The Greanville Post —Vol. VII- 2013

Something to think about—(put cursor over scroller to stop it)

We're engaged in a protracted mass communications battle, a contest of propagandas, Their object is to prop up the system's legitimacy; ours precisely the opposite. The core of a system's illegitimacy is nothing more nor less than its easily demonstrable Orwellian nature. If it claims to be a democracy it must be a plutocracy; if it proclaims to defend the safety of its population, it actively endangers it; if it struts around loudly shouting its allegiance to freedom and the rule of law, it is in actuality a cynical hidden dictatorship; If it brags about its "free press", then you know for sure that it is an abject, servile tool of the power elites. Of course the most infamous contradiction is that when this hypocritical scum kneel before the altar of peace they are actively engaged in making war. On and on. Always the opposite of what it claims. In America, especially, anyone awake can see that readily. But unfortunately the majority are still asleep.—Sean Lenihan •••The cowardice and duplicity of Congress, above all, the Democrats, and the subservience of the media, exhibited in their response to the exposure of the NSA spying programs, encourage the military and intelligence agencies to go even further in their drive toward dictatorship. Mark Udall, the Democratic senator presented as the most “outspoken” critic of the spying programs, began his interview Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” program by pledging his support to the “war on terror” and denouncing leaks of classified information.—Barry Grey••••From Athens to Paris to Brazil, there is growing realization that politics as usual just won’t cut it anymore. We will always lose if we play by their rules rather than invent new forms of struggle, new social movements, and new sensibilities. The defense of the earth requires immediate and decisive action: logging roads need to be blocked, driftnets need to be cut, and cages need to be emptied. But these are piecemeal and reactive measures, and in addition to these tactics, radical movements and alliances must be built that unites struggles on behalf of humanity, nonhuman animals, and the earth in a politics of total liberation. Resistance is the oxygen of the future. Live to resist, resist to live.—Steve Best••••For 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.

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You, Terrorist
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Capitalism in Crisis: Our Opportunity for a New System
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Freedom Rider: Obama’s Syrian Press Pass
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley The corporate media are the megaphones of humanitarian death, as dispensed by the U.S. and its allies. If Obama says “Assad must go,” the high-paid press do all in their power to make the public crave his blood. “The media are loyal to the system, not to [...]
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TURKEY: C’est Une Révolte, Pas (Encore) Une Revolution!
C’est Une Révolte, Pas (Encore) Une Revolution! (1) Sungur Savran On May Day 2013, the police poured tonnes of tear gas on tens of thousands of workers and youth in different quarters of Istanbul, Turkey in order to stop them from approaching Taksim Square. The government had decided that this square, the traditional venue for [...]

“RESPONSIBLE CAPITALISM”, “MORAL MARKETS”, and – Goldman Sachs Bonuses

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Feb 212012

Letter from The U.K.

“RESPONSIBLE CAPITALISM”, “MORAL MARKETS”, and – Goldman Sachs Bonuses

By Michael Faulkner, TPJ MAGAZINE

Something rather curious has been happening recently. Leading politicians, Tory, Lib Dem and Labour, have started talking about capitalism. It has happened before, but not for some time and then, referring to some particularly egregious example of corporate malfeasance, terms such as the “unacceptable face of capitalism” were used. Tory prime minister Edward Heath coined the phrase in 1973 to describe the activities of Lonrho chief executive Tiny Rowlands who had broken sanctions against the white racist Smith government of Rhodesia. Later, in 2004, Jim O’Donnell, managing director of BMW applied it to five directors of Phoenix Venture Holdings, the parent company of GM Rover, who had pocketed more than £16 million, even though the company had lost £89 million. The chairman and vice chairman were accused by Martin O’Neill, chairman of the Commons Trade and Industry Select Committee, of using “financial sleight of hand” to line their own pockets and of failing to exercise good corporate governance.

LEFT: Tory PM Edward Heath’s “unacceptable face of capitalism” has now become the normal face of capitalism. Maybe there never was any other.
Continue reading »

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Escalating Syrian Tensions / w. VIDEO

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Feb 212012

by Stephen Lendman, Senior Contributing Editor

Syria: Pro-government rally. They are usually discounted or omitted from mainstream reporting.
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For nearly a year, externally generated violence wracked Syria. Dirty Western hands planned and implemented it. Rogue regional despots were enlisted for support. Replacing an independent regime with a pro-Western one and isolating Iran are planned. Russia and China thwarted two Security Council resolutions designed to facilitate intervention.

On February 16, a non-binding Arab League General Assembly resolution passed with similar language. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states backed it. Pressure’s building for escalated anti-Assad measures. Sooner or later expect intervention, perhaps war. At issue is isolating Iran, then targeting the Islamic Republic. Replicating 1953 in some form’s coming, perhaps more war that may involve Russia and China defending their interests. Continue reading »

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Political Prisoners in America’s Gulag

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Feb 212012

by Stephen Lendman, SENIOR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
“Entrapment is…manufactured to manipulate fear and justify America’s global war on terrorism. Nearly always, Muslims are charged. It’s part of America’s war on Islam.”

Incarcerated Muslims. Minorities continue to constitute the overwhelming majority of prisoners.
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With around 2.4 million incarcerated, America has by far the world’s largest prison system. Two-thirds in it are Black or Latino.

Most held are non-violent. Over half are for drug related charges. Around 75% are Blacks or Latinos. On all charges, many are persecuted political prisoners.

In her book titled, “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” Michelle Alexander called today’s Jim Crow a modern-day elitist-designed racial caste system. Believing poor Blacks (and Latinos) are dangerous and economically superfluous, America’s gulag became an instrument of social control. According to Alexander:

“Any movement to end mass incarceration must deal with (it) as a racial caste system, not (a method) of crime control. We need an effective system of crime prevention and control in our communities, but that is not what the current system is. (It’s) better designed to create crime, and a perpetual class of people labeled criminals, rather than to eliminate crime or reduce the number of criminals.” Continue reading »

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Obama’s Polished Turd

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Feb 212012

SPECIAL—

By SickofStupid

If you’re one of the estimated 14 million American homeowners stuck with negative home equity or struggling to make your mortgage payments, you may have cheered the recent news of a national mortgage foreclosure settlement,thinking that help has finally arrived. And it has…kind of. Unfortunately, it probably won’t help you.

In an attempt to make voters believe it can be “tough” on Wall Street, the Obama administration is promoting the approximately $25 billion national mortgage foreclosure settlement between the attorneys general of 49 states and the nation’s five largest banks as a significant accomplishment. The settlement is purported to provide substantial help for homeowners, while holding banks accountable for their past crimes related to the mortgage crisis and preventing similar illegal actions in future. In reality, the settlement is nothing more than an election year publicity stunt, savings and opportunities for investors and a “get out of jail really, really cheap” card for Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Ally Financial/GMAC, JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America [BofA]. Continue reading »

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Getting there (a new society) from here—the capitalist swamp

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Feb 212012

First in a series prepared by Eric Schechter
“The world is changing quickly, and we need to help steer it according to our shared values — our vision of what might be.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
“Imagine no possessions.” I’m just like John Lennon, except without the talent.

I’m single and heterosexual, or maybe asexual. I might consider taking a partner if I found a woman who is perfect for me, if such a thing is possible. Women who want to know more about that can look at either of

http://www.okcupid.com/profile/HeartOnTheLeft

http://www.pof.com/viewprofile.aspx?profile_id=7993692

I recently retired from teaching advanced mathematics. At the age of 55 I finally saw what most people know at age 10: that the most important questions in our lives are not mathematical. Even in economics, the math is just window-dressing and quantification; the most basic ideas contain virtually no math. And the most important question of all is, how can we all learn to live in peace together? No math in that at all. Continue reading »

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Hundreds of thousands protest new Spanish labour legislation

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Feb 212012

By Alejandro López, WSWS.ORG, a socialist organization
Thank you, WSWS.ORG

A casualty of the Valencia clashes.

Hundreds of thousands of workers demonstrated in 57 Spanish cities on Sunday against the latest labour reform passed by the right wing Popular Party (PP).

The demonstrations were called by the main trade unions, Comisiones Obreras (Workers Commissions—CC.OO) and Unión General de Trabajadores (General Union of Workers—UGT).

In Madrid an estimated 110,000 protestors took the streets according to El País, while the unions put the figure at 500,000. In Barcelona the same newspaper estimated 100,000 protestors and the unions 400,000. Demonstrations in Saragossa, Gijón, Seville, Gerona, Murcia, León, Toledo, Pamplona and Tarragona were sizable. Continue reading »

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Joost van Steenis: What tactical options does Occupy have?

ACTIVISTS & HEROES, ANNOTATED NEWS, CITIZEN TOOLS, CLASS STRUGGLE, TACTICS & STRATEGIES Comments Off

Feb 212012

Tactics & Strategies—
The Black Panther Party
Militancy made BPP big, not community activities

Veteran activist Joost Van Steenis questions the reformist path for Occupy. Is he right? Do reforms have a legitimate role in the Occupy protest movement?

By Joost Van Steenis

The fast rise and decline of the Black Panther movement. After the murder of Malcolm X in 1965 the BPP was founded in Oakland and reached its peak in 1969 with 10.000 members and a newspaper circulation of 250.000. The first action point was the militant defence of blacks by wearing black clothing and showing loaded guns. The State Assembly Chamber in Sacramento was invaded in 1967 by armed members when the Party was still fairly small. The Party had a list of ten demands to promote the situation of blacks in the USA as decent housing and education, freedom for black prisoners, against police brutality, etc.

Only after the decline the Party started in 1971 with community activities and later got involved in electoral policies. Reform tactics and community activities did not stop the decline and in 1980 the party had virtually disappeared. Continue reading »

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Heightening Anti-Iranian Tensions

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Feb 212012

by Stephen Lendman

Israeli Minister of Defense Ehud Barak, left, poses for a photo Nov. 9, 2009, with Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates at the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., before sitting down for talks on regional security issues. Barak was supposedly a target for assassination by the Iranians. Can we get more inflammatory? (DoD photo by R. D. Ward/Released)

For months, Iran faced baseless accusations. They include:

the spurious US Saudi ambassador assassination plot;
charges about developing nuclear weapons;
being the “world’s leading state sponsor of terror,” according to AIPAC;
targeting Israeli officials in India, Georgia, and Thailand; and
planning Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s assassination, according to The Israel Project citing Kuwait’s Al Jarida newspaper.

All of the above don’t pass the smell test. Charges are baseless on their face. Yet major media scoundrels headline them for days. In the process, they heighten tensions for belligerent intervention. Continue reading »

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Many topics to choose from

There’s violence and there’s violence

Revolutionary Violence vs Institutionalized Violence

"There were two 'Reigns of Terror,' if we could but remember and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passions, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon a thousand persons, the other upon a hundred million; but our shudders are all for the "horrors" of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty and heartbreak? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief terror that we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror - that unspeakable bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves..." —Mark Twain, writing about the French Revolution.

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“RESPONSIBLE CAPITALISM”, “MORAL MARKETS”, and – Goldman Sachs Bonuses

By Alejandro López, WSWS.ORG, a socialist organizationThank you, WSWS.ORG

Tactics & Strategies—The Black Panther PartyMilitancy made BPP big, not community activities

By Alejandro López, WSWS.ORG, a socialist organization
Thank you, WSWS.ORG

Tactics & Strategies—
The Black Panther Party
Militancy made BPP big, not community activities