend, took office as a credentialed member of the commercial and political elite and then, against all expectation, moved to the left, as well described on this site last week by Nicholas Kozloff and other writers.
He ordered a 60 per cent increase in the minimum wage This, he declared, would “force the business oligarchy to start paying what is fair.” He joined a regional organization, the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas - known by its Spanish acronym ALBA - a socially progressive trade pact backed by Hugo Chávez of Venezuela opposing the U.S “free trade” model. He started using Chavezian rhetoric, declaring his to be “a government of great social transformations, committed to the poor.” He welcomed Cuban doctors and harshly denounced US meddling in the region.
The Honduran elite viewed Zelaya, elected to his 4-year term in 2006, with growing alarm and diligently communicated their disquiet to Washington, where the military and civilian intelligence agencies were already being primed by their substantial assets and agents inside Honduras, historically an important CIA and military staging post in Central America, from which many sinister and lethal operations in the region, such as the Contra war, were supervised.
A large number of Honduran military commanders have their own long-term relationships with the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies, many of them forged during their training at Fort Benning, Georgia. Here is the notorious School of the Americas where promising officers from Argentina, Colombia, Honduras and other US allies are given training such useful skills as seizing power, hunting down leftists and torture.
In 1996 the Pentagon was forced to release training manuals used at the School providing expertise in torture, extortion and execution. Among the SOA's nearly 60,000 graduates are Manuel Noriega of Panama, Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola of Argentina, Juan Velasco Alvarado of Peru, Guillermo Rodriguez of Ecuador, and Hugo Banzer Suarez of Bolivia. SOA graduates were responsible for the assassination of El Salvador’s Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador and the El Mozote Massacre of 900 civilians. Check out the excellent School of the Americas Watch website for the detailed history. In 2001 the Pentagon tried to clean up the School’s image by changing its name to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. It didn’t catch on.
School of the Americas alumni are thick on the ground in Honduras, including General Juan Melgar Castro who seized power in 1975, followed five years later by another grad, Policarpo Paz Garcia, patron of the infamous Battalion 3-16, a death squad founded by Honduran SOA graduates with the help of Argentine SOA graduates. There is profuse evidence available in declassified files that these SOA men were in constant touch with CIA case officers and the US Embassy in Tegucigalpa.
Last Sunday’s power grab was led by yet another SOA grad, Romeo Vasquez, whose men bundled Zelaya, still in his pajamas, onto a plane to Costa Rica and installed as interim president, Roberto Micheletti, a conservative businessman and creature of the elites.The rationale was an alleged effort by Zelaya to cling to office beyond a Honduran president’s single four year term. Actually Zelaya had merely asked the military to help in distributing materials for a non-binding referendum to assay whether Hondurans were interested in proceeding towards another referendum on constitutional changes.
The US government has admitted that its officials had been in touch with the conspirators in the run-up to the coup, It makes the claim that it was seeking to head off any coup. This is as absurd as Henry II claiming he tried to talk his knights out of killing Thomas Becket and that what he really said was “Do not rid of me of this meddlesome priest” and it somehow got garbled and came out as “Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?” We can take it as an absolute certainly that CIA and Pentagon advisors were at the elbows of the Honduran plotters, giving the green light and barely bothering to maintain deniability, and that Obama and Mrs Clinton had been fully briefed. The coup was modeled on the initial stages of the attempted ouster of Chavez in 2002, before popular resistance put Chavez back in power. Earlier versions of the script are profuse in the archives of the School of the Americas.
The first statements from Obama and Secretary of State Clinton bear all the marks of careful preparation. In the coup’s immediate aftermath last Sunday they merely urged negotiations with the coup plotters to "restore constitutional order”, feebly enjoining "all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter”, which has all the moral and persuasive power of telling a child not to go swimming immediately after lunch. Carefully avoided was any tough demand by Obama or Clinton – still hoarse from shouts for “democracy” in Iran -- for the legitimate Honduran President Zelaya to be returned to office. The plan was obviously to try and run out the clock with indecisive parleys until Zelaya’s term ends in six months.
It was only after furious denunciation of the coup and call for Zelaya’s reinstatement from the Organization of American States, the presidents of Brazil and Argentina , the Rio Group, the European Union, and the UN General Assembly – that Obama was forced to climb off the fence and declare on Monday that "We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras..." Secretary of State Clinton did not call for Zelaya’s reinstatement. There have been no tough words from Obama or Clinton, about the shutting down of all opposition press, the curfew, the violent suppression of free speech.
The silver lining may conceivably be, as in 2002 in Venezuela, that Honduras has been another miscalculation in Washington of the strength of the spirit of real as opposed to merely rhetorical change across Latin America.
Friday, July 03, 2009
Canadian Soldier Killed in Afghanistan IED Attack
Canadian Soldier Killed in Afghanistan IED Attack
by C. L. Cook
Canadian Forces suffered the loss of its 121st soldier with the death in Afghanistan Friday of Corporal Nick Bulger. The blast occurred around 11:30 am local time in Kandahar province when Bulger's light armoured vehicle was targeted.
The explosion was a near miss for Canadian Brigadier-General Jonathan Vance, whose vehicle passed the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) just metres ahead Bulger's vehicle. Five others were wounded in the blast. They are listed in good condition at Kandahar Airfield.
The CBC interviewed Cpl. Bulger on Canada Day, July 1st. Asked about the "Mission," Bulger rang an optimistic note, saying;
"Especially when we're driving down the streets in the rural areas, to look down into the eyes of the children that are there, you get a different perspective. All you see is the war and the destruction and stuff like that, but then when you see those kids running through the streets without a care in the world … being here makes a huge difference."
Prime Minister Stephen Harper expressed regrets and condolences to the Bulger family, saying;
"Hard-won progress is being made in Afghanistan." Adding; "Remarkable Canadians like Corporal Bulger will be remembered for their dedication and ultimate sacrifice for peace and freedom."
Suing for Peace: Pakistanis File Suit Against Drone Attacks
Pakistanis Reject U.S. "Aid" Flights
Lawsuit Filed Against U.S. Drone Attacks
by Jeremy Scahill
"RebelReports" - Damn those ungrateful Pakistanis. After U.S. drone attacks killed more than 600 of their people since 2006—most of them civilians—it seems they think they have some right to say they don’t want the U.S. flying its “aid” planes to Swat and other “tribal areas.” The New York Times reports that “the Pakistani authorities have refused to allow American workers or planes to distribute the aid in the camps for displaced people.” The paper reports:
Islamist charities and the United States are competing for the allegiance of the two million people displaced by the fight against the Taliban in Swat and other parts of Pakistan — and so far, the Islamists are in the lead.
Top US officials (and the Times) make no apologies for the fact that the aid is intended primarily as a counter-insurgency program:
The inconspicuous back seat is not what American officials had hoped for. At first, the huge exodus of people from Swat, many of whom had suffered from the brutality of the Taliban, seemed to present an opportunity for Washington to improve its image in Pakistan.
“There is an opportunity actually to provide services, much as we did with the earthquake relief, which had a profound impact on the perception of America,” Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who serves as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said during a hearing attended by the Obama administration’s special envoy, Richard C. Holbrooke, at the start of the exodus.
Here is the best part of the U.S. effort:
In an effort to highlight American concern for the refugees, Mr. Holbrooke visited the camps in June, sitting on the floor of a sweltering tent and talking to people about their plight. “President Obama has sent us to see how we can help you,” he said.
Poor Dick Holbrooke, having to sit in that sweaty tent. I really hope someone at that meeting said, “Obama can help us by stopping his regular, deadly bombings.” The Times claims that what came out of the meeting “was an effort to send Pakistani-American female doctors to assist women in the camps, who according to their cultural traditions must be treated by women.”
Meanwhile, a Pakistani human rights lawyer filed a petition at the country’s Supreme Court asking it to order the Pakistani government to undertake a “comprehensive report” on U.S. drone attacks against the country. “I have filed the petition in the Supreme Court as a protest to let the world know about the sentiments of the people of Pakistan on consecutive drone attacks which are killing scores of people,” said the attorney, M. Tariq Asad.
According to the Pakistani newspaper Dawn:
In his petition, Mr Asad sought the apex court’s direction for the government to submit a complaint against the United States in the International Court of Justice or any other appropriate judicial organ of the United Nations for an appropriate action in accordance with international laws.
The petition said that killing and causing serious physical and mental harm to the inhabitants of the northern areas and systemically oppressing them and denying their right to life and liberty amounted to derogation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.
A U.S. drone attack in late June on a Pakistani funeral may have killed as many as 70 people and prompted the Pakistani government to call for an end to the strikes. Obama has been bombing Pakistan since the third day of his presidency. Obama has refused to comment directly on the drone attacks and recently told a Pakistani journalist precicely that.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)