Bulletin N° 833
“The Corporation State,
Obey: The Routine Of Obedience”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article34052.htm
Video Documentary, narrated by Temujin Doran
(51 min)
Subject
: Virtual Reality: When Technology becomes a
‘Ball & Chain’.
3 February 2019
Grenoble,
France
Dear
Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
In an affluent district of San Francisco, CA I learned a few years ago the school prohibits the use of computers and iphones on school grounds and encourges parents to forbid their use at home. "No more screens" was the policy widely supported in the wealthy neighborhood located within walking distance from City Lights Book Store.
We
live in a world of virtual reality, where attention is directed away from the
material reality which surrounds us and is channeled into a two-dimensional
screen where we find ourselves mentally parked for hours at a time. Our masters
are entertaining us to death and when entertainment no longer holds our
attention, we are provided with other distractions to keep us away from the
truth, which we are repeatedly told does not exist (or, at least, it no longer
matters much). In this way, we cannot find the path to our truth. Instead we
always arrive, again and again, at the predictable, pre-fabricated “truths”
defined by our oppressors, which we consume greedily and demand ever more. We
have become fat, dumb and happy in this suspended state of virtual reality
before the screen. This is the new Normal,
like past capitalist addiction to commodification, when most “girls” had to look
sexy, and young people had to look “employable” – upon threat of disappearance.
You’ve
probably heard the story of the two young snipers lying on their bellies in the dirt
one morning on a hill overlooking a fence somewhere in Gaza. One turned to the
other and asked:
-
“Do you know what happened to the sniper
who could hit a boyseye at 100 meters, every time?”
-
“No, what happened to him?” asked the
other.
-
“He became a national hero.”
-
“Then, what happened?”
-
“Well, he continued to shoot people.”
-
“Why?”
-
“Because that’s all he was good for.
What, did you think he’d become an ophthalmologist?”
Jeremy Hardy will be missed!
The
12 + items below offer readers a critical look at material reality "on
the ground” (so to speak). The descriptions and interpretations that follow
serve as a dire warning that big changes are in the wind, and that wishful
thinking will have little effect on the direction we are headed. On the other
hand, there is hope for a better life if we can detoxicate
ourselves from our addictions to alienating technology and from the ideological
deceptions found in the corporate media.
Francis Feeley
Professor emeritus of American Studies
University Grenoble-Alpes
Director of Research
University of Paris-Nanterre
Center for the Advanced Study of American Institutions and
Social Movements
The University of California-San Diego
a.
The Making of Juan Guaidó:
How the US Regime Change Laboratory Created Venezuela’s Coup Leader
by Dan Cohen and Max Blumenthal
Juan Guaidó is the product of a decade-long project
overseen by Washington’s elite regime change trainers. While posing as a
champion of democracy, he has spent years at the forefront of a violent
campaign of destabilization.
Before
the fateful day of January 22, fewer than one in five
Venezuelans had heard of Juan Guaidó. Only a few
months ago, the 35-year-old was an obscure character in a politically marginal
far-right group closely associated with gruesome acts of street violence. Even
in his own party, Guaidó had been a mid-level figure
in the opposition-dominated National Assembly, which is now held under contempt
according to Venezuela’s constitution.
But
after a single phone call from US Vice President Mike Pence, Guaidó proclaimed himself president of Venezuela. Anointed
as the leader of his country by Washington, a previously unknown political
bottom-dweller was vaulted onto the international stage as the US-selected
leader of the nation with the world’s largest oil
reserves.
+
Allan Nairn: Trump’s
Venezuela Envoy Elliott Abrams Is a War Criminal Who Has Abetted Genocide
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/1/30/allan_nairn_trump_s_venezuela_envoy
In
an ongoing
effort to topple Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Vice President Mike Pence met with
members of the Venezuelan opposition at the White House Tuesday alongside
Trump’s new special envoy to Venezuela, Elliott Abrams. Elliott Abrams is a
right-wing hawk who was convicted in 1991 for lying to Congress during the
Iran-Contra scandal, but he was later pardoned by President George H.W. Bush.
Abrams defended Guatemalan dictator General Efraín
Ríos Montt as he oversaw a campaign of mass murder
and torture of indigenous people in Guatemala in the 1980s. Ríos Montt was later convicted of genocide. Abrams was also
linked to the 2002 coup in Venezuela that attempted to topple Hugo Chávez. We look at Abrams’s track record with prize-winning
investigative journalist Allan Nairn, who has closely
tracked Abrams for over three decades. Nairn is
two-time winner of the George Polk Award and a recipient of the Robert F.
Kennedy Memorial Award.
==========
b.
President Maduro addresses the American
people - Don't let Trump start a Vietnam war in Venezuela
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51012.htm
The
4-minute video, in Spanish with English subtitles, was posted on Maduro’s official Facebook page
on Wednesday, shortly after he accused
US President Donald Trump of ordering the Colombian government and mafia to
assassinate him, and rejected a European ultimatum to
call snap presidential elections within 8 days.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro
called on the people in the US to deter the Trump administration from putting
boots on the ground in Venezuela, warning that any intervention would backfire leading to new Vietnam-like disaster.
In his first direct message to the American people, the
Venezuelan leader urged them to stop the US government from entangling the
nation in a pointless and inherently doomed military adventure.
==========
c.
Venezuelan Opposition Threatens To Lynch American
Journalist Abby Martin
by Whitney Webb
The
right-wing opposition of Venezuela has been caught endorsing and committing
violent acts multiple times, despite claiming to be “peaceful.” Their latest
targets include two U.S. journalists who have been threatened with lynching for
their reporting on the ongoing chaos in Venezuela.
+
More on the US Coup Attempt
in
Venezuela
Background :
Peculiarities of US Imperialism in Latin America -
by James Petras.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51013.htm
(Published on January 31, 2019)
The
Venezuelan Opposition – with Abby Martin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig6yFP8HjVQ
(Published on July 3, 2017)
Head of
Venezuela National Guard on Insurgency & US Threats - with Abby Martin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4PpOtRcA7Q
(Published on July 31, 2017)
The
Birth of Chavismo & Its Fight to Survive in
Venezuela - with Abby Martin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxiVGRSZcx0
(Published on Sept 20, 2017)
***
January 2019:
Defusing
the Crisis: A Way Forward for Venezuela – with Edgardo
Lander and Greg Wilpert.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o46-euNRQeY
(Published on Jan 25, 2019)
The Making of Juan Guaidó: How the US
Regime Change Laboratory Created Venezuela’s Coup Leader - by Dan
Cohen and Max Blumenthal.
(Published
on Jan 29, 2019)
Former
UN Rapporteur: US Sanctions Against
Venezuela Causing Economic and Humanitarian Crisis
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50998.htm
(Published on Jan 29, 2019)
Your
Complete Guide to the N.Y. Times’ Support of U.S.-Backed Coups in Latin America
– by Adam H. Johnson.
(Published on Jan 29, 2019)
Many Countries at UN Oppose Trump Interference in Venezuela – with
Larry Wilkerson.
https://therealnews.com/stories/many-countries-at-un-oppose-trump-interference-in-venezuela
(Published on Jan 29, 2019)
Trump’s
Venezuela Envoy Elliott Abrams Is a War Criminal Who Has Abetted Genocide –
with Allan Nairn.
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/1/30/allan_nairn_trump_s_venezuela_envoy
(Published on Jan 30, 2019)
New Oil
Sanctions on Venezuela: “Would Destroy What’s Left of its Economy” – with Mark Weisbrot.
(Published on Jan 30, 2019)
As U.S.
Moves to Oust Maduro, Is Invading Venezuela Next? Allan Nairn on Trump’s Attempted Coup –
with Allan Nairn.
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/1/30/as_us_moves_to_oust_maduro
(Published on Jan 30, 2019)
Trump’s
Coup in Venezuela: The Full Story - by Eric Draitser.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/01/30/trumps-coup-in-venezuela-the-full-story/
(Published on Jan 30, 2019)
The Racist, Imperialist War on Venezuela - Glen Ford.
https://blackagendareport.com/racist-imperialist-war-venezuela
(Published on Jan 31, 2019)
Venezuela
Coup Attempt Part of US Plan to Remake Latin America - by Yves Smith.
(Published on January 31,
2019)
==========
d.
From: "Mark Crispin Miller" <markcrispinmiller@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, 31 January, 2019
Subject: [MCM] "Our free press" keeps blacking out the
Matamoros auto strike, despite its global implications—or because of them.
"The strike in
Matamoros takes place as 15,000 US and Canadian autoworkers are outraged by a
decision by General Motors (GM) to close down five plants, and ultimately
intimidate 140,000 US autoworkers to accept concessions during their contract
negotiations this year. Last week, about 13,000 Hungarian Audi workers went on
strike, and workers in the Taubaté plant in Brazil
voted to shut down production in opposition to job cuts. In Argentina, workers
occupied a steel plant that is used for the auto and other industries in
Mexico."
From Joe Surkiewicz:
Mark,
Here's the
latest WSWS article on Matamoros. The factory owners are threatening to close
the plants and leave Mexico:
Matamoros,
Mexico maquiladora workers threatened with mass plant
closures
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/01/31/mata-j31.html
by Alex González
&
Mexican
Workers Are Engaging in Wildcat Strikes at the Border
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/21701/mexico_workers_strikes_border_wildcat_shutdown_AMLO
by Kent Paterson
Plus a
brief Reuters business report: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-manufacturing/mexican-border-plants-losing-50-million-a-day-amid-strikes-industry-group-idUSKCN1PO0A6
+
Nicaragua’s
Economic Collapse Has Already Begun
https://havanatimes.org/?p=148002
by Ivan Olivares
The flight of 28% of deposits, 30% of
reserves have been lost, and credit contracted 13%
Government plans to increase taxes and
contributions to social security (INSS), but there is no political agreement or
resources from external sources, the economic crisis will only worsen
Each
day that passes without the country reaching a political agreement, the economy
becomes more depressed. Each time that a policeman acts as a bully, and not as
a law enforcer, uncertainty grows. Each dollar that leaves the banks, each
million dollars not invested, each loan that is not approved, and each job that
is lost, confirm that, if in the country there is no political dialogue to find
a solution, the nation will plunge in an economic debacle.
“Does
an economic crisis overthrow a government? It depends on the depth of that
crisis,” assures the economist Juan Sebastian Chamorro, Executive Director of
the Nicaraguan Foundation for Economic and Social Development (FUNIDES),
interviewed on Wednesday, in the new weekly edition of the program “Esta Noche” (Tonight).
==========
e.
OAS Requests Info on Assange's
Asylum Conditions
in Ecuadorian Embassy in UK
https://sputniknews.com/latam/201902011072017136-ecuador-oas-embassy-assange-asylum-conditions/
The
Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry said it had been asked by the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights (part of the Organization of American States), to
provide the information related to the WikiLeaks
founder's asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in light of the recently filed
motion asking the commission for protection.
"On
January 29, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has notified the
State of Ecuador about a motion on protection measures which has
been filed by the lawyers of Julian Assange.
With regard to this, the commission has asked us to provide
information concerning the situation in the embassy", the ministry
said in a statement on Thursday.
On
23 January, Assange’s lawyers said they had filed an
urgent application to the Washington-based Inter-American Commission
of Human Rights (IACHR) in order to compel the US authorities
to disclose charges against the whistleblower.
READ
MORE: Only Massive Publicity in US and UK Will Change Things
for Julian Assange — Prof
In
the same statement, the defense team said it had asked the commission
to compel Ecuador to cease its espionage activities against Assange, to stop the isolation imposed on him and
to protect him from extradition to the United States.
+
Watch 15th Vigil for Assange
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/02/01/watch-15th-vigil-for-assange-today-at-4pm-est/
+
Glenn Greenwald on Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and the debacles of the Corporate Media
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz0FkOHlymI
with Zain Raza
In
this exclusive interview with investigative journalist and co-founder of The
Intercept, Glenn Greenwald, we talk about Edward Snowden’s status in Russia and
what the prosecution of Julian Assange means for
press freedoms. In addition, we examine the findings of the ongoing
investigation by former FBI director Robert Mueller and whether they prove that
the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election season.
Lastly, we go over the Corporate Media’s major debacles regarding their
reporting on Russian activities and what the public can do to hold these
institutions to account.
==========
f.
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bInyT_JYJSY
with Ralph Nader
Ralph
has an absolutely fascinating talk with Harvard Business School professor, Shoshana Zuboff, about how
Google, Facebook and other digital companies make
money by watching every move you make, and how it can be stopped.
+
When 'Former' Spies Run Wild, Bad Things Happen
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51011.htm
by Moon Of Alabama
A number of related stories describe nefarious activities by
'former' NSA, 'former' CIA, 'former' military officers who joined private
businesses which harm other people. They demonstrate that there is a structural
problem when those trained to be weapons are allowed to run in the wild.
Reuters just published a two part story about 'former' NSA staff,
more than twenty in total, who since 2013 built a snooping center for the
United Arab Emirates.
Inside
the UAE’s secret hacking team of American mercenaries
Ex-NSA operatives reveal how they helped spy on
targets for the Arab monarchy — dissidents, rival leaders and journalists.
The 'former' NSA staff did not mind to spy on local
dissidents or 16 year old kids on Twitter for the dictatorial Gulf State. Only
some of them jumped ship when they found out that their shop was also used to
spy on Americans. The 'private' company they worked for is named Dark Matter.
It claims to do only cyber-security work, but is a known snooping shop directly
connected to the UAE's digital intelligence service NESU. It even resides in
the same building.
==========
g.
Israeli influence on U.S. foreign policy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sox6MoiiMic
with Lawrence Wilkerson
Secretary
of State Colin Powell’s former chief of staff explores how Israel’s influence
over the U.S. has affected America’s strategic approach toward the Middle East.
Panel: Israel's influence on foreign policy—Dale Sprusansky,
moderator Conference: Israel's Influence: Good or Bad for America? Washington,
DC - March 18, 2016 at the National Press Club This conference was organized by
the American Educational Trust, publisher of the Washington Report on Middle
East Affairs magazine, and the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy,
Inc.
+
Watch the Film the Israel Lobby Didn’t Want You To
See
“The Lobby – USA”
(3h 17min)
OR
(48 min)
(49 min)
Episode 3 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm-Dm4pO0xY
(50 min)
(49 min)
==========
h.
From: "Jim O'Brien via H-PAD" <h-pad@lists.historiansforpeace.org>
Subject: [H-PAD] H-PAD Notes 2/1/19: Links to recent articles of
interest
http://lists.historiansforpeace.org/listinfo.cgi/h-pad-historiansforpeace.org
Links to Recent Articles of Interest
By the National Security Archive,
posted February 1
Official documents newly obtained by
Georgetown University's National Security Archive, with introduction and
document summaries by Svetlana Savranskaya
By Jon Schwartz, The
Intercept, posted January 30
An extensive accounting of Abrams'
role in U.S. policy in Central America and the Middle East from the early 1980s
to the present.
"Venezuela:
No to Intervention, No to Maduro"
By John Feffer,
Foreign Policy in Focus, posted January 30
The author is director of Foreign
Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies.
"Your
Complete Guide to the N.Y. Times' Support of U.S.-Backed Coups in Latin
America"
By Adam H. Johnson, TruthDig.com,
posted January 29
The author is a media analyst for FAIR (Fairness and
Accuracy in Reporting).
"Washington
Trained Guatemala's Killers for Decades"
By Greg Grandin
and Elizabeth Oglesby, The Nation, posted January 25
Greg Grandin
teaches history at New York University and Elizabeth Oglesby teaches Latin
American studies at the University of Arizona.
"Venezuela at
Another Crossroads"
By Rebecca Hanson and Tim Gill, NACLA,
posted January 24
The authors teach Latin American
studies at, respectively, the University of Florida and the University of North
Carolina at Wilmington.
By Seymour Hersh,
London Review of Books, January 24 issue
On the influence of George H. W.
Bush over foreign and military policy in the Reagan administration
"The
Dangerous Myth Propping Up Trump's Wall"
By Melissa J. Gismondi,
Washington Post, posted January 18
"The President leverages a
savage threat to white women to justify his opet
project." The author is a historian and journalist with a PhD in North
American history from the University of Virginia.
"Refugees Are
in the Channel Thanks to the Actions of the West"
By Patrick Cockburn, The Unz Review, posted
January 12
A British view of the roots of
migration from the Middle East to Europe
Thanks to Chad Pearson, Rusti Eisenberg, and an anonymous reader for suggesting
articles included in the above list. Suggestions can be sent to jimobrien48@gmail.com.
==========
i.
Economic Update: Yellow Vests & Tax Reform
https://therealnews.com/third_party_content/economic-update-yellow-vests-tax-reform
with Richard Wolff
This
week: Updates on “yellow vests” spread to the United Kingdom; Jeffrey Pfeffer’s book Dying for a Paycheck; the “bail-in” scam;
the gentrification of airplane seats and postal banking; a major discussion of
needed and deserved tax reforms and gentrification as an injustice created by
the market.
+
Meet The Man
Behind Cambridge Analytica, Who Made Trump President
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49042.htm
by TRNN Documentary - First Broadcast November, 2017
This is the story of
Robert Mercer. A far-right billionaire, who is a major investor in Cambridge Analytica that data scrubbed Facebook
for Trump, brought Bannon to the White House, and
made his daughter the major owner of Breitbart News
and board member of Cambridge Analytica
+
Court in France
Upholds Police Use of Golf-Ball-Size Rubber Bullets
==========
j.
A
Lawless Government
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51016.htm
by Paul Craig Roberts
I
remember when a suspect was regarded as innocent until proven guilty in a fair
trial. Today prosecutors convict their victims in the media in order to make an
unbiased jury impossible and thereby coerce a plea bargain that saves the
prosecutor from having to prove his case. In the United States law is no longer
a shield of the people. Law is a weapon in the hands of prosecutors. (See
Roberts & Stratton, The Tyranny of
Good Intentions.)
Formerly,
if a prosecutor staged an arrest for publicity purposes, as Mueller did by
placing a CNN presstitute on the scene and sending a
couple of dozen heavily armed men in a pre-dawn raid to arrest a well known
political consultant for allegedly “lying to Congress” when the appropriate
procedure is for Mueller to inform Stone’s lawyer to present his client for
indictment, the judge would throw out the case on the grounds that the
prosecutor’s unethical action had biased the juror pool and made a fair trial
impossible. The judge might also have thrown out the case on the grounds of
selective prosecution. James Clapper while serving as Director of National
Intelligence lied to Congress under oath and suffered no consequences,
and Hillary Clinton has clearly broken the law and lied about it.
|
Today
judges permit unethical behavior by prosecutors that deprives defendants of a
fair trial, because judges don’t want the bother of trials any more than
prosecutors do. Consequently, according to official statistics 97% of federal
criminal cases are settled by a defendent pleaing guilty to a charge negotiated by his attorney and
a prosecutor. As the charge is a negotiated or made-up one, most people in
prison are there for confessing to crimes that never occurred. |
Prosecutors,
now that they are no longer bound by constraints of legal integrity, often
fabricate a case against a person in order to force the person to give false
testimony against the prosecutor’s real target. This is what Mueller’s cases
against Cohen, Manafort, and Roger Stone are. Trump
is the target, not Cohen, Manafort, and Stone. In
addition, prosecutors string out the investigation so long that they force the
target to use up his net worth fighting off an indictment. Then when the
indictment arrives, there is no money left for lawyers, which adds to the
pressure to “cooperate.” If Trump were a fighting man, he would pardon Cohen, Manafort, and Stone, reimburse them out of the Justice
(sic) Department’s budget for their legal expenses, and have Mueller arrested
for sedition and plotting to overthrow the duly elected President of the United
States. This would be hypocritical as Trump himself is plotting to overthrow
the duly elected president of Venezuela.
Mueller
is not an agent of law. He is the agent of the military/security complex and
the Democratic Party who intend to do away with Trump, because Trump positioned
himself between them and their agendas.
+
From:
Mark Crispin Miller
Sent: Thursday, 31 January
Subject: [MCM] With SWAT teams in most towns today, the USA is just like
its official fantasy of Putin's Russia
Jackboots
in the Morning:
No
One Is Spared From This American Nightmare
by John W.
Whitehead
“This is jackboots in the morning. This is an
American nightmare that they would arrest somebody like this.”—Judge Andrew
Napolitano
The American Police State
does not discriminate.
Whatever dangerous practices you allow the government to carry out
now—whether it’s in the name of national security or protecting America’s
borders or making America great again—rest assured, these same practices can
and will be used against you when the government decides to set its sights on
you.
We’ve been having this same debate about the perils of government
overreach for the past 50-plus years, and still we don’t seem to learn, or if
we learn, we learn too late.
For too long now, the American people have allowed their personal
prejudices and politics to cloud their judgment and render them incapable of
seeing that the treatment being doled out by the government’s lethal enforcers
has remained consistent, no matter the threat.
All of the excessive, abusive tactics employed by the government
today—warrantless surveillance, stop and frisk searches, SWAT team raids,
roadside strip searches, asset forfeiture schemes, private prisons, indefinite
detention, militarized police, etc.—will eventually be meted out on the general
populace.
At that point, when you find yourself in the government’s
crosshairs, it will not matter whether your skin is black or yellow or brown or
white; it will not matter whether you’re an immigrant or a citizen; it will not
matter whether you’re rich or poor; it will not matter whether you’re
Republican or Democrat; and it certainly won’t matter who you voted for in the
last presidential election.
At that point—at the point you find yourself subjected to
dehumanizing, demoralizing, thuggish behavior by government bureaucrats who are
hyped up on the power of their badges and empowered to detain, search,
interrogate, threaten and generally harass anyone they see fit—remember you
were warned.
Take Roger Stone, one of
President Trump’s longtime supporters, for example.
This is a guy accused of witness tampering, obstruction of justice
and lying to Congress.
As far as we know, this guy is not the kingpin of a violent mob or
drug-laundering scheme. He’s been charged with a political crime. So what does
the FBI do? They send 29 heavily armed agents in 17
vehicles to carry out a SWAT-style raid on Stone’s Florida home
just before dawn on Jan. 25, 2019.
As the Boston Herald reports:
“After his arraignment on witness tampering, obstruction and lying
to Congress, a rattled Stone was quoted as saying 29 agents ‘pounded on the door,’
pointed automatic weapons at him and ‘terrorized’ his wife and dogs.
Stone was taken away in handcuffs, the sixth associate of President Trump to be
indicted in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian meddling in the
2016 election. All the charges have been related to either lying or tax
evasion, with no evidence of so-called ‘collusion’ with Russia emerging to
date.”
Overkill? Sure.
Yet another example of government overreach and brutality? Definitely.
But here’s the thing: while Tucker Carlson and Chris Christie and
other Trump apologists appear shocked that law enforcement personnel would
stage a military assault against “an unarmed 66-year-old man who has
been charged with a nonviolent crime,” this is nothing new.
Indeed, this is blowback, one more vivid example of how the
government’s short-sighted use of immoral, illegal and unconstitutional tactics
become dangerous weapons turned against the American people.
To be clear, this Stone raid is far from the first time a SWAT
team has been employed in non-violent scenarios.
Nationwide, SWAT teams routinely invade homes, break down doors,
kill family pets (they always shoot the dogs first),
damage furnishings, terrorize families, and wound or kill those unlucky enough
to be present during a raid.
Payton, a 7-year-old black Labrador retriever, and 4-year-old
Chase, also a black Lab, were shot and killed after a SWAT team mistakenly raided the
mayor’s home while searching for drugs. Police shot Payton four
times. Chase was shot
twice, once from behind as he ran away.
“My government blew through my doors and killed my dogs. They thought we were
drug dealers, and we were treated as such. I don't think they really ever
considered that we weren’t,” recalls Mayor Cheye Calvo, who described being
handcuffed and interrogated for hours—wearing only underwear and
socks—surrounded by the dogs’ carcasses and pools of the dogs’ blood.
SWAT teams have been employed to address an astonishingly trivial
array of so-called criminal activity or mere community nuisances: angry
dogs, domestic disputes, improper paperwork filed by an orchid
farmer, and misdemeanor marijuana possession,
to give a brief sampling. In some instances, SWAT teams are even employed, in
full armament, to perform routine patrols.
If these raids are becoming increasingly common and widespread,
you can chalk it up to the “make-work” philosophy, in which you assign at-times
unnecessary jobs to individuals to keep them busy or employed. In this case,
however, the make-work principle is being used to justify the use of
sophisticated military equipment and, in the process, qualify for federal
funding.
SWAT teams originated as specialized units dedicated to defusing
extremely sensitive, dangerous situations. They were never meant to be used for
routine police work such as serving a warrant.
Frequently justified as vital tools necessary to combat terrorism
and deal with rare but extremely dangerous criminal situations, such as those
involving hostages, SWAT teams—which first appeared on the scene in California
in the 1960s—have now become intrinsic parts of federal and local law
enforcement operations, thanks in large part to substantial federal assistance
and the Pentagon’s 1033 military surplus recycling program, which allows the
transfer of military equipment, weapons and training to local police for free
or at sharp discounts.
Mind you, this is the same program that President Trump breathed new life into back in 2017.
As the role of paramilitary forces has expanded to include
involvement in nondescript police work targeting nonviolent suspects,
the mere presence of SWAT units has actually injected a level of danger and
violence into police-citizen interactions that was not present as long as these
interactions were handled by traditional civilian officers.
==========
k.
From: Mark Crispin Miller
Sent: Friday, 1 February, 2019
Subject: [MCM] OUTRAGED by BDS's
"anti-semitism," Netanyahu has no problem
with the neo-Nazis rampant in Ukraine and Hungary
On the history
of Zionist collusion with European fascism, check out Lenni
Brenner's Zionism in the Age of the Dictators (1983).
MCM
Netanyahu’s
Brand of Tolerance for Anti-Semitism Goes Back 120 Years
by Daniel
Lazare
The
Israeli prime minister’s ease with neo-Nazism and revisionist Holocaust history
are not as surprising as they might seem, writes Daniel Lazare.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a soft spot for
rightwing authoritarians. This is no surprise since Netanyahu is a
rightwing authoritarian himself, one who sees Israel as an old-fashioned
ethno-state in which Jewish national aspirations are the only ones that count –
as his support for last year’s “Nation-State Law” makes clear.
But what may come as a surprise is that he also has a soft spot
for rightwing authoritarians with a pronounced anti-Semitic streak. Last
July, he welcomed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban
to Israel even though Urban has led a campaign to rehabilitate Miklos Horthy, the pro-Axis dictator who sent hundreds of
thousands of Jews to death camps and bragged, “I have been an anti-Semite throughout
my life.” Two months later, he welcomed Philippine President Rodrigo
Duterte, who once compared himself to Hitler, saying, “There are three
million drug addicts [in the Philippines]. I’d be happy to slaughter
them.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Wikimedia)
He issued a joint statement with Polish Premier Mateusz Morawiecki lauding Poland’s wartime efforts to alert the
world to the Nazi death camps, a statement that Israel’s own Yad Vashem Holocaust museum
later repudiated on the grounds
that it “contains highly problematic wording that contradicts existing and
accepted historical knowledge in this field.” His government has also
supplied weapons to the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion fighting
pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Ukraine.
So what’s the explanation? If Netanyahu is a hawk’s hawk
when it comes to enemies of the Jewish state, then doesn’t it follow that he
should be no less militant when it comes to enemies of the Jews?
The answer is, no, it doesn’t, for the simple reason that
Zionism’s attitude toward anti-Semitism is more ambiguous than people
realize. Theodore Herzl, the Viennese journalist who founded modern
Zionism, made this clear in the 1890s. Rather than combatting
anti-Semitism, he argued that Jews should accept it as an ineradicable fact of
life. Instead of opposing it, they should make use of it as a lever with
which to pry their co-religionists loose from western society so that they
would move to Palestine. As he put it in “The Jewish State,” the 1896 manifesto that put modern
Zionism on the map:
“Great exertions will hardly be necessary to spur on the
[emigration] movement. Anti-Semites provide the requisite impetus.
They need only do what they did before, and then they will create a desire to
emigrate where it did not previously exist, and strengthen it where it existed
before.”
Theodor
Herzl en route to Israel aboard a ship in 1898. (Wikimedia)
Herzl’s goal was twofold: to provide Jews with a homeland and to
win over non-Jews by removing an irritant from their midst. Jews, he
wrote, “continue to produce an abundance of mediocre
intellects who find no outlet, and this endangers our social position as much
as it does our increasing wealth. Educated Jews without means are now
rapidly becoming Socialists.” The more radical they become, the more
Christian society would close ranks against them. The solution was to
provide them with a homeland of their own so they would cease subverting
someone else’s.
“They will pray for me in the synagogues, and in the churches as
well,” Herzl confided to his diary. Not only would Jews liberate themselves,
but they would be liberating Christians too, “liberating them from us.”
Zionism’s DNA
Modern observers might dismiss such ideas as ancient history since
they date to more than 120 years ago. But they have become part of
Zionism’s DNA. Instead of battling anti-Semites, the movement has
repeatedly followed Herzl’s advice by emulating them and adopting their
techniques for their own purposes.
In the 1920s, Jews were thus shocked when Zionist settlers
organized a movement to drive out Arab workers in Palestine. The reason
is that it was all too similar to anti-Semitic nationalists in Poland who were
seeking to drive out Polish Jews. An immigrant socialist complained in
the Jewish Daily Forward,
according to the historian Yaacov N.
Goldstein,
that the “conquest of labor” campaign“sends shudders
through the Jewish workers in the Diaspora countries because the gentiles could
try out this principle against the Jewish workers….” Said another: “How
do we react when the reactionary chauvinists in Poland fight for their
‘conquest of labor,’ meaning prevention of Jews working in Polish industrial
and commercial enterprises? How do we respond to the ‘conquest of labor’
of the Romanians?”
In the 1930s, a growing rightwing
Zionist movement latched onto Benito Mussolini for much the same reason – because
he wished to purify Italy just as they wished to purify Palestine. With
Mussolini’s permission, a rightwing Zionist leader named Vladimir “Ze’ev”
Jabotinsky opened a training school in Civitavecchia, some 40 miles west of
Rome. According to the Marxist historian Lenni Brenner, this is how an Italian Zionist
newspaper described the opening ceremonies:
“The order – ‘Attention!’
A triple chant ordered by the squad’s commanding officer – ‘Viva
L’Italia! Viva Il Re! Viva Il Duce!’ resounded, followed by the
benediction which rabbi Aldo Lattes invoked in Italian and Hebrew for God, the
king, and Il Duce…. ‘Giovinezza’ [the Fascist Party anthem] was sung with much
enthusiasm….”
===========
l.
How Real Is real?
From
Celebrated to Vilified, House’s Muslim Women Absorb Blows Over
Israel
Representative Rashida
Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan, at a House Financial
Services Committee meeting this week.
by Sheryl Gay Stolberg
Representatives
Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota were hailed as symbols of
diversity when they were sworn in last month as the first two Muslim women to
serve in Congress, Ms. Tlaib in her mother’s hand-embroidered Palestinian
thobe, Ms.
Omar in a tradition-shattering hijab.
Four
weeks later, their uncompromising views on Israel have made them perhaps the
most embattled new members of the Democratic House majority. Almost daily,
Republicans brashly accuse Ms. Tlaib and Ms. Omar of anti-Semitism and bigotry,
hoping to make them the Democrats’ version of Representative Steve King as they
try to tar the entire Democratic Party with their criticism of the Jewish
state.
And while
Democratic leaders publicly defend them, some Democratic colleagues are clearly
uneasy. Representative Ted Deutch, Democrat of Florida and a founder of a
bipartisan task force to combat anti-Semitism, said some of the lawmakers’
comments “fall into longstanding anti-Semitic tropes.” When Ms. Omar was named
to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, its chairman, Representative Eliot
Engel of New York, told her privately that he would not allow some of her
“particularly hurtful” remarks to be “swept under the rug,” Mr. Engel said.
The tussle over Ms. Tlaib
and Ms. Omar has exposed a growing generational divide within the Democratic
Party, pitting an old guard of stalwart supporters of Israel against an
ascendant wing of young liberals — including many young Jews — willing to
accuse the Israeli government of human rights abuses and demanding movement
toward a Palestinian state.
+
Time to Break the Silence on Palestine
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51007.htm