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Archive for the ‘IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLE’ Category

Colombia’s Quest for Peace and Justice: The International and National Context

March 30th, 2012 Comments off
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By James Petras, originally at the J. Petras website

Colombian FARC guerrillas: Many are women. “El pueblo en armas.”

02.21.2012 :: Latin America

Introduction: Between April 21-23, thousands of activists from most of the major urban and rural social movements and trade unions, human rights groups and indigenous , afro-colombian movements will meet to unify forces and launch, what promises to be the most significant new political movement in recent history.

United by a common pledge to seek a political solution to over 60 years of armed social conflict, the meeting will decide on a strategy to defeat past and present narco- para political regimes, recuperate land and households for 4 million displaced peasants, Indians, farmers and afro-Colombians. Central to the mission of this gathering will be the recovery of national sovereignty, severely compromised by the presence of seven US military bases, the large-scale, long-term takeover by foreign multi-nationals of the country’s mineral and energy resources and the protection of indigenous and afro-Colombian communities from environmental depredation. The April meeting has been proceeded by mass gatherings, organized by popular councils, intent on breaking military, paramilitary and the landlords political machines’ control over the electorate. Read more…

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Angela Davis Has Lost Her Mind Over Obama

March 28th, 2012 Comments off
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Angela Davis then and now.

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

Black Freedom Movement era icon Angela Davis tells people that Barack Obama “identifies with the Black radical tradition” – “as if everything he has written, said and done in national politics has not been a repudiation of the Black radical tradition.” In doing so, Prof. Davis “is repudiating herself, her history, her comrades – all in a foolish attempt to artificially graft a totally unworthy Barack Obama onto a place he not only does not belong, but most profoundly does not want to be.” Read more…

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The War of the Flea. (2) Together we have a lot of power.

March 27th, 2012 Comments off
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A thousand flea-bites are worse than one bite of a tiger. A continuous stream of bites will bring anyone in an unbearable situation.

The method is to pressure the 1%, not to kill them. A dead 1% can not take decisions and will be replaced by someone else. Then we have again to start the process of increasing pressure. When the pressure becomes excruciating he will try to escape by taking decisions that benefit the 99% and not in the first place the 1%. Read more…
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Challenging Obamacare

March 26th, 2012 Comments off
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By Stephen Lendman


Ralph Nader was right in calling Obamacare a sellout to Big PhAMA and other healthcare giants.
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Last November, the Supreme Court agreed to hear challenge arguments against Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) – aka Obamacare.   From March 26 – 28, oral arguments on PPACA’s constitutionality will be heard, especially certain provisions. A decision is expected by June.

Contentious issues include:

• mandating all adults have health insurance or be taxed to compensate;
• PPACA’s Medicaid expansion provisions; and

• whether the Anti-Injunction Act bars courts from reviewing the individual mandate until it’s effective in January 2014;

• “severability” also is also at issue: namely, whether one issue can be struck down while leaving others intact. Read more…

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Political issues in the Toulouse shootings

March 23rd, 2012 Comments off
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By Alex Lantier, WSWS.ORG, a socialist organization
Thank you, WSWS.ORG.

Elite police units (left) killed Mohamed Merah yesterday after a two-day standoff at his apartment in the French city of Toulouse, where Merah was suspected of killing seven people in a nine-day shooting rampage against paratroopers and Jewish schoolchildren.
As always in the beginning of such cases, one is confined to the evidence presented by the police and the media. According to their accounts, Merah said he decided to embark on this crime spree out of anger at France’s role in the NATO occupation of Afghanistan, the banning of the burqa in France, and Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people. Whether or not these accounts are true, Merah is guilty of a terrible crime, whatever motivation underlay the killings. 

However, the attack is a political event requiring a political explanation, particularly as it comes in the context of the French presidential elections. The response of France’s leading political parties is deeply cynical, aiming to exploit the tragedy to shift politics further to the right. Read more…

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A show not to be missed: Diane Gee interviews Stewart Alexander and Alex Mendoza

March 22nd, 2012 Comments off
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Listen to Stewart, Alex and Diane live on WWL Radio Friday, March 23rd at 6pm EDT!

Listen live by clicking the link icon below:

Listen to The Wild Wild Left on internet talk radio

SOCIALIST PARTY USA!!! – This is THE Ticket, friends! PhotobucketYes, my friends, these gentlemen are the Real Deal offering a vision of our future that can only be described as Common Sense! Sense for the 99% by eliminating the lockgrip the 1% has on our lives; sense in safeguards for our destinies, and sense in creating a sustainable, green infrastructure. As a devout leftist, I sometimes wonder… since when is sense a spectral thing? Left? Right? No, SANE! The D/R symposium has forced us to play Predatory Capitalism Russian Roulette; Socialism is the whisper of Sanity saying, “Put the gun down.” It is far past time to quit accepting the temporary reprieves that stay our execution, while society lingers on death row. It is time to break out of our own imprisonment. Socialism is FREEDOM; and here are two fine Candidates to get behind to lead the way there! I am thrilled and honored to host Stewart Alexander and Alex Mendoza; and prouder yet to call them MY CANDIDATES! This is a can’t-miss show!

The call in number is 646-929-1264 to join the conversation! Tip: In order to comment in the show’s companion chat, you must create a BTR account, its free and only takes seconds. Chat is monitored during the show, so make yourself heard. Read more…

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Rush Limbaugh and Ideological Warfare from Fox News and Right-Wing Media

March 19th, 2012 Comments off
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By BooMan, Booman Tribune


Undoubtedly Bill Maher is a well-meaning liberal, and his commitment to the environment, animals, and progressive politics is firmly established.  But he’s also a desperately confused liberal and his barbs often fall all over the place. The problem is that, despite his astuteness, he has not yet broken the chains that tie his inquisitive mind to the criminal status quo, especially the Democrats and Obama. As a result, class struggle is a concept that remains beyond his grasp, with dreadful results. Meanwhile, he rarely misses a chance to shill for Obama these days. Lesser evilism at play, no doubt.
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 There have been several studies (e.g. this one) over the last few years that have shown that Fox News viewers are not just more misinformed than consumers of other news outlets; they are more misinformed than people who watch no news programming at all. In other words, if you watch  Fox News, you are going to be misled and you will form opinions based on lies. This fact alone should lead civic-minded citizens to worry about the negative impact of right-wing news organizations, including Clear Channel’s Premiere Radio Networks. It’s one thing, after all, to disseminate news with a political perspective. It’s quite another to simply replace news with completely nonfactual information and perspectives. The former is normal political debate; the latter is simple disinformation. It’s this making-people-stupid element of the Mighty Right-Wing Wurlitzer that makes it an appropriate target for more than just Democrats, but concerned and responsible citizens of all stripes. Read more…

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OpEds: Tabloid Liberaloids

March 19th, 2012 Comments off
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Tabloid Liberaloids

 

By Diane Gee, Senior Contributing Editor, TGP
Founding Editor, The Wild Wild Left

The onslaught of information is like a tidal wave that just keeps rolling in; seemingly endless. It’s hard to balance between having a “starfish” moment and being misdirected by false “cause du jours.”

“The Left will implode,” cry those who have to feel like they are doing some actual good, “if we attack those trying to make a difference!”  They seem to feel that expanding our “consciousness” about the plight of children in areas like War-torn Uganda is worth repeating lies told by agencies like Kony 2012.  Kony is no longer even IN that country. He was certainly the lesser of the two evils in that country when he was there, by a thousandfold to the killings and child soldiers of its President.

The right-wing think tanks know the Left’s Achilles heel. It’s human rights and the abatement of suffering.  With tears in our eyes, a lump in our throats, and heart beating wildly, we will champion a cause; give our 5 or 10 dollars.  We will text, retweet, facebook share and viralize instantly whatever comes our way.  We will unquestioningly support it, even under evidence that it is a disinformation campaign, funded by those right-wing think tanks in order to get US boots on the ground.  We will say, “Well, it might be about the oil there, but still?  Think of the babies!”

I understand the starfish moments.  I try and live that way.  But in the REAL way.  I do fundraisers for ACTUAL people.  I’ve had dozens live with me short-term until they get on their feet.  I take dinner to people in a bad way, or have them over for some. I let kids with troubled parents practically live here.  

So, what of the larger causes, both real and imagined?

Diane Gee :: Tabloid Liberaloids
To tell the truth, they exhaust me.  

While I will sign nearly every petition that comes my way; there are few I find worth bearing repeating.  I no longer give money to any of them… I have none to give, for one.  Mostly, I think that we have spent the better part of 40 years since the last attempt at liberalizing this country throwing our energies at treating the symptoms, and ignoring the causes.

“Vote for better Democrats!”  Yeah, NAFTA and NDAA that shit, mmmk?

“Save the wolves!”  No one loves wolves more than I do; yet until we get serious about real Governmental controls on keeping balanced ecosystems at large, throwing money at the EDF will do little for the wolves.

“Free Mumia!  Free Peltier!”  I have long advocated freedom for these Political Prisoners, yet after all these years, we have made no headway into the world-wide systemic incarceration and assassination of people who stand up to the Elite Classes running the World.

“Apple uses slave labor in China!  Nike is worse!”  Well, I manage to live life with neither product; and I never set foot in Walmart. They all still not only survive, but thrive on their exploitation.  Not a goddamned thing we have done has made the smallest dent in the Predatory Capitalist system that encourages these atrocities.

“Rush called a college girl a SLUT!”  Well, yeah, he’s a douche, and I’ve been called worse.  Sticks and stones may break my bones, and hey, fuck you Rush. If Rush made a sound in the forest and none of us repeated it, he’s just one bear shitting in the woods.  I’m a real woman, and I don’t need protection, nor to wring my hands over a word spoken by an irrelevant old man.  This is divide and conquer stuff.  I’m really more worried about being able to live indoors and eat and mundania like that. Dig?

None of these causes, nor any of the others will get a dime from me, and very little in the way of support.  I have not the energy to waste on strapping bandaids on the fingertips of a body human with a gaping chest wound.

So, here I am at a crossroads.  

I am becoming less involved in the tabloid liberaloid world of eternal suffering and wailing and have only one focus.

The SOURCE of the infection upon humanity and the root of all evil.  The reason for strife and poverty in African Nations.  The cause of exploitative labor in Asian Nations.  The source of the insane wars of aggression against indigenous peoples by Israel.  The factors that created the economic collapse of the Western Nations.  The baseline of the widespread global warming and massive pollution’s devastation upon this globe we occupy.

Each and every one of these ills can be traced back to the unfettered, constantly proliferating GREED that is CAPITALISM.

There can be no “kinder, gentler” Capitalism.  Someone always does without for someone to have more.  In a finite planet it’s a zero sum. You cannot regulate away the very nature of the beast.  Profit itself (as a result of capital invested in other people’s human labor, not one’s own) is exploitation.  

Capitalism is based on inequality; capitalism relegates our very worth to increments of our TIME, our LABOR, and calculates our worth based on the least of the human traits… GREED.

Without COOPERATION as the basis of human organization, rather than COMPETITION, this society is done, if not this entire PLANET.

Capitalism is killing our nest to the point everything on this planet may die. In fact it is dying.

There is only one war to me, and that is the Class War.

Even “Occupy” with its non-sectarian, non-political voice rising against the 1% will be an abject failure if it does not move towards a Socialist Workers-Rights movement.

This is becoming a manifesto, though not my intent in sitting at the keyboard this morning.

I’m sorry – EVERYTHING ELSE HAS BEEN TRIED AND HAS FAILED.

Incrementalism doesn’t empty our prisons, fill bellies, stop wars, and make seeds again fertile.  

Regulation does not stop abuses, nor allow people free migration across this green and blue marble, that is quickly turning brown and grey with our poisons.  

Politicians of the system will never oppose the hand that feeds them.

Until EVERY life is valued as our own?  Until you address the ROOT of the problem, you are playing a dangerous game of whack-a-mole while the stopwatch runs to zero on the World.

You are fighting the wrong battles.

This is why I fight.

This is the only fight worth fighting.

I will save you.  You save the next one.  We all save us all, or it’s over.

Viva la revolucion!

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Diane Gee also moderates the discussion on Facebook’s premier political spot, Links for the Wildly Left.

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