Burkini and Bikini

=By= Jimmie Moglia

burkinis-bikinis

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Editor's Note
In France, as well as other "Western(ized)" nations is the manufactured belief that a woman's near nudity is a sign of "liberation." This does seem strange, as one would think that "liberation" would mean that a woman has the right to choose whatever she wishes to wear. Rarely are such thoughts allowed to rise as the question might also be asked as to who is defining certain styles as "liberating" and others as not. Or, lawds permit, for whom is one dressing (or undressing as the case may be)? Where lies the line between the not so subtle enforcement of heterosexual (aka men's) definition of womens presentation of liberty? Is not the repeated presentation of women as scantily clad as possible actually a re-sexualization of women who had pushed perchance a bit too far into male privileged space with all that flack of "women's liberation?" Dare we not ask who creates the styles of dress for women. Then further defining, then creating a "demand" for certain styles; marketing them (the styles and the women wearing them) as alluring (to males) - for they rarely do anything for womens interactions with each other, nor non-sexualized mixed sex interaction. Long gone is any question about women's lack of clothing and liberation for what. Dr. Moglia raises this issue as it is brought to the surface by France's kicking around (once more) of restricting what is acceptable attire - particularly for women of certain religio-cultural groups. Read on.

“Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy…”

The debate about the admissibility of burkinis on European beaches has mostly spared the American audience. But the issue is sufficiently grotesque to deserve a few related notes.

The idea that a state (France in the instance), can limit the freedom to wear clothing in the name of liberation is logically insane, historically ridiculous and politically idiotic. It is

“A fixed figure for the time of scorn
To point his slow unmoving finger at!” (1)

Some have rated the measure a sign of repressed white supremacy, hidden behind political correctness. More likely, it is a sign of the helpless, and therefore feeble reaction to the seemingly unstoppable biblical transhumance of peoples – in the name of globalization, annihilation of cultures, languages, traditions and massively promoted miscegenation.

Readers will no doubt remember that “the apparel oft proclaims the man (or the woman) (2), but the ban on burkinis is (was) designed as an instrument to infuse the taste of liberty and the awareness of the pleasures of (European) culture into Islamic ladies, reluctant to expose (what they rate to be) their own nudity.

I said that the ban “was” … because the French Council of State, before I began writing this, has deliberated that such a ban “gravely violates, in a clearly illegal way, the fundamental freedom of coming and going, and the individual freedom of creed.”

Nevertheless, the still-debated ban on burkinis rests on the idea that by showing rather than hiding her flesh, a woman displays conclusive and irreversible evidence of female liberation and gender equality.

If so, the legislators of the measure showed poor historical awareness – though it is known that distance, either of time or place, is sufficient to reconcile imaginative minds to inexistent facts and questionable conclusions.

The correlation between modesty in dress and female subordination is a relic of the extreme English Reformers who turned into Puritans, of the Restoration (after the French Revolution) and of the Victorian era.

The two-piece female bathing attire was already used in the imperial baths and spas of Rome. In fact, given the lack of any political weight of women in Roman and Greek culture, the reduction in volume of worn cloth was proportional to the reduction of their social and economic standing. By and by, Roman women did not much care “… to o’erstep the modesty of nature.” (3).

In fact, the French revolution was preceded by a popular rediscovery and return to Roman customs, attires and fashion. Men (and women) styled their hair “a’ la Brutus.” Women wore dresses with no pockets and practically no underwear. To enable ladies to carry with them some basic items, the French invented the hand-bag, called “reticule”, a word deriving from the Latin “reticulum” meaning ‘net.’ In fact the French “reticule” was anything but practical, hence the terms ‘ridicule’ and ‘reticule’ were used interchangeably, to mock the handbag accompanying the skimpy dresses.

hair-a-la-brutusBut even long before, starting at the end of the 1600 and throughout the whole of the 1700, women’s breasts were practically uncovered.

The unhurried tourist in Venice may venture to cross the “Ponte delle Tette” (Bridge of the Boobs), whose appellation and story are historically instructive.

The bridge is found in the sector of San Polo, which functioned, at the time of the story, as a red-light district. To lure customers, prostitutes used to lean topless, out of balconies or windows. Folkloric tradition attributes the habit to an ordnance issued by the Venetian Republic. The reasoning being that the sight of topless women would promote heterosexual excitement in male viewers, and thus help stem the increase in homosexuality affecting the city.

ponte-delle-tetteThat sodomy was a problem is attested in the extended and massive Chronicles of Venice written in Latin by one of her citizens, Marin Sanudo, (1466-1536). In which we read,

“In order to eradicate the abominable vice of sodomy (abhominabile vitium sodomie), two noblemen per sector will be selected. And every Friday they will interview medical doctors and barbers (note that until historically recently, barbers were also surgeons and surgeons were barbers). If any doctor or barber, during the week, has been called to cure colo-rectal ailments in men (or women) deriving from sodomy, (in partem posteriorem confractam per sodomiam), they are obliged to denounce the fact to the authorities. Following the indictment, the sodomites will be hanged between two columns in a square (Piazzetta) and burned until they are reduced to ashes.”

One such punishment was inflicted on Bernardino Correr who, in 1482

“… attempted to carry out acts of sodomy on Mr. Hieronimo Urban, a most handsome young man, during one evening when Correr found Urban in the pathway leading from Ca’ Trevixan to S. Bartolomio. To this deplorable purpose Correr cut the suspenders of Urban’s stockings. But Urban did not want any of this and denounced Correr to the Council of Ten.”

Throughout the 1600 and 1700, low neck-lines approaching toplessness, were common, along with enormous shirts ending in wasp-like waits and breasts purposely augmented and raised via busts and corsets. We can detect in the vestment a different interpretation of the female body.

For men, in turn, it was the time of the Renaissance tights, remarkably similar to the now fashionable nylons, worn by ladies.

And long before, Dante Alighieri, the Shakespeare of Italy, (1260-1321), upbraids the women of Florence, for their most visible breasts, “…le sfacciate donne fiorentine l’andar mostrando con le poppe il petto” – the shameless Florentine women who go around showing their breast with their boobs.

But I digress. Actually, the quickened evolution of clothing styles is coeval with the birth of capitalism, in the 13th and 14th centuries. That’s when fashion, as we know it, was born. The word ‘fashion’ derives from the old French ‘façon’, meaning appearance, pattern, design, etc.

From the mid-1200 onward, fashion was linked to a rapid change in the shape and color of dresses. At first, fashion was the monopoly of the upper-classes, but gradually it Reaganesquely trickled down, at least, among the ancient equivalent of today’s urbanized middle classes.

Coeval with the explosion of fashion is the birth of sumptuary laws throughout Europe, aimed at forbidding the ostentation of luxury. In women primarily, but not only,

“… for it is not vain-glory for a man and his glass to confer in his own chamber.” (4)

In fact, ample literature (and paintings), prove that fashion affected both men and women. For example, in evaluating the attire of an English suitor, a Venetian lady says,

“How oddly he is suited! I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behavior everywhere” (5)

Case history, in the enforcement of dress codes and sumptuary laws, has a connection with the burkini issue, though from a different angle. In 1278, after Bologna became part of the Papal state, sumptuary laws forbade ribbons and long trains of dresses, and imposed the use of a veil on women when in church. This caused frequent brawls between the people and the papal controllers.

Throughout the Venetian Republic sumptuary laws prohibited women from “hiding themselves under expensive and luxurious dresses.” In the city of Verona, the thus-repressed ladies commissioned local graffiti-artists to write on the walls “F…k the cuckholds who don’t see what goes on at home.” (bechi fotui no vedè quelo che gavè in casa). The inference being that the concern about verecund modesty displayed in church clashed with the morally-lax general way of living, hence making the sumptuary laws silly and hypocritical.

However, a more practical objective, besides the enforcement of modesty, was to restrain and reduce the outward display of class differences. History printed in official school books teaches us that class struggle was a 19th century phenomenon and a Russian syndrome. In reality, throughout the history of capitalism rebellions were bloody, fierce and frequent. For, while a small privileged elite lived in luxury, the coffers of the majority would “sound with hollow poverty and emptiness” (6)

But there were also practical reasons for discouraging elaborate and long dresses with trails. St. Bernardine from Siena warned from the pulpit,

“O ladies, tell me: what happens to her trail when a woman walks along the street? It raises dust, and in the winter it is soiled with mud. He who follows her breathes the incense she produces, which is rightly called the incense of the devil.”

Nor an elaborate dress, jewelry and make-up necessarily enhanced the sex appeal of the wearer. Latin writers were explicit in their criticism of gaudy and ostentatious dresses and ornaments. Ovid warns,

“… but you (women) don’t load your ears with the precious stones that an Indian negro gathers in green waters; nor show yourselves laden with gold-embroidered gowns. For your luxury cancels the appeal with which you would conquer us.”

Lambasting both fancy dresses and applied cosmetics, St. Ambrose says that women,

“From the adultery of the face they proceed to meditate on the adultery of their chastity.” A point on which Ambrose and Mohammed would have agreed.

Given the actual history then, the act of not disrobing at the beach seems almost an indirect act of compensation against female submission. Or rather, there is a clear link between fashion, bikinis and capitalism. Capitalism rates traditional attire and costumes as obstacles to marketing, for tradition implies lack of change and durability, antithetic to fashion, which is but market-induced obsolescence, promoted as a spontaneous change in taste.

And market is such a powerful force that,

“New customs,
Though they be ever so ridiculous,
Nay, let them be unmanly, yet they are followed.” (7)

In the end, removing a veil from Islamic women and a cover from their legs, hardly suggests female emancipation. Rather, it implies a submission to the market, a word that, in turn, implies male domination. For the market, especially in Western neoliberal society, is the quintessential user and exploiter of the female body. And legislators ought to distinguish what is established because it is right, from that which is right because it is established.

Personally,

“Old fashions please me best: I am not so nice,
To change true rules for odd inventions.” (8)

but, after this curious and politically induced interest in attires, I am tempted to change my mind and examine more carefully my outward appearance. Maybe I’ll follow the example of Richard III,

“I’ll be at charges for a looking glass
And entertain a score or two of tailors
To study fashions to adorn my body.
Since I am crept in favour with myself,
I will maintain it with a little cost.” (9)

** 1. Othello
** 2. 3. Hamlet
** 4. Cymbeline
** 5. Merchant of Venice
** 6. King Henry IV, p.2
** 7. King Henry VIII
** 8. Taming of the Shrew
** 9. King Richard III

In the play (opening quote). Polonius gives his son Laertes a set of precepts to follow while in Paris.

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About the author
 

Moglia: A natural teacher of complex topics.Jimmie Moglia is a Renaissance man, and therefore he's impossible to summarize in a simple bioblurb. In any case, here's a rough sketch, by his own admission: Born in Turin, Italy, he now resides in Portland, Oregon.  Appearance: … careful hours with time’s deformed hand,  Have written strange defeatures in my face (2); Strengths. An unquenchable passion for what is utterly, totally, and incontrovertibly useless, notwithstanding occasional evidence to the contrary. Weaknesses: Take your pick. Languages: I speak Spanish to God, French to men, Italian to women and German to my horse. My German is not what it used to be but it’s not the horse’s fault. Too many Germans speak English. Education: “You taught me language and my profit on it Is, I know how to curse.” (3); More to the point – in Italy I studied Greek for five years and Latin for eight. Only to discover that prospective employers were remarkably uninterested in dead languages. Whereupon I obtained an Engineering Degree at the University of Genova. Read more here.

 

Source: Your Daily Shakespeare.

 


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‘Clinton body count’ search request hidden by google

 

FRONTLINENEWSLOGO-2

=By=
Katheon

google -PD

Editor's Note
That a search engine, in a "free" and "open" society is blocking (or redirecting) searches is a chilling piece of news. It was bad enough when we found out that what come up on the front page of a google search could be purchased. Even that, while not surprising in a (monopoly) capitalist society where everything is seen as having a price, might have been acceptable IF google had made it blatantly clear that certain searches had been purchased and therefore took up the front page. Oh yeah, they STILL don't let you know that unless folks can't/won't pay enough to get the "AD" removed.

What Google is doing in this instance is more subtle than outright censorship. Those "autocomplete" options don't just save time, they affect one's thinking about what one is searching for. It is a more subtle redirection of thought than outright censorship, and in that way it is perhaps more alarming.

Google hides ‘Clinton body count’ from search engine.

redirectionGoogle has altered its search algorithm to prevent searches for “Clinton body count” from auto-completing, despite the term auto-completing when typed in on virtually any other search engine.

The ‘Clinton body count’ is an infamous list of alleged murders connected to the Clintons.

When a web user searches for “clinton body” on Bing or Yahoo Search, the suggested results all relate to the Clinton body count controversy.

However, search for the same term on Google and “clinton body” only returns suggestions related to auto-repair shops, and nothing to do with the Clinton body count.

While Google may not be outright censoring the information (people can still search for “clinton body count”), the fact that the term does not auto-complete clearly suggests that the company has altered its algorithm to clean up “conspiracy theories” about Hillary.

That’s interesting given New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo’s demand that Google “fix” its search results by censoring information about Hillary’s ill health so as not to “give quarter to conspiracy theorists”.

Back in June it was revealed by SourceFed that Google was indeed manipulating its search results to bury unflattering stories about Hillary.
“For example, when typing “Hillary Clinton cri,” Google’s auto-complete function brings up as its top choice “Hillary Clinton crime reform,” even though competing search engines Bing and Yahoo show the most popular search topics are “Hillary Clinton criminal charges” and “Hillary Clinton crime,” reported the Washington Times.

In August last year, Politico reported on how “Google could rig the 2016 election” by altering its search algorithms.

“Google’s search algorithm can easily shift the voting preferences of undecided voters by 20 percent or more—up to 80 percent in some demographic groups—with virtually no one knowing they are being manipulated,” wrote Robert Epstein, who conducted experiments to prove it.

Epstein warned that Google can manipulate how people are thinking and influence their voting preference by utilizing the Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME), which would include burying negative search terms that relate to Hillary Clinton.

Google adjusts its search engine algorithm 600 times a year, but the process is a closely kept secret. They rely on it being almost impossible to prove favoritism in search results, but it appears in this case the company has been caught red-handed.


ALL IMAGES, CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

NOTE: ALL IMAGE CAPTIONS, PULL QUOTES AND COMMENTARY BY THE EDITORS, NOT THE AUTHORS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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UK – How a Book on Art and Culture Draws Suspicion of Terrorism

Screen Shot 2016-01-23 at 2.38.28 PMFelicity Arbuthnot

Warrior for Peace and Justice

censorship

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Editor's Note
What have we let ourselves be chivied into that people living in a "free and democratic" nation can allow people to be pulled aside as possible "terrorists" for reading a book? Is it time to demand that the British (and all other "western" governments and their allies) provide for us their lists of FORBIDDEN reading. Should we not know when we look at or purchase a particular book that it is going to place us on some kind of watch list or worse? What are the words we are supposed not to speak, the websites we are not to visit, the people we are not to associate with, the pictures we should not look at - or even worse take ourselves, or have other take pictures of us in certain places?

When these types of events happen, it should send a chill down the back of every citizen (and visitor), for the very foundation of a free and open society has just been taken from us. - rw

“In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.” (“George Orwell” – Eric Arthur Blair, 1903-1950.)

The UK it seems, has joined the US in it’s authorities and government developing a collective form of acute paranoia. A mildly deviant act by any petty criminal or a soul with mental health problems is immediately labeled a potential terrorist act before investigations have even begun.

“We are fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here” was the George W. Bush mantra. Anyone with half a brain was commenting after Afghanistan and Iraq that no American or British citizen would be safe anywhere on earth after the devastation their countries had wrought on nations which posed them not the slightest threat – mass murders, some would say genocides, based on illegalities and lies.

Not only have the actions of governments given rise to retaliation in the West, but governments’ own paranoia are threatening their own citizens.

For example in the UK, on 25th July, a situation arose which Orwell surely could not have devised in his gloomiest forbodings.

Faizah Shaheen, a psychotherapist working in the National Health Service in the UK’s northern city of Leeds, returning from her honeymoon in Turkey was apprehended and interrogated by police officers at Doncaster airport, under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act, which provides for police detaining without grounds, on suspicion of involvement in criminal activities, including terrorism.

Her crime? Reading a book.

The book in question is “Syria Speaks – Art and Culture from the Frontline” (1): “Syria Speaks is a celebration of a people determined to reclaim their dignity, freedom and self-expression. It showcases the work of over fifty artists and writers who are challenging the culture of violence in Syria. Their literature, poems and songs, cartoons, political posters and photographs document and interpret the momentous changes that have shifted the frame of reality so drastically in Syria.”

“Syria Speaks”, published 2014 by Saqi Books was: “supported by the Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development; CKU, the Danish Centre for Culture and Development, English PEN Promotes!; Arts Council England, the Arab British Centre and Reel Festivals.”

Glowing reviews appeared in publications including the Times Literary Supplement, the Independent, Independent on Sunday and the New York Review of Books.

Ms Shaheen was, it seems reported to the security services for travelling whilst being a Muslim and reading a book with “Syria” on the cover, by a Thompson Airways member of staff, who had spotted her carrying the book on her outbound flight two weeks earlier.

truepublica.org.uk

Whilst Turkey has been a staging post for wannabe “moderate” head choppers travelling from the UK to Syria it is hardly likely even they would carry a book advertising the fact and anyone who would – especially such a book – simply interested in the culture of part of the “Cradle of Civilization.”

Ironically Shaheen’s work includes working with the young with mental health problems to prevent radicalization. She also has a BA (Hons) in Fine Arts. She said of the incident: “I do question if … it would be different if it was someone who wasn’t Muslim.” Quite.

Her treatment also begs another question, Syria has become the fourteenth majority Muslim country the US has bombed since 1980 – usually enjoined by the UK, so how have Muslims become the suspects and not the victims?

Glen Greenwald (2) writes: “Let’s tick them off: Iran (1980, 1987-1988), Libya (1981, 1986, 1989, 2011), Lebanon (1983), Kuwait (1991), Iraq (1991-2011, 2014-), Somalia (1992-1993, 2007-), Bosnia (1995), Saudi Arabia (1991, 1996), Afghanistan (1998, 2001-), Sudan (1998), Kosovo (1999), Yemen (2000, 2002-) Pakistan (2004-) and now Syria. Whew.”

Zaher Omareen, co-author of Syria Speaks told the Guardian: “Judging individuals and even taking measures against them based on their race, their looks, their language, or the printed words they carry is unacceptable and unjustifiable. It was enough to carry a book which includes the word ‘Syria’ in its title for its owner to be under suspicion as a potential terrorist. I would like to remind the people and the government that Syria must not be reduced to the politicised and power-constructed soundbites carrying simplistic messages of violence and horror.” (3)

On Ms Shaheen’s Facebook page, a friend wrote of the reports of the incident: “I cannot believe what I’m reading.

“Faizah is one of the most respectable people I have ever met and a genuinely amazing person. She has supported many campaigns I’ve been on and stood beside me and my friends to challenge racism, Islamaphobia, hate, detention of children and so much more.

“She was in Turkey celebrating her honeymoon when the coup attempt happened and still tried her best to enjoy her first moments with her husband.

“Now to be subjected to this bullshit  … Honestly, words now fail me.”

Faith Shaheen wrote: “The flight services need a better procedure as I am left in tears returning from my honeymoon. I will be making an official complaint as this is simply not acceptable!

“The book in question: ‘A wise, courageous, imaginative, and beautiful response to all that is ugly in human behaviour’ – The ugly human behaviour which I experienced today.” She is quoting multiple Award winning writer, A.L. Kennedy’s review of “Syria Speaks.” Kennedy concludes: “The people shown living, dreaming and speaking here are far more than victims and only silent if we refuse to hear them.”

It seems its is not not refusing to hear them that is the problem, but being allowed to hear them without being apprehended.

Will the thought police soon come banging on the door of anyone with a collection of books on the Middle East and majority Muslim countries, owning volumes of the haunting poems of Mahmud Darwish, Samih al-Qasim, Ali Ahmed Said and so many others? Or is it only Muslims who are targeted for their books and their liberty?

It was Ali Ahmed Said who wrote a requiem for the last century, “A Mirror for the Twentieth Century”:

A coffin bearing the face of a boy

A book

Written on the belly of a crow

A wild beast hidden in a flower

A rock

Breathing with the lungs of a lunatic:

This is it

This is the Twentieth Century.

It seems it is also the Twenty First Century.

It was George Orwell who wrote:

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”

  1. http://www.saqibooks.co.uk/book/syria-speaks/
  2. https://theintercept.com/2014/11/06/many-countries-islamic-world-u-s-bombed-occupied-since-1980/
  3. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/aug/04/british-woman-held-after-being-seen-reading-book-about-syria-on-plane

 

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About the author
Felicity ArbuthnotPaying the Price — Killing the Children of Iraq, which investigated the devastating effect of United Nations sanctions on people of Iraq.[1]   Ms. Arbuthnot is a dedicated pacificist, and her work proves the adage that "the pen is mightier than the sword."

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While Installing NATO Missiles, Polish Regime Crushes Dissent

pale blue horizWITNESSES TO HISTORY
CALEB MAUPIN

US Missile Defense

US Missile Defense Plan – Europe.


The US is on a march to war with Russia (and apparently China), and the ballistic missile installations are one important link in the chain. However, the preparation of the soil for war is a larger project that includes squashing the protections against state intrusions into peoples lives (as with surveillance programs) and the squashing of dissent in its various forms. In the US we have an uptick in the monitoring of the population and silencing and punishing whistleblowers. Clearly this is happening in Poland as well. If the state increases the propaganda while silencing dissent to its actions, then the likelihood of mass public dissent drops dramatically. Poland is one nation where this is happening; it certainly is not the only one. -rw

The United States and its NATO allies have recently established ballistic missile defense systems in Poland and Romania. The United States claims that these systems are set up for the purpose of protecting Romania and Poland.

However, Russian leaders interpret the systems as a threat to them because these “defense systems” are strike enabling. The new ballistic missile systems enable NATO forces in Poland and Romania to strike Russia with cruise missiles, and then deflect any response.

Russia and China raised similar objections to the missile system being established in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. In Cold War terms, these missile systems give “first strike capability” to the United States and its NATO allies in Eastern Europe.

The installation of the missiles in Poland has been quite unpopular. Naturally, the installation of the system in Poland has been accompanied by a crackdown on political forces that object to it.

Mateusz Piskorski

Mateusz Piskorski

Mateusz Piskorski, a Pan-Slavic activist and former member of the Polish parliament has been detained without specific charges. Authorities allege, without citing anything specific, that he has been engaged in espionage.

To anyone trained in criminology or the history of espionage, it should be highly obvious that Piskorski has not engaged in any illegal activity. Piskorski is a well-known political activist. He leads a small political party and runs a Pan-Slavic publishing house. As a well-known public figure, Piskorski is the last person that any intelligence agency would cooperate with. Piskorski has been detained because he is an outspoken critic of NATO and the European Union, and is loudly voicing his opposition to Polish cooperation with hostility to Russia.

Piskorski is not the only one who has been targeted by the pro-NATO government in Poland. On April 1st, the right-wing political party that runs the country passed a sweeping anti-Communist law. The law outlaws displays honoring adherents of the “Anti-Polish Communist Ideology.” The law specifically lists a number of Polish historical figures who cannot legally be honored. Among them are not only leaders of the post-war socialist regime, but also the Dabrowski Brigade of Polish volunteers who fought fascism in Spain, and any members of the Social Democratic Party of Poland and Lithuania, once led by Rosa Luxemburg. A number of anti-Nazi resistance groups, led by Communists, that operated during the Second World War are also outlawed.

On March 31st, four leaders of the Communist Party were convicted of “promoting totalitarianism.” Their crime was operating a website and printing a leftist newspaper. They were sentenced to nine months in prison with hard labor.

The “Law and Justice Party” which leads Poland is leading the crackdown on Communists, leftists, and Pan-Slavists while at the same time allowing Neo-Nazis and other fascists to operate openly. While Communists and Pan-Slavists are forced into the shadows, 400 Neo-Nazis paraded through the streets on April 13th in a public rally.

Imagine if Vladimir Putin were to crackdown on his pro-liberal, western opponents in such a way? In Putin’s Russia, the “Union of Right Forces” and other parties that embrace western ideologies operate openly. Groups promoting free market capitalism, falsifying Russian history and accusing great historical figures of genocide, openly operate all across Russian soil, and often receive western funding as they do so.

The “human rights” allegations against Russia pale in comparison to what is being openly done by the pro-NATO polish regime, as the missile systems are being erected, paving the way to World War Three.

The hypocrisy of western media and the “human rights” NGO noise machine should be very obvious.

pale blue horiz

Caleb Maupin
Screen Shot 2016-02-04 at 9.46.00 AMIs an American journalist and political analyst. Tasnim News Agency described him as "a native of Ohio who has campaigned against war and the U.S. financial system." His political activism began while attending Baldwin-Wallace College in Ohio. In 2010, he video recorded a confrontation between Collinwood High School students who walked out to protest teacher layoffs and the police. His video footage resulted in one of the students being acquitted in juvenile court. He was a figure within the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City. Maupin writes on American foreign policy and other social issues. Maupin is featured as a Distinguished Collaborator with The Greanville Post.  READ MORE ABOUT CALEB MAUPIN HERE.

Source: New Eastern Outlook

 


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Women and Children First: Homeland Security Targets “Family Units” for Deportation in May and June

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=By= Danica Jorden

immigration

Activists hold signs and family photos in Lafayette Square outside the White House March 12, 2014 in Washington, DC. The activists gathered outside the White House to protest deportations that are happening while the United States debates immigration reform. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

 

[dropcap]Af[/dropcap]ter January’s raids that tore teens from their families and plucked them off buses on their way to school, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is about to embark on a renewed quest to arrest and deport Central Americans who applied for refugee status in the United States in the summer of 2014. According to sources reported by Reuters on May 12, 2016  and confirmed by DHS a day later, the agency is sending Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents out on a second wave of raids against immigrants, this time with the specific aim of apprehending and imprisoning Central American women and their children, or “family units”, and unaccompanied minors.

An article by Julia Edwards published by Reuters on Thursday referred to internal papers that were revealed to the news agency concerning the upcoming operation.

“Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has now told field offices nationwide to launch a 30-day ‘surge’ of arrests focused on mothers and children who have already been told to leave the United States, the document seen by Reuters said. The operation would also cover minors who have entered the country without a guardian and since turned 18 years of age, the document said. Two sources confirmed the details of the plan.”[1]

Despite assurances by DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson that “we will offer vulnerable populations in Central America an alternate and legal path to safety in the United States,”[2] the impending actions seem to be anything but.

Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, released the following statement in response to the DHS announcement:

“These military-style raids against mothers and children fleeing violence are reprehensible…. The federal government’s failure to address the violent conditions that are causing women and children to flee in the first place mean that these raids are a complete and utter policy failure.”[3]

While January’s arrests were carried out in only three states (Georgia, North Carolina and Texas), the new raids will take place throughout the country. Though DHS avows it is only targeting dangerous individuals who have already been deemed deportable by a court of law, byzantine courts, nebulous immigration laws, lack of access to counsel, and pressure from bed quotas[4] and private prison corporations such as GEO and CCA are placing mostly innocent and deserving people, including children, in ICE’s crosshairs.

According to the government’s own findings, as reported by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), the agency determined that in 2015, the vast majority of asylum petitions, 88%, were found to be based on credible and reasonable fear, even including statistical juggling such as giving equal weight to a single closed case from Ethiopia. The percentage reached 100% for most countries in the second quarter of the year.[5]

The Immigration Policy Council had this to say:

“While Johnson insisted that his department is focusing both detention and deportation resources on high-risk immigrants with criminal backgrounds, the evidence suggests otherwise. A National Immigration Council report found that, ‘between 2009 and 2011, over half of all immigrant detainees had no criminal records. Of those with any criminal history, nearly 20 percent were merely for traffic offenses.’

“An Immigration Policy Council report out this week found that ICE mostly deported immigrants who posed ‘a threat to no one.’ In fact, only one in five deportees qualified for a ‘Level 1’ priority, a category that once encompassed crimes like murder and federal drug trafficking, but now has broadened out to include ‘theft, filing a false tax return, and failing to appear in court.’ Other immigrants were deported for much less.”[6]

Community activists AlertaMigratoriaNC (NC Migrant Alert)[7] have been working hard to spread the word about six teens who were arrested in January raids in North Carolina. Of the #NC6, three have already been deported, while Yefri, Pedro and Wildin languish in detention. In an unprecedented move, AlertaMigratoriaNC has published a flyer in response to the announcement about the new raids, delineating what to do if you are in a targeted group. Their message: MOVE!

“If you have a deportation order and live at the same address as when you arrived and your application began, you must move immediately as immigration will go to the address that was provided.”[8]

Even though he was in the company of his father who has immigration status, Pedro Salmerón was picked up by ICE on January 26 as the two were on their way to the father’s job site. Pedro was a 10th grader but since he had already turned 18, his family thought it best to avoid school after learning about the raids. Speaking to reporters for The Charlotte Observer[9], family members recounted how a cousin had been castrated and decapitated in El Salvador, prompting Pedro’s departure to join his mother and father in the U.S. El Salvador has the world’s highest homicide rate, and the Peace Corps cited this fact when it decided to pull out from the country this year.[10] Its violence is gang-related and young boys and girls like Pedro are its most likely victims.

But none of that swayed ICE. “My son was taken away with his hands and feet tied. We are not criminals,” Pedro’s mother says. “This has broken my heart to see him like this.”

Women and small children without deportation orders are also being treated like criminals and arrested in aggressive and inhumane fashion. A report by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights [11] centers on women and children in the Atlanta area who had not been determined to be deportable, who were in fact being processed by the courts, who had followed all the steps and attended all the appointments and were known to DHS to the extent that they were all wearing ankle monitors.

Yet they were round up by ICE agents, often in the early hours of the morning, without regard for their dignity or their basic human rights. Account after account in the report describes instances where women and small children are dragged out of bed, refused access to counsel or allowed to contact friends or family members. Children were not permitted to take any belongings or even change out of their pajamas. Inexplicably, in case after case, ICE agents used a photo of an African American man to somehow menace the women and children. From the report:

“ ‘We were treated like criminals. I don’t understand why. I had gone to my ICE supervision appointments, and even had an appointment scheduled in a few days,’ said Ana Lizeth, who is still detained in Dilley [detention center in Texas] with her son. ‘My son has been scared, and cries at night. He is not eating. … I don’t understand why we were taken in a raid, especially in that way.’ ”

With the North Carolina teens being held in Georgia, and the Atlanta arrestees sent to Texas, assistance from family, friends and lawyers is difficult. Instead of following their professed dictate to deport serious criminals, the Obama administration, through DHS and ICE, has decided to focus their efforts on the most vulnerable, putting women and children indeed first.

Danica Jorden is a writer and translator of Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and other languages. danica.jorden1(at)gmail(dot)com

[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-deportation-exclusive-idUSKCN0Y32J1
[2] https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-border-unaccompanied-children/fy-2016
[3] https://www.nilc.org/2016/05/12/7777/
[4] http://www.immigrantjustice.org/eliminate-detention-bed-quota
[5] https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Outreach/PED-CF-RF-familiy-facilities-FY2015Q2.pdf
[6] http://immigrationforum.org/blog/themathofimmigrationdetention/
[7] https://www.facebook.com/Alerta-Migratoria-NC-1105654329444645/?fref=nf
[8] https://www.facebook.com/1105654329444645/photos/pb.1105654329444645.-2207520000.1463279870./1190148244328586/?type=3&theater
[9] http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article65538837.html
[10] http://www.peacecorps.gov/media/forpress/press/2618/
[11] https://www.splcenter.org/20160128/families-fear-atlanta-immigration-raids

 


Source: Znet

 

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