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Chavez versus Obama: Facing Presidential Elections in 2012
James Petras
Introduction
Two incumbent presidents are running for re-election in 2012, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Barack Obama in the United States. What makes these two electoral contests significant is that they represent contrasting responses to the global economic crises: Chavez following his democratic socialist program pursues policies promoting large scale long-term public investment and spending directed at employment, social welfare and economic growth: Obama guided by his ideological commitment to corporate financial capitalism, pours billions into bailing out Wall Street speculators, focuses on reducing the public deficit and slashes taxes and offers government subsidies to business in the hope that the banks will lend, the private sector will invest. Obama hopes the corporate sector will start to hire the unemployed. Chavez’s economic strategy is directed toward increasing popular demand by increasing the social wage. Obama’s strategy is directed toward enriching the elite, hoping for a “trickle down” effect. Chavez’s economic recovery program is based on the public sector, the state, taking the lead in light of the capitalist market induced crises and the failure of the private sector to invest. Obama’s economic recovery and employment program depends wholly on the private sector, utilizing tax handouts to stimulate domestic investments which generate employment.
Planned Peacekeeper Occupation of Libya
by Stephen Lendman
The peacekeepers are coming! The peacekeepers are coming! War, mass killing and destruction continue, but they're coming!
In fact, paramilitaries are coming to kill and terrorize Libyans wanting liberation, not occupation.
A blind eye won't notice mass rapes and sex trafficking, as well as other atrocities and crimes. They're commonplace, in fact, when Blue Helmets show up, operating as they please with impunity. More on that below.
Abbas Speech Signals Capitulation
by Stephen Lendman
Without saying it, he left little doubt how he'll petition the UN on September 23.
Speaking on television from Ramallah, he said:
"We are going to the United Nations to request our legitimate right, obtaining full membership for Palestine in this organization."
"We are going to the Security Council." He must. It's procedure, but a US veto is toothless as only the General Assembly admits new members. The Security Council only recommends.
Super Congress in Session - More of the Cruel Charade
By Michael Collins
Wall Street and the big banks owe $1.5 trillion for the bailout (at least). The Super Congress needs to cut $1.5 trillion over ten years. Get the money from Wall Street and cancel the Super Congress. Problem solved.
Last month’s debt ceiling crisis was resolved when Congress and the Obama administration made a deal to cut trillions in federal spending over the next ten years. Congress identified the easy cuts, the low hanging fruit so to speak, for a total of nearly $1.0 trillion. At the same time, Congress and the White House created the “Super Congress” committee of six senators and six representatives charged with cutting another $1.5 trillion. (Image: Lucy White with permission)
The committee has unparalleled power to draft legislation, without the normal legislative processes of debate, deliberation, modification, and amendments. If seven of the twelve committee members vote in favor of the budget cutting legislation by the November 23 deadline (see chart in appendix III), the bill will be submitted to the entire Congress for an up or down vote. The bill will not be subject to any modification or change. Debate will be very limited. (Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction Text-pdf)
Targeting Lawyers: America v. Paul Bergrin
by Stephen Lendman
Paul Bergrin
Post-9/11, thousands of political prisoners languish unjustly behind bars or await trial.
They include lawyers for challenging injustice, especially for defending the "wrong" clients after America declared war on humanity.
Longtime human rights lawyer Lynne Stewart got 10 years for doing it. In a recent interview she said:
"I believe I am one of an historical progression that maintains the struggle to change (America's) perverted landscape....It seems that being a political prisoner must be used as a means of focusing people's attention on the continuing atrocities around them....I might think I hadn't been doing my utmost if they didn't believe I was dangerous enough to be locked up!"
Explaining how outrageously prisoners are treated, she added:
"Human rights do not exist in prison....I see day-to-day brainwashing that teaches all prisoners that they are less than nothing and not worthy of even the least human or humane considerations."
Palestine's Rocky Road to Statehood
by Stephen Lendman
Some roads prove too rocky to traverse, especially when opposition against the real thing comes from alleged supportive allies.
The worst of all enemies often are traitors to a just cause. That in a word sums up Palestine's dilemma as loyalists count down to September's General Assembly meeting next week.
Israeli War Criminals Are Welcome Here
Gilad Atzmon
Earlier today Britain amended its universal jurisdiction law to the extent that Israeli war criminals can now enter the Kingdom without risk of arrest. British Ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould shamelessly called Israeli war criminal Tzipi Livni, against whom an arrest warrant was issued in 2009, and told her that the Queen has signed the amendment "to ensure that the UK’s justice system can no longer be abused for political reasons."
Ignoramus ambassador Gould should know that putting a war criminal behind bars is not a political matter, but an ethical necessity.
However, the amendment of the law is just another symptom of the Zion-ification of UK legal system and culture.
October2011 Movement and Egyptian Revolutionaries Unite, Call for Real Democracy, End of U.S. Empire, Equitable and Sustainable Economies and Human Rights
from Kevin Zeese
Arrest of nonviolent woman protester in America.
Today, the October 2011 Movement and the Egyptian Revolutionary Movement published “A Statement of Solidarity between Egyptian Revolutionaries and the October2011.org Movement”
signed by 21 members of the two movements. The movements recognize that they face many common problems and that their successes are intertwined.
The movements united on four issues including (details on each point are contained in the letter below):
1. Both the people of the United States and Egypt require real democracy so that the views of the people are represented.
2. End US foreign policy positions which undermine the Egyptian democracy movement as well as the character and reputation of the United States.
3. Both countries need to end the wealth divide in order to provide for the necessities of the people and to create new sustainable economies for the 21st Century.
4. Both countries need to respect human rights, which involves an end to torture, a method for systematic documentation of human rights abuses, and mechanisms to ensure accountability for those responsible for human rights abuses.
Israeli Police State Crackdowns on Palestinian Demonstrators
by Stephen Lendman
America's First Amendment guarantees free assembly. No matter. Demonstrators for social, economic and political justice are assaulted and arrested.
For weeks, hundreds of peaceful environmental protesters in front of the White House against a controversial 1,661-mile Alberta, Canada to Port Arthur, TX pipeline have been arrested for exercising their constitutional rights - whatever the issue.
Face-Off: Palestine v. Washington/Israel on Statehood
by Stephen Lendman
With the moment of truth arriving next week, rhetoric from both sides suggests Palestinians again will lose out.
Instead of an advocate representing them in New York, a collaborationist apparently will show up. Public statements and body language say so.
What could at last be looks likely to be denied. Instead of a new beginning, betrayal appears in the cards.
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