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Uighur vs Afghan: A study in contrasts
Eric Walberg
The US slaughter in Afghanistan makes the Chinese creeping colonisation of Urumqi look like a picnic, bemoans Eric Walberg
Last week's riots in Urumqi, resulting in 180 deaths, recall similar protests in Tibet last year, though only 19 people were killed there. Both Uighurs and Tibetans exiles demonstrated during the Chinese Olympics, to little effect. Both regions, remote from the heart of Han China, were taken over under the communists, and are important strategically and as storehouses of mineral wealth to feed the new capitalist China's voracious appetite. They remind us that old-fashion colonialism is alive and well. Neither the Uighurs nor the Tibetans have any hope of independence, but they rightly would like the Han to be less greedy and invasive.
Anarchism, Marxism, and Zapatismo
By Hans Bennett
On January 1, 1994, the now-infamous North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect. That same day, the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), rose up and launched a military offensive that occupied towns throughout the state of Chiapas, in Mexico. The EZLN, or “Zapatistas” had been covertly organizing for many years, but they specifically chose the day of NAFTA’s implementation for their public rebellion.
Many components of NAFTA favored US corporate interests at the expense of Mexico’s general population, but the Zapatistas were particularly opposed to NAFTA’s rewriting of the Mexican Constitution, in order to eliminate the population’s biggest victory won during the Mexican Revolution fought years before, at the time of World War One. “The Mexican Revolution wrote into the national constitution the opportunity for a village to hold its land communally, in an ejido, so that no individual could alienate any portion of it,” writes Staughton Lynd, co-author of the new book Wobblies and Zapatistas: Conversations on Anarchism, Marxism and Radical History. Both Lynd (a Marxist from the US) and his co-author Andrej Grubacic (an anarchist from the Balkans) are public supporters of the Zapatistas, who they argue have set a powerful example of revolutionary organizing that should influence anti-capitalists around the world. Much like the historical traditions of the Haymarket Martyrs and the ‘Wobblies’ (the Industrial Workers of the World) in the United States, Lynd and Grubacic argue that the Zapatistas have synthesized the best aspects of both the Marxist and anarchist traditions.
Mandatory Swine Flu Vaccination Alert
by Stephen Lendman
On July 13, a World Health Organization (WHO) Global Alert headlined, "WHO recommendations on pandemic (H1N1) 2009 vaccinations" suggest that universally mandated ones are coming. It stated that on July 7, the pharmaceutical industry-dominated Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization held an "extraordinary meeting in Geneva to discuss issues and make recommendations related to vaccine for the pandemic (H1N1) 2009."
There's no pandemic nor until recently a single death anywhere attributable to Swine Flu. Yet WHO said the virus "is considered unstoppable," while admitting little evidence of spread so far, most cases are mild, and many people recover unaided. Nonetheless, all countries will need vaccines and should follow these priorities as initial supplies will be limited:
My dream World
Najwa Sheikh Ahmed
It is really nice that humans can practice having dreams on their awareness, it is a bless, certainly it is, for the people of Gaza, where the blockade, the deteriorating economical situation, and the effects of the recent war left them no chance to fulfill any of their dreams, and their plans for the future even the smallest ones. Therefore, having them achieved on their dreams is an attempt to elevate the stress and frustration they felt. On these dream worlds, the worlds that each one of us can create by himself, and can control its elements, with both the; add and delete buttons, it became a perfect world.
ALL THE LIES LEAD TO CHENEY / LET'S PROSECUTE
Allen L Roland
Absolute power absolutely corrupts and the Libby conviction in 2007 was the very tip of an Iceberg of deceit, deception, hubris and abuse of power by the Cheney/Bush administration ~ which began with the 9/11 coverup, extended to the illegal War, occupation and economic rape of Iraq and is fully visible in the tragedy of New Orleans . Karl Rove's resignation left only the dark master himself ~ for all the lies eventually lead to Dick Cheney:
Pandora's Box is opening ~ The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees.
Torture Accountability Requires the People to Demand It
By Kevin Zeese
Attorney General Holder Considering Appointment of Special Prosecutor But Devil is In the Details. We Need a Full-Fledged, Independent Investigation and Prosecution
Reports over the weekend indicate that Attorney General Holder is seriously considering appointing a special prosecutor to investigate torture and other abuses during the Bush-Cheney administration.
This would be a major reversal and indicates that efforts for torture accountability are paying off. We are close to success but pressure is mounting to prevent a prosecution so those who favor holding torturers accountable, including those who created and facilitated the policy, need to increase their efforts at this critical time.
How McNamara Lost World War II
by Greg Palast
It's been a good week. Robert McNamara's dead and my book, Armed Madhouse, was released in translation in Vietnam.
I don't blame McNamara for losing the war in Vietnam. After all, the good guys won. I do, however, blame him for losing World War II.
In 1995, in Chicago, veterans of Silver Post No. 282 celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of their victory over Japan, marching around a catering hall wearing their old service caps, pins, ribbons and medals. My father sat at his table, silent. He did not wear his medals.
He had given them to me thirty years earlier. I can figure it exactly: March 8, 1965. That day, like every other, we walked to the newsstand near the dime store to get the LA Times. He was a Times man. Never read the Examiner.
Crimes of Conscience
Link: http://ddjango.blogspot.com/2009/07/crimes-of-conscience.html
By ddjango
Somewhere, somehow, during the past few months, we passed a final "point of no return".
If there truly was hope in the certain prospect of regime change, from the Bush/Neocon travesty to the Obama/Neoprogressive administration, it lay in the promise of confession, reconciliation, and redemption. It lay in the chance that the new presidency and a changed Congress would fully repudiate the self-destructive sins of at least two thirds of a century of dishonor, disinformation, and dissolution committed in the name and for the purposes of empire, capitalism, consumerism, and questionable "national security".
The mantra of "Change", repeated mercilessly during the presidential campaign, but in the absence of any concrete examples of what form that change would take, was no less Rovian than The Dubbleduh-Chainey Gang's invocation of "weapons of mass destruction" and "terrorism". The endless repetition had its desired effect. It played not to the head, but to the gut; was not about thought, but about emotions. It was, in fact, more religious than it was political; more about fantasy than reality. It was a prayer, nothing more, nothing less.
The G8: Rudd’s self-fulfilling climate prophecy
Andrew Glikson
With no intermediate targets defined, no clean energy technology assistance given to developing countries, come 2050, a magic wand will be waved, carbon emissions will be cut by 80 percent, mean temperatures limited below 2 degrees C, and pigs will fly.
“The G8 made no firm commitment to help developing countries financially cope with the effects of rising seas, increased droughts and floods, or provide the technology to make their carbon-heavy economies more climate- friendly.” Nor did the G8 decide of a shorter-term target, despite warnings from a UN panel that they must cut emissions by between 25 percent and 40 percent by 2020, to keep average global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees C. http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=vn20090712072211544C404762.
Veronza Bowers, Jr. - Another Victim of America's Criminal Justice System
by Stephen Lendman
Veronza Bowers, Jr.
On September 15, 1973, Veronza Bowers, Jr. was arrested in Mill Valley, California and charged with robbery and possession of stolen property. After state charges were dropped for lack of probable cause to obtain a search warrant, the FBI arrested Bowers and charged him with the first-degree murder of National Park Service ranger Kenneth Patrick on August 5, 1973 at Point Reyes National Seashore near San Francisco.
At trial, testimonies from two government informants, Alan Veale and Jonathan Shoher, proved crucial. Both were also charged with the killing. Yet there were no independent eye-witnesses, and no evidence incriminated Bowers besides the word of these two men who had every incentive to cooperate with the Department of Justice.
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