Pages: << 1 ... 1179 1180 1181 1182 1183 1184 1185 1186 1187 1188 1189 ... 1326 >>
ANTI-WAR PROTESTS PLANNED — ANSWER
Excerpted, edited by Carolyn Bennett
“The war and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq are both colonial-type wars.”
Bush used the ‘War on Terror’ as a pretext for the escalation of imperialist intervention. Bush is gone but the brutal occupations continue.
Eight long years after the invasion of Afghanistan, the United States and its NATO allies are vastly expanding the war, doubling the numbers of troops.
Casualties on both sides are soaring. Resistance to foreign occupation is growing rapidly inside Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan. The war is a disaster for the peoples of those countries—just as are the occupations of Iraq and Palestine.
Latin America: Social Movements in Times of Economic Crises
James Petras
The most striking aspect of the prolonged and deepening world recession/depression is the relative and absolute passivity of the working and middle class in the face of massive job losses, big cuts in wages, health care and pension payments and mounting housing foreclosures. Never in the history of the 20-21st Century has an economic crisis caused so much loss to so many workers, employees, small businesses, farmers and professionals with so little large-scale public protest.
To explore some tentative hypotheses of why there is little organized protest, we need to examine the historical-structural antecedents to the world economic depression. More specifically, we will focus on the social and political organizations and leadership of the working class; the transformation of the structure of labor and its relationship to the state and market. These social changes have to be located in the context of the successful ruling class socio-political struggles from the 1980’s, the destruction of the Communist welfare state and the subsequent uncontested penetration of imperial capital in the former Communist countries. The conversion of Western Social Democratic parties to neo-liberalism, and the subordination of the trade unions to the neo-liberal state are seen as powerful contributing factors in diminishing working class representation and influence.
Pages: 1· 2
Rabbi Ovadia describes US president as "a slave" ruling the world
Cherifa Sirry
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef , spiritual head of Israel's ultra-Orthodox Shas party which forms part of Israel’s ruling coalition, criticized US president Barack Obama on Saturday describing him as "a slave" who rules the world and who wants to control Israeli policy when it comes to building in occupied Jerusalem. In his weekly sermon, Yosef protested that "American insidiousness tells us to build here and not to build there as though we were slaves working for them" then he adds that "We live in a time when slaves are governing us and are trying to control us" refusing the US administration request to stop illegal settlement building on Palestinian occupied territories.
"We are not employees of the Americans.. and Israel does not work for the United States!" asserted Yosef. The Rabbi then addressed the Haram al Sharif (Dome of the Rock) issue saying: "and where is our temple?! The situation there is cause for grief! There is nothing there but evil Arabs who are occupying our lands… and I hope that the messiah will appear soon to destroy them."
Letting the Banking Rats Out of the Bag
Robert Scheer
The good judge smelled a rat. “Was there some sort of ghost that performed these actions?” New York federal Judge Jed S. Rakoff demanded to know Monday in rejecting a deal that would let Bank of America off the hook in yet another banker bonus scandal. The Securities and Exchange Commission had charged the bank with covering up for outrageous bonuses given out at Merrill Lynch as the bank acquired the failed stockbrokerage, and now it was letting the bank off the hook with a chicken-feed fine.
“Do Wall Street people expect to be paid large bonuses in years when their company lost $27 billion?” the judge asked, and Lewis J. Liman, the lawyer for Bank of America, assured him they do: “My God! Bonuses on Wall Street? It is not a matter of surprise.”
Palin's 'Death Panel' and GOP Lying
Robert Parry
False Republican claims about President Barack Obama’s health-care initiative, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s demagogic charge about a “death panel,” are part of a pattern of systematic lying that has marked the GOP’s political tactics at least since Ronald Reagan’s presidency in the 1980s.
Indeed, to understand how the war against health-care reform is gaining traction, you must look back three decades to the dawn of this Republican era of pervasive deception.
Groups Call on Attorney General Holder to Appoint Independent Special Prosecutor to Investigate Torture
Kevin Zeese
Holder Warned that Limited Investigation and Selective Prosecution Would Violate the Law and Further Undermine Credibility of DOJ
Washington, DC: Yesterday, the Disbar Torture Lawyer coalition, consisting of more than 150 NGOs representing over a million members, sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder calling on him to appoint a special prosecutor, independent of the Justice Department, to fully investigate the use of torture, and to prosecute all officials and employees who advocated, ordered and committed acts of torture against people held by the United States. The letter, see below, signed by coalition attorney Kevin Zeese, who is Executive Director of Voters for Peace, carefully analyzed the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”), which was signed by President Reagan, to underscore that Mr. Holder has no discretion to ignore its mandates. CAT is written in mandatory language, and it requires the investigation of all acts or torture and the prosecution of all those who conspired to and did commit torture.
Gaza's Lost Memories
by Najwa Sheikh Ahmed
Gaza, August 11, 2009 (Pal Telegraph)-Another hidden but very painful part of the Palestinian sufferings is the story of families scattered around the world, many of whom have settled in different countries, after they fled in 1948. They have different lives and lost many of their childhood memories.
Childhood memories are the events and experiences lived with our sisters and brothers. They are the special moments in time that one cannot ignore or forget; they are experiences bound by the ties of brotherhood. The memories shared with my brothers and sisters are for us, which as a family we ordinarily would enjoy recalling and reliving. Recollection of the dear memories of our childhood would be possible if we were not separated by such a distance.
Religious Fundamentalism in Israel
by Stephen Lendman
Israel Shahak's (1933 - 2001) "Jewish History, Jewish Religion" argued that while Islamic fundamentalism is vilified in the West, comparable Jewish extremism is largely ignored. In the book's forward, Edward Said wrote:
"....Shahak's mode of telling the truth has always been rigorous and uncompromising. There is nothing seductive about it, no attempt made to put it 'nicely,' no effort expended on making the truth palatable....For Shahak killing is murder is killing is murder: his manner is to repeat. (He) shows that the obscure, narrowly chauvinist prescriptions against various undesirable Others are to be found in Judaism (as in other monotheistic religions) but he always goes on to show the continuity between those and the way Israel treats Palestinians, Christians and other non-Jews. A devastating portrait of prejudice, hypocrisy and religious intolerance emerges."
Shahak's "Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel" picked up on the theme in explaining its pervasive, destructive influence in Israeli politics, the military and society. He noted that substituting German or Aryan for Jewish and non-Jews for Jews makes it easy to see how a superiority doctrine made an earlier genocide possible and is letting another happen now.
Why Won't Universal Healthcare Be Provided?
By Emily Spence
...some receive adequate care while others are completely cast aside as
discarded members of society much in the way that the homeless
Americans, the street people and the tent-city dwellers, are treated today.
Overview:
The heath-care debate is not about care at all. Instead, it's about the amount of profits that government, HMO and pharmaceutical leaders are personally willing to give up. Accordingly, it's clear that many Congressional representatives have no interest in evaluating even a few of the successful models of universal coverage that numerous other countries can provide. Instead, they are, typically, in collusion with big business to stymie any meaningful reforms.
Upon receipt of a B. S. degree in biology, an acquaintance of mine -- let's call her Linda -- decided to spend the summer in Asia working at a small medical clinic that had a staffing shortage. The clinic was near a major river on whose banks were crowded thousands of families living in small densely packed hovels whose heaped together mass stretched as far as the eye could see.
Fadi Hamadneh
Khalid Amayreh
On Monday, 10 August, it was revealed that Fadi Hamadneh, died at the notorious Juneid lockup in Nablus . The circumstances of his death remain unclear as of the time of preparing this report, but his family and relatives are accusing security agents of the Western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA) of torturing him to death.
Hamadneh’s brother dismissed the official PA narrative that he committed suicide in his cell as "hogwash" and "blatant lies."
He pointed out that his brother was a religious man and that it was inconceivable that he would embark on committing suicide. Suicide is a grave sin in Islam.
<< 1 ... 1179 1180 1181 1182 1183 1184 1185 1186 1187 1188 1189 ... 1326 >>
