Things to consider—

Since early 2011, Obama's been waging proxy war on Syria. Imported death squads masquerade as freedom fighters. The scheme's familiar. It repeats. It reflects US imperialism's dark side. In the 1980s, CIA-recruited mujahideen fighters battled Afghanistan's Soviet occupiers. Ronald Reagan called them "the moral equivalent of our founding fathers." He characterized Contra killers the same way. —Stephen LendmanFor over a century now US ambassadors have acted as fifth columns in the nations they are embedded in, their role chiefly to foster corporate and plutocratic power and coordinate machinations against any truly pro-democratic government.•••••"The dead end identity politics of SF Pride, which sells out a peace hero like Bradley Manning to curry favor with the American ruling class, is what I had in mind. The empire loves your tameness, irrelevance and cowardice, SF Pride. You don’t bother the American ruling class — a five foot two, 105 pound soldier does because he has a conscience and because he didn’t make comfort the guiding principle of his life...." —Randy Shields

LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: NYPD police brutality during Occupy Wall Street

 ACTIVISTS & HEROES, ANNOTATED NEWS  Comments Off
Sep 292011
 

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell with “The Last Word” discussing what police are doing during the Occupy Wall Street protests
Tough words by O’Donnell against excessive, intimidating force being used against essentially harmless, peaceful demonstrators. 

Police forces have turned the peaceful Occupy Wall Street protest into a violent protest. Police were grabbing people out of the protesting crowds and causing scenes that were not necessary. They were crushing protestors to the ground and arresting them. Police harmed a man, holding a professional grade video camera recording the protests, in order to get him to stop legally recording the happenings of the protests. Lawrence says “American police know that no mayor and no police chief is ever going to call them on just being what they think of as a little too tough.”  WATCH VIDEO BELOW Continue reading »

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MSNBC’s Obama apologist Ed Schultz momentarily redeems himself (VIDEO)

 ANNOTATED NEWS, CLASS STRUGGLE  Comments Off
Sep 292011
 

Schultz

NOW THAT THE UTTERLY SHAMELESS CONGRESSIONAL ERRAND BOYS FOR THE OLIGARCHY ARE WORKING HARD TO SHUT DOWN OR PRIVATIZE THE UNITES STATES POSTAL SERVICE, ONE OF THE MOST NECESSARY AND APPRECIATED PUBLIC AGENCIES IN THE UNITED STATES (and one that is self-funded, mind you), and a major employer, to boot, with little or no opposition from Obama or the Dems (as usual), it HAS fallen on a mobilized public and occasional media figures like Ed Schultz to speak out on its behalf.  

 ON 9.29.11 MSNBC’S ED SCHULTZ, HOST OF THE ED SHOW, delivered an impassioned plea against such policy, which would essentially cancel a vital service to rural communities, the elderly, and small businesses all over the nation. And it would also reduce the voting ability of people in states such as Washington and Oregon, where voting by mail is official.

Rep. Issa: With a $300 million fortune, he's the richest member of Congress.

The charge against the USPS has been led by Darrell Issa, a cynical California Republican with a checkered past who manages to stand out among that party’s ubiquitous scum.  So at this time the fate of the U.S. Postal Service, now $9.2 billion in debt, lies with a handful of lawmakers its workers’ unions hope will enact the serious reform needed to save the federal agency.  Rep. Issa, of Lebanese descent but who prefers not to be identified as an Arab, and chairman of the committee that oversees the Postal Service, was once one of those lawmakers. But now, after pushing his Postal Reform Act through a House subcommittee, postal unions consider Issa their greatest foe.  Back during the 2010 election cycle, Issa was the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and he promised postal unions that he would work on their behalf. Postal unions responded by contributing $41,000 to his re-election campaign, according to research by the Center for Responsive Politics. (Incidentally, will someone tell Obama that he should forthrightly declare he will veto such a bill? That’s the least he can do now that, confronted with a shaky base, he’s been trumpeting to the four winds that he’s a “Class Warrior”. )

WATCH VIDEO BELOW   Continue reading »

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Rand Paul against safety in gas pipelines (what did you expect?)

 ANNOTATED NEWS, ASSHOLES, BASTARDS & CRIMINALS, IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLE  Comments Off
Sep 292011
 

Rand Paul, ranking libertarian idiot in the US Congress.

AS SEEN ON THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW  (9.29.11), Sen. Paul (KY), steeped in libertarian nonsense, is now almost singlehandedly blocking the adoption of long overdue regulation of the nation’s energy pipelines, a measure endorsed by both parties (for what is worth) and the industry itself.  While we do not trust Maddow for her persistent loyalty to the Democrats and Obama, in particular, which we regard as insalubrious for a population seeking truth and clarity, she has few equals when lambasting notorious reactionaries.  So we’ll take our favors where we can find them, while keeping our options open and our powder dry…And by the way, watch Obama shamelessly sucking the already proven as safe rhetorical lines (Warren Buffet’s secretary should not pay more taxes than Warren Buffet, bla bla), and declare himself a “Class Warrior.”—PG

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Continue reading »

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SAD NEWS: Bolivian government violently represses indigenous protest

 ANNOTATED NEWS, LatinAm-BOLIVIA  Comments Off
Sep 282011
 

By Bill Van Auken, WSWS.ORG, a socialist organization

Editor’s Note:  We regret to have to publish this piece, as we support and admire the trajectory of President Morales, and the Bolivian people. Evo Morales has been a progressive in many critical ways, including his support for the environment which certainly outstrips anything a developed country leader has said or done. But this policy of cutting through a pristine and fragile ecosystem, of endorsing more farming in the Matto Grosso—the largest surviving rainforest (and “lung”) on planet earth, is misguided, even if expedient in the short-term given the narrow choices President Morales faces at the moment.  (See the update at the foot of this piece.)

A man runs for cover after riot police fired tear gas canister during a protest in Rurrenabaque, Bolivia, Monday Sept. 26, 2011.

The government of President Evo Morales carried out a bloody crackdown Sunday against a march by indigenous protesters against the building of a new highway through their lands.  Some 500 paramilitary police surrounded the encampment of the thousand or more marchers, including hundreds of women and children, firing teargas, beating the protesters with clubs and fists, trampling many and handcuffing them and throwing them face first onto the ground.

The assault killed a three-month-old baby, who died of asphyxiation from the teargas. Many others were injured, and at least 37 were reported missing, including a number of children. Continue reading »

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Glenn Greenwald on Critiques of Occupy Wall Street: Does Anyone Actually Not Get the Message?

 ANNOTATED NEWS, TACTICS & STRATEGIES  Comments Off
Sep 282011
 

By Sarah Seltzer, AlterNet

Posted on September 28, 2011

Glenn Greenwald has an excellent, incisive column on the “well-intentioned” critique of the Occupy Wall Street protests. There’s much to unpack here and I recommend reading the column in full, as it goes right to the heart of why even those of us on the left sometimes hesitate when faced with mass social movements, which by definition are messy.  Here’s what he says on the critique that there’s a lack of messaging at the protests: 

Does anyone really not know what the basic message is of this protest: that Wall Street is oozing corruption and criminality and its unrestrained political power — in the form of crony capitalism and ownership of political institutions — is destroying financial security for everyone else? …  Continue reading »

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Progress against public bullfighting in Tamil Nadu but not in Uttarakhand

 ANIMAL DEFENDERS, ANIMAL MARTYRDOM, ANNOTATED NEWS  Comments Off
Sep 282011
 

BY MERRITT CLIFTON
Special From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  (January/February 2011): 

Thousands of tormentors of helpless and scared animals, who are then often ripped apart by the mob. And all this in the name of tradition. What have domesticated animals like bovines or goats done to humans except provide sustenance and service to merit this torture?

CHENNAI,  Dehrudun–THE FIRST WEEKEND OF 2011 Pongal harvest festivals in Tamil Nadu,  India,  brought a drop in reported deaths and injuries in jallikattu,  the predominant Indian form of participatory bullfighting–but chiefly because new rules discouraged many communities from hosting jallikattu.  Relative to the unrestrained mayhem at Bunkhal village in Uttarakhand state a month earlier,  that was major progress.
_________________
EDITOR’S NOTE: At the foot of this article we have attached a defense of this practice by someone who sees nothing wrong with tormenting and killing animals for fun. We present it, not as a counterpoint to the main piece, for we see not possible balance between the two views, and we certainly don’t believe in letting readers arrive at the truth by simple presenting two opposing views, one of which may be logically and factually indefensible, BUT as one more example how this kind of mind operates.—TGP
_________________  Continue reading »

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