zaterdag 21 februari 2015

Charlie Hebdo 47

Charlie Hebdo: When Freedom of Speech Isn't

Paramount

Tuesday, 17 February 2015 00:00 By Niall McLaren, Truthout | Op-Ed

Before people start leaping to the ramparts, shouting "Freedom of speech is paramount" or "Devotion must prevail," let's start with some very general statements about societies and work toward the specifics to see if we can gain a clearer picture. (Photo: Valentina Calà)

The concept of a civil society depends on far more than simply unrestrained freedom of speech.

Now that Dominic Strauss-Kahn's sordid adventures have replaced the attack on Charlie Hebdo in the headlines; now that the millions of supporters of freedom of speech have gone home, including such liberals as the King of Jordan, the Turkish president and the prime minister of Israel, it is perhaps time to examine the broader social context of this tragic event.

I appreciate that many people feel the headlines said it all, that brutality does not require analysis, and that more war, more police and fewer civil rights will prevent any further attacks. However, I believe that would miss some critically important points.

1. We are social animals living in an increasingly crowded world in which the limited necessities of life are inequitably distributed. An ordered society depends on all citizens adhering to certain standard rules. Without such basic agreement, human society cannot exist.

2. It used to be that a society's fundamental rules were directed at stability, even at the cost of condemning the majority of its members to miserable lives, but now we want broader, more liberal sets of rules so that people gain some degree of fulfillment from their lives.

3. The only authority for these rules is human; they come from, are justified by and enforced by humans. All rules are matters of opinion, not of fact. As long as there are humans with opinions, there will be humans with differences of opinions. Claims such as "Freedom of speech trumps all" or "Religion is beyond criticism" are just opinions. Arguing over matters of opinion is pointless: There's no accounting for taste.

4. To avoid constant dispute, it is necessary for human groups to agree upon methods of settling differences of opinion. I accept there are people like Adolf Hitler and Dick Cheney who believe there is room for only one set of opinions, theirs, and they have the weapons to prove it. Nonetheless, the great majority of people do not accept that we can build a civil society on the notion of Macht hat Recht, that might is right.

5. Humans have a strong, innate sense of fairness. This competes (often unsuccessfully) with other innate drives, such as territorialism, the urge to form dominance hierarchies, the thrill of aggression, the pleasure of sex, etc. Rationally balancing these drives sometimes requires diligent and self-denying effort. As Edgar Doctorow said: "After all, why compose fiction when you could be devoting your life to your appetites? Why wrestle with a book when you could be amassing a fortune? Why write when you could be shooting someone?"

6. All societies depend on their members accepting restraints on their behavior. If we wish to live meaningfully in a group, we can't always do what we like. We agree to limit our behavior even though there is constant debate over where those limits should be drawn. To at least some extent, rules must be defined and then obeyed, otherwise society will collapse: "Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right to do what we ought." (Lord Acton).

7. As a matter of psychology, humans have beliefs, some of which serve to define their self-perception. These are known as core beliefs; empirically, assailing a person's core beliefs results in intense distress. Prolonged intense distress is unendurable, but people react to it in different ways. Some cry; some drink; some run away; some abandon their beliefs and identify with the aggressor and some retaliate. The concept of a civil society says that submitting people to intense distress for no particular reason is unacceptable.

8. Most people take their religion very seriously because religious beliefs lie close to core of the individual's self-perception. Part of the concept of taking an idea seriously is reacting negatively when those ideas are repeatedly assailed, especially for no good reason. Most people agree that taking one's religion seriously is virtuous. Most believers want nonbelievers to treat their beliefs with a degree of respect.

9. Many people also agree that, as a matter of fairness, affording your neighbor's religious beliefs and practices a degree of respect is part of the concept of living in an ordered society that offers individuals the best chance of self-actualization.

10. Part of the concept of an enlightened rule-governed, ordered society is the notion that the powerful should not regard the weak simply as a resource to be abused or plundered. Responsible citizens understand the notion that repeatedly assailing your neighbor's core beliefs for no good purpose is likely to destabilize the society in a manner which will not benefit individuals or the larger society. The victims of such attacks are those least able to protect themselves; the strong always protect their own core beliefs.

11. The strong may despise the weak (consider Mitt Romney's "47 percent"), but the concept of a stable society requires that the core beliefs of the weak be afforded something approaching respect. It is a two-way process because that's what society means: We all agree to abide by a common set of rules. If the strong continue to assail the weak, then there will come a point at which the weak react; the society will be overturned and many will suffer.

12. Pure self-interest aside, it is virtuous for the strong to avoid assailing the religious and other core beliefs of the weak. By virtuous, I mean that because of the asymmetry of power in their relationship, there are certain things that the strong ought to do, and others they ought not to do. For example, if I find a lost kitten, I ought to care for it while I make arrangements for its welfare. I ought not to dip it in petrol then set fire to it for a laugh, just because that is bad. If, however, we have an innate drive to virtue, it is weak; in general, we are better at recognizing lack of virtue directed at ourselves than we are at acting virtuously toward others.

13. There is no truly rational society. Every rule we make involves compromise, conciliation, agreement to disagree, a delicate balancing of one sectoral interest against another - in a word, politics. When balancing opposing opinions, the question will always be: Where do we draw the line? There is no formula to tell us. We have to use common sense and a sense of fair play.

14. The overwhelming Western reaction to the Charlie Hebdo murders was that freedom of expression is sacrosanct, that it always overrides opinions such as the right to protect one's core beliefs. However, that is an extremist position. Freedom of expression always comes with conditions, qualifications, hedges and fudges. We are all familiar with the argument that one is not free to run into a crowded theater and shout "Fire." Individuals need to be protected; in particular, the weak need to be protected against the strong because that is what the civil in civil society means.

15. Is there a moral case to restrict freedom of political expression? This is an incredibly complex issue involving a delicate balance of individual and social rights and obligations. I believe there is a strong case for a civil society to have laws against slander, calumny and willful offense because without them, the society won't last. The "cartoons" that provoked so much trouble in France and earlier in Denmark cannot be published in this country, and I don't believe my life is any the worse for it.

16. After January 7, is it possible to say the editors of Charlie Hebdo were advancing an important social debate, albeit by unconventional means, or were they acting as irresponsibly as the man shouting "Fire"? Were they just immature people making fun of others for selfish reasons and wallowing in the self-generated publicity? Or were their motives more sinister, profiting from using their position of strength to assail disempowered people by attacking their core beliefs, hiding behind the power of the state they affected to despise, all the while knowing there was nothing their targets could do to respond? Was, indeed, Charlie Hebdo just another face of the capitalist monster, determined to smash any and all potential sources of authority that might get in its way of devouring the defenseless?

17. It avails Hebdo's many defenders naught to say the editors were not part of the power structure. But go to the banlieues and ask the unemployed, under-educated and dispossessed Muslim youths who held the power in their "relationship" with the editors. Ask whether they were ever offered the right of reply. It is a fact of life that educated, socially sophisticated, middle-aged, upper-middle class white males, like myself, have power; we must take responsibility for how we manage that power. The concept of a civil society demands that asymmetrical levels of power be balanced by asymmetrical levels of responsibility.

18. Charlie Hebdo points to the endless moral dilemma of the "reasonable man": How does a reasonable person deal with unreasonable people without resorting to their methods? The victim of repeated religious abuse is forced either to pretend it didn't happen, thereby failing his religious and personal duty and having to live with that failure, or to try to do something about it, thereby hoping to retrieve his sense of self-worth. But what can he do? By definition, the social power structures in a hierarchical society are tipped against him: That's what hierarchy means.

19. It behooves all of us to examine our daily actions in terms of power structures. Educated and sophisticated people should not use their asymmetrical power to attack and humiliate the dispossessed. I do not believe that repeated, carefully directed, violent attacks upon the core beliefs of a dispossessed minority will benefit anybody. It is certainly not virtuous. While I don't believe the violence of the retaliatory attacks was justified, given the circumstances, it was about as unexpected as tomorrow's sunrise. And, as I have warned before (here and here), if we keep up the vitriol, there will be more attacks. Extremism breeds extremism.

20. The deceased editorial director of Charlie Hebdo, Stéphane Charbonnier, believed with fanatical (extremist religious) intensity in publishing anything and everything he fancied. He had the power to put his belief into practice and the means: When one journal was forced to close, he had the contacts to start another. He had been warned and warned about his provocative behavior, even from the prime minister's office. Invariably, his response was to publish more and more offensive material, on the basis that he would "rather die on his feet than live on his knees."

21. His many millions of supporters around the world, apparently including a considerable number of repressive and/or tyrannical governments, should not complain if a couple of orphaned, unemployed Muslim men with few prospects in life felt the same way.

NIALL MCLAREN

Niall McLaren is an Australian psychiatrist, author and critic, although not necessarily in that order.

U.S. War Fever

Drums Along The Potomac: How This Country Never Learns Anything

The country seems to be sliding down some very familiar tracks into a military engagement in the Middle East.

Quite frankly, this has been one of the more depressing weeks we have seen in a very long time. The country seems to be sliding down some very familiar tracks into a military engagement in the Middle East -- an engagement that, at the moment, seems to be cloudy in its objectives, vague in its outlines, and obscure on the simple fact of what we are supposedly fighting for, and who we will be fighting with. Can we fight the Islamic State generally without help from (gasp!) Iran? Can we fight the Islamic State in Syria without a de facto alliance with Hafez al-Assad, who was Hitler only a year or so ago? And the most recent polling seems to indicate that all the institutions that are supposed to act as a brake on war powers within a self-governing republic are working in reverse again. The Congress is going to debate how much leeway it should give the president to make war, not whether he should be allowed to do it at all. The elite media, having scared Americans to death by giving the barbarians and their slaughter porn the international platform the barbarians so desired, is jumping on board with both feet. (To cite only one example, Chris Matthews is suiting up again.) The country has been prepared to give its children up again. At the very least, public opinion on what we should do is a muddle, which means that any plan that looks "bold" likely will carry the country with it, unintended consequences be damned.With the intelligence all pointing toward bin Laden, Rumsfeld ordered the military to begin working on strike plans.

Amid more executions by the militant group ISIS, Americans increasingly see the group as a threat to the U.S. Now, 65 percent of Americans view ISIS as a major threat - up from 58 percent in October - while another 18 percent view it as a minor threat. Majorities of Republicans (86 percent), Democrats (61 percent) and independents (57 percent) view ISIS as a major threat. Support for sending U.S. ground troops to fight ISIS has risen among all partisans, but particularly among Democrats and independents. Back in October, 56 percent of Democrats and 49 percent of independents disapproved of using ground troops - now 50 percent of Democrats approve and 53 percent of independents favor using ground troops.

You can see the logical canyon, can you not? The Islamic State is no more an actual threat to the United States than it was in October. But there have been more garish executions and more events elsewhere, so the perceived threat -- real or not -- has begun to work its dark magic on the national imagination, the way that aluminum tubes and mushroom clouds once did. The more bellicose of our leaders are openly shilling for a general engagement on the ground; the inevitable John McCain inevitably has called for a "mere" 10,000 ground troops, and he wants those troops to help fight against both the Islamic State and Assad. Because...do something!

You develop a strategy and elements of the strategy are American boots on the ground and not the 82nd Airborne, the president keeps setting up these straw man saying we want to send in masses of American troops, we don't, but we need to have American..air controllers, special forces, many others. I'm talking about about ten thousand in Iraq. Then we need to say our objective is to eliminate Bashar Assad as well as ISIS in Syria and we recruit a other Arab nations with Americans but not too many to fight against ISIS and Bashar Assad in Syria and coordinate those movements with air power guided by air controllers.

WE RECOMMEND

Out On The Weekend

So the mission already is creeping; hell, Congressman Ed Royce, who only chairs the House Foreign Relations Committee, wants the proposed authorization for the use of military force to include Iran. And god only knows what happens if the Islamic State grabs a couple of those 10,000 American ground troops and uses them for another snuff film.

The mission already is creeping. I wonder if anyone else notices how similar Royce's request is in spirit to that contained in the famous notes taken by Donald Rumsfeld in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks: "And at 2:40 p.m., the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying he wanted "best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H." - meaning Saddam Hussein - "at same time. Not only UBL" - the initials used to identify Osama bin Laden. Now, nearly one year later, there is still very little evidence Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. But if these notes are accurate, that didn't matter to Rumsfeld. "Go massive," the notes quote him as saying. "Sweep it all up. Things related and not." The mission already is creeping.

The more bellicose -- and the more desperate -- of our presidential aspirants also are openly shilling for a general engagement; Marco Rubio says that, if we'd only listened to Marco Rubio, we wouldn't be in this mess today, and how we simply cannot have a rookie like Jeb (!) Bush learning foreign policy on the job.

The Florida Republican senator, who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, is beginning an aggressive effort to sell voters on his judgment and foresight on matters like Syria, Iran, Libya, Russia and Ukraine, making the case there should be no doubt he has the wherewithal to lead the country at a time of war. It's a necessary push for a first-term senator and potential presidential hopeful who is trying to convince GOP voters that he isn't a policy lightweight lacking executive experience, but rather a deep thinker who is fully engaged in complex foreign affairs and can manage the country's sprawling national security apparatus...As you look around the world," Rubio said at the time, "you start to see the need for American leadership."

Leadership! Deep thinking.

The mission already is creeping. I wonder if anyone else notices how similar Rubio's vainglory is in spirit to all those members of Congress, young and old and of both parties, who voted as though they believed all those neocon fairy tales about how the wildfire of democracy would spread throughout the region if only the United States would "lead" by overthrowing Saddam Hussein, thereby sweeping it all up. And I wonder if anyone else notices how similar it is in spirit to the position taken by presidentially ambitious Democratic politicians, like the last two Secretaries of State, one of whom was the party's nominee in 2004 and the other of whom is the odds-on favorite to be the party's nominee next year, who didn't want to be left behind by the glory train when it rolled through Baghdad. The mission already is creeping.

There is only one difference that I can see, and that is the guy in the White House. The president wants his AUMF to face the regional threat, it is true. But he wants a limitred one, and he has been consistently against a general engagement. He has been resolute against the rising and distasteful call for an authentic "clash of civilizations" motive for American action. (So, to be fair, was the last guy. It perhaps was the only thing he did right.) The pressure for him to do so is growing overwhelming; Rudy Giuliani is only the most garish member of the rising chorus. He has stood firm on the nonsensical "controversy" about what he should call the activities of the Islamic State.

But it may not be enough. The next presidential election is gearing up, and what is going on in the Middle East has changed the dynamic of that race utterly. People may be running for president with American troops in harm's way, whether the engagement there is general or not. The opinion of the country has been manufactured again to demand a war with no clear goals and no clear endpoint. Voices of reason and moderation -- Hi, Marie Harf! -- are being shouted down by conservatives and only tepidly supported by liberals. Nearly 100 years ago, rising in the Senate to oppose the entry of the United States into World War I, Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin called the bluff of every hawk who ever called for a blind punch at a designated enemy.

We should not seek to hide our blunder behind the smoke of battle to inflame the mind of our people by half truths into the frenzy of war in order that they may never appreciate the real cause of it until it is too late. I do not believe that our national honor is served by such a course. The right way is the honorable way.

The ground already is prepared, the soil tilled. The mission already is creeping.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a33248/drums-along-the-potomac-how-this-country-never-learns-anything/

Oekraïne 96

WEEKEND EDITION FEBRUARY 20-22, 2015

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We Stand on Firm Ground

There Goes the Guardian, Lying About Ukraine…Again!

by ERIC DRAITSER

The western media is busily trying to prop up their failed narrative of “Russian aggression” in Ukraine in a desperate attempt to legitimize their consciously deceitful reporting. To do so, they are now relying not on experts or western intelligence reports, but a discredited blogger and his corporate media chums.

On February 17, 2015, The Guardian ran a story with the headline “Russia shelled Ukrainians from within its own territory, says study.”The title alone is enough to convince many casual observers that yes, the mainstream media reporting on the civil war in Ukraine has been correct all along. You see, it’s all because of Russian aggression, or so the meme would go. But closer analysis of this story, and the key players involved, should cause any reasonably intelligent and logical person to seriously doubt the veracity of nearly every aspect of the story.

Let’s begin first with the headline and subhead which, as anyone in media knows, is often all that will be read by many readers. The headline leads with a conclusion: Russia shelled Ukraine from within Russian territory. Simple. Clear. Why bother reading further? Well, in reality, the article both overtly and tacitly admits that the so called “study” (more on that later) has not reached that clear conclusion, not even close. Here are some key phrases sprinkled throughout the piece that should give pause to any serious-minded political observer or analyst.

Despite the declaration in the headline, a close reader encounters phrases such as “near conclusive proof,” “estimated trajectories,” “likely firing positions,” and other ambiguous phrases that are more suggestive than they are declarative. In other words, these are mere rhetorical flourishes designed to lead casual, uninformed readers to make conclusions that are simply not backed up by the evidence.

The so called study relied heavily on “crater patterns from satellite photos of three battlefields,” and it is from these crater patterns, and the equally dubious “tyre tracks” that the authors of the study drew their conclusions. However, even the independent military forensics expert contacted by The Guardian “warned that the accuracy of crater analysis in determining direction of fire on the basis of satellite photography was scientifically unproven.”

Indeed, conveniently buried at the end of the long article is the key quote from Stephen Johnson, a weapons expert at the Cranfield Forensic Institute, part of the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom who said quite clearly that crater analysis is “highly experimental and prone to inaccuracy.” Mr. Johnson added that “This does not mean there is no value to the method, but that any results must be considered with caution and require corroboration.”

Wait a second. I thought that our dear expert authors of the study had “near conclusive proof” according to the lead paragraphs of the story. When you actually read what the real expert, as opposed to the non-experts who conducted the “study,” has to say, it immediately casts a long shadow of doubt on the entire narrative being propagated by the article. Is The Guardian here guilty of clear manipulation of the story for political purposes? It would seem at best unprofessional and dishonest reporting, at worst it’s outright lying in the service of the agenda of those at the top of the western political establishment.

Now of course we know that The Guardian has repeatedly been taken to task by highly respected journalists and analysts for its biased and one-sided reporting of issues ranging from its coverage of Russian President Putin and Russia’s actions in Crimea, to its shamefully biased (here, here and here for three of the many examples) coverage of Israel-Palestine conflict, and a number of other important issues.

Perhaps most germane to this discussion is The Guardian’s own reporting last summer, which it references in this article, of Russian military vehicles crossing the border into Ukraine – a significant charge that would be taken seriously if there were one shred of tangible proof. But alas there isn’t. There is only the word of The Guardian’s reporter Shaun Walker, who conveniently could not get a photograph or video of the alleged military vehicles crossing into Ukraine. One would think with mobile phones all equipped with cameras and the vast resources of a major western media outlet, not to mention the seemingly all-encompassing global surveillance architecture at the disposal of western governments, at least some credible, verifiable evidence would have emerged. But no, we just have to take the Guardian’s word for it.

There’s a lot of that going around when it comes to Ukraine. We just have to “take their word for it,” as we were supposed to with regard to the charges of Russian military shooting down MH17, a baseless charge that has since disappeared from the headlines, with the actual results of the investigation being buried or suppressed entirely.

Not only should The Guardian’s reporting be scrutinized, but so too should their darling “expert” blogger Eliot Higgins, aka Brown Moses, the author of this inconclusive “conclusive report.”

Fifty Shades of Brown

Aside from the deceptive language and misleading statements, there is a broader issue that must be addressed, namely the reliability of the source of this so called study. Perhaps first we should dispense with the use of the term “study” as that would imply experts using objective facts, data, etc. Rather, what we are dealing with is a politically motivated report by a source that has already been discredited numerous times.

The report comes from an organization called Bellingcat, purportedly an independent citizen journalism platform that uses social media and other open source information to draw conclusions about everything from military hardware movements to the firing of missiles and artillery. Of course it should immediately raise questions that The Guardian’s article is co-authored by one Eliot Higgins, a self-proclaimed “military expert” who founded the “Brown Moses” blog. Why is this important? Because Bellingcat is a creation of the same Eliot Higgins. Indeed, Bellingcat’s Kickstarter page made no secret of the fact that “Bellingcat is a website founded by Brown Moses…the pseudonym for Eliot Higgins, a laid-off government worker turned blogger turned weapons analysis expert and leading source of information on the conflict in Syria.”

A close look at some of the blurbs noted on the Kickstarter page reveals that this “independent blogger” has been touted by The Guardian, Deutsche Welle, UK’s Channel 4, The Daily Beast, and many other corporate media outlets. Anyone with an understanding of how hard it is to actually be an independent analyst knows that such establishment outlets do not simply promote independent media that provides thoughtful analysis. Rather, Brown Moses and Bellingcat have been seized upon as a convenient foil to true alternative media, spinning the establishment narrative under the guise of “independent reporting.” However, let us not simply deride this obvious sham. Let us evaluate Brown Moses’ own record, which for an “expert” is dismal.

Higgins aka Brown Moses aka BM claimed to have proven that the chemical weapons attack on Ghouta, Syria on August 21, 2013 could only have been carried out by the Syrian military and government. His claims are based on his own “expert” analysis of missile trajectories and other “evidence” he claims to have obtained through videos and other open source information. Of course, in making this claim, Higgins places himself in direct opposition to former UN weapons inspector Richard Lloyd and Prof. Theodore Postel of MIT, the authors of an actual reportfrom the MIT Science, Technology, and Global Security Working Group entitled “Possible Implications of Faulty US Technical Intelligence in the Damascus Nerve Agent Attack of August 21, 2013.” The report, conducted by real experts, not armchair bloggers, concluded that the Syrian government could not have carried out the attack, and that such intelligence was nearly used as justification for yet another aggressive war.

Also debunking BM’s spurious charges is the report from Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh which revealed the existence of a classified US Defense Intelligence Agency briefing which noted unequivocally that the Al Nusra Front had its own chemical weapons, not to mention deep ties to Saudi and Turkish intelligence and chemical arms suppliers. Hersh’s reporting finally firmly established the fact that the rebels were indeed capable of carrying out the attack on East Ghouta, and that they had help from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and possibly other regional actors. And so, not only did they have the motive (to blame Assad for using chemical weapons while international investigators were in Syria, thereby justifying a military intervention and regime change), but also the means and opportunity. This is an essential point because the entire ‘case’ against Assad relied on the fact that only Damascus was technologically and logistically capable of carrying out such an attack.

But BM contended that he was right, Hersh, Lloyd, and Postel were wrong, and that the narrative should reflect that. So, on the one hand we have a blogger with no formal training in ballistics, physics, or any relevant scientific or military field, and on the other we have a Pulitzer Prize winner with decades of experience and high-level contacts and sources all over the world. We have the word of some guy in an apartment in the UK, or the scientifically arrived at findings of a former chemical weapons inspector (read actual expert) and an internationally respected Professor of Science, Technology, and National Security Policy at MIT, a world renowned academic and research institution. And which do you think The Guardian chose to promote?

But BM’s noxious odor also pervades the reporting on the downing of MH 17, yet another story that The Guardian utterly distorted, before mostly dropping it from the headlines when the western narrative was discredited. In an August 2, 2014 article written by Higgins entitled “MH17 Missiles Can’t Hide From These Internet Sleuths,” Higgins claims to have concluded that Russia or the anti-Kiev rebels must have shot down the plane with a Buk missile launcher – a weapons system also in the possession of Kiev’s military. What is his evidence? It’s a series of photographs published in various media outlets that he cannot corroborate in any way. Instead, this “sleuth” is making his case based on faith – faith that the photographs were taken where and when they claim to have been, and show what they claim to show.

Of course, it has since been publicly acknowledged on more than one occasion that photographs purporting to show Russian military incursions into Ukraine have been fabricated and/or misrepresentedcausing tremendous embarrassment for US and European governments that have repeatedly claimed to have such evidence. But our dear BM is unfazed by such revelations. Instead, he seems to simply shriek louder. Rather than leaving analysis of MH 17 to aviation and military experts, he peddles his “opinion.” Rather than acknowledging the bias in his own reporting, to say nothing of the limitations of armchair technical analysis, he continues to grow his image, and with it, the lies, omissions, and distortions he propagates.

And so we return to the new “study” by Higgins and his Bellingcat group of “digital detectives.” They are obviously front-and-center in the western media because their conclusions are aligned with the US-NATO political agenda. They are a de facto arm of the western corporate media and military-industrial complex, providing the veneer of “independent analysis” in order to penetrate the blogosphere and social media platforms where the mainstream narrative is being questioned, scrutinized, and discredited. Bellingcat and Higgins’ names should be known to everyone, but not because their analysis is worthwhile. Rather, they need to become household names so that those who understand how western propaganda and soft power actually works, will be on the lookout for more of their disinformation.

Perhaps The Guardian should also be more careful in how it presents its information. By promoting Higgins and his discredited outfit, they are once again promoting disinformation for the purposes of selling war. The US almost went to war with Syria (which it is doing now anyway) based on the flawed intelligence and “analysis” of people like Higgins. Naturally, everyone remembers how The Guardian, like all of its corporate media brethren, helped to sell the Iraq War based on complete lies. Have they learned nothing? It would seem so.

But those interested in peace and truth, we have learned something about propaganda and lies used to sell war. We who have called out these lies repeatedly – from Iraq in 2003, to Syria and Ukraine today – we once again repudiate the false narrative and the drumbeat for war. We reject the corporate media propagandists and their “alternative media” appendages. We stand for peace. And unlike The Guardian and Higgins, we stand on firm ground.

Eric Draitser is the founder of StopImperialism.org. He is an independent geopolitical analyst based in New York City. You can reach him at ericdraitser@gmail.com.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/20/the-guardian-lying-about-ukraine-again/

Hofland Pedanterie

Sonja heeft een nieuwe reactie op je bericht "Henk Hofland en de Massa 6" achtergelaten:

"De terreur van de jihadisten heeft bij wijze van spreken de oorlog bij ons thuis gebracht. En de overheid reageert daarop met versterking van alle veiligheidsdiensten. Dat is in feite de mobilisatie waarmee we nu al jaren in toenemende mate bezig zijn en die de instemming van het publiek heeft, overal in het Westen."
http://www.groene.nl/artikel/een-smeulende-oorlog

Is dat zo? Voor wie spreekt Hofland eigenlijk?

No To Netanyahu

Tikkun to heal, repair and transform the world

A note from Rabbi Michael Lerner

Join or Donate Now!

Dear Stan,

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is coming to the US March 3rd to speak to a joint session of the US Congress to popularize the idea that the U.S. should essentially make impossible Obama's efforts to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran, hence putting the U.S. and Israel on path toward war with Iran.
We are taking a full-page ad in the NY Times, if we get enough people to donate to make it happen. We need YOU, Stan, to sign the ad at tikkun.org/PeaceProject and to donate generously. Here are some guidelines to consider: People of means might consider donating between $1,000 to $5,000. People with incomes above $60,000/yr might $400 to $300 (and anyone giving $300 or more will have their name appear on the ad itself, though the ad will also have a link to all the people who sign the ad). Any amount you give will help us reach the amount we need to make this statement possible. We hate giving this money to the Times, but they won't print our op-eds and the national media is already filled with ads from the militarists supporting the Netanyahu position. Another voice needs to be heard--and we at Tikkun and the Network of Spiritual Progressives are making this happen.
This is not an ad for Jews only--it is already being signed by leading figures in the Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and HIndu worlds as well as by secular humanists and atheists of every possible ethnic, religious and national background (people from around the world are invited to sign and donate). If you want your organization listed as a co-sponsor, the minimum it can donate for that is $2,000, and any that donate $20,000 or more will get a significant chunk of space in the ad for higher visibility at the bottom of the ad.
You may often feel powerless when reading about the craziness of what the current Congress is doing, what Netanyahu is doing, and the way that Obama too often ends up compromising with the Right-wingers. HERE IS SOMETHING YOU CAN DO: Donate now and donate generously, stretch beyond your normal capacity, to make this ad happen. You can sign the ad and then donate at tikkun.org/PeaceProject.
In addition, please also post this letter on your Facebook or other social media, put info about this ad on your twitter feeds, and send a personal note to your largest lists asking everyone on them to go to tikkun.org/PeaceProject and sign up to endorse and donate to this ad. That's the way this can happen. We have to have this to the NY Times by Tuesday, so act now please.

Please read and sign below. You may also view a PDF version of how the ad will look when it is published in U.S and Israeli newspapers, and in online media. Remember, this ad will only be possible if you and others donate generously (please stretch a little) to make it possible. Donate Now.

No, Mr. Netanyahu— you do not speak for American Jews.

Every poll indicates that a majority of American Jews (and most non-Jews) support President Obama’s attempt to negotiate a settlement that would prohibit Iranian development of nuclear weapons rather than the Netanyahu approach of undermining those negotiations.

Every poll indicates that a majority of American Jews oppose the expansion of West Bank settlements that Netanyahu favors, and support the creation of an independent Palestinian state living in peace with Israel.

And… The American People Do Not Want a War with Iran!

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s attempt to shape American foreign policy toward Iran is unwelcome. A poll in February showed 62% of Americans opposed the way that the Republican leadership had invited Netanyahu to speak. Choosing to make his American visit a few days ahead of Israeli elections lead some to suspect that his visit is a tactic to help build support for his political party. Misleadingly, much of the media quotes “American Jewish leaders” who support Netanyahu—but those leaders are not elected by American Jews and the media should be quoting leaders who represent the majority sentiments of American Jews who have long been committed to peace and reconciliation with the Palestinian people. While many of us hope to see the people of Iran non-violently work to transform Iranian society to foster democracy and human rights, we know that war with Iran will only strengthen the hold of the Islamic fundamentalists and decrease the security of Americans and of Jews around the world. So we oppose the efforts of some in Congress and the Netanyahu faction in Israel who together seek to derail negotiations with Iran.

We who sign this ad are American Jews and our non-Jewish allies who oppose any attempt to drag the American people into another war. We remember the way that the Bush Administration lied us into a war with Iraq by providing false information about a non-existent threat of Iraqi nuclear weapons. We do not need a repeat of that scenario as militarists in Israel and the U.S. once again use the fear of non-existent nuclear weapons to manipulate us into another war. It is not in the interests of the U.S., Israel or the people of the world.

The U.S. spent over a trillion dollars on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The outcome was to produce the Islamic State armed with weapons brought to the region by the U.S. The strategy of domination over those identified as “evil others” and used by the U.S. and Israel as the path to homeland security has not worked. Using force, violence, wars, bombings, torture, and coercion has been tried for the past five thousand years and it has not produced a world of peace or security. It is time to switch from full spectrum dominance to a Strategy of Generosity. That same trillion dollars could have been used to create a Global Marshall Plan that could have wiped out global and domestic poverty, homelessness, hunger, inadequate education and inadequate health care—thereby demonstrating to the world a U.S. that cares for the well-being of others.

The Islamic extremists and others who resort to violence would have a much harder time recruiting fighters and supporters to struggles against the West if we were known to the world (and Israel were known to the Palestinian people) through our generosity rather than through our military and economic power to dominate and advance the interests of our own corporations at the expense of everyone else, meanwhile humiliating traditional cultures and ancient religions. The “realists” scoff at such thinking—yet their strategies have continually failed for thousands of years.

So even while some of the signatories to this letter do not oppose the use of force in extreme circumstances like WWII or stopping ISIS/Islamic State, we do believe it’s time to give generosity and caring for others a real chance, not only because it is in our self-interest, but also because the capitalist ethos of materialism, selfishness, looking out for number one, and winning through intimidation has created distortions in our own society that are as destructive to us and our families as is the globalization of these values destructive to the lives of people around the world. It is time for what Jews call “tikkun”--healing and transformation--not for more wars and domination. Lets start now with a Global Marshall Plan!

Now it's time for you to let your voice be heard. Show your support by signing below!

Please make a financial contribution if you want to see this ad appear in the NY Times and other U.S. and Israeli media. (But please be sure to still enter your information below and sign first).

Signatories (institutions listed only for identification purposes and the names listed here are only samples of those who have already signed the ad):

Rabbi Michael Lerner, Editor Tikkun Magazine
Peter Gabel, Editor at Large, Tikkun Magazine
Cat Zavis, Executive Director of the Network of Spiritual Progressives
Mark Levine, Professor of Political Science, UC Irvine
Dr. Aaron J. Hahn Tapper, Director Jewish Studies Program, University of San Francisco
Prof. Shaul Magid , Chair of Jewish Studies in Modern Judaism at Indiana University
Dr. Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco
Dr. Phillip Wolfson, Psychiatrist, San Francisco
Prof. Cynthia Moe Lobeda, Author of Resisting Structural Evil: Love as Ecological-Economic Vocation
Dr. Deborah Kory, Psychologist
Josh Healey, Poet, Comedian, Community Organizer
Ana Levy-Lyons Unitarian Minister
Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg
Dr. Maynard Seider
Erik van Praag
Dr. Helen Fox, University of Michigan
Prof. Hasia R. Diner, New York University
Prof. Stewart Newman, NY Medical College
Barbara Green
Lester Grinspoon, M.D. Harvard Medical School
Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum
Estelle Frankel, Author Sacred Therapy
Douglas Mirell
Rabbi. Aryeh Cohen, associate professor of rabbinic literature at American Jewish University

vrijdag 20 februari 2015

Richard D. Wolff

Richard D. Wolff: "The Game Is Rigged"

Friday, 20 February 2015 12:58 By Staff, ACLU of Southern California | Video

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The ACLU of Southern California, LA Progressive and Occidental College hosted Richard D. Wolff for a discussion on economic rights and reform, on February 10, 2015 at Occidental College.

http://truth-out.org/news/item/29220-richard-d-wolff-the-game-is-rigged

Racism

A Black Mississippi Judge's Breathtaking Speech To 3 White Murderers

FEBRUARY 13, 201512:54 PM ET

NPR STAFF

U.S. District Judge Carlton W. Reeves, for the Southern District of Mississippi.

Courtesy of cleoinc.org

Here's an astonishing speech by U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves, who in 2010 became the second African-American appointed as federal judge in Mississippi. He read it to three young white men before sentencing them for the death of a 48-year-old black man named James Craig Anderson in a parking lot in Jackson, Miss., one night in 2011. They were part of a group that beat Anderson and then killed him by running over his body with a truck, yelling "white power" as they drove off.

The speech is long; Reeves asked the young men to sit down while he read it aloud in the courtroom. And it's breathtaking, in both the moral force of its arguments and the palpable sadness with which they are delivered. We have decided to publish the speech, which we got from the blog Breach of Peace, in its entirety below. A warning to readers: He uses the word "nigger" 11 times.

One of my former history professors, Dennis Mitchell, recently released a history book entitled, A New History of Mississippi. "Mississippi," he says, "is a place and a state of mind. The name evokes strong reactions from those who live here and from those who do not, but who think they know something about its people and their past." Because of its past, as described by Anthony Walton in his book, Mississippi: An American Journey, Mississippi "can be considered one of the most prominent scars on the map" of these United States. Walton goes on to explain that "there is something different about Mississippi; something almost unspeakably primal and vicious; something savage unleashed there that has yet to come to rest." To prove his point, he notes that, "[o]f the 40 martyrs whose names are inscribed in the national Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, AL, 19 were killed in Mississippi." "How was it," Walton asks, "that half who died did so in one state?" — my Mississippi, your Mississippi and our Mississippi.

Mississippi has expressed its savagery in a number of ways throughout its history — slavery being the cruelest example, but a close second being Mississippi's infatuation with lynchings. Lynchings were prevalent, prominent and participatory. A lynching was a public ritual — even carnival-like — within many states in our great nation. While other states engaged in these atrocities, those in the Deep South took a leadership role, especially that scar on the map of America — those 82 counties between the Tennessee line and the Gulf of Mexico and bordered by Louisiana, Arkansas and Alabama.

Vivid accounts of brutal and terrifying lynchings in Mississippi are chronicled in various sources: Ralph Ginzburg's 100 Years of Lynching and Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America, just to name two. But I note that today, the Equal Justice Initiative released Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror; apparently, it too is a must-read.

In Without Sanctuary, historian Leon Litwack writes that between 1882 and 1968 an estimated 4,742 blacks met their deaths at the hands of lynch mobs. The impact this campaign of terror had on black families is impossible to explain so many years later. That number contrasts with the 1,401 prisoners who have been executed legally in the United States since 1976. In modern terms, that number represents more than those killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom and more than twice the number of American casualties in Operation Enduring Freedom — the Afghanistan conflict. Turning to home, this number also represents 1,700 more than who were killed on Sept. 11. Those who died at the hands of mobs, Litwack notes, some were the victims of "legal" lynchings — having been accused of a crime, subjected to a "speedy" trial and even speedier execution. Some were victims of private white violence and some were merely the victims of "nigger hunts" — murdered by a variety of means in isolated rural sections and dumped into rivers and creeks. "Back in those days," according to black Mississippians describing the violence of the 1930s, "to kill a Negro wasn't nothing. It was like killing a chicken or killing a snake. The whites would say, 'niggers jest supposed to die, ain't no damn good anyway — so jest go an' kill 'em.' ... They had to have a license to kill anything but a nigger. We was always in season." Said one white Mississippian, "A white man ain't a-going to be able to live in this country if we let niggers start getting biggity." And, even when lynchings had decreased in and around Oxford, one white resident told a visitor of the reaffirming quality of lynchings: "It's about time to have another [one]," he explained, "[w]hen the niggers get so that they are afraid of being lynched, it is time to put the fear in them."

How could hate, fear or whatever it was transform genteel, God-fearing, God-loving Mississippians into mindless murderers and sadistic torturers? I ask that same question about the events which bring us together on this day. Those crimes of the past, as well as these, have so damaged the psyche and reputation of this great state.

Mississippi soil has been stained with the blood of folk whose names have become synonymous with the civil rights movement like Emmett Till, Willie McGee, James Cheney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, Vernon Dahmer, George W. Lee, Medgar Evers and Mack Charles Parker. But the blood of the lesser-known people like Luther Holbert and his wife, Elmo Curl, Lloyd Clay, John Hartfield, Nelse Patton, Lamar Smith, Clinton Melton, Ben Chester White, Wharlest Jackson and countless others, saturates these 48,434 square miles of Mississippi soil. On June 26, 2011, four days short of his 49th birthday, the blood of James Anderson was added to Mississippi's soil.

The common denominator of the deaths of these individuals was not their race. It was not that they all were engaged in freedom fighting. It was not that they had been engaged in criminal activity, trumped up or otherwise. No, the common denominator was that the last thing that each of these individuals saw was the inhumanity of racism. The last thing that each felt was the audacity and agony of hate, senseless hate: crippling, maiming them and finally taking away their lives.

Mississippi has a tortured past, and it has struggled mightily to reinvent itself and become a New Mississippi. New generations have attempted to pull Mississippi from the abyss of moral depravity in which it once so proudly floundered in. Despite much progress and the efforts of the new generations, these three defendants are before me today: Deryl Paul Dedmon, Dylan Wade Butler and John Aaron Rice. They and their co-conspirators ripped off the scab of the healing scars of Mississippi ... causing her (our Mississippi) to bleed again.

Hate comes in all shapes, sizes, colors, and from this case, we know it comes in different sexes and ages. A toxic mix of alcohol, foolishness and unadulterated hatred caused these young people to resurrect the nightmarish specter of lynchings and lynch mobs from the Mississippi we long to forget. Like the marauders of ages past, these young folk conspired, planned, and coordinated a plan of attack on certain neighborhoods in the city of Jackson for the sole purpose of harassing, terrorizing, physically assaulting and causing bodily injury to black folk. They punched and kicked them about their bodies — their heads, their faces. They prowled. They came ready to hurt. They used dangerous weapons; they targeted the weak; they recruited and encouraged others to join in the coordinated chaos; and they boasted about their shameful activity. This was a 2011 version of the nigger hunts.

Though the media and the public attention of these crimes have been focused almost exclusively on the early morning hours of June 26, 2011, the defendants' terror campaign is not limited to this one incident. There were many scenes and many actors in this sordid tale which played out over days, weeks and months. There are unknown victims like the John Doe at the golf course who begged for his life and the John Doe at the service station. Like a lynching, for these young folk going out to "Jafrica" was like a carnival outing. It was funny to them — an excursion which culminated in the death of innocent, African-American James Craig Anderson. On June 26, 2011, the fun ended.

But even after Anderson's murder, the conspiracy continued ... And, only because of a video, which told a different story from that which had been concocted by these defendants, and the investigation of law enforcement — state and federal law enforcement working together — was the truth uncovered.

What is so disturbing ... so shocking ... so numbing ... is that these nigger hunts were perpetrated by our children ... students who live among us ... educated in our public schools ... in our private academies ... students who played football lined up on the same side of scrimmage line with black teammates ... average students and honor students. Kids who worked during school and in the summers; kids who now had full-time jobs and some of whom were even unemployed. Some were pursuing higher education and the Court believes they each had dreams to pursue. These children were from two-parent homes and some of whom were the children of divorced parents, and yes some even raised by a single parent. No doubt, they all had loving parents and loving families.

In letters received on his behalf, Dylan Butler, whose outing on the night of June 26 was not his first, has been described as "a fine young man," "a caring person," "a well mannered man" who is truly remorseful and wants to move on with his life ... a very respectful ... a good man ... a good person ... a lovable, kindhearted teddy bear who stands in front of bullies ... and who is now ashamed of what he did. Butler's family is a mixed-race family: For the last 15 years, it has consisted of an African-American stepfather and stepsister, plus his mother and two sisters. The family, according to the stepfather, understandably is "saddened and heartbroken."

These were everyday students like John Aaron Rice, who got out of his truck, struck James Anderson in the face and kept him occupied until others arrived. ... Rice was involved in multiple excursions to so-called "Jafrica", but he, for some time, according to him and his mother, and an African-American friend shared his home address.

stan van houcke