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Piling on Syria
by Stephen Lendman
Western-recruited Islamofascist killers are US favorites. They committed mass murder and horrific atrocities since last year. Washington, other Western countries, and regional rogues arm, fund, train, direct, and encourage them.
On December 21, Russia Today interviewed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Moscow isn't "in the business of regime change," he said.
He categorically rejects notions about Russia granting Assad asylum. He condemned Western double standards. So-called friends are terrorists, he said. They're ravaging Syria.
Watch Human Right Watch – A Tribute to Prof Richard Falk
By Gilad Atzmon
This week we learned that Human Rights Watch (HRW) has expelled from its ranks top U.N. official Professor Richard Falk.
The juicy details have been kindly supplied by Israeli Hasbara outlet UN Watch blog.“We commend Human Rights Watch and its director Kenneth Roth for doing the right thing, and finally removing this enemy of human rights from their important organization,” said Hillel Neuer, a rabid Israeli supporter as well as Executive Director of UN Watch. “A man who supports the Hamas terrorist organization, and who was just condemned by the British Foreign Office for his cover endorsement of a virulently antisemitic book, has no place in an organization dedicated to human rights,”
Hasbara stooge that he is, Neuer using every Zionist trick in the book, misinforms and misleads his readers. First of all, Hamas is not a ‘terrorist organisation’, it is a democratically elected government and the book to which Neuer refers is obviously mine - 'The Wandering Who'
Fiscal Cliff Reality
by Stephen Lendman
Political Washington theater continues. Republicans and Democrats agreed years ago to erode America's social contract en route to eliminating it altogether.
Crisis conditions create opportunities. Former White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, explained.
"You never want to let a serious crisis go to waste," he said. "What I mean by that is that's an opportunity to do things you couldn't do before."
He didn't mean populist ones. He had harsh neoliberal ones in mind. They're institutionalized. Ordinary people and America's most disadvantaged suffer most. The worst is yet to come.
Some advice to the Egyptian opposition
Khalid Amayreh
The Egyptian opposition has acquired an image of being anti-Islam. It must correct this image before taking part in upcoming parliamentary elections.
For the sake of maintaining its credibility, or what has remained of it, the Egyptian opposition needs to engage in some deep soul-searching and to practice some self-directed accountability. This is not to say, of course, that the opposition represents all that is bad whereas the other side — the Islamists — represents all that is good.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a substantive gap between what the opposition claims to be and its public image in the minds of many people, Egyptians and non-Egyptians alike. I don't claim to be an expert on Egypt. However, as an avid follower of developments in the Egyptian arena, I can say the opposition has much homework to do before taking part in the upcoming parliamentary elections.
Human Rights Get Short Shrift in Israel
by Stephen Lendman
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) assesses human rights in Israel annually. It's 2012 report is "bleak."
It's true in virtually every category assessed. Netanyahu and dominant Knesset hardliners spurn human and civil rights. They do so for Palestinians, Israeli Arabs, and most Jews.
Neoliberal harshness is policy. So are hardline belligerence and institutionalized racism. Poverty, homelessness, and hunger harm growing numbers in society.
Conditions in Israel get worse, not better. Palestinians suffer most. Horrific conditions harm them. They're reflected in ruthless police state policies. Militarized occupation enforces them. In 2012 alone, 557 Palestinian structures were lawlessly demolished. So were 172 homes. Over 1,000 Palestinians were displaced. Their land was stolen. Israeli policies mock fundamental freedoms. Palestinians have no rights.
The People Must Lead the Way to Save the Planet
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers
Dysfunction of government, corruption of U.S. elected officials shows itself on climate change
“The American way of life is not up for negotiation. Period.” President George Bush, 1992, first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro
With the re-election of President Barack Obama in the midst of Hurricane Sandy, some hoped that there would finally be a change in the U.S. posture on climate change. However, at the recent climate talks in Doha, Qatar when a reporter told Todd Stern, Obama’s Special Envoy for Climate Change, that “people expect to see either a major change in tone or substance from the U.S. this week,” Stern dashed all hopes, saying “Well, I—look, I don’t know if I would—if I would—would think about this in terms of a different tone here.”
Scrambling for Africa's Resources
by Stephen Lendman
It's more than about oil, stupid. It's for vast African riches. Resource/mineral wars define America's agenda.
On December 15, 2006, the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) was authorized. On February 6, 2007, it was announced.
On October 1, 2007, it was established. On October 1, 2008, it became operational. It's mission is controlling Africa's riches.
They're vast. They're some of the world's largest and richest. Potential new deposits await to be found. Others known about await development. Modern exploration methods enable global exploitation. Virtually nothing escapes discovery.
Africa's rich in oil, gas, gold, silver, diamonds, uranium, iron, copper, tin, lead, nickel, coal, cobalt, bauxite, wood, coltan, manganese, chromium, vanadium-bearing titanium, and much more.
Political Grinches Stealing Christmas From Palestinian and Syrian Refugees
Franklin P. Lamb
Church of Notre Dame, Damascus.
Church officials in Damascus advanced the hour of last night’s traditional Christmas Eve midnight service to 6 pm because few Damascenes’ venture out past sunset these days. The reasons include ubiquitous checkpoints, security fears and the fact that there are few taxis and no buses around. Plus most shops and cafes close early and the thuds and whining of artillery and bomb blasts from this ancient city’s suburbs tend to sound more menacing at night.
But that does not mean that Notre Dame and other churches in Damascus were not over-flowing with Christians and Muslims for Christmas Eve service, which has become an ecumenical event in this secular country where Syrian and Palestinian refugees of both faiths attended from Yarmouk camp and elsewhere. One Palestinian friend, who had been turned away at the Lebanese border at Maznaa just three days earlier, explained that his family was celebrating ” both the birth of Jesus Christ and the birth of the state of Palestine” referencing last month’s 130 to 8 UN General Assembly vote.
Four More Years of War
by Stephen Lendman
Expect Obama to prioritize advancing America's imperium. He did aggressive in term one. New wars are planned. Current ones won't end. Proxy ones continue. So does increasing America's global military footprint.
Fiscal cliff hype is about greater force-fed austerity to free up more funds for America's war machine. Waging them isn't cheap. Profiteers depend on wasteful spending to boost bottom line performance.
It pays to have friends in high places. They assure all the billions wanted. Social America is being sacrificed to provide them.
The Religious and Social Crises and Political Consequences
James Petras
Introduction
The opening long decade of the 21st century (2000-2012) has been a period of repeated and profound economic and social crises, of serial and prolonged wars and declining living standards for the vast majority of Americans. How have people responded to this crisis? No large scale, long term, socio-political movements have emerged to challenge the bi-partisan dominent classes. For a brief moment the “Occupy Wall Street” movement provided a platform to denounce the 1% super-rich but then faded into memory.
Questions arose whether in the midst of prolonged hardship people would turn to religion for solace, escape into spiritual pietism. The question this essay addresses is whether religion has become the ‘opium of the people’ as Karl Marx suggested or whether religious beliefs and institutions are themselves in crisis, losing their spiritual attraction in the face of their inability to resolve the everyday material needs of a growing army of impoverished, low paid, unemployed and contingent workers and a downwardly mobile middle class. In other words are major religions growing and prospering in our time of permanent economic crise and perpetual wars or are they on the downslope part and parcel of the decline of the US Empire?
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