May 2012
“My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state,...”
– Noam Chomsky (via noam-chomsky)
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The Authoritarian Mind →
(1) I have absolutely no idea who my government is continuously bombing to death by drone, but I assume they deserve it;
(2) when my government extinguishes the lives of entire families, including small children, as it often does, I know it’s all for a just and important cause even if I can’t identify it; and,
(3) we have to stop the Terrorists, because they keep killing innocent civilians.
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“DiMaggio analyses the nature of the organisation of the Tea Party, the source of...”
– The Rise Of The Tea Party: Political Discontent & Corporate Media in the Age of Obama
Financial support for the Tea Party has been substantial. The average amount contributed to the campaign of candidates for the House of Representatives in 2010 was $805,583, and for candidates to the Senate,...
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Ghalioun: we have failed Syrian people →
Speaking to AFP after the main opposition Syrian National Council accepted his resignation as leader, Burhan Ghalioun said the chasm in its ranks between Islamist and secularists had let down the Syrian people and played into Assad’s hands.
“We were not up to the sacrifices of the Syrian people. We did not answer the needs of the revolution enough and quickly enough,” Ghalioun said.
“I...
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30 North Korean officials involved in talks with... →
anticapitalist:
Thirty officials of the North Korean regime who were involved in talks with South Korea have been executed or died in “staged traffic accidents,” according to a human rights report.
In its annual study, Amnesty International claimed that in addition to the 30 who died in purges last year, a further 200 were rounded up in January this year by the State Security Agency as...
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Afghan officials: NATO air strike kills six... →
fariyahsn:arielnietzsche:
A NATO air strike killed a family of eight, including six children, when it hit their home in eastern Afghanistan, local officials said on Sunday.
Saturday night’s incident in Paktia province threatens to further sour already shaky ties between President Hamid Karzai and his Western backers and will likely enrage Afghan civilians weary of years of bloodshed.
“Eight...
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“Since 1989 the characteristic form of revolution in the modern world has been...”
– John Rees on democracy and the age of mass movements
[There] has been very little thought given to what it means to operate in a period of widespread political radicalisation which does not have industrial militancy as its most significant form of expression. Neither has there been much thought...
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“It’s ironic that the same public that is so ready to believe all manner of wild...”
– Dave Lindorff
Planting Evidence to Sow Fear: Chicago Cops are... →
It seems pretty clear by now that the three young “domestic terrorists” arrested by Chicago police in a warrantless house invasion reminiscent of what US military forces are doing on a daily basis in Afghanistan, are the victims of planted evidence — part of the police-state-style crackdown on anti-NATO protesters in Chicago last week.
The Chicago Police clearly realized that it would be...
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John Rees on democracy and the age of mass... →
Why has democracy become such a trenchant demand amongst new movements and how should the left understand and relate to this impulse?
The demand arises because neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism must necessarily strip out even those limited elements of democratic control (as well as welfare provision and trade union rights) that were granted in the long post war boom. The Arab revolutions...
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John Rees on democracy and the age of mass... →
On what Rees refers to as the “Age of Mass Movements”.
The key determinants of this phase of struggle are as follows:
Firstly, the anger generated over decades by the failure of neo-liberal economics as instituted since the late 1970s when the welfare state consensus of the long post war boom was abandoned by the political elites.
Secondly, the new phase of imperialist conflict...
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The Assassination Czar’s War Crimes Dodge:... →
Now that John Brennan is in charge of selecting which patterns of behavior we should target with drones, it ought to be easy to charge him with war crimes. The at least eight civilians we killed in Jaar a number of weeks after Brennan seized control of targeting? John Brennan killed them, presumably based not on intelligence about who they were and what ties to AQAP they had, but because they...
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“What you did was noble, and now sleep on the sidewalk.”
– Loving the Warrior, Hating the Wars: Our Memorial Daze | Charles P. Pierce
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Messing With Our Minds: The Ever Finer Line... →
In terms of mainstream news reporting, it is always important to check the source when reading a news item; that is, is it from an independent source or is it, “according to a government source,” etcetera. The mainstream media is largely fed via global news services, the two largest being Reuters (now Thomson Reuters) and Associated Press. This again constitutes a centralization of news...
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US cuts aid to Pakistan for jailing doctor who... →
WASHINGTON: Outraged over the conviction of a Pakistani doctor who helped CIA find Osama bin Laden, a US Senate panel has voted unanimously to cut aid to Islamabad by USD 33 million, which in effect means USD 1 million for every year of the physician’s 33-year sentence for high treason.
The unanimous vote on Thursday by the Senate Appropriations committee on the amendment, moved by Senator...
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“Security forces are busily militarizing the urban terrain. Olympics security...”
– Protest Is Coming to the London Olympics
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Messing With Our Minds: The Ever Finer Line... →
Today’s media, which includes the dominant presence of advertising, extensively uses the notion of “attractors” and “attractor patterns” to target audience consciousness. This type of symbol manipulation is often referred to in the business as neuromarketing. Mainstream media corporations are using the huge growth in global communications to further shape their science of targeting human...
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“[The] general mood of the protesters has not changed; they have become more...”
– Québec’s Student Strike Turning Into a Citizen’s Revolt
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Romney Messes Up, Tells the Truth About Austerity... →
Mitt Romney has periodic breakdowns when asked questions about the economy because he sometimes forgets the need to lie. He forgets that he is supposed to treat austerity as the epitome of economic wisdom. When he responds quickly to questions about austerity he slips into default mode and speaks the truth — adopting austerity during the recovery from a Great Recession would (as in Europe) throw...
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“Modern societies are set up to accommodate both individualism and the mass...”
– Kingsley Dennis
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“Other methods of blatant propaganda include governing bodies using what can be...”
– Messing With Our Minds: The Ever Finer Line Between News and Advertising
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Chicago police union to City Hall: Where’s NATO... →
Beating the shit out of protesters for time-and-a-half. What a sorry society we live in.
So much for the warm glow of appreciation [??] that has enveloped Chicago police officers since their performance during the NATO Summit.
The Fraternal Order of Police has filed its fourth grievance tied to the summit, this one stemming from the city’s apparent decision not to compensate officers for...
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Messing With Our Minds: The Ever Finer Line... →
Modern programs of social influence could not exist without the mass media. Today it exists as a combination of expertise and knowledge from technology, sociology, social behaviorism, psychology, communications and other scientific techniques. Almost every nation needs a controlled mainstream media if it is to regulate and influence its citizenry. By way of the mainstream media, a controlling...
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“[A] dollar spent on the military is ‘different’: it’s less valuable...”
– Stumping For Romney, Bolton Calls For More Military Spending At The Expense Of Health Care
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The Occupy Movement and the Politics of Educated... →
“To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair inevitable.” - Raymond Williams
American society has lost its claim on democracy. One indication of such a loss is that the crises produced on a daily basis by crony capitalism operate within a discourse of denial. Rather than address the ever proliferating crises produced by market fundamentalism as an opportunity to understand...
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Climate researchers warn global warming could... →
sinidentidades:
Climate researchers said Thursday the planet could warm by more than 3.5 degrees Celsius (6.3 degrees Fahrenheit), boosting the risk of drought, flood and rising seas.
The UN’s target is a 2 C (3.6 degree Fahrenheit) limit on warming from pre-industrial levels for manageable climate change.
In a report issued on the penultimate day of new UN talks in Bonn, scientists said...
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“[As] corporate power and finance capital gain ascendancy over society, the...”
– Henry A. Giroux
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Romney's Regressivism
robertreich:
Fine to nail Romney with Bain Capitalism. But let’s not forget Romney’s budget proposal, which mimics Paul Ryan’s. Take a moment to make yourself aware of both, because they’re eye-opening and scary.
Both would restore the military budget, slash Medicare (turning it into vouchers that shift costs to the elderly) and Medicaid (turning it over to the states but without enough money...
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Third Case Against Occupy Wall Street Protester... →
The Occupy Wall Street movement has been quietly racking up legal victories in court with the third case in a row being thrown out by a judge Wednesday due to an “insufficient” summons.
Occupy’s “freedom fairy,” Marni Halasa was ticketed by the NYPD for “impeding pedestrian traffic” during a protest at Zuccotti Park back in March.
New York Daily News:
“It’s absolutely ridiculous that I was...
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Suicide attack kills 12 in east Yemen →
And:
Yemen Al Qaeda Attack: 35 Militants Killed Days After Deadly Bomb In Sanaa
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“The choice in November may not be, in the immortal words of the Rev Jesse...”
– Sadly Barack Obama, like Mitt Romney, is an apologist for the 1% (via pieceinthepuzzlehumanity)
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FBI forming “Communications Assistance Center” to... →
Only weeks after requesting backdoor access to popular sitessuch as Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, the FBI is in the news again. Now the organization appears to be staffing the elite unit that will create the technologies to tap into Americans’ communications on social networks.
CNet broke the story today, revealing that the unit has now been created. According to the story, the new division...
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“Please consider supporting the Heartland Institute. These conferences are...”
– Heartland Institute CEO Joseph Bast, admits he sucks, kills off future climate change denial conferences
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Constitutional Rights Attorneys, Media Challenge... →
May 24, 2012, New York – Today, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed a petition requesting the Army Court of Criminal Appeals to order the Judge in the court martial of alleged Wikileaks leaker Private Bradley Manning to grant the public and press access to the government’s motion papers, the court’s own orders, and transcripts of proceedings, none of which have been made public to...
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Iraq Discovers First Offshore Oilfield | MEES →
The Iraqi oil spokesman ‘Asim Jihad , announced Wednesday the discovery of the first Iraqi offshore oilfield in Iraqi territorial waters, adding in an interview with Aswat al-Iraq that the site will be offered for development in a future bid round. However, the site, Block 18, is surrounded with mines that need to be cleared before development can take place, he said.
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JPMorgan Gave Risk Oversight to Museum Head Who... →
“JPMorgan, with $1.13 trillion of deposits, is the only one of the six largest U.S. lenders that doesn’t have a former banker, regulator or finance professor on its risk committee.”
The three directors who oversee risk at JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) include a museum head who sat on American International Group Inc.’s governance committee in 2008, the grandson of a billionaire and...
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